#nic sheff

You pace. You whisper his name to the walls. You turn your phone up so loud it startles you every time it buzzes, even when it’s not him. 

You leave the porch light on. Always. You tell yourself that it’s for safety, but it’s really a lighthouse. If he’s out there somewhere, maybe he’ll see it.

You check in with Garcia—clumsily, cloyingly, ashamedly. She tells you she’s worried too. She won't elaborate when you ask her if the rest of the team has noticed anything off about him.

You leave notes in bookstores, libraries, coffee shops:

He will sometimes send you funny emails. He prefers spaghetti over penne.

Have you seen my boyfriend?

Have you seen my beautiful boy?

Tell him I miss him.

You talk to strangers. You learn the faces of local street people by heart. You ask, gently, over and over:

Have you seen him? Tall, messy hair, talks fast, brown eyes like burnt sugar. Has anyone seen Spencer?

You start writing letters you never send.

I miss the way you talk when you’re tired. I miss how your hands fidget with receipts. I miss you. Please come home. Please be home so that I can come home to you. Where are you, Spencer? What can I do?

And when you finally sleep, you dream of him as a child, wandering around alone and calling your name like he’s the one who lost you.

---

When he returns, it’s like someone else is wearing his skin. His eyes are glassy and unfocused, the way they were after Tobias Hankel. But this is different. Less trauma, more...hunger.

“Hey,” you whisper. He flinches like the sound is too loud. “Where were you?”

Spencer shrugs, shuffling past you, eyes downcast.

You notice the tremble in his fingers, the way he scratches at his arm absentmindedly.

He doesn't want to talk. He wants to pretend. Pretend this is fine.

So you cook him spaghetti. You ask him about a crossword puzzle. You pretend, too.

But later, when you find the vial in his coat pocket, you stop pretending.

---

He gets mean. Not all at once. It isn’t immediate, It's little barbs at first. Corrections that feel more like punishment than help. Eye rolls. Disdain. Cold silence when you touch him. You start to feel like an intrusion in your shared apartment.

“You know,” he says one night, “for someone who reads as much as you do, you don’t really understand people very well.”

You stare at him, stunned. “Where did that come from?”

He shrugs, smirking to himself bitterly, eyes sharp like knives. “Just saying.”

You walk away. Not because you're mad, but because you're afraid you'll cry in front of him. And he's not him when he sees your tears these days. He twists them into guilt trips or throws them back at you like weapons.

But some nights, when he thinks you’re asleep, he holds your wrist like a lifeline. Murmurs your name in apology over and over again.

You keep letting him in. You love him. Even when it hurts.

---

It happens after he misses your anniversary. After you wait in a candlelit apartment for four hours with a trembling glass of wine and a heart that thuds with dread.

When he walks in at 3 a.m., he smells like motel soap and chemical sweetness.

“Where the hell have you been?”

He scoffs, dropping his bag. “Don’t start.”

“No, Spencer. I am starting. I’ve been quiet. I’ve been supportive. I’ve held you when you shook, and I lied to your friends, and I—”

“You lied to my friends?”

“You told me you didn’t want them to see you like this.” 

He throws his keys against the wall. You try not to react, but you can’t help but flinch. “God, you’re just like them! You don’t actually love me—you love some.. version of me that you made up in your head.”

“This isn’t who you are. This sickness. I know you, baby. I know my beautiful boy, and this isn’t him.”

He throws his hands up in the air. You notice the tremors. “You’re just embarrassed ‘cause I was like.. You know, I was this amazing thing, like, your special creation or something, and you don’t like who I am now.”

“I thought we were close,” you sob. “I thought we were closer than most girlfriends and boyfriends! Why?”

“I felt better than I ever had,” he spits. “What am I supposed to do? After that case… I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t think. I feel alive now. You need to quit trying to fix me and just let me be happy.”

“This isn’t us,” you whisper, chest heaving. “This is not who we are.”

He stands there, face twisted in something between rage and grief.

“This is me, Y/N! Here, this is who I am!”

You don’t have the chance to part your lips for your response before he shoots you down.

“What are you doing, huh? You always have to be controlling everything all the time!”

The next hour is spent with harsh words and strained yells confined by the walls that once held nothing but love and domesticity. You confront him about how your shared bank account is seemingly draining more and more each week. He tells you to go through your monthly subscriptions. That’s the moment it becomes even clearer. An alcoholic will steal your wallet and lie to you. A drug addict will steal your wallet and then help you look for it.

You collapse into a chair. You don’t look up when he storms out.

---

You wake up to an empty house.

You check every motel in Alexandria. Every street in Quantico. Every subway station in D.C.

You visit every needle exchange program in a 30-mile radius. You even try shelters, pretending you're his wife, or sister, or... anything that makes it easier to say please help me find him.

You carry a photo of him folded in your wallet. You hold it out like it’s sacred.

You tell stories about him to strangers:

He solves puzzles in seconds. He cuts his own hair. He can read seven languages. He cries during documentaries. He never matches his socks. He writes letters for me to wake up to when he leaves for work. He’s a good man. He’s just... sick right now.

It’s raining the night you find him.

He’s curled up outside a gas station, legs pulled to his chest, jacket soaked. You can’t tell if he’s crying or just drenched.

“Spencer?”

He blinks, slow and vacant.

“Oh,” he mumbles. “You.”

You kneel beside him. “Don’t move. I’m gonna take you home.”

“I don’t... I don’t think I want to go home,” he slurs.

You swallow your sob. “Why not?” You manage to say in a way you could only describe as weak.

“‘Cause you’ll hate me if I do.”

“I don’t hate you. Oh, I don’t hate you. I hate-” You can’t help but choke up, brushing strands of hair stuck to his forehead back. You force the words out anyway. “I hate what using has done to you. This- This anger, it isn’t my boy. It’s the drugs talking, don’t you know that? Because I do, Spencer.”

He looks at you like you’re a sort of savior, someone who will take this pain away. You catch your reflection in the car window as you carry him to the passenger seat. You look more like a confessional. Somewhere to voice your sins and be cleansed of them. Again and again. A seemingly endless process that you go through every other time you manage to find him.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he breathes. “I just want to be home.”

You press his head to your shoulder and wrap your arms around him.

“I know,” you whisper. “I know, honey.”

---

It's hell.

He shakes. He sweats through his clothes. He throws up until there's nothing left and still his body heaves. He cries. He curses. He begs you to make it stop.

“I can’t—I can’t—” he gasps one night. “Please, angel, please just a little—just one more time—I swear I’ll stop after, I swear.”

You kneel beside the bed, tears streaming down your cheeks. “No, baby. You know I can’t do that. God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” You say through his incessant begging.

He claws at his chest. “I’m dying.”

“You’re healing.”

He knocks a water glass off the nightstand, thrashing as he presses his fingertips into the dark, hollow circles of his eyes. “You can’t do this to me. Just—” He brings his hands down to his inner elbows, scratching.” “Give me some money. I can get it. I need it.”

“And I need you!” you cry. “I can’t give you any money, and you know I won’t. Where does this end, Spencer?

He turns his face away.

But later, when the sun begins to rise, he reaches for your hand.

---

The worst comes weeks later. He’s been clean. Recovering. Trying.

But relapse lurks. 

Days are spent writing on every online page you can find.

Fortunately, I have a boyfriend, my beautiful boy

Unfortunately, he is a drug addict.

Fortunately, he is in recovery.

Unfortunately, he relapses.

Fortunately, he is in recovery again.

Unfortunately, he relapses.

Fortunately, he is not dead.

This repetitive cycle doesn’t feel any easier now, only different. You miss his call at first—your phone is buried in the laundry. 

When you finally pick it up, your hands are shaking. Partially in fear that he won’t be your Spencer, but also sick with the dreadful thought that there may not be a Spencer anymore.

“Y/N,” he whispers. “I wanna stop... but please, please, please, please, please no rehab, alright? Just let me come home.”

You close your eyes, tears falling freely.

“You know what? I realized it’s actually—I need to be at work. Solving cases, helping people. That’s gonna give me the strength to stop. Alright?”

You breathe out. Steady. Gentle. Grieving.

“I wish that I could do that, Spence. But I can’t.”

The silence on the other end is soon ntrrupted by crackling as he shifts the phone in his shaky grasp. You can almost picture him outside, either laying on the dingy floor of a cheap motel room or sitting out on the steps of some old building. Waiting. Waiting for you to give in. Waiting for you to give him money. Waiting for you to leave. Waiting for his dealer. Waiting for it to kick in.

“Y/N…”

“I wish… I wish that I could do that for you, but I can’t. That’s not what you need, Spencer. You need to go somewhere where they can help you.” You sniffle, and hope he doesn’t hear it. “Help you in ways that I can’t.” You specify, keeping your voice level.

He sobs.

“I’ll go,” he says. “I’ll go.”

---

And he does.

It’s hard. It's awful. It's beautiful.

He writes you letters. You visit when you can. Sometimes you don’t talk, you just sit in the sun and read.

He begins to smile again—not often, but when he does, it reaches his eyes.

He comes home different. Softer. Clearer. Tired, but willing.

There are rules. He has a sponsor. You make tea. You learn how to build trust again, slowly, piece by piece.

Some nights, he wakes up crying. You hold him and don’t ask why.

Some mornings, he hums while brushing his teeth.

One afternoon, he cooks you spaghetti and laughs at his terrible sauce. And you know that he is coming back to himself.

---

He’s standing barefoot in the kitchen, hair damp from a shower, wearing his sweater with the fraying cuffs. There’s a cracked mug in his hand—lavender tea steeping slowly—and the sun is melting through the windows like honey. 

He doesn’t see you at first. He’s just standing there, staring at the steam.

You watch him for a moment. You memorize him again. The curve of his spine. The slight twitch of his fingers. The way he breathes deeper now, like his lungs finally remembered how.

He turns and sees you. His mouth tugs into a crooked almost-smile.

“This is the first morning I haven’t woken up already running,” he says, voice gentle again. “Like… my body wasn’t bracing for something before I even opened my eyes.”

You cross the room slowly and press your palm to the center of his chest.

“What does it feel like now?”

He looks down at your hand. Then back up at you. And he glows. Like dusk and childhood and safety.

“Like I can finally stand still. Like the noise of it all has quieted. And— And like there’s space inside of me again for something soft.” he whispers.

You lean into his chest, both hands tangled in his cardigan now. He wraps his arms around you. Holds you like you’re breakable and sacred and the last thing tethering him to this world.

“You saved me,” he murmurs into your hair.

You shake your head gently. “No. You saved yourself. I just left the light on.”

He kisses your temple. Then your cheek. Then the corner of your mouth.

“I want a boring forever with you,” he says. “I’m tired of the battle. I want laundry and grocery lists and falling asleep on the couch. I want a whole life where you’re just... here.”

You smile, wet-lashed and aching. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted too.”

“Thank you. For not giving up on me, I mean. For loving me even when I was...”

You don’t make him ramble his way through that sentence. Instead, you slip your hand into his, squeezing it reassuringly.

“Do you know how much I love you? If you could take all the words in the language, it still wouldn’t describe how much I love you. And if you could gather all those words together, it still wouldn’t describe what I feel for you. What I feel for you is everything. I love you more than everything.”

He kisses you, slow and sure.

“Everything.”

You stand there a long time, swaying slightly in your own orbit. The kettle sings. The sun moves. The planet keeps spinning.

And for the first time in a long, long while—neither of you flinch. The world feels small and safe again.

—

a/n: i’ve always been drawn to stories where love is messy and awful yet still worth it. My first angsty piece… this fic isn’t soft, but it’s devoted. it’s about choosing someone repeatedly—even when it’s hard, even when it hurts. if you’ve ever loved someone who was falling apart, this is for you. if you’ve ever needed to be found, this is for you too. if you like this fic, i recommend watching the film that inspired it! ALSO there are DIRECT QUOTES from the film AND the memoir it is based around written into this fic! i do not take ANY credit for the phenomenal words of david sheff.

with all my aching, awfully sentimental heart,