#Going to work on reader insert fics

[harmonysanreads]

There's a ‘painting’ of a person's portrait behind his phone case — a splash of pink, red, blue, yellow, white and teal dancing together, forming an image that is sure to catch anyone's attention. His co-workers (or well, those who've managed to catch glimpses) assume that he must have a hobby of painting phone cases on the side, as the one he uses seems to not be found anywhere outside of his hands.

The subject of that painting is always in a peaceful slumber. The serenity on their face almost jarring in juxtaposition to the vibrant colors that cradle their form. It's enticing — enough to have a few people ask if he could paint a copy for them, too. He never quite promises resolutely on that offer.

But what no one quite expected to see was how... protective the man appeared to be of that image. Always putting the phone down on its screen instead of the back, never letting anyone look for too long and never allowing it in the hands of another. That much caution towards the image of a random person seemed strange — unless... it wasn't a random person?

That's when the rumors of a ‘lover’ begin. Well, what else could it be? A chance interrogation with this assumption from a particularly curious employee had the man breaking out in an unexpectedly bashful smile, thumb swiping over the painting by instinct — that was all they needed to know. Despite the lack of a verbal confirmation, it didn't stop them from sneaking in requests to bring the person who had him so smitten to work one of the days. Their reticent coworker merely smiled in response.

No one quite questioned or noticed the resemblance between that beautiful painting and the civilian gone missing for the past two years.

[crsssie]

pop rocks and green tea

word count: 20k

warnings: depictions of violence, 2x15 warnings (torture, drugging, spencer dies for a second, religious trauma), ANGST, hurt/comfort

summary: "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." (Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, Chapter 9)

there's very little in the world that will not make sense to doctor reid once he finds interest in it. most things come easy as they go, rubik's cube solved forwards and backwards — upside down and right side up, questions of physics and doctorate dissertations coming in triplets the same way that the notation rings in an empty performance hall with a musician.

in his life, to understand is power, and power is protection against those that have once hurt him. no harm in the present, he understands. not from them. not ever again. the only harm in the present is from the unsub and the unknown.

the absence of light still scares him. he tries not to think too much about that.

knowledge is power. wisdom is efficiency.

to profile someone is to understand them.

to profile you should be to understand you.

yet, beady eyes and charming smiles, you cause the rational to burn irrational — the known to become unknown. there is always something you know that he doesn't.

no, not simple facts of life or statistics that could save your life.

the void of your eyes is always too dark under the sun — the absence of light.

the shine of your hair is always too dim under the light — the absence of life.

you can do the one thing he can not, and he does not envy it. no. he does not crave to understand or to contain it. there is no dark need creeping up around his throat begging him to cage you and sing for him only.

it is simple curiosity.

charming as knowledge, preening with the night sky.

he fears you just as much as he must know you.

and well, doctor reid is never one to back down from nonsense that he must make of sense.

somewhere when he was a child, he thinks he has met you. your face is far too fresh in his mind to be more than just a passing face, but far too familiar to be someone who he no longer remembers. perhaps you are a face seen in dreams — dreams that on occasion give him deja vu, but it never quite matters. it doesn't quite matter, actually. he's truly not much better off knowing just who you are. perhaps a fond memory or a lost face in his past is plenty fine on its own. he simply hopes he will never encounter you in his line of work — even if it seems that he will some day. people in his dreams are never quite the best. people in his dreams are part of his past and always circle back to his future.

but the dreams of you come in strange flashes — a grin with too much teeth, a laugh with too little air. a song with too many keys. a voice that carries a little too much — a voice that sings too many notes. there is something that doctor reid should know about you in his dreams, so he tries talking to you, but there is no voice ever.

all there ever is is a nice cup of coffee at a local coffee shop — and an image of you frowning at him.

he wonders if he should seek counselling for such a matter, but it is much preferred to the sound of screams in his nightmares that jolt him awake and the constant watch for voices that have plagued his family. he worries that he will hear them too one day. that the voices will eat at his mind and ruin him. the same way they had ruined the man on the train — the same way it had eaten so many of the unsubs that he knew.

to be in your mind is never too much a good thing, but is it really a sin to listen?

you manifest the differently in his reality as you do in his dream.

you passed him on your way to morning work — stumbling up the stairs to the metro, phone tucked to your belt the same way that morgan has it, briefcase overfilled. its a cliché in the same way that he's a nerd who looks the same as ever.

a student internship in the BAU. you didn't ask. he didn't either.

hotch mumbles to gideon about how you shouldn't be here considering clearance, and when you are asked, you do not know. you tell them in pure honesty that you had been sent here because of your post-graduate dissertation. a paper on reading people. a paper on just about everything that the BAU did. too much brainpower at such a young age. you should not be in the department, but hotch isn't given much time to complain before everyone is called out and you are left.

with me. spencer finds himself saying to you.

you tag along, dissertation handed to doctor reid as he tells gideon, and you fiddle with your fingers — three rings on your left, and four rings on your right. berkeley then stanford then harvard. your resume shows too much yet too little. degrees in humanities until your doctorates where you had changed to psychology. an intrigue in the art of lying and manipulation. the psychology of acting and the need to control everything. perhaps it is a strange subject to be let into the fbi for, but no one on the plane comments on it.

a killer. a man who calls and kills.

a man who kills in the name of god.

god.

a strange word, truly. reid doesn't believe in anything the same way gideon does, and while the way you recite verses from revelation feels like there is truth in your faith, the grimace on your face after indicates anything but. is that the truth? or do you lie the same way your dissertation writes? do you use the art of manipulation to get what you need? what you want?

what does he want?

you don't have a goal, doctor reid.

scary words to be told by someone who was his age when he joined the bau. do you have one? you don't seem to either. he tries snapping back at you, really, but it doesn't work how it is supposed to. how are you supposed to react? someone your age should snap into an argument. argue back with him. someone his age should know better than to snap back. but when you only give him a half-shrug and grin when he argues back. it almost feels as though he's the one who never grew up.

perhaps it is jealousy. he had first started out when he was your age yet he didn't slot in nearly as nicely as you do. it almost feels like you've become one with the team. an entity with a lack of shape. a non-newtonian fluid that slots in the cracks that the team is yet to be missing. an adhesive that somehow sticks the team better than the rest of it does. someone who slips through the cracks to reveal the lack of continuity. the team should work well already, so why then do you reveal the worst when you let go? perhaps you are here to prove your dissertation and not to help.

do you wield a gun? why do you hold on to one?

your fingers wrap around the grip and you stare at the unsub from behind him. reid begs you to slow down, but you aren't fast enough — not enough survival in the bau, a case requiring too much agility that you have not yet developed. training could do nothing for it, so when the unsub catches wind of you, it goes without saying that the intern lives even if he passes. perhaps you were doing it on purpose. perhaps those dark eyes of yours with too much pupil and too little iris. the sound of you yelling his name rattles through the night, and he is gone.

will he dream of you when you are right there? or will his dreams come to haunt him?

when he wakes it is a dark room. you are in the back, tied and half awake, and he is on the chair, fully clothed, stuck staring into the eyes of an angel of some sort. raphael. the angel's name is raphael but he's not even congruent with modern teachings, your mouth earning you a snap of the gun in russian roulette. you fear not even death, eyes glimmering and mouth uncontrollable as you dive into the history of the book of enoch and tobit, spitting out scripture upon scripture of archangels that do not include raphael. you earn a second shot and a third as you drive the unsub mad, your eyes in equal desperation as he finally lands on the fifth, turning around and aiming it at reid as you hold your breath and bite your tongue finally.

"Psalm 31:9. I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me"

he pulls the trigger and you watch, eyes trained as spencer lets out a breath in relief.

he mouthes at you to keep it shut while you fiddle at the restraints, staring as the unsub knocks spencer back out, barrel of the gun jammed into the side of your head as you're next.

you wonder if you'll see spencer again in your dreams.

doctor reid, with formality.

when he rouses again, it is to the smell of smoke and fire, and your eyes are staring at the door. spencer does not speak. he's learned that it is most likely best for you not to, but you open your mouth again.

exodus 20:7. you shall not misuse the name of the lord your god, for the lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name. you spit out verses like they've been beat into you. like you know something that spencer can not read in between the lines. he knows the footnotes and cross-references. he knows every verse in the bible if he really willed for it, yet you feel like a disobedient child, thrashing and choking up the ten commandments, you shall not murder stinging on your mouth as the whip comes down on your foot. It is as though you know this feeling.

spencer winces and tries to open his mouth, but you leave no space. you can not stone me. for you are not sinless and clean. john 8:7 and 9. they kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, "All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!" at this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. it is scripture upon scripture until the sole of your foot has become bruised, and the man tires, only then is your foot restored and you are given your body once more.

"1 Corinthians 14:34. The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church." he spits back at you, and you laugh.

Acts 2:17. And it shall be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

spencer can not bear to see the abuse you suffer, and when you laugh and laugh, cursed as the man tells you to be quiet, you spit that he has no authority. he is not your husband. he is not your father. he is not your brother in christ, for no brother in christ is a murderer, you curse.

"And you are not sinless, woman."

the lord spake unto moses saying, "speak unto all the congregation of the children of the lord " and say unto them, ye shall be holy, for I, the lord your god, am holy" spencer finally gets a word in, and your neck snaps over to stare at him, almost as though he were not speak in the conversation.

spencer gets beat, and you are unsurprised when the man leaves and leaves a reddened sole that near matches yours.

he is no charles. you mumble, bruise on your foot as you mumble quietly. for we are all slaves of god.

perhaps in some way he still is.

no. you mumble. for we are made in his image, and in his image we are made. male and female.

spencer can not offer you words of comfort, your eyes glazing over as you stare up at the wood of the ceiling, eyes closed as you are gone.

when the man returns, spencer asks for his name while you heave, heart racing and body flushed. you are not sick, no, but perhaps your body is struggling under the stress. an offhanded comment he had once documented from his dream reminds him that you do not do well under stressful situations. a body that shuts down and decides it is no longer worth it.

tobias is his name, and you cry and beg to not be injected, whimpering and shaking, squeaming in his hold as he straps you down to give you the injection. it is the first time that spencer has seen you in tears since meeting you. you had not cried at the abuse nor at the kidnapping, but you squirm and cry at the needle being forced into you, half of the dose forced into you as you cry and cough, body eventually going soft, and when tobias sees spencer's foot, he knows he's next.

you manage to force out a clean out of your lips with glassy eyes as you focus on him, eyes wounded and hurt as you beg tobias to let you sit closer to spencer. stronger in two, you cry. would he not offer even the mercy of letting the two of you pass as one? was it a sin to love someone?

he moves you after arguing with his father, and you manage a weak limp before you are at reid's feet, glassy eyes and slow blinking in your system as your body resists the drug.

reid is delirious. he is weak. father is leaving again. there is no way to stop it, and he has to live it out, and his mind is gone. he is out. he knows he is. he is stuck in a memory, and he does not know where he is anymore. he was somewhere. he was doing something. he was... something. where is he? he must be somewhere important. he is barely conscious when the sound of a beating rattles through the room, and he is stuck staring as you are dragged by the hair and a camera is set before you both.

nothing outside of a beating. you mumble. the drug will numb yours.

you stare into the camera through heavy eyelids, and you watch as reid struggles to focus.

"Choose one to die. I'll let you choose one to live."

you cough as you feel your skin crawl, and you know it'll come to a point where the two of you will not return. you will claw and force your way back like you have learned to, but the doctor next to you will not. it will force through his bones and pure will not be enough. he will never be the same after this, and in such a way perhaps it is your fault for not pulling the trigger in the field. it matters not if you're only an intern. if you pass then you pass. the doctor has to live.

Spencer Reid has to live.

"Can you really see inside men's minds? See these vermin? Choose one to die. I'll let you choose one to live."

"No."

"I thought you wanted to be some kind of savior."

"You're a sadist and a psychotic break. You won't stop killing. Your word's not true." You mumble. Again. You can do this. Just like the first time. Just like the second. You are better than this.

"The other heathens are watching. Choose a sinner to die, and I'll say the name and address of the person to be saved."

"I won't get choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher." You cough.

"Can you really see into my mind, girl? Can you see I'm not a liar?! Choose one to die, and save a life. Otherwise, they're all dead." He pulls you up by the collar, and you clench your fists.

"All right, I'll choose who lives." Spencer mumbles. "Stop hurting her."

"They're all the same."

"Far right screen." He mumbles.

You go limp against Spencer's leg as you're dropped, and when the door clicks behind you and the silence meets you, you're blinking and heaving, crack from your wrist alerting Spencer as you stumble and hop on over, one wrist free as you turn on the camera, mumbling under your breath to the team as you slur half your words and cry about a cabin in the woods, mumbling about drugs and how you're sorry you didn't stop Reid from going into the cornfield and how you'll accept any form of punishment going your way. You're slurring half your words and praying the team understands. Maybe the red of the camera hasn't turned on at all.

you look strange like this, spencer thinks. there's so much fragility that he can't help but assume that this is really how you are. perhaps all of the acting you had written on had only revealed that you are no better than anyone else when it came to abuse. he will be gone until late night, if he is not wrong. three bodies at once is not something to be done quick. perhaps tobias does not want to kill still, but it matters no longer. he feels it too. the drug in his system has done something.

by the way you're crying, he almost wants to console you.

kid.

doctor reid.

do you have the strength to tell me a story?

i'll tell you a dream I once had.

anything to get my mind off of the drug.

i dreamt once, a long time ago, that i would become famous. fame that would act in musicals and sing on a grand stage all for me. my mother's dream was for me to become someone's pretty and compliant wife. but i dreamt of velvet curtains and pine wood floors and a crowd that would applaud whenever i finished my show. 

and now?

and then i dreamt of books. pages and pages of books. research that would engulf my life, days and nights in ranges of literature.

and now?

i dream... i dream of survival. i dream that we make it out alive.

the two of you watch the murder of the first on the camera.

"Reid, if you're watching, you're not responsible for this. You understand me? He's perverting god to justify murder. You are stronger than him. He cannot break you."

you blink lifelessly, tears slipping and dissociating out of a fear, body going limp when you slack back next to reid, and he stares at the screen as he spaces out. gone. he's back in the middle of nowhere, memories stuck on replay as he knows he should break out to find you, and it isn't until you're crying and begging not for a second dose, bawling that wakes spencer up when you're squeaming and gasping for him to put the needle and drug away, voice raspy and breaking as he forces the needle into you, reid stuck watching, unable to tear his eyes away from it as half of the drug is pushed into your system and your bawling turns into quiet sobbing, sobbing turning into half-sniffles until you're gone completely.

reid squirms with the injection into his system, and he slouches down and passes out next to you.

It's night when you wake first, eyes dead and pupils small as you feel Spencer rouse next to you. You're shaky. The second dose should have been enough to cause you to go into shock and nearly die, but the seizures have long grown to be things of the past and god-forbid this be your first rodeo because as soon as the screen flashes with a message about a virus, you're widening your eyes and bracing yourself for another beating. If the drugs can't help you, then god help you with the beating.

"No. No! They're trying to silence my message!" Tobias— Charles yells.

i can't control what they do. i'm not with them. i'm with you. Spencer whimpers.

"Really?" He laughs, and you watch as he turns on the video from earlier from Gideon. You should hurt him, truly. You should bite the bullet and just risk death because it doesn't matter unless—

"Do you think you can defy me?"

I don't know what he's talking about.

"You're a liar!" He raises a brow at your raised sleeve, and you flinch as he forces the fabric up on your arms before checking Spencer's. "You're pitiful! Just like my son. This ends now. Confess your sins. Confess!"

i haven't done anything. tobias, help me.

You watch in horror, yelling as you watch the man beat him up.

"he can't help you. he's weak."

tobias.

"Confess your sins."

help.

"It's the devil vacating your body."

You scream, forcing over to Spencer as you break your wrist out again uncomfortably to do CPR, mumbling quiet sorrys to him as you press your lips to his to force the air back into his system, numbness in your wrist no longer mattering to you as Spencer coughs back to life, and you don't care if the barrel of the gun is pressed to your head as Spencer is forced to watch.

"You revived him. How many members in your team?"

"Seven." You whisper, voice breaking. You aren't one of them. Not technically.

"The 7 angels who had the 7 trumpets prepared themselves to sound" Tobias mumbles to himself, and you lock eyes with Spencer who's still on the ground.

"Choose one to die."

You're gaping and swallowing air like a fish, and you whisper quietly.

"I don't know their names." Your voice breaks. "I don— I don't know their names. I'm not— not one of them."

you're crying again, and it really makes reid wonder if anything you do is real at all.

"Aaron Hotchner." Spencer exhales. "Him first. Genesis 23:4. "Let him not deceive himself "and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense."

"For god's will."

You're on the ground mumbling to yourself, crying and coughing, your wrist starting to turn purple, and Spencer glances at the way you hold it up to him with a sad smile, laughing almost pitifully.

you dislocated your wrist.

"Yeah." You laugh, humming quietly as you look almost fond. "Fun stuff. I'll pop it back when we're saved."

you?

"Yeah." You hum, resting your head on his thigh as you help the chair back up. "He didn't notice."

too focused on me. what about your wrist?

"I can do it myself." You hum, leaning on his thigh. "I'll get scolded, but it'll be better than this."

Spencer doesn't say anything else, and when Tobias returns and you're both offered water, you're unsurprised that he still doesn't notice that your wrist has been broken free, but when another shot is injected to Spencer you're begging the poor man to leave him alone, a dose returned to you as you fight the depressants in your system with a furrow of your brow and with the last bit of strength, you pop your wrist back into place, without too much of a thought as to do anything else, and you go in for the kill, screaming and shrieking as you steal the gun from his pocket and pull the trigger between his brows, sobbing and wailing as the blood pools underneath you and steal the key to let Spencer out.

He's too sluggish to move comprehensibly, and you hear Tobias' voice behind you, your fingers smoothing over his wound, your discolored wrist dark against the glow of the room as you weep, hands stained with blood that isn't yours and an internship ruined all thanks to your foolish choices, and when Spencer drags himself over to hold you, you're sniffling and coughing into his arms, apologizing for the blood on your hands and the drugs in his system.

You force his hand out of the man's pocket, needle in hand as you take out the last of the drug and force it into the leaves, the sound of the rest of the BAU approaching as you squeeze the needle in your hand and throw it as far away from Reid as possible. You can't let him lose himself too. You can't let him do it. His future is too bright and yours has always been a clawing upward that you've grown used to.

Your hand finds his instinctively, squeezing for comfort.

spencer feels your hand in his vaguely, and he tries to make a sound of complaint when he sees you dump the rest of the drugs, but it doesn't come out. the sound of the bau hobbling on over and the sound of your cry and begging doesn't register to him. it barely does. he's truly past it, and when gideon brings him in and you hobble behind him with a stretch of your back, it almost feels as though the narcotics were a part of your daily life. he does not understand you. he fears he never really will, and perhaps the closest you will ever get to being honest with him is when you started crying over the shots in your system.

"Kid."

you shake your head and tell him you'll be fine. just run a detox kit on the two of you and you'll teach spencer the rest.

"Detox?"

detox.

you sit in the same ambulance as spencer because you refuse to be separated, and you let the drip run through your system. you have the medics flush everything out of both your systems, and while you think you're going insane the first 24 hours, both of you are booked into a treatment facility before you're out in a jiffy. you assure the workers that your relapse won't happen considering you no longer have access to these drugs, and you visit reid every day just in case you do somehow think of it.

i don't get it. i need it. i know i don't but—

its just the drugs talking. we can do a reward system or just give it some time. you'll forget soon.

when you return to the office first, you're offered a job by hotch. it almost feels ironic for you to accept a job that nearly killed you on the first day because of a misfiled paper, but you accept it anyway.

"Reid needs you."

you know. he needs them too.

you continue to visit him every day after work, telling him about the cases you had been reading and the work that had become new, and he lets you fiddle with his hands to calm the both of you. a germaphobe. he never should have let that needle touch him, yet he couldn't argue. neither of you really could. you couldn't either. the two of you are clean from everything else but the drug, and it's appalling that you had recovered so fast. he wonders just how much of you you had been honest about in the fbi profiling when you had first been introduced to the team. he's certain hotch must know more about you, but whether or not the drugs had been part of your past is only for hotch to know.

you seem shattered.

spencer notes the lack of rings on your fingers now.

when the two of you are back in the office, you toss him a teabag instead of the coffee, and he raises a brow at you.

skitterish. he's anxious, and he's sure maybe it has to do with the withdrawals, but you hold your hand out for him to squeeze. there's something, maybe. he isn't that peeved by you when you end up sanitizing your hands before holding it out for his, and he squeezes in increments as the two of you sort through the following cases. your hand becomes an extension of his in a way, and while hotch doesn't understand why you're required to be by him at all times, he understands to some degree that perhaps you know better than everyone else in the team how to deal with it.

it'll be good for him.

"I doubt it will."

it helped me.

you start to understand doctor reid to some degree, you think. there's something so strange about him willingly holding hands with you. perhaps a blood bond had been formed when the two of you had been drugged by the same needle. he learns to hold hands with you longer, and when it's awful, he squeezes and asks you if you have sugar or something else to get his mind off of the drug. the withdrawal is bad, he thinks you know that much. the sugar in his system helps him calm a little. sometimes its tea, sometimes its sugar. sometimes its just squeezing your hand until he calms a little more.

sometimes it's holding headphones over his head while he tunes out the noise, and sometimes it's his hand looking for yours instinctively. when the noise is too much and he slams the window closed, you have headphones popped over his ears as he maps everything out, frustration evident on his face as you squeeze at his hand from the chair, blinking at the map.

not particularly bright, but particularly good at both reading and acting. you'd never go off script. not once. you're truly only good for interrogation at this point in time, and perhaps observation, but you tag along with him and emily to the shelter. when reid's being rude you just slap your hand over his mouth and apologize to the poor woman, dragging him off to look around while you hand the case over to emily.

you're not my babysitter.

trust me, until you know how to handle yourself, i am.

you apologize to emily and smack reid when he tries to argue back, and when reid tries smartassing with you, you just tell him to shut up with a hand over his mouth — something you know he despises.

emily, you've barely known me—

you slam a hand around his mouth, eye twitching. forgive him, trauma response.

you let emily do most of the talking when you head back, forcing a slice of gum into reid's mouth as you wave him off with a flick of the wrist, brow raised as you glance back at the case files.

spencer wonders what the discomfort with your dismissal is, but he takes your hand back up again because you can't deny him for too long. you know how skittish it is to be off the drugs, and it's an awful handful of days. on occasion it lasts into weeks, and you squeeze spencer's hand back when you need it too. always better with a friend. you can keep telling yourself that, truly.

you need it sometimes too, staring quietly from the confines of the room as you're told that the unsub died in the line of fire, thumb brushing against the back of spencer's hand as you let out a huff, mumbling quietly case after case until you grow numb to it like the rest of them. new face. you grow to become someone that isn't a new face, and when reid's begging you for the drugs in his system, you're holding him back, mumbling as he groans into his hands about not having anything to kick in his system.

you hand him a cup of tea and pop rocks, dumping it onto your tongue with the opening of your mouth on the plane as you kick your feet back. a new case. not a day of boredom in your new world.

it's case after case and running after running, pinching reid to get him to shut up when he says something mean, apology stumbling past your lips almost as though he were some troublesome child you were taking care of for the time being. and when he finally frees himself of you to grab a drink with his friend, he's snapping his phone off at emily's calls, panic on his face when you show up at the very bar a handful of hours later, waving hello to his friend before sliding down on reid's lap.

i'm not done talking to him.

you're on the job. you mumble back to him, letting his hand wander. drunken man, you think. too handsy.

His friend lets out a laugh as you start chatting with him, and you swat at Reid's hands each time they trail too close to your pelvis, squeezing it at one point when he raises a brow at you.

what?

"You're getting too handsy." You hold his wrists together as you set his drink down, and you crack a smile as his friend when he laughs. "Hm?"

"He seems real fond of you."

"Trauma bonded." You hum. "You see it too, huh?"

"Not sure where he got it."

"Sure wasn't from me." You let go of Spencer's hands, and he brushes the exposed skin of your upper thigh absentmindedly, humming quietly. "I threw out the last two before we were taken."

"He seems quite affectionate."

"No. Not quite." You hum, hand held over Spencer's as you click on your phone. "I doubt he knows it."

"He couldn't know even if you died."

"Perhaps I'll be gone by the time he realizes it." You tilt your head as Spencer blinks at you, and you hum, laughing as you rest your forehead on his.

"I hope he doesn't. For his sake."

i'm still sober, you know.

i know. you laugh.

stop excluding me.

we're not.

you're unsurprised the case is by a woman, and you're even more unsurprised when she's carried off after barely harming the final victim. you stare blankly and let gideon talk to the both of you, and you laugh airily, telling gideon it wasn't that deep for you, but reid would need some time. you catch the look in gideon's eyes, but you don't comment on it. it's alright. you'll stick with reid. you're close enough for you to grab him every morning anyway.

"Kid."

"Hm?"

"You ask for help when you need it, all right?"

"Alright."

spencer doesn't say anything until gideon is walking off, and his hand finds yours out of habit, mumbling quietly to you about how all you were was an actor, but you don't comment on it, laughing instead.

and when the open mic calls for someone to join him to sing, you hobble up without a second thought, a drunken curl on your lips, mouth open as you sing, and spencer thinks back to when you had cried with a quiet voice that you dreamed of things once a long time ago. a dream that would break you and ruin you to pieces. it seemed to matter enough to you at the time, but it really should not matter. especially not when you're spinning and spinning on the stage and swinging to the beat. you suit the stage the same way he suited books. a dream that you could both never truly pursue the way you wanted to.

even if you did, it would only end horribly now that you are where you are.

spencer brings you down from the stage, swallowing a grimace at your sweaty hands but taking them anyway, eyes trailed on you as you giggle at him. a gentle glow of everything yet nothing. he wants to understand, maybe. he can't, though. he doesn't.

you knock out on the jet on the couch in the back on spencer's shoulder, and he finds himself brushing the back of your hand as he stares out the window. if anyone notices, no one says a thing. cut a little slack for the poor boy, huh. cut a little slack for the youngest ones. ignore the held hands and brushing of fingers. ignore your caging in in order to grab something from an upper shelf. ignore that boy genius gets his iq slashed in half whenever you blink at him with eyes bigger than usual and ignore that whenever you brush past him his voice stutters and his ears go slightly red.

ignore it all for the sake of the boy.

he tries rationalizing it. it's unsurprising for him to be calming down when holding hands. a study by harvard revealed that the pressure of holding hands stimulates the pressure-sensitive pacinian corpuscles in the hand, which send signals to the vagus nerve that conducts signals to the hypothalamus, which then lowers the heart rate and blood pressure and contributes to the neurological management of stress responses. it's that simple. truly. it's just a biological response. he's just having a biological response. he's completely having a biological response.

lots happens for a reason, and lots happens for no reason. spencer tries not to think too much about the smell of your shampoo that he memorizes or how you have a slightly different shade of lipstick that he tries not to point out. small, minor changes. the same way you show up at the metro station seven minutes earlier to be able to catch the same cart as him or the coffee you always have in your hand at the station. he tries not to notice but he unfortunately does, and he truly just plays it off as a normality.

he notices when jj changes lipstick.

"JJ! New lip?"

well, apparently not.

but he tries to convince himself that its transference. it has to be. there's really no reason for him to have a racing heart and strange levels of dopamine rush to his head whenever you squeeze by him in between cases. its simply because he's gotten used to holding your hand when fidgety and the fact that you had saved him when he nearly died. it's really all that is. it shouldn't be more than that. he isn't allowed more than that anyway.

he's just stressed now that gideon's gone and someone new is in the team. he's just upset that gideon left the same way his father did and he's clinging onto you who presented yourself so nicely to him after the two going missing and considering that you both had the whole drug exchange, he finds that perhaps it's just easy to cling to you. it's so easy to just rely on you when you're so vulnerable to him.

he finds his hand in yours under the table in the jet, your eyes closed and knocked out against the window whenever.

it could also be a fear response from him. the chemicals are the same, so it would only make sense that he— oh, who was he kidding. it couldn't be fear. he wasn't scared of you. it wasn't as if you were the one whose mind short-circuted whenever he walked by or handed him an overly sweetened cup of coffee with the exact amount of sugar needed for some reason. you're not the one whose heart lurches whenever he's handed a pack of pop rocks he's sure that you'd like to have instead of him. it's hard not to remember things about you.

it's hard not to just love you when you're so easy to.

you make it too easy for him.

pack of gum held out to him to chew on, telling him that it helps with concetration despite having no true proof for it. you tell him it helps you so it might help him. you don't think too much, and neither does he really when you're holding his chest down and pressing your forehead to his when he wakes from a nightmare, breathing and racing heart rattling in his ears as he matches his breathing to yours on the jet, amused look from everyone as he flushes red and tries to bury the embarassment.

"Nothing to be embarassed abOW—." You hum, jolting as the plane jumps, yelping as Spencer holds a hand to steady you.

"Sitting on the jet floor is kind of nasty, doctor." Morgan raises a brow at you, and you blink up at him.

"Let's hope the clean up crew we hire actually do their jobs, then." You thank Spence as you squeeze between him and Rossi. "At least my pants are dark."

The case is simple, really. Find the one who kidnapped the boy and return him to his parents. One had already passed, so the team tries to speed the process up, and you're put with Morgan and Reid to stay overnight at the home to camp out, so when you're jolted awake by Reid having a panic attack and crying your name, you've got your hands in his hair and he's breathing into your shoulder while Morgan apologizes to the family.

scary. scary, scary, scary. he isn't used to the fear that rattles through his system, and he lives the same dream again and again. dead boy behind the washer. dead boy behind the washer in the basement. step down the basement and be unable to save the boy. haunt his life and stare quietly at the still legs of the boy while his dad watches.

relive a nightmare that he was both part and not part of.

the boy is safe, found in his arms when they sweep the house, and you squeeze spencer's arm gently, eyes relieved as he closes his, boy's forehead pressed to his as the two of you make it out of the house, your phone ringing through to hotch to tell him that you have the boy. the blanket and swaddle in her arms wasn't a child, it was just items. in a way, it was saddening, your eyes weary as you stared at the arrested woman, hand finding reid's to squeeze and let go of.

you alright?

i'll be fine... you?

i'll cross that bridge when i get there.

you're unsurprised when he requests a handful of days to stay back, and you find yourself with him on the couch of his hotel with morgan and rossi, watching a match as you tear open another bag of chips.

"You're not supposed to be here."

you flash him a grin, shrugging as you offer a chip, shaking his head as the three of your forcibly inject yourselves into an investigation that he insists on keeping to himself.

it's a lot to dig through. it's a lot, and when spencer finds himself deeper and deeper down the investigation, rattling his mother and thinking its his father, he finds himself squeezing your hand under the table while you all profile, shoulders sunk back with a weariness that you don't like seeing, trying his best to wrap up the case.

he gets through it anyway, hand finding yours as you squeeze and finish up the case, and you hum quietly as he closes his eyes finally on the plane, mumbling quietly to himself as he thanks you for quiet support. hands finding his in times of fear, acting both as a calming agent when you touch him and a stimulant when you don't. to be everything yet simultaneously nothing. a paradox and an oxymoron.

but the truth is spencer knows why he's this way. he knows why he acts this way, but he has a little moment or two in which he doesn't believe it. he really refuses to. he understands it because he's read textbook cases, and he knows as a matter of fact that he isn't feeling this way because he's scared of you. he knows, but it doesn't stop him from pretending he doesn't anyway. because having you all vulnerable to him and not knowing how you feel about him is enough of a risk as is.

not to mention that he isn't allowed to be fraternizing with his coworkers.

but it doesn't stop him from caring. it doesn't stop him from slipping you breakfast on the metro on the way to work, and neither does it stop you from handing him a doughnut after your lunch break. it stops neither of you from ripping open a pack of pop rocks while listening to the new cases or him from handing you a cup of tea. it stops nothing because there's nothing to be stopping. he understands that much, at least.

but it's fine to care for one another.

it's fine, and there's no reason not to, so when morgan's calling you about how spencer's locked himself in the lab with anthrax, you're terrified. you're there with hotch, pinching your fingertips between your knuckles, biting and letting go of your tongue as the military sets up a grey zone between the houses and you're on the phone after hotch hangs up with reid.

You call him after, upper lip bitten as you listen to the line ring and start.

"Spencer." You mumble, voice breaking as you get him on the phone line, Morgan's hand on your shoulder as you bite back tears. "Are you okay? Breathing?"

i'm fine.

"Please don't do this again. We'll get you fixed up and then we can go back to before." You mumble, chewing your bottom lip as you lock eyes with him through the glass. "Tell us more about the lab. Please. I need to hear you ramble or else my brain's gonna keep reminding me that—"

"Dr. Nichols is a former military scientist, which means he's most likely secretive and most likely a little paranoid. He would have protected the cure, and probably would have hidden it from his partner. So look for something innocuous, something you would not suspect." Reid starts, and you rest the phone between your chin and shoulder, scribbling down notes on your copy of the file.

"He has breathing problems, right? How about an inhaler?" You mumble. "I had Garcia pull medical records."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." You mumble. "Is the doctor inside with you?"

"Yeah. I'll have her look." Spencer mumbles. my head's a little dizzy.

i know, spence. hold on for us, please. You nod at Morgan as he leaves, and you squeeze your palms, eyes focused on the way Spencer looks out the window back at you. He nods at you as he steps out, and you follow him in the decontamination chamber, facing the other side as he strips to be cleaned from top to bottom.

He suffers, though, and you're stuck sitting in the ambulance as he's rushed to the hospital and the samples are processed, one sigh in relief for when hotch tells you the suspect's been detained, and another sigh in relief for when spencer's given the cure. you stay by his side when morgan comes to visit, and you flip through one of your more recent books, chin on the side of his bed as morgan hands you a cup of jello.

"'s he alright?"

"Cured." You hum, peeling open the jello to eat at it, shifting from the bed audible as you look to the side.

having jello without me?

"Maybe." You bite down on the spoon, raising a brow.

i want a bite.

You laugh, shaking your head at him. when you're healed, spence.

but it's so easy. it's painfully easy, even. you make it so easy for him to wonder what you're up to.  it's so easy. too easy.

he ponders over it on some days, and when you find the dog tags to hand to morgan with a grimace, he spots the slight grimace and slanted eyes that you hide away after you go back to searching. he understands it all, he supposes. he did not at one point. it is much easier to know who you are when standing face to face with you as opposed to the spots and dreams that filled the cracks between the visions of you.

he keeps a hand on your lower back and leans his head on yours as the two of you head back on the jet, quiet circles drawn into your skin. you lean back, visibly sunken and drained, squeezing his hand on the way back to your apartments, humming quietly and pressing your cheek to his before you both make it back to your rooms. this is so easy. loving and trusting you is so easy.

but the universe always finds different ways to prove you both wrong.

four hours of sleep is nowhere near enough, and when you split a cup of coffee with reid as you both sit at the homicide, your eyes struggling to stay awake as one twitches, you think you're going to go insane. hotch is missing, there's a serial killer loose for a surgeon's son, and you've flipped through so many files with reid that you're starting to hear shit. you're sure your hallucinating when emily tells you both that hotch is in the hospital for a stab wound from foyet or someone, and you're blinking at spencer as you run through the profile with the father. he should remember. it should come easy.

it comes with difficulty, you suppose, but when you're walking out with the doctor and get tackled by reid, you're staring at his bleeding leg as he stares at the unsub. in a way you probably could have avoided this, but you wince as spencer shoots at the unsub, your own jacket coming off to stop the bleeding from his leg. he tells you and the rest of the team to go find emily and hotch, but you stay back after they leave, lifting him with ease as he sputters, face impossibly red.

when did you even—

don't worry about it. you laugh, humming. you'll be fine.

you hear a faint whistle that you assume is from morgan, and you're off to the hospital with spencer.

you take another jello cup to share with spencer after he gets the bullet removed, and you listen to jj as the doctor tells reid he'll be fine as long as he stays on crutches. you help him into it the first time, and you end up bringing him home. you end up half-moving in to take care of him for the few weeks, cooking and cleaning and huffing as you have to drive through the streets of dc, but it comes naturally to you too. you find that caring for spencer is so painfully easy that you're a little embarrassed.

you most certainly don't say much when garcia gives you a wiggle of her brow and the two of you wiggle your fingers for a cookie from her tin.

"These are for Hotch."

You feign hurt, holding your hand over your chest. "That's evil."

"I get shot in the leg and I don't get any cookies." Spencer huffs. "You know he's gonna hate the attention."

"It's cookies, not cake. He's probably gonna pretend like nothing happened, anyway."

"Well, it doesn't mean we have to." You pout at the cookies as Spencer offers you a lollipop.

"I think maybe we should." Spencer frowns.

"I don't roll that way." Garcia swats your hand as you reach for the tin again.

"I've been thinking about it? The entire time I've known hotch, I don't think I've ever seen him blink."

You pause to think, blinking slowly. "Holy shit."

"I know. It's weird." Garcia scrunches her nose.

"Classic alpha male behavior."

"Do you think he stared down foyet?" You mumble.

"Maybe. If it would save his life."

"Do you think he stared the whole time, like with each stab?"

"I have no idea. Is he ok?"

"I wouldn't be, but... I'm a blinker." Spencer sighs, and you pat his thigh, getting up.

JJ comes in shortly and you're both whisked off to another case, sitting in the station, your hands moving the pins around as Spencer speaks around the whole case, telling you what to write on the board and what to leave out. You think you're fine with this. He sorts out his thoughts by explaining everything to you, and when the case is wrapped up, you fake a gasp in offense when you catch him counting his cards, replacing a card of your own and winning the game to get back at him.

he lets you.

he call you a cheat later when you're walking back to the apartment, pulling out the card that you had replaced in your hand as you pretend not to know what he's talking about. he snaps his fingers as the card disappears and you find it in your belt, and you blink at him with wide eyes that spencer thinks he can get used to. he'd prefer it if anything. to surprise you for the rest of the days as you both head to work together.

you learn to tone down the character in the way you dress, but you don't say too much when garcia's flown in for the newest case involving choking and internet culture, your quiet glancing at the screen making you pause. it's all a game to get a rush of dopamine to your head, but you don't say too much. you never really do. you fiddle with your ring and glance at the bruises on the boy's neck, staring quietly as morgan tackles him.

Reid and morgan have no luck getting to him, so hotch is forced to pull them out.

Hotch suggests Penelope, but you decide that it's slightly easier for it to be you. You fit the profile, and while Penny would be much more comfortable in some way, you had the decoration on you to prove something. You don't remember the last time you ever had the heart to wear your rings. No. You do. You just don't like to think about it.

You open the door, humming as you tilt your head. "You ever done drugs?"

"Someone get her out of there." Hotch groans.

"Because tbh when I was crashing out back when my family passed away I really considered just—" you make a click sound with your tongue, drawing a line past your throat with your thumb as you tilt your head, sitting down slowly. "But the drugs gave the high that came with it, so I thought I could just... keep doing them. Tried choking myself too. It was fine until it wasn't enough."

The kid shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "No way."

"I don't recommend it, though. The drugs. The road of recovery is rough." You sigh dramatically. "You overdo it and suddenly you're regretting your choice, crying in paralysis about how you might actually want to live — also, by the way, the flush that comes with getting everything out of your system is a whole different level of hell. I thought i was going to die from that alone. Always hoped maybe there was something to live for. I miss my parents, but it's something you learn to live with. I think it does get better. Do you miss your mom? Ugh, mine used to make me such good lunches. Sometimes when kids bully you for having a bad lunch that means it's really good. Okay, that's off topic, omg, so sorry. Love the whole goth vibe. Where do you shop from? I don't know. I feel like Hot Topic doesn't hit as hard as it used to. I know the choker's from there, though. Figured I'd ask since, well. Y'know. By the way, love the nails."

You flash the painted nails — black. Done fresh while you were waiting for Reid and Morgan to crack him.

"You a cop?"

"Oh, heavens no." You lower your voice. "I actually find the worst part of my job to be working with the cops, but don't tell my superior. I'm an agent. FBI."

"You?"

"Yeah! Can you believe it? It's like the FBI is just letting anyone in these days." You laugh. "Nice earring too. I love the one earring look."

"Thank you. Got it on eBay. Supposed to be johnny d's from that one movie."

"Sick!" You gasp. "I got all of my rings from a thrift."

You show the boy as he observes, and you watch as his gaze lingers on one of them.

"Isn't that one nice? Apparently it was from a movie set. Found it on ebay."

"Yeah. Sick."

"Oh, by the way. My friend outside, Penny, was trying to break into your laptop and it's actually shocking how good you are at that kind of stuff. The firewall? The anonymizing service? uber cool. And the e-shredder? I gotta know where you're getting this stuff. You're like a cyber genius."

The kid shifts in his seat, and everyone watches as he actually speaks up. "The anonymizing service was from some guy online."

"I know! That one site, right? The one that looks totes sketch but's actually legit? I use it too. On my personal, though. Ugh, I got hacked once back in college and it took ten years off my lifespan to try to fix my laptop."

"No way."

"Got it immediately after. It was awful." You sigh. "I make one mistake and there goes like decades worth of games pirated— oopsies I wasn't supposed to say that with so many cops around."

The boy laughs, and the door clicks behind you.

"Oh, there's my boss. Say hi to Hotch. Isn't he a little scary? Did the boy's dad ask for him?"

"He's lawyering him up."

"I see."

"Was this an interview?"

"Not quite, as you didn't really give anything out." You give him a handshake, nodding as you glance at the earring he slipped you.

"She's not your friend. She was trying to trick you." His dad grumbles.

"That's all made up, sir. I told your son some stuff I could get re-evaluated over." You hold both your hands up, catching Christopher's wrist before he leaves, holding the earring up.

"You sure you wanna give this to me?"

"I think you deserve it. Wear it at work for me?"

You laugh, cheeks warm as you hum. "I will."

You watch as they leave, smile dropping when you know they won't turn back.

"Hotch, but I need a car to tail them in quiet." You mumble. "That boy's being manipulated."

"And you know this because?"

You stare at the door, quiet, finger brushing the earring. "I just know."

"Munchausen by proxy." Reid mumbles. "That's how the mom died too, isn't it?"

"Password's his mom's full name. He misses her." You call, taking the jacket on the chair. "Penny, text me his— actually, no. Send half to the home address. I wanna visit the mother's grave. Send me the church address? Or the..." You lock eyes with Spencer, and he nods.

"Cemetery. Hotch, do you mind if—"

"Stay." Hotch stops you, holding his hand out. "Morgan, Emily, Church. We'll check the house. Stay here. You've done enough."

You huff, staring at the earring. "Will I get to see him?"

"We'll bring them both in."

"Okay." You mumble.

They bring the boy in to you, and you are given one chance. A small promise to write to him, and offer him an item of equal exchange. You're not supposed to, you understand, but you slide one of the rings off of your fingers, holding out the metal to the boy's palm as you hold onto the earring.

"You want it back?"

"No. You can keep that one."

You nod. "Hope I read it right."

"You did. How did you know?"

"You kept glancing at it when we talked." You laugh. "I had a friend who used to stare a lot at things they wanted. I stare a lot too."

The flight back is quiet, you think. A lot of silence, and you twist at the rings on your finger, hand strangely lighter without one of them.

do you have time on friday?

hm?

Spencer mumbles, quiet as he sits next to you. friday.

why?

new place opened up two blocks down.

alright.

spencer spends the most time in between the books, watching as you look through old donated journals and diaries, peering into people's lives that was once private to them. in a sense you don't seem to care that there's a need for privacy, and neither do you really care when you tell spencer you don't mind your diaries being donated when you pass away. you even tell him that he can read through them when you pass.

but you wander around too. spencer takes you around to the jewelry that's been donated, old with age, pretty little gems and dazzling rust with purple. you insist that there's nothing that catches your eyes, mentioning that the loss of that one ring was symbolic that you had made a difference in someone's life even if it was small.

but there's a pair of old wedding rings that you find your gaze lingering back onto at the new place. it's old, yes, and there's hundred of years worth of items here, but the wedding rings catch your gaze again and again, and at one point you pick it up to bring it around with you while spencer looks at the books.

spencer notes it down, yes. he found that you started carrying a box around with you somewhere into the fifteen minute mark, and you refuse to show him what you had picked up, but from the looks of it, it's most likely something that could really only hold jewelry. A ring box, most likely.

what are you holding?

oh, um, rings. you open the box to show him, and he blinks.

huh. real gold.

and the silver?

it isn't tarnished, so i'd assume some kind of gold. possibly white. he holds his hand out for the rings, and you find yourself giving them to him. they're pretty.

you nod, taking them back from him.

did you know world war two popularized men from the west wearing their wedding rings? prior to that, most men would either not have a ring or not wear it. they started wearing them to remind themselves of their wives and kids at home. oh, and according to a plethora of sources, the most popular wedding ring material is yellow gold. spencer hums, watching as you put the box back down.

well, that makes sense.

he takes a second glance at the box, noting down something as the two of you walk off.

You find the exact box with a ring missing the next day on your desk at work.

"Hey. Everyone's already in the room. Ready?"

you look up at spencer, yellow glistening on his finger as you glance back down at the box.

aren't you supposed to get down on one knee?

do you want me to?

you shake your head, sliding the ring down your finger, joining the rest of them at the round table.

you hide your hands the entirety of the time that you cover the case with the team, fingers fiddling with the ring as you run through everything with hotch. he sends you to the police station with spencer, and you find yourself back in the back and forth back and forth of it all. it's so easy to fall into a pattern with him.

it's so easy to fall into a rhythm with you. it's so easy to show affection and exist around you.

it's so easy to share a look with you and split a room, arm wrapped around your waist and nose pressed into your shoulder, groggy twilight on both of your faces as the two of you squint and you find penelope in your arms, cooing quietly at her as you rub the blood from her hands. it's easy to get lost while in the job, you think. she's strong. you have to repeat it so that she believes you.

spencer settles next to you on the couch, closing his eyes and throwing his head back as you knock out on his shoulder while fiddling with your ring.

neither of you are conscious enough for this.

and it carries the same in every other case. in every other case, the two of you are wrapped up on the plane, his hand on your thigh, your head on his shoulder, device in your hand, newspaper in his. a cup of tea brewed to eerie precision on your side, a bag of opened candy on his. a sweet tooth that gnaws at his cheek — a need for peace that eats at your brain.

you listen to reid talk. everything — the numbers, the facts, the stats. everything reads like an audiobook or encyclopedia, and you tilt your head slightly when spencer hands you a photo of the women, and you start drawing lines over the plastic. reid notices it before you do, but you have the facial symmetry crafted before he does, picture stuck up on the glass board as you have lunch, watching spencer snatch it up and thank you for it.

you don't do much for the rest of the time, straw pressed to your lips as you drink, staying on call with penelope as you click through your device. it's those damn phones should be a quote on your feed. The only thing helping you at the moment to kill the boredom of when you're not on the field. hotch is still hesitant to use you at times.

and it's not that he doubts your capabilities.

you're put on the field, hand finding the victim's as she asks you why she wasn't just killed, and you swallow back words and let reid tell her that it was only about power and control, your own words comforting her when you tell her that it fades. it doesn't mean that it will leave, but you will learn to step over it. you promise it to her.

you find time during the drive back to run your hand through his hair as he drives, pinching at the way his curls coil around his head, hum on your lips as you call him pretty. so pretty.

you don't miss the way his cheeks tinge pink as he catches the reflection of white on your finger.

but the unsub gets away and morgan snaps, but you understand that to some degree. you're sure that you'd be in the same situation, and when jj's berating him on an emergency line, you're understanding, gun in hand when you finally find the girl, and you think for a moment that there really isn't much of a space for you.

reid sees it too, the way you let go of your gun, staring as morgan heads into the house and everyone wires him. you understand it well.

reid would say that you've always slotted nicely. you've always fit between the cracks, and when the cracks would fit each other, you would slide away until they would click, and you would be stuck staring on the side. you're just a strangely fluid person in a sense.

but it's a little much to ask of you to fill in for jj's position. it's not for you.

yet you find that garcia tries anyway, and when you're finally called out for the metal band on your finger on the plane, you're staring at everyone and blinking.

"Where'd you get it?"

"Vintique on third." You hum. "Loved them, but didn't want to splurge, but they so magically appeared on my desk at work the next day. Speaking of rings, though. Why have a married couple have sex before stabbing them? What the hell?"

"You know, the stabbing of the wives is almost certainly piqueristic. The unsub gets sexual gratification from penetration with a knife. Most piquerists are impotent... men like Albert Fish, lain Scoular, Andrei Chikatilo... so for him, it could be a substitute for sex." Spencer hums. "The rings were really pretty. Pure gold. Well, not the white one since 18 karat white gold is only 75 percent pure gold."

Everyone's eyes find his ring finger, and Morgan gasps.

"My man!"

But the case isn't too strange. You tell Emily you can step in, dressed up nice as you take off the vest and opt for a purse, Spencer's eyes worried as you tell him you'll be fine, tapping the ring on his finger. You lie your way through the unsub while fiddling with your ring, tapping through to let Morgan and Hotch tackle the man to the ground, only going quiet when the barrel of a gun finds itself on your stomach. you think you hear Spencer yell something in the background, but you pull the trigger in your purse, letting someone pull you away as you exhale and ask if the unsub will live.

are you okay?

i'm fine. you hum, hand finding his as you run your finger over his ring.

He runs the hand to your cheek, coolness of the metal making you close your eyes as you hum.

"You'll protect me, won't you? As my husband?"

"Of course."

Spencer tries to ignore the way that he likes the way you call him your husband. Yours. It rings nicely in his mind — like a child receiving praise. He can practically feel the neurotransmitters in his brain enforcing his behavior to be good to you. to be good for you. it makes him a little nauseous, but he refuses to fight it too much.

It's only logical that he likes hearing good words.

but you never miss the opportunity to tease him anyway, tugging on his sleeve to avoid his hand, name on your lips sweet as he blinks and swallows when a pretty girl passes him, quirk of your lip upward when he tries to make up an excuse, a wave of your pretty hand shutting down his entire brain. it's a little concerning to him — furrow of his brows and a pout on his lips when he realizes what you're doing.

we're together. he pouts.

"I know we are." You hum, bumping him with your hip as you circle around to Hotch.

"Town meeting in the church. I want us all there."

"Got it."

you're not too sure what to make of the blonde girl, and you're unpleasantly surprised at her attitude once admitted into the BAU. you stay civil with her, but never anything beyond that. you don't have much to say when spencer gets sassed at by her, raise of your brow and she shuts her mouth.

I'm used to it, you know?

it isn't about you.

he furrows his brows, and you press your hand to his forehead.

but you find that you understand something else. spencer reid has no protection against pretty girls, and it doesn't matter who he stares at for a second too much, you always find yourself fiddling with your ring and looking to the other side. you understand the biological need to do so, yes, but it doesn't sting any less.

but nothing changes.

spencer still finds himself next to you at most times, pink finding yours under the table on the plane, tilt of his head and lick of his upper lip whenever you beam at him, gold on his ring finger glistening and never rusted. it's honestly incredible that the two of you never give away anything about each other or come even remotely close to having to explain the rings. reid sympathizes with the men, and you hold the women in your arms.

it almost feels like it was made for this.

the charade you both play almost feels real. it's real only when on the field, and when the two of you return to your apartments side by side, it's all fake again. he can spend nights with your forehead pressed to his in the comfort of his couch while you try to help with his migraines, and he can sit back as you take care of him with your life, but he'll never quite get to hear those three words break past your lips. you'll never say it because you feel like you don't have to, and he'll never say it because he'll never be able to read your emotions the same way you read his so he can never quite confirm that you love him the same way he does.

does he really love you? does it really matter? the cat remains unknown until the box is opened — your relationship remains neutral until someone grows cold. you don't know if spencer really did love you at all. it certainly eats at you and chews you from the inside out. you don't know if his moment of realization had just been of realization or of boredom. an overanalyzation of the stars in his supernova. a breaking of his universe because you were too close. he wonders it too, the lack of light present in everywhere you walk. someone who would swallow his universe alive until all that was left was dark matter.

a blank stare and a pinch of your own skin always seemed to do the trick. but you've always got a handful to work with when he was around, his migraines have grown worse as you bring him to doctors, pout on your face and gentle stare on his as he sits through brain scans. you have him drink tea and take care of everything that you can to help him. you're wonderful. you bring the best of the best for him. a wife's affection, really.

the first migraine causes you a near heart attack when he knocks a man in the back of his head, and when the first doctor tells him to consider something psychosomatic and he storms out, you're stuck chasing after him. you'll find him a better doctor. you'll get him the best of the best, and the best of the best do you find after a painfully long period of bad migraines and drinking your tea instead of his coffee. you're just so wonderful.

emily passes away and comes back and all you're stuck with is taking care of spencer, lowering his caffeine intake, quiet running of your thumb under the bags of his eyes, a gentle frown on his face when he struggles with her loss. you struggle in your own way, but you've never been a priority in the team, so no one points out who you are or what you're there for. you're only there when people need you. you aren't required.

you forgive emily quicker than spencer because you understand.

but spencer's migraines are better. slightly better. he meets a new doctor who actually looks into the symptoms thanks to your annoyed pushes, and sometime along the way, you're given the right to his medical records the same way he's allowed yours, and then it all really just goes downhill for you from there. you know the way that spencer scrolls through his phone for payphones to call with the researcher — same look on his face when you had actually looked him in the eye the first time ever.

it's his fault, really.

it's transference, he knows. the doctor taking care of him is just transference, and he knows you catch the way his calls linger for longer than they're supposed to and the slight flashes of pain at first when he doesn't go to bed, but you get used to it. fluid to fill the cracks. you'll fill not only his, but also everyone else's cracks. he feels not enough for you. he fears he turns into something that isn't himself. fill the cracks that he knows you can with something that is not either of you. you should no longer be filling the cracks for him. he should do something for you.

he understands his reasoning is flawed in that way, but he knows not to deal with it. perhaps he does not want to seem weak before you.

but it doesn't stop him from sobbing into your arms, quiet digging of his nails into your biceps on nights that are too silent, gasping into your shoulder when you run your hand down his back. it doesn't stop either of you from playing your part, acting like you all have it under control. acting like it's completely fine — the way you just shatter and break is completely fine. the way he contemplates the drug long gone in his system as you teach him how to cope with the loss.

and you trust him so much. you trust him painfully much, and it almost makes him feel undeserving. even with a hand on your lower back and a kind gentle hum on his lips, grimace on his face as you stare at death upon dead, he finds that he doesn't want you to see the same gruesome life that he does. it's unfair to you. not that you cannot handle it — just that he wonders maybe you could avoid it. even if you had signed up for training and ended up in the department.

but there's a visible shift in your dynamic with spencer. you can take him to all the doctors you want and let him cry his heart out, complain and throw a fit that you'd like for him to be reviewed by someone else, but no one will be as good as maeve. you can fuss and cry at home, but he won't ever understand the sense that you just know. you can feel him slipping. slipping through the cracks and through your fingers, and you think there's so much that you don't want to touch, but you can't decide that.

you don't get to decide to take away something good for spencer just because it's something bad for you.

he'll analyze and profile you. you know that. he'll notice that you no longer seem to care, smile not as bright, water bottles replaced with thermos and thermos of tea until the flavor is too far gone to be able to still taste the tea. he'll notice the way you never discard of the tea, but he won't comment on it. he'll never comment on it again, because as soon as work is over or it's sunday, he's rushing off to call maeve, and you're stuck in the office, staring and scratching at your phone, eyes weary and tired, visible signs of age sliding between the fine lines of your portrait, and at one point, maybe you'll find something that you care about again.

it hurts more to be like that, you think.

to love and then be betrayed.

but you still want him so bad. so. painfully bad.

it's unfair how attached you've grown to someone you thought would be your forever only to end up as another piece of your life. how could you ever? was it unfair of you to hope that someone who tasted even a fragment of what you endured prior to it all to understand you even just a little bit? does it not matter to them at all? you're sure it doesn't. spencer's never one to dwell on his heart more than he has to.

Now, all he dwells over is Maeve.

those three words. "I love you."

you watched him freeze up from the car, body paused in the seat when you noticed the lack of gold on his fingers, and you think there's something that clicked in your mind when you did. it's an announcement of affection that you wish spencer would push away, but he doesn't. it doesn't surprise you. it should, but it doesn't. it almost feels like it was perfectly expected of him to act that way. to just accept that someone loves him the same way you do.

it couldn't be the same way you do since they've never met, but you're sure spencer loves her the same way.

you press your tea to your lips, bag of pop rocks left on the round table as everyone files in, a brow raised when spencer enters last, strangely giddy, beaming at you when he sits down with his own mug of tea.

call went good?

yeah. we're meeting up soon.

fun.

if he notices the lack of enthusiasm in your voice, then he doesn't comment on it, taking the bag of pop rocks to down as everyone files in.

"3 days ago, Bruce Phillips was found dead with his blond hair dyed black."

You think you tune almost everything out for the most part. You go through the case, sort through it all, blink and watch as Spencer seems to be as focused as ever. He's meeting up with her in a couple of days. You'll be fine, you suppose. It'll be fine. Everything is supposed to be fine, and when you're getting forcibly sentenced to rest by Hotch, you think it's fine. You'll be fine.

You'll work through the case and look back at all the puppets as you lower the two humans from the strings, and you wonder what you would look like put up on the stage. There is a fear that settles uncomfortably in your stomach, you think. That somehow on that stage it could have been you. You don't know how the victims will survive it, and when you step into the elevator in the dark of night with the rest of the team, you barely go through anything.

"Where's Reid?"

"He said he had something important to do."

You blink quietly at your reflection in the metal, closing your eyes.

"He's seeing the girl he's in love with."

"WHAT."

"Wait, wait, wait. Babygirl, isn't he in love with you?"

"Apparently not." You chew on your inner cheek. "I need a drink."

"Well, you're welcome at mine." Rossi mumbles. "Scotch."

"Vodka."

"You'll learn."

You huff. "Fine."

Maybe ranting to Rossi about your love life wasn't the smartest thing in the world, but you honestly couldn't give any less of a damn if Spencer was dragged through mud after all the stunts he had pulled on you. You grumble and pinch your brows, moping and throwing your head back over the sofa as you sit to sober up. Jesus christ, get a grip.

Rossi tells you that sometimes it's fine to let go.

"Yeah?" You fiddle with your ring, scotch long forgotten on the table.

"Sometimes the best remedy is just letting go."

"Thank you, wise italian man with three wives." You mumble. "I can't wait to be divorced in my twenties."

"You're still young, don't worry." Rossi hums, pressing his drink to his lips. "You want me to reccomend someone to you?"

You glance at the ring on your finger, humming. "It's fine."

you wonder sometimes why reid had gotten tired of you. was it tired? you don't know. he seems to have gotten tired of you. maybe it was just rude of you

maybe the lack of title was—

no. not quite. he's your husband. there was not a lack of title. there was a lack of papers. lack of hard evidence that you weren't playing around with each other in your youthen stupor. there was a lack of nothing. it was just spencer being stupid, you think. it was never your fault. you were more in tune with his smotions than he was, and he knew your mind better than anyone else.

he did not know his own heart, and you suppose it's your fault for ever thinking he would.

you think you're bitter towards how spencer treats you now comparably more than when he did prior to the arrival of maeve. but you're not mad at maeve. you couldn't really be. you and spencer never legalized your relationship, and it's not unheard of to be fascinated with something new — spencer was always fascinated with something new.

but it doesn't really make it hurt any less.

spencer meets maeve in the restaurant, and garcia tells you that apparently he had taken off his ring in the cctv footage. an empty finger to meet a girl that you felt replaced by. wow. what a way to ruin a girl's day.

not to mention how he carries around that beat up book that maeve had reccomended to him — still.

you find it ironic that he's moved on yet you still haven't. what is there to move on? did he owe you the courtesy of a break up if you were never really anything?

the one day you don't bother answering your door.

you spend your days at he shooting range, perfecting your marksmanship, and you wonder if this is the universe's strange way of telling you that you're just screwed. you find that it's hard to hide quiet sniffling and hot tears on your cheeks with frustration that you can't lash out. quiet anger that bubbles in the back of your throat when you start opting to go out on the field more than staying back to analyze — to use your degree since you wasted it all anyway, and hotch lets you.

you ignore the look of hurt on spencer's face when you request of it outright, desperation reeking off your skin, and you become so painfully distant that you wonder if spencer felt like you were supposed to just stick around and wait for him when he called maeve all day like that and expect you to stay around. he's not stupid. you're almost sick of the way that you've never been babied once since joining, and all everyone does is protect him in their own way.

it makes you bitter towards him, you think.

you're glad you're on the field rather than hidden in the police station with spencer. you don't think you could bear to face him or whatnot. it would be unfair for you.

you wonder if you should request to stay back when maeve's kidnapping case comes up, and you swallow slowly when spencer's mind shuts down, and maybe you're just cursed to be stuck as some kind of queen piece that has no purpose now that the player's gotten their pawn to upgrade into a queen. actually, maybe you're a pawn. maybe you're just the pawn that stayed desipte it all in the game of chess. you know as a matter of fact that you could never be as smart as maeve is — which is why you're not really bitter towards her. she doesn't know of your existence the same way that spencer didn't once mention you in… well, anything.

you spend most of the case working through it with everyone else, and you're the first to notice that maybe it's a female stalking maeve rather than a man. it's not a… well, it is a romantic stalker, probably. you don't really know. you're all for it, but less in the case where maybe maeve deserves a stalker and more in the okay well, good for her, love wins, or whatever. you're quite frankly too spent trying to figure out what's going on with the case to really care that it's a woman. you're trying not to throw up when spencer offers himself as collateral, and you're having the worst moment of your life when things happen.

spencer's so in love with her that you think perhaps you never really existed to him at all. nevermind that he's somehow got his ring on and that diane might freak out at the thought, but you don't know. you don't really understand it. spencer reid is in love with maeve donovan and you don't seem to matter at all in his eyes.

one thing leads to the next, and by some strange situation, everyone's on a rooftop of some kind and you're kind of staring at nothing in particular as you stare at the kidnapper. it's a woman, and you feel like you shouldn't be surprised, but you still are. you've read her unofficial paper before — as you did with maeve. when you first figured out who maeve was, you had done a quick read on her research. it was easy to read — her paper. you wonder just how obsessed diane has to be with maeve for her to be jumping her and kidnapping her to this extent. maybe maeve sought companionship with spencer.

you hold your gun up in the back with everyone else, and it's really spencer's call as whether or not to shoot, but there's an instability in the way that she's speaking and shaking, and you think maeve is going to make the wrong choice of words and accidentally tip off diane and then both of their brains are going to be blown out and you don't think that's a really good idea.

but you also don't really want blood on your hands.

is it such a sin for you to desire to not kill? is the blood of tobias hankel not enough?

is a bullet between the forehead not a testament of enough blood you've been stained with?

you stand behind spencer, gun in your hand as you blink and stare.

will the blood of maeve's life dirty your hands any more than everything already has?

There's a gun pressed to Maeve's head, and you have a clear shot to her assailant.

you want to be selfish. maybe. you want to just. you'd like to— you don't want the love of your life stolen from your hands and it tears you apart, but you don't even need to look when you know the answer. it doesn't matter if you love spencer, because you think you know something that they don't or whatever and he can try to de-escalate the situation all he wants. you think there's something that he knows that you don't. there's—

there's nothing.

what are you being so philosophical for? there is really only one answer.

You pull the trigger before Diane can.

The woman falls to the ground, probably dead. you don't know you don't really check. It's. You don't like the weight of a second life on your hands, collapsing into the cement of the rooftop immediately, too short of breath to watch spencer pull a fainted maeve into his arms, breathing growing erratic and mouth hanging open as someone catches you, the voice ringing in your ear as you stare at someone, tears burning at your cheeks and every emotion except for relief on your face, oh, oh, oh what is this — is this, is it , oh it's been such a long time you almost forgot this feeling, didn't you — you're sorry? what are you saying? You don't know anymore. what is going on? you can't— you can't breathe. what is this—

oh, there— there's—

the world turns black, and you wake up alone.

without your ring. alone. well, penelope's by your side when you're staring into the white, blinking slowly without a lifeline because once again there's an iv plugged into the back of your hand and you swear to god if you have to pull the trigger on a man one more time, you're going to kill yourself.

you don't even realize you're crying until Penelope is holding you.

"You'll be fine! You'll be fine!" Penelope holds you, and you stare at her, shaking your head.

"Penny. I wanna go home."

"I know, sweet girl. I know. You'll be there soon."

You laugh, grimacing at the way your body hurts.

"He said he'd protect me. Guess who lied."

"He can't lie for his life. You know that."

You sigh, letting your head sink into the pillow.

"What happened?"

"You passed out from a panic attack."

"Not from killing." you close your eyes. "Did the doctors give a diagnosis?"

"They can't. You don't have anyone to sign for you."

"Right. Security went up."

"He was angry, you know? That he couldn't sign for you." Penelope frowns. "He asked me if I could fake a certificate for you two."

"I feel like I should pretend to be surprised. Did he leave as soon as Maeve woke up? I know she passed out too." you sit yourself up, groaning as you roll your shoulders. "Where's the doctor? I want my diagnosis — and, Penny?"

"Yeah?"

you smile. "Alone."

"Alright... but um, don't be surprised if I hack, alright?"

"Of course." you nod.

You decide two things that night.

One, your hand is tired of holding the gun. You don't think you ever liked the feeling of it even after killing Tobias for killing Spencer. It's just not a weight that you can grow used to. You can't possibly bear to exist with it, you think. It's not a world that you belong in. It's not a world that you like existing in. You don't particularly enjoy the fact that you just had to shoot Maeve's stalker through the skull either. Two deaths too many.

Two. You no longer want to stay.

Penelope takes you home, but you're barely stepping foot in your apartment before you're calling a cab to go to the BAU office, and you wonder if everyone else has headed home. You think they did. Though, you really hope that Hotch is at least there so you can resign to his face. You don't think you're so adamant on leaving that you'd do it without seeing him one last time.

It's 11pm when you make your way to the office, resignation paper, badge, and gun in hand as you find Hotch's office.

The lights are still on, strangely enough, and when you glance at everyone's empty desks for the night, you think it was oddly good timing on your end to come in right after a case that had you passing out with no real victim. Spencer's probably visiting Maeve, and everyone else probably clocked out on time for once. How nice.

You knock before entering.

"Hotch."

He glances at you.

"They let you out already?"

"Urgent business. Also, it was just a panic attack. My vitals were all normal." You nod. "It won't happen again."

"You're supposed to be on break for a couple of days."

"That's the thing. There won't be a need for an eval or wait." You place down the gun, the badge with the box, and you stare at your ring for a second too long before speaking. "I'd like to leave."

"Is it because of the—"

"No." You shake your head, sliding your ring off. "No, no. It's not. I just. I think you know I never really wanted to be on the field like I have, and I'm nowhere mentally strong enough for that role. I'd like to quit before it kills me. I think we both know that I nearly died my first day on the job."

"Are you alright?" He motions for you to sit, and he steps over to shut his door.

"I'm fine." You nod. "I am. I really am."

"Did Reid—"

"Hotch, please" You mumble. "I just want to return to academia and studying instead of practice. There's so much instability in this job, and I can't do it anymore. I'm not strong like you are. I never was."

He stares at you, pinching his brows. "Where will you go?"

"I'll find somewhere." You smile. "I'll be happy there. I've saved up plenty from this job."

Hotch gives you a sad smile, you think. You understand.

"May I visit?"

"With Jack, if you must." You hum. "I'll be out tomorrow. Please tell Straus I'm sorry I didn't go to her."

"You don't need to."

"Yes, I know." You hum. "Do you think I could stay hidden for long?"

Hotch looks at the envelope.

"I think he will find you."

"I hope not."

He exhales. "Stay safe. I'm here if you need me."

"I will." You laugh. "Tell the rest of the team that I'm just recuperating at home? Tell them I don't want any visitors for a few days."

Hotch nods. "We'll miss you."

You linger at the door, looking back at Hotch, smile on your lips that doesn't reach your eyes.

"I'll miss you guys too."

Spencer sits in the other wing of the hospital.

"Are you sure you're okay? It couldn't have—"

"I'm fine." Maeve smiles. "Shouldn't you be checking with..?"

"She's strong. She'll survive." Spencer mumbles, fiddling with the gold on his finger. "She also took me off of her authorized lists. I had signed that she would be able to take care of my medical needs with her a while back, but I suppose that she took me off sometime ago without telling me. It was my fault."

"Your… ring." Maeve swallows. "I didn't know you wore one."

Spencer stares at it, twisting the band absentmindedly. "It's… a couple's band. Matches with hers… bought it at an antique store."

"Spencer, do you love her?"

"Wh- of course I do!" He pauses. "Of course I love her. Everyone does. It's just… she knows that."

"Are you sure? Have you told her?" Maeve mumbles. "I don't think you love me the same way you love her. I love you, Spencer."

"I do too—"

"No." Maeve stares out the window of the bed. "You love her. Think it over. You're smart. Sometimes feelings don't need to make sense."

Hotch doesn't have it in himself to tell Spencer— it's hard to break the news. it would be like breaking news that emily had passed away all over again, and it wouldn't be all that worth it. reid would have to find out on his own. he would. and when he does. when he does, he'll stop and stare, unbelieving in hotch's words with a desperation in his voice that they heard when maeve was at gunpoint, running a hand through his hair at news broken to him last and the box that had once carried your rings that truly has him staring and wondering if it was at all worth it.

"Why didn't you tell me." Spencer clenches his jaw, and Hotch stares. Just stares.

"She told me not to."

"So you didn't?"

"Reid, you would have stopped her from moving." Hotch places a box before him.

Spencer shakes.

"Hotch. You knew that I messed up, and you still—"

"Reid."

"I loved her. I love her."

spencer loves you, loved you, is loving you, oh god forbid anyone tell him anything. he's in love with you and it was his fault for ever thinking that maybe you would have understood without him telling you. you understood his heart. you should have known that he loves you. but maybe knowing isn't enough. maybe he should have said it— no. he should have said it. he should have told you that he loves you the same way maeve had told him. you overthink as well. he knew that. he knows that.

but you do understand him. he's far too hurt to be able to chase you down after leaving the way you knew it hurt the most, so he settles with sitting in his flat and staring lifelessly at the books you had bought for him. you did not touch anything in his apartment. not your clothes, not your belongings. it was as though all you really cared to clear was the desk at work so someone new could join the team.

he settles with trying to see your apartment, blinking when someone new has moved in and he apologizes, mentioning that his friend had moved and didn't tell him — he supposes. he thinks. it's not the truth. you had just planned to leave him in the dark just like that. it was a deliberate chance to twist a blade into his stomach the same way he had twisted it into your heart. he wonders why you didn't just shatter him on purpose.

the new tenant hands him a letter that was left behind with his apartment number on it, and spencer realizes, he thinks. you had just wanted to stab him through the heart and carve a piece of him for yourself after he had left yours hollow and empty. you didn't quite do it, though. the letter hurts, yes, but in a way he felt deserving of it. you tell him at the end that the silver would look nice on maeve's finger.

he doesn't have the heart to open the box to find out if your ring is in it.

and suddenly, there's no interest in maeve at all — and spencer reflects on it in a way. he knows now. it was never really transference with you. it was transference with maeve. it was simply because he had gotten so caught up in making a new friend and calling her all the time that he had forgotten how he had gotten to that point in the first place. did he ever truly love maeve? surely it hurt to hear how she was the prettiest girl in the world to him when you were wearing a ring meant to match his.

how could he ever think of someone else in that light? when you were right there?

when the hurt fades, all he has left are his days in his flat where he traces through the books you had bought him. he traces your writing in the margins of your literature, and it reminds him of when he had to send his mother away all over again. he isn't allowed the joy of keeping someone by his side. not with his father, not with gideon, and now no longer with you. it didn't matter if you had been waiting. people grow tired of it immediately. people need air. you had forgotten that. spencer had forgotten that.

it was stupid of him to ever think of someone other than you.

spencer dreams of you sometimes. leaving without a reason, walking out of his life with most of your belongings packed from your place with the knowledge that you had just told hotch you were leaving, never to be seen again after you had been pushed to the hospital and he wasn't allowed to hear your diagnosis. disappearing from all his records, being denied access to how you were doing now. it wasn't witness protection, no. he would have known if it was. you had just chosen to disappear from his life forever on a random thursday afternoon. the same thursday he was supposed to tell you that he was wrong to ever make you misunderstand that he loved maeve more than you.

he hasn't taken his ring on his finger since finding out that you had just packed and left. he doesn't know why. he mourns you. perhaps he does, and perhaps he had been right such a long time ago when he was still somewhat young and fresh, ramble of how the feeling he was expressing was most likely his own cocktail of romance, but he had been slow. he knew, yet you had not waited. it was not worth it anymore, perhaps. he understands that. you learned to start moving at your own pace and claw your way to stability, and a government job that required you out on the field at all times was not worth the pay.

you could make comfortable money elsewhere.

he knew that much. your passion had never been quite to be out on the field saving people. your passion had always been in reading people and knowing people. in the smoothing of papers and fluids of ink. you had always loved something much different than he did. you always loved something that he had used as a tool to continue upward. he could deduce a million things about you and none of it would make sense because as soon as you flipped the page you would once again become blank and leave him wordless.

you belonged in ranges of books, not the shelves that hosted you on late nights when you did not want to sit alone in your apartment.

you belonged in rows and rows of scripture and poem and psalm that could not even begin to be described with mere pen and paper. it had to be parchment and quill — ink and letters delivered by carrier pigeons that no longer existed. you belonged in a world that he had long forgotten he was once part of. a world that he doubts he could ever step foot back in without something that affects him enough. he's not going to step back into it. not until there is a point in which he knows he can retire and calm down. his papers would never be the papers that you write. your papers would never be papers that reach his hands.

and then hotch leaves.

he wonders if he could ever step away from it all. a second life or death moment. a moment in which he was... alive, perhaps. he understands the tension between him and cat well. its just a shame you're no longer here to untangle his mind after a long day with your fingers carding through his hair. its a case you would have jumped on. a woman who was better than acting than anyone else. he feels like he lost something when he had met her. it was an encounter you would have listened to him ramble and told him what kind of a person she was, but you weren't there anymore. you hadn't been for a while, and when he's in prison, unable to reach out to you, he wonders if it was at all worth it.

you would not have let it happen.

hotch would not have let it happen.

he spends a lot of time wondering what you're doing. he wonders if you still make your tea with a thermometer so the green doesn't become bitter, insisting that tea made at home is better than one at a coffee shop — and he wonders if you still keep packs of pop rocks on you because you refuse to have food and substitute it with sugar so your blood sugar doesn't drop. he wonders if you still lounge in bed until the sun is halfway in the sky, only leaving for brunch in the mornings, and he wonders if you've made friends. perhaps you connected with past ones. he wonders if you're doing better now.

you have to be. for him. you have to be.

it comforts himself to know that at least one of you are doing better.

maeve is there when he's freed. he understands, yes, that he was… dumb to even… oh he doesn't try thinking too hard about it. he thanks her, yes, and it's not really her fault. his fault for taking off a ring that tied his heart to yours so he could try and pretend he didn't care. he wonders if she thinks any more badly of him. he doesn't think she does, but perhaps she's realized too that his heart wasn't ever really for her to begin with.

He glances at the ring he's kept safe for so long, lack of luster causing a frown on his face as Maeve glances at it too.

"You never really told me the truth, huh?"

"No." He mumbles. "I got caught up in your confession, I suppose."

"I see."

He pauses, staring at Maeve as she tilts her head.

"Did you tell her thank you for saving my life?"

"She left before I could."

"You should have been honest with me."

"She had never—"

"And yet you had a ring." She hums. "Did you pretend I was her? Because I told you I loved you?"

"I just… wanted her to tell me she loved me, I suppose." He blinks, suddenly quiet. Ah. So that was it. "So when you said it to me, I just—"

"You should tell her."

"I won't ever get to see her again."

"You should tell her you love her." Maeve hums. "She was waiting for you to say it first."

"I couldn't have—"

"Then maybe she was hoping for you to." She hums, pausing, smiling. "She's doing good. I met up with her last time she was here."

"She was here?" He hates the way his voice breaks.

Spencer understands you more now, he thinks. The time he spent thinking over his emotions and not his mind for once was strange. Isolation did a number to him. He understands himself better now. Maybe he just wanted you to be vulnerable with him first before he could even believe that you liked him even more than you did with others.

It was stupid, yes. It was painfully obvious to everyone that you liked him more than you did the average person, and it wasn't exactly something you bothered hiding. Perhaps you had just been waiting for him to say it first since he had treated you differently too. He knew it, but he just refused to admit it. He didn't need numbers or probability to prove that you loved him. He loved you just the same. The band around your fingers should have been proof of that.

It really shouldn't have been something he ever doubted even once.

So when he gets forced back into the swing of the thirty day sabbatical, his final thirty is a gift from the team.

A carefully picked location — per Garcia's request.

Garcia chose this one, which he finds interesting considering that he's never left too far for guest lecturing before, and Garcia had never shown even a remote amount of interest in his sabbaticals, but apparently the university had really wanted him to provide insight in the lecture, so he was requested by… someone… in the university. Spencer isn't too sure, but he trusts Garcia enough, so he's on a commercial flight to meet with the university.

"It'll be a good breath of air. Besides, when's the last time you had a proper vacation? Don't you dare try to come back before the thirty days are up. I will have prentiss kick your ass."

"Yes, Garcia." Spencer mumbles. "And you're sure this will be good for me?"

"Oh, I know it will be good for you. Thank me later."

It's strange he's somewhere he's seldom been, and the rain reminds him of Seattle, but not quite. The university wasn't really known for their curriculum on criminology, but the psychology program was apparently well respected. He respects it. The campus is gorgeous, and his guide takes him around and lets him know some local places he can visit.

The lecture goes nicely. He quotes books and literature, and he explains the case studies they've all done, analyzing behavior and explaining classic serial killers, but the students seems much more invested in his face than what he's teaching. Which he's grown used to, in a way. He could try and pretend he doesn't understand it, but he doesn't. At least not in that way.

He almost misses when Morgan would call him pretty boy to his face.

He stays behind to check out what they have, though. There's a small neighborhood a little bit southeast of the university quite a nice little street to wander on, and Spencer finds himself stopping to look around. The name reminds him of things you had said once. Quite mumble under your breath when you had passed Pike Place in Seattle about how you liked it better in…

He stops at a coffee shop, ordering a pastry and coffee (sweetened. of course.), and he leaves his last name. He doesn't know what compels it. Well, maybe so his name feels a little more common. He's older now, so his name's dated with him, naturally, but he still finds himself using his last name.

The lady is kind enough — as she can be. She writes his name down and asks if there's a design he'd like on his cappuccino. (He asks for a heart), and he finds himself at the end of the coffee shop, ripping open a pack of pop rocks to dip his tongue into. He started carrying them around ever since you left. The popping on his tongue reminds him that he's not as numb as he believes he is. There's a starbucks across, but his guide had insisted that he try the local place. Been around since forever and still hasn't closed. Apparently it has surprisingly good prices too.

"Green tea for Reid?"

Spencer turns around at his name, watching as you step past him to grab the drink.

The words come out before he can think.

"You're buying your tea now?"

You freeze up in place.

"Latte with vanilla for Reid?" The barista raises a brow.

"That's me." He takes it, staring down at you as you stay still. "Talk to me."

"I don't see what there is to talk about."

"You hide behind a false wall of bitterness mirroring how I hid behind science and logic to not need to face how stupidly in love with you I was." Spencer swallows. "We both know there's stuff to talk about."

You blink up at him, raising a brow.

"Did Penny send you?"

"She suggested the university, yes. But a professor had reached out—"

"Then there's no need to talk about it. You'll go back to your job in a few days—"

"Twenty five."

You raise a brow.

"Twenty-five days." He swallows. "I… went to jail, and as an exchange for taking me back, I have to take a sabbatical for thirty days every now and then."

"And you decided all thirty days here was the move?"

"Garcia did."

and when he senses the pause you want to slip from, he speaks again.

"I know you're bitter about how horribly I treated you when I was calling Maeve three times a week and almost always on a case, and no, I don't expect you to forgive me or anything, but I miss you. I really do miss you."

"Oh, look at that. Doctor Spencer Reid using pathos." You mumble, checking your watch.

Spencer catches the familiar glisten of your ring.

"Listen. You can act like you moved on and no longer care about me all you want, but I think you know deep down that you're still clinging onto bits of me that I left behind, and the ring and your name is no coincidence—"

"Doctor Spencer Reid." You glare. "I don't appreciate being profiled like that."

He stops, clenching his fist as he stares down at you.

"I'm no different."

Your eye finds the ring on his finger, and you sigh.

"I hope you have fun here, and if the universe wills, may we meet again."

"And if I force it?"

You stare up at him.

"I think I know—"

"I don't know, Doctor Reid. I might just have to kick you out for it."

There's no real malice in your words, Spencer finds. There never has been, and he's almost comforted to find that even after all this time, you're the same as ever. The constant of your existence and the growth of you as a person. You dress warmer now and there's not an ounce of unhappy exhaustion on your face, and it almost feels like it's alright. You're doing wonderful on your own, all without ever needing to rely on him.

But he's grown too, he supposes. Years ago, the stubble on his face would have bothered him. A breeding ground for germs that have more "if's" than letting it be. The scar on his thigh from a blade in prison, and then bullet wounds all over. Bruises that he would have never got back when you were still with the team. In a way he's grown after being away from you too, and maybe it would be better if you both just grew on your own, but it doesn't. He doesn't want it to be.

"Tomorrow at Four in AERL 210." You grumble, but Spencer finds the ghost of a smile on your face.

"I love you." He hums, eyes full of affection.

The way you turn back to frown playfully tells him everything he needs to know.

And the tension is gone, he thinks.

In a way maybe you're resentful of him, but he's found that time's changed him beyond recognition. He doubts you had expected him to look the way that he did. There's a mess in his hair and a unclean look that you had always joked about him growing into one day, and maybe it's a testament to how well you knew him emotionally. The same way he knew how your brain moved and operated and not your heart.

but that was what made the two of you work so well. to know the part of someone that they themselves did not know as well. It was a testament of some kind.

to be vulnerable enough with someone that they know you better than you do yourself.

he wonders how you ever found it in yourself to forgive him of his crime, but perhaps time has healed you — and he has no intention of undoing all of that healing. he'll leave you alone after the thirty days if that is what you wish for. he's not one to force himself upon you after all the harm he's done, after all. he's shattered beyond repair, and you were not quite there to fix him up this time. he owes a lot of his life to you, he supposes.

it also amuses him that somehow you had written letters to his mother as well, telling her how you've been. he didn't know why he didn't search there, but when he had visited her after jail, she had told him about some professor writing her letters about her works and how wonderful her son was. it warmed his heart, after all. maybe he didn't know it was you, but it only made sense that it would be. after all, there is something only you would do that no one else would. he doesn't deserve you, in many cases. but ultimately you are the one who gets to decide.

He arrives twenty minutes before lecture with a cup of green tea for you, and you hand Spencer a clicker and a pack of pop rocks before telling him to file through the slides. He listens, and you tell him he'll be lecturing since you'd rather wring his brain dry when you can spare teaching. It's an excuse, he knows, because you'd never do anything to harm him, but you might joke about it. He finishes the slides in three, and he asks if there's anything else he should talk about (you tell him no— and when the class files in, you have a hand on his shoulder and a look on your face that can really only mean one thing.

"Class, meet my husband."

Emily Brontë once wrote “He is more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be, and if all else remained, and we were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger. He’s always, always in my mind; not as a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”

and spencer knows, somewhere an english teacher is rolling in their grave crying that it was never meant to be taken in the context of romance — catherine and heathridge were raised siblings, after all. but he supposes that finding a love where your soul's at rest needs not to be forcibly romantic for everyone.

It just so happens that his was.

[timetravellingshinigami]

Imagine a secret society like the Bene Gesserit but in the COD universe (in reality there are secret societies so it would be realistic that that would exist in COD too).

They are in the shadows. With superhuman powers and planning and scheming. Most people don't know about them not even many of the higher ups.

But the Bene Gesserit plans mess up and there's a rebellion in their ranks.

The rebels let the world know...

The Task Force 141 and Shadow Company get involved.

[meowrimo]

this is me when i come online but have nothing to say

[delphi-shield]

my fave thing is seeing people describe raccoon city as a huge city and it's like. that is a town with a population of 100k. i understand the portrayal is wack but literally it's a town of 100k people.

that is, at best, a mid-size town. they got lucky and were selected as a pilot program for a subway system that never got rolled out to the rest of the us because our infrastructure is garbage. umbrella put their lab there BECAUSE it's unassuming. everywhere we walk through in re2 and re3? that's just downtown. the rest of the city doesn't look like that. it's wide roads and cospes of businesses. chris leans over jill's desk in the morning and asks, "did you see they're building something on the corner of north and main?" and jill doesn't even look up because "it's probably another bank."

when rebecca, fresh out of college, selects STARS out of all the organizations vying for her talent, people scratch their heads. she could be living somewhere much more glamorous. somewhere you don't have to drive 45 minutes to find something to do. but rebecca sees potential in everything. she's got a real sixth sense for when a place is about to blow up.

[ladamedusoif]

Hi! I've just read 20/20 and it's so good👓

May I just say that I admire the way you write not only in general, but also that you write Pedro characters fanfiction without massive age gap? I like those too, but god, there are tons of it and it became sooo hard to find Joel (bc 80% of age gap fics is about Joel) being happy with a woman of his age.

I happen to think more and more lately that older women seem more real, thus more interesting to read - young girls are all pretty with their sexy young bodies, etc., and the older you get, the more insecurities you have, and you believe somebody like Joel or Ben has plenty of options when in fact they probably want somebody to feel comfortable with, somebody who they can laugh with *looks at Lydia*

I guess, sometimes young reader is too perfect. How could real person like me ever compete with that? Imperfect characters are comforting and real (they suffer to make us feel better, they're our heros) and they evoke real feelings, you care about them. That's why I love to read non-age gap work when I see one.

Anyway, sorry for rambling, thank you!!🤍

*throws hearts at you and running away*

First, thank you so much for the lovely words about my writing! Here are some hearts in return: 💜💜💜

Honestly, this kind of ask means the world. I’m so grateful and so honoured.

A warning: this will be a long answer. Sorry!

I genuinely felt emotional when I read your words about my decision to write in a way that is either no/minimal age gap or where the reader’s age isn’t specified (because this is possible, and is arguably far more inclusive for reader insert). I particularly like that you’ve chosen to focus on why older OFCs/reader characters are more interesting, rather than on the extreme age gap trope.

I can’t deny that the age gap trope is the dominant one in this fandom’s fic at the moment - most obviously for Joel, but also for other characters. And I sometimes wonder if Visiting would have more notes and engagement if Lydia was a student, not Ben’s contemporary and perfect equal - intellectually, emotionally, in every way.

But as you say: Lydia has a life, has lived, and is imperfect physically and emotionally, like us all. She’s interesting for all those reasons, and more. That’s why Ben is drawn to her, and she to him. (I sometimes wonder how people would feel if the age gap trope was reversed, with a much older OFC paired with a younger P boy…)

This is also why characters like @fuckyeahdindjarin’s Cee and Sugar, in Seams and Palomino respectively, or @lunapascal’s Andie in Curls, or @julesonrecord’s Eva in Shots, or @iamskyereads Beatrice in Compulsion, or the many other no age gap/no age specified characters and reader inserts in the fanfic are so gorgeously engaging. You get it - they’re real.

They’re not all thin, pert, visions of youth as beauty and beauty as youth. Ageing is a privilege, and it hurts me, really and truly, to see the implication that only youth is attractive in so much of the fanfic in a fandom dedicated to a man who has aged so beautifully.

I know people who have been subjected to anonymous abuse over this issue, which insists they’re just angry old women because “hot celebs won’t fuck you”.

I’m passionate about this for all sorts of reasons. I am more than a little unsettled by the vision of Joel, in particular, as exclusively attracted to much, much younger girls. I sometimes feel that some of the explanations for why age gap is good or better are somewhat problematic (that’s just my opinion, before anyone yells at me, but it’s rooted in experience and the fact that I work with many college-aged people and know the consequences of the age gap fantasy when it hits reality). And there are broader implications for the message being sent to younger readers about ageing, attraction, and female sexuality, which my feminist brain is furious about.

Finally, I am struck by the fact that we often see posts about how the fic world is a broad tent, and that there’s room for everything. Yet when people ask for more fic that doesn’t repeat the age gap trope, or some of us write fics that explicitly avoid that, there’s a reaction against that.

Sigh. You see why you didn’t need to apologise for rambling, for I am a rambling Rose, and endlessly grateful for your kind words and wonderful support. Here’s to a more diverse menu of fic on the dash - the tide does seem to be turning. You may have seen the post that’s been doing the rounds where @tessa-quayle has very helpfully compiled a list of fic that doesn’t involve an age gap or DBF/daddy thing - it’s really good on the need for more diverse reading.

PS: a more general query for the dash: is this such a massive trope in other 40-something male actor fandoms??

[scary-grace]

I don’t think I’m particularly qualified to give writing advice, but I can’t stress enough the importance of every so often writing garbage that’s just for you to read.

[stargazer-dreamer]

🌟Stargazer-Dreamer Masterlist🌟

those with ✨ indicate my personal favorites

those with ⚪ indicate that it is NOT a reader insert

🚀Cowboy Bebop🚀

Spike Spiegel

Types of Kisses Gift Giving ✨Sterile ✨Lighthouse ✨/r/SpikeSpiegel A Trip to the Cinema ✨Sleeping Doggy Dog Love Me Not [ao3 link] ✨Cheesy Come, Cheesy Go Shark Week ⚪Spike, in the Mornings Kiss the Cook(s) Cowboy Caregiver ✨Erratum Discussions [ao3 link] Interlining Dilemmas Bedroom Funk Vicinity The Most Magical Place on Mars ✨In Comfort; Let Me Rest My Eyes Closed [ao3 link] ✨Futile [ao3 link]

Jet Black

Love A Bit Rough In Which You Haven't Kissed the Cook (Yet) Kiss the Cook(s)

Vampire Money (Vampire Spike AU)

What's Life Like, Bleeding on the Floor? [ao3 link] ⚪✨I've Really Been on a Bender and It Shows [ao3 only] These Eyes Have Had Too Much to Drink Again Tonight [ao3 link]

Cotard and I Alone (Spike Spiegel/Grim Reaper Reader AU)

✨Dedicated Life [ao3 link] Cracking Visions [ao3 link] Attuned Inside [ao3 link]

🏴‍☠️One Piece🏴‍☠️

Trafalgar Law

Heart in Time

Roronoa Zoro

Swordplay Lost Little Marimo

🔮Black Clover🔮

StopRewind (Yami Sukehiro/Rookie Magic Knight Reader)

✨I've Been Told So Many Stories of Adventure, Power, and Glory [ao3 link] It's on the Tip of My Tongue [ao3 link]

💯Mob Psycho 100💯

Misapprehension (Meeting Reigen on a Dating App)

✨Ghostbox [ao3 link] Spiritbox [ao3 link]

🥊Boku no Hero Academia🥊

Hawks

With Hawks ✨Frivolities [ao3 link]

[shhh-secret-time]

My laptop charger finally died 🤘😔 but the new one should be coming in tomorrow!

So I wasn't able to finish my next request today I'm sorry! I've been really excited about this one for a while now, I know I say that about all of them! But like always, please look forward to it!

Oh real quick. Do me a favor? Go drink some water and do some stretches. If you have medication and need to take them, do that too! I love you!!

[howdidigetbacktowritingwhat]

hiii i want you to know i just consumed the entire fic and all your art so far and im obsessed. any chance you're willing to feed me a few crumbs :3

hiii anon i also want you to know that this was the final pushing point that helped me push through finishing the next chapter <3/gen/pos

SIX

[direwombat]

they say "write what you know" and brother. apparently i'm gonna be unpacking some shit in a reader-insert fic of all things

[vivisols]

me when I come up with the greatest fucking idea ever but its too entwined in my oc nonsense to be applicable to a y/n fic

[viperwhispered]

The Ones from the Scalding Sands

One of my pieces for the @hesperious-sands zine!

Something a lil different from what I usually write - a nice exercise of the writing muscles in other words.

What should one say of the Scarabia dorm? How could one describe that which makes the dorm what it is? 

One could talk about the locale itself - the pocket dimension where the members of the dorm  reside, beyond the Hall of Mirrors.

One could talk about the shifting sands, the dunes that pile high right outside the ramparts and the rocky outcroppings. The growing things, the lonely palm trees, perhaps some scurrying critters. The things that live and thrive despite the harshness of their surroundings – and the things you'll do well to be careful not to trample underfoot.

Yet, even in this kind of environment, there are havens. The invigorating oasis among the dunes, surrounded by lush greenery. The dorm buildings themselves, made to provide shelter from the elements – no matter how relentless the surroundings may be.

One could talk about the ornate beauty of the dorm's construction. The white walls that gleam in the sun, their thickness keeping at bay both the burn of the day and the chill of the night. The bulbous red domes that rise high above, inlaid with glittering gold. The slender towers that reach high to the clear blue skies, striking beacons amidst the yellow-brown sands.

One could talk about the path that takes you to the courtyard like a red carpet. The open halls around the courtyard, with their vaulted openings that are lined with yet more gold. The large fountain, a solace in the arid landscape. Beyond it all, a pair of imposing doors, large enough to accept a whole contingent at once.

All of which is here to tell you of the majesty of this place – and of the wealth behind its construction.

In short, one could talk about the dorm which is a warm and clear-skied refuge, even when the campus itself is in the throes of the coldest island winter.

One could also talk about the students. Of course, the dorm would be nothing without the people that it is made of.

And what students they are. 

One could talk about how they embody the mindfulness of the Sorcerer of the Sands, how they tend towards careful deliberation. How they form a group with shining, applied intellect, known throughout the campus to be among the best when it comes to testing their knowledge. 

One could talk about how so many of them are capable of looking to the stars for guidance, of divining what is coming their way. How, in them, the spirit of Night Raven College joins with the legacy of the Sorcerer of the Sands – how they’re proud as any other students on campus, but not ones to act rashly and without considering their options.

And, in talking about the members of the dorm, one would be remiss not to consider their leaders. The pair that guides the rest of the crew, and who are so intrinsically tangled with each other.

One, bright as the sun, relentlessly shining no matter what comes his way. The other, catching what slips through the cracks, keeping the wheels in motion.

One, welcoming you with wide arms, handing out both treasures and light words with the same easy measure. One who's born to such comfort, yet wants to ease the loads of others. One who's not without his troubles, but chooses to look past them – no matter what it takes. One who will not allow himself anything less than thriving, no matter the harshness of his surroundings.

The other, filing away your dangers and weak points alike, only allowing you closer after a thorough vetting. Who keeps his cards close to his chest, yet conceals such passion behind the constraining mask. Whose mind is always working, preparing for every probable and improbable scenario. Who may well have been trampled underfoot far too many times, his sufferance long since run out.

One could talk about how the pair has been bound together since childhood, tangled in a web of expectations neither of them can easily leave. How they know each other better than anyone else does – yet perhaps not well at all.

One could talk about how they both look after the other, as misguided and throttling as it may be. How each tries to direct the other to better things, to paths neither of them chose.

After all, who truly is leading – the master or the servant? 

Which one of them is the driving force, which the guiding hand? Who gets whatever he wants, who is there to always rein the other in?

Who is carrying the weight of them both – and who is taking them wherever he wishes, no matter the guidance he receives?

Who is the one dependent on the other? Who doesn't dare let that change?

Who's at the center of the galaxy – and who's trying to break away from their orbit, as impossible as it may seem?

Tag list:

@colliope @crystallizsch @diodellet @jamilsimpno69 @jamilvapologist

@lex752 @perilous-pasta @twstgo @moonyasnow

[actual-changeling]

In the spirit of encouraging people to comment on fanfics while also making it easier to do so, I feel obliged to share a browser extension for ao3 that has quite literally revolutionized the comment game for me.

I present to you: the floating ao3 comment box!

From what I've seen, a big problem for many people is that once you reach the comments at the bottom of a fic, your memory of it miraculously disappears. Anything you wanted to say is stuck ten paragraphs ago, and you barely remember what you thought while reading. This fixes that!

I'll give a little explanation on the features and how it works, but if you want to skip all that, here's the link.

Edit: Yes, this also works on mobile!

The extension is visible as a small blue box in the upper left corner.

(Side note: The green colouring is not from the extension, that's me.)

If you click on it, you open a comment box window at the bottom of your screen but not at the bottom of the fic. I opened my own fic for demonstrative purposes.

The website also gives explanations on how exactly it functions, but I'll summarize regardless.

insert selection -> if you highlight a sentence in the fic it will be added in italics to the comment box

add to comment box -> once you're done writing your comment, you click this button and the entire thing will automatically copied to the ao3 comment box

delete -> self explanatory

on mulitchapter fics, you will be given the option to either add the comment to just the current chapter or the entire fic

The best part? You can simply close the window the same way you opened it and your progress will automatically be saved. So you can open it, comment on a paragraph, and then close it and keep reading without having the box in your face.

Comments are what keep writers going, and as both a writer and a reader, I think it's such an easy way of showing support and enthusiasm.