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reidsplain-to-me · 3 months ago

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a light in the dark

summary: Sometimes, the darkness of a case follows Spencer home. This time, he looks to you for help banishing it.

pairing: spencer reid x reader

genre: hurt/comfort

wc: 3.7k

cw: off screen child death, mentions of gun violence, vague case details, spencer crying, the weight of the job

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

You never sleep well when Spencer’s away on a case. This thing between you is too new for you to be settled into the anxiety of knowing he’s out there in the field, miles away from where you can reach.

You’ll get used to it. You can tell by the way the knot of anxiety has shrunk in your throat, noticeable even after only three months of the ever-changing routine. But for now, you sleep lightly, as if keeping one foot in consciousness might help ensure his safe return to you.

It must be that lightness that lets you sit up in bed, phone pressed to your ear before the second ring has finished sounding in the silence of your bedroom.

“Spence? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” It comes out in a breathless rush, the words tripping over themselves on the way out. Your heart beats loud and frantic in your chest and your hand shakes on its way to flick on the lamp nestled on your night stand.

“No, no, I’m okay. Sorry, I know it’s late.” The cadence of Spencer’s voice over the static convinces your heart to soften its gallop. A relieved sigh slips past your lips before concern starts to creep in once more.

You pull your phone away just long enough for the screen to flash up at you. He’s right, it is late. Or, early rather.

It isn’t unusual for Spencer to operate in a different time zone when he’s away. It’s even less unusual for him to lose track of any semblance of time when he’s trapped in the spiral of crime scene photos and searches for a pattern. Only, Spencer is considerate to a fault. His mind moves fast, always four moves ahead, and nine times out of ten, he’s already considered where you are, what you’re doing, what he might interrupt, before he calls.

You shake your head, adamant despite him being miles away from seeing it. “You can always call me, you know that. I don’t care what time it is, Spence.”

There’s a beat of quiet down the line, a moment where all you can do is drink in the sound of his breathing. Then, ever so softly, you ask, “Are you okay?”

His draw of breath is an audible thing. One that shakes. One that forces him to clear his throat before he risks speaking again. “There was a break in the case. We just touched down a few minutes ago.”

“You’re home?” The relief of it is almost enough to overpower the sense that something’s wrong. Almost.

“Do you think… Would it be okay if I stopped by? I was going to wait until the morning to try to see you, but I—”

The words are weighted, bogged down with a layer of water you’ve never heard from him before. It’s enough to crack your heart. “Spencer, baby, stop. Of course you can come over. You can always come here. Always.”

Another sniffle of air, another crack spider-webbing through your chest. “I won’t stay too long. I’ll be quick.”

“You can stay as long as you want. Stay the night, if you want. I have the whole weekend free.”

“Yeah?” His voice sounds so small. It’s frayed at the edges and bubbling with so much vulnerability that you forget for a moment, in the way you often do when it’s just you and Spencer, that this is a man that has faced down the embodiment of evil and walked away more times than you care to consider. You forget all the qualifications and hours spent in a shooting range. You forget all the lives he’s saved, and the ones he’s taken.

Right now, the only thing he is is yours—yours to comfort, yours to protect in whatever infinitesimal way you can.

“Yeah,” you assure once more. “Come over. I’ll leave the door unlocked for you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” you echo, and the rest of it is right there. The rest of it would be so easy to let loose. A careful string of eight syllables neither of you have put into words quite yet. But that isn’t what Spencer needs right now. “Be safe. I’ll see you soon.”

Your body moves on autopilot the minute the call closes out. You peel yourself out of bed, not bothering to straighten out the layers of soft blankets and warm sheets. Your bare feet find their way into your slippers. They pause only long enough to slip into the cavern of pink fluff before they’re shuffling forward.

You make your way through your apartment, flicking on lights as you go, making a detour to unlock the door before circling back to the kitchen. Still, you barely register any of it.

Your mind is too caught up in the tornado of concern your thoughts keep circling around. You’re no stranger to the “What If” game. You’ve heard too many stories, read too many tales not to catastrophize. Spencer could be hurt, or had to watch as a member of his team, his family, got hurt. The unsub could’ve gotten away, and killed an agent, or two, or three, on their way out.

“Stop it.” The words to yourself, spoken in the stillness of your kitchen, aren’t harsh. They’re simply a reminder, a tether back to shore. Because this won’t help Spencer. This isn’t what Spencer needs. And he’s trusting you to be what he needs tonight. It’s not a responsibility you intend on taking lightly.

The long drag of air you take in is cool, grounding in its crispness. You square your shoulders and throw your hair up into a bun before setting to work. And it comes more easily after that, quieting your mind in favor of ensuring this place Spencer has chosen as his safe haven provides everything he needs.

You light a candle, the one with the subtle notes of parchment and tobacco that Spencer liked enough to buy a matching jar for his own apartment, while you wait for a pot of water to boil. You toss in some noodles and double back towards your bedroom while they cook.

Spencer has a drawer in your dresser. It wasn’t really something that was discussed or decided. More something that just happened—another piece of the puzzle slotting into place. The same way that a tin of Spencer’s favorite tea has become a permanent fixture in your cabinet. The same way a bottle of your shampoo has set up constant residence on the shelf in his shower.

Your hands make quick work of pulling out a pair of worn flannel pajama pants and Spencer’s favorite long sleeve Caltech t-shirt. You set the pile neatly at the edge of the bed, easy for him to find.

The rest comes together quickly—the filling of the kettle and switch on the burner, the drain of pasta water and stir in of sauce. You’re pulling out Spencer’s favorite of your mugs—the one spattered with constellations against a mosaic of dark blues and purples—when you hear the front door open.

When you find Spencer, he’s toeing off his Converse in the entryway, letting his satchel fall onto the floor beside them. It takes a second for his eyes to find you—another telltale sign of something being off. Even from the first time you met, both hands reaching for the same sugar-ladden coffee passed across the counter by a barista, there’s been a careful sense of attunement in each move Spencer makes.

It’s unsettling, seeing him stripped bare of something you’ve come to understand as an intrinsic cornerstone of the way he interacts with the world. That unease only gains weight in your chest the longer you catalogue the view of Spencer in front of you. There’s tension singing in every line of his body, a rigidity where his shoulders would normally slump. He looks pale, more pale than you’ve ever seen him. And his eyes… God, his eyes. The soft, whisky hue has muddled down to something darker, made darker still by the purple shadows streaked underneath.

He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. And it breaks your resolve entirely.

“Oh, Spence,” you mutter in a barely-there hush, already moving to step in close.

Relief paints itself over his features the second your voice pulls him out of his thoughts. He tries for a smile, but it won’t meet his eyes. You don’t hold it against him. You only step across the final few feet separating you and wind your arms around his neck.

He’s around you in an instant, tall frame folding down to duck his face into the crook of your neck. His own arms band around your waist, pulling you in impossibly close.

It’s not all that different than how he normally holds you. But it’s tighter, more desperate than you’re used to. He still pulls in a deep breath of your perfume, the way you’ve come to expect. Only this time, you can hear the way it wavers, shaking and unsteady.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re home. I’m right here.”

He nods into your skin, arms tightening just a fraction more. He doesn’t pull away. Neither do you. You let him hold you, and you let your hand fall to card through his disheveled mop of curls. You let your nails skate against his scalp in feather-light circles. And you wait.

It’s long minutes before Spencer speaks, and even then, it’s quiet. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” You match his volume, nearly whispering, like you’re children trading secrets under the blanket long after you should’ve been asleep. “I’m getting more used to it, you being away. But I feel like I can finally catch my breath once you’re back.”

He lifts his head and loosens his grip. Still, he doesn’t let you go too far. He pulls back just enough to press a soft kiss to your forehead and murmur against your skin, “I know the feeling.”

Your hands fall to his tie, already set askew where it peaks above his sweater vest. Your fingers move on instinct. They fiddle with the silken material until it’s loose enough to reveal the button at his throat. You slip it through its hole and christen the skin underneath with a quick kiss.

“Have you eaten?” You already know he hasn’t, but you ask it anyway.

Your voice carries the same tone it always does; it’s something light-hearted and eager, tinged with adoration at the edges. It’s an intentional choice not to let the concern seep through to taint the words, an effort to keep it corralled. You do it anyway.

He’s not ready to talk about it, whatever ‘it’ is. Not yet anyway. There’s a reason he’s here, standing in your apartment and not in the comfort of his own, You haven’t had enough time to learn everything that has made Spencer into the man he is today. But you know enough. You know just how much of his life he’s spent alone, and you know that now, he craves company in equal measure as he needs the solitude he's grown so accustomed to. You know how much he revels in the idea of belonging to something normal.

And so, you’ll be that. An oasis of perfect, ordinary normalcy for him to shelter in, regardless of what he faced in the field.

“No, not in a while,” Spencer admits.

You tangle your fingers into his and pull him gently. He follows without question, only squeezing softly while you lead him into the kitchen.

“I had a craving for pasta. Want some?” It’s not exactly the truth. Shockingly, you don’t have much of an appetite at three a.m.. But you know Spencer, and you know the best chance of getting something into his stomach is making yourself a bowl too.

You don’t give him a chance to answer before you pull two bowls down and start spooning out noodles. Over your shoulder, you can see Spencer settling down into one of the chairs at the island. Except, he doesn’t start talking the way you’ve grown accustomed to once he finds his way home.

He doesn’t tell you everything after a case. Even if confidentiality and ethics didn’t play a part, there are moments from each case that you know Spencer has no interest in revisiting. Still, there are pieces he always recounts with you—the most compelling tiles that construct the mosaic. The way they look disjointed until they come together into one clear picture.

Tonight, he doesn’t say anything.

So, instead, you talk for him. You fill the quietness of the room with soft anecdotes about your 9 to 5. You fill him in on the senseless drama floating around the office and the fires you’ve had to put out while he’s been away. You slide into the chair next to him, close enough for your knees to brush, and you tell him about the novel you’ve started reading in between bites.

All of it is entirely foolish in the grand scheme of what you know he must’ve been doing the past few days. But Spencer doesn’t act like it’s silly. He doesn’t treat it like it’s any less riveting than the literature he pores so attentively over. He watches you while you speak and nods to let you know he’s listening. He asks you questions like he’s invested, and the best part of it is that you know he actually is. And fraction by fraction, you watch the way your words start to anchor him back to himself.

He doesn’t eat much at the start. But the longer you talk, the more small smiles you manage to tug across his lips with your dramatic flair, the easier it seems to come. He starts to feel just a little bit less further away, and by the time you make it into bed, you think he might finally be close enough to let you inside.

You leave the string lights draped above your bed flicked on to break through the darkness of the room, and under their gentle glow, you map out the panes of Spencer’s face. The pad of your thumb skates down the ridge of his nose, charters the gentle valley of the divot above his lip, memorizes the arc of his brow and subtle rise of his cheekbone.

His lashes, long and dark, cast a ray of shadow down when his eyes flutter shut. And he’s beautiful like this. Heartsick and haunted under the surface, but still so beautiful in the dim glow and wrapped in your sheets. He turns into your palm, consecrates the skin there with a kiss, and then he’s looking at you.

Even in the darkness, his eyes look glassy. Tired and red. But under that, there’s a layer of surrender. And then, ever so softly he says, “I couldn’t save her.”

It’s heavy. So, so heavy in the air. There’s no denying the waver in it, the tinge of pain that creeps in to vignette the edges. Your throat burns in answer, but you swallow down the tightness. You don’t let your fingers stop their gentle motion. You carry on the brush of messy hair away from his forehead.

“It’s not your fault, Spence.” You keep your voice quiet, but there’s conviction lacing the words. Enough that there’s no room left to argue or doubt. “You did everything you could.”

“I know,” his voice wobbles, the way it does when he’s fighting off tears, “I know we can’t save everyone. I just… I really thought I could talk him down.”

You’ve never seen him in the field, but you can picture it. Spencer with his quiet intensity and million mile an hour words. A faceless man beyond reason. The thunder crack of a gunshot. The thud of a body falling to the floor.

“Her birthday would’ve been next week. She would’ve been seven.”

And there, you can see that, too. The way each line of the file, each detail of what made this girl who she was, will be tattooed into the warren of his mind. The lone curse of his brilliance—an inability to forget.

There’s a quiet sniff, and then the dam breaks. The words pour out, along with the tears finally trailing down his cheeks. “She won’t get a chance to decide who she wants to be in the world, or travel to somewhere new. She won’t get to go to college, or get a job. She’ll never fall in love.”

It’s the last one that breaks you, tears of your own slipping from the corners of your eyes. You pull him closer in. You wrap an arm around his shaking shoulders and pull his face back into the sanctuary of your shoulder, and you hold him.

He comes apart slowly at first, with silent tears and shaky breaths. But then, his hands fist in the soft cotton of your shirt and he clutches on to you while his body heaves broken sobs. They rack his shoulders in juddering shakes and drench your skin with salt. Tears of your own fall to join the mix.

You hold on to one another, and you cry. You cry for the girl that was stripped of her chance to become someone, and the family that’s left to mourn her. You cry for the string of girls that came before her, and the ones that will suffer the same fate at different hands sometime, somewhere else in the world. You cry for Spencer, and the way you know that he will always feel there’s something he could’ve done differently, and the way he’ll never really forget.

Still, through your blurry eyes and iron coil throat, a mumbled litany falls from your lips. You murmur to him, hushed but firm, that you’re sorry. That it wasn’t his fault. That the world is awful, and cruel, and unfair, but he is good. That he makes it better every day he exists in it.

It takes a long time for Spencer’s cries to calm enough for your words to sink in, but eventually they do. You watch the way he melts into them and the way your voice brings him back into his body once more. His eyes stay glassy and red, but the moisture in them dries.

His mop of curls, frizzed from the relentless paths your fingers have forged, finds its way to his own pillow. But he doesn’t pull his hands from the tangle of your clothes, and his eyes never stray from yours.

“Do you remember when I told you about Gideon?” His voice sounds scratched raw, even in the whisper he gives you.

You skate the back of your hand up and down the column of his throat like you might be able to soothe the chafe left behind even through the skin. “The mentor that recruited you from the academy, right?”

You don’t say the last part, “The one that left.” You don’t need to. You already know that’s where Spencer’s mind has gone.

“I never used to understand how he could walk away.”

You study him for a long beat, the exhaustion weighing him down, the toll of the job that sometimes lingers no matter what he does to banish it. “And now?”

Spencer draws in a deep breath. He shakes his head, not bothering to lift it from the pillow. “Now, sometimes, it’s all I think about.”

You nod your head in answer. Your fingers push a strand of hair away from his eyes. “Do you want to know what I think?”

One of his hands finally falls from its grip. Instead, it finds yours. His palm, broad and warm and steady, slots into place against yours. “Please.”

“I think after everything you see, all the evil you watch unfold, I would worry if you didn’t think about leaving sometimes.”

A great breath falls from his lips, and with it his shoulders deflate. In relief, you realize with a start.

You aren’t a profiler, not even close to it. But you can see Spencer with crystalline clarity in this moment, under the sheen of amber light and the weight of the tears shed. “You look into the face of the worst that humanity has to offer everyday, Spence. No one expects you to be unaffected. It doesn’t make you weak, or a bad agent. It just makes you human.”

Spencer’s eyes drop down to where your fingers tangle together. This thumb casts slow arcs across the back of your hand, and then he gives a gentle squeeze.

“How do you do this?” His eyes cut to yours. There’s still ghosts swimming around the tawny irises, but there’s a softness there, too. “How do you make even the worst days feel manageable?”

Your shoulder pulls up in a shrug. “I guess the same way you do for me. By being here.”

You’ve watched the way Spencer’s face transforms when he’s searching for answers. You’ve seen the look of consternation that furrows his brow and tilts the corners of his mouth down into the most minuscule of frowns. You’ve studied the way his eyes chart every detail he can find. He looks at you that way now, like somewhere in the tangle of your pillow-mussed hair or in the sleep-weary sheen of your eyes a new secret of the universe is carved.

You let him look, only giving a small smile in answer until he whispers, “How did I survive this long without you?”

Your breath stumbles in your throat, catching on its way down. There it is again, those three little words dancing at the tip of your tongue. But you can see the way exhaustion is finally starting to pull him under. He’s been through too much today, and those three little words will be no less true tomorrow, or the day after.

“I catch myself thinking the same thing about you everyday,” you admit with a sheepish smile. “But I don’t think it matters much anymore. We have each other now.”

“Yeah,” Spencer smiles, still quieter than normal, but still there, “We have each other now.”

It’s more than words spoken in a quiet room, or some salve to soothe the ache of the day. It’s an oath and a prayer curled into one. And when Spencer’s eyes finally fall shut beside you, breathing evening out to something steady, you know you’ll spend each day for the rest of your life making good on it.

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