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clementineinn · 3 days ago

Text

only heroes know

abstract: in the endless hum of the BAU, where cases blur into late nights and the weight of the world never quite lets go, friendship should be enough. but for spencer reid, it isn’t.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader (usage of Y/N)

genre: angst teehee

word count: 4.6k

note: basically emotionally avoidant yn and spencer who waits and waits until he can’t anymore! i am already drafting the second part to this, and it should be up, hopefully, soon, so bear with me as i evilly leave this open ended!! but don’t worry, i am quite literally incapable of actually writing a sad ending lol (for now…) big shoutout to radiohead, listened to their music while writing this to get in the angsty mood. do recommend listening to them while reading but who am i to say?? enjoy, my lovely, lovely readers, ily all <3 MWAH

The bullpen thrummed with its usual orchestra; the trill of phones, the clatter of keys, Morgan’s booming laugh as Garcia’s voice crackled through speakerphone. Rossi paced near the windows, a file open in his hand, muttering like the paper might argue back. The air smelled faintly of burnt coffee and printer toner, a cocktail everyone had long since stopped noticing, the background hum of their lives.

Spencer tried to anchor himself in the report spread across his desk, but his focus kept snagging to the left.

Y/N was losing a battle with her thermos, twisting at the lid with both hands, brow furrowed in fierce concentration. A streak of ink smudged across the side of her palm, a small evidence of the notes she’d been scribbling too quickly to care. He felt the corner of his mouth tug upward.

Of course, he’d seen this coming, though he always did. A second coffee — her exact order, two sugars, no cream — already sat on the edge of his desk, cooling slightly in the recycled air.

He rose before he could overthink it, setting the cup quietly beside her elbow.

She glanced up, suspicion playing at the corners of her eyes. “You keep this up, Reid, and I’ll start thinking you’re psychic.”

“It’s just pattern recognition,” he said, shoulders lifting in a careful shrug. “You always forget to refill your thermos on Wednesdays.”

Her laugh burst out quick and unguarded, filling the space between them. It tugged at something in his chest and held it there, sharp and sweet.

“You’re keeping a log of my caffeine habits? I should be flattered.”

“You should,” he murmured, almost too soft for anyone to hear.

But she heard. He knew it in the way her smile stuttered, not vanished, just faltered for a fraction of a second before she ducked her gaze. She wrapped both hands around the cup like its warmth could shield her from his.

Morgan’s voice cut across the bullpen, louder than necessary: “Reid, man, you spoilin’ her again? I can’t even get a text back, but you’re out here running a coffee delivery service.”

Y/N rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair, grin returning like armor. “Maybe you should try learning my order first.”

The bullpen chuckled. Rossi smirked knowingly over the top of his file. Spencer, cheeks burning, busied himself with the stack of reports in his hands, pretending he hadn’t been caught.

But before he could sit, her voice followed; softer, meant only for him. “Thanks, Spencer.”

He glanced back. She wasn’t looking at him, not directly; her gaze was fixed on the steam curling from the cup, as though it were easier to speak to that than to his face. But her hands cradled it like something precious.

And when she finally lifted the cup, eyes fluttering shut just briefly as she took the first sip, he allowed himself one small glance. The quiet satisfaction in her face spread through him like heat, and the warmth it sparked had nothing to do with coffee.

Later, as the bullpen emptied and the city outside blurred into headlights, she found him waiting by the glass doors.

“Walking me out?” she teased, tugging her coat tighter against the winter air.

“Parking lot lights are dim,” he said simply. “Safer this way.”

“You’d do this for anyone?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied, and then after a beat, softer: “But especially you.”

The words hung suspended between them, fragile as spun glass. She tipped her head, forcing a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “My hero. Come on, car’s this way.”

And so he followed, hands shoved deep in his pockets, the ache of unspoken things pressed close to his ribs.

Friday nights stretched long inside the BAU, the bullpen glowing like an aquarium under its tired fluorescents. The day’s noise had thinned to a low hum: Morgan calling “Don’t work too hard” as he vanished down the hall, JJ and Emily escaping in a tangle of laughter, Rossi pausing just long enough to toss a pointed “Go home” in Spencer’s direction before leaving him in the quiet.

But Y/N remained, shoulders hunched over her desk, pen tapping absently against a report she’d rewritten three times without realizing it. A doodle curled into the margin: a spiral she’d sketched half a dozen times, the ink pressed heavy into the paper.

Spencer lingered a few desks away, hands buried deep in his blazer pockets like he was working up courage. He shifted his weight, tried to look casual, failed. Finally, he drifted closer.

“You haven’t eaten,” he said, nodding at the granola bar lying untouched beside her files.

“Neither have you,” she countered, not lifting her gaze.

He hesitated, thumb rubbing against the inside of his pocket. “There’s a place around the corner. Good dumplings. I was going to stop by and… I thought maybe you’d come with me?”

Her pen stilled mid-tap. She looked up, one brow arching, a smile tugging at her lips. “Reid, are you asking me on a date, or just trying to keep me from keeling over?”

His ears went pink. “It’s better than working through dinner alone,” he said, too quickly.

She let the silence stretch, enjoying the way he squirmed under her gaze, before sighing with exaggerated drama. She slipped her coat from the back of her chair and shrugged it on. “Fine. But only because you bribed me with food.”

They ended up at his apartment, cartons spread across the coffee table in a precarious fortress of takeout. Towers of books leaned along the walls like watchmen, the air faint with old paper and tea leaves. The lamplight was warm, throwing soft gold across the curve of her smile as she fished for a piece of lo mein.

“You’ve read all of these?” she asked, gesturing toward a stack by the chair.

“Most,” he admitted, adjusting his glasses. “Some more than once. But I always think you’d like the ones I haven’t finished yet.”

Her chopsticks paused midair. “Why?”

“Because I want to tell you how they end.” His voice was earnest, guileless, like the thought had never once embarrassed him.

Her chest tightened. For a second she almost said something real — You make it sound so easy. Like choosing someone could be that simple. But the words tangled in her throat. She set her food down too quickly and forced a laugh. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

It came out softer than she meant, the kind of softness that gave her away.

He smiled faintly, as if he’d heard what she hadn’t said.

The night air was cold enough to sting when they finally stepped outside, their breath fogging in the glow of the streetlamps. She fumbled her keys with clumsy fingers, and when they slipped from her hand he bent quickly, catching them before they hit the pavement. Their fingers brushed, a fleeting spark.

She let out a laugh, shaking her head. “Careful, Reid. You’re going to give me the impression you’re always there to catch me.”

His mouth curved, faint and awkward. “Maybe I am.”

Her heart skipped. She rolled her eyes, trying to mask it with teasing. “Dangerous thing to promise.”

He hesitated, then shifted the keys in his hand before passing them back to her. His voice was quieter when he spoke again, almost like he couldn’t stop himself.

“You make this job easier.”

Her heart stuttered. She looked at him, really looked; the scarf curled at his throat, the way the light carved his profile, the honesty shining too raw in his eyes. For one dizzy second she thought about closing the distance, about finally speaking the words she’d swallowed too many times.

Instead, she slid the keys into her pocket. “Reid…” she began, then stopped.

For a moment they just stood there, breath fogging in the cold, his gaze steady on hers, like he was asking her to finish the thought, begging her to just say it. Her throat tightened. So she smiled instead, soft and practiced, pressing it over the ache.

“Goodnight,” she said lightly, as though nothing had passed between them.

His chest ached at the deflection, but he matched her softness anyway. “Goodnight.”

She lingered with the door half-open, her voice dropping to something almost shy. “Thanks for dinner.”

His answer came without hesitation, gentle and steady. “Anytime.”

And then she slipped into her car, leaving him rooted under the streetlight, the weight of all the words unsaid pressing close against his ribs.

The days had a way of blurring together at the BAU, with cases bleeding into reports, reports into late nights, until time felt more like a steady hum than something you could measure. And so, it was another night, the bullpen thinned by evening, the day’s chatter long since drained to silence. Fluorescents hummed overhead, a lonely echo.

Spencer was sliding reports into neat stacks when he felt it: her shadow leaning against the edge of his desk.

He glanced up, startled. She wasn’t looking at him, not directly. Her gaze was fixed on the corner of his blotter, her fingers toying absently with the cap of his pen.

“You fed me dumplings last week,” she said, her tone light, casual, though her shoulders were wound tight as wire. “So I figured I should return the favor.”

His brow knit. “You don’t—”

“Don’t argue, Reid.” Finally, she looked up, a quick flash of a smile that didn’t quite hide the faint pink in her cheeks. “My place. Tonight. I’m ordering too much takeout, and someone’s gotta help me eat it.”

Before he could reply, she was already straightening, reaching for her bag. But he caught the hesitation in her hands, the flicker of nerves she masked with movement.

“Okay,” he said, more quickly than he meant to. When she glanced back, her smile softened just a fraction, and then she turned, leading the way toward the elevators like it was nothing.

Her apartment smelled faintly of takeout and vanilla candles, softer than the sterile halls of Quantico. She’d kicked off her heels by the door, hair pulled loose from its pins, a blanket thrown haphazardly across the back of the couch. For once, she looked less like an agent and more like herself.

Spencer sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her, his carton of sesame noodles mostly untouched. She leaned back against the couch cushions, curled comfortably, chopsticks moving idly as she picked at her food.

“You’re not even eating that,” she said, nodding toward his carton.

“I was thinking,” he admitted, twirling the chopsticks between his fingers.

She gave him a faint smile. “Dangerous.”

He shot her a look, but it held no sharpness, only warmth. The kind of look that made her laugh without thinking, a soft, absentminded sound, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Then, realizing it, she shifted slightly, as though the air had thickened around them.

They talked for a while, voices weaving through small things: office gossip, her neighbor’s dog that barked at odd hours, the book she’d bought but hadn’t opened yet. It was easy, familiar — the kind of rhythm they could fall into without trying.

Then, somewhere between laughter and silence, the thread shifted.

Spencer set his carton aside, leaning back on his hands. “You know, you never finish your stories.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“You’ll start to tell me something, about college, or your family, or…” He shrugged, almost sheepish. “But then you cut yourself off. Change the subject.”

Her lips parted like she might argue, but no words came. So instead, she gave him a crooked little smile, trying for levity. “Please. You don’t really want to hear my oh so tragic backstory.” She said it with mock drama, even lifting her hand in a half-theatrical gesture, teasing, almost mocking herself.

But the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Because yes, parts of it were tragic, probably more than she ever let herself admit out loud. And pretending it was nothing was easier than watching the truth sink in.

She tipped her head, feigning casualness. “Honestly, it’d bore you to death. Trust me.”

Spencer didn’t let her have the reprieve.

“You’ve never bored me once,” he said quietly.

The silence stretched, heavier this time, and she felt it: the steady weight of his gaze, the way it pressed against the places she tried to keep hidden. Something in her throat tightened, sudden and sharp. She swallowed hard, the sound louder than she meant it to be in the hush of the room.

And then it slipped out before she could stop it, like she couldn’t keep them swallowed down, quiet and raw: “Not that it matters. I’m not exactly… the kind of person people stay for.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, her pulse lurched. She wished she could grab them back, shove them into the air between them before he had a chance to catch them.

But he had. His whole body stilled, chopsticks lowering slowly onto the carton.

He turned toward her, eyes steady, voice firm in a way that left no room for doubt. “You’re the kind of person I’d never want to leave.”

Her chest tightened so sharply it almost hurt. For a second, the hum of the refrigerator and the flicker of candlelight fell away, and it was just his eyes on hers, open and unwavering and entirely too much.

Her laugh came out too quick, too bright. “You say that now. Wait until I eat the last piece of cake or rearrange your bookshelves.”

But her gaze darted down, fixing on the rim of her carton. Her fingers tightened around it, as if looking at him too long might undo her entirely.

And then — the contradiction. She shifted her blanket so that a corner draped across his knee, a small, thoughtless gesture of closeness. When he glanced at it, at the way her warmth brushed against him, she froze. Pulled it back too quickly, muttering something about the draft in the room.

Spencer said nothing. He only watched her, the ache pressing at his ribs, the weight of everything she wouldn’t let herself believe.

And when he left, she lingered at the door longer than she meant to, fingers pressed to the knob as it clicked shut. For a fleeting second, she almost opened it again, almost called his name down the hallway.

Instead, she let the silence fill the space where her words should have been, her breath fogging faintly against the cool glass of the door.

The BAU library was a tomb at midnight. The rest of the building had gone dark hours ago, but here the yellow pool of a single lamp spread across the oak table, casting their papers into islands of light. Somewhere down the hall, the vending machine hummed, a lonely mechanical heartbeat.

Spencer’s pen scratched steadily across the page, neat as always. His focus should’ve been on the report, but out of the corner of his eye he kept noticing her, the way she pushed her file away with a quiet sigh, one meant for herself if only he wasn’t listening so hard, rubbing at her temple with ink-smudged fingers.

“You okay?” His voice was quiet, careful not to puncture the hush.

She gave a crooked smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Define ‘okay.’”

He set his pen down, leaning forward on his elbows. “Tired doesn’t count. You’ve been… quieter than usual.”

She let out a low laugh, soft but humorless. “Quieter than usual? That’s saying something.” She glanced down at her notes, then back at him. “You ever feel like everyone else is moving faster than you? Like you’re still… patching holes while they’re already sprinting ahead?”

He hesitated, then said, “Sometimes I feel that way too. Like everyone else already knows how to move through the world, and I’m still… catching up.”

She glanced at him, startled. For a second, she saw not the confident profiler, but the boy who had been younger, lonelier, always running a different race.

The empathy welled up before she could stop it.

“You’ve caught up just fine, Spencer.” The words slipped out soft, unthinking, more comfort than she meant to give.

His mouth twitched like he wanted to argue, but the steadiness in her voice left him quiet. The silence between them deepened, heavy but not uncomfortable, until she shifted in her chair, breaking eye contact with a shrug.

“It’s not a big deal. I’m just—” Her voice faltered. She pressed her thumb against the corner of a page until it bent, worrying at the paper as though she could wear the truth down into nothing. “See? Boring. Not exactly sparkling company.”

She meant it as levity, but it fell flat. The smile didn’t touch her eyes. And then, almost before she realized she’d said it, the words tumbled out, raw despite the armor she tried to wrap them in:

“I guess I still have some healing to do.”

The silence that followed was thick, fragile, as though the whole room was holding its breath. Her thumb worried the bent corner of her notes, the paper softening beneath the pressure. She wished she could grab the words back, shove them into the lamp’s pool of light and burn them away before he could catch them; she wanted to take it all back, again, to plaster over it with sarcasm, but then he spoke.

“You’re getting there, though.”

Simple. Certain. No hesitation. No pity. Just quiet belief, steady as breath.

Her eyes flicked up to his, wide, startled, almost stricken. She hadn’t expected him to catch her at this angle, hadn’t expected him to mean it. His expression was open, almost too much. Like he saw someone she couldn’t.

Something in her chest lurched. She gripped the edge of the table until her knuckles ached. For a fleeting moment, she wanted to reach out; to brush his sleeve, to let her hand anchor to his. Just something to hold herself steady.

Instead, she laughed too quickly, shaking her head. “Careful. You keep saying things like that and I’ll actually start believing you.”

Spencer’s lips curved faintly. “Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”

Her breath caught, hard enough to sting. Panic surged up before she could cage it, and the words tumbled out too raw, too revealing: “Don’t, Spencer. If I believe you, then I’ll want to—” She cut herself off, swallowing the end of it, horrified by how close she’d come. Her voice wavered as she forced a brittle laugh. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

But she’d already said too much. The truth hung between them, trembling in the lamplight, and she couldn’t take it back.

Her hands moved faster than her thoughts, gathering her papers in a clumsy stack. One sheet slipped free and fluttered to the floor, but she left it where it lay, staring anywhere but at him.

“I should… finish this before morning,” she said, her voice brisk, too brisk, already pushing back from the table.

She started toward the door, and for a second her shoulder brushed the air just above his, close enough she almost let herself graze him. Her hand twitched at her side, aching to catch on his sleeve, to say wait. But at the last moment she shoved it into her pocket, nails biting into her palm.

And then she was gone, footsteps fading down the hallway, perfume lingering faintly in the lamplight.

Spencer sat frozen long after the door swung shut. His pen lay idle. The chair across from him was empty, her warmth already leaching from the space.

He exhaled, breath fogging faintly in the chilled air, and wished, not for the first time, that she could see herself the way he did.

Time unfolded in small gestures.

In the mornings, when Y/N arrived at her desk, she would sometimes find a book waiting; either one she’d mentioned weeks ago, or one Spencer thought she might like. His narrow handwriting filled the margins, circling passages he wanted her to notice.

She teased him for it once, rolling her eyes. “You know there are easier ways to flirt, right?” she had said lightly, but when no one was watching she traced her finger over his notes, lips curving into a smile she wouldn’t let him see.

During long cases, when she got so buried in files she forgot to eat, he would slide a granola bar across the table, or half his sandwich. She muttered thanks, barely glancing up — but that next day, she came in early with two coffees. His order was wrong (three sugars, not two), and she downplayed it quickly: “Don’t get used to it.”

He smiled into the cup anyway.

On cold nights, when they walked through crime scenes under police floodlights, his hand hovered at the small of her back, never quite touching, but there if she needed steadying. And once, when her heel snagged in a sidewalk crack, he caught her arm before she could stumble.

“Careful,” he murmured, not letting go until she laughed and brushed him off, cheeks warm.

The next day, she returned the favor in her own awkward way — tugging his sleeve just before he stepped into traffic while rambling through a theory. “You’re going to spoil me,” she teased, echoing his own words. He flushed, and she covered her slip with a grin.

At night, when the bullpen grew still, he let her ramble about anything: the neighbor’s loud TV, the terrible takeout she’d ordered, the books she’d left half-finished. He listened with absolute attention, as if nothing mattered more than her voice.

Sometimes she caught him looking at her too long, expression open, unguarded, something in his eyes that made her heart stutter. And each time, she made a joke, threw a teasing jab, changed the subject.

But later, lying awake, she thought of the way his gaze had settled on her, steady as gravity. And for just a second, she let herself imagine what it might be like to fall into it.

Spencer never complained. He just kept showing up; quiet, patient, endless.

And though Y/N deflected, though she kept her distance, she felt the pull of him everywhere: in the books she left open on her nightstand, in the sweet coffee she drank anyway, in the space beside her where his steadiness lingered long after he’d gone.

The bullpen was nearly empty, washed in that strange in-between glow of midnight fluorescents. Case files lay scattered like the aftermath of a storm, the hum of the HVAC louder than it had any right to be.

Y/N sat at her desk, pen tapping against a half-finished report she hadn’t read in ten minutes. She told herself she was working, but really she was waiting — for what, she didn’t dare name.

Across the room, Spencer stacked the last of his files into a neat pile, movements deliberate, precise. She felt the shift before she even looked up: the air tightening, like he’d finally reached some quiet conclusion.

“You should go home,” she said, keeping her voice light, as if she hadn’t been watching him out of the corner of her eye all night.

“You should too.” His tone was even, but heavier than usual.

Her pen stilled. She looked up, and found his gaze already on her: steady, unguarded, almost unbearable.

For a heartbeat, she thought he might say it. That he’d break the fragile stalemate and drag all the unspoken words into the light. Her chest clenched, panic and longing colliding. If he did, she knew she wouldn’t be able to deflect, not this time.

So she smiled too quickly, voice tipping into something playful and brittle. “Don’t look at me like that, Reid. You’ll make me nervous.”

Something flickered in his expression, so fast she almost missed it — hurt, sharp as glass. He covered it quickly, shoulders straightening as he reached for his bag.

She wanted to stop him. The words burned on her tongue: Stay. I don’t want to go home without you. Her hand twitched, half-lifted as if to catch his sleeve. But she dropped it, nails, once again, finding their home and biting into her palm instead.

Spencer shrugged into his coat, every movement careful, restrained, like he was keeping himself from slamming the door shut. He lingered by his desk for a second longer, lips parting, the ghost of a confession on the edge of his mouth.

Then he closed it, gave her a faint, unreadable smile, and turned away.

The echo of his footsteps filled the bullpen, too loud in the cavernous quiet. The elevator chimed, doors sliding open. And then he was gone.

Y/N sat frozen, pen still clutched between her fingers, pulse thundering in her ears. The silence pressed hard against her ribs, unbearable.

Something inside her snapped.

She shoved back from her desk, the chair rolling into the wall with a thud, and bolted.

Her heels struck hard against the linoleum, each echo ricocheting down the empty hallway. The bullpen lights blurred behind her as she ran, her coat half-on, papers fluttering from her desk in her wake.

She could still hear the faint hiss of the elevator doors — closing, too fast, too final.

Her chest burned, heart hammering against her ribs as if it could break free and outrun her. For weeks she’d dodged, deflected, smiled when she meant to speak. And now the weight of it all pressed down at once, suffocating, impossible to carry.

She shoved through the glass doors, the night air slamming into her like a wall.

Cold bit deep into her lungs, breath spilling in frantic white bursts. The parking lot stretched before her, streetlights casting long halos across the empty asphalt.

“Spencer!”

Her voice cracked, sharp against the silence. Nothing answered. Just the low hum of the highway beyond, the restless rattle of winter wind.

She scanned the lot, chest heaving, vision blurring with tears she didn’t have time to blink away. His car space was already empty.

She pressed a hand hard to her chest, as though she could force her heartbeat to slow, to stop choking her. The world tilted, unsteady, with the weight of everything unsaid.

He’d once told her it was safer this way, walking her to her car under dim parking lot lights. She’d teased him for it, rolled her eyes like it was nothing. But nothing felt safe now. Not without him.

She thought of the night he’d blurted out that she made this job easier, his scarf loose around his throat, honesty shining too raw in his eyes. She’d laughed it off, too quick, too afraid. Now, standing in the cold, breath tearing through her lungs, everything felt impossibly harder without him.

All those mornings she’d ducked her head when he handed her coffee. All those nights she’d covered the ache in her chest with a joke, a deflection, a silence. She thought of the blanket she’d pulled back too quickly, the almost-touch she hadn’t let herself make. All the tiny ways she’d stopped herself, and now here she was, breathless and alone under the harsh wash of a streetlight.

Her breath fogged the air, uneven, frantic. She stood there, hair falling loose across her face, chest rising and falling like she’d been running for her life.

And maybe she had.

But the space around her was barren, the only warmth the fading imprint of his name on her lips.

When she whispered it again, softer this time, broken, the night swallowed it whole.

The world was silent but for her heartbeat, too late.

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clementineinn · 17 days ago

Text

in the time it takes to breathe

abstract: her love had been a low hum for so long, until the thought of him with another turned it into something that ached to be heard.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader (usage of Y/N)

genre: i guess a litttttle angsty but mostly fluff!

note: this is basically spencer goes on a date and reader is like oh ym god my life is over!!!! not that dramatic but i digress. thank the heavens for mazzy stars’ “blue light” because let me just say, i listened to that over and over and over until i was finally happy with this story. i think i’m slowly getting back into the groove of writing and not absolutely hating it?? so that’s like super duper cool. anyways, enjoy!! and please tell me ur thoughts, i love responding to comments and seeing how you guys interpret eeeee!!!! also, if u listen to a specific song while reading, DROP THAT TOO...IN THE COMMENTS (subscribe to my yt channel. jk), bc i’m nosy and sappy and want to know. mwah, love you.

Morning light dripped through the slats of the blinds, thin and honey-colored, laying quiet bars across the bullpen. The room hummed with its usual chorus: the soft skitter of files, the thrum of the printer, a phone ringing somewhere down the hall. Y/N stepped in with a paper cup warming her palm and that easy, absentminded sway she had when the day hadn’t decided what it wanted to be yet.

Morgan’s laugh reached her first. “Come on, man. Don’t act like you don’t know you’re pretty.”

Spencer sat at his desk with a book half-open and forgotten, shoulders bunched as if he could make himself smaller through sheer will. His ears were blushing a traitorous pink. The sight pricked something fond and painful in her chest.

“What are you teasing him about now?” Y/N asked, aiming for breezy as she set her coffee down. The steam veiled her face for a heartbeat, then cleared.

Morgan leaned back in his chair, grin razor-bright and harmless. “Pretty boy here went on a date.”

Spencer’s head lifted at once, as if tugged by an invisible string. His eyes found hers. Wide. Careful. Gauging. The way you look at the sky while you’re talking yourself out of believing it might rain.

Y/N’s throat tightened. She arranged her mouth around a smile and hoped it would hold. “Oh.” The word came out light as lint. “Was it fun?”

He nodded and started talking in that quick, earnest way that always made her want to listen closer. Dinner somewhere quiet. They’d wandered into a bookstore after. He’d recommended a collection of essays and she’d—

The rest blurred, a distant radio under water. Her own pulse drowned him out, heavy and insistent, like a fist knocking on bone. The smell of coffee suddenly turned metallic, and she could feel her heartbeat lifting the fabric at her collarbone.

Across the desks, Emily had already stilled. Their eyes met, and in Emily’s was the softest alarm. You okay? Y/N looked away too quickly. The motion tipped something inside her; she cleared her throat and it sounded like a small apology.

“Sorry,” she said, cutting across the conversation she’d stopped hearing. “I just remembered Garcia asked me to drop off some files. I should go do that before she sets my computer wallpaper to glitter skulls again.”

Morgan’s grin thinned with concern. “You good?”

“Totally.” She let her smile sharpen into something playful. “Be nice to him while I’m gone.”

Spencer’s fingers curled over the edge of his desk, knuckles pale. “Okay,” he said, simple and soft, and there was a question folded into it that she didn’t dare unfold.

She gave him the smallest smile she had left, then turned. The instant her back faced them, the smile fell. She swallowed against the ache climbing her throat and gathered a stack of folders that didn’t belong to Garcia at all. The bullpen air felt colder on the way out, as if she’d stepped from sun into shadow.

Behind her, voices resumed. Morgan said something wry. JJ’s chair creaked. Spencer, after a beat, added quietly, “She was really nice.”

Emily watched the doorway where Y/N had disappeared and didn’t answer. Her finger tapped once against her mug, like a silent metronome keeping time with the heartbeat of the person who wasn’t there to hear it.

Y/N walked the corridor with her eyes trained on the floor tiles, counting them as if numbers could tether her. Thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four. The sting at the rims of her eyes gathered, hot and bright. She blinked it back and fixed a gentler curve to her mouth for the elevator’s mirrored doors. When they opened, her reflection looked almost convincing: composed, professional, fine.

Only her hands gave her away, tightening around the files the way you hold a precious thing during turbulence, even when you know you’re not supposed to be afraid.

The elevator ride was short, but the silence inside it stretched like something that could tear if touched. She kept her gaze on the lit numbers, willing them to climb faster, willing her heartbeat to slow. It didn’t. The memory of Spencer’s eyes, that brief, searching flicker, still felt pressed into her, like fingerprints on skin.

Garcia’s office was all glow and warmth, soft lamps casting their golden spill over the chaos of her world: glittered frames, tangled cables, mugs that didn’t match. She was at her desk, typing in rapid bursts, a streak of coral on her lips and her glasses perched halfway down her nose. The moment she looked up, the clatter of keys stopped.

“Oh no,” she breathed. “What’s wrong, sugarplum?”

Y/N tried for a shrug, the kind that says it’s nothing, but Garcia’s gaze was unflinching — sharp and warm all at once. She’d known her too long. Y/N placed the stack of files on the desk and leaned against its edge, folding her arms like maybe they could hold her together.

“Nothing, I just…” Y/N trailed off, brows knitting, her mouth pressing into a thin line as if the act alone might hold back the sting in her eyes. Her voice dropped, almost a whisper. “Spencer went on a date.”

Garcia sighed softly, a sound threaded with sympathy, and rolled her chair forward until the gentle squeak of the wheels stopped just shy of Y/N’s knees. “Oh, sweetheart…” she said, her tone equal parts velvet and sunlight, the way she always knew how to be.

Y/N sniffled, her gaze fixed somewhere over Garcia’s shoulder. “Ugh,” she groaned, swiping at her nose with the back of her hand. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should be happy for him, right? I mean—he deserves someone. And instead I’m over here sulking like some… awful, selfish, bad friend.”

“Hey, hey,” Garcia said quickly, reaching out and curling her fingers around Y/N’s wrist. “You are not awful, selfish, or bad. You are a human being who cares very much about a very wonderful, very oblivious man.”

Y/N’s lips curved faintly despite the redness around her eyes. “Yeah.”

There was a beat of quiet, broken only by the faint hum of Garcia’s monitors. Garcia leaned back, eyeing her knowingly. “If this were a rom-com, this is the part where I’d orchestrate some kind of elaborate meet-cute to fix everything.”

Y/N huffed out a small laugh. “And if this were my life, you’d just hide me in the server room until I die of old age.”

Garcia grinned, giving her wrist a gentle squeeze. “Killer plan, sweetheart.”

Y/N’s answering laugh was small and choked, but it was there, breaking through her stuffy nose and tear-streaked cheeks. She looked over at Garcia, her expression soft and grateful. “Thanks, Pen.”

“Anytime, buttercup.” Garcia gave her wrist another squeeze before releasing it. “Now, do me a favor and take these files back to their rightful homes before they ruin the feng shui of my perfectly curated desk.”

Y/N smirked and scooped up the stack. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, sticking her tongue out for good measure.

“Wait!” Garcia called just as Y/N turned toward the door.

Y/N glanced back over her shoulder. “What?”

“Maybe hang out here a little while—just until your eyes are less red,” Garcia said, her own gaze gentle.

Y/N let out a breathy laugh and dropped into one of the spare chairs. “What would I do without you?”

“Cry in the ladies’ room like a tragic heroine,” Garcia teased, swiveling back toward her computer with a grin.

Y/N smiled, leaning back into the chair as Garcia’s screens lit up again, the quiet hum of the tech den wrapping around them like a small, safe cocoon.

After Garcia had declared that Y/N no longer looked like she’d been crying for three years straight, now just slightly puffy, maybe a little red, she finally let her go.

The bullpen hallway was half-empty, the low afternoon light casting pale squares across the floor from the blinds. Y/N rounded the corner, files in hand, her gaze set straight ahead. She wasn’t crying anymore, not really, but she knew her face still carried the remnants of it, that telltale post-tear sheen.

She spotted Spencer before he saw her. Her steps quickened, almost imperceptibly, one hand shifting up as if she were brushing her hair back, anything to shield her face.

But of course he noticed. He always did.

“Hey,” he called, his brow creasing.

She kept moving.

“Y/N, hey!”

The sound of her name made her slow, just enough for him to catch up. His hand landed lightly on her shoulder, the warmth and gentleness in his touch still enough to still her steps.

“Hey,” he repeated, his voice softer now. “I was looking for you. Hotch called a meeting in the conference room in ten minutes — I thought I’d come and find you—” He faltered, eyes narrowing slightly. “Wait… are you okay?”

She froze for the barest second, watching the way his gaze searched her face. Then, with a small shake of her head, she pasted on a light smile. “Yeah. Yeah, you know… Garcia…”

He kept looking at her, waiting.

“…a video,” she finished, the corners of her mouth tugging higher. “We watched a sad video. Really, really sad. Just… you know. Sad videos.” She layered the word with a mock-dramatic lilt, as if the repetition might make it believable.

His brow stayed furrowed. His hand didn’t move from her shoulder.

She nodded a little too quickly. “Anyway! I should probably, you know, get ready for that meeting. Duty calls, right?” She let out a small, awkward laugh, immediately wincing inwardly at how it sounded. “Well… bye!”

Before he could answer, she slipped out from under his hand and walked briskly toward the conference room, the click of her steps fading.

Spencer stood there for a moment, watching her go, something unspoken settling between them like dust in a sunbeam.

The day was ordinary in every way that mattered, which somehow made it worse. Fluorescent lights hummed above. Case files lay open like heavy, indifferent hands across the desks. The clock’s minute hand dragged itself in slow, tired arcs.

Y/N sat at her desk, a file spread before her, pen poised above the margin. She’d read the same paragraph three times without taking in a word. Across the bullpen, JJ was perched on the edge of Spencer’s desk, her voice light but laced with curiosity.

“So… things are getting serious?” It wasn’t a loud question, but it carried, words like that always seemed to find her.

Y/N kept her eyes on the page. She could feel JJ’s gaze flicker her way and back again, like a touch she was pretending not to notice.

Spencer’s answer came after a pause. “I don’t know… maybe.” His voice was thoughtful, but there was something else under it — the kind of hesitance that asks without asking.

Even without looking up, Y/N knew he’d glanced her way. Testing. Wondering.

Her chest tightened. She scribbled a meaningless underline in the file’s margin, anything to keep her hands moving, her face hidden behind the lowered angle of her head.

The file’s edges dug faintly into her palms.

The conversation drifted on without her. JJ teased him about his “type,” Morgan chimed in with something about pocket-sized geniuses, Emily’s low chuckle threaded through it all. Y/N smiled when it seemed appropriate, but it was a ghost of a smile, the kind that barely lifted her mouth before dying out.

The days that followed were quieter between them. Not by much, just enough for someone who knew to notice. She let moments slip: where she might have lingered by his desk, she kept walking, where she might have leaned in to share some small, private observation, she stayed in her own chair.

He still reached out without thinking — a brush of his hand at the small of her back as they passed in the hall, the tilt of his body toward hers during a briefing. She absorbed each touch like someone memorizing the details of a place they were leaving, even as she stepped just slightly away.

At night, she told herself she was unlearning him. In the mornings, she found she hadn’t.

By the week’s end, there was a kind of rhythm to it: the almosts, the not-quites, the small silences. He would glance up when she laughed with Emily or JJ, like the sound pulled him before he knew why. And she would look away first when their eyes met, and something in his brow would crease, just faintly.

It wasn’t much. But it was enough to make the space between them feel like a wound that kept reopening.

It was late enough in the evening that the bullpen had shed its daytime sharpness.

Ties were loosened, jackets draped over chairs, coffee swapped for whatever was left in the vending machine. The day’s case was still sprawled in files and maps across desks, but the urgency had bled out of it for the night.

Y/N sat sideways in her chair, one knee hooked over the armrest, sipping from a flimsy office-issued travel cup of burnt coffee that tasted vaguely like cardboard. She was halfway through a story Emily was telling, something about an unsub who’d gotten stuck trying to crawl through a pet door, when Spencer, seated just beside her, reached out without looking.

His fingers brushed her chin, gentle, then swept along the corner of her mouth.

“You had something,” he murmured, so casually it was almost an afterthought.

Before she could react, he brought his hand to his lips, licking the taste of her coffee, or her, from his fingertip.

The air shifted.

It was subtle, but she felt it. Emily’s laugh stalled for half a beat. JJ glanced over the rim of her coffee cup. Even Garcia, leaning against a desk with her phone, stilled like a camera catching a frame mid-focus.

Y/N froze.

Not visibly, she hoped, at least, just enough that her breath snagged on its way out. She forced it loose with a light huff, tilting her coffee away as if it demanded her full attention.

Spencer, oblivious, leaned back and asked Emily a follow-up about the story she was telling, some detail about how the unsub had even managed to get stuck in the first place. Emily’s eyes flickered to Y/N before answering, a quick glance that didn’t go unnoticed. The conversation picked back up around them, voices smoothing over the rippled moment, but Y/N could still feel the way the girls’ eyes slid back to her every so often: quiet, knowing, careful.

The warmth in her chest was too sharp, too close to something else. She set her cup down.

“Hey,” she said, interrupting Morgan mid-sentence, her voice steady but thin around the edges. “I think I’m going to head out. Long day.”

Spencer turned immediately. “You’re leaving? Want me to walk you out?”

“No, it’s fine,” she said, already standing. She tucked a smile into the words, but it didn’t quite fit. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

“Night,” Emily said softly. JJ echoed it. Garcia gave her a look that was all quiet concern.

Spencer’s brows drew together, just slightly. “Goodnight,” he said, but it was slower this time, like the word had to travel farther.

She gave them one last smile, then headed for the elevator.

At her desk, Spencer watched the space where she’d been until Morgan asked him something he didn’t hear. When he finally looked down at the file in front of him, the ink blurred at the edges, the way things do when you’ve been staring too long at the wrong thing.

Her apartment was quiet in the way a place feels when the world outside has already moved on without it. The lamps were low, honeyed, pooling soft light over the hardwood. An old record spun in the corner, something low and warm enough to feel like a heartbeat, though she barely heard it.

She’d changed as soon as she got home.

The slacks stayed, dark and loose, easy to sink into, but she pulled on the soft blue sweater folded at the back of her chair, the one she always reached for when she needed warmth she couldn’t quite name. Its sleeves draped past her wrists, the fabric light but somehow grounding, smelling faintly of clean laundry and something sweeter. Her hair was loose from the neat updo she’d worn all day, falling in long, imperfect waves over her shoulders. Without the pins and the restraint, it framed her face differently, softer and unguarded, as if some invisible weight had eased.

She padded barefoot into the kitchen, poured the last of a red wine bottle into her glass, and leaned against the counter.

She was somewhere between tipsy and just warm, enough for the edges of the day to blur. But not enough to quiet the ache. Not enough to stop the loop in her head; Spencer, flushed and smiling in the bullpen, talking about someone else.

The knock startled her, sharp against the quiet, cutting clean through the low hum of the record. She jerked slightly, the wine in her glass catching the light as it trembled. Setting it down with deliberate care, making sure not a drop spilled, she crossed the small stretch of living room, pulse picking up with each step.

“Garcia, I—” she began, already sighing, swinging the door open.

Only it wasn’t Garcia.

It was Spencer.

He stood there, breathless in a way that had nothing to do with the stairs he hadn’t taken. The cool hallway air clung faintly to him, his coat falling open, hair slightly mussed as though his fingers had found it in some restless moment on the way over. His eyes caught on her first in pieces — the powdery softness of the blue sweater draped over her frame, sleeves skimming past her wrists; the dark slacks, familiar from the workday but somehow looser now, eased into; the spill of her hair, unpinned and falling in long, imperfect waves that shifted when she moved. He took it in like he was committing each part to memory, and then, finally, his gaze climbed back to hers, steady, searching, caught.

She saw the shift happen, watched how his own expression softened and broke in the same second.

“Garcia told me,” he said quietly. “And Emily. And JJ. Everyone, really.”

Her fingers curled tighter around the edge of the door. “Told you what?”

He licked his lips, drew in a breath like he needed the extra courage. “Why you’ve been… different. Why you leave when I talk about my date.”

Her chest pinched. “Spencer, not right now—”

“I’m not seeing her anymore.”

She blinked, frozen for a beat before shaking her head. “Spencer… don’t do that. Don’t stop seeing someone you like just because of me. This—” she gestured faintly between them “—this is exactly why I didn’t want to say anything.”

“I’m not—” He faltered, rubbed a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself. “Well, I am. But not for that reason.” His voice rose, sharp with urgency, then softened. “I told her after the second date I wasn’t ready. Because I’m in love with someone. And she’s never looked at me that way—or at least I thought she hadn’t. So I told myself I had to move on. Because she’d never love someone like me. And when she found someone who deserved her, it was going to be the greatest pain in the world, so I thought I had to do it before it happened.”

Her lips parted, but no sound came.

His voice cracked. “But I can’t.” He took a shaky breath and went on, words tumbling now, no longer filtered: how he loved the way she leaned against doorframes when she talked, how she touched the rim of her coffee cup without realizing, how she knew exactly when to give him space and when to close it.

His eyes softened, his voice barely above a whisper. “I love you.” It was quiet, certain, as if it had been waiting for years to finally be said.

Her heartbeat was loud enough to drown the record player. The air between them felt thinner, as if the hallway had narrowed to nothing but his eyes and her breathing.

He glanced down, as though bracing for the sting of rejection. That was when she moved.

Her hands curled into the collar of his coat, tugging him forward until she had to stand on her toes — white socks against warm hardwood — to reach him. Her mouth found his, soft but sure, and for a heartbeat he didn’t move.

Then he melted.

One hand cupped her jaw, the other splayed at her waist, drawing her closer until she felt the steady, stuttering rhythm of his chest against hers. The kiss was slow and deep, an unspooling of years’ worth of unspoken words, all the almosts and almost-not-yets folding into now.

When they finally parted, foreheads pressed together, her laugh was damp and shaky against his lips. “You’re ridiculous,” she whispered. “I’ve only ever loved you.”

He closed his eyes like the words hurt in the best way. “I can’t believe I thought you wouldn’t.”

A beat passed — no words, just the two of them wrapped up in each other, smiles brushing against smiles, lips barely touching in the space between. Then he pulled back half an inch, licking his lips. “You taste… fruity.”

Her brows knit in surprise, and she touched her mouth self-consciously. “It’s wine,” she admitted, a faint flush creeping into her cheeks.

He laughed at her reaction, the sound low and warm, and tugged her in again. “Tastes good,” he murmured against her lips. She tried to continue the kiss, but couldn’t; her smile broke through, teeth and all against his mouth, laughter spilling between them until they were both breathing the same, happy air.

Inside, the air was warmer.

He shut the door behind him like he was afraid too much of the outside might spill in, then toed off his shoes without being asked. The record in the corner spun lazily, a saxophone drifting low and sweet as if it had been waiting for them.

She moved further in, the blue sweater sliding slightly at her shoulder as she reached to straighten the stack of books on the coffee table, not because it needed straightening, but because her hands wanted something to do. He followed, close enough that she could feel the residual chill of his coat before he shrugged it off and draped it over the arm of the couch.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The quiet wasn’t awkward, just thick with that newness that made every small action feel deliberate; the sound of the record, the brush of her sleeve when she turned toward him, the faint scent of wine still between them.

He glanced toward the kitchen. “You want tea? Or… more wine?”

She smiled at the way his voice softened on the last word. “Wine,” she decided, though she didn’t move to get it.

He took a step closer, so close the warmth of her sweater brushed his knuckles. “Then we should probably sit down,” he murmured, not quite a question.

She let out a soft breath, like she’d been holding it since the hallway, and crossed to the couch. He followed, the space between them narrowing until she was curling into one corner and he was settling beside her, leaving just enough room for their knees to brush.

The saxophone murmured on in the background, the needle crackling faintly over the warm hum of the speakers. She reached for the lone glass on the low table — already half-full — and held it out to him with a faint smile. His fingers lingered around hers as he took it, the contact brief but electric, and instead of keeping it, he took a small sip before passing it back.

They traded it between them without a word, each sip an unspoken excuse to brush their fingers together again. The room wrapped around them; the soft light spilling from the lamp in the corner, the way the wine deepened the flush in her cheeks, the loose fall of her hair against the blue knit of her sweater.

“What?” she asked finally, catching the way his eyes lingered.

He shook his head, a small smile tugging at his mouth. “Just… can’t believe I almost missed this.”

Her laugh was quiet, almost shy. “You didn’t.”

The words hung there, comfortable and certain, before her glass found the table again, and she leaned back into the couch, one knee bent toward him. His hand was still resting over hers, fingers brushing idly at the edge of her sleeve, tracing the faint ribbing in the knit like he was memorizing it.

They talked in the quiet way you only could after a confession: soft, unhurried, words folding over each other in the low lamplight. She told him about the first time she’d realized she loved him, almost laughing at herself for how obvious it seemed now. He admitted he’d been afraid, not of her, but of wanting something that mattered too much.

At some point, her head tilted against the back of the couch, and he turned slightly toward her, their knees pressed solidly together now. His thumb skimmed the side of her hand, then the inside of her wrist, a slow, absent circle.

The music played on, that slow and smoky saxophone now a ghostly echo against the weight of the moment. She felt herself leaning in before she thought about it, her hair falling over her shoulder, brushing his sleeve.

When he met her halfway, the first kiss was more an exhale than anything else, soft and deliberate. She smiled faintly into it, the warmth of his mouth and the scent of wine blurring the space between them.

Another kiss, deeper this time: his hand cupping the side of her face, her fingers sliding into his hair. The rhythm between them shifted, unhurried but undeniable, as if the music was threading itself into the way they moved.

By the time they paused, both a little breathless, she kept her forehead close to his, her smile brushing his lips. His hand slid from her jaw to her shoulder, pulling her a fraction closer, and she let herself go easily, the rest of the world dissolving somewhere far beyond the soft spin of the record.

And again he kissed her, slower this time, his hands framing her face like he was afraid to let the moment slip through his fingers. When she tugged gently at his sweater, he shifted forward, guiding her back against the couch. The cushions gave easily, the angle tipping them into something softer, more enclosed.

Her knees parted without thought, welcoming him into the narrow space between them. He fit there as if it had always been waiting for him, his thighs bracketing hers, the faint press of his hips anchoring her in place.

They weren’t lying down, not quite, but leaning into the nest of pillows and rumpled throw blankets at her back. One of his hands slid into her hair, cradling the curve of her head, the other still cupping her jaw as if to keep her close.

The music wound low around them, a slow, breathless pulse. His lips brushed hers once, twice, the kind of kisses that barely existed until they deepened, lingering until she had to pull back for air. Her breath came quick and warm against his mouth, her fingers curled at the base of his neck.

He stayed close, foreheads touching, the smile on his lips as tangible as the heat of his hands. Neither of them moved to speak, letting the quiet swell between them, a silence that wasn’t empty, but full of everything they’d just begun.

He didn’t move away. If anything, he sank into her more; not with weight, but with presence, as if he’d finally let himself stop holding anything back. She could feel his breath even out against her cheek, the faint rise and fall of his chest matching hers.

Her hands, still resting at the back of his neck, smoothed into his hair, fingertips tracing lazy patterns just to feel him shiver. He caught one of her hands and threaded his fingers through hers, their palms pressed together like it was a promise.

The record turned on, soft and steady, a quiet lull that seemed to anchor them in the dim-lit room. They stayed like that, with her back against the cushions, his body warm between her knees, their fingers laced and foreheads touching, until the space between kisses became smiles, and the smiles became nothing more than breathing the same air.

Love, she thought, watching him press a slow kiss to her temple, his thumb brushing along her jaw like it belonged there, wasn’t about grand gestures or perfect timing. It was this: the warmth of his hand, the weight of his shoulder, the way the world could be unbearably hard and yet, somehow, they could still find each other in it.

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clementineinn · 25 days ago

Text

let the light have me

abstract: after the blast, everything goes quiet, too quiet. he’s not answering the radio, the building is still burning, and all she can do is breathe, bleed, and pray that spencer reid isn't gone.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader (usage of Y/N)

genre: angsty, a little fluff (has a happy ending)

note: i’m not even kidding, this idea came to me in a dream. i woke up and immediately started writing down everything i could remember and well, here we are. it was kind of torturous writing this because i swear those people on tiktok put crack in their edits, especially the hunger games ones or twd or sinners, and they're all so deliciously heartbreaking that i can't help but binge watch them and then want to write something poetic & sad. but anyways, here is an angsty fic written by yours truly, for my beautiful readers to read because i want everyone to share in my pain with me, hehe, jk. not. kind of. ENJOY! p.s., shoutout to the hunger games mockingjay soundtrack for getting me thru this.

The forest was quiet in the way only danger could make it; the air too still, too sharp, like something was holding its breath.

The compound loomed ahead like the skeleton of something long-dead — an abandoned research facility half-swallowed by vines and shadow, its concrete walls cracked and choked by moss. Broken windows gaped like teeth. The sky above was an iron-gray bruise, stretching wide over the trees as if even the clouds wanted to disappear before night fell.

Y/N moved in a crouch beneath the tree line, her sidearm drawn, shoulder to shoulder with Morgan. Her heart was beating steady, trained, but something in her ribs wouldn’t unclench. The stillness felt… wrong. Not like silence, but like the moment before a scream.

On the comms, Hotch’s voice came in low and clipped.

“Reid, what’s your position?”

A beat of static. Then Spencer’s voice: calm, focused, a little breathless.

“Top floor of the east wing. There’s someone moving inside. I think he’s leading me in.”

Y/N froze. Her eyes met Morgan’s. Both of them knew what that meant.

Hotch’s voice again, firmer now. “Wait for backup.”

But the reply came too fast.

“I’ve got eyes. I’m going in.”

And then—

A sudden, breathless boom ripped through the forest.

The ground surged beneath her, lifting like a wave, heat slashing across her back as light erupted—blinding, orange, unnatural—splintering the sky like something holy had shattered too close to earth.

She didn’t even have time to scream.

One instant, she was reaching instinctively toward the treeline; the next, she was airborne, limbs pulled taut before the earth vanished beneath her. It felt like a cord had been cut somewhere deep inside her spine, like gravity had forgotten her name.

Then the landing.

Hard.

Her elbow took the first blow, agony flashing through her arm; her hip struck next, then her ribs, then her shoulder, her body dragged against the forest floor, a broken thing skidding through ash, until it folded to a halt. Something sharp kissed her temple and tore it open, and for a moment the world tilted, slanted sideways, blurred at the edges like waterlogged film.

A sound escaped her, not a scream or a word, but something hoarse and sharp that cracked from her throat without permission, like her body exhaled the pain all on its own.

She landed on her side, breathless, then rolled onto her stomach, slowly, weakly, her muscles shuddering with the effort. A low, broken whine slipped from her lips, quiet but ragged, a thread of breath laced in pain that barely sounded human. Her palms sank into the dirt; twigs and soot smeared against her skin. The pain was everywhere—deep, ringing, bright like static.

A warm trickle spilled down her face. She didn’t need to touch it to know. Blood. Still hot, still moving, just trickling.

The only thing she could hear was the high, piercing hum inside her own skull; everything else had been drowned out. No comforting birdsong. No sirens. Just the sharp, erratic rasp of her breathing as she fought for air that burned her lungs.

Her eyes darted across the wreckage, stinging from smoke and ash.

Morgan was a few feet away, chest rising fast and rough, his hand dragging up to cradle the side of his head. He was down, but alive. Her vision stuck to the sight of him, locked in the shape of his body.

But that relief barely settled before it turned into something colder.

Spencer.

The thought hit so suddenly it almost knocked the wind out of her all over again.

She inhaled sharply, tried to shout, but the sound caught—dry and useless—in her throat. Her hand scrambled to her belt, fumbling for her gun. The weight of it grounded her, just barely. She used her free arm to push herself upright, staggering on unsteady legs. The trees swayed, whether from the wind or her disorientation, she couldn’t tell.

She slammed her hand to her ear, fingers shaking.

“Spencer, come in,” she rasped. “Spence—can you hear me?”

Nothing.

Only the whine in her ears and the thundering of her own pulse.

The forest crackled around her, fire bleeding out of the fractured building, smoke curling into the canopy above like the remnants of something sacred and ruined. The scent of metal and char clung to her clothes, seeping into her skin.

Her eyes caught the blaze — not just the light, but the violence of it — and held it there, unflinching. The reflection flickered across her irises like a painting too bold to fade, all orange and gold and fever-bright, like something from a myth where gods died in fire and love was the last thing left burning.

In that moment, she was all color and silence, her pupils wide and wet, the fire burning not in front of her, but through her, bright and unapologetic.

And somewhere inside all of it, she was thinking of him. Of his body in the heat. Of what flame might make of someone so soft.

Y/N moved like something half-woken, limbs sluggish with shock, blood in her eyes. Her boots crunched through scorched pine needles as she limped forward, breath tearing out in sharp, uneven bursts. Smoke hung low in the trees, curling through the air like it knew something she didn’t.

Somewhere behind her, Morgan moved, slow, unsteady, one hand pressed to the side of his head, the other bracing against a fallen branch as he tried to rise. His chest was still heaving, breaths short and hard. He was muttering into his comm, voice low and cracked, not yelling—he couldn’t yell.

“Reid’s last ping… east wing… building’s compromised…”

His words dissolved into static.

From somewhere deeper in her ear, another voice filtered in: Emily, this time. Sharp, clipped.

“All units check in—has anyone heard from Reid?”

A pause.

“Spencer, if you can hear this—come in.”

And then Garcia, barely holding it together. “We’ve lost his signal… there’s nothing—nothing yet, I’m trying to reroute, but—I don’t see anything. Oh my god…”

Voices layered together, bleeding into one another, indistinct and tangled, like wires crossed behind glass. Morgan’s, Emily’s, Garcia’s—familiar sounds made strange, dulled by static and distance. Y/N heard them all but couldn’t parse them, like someone had submerged the world underwater and left her there, suspended in something too thick to swim through.

Her hand stayed clamped to the comm, knuckles white, fingertips numb.

It didn’t matter. None of it was reaching her.

Her own breath was the only thing she could hear now: too fast, too shallow, too loud. It shuddered in and out of her lungs like her body had forgotten how to breathe quietly, how to slow down. The air felt thinner here; it tasted like smoke and metal and burnt wood, like grief sharpened into something physical.

Her vision wouldn’t hold still. The edges of the trees blurred, their outlines melting into smoke that curled through the air like ghosts dragging themselves through the underbrush. Her stomach twisted. Her boots didn’t feel steady against the earth. Her chin quivered once. Her lips parted, but nothing came out.

She blinked, hard, but it didn’t clear anything.

The building groaned, fire licking through the upper rafters. Her body turned toward it, drawn like a compass to something broken. Her mouth was dry. Her heart was crawling up her throat.

Her gun was in her hand now. She didn’t remember pulling it.

Spencer.

The name lived somewhere behind her ribs. Not a thought. Just a weight. Just a pressure.

Her finger hovered near the trigger. Her grip was shaking. She couldn’t stop it.

And then—

Crunch.

A branch snapped underfoot.

Sharp. Sudden. Final.

Everything reeled in. Like gravity had slammed back into place. She froze, and her head jerked toward the sound.

A soft shuffle. The sound of dirt grinding under a boot. Another breath. Her last one ragged.

Then, a cough, low and hoarse, someone trying to swallow it. Not Spencer, but someone.

Her body moved on instinct.

She raised the gun, finger steady despite the tremor in her bones. Her body turned before her mind caught up, her eyes locked ahead.

She stepped through the trees—

And saw him.

The unsub.

He stood at the edge of the clearing, just beyond the smoke, as if the forest had birthed him from the fire. His face was streaked with soot, and the detonator still sat heavy in his hand, catching the last of the dying light. His mouth twisted up into a grin — not amused, but satisfied, smug. He didn’t look scared. He looked proud.

Her breath caught somewhere between her ribs and her throat. Her boots sank lightly into the soft, scorched dirt, her body swaying slightly from the blow it had taken minutes before.

And then, a sharp crack under her foot. Glass. The sound sliced through the smoke like a warning shot, too quick, too clean.

The unsub turned toward it. Toward her.

He tilted his head, eyeing her like a wolf would something trembling and cornered.

“You think he made it out?” he said, almost conversational. “Not a chance. Walked right into it. You should’ve heard it.”

A smile.

“Boom.”

Y/N’s teeth clenched. Her jaw locked so tight she thought it might crack. Her chest was rising and falling too fast, her lungs scraping against her ribs. Her eyes burned, not just from smoke. She could feel the wetness gathering. She blinked hard. Refused.

Behind her, Morgan emerged from the trees, weapon raised.

“We’ve got you surrounded,” he said tightly, into the open. “Don’t move. There’s no way out.”

Then, softer, closer, his voice finding her.

“Y/N. We’ve got him. You don’t have to do this.”

Her arms stayed outstretched, both hands wrapped tightly around the grip, the gun raised and aimed directly at the unsub’s chest. Her shoulders were locked, her stance firm but fraying at the edges. Her finger rested on the trigger, curled tight, unmoving. Her brows twitched, just slightly, the barest crack in her expression betraying the war happening behind her eyes, but still she didn’t move, didn’t blink.

The unsub took a step forward.

“Go ahead,” he murmured. “Do it. What’s the point of carrying that thing if you won’t pull the trigger?”

Another smirk.

“He didn’t even see it coming, did he? I bet he screamed.”

Y/N’s body pulsed with the threat of something uncontainable.

The barrel of her gun rose and fell with each breath. Her arms were shaking, her grip unsteady, but her aim didn’t falter. Her finger tensed tighter on the trigger. Her lip quivered once. Her brows furrowed, not in anger, but in ache — in something sadder than she’d ever let herself show.

Her eyes were shining now, water gathering in the corners, heavy and hot, refusing to fall just yet. Her chin trembled. Her nose flared slightly as she breathed in through it, trying to find control. Her lips twitched, trying to form something — a curse, a sob, a sad smile — but never fully landed on any of them.

Behind her, Morgan’s voice came again, quieter this time, soft as a hand on the back of her neck.

“He wouldn’t want this,” he said, barely louder than a breath. “Let it go.”

Her eyes fluttered shut for one long moment. Her lips pressed together, but they couldn’t hold. The shape of them folded downward, trembling into that soft, helpless curve that only grief can make — the kind of expression that forms when someone is trying not to cry and failing quietly. It was a mouth made not for speech, but for silence and sorrow.

Her chest moved with a shallow inhale. Another. And then a single tear slipped free, trailing down the curve of her cheek.

Her breath caught. She exhaled, low, cracked, empty.

And, like it cost her something deep and invisible, she lowered the gun.

Her fingers unclenched.

She holstered it, careful and quiet, like a ritual she didn’t want to remember.

Then she turned away quickly — not in strength, not in triumph, but in something quieter. Something that lived at the edge of heartbreak.

It hurt to do it. You could see it in her walk, in the angle of her jaw, in the way her composure folded into itself as she stepped away.

But she walked anyway, because she still could.

Her steps were uneven, stumbling through the uneven earth, her boots sinking slightly into the forest floor, into ash and pine and blood. Her spine was rigid, her body taut like a bowstring about to snap, not from tension now, but from restraint. Her head was bowed low, as if the weight of what she hadn’t done was heavier than a bullet.

Behind her, the unsub’s voice chased after her like a sickness.

“That’s what I thought,” he spat. “You don’t have the guts. None of you do. Cowards! All of you—cowards!”

The trees caught the sound and echoed it back in a cruel loop, throwing his words in every direction. But she didn’t flinch. She didn’t look back.

“You hear me?! He’s dead! And you just let me walk—!”

The crash of boots behind her, a thud — agents swarming, voices shouting over one another. The unsub snarled, a desperate sound, before the snap of bodies hitting dirt cut him off.

“Get down—!”

“He’s got something in his—!”

A brief struggle. Then silence again, sharp and echoing. Only the sound of cuffs locking into place and the unsub still laughing, quieter now, but still cruel.

Y/N didn’t turn.

Morgan caught up to her in four long strides, his hand reaching out and catching her by the upper arm. She didn’t fight it, only she couldn’t if she tried. Her knees were giving, her steps faltering like her body was too heavy to hold itself upright anymore. Her breathing came in sharp, gasping pulls, not from running, but from everything she was still trying to contain.

She let out a sob, quiet and raw, and swallowed it down before it could fully escape. The sound lodged in her throat like it didn’t want to leave her. Her head dipped forward slightly, and she let Morgan guide her, let him walk her away like something wounded.

“Hey,” Morgan said softly, voice lowered like a secret. “You did good.”

Y/N’s lip trembled. She shut her eyes.

“Come on,” he said. “We got you.”

Her head dipped in a nod so small it barely moved. But it was enough.

She let him walk her, one arm curled around her back, keeping her upright. Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was parted just slightly, as if she was too exhausted to hold it shut.

Behind them, the unsub screamed again: a rage-filled, hollow sound.

“You’re weak! You’re all weak!”

Y/N didn’t hear it anymore. She wasn’t listening.

She was walking away from him. Her grief was a coat she couldn’t take off.

The forest was no longer silent.

Red and blue strobes painted the trees like a warning, and the air buzzed with distant radios, the hiss of oxygen tanks, and the crunch of boots over broken earth. The building still smoldered like a haunted thing, black smoke curling out of its gut and spiraling up into the bruised sky.

Y/N leaned against the BAU SUV like she didn’t know how to stand on her own anymore. One leg bent slightly, shoulder pressed to the passenger door, eyes vacant and unblinking. The blood on her temple had dried into a thin, rust-colored trail. Soot clung to her eyelashes. Her hands, still trembling, were clenched around the edge of her jacket like they might float away if she didn’t anchor them.

She wasn’t speaking.

She hadn’t spoken since she’d turned away from the unsub. Not when the others arrived. Not when Hotch debriefed. Not when Emily gave her that look: all silent worry, too much softness to bear.

Morgan stood beside her, one arm crossed over his chest, the other loose at his side, close enough to catch her if her legs gave out again. He was watching her like she might disappear.

After a while, he spoke, his voice low.

“You did the right thing.”

She didn’t answer.

He shifted slightly, leaning a little closer.

“You know he’d be proud of you.”

Y/N blinked slowly, her throat tightening. She swallowed once, but still said nothing. Her jaw was locked. She kept staring at the wreckage, as if looking hard enough might change the ending.

Morgan’s gaze followed hers.

“We’re gonna find him,” he added. “We always do.”

Her eyes were glassed over again, rimmed red, lashes clumped with soot and blood. When she spoke, her voice barely came out at all, like it had been trapped behind her teeth for too long.

“Don’t say those things to me,” she whispered. “Not unless they’re real.”

Morgan turned his head to look at her fully. He exhaled hard through his nose, the breath sharp and tired, like it had been building for miles. Then he tipped his head back, laid it against the car, and stared up at the dark sky above them. His brows pinched, his throat worked once.

“You know,” he murmured, almost to himself, “I’ve never seen you lose it. Not once.”

Y/N’s lips parted. Her jaw shifted, clenched tight. She wasn’t fully facing him, just turned enough that her eyes were locked on his face, her voice still broken when it came.

“Yeah, well,” she said, hollow and quiet, “I might.”

They stayed like that, not speaking, not breathing too deeply, not trusting the air. Just two people on the edge of something unbearable, trying to hold it together.

And then—

The radio crackled.

“Oh my god—”

The SUV’s open window. Garcia.

“Oh my god, he’s—They found him. He’s—He’s okay. I repeat—Reid is okay. They’re bringing him out now—he’s alive—he’s alive—”

Both Y/N and Morgan whipped their heads toward the SUV.

Her heart lurched. Her body moved before her breath did. Her mouth parted, eyes wide. Everything around her slowed — not in a surreal way, but in a cell-deep one, like her pulse was moving through molasses and her mind couldn’t quite catch up. Her breath echoed in her ears, louder than Garcia’s voice, louder than the crackling static. It was all she could hear.

Morgan lunged forward, grabbing the edge of the open window, voice punching out of his chest.

“Garcia, we hear you—where is he? Talk to me.”

He was already pulling the radio closer, leaning in, but Y/N wasn’t listening anymore.

She had taken a step back, unsteady, her boots dragging in the dirt. Her hand was still half-raised toward the car, fingers twitching slightly, and her whole body swayed with the weight of something breaking loose. Her lips were parted. Her eyes were scanning the chaos in front of her, lights and medics and wreckage and smoke, like she was looking for the end of a dream.

Her brow wasn’t furrowed anymore; it was focused. Sharp. Like everything in her had snapped into one direction.

And then—she saw him, and it felt like she could breath again.

Two paramedics, moving from the haze of the still-smoking building. One supporting the weight of a tall, dust-covered man, arm slung over their shoulder, hair flattened with ash, clothes torn and dark with soot.

She blinked once. Hard. Her lungs locked, then opened.

“He’s—” her voice caught. “He’s right there.”

Morgan turned toward the direction she was staring, following her gaze.

But she was already gone.

Her body launched forward like her soul had jumped first and her limbs scrambled to follow. She stumbled, one foot catching on the edge of a branch, almost falling, catching herself on instinct alone.

She didn’t stop.

She ran.

Her lungs burned. Her legs barely moved fast enough to keep up with the rush of blood in her veins. Everything was heat and noise and the rhythmic pounding of her boots against the earth. Her breath tore out in gasps, wild and uneven.

She didn’t care.

She just ran.

The lights blurred past her again, red and gold flashing across her skin, shadows skipping over her as she cut through the forest floor. Every step was desperate and real and alive.

He was alive.

Morgan shouted behind her, but she didn’t hear. He followed, but she was already ahead, already too fast.

She reached the ambulance just as they were helping Spencer up the steps.

“Spencer!” she choked, grabbing his arm before the medic could lift him. “Oh my god—Spencer—”

He turned, sluggish, confused—

“Y/N…?”

She didn’t wait.

She surged forward and cupped his face in both hands, her fingers dirty and trembling, palms pressing to the hollows of his cheeks like she didn’t believe he was real.

“Are you okay? Are you okay?” she panted. “Oh my god—I thought you were—”

Her voice broke. Her face was cracking open. She looked like she’d forgotten how to breathe again. Her forehead dropped to his chest.

“Oh my god. Oh my god.”

Spencer’s hand slid up, shaky but certain, to press over hers.

“I’m okay,” he whispered. “I’m okay. I’m here.”

She let out a sound this time, a sob, raw and jagged, pulled straight from her ribs like something ripped open.

And then Morgan was there too, catching up beside them, voice low.

“It’s okay, baby,” he murmured, touching her arm. “Let them work on him now.”

She didn’t protest. She didn’t speak.

She nodded once, barely, and let Morgan guide her back a few steps. But she didn’t move far. Her hands caught at his sleeves, gripping tightly, grounding herself. Her body leaned into Morgan’s, seeking the support she couldn’t give herself. Her breath stuttered again: a soft, aching sound that escaped before she could stop it.

She didn’t make a sound at first. Her jaw was clenched tight, shoulders trembling, the effort of holding it in visible in every part of her. Her breath came in shallow gasps, shaky and uneven, her chest rising too fast.

And the tears started falling, slipping down her cheeks like she hadn’t noticed them, like they were happening without her permission.

Morgan kept an arm around her, steady as ever, his other hand covering hers where she still clutched his jacket.

They both stood there, still and braced, watching as the paramedics lifted Spencer onto the ambulance seat and began cleaning the blood from his hairline. Spencer glanced toward her once through the crowd, and their eyes met.

He didn’t smile.

He just watched her like he’d never seen anything more real.

And she didn’t look away.

Later, the forest was still. Not silent, but softer — the kind of quiet that comes after too much noise.

The building had stopped burning. The ambulances hummed. The radios had gone from frantic to background static. Night had finally taken hold of the sky, drawing everything beneath a soft navy veil, stitched with stars and the lingering smear of smoke.

The paramedics had finally stepped back.

Spencer sat on the open edge of the ambulance rig, feet planted in the dirt, his hands slack between his knees. A clean white bandage wrapped above his brow where the skin had split, and fresh stitches lined the side of his temple, red and angry against pale skin. His shirt was torn near the shoulder, dried blood visible through the gauze that now wrapped it. There was a splint around his wrist, a strip of bruising just beginning to show beneath it.

But he was breathing. Upright. Alive.

He blinked into the air in front of him, dazed, trying to catch his bearings in the chaos that was finally beginning to quiet.

And then he saw her.

She was still dust-streaked and bloodied, jacket open, hands balled into fists at her sides. Her cut hadn’t been treated, the dried trail still dark along her temple, skin raw. But her eyes, when they landed on him, went wide and bright and full of something that hit him in the chest.

Spencer straightened slightly, and without even thinking, said:

“You’re here.”

That was all it took.

It was like the wind was knocked out of her a second time. Her shoulders dropped, and her mouth parted, but she didn’t speak. She moved.

She was rushing forward before her body knew what to do with the motion, feet kicking up the soft dust around the tires of the rig, heart stammering wildly behind her ribs.

By the time she reached him, her hands were already reaching, one sliding behind his head as she pulled him into a hug so tight it made him wince — not from pain, but from the sheer need in it. Her arms wrapped around him fully, one hand bracing the back of his neck, fingers threading through the ends of his hair as if anchoring him there. Her other hand gripped his shirt at the back, twisting into the fabric.

Her breath hitched, once, then again, and he could hear the way she was trying not to cry. Not completely. Not yet. Her lips were trembling against the curve of his shoulder, breath coming in soft stuttering pulls.

He didn’t say anything. He just held her. His arms, sore as they were, moved around her waist, steady and firm.

She pulled back slightly, not far, but just enough to breathe. Her hands cupped his face, palms warm and dirty against his skin, thumbs brushing just under his eyes. She leaned forward then, rested her forehead to his, and closed her eyes for the first time in what felt like hours.

The contact felt holy.

Her breath broke again, and this time it came out on a whisper.

“Spencer.”

The way she said his name — like she’d waited her whole life just to be able to say it again — made his eyes sting.

He opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes flicked up, catching on the smear of red still trailing from her temple.

“Your cut,” he said, his brows pulling tight. “It’s still bleeding.”

His hands lifted carefully, and hers fell away, cupping her face in both palms like he was afraid she might pull away, or worse, fall apart completely. His thumbs brushed along her cheekbones, and then higher, smoothing her hair back gently, his fingers ghosting around the edges of the wound. He traced the skin there with featherlight worry, eyes searching hers like he needed proof that she was really standing in front of him.

He was still studying it, still frowning, lips parting like he was going to ask for a medic, or insist, or say something else she couldn’t bear to hear.

“It looks bad,” he said quietly, the words full of worry. “You should—”

“It doesn’t hurt,” she cut in gently, shaking her head just enough for his hands to move with her. Her voice was soft, not dismissive, but full of something warmer. Older. Graver. Like she’d already made peace with what mattered and what didn’t.

Her eyes opened again, glinting with tears and ash and something almost like awe. Her fingers reached up, then, too, again like she couldn’t stop moving from the nerves, brushing his hair back from his forehead, careful to avoid the edge of the bandage. She looked at him like he was something precious she had nearly lost; her gaze flickering from his eyes to his nose to his cheek to his mouth, over and over, like she couldn’t decide where to land. Her lips parted again, voice still hoarse with everything she hadn’t cried out, a faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, tremulous but real.

“I wanted to wait,” she whispered. “I wanted to wait until you were okay.”

And in that moment, with the smoke still curling behind them, with the world only half right again, that was all that mattered.

Spencer leaned back slightly, just enough to look at her clearly. His hands moved away, gentle but sure, and wrapped around her wrists. He held them like he was afraid they’d disappear, his thumbs brushing slowly across the skin there — gritty, trembling, still cold.

“I’m okay,” he said, low and steady. “So let’s get you checked out, okay?”

Y/N let out a soft, unsteady breath, the kind that hitched halfway up her chest. She nodded once, small and slow. Her mouth twitched again, not quite into a full smile, but close, like it hurt a little less now to try.

And before she could even think, before hesitation had the chance to catch her, she leaned forward and kissed him.

Just the corner of his mouth — soft and grateful and breathless — like something she’d wanted to do for years but only now realized she could.

Spencer’s eyes widened slightly, and he blinked like she’d pulled the air out of his lungs. His mouth parted, but nothing came out. His hands were still around her wrists, thumbs still brushing.

“That’s what you and I do, right?” she whispered, voice fragile but steady. “Keep each other alive.”

Her eyes flicked over his face again, as if memorizing every line now that she could, her fingers brushing gently against his jaw.

“And you always hold my hand through stitches,” she added, quieter now. “So don’t start slacking.”

Spencer huffed a tiny breath of laughter, dazed and full of everything he didn’t know how to name yet. His eyes stayed on her like he was afraid she might vanish.

“Yeah,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Always.”

Y/N let out a quiet exhale, her forehead dropped to his again, but only for a second before she pressed her nose into the side of his face, the curve of his cheek. She leaned into him, finally letting her weight settle between his legs where he was perched on the edge of the rig, her arms curling loosely around his sides. Not tight. Just there. Present.

And he let her stay.

His hands slid from her wrists to her back, one resting just below her shoulder blade, the other finding the place between her spine and the base of her ribs. Holding her gently. Steadying her.

They stayed like that for a long moment, unmoving. Around them, the forest shifted — the light dimming to something quiet, emergency lights softening, boots crunching faintly in the background.

But here, in the stillness between breath and pain and after, she had him.

And he had her.

264 notes · View notes

clementineinn · 26 days ago

Text

OMG stooooop you’re making me blush (don’t stop) 💛 but seriously, thank youuu sm for reading, i’m so honored by your words MWAH xx

some kind of heaven

abstract: they weren’t supposed to cross that line, not yet. but one quiet night, something shifted, inbetween soft laughter, sleepy touches, and confessions that had waited too long.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader (usage of Y/N)

genre: explicit smut!! basically smut with a dash of plot lol, but also some fluff

note: i have been having terrible writer’s block and feeling a wee bit unmotivated so i’ve just been writing fluffy stories in order to try to get back into my mojo, and, a smutty fic somehow snuck in between the cracks, oopsie. so i thought i might as well post it while i keep trying to get my writing on par with my ridiculous expectations lol. (this goes out to my fiendish readers, i see you, babes.) this one is pretty explicit compared to my one other smutty fic so be warned!! i’d like to think i’ve improved from my one direction fic days but we’ll see how it’s received…insert devil emoji, jk. enjoy, my lovelies!

The street was still humming.

Not loud like it had been hours earlier, when the bar spilled laughter and neon across the sidewalk, when Emily was dancing on a curb and Morgan was ordering tequila like it came with a discount. Now, just past midnight, the storefronts were shuttered, windows aglow with the last flickers of life: someone washing a dish in their kitchen, a television muttering in a second-floor walkup, headlights sliding past in a lazy hush of rubber on wet pavement.

Spencer’s tie hung loose around his neck, the top two buttons of his shirt undone. His sleeves were pushed up unevenly, one arm showing more skin than the other, and his hair—usually tamed by some miracle—was falling in soft, chaotic waves across his forehead. He looked untethered in a way he rarely allowed, and somehow it made him lighter.

Or maybe it was the bourbon.

Beside him, Y/N stumbled slightly on the curb’s edge, still in her heels — though the left strap was half undone and threatening rebellion. She steadied herself with one hand in the deep pocket of her coat, the other brushing his arm for balance. Her hair was a little windswept, eyes glassy with that soft, half-drunk gleam, and her mouth still wore the edges of a smile from something he’d said five minutes ago.

“Your definition of dancing,” she said, stepping carefully over a crack in the concrete, “is offensive to rhythm itself.”

Spencer shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets. “I wasn’t dancing. I was… responding to external stimuli in a kinetic way.”

“That sounds like how a robot would describe dancing.”

He tilted his head. “I didn’t want to break your concentration. You were—” He faltered for a second, clearing his throat. “You were having a good time.”

She turned to look at him, walking backward now, the city light haloing her in a golden blur. “So you were watching me.”

He paused mid-step. “You looked happy.”

That stopped her.

Not dramatically—just a small shift in her expression. Something quiet behind the eyes, like she wasn’t used to someone noticing that. Or maybe used to people noticing the wrong things.

She looked at him for a beat too long, then turned and kept walking. “So did you,” she said. “Happy.”

They didn’t say anything for the next block.

The silence wasn’t awkward. It never was with them. Just filled with city noise and the click of her rings against her shoes, and the brush of her coat sleeve against his every few steps.

When they reached the intersection, Spencer pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced at it. “You live closer than I do.”

“Are you inviting yourself over?” she said, mockingly scandalized.

“I’m asking,” he said, with the kind of soft boldness that sounded foreign coming from his mouth. “If you want company. I’ll go home if not.”

Y/N stopped walking. They were under the streetlamp now, and her face was dappled in warm light and shadow, tired and flushed and pretty in a way that made his throat tighten.

“Don’t go home yet,” she said.

And that was that.

They turned the corner in sync.

Her apartment door clicked open with a low metallic sigh, the sound echoing faintly down the quiet hallway. The moment it swung inward, the air changed—cooler inside, tinged with the fading scent of sandalwood and something sweet, like dried orange peel or old perfume absorbed into the walls. Familiar, in the way her space had always felt to him.

“Don’t judge the mess,” she said, glancing at him over her shoulder. “I wasn’t expecting company tonight.”

Spencer smiled faintly. “I won’t.”

She stepped in first, flicking on the small lamp near the kitchen. A pool of golden light spilled across the hardwood, catching the curve of her shoulder as she shrugged out of her coat, letting it slip from her fingers to the hook by the door. She was in black slacks and a deep brown camisole, the kind of thing that walked a perfect line between casual and devastating, and her hair fell around her shoulders like she hadn’t even tried.

Spencer closed the door behind them and stood still for a second, adjusting to the hush of the space. It was like the city had pressed pause outside.

“Make yourself at home,” she said gently, tossing her keys into a ceramic bowl on the counter. “I have wine. Or whiskey. Or that plum soju Garcia left behind last time.”

“Dealer’s choice,” he murmured, loosening his coat and folding it over his arm before draping it on the arm of the couch.

She smiled at that—something small and lazy. “God, you’re always so polite. Even drunk.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“You’re tipsy and poetic,” she said, barefoot now as she padded into the kitchen. “Which is worse.”

He moved to the record player in the corner, almost by instinct.

“Can I?” he asked, fingers already ghosting over the sleeves.

“Please,” she called. The pop of a cork followed.

He flipped through a few records, pausing on one he recognized. Nina Simone. He smiled softly, fingertips grazing the worn cardboard cover before lifting it out and placing it on the turntable like it deserved reverence. A moment later, slow jazz bloomed through the room: smoky and sultry, older than either of them but more alive somehow. The kind of music meant for dim rooms and unspoken things.

“I like your place,” he said.

“You’ve been here before.”

“I know,” he replied. “I still like it.”

She looked up from where she was stood in the kitchen and towards him, and her eyes softened, just slightly. “That was very Reid of you.”

He grinned. “Can’t turn it off.”

“No,” she said, returning with two glasses of wine, deep red, nearly black in the low light, “but I don’t want you to.”

She handed one to him, fingers brushing just for a second, and lifted her own in a loose, crooked toast.

“To surviving the BAU social scene.”

He took the drink, ignoring the way her touch lingered like heat long after it was gone, and clinked his glass against hers. “Barely.”

They both sipped.

“Mm.” Spencer considered the wine, his brows drawn in mock-concentration. “It’s not terrible. A little tannic, but—”

“You’re such a snob.”

“You invited me,” he reminded her.

She raised one brow. “Still deciding if that was a mistake.”

He let out a laugh—low, surprised, and warm. The kind he never let himself have in briefing rooms or hotel lobbies or anywhere the world might listen. This was different. Here, no one else could hear it.

She curled onto the couch, tucking one leg beneath her and pulling a throw blanket into her lap. “Sit, Spence. I’m not going to quiz you on wine regions, I promise.”

He joined her, a little more hesitantly. His thigh brushed hers as he sat down, and he didn’t move away. Neither did she.

For a while, they just drank.

Talked softly. Laughed under their breath about Morgan’s karaoke attempt and JJ’s dramatic reading of a cocktail menu. The record spun on, humming something slow and smoky beneath the hush of their voices.

Y/N leaned back on the couch, wine glass balanced lazily between her fingers, her gaze flicking sideways with a mischievous glint. “You know that girl at the bar was flirting with you, right?”

Spencer glanced up, half-suspicious. “What girl?”

She scoffed. “The pretty one in the leather jacket. Red lipstick. Kept asking you questions she absolutely didn’t care about. Like if you came here often or believed in astrology.”

Spencer blinked, genuinely baffled. “She asked about Jupiter’s moons.”

“She asked if you wanted her number,” Y/N laughed, tipping her glass to her lips. “And you said, ‘Actually, there are seventy-nine confirmed moons—’”

“I was being polite.”

“You were being adorably oblivious.”

He rolled his eyes, reaching for the wine bottle and pouring a little more into her glass with exaggerated precision. “Says the woman who spent ten minutes explaining bourbon notes to the bartender while he tried not to drool on the counter.”

Her brow arched. “Are you jealous?”

He smirked, shrugging one shoulder. “Only if you are.”

She paused — just for a second too long — then gave him a coy smile. “Please. I have excellent taste.”

“Oh, I know,” he said, sipping slowly, “but you have no idea how many guys watch you when you’re not looking.”

Her smile faltered slightly, not from discomfort, but from the shift in tone. It had turned warmer. Quieter. Something flickering at the edges.

“You do,” she said softly.

“What?”

“Watch me.”

He met her gaze. Didn’t look away. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

The moment stretched — soft and electric.

And then she nudged his knee with hers. “Still not admitting the girl wanted your number?”

“I’d rather have yours,” he said, offhandedly, sure, but his voice was low now, almost surprised at his own boldness.

She stared at him for a breath too long.

And then smiled, slow and sure. “You already do.”

Their glasses got lower after that. The space between them shrank without effort. And the music kept playing.

At one point, she reached for the bottle again and leaned across him to pour, her wrist near his jaw, the scent of her shampoo flooding every neuron in his brain. He didn’t move. Just watched her fingers tilt the bottle and set it back down with care.

She sat back, looked at him, and tilted her head. “What?”

“You’re really close,” he said.

“You want me to move?”

“No.”

There it was again. That stillness. That moment just before something tips over the edge.

The music curled around them like smoke. The city outside kept breathing. But in here, it felt like nothing else existed except the way her gaze dropped to his mouth, and the way he didn’t stop her.

The needle kept spinning. Nina’s voice low and molten, curling like smoke around the edges of the room.

Y/N took another sip of wine, slow and deliberate. Her fingers lingered on the rim of her glass, nails tapping gently, thoughtfully, as she looked at him—really looked at him.

“You’re staring,” she said, not unkindly.

Spencer blinked, caught. “Am I?”

“Mhm.” Her lips curved, just barely. “Not that I mind. You’re just bad at being subtle when you’re drunk.”

“I told you, I’m not drunk.”

“Tipsy, then. Poetic. Loosened.” She leaned in a little, head tilted, voice dropping just slightly. “You get quieter when you’re like this. But not in a bad way. Like you’re… watching everything.”

“I do that all the time,” he murmured.

“Not like this,” she said.

“I told you I was watching you. In the bar.”

That stopped her for a beat, just long enough for his gaze to dip lower, flick to her mouth, then back to her eyes.

“You looked…” he began, then tilted his head slightly, voice rougher now, quieter. “Like you belonged to no one. Like everyone wanted a piece of you.”

She inhaled softly, her lips parting — the smallest shift, really.

“And you?” she asked, smile pulling at the edge of her mouth, almost breathless. “Did you want a piece?”

His answer came without hesitation.

“I wanted all of you.”

Her breath caught, barely.

And then she smiled again, slower now. More like surrender. “That’s a bold thing to say, Dr. Reid.”

He leaned in, just a little closer. His knee still pressed to hers. “It’s been a long night.”

Her eyes never left his.

“No,” she whispered. “It’s just starting.”

He set his wine glass down on the table, slow and careful, like the action might ground him. Like if he focused on the glass, he wouldn’t notice the way she was looking at him now—eyes soft, mouth parted slightly. Waiting.

Y/N’s gaze dropped to his lips for a fraction of a second before flicking back up. “You’re thinking too much again.”

“I always do.”

She nodded. “I know. But right now, maybe you don’t have to.”

The invitation was quiet. Threaded into the air between them like something sacred.

Spencer’s pulse thrummed in his throat. His breath faltered. The room seemed to still with it: the soft hum of the record, the golden pool of lamplight, the faint hush of the city breathing through the cracked window. He looked at her like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to touch her or if he already was.

And then — slowly — he reached out.

His fingers brushed her cheek, feather-light. She turned into the touch immediately, like her skin had been waiting for it. Her eyes fluttered shut, lashes kissing her cheeks, and then opened again, heavy-lidded and searching.

He leaned in.

Not rushed. Not unsure. Just… drawn. Like gravity. Like she was inevitable.

Their lips met in a hush — no sudden heat, no gasp. Just a quiet, breath-warmed kiss that landed and stayed. She shifted toward him, hand slipping over his knee, sliding slowly up his thigh as she kissed him again, more certain now. Her other hand curled behind his neck, fingers threading gently into the base of his hair.

His hand cupped her jaw, thumb brushing the edge of her cheekbone.

When he kissed her again, his lips parted slightly, letting her deepen it — and she did. Not with force, but with intent. Her mouth moved over his like a promise. Like something she’d thought about too many times not to get right.

He sighed into it, low and shaken, and let his other hand fall to her hip, drawing her gently across the couch until she was straddling him. The weight of her settled into his lap and he exhaled like it undid something in his chest.

Her forehead pressed to his as their mouths parted just slightly, breath mixing in the space between.

“I’ve wanted this,” she whispered.

He swallowed, his hand still resting at her jaw. “Me too.”

“How long?”

He laughed under his breath, one of those low, warm sounds that only came out when he forgot to be careful. “I think since the first time you rolled your eyes at me in a briefing.”

She smiled, nose brushing his. “You deserved it.”

“I know.”

She kissed him again. Slower. Surer. His hands moved over her now — waist, back, ribs — not grabbing, not greedy, just there. Learning her. Mapping her. Holding her like something sacred.

She rocked against him once, subtle and smooth and unable to help herself, and he gasped softly into her mouth, his hands tightening just slightly.

“You’re still thinking,” she whispered, breath shaky against his cheek.

“I’m trying not to,” he murmured, kissing just beneath her jaw. “But you make it hard.”

She smiled faintly, flushed and breathless. “Still thinking about that girl at the bar?”

He let out a quiet laugh against her skin. “She didn’t exactly leave an impression.”

“Oh no?” she teased, moving just enough to roll her hips against his, stealing his breath.

He gasped, actually gasped, then looked up at her, eyes wide and wrecked. “She didn’t watch me like this.”

“Like what?” she breathed.

“Like you’re watching me now.”

And then he kissed her again, deeper this time, like the air between them had finally gone thin, and she moaned softly into his mouth, letting the moment pull them both under.

But as they moved, slow and flush together, her lips brushing his jaw again, Spencer’s voice dropped lower, just a shade darker.

“You know…” he murmured between kisses, his mouth brushing the edge of her jaw, “I still can’t stop thinking about the bartender.”

She stilled slightly, not pulling back, just pausing, and opened her eyes to meet his.

“What about him?”

Spencer's gaze flicked to her mouth, then lower. His voice was quieter now, rougher. “The way he looked at you. Like he’d already decided you were his.”

She arched one brow, breath catching as she watched him curiously. “Still jealous, Doctor?”

He didn’t answer right away. Just kissed her, slow and claiming, before pressing his lips to her throat.

“I’m not good at sharing,” he whispered.

She smiled then, but it was different now. Less teasing. Her hands slid up into his hair, eyes suddenly darker, softer.

“Good,” she said, voice barely audible. “Neither am I.”

Neither of them moved for a long, loaded second.

And then he shifted, just slightly, gripping her hips more firmly, pulling her closer. The contact made her gasp — sharp and soft — her hands clinging to his shoulders like she needed him to anchor her.

“Spence—”

His mouth found her collarbone, biting down gently before soothing it with his tongue.

“You smiled at him like that,” he whispered against her skin. “Like you’re smiling at me now.”

Her breath hitched. “I didn’t—”

“I know,” he said. “I know. But he got to see it.”

He rolled his hips up into hers, slow and deliberate, just enough for her to feel the press of him, the need simmering just beneath the surface.

Her breath caught in her throat. Her fingers threaded into his hair, tugging gently. “Spencer—”

His eyes fluttered at the pull, his jaw tightening as he guided her hips down against him again, nothing rushed, nothing sharp. Just heat and ache, the slow grind of want, their bodies catching on each other like waves.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” he murmured, voice rough, lips brushing her collarbone. “Him watching you. Wanting you.”

She arched slightly, forehead falling to his. “You have me.”

“I know,” he whispered, voice cracking. “But I need you to feel it.”

She gasped as their bodies dragged together again — slow, desperate friction — and her spine arched, a soft moan breaking free.

“I do,” she breathed.

“You’re mine right now,” he said, still soft, still reverent, but with a quiet ache in it. “He doesn’t get this.”

Her moan cracked open in her throat, hips rolling harder now, chasing the edge he was teasing her toward. His hands steadied her, guided her, pressed her closer until their bodies fit like a lock and key.

“You like this?” he whispered. “Me jealous?”

She nodded, breathless, face flushed.

“Good,” he breathed, lips brushing hers. “Because I can’t watch you smile at someone else and pretend it doesn’t kill me.”

Her breath was coming faster now — shallow, open-mouthed, flushed against his cheek. Her hips moved instinctively, drawn to the way his hands guided her, but every roll of their bodies made the fabric between them feel heavier. Too hot. Too much.

Spencer’s hands flattened at her waist, gripping a little tighter — not to control her, but to hold her together. To hold himself together. She could feel it in the tremble of his fingers, the way his jaw clenched beneath her kisses.

“God,” he rasped, voice breaking as she ground down again, slowly, “we’re still—fully clothed—”

She let out a soft laugh, breathless, forehead pressed to his. “I know.”

His mouth found her jaw, then her throat, and then lower, kissing over the thin fabric of her shirt like he couldn’t stand not touching her properly. “You’re burning up.”

“So are you,” she whispered, dragging her hands down his chest, feeling the heat radiating through his shirt. Her fingers hesitated at the hem.

He looked up at her then, eyes wide, reverent, a little wrecked. “Do you want to stop?”

“No,” she said immediately, firmly, but soft. “Do you?”

He shook his head once. “Not even close.”

She smiled then, not coy, not teasing, but sure. A quiet kind of knowing.

Her hands slipped beneath his shirt, warm palms against his stomach, and he shivered beneath her. She moved slowly, pushing the fabric up inch by inch until he raised his arms for her. She lifted it over his head and tossed it aside, her fingertips grazing his skin on the way down.

Spencer looked up at her, breath caught in his throat.

“Okay?” she whispered, her hands settling at his shoulders.

“Yeah,” he said, voice low, awe-struck. “You?”

“Yeah.” She kissed him — soft and long — before guiding his hands to the hem of her own shirt.

His breath hitched. “Can I?”

She nodded.

He peeled it upward, slowly, reverently, revealing warm skin, inch by inch, until it joined his on the floor.

For a moment, they just looked at each other.

Still straddling him, still fully pressed together, but more bare now. More seen than before. Her hands on his chest, his at the curve of her waist. No rush. Just being here.

His voice was low, barely audible. “You’re perfect.”

She leaned down and kissed him again, mouths parting in the heat of it, her hands finding the back of his neck as she murmured against his lips, “So are you.”

Everything smelled like her: orange peel and wine and faint perfume and something he couldn’t name but knew by heart. Her skin was warm beneath his hands. Her breath brushed his mouth. She was close, so close, and yet something in him still hadn’t fully let go.

Y/N pulled back slightly, just enough to look at him.

Not teasing. Not smiling.

Just… looking.

His heart clenched.

“You okay?” she asked, her voice softer now, more fragile around the edges. Her fingers traced a lazy shape along his shoulder. “You’re quiet.”

Spencer swallowed hard. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. His hands were still on her hips. Her body was still pressed to his.

But something needed to be said before they could lose themselves again.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to pretend after this,” he said, so quietly he wasn’t sure she’d hear it. It came out before he could stop it. Like it had been living in his chest for months.

Y/N blinked. And then she looked down — lashes brushing her cheeks, lips still parted, pink from kissing.

She didn’t move away.

“You don’t have to,” she said, like it was simple. But her voice caught faintly at the end, something flickering behind her calm. “We’re not in the field. You don’t have to be careful with me right now.”

“I always feel like I do,” he whispered.

Her hand slid from his chest to the side of his face. Not guiding. Just there. Her thumb brushed the hinge of his jaw, grounding him.

“You don’t,” she said again — firmer this time. Quieter, but sure.

Spencer’s throat worked. He nodded, barely. “I’ve thought about this,” he said, the words trembling as they left him. “For so long. And not like this—not drunk, not after a night out. But… I’d take it a thousand different ways if it meant getting here.”

She broke then — not fully, but beautifully. Her mouth softened. Her breath trembled. And then she smiled — slow and stunned and real.

“Hey,” she murmured, nudging her nose against his. “You’re not drunk.”

He exhaled, something sharp in him releasing. “No?”

“No. Just…” She smirked faintly, brushing her lips over his. “Seduced.”

That made him laugh — a real laugh, low and shaken and absolutely ruined. His head tipped back slightly as he did, and she watched the way it lit him up from the inside out. Watched the boyish part of him that still believed she couldn’t possibly mean it.

God, she did.

She kissed the edge of his mouth, slower this time. Tender.

“You okay?” she asked again, lips brushing his.

“Yeah,” he said, voice rasping. “Are you?”

She nodded, then added under her breath, “I just… didn’t expect it to feel this much like you.”

He kissed her back like it was an answer. Like it was yes. Like it was always.

And when they moved again, when her hands slid down his shoulders and his mouth found the curve of her shoulder, it was less about heat and more about reverence. Something holy in how they touched each other now.

Like they knew this mattered.

Like they knew what came next wouldn’t be careless.

Y/N shifted first, her hand sliding down his chest, slow and unhurried. Her fingertips brushed the edge of his waistband, and he inhaled like she’d touched a nerve. He looked at her — not with hesitation, but with something like reverence, like he couldn’t believe she was really here.

Her lips hovered just over his. “Okay?”

He nodded once, breathless. “Yeah.”

She kissed him then — soft, grounding — and began to undo the button of his pants. Her hands moved gently, fingers careful, like she wanted to give him every chance to stop her. He didn’t. He just watched her, every muscle in his body wound tight beneath the tenderness.

When she eased the fabric down over his hips, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. His eyes fluttered closed, then opened again as her hands slid back up his thighs, palms warm and reassuring. She leaned in and kissed his chest, just above his heart, and he trembled beneath her.

Then it was his turn.

His hands moved slowly, reverently — first to the waistband of her pants, fingers brushing just beneath the fabric like he was asking, are you sure? She nodded against his lips, breath catching as he kissed her again, deeper this time, fuller. Like he needed to anchor himself before daring to go further.

He slid her pants down carefully, his palms trailing over the curve of her hips, knuckles grazing the skin of her thighs. When the fabric caught around her knees, he stilled.

Lace.

Soft and black and clinging. His breath faltered.

The flush hit him high on the cheeks, heat blooming down his neck, and he tried not to stare, but he was already gone. She was still straddling him, bare from the waist down save for that thin, delicate lace, and it was nearly translucent with how wet it was. A dark patch where the fabric met her center. A glisten along the inside of her thighs.

Spencer swallowed hard, once, then again, like he couldn’t get enough air.

“Jesus,” he whispered.

She looked down at him, the barest hint of a smile playing at her lips, not teasing, not smug. Just knowing.

He ran his hands up her thighs, slow and shaking, and hooked his fingers under the lace. His breath stuttered as he pulled it down — past the curve of her hips, over her trembling legs, until she lifted to help him and it slipped away entirely.

And then she was bare.

Her skin damp, flushed, warm and real above him. His eyes dragged over every inch; the way her thighs flexed to keep balance, the way her breath hitched when his fingers grazed her again, even without meaning to.

“You’re—” he tried, voice wrecked and aching. “You’re so—”

“I know,” she whispered.

She was soft and flushed and real, breathing a little harsh, her chest rising and falling with quiet urgency.

“You okay?” she whispered, touching his face.

“I—” His voice cracked. “Yeah. You’re just… I didn’t know you could want something this much and still be this careful.”

Her smile broke gently, her thumb brushing his cheek. “That’s what you do to me.”

He just stared for a moment.

The kind of stare that wasn’t crude or possessive, but stunned. Quietly reverent. As if something had unraveled in his chest just from seeing her like this. Completely bare. Completely his.

His hands hovered at first, unsure where to begin, until she reached for him, wordlessly, her palm curling over his wrist and guiding his fingers to her waist.

He touched her like she was an answer he’d been chasing for years.

Long, slow sweeps of his hands down her sides, over her hips. His thumbs curved along the dip where her thighs met her pelvis. He exhaled softly when she sighed — a small, broken sound in the back of her throat — and glanced up immediately, eyes wide like he’d just solved something.

“Was that good?” he asked, voice hushed, fingers still resting against her skin like he wasn’t sure if he could do it again.

She nodded, breath catching. “Yes, Spence.”

He blinked slowly, lashes fluttering, as his hands resumed their quiet study. One hand slid up her back, over her ribs, tracing the shape of her spine with featherlight touches. The other moved between her legs — tentative, aching — and when his fingers brushed against her there, slick and swollen, he drew a breath so sharp it made her shiver.

“Oh my god,” he whispered.

His touch was delicate at first. Exploring. Mapping her with the same precision he used to dissect crime scenes or quote obscure physics. But now, now it was paired with breathless awe. A scientist, yes, but a man hopelessly in love, desperate to learn every inch of her.

When his fingers slid gently through her folds, she whimpered.

He looked up again, startled by the sound, his brows furrowing like he needed to know exactly what he’d done to cause it, and how to do it again. He adjusted, thumb slipping to circle softly where she was most sensitive, and her whole body jerked.

“Spence—” she gasped.

“That?” he murmured, hypnotized. “That felt good?”

Her hand gripped his shoulder. “Don’t stop.”

So he didn’t.

He kept his eyes on her the whole time, his fingers moving in slow, purposeful circles, the sound of her arousal soft and slick between them. Her breath grew uneven, shallow. Her thighs quivered around his waist. And every time her hips moved, every time she made that sweet, breathy little sound — he looked up, hungry and stunned, like he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

“Tell me what you need,” he breathed, his voice cracking around the edges. “Please, Y/N, I want to do it right.”

“You are,” she whispered, kissing the corner of his mouth, her body rolling toward his hand. “You are.”

And his thumb pressed just a little firmer, his fingers curving just so — and her head tipped back, mouth open, another soft whimper escaping her lips.

The sound of it undid him. He swallowed hard, face flushed, mouth parted like he was the one losing control. Like her pleasure was his.

“You’re unbelievable,” he whispered, and he meant it. Every word.

His fingers kept moving, featherlight and trembling, like he was terrified of breaking her. But her body welcomed every motion; hips tilting toward his hand, her thighs falling wider around him, soft gasps catching in her throat as she whispered his name like it was the only word she remembered.

Spencer watched every reaction like it held a key to something he didn’t yet understand.

He traced lower, then up again, circling with his thumb, watching her tremble. Her lashes fluttered, lips parted as she tried to breathe through it, her voice catching on each exhale like she couldn’t keep herself quiet anymore.

“Spence,” she mewled, her hands gripping his shoulders, her hips stuttering as she pressed into him.

He flushed at the sound, gaze flickering between her face and where he was touching her, already soaked, already shaking. “You’re—God, you’re so soft,” he whispered, swallowing hard. “So warm.”

His fingers curved again, more pressure this time. She cried out, just a little, just enough. Her hand shot down instinctively, not to stop him, never that, but to anchor herself. And in the same breath, she touched him.

Her fingers wrapped around him, just barely, and he jolted like her skin was fire.

“Y/N—oh—”

She brushed her thumb across the tip — slick, flushed, impossibly warm — and Spencer’s whole body jolted beneath her like he’d been shocked.

“F-fuck, that feels—” His voice cracked, hips stuttering forward into her hand. His eyes fluttered closed, then snapped open again, wild and glassy. “That feels so good—”

She felt the wetness spread between her fingers, warm and slippery, his arousal smearing across her palm with each shaky movement. He twitched in her grip, pulsing against her skin like he was already on the edge.

“Yeah,” she gasped, her breath catching hard. “I want you, Spence. I need you.”

Her words knocked the wind out of him.

He let out a strangled moan, his hips jerking again, more desperate now, chasing the friction, his hands gripping her hips so tightly it bordered on reverent. His whole body was trembling, unraveling with every second she touched him.

“Don’t make me beg,” she whispered, curling her fingers tighter, teasing him again as slickness spread down.

But Spencer’s eyes found hers, pupils dark and unfocused, lips parted as he barely managed to speak:

“I want you to beg.”

It wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t even confident. It was needy, desperate, like the sound of her pleading might be the only thing that could keep him from falling apart right there in her hand.

“Please,” he added a second later, broken and breathless. “Please. I need to hear it.”

She leaned in closer, lips brushing his ear, her breath shaky with want.

“Please,” she whispered. “Spence… I need you inside me. Need you to help me take it.”

His breath hitched, chest rising in short, sharp pulls.

“I want you to fuck me,” she murmured, voice trembling now, nearly a whimper. “I want to feel all of you, every inch. Will you let me?”

He let out a broken moan, high, desperate, like it had been waiting in his throat for years. One of his hands fisted in the blanket beside him. The other slid up, slowly, reverently, to her waist, then her ribs, then settled just beneath her chest, like he couldn’t decide where to hold her because he wanted to touch everything at once.

“I know,” he whispered. “I just… I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to rush.”

“You won’t,” she promised, leaning in to kiss him — slow and still — her hand cupping his jaw. “We won’t.”

Then she shifted her hips, aligning them with a softness that felt sacred. Her breath caught as she hovered above him, and his hands settled at her sides, fingers flexing as if he still couldn’t believe she was real.

“Okay?” she breathed again.

His head bobbed in a dazed nod, but she didn’t move.

Her hands slid up his chest slowly, deliberately, until her thumbs rested just below his collarbones, feeling the frantic rhythm of his heart beneath her fingers.

“I need you to say it, Spence,” she whispered, voice soft but steady. “With words.”

He blinked up at her, breath catching. His lips were parted, flushed, trembling. For a second, he couldn’t find the sound—just the feeling, all of it tangled up in his throat—but then he swallowed hard and rasped, “Yes. Please. I want you.”

She smiled, slow and warm, eyes flickering over him like he was the only thing in the world.

“Good boy,” she whispered, barely audible, her breath catching on the words.

Spencer let out a strangled sound — part gasp, part moan — and she felt it the moment it hit him. His hips twitched beneath her, jolting with a sharp, helpless pulse against her as if the praise had short-circuited him.

His hands clenched reflexively at her hips, fingertips digging in just a little, like he needed to hold onto something, anything.

“Jesus,” he breathed, eyes fluttering shut for a second, already undone and she hadn’t even moved yet.

And then, inch by inch, she sank down onto him — slow, steady, trembling with the effort to stay present. Letting him feel every part of her choosing this. Letting herself feel the ache of being filled like that for the first time; all the way, all at once, like her body had been waiting for this exact shape.

Spencer’s head tipped back against the couch, jaw tight, lips parted.

“Oh my god—”

His voice broke.

The words left him on a gasp, soft and whiny, like his body had outpaced his ability to hold anything in. His hands fumbled at her hips, not to guide her, but to hold on. Like if he didn’t anchor himself to her, he might fall apart.

Y/N was already watching him; flushed, bare, her hands flat on his chest like she needed to feel the stammer of his heartbeat. Her thighs trembled slightly around his hips. Her breath caught in her throat.

She reached up and cradled his face with both hands, her thumbs brushing over the apples of his cheeks, her eyes shining with something unnameable.

He gasped again, almost disoriented.

“Yeah?” she whispered, her own voice shaking slightly now. Her lips ghosted against his jaw, then hovered by his ear. “Feel good?”

That pulled something raw out of him — a sound that wasn’t a word, just a broken, aching yes.

His hands slipped up her back, clumsy and reverent.

“You don’t even know,” he whispered, voice cracking like the moment was too full to carry. “You feel like—like everything.”

She kissed him then, slow and steady and deep, guiding his mouth back to hers like she was still teaching him how to breathe.

And he let her — let her hold his face and move against him and carry them forward, bit by bit, into something that no longer felt like the edge of want but the center of it.

Y/N moved over him in a rhythm that wasn’t steady anymore — not perfect, not planned. Just instinct. Just need. Her hips rolled because she couldn’t not, because the feeling of him deep inside her made her stomach twist and her breath stutter. She was trembling, not from nerves, not from effort, but from the ache that bloomed with every breath, every drag of skin, every tiny shift that made him gasp beneath her.

His hands gripped her waist, tight and unthinking, and her fingers clawed at his shoulders like she didn’t know what to do with her own body anymore. Her forehead bumped his, their mouths barely apart, eyes fluttering closed and open again with every shock of sensation.

“Spence—” she breathed, her voice broken now, lips brushing his.

He let out a sound that didn’t even sound like a word — just breath, just want, his mouth falling open against her neck. He couldn’t stop kissing her, couldn’t stop moving. She felt too good. She felt like nothing had ever come close to this.

Her nails scraped through his hair, and he moaned into her throat. “You—fuck, you feel—” He cut off again, lost in it, dragging her down harder as his hips pressed up to meet her.

“God,” she whispered, burying her face in his neck, her voice dissolving into a shaky cry as her body clenched down around him, tight and wanting. “Spencer, I—”

He was gasping now, jaw slack, fingers bruising at her hips. “I can’t—I’m gonna—Y/N—”

“I know,” she whispered, even though she didn’t. Even though she was already starting to fall apart, already shaking, already gone. “Me too.”

Their rhythm shifted — deeper, messier. Not graceful anymore, not careful. Just pure feeling. Her hips lifted and sank, dragged friction through the center of them both, and Spencer’s moans caught in his throat, softer now, more breath than sound. He couldn’t breathe right. Couldn’t think.

Y/N could feel him unraveling; in the way his fingers flexed on her hips, in how he pressed up into her like he couldn’t not, like staying still was suddenly impossible. She was gasping too now, her forehead falling to his, their noses brushing as they moved together, lost in the drag and the ache and the heat.

“Spence,” she breathed his name like a prayer, like a plea.

“I don’t—” he tried, but couldn’t finish. His voice cracked. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” she whispered, but it was half a gasp, her head falling back slightly as he shifted beneath her and hit that place that made her see stars. “You couldn’t.”

His hands gripped harder. “You feel—fuck, you feel—”

“I know,” she breathed, and her voice was shaking too now, coming apart at the edges. “I know, I—Spence, look at me.”

And when he did — when their eyes met — it hit her like a punch. His face was flushed and open and wrecked. His mouth parted, his eyes glassy and wide and too full of everything to speak. Just need. Just her.

And then he moved — all instinct, all surrender — pulling her down against him with a force that wasn’t rough, just desperate. Like he couldn’t take being apart from her for even an inch. Like he needed her closer. Needed all of her.

Their bodies fit like they were made for it. Every roll of her hips made his breath catch, every grind of him inside her made her thighs shake. And there was no room left for language now.

Her thighs flexed around him as she rode him, slow at first, hips lifting, circling, sinking again in a rhythm that made him groan, head tipped back, neck arched. She pressed her hands to his chest for balance, fingers splaying over his heart, and the shift in angle had her gasping too; her breath catching with every downward roll, every glide of him so deep inside her it felt like she was melting.

The couch creaked faintly beneath them, its old frame groaning in time with every rise and fall of her body. Her hair slipped over her shoulders in soft, undone waves, falling around his face like a curtain as she leaned into him, moving faster now, more sure. Her chest brushed his, damp with sweat, her breath stuttering near his mouth.

Every motion dragged a moan from him — helpless, wrecked — and she could feel it building in herself too, high in her chest, low in her belly, a flicker that turned into fire with every grind of her hips, every press of him inside her.

“Spence—” she gasped, voice breathless and thin. “I’m gonna—”

Her thighs began to tremble from the effort, rhythm faltering as the pressure inside her built too fast, too strong. She was still trying to move — hips lifting, circling — but it was falling apart, every breath catching, every motion stuttering as her body tried to keep up with the feeling.

“Spence—” she gasped, eyes fluttering, “I—I can’t—”

He saw it in her face, the way her mouth fell open and her brows pinched, her body struggling to hold on to the rhythm as pleasure coiled tight and threatening. And that was it. That look. That sound.

That’s what undid him.

“Fuck,” he groaned, breath shuddering, “Come here—”

His hands clamped around her hips, holding her in place as he took over — rolling his hips up hard, fast, brutal almost in his desperation. Their bodies met with wet, dizzying rhythm, the couch groaning beneath them, the air thick with breath and heat and the sharp, helpless sounds of both of them falling apart.

She cried out, body jolting with every thrust, hands gripping his shoulders like she was trying to ground herself, to hold on. Her head fell forward, forehead brushing his, mouth parted against his cheek.

“Spence—Spence, oh my god—”

“You sound so pretty,” he gasped against her skin, voice broken and raw. “So fucking pretty—look at me—please—”

She lifted her head just enough to meet his eyes, and what he saw there made his breath catch: flushed and glassy, mouth swollen from kissing, trembling and wide open just for him.

“Come for me,” he whispered, voice almost pleading, hips still driving up into her. “Please, baby—come for me—”

She was right there.

Every breath spilled like it hurt to keep it in, her body drawn so tight it felt like she might snap from the inside out. Her thighs trembled as she moved, his name slipping past her lips in a soft, choked gasp. Every part of her was alive with sensation; her skin electric, her chest flushed and aching, her stomach coiled so tightly it felt like lightning wrapped around bone.

He saw it—felt it—in the way her rhythm stuttered, how her nails dug into his shoulders, how her mouth dropped open without a sound at first. Just air, no words. And then—

“Spencer—” she breathed, almost tearful. “I’m—Spence, I—”

He didn’t let up. Couldn’t. His hips kept surging up to meet her, driving into her with a desperate, focused rhythm. One hand still gripped her hip, fingers pressing bruises into her skin; the other slid up, caught the nape of her neck, tangled in her hair.

And then he leaned forward — lips finding her chest, his mouth open and hot and worshipping. He kissed her there like he needed to feel her heartbeat against his tongue, needed to know this was real, that this was happening. His teeth grazed the swell of her breast before he sucked gently at her skin, reverent and wild all at once.

That’s when she shattered.

Her back arched, neck long, jaw slack, the sound that tore from her throat was high and unrestrained, a broken, beautiful cry that echoed in the dim hush of the room. Her body clamped down around him, helpless and overwhelmed, her thighs squeezing his hips as her climax rushed through her in waves.

It was like being lit from within.

Her vision blurred, head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, and all she could see behind her lids was starlight. Not metaphor. Not fancy. Real constellations — Orion, Cassiopeia, Ursa Major — all the ones he used to whisper about during stakeouts and long walks back from crime scenes. They bloomed behind her eyes like galaxies, like he’d left fingerprints in her brain and now they were burning, glowing, everywhere.

“Oh—fuck—” she gasped, voice raw and unrecognizable, her body convulsing with the force of it.

Still, he didn’t stop. Still, he moved beneath her — chasing her through the stars.

Then his hand tugged gently at her hair, grounding her. He leaned up, breath ragged, pulling her face down toward his. Their foreheads bumped, her breaths hot on his mouth.

“Let me see you,” he whispered, voice ruined. “I want to see you come.”

And she did.

Eyes fluttering open through the haze, locking on his as her body jerked in his lap again, one last wave tearing through her, eyes glassy, lashes damp. Her mouth trembled as she tried to speak — couldn’t. She just kissed him instead, open-mouthed and desperate, like she was falling into him and didn’t want to land.

It was too much.

The way her body still pulsed around him, soft and fluttering in the aftermath. The way her breaths landed against his mouth, shaky and stunned. The way her hands trembled as they cupped his face like she was still coming down and didn’t want to let go of him to fall.

And the sounds — god, the sounds.

She was whispering his name in that broken, honeyed voice, lips brushing his cheek like she couldn’t stop saying it. Like it was the only word that felt safe in her mouth. And her moans—soft, whiny, drawn out like ribbon—sank into his skin and rewired every nerve in his body. She leaned in, still dazed, still breathless, and murmured it against his ear:

“You feel so good, Spencer… you’re so deep, it’s perfect, it’s—god—stay just like that, please—”

He broke.

His brain — that hyperactive, endlessly connecting, wildly calculating brain — short-circuited. It couldn’t process anything but her. The smell of her skin, the echo of her moans, the slick grip of her body around him. It was data overload; no logic, no equations, no escape hatch through reason.

Just her. Just this.

“Fuck,” he gasped, hands clawing at her hips now, breath ragged, his body taking over. He couldn’t stop the way he thrust into her — desperate, erratic, hungry. “I can’t— I can’t hold it—”

She kissed him through it, soft and slow, but messy now, like she needed to feel him fall apart under her. Like watching him lose control was her favorite part.

And it was blissful torture: his body was spiraling, tightening, burning from the inside out, and her voice was there, soft and trembling against his mouth.

“Spence—” she whined, her forehead bumping his, lips brushing his. “Please—please, I need it—need you to let go for me.”

Her words undid him. Not just the sound of them, but the way she said it, like she was begging for him, like she couldn’t stand the thought of being without this moment.

“You feel so good,” she moaned softly, the words falling out like she couldn’t stop them, like she wasn’t even aware she was speaking. “Please, baby, I want to feel you—please…”

That’s all it took.

His eyes rolled back. His jaw slackened, lips parting in a soundless gasp before the wrecked, high whine finally spilled out of him — raw and breathless, almost broken. His brow furrowed hard, as if it hurt to feel this much, like the pleasure was too big for his body to hold.

And then his hips slammed up into her — sharp, uncontrollable, desperate.

Y/N cried out, her whole body jolting from the force of it, the sound caught somewhere between a gasp and a sob. Her fingers fisted in his hair, nails dragging against his scalp, and when the second thrust hit — just as brutal, just as deep — she bit into the curve of his neck, hard, like her body didn’t know how else to survive it.

She clenched around him; helpless, breath shattering, vision going hazy.

Spencer groaned again, louder this time, pitched and desperate. His hands gripped her hips tight enough to bruise, dragging her down onto him like he needed her fused to him, needed her everywhere all at once.

“Oh my god—Y/N—” His voice cracked again, soft and choked. “Fuck, you—”

The words died on his tongue, overwhelmed by the flood crashing through him. It ripped him apart. Every nerve was fire, every inch of him straining toward her, his release pouring through him like it had been waiting years to be set free.

His whole body convulsed — spine arching, chest rising in short, helpless gasps — and he buried his face in her shoulder like he couldn’t bear to be seen in this moment of ruin. She held him, breathless and clinging, skin pressed to skin, letting him tremble through every last wave of it.

It was too much; it was perfect.

His world narrowed to her: her breath on his neck, the clutch of her around him, the soft whimper she let out as he rocked up into her one last time, like he couldn’t stop.

“Don’t let go,” he murmured, half-delirious. “Please—please don’t let go—”

Her fingers threaded gently into his hair, her lips brushing his temple in a hush of warmth. Her voice was still trembling, still wrecked, but sure.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered. “I’ve got you, Spence. I’m right here.”

He clung to her like the world might fall apart if he didn’t.

And still, she held on.

For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing.

Slow, uneven, stunned.

The city still whispered outside, the faint hiss of passing cars, the low hum of a train echoing through the bones of the building, but here, wrapped in the heat of her living room, everything felt impossibly still.

Spencer’s head rested against her chest, eyes closed, arms looped tight around her waist like he didn’t trust the world not to take her away if he let go. His heartbeat raced against her ribs. His breath warmed the hollow of her throat.

Y/N’s fingers were in his hair, gentle now, smoothing back the strands she’d tugged too hard. She blinked slowly, dazed, every inch of her pulsing and flushed, barely tethered to the ground. Her legs trembled around him still, not from strain anymore, but from aftershock.

Neither of them spoke.

Until she let out the tiniest laugh: a stunned, breathless sound that made his lashes flicker against her skin.

He shifted, nose brushing her collarbone. “What?”

“I just…” she pulled back an inch, enough to look at him — cheeks pink, lips swollen, her expression equal parts wonder and disbelief. “We really—just did that.”

He smiled, small and awed, and didn’t let go. “We really did.”

Her hand slid down his shoulder, lazy and slow, until her fingertips traced the edge of his jaw. “You okay?”

Spencer opened his eyes, glassy, wide, soft. “I don’t even know where I am right now.”

That made her laugh again, this time louder — giddy and breathless and beautiful.

“You sure you’re not drunk?”

“No,” he said, blinking up at her like she was the only thing keeping him grounded. “I’m just completely fucking in love with you.”

That caught her off-guard — not the words, maybe, but the softness in them. The way he said it like it wasn’t new. Like it had always been true.

Y/N’s smile turned gentler. She kissed him once, then again, and then let her forehead rest against his.

And then she blinked, glanced down between them, and made a face.

“Oh my god.”

Spencer’s eyes followed hers, and his face flushed immediately.

She sat back slightly, still straddling him, hands braced on his chest. ��We made a mess.”

“I—yeah,” he said, cheeks burning. “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be,” she cut in, grinning despite herself. “Just… wow.”

He buried his face in his hands. “God, I’m never going to recover from this.”

“You’ll be fine,” she said, leaning down to kiss his temple. “Eventually.”

When she finally moved — carefully, slowly — it was with a quiet whimper she couldn’t hold back. A soft, shaky sound as she lifted herself off of him, breath catching, body still trembling with the aftershocks of everything they’d just done.

Spencer let out a low, helpless moan at the loss of her — broken and warm in his throat. His eyes fluttered shut, head tipping back against the couch as he exhaled hard, like he was trying to slow a runaway train inside his chest.

“Jesus,” he breathed.

Y/N steadied herself on his shoulders, still catching her breath, hips aching in the best way. Her thighs felt like water. Her heart was still stuttering somewhere in her ribcage.

“Sorry,” she whispered with a sleepy wince. “Didn’t mean to crush you.”

“You can crush me whenever you want,” Spencer mumbled, voice rough and wrecked.

She laughed, low and dizzy. Her hand brushed through his hair, soft and absent, and then she stood — slowly, carefully, the stretch of her legs making her sigh again.

She reached for the hem of his oversized shirt and tugged it on, barely covering the mess of love bites blooming down her neck, the curve of her breast where his mouth had been, the bruises he hadn’t meant to leave on her hips. She didn’t care.

Spencer was still on the couch, dazed and staring like she was holy.

“Come on, doctor,” she murmured, tilting her head toward the hallway. “You can’t sleep in�� that.”

He blinked once, then again — and finally stood, breath catching as he moved. His hands came to her waist instinctively, grounding himself.

“I’m not sure I remember how to walk.”

“Good thing I do.”

Their fingers stayed linked as they padded down the hallway, bare feet on warm floorboards, their bodies moving in lazy unison. The apartment smelled like them now. Like orange peel and sweat and wine and everything unspoken that had finally found its way into the light.

In the bathroom, she flipped on the softest light and reached for a towel, tossing it over her shoulder as she moved to the cabinet. Spencer leaned against the doorframe behind her, watching — half-naked, flushed, his hair an absolute mess.

“I feel like I just ran a marathon,” he said, voice soft.

She met his eyes in the mirror. “You kind of did.”

They smiled.

She ran warm water into a cloth, then turned to him and held it up like an offering. “Want me to—?”

Spencer stepped closer. “Please.”

So she cleaned him up — slow, quiet, unhurried. Her fingers ghosting over his skin. His hands finding her hips again, just because he could. Just because they were allowed now. She kissed his jaw when she finished, and he kissed her back like she’d just saved his life.

He pressed their foreheads together, eyes still closed.

“Stay,” he whispered.

“I live here,” she whispered back, laughing into his mouth.

“Oh.” His lips curved. “Right.”

She turned off the bathroom light with a sleepy flick, the hallway behind her cast in a soft golden blur as she padded back toward the living room. The apartment had gone quiet — save for the distant hum of city traffic and the low whir of the old fridge — but everything still felt hushed and glowing, like the night hadn’t quite let go of them yet.

Spencer followed, still loose-limbed and dazed, his hair a little damp where she’d smoothed it down, collarbone marked faintly from her mouth. He stopped at the threshold and just watched her — the curve of her in that worn oversized shirt, hem brushing the tops of her thighs, legs bare and warm and glowing in the spill of lamplight.

She crossed into the kitchen without a word, reaching for two mismatched glasses from the open shelf. The water ran quietly. She filled them both, fingertips resting lightly on the edge of the counter as she blinked slowly, dreamily, still floating a little.

Then she turned.

She handed him one glass, like it mattered, like it was sacred, like she was still giving him something of herself. He took it carefully, their fingers brushing, and she smiled.

“I’m not letting you leave ever now,” she murmured, voice low and certain. “You know that, right?”

Spencer’s face broke open into the softest, most astonished grin. He stepped forward, gently taking her hand again, pulling it up to his chest like it was some holy thing.

“Good,” he said. “I don’t want to go.”

She leaned up and kissed the corner of his mouth, not rushed, not teasing, just real. “Come on. Bed. Before you collapse on my floor and I have to drag your genius ass.”

He let her tug him down the hallway, stumbling a little just for show, still grinning as they reached her room.

The lights were already low. The sheets looked soft, slightly rumpled, like they’d been waiting for this. Spencer followed her in with quiet steps, one hand wrapped around the glass she’d given him, still cold against his palm.

Y/N moved toward the dresser, hair falling in soft waves down her back, the oversized shirt slipping slightly off one shoulder as she crouched to open the drawer. He took a sip of water, then another, watching her, chest still rising a little too fast from everything they hadn’t quite come down from.

She stood, turned, and tossed him a shirt and a pair of boxers — grey, worn in, unmistakably his.

“Wait,” he said, catching them midair. “These are mine.”

“Mm-hmm,” she said innocently, turning to grab her glass of water from her nightstand after setting it down. “From your place.”

Spencer raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been stealing my clothes?”

She took a sip of water, then turned toward him, eyes wide with faux guilt. “Only the ones that smelled like you.”

He blinked. She smiled wider.

“And don’t act like you didn’t almost catch me,” she added, pointing at him with her glass. “That case in Denver? That grey sweater I wore in the precinct all day?”

“That was mine?!”

“I panicked when you stared at me for too long. I thought you were gonna say something.”

“I was,” he muttered, mock-scandalized. “I was trying to figure out why I wanted to kiss you even more than usual.”

She choked on a laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You’re a thief.”

They both smiled as they changed; backs to each other, but grinning at the quiet of it, the comfort. She slipped on a pair of sleep shorts and tugged an oversized shirt back over her head, body still damp from steam and skin-warmth. Spencer pulled on the stolen boxers and that soft shirt like it was always meant to end up here.

She climbed onto the bed first, settling into the pillows with a sleepy stretch. Spencer crawled in beside her.

And then — dramatically, teasingly — she rolled toward him, climbed right into his lap again, curled sideways across his chest like a smug little blanket.

“Round two?” she whispered in his ear, all warm breath and dangerous sweetness.

Spencer let out a low, playful groan, burying his face in her neck. “You’ll kill me.”

“You’ll die happy.”

“I’ll die fast.”

She threw her head back laughing, one hand carding through his hair as he mock-growled into the curve of her throat. His arms came around her, pulling her in, and for a moment it was just that — tangled limbs, soft laughter, heartbeats finding each other in the dark.

Eventually, they shifted — limbs untangling just enough to fit side by side, her head on his chest, his hand tracing lazy shapes on her shoulder. The kind of quiet you only get when you’ve said everything you needed to without speaking at all.

She kissed his chest once, then again, slower this time.

“I love you,” she whispered.

Spencer breathed in, deep and quiet and stunned. “I love you more than anything.”

Outside, the city hummed on.

But here, in the hush of their shared bed, they let the stillness hold them. Fingers linked under the covers. A future tucked gently between their bodies.

Sleep came slow and sweet; like dusk, like memory, like something they could finally call theirs.

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clementineinn · 26 days ago

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this is so kind, thank you so much 💛 i’m really grateful you took the time to read and share, it means a lot xx 🌟🌟