#all. azra | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

parfaitblogs · 22 days ago

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as time goes by ❀ s. reid x reader

in which you funnel through photographic memories of what once was, now isn't, but might still be.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader genre: angst & smut (18+ mdni) tags: what isn't there? meet cute. burnt toast theory if you squint. right person wrong time. soft dom!spencer. first time. p in v. fingering. praise. fade to black oral (f receiving). mommy issues. anxious attachment reader. past alcohol consumption. argument. + angst, smut, fluff, hurt/comfort. word count: 9.8k a/n: i know i said this was 8k but then i just kept writing and writing and writing and writing and writing... enjoy my angels!! this truly took a piece of my soul to write. a short playlist of what i listened to while writing this <3

"I'm always soft for you, that's the problem. You could come knocking on my door five years from now and I would open my arms wider and say 'come here, it's been too long, it felt like home with you." (Azra T)

February

It was a dreary burst of continuous rain and the threat of a thunderstorm that landed you in this predicament.

Grey storm clouds that darkened the entire city even at the early hour of seven in the morning. There was a soft glow in one of the clusters of clouds where the sun was attempting to peek through, a striking metaphor for the way your life currently felt. Rays of sunshine barely piercing the sky enough to make an impression on the otherwise miserable day.

You were late for work. Your usually easy morning routine replaced by bus delays due to the traffic on the roads, and trains canceled due to faults in the signalling.

You were barely halfway up the stairs to your platform when it happened.

If you were any less focussed on keeping the ends of your jeans off the damp concrete, you wouldn't have spotted the drop of the blue and green SmarTrip card dropping to the step in front of you, from a leather messenger bag that was frantically swinging on someone's shoulder.

You pick it up without even thinking, concerned by the fact that its owner hadn't even noticed. Which meant you'd have to experience the God awful awkward interaction of handing it back to them, and the even more awful small talk conversation that followed.

The platform stretched out in front of you, and you were rushing to tap his shoulder before he could get too far away from you. A mop of messy curls turned, and never mind the fact that he was a stranger; he was hot.

He's confused, and you watch him begin to think the tapping was a mistake, and you were just too rude to apologise for it.

"Hi," you burst out, holding the card out in front of you. "Sorry. Is this yours?"

"Oh," his expression is replaced with relief. "Yes. It is. Thank you."

You force an awkward smile onto your face, and he matches it with his own. Your heart flutters at the sight of it, and you thank God he was one of those awkward attractive guys — not an asshole.

Then again, this was a two second interaction, and you didn't know him. Delusion would be your downfall.

The train was overly crowded that morning. The traffic of two trains packed into one, resulting in barely any seats, and even less standing room.

Thankfully, you had gotten one at the back of one of the carriages, which meant you could watch as multiple people walk past you, thinking there'd be more further down. Only to be sorely disappointed, but too stuck to come back and get the seat beside you they had spotted.

"Oh. Hello again."

You lift your head at the voice, metro card man standing awkwardly next to the seat next to you.

"Hey," you reply, heart rate skyrocketing. Just your luck.

"Is it okay if I sit here? All the other seats are taken," he asks, and even if there were six other free seats away from you, you'd let him.

He sits when you nod, and you adjust your bag on the floor in front of you as he does the same, the messenger bag hugged firmly atop his lap.

"Thank you for catching my card," he says, and you aren't sure if he's trying to make small talk because he's interested, or because he feels too bad to not.

Your heart decides to go with the former.

"It's no problem," you shake your head. "If I ever lost my metro card I'd probably have a panic attack in the middle of the station. So... y'know..." Why did you say that?

His chest shakes with quiet laughter anyways, and he's nodding in agreement, but you're sure he doesn't really understand what you mean. He doesn't seem like the type of person to have a panic attack in the middle of a train station.

"Are you headed to DC?" he then asks, and delusion be damned if this isn't him interested in you.

You nod your head. "That's where this train is going, yes."

He pauses in a reply. "Well, yes, but there's stops along the way. You could be getting off at any of those." You fall silent at his words. That was true. "But you're not. You're going to DC."

"I am," you confirm your destination of the day for the second time, and your brain wonders if telling this inherent stranger where you were planning on going was a wise choice. Probably not. He didn't seem like a serial killer, at least. Then again, your judgement wasn't always the best.

"I am too," he says, lips pulling into the same awkward smile he had earlier, when you'd given him his metro card back.

"We have so much in common," you joke, but you aren't sure if it lands. For he's blinking awkwardly, and then he must recognise you're trying to joke, because his chest puffs in a laugh. Pity laughter was still laughter.

"We do."

It takes an entire train ride of conversation for you to muster up any courage at all, and it's only when he's about to step out into the aisle to disappear into his own world, and you into yours, that you blurt out,

"Do you want to get coffee?"

He blinks a few times, but then he's nodding his head, lips twitching into a small smile. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that."

At his approval, you ask, "Could I get your number? Y'know, to... plan... this coffee date..."

Metro man, whose name you've since learned is Spencer, nods again, and he's rummaging in his bag for a piece of paper and a pen. The pen he finds, the paper he does not, and you simply tell him to write his number down on your hand.

Delusions were fuelled quite easily when you're a hopeless romantic, and the immediate flutter of your heart when his hand holds yours in place so he could write on your skin was enough to convince you this man was your soulmate.

You part ways from each other, feeling a little giddier, and a lot less like the storm clouds still swirling over your head.

March

Even the quietest of sounds were catastrophically loud when you were in that middle ground between being awake, and being asleep. And the muffled sound of a tap turning on was as loud as a raging thunderstorm, in the early hours of that Saturday morning, startling you awake from the comfortable sleep you had been in.

It took you a few more minutes to fully come to consciousness, but by that point, you had registered what tap was on and why, and your fears of an unfamiliar scent surrounding you as you awaken were diminished.

"Oh. Morning."

Your eyes flutter open to see a slightly shocked Spencer Reid standing at the foot of his bed, collecting the bundled socks he had set on the mattress.

"What're you doing?" you ask him, tiredly, rolling onto your back and blocking the bright sunlight with your arm.

"Going to work," he answers. "I have paperwork I need to catch up on," he then adds, at your puzzled expression.

"Oh," you pout immediately, your heart sinking at the knowledge that he was leaving you.

"I'll be home by three," he promises, moving around and crouching down by the edge of the bed, next to your head.

"You want me to stay here?" you ask him, rolling over to look at him.

His eyes bore into your own, and you search his face, his cologne mixing with the scent of his sheets beneath your head, making your head go a little fuzzy.

He brushes hair out of your face. "You can if you want. There's food in the fridge, and I bought copies of your toiletries for when you do... stay over..." he stammers to a stop, brain catching up to his mouth. "Sorry. Is that weird?"

"No," your lips pull into a smile. "No. It's really sweet, actually."

"And there's clean clothes in my dryer," he continues at your reassurance. "Since you said you like my shirts. I mean, you don't have to, obviously. But I'll only be gone six hours, and then I have the rest of the day and tomorrow off, and I know you do too, so I just figured—"

You cut him off with a kiss. Perhaps not the best time to kiss him, for you're pretty sure you have a bad case of morning breath. If you do, he doesn't protest. In fact, he melts even further into your lips.

"I'll stay," you tell him.

"Okay," his eyes light up a little, and your cheeks hurt from how wide you're smiling. You're sure you look ridiculous. "Okay. I'll see you later."

"Bye," you say, catching him for one more kiss, until he's closer to being late for work than anything, and he's tearing himself away from you. Forcefully, because he doesn't really want to.

He comes home six and a half hours later to his home smelling distinctly of a candle he forgot he even owned, and whatever it was in his fridge you had managed to create a dish out of.

He wonders if it's too soon to feel love for you.

April

A night out was, arguably, the last thing you had expected to do when you woke up that morning. In fact, you had spent the entire day with plans to stay in your sanctuary of a bedroom with a shitty television series playing to detach from the past few weeks. Your life was busy, and you felt as though you had no time to yourself. Technically, you did. But your days off never consisted of an entire day in your bed without any responsibilities.

It seemed that even on your planned day off, you couldn't get that. Granted you weren't mad, come six o'clock, because despite talking about how excited you were for your day off to him, the second Spencer Reid had mentioned restaurant and dinner in your morning phone call as he commuted to work, you were begging him to fulfil the plans he was about to cancel.

He had stayed afterwards. Of course he had. You'd be damned if the man who had just taken you to the nicest restaurant you've ever been to in your life didn't stay over afterwards. And he was quite happy to, it seemed, which made your heart flutter a little more than it probably should've.

"Have you read Emily Dickinson?" you ask him, looking up at his face. You were now in your bed, covers draped over your entwined legs, his back up against the headboard of your bed, your own on his chest.

"Yes," he nods his head, lips twitching at the way your face fell upon his response. "Did you think I hadn't?"

"No, I guess I assumed you had," you shook your head. "A small part of me didn't know for sure, though."

"Now you know," he says, eyes falling to the televison that had a silent cartoon playing on it (your choice, not his). "Did you have a good night?"

"Yeah," your lips curl into a smile. "Did you?"

"I always do with you," he leans down and pecks the smile off your face, watching your lips frown when he pulls back. "What?"

He laughs at the pout on your lips, and your eyes narrow in response. In a quick motion, your legs and arms wrap around him, bodies now facing each other, as you return your lips to his.

"Was my kiss not up to your standards?" he muses against your mouth, and you poke his shoulder with a finger as a response, incessantly begging him to kiss you back.

You had done this before. Multiple times, in fact. Making out with Spencer was slowly but surely becoming your favourite past time. You weren't entirely sure what it was about it. Perhaps the way he kissed like he'd never be able to kiss again, always with so much fervour, and always so desperate. Maybe it was the way his hands felt when they grappled the entirety of your ass whenever you were on his lap, something that seemed so not Spencer Reid. Whatever it was, it was maddening, and you found a quiet, controlled mewl leave your lips when his hands squeezed your ass, pulling you closer to him (if that was possible).

"Mm-mm," he murmurs against your lips at the sound, fingertips digging into the flesh of your ass, eliciting another, less controlled sound from you. "You can do better than that."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," you mumble against his lips, semi-breathless, hands delving up into his curls, encasing your fingers in them.

He laughs again, the sound addicting, and melting any anxieties away as his fingers travel up your body, beneath your pyjama shirt, stopping short where your bra strap would be if you were wearing one.

"We don't have to," you rush out when you feel his hesitance. Though you were no stranger to this part of making out – the suggestive touching – you could feel the bulge in his pants, and you realised this was not like every other time.

"You don't want to?" he asks with a gentle voice, pulling back to look at you.

"No, I–of course I do," you reassure him.

His lips tug into a small smile, and his face leans in to kiss the corner of your lips. "Okay. Good. I want to, as well."

"Good," you answer with a firm nod, and he hums.

His hands slip beneath your shirt again. Warm – burning, even – though you weren't particularly cold. Yet, you felt like your skin was ice that was melting beneath his fingers as they dragged along your skin. All while his lips kissed down your jawline and neck, until they found your pulse point. He had found it accidentally a few weeks prior, and had used and abused it as much as he could after that. For no reason other than the fact that you let out the sweetest sounds whenever his teeth grazed over it, or his lips sucked on the skin there.

His hands reached further up, and his palms brush over both nipples at once, eliciting a gasp from you as your back arches into him.

"Sensitive," he notes when his thumbs drag down over them, pulling the same reaction from your lips. You shoot him a sharp glare, and he laughs. His response is then to lean back in and kiss the pout away, gently biting down on your jutted lower lip with his teeth. All while he rolls your nipples between his thumb and forefinger, earning a whimper from you into his mouth.

It was a few more moments of that, before you murmur quietly, "Tell me you're taking this further."

He laughs in response. Then, says, "What do you want?"

"Up to you," you reply, and he shakes his head, bringing one of your hands to his lips and kissing it.

"No. Up to us."

"Okay. Um..." you hesitate. "Surely there's a natural order of things."

"I don't know. I think it depends on the people," he replies. "Tell me what you want to do."

You hesitate. There's a thousand things you want from him, and you're sure the mere twenty-four hours in the day are not enough for them all. Though, you also know time is not running out for the two of you soon.

Recognising your hesitance, he instead taps your hips to get you off his lap, and you comply, and he lays you down on the bed. He hovers above you, and you almost laugh at his hair that falls down and creates a curtain over your two faces.

His fingers lift the hem of your shirt over your body, and you let him, your breath hitching at the still less-than-hot air that settles in your room amidst April. He follows suite and removes his own shirt upon seeing your close to demanding look, before he ducks his head down to kiss you again.

Fingers dance across the skin of your waist as he hesitates in pulling your pants down, but you don't even want to complain as he kisses you. In no rush to hurry him along, you savour his lips on yours, allowing him to take the time to work you up with brushes along your thigh through the fabric of your pants.

You were equally as present as you were lost in a daydream as he touches you, for you don't really remember when your legs had become bare and his touch had become more direct, but you remember exactly what it felt like for his breath to hitch against your ear as he ran a finger down the damp fabric of your underwear.

He seems to have picked up on your dreamlike state, for he brushes his lips against your temple and asks, "You with me?"

"Yes," you reply, breathlessly.

He doesn't really believe you, but you're eagerly inching your hips closer towards his retreating hand for him to need to.

Gently, he's pulling your underwear down your legs, and you're watching the pupils in his dark eyes expand. You relish in the knowledge of you emitting such a reaction from him.

A sharp whine comes from you when his finger brushes through your folds, stopping just short of your clit. He does it again.

"Spencer."

"Yeah, pretty girl?" he murmurs, though his focus is solely directed to his hand on you.

"Need you."

"I can see that," he muses, and he jolts at the way your heel kicks his side. You're pretty sure it doesn't hurt, at least. "Okay, okay. Sorry."

"You should be."

His other hand pinches your thigh.

You don't have time to argue against him, for he is sinking a finger into you, and every word dies on your tongue, replaced only by a quiet moan and the breathless sound of his name.

He lifts himself back up your body as he presses his finger further into you, capturing your second moan with his lips against yours. Again. He would probably swallow you whole if you asked him to. You think you might.

He adds a second finger almost too soon. His fingers were longer than yours ever could be, and he curls them in a way that has your head tilting back and pressing into the pillow beneath it, and your hips rising off the mattress. He chases your lips with his as you squirm away, and his free hand pushes your body back into the mattress as he draws his fingers out, then presses them back into you.

"Didn't know you were this sensitive," he murmurs against your mouth, and your teeth nip at his lower lip in protest. You feel him smile, and he returns the gesture, scoldingly.

His fingers brush against your g-spot and you're pretty sure you see stars. Or perhaps that's just the ends of Spencer's hair tickling your cheeks as he continues to kiss you.

He continues to finger you until it becomes its own language, complete with strings of high pitched moans from you, and his inability to keep you still on the bed. He pulls his fingers out all too soon, and you're verbally complaining about it as he takes his own pants off.

"Do you ever stop talking?" he asks you, but there's no heat behind his voice for you to seek insecurity from.

"I talk when I'm nervous," you reply.

"Are you always nervous?"

"Around you? Yes."

He doesn't reply, but he laughs, bashfully, and you know he finds it endearing. Instead, he says, "I need to go get a condom."

At which your eyebrows shoot up. "Did you bring some?"

He pauses, sheepishly replying, "Yes?"

You decide against teasing him for it, and merely nod your head. "Okay."

He doesn't waste time, but you're left laying there on the bed to watch him, stuck within the thoughts of how did you luck out so well?

He's quick to return your mind back to Earth, and in a quick turn of events, he's positioned back over you, condom wrapper discarded somewhere in your room — you'd need to find that later before it gets found by somebody mortifying — and his hips achingly close to your own.

Lowering your gaze instinctively, your lips part, and you mutter a, "What the fuck?"

"Tone, please," he asks you, kissing the corner of your mouth.

"Bad. But good," you confuse him further, before you settle on, "Shock."

"Are you still okay with this?"

"Yes," you quickly confirm. "Just... scared. I guess. I haven't had sex in a while and you're..." Not small.

"I'll go slow," he promises, and your heart flutters at the sincerity in his voice.

Slowly, he eases himself into you, swallowing your moans all over again with a kiss, hands rubbing gentle circles onto your hips as a welcome distraction. It was borderline filthy as he moans into your ear in harmony with your own.

You hear him murmuring from above you, your ears catching the whispering of numbers and statistical facts you've definitely heard him spewing to himself before. But never in bed. Usually, it would be as he situates at his desk to work.

"What're you doing?" you murmur, and he pauses upon realising he was thinking aloud.

"Trying not to come so soon," he answers, kissing your jawline, a shuddering breath leaving him to rest his head in that position.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh," he mocks. "You just feel so good around me. Can't believe I went so long without you, angel girl. Fuck."

You wish you could tell the you many moons ago that this is how the man you met at the train station would talk to you.

He's slow as he withdraws his hips from you, before he's pushing himself back into you with yet another moan, from both him and you.

You're not sure when your causal moans break into whines and desperation overtakes you. Somewhere between him taking his time in getting to know what you liked, and discovering how easy it was to make you squirm if he just put a finger on your clit at the same time as thrusting into you.

He is so good it's almost sickening, and you begin to entertain the idea of this man being your soulmate once again. Or perhaps he's just really good at seeing right through you, which might be a little embarrassing in retrospect.

"Spencer," you moan, hands looping around his neck, delving into his hair and nails scratching gently at his scalp.

"Mm?" he asks you, pressing another kiss to your head, drawing circles on your clit in tandem with his thrusts.

"Please."

"Please what, honey?"

"Wanna—" you're cut off with a wanton whine, "—come. Please."

"You do? Really?"

"Spencer," you repeat his name, this time frustratedly.

"That's no way to ask for what you want," he wanes his movements ever so slightly, a silent warning.

"Please make me come."

"There you go, good girl," he mumbles, and he smiles at the way your hips jerk slightly at the praise.

He complies with your request immediately, though you're sure it has something to do with how quickly his own hips stutter into a stop with an orgasm of his own.

Never one to complain, though, and you let him work you through the star-seeing experience with broken moans and chants of his name that has his own heart fluttering.

He rolls off of you soon after, disappearing from the bed only to dispose of the condom, before he's climbing back into the bed. Regardless of every bone in his body telling him to get you up to shower.

"Why didn't we do that earlier?" you murmur.

"I don't know," he replies, lips moving against the skin of your forehead.

"Can we do it again?"

His breath is warm as he huffs out a laugh, rolling back over top of you, thankful for his lack of asking to shower. "Yes."

June

There's a comfortable quiet that blankets the air around you and Spencer. The pages of his book turning as he flips them every few seconds, and the quiet murmur of characters Ilsa and Sam talking on the television, Casablanca playing at an awfully quiet volume.

He was sitting on the floor in front of you, who was sitting on the couch, fingers entangled in his hair. Freshly washed, because you were adamant on fixing him a proper hair routine now that his hair was long enough to require something remotely akin to your own.

His head lifts as the piano began to play, and the familiar voice of Dooley Wilson filled the space, his reading of his book now on pause.

"Spencer!" you began to protest when he peeled away from the edge of the couch, the criss-cross pattern in his hair falling loose almost immediately. He turns to look at you, noting the page he was on for his book, before he closes it and places it on the coffee table in front of him.

"What are you doing to my hair?" he asks you, hands going up to feel the strands, eyebrows frowning towards each other at the loose plaits he was touching.

"I was braiding it," you grumble, watching as he brushes each strand out unconsciously. "You've ruined it."

"Oh, I'm sorry," he muses upon realising what he had done, lips twitching as his hands drop back by his side. "Do you want to redo it?"

"No," you huff, scooting further back into the couch, folding your arms across your chest.

"Honey," Spencer says amidst a laugh, turning his body around fully.

Instead of acknowledging him, you kept your eyes fully transfixed on the black and white television screen in front of you. You could see, out of the corner of your eye, the sight of him shifting on the floor.

Perhaps it was cruel to be giving him the silent treatment so quickly. Though, you have a small smile painted on your face that told Spencer he wasn't in any real trouble with you for pulling your otherwise perfectly curated braids out of his hair. Unknowingly, mind you.

With your lack of response, he found his hands wandering over to your legs, fingertips trailing delicately up the sides of them. Despite the pyjama pants you had on providing a layer between his skin and your own, you still squirmed. And, much to his own satisfaction, your gaze flickered down to his face. His stupid, grinning face, that told you he knew he had succeeded oh so easily.

"I'm mad at you," you bite, and his eyebrows rose.

"You're mad at me," he parrots. When you glare at him, he's forced to bite his cheek to stop himself from laughing out loud. "Okay. Can I make it up to you?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

No, you weren't. For his head was resting gently against the side of your thigh now, the slightest hint of a pout on his lips, eyes wide. To absolutely nobody's surprise, your resolve was dissolving, and you found yourself hesitating with a response to him.

He wasn't oblivious to your hesitance, and the amusement on his face was almost frustrating. Almost, if not for the teasing drag of his fingertips along the sides of your thighs distracting you from the irritation you had towards him.

But, you held your own. "Yes, I'm sure."

His eyebrows rising told you he didn't believe you, and it took everything in you not to respond with the twitch of a sheepish grin. And under his unbelieving gaze, you let out a huffed sigh, and shook your head.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," he answers, fingertips gently pressing into your lower back as he tugged you towards the edge of the couch. "So I can make it up to you?"

"Maybe," you murmur, biting the inside of your cheek. "What're my options, Dr. Reid?"

"I could take your clothes off," he says, punctuating his point with his fingers sliding around to your waist, hooking under your pants' waistband. "Or you can choose something else."

"I like option one," you answer, meekly.

"I figured you would."

He was frustratingly slow as he pulls your pyjama pants down, the fabric catching on the leather of his couch you were sitting on, until you had enough conscious mind to lift your hips up for him.

He trails his fingers back up the skin, eyes almost fascinated in watching you squirm as your inner thighs — and only your inner thighs — received the upmost of attention from his hands. At a whining protest from you, Spencer's hands wandered to do the one thing he knew you were after, and you let out a breathy moan when his index finger traced up the centre of your already damp underwear.

"Oh, you do like option one," he says with a hum, and if you were any less turned on, you'd probably be glaring at him for it. Instead, you were nodding your head in compliant agreement.

He, thankfully, wastes no time in latching his mouth onto you. He spends a good portion of your evening taking you to the stars and back, multiple times, before he's satisfied, and he's sure you are too.

You're showered (again), and curled up on the couch, your head now in Spencer's lap as his fingers brush through your hair, the beginning of Casablanca beginning to play all over again. You had protested neither of you appreciated it enough the first time, and you want to give the film its proper treatment.

"Why do you like this film so much?" he murmurs, staring at the black and white screen.

"Reminds me of better times, I guess," you reply.

"Your better times take place in Morocco in the forties?"

"No," your lips twitch into a small smile, your head shaking, hair brushing across his thighs. "When I first watched this film I was fifteen, with my mom. It was one of the few times we really got along, so... I guess that."

He decides against commenting on it, for your voice had dropped to something a little sadder. "Rick's not a good person," he chides.

"You don't get to form an opinion on Rick without finishing the movie first."

He laughs at that, but he falls silent soon after, an evident promise that he would wait.

"Why did you make me watch this?" he asks, as you're greeted with a screen of black, your two reflections staring back at you.

You turn your head, resting it flat against his thighs as you look up at him, raising an eyebrow in question.

"It isn't a happy ending," he explains at your quizzical look.

"Oh, so movies I show you need to have a happy ending?" you argue. "You like Star Wars, Spencer."

"No, obviously they don't. But when you explained the film to me, you said, 'a romance classic from the forties'. Forgive me for presuming it would be a happy ending."

"I think it is kind of happy," you reply, shrugging as you tear your gaze away, resting instead on the coffee table.

"How so?" he brushes the hair that falls out of your face.

"They weren't right for each other," you murmur. "Rick knew that. He loved her enough to let her go, I guess."

August

You are a fragment of every person you have loved, and who has loved you. Tiny pieces of their soul weaving within your own to form the person you are today. From acts as simple as the way you cook your eggs, to reactions as serious as your emotional response to an insult. Family members making up your emotional regulators, childhood friendships determining your insecurities.

Like a solidified piece of putty holding two pipes together, you are a person moulded to be what other people need.

Stay quiet, don't react, detach.

Not even a conscious choice you make anymore. Too many years spent punished for being loud, too many tears cried over your supposed overreaction, too many pieces of your heart shattered each time somebody leaves. Your responses are simply automatic now.

Spencer Reid had not heard from you in fifty six hours.

Two thirty in the morning was never a good time to try and communicate, for a plethora of reasons. Never mind the fact that it was late. His mind had been exhausted of its use during a particularly gruelling case, and you had been too anxious the four days he'd been gone to sleep properly.

For that reason, and possibly many others you didn't know, he was in a bad mood. Your being awake at that hour was irritating to him, your half drank coffee was an awful idea in his mind, and your touch was unwanted by him. You didn't know why.

You hated miscommunication. You hated the unsaid words that hung in the air whenever you'd look at him.

The first thing he had said upon coming home was not, hello, or even, I missed you. No, it was a sharp, "Why are you awake?" as he set his messenger bag down on the floor next to his door.

"I was waiting for you," you had said, picking up the mug of coffee. "Then it hit midnight, and you still weren't home, and usually you come home to me asleep, but I wanted to see you so I drank some coffee and..." you'd trailed off upon seeing his uncharacteristically cold expression.

"You shouldn't stay awake waiting for me," he'd muttered, taking the mug from you and heading into the kitchen to clean it, flicking the light on. "You have work tomorrow. You need to be asleep."

"I missed you," you'd protested, standing up and going towards him.

"I missed you too, but you should've been asleep."

Your attempt at hugging him and kissing him in greeting was denied, his hands prying you off his body. He could've ripped your heart out instead and you'd think it hurt less than that.

"Go to bed. I'll be there soon."

You felt like a child being scolded at his snark, which was evidently the reason behind you not listening to him at all in the end.

He'd offered no proper explanation for his irritation towards you. Even as you'd picked up your things and left his apartment, silently, not even a quiet I love you whispered to confirm that you weren't leaving him for good, he didn't explain a thing to you.

Out of sight, out of mind, was not a principle you could exercise when it came to him. Every notification to your phone that didn't brand his name hurt your heart, a constant reminder that maybe he was still mad at you, and he didn't want to see you.

It was a knock at your door that pried you from the clutches of your duvet that morning, a half-assed attempt at brushing through your hair and straightening of your clothes was the best whoever dared to come see you uninvited would get.

Opening the door and your brain computing who it was had you wanting to slam it again, as if this were some movie and he would have the will to shove a foot in the door to stop it from closing.

Maybe he would.

"So you are alive," he says.

"Last I checked, yes," you reply.

Simple words spoken between two far from simple individuals, until he was nodding his head to the open space of your apartment behind you, and you were wordlessly agreeing to let him come in.

"Are you here to break up with me?"

His closing of the door was interrupted by your question, his entire body going rigid for a beat, before he gently clicked the door and lock in place, turning on his shoulder with frowning eyebrows.

"No. I'm... not—why, why would you think that?"

You bite the inside of your cheek. "Habit."

That hurts his heart, and he's shaking his head almost incessantly. "I'm not. I promise, honey. I just want to know what's going on. Nobody's heard from you."

"I know," you murmur, feet carrying you over to your couch before your legs can give out on you.

He watches you, awaiting another spiel of words to explain where you had disappeared to for the past two and a bit days. And yet; nothing. So, he follows you, and sits down on the couch next to you. Hands reach out to pick up your legs, shoulders relaxing a little when you let him place them in his lap, and you go slightly still out of fluster.

"I'm sorry for making you mad, if I did," you whisper.

"You didn't. Did you think I was mad?"

"I guess. You were kind of mean," his heart shatters at that. "But maybe I was just taking it the wrong way. I was tired."

"No," his fingertips run up and down your legs, the only conscious act he could focus on to keep himself from bombarding you with every worried thought he's had the last two days. "I shouldn't have let you leave thinking I was mad at you. I wasn't. The case just stressed me out, and I was concerned about you still being awake that late."

"I was waiting for you," you mumble.

"I know, angel," he nods his head. "It's just I usually come home to you asleep on the couch."

"Or the bathroom."

His chest puffs out with laughter, and your heart swells a little in your chest at the sight. "Or the bathroom," he parrots, nodding.

It was when he was coming home from a case on the border in Washington state, and you had, like usual, tried to stay awake to wait for him. Unfortunately, the UnSub tiptoeing between the two country lines meant the case was dragged out, and he had come home much later than expected. And you had mistakenly passed out on the bathroom floor, wrapped in a towel, after a shower.

Amusement was over as his eyes found and locked with your own, and he earnestly asks, "Can you tell me why you disappeared?"

"No."

It wasn't that you didn't want to tell him. Just that you didn't know why either. Perhaps it was something you'd need to unpack with a professional, not your boyfriend at ten in the morning on your couch.

Ever so understanding, Spencer Reid was. Even with the pause of his delicate touch on your legs in what you're sure is another jolt of frustration towards you.

"That's okay," he says, instead. "Can you promise to try and not disappear next time, then?"

Your shoulders shrug. Can you promise that?

"You can't," he voices your thoughts for you, and you nod your head in confirmation. "Okay. Well, I really want to work this out with you. I need you to want that too."

"I do," you say quietly.

"Then you need to work with me," he answers. "Where did your brain go that night?"

"Um," you hesitate. You could think of a thousand places your mind wandered to that night. None of them very good. A child again, being scolded for not turning the light out because you were up reading, maybe. "I don't know. I don't like being scolded like I'm a child. I guess I felt like a child."

"That wasn't my—"

"—I know," you cut him off before he can defend himself to you. "I know it wasn't your intention. But it felt that way. I'm an adult who makes her own decisions, and losing sleep before work because I want to see my boyfriend is one of those. No matter how... how stupid a decision you may think that is."

"I didn't think it was stupid," he shakes his head. "I was just concerned."

"Funny way of showing it," you mumble, lowering your gaze, before his lack of response makes you realise what you had just said to him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. That was mean."

"No," hands lightly swat your legs. "No, I deserved that. I was really mean. It wasn't the right way to show my concern for you."

"Doesn't mean I should be rude back."

"I think it does," he says, his fingers going back to tracing patterns on your skin. "In fact, I encourage it."

In true Spencer fashion, his words tug a small smile onto your lips, and you feel the heaviness of what had happened between you two ease off your chest slightly. "That's a weird thing to encourage."

"Maybe," he agrees. "I don't like that you left without saying anything."

"I didn't feel very wanted," you explain. "By you. I tried to hug you, and you wouldn't let me touch you."

"I was overstimulated," he says. "It wasn't that I didn't want to hug you, honey. I did. Sometimes I don't like people touching me, yes, even you," he adds upon seeing your confused expression and tilted head. "I didn't handle that well. I should've told you that in the moment."

"I wish I had known that before," you murmur. "That's why I left. And you didn't try to stop me, so I just assumed..."

"I wasn't very present," he shakes his head to stop your self-deprecating thoughts in their tracks. "I barely registered you were leaving until I heard the door shut."

"Oh."

"I wanted to stop you when I realised. I decided to give you space."

"I just thought you didn't care."

"If nothing else, know that I'll always care," he tells you, and your heart stutters at the raw honesty in his voice. "Even if you run away and I don't reach out for a week because I think you need space. I'll still care."

"Please don't leave me alone for a week if I run away," you reply, and one of his hands squeezes your knee.

"Noted. I won't."

You nod your head with the faintest hint of a smile, before your gaze lowers to your legs. You inhale, then say, quietly, "I'm sorry for disappearing."

"I know," he answers. "It's okay."

November

It was a horrifically awful day that led you to this moment. Curling up on the couch with a blanket covering your entire body, staring aimlessly off into the warm glow of the reading lamp Spencer had bought you many moons ago.

Your heart was heavy, hands cold, body shivering, in the cool November air that flooded your apartment. Your thermostat was just too far. Not that you were comfortable. Not even a little bit. You could evidently feel each spring of your couch pushing into your flesh, puncturing you uncomfortably. You hadn't had a need for a new couch since getting together with Spencer, usually finding your residence at his apartment more often than not.

Not today, it seemed.

Keys rattled outside your apartment door, and you heard the shuffling of familiar feet, followed by the gentle calling of your name to alert you of his presence.

"Honey, it's freezing in here," he says, settling his bag down on the kitchen countertop, you're sure (you aren't looking). You hear the beep, following by the rush of wind coming out of your air conditioning unit as he turns the device on, and you're silently grateful.

He finds you on the couch, wrapping his arms around you from behind it, greeting you with a kiss to the side of your head, right on your temple, and a few of your worries melt away in an instant. Only a few, for there is still a bricklayer of hurt seated comfortably over your heart.

He says your name again when you don't say anything to greet him, and it's more shuffling of feet until he's dipping into the couch next to you, despite the fact that he still had his shoes and work clothes on. Irrelevant affairs he could deal with later.

"Hey, what's this?" he asks you, quietly, leaning forwards and nudging your arched knees, and your gaze finally tears from the lamp to his face, spots of light decorating your vision and covering some of him.

"Sorry," you mumble. "I'm thinking."

"Very hard, apparently," he says, lightly. You appreciate the attempt of lifting the mood. "About what?"

"Um," you pause. "I saw my family today."

"Yeah. You said you were. I assume it didn't go well?"

You wordlessly shake your head, and he sighs, wasting no time in bringing you into his chest. You crack, and his heart shatters at the quiet sob that wracks through your body.

"Talk to me," he murmurs, voice all too quiet for your fragile state, for it only makes you cry a little harder. "Angel."

"She—um," your voice cracks. "Everything I said she turned into a joke to everyone. I just felt stupid the entire time. Like everything I said wasn't worth being said. So I stopped talking, because I couldn't get made fun of if I didn't say anything, right?" You feel his head nod against your own, even though you couldn't see him.

"No. She brought up things I'd said to her previously, and mocked them. I mean, I was in the other room so she didn't know I could hear her, but—but—" you choke on your words, cutting your ranting short, your hands petulantly clutching at the fabric of his shirt to ground yourself. "I'm sick of waiting for her to love me. Isn't she supposed to? She's my fucking mother and yet I'm still begging her to even like me. Why?"

"I don't know, angel." His voice is achingly soft, and his hands thread into your hair, brushing through it a few times; a welcome comfort. "This happens every time you see her."

"Yeah."

You're feeling impossibly small in his arms as you nod, sniffling away hideous snot bubbles you're sure he cared about. If he did, he didn't say anything.

"Maybe it's time to stop seeing her."

"Yeah."

You're reluctant in agreeing with him, though you know deep down he's right. But it's an Earth shattering revelation that you aren't quite sure you wanted to ever come to. While certainly a thought you've had, and entertained previously, agreeing to it aloud is an entirely different beast.

"She's my mom, though," you mumble. "She raised me."

"What she did for you previously should never be enough for you to ignore what she does to you now. I've never seen you come home happy after seeing her. You're never anything short of miserable. That makes me miserable, honey," the pads of his fingertips brush against your cheek, and you hum as a quiet response. "I hate seeing you like this."

"I hate feeling like this."

"Yeah, I know," he murmurs. "Don't decide tonight. You're emotional—yes, you are. Don't look at me like that," he scolds as you jerk your head back to narrow your tear filled eyes at him. "But can you promise me you'll consider my option?"

"I promise."

"Okay. Good. I love you."

"I love you too."

January

He wasn't home.

Three o'clock in the morning, and Spencer Reid was nowhere to be found. Not in his own apartment, like you had originally thought. Not collecting the last of your boxes from your own. Not anywhere he commonly would be.

At three in the morning.

You had tried calling him. Multiple times, actually. A flurry of messages followed in their wake, and you were growing increasingly impatient as you stand awkwardly outside his apartment, that had just recently become your apartment too. You didn't have a key yet — needing one to be cut for Spencer only had one thus far.

He had promised he'd be home. When you'd asked him as you were leaving earlier that evening if you'd need to take the key, he said no, and that he'd be home all night.

God forbid you actually believed him, apparently.

You could've sat at that apartment door for three minutes or hours. You weren't too sure anymore. Staring off into space and making up a list of sentences to say to him when he finally showed up — if he showed up.

It was embarrassing. Heels tucked next to you, dress bunched at your waist, head beginning to ache from the alcohol wearing off, and eyes beginning to droop from how exhausted you were.

Shuffling of feet had you lifting your head, landing on an equally as exhausted looking Spencer Reid, who's lips were parting upon spotting you on the floor, and a sickening realisation settling on his facial features.

"I'm sorry," he stumbled out as he helped you stand up, ignoring your protests as he picked up your heels for you. "I forgot you weren't staying at your friends. I just assumed—"

"—You forgot?"

You didn't sound angry. You didn't even sound a little irritated. It shatters his heart more to hear a painstakingly small, broken tone coat your words, instead of them being dipped in venom.

He knew it was a pathetic excuse. He forgot. That's his whole thing. He doesn't forget. But he also isn't always called into his job at two in the morning for an in state amber alert. You didn't know that, though.

"Here, let's get you inside and out of your clothes," he places a hand on the small of your back and pushes you forwards into his apartment, your feet stumbling as you let him guide you around.

"What do you mean you forgot?" you ask him, quietly. His stomach twists.

"I got called into work. It was urgent. I had been so focussed on Hotch being freaked out I left without thinking. I'm so sorry, angel girl."

"Seriously?"

He freezes at your incredulous voice, his hands pausing at the top of your dress zipper. When he doesn't answer you immediately, you turn so you can look at him.

"You weren't home because you got called into work," you repeat the words over, and over, as if saying them more will make them any more sensical. He opens his mouth and begins to say your name, so you cut him off, "I was sitting there for—" you pause, checking the time on the wall clock across the room, "—two hours, Spencer. Drunk, and cold, and you weren't fucking picking up. Did you forget how to use your phone too? Did you forget how to contact your girlfriend?"

"You're tired, honey. Can you get some sleep and we talk about this tomorrow?"

"I'm fine, actually. We're having this discussion now."

"No, you're not. You're exhausted. Sleep deprivation affects your emotional regulators, and—"

"—For once, can you not fucking Reid-splain to me?" you spit. "I think I'm allowed to be a little upset with you, Spencer. You forgot about me!"

He agrees; he does deserve your anger. Though, it doesn't make this any easier to listen to, and it certainly doesn't make his biting of his tongue very easy. For he wants to argue with you. He didn't forget about you, and none of what happened tonight was due to anything other than his lack of focus on things that weren't at the forefront of his mind. Case in point; a missing child.

A few more beats of silence pass by, and you're brushing past him into the kitchen, jerking your arm away when his hand reaches out to grab it.

"Why is it always work?" you ask him. "All of our issues come back to your job."

"I don't know."

"Am I not worth more than your job?"

The question itself hangs in thick air, and his hesitance is enough of an answer within itself. It isn't fair. You know that. His job is important, and you'd never actively ask him to choose you over saving somebody's life. He knew that.

"I'm not asking you to choose seeing me over saving a life," you verbalise your thoughts, when he still doesn't reply. "I'm never asking that of you. But you couldn't have called me back? Or texted me to see if I could go to a friend's? Or even come to you at work to get a key?"

"I—"

"—Forgot. I know," you mutter, almost bitterly, turning around to pick out a glass from the cabinet.

It's another few moments of quiet. Save for the tap that runs as you get yourself water, and the shuffling of his feet as he hesitates, then takes tentative steps towards the kitchen bar.

"I don't think I can do this anymore," you whisper, before he can get too close.

"Do what anymore?"

"Us."

The silence that follows deafens, and you have to flutter your eyes up to the ceiling to wane tears that threatened to spill. This was most certainly not how you imagined your night to go.

"That's a big decision," he says, as if it weren't obvious.

"I know," and it's the finality in your voice that hurts him even more.

"Can we please revisit this conversation in the morning? After you've slept?"

"My decision won't change."

"It might."

"Humour me with how we're supposed to move past this."

He freezes. "Um—we can talk. And we can even go to couple's therapy, or something," he ignores the face you pull. "I just think we—you—should make this decision when you're completely sober and rested."

You place the now empty glass on the bench again. "I won't have the courage to break up with you tomorrow."

"Is that not a sign that you shouldn't break up with me, then—"

"—Let me do this, damnit, Spencer!" you slam your hands down in front of you, eyes wide and almost desperate.

He doesn't say anything more to argue with you. Instead, he bows his head, and you despise the crack in your heart at the way his eyes shut and shed a tear before his face is out of sight.

You're moved out by the end of the month.

June

The universe is a wonderfully strange place. Somewhere you go to when things get too difficult, begging for respite and the freedom from yourself. Or when things are going so well you thank whoever was pulling the strings of your lifeline.

You tried not to curse at the universe. What you give, you will receive. The love you expend will always be returned to you, whether that is in two minutes or two years. Hatred for the universe was always internalised and pushed down, for you'd rather that, than having the karmic Gods ruin your life any more.

And yet; fuck you universe.

You were recently asked who you love, in a group setting with people you barely knew. You'd have said your best friend's name, or your parents, but you felt awfully lonely amongst a group of people saying, "my partner", "my kids". You didn't think you were old enough yet for the most important person in your life not being the woman who raised you (though, she would never be that anyways).

You said his name before you could even comprehend it. Before your brain had a second to stop running on autopilot to think. The two syllables flying past your lips, embarrassingly so.

When someone asks you who you love, you think of him.

Perhaps this was all your own fault. If you had just bided your tongue, held onto your pride and mumbled a quiet, "My mom, I guess", you wouldn't have spoken his existence back into the universe.

It was a quiet, "Oh. Hello," that'd prompted your head to lift from your phone, attempting to tune out the busy train. And there he was, standing tall, messenger bag crossing over his body.

"Hi," you say, breathless, air knocked from your lungs.

"Can I... um, sit? All the other seats are taken."

And like you would if he was a stranger, you nod your head, shuffling a little closer to the side, allowing for him to sit down next to you.

"Your hair's gotten long," Spencer Reid says, quietly.

"Yeah, I need to go get it cut. You have more—um, facial hair. Like it's more prominent. Like thicker," you stammer.

"Yeah," you see his lips twitch into a small smile out of the corner of your eye. "I just got back from a case. I haven't had time to shave."

You manage to push down a comment about you liking it.

And as if you were not strangers, he asks you, "How are you?"

You know he doesn't mean currently. Subconsciously asking you to tell him you're doing awfully without him, that the past six months had been horrible and you miss him dearly.

It's true, but you can't say that.

Instead, you opt for a nonchalant, "I'm okay," and, "How are you?"

"Okay, too," he says, and you wonder how much truth his words hold.

"How's work been?"

You don't know if you actually care. Asking aimlessly about the thing you had to blame for him becoming a solidified memory in your brain, and not a current experience.

"Busy," he answers. "I've barely been home."

Not much has changed, it seems. "That sucks. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he replies. "It's kept me from wallowing."

"Can't say I've had the same fate."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

It was your own fault, really. And maybe he thought that. Maybe he's making fun of you in his mind for being sad and feeling horrible things after the breakup, because it was you who initiated it, at the end of the day.

No, he isn't. You know that. Spencer Reid doesn't do that.

"It's okay," you finally say, words spoken on a breath.

Silence covets the two of you, a thousand words on the tip of your tongue, but none ever spoken aloud. A silent conversation dancing in the air between your two bodies.

Do you miss me?

Yes. Do you miss me?

More than anything.

But then the train stops, and his station is called, and he's standing awkwardly, forcing a tight smile onto his face, as he bids you goodbye.

And for a few long half seconds, you watch him walk away, very slowly, for time has stopped for just a few beats of your heart. Then, you're calling his name, and he's stopping, as if he had expected you to reach out to him before he could get too far.

You stare up at him for another beat longer, and you wonder if he's quite content to miss his station, just to talk to you some more.

"Do you want to get coffee?"

"To wait an hour — is long — if love be just beyond. To wait eternity — is short — if love reward the end." (Emily Dickinson)

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