#and Spencer Reid angst
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Ah I love specifically deciding to stay home instead of go out so I can get stuff done and instead just reading fanfiction and taking a nap
#executive be dysfunctioning#yes it was criminal minds fanfic#and Spencer Reid angst#and it was glorious#I did end up crying at the end of it all#I should probably eat dinner now#it’s 10pm#💀💀💀
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The real barbie is Y/n.
Y/n’s a doctor, a cop, a scientist, an agent, vet, hero, villain, astronaut, lawyer, spy, criminal, artist, chef, engineer, psychologist, architect, journalist, firefighter, event planner, mechanic, photographer, musician, actor, interior designer, bartender, fashion designer, barista, florist, forensic scientist, flight attendant, profiler, tour guide, translator, etc.
#y/n#spencer reid x y/n#spencer reid x reader#criminal minds x reader#cod x reader#konig x reader#cod x y/n#simon ghost riley x reader#simon riley x y/n#konig x y/n#harry potter x y/n#kaz brekker x reader#kaz brekker x y/n#six of crows x reader#jesper fahey x reader#jesper fahey x y/n#wylan van eck x reader#fanfiction#fluff#angst#alastor x reader#hazbin hotel x reader#hazbin hotel x y/n#alastor x y/n#hobie brown x reader#hobie brown x y/n#the umbrella academy x reader#five hargreaves x reader#klaus hargreeves x reader#mcntseesrandoms
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when i want fluff/angst fics and all i’m getting is smut
the struggle is real
#don’t get me wrong#smut is great#but a girl wants some angst and fluff#joel miller x reader#din djarin x reader#matt murdock x reader#steven grant x reader#steve harrington x reader#spencer reid x reader#aaron hotchner x reader#derek morgan x reader#jj maybank x reader#rafe cameron x reader#tasm!peter parker x reader#peter parker x reader#marc spector x reader#javier pena x reader#ellie williams x reader#poe dameron x reader#cassian andor x reader#bucky barnes x reader#steve rogers x reader#logan howlett x reader#daryl dixon x reader#simon riley x reader#bruce wayne x reader#l0caltiredgirl#mike schmidt x reader#sam carpenter x reader#emily prentiss x reader
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we all joke about and objectify this man, but do we stop to think how sad his story is? he grew up friendless and ruthlessly bullied for being a literal genius. constantly picked on by his coworkers, and he’s never in on the joke. he’s always being laughed at, never laughed with because no one understands his existentialist humor. he never has plans or places to go on the weekend after work. he goes to work then goes to his lonely home with all his books to keep him company. on occasion, he haunts the chess table at the park or meets with an old professor. no one takes the time to appreciate his weird little quirks. no one took the time to ask him if he was okay after the several traumatic incidents he endured. no one takes care of him because everyone’s too busy leaving. he could be a male model, yet he’s never thought of himself as attractive. when he does find love, he’s brutally stripped of it before he can blink. spencer reid, the lonely genius who learned of love too late and loss too soon.
#spencer reid#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid x you#spencer reid imagine#spencer reid fluff#spencer reid fanfic#spencer reid x fem!reader#spencer reid x y/n#spencer reid oneshot#spencer reid scenario#nerdy spencer reid#spencer reid angst#spencer reid edit#spencer reid smut#spencer reid fanfiction#spencer reid criminal minds#doctor spencer reid#dr spencer reid#spencer reid one shot#spencer reid x gn!reader#spencer reid x yn#spencer reid x fem reader#spencer reid x reader smut#spencer reid x self insert#spencer reid x oc#spencer reid x fem!reader smut#spencer reid x fanfiction#spencer reid x fem!readr#spencer reid x plus size reader#spencer reid x luke alvez
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be my angel
in which BAU fem!reader was injured on the job, but is refusing painkillers at the hospital. spencer thinks he knows why.
fluff (+a little angst) warnings/tags: established relationship, hospital stuff, reader got beat up by an unsub, discussions of spencer's past addiction, mentions of period cramps, reader ends up being administered some sort of painkiller a/n: another draft i found in my literal hundreds of pages of abandoned wips and fixed up cause it's cute, I hope you like!!!
Spencer is tearing through the hospital. They all keep saying you’re going to be okay, but what does that even mean? Why is nobody telling him anything? He’s not even sure he heard what the orderly at the front desk said, but his feet are carrying him with a strident purpose through the winding white halls, so he has to assume he at least subconsciously knows where he’s going.
Finally he spots Penelope, a beacon in her candy-colored clothing, speaking to a doctor in hushed tones. Penelope sees him approaching and turns away from the doctor, looking harried and exhausted.
“Is she okay? What happened?” Spencer demands, before either of the others can say a word.
“She’s okay,” the doctor assures. “She was beat up pretty bad—concussion, broken ribs, some bruising that looks worse than it is. There was a clean shot through her arm, but—”
His blood runs cold. Nobody told him you were shot. Why had nobody told him you were shot?
“I need to see her.”
The doctor frowns, glancing between the two agents.
“I’m sorry, are you her spouse?”
“Yes. No, not yet, I just—I need to see her, please. Now.”
“Sir, unless she—”
“Just let him see her!” Penelope practically yells. “She wants him here, believe me.”
The doctor clenches her jaw and scribbles something on her clipboard.
“Okay. Maybe you can try to convince her to accept some painkillers.”
Spencer’s frown deepens.
“She’s refusing pain management?”
“We gave her as much ibuprofen as we could, but she refused anything stronger than that. She has to be in a lot of pain right now, and there’s no background of addiction.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Spencer says, already twisting the silver door handle. He has a sneaking suspicion as to why you denied pain treatment, and it makes him feel incredibly guilty. More than he already did, after this entire debacle.
The sight of you, bloodied and bruised and obviously suffering has his heart splintering right down the middle. Whatever meager semblance of a smile he can scrounge up and offer is reflected back to him on you—which only makes him feel worse. As always, you’re putting on a brave face.
“Hey,” Spencer says quietly as he closes the door behind him.
“Hi,” you croak. “How do I look?”
He approaches, sitting on the edge of the bed and pushing your hair away from your face.
“How do you feel? The doctor told me you wouldn’t accept pain medication,” he murmurs.
You sniff.
“I feel okay. Did she tell you it’s not as bad as it looks?”
But your voice is so small, so wavery and weak, that he knows you’re lying.
“Sweetheart...”
You’ve been holding it together since the unsub beat you nearly unconscious. You held it together as he ran away, even got a couple shots in before he turned around and returned fire. You held it together while you sat against the dirty truck, bleeding out, not sure if your team was coming, and you held it together in the ambulance, and for the past thirty minutes in this hospital bed. But all it takes is one gentle word from Spencer, with that concerned, solicitous look in his eye, and the floodgates are opening. Tears spring up in your eyes and begin silently falling down your dirtied cheeks.
“It’s okay!” you attempt to reassure him, affecting cheeriness even through the tears. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m fine!”
He says your name soft and low and he tries his best to keep his tone even though he is liable to burst into tears or start yelling at someone (not you) at any minute.
“I know that’s not true. You have broken ribs and a gunshot wound. I know how badly it hurts to breathe and how it feels every time you move your arm. That is too much damage for over-the-counter anti-inflammatories. You need real analgesics.”
“I don’t,” you whisper. Your teary eyes make his whole body ache. He squeezes your hand—the one that’s not connected to the wounded arm.
“Because of me?” You stare at him blankly, as if you’re shocked he was able to put two and two together. “I promise you don’t need to worry about that.”
You sniffle.
“But what if—what if they give me the drugs and I get all weird and it’s, it’s like... triggering for you, or something?”
“It’s been a really long time since I’ve worried about that. I’d rather see you a little tired and out of it than in extreme pain and trying to pretend you’re not. You getting the pain relief you need in a medical emergency is not going to make me relapse.”
“But I really think I could go without,” you begin, voice already tightening around a cry. “I’ve—I’ve had period cramps that were worse than this.”
Despite himself, he chuckles. Goes back to stroking your hair.
The laughter fades quickly. All the pain you’re in is so evident in your eyes. The dissociative glassiness, the tension around them, the bloodshot quality—he's seen it many times before, and he hates it on you.
“Will you please tell them you’re ready to take something? They won’t give you Dilaudid. It’s too strong. They’ll give you something that I’d have no interest in anyway.”
“Not funny,” you whisper.
He ignores this.
“Will you let me call the doctor back in?”
You take a deep, shuddering breath—or at least, you try to, before you’re loosing a sharp squeak that deteriorates into a little sob. The ribs.
Spencer doesn’t bother asking again, just gets up and begins to walk away as efficiently as his legs will carry him. You need painkillers and he thinks it might be fastest to just fetch the doctor or a nurse from the hallway.
“Wait,” you plead.
He stops. Reminds himself that you need him right now—not his medical opinions. Spencer turns back around and approaches again, crouching by your bedside this time.
“What, honey?”
“I don’t...”
You trail off, overcome by something like fear in the width and shine and nervous dart of your eyes. Spencer knows, everybody at the BAU knows, that showing fear to a serial killer will get you killed that much quicker. During your time alone with the unsub, which is a can of worms Spencer literally cannot psychologically open right now, you had to put on your bravest face. Even while you were being beaten within an inch of your life. Even when you thought you were going to die, alone, and that your team—that Spencer—wasn't coming back for you. Because that’s the kind of thing you have to do to cope when you’re at rock bottom. But you were terrified. Petrified. That doesn’t just go away—and Spencer knows it’ll be bumping against the surface until it finds a way out.
He has to remember that just because you look unafraid and you act unafraid doesn’t mean you aren’t.
“You were so brave,” he manages after he’s sure he can say it without incident, swiping moisture from your cheek. “You did everything exactly right.”
“I know,” you whisper, chin trembling. Spencer knows you, and he knows this kind of trauma well enough to know that you’re thinking, I did everything exactly right, and it wasn’t enough. I did everything exactly right and this is what I have to show for it.
“But nobody needs you to act like it wasn’t hard, okay? You don’t need to pretend like it doesn’t hurt. You were so, so brave, angel. You don’t have to be brave anymore.”
Your eyes squeeze shut, sending a new wash of tears over your tacky cheeks. A few moments pass. You say nothing. He hopes you’re not going to hide away inside yourself like he did.
“Will you please, please, let me get the doctor?”
At least this time you don’t immediately say no.
“Will you come right back?”
“Of course.”
Finally, you nod your hesitant assent, and Spencer presses a careful kiss to your forehead.
A few minutes later, the doctor—who was shocked that Spencer was able to so quickly change your very made-up mind—is back, and so is Spencer. It only takes a moment for them to determine the best course of action for you and soon the fist around his heart is loosening its grip as he watches some of the agony melting from your eyes.
“Better?” he murmurs as the nurse who’d administered the drugs leaves, fanning his thumb over the underside of your wrist. You nod, already appearing sleepy.
“Can you lie down with me?”
He smiles at the way your words slip against each other, simply relieved that you’re able to relax and no longer in extreme pain.
“Hospital beds aren’t rated for two people.”
“Spencer.”
It’s enough for him to climb onto the bed—not that he was ever going to deny you what you wanted to begin with. The fit isn’t exactly perfect—he's a bit too long and combined the two of you are just slightly too wide—but with some finagling it’s comfortable enough. Spencer has slipped his arm underneath you and your head is on his shoulder and he’s so glad to have you in his arms and so grateful that you’re okay he does something almost like praying in his head as he kisses your hair.
“Hey. Ask me about my bruises.”
“Why? Do they still hurt?”
“You should see the other guy.”
It’s dumb and it doesn’t make sense because you didn’t bother waiting for him to actually set the joke up—but he smiles dryly nonetheless.
“Can you please give me... I don’t know, 36 hours before you start making jokes about almost dying?”
“Clock starts now.”
“Thank you.” He feels your lips curve into a half-conscious smile against his neck. It’s a wonderful feeling. “How are your ribs? Breathing feels okay?”
“Mhm. Love breathing.”
“Mhm. And your arm?”
“Like I got shot.”
“Well, that’s pretty much unavoidable. But not as bad as before, right?”
“Right. Spencer?”
“What, my love?”
A little pleased puff of air warms his shoulder. He carefully rubs your hip.
“Will you tell me how brave I was again?”
He takes a silent, very deep breath.
“You were incredibly brave. And smart, too. I’m really proud of you for how you handled that situation. I’m so sorry you had to go through that, but I don’t think anyone could have handled it better. Especially when you chose to stay put by the truck, instead of chase him. I know that wasn’t what you wanted to do, but it was the right choice.”
“I thought you guys maybe weren’t coming,” you murmur, no hint of sadness in your smushed, flat voice—like you’re barely awake. “I waited half an hour and I thought you weren’t gonna find me.”
“Angel, I will always find you. We didn’t stop looking even once, as soon as we noticed you were gone. I’m just sorry I wasn’t with Emily and Rossi when they got to you.”
“’Nelope told me... she told me you got really angry and scary.”
He stares at the ceiling and considers this.
“I could see... how what I was feeling would be interpreted that way. I was pretty angry. But not at Penelope or any of them. I was mostly just scared.”
“I’m sorry I scared you,” you whisper. “And I’m sorry if I made you mad.”
“You did not. I wasn’t mad at you. And it’s not your fault that I got scared. You were just trying to do your job. None of this is your fault.”
“She also said that you said fuck like... three times.”
“Mm... doesn’t sound like me,” he evades. You giggle, and the sound is more a relief than any drug he could take.
“No, seriously, I’m so mad I missed it. I love hearing you swear. Tell me what you said—and you have to cause I’m all messed up so I get whatever I want.”
He sighs in mock annoyance.
“Well, she’s wrong. I only said fuck once. I used fucking as an intensifier twice.”
You hum.
“Sexy.”
“Alright,” Spencer laughs, flushing as he moves his hand to your shoulder. “Go to sleep before I tell them to up your dosage, weirdo.”
#spencer reid#spencer reid fanfic#spencer reid fic#spencer reid imagine#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid x fem!reader#spencer reid x self insert#criminal minds#spencer reid fanfiction#spencer reid angst#spencer reid fluff#criminal minds x reader#criminal minds imagine#criminal minds fic
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One thing golden era Wattpad writers had going for them was that they knew the importance of a buildup. I'm of the opinion that the sexual tension is WAY more satisfying to read than the actual sex and quite frankly there is a serious lack of non smutty writing.
Like I really miss reading fics/ x readers that start from scratch. Meeting the characters, initial reactions getting to know them, the tension the jealousy the TENSION the freaking tension.
Looking and looking away when they get spotted, touches that feel like they linger but perhaps they didn't and they're both so hot for each other that they think it's wishful thinking. And I don't mean just sweet sunshine romances, darker works can have a buildup too but it seems like so much is just about getting to the smut instead of the psychological aspect.
Bring back the build up!!!!!!!
#harry potter x reader#draco malfoy x reader#cedric diggory x reader#steve rogers x reader#rafe cameron x reader#ransom drysdale x reader#one chicago#bucky barnes x reader#peter parker x reader#jj maybank x reader#luke alvez#spencer reid x reader#aaron hotchner x reader#john b x reader#Luke Alves x reader#marvel imagine#tate langdon#tate langdon x reader#elliot euphoria smut#smut#angst#fluff#the avengers#twilight x reader#harry potter fanfiction#writers on tumblr#tumblr fyp
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I DON’T WANT SMUT I WANT FLUFF OR SOME GOOD ASS ANGST GOD DAMN IT
#jason todd x reader#haikyuu x reader#jujutsu kaisen x reader#sam winchester x reader#dean winchester x reader#logan howlett x reader#wade wilson x reader#jjk x reader#yuuji itadori x reader#nanami x reader#spencer reid x reader#jaime reyes x reader#miguel diaz x reader#luke castellan x reader#choso x reader#ethan landry x reader#angst#fluff#trafalgar law x reader#law x reader#roy harper x reader
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in omnia paratus
Spencer Reid x fem!reader
Summary: Spencer's been on the fence with his feelings for you. Due to his past traumas he’s decided to keep his feelings hidden. Until you’re caught in a dangerous situation at work
WC: 3.5 k
A/N: I am SO SORRY this took so long. I’ve been sitting on this for two months because I was being a perfectionist and had writer's block. Thank you so much to the person who requested this idea and I hope ya’ll like it! beta read by @whats-yesterday00
Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Fluff, Protective!spencer, Friends to lovers, age gap (25 and idk 33 or 34), during season 9 (sadly no post prison Reid, I refuse to watch the show after Derek & Hotch leave), Maeve is implied
Warnings!: mentions of murder, stalking, gunshot wounds, hostage situation and incorrect info about hostage situation cause Idk I'm not in the FBI
Everyone knew Spencer Reid had a soft spot for you. Well, everyone except for you.
Since the moment you met you’ve been on his mind.
“Do you know how old she is?”
“No, how old is she?”
“25!” Penelope squeaked before being shushed by Rossi.
“Wow, she’s gotta be the youngest person to ever be in the BAU. Well, second to genius over here,” JJ commented while pointing to Reid.
“That’s if she gets the job,” Morgan added.
They were all crowded around the desks in front of Hotch’s office. The blinds were cracked and they could just barely make out the woman seated across from their boss for an interview.
Due to the increase in caseload after Alex joined, Hotch made the request to add an additional member of the team. After interviewing a few people that didn’t pan out, he heard quite a bit about you from your supervisor saying how well you’ve done with the FBI and you’d be an exceptional fit for the team.
Then of course Penelope looked up everyone who was interviewing with Hotch. You being her most recent victim.
“How long has she been with the FBI?” Alex questioned.
“Three years,” Penelope answered
“What? Did she join right after college?”
“Not right away. She graduated early and got experience with law enforcement first.”
Spencer sat at his desk quietly while everyone was peering into Hotch’s office. Not to say he wasn’t nosy as well. You were already behind the blinds when he arrived for work.
“Oh they’re shaking hands! That has to be a good sign,” Penelope cheered.
Morgan turned to the window, “It’s definitely not a bad one.”
Her eyes widened before loudly whispering, “Oh no they’re leaving. Disperse.”
She scurried off in her heels towards Derek’s desk while he followed behind with a grin. JJ, and Rossi averted their eyes from Hotch’s office and found Alex’s desk far more interesting.
All while Spencer’s attention was brought to the woman led down the stairs by his boss. It felt like his heart stopped beating when he saw how beautiful you were. He was brought back to earth as Hotch introduced you to the rest of the team.
“This is Dr. Spencer Reid,” he gestured to the man sitting at his desk.
You offered him a small wave and a kind smile, “Nice to meet you.”
It became quite obvious you two would get along very well. From very early on conversation flowed incredibly well between the two of you. There were very few people that he felt were easy to talk to because of his niche interests and the way he would ramble spitting facts left and right.
But he never had to worry about saying the wrong thing or talking too much with you. You often were a content listener or you would even match his passion on certain subjects. Most were topics Spencer already knew about.
When you first met Spencer you didn’t know the Dr in his name meant he held 3 PhD’s or that he was quite literally a genius.
So you were often telling stories or facts you found interesting that he already knew. In fact, almost every “fun fact” you brought up, he knew about already.
But he never interrupted you. He always was listening intently to what you had to say. Like he was hearing about it for the first time.
At some point you learned of his eidetic memory and how vast his knowledge was. It was during a case where you found out and mentioned it to him.
“Reid, remember when we were at the harbor and I mentioned that thing about sharks?” You hesitated, “did you know that already?”
“Yes,” he guiltily admitted.
You partially deflated suddenly feeling that the whole tangent you went on was pointless. “Why did you let me go on and on if you already knew?”
His eyes softened, “because I wanted to hear you talk about it.”
That was when his feelings started to peek through. As the months went on it only grew and grew. And you were none the wiser.
To the average person, it might not seem like much. Perhaps you were just good friends. But to a team of profilers (and best friends) it was painfully obvious.
It was almost painful the way he looked at you with a longing in his eyes. Or when his gaze immediately turned to you to catch your reaction or smile.
It was obvious by the way he found any excuse to bring you up in conversation. Or how in conversation with you he would mirror your mannerisms and lean closer to you.
As well as the things he remembered about you or the little things he did for you. Like the countless coffee cups he bought for you from his favorite coffee shop before work. And when he saw you struggling to find something or open something he was always right there to help.
Spencer Reid had feelings for you. Feelings so deep that he couldn’t pull the roots out even if he tried.
He didn’t know what to do with his feelings exactly. He hadn’t felt this strongly for someone since … well for a while. He was terrified of history repeating itself.
He couldn't lose you. He’d seen first hand what this job did to him, what it did to Hotch. Their loved ones ripped away from them too soon.
So for now at least, he kept his feelings to himself.
Well, until your last case.
The BAU was called in on a case that just turned serial. They found the unsub to be a man named Mark, who started killing because his girlfriend cheated on him. The first two victims reminded him of the man she cheated with. When that didn’t satisfy him, he hunted down and killed the other man.
Now the team and SWAT was stationed outside a bus that Mark was holding hostage. He stalked his ex-girlfriend and tracked down the new city bus she took.
The officers couldn’t get a clear shot of him because of where he was standing and he kept using the passengers as shields. Rossi was currently on the phone with him trying to make negotiation terms and get some of the people off the bus. Mark however was incredibly stubborn and didn’t want to let his leverage go.
So Rossi asked about the children on the bus and if Mark would be willing to let them off. They were met with silence on the other end of the phone, contrary to his previous behavior where he loved to hear himself talk.
After a short pause the phone spoke. “I’ll only send out the kids if you send in an agent.”
Rossi shifted his weight and crossed his arms. “Are there any other circumstances you’re willing to send out the children for?” he asked.
“Nope,” he said with a pop at the end of the word.
A look of concern was quickly exchanged between Rossi and Hotch. While their faces didn’t reveal much, their eyes spoke volumes.
“How about this,” the unsub continued. “I’ll send out their moms too.”
Rossi’s eyebrows furrowed slightly at the eagerness to comply from the criminal. “You’ll send out the children and their mothers if we send in one of our agents?”
“I promise.”
Rossi returned his eyes to Hotch who stood rigid and tall with his arms folded. He was met with an approving nod before returning to the call.
“Alright, we can agree to those terms.”
“Oh and agent Rossi?” Mark perked.
“Yes?”
“Send in a girl.”
There was a tension that quietly branched out between the agents listening to the phone call.
“Why do you want a woman?” Rossi asked, clearly changing the dialogue used.
“I’m losing too many ladies sending out these moms. I want one back,” he replied with a cockiness to his voice.
Ross confirmed they could send in a female agent. Almost immediately after the unsub hung up, you volunteered to be the agent going on the bus.
“I’ll do it.”
Spencer’s head shot in your direction. “No you're not.” His voice was laced with concern and a hint of demand.
“Reid-”
“He specifically asked for a woman. We don’t know what he’s planning, he’s devolving.”
“And I’m willing to take that risk to make sure those kids are safe,” You defended yourself.
You turned to your boss waiting for his thoughts. Hotch knew you’d been exposed to enough high tension scenarios to know what you were doing. But just like any member of his team, he silently hesitated, worrying for your safety.
He took a breath before meeting your eyes again. “Send her in.”
Right before you were led to the bus, Hotch took off the holster on his ankle and handed it to you. “Some extra protection in case something happens.” You couldn’t hear the concern in his voice, but you saw it clear as day in his eyes.
You made your way to the bus and saw through the window Mark holding a gun to the driver and telling him to open the door. You stepped on and the doors closed quickly behind you. The unsub took a long look at you, panning up and down.
“Well how about that. Aren’t you a beauty? He said with a cheeky grin.
You tried your hardest not to look disgusted with him. Instead you kept your composure and spoke with courage and a confident demeanor.
“You this flirty with all your hostages?” you asked plainly.
As he gazed down at your legs his eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed. He bent down and with the gun in his hand, pushed away the bottom of your pants leg. When he saw the gun in the holster, he tsked.
“You always carry this much dead weight on you?”
He stood back up and put his hand out, “hand it over, I told them no weapons.”
You reluctantly took off Hotch’s holster and placed it in the unsubs hand. Your one line of defense was gone.
The longer you were on the bus, the more anxious Spencer got. He knew you were an exceptional profiler, and you had enough experience and skill to handle yourself in situations like this.
But that couldn’t stop the ache in his stomach or the fact that his heart rate could power a car by now.
He stood closer to the bus now to get a clearer view of the windows. They managed to successfully get the children and moms off and to safety, but you weren’t safe. Spencer figured you were trying to negotiate with the unsub, but that was going nowhere. This was confirmed when Rossi tried calling him again but every call was ignored.
This unsub was stubborn as hell. He knows he trapped himself, but didn’t want to back down. At least he didn’t want to go quietly.
Spencer was talking with the rest of the team trying to devise a plan when the gunshots were fired. The team immediately ran back to the cacophony on the bus.
More shots were fired, he didn’t know where from. He didn’t care.
He just needed to get to you.
When he got a decent view through one of the windows that hadn’t shattered he saw you. Your hand over arm in pain but still standing in front of the civilians to protect them. The unsub stalking over to you, gun in hand and smacking you over the head with it. You slammed against the chairs and fell to the floor.
Spencer's face paled. He swore he was going to throw up.
Through the fog of his mind Spencer saw Morgan escorting Mark off the bus, his hands now behind his back in cuffs.
He rushed past them, clambering through the door and up the stairs to get to you, calling your name.
“Reid?” he heard your small tired voice through the crowd.
He followed it to you, laying on the ground struggling to open your eyes and clutching your left arm.
He crouched down to your level with a gentle hand on your uninjured arm.
“Hey, I’m here. I’m right here,” he comforted.
“My head hurts,” you mumbled.
His eyes softened, “I know. I think you might have a concussion, you need to go to the hospital.”
You slowly started to fade out of consciousness. Spencer’s heart dropped and his hand moved from your arm to your face.
“No no no no stay with me okay?” he caressed your cheek with his thumb.
“Stay with me sweetheart,” he consoled.
Your eyes stopped struggling to stay open and finally made their close. His other hand rushed to your pulse point as he called for a medic.
Time seemed to stand still while Spencer sat next to your hospital bed waiting for you to wake up. He couldn’t leave your side. He didn’t want to.
You were okay. You were laying in the bed in front of him. But of course in his mind he ran through all the possible scenarios of how things could’ve gone worse, how things could’ve gone better. What would’ve happened if you didn’t have your gun taken away, or if the unsub got angry that you tried to bring a gun in. What if he didn’t lose his cool and start firing. What if you never went inside in the first place.
And with all of those possible scenarios, the same thought plagued him.
He was wrong.
Before he was too scarred from past traumas to reveal just how much you meant to him. Not wanting to repeat the past and lose yet another person he loved cared for.
But now, after seeing you in danger right in front of him, now he was terrified at the thought of you never knowing. He was now more scared you would never know how much he loved the way your nose crinkled when you smiled. How he thought the sound of your voice could cure any ailment he had. How he admired your strength and desire to protect others. How you could light up anyone's mood by just being you. How he could listen to you for hours, even if you were lecturing him on things he’d known like the back of his hand.
To him it was a whole new experience hearing it from you.
Spencer was pulled from his thoughts as you stirred awake. He saw your eyes adjust to the bright fluorescent lights ahead. He quickly got up to dim the lights for you.
When he returned to his seat you smiled at him, “hi.”
“Hi,” he smiled back.
“How are you feeling?”
You sighed. “Like shit,” you complained with a hint of humor.
“The doctor said you have a minor head injury, bruised ribs, and the shot to your arm thankfully didn’t break any bones.”
“Fun,” you said sarcastically.
A moment of silence passes between you two. He doesn’t exactly know what to say. How do you casually tell your friend and coworker you have a crush on them?
There is no casual way.
“You called me sweetheart,” you broke the silence.
He furrowed his eyebrows, “What?”
You fidget with the blanket, “earlier, when I passed out on the bus. You called me sweetheart.”
He searches his mind for the memories of the day. When he finds the memory he realizes in the heat of the moment the term of endearment slipped out.
He wasn’t aware you heard it.
“I did,” he confirmed as his ears flushed.
“Why?” you asked curiously.
He didn’t know how to tell you that he’s wanted to call you that for weeks now. So instead he settled with-
“It just … felt right.”
“Oh,” you replied quietly.
Spencer tensed up at your response.
“If I crossed the line-“
“No. Of course not,” you interrupted with a comforting voice.
The corners of your mouth lifted and cheeks dusted pink. “I thought it was sweet. You don’t normally say stuff like that.”
His heart warmed at your confession and a smile spread on his face.
“You thought me calling you sweetheart was sweet?” he lightly teased.
“Shut up,” you chuckled, rolling your eyes. “You know what I mean.”
Your laughter was cut short by a sharp pain in your abdomen. You bit down on your lip and gripped the side of the bed in pain.
The reality that you were injured on the job was rushing back to him.
He licked his lips, his nervous unconscious habit.
“I was really worried about you.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” he interjected.
“The entire time you were on that bus I was sick to my stomach. Terrified that something bad was gonna happen and it did,” he started to ramble.
You leaned closer to him. ”But I’m okay Reid.”
“You still got hurt. He shot you for christ sake!” his voice raising in pitch and volume.
“Reid-”
“He lashed out at you! You could’ve died!”
“Spencer,” you said firmly, pulling his attention towards you.
He never heard you say his name before. No matter how many times he said you could call him Spencer, you still called him Reid. Hearing his name fall from your lips was like the consistency of honey.
You placed your hands on his face caressing his cheek. His golden eyes meet yours.
“I’m alright. I’m still here,” you consoled.
“But if-“
“Spencer.”
“Please,” he pleaded. “It’s important.”
You nodded your head, signaling for him to continue. He gently grabbed your wrists and brought your hands in his. He took a deep breath before he decided to spill the thing that had been eating away at his heart.
“I have feelings for you. I have for a long time. Almost as long as you’ve been at the BAU,” he started.
With your hands in his he started tracing his thumb over your knuckles.
“If we don’t have work I count down the days until I can see you again. When I do see you I desperately want to see you smile, see you happy. And if I’m the one that causes that smile, it makes my whole day. That’s why I never interrupted when you talked about something I already knew. The way your face lit up when you talked with such passion was the highlight of my day.”
“For months I was scared of my feelings and I kept them to myself. I was too scared to admit how much I liked you because I-” his hold on your hands tightened.
“I know what it feels like to lose someone. This job takes so much from us; I never wanted it to take you.”
Spencer let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in.
“Today I realized it would be more painful if I went the rest of my life not telling you, than having even a fraction of a moment with you.”
A moment of silence danced between you two. Your head reeling from his confession, heart beating so hard you could feel it in your bones. Your palms sweaty from holding onto Spencers, but still neither of you let go.
The silence was deafening, plaguing him.
“Please … say something,” he begged.
Your lash line was collecting tears that you simultaneously tried blinking away. Your eyes found his tie less intimidating than his gaze.
“I never thought you would like me back,” you said with a soft tone.
Spencer's cheeks turned red as his heart started melting. “I do.”
You brought your eyes back to his. That precious smile on his face was infectious.
“Listen,” you squeezed his hands. “I’m not going anywhere. So you have as much time with me as you want.”
Spencer's eyes softened at your words. He raised your hands and placed a loving kiss on your knuckles.
The two of you were too lost in eachother to notice the footsteps towards the room.
“Hey, I found some Jello for her if she-” Alex abruptly stopped once she noticed what she walked into.
You both awkwardly pulled your hands away from each other; you fiddling with the hospital blanket, him rubbing his palms on his slacks.
“So, feeling better?” she asked hesitantly.
“Much,” you answered, still a bit flustered.
“Good, good to hear,” She tried not to sound too smug, but the small smile on her face said otherwise.
She raised and shook the jello container in her hand.
“I’m gonna leave this here,” she placed it on the table. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Thanks Blake,” you thanked as she left.
Once she was gone you quietly giggled and mumbled “oh my god,” under your breath.
“You know, she kept teasing me asking when I was going to ask you out. And don’t even get me started on Morgan,” he chuckled, shaking his head.
Your jaw dropped and eyes furrowed. “Did everyone else know but me?”
He pressed his lips in a thin line, “pretty much.”
“I must be a shitty profiler,” you half joked.
“Absolutely not,” he said in the most comforting voice. He brushed the hair that had fallen in front of your face behind your ear.
“You’re an amazing profiler.”
You smiled that smile he loved so much. The one where you couldn’t hide your joy and your nose crinkled.
“So, how do you think you’ll spend all those moments with me?” you inquired with a bit of a teasing tone.
“Doing anything sweetheart,” he answered seriously. He looked at you with awe written all over your face. “I'm ready for anything with you.”
“in omnia paratus” - ready for anything
Tag asks: @adrienneleclerc @ladybirdbeetle7
#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid headcanon#spencer reid#spencer reid fanfiction#criminal minds#criminal minds fanfic#spencer reid imagine#spencer reid one shot#spencer reid x you#criminal minds fanfiction#spencer reid fluff#spencer reid angst
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I like my men smart
#i need him#i am normal about this man#i want him#spencer reid#i love him#need him#spencer reid criminal minds#hes so babygirl#spencer reid smut#spencer reid fanfic#josh hutcherson#doctor spencer reid#dr spencer reid#spencer reid angst#spencer reid fluff#spencer reid fic#spencer reid fanfiction#spencer reid imagine#spencer reid drabble#spencer reid hands#spencer reid one shot#spencer reid scenario#spencer reid x fem!reader#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid x self insert#spencer reid x you#five hargreeves#five hargreaves x reader#five hargreaves x you#five hargreeves x reader
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Spencer Reid Masterlist:
Guide: Smut ●, Angst ☆, Fluff <3
Kissing in the office <3 by @reidalert
Sleepy Needy Spence ● by @nereidprinc3ss
Work call during the act ● by @nevvdrinksteaa
Pregnancy Announcement (sort of) , vol.2 <3
by @pathologicalreid
"I'm not sleeping with Reid" ● by @incognit0slut
Headcannons <3 by @rafesgfs
Well-kept secret ☆ < 3 by @astrophileous
Work place environment by @nereidprinc3ss
Glasses <3, vol. 2 <3 , vol.3 ● by @luveline, @atlabeth and @raekensluver
Falling asleep on his shoulder, vol.2 <3
by @inkdrinkerworld and @bklynsboys
Please don't have somebody waiting for you <3
by @cerisereids
Being a menace, vol.2 <3 (tho it is suggestive kinda) by @in-another-april and @incognit0slut
Comforting him <3 by @little-miss-dilf-lover
Sleep Deprivation <3 by @faunalune
I love this too much ● by @reiderwriter
Sneaking around ● by @nereidprinc3ss
First Time ● by @luveline
Between the books ● by @reidmotif
Whiny and Spoiled ● by @nereidprinc3ss
Hyper Independent <3 by @inkdrinkerworld
New haircut <3 by @inkdrinkerworld
Waking up with kisses <3 by @secretlovezz
No vacancy <3 @kiss-inthekitchen
Reuniting after prison (Hotch!reader) ☆<3
by @pathologicalreid
Being a munch ● by @lis-likes-fics
Me while watching CM ● by @an1t4k
High Heels <3 by @guiltyasreid
Decoy ● by @violetrainbow412-blog
Tech analyst reader <3 by @moonstruckme
Mixed Messages (series) by @easy-there-leftovers
Addicted to you ● @spencerreidenjoyer
Drunk confessions <3 by @nereidprinc3ss
Proposals <3 by @reidmania
Plastic Hearts (Gideon!reader) ☆ by @atlabeth
I might be in love (Prentiss!reader)
by @januaryembrs
This hurts but in a good way ☆
by @aliteralsemicolon
Heavenly sweet ● by @reidsfilm
His hands, vol.2 ● by @raekensluver and @t1red-twillight
Coming home late <3 by @fairysongs
Soft Intimacy <3 by @t1red-twilight
Missed Lunches (Gideon!reader)☆
by @mindfullycriminal
Grounded (Hotch!reader) <3 by @rreids
His kisses <3 ● by @inkdrinkerworld
50 shades <3 by @rumplereids
Dad!Spence:
Paternity leave <3 by @radiant-reid
Mini Doctor <3 by @reidsdaisies
Hard to say no <3 by @radiant-reid
Lamby goes to work <3 by @cerisereids
Everything in the world <3 by @lis-likes-fics
Daddy's girl <3 by @midniteluv
Toddlerus Interruptus <3 by @reid-fiction
Midnight Scaries <3 by @reid-fiction
Early labor <3 by @rumplereids
Other Masterlists:
Masterlist 1 by @pathologicalreid
Masterlist 2 by @radiant-reid
Masterlist 3 by @slowburningechoes
Note: sorry some of the tags may not work my Tumblr is acting up, also a Spencer Reid fic should be posted sometime soon
#spencer reid#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid x you#spencer reid fluff#spencer reid angst#spencer reid smut#dad spencer reid#dad!spencer reid#criminal minds#criminal minds x reader#criminal minds x you
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elle greenaway and spencer reid:
#criminal minds#elle greenaway#spencer reid#aaron hotchner#jason gideon#jenifer jareau#jj#derek morgan#penelope garcia#emily prentiss#david rossi#spencer reid x fem!reader#spencer reid x fem reader#spencer reid x you#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid angst#spencer reid smut#elle greenway x reader#elle greenway x fem!reader#aaron hotchner x reader#aaron hotchner x you#aaron hotchner x fem!reader#emily prentiss x reader
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close to home | s.r
pairing: spencer reid x reader
a/n: this has been rotting in my brain for days now i hope you enjoy the angsty comfort this brought me <3 my requests are open (guidelines in pinned!) or if you wanna just chat hop in my ask box :) gonna hopefully work on a smut fic in the next week so keep an eye out hehe
cw: angst, hurt/comfort, protective!spencer, afab!reader who uses she/her pronouns, non bau!reader, cm type violence, reader sustains injuries from unsub, vague description of injuries, maeve mentions, derek being a good friend, spencer being so in love with reader, this takes place probably a year after maeve, inconsistencies with tls and characters but who cares
wc: 2.4k
summary: the bau is working a local case when their unsub strikes again mid investigation, hotch tells reid and morgan to go check it out but spencer finds the address of the crime to be a little too familar
_______________________________________________
whenever the bau has a case based in the dc area, it’s always a little easier on the team. familiar stomping grounds, ease of resources, no major time difference, and everyone can sleep in their own beds. the hard part about home cases is knowing there’s a serial killer in the place they know deeply, with people they cared about deeply.
spencer and callahan are in the middle of the bullpen staring at the giant white board with all the evidence they have so far. the unsub has been killing women in their mid 20s in the local dc area, with the mo currently unknown. there had already been two victims, both killed in their homes. spencer was currently trying to analyze all the information the case had alongside with what garcia was able to provide, and he was still hitting a dead end. morgan had joined them at some point too, trying to offer what he could remember from the crime scenes but to no avail. he felt his eyes straining and dropping so he decided to get more coffee, but was stopped by hotch and garcia entering the bullpen.
“police just got a 911 call about a break in, but there’s a witness this time. she was home when it happened and it looks like he didn’t expect that and tried to knock her out before escaping. i think it sounds like our unsub. morgan and reid i need you to go check out the scene and interview the witness, see what she remembers.” hotch explained.
morgan and reid nodded as garcia spoke up, “i just sent the address to your phones, it’s a house on hillcrest so it's not that far from here.”
spencer froze. he had to have heard wrong, she did not say hillcrest, “did you say hillcrest?”
“yeah hillcrest drive. it’s like, a 15 minute drive it’s not that bad.”
he felt his heart drop to his feet, a sinking feeling building in his gut. that was the street you lived on. he tried to ground himself with logic, the probability of it being your house is only 10%, but he was dreading asking the fated question.
“garcia, what’s the house number?”
“reid, i already sent it to your pho-“
“garcia, what is the house number,” he spoke again.
please don’t say 1159 please don’t say 1159 please don’t say-
“1159.”
fuck. the color drained from his face, and the nausea was building to a head quickly. spencer hurriedly tried to think through the last time he spoke to you, last night? this morning? he doesn’t check on you as much as he does when he’s not on a case, but oh my god why can’t he remember the last time he saw you.
“reid,” hotch bellows, finally breaking spencer out of his trance, “what is it? what do you know?”
he shook his head, “nothing. morgan, let’s go.” he grabbed his jacket and booked it out the door.
morgan, garcia, and hotch all looked at each other in concern, before morgan spoke up, “i’ll see what’s up.” the latter two nodded softly, though the worry didn’t let up in their eyes.
morgan walked up to the car to find spencer repeatedly trying to call someone on the phone, clearly unable to get through and getting really frustrated.
spencer was alerted by morgan’s presence hearing the car unlock but he didn’t even look at him, just immediately got in the car and strapped his seat belt. morgan joined him in the drivers seat giving him a wary look before turning the car on and pulling out of the bureau.
“okay reid, spill it. it’s obvious you know who lives here.” morgan speaks up.
“just drive, please.”
“because if you know something, something that could help the case, it would be helpful if we knew.”
“morgan, just drive.” he borderline yells.
he raises his eyebrows at his raised voice, “listen kid, i’m just trying to help you. i can see you’re upset but we’re on the same side, you know that.”
spencer takes a shaky breath, feeling another shade of guilt at yelling at one of his friends, for something he didn’t even know about. he’d kept you a secret for many reasons— your relationship with him was still new, and he just wanted to keep you to himself for a bit. after what happened with maeve, he felt especially more responsible at keeping you safe and making sure you didn’t get tangled up in his line of work.
some job he did of that.
the one thing he regrets about how he handled the maeve situation, was not asking for help until it was almost too late. for not doing anything about her stalker when he was part of one of the most famous fbi teams built to find people like that. he’d always live with that guilt, but he vowed not to do that with you.
he loved you so much. you were so kind, and smart, and beautiful. a breath of fresh air after feeling lost in a dark tunnel for so long. you were so understanding when he explained what he did for a living, and what had happened to him and people he cared about as a result. he still remembers what you said to him when he told you that you could have an out, if you wanted.
“any risk is worth taking if getting to be with you is the consolation prize.”
tears welled up in eyes thinking about the memory. if you were willing to take any risk, then he should be able to as well.
he cleared his throat, and morgan’s ears perked up, “my uh, my girlfriend lives there. where the unsub, at- attacked.” he voiced softly.
morgan looked at him for a beat while driving, spencer missing the way his face dropped. he tightened his hands on the wheels, and didn’t hesitate to turn the lights and siren on and shift gears to speed up.
__
the car pulled onto your street and the first thing spencer sees is the flashing light of the ambulances. morgan doesn’t even put the car in park before spencer’s bolting out hoping he can find you quickly.
he’s asking all the paramedics he’s passing if they’ve seen you or know if you’re being treated, were you transferred to a hospital and he didn’t know, the tunnel vision slowly overtaking him until he hears a voice breaking through like sunlight call out his name.
he whips his head in the direction he heard it come from, and he’s never been more grateful to be met with the beautiful sight of you. you watch his eyes widen and let out a sigh before running over to where you were sitting in the back of the ambulance. he’s definitely not thinking when he goes in to hug you, not even knowing the extent of your injuries. he’s overtaken by the desperate need to hold you in his arms so he knows you’re safe and okay.
“hi,” you choke out muffled, “funny seeing you here.”
he pulls back to inspect your face, taking note of a small cut above your left eyebrow and the beginning splotches of a bruise forming on your lower jaw. his heart aches so much looking at you, knowing what happened to you and who did this to you.
“hi, honey,” he lets out tearfully, “are you okay? i mean, of course you’re not. but what did the paramedics say? did they give you anything? are you sure they checked all your injuries? you know what, let me go call the guy over. i’ll be literally two seconds.” his panicked ramble fading off as he rounds the truck you’re sat in to find the emt.
upon his extensive questioning of the man who treated you, he found out that you had sustained a minor concussion from when the unsub swung at you with an umbrella, superficial cuts caused by a broken vase you threw to defend yourself, and a dislocated shoulder from getting shoved into the wall.
you were okay, but at what cost.
the emt leaves you two and spencer sits himself next to you on the rig. he wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you as tight as he can and the other hand cradles your head into the crook of his neck, holding you so tight he’s hoping he can squeeze the bad memories out of you. it’s at this moment of feeling safe and sound in his arms when the adrenaline of your attack wears off.
spencer hears a small whimper and feels a few hot tears trickle down his neck, your breathing gets faster as you’re attempting to beat your body’s fear response. the slow build up of sobs starting to rack your chest, and he immediately holds you tighter.
“it’s over, baby, they won’t hurt you anymore. i promise.”
you sniffle, “i know, i just can’t believe this happened. to me, to us. it’s not fair to you.” trailing off the last two words.
“to me? wh- what do you mean?”
you take a deep breath, “i don’t mean to bring it up again, i just know how eerily similar this is to a past experience you’ve had. and i hoped that i wouldn’t be in a position to make you feel that way again. i don’t know why this happened, i'm sorry.”
he looked down at you incredulously. genuinely unable to believe that you were sitting next to him on an ambulance, beaten up with bruises and scars after a home invasion attack, worried about how he would feel when he got to you. it was enough to finally let the swell of tears saved up in his eyes fall.
“oh sweetheart,” he chokes out, realizing you’ve been trying to be brave for him this whole time, “what happened is not your fault, do you understand me? my job is to always worry about you and your safety. when garcia said the address i…i couldn’t even process it, i don’t even know how i got to the car,” he shook his head, “but i am the last person you need to push your emotions down for. i will always take them in stride and love you even more for that, okay?”
“okay,” you take a shaky breath, “i love you.”
“i love you.” he leans down to press a kiss to the crown of your head.
both of your heads look up at an approaching figure, who you quickly recognize to be ssa derek morgan. you knew spencer hadn’t told the team about you yet, so you tried to sit up independently as fast as you could before he came over and suspected something.
spencer’s grip didn’t let up when he bent down and whispered, “it’s okay, he knows.” you look up at him with wide eyes when derek finally reaches you.
“reid, i already talked to the detectives and we’re good to go when you’re ready,” he turns his body to you and gives you a comforting smile, “hi sweetheart, i’m derek morgan, it’s nice to meet you.”
spencer rolls his eyes at the nickname while you giggle softly, “hi derek, i’ve heard so much about you. it's nice to finally meet you too.”
“i wish it were under better circumstances,” he sighs, “listen, i know it’s all still really fresh for you, but it might help the case if you’re able to come in for a cognitive interview, or even talk to a sketch artist.”
spencer doesn’t miss a beat before protesting, “absolutely not. we can do it later, it’s fine.”
“reid-“
you look up at him placing your hand on his chest, “spence, it’s okay. i want to help, please.”
he rests his hand on top yours and gives it a light squeeze, “okay, but i’m not leaving you alone for a second.”
“i didn’t think you would.” you smile.
“alright lovebirds, you can have your private time later, we should go now.” derek teases.
spencer groans, “see this is why i didn’t say anything.”
“you think i’m bad? wait till penelope meets her.”
__
the three of you pile into the car before starting the drive to spencer’s apartment so he could get you a change of clothes and other things you might need. you end up falling asleep in the back seat, the final stage of your shock sinking in like a rock. spencer checks on you from the rear view mirror and sees you passed out, and smiles.
“she’s cute,” derek starts, “can i ask how long?”
“nine months.” he replies, fishing for something out of his pocket.
“pretty boy hid a girl from all of us for nine months? maybe we’re not as good profilers as we thought.”
“imagine that,” he laughs, and gestures to the item in his hand, “look.”
spencer’s holding out a well loved photo booth strip with three pictures, of you and spencer from the time you went to a local county fair. you’re sitting in his lap, mostly due to the cramped space and the expansive limbs. the first picture is the two of you holding up finger guns attempting to be as back to back as you can. the second picture, you intended it to be a normal one where you both smile at the camera, but spencer couldn’t take his eyes off you and the picture captured the love struck gaze he had on you. the last one you were about to tell him the idea for it, when he grabbed your face and pulled you closer to kiss you, neither of you knowing when the final picture snapped.
the edges were worn out and frayed, clearly broken down by the oils on his fingers from pulling it out frequently. it was his most treasured item, a constant reminder of what was always waiting for him when he got back from grueling cases, and how lucky he was to have you in his life.
“you look really happy, kid.” derek says, thinking about the many times he’s seen his friend at rock bottom, the things that have been so brutally taken from him, and the suffering he’s had at the hands of his job. his heart warms for his friend, who seemed to finally catch a break.
“i am.”
#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid#criminal minds#spencer reid fanfiction#spencer reid fanfic#spencer reid x y/n#spencer reid x you#criminal minds fanfic#dr spencer reid#spencer reid angst#spencer reid hurt/comfort#spencer reid imagine#criminal minds fanfiction#bau team#spencer reid x self insert#spencer reid x fem!reader#spencer reid x fanfiction
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me when I reach the angst part of the angsty fic that I specifically chose for the angst
#kaz brekker x reader#six of crows x reader#fanfiction#angst#jesper fahey x reader#simon riley x reader#spencer reid angst#spencer reid x reader#criminal minds x reader#hazbin hotel x reader#kaz brekker angst#hobie brown x reader#miles morales x reader#atsv x reader#miguel o’hara x reader#alastor x reader#harry potter x reader#steve rogers x reader#bucky barns x reader#tony stark x reader#avengers x reader#konig x reader#five hargreaves x reader#klaus hargreeves x reader#mcntseesrandoms#matthias helvar x reader
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was i stupid to love you?
in which a lingering glance at Rossi’s wedding threatens your engagement.
content: angst, 4.8k, takes place right after truth or dare (14x15), a lot of dialogue, mention of prison arc, emotional distress, relationship conflict, not proofread a/n: when was the last time you saw me write angst? exactly. this is inspired by malcolm & marie bc i really like the idea of having an argument while moving around the house (also disclaimer i have nothing against JJ i just like being dramatic)
The lock clicks open. The door swings with a creak. Your heels tap against the hardwood in a hollow rhythm that feels almost too loud. There’s a tightness in your chest, that prickling behind your eyes, and a familiar ache pressing up from the pit of your stomach, churning into a faint nausea that you try to ignore. You’re trying to hold it back.
Not here.
Not now.
Spencer doesn’t even look up. The keys slip from his hand with a soft clink as they hit the side table, and he turns away with a quiet sigh that reverberates deep in your bones.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, tossing a glance toward the kitchen. “Think we could order something?”
You trail after him, the sharp click of your heels echoing as you step onto the kitchen tile. “We just came back from a wedding.”
He’s rifling through the cupboard, his fingers brushing over the mismatched mugs and neatly stacked plates before he pulls down two glasses. “I barely ate anything at the reception.”
You watch him, biting back a response as memories flicker to mind. The slice of cake he’d poked at absentmindedly, washing it down with sips of water instead of real food.
It wasn’t hunger he seemed focused on tonight. No, it was his quiet glances across the room you keep on catching from the corner of your eye, and that conversation he’d had at the bar. The one where his posture softened, his gaze so intent you’d found yourself staring at the back of his head, trying not to read too much into it—and obviously failing.
“Why didn’t you eat?”
He shrugs, his back still to you as he fills the glasses with water. “I don’t know,” he says, sounding almost absent, like it’s something he hasn’t really thought about. “I didn’t get around to it, I guess.”
The muscles in your jaw ticks as you bite the inside of your cheeks.
Spencer turns, offering you a glass. “I was thinking of Chinese, or maybe we can check if that Thai place you like is still open.”
You take the glass from him, barely sparing it a glance before setting it back down on the counter. “Whatever you want is fine.”
A subtle crease appears between his brows. “You sure? You usually have some opinion when it comes to food.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You don’t want to eat anything?”
You suppress a sigh. "No. I'm tired."
The soft amber of his eyes dims slightly as he studies you. There's a flicker of uncertainty passing through them before he nods. “Alright,” he concedes. “We don’t have to order anything.”
A faint, humorless laugh escapes you before you can stop it. It tastes bitter, a little unfair, but it slips out before you can pull it back, “You don’t have to change your plans on my account, Spencer.”
“I’m not changing any plans,” he responds. “I’m just making sure you have something to eat in case you’re hungry.”
Your shoes dig uncomfortably into your feet. You shift your weight, starting to pace a few steps back and forth. "It's dinner, you don't have to check on me for every little thing. Do whatever you like."
He blinks, looking genuinely perplexed. "What are you saying? I was trying to be considerate."
"Right. Considerate.”
There’s an unmistakable bite in your tone.
“Yes, because we like doing these things together," he observes, watching your uneasy pacing. "Am I missing something here?”
You shake your head. “Nope.”
"Honey."
The term of endearment lands softly, slipping from his lips like he believes it has the power to melt whatever tension has suddenly crept between you. But it only tightens the knot building in your stomach. It’s stirring the words you’re trying to hold back, tangling them somewhere between your chest and throat.
He calls your name this time, his eyes narrowing into sharp lines. “You’ve been awfully quiet on our way home, and now you’re… honestly, I don’t know why you're acting this way.” His voice dips with a tinge of exasperation. "What’s this really about?"
The words you’ve been biting back feel like a stack of stones in your throat, rising up, up, up, each one pressed tighter by the gnawing nausea in your stomach. You can feel them gathering, and before you know it, they tumble out messily.
“I’m just saying, don’t let me hold you back from getting what you want. I wouldn’t want to stop you from anything—or, god forbid," you add, letting your gaze drift away as if a little distance might soften the blow, “anyone.”
The soft, almost stifled inhale he takes is audible. You don’t even have to look up to see his expression shifting. You’ve known him long enough to recognize the way his shoulders tense, the way his breathing slows as he processes your words. You know his reaction by heart, yet right now, you wonder if saying this was a mistake, if this is the start of something neither of you can take back.
His fingers twitching at his side slip into your line of sight. He's angry.
Maybe this isn’t the time to start a fight.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Your heels click softly as you turn.
“Forget it. I shouldn't have said anything,” you mutter, already moving toward the bedroom that’s been yours, too, for the past year. Although it feels strange tonight, like a space that belongs to someone else. A life you’re not entirely sure you belong in.
“No." His voice is somewhere behind you. “I think you should explain to me what you mean by that.”
You don’t respond, choosing instead to sink onto the edge of the bed, hands fumbling as you try to undo the straps of your heels. You twist the stubborn leather with more force. His shadow fills the doorway.
“Honey.”
Not again.
You decide to ignore him.
“Is there something you’d like to say to me?”
You tug harder at the strap. “No.”
He doesn’t buy it. “You’re clearly bothered by something.”
You shake your head, fingers still fumbling, the leather cutting against your ankle with each pull. “I’m just tired. Can we leave it at that?”
There’s a flicker of frustration in his gaze now, a crease forming between his brows as he studies you. He moves into the room. You barely have the chance to react before he lowers himself, bending one knee to the floor as he reaches toward the strap you’ve been fighting with. “Here, let me—”
“Don’t,” you interrupt, pulling your foot away. “I can do it myself.”
“I know you can. But let me—”
“I can do it myself!”
Your heartbeat thuds loud in your ears, each pulse feeding the frustration that’s wound its way up from your chest. He rises slowly, not a word passing his lips, but the tension radiates off him like heat. He’s close enough that his warmth presses against your skin, although it’s not the kind you usually find comforting. It’s almost suffocating.
You turn your focus back to the stubborn strap, your fingers trembling slightly as you struggle to grip it. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch him slipping off his shoes, one after the other, the soft thuds barely audible over the rush of your own heartbeat. He pulls off his suit jacket, carefully smoothing the crumpled fabric before hanging it in the closet. For a moment, it seems like he’s going to let it go… until his gaze drifts back to you.
You can tell his patience is fraying, and you’re proven right when he asks again, “What did you mean by that? When you said you wouldn’t want to stop me from anyone… what was that supposed to mean?”
You finally manage to tug the strap loose. The heel drops to the floor with a muted thump. “It was nothing.”
“I don’t think you’d say something like that if it was nothing.”
Your focus shifts to the other shoe. “Just drop it, Spencer.”
"How am I supposed to drop it when you're implying... whatever it is you're implying?"
You keep your eyes down, wrestling with the strap in silence. He cuts through the quiet before it has a chance to grow.
“Don’t do that,” he says. “Don’t brush it off like it’s nothing when it clearly means something. I need to know why you said that.”
You kick off the other heel and meet his gaze for the first time since you walked into the room. “You really want to know?”
He reaches for his bow tie, yanking it loose it with one hard pull. “Do I want to know why you’re giving me this attitude right now? Yes. Yes, I do.”
Oh. So this is going to be that kind of fight.
You hadn’t expected it to go here. Fights with Spencer are very rare, usually more a clash of misunderstandings that you both laugh about with limbs tangled between sheets by the time you’ve made peace. But seeing him standing there with the tie hanging loosely around his neck and his five o’clock shadow casting an even darker line along his jaw, it hits you differently.
This is real. And this time, you don’t know if brushing it off will fix anything.
“Fine, let’s talk about it then.” You rise from the bed, tension carrying you to your feet. “Emily’s speech tonight.”
His brow furrows, not quite a scowl, more a cautious crease as he processes your tone. “Emily’s speech? What about it?”
“What do you remember of it?”
There’s a slight pause, and you can tell he's clearly caught off guard by the question. “She mentioned how Rossi and Krystal are twin flames."
“Right. Two souls that are always meant to be together.”
His face is still marked by confusion, but there’s something else creeping in. A subtle tightening around his eyes tells you he’s starting to piece it together. “I don’t understand what that has to do with—”
“You looked at JJ the second Emily made that speech,” you cut him off. “Spencer, you didn’t even spare a glance at your future wife because you were too busy making eyes at the woman who’s apparently been in love with you all these years.”
There. You said it. The words that have twisted around your insides all evening are finally out. And maybe they taste a little bitter, but at least they're not choking you anymore.
A second passes, then another, and by the time the fifth heartbeat ticks by, he’s standing there with his hand on his hip.
“That’s not what happened."
“Then what was it?” you demand. "I sat beside you the whole day, you didn't even try to hide it."
“That’s not—you’re twisting things.” His hand moves through his hair, fingers digging in as his curls tumble forward onto his forehead. “And you know what happened that night wasn’t real. It was a forced confession. She was under duress, we both were. JJ and I are just friends.”
You arch an eyebrow. “You look at all your friends like that?”
His hand drops to his side. "I don't know what else you want me to say. JJ said what she did because she thought we might die. She has a family, and a husband who she loves. We already went through this, I don't understand why this is suddenly an issue again."
“Maybe I wouldn’t be bringing this up if you didn’t look at her tonight like you were ready to break up that marriage yourself.”
A flash of shock and anger crosses his features.
“That’s not fair,” he snaps, his voice sharper than you’ve heard in a while. “Do you really think I’d disregard everything I have with you because of a look? Because of a history that has never gone anywhere?”
“I don’t know what to think. It's not like it happened just once, I saw you looking at her the same way at the bar." You step forward, accidentally kicking your discarded heel as you move. "What were you two talking about, anyway?”
He lets out a tight breath. “She was checking in on me. She… we haven’t talked much since then.”
The corners of your mouth pull down. “Mhm. Another round of truth or dare?”
“I can’t believe you’re using that against me." His hair flops forward as he shakes his head, falling messily over his brow. "If there were anything unresolved with JJ, I would’ve said something. But I didn’t, because there’s nothing there."
“And yet, she’s always been an important part of your life, hasn't she?"
He tilts his head. "What are trying to say now?"
Your tongue darts out, briefly brushing your lips. You're not sure you should say it, but it feels like a door has swung open—a door to words that have been waiting for their moment.
You take a slow, deep breath, filling your lungs with as much air as you can.
“When you were in prison, you put her on your visiting list ahead of almost everyone else. Doesn’t that say something about where she stands with you?”
He exhales sharply, dragging a hand over the back of his neck.
“She’s part of the team,” he says, as if he’s trying to spell out something he’s already explained a dozen times. "There were strict rules, I already told you that only a handful of people were allowed to visit. It wasn’t like I could just put anyone on the list.”
“But you could’ve put me on there!”
The familiar burn of tears prickles at the edges of your eyes, but you blink them back, refusing to let them fall. An explanation or protest is poised on his lips, but you’re already moving, closing the distance with a single, decisive step. A finger lands on his chest.
“I was your girlfriend, Spencer. Were you that determined to keep me out? Was the thought of seeing me really so unbearable? Do you even understand how hard it was to sit at home, knowing you were locked up, feeling completely helpless? Do you have any idea how much I hated myself day after day because I couldn’t do anything to help you?”
Your lips quiver. You feel like your heart is about to leap out of your throat.
“I was out here, just… waiting. Wondering if you were okay, if they were treating you alright, if you even had someone to talk to. And meanwhile, she’s there, with you. Every single time, she’s the one who gets to be by your side.”
Your nail digs into the fabric of his shirt.
“So forgive me if I can’t just let that go. Because when it mattered, it felt like you didn’t want me to be there for you. And now… now I don’t even know if you need me the way you seem to need her.”
Your breathing turns shallow, each inhale catching in your chest. The tears you’ve been holding back are dangerously blurring your vision. You swallow the knot lodged in your throat.
“I need a minute.”
Without another word, you turn and walk out of the room, leaving him standing there in stunned silence. You slip back into the kitchen, leaning against the counter as you finally reach for the glass of water that’s been sitting there untouched. You take a sip, barely feeling the cool water on your lips, when you hear his footsteps behind you.
“You think I don’t want you in my life?” he demands. “You think I somehow need her more than I need you?”
You set the glass down. “What part of ‘I need a minute’ do you not understand?”
“You really expect me to wait quietly after you unloaded every doubt you’ve ever had about us?”
You life your chin up. “Yes, I do. I need space to think right now.”
“What more do you want to think about when you’ve already convinced yourself that I’m always going to fall short? Is it so hard to believe that you’re the one I want?”
“You want to know why it’s so damn hard to believe?” You turn towards him. “Because every time I try to let this go, there’s always something. A confession. That—that not-so-subtle look. And when those things happen, it reminds me that I’m not as close to you as she is. I’m fucking tired of feeling like I’m fighting for space in your life.”
“Do you think I want you to feel like that? Do you think I’d go through everything we’ve been through if you didn’t matter to me?”
“Then explain to me why I wasn’t on that list!” you cry out. “Explain to me why, in one of the hardest times of your life, you couldn’t make space for me?”
“Because I was trying to protect you!”
A heavy, dreadful silence falls between you. He takes a step back, his eyelids fluttering shut briefly, and when he opens them again, there’s a softness in his gaze that mirrors the gentleness now threading through his voice.
“I know it probably doesn’t make sense to you, and maybe it never will, but I couldn’t stand the idea of you seeing me like that. Living through it was hard enough, but having you there, seeing me so helpless… It would have crushed me. I didn’t want that to be your memory of me.”
His Adam’s apple dips as he swallows, a quick, almost anxious movement you’ve witnessed countless times.
“And when JJ came to see me,” he continues, “the way the inmates looked at her, the things they said after she left… it was disgusting. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let that happen to you. I couldn’t live with thought of you being subjected to that because of me.”
You lower your head with a sigh. “I don’t care if they looked. I don’t care what they would’ve thought.”
“But I care,” he fires back, taking a step forward. “Because you mean more to me than anyone. All I wanted was to keep you safe, and maybe I didn't handle it right, maybe I made the wrong call... but it was only because I—" His voice drops into an even more gentle note. "Because I love you."
Your heart stumbles, an uneven beat that feels almost bruised, pounding hard against your ribs.
"I-I love you so much. More than I know how to put into words." The ache in your chest sharpens as his hands come up to cup your cheeks. "I don't like fighting with you. I hate it, actually. I hate seeing you look at me like this."
You also hate the way he’s looking at you. There’s a depth to his annoyingly pretty eyes that makes it impossible to hold up your defenses without feeling them crumble. You let your eyes flutter closed.
“Why don’t we… call it a night?” He suggests. “Let’s lie down. We don’t have to talk about this now.”
The blackness behind your eyelids does little to quiet your mind. Nor does his voice. Or his touch. Instead of offering peace, his presence throws every glance, every moment of tension from tonight into sharper relief.
You draw in a breath, trying to find some comfort in his palms against your cheeks. Yet, even this can’t smooth away the doubt that’s settled in. With a resigned sigh, you release the breath you’ve been holding along with the words that have been pressing at the back of your throat.
“You haven’t explained it to me.”
The shadows in his gaze seem to deepen when you open your eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve been going in circles, but you haven’t explained to me what happened tonight,” you say quietly. “Why did you look at her, Spencer?”
His thumb absently strokes your cheek in a way that feels more hesitant than reassuring.
“Be honest with me,” you press. “Was there a part of you, even the tiniest part, that still wanted something with her? Some small part of you that… wondered what it might be like?”
The silence between you presses in from all sides, broken only by the faint hum of the refrigerator and the distant, muffled ticking of a clock on the wall. It’s the kind of quiet that sharpens even the smallest sounds, yet his lack of response feels like the loudest thing of all.
You pull back from him with an incredulous laugh.
“Unbelievable.” The word barely makes it past your lips, then louder as you start to move, pacing the length of the apartment. “Unbelievable.”
“Wait,” he says, trailing after you, “I didn’t even say anything.”
You stop short by the couch and whip around to face him.
“You didn’t need to! You—you hesitated," you stammer, searching his face for any flicker of denial, but it’s there, plain as day, that split-second of doubt you caught. “That was already an answer.”
He inches closer. A hand closes in on you. “Please—”
You flinch, pulling back, and every muscle in your body tightens. “Don’t. Don’t touch me right now.”
His hand falls to his side. “Please… let me explain."
You watch his hand drop, fingers twitching like they’re not sure if they should retreat or reach out again, but he keeps them there, hovering in some invisible line you’ve drawn. He looks at you with those big, pleading eyes, and for a split second, you almost feel bad for him.
Almost.
A bitter sort of smile tugs at the corner of your mouth. "So now you want to explain?"
He takes that as permission, and his voice comes in low, almost cautious. "When I first started at the BAU, I had… maybe a crush. A passing thing, barely anything, really. But that was fourteen years ago.” His hand scrubs through his hair in a frustrated sweep. “Fourteen years."
Your brows pull into a frown. “Why am I only hearing about this now?”
“Because it was nothing,” he says, almost too quickly. “I was young, it didn’t matter. I didn’t think it was worth bringing up.”
“Oh, I get it now. All those old feelings came rushing back the night she confessed, didn’t they?”
He mirrors your frown, a visible line of tension etching itself between his brows as he protests, “It’s nothing like that.”
“Then what is it?” you press. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks a whole lot like you’re caught between us because some part of you is still hung up on what might’ve been with her."
He shifts uncomfortably, and you notice the muscles in his jaw clenching the moment his gaze falters, dipping away for just a heartbeat before he looks back at you.
“It’s not that I don’t know what I want,” he starts to explain. “I didn’t expect her to say those things, and, yes, it threw me off for a moment. But that doesn’t mean I’m looking back, or that I want her. I want you.”
You shake your head, feeling a tired sort of frustration settle over you, and walk over to the couch. The soft cushions give slightly beneath you as you sink down.
“If you really wanted me, this wouldn’t be happening. You wouldn’t have let her get into your head like that. And now, you expect to believe that none of it meant anything?”
He’s quick to follow, closing the distance in a few tense steps. “It’s not—” His hands flex open and close at his sides. “You’re acting like one single look tonight is enough to decide I’m not committed to you. Do you really think I’d let some confession I didn’t even ask for get in the way of what we have?”
“It’s not just about that single look. It’s the way she could say something and suddenly, you’re pulled back to something you swore you’d put behind you. How am I supposed to feel secure when she still has that power over you?”
“And what am I supposed to do, then? Apologize for things I don’t even feel anymore?”
You flinch at the sharpness in his voice. A low, frustrated noise rumbles in his chest when you don’t respond.
“You’re always going to question me no matter what I say, aren’t you?"
You glance over at him, catching the disheveled strands of hair falling over his forehead, and it pulls you back to that night he came home after that dreadful night. He’d walked in looking worn in a way you’d never seen before, his whole posture weighted down as if he was carrying more than just the fear of being held hostage.
You remember sitting with him on this same couch, fingers brushing his, and asking what was bothering him.
JJ said she loved me.
Your heart lurched, a quick, quiet ache that you tried to swallow down. Really?
Don’t worry. It’s not true.
But with that same haunted look in his eyes right now, you can’t help but wonder if it really was just a well-intentioned lie.
“One glance and you’re accusing me of things that are never going to happen,” he starts again. “Do you really think so little of me? After everything we’ve shared, you really think I’d betray you like that?”
In true honesty, you don’t believe he would ever cross that line. But the doubts still linger, fed by those small hesitations, the moments when his eyes seem somewhere else. It’s not that you think he’d betray you. It’s that a part of him might still be holding onto something he won’t let you see.
“It’s like you don’t know me at all.”
Now those words you might actually believe.
“Maybe I don’t,” you say quietly, eyes drifting to the ring on your finger. You twist it absently, remembering the night he proposed. How he’d stumbled over his words, his cheeks flushing as he tried to make the moment perfect but ended up rambling in that endearing, nervous way of his. You’d laughed, reassured him that it was exactly right, that you didn’t need grand gestures. All you needed was him.
And yet, you don’t think he needs you as much you need him.
A hollow ache settles around your hand as you slip the ring off.
“What are you doing?”
You stare down at the gold band in your palm, blinking back the sting of tears.
“Tell me what you’re doing.”
Panic. Desperation. There’s a sudden rush of melancholy in his voice, a heaviness that wasn’t there a moment ago.
You swallow the lump in your throat. “I don’t know,” you whisper. “I—I don’t know anything right now.”
His face crumples, and in a sudden, almost instinctive movement, he drops down to his knees.
“No, no, you do know me. I’m sorry… I’m so sorry. Isn’t this—” he stops, then dips his head, trying to catch your gaze. “Isn’t that what couples do? They argue, they mess things up… but they work through it, right? Right?”
You look down, feeling the cool weight of the ring pressing into your skin.
“Spencer…” you begin. “I trust you. I do, and I’m sorry if I made it seem like I didn’t. But… I need to feel secure. I… I need to know that I don’t have to wonder or worry about where I stand. I never thought you’d be the one to make me doubt that.”
There’s a sharp ache in your chest.
“I didn’t think it could hurt this much. Not from you.”
Your pulse ring in your ear.
“I can’t—” The words catch in your throat, a stinging burn rising as you force them out. “I can’t be your wife when I’m constantly questioning if I have all of you. When I feel like… there’s always a part of you that isn’t mine.”
“I’m yours, honey. I’m always yours.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
There’s a slight falter in his voice. “Don’t—please don’t do this—”
“I can’t keep pretending it doesn’t hurt.”
He falls silent, and for a moment, the only sound is the rough, uneven rhythm of both your breaths filling the space between you. Then, like something inside him finally cracks open, he sinks down, pressing his forehead against your lap. The sudden weight of him forces a broken sob from your throat.
“Please,” he begs, fingers clutching at your sides. His chin presses deep into your thigh. “Tell me how to fix this. I can’t— I can’t lose you.”
“Spence…”
“I love you,” he blurts out, the words tumbling from him in a rush. “I love you.”
But what is love, really? Is it just a word people reach for when they’ve run out of things to say, a way to patch over bruised hearts and broken promises? Or should it feel like something more solid, something that doesn’t leave you questioning or aching? You can’t even tell anymore.
You wonder, too, if maybe you’ve been wrong all along. If this feeling in your chest isn’t love but something dressed up as it, something that fills the gaps while slowly hollowing you out. Because here you are, clinging to a love that somehow makes you feel like you’re both needed and unseen. Everything and nothing all at once.
You feel like a fool.
“I want to go to bed.”
His head lifts from your lap, a flash of surprise darting across his face, as though he hadn’t expected you to say anything at all, let alone that. “Yeah, okay, let’s go to bed. We’ll… we’ll figure this out in the morning.”
“I’d rather be alone.”
The words hit him visibly. His mouth opens, an argument forming there, but he catches himself, letting the silence stretch before he nods slowly.
“Then… I’ll stay out here. On the couch,” he offers softly. “Just… in case you need anything.”
A pang cuts through you at the thought of him stretched out on the couch, his legs too long, his shoulders folded in to fit the cramped space. But the idea of sharing a bed right now feels impossible.
You reach down, holding out the ring towards him.
“No,” he says firmly, gently pushing your hand away. “Don’t do that. This… it doesn’t mean we’re giving up. It just means we need time. That’s all.”
You’re not sure if your mind will change in the morning. The ring presses into your skin, but finally, you close your hand around it, nodding faintly before you peel away from him.
The tears start the moment the bedroom door clicks shut behind you. It spills over in a jagged, helpless cry that sounds nothing like you imagined heartbreak might sound. It’s messy, a kind of aching grief that feels too big for your chest, clawing its way out with no grace at all. You can practically hear how pathetic you sound, and yet you can’t seem to stop.
Even when the hem of your dress trails across the floor. Even when you finally collapse onto his side of the bed. There’s no stopping you. With the ring sitting cold in your hand, your tears keep coming, soaking into the pillow as you cling to the last trace of him woven into the sheets.
#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid x you#spencer reid x self insert#spencer reid angst#spencer reid x y/n#spencer reid imagine#spencer reid x female reader#spencer reid fem!reader#spencer reid fanfic#spencer reid fanfiction#criminal minds fanfiction#criminal minds x reader#angst#angst with no happy ending
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The enormity of my desire (disgusts me),
Very very early seasons (1 — start of 2) Spencer Reid x afab!BAU!reader
SMUT!! (and fluff, some angst in relation to Spencer’s past because it can never be too happy, we’re not allowed nice things here). first times & explorations of intimacy.
──── autistic spencer (it’s a central theme to the plot), reader is actually morally good (for once).
Warnings: sub spencer (what did u even expect?), heavy corruption kink, first time for Spencer (all i do is sit around and think about how i’d like to devirgin that genius), HEAAVY praise kink, very very inexperienced Spencer, slight? oral fixation, they’re both just rlly down bad (i told u i would write something light, i delivered), Reader is whipped, Spencer is sooo much worse. Biblical references, Religious imagery, i think i talk about math equations???? And random metaphors/complexes.
w.c: 4k
a/n: i rlly wanted to explore aspects of spencer that criminal minds swept under the rug (cough cough his undiagnosed autism, cough cough his social exclusion, cough cough his crippling fear of forever being alone). Next upload will prob be heavy angst/no smut post-prison spencer (god help me please, i must be a masochist for the way i make myself suffer)
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There’s a lot Spencer hasn’t done.
He knows he’s behind, that he never quite caught up when it came to the taboo of sex and intimacy. Everything, everything, he’s ever had has been centred around exclusion, alienation, he feels like he’s lived on pause. Frozen, never advancing, stuck on ‘go’. Touch isn’t easy for him, interpersonal relationships are worse. He’s different, god he’s heard that his entire life. ‘You’re not weird, you’re just… different’, but maybe he is weird. Maybe his whole existence is just one big cosmic fuck you, because he’s missed out on so much, so much that he can’t understand, comprehend, act out against. Falling behind; this is the only area of life where he continuously comes up short, inexperienced, naive, he’s not used to being incompetent.
He’s never experienced want the way others do. He could never just hook up, fall into the body of another, expose them to the vulnerable elements of his stature. Open himself up to scrutiny. He might be a genius, he might be intellectually advanced, accepted into a multitude of ivy leagues before he was old enough to vote, but there’s drawbacks to his success. Social awkwardness, an inability to blend, mould, be one of the crowd. Sometimes he wishes he was average, something grey and mundane, so far reduced from the person he is now— it would all be plainly simple.
But he’s not, he’s not. So, this is the weight he has to bare for the brain he never asked for.
Pyrrhic victory, he’ll always be renowned for his intelligence. ‘You’re going to change the world kid,’ maybe, but simultaneously, he’ll never get to experience said world. There’s a chance he’ll always be on the outside, watching normal people gravitate towards each other. Live dreary lives of domesticated simplicity. Stacked bills, arguments over money and parenting techniques. Going to bed angry, only to turn around, mid-night, and resolve it, to not sleep on bad blood. To take them off the couch, to settle into predestined sides of the mattress.
There’s not enough possessions in the world he’d sacrifice just to experience love.
Hedgehog dilemma, the challenges of human intimacy. The hedgehogs want to move closer, to preserve heat during cold. But, they are forced, biologically cursed to remain apart, in order to prevent themselves from harming each other. Spencer doesn’t want to be hurt, to hurt, it’s a morbid byproduct of his upbringing; all he ever endured was mockery.
He thought he’d never get to experience the physical, carnal aspects of existence. And sure, he made peace with the notion, accepted the consequences of being born atypical. Learnt to live without.
But then, oh then there was you. Pretty, intellectual you who quite literally tipped his world on it’s axis. Upheaved the most stable of routines. New to the BAU, he wanted you to last. To stay around, endure the worst of the job. If only for his selfish benefit of orbiting in your presence.
He remembers how it all started: Detroit, another case, more budget cuts, forced proximity that sent you spiralling into a shared bed for the night.
“You’re my favourite person in the team.” you admitted, “And I know that’s dumb, because we’ve spoken the least, but… you’re just, so you. That’s a good thing by the way, a really really good thing.”
He couldn’t quite believe you were talking about him. Spencer, who spilt coffee, and slipped into ceaseless tangents about obscure information. Spencer, who walked into walls when you were around, stumbling over his sentences before deftly, very astutely, giving up, walking away mid-conversation. He wore sweater-vests and colourful mismatched socks, it’s not like he was going to be crowned ‘white boy of the month’.
“Not dumb.” Spencer had responded, shifting closer to tangle further into the warm mess of this accidental situation. “That’s good. I like being me.” he mumbled. “Sometimes…. sometimes it sucks. But that’s okay. I think it’s okay?”
He moved to press his face into the crook of your neck, but you were faster, gathering him by tousled hair, forcing him to look you in the eye.
Oh.
“Please. Please.” he whispered, breaking apart, fracturing, “Please like me. And more than in a weird, ‘just friends or coworkers’ way.”
You did. You do. He should’ve kissed you then, but maybe he was scared, maybe he couldn’t quite discern his feelings, separate the logic from the emotional. So he waited, waited, waited until now. Your third date, you take him to an exhibition within a science centre: replica models of the solar system, filling rooms up, papier-mâché sculptures illuminated by light.
Best date ever. You listen, even when he’s rambling about planets, when he’s pointing out that yes, Jupiter’s density is less than water. That, technically, it would float in a bathtub, if one was built to accommodate its size. You don’t care that he’s not exactly the staple-piece for conventionally attractive males. That he’s nerdish, and awkward, and so so inexperienced when it comes to this.
In his apartment, later, much later, he looks at you, looks at you like you’re the one who just solved the fucking Riemann hypothesis.
“What do you want the most? Like,… if you could ask for one thing.” you say, and god, Spencer loves when you pose these deep, hypothetical questions. When you make him think, because you, you are the biggest challenge to his intellect yet.
You. He wants to say. But he settles for ‘Being remembered,’ instead. He works to untangle layers of fabric, your scarf, your jacket, letting out an exasperated laugh when he meets your amused gaze. “Right now though? I think I’d settle for kissing you.”
You cup his jaw, tracing your fingers along the sharp curve, and god he has perfect anatomy. “Settle huh? You should be more appreciative.”
He leans forward to press a chaste kiss against your lips. Drawing away for a moment, just to return because he’s never had this before. Because for the first time in his life, he gets it. He gets physical attraction, even if it took time. He’s kissed, been kissed, yes. But he could count those moments on one hand, and if you asked how many he truly enjoyed, he’d be left with no fingers raised.
“Believe me, i’m very appreciative…”
This isn’t like before, what he felt in the past; he expected something monotone, flighty, a brief fleeting moment of satisfaction. Means to an end. No, it’s actually the best thing he’s ever experienced, and he’s going to become so insufferable after this, because he’s just found out he is very very into kissing.
Correction: he’s very into kissing you.
In the moment between parting, and touching again, he assumes you to be divinity personified. Spencer has never been religious, but something of this magnitude should be canonised. He wants to ask you. Ask you when you became this beautiful. When you became the person he needs to kiss a second time, kiss a third time, kiss until his lips go numb.
A shaky inhale, a pause. “I hope… I hope that it was okay - I mean, it was good for me. Really, really good. Um—“ to be honest, he’s just glad he didn’t say thankyou.
“Yeah, Spence. That was… wow.” you draw your bottom lip between teeth, press into tissued flesh. Jesus Christ. “Wanna try again?”
Yes yes yes yes. He looks at you, pupils blown obscenely out of proportion. Part of him wants to say, ‘why didn’t we do this sooner?’ But that’s not fair; he’s only ready now. Now that he feels, now that he might be a little in love with you.
“Please,” is his answer, and then he’s catching your face in the palms of his hand, tugging your lips back to his, because admittedly, they have ached in the long, extensive period you were apart (53 seconds).
This time it deepens and Spencer sees stars. It’s an astronomical phenomenon, something interstellar— and god, he’s relating kissing to space. They should just tape the word ‘virgin’ to his back and call it a day.
There’s soft little breathy sighs escaping his mouth now, bleeding into yours. And yeah, spontaneous combustion might be a real threat. Actually no, it would hardly be spontaneous; there’s a clear, clear cause, and it just so happens to be your ruinous lips.
This is an entirely new facet of the human experience. The kiss is electric; he’s always been partial toward physics, and right now his veins carry an alternating current.
You know, he could probably write a thesis based on this.
You both stumble back back back until he’s hitting a wall, and yes, thankyou. He’s making all sorts of sounds he can’t justify, and it’s a supernova, an infinite black pool of— oh, he thinks he might die, ascend, transcend, when you press your thumb against his chin, hold your lips at just a little slant from his. Force him to wait there.
“Please,” he’s never been above begging. A worthy sacrifice, one he’ll certainly repeat again because you return to the kiss, and the world around him dissolves.
You’ve got one hand tangled in his hair. Tousled auburn, fingers sinking into strands, pushing all the way down to the root. The other is still cupping his face, keeping him close, keeping him selfishly close actually.
“Spence,” you murmur. And yes. Yes. He likes that. The way his name sounds rolling off your tongue, like it was destined to be there. Like he was destined to be yours.
His world is ending. So is yours. Fuck it, he presses himself against your thigh, and ohmygodohmygod. He’s being loud, he’s actually being so criminally loud right now because apparently he’s the most whorish virgin to ever exist.
“I lied, I lied,” he admits between messy kisses, “When you asked what I wanted the most? It’s not to be remembered, well it is, its on the list. But—“ he groans, kisses you again because talking interrupts matters that are more important. Like your lips.
“I wanna cum.”
Eloquent.
Spencer Reid being dirty? Oh, it’s hot, it’s so hot to reduce someone to such an obscene state. To reduce him, the boyish fumbling nerd (who just so happens to be the most beautiful person in existence) to such a degrading mess.
Still, there’s shock. Not because he said it (you greatly appreciate the indecent things falling from those pretty lips right now), but because—
“You’ve never? Haven’t even experienced it once? By yourself?”
He should be embarrassed, but his lips are red, his eyes are glassy, and the bulge in his pants is straining to be touched. “Never,” he sighs shakilly. “Never, and i’m— i’m starting to understand why it’s so popular.”
He whimpers, pushes himself against your thigh, because the friction, yes. “Is that weird? Please don’t think i’m weird. Because I’m really, really weird. Just maybe… not in that way?”
It’s never been enough. His body sometimes feels numb to the touch, and yet still so very overstimulated. Like he manually blocks himself from feeling, already prepared for the flinch. How does he explain that life hasn’t been kind to him? That he hates his body because of what people made it out to be when he was a child. Stripping him naked, tying him to a goalpost, always the underdog. The one to be targeted, tormented.
“It’s actually kinda hot,” you interrupt his thoughts, and just because you’re evil, corrupt, the worst, you press your thigh harder against his clothed cock, palm covering his mouth when a plethora of whiny sounds escape his mouth.
It’s performative, really. Alone in his apartment, there’s no need for noise control. So when your thumb slips between parted, swollen lips, he knows to suck. The average human hand has between 10,000 and 10 million bacteria, and Spencer does not actually give a fuck anymore.
“To think that you’ve never even felt what it’s like. That you’re gonna feel it with me for the first time. I get to see that shit— god, you’re going to look so fucking pretty for me.”
You draw your thumb out of his mouth, and he has the audacity to whine.
He’s never wanted anything more in his entire life. It’s all tertiary now. Only this matters.
“Please don’t praise me—“ he protests, “I’ll probably finish in my pants.”
“Praise kink, noted.”
You laugh, and he can only groan, curse existence for being this cruel to his overworked, undervalued body. “Don’t— don’t laugh. You’re not supposed to laugh, that can heighten performance anxiety. Increase insecurity, and…” he sighs, “You do not care. Sadistic tendencies, noted.”
“Shut up. Wanna see you.” you say, and he’s just muttering breathless mhm’s, too delirious to function; his body is betraying the last iota of self-control like the little whore it apparently is.
His sweater comes off first, then his top. Discarded fabric, his raised arms when you mutter a candid ‘up’, giving way to exposed skin. In response? Your pupils dilate. Spencer knows because he’s analysing, profiling. If you hate him like this, he’s fairly certain he’ll drag himself into a self-dug early grave. He wishes he was being melodramatic. That your approval didn’t have such a substantial impact on his carefully-constructed ego. But, oh, it does. It does.
Thin, with a long, defined torso, he blushes, rose blemished skin, when your hands drag across his stomach. He’d love to say he reacts sanely, suavely. Urbane to your touch. But that would be a total, discreditable lie. Instead, his back arches, seeking contact, following the path of your fingertips with pitiful desperation. He feels malleable, willing to bend and contort, if only to feel more.
“How can you not think you’re pretty, Spence?” His pants are gone next, then his stained boxers, fabric borderline sheer now, soaked through with pre-cum.
Spencer feels betrayed. His body never responds, not to his own hands, not to his own thoughts. And yet, the moment you’re on him, he’s a live-wire. It’s sick, heinous, double-crossing. Maybe it’s purposeful, done just to spite him. Figures.
“Holy shit, look at you. Look at how perfect you are.” Spencer wants to object, because he distinctly told you not to praise him. However,.. right now, the lights are on but nobody is home. Brain-death, he’s certainly in a vegetative state.
“Ohmygodohmygod,” he whimpers, because no amount of knowledge about human anatomy and physiology could prepare him for how he feels under your touch. No amount of education in the psychology of relationships could inform him of how viscerally wrong the way you look at him feels.
Because it’s not wrong, not all. It’s the most right he’s ever felt, and he’ll tell you that if you’ll just keep it up.
The sounds he’s making are phonographic, lewd, you’ve given up on trying to stifle them now. Where have you been hiding? Your eyes fall, and he wants to blush away from the exhibiting gaze, but he’s just…. too far gone; the thought of your touch outweighs any previous reticence. Then, oh then, you drop to your knees, and shit. He expected your thigh, maybe your hand if he was lucky, not—
This. Your mouth, your tongue, your pretty lips; god, god, is this a sin? Because if it is, he’ll take it.
“Please,” he whines, and he can’t look anymore because the sight alone is going to send him over the edge. He’s gripping the wall, scrambling scrambling for purchase, because he’s trying not to grip you, but how exactly does he keep this respectful?
He’s pretty sure they’re past that, considering your mouth is currently wrapped around his cock, and he’s debauched.
You want this, you want him, he feels like he’s transcended humanity, like he’s become someone, anyone and anything, that deserves the way you’re taking him apart, piece by piece. In the aftermath, he hopes you don’t leave a single ounce of him intact.
“Wanna kiss you. Oh— oh oh,” he’s sobbing now, “Come back here. Miss your mouth— even if it’s,” he looks down and that’s a mistake. “Please.”
Of course it would be Spencer to disrupt the best (and admittedly only) head of his life because he needs you closer.
You oblige, raising from your knees, and Spencer thinks it might be sacrilegious. But then again, he feels religion in your touch so it can’t be too profane. Maybe? He’s not sure, he’s not sure and it doesn’t matter. Ethics and morality have long since disintegrated, sins are engrained into humankind. He almost wants to thank Eve for tearing into the apple, because it’s allowed this irreverence to occur.
Spencer blindly follows you through the apartment, stumbling and muttering until he can collapse against the bed. Baring his pretty neck as his head hits the bedframe. Tangled in sheets, draped over his lap, his deft fingers run across your waist, mapping out the structure of your frame. If only to remember, recite this act of blasphemy.
“Spence,” you whisper, and then his lips are crashing into yours, stealing breath, stealing sanity. He whimpers, murmurs a protest when you draw back, and you can only laugh. “Lets get you off, yeah? You wanna feel an orgasm, pretty boy?”
“Yes, yes please. That would uh— yes.” he’s not even sure how he’s conscious right now. His body, god his body, has endured more pleasure in the last hour than it has for the majority of his life. Your hands scathe, and Spencer is willing to indefinitely burn, if just to feel them one more time.
You only stop to take off your clothes, and surely there needs to be prep? To reaffirm, he knows anatomy, the correct procedure, how the transgression is supposed to occur. And yet, that’s from a clinical, objective mindset. Do this, do that, etc etc. Nothing works out like that in practice.
You’re so wet, panties stained through, he spares a moment to run his fingers across your thighs, hand slipping beneath fabric to graze your clit. The moan that follows has him distracted, thumb tracing circlets, over and over until you’re pulling back to return the balance. The balance, which admittedly is skewed, tipped scales, you’re on top. He falls to the weight of your influence.
And yeah, he’s more than fine with that. Jesus, you drag your panties down, down your thighs, your legs, then they’re reaching your ankles, pooling there for a moment before they’re being discarded, tossed somewhere on his floor — leaving behind a souvenir that yes, yes this happened.
“I can’t,” he says, burying his face into your shoulder when you take him. It’s slow, sinking onto his cock like every inch of warmth will destroy him. Maybe it will. Maybe he doesn’t care, because he deserves this. He deserves to feel after so much repression.
Or maybe, maybe he’s just become the biggest slut known to mankind. Likely.
Your body presses against his, and he thinks he’s going to disintegrate, because he feels so good. He understands now, he understands why people do this. Why it’s integral to the function of most. This is the best day of his life. This. Is. The. Best. Day. Of. His. Life.
There’s this noise, this pathetically loud whimper when you start to roll your hips— and oh your body is wet against him, and you’re so tight, and it’s perfect because he doesn’t have to do anything.
He can just sit here, look pretty, and cry.
He knows he’s a giver, that he’d bleed himself dry for you. It’s a curse, he supposes: so willing to bend backwards for the satisfaction of the people he trusts. But, this is foreign, and he wants to watch you, aimlessly stare, dumb and empty-headed as you wield his body like a weapon. Turn him into something perniciously yours.
Spencer has no reference for what an orgasm is supposed to feel like, and yeah, he’s really good at guessing in these type of situations. Because he’s rolling his thumb over your clit again, and he wants to draw it into his mouth, to see you laid out across bedsheets, writhing, unable to do anything but suffocate him with your thighs.
You clench around him, back arched, releasing a series of strained moans. With one hand tangled in his dishevelled hair, the other pressed against his chest, your face contorts, your body stiffens. There’s no way his incessant whimpering just got you off?
Okay. So you like him desperate. Point taken.
“Please— please, wanna cum. Wanna feel it so bad,” he’s slurring over his words, sentences punctured by devastating whimpers. And look at him, asking for permission, waiting even though his body has been teetering on the edge for so long now.
“Shh, shh..” you press your forehead against his, and he melts. Reoccurring theme. His hand grips your jaw, thumb pushed firmly against your chin, keeping you close. “You wanna cum for me, baby? Gonna give me your first?”
“Mhm— mhm…” is all he can say. When you pick up your pace, he has to burrow his face into the crook of your neck, whimpers messy and broken off, suppressed against your warm skin.
“Oh. Oh…” he repeats, again. Like there’s anything else he could utter, because this is earth-shattering.
It’s the sun, and all eight planets combined, and the universe collapsing in on itself, and he’s bucking, squirming, releasing into you, spilling deep.
He sobs. Breaks down. Because it’s so so good, and he can’t believe he ever deprived his body of this.
Neediest whore to ever exist, apparently.
It takes him a while to come back. Longer to regain motor function, to sink into present day. Life, and expectations, and everything, everything, your touch eradicated.
“Just… just stay like this?” he asks, collapsing against your body after he’s drawn out of you. There’s mess, evidence of your ministrations, but cleanliness seems futile when he’s blissed out, caught in a post-orgasmic haze that yes yes yes he needed so badly.
You card your hands through his hair, watch the way he stares up at you, large, widened eyes, chin resting against your chest. “Hi,” he mutters dumbly.
“Spence,” Spence, Spence, Spence. He could drown himself in that nickname.
“Yeah?” he breathes out.
“You we’re so good—“
He rolls away from you, finding a home for his face in the pillow. “Stop. Stop.” he groans, “Don’t do that. You’re going to destroy me. I’m not… equipped for this, for you. Someone should just sedate me, put me out of my misery, a coma sounds like—“
He tilts his head to the side, relinquishing, “Okay. Sorry. Meltdown over. Can we shower? Then maybe do this again? Which will make the shower inconsequential, I suppose. There’s a new documentary I want to watch, and oh, you still haven’t seen the third Star Wars—“
He’s happy, content, over the fucking moon, to be silenced with your lips. “Yeah,” he murmurs, hand interlocking with yours as you both fall back against the mattress, “Let’s do this again.”
#criminal minds#spencer reid smut#sub spencer reid#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid x you#spencer reid fluff#spencer reid angst#spencer reid#giving him the happiness he deserved#he is my roman empire#his excess trauma is also#my#roman empire#thank u and good night america#i’m not even american
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hi!!! here for a request. can we have a imagine where reader has a wound from surgery or whatever on like in a rib and she hides to change the bandages but then spencer sees her and he’s like ‘lemme help you’ and…
you do you for the rest!
in which spencer helps BAU fem!reader change her bandages in the bathroom at work. it's intimate, and he's adorable and awkward, and it only fuels her terrible, terrible crush.
warnings/tags: fluff, talk/description of wound, brief talk of being stabbed (does not actually occur in this fic lol), reader wears a bra, spencer undoes said bra but not sexually, lots of suggestive humor and teasing, a TINY sprinkling of angst but not really, idiots in love
a/n: i'm picturing early seasons spencer and it is filling me with so much unbridled joy. I. LOVE. HIM. thank you for the request!! and lets not talk about how inconsistent my formatting for requests is pls and thanks!!
It’s not like you meant to bend down so quickly that your wound reopened—but here you are, suffering the consequences of your actions in the women’s bathroom at Quantico as you try to assess the injury before you re-bandage it. And your shoe is still untied.
Unfortunately, the fact that you had quite literally been stabbed in the back last week makes it hard to reach said injury—especially when you’re at work and so can’t take off your shirt like you normally would. And all this struggling means it’s taking longer than it should, so now you’re focused on the wound and its scabby, wet edges and all the things it’s secreting rather than hurrying to give another statement of the entire event to Hotch since the first one had apparently been too sparse on the details.
A knock sounds on the open door. Spencer calls your name.
“You in there?”
The angle of your neck has your voice slightly strained as you call back, “yeah, what’s up? Is it Hotch?” you pause to hiss as you accidentally scratch at the wound with a nail. You don’t even want to know how much bacteria you just introduced to it. “Tell him I didn’t forget our meeting, I’ll be there in—”
“It’s not Hotch. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay with your back? I know you said you were going to check on it, but you’ve been in there a while.”
You sigh, dropping your sore arm as you continue to hold up your shirt with the other and regarding the reflection of your back in the mirror.
“Actually—could you come in here?”
There’s a pause.
“You want me to come into the women’s restroom?”
“Yes, Spencer. It’s fine. There’s nobody else in here. I just… I need some help, I think.”
The last part is admitted quietly, with an air of defeat. To admit to needing help, is, by your standards, the same as failure. Spencer knows this, which is probably the only reason he puts aside his hesitations and shuffles uncertainly into the tiled room. If you’re asking for help, it’s because you really need it.
“What do you need help with?” he asks, sweeping his gaze suspiciously around the lavatory as if you were lying about there not being any other women present and this whole thing might be a trap of some sort.
“It’s gross, and you can totally say no.”
He raises his brows expectantly, before spotting the weeping wound on your back. Unconsciously he steps closer, leaning forward. It’s not your fault, and the gore is not specific to you—anyone’s body would react this way to being stabbed. But you still feel embarrassed by the close attention to such an ugly marring, which nobody besides you and your doctors has actually seen up close.
“That doesn’t look good,” he mutters. The expression on his face is irritatingly familiar—the drawn brows, tightened eyes, barely parted lips—but it takes a moment before you realize what it is.
“Reid,” you complain. He’s still stooped over slightly to examine the wound, and looks up at you through dark lashes with those infuriatingly warm puppydog eyes.
“What?”
“You’re looking at me the way you look at a dead body on the slab.”
His nose scrunches.
Some might say it scrunches adorably.
“No, I’m not. That’s just my face.”
“Okay, well stop. It’s freaking me out.”
He pouts—actually pouts. Subtle, but bottom lip jutted out and all. It’s ridiculously endearing.
“My face freaks you out?”
“Wh—no! That’s not what I said! You have—you have a great face! I didn’t mean—”
You manage to claw yourself out of the hole you’re digging when you see the dopey smile growing on his face.
Oh. He was fucking with you.
He never used to do that. It’s unnerving to be the fucked with instead of the fucker for a change. Especially when it’s Spencer.
“What did you need me for?” Spencer asks by way of peace offering. You close your eyes and sigh, attempting to collect your thoughts without his presence re-scrambling them.
“Um—I just need you to put this bandage over it. I can’t reach without taking my shirt off.”
And now you’re forced to wonder if he’s thinking about you shirtless as much as you’re thinking about you shirtless.
“Yeah—don’t do that,” he says absentmindedly, stepping again closer to get a better look before turning to the nearest sink.
For some reason, this offends you.
“Why not?”
Spencer pulls another face as he washes his hands—you love the constant flow of expressions he always seems so unconscious of. Even when they’re not pleasant and directed at you.
“Are you asking me why shouldn’t you take your shirt off?” he clarifies.
“I know why I shouldn’t take my shirt off, but I want to know why you think I shouldn’t take my shirt off.”
“Because we’re at work?” he observes astutely. You frown deeply at his completely logical reply. Spencer chuckles as he dries his hands and approaches once more, taking the square of gauze pre-lined with medical tape from your hand. “I mean, I can’t stop you. But it would be kind of a weird choice.”
“Oh, so me shirtless is weird?”
Cool fingers meet the comparatively hot skin of your back—where everything is still sensitive because the wound wreaked havoc on your nerves there. You flinch slightly.
“Sorry,” he murmurs gently. Though his touch is so incredibly light it doesn’t really hurt—it hurts much less than when you’re tending to the wound, anyway. It’s almost soothing. After a moment he continues, a bit louder. “And that is not what I was saying. But I am completely comfortable asserting that it would be weird for you to be shirtless at work.”
The gentle touches contrast with his teasing words and serve to disorient you as you’re shaken back in to your usual dynamic. Which is markedly more sarcastic.
“Well—”
Before you have to think of something to say, Spencer interrupts you.
“Your, um—I think your… brassiere… is in the way.”
As soon as he says it you burst out laughing. It echoes through the room.
“My brassiere? Are you actually 70 years old?”
His brows knit even tighter and his face gets very pink very quickly. He can’t meet your eyes over your shoulder.
“That’s what it’s called.”
“Spencer, you may be the first person to use that word since 1952. Say bra.”
“I don’t want to,” he complains. Your laughter only grows as your head tips back.
“Why? How is brassiere better than bra?”
“It’s—it’s too colloquial! I’m trying to be professional!”
“Call it a bra or I’m going to rub my dirty hands all over my back,” you threaten, adopting a poker face so he knows you mean business. His eyes widen immediately.
“Oh my god! Bra! Do you want to introduce staph and meningitis and g—do not do that!”
“See? How hard was that?”
“I hate you,” he mumbles, face still flushed and adorable. “And you still have to take it off.”
“Excuse me?” you grin, pretending to be affronted because you know he didn’t mean it like that but it’s fun to pretend he did. Fun for you, of course. Not so much for him. He's utterly flustered by this point.
“Or at least undo it! It’s in the way.”
With a deeply bored sigh, you go to unclasp your bra—but as you go to do it your shirt drops down. You grimace, humor briefly forgotten as the fabric brushes the damaged skin.
“I can’t—”
“Okay, just—I’ll do it,” Spencer says. “Just move your shirt again.”
So you do, watching his reflection as he works.
And you have not one joke to break the heavy silence with as you feel his knuckles gently pressing into the middle of your back, as he unclasps the bra with his characteristic tenderness and a surprising amount of agility. It’s quiet except for your pulse in your own ears as he carefully pushes it out of his way, holding it down with a hand to your rib cage and fingertips slipping just under the fabric of your shirt—unintentionally and certainly non-sexual, no doubt, but skimming under your heart in a way that still feels so intimate you’re realizing how touch-starved you are.
“You do that often?” you find yourself asking, because you’re stupid, and you need to cool the tension before it chokes you, and you can’t help yourself even though you don’t actually want to know the answer.
“I,” he begins, voice quiet as rustling paper, tongue darting over his lip and eyes narrowed. The sentence stalls as he focuses on placing the patch just so. “Do not think that is an appropriate workplace question.”
Something aches in the pit of your stomach.
Something resembling jealousy.
It was not the timid evasive linguistic maneuver of someone who is insecure about the thing they’re discussing. It was not the awkward fumbling no but I don’t want to tell you that which you were expecting from Spencer Reid.
Nor is it an easy yes—an admission between friends. He doesn’t want to tell you.
You swallow and try to act like yourself.
“Yet here you are, in the woman’s restroom at our place of employment, undoing my bra. I think we’re past professionalism.”
“When you decontextualize it like that it sounds like something it’s not. This is professional, because I’m helping you with a wound you sustained on the job. I’m being a good colleague.”
Your lips twist into a smile he can’t see.
“A great colleague would kiss it better.”
“It's almost like you want me to file a sexual harassment complaint with HR," he says through a little smirk as he smooths the bandage over. Before you can snip back, he steamrolls over his own teasing—you’ve both been speaking in almost reverent tones since he started but his voice loses the sarcastic edge from a second before and reverts back to concerned and sweet. “Does that feel okay?”
You rotate your shoulders best you can without letting go of your shirt or flashing the good doctor to check if it feels secure.
“It’s good. And hey—if I were going to sexually harass you I would do a lot better than that. You think that’s my best material? That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I keep so many inappropriate comments to myself. You’d be shocked by some of the things I have almost said to you.”
He laughs, secures the band of your bra and begins fitting it to the clasp you’d had it on—and at that precise moment Emily walks in.
“H—woah.”
“It’s—I’m—I was helping her!” Spencer panics, immediately removing his hands from you like his palms are burning and holding them up defensively.
“Oh, you helped me alright,” you tease, pulling your shirt back into place.
“Don’t say it like that!” And then, to Emily, “I was changing out her bandage!”
“Changing my bandage,” you emphasize, winking more than is advisable.
“That’s—this is a hostile work environment! I feel unsafe!” Spencer almost yells, half laughs, as he scampers towards the door. “I’m going to HR!”
“Shut up! You love it!”
His laughter audibly travels farther away for several moments as he presumably goes back down the hallway to do his actual job.
You have the stupidest grin on your face, but you wipe it off when you notice Emily staring.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says, shaking her head and looking away, moving toward a stall. “You’re just… you guys are funny.”
“What do you mean funny?” You demand, standing right outside her stall as she closes it.
“Wh—I mean funny! Are you going to listen to me pee, you weirdo?”
You frown.
She makes a good point.
Unfortunately, giving Hotch a more detailed statement is just as bad as you’d thought it’d be. Despite how cheery you’ve tried to remain about the whole situation, despite the way you insisted that the wound was so shallow you didn’t need more than a few days off work, despite the jokes you make about forgetting it’s even there because it’s on your back—it’s hard not to remember exactly how the glass felt twisting under your skin, how you’d felt suddenly so hot and lightheaded and sick to your stomach and the way Morgan hollered because he didn’t know how deep it had gone after you crumpled quick from shock, when you’re asked to describe it all in excruciating detail.
It only takes ten minutes, but they seem to drag on and on and by the time you’re leaving Hotch’s office you feel utterly drained. You hurry back to your desk, covertly wiping away moisture that you refuse to allow to become tears. Once seated, and having dodged sympathetic looks and avoided any do you want to talk about its, you allow yourself a few deep breaths with your eyes shut.
When you open them, you realize there’s a fresh cup of your favorite tea on your desk, in the Snoopy mug the team is always fighting over. Now his little black nose is covered by a square of yellow paper. You’re already smiling as you peel away the sticky note and hold it closer.
On it is an adorably odd smiley-face, and a note in familiar, messy looping scrawl.
I would never report you to HR beautiful
That would be a stab in the back!
You snort loudly and clap a hand to your mouth—but you’ve already drawn the attention of almost everyone in the bullpen.
When you turn to look at Spencer, he’s not looking back. Instead, his eyes are firmly trained on his computer screen. But he’s got his chin propped on his fist over the desk, and his knuckles are doing a poor job of concealing a giant self satisfied grin. He is the only person on the team who knows you well enough to make such a distasteful joke. And he also knows you well enough to know that it would make you feel so much better after your meeting with Hotch than all the well-meaning sincerity in the world ever could.
Funny.
Maybe that is the right word for what you two are.
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