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oopsbionic-rex · 5 months ago

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Okay, lets strap in for a full, 4 am, midol fueled analysis of one of my favourite pieces of non-formal written media (but in my opinion should definitely be an actual book but watevssssss)

So listen, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Also!!!! The domesticity at the start? foul, the thick and longing interactions? nasty work, the cats being matchmakers? GENIOUS. Mind you this is all in the first like 5 paragraphs.

She watched him move towards the kettle she’d sent him for Christmas when she was in London. After using one for two weeks she’d seen the light and realised he would love the nifty little invention. if you hear crunching, that's me voluntarily chewing on the curb. They know each other so well, and he uses the gift? ughhh, like there's some things that people gift that you are like, oh yea, I love this! but use maybe once in a while, because its a gift and you excuse it by wanting to keep it intact. But she thought he would like it, and he does, and he uses it, FOR BOTH OF THEM.

He knew what it was because he felt it too. It was like their confession had set off a ticking time bomb, one that neither of them had the countdown to, and the clicking of every passing second sounded oddly like a pulse in their throats. To put it short, just the sound of her footsteps was making his skin pimpled with gooseflesh. GODDAMN IT, hes such a fucking ugh

His hands engulfed hers with a mesh of pornographic veins and sadistically handsome knuckles, his mouth at her ear as they lined up the shot together. So real.

OKAY. now we move on to sean, we find out that !! a hotch is what left prentiss all by herself!! chaos ensues. I absolutely adore how you resolved the issues that Bug and Sean had. Like this was not just some superficial, not healed wound, this was like a criminal type thing. And honestly, the character development (trauma) Bug has gone through, specially alongside spence really shows here. She's still deeply hurt but they find a ground to step on. I love how spence is not really the main focus in this section but Bug. Like she's the one that's going through it, and she's (we're?) her (our?) own person. Spences influence can be seen, but also Hotchs, and Rossis, and Morgans, and Pens. UGHHHHHHH

“If it helps, you probably do,” Spencer interjected, helping Bugsy shelve something on one of the higher cabinets, his long arms weaselling over her own as he reached past her I love this sort of interactions. Its not overt. You wrote it exactly as it would happen and honestly I feel like that has more of a impact than if you would have made a whole deal of it. Its so simple, almost natural. They move in tandem, again, soooo domesticcccccc.

She really hoped he didn’t. Because what she was really thinking was just how hot he sounded with that deep sort of timbre, that cocksure attitude. So real. pt 2

She handed him the potted plant, the small purple petals in the shape of half moons lighting up at him, and his mind raced as to what species they were since he’d certainly never seen them around the East Coast before. Now this? Em I cried. It is so easy to write the narrative of forgetting Maeve never existed. and listen, I disliked her arc (the show one, not the one you wrote, the one you wrote was scrumdiddlyumptious ) as much as the next person, but she was still a very real thing that happened to Spence. She will forever be a part of him, so to write this into the line that, bug has grown so much, and her love had developed so widely, that she now loves every part of spencer, including Meave. (maybe loving Maeve is a little exaggerated but you get what I'm trying to say. ) I love that because its real, its human, its genuine.

You're such a brilliant writer Em. Where so many people would have taken this part of this beautiful chapter to curve the narrative that spencer is forgetting Maeve and that she meant nothing and only the reader matter blah blah, you took this and wrote this beautiful sections of growth on both their parts, and you show that that doesn't mean that the process is not messy, but that is a hill, and one you can eventually arrive at an even spot.

+1 The one with the book. HUNNY WHTA ARE YOU DOING TO MEEEEEEEEEEE This being written from spencer's perspective was a directed, heat seeking missile, and I selfishly believe It had my name and the address of my fucking heart on it because that's exactly where it hit.

His chest seized, tears lining his lashes when he thought about that day she’d yanked him into a hug the second she saw him, when he’d been too busy thinking about Maeve and burying whatever he felt for Bugsy entirely behind him.

He heard her saying every single one, the thought striking him like someone had cracked him across the face with a paddle. She’d wanted to say all of this when she was in London, when he’d been too busy for her, when he’d been too busy with Maeve.

Holy shit Em. Now if I was crying before, whoever bet I was gonna sob after, please step to the front because you just doubled your money. Being hurt is such an intimate feeling. It is something unique to people, yet it is shared by everyone. The feelings had during the chapter where spencer pushed bug away, was awful, and this? now??

You wrote this and I actually felt his regret through the words. I felt the despair of his remembering that the first person she had come to see when she came back was him and he pushed her away. I can almost hear the moment in which his brain and rationale give up their guide on the pilot seat, and his heart takes over. Anguish.

“I love you, I love you so much,” He gasped, drawing away for a split second of air before he took her lips to his own once more, twice, and a third for good luck, their teeth knocking together as he wanted to tell her that a million more times while still kissing her, “I love you, I love you. God, I don’t think I ever want to stop saying it,” let me nerd out a second here. Have you guys ever kissed someone and its so fervent that your teeth knock together, and in that moment, you're not thinking "aw shit, I just slammed my teeth to this person, they're gonna hate me," or "I wish they'd stop slamming their teeth on mine" all you're thinking, is nothing. There's nothing going on but the aggressive pull of each others being, of wanting to be as close as possible, as expressing every ounce of love the only way we have. The want to pull someone so incredibly close, that wearing their skin sounds like a reasonable idea.

That is such a distinct and harsh feeling, and hey maybe I'm alone in feeling it, but you wrote it so perfectly goddamn it. You wrote it and I read it, and not only did I read it, I felt it. you went to the bottom of my heart and planted a seed of yearning for a love like this, and honestly, I cant even be mad at you for it.

All in all, to conclude this mayhem of words and feelings and strings of sentences that definitely make no sense, Em you have done it again. I have said this so many times already but I wont stop saying it. I wanna be the first to know when you write your own book. I will personally fund it if I have to. I wanna get this fic tattooed on me dammit.

LET IT ONCE BE ME | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader [7]

Description: The THREE times she waits + the ONE time she doesn't have to.

length: 17.9k

trigger warnings: criminal minds gore + violence. jealousy. talks of sex and male and female anatomy. they get horny for one another basically. talks of Maeve + day of the dead. yearning idk? mention of one twin absorbing the other one in the womb (sorry if this is taken the wrong way but I conferred with my friend who did this when she was a foetus and she said it's not offensive and is okay to talk about so?)

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‘Let it once be me, who do I have to speak to

About if they can redo the prophecy?’

The one where they pretend to be married

“I will not be exploited in my own home,” Bugsy chided, the faint smell of burning toast filling the small kitchenette. The butter knife sat ready in her hand, salted spread dripping down the handle where she’d been busy making breakfast before she had been called.

He blinked back at her, unamused.

“No. You cannot just scream at me whenever you want something from me. This relationship is toxic,” She huffed, turning back to butter her toast with the thick goodness. Sometimes she loathed living with three boys who had her wrapped around their fingers.

The second piece of bread popped out of the toaster, which she quickly grabbed and began spreading, her fingers gripping onto the crusts gently as she did so. The squealing started again just as she readied herself to take the first bite, and she whirled around to see the two orange eyes that stared at her from on top of the counter.

“Sergio, stop. You’ll get Niko all wound up-” She hadn’t even finished her sentence when Spencer shuffled into the kitchen, his hair mussed from sleep, his long plaid pyjama bottoms skirting high up his ankles where he’d impossibly hit another growth spurt and forgot to find better fitting clothes. Niko darted in between his legs, rushing to jump up on the breakfast bar, where Sergio was already interrogating Bugsy for more treats, a low yowl leaving his throat at the thought of being left out of feeding. “You boys are driving me crazy, no more biscuits for today-”

The yowl grew in decibels, a second one symphonying it, and she rolled her eyes, ignoring the whiney babies, turning to hand Spencer his piece of toast, crust already cut off and split into halves the way he liked it.

“I warned you not to treat them when I’m not here, they’ve become spoiled brats,” She huffed, though she felt her entire body warm up when she looked at his doe eyes, still half idled with sleep as he watched her swan around his kitchen, their kitchen technically since she had all but moved in to his little apartment meant for two housemates.

But they weren’t just house mates. They weren’t even dating. But she knew he wanted to. Because he loved her.

“How could you expect me to say no, they’re so compelling,” He said, his voice gravelly where he’d lightly snored, as much as he always denied he did, fussing Niko behind the ear with long, gentle fingers. He took the plate out of her hand, his eyes swirling with a moved expression when he saw she’d cut his crusts off, his gaze snapping back up to where she’d sweeped her hair out her face, a large shirt and a pair of his clean boxers adorning her figure, “Thankyou,”

He hadn’t said the three magic words since, neither of them had. But they felt it. The weird static that had been thick in the air between them before was crackling along their skin with every glance, like they were both thinking the same thing.

I love you, and you love me.

He smiled at her warmly, the urge to grab her by her face and kiss her skin all over almost overwhelming him, because he counted himself lucky every single day. She loved him. She loved him. She loved him. He heard it in every heart beat, like a mantra that his chest clung to since the words had spilled from her soft lips. She was waiting for him, for his head to settle with the idea that Maeve was gone, and he could let her go and not feel terrible about it; waiting for him to make the first move.

“Coffee?” He asked, watching her eyes soften as they trailed over his face, and he worried he looked a little worse for wear since he’d rolled out of bed and headed towards the source of the girl he loved arguing with someone in the kitchen even though that someone had turned out to be the greedy bastard they loved dearly.

He knew he was the luckiest guy in the world to have her waiting on him, and he never let himself forget it.

“Yes, please,” She said, and he brushed past her, close enough for it to be on purpose when their arms touched, his hands busying themselves in between the plate and munching on the first bite of breakfast, because he didn’t know what he might do if they spent one more second looking at one another like that.

She watched him move towards the kettle she’d sent him for Christmas when she was in London. After using one for two weeks she’d seen the light and realised he would love the nifty little invention. Her arm burned where he’d touched as if he’d taken a flame to her skin, her chest boiling up with every single thing she could think to tell him, like how good his hair looked when he didn’t do much with it, or how hot his voice sounded like that, or that she really really did love him the way she’d never even thought possible outside her silly romance novels, that she’d never believed Pip when he’d told Estella; “You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read,” and yet when she thought of it now, watching Spencer busy himself shovelling sugar into two mugs, it made entire perfect sense.

She couldn’t remember who she was before she knew him, and she didn’t ever want to know.

She opened her mouth to say something, perhaps to say those three little words again, or just to tell him he smelled good even when he hadn’t put any deodorant or aftershave on, but her phone’s ringtone cut her off.

Already knowing it was going to be Penelope with a new case, she flicked the call on to speaker phone, “What you got for me, baby girl?” She said, trying to make her voice as deep as it would go, and she heard Spencer snickering where he was stirring hot water into the instant coffee.

“Was that supposed to be Morgan?” Pen’s voice replied, a small chuckle of her own evident even through the digital tone.

“I thought that was pretty good,” Bugsy replied, stuffing the last of the toasted bread into her mouth.

“I thought he was right in the room with us for a moment there,” Spencer chimed in, humouring her, as he also took an enormous bite from his breakfast, knowing they were more than likely about to be called in and their game of house, one where they flustered every time they spoke, was going to be over, “I was like, woah, Morgan, when did you get here-”

“Alright, my little rascals. We have a case, Hotch wants everyone in,” Penelope said, no doubt already paging through JJ, “No more coffee for either of you, you’re both being weird enough as it is,”

“Definitely not,” Spencer said, sliding the mug of milky, sweet caffeine over to Bugsy who smiled at him wickedly.

“Wheels up in twenty, Garcia,” The woman added in the same voice as before, Spencer laughing with a shake of his head and moving to stand behind her, his chest pressed against her back, his arm winding around her waist to give her a small, affectionate squeeze on the hip.

Penelope sighed, already accepting that their mercurial attitudes weren’t going away any time soon, the sudden mood change entirely odd to the rest of the team who had no idea that they had almost kissed just one week ago. To everyone else, they just seemed to have bounced back to normal, reverted back to Bugsy and Spencer; attached at the hip, only the eye contact and secretive smiles had been dialled to a hundred. The line went dead, and her head shot to look at him, where his hand had yet to move, and it was scoldingly hot against the soft fat that gathered at her hips.

“I’ll get your good shirt, I put it out to dry yesterday,” She said, her voice suddenly much less brave than it had been when she saw his eyes crinkling with a small smile.

He nodded, and she caught his gaze trailing down her nose, darting over her lips for a second in a way that made her chest rev like a Ferrarri out of gear. She felt her breath catch in her throat when he looked back up to her eyes, his forest hues entrancing like he was playing some silent flute song and she was a snake dancing under his orders.

He took a second to realise they were standing in his kitchen, his body pressed against hers like he hadn’t even realised they were so close, like he’d just gravitated to her that way, like he couldn’t stop it even if he’d tried to. He’d had a taste of nectar, and he was a drunk man ever since.

Spencer wrangled a hold of himself, allowing himself to stroke the back of her head lovingly, and pressing a kiss to her crown, before he stepped away from her, and the siren song dropped, the two of them dispersing to get ready for the case.

Bugsy swore she could hear her heart pounding the entire drive to headquarters.

–

“I think the real question is why married couples?” Hotch mused, a steaming cup of black coffee sitting in front of him on the jet, his nose in the file on his lap.

Bugsy scanned over the manilla folder in her hands, her legs swinging rhythmically beneath the table she sat on, Rossi to her left, her own second cup of coffee squeezed between her thighs. It was a heavy case for a weekend morning, three married couples found slashed and dumped together, the UnSub showing no signs of slowing or stopping.

“If he’s a sadist, having a witness to his torture heightens his pleasure,” Alex added, her lips pursed in contemplation, her hair primped surprisingly neat considering they’d been called in with little to no notice on a Sunday.

“Israel Keyes kidnapped a husband and wife at gunpoint, got them in a car, took them to a remote location, and then killed the husband in front of the wife,” Spencer said, trying not to look straight at Bugsy when he felt her eyes on him.

He’d never been one to keep a good poker face, never been good at hiding how he felt especially when he was happy. And she made him happier than he deserved to be. He knew their little arrangement would become glaringly obvious to the rest of the team if he let himself look at her. he had no control of his face when it came to her, how he felt his eyes soften, his lips turn up into a dopey smile, his hands itching to touch her just to confirm she was real.

He saw her head tilt down, into her lap as she tried desperately to focus on the words on the page, but he caught the small smile that she kept for herself, and he had a feeling she was struggling just as much as he was.

“Keyes was a sexual sadist, though,” Rossi interjected, his hands wrapped around a scolding cup of the green tea Penelope had bought them because she’d read of the stress relief benefits. They’d taken it, but David and Bugsy were the only ones who had tried it, “This guy, I don’t know,”

“Cutting a husband and wife to death, it’s more like he’s mocking their marriage bond,” JJ said, her bluebell hues dancing to Bugsy when the girl chimed in.

“Mutilating both of them, killing them together, it’s like the idea of couples and happy marriage is a trigger for him; it’s personal. He wants to make them pay for their happiness, likely because something’s stopping him from having it too,” She said, taking a long sip of her coffee, Rossi nodding along with her.

“That’s where my head’s at. ‘You took each other for better or worse, now I’m going to show you worse’,” He said, leaning back against the table, his shoulder nudging the younger girl.

Derek stroked a hand over his stubbled beard, “His home life’s probably a wreck, at least one ex-wife, not to mention mom and dad,”

“Alright we need to hit the ground,” Hotch said, flicking a glance at the youngest agent where she was all but inhaling her sweet beverage, “Prentiss and Reid, I want you mapping out a geographical profile,”

She nodded, her eyes slowly trailing to Spencer’s as Hotch distributed jobs around the team, but her head subconsciously tuned his stern voice out into static. Because when she looked up at his face, he was already staring at her, and the sound of her heartbeat racing crawled its way back into her ear, the thrumming so loud she was sure David could hear it too, she might as well have held a megaphone to her mouth and announced “Spencer Reid, you make me so nervous in the good kind of way,”

His hazel eyes trailed over her face, her expression unreadable as she scrambled to keep a lid on her feelings, and she wondered if this was where the phrase ‘Don’t shit where you eat,’ came from, because him so much as looking at her wiped her mind completely, which was not ideal for an agent working on a case. But she couldn’t help it, he was enchanting, and she guessed he was having just as much of an inner quarrel as he looked away from her, the apples of his cheeks and tips of his earlobes turning a strawberry ice cream pink.

She had no idea how she was going to make it through the rest of the day so close to him.

–

“First couple were last seen on the corner of Hill Avenue, Bella Mia Italian restaurant,” Bugsy read from her scrawled notes, as Spencer took a purple white board pen to the map of Detroit. Drawing a circle of a 5 centimetre radius around the little dot, he kept his eyes ahead of him. Hearing her pace behind him, he didn’t need to look up to know she was chewing her cuticles again.

“Stop biting,” He chided lightly, hearing a guilty silence where he knew she’d caught herself with embarrassment. He tried not to show his amusement, knowing it would only make her feel worse, he bit down a smirk and raised his pen back to the map, “Next one?”

She’d been on edge all day. He would have probably brushed it off as caffeine jitters seeing as she was on her fourth cup already, but Spencer knew her too well to know her tolerance was so high she had about two more mugs in her before she’d start to crash.

He knew what it was, the memory of her skin beneath his lips burning his cheeks all over again, the look in her eyes when he’d been close enough they were sharing breath. He knew what it was because he felt it too. It was like their confession had set off a ticking time bomb, one that neither of them had the countdown to, and the clicking of every passing second sounded oddly like a pulse in their throats. To put it short, just the sound of her footsteps was making his skin pimpled with gooseflesh.

“Uh, next one is Bowlarama, about ten stores down from there, Couple number two were seen getting milkshakes and heading towards the parking lot before they went missing,” She recited, her fingers firmly clutching the paper in her hand to resist the urge of gnawing at her nails again. Why was she so nervous? She lived with Spencer, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with Spencer, spent almost all her evenings either playing chess or watching movies with Spencer, or on the odd occasion he found a book in reach he hadn’t read yet, he’d read out parts to her he found particularly engaging to those million, trillion, billion neurological pathways of his.

The squealing of the pen against the board was the only thing keeping her head in the case, Spencer’s messy handwriting dotting around the map with points of interest, and she begged her brain to kick into gear the way it normally did, tried everything to yank herself out of the head fog she’d found herself lost in where thoughts of him emerged through like Mr Darcy strolling through those clouded moors, like how his voice sounded when he smiled, how his hand looked gripping that pen, how his body was lithe and handsome even from the back.

She shook her head, jamming her face back into her files, to the gory images of couple number three, mutilated and bloody, and reminded herself she had a job to do.

Get it together, Prentiss.

“Couple number three’s last known location was on the corner of Whittier Avenue, outside a wine bar named Blue Mates,” Bugsy read out, hoping her hot cheeks would dissipate before he noticed, “It seems couples out on date night really agitate this guy,”

Spencer hummed, focused on his third circle, the three of them overlapping with almost precise measurements. It was hard not to notice the pattern to them. He heard her draw nearer with his profile complete, and they stood beside one another, so close they knocked hands when they leaned in to take a closer look at the rings.

“He hits the same street of stores every time, one after another,” Spencer said, his long forefinger trailing down the strip of shops and bars the UnSub seemed to have a taste for, “I mean, excluding retail and supermarkets, since they’re unlikely spots for a husband and wife to go out on a date, the pattern is really quite linear where he hits next,”

Gently taking the pen out of his hands, Bugsy leaned up to colour in every single store that would be considered retail, crossing out a pet shop or two, leaving only the cafes, bars, restaurants, even a cinema. And sure enough, the three spots the victims had been last seen lined up perfectly as the first three ‘date night’ locations on the strip, the next being a steak restaurant named The Greasy Grill.

“How much do you want to bet our UnSub is getting a craving for Sirloin right about now?” Bugsy said, putting the pen down onto the table and they exchanged a look of accomplishment, just as Hotch walked in with the Chief of Detroit police.

“What did you find?” Hotch asked, his eyes falling to the asterisks drawn on the whiteboard, the rest of the known locations Penelope had sent dotted around the map.

“Date night is very important to this UnSub,” Spencer said, the two of them turning to their boss, his shoulder bumping hers, and it was only then she’d realised she was all but pressing up into his side.

“He goes on dates?” The chief of police asked, his brows furrowed. Taking a step away, her eyes darting to the map as a means of distracting herself, she pointed to the ink marks they’d squiggled on the paper.

“No, but the victims do and he knows that,” She explained, tracing a chewed fingertip down the street, “The UnSub hit here first, where our first couple went out for pizza. He then moved down here where the second victims had their date night in a bowling alley, and onto our newest victims, they were last seen having wine here, each kidnapping site along the same strip with the next possible location being right here,” She said, her finger slapping against the Greasy Grill, Hotch nodding in thought as the Chief got on the phone with his own team.

“Good work, you two,” Hotch hummed, and he opened his mouth to speak again when Bugsy’s phone began to ring.

Snatching it out of her pocket, she caught sight of Alex’s name before swiping to answer, pressing it to her ear, “Hello?”

“Fourth victim has just been found dumped in a car.” The woman said immediately, and Bugsy switched her mobile to speaker so the other two could hear her. Turning on her heels to face the white board, she grabbed the pen resting on the table beside her, yanking the lid off with her teeth.

“Where?” She asked, Spencer picking the plastic from between her lips to help her communicate, her eyes focused on the road names as she waited for Alex’s response.

“Back alley between Warren and Forest Avenue, one woman found alone in a white Buick,” Alex said, and all three of their faces scrunched in confusion as she said it.

“He’s changed his victimology,” Spencer murmured and Bugsy nodded, her lips pressed in a flat line, “Alex, is the woman married at least, or has the UnSub completely altered his preference?”

“We have her husband here right now,” Alex confirmed, and Hotch stepped over to where the two geniuses inspected the map, “He said he missed a dinner reservation they had two nights ago at a restaurant called-”

“The Greasy Grill?” Spencer and Bugsy spoke synchronously, and Alex paused audibly.

“I take it you two have figured out his pattern already?” She asked, though she didn’t sound all too surprised.

“See if the husband knows anything else, Blake. We’re going to figure out the next location that fits the pattern,” Hotch ordered, and they bid each other goodbye, as Bugsy and Spencer were already coordinating which plots of land were retail stores.

By the time the line went dead, there was a big red mark circling a mini golf course slash cocktail bar, and the duo looked at him expectantly.

“If the UnSub keeps his victims for around three days at a time, and the woman was found this morning, my guess is he’s going to head there tonight,” Bugsy said, capping the pen and dropping it back onto the desk, feeling Spencer nodding behind her, “And if the victim was supposed to be at the restaurant with her husband, it means he’s still looking for couples, he just happened to get unlucky. He’s going to want another happy-go-lucky husband and wife pairing,”

Hotch’s face became unreadable for a moment, his gaze switching between the two of them, like he was assessing the risk factor of sending his two youngest agents undercover for the second time. But they seemed to have worked together seamlessly the first time, in that casino, so he didn’t see the qualms about asking them to work the same act this time.

“What?” Bugsy asked, the look in his eye unnerving her, and she flicked a glance behind her at Spencer’s equally lost expression, turning back to see Hotch dialling Dave’s number to update him on their plan, “Hotch, what is it?”

“He wants a happy couple,” Hotch said, his phone already up to his ear as he eyed the little to zero space between the two agents who swore blind they were just friends, “We’re going to give him one,”

–

She had to admit, this was a little nicer than the red dress she’d been stuffed into last time. The sundress was flowy enough she could hide her gun strapped to her hip, and still compliment her figure nicely enough that she couldn’t complain. And best of all, it meant she could wear her ballet pumps instead of those god awful stilettos she’d pulled out last time they were undercover.

She still remembered that evening in the casino, watching Spencer’s big brain tick faster than she’d thought possible even for him. The briefing of this even seemed much more relaxed, seeing as their aim was to look like the happiest couple alive. ‘You worry about playing your parts, we’ll worry about playing ours,’; was what Alex had said when she’d brought in a dress about Bugsy’s size, the woman already styling her hair to look like she was really going on a date.

Because she was, sort of, not really, going on a date with Spencer. Except none of it was real, like someone up there had to have one final laugh at her luck, like that carrot on a string she’d been waiting patiently for the past week was looking a lot more delicious by the second as it dangled in front of her.

There was a knock on the small hotel room Hotch had booked them in for the evening, seeing as they were going to be scoping out the area until late, and Bugsy headed for the door without pause, thinking it was JJ returning with the fake wedding rings they’d gotten from a cheap jewellers down the street.

She swung the door open, only to be greeted by two dark eyes looking at her done up face, her primped hair, her floral dress.

“Spence,” She said, picking over every inch of him, breathless already, because she always thought he looked hot in a button down shirt, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, “You look-”

“You look beautiful,” He rushed, like he might just burst if he held it in any longer, and she smiled sheepishly, her face flooding with heat all over again. Damn you, Reid, with your stupid charm and ridiculously good looking lips.

“You look beautiful too,” She complimented, noticing a gold band on his finger then and she realised he had something in his palm, “You run into JJ already?”

He nodded, smiling with a stammered breath, “Yeah, I said I’d come check if you were ready. Hotch and Dave are already there scoping out the bar,”

She simpered under the weight of his nervousness, “Well, I’m ready,” Holding out her left hand, she raised her ring finger, “Marry me, pretty boy,”

He snickered, shaking his head at her clear diversion from the stifling tension in the air, and held her hand in his delicately, his skin warm as it encompassed hers entirely, and he was careful to slip the false engagement ring over her digits, following it with a gold band of her own.

“You ready to get your ass kicked at miniature golf whilst our friends catch a criminal, Mr Reid?” She asked, and he had yet to let go of her hand as she shut the door behind her, slipping her hotel room key into her purse.

“That’s a bold statement from such a sore loser, Mrs Reid,” He said back, a smile so wide he thought he might burst a vessel as she laughed, and tightened her fingers around his, interlacing them just like she had done a handful of times before, and his chest crackled with white hot excitement when she knocked her shoulder into his side in affection.

His lips scorched with the words Mrs Reid the entire drive to the bar.

–

“Any eyes on him, yet?” Bugsy whispered to the women in the stalls, touching up her lipstick as JJ and Alex hid in the women’s bathroom for the signal.

“Not yet,” Blake said, sitting on the closed toilet seat in her kevlar and jacket, all but twiddling her thumbs and wishing she’d brought a sudoku, “Are you guys having fun at least?”

“Pretending to be married to my best friend while a serial killer eyes up my guts for the taking; yeah I’m peachy,” Bugsy replied, rubbing her lips together and making sure her gun was still strapped tight to her hip, “Besides, he really is kicking my ass at golf,”

“He’s going to let you win anyway, you know that right?” JJ said, tucking her feet up onto the seat in her own stall in case anyone who wasn’t on their team came in to the bathroom, “He always lets you win because he knows it makes you happy,”

Bugsy paused, the tissue that was collecting rogue lipstick smudges from her face almost falling in the sink, and she was quick to gather her voice with a clear of her throat.

“Maybe I just win because I’m good, Jennifer,” She said, a lilt of teasing in her tone, binning the scrap tissue paper and heading for the door, “Keep an eye out, kiddos. I’m going back in,”

They chirped a goodbye, the two of them sighing as they waited for Hotch’s message, and Bugsy walked back out to where Spencer was waiting by Hole Seven. It was a classic windmill on top of a hill, a small tunnel where the door was supposed to be leading to a lower level behind the plastic decor, where the hole lay waiting for them.

“You ready, honey?” He said, holding out a purple putter they’d chosen at the start of the course, and she smiled genuinely at him. She had been telling somewhat of a lie when she’d been so unenthusiastic in the bathroom, though she thought telling the women just how much fun she was having being married to Spencer might just rub salt in the wound considering they were bored stiff sat in the bathroom.

That and she wanted to keep whatever it was they were feeling theirs and only theirs for just a little bit longer.

“Ready, my love,” She sang in response and let him go first. He had to lean over a fair bit seeing as he was so tall he made everything on the course look particularly miniature, including the putter that seemed dwarfed by his height. Taking a quick look at the hill, no doubt calculating the angle and force he would need to hit it with, he gave the little, pink golf ball a generous tap and it raced up the slope, straight into the tunnel. They heard it knocking around a little in the chamber, before it came careering out the other end and rolled no closer than a yard away from the hole.

Bugsy looked at him with wide eyes, to which he pretended not to look almost arrogant with how easy he’d made it seem, only when he looked back at her with a shit eating grin, she knew exactly how pleased with himself he was.

“I bet it’s not that difficult, it’s all just a matter of force and drag and whatnot, right?” She said, strolling up to place her lilac ball on the inky dot marking the start.

“Totally, although this is where, I don’t know, say a degree in Engineering would come in useful, I bet,” Spencer chimed in, and she didn’t need to look at him to know he had that smirk on his face.

“Mr Reid, get ready to eat your words,” She replied over her shoulder, smacking the ball hard enough it flew up the slope, bouncing off the wall of the windmill and racing all the way back down the hill, rolling right back to where they stood, Spencer hiding a laugh behind his hand. She gaped, her face hot with annoyance, “Wait, wait! That was a practice run, I get another go,”

“Practice run, I see,” Spencer said with a chuckle, shoving his hands in his pockets, and watching her scramble to set the ball back on the marker, “So out of interest, how many of these practice runs are you getting,”

“Just the one,” She said, hitting the plastic globe again, though this time it barely made it half way up the incline before it rolled right back down again, ��Two, I get two. This one’s the real one, starting now,”

“The real one? So this one’s really the one that counts, right?” He teased, and she glared at him over her shoulder. He stepped closer to her, a look of the cat that got the cream smeared all across his face as he took a stance behind her, wrapping his arms around hers with the oldest trick in the book, “Why don’t you let your dearest husband help you out, huh?”

“I have a masters and half a degree in medicine, I think I know what I’m doing,” She hummed, though the feeling of his hands resting over hers soone quietened down whatever fire was stoked in her belly from losing their game. Spencer was so close she could feel him breathing down her neck, feel his chest on her shoulder blades, and worst and most heinous of all, feel his crotch pressing against her tailbone.

“Alright, alright. Just humour me,” He murmured, a new found confidence in him that he only seemed to get whenever they were playing the part of being other people. He gave her a salacious lick of his lips, smiling at her with a pink parted mouth, his eyes dark in this light like he knew what she was thinking as well, and he couldn’t help but think she looked so pretty when he flirted with her a little. He’d always thought that when she was stunned into that quiet tone, the mousy look she got on her face was rather cute.

His hands engulfed hers with a mesh of pornographic veins and sadistically handsome knuckles, his mouth at her ear as they lined up the shot together.

It was as if a murmuration of birds had flocked together in her chest, dipping and diving and creating all manner of shapes in her stomach as she felt it flip three or four times, his body so entirely pressed against hers she never wanted to move a muscle. She’d had the odd thought pop into her head about what sex with Spencer Reid might feel like, and yet all she could think about in the haze of the putter and fake grass beneath their feet was how delicious he felt pressing into her like that.

He leaned in, his lips brushing against her ear as she looked forward again, and she could have sworn she held back a moan when he breathed out down her spine.

“Hotch has eyes on a guy at the bar watching us,” He whispered, her back straightening as she was reminded with a slap to the face they were still working the case. That as much fun as they were having, as happy as they were supposed to seem, they still had a very real job to do, and she felt stupid for thinking the flirty glances and erotic embrace was for anything more than to sell the married couple act.

But Bugsy was nothing if not committed to her job. So instead of worrying if Spencer had felt anything real in the last hour or so, she decided to double down and give their UnSub a real show.

Sticking her ass out so she brushed against Spencer’s crotch more, she intertwined her fingers with his, and hit the dimpled sphere the direction he guided her; and sure enough it rolled straight into the tunnel with little qualms.

Spinning in his arms, the smile was nearly wiped off her face when she saw Spencer’s eyes had darkened to a rich espresso hue as he looked at her. But she hid it well, despite the fact she caught the way his pupils were blown wide, and simply leaned to kiss him smack dab on his cheek, a smirk on her face when she pulled away.

“I guess I just needed the correct motivation,” She said with a flirty undertone, and she revelled in the way his lips parted enough she saw the whites of his absurdly pretty teeth.

“Remind me to not take you out to mini golf for our first date,” Spencer huffed, his ears red as a mushroom top as they both stepped over to where the hole was and she snickered, trying her best to ignore the wings hammering away at her ribcage when he said that.

“Duly noted, Mr Reid,” She said, watching him lineup his next shot with a smirk, and she wondered just where exactly they would go on their first date. Her smile only got wider, a girlish glee to her eyes. “So, theoretically, where were you thinking of taking me?”

“Theoretically,” He said, lining up his shot, the ball only a small tap away from the hole, his feet spreading a little wider so he could lean down to putt the pink sphere, “I was thinking of going to that book cafe out in Delaware, the one where they have a bunch of drinks inspired by different authors. We could play a game I used to with my mom, where we choose a book for each other we think the other would like,” He took the shot, his ball rolling into the cavity without much effort as she watched him meticulously, her entire body softening with his sentiment right down to her marrow, “And then I was going to say we build a sofa fort in the living room and watch whatever movie you like, maybe get some popcorn on the way home,”

He looked up at her, and almost reeled back in surprise to see her looking at him with something so vastly emotional in her eyes, like he’d offered her a winning lottery ticket or a chance to go back in time in a flying police box, her expression a complete window into her soul because she’d never been too good at hiding how she felt when she was around him.

Spencer opened his mouth to speak again, only for their earpieces to jump to life, Hotch’s voice out of breath as he reported down their ear.

“We have the UnSub, we caught him trying to sneak into your car like we profiled.” He said, and she knew his brow was creased without even having to see his face, “We’re taking him in for questioning now, you kids wrap up and head to the station,”

Bugsy hummed in confirmation, fighting the disappointment that their show was over, and they’d have to go back to their usual act of pretending there wasn’t three little words hanging over both their heads, gnawing at the back of their brains.

Clearing her throat, she set up her shot ready to finish their game, “Well, theoretically speaking, when you’re ready to ask me on that date, I’m there,”

He smiled to himself, perhaps ready to flirt with her just a little more before they went back to being Bugsy and Spence, not Mr and Mrs Reid, when she hit the golf ball just the tiniest bit too vigorously. It rolled straight past the hole, bouncing off the wall and heading further away from the end than when she’d started, and she groaned in frustration.

“How are you so terrible at this-” Spencer burst out laughing as she stomped over to the lilac ball, lining up another shot with a grumpy expression.

“Not another word, Lover boy,”

2. The one with an old flame.

“I wonder what Hotch wants,” She mused, her head resting on the arm of the seat, her eyes shut for the duration of the flight. Rossi had called them into the office startlingly early for a Friday, the entire team sleepy eyed and annoyed as they’d strolled onto the sixth floor.

Yet the minute that they’d heard Hotch needed them, they’d soon perked up in interest, seeing as it was Aaron’s only appointed week off to see Beth in New York, and they had quickly jumped in to help with whatever it was he needed.

“Penelope’s still waiting for NYPD to send her the autopsy reports for the previous victims,” Rossi said, him, Strauss, JJ and Alex playing a few rounds of Shithead with a peeling deck of cards because for once they had no paperwork to be looking over while they travelled. Bugsy had laid on the couch, the one Spencer usually commandeered, except this time he let her take the comfy seat, instead letting her legs drape over his lap as he read from his book, another two sat next to him for when he finished that one.

“He sounded panicked. DEA thinks we might have a bad batch of something making its way through the club scene causing the deaths,” Strauss added, putting down two sets of three on top of JJ’s ace, “Aaron’s brother just happened to have been caught in the crossfire,”

“Men are almost twice as likely to die from drug overdoses than women, just last year there were forty-one thousand, five hundred and two cases.” Spencer said without lifting his head from his pages, his thumb caressing over Bugsy’s ankle bone, “The fact that the majority of the victims are women suggests it’s more than likely is a date rape drug that has been laced since they tend to be targeted towards female victims more often than males.”

“Ecstasy can be made in pill, powder or liquid form so it really wouldn’t be too difficult to slip it into someone’s drink,” The girl mused, her eyes squeezed shut tightly as she attempted to catch up on another half hour of sleep, “Or to convince people the drug they’re taking willingly is safe,”

“Even regular users might not know they're being dosed until it's too late,” JJ agreed, setting down a seven on top of Rossi’s two fives.

“What about the two victims who were clean, Linda Heying and Eric Sullivan’s family claimed they never touched the stuff,” Alex questioned, as Morgan looked over the list of victims that they had been able to track down, despite the majority of the information waiting for them at New York.

“Either the victims are good at hiding the truth or the UnSub is killing for another reason,” David said with a sigh, as Strauss set down the six of clubs, “We should take a closer look, see how they’re connected,”

“Well for now, let the princess get her beauty sleep,” Bugsy said, snuggling into the throw pillow Spencer had passed her as they’d sat down, “I’m feeling weird today,”

His head ripped from his book at that, the rest of the team going back to playing their cards, his hand skirting up to her calf to stroke her leg gently, “You okay?”

She huffed, “Yeah, Penelope said it's because my Mercury is in Retrograde or something, I don’t know. I just feel strange,” She grumbled, resting a hand over her stomach, “Probably just coming on my period early,”

He frowned, moving her legs off his lap and standing up. Before she could ask where he was going, he stepped to the opposite end of the couch, picking her head up gently by the crook of her neck and sitting back down, resting her back onto his lap.

His fingers were in her hair before she could say anything, scratching gently at her scalp the way he knew she turned to putty for, and she smiled, swearing blind she’d be purring if she could.

“We’ll get you some breakfast when we land,” He murmured, and she snuggled her cheek into his thigh, his slender fingers massaging her skin kindly.

“Thankyou, Spence,” She whispered back, all but slurring her words as sleep caught right back up to her, and before long she was drooling on his black trousers, the sight of it making him smile sweetly to himself.

And it was for a moment like that he wondered what exact feeling he was waiting for in the first place.

–

“Any updates?” Bugsy asked, as they entered the New York Police Department and saw Hotch waiting for them, his arms crossed in a casual shirt and jeans, clearly having had no intention of working this week, “How’s your brother?”

“A little shaken but then he never exactly made the best choices in life,” Hotch huffed, putting a hand on her back as she leaned in to give him a small hug because he seemed particularly stressed, “Emily always said you were bad, I’d take you over him any day,”

“Thanks,” She murmured into his shoulder, with a frown, “I think?”

He smiled, amused the way she had a knack for, though the worry in his mahogany eyes didn’t budge, and Spencer was all but a step behind her as the team filed into the building.

“You guys have coffee?” Spencer asked, his eyes subconsciously trailing after Bugsy as she moved to talk to one of the detectives, and Hotch nodded, pointing him over to the small kitchenette at the back of the precinct.

“Over there, I’ll get you guys set up with the lab reports now that you’re here. Autopsies came back for Linda and Eric,” Hotch said, and Spencer murmured in agreement, heading straight for the instant coffee and creamer, worrying about the girl who was already nose deep in a file by the time the machine had poured the first cup.

He wondered whether there were any pharmacies nearby for anti-sickness tablets, or if she needed a heavy dose of water and sleep instead of the caffeine goodness he was whipping up for her, but then he knew she’d rather shrivell into a ball in the precinct bathroom than ask for a day off, would rather suffer in proud silence than make herself look weak.

Bugsy remembered it happening in choppy intervals. One minute she was heading up the steps towards where Spencer stood patiently by the coffee machine, something already popping up as a point of interest in her overworked brain. Her head was down, muttering to herself the points of the victimology that conflicted with one another, when she felt herself slam right into a solid body, and she jumped back, steadying herself with an embarrassed expression.

“Oh my god, I’m so, so sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was-” Her eyes snapped up to see a messy blonde sweep of hair, wide blue eyes she’d known ten years ago and a thick beard that happened to be the only thing new about him. Her gaze locked onto him, and she felt a fury she’d not thought about in over a decade rile up inside her, “Sean?”

“Bugsy,” He breathed, the horror sweeping over his expression, a hand shooting up to slick his hair back nervously, “What are you- how are you-”

She shoved him back with two firm hands, tossing the file onto the table beside her, and shoving at his chest again, his own hands coming up to defend himself lightly even though his expression read nothing but guilt.

“Woah, woah, let’s just talk about this, I was just a dumb kid-”

“You left me, Sean. You left me in a foreign country alone with no boarding pass, no cell phone,” She snarled, and the sound of her tone rising turned a few heads, Spencer all but ditching the spoon into the sink when he saw her going nose to nose with some guy who looked purely terrified, “Your dumbass friends spent all my money on hookers, I’d still be in Italy if it wasn’t for the fact you graciously decided not to steal my bank card-”

She shoved him again in between her growls, and it wasn’t until two hands came up to stop her did she realise Derek and Spencer had all but appeared behind her, the former’s arms wrapping around her waist to draw her back.

“Woah, woah, talk to me, pretty girl. What’s with the aggression?” Derek asked, his eyes wide with concern as he looked between the youngest agent and their suspect. It seemed her volume had reached the other side of the room where Hotch had been talking with Strauss and Alex, and Spencer could practically see the steam coming out his ears as he whipped around to their trio.

He could already hear the lecture coming, and the thought of it made him gulp.

“This is Sean,” She spat, and Derek and Spencer’s head snapped to the blonde man who looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole, “You know, the asshole that ditched me on another continent and stole my money,”

“I didn’t mean to steal your money, I thought you had it in your purse, I-I didn’t think to check before we left the hotel room,” He tried to interject, though the girl's glare intensified, unaware her boss's shoes were now thundering across the steps.

“Where you left me to miss the flight I paid for, you inconsiderate prick-”

“You told me to leave you alone! You said you were sick of us waking you up-”

“I meant playing your music too loud, dumbass-”

“Well sorry, last time I checked I’m not a mind reader, Bugsy-”

“What in God’s name is going on here?” Hotch’s voice was a crack of lightning through the precinct, and the two of them shut up immediately, like two school children caught squabbling in the halls, Sean turning to his older brother with an exasperated expression.

“Aaron, I swear, I don’t know what she’s doing here,” Sean pleaded, and Derek, Spencer and Bugsy turned to their boss in unison with bewildered faces. Hotch looked back at them, his own anger dissolving into utter, raw confusion.

“Do you two know each other?” Hotch, Aaron, asked the girl in the middle, the other men all but positioned as bodyguards in the midst of their little spat, and he saw her cheeks hot with anger deflating as she drew a breath to answer.

“Unfortunately,” She spat, scrutinising the familiar tone Sean had used when he’d said Aaron’s name, “Do you two know each other?”

“He’s my brother,” The Hotchner’s replied in unison, their tone almost identical and she felt stupid for not seeing it sooner.

Bugsy felt her face drop, her eyes scanning between them for any signs of a lie, except all she found were the tiny details of their face that seemed to half match. Like their cheekbones, and the crease between their brows, the shape of their lips.

Her face blanked, gobsmacked silence passing between the five of them as she digested exactly what that statement ment.

Sean, her Sean, the Sean she’d been sleeping with on and off for six months straight, who used to make her tea way too milky and without sugar the way she hated it, but would bring it to her in bed and stroke her back when they were finished, the Sean who once tried to ask her to be his girlfriend when he was stoned and she’d laughed at him and snatched the blunt away, told him to get a hold of himself because that was the exact opposite of how friends with benefits worked.

Sean, who she had trusted to keep her safe, who’d ditched her naked in a hotel room in a foreign country and made her feel stupid for ever believing a word a man said.

She stuttered for a response, a wide eyes mix of terror and confusion and repulsion washing over her in stages.

“I need-” She swallowed thickly, her mouth drier than sandpaper, gently pushing Derek’s arm from around her waist, “I think I need a walk- a walk sounds good- yeah-”

Rossi paced over to the five of them, his phone clutched tightly in his hands. He almost paused at the wall of awkward tension around the group, each participant seeming stuck for the right thing to say, the entire situation so bizarre that Spencer debated faking a migraine to get him and her out of the room for some air.

“Hotch,” Both of the men turned to look at him, and the sight of it made Bugsy shudder, feeling almost completely out of her own body at the thought of her nude body on top of Sean’s because now all she could see was Aaron in his place, “Six new bodies found in a nightclub-”

“I’ll go!” She jumped, all but bolting past the men, trying her hardest not to touch either of them because her skin crawled with a sickening uncanny valley looking between the brothers, “I’ll go inspect the crime scene,”

And no one stopped her, because they’d seen her be all manner of strange before, but never quite like that. Aaron nodded his head to Morgan, and the man took it as a sign to follow her. He quickly obeyed, hot on the girl's heels as she kept her head down with an odd, freaked out expression on her face like she was about to throw up and scream at the same time.

Which left Sean alone as Spencer and Aaron whirled around on him, similar looks of annoyance on their face as the younger agent looked the man head to toe.

He was handsome, handsome in a rugged way like he was used to bar fights and late nights and drinking until three am with pretty ladies like her. He was built wide like Aaron, his shoulders broad and muscles stocky, a few tattoos dotted around his arms that only added to his rough looking appeal, and Spencer wondered if she’d always liked the bad boys, wondered if he was an outlier in her dating history.

Except they weren’t dating, not yet at least.

“So I take it she’s one of your agents,” Sean said, wringing his hands together in anxiety as the two taller men looked down at him, equally unimpressed.

Though, Spencer hated to admit, his was more green faced jealousy than anything else.

“Agent Prentiss is one of the best,” Reid corrected, his tone cold and stern, and Sean visibly shrunk in on himself, looking to his big brother for help, only he found Aaron was just as annoyed, glaring down at him.

“You have some more explaining to do, Sean,” His brother snapped, and the two men diverted him into one of the interrogation rooms, Spencer’s jaw clenched so hard he felt his temples ache, “Or next time I’m not stopping her from handing your ass to you, and believe me when I say you’ll wish you’d told me sooner,”

Sean gulped, all too aware of the way eighteen year old Bugsy had never backed down from a fight, when men twice her age shoved her in clubs or girls bitched at her for dancing too close to their boyfriends. He didn’t imagine she was any different at twenty eight, except this time she was trained and licensed to handle a gun.

The door slammed behind them, and Aaron pushed his little brother into the seat with a firm hand, the sight of his unit chief just as protective over her as he was making Spencer bite back glee. The image of Bugsy laying into the guy was burned into his memory, eidetic or not, and it seemed to be the only thing that stopped him blowing his top as Sean opened his mouth to explain what had happened between him and the younger Prentiss woman.

–

“What did you do, Thane?” Sean’s voice crackled over the feed, the wire on his chest brushing against his shirt as he paced in the wine cellar. Aaron, Morgan, Spencer and Bugsy sat in the van, listening to the conversation through shared headphones, Spencer and Bugsy’s heads pressed together as they followed the voices as best as they could, waiting for a confession or anything they could tie to the victims' gory deaths.

“I spiked the wine, you idiot,” Sean’s boss, Thane, snapped, his breathing laboured and Bugsy took a shot in the dark to say he was pacing, worrying now that there was concrete evidence linking his date rape drug to the deaths of atleast nine people so far, “Oh, God. Oh, god, Jim is going to kill me.”

“Why the hell would you do that?” Sean seethed, his patience wearing thin as the man all but confessed to killing his girlfriend.

“For a laugh, I thought it was X. Girl’s love that crap,” Thane replied, his voice louder as Sean stepped closer to him, and she exchanged a look with Aaron.

“Yeah, but it wasn’t X, was it?” The younger Hotchner barked, and she quickly let go of the headphones to grab a kevlar and her gun.

“He’s going off track, Aaron, he’d not going to keep his cool much longer,” She said, and Spencer’s eyes trailed up to her face, her brow furrowed as Aaron moved to slip his own bulletproof over his head, adjusting the straps at his side.

“Tell SWAT to stand by, we’re going in to support, but we may need back up,” Aaron ordered, unholstering his gun and switching the trigger off safety, “You two stay here and see if Thane says any more about the wine,”

She drew her gun to her side just as he did, and Spencer made a move to stop her, even just to check where her head was at because he knew she had this tendency of throwing herself in harms way and asking questions later. He selfishly worried what that upset look in her eyes meant, like she loathed that Sean was in danger as much as she loathed him.

But he wasn’t quite fast enough, because by the time he’d reached a hand out for hers to ask if she was feeling alright, she had slid the door to the van open, hopping out onto the tarmac as Aaron shadowed her.

And something ugly and envious reared its head in Spencer’s gut as the doors slammed, so much so that his jaw feathered and he took a deep breath out, his lips pressing into a thin line.

The two agents moved as one, their footsteps pounding over the linoleum floor of the night club. They swept to the back of the building, where the door to the stock room was, and it became apparent almost immediately from the grunting and shuffling the other side of the door that the two men were much closer to brawling than they’d guessed.

“FBI, drop your weapon!” Bugsy called, bracing herself as she felt Aaron’s domineering figure at her shoulder. She raised her leg to kick the door in, and it swung on its hinges, smacking into the rack of beer. They caught the two men in the middle of a fist fight, Sean with a split lip, Thane with a gash on his forehead, his head locked under the younger man’s arm with a deathly grip.

She holstered her gun, seeing that neither of them were carrying, and moved forward to break the two of them up.

“Alright, Sean- Sean, that’s enough,” She scolded, her fingers prying his muscled arm off his boss’s trachea, and Sean took a second to realise it was disappointment in her face, not the white hot anger it had been not even a few hours before, before he let the man go, some colour returning to his bluing lips.

“He killed Linda,” The blonde Hotchner said softly, and something wavered in her eyes, something close to pity, and she nodded at him while biting her cheek hard. Aaron holstered his gun, surging forward to grab Thane with rough hands as he fought against the taller man’s grip. “She was sober, she’d gotten clean and he killed her,”

“I know,” Bugsy said lamentingly, and against her better judgement she patted his shoulder kindly, more kindly than he probably deserved, and the thought of it made Sean’s baby blue eyes turn away in sorrow.

Before she could say anything else, Thane wretched his hand out of Hotch’s grip, grabbing for the sharp box cutter and lunging right for Bugsy where she turned away from him.

Sean’s expression morphed into fear for a moment, grabbing for her to yank her out of reach, but it was too late. She felt the slash across the back of her arm, where her kevlar couldn’t cover up, and she yawped in pain the way a dog sounds when its tail gets crushed. Turning towards the source of the danger, Sean’s hand weaved around her waist to tug her backwards as Aaron scrambled to grab the suspect.

Thane’s hand gripped the blade and slashed down again, across her cheek and only inches away from her eye, her hands too late to grab his wrists to stop his advances. By the time he drew back to swipe for her again Aaron had already tackled him to the ground, pinning him to the wine soaked floor and fumbling for his cuffs.

“We have an agent injured and needing medical, repeat, medical unit required on scene,” Spencer was out of his seat before Hotch could even finish his sentence, forgoing his own vest as he darted from the van, his heart racing at the sound of the scuffle echoing through Sean’s wire, and he felt his chest seizing at just what kind of a state she’d be in when he saw her.

She was the only other agent on the scene. That call had to be made for her, the voice in his gut told him, but the twisted part of him hoped that it was someone else, anyone else, that had gotten hurt, because he might just throw a punch of his own at Thane or Sean or maybe even both of them if she had so much as a single hair misplaced.

Spencer had only just about reached the bar area when the four of them emerged from the stock room, Thane in cuffs, looking rattled and aggravated. Spencer let himself take a long, hard look at the man with a glare that soon made him cower away, though he found little luck elsewhere as Hotch’s hands gripped him so tight Spencer thought he might be trying to strangle him through his arms.

But that wasn’t who he was looking for. And there, trailing behind his unit chief sheepishly, with Sean’s hand on her back as he watched her carefully, his eyes worriedly darting over her skin when he saw how fast the blood was pouring from the laceration on the apple of her cheek, was Bugsy. Her expression was shaken, no doubt from nearly having her corneas slashed open had Sean not pulled her away even a second earlier, and she seemed in some sort of a daze, until she spotted the sweater vest she’d shoved in the wash about a hundred times, and two supple hands reached for her shoulders, snapping her attention out of her head.

“Are you okay?” Spencer asked, all but ignoring Sean as the man went to flag down medical, his own appearance dishevelled and stunned, and it irked Spencer something childish when her head snapped to the blonde, watching him head for the paramedics.

“I’m okay, Spence, it’s just a superficial wound,” She said as a reflex, meeting his eyes finally. But she simpered when she saw just how terrified he seemed, a warm palm raising to cup his face affectionately, “He just nicked the skin, that’s all. It’s not as bad as it looks,”

Which wasn’t exactly a lie. Her face stung like a bitch, but the feeling of her cheek dribbling with the ichor was worse than the actual pain, and made her feel queasy more than anything.

He went to say something else, or perhaps even gently caress the clean side of her face with his own loving gesture, but he was quickly interrupted by the medical team all but grabbing Bugsy out of his grip and assessing her themselves.

“It’s probably best if you come take a seat, Agent Prentiss,” The woman said, pointing to where Sean sat on the back of the ambulance getting his nose checked over, “We’ll be over with some stitches and glue,”

And Spencer made a move to follow the two of them, only to be stopped by Hotch, who called his name with that direct tone he took when he was worried.

“Reid, I need you and Morgan to interview Thane about where he got the drugs he used to spike the wine,” Aaron ordered, even though he seemed to watch the girl go just as bothered as the younger agent, and Spencer seemed conflicted between rebelling against his boss’s instructions or keeping to his track record of following them to a tea.

He paused for a second, his gaze flicking to the girl who sat with her old flame, Sean’s eyes roving over her head to toe worriedly, and he looked back to Aaron, “But-”

“Now, Reid. She’s going to be fine.”

And Spencer was forced to listen, even if his face burned with annoyance at the sight of the man watching her so tentatively.

–

“Would you quit fidgeting, the medic said it was a surface wound,” Bugsy snipped, feeling the ocean hues burning a hole into the side of her head. She dusted her knees off of invisible dirt, braving a look up at her ex-fling where she was met with a wall of guilt.

And it was like for a split second she remembered all the mornings she’d wake up to him twirling the tips of her hair between his fingers, or when he’d shake his head whenever he’d look over her shoulder at her lab reports she’d be writing and make a passing comment on how a hot girl like her could have brains and looks.

Or how he could be kind to her, genuinely sweet when he wanted to be, when they toed a weird line between friends with benefits and something a little more, because at his core she knew he was a good guy, he was just incredibly dumb for an eighteen year old.

“Listen, Bug,” Sean sighed, looking down at the ground where they were perched on the back on the ambulance, Bugsy’s face stitched up so tight she hoped it wouldn’t scar very deeply, “I really am sorry for how I treated you,”

His voice shook with something remorseful, and she let her eyes cast over his face that had grown even more handsome in the ten years since she saw him. With the good memories came the bad ones in equal measure, and the arguments over stupid shit like leaving cupboard doors open and playing music late at night and the time he forgot to feed her gerbil for two days when she was out of town washed back to shore from the deepest crevices of her mind.

She’d been with men after him, had flings and meaningless kisses with boys who’d treated her much less kindly than he had. And when she thought about it, the anger and resentment she’d felt when she thought about those few days she spent lost in Italy stemmed from the fact she’d been forced to confront what she’d always feared since she was little.

That Bugsy was alone in the world, forgettable, someone you could leave behind and sleep soundly.

But when she thought of that now, the first face she pictured was Spencer, and how he would tell her to knock it off if she ever said that out loud, because he would never leave her, in a foreign country or even at a gas station if she needed to get fuel. He always walked up to the pump with her because he knew exactly how many women got kidnapped in places like that every year, he'd told her so already.

And she knew the person she was when she could have loved Sean, the person who was reminded just how easy it was to leave her behind, was gone. In its place was the girl who Spencer loved like it was as easy as breathing. And the thought of it made her feel just that little bit less bitter towards the blonde man who fiddled with his rough, bloodied hands.

“I was a dumb kid, I did a lot of things that I’m not proud of,” He swallowed heavily, his frown looking strikingly similar to Aaron's as he did, but she would never remind him, “But I did always wonder whether I’d see your name in the news curing some disease I could never pronounce or being the first person to learn like every single language there is,” He smiled sadly, and the old her knew him just well enough to know he was being honest, because his nose turned red whenever he lied.

The thought of it made her lips curve up, despite how annoyed she’d been to see him again, and there was something bashful about the way the slid a hand into his to give it a quick squeeze.

“We were eighteen, Sean. No one has themselves figured out at eighteen,” She said earnestly, her head dipping to meet his ashamed gaze.

He shook his head, “You deserved so much better than I could ever give you, we both knew that,” He pulled his hand away, and her expression contorted into confusion, “It’s probably why you're with that doctor, right? Aaron said he’s like a whizz kid,”

“He’s not-We’re-” She sighed, running a hand over where the EMTs had stitched the gash on the back of her arm, “It’s complicated,”

“Complicated like we were complicated?” He asked, her fingertip tracing every single nook where they had looped the suture through her skin.

She smiled to herself and looked over at him, something weighty like closure passing between the two of him as he watched her take his tired face in, knowing they were nothing more than just passing ships in the night now.

“You meant something to me once, Sean, no matter how much we drove each other up the wall,” She snickered, and something like an exhausted chuckle matched her, “But it’s different with him. It’s like everything I do means something to the world when I’m with him, you know?”

Sean took in the wistful look in her eyes, the girl he’d known who had only gotten stronger, scrappier, wittier with age, and he thought he’d be lucky to ever get someone like her again.

“I hope I do,” He said, and she knocked her shoulder into his to dispel the bad memories of two teenagers figuring out what feelings and kisses and sex meant in the messiest of ways.

“Do me a favour?” Sean hummed at her, and she looked surprisingly like herself again when she smiled at him wryly, “Call Aaron more. It’s difficult being the only disappointment child in his life,”

Sean barked a laugh at her words, and she smiled into her lap. Who’d have thought closure would be so healing.

–

She felt eyes on her even as she tried to nap on the jet, having returned back to their original position on the couch, her head on Spencer’s lap. She had a sixth sense to who it would be, the Spider Sense they’d been calling it despite the fact Spencer tried to tell her it was mere intuition, she glanced up to where something melancholic swirled inside his forest gaze, already watching over her despite his book being open in his lap.

She hadn’t even opened her mouth to speak before his obscenely large hand had sneaked under her jawline, tilting her face up so he could take a better look at the messy cut.

“Have they given you anything for the pain?” Spencer said quietly, because the other’s were already trying to sleep, and she blanked for a moment, before her hand came up to snake around his wrist gently.

“They gave me Naproxen for two days. Spence, I’m fine, really,”

His teeth ground together, his other hand placing his book down beside him and moving to smooth the back of her hair, the sealed wound staring daggers at him as his eyes darted over the rest of her face, just to be sure they hadn’t missed anything.

He nodded to himself, as if to conclude his consultation and his thumb stroked down the curve of her jaw, his head whipping up to quickly make sure no one else was watching.

“What, uh,” Spencer cleared his throat nervously, her expectant eyes looking up at him, “What were you and Sean talking about?”

Her brow quirked in confusion, and it wasn’t until she felt his delicate strokes hesitate that she realised he seemed on edge, “Why?”

“N-No reason, I just was wondering, you looked like you were-” He coughed again, even though there was nothing tickling his windpipe, nothing except embarrassment, because he’d never thought he’d be the envious type.

He braved a look at her again, worried she would be annoyed with his crass and intrusive questions, only to see her smiling at him wickedly.

“We were what?” She asked, and Spencer went so quiet he could have heard a mouse knitting if he tried, his cheeks flushing with raspberry red heat, “Are you jealous, Spencer?”

He shook his head fast, unable to formulate anything that wasn’t a stammer, and she sat up in her seat, throwing her legs onto the ground so she could scooch up into his side.

“Because if you were, you know I’d find that wildly attractive right?” She murmured, his cheeks burning an even hotter shade, the sight of it all but a bone to a hound to Bugsy who loved teasing him. She snickered, leaning in close to his vermillion ear, and leaving a tiny kiss on his clenched jaw, “Don’t worry, Wonder Boy. He knows I’m all yours,”

3. The one with the day of the dead.

“Thankyou, thankyou, my helpful little mice,” Penelope chirped as the three of them stepped into her apartment, their arms filled with shopping bags, “Set them down on the counter, I’ll unpack them later,”

“Wow,” Bugsy gawped at the altar stood in the corner of the woman’s living room, an assortment of sweets and tissue paper flowers decorating the layers, “Oh it’s so pretty, they’re going to love it. We spent a Summer in Mexico when Mom was having talks with their President, but we moved out before October rolled around so I never got to see a Día de los Muertos,”

Penny smiled, though she quickly looked around the rest of her apartment that had yet to be decorated, “There’s still a lot to do before the party next week and,” She huffed, the bags taking up the entirety of her kitchen table as Bugsy frowned at her, “I’m scared. I’ve never had the whole team here before,”

“Relax, Pen, I can help you set up,” The younger woman reassured, helping unload the groceries that needed to go in the fridge as Spencer helped her carry the larger items.

Penelope perked up watching her guests move towards the cooler, a devilish smirk twitching at her lips, “Hey, while you guys are there, can you see if I have enough hot sauce for the party?”

“Sure,” They replied in synchrony, Bugsy putting the milk and soda in the side drawers as Spencer shelved away some of the meat. They both looked at the top row, where some kind of jalapeno salsa was resting next to a jar of fake eyeballs, and the flicked a casual glance at the woman who was pouring vials of red viscous liquid made to look like blood down her cheeks for a Penelope version of a practical joke.

Bugsy blinked once, not quite surprised as she would have thought seeing Penelope attempting to scare them with something they’d seen a thousand times over for real.

“Now, are the eyeballs marinating in anything spicy or is it just like a pickled onion type of thing because all you seem to have is the jalapeno sauce,” She said, and Penelope deflated at her bored tone, looking at the two agents in discontent.

“You guys didn’t even flinch,” She said sadly, her dark eyes flicking between them, “My poor babies, what has the world done to you?”

Bugsy smiled, shutting the fridge door and handing the bubbly woman a leaf of tissue paper.

“JJ’s right, I told her I wanted to go scary this Halloween and she just laughed at me, and said that I don’t have a scary side,” Penelope whined, and Bugsy giggled.

“Sorry, babygirl, you wouldn’t be Penelope Garcia if you were capable of scary,” She teased, waltzing around the kitchen to put away the rest of the shopping, even as the woman tried to shoo her away from helping, “I’ve seen puppies scarier than you, Pen,”

“If it helps, you probably do,” Spencer interjected, helping Bugsy shelve something on one of the higher cabinets, his long arms weaselling over her own as he reached past her, “The building blocks of the human personality are complex, varied and multi-faceted. It’s essential to one’s mental health to want to express these hidden personalities and it’s just a fact of nature that everybody has one,”

“Everybody?” Penelope asked, ignoring the way the two of them bumbled around her kitchen, handing things between one another the way she imagined them putting away the groceries in their own kitchen, like they worked just as well in the home as they did in the field. Dare she say it, like a couple who had been married and knew each other's routines for years. “Even the two of you?”

“Oh, absolutely, yeah,” Spencer agreed, and Bugsy flicked a smirk up at him as Pen turned to her expectantly.

"I mean, you can't tell me Bitch-Slapping our boss or fist fighting with my sister was exactly usual behaviour for me," She pointed out, and the two of them nodded in agreement, although they wouldn't have exactly called it out of character for her.

“Okay, okay, I want to see it. I want to see Dr Spencer Reid’s hidden personality,” Penelope said, a smile growing as thick and fast as a weed when he seemed thrown off by her request, and it only took one look at the younger Prentiss to know she wanted front row just as badly.

“R-right here? Like right now you want to see it?” He stammered, all too aware of Bugsy’s amused lashes batting up at him, the innocent expression she knew made it difficult for him to say no to, and he wondered for a second if she understood the exact amount of control she had over him when she wanted to.

“I wanna see this hidden personality, pretty boy,” She smiled with her teeth, and he felt his hands turn jittery in embarrassment.

“Okay, alright,” Spencer shook his arms out, clearing his throat with a growling sort of husk that made her raise her brows, and in a single blink he’d locked stern eyes with her, pointing to her with a completely un-Spencer-like stance; completely rose to his full height, confident and domineering, “I know what you’re thinking,”

She really hoped he didn’t. Because what she was really thinking was just how hot he sounded with that deep sort of timbre, that cocksure attitude.

“You’re thinking ‘Did that guy just fire five shots or did that guy just fire six shots?’” He went on, his tone deadly serious, as her lips parted in surprise, and what had started out as a game turned into some wildly lewd thoughts fast, “You’re going to have to ask yourself a question; Do you feel lucky, pun-k,”

She swallowed haughtily, as he squeezed his eyes shut and when he looked at her again he was entirely puppy like the way he usually looked, none the wiser to the way her stomach had coiled in want.

“That was Clint Eastwood from Dirty Harry,” He explained, looking to Penelope because he had no idea what that strange look on Bugsy’s face was, only to see his techy friend just as in awe, “I mean I know it’s not as effective as my dominant personality, but I really think it’s there-”

Penelope’s phone sprung to life with a call from Hotch and she quickly spluttered an excuse that they needed to leave right away, grabbing for her keys and heading for the door.

Spencer made a move to follow her, only to feel a hand grab his shirt and turn him right back around, Bugsy still staring at him with that look in her eye, like she’d had too much caffeine or been told there was a million dollars cash waiting for them at home.

“Is everything okay-”

“Is Clint Eastwood strictly a party trick or would I be able to have him on request, maybe?” She said, her hands oddly tight as they grabbed at his soft stomach, and it was like he heard the click in his brain when he realised what she meant.

“R-request, I guess,” He stumbled for composure, finding his footing when he felt her palms were clammy, “You got a thing for cops?”

“Just the one, I guess,” She said with a clenched jaw, and he laughed though it sounded more like a choke, as she darted right behind Penelope to avoid suspicion.

–

By the time the party rolled around, Penelope had decked her apartment out to the nines, marigolds and tissue garlands and lights and food of all sorts spread out across the altar, a mix of alcohol and juices available in pitchers, because Penelope was nothing if not a people pleaser.

The doorbell rang right as Alex and Bugsy poured themselves some margarita, complete with the eyeball ice cubes ofcourse, and Penelope fussed in her beautiful dress, muttering under her breath the way she did when she was nervous.

“What, what, what,” She murmured, her blonde curls bouncing with her steps as she reached for the door, “I thought you said you couldn’t come!”

Bugsy’s head whipped to the door, Aaron looking much more casual than they were used to seeing him as he entered the decorated home, his colleagues all dressed smartly and in some shade of black.

“Jack got a last minute sleepover invitation so I hope it’s okay,” He said, a bottle of rosé in his hand he’d brought as a contribution.

“Ofcourse, ofcourse,” Penelope sang, leading him over to the altar where everyone stood with their offerings, sipping on their glasses of liquor, “Okay, everybody, I guess it’s time to start, here you go sir,”

She handed him a freshly poured glass of wine, chilled courtesy of the eyeball, and Aaron thanked her kindly, taking a generous sip to catch up with the others.

“I want to thank everybody for doing this with me, and our altar’s burning, and I just feel so blessed to have you all here,” Penelope started with a grateful smile on her painted lips, a handful of old photos between her fingertips, “I will start, um, this is my mom and dad,” She said, nostalgia idling her tone as she gently placed down a worn picture of a teen couple holding a beautiful, blonde girl, eyes bigger than moons and full of curiosity, just how Bugsy would have imagined Penny as a baby, “I miss them. And this is my cat, Simba with his usual bowl of soda pop. He was a weird cat,”

The team chuckled, looking at the enormous ginger Tom that lapped at the bubbly liquid. Bugsy took a sip of her drink as JJ took a step forward with a smile, her own photo in hand.

“This is my sister, Roselyn. Ros.” JJ said, placing down a photo of a fifteen year old with identical eyes and nose to her, sitting it next to a small statue of the eiffel tower, “She always dreamed she’d live is Paris so um,” She swallowed, looking at her sister laying in the grass of their childhood home, something girlish in her gaze, “It didn’t happen but I thought this would bring her some happiness,”

They took it in turns bringing their offerings and pictures: David bringing some Cubs tickets for a soldier he had lost in Vietnam, Alex bringing a crossword for her mother, Spencer sliding down a picture of Maeve silently, alongside a cut out picture of Nikola Tesla, Morgan bringing his father, Hitch putting down the picture of Haley he kept in his wallet.

Which left them all to turn to the youngest agent, who seemed flustered.

“So, I fortunately have not lost anyone properly thus far, so bare with me here guys,” She said fishing out an old scrapbook photo of her as a seven year old, a small orange snake wrapped around the length of her arm, twenty two year old Emily standing right behind her, the pair of them with beaming smiles as the snake seemingly poked its tongue out for the camera.

Penelope clutched her chest in horror, “Is that a-”

“This is Tigger, the corn snake Emily gave to me when she left home,” She explained, and Spencer couldn’t help but smile at the million dollar grin she had in the photo, three of her front teeth missing sweetly, “I had him until I was about twelve before he kicked the serpent bucket, but he was cute for a slithery little guy,”

She drew another photo, an ultrasound showing two tiny embryos and she put it beside the picture of Tigger, and the group drew a shared breath.

“Bug, I never knew you were…” Spencer started, his stomach flipping when he saw the outline of the foetuses, only for the girl’s eyes to widen.

“No! No, it’s not like that, this is um,” She cleared her throat awkwardly, scratching the back of her hand with a guilty look, “This is the twin I absorbed in the womb,” She said, and she felt the rest of her team gawking at her without having to look, “I guess I’d like to say, uh, I’m sorry pal. It was nice while it lasted, I hope you can forgive me,”

“You’re being serious?” Morgan asked, gawping at the girl, right as Hotch broke out into disbelieving snickers, probably spurred on by the wine, and Alex was quick to join him, her hand over her mouth.

Bugsy turned to him with a ‘duh’ kind of look on her face, “Oh, 100% serious, yeah,”

“Is that why you’re a little…” Rossi started, only he found himself stuck for words when she looked at him betrayed.

“A little, what?” She asked, looking to JJ who cracked into a chuckle, putting her head in her palm.

“What he means is you have a big personality,” Alex said, wrapping an arm around the girl’s shoulder and giving her a motherly squeeze, hoping they hadn’t offended her, “And we wouldn’t change it for the world,”

“I should hope so, she got a double helping.” Morgan cackled, and Bugsy smacked his arm with a smile.

“Every time I think I know everything about you, you come out with something new,” Penelope said, her own snickering laugh meeting the girl’s ears, “You’re like Jason Bourne,”

“God help us if there had been two of you, Prentiss,” David added, patting the girl on the head as they laughed, and Penelope raised a toast to their altar, the rest of the team doing the same before they sipped out their cups and allowed themselves to enjoy the rest of the party.

–

“Oh, I have something for you!” Bugsy said, springing to her feet and almost tripping over Sergio who had curled up by her legs.

She’d cut herself off after her third, and by the time midnight rolled around she’d almost completely sobered up enough to the point her and Alex had been playing hangman except with only Old English words.

Her and Spencer had gotten home twenty minutes later, the two of them exhausted from an evening well spent, the melancholy happiness in the room draining them to the point Bugsy had immediately changed into her pyjamas when she got into the house.

Her pyjamas being Spencer’s boxers and one of his shirts since he’d inadvertently been hiding all of the underwear-top combinations she’d gotten from other flings that she’d brought when she moved into his.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” He said earnestly, and she simply waved his humble attitude off, the two of them sat on the sofa in their nightwear, flicking through the late night TV.

He smiled, watching her bustle into her room and root around her closet, before she emerged with a terracotta coloured pot of lilac flowers, whirling on her heel to head for him.

“What’s this?” Spencer asked, standing to meet her and Bugsy simpered, because she’d felt silly for buying them in the first place. Perhaps it was some left over guilt considering she’d spent the majority of Maeve’s existence in her life hating the girl, or atleast hating what she had that Bugsy thought she could never be privy to. Perhaps it was because all things considered she wanted Spencer to know that it was okay for him to mourn, because she’d never force him to hurry up his process when he’d been there for every second of hers.

“Scaevola aemula,” She said, fiddling with the hem of his shirt around her waist as she spoke because his eyes were unnervingly doe-like when he looked at her in the dark lamp light, “It’s called the fairy fan flower. I thought-"

She paused, her expression morphing into embarrassment, "Wait, this is so stupid, I’ll send them back,” She shook her head, the worry overtaking the rational part of her as she grabbed for the pot to stash it back in her room, but he held it out of her reach, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her body against his hip, as the other stretched out to keep her from snatching back the plant.

“Tell me. What?” He said, his lips stretching into a devious smile to see her so shy suddenly, and she buried her face into her hands as he watched her, “I'm not going to think it's stupid. Why did you get me these?”

“They’re not for you- well, they are, but I just thought,” She stumbled over her sentences, her heart thumping that this was entirely the wrong move, that she was poking at an open wound no matter how caring she was being. Clearing her throat, she let her forehead thump onto his shoulder, her eyes squeezing shut as she spoke, “I thought you could keep it so that you can think of Maeve every time you water it, since Maeve was the name of the fairy queen,”

He was quiet. God, why was he so quiet? Her breath was thick as molasses as they sat in the silence for a second. She nearly jumped a foot in the air when two of his fingers ran delicately beneath her chin, tilting her head up enough that he could see her face and she drew a sigh of relief when she saw he didn’t seem angry or hurt at all.

His eyes were soft as pools of honey as he looked at her, his brows stirring into a sad-happy mix.

“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you,” She whispered, their faces so close they were sharing breath, and he shook his head, his fingers never leaving her skin where they forced her to stay near, gave her no choice but to keep her looking at him. She didn’t think she could stop even if she wanted to. Everything pretty about him was dialled to a thousand whenever she got close, and his thick lashes blinked at her like he was seeing a mirage, a daydream.

“This is the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me, Bug,” Spencer murmured back to her, his every word fanning over the bridge of her nose, and she sighed in content, melting back into his side as he pulled her into a hug, his own face burying into the crook of her neck, “Thankyou,”

She smiled and hummed in happiness, wrapping her arms around his slender waist and drawing him so close she got a whiff of his shampoo.

“I have a bigger pot in my room, if you like, then we can keep it in the kitchen sill, away from the boys,” She offered, beaming at him when he stroked over the back of her hair affectionately. She hopped out of the embrace, “I’ll go get it for you-”

“You’ve done enough, Bug,” Spencer reminded, something grateful in his tone as she paused and waited for whatever he was going to say, “I’ll go get the pot, you go decide what movie we should watch,”

“You’re sure?” Bugsy asked, her brows furrowed as she checked for signs of an escape in his movements. But he just smiled back at her tiredly, the purple flowers his accomplice as she gave in and headed back towards the sofa, “It’s by my dresser, where my paper bin used to be,”

He set the gift on the kitchen table, the lilac hues brightening up the kitchen already like they just knew how touched Spencer felt to have received them, like there really was some kind of fairy magic burrowed into the soil as they watched the two of them dance around one another, heading to opposite ends of the apartment with lingering glances and bashful smiles.

Spencer thought his chest couldn’t swell any bigger in size, his heart so inevitably full of her, it left room for no one else, not even Maeve, which was the first time he’d brought himself to think that in months.

+1 The one with the book.

He opened the door to her bedroom, her duvet tossed everywhere because it was a rare occasion she made her bed before they left for work, her clothes strewn about the floor in the general direction of the bathroom, like she’d stripped on the way there, and the thought of it made his stomach seize with a heat, the idea of her undressing little more than a wall away from him knocking his every thought from his head.

The vase. He needed a bigger vase.

Quickly collecting her clothes up and shoving them into her laundry basket for her, he diverted his attention to her dresser, where the slightly roomier pot sat on the floor, a towel underneath it to catch any water remnants and he stepped over her various note pads and books she’d clearly tossed off the bed before she went to sleep.

He tried to ignore them, he really did, but his scratching urge to keep things tidy for her wrestled with his conscience that said to leave her stuff alone. Before he could talk himself out of it, he found himself organising them into a neat pile in his hands and placing them on top of her dresser where one of her books had made it safely, or at least safe enough she wouldn’t trip over it.

His gaze dropped to the book already on there, its leather cover entirely melting into the background of the dark chestnut dresser, yet it stared daggers up at him like it had been waiting to be noticed.

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens.

The book looked old enough to be easily from original 1900s, at least one of the first few hundred published. It was scuffed a little on the edges, the black lettering of the printed title choppy in places where it had been handled recklessly, and the leaves of paper were atom thin. The smell of dust and paper clouded his nose when he picked it up delicately.

Opening the front cover curiously to see its printed date, he was stopped in his tracks to see a little post it note on the title page, covering Mr Dickens’ name with a scrawled handwriting he’d known for six years.

Six whole years. Nearly seven. He felt like he’d known her his whole life, when in startling reality he’d not even known her a third of it.

And there it was, where he was expecting a list of notes or her thoughts on how David Copperfield had much more likeable characters, anything that she’d thought important enough to scratch down on the front page, instead was his name.

Spencer,

He felt his breath catch the second he read it, contemplated slamming the book shut right then and there because this felt illicit to read whatever it was she’d scribbled out just for him even if it was dedicated to the stupid man who’d been asking her to wait on his stupid head and stupider heart to align so he could give her exactly everything she deserved.

His gaze snapped away from the page, that voice in his head telling him this was wrong, that if she’d wanted him to see that book she would have given it to him already. And yet, like it did most days, the beating organ in his chest writhed in annoyance that he’d looked away, that he’d followed the rules one too many times for its liking. He bit his cheek, the two halves of himself arguing amongst themselves.

After a second of debating, his eyes fell slowly to the note, a creeping guilt skirting down his spine that he was reading something private. How could something be private and yet meant for him? His brain scoffed at the dichotomy of it all, while his chest lurched when he caught a glimpse of more of her writing.

‘Spencer,’ His heart trembled almost as much as his hand as he traced the writing with his forefinger, imagining her writing it out in a little ball point pen, her body slumped over the book with every intent of having him read her little note. He imaged her breath fanning across the page, her hand warm as her knuckles stroked over the paper, and it felt so much more intimate than a little post-it when he thought of her like that, ‘By the time you’re reading this I’ll be back home from London and we’ll probably be in your apartment doing that stupid thing we do when we pretend like I haven’t missed you more than anything in the whole world while I’ve been here in England,’

She wrote this in London, probably in that tiny apartment her and Emily had rented on a short lease, the one she’d said smelled like mildew and dust and wet wood but had a gorgeous view of Hyde Park when she looked out her bedroom window.

She’d written it months ago, so why hadn’t she given it to him?

‘I miss you every day. You’re all I think about when I go for a run, and I think sometimes you’d really like it here. I’ve mapped out all the bookshops I’ve found and all the places that do really good coffee if you ever did want to visit England, but I think I’d be happy with you even if we lived in a little ditch on the side of the road like two drowning rats,’

You should have called, Bug. He’d said, like his eidetic memory wanted to twist the knife in just that bit deeper, and he didn’t need his freaky brain to remember how her face had fallen when he’d said it like that. Like he didn’t even want to see her.

He hated himself. He hated himself more than she’d ever had. Even if she had more rights than anyone to despise his selfish guts.

‘Anyway, I know Dickens isn’t your favourite or anything, but I got you this because I know you like the original copies and because it made me think of you (but then again, what doesn’t?).

I never truly enjoyed the living part of life until you were in mine. And so I guess that means I’ll love you until the life part stops too.

All my heart,

Bug.’

He didn’t realise he was holding his breath until he finished the note, digesting every single word the average speed instead of his usual method of inhaling the letters faster than should be possible, like he wanted to savour every single one because they’d come from her.

I never truly enjoyed the living part of life until you were in mine.

“Did you find it?” Her voice called from the other room, no doubt where she was settling down to flick the movie on, her heart so delicate and gracious because she was still waiting for him.

Even now, even when she was in his clothes and under the blanket she’d brought from her apartment for them to use on movie nights because it got cold too fast in his house, when she was waiting for him to come back.

Spencer felt knocked out of a dream, like someone had yanked the chord on his music, shaken him awake into the freezing realisation she was waiting for a reply.

He’d made her wait long enough.

He barely heard her footsteps entering her own room, probably worried when he hadn’t responded and she said his name, “Spence?” A shudder rolled over his neck when he heard it, a siren song he’d been hearing like a mantra for weeks and he felt something fat and full well in his chest when he turned to look at her, standing there in nothing but boxers and a shirt, just as she had when he’d first met her.

Except she was his. She was waiting on his call, on his signal, on his word go.

And it was like the idea of being with her for the rest of his life made his living part worth it too. Like it always had done.

Her eyes fell down to where his hand rested on top of the book, the page splayed open where he’d delicately flicked it open, the yellow post-it catching in the light and making her expression fall.

They looked at each other, the same thought channelling between them, their brains meshed together on some other kind of bluetooth the same way they’d always done, only this time it was a prickling hive mind that gave them both gooseflesh the second they locked eyes.

“Why didn’t you give me this?” He asked, his voice small because he already knew the answer, not daring to move a muscle like she was some kind of deer ready to be spooked.

“You were busy,” She said equally as sheepish, her thumb moving to pick the side of her nail when she saw his still stature. They went quiet again, neither of them daring so much as to breathe too loud because they both knew what was on that note. It was the closest she could ever come to splitting open her own chest and handing him that thumping wad of bloodied muscle herself, and it was only when he turned to look at her did she panic, words tumbling from her lips; anything to stop him from walking away because she’d been poking around a fresh wound, “You weren’t supposed to see- I mean you were but only when you wanted to, I didn’t want you to think-”

Except he wasn’t heading for the door like she’d thought, he was heading straight for her.

“Spence, please, I wasn’t going to tell you until-” But she’d shut up, because instead of replying anything back to her, instead of telling her she could have his heart and his soul and everything in between if she’d ever ask for it again, instead of telling her she was the thing that had kept him alive, like she might as well be the blood that rushed through every one of his veins, he grabbed her face in his hands so hard her back hit the wall, her hands flying out to stop herself from falling.

And he kissed her, so hard he thought he might cry because it was better than any high he’d ever had, any drug on the market, better than his wildest dreams. She froze for a second, worried she’d tripped and fallen on her way over, that this was a concussion spun wild, because there was no way he was kissing her with every inch of their available skin pressing against one another, his hands swallowing her cheeks whole, his body invading her space, his breath rushing through her nose that bumped against his clumsily.

Bugsy woke up after a second, her hands gripping onto his slender waist like he was pulling her drowning out of water, like he was dragging her from a flame which she didn’t think sounded too far off since her skin had become molten, her cheeks hot, her chest wrenching for control like she’d inhaled black smoke.

But he was there, kissing her like she was all he had left, and she kissed him back with equal fervour, whimpering when he bit her lip, a hand wrapping around her waist to tug her just that bit closer to his stomach. Any molecule of her that was left behind was stolen by the action, and all she could think was that every inch of her was his, entirely his, his forever if he wanted it.

He pulled her to him again, silencing his own stupid ramblings of a mad man, a whine dragging from his throat as his brows furrowed, his lips soft and plump as he kissed her like he was begging for honey after a hundred day fast.

And she smiled into his mouth, because Spencer was finally hers.

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teacup-crow · 4 years ago

Text

The Christmas Runner

On the 12th Christmas Eve after the world ended, Molly and Carena told someone the story of the Christmas Runner. Major end of S3 spoilers, very minor spoilers for early S5.

I spent all day in bed and this happened? Will probably go on AO3 once I polish it (and when it’s actually close to Christmas). Promise it’s wholesome!

(In my headcanon here Carena is 15, Molly is 13 and Sara is 7)

“Sam’s givin’ you how much to watch her?” Carena Skeet spluttered, towering over the younger girl, leaning her hands over her head on the brick wall of the housing block. The moon was a sharpened, thin crescent, and lights winked in the guard towers. Over in the main barn, they could faintly hear the twanging of a slightly out-of-tune guitar and some tipsy singing, suggesting the grown-ups’ Christmas Eve party was already in full swing.

Everyone said that Molly Harrison was the prettiest girl in Abel, with blonde curly hair and eyes blue enough to knock out zoms, but right now she was shifting foot-to-foot, looking more irritated than anything else.

“A loaf of crusty bread and a pot of blackcurrant jam, and… you’re not having any of it, Caz.”

“Dr Cohen only promised me a bloody book!” Carena pouted, but avoided stomping her foot. She’d about grown out of that. Nobody would dare call her pretty, but she was too, in a fiercely intimidating way. It was two months until she turned sixteen and could finally start Runner training, and she’d already begun practicing first thing every morning, tearing around the training shed when the sun had barely risen. Where Molly was soft and homely, she was angled and muscular. “You can read it if you let me have a spoonful.”

“That’s a rubbish trade and you know it! I won’t always go along with everything you tell me to do, you know, it’s not fair-“

“Oh blah blah blah, quit whinin’, let’s just get the job done before they realise they double-booked.” She dropped her hands and stalked away. Her foster dad’s old fireman jacket was too big on her, but wearing the king’s clothing added to her swagger.

“You don’t like kids,” Molly pointed out, stumbling a little behind her as she strode off to the front door.

“Kids is fine. Kids is kids. I have, like, fifteen siblings. I know what I’m doing.”

“Yes, and you don’t like any of them. And they’re all the same age as you!”

“What can I say, I’m not good at sharing.” She turned and gazed pointedly at Molly, who shrugged it off. “It doesn’t take two people to babysit a seven year old.”

“Yeah, so go away, Caz. You don’t even want a book.”

“Gotta get on Dr Myers’ and Sam’s good side if I want to be recommended for Runner, don’t I? Janine respects their opinion more than anyone else except Runner Five.”

“So go and sit on guard duty with Runner Five and earn their approval.”

“You jokin’? Five’s batshit.”

“They’re also the only reason we’re not dead, so maybe you should be a bit more respectful.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t try to tell me what to do, Molly Harrison...” Carena’s tone was affronted, teetering on nasty. Then she stopped herself. “But yeah, you’re right. Five’s batshit bonkers, but they’re awesome.”

“And scary?” Molly added.

“Yeah, if you’re a wuss.”

They’d reached the green wooden door of Maxine and Paula’s apartment, a wreath on the outside, a menorah in the window. Sara had hung paper chains all down their part of the corridor. It made both the teenagers smile for a second or two.

Carena knocked, to no reply. She tried again.

“That’s weird,” she muttered.

“Sara, you in there?” Molly tried, peeking through the window.

“Sara, we brought chocolate!”

This caused a patter of feet to charge towards the door. Carena grinned. “First rule of kids is lie through your teeth.”

“MOLLY!” Sara sprang through the door in a bright blur of red sweater and green trousers, and jumped into Molly’s outstretched arms. “Did you bring Galileo too?”

Years before, when Archie Jensen had lost Mildred van der Graff to an explosion, Five had managed to get their own chicken back to Abel relatively unscathed. Molly, already interested in animals even as a small child, had adopted Galileo Figaro, a now-geriatric menace with a beak that had lasted longer than anyone expected. The hen had strong memories of her dinosaur roots, and, apart from Molly, Five and Sara, would attack almost anyone who dared enter the coop.

“Galileo’s an old hen, she’s resting.”

“She went cluck-cluck-cluck over the rainbow bridge to Ed Harrison’s stomach, you mean.”

“Caz! Dad would never!” Molly looked scandalised as Carena burst out laughing at her own joke. Thankfully, it went over Sara’s head as she dropped down from Molly’s arms and stared up at Carena’s jacket in awe. Caz ruffled her mop of springy hair affectionately. She liked this kid, at least. It was very difficult not to.

“Hello, baby Sara, how’s it goin’?”

“Good, Princess Caz! I’m making a jigsaw puzzle. It’s got a million trillion pieces!”

“Sounds like an absolute riot. Tell you what, Molly can finish it with you and I’ll heat up the rations.”

Molly nodded despite herself, taking the pudgy little hand in hers and stepping into the cosy apartment. “Okay, let’s go, hopefully we have all the pieces...”

“Daddy had to remake some of the missing ones but he said you can barely tell the difference, sort of! Anyway, you said you had chocolate?”

This was still one of the oldest housing blocks in Abel, but instead of enough bunks for eight people the two rooms comfortably housed the little family of three, bathroom splitting a bedroom on one side and a family room on the other with a table and a bookshelf and warm candle-lit lamps too high for Sara to knock over on the mantelpiece. Woollen throws covered the kind of battered armchairs you sank into and artwork lined the walls. There was even a tidy kitchen corner with a kettle and a camp stove and a stack of chipped plates and mugs. It was one of Carena’s favourite places: better even than sharing a room with some of the roller girls on a rare trip to see her foster dad in London; much better than her own springy bunk in the children’s dorms, the wall behind her chequered curtain plastered in pictures and photos and plans but still not private enough to block out the whining and crying of the little ones all night. It was nice to see a place where a real family lived. When she stood in the centre of the room, she could squeeze her eyes shut and almost picture the faces of her real parents, her actual bedroom, the kitchen they’d had with a white-tiled floor. Or was it sand-coloured tiles? She wasn’t quite sure, not that she’d admit it. Whenever anyone asked, she always said she remembered the pre-zombie world perfectly.

“Caz? Are you heating up the food or...?”

“I’m getting to it!” She stomped towards the stove, where Sara’s parents had already left a few crumbling Tupperware containers of pea soup from the kitchens, and Molly had brought a bowl of eggs to hard boil if they felt snacky. Not particularly inspiring, but then food had been limited for the last week as the kitchens saved all their supplies up for Christmas Day. And none of them knew how to be fussy: Sara and Molly did not remember a time when food was plentiful, and Carena’s last remnants of pickiness had been starved out of her when the Ministry occupied Abel. She’d been nine, and her stomach hadn’t stopped rumbling for that whole terrible ten months. It ached again a little just thinking about it. She wondered if that had left her weaker, permanently damaged her chance to become a Runner or a roller-girl. As if her asthma wasn’t enough of a handicap. Well, she’d do it anyway. Nothing was going to get in her way, least of all the legacy of those who had hurt her foster father.

“Three bowls of green soup, coming up!” She added a lick of salt, and stirred the metal pot. The ruckus from the square was louder now, almost matched by the younger girls playing with the puzzle behind her.

“I can’t tell if this is supposed to be a man’s face or a rat.”

“Daddy’s not a very good draw-er.”

“I mean… he could use some practice, to be honest. Any clue on where this piece should fit, Caz?”

Carena doled out the bowls and spoons. “Looks like a squiggle with earmuffs to me. Sam’s crap at art.”

“Don’t swear in front of Sara!”

“She’ll be fiiiine,” Carena rolled her eyes. “Lighten up, Molly.”

“Yeah, lighten up, Molly!” Sara echoed jubilantly. “Crap, crap, crap.”

“Okay, you can cut it out now. Eat your dinner.”

Molly changed the subject, sensing another mischievous outburst of swearing on the horizon. “Are you excited for Christmas, Sara?”

“Yeah! Did you hear that we’re going to have a hog roast and potatoes?! And games! And, and, Ms Marsh knitted me a hat and mittens!”

“How do you know about that?” Molly admonished. Sara immediately looked caught in the act.

“I… maybe heard her and Mama talking about it.”

“Did you ‘maybe hear’ or were you spying on your Mama?”

“I wasn’t spying! People just think kids can’t hear stuff!”

“Hey, spyin’ is a great skill, don’t knock it, Mol. Don’t worry, we won’t tell.”

“I wasn’t spying!” Sara drank down the last of her soup, licked the bowl, and pouted adorably. It was hard for the babysitters not to laugh.

“You know, I think that piece might actually be a clockwork mouse. I think it goes down at the bottom…”

They finished the jigsaw with only four missing pieces. “It’s… a big man in a red coat with a white beard! With lots of toys. I’m going to call him Mr Bob.”

“Sara, that’s Santa. Do you not know about Santa?”

“Father Christmas?” Molly tried, although she wasn’t completely confident either. Sara looked blank.

“You know my father is called Sam Yao?”

“No, baby, Santa Claus is different. He brings things to good children at Christmas.” In the back of her mind was an image of Ed in a terribly cobbled together Santa suit, a tiny Molly on his shoulders. A good memory in a flock of bad ones. It twinged in her chest.

“He’s a Runner?”

Carena sighed. “Basically. Yeah. Santa Claus is just another name for the Christmas Runner. Every Christmas Eve, he goes from township to township, leaving gifts for all of the children.”

“How does he get through the gates?”

“Well, duh, he lets the township leaders know what time he’s going to come on Rofflenet first. And he’s really fast, so he doesn’t need to worry about Raiders or zoms. He’s got a big sled drawn by nine dogs for all the presents!”

Sara’s eyes sparkled. “What are the dogs called?”

“Well, the main one is Rudolf, and he’s an, an Irish red setter. Or he wears a red jumper, like you. Something to do with red. The other ones…” she looked to Molly for assistance, and realised the blonde girl was just as enraptured. “The other ones aren’t important.”

“Caz!”

“Fine! Dasher, Dancer, Prancer… Victor?”

Her mind drew a complete blank. Somewhere in her subconscious, a woman’s voice read the words of Twas the Night Before Christmas, but she couldn’t quite make them out. “Um… Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh and Spam?”

Molly snorted in surprise, her face contorting and shoulders shaking as she tried to hold back a peal of laughter. At least Sara seemed satisfied. “Okay, so how come I don’t hear them all?”

“He sneaks in with magic and only when you’re extremely tired so it’s, like, impossible to stay up to hear. But if you leave a sock on the end of your bed he’s guaranteed to put sommat cool in it.”

“How will he know what I like?”

Molly looked thoughtful. “Maybe you should leave him a list? But you like a lot of things.”

“And my socks are quite small.” Sara looked pensive, kicking her feet in the air to check the size of them. “You two should write lists as well!”

“I’m too old to write one-“ Carena tried, but Sara was already insistently jabbing a pencil and an old receipt at her from a scrap paper drawer in the cabinet.

“These big long lists from the olden days are perfect, we can use the back.”

Carena’s eyes flitted over the receipt. Morrisons. Mango, papaya, hummus, avocadoes. All words she didn’t recognise, foods she would never get to try, and, suddenly intimidated, she laid it down on the table. She wasn’t the strongest reader or writer at the best of times - she’d learned too late, and it was difficult with so many new things in a row. Sara sounded out the letters on her own list as she wrote, her reading already confident.

“Dear Christmas Runner. Thank you for all your hard work, and for taking so many risks to deliver presents…”

Molly glanced over at Carena with a dash of awkward concern. They’d shared a schoolroom as children, and again for the last few years, and had some of the same frustrations, although Molly struggled more with maths and numbers and the purpose and point of algebra and geometry than writing and words. “Can I write both of ours, and you do the pictures? Your drawings are really good.”

Carena nodded, and got up abruptly to wash out the pot and make some tea. Outside, the town choir had drummed up enough numbers to give a few carols a go. She cracked open the window a little to let the sound filter up.

“I would really like some bubblegum but I know it is hard to find and my mothers don’t like it so don’t worry if you can’t find any. I also like marbles and you can fit lots of them in a sock!”

“You’re already running out of space!”

“Okay. Lots of love from Sara Myers-Cohen-Yao, kiss kiss kiss! What are you going to ask for?”

“Nicer soap,” Molly said, quite serious. “And I need a new metal bucket for chicken feed and milking. Mine is close to holes.”

“A bucket won’t fit in a sock!” Sara scoffed with childish mirth. “That’s ridiculous!”

“I don’t know, she has really big feet.” This made Sara giggle even more, and slide off the chair to look at Molly’s feet more closely.

“Ha, ha, ha,” Molly gave Carena a mock-withering stare. “What do you want, Caz? I’m doing yours now.”

Carena thought as the water began to bubble. All she really wanted was to be a Runner. To explore. To get buckets and soap and marbles and gum and make faces back in the township light up. All she wanted was her lungs and airways to do as she commanded, her muscles and heart to work with her, to let her push past exhaustion.

“Eh. Shoelaces would be nice.” She smirked at Molly. “Or some chicken fat.”

“Make one more threat to my chicken’s life, Carena Skeet and you won’t be getting anything from the Christmas Runner!”

“I surrender, I surrender!” Carena laughed, and poured the tea. “Anyway, shouldn’t you be in bed by now, Sara? If we’re going to get this Runner to come at all.”

“But I’m not even tired,” the small girl yawned, still on the floor with her head on the chair and cuddling one of the throws her mothers had stacked on the sideboard.

Molly grabbed the rest of them. “Come on, we’ll build a blanket den, have our tea in there, and Caz can tell you more about the Christmas Runner.”

“Startin’ to feel like Caz does all the work around here,” Carena added, stirring in milk and honey and using the puzzle box as a makeshift tea-tray. “Go on then, lead the way.”

Five minutes later, they’d constructed a large blanket fort and, huddled together inside it, Carena began to tell them everything she remembered from the world before, embellishing the odd detail or ten.

“You’re lying, there were no flying snowmen.”

“Well, I saw a film about them!”

Eventually, Sara curled up and fell asleep, thumb in her mouth, dreaming up a jumble of tinsel and angels and dancing snowmen and turkeys.

Molly smiled, sleepy herself. “You know, you’re actually really good with kids.”

“You’re actually good at lightenin’ up.”

“Yeah! This was fun. I had a really nice evening.”

“Molly…” Carena began, and stopped. She tucked Sara’s blankets around her a little tighter. She didn’t know how to say how safe she felt, maybe for the first time since she lost her brother, warm and wanted and hopeful, surrounded by the peace she wanted so badly to fight for. “I think tomorrow is gonna be a really good day.”

The bell in the square jangled once, twice, twelve times and for once they didn’t panic. It had been years since a horde went anywhere near the gates. This was midnight.

“Merry Christmas, Caz.”

“Merry Christmas.”

***

Carena awoke under a pile of blankets, her head on the end of Sara’s bed, the sound of Dr Cohen humming in the kitchen as she fried the eggs for breakfast, and caught three bulging stockings out of the corner of her eye. A lump came to her throat as she saw the book, as promised, bound in ribbon, that she recognised even without reading the words.

The Abel Runner’s Handbook, fourth ed.

She nearly knocked the wind out of the doctors in her rush to hug them.

#zombies run #zr #carena skeet #molly harrison

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