YOU’RE ALL I HAVE TO LOSE ⟢ spencer reid x greenaway!reader
summary: after spencer is exposed to anthrax, the hardest part isn’t being afraid. it’s knowing you love him for the same reasons you’re furious with him.
genre: angst (with a happy ending!) tags/warnings: reader is elle's sister, inspired by 4x24 amplification so tw for a classic CM near-death experience, reallllly whumpy but there’s some comfort, reader is very angry and very stressed and very in love, emotionally devastating phone message, lowkey feels like an undisclosed jello ad oops, title from close behind by noah kahan, no use of y/n. 6.3k words. part of a series but can be read as a standalone!
a/n: writer’s block took me out back & shot me approx 57 times over the past month, but i finally resurrected myself hallelujah so i am back with a bang 💥 (a very depressing bang. not the fun kind of bang. my bad). hat-tip to @slut-for-artists for the song rec that inspired the title!
greenaway!reader masterlist 🥀
You’re angry.
That’s the only emotion you can process when you first walk into Spencer’s hospital room. You’re angry, and you shouldn’t have to be here, and everything about the place feels wrong. It should be louder. There should be sirens or alarms or shouting, something ugly to match the feeling crawling beneath your ribs, but instead there’s only the measured beep of the monitor, the low hum of fluorescent light, the soft shuffle of Morgan shifting in the chair on the other side of Spencer’s bed, and the anxious tap-tap-tap of your foot against the linoleum floor.
There’s also Spencer.
Spencer, pale against the pillow, is sound asleep in a hospital gown with an IV taped to the back of his hand, a cannula under his nose, and his curls flattened on one side. His mouth is parted slightly, his breathing thin but steady. Better than it could be, according to the doctor. Better than it had been, according to a hollow-eyed Morgan when you first got here. Better than dead, which is apparently the standard you should be grateful he’s surpassing now.
You hate this room. This whole entire fucking day.
Morgan is leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped tight enough that his knuckles have gone pale. He looks like he’s aged ten years since this morning.
“He woke up once,” he says quietly. “Couple seconds. Doctor said that’s good.”
You nod without looking away from Spencer. “Good.”
“He’s gonna be okay.”
You try to hum some sort of acknowledgement, some half-hearted agreement you don’t entirely mean because at this point you can’t really know if that’s true, but no sound comes out. Instead, you reach for Spencer’s hand.
His fingers are warm. The plastic hospital bracelet brushes your wrist when you thread your fingers through his, and you feel almost burned by it. Spencer is supposed to have ink smudged on his hands and paper cuts from case files and maybe chalk dust from a man impromptu lecture no one asked him to give. He is not supposed to look fragile under a hospital blanket.
Morgan studies your face for a second, then stands.
“I’m gonna grab some coffee,” he says.
You don’t point out the fact that he already has a half-full coffee cup in his hand. You just nod.
At the door, he pauses. “He was asking about you earlier. Before they brought him here.”
Your grip tightens around Spencer’s hand.
“Just thought you should know,” he says.
Then he leaves, and the room gets even quieter.
You sit there with Spencer’s hand in yours and stare at his face until the anger sharpens again, because anger is a much easier emotion for you to deal with than fear.
“You absolute idiot,” you whisper.
He doesn’t answer.
—
You had been with Rossi and Emily when you found out.
The day had already felt a bit off-kilter since it started. Anthrax in a park in Annapolis. Dead civilians, sick children, hypermasculine military personnel taking over the BAU and breathing down everyone’s necks. Dr. Kimura from the CDC explained the intensity of this strain in a voice so calm it made the information hard to process. The team had swallowed Cipro in a lame attempt at some sense of control, then scattered across the Washington metropolitan area trying to build a profile before the unsub executed another attack.
You went with Reid and Dr. Kimura to the hospital earlier. You noticed the way his inflection turned clinical as he talked about infection rates and symptom onset, the way his eyes stayed focused on the numbers in the patients’ charts because if he let himself see them as people for too long, he’d feel all of it. You saw the way his focus faltered around Abby, a young woman who just wanted to go on a bike ride around the park and was now experiencing aphasia and severe respiratory distress as she tried to stay alive long enough for a cure to be found. You desperately wanted to touch the back of Spencer’s wrist as you walked beside him in the hallway, but you chose not to, because you were surrounded on all sides by sick people and your relationship did not belong in the middle of it.
You regretted that choice later.
Of all the stupid things to regret, that was the one your brain kept returning to. The touch you hadn’t taken. The two seconds of warmth you’d decided could wait.
By early afternoon, you and Emily were with Rossi following a lead away from the rest of the team, chasing down information on Dr. Lawrence Nichols, a disgraced military scientist who’d been downgraded to working on the flu. Emily was having a tough time with the casual deception a case like this required, so you were talking with her beside the parked SUV when Rossi got a call from Hotch. You watched him out of the corner of your eye as his expression changed and his gaze flicked quickly toward you before it shifted away again.
It was small. Practically nothing. A slight narrowing of his eyes. An almost imperceptible shift.
But still, your stomach went cold.
“What?” you asked.
Rossi lifted one finger, still listening to Hotch on the other end.
Your voice came out sharper. “Rossi.”
He lowered the phone. “Morgan and Reid went to check out Nichols’ house.”
You waited.
Rossi’s jaw tightened. “Nichols is dead. The house is contaminated with anthrax.”
For a second, your hearing went thin, and the whole street seemed to drop underwater. Emily shifted beside you. A car passed behind the SUV, tires hissing against pavement, and all of it reached you half a second late. Emily said something, but you didn’t catch it. Your eyes were fixed on Rossi because you knew there was more coming. You’ve been around the block enough times to know that people always pause before saying the worst part out loud, as if a few seconds of silence can soften the impact of devastation.
“Reid discovered the body and the exposure site inside,” Rossi said. “He sealed himself in before Morgan could enter.”
All at once, heat rushed up the back of your neck. Your hand went tight around the car door handle you hadn’t realized you were holding. Somewhere at the edge of your vision, Emily went still.
“Is he in decontamination protocol now? Or is he already at the hospital?”
Rossi didn’t answer fast enough, which was an answer in itself.
You turned away from both of them and walked three steps before bending forward, hands braced on your knees as you searched for breath.
Emily approached cautiously.
“I’m fine,” you snapped automatically.
“That’s not what I asked. I said Hotch wants to talk to you.”
You straightened slowly, smoothed your hands down your blazer, and took the phone from her.
“Tell me exactly what’s going on,” you said too fast as soon as you got the phone up to your ear.
Hotch did. He gave you all the facts he had: Nichols had been dead for days. There was anthrax spilled in the lab and the AC was blasting it through the house. Definitely a homicide, and whoever killed Nichols was likely responsible for the recent attacks. Reid had gone inside and accidentally stumbled upon the scene, shutting Morgan out before he could follow him inside. Kimura and the CDC team were on their way with protective equipment and a decon shower, but Reid was refusing to leave, instead insisting on working the profile from inside since he was already exposed.
Already exposed.
Those words had a sharp, horrible finality to them.
“What do you mean, he’s refusing to leave? You’re his boss, Hotch. Make him leave.”
Hotch’s voice stayed even, but there was strain under it. “He believes there may be an antidote or identifying information on the partner inside the house. He’s continuing to work the scene until one or both of those things are located.”
You pinched the skin between your brows. “Get him on this call for me.”
Emily turned fully toward you then. Rossi was watching with the careful stillness of someone standing near a live wire. Hotch said nothing.
You swallowed hard. “Hotch, transfer me to Reid’s phone, now. I think we all know he won’t answer if I call him myself, and I need to talk some sense into him.”
“He’s working.”
“Hotch. Please.”
The silence that followed was very, very loaded.
Then Hotch said, “Give me a minute.”
You lowered the phone a little and stared at nothing for a second. Your chest felt too tight, your blood too loud, every part of your body braced for impact. Emily came to stand beside you, but she didn’t try to touch you, and you appreciated that more than you could say.
“He’s going to do everything he can to find the cure and track down the unsub and get out of there,” she said.
“I know.”
“He’s Reid. If there’s something in that house to find, he’ll find it.”
“I know.”
And you did know. That was the problem. You knew him so well there was no room to be surprised. Spencer would knowingly stay in a room full of anthrax because people were dying and he had a chance to stop it. He would put his lungs and brain and life on the line to prevent the person responsible for the prior attacks and Nichols’ death from taking any more lives. You’d expect nothing less from Spencer Reid, and right now, you hated him for it.
A muffled voice came through the phone before you could fully catch your breath.
When you lifted it back to your ear, you heard movement first. Then Spencer.
“Hi.”
He sounded too normal.
You gripped the phone so hard your fingers hurt. “Do not hi me right now, Spencer Reid.”
A tiny pause. Then, softer, “Okay.”
“Are you symptomatic?”
“Not really.”
“Spencer,” you said.
“I’m okay right now,” he said, before you could ask again. “Kimura’s team is coming in soon. We’re currently in a limited window where I’m still useful and the scene is still viable.”
“Oh, goodie. Well, as long as you’re useful, everything’s just fine then,” you bit out.
“Sweetheart,” he said softly, “you know what I mean.”
Emily looked away. Rossi did too, like they were granting you privacy by pretending not to hear the sharpness in your voice.
Spencer was quiet for a second. You pictured him inside Nichols’ house, phone held close, hair falling in his face. You pictured powder on the floor, sealed doors. You pictured him alone in there.
“I found a second workspace,” he said. “There’s a bunch of notebooks filled with different handwriting, so it definitely doesn’t belong to Nichols. Whoever this desk belongs to is probably our unsub.”
You wanted to scream.
Instead, you leaned your forehead against the SUV door and forced yourself to breathe through your nose. “You need to go to the hospital.”
“I will.”
“Now, Spence.”
He paused. “I’ll go as soon as I can.”
Your throat tightened.
“You do realize you’re a person too, right?” you asked. “Not just a brain with a badge and a duty to uphold.”
Despite everything, you heard the faintest breath of a laugh. “I’m aware.”
“Great. Then act like it.”
“I am acting like it,” he said, and there it was, his signature stubbornness. “Leaving now wouldn’t make me safer in any meaningful way if we still can’t identify the unsub and still don’t have an antidote for the strain. If I can figure it out from in here, there’s a chance we can save the patients at the hospital, and me.”
You pressed your free hand over your eyes.
“Don’t do that,” you said.
“Do what?”
“Make sense.”
His quiet inhale caught slightly. Maybe from the anthrax, or maybe from you. It was hard to tell.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“But you’re still staying.”
“For now,” he said.
You sighed softly and rubbed your temple with your free hand. “You’re so frustrating.”
“I know.”
“And arrogant.”
“I can be, on occasion.”
“And so ungodly, unbelievably stupid.”
“Well, technically, I’m quantifiably a genius, although I don’t believe—”
“Spencer.”
“I know you’re angry with me,” he said quietly.
“You have no idea how much.”
“Well, I think I have some idea. I know you.”
“No, you really don’t.” You looked down at your boots. “Because if you did, you’d be walking out of that house right now.”
His voice went softer. “If I thought walking out was the thing most likely to get me back to you, I would. I promise you, I would.”
That took every bit of air out of you.
Spencer didn’t rush to fill the silence. He just let the words sit there, awful and sincere and completely unfair.
Then he said, “I’m not trying to scare you.”
“Well, you’re doing a damn good job for someone who isn’t trying,” you replied. You blinked hard, furious at your body for even considering tears when rage was so much more useful.
“Listen to me,” you said. “Find what you need to find, and then you get the hell out. No extra detours or noble self-sacrificing bullshit. Got it?”
“I’ll be careful,” he said.
There was more noise on his end now. Another voice. Hotch, maybe, through the sealed door closing him inside.
“I have to go,” Spencer said, pausing before he added: “I love you.”
You dug your fingernails into your palm.
“Don’t say it like that,” you whispered.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re only saying it in case it’s the last thing I hear from you.”
He took a shaky breath. “I’m saying it because it’s true,” he said firmly. “And because I want to say it. That’s all, okay? I love you.”
You swallowed, and when you spoke again, your voice was steadier than you felt. “I love you too. Stop being a hero and get back to me.”
“I will.”
The line clicked dead a second later.
You kept the phone against your ear long after there was nothing left to hear.
—
The next time Spencer let himself think about you, really think about you, he was sitting on the floor with poison in the air and sweat cooling at the back of his neck.
By then, his body had started showing signs of distress. The cough had come first, small enough that he tried to classify it as irritation from the environment, from dust, from the pollen in the garden outside. Then came the ache behind his eyes, the heat under his skin, the faint tremor in his hand that he could ignore if he kept it busy, if he kept turning pages, pulling drawers open, reading notes, forcing pieces of Dr. Nichols’ life into order.
He was aware of each symptom with miserable precision. He knew exactly what they meant. He also knew the unsub was still out there with a larger attack planned, so his personal awareness changed nothing. His body could be evidence later. Right now, he had work to do.
Still, there came a point when he had to step back and admit how serious things had gotten.
Garcia’s voice shook through the phone when he asked her to record a message for his mother. She tried to be brave about it. He could hear the effort it took, could picture her sitting at her desk with all that color and joy around her while despair leaked through anyway.
He recorded his message to Diana as steadily as he could.
He said all the things a son should say when he’s trying very hard to say goodbye without sounding like he’s saying goodbye. He kept his voice gentle. He tried not to cough in the middle of it. He nearly failed once, clearing his throat to get the urge to pass. When he finished, Garcia was silent for a few seconds.
“Okay,” she said finally, and he could hear the tears in her voice. “Okay, I got it.”
Spencer swallowed. He was covered in a sheen of sweat. His throat hurt. Everything hurt, actually, in a diffuse, widespread way he disliked for its lack of specificity. “Garcia?”
“Yeah, boy wonder?”
He closed his eyes.
He had been trying not to ask. He had been trying to tell himself that the message to his mother was already indulgent enough, that he did not have the right to take more time away from the case for something that served no immediate operational purpose. But the thought of you never getting to hear his voice again if this went badly kept pressing against the inside of his ribs until it became impossible to ignore.
“Can you, uh, record one more message for me?”
Garcia inhaled sharply.
“Oh,” she whispered, understanding immediately. “Of course. Yeah, of course I can.”
Spencer opened his eyes and looked around the room. Papers were spread across the floor in front of him, Dr. Nichols’ handwriting scrawled across margins and folders and binders. Somewhere outside, people were moving around in protective suits, building a perimeter, preparing to come in as soon as they could. Out in the field somewhere, you were trying to work despite your fury and fear. He knew that with the same certainty he knew his own name, the same certainty with which he could recite the periodic table in order by atomic number. You were angry because you were scared. You were scared because you loved him. That thought — that you loved him — probably should have brought some comfort; instead, it made his chest ache worse than the cough did.
“Ready whenever you are,” Garcia said, softly enough that it almost didn’t sound like her.
Spencer tried to take a breath deep enough to steady himself. It caught halfway down. He turned aside, coughed hard into his elbow, and waited for the room to stop tilting.
Then he looked down at his hands, at the pale dust along his cuffs, at the pulse ticking too fast beneath his skin, and began.
“Hi,” he said simply, because every other possible opening sounded wrong — either too formal, or too casual, or too final. He let out a breath that was almost a laugh and tried again. “You’re going to hate this. I know that. You’re probably already furious with me, and you’ve got every right to be, so if this message makes you even more furious, I’m sorry.
“I just need you to know that I wasn’t trying to be a martyr. I know you’ll think that’s what it was, some ‘noble self-sacrificing bullshit’ like you called it earlier, but that’s not what this is for me.” He paused, eyes stinging. “I keep thinking if I find the right thing fast enough, if I can connect the dots, then maybe we can stop the next attack and everyone at the hospital would have a chance. Maybe I would, too.
“And I keep thinking about you. I don’t know if that helps or makes it worse, but I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I thought about you being mad at me, and about the way you must’ve been rolling your eyes when we were on the phone earlier, and about your apartment, and the coffee you pretend to like when I make it too sweet, and the way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention.”
A cough broke through him. He bent forward, eyes squeezed shut, one hand braced against the floor. It took too long to stop. When he lifted the phone again, his voice had gone hoarse around the edges.
“I wanted more time with you,” he said. “I wanted more ordinary days. That’s— that’s what I keep coming back to, which is strange, because technically, ordinary days are the least remarkable kind, but I think those are the ones I’ll miss the most. You at my desk stealing pens, and you pretending not to smile when I say something you think is ridiculous, and you falling asleep before the end of a movie and denying it in the morning.
“And if you’re hearing this, I know you’re going to want to do the thing where you decide this proves some terrible theory you’ve always had about what happens when you let people matter too much, but…”
His eyes burned. Because of the fever, maybe. Heartbreak, definitely.
“Don’t do that. Please, please don’t do that. Don’t let this be the reason you shut everyone out. I know it took a lot for you to let me in, and I know asking this is unfair, and I hate that I can’t say it to you in person, but I need you to keep letting people love you. You have to let them stay.”
He coughed again, violent enough this time to make his whole chest seize.
“The team loves you,” he said. “You know that. Garcia will smother you with affection and care packages. Morgan will check on you constantly and won’t even pretend to act cool about it. JJ will know when you’re lying about being fine before you can finish a sentence, so don’t try. Emily will sit beside you casually and pretend she isn’t worried, because she knows you hate being handled.” A faint, broken smile pulled at his mouth. “Rossi will feed you, so get ready to eat a lot of pasta. Hotch will give you space and somehow still make sure you’re never truly alone.”
He swallowed hard.
“And Elle… Call her. Please. She was there once when you needed her. Let her be there for you again.”
The words felt intrusive, maybe, as if he was reaching into parts of your life he had no right to touch. But if this was all he got, if this recording became the last shape his love ever took, he needed it to be honest.
“I don’t want you to be alone,” he said, voice breaking. “I don’t want you to decide that losing me means you were right to keep the door locked. I can’t bear it, so please, do this for me.”
He pressed his thumb into the crease of his palm until the tremor in it settled.
“I love you. I know you know that. I know I say it all the time now, probably too much, and if I get out of here you can complain about that for the rest of our lives and I won’t argue with you. But if I don’t,” he said, forcing himself through it, “then I need you to know that loving you was never something I regretted. Not for one second. And being loved by you was… it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
A sound came suddenly from outside the room. Movement. Voices. The heavy plastic rustle of protective equipment. He looked up and saw shapes gathering beyond the doorway, bright orange suits and face shields and Dr. Kimura’s focused eyes as her team entered the house.
He looked back down at the phone. There was so much more he wanted to say. There would always be so much more. That was the terrible thing about loving you — no matter what he said, it could never be enough to cover it.
“I have to go,” he said. “I’m going to try very hard to make sure you never have to hear this.”
Then, quieter:
“I love you. I really, really love you. Keep letting people in, okay?”
Garcia made a tiny broken sound through the phone, then cut the recording and the call before he could hear her cry.
—
The day stitched together in pieces after that.
Rossi and Emily kept you updated as information moved through the team, and Morgan called whenever there was a concrete update on what was going on in the house. Garcia called once too, telling you they had a name now — Chad Brown — and that Reid had been right about Nichols not working alone. There was a protégé. A student. A man with knowledge and access and ideology and rage.
You remember standing with your arms folded so tightly across your chest that your shoulders started to ache. You remember Emily offering you water and you pretending not to hear her. You remember Rossi telling you to sit down, not as an order, but in that low, paternal way of his that made you want to be even more difficult on principle. You remember staring at your phone until your eyes burned, as if your fear could force Spencer’s name to appear on the screen.
Mostly, you remember waiting.
When Hotch finally called, his voice was steady. They had Brown. The attack on the Metro had been stopped. Reid and Kimura’s team found what they needed. Reid was out of the house and had been decontaminated. Paramedics had transported him to the hospital where the treatment was being prepared, and Kimura was hopeful, and they would know more soon.
“Is he conscious?” you asked.
“Last we heard, yes,” Hotch said, and the words scraped through you. “Morgan is on the way to Walter Reed now to see what’s going on.”
You wanted to ask if Spencer had asked for you, but you didn’t. It felt too naked, somehow. Too pathetic. So you just said, “I’m on my way,” and Hotch didn’t waste anyone’s time pretending he could stop you.
Garcia found you before you made it out of the building.
She looked wrecked. Her mascara had smudged at the corners, and she had one hand wrapped around a cup of coffee she clearly hadn’t touched. She stopped in front of you like she wanted to hug you, then thought better of it, although it looked like that decision pained her immensely.
“He really, really loves you,” she said quietly.
The words were so abrupt, so earnest, that for a second you could only stare at her.
“I know,” you said.
Garcia nodded too fast. “I know you know. I just—” Her mouth trembled, and she pressed it together. “I just needed to make sure. I wanted you to hear it.”
Something about her face made your chest tighten. There was more to it — something she wasn’t saying, something she was holding back. You could see it in the way she looked at you, nervous and guilty and gentle all at once.
But Penelope Garcia, for all her usual glitter and gossip and inability to mind her own business, could keep a secret when it really mattered.
So you let her.
You just reached for her hand, squeezed once, and pushed through the doors to the parking lot.
—
Now, as you sit in an ungodly stiff chair next to his hospital bed, Spencer’s fingers move against yours.
It’s small. Barely anything. An involuntary twitch, maybe. But it’s enough of a movement to assume it could mean something bigger if you’re desperate enough, and apparently you are, because you go still so suddenly Morgan looks up from the cup of red Jell-O he’s been eating with a plastic spoon.
“Reid?” Morgan says.
Spencer’s brow furrows.
For a second, nothing happens. Then his eyes open slowly, heavy and unfocused at first. He blinks up at the ceiling like he’s trying very hard to decipher what type of room the ceiling belongs to.
Morgan moves, relief breaking over his face. “Hey, kid.”
Spencer’s gaze shifts toward him. It takes effort. Everything about his movements right now looks like it takes effort.
His voice comes out rough. “Are you eating Jell-O?”
Morgan cracks a wide grin. “Man, you almost die from a bioweapon and this is what you wake up concerned about?”
Spencer blinks slowly. “Is there any more Jell-O?”
Your laugh escapes before you can stop it. It’s small and wet and humiliating, and Spencer’s eyes move immediately toward the sound.
The drowsy confusion in his face shifts, turning into something so relieved and so sorry that all the air you just got back leaves you again.
“Hi,” he says.
You swallow. “Hi.”
Morgan looks between the two of you for half a second, then pushes himself out of his chair. “I’m gonna go tell Dr. Kimura that Sleeping Beauty here is awake,” he says. “And apparently find more Jell-O.”
Spencer’s mouth twitches faintly. “Green, if they have it.”
“You’re lucky I’m pretty much obligated to be nice to you right now,” Morgan tells him sarcastically, but his hand lands on Spencer’s shoulder for a second before he leaves, firm and warm and full of things he’ll probably never say out loud.
Then the door closes behind him and the room is quiet again, but it isn’t the same quiet as before, because Spencer’s awake now. His eyes are open. His fingers are caught between yours, weak but there, his thumb making the smallest attempt to move against your skin.
There’s too many feelings to parse through. Relief, first. Relief so enormous it can barely fit inside your body, but somehow it does, pressing against the anger and terror and frustration you also feel, against all the miserable little aftershocks of the day.
For a moment, you just look at him.
He looks terrible. Pale, sweaty, hair mussed, lips dry, throat probably raw from coughing and whatever else his body has been through. He also looks alive.
You want to kiss him.
You want to hit him.
You settle for tightening your hold on his hand and saying, very evenly, “I’m so mad at you.”
Spencer closes his eyes for a second.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” you say, because the calmness is already slipping. “You really, truly do not. I possess levels of anger right now that are previously unrecorded in modern psychiatry.”
His mouth curves faintly, but it fades almost immediately. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
Spencer looks at you for a long second, too tired to dress the truth up into anything gentle. “I’m sorry for what it did to you,” he says. His voice is rough and low, dragged out of a throat that still isn’t ready to cooperate. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, and I’m sorry that when I did, I couldn’t tell you what you wanted to hear.” He pauses, breathing carefully. “But if I had left before we found what we needed, people could have died.”
You stare at the bed rail.
You know the exact reason behind the choice he made, because you’ve made choices with the same bones. Spencer’s been on the other side of this with you before. Not with anthrax in your lungs, obviously, but in basements and alleys and warehouses and too many places where you put the job before your own safety without a second thought.
You hate that. You hate him a little for making it impossible to be purely angry.
“I know,” you say, voice quieter now. “I know you’re right. Or close enough to right that I can’t even enjoy being mad at you properly.”
Spencer gives you a weak, exhausted almost-smile. “I’m sorry for that too.”
You look back at him, and the sight of him ruins you all over again.
“You could have died, Spencer,” you manage to say in a hoarse whisper.
His expression changes. The humor disappears, what little there was of it. His fingers tighten around yours with visible effort.
Your voice shakes, and that irritates you enough to make your eyes burn. “I know you. I know you weren’t actually trying to be some self-sacrificing hero, even though you have a very irritating talent for landing there by accident. I know I probably would’ve done the same thing, which is frustrating because it makes my moral high ground very unstable.” You inhale, careful and shaky. “But I was so scared, Spencer. I was so scared I couldn’t pretend to be normal about it.”
He looks at you like that sentence hurts him worse than anything else.
“I thought about that too much,” he says.
You frown. “About what?”
“You. Being scared.” His eyes drift down to your joined hands. “I thought about you being angry, and about you pretending you weren’t afraid because Rossi and Emily were there. I kept thinking…” His brow creases faintly, concentration pulling through the haze. “I kept thinking if I could just find the answer, then maybe I’d get back to you before anyone else could see your fear. I knew you’d hate it if they could.”
You let out a breath that breaks in the middle. Your free hand lifts before you really decide to move, fingers hovering near his face. He watches you do it, quiet and trusting, and that almost makes it worse.
You brush his hair back from his forehead, and his eyes close.
The simple trust of it dismantles you a little. You had spent the whole day imagining him behind sealed doors, breathing poisoned air, making logical arguments while his body betrayed him by degrees. Now he’s here, under your hand, alive and exhausted and still somehow trying to be gentle with you when he’s the one in the hospital bed.
“I love you,” you say. “And I genuinely hate you right now.”
Spencer’s eyes open again, slow and soft. “That seems pretty fair.”
Your laugh comes out wet. You look away, but he squeezes your hand before you can get far.
“I love you too,” he says. “And I know it doesn’t make it better, but I was trying to make sure I could get back to you. That was the point. I know it looked like I was choosing the work over everything else, but I wasn’t. The work was my way out.”
You turn back toward him.
He looks exhausted by the length of his own words, breaths a little uneven, but his eyes stay on yours.
“I know,” you whisper, because you do. “I know, Spence.”
You lean forward carefully, giving him time to shift away if he needs to, but he doesn’t. He tilts his face up the smallest amount, and you press your mouth to his.
The kiss is soft by necessity. There’s no heat in it, not really — not the kind the two of you are used to. His lips are chapped and warm and careful beneath yours, and for one long, holy second, all you can focus on is that you get to do this again. You get to kiss him in a hospital bed and hate the reason for it, but you still have him here to kiss. You get the fragile press of his mouth, the weak squeeze of his fingers around yours, the proof that his body is still a living thing and not a memory you’ll spend the rest of your life surviving. It isn’t enough to undo the day, but it gives your fear and love somewhere to go. It’s a promise made with whatever energy he has left.
When you pull back, your forehead rests near his temple.
“You scared the hell out of me,” you murmur.
“I know.
“If you ever do that again, I will murder you myself.”
“I know.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I know.”
You pull back enough to glare at him. “Normally you’d argue with at least one of those.”
His tired smile is tiny and perfect. “I’m conserving my energy.”
The door opens after a soft knock, and Dr. Kimura steps in with Morgan hovering behind her, a green Jell-O cup in one hand and a fresh coffee in the other.
“Look who I found,” Morgan says.
Spencer nods at Dr. Kimura before his gaze flicks to the Jell-O. “Is that for me?”
Morgan chuckles. “Yeah, kid, it’s for you.”
You wipe quickly under one eye with your thumb and try to regain whatever dignity you can scrape off the floor.
Kimura checks Spencer over. Vitals, pupils, lungs, cognitive questions he answers with enough impressive precision to make Kimura’s eyebrows lift. Morgan stays near the doorway, and you don’t let go of Spencer’s hand the entire time.
Eventually, the room settles again.
Morgan leaves the Jell-O on the tray and tells Spencer not to be a pain in the ass to you or any of the nurses. Dr. Kimura tells him he’s on the mend but needs a lot of rest, and Spencer nods, probably because he knows you wouldn’t give him a choice anyway.
Once it’s just the two of you alone in the room again, your anger has gone a bit quieter. It’s still there, and knowing you, it’ll probably stay there for a while, tucked stubbornly behind your ribs, ever-present but currently overshadowed by disgusting amounts of relief and love.
Spencer’s eyes are already slipping closed.
“Sleep,” you say.
“Will you stay?”
You sit back and wrap both hands around his. “Yeah, genius, I’ll stay. Obviously.”
The corner of his mouth turns up into a crooked, sleepy smile. “Good.”
It takes less than a minute for him to fall asleep again.
This time, watching him sleep doesn’t feel like waiting for the floor to disappear beneath you. His breathing is still rougher than you’d like, and his face is still too pale, but the monitor keeps a steady rhythm. Alive. Alive. Alive. His fingers are warm under yours, and there’s a green Jell-O cup sitting unopened on the tray because, apparently, even near-death experiences cannot kill Spencer Reid’s bizarre snack preferences. You know he’ll ask for a spoon as soon as he’s awake again and his appetite comes back.
You do not know about the recording.
You do not know that somewhere, locked carefully behind Garcia’s cyberdefenses, there is a version of his voice trying to love you through the worst possible outcome. You do not know that he spent the better part of what might’ve been his last hour on earth trying to make sure you would be okay.
But maybe it’s better you don’t know.
You don’t need the version of him that said goodbye. You need this one: alive, stubborn, fever-warm, breathing steadily with Jell-O waiting untouched beside him.
His fingers twitch against yours again in sleep.
You keep holding on. You hold on, and you stay.
ᝰ.ᐟ
this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️
PSA: likes do very little for promoting posts on tumblr! if you'd like to support a fic, please reblog!
summary: You are roused from a nap and are greeted with a burnt dinner, an innocent lecture on periods, and lots of snuggles. AKA the typical evening for first time parents with a toddler.
contents: 1.5k words, FLUFF, fem!reader, girl dad!Spencer, r wears glasses, dysmenorrhea, technically prof!reader but works as a standalone
a/n: making an AU of my own universe? more likely than you think! i can't get the idea out of my head and i don't want to make a whole other series with a diff reader lol. dedicated to my love @whoswitchybabyanyway and all the mothers in the world, happy Mother's Day!!!
comments and reblogs are muuuch appreciated!
You wake up to panicked sounds of distress. Spencer's voice, two octaves higher than usual, speaking so fast your foggy, sleep-addled brain cannot comprehend anything he's saying. The world looks like it's been wrapped in film as you blink awake.
You don't remember taking your glasses off. Matter of fact, you don't even remember falling asleep. But you're on your side, with a blanket—that you also don't remember using—tucked around your figure.
It must've been the meds kicking in, lulled you to a nap, blunted your senses to this syrupy haze. The pain in your lower belly has dulled to a tolerable, constant ache rather than something sharp and crippling. When you sit up, the crocheted blanket—handmade and gifted by Penelope a few years ago—slips from your shoulders and pools over your waist.
Meanwhile, pandemonium seems to happening in your kitchen.
You can hear your daughter giggling wildly. Spencer's groans are muffled, and a suffocating, smoky scent finally wafts to the living room and reaches you from your position on the couch.
You squint at the clock on the far end of the room and huff when it stays blurry. And then, footsteps, light and quick, followed by a delighted gasp.
"Mommy wakey!" she announces loudly—probably for her father's sake.
Beatrice.
Your daughter hurls herself on your lap before you even see her, but your arms band around her tiny form in reflex. A soft oof leaves your lips from the impact. Somehow, some part of you still expects her to weigh the same as she did when she was still a crawling baby. Like the way she's growing hasn't registered completely, or perhaps it's the speed at which she's growing that's throwing you off.
She used to be so tiny.
Now, you're convinced she would have knocked your glasses off, had you been wearing them.
"Hi, honeybee," you press your nose into her halo of rumbled curls, the exact same texture as Spencer's. She smells like smoke and baby powder, "What have you been up to?"
"Cooking!" she says proudly, her hands resting on your chest. Right over your heart, which feels close to bursting when her face scrunches seriously, an expression that doesn't seem to fit her chubby-cheeked loveliness. "Mommy feel better?"
"Yes, mommy feels better now, thank you."
"No more blood?"
You wince, remembering her panic earlier when you'd bled through your dress after lunch. Her only conscious experiences with blood have so far been limited to skinned knees, so Beatrice had thought you'd gotten a scrape on your butt somehow.
"Well, there's still some blood. But mommy's better."
"Daddy says you—you peeing blood."
You have to bite your lip to stifle a laugh. "Did he now?"
"Yes," your daughter nods gravely, settling herself on your lap. She places a sticky hand to your cheek in a vaguely reassuring way. It's a gesture she'd learned from watching Spencer. "Daddy says you peeing blood and I have to be good so you rest."
Maybe it's her matter-of-fact tone, or the way the words stumble from her lips in her clear, lightly lisping voice, but your mouth finally curls into a grin. You tuck her to your chest so you can have a moment to silently giggle without her thinking she's being laughed at, and reach forward for your glasses.
They're sitting neatly on the coffee table, folded and completely free of any stains. Spencer must have cleaned them when you fell asleep, just as he'd covered you in the blanket.
"What else has daddy said?" you ask, slipping your glasses on.
The world sharpens into focus. The bookshelves lining the sage walls, now home to multiple children's books and framed pictures—you and Spencer had moved your joint collection in the newly refurbished basement not long after Beatrice had been born. There's a TV that rarely gets used, and an open chest of toys.
In the heart of it all, you and your daughter, on the couch, perfectly content.
"It's every… every month. And it hurt." Beatrice says, brows furrowing in focus as she recalls her own version of Spencer's explanation.
"I pee blood every month, huh?"
"I did not say you pee blood!" comes Spencer's flustered voice. He pads from the kitchen with his own glasses so low on his nose you're afraid they'll slip right off. Sweat gleams from his forehead, beading down his temples.
"Did too!" Beatrice exclaims.
You laugh, reaching a hand out to him. "It's okay, it's a pretty close approximation."
Spencer is pink as he holds your outstretched palm, though you're not sure if it's from the stress or from embarrassment. He settles on the couch beside you, tucking your hand to his chest.
"I'm sorry, I didn't really expect her to start asking about that and had to improvise."
Of course, neither of you had anticipated it. Beatrice is a little too young to be having the talk, but she's also… Beatrice. Daughter of two professors who, at their core, have lived for the pursuit of knowledge their whole lives. If anything, it's naive on you and Spencer's part to have been unprepared for this.
You're still grinning, holding Beatrice to your chest with one arm, cheek resting on the crown of her head. "You didn't expect our daughter, with our combined genes, to start asking questions?"
"You're right," Spencer admits with a sheepish laugh, "She's got the curious instincts of researchers and scholars."
"Exactly. This won't be the first she pursues a topic through rigorous questioning, right Bea?"
Beatrice nods, even though she looks a little lost from the adult conversation.
You smile and kiss her brow. "You're a smart girl, Bea."
She giggles, tickled by the compliment. "Like you?"
Spencer's free hand ruffles her hair. "Exactly. Smart, just like mommy."
The words land somewhere unexpectedly tender. It would've been so easy to claim that for himself; he's the genius between the two of you, after all. But he doesn't. Didn't even insert himself and say like mommy and daddy, which would have been objectively true.
You look up with the softest exhale, eyes misting. He grins, lifts your hand to brush his lips over your knuckles. A soft, warm look settles on his face, as reassuring as it is loving.
"You're feeling better now? Do you need more meds?" he asks, casual and sweet and perfect, as if he hadn't just undone you only moments ago.
"No, no, I'm all right." you scoot closer to him. Spencer lets go of your hand to wrap an arm over your shoulder, tugging you gently until you're tucked to his side. On your lap, Beatrice yawns and blinks at the two of you.
For a moment, it's silent. A perfect snapshot of peace. Your chest tightens a little more, some invisible force strangling your throat.
"You could've woken me up, you know, to help with dinner." you murmur.
"I can handle it."
Your brows raise, head tilting up so you can pin him with an incredulous glare. "It still smells burnt in here, Spence."
"It's not that bad."
"Really? What are we having, then? Char with a side of chicken?"
"Daddy burn the oven." Beatrice supplies seriously.
Spencer shakes with laughter. "No, the chicken just burned inside the oven, honeybee."
Beatrice pouts as she considers, dimples on her cheeks deepening. She's got your coloring, but the most noticeable features are Spencer's—messy curls, massive hazel eyes, a collection of dimples exactly in the same spots as his.
"But dinner," you say with a groan, "I'll go see—"
"You don't have to cook, darling," he interrupts, his arm around you tightening to prevent you from moving, "I've already ordered takeout. Lo mein for you, of course."
You swear you've lost the ability to breathe. It never quite settles, this realization that he knows you to the bone. Well enough to anticipate your needs, to provide without being asked. That he'll keep doing them without expectation or prompting.
"And extra wontons!" Beatrice adds enthusiastically, "because mommy likes them, even when she says she don't."
Oh. Now there's two of them.
You don't think the twisting in your chest will ever stop, but at least now you know it's not a bad feeling. It never was, even in those early days, before Beatrice, before building a life together.
You recognize it for what it is now.
You laugh. It's a thin, watery sound. Spencer pulls you even closer, warm lips pressed to your temple.
"You stay right here," he whispers, nosing a line down your cheek, "With us."
"Only if we keep getting snuggles."
Spencer squeezes his arms around the two of you playfully in response, tight enough that Beatrice is overcome with giggles, not loosening until you wheeze a laugh yourself.
In his arms, with your daughter in your lap, the period cramps feel like a distant memory.
more of them here!
Thank you deeply for reading, please reblog if you enjoyed!
Spencer is in constant awe of your beauty. Tonight, with you dancing in the middle of the bar, he is not the only one. But between the pulsing music and the neon lights, it's clear that you only have eyes for him, and you make sure he knows it.
BUD Chronicles | gif by @reidgif
Contents: 4.7k words, SMUT & FLUFF 18+, MDNI, fem!reader, established relationship, early seasons Spencer, alcohol mentions, Spencer is down bad for reader (no like it's actually sickening how much he loves you), misogynistic language (not from Spencer), protective Spencer, PDA, r wears a skirt, whiny Spencer, car sex, fingering, size kink, protected p in v, Spencer comes too soon poor guy.
A/n: return of BUD dedicated to @whisperedmeg belated happy birthday megara you are so creative and endlessly thoughtful and intentional in everything you do my love for you transcends oceans and timezones i am so so so grateful and happy to share this corner of the internet with you!!!!!
mostly proofread but it is 2am where i live, i'm sorry if i missed anything
Spencer avoids alcohol, as he always does. Nobody questions it anymore. Nobody pretends to pressure him, nobody teases. As is the norm of these nights out, Rossi generously offers to pay, and Morgan always makes sure Spencer has a glass of cider or iced tea so he doesn't go thirsty.
Said glass currently sits on the table, haloed by rings of condensation, completely untouched. He hasn't had anything to drink. Can't quite bring himself to do something as simple as bringing an object to his mouth, too distracted by you.
On good days, he's reverent. Who wouldn't be, if they have someone like you in their life? Reverence seems like the bare minimum. But that reverence does not interfere with his daily functions, or impede his sense of judgment. In fact, it's often the opposite—he loves you to the point of betterment, of motivation, doing more stuff just to make himself worthy of your affections.
Tonight, he's sad to say, is one of his bad days.
Tonight, he is so overcome with his devotion he's practically dripping in it. Convinced that every pore of his body is leaking with I love my girlfriend pheromones and that the whole bar can smell it.
Tonight, he can't move for every clumsy action seems offensive to you and your presence.
And, despite consuming zero alcohol, he still feels so utterly inebriated. Swaying on his seat, dizzy with want, eyes trained on you and you alone. Hazy neon and blinking flashes do nothing to dim your appearance, only serving to highlight your beauty, the way you spin and shimmy on the dance floor without a care in the world.
He had declined your multiple invites to dance. On another night, perhaps he'd muster up the courage to join you, but he doesn't trust his own body right now. Not that you'd ever complain about his graceless dance moves, but he's convinced any sense of coordination will disappear the moment you press into him.
Worse, Spencer knows, with a thousand percent certainty, that he would not be able to control any bodily reactions if you start dancing the way he knows you like—swinging your hips flush against his. Sensual. Torturous.
He'd rather not be arrested for public indecency tonight. Or ever, actually. Imbecilic as he is right now, he's got enough presence of mind to at least avoid that.
So he contents himself with watching. You are angelic in this light, transforming even the pounding, fast paced music into something he'd enjoy, all because now he associates the song with the memory of your smile, the sheen of sweat on your forehead that glints neon pink when you twist your head just so.
Beside him, Emily yells with a flashing smile. Something teasing, no doubt. He's used to it, being on the receiving end of jokes (playful and told with love, of course), but somehow he's much more relaxed when he's with you. Anxieties of being too weird, or too smart, or too scrawny, all seem to collapse because the entire time he's dated you, you've never made those things seem like flaws.
So he grants Emily a sheepish smile, and a shake of his head. She laughs and calls him 'Lover boy' and he doesn't bother disputing it. He's proud of it. It feels like a badge of honor, especially after years of thinking he'd never be the kind of man to have this sort of love in his life.
In fact, he'd wear a physical badge of it, if such a thing existed—Penelope probably would make one if prompted—simply because it's true.
And then Emily says 'Uh oh' and her face shifts enough to make his spine stiffen. Spencer follows her gaze and frowns.
He's always known you're beautiful. Had always admired how you bore it—proudly, never shrinking from the attention, always taking up the space like you owned it. He knows you're beautiful, knows that other people are aware of it too. Rightfully so.
But sometimes, they make it too obvious.
The man on the bar would be subtle, if Spencer isn't trained to watch out for signs like this. Body language, profiling training paired with his heightened senses in everything about you, all lead him to the same conclusion: you're being hit on.
And you, sweet perfect angel you, are doing everything in your power to reject the man.The stern line of your mouth, the arms crossed over your chest, body angled from this stranger.
Spencer doesn't like imposing himself in your space. Doesn't consider himself to be someone possessive, or a savior. He believes you to be strong enough to handle this without his intervention.
But the man lingers. Reaches, drags his unworthy fingers down the length of your arm, and finally Spencer moves, his brows furrowed.
He's shouldering his way through the crowd when you smack the man's hand away. Even through the pounding music, Spencer can hear your voice—snapping and testy—and the man's indignant exclamation of bitch. He pushes through and puts himself between you and the man before anything else escalates.
"Is there a problem?" he snaps, glaring at the stranger, "You want to explain why you're calling my girlfriend a bitch?"
The man sputters.
Behind him, Spencer feels you press closer, chin resting on his shoulder. He can feel your smugness emanating in waves.
"I told you, I wasn't interested. Now look, you've pissed off my honey."
Your breath tickles his neck. Spencer has to suppress a shudder, but manages to maintain his intimidating stance. He finds it surprisingly easy, channeling everything he's learned from his coworkers and his job to ward away this stranger.
The man holds up his hands in surrender. "All right, all right, jeez. Thought you were just lying about the boyfriend."
"Uh, no. And even if I didn't have a boyfriend, I still wouldn't be interested."
"Oh please, you're not even—"
"Watch your mouth." Spencer doesn't think he's ever sounded so angry as right now. He's faced impudence of many kind, and only a select few had ever been at the receiving end of this. But he finds himself ready to pull whatever stops for you. "Unless you want a problem."
"Whatever, man, I was just talking to her." with a scoff, the man finally turns and stomps off.
The tension in the air turns lax, but Spencer keeps an eye on the man until he's swallowed by the crowd. He feels your laugh before he hears it, feels the hitch in your breath, the shuddering shoulders against his side that tells him it's one of those laughing fits that overtake your entire body.
He glances down and instantly brightens at your giddy expression, free hand cupping your cheek.
"Hey."
"Hi, handsome."
All the anger he's felt eases from him from those words, simple and sweetly uttered. Just for him. Only ever for him. At once, he feels the effects of alcohol despite avoiding it—lightheaded and trippy and effervescent—all from the sight of your smile.
He presses his forehead to yours. "You okay? He didn't try anything else, did he?"
"I'm perfect. You came just in time."
"I hate that I had to," a muscle ticks in his jaw, "he shouldn't have pushed after you said no."
"Well, that's just how a lot of men are."
There's nothing he can say to that. He knows it's true, has seen several versions of the aftermath of an offended man. Spencer moves behind you and wraps his arms as if that act alone could protect you from any more harm.
At least it signals one thing: you're taken; everyone else back off.
He feels you sink into his chest, soft and content, hair tickling his chin.
"That was really hot, by the way."
He chuckles. "What was?"
"You getting all pissed off and protective. Didn't think you had it in you."
"Excuse you, I'm in the FBI! I've interrogated worse people."
"Really? I couldn't tell. You don't ever act like that around me."
"It's important to keep a work life separate from my personal life, you know that. I already study cases at home, I shouldn't bring that energy when I'm around you as it–"
Your giggle tells him he's being baited into a reaction, and he sags against your back. "You're mean."
"Me? I just said you were hot, how is that mean?"
"You know how."
"Explain it to me, genius."
He huffs. "I hate you."
You twist to face him, gasping dramatically. "You what?"
"Nothing."
"Not nothing, you said you hated me. Apologize!"
Spencer answers with a kiss to the tip of your nose and an acquiesce. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it."
"Hmm, not convincing. I need compliments."
"You possess an incredible ability to still look fresh after being in a dance floor surrounded by forty other people."
You giggle and tilt your head up for another kiss, which he eagerly grants. Sticky, artificial sweetness clings to your lips, a mix of your lip gloss and whatever drink you have been nursing. Your next words are uttered into the kiss, muffled and teasing. "How'd you even come to that number, you nerd?"
"Capacity estimation based on the width and length of the dance floor." he answers without a beat, grinning when he earns one of your full-bodied laughs. "Am I forgiven?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, good. You look like an angel." he adds. Not for good measure; just because he wants to. Because he can. Because it's true.
"I've already forgiven you."
"I know. I just thought I'd say it anyway." he watches, somewhat smugly, as you fluster, chin tipping down and fighting a smile.
He won't ever get enough of this—the weight of you, the way his angular body feel less disjointed when it's doing its job to hold up yours. Not completing him—neither of you believe in the idea of another person completing someone else. But being with you somehow augments his existence. Adds to who he is, what he can do.
He cups your face again, tips your chin up and captures your lips in a kiss. Slow and deep and completely inappropriate for the setting, judging by the pointed coughing from the bartender.
There's matching sheepish looks on your faces when you pull back.
The bartender looks unamused.
Spencer tucks his face in the crook of your neck, partly in shame, but mostly so he can keep peppering your skin with kisses. The longer he spends time with you, the more his earlier hypothesis is proven: his body is traitorous in its reactions. Already, his pants are beginning to feel strained and all he's done is share a few kisses.
Still, he can't stop. Finds any excuse to keep touching his lips to the sweat-slick softness of your neck, your shoulder. Something earthy and herbal hits his nose, the notes of your perfume melting into your skin, fusing with your natural musk. Chemical reactions have never been sexier.
He bares his teeth, nips at your ear. Your shiver reverberates right through his chest, straight to his heart, and all he can think is good, good, more.
"Excuse me, can you put this on David Rossi's tab?"
Spencer blinks, pulling back enough to stare at you, confused. There's a knowing smirk on your face, and he feels dizzy, undone by just the mischievous curl of lip. You aren't even addressing him; the words had been said to the bartender.
His heart stutters in anticipation. That smile is a promise; he will be remade before the night is over.
The bartender punches several buttons on the register, before lifting his thumb in affirmation. Successful.
You slip off the stool, lacing a hand through one of his. "Come on, baby, let's get out of here before the entire bar notices your raging boner."
Spencer sputters, but doesn't deny nor protest. It's all true.
It knocks air from his chest, this casual familiarity. How you've memorized his tells enough to make a decision for both him. How well you just know him. Your acceptance—encouragement, even—of his oddities. Sometimes questioning them but not to judge. Only to understand, to learn parts of himself that he thought had been hidden, but were really simmering right past the surface. No one has just bothered to dig before. Until you.
It should make him shrink back. Should make him feel like a topic of study, like one of the profiles he pores over, academic and impersonal.
Instead, Spencer welcomes it. It's scary, being seen in this light, but your gaze is always so full of adulation, and so the intimacy never feels violent or intrusive. Only sacred.
He follows you with single-minded focus, his vision myopic, singular, honed on the sway of your hips, the way your hair flutters when the late night breeze hits it after the two of you spill out the exit.
He moves to the sidewalk, intending to call a cab, but is stopped by a tug and a laugh.
"Spence, honey, you drove us here, remember?"
Oh. Right.
He chuckles, stumbling with you to the direction of the parking lot. His arm wraps over your shoulder, and your form melds into his side. Head tucked against him, strides in perfect sync, magnets snapping in place.
His car comes into view, but his attempts to unlock it is impeded by your mouth. Soft, lazy kisses along his neck, and already his hands are trembling.
"Angel," he croaks, gone, and you laugh, taking pity on him. Back off enough to let him open the passenger's side, slide in. Spencer rounds the vehicle and climbs to the driver's seat, and you're on him the moment the door slams shut.
Leaning over the console, your mouth finds his. Spencer returns it like he's been expecting it. Instantly, the kiss is messy. Full of greed and desperation, the tension from the bar culminating right here. In his vintage car, at a public parking lot.
Well, at least it's in semi-privacy.
At least there's no one around.
He's a little too far gone to make rational judgments. All he knows is you, you, you.
He kisses you with a low, throaty moan, hands everywhere, mapping out the familiar contours of your body, so warm and pliant under his ravenous palms. He squeezes handfuls of you through your clothes, one hand on your ass, the other on your thigh, guiding you from the passenger's side and straight on his lap.
You straddle him with ease, the action almost reflexive after how many times you've done it. Both your legs planted by his thighs, never breaking the kiss as you sit balanced on the tops of his knees like you belong there—and you do.
He'd be whatever you want of him, be the throne, altar, and object of your affection. All three things have converged in his mind anyway; entire linguistic and symbolic fields fracturing at the power of your hands and heady kisses. Meanings warp because he says so, because he's convinced that preexisting ideas are not nearly sufficient enough to describe you and the way he feels for you.
You moan into his mouth, and he responds with a needy thrust upwards. Your hips are too far for any proper friction, so he holds the span of your waist in both hands and hauls you closer until you're positioned over his crotch.
"Oh, you're a little aggressive tonight," you giggle, fingers threaded through his hair.
A soft whine of protest fills the car when you pull away from the kiss.
Another giggle. "Ah, there's the Spencer I know."
He laughs too, barely more than a choked breath misting over your chest. "S-sorry. If it's making you uncomfortable–"
"Oh, baby, it's doing the exact opposite." You grind down on his straining erection lazily. He fights back another whimper; he knows you can tell. In the darkness of his car, your teeth gleam, bared in a smile that's bordering on feral. "I told you earlier, it's hot. Not really aggressive, just more… assertive."
"It-it's hot?"
"Uh huh. I like when you get all confident." You lean in for another kiss, slow and deep like you have all the time in the world. Like the threat of getting caught isn't looming over both of your shoulders.
He feels your hands on his belt, hears the metals clanging softly as you unbuckle the leather.
"Y-you kind of help," he admits. His fingers flex anxiously into your skin, and he hopes he doesn't accidentally give you bruises, "it's easier to… just be… like I never have to second guess myself when I'm with you. I get to just… exist."
He feels your hands pause. For a brief moment, he wonders if he said something wrong, but your eyes are glimmering when they meet his, little sparkling bits clinging to your lashes.
Tears, Spencer realizes. You're crying. Or about to, at least.
"Angel." he breathes, cupping your face with both of his large hands and kissing away those tears before they have the chance to spill.
"That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me."
Despite his attempts to prevent your crying, your voice still gets choked up in sobs. He kisses you through those too.
"It's true. It's true, you just… You make me lose my mind sometimes, but in a good way. I can get so in my head, but with you, I just am." He whispers with a breathless chuckle, holding you flush to him, as if eradicating distance will help his words sink bone deep.
"Don't lose your mind too much, though," you sniffle, and nuzzle into the side of his neck sweetly, "You also need to think to be, or whatever it was Descartes said."
He laughs. This time, when your lips meet, it's a slower tangle of tongue and teeth. His hands move from your hips to slip under your skirt, higher until his fingertips skim over soaked lace.
You shudder and rock into his grasp, seeking friction through fabric, and he lets you have it for a few languorous moments. Watches with bright eyes as you find pleasure from the gentle circles of his thumb, catalogues the way your lashes flutter like delicate wings over your cheeks.
When he feels like you've had enough teasing, he slides two fingers under your panties, slipping one past your entrance.
The familiar flutter around his digits is a welcome feeling—your body gently accepting him. Human anatomy never ceases to amaze him. The way something so tight and small can open up with a few simple caresses, the right attention. And Spencer intends to shower you with all of his focus right now.
Another finger joins the first, stretching you further, curling up until he finds that familiar spot deep inside you.
Your whole body trembles on his lap, and Spencer can't hold back a moan.
Foreplay is necessary, both of you realized early into your relationship, not just to keep you wet, but also to get these muscles to relax. He'd never fit inside you otherwise, and he'd rather be celibate for the rest of his life than to ever hurt you deliberately.
So he finds a rhythm with his fingers. Watches every reaction with large, honey eyes, committing every hitch of your breath to memory. He's hard under you again. Hell, he's afraid he'd come just from this—the exquisite friction of having you on his lap and taking in your reactions while he gives you pleasure. He wouldn't complain if that's how he comes, actually, would be perfectly content to fall apart just from pleasuring you.
But you've other ideas and he's utterly beholden to you. So when you whisper, "Stop, stop, I don't want to finish yet," Spencer halts every action.
He keeps his fingers buried in your warmth as you lean in for another kiss. Somehow, you still taste sweet after making out with him. He marvels at that, at you. But then you're rocking into his palm again, and he knows that you want—need—more.
"Condom's in my left pocket," he mutters against your lips, laughing when you pat the wrong side, "No, angel, my left."
You giggle, shoulders shaking uncontrollably until you finally pull the packet out. The unmistakable sound of a zipper being undone fills the car, and then finally he feels relief as the length of him is freed from his boxers. He's hard, so red it looks almost painful—and it had been, tenting under layers of clothes though he's not about to complain now.
Spencer's forced to pull his fingers from you in favor of tugging your panties down. It's awkward and messy, with you contorting just to get the panties off, and by the time it's gone, you're both giggling.
"Maybe we shouldn't have done this in a car." he says, nipping at your lower lip.
"Would you have been able to wait until we got home?" you retort. The foil tears open in one clean yank, a testament to your resolve.
"Honestly, I would wait for you forever."
"Okay, Orpheus." your sarcastic tone is blunted by the hint of giddiness, the slight lift at the corners of your lips. You reach down, patting along the side.
"Angel, my seats don't recline." he reminds you.
"Fucking hell," you groan, glaring at him as if it's somehow his fault. He rubs circles into your thighs and waits patiently while you contemplate whether or not to continue. "Whatever. Condom's already open."
He laughs and lets you roll the condom on, groaning when your hands wrap around his girth. He's so large that you can barely fit your palm around it, squeezing slightly at your teasing strokes. Spencer moans, his head already thrown back against the headrest.
You silence him with another kiss, tongue sweeping hungrily into his mouth, and he surrenders. Any amount of his assertiveness you claimed to find hot vanishes. Spencer is always ecstatic to give away control, let you take over.
You part for air, although he's convinced the car is running out of it, that it's getting so thick and heavy with tension that you'd both end up suffocating. Oh well. Not a bad way to go.
He helps you lift up, skirt bunched up to your hips and pinned there by his palms. With a confident grip, you glide the length of his cock over your folds, gathering slickness, and offering a glimpse of what's to come.
After a few teasing passes, it becomes evident that you're both desperate for this, because you finally line him to your entrance and sink down. Gravity does its job, but he keeps you steady with his hands, nails carving crescent moons into your skin.
You're tight. That shouldn't come as a surprise, but he whimpers all the same, brows furrowed in concentration as he fights every instinct to just buck up and take. But no. Not while the broadest part of his cock is barely past that tight ring of muscle.
He feels your walls flutter, then tense, and he's reaching between your legs and thumbing gentle halos over your clit. Your heaving breaths warm his skin, but he feels you beginning to relax again.
"Fuck," you groan, face buried in his neck. "God, this first entry is always so–oh!"
Spencer mirrors your groan as he finally breeches your entrance and he's surrounded by the most heavenly, velvety warmth.
"You okay?" he asks, raining kisses to your temple, your cheek like a shower of starlight. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
"No, this—mhm, fuck." you're already grinding on top of him, chasing your pleasure.
Spencer gasps, expecting a little bit more adjustment time, but he isn't about to complain. Not when you're mewling above him, sweaty and dazed and all his. Already, you're whispering filthy words in his ear, crude and just on the verge of blasphemous.
He moans and nods and shifts. Mutters broken little yeses like he's substituting them for hail Mary's. When your hips start moving up and down in earnest, Spencer swears his vision whites out. He sits back, slack jawed and rapturous, blinking up at your figure. The pace you've set is quick and sloppy, perhaps because you've realized as well that this is being done in a public parking lot.
Distantly, he registers that the windows of his car have fogged up. That the creaking metal is directly caused you bouncing on his lap. That if anyone were to pass by, they would know exactly what's happening inside his vehicle.
For some reason, it's that thought that makes him shudder and hurtle straight to his orgasm. The recklessness of it all, the threat of being caught. It's thrilling. Kinks and fetishes had always seemed so abstract to him, but now, he understands them with frightening clarity.
And then, on top of it all, the fact that he never would have done this with anyone else. Just you, only you, oh god.
"That's it, baby," you pant, grinning at his every whine and whimper. "God, I can feel you throbbing."
He is. And it isn't just his cock. Every single part of him is overcome with tremors, so out of his control that his hips jerk up into you. He breaks your rhythm by mistake, hears a sharp gasp, followed by a moan.
"God, Spence, yes, just like that."
"Yeah?" he repeats it again, head still cloudy from the aftershocks, and eager to get you there as well. "Like this, angel?"
He thrusts up, again and again, eyes and ears perked for any shift in your tone or breathing, afraid to get too rough and hurt you. But you've turned to putty in his hands, body slumped against his chest, face buried in his neck.
Feeling bold, Spencer gets a firm grip on your hips and starts moving you with him. His cock is sensitive, and the tips of his fingers feel electric, but he doesn't stop. Keeps thrusting up into you despite the tears gathering in his lashes from over stimulation.
Your legs are trembling around him as you find the rhythm and move without the help of his hands, teeth sinking into his neck to muffle your desperate moans. He has no such restraint, his head titled back and whining, loud and shameless.
There's a familiar clenching around his length, telling him you're close, almost there, and he doubles his efforts. Feet planted firmly on the floor, he moves with more confidence, taking cues from your trembling body to keep himself in check.
The car's rocking is obscene.
And then you're crying out, shuddering, a rush of slickness coating his cock. Spencer locks his arms around your waist and breathes you in. Lets you ride out the waves in the firm comfort of his embrace.
"My god." he mumbles. Soothing kisses run down your neck, along the curve of your shoulder. "Are you okay?"
You can only nod, legs feeling delicate and immovable. Spencer is content to keep you on his lap while you recover, nosing through the tendrils of hair plastered to your temple. He feels elated, content, and mildly disbelieving.
"Angel," he breathes, sheepish and worn out, "I don't think I can drive."
Your laughter is bright, slurred, and so, so angelic. You are the picture of ruin when you finally emerge from his neck and look up at him. "Maybe I should have let you call us a cab earlier."
He tilts your chin up, grinning and so in love. "Really? I'm glad you didn't."
He watches you laugh again, and he swears that's enough to help him recover feeling back to his lower body. Just the sight of you and the sound of your laughter.
Spencer leans in for another kiss. The last for right now, in this car, but definitely not for the night. In fact, the first of many, forever, if he could help it.
thank you to that one anon and @oorchidea for peer pressuring me into finishing this lol I missed this pairing a lot. Please reblog if you enjoyed!!! We fought to get that button back, we should utilize it.
Summary- The senior attending of the night shift offers a shoulder to cry on. How this led to you, pressed up against a shelf in the supply closet? You have no idea.
Contains- 18+ SMUT MDNI, fingering, oral (f receiving), making out, dirty talk, this ended up being a bit angstier than i thought it would?? show typical cases, child death (very vague), reader is dressed probably really unrealistically but idc, reader has a Hard Worker Complex patent pending
A/N- divider from @robinavitchslut ! not in relation to my roommate!jack series, but here's the link if you're interested :)))
The sunset over Pittsburgh glows vibrant peach, teary eyes stinging in the early spring breeze. You inhale the fresh air, a welcoming reset of your nervous system after numerous brutal hours in the E.R.
Your cases were relentless today- a homeless teen, a seven year old boy with cancer, and an abandoned baby in chairs to top it off.
They always weigh on your heart, no matter how long you've been at this job. You know it'll burn you out someday, but for now, the passion outweighs the heartbreak.
Tears stream down your cheeks at a steady pace when the door to the roof unhinges, your heart jumping at the intrusion of your silence.
You scrub at your cheeks, patting the tears into your skin with the backs of your hands.
"Little birdie told me I'd find you up here," a familiar voice rings out, your anxiety easing like a melting candle.
"Hey, Jack," you croak, eyes trained on your pink sneakers.
"'S gorgeous up here," he mutters, saddling up beside you.
An instinctive smile creeps on your face, something you just can't seem to help when Abbot's around.
Tears still fall, splashing against the concrete lining the roof and giving you away completely.
"What's going on, hm?" He asks, and his voice is a warm blanket, wrapping around you and keeping you warm.
"I just-" you breathe, eyes turning up to the evening sky, welcoming the sting that reminds you you're still alive. "Do you ever have one of those days, where it feels like no matter what you do, you're always doing it wrong? Like, what if I haven't been reaching these kids at all?"
Your voice cracks, and you bury your face in your palms. You squeeze your eyes shut, willing the tears to cease flow, especially in front of a superior. Desperately, you wipe at your overflowing eyes, foolishly trying to erase what's so blatantly there.
"Almost everyday," he admits easily.
It flows off the tongue with frightening simplicity, and your heart drops.
"You're not serious?" You breathe, a small smile on his lips.
"As a heart attack," he crosses his arms over his broad chest, eyes narrowing at your unsure expression.
You chuckle at his intensity, a wet, blubbery sound that burns your cheeks. Darting glossy eyes his way, a sad smile twists your lips. He tilts his head to the side, a soft expression taking over his face at the sight of you.
It makes your heart skip a beat, butterflies persisting through the dread twisting in your stomach.
"You're excellent at what you do," he says, and guilt twists in your stomach. "You know that, right? Please tell me you're not doubting that."
Your heart is heavy like an anvil at the bottom of your stomach, trembling hands reaching up to wipe your eyes.
"I don't know," you shake your head, biting your quivering lip. "There's a seven year old boy that'll be spending the night," you can't help but partially brief him, even as he's offering comfort. "Stage four Leukemia," the tears fall rapidly as you talk mascara practically wiped clean from your lashes. "I just, I couldn't help but look at him, and feel like I'm failing him."
The words flow out of you like a river, relentless and wild.
"And it's not about me, y'know? I know that. It's just so hard to see someone so young so resigned from life, it was just devastating for me today, 's all," you say.
You're downplaying, something you've been working on not doing in therapy.
Jack seems to share similar sentiments to your therapist, because a frown arcs his pretty lips.
"You're allowed to feel that, you can't pretend it doesn't affect you," he says, and you cross your arms over your chest. It's protection, a barrier to isolate yourself.
"If I let myself feel it, then I don't think I'll ever stop crying," you croak, shame burning deep in your belly.
"Pshh, tell me about it," he scoffs. "It just means you're human, don't let yourself forget it."
Your head snaps up toward him, somewhat unbelieving that the great Jack Abbot allows himself to cry, to be human.
"I mean, at least that's what my therapist tells me," he adds, and your jaw drops.
He laughs at that, and you can't help but blubber out your own chuckle, in disbelief at his utter gall.
"Mine tells me to use it to make me stronger, not crush me," you reply, and he smiles.
He averts his gaze, now trained on the ground below him. You can't seem to take your eyes off him, scrubs stretched against his broad frame, veiny forearms poking out of his pockets.
"Hey, you go home and get some rest," he mutters, nudging your shoulder with his.
He's achingly close like this, his clean aftershave hitting your senses with such a force, it almost knocks you off balance.
"Come find me in the morning, I'll let y'know if your therapist is feeding you a bunch of crap," he smirks, and you can't help the laugh that bursts from your chest.
"Alright, sounds good," you smile, cheeks warming at his eye contact. "Goodnight, Jack," you linger for a moment, kind eyes on his hazel ones.
Your breath catches in your throat, a huff of cool evening air clouding between you two. You leave him there, the promise of your return weighing down your every step.
"Goodnight," he says, and it's the last thing you hear before you unlatch the door, letting it slam shut behind you.
The sun rises on PTMC, morning dew dampening the air as you slink your way to the stairwell. You trudge up to the roof, the condensation of the iced coffees in your hands cold and slippery.
You back into the door leading to your new meeting spot, and you're wholly unprepared for what you see when you finally face forward.
Jack's large frame, hunched over the guardrail, head hanging low between his muscular arms.
You slow your movements the closer you get, as if he'll scamper away like a scared bunny.
"How was it?" You ask, handing the coffee to his hand.
He accepts it gratefully, taking an immediate sip, smacking his lips at the taste. You squeeze your thighs together, heat blooming at the apex.
"Did it make you stronger?" You prod, and he chuckles.
"I can't lie, sweet thing, feels like it's crushing me right now," his voice strains with emotion, and your heart constricts with it.
"What happened with that boy?" You ask, eyes glossing over at the memory of the child, fragile and pale on the hospital bed.
You blink them away, though, choosing to focus on the new day ahead of you.
"Got moved to oncology," he replies, and you nod in satisfaction. "I get what you were saying last night. That shit was rough."
You laugh, lips wrapping around your straw, welcoming the sweet caffeine.
"It was," you agree. "But he's strong, I have a good feeling about him."
"Me too," he says, finally lifting his heavy frame off the railing, resting his palms flat against it.
The action strains his forearms, ropy veins popping out. It's mouthwatering, and your heart picks up in speed.
"What else did you guys see last night?" You ask, popping your hip against the railing.
His eyes follow your movement, training on the curve of your hip. There's a glint in his hazels, eager to see what's on the other side of your scrubs. Your heart skips a beat at the heat of his gaze, a small smile creeping up your lips.
He finds that next, his own breaking out on his face at the sheer sight of you.
"How is it you always look so pretty, hm?" He asks, and it's like a bomb goes off. White noise rings in your ear, your heart pounding. He keeps talking.
"First thing in the morning, at the godforsaken hospital, what d'ya need to look so pretty for?" His words leave you stunned, heart pounding in his ears.
You're not sure if he knows exactly what he's saying, if this is just the delirium of 12+ hours in the ER. You're familiar with the feeling, which is why, as much as you crave it, you can't let yourself fall fully into his words.
"I could say the same for you," you shoot back, impressed at your own gusto. "Except with you it's even more impressive. You just finished your shift. I haven't gone in there and let them ruin me yet."
He laughs at your sardonic joke, dragging a palm down his face. The concept of ruining you hangs heavy in the air, you feel it in the way his eyes avoid yours, the flex in his jaw, the botched clearing of his throat.
"You're gonna be just fine, sweet thing," he says, and your heart skips. "I gotta get going," he checks his watch, feigning nonchalance despite the weight the pet name carries. "Go save some lives, I'll see you tonight."
He winks, striding off and leaving you frozen in place. The door swings open, and he doesn't look back as he trots down the steps, the slam of it behind him breaking you from your reverie.
You bring your fingers to your face, hot to the touch, jaw slack at the liquid gold burning through you. The idea of seeing him later spurs a peel of giggles, cut off by a gasp.
"Oh, God!" You groan in despair, your feelings for Jack Abbot so immediate and undeniable.
You are in deep, deep trouble.
Shifts flow in and out, now book-ended by Jack- his words, his presence, his comfort. It was only natural that you'd grow closer, the roof now like yours and Jack's personal bubble, a safe space to dump the tortures of the ER.
It's also become a spot for…more nefarious acts.
Like now, his lips on yours, practically swallowing you as his large hands grip your jaw, cup the back of your neck. His tongue peeks past your lips, tentative licks rendering you dizzy.
Your knees buckle, like they always do when he's on you, your arms wrapped around his neck for dear life.
"All fucking night," he whispers, peppering kisses all over your face, down your cheeks, your neck, biting your collarbones. "All fucking night I thought about you," he grabs the meat of your thighs, gripping hard and lifting, plopping you down on the roof curb, hiking your legs around his waist.
"Thought about what you'd say, how you'd handle every case that came in," he presses a kiss to your lips, then another, and another. "Thought about how pretty you'd look doing it," another kiss. "Thought about how fucking smart you are," and another.
This one's longer, deeper, hotter. The air around you two is charged, pulsing with energy and connection.
"Jack!" You whimper, barely able to squeak it out under the pressure of his lips.
"I know baby," he ghosts feather light kisses down your neck, tongue poking out to lick you every now and again. "You're my smart fucking girl, hm?" He asks, and if you weren't so turned on, you'd be embarrassed at how flustered the praise has you.
"'S why she needs her superior to make her nice and dumb, hm? All pliant before she has to go and do her job so fucking well," he drawls, pulling your legs deeper into him, your center pulsing against his with burning desperation.
You nod at his words, clutching at his thick biceps as he continues to drive his hips into yours, layers of clothing keeping you from the hard length beneath his scrubs.
Your phone buzzes then, and you yelp, heart dropping to your stomach. It twists in on itself as you read the time- 8:23. Shit. You were supposed to be in the E.R. almost a half hour ago.
You feel worse once you read the message that disrupted you two. It's a text from Robby, a bunch of question marks, which means where the fuck are you? You squeeze your eyes shut, guilt bubbling like acid in your guts.
You push the burly man off of you, a bucket of cold water thrown on whatever was going on here, whatever has been going on here. Your hands fly to your hair, petting and smoothing and tying back.
You pat your cheeks, still warm from the heat of his lips, as if your hands can erase what's just occurred. Anxiety pounds in your veins, a burning, all knowing guilt for neglecting your duty. Flashes of 23 whole minutes of potential cases blur through your mind as you trip over yourself to get away from him.
"Jack, I'm so late, fuck," you hiss, scrambling for your things, scattered along the cement of the roof.
Shame burns as your shaky hands balance the messy array of items, your bag, your water, your keys. God, this man really has you going against your better judgment, huh?
"Pshh," he scoffs, and anger pricks at your heart. "It's just Robby, he'll be fine."
This irks you. His obliviousness to your difference in position, in rank, at this hospital mixing with the anxiety and guilt of being late blinds you with rage. You see red as you whip towards him, tears blurring your vision.
"Jack, it's not just Robby for me," you spit, and he jumps back at your sudden change in demeanor. "I'm not buddy buddy with the fucking boss, I'm not an attending, I'm not a fucking man!" You throw your hands up, and you watch it sink in for him.
Guilt etches his features, because of course it does, of course he didn't mean anything by that comment. But it's just not your truth. It never will be. You didn't need a reminder of that.
You don't have the time, or the space, to carry his guilt, though, to have the rational conversation this moment deserves. Because you like Jack, you like talking to him, you like holding him, you like kissing him. God, you really like kissing him.
But right now? You have a job to do, and that comes first. You walk off the roof, leaving him stranded with the morning sun.
The fluorescent lights of the E.R. are blinding, your peripheral having gone blurry from the endless hours spent beneath the buzzing bulbs.
Every square inch of your body aches, feet having gone numb hours ago, as you dart to the other side of the hectic E.R. There was a mass casualty around 3 p.m. A thirty vehicle pileup on the nearest highway, a brutal onslaught of dead mothers, grieving husbands, injured children absolutely relentless.
This is why you're not on the roof at your usual time that night. That, and nothing else. This is also how you end up alone at the hub when Jack rolls in.
"Fancy seeing you here," he asks, grabbing the closest clipboard and immediately getting to work.
His tone is neutral, like nothing's wrong, like nothing happened on that roof a mere 12 hours ago, and your heart pounds. You will yourself to ignore it, tampering it down to the deepest parts of you, until you can unpack it later over a box of powdered donuts and a bottle of wine.
For now, though, you're snippy.
"Yeah, where I work?" You ask, and he clears his throat.
"Yeah-I-uhm-"
You don't let him finish, flipping your hair over your shoulder.
"We've been really busy while you've been gone, hope you rested up," you say, turning swiftly on your heel, and leading him through the chaotic room.
"Mass casualty on the highway, lots of crying babies and injured mothers, some truck drivers and Ubers as well," you rattle off, as emotionless as can be.
He clears his throat again, struggling to keep up with your pace. You only walk faster.
"Motherfucker…" He rolls his eyes, gritting his teeth. You scoff.
"Yup," you chirp sardonically, rounding the corner. "You clocked in at just the right time," you pause in front of a closed curtain, hiding your most recent patient.
"You know it, sweet thing," he mutters, eyes concentrated on the file he's already looked at three times this conversation. "I live for the madness, baby."
Your blood curdles at the absurdity of his words, and the butterflies swarming your tummy genuinely piss you off, because why was that hot?
You roll your eyes right in his face, turning around and sliding the curtain open with a swoosh.
"Hey, Nico," you chirp, your sweetest smile on your face. "This is Dr. Jack Abbot, he's going to be taking care of you when I go home."
The boy's eyes widen at this, and he sits up in his bed.
"You're going?" He asks, and you reach a hand out in comfort.
"No, no, not yet," you assure, and he relaxes back. "But I will be in a little bit here, and I wanted to make sure you got the best of the best checking in on you."
Jack scoffs at this, looking down at the ground before taking a step closer to the bed, squaring his shoulders away from you. Check and mate.
"Hey, buddy," he smiles, a chummy tone to his words. "Just like the pretty lady said, I'm Dr. Abbot, you can just call me Abbot," he places his stethoscope in his ears, beginning a routine wellness check on the boy.
"How you feelin'? Any aches or pains?" He asks, and the boy shakes his head no.
"No, but I bonked my head in the car. The pretty lady says that's why I'm still here," he says with sad eyes, and your heart clutches.
"Ouch, sorry to hear that, dude," he says, and you can't help but absorb yourself at the scene before you. "But the pretty lady is doing the right thing, even though it's boring, okay?"
The kid nods, and he pats his leg gently.
"If you need anything, or it gets worse, press this button," he points to the call bell, and the boy's wide eyes train on him. "I'll come runnin', and if I'm busy, someone else incredible will come to help you, okay?"
He nods, though he's scared. You offer him your best smile again, feeling both of their eyes burning a hole through you. You turn on the ball of your foot, trotting off to help McKay with a seemingly lost patient.
As predicted, you're there for another hour, and probably have another hour or two ahead of you. Exhaustion begins to settle over you like a raincloud, dark and dense.
You don't stop, though, darting from patient to patient, checking in on Nico and others like him, scared and sad and confined to hospital beds.
Only, when you round the corner, you find Nico unconscious, a bad sign considering his likely concussion. Panic is an instant drug to your veins, accelerating your body toward the boy.
You press two fingers on his neck, though you're not an MD, you've picked up some tricks working here for so long. His pulse is thready, and you press the call button, cupping your hands around your mouth to shout for help.
"Nine year old boy, unconscious, we need help over here!" You immediately make way for the nurses running to your aid, backing up and watching them work.
Jack is there moments later, skidding to a halt at his bed. You find his eyes, already on you as they gloss over. He gives you a slight nod, a silent plea to trust him. You nod back, and turn away.
You're planted firmly in the supply closet, unable to drown out the flat line that echoed through the room mere moments ago. A surprise brain hemorrhage, killing the boy in minutes.
Devastation pours over you like a rain storm, angry and unjust. You can't help the sobs that rack your body, so you're not all that surprised when the door pops open behind you.
You turn around to find Jack, muscling his broad shoulders through the doorway. He closes it with his back, resting against it and crossing his feet at the ankles.
Tears fall in little droplets the longer you stare at him. His hazel eyes allow you to tune out the rest of the world, if only for a moment.
"Thought you clocked out," he said, and you sigh.
"Couldn't bear the idea of going home," you croak, and he hums in understanding.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, and your resolve breaks.
You run to him, clinging tight in a hug. He pauses for a moment, surely taken aback by your sweetness, in direct contrast with your earlier prickliness.
Though it's not long until he's melting into your touch, his own arms closing around your waist and pressing you flush against him. The solid buff of his chest is comforting, familiar, and you're unashamed as you bury yourself into him.
You turn your gaze up, so you're resting your chin on his chest, eyes boring into his. They speak to you, asking a question, asking permission. You grant it, pulling his face into yours and crashing your lips together.
It's reviving, invigorating after this debilitating shift, one he's just started. If you could be late this morning, he can lose a little bit, too.
He hoists you up with the same ease of that morning, pressing you into the plentiful shelves behind you. You ignore the rattling and crashing, opting to take care of it at a less Abbot-y time.
Your fingers tangle in his hair, tugging and pulling on his gray curls as he continues to work you open with his mouth. Adrenaline pumps through your veins, as you slip your fingers under the hem of his scrubs, tickling the abs there with your nails.
He shivers, and you feel on top of the world. You two had never been this private before, never been this handsy, before, and you feel the newfound urgency all around you.
It's all consuming, like his lips, and the way they part and peck and suck. You throw your head back, your own shiver a lighting bolt down your spine.
His clean aftershave fills your nostrils, infiltrating your brain and making it fuzzy. His hands are everywhere, except where you really need him. You grind your hips, wiggling yourself towards him as far as he'll let you go.
He chuckles at this, a soothing coo rounding his plump lips.
"Poor baby, need me this bad?" He asks, and you nod, shame crawling up your spine like a spider.
"Yes," you nearly sob, a dangerous level of pleasure blurring your brain. "Please, I need to let go," you whisper against his lips, and he nearly crumbles before you.
Guilt and shame and pleasure twist in a sadistic storm inside of you, your earlier argument fresh in your mind as you once again succumb to Jack. In your defense, you are clocked out. What he does on his shift is his business, and clearly Robby doesn't give a fuck.
A switch flips inside you as his fingers graze down your tits, your stomach, rising back up and squeezing. The way his hands swallow the plushy skin makes your eyes roll into the back of your head, arching your back into him.
"God, that feels so good," you moan, pressing your chest into him further. "You're such a fucking asshole."
He laughs at this, pulling your breasts out of your blouse and palming the bare skin, pinching your nipples between his fingers.
You whine at this, jaw falling slack at the harsh sensation.
"You're so pretty, baby, it's okay for you to let yourself feel this, y'know?" He asks, continuing his massage on your skin.
Your confident reserve fades once again, a pout plumping your lips at his words.
"I know you feel bad, I know I made you mad this morning," he whispers, and tears instantly gloss your eyes. "But you can let go. You worked so hard today, can you let me reward you?"
You nod fervently, and he reaches for your waist, snapping the waistband of your skirt against your skin.
You squeal, and he wiggles the fabric down your hips, slinging it from your ankle to the other side of the room. You're left in your white blouse, clinging with sweat to your exhausted body, your panties, and your heels.
Jack licks his lips, and you think for a moment that this must be just a law of nature, you and him. A lion, gunning for his prey, a wolf and a lamb, Jack and you. Animals, about to devour and be devoured.
That's exactly what he does, smashing his lips against yours with increased fervor. Your hands find his shirt, pushing it up his frame as best as you can. He catches your drift with a teasing smile, stepping back slightly to pull it off.
You take a moment to absorb his sculpted frame, the ridges and bumps that made up his perfect body. He knows exactly what you're thinking, and acts accordingly.
He drops to his knees, running his fingers up and down the cotton strip of your panties, up and down, up and down. His fingertips catch your clit every time, and you whine and thrash at the contact.
He leans in then, pressing a kiss over the top of the now damp cotton. He lands right on your clit, the feather light contact making you jump in his grasp. He chuckles against you, and you whine at the vibrations.
"Jesus, my girl is sensitive," he grunts, pushing your panties to the side. He furrows his brows at the sight of your bare, glistening pussy, his lips rounded in an impressed whistle.
"So fucking gorgeous, look at how swollen you are," he pinches at your puffiness, and you kick your leg up, letting it fall onto his back with a thud.
"Can I use my mouth? Is that what you need?" He asks, and you nod your head like a madwoman.
"Yeah?" He asks, and it ignites another sob from your throat.
"Yes!" You groan, thrusting your hips closer to his face. "Please, I need it, please," your eyes tear up again and he pouts, relenting immediately.
His lips come down on your clit, pressing a wet, sloppy kiss against it. He gives it a few kitten licks next, taking it between his lips to suck after a few sweet ones. Your back arches against the supply shelf, pushing your center into his face as much as possible.
He presses his hands on your hips, easing your desperation ever so slightly.
"Careful, baby girl," he says. "I got you, okay? Gonna make you feel real good."
He means it, too. He's lapping at you, it's relentless, wanton almost as he plays with your wetness, spreading it with his fingers near your opening.
He delves his tongue in you, thumb taking care of your clit in a way that has you seeing stars. Your heart thumps in your chest, the sensation almost overwhelming, the tears you thought had finally gone spring back, and this time, you're too far gone to stop them.
One slips from your eye, a soft sob following it. He reaches a hand up, squeezing your own as he continues his assault, swapping his tongue for his fingers.
His tongue finds your clit once again, flicking and swirling and leaving trails of fire deep in your belly, all while his thick finger pokes at your entrance.
"This okay, baby?" He mutters in between hard sucks and soft kisses.
"Yes, Jackie, so good," you whisper, and he chuckles happily against your core.
The intrusion of his finger wracks another sob out of you, and you can feel him smile against you. His ability to immediately find your sweet spot turns your legs to absolute jelly. They shake involuntarily against him, and you can tell he's just reveling in how undone you are.
"My sweet thing, turned to fucking ash just from my tongue and fingers?" He asks, adding another one at that. You gasp, tears steadily flowing at this point.
You nod, unable to answer him. Whether this is out of shame or excitement or your impending orgasm, you don't really know. He loves it all the same, and picks up the speed of his fingers.
That familiar hot spring coils in your belly, twisting tighter and tighter the more he works you open. The tears finally subside, as you concentrate on finding your release.
You feel hazy, drunk off his touch when you finally snap. Time slows when it all crashes over you, and you arch your back at the sensation. Fire pools in your abdomen as the shock waves roll through you, Jack working you through every last bit of it.
"Fuck, Jack, fuckfuckJackfuck, feels so fucking good, thank you," you cry, unabashed and loud.
"Shhhh, shh, shh, shh," Jack coos against you, reaching a hand up to squeeze your tit.
He rolls your nipple through his fingers as you come down, the extra stimulation making you whine. He settles his movements as you shake and writhe against him, a calming overstimulation racking your body. Your chest heaves with your deep breaths, a deep rise and fall against the man who just took you apart.
He's quick to his feet, wrapping his arms around your shaking frame, pulling you in close. He rocks you back and forth as you come down from your high, a large hand rubbing the expanse of your back.
The actions nearly make you cry again, and you shudder against him. He shushes you again, muttering about how he knows, and how well you did for him.
"Thank you Jackie," you whisper, pressing your cheek against his shoulder.
"Anytime, baby," he presses a kiss to your temple, and reluctantly pulls away.
A certain sadness settles over you two, then, an all knowing reminder of what you'd been through today, what you'd quipped about this morning, to Nico, to now. It feels like you've lived a million lives only today.
Jack helps clean you up, wiping you down and redressing you with gentle hands. He helps you back onto unsteady feet, and pulls you in for a kiss. He brings a palm to cup your cheek, his free one grabbing yours, leading it toward the tent in his pants.
You gasp against his lips, and he chuckles, squeezing you tight against him. His hand reaches down for a greedy squeeze of your plump ass, and you can't help but smack his shoulder.
"Count this as an IOU?" He asks, and you nod hungrily.
Your eyes glaze over at the heady thought, and he sees it right away. He lightly taps your cheek, pressing a kiss to the spot right after.
"You need to go home, get some rest," he says, pinching your ass and making you squeal.
You give him sad eyes, and he knows what you need.
"We need to talk, I know," he says, running his hands up and down your arms. "We both need to get through the next couple shifts before that happens. You have the weekend off?" He asks, and you nod.
"Good, me too," he mutters, and your heart flutters. "We'll go to dinner, I'm buying."
"You better," you quip, and he smacks your ass. "Hey!" You whine, and he kisses you again.
Finally, he parts from you, walking back to the closet door. Before he opens it, he turns back and looks at you, and it's like you're pinned to the shelf. Your teeth sink into your bottom lip as the heat builds between you once again.
"See you Friday," he says, and you nod in confirmation. "Wear something' pretty."
summary: you agree to girls’ night to celebrate your first week back at work and end up a little too drunk, a little too honest, and very much forced to confront how serious your relationship with spencer has gotten.
genre: fluff tags/warnings: reader is elle's sister, alcohol consumption, drunken girls’ night shenanigans with Penelope & Emily & JJ, and they are nosyyyyyy, knight in shining armor spencer reid, drunken attempt at seduction lmao but nothing explicit happens, deep relationship talk, tooth-rotting sweetness, no use of y/n. 6k words
a/n: GIF creds to @reidgif 🫶🏼
greenaway!reader masterlist 🥀
By the end of your first week back at Quantico, you’ve realized two things.
One: you are still very good at your job.
Two: being back at your job means everyone around you suddenly has opinions about what you should be doing with your Friday night.
You’re halfway through slowly packing up your things when Garcia appears at your desk with a mischievous grin on her face.
“No,” you say immediately.
She puts a hand to her chest. “That is so rude. I haven’t even spoken yet!”
“I can feel your schemes in the air, Penelope.”
JJ stands nearby, bag in hand, looking far too calm for someone participating in an ambush. “We’re going to O’Keefe’s.”
You finally glance up. “And?”
“And,” Garcia says slowly, as if speaking to a child, “you’re coming with us! It's girls’ night.”
This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that your teammates have tried to force you out with them. You say yes more often now than you used to, because, against all odds, they’ve somehow weaseled their way into your life as genuine friends, but you’re not exactly what one would call a reliable attendee. Especially not on a night like tonight, when all you want to do after your long-awaited return to functional society is eat takeout on the couch with Spencer, take a long hot shower (also with Spencer), and pass out (again, with Spencer).
You stare at them. “Funny, I don’t remember agreeing to that.”
Emily, leaning against the edge of a neighboring desk with her arms folded, lifts one shoulder. “That’s because we didn’t ask. We’re telling.”
You grimace and lean back in your chair. “I just got through my first week back, you guys. I’m exhausted.”
Garcia softens. “Exactly. You got through your first week back! We need to celebrate, honey.”
You glance over toward Spencer on instinct, and he’s already looking at you. Garcia follows your line of sight and lights up.
“Oh, good idea. Reid! Tell your girlfriend she should come with us.”
You narrow your eyes at him. “Don’t you dare.”
Spencer, who should most definitely understand the danger he’s in, simply pushes back from his desk and says, very calmly, “I think you should go.”
You blink at him, utterly betrayed. “Et tu, Reid?”
Morgan lets out a bark of laughter from across the room. Emily actually smiles. Garcia clutches her chest.
Spencer, to his credit, has the decency to look a little apologetic. “You made it through your first week back,” he says. “You should celebrate.”
Emily nods toward him like he’s finally said something useful. “See? Even Boy Wonder thinks you need a drink.”
“And fries,” Garcia adds. “And female companionship. And a chance to talk about something other than work or the deeply haunting state of Reid’s current hairstyle.”
You drag a hand down your face. “Why are you all like this?”
“Because,” JJ says, “you’re our friend, and you’re back, and we want to hang out with you.”
Garcia nods emphatically. “Exactly. You survived a gunshot, surgery, physical therapy, what I can only assume is the world’s clingiest boyfriend, and your first week back on the job. You can survive one night of dive bar drinks with the hottest women the FBI has to offer. Women who happen to adore you, I might add.”
You blink at her. “This is emotional terrorism,” you say with a deep sigh.
Garcia beams. “So that’s a yes!”
“It’s not a—” You stop. Exhale. “Fine. One drink.”
JJ smiles immediately. Emily looks pleased in the most annoying way possible. Garcia claps once like a Disney villain.
Emily reaches over and grabs your bag off the floor before you can change your mind. “Great. Let’s go, ladies, before Greenaway remembers she has free will.”
You stand with a huff that’s mostly for show and shrug into your jacket. Spencer is already there by the time you straighten, close enough that nobody else would clock the way his hand brushes your elbow.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“No, Brutus.” You give him a look. “You betrayed me.”
He chuckles softly. “I’ll come pick you up later,” he says. “Whenever you want to leave.”
You glance up at him. “I can just take a cab home, Spence. You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to,” he says. “I want to.”
Garcia is already halfway out of the bullpen. “Greenaway! Move your brooding little booty. We’re leaving.”
You roll your eyes and sling your bag over your shoulder.
Spencer catches your wrist for one brief second, just enough to turn you back toward him.
“Have fun,” he says softly.
Then, before you can say something sarcastic and ruin it, he leans in and presses a quick kiss to your temple.
He steps back like he didn’t just do that in the middle of the office, and you stare at him.
“What?” he asks.
Morgan passes behind Spencer and lets out a low, entertained whistle.
“Shut up, Morgan,” you and Spencer shout at the same time, still looking at each other.
Morgan just grins wider and keeps walking.
Spencer nods toward the door. “Go. I’ll see you later.”
Emily appears at your side and pushes you out of the bullpen and toward the elevators with an arm around your shoulder. “That was disgusting.”
Garcia grins. “No, it was adorable. Big difference.”
JJ presses the down button and smirks. “I’m suddenly much more interested in our topics of conversation this evening.”
The elevator opens with a ding, and Garcia ushers everyone in with entirely too much enthusiasm. You step in last, turning just in time to catch one more glimpse of Spencer standing by the bullpen doors, hands in his pockets, watching you leave with that soft, wrecked look he never quite manages to hide anymore.
—
The familiarity of O’Keefe’s hits you all at once the second you push through the door.
Warmth. Noise. The sticky smell of beer and fried food. The hum of conversation layered over a game playing on one of the TVs in the corner and music from the jukebox near the bar.
“Oh, thank god,” Garcia sighs, pressing one hand dramatically to her chest as she leads the group towards a booth in the back. “A room full of alcohol and bad decisions. I’m home.”
You exhale through your nose at that and sit down, accepting your fate for the evening.
“Okay,” Garcia says, clapping once as the waitress appears. “We need mozzarella sticks, fries, and something colorful with lots of tequila in it.”
Emily glances at the drink menu. “No tequila for me tonight. Jack and coke, please.”
JJ laughs and hands the menus back in a neat stack. “I’ll just take a beer.”
You look down at your own menu without really reading it. “Whiskey, on the rocks.”
Garcia hands over the menus with a satisfied sigh. “Perfect. We’re off to an excellent start.”
Emily glances at you. “You still have time to fake a migraine and leave, you know.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
The drinks come, and feel your shoulders unclench by accident after your first sip.
You realize this feeling is another thing nobody tells you about getting injured badly enough to disrupt the whole architecture of your life. Everyone focuses on the obvious parts — surgeries, scars, whether you’ll be okay, whether you’ll be normal, whatever that means. What no one really prepares you for is how strange it feels to start participating in your own life again once the worst of it is over. How bizarre it is to sit in a bar on a Friday night, in jeans and boots and lipstick with your girlfriends around a wooden table, and realize the world kept spinning while you were busy focusing on surviving.
There’s also the more humiliating part, which is that you haven’t done this in what feels like forever. Drinking, or hanging out with friends, or just simply sitting still and talking and existing without a doctor asking whether your pain is sharp or dull or a man you love watching your face too closely every time you stand up. The whole thing feels weirdly high stakes for something as stupid and simple as greasy fries and cheap liquor.
Garcia raises her glass. “To Greenaway,” she says, voice softening in a way that makes you self-conscious, “being back at work and a semi-willing participant in girls’ night.”
Emily lifts her glass. “A triumph.”
JJ’s smile is warm when she reaches in with hers too. “To Greenaway.”
You look at all three of them over the rim of your glass. “This is disgusting,” you mutter, which is about as close to thank you as you’re willing to get.
You let your glass clink against theirs anyway.
For a while, the conversation behaves itself. Garcia launches into a story about a disastrous blind date with a man who described himself as “alpha-adjacent,” which makes Emily nearly choke on her drink. JJ talks about Henry’s current refusal to sleep unless one sock is missing, which Garcia insists is “actually very chic of him.” After a waitress drops off the fries and mozzarella sticks, Emily tells a story about a truly alarming hostel she once stayed at in Prague, and before you know it, you’re contributing your own horror story about a motel in Kansas that smelled like mildew and bad choices.
Penelope points at you with a fry. “See? This is nice. You’re socializing,” to which you roll your eyes in response.
By the time you’re halfway through your second whiskey, the room feels warmer, the edges softened just enough that you stop noticing how many people are around you and start noticing smaller things instead. The exact shade of Emily’s lipstick. The glitter worked into Garcia’s eyeliner. The way JJ laughs with her whole face when she actually lets herself. The fact that you’re here at all.
You’re halfway through a story about the world’s most idiotic suspect trying to outrun Morgan during a case in Vermont last year when your phone buzzes against the table.
You look down, and Spencer’s name glows up at you from the screen alongside a text preview:
How’s it going? I hope you’re having fun.
Your mouth twitches before you can stop it.
Emily clocks it instantly. “There it is.”
You look up. “There what is?”
“Your face,” Garcia says, delighted. “You have a face!”
You cock a brow suspiciously. “Everyone has a face, Penelope.”
Emily leans back, arms folded. “No, she means your Spencer face.”
You stare at them. “My what.”
“Your Spencer face! You get this, like, very specific look on your face when you talk to him, or hear other people talking about him, or anytime you even think about him. Sorta smug, sorta soft, very in love. It’s adorable,” Garcia explains.
You pick up your phone and groan, “I hate all of you,” before typing back under the table:
i’m… surviving. no rescue required yet but it’s minute-by-minute
Three dots appear almost immediately.
Glad to hear it. Love you.
“It’s undeniable,” Garcia says, catching your expression. “That is, without a doubt, your Spencer face.”
You slide your phone face-down onto the table. “Say that one more time and I’m leaving.”
Garcia leans both elbows on the table and gives you a look that’s far too bright to be trustworthy. “Okay. So. Since Reid has officially entered the chat—”
“No.”
“—we have questions.”
“Absolutely not.”
Emily lifts a shoulder. “You had to have known this was coming.”
Well, she has a point there.
Garcia starts firing off questions immediately. “How clingy is he? Are you moving in together? Who fell first? Who said I love you first? Did he cry when you said it? Did you cry? Was there background music? Candles? Rose petals? Should I be offended that I wasn’t invited as a witness?”
JJ snorts into her beer.
You put your glass down carefully. “You all need professional help.”
“Don’t worry, I have a therapist on speed dial,” Garcia says. “What I don’t have is information.”
Emily tilts her head. “C’mon, Greenaway. You can’t really expect us not to be curious about our two coworkers who are dating.”
The thing is, they’re not wrong to be curious. The Spencer they know isn’t the same Spencer you know. They know the version of Spencer with brains and facts and a perpetually crooked tie, the one who hides half his personality behind statistics and awkwardness until people make the mistake of thinking that’s all there is to him. But you, by some impossible stroke of luck or an undeserved & pre-determined string of fate, have been granted the privilege of knowing there’s so much more. And somewhere along the line, without asking permission, he stopped feeling like a part of your life and started feeling like the shape of it.
Maybe that’s why this line of questioning makes your skin feel too tight — because they aren’t asking about a silly little coworker crush like they had been at that margarita night Garcia hosted many months ago. Now they’re asking about your actual life. About something real enough that if you look at it directly for too long, the brightness and warmth nearly blinds you.
“You gave him a key to your place, didn’t you?” JJ asks, breaking you out of your trance.
The table goes quiet for half a second.
You look at her. “Who told you that?”
JJ shrugs. “No one had to. When he first came back to work after you got shot, he was so worried about leaving you alone all day, so I went with him to check on you at lunchtime. He let himself into your apartment with a key on his usual keyring, and he looked very comfortable doing it.”
You look down at your drink. “You people are so invasive.”
Garcia points at you triumphantly. “Aha! That’s not a denial!”
You take a long sip of whiskey that does absolutely nothing to save you.
“It was… practical,” you say, which immediately sounds like a lie, even to you. “I gave it to him when I was still stuck at the hospital so he could bring me things from my place. Then he didn’t want me to be alone while I was recovering, and…” You lift one shoulder. “He still has the key.”
Emily’s mouth curves. “Very practical.”
“Shut up.”
“So,” Emily says. “How serious is this thing, really?”
You could dodge. You should dodge. You should say something glib and slippery and let them all chase their own tails around it.
Instead, because your second glass of whiskey is now treacherously empty and because these women have somehow figured out how to disarm you with minimal effort, you hear yourself say, “Um. I guess it’s… pretty serious. Yeah.”
Garcia actually slaps a hand over her heart. “Define pretty, please. Pretty pretty please!”
“God, I don’t know, you guys,” you say with an exasperated sigh. “Serious enough that, yeah, he has a key to my apartment. Enough that I can’t remember the last time I spent more than, like, four hours without talking to him, outside of when we’re asleep. Enough that everyone in this room is apparently allowed to bully me about him.”
JJ leans forward slightly. “Do you see a future with him?”
You look at her, then at the table, then at your empty glass. The honest answer rises before you can kill it.
“Yeah,” you say quietly. “That’s kind of the problem.”
Garcia goes so still you’d think someone muted her with a remote. Emily’s brows lift. JJ just watches you.
You let out a short, humorless laugh. “Not, like, a problem-problem. Not in a bad way. Just… I think he got serious about it before I realized I was letting him get serious, and then I was already in it too, apparently, before I’d even noticed that was happening, and then one day I looked up and he was just…” You stop, irritated by the catch in your own voice. “Everywhere. In every corner of my life.”
You swirl your glass against the table and stare at the condensation gathered on the rim, trying very hard not to think about how exposed you feel right now.
Then, because the alcohol has successfully eliminated your usual filters, you add, “He’s annoyingly good at staying, through pretty much anything. And… I think he’s teaching me how to be good at staying too.”
Garcia makes a strangled noise and beams at you.
“Oh my god,” she whispers. “You are in love-love.”
You roll your eyes. “That’s not exactly breaking news.”
“It’s not,” JJ says gently. “Anyone with eyes can see it nowadays. But it’s still nice to hear you say it out loud.”
You stare at her — at all of them, really: Garcia glowing with vindication and affection, Emily pretending not to be touched, JJ looking so proud it hurts, and another thought arrives uninvited: they love you too. Not in the way Spencer does, obviously — not in the all-consuming, low-voiced, hand-at-your-waist way. But still, in a real way, in a way you don’t think you’ve ever been loved by friends before. In the show-up, drag-you-out, celebrate-your-first-week-back, make-fun-of-you-until-you-stop-deflecting way.
You laugh despite yourself, because what else are you supposed to do with this? These women, this bar, this absurd line of questioning, this life that somehow expanded around you while you were busy trying not to die?
Garcia pulls your focus back to the conversation at hand. “Now I need to know if he’s actually romantic or if this is all just the natural result of extreme pining and good bone structure.”
You shake your head and reach for another fry. “Yes. Fine. He can be romantic,” you admit.
Garcia leans so far across the table you’re worried she’s about to fall into the mozzarella sticks. “In what way?”
You hesitate, because how do you explain Spencer as a boyfriend? How do you explain that privately he’s still Spencer, still dorky and earnest and too smart for his own good, but also softer than anyone would guess, and sharper too? That he remembers everything you say and acts like that’s normal? That he takes every tiny thing he knows about you into consideration before planning dates? That even the physical things with him somehow feel impossibly specific, like he’s learned your body with the same frightening thoroughness he learns everything else? That he can be so maddeningly practical one second and then look at you like you’ve just hung the moon in the sky with your bare hands the next?
Eventually, you say: “He notices things.”
Emily’s expression shifts first, like she gets exactly how loaded that answer is.
Garcia, predictably, wants more. “Such as?”
“Everything,” you say. “If I’m cold. If I’m tired. If I’m trying to pretend I’m not either of those things. He remembers stupid little things I say and then acts on them weeks later like that’s normal behavior. Like, last week, he bought me this ridiculously expensive brand of coffee beans from a cafe on the other side of the city because I mentioned them once in passing. He keeps my favorite pens stocked at his desk and in his bag because he knows I chew on mine until they stop working.”
You grimace. “Yeah, well. Don’t encourage him. I can’t handle much more of it and still keep my dignity intact.”
Emily props her chin on her hand. “How bad?”
You look at her. “What does that mean.”
“On a scale from one to ten, how embarrassing is he as a boyfriend?” she asks with a shrug.
“Honestly?” you say. “Pretty bad.”
Garcia crows in triumph. “I knew it.”
You look away. “I mean, I’m sorta embarrassing too.”
That catches all three of them off guard. You feel your face warm and immediately regret opening your mouth. But it’s too late now, so you plow forward.
“I miss him when he’s in the next room,” you mumble. “Which is humiliating and codependent and probably very concerning.”
JJ gives you a look that is somehow both sympathetic and deeply entertained. “That doesn’t sound concerning. It sounds sweet.”
Garcia puts both hands over her heart. “You are so disgustingly gone. I love it.”
You lean back in the booth and look up at the ceiling like maybe some god out there in the universe will mercifully strike you down before this gets any worse.
The strike never comes.
—
At some point after their humiliating interrogation, the conversation drifted. Garcia got louder. JJ got funnier. Emily, somehow, got both meaner and more affectionate at the same time. Somebody put more money in the jukebox. A second basket of fries appeared and disappeared. Then another round showed up, and then maybe another one after that, and after a while, keeping count lost its appeal.
Garcia made a passionate argument about who from the BAU would last the longest in a zombie apocalypse (“Survival isn’t just about brute strength! It’s also about adaptability and vibes!”). JJ reached that dangerous stage of tipsy where everything struck her as deeply, genuinely hilarious, including your comparison between Rossi in reading glasses and the Tootsie Pop owl. Emily had one elbow on the table, chin in hand, and the sort of lazy, amused smile that meant she was enjoying everybody else’s nonsense immensely.
The whole room has gone pleasantly soft around the edges. Warmer. Louder. The lights above the bar blur into dull gold halos. Every time Garcia laughs, it seemed to set off the whole table half a second later. Your own body has gotten looser too, the good kind of loose — shoulders unclenched, thoughts less guarded, the usual sharp corners of you sanded down just enough.
But beneath all of it, quiet and constant, is the simple thought that if you asked, Spencer would come pick you up in a heartbeat.
You didn’t realize how much you were counting on that until the room tips one degree too warm and the thought of trying to get yourself home without him suddenly felt both very impossible and completely undesirable.
So you text him.
come get me?
And, because he’s Spencer, his reply comes almost immediately.
You got it. On my way.
The fuzziness only intensifies after that, but you’re at least mostly aware of what’s happening around you. Garcia has somehow moved on from zombies to explaining why she could absolutely win a bar fight if motivated by love. JJ is smiling into the rim of her drink. Emily has abandoned subtlety entirely and is now openly enjoying your slow descent into drunken sentimentality, which is rude but expected.
Then O’Keefe’s front door opens, and there he is.
Spencer pauses just inside the bar for half a second, scanning the room. His shoulders ease the second he spots you, that familiar little drop in tension so slight most people would miss it. You don’t. You never do.
He makes his way over, tie gone, coat on, hair a little wind-mussed from the cold outside. He looks tired in that way only he can: wrung out around the eyes but still put together, still handsome even under shitty bar lighting and the accumulated weight of a work week.
He stops beside the table and waves awkwardly to the entire group.
“Hello,” he says.
You tip your face up, far too happy to see him for someone with any pride left. “Hi, baby.”
The entire table goes silent.
Spencer’s brows lift the tiniest amount. Then his mouth softens into that look — that one that always makes your pulse jump.
“Hi,” he says softly, just to you.
Garcia clamps both hands over her mouth. Emily looks delighted. JJ’s expression has gone so calm it circles back around to dangerous.
You point a finger at all three of them. “Don’t.”
“No one said anything,” JJ says, holding both hands up defensively.
Garcia lowers hers from her mouth just enough to whisper, “Yet.”
Spencer, because he is either merciful or trying very hard to be, just asks, “You okay?”
You nod a little too emphatically. “M’great.”
Emily deadpans, “She’s drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” you say, while reaching for Spencer’s hand and missing on the first attempt. “I’m just… friendlier than usual.”
Spencer takes your hand himself and laces your fingers together before you can fumble again. “Of course.”
He says it so gently that it almost makes you emotional, which is very much not helping the situation.
Garcia, meanwhile, has given up all restraint. “She told us things.”
“Penelope,” you warn.
Spencer’s gaze flicks from her to you, faintly alarmed now in the way of a man who knows there are degrees of terror in your mind and that drunken honesty ranks highly among them. “Things like…?”
Emily takes pity on him, sort of. “Nothing classified.”
JJ sets her glass down. “We mostly just confirmed what we already suspected.”
Spencer, still holding your hand, blinks once. “Which is?”
Garcia leans in, beaming. “That you’re absolutely, totally, completely obsessed with each other.”
You look at the tabletop. The wood grain is suddenly fascinating.
“Ah,” he replies with a soft chuckle.
JJ hands you your purse from where you abandoned it at the opposite end of the booth. “Text us tomorrow so we know you’re alive.”
Garcia points at Spencer. “Take care of her, loverboy.”
He nods. “Always.”
You wish, briefly, for the floor to open up and swallow you whole. But instead, Spencer helps you stand with such absurd care it’s almost offensive. His hand settles lightly at your waist as he steers you through the bar, and your body goes willingly.
—
The night air outside is cold enough to bite.
It hits your face sharply but clears none of the pleasant fuzz in your head. The city glows around you in smeared headlights and neon and streetlamp glow, and Spencer guides you toward the curb where his car’s parked, one hand still warm at your back.
He opens the passenger door and looks at you with that quiet, attentive expression that makes you feel both cherished and mildly threatened.
“You good?” he asks.
You lean against the car and squint at him. “They interrogated me.”
Spencer’s mouth twitches. “That does sound like them.”
You point at him. “It’s all your fault.”
“My fault?”
“You made me go!”
He waits while you lower yourself into the passenger seat and leans in just enough to buckle you, and the whole thing is so stupidly sweet that you have to look away and pretend the dashboard is wildly interesting. He closes the door once you’re settled and walks around to the driver’s side.
When he gets in, he glances over at you as he starts the engine. “I didn’t make you do anything. I just encouraged a night out with your friends.”
“Still Brutus,” you mutter, which is met by a low chuckle and shake of the head from Spencer.
The rest of the drive home is quiet in a good way. Spencer keeps one hand on the wheel and the other resting open between you, and somewhere around the second red light you lace your fingers through his.
He looks over.
“What did they ask about?”
The questions blur together in your whiskey-soaked brain. “Everything,” you say after thinking for a moment. “They were very nosy and a little deranged.”
You turn your head to look at him properly. His profile is too familiar now — the slope of his nose, the soft concentration in his mouth, the line between his brows that shows up when he’s listening carefully.
“They asked what you’re like as a boyfriend,” you add.
Spencer glances over, faintly amused. “And?”
“And I had to say things.”
His brows lift. “Tragic.”
You nod dramatically. “Exactly. It was.”
By the time he parks outside your building and gets you upstairs, your thoughts have all softened into a single, inconvenient ache.
He helps you out of your coat, sets your purse down on the table, gets you water without asking. You sit on the edge of the bed while he moves around the room, toeing off his shoes, unbuttoning his cuffs, setting his watch on the nightstand.
He’s tired. You can see it in the slope of his shoulders and the care he’s no longer even trying to hide. He’s always gentler with you when he’s exhausted, as if all the extra effort it usually takes to conceal the full force of how much he cares has finally burned off.
You watch him longer than you mean to, and he catches you.
“What’s up?”
You shake your head. “Nothing.”
Spencer’s expression shifts. He comes over and kneels in front of you, hands resting lightly on your knees.
“What is it?” he asks softly.
And there it is — that awful tenderness. That exact, patient attention that always seems to make honesty feel both easier and much, much worse.
You look at him and find, with some irritation, that the words do not want to come out in anything resembling order.
“They asked…” You stop, frown, start again. “Um. They asked if this is serious.”
Spencer’s face softens so visibly it’s almost unbearable.
“Oh,” he says.
You nod, suddenly more nervous than you were in the bar, which makes no sense because it’s just him. Just Spencer, the man who has a key to your apartment and alphabetizes your spices and picks you up without hesitation and tells you he loves you at least five times a day.
But that’s exactly why it’s so nerve wracking, maybe.
You look down at the front of his shirt instead of his face. “And I told them yes.”
A beat of silence.
Then, quietly: “Okay.”
You let out a breath that sounds more annoyed than relieved. “No, see, that’s not enough.”
Spencer’s left hand moves from your knee up to your chin, guiding your face up just enough that you have to meet his eyes.
“What do you need me to say?” he asks gently.
“I—” You stop. Try again. “I don’t know. Something normal. Or not normal. Just…” You gesture vaguely between the two of you because apparently language has abandoned you. “They asked and I said yes and now I’m in my head about it because we’ve never actually said so out loud in those words, and I know that’s stupid because, like, obviously we’re serious. Duh. We say I love you. You have a key to my freaking apartment and we haven’t spent a night apart by choice in months. I know what this is. But I just—”
You stop again, mortified.
“It’s not stupid,” he says.
You swallow. “It’s not?”
“Not at all.” His thumb brushes once across your cheek. “And yes. We’re serious.”
The simplicity of it makes your throat go tight.
Spencer gives the smallest, softest little playful shrug. “I mean, think about it. You have a key to my apartment too.”
You almost laugh. It comes out sounding too close to a sigh.
Spencer watches your face for a second, then adds, quieter, “I think about it all the time, you know. How serious this is for me. How serious you are to me.” He glances down for half a second, then back up. “But I didn’t know if saying that would make you feel pressured, so I was trying very hard to let you get there however you needed to.”
Something in your chest folds in on itself.
It’s not even the serious part that gets you, not really. You already knew that. It’s the rest of it — the fact that he’s been thinking about it too; the fact that he’s been intentionally careful not to crowd you into saying something before you were ready. It’s so unfairly him that, for a second, all you can do is stare.
You look at him for a little too long, then reach for the front of his shirt and tug. He comes without resistance, mouth brushing yours, soft and warm and patient.
The kiss deepens slowly. His hand slides to your waist and yours goes into his hair, because you like the little sound it pulls from him. You slide your other hand down his chest, mouth skimming his jaw, and in your softest, most shameless voice, you ask, “Are you going to fuck me now, or do I need to make a more persuasive argument?”
Spencer closes his eyes and laughs softly against your cheek. “No, angel, I’m not.”
You blink. “Rude.”
“You’re drunk,” he reminds you softly.
“I’m also charming.”
“You are,” he agrees.
“So—”
“So no.”
You grumble. “You hate joy, Spencer Reid.”
“I love joy,” he insists. “I’m a huge fan of joy. I’m less of a fan of taking advantage of you when you’ve had too much whiskey.”
You squint at him. “What if I said ‘make love’ instead? Does that move the needle at all?”
Spencer actually breaks at that, shoulders shaking with a laugh he tries and fails to suppress.
“No,” he says, still smiling, one hand sliding up to cradle the back of your neck. “It doesn’t.”
You sigh dramatically. “This relationship is so one-sided.”
“That is an absurd statement and you know it,” he says with a laugh, and leans in again — one long, slow kiss that leaves your knees weak and your head warm. When he finally pulls back, he brushes his thumb over your bottom lip. “Try again when you’re sober. I’ll do anything you ask.”
You smirk. “Anything? That’s a very dangerous offer.”
Spencer stands, mouth twisted in an exasperated grin. “Go brush your teeth, silly girl.”
You glare. He waits. You lose and grumble dramatically as you trudge into the bathroom.
Eventually, exhaustion starts to take hold. Spencer helps you out of your clothes, hands you one of his old shirts, gets you under the blankets. He climbs in beside you after turning off the lamp, and the room goes dark around the warm shape of him.
You roll toward him instinctively, your body finding his like a puzzle piece. His arm settles around you as you lay your head on his chest and tangle your legs with his. The two of you fit together too easily now, which is still a bit alarming if you think about it for too long.
For a minute, neither of you says anything.
Then you murmur, already half gone, “You liked when I called you baby.”
Spencer’s chest rises under your cheek with a silent laugh. “Maybe a little.”
You smile into his shirt. “Knew it.”
“You’re not going to start calling me that all the time now, are you?”
“God no. You know how I feel about using pet names.” You tilt your head just enough to look at him in the dark. “But… maybe sometimes.”
Spencer’s hand slides up your back, slow and warm. “I’ll take it.”
His breathing evens out under your ear. Yours follows a second later.
“Sweet dreams,” he whispers sleepily. “Love you.”
Your heart still flutters in that same embarrassing way it did the first time he said those words.
“Love you too,” you whisper back.
Tomorrow, you’ll wake up and remember enough of this to want to throw yourself violently into the Potomac. You’ll remember the bar and the interrogation and the pet name and the failed attempt at seduction and the deeply incriminating declarations of emotional seriousness.
But that’s a problem for tomorrow’s version of you. Tonight, Spencer’s body is warm against yours, his mouth is still soft from kissing you, and the awful, frightening shape of your future no longer feels quite so awful or frightening when it’s lying here breathing beside you.
Serious, you think, right before sleep pulls you under.
Yeah.
That sounds about right.
ᝰ.ᐟ
this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️
PSA: likes do very little for promoting posts on tumblr! if you'd like to support a fic, please reblog!
⋆⭒˚.⋆ don’t remember calling me - spencer reid x bau!reader
𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬 you were in an accident and both you and spencer are figuring out how to deal with it.
𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 angst, typical criminal minds content, reader gets beat up, physical violence, descriptions of physical injury’s, lots of freaking out, mild panic attack, angst + comfort, established relationship
𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 2.5k
𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 this fic is inspired entirely on billie’s eilish’s the 30th. haven’t been posting but i’ve got a lot of almost finished drafts and requests im getting through atm
𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 | 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
Sometimes, Spencer hated his limitless memory.
Because of course, it worked wonders when he had to remember important dates, or endless facts that came remarkably handy in cases. Things no one else even considers remembering. Amazing for remembering favorite things of his favorite people, or remembering things they’d previously mentioned liking.
It was amazing until it found ways to haunt him.
He remembered when Morgan pulled to a stop, glancing up at the red light in front of him. He remembered when Penelope typed away aimlessly in the back of the car, reading out a few connections she found between this particular Unsub and the third and hopefully last victim. Everything was fine.
They almost had the case figured out. Hotch had called in, (exactly twenty-three minutes ago) informing them that that you and Emily had a lead on the whereabouts of the Unsub.
He remembered the tone in Morgan’s voice when he picked up the phone. “What?”
Both him and Penelope had glanced his way absentmindedly, not really thinking much of it.
“Do they know who yet?” He had asked, taking a sudden sharp turn towards the left. The pair watched as Morgan’s face fell, and his grip on the steering wheel had tightened. He remembered the look on Penelope’s face as she quickly glanced over at him, who probably looked equally as worried, if not more. Something hadn’t been sitting right, at all— he remembered from the second the day had started something inside him was telling him that.
“What’s going on?” Penelope's voice was shaky when she set her computer down to the side. Spencer just kept his eyes on Derek, narrowing them slightly at the subtle gulp in his throat and the way he nervously looked over at him. Not Penelope, him.
“Derek—“
He remembered when he told him that you had been hurt and how he was unable to think of anything else.
He looked forward towards the road, avoiding the way his co-worker and friend sat up in his seat, straining against his seatbelt as his chest turned to face him. “I don’t know exactly what happened, Hotch just told me she was ambushed and they’re now waiting on the ambulance.”
“Ambulance?” He could’ve sworn his heart dropped into the very pits of his stomach.
Penelope covered her mouth, tears already boring into them with a soft gasp that came from her mouth. “Is she okay?”
Derek’s mouth twisted into a straight line as he opened his mouth to speak and Spencer swore he had never felt as much panic course through him.
He didn’t usually freak out, but he swore his head just stopped working right there and then. All he was able to think about was getting to you. “They don’t know—“
“Drive.” Spencer told Derek. With a firm nod and no room for complaint, he stepped on the gas pedal, signaling on the sirens as he swerved through the streets.
Six minutes and thirty five point two seconds.
That's how long it took for them to get to the scene, where two ambulances and cop cars seemed displayed around the small suburban home. He felt time move as if it were in slow motion.
The car hadn’t even come to a stop and Spencer was already stumbling throughout the door, pushing his shaky legs towards the already chaotic scene.
Unbearable noises surrounded him— people clattering and shouting about, orders being thrown around aimlessly, sirens and bypassers stopping to gasp and gaunt at the scene.
Two officers were down on the floor, covered by a simple thin white cloth and he felt the nausea settle in. Just the thought of one of them being you made his knees grow weak and the bile quickly hike its way up his throat.
Before he could rush around in attempts to find you, his eyes landed on Hotch, hunched over a moving stretcher surrounded by about three, maybe even more, medics.
It all seemed visceral. An automatic response. Soon enough his legs were pushing him towards the stretcher that made its way towards the ambulance. “Hotch—“
He turned around, and allowed just enough space to reveal your absolutely destroyed form. Your eyes kept fluttering open and close, seemingly bothered by all the noise and light. Your breathing sounded strangled, covered by the oxygen mask you had on but the sound alone was something Spencer was sure would haunt him until the day he died.
He still remembered.
Spencer felt like he had been punched in the stomach. All he could do was push one of the medics aside and hunch over you as you fought against the universe itself to regain consciousness.
“Hey,” He cooed, voice tightening and nearly breaking in a cry. He cleared his throat and blinked through his tears, smiling down at you.
You couldn’t say a single word, but you mustered enough strength to lift your pinky, grazing it against his knuckles. Your face showed a much different reaction though, furrowing your brows in what seemed to be excruciating pain.
“She’s mostly unresponsive,” The medics informed. Spencer followed them alongside Hotch, until they got to the ambulance, clicking the stretcher upwards.
“Hey, listen to me,” He whispered, ducking down so he was closer to you. “I love you, okay?”
Your small fist grabbed the fabric of his shirt, not wanting him to leave your side, but it was hurting you too much to hold on. Your fist feebly fell and the medics somehow pushed him off and you were taken into the ambulance and he really didn’t know if that was the last time he’d see you.
He watched the doors slam shut, frozen completely in his place. He remembered watching the ambulance drive away and having to stop his legs from running after it. He remembered Hotch trying to grab his attention from the disappearing ambulance.
He remembered thinking non-stop but for the first time ever, wanting to stop it and not being able to.
Something so alarming started to awaken within him and he wasn’t really sure what to do with himself.
He spent thirteen hours and sixteen minutes in the hospital that night and next morning. Hotch and the others came by in turns to keep him company in the cold empty waiting room, but he didn’t budge.
The second to stay the most was Emily, given how she was also attacked at the scene but much less severely. She ended up with a few bruises and scratches— she silently wished it had been more.
Maybe then the damage on you would’ve been less.
He remembered sitting with Morgan and the others when the doctors came in, informing him that you had gone into hypovolemic shock and they needed to perform an emergency surgery to stop the internal bleeding that was causing your vitals to plummet.
Spencer even remembered, word by word and syllable by syllable that there was a high chance that you may not even wake up from the surgery due to how much trauma your body had received.
Three broken ribs, dozens, maybe hundreds, lacerations scattered across your arms and stomach, a ruptured spleen and a concussion. That wasn’t even including all the bits of physiological trauma you now had to attack once— and if— you woke up.
Spencer seriously felt his resolve to remain calm crumple the second the medics mentioned that the Unsub used a metal pole to beat you nearly to death.
He had asked for every detail and he remembered each one and how utterly hopeless they all made him feel. He cried, because he simply didn’t know what to do with himself. He didn’t know how to fix it, or how to help— he wasn’t even sure he could.
Because what if he had been there instead of Emily? What if he was able to stop it? What if more backup was sent in, what if when you had told him you felt off this morning when going into work he’d tell you to stay put and rest it off? What would’ve happened then?
What if he would’ve gone with Emily instead of you, what if you were actually lifeless when they had found you? What if you didn’t wake up? What if this meant he’d never get to hold you for a last time, and had to stick with the memory of seeing you bloody and bruised. What if you never actually—
“Reid,” Spencer looked up from his palms, which holstered themselves on his knees by his elbows. Emily smiled at him meekly. “She’s awake,”
Spencer looked around, blinking heavily and realizing he was in the same cold hospital waiting room he’s been in for the past day and a half.
He opened his mouth to speak, but realized it was incredibly dry. Too dry. He cleared out his throat with a firm cough and nodded, standing up feebly.
They walked down the quiet hallway, something so heavy hanging in the air. Just the patterning of his shoes and Emily’s heels bouncing off the walls along with the shuffling of their clothes. Spencer swore he wouldn’t be okay until he saw you but even then he didn’t think he’d be okay. How was any of this going to be okay?
Emily led him to a door and when they pushed it open, you were staring at the wall, seemingly in some kind of deep whirlwind of thoughts. A small knock offered by Emily caught your attention. You turned your head to the side, probably expecting another endless round of nurses. But to your surprise, there stood the one person you’d been wanting to see after this whole ordeal.
A broad yet tired smile made its way onto your face while laying back into the pillows. Spencer took you in, letting out a shaky breath. Your hair was disheveled, and your eyes looked tired. Soft and welcoming but hiding something so much deeper underneath that he’d have to be an idiot to not notice it.
There was a stitch on your forehead and the lash line of one of your eyes protruded a growing dark purple bruise. There were machines and cables and needles stuck beside and into you. And the more Spencer noticed, the more he wished he hadn’t.
“Hey,” Your voice was raspier than usual, small and steady, Spencer noticed this.
But then you smiled just like you used to before the accident and he couldn’t have found you any more beautiful.
“Hey,” He finally answered, walking up to the side of your bed. “How— How are you feeling?”
“I’ll give you guys some privacy.” Emily said, slipping past the door and leaving the two of you to your own accord.
“I’m okay,” You whispered, sounding so small and frail it nearly broke any ounce of self control he was mustering to avoid breaking into tears. “The pain meds are helping a bit,”
He gave you a silent understanding nod. His hand held onto the railing of your bed, not entirely knowing what to say or how to act. You watched him intently, noticing how he couldn’t really bring himself to look at you.
“Do you remember anything?” You turned to stare at the wall, trying to recall anything about the attack, but you unfortunately— some would argue fortunately— didn’t.
You shifted in your bed, scrunching your face in pain in the process, which Spencer noticed. Again. Of course he did.
Spencer looked down at you, dangerously entering territory where the back of his eyes burned, and his own mind bit at him, and he just didn’t know what to do with all the huge feelings that swarmed around inside him.
“Not really,” You muttered, scrunching your nose with a small huff. Spencer reached over, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear and letting his hand cup the side of your cheek.
“You really scared me,” You leaned into the touch of his palm.
“I’m sorry,” He shook his head before he even spoke, blinking rapidly to prevent any tears from falling.
“I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“I almost died,”
Okay, they were starting there. Great.
You had said it in barely above a whisper, staring at your lap and preventing Spencer from getting a look in your eyes. Your lips tugged into a frown. And Spencer said your name, trying to catch your attention.
Suddenly it all hit you. The gravity of it all. It came in stronger than a tidal wave, than a slap you didn’t even see coming. You felt the burning in your ribs, the rips and tears in your skin, the slight swell of your eye, the rattling of your own skull.
Spencer pulled out a chair and sat on it to level himself to your height. He reached out a hand and laced his fingers with yours.
It felt hard to breathe.
More silence.
“You okay?” You sucked in a sharp breath that came out as a little squeak, and suddenly you wanted to cry. Because you were tired of feeling so broken and feeling how every inch of your body hurt.
You shook your head and as soon as you did, a broken sob left your mouth. Your hands flew up quickly, attempting to hide the broken fragments of your gaze. Spencer heard every shard of the glass his heart had been made of around you shatter. He sat up, attempting to hold you from the side in any way he could, letting you cry out all the trauma you received in the past two days.
And you did cry it out, and your ribs burned, your head was pounding and you felt every ache and bruise in your body worsen. Seeing you like this hurt him more than any pain that had ever been inflicted on him.
Spencer pulled away from you once you had calmed down enough and brought one hand to the side of your face, leisurely dragging his thumb against your cheek bone and anywhere any stray tears fell.
“Dang it,” You sniffled, bringing the back of your palm up and rubbing your nose. “This is not how I wanted you to see me after my mini coma,”
Spencer knew you couldn’t keep serious for more than fifteen minutes at a time even if your life depended on it. He’d let you stall the situation this time however. He knows the two of you needed it.
“You look so pretty,” You smiled at his words, looking at him with so much gratitude and leaning into his palm, trying to find refuge in it.
“I bet I do,” You narrowed your eyes at him and he leaned forward pressing a kiss to your lips. You grabbed the wrist of the hand that held your face while he kissed you and gave it a small squeeze, hopefully letting him know how much you cared and appreciated him.
He pulled away, sitting back into the chair but intertwining his fingers with yours, reminding himself to always drag his fingers comfortingly across your knuckles and allow you to know he wasn’t ever leaving your side again.
“They had to change my IV needle,” You decided to stall for a bit. “The vein on my right arm wasn’t doing the job.”
“Really?” He knew that wasn’t entirely possible and that the doctors probably did an ass job at inserting it there in the first place, but he let you wonder on. “How’d that feel?”
“Im afraid of needles, but!-“ You shuffled a little bit around on your pillow for more comfort, huffing proudly. “I squeezed my eyes and tried thinking back on that book that talks about marxist criticism you read to me last week,”
He smiled warmly, bringing your hand over to him and kissing your wrist. “My brave girl,”
You let out a laugh, and he knew then he’d sleep a little better that night. He always did when you were by him.
“Hey Spence,”
“Yeah?”
“Can you stay?” You asked earnestly.
Spencer squeezed your hand. “Your pain meds are hitting you stronger than you thought if you think for a second that i’m leaving your side,”
You smiled. “I’m not going anywhere angel, I promise.”
The two of you basked in each other's silence. You closed your eyes and tried to alleviate the burning in your lungs as your breath shaked from the crying. Spencer just watched you, appreciating a while longer the small freckles and marks across your face.
“Spence,” He hummed, “I’m scared.”
He sighed heavily. Suddenly realizing that this wasn’t something easy to come. And he was too, because he almost lost the love of his life and he didn’t know what that information would do to him, much less to you.
For the first time, Spencer was out of smart answers and reasons why this would all be okay. It was hard for him to think he’d never feel this scared of loosing you again, and that idea haunted him.
LIKE REAL PEOPLE DO ⟢ spencer reid x greenaway!reader
summary: a follow-up doctor’s appointment leaves you with medical clearance, a filthy dream, and a rapidly deteriorating ability to act normal around your boyfriend spencer reid.
genre: smut (with a lil angst & hurt/comfort) tags/warnings: 18+ MDNI! reader is elle's sister, mentions of gunshot wound/surgery, sex dream, miscommunication (or more like lack thereof), pent-up horniness, incredibly tender & thoughtful spencer reid, making out, dry humping, fingering, oral (f receiving), handjob, very lovey dovey p-in-v sex, spencer calls reader angel & sweetheart, no use of y/n. title from the hozier song. 6.6k words
a/n: wow i missed writing smut!! hope you guys enjoy this one as much as i loved writing it. GIF creds to @reidgif 🫶🏼
greenaway!reader masterlist 🥀
The problem with bringing Spencer Reid to a follow-up appointment is that he takes follow-up appointments very seriously.
You sit on the paper-lined exam table in a gown that does nothing for your dignity. In the chair beside you, Spencer has his hands folded neatly in his lap, his expression locked into that polite, attentive mask he wears when he is one second away from making your life worse with a technically reasonable question.
You should have come to this appointment alone.
Instead, Spencer drove you here, walked you in, sat beside you in the waiting room, and then stayed because somewhere in the last few months, the line between your life and his got erased so thoroughly neither of you even pretended to look for it.
The doctor flips through your scans. “Everything looks good,” he says. “You’re healing well. Scar tissue is forming the way we want it to. You can keep increasing your workouts gradually, and as long as you’re comfortable, you can resume regular sexual activity, including intercourse.”
The room goes silent.
You look very deliberately at the anatomical poster of lungs on the wall instead of at Spencer.
He clears his throat.
“Doctor, would there be,” he asks, in the tone of a man trying very hard to sound like a normal person, “any concern about strain depending on positioning?”
The doctor nods thoughtfully. “Not particularly, but use common sense. If anything causes sharp pain, stop. Otherwise, there’s no medical reason to avoid it.”
You make a soft sound of despair.
The doctor smiles like this is all adorable instead of excruciating, gives you a few more instructions about physical therapy and scar care, and sends you on your way.
By the time Spencer gets you back to the car, your pride is on life support.
He starts the engine. Adjusts the air. Keeps both hands on the wheel.
Does not look at you.
Interesting.
You buckle in slowly, then turn to study his profile. “Are you going to pretend that didn’t just happen all the way home?”
Spencer’s grip on the steering wheel tightens by a fraction. “I’m not pretending anything. I’m driving.”
You glare out the windshield. Traffic inches forward. Somewhere up ahead, somebody leans on their horn.
The silence stretches just long enough to get weird.
Then Spencer says, very carefully, “If I embarrassed you, it wasn’t intentional.”
“You absolutely did embarrass me,” you say. “Just so we’re clear.”
His mouth twitches. “I know. I’m sorry.”
The apology is sincere enough to take the heat out of your irritation.
You shift carefully in your seat, one hand resting near your scar out of habit. Weeks of almosts flicker through your mind before you can stop them: Spencer’s hand lingering at your waist while helping you out of bed. A kiss in the kitchen that got hotter than either of you meant it to and ended with both of you breathing like idiots. Falling asleep beside him and waking up painfully aware of how hard he was against you.
You glance at him again. He catches it this time.
His voice is quieter when he says, “Are you okay?”
You look at the road ahead and answer honestly enough. “Yeah. I’m just never going to recover from hearing you ask my doctor about sex positions.”
That gets a laugh out of him, startled and soft. “It was medically relevant!”
“You’re such a loser.”
The light ahead turns red. Spencer reaches across the console and takes your hand without looking at you. His thumb brushes once over your knuckles, grounding and absentminded and familiar.
Your pulse does something deeply unhelpful.
When he lifts your hand and presses one quick kiss to the back of it before the light changes, you stare at him for a second too long.
—
That night, sleep gets hold of you slowly.
You drift under with the doctor’s voice still somewhere in the back of your mind, absurd and clinical and impossible to scrub out. Resume sexual activity. Including intercourse. No medical reason to avoid it. You hate that those phrases followed you home. You hate even more that Spencer spent the rest of the day being so perfectly normal about them that it somehow made everything worse. He made dinner. He asked if you wanted tea. He kissed your forehead before bed like a gentleman in a nineteenth-century novel and then laid beside you with both hands respectfully to himself, which should have been considerate and instead felt vaguely like psychological warfare.
So when your subconscious finally gives up and takes over, it does so with very little patience.
Now, his mouth is already on yours.
Hot, deep, and unhurried in a way that feels almost cruel, because he knows exactly how long you’ve both been waiting and is taking his time anyway. One of his hands is braced beside your head; the other is sliding slowly up your thigh, deliberate enough to make your whole body tighten around the wanting of it.
You make a helpless sound into his mouth and he swallows it like he’s starving.
There’s nothing careful about him here. No polite restraint. No respectful distance. Just Spencer, warm and solid over you, kissing you like he finally got tired of being good. His mouth drags from yours to your throat, then lower, and the scrape of his breath across your skin sends a sharp pulse of heat through your stomach. His fingers slide higher. Your back arches before you can stop it. He makes that low sound he only ever makes when you catch him off guard, and finally—
You wake up.
Dark room. Racing heart. Sheets tangled around you. Spencer asleep beside you, one arm loose over the blanket, sleeping face looking almost innocent.
Which is offensive, frankly.
You lie there for a second, staring at the ceiling, willing your body to get a grip. You’re hot everywhere and exhausted and painfully aware of the man breathing softly inches away from you.
You shift carefully, trying to settle yourself without making the mattress move too much.
Spencer makes a sleepy sound and rolls slightly toward you.
His hand lands, warm and heavy, at your waist. Not low enough to be indecent, but not innocent enough to help. He blinks awake halfway, hair a mess, eyes barely open behind the smudge of sleep.
“Y’okay?” he murmurs.
You almost laugh. “Mm-hm.”
His thumb strokes once over your side. “But you’re awake.”
“Astute observation, doc.”
He gives a drowsy little hum that might be a laugh, then presses a soft kiss to your shoulder without opening his eyes all the way. “C’mon. Go back to sleep, angel.”
The tenderness of it nearly kills you.
You manage some kind of affirmative sound and lie there stiffly until his breathing evens out again. By the time you finally drift back under, you’re more irritated than sleepy.
Morning does nothing to improve your mood.
By lunch, you are deeply tired of yourself.
Spencer notices, of course. He notices when you answer too quickly, when you mutter at the coffee maker, when you snap at a cabinet door for existing too loudly. He lets the first few things go. Lets the next few go too. By the time the sun sets, you’re in the kitchen tidying absolutely nothing with far more aggression than the task requires when he leans in the doorway and says, very carefully, “Did I do something?”
You don’t look at him. “No.”
Spencer comes a little farther into the room. “You’ve been weird all day.”
You turn and look at him flatly. “That’s rich coming from you.”
His brows draw together. “Me?”
“Yes, you.” You gesture vaguely at his whole irritatingly beautiful existence. “You’ve been acting bizarre since the appointment yesterday.”
Something flickers across his face.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “So this is about the appointment.”
“Partly.”
Spencer folds his arms. “What’s the other part?”
You glare at him.
He waits.
You hate when he does that. Calm, patient, terrifyingly sure that if he stands there long enough, you’ll crack on your own.
“Nothing,” you mutter.
“That’s definitely not true.”
You exhale sharply through your nose and look away. “You’re just… being annoying.”
“Annoying how?”
You stare at him a moment and suck in a tight breath. “You’re being so polite and respectful that it’s looping back around into driving me insane.” The words come out too fast, almost tripping over one another.
Spencer blinks.
You push on before your pride can stop you. “Ever since the doctor said—” You cut yourself off, grimacing. “You know. Ever since then, you’ve been acting like if you touch me, a panel of experts is going to kick in my front door and revoke your boyfriend privileges. Which makes absolutely no sense, since the doctor essentially gave you permission to act exactly opposite of that.”
To your annoyance, the corner of his mouth twitches.
“This isn’t funny,” you say.
“I know.” He pauses. “It’s a little funny.”
You glare at him until the twitch fades.
Then Spencer sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I’m…” He trails off, visibly searching for the least embarrassing version of his own thoughts. “I’m trying not to make it feel like some sort of… medically approved finish line. Or a milestone we have to hit right away because somebody in a white coat told us we could.” He pauses, gaze softening into something even more earnest. “Sex with you is always a big deal to me, and I— I didn’t want it to feel forced.”
The room goes quieter around the truth of that.
You look at him for a long second, your irritation shifting shape. “That’s… annoyingly sweet. And very thoughtful,” you huff.
Spencer looks wary. “You say that like being sweet and thoughtful is a bad thing.”
“Sometimes it is a bad thing!” you tell him. “Because now you’re acting like a monk.”
His eyebrows go up. “A monk.”
“Yes. A weirdly hot, deeply annoying monk.”
That gets a laugh out of him. He ducks his head once, and the sound of it loosens something in your chest.
Then he looks back up, eyes softer now. “You know I want you. I just…”
“Just what?” you ask.
His jaw flexes. “I don’t trust myself to get this exactly right. I… I want it to be perfect.”
You let that sit for a second.
Of course that’s what this is. He’s been silently tying himself in knots because the first time after all this matters to him enough that he’s terrified of getting it wrong.
As if anything about Spencer touching you has ever felt careless. As if every time he’s ever had you hasn’t felt exactly, devastatingly right.
“Spence,” you say, quieter now. “You have literally never gotten this wrong.”
His eyes flick back to yours.
“You should give yourself a little more credit,” you add.
Something softer moves through his expression at that, but the tension in the room doesn’t entirely loosen.
“I’m sorry I’ve been on edge all day,” you mumble. “I just… uh, didn’t sleep well. And things were already weird after the appointment, and then you spent all day acting all monastic, and it was annoying.”
Spencer’s mouth twitches. “Monastic.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.” He tilts his head slightly. “But I can see that there’s something else you’re not telling me.”
You narrow your eyes. “Don’t profile me, Reid.”
He gives you a look that says really?
You fold your arms tighter. “Drop it.”
Spencer steps a little closer. “Please, just tell me. Did I do something specific to upset you this morning?”
“No,” you say. “My annoyance started when you were still asleep.”
He blinks. “What does that mean?”
You drag your hand down your face and refuse to look at him. “It means I was already in a bad mood by the time you woke up.”
“Why?”
“Spencer.”
His voice drops. Gentle. Curious. Much too perceptive. “Why?”
You stare at the cabinet over his shoulder like it might save you. It doesn’t.
When you finally speak, it comes out flat with embarrassment. “Because I had a dream about you.”
He goes perfectly still.
You can feel the heat climbing your neck now, which is deeply humiliating and somehow still not enough to stop you from making it worse.
“A very explicit dream,” you add. “And then I woke up next to you, and you were being all sweet and sleepy and impossible, and I’ve spent the entire day trying not to lose my mind while you’ve been walking around like you’ve taken a vow of chastity.”
For one long second, Spencer just stares at you.
“Oh,” he says faintly.
You glare at him. “Yeah. Oh.”
His hand comes up to run through his hair, which should not be as attractive as it is, before taking one slow step closer. “You had a sex dream about me.”
“Please don’t say it like that.”
“How should I say it?”
“Preferably not at all.”
That almost gets a laugh out of him, but his eyes stay fixed on your face. On your mouth.
“And you’ve been angry at me ever since,” he says softly.
“Not angry.” You fold your arms tighter, then immediately regret the defensive posture. “Just… severely inconvenienced by your entire vibe today.”
Spencer huffs a quiet breath. “My vibe.”
“Yes. All of your weird, noble self-restraint bullshit.”
His gaze drops for half a second. When it lifts again, it’s darker. Less careful. “You want me to stop being noble?”
The question lands low in your stomach.
You look at him for one long second, then say, “I want you to stop acting like you have to be afraid of this.”
“That,” he says, voice rougher now, “I can do.”
You tilt your chin up. “Good.”
That does it.
He crosses the space between you and kisses you before either of you says another word, fast and warm and far less careful than he’s been in weeks. You make a startled sound into his mouth and then he’s got one hand cupping the back of your neck, the other sliding around your waist, pulling you into him with a kind of urgency that feels so familiar it almost hurts.
You kiss him back just as hard, because whatever awkward, polite, maddening restraint has been sitting between you since the doctor’s appointment goes up in smoke the second his tongue slides against yours and his grip tightens on your body like he’s finally allowing himself to remember what it feels like to want you out loud.
He backs you into the counter.
Your hips hit the edge, and Spencer catches himself immediately, pulling back just enough to search your face.
“You okay?”
You could laugh at the reflexive question if you weren’t so busy trying to catch your breath.
“Yes,” you say, and then, because his eyes still look full of concern and guilt and about ten other things, you hook a hand into the front of his shirt and drag him back in. “Spence, please.”
That does something to him.
You feel it in the low sound he makes into your mouth, in the way his hands slide over your waist and hips and ass with a greedier kind of certainty now, in the way his body presses against yours until there’s nothing left between you except clothes and frustration.
You’ve missed this. Not just his mouth, not just his hands, but the particular electricity of being wanted by him. The way he’s never casual about it. The way wanting seems to move through his whole body like a current, making him shake just a little when he’s trying too hard to hold still.
You drag your fingers through his hair and he exhales against your lips, rough and wrecked enough to make heat slide lower in your body.
Then his hands are suddenly everywhere — one at your waist, one under your thigh — and before you can fully process it, he’s lifting you.
A startled laugh breaks against his mouth. “Spencer!”
“I know,” he murmurs, sounding like he absolutely does not know anything except that he needs you closer.
You hook your arms around his neck automatically, and he kisses you all the way down the hall, slow one second and hungry the next, like he keeps getting distracted by the fact that this is really happening. By the time he reaches the bed, both of you are breathing harder, the room suddenly too warm, the air charged with all the weeks of not doing this.
He sits on the edge of the mattress with you still in his arms, settling you into his lap like muscle memory.
You straddle him carefully, and for one suspended second, neither of you moves at all.
You can feel how hard he already is beneath you. He can definitely feel how wet you are. The realization lands between you like a match struck in the dark, and both of you go a little quieter with it.
Then Spencer lifts his hands to your face and kisses you again, slower now.
His fingers eventually slip under the hem of your shirt, and your breath catches. He peels the fabric up slowly, reverently, exposing skin inch by inch until he tosses it aside and just… looks at you.
Not at your breasts at first, though he notices those (obviously). Not at the waistband of your pants, though his hands twitch toward it. Instead, his gaze drifts to the scar on your side.
You suck in a sharp breath.
It isn’t that he hasn’t seen it before. He has, in bathroom fluorescents and early-morning light and the thin gray blur before dawn. He’s seen it while helping you change bandages, while handing you clean shirts, while pretending very valiantly not to stare as you step out of the shower.
But this is different.
This is the first time he’s looking at it with his hands already warm on your skin and his mouth pink from kissing you and want written so plainly across his face that you can’t hide from it. This is the first time the scar is here, in this moment, as part of something hungry instead of something clinical.
Some small, stupid muscle deep in your body braces before you can stop it.
Spencer notices, because of course he does.
His expression softens. He lifts one hand and traces the skin near the scar with the backs of his fingers, light enough to make you shiver. Then he bends his head and presses a kiss just above it.
Nothing dramatic or mournful. Just warm mouth, careful breath, and the kind of tenderness that makes your eyes sting before you can stop them.
He feels you react and looks up instantly. “Sorry, should I— Would you rather I didn’t?”
You shake your head too fast. “No, no. It’s not that.”
Spencer waits.
You swallow. “It just feels… different.”
Understanding moves through his face so gently it almost hurts.
His thumb strokes once over your waist. He nods softly, then he bends again.
This time, he lets his mouth linger. One slow kiss over the scar itself, then another just below it, then one at the curve of your ribs beside it, unhurried and unafraid and so heartbreakingly natural that whatever you’d been bracing for just… dissolves.
Not because he makes it disappear, but because he doesn’t.
Because he folds it into the wanting of you without making it something tragic or fragile or strange. Because he touches it like it belongs exactly where it is: on your body, in his hands, in this moment, as much a part of being wanted as any other inch of your skin.
Your fingers thread into his hair.
“Spencer,” you whisper.
He looks up, and there’s so much raw emotion on his face that your chest goes tight all over again.
“I need you to stop being perfect for, like, one second, or else I’m gonna explode.”
A startled, breathless laugh slips out of him. He ducks his head once, almost shy, then looks back at you with his mouth still curved.
“I’m just being myself,” he says.
You narrow your eyes. “Exactly.”
He laughs, then mouths at your breast over the thin lace of your bra, and all coherent thoughts leave your body.
A broken moan escapes before you can stop it. Spencer groans softly at the sound and does it again, more deliberate this time, his tongue teasing through the fabric until your hips roll against him and he slides one hand around to your ass to help you move.
Your head falls back. The room spins pleasantly.
It’s not enough. Nothing about this feels like enough after waiting this long.
Your hands fumble with the buttons of his shirt, and he helps with shaking fingers, both of you half-laughing at how badly your coordination has abandoned you. By the time the shirt is open and pushed off his shoulders, you’re almost dizzy with relief.
His chest. His skin. His stupidly beautiful body, warm and solid under your hands.
You drag your palms over him, down his chest and stomach, and Spencer sucks in a breath that makes you feel downright vindicated.
“Missed this?” you tease.
He looks at you with pupils blown wide. “You have no idea.”
You hum. “Try me.”
Spencer takes his glasses off and drops them onto the nightstand with a clatter that would’ve made him twitch on any normal day. Then he cups your breasts through your bra with both hands, thumbs brushing over your nipples until they harden further under the lace.
“I’ve been trying,” he says quietly, and his voice has gone rough enough to make your thighs clench. “Every single day.”
Heat flashes through you.
You kiss him before he can see too much of that on your face, grinding down against him with a little more pressure this time. Spencer swears into your mouth and his hands tighten on you immediately.
“That,” he says, breathless, “is not fair.”
You do it again.
“Who said anything about fair?”
His laugh catches halfway to becoming a groan. Then he drags your bra straps down your shoulders before undoing the clasp and easing it off you with a slowness that makes your skin feel tight. The second he sees you bare, his whole face changes to that particular Spencer look, the one that says he’s overwhelmed by wanting and trying very hard to stay in his own body.
He kisses you like that too. Mouth at your throat, your collarbone, your breasts, one hand spanning your back while the other squeezes your ass almost helplessly whenever you make a sound he likes.
You’ve almost forgotten how noisy the two of you are together. How impossible it is not to be when everything feels this good.
“Take these off,” you whisper against his hair, tugging at his belt.
Spencer obeys immediately, getting you both undressed in a rush of hands and fabric and impatient mouths. Shirts first. Then his slacks and boxer briefs, your leggings and panties, one by one, until you’re both bare except for the mismatched socks he forgot to take off and you laugh so hard you nearly ruin the mood.
He looks down, mortified. “Oh no.”
“Keep them on,” you say. “It’s weirdly working for me.”
Then he’s laughing too, and the absurdity of it makes the whole thing sweeter somehow. Less like a medical milestone, and more like what it actually is: the two of you, still completely yourselves, finally getting each other back.
Spencer pushes you back onto the bed and kisses down your stomach and inner thighs with such obvious devotion that by the time his tongue finally drags through your slick cunt, you’re already shaking.
There’s nothing tentative about his mouth once he starts. Careful, yes. Attentive, obviously. But not tentative. He moves like he’s making up for lost time, like he’s learned your body by heart and spent the last two months being denied the chance to prove it.
Your thighs tighten around his head. Your fingers twist in the sheets.
“Spencer,” you gasp.
He groans into you at the sound of his name, the vibration going straight through your body. Then two fingers slide inside you and you practically sob with relief.
The stretch. The fullness. The filthy, perfect drag of his fingers while his mouth works your clit in the same steady rhythm that’s always destroyed you.
You come faster than you want to, sharp and bright and helpless, with both hands in his hair and his name falling out of your mouth like a prayer and a curse and a sob all at once. He works you through it with maddening patience until you’re twitching and trying to squirm away. He catches your hips, holding you open while he gentles, savoring you, listening to every little sound that spills out.
You drag him back up your body the second you can breathe.
Spencer kisses you then, deep and lingering, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. He’s already so wound up that your first touch around his cock makes his whole body tense.
“Jesus,” he breathes.
“Hi,” you murmur, smug and breathless.
He gives you a desperate sort of half-laugh and lets his forehead fall to yours while your hand works him slowly. He’s always been beautiful when he’s close, but this is different. Softer, somehow. More open. He’s not trying to be polished or sexy or anything but exactly what he is: a man very much in love and losing his mind about it.
Your thumb brushes the tip of his cock and his hips jerk.
“Okay,” he says, a little wrecked. “Okay, if you, uh, keep doing that, I’m going to…”
“You’re going to what?”
Spencer looks at you, offended and helpless all at once. “You know what.”
You kiss him to stop being mean, and that’s what undoes him in the end. Your mouth on his, your hand around him, his own body too gone to hold back any longer. He comes with a broken sound against your lips, his forehead pressed hard to yours, one hand gripping your thigh tight enough to leave marks.
Afterward, neither of you goes very far.
He folds down beside you, still breathing hard, and you end up half tangled together in the sheets, your fingers drifting through his hair while his mouth moves lazily over yours, your jaw, your throat.
The heat doesn’t disappear. It just softens around the edges, turning tender without losing any of its bite. His hand keeps returning to your side in those absent little strokes that aren’t really absent at all, thumb sweeping the skin near your scar like some part of him still needs the reminder that you’re here, warm and real and under his hands. You kiss and kiss and kiss until he’s hardening again between you.
“You okay?” he asks after a few minutes, low and serious again.
You kiss the corner of his mouth. “Very.”
“Any pain?”
“Just from how annoyingly good you are at all of this.”
Spencer closes his eyes and laughs against your shoulder. “That’s not really what I meant.”
“It’s the only answer you’re getting.”
He hums, unconvinced, and shifts up on one elbow to look at you properly. His gaze moves over your face like he’s checking for something only he can see.
“I know you want this,” he says quietly. “I also know abdominal surgery recovery, especially from something like a major gunshot wound, can be deceptive once the surface pain starts easing off. So I need you to be honest with me for a second.” His hand slides slowly over your waist, then lower, skimming your thigh. “Are you actually comfortable enough to keep going, or are you trying to tough your way through it because you’re impatient?”
You reach up and touch his face, letting your fingers trail over his jaw. “I’m not toughing my way through anything.”
Spencer’s eyes stay on yours.
“I’m comfortable,” you say, more clearly this time. “I want this. And if something hurts, I’ll tell you.”
He searches your face for another beat, then nods once, like he’s accepting terms more than asking permission.
“Okay,” he murmurs.
He kisses you once, deep and unsteady, then reaches into the nightstand drawer without taking his eyes off you. You watch him roll a condom on with careful fingers, his focus so intense it nearly makes you laugh.
Spencer settles between your thighs slowly, bracing most of his weight on his forearms, as if the idea of pressing too hard against you is enough to make his whole body tense. One of his hands slides down to your hip, thumb rubbing once, soothing and nervous all at once.
“Still okay?” he asks.
“Yes,” you whisper. “Promise.”
He nods, but you can feel the restraint in him. He kisses you once more, like he needs it, then reaches between you to guide himself into place.
The first nudge against your entrance is so careful it aches in an unexpected way — not physically, but just in how much emotion is packed into his restraint. Spencer’s breath catches. His forehead drops briefly to yours.
“You can stop me,” he says quietly. “At any point. Even if it’s halfway through. I mean it.”
Your fingers tighten on his shoulders. “Spencer.”
“Sorry.” He swallows. “I just need you to know.”
You soften, even through the heat thrumming low in your body. “I know,” you whisper. “Now come here.”
You take his face in your hands and kiss him softer than any of the other times tonight.
He pushes in slowly, inch by inch, with enough care that you can feel every part of the stretch as it happens. Heat, fullness, pressure — all of it building so gradually your body has time to register each sensation before the next one arrives. You inhale sharply, and Spencer goes still immediately.
“Talk to me,” he says, voice rougher now.
You take a breath. “I’m okay. Just— just give me a second.”
Spencer nods, motionless except for the trembling effort it takes to stay that way. He kisses the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, then the line of your jaw while he waits, his hand stroking slowly up and down your thigh like he’s trying to soothe both of you at once.
When the initial intensity eases and your body finally starts to open around him, you let out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding and shift your hips the smallest bit closer.
“More,” you whisper.
Spencer’s eyes search yours. “Yeah?”
You nod. “Yeah.”
Spencer’s eyes close briefly at that, and then he slides in deeper.
It feels like being split open and soothed at the same time. Stretch and heat and relief so intense it’s as if your body is melting around him.
He still moves carefully, still watches your face for microexpressions. But the restraint loosens enough that each thrust gets a little deeper, a little less tentative, until the two of you find that familiar rhythm that belongs to you and no one else.
Spencer’s mouth stays everywhere. Your throat, your cheek, the corner of your mouth. Every time you make a sound he likes, he kisses you harder. Every time your nails drag down his back, his hips stutter and he loses another inch of control.
You wrap a leg around his waist as best you can and pull him deeper.
Your orgasm builds slowly. It comes from the steady drag of his cock, the angle of it, the way one of his hands slips between your bodies to circle your clit without breaking rhythm. He’s so focused, so wrecked and earnest and needy, that you can feel yourself coming long before it actually hits.
“Spence,” you whine, and it comes out strangled.
His eyes lock on yours. “I know. I know, sweetheart. Come for me, please.”
You break around him with a cry, body clenching hard enough that Spencer shudders and nearly loses it with you. He keeps moving through it, slower now, like he can’t bear to stop just because either of you can barely think.
You drag him down into a kiss, and somewhere in the middle of it, the words come out:
“I love you.”
Before this very moment, you’d always assumed saying those words during sex would feel forced somehow. Cheesy. A little ridiculous.
But… it doesn’t. Right now, nothing else would be honest enough. There’s no other phrase in the English language that encompasses what you’re feeling quite like that one does.
Spencer goes still for half a heartbeat, then his whole face changes.
“I love you too,” he says tenderly. He kisses you once, hard and full and almost aching with how much he means it. “I love you so much.”
His movements start to falter then, because there’s only so much a man can do after weeks of restraint, one hand between your thighs, your cunt squeezing him on the heels of two orgasms, and an I love you still ringing through his bloodstream.
He comes with his face buried in your neck and your name on his lips, hips rocking once, twice, before he stills and just breathes, shaking a little.
For a long moment, neither of you moves.
Then Spencer lifts his head just enough to look at you.
You look wrecked. He looks worse.
“Hi,” you whisper.
He huffs a disbelieving laugh. “Hi.”
You brush his hair back from his forehead. “You okay?”
Spencer kisses you once more, softer this time. “No,” he says. “I think I might actually be dead.”
“That’d be awfully inconvenient.”
“Very.”
You laugh, and this time it doesn’t hurt.
Later, after the condom is gone and the sheets have been straightened and Spencer has made you get up and pee and drink an entire glass of water, he slides back into bed in just his boxers, warm and familiar and yours.
His fingers drift to your scar again.
Your hand finds his hair. “Spencer.”
There’s so much in his face that for one impossible second, you almost can’t breathe. Love, obviously. Relief. Want that still hasn’t gone anywhere. Something close to awe.
“Yeah?” he asks quietly.
You shake your head. “Nothing.”
His expression says liar with devastating affection.
You lean in and kiss him before he can call you on it.
When you settle back against the pillows, Spencer draws you into him with one arm and tucks the blankets up over you. His hand stays splayed over your waist, warm and grounding.
For a minute, the room goes quiet except for the sound of both of you breathing and the faint hum of the city outside the windows.
Then Spencer laughs under his breath.
You tilt your head enough to look up at him. “What?”
His mouth twitches. “I still can’t believe you had a sex dream about me.”
Heat creeps up your neck all over again, and you bury your face back against his shoulder. “Can we not debrief the most humiliating parts of today now that you’ve benefited from them?”
Spencer’s laugh is warmer this time, low in his chest. “I’m not making fun of you.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m really not.” He tips his head down, trying to catch your eye. “I’m just… kind of flattered.”
You groan into his skin. “Please stop saying words.”
His hand slides slowly up and down your back. “You’re the one who told me.”
You lift your head again and narrow your eyes at him. “You pried.”
Spencer looks delighted by that accusation. “I asked one follow-up question.”
You should let it go. You really should. But instead, still dazed and loose-limbed and apparently incapable of self-preservation, you mutter, “It wasn’t even the first time.”
Spencer goes very still.
Slowly, very slowly, he shifts onto one elbow, looking at you now with open fascination. “What do you mean it wasn’t the first time?”
“I mean nothing. Go to sleep.”
His hand tightens at your waist, not enough to trap you, just enough to let you know escape is not on the table. “No, absolutely not. We are not moving on from that.”
You make a muffled sound of regret into his shoulder.
“When was it?”
You wave a hand vaguely. “A… while ago.”
“That’s not quantifiable. How long is ‘a while’?”
“A while, Spencer.”
He waits.
Of course he waits.
You should know by now that Spencer Reid can outlast almost anyone in a standoff, especially when curiosity is involved.
You stare at him, mortified, still a little dazed from the sex, too happy to put up a fight, and sigh.
“Do you remember when I had the flu, and you bribed Garcia with cake pops to get my address so you could check on me?”
His eyebrows lift. “Of course I remember. That was the first time I ever saw your apartment.”
“Right. And do you remember what I said when I first let you inside?”
You watch his face shift into that classically Spencer expression of deep focus as he searches back through his memories.
“Yes,” he confirms after a few moments. “I believe you said, ‘You woke me up from a dream,’ and then I—” He stops. “Oh.”
His expression softens so completely it almost hurts to look at.
“It was that kind of dream?” he asks, sounding genuinely stunned.
You shove your face back into his shoulder. “Yes,” you groan. “I was just getting to the good part when you knocked on the door, actually, so thanks for that.”
His shoulders shake with another laugh. “Wow.”
You glare up at him. “You are enjoying this far too much.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, which would be more convincing if he weren’t smiling like this is the best news he’s heard all week. “It’s just…” He shakes his head a little. “That’s a lot for me to process.”
“You’ll survive.”
He shifts, gentler now, and presses a kiss to your forehead.
“That really was a while ago,” he muses.
You close your eyes and groan again, too tired to fake outrage properly. “Please drop it.”
He smiles against your skin. “In a minute.”
His hand finds yours under the blanket and laces through your fingers.
“If it’s any consolation, I had a crush on you back then too,” he whispers. “I’m sure you already knew that, but just so we’re clear, I did. I nearly passed out when you asked me to brush your hair and sent me into your bedroom to look for your hairbrush.”
You crack one eye open. “You hid it well.”
Spencer huffs a quiet laugh. “I absolutely did not.”
“No,” you admit, sleepier now, letting your fingers curl more tightly around his. “You really, really didn’t.”
That earns a softer smile from him. He brushes his thumb over your knuckles once, the gesture so familiar now it makes your chest ache in the best way.
“I’m glad you let me in,” he says quietly.
The words settle warm and heavy between you. You know he’s referring to you letting him into your apartment that day, but it could mean so much more than that.
You tip your face up just enough to kiss the underside of his jaw. “Yeah,” you murmur. “Me too.”
Spencer answers by drawing you a little closer.
You let him.
And sometime after that, with his hand still wrapped around yours, a dreamless sleep finally finds you.
ᝰ.ᐟ
this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️
PSA: likes do very little for promoting posts on tumblr! if you'd like to support a fic, please reblog!
summary: getting shot was dramatic, but recovering is worse. especially now that spencer reid has a key to your apartment and a color-coded plan for your survival.
genre: hurt/comfort, flangst tags/warnings: reader is elle's sister, mentions of a gunshot wound/incision/scar (not graphic), reader is prescribed narcotics (not a plot point or issue but still, TW if you want to avoid), caretaker spencer reid, arguments, reader is very bad at being taken care of, spencer is clingy, actually they’re both clingy, domestic fluff, kissing, no use of y/n. fyi this fic will make more sense if you’ve read liminal first! 6.6k words
a/n: to everyone who waited patiently while i worked through writer’s block and life stuff, thank you :’) sorry if this is a tad boring but i felt like it wouldn’t be right to ignore reader’s recovery phase after getting shot. next part won’t take as long I promise lol | GIF by @reidgif 🫶🏼
greenaway!reader masterlist 🥀
The ride home from the hospital takes longer than it should.
It’s D.C., which means everything is fifteen minutes away yet somehow still takes an hour, so you’re half asleep against the window by the time Spencer pulls into your building’s parking garage. The pain meds haven’t knocked you out completely; they’ve just dulled you into a soft, irritated haze where your body feels like it belongs to someone else and you’re borrowing it under protest.
Spencer circles around the car before you can reach for the handle. Of course he does.
“I can do it,” you mumble as he opens your door.
“I know,” he replies, voice gentle in that maddening way that makes it impossible to argue with him. “Let me anyway.”
He reaches down and offers you his hand. Your fingers curl around his and he steadies you as you shift out of the car, careful of your side, careful of everything. The movement pulls at the tender spot against your ribs and you suck in a breath through your teeth.
Spencer’s eyes flick to your face immediately.
“I’m okay,” you insist.
He nods like he hears you, but his hand tightens just slightly like he doesn’t believe you. “Just— please take it slow,” he says. You bite back the instinct to snap, because you know he’s doing it with love and fear in equal measure.
He guides you toward the elevator, and you lean in closer to him as the elevator doors slide shut. Spencer presses the button for your floor with his free hand, then glances down at you.
“You’re doing great,” he murmurs.
You snort, which is a terrible idea, because laughing hurts. “Please stop talking to me like I’m a wounded bird.”
His mouth twitches. “You are kind of a wounded bird.”
“I’m not a bird,” you say. “If anything, I’m—” You pause, searching for something that feels like you. “A raccoon.”
Spencer’s eyebrows lift. “A raccoon?”
“Mean, scrappy, nocturnal,” you list. “Has tiny hands.”
He huffs a soft laugh. “You do not have tiny hands.”
“Compared to yours, I do.”
His gaze drops to your intertwined fingers. His thumb brushes over your knuckles in a slow, grounding stroke that makes something in your chest loosen.
“I’ve missed you,” he says, very quietly.
You blink at the elevator doors and pretend the sudden tightness in your throat is from the stale air. “You’ve seen me literally all day, every day.”
“True,” he agrees. “But you know what I mean.”
The elevator dings.
Spencer’s hand slips from yours to your lower back as you walk. You make it three steps before you realize your key isn’t in your pocket, because you haven’t worn pants with real pockets in… well, a while.
Spencer doesn’t even slow down. He just reaches into his jacket and pulls out his keyring—
His keyring, now featuring his very own key to your apartment.
The memory flickers in, fast and foggy. You, doped up and pissed off, shoving your spare into his palm because you needed your iPod and your charger and really anything to pass the time that wasn’t hospital-grade.
You told yourself giving him a key was practical.
He told himself the same thing. His eyes still went bright anyway.
Back in the present, your stomach does a weird little flip.
He catches it. “I— I can give it back,” he says quickly. “If you want.”
You shake your head softly. “Don’t be dumb,” you murmur.
Spencer fights a smile as he slides the key into the lock like he’s done it a hundred times. The door opens and warm air spills out, carrying the scent of laundry detergent and candles and your apartment’s familiar, slightly dusty personality.
You step inside and stop in your tracks.
Your records are still on their shelves; your boots are still kicked off by the entryway; your leather jacket is still draped on the back of a chair. It’s the same place you left the morning you got shot.
But it’s also… different.
Cleaner, for one. Dishes gone. Counters wiped. Blankets folded. There’s a paper grocery bag on the table and a small tray of gauze and medical tape and antibacterial soap next to the sink.
And then you notice it: more of Spencer’s things that weren’t here before. A few more of his books added to your shelves. His telescope set up by the living room window. The blanket he usually keeps on the back of his couch, now taking up residence on yours. A soft gray cardigan hanging on the hook by the door like it belongs here.
Like he belongs here.
“I, uh, stopped by yesterday while you were napping to make sure things were in order before your discharge,” Spencer explains, hovering close but trying not to look like he’s hovering.
You glance at him. “So you cleaned, and made yourself at home as well?”
Spencer’s smile is tired but real. “Yes,” he admits. “I told you already, you’re going to heal, and I'm going to be with you for all of it.”
Your apartment has always been the place you can shut the door and disappear, the place no one has a key to unless you hand it over. Your spine should go stiff at the sight of his cardigan on your hook. You should feel your skin crawl.
But instead, you feel… strangely steady.
Spencer watches your face carefully, like he’s waiting for you to insist he doesn’t need to stay with you during your recovery.
You don’t say anything.
Spencer’s hand finds yours again and he guides you toward your room. He helps you sit on the edge of the bed and immediately starts arranging pillows behind you with the intensity of someone building a small, medically approved throne.
“You’re nesting,” you observe.
“I’m just making sure you have enough support to keep your weight off your side," he explains, adjusting one pillow two inches.
You stare at him. “Spencer.”
He pauses, hands still on the pillow. “Yeah?”
“You’re going to drive yourself insane,” you tell him, softer than you mean to.
“Maybe,” he admits quietly. “But… you’re here.”
Your pulse trips. You swallow around it.
He clears his throat and reaches into his bag on the floor. “Okay. Let’s discuss your medication regimen.”
You groan. “Oh my god.”
Spencer’s mouth twitches. “I… I made a schedule.”
“I figured you did.”
“It’s not too complicated,” he says, already defensive, which would be funny if it didn’t hit something tender. “It’s just so you don’t take too much of anything by accident, and so you don’t miss any doses. And there are—” He stops, catches himself, steadies. “There are options, for the, uh, painkillers, depending on your level of discomfort.”
He holds up a sheet of cardstock paper with times and dosage details and color-coded checkboxes to keep track of everything.
You stare at it. Then at him. “You’re being such a dad.”
“I’m being practical.”
“Sure, dad.”
Spencer sighs, but his hand keeps shaking slightly as he lays the paper on your nightstand. “Please don’t call me that. And just… will you humor me?”
You pick up the paper and tap it once with your finger. “Fine. But if you laminate this, I’m telling Morgan.”
Spencer’s laugh is quiet, relieved. “Fair.”
He brings you a glass of water and sits down on the edge of the bed. He watches you take the first dose like he’s counting the seconds between your breaths.
“You’re staring,” you say.
“Definitely.” He leans in and kisses your forehead, then your cheek, then the corner of your mouth like he can’t help it. “I can’t help it. I’m just so glad you’re here,” he murmurs between more kisses.
“Someone’s feeling sappy,” you tease.
“Is a man in love not allowed to be sappy?”
Oh. There’s that word again—
Love.
It still feels new, and weird, and wonderful every time you hear it.
“Mm, fine. I guess it’s allowed,” you relent.
Later, after somehow staying upright long enough to brush your teeth and change into pajamas, you settle back into bed. Spencer fusses with the blankets for a minute, and then just… stops.
He stands there, hands flexing once at his sides.
“Well?” you ask, squinting. “What are you waiting for?”
Spencer’s mouth twitches, but his eyes stay careful. “I… I was going to go sleep on the couch.”
You stare at him. “…Why would you do that?”
“Because you’re still healing, and I don’t want to—” He swallows. “I don’t want to risk hurting you. And I thought you might want space.”
Something in your chest pinches at the worry in his voice.
“Spence,” you say gently. “Get in.”
He hesitates.
You pat the mattress with as much authority as you can manage while held together by stitches. “I’m not asking you to wrestle me. I’m just asking you to sleep next to me.”
Spencer’s eyes soften. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m… tired of waking up in a bed without you,” you admit.
That does it. He eases down with ridiculous care, like you’re made of glass and he’s terrified of being the one to crack you.
He wraps his arm around you gently, and you shift the smallest amount closer. It’s enough for him to go still before relaxing fully.
“Welcome home,” he whispers, his breath warming the back of your neck. “I love you.”
You close your eyes and let yourself believe it.
—
Your first week home becomes a series of tiny negotiations and small victories.
Spencer sets alarms for your meds; you take the antibiotics but hold off on the narcotics as long as you can manage. He makes you eat something with protein in it; you complain the entire time and still finish the bowl. Garcia shows up with a care package that includes fuzzy socks and another stuffed animal you swear you don’t want. Morgan checks in with a text every day. JJ and Emily drop off a stack of case files you’re “not supposed to look at,” but they do it with a wink. Rossi swings by once with a tray of homemade carbonara and a strict warning not to overdo it.
Once, in the middle of the night, Spencer wakes up suddenly and bolts upright, eyes wide like he’s listening for a sound only he can hear. You don’t ask why — you just slide your hand into his and feel him remember how to breathe.
By day six, you can walk to the kitchen without getting dizzy. By day seven, Spencer’s started to say “love you” whenever he leaves the room the same way he says “be right back,” and your reply becomes automatic. Love you too.
It scares you a little.
It steadies you more.
—
By the time you hit the two-week mark, you can do most of the basics again. Not the big things; not the things that matter to your pride — but the small things. The humiliating little tasks that used to be so automatic you never thought about them. Standing at the sink long enough to wash your face without needing to sit down. Walking from the bedroom to the couch without holding your breath like you’re bargaining with your own ribs. Pouring yourself a glass of water and not feeling your vision tilt.
You can do those things now, but Spencer still acts like you can’t.
It becomes routine: Spencer anticipating your needs before you can even admit you have them. He gets you a blanket before you feel cold. He slides a pillow behind your back before you realize you’re slouching. He asks if you’ve eaten. He asks if you’ve taken your meds. He asks if you’ve reached your step goal yet. He asks you to rate your pain on a scale of 1-10. He watches your face when you breathe.
You tell yourself it’s love, because you know it is. But it’s not just that — it’s love twisted with fear so tightly they’ve fused together.
This morning, you wake up to Spencer sitting beside you in bed with a book open in his lap. His glasses are on. His hair is messy in that soft way it always gets when he’s been running his hands through it.
He looks down when you move. His gaze goes instantly to your side, like he can see through the blanket.
“How’s your pain?” he asks.
You blink at him. “Good morning to you too.”
His mouth twitches, apologetic. “Sorry. Good morning, honey.”
You shift carefully and an ache blooms, dull and annoying. You keep your face neutral anyway.
“My pain is fine,” you insist. “I’m gonna go make coffee.”
Spencer closes his book immediately. “I can do it.”
You swing your legs over the side of the bed. “I didn’t ask you to.”
He’s already up. He’s always already up. Like some nervous part of him has been waiting for the moment you try to do something alone so he can step in before anything goes wrong.
“Just let me,” he insists.
You ignore him and stand slowly, starting toward the kitchen.
Spencer follows you. It’s like walking with a shadow that thinks it’s your supervisor.
“I’m not going to faint, Spencer,” you say, eyes forward.
“I know,” he replies.
You get to the kitchen and reach for the cabinet. Spencer reaches first.
You stop. Stare at his hand on the mug.
He freezes, then slowly draws it back like he’s been caught doing something embarrassing.
You take the mug. You feel him watching you the entire time you set it on the counter.
When you reach for the coffee grounds, Spencer’s hand darts out again. Your fingers still.
He notices and drops his hand like it burned you.
You inhale slowly and feel the pull in your incision. That little reminder that your body is still healing, still tender, still not yours to command.
“Stop,” you say quietly, turning around to face him.
Spencer looks up. His expression is filled with concern. “Stop what?”
“Everything. You’re trying to do everything for me.”
His brows lift. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It is,” you insist, and the sharpness comes out before you can sand it down. “You’re hovering constantly, Spencer. I’m not trying to run a marathon. I’m making a pot of coffee.”
“I know,” he says. “I’m not trying to stop you from making coffee. I’m just trying to make sure you don’t overdo it.”
“No. You're suffocating me.”
The word lands hard in the small kitchen.
Spencer goes still. His jaw tightens. His eyes flick toward your side, then back to your face like he’s trying to decide whether to argue with you or agree.
“I’m just trying to keep you safe. Sue me, but I’d rather annoy you than miss something.”
“I am safe,” you say. “I’m home. I’m alive. I’m not bleeding out.”
Spencer’s throat moves as he swallows.
“You think I don’t know that?”
You hate yourself for it, but this frustration has been building for days. For every moment you’ve tried to be grateful and patient and reasonable while slowly going insane.
“I think you’re acting like I can’t even make coffee without dying,” you snap.
“That’s not true.”
“Is it not?” You gesture around the apartment. “You’ve taken over everything, Spencer. You refill my water. You carry my phone. You bring me snacks like I’m a toddler. You keep asking me if I’m okay every five minutes.”
Spencer exhales slowly. “Because you keep lying.”
Your eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”
“You do,” he says, and now his voice is sharper too, because you pushed and pushed until you found the edge. “You tell me you’re fine and then I catch you grimacing when you stand up. You say your pain is nothing and then your hands shake when you reach for something. You think I don’t notice?”
You stare at him, pulse loud in your ears.
“I didn’t want you to notice,” you admit quietly.
Spencer’s expression flickers. “I can’t not notice.”
He steps closer, hands open at his sides like he’s trying to show you he’s not trying to control you.
“I love you,” he says, quiet but firm. “And I watched you almost die. So yes, I’m going to ask if you’re okay. I’m going to be too careful. I don’t know how not to be right now.”
Your chest tightens, and for a second you almost crumble. It would be easier if the problem was that he didn’t care. It would be easier if you could be righteously angry.
But he cares so much it’s spilling everywhere, and you don’t know where to put it.
“I know,” you say, voice rough. “I know you love me. I know why you’re acting like this. That’s not the problem.”
Spencer’s eyes search yours. “Then what is?”
You swallow.
The real answer has been sitting in your throat like a stone.
“It doesn’t feel like we’re dating anymore,” you admit finally.
Spencer blinks, startled. “What?”
“It feels like I have a live-in nurse,” you say, and your tone turns bitter because you hate that you’re admitting this out loud, “who happens to share a bed with me. And yeah, you hold my hand, and you kiss my forehead, and you tell me you love me. But it… it doesn’t feel romantic.”
Spencer’s mouth opens. Closes. He looks genuinely caught off guard, like he’s been so consumed by the task of keeping you safe that he hasn’t realized what he’s been losing in the process.
“I didn’t know it felt like that for you,” he says finally. “I thought… I thought being careful was part of loving you right now.”
“I know,” you say, frustrated now for reasons that have nothing to do with coffee. “And I know it probably sounds selfish and unfair and maybe a little insane, considering the circumstances. But I’m not asking you to forget I’m healing.” Your throat tightens. “I’m asking you to act like you still want me.”
Spencer goes very still.
His eyes soften first, then darken with something complicated. Guilt. Hurt. Fear. Desire that he’s been keeping on a leash.
“You think I don’t want you?” he asks, voice low.
Heat crawls up your neck. You look away, because it’s humiliating. “It’s hard to tell anymore.”
Spencer makes a small sound. He steps closer and gently circles your wrists with his fingers. His gaze is steady, intense, very Spencer. The kind of intensity that feels like being seen too clearly.
“I want you all the time,” he says quietly.
Your breath catches.
He raises one hand to cradle your face, his thumb slowly brushing over your pulse point.
“I want you when you’re asleep,” he continues, voice quiet but unwavering. “I want you when you roll your eyes at me and call me insufferable. I want you right now while you’re mad at me in this kitchen.”
He swallows, throat working, as if the truth tastes sharp.
“But you’re healing,” he says, and now the fear edges back in. “I’m terrified of being careless for one second and making things worse. I’m terrified you’ll push yourself because you think you have to prove something. So I… I’ve been trying to be good.”
You stare at him, heart pounding hard enough to feel it in your fingertips.
“That’s the problem. You’re being so good you’re not being you.” You let out a shaky breath and your anger collapses into something messy and raw and honest. “I miss you,” you admit, and it feels ridiculous because he’s been in your apartment every day, in your bed every night, literally holding you together with his hands. “I miss you acting like my boyfriend. I miss flirting. I miss you looking at me like you can’t help it. I miss feeling like we’re… us.”
Spencer’s eyes go bright. He blinks once, fast. He loosens his grip around your wrist and slides his palm into yours.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I didn’t realize I was doing that.”
“You were busy keeping me alive.”
Spencer’s mouth twitches, but his eyes stay serious. “I was busy being scared.”
You take a careful breath.
“I’m scared too,” you confess. “I hate needing help. I hate feeling weak. I hate that my body can’t do what I want it to do. And I hate that I’m… mad at you for loving me, because it makes me feel like a terrible person.”
“You’re not terrible,” Spencer says immediately.
“I kind of am,” you mumble.
Spencer shakes his head, firm. “You’re human. And you’re injured. And you’re used to being in control.”
You scowl. “I’m still in control.”
He raises his brows. “You were literally shot.”
You glare at him. “Stop bringing that up.”
Spencer’s mouth twitches again, but then he grows serious, leaning in a little closer.
“Okay,” he says quietly. “Tell me what you need.”
You hate the question immediately, which is usually how you know it matters.
“I need you to stop treating me like I’m going to break,” you reply. “I need you to let me do things myself sometimes.”
Spencer nods once. “Okay.”
“And I need you to… still be my boyfriend,” you add, voice smaller. “Not just my caretaker.”
Spencer’s gaze softens. “I can do that.”
You swallow. “Can you?”
His thumb strokes your knuckles, grounding.
“Yes,” he says, and there’s something steadier in him now, something like a decision. “I can. I want to.”
He hesitates a moment, then leans in and kisses you. It’s careful, because he’s careful, but it’s not chaste. It’s Spencer kissing you like he’s been holding back and he’s finally letting himself show you that he hasn’t stopped wanting you for even a second.
Your hand tightens around his. Your body aches. Your chest aches more.
When he pulls back, he stays close enough that you can feel his breath.
“I’m still your boyfriend,” he murmurs. “I promise.”
Your eyes burn. You blink hard and try to cover it with sarcasm. “Good. Because your bedside manner was getting a little weird, Doc.”
Spencer lets out a quiet laugh, relief threaded through it. “Okay. New rule,” he says, voice gentle but serious.
You squint. “Oh god.”
He looks amused. “You get to tell me when you want help. I’ll try my best to stop jumping in first unless it’s something genuinely unsafe.”
“And you,” you say, because it can’t be one-sided. “You’re allowed to… check in. But not every five minutes.”
He nods. “Reasonable.”
“And,” you add, because you can’t stop yourself, “you have to kiss me like that once a day.”
His brows lift teasingly. “Only once a day?”
“At minimum,” you reply.
His smile turns soft and devastating. “Deal.”
You exhale slowly, the fight draining out of you. Spencer lifts your hand and kisses your knuckles. It’s old-fashioned in a way that makes your stomach flip.
“Alright. So. You’re making coffee,” he says.
“I am,” you confirm.
He steps back, hands up in mock surrender. “And I’m letting you.”
You glare. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not making it weird,” he replies, and his voice is lighter now. “You’re making it weird.”
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself, and reach for the coffee grounds again.
This time, Spencer doesn’t move.
He just watches you like you’re something miraculous and frustrating and real.
And when you glance up at him, he says it, quiet and easy, like it belongs in the kitchen with the smell of coffee:
“I love you.”
Your heart stutters.
You roll your eyes, because you have a reputation.
“I love you too,” you say, and then add, “Now go sit down. Your nervous energy is making me nervous.”
Spencer laughs, and the sound feels like the first truly normal thing that’s happened in your apartment in days.
—
Time starts moving again in small ways.
Over the next few weeks, your world expands by degrees. The apartment stops feeling enormous. You start taking longer walks — first to the elevator and back, then downstairs to the lobby, then out onto the sidewalk for ten slow minutes of fresh air that leave you more tired than they should. The bruising fades from angry purple to yellow, then disappears entirely. The incision stops feeling like a live wire every time you breathe and settles into something duller, meaner, more familiar. A scar instead of an open wound. You still hurt, but it’s the kind of hurt you can plan around now.
By the start of week five, Spencer’s back at Quantico. It makes him miserable in a way he tries very hard to hide, but he fails, just as miserably. He packs your lunch like you’re the one leaving. He leaves sticky notes around the apartment with things like eat something real and take the pain meds if you need them and drink more water in his messy, sweet scrawl. He texts you reminders you absolutely do not need. He calls on his lunch break just to hear your voice, then pretends he had a real reason to call.
You let him lie about that.
That Friday, he comes home early. His tie is loose. His shoulders are tight. He drops his bag by the door and crosses straight to you on the couch, leaning in to kiss you hello longer than usual, like he’s trying to reassure himself you’re still here.
You pull back just enough to study his face. “What’s wrong?”
Spencer exhales and rests his forehead against yours for a beat. “There’s a case,” he says quietly. “They need me to start traveling with the team again.”
The news settles awkwardly in your chest. You’ve been waiting for this part. Expecting it, even. Spencer was always going to go back into the field eventually. Still, the thought of him being somewhere else while you’re here makes your apartment feel different before he’s even gone.
You keep your face even. “Okay.”
Spencer’s eyes soften. He looks at you for a second like he knows that one word is doing a lot of work.
“It’ll only be a few days,” he says. “And I’ll call whenever I can.”
You huff softly through your nose. “You already call me too much.”
His mouth twitches. “I’m choosing to hear that as encouragement.”
That earns the smallest smile from you.
He kisses you again, careful and warm. “If you need me, you call,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I don’t care where I am.”
You roll your eyes because you have standards. “Please. I’m not going to interrupt an active FBI investigation unless I’m on fire.”
Spencer leans back just enough to give you a look. He brushes his thumb over your cheek once, then kisses the corner of your mouth. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Yeah,” you mutter. “You better be.”
And when he pulls away, the apartment already feels a little too quiet.
—
The first thing you learn after Spencer leaves is how quickly absence can rearrange a room.
The second thing you learn is something deeply offensive: you miss him instantly.
Not in a cute, wistful way, but in a way that makes your ribs ache with the wrong kind of pressure. Like your body has gotten used to having his presence pressed up against it all the time, and now it’s confused about what to do with itself.
It’s ridiculous.
You’ve been alone your whole life. You practically invented solitude as a coping mechanism. You used to go entire weekends without speaking to another person and call it self-care.
Now your apartment feels wrong without the sound of Spencer moving through it.
You glare at the empty room like it personally betrayed you. “This is stupid,” you mutter.
The room does not apologize.
—
Spencer calls you before he even lands.
He calls again after they get to the hotel. He calls in the morning while he’s walking from the briefing room to the SUV. He calls between interviews. He calls so often you start to wonder if the team is going to file a formal complaint.
By the second day he’s away, Morgan texts you:
Reid is being weird.
You reply:
you say this as if that’s not his default setting
Morgan sends back a laughing emoji and nothing else, which is somehow the most Derek Morgan response possible.
On Spencer’s third call of the morning, you answer with, “Hi. Yes. I’m still alive. No, I have not mysteriously dissolved into a puddle in the hour since we last spoke. How’s your day going?”
He exhales like he’s been holding his breath. “Okay. Sorry. I’m not trying to be overbearing.”
“You’re not,” you tell him, because it’s true. “You’re just being a little annoying.”
His laugh is soft. “That’s fair.”
You shift on the couch and glance at the TV, muted. A mindless reality show you haven’t really been watching. You haven’t been able to focus on anything longer than ten minutes since he left, which is deeply humiliating.
“How’s the case?” you ask, because it feels normal. It feels like you.
Spencer’s voice changes, subtly, work mode creeping in. “It’s… messy,” he says. “There’s a pattern, but it’s inconsistent. Rossi thinks the unsub is escalating, but we don’t have enough to confirm it yet.”
You sit up a little straighter without thinking. Your body protests and you ignore it, because you’re you.
“What does victimology look like?” you ask.
Spencer pauses. You can practically hear the smile in his voice. “You miss it.”
“I miss not being stuck on my couch like a Victorian invalid,” you correct. “And yes. I miss the job. Obviously. Now tell me the details.”
He fills you in in careful, bite-sized pieces, like he’s worried you’ll get too invested and push yourself. You listen anyway. You ask questions. You feel the familiar itch in your brain — the one that only casework scratches.
Later that night, he texts you a selfie.
It is, without exaggeration, one of the worst photos you’ve ever seen. It’s also, unfortunately, adorable.
The angle is off. His face is too close to the camera. Part of his head is cropped out. His glasses are crooked. Half his hair is sticking up. He’s wearing a ridiculously patterned shirt you’ve mocked before. He’s very obviously pouting.
The caption reads:
Proof of life. Promise I’m not miserable.
You stare at it for ten full seconds, then burst into laughter so loud you immediately regret it. You clutch your side, wheezing, and type back:
that is the face of a man who is definitely miserable (and has definitely never taken a selfie before)
His reply comes fast:
Rude.
You laugh again, softer this time, and the warmth that spreads through you is almost annoying. Because he’s not here, and you somehow still feel held.
—
This morning, you overdo it.
You decide you can carry a package up to your apartment from the lobby without a cart because it’s not that heavy and you’re not helpless and you’re not weak and you’re not—
Your body disagrees halfway to the elevator.
By the time you make it back into your apartment, you’re sweaty and irritated and your side feels tight and angry. You sit down hard on the couch and stare at your hands like they personally failed you.
You could take a breath, take something for the pain, pretend it didn’t happen, and tell Spencer weeks later as a funny anecdote so he doesn’t freak out.
You could.
Instead, you pick up your phone and call him.
He answers on the second ring. “Hey, sweetheart. Everything okay?”
“Don’t freak out,” you say.
Spencer goes silent for a beat. “That’s a terrible way to start a conversation.”
You close your eyes and lean your head back against the couch. “I picked up a package from the front desk. It was heavier than I thought. Now my side hurts and I’m annoyed.”
Spencer exhales sharply, and you can hear the fear in it, the way his nervous system still doesn’t know the difference between discomfort and disaster.
“Okay,” he says, voice steadying as he forces it into place. “Are you bleeding?”
“No.”
“Are you dizzy?”
“A little, but that’s mostly because I’m mad.”
Spencer makes a sound that might be a laugh if he wasn’t so wrecked. “Can you check your incision for me? Just to make sure nothing pulled since it’s not completely scarred over yet?”
You do, carefully, lifting the edge of your shirt. “It’s fine. Everything looks the same.”
“Okay,” he says again, softer. “Okay. Take the pain medication you’re supposed to take. Not the ‘I’m stubborn and I’ll suffer’ version.”
“Fine.”
“And hydrate,” he adds.
“Yes, dad.”
Spencer exhales through his nose. “I already told you not to call me that.”
“Then stop sounding like you’re about to ground me.”
A tiny, unwilling laugh slips out of him. “That’s fair.” He lets out a breath that actually sounds like relief. “Thank you,” he adds quietly.
You blink. “For what?”
“For calling,” he says. “For telling me instead of… pretending it’s nothing.”
Something warm twists in your chest.
“You’re welcome,” you say, trying to keep it light. “I’m okay, I promise. Don’t cry about it.”
“I’m not going to cry.”
“You sound like you want to cry.”
Spencer huffs. “I’m having a very normal reaction from three states away.”
You smile into the phone before you can stop yourself. “Okay.”
His voice softens. “I love you.”
The words don’t scare you the way they used to. Instead, they settle you.
“I know. I love you too.”
—
When Spencer walks through your door the following evening, you can tell immediately he’s been holding himself together with sheer force of will.
His suit is rumpled. His curls are wind-mussed. His eyes look tired in a way that makes you want to pull him into bed and keep him there for a week.
He drops his bag by the door and crosses the apartment in three long strides, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he doesn’t get to you fast enough. He stops in front of where you’re sitting on the couch and just looks at you.
“You’re okay,” he says breathlessly.
You tilt your head. “I told you I was.”
Spencer crouches in front of you, hands on your knees, careful not to jostle you. He presses his forehead to your thigh for a second, eyes closed, and you feel him exhale like he’s been holding his breath for days.
“You missed me,” you say, because you’re you.
Spencer lifts his head and looks at you with a tired, helpless kind of honesty. “Yes.”
You smile, soft around the edges. “Good.”
He leans in and kisses you, slow and warm and grounding, like he’s reminding himself you’re real.
When he pulls back, his thumb strokes your knee absent-mindedly. “I hated being away from you.”
You arch a brow. “You’re going to have to get better at it. It’s still gonna be a while before they sign off on me coming back to work.”
Spencer’s mouth twitches. “I’ll try.”
He stands and holds out his hand to help you up, like he always does now. You take it, because you’re learning when to let him.
He pulls you into his chest carefully, arms wrapping around you. For a moment, you just stand there, breathing each other in, the apartment finally feeling right again.
“You’re home,” you murmur.
Spencer kisses your hair. “I’m home.”
—
Later that night, the apartment settles into one of those rare, quiet silences that actually feels earned.
The dishes are done. The lights are low. Somewhere outside, a siren passes and fades. Spencer checks the lock twice, the same way he always does.
You’re already in bed when he comes back from the kitchen with two glasses of water. He sets one on your nightstand, slides in beside you, and reaches automatically for the book he abandoned on the nightstand before he left.
You’ve been watching him since he walked into the room, which becomes obvious the second he looks up and catches you in the act.
His mouth lifts at one corner. “What?”
You shrug one shoulder against the pillow. “Nothing.”
Spencer gives you a look over the top of his glasses. “That’s almost never true.”
“You just look weirdly good in my bed. It’s annoying.”
That gets a real laugh out of him, soft and surprised. “Weirdly good?”
“Yeah. Like you belong there or something. It’s very rude.”
Spencer closes the book and sets it aside. He shifts closer, careful by habit now, one hand settling lightly at your waist. His thumb moves once, slow and absentminded.
“I do belong here,” he says gently. “You gave me a key.”
You snort. “Under duress.”
“And yet you haven’t asked for it back.”
You narrow your eyes at him. “Don’t get smug. It’s unattractive.”
Spencer’s smile softens. He studies you for a beat, and when he speaks again his voice is quieter.
“You okay?”
The question lands differently now. Less like triage. More like him.
You take your time answering. “Yeah,” you say. Then, because that’s not quite enough and he’ll hear that immediately, you add, “I just keep having these moments where I look at you and remember all over again that this is real.”
His expression changes at that, just enough to make your chest tighten.
“What part doesn’t feel real?” he asks.
You glance back at him. “All of it. Mostly the part where you love me enough to alphabetize my spice cabinet and terrorize me with sticky notes and call me seventeen times a day when you leave town.”
Spencer looks faintly offended. “It was not seventeen times.”
“It was close enough.”
He huffs a laugh, but there’s something softer under it. Something a little wrecked.
You shift a little closer, the motion slow and careful. His hand tightens at your waist on instinct, then eases when you settle.
“I’m still getting used to it,” you admit.
“To what?”
You look at him for a long second before answering. “Having someone I miss before they’ve even been gone a full day,” you say. “Having someone who…” You stop, annoyed at yourself, then force it out anyway. “Who feels this much like mine.”
Spencer goes very still. Then he reaches up and brushes a strand of hair back from your face, fingertips skimming your temple tenderly.
“You say things like that,” he murmurs, “and somehow you still wonder why I can’t help but call.”
He leans in and kisses you, slow and warm and careful in all the places that matter. It starts soft, but there’s heat under it almost immediately. Enough to make your pulse jump. Enough to remind you both of what’s waiting on the other side of healing.
When he pulls back, he doesn’t go far. His forehead rests against yours.
“I love you,” he says quietly, like the words still matter too much to ever get careless with them.
They do. They probably always will.
You touch his arm, then slide your hand down until your fingers lace with his.
“I know you do,” you whisper first, because you can’t help yourself.
Spencer’s mouth twitches.
Then you add, “I love you too.”
His eyes close for a second, and something in his face loosens, like he’ll never quite stop being affected by hearing it.
“Get some sleep,” he murmurs, pressing one last kiss to the corner of your mouth. “You have physical therapy in the morning.”
You groan. “Way to kill the vibe.”
Spencer smiles against your skin. “I’m a professional.”
“You’re the worst.”
“And yet,” he says, settling beside you, hand still wrapped around yours under the blanket, “you love me.”
You let out a soft breath that might be a laugh, might be surrender, might be something a little too close to actual happiness.
“Yeah,” you murmur into the dark. “And yet.”
ᝰ.ᐟ
this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️
PSA: likes do very little for promoting posts on tumblr! if you'd like to support a fic, please reblog!
