summary — reader is secretly pining for spencer, but his eyes are wandering to lila archer
a/n — i needed a break from the christmassy fluff. it became unrealistic LMAO so i needed something so filled with angst it breaks hearts but i promise a happy ending x
pairing — spencer reid x fem!reader
warnings — swearing, love triangle, pining from reader, broken friendship, lying and secrets, reader degrades herself etc
you didn’t know what it was like to be in love.
you were young, vulnerable. the only so-called life experience under your belt was an undergraduate degree and a few months to boast at the bau.
it was why you couldn’t describe how you felt whenever you glanced over at your co-worker, that little bubble of excitement that erupted in your stomach when he started a conversation over nothing with you.
you brushed it off as if it was nothing.
it wasn’t like you were completely unaware of the realm that was the testament of relationships. you had flings, short-term relationships when you were in college. you just didn’t know what it was really like to feel love.
he would talk to you lots, engaging in mundane and sometimes meaningless conversations when you were walking back to motels in nights during cases or on the jet, even when you went home together on those infrequent occasions together. it was rare for spencer to have a real friend the same age as him. his fast-tracked academic career forced him to make do with friends years, even decades, older than he is.
you were the same age as spencer, and for the first time ever, he had come to find that you didn’t treat him any differently or belittled him for being academically gifted; and he made sure he took full advantage of that.
you had been placed in the team for nearly a year when you first considered if you truly wanted to quit it.
summary: a series of moments throughout december where reader tries to get spencer to feel the magic of christmas, and the one time he gives the magic to her.
pairing: spencer x fem!reader
a/n: i used a request (tysm tiana 🥺) paired with the prompt; “you are my family” from this prompt list to possibly create the most lighthearted thing i have ever created EVER. i have another (yes a third) christmas fic coming for this week so !!
warnings: swearing, brief mentions of family issues, but that’s lit it
the date had barely scratched december. to be exact, it was the 8th of the month when spencer was first coaxed into getting into the spirit of the season by his girlfriend.
she was standing readily at the door when spencer had returned from a case, eyes groggy and filled with sleep, but y/n was not prepared to let her boyfriend fall into his slumber just yet. there was a cheeky grin peeking through her pursed lips, and spencer recognised that very same glint in her eyes he knows only appears when she has something planned.
spencer raises an eyebrow at her inquisitively; “and what exactly are you up to, my dear?”
she giggles, fiddling with her hands that are wrapped around her back. spencer tries to move his body to see what exactly she was trying to hide, but she moves away before he has a chance to. “hey! don’t spoil the surprise, mister.” she warns, and a yawn escapes spencer’s lips before he could further protest.
a pout forms on her lips, leaning up to gently kiss spencer on the cheek, which he responds with a tired, lopsided smile. “okay, i have just the thing to make you comfy in bed.”
“what is it?”
as if she had been waiting for spencer to ask that question since the second he walked though the door, an eager squeal leaves her lips as she brings her hands around to her front, visible for spencer to see; two sets of matching pyjamas. she places them on top of the sofa, taking the larger of the two sets - spencer’s - and handing it to him. he examines it with a curious eye, a pattern of red, white and green stripes covered the entire soft fabric, almost fuzzy, and spencer practically feels the material melt in his hands, begging to be worn.
HELLLLOOOOOOOO I WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT LAVENDER IS AMAZING I LOVED IT AHHHHHH AND YOU COULD CONSIDER WRITING ABOUT <SPOILERS> THE READER FINDING OUT EMILY IS ALIVE AND STUFF IDK JUST A FRIENDLY THOUGHT MAYBE U ALREADY THOUGHT ABOUT IT BUT YEA IT WAS AMAZING HAVE A GREAT DAY :))))))))
thank you sm anon ! how cute ! this is very new to me. i was thinking about it and decided that i must feed y'all more angst so here you go!
the resurrection — spencer reid
summary — emily comes back to the bau after faking her death and it takes a toll on reader and spencer's newfound relationship. a continuation from lavender
warnings — fem!reader, hella angst, a breakup, swearing, irrational reader, invasive thoughts, season 7 spoilers (?)
seven months.
it was seven months, of pain, mourning, acceptance, therapy, never ending tears and recovery before you decided to finally let yourself heal from the tragedy of your best friend, emily prentiss’ death.
seven months later she returned after being in hiding, and you didn’t know what to do.
you were lost.
as emily stood in one of the doorways to the conference room, you looked on in fright as the sight of someone who you had buried was slowly drinking in your eyes. you lip quivered uncontrollably, a sheet of tears threatening to spill from your eyes. in disbelief, you turned around to hotch for some sort of explanation to what could only be explained as a mirage in your eyes.
he could only give an apologetic turn of his now softened eyes. you wanted to scoff at the pity. where was the hard leader of your team who had an explanation for everything? you didn’t welcome it at all.
everyone stood and eventually got over their initial shock, beginning to individually embrace emily in welcome. spencer even stood to hug her, and he was in as much disbelief and pain over this as you were.
you were the only person remaining who had not graced emily with some sort of welcome or greeting. you kept staring into her eyes, brown, dark, absorbing, like a spell trying to enchant you.
no.
your best friend was standing in front of you.
how is she?
your best friend is alive.
we buried her.
she’s not dead.
your world was crashing inside of you all at once. you couldn’t feel spencer’s warm touch, trying to bring you back to the reality in quantico. you couldn’t hear the commotion as emily began to get bombarded with questions, undoubtedly about how she managed to pull this off. you could only feel betrayal, and hurt, and all the memories of her funeral, the grievance meetings, moving on without her came to the forefront of your mind once again.
so you did the only thing that was screaming at you to do, and ran.
you fled from the conference room, abandoning your belongings, practically sprinting to the elevator, your fingers endlessly jamming the button over and over again until the doors would eventually open, the tears now willingly streaming down your face to see which would reach your jaw the fastest.
sitting in your car wailing, you buried your hands in your face as you were trying to piece together the madness of the last hour.
hotch suddenly returned from afghanistan, admitting to some form of wrong-doing.
jj was involved by the way he was so adamantly saying how she did nothing.
then emily walks into the doorway.
the next time you sat in your car is on the way to spencer’s apartment to give him a lift to the senate hearing your team was due to endure the entire day. the kind of hearing your mind knew it wasn’t able to handle after the last few weeks with the failed operation resulting in doyle’s death, but you knew you had to go. you hated to admit it, but this would be the first time since emily’s return where you and spencer would be alone together.
spencer was as worn as you were, still getting used to the image of emily walking into the bullpen every morning. he woke up every morning, thinking the normal in his life was a life without his dear friend.
that was fake, it had turned out.
still, he was more than excited to see his girlfriend, the love interest in his epic love story. his lavender girl.
spencer climbs into the passenger seat of the car, a small smile creeping onto his lips when he notices the lavender blouse you were wearing. it was the lavender blouse, the same one you wore on your first day at the bau and spencer made such a fool of himself.
you stare at the lavender shirt he wore that accompanied a sweater vest of his, and despite your awful mood, despite the exhaustion riddling your body like a disease, couldn’t help but smile, too.
he was your lavender boy.
you turn to him and quickly press a peck to his lips in greeting, starting the car soon after, as you drove, spencer looked over at you, seeing the longer you drove, the more your mind became infested with those worries of yours, still comprehending emily’s return. every time his eyes shifted to glance at you momentarily, his frown deepened and imprinted on his lips.
you weren’t dealing with this just as you struggled to deal with emily’s death.
you didn’t say anything, didn’t call out for help. of course you didn’t, spencer thought. you were strong, driven. he knew that, the team knew that. but he hated it when you refused to ask for help, refused to let your guard down for even moment of the day. spencer had just begun to tear down those walls when you let him in and begun dating him just a few months ago, but emily had just forced all those walls up all at once.
he noticed how your eyes refused to even move to look at him, pretending to have a greater interest in the road instead.
“y/n,” spencer calls out to you, breaking the eight minute-long silence that thickened with every moment that passed. it was as arduous as it was uncomfortable. for the both of you, though you would never admit it.
you ignore him.
spencer sighs. you can tell he’s losing his patience, and you don’t blame him, either. everyone’s patience was wearing thin since emily rose from the dead, and one little thing would blow apart the group. everyone could feel it, ticking away.
tick, tick, tick.
you give in to your boyfriend as you approach to a slow stop at a red light, at last turning your head so your eyes met his. your face immediately falls when you notice the concern in spencer’s soft eyes, those soft eyes you let yourself fall for when you thought you were finally healed from emily’s death. you notice they’re only really soft for you, his lavender girl.
your face reddens, almost in embarrassment, because you know that he knew what was going on in your mind, probably better than you, too. sometimes you forget how much this genius notices you, how he never lets his eyes peel away from your presence for even one second.
spencer’s worried became abundantly clear to you when his hands clutches yours, licking his bottom lip swiftly, a nervous habit of his when he’s thinking of what to say.
“you haven’t said how you felt about emily coming back.”
“neither have you.” you point out matter-of-factly, which was absolutely true, spencer avoided the subject just like you, like it was the plague.
spencer felt a smile cracking on the edge of his lips, squeezing your hand justt a little harder in his. “you’re very good at making me look like a hypocrite, darling.”
you bite your lip, trying and failing to suppress the giggle escaping them, “don’t worry, spence, you love it.”
“that i do.” he agrees, and you kiss his knuckles before slipping his hand from his to resume your journey to the senate, which was fast approaching. spencer still needed to say what he had initially set out on saying, but he couldn’t help but get distracted in you. letting you distract him was a dream every time. “but we still need to talk about it. both of us do. whether it be to each other or to a therapist - “
your breath hitches, and spencer notices, a grimace replacing the smile that was once there seconds ago.
you pull into the car park, and the second the engine shuts off, you throw your head back on the head of the car seat in frustration. you really didn’t want to cry before this meeting. you spent the entirety of the morning prepping yourself to see emily again. you wanted to cry.
oh, how you wanted to just let yourself sob into spencer and let him take care of you and let your world cave in, but you didn’t. you can’t. suppressing it seemed so much easier, easier than letting yourself fall back into the rut you couldn’t get yourself out of for five months.
“i can’t, spence, “ you finally answer him, and it was the answer he did not want. “i can barely come into work, and look where that’s got us; suspended and my reinstating request being evaluated by the fucking senate.”
spencer frowns once more. he seemed to do that a lot. “do you want to leave?” he asks, more of a mouth babble than a real thought, but he couldn’t take it back.
you stay silent for a minute to contemplate spencer’s question. “i don’t know.” you answer honestly.
the answer ripped a piece of spencer’s heart from him. he was so in love with you, so fucking head over heels devoted to you, he has been for a while. he fell in love seeing your lavender smile and watching you light up every room you walked into with ease. he already felt you slipping from him and you were sitting right next to him. spencer knew if you left the team, it’d be the end of your epic love story, and it had only just begun.
“come to mine tonight after the hearing, to just think about it, and i’m not going to force you to stay at all, but i want to show you how important you are to the team. to me.” spencer pleads, his desperation causing the words to tumble out of his mouth like fire.
i love you so much. don’t leave me.
you huff, but the idea sounded comforting to you, and so you nod in agreement. the two of you leave the car together, and spencer makes no hesitation to grab a hold of your hand, the feeling he became so accustomed to by now, he needed it. the warmth of your lavender boy spread through you, adding to the comfort he had given to you, not for the first time, and it almost made you forget about having to sit in a room with emily for the entire day.
almost.
the whole team were already waiting outside the court room, along with strauss who was overseeing the day’s events, and the second your eyes met with emily’s, you felt your hand slip on the grip with spencer’s hands, and you stare at her for the first time since she returned.
tick, tick, tick.
emily stands, ready to have the conversation of her life, prepared to make up the last seven months. seven long months. ready to start making it up to you now. but hotch grabs her hand, stopping her. she looks down at him, confusion riddled on her face, but before hotch could reply, someone opens the door to the hearing room.
“they’re ready for you.”
“agent y/l/n, you’ve requested to be reinstated to the bureau like most of your team.” the senator starts speaking to you, all alone for your own personal testimony before they brought you all back in as a team.
you nod, “yes i have, sir.”
the senator who spoke sat in the middle among his colleagues leant forward, pinching his thin glasses and stared down at a piece of paper with a mix of scribbled and typed notes. “may i ask why?”
isn’t it obvious?
you cleared your throat, replicating the senator’s leaning posture, “because i firmly believe i’m wasting my time here, sir, when i could be saving lives instead. i fully intend on doing my job.”
“do you believe with ian doyle dead, lives are still saved?”
yes.
“i didn’t pull the trigger, sir.”
this guy is seriously pulling these questions out from his ass, i’m telling you. you thought, slwoly losing your patience as you fought for your job, as well as the entire teams’. you knew most of the team were having a water break while you were in here, but derek and spencer insisted they’d wait.
you wondered if they could hear what was going on.
“no, agent, but you knew the risks when agent reid suggested the plan. the same agent reid, who i believe you’re currently dating?”
you began to seethe, and you didn’t hesitate to let it show on your face. this sexist piece of shit, “are you suggesting that i let my personal feelings get in the way of the case at hand, and also the life of a small boy, sir?” you asked, feeling your voice raise ever so slightly.
he was silent for the next few seconds, so you took that as an invitation to carry on. “if you are, which i only think you are because i’m the woman in the relationship, then you’re clearly not aware of the document doctor reid and i had to sign preventing things like this ever happening. we’re professional colleagues, ask any other member of this team, ask ssa strauss. but i will never, ever put an agent above a victim of a case. i hope you asked doctor reid the same thing for your own sake.”
the tension since your rant had lay thick once you finished talking, leaning back into your seat and taking a sip of the glass of water provided for you. the senator stared you down, determined to make you speak out of line or apologise for what you just said, but if you knew anything as well as spencer knew everything, it was the rules.
“do you believe that your team acted out of line or irrationally at any moment during the case?”
you wanted to smile, i won, but you remained stoic with hard eyes, never leaving the senate before you. “no sir, we did what we would do in any case; make sure that everyone is as safe as possible.”
when you walked out minutes later, you felt your shoulders slump, your head throbbing from all the adrenaline you put into that testimony, and it didn’t help when you saw spencer approach, beginning to pull you into his usual bear hug that always made you feel right at home.
the senator’s words, however out of order or sexist they were, rung in your mind, and so you step away before you could be trapped in spencer’s arms. “not here.” you mumble under your breath to him, which forced his eyebrows to pull together in confusion, but he just brushes it off with stress.
you look at derek, who pats your shoulder comfortingly, “was it that bad?”
you sigh, “worse.” you look up at spencer, who was still trying to piece together your weird mood and what it was down to. “where’s hotch?”
“taking a breather outside. with emily.”
you screw your eyes together in annoyance. you needed to talk to hotch about if the senate had access to the document you and reid signed when you first made things official two months ago, but you didn’t want to have to come into contact with emily doing it.
oh, whatever. stop being a child. deal with it, y/n.
you nod, thanking spencer and saying a quick goodbye to him and morgan before storming outside before they called everyone back in for the senate’s decision. luckily, hotch was standing right outside the doors, emily standing a few feet from him. the second you swung the door open, both their heads snapped up, and emily swiftly frowned. she knew you were not here to talk to her.
hotch notices your stare on him quick enough, standing and nodding to greet you. “are you okay, y/l/n? how was it?”
"i dealt with it. um, quick question though, did you or strauss provide mine and spence's relationship document as evidence? they tried using it against me."
you did notice hotch's face pinch in confusion, defining his wrinkles around his mouth and forehead. but you certainly did not see how emily's face immediately fell and paled at the mention of you and spencer.
she couldn't not say anything, "no, hotch didn't, i mentioned it myself."
you spun to look at emily directly in the eye for the first time since her return. your mouth lay agape as you tried to process her words. your heart was pounding in your ears. maybe you heard wrong. no, you definitely didn't. she made you look unprofessional in front of the senate. this had rendered you speechless. you were exhausted. you just want to cry and go home. maybe quitting would be better.
"prentiss, y/l/n and reid's relationship has nothing to do with what we're being questioned about." hotch rightly pointed out. he was angry, too, he was just better controlling his emotions than you.
emily was rushing for the right words, her eyes wild and frantic as she tried to find the perfect symphony that would calm you down, that would take your shoulders and massage them till they relax for once. she just wanted to make it right. "i'm so sorry, they-they asked me if i noticed any changes to the dynamic of the team since my return, a-and it threw me off so i was remembering what garcia told me catching up, and it slipped! i-i can't take back what i said, y/n, but i did not intend for it to bite you in the ass."
she was sorry.
you could see how sorry she was.
how ashamed she was of herself.
but your anger prevailed.
and the bomb exploded.
you stalk up to emily, your nostrils flaring as you extend your index finger, jabbing it just above her chest. "if you just cost me my job because your tounge slipped, emily, i swear to god—"
"stop it. both of you." hotch finally intervenes, stepping between the two women and forcing space between them. "y/n, go inside. get some water. talk to reid. prentiss, stay out here with me until they call us back."
you scoff. you couldn't believe this. "does everyone believe that i just belong to reid?! why do i suddenly depend on him?"
you turn on your heels and leave before either could give you an answer that would piss you off anymore.
you were angry, no furious, with just about everyone right now. they had no right to think about you like that. you had just started dating spencer and already people couldn't distinguish between the two of you. it was as if your actions were his. your place on the team belonged to him, you no longer had any credit.
i mean, for goodness sake, all i did was use him to heal from emily—
you stop yourself.
you felt guilty as soon as the thought sprang into your mind.
but then you thought. was that how you really felt about spencer? someone to use for therapy?
no.
maybe.
you weren't sure.
you turn the corner to find the water station, but instead found your lavender boy instead. he held two coffee cups in his hands, his posture bent as ever as he shook his right leg up and down awaiting your return.
he was worried about you.
the second you were in spencer's line of sight, he sat up straight, greeting you with a nervous smile, extending his arm with your designated coffee cup. you took it silently.
he stared at you silently. you were breathing heavily, tears were brimming your eyes. you couldn't even look at him.
something was wrong.
"what is it?" spencer asks, taking his now free hand to hold yours, but you jerk away, and his heart started racing. he felt it wanting to beat out of his chest.
"spence— spencer, i-i can't…" you begin to articulate, but you couldn't find the words. you didn't know how, but you had to. you finally look up to him, a tear already rolling down your cheek, let loose. "i can't do this anymore."
spencer felt time stop. his hands began to sweat, his throat was closing up.
no, don't say that. i love you.
spencer was stunned, and only after endless seconds, could he barely choke out, "w-what?"
you cried harder.
i love you.
"this is too hard for me, a-and i think that you may care for you more than you care for me." you were making excuses, you knew it and so did spencer. you didn't know why you were doing this, but your gut was telling you it was the right thing to do. the thing to do to show you were your own individual.
spencer began to cry now. he wanted to just say he loved you, i love you so much, please don't leave, but it was words that refused to tumble from his lips. he was rendered a crying pool of humanity.
"i'm so close to leaving this team, and i don't want to, spencer, and i'm doing this because—" she pauses to let out another sob, her coffee cup shaking violently in her hand. "because i want to carry on seeing you every day. i don't know what i'd do if i didn't."
a thought crosses her mind, you're doing the wrong thing, but she can't take it back. not now.
your hand reached out for spencer's cheek, and he leaned into it instinctively, kissing your palm, tasting his salty tears. please don't leave me. "but y-you're my lavender girl." spencer whispers, and you felt the small crack in your heart split open, and you kiss the top of his head.
"and you're my lavender boy," you whisper back, grabbing a gentle hold of the lavender collar of spencer's shirt, smoothing it down.
daily tasks became difficult when it was registered in your mind that you and spencer had ended. the love story stopped before it started, and you spent the next month contemplating if you made the right decision, feeling the cold emptiness of your bed every night and morning.
you couldn't take it back.
spencer stopped sleeping. whatever little sleep he got in the first place was because he knew you were next to him, combing your fingers lazily through his hair while you read on a case report. he blamed everything on emily.
he wanted to hate her.
he wanted to hate jj for keeping it from him.
so he did.
a month after your relationship with spencer had come to an end, the team was back together once more, hitting the ground running with a new case. you weren't listening to garcia's briefing. you'll read the case file on the jet.
all you did was twirl your pen in your hand as you heard spencer's laugh ring in your mind.
your lavender boy, no longer yours.
you and spencer sat on opposite sides of the jet when it flew to oklahoma, knowing it was for the best. it was how it was before emily's funeral.
it seemed spencer was giving jj and emily the cold shoulder, as they decided to sit with you on the jet along with rossi.
you rolled your eyes. it would go faster with music.
before you could plug your headphones into your phone and let yourself sleep for the next few hours, you felt rossi's touch on your wrist stop you. you look at him curiously.
"i think we need to talk about the elephant in the room," he tries to start mediating, and you wanted to be petty, you wanted to smack emily in the face. you stared coldly at jj, too. she didn't do anything to you, but she lied to spencer. she lied to the person occupying your heart. you'd still defend him, no matter how much you weren't together or even speaking.
"no, we don't." you reply curtly, and to your surprise, emily agrees, so you get back to what you were doing, and turned the volume of your music on full, opening the manila file and examining the case.
the case was in full swing later in the afternoon, and you had just returned from talking to the parents of the murdered girls with hotch and dave, which went as expected, returning to share the information you had discovered with derek and emily, who went to the disposal sights.
minutes later, the door to the precinct opened and in storms spencer, quickly followed by jj, who looked pissed off. so did spencer, but that wasn't new.
something happened when they were out.
you pretended to ignore it and faced back to the bulletin board everyone else was surrounded around, but it became impossible to ignore when jj raised her voice.
"i get it, okay? you're dissapointed with the way you handled emily."
she was trying. you saw that.
but spencer ignored her, grabbing some papers on the desk in the office. "listen, i have a lot going on, alright?"
you had never seen spencer so angry.
and you couldn't help but know that you were the thing that spencer said was a lot for him.
"do you know what i think it is?" jj raises her voice, and now the whole team was looking at what was unfolding. you knew this was your fault. you knew spencer was projecting. it was you he wanted to scream at.
"what?" spencer amuses jj, and she accepts the challenge, closing some of the distance between them.
"you're mad that Hotch and I controlled our micro expressions at the hospital and you weren't able to detect our deception. you're mad y/n broke up with you." she says bluntly, and you screw your eyss shut.
your heart was beating in your ears again.
stop it.
i want to stop you hurting. let me.
i'm sorry.
let me make it better.
i care.
i promise.
"you think this is about my profiling skills? Jennifer, listen: the only reason you were able to manage my perceptions is because I trusted you! I came to your house for ten weeks in a row, crying over losing a friend, and not once did you have the decency to tell me the truth. leave y/n out of this." spencer spits. he's furious. raging. raging because you set him off. raging because he bottled his emotions. bottled them to take care of you.
jj sucked in a shaky breath. "i couldn't!"
spencer scoffed, "couldn't, or wouldn't?" he asked skeptically, and the answer was staring at him in the face.
couldn't! see sense!
"no! i couldn't!"
spencer's face goes blank, void of any emotion for the first time all day. "what if i had started taking dilaudid again? would you have let me?"
you felt like you were smacked in the face
please, no
i care.
"you didn't."
"yeah, but i thought about it."
you ran to the toilets before spencer could see the tears streamed down your face.
this was your fault, you knew it was.
you were stupid.
the hole had opened up, but spencer was no longer there to fill it for you. you missed him, missed his laugh, his smile, the way he kissed you goodnight, the way his fingers loved being intertwined with yours in a sea of love.
love.
no.
twenty minutes passed and by now you were sitting on the floor of the ladies' bathroom, leaning against the sink, a bunch of tissues stuffed in your hand. you hadn't looked in the mirror yet, but you were guaranteed to be welcomed with running black cheeks and red rimmed eyes.
i want to take care of him.
i made a mistake.
the door tentatively opens, and your head turns sharply as emily's head slowly peeks through the opening, a sad smile on her face.
"room for one more?"
you didn't want to fight anymore, you nod. she slides down and meets you at the same level of the bathroom floor, both your knees hunched up at your chests. you look at each other. you didn't want to fight. you didn't have the energy.
"i'm sorry." you finally say, and it's like a wave of tonnes of stress slipped from your head. emily leans down so her head met your shoulder. the warmth of your best friend.
"i'm sorry, too. i didn't mean to put you in that position." she replies. you sniff, feeling the mucus build up in your nose, a good sign you had officially cried too much. "no, i know you were. i was just angry. i missed you so, so much. i thought i lost you." you say, the words wanting you to cry again, but you don't allow it.
"i missed you, too. more than you know. derek told me how hard you took it, and i just wish there was something else that could have been done—"
"but there wasn't, and i understand." you interrupt emily's little rant, who giggles.
you raise an eyebrow at her. "look at us, fools."
you chuckle dryly, blowing your nose with the tissues clamped in your hand. "i certainly am."
there was a moment of silence. "is this about you and spencer breaking up?"
of course it is.
i miss him so much.
you nod, releasing a shaky breath, the frustration in yourself bubbling madly. "i don't want to be the reason he thought of taking dilaudid again. i don't want that at all. not for me, for him. i miss him so much, em, and i left him, because i was a coward and ran the second i saw there was trouble. i lo—" you stop yourself, because you weren't certain what you were saying was completely true. after all, last time you trusted your thoughts, you made a collassal mistake.
but emily knew you better than that. "you love him." she points out. she was right, but you still doubted her words.
"i-i don't know."
emily sits up from your shoulder, taking your hands in hers, and you stared in to her eyes, searching for the answers you were so desperate to find. "what do you call him?"
you answer without hesitation, "my lavender boy."
"what does he call you?" she asks quicker.
"my lavender girl."
"when did you start dating?"
"three months ago yesterday."
"who broke up with who?"
"i did."
"do you regret it?"
"yes."
"do you love him?"
"yes."
the answer was quick and thoughtless, it was how you really felt, and you know that was what emily was trying to achieve. a grin breaks out onto her face, and you began to blush.
i love him.
i love you, spencer reid.
the case was soon over, and as an attempt to get the team to once again become the family it once was, rossi invited everyone over for a cooking lesson. you said yes. you wanted to see spencer's face, you want to tell him you love him, even if he moved on. you needed him to know.
but the universe was not on your side that night.
your car was stuck in miles of traffic that kept you jammed in the streets of d.c for over half an hour. you knew how prompt a person spencer was, he would probably be the first person there. it ruined your plans to have a chance to talk to spencer before everyone arrived.
you were screwed.
when you did finally park outside rossi's mansion, you were a cursing mess, fiddling with your car keys. you pressed the lock button two or three times, and it was refusing to lock.
you were forty minutes late.
"oh, for fuck's sake, just work!" you groan out in frustration, and the sound of a car door shutting that wasn't yours took you away from your stressed out bubble you'd been living in all night.
it was spencer.
your lavender boy.
he was just as shocked to see you just parking, but you had made eye contact, so he knew there was no backing out of going over to you. he waves awkwardly, you do back.
"it's um, not working again?" spencer stutters, and you know its the only conversation starter he could come up with.
you nod, trying to press the lock again. "yes, i'll need to get it checked it out. might use the metro for the next few days."
spencer nods. it's silent again. god this is so awkward. you need to get this out of the way.
"listen, spence, i need to—"
"i think we need to—"
you interrupt each other. a chuckle falls from your lips. a smile cracks on his. "what are we like, we can't even talk to each other."
"i know, and i'm sorry." spencer begins, but you shut him up by pressing your finger to his lips. he looks upon it in confusion.
"no, i'm sorry. i made a mistake. and i couldn't take back anything i said, but i was a coward, i was scared of doing the wrong thing, but god damn it, spencer, i love you, and i'm so, so, so sorry it took me this long to realise i was scared of falling in love. but i'm not anymore. because being in love with spencer reid has got to probably be the greatest thing the world has to offer." you ramble, determined to get that out there. tears were brimming your eyes for the millionth time today, but it didn't stop you. you want him to know. you want the world to know.
i love you.
you know this.
spencer takes your finger away from his lips, and when he does he breaks out in the widest grin you had seen on him in the longest while. his hands cup your cheeks, his face leaning into yours until your foreheads married, his breath fanning over your lips.
a light laugh falls from his lips. "i'm so in love with you, lavender girl."
you finally seal the deal, moving your head up just an inch for your lips to join with his, and you finally were home after being away for so long.
desperate to be closer to you, spencer clutches his arms around your waist, making sure his lips never left yours as he lifted you slightly until you were on your tip-toes, pressing your chests together.
summary: Spencer is in love with you and the purple you constantly wear, but one day you suddenly stop wearing it.
warnings: lauren spoilers, mentions of death, grieving, angst, but fluff <3
purple was spencer's favourite colour in the whole world. he preferred a deeper purple on himself, but lavender came a slim second by any means.
why?
because it was the colour you walked into work with everyday.
you had joined the bau a year before emily had faked her death and disappeared and spencer was confined to his crutches for months, but he would never forget the day you were introduced to the team (it was a handy thing that he could also never possibly forget with his eidetic memory). your hair was tied up into a tight ponytail, yet a few strands were let loose to frame your perfectly structured face, one that spencer reckoned a chinese doll maker had spent days upon days endlessly carving to give you the beauty you deserved.
that first day at the bau you wore a lavender blouse paired with a pair of black trousers, even your watch had a lavender strap attached to your watch. you adored the colour, it gave you life, and spencer thought you flourished in it. you were shaking everyone's hands enthusiastically, an equally cheery grin plastered onto your lips, and making your way to spencer, you removed your hand and instead widened your smile.
"a little birdie told me you're not a fan of handshakes, don't worry, 'doc, i got you." she playfully teases, and spencer felt his cheeks grow red with bashfulness, but doesn't hesitate to awkwardly wave at you, formally introducing himself in the process.
spencer reckoned it was a silly small time crush that he had on you and would eventually get over it, so he wouldn't be completely keen with making friends with you for now.
six months passed and he still had not got over you. in fact, he was growing even more infatuated with every day that passed. you didn't seem to be completely bothered with the fact that he didn't speak to you, as spencer watched you fastly becoming good friends with the whole team, most particularly emily and morgan, the three of you always sharing jokes and passing each other coffees in the morning or on a tough case. it had become part of spencer's daily routine to be sitting at his desk, perephial vision in line with the bullpen door, watching you walk in twenty minutes after he first takes a seat, proudly wearing a piece of lavender with you without fail. it always brought an unknowing smile to spencer's face to see you keep a piece of you that was so unique.
you two weren't ever close, but the day the team were told that emily never made it off the table, an individual piece of both your hearts died and thought to never recover. and it was true that they say that trauma brings people together.
that day, you were wearing a lavender t-shirt, and you had decided on that very moment you clutched morgan, weeping into his chest and swearing that this was the worst moment thus far of your life, you declared internally that you would never wear that colour again. you refused to let yourself shine when your best friend was about to go six feet under.
everyone had changed with the news of emily's death, granted, but it always made spencer frown a little more when he sees you refusing to break a smile or laugh in the lead-up to the funeral, which was only days away. three days before the funeral, you had stopped showing up to the grievance meetings strauss had forced the team to come in every day for while they had their time off, and you had stopped answering your calls completely. you were taking the news the worst of all, even worse than spencer had, despite going to jj's nightly and crying his eyes out in her embrace.
the next day after the meeting, morgan approaches spencer, gently patting his back, "hey kid, long shot i know, but have you heard from y/n at all? she's not answering my calls. i'm uh- worried she's dealing with this wrong."
spencer frowns, his mind straight away telling him to offer to visit her at her home to check up on her, but like morgan said, that would be a big long shot. you weren't big friends, after all.
he shakes his head, shrugging lightly at derek, whose face falters slightly at spencer's response, "sorry, no. maybe you should go visit her instead." he suggests, and derek nods, fiddling with his phone, turning it round and round in his hand.
"sure thing, kid. see you tomorrow."
spencer was ashamed to admit that you were on his mind more than emily was, even on the morning of the funeral, as he does up his black tie suiting his equally depressing and bleak black suit for the funeral. derek was with him in his apartment, the two deciding to go together so that morgan can drive spencer. you were still silent from the team, and rumours were swirling around that you were about to quit, all of which hotch firmly shut down, backed up by strauss, surprisingly. spencer was most worried you'd be so consumed in your grief you're about to skip the funeral and regret it for the rest of your life to come. he didn't want that for you.
the good doctor was fiddling with the knot of his tie, chewing on his bottom lip when morgan placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, "we're gonna get through this together, we're family."
spencer winces, y/n is also our family.
the two friends make their way to derek's car, sitting in the silence and stuffiness that they were about to go to their friends' funeral, and all of a sudden spencer made a decision that he refused that beautiful lavender-laden girl to miss the one thing she would regret forever.
"we need to make a stop on the way," spencer announces as he straps his seatbelt in, bouncing his leg up and down in anticipation. he couldn't believe he was doing this.
derek raises an eyebrow in intrigue, but nevertheless nods, "sure thing, pretty boy. where to?"
spencer pauses for a moment before saying; "y'n's place."
morgan sighs, "spencer, she's not coming, she told me."
a scoff was threatening to leave spencer's lips as he turns in his seat to face his friend, "and you're just going to accept that? we know how much she and emily adored each other, she'd never forgive herself if she didn't go, when she's healed. we need to be there for her, as her family."
spencer knew that he hurt derek's feelings, watching him close his eyes and take a sharp breath at spencer's jab. but he was right, he knew he was. "yeah, okay. but you go, because i tried and she is refusing to move."
arriving at your place twenty minutes later, spencer nearly jumped out of the car the second that derek stopped the engine. "don't be long, the service starts in half an hour!" derek calls out, and spencer throws a quick thumbs up before reaching your apartment building, finding the number of your place he remembers you telling him once in case there was an emergency. he presses the buzzer urgently, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, shaking out his hands from any nervousness he may have doing this. after all, this would be a surprise visit.
it takes a good two minutes for you to find the strength to answer the door, holding a blanket securely around your body, rubbing your eyes from any sleep stuck in your eyes.
you certainly weren't having any sleep lately, that was for sure.
"hello?" you croak into the intercom, and spencer's heart nearly drops to the floor when he hears the lack of hope in your voice, the lack of life.
"uh- hi, y/n, i-it's spencer. can i come in?"
you almost laugh, completely and utterly perplexed by the near stranger at your door. "spencer?! um, yeah come in, i guess."
the walk up the several flights of stairs to your apartment felt like to forever to spencer. he usually saw you everyday, and this was the first time in several days that he hadn't seen you. and it was worse when he actually met with your eyes for the first time in a long while. your eyes were sunken, rimmed almost permanently with red from the constant crying. your cheeks looked hollow as you took a deep breath coming into contact with the genius doctor.
you weren't looking after yourself.
"i can't say i was expecting you of all people to show up at my door to beg me to come to the funeral, 'doc." you sigh as you open the door a little wider as a silent invitation to come in, which spencer obliges.
he looks around your small apartment, taking note of the lack of any sign you were eating or drinking, apart from the sole half full glass of water sitting on the kitchen counter that looked like it hadn't been touched in a while.
you notice spencer taking note of your living space, of course you do, you're a profiler. "i thought members of the team don't profile each other."
spencer turns to you, a frown on his lips, but it didn't match the grieving frown residing on your face, it was more disappointment. "why don't you wear your purple clothes anymore?"
you freeze up at the question, it wasn't what you were expecting. you were half expecting him to do what everyone else did when they came round; begging you to leave the house, clean up, stock the fridge, hope you come back.
but of course, you avoid spencer's question with one of your own, "why is this the first time in the 18 months i've known you that you've had a real conversation with me?"
maybe spencer was expecting that, after avoiding her for so long. however, he still persists. "i'll answer your question when you stop avoiding mine, y/n."
you chew the inside of your lip, feeling overwhelmed by the need to just talk to someone. anyone. maybe you were finally ready to let go of the first stage of hurt. the thought of it brought tears to the lining of your eyes, and you take a shaky breath to try and regain something to prevent bursting into tears straight away. spencer instinctively moved towards you, bringing his hands up to your arm, the pad of his thumb smoothing it comfortingly.
it was the straw that broke the camel's back. "it's my favourite colour. my lucky colour. and- and i found out the worst news of my life wearing that! p-purple was my comfort, and that comfort got destroyed, spencer! i'll look at it and forever think of that awful moment in the hospital." you whisper the last sentence, the tears running down your cheeks in streams, a fresh stream pouring whenever you blinked.
silently, spencer took his hand resting on your arm and wraps it and his other hand around your shoulders, pulling you into a hug as you dug your head into his chest, continuing to sob uncontrollably.
soothing you by running his hands through your knotted hair, spencer rests his chin on your head. "i got home the second we landed again and i just took everything off and burned it on my fireplace. had the longest shower of my life. i just wanted to get the death off me, but i knew that ridding myself of my clothes won't help me do that. i— i needed to try and start to accept the situation at hand."
"are you? accepting it?" you muffle in his chest, still buried in spencer's embrace.
he chuckles slightly, "no, definitely not," he says, which also forces a laugh out of you, which was his intention. "but you know, it's a start. and you don't need to change yourself, you don't need to change what makes you unique in every beautiful way and you need to start to try and accept it."
you stay silent for a few seconds, contemplating spencer's words, before pulling away from the hug, wiping the tears from your eyes.
"how long until the service?"
funerals were never meant for fun or acceptance. it was a place of mourning, to cry all you could for the loss of your special person. for the bau team, that special person was emily. you stood next to spencer the entire time, clutching onto the single purple carnation that you had in your vase at home that you spotted on your way out with spencer.
you look to the boy on your left, who had his head cowered standing in front of the closed casket, his eyes screwed in pain as you saw the tears run down his cheeks one by one, and saw the boy in a different light to how you've ever known him. he saw you, saw the foundations of who you are, without ever getting to know you through conversation. he noticed you.
and that was special to you, incredibly meaningful.
as the service went on, you reached out next to you and brushed your knuckles with his, and he took the hint and intertwined his fingers with yours, grasping onto it to tight as you both bid farewell to your best friend together, placing the lavender flower on top of the casket before it lowered into the ground.
"hey, spence," you began as you two sit alone in the corner of the wake at a cathedral emily's mother had hired out for the event. your hands were still connected, having never left each other since they first joined in the service. "you never answered my question from this morning."
spencer all of a sudden grows bashful, the kind that you remember from your first meeting with spencer in the bau. "because i think you're the most beautiful woman in the world, and that scares me."
you smile softly, leaning your head to rest on spencer's shoulder, kissing the shoulder pad of his blazer as you look onward to the scene of the wake of emily prentiss. "i think you're the most beautiful man."
