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⊹ Playing: Songbird.

Spencer Reid x BAU!reader

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Summary: What starts as a simple trip outside the city turns into a peaceful morning shared with Spencer. Surrounded by nature and far from the chaos of work, the two of you find yourselves spending time together in a way that feels different than usual.

Words: 10k (I SWEAR I tried to make it shorter, but I couldn't).

Warnings & Tags: this is part of a series, check the masterlist to make sure you are in the correct chapter. typical cm stuff. extra slooow burn. friends to something weird to lovers. simply them behaving like a couple who have been married for two decades. english isn't my first language (sorry for my mistakes, be kind please).

Note: This ended up being twice as long as a normal chapter, so enjoy! And just so you know, this is a one-off that wasn’t part of my original plan😭

“For you, the sun will be shining because I feel that when I'm with you.” — Songbird, Fleetwood Mac

The city looks different before sunrise.

Not quieter exactly, Washington is never truly quiet, but softened somehow, like the world hasn’t fully decided what shape it wants to take yet. Streetlights still glow amber against damp pavement, their reflections stretching long and distorted across rain-dark streets where traffic has thinned to only the occasional passing car hissing through puddles. Headlights slide briefly across empty intersections before vanishing again into the dim blue haze hanging low between buildings, leaving behind only the fading shimmer of reflected light on asphalt. Everything feels quieter at this hour in a way that has nothing to do with sound and everything to do with expectation, like the city itself is still deciding whether it wants to wake up at all.

Spencer drives with both hands fixed carefully on the steering wheel.

Not because he particularly enjoys driving—he very much does not, which is why he usually spends his days underground on the subway avoiding both traffic and unnecessary human interaction whenever possible—but because the alternative had been letting you attempt it, and both of you agreed that would almost certainly end in property damage, emotional distress, or a deeply humiliating federal incident neither of you wanted to explain to Hotch afterward. So Spencer had taken the keys from your hand downstairs with the exhausted resignation of a man accepting unavoidable suffering, muttering under his breath about accident mortality statistics and the catastrophic incompetence of inexperienced drivers while you laughed all the way across the apartment parking lot behind him, still half-asleep and carrying your camera bag like it weighed twice as much at five in the morning.

Now he sits tense behind the wheel of the borrowed sedan, shoulders held just slightly rigid beneath his dark coat, posture too upright to be comfortable. The dashboard glows pale blue across the sharp planes of his face, catching in the tired hollows beneath his eyes and along the faint stubble shadowing his jaw from lack of sleep. His hair is still damp from the rushed shower he took sometime before dawn after finally giving up on the idea of sleeping entirely, dark curls curling faintly near the nape of his neck and at the edges around his ears where they haven’t dried properly yet. Every so often his fingers tighten imperceptibly against the wheel whenever another car appears too suddenly beside him.

Beside him, you sit curled slightly toward the passenger window with your camera resting carefully across your lap, coat pulled tightly around yourself against the lingering cold that followed you out of your apartment at five in the morning. The heater hums softly through the car, filling the silence with warm recycled air and the faint smell of old upholstery mixed with coffee someone spilled weeks ago and never properly cleaned. Your boots are tucked slightly beneath the seat, one sleeve covering part of your hand as your fingers absentmindedly trace the edge of the camera strap while you watch the city slide past outside the window.

And underneath it all, low enough to feel more woven into the atmosphere than actually playing, Fleetwood Mac drifts softly through the speakers.

The realization hit almost immediately after you climbed into the car and recognized the familiar opening notes humming quietly through the stereo. Spencer hadn’t acknowledged it. Hadn’t looked at you when he adjusted the volume slightly lower either, fingers brushing the dial with practiced carelessness like the choice meant absolutely nothing at all.

The CDs you gave him for his birthday.

They sit stacked unevenly beside the dashboard now, half-sliding against one another every time the car turns too sharply, their plastic cases dulled cloudy at the corners from being handled too often. Tiny scratches catch intermittently beneath passing streetlights, silver fractures flashing briefly before disappearing again into shadow. One of the jewel cases is still hanging slightly open from where Spencer swapped albums at a red light twenty minutes ago, careless in a way that feels strangely impossible for him.

And for reasons you cannot fully explain, the sight settles somewhere warm and aching beneath your ribs.

Because Spencer Reid does not do things absentmindedly. Not really. Every habit of his becomes ritual eventually, every preference categorized and repeated with quiet precision until it settles into permanence. He remembers statistics from books he read at eleven years old. Eats the same foods in the same order. Rearranges files by instinct when nervous. Even the way he holds coffee cups is consistent, fingers always curved too carefully around the cardboard sleeve like he’s unconsciously measuring heat transfer.

So the fact that these cases look used means something.

Not tucked untouched onto a shelf out of politeness. Not preserved in perfect condition the way people preserve gifts they appreciate theoretically but never truly absorb into their lives. These look lived with. Opened repeatedly. Changed out often enough that one hinge no longer closes properly. One case even has a thin crack running through the corner you’re almost certain wasn’t there when you wrapped them months ago.

He actually listens to them.

The song changes somewhere between intersections, guitar bleeding softly into another melody low enough to blend with the rhythmic swish of windshield wipers dragging rainwater aside in smooth hypnotic arcs. Spencer’s thumb taps once against the steering wheel before stilling again, absent rhythm betraying recognition before he catches himself doing it.

“You skipped one of the best songs on this album,” you murmur eventually.

Your voice comes out quieter than intended, still thickened faintly by exhaustion and early morning cold. You shift slightly in your seat as you speak, turning your head just enough to glance toward the stereo display glowing dimly green against the dashboard.

Spencer’s gaze never leaves the road.

“No, I didn’t.”

The response comes immediately, certain in the way only Spencer can sound while discussing something deeply ridiculous with complete sincerity. His hands remain fixed carefully at ten and two on the wheel as another car glides past in the opposite lane, headlights washing briefly across the inside of the sedan before disappearing again.

You blink at him slowly. “You absolutely did.”

“I intentionally omitted one track.”

“That’s skipping.”

“It disrupts the narrative pacing of the album,” he replies at once. There’s a slight pause before he adds, quieter this time, almost reluctant to admit it out loud, “…It makes me uncomfortable.”

For a second you just stare at him.

Rainwater trails slowly down the windshield beneath the metronomic rhythm of the wipers. Lindsey Buckingham’s guitar hums softly through the speakers, warm and grainy through the old sound system, while pale dawn light begins bleeding slowly between buildings ahead of you. Spencer remains completely serious beside you, profile lit intermittently by passing streetlights: sharp nose, tired eyes, curls still damp near his temples.

“You’re profiling Fleetwood Mac,” you accuse finally.

Sleepy amusement curls through your voice despite yourself, incredulous laughter lingering at the edges of the words.

Spencer exhales softly through his nose. Not quite a sigh. More like the restrained patience of a man burdened by other people refusing to engage intellectually with his deeply reasonable behavior. His fingers tighten briefly against the steering wheel before relaxing again.

“I’m analyzing structural composition.”

“You’re insufferable before six in the morning.”

“That’s biologically normal,” he replies automatically. “Cognitive patience tends to decrease significantly during sleep deprivation, particularly in social environments involving confined spaces and repetitive auditory stimulation.”

You snort quietly under your breath before you can stop yourself, shaking your head as you lean farther back into the seat. The leather creaks softly beneath you. Pulling your coat tighter around yourself, you tuck one cold hand beneath the opposite sleeve while the heater breathes warm air lazily across your knees.

“That makes perfect sense,” you mumble, without meaning a single word of it.

Because even now, even exhausted, hollow-eyed, carrying nightmares he refuses to speak about directly, Spencer still tries to keep pace with you.

He listens while you ramble half-awake about lyrics and melodies and how certain songs physically feel like watching rain through apartment windows at three in the morning. He lets you talk about your favorite band with the same attentive seriousness he gives profiling discussions, nodding slightly when you explain why one song feels lonelier than another despite having nearly identical instrumentation. Occasionally he interrupts with some bizarrely specific fact about production techniques or music theory, only to look faintly annoyed with himself immediately afterward, like he forgot normal people don’t memorize recording patterns recreationally.

You sing quietly under your breath sometimes, not enough to fill the car, just enough to exist alongside the music, fingers tapping absently against your knee in time with the rhythm while the city slides past outside in blurred streaks of gold and blue.

And Spencer listens to that too.

Carefully.

Like your voice gives him something steady to follow through the fog inside his head.

But it’s obvious he hasn’t slept.

Obvious in the small things.

In the slower way he blinks at red lights, like pulling himself fully back into focus takes effort now. In the faint shadows beneath his eyes darkening further every day since the hospital, when he fired a gun and watched a man die because of it. In the way his attention drifts for half-seconds at a time before sharply correcting itself again, like his brain is fighting exhaustion and memory simultaneously.

You’ve noticed the bruised crescent marks sometimes left inside his lower lip too.

The result of biting down too hard during nightmares.

Outside, another traffic light bleeds red across the windshield while the wipers drag softly back and forth through thin rain. Spencer’s fingers tighten briefly around the steering wheel before loosening again, jaw shifting faintly like he’s forcing himself away from a thought he doesn’t want to follow all the way through.

And maybe that’s why he agreed to come with you in the first place.

Not because he particularly cared about photographing sunrise reflections in a park at dawn.

But because sleep has become something sharp lately.

Unreliable.

Every time he closes his eyes for too long, the hospital comes back in fragments: fluorescent lights burning too bright overhead, blood blooming dark across tile floors, Hotch’s voice somewhere behind him, the deafening crack of the gunshot still echoing somewhere deep inside his chest long after waking. Sometimes he remembers the weight of the gun in his hand more clearly than the actual moment itself. Sometimes he wakes up with his heart racing hard enough to hurt, the metallic taste of blood already in his mouth from biting down against whatever he was trying not to say in his sleep.

And suddenly the reason he said yes tonight feels painfully obvious.

He didn’t want to be alone with it.

Not when he could be here instead, driving through a half-asleep city with you beside him rambling softly about music, photography and clouds that look prettier before six in the morning. Not when existing quietly next to you feels, somehow, like the closest thing to resting he’s managed in days.

By the time Spencer finally turns off the engine, the sky has only just begun to lighten at the edges.

The world outside the car still looks half-asleep.

Fog hangs low across the park in pale drifting layers, softening the outlines of the trees surrounding the lake until everything beyond them feels blurred and far away, like a photograph left slightly out of focus on purpose. The first traces of dawn spill weakly through the clouds overhead, washing the horizon in muted silver-blue light that barely touches the water yet. Somewhere deeper inside the park, birds have started waking in scattered hesitant calls, quiet enough to disappear beneath the rustling of leaves and the distant hum of traffic far behind you.

For a moment neither of you moves.

Fleetwood Mac still murmurs softly through the speakers, low enough now to feel almost ghostlike beneath the ticking sound of the cooling engine. Warm air lingers inside the car, carrying traces of coffee, rain and Spencer’s shampoo, and stepping out of it suddenly feels strangely difficult, like leaving behind something fragile neither of you fully meant to build during the drive over.

Then you reach automatically for your camera.

“Come on,” you murmur quietly.

Your voice barely disturbs the stillness as you push open the passenger door.

Cold air rushes inside immediately.

It spills sharp across your skin, damp with rainwater and lake mist and the earthy scent of soaked pavement and wet leaves. The kind of cold that feels clean instead of cruel. Fresh enough to sting briefly inside your lungs when you inhale too deeply. Somewhere nearby the scent of pine drifts faintly through the fog, tangled with mud and freshwater and the metallic smell lingering after rain.

You step out first, boots crunching softly against wet gravel while cold curls instantly around your ankles beneath your jeans. Spencer follows a second later, unfolding stiffly from the driver’s seat with visible reluctance, one hand immediately pulling his coat tighter closed against the cold as his shoes hit the pavement beside you. The overhead parking lights cast pale halos through the fog around him, softening the sharpness of his features into blurred gold and shadow. His curls are slightly damp again already from the mist hanging in the air, dark strands falling loosely across his forehead as he glances toward the lake through the trees.

Behind you, the car clicks quietly when he locks it.

The headlights flash once through the fog, brief white beams scattering through drifting mist, before fading again into stillness.

And then it’s just the two of you.

The park stretches ahead in winding pathways darkened by rain, disappearing between heavy trees dripping water from their branches in slow uneven rhythms. The lake beyond is barely visible through the fog, only occasional flashes of dull silver water appearing between trunks and low hanging branches before vanishing again. Everything feels softened here. Muted. Like the entire world has lowered its voice.

Your boots scuff gently against wet pavement as you start walking, camera now hanging securely around your neck, fingers adjusting settings almost unconsciously while Spencer falls into step beside you without needing to be asked. Not too close. Not distant either. Just there. His shoulder occasionally brushing yours whenever the pathway narrows beneath overgrown branches.

The farther you move into the park, the thicker the fog becomes.

It wraps around the trees in pale silver ribbons that drift lazily through the growing dawn light, catching faintly around branches and fences and the edges of the lake until everything looks dreamlike and strangely unreal. Your breath curls visibly in front of you every few seconds before dissolving into the cold air. Somewhere nearby water laps softly against the shore in slow repetitive movements, gentle enough to blend into the quiet rather than interrupt it.

And slowly, almost without either of you noticing exactly when it happens, Spencer begins to loosen.

It starts in small ways.

His shoulders settling lower beneath his coat instead of remaining rigid with tension. His hands leaving his pockets more frequently while he talks, long fingers moving absentmindedly through explanations as his mind drifts toward subjects that feel safer than his own thoughts. The sharp exhausted edge in his voice softens gradually the farther you walk from the parking lot, worn tension dissolving piece by piece beneath the quiet rhythm of footsteps and fog and early morning stillness.

At some point Spencer notices movement near the edge of the lake.

It happens almost imperceptibly. One second he’s walking quietly beside you through drifting fog and silver-blue dawn light, hands tucked deep into the pockets of his coat against the cold, and the next his attention catches somewhere overhead with that sudden intense focus so uniquely him. His gaze lifts slightly toward the trees lining the water, eyes narrowing with immediate concentration while distant movement rustles faintly somewhere above the branches.

And just like that, he starts talking.

“…Certain migratory species actually alter altitude based on atmospheric density variations,” he explains softly, voice slipping naturally into lecture without sounding clinical this time. Not the sharp detached cadence he uses during briefings or crime scene analyses. This is gentler. Sleep-roughened around the edges.

The fog thickens closer to the shoreline, curling low around the trees in pale ribbons while weak dawn light filters silver through the mist overhead. Somewhere out on the lake, dark shapes drift slowly across the water barely visible through the haze. Spencer watches them with quiet concentration, curls dampening slightly beneath the moisture hanging in the air.

“…They navigate partially through polarized light recognition,” he continues, absentminded now in the way he only becomes when something fully captures his attention. “Which becomes significantly more difficult in dense atmospheric moisture conditions, so statistically most of them avoid flying this early unless weather displacement interferes with—”

Click.

The shutter cuts cleanly through the quiet.

Spencer stops mid-sentence immediately.

His head turns toward you with visible confusion, words interrupting themselves halfway through the thought. For half a second he just blinks, caught somewhere between surprise and mild offense while pale morning light catches against the tired softness still lingering beneath his eyes.

“What was that for?”

You lower the camera slightly, entirely unapologetic.

“You looked photogenic talking about bird migration.”

The expression that crosses his face afterward is so small you almost miss it.

Not embarrassment exactly. Spencer gets embarrassed differently, flustered and over-explanatory and pink around the ears whenever someone corners him emotionally too directly. This is quieter than that. Softer somehow. Like the compliment landed somewhere he wasn’t prepared for it to reach.

Because the thing is, Spencer rarely thinks about himself visually at all unless it’s negative. He notices awkwardness in photographs before anything else. The way his posture slouches when he’s tired. The shadows beneath his eyes. Hair that never quite cooperates. Hands too restless. Expressions too intense.

But you had looked at him standing there in the fog—coat darkened slightly by mist, curls damp at the edges, speaking softly about migratory birds with sleepy sincerity while dawn light blurred silver through the trees behind him—and your immediate instinct had been beautiful.

And unfortunately for him, you own a camera.

“You can’t just photograph people without warning,” he mutters eventually, though there’s no real irritation behind it anymore. His voice has gone quieter now, threaded with something helplessly fond despite himself.

You adjust the camera strap against your shoulder innocently. “I can when they’re my partner.”

“That’s not legally accurate.”

“Good thing I’m emotionally committed to the crime, then.”

For one brief second Spencer tries very hard not to laugh.

You can physically see the effort of restraint happen in real time. His mouth presses into a thin line while he stares stubbornly ahead toward the trees instead of at you, shoulders tightening once beneath his coat like he’s attempting to contain the reaction before it fully escapes. But exhaustion has worn too many holes through his composure tonight, leaving the edges of him softer and less guarded than usual, and eventually a quiet breath of laughter slips out anyway before he can stop it.

The sound disappears quickly into the fog around you, warm and fleeting beneath dripping branches and distant water.

But it lingers inside your chest much longer.

You keep walking after that, farther down the winding path as it curves deeper through the trees. Wet leaves cling dark against the pavement beneath your boots while rainwater drips intermittently from low hanging branches overhead, catching pale dawn light in trembling silver drops before falling soundlessly into the grass below. The fog thickens and thins in shifting waves around both of you, soft enough now that the world beyond a few yards feels half-erased.

Then the trees finally break apart near the shoreline.

And suddenly the entire world changes.

The lake stretches endlessly before you in muted shades of silver-blue and gray, its surface almost perfectly still beneath drifting layers of fog that slide slowly across the water like smoke. Dawn has finally begun spilling properly over the horizon now, weak golden light filtering through heavy clouds in delicate fractured beams that catch against the mist until the entire lake seems to glow softly from within. The shoreline curves outward in dark silhouettes of dripping trees and rain-dark earth, their reflections blurred faintly across the water below where fog dissolves them into watercolor smudges of shadow and light.

For a moment it doesn’t even feel real.

It feels like stepping directly into the kind of photograph people spend years trying to recreate unsuccessfully. Something too quiet and perfectly balanced to belong entirely to ordinary life.

Your breath catches before you can stop it.

“Oh,” you murmur softly. “That’s gorgeous.”

The words leave you instinctively, carried out into the cold air in a faint cloud of visible breath.

And you don’t realize you said them aloud until Spencer looks over at you.

Not toward the lake.

Toward you.

Because you’re standing at the edge of the shoreline looking genuinely awestruck, exhaustion still lingering faintly around your eyes, in the softness of your posture and your camera is already halfway lifted instinctively toward the light. The fog moves slowly around you in pale ribbons while weak gold sunrise catches along the edges of your coat and the curve of your cheekbone, and your entire face has gone quietly bright with wonder.

Like the world still surprises you.

Like after everything your job has shown you—the violence, grief and ugliness people are capable of producing every single day—you still stop for things like fog on water and sunlight through trees with your entire heart.

And for reasons Spencer could never explain properly even if asked, that realization hurts a little somewhere beneath his ribs.

Not painful exactly.

Just overwhelming in the quietest possible way.

You move almost immediately afterward, instinct taking over before the moment fully settles. Your boots sink softly into damp earth near the shoreline as you step closer to the water, camera already lifting completely now while your fingers move automatically over familiar settings and adjustments with practiced ease. The strap swings lightly against your coat as you shift angles, attention narrowing instantly onto the changing light around you.

Click.

Spencer watches you work for a while in silence.

For a while he says nothing, hands tucked loosely into the pockets of his coat while cold morning air curls visibly around both of you. The park remains almost completely silent except for the occasional rustle of branches overhead and the soft repetitive click of your camera shutter echoing gently across the shoreline.

You become different when you photograph things.

Softer somehow.

Not less yourself...more.

The exhaustion beneath your eyes fades whenever you focus through the lens, the tension you carry every day loosening piece by piece until your attention narrows entirely onto shape and timing and light. The rest of the world disappears around you when you work. Spencer can see it happen every single time: the way your expression settles into quiet concentration, the slight tilt of your head while searching for angles, the unconscious way you step closer toward beauty instead of away from it.

Like you’re trying to preserve evidence that softness still exists somewhere in the world before it disappears again.

And Spencer has always loved watching that happen to you, even if he’s never said it aloud.

Because most people look at crime scenes the way they look at sunsets. Detached. Observational. Temporary.

But you look at ordinary beautiful things with the same reverence most people reserve for religion.

You stop for cracked murals fading off brick walls. For old men feeding birds in parks before work. For the way rainwater reflects neon signs on empty sidewalks at two in the morning. You collect ordinary things with startling sincerity, holding them carefully inside yourself like artifacts no one else realized were worth preserving. Spencer has watched you crouch beside flowers growing stubbornly through concrete with the exact same concentration you use while examining evidence. He’s watched you pause mid-conversation because sunlight hit a diner window in a way you liked. Once, during a case in Oregon, you disappeared for nearly twenty minutes only for Morgan to find you standing motionless beneath a tree because you’d noticed hundreds of tiny paper cranes hanging from the branches in the wind.

And every single time, Spencer realizes with sudden aching clarity that watching you love the world might be one of his favorite things he’s ever learned how to do.

Then suddenly you turn toward him so fast the movement startles him from the thought entirely.

“Stand there.”

He blinks once. “What?”

You point vaguely past him toward a cluster of trees near the edge of the shoreline where the fog gathers thickest between the trunks. “The light looks nice and I want to try something.”

Spencer glances uncertainly over his shoulder, visibly checking to see whether someone else is standing behind him.

“You want a picture of…” He squints slightly toward the trees. “The trees?”

“No,” you say patiently, already lifting the camera halfway. “I want a picture of you in front of the trees.”

Immediate suspicion crosses his face.

Spencer has never quite known what to do with being looked at directly. Compliments tend to slide off him awkwardly, unable to settle anywhere solid before he dismisses them entirely.

“Why?”

Your eyebrows lift like the answer should be obvious.

“Because you look photogenic this morning.”

“That’s not a real reason.”

“It absolutely is.”

He exhales quietly through his nose, the sound fogging faintly in the cold air, already losing the argument despite himself. You can practically see the internal debate happening behind his eyes: confusion versus affection versus the deeply ingrained instinct to avoid cameras whenever possible.

Affection loses on purpose.

It always does with you.

So after another reluctant second, Spencer finally moves where you asked him to stand.

Tall and slightly awkward beneath the trees, hands disappearing automatically into his coat pockets while pale dawn light filters weakly through the branches above him. Fog curls softly around his legs near the shoreline, and for one quiet second he looks exactly like something pulled from one of your photographs before you even lift the camera.

Beautiful in that accidental way he never notices about himself.

Tired eyes.

Sleep-mussed hair catching gold at the edges.

Something fragile lingering quietly beneath all his careful composure.

“Don’t move,” you murmur, your voice quieter now, softened by concentration as you peer through the camera lens. The words barely disturb the stillness hanging over the lake. Around you, the world remains suspended somewhere between night and morning, wrapped in layers of pale fog that drift lazily across the water like slow-moving ghosts.

Spencer lets out a long-suffering sigh.

The sound immediately dissolves into the freezing air.

“I’m cold.”

You don’t lower the camera.

Instead, you squint at him critically through the viewfinder, adjusting the focus ring with careful fingers.

“Have you ever considered,” you begin, adopting the tone of someone about to reveal a profound philosophical truth, “that feeling cold is all in the mind?”

Spencer stares at you.

Even through the lens, you can see the exact moment he decides you're completely impossible.

“That is not how psychology works.”

“Maybe not according to mainstream psychology.”

“Or any psychology.”

“Just commit to the artistic process.”

“The artistic process,” Spencer informs you gravely, “is currently giving me hypothermia.”

A laugh escapes you before you can stop it.

Warm, genuine and entirely involuntary.

It breaks through the quiet morning like sunlight slipping through clouds.

And immediately—because some things about Spencer have become so familiar that you recognize them without conscious thought—the tension leaves his face. Not completely and not all at once, but enough that you notice it instantly. His shoulders loosen by a fraction, the line between his brows softens, and the corners of his mouth twitch upward despite his best efforts to remain annoyed. Something hidden and guarded inside him eases the moment he hears you laugh, as though the sound itself reassures him, as though making you smile has become a reward he seeks without even realizing it. For a second he forgets about the cold, forgets about being photographed, and simply exists, and that single unguarded second feels like everything.

Click.

The shutter snaps.

The sound is soft but decisive.

You know instantly that you've captured something special. Not because of the composition, the lighting, or any of the technical details photographers spend years studying, but because you've captured him. The real him. The version that appears only in unguarded moments, the one most people never notice.

You lower the camera slowly and glance down at the display screen.

The photograph steals your breath before you can stop it.

Fog curls around his silhouette, softening the edges of the world until he looks almost unreal. The rising sun filters through the bare branches overhead, weaving strands of pale gold light through the mist and catching in the dark waves of his hair. The wind has disrupted his curls just enough to make them fall across his forehead in chaotic patterns. His coat hangs slightly open where he gave up trying to fight the cold. One hand remains buried in his pocket while the other is half-raised, caught mid-gesture from whatever complaint he had been preparing next.

And his eyes.

They're softer than he realizes they are.

People notice Spencer's intelligence first. They notice the rapid-fire facts, the impossible memory, the way his mind moves faster than everyone else's. They notice his awkwardness, his nervous habits, and the way he fidgets when he's thinking. But they rarely notice this: the gentleness, the kindness that exists even when he's tired, the quiet warmth hidden beneath layers of uncertainty, and the way he looks at the world as though every ordinary thing might secretly be extraordinary if examined closely enough. Somehow, against all odds, the photograph catches all of it. It captures the thoughtful stillness beneath the restlessness, the loneliness beneath the confidence, and the tenderness beneath the intelligence.

He looks like the kind of person painters spend years trying to capture on canvas and never quite manage. The kind of person old novels are written about. The kind of face you'd find in a museum portrait and spend hours staring at without fully understanding why. The morning light wraps around him like something sacred.

You know immediately you'll never delete the photograph. Not because it's technically perfect. In fact, if you were being objective, you could probably point out a dozen flaws. The framing isn't flawless, the lighting is uneven, the fog obscures part of the background, and there are tiny imperfections scattered throughout the image. But none of that matters, because every time you look at it, you'll remember this morning: the freezing air, the fog hanging over the lake, the sound of his complaints, the way he pretended to be annoyed, the way he relaxed the moment you laughed, the way sunlight found him without asking permission, and the way he stood there completely unaware of how beautiful he looked.

And maybe that's why your chest feels strangely tight as you continue staring at the image. Because somewhere along the way, without meaning to, you've become the kind of person who collects pieces of Spencer Reid the way other people collect souvenirs. A laugh, a glance, a memory, a photograph, small things, ordinary things, the kinds of things that shouldn't matter as much as they do, and yet somehow they do.

And as you stare down at the screen, watching golden light and drifting fog frame the familiar shape of him, one thought settles quietly into your chest with the certainty of sunrise.

The photograph is beautiful.

But only because it's him.

***

Eventually, after another dozen photographs and Spencer’s increasingly halfhearted complaints about being documented “against his will,” the two of you drift farther down along the shoreline until the path disappears almost entirely beneath wet grass, exposed roots, and layers of leaves darkened by the night’s moisture. The farther you wander from the main trail, the quieter everything becomes. The distant sounds of the waking city have long since vanished, swallowed by trees and water and fog until it feels as though the two of you have somehow stepped outside the rest of the world entirely. The lake stretches endlessly beside you, its edges blurred by drifting mist, while the forest rises behind you in towering silhouettes softened by the lingering dawn haze.

You find a place to stop near the water’s edge where an old fallen tree curves naturally toward the shoreline. Years of rain and weather have smoothed the bark in places, transforming it into something that resembles a bench shaped accidentally by time itself. Moss grows along one side of it in thick green patches still dark with moisture, while the opposite side overlooks the lake. It feels less like a place someone built and more like a place nature quietly intended people to sit.

Spencer lowers himself onto the log carefully, hands tucked briefly into his coat pockets against the lingering chill before he settles. His long legs stretch out slightly in front of him, shoes planted in the damp grass, shoulders rounding forward just enough to suggest a level of relaxation you don't often get to witness. Beside him, you tuck one knee beneath yourself and rest the camera loosely in your lap for what feels like the first time all morning. The strap no longer hangs around your neck. Your fingers aren't already reaching for the shutter button. For once, you're simply existing in the moment instead of trying to preserve it.

Neither of you immediately speaks.

You just sit there.

Watching the lake breathe softly beneath the fog.

You notice the way his shoulders lower another fraction beneath his coat. The way the tension lingering around the corners of his eyes softens. The way his gaze remains fixed on the horizon without immediately analyzing or explaining what he's seeing. He simply watches.

And somehow that feels significant.

When Spencer finally speaks, his tone is quiet and thoughtful, almost as if he's talking more to the lake than to you.

“You were right, by the way.”

His voice arrives softly enough that it nearly disappears into the gentle sounds of the water.

You turn your head toward him, curious.

“About?” you ask lightly.

“The dawn,” Spencer says, and there’s something in his voice that doesn’t quite belong to him. “It’s surprising.”

The warmth that blooms in your chest is immediate and almost disorienting. Because you know him, really know him, in the way that makes silence feel less empty when it’s shared with him. You know how his mind usually moves ahead of his voice, how every observation is filtered through layers of explanation, cataloged and categorized before it ever becomes something he allows himself to simply feel. Spencer Reid is someone who understands the world so thoroughly that he often forgets to experience it. And yet here he is, sitting beside you on damp ground near a lake that hasn’t fully woken up, admitting that something about a sunrise surprised him as though it bypassed every careful internal system he relies on.

A smile tugs at your mouth before you can stop it, small and involuntary, softened by the way the wind threads through your hair and presses cold fingertips against your cheeks. You turn slightly toward him, ready to respond, to tease him gently or simply sit in that moment with him a little longer, but Spencer speaks first, and whatever you were about to say dissolves instantly.

“I…I have nightmares,” he says quietly.

His gaze drops immediately to the ground between you, to the uneven soil and scattered leaves and the faint imprint of your shoes in the mud from when you arrived “I knew logically that would happen afterward,” he continues, voice thinner now, more clinical at first, like he’s trying to distance himself from it even as he confesses it. “I understood it.”

“But understanding it and feeling it are different things,” you murmur, not turning away from the water.

“Yes,” he says immediately.

There’s no hesitation in that agreement, no argument waiting behind it.

A breeze rolls across the lake then, cooler than before, slipping between the trees with a softness that feels almost intrusive in how gently it touches everything. It carries the scent of damp wood and distant earth, brushing against your skin and making you more aware of how still Spencer is beside you, how carefully contained he always is even when he’s falling apart in the smallest possible ways. He stares downward for a long moment, jaw tightening faintly, like he’s deciding whether he deserves to say more or whether saying it will make it real in a way he can’t undo.

“I keep thinking about how fast it happened,” he says at last, quieter now, as though the volume alone might make it less heavy.

“The decision?” you ask softly.

He nods once. A small movement, but it carries more weight than anything else he’s done all morning.

“I didn’t think,” he admits, and there’s something almost disorienting about hearing him say that. “I just reacted. And then afterward…” His jaw shifts faintly, tension flickering across his face before he forces it down again, like he’s trying not to let it show too much. “Everyone kept telling me I did the right thing, but all I could think was that it took less than two seconds to change someone from alive to dead.”

For a moment, there’s only the lake.

The water doesn’t care about morality or timing. It doesn’t hold the weight of seconds or decisions. It just moves, endlessly slow, catching fragments of light as the sky continues its quiet transformation.

Without really thinking about it, you shift closer until your shoulder meets his.

And, after a second that feels longer than it should, he doesn’t move away.

“I think,” you say carefully, your gaze remaining fixed on the horizon because somehow looking directly at him would make the words harder to say, “the reason this hurts you so much is because you’re exactly the kind of person who should be hurt by it.”

Beside you, Spencer’s brow furrows slightly. You don’t need to look directly at him to know it happens. You can almost hear the gears turning behind his eyes. Spencer approaches everything like a puzzle. Every statement is examined from multiple angles before he accepts it. Every emotion is dissected until he can understand its structure. You can practically feel him trying to determine whether what you’ve said is meant as reassurance or criticism. Whether you are comforting him or pointing out a weakness. Whether the ache he’s carrying is evidence of his humanity or evidence of his inability to cope with the realities of his job.

“You’re not numb, Spencer,” you continue quietly. “That’s a good thing.”

Your fingers tighten unconsciously around the camera strap resting across your lap. The familiar texture grounds you as you search for words that feel honest enough. Because this conversation matters. Not because Spencer will admit it matters, but because you know him. You know the way he carries guilt like other people carry keys in their pockets, always present, always within reach. You know how easily he convinces himself that every failure belongs solely to him. How often he measures his worth against impossible standards. How frequently he forgets that being affected by tragedy isn’t weakness. It’s evidence that tragedy remains tragic.

“The day taking a life stops affecting you,” you say softly, watching sunlight spread across the lake like spilled gold, “is probably the day you shouldn’t be carrying a gun anymore.”

The words linger in the air after you’ve spoken them. Neither of you rushes to fill the silence that follows. The lake continues its slow morning transformation. The fog glows amber at the edges now, gradually dissolving beneath the strengthening sunlight. Small ripples spread across the water’s surface, catching the light and scattering it into thousands of dancing fragments. Somewhere nearby, a fish breaks the surface before disappearing again. The sound is brief but startlingly clear in the stillness.

When he eventually speaks, his voice is so quiet that it nearly disappears into the sounds of the water.

“I’m…” He hesitates. The single syllable hangs between you. “I’m glad I can talk to you.”

The confession is spoken like something fragile. Something he isn’t entirely sure he should be saying aloud. There is no dramatic emotion behind it. No grand declaration. If anything, the simplicity makes it hit harder. Spencer rarely says things he doesn’t mean. Every word is chosen carefully. Deliberately. Which means this one matters.

He lowers his gaze almost immediately afterward, staring at the shoreline as though the admission itself embarrasses him.

“Thank you for that.”

You smile.

Not the teasing smile that usually appears so easily around him, not the one that comes when he spirals into an over-detailed explanation of something most people would summarize in a sentence. Not the amused curve of your mouth when he corrects something nobody asked him to correct, or when he accidentally forgets he’s been talking for five straight minutes. This is different. Softer in a way that feels almost unfamiliar, as if it belongs to a version of you that only exists in moments like this.

“We are friends,” you say, your voice gentle as it leaves you, steady but unforced. “You can always talk to me. About everything.”

That hit a soft spot on him.

“Actually…” he starts.

The word barely makes it out.

It hangs there, incomplete, suspended like something dropped and not yet shattered.

His fingers shift against his knee, small movements that betray him more than his voice does. You turn toward him fully now, attention sharpening without effort, because this is not his usual rhythm.

“What?” you prompt softly.

He clears his throat immediately, as if the sound itself might reset whatever internal misfire is happening, but it doesn’t help. Instead, he looks away, gaze fixed firmly on the water, as though the lake might offer him a version of courage that is less complicated than the one sitting beside him.

“I…” he begins again, then stops.

A pause stretches between the syllables, long enough that it starts to feel like its own presence in the conversation.

“I wanted to ask about something.”

You don’t interrupt him. You let the silence hold, even as the morning continues unfolding around you, with birds shifting somewhere in the trees, the slow rise of heat in the air and the lake turning brighter as if it is remembering itself in light. There is a kind of patience in this moment that feels intentional, like the world itself is waiting for him to find the words he keeps circling but cannot quite touch.

“What is it?” you ask again, quietly.

For a moment, he doesn’t answer.

And then, as if stepping off a ledge he has been staring at for too long, Spencer finally pushes forward.

“Gideon mentioned that our vacations might be coming up soon.”

You blink.

Once.

Twice.

The word lands in your mind like something unexpectedly placed there, so ordinary it almost feels misplaced in the middle of everything else. Vacations. It takes a second for it to settle into context, for your thoughts to catch up to the sudden shift in direction, as if the conversation has quietly stepped into a different room without warning.

“Oh?” you say at last, because it feels like the only reasonable response.

Spencer nods quickly, too quickly, as though confirming it before it can escape him.

“I was reading about a few places,” he continues, and now that he has started, the words come a little faster, though still carefully arranged, each one placed like it matters. “They seemed…nice.”

The pause before “nice” is almost imperceptible, but it is there. And somehow, it makes you smile immediately, because “nice” is not a word Spencer Reid uses lightly. It is too small for him. Too imprecise. He is someone who reaches instinctively for detail, for specificity, for language that cannot be misunderstood. And yet here it is, offered like a compromise between what he means and what he is willing to admit.

Your smile grows before you can stop it.

And, of course, he notices.

His ears turn faintly pink almost instantly, like a reaction he has no control over and even less interest in acknowledging. He keeps his gaze forward, but you can see the shift in him: the way he speeds up slightly, as if trying to outrun your reaction before it becomes too obvious.

“There are several national parks with unusually preserved ecosystems,” he continues, now slipping into something more familiar, more comfortable. “Some of them have stable biodiversity indices despite regional environmental changes, and there are lakes, forests, hiking trails. One location has over three hundred documented bird species, and another has some of the lowest light pollution levels in the country, which significantly increases astronomical visibility and allows for—”

You tilt your head slightly, letting your smile widen just enough to interrupt him without actually saying anything.

“Oh?” you repeat, soft and deliberately innocent.

It works immediately.

His eyes narrow just slightly, the suspicion arriving faster than the rest of him, as though he already understands he has walked into something but is still trying to determine the shape of it.

“There are also cabins,” he adds, abruptly.

You bite the inside of your cheek.

“Cabins?”

“Yes.”

“Near the lakes?”

“Yes.”

The pink in his ears deepens, spreading now in a way he is definitely aware of and definitely not acknowledging. His voice stays steady, but there is something subtly defensive about it now, as if he is presenting evidence in a case he did not realize he was being questioned about.

“And people stay there?” you ask, gently, letting the question hang between curiosity and amusement.

Spencer finally looks at you again.

Oh.

But the sound of the phone cuts through the fragile quiet of the lakeside morning like something too sharp for the softness that had been building between you. It isn’t just the ringtone itself, it’s the suddenness of it, the way it seems to fracture the stillness rather than simply interrupt it, as if the entire atmosphere has been momentarily startled awake. Both of you react at once, a shared flinch that breaks the gentle rhythm you had fallen into without either of you noticing. For a brief second, everything feels suspended: the half-finished question hanging in Spencer’s mouth, the sunlight stretched thin across the water, the faint warmth still lingering between your shoulders where you had been sitting close.

You stare at your screen, the name immediately pulling a resigned expression across your face before you even unlock it. There is only one person who could inject this much chaos into a peaceful sunrise with such effortless enthusiasm, as if timing itself is something she personally negotiates with fate.

Penelope Garcia.

The lock screen disappears, and reality gets worse in the way only Penelope can manage. Messages flood in, stacked one after another, bright and frantic even in text form. Twenty-three unread notifications, each one more urgent in tone than the last, each one carrying that unmistakable energy she seems to generate even through a screen.

case, case, case:(

CASE!!! NOW!!!

i'm gonna call you, sweetheart. sorry<3

You let out a slow breath, the kind that comes from familiarity rather than surprise. It isn’t anger. Not really. Just the quiet resignation of someone who has learned that peace, in your world, is always temporary and always on loan. Your head tilts back, eyes lifting toward the sky above you, where the morning has fully settled in now.

“Well,” you murmur, voice dry with reluctant amusement, “that lasted longer than usual.”

Beside you, you feel the shift before you even look at him. Spencer is already changing. His posture straightens slightly, shoulders aligning as if an invisible switch has been flipped. The softness from moments ago doesn’t disappear, it just gets tucked away somewhere more private, less visible. You can almost see it happen inside his mind: the slow reassembly of focus, the careful compartmentalization, the familiar return to duty.

Your phone vibrates again and the screen lights up insistently in your palm, illuminating your face for a brief second before the incoming call takes over entirely. By the time you answer, you’re already sighing.

Penelope Garcia’s voice bursts through the speaker immediately, bright and apologetic in the same breath, somehow managing to sound guilty and excited simultaneously. “Good morning, sweetheart. Sorry if I wake up you.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” you answer flatly, watching a small wave break gently against the dock beneath your feet.

There is a brief pause on the other end of the line. Not the thoughtful kind. Not the kind that suggests she is considering your answer or accepting it. No, this is the pause of a woman gathering momentum. The pause before impact. You know it well enough to recognize it immediately.

“…Why are you so alive at this hour then?”

The question arrives wrapped in suspicion so blatant that you can practically see her expression despite being several miles away. You picture her exactly as she must look right now: leaning forward in her chair, eyes narrowed with theatrical skepticism, lips curled into that knowing smile she always gets whenever she senses emotional information being deliberately withheld from her. Penelope has never accepted mystery when gossip was an available alternative.

Your eyes drift sideways before you can stop yourself.

“I’m just…” Your voice catches slightly as you search for an answer that is technically true while revealing absolutely nothing. “At a lake.”

The moment the words leave your mouth, you realize how ridiculous they sound.

Even Spencer glances at you.

Penelope doesn’t miss a beat.

“That is not an answer.”

“It literally is.”

“No, sweetheart.” Her voice drips with immediate disapproval. “That is a location. I asked a question.”

You let your head tip backward, staring up at the brightening sky above you. The sunlight filters through the branches overhead, creating shifting patterns of gold and shadow across the dock. Somewhere nearby, a bird calls from deep within the trees. Another answers. The lake continues sparkling innocently in front of you, entirely unaware that Penelope Garcia is currently conducting a full-scale interrogation through your phone.

“Penelope.”

“Nope.”

The interruption comes instantly.

“No. Absolutely not. I reject vagueness. Vague answers are the enemy of emotional transparency in beautiful friendships like ours.”

The statement is delivered with such unwavering conviction that it almost sounds official. Like she expects the FBI to adopt it as policy.

Instead, against your better judgment, your eyes drift back toward Spencer.

And immediately, you understand why Penelope is dangerous.

Because his ears are pink.

Actually pink.

Oh.

Heat rushes into your face so quickly it feels unfair.

You immediately look away again, focusing very intensely on absolutely anything else. The water. The trees. A particularly interesting patch of sunlight reflecting off the lake. Anything.

Anything except Spencer Reid.

“I’m not answering that,” you say quickly.

The shift is subtle, but immediate.

The teasing remains beneath the surface, woven into the edges of her voice because Penelope Garcia is fundamentally incapable of removing it completely, but something more serious settles over it now. Something focused. Purposeful. The reason she called in the first place finally forcing its way to the front.

“Okay, fine,” she says. “Listen. We’ve got a case.”

Beside you, Spencer changes almost instantly.

The transformation happens so quickly that, despite having witnessed it countless times before, it still manages to catch your attention. One second he’s simply Spencer sitting beside a lake in the early morning sunlight. The next, something shifts behind his eyes. The profiler emerges. The agent. Watching it happen always feels a little unsettling, like seeing a door quietly close. Every unfinished thought, every personal feeling, every almost-question he’d been trying to ask only minutes ago is carefully folded away and placed somewhere inaccessible. Not gone. Just hidden. Stored for later.

If later ever comes.

You feel yourself doing the same thing.

“What kind of case?” you ask.

On the other end of the line, you hear movement. The familiar soundtrack of Penelope’s workspace filters through the speaker. Papers being shifted. The rapid clicking of keys. The constant hum of organized chaos that seems to permanently surround her no matter the hour. You can practically picture her spinning slightly in her chair while scanning multiple screens at once.

When she speaks again, her voice moves faster.

“Unsub activity in a wooded area outside town. Local authorities contacted us late last night after discovering multiple scenes. There are symbols. Animal remains. Evidence of ritualistic staging.”

Your eyes drift automatically toward the surrounding forest.

The reaction is instinctive.

The trees stretch endlessly beyond the shoreline, towering pines rising toward the bright morning sky. Sunlight filters through their branches in scattered beams, illuminating patches of earth while leaving others hidden in shadow. Thick undergrowth fills the spaces between them. Fallen logs. Dense vegetation. Countless narrow pathways disappearing deeper into the woods. Only minutes ago they had seemed beautiful. Peaceful. The kind of landscape people drove hundreds of miles to photograph. The kind of scenery that belonged on postcards and hiking brochures.

And yet suddenly your mind insists on seeing something else.

The forest no longer looks like scenery.

It looks like the opening sequence of a horror movie.

“Basically,” Penelope continues, “the whole satanic ritual aesthetic package.”

A breeze drifts through the branches overhead at that exact moment, setting the leaves whispering softly against one another.

The timing is unfortunate.

What had sounded peaceful thirty seconds ago now feels distinctly less comforting.

You stare at the woods for another moment.

At the endless maze of shadows stretching beyond what you can see.

At the countless places a person could disappear.

At the strange reality that human beings have always possessed an unmatched talent for taking beautiful places and filling them with terrible things.

“…That’s disturbing,” you admit quietly.

“Correct.”

The response comes immediately.

“Also urgent.”

Silence settles briefly between each sentence. The lake continues sparkling under the growing sunlight. Birds continue singing somewhere deeper within the forest. Water laps gently against the dock beneath your feet. Nature remains completely indifferent to whatever horrors people choose to create inside it.

Then, before you can stop yourself, you glance toward the trees again and hear yourself speak.

“We’re in the woods now.”

The moment the words leave your mouth, silence descends so abruptly that for a split second you think the call must have dropped.

You pull the phone away from your ear and glance down at the screen, checking instinctively for the little disconnected symbol.

Nothing.

The call is still active.

Across the lake, the first hints of morning sunlight are beginning to spill over the water, painting the rippling surface in pale gold. The woods around you remain quiet, save for the distant rustling of leaves and the occasional birdsong breaking through the stillness. Beside you, Spencer sits with one knee drawn up, his arm resting loosely across it, watching the horizon.

And listening.

A second passes.

Then another.

The silence stretches long enough to become concerning.

Finally, Penelope’s voice returns.

“…Excuse me?” she asks slowly. “We're in the woods?”

The dread begins building immediately.

“We as in...?”

You close your eyes for half a second.

There is no version of this conversation that ends well.

“Spencer is with me.”

Silence.

The kind of silence that arrives when Penelope Garcia is connecting dots.

A dangerous silence.

Then—

“Oh.”

The single syllable lands with enough force to make you wince.

Across from you, Spencer's eyebrows pull together faintly.

"Ohhhhh."

“Penelope,” you warn.

“No, no, no," she says immediately, sounding entirely too innocent. "I'm not saying anything."

Which is exactly how you know she's about to say everything.

“I'm simply processing information,” she continues. “Perfectly normal information. Completely harmless information. Specifically the information that my two favorite emotionally constipated humans are currently alone together in a romantic woodland setting.”

“It’s not romantic,” you say immediately.

Beside you, Spencer makes a small sound.

Something halfway between a cough, a protest, and the beginning of a sentence he immediately decides not to finish.

Unfortunately, Penelope hears it anyway.

Her gasp is so dramatic it nearly distorts through the phone.

“Oh my God.”

You immediately regret every decision you’ve made this morning.

“He’s there.”

“Yes,” you say.

“Like there there.”

“Yes.”

“In the woods.”

“Yes.”

“With you.”

“Yes.”

“Alone.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose.

“Yes, Penelope.”

Another pause.

A terrible pause.

The kind that feels like the calm before a natural disaster.

Across from you, Spencer has clearly realized the same thing because he straightens slightly, his expression shifting toward cautious suspicion.

He doesn’t know what she’s about to say.

But he knows it won’t be good.

Then Penelope delivers the question with the delighted enthusiasm of someone throwing a lit match directly into a fireworks factory.

“…Are you guys kissing?”

For one horrifying second, every thought in your head vanishes.

Nothing remains.

Your brain simply shuts down.

Every coherent response disappears. Every functioning cognitive process abandons ship. Somewhere deep inside, your soul takes one look at the situation, decides it wants no part of this, and quietly exits through the nearest emergency exit.

You immediately blurt, “Penelope—NO.”

The effect on Spencer is immediate. He chokes, not on food, not on water, not even on air somehow, but on existence itself. His head snaps sharply toward the lake with such speed that you almost worry he might have injured something. Suddenly every square inch of water stretching out before him has become infinitely fascinating. The lake, the shoreline, the trees reflected across the surface, a patch of reeds moving in the breeze, a random floating leaf drifting across the water, apparently all of it now demands his complete and undivided attention.

You stare at him, but he refuses to look back. The effort he’s putting into not looking at either you or the phone is almost impressive. Unfortunately, it also makes it impossible to miss the faint color beginning to creep across the tips of his ears, and somehow that makes everything significantly worse.

Because Spencer Reid blushing is already a problem.

Spencer Reid blushing while aggressively pretending he isn’t listening to a conversation about whether the two of you are kissing is an entirely different category of problem.

One that, quite frankly, you are not equipped to deal with at six o’clock in the morning.

On the other end of the line, Penelope lets out a long, delighted breath.

“Wow.”

The single word is dripping with satisfaction.

“That was fast.”

“There is a case,” you say firmly, as though repeating it enough times might somehow restore order to the universe.

“Yes, yes, satanic woods. Very concerning. Deeply unsettling. Potentially murderous. I heard all of that,” she says breezily, sounding not remotely concerned. “But I am also now emotionally invested in you and Reid kissing in a tree, so both things can exist.”

The lake behind you sparkles innocently, completely unaware of the chaos unfolding through your phone.

And beside you, Spencer remains very still.

Very quiet.

Very pink.

Maybe it was your imagination.

Maybe it wasn’t.

But judging by the way he was staring at the water with the concentration of a man attempting to personally decode the universe from the movement of a floating leaf, you had the sudden, horrifying suspicion that Penelope’s question had managed to rattle him more than the fact that there was a ritualistic killer somewhere in these woods.

Which was frankly an absurd thought.

A ridiculous thought.

A thought you immediately shoved into a locked box somewhere deep inside your brain and refused to examine any further.

Because the alternative explanation—that Spencer Reid was currently trying not to think about kissing you—was somehow infinitely worse than to die this morning.

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