❝ yeah, yeah, of course. ❞ she understands completely the desire to be anywhere else but a plane full of profilers. there’s no spare corner, in there, nowhere you can burrow yourself into until the rest of the world disappears. you’re on display for the whole team to see, and they might not mean it, but the strength of their combined analyses can feel…earth-shattering, on a bad day.
certainly too much to handle. jj knows there have been times when she’s wanted to curl so deeply into her seat that she becomes part of the fabric. where she’s wanted space for her feelings to flood out without everyone else jumping in to rescue her from drowning; sometimes she’s needed to float on that sea for a while, and ride out the waves.
it doesn’t make her any less worried about reid. it doesn’t loosen the knot inside her stomach. but jj understands it. she nods, and looks over to hotch — i’ve got him, she says silently; we’ll wait, is the reply — and rests a hand on reid’s back as she gently guides them away from the scene, somewhere quieter, away from the flashing lights.
silence, for a moment, to let spence have a chance to breathe again. ❝ all of these cases…there’s always so much that can go wrong. sometimes it does. ❞ she knows it. he definitely knows it. jj sighs, and rubs reid’s back, an unconscious attempt to soothe. ❝ but sometimes it doesn’t. it didn’t today. and if we—if we think about the what ifs, we’re never gonna be able to move onto the next case. and, ha, believe me, there’s plenty of next cases. ❞
her hand drops, and she folds her arms. ❝ you learn from everything, spence. you’ll learn from this, too. ❞
he’s funny, with touch. often, he describes it as a germ thing, but sometimes that’s nothing much more than a justification people might understand. there’s something uncomfortably intimate about casual touching -- handshakes, hugs -- that make him uneasy. except with these people, with his family.
he’s never shied away from jj’s soothing touch, or morgan’s hugs, or garcia insisting on sitting right up close to him, so that their shoulders touch. more than anything else, these acts from these people feel like anchors. reminders that he’s not alone.
so right now, the hand that travels across his back -- the pressure only just discernible through his vest -- is something to focus on. it punctuates her words: we are here, we are alive, we won.
“do you ever think,” he starts, slowly, arms crossed over his chest and gaze lowered as they move away from the scene. flashing lights and loud shouts fade a little, until spencer feels less like the world is assaulting him, screaming at him, demanding to be heard. “about whether a case would have gone better without you there?”
arms unfold from over his chest, hands rising to ward off her objections. “i know what you’re saying, jj, i do. sometimes things go wrong, and we can’t win every time, and that’s okay. i understand that, logically, and i know that today was one of the good days, but... i have this feeling sometimes after a case. like....”
his rapid words slow, and something like shame colours his features. “like i was doing the unsub’s job for him.”
he shakes his head, abruptly before she can answer. his eyes squeeze shut, and he turns on his heel. “never mind.”
