short n sweet but we need one where spencer loves head scratches and getting his hair played with
Heart Nebula - S.R
summary: spencer tells you every atom in your body was once part of a star, but you think he's the celestial wonder worth studying.
pairings: spencer reid x reader
warnings: fluff galore, existentialism, star-gazing, astrophysics inaccuracies im so sure
wc: 2.1k
"You'd be so proud of me today, you know."
You scoot closer, disrupting the careful folds of the blanket. The fabric bunches beneath your legs, damp soil seeps through, not quite wet enough to be a problem, but enough to make you aware of it. A blade of grass tickles stubbornly at your ankle. You wiggle your foot once, twice, it stays. Some things do.
Your pinky grazes his, the barest of contact, but he turns his head anyway. The night seems to fold him in shadow, softens his features, makes him look almost ethereal. His eyes give him away, glinting back at you, tiny shards of cosmos blinking back at you. It should be impossible to feel jealously of the sky, and yet.
"Yeah?" The familiar crease settles between his brows, a well-loved marker in the pages of him. His head tilts, waiting, not impatiently, already certain he's going to love your answer. "Why's that?"
Your smile jumps ahead of you, swells into one of those too-big-for-your-face grins. The kind that crinkles your nose, bunches your cheeks, makes your face ache after a while.
"I learned about a nebula."
Spencer's laugh starts in his chest and works its way out, rattling through his ribs, shaking his shoulders, until the momentum knocks his knee into yours.
"Look at you," he says, all teasing admiration. "I am proud. Which one?"
"I think It was called the Heart Nebula?" You glance at him, waiting, watching, half-hoping that he'll recognize the name, that he'll give you that little nod of confirmation.
He does. You beam.
"I saw a picture earlier, and it was just—," You trail off, eyes tipping upwards, letting the sky steal whatever poetic explanation you were about to give. "I don't know. Too beautiful to be real."
Spencer had been so excited when you told him you wanted to stargaze, his eyes had practically glowed, already rattling off a dozen facts about atmospheric conditions and celestial visibility, and why tonight was perfect.
He barely took a breath before he had been launching into a dozen more reasons, winding himself up so tight with words that the only way to release them, apparently, was kissing you. Feverishly.
Like he had no other way to translate his excitement into something tangible, something felt.
It made you want to promise him everything, to tell him you'd do this forever, that you'd let him drag you under the stars a thousand times over if it meant being kissed like that.
Spencer glances at you, his mouth twitching like you've just said the punchline to a joke you don't realize you're telling. You're here, waxing about a sky full of ancient light, calling the Heart Nebula too beautiful to be real, and he's looking at you like you've missed the most obvious part.
You narrow your eyes, but he only shakes his head, like whatever crossed his mind was his to keep.
"The Heart Nebula is full of newborn stars," he tells you, gaze still pointed on the sky. "Their radiation makes the gas glow red, pink. The whole thing shifts under stellar winds, reshaping itself, over and over again."
His voice wades its way through the parts of your brain, finding its place. He has this way of explaining things, of turning something infinite into something intimate.
And you love that. Love how he does that. Love the way he sees things. Love him.
"It's about 7,500 light-years away. Which means the light we're seeing now left before humans even figured out agriculture." A small, disbelieving laugh escapes him. "By the time it reaches us, whatever we're looking at doesn't exist the same way anymore. It's already changed. Probably unrecognizable."
His fingers twitch against his thigh, probably resisting the urge to gesture. "Space is weird like that."
"I don't know, Spence," you tease, fingers pinching the sleeve of his shirt, catching just enough of him to feel real. His dimple carves into his cheek and your heart stumbles, caught between beats. "It kind of sounds like you're telling me I can't trust my own eyes."
"Well, technically you can't." He turns fully toward you, dimple still firmly in place, eyes flicking, too quickly, too obviously, to your lips. "The human eye takes in scattered bits of light, and your brain—" he taps your temple for emphasis "—fills in the blanks. Adjusts for shadows, alters colors based on what it thinks is there. Your eyes are compulsive liars."
He pauses, tiling his head, considering. "And since our perception is limited by our optic nerves, no one really sees their own eyes the way others do. Which is a shame, because if you could see yours the way I do, you'd understand why I can't help but stare."
There are moments when Spencer says something so casually devastating that your brain just empties, and this is absolutely one of them. Your mouth opens, then closes again.
"That's—" Your voice catches, so you clear your throat, shake your head, try to reassemble your thoughts. "That's a really unfair thing to say, you know."
Spencer blinks, like he’s running back through the conversation in real time, replaying his own words to figure out what, exactly, made you forget how to breathe.
"Why?"
"Because some of us have a very delicate hold on their emotional stability, and you—” you point at him, accusing “— just shattered it in two sentences."
"Technically, that’s the limbic system at work. The amygdala controls emotional reactivity, but the prefrontal cortex tempers it."
You would try to unpack that, really, you would, but then his hands find your waist, and suddenly the ground isn't where you thought it was. You gasp, giggle, crash right into him, catching yourself with shaking hands against his chest.
"So really," he continues, as if you aren't sprawled across him, "if your emotional stability was shattered, you should blame your neural pathways, not me."
Your fingers twist in his hair as you lean in to kiss him, deeply and thoroughly, like proof, like inevitability maybe, a thought forming in real time, one you can press straight into his skin.
"Maybe my neural pathways are just adapting to something worth remembering," you whisper, and the way he stills, the way his lips part just slightly, makes you think you might not be the only one.
Spencer makes a small, pleased noise against your lips, something that was half sighed and smiled, and you feel it, all of it, in the way his throat moves beneath your fingertips as he swallows.
"That... might be my favorite use of neuroscience yet."
You flash him a grin. "And you thought I wasn't paying attention when you ramble."
"I should've known you'd find a way to weaponize it."
You let your full weight settle onto him, chin perched on his chest, his heartbeat a slow song beneath your cheek. Your fingers slip into his hair, threading through soft strands, nails scraping lightly over his scalp, testing a theory you already know the answer to.
Yeah. Definite reaction.
"So that's what it takes, huh?" you tease, lips curling against the material of his shirt. You scratch again to be sure, and his next breath comes slower. "Just a well-placed brain chemistry reference?"
"From you? Yeah, that'll do it."
"Noted." A pause. Then, softer. "Keep talking to me about space."
"You know, you're kind of demanding." Spencer's fingers skate along your waist before he squeezes, firm and quick, like a punctuation mark to his sentence.
Your head lifts, eyebrow quirked, fingers hovering just out of reach, close enough for him to feel the absence. "Excuse me?"
His smirk vanishes instantly, wiped clean, replaced by something perilously close to distress. His hands twitch at your waist, fingers moving like he can pull you back, like he can make you continue if he just wants it badly enough.
"Wait, wait, I was kidding," he rushes out, voice just shy of frantic. “Don't stop."
You grin, tilting your head like you're considering it. "Hmmm. Apologize."
"I—okay, I'm sorry, you're perfect, please—" his breath hitches, his laugh a little wild, a little helpless, "please keep going."
You giggle, fingertips weaving back into his hair. His response is immediate, a low, shaky sound that buzzes against your skin, something so content it makes warmth spreads through you like a lit fuse, spilling all the way down to your toes.
Spencer smirks, fingers drumming against your waist.
"You really don't let a guy off easy, do you?" He pauses for a second, glancing past you at the sky like he's taking in his options.
"Alright. Here's a fact you might like, every single part of you was once part of a star. All the heavier elements in your body, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, they were formed in the core of ancient stars, forged under immense heat and pressure, then scattered across the galaxy when those stars died, reforming."
His words drift to you, but you don't catch them all. You're too busy watching him.
Out here, in the absence of light pollution, you can see him more clearly than ever. The starlight doesn't just touch him, it claims him, dusting his skin in silver, catching in his lashes, turning the slopes of him almost unreal. Like if you blink too long, he might disappear, slip back into the night where he belongs. A constellation carved into the shape of a person.
You used to think brown was such a simple color. But then you met him, saw his eyes, now it's in everything. Wet earth after rain, cinnamon dusted over coffee, burnt sugar on your tongue.
And now, he’s teaching you it’s also carbon and oxygen forged in the cores of dying stars, pieces of the galaxy that had traveled billions of years to become chocolate flecks on a beautiful face.
He was right, it is a shame people never see their eyes the way others do.
"But how?" you ask. "Like... how does something go from being part of a star to being part of us?"
Spencer exhales softly and you can see the way he loves the question.
"It's a long process. Billions of years, actually. When a star explodes, it sends all those elements out into space. They mix with other interstellar material, forming new stars, planets, and eventually..." He taps a gentle finger against your stomach. "You."
"That's kind of incredible."
Spencer huffs a quiet laugh, grinning, that beautiful grin, the one that makes your chest feel too small for your heart. His fingers find your temple, trail gently down to your cheek, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear. Then, without pause, he leans in and presses the gentlest kiss to your nose.
"It is," he murmurs, thumb brushing against your cheek. "We're built from pieces of space, borrowed, passed down, stitched together by time."
"So you're saying we've been part of the same universe forever? That's kind of romantic, Spence."
"It's also backed by astrophysics. Science just happens to be romantic sometimes. "
"Well, good," you murmur, pressing a kiss to his neck. "I like knowing there's proof... but I think I would've believed it anyway."
You barely have time to register the flicker in his eyes before, he moves. In a second, you're on your back, the sky stretching endlessly behind him. The stars flicker, countless and beautiful, but right now, they might as well not exist.
Because all you see is him.
He hovers over you, gaze intent, studying you, like you're a phenomenon he never expected to witness up close. Like he's sure now, more than he's ever been about anything. Like you are the discovery of a lifetime.
"The universe has been expanding for 13.8 billion years," he murmurs, fingers trailing along your jaw. "But I don't think it's ever made anything more beautiful than you."
Heat blooms beneath your skin. "More than the Heart Nebula?"
It should sound like teasing. It doesn't.
Spencer exhales, almost like he's amused by your doubt.
"The Heart Nebula exists purely because gravity and radiation dictate that it must. But you..." His gaze softens. "You exist because of a thousand tiny impossibilities stacking on top of each other. The odds of you, of this, are so astronomically low that it shouldn't have happened at all."
Spencer just looks at you for a moment. You don't move, don't breathe. And then he kisses you.
It crashes over you, stealing your breath before you even realize it's happening. His hands tighten at your sides, pulling you closer, like the space between you is unbearable. It's not rushed nor desperate, but it is consuming, the kind of thing that makes it impossible to think of anything else.
When he breaks away, he doesn't go far, forehead resting against yours. "If the universe was capable of making something more beautiful, it would have done it by now."
And maybe that’s true. Maybe the universe, for all its galaxies and nebulae and infinite expanse, never did anything better than this. Not just you, but you and him together.
Or maybe the universe will never quite get it right again. Because maybe this was its best work.
But it won’t stop trying. It never does. Even after you’re gone, even after you and Spencer are nothing but scattered atoms, the universe will keep going. Creating. Expanding. Changing. New stars will be born, dust will settle into something new, planets will form, galaxies will stretch apart. And maybe, somewhere, the pieces that were once you and him will find their way back to each other. And maybe, if the universe has any kindness left in it, they’ll get to love like this.
💌 masterlist
taglist has been disbanned! if you want to get updates about my writings follow and turn notifications on for my account strictly for reblogging my works! @mariasreblogs
Rafael Barba is in his 40s and has still yet to marry, much to the dismay of his mother. That part of is his life is over; it has to be. He’s far too old, far too pained, far too set in his ways. Well, that’s what he thought until a fresh face on the SVU starts to weasel her way in and change his mind.
Set somewhere in S15-16 and will progress to later seasons throughout the story.
Expect a lot of Company references!
This has been such a labor of love and I am so happy to finally be posting this. I will try to update weekly!
Want to be tagged in future parts? Let me know and I’ll add you!
***indicates smut
❤️ = my favorite chapters
Archive of Our Own link
Chapter 1: Someone to Hold You Too Close ❤️
Chapter 2: Someone to Hurt You Too Deep ❤️
Chapter 3: Someone to Sit in Your Chair and Ruin Your Sleep
Chapter 4: Someone to Need You Too Much
Chapter 5: Someone to Know You Too Well
Chapter 6: Someone to Pull You Up Short, To Put You Through Hell *** ❤️
Chapter 7: Someone You Have to Let In
Chapter 8: Someone Whose Feelings You Spare
Chapter 9: Someone Who, Like It or Not, Will Want You to Share A Little, A Lot *** ❤️
Chapter 10: Someone to Crowd You With Love ❤️
Chapter 11: Someone to Force You to Care
Chapter 12: Someone to Make You Come Through
Chapter 13: Somebody Hold Me Too Close ***
Chapter 14: Somebody Hurt Me Too Deep ❤️
Chapter 15: Somebody Sit in My Chair and Ruin My Sleep
Chapter 16: Somebody Need Me Too Much
Chapter 17: Somebody Know Me Too Well
Chapter 18: Somebody to Pull Me Up Short, and Put Me Through Hell
people are saying do it scared, but you also gotta do it alone. you'll miss out on so much you want to do if you wait til someone will do it with you. do it scared and do it alone.
janainaart
baratheonpilled
ellievsbear
2087
pixelskylines
vaporwave
stormborns
areudirty
