to be loved is to be known. @everlastingephemera - Tumblr Blog

daylight

— or the one where you and Spencer have to share not just a room, but the same bed, too, when you pair up for the night at the hotel the team’s staying at during one of your first cases, and he cannot help but try his best to understand you better; one book, one song, one memory, one thought, one detail at a time. [Spencer Reid x fem!BAU reader]

Word Count: 8.7K. Proof-read.

Content Warning: ANGST + FLUFF. SECOND-PERSON POV. No use of Y/N. Only One Bed trope™. Canon-compliant to 2x05 case/location-wise. Bookish conversations, emotional repression, inner turmoil, forced proximity brings about some very deep conversations. Reader has lost a parent, mentions of death, mentions of the past, mentions of loss/what-ifs, potential misuse of terminology. A smidge of teasing. This is where their journey starts, basically — my beloved pining-best-friends-slash-co-workers-slash-pining-idiots-in-love-to-be-lovers.

Author’s Note: Well, hello! This was supposed to be posted a long time ago but I struggled through three different versions wanting to do them justice. It is a very important piece to me. All of my BAU!reader fics as of right now are part of the same timeline, in a soon-to-be outlined series; this is intentionally written as the first part. This is also the part where I apologise for it being so lengthy but I am unable (and unwilling) to change my style, so I understand if this is not everyone’s cup of tea. Nevertheless, I hope that you enjoy it! Two more pieces are being readied and coming soon... (Gif made by me.)

“Take good care of pretty boy tonight, will you, pretty girl?”

“Take good care of me?”

Spencer sounds almost offended where he lingers behind you, having almost tripped over his own feet trying to keep up as you all turn right down the dimly lit hallway towards your rooms.

You roll your eyes as you look back at Derek, who has already unlocked the door to his.

“I’m certain I’ll do a much better job than you would, Morgan. Unless you’ve decided you’re looking to prove me wrong?”

From the corner of your eye, you notice Spencer’s eyes widening even more as Derek scoffs mockingly, offering a gesture as if to say you wound me, before he disappears inside his room.

When you’d been called back to the BAU yesterday morning at the rather ungodly hour of 5 a.m. and heard your destination, you’d assumed that hotel room availability wouldn’t prove to be a problem. After all, Dayton was the sixth most populous city in Ohio, like Spencer had informed you on the plane ride. Turns out, though, you’d been wrong about it.

And so the gladness that replaced the sickening feeling of having to track down a rapist who was taunting his victims through voicemails once Hotch had called it a night was rather short-lived, only lasting until he informed you all that, actually, two members of the team would have to share a room due to a shortage of single ones available.

You weren’t exactly surprised that you’d ended up drawing the short straw, but you were a lot more than just that because you’d ended up having to share a room with Spencer of all people. On one hand, you were pleased about it. You certainly couldn’t handle having to sleep in the same room with either one of your bosses. Similarly, having to share with Morgan would’ve been equally awkward. And well, sharing with either Greenaway or JJ would’ve been better, for sure, but neither of them had warmed up to you enough to make it exactly welcome.

At the same time, you were goddamn terrified. Terrified in a way that you hadn’t been in a long time, nervousness overflowing through every part of you at the thought you’d have to be around someone who utterly fascinates you in such an intimate setting. You don’t know what it is about him that turns you into a version of yourself you barely recognise anymore, only that his existence seems to pull you in strangely. His demeanour is far from intimidating, he’d not once treated you with anything but restrained yet evident sincerity, and he is really the person you’ve felt most comfortable around so far during your short time being part of the team. Still, you cannot shake off that funny feeling as you now face the door to your shared room.

“Here we go, 320. Do you have the—”

“I’m sorry—”

You barely make out his words as you both speak at the same time. When you realise that he was apologising, you blink at him. Twice.

“What?” You ask, totally confused as to what he means. “What are you sorry for, Spencer?”

He’s not looking at you when he starts to explain, words jumbled as he rambles, “I just—I didn’t think there wouldn’t be enough single rooms available. I’m sorry you have to share with me, I know this must be awkward—”

You can’t fully bite back the smile that appears on your lips even if you tried. He’s too cute, too sweet for his own good, and he has no idea about it.

“I don’t have a problem sharing a room with you, Spencer.” It takes a beat for him to meet your gaze, but when he does, you don’t look away. You want him to know you mean it. Honestly. “Not unless you do, that is.”

“What? No! No, I don’t. I don’t have a—I have no problem with it.”

You can tell he means it by the way his voice raises an octave defensively, as well as the fact that he cannot maintain eye contact with you the whole time that he struggles to form a full sentence.

Still, your quirk an eyebrow at him.

“Are you sure? I can still ask Greenaway or JJ if they could swap with me—”

“Wha—No! No, don’t—” He shakes his head in quick denial almost manically. “I mean, there’s no reason to do that. None at all. Really. I mean it. I do.”

You’re not sure why he seems so reluctant to the idea, if it’s truly because he doesn’t mind sharing a room with you, or because he’d rather not share with either of your female teammates. You’ve heard in passing about Greenaway’s struggles after The Fisher King case, two months before you joined the BAU. It was clear those struggles were still haunting her, especially during a case like the one you’re currently working on. From how much you’ve known Spencer, it wouldn’t strike you as impossible that this is him being considerate of his colleague’s space. Or perhaps it has to do with the crush he apparently once harboured for JJ, something you’d also been told about once, fleetingly, one of the times you’d grabbed lunch with Penelope. You wouldn’t be surprised if sharing a room with you seemed like a more tolerable option than sharing with someone he’d liked as more than a friend once. Or worse, someone he likes still.

You try to ignore the weird feeling the thought causes in the pit of your stomach, both because you hate nothing more than unforeseen inconveniences, and even more so because you have no name for it. Not one that could possibly make any sense or you could find any justification for.

By the time Spencer’s eyes meet yours again, the silence in the dimly-lit hotel hallway has almost taken a life of its own, becoming something like a ghostly third presence that only serves to remind you any tension needs to be suffocated before it has the power to suffocate you.

“Okay. It’s settled then. We’re roommates for the night.”

He hums affirmatively under his breath, still hovering apprehensively opposite you, eyes wide behind his glasses and fingers clutching the straps of his valises much too tightly.

“Spencer?”

Finally, his focus seems to return to you. The tiny smile that appears against your lips is entirely involuntary.

“The key?”

“The—Oh. Oh, right, the key. I’ve got it, let me just…” He fumbles through his satchel blindly at first, muttering unintelligibly that he knew it has to be somewhere here, before he realises he’s been holding it in his occupied hand the whole time, “Oh. Uhm, yeah, here.” You move permissively from in front of the hotel room’s door, your smile only widening as he struggles to balance his bangs and unlock it for a few moments. When he does, he turns to you, and you hope he can’t tell you’re holding your breath at the momentary closeness. “After you…”

You all but rush inside past him, thanking him quietly as he does the same, turning the lights on behind you. The room will do well enough, you think. The bathroom door’s to your left, followed by a closet that you’re positive can house both your things and his if it has to for as long as you have to stay here. Then, a desk with extra drawer-space, with a mirror hanging above it, as well as a kitchenette to its right. All in all, you’re more hopeful that it’ll be a convenient and comfortable experience for you two now than you were before you saw it.

Turning around once you’ve dropped your bags on the right side of the bed carelessly enough, you notice Spencer looking right past you, shocked and paler than you’ve ever seen him look before.

“What’s wrong?”

“The bed—It’s not—”

You barely make out what he tries to say, yet still you follow his gaze. It takes you a moment before it clicks.

Oh.

What you’re met with is two beds pushed together into a large queen-sized one that’d be perfect for a couple and is the epitome of inconvenience for two co-workers that are effectively forcibly paired together because of unavailability of space. You’ve never felt more mocked at by the universe than you do at that moment.

Spencer watches you try to push the beds apart to no avail before he suggests, utterly horrified, “It’s alright, I can sleep on the floor—”

“You’re not sleeping on the floor, Spencer.” You scoff, already having come to terms with your circumstances.

“But—But there’s only one bed!” He squeaks out in reply, dumbfounded at your suggestion.

“Technically, no, there isn’t.” You shrug, turning to face him once you’ve unzipped your bag and grabbed your pyjamas from it. “There’s plenty of space for the both of us, Spencer. We’re both exhausted after a terribly long day, and who knows if tomorrow will be an equally exhausting one. It’s more than reasonable for both of us to share it. I wouldn’t feel okay if I let you sleep on the floor.”

He practically gawks at you, wheels turning inside his brain, you’re sure, searching for reasons to convince you that this is a terrible idea.

But it’s late, and he does recognise you’re both clearly exhausted, and you’re decidedly not going to let him sacrifice his comfort that way.

“Come on, Spencer. There’s no reason to make this into a bigger deal than it has to be. Now, do you have a preference?” He seems even more lost at your question then, looking at you from behind his glasses with a softness that makes you dizzy. Goodness, he’s making this harder than you’d like him to, and he has no idea. You gesture to your left, then to your right, as you begin unholstering your weapon. “Do you want the bed closer to the door or the window?”

He thinks about it, if only for a moment, before he slowly shakes his head in denial. “Uhm, no… No, I don’t. Whichever one is fine.”

Finally then, you both begin to move around the room in silent agreement. Taking your jacket off, you walk around to the night table on your side where you leave your phone out to be charged overnight, as Spencer starts looking through his own things.

You have to call out his name twice before he notices you’re talking to him, your pyjamas tucked under your right arm and your own bags left neatly at a chair you’ve left by the wall closest to your bed.

“I just asked if it’s okay with you if I can use the bathroom first?”

“Oh, yes! Yes, of course. Go ahead.”

You thank him quietly once more, striding to the en-suite and closing the door shut behind you.

And although you start undressing yourself and preparing the shower (which you have to turn on thrice before the water even begins to warm up to a decent temperature), the fact that Spencer’s just on the other side of the door, that you’re going to spend the night not just with him in the same room, but in such close proximity, fully dawns on you and makes it harder to breathe. Under the shower’s egregious pressure, your eyes fall shut, and you grasp at the nearest wall, not trusting yourself to stand in confidence even for the short duration of your shower.

You want to tell yourself you have no idea why you’re being like this, why your skin feels cold even as you’re engulfed in sufficient warmth, but the truth is you’ve never been a good liar. And maybe that’s the problem, the fact that you, stubbornly as ever, are punished by your knowing. There’s not much to convince yourself about, you’d like to think so, but the very fact that Spencer exists makes it so hard to believe that.

Spencer, the first person you bumped into on your very first day on this job, when you succeeded in landing your spot at the BAU, and who’d offered you his book to pass the time as you waited for Hotch to arrive. You still remember the one, his critical edition of the 19th-century Russian literary canon. In the original language. You remember the immediate awe you felt for him better than your polite decline, as underwhelming as it must’ve been, once you noticed you were not fit to read it. You remember much more than that, actually. The sparkle in his eyes when you asked him whether he preferred Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. His enthusiasm when, as he helped you set your desk up over the next few days, he noticed you’d brought a few books and journals for it, and how it only intensified when he realised you would share a desk-space with each other. How he always felt comfortable to share a highlight of his day over your first shared coffee every morning because you always seemed to want to pay attention. Spencer, who you were in no way prepared to meet when you came to this job, and who slowly but surely made it higher up the list of pros of it, the one you’d made to remind you what you’ve achieved and how far you’ve come at your worst when you needed it.

And sure, half a year might be more than long enough for some people to put a word to whatever funny feeling upsets their balance and their sanity, but you’re not most people. You’ve never been most people. And this is the first time in your life you’ve been continuously pondering over whether that was a blessing or a curse.

Even now, as you dress up in your oversized academy crewneck and a pair of flimsy, darkened-by-time plaid pyjamas, once you’ve finished brushing your teeth and your hair and made sure that the bathroom is not a spitting image of the mess that exists inside your head, even now, you still ponder if that funny feeling is a darkness capable to destroy you like nothing else ever has or a light you never dared dream of because of circumstances and convictions and the terror that is your knowing.

The pondering doesn’t stop once you’re metres away from Spencer again, padding towards the bed he’s sitting on the edge of, books and manila folders open to his right and his bundle of nightly attire to his left.

You’re not sure he’s actually reading the book he has open on his lap, and if he is, he’s doing so at the slowest speed you’ve ever seen him do the entire time you’ve known him. Even so, he doesn’t seem to notice your return. Not immediately.

Not until you clear your throat and quietly exclaim, “All yours now.”

And because you’re certain you deserve the very fact that the universe is pulling your leg in the cruelest of ways, Spencer looks up, practically gaping at you, as your words register in the air.

Godfuckingdamnit.

“I meant—You can, uh, you can use the bathroom now if you wish to, Spencer.”

“Oh. Oh, uhm, thanks. Thank you.”

The sight of him scrambling to get up, book tossed haphazardly open alongside the others as he glances at his stuff, only serves as a reminder of what you’re already thinking. That this isn’t something you’re good at, that this isn’t something you’d know how to deal with and that you know that.

What you don’t know is how, in seeing him struggle to undo the knot of his tie with his free hand, you find yourself speaking again, sending that ghostly third presence to hell once more when it threatens to suffocate you.

“Do you need any help with that?”

He stares at you as if he can neither believe your question nor understand what you mean by it. Before you or he can overthink it any further, you approach him. Slowly yet steadily.

“Here, let me…”

And his breath catches, too, now, because you’re so close that he can see the droplets of water falling down your temple, so close that he can smell the vanilla in your shampoo and the detergent, something much more flowery he knows he could distinguish if your closeness did not turn his thoughts into mush, your shirt was washed with.

He finally nods, because he wants to and because he feels sorry that you’re still lingering cautiously out of kindness and consideration, and realises at the same time as you do that he’s never been this close to you before. His hands hover uselessly by his sides, palms sweating an embarrassing amount, when your nails just barely graze his lapel.

He tilts his head back, calculating the approximate amount of atoms existing in this 347 square-feet hotel room you’re in. Roughly an octillion, he guesses to himself, thirteen seconds later than it usually takes him to, at the same time as you lightly tug at his tie and announce his tie should be loose enough now.

There’s a beat after he asses your statement, after he mutters the smallest of thank you’s and you an even tinier of course, when he looks at you and swallows hard, and you notice the gold on the inside of his eyes. When you think you’re ready to put a word to that funny feeling that only gets funnier the more you realise he’s him and you are you.

It’s only a beat, and unsurprisingly, it’s not enough.

Soon enough, he’s in the bathroom and you’re readying yourself for bed.

That’s until you notice he’s forgotten to pick up his nightwear.

Godfuckingdamnit.

Minutes pass when Spencer doesn’t resurface, when you hear the water turning on and off repeatedly, when you wonder if the universe has completely forsaken the existence of boundaries for tonight and for you two.

For the third time, you refuse to let yourself be suffocated by some ghostly presence in this hotel room in Ohio, and so you walk to the en-suite and knock on the door before you can regret it.

“Spencer? You forgot to grab—“

“Yeah. Yeah, I know…” He replies quickly, “I know but I can’t—”

“Stay there.” You can hear his bewildered protests from behind the door as you rush to gather his things and grab a free chair, placing them neatly on it, before you knock to alert him. “I’ve left them on a chair in front of the door for you. I’m going to make myself some tea so you can grab them. Is that alright?”

You’ve already made your way to the kitchenette, having your back completely turned towards where the bathroom is, when you hear the door open and close approximately two seconds later.

The door opens once more when minutes have passed, only now you’re sitting cross legged on top of the covers, a book and a notebook perched over your lap, and Spencer’s fully clothed and ready for bed himself when his voice sounds, gentle and non-imposing, as he calls out your name. “Do you mind if we keep the door half-closed with the bathroom light turned on for tonight?”

“Of course.” You nod, barely looking at him from behind your mug in case you’re not meant to and for fear of screwing things up exponentially, “That’s alright with me.”

You return to your notes as he makes his way to his bed, putting away his used clothes, scattered books, and case folders, before he walks to the kitchenette himself and pours a glass of water to drink.

“Is that your favourite?”

You look up at him over your last-written sentence, brows furrowed in confusion. “Mhm?”

“The song,” He motions towards your phone on the nightstand next to you, “You listen to it a lot.”

“Oh—Oh, fuck. Yeah, sorry. I’ll turn it off…” You reach for your phone and turn the music off quickly.

“You don’t have to. That’s not why I mentioned it.” He places his water on the nightstand next to his bed and takes his glasses off to wipe their edges clean from the bathroom steam and any traces of his fingertips having stained them before he washed them. “I don’t mind if you want to listen to it.”

“Oh no, that’s not necessary. I tend to listen to music when I write is all,” You explain, clicking your pen and notebook shut.

A strange tightness constricts between your ribcage at the sight of him in a strangely-patterned buttoned-up pyjama shirt, pants equally dark as yours, as well as his signature pair of mismatched socks you’re sure he has some kind of system for, a version of him so much simpler than the one you’re normally used to. Not even the harsh big light of the room can ruin the softness of him or taint him by its unfamiliarity. He is too honest for that. For the whole world, it seems to you, the more you study him going about his routine until he climbs onto his bed and you return to hiding behind your mug.

“So… Is it?”

You turn to look at him again, still confused.

“The song,” He says, a hint of a shy half-smile playing at his lips.

“Oh. Uhm, yeah…” You glance at your phone, fingertips tapping at the porcelain of your mug, “I think it is. Or at least one of them.” The small, acknowledging hum that he offers in response has your cheeks tingling with heat. “Do I really listen to it a lot?”

Spencer presses his lips together, his skimming through the pages slowing down uncharacteristically.

Your face warms up further. “How many times?”

He peeks at you out of the corner of his eye. You can tell that he’s trying to asses whether the way his mind works has creeped you out, too, the way it has done all the other people he knows. Your tone, however, does not seem to carry any hints of sarcasm or hostility. On the contrary, you’re looking at him as if you’re genuinely interested in his answer, whatever it might be.

A silent beat passes before he gives in and offers you it.

“This week? Seven.” He scrunches his nose up, finally turning a page in his book. “If you’re asking since I met you, it has been seventy-three. Well, seventy-four counting tonight.”

A self-effacing laugh slips past your lips, “Okay, yeah, that is a lot.”

“It’s a good one.”

You can tell he’s holding back on more than just that and you’re, frankly, rather interested in hearing his opinion. You always are.

“However, the lyrics are quite sad,” He starts, feeling the weight of your curious gaze where you settle against your pillows. “I mean, they are beautiful, but sad.“

It’s the way that he says it, the way that it sounds as if he’s talking about more than just a song, that causes something to flutter, to stir inside of you. The room feels too bright, suddenly. In a mystifying sense that has nothing to do with what cascades of light paint either of your edges from the tiny reading night-lamps above your heads. You feel as if he’s trying to read you the way he’s trying to read the pages of the book in his hands, an undecipherable-to-you French tome; one that carries signs of fervent wear, one which cannot hide how many times it’s been chosen behind the fancy leather it’s bound in. And yes, it’s nothing new that Spencer pays attention. To anything and everything. Everyone knows that. Hell, it was one of the things that Hotch had told you differentiated him the most from every other person on the team, that first day he’d briefed you in on them.

But right there, right then, he’s paying attention to you. To your choices and your habits. You’re not used to that, you’re not used to the earnestness he’s made out of. It threatens to suffocate you worse than any tension-filled silence has done so up until this point tonight.

It’s why you stand, why you strive to occupy yourself with sorting your belongings out and putting them back in your go-bag in an attempt to control your environment, the fragments of yourself you’ve left unguarded.

Spencer is already cursing himself for being too much, for analysing what you’ve allowed him to know instinctively for reasons that have nothing to do with your line of work. It’s true that at times it’s hard for him turn his profiler brain off, like everyone else on the team does, but it’s not that fact that has him craving this proximity with you. No, it’s something different. Something eager to bloom, something unwarrantedly new. Something he both wants to accept and run away from.

And it’s why he keeps talking, why he follows you with his eyes as you zip up your bag and tug your shirt’s sleeves down and cling to your book with your finger tucked inside a specific page, too.

“You know,” He begins again, evidently self-conscious. “Statistically speaking, the vast majority of people who listen to music to focus choose classical instrumentals instead of songs with lyrics that can be distracting. Alternatively, even ambient naturescape sounds do the trick, too.”

If he’s right in reading you now, you’re actually still listening to him, and he hasn’t screwed this (what he doesn’t have a name for, either) up.

“But I do think that… uhm, that it makes sense you’re not part of that majority, though.”

Or maybe he has just done so.

Your head tilts, glints of repressed fascination painting your gaze. “I think it makes sense that you listen to Mozart whenever you take a break, too.”

Spencer shouldn’t be so taken aback that you’ve managed to fluster him, that you’ve turned the tables on him like this, but goodness, he is. He is because your observation drips of something he can’t quite pinpoint but that he can recognise lacks irony or malice. You’re not judging him, you’re not making him regret the fact he’s being seen the way almost everyone else has done since he was a child. It shocks him. It exhilarates him. It makes him feel like, maybe, right then and there, in your presence, he’s not too much for what he chooses and what he likes.

“Well, that’s not—” He really, really, really hopes his face doesn’t betray him as offensively as his lack of wit does. If it does, you’re at least kind enough to ignore it although your eyes are on him. That’s a welcome reprieve for his sanity. “I guess I do find Mozart to be fitting for many occasions. Especially for when I need to…” Forget. Ignore my mind’s more of a prison than a haven. Don’t have to pretend I’m someone I’m not— “…decompress.”

“You’re right to.” You offer after you finally decide to get under the covers, your book now open and partially obstructing him from your view. “Although personally I’ve always preferred Bach, if I’m honest with you.”

You can’t see it but Spencer’s half-smile takes on a prideful quality. One that says, that doesn’t surprise me. It’s borderline sinful how good being right about you makes him feel.

In this stretch of unfamiliar silence littered with countless of questions and answers you’re both holding back from, while you struggle to make yourself as invisible as you can in shapeless clothes and carefully-curated nooks of sheets, Spencer realises that hiding yourself comes to you naturally, however much you may try to fight it. You’re not a mystery. You’re not even a paradox. You’re a conjecture or what proof of it remains once the instinct of self-preservation kicks in. If there’s a solution to you, if there ever needs to be one, Spencer’s certain that no one’s ever tried to understand you to get close enough to it.

It’s not a conquest he’s willing to set himself out on, he doesn’t see getting to know you better as a prize to be won. He’s not like that. This job has only proven it to him further. Instead, the fascination that he’s drawn towards you out of lies in another truth; the fact you’re real. Tangible. Not asking, not seeking. You’re unapologetically honest, even in the way you guard yourself.

He admires that, admires you the more that he gets to pay attention to you. The more that you frown over sentences you deem subconsciously important enough to revisit. The more that your first instinct is to gravitate towards who the gun is aimed at than the one who is aiming it. The more that you choose the long way to and from somewhere than the surest well-known shortcut. The more that you crave the words than the setting defining a moment. The more that you only call him by his first name and the rest of the team by their last ones. It’s inconvenient and perhaps uncalled for but he doesn’t want to ignore it. His mind has been made up, he thinks, ever since the day he met you, and even more each day that passes.

He wants to understand you, so, is it really any surprise he cannot take being suffocated by that ghostly third presence in the room with you tonight, either?

“I guess that affinity for tragedy translates in your reading choices as well.”

Unexpectedly, you laugh. It’s bright, sudden. Not soft, not this time. Most importantly, it’s once again honest. As if you’ve been expecting this, put the puzzle pieces in all the right places.

“Ah, of course, I’ve given that away, too.” You half-joke, peering up at him from behind the pages. “You can’t have seen this one too many times at work, though.”

“Are you asking me for a number? Because I’m not sure you’d like the answer.”

He teases back and the air shifts — you’ve led and he’s followed.

Damn you, Doctor Reid.

“However, it’s not the number of times that has stuck out to me,” He explains, unyielding. “It’s the fact you usually seem to open it at a specific page. The part where he has her grave dug up, if I am not mistaken.” He knows he isn’t. “Of course it’s not the only tragic moment in the book but it’s… more haunting than others.”

“It’s not the fact I reach for that page but the meaning behind it,” You finish his thoughts for him. You close the book, tracing the cover of it almost chastely. “So much for the moratorium on intrateam profiling…” You surrender before he calls for it. You don’t see how you can outrun it, although passivity has never been your forte. Spencer doesn’t deserve the threatened outburst you’d offer anyone else if they’d probed you this way. About this of all things. “You’re right, it’s a special one. It reminds me of my father.”

Spencer’s features drop. For someone who’s constantly being told he’s not good at reading social cues, it’s clear he understands he’s got too close. “Your father—He—”

“He’s passed away. It’s been a few years.”

Good job, Spencer. You’ve definitely screwed this up. Forever, probably, the ghost in the room chirps from somewhere behind his shoulder, thriving.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“You couldn’t have known, Spencer. It’s fine.” Surprisingly enough, it is. You don’t threaten to break the way you have before. It doesn’t change when you look at him, hoping he doesn’t beat himself up over it. That’d actually make you feel worse than him opening up a door he didn’t know what was behind unintentionally.

“Point is, you’re right. It’s a special one. Not just the specific scene but the book as a whole. When I was a child, we used to spend every weekend buying books and reading them together. This was the first heavier read when I’d grown old enough and the one I turned to after I lost him. The graveyard scene hadn’t stuck out to me before but ever since I saw…” There’s that crack threatening your balance, the one that tells you to stop talking before it’s too late. And while Spencer might not deserve to be punished the way others have, you’re at the mercy of self-preservation. And you stop. “Anyway, I guess I recognise the need to cling to what’s lost. To try to compensate with the past.”

Spencer doesn’t think to do anything other than listen. He’s always been a good listener. Or so he wants to think. The team might agree. His mum would definitely agree. He listens because listening is the way to understanding. And if he understands, then maybe he can do something with the knowledge. Care for it, fight against it, offer it the space to exist in peace, love it.

He knows grief, can recognise it in practically every aspect of it. He’s grieved the healthy version of his mum that he never got to meet. He’s grieved his father’s absence and the fact he never was enough for him to stay, to love. He’s grieved the life he saw other people his age living, knowing he’ll never get to have it. In this job, he’s grieved what people could have been had they got the help they needed, and he’s grieved the loss of life to happenstance.

Now, in this two-made-into-one bed in a dusty hotel room in Ohio, he’s grieving for the loss you’ve suffered and what it’s made of you. It doesn’t matter that he never knew that young girl who spent her weekends reading books with her father. He knows you now and that’s enough.

“He sounds like a wonderful man. I’m sure he’d be proud of you.”

Your reaction comes in a sharp inhale that, under these circumstances, this proximity, is impossible to miss.

When your eyes meet, you wonder just why it is that in opening up the way that you have to him, more than you’ve done so in a long time, you don’t pity yourself. Why this vulnerability is vastly different than the one you’ve been used to. Why it doesn’t feel like a knife lodged inside your chest but sunlight seeping through the crack between your ribcage and filling it up. Overwhelming, yes, but warm. Comforting, not threatening. Perhaps it’s because of Spencer’s kindness. Or perhaps it’s because, for once, you didn’t do it as a transaction. You did it because you felt like it and because Spencer welcomed it.

At the same time, he ponders over so many other things he wants to say. That he can only imagine how hard it must be to live with a loss like that, to carry it with you. That it’d be okay if you told him more and if you didn’t. That you’re strong even if you don’t feel like it, even if you don’t want to be, not all the time. That you took something awful and turned it into something beautiful; your time at the BAU has proven that already.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he leans into that same discomfort that comes with being vulnerable about the past, if only to even the ground.

“My mother and I used to do something similar. She would read to me for hours upon hours growing up. Anything from poetry to philosophy to the classics,” His smilechanges into a wistful, nostalgic one. “She always said that’s the best way to learn.”

“I think she’s right about that.”

“Probably. She’s right about a lot of things.”

Spencer doesn’t talk a lot about his mother but from what you do know about her, you can tell she is the most important person in his life. He tries to write to her every day, has spent his few days off since you’ve become part of the team travelling to see her, and can bring her up no matter the conversation topic. You already think it’s sweet, but even if you didn’t, you’d do now; seeing how his features soften, how his voice takes on an even warmer quality.

“It’s how I first read War and Peace and probably why I’m still so fond of it.”

“I should’ve guessed that’d be one of your favourites.” You scoff lightly, “I’ve never been able to actually get through it. I think the amount of praise for it compared to my experience reading through it has… confused me.”

Spencer leans back against the headboard, his body shifting into a lying position. He’s immensely intrigued with the conversation, with you. “You didn’t like it?”

“It’s not that,” You shrug, “As far as I’ve read, it did a good job at keeping me interested. I think it’s sufficiently complex for all intents and purposes. There’s depth to it — the characters, the story, all of it — and maybe it’s the only kind that matters for a book like it. Maybe I’m just looking for more when there’s already enough.”

Spencer mulls over your words in silence — not unkindly, not at all — but until you feel too scrutinised not to speak.

“I’m probably not making any sense. I’m being too judgemental for not having finished it—”

“No. Not at all, I don’t think you are,” He is quick to reply, forcing his glasses back in their place where they have slid down. “I think I understand what you mean. And there’s obviously no right or wrong way to view literature or how you feel about it. But what exactly did you think it lacked?”

“The kind of omniscience that pulls you in before you realise it. One that’s more personal than detached, almost cynical.”

His brow furrows, the meaning behind your words finally clicking. “Mhm, so it’s realism that’s not your thing, then.”

“Perhaps not Tolstoy’s kind.”

“That also makes sense.”

Your book falls shut, abandoned somewhere close to the pillow’s edge. You’re beyond taken by this conversation — both what’s being said and what’s not being said — to continue reading. In reality, you’d picked it as a shield, anyway. You don’t want to ignore him, you have to. You have to protect the walls you’ve built around you a long time ago and that Spencer threatens to tear down just by existing. It’s a matter of self preservation, of not being seen in a way that leaves you stripped to the bones, bare with nothingness.

But again, how he pulls you in is strange. Unfathomable. The need to be seen by him bites more, with sharper teeth, than the need not to. Because he’s different. Made of gentleness and understanding and that fine-tuned capability for observation that’s not disruptive whatsoever.

“You’re lucky I’m too exhausted to feel insulted by whatever that means, doctor Reid.”

You’re more so teasing him than anything else.

Spencer notices that, just like he notices the curiosity that remains unmissable in your tone. Just like he also notices the warmth that seeps across his skin at the sound of you calling him by his title.

“What I mean is that it makes sense you prefer Dostoevsky to Tolstoy,” His smile turns into another prideful smirk when you blink up at him, doe-eyed and kind of flustered because he has once again seen right through you. “Anyone who’s more interested in why things happen would.”

He makes a mistake in turning to look at you. Soon enough, his cheeks and the tips of his ears start to burn, tinting a bright shade of pink.

It only gets worse when you ask what you do next.

“Isn’t that true for all of us in this job?”

He doesn’t immediately respond. You shift closer to him, imperceptibly, lying on your side. You’re more intrigued now than you were minutes before.

“Fundamentally, I think it is. At the same time, I’m not sure whether that belief alone is enough. Not anymore.”

Spencer doesn’t want to discourage you, that’s the last thing that he wants to do. You’re new to this, newer than everyone else, including him. You’re far from naïve and you’re more than capable in all the right ways. An asset, if ever there was one. But he’s seen it before, how that’s not enough to keep you holding on and how it’s enough to break you if you let it. How the need to understand everything can become a weapon whose aim you’ll be on the receiving end of sooner or later. How the ones you chase cannot be reasoned with, not always. Sometimes, he’s come to learn, what matters is survival. Moving forward. Coming close enough to the point of no return and choosing not to slip into it.

“Sometimes focusing on the why doesn’t matter as much as the fact that we can’t change what’s been done nor what we’re supposed to do about it.”

In the back of his mind, a memory flashes. Him, on the floor of that hospital’s emergency department, a rifle pointed right at his head. How Hotch had to offer his inner turmoil on a silver platter to the unsub if they (and the hostages) were to make it out of there alive. How he had one chance for the killshot, and despite what he thought himself capable of, he achieved it. How the only thing that lingered afterwards was emptiness, not satisfaction. Despite Gideon claiming that not knowing what he felt and not feeling anything were completely different things, Spencer still ponders over whether that was true, more than he likes to admit.

“You also agree with Dostoevsky, then.” You rasp out, begging to understand him like he’s tried to understand you tonight. “Our worst sin is that we have destroyed and betrayed ourselves for nothing.”

Spencer tries to be brave, tries to bare himself with the kind of honesty that you’ll recognise. If nothing else because you deserve it. But something holds him back, and what you don’t know is that it’s the very same thing that eats at you. The terrifying prospect of being stripped to nothingness, of being vulnerable in front of you and causing you to flinch.

Perhaps once and for all.

So he keeps staring at the ceiling. Counts the dusty surroundings he fears will collapse beyond logic and reason, in the hopes that you will forgive him for being less brave than you have been tonight.

“Not as much as I do with Tolstoy, no. If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed.”

You quirk your eyebrow at that, genuinely taken aback by his choice of quote. “Well, that’s definitely surprising. I thought you were a man of logic and reason, doctor Reid.”

You do it again, threaten his worldview and his sanity by getting too close for comfort. The worst thing is that you’re right about it, right to think that if anything guided him in his life it was that.

It’s just that…

It’s just that looking at you now, giving in to this strange, palpable intimacy you’ve both been gravitating towards and away from all night, he realises that logic and reason could’ve never prepared him for what he’s feeling. Whether he tries to ignore it or allows it to take a life of its own, he has absolutely no power over.

It’s frightening. It’s revelatory. It’s like nothing he’s ever known before and nothing like words on paper have ever elicited in him.

“Believe me when I say, so did I.”

Now, it’s you who’s flustered. It’s you who thinks you’re slipping into an abyss you think is far too beautiful, far too impossible for you to witness. You cling to the fact you’re close to submitting to your exhaustion, that gentle haze of sleepiness that’s provoking you far too enticingly. You cling to it, because if you do, then perhaps you can wake up tomorrow and don’t think of it much. Leave it where it’s meant to be left, blame it on this mocking choice of the universe that’s got you closer to Spencer on this Wednesday’s after hours.

It’s nothing, it doesn’t mean anything, he doesn’t have to know. He will never have to know. I can be good at this.

But Spencer has one more thing to say.

“But the why doesn’t matter, not as much as the fact it’s happened does.”

And you do, too.

Something as simple and as unapologetically honest as, “I understand.”

Spencer ignores how his breath catches at that very moment. How his pulse thunders across his body — in his chest, in his throat, in his hands.

He coaxes you into falling asleep, mentioning that it’s getting late as if the very fact is a blessing and a curse at the same time. You’ve already follow his lead, nodding mindlessly where your face is half-buried against the pillows. Still closer to him than you’re meant to be.

Though he turns off his reading light, he doesn’t turn off yours immediately after. He indulges in the way the light dances across your features, how it smoothens your frown, how it lets your complex glow, how it lets his mind capture the sight and collect it — for as long as he lives, he hopes, perks of an eidetic memory — for his selfish, indulgent reasons.

When he finally snaps out of it, freeing you from the light’s touch and his indulgence, the world tilts on its axis once more because he doesn’t pull his hand away fast enough.

Your fingers brush against each other’s.

It’s a shy touch. Unconscious on your part and what should just be a momentary response on his. But your fingertips curl around his, cradle them as fully as possible given their size difference, and Spencer feels as if he’s felt the Sun’s touch for the first time.

He wonders how something so brief can be so intimate, how it can be the answer to what he realised earlier tonight. He’s sure enough now, he’s starting to understand. Understand why you’re so unapologetic about how you guard yourself, understand why you crave the words and the why’s, understand why you cling to what you know in a way that begs no question and offers many answers. No, there’s nothing paradoxical about you. You’re not a mystery. You’re life’s most honest portrait in the brightest, sharpest colours. And what a pleasure it is to marvel at you.

Yes, he’s glad for what has happened. Yes, he is starting to believe you’re right about the why mattering. No, logic and reason cannot adequately answer for the possibility of this, of you happening.

It’s what both of you have realised tonight, that you have both been entirely unprepared for each other.

It’s hours later when Spencer lets go of your hand. Or you do his, more like. He’s relieved (it feels wrong to like something you’re not consciously aware of doing, although psychology would argue there’s a reason you sought him out) and disappointed at once. Misses your warmth even though he only knows the briefest example of it. You’re closer to him than you’ve ever been before once more tonight, and yet he knows this won’t last, not really. He can’t believe he’s more thankful for the shortage of single rooms available at this hotel in Ohio than he’s been for something else in a long time — be it the newly resurfaced episodes of Doctor Who or the new breakthrough studies theorising on how dark energy regenerates. It’s another selfish thought of his, he understands it well enough, but under this welcoming cloak of darkness, he feels safer than he has in a long time. He wouldn’t mind it lasting longer than it is physically possible.

But the world clearly works in rather funny, mysterious ways.

He realises it even more when he’s given up on sleeping for longer than fifteen minutes at a time every past hour, when you somehow shuffle close enough to him where your beds meet, until your head is practically touching his shoulder.

Spencer doesn’t move when your warm breath hits his neck. Nor does he move when he feels you nuzzling your nose against his shoulder, your sharp inhale following his audible gulp because of your proximity.

In a moment of bravery, he finds himself looking down at you. The moonlight that casts a shadow on your skin makes you look even more vulnerable than you probably feel, more vulnerable than he has, and probably will ever, see you again.

A stray strand of hair falls in front of your fluttering eyelids while you’re deep in a dreamful slumber.

He debates brushing it away. He really, really, wants to.

But he doesn’t.

He knows that he won’t be able to calm himself down enough to drift off to a proper, restful sleep anytime soon, for fear that his tossing and turning, or even worse, one of his nightmares will disturb you.

And so he lays still. Moments pass like that, with his free hand toying with the covers next to him, his other resting over his stomach as your face ghosts over his shoulder. And that’s enough.

All of this is enough for Spencer.

Until his name slips past your slightly parted lips, and everything stops.

He swears that his mind is playing tricks on him. It would be far from the first time. Especially at such a late hour.

But it comes again, even softer now, and all he can do is move (as much as he can under the circumstances) just the tiniest bit closer to you.

A silent gesture of reassurance, of comfort — It’s okay. I’m here. You’re okay.

He doesn’t have enough time to freak out or overthink what’s happened before he somehow does fall sufficiently asleep, and when you’ve both woken up, hours later, it’s too late to restore any semblance of the atmosphere you’d created last night. It was bound to happen, of course. All things honest and beautiful flourish at night, hidden away from the morning’s intervention.

Surprisingly enough, the air lacks any tension as you both move around to respectively get ready. It’s incomprehensible how natural it all feels, you think, and so does Spencer, though neither of you could admit to it.

Daylight glimmers through the curtains as Spencer peers at you over his folders where they’re spread out on his bed, noticing you grimace at the coffee you tried to make for the both of you.

You curse under your breath, pouring the coffee down the sink’s drain, and Spencer doesn’t shy away from the idea that creeps into his mind then and there.

Even if he wanted to, he can’t now that he’s already called out your name, prompting you to look at him right as you’re about to start making a second serving.

He clears his throat. Twice. Then suggests, with all the timidness of a hummingbird that’s flying too close to glass. “We—We, uhm, have quite a bit until we have to be at the precinct. Would you… Would you like to get a coffee? I noticed a nice-looking coffee shop at the end of the street last night. I bet it has better coffee than… that.” He finishes with a grimace.

Strangely enough, Spencer’s braver now than he was last night. Because he doesn’t take his eyes off of you while he waits for a response. It’s not like he’s asking for something indecent, right? Nothing… forward. Nothing that co-workers don’t typically do together.

His agony is short-lived compared to what he feared. You’re smiling at him soon after you put the questionable mugs aside first, then do the same with the coffee pot, clad in ivory-white and midnight-black.

For the first time since he met you, he debates whether daylight is kinder to you than it has ever been on any other person he knows. Perhaps on anyone to ever live.

“Only if you promise to pitch War and Peace to me better than you did last night.”

The green in his eyes sparkles when the light hits them just right behind his slightly askew glasses. He tugs on the edge of his polka dot-patterned tie where it falls at his lap.

He stands, the manila folder he was holding falling close.

There’s no ghostly third presence in the room with you. Not anymore.

It’s just you, him, and the daylight that’s draping around the both of you in the form of halos which causes something to blossom.

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

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