TETHERED ⟢ spencer reid x greenaway!reader
summary: spencer has spent so long being the one who steadies you, up until an unsub he sees too much of himself in knocks him off-balance. he asks for space but ends up at your door anyway, and you become the tether you didn’t know he needed. genre: hurt/comfort tags/warnings: reader is elle's sister, canon-typical violence: unsub is killed (suicide by cop), mentions of trauma & bullying (reid’s goalpost story from 3x16), brief mentions of parental mental illness/neglect, needy clingy spencer, kissing, emotional intimacy, non-sexual nudity (showering together), no use of y/n a/n: i pulled inspo for this fic from s3e16 “elephant’s memory” — the case/unsub isn’t meant to be exactly the same, but you’ll recognize key parts of 3x16 here (and there’s a slight canon divergence where you have to pretend Reid & Morgan’s bullying convo in that ep never happened). next greenaway!reader fic is coming later this month (sneak peek) before my event and will be a BIG one, so stay tuned! | GIF by eva @reidgif 🫶🏼
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The unsub’s hands are shaking.
He can’t be older than nineteen. He’s too thin for the coat he’s wearing, swallowed by it, shoulders hunched like he’s been bracing for impact his whole life. The rifle looks huge and wrong against him, like a prop someone handed the wrong person. He looks like a kid. He is a kid.
Spencer is ten feet away with his palms up. His voice is low and steady in that way that always makes your chest ache — like he thinks if he stays gentle enough, the world will be gentle back.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says. “I know you’re scared.”
The kid’s eyes flicker. Focus, then blur. Like he’s looking at Spencer and through him at the same time.
Around you, the perimeter holds its breath: uniforms, SWAT, Hotch’s stillness. Everyone waiting for the moment the situation inevitably tips.
Spencer keeps going.
“You’ve been hurt,” he says. “You’ve been humiliated and you didn’t deserve any of that.”
The kid’s mouth twitches, and a sound catches in his throat.
He doesn’t lower the gun, but for a second—just a second—his shoulders drop like he wants to believe Spencer.
“Look at me,” Spencer says. “You’re not a monster.”
The kid blinks fast. Wet lashes, red-rimmed eyes.
“Don’t,” he croaks, voice cracking around the word like it hurts. “They tortured me! Every day, this town found new ways to tear me down. Don’t act like you know what that’s like.”
Spencer’s throat works. “I do, though. I know exactly what it feels like to be the kid everybody watches and nobody helps. And if you put down that gun and let me walk you out of here, I promise we can get you some help.”
For a moment, the kid pauses, and it almost looks like he’s considering doing what Spencer asked. He opens his mouth, closes it, looks around, looks back at Spencer with a fleeting flicker of hope. But then he blinks again and tightens his grip around the rifle like it’s too late to change course. Too late to make a different decision.
You see it before Spencer does. Or maybe he sees it and refuses to believe it.
The kid’s gaze skates past Spencer, and with a sudden, almost deliberate motion, he lifts the rifle.
“Wait—” Spencer says, voice rising for the first time, cracking. “No— no! Don’t—”
A loud crack cuts through the air and sends the kid to the ground.
Spencer doesn’t move. He’s still standing with his hands up, frozen, staring at the unsub’s body as blood pools around him.
Hotch says his name. “Reid.”
Spencer lowers his arms slowly, like he’s fighting gravity.
His gaze is still locked on the kid on the ground. On the rifle lying useless beside him, like it was never the point at all.
“He— he was listening to me,” Spencer says under his breath, hoarse. “He was listening. I thought—”
You reach for him, careful, and when your fingers brush his elbow you feel it — his whole body trembling, the way he’s holding himself together by sheer force of will.
“That kid was trying to force our hand. That was always his plan. He wanted to die,” someone says nearby, too loud, too blunt. A cop trying to make it clean and simple.
Spencer’s head turns sharply.
“He just wanted it all to stop,” he says, voice razor-thin. “He couldn’t see a way out. It’s not the same thing.”
Then Spencer turns back to the body like he can rewind time if he stares hard enough. Like he can change the outcome.
For a second, you can’t tell if he’s breathing.
He’s so still it’s unnatural — still frozen in the moments before the shot. Like the part of him that reached for the kid hasn’t caught up to the fact that there’s nothing left to reach for.
You step in closer until you’re at his shoulder, but his eyes still don’t leave the blood, because he isn’t just seeing the boy on the pavement.
He’s seeing a version of himself that didn’t make it out.
—
The jet is dim and humming, the kind of soft, constant noise that usually helps your nerves settle. Tonight it just makes everything feel underwater.
The team is scattered in their usual places: Rossi reads, Prentiss has her eyes closed, Morgan’s listening to music, Hotch and JJ skim through files.
Spencer is sitting across the aisle.
Not beside you.
Even after cases that leave you both scraped raw, he always ends up beside you. But tonight, he doesn’t.
That’s the first wrong thing, and it makes you itch.
The second wrong thing is the book in his hands. It’s open, yes, but his eyes keep sliding over the same line like it’s written in a language he’s forgotten how to read. His knee bounces. His fingers drum a pattern on the page — tap tap pause, tap tap tap.
You wait. Five minutes. Then ten. The itch under your skin keeps getting worse.
Finally, you lean across the aisle and keep your voice low. “You’re not fooling me.”
He doesn’t look up. “What?”
“You’re pretending you’re reading,” you say, “but you’ve been on the same page since we hit cruising altitude.”
His jaw tightens. “I’m reading.”
You blink slowly. “Okay.”
Silence stretches. The engine hum fills the gaps.
You try again, softer this time. “You almost had him, Spence.”
His head snaps up, eyes sharp, bright with fatigue and something else that makes your chest pinch.
“Stop. Don’t,” he says.
It’s clipped and sharp and immediate, like you stepped on a wire.
You hold still. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t make it sound like that was—” He stops, throat working. “It wasn’t a win.”
“I’m not saying it was a win,” you whisper. “I’m saying you did everything you could.”
Your fingers curl around the armrest. You pick your next words carefully, like they’re glass.
“You’re allowed to be upset,” you say. “It’s normal to—”
“Can you not do this right now?” he cuts in sharply.
Your stomach drops. His face immediately shifts, like he realizes how it sounded, but he doesn’t pull it back. He can’t. He’s too far out on the ledge.
You stare at him for a beat.
Then, because it’s true and because you’re not going to sugarcoat him into thinking this is fine:
“You’re being kind of a dick,” you say, quiet enough that only he can hear. “And I know you’re not a dick. So what’s actually going on?”
He flinches, and for a second you think he’s going to shut down, fold himself into that seat and lock you out completely.
Instead he exhales, long and shaky, and his eyes flick to yours.
“I’m sorry,” he says genuinely. “I just… I can’t talk about this right now.”
“I’m not asking you to pour your heart out at thirty thousand feet, Spencer. I’m asking you to stop pretending you’re fine, and to let me be there for you.”
His throat bobs. He looks back down at the book. His fingers tighten around it until the pages crinkle.
“I really thought I was getting through to him,” he says finally, voice so low you almost miss it. “For a second I really thought I’d get him out of there alive.”
Your chest aches.
“I know,” you say softly.
He sits there for another beat, frozen between wanting space and wanting you.
Then he closes the book, stands, and crosses the aisle.
He drops into the seat beside you like it’s the only place left in the world.
His knee bumps yours and he stares straight ahead, jaw tight, one hand settling on the armrest between you.
You let your knuckles brush his for half a second. He shifts just enough that his hand presses against yours, not quite holding, but not letting go either.
You look out of the dark window and swallow the worry until it’s quiet.
—
By the time you get home, your body is running on muscle memory and fear.
Keys. Lock. Shoes kicked off in the general direction of the mat. You flick on a lamp and the living room blooms into soft light that doesn’t match the way your chest feels.
It’s too quiet. There’s too much room for your brain to start replaying the last twenty-four hours like it’s trying to find the exact frame where everything went wrong.
On the tarmac, Spencer had walked with you all the way down the stairs, close enough that his shoulder brushed yours once. You’d let yourself believe, for half a second, that he was going to get in your car like he usually does after cases. That you’d end up back here together, washing the week off in the shower, trading exhausted jokes in the kitchen, falling asleep with your bodies tangled because neither of you knows how to do distance anymore.
Instead, he’d stopped and said:
“I think I need some space tonight.”
You blinked.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he added quickly, like that made it better.
You didn’t argue. You could’ve; you wanted to. But you swallowed it down because you’re trying — really trying — to be the kind of girlfriend who doesn’t make everything about her issues. To be the kind of person who can hear I need space without hearing I’m leaving.
So you nodded, kept your voice steady. “Okay.”
Now you’re alone in your apartment, staring at the empty space on the couch where his long legs usually end up, and you hate how fast your brain starts building stories out of nothing.
You drag your fingers through your hair. You should shower. You should eat something. You should do anything that isn’t standing in the middle of your living room like a ghost in your own life.
Eventually, you move into the kitchen and fill a glass with water you don’t drink and lean your hip against the counter.
Your phone stays face-down on the table where you can’t stare at it.
If he said he’d call tomorrow, he’ll call tomorrow. Spencer Reid is a lot of things, but he’s never careless with promises.
Still, your chest aches, dull and persistent, like a bruise you keep pressing to see if it still hurts.
You’re halfway through convincing yourself to move again when the knock comes.
Two soft taps that signal, immediately, that they don’t belong to anyone else.
You’re at the door before you can think.
Spencer stands in the hall, cardigan wrinkled, hair a mess, eyes shining like he hasn’t blinked enough since the case ended. He looks… smaller, somehow.
For a second he just stands there, like he’s waiting for you to tell him he shouldn’t be here.
“Spencer,” you say, and it comes out quieter than you mean it to.
His throat works. He swallows like it hurts.
“I know I said I—” he starts, but you don’t let him finish.
You grab his sleeve and pull him inside with one decisive motion, like the question was never whether he could come in, only how long it would take you to get your hands on him. The door clicks shut behind him and the sound is weirdly final, like you’ve shut out everything except this.
He exhales — one shaky breath that feels like a surrender, and you slide your palms up his arms, grounding yourself in the reality of him: warm, solid, here. You tip your chin up and kiss him once, slow and soft and steady.
When you pull back, he keeps his forehead close to yours, eyes closed.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.
“For what?” you ask, because you need him to say it.
His eyes open. They flick over your face like he’s counting you, making sure you’re real.
“For being a jerk on the jet. For needing—” He stops, jaw tightening. Then, quieter: “For not being able to do tonight by myself.”
Something in your chest loosens at that.
“That’s okay,” you say. “I’ll make some tea.”
He lets go of you so you can walk towards the kitchen, but follows you like a shadow. Like if you step too far away, he might slip back into the dark.
“Green?” you ask. “Or black? Chamomile maybe?”
He hovers in the doorway for half a beat, then he steps closer.
“Whatever you’re having.”
You open a cabinet with more force than necessary. The mugs clink. The sound makes you flinch and he flinches with you, like your nervous systems are wired together now, some odd little Bluetooth connection you never knew you were agreeing to.
You can feel him behind you, close enough that the warmth of his body presses into your back without him actually touching you. You’d tease him on a normal night — ever heard of personal space, Dr. Reid? — but tonight you don’t.
The kettle starts to fill. Water rushes over metal, loud in the quiet.
“You said you needed space,” you say lightly.
“I know I did,” he murmurs.
You glance at him over your shoulder.
He looks miserable. Not dramatic-miserable, but Spencer-miserable.
“But?” you prompt.
His eyes flick to yours. He holds them. That alone feels like a confession.
“I needed you,” he admits, and it’s so quiet you almost miss it.
Something in you softens at that.
“Okay,” you say. “So you’re here.”
You turn back to the counter and set the kettle on its base. The click is sharp. You reach for the tea tin and—
—and his arms come around you.
His forearms lock across your stomach and he bends to press his face into the side of your neck, breathing you in like he’s trying to recalibrate. Like he walked all the way here on instinct and now that he’s got you, he doesn’t know what else to do except hold on.
You let out a slow breath and lean back into him, giving him permission without words.
“I’m here,” you whisper.
He makes a sound — half exhale, half something he wanted to say but swallowed back instead — and his arms tighten again.
Your heart does this stupid, tender ache that makes you want to punch a wall.
You tilt your head just enough to brush your mouth against his temple. A kiss that says stay.
He shifts, lips skimming the side of your jaw in return.
When you reach for the tea again, he doesn’t let go.
He just follows the motion, glued to your back, moving with you as you drop the tea bags into the mugs, as you pour the hot water, as you add honey without asking because you know he likes it that way.
It would be funny, on any other night. A tall, lanky, genius of a grown man clinging to you in your kitchen like a lost kid at the county fair.
Tonight, it just makes your throat burn.
“Breathe,” you say softly.
“I am,” he murmurs, but you can hear the lie in it.
So you inhale, slow and deliberate, and hold it just long enough for him to feel it before breathing out.
His chest rises against your back, uneven at first — then, gradually, his breath matches yours.
There. That’s something, at least. You feel it in the way his hands stop flexing, in the way his shoulders drop a millimeter, as if you’ve coaxed him down from some internal ledge.
When you finally turn in his arms, mug in each hand, he doesn’t step back.
You hold his gaze and tip your chin. “Couch.”
He nods, finally releasing you long enough to let you lead him into the living room.
You set the mugs down on the coffee table. Before you can move to the other end of the couch to sit, his fingers catch your wrist, gentle but firm.
“Don’t go far,” he says.
Your chest tightens again, that same sweet bruise.
You step closer, slide your palms up his arms, and kiss him once more, a little deeper this time, because you want him to feel it.
When you pull back, his eyes stay shut for a second, like he’s memorizing the shape of the moment.
“I’m not going anywhere,” you tell him.
And for the first time since the gunshot, the tension in his face eases just enough that you can see the person underneath it again.
He sits, knees spread, forearms on his thighs, mug cooling on the table untouched. You settle beside him, close enough that your shoulder brushes his.
For a while, neither of you speaks. Then, quietly, he says, “I wasn’t lying when I said I knew what it was like.”
Your throat tightens.
“On the scene,” he adds, still not looking at you. “When I was talking to the unsub.”
You nod once, slow, but you don’t speak. You’ve learned — through the job, through him, through yourself — that people say more when you let the silence simmer.
Spencer swallows. His fingers knit together and then unknot again. You feel his knee start bouncing again, that familiar frantic tempo, and you press your palm over it. The motion stutters, then slows.
“Before we cleared the area,” Spencer says, “I saw him scan the crowd for threats the same way I used to scan school hallways.”
Your chest gives a small, aching jerk.
“You used to do that?”
“Of course I did,” he murmurs. “I learned pretty early on that if you can predict who’s going to hurt you, you can… you can minimize the damage by avoiding certain people. Certain places. Certain tones of voice.”
He finally looks at you then, and it’s devastating, how sad his eyes are. Like he’s been carrying this feeling around forever and today he got reminded of the weight.
“And earlier, watching him, I just kept thinking—he and I learned the same skill, but where I learned to adapt, he learned to—” He cuts himself off, jaw tight. “To retaliate.”
You shift closer, your thigh fully against his now. Your hand slides from his knee to the inside of his wrist, thumb finding his pulse.
“I don’t think it’s just watching him die that got to me,” he says. “We see unsubs get taken down all the time.”
“Spence,” you murmur, a warning and a comfort wrapped together.
He closes his eyes.
“It was that when he looked at me,” Spencer continues, voice dropping, “it felt like… like he recognized me.”
A beat passes, then another.
“Like he was looking in a mirror,” he adds. “And… he wasn’t wrong to see that.”
The admission sits between you, heavy and terrible.
You want to say a hundred things. You want to tell him he’s not anything like that. You want to list all the ways he’s different, all the ways he’s good, all the ways he’s Spencer, your Spencer.
But you know him too well. If you come at him with reassurance right now, he’ll dodge it like it’s a thrown object.
“Talk to me,” you whisper instead.
He looks at you again, and something passes over his face — fear, maybe. Or relief. Or both, tangled together.
“I keep thinking,” he says, “if I’d had one more minute… if I’d just said the right thing… if I’d been better at it…”
“You were good at it,” you cut in, gentle but firm. “You were amazing at it. You’re the only one of us who could’ve even come close to getting through to him.”
His jaw clenches. “And yet he still died.”
You slide your other hand up to the side of his face, fingers brushing his cheekbone, grounding him in something human.
“Spence,” you say, and it comes out soft in a way you don’t always allow yourself. “Look at me.”
The hurt in his eyes makes your own burn. You blink hard, once, and refuse to let it spill. You need to be the solid one right now.
“You can’t save everyone,” you say quietly. “Even if you do everything right.”
“I know that,” he says. “Logically, I understand that’s true.”
“Okay,” you reply. “Then this isn’t logical. So tell me what it is.”
He stares at you for a long second like he’s deciding whether to let you see something he normally keeps locked behind his teeth.
Then he exhales, slow.
“It’s terrifying,” he admits. “To—” His voice catches, and he clears his throat, angry at his own body. “To stand there and realize that the person in the room who you have the most in common with is the bad guy. To… know just how close you were to turning into him. How close you still could be.”
Your stomach drops. You keep your hand on his face. You don’t let him drift away.
He swallows again, eyes fixed somewhere past your shoulder like he’s seeing a different room.
“I was in the library,” he begins. “And Harper Hillman comes up to me. She tells me that, uh, Alexa Lisbon wants to meet me behind the field house. Alexa Lisbon was, like, easily the prettiest girl in school.”
You can almost see it: young Spencer, book-bag slung over one shoulder, heart doing something stupid and hopeful despite everything he knew.
Your chest aches so hard you feel it in your teeth.
You keep your voice quiet, steady. “So what happened? Alexa wasn’t there?”
His eyes flick to yours for half a second, then away.
“She was there,” he says. “So was the entire football team.” His jaw tightens. “They… stripped me naked and tied me to a goalpost.”
The words are blunt, clinical, like he’s trying to numb them by making them factual.
But nothing about this is numb.
“So many kids were there,” Spencer continues, voice rougher now. “You know, just… just watching. Nobody tried to stop them.”
Your hand slides from his cheek to the back of his neck, fingers threading into his hair gently, like you’re holding him in place.
He keeps staring into nowhere, blinking too fast.
“I begged,” he says, and the word is barely a whisper. “I begged them to, but they just…” His throat works. He swallows hard. “They just watched.”
Your stomach twists violently. You press your forehead to his temple for a second, a quiet, involuntary gesture of I’m here.
Spencer inhales shakily.
“And finally,” he says, “they got bored and they left.”
He laughs once, empty. “It was like midnight when I finally got home, and my mom didn’t—” He stops, eyes squeezing shut. “My mom was having one of her episodes, so she didn’t even realize I was late.”
For a moment, you can’t speak. Your mind keeps trying to build an image and rejecting it because it’s too cruel to hold. Spencer, barefoot on cold grass, rope burns, humiliated, alone. Spencer walking home in the dark to a mother too confused to notice.
You feel something feral rise in you, hot and protective and murderous, but you put that anger aside because you know he doesn’t need you to hunt down Harper Hillman and Alexa Lisbon and the entire football team right now (no matter how badly you want to). That’s not why he’s telling you this.
Your hand tightens on the back of his neck. Your other hand slides down his arm and finds his hand, prying his fist open slowly until his fingers uncurl into your palm.
“You never told her, did you?” you say quietly.
Spencer shakes his head. “I thought—” His voice cracks. “It’s one of those things that I thought if I didn’t talk about it, I’d just forget, but I remember it like it was yesterday.”
Your throat burns. You swallow.
You shift until your knees tuck against his thighs and your arms can wrap around him properly. His hands hover for a heartbeat — uncertain, like he’s forgotten how to be held without it meaning he’s weak.
Then you guide him, gentle and firm, and he folds into you. He leans his head against your shoulder and lets you pull him closer.
He exhales against you, shuddering. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and you can tell he means it for a hundred things at once.
“Stop,” you say. You pull back just enough to look at him. “Don’t apologize to me for… surviving, or for telling me about it.”
His eyes flicker. The shame tries to reassert itself.
You don’t let it.
“Hey,” you murmur. “Look at me.”
He does, and you take a long breath, pushing back against the part of you that still wants to run from honesty and closeness; the voice inside your head that, while much quieter now than it once was, still tries to convince you that letting him all the way in is a bad idea.
“You are the safest person I’ve ever known, Spencer Reid,” you say slowly, letting him feel every word. “And you’re sitting here acting like you’re dangerous because you understand first-hand what pain can do to people.” Your thumb traces his pulse at his jaw. “But… you understanding that is the whole point. It makes you good at this job. It makes you human.”
He stares at you like he’s trying to memorize your face. Like he’s trying to decide if he’s allowed to believe you.
“I’ve never told anyone that story before,” he says quietly.
The weight of it presses down, intimate and terrifying. You feel it in your ribs: his trust, his choice.
He swallows. “You’re the only person I've ever wanted to tell. And I didn’t… I didn’t want to be alone with it.”
Your heart does something painful and tender at the same time.
“You don’t have to be alone with anything anymore,” you murmur. “Not if you don’t want to be.”
His eyes shine. He doesn’t blink.
“I don’t think I really realized how much I need you until tonight,” he says quietly. “I’ve always wanted you, obviously. But I need you, too.”
Your breath catches.
You slide your fingers into his hair, hold him close.
“You have me,” you say. “Okay? You have me.”
—
Time passes in small, quiet ways.
In the tea that goes cold on the coffee table because neither of you remembers to drink it. In the way the city noise outside shifts from restless to sleepy. In the way Spencer’s grip on you loosens — not because he wants to let go, but because he doesn’t feel like he has to hold on for dear life anymore.
At some point, you stop counting his breaths and start trusting them.
He stays curled into you on the couch for a long time, forehead tucked against your shoulder, one hand spread at your waist like he’s memorizing the shape of you. Every so often his fingers flex, as if he’s checking you’re still there. Every time you slide your palm over his knuckles in answer.
You don’t talk much. There isn’t a clean follow-up line to they tied me to a goalpost that makes the world make sense again. There’s just… being.
You feel him come back to himself in increments. His shoulders drop. His jaw unclenches. The tightness behind his eyes softens into something tired instead of broken.
When he finally lifts his head, it’s careful, like he doesn’t want to break the spell.
His eyes meet yours.
“There you are,” you say softly.
A tiny smile flickers at the corner of his mouth. “Hi.”
He reaches up, thumb brushing your cheekbone where you’d wiped away a tear earlier that you’re refusing to acknowledge.
“I’m sorry,” he starts again.
You catch his wrist gently. “Don’t be.”
You sit up slowly, stretching your legs, and he follows your movement immediately like his body has decided you’re the North Star and he’s not fighting it anymore.
“Do you want to shower?” you ask.
He hesitates for half a beat, then nods. “Yeah.”
In the bathroom, you move around each other the way you always do. It’s a familiar routine. Toothbrushes side by side, your sweatshirt abandoned on the counter, his fingers catching yours when you reach for the same towel.
The shower steam turns the harshness of the day into something blurred at the edges. You wash your hair and he stands behind you, hands resting gently on your hips, leaning down to press a kiss to your shoulder like he can’t help himself. Like the nearness is still a need, even now that he’s steadier.
You turn, water sliding down the sides of your face, and he’s looking at you in that quiet, intent way he always does when he’s thinking too hard.
“What?” you ask.
He shakes his head, almost embarrassed. “Nothing.”
You don’t let him get away with it, but you also don’t press like an interrogator. You just step closer, palms flattening against his chest, and tip your chin up.
He leans down and kisses you, slow and sure, like he’s re-learning what it feels like to be held without punishment. You kiss him back until the tension in his shoulders fully releases, until his hands slide up your back and settle there like they belong.
When you pull away, he stays close, nose brushing yours.
“You’re…” he starts, then stops, as if he can’t find a word that isn’t too big.
You grin, trying to lighten the air around him. “I’m what? Your perfect, wonderful, super hot girlfriend?”
He laughs for a second — an actual laugh, warm and surprised.
“Well, yes,” he admits, a little helpless. “That’s true too.” His gaze drops for a beat, then returns to yours. “But I was going to say that you… you make it quieter. All of it.”
Your throat tightens, because you know what he means. You quiet his self-doubt, his self-criticism, his fear.
“You make it easier to breathe,” you answer, and it comes out softer than you expected. Honest in a way you don’t usually allow yourself to be. “Like I can stop bracing for the worst all the time.”
His eyes flicker — surprise, something bright and almost shy — and then he smiles softly. “Good,” he murmurs.
When you get out, you hand him a towel. He reaches for it but uses it to tug you in instead, wrapping it around both of you for a second like a makeshift shelter.
You rest your cheek against his skin and let his warmth sink into your bones.
In your bedroom, the routine continues.
He moves around your space like he belongs there, and he does. It’s etched into all the quiet details: the drawer you emptied for him months ago, the small stack of books he keeps on your nightstand, the fact he knows where you store your extra pillows and you know which side of the mattress he drifts toward in his sleep.
You watch him for a moment as he stands at the edge of the bed, shirt in his hands, hair damp, skin still flushed from the shower.
There’s something about seeing him like this — unarmored — that always makes your chest go tight. Like you’re witnessing something you weren’t supposed to get access to.
He catches you staring and raises his eyebrows faintly as he pulls the fabric over his head. “What?”
You shrug, attempting casual and failing. “Nothing.”
He gives you that small, knowing smile and climbs into bed. When you follow, he reaches for you immediately — an arm around your waist, pulling you in until your back is against his chest.
You settle with a sigh you didn’t realize you’d been holding in all day. His hand slides up your side, slow and grounding, then comes to rest over your ribs where your heartbeat keeps thudding like it’s trying to prove something.
“Thank you,” he murmurs into your hair.
“For what?”
“For coming to the door,” he says quietly. “For not making me explain before I could even think straight.” His arm tightens once, steady. “For letting me be here.”
You turn in his arms, just enough to look at him. In the dark, his eyes catch what little light there is, and they’re softer now.
“Like I was gonna leave you out there in the hall,” you murmur, thumb skimming his jaw. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
His mouth twitches, almost a laugh.
“I didn’t know what I needed,” he admits. “But it was you. I just needed you.”
“I know,” you whisper. “You have me.”
For a second, he almost looks like he might say something bigger. Something he can’t take back. But instead, he swallows it and leans in to kiss you again, the kind of kiss that still makes your stomach flip even after everything. Like you’re still new to each other, like you’re still learning, like you’ll never be done.
When you pull back, he rests his forehead against yours.
“Tomorrow,” he murmurs, voice already thick with sleep, “I’m going to be better.”
You hold his face between your hands for a moment, grounding him the way he’s grounded you so many times.
“You don’t have to be,” you say softly. “Just… be here.”
His eyes close on a slow exhale.
“I’m here. I’m yours,” he says, and the words are so devastatingly sincere that you feel them settle in your bones.
You settle back against him as his arm tightens around you, and then his breathing evens out, sleep taking him.
You lie there in the dark with him warm at your back, his hand over your heart like he’s using it to keep time, and you let yourself absorb the quiet.
It’s not total silence or stillness, not really. Not with his breathing in your ear or his palm rising and falling over your ribs.
You shift a fraction, and his arm tightens around you like he can’t bear to let you drift too far, even in sleep. It makes your throat burn with a feeling you refuse to name tonight, so you settle for staring up at the ceiling until your eyes go soft.
Tomorrow will arrive with its teeth. The job will soon enough hand you another case that chips away at your soul.
But tonight, Spencer found you anyway.
And you let yourself believe — just for this one quiet stretch of night — that if the world ever tries to pull you apart, he’ll still reach for you in the dark. That you’ll still reach back.
ᝰ.ᐟ
this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️
& don’t forget to send in requests for my 2k event, greenaway!reader marathon, happening next month!
PSA: likes do very little for promoting posts on tumblr! if you'd like to support a fic, please reblog!
🥹🥹 missed them sm
