Summary: Usually, you fill his phone with messages, photos, and little pieces of your day while he’s away, counting down the hours until he’s back. But this time, your replies are scarce, your silence heavy, and when Spencer comes home, he’s bracing for the worst...never imagining that the thing hurting you isn’t loud or visible.
Words: 5,8k.
Warnings & Tags: based by this request. mentions of cm stuff, panic attack, anxiety and academic validation. established relationship. hurt/comfort. english isn't my first language (sorry for my mistakes, be kind please).
Note: I took this request very personally and kind of self-inserted into it, so I really hope it touches your heart in some way. This is just my personal experience turned into fanfic lol
Something is wrong long before he can prove it.
Spencer Reid notices patterns the way other people notice colors, and your absence, your shift, is a pattern he cannot ignore. You have always been consistent in a way that steadies him: messages scattered throughout the day like quiet check-ins with the world, small observations about things most people would overlook, pictures that aren’t remarkable to anyone else but carry weight simply because they are yours. He has catalogued them without realizing it, filed them somewhere between routine and attachment, stored with the same unconscious precision he applies to everything else. A picture of tomatoes you bought to make a salad. A blurry snapshot of a book you almost purchased. A message sent too quickly, full of typos, because you were thinking of him in passing. None of it extraordinary. All of it essential. So when the rhythm breaks, when the messages come hours late, stripped down to a handful of careful words, when your replies feel distant, reduced to emojis he can’t quite interpret, when there are no pictures at all, no fragments of your day offered up without prompting, it does not register as coincidence. It registers as absence within presence. As something missing where something should be.
It registers as deviation.
And deviation, in his world, never exists without reason.
At first, he tries to rationalize it, because that is what he does, he builds explanations the way other people build reassurance. There are dozens available to him within seconds, all statistically plausible, all grounded in ordinary human behavior. People get busy. People get tired. People misplace their phones or forget chargers or lose track of time in ways that have nothing to do with danger. He even considers technical failures, dead batteries, signal interruptions—anything mechanical, anything impersonal—because assigning your silence to something external is easier than allowing it to mean something internal. But none of those explanations settle properly. They linger, incomplete, like variables that refuse to align. Because even when you are busy, you tell him so he knows to step back. Even when you are tired, you send something small, something minimal, because you know he will notice the absence otherwise. Even when everything else slips your mind, you do not forget him. That is the constant his brain cannot reconcile, the fixed point that makes every alternative explanation collapse under its own weight. It is not the silence itself that unsettles him. It is how unlike you it is.
By the second day, his thoughts begin to widen, stretching outward into darker, sharper possibilities with a precision he cannot disable. He knows too much about the worst versions of the world, has seen too many cases where silence was not emptiness but warning, where the absence of contact was the first and only indication that something irreversible had already begun. His mind supplies information without invitation: response time irregularities, behavioral withdrawal patterns, statistical correlations between sudden communication gaps and distress. He hates the direction his thoughts take, hates how quickly logic transforms into fear, but he cannot stop the process once it begins. Reason does not comfort him the way it usually does. It refines the panic, gives it structure, sharpens it into something more difficult to dismiss. Every hour that passes without a real response becomes a data point. Every unanswered message becomes evidence. Every absence becomes louder than anything you could have said.
By the time the jet lands, he is no longer capable of waiting.
He does not say a proper goodbye. There is no careful explanation, no polite acknowledgment, just abrupt movement, urgency overriding protocol in a way that feels unfamiliar even to him. The street is too loud, too slow, too full of obstacles, and the subway becomes an unacceptable variable the moment he considers it. Too many stops. Too many delays. Too much time spent underground, unable to act if something is already wrong. He takes a taxi instead, the decision made in less than a second, driven entirely by the need to eliminate delay. His heart is beating too fast—tum, tum, tum—loud enough that it disrupts his concentration, interferes with the precise calculations he usually relies on. When the ride ends, he hands the driver money without counting it, numbers blurring together in a way that would normally be impossible for him. He knows it is too much. He does not care.
The key feels heavier in his hand than it should.
There is a tightness in his chest he recognizes but cannot regulate, something bordering on panic but quieter, compressed into something sharp rather than explosive. His mind prepares him for impact, for something visible that will justify the urgency clawing at him: disarray, broken objects, absence, anything that aligns with the fear he has already constructed. But when the door opens, there is nothing.
No broken windows.
No overturned furniture.
No blood. No sound.
Everything is exactly as it should be.
And that, somehow, is worse.
The apartment is too still, too untouched, as if time has not passed but paused. The air feels unchanged, heavy with a silence that is not peaceful but hollow, like something has been removed rather than settled. There is no evidence of interruption, no sign of struggle, no visible explanation he can hold onto. The normalcy strips away every external possibility he has tried to rely on, leaving him with something far more unsettling: the realization that whatever is wrong is not something he can see.
It leaves him alone with the one explanation he has been trying not to consider.
He finds you after a moment, and the relief is so immediate it almost disorients. You’re there. Sitting exactly where you should be, exactly how you should be. Whole. Breathing. Safe. His lungs finally pull in air properly, his shoulders loosening just slightly as his mind scrambles to reconcile the reality in front of him with the catastrophe it had already begun to construct.
You’re there. You’re safe.
But then he looks closer.
And the relief doesn’t settle the way it should.
Because something is still wrong.
It’s not obvious. Not immediate. It doesn’t exist in the kind of visible damage he was bracing himself to find. It’s quieter than that, subtle enough that most people wouldn’t notice, buried in the small details of your body. It’s in the way you sit, not relaxed but contained, your shoulders drawn inward just enough to suggest tension rather than comfort, like you’re folding into yourself without realizing it. It’s in the way your movements feel slightly delayed, like there’s a fraction of a second between stimulus and response, like your mind has to catch up to your body. It’s in your eyes, lifting to meet his just a little too slow, like you had to remind yourself to look up at all.
The coffee on your desk has gone cold.
You haven’t noticed.
That alone is enough to unsettle him further.
His gaze shifts, instinctively cataloguing the environment the same way he always does, but now every detail feels loaded with meaning he hasn’t fully uncovered yet. The desk is cluttered in a way that doesn’t feel like simple mess, it feels excessive, almost frantic. Books are stacked unevenly, opened and filled with notes that bleed into the margins, lines underlined too many times, handwriting layered over itself like repetition might force something to stick. Pens are scattered everywhere, uncapped, some fallen to the floor, others abandoned mid-use. The coffee cup sits forgotten at the corner, untouched long enough to lose heat completely.
And then there are the pictures.
They’re wrong.
Not gone, not damaged, just…shifted. The photos of your younger self that used to be carefully placed along the wall are slightly out of alignment, some tilted, some moved closer together, others spaced apart like you’ve handled them too many times, adjusted them over and over without settling on a final position. It’s subtle, but it’s deliberate. Not accidental. Not random.
His eyes move to your computer.
The screen is still on.
The university website is open, tabs layered over tabs, information pages, schedules, requirements, but behind it, not even hidden properly, is something else. A page from your old high school. Familiar in a way that feels out of place now. Outdated.
It doesn’t fit.
None of it fits.
“Oh—hi,” you say, your voice just slightly breathless, like you’ve been caught mid-thought rather than mid-action. You look surprised, but not in the way he expects, not fully present in it, like the reaction doesn’t reach all the way through you. “Didn’t know you’d be here today.”
There’s a small delay before he responds, not because he doesn’t know what to say, but because he’s still processing, still aligning what he’s seeing with what he understands.
“Hi.” He sets his bag down on the sofa, the movement automatic, his attention never leaving you as he steps closer. “I sent you a message.”
It’s meant to be neutral. An observation. A simple statement of fact.
But it comes out tighter than intended.
“You didn’t answer.”
Your reaction is almost nothing.
Almost.
A flicker in your expression, a hesitation so brief it would be invisible to anyone else, but not to him. Never to him.
“I’m sorry,” you say, and the apology lands heavier than it should, disproportionate to the situation, immediate and reflexive in a way that makes something in his chest tighten again. “I was…looking a few things, you know. Study and all.”
Study.
The word doesn’t settle any better than the others, because nothing about this looks like studying.
It looks like circling something.
It looks like getting stuck.
It looks like you’ve been here for hours without moving forward.
He doesn’t interrupt you. Doesn’t correct you, even though the inconsistency is obvious, almost loud to him. He lets the explanation exist, even if it doesn’t hold, because pushing it apart too quickly would only make you retreat further. Instead, he watches—just for a second, then another—taking in everything you’re not saying. The stillness in your hands, the tension you haven’t let go of, the way your gaze brushes past him instead of settling.
And then he does what he thinks you need.
What you always seem to need when words get too complicated.
“I missed you.”
It’s quiet, softer than anything else he’s said since he walked in, stripped of analysis, stripped of concern, left intentionally simple. He steps closer, careful in the way he always is with you when something feels fragile, and presses a gentle kiss to the top of your head. Not invasive, not demanding, just present.
An offering, not a question.
Something that doesn’t require you to explain.
You don’t move at first.
Not away from him. Not toward him either.
You just…stay.
Still, in that same careful way, like even the smallest shift might cost you more than it should. His lips barely linger against your hair before he pulls back, not because he wants to, but because he’s paying attention to you, to the way your body holds itself, to the invisible line he doesn’t want to cross without permission.
Up close, it’s clearer.
Your breathing isn’t uneven, not like panic, not sharp or erratic, but shallow, like you’re forgetting to take in enough air. Your fingers are curled slightly against the desk, not tense enough to tremble, but not relaxed either.
Like everything in you is paused mid-motion.
“I brought you something,” he says after a moment, voice still soft, like he’s testing how much sound the room can take without breaking. It’s not entirely true—he hadn’t planned it, hadn’t thought about bringing anything—but he reaches into his bag anyway, pulling out a small, slightly crumpled paper bag from a bookstore near where he’d been working. He sets it gently beside your cold coffee.
Inside, there’s a book. Something simple. Something he thought you might like days ago, before this silence started.
He doesn’t push it toward you.
Just leaves it there.
“I bought the same one yesterday,” you say suddenly, your voice slipping back into the room like it had been waiting at the edge of it. You gesture faintly toward another bag—neater, untouched—resting near your desk.
For a second, he stills.
“Oh…” he answers, softer now, something in his tone shifting almost imperceptibly. “I didn’t know if you already had it.” A pause, small but present. “You usually tell me.”
There’s no accusation in it. Just a fact. Just something that used to be normal.
The space stretches again, not as sharp as before, but still heavy. He watches the way your eyes flick toward the bag, then away, like even that small gesture feels like too much to process.
And that’s when he understands it, at least partially.
This isn’t avoidance.
It’s overload.
His gaze shifts back to the desk, to the pages filled with overlapping notes, the repetition, the density of it all, and then back to you again.
“Hey…” he says gently, crouching down slightly so he’s closer to your level, careful not to block your space, not to corner you. “How long have you been sitting here?”
Not what are you doing.
Not why didn’t you answer.
Something simpler. Something you might actually be able to answer.
Your shoulders lift just barely.
“I don’t know,” you admit, voice quieter now, less structured, like the effort to sound normal is slipping. “I just…needed to finish something.”
But your eyes flick to the same page.
The one you haven’t turned.
The one filled with the same sentence written three different ways.
He nods slowly, like that makes sense, even if it doesn’t.
“Okay,” he murmurs. “We don’t have to finish it right now.”
You don’t respond.
Not immediately.
Your gaze stays on the desk, like you’re still halfway somewhere else, like letting go of it, even for a second, feels wrong.
“I can’t just stop,” you say finally, and it’s not defensive. It’s quiet. Frustrated in a way that sounds more like you’re explaining something to yourself than to him. “I was trying to get it right and then I kept forgetting what I was doing and then I had to start again and—” You cut yourself off, your breath catching slightly, not sharp, but strained. “It’s stupid.”
“It’s not,” he answers immediately.
Too quickly to be rehearsed.
Too certain to be polite.
You go quiet again, your fingers tightening just slightly against the edge of the desk.
“Can I sit here?” he asks softly, gesturing to the space beside you.
You nod.
He moves slowly, taking the seat next to you without disturbing anything, without touching anything he doesn’t need to. For a moment, he just exists there with you, not speaking, letting the room settle around both of you instead of trying to change it.
Then, after a beat—
“Can you tell me what you were trying to finish?”
His voice stays gentle, but there’s something grounding in it now, something structured. Not overwhelming, not analytical, just enough to give you something to hold onto that isn’t everything at once.
You hesitate.
“…It’s just one paragraph,” you say. “It shouldn’t be this hard.”
He nods again, like that’s completely reasonable.
“Okay,” he says. “Then we’ll just look at the paragraph.”
Not the whole assignment.
Not everything on the desk.
Just that.
Your eyes shift to him, just slightly more focused this time.
“Just that?” you repeat, like the idea itself feels unfamiliar.
“Just that,” he confirms.
A small pause.
“…and if it’s still hard,” he adds quietly, “then we can make it smaller or try later.”
Something in you loosens, not enough to undo everything, but enough to register. Your shoulders drop a fraction, your next breath comes deeper, and your eyes gloss over just slightly, like the suggestion itself hits somewhere you weren’t expecting.
But then—
“No, it’s late,” you say, too quickly, like the moment closes before it can settle. You push your chair back and stand, creating distance where there hadn’t been any. “You probably want to sleep.”
It’s abrupt. Not rude, just…redirecting. Like you’ve stepped out of something before it could fully reach you.
And when you move, he notices it immediately.
Your hair is still damp.
Not freshly washed, no, it’s been long enough for it to stop dripping, but not long enough for it to dry. It clings slightly to your neck, uneven, like you never finished taking care of it. Like you stopped halfway through something else, too.
Like everything today.
“You’re going to get a cold,” he says softly, the concern slipping out before he can filter it. His hand lifts almost without thinking, fingers brushing lightly along a strand of your hair, tucking it back just enough to get it off your skin.
“I’m okay,” you answer.
And there’s nothing defensive in it. Nothing sharp, nothing that pushes him away outright.
Just distance.
Flat distance that settles into the space between you and gently closes the conversation without ever saying it’s over.
For a second, he almost pushes past it.
You can see it, the way his breath shifts, the almost imperceptible tension in his shoulders, the way his lips part like he’s about to ask again, differently this time. Not are you okay, but something more precise. Something that might reach the part of you that’s slipping away from him.
But he doesn’t, because he’s learned you.
Learned the difference between silence that can be questioned and silence that has to be approached carefully, like something fragile resting just under the surface.
And right now, this feels fragile.
“Okay,” he says quietly.
He shifts his weight, putting just enough space between you without making it feel like distance. His hand brushes the back of the chair as he moves, not absentmindedly, but grounding, like he needs something solid to keep himself steady before letting go of the moment.
“I’m going to take a shower,” he adds, tone gentle, casual in a way that doesn’t demand attention. “Warm up a bit.”
There’s a pause, small but intentional.
His eyes flick to your hair again, then back to your face.
“You can—” he starts, then lets the sentence fall away before it becomes something heavier. Not you should. Not you need to. Just a suggestion left unfinished, open enough that you can step into it or ignore it without feeling watched.
He doesn’t wait for your response.
Doesn’t make you choose in front of him.
Instead, he turns, moving toward the hallway with quiet steps. Nothing abrupt, nothing that disrupts the delicate stillness you’ve built around yourself. The bathroom light flicks on, casting a warm glow that spills outward, stretching into the dimness of the apartment.
And when he reaches the door, he doesn’t close it.
He leaves it open.
Not wide enough to be intrusive, not enough to make his presence unavoidable, but enough. Just enough that the line between rooms isn’t sealed off. Enough that the light reaches you. Enough that the space between you doesn’t feel like separation.
A moment later, the sound of water begins.
And for a long moment, you stay exactly where you are, standing in the middle of the room as if your body hasn’t quite received the signal to move forward. The apartment feels different now, filled with the distant rush of water spilling against tile, a constant sound that replaces the oppressive quiet from before. It softens the edges of everything just enough to make it bearable, just enough to keep your thoughts from pressing in all at once.
Eventually, you move.
Not back to the desk. Not back to the paragraph that still sits unfinished, waiting in the exact same place you left it, heavy with effort that never quite turned into progress.
You turn instead toward the bedroom.
Your movements are slow, automatic, like muscle memory is carrying you through something your mind isn’t fully present for. Lights are switched off without you really noticing when. The hallway dims behind you. The bedroom feels colder somehow, emptier, even though nothing has changed.
You change clothes without thinking about it, fingers fumbling slightly at the edges of fabric, your coordination just a fraction off in a way that would be easy to miss if you weren’t already so aware of yourself. Your hair is still damp, cool against your neck and shoulders, leaving faint, uneven patches against the fabric of your shirt.
You don’t dry it.
You don’t think about it.
You just lie down.
The mattress dips beneath your weight in a way that should feel familiar, but it doesn’t settle right. It feels distant, like your body hasn’t fully arrived with you, like you’re only partially there, suspended somewhere between movement and stillness. The sheets are cool against your skin, faintly wrinkled beneath your hands, and the pillow barely shifts when your head meets it, like even gravity feels muted.
You stare up at the ceiling, eyes unfocused, tracing nothing. Your gaze drifts without anchoring itself to any one point, slipping across the faint shadows in the corners, the subtle variations in texture you don’t consciously register. Your mind is quiet, but not in a restful way, empty in the way that feels hollow rather than calm, like thoughts are trying to form but dissolve before they can become anything solid enough to hold onto.
For a few seconds, there’s nothing.
Just the distant sound of water running down the hall. The quiet hum of the apartment. The steady rhythm of something that should feel normal.
Then your chest tightens.
It’s subtle at first, so small you almost miss it. A slight pressure, like your body is sitting wrong inside itself, like your lungs didn’t quite expand the way they were supposed to. You shift instinctively, adjusting your position, one shoulder rolling back, your hand tugging the blanket higher across your chest as if warmth might fix something you can’t quite name.
It doesn’t.
The tightness lingers.
And then, slowly, it grows.
Not suddenly. Not sharply. But steadily, quietly, like something invisible is pressing inward, narrowing space you didn’t realize you needed. Your next breath comes in shallow, stopping halfway through your chest before it can settle. It feels incomplete, like a sentence cut off too soon. Your body tries again automatically, faster this time, a little more urgent.
Still not enough.
Your fingers curl into the sheets without you noticing, nails catching faintly in the fabric, grounding yourself in something solid even as your body begins to feel less so. Your heartbeat shifts, not racing at first, not erratic, but louder, each beat landing with a weight that draws your attention inward whether you want it to or not.
Something is wrong.
You try to take a deeper breath.
Your chest tightens further, the pressure sharpening into something that almost hurts now, and suddenly you’re aware of it, of every breath that doesn’t go deep enough, of the way air seems to pass through you instead of filling you, of the growing space between what your body needs and what it’s getting.
Your thoughts begin to fracture.
They don’t form fully, don’t settle into anything coherent, just flashes, incomplete and overlapping.
Why does it feel like this—
No, I’m fine, I just drank a lot of coffee—
Another breath.
Too fast.
Your lungs burn faintly now, a dry, aching sensation that spreads with every shallow inhale. Your throat tightens, your breathing slipping out of rhythm entirely, pulling faster and faster without ever satisfying the need behind it. Your hands grip the sheets harder, fingers tightening until the fabric bunches beneath them, until it’s the only thing you can feel clearly.
But even that starts to fade.
The room shifts, like the air has thickened, pressing against your skin instead of moving around you. Your chest tightens again, sharper this time, enough that your shoulders draw inward instinctively, curling slightly as if you’re trying to protect something fragile inside you.
Your breathing stutters.
You try to slow it down but you can’t.
It speeds up instead, dragging you with it, your body moving faster than your mind can follow, and there’s this rising, overwhelming certainty, irrational but absolute, that something is about to go very, very wrong.
You don’t call for Spencer.
The thought doesn’t even exist long enough to become an option.
Everything is too loud inside you, too immediate, your body taking over in a way that leaves no space for anything else.
The water is still running.
The door is still open.
And he hears it.
Not immediately, not as something clear or distinct, but as a disruption. A subtle break in the pattern of sound he hadn’t consciously realized he was following. The apartment doesn’t feel the same anymore. Beneath the steady rush of water, there’s something uneven, something strained, something that doesn’t belong.
He stills.
And then he hears it.
Your breathing.
Fragmented. Irregular. Wrong.
The water shuts off instantly.
“Hey—?” he calls, not loudly, but sharp enough to carry, to cut through the space between rooms.
No answer.
Just the sound of you trying to breathe.
That’s enough.
He doesn’t think after that and he just moves.
Quick, stepping out without hesitation, the cold air hitting his damp skin as water still clings to his hair, his shoulders, trailing down his arms in uneven lines. He barely registers it, barely notices the way it chills against him as he grabs a towel, securing it hastily around his hips without slowing down.
The bathroom light spills behind him, warm and bright, stretching down the hallway as he moves through it, his footsteps quiet but urgent against the floor.
He reaches the bedroom in seconds.
And there you are.
Curled slightly into yourself, not tightly, not fully, but enough that something in his chest tightens sharply at the sight. Your body is caught between stillness and motion, your hands clenched in the sheets, your breathing uneven and too fast, each inhale shallow, each exhale incomplete.
“Hey—hey, look at me.”
He’s at your side almost instantly, his voice softer now, controlled in a way he forces it to be, steady despite the urgency running underneath it. He leans in just enough to be in your space without overwhelming it, anchoring himself before reaching for you.
Your eyes flick toward him, unfocused, like you’re trying to see him through something else entirely.
“I can’t—” you manage, your voice breaking midway, caught on the same edge as your breath. “I can’t breathe—”
“You can, baby,” he says immediately.
His hands hover for a fraction of a second, not unsure, just careful, before settling lightly around your wrists, his touch firm enough to be grounding but gentle enough not to trap you, not to add to the overwhelm already building in your body.
Your pulse is fast.
Too fast.
“Stay with me, okay?” he murmurs, leaning in slightly so he stays within your line of sight. “Just look at me.”
Your gaze struggles, flickering, unfocused…then, slowly, it lands.
“Good,” he says softly, his voice lowering, steadying further. “That’s good.”
One of his hands shifts, sliding into yours instead, his fingers wrapping around yours in a consistent grip. His thumb begins to move almost immediately, tracing small, repetitive patterns against your skin, so predictable, something your body can latch onto even when everything else feels like it’s slipping away.
“Breathe with me.”
He exaggerates it, making it visible, deliberate, something you can follow instead of something you have to figure out.
“In through your nose…slow. Just try, love.”
You try.
It catches.
Your breath stutters halfway in, breaking before it can complete.
He doesn’t react to that.
Doesn’t let it become something wrong.
“Okay,” he says gently. “That’s fine. Again.”
His voice doesn’t change. Doesn’t rush. Doesn’t rise.
“Four seconds,” he continues quietly. “I’ll count.”
He does.
“And out through your mouth…longer.”
Your breath breaks again, shaky, but it follows him just enough.
Again.
And again.
His grip adjusts instinctively when yours tightens, never letting go, never pulling away. The rhythm of his voice threads through the chaos in your head, giving it something to settle against, something consistent when everything else feels like it’s unraveling.
“I’m right here, love,” he murmurs, closer now, his forehead nearly brushing yours, his presence steady and unyielding. “Nothing’s happening to you. Your body just thinks it is.”
Your breathing is still too fast, still uneven.
But something shifts, just enough that the edges of the panic don’t feel as sharp, don’t feel like they’re closing in quite as tightly.
Your grip tightens around his hand.
He holds on.
“Stay with me,” he repeats softly.
And he doesn’t let you drift.
***
You don’t cry the same way the whole time.
At first it’s uneven, sharp inhales that break apart, your shoulders shaking in small, uncontrollable movements like your body is still catching up to everything that just happened. But slowly, it softens. The panic drains out of it, leaving something quieter behind. The kind of crying that doesn’t fight you as much, but stays.
Spencer adjusts without you having to ask.
His hand never leaves yours. If anything, his grip softens just enough to follow yours instead of holding it in place, his thumb still tracing those repetitive motions like it’s the most natural thing in the world. His other arm shifts around you more fully, careful but steady, guiding you closer until your forehead brushes against his shoulder. He doesn’t pull you in abruptly, he lets you lean, lets you choose it, but once you do, he stays there. Warm. Unmoving in the way you need.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs again, softer now, his voice barely above a breath. “You don’t have to hold it in.”
That’s what does it.
Because you have been.
For hours. For days, maybe longer.
Your fingers curl into the fabric of his shoulder, clutching lightly like you need something to anchor you while everything else slips, and your voice breaks again when you try to speak.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” you admit, the words fragile but real, like they’ve been sitting there for a long time waiting to be said. “I don’t think I’m…I don’t think I’m good enough for anything anymore.”
His arm tightens around you, not enough to trap you, just enough to say I’m here without interrupting you.
“You are,” he says quietly.
But he doesn’t push it, doesn’t argue it like a fact you have to accept. He just lets it sit there beside what you’re feeling.
You shake your head against him.
“It doesn’t feel like that,” you whisper. “It feels like I’m falling behind something I used to understand.”
Your voice cracks again.
“And if I can’t get it back, then what happens?” you continue, the words spilling out slower now, like you’re finally letting yourself look at them. “What if I just…can’t do it all anymore? What if this is it?”
He shifts slightly, his hand coming up to rest gently against the back of your head, fingers brushing through your still-damp hair in careful motions.
“That’s a really big ‘what if,’” he murmurs, voice warm, grounding. “Your brain’s jumping really far ahead, angel.”
You let out a weak, humorless breath against his shoulder.
“I know,” you say. “But I can’t stop thinking about it.”
His fingers keep moving through your hair, so patient.
“You don’t have to stop it,” he says quietly. “You just don’t have to believe it right now.”
You stay quiet for a second, your breathing finally evening out, your body no longer trembling the way it was before.
“I’ve always had this,” you say after a moment, your voice smaller now, more tired than broken. “Since I was younger. I always knew what I was doing. I always knew what I was good at.” Your fingers tighten slightly in his shirt. “It made everything make sense.”
He hums softly, encouraging without interrupting.
“And now I don’t,” you admit. “And if I don’t have that anymore, then I don’t know what I am.” A pause. “I feel like I lost…my purpose or something.”
That word sits heavy between you.
Purpose.
“I don’t want to just be nothing new,” you add, almost under your breath. “I don’t want to be someone who used to be good at something.”
There’s a quiet stretch after that.
Spencer doesn’t rush to fill it.
He lets your words settle, lets them exist fully before he responds, his hand still gently combing through your hair, his other thumb brushing slow circles against your knuckles.
When he speaks, it’s softer than before.
“You know,” he starts, a little thoughtful, like he’s choosing something personal on purpose, “when I was younger, I didn’t really question what I was good at either.”
You shift slightly, just enough to listen.
“It was…obvious,” he continues. “Everything made sense quickly. Patterns, information, outcomes. I didn’t have to work for it the way other people did.” A small pause. “And I thought that meant it would always feel like that.”
His hand stills for a second, then resumes, gentler.
“But it didn’t,” he says quietly. “There were times where it slowed down. Where things got harder. Where I couldn’t access things the way I usually could.” He exhales softly. “And I thought that meant I was losing it too.”
Your fingers loosen just slightly.
“I wasn’t,” he adds.
Not defensive, just certain.
“I was overwhelmed. Tired. Sometimes scared in ways I didn’t recognize right away.” A small, almost self-aware pause. “And my brain didn’t stop working. It just stopped working the same way.”
That settles somewhere deeper than reassurance.
Because it’s not trying to fix you, it’s meeting you where you are.
“You’re still that person,” he says gently, shifting just enough to tilt his head so he can look at you properly, his forehead brushing yours again. “The one who understands things. The one who cares about doing it right. That didn’t disappear.”
Your eyes flicker, still wet, still uncertain.
“It just feels like it did,” you whisper.
“I know,” he says softly.
His hand cups the side of your face now, careful, his thumb brushing lightly under your eye where your tears haven’t fully dried.
“But feeling like you lost something and actually losing it are not the same thing.”
He doesn’t rush you to respond.
Doesn’t push you to agree.
He just stays there, close, his touch grounding in a way that doesn’t overwhelm, just reassures.
“You’re allowed to not recognize yourself for a little while,” he adds quietly. “That doesn’t mean you’re gone.”
Your breath steadies a little more.
“And you’re definitely not ‘nothing,’” he murmurs, almost a whisper against your skin. “Even on your worst day, you’re still…you.”
