STRANGE GRACE ―.✦ s.r. soft animal series ∘ part ii
pairing: spencer reid x fem!nurse!reader
summary: when spencer, fresh out of prison, calls, she comes — and in the quiet of his apartment, something shifts. a kiss, a night, a beginning.
genre: hurt/comfort, fluff, smut if you squint
w/c: 3.1k
tags/warnings: post-prison spencer, kinda emotional bc Spencer like JUST got out of prison, pretending the whole plot point of diana reid living with spencer isn’t a thing for the sake of this, making out, things get a lil heated but no true smut, still NSFW MDNI, sexual tension, horny spencer, horny reader, uh oh boner alert, vaguely implied intimacy issues/prison trauma, alexa play fresh out the slammer by taylor swift
a/n: eeeep soft animal part 2! don’t worry prison arc is already over, our boy is freeeee and I couldn’t torture reader any longer by keeping him in there. again, i am very very brand new to posting fics on tumblr (+ writing for criminal minds in general) so I appreciate any and all interactions with this fic and any advice/feedback in my asks is always welcome! please reblog if you enjoy <3
series masterlist
A week passed since Spencer’s last visit without so much as a sighting of him. I thought about calling in a favor with one of the COs, asking about him under the guise of needing a follow-up exam. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to risk any suspicion.
When my phone buzzed that night, I almost didn’t answer.
Unknown number.
Probably spam, or a wrong number. Normally I ignored those sorts of calls without second thought, but something inside my brain told me to answer anyway.
“Hello?”
There was a pause on the other end — but it wasn’t dead air. Then, a voice:
“It’s me. It’s…it’s Spencer. Spencer Reid.”
I froze. My heart kicked so hard I had to press a hand to my chest. I was silent for so long that Spencer thought I’d hung up. “You there?”
“Y-yeah, I— Are you okay?” I finally replied after the shock wore off. It came out like a reflex. Not “where are you” or “how did you get out,” but rather a desperate need to know he was alright.
“I think so,” he said, and there was a quiet steadiness to it that hadn’t been there the last time I saw him. “I’m out.”
My fingers curled tighter around the phone. “Out,” I echoed, trying to make the word feel real. “You mean…?”
“I got released,” he said. “A few days ago. My team caught the actual killer.”
“And now?” I asked softly.
“Now… I’m home. In my apartment. It doesn’t feel like mine again yet, but it’s quiet. It’s… better.”
There was something about the way he said home that made my throat tighten. “Why are you calling me?” I asked, voice small.
He let out a breath, almost a laugh. “Because when it got quiet, and I finally had a choice… I wanted to hear your voice.”
I didn’t reply yet. I couldn’t.
“I thought about you,” he added, softer now. “More than I probably should’ve. But I think that’s what got me through the worst of it.”
I closed my eyes, and the line was quiet for a beat. “I kept thinking about your hands,” he said. “The way you touched me like you didn’t want to stop, even though you had to. You were scared someone would notice.”
I swallowed hard.
“But I noticed. Every time,” he added.
I swallowed again, fingers curling into the blanket. “That wasn’t exactly medical protocol.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why it mattered.”
Something about the way he said it made it impossible to breathe for a second. Silence passed between us again, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
“I don’t know what this is,” he said. “Or if it’s anything at all. But I know I want to see you again, if you’re open to it.”
I pressed the phone tighter to my ear, as if I could get closer. I let out a breath, words lodged in my throat.
“Will you come here?” he asked softly after a long stretch of silence.
I blinked, then sat up straighter. My answer came out quiet, but certain.
“Yes.”
—
After we hung up, Spencer swiftly texted me his address. My eyes bulged out of my head when I read it — 5 blocks from my apartment. He lives five blocks away from me. All this time, before he got locked up, he was in my neighborhood and we never once crossed paths. Or maybe we did, and we just didn’t know it. Something about our proximity made my heart flutter. Maybe, in a better, more fair universe where he never saw the inside of Millburn’s walls, we still would have found each other.
I changed quickly — nothing dramatic, just a clean t-shirt, jeans that didn’t look like I’d slept in them, and a light jacket. I brushed my hair, threw on chapstick, and stood frozen in front of the mirror for a full minute before grabbing my keys.
The streets were mostly empty this late, and I barely noticed the walk. My heart kept beating faster the closer I got — half panic, half adrenaline. When I reached his building, I hesitated with my finger over the buzzer.
The elevator ride took too long. Every second felt like a held breath. I knocked softly on the door of Apartment 23 before I lost my nerve, and while I waited, I realized I hadn’t at all prepared for what would happen next. I hadn’t thought about what I’d do when the door opened — would I wave? Say hello? Shake his hand like we were meeting for the first time, like we weren’t already tangled up in something we’d never named? Should we hug?
The lock clicked, and the door creaked open. And there he was.
Not wearing Millburn’s scratchy polyester uniform. Not under flickering fluorescent lights. Not watched, not guarded, not contained.
Just Spencer, right in front of me.
His curls were tamer. His clothes were soft and civilian. His eyes were the same.
For a second, we just looked at each other. I felt myself blinking too fast, my chest too tight. He was here. He was okay. And for the first time, I got to see him where he belonged.
“Hey,” I said, but it came out more like a breath than a word.
He smiled — not the small, shy one he’d given me in the infirmary. This smile was big and bright and laced with relief and genuine joy. “Hi.”
Hi. One word, and that was enough to pull me in. I stepped towards him and inside his apartment without giving it another thought. His hand found my waist like it had been there before, and the distance between us disappeared. I buried my face against his chest, the top of my head tucked under his chin, and I fought back tears I hadn’t been expecting.
He smelled clean. Like laundry and something sharp, like soap or aftershave. He felt warm. Solid. Human.
Eventually, he pulled back just far enough to look at me. “You didn’t know I was out.”
I shook my head. “Not until you called.”
He nodded. “Good. I wanted to tell you myself.”
The words sat heavy in my chest — because he’d thought about that. Because I mattered to him enough for it to be a conscious decision.
His apartment was quiet — just soft lamplight, books lining the shelves, half a tea kettle on the stove. Clean, but lived in. Walls painted green and much nicer furniture than I’d ever owned. Somehow both exactly what I expected and not at all. I tried not to stare.
“Tea?” he offered.
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure I’d be able to taste it. My nerves had hit a high, buzzing pitch — everything inside me tuned to this strange frequency of disbelief.
He moved around his kitchen like he’d only been gone a day, not months. I watched him from the edge of the couch, unsure if I should sit. I wanted to ask so many things — about his release, about how he was doing, about how it felt to be here — but none of them made it to my mouth.
“You’re really here,” I said instead.
He set the mugs down on the coffee table and sat beside me — not too close, but not too far. Close enough that if I shifted just a little, my thigh would probably brush his.
“I kept thinking about this,” he said softly. “Not just getting out — this. You. Sitting here. In my apartment.”
I swallowed, hard. “I’ve thought about it too.”
He didn’t touch me, not right away. But the space between us thinned, almost vibrated with possibility. Everything that had to stay hidden before — all the lingering glances, the touches passed off as clinical, the things neither of us could say aloud — it was still here. And now, there was nothing stopping it, except ourselves.
He looked at me like he wasn’t sure if this was real — like I might vanish. I wanted to tell him I felt the same, but the words lodged in my throat again.
The quiet between us wasn’t awkward, but it was charged. Heavy. The kind of quiet where you hear your own pulse. Where the air feels like it could crack open if you moved too quickly.
He was sitting so still — hands clasped in his lap, shoulders hunched like he was still trying to make himself a little smaller. But his eyes kept flicking to mine, then away, like he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite get there. Like he was waiting for permission to want something again.
I swallowed hard, my throat tight. “I wasn’t sure what I’d find when I came here tonight. Who I’d find.” I looked down at my hands, fingers twisted together in my lap. “But it’s still you.”
He exhaled through his nose, barely a sound, but I felt it. The shift in the room. The relief, the ache, all tangled up in that one breath. I turned toward him, slowly, my knee brushing his. “You’re different out here than in there, obviously,” I added. “But you’re still you.”
He looked at me then, and whatever guard he’d been holding up cracked, just a little. I could see the want there, deep and quiet and scared out of its mind.
I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a plan. But I leaned in, not all the way — just enough that the space between us could disappear if he wanted it to. Close enough to feel the warmth of him, the rise and fall of his breath.
His hand lifted — hesitant, like he was reaching out in the dark. His fingers found my cheek and hovered for a moment before they touched my skin. Light, barely-there pressure.
“I don’t know how we’re going to navigate this,” I said softly. “But I know I want it, Spencer. I want to try.”
His brow furrowed, and for a second he looked like he might cry. He let out the breath he seemed to have been holding since I walked in, and nodded. “Me too.”
And then, there was that smile — the one I hadn’t really let myself hope for. The real one I’d only ever seen in flashes before now. It bloomed slowly, like it surprised even him.
“Come here,” he whispered.
My breath caught, and I climbed into his lap like I’d done it a hundred times before. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
His hand was still on my cheek, steady, anchoring me there. He leaned in slowly, as if he was giving me time to change my mind — like he didn’t quite believe I wouldn’t. His eyes flicked to my mouth, then back to my eyes.
“I’ve wanted to do this ever since our first game of chess in the infirmary,” he murmured, his voice low and raw and gravelly. His lips brushed mine — just barely — and it felt like a question and a promise in the same breath.
And when he finally kissed me, it wasn’t tentative. It wasn’t cautious or unsure. It was full of months of tension and weight and wondering. It was his hands cupping the back of my neck, his mouth finding mine with a hunger he hadn’t let himself feel until right now. It was soft and deep and breathtaking, like he was relearning what it felt like to touch and be touched with care.
His hand slid from my cheek into my hair, fingers threading slowly, anchoring me there. Mine curled into the fabric of his shirt, pulling him just a little closer. And when I tilted my head, opened my mouth, let him take more — he did. He tasted like peppermint and tea and something warm I couldn’t quite name.
There was nothing clinical about this touch. No need for excuses now.
The kiss broke a few minutes later, only because we needed air. He pulled back half an inch, eyes darting between mine like he was afraid to wake up.
I leaned back into him, slower this time. His arms circled my waist as I shifted to straddle him, and the new position knocked a soft exhale out of him. My hands ran through his hair — I’d wanted to do that for too long — and when I tugged gently at the ends, he groaned low in his throat.
Something about that sound unraveled me.
“I wanted this so much,” I whispered, mouth brushing his jaw.
“I know.” His hands ran up my back, warm under my shirt. “Me too.”
We stayed like that for a while — kissing, touching, moving in slow, molten inches like we had all the time in the world. His hands weren’t greedy, but they were purposeful. Mapping. Memorizing. Every time he touched a new patch of skin, I felt the zap of it deep in my spine.
And god — when he looked at me like that? Like I was something he couldn’t believe he actually got to have? That made everything else disappear.
I could’ve gone further. Would’ve. Wanted to. But I felt the subtle way his breath caught, the firm tension in his shoulders. Something in him still hadn’t exhaled. He still hadn’t let go of everything he’d been carrying since his arrest, so I slowed us down. Kissed him softer. Ground my hips against his just once, slow and full — and when he gasped into my mouth, I let that be enough.
When we pulled apart, I curled into his chest, and he held me like he didn’t want to let go.
“Sleep here,” he murmured into my hair. “If you want.”
I lifted my head, giving him a soft smile. “I do.” I pressed my lips to the side of his neck, just once.
He shifted, and I felt it — the way his body responded to mine, hard and undeniable against my thigh. He froze for a second.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, eyes wide and a little mortified. “Sorry.”
I laughed before I could help it, fingers brushing through the curls at the back of his neck. “I felt it earlier, Spencer. It’s okay.”
He let out a soft, relieved, still-embarrassed laugh, forehead pressed to mine. “You make it hard to think straight.”
I kissed him again, slower this time. “Good.”
Eventually, reluctantly, he pulled back enough to let me get up. He walked me to his bedroom and grabbed me something to sleep in, handing me a worn, soft t-shirt from his drawer with the words FBI Academy sprawled across the front in faded screen print.
I ducked into the bathroom and peeled off my clothes slowly, my skin still sizzling everywhere he had touched. My mind replayed every breath, memorizing the way he looked at me like he couldn’t believe I even existed. When I caught sight of myself in the mirror, cheeks flushed, lips kiss-swollen, I didn’t fully recognize the woman staring back.
I slipped the shirt over my head — no bra underneath, just panties — and pulled it down til it hit mid-thigh. I padded back into the room, finding Spencer in bed, arms propped behind his head, waiting for me. He had changed into a t-shirt and blue plaid pajama pants.
When I slid under the covers beside him, it didn’t feel awkward. It didn’t even feel new. He reached for me like it was instinct — like he’d been dreaming of pulling someone into him for so long that his body already knew the way. Like he’d been dreaming of me. I settled against him, bending my leg so my thigh stretched across his hips, my head tucked under his chin. His arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me tight, and his other hand rested low on my back, under the hem of the shirt, his long fingers warm against my bare skin.
I could feel him again — hard between us, barely restrained. But he didn’t move. Neither did I. The air between us was thick with all the things we hadn’t said yet. Everything I’d thought about on those nights between his visits. Everything I felt when I filled out that report, trying to get him somewhere safer. Every phantom brush of our hands, every minute stolen under the fluorescent lights of the infirmary.
He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. Swallowed.
“You okay?” I whispered.
A nod, then, “Yeah. I just…” He let out a slow breath. “This doesn’t really feel real.” He released a dry, disbelieving chuckle.
I felt that too — the surreal ache of being so close after spending so long holding back. I imagined it must be a thousand times more intense for him, feeling all of this and readjusting to freedom all at once.
I reached for his hand and laced my fingers through his. “It is,” I whispered.
My leg stayed bent over his front. His hand didn’t leave my waist. His cock throbbed gently between us, pressing into the soft flesh of my thigh, and neither of us pretended we didn’t feel it.
We lay there for a long time like that — pressed together, aching, breathing each other in.
Eventually, he shifted enough to pull me in tighter. His leg hooked around mine, his lips brushing my temple again.
“I feel like this is a dream,” he whispered. “I know it isn’t, obviously. And even if it was, I don’t subscribe to the pseudoscience of dream analysis. But still.”
I smiled against his throat. “You’re not dreaming, Spencer.”
“I might be,” he laughed.
I tilted my head and kissed him again, soft and slow and full of promise. “Then wake up with me,” I murmured.
He exhaled, long and warm. “I will.”
And when I finally closed my eyes, my whole body buzzed with the ache of holding back.
Summary: Derek tries to give Spencer advice, and Bunny and Spencer try to ride out the storm.
Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader
Category: Slow Burn (NSFW, 18+)
Content Warning: Allusions to sexual thoughts/desires, brief mention of Lolita and teacher crushes
Word Count: 7k
MASTERLIST | Series Masterlist
—————————————————
It had been twenty four hours, and I could still feel her. I’d never stopped feeling her. Her lips had scalded me, scarring every inch of where she’d kissed me. Even my heart was poisoned by the taste of her, having changed its tune in a way that felt permanent.
The feeling alone would have been survivable. Manageable, even. But that was not the only way she infiltrated my innermost thoughts.
‘Professor,’ she’d pleaded with her voice crackling like a bush fire that swallowed honeysuckles that refused to burn quietly, ‘Please.’
I wondered what she would have said, what she would have begged for if her words hadn’t been interrupted by the gentle, broken sounds of her pleasure. I wondered how close she must have been to crumbling like dried petals between my fingers.
That look in her eyes, although barely visible, haunted me. Because there was nothing that even slightly resembled fear or regret. It was only lust, the same unimaginable, all-consuming desire that I felt, reflected back at me through her eyes.
I tasted the fine wine on a sweet, youthful tongue. A reminder that she was too naive to know her own limits. That she would unwittingly drown in the honey of herself. The cloying sweetness of her lips that couldn’t close; too busy singing my praise, just as I’d dreamed that they would.
She was everything I dreamed she would be.
And I couldn’t have her ever again.
“Reid! Earth to Spencer Reid!”
The call came with a soft thwack to the side of my head, and I realized just how far I’d fallen into the fantasy.
Derek was looking at me like I’d sprouted a second, and possibly third, head as he asked, “What the hell is going on in there?”
“What? I’m sorry,” I mumbled nonsensically before adding on what should have been obvious, “Sorry, sorry. I’m just... distracted.”
I thought that withholding any further explanation would be the safer bet, but I shouldn’t have underestimated Derek Morgan’s profiling skills. The time away from the BAU seemed to have only sharpened them, and with just a single glance at my nervous, fidgety figure, his shoulders dropped.
“Oh, no,” he groaned, “Don’t tell me...”
“Please, stop,” I whined, because I knew what was coming.
“You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t sleep with little miss Bunny.”
“No,” I quickly and gruffly corrected, “I didn’t sleep with her.”
But again, he was too sharp to let the nuance slide unnoticed. I’d already confirmed his concerns that she was the focus of my torment, although I doubt he really needed me to say it. The fact that I corrected him so narrowly only led him down an even worse collection of possibilities.
“Don’t lie to me, kid,” he warned.
“I didn’t sleep with her!” I repeated louder, as if it would absolve the pit in my stomach or stop my best friend from looking at me like that. With eyes full of both sympathy and frustration at just how stupid I could be.
I gave a heavy sigh of resignation and covered my face with my hands. It seemed easier to reveal the truth that way.
“I just... we might have... kissed.”
“You kissed?” he scoffed, clearly recognizing that I was still leaving out the details that plagued my thoughts.
It was too humiliating to get into all of my indiscretions at the moment, though. He could already tell that I was a wreck — I didn’t need to put any visuals in his mind of myself nor the young girl I’d robbed of at least one petal.
“And maybe some other stuff,” I muttered, vividly recalling just how beautiful she looked as she called for me.
How her thighs were so warm and inviting, and how her lips trembled with every moan. I could feel her body shaking, struggling to comprehend just how harshly I handled her. I wanted to be gentle, I did, but she was just so fucking pliable, so impressionable and prone to defilement, I couldn’t help myself.
“God, I’m so stupid,” I groaned, my hands tugging on the same hair her hands had run through, “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You like her. That’s not a bad thing,” Derek tried to reason.
He didn’t understand. How could he? With hands that were clean and capable of love?
“It is a bad thing! I can’t— I can’t like her!”
Although rattled by the volume with which I’d spoken, he didn’t let it dissuade him from finding and addressing the issue at the root of it all.
“Why? Is there some rule against you two being together?”
“No.”
That wasn’t the problem.
“So why not? She clearly likes you. Just see where it goes.”
Why didn’t he get it?
“Derek, I can’t do that to her,” I croaked, feeling my eyes wet and wondering if it was from the death grip I had on my head or the things happening within it.
“Do what?” he asked, shattering the last shackle that held my thoughts safely behind the thick walls of self-hatred and selfishness.
“Trap her with me!” I yelled. My hands flew from their position, and I held them stretched out in front of me. I needed him to see how they shook from the weight that they held. His eyes, like hers, immediately flickered to the imperfections.
Derek was better at looking away than her. I wonder if it’s because he saw the failure like I did. If he saw mistakes made by the both of us, rather than a reminder that my body was capable of surviving.
“It’s not a trap if she wants to be there, Reid.”
They were the same words I would’ve given him if the situation was reversed. I knew that there was logic and reason in them, but I just couldn’t allow any conclusion where I was allowed to be happy.
“No, it is. It is a trap. Because I’m a... a goddamn black hole!” I shouted, no longer capable or willing to hold it back, “Everything I touch falls apart. JJ, Maeve, Cat, Max, my mom, I…!”
When I looked up at him, I saw the understanding in his eyes. I saw that some part of him could connect with the words I was saying. I continued, confident in my decision to willfully misinterpret and weaponize that look to prove that the words were true.
“I can’t do that to her. She’s so young and she has so much to give, and if I take it from her, I will destroy it like I do with everything else that is good.”
That I was undeserving of anything resembling love. Especially if it came from her.
After a moment of silence and mercy, Derek spoke again.
“That’s not true,” was all he said. Like he could will it to be false any better than I could.
“Isn’t it?” I laughed to hopefully stall the tears that had already started to fall, “Look me in my eyes and tell me that she doesn’t deserve someone that isn’t broken.”
He opened his mouth to speak but must have decided it wasn’t worth the breath. He averted his eyes for just a couple seconds — enough to cleanse his palate of the pain that was pouring from me. As soon as his gaze returned, I was generous enough to replace the pain with apathy. To spare him from suffering the same way I was trying to do for her.
“She’s so young, and I’ve already stolen enough from her. She shouldn’t have to pick up my mess. She should get a chance to live free from all of... this.”
Derek brought his hand to his lips, clasped together in thought and something else. A quiet kind of hopefulness that he might be able to guide me through this in time.
He always was the more optimistic of the two of us.
“You want to know what I’m hearing?” he asked.
And despite all of my stubborn blubbering, I really, really did.
“What?”
“That you must really like that girl a lot to be willing to give up everything you want so she can be happy,” he said, “A damned fool, but one with good intentions.”
Just like that, he crushed my preconceived notions of myself. Wielding nothing but a solemn laugh and a few words uttered like a joke, Derek took the little bit left of my frostbitten heart and tried to bring it back to life.
“I do really like her,” I answered before anxiously biting on my lip to stop anything else from sneaking past my defenses.
Because we both knew it was a lie. Derek wasn’t going to point it out, and I would forever be grateful to him for that.
The truth was, I didn’t like her.
I was falling madly in love with her, and I didn’t know how to stop.
I didn’t want to, either.
————————————————
Leave it to the Virginia weather to change at the drop of a hat. It wasn’t a terribly cold day, and for that I was grateful. I couldn’t call myself completely devoid of luck — after all, I’d managed to find a collection of plastic bags to wrap my electronics in, and I’d worn a jacket with a hood.
Unfortunately, however, my luck ended there.
I tried to find myself somewhere far away, but the beating of rain and tiny pieces of hail hitting my head honestly felt more fitting. If it wasn’t the world punishing me for being a stupid, careless idiot, I didn’t understand why else it would be storming this badly in the middle of November.
It’d been three days since I’d see Spencer. The weekend was the same length as every other week, but it felt longer. Perhaps it was because we hadn’t really been texting each other, which was unusual.
Or maybe it was the fact we kissed.
It was probably that one.
I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do. Was it on me to text him? Was it his responsibility? That seemed vaguely sexist, or I suppose ageist, to think that he was meant to take all the steps. But I’d literally never been in this situation before, and despite his greater experience in the world of love, I sort of doubted that he had, either.
By the time I had returned to the party, he had been long gone. I didn’t entirely blame him; I left shortly thereafter myself. But I would be lying if I pretended like it didn’t bother me at least a little bit that he’d run away so quickly.
It was only to be expected, though. The longer I thought about our conversation, the more I blamed myself for where we ended up. That wasn’t to say that I regretted it, but just that I better understood his decisions.
I didn’t regret it. Because at the end of the day, pity or pride or whatever other reason, Spencer Reid had decided that he was willing to kiss me.
He wanted to kiss me… and possibly wanted to do a lot more than that.
The rain seemed lighter after the conclusion was reached. It wasn’t, but I wasn’t going to fight the way the butterflies in my stomach took flight in the strong winds. The people driving past must have thought that I was mad, to be smiling while standing drenched and clutching nothing but a soaked book bag, but I didn’t care.
I was ready to tell them as much, too. As soon as the car in front of me stopped, my mouth quickly dropped open to explain that I didn’t need to be rescued.
But then I saw him, with his eyes wide and his hands frantically waving faster than the window could open. The one man that I would be willing to let save me from any kind of storm.
“Professor?”
“What the hell are you doing?!” he yelled, “Get in the car!”
“But—“
“Get in the car!”
I’d learned a while ago that it wasn’t worth it to fight him. Running through the puddle off the curb, I scrambled into his car without regard for just how awkward it would be when the door shut.
“I was waiting for the bus,” I said with hurried breath.
Spencer wasn’t amused nor thrilled by my explanation.
“Are you joking? You’re drenched!”
For whatever reason, I glanced down at the state of me. My dripping backpack was sat on my lap, as if the rest of me wasn’t already soaking through every inch of once-dry textile.
“I’m sorry! I’m going to get your seat all wet!”
“I don’t care about the seat; I’m worried you’re going to get sick!” he huffed.
Despite the fact I was certain it was meant to be a chastisement for having gotten myself in that situation in the first place, it was very cute. His eyes couldn’t stay off me for very long at all, flicking back and forth from the road to the soaked girl in his passenger seat.
“Are you alright?” he finally asked, his voice finally having settled at an appropriate volume.
“I’m fine,” I answered quickly. But when his shoulders didn’t fall and his eyes remained troubled, I provided a more honest addition, “I’m just... embarrassed. I’m sorry.”
Spencer must have realized that his worrywart tendencies had made me feel guilty, because he gave a heavy sigh before he spoke again.
“Don’t apologize. I’m just glad I saw you.”
The sadness in his tone made it hard to believe him. Not to mention the fact that we hadn’t spoken in days. Before we’d kissed I could usually count the number of hours without him on one hand. I had even started to worry that he never slept.
I was trying to avoid looking at him because I didn’t want him to see the anxiety in my eyes. But after a few seconds of watching the water drip down the passenger window, I realized how pointless my efforts were. Even if I was wrong, and he couldn’t read my mind, he was certainly a good enough profiler to realize why I was freezing him out.
Also, he didn’t know where I lived.
“So uh... Where did you want to take me?”
“Oh right! I’ll take you home,” he said with a chuckle that I might dare to describe as disappointed, “Are you okay to give directions?”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t hide my disappointment. Not as well as him, anyway.
I only lasted approximately two minutes in the silence before it became too uncomfortable to bear. I wrote it off as my terrible habit of overthinking. Even it was true that we’d ruined our relationship already, I didn’t want to admit it just yet.
“Can I turn on the radio?” I asked, instead.
“Oh,” he mumbled, looking down at untouched dials like there was a memory or secret stored within them, “Sure. Go ahead.”
The first station that came on was silent. So quiet that I was almost convinced I hadn’t actually turned it on. But the station numbers were staring back at me, and I was too afraid to touch the volume knob.
But then it happened, slowly but surely, a familiar tune building up to a cruel, cruel verse. The sultry and suggestive beat had me snickering before the words had even started, and Spencer also wasted little time interrupting my amusement.
“Something funny?” he asked. Like he didn’t already know.
“Hmmm. No,” I hummed, happy to taunt him with the joy that the coincidence brought me.
Young teacher, the subject
Of schoolgirl fantasy
She wants him so badly
Knows what she wants to be
Instead of letting it go so easily, I continued with the same, cheerful cadence, “Did you know Sting was a high school teacher?”
“I did.”
“He swears it isn’t autobiographical and was inspired by Lolita, but... Bit of a creep, no?”
“Yes,” he answered with a stern voice and raised eyebrows, “Creepy.”
Inside him, there's longing
This girl's an open page
There was really no telling what gave me the confidence that followed. By all accounts, I should have been dissuaded by his apparent refusal to discuss the ten ton elephant in the room. But there was just something in the way his hands gripped the steering wheel tighter. I could trace the tension that continued to fill the space between us, and it all led back to him.
Book marking, she's so close now
This girl is half his age
I realized something in that moment. I’m not a profiler, and I’m not really great at reading a lot of social clues, either. But I was absolutely, positively sure in my deduction that my boss and Professor, Spencer Reid, was absolutely terrified of me.
It wasn’t the usual terror - it was an abject horror. The overwhelming fear that accompanied having none of the power he usually held. Just as Sting had wanted to portray, there was a thick, undeniable guilt and frustration filling the four door sedan.
And I knew how to make it so much worse.
“Twenty five isn’t half of forty, though,” I said.
Spencer turned to look at me with narrowed eyes and a curled tongue.
“Excuse me?”
“It isn’t,” I reasserted with a shrug.
“Are you implying something, Bunny?”
Sticking my bottom lip out and humming a quick, high note, I corrected, “No, I’m doing math.”
His lips turned to a smirk that only barely hid his true feelings. The undercurrent of fear ran along each syllable as he asked, “Where did the numbers come from?”
Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me
Choosing not to answer the pointed question, I turned to him. I tried to laugh, but it came out as a flat, sarcastic chuckle that almost sounded angry.
“You really think it has nothing to do with us?”
Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me
Any humor fell from his face so quickly that I started to doubt it had ever existed. He’d heard the insecurity and hurt behind my poor attempts at a joke, or flirting, or whatever the hell it had been. I saw myself reflected in his eyes right before he ripped them away from me.
The sound of the song faded to the back of my mind, drowned out by his persistent self-castigation. The obvious hatred that he held for himself was being projected on my skin for the first time. Every place where he had touched me, I could almost see the burn marks of areas he’d deemed corrupted by his hands.
He gave himself too much credit, to think that he could taint me so easily.
“Trust me, Bunny,” he interjected with a sigh, “If fate had any control over the radio, it would pick a more suitable song.”
I wanted to believe him. Something told me that it might make it hurt less.
Temptation, frustration
So bad it makes him cry
But I didn’t believe him at all.
“Are you sure, Professor?”
Wet bus stop, she's waiting
His car is warm and dry
Spencer didn’t answer my question. His hand that had been in a white-knuckled grip around the steering wheel shot over to the controls. The song cut off, only to be replaced by another, more somber, tune.
I didn’t need to listen closely to recognize The Smiths, and the title of the track alone was fitting enough to my feelings that I had to laugh.
Please, please, please, let me get what I want.
I laughed, and he followed with a sad little smirk. One that I was already accustomed to. The one he wore every time I left. Every time but the last time.
We pulled up to the stoplight in front of my apartment, and I wondered if this would be a necessary one-off awkwardness, or if it would always be like this from then on.
It seemed impossible, though. How could I buy into this ending? To believe that he would really let something like that ruin all of the fun we’d had together thus far? Because it wasn’t all about the physical spark. The only reason the fire had grown so quickly was because the kindling was plentiful.
There was something in me that made him want to burn. I knew because I felt it, too.
Every time he looked at me, without fail, I found myself lost in the mesmerizing dance of fiery golden halos. I had watched the lightning strike and scar the wise, frail trunk of him. I choked on the smoke of his voice and my hands splintered over the scarred skin.
So for once in my life
Let me get what I want
“That’s funny, Professor,” I whispered.
Lord knows, it would be the first time
Lord knows, it would be the first time
He didn’t ask for clarification, but I gave it anyway.
“I think fate might be a little better than you thought.”
At the same time his eyes left mine, the awful screeching of alarms blared through the speakers. Spencer’s reaction was immediate and visceral — he winced like it caused him actual pain, and I felt that suffering in return.
He still managed to pull into the parking lot of my apartment complex with ease, which was impressive considering both the tension inside the car and the storm raging outside. We both waited for the telltale tone to end, still not looking one another in the eye.
But then the faceless, robotic voice spoke the words Spencer had clearly been anticipating and dreading.
“The National Weather Service in your area has issued a Tornado Warning...”
“Really?! In November?!” I whined.
The cry distracted Spencer from our current circumstances enough that he felt comfortable looking me in the eyes again. The tension had dissipated with the equalizing charge of the disaster that seemed hellbent on following us.
“It’s actually less rare than you think,” he explained like it would help.
As the car finally came to a stop, I was stuck switching my gaze back and forth from my door to the man beside me.
“Just— will you come inside?” I finally asked. Before he could deny my request, I tried to reassure him, “Just for a minute. I don’t want you out in this.”
I saw the word ‘no’ on his tongue, but the fate he’d discounted so easily came back to bite him. It came with fury, rage, and a power line across the street snapped clean in half.
From the safety of the car, which was rapidly declining by the second, Spencer met my eyes yet again. I watched the hundreds of possibilities play out in small stretches of hazel.
I don’t know what he saw, but once he informed me of the conclusion, I didn’t care anymore.
“... Fine,” he said like a curse.
Together, we scrambled out of the car into whipping winds and hail that hit harder than before. There was no comforting conclusion this time to soften the blow, either.
At least, not until Spencer took me by the hand. His fingers laced between mine, and for the briefest of seconds, I recalled memories of them everywhere else. I recognized the markings that I’d pressed against my lips and it lit a fire in me.
That flame was enough to get us inside, damp and drenched in our respective states. We didn’t say a word as we navigated the short hallway. Spencer was too busy surveying the area around us to notice when the door had opened, but luckily, my hand remained in his.
He followed my lead with a surprising lack of fight or friction. He didn’t even look where he was headed, trusting that I wouldn’t pull him into danger or disaster.
Unfortunately, it did mean that he stepped directly into me. Thankfully, we both remained standing, but it just brought more attention to our current circumstances. The painful proximity that felt reminiscent of the last time we’d seen each other.
I stared up at him, waiting to see if he would have anything at all to say.
He did, but it wasn’t anything close to what I wanted to hear.
“You should change,” he said before pausing to clear his throat, “y-you know… So you don’t get sick.”
“Right,” was all I said in return.
There wasn’t anything wrong with his concern; prior to the events of the party, I might have even considered it cute and a bit flirtatious. He was always so worried about me; it couldn’t be that he only saw me as an employee. I might have been able to convince myself he saw me as a child, but our last contact had laid rest to that theory.
I was the one to take my hand back first. It hurt every step of the way, but once I had possession of myself again, I remembered the way he had looked at me in the car. That undeniable, pathetic pity he’d forced onto me.
Trapped in an odd state of perpetual anxiety, frustration, and exhaustion, I allowed myself to step away from him just long enough to change. But as I caught my reflection when I stepped out of the room, I noticed just how much of me had changed already.
I wasn’t talking about my clothes, although the difference was reflected in them, as well.
By the time I returned to the main room, Spencer had shed a couple layers. He stood in the exact same place I’d left him, wearing only a slightly damp undershirt and the same, familiar slacks.
He hadn’t noticed my presence yet, too busy staring forward at the wall like it would reveal some secrets to him. Like he could feel the memories that had been built there, and he was trying to read them with the same proficiency he read the daily paper.
I eyed his figure the same way he normally did to me. But while his viewing was unabashed, mine only lasted until he turned around. Until he caught me, with my arms full of blankets and my eyes full of a distant longing he’d experienced firsthand.
“Should we get in the bathtub?” I asked, earning the first genuine, carefree laugh of the day.
“Would that make you feel better?” he asked in return.
“... I think so?” I said, conveniently leaving off the fact that it was his proximity and not the porcelain that comforted me.
I think he knew, anyway. I hoped he did. It would have made his answer far more exciting.
“Then sure,” he answered, “Let’s do it.”
The walk to my bathroom felt like a labyrinth. Time moved differently, and the creaking floorboards reminded me of the regretful, panicked screams of those poor souls trapped on Tartarus.
But my eyes remained transfixed on the man in front of me, whose hands had been stuffed into pockets to prevent me from being able to hold them again. It seemed so like him to be able to navigate a place he’d never been.
I questioned if it was wrong to idolize him this way. To compare him to a god, even when that one was a lonely, tired, god who had been damned to the only realm they would dare name after him.
I followed him, trying not to imagine myself as that chthonic maiden of Spring and seeds. I tried not to compare the storm outside to the rumblings of the earth before it opened to swallow her whole.
I thought not of pomegranates, nor how they might taste on his lips.
Had I already consumed them? Or would I be denied the option entirely?
The two of us lacked any grace or godliness as we struggled to fit ourselves in the tiny base. Our feet touched in the middle, and I once again noticed the way his socks never matched.
The sound of my laughter in the acoustics of the room was enough to break through the tension. Spencer’s quickly followed, and he hugged his awkward crossed legs while simultaneously leaning forward.
“So, Bunny, now that I have you here… I have to ask.”
The question alone caused my adrenaline levels to spike. I was afraid that he could hear my heart pounding in response, but then he introduced an entirely new fear.
I didn’t see the way he reached out until his hands were on me. Not touching my skin this time, but once again running over a barrier of plush fabric that kept us apart. It wasn’t unlike our time on Halloween, except for the fact I now knew what it felt like for there to be nothing left between us.
I almost forgot he had a question to ask, too mesmerized by the soft patterns drawn by his thumb. My eyes were half-lidded and far away when he did speak through a rather cheeky little chuckle.
“Did these come before or after me?”
The spell was broken by my shocked blinking. I glanced down at myself and remembered that I’d been trying to beat him at this game.
That was the whole reason I’d picked the pajamas that sported a pattern of little bunnies.
“A bit arrogant to assume you have that much of an effect on my decisions,” I mumbled with both sarcasm and embarrassment.
Spencer was still laughing, obviously taking a great amount of pride in his ability to turn my brain to mush with a simple touch. One that continued as he inched closer, dragging fingers all the way down my thigh as he answered, “So… after, then?”
To avoid answering the question, I did the only rational thing.
“You look ridiculous,” I teased.
He accepted the distraction as my white flag. While I hated losing the warmth of his hand on me, I still enjoyed how much more comfortable he seemed now that we’d returned to our usual dynamic. That low-stakes, competitive banter. The things that allowed us to hide how badly we really wanted to feel one another again.
“Tubs are not made for tall people,” he sighed, “It’s a curse.”
“You’re hardly tall.”
“I’m taller than you,” he shot back just as quickly.
There were many ways to resolve this childish conflict. I could continue to play into his desires — accept and acknowledge him as an authority in more ways than one. I could act like the innocent schoolgirl he’d obviously perceived me to be.
Or I could do what I wanted to do. I could show him that the things that we’d done had altered me. I could display for him the effects that he’d had and hopefully prove to him that not all of them were bad.
I could exist in a closed space with him without losing my breath entirely. My heart would keep beating, albeit harder and faster, despite having handed it to him a full three days before.
I could show him that I was no less a woman than when he had me pinned against a door, defenseless by choice. Wholly his, without regret.
“Okay, fine,” I announced just before I tackled him back against a wall of pillows and blankets.
Spencer’s laughter was so loud that it almost hurt my ears; as much as such a thing could bring pain, anyway. The two of us floundered in the small space, with my hands pulling at his calves and positioning his arms in a flagrantly carefree way.
There was absolutely no resistance on his part. His limbs were like doll pieces, staying exactly where I’d led them. He stayed, laughing and smiling until I’d convinced him to put his legs out in front of him. He didn’t protest at all when I curled up against him with my back to his chest and his arms wrapped around me.
“Is that better, Dr. Long Legs?” I hummed happily as I settled into my new position between his legs.
“Is that supposed to be a pun?” he asked. I didn’t have to see the look on his face to know that he said it through a smile. I could feel it in the way his hands settled and smoothed over my lower stomach.
At first, I tensed at his touch. I held my breath until I felt dizzy before I reminded myself that I wasn’t meant to be nervous when he held me. That I was trying to prove to him how capable I was of intimacy.
I wasn’t scared of him, like he was of me.
“I thought it was pretty good,” I muttered once my body allowed itself to relax in the safety of his arms.
And to my surprise, he agreed.
“It was good,” he whispered.
It was surprising, but only to the extent that it hadn’t been about the pun at all.
I could only hope, anyway. It was the most favorable of the possible reasons that he seemed so comfortable when his fingers tucked under the hem of my top.
I didn’t want to believe that he was acting this way because he was playing a game. I wanted to trust my instincts that told me he had been touching me without thinking. Or perhaps, thinking too much. Remembering the way that he’d felt the other night the same way the thoughts had consumed me for days.
I threw myself into those fantasies, imagining how they would shift if we’d waited until now to give in to one another. How much easier it would have been to transition into my room. How much freer he was to touch me in safer, more suitable ways.
When his fingers tucked under the very top of the fluffy fabric of my pants, the lights began to flicker. It was the signal to the end. Enough of a scolding from the heavens that woke Spencer from his own daydreams and reminded him of where we were in the present.
“Sorry,” he announced, like his touch had been offensive. He pulled his hands away, resting them over one another on top of my lap, instead. “I was just… distracted.”
“It’s alright, Professor. I like when you touch me,” I mumbled before nuzzling further into his embrace. I didn’t shy away from nor feel any shame from the obvious statement of fact.
But in my peripherals, I saw the way it caused his forehead to wrinkle and his lips to curve in a notable frown. I saw the displeasure stemming from my desire to keep his hands on me, and I wondered if his disappointment in himself had anything to do with me at all.
It didn’t feel that way.
“Are you comfortable enough now?” I asked, hoping to distract him from the unhappiness.
It worked like a charm.
“Yes,” he replied. His smile returned in full force with fingers tapping over his own skin now. “We should hang out in tubs more often.”
“I don’t know, it makes me kind of sleepy,” I said with the most exhausted little giggle.
I half-expected him to make his exit then. To guide me or carry me off to a more suitable place to rest my head. Because I could feel the way his heart beat like unsteady, broken wings fighting against the wind currents of hurricane gusts.
Spencer Reid’s heart was not a place where sleep could be found easily, if at all. But over time, I heard how it shifted to a more predictable rhythm. I felt him calm and his tension ease just like it had in his office.
“You can go to sleep if you want,” he said once he was confident that his heart wasn’t in my way, “There are worse ways to get through a storm.”
His voice always carried such a somber melody, even in moments such as these. I heard the longing and emptiness, the echo of a small boy that still existed somewhere. I could hear him, his voice small and broken as he cried, Please, don’t leave.
But was he even talking to me?
Please, I need someone.
Would I be enough?
I need you to stay.
Would he want me to be if I could?
Please, don’t let me leave.
I hadn’t realized the way my whole face had gravitated to look up at him until his hand cradled my cheek. His thumb wiped at invisible tears on my cheek like he saw something I didn’t.
I didn’t dare look him in the eyes… until I did.
And I drowned exactly like I knew I would. My bottom lip trembled with a memory of pain that didn’t belong to me. I realized then that I hadn’t been making it up. I saw that little boy in his eyes, reaching out and holding onto the only person who’d ever stopped to really look at him.
I really thought he was going to kiss me, but he didn’t.
Spencer’s fingers drifted down from my cheek along with his eyes. They looked off at nothing in particular, failing to focus on anything at all.
“Professor, about the other night...” I started, hoping to finally explain myself or at least hear his own reasoning.
Those dreams were crushed even more quickly than I thought possible.
“Let’s not,” he said with a startling amount of finality.
“What?” I asked, my voice box audibly projecting the sound of my heart breaking in front of him.
“Do you remember what you said about expectations?”
‘At least it’d be over, right? And it wouldn’t mean anything.’
How could I forget one of the first lies I’d told him?
‘It won’t hurt when it amounts to nothing.’
“Yeah, I do.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
Was I meant to lie again? What other option did I have? My heart was already cracked and aching in his hands, and he didn’t seem to have any desire to hold it together any longer.
“I guess,” I lied, knowing he would hear the falsity in the two syllables the same way he’d seen nonexistent tears in my eyes.
“So... let’s not.”
Swallowing the lump in my throat and hoping that the action might make the word hurt less. Knowing that it wouldn’t.
“Okay,” I agreed.
I tried to shift under his arms, but Spencer grabbed hold of my shoulders and turned me towards him. I all but crawled onto him, trying to be as close as I could while he inspected the red rimming the eyes that he’d found comfort in.
I felt the force of the way he cursed himself under his breath, every part of his mouth trying to fight itself. Trying to find a way to say what he needed to without hurting me any more than he had.
“You’re a sweet girl,” he said almost like it were a bad thing. His hands almost let me go, but then they held on tighter. He smiled when he spoke so quietly I had to strain to hear it over winds still roaring outside, “You deserve to be handled delicately, and I am not a delicate man.”
I wanted to tell him that he was wrong, but I knew that I would never win an argument that required him to show himself any sort of kindness. He would never forgive himself the way I needed him to in order to understand what I saw.
He didn’t want to believe me, but he desperately wanted to believe in a world where his own insecurity wasn’t so all-encompassing. Where we weren’t doomed before we began.
“Maybe in another life,” he whispered, “but not this one. I’m sorry.”
With a small nod, I forced my lips to raise into something resembling a smile. I blinked away the few tears that gathered, not daring to let them fall, lest they take any chance I had with them.
Can I still be your bunny?
The question stayed sat on my tongue, unmoving. My eyes took it in turn, begging him to hear it and give me the answer I needed.
“I trust you to be right about that,” I croaked, masking the fractures with an equally broken laugh.
“I know,” he chuckled, pulling me in closer to him again. His arms wrapped possessively around me. I wilted in his embrace, curling in at the edges like petals facing their first frost.
“I am,” he reminded with the start of a lausgh that never really came to be, “I always, unfortunately, am.”
As his heart fell back into a regular rhythm, I wondered if the changes had ever been because of me. I thought of how our minds make unreliable connections and recognize imaginary correlations when we want something too hard.
Was that really all that we were? Haphazard wanting without a hope for finding what we sought?
When sleep came to me, I took it. Even nightmares seemed like a reprieve from the enmity inside my bathtub. I let myself take only comfort in his warmth and the way his hands still wandered carefully over the delicate curves of my body.
I dreamed of Spencer picking up the broken fragments he’d made of me and putting them back together like one of his puzzles. In that perfect world, we’d swapped pieces of ourselves and realized for the first time that we’d always been carrying the wrong ones.
The storm passed, but Spencer didn’t wake me. He waited for me to stir before he rushed for the exit. Just as he had before, he restlessly bolted to the door.
But this time he stopped, frozen in place in response to nothing but a simple farewell.
“Goodnight, Professor,” I said, thinking of the way Persephone must have felt when the sun started to drift too close again.
Spencer turned to me with those eyes that saw more than mine.
“Goodnight, Bunny,” was all he provided.
But when the door clicked shut, it sounded a lot like an apology.
Summary: Reader has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, which her Professor is hellbent on making a little bit better.
A/N: If y’all thought you hated Kyle (bathroom bitch boy), just wait until you meet the new antagonist (of the female variety) here... I hope you all enjoy! 😚
Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader
Category: Slow Burn (NSFW, 18+)
Content Warning: Sexual themes/fantasies
Word Count: 6.3k
MASTERLIST | Series Masterlist
——————————————————
Einstein once attributed his genius to his childlike sense of humor. Studies performed since then have largely proven his point — funny people tend to have higher IQs, which makes sense when you consider the cognitive and emotional intelligence required to produce humor.
Spencer Reid was no exception. The only problem was that his humor was so remarkably niche and impossibly specific that barely anyone could understand the punchline. He insisted to me that he’d gotten better over the years, which I only barely believed… until he told me a joke that hadn’t left my mind since. A joke that he described as ‘just crude enough to make it palatable to the layman.’
"Caffeine and Viagra are both phosphodiesterase inhibitors,” he’d said — a slow start if there had ever been such a thing. But I held on to hope, hanging on the ecstatic, guileless smile he wore. And boy, was I glad I did, because what he’d said next broke me into a frankly embarrassing fit of giggles that returned with the memory every time.
“Which explains why both of these drugs keep you up all night."
The poor barista stuck working the busy early morning shift eyed me like I’d grown two heads when I once again devolved into laughter for no apparent reason. I almost felt embarrassed about it, but then I reassured myself that if she’d heard Dr. Spencer Reid tell a drug-induced-boner joke, she would also laugh about it forever.
I’d been thinking about him a lot lately. Not in a perverse way, either, despite his increasing comfort in breaching such topics in my presence. It was more like I’d started to infuse him into my every day, finding him in whatever way my brain would allow. While I made my way to his office, I breathed in the soothing scent drifting from the cups that were precariously perched in flimsy cardboard.
The smell took me back to quiet moments in his office. The kind of simple serenity that accompanied silence between two people who need not speak to share ideas. Where the second you looked away, you felt their eyes follow you, like the universe couldn’t maintain its structural integrity without one of you looking at the other.
It was intoxicating and alluring; so easy to lose myself in. Something I knew was dangerous for a number of reasons.
For example, when I am not paying the utmost attention to my surroundings, I have a tendency to lose track of where I am and what I’m doing. I also tend to… drop things. Especially hot and otherwise dangerous things.
Things like the two cups of coffee that finally became too much for shallow, defective cardboard.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I screeched as I became acutely aware of every place where scorching hot, drenched clothing hung on angry skin. Normally, I would at least try to sound more dignified while on my way to work, but it hardly seemed like it mattered anymore.
I was too busy hurriedly tearing at my shirt and dropping everything else I was holding. I’d gotten three whole buttons on my shirt popped by the time I remembered it wasn’t technically necessary. I dropped my bag immediately at the thought, tugging on the hem of the shirt and trying to bring it over my head.
Unfortunately, I still hadn’t regained my grace, and in the muddled mess of fabric, I’d also grabbed hold of my undershirt. Which meant that whoever was walking through the empty halls of the early morning in academia would find me, with my stomach exposed and clothing dripping while unintelligible curses flowed freely from my lips.
I expected most people would probably just turn around and leave. I probably would’ve. The giant splatter of coffee and the absolute idiot slipping in it were beyond saving.
But there was at least one person who saw the mess and stayed.
I smelled his cologne before I felt his hand was pressed over the bare skin of my lower back. Despite the fact my skin was burning, it welcomed the warmth of his touch. My body stopped at his command, waiting for him to break me free of the paradoxically frozen state I was in.
He pulled the shirt back down, just enough that I could see him when he wrapped his cardigan around my shoulders and started guiding me into his office, which I’d somehow managed to almost walk straight past in my daze. I wished that I could go back there, to the imaginary world where he hadn’t just seen me half disrobed and cursing while covered in the coffee that I’d meant to give to him.
Spencer’s hands left me once the door was shut, probably trusting, or at least hoping, that I could figure out the mess on my own. Oddly enough, I didn’t notice any signs of him staring at me. Like he only felt comfortable looking when I was clothed.
I tried not to think about it. Once I did manage to free myself of one of the shirts — without further flashing my boss — the anxiety brewing inside of me burst out in the form of frantic shouting.
“Hi Professor! I’m so sorry, I spilled the coffee!”
“Yeah, I... saw the puddle,” he mumbled, throwing a cursory glance back at the hallway before his eyes met mine with a terrifying level of compassion, “Are you alright?”
“Besides the boiling liquid on my skin and the horrid embarrassment? I guess,” I mumbled back before shouting, “Shit! This is why that woman sued McDonald’s! Why do stores serve coffee like that?!”
Spencer didn’t really say anything. In fact, he kind of just stood as frozen as I had been, staring at everything around me rather than meeting my eyes again. But while he seemed somewhat cool and composed, I continued to tug at my clothes to try and avoid the friction. It was then that he cleared his throat, covering his face just like he’d done when he saw me in an arguably more provocative position the week before.
Arguably, I said. I should have known that Spencer would win any argument. I should have considered why he was making such a point of not looking at me while I clawed at the white undershirt turned beige. But I didn’t. Not until I looked down to inspect the state of my skin.
I realized then that Spencer had been trying to figure out a way to inform me that not only had the coffee turned my shirt a different shade — it had also eliminated the opacity.
He could see my bra. Spencer Reid, my boss, was trying not to stare at my very clearly visible bra.
“God, this is the worst Monday of all Mondays!” I whined between half-sobs, “and Mondays are already bad, Professor!”
There must have been something else in that cry, too. Something akin to permission. Enough for him to step closer, managing to avoid looking at my chest in the process. I’d entirely forgotten that he’d wrapped me in his cardigan until he pulled it tighter around my shoulders like his own version of an embrace.
“That they are, Bunny.”
If my skin had been heated before, it turned to flames at the use of the nickname. It was honestly a pure work of magic that the liquid on me didn’t turn vaporize the second I’d heard the word.
Bunny?
I pushed the thought away as quick as humanly possible, focusing instead on the way my clothes were going from uncomfortably hot to frigid as a result of the usually refreshing air conditioning. But when I was once again reminded of the obvious undergarment, I sighed.
“I can probably ask a friend to bring me a replacement shirt, or just go to class like this,” I thought aloud, “No one really looks at me, anyway...”
Spencer’s response came immediately, his hands flying up in protest as he shouted, “No!”
I wasn’t quite sure how to reply to that, or even which part of the statement he was objecting to, so he was met with a wide-eyed, slow blinking stare.
“I-I mean, I have a shirt you can borrow. I don’t want to subject you to any further embarrassment,” he explained at a significantly more appropriate volume, “You can just wear my extra shirt.”
He turned away from me before I could respond, shuffling through something hidden beneath his desk that created more questions than answers for me.
“Why do you have an extra shirt?”
“Go bag,” he said in the most nondescript manner. It wasn’t necessarily abnormal, either. The question I’d asked didn’t spark any concerns in his mind, but it also wasn’t the question that I felt needed to be asked.
What I really wanted to say was caught in my throat. My hands clamped together in front of me tighter than my jaw that resisted opening to make way for the thoughts that felt more scandalous than they should’ve been.
“U-Um, Professor don’t you think—“
“Here you go,” he offered with a smile. I took the large, plain black shirt with a hefty dose of caution, my hands shaking along with my broken voice that still couldn’t finish the sentence from before.
Spencer finally noticed the struggle on my face, and I watched his body move from comfortable to defensive in a matter of seconds. Like he was worried he’d done something wrong in trying to be kind.
He hadn’t, but I felt like I had.
“Won’t people... you know?” I mumbled, motioning a hand between the two of us, “I’m showing up to your class at 8AM wearing your clothes…”
I thought that the words alone would be enough. I thought that the gesture was overkill. But Spencer was still staring at me with his head cocked to the side and his eyes narrowed in thought.
I was going to have to say it.
Won’t they think we’re having sex?
There was no way I was going to be able to say it.
“Aren’t you concerned about people getting… the wrong idea?” I blurted out, instead.
The confusion on his face shifted to a clever little self-assured smirk so fast that I almost missed the transition. My stomach flipped from the sight, but then he spoke again, and what had felt like it was filled with butterflies turned to rocks.
“I’d much rather them gossip about something that’s not happening than watch the young boys ogle you instead of paying attention.”
It wasn’t the words, but the way that he’d said them. Like they were silly, like the idea of us being together was so preposterous it could only be entertained by people he perceived to be children.
I was foolish, too.
“Don’t worry about them,” he said with a wave, “Just worry about making this Monday a little bit better.”
“O-okay. Thanks,” I whispered, turning and running from the room only to be reminded of the mess I’d made. But the pool of tawny liquid on the floor wasn’t the most disastrous thing anymore. That honor was reserved for the state of my heart, begrudgingly continuing to beat despite being broken.
Scooping up my bag that I’d abandoned before, I tried to allow myself to be happy about the little things. For instance, the fact that the shirt Spencer had handed me was probably the softest thing I’d ever felt in my life. It made sense, considering the sensory issues he always described.
Still, I waited until I was in the safety of a bathroom stall before I buried my face in the fabric. It smelled just like him, a mixture of freshly done laundry and vanilla. Much better than the cheap, burnt coffee that covered me. Funny enough, that sort of smelled like him, too.
By the time I slipped into his clothes, I had almost forgotten his joke entirely. I was too lost in the joy of sweater paws from his cardigan and fabric that felt like a hug. Or at least, what I’d imagined a hug from him would be like.
The energy it provided me was a better pick-me-up than any cup of coffee had ever been. I kept my squealing as quietly as I could, bouncing in place just like the nickname he’d chosen to let stick. But before I returned to him, I felt something. A small, noticeable weight in one of the cardigan pockets.
If I’d thought about it for longer than five seconds, if I’d reminded myself that they were his clothes and not mine, I would’ve let it be. I wouldn’t have pulled the little object from its safe hiding spot. It would have stayed locked away, leaving me none the wiser of its presence.
But I didn’t think about it, and then there I was, holding onto the sobriety token I should’ve seen coming.
Not that it was a bad thing; I already knew Spencer had a history with drugs. He’d mentioned it in passing in class and was deeply involved with a number of volunteer programs around the area. At one point, I’d even taken it upon myself to research his history.
That research, while I regretted it now, feeling that it violated his privacy some way or another, led me to a second conclusion. As my thumb ghosted over the embossed number five, I realized that Spencer had been sober since he was released from prison.
My heart swelled with pride and relief that felt shameful. I didn’t want the token to have such a profound effect on the image of him I’d already crafted in my mind. Lord knew I didn’t need any more reasons to idolize him. And, at the end of the day, I’d only discovered this information by happenstance.
Part of respect, I decided, meant ignoring the way that fate seemed to push us together. If Spencer ever wanted my opinion on his sobriety or strength, surely, he would just ask. So, I slipped the chip back into the pocket and made my way back to him without worry for what it meant.
While I had no worries, Spencer was another story. I’d barely even made it through the door when he saw me. All of the papers he’d been holding immediately fell from his hands the same way the coffee had fallen from mine.
“Oh no! My clumsiness was contagious!” I laughed, bolting over to help him only to find his face an unhealthy shade of red. He chuckled back but said nothing else as he scrambled to pick up the loose-leaf that had splayed itself all over the floor.
Once we were back on our feet and as collected as we could be considering the circumstances of the morning thus far, his eyes met mine again. His cheeks were still flushed, unable to focus on anything specific and choosing to traverse my body the same way his hands had on Halloween.
“Sorry,” he mumbled in a way that made me wonder if he knew I could hear him, “I was distracted by how unfair it is that you look better in my clothes than I do.”
It was my turn to be flustered, but Spencer didn’t let the moment drag on. He tore himself away from me in every sense of the word, marching past me and halfway exiting the room before he found the courage to look at me again.
“Are you ready to head to class?” he asked as if it were an option.
I suppose to him, it was. For a second I imagined what the future would hold for us if I’d said no. What would he have done if I begged him to stay with me, instead? What if we rebelled against expectation and remained locked away in his office until we grew tired of one another? What if we never did?
My mind filled with fantasies of Spencer’s hands freely feeling my skin the way his clothes could. I could hear soft, breathy sounds of desire shaped like my name. For all of my inexperience, he would still find me intoxicating. He would grow drunk on me the same way a child finds endless joy in sweets that really ought to make them sick.
Then again, maybe he had grown used to the sugar. Maybe he wanted something more mature, a bitterness like molasses that was only earned from years I hadn’t had yet.
Regardless, I couldn’t really get into any of that. Instead, I just flashed a very awkward thumbs up to the man fifteen years my elder when I droned, “Sure am, Professor man.”
As stupid as it felt to do something so juvenile, the smile he gave was worth it.
“Alright then, Bunny,” he answered with his own little peace sign, “Let’s hop along.”
——————————————————
It hadn’t even been a week since I saw her, scantily clad in the plush, socially acceptable equivalent of lingerie. It’d been even less time since I admitted my own weakness to her. I’d replayed the memories of her visceral responses to my touch enough times that I should be sick of it. But there was no tiring of her.
I considered deleting the photos she’d sent me, convinced that it was cruel to keep them when she’d only sent them while inebriated and undoubtedly exhausted beyond belief.
But when I woke up in the morning, my stomach still reeling from the knowledge of what I’d done, all that she’d sent was a curious collection of emotes and a very brief note.
“Oops!” she’d written, “Bad bunny?”
I put that phrase out of my mind immediately, unable to handle the way it incited the desire for destruction in my veins.
“I’m always glad to hear that you are safe.”
That was the end of the conversation, and I was grateful for that much. Even the few words we’d exchanged would haunt me until I saw her again. Of course, the torture ended there, but only for a few seconds before it was replaced with other images and words.
It’d been hours since I’d found her flailing about half-naked in the hall while uttering rushed curses that sounded too crude for her lips. It’d been hours since I felt the soft skin of her lower back and became lost in an entirely different set of fantasies.
It’d been even less time since I saw her standing at my door, pulling on the sleeves of my sweater and staring at me with nervous, shifty glances. Completely unaware of just how beautiful she was in her simplicity. How much more torturous it was to see her wearing my clothes than any lustful suffering that lingerie or nudity could elicit.
I thought that it would get better throughout the day, but it didn’t. It only got worse.
I’d stepped out of my office for barely half an hour, but I returned to find her curled up on the plush chair. Her shoes were slipped off, revealing colorful socks that clashed with every other neutral color she wore. It somehow made me want her even more.
I stayed stuck for a few seconds longer, watching her with bated breath and shameless admiration. She was so caught up in the papers on her lap that she didn’t even notice my presence until the door clicked shut. It was then that she turned to see me, allowing a smile to blossom across her face despite eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“What’s all of this?” she asked, gesturing to the collection of bags hanging from my wrists.
“Did you know…” I started before my heart stopped at how she always leaned forward with excitement whenever I started a sentence that way, “that food is one of the best ways to solve a terrible Monday?”
“Which scientific study did you get that from?”
I paused again, debating telling her the many studies that would support such a theory, but then decided against it. Instead, I sought out her laughter and childlike joy that always brought out the best of her.
“Garfield,” I answered.
Sure enough, the office filled with the melodious sound of her happiness. I moved as quietly as I could, thinking back to when I was younger and thought of how powerful bottled laughter would be if I could capture it. Hers would surely right so many wrongs.
“You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to, but I figure it’s the least I could do.”
She approached me to assist before I’d even made it to my desk, and although I thought her hands were far too soft to be bothered with something like this, I allowed her to help.
“You could do nothing, you know. It was my own fault.”
“Yeah, but I wanted to.”
She laughed again, shier and shrinking into the sweater as she tried to find her place in such a domestic activity as sharing a meal with me in private. I thought of how it was a taste of my dreams.
Because as often as I did fantasize about her, undone, bare-skinned, and defenseless to my desires, I just as often envisioned her just like this. In fact, I found those fantasies more dangerous. They couldn’t be written off as mere lust. They were another, scarier thing.
“Well, lucky you I am an exhausted, broke grad student, so free food will always win me over,” she muttered, half-sarcastically but just sad enough to bother me.
“Duly noted,” I said.
I hid away the promises I wanted to make. That if she were mine, she would want for nothing. That I would give her everything she needed to bloom. That I would prune away any neighboring flower that dared get in her way or block the sunlight. There would be no need to worry of predators or pollinators intruding, because she would belong to me and only me.
I would be her earth, her rain, and her sun. I would be surely and shamelessly selfish.
Her shoulders rose with a cheeky, excited little giggle once she had collected her food. I wanted nothing more than to let her enjoy it to her heart’s content… but there was a problem.
“Nuh-uh, no way,” I chuckled before she had a chance to return to the chair with her precarious paper plate, “Get in the other chair.”
Her face scrunched up, bouncing back and forth between the two seats in the room like she’d heard something so strange that it must have been a mistake.
“Wh— your chair?”
“I will not have you ruining another shirt today,” I explained. It caused the confusion to quickly shift to an embarrassed frustration within seconds. Just as she opened her mouth to protest my teasing, I continued with something I knew would tie her tongue until she could no longer argue.
“If you’re so worried about what they’ll say when you show up in my shirt, just think of how they’ll talk if they catch you wearing nothing.”
That stubborn little thing still tried. Her mouth floundered, strange sounds of protest starting but never finishing until she gave up. She sulked over to the seat with an odd amount of self-satisfaction. She settled into my space as comfortably as she always did. With an ease that was almost unsettling to my tired, tortured heart.
Swapping places with her for that little bit of time was a good idea. I hadn’t expected that it would bring me as much serenity as it did. My usually busy lips kept their focus on the food, opting to listen to her ramble about any and everything that came to mind.
It wasn’t until she was fifteen minutes into an explanation on her paper that I realized how little I’d tried to learn about her life outside of me. Whether it was self-preservation or narcissism, I’d never decided. But what I was certain of was that it had been a brutal form of self-sabotage.
Because as I sat there, watching her clumsily, excitedly swinging her fork and proving my point that it had been a good decision to give her the desk, I saw her for in a different light than before.
She was not just a beautiful, mysterious flower peeking through the concrete. She was the trembling giant, the clonal colony of thousands of quaking aspen trees. An extravagant network of roots that flowed far beyond the seed that started them.
This sprout might be new, but her soul was ancient and celestial, wise and immortal.
“Who knows?” she sighed, coming to a natural conclusion of a story I had almost missed while lost in daydreams and metaphors, “Maybe one day I’ll be a professor, too.”
“You’d be good at it.”
For once, it felt like she accepted the compliment without a fight. I considered it progress all the way up until she shot back a thinly veiled taunt.
“Thanks. Means a lot from someone who has 4 stars on rate my professor!”
“Don’t forget the chili pepper,” I jokingly returned.
“Not sure I’d get one of those.”
I knew that my disagreement wouldn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things, so I opted for a slightly-self-centered flattery instead.
“Just show up in that outfit,” I said with a nod that barely hid my actual intention of focusing my eyes on the rest of her, “you’ll be golden.”
“You gonna let me borrow it in ten years?” she hummed.
It was a dangerous proposition, an implication that made the pitter-pattering in my chest unbearable. Rather than chasing her down the rabbit hole of fantasies, I just chuckled before I answered, “You know how to find me.”
Then it happened again. Her face slowly changed, growing from a cautious optimism to a yearning. A subtle hint of words left unsaid. And although she wet her lips and set down her fork, the words never came out. They stayed stalled in her throat, and there was no discernible way for me to drag them out of her without hurting the both of us.
When a loud knock resounded through the room, the thought ended altogether.
“Come in,” I grimly announced, recognizing the intrusive sound as the death rattle for whatever might have been said.
As the door opened, I realized the same time (y/n) did that we had forgotten that the rest of the outside world wasn’t familiar with our dynamic. They didn’t have the backstory of how she’d perched herself on my chair with her shoes off and wearing my clothes.
Torn between scrambling to take more socially acceptable positions and the knowledge that our hurry would make us look even more suspicious, we both opted to remain frozen in place like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming train.
When the door opened, however, I was somewhat relieved to see someone I found completely unthreatening. My closest colleague, a woman that should really terrify me all things considered, seemed mostly perplexed when she found a young girl in my seat.
She quickly turned to me, drawing out her words as she asked, “Oh. I’m sorry, am I... interrupting something?”
“No, what can I help you with, Candy?”
“I was hoping we could talk about my current paper proposal.”
She paused, and I took the moment to follow her glower to the flower still stationary behind my desk. (Y/n) stared back, seemingly frightened by the presence of the other Professor.
“If you’re busy with... office hours…” Candy muttered before turning back to me, “we can always set up a meeting for a better time.”
Before I could address the possible tension or implication, the girl at my desk sprung to action, clearing off any sign of her presence as she spoke.
“You know, I actually need to get going.”
“Are you sure?”
She didn’t look at me when she answered, “Yeah, I’m sure your papers are more important.”
If I’d turned back to Candy, I might have seen the condescending scowl that was driving her away. If I’ve had any inclination or desire to look at Candy, I would have realized that (y/n) wasn’t trying to escape from her connection to me. She was just trying to get out of my way.
It didn’t make it any harder to watch her leave. I took solace in the fact that she held tighter to my cardigan, trusting me to keep her warm by proxy as she ventured back into the real world. The world where we couldn’t be in peace.
“Thanks for the advice, Professor,” she said before she left, “You were right. As usual.”
One last smile was shared, somber but sobering. A necessary break from the intimacy of the moment.
“See you in class.”
The office felt so much duller without her radiance, but my disappointment would have to wait. As much as I actually didn’t mind the world knowing how my heart hurt from her absence, I knew that it was best I didn’t let it impact her academic career.
“Sorry again for the intrusion,” my colleague said in a much happier voice.
“It’s not a problem at all.”
She must have noticed the way it sounded like a lie, because her tone quickly shifted back to a slightly disgruntled confusion.
“I didn’t realize she was your student, too. What class is she in?”
It was juvenile, really, the way my heart fluttered so ridiculously at the mere mention of her existence. The excuse to discuss her again.
“Oh, did she not tell you?”
Candy just shook her head with a blatantly false smile.
“Unsurprisingly modest,” I laughed, making my way back over to my seat and running my fingers over the wooden armrests like it would be the same as touching her ghost, “She’s my TA.”
“Oh… I see.”
“She was the only one who would put up with me,” I offered with a chuckle. Self-deprecating humor was the only reliable personality trait I had. It was also, unfortunately, one that most women in my life despised and refused to let sit.
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
It sounded less sweet coming from her. I wrote it off as a product of the differences in their species. While the hummingbird of a girl who’d just flittered away was used to only drinking the sweetest, purest nectar, the bird of prey who’d entered relied on the work of others to gather the sweetness before they were devoured.
That wasn’t to say she was cruel; hawks are as much a miracle of nature as hummingbirds. I simply related to one more than the other. I understood one while the other remained a mystery. And I loved mysteries more than myself.
“So, you wanted to talk about your paper?”
“Oh! Yes,” she chirped, passing the packet over to me now that I’d found my way back to what she probably deemed my rightful place. “The conference is coming up so much faster than I anticipated, and I would love to hear your opinions on my first draft.”
I’d already started to read the first page when she spoke again, uncharacteristically bashful and anxious, “Since we’ll be presenting together, I figured...”
“Yeah, no problem at all,” I interrupted, not wanting her to dwell nor expand on the thought of us doing anything together any more than necessary, “I can send you mine.”
It felt curt, blunt, and off putting when I said it, but she didn’t take it as such.
“Wonderful. You have such a unique voice when you’re writing. It’s very refreshing.”
Immediately, a memory appeared at the forefront of my mind and led to a laugh that I couldn’t contain. Candy seemed pleased at the sound, and I felt the need to explain.
“Thanks. (Y/n) likened it to Ray Bradbury at one point, although in different and less flattering words.”
I could hear her clear as day, quoting my words with an overdramatized effect before laughing, ‘Pack it up, Bradbury, you’ve got more science stuff to explain.’
Of course, we both found her laughter-ridden explanation of the ‘meme’ far funnier than the original joke. She was probably the only person in the world who never seemed bothered by explaining everything to me ad nauseam.
“She is... certainly a choice as a TA,” Candy strained upon scrutinizing the smile that had returned to my face for the first time since (y/n)’s departure, “Will she be joining us at the conference?”
But then the guilt returned, wiping the smile from my face and replacing happy memories with deviant thoughts and fears.
“Oh... you know, I haven’t asked her.”
“That’s perfectly alright! I think we’ll do just fine without her.”
“Right...” I whispered, glancing back down at the stack of papers in my hand before setting it in the tray designated for (y/n). “I’ll have her look at your paper just in case.”
A lull in the conversation stretched past the point of comfort for both of us, and I glanced up at the woman I actually felt guilty for ignoring in place of fantasies that would probably never come to be. She hadn’t even done anything to warrant my disregard. She was an attractive woman — as beautiful as she was brilliant, really — she had worked very hard to garner my trust and academic collaboration. At one point, I had considered her one of the few potential candidates for something more than a purely academic partner.
But there was something about the way she looked at the honeyed girl that made my hair stand on end. A defensiveness and instinct that couldn’t be ignored.
“Is there anything else you need?”
“No, that was all,” she said as she broke from what I presumed to be her own daydream, “I hope your semester keeps going well.”
“Thanks, I hope yours does, too.”
I meant it, despite the aforementioned concern. I wished her well in the semester for both selfless and selfish reasons. I wished her well because she deserved it, certainly. But the other reason, the larger one, was that I hoped she would remain distracted. I hoped that she didn’t notice the way I would slip away from her affections to chase those from a more interesting challenge. One that remained mysterious, with hair covered in pollen and lips sweet with ambrosia.
“I’ll talk to you soon, Dr. Reid.”
I failed to respond to her again before the door shut because my hands were already busy with rekindling contact with another.
“I have a proposition for you, Bunny.”
“Sounds ominous. I’m in.”
The fact that the response came before I could even shut off the display was so characteristic of her that I had to laugh.
“You haven’t even heard it yet,” I observed, to which she once again immediately responded, “Your point being?”
“I’m afraid this is an obligation that does require some expansion before agreement.”
Her response was slower, then, and I could almost see her with a slight panic and overwhelming curiosity that grew stronger by the second.
“Ominous and vaguely unsettling,” she said.
I considered drawing it out further, letting her imagination truly run wild with the possibilities. But then I realized that if she thought hard enough about it, she might reach the same place that had immediately come to my mind.
“Would you like to attend the upcoming conference with me?” I relented, almost stopping there but then frantically tagging on the conditions I knew would be most likely to cause hesitation. “You’d have your own room, of course. The department and I will help with funds.”
But, as it turned out, I didn’t need to be worried.
“A cheap weekend away from school where I get to be a nerd with you?” she sent with another set of small, smiling faces I was only just starting to understand, “Of course I’m going to say yes, Professor!”
“Perfect. I’ll arrange it.”
“I can’t wait!”
Although I felt the same, I forced myself to end contact again. I put my phone out of reach to prevent myself from spoiling any more of my fantasies than I already had. I didn’t need her to second-guess the possibilities of a weekend away together now that she’d already agreed to it.
The thought alone sparked guilt anew. Through the entire interaction, I’d infused each word with a charge that shouldn’t have been. Each line was far more provocative than it needed to be.
It was just an academic conference. Most people found them terribly dull, not to mention physically exhausting. It would not be a time away like most couples dreamed of because we were not a couple in any sense of the word.
Yet… I couldn’t help but feel that perhaps there weren’t as many differences as one might think. Because while yes, most people would be bored, I didn’t think Bunny would be. Clandestine meetings made between conference meetings sounded exactly like the kind of dreams we would share.
I believed it so strongly that my mind had already drafted several narratives that would suit her. I pictured her and I sharing company in public, unafraid of public displays of affection — innocent, childish kinds, of course — because we were miles away from those who might care.
That drunken, lust-inducing, half-lidded gaze from the week before would return. Except this time, I would taste the wine on her tongue, my hands sliding not over fluffy fabric, but the same skin that I’d felt for the first time that morning.
Behind our door, I would teach her so many things. Things that she would have begged me for. Things that others would see written on her skin in the shape of my fingers and mouth. Things that she would carry with a straighter back and dripping down her legs.
I didn’t just want to destroy her. I wanted to break her so that I could build her back with gold-laced lacquer. She would be my kintsugi creation full of sugar and honey, just imperfect enough that the sticky residue of her sweetness would slip through the cracks to coat everything she touched.
And then she would touch me, and I might finally feel like I deserved anything at all.
