— idle hands
about ; Spencer looks back on to the months before at the events that pulled him under, all of them starting and ending with you.
gif by sarahmichellesgellar
WARNINGS: unedited— fem!reader unsub, unsub!spencer, handjobs, smut, mentions of drugs&addiction, mentions of depression, mentions of torture, mentions of death
“Is it really so hard to believe I wanted to do it?”
A small smile played on Spencer’s features, his eyes on Hotch’s, unmoving. His eyes were bright honey, within them holding something that had been foreign to him for much too long. Happiness. Euphoria.
He sat in the same seat as you once did, letting himself soak up the aura of the interrogation room. The metal jingle of his handcuffs paired with the rough floors that were once waxed allowed him to be brought back to half a year ago, to a Wednesday in September, where the sun rose south on the horizon in Quantico, where nothing would be the same again.
Spencer’s brought back to the day he first met you, the memory so vivid he could stick his tongue out and imagine he tasted your perfume in the air. It only takes a little longer before he’s also taken back to the moments before, when he leaned against the hallway walls of the BAU with an unsettled stomach and weak knees.
“I just can’t.” Spencer had said. Begged, even.
“You can’t? Or you won’t?” Spencer knew it wasn’t a question, no matter how Hotch had phrased it. He shook his head obediently, heart heavy and guts threatening to spill onto the brown leather of his shoes. It was even worse with every step, his fingers feeble on the cool handle of the door. And he hated himself for knowing where he’d go after, the image of a small seringe behind his lids each time he blinked.
The temperature inside was only cooler, making the claminess of his hands more evident, his jaw clenched. He inspected over you for as long as he could before it turned into staring, observing just who you were in the flesh. The woman behind the profile.
Soft hair.
Established at work.
Calm.
Smart.
Perfectly hidden in everyone’s good graces, leaving you out of suspicion.
He examined you so long that he was able to see you do the same to him, gazing up and down, the corner of your lips turned up. Twenty four men within the last eight months— erratic at first, until the murders gained a special flair, your signature. The photos sat infront of you already, their tongues cut skillfully out of their mouths as you paid the snapshots no attention.
“This one,” You pointed to the photo to the farthest left, your nose scrunched up in slight disgust, “To me he looks very proud, doesn’t he? I’m sure somebody wanted to shut him up.”
Spencer’s eyebrows furrowed, watching the game you were getting at, moving your chess piece three spaces over and looking him in the eye, daring him to join.
“Is that what you wanted? To shut him up?”
“Couldn’t say. I only read about it in the papers,” You retracted his accusation as if you’d been looking forword to the chase, crossing your legs and watching as his eyes followed them. “I read that he was a man with wandering hands, and much too many secrets. Maybe he deserved it.”
He watched you lean forward, embracing the space of the table as you placed your elbows upon it, holding your chin in the palm of your hand. You were the exact opposite of what uncomfortable was. You were eager. Excited.
“Do you agree that he deserved it?”
“I couldn’t possibly agree with you.” Spencer appealed.
Your painted nails motioned him to come closer, his jaw going slack at what was a demand, not a request. His body acted first, the scent of you nearly lifting him off the floors as it hit him. It made him sick as if he was on a rocking boat— shipwrecked. And to feel something felt good.
“I mean, there’s really no proof of who the killer is anyway.” You sighed, collecting your things without much regard for the bloody mess of the images below you.
Spencer glanced at the two way glass to the left as if he could see the figures behind it watching him crumble, letting you go because you were right in all the ways that were wrong. He’d hear about another thing he had done wrong as soon as he exited the doors.
You dismantled the space between the two of you, stopping close to look into the bronze gold of his irises, holding his energy alongside yours. Spencer tried to justify the way he didn’t step back— the soft soul of your breath against his ear just barely.
“I just wanted to see you up close...” You lead off without finishing, implying you wanted his name.
“Doctor.” He tutted, his arms held defensively by his side as if it would get him out of this newly dug hole that already contained multiple sprouting seeds inside of it.
“Doctor, you seem unsettled...” You let out a little hum at the title, nodding as you swiped your hand on the shoulder of his jacket. It was your only excuse to touch him. “Some people do bad things for all the right reasons, and sometimes, they do far too well at it.”
You struggled at your last statement, as if you were passing it onto him to consider. He couldn’t help himself from looking over his shoulder, watching the sway of your hips fade into the distance, leaving the door open only to reveal the figure of the black haired man, as if he was ready to stop what everyone else could see happening.
Hotch watched from the open door as Spencer stepped closer to the table, eyes burning through the print that you once referenced to before he took it between his thumbs, tearing it apart.
In the beginning of October, he let himself come to true terms. Sure, his team acted like they cared. They never ratted him out in fear he would lose his job— in fact, they never even uttered the words of it out loud, instead preferring looks of empathy. And as time went on, their empathy switched to looks of pity that soon became dehumanizing as they pressed and prodded at him like a cell below a microscope.
So he told them what they had already known when he was finally able to come to terms with it himself, droplets falling to the floor from his eyes as he quietly announced “I’m an addict”. And he listened as they said completely nothing, looking up to only see them watch anything in the room but him, averting their eyes to something that was somehow more important than what he had to confess.
And it dawned on him that very moment that they didn’t care when they only spoke to accept his apology for the sudden slip of the tongue. To them, he ceased to exist beyond the ways his brain benefited them.
Spencer realized they didn’t care to talk about the trackmarks that riddled his arm, or the noise of the glass vials that they heard from his pockets. He was becoming increasingly uncaring and disorganized, becoming less and less sterile each time he pumped his viens and chased his impending doom in the form of a sweet high. They just wanted to go to sleep at night without guilt sitting on their chests.
They wanted him to suffer in the shadows, swaying against the side of the bathroom stall as he rolled up his sleeves. They wanted to get off scot free and go on with their lives if they were to ever find him slumped against the cold floors, barely conscious.
It made Spencer’s skin crawl.
During an evening in mid October his fingers shook on the bottom half of his old cellphone, eagerly inching towards the final number— the one that had been burned into the front of his head right from the manila folder.
187...The one he promised he wouldn’t call.
187-654...The one that smelt like vanilla graced with casablanca lillies, and something else he just could not sniff out.
187-654-337... Was it so bad that he thought of you in a way he wasn’t supposed to?
“Hello?”
Spencer’s breath hitched against the receiver, keeping his voice in his chest while he nuzzled against his phone, taking you in as if you were right beside him.
“It’s you, isn’t it, Spencer?”
He worried his lips at your tone, patience and humility just waiting for him to speak up. Spencer counted the seconds over as several minutes passed, your tolerance never wearing down.
“Why do you know that?” Spencer asked, running his slim fingers through his head of hair at the sound of his first name, one he had never given you. Was he that fucking obvious to you?
“You were easy to find, I googled you. You’re quite remarkable, aren’t you? Besides, I’ve been expecting this call,” You admitted.
He could hear you shuffling around the room, discarding something metal and turning on the pipe, washing your hands clean. He could see your image now, phone held between your cheek and shoulder, hair falling infront of your eyes as you rinsed. He wondered what you were ridding your hands of, or if it even mattered now that he had crossed this line.
“You’ve been expecting me?”
“It’s a pity you didn’t call sooner, Spencer... I’ve been thinking about the things we could discuss. Is that what you want? To talk?”
He swallowed around the lump in his throat to stop himself from reciting his uttermost single thought: You’re no good for me.
“Yeah, I’d like to talk.”
He’d forgotten what it felt like when someone listened.
On the ripe night of December 31, he sat upon your couch, his elbows on his knees as he covered his face in shame. Hours before he stumbled onto your porch, rambling about you and him, him and you. You’d only chuckled at it, calling him admirable and sickingly sweet. His pulse began to beat harder as you told him that he reminded you of your mother, a woman who stood pure and good. He didn’t have the heart to just let you blindly say so, spoiling the image of her. Not when he wouldn’t do that to his own mother, either.
After the new person he’d become the past year, he wasn’t so sure he was deserving of such a thing. He played with the band of his watch, nothing that in just two more hours it’d be the new year. He couldn’t stop himself from spilling his truth, the one he had implied to you for months.
“What did you used to take?”
“Dilaudad, when it was available. But Morphine mostly,” Spencer’s voice was no louder than a whisper, “It was easier to get.”
He sat without saying much else, digging his fingernails into the palm of his hand, expecting you to dismiss him like so many others had before.
“How long has it been?”
“A few months.” Spencer pierced his lips, ignoring the look you gave him that implied you knew, like he did, that he wasn’t ready to admit exactly just how long he had been at it.
“Did they care?” You asked, your body leaning closer into him, waiting for a reply that never came from his mouth. You paid attention to the slight tremble of his body and the glossiness of his eyes.
He never told you the specifics about himself, and you wondered if it was because he kept you at arm’s length or because he truly thought there wasn’t anything to tell. But sometimes he’d talk about them; a woman called Emily, and one by the name of Garcia. You already knew who Hotch was from the moments he tried to shake a confession out of you before. You had assumed they were the only ones he had because he never said much else. His silence only pinged as an answer.
“Spencer, you deserve better, you do.” Your hands glided along his jaw, tilting his head to look at you. With the pads of your thumb you wiped the few tears that cascaded down his cheeks, his eyes shut tight in protest. “I care. Did you ever know that?”
Spencer stood with limp arms, his head nodding as he brought his cheek closer to your hand and laid a gentle kiss on your finger, dropping his whole world into yours.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why would you need to apologize, Spencer?”
You didn’t look at him through a lense that demonized him, reducing him to just another case who had let his addiction eat his life up from the inside out. He knew that to you he was someone like he had never been before. He was just himself, not an obstacle. And you were unreal, ready and willing to protect him.
“Can I touch you?” Spencer croaked, looking down at you with wide eyes. You didn’t answer verbally, instead opting to bring his face closer to yours, steering his lips into a kiss. It became clear as to who was in control as he submitted, hands delicately wavering above your hips without the permission to do much else.
You threw your thighs over his, straddling his hips and beginning to grind slowly, only to see that he was already showcasing a hard bludge in his pinstripe trousers. At the speed of it you pondered on the thought that he hadn’t been touched in a long time— or ever.
“Yes, you can touch me.” You assured him, a ginger grin appearing in response to his nervous eyes and hands that grasped your tits above your shirt, so eager to touch. “I meant what I said. If they can’t help give you what you need, what can they do for you?”
You palmed Spencer through his pants, admiring the little sounds that poured out of his mouth, each a bit louder than the one before. The button of his pants came off easy enough, allowing his cock to spring out, the rosy tip already leaking and sensitive. His hips jerked up to your touch, breath caught up against your neck. Your hand worked between the two of you, traveling up and down his dick repeatedly. At the perfect pace, your thumb ran across the tip, coaxing swears from his mouth as you brought your lips back to his.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Spencer. You don’t always have to stand so strong...”
Spencer’s hips moved underneath you to meet your hands, his orgasm coating your hands as he continued to whine well after he had cum, a sound that ensured the happy death of you. Through hooded eyes, he taped you licking his finishes off the back of your hand and your fingers, a keen look of contentment placed upon your face.
“You’re not alone anymore, are you?”
Spencer nodded ‘no’, embarking on how you resembled Eris, spirit dripping of discord and nasty twists, yet headstrong enough to hold the both of you up. It was an infatuation; a dangerous one.
He rubbed circles into your thigh, the after effects of his orgasm making his head hazy, head stuck in the clouds. His long fingers inched closer to the waistband of your jeans, face confused when you gently directed them away.
“I just want to please you,” he mewled, pout evident.
“You already have.”
Spencer nodded, following your lead to drop it, a long sigh drawn out his peachy lips. His head tilted, almost as a puppy’s would, an epiphany settling in. His eyes became earnest, unable to tiptoe around the dark reality surrounding the two of you. To him it didn’t matter anyway, not anymore.
“You killed those men, didn’t you?”
“Who’s to say?” You raised your eyebrows, feigning innocence like a code, meant for Spencer to see right through.
“Right,” His shoulders dropped, body no longer tense. “My team... they’re wondering if you’re worth all the trouble.”
“Am I?”
Spencer’s lips rose north, resembling something that he hadn’t done for months. You watched, a bit hypnotized, lips swollen and skin sensitive to the touch.
“You are.”
When it became March, it was too late.
“The victim is male, mid 50s, his identity yet to be verified,”
Hotch watched the scene infront of him eerily silent.
“Body has several struggle adhesions, the tongue was severed from the mouth, as well as both hands. They’ve yet to be found— I’d say the body is about five days old.”
He’d last seen Spencer six days ago after he entered the passenger side of the familiar black car, windows just a bit tinted as he saw his torso reach across the center console, kissing who had been in the driver’s seat. He hadn’t asked where he planned to go.
Idle hands ; the devil’s workshop. Nothing good came from hurt.
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