It’s just. The way basically almost everyone in the fandom agrees that this character is aroace-coded is so special to me. In every other fandom I’ve been in or just witnessed from a distance, the very few characters who are canonically aro and/or ace have been denied their identities by the rampant aphobia within those fandoms. And the characters who are aro/ace only in fanon are almost always chosen for those headcanons because they are the stereotype of the unloving, unlovable aro/ace.
And then there’s Ryland Grace.
This character who has so much personality, who is so lovable, who is so full of love, of love for the world around him, love for his students, love for science, love for life on Earth, love for his best friend. This character who laughs, this character who cries, this character who cheers and screams and makes corny jokes and throws stuff to the ground out of anger. This character who is afraid. This character who lashed out and fought for his life when everyone else was taking it away from him. This character who clawed at the dirt and grass when he was being violently manhandled, who desperately tried to hold on to the earth because he didn’t want to go. Who tried his hardest to go back home. Who was afraid because he didn’t want to die. Because he loves life.
The fandom saw Ryland Grace—a character who could’ve just as easily as any other male character be thrown into a straight romance with Stratt but somehow wasn’t—saw how much he loves and how much he grieves, and decided: this one. This is the one. I relate to this character. I feel the same way. Everything was taken away from me, too, for being marginalized. For being queer.
And somehow, even though the most popular queer headcanon could’ve been about Grace being gay, or trans, or anything else like it, the consensus was that he would be read by the fandom as aroace.
And I know there’s more to it than that. I know that the line “You have no immediate family, you don’t even have a dog” resonated within a lot of aroace fans (me included), I know that he’s very aroace-coded in the book, I’ve read it. All of these elements play into it. They’re the main reason why I started seeing him as aroace myself.
But I just can’t help but wonder how this happened.
How we collectively as a fandom started agreeing upon this one main headcanon. How we all looked at this main character—whom Andy Weir most definitely thought of as a cishet man when writing the novel—and decided that he would be aromantic asexual. Because many aroace fans see themselves in Grace, of course. But also because he lived for himself. He lived for himself and his life was taken away from him because that was not enough of a reason to allow him to stay on Earth. Ryland Grace’s life does not matter, he is expandable, because he has no one in his life to love romantically. Because he is no use to society if he won’t reproduce. So might as well give him a use. Even if he doesn’t agree.
Ryland Grace lived for himself. He loved his life and he shared that love with himself, and that’s it. And that was enough to make people read him as aroace. And as a result of that, I’ve been seeing so many people talk about it online ever since I saw the movie and joined the fandom. And it’s making me dizzy, in a good way.
Hell, I don’t know what I’m writing anymore, I got carried away. I might actually cry. This character is so dear to me.
I guess what I wanted to say is this: Ryland Grace is aromantic asexual in the hearts of many Project Hail Mary fans, and they talk about it. They won’t stop talking about it. I hope you never stop talking about it.
Because it might just be a headcanon, it might not be real in the canon of the book/movie, but hear me out: I found out I was aroace when I was 15 years old. I’ve been using this label for nearly five years of my life, and I’ve not been alive a long time—I’m only 20.
I have never, never, ever, felt this represented in my entire life. I have never felt this seen in my entire life. I am literally shaking as I’m writing this. This simple headcanon that has taken the fandom by storm has been making me feel more represented than any canon aroace character ever could. I have never felt more understood than I have since I joined the PHM fandom about a month ago.
Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, PHM fans, for allowing me to be who I am, and to be loved and celebrated for it.
pairing: spencer reid x bau!fem!reader
description: spencer's addiction starts to cause his relationship to unravel quicker than he can pick everything back up. sometimes, love just isn't enough to fix it.
genre: this is pure angst. i don't even know if i can call it that because it seems much worse
tags/warnings: buckle up! depictions of drug addiction, mentions and allusions of suicide/death, biblical references, no use of y/n, absolute misery flung everywhere, spencer is definitely in love, but addiction kills far more than just one's liver, and even the most adoring relationships can start to fall apart (please tell me if there's more i need to add; idk how to tag)
w/c: 5.3k
a/n: this was written in an attempt to write addiction and love in a raw, unfiltered manner. please don't read if you feel uncomfortable with any of the topics mentioned above. i'll love you either way!
────────────
It didn't end with a yell, or a plea, or a burst of anger. It ended slowly, unexpectedly, expectedly. It ended on a Monday, on a day that wasn't special in any way; the sun was out, birds' chirps passed through the crack in the window, the grass was green and wet. It ended for months.
Spencer brought it to work on the fourth day. It weighed twenty pounds in his messenger bag, and he swore everyone could see it glowing, announcing that it was there and was there to stay. He left for the bathroom and ran his thumb over the small glass bottle. His eyes were red enough already, and you liked to look at him. He waited until he got home.
It was quick. He liked that. He didn't have to dwell very long on the fact that he was destroying himself, that he was becoming something he would have never allowed in any other circumstance. He played with himself like he was a rag doll.
Once he was done, needle on the ground, head heavy, body light, he thought he must be feeling the wrath of God playing with him. He himself wasn't even sure if God was God or if God was drugs or if God was violence, but either way, he was devout and divine now. His heart wasn't his own, and his mind wasn't his own, and he belonged to fate, to whatever power decided who and what were good or bad, and who or what deserved punishment for whoever or whatever they were. What he liked most of all wasn't the surrender of power; it was the surrender of thought.
It had to be better than suicide. It was an anomaly that he was still breathing, with even a slice of will to live still. Shouldn't everyone be proud of him for that? No one was allowed to judge him for this, not the team, not even you.
Oh, he was bitter.
He went to work every morning, and he didn't really care whether they knew or not. He could still do his job. He was strong enough for that, and he figured the rest of the team knew it too, because none of them mentioned it to him. Either he was far greater at hiding it than he imagined, or none of them cared. He couldn't get himself to mind either way.
You, of course, were the exception. You always were. You were an abnormality of the world, an oddity, something impossible for him to fathom, no matter how many numbers he ran or secret experiments he tested.
He still smiled sometimes. You made him smile. The night after the incident, he went home with you, and he thought that he might be okay. If he had you, he would be okay—and he was for a little while. But love wasn't enough, and it never had been, and Spencer never had been very fond of romance because he found it unrealistic.
He loved you; you were the great love of his life—but you weren't the star anymore. The translucent liquid hiding in one of his old pairs of shoes was.
You knew that.
Not only were you a profiler—it was your job to notice—but you were his girlfriend, for god's sake. You saw everything. You saw the dark circles, you saw the twitch in his left eye, you saw the constant bouncing of his legs. But, maybe more than seeing it, you felt it. He would kiss you, and it was gentle and soft, and it was definitely Spencer, but it was him trying to take. It was he searching for solace, not connection. Instead of someone who added to his life, you were someone who saved it.
None of it was fair to you, and he knew it, and you knew it, but you loved each other too much and hated yourselves too much to do anything about it.
────────────
The first time it was mentioned was the first and only time you caught him in the act.
You had stayed the night, and the moon was full. He had kissed you all the way down and whispered that everything he was consisted of you, that all he ever thought about was you, your voice, the inside of your arm; everything else normally deemed insignificant was the things that kept him tied to the ground.
His eyes had been bright. They looked greener than usual.
He said he was going to go change, grab something from his closet. You went in to ask him to borrow a shirt. You didn't knock because you had just seen him stripped apart for you, on his back, vulnerable to whatever you were in the mood to bring upon him, and didn't suppose it would bother to quickly grab one of his old tees, maybe one of his cardigans.
You didn't expect to find him sitting on the ground, head fallen back against the wall, jaw slack, eyes fluttering shut. You didn't even see his arm until he moved, and the needle moved with him, still stuck.
The room could have flooded with tears. It played in your mind over and over and over; it felt like you had tipped off the edge of a cliff, arms and legs bent in unnatural ways, head cracked open against an unforgiving, careless ground.
It took a while for him to be able to speak clearly.
He lied to you for the second time.
"This is the only time I've done it. I haven't touched it. Stop—stop crying, please. It's not—it's not what you think it is, at all. I'm fine. Please." He hadn't been convincing, or really even determined to convince at all.
Please, please, please. The word didn't sound real anymore, not after the countless number of times it was wept out of both of you. Both sides begged until glass broke.
He should have left you, then. He knew it the moment you drove him home, the car filled with silence, your hand gripping his so tight he lost circulation. He pressed your knuckles against his mouth. He hadn't been the person you'd fallen in love with for three weeks, two days.
He wouldn't ever be able to leave you.
He was a child, curled in his mother's arms, scared for the future, scared for what came for her and what came for him. How old was he when the first blow hit? Ten? Eleven? He wanted to see her and ask her what had happened. What day did it go wrong? When she went away? Was it then? Was it the other children, the day they made him realize he was right to be scared sometimes? Was it when he first thought of dying? Was it the day he realized magic wasn't real?
You said he was strong. He didn't feel strong. He's twenty-five, and he doesn't care that it's selfish to wish to go away.
He'll never have a real house, or a dog, or a child, or you. He won't have you ever again. He can't dream.
Mom, what happened?
────────────
Lying against you, he could never find the right words. His secrets stretched thin between you, and he wanted to drown harder when he discovered them between your fingers, behind your eyes, underneath your feet. You used to always have something to say. He’d find your mind on bannisters, in newspapers, underneath tattered wallpaper, in his dresser drawers. You were always quite the artist. You must have gotten better at hiding yourself.
"Spencer?" You whispered, your voice loud as it bounced off the darkness and his bare chest.
"Hm?" He wanted you closer than in his arms. He was tired. Your breathing was an ocean, and he was drifting far away.
You wanted to go to a river. Somewhere green. Somewhere where things could flow, where the water was like a washing machine. You wanted to dance with him again. It was always clumsy, and if you did anything except leisurely sway, his foot would trip over yours. You wanted to see his teeth.
He had fallen asleep, lips pursed, heart slowed, by the time you figured out what you needed to say.
────────────
"Thanks," he mumbles as you pull a piece of lint off his shirt. Spencer had made a reservation at one of your and his favorite restaurants, and you hope this will be a good night, a night that will feel like one before.
He looks at himself through the mirror in the corner. He looks like shit, and you look so, so gorgeous, and he has never felt so out of place in his life. He is knotted and sour.
"You look pretty." His hand is shaky, and he shoves it in his pocket. "You always look pretty, just... Extra... Pretty right now?"
You smile at him and fuck him, it's such a bittersweet sight. "Thank you, Spence. You look very handsome." He knows that's a lie, but he's grateful for it. Lies are easy. He likes those now, too. You kiss his cheek, and he stops you before you pull away, holds your face in his hand, and takes your lips. You let him have it—you—because you always will, because you will never—especially now—deny the opportunity to be close to him.
He wishes you wouldn't pull away, but you do. He's mindless as he watches you grab your bag off his bed. "Are you ready?" You ask, and his mouth doesn't seem to want to open, and his eyes don't seem to want to look upwards at you.
No, he isn't ready. Not for anything, not for you. Not for a night where he's going to have to fight himself from leaving for the restroom.
"Spencer?"
"Yes, sorry. I'm ready." He watches as you breathe out and take his hand, and he knows that you know. You know him; you know every inconsistency, every flaw, every complexity. You know neither of you is leaving here tonight. You know.
He stops you at the door, and it was only a matter of time. That's what it's been for months now: a countdown, a ticking time bomb.
"Spencer, please. Let's just go. Please." It's been months. All you want is to be with him, without the threat of him leaving you. You can hear the words he's going to say so clearly in your mind, and you're stuck in a continuum of torment, left to dream of things lost.
"I can't. I'm sorry. I can't." He drops your hand, and he just wants to go to sleep. His eyes itch for a reprieve, and his head hurts, and he wants it all to hurt even worse so you'll realize it will never get better; there's no point in staying. But you're still patient, you're still kind as you look at him. That can't last.
You take a breath, reminding yourself that the starry-eyed, wonderful boy you love is suffering under the weight of something you'll never comprehend. He deserves every ounce of tolerance you have left to give up, even if your fingernails crack and your mouth runs dry at the effort. It's difficult, it's so painstakingly difficult to ignore the time slipping through his fingers and every one of his sounds getting drowned out.
"You can. You can just get in the car, and we'll go to dinner, and we'll talk, and you'll tell me about a new black hole, and it will be good." It's begging, you're begging, and it's fine.
"It won't be 'good'. You know it won't. You know I can't go." He is content with your frustration. It's easier to deal with than disappointment, than forged satisfaction. He wants you to take out your anger on him. He deserves it.
"I don't know anything, Spencer! I don't know anything at all." That's the whole point. You don't know anything about him right now; you haven't known anything about him since that night. You just want him—need him—back.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what to say."
And the conversation's over; it's decided. You'll stay in for another night and push it to the back of your mind for another day. He'll say he loves you, and he does, and that he's sorry, which he is, but he won't stop. This is the only way he can be himself. This is him, now.
The night is spent in front of a TV screen with cold, leftover Mediterranean food left on the console table, untouched because neither of you can stand to look at it. He, because he has the appetite for something else, you, because it's one more night of a new normal that is too devastating to bear.
Not many words are exchanged. He quietly whispers translations into your ear when the people on screen speak a different language. He throws in a few Spencer-like interjections: "Actually, Spain was predominantly Muslim for 800 years, from 711 to 1492, despite the popular belief it was almost entirely governed by Arabs," and "Marie Antoinette's 'let them eat cake' quote actually originated from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 'Confessions'. There's no evidence to indicate she said it at all." But every word is meaningless; it's all pity; it's all distraction. It's nice to hear.
The air between you isn't warm, or comforting, or even safe—but it isn't necessarily cold, either. It's just there. Space, time. Perfectly balanced, perfectly still, perfectly nothing at all.
The documentary ends, and the screen goes black, and the room turns dark. No one moves, and you can feel it all end there. It's felt the same for a long time.
"You can head to bed. I'll clean up."
He might as well have just said, "I'm going to go kill myself, and I don't care that you'll be the one who finds me curled on the bathroom floor."
"Don't take too long, okay, Spencer?"
Don't go. Come to bed. Leave the food to rot.
"I won't."
He gets up, but you don't. It's ruthless, how the sting of tears jumps up on you without any semblance of a warning.
"I love you," you call out. Can he even hear you?
"I love you, too."
He doesn't crawl into bed until you've already cried yourself unconscious.
────────────
Spencer wakes up early the next morning to your body facing away from his, your shirt riding up, your hair a beautiful mess, your back rising and falling as you breathe. It almost feels like a normal morning, except you aren't pressed against him, and he is pretty certain his arm is bruised.
He gets up quietly, careful not to wake you. He throws on a cardigan, brushes his teeth, tries to slap the tiredness out of his eyes. Every attempt is futile. His arm is indeed very bruised.
The leftover food is still on the table when he walks into the living room.
He takes the pen stored with a pair of scissors, a few pencils, and a ruler (one that he had left with you once, after working on a geographical profile) in an old, worn mug, and writes a small note on the back of your grocery list from last week.
Went out to grab something from my apartment. I'll be back!
I love you,
Spencer
It's been hard for him to say it out loud recently. It's easier for him to put it on paper, so he doesn't have to look at the worry in your eyes. You'll say it to him later, and he'll say it back, but it's hard not to think of expiration dates and his next fix and all the things he's not doing that he could be doing.
He'll probably think more than just "I love you," and it will kill him that he will never be able to say it again. He didn't use to be so scared of hard things. He thinks about tearing himself open for you, letting you see that he's the same heart and lungs and stomach that he was before.
"I love you" has always been the most insignificant of affections. He likes the way you speak; you have a tongue worth paying attention to. He wants to be your friend—he wants to be your best friend—and he's always wanted to know the slope of your shoulder and the curve of your neck and things hidden. "I love you," made him a fraud. He means more than that.
He tells you he's fine, but he wants you to know that his body is only taking up space.
Today, he is too dumb for thinking.
────────────
They sell there, and there. And there... And there.
An old McDonald's. A run-down park. The left side of a convenience store around the block.
There, too.
He passes each spot as he drives. These streets will never be the same. He will never be the same. When he sees the bench by your favorite bookstore, he doesn't think about how he felt the first time he really kissed you; he thinks about how it felt selling the watch his mother gave him for Christmas seven years ago, and the relief when he was told it covered several more trips.
He gets back to your apartment an hour later. He didn't even go home. He just wanted a drive—a break from the guilt of having tainted your space with his disease.
When he unlocks the door with the key you gave him a year ago, he finds you seated on the couch, book in hand, legs crossed underneath you. Pretty.
"Good morning," he greets you softly.
You immediately set your book down when you hear him, and it's such a small thing, but he would get on his knees and beg for your forgiveness right now if you ask him to.
"Hi." You are still gentle with him. "Did you get what you needed?"
"I—Yes. I did." Lie. He scares himself.
"Oh, good. I was worried when I didn't find you this morning. I don't remember you coming into bed last night."
Kill him, kill him now. He deserves to be locked away for twenty lifetimes for what he's put you through.
"Yeah, you were—you were already asleep by the time I came in. I didn't want to wake you. You looked peaceful."
You hum and pick your book back up. He leaves and goes to the bathroom, and you can hear the exact moment when his steps pause and his breathing holds still. The trash can opens and closes, and then his footsteps resume.
"Did you..."
"Yes, I saw." Quiet, quiet, quiet. The small wooden clock on the shelf ticks endlessly. You've started to lose the ability to distinguish your different kinds of burns. There's the one that appears after a breakup with a friend, or after you make a mistake during a case; or there's a different kind of burn: the one Spencer makes you feel, warm lava dragging through your veins, hunger to taste and feel. The latter was always the most prominent, but now, they all feel the same. Maybe they are all the same.
"I'm sorry, I didn't—" Fuck. Was it so bad that he couldn't even clean up after himself anymore? What was wrong with him? He hates himself, and hates himself more for you. He'll end it for you.
"You just left it there, Spencer. It still had your blood on it."
Tick, tick, tick. He wants to slam the clock to the ground. You don't notice it.
"I'm sorry. You shouldn't have had to see that."
It's as if a thousand punches land at once, or a thousand cuts slice the same slab of skin, or everything that makes you a being of life blows away after only one gust of wind.
"No, I shouldn't have."
You realize you don't want to hear any apologies; you don't want to hear any of his words at all. You want him to take his clothes off, and show himself to you—show you what he's done to himself—and then you want him to love you, love you until you're sobbing because if it's not out of love it's out of sharp, deafening pain and loss. You want him to touch you and tell you he'll quit, that it's all over, that he's okay, and all he needs is you, not some stolen euphoria in a bottle.
You stand, and it's so hard. It's never been harder to take a step. "Tell me you're done with it, Spencer."
He wants to say that that question isn't fair—it isn't fair of you to ask him anything like that. You have no idea what he experienced that night or what he's experienced every single day in his body, with his mind, since even before. But he's cruel now, and he knows it. Nothing he wants to say is honest, yet it's incredibly overpowering.
"I can't tell you that."
You've been calm with him, and you loved him endlessly throughout it, and you still do. That's why you're angry, so, so frustrated, bubbling and spilling over, smoldering the ground around you.
"Just say it. I don't care if you mean it or not; I just want to hear the words."
"I—"
"Just do it. Please."
"I won't lie to you like that. I can't. Please don't make me break your heart more than I already have."
Oh, you hate him, you hate him so much. You want to hit him, to tell him how much he really is breaking your heart, because even if he thinks he knows, he doesn't. He's selfish, and you're just as selfish as him.
But even though the words aren't even spoken, only thought, they burn your throat. Lie. Of course, it's a lie. He writes you lovely handwritten letters about the stars and the sky and somehow always relates it back to the complexity of his feelings for you; and he draws shaky hearts on the sides of coffee-cups before he gives them to you; and he keeps the horrible quality polaroid picture Garcia secretly took of both of you laughing in his wallet; and he always, always keeps the annotated book you gifted him in his bag; and he kisses the freckle on the inside of your pinky; and you love him; and you love him so much it feels like you're dying.
"Tell me what I'm supposed to do, Spencer. How can I help you? I've tried so hard to give you space because that's what you said you needed, but it's not working, and I'm so terrified."
That's what it is. Fear.
Terrified that he's going to tear himself apart. Terrified that he's going to go too far one night and you'll find him dead on your floor, drained of life and kindness and knowledge and everything tender. Terrified that you're going to lose him forever, when you were there the whole time with the power to prevent it.
"I'm so, so scared. I can barely breathe when you're away, and every time I see you, something inside of me breaks because I know you're hurting in a way that I'll never understand. I've seen you like this for months, and I believed in you—I still do—but I don't think it's enough. I don't know how to be enough for you. Tell me what to do."
He can't speak, he can't do anything but wish everything was different, that he was different, that he hadn't split up with JJ that day, that people just didn't get sick. He wishes he were a stronger man, someone who wasn't capable of shattering the person he would do most for in this world.
He's lied before, but he can't now. He's seen what he's done to you, how you've pulled away right alongside him. It's been remarkably slow, and he's been in charge of it the whole time.
The worst part is that he won't change anything. He'll continue doing this to himself because—although it hurts now—he'll go home and he'll lock his door, and he'll never hurt again.
"I don't want to do this to you. I never wanted to do this to you."
"But you are, Spence, you are. I can get you help. Let me do something."
"No. No, I don't—I don't want anything like that. I don't need it. I might've slipped up last night, but it won't happen again. I have it under control."
"No, you don't." Your voice is almost exasperated, and fuck, it hurts, it all hurts. "I don't even know where you are, Spencer! Because you're not here. You're not." You push his hand against his chest, and he's hollowed out, all of his insides dripping on the floor.
"I am here. I'm right here." He takes your hands in his, and please, stop looking at him like that, but please just keep looking at him. Still love him, please. He's having a hard time living right now, but you're all he has. He'll make it up to you when he's better, when he has the energy to shout it off the rooftops how much he adores your very being. "I've always been with you, no matter what."
You used to always be able to believe everything he said. You don't know if you can do that right now.
Your voice drops to a whisper, and you just want to sleep next to him, with his arm wrapped around you and his eyelashes against your neck. You just want the darkness to be inviting again, and the fear of what you'll find in the trash can the next morning to be nonexistent. "You're killing yourself, Spencer."
He can't argue with you. He can only collapse and fall into the softness of the couch. He rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, and he imagines he disappears into an endless, black void, constantly moving, being stretched and pushed, free from craving and hurt and a ground that always threatens to hit. He imagines he's not here, not feeling you wrap around his body, not feeling a barely-there, infinitely gentle and undeserved kiss against his shoulder.
"I love you, I don't want to hurt you." His throat closes and he chokes, and he's never been so broken, so incapable. You sit behind him, and one of your arms wraps around the front of his chest, your hand landing right over his heart. Reach in there. Just take it out. It will hurt you less if you do.
"I don't want to hurt you," he repeats, he whispers. He just wants to stop hurting. He wants it all to stop being so loud.
"I know. I know." You rock softly, and you come to think it will never be okay again.
────────────
He doesn't sleep the next night, or the next. You know he doesn't. You don't say anything about it.
In the mornings, you turn over and kiss his jaw, his nose, his eyelids. It's all perfect—you're all perfect. He lets himself touch you one time before you leave him.
You start taking separate cars to work. It's easier that way; Spencer doesn't always come home with you anymore—he keeps making excuses to keep you from coming into his apartment—and he needs his own car to drive home. He won't let you drive him. Time spent between you two starts to consist of silence, and you act like it's normal—like you're content with it, with him like this. He cries one night a week, and the rest he's left to stare at the ceiling and think about what's a foot away in his nightstand, and how good he could love you if he weren't ill.
It starts to bleed into his work life more than he'd like it to. Morgan keeps asking him if he's okay, and he says yes. He doesn't want anyone to worry, but he's too tired to lie convincingly.
You keep trying to be close with him, to touch him, to be intimate in the way you used to, but he can't stand you seeing him. He wants to, god, he wants to, if only to feel a small sliver of you, but more and more lately he's been feeling like he has a contagious sickness. He kisses your neck, and he hopes you still love him and that you know he still loves you more than anything else.
He brings you coffee every other day and tells himself it’s enough. Tries to show you he’ll do anything except give up the silence.
You're eating dinner, his elbow brushing against yours. It's been a while since you've shared a meal like this. He hasn't been hungry lately, and the night usually dissolves into nothing. Tonight, though, he makes himself appear normal for you. You pretend not to notice the mask he's putting on. You’ve learned to accept the small things.
"I read the book you said you liked earlier. It was good."
It was good. That's how you can tell he's far away. No critique, no analysis, no real conversation.
"You read that? I didn't think it'd be something you'd be interested in."
"I'm always interested in what you're interested in."
You finish your meal, and Spencer eats half of it, pushes the remains to the corner so it appears he ate just a little bit more. Tonight almost seems normal, if you ignore most of it. He's saying things he used to say, and he's smiling, and he's kissing you against the kitchen counter.
Your fingers are tangled in his hair, and he's groaning into your open mouth. He's on fire, burning, turning to ash in your hands.
He kisses down your jaw, your throat, across your collarbones. He's dreamt of your skin for months.
"I miss you, Spencer."
The flame flickers inside of him, and you kiss his wrist, and he misses you. "'M right here." He’s drifting away, falling into you so he doesn’t fall into himself.
"Can you stay here?"
Yes. Yes, just ask him again. He's here, now. He just doesn't know where he'll be in an hour.
"Always."
You push yourself up to sit on the counter, and you're looking down at him with the world in your eyes, and he's in awe of you. You are the sun, sobriety, God. He tries to get a grip, tries to steady himself, and you kiss him again, aching.
His hand slips from his hold on the counter. He hits a mug with coffee still in it from the morning, and it’s like it shatters into a million tiny pieces of glass before it even hits the ground. It's loud, and it's quick. It’s the loudest thing that’s happened in a long time.
You jump against him at the sudden sound, and he takes a step away, stunned at himself, stunned at his powerlessness, his destruction. "I—Sorry. I didn't know that was there—I'll clean it up. Don't—don't move."
You were so close, so close to having him back. You felt his heartbeat through his mouth.
You know it then, as you watch him on the floor, that tonight's it. That was the last chance to hold onto him. He tries to pick it up, to reverse what he did, but it's broken, and you're left on the counter with your lips still red and the memory of him on your skin.
He slips again and cuts his hand, a soft, rare curse escaping. He's trying to save it, save the moment, save the night, save everything, and he just keeps fucking it up.
He doesn't look up as you jump off the counter and take his bleeding hand in yours. "It's okay. It's okay."
"It's not—no, it's not okay. I'm sorry—"
"Just sit down, Spence, okay? I'll get you a bandage. Don't worry about it. I'll clean it up later. I'll fix it all."
something something reader who is besties with samira and keeps third wheeling with her and jack
reader who has a big ol crush on mira and has for years, but was so happy she found someone who cares for her like jack does (even if how sweet they are makes her stomach turn sometimes)
reader who starts to feel a little too comfortable existing in samira and jack’s shared apartment, spending days and nights off with them
reader who gets used to being cuddled up to samira on their couch while jack sits on samiras other side
reader who stares at mira with the biggest lover girl eyes whenever she thinks no one is looking, but jack sees
reader who slowly but surely figures out why samira is so smitten with jack and his big arms and salt and pepper curls and sense of humor that borders on too dark but works perfectly between the three of you
reader who starts falling asleep on samira and jack’s couch after a long shift, dressed in samira’s socks and panties and one of jack’s sweatshirts
reader who wakes up, snuggled on their couch, in their clothes, to the sounds of them in the next room
reader who can’t help but listen to the moans and pants and the sound of sloppy open mouth kisses and skin on skin
reader who gets so unbelievably wet just listening but refuses to touch herself, instead lying awake hot and bothered and guilty
reader who doesn’t understand the smug smiles and lingering touches from jack and samira the next morning, focusing on not going entirely red in the face
reader who finally gets the picture when jack tells samira to “give our pretty girl a good morning kiss mira” something something
accidentally taking stepdad!jack's viagra whom you HATE... he is such a sleaze for a man his age. not only did he steal your mom's devotion, he doesn't even appreciate it. ogling at other women, shamelessly flirting, slapping the waitresses ass during one of your family dinners... no ur not jealous, why would you want his touch—ACTUALLY you despise it.
he's always coaxing you to sit on his lap, giving you wet kisses, and one time he actually grope one of your tits dismissing it as affectionate.
one night when your mom's not home, having a late night with her girlfriends, you accidentally mistook his sex pills as your melatonin.
you were sweating and writhing in bed. you thought your frustration was just from the lack of sleep, you suddenly feel the need for release...
so when you come crawling to your parents room, jack thought you finally cave in to his teasing (the piece of shit genuinely thought you guys had tension). it didn't take long for him to fuck you with no protection. your mother is thinking about divorcing him anyway, so why not steal you for himself?
