Hiding your pregnancy is getting harder and harder, especially when you agree to go to a dinner party and Spencer has to drink every glass of your wine to keep the secret.
୨ৎ ──── secret pregnancy. 5,4k. fem!reader. drunk reid. english isn't my first language. main masterlist.
David Rossi loved hosting dinners.
Not because he particularly enjoyed cooking—though he’d spend the entire evening pretending he did, shooing away anyone who wandered too close to the stove with the indignation of a Michelin-star chef—but because dinner was one of the rare occasions when the people he cared about gathered for reasons that had nothing to do with bloodstained crime scenes or the worst humanity had to offer. Around his dining table, they weren’t profilers or agents or supervisors carrying the weight of impossible decisions. They were simply friends. They laughed a little louder, lingered a little longer over dessert, argued about books instead of behavioral patterns, and, for a few precious hours, remembered what life looked like outside the Bureau.
At least for the first twenty minutes.
After that, someone inevitably mentioned a case.
“You realize,” Morgan announced as he reached across the kitchen island and shamelessly stole a piece of warm bread straight from the basket, “this is exactly how horror movies start.”
Rossi didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder. He merely stirred the sauce with practiced ease, entirely unfazed by the theft.
“The difference,” he replied smoothly, “is that my guests survive dessert.”
Morgan laughed, surrendering with an exaggerated nod before tearing into the bread anyway.
The house was already alive with familiar voices.
Soft jazz drifted through hidden speakers, blending with the rhythmic clatter of pots and the comforting aroma of garlic, rosemary, simmering tomatoes, and freshly baked bread. Warm light spilled from antique lamps, reflecting against framed photographs and shelves lined with decades of books and souvenirs collected from places Rossi rarely spoke about. Every room carried that unmistakable feeling of having been lived in, a home that had witnessed countless celebrations, quiet conversations over late-night whiskey, and the occasional impromptu team meeting when cases refused to stay at Quantico.
Emily wandered into the kitchen, accepting a glass of wine from Rossi before immediately rolling her eyes at something Morgan said.
Garcia was already circling the living room in complete admiration, pausing every few steps to gush over a painting, a sculpture, or an antique clock.
“Oh my God, Rossi,” she gasped dramatically, “this lamp is gorgeous. It’s giving wealthy Italian novelist who solves crimes in his free time.”
“It was just a lamp until you said that.”
JJ slipped toward the patio with Henry balanced comfortably on her hip, the little boy already fascinated by the garden lights beginning to glow outside. Will followed behind carrying an impressive collection of toys that looked capable of entertaining an entire daycare, smiling patiently as Henry reached for everything except the toys he’d brought.
Hotch, unsurprisingly, had arrived exactly on time.
Not a minute early. Not a minute late.
His jacket was already neatly folded over the back of a chair, a glass of sparkling water in one hand as he quietly observed the controlled chaos with the smallest hint of amusement softening his usually unreadable expression.
And, of course, Spencer’s attention had been on you from the moment the two of you stepped through Rossi’s front door.
Before anyone could greet you, Spencer was already helping you out of your coat with the quiet attentiveness that had become second nature over the past several weeks. His hands were careful as he eased the fabric from your shoulders, lingering for just a heartbeat as if making sure you were steady before draping both your coat and his neatly over the rack by the entrance. It was such a small gesture that no one else would have noticed it.
“You okay?” he asked quietly, leaning close enough that only you could hear him beneath the lively chatter filling the room.
You offered him a reassuring smile, hoping it looked more convincing than it felt.
“Perfect.”
The word came automatically, polished by repetition until it sounded almost believable. You’d said it to your mother over the phone earlier that week. To your coworkers when they’d commented on how pale you’d been looking lately. To the cashier who had apologized after you’d abruptly abandoned a shopping cart halfway through the supermarket because someone nearby had opened a container of tuna. You were becoming remarkably good at pretending everything was normal.
Spencer, however, had never been particularly easy to fool.
His honey-colored eyes lingered on your face for another moment, quietly studying you with the same careful concentration he reserved for unsolved cases and impossible puzzles. He noticed everything: the faint shadows beneath your eyes despite the makeup you’d carefully applied that afternoon, the way your smile didn’t quite reach them, the almost invisible hesitation before you shifted your weight from one foot to the other. For a second, you watched concern flicker across his expression, followed by the unmistakable impulse to suggest going home instead. You knew him well enough to see the thought forming before he gently pushed it aside. You had insisted you wanted to come. You’d been looking forward to seeing everyone. If he asked again, you’d only reassure him again.
So instead, he simply intertwined his fingers with yours for the briefest moment and gave your hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it, silently reminding you that if you needed to leave, even five minutes after arriving, you only had to say the word.
Because the truth was…you hadn’t exactly been perfect lately.
For nearly eleven weeks, your body had seemed determined to reinvent itself overnight, transforming familiar routines into unpredictable obstacles and ordinary sensations into impossible challenges. Pregnancy wasn’t anything like the books had described. It wasn’t the glowing skin and sentimental smiles people loved talking about. At least, not yet. Right now, it was exhaustion so profound it settled into your bones no matter how much you slept. It was waking up starving only to burst into tears because the toast you’d been craving suddenly smelled unbearable. It was dizziness when you stood too quickly, headaches that appeared without warning, and emotions that shifted so rapidly they often left you laughing one moment and crying the next.
And the smells were by far the worst.
It was as though someone had turned every scent in the world up to an impossible volume.
Coffee, the rich aroma you’d once relied on every morning, now seemed so overwhelmingly bitter it made your stomach twist before you even entered the kitchen.
Garlic lingered in the air like smoke.
Perfume clung to strangers in grocery stores so intensely that you found yourself instinctively holding your breath as they walked past.
Gasoline from passing cars seeped through open windows with startling force.
Fresh paint, cleaning products, scented candles, everything had become an enemy.
Even the earthy fragrance of Spencer’s favorite loose-leaf tea, a scent that had always reminded you of rainy afternoons spent reading together on the couch, had betrayed you. One quiet Saturday morning, he’d barely begun pouring the boiling water over the tea leaves before your stomach lurched violently. You hadn’t even managed to explain what was wrong. You’d simply clamped a hand over your mouth and hurried toward the bathroom, leaving Spencer frozen in confusion beside the kettle.
When he’d found you a few minutes later, you were sitting on the cool tile floor with your knees pulled to your chest, wrapped in one of his oversized cardigans because you hadn’t had the energy to put on your own sweater after climbing out of bed. Your eyes were watery, your face pale with exhaustion, and the half-steeped tea sat forgotten in the kitchen.
He’d knelt beside you immediately, rubbing slow circles against your back until your breathing steadied.
“I think,” he’d said carefully, as though presenting a well-researched hypothesis, “we should buy different tea.”
The absurd sincerity of the suggestion had broken something inside you.
You’d laughed, the kind that left tears streaming down your face and your stomach aching until Spencer began smiling too, still entirely unsure what had been so funny.
An hour later, you’d taken the pregnancy test.
You remembered sitting together on the edge of the bathtub, your shoulders pressed together so tightly they might as well have been one person, both pretending not to stare at the little plastic stick resting on the counter. Spencer’s knee bounced nervously the entire time, though he’d deny it if anyone ever asked. When the result finally appeared, neither of you moved.
Positive.
You’d looked at him, and he’d looked at you.
For a long moment, there had simply been silence, stunned, breathless silence, as though neither of you trusted your own eyes enough to speak first.
Then Spencer had whispered, almost reverently,
“We’re having a baby.”
The memory still settled warmly inside your chest every time you thought about it.
Only the two of you knew.
No one else.
Not the team, your parents, or his mother.
No one.
It wasn’t because you weren’t excited.
God, you had never loved someone you’d never met quite so fiercely. And you had never been so afraid.
At night, when the apartment had gone quiet and Quantico seemed impossibly far away, the two of you often found yourselves lying awake long after the lights were off, talking in hushed voices about a future that suddenly felt both unimaginably distant and frighteningly close. Spencer wondered aloud whether babies recognized music before they were born and whether reading aloud during pregnancy had any measurable effect on language development. You debated names neither of you was ready to admit you genuinely liked. You imagined tiny knitted sweaters, impossibly small socks, sleepy mornings, first birthdays, scraped knees, school concerts, and the possibility—one that made you laugh every single time—that Spencer might accidentally teach your future toddler quantum mechanics before the alphabet.
Other nights, words simply weren’t necessary.
You would lie tangled together beneath the blankets, your head resting against his shoulder while he absentmindedly traced slow circles over your arm. Eventually, almost without thinking, his hand would drift lower, settling with extraordinary care against your abdomen. There was hardly anything to feel yet. At eleven weeks, your stomach remained almost perfectly flat, your dresses fitting exactly as they always had. If someone didn’t know, they would never have guessed. But Spencer touched you as though the slightest movement might disturb the tiny life growing there, his palm resting so gently against you that it sometimes made your chest ache. He would smile into the darkness with an expression so impossibly soft it stole your breath every single time, as though he could already sense the little heartbeat hidden beneath his fingertips. Sometimes he whispered things you weren’t sure he realized he was saying: little observations about fetal development he’d memorized from medical journals, promises about museums he’d one day visit with your child, absentminded thoughts about buying children’s editions of classic literature. Other times, he simply stayed there, smiling quietly, overwhelmed by the astonishing reality that someone already existed. Someone who belonged entirely to the two of you.
Every ultrasound photograph had become a treasure.
The first one lived inside an ivory envelope that had already begun to soften at the edges because neither of you could stop taking it out to look at it. Realistically, there wasn’t very much to see. To anyone else, it was little more than a grainy black-and-white blur surrounded by indecipherable shadows and medical measurements. Yet the two of you had spent embarrassing amounts of time staring at it as though it were the most extraordinary piece of art ever created. Spencer, naturally, had analyzed it with the same enthusiasm he brought to everything else.
Of course, once the initial excitement had settled, he had immediately begun worrying about where to keep the photographs.
Not because he thought someone was going to steal them.
Because he wanted them safe.
You still remembered finding him standing in front of his bookshelf one afternoon, head tilted thoughtfully as though he were solving one of the Bureau’s most complicated cases. He had scanned hundreds of titles before finally pulling out one of the thickest mathematics textbooks you had ever seen.
“They’re going inside my copy of Differential Geometry,” he’d declared with complete confidence while carefully sliding the envelope between two chapters.
You had stared at him, blinking in complete confusion.
“…Why that one?”
Without so much as lifting his eyes from the pages, he’d answered with absolute certainty.
“Statistically speaking, no one voluntarily opens my copy of Differential Geometry.”
You had laughed so hard your stomach hurt.
Weeks later, the ultrasound photographs remained exactly where he’d hidden them, tucked safely between chapters discussing curved manifolds and tensor fields, untouched by anyone except the two of you. Every now and then, usually late at night, Spencer would quietly retrieve the envelope before climbing into bed beside you, and together you’d study the tiny image all over again, smiling as though seeing it for the very first time.
You weren’t keeping the pregnancy a secret because you were ashamed.
If anything, the secret had become almost impossible to contain.
You loved this baby already with a depth that surprised you daily. Sometimes you caught yourself resting your hand absentmindedly against your stomach while reading on the couch or waiting in line for coffee you could no longer stomach. Sometimes Spencer would catch your eye from across the apartment, and without either of you saying a single word, you’d both smile, remembering the extraordinary little secret that existed only between you. It felt like carrying a universe inside your chest, one that threatened to spill into every conversation, every laugh, every quiet glance exchanged across a room.
But eleven weeks still felt fragile.
Delicate.
As though happiness itself had become something you were afraid to hold too tightly.
You knew the statistics.
So did Spencer...perhaps better than anyone.
The first trimester carried uncertainties neither of you could ignore, no matter how desperately you wanted to celebrate. So you had made a quiet promise together. Just a little longer. One more week. Maybe two. Long enough for the fear to loosen its grip. Long enough for the joy to feel louder than the anxiety. Then you’d tell everyone. Properly. Surrounded by the people who loved you most.
Which was exactly why tonight needed to remain wonderfully, blissfully ordinary.
Smile.
Compliment Rossi’s cooking.
Laugh at Morgan’s increasingly terrible jokes.
Listen to Garcia declare herself emotionally attached to another one of Rossi’s antique decorations.
Eat dinner.
Go home.
And above all else, pretend that beneath the soft fabric of your dress, your entire world wasn’t quietly growing one tiny heartbeat at a time.
***
For the first few minutes, everything went exactly according to plan.
The conversation flowed effortlessly around the table, moving from travel stories to teasing remarks about Rossi’s inability to let anyone else near his kitchen. The warm glow of candlelight reflected against crystal glasses, silverware clinked softly against porcelain plates, and the rich aroma of roasted vegetables, fresh herbs, garlic, and homemade pasta drifted through the dining room. It was warm. Comfortable. Familiar. Exactly the kind of evening you’d hoped for.
Then Rossi appeared beside the table carrying a bottle of red wine.
With practiced ease, he moved from place to place, pouring generous servings into each waiting glass until he eventually reached yours. Deep ruby liquid swirled elegantly into the crystal, catching the candlelight before he continued around the table without another thought.
Your smile froze.
Your stomach dropped so suddenly it almost felt like missing the last step on a staircase.
Of course. Wine.
You hadn’t thought about the wine.
For one long second, you simply stared at the glass sitting innocently beside your plate, your thoughts racing far faster than they should have. Refusing it outright would be strange. Claiming you weren’t in the mood might invite questions. Pretending to sip it was risky, especially with Rossi proudly watching everyone’s reactions to the bottle he’d undoubtedly spent far too much money on.
Across the table, Spencer had arrived at the exact same realization.
His eyes drifted from his own glass to yours.
Then to you.
You watched the understanding settle across his face almost instantly.
Without either of you exchanging so much as a glance, he quietly reached across the table toward your place setting, his movements so natural they might have gone completely unnoticed.
“I’ll take yours,” he said casually, lifting the untouched glass before anyone could question it.
Morgan blinked. “You stealing her wine already?”
The question earned a few amused smiles around the table.
Spencer answered so quickly it almost sounded rehearsed.
“She’s driving.”
For a single heartbeat, the entire table fell into that peculiar silence that followed an answer no one had expected. You turned your head slowly to look at him, your expression carefully composed despite the disbelief bubbling beneath it.
Driving? You hated driving.
Everyone at the table knew you hated driving. Morgan had teased you about it for years after you’d once admitted that parallel parking made you feel like you were diffusing a bomb. Garcia had jokingly offered to create a color-coded GPS system “for emotionally distressed drivers.” Even Rossi had learned long ago that inviting the two of you over automatically meant Spencer would be behind the wheel on the way home. If given the choice between navigating rush-hour traffic yourself or spending an hour on public transportation with three transfers, you’d choose the train without a second thought. Spencer knew that better than anyone. Which was precisely why, judging by the fleeting look of horror that crossed his face, he realized what he’d said the exact moment the words left his mouth.
Your eyes met across the table for the briefest instant.
He knew. You knew.
Neither of you dared acknowledge it.
Fortunately, Morgan simply shrugged, entirely unbothered.
“Fair enough.”
The conversation drifted elsewhere almost immediately, someone making a comment about Rossi’s pasta sauce before Garcia launched into a dramatic story about accidentally adopting another stray cat she absolutely insisted she hadn’t meant to bring home. Around the table, laughter resumed, forks scraped softly against porcelain plates, and the comfortable rhythm of dinner settled back into place. You released a slow breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, allowing yourself to believe, if only for a moment, that perhaps the obstacle had been overcome more easily than you’d feared.
Or so you thought.
Barely ten minutes later, Rossi reappeared beside your chair carrying the bottle of red wine in one hand, his attention immediately falling to the untouched glass still sitting exactly where he’d left it. His thick brows drew together in mild confusion before his expression softened into concern.
“Oh, bambina,” he said, tilting his head slightly as he gestured toward the glass. “You haven’t touched your wine.”
Your heart lurched.
For a fraction of a second, your mind raced desperately through possible explanations. You weren’t feeling like drinking. You were waiting until dinner. You had a headache. None of them felt convincing enough, particularly not with Rossi watching you so expectantly.
Before you could utter a single word, Spencer calmly reached across the table, lifted your untouched glass as though it had belonged to him all along, and took a generous sip.
“I did.”
Rossi looked between both of you.
“You finished two glasses already?”
“I was thirsty,” Spencer replied with complete sincerity, sounding as though that single sentence explained everything.
Rossi stared at him.
“You were thirsty.”
“Yes.”
“For wine.”
“Correct.”
For another beat, Rossi simply looked at him, clearly debating whether there was any point continuing the conversation. Eventually, with the resigned expression of a man deciding that Spencer Reid’s brain operated on principles beyond ordinary comprehension, he shrugged lightly and reached for the bottle once more.
“There.”
Deep red wine flowed smoothly back into your crystal glass until it sat nearly full again.
“There we go.”
“Thank you,” you offered with what you hoped was a perfectly natural smile.
Rossi nodded once before wandering toward the other end of the table to refill Morgan’s glass, already distracted by an entirely new discussion about baseball statistics.
The instant his back was turned, Spencer moved.
Without saying a word, without drawing attention to himself, he rested one hand casually beneath the edge of the tablecloth and, in one fluid movement, exchanged your freshly filled glass with his own half-empty one. The motion was so smooth it could have passed for absentmindedness, his fingers never fumbling despite the growing amount of alcohol already in his system. By the time Rossi looked back toward the two of you, Spencer was quietly lifting the newly acquired glass toward his lips while your place setting once again held one that appeared partially consumed.
No one noticed.
Well…almost no one.
Across the table, Emily’s conversation with JJ faltered for just a fraction of a second.
She didn’t say anything.
She simply took another sip of wine while her gaze lingered thoughtfully between the two of you before returning to her plate.
Another half hour slipped by beneath easy conversation and frequent bursts of laughter. Stories gave way to teasing, teasing turned into old Bureau memories, and before long the first bottle stood empty in the center of the table. Rossi noticed almost immediately.
“Well,” he announced proudly as he disappeared toward the kitchen, “that means it’s time for the good one.”
He returned carrying another bottle with the reverence of someone transporting a priceless family heirloom.
“This one’s from Tuscany,” he declared, carefully peeling away the foil. “I bought it during my last trip. You have to try it.”
The cork eased free with a satisfying pop.
You felt your stomach sink all over again.
One by one, Rossi circled the table, refilling each glass with generous enthusiasm.
Including yours.
Again.
You forced another smile.
“Thank you.”
Your glass remained untouched.
Again.
Spencer noticed before anyone else did.
Again.
Without hesitation, he reached over sometime during the next conversation, lifted your glass as naturally as though the two of you shared everything—which, technically, you did—and quietly added yet another serving to the growing collection he’d already consumed.
By now he’d finished one glass.
Then two.
Then three.
Now…four.
Under ordinary circumstances, four glasses of wine spread across an entire dinner might not have seemed particularly remarkable.
For Spencer Reid, it was becoming increasingly obvious.
A warm flush had spread across his cheeks, dusting the bridge of his nose with soft pink that somehow made him look several years younger. His posture remained perfectly straight, and his words retained the precise articulation that years of lecturing and endless reading had ingrained into him. If anything, he enunciated even more carefully than usual, each syllable pronounced with meticulous clarity. Spencer Reid, it seemed, was physically incapable of slurring his words.
Instead, he simply became significantly more talkative.
“Do you know,” he announced to absolutely no one in particular while thoughtfully examining his wineglass as though it were a fascinating scientific specimen, “that the average adult liver metabolizes approximately one standard alcoholic beverage per hour? Assuming average enzymatic activity and normal hepatic function, I’m currently operating at a significant biochemical disadvantage.”
Morgan leaned back in his chair, grinning so broadly it bordered on smug satisfaction.
“You drunk, pretty boy?”
Spencer looked genuinely offended by the suggestion.
“No.”
He paused.
Thought about it.
Then nodded once with complete seriousness.
“Probably.”
The table erupted into laughter.
Even Hotch lowered his gaze toward his plate to disguise the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
You couldn’t help laughing too, though yours carried a distinct note of affection.
Spencer looked utterly adorable.
Hopelessly, undeniably adorable.
Across the table, however, Emily wasn’t laughing nearly as much.
She watched Spencer lift your glass instead of his own.
Again.
She watched you politely thank Rossi for every refill without drinking a single sip.
Again.
She watched Spencer volunteer to finish both glasses with increasingly enthusiastic determination.
Again.
Something about the evening refused to fit together.
Emily wasn’t quite sure what the answer was yet.
But she knew, with absolute certainty, that something wasn’t adding up.
***
By the time coffee replaced the wine, the evening had settled into that wonderfully unhurried stage that always followed one of Rossi’s dinners. Dessert plates had been pushed aside, empty bottles stood abandoned along the center of the table like evidence of a celebration well enjoyed, and the rich scent of freshly brewed espresso drifted through the dining room, mercifully replacing the overwhelming aroma of alcohol. Conversations had fractured into smaller ones, overlapping comfortably without anyone needing to follow every thread. Garcia and JJ were animatedly debating vacation destinations, Garcia insisting that every itinerary should be based entirely around bookstores and bakeries while JJ attempted, unsuccessfully, to convince her that beaches had their own merits. At the other end of the table, Morgan and Rossi had somehow wandered into a passionate disagreement over baseball statistics, each one accusing the other of remembering history incorrectly despite both sounding equally confident. Hotch sat quietly between them, one hand wrapped around his coffee cup, saying very little but wearing the faintest trace of amusement at the corners of his mouth as he watched the familiar chaos unfold around him.
Beside you, however, sat the true consequence of the evening.
Spencer Reid was undeniably drunk.
Not the loud, reckless kind of drunk that knocked over glasses or forgot people’s names. Spencer remained perfectly articulate. Every sentence emerged with the same impeccable diction he used while lecturing, every word carefully pronounced as though he were still delivering an academic presentation. If anything, the alcohol had only made him even more determined to enunciate correctly. His tie had been loosened somewhere between the second and third bottle, though neither of you remembered who had done it. His curls had escaped in every direction until they framed his flushed face in complete disarray. A warm blush stretched across his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose, his eyes had taken on a dreamy softness you rarely saw, and he had developed the oddly adorable habit of pausing before every answer, nodding solemnly to himself as though consulting an invisible committee inside his own mind before reaching a unanimous decision.
Watching him was almost painfully endearing.
You couldn’t help smiling as your fingers found the middle of his back, rubbing slow, comforting circles through the fabric of his shirt.
“You okay?”
He turned toward you immediately, his entire face lighting up with such overwhelming affection that your heart threatened to melt on the spot.
“I love you.”
The words came so easily, so honestly, that several people around the table instinctively smiled.
You laughed quietly.
“I love you too.”
“No…” He shook his head with exaggerated seriousness, lifting one finger as though correcting an important scientific misconception. “I don’t think you understand the statistical magnitude of how much I love you.”
Morgan snorted into his coffee.
“Oh, this is priceless.”
Spencer didn’t even acknowledge him.
His complete attention remained fixed on you, his expression one of absolute sincerity as he searched painstakingly for the perfect description.
“You are…” He frowned thoughtfully, eyes drifting toward the ceiling for several long seconds before returning to you with visible satisfaction. “…my favorite person.”
Warmth spread through your chest so quickly it almost hurt.
God, he was going to destroy you.
“You’ve had enough wine,” you said gently, brushing one of his unruly curls away from his forehead.
“I have had…” He stopped speaking to count carefully on his fingers, restarting twice after apparently losing track somewhere around three. “…more wine than you.”
“Yes.”
He nodded proudly, pleased that you’d confirmed his calculation.
“Because you couldn’t.”
Every muscle in your body went rigid.
The smile disappeared from your face almost instantly.
“Spencer.”
He looked delighted with himself.
“I helped.”
Across the table, Emily glanced up from her coffee.
“So noble.”
“It was.” Spencer nodded once, completely accepting the compliment. “Because it’s a secret.”
Your stomach dropped so violently you were certain everyone could hear it.
Without thinking, you reached for his hand beneath the table, gently squeezing his fingers.
“Sweetheart—”
He leaned closer immediately, lowering his voice in what he clearly believed was an incredibly discreet whisper.
It wasn’t.
“We’re very good at secrets,” he confided with unmistakable pride.
The entire table continued talking.
No one seemed to notice.
Relief washed over you so suddenly you nearly laughed.
Then Spencer smiled thoughtfully, as though another important realization had just occurred to him.
“Although…”
Every instinct in your body screamed.
“Oh no.”
He looked around the entire table before announcing, in a voice loud enough for everyone in the dining room to hear with perfect clarity, “keeping a baby secret is significantly harder than I expected.”
Silence.
Morgan blinked once.
“A what?”
Garcia’s mouth slowly fell open.
JJ lowered her coffee cup so carefully it barely made a sound against the saucer.
At the far end of the table, Hotch’s eyes shifted from Spencer to you with the calm expression of a profiler mentally reorganizing every unusual observation he’d made over the previous several weeks: your sudden avoidance of coffee during morning meetings, Spencer’s increasingly protective behavior, the mysterious disappearances during cases to “find crackers,” the exhaustion, the nausea, the untouched wine.
Pieces quietly clicked into place.
Rossi simply stared.
His mouth opened slightly before closing again.
For perhaps the first time in anyone’s memory, David Rossi seemed completely incapable of finding words.
Emily, meanwhile, merely closed her eyes and a slow smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“Oh,” she sighed, sounding more relieved than surprised. “I knew it.”
You buried your face in both hands.
“Spencer…”
He looked around the table with complete confusion, blinking at everyone’s expressions as though he genuinely couldn’t understand why the conversation had stopped.
“What?”
“You…” you whispered through your hands, shaking your head helplessly. “You just told them about our baby.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“I did?”
“Yes.”
A long pause.
He frowned thoughtfully.
“I wasn’t supposed to.”
“No.”
“Oh.”
He considered that information with remarkable seriousness, nodding slowly as though accepting constructive criticism.
For one suspended heartbeat, nobody moved.
Then Garcia exploded.
The delighted shriek that escaped her was so loud it probably startled every bird within a three-block radius. She launched herself out of her chair before anyone else had even processed what was happening, one hand already covering her mouth as tears filled her eyes.
“I can't believe it!” she squealed. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”
JJ was crying before she’d even reached you.
She wrapped her arms tightly around your shoulders, laughing and wiping away tears simultaneously.
“I am so happy for you,” she whispered.
Morgan shot to his feet with a bark of laughter, pointing triumphantly between the two of you.
“I knew something was going on!”
Emily looked at him flatly.
“You absolutely did not.”
“I suspected!”
She folded her arms.
“You spent the entire evening convinced Spencer had developed a drinking problem.”
Morgan hesitated.
“I was…close.”
Rossi finally recovered enough to laugh, a deep, warm laugh that echoed through the dining room as he crossed the room and pulled both you and Spencer into one of his characteristically overwhelming hugs.
“I’ve spent years trying to get this kid drunk,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief as he stepped back to look at Spencer with unmistakable affection. “Years.”
His eyes flickered toward you before returning to Spencer.
“I have to admit…”
He smiled.
“I didn’t expect this to be what finally loosened his tongue.”
Even Hotch stood.
He wasn’t particularly demonstrative, never had been, but the smile he offered the two of you was genuine enough to soften every sharp line in his face.
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” you whispered, your voice thick with emotion as you leaned instinctively against Spencer’s shoulder, still half laughing and half hiding your burning face from everyone’s delighted attention.
Spencer looked down at you with sleepy affection, completely oblivious to the fact that he had single-handedly dismantled weeks of carefully orchestrated secrecy. He leaned over and pressed the gentlest kiss against the top of your head before sighing softly.
“I ruined the surprise.”
“You did.”
“I’m sorry.”
You looked up at him.
His expression was so genuinely remorseful, so heartbreakingly sincere despite the unmistakable haze of alcohol clouding his thoughts, that you couldn’t possibly stay embarrassed.
A smile spread across your face.
“I’ll forgive you.”
His eyes brightened immediately.
“You will?”
“Eventually.”
The relieved smile that followed was almost childlike.
“Good.”
He sat quietly for another few seconds, apparently satisfied that the crisis had been resolved.
Then he turned toward Rossi with complete seriousness.
tags: MDNI smut, fem!reader, piv (from da backkk), oral (m!receiving), cute sickening stuff, porn little plot (i wish there was more plot tbh)
a/n: what is up siriuslylantsov nation. long time no see… i'm not entirely sure if i like this but i haven't posted in ages and wanted to do something. im also rewatching cm rn so spencers being extra annoying on da brain. this is genuinely from last april but i rewrote most of it so its new #ToMe anywhoooo lmk how you like it and happy reading!!
wc: 2.7k
you’ve never seen him this well rested before. spencer reid devoid of the perpetual dark circles that reside under his eyes, it's a wonder. especially because you slept so late last night. you’ve never had an excuse to let your eyes linger on his features for longer than deemed necessary. but now. you can see him so much better in the morning light, the low curve of his nose, the timid purse of his lips. he's beautiful.
you allow a little pride to bloom under your chin at the thought of you putting spencer to ease and take it as the universe's sign to tuck yourself over his heart. his chest under your cheek is warm, the kind that makes you want to press closer and stay there, wrap your arms around tighter and squeeze. spencer moves before you have the chance.
first, a startled register of his environment and then, a confused glance at the very naked girl draped over his body. his arms come up, hovering, sputtering, and then politely putting his palms over your shoulders. nudging you to look up at him.
jesus christ, those eyes.
“hi.”
so quiet. “hey, handsome.”
he lets out a long, contemplative sigh, thinking, thinking, thinking. when does this guy ever stop thinking? “we kissed,” he says it like a fact, but with questioning lilt that makes it sound otherwise.
you prop an elbow on the bed, joint wedged into the space above his shoulder so you can see him better. the blanket keeping you decent slips a bit and spencer unconsciously tucks it more securely under your arm. you catalogue that for later.
“we did a lot more than that. forgive me for being untoward but we fucked,” you clarify, innocent with your chin in the heel of your palm.
spencer groans, he groans! “don't be crude.”
“we're naked.”
“i know that,” he murmurs, disgruntled, leaning up to press a chaste kiss to your jaw and falling back into the pillow. you sport an amused little smile when you see the pout on his lips.
you slept with spencer reid.
your coworker, your friend, the man you’d been terribly smitten with for who knows how long (7 months and 3 days.)
spencer reid who lingered by your side for hours last night, unassuming, unbothered, who smiled softly at your wine induced flush whenever he’d lean in to hear you better, who sat with you while you tipped your chin up at the sky to point out stars and asked him to name them, who pressed a sobering kiss to your lips in rossi's backyard after a clumsily delivered compliment.
you’re so pretty.
your response is a blur, forgotten, but you do remember how he drove you home with his hand idly playing with your fingers over the center console. how he tried but inevitably failed to be a gentleman as you led him up to your apartment, shared, hushed giggles echoing down the hallway and quite gracefully falling into bed leaving a very telling breadcrumb trail of clothes.
and now, half a second of thought passes on whether you should ask him or surprise him. the latter wins and you dip down and kiss the corner of his mouth. you’re not evil, he deserves some warning before you really plant one on him. he wastes no time, bringing his lips to yours with those big hands cradling your face.
his lips press against yours gingerly in a sweet, lingering kiss, followed by another and another. mouth slotted over yours, like perfect puzzle pieces, his tongue traces the seam of your lips and you grant him entrance, letting him gently lick into your mouth. you let out a small, needy sound at the warmth of his tongue against yours, melting into him. it makes him chuckle quietly.
“spence,” you gasp against his lips.
a subtle shudder makes its way down his spine at the desperation in your voice, the same need slowly fogging up his own brain, remnants of last night catching up.
“i know, angel,” he cups your neck, what is happening?
“can i admit something?”
spencer smiles at you, boyish and stupid spread across his face, “please do.”
“you kiss nice, had i known you were this good of a kisser i would’ve done it ages ago,” you mumble, forcing words out to keep a sliver of your dignity.
he laughs again, a small pleased sound that makes you feel good. “you do too. you are wildly better than anything i have ever imagined–”
“you’ve imagined me?” you turn timid in a way that you hate but spencer kisses you and it melts away.
“of course i have. you’re wonderful.”
spencer pulls your leg over his and sits the two of you up, thighs bracketing his hips. the blanket falls unabashedly into the space between your bodies, pooled dangerously low over his lap. you thank whatever god there is for the enticing view of the scattering of light hair that trails beneath the covers.
you’re surprised with the ease in which spencer's hands drag down your sides, like he's done it a million times before. he pushes the pads of his thumbs into the area above your hipbone like he knows you’ll twitch when he does, and you do. damn his eidetic memory and damn his perfect mouth when he attaches his lips to your jaw, angling you as he lightly works the skin. he's careful enough not to leave a mark somewhere visible but it doesn't stop him from reminding himself he can do it elsewhere, somewhere more concealed.
“pretty girl,” he coos, kissing over your pulse point, below your ear, “lay back, please.” please. he murmurs against your skin, nodding behind you. he pecks your cheek, rather sweetly considering your state of undress and swiftly returns to your neck like he can’t believe he pulled away.
now wait.
you forget about your own hands through all of this, hanging limply over his right shoulder and heavy by your side. you thread your fingers into his hair and path something more devious for the other. spencer jolts when your fingertips graze over his cock, you’d think he’d expect it but he reacts like it's completely sudden. it scares you momentarily, were you too forward? but then he looks at you with something beggy and glazed over in his eyes and it motivates you to ease the shelter of the blanket fully off, baring him.
spencer pinks, tips of his ears to the top of his chest. you inch off his lap and sit in front of him. you watch the features in his face twist into realisation and cut him off before he can say something polite, "i wanna taste you, spence.”
you’ve stunned spencer reid. for the first time in his fucking life he doesn’t know what to say. so he pushes out a, “yeah? fuck, okay. yeah.” an embarrassing stutter of words but it's enough to reassure you.
a firm finger pokes him square in the chest, not so hard that it hurts but enough to have him lean back against the headboard. he follows dutifully, letting the pillows take him, allowing him some semblance of solid ground beneath him. because he's convinced he might pass out at the sight of you settling between his outstretched legs, looking sinfully unaware of just how much you affect him.
although the effect itself becomes glaringly obvious when his cock twitches, two pairs of eyes darting down immediately. you can't tell if he's bigger than what you remember from last night, but you do know that you want him in your mouth immediately.
your head dips down, a slow hand curling around the base of his length, guiding it to your lips. the head, flushed and red, meets soft and plush, a light kiss against him. and spencer thinks he might die. your lips part, taking the tip into your mouth, tongue laving against his slit. your eyes flutter shut when a bead of precum settles over your tastebuds, slightly salty. you glide down, the weight of him in your mouth is deliriously good.
at some point between drawing back and swirling your tongue around his tip, spencer tangles his hands in your hair. fingertips soft over your scalp, he doesn't push, just holds you. your head bobs down again, forming a steady rhythm. your eyes start to water when he nudges at the back of your throat, breath faltering as the hair low on his stomach begins to tickle your nose. he immediately pulls you off with a gentle hand fixed to your jaw.
“you don’t have to do it all.” the concern in his eyes is sickening as he wipes off the saliva smeared to the corner of your mouth. you smile at him, a little sheepish, tilting into his palm. “i know.”
you press a kiss to his wrist and return to the task at hand, cock standing proud over his abdomen and possibly redder than when you left it. you lean down, letting a little dribble of spit fall from your lips to his length. decidedly, you wrap your fingers around him, letting the saliva act as a lubricant. you press a thumb to a vein running along the side of his cock, tracing it with every up and down of your hand. he lets out a shuddering exhale in response.
you hope the look you give him is sultry at best, you don't know that his vision is starting to blur at the corners when your head dips down again. only to mouth at the tip this time, a sloppy makeout around the flushed head as your hand continues to work at the rest of him.
“god, angel. you’re so-” he cuts himself off with a moan when your wrist twists. “so good at that.”
you let the words get to your head, a burning heat that creeps up your neck. emboldened, you take more of him into your mouth, hollowing out your cheeks as you go. spencer can't help the way his hips buck up and you almost gag again. you pull off with a breathless giggle, wiping your mouth while spencer regards you with that same sickening concern, except now there's guilt in his comforting touch when he inspects your face. he doesn’t find this funny at all.
you hold his wrist as you laugh again and put on your most reassuring voice, "i'm okay.”
a skeptical purse of his lips. you gravitate forward, pressing a kiss to his jaw. “i promise,” you whisper, followed by a nip at his skin. it elicits a gasped sound from the depths of his chest.
he pulls you into a kiss, relishing in the ever so slight taste of him on your lips as he turns the two of you around, you let him lay you down this time. the moment feels kismet when his fingers trail lower. one hand keeping him propped up and the other parting your folds. you're unbelievably wet, the lingering effects of last night and spencer on your tongue leaving you as much.
“oh, spencer.” your hips rise to his touch when he dips a finger into your entrance and he's immediately determined to make you say his name like that again. the way you gush around him as his finger curls up allows him to add another one to the mix. you think he’s ruined you forever with how fast the peak builds, a heavy, honey-like pressure pushing down on your stomach as his fingers move, relentless between your thighs. you stop him before he can put his thumb to your clit with an urgent gasp, knowing that if you come now you won’t be able to keep going, “fuck me.” swallow, “please.”
spencer pulls his fingers out, kissing your chin when your head tips back at the emptiness. he can't help the tug at the corner of his lips, eyes possibly filled with too much affection when your thighs give a needy squeeze around his hips. “i got you,” he whispers, pulling you closer with two firm hands at your hips.
he pushes in, and it's an easy fit, you’ve been ready for what feels like forever. but where he lacks in overwhelming thickness he makes up for in length so it truly just keeps going. your hands brace at his side when he finally bottoms out. “i swear you weren’t this big,” you huff against his shoulder, almost exasperated.
spencer laughs, though it skirts the edge of something aching, “ha-ah, you’re boosting my ego, sweetheart.”
“good,” you hum, eyebrows pinching when he begins to move. your walls flutter around him, adjusting, you don’t know how you took it last night without his rearranging you from the inside out. “you’re so- feels so good, spence.”
he whines into your neck, the speed of his hips increasing with every subsequent clench around his cock, he doesn’t know if he can handle this much praise. lewd noises fill the room, moans and flush inducing wet squelches echoing off the walls and forming into something tangible between your bodies. it's not enough, something's missing, you need him even closer.
“baby, wait. flip me over.”
baby.
he hesitates before turning your body under his. upon re-entering you, it all clicks into place. you melt in satisfaction, cheek smushed against the pillow with your mouth stupidly hanging open. he gives an experimental roll of his hips, slow and deliberate, hitting places you never deemed possible.
“there?” he asks when you simultaneously mumble an incoherent y-uhuh, there, he lays over you and starts fucking you into the sheets.
his chest molds perfectly to your back, head fitted somewhere between your shoulders with his lips attached to the nape of your neck. he murmurs things, things you can't possibly comprehend with how deep he is, you swear you could feel him in your throat. your hips push back, meeting his thrusts with every persistent plap. sweat blooms. a light sheen everywhere your skin touches him, you feel warm all over. you feel him all over. spencer. spencer. spencer.
spencer snakes a hand under your body with an unwitting amount of familiarity when he starts rubbing circles into your clit
you feel it again, pulsing, a pleasant ringing in your ears that drowns everything out except his voice. “gonna cum for me again? huh, angel? just like last night?” quiet encouragement, awe, tinged with a bit of condescension, it sends sparks down your spine, setting off fireworks between your legs.
your head tips over to his arm, where it's planted beside you on the pillow, to sink teeth into flesh. canines dig into muscle, and if you were any more coherent, you would’ve drawn blood. your scream muffles against him, legs twitching out and shaking under his body, spencer blankets you with a heavy grounding pressure as your orgasm crests. his lips press to your cheek when you look over your shoulder at him, eyebrows imploringly upturned, he follows right after you and he is beautiful.
he slumps, heavy. but the good kind. you welcome the pressure and the closeness for a minute while your breathing evens out. in and out.
“i need to pee, reid."
“oh please, don't call me that when i'm still inside you.”
you laugh into the pillow, shoulders shaking while he pulls out. funny boy. you pull a shirt over your head and watch as spencer stumbles trying to put on his underwear. he trails behind you quietly as you walk into the attached bathroom and pretend to ignore the pout he tries to hide when you close the door.
you feel a little stupid talking to him from the toilet but it makes it somewhat easier to ask him. “can we do this again?” your voice muffles through the wood.
he squeaks something panicked, “i don’t know if i can–”
you push an amused smile into your knuckles, “not now, spencer. at some point, in the near future.”
“yeah?” he asks, sickeningly hopeful. “would you let me take you to dinner first? preferably not at rossi’s house?”
spencer hears the flush and then the door clicks open. you have your hands joined behind your back, he takes a step forward.
“i’d really like that.”
you’ve got an expression on your face that doesn’t warrant a confirmation, still, spencer asks. “yeah?”
you lean forward and kiss him, a few seconds too long. “it’s a date.”
summary: you don’t get sick. you don’t let coworkers into your apartment. and you definitely don’t have vivid, full-body sex dreams about spencer reid. except today, apparently, you do all three.
genre: smut, fluff, hurt/comfort
tags/warnings: reader is elle’s sister, reader has the flu, fever dream but make it a sex dream (p in v, yapper!spencer bc it is canon to me he cant shut up in bed, orgasm denial but not intentional lol), caretaker sweetheart spencer, spencer brushes reader’s hair RAHHH, one bed trope (ig?) but he sleeps in a chair, coffee (+ tea) as a love language, no use of y/n, 18+ MDNI
a/n: I was itchinggg to write smut for them and had to find a way to make it work lmao so here’s how that ended up. & check out greenaway!reader’s apartment moodboard to further immerse yourself in the story. hope you enjoy! xo | GIF credit to @reidgif !
greenaway!reader masterlist 🥀
You never call out of work.
Not for migraines. Not for hangovers. Not even that time you got a black eye on a case and still showed up the next day like you hadn’t been slammed into a brick wall behind a warehouse in Albany.
And you never get sick.
But today? Today, your body mutinies.
You wake with your mouth dry, your throat raw, and your head stuffed with what feels like cotton soaked in battery acid. For a second you think it must be a hangover — but you haven’t had a drink in three days and you’re sweating through your sheets.
You fumble for your phone, knock it to the floor, and groan like someone twice your age as you reach down to grab it. The screen nearly blinds you. 9:17am — over an hour late for work. Six missed calls from Garcia. Three texts from Prentiss. One from Hotch, which you don’t open because if you have to look directly at his disappointment, you might actually die.
You unlock your phone, dial the general BAU line, and hold it to your ear with the back of your hand pressed to your forehead.
“Hey,” you croak into the voicemail box. “It’s Greenaway. I’m—” You cough so hard it short-circuits the sentence. “—dying, I think. I have the plague. Tell Hotch I’m not ditching work on purpose. Actually don’t tell him, I don’t care. I’m going back to sleep. Don’t call me unless someone’s dead.”
You hang up before you can overthink it. You’re not even sure what you just said.
You drop the phone somewhere in the blankets and cocoon yourself back into the twisted mess of sheets. You’re wearing only an old t-shirt — a faded Nirvana logo stretched across the chest, neckline loose and exposing one shoulder — with underwear and nothing else, which is standard sick-day protocol. If you’re going to suffer, you’re going to suffer without pants.
The heat in your body surges and dips like a tide. One second you’re freezing, the next you’re sweating again. You vaguely consider dragging yourself to the kitchen for water, or maybe finding something resembling medicine, but your bones feel like wet concrete.
So instead you close your eyes, and the world slides sideways.
—
You don’t know where you are.
The room doesn’t have walls. Or maybe it does, but they’re soft and golden and out of focus, like lamplight through gauze. You don’t remember how you got here, but none of that matters — not when there’s a body pressed over yours, warm and slow and careful.
He’s already inside you.
That much is clear. You’re full — blissfully, unbearably full — in the way that makes your eyes flutter shut and your throat catch on a moan you can’t quite voice. You arch into the sensation before you even think to name it.
There’s a hand on your hip, gentle but firm, calloused fingers curling like he’s anchoring himself with you. Another brushes up your ribcage and cups your jaw, tilting your face with reverence. His mouth lands on your neck. Your shoulder. Every kiss feels like possession.
You gasp.
His hips move in a steady, delicious rhythm. Deep. Dragging. Each thrust winds tighter around the point of tension buried low in your stomach, and you can feel everything — the stretch, the weight, the friction. The unbearable closeness of him. The way you clench around his cock when he pulls back just enough to make you chase it.
Your mind is moving through molasses, every thought slow and syrupy around the edges. The only thing you can process is the feeling. The sound of his breath. The warmth of his mouth trailing up to your ear.
“I’ve thought about this,” he whispers.
Your heart lurches at the voice. You know that voice. You’ve heard it in briefing rooms, across café tables, in hotel lobbies, on planes. But never like this. Not soaked in heat and hunger. Not vibrating against your throat like he’s memorizing your breathing patterns.
“I’ve thought about how you’d sound,” he murmurs, dragging his lips over your skin like he’s tracing every goosebump. “How you’d taste.”
Your fingers curl in his hair before you even realize they’re moving. It’s soft. Messy. And familiar, because you’ve ruffled it before.
You still haven’t opened your eyes, and you’re not sure you want to.
Because if you do, you’ll see it. You’ll see that it’s him — Spencer Reid, exactly how you’ve never seen him before.
This is ridiculous. You don’t think about him like this. You’ve spent months not thinking about him like this. But little by little — and much to your annoyance — he’s dismantled your armor without even trying. And when your hand touched his a few weeks ago and lingered for a moment too long, something shifted.
So you roll your hips up into him anyway. Your fingers dig in. And you let yourself drown.
“You always smell like cinnamon gum and coffee,” he says, breath hot against your cheek. “And like the record aisle in an old music store. And like your spicy floral perfume. Like something I want to memorize.”
His hips thrust deeper, and your back bows.
You moan — shameless, aching — and he swallows the sound with a kiss that feels nothing like the way you’ve been kissed before. It’s open-mouthed and wet and claiming, but all the while still achingly tender.
You gasp against his lips.
“You don’t ever have to pretend,” he whispers. “Not with me.”
His words slide under your skin, familiar and foreign all at once. He adjusts the angle, shifts his weight and— fuck. You wrap your legs around his waist without thinking, chasing that unbearable friction.
His hand slides up your body and holds you steady as he fucks into you harder, edged with something needier. He’s groaning now, breath ragged in your ear.
“Spencer,” you hear yourself moan. The weight of it slams into you, but you don’t wake.
His name is everywhere. It’s written into your pulse. Into the way your body breaks open for him. Into the way you’re trembling now, close, too close, the whole world narrowing to the ache between your legs and the velvet rasp of his voice.
“I notice things about you,” he breathes. “I know which coffee shop is your favorite. I know when you’re pretending not to be cold. I know how you press your nails into your palm when you’re trying to keep your composure.”
You bite your lip, breath shuddering. Your orgasm is right there — clawing up your spine, hot and overwhelming, threatening to rip you in half.
“I know you think no one sees you,” he says, thrusting once, twice — “but I do. I see all of you.”
You cry out. Nails digging into his shoulder. Hips trembling. Right on the edge, and then—
Knock, knock.
Your eyes slam open. Your body jolts.
And suddenly, you’re alone. Drenched in sweat, heart racing, muscles clenching around nothing. Your chest is still heaving like he was really here — like his hands are still on your body.
Knock, knock, knock.
You sit up in bed, disoriented and flushed, the dream still clinging to your skin. You press your palms to your face, breath shaking.
You don’t know who the hell is at your door. But you know exactly who you just came this close to coming in your sleep for.
Why the fuck would you dream of him like that? Spencer Reid, of all people — with his stupid facts and his twitchy hands and his painfully earnest everything. That is not how you think of him. That’s not what you want.
Or is it?
You groan, dragging your hand down your cheek. You feel like you’re made of wet paper towels and static electricity — shaky, overheated, slick with sweat in places you really don’t want to think about right now. You glance toward the clock. Somehow, it’s already evening. You’ve slept through most of the day. Maybe most of the week; it’s hard to tell.
Another fucking knock.
You roll out of bed with a grunt, legs wobbling. Your t-shirt clings to your damp back, and your panties are—
Nope. Not something you want to think about right now.
You spot the silk lounge shorts you peeled off the night before crumpled near your laundry basket and tug them on with trembling hands.
The knocking doesn’t stop.
“Hold ON,” you rasp, voice raw and barely there.
You nearly trip over your own feet as you stumble down the short hallway towards your door. You’re too disoriented to check the peephole. You just unlock it with clumsy fingers and swing it open.
The man of the hour, Spencer Reid, is standing in the hall holding a crumpled brown paper bag in one hand and a reusable grocery tote in the other. There’s a slightly panicked expression on his face, as if he half-expected you to answer the door with a loaded gun but is somehow more jarred by your current state instead.
“Hey,” he says.
You blink at him. “Am I hallucinating?”
His eyes dart over you — oversized t-shirt hanging off your bare shoulder, zero makeup, flushed skin, hair in a tangled, chaotic knot on top of your head. He visibly swallows.
“You look… comfortable.”
You squint. “Ouch?”
He ducks, stepping inside. “You know what I mean.”
You don’t even try to stop him. That’s how you know you’re sick — really sick. Any other day, you’d have slammed the door in his face after cursing him out just for finding out where you live.
“How the hell did you get my address?”
“I bribed Garcia to pull it from your file for me,” he says without shame. “Cake pop and a plushy for her office. She folded in under ten seconds.”
You groan and walk towards the couch, swaying slightly as the world tilts. “You woke me up,” you mutter, voice rough and thick with sleep. “From a dream.”
He winces. “Sorry,” he says earnestly. “What was it about?”
You freeze.
You should lie. Say something believable about falling, or flying, or your teeth falling out. Anything. But before you can scramble for a cover story, he’s already rambling.
“You know, dreams are often more about emotional state than content,” he says. “I don’t really believe in dream analysis or strict Freudian symbolism, but a lot of people interpret dreams as reflections of unresolved subconscious tension or desires. Wish fulfillment, repressed emotions, that kind of thing. And Jung wrote about—”
“Spencer,” you grumble into the couch cushions.
He pauses mid-sentence. Whether it’s from the interruption or the rare slip of his first name from your lips, you aren’t quite sure.
You blink. “I’m too sick for a lecture right now.”
“Right. Sorry,” he says again sheepishly, stepping further inside. “Occupational hazard,” he adds with a quirk of a smile.
He sets the bags down on your counter and begins unloading items with surgeon-level focus: two different kinds of soup, a sleeve of saltine crackers, an assortment of teabags, ginger ale, cherry cough drops, a small jar of Vicks, extra strength cold & flu medicine, and a pack of those fancy tissues with lotion in them that you secretly really like but would never spend the extra dollar on.
You watch from the couch, arms folded tightly across your stomach. “You do realize I’m contagious, don’t you Dr. Germaphobe?”
“I got my flu shot,” he replies with a shrug. “And I’ve been loading up on electrolytes and immunity-boosting supplements all season.”
You narrow your eyes. “That doesn’t make you invincible.”
“No,” he admits, meeting your gaze with a little half-smile. “I’ll be fine, though. I don’t want you worrying about that.”
That smile. Your heart lurches again — not like in the dream, but close enough to make you nauseous. Or maybe that’s just the fever.
“You shouldn’t be here,” you murmur quietly.
“Probably not,” he agrees, rummaging through your cabinets. “But here I am. Besides, I owe you.”
You drop your head back against the cushions and close your eyes. You can still feel the dream burning through your bloodstream, the weight of his body on your body, the rasp of his voice in your ear.
And now he’s here. In your apartment. Standing in your kitchen and looking like he stepped straight out of your subconscious, only realer. And worse, because he’s not touching you.
“I made your favorite tea,” he says, eventually placing a mug down on the table in front of you.
You crack one eye open. “You don’t know my favorite.”
He lifts one brow. “Orange blossom with honey. One ice cube so you don’t burn your tongue. Right?”
You stare at him.
“Right,” you mumble. “That’s… mildly disturbing.”
“I told you, I notice things.”
Those words sizzle with memories — both real and imagined.
He hands you the mug and your fingers brush his for a fraction of a second. Suddenly, the dream flashes in the back of your mind like lightning. Ignore, ignore, ignore.
You sip slowly, and after he brings you the soup and crackers, he sits beside you — not too close, not too far. You eat quietly, and he doesn’t talk. Just lets the low hum of a Cranberries record fill the room. You’re not sure when he put it on, or why he put it on, but it makes everything feel… softer.
Eventually, once your bowl is empty, he takes it without a word and rinses it in your sink. You watch, dazed, as he wipes down your cluttered coffee table, carefully scoops your wilted tissue pile into the trash, and folds the fuzzy blanket you’d kicked onto the floor during a hot flash. He doesn’t say a word about any of it — just does it, and you’re too weak to protest. Too bewildered to stop him. And maybe too grateful, also.
When he finishes tidying, he rummages in your purse (which normally you’d slap him for, but again… too weak) and pulls out a battered deck of playing cards. You blink at him.
“Go Fish?” he offers, holding them up like a peace treaty.
You snort, then cough. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not,” he says, already shuffling. “You’re not in any shape for something more mentally complex.”
You laugh, which turns into another cough, which turns into another laugh, cough, laugh. He smiles again — small, but real — as he deals the cards out between you.
It’s silly. Mindless. Totally ridiculous. You’re losing horribly because you keep zoning out and losing track of your cards mid-turn, and you think he’s trying to let you win anyway. You accuse him of cheating at least twice, and at one point, he slides a tissue toward you without breaking eye contact and says, “You need this.” You throw a pillow at him in embarrassed rage and immediately regret the exertion.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, it stops feeling weird that he’s here. It just feels like Spencer.
Time blurs again. You’re not sure how long it’s been. Long enough that his tea’s gone cold and the sun’s long since disappeared beneath the horizon. Your sentences stopped making sense about three sneezes ago — you’d exhausted all of your remaining capacity for coherence on the card game.
He glances toward the darkened window and clears his throat.
“Do you need anything else?” he asks — quiet now, a little more hesitant. The question hovers, and it’s clear he’s about to stand up and the spell’s about to break.
You stare at him for a second. You could —should — say no and just let him go.
But your head is pounding, and your skin feels wrong, and your hair— your hair is a fucking nightmare.
And… you’re not quite ready for him to leave.
You blink once. Then again. And say, voice cracking, “Brush.”
He tilts his head. “What?”
You nod toward the bedroom weakly. “Hairbrush. Vanity drawer.”
His brow furrows. “You want me to—?”
You nod again, weaker this time. “Please. Hurts. Too tangled.”
There’s a long pause. You think maybe he’s going to say no, make an excuse to leave.
But instead, you zone back into reality when you hear the faint creak of your bedroom door opening. The sound of a drawer. A rustle.
Soft footsteps approach again and you feel the couch cushions dipping with his weight beside you once more. You turn so your back is facing him and let your shoulders slump.
When his fingers slide into your hair to take out the bun on top of your head, you shiver.
He works gently. Carefully. Letting your tresses fall loose, starting at the ends and slowly detangling. It’s the kind of physical tenderness you’re not used to — not from yourself, not from anyone, and most definitely not from him.
You pretend you’re too feverish to notice how good it feels. But the truth is, you notice. God, do you notice.
You lean back slightly into the touch without meaning to. Your arm brushes his leg next to you on the couch. And then — for just a second — his hand rests on the crook of your neck.
Right there.
Right where his mouth — his lips, his tongue, his teeth — had been in the dream.
Your whole body goes still. Your breath catches.
The touch is innocent. Innocuous. Nothing about it is deliberate.
But still, it makes something snap behind your ribs.
You pull away, standing so quickly it makes you dizzy. “I should go lie back down.”
He blinks up at you, brush still in hand. “Right. Of course.”
You don’t look at him — you can’t. You shuffle down the hall, crawl back into bed, and bury yourself in blankets that feel a little too hot now. You expect to hear the front door click shut any second.
But he doesn’t leave. And a few minutes later, you hear the soft creak of the armchair in your room.
You lift your head and see Spencer curled up in it, long legs folded awkwardly. Watching you. Guarding, maybe. Or just refusing to go.
“I won’t stay much longer,” he promises, half-apologetic. “Just… until you fall asleep.”
Your throat is thick. You’re too tired to protest. “Okay.”
You close your eyes.
And when you wake sometime in the middle of the night, your fever a few degrees lower and the dream faded just enough to dull the ache, you realize he’s still there.
Asleep. Slouched in the chair. Mouth slightly open. One hand twitching faintly, as if he’s dreaming too.
Something about the sight presses warm against your ribs and bubbles up in your chest. You make a failed attempt to push that feeling back down before you get up and grab a blanket from your closet, draping it gently over his body.
You don’t say a word, but you do watch him for a second longer than necessary.
Then you crawl back into bed and let yourself sleep.
—
You’re back at work the next morning.
You’re still pale, still a little unsteady, but the fever finally broke sometime around dawn, and that’s good enough.
Your Doc Martens echo against the floor in the quiet corridor as you push through the glass doors of the BAU. You nod at an agent you don’t know in the bullpen, ignore the slight burn behind your eyes, and keep your pace steady.
It’s only when you reach your desk that you falter.
There’s a coffee cup waiting there.
Not the usual office brew. This one’s from your favorite place — the overpriced café three blocks away. There’s a sleeve around the cup as always, with a doodle scrawled in ink across the cardboard: a fish with Xs for eyes and a crooked crown. A half-assed tribute to the Go Fish massacre of the night before.
A pair of initials are scribbled beneath it, as if you didn’t already know who’d left it there:
-S.R.
Your throat goes tight.
You glance across the bullpen and find him already watching you. Spencer looks away fast, like he hadn’t meant to be caught. Like he hadn’t just pulled your subconscious apart twelve hours ago and stitched it back together with soup and cherry cough drops. Like he hadn’t slept in a chair in your bedroom and disappeared silently before your alarm went off.
You pick up the cup and walk over before you can overthink it.
He pretends not to notice you approaching until you’re close enough for him to smell the faint trace of your shampoo.
You lean your hip against his desk as you hold up the coffee and tap the sleeve with your finger. “This some kind of warning? Sleep with one eye open, the Go Fish King rises again?”
His mouth twitches into a grin. “You’re the one who stole all my jacks.”
“Stole? Please. I don’t cheat at children’s card games.”
“You cheat at everything,” he says, bemused.
You don’t argue. You just look at him — really look — and for a second, the room tilts. Or maybe you do.
The echo of his imaginary mouth on your skin hums through your nerves like static. You see the flash of his hand on your neck. The dream crashing over you again in a strange, hot wave.
You clear your throat and take a long sip of coffee, trying to shake the memory.
“I needed this,” you say finally. “Thanks.”
His expression shifts, surprised to hear that word from your lips. “You’re welcome.”
You pause and let your gaze flick up to his — steady and too soft — then back to the cup in your hand.
“That whole Florence Nightingale act yesterday…” You hesitate, words sticking. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know. But I figured it was my turn, after the bandaid thing.”
You glance at him again. He’s watching you carefully, like he’s trying not to spook you.
“I’m glad you did,” you admit quietly.
Something flashes in his eyes — not surprise, not quite. More like relief and gratitude and something else that makes your stomach twist.
You look away before it can settle.
“But don’t go getting any ideas about me being some helpless damsel in distress,” you add, deflecting. “I had a 101 degree fever and wasn’t myself. I don’t even remember most of it—”
That’s a lie. You remember all of it.
“—so if I said or did anything weird, you legally can’t hold it against me.”
Then you turn, raise the coffee cup a little in a half-assed sarcastic cheers motion, and head back to your desk before he can respond.
You don’t look back.
But you can feel him watching you, just like in the dream. Only this time, you’re awake. This time, it’s real. And that might be the most disorienting part of all.
You settle in, fingers curling around the cup as you slip off the cardboard sleeve and slide it discreetly into your desk drawer.
The coffee is still hot, the dream is still lodged under your skin, and your body remembers his far too well.
It never happened. It wasn’t real. But you think about his voice, low and wrecked, whispering little things into your neck.
You think about the real parts, too. The way he ran your brush through your tangled hair. The way he stayed all night. The way he looked at you like you were something worth noticing. The way you can’t seem to scare him off.
And for a moment — just one — you wonder what it would feel like to stop pretending you don’t want him.
Wait. What?
Nope. Must be the fever talking again.
ᝰ.ᐟ
PSA: likes do very little for promoting posts on tumblr! if you'd like to support a fic, please reblog!
this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can find more fics like it & read more about this pairing here ♥️
summary - When a series of horrifying, ritualistic murders draws the BAU into the insular, rain-drenched swamp town of Blackwood Creek, you and Spencer Reid find yourselves untangling a twisted web of 19th-century religious belief and local paranoia. But when the unsub singles you out as his ultimate "unclean" offering, the case turns personal. Trapped in a race against the storm, a burning chapel, and a killer obsessed with purification, Reid is forced to face his worst nightmare, and realize just how far he’ll go to pull you out of the dark.
word count - 5.8k
content warning - fem!bau!reader, religious horror, a lot of Levitican purity stuff, murder obviously, ritualistic cleansing, descriptions of chemical burns, kidnapped reader, hurt/comfort, misogyny, s2 characters... i think that's it let me know if i missed anything :)
St. Jude, a chapel whose pine floorboards had buckled into wave-like ridges from decades of swamp water, the air was thick with the suffocating reek of burning tallow. Dozens of hand-poured candles, rough-hewn and dripping with dirty yellow lard, flickered along the altar, casting long, feverish shadows across the decayed walls. At the center of the damp gloom lay Mary-Anne Miller.
She had been stripped of her modern jeans and threadbare canvas sneakers, discarded and left in a crumpled pile by the rotting doorframe. In their place, her cold, rigid limbs were shrouded in a coarse, unbleached linen gown that scraped against her skin like sandpaper. Her body bore the red, blistering chemical burns of lye and sulfur, a violent attempt to scorch away the perceived filth of the modern world. She had been arranged with meticulous, terrifying reverence upon a hand-carved oak altar, her fingers woven together across her sternum, her dead, unblinking eyes forced wide open to stare through a hole in the collapsed roof toward the thick canopy of weeping willow and moss above. Her killer had offered her up, a corrupted sacrifice framed by a warped, extreme interpretation of Levitical purity laws.
–
When the BAU’s two black SUVs rolled through the rusted iron archway that marked the limits of Oakhaven Fen the heat hit like a wet velvet curtain. The town was an eerie, suspended breath of a bygone era. Women in ankle-length, dark cotton dresses stood on porches, their hair bound tightly in severe knots, watching the government vehicles with eyes devoid of warmth. Men in sweat-stained linen shirts and braces paused their work, their faces hard and lined like dry riverbeds. There were no brightly coloured signs, no radios playing or any sound except the heavy thrum of cicadas. The atmosphere was stale, suffocating, and swaddled in an isolationist paranoia that felt less like a rural town and more like a frozen cult compound.
Inside the cramped, wood-paneled Sheriff's station, the team gathered around a weathered oak table. Aaron Hotchner’s jaw was set as he pinned the crime scene photos to a corkboard, while Jason Gideon stood off to the side, his gaze drifting toward the window to watch the silently staring locals outside.
“The local authorities are overwhelmed, but more than that, they’re uncooperative,” Hotch said, his tone low. “They don’t view these girls as victims of a serial predator, but as sinners who brought judgement upon themselves.”
“They’re leaning heavily on Leviticus,” Spencer murmured, his fingers gently tracing the edge of an autopsy photo without touching the burned skin. “Specifically the purity rituals of Leviticus 15, cross-referenced with nineteenth-century holiness movement literature. The use of lye for ritualistic washing, the unbleached linen, it’s an attempt to force a physical state of sinlessness before death. To the unsub, he isn't committing murder. He believes he’s performing an act of mercy.”
“Mercy?” Morgan raised his eyebrows, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, his eyes dark with disgust. “The second girl was nineteen, Reid. She was scrubbed raw while still breathing.”
You stood beside Spencer, your shoulder brushing against his rough, tweed sleeve. You could smell the distinct, comforting scent of his sweet coffee, and fresh cedar that always seemed to cling to him, a stark contrast to the thick, metallic tang of swamp humidity slipping through the screen door. You reached down, adjusting your FBI badge at your hip, acutely aware of the eyes watching you from the front desk, the local deputy hadn’t stopped glaring at your trousers, your badge, or your exposed forearms since you walked in.
“We need to speak to the local spiritual leader,” Gideon said, turning from the window. “A community this closed off doesn’t move without its shepherd.”
That shepherd was Pastor Silas Thorne.
You found him behind the First Covenant Chapel, a whitewashed building whose bell tower leaned slightly toward the swamp. Thorne was a tall, gaunt man with knuckles like gnarled oak roots, and milky blue eyes that never seemed to fully focus. As you, Spencer and Morgan approached, the pastor didn’t pause his work. He continued splitting logs with a heavy iron wedge, the rhythmic thunk echoing through the heavy air.
“You bring the noise of the outside world to the quiet valley,” Thorne said, his voice a deep, gravelly rasp that seemed to vibrate in his chest. He set the axe down and wiped his brow with a graying rag, his eyes lingering on you with a cold, piercing disgust. “A world of corruption. Of loose garments and brazen women.”
“We’re here to find out who tortured and killed Mary-Anne Miller and Sarah Smith, Pastor,” Morgan said, stepping slightly in front of you, his posture radiating a controlled warning. “We’re not interested in a sermon.”
Thorne’s thin lips curled into a mirage of a smile. He looked directly at you, stepping closer until the stench of old tobacco and bitter herbs radiated off him. “The scripture teaches us that the foot of the rebellious woman leads down to death. Those girls… they strayed into the deep woods. They painted their faces, cast off modesty. They tasted the filth of the cities. What befell them was the harvest of the seed they sowed. A righteous cleansing.”
Spencer stepped forward, his tall frame awkward but firm as he subtly shifted himself into Thorne’s line of sight, effectively shielding you behind himself and Morgan. “Leviticus 20:27 speaks of judgement, Pastor, but the early American purity cults of the 1880s warped those passages to justify human sacrifice, a heresy condemned by every major Christian synod of the era. Are you preaching heresy to your congregation, Mr Thorne?”
Thorne’s eyes flicked to Spencer, a sudden, dangerous flash of heat crossing his pale face. “I preach the word, young man. Pure and unrefined. And those who walk in brazen arrogance,” he looked past Spencer’s shoulder towards you again, “will find the fire catches them soonest.”
The hostility only deepened as the afternoon wore on. As the team split up to interview the townspeople, the reception was universally stone cold. Leaving the churchyard behind you, you paired up with Emily to canvas the town’s main dirt thoroughfare, hoping to find anyone willing to speak off the record.
The heat felt thicker now, pressed down by the gray storm clouds gathering on the horizon. The dirt under your boots was soft and powdery, kicking up fine dust that clung to your clothes. As you and Emily walked, the silence of the town felt violent. Doors snapped shut at the sound of your footsteps on the wooden boardwalks.
“Notice how no one here looks us in the eye?” Emily muttered under her breath, her hands tucked casually into her jacket pockets. “It’s not just distrust of federal agents. It’s fear. They’re terrified of stepping out of line.”
“Or terrified of Silas Thorne,” you said, glancing toward an old woman sitting on a porch. The woman snapped her bible shut, spat on the dusty floorboards and ducked inside, locking the door with a loud iron latch. You sighed, turning back to Emily. “He’s a classic narcissist with a messiah complex.”
“He fits the profile,” Emily said, her brow furrowed as she scanned the empty street. “High dominance, absolute control over his flock, deep-seated misogyny masked as following the word of the Lord.”
“Did you see the callus on his thumb?” You asked, Emily shook her head. “That’s from carving. He could easily be the one making those altars. When Spencer called him out on the heresy, he didn’t argue the theology. He made a threat. He stared right at me and talked about fire catching the brazen ones.”
Emily inhaled deeply, her voice dropping as two men in sweat-stained shirts crossed the street ahead, staring at your badges with open malice. “He wants to punish women who break his mold. The victims were trying to leave Oakhaven. Thorne couldn’t let them take his authority away. Killing them, cleansing them… it re-establishes his total control over the town.”
You approached a small library, stepping up onto the porch. An elderly man sweeping the wooden steps immediately stopped, clutching his broom like a weapon. “Excuse me, sir,” you said gently, holding up your badge. “We’re investigating the deaths of Sarah Smith and Mary-Anne Miller. Did you notice anyone near the old chapel-”
“A foolish woman seeketh her own destruction,” the man interrupted, his voice cracking like dry leaves. He glared past you, his eyes locking onto Emily, then sliding down to your badge. “Pastor Thorne warned us the pestilence would wear the skin of pride. The Lord sees your unbowed heads. You tread on holy ground with filth on your soles.”
“Sir, two young women from your town were murdered,” Emily pressed, taking a half-step forward, her voice hardening. “A killer is walking these streets.”
“The killer is the sin inside them!” The man spat, slamming the broom down onto the porch with a crack that made it vibrate. He leaned in, his yellowed eyes wild and unblinking. “The Pastor spoke the truth from the pulpit on Sunday. The judgement shall scrub the land until the flesh is white as wool. You keep walking these roads, girl, and you’ll find yourself lying on the altar right alongside them.”
He backed into the library and slammed the heavy oak door in your faces, throwing the deadbolt on with a heavy clunk. You and Emily stood on the porch for a moment, the heavy silence settling over you again.
“Charming,” Emily muttered. “They’re totally indoctrinated. Thorne has them convinced that these murders are divine interventions.”
“He’s feeding them the exact rhetoric used at the crime scenes,” you said. “The lye, the linen, the white wool… Thorne isn’t just preaching this stuff, Emily. He’s weaponising it. He’s directing the violence.”
You reached the steps of an old carpenter’s workshop. Inside, the air was cooler than the heat outside, but it carried a different kind of heaviness, stale, thick with the scent of unrefined lard and cedar shavings. As you and Emily stepped over the threshold, a bell clinked dully above the door. Sitting at a low workbench in the corner, illuminated only by the tim, sickly yellow light filtering through a dust-crusted window, was a man with narrow shoulders and hollow, sunken cheeks. He was working with a heavy drawknife, peeling long, smooth curls of pale wood from a block of solid oak. His movements were smooth, practiced, and rhythmically quiet.
"Excuse us," Emily said, her tone professional, though her eyes immediately swept the quiet room. "FBI. We're looking to ask a few questions."
The man didn't jump. He didn't even drop his knife. He simply slowed his hand, letting the steel blade rest against the raw wood, before slowly raising his head. His eyes were a muted, clouded blue, wide and strangely unblinking.
"Mmm," he hummed. His voice was shockingly soft, almost gentle, contrasting sharply with the harsh, rasping venom of the other townspeople. "You shouldn't be out in this heat. The air is sour today. It turns things."
You stepped forward, your boots clicking softly on the floorboards. "We're investigating the deaths of Sarah Smith and Mary-Anne Miller. We're asking if anyone saw anything unusual near the old chapel grounds over the last few days."
At the mention of Sarah's name, the man's fingers tightened just slightly on the wooden handles of his blade, the knuckles turning white.
"Sarah was a fragile girl," he said, his tone flat, devoid of grief, yet laced with a peculiar, unsettling reverence. "Her mind was easily clouded by the weeds of the road. People think she was lost... but she isn't lost anymore. She’s at peace now."
You narrowed your eyes, taking in his physical presence. His shirt was a plain, unbleached cotton, tucked neatly into rough canvas trousers, but his hands were deeply stained, grimy slate-gray around the cuticles, the skin dry and cracking from harsh chemicals.
"You knew her well?" you asked, taking a careful step closer to his workbench.
"I'm her brother. Eli," he said simply. He didn't offer a hand, nor did he look away from you. His gaze drifted down from your eyes, lingering on the open collar of your shirt, then down to the leather holster at your hip. "Sarah used to wear bright things. Red ribbons. Blue glass beads. She thought they made her pretty. But bright things only attract the rot, don't they?"
A prickle of cold discomfort traced its way up the back of your neck. Unlike Pastor Thorne, who radiated loud, theatrical hostility, Eli radiated a deep, hollow stillness that felt far more dangerous.
"Eli, if you know anything about who hurt your sister, you need to tell us," Emily said, her posture shifting subtly as she read the odd energy in the room. "We want to catch the person responsible."
Eli let out a faint, breathy sound, a shadow of a laugh that barely made it past his lips. He picked up a handful of fresh oak shavings from his lap, letting them spill slowly through his rough fingers like coarse sand.
"Man doesn't hurt what God cleanses, Lady," Eli said softly, his eyes locking back onto yours. The intensity in his gaze was terrifyingly calm. "The river washes the mud from the stone. Is the river hurting the stone? No. It’s just making it white again. Preparing it for the sun."
He reached out with a thumb, gently touching a drop of raw, milky sap oozing from the carved wood, rubbing it between his stained fingers.
"You're very loud," Eli added, his voice dropping to a near-whisper as he stared at you. "The way you walk. The metal on your belt. You carry so much weight from the outside world. It must be very heavy... carrying all that rot around on your skin."
The hair on your arms stood straight up. He didn’t raise his voice, or quote scripture, there was no overt threat, just an absolute, unshakeable certainty in his hollow eyes that made your chest tighten with an instinctual warning.
"We're done here for now," Emily said sharply, her hand hovering near her belt as she picked up on the sudden, toxic atmosphere. She placed a subtle hand on your shoulder, gently pulling you back a half-step. "If you think of anything else, Eli, you let the Sheriff know."
Eli didn't answer. He simply picked up his drawknife again, setting the steel blade against the white oak.
As you turned to exit, you could feel his clouded blue eyes tracking your every move, watching the sway of your dark trousers and the flash of your badge until the screen door clicked shut behind you.
Out on the porch, Emily rubbed her temples, exhaling a long breath. "Lovely town. That guy was creepy, but Thorne is still our primary. He’s feeding them the exact rhetoric used at the crime scenes, he’s directing the violence. We need to get Hotch to pull his records."
"I'm with you," you said, trying to shake the lingering feeling of Eli's stare. "If Thorne isn't holding the lye brush himself, he's holding the leash."
“She walks in the attire of a harlot,” a woman with sunken cheeks hissed at you from a garden gate, her fingers clutching a wooden rosary so tightly her knuckles were white. “The storm is coming to wash the plague. You’d do well to strip yourself of your pride before the wood takes you too.”
You swallowed thickly, the warning seeming more like a threat. Emily took your elbow, guiding you away towards the street corner where the rest of the agents were gathering. “Ignore her.”
–
By late afternoon, the sky had turned a bruised, unnatural purple. The air pressure dropped so violently it made your ears pop. Seeking shelter from the rising wind, you and Spencer slipped into the porch of an abandoned general store at the edge of the woods. The wind rattled the loose tin roof above, creating a metallic roar that cut off the rest of the world. Rain began to fall in massive, heavy sheets, turning the dirt road into a churn of red mud.
You leaned your back against the weathered wood, exhaling a long, shuddering breath. “I don’t like it here, Spence.”
Spencer turned to face you, adjusting his leather messenger bag strap over his shoulder. The dim, violet light of the storm caught the softer angles of his face. His eyes watched your fingers, picking at the skin around your nails. You were usually strong, these cases rolled off your back, but Spencer noticed the shift in your demeanor. He reached out, hesitating for a fraction of a second, before his long fingers gently touched your forearm, right where the cold air had raised goosebumps on your skin.
“They’re living in a shared delusional system,” he said softly, his voice a quiet, grounding anchor amidst the howling wind. “It’s a defensive mechanism against the isolation and decay of the geography, but… You don’t have to listen to them.” He pushed, his brown eyes searching yours with an earnest, vulnerable intensity that made your heart skip a beat. “You’re strong, and you’re brilliant, and your presence here is saving lives. Don’t let them make you forget that.”
You looked up at him, the wind catching his hair, blowing a strand across his forehead. You gently reached up to move the curl back behind his ear, a faint blush creeping up his neck at the contact. “Thanks, Spence.” You said softly as your thumb moved to gently trail across his cheekbone, making his breath hitch as the pad of your thumb brushed underneath his eye. “Don’t know what I’d do out here without you.”
His eyes softened into something tender, his head tilting into your touch for a moment, his mouth opened to say something more, his lips parting, an unguarded look in his eyes. A massive clap of thunder ruined the moment, shaking the very boards beneath your feet.
“We should get back to the station,” Spencer said reluctantly, looking out at the sheet of gray rain as your hand fell from his face. “Hotch wants us to regroup before the roads flood entirely.”
–
The atmosphere at the station felt like a held breath, Spencer stepped in, holding the door for you when you paused. He turned to face you when the weight of the door didn’t ease on his hand. “What is it?”
“I left my notebook in the unit by the cemetery,” you said, already turning back to the steps. “Go ahead, I’ll be two minutes.”
“I’ll come with you,” he insisted immediately.
“It’s twenty yards, Spence,” you offered him a small reassuring smile. “I think I can handle a puddle.”
He hesitated, watching you for a second longer before nodding. “Two minutes. I’m counting.”
You darted off the porch, shielding your head with your jacket as you ran toward the lone SUV parked near the ancient, moss draped iron fence of the cemetery. The rain was deafening, blinding. You pulled open the passenger door, reaching across the console to grab the leather-bound logbook, and stepped back out into the rain.
You couldn’t hear the footsteps over the roar of the storm.
A heavy, burlap sack reeking of lye, stagnant water and old tallow was shoved violently over your head. Before you could draw in a breath to scream, a pair of thick, iron-strong arms pinned your elbows to your sides. A rag soaked in a sweet, suffocating chemical was slammed against your nose and mouth. You thrashed wildly, driving your heel back into your attacker’s shin, but the fumes invaded your lungs instantly, turning your limbs to lead and spinning the dark, stormy sky into complete blackness.
–
“You’re alone.” Hotch glanced behind Spencer as he waited for you to make your entrance. There was a silence that hung heavy over Spencer’s head, one that was thick with regret. “I told you all specifically to not walk around alone.” He said, keeping his eyes on Spencer as he moved around him to push open the heavy wooden door to the tempest outside. Morgan followed.
The driver's side door of the secondary vehicle was hanging wide open. The sight stilled them, Spencer followed out, his chest already twisting with guilt.
Your notebook was lying in a puddle on the red dirt, its pages rapidly drinking in the muddy rain.
Spencer called out your name as he rushed into the rain, his voice instantly tightening with panic as he sprinted toward the car.
Silence, save for the violent roar of the wind through the cypress trees.
He dropped to his knees in the mud, his hands hovering frantically over your dropped radio and the fresh tread marks of a heavy, rusted farm truck spinning out into the dirt road. "Hotch! Morgan!" Spencer’s scream ripped through his throat, raw and terrified, barely recognisable as his own. "HOTCH!"
Within seconds, the BAU descended into chaotic, furious motion.
Inside the makeshift command post at the Sheriff's station, maps were slammed onto tables. Hotchner was on the satellite phone, his voice dripping with controlled, lethal authority as he demanded state police air support, despite the storm grounding most helicopters. Morgan slammed his fists down onto a wooden desk so hard a water glass shattered, his eyes bloodshot and wild as he paced the room like a caged predator.
"She’s been gone twenty minutes!" Morgan roared, turning on the local Sheriff, who sat quietly sipping coffee in the corner. "You have deputies on these roads! How does a giant government SUV get breached and an Agent dragged off without a single one of your men seeing it?!"
"The storm's heavy, Agent," the Sheriff drawled, unfazed. "Things go missing in the Fens when the water rises."
Morgan grabbed the front of the Sheriff's uniform collar, hauling the older man out of his chair until they were nose to nose. "You listen to me, you corrupt son of a bitch. If anything happens to her, there isn't a holy law in this swamp that's gonna protect you from me."
"Morgan! Back off!" Hotch commanded, grabbing Morgan's shoulder and forcibly pulling him back, though Hotch’s own eyes were burning with a cold, terrifying rage. "Threatening him doesn't find her. Reid, where are we?"
Spencer was standing over the topographic map of the county, his long fingers trembling so violently he had to press them flat against the paper to steady himself. His breathing was shallow, his hyper-analytical mind spinning into an agonising loop of worst-case scenarios and brutal timelines.
"The chemical used on the previous victims was a mixture of industrial lye and sulfur," Spencer stammered, his voice tight and raspy. "It takes... It takes approximately forty-five minutes to prep the ritualistic washing. If he follows the exact Levitical timeline of the previous two victims, he won't attempt the final offering until midnight... but the chemical burns... the lye destroys skin tissue within fifteen minutes of application..."
"Reid, breathe," JJ said gently, placing a hand on his back. Her own face was pale, tears pricking the corners of your eyes, but she kept her voice steady. "We are going to find her. Think. What is the profile telling us?"
"We were wrong," Gideon declared suddenly, stepping into the center of the room from the front window, his hands clasped tightly behind his back.
The room went dead silent.
Spencer whipped his head around, hair plastered to his forehead by rain and sweat. "What? Why? He matches the dominant profile, he threatened her-"
"Thorne is a narcissist, he wants an audience," Gideon said firmly, pointing toward the window where Pastor Thorne was currently standing on the church steps across the street, calmly watching the storm. "Look at him. He’s enjoying the chaos. He preaches on the porch, he confrontationally defends his doctrine because he craves power over the living. But this offender is covert. He operates in the deep shadows of the flood zones. He doesn't want power over a living congregation, he wants to present dead, immaculate offerings to God."
"Thorne is the catalyst. The spark," Hotch realised, his jaw tightening. "The unsub is someone who lives in absolute, total submission to the doctrine, someone who thinks he's the unseen, humble instrument."
"Eli Smith," Emily breathed.
Spencer’s eyes widening as a cascade of facts locked into place. "Sarah’s brother! You talked to him…”
Emily nodded gravely. “He works for the parish drainage board, he knows every abandoned structure in the swamp. He’s a woodworker. He built the oak altars. He has access to the carpenter's shop, the lye, the unbleached linen...He wasn't acting out of grief," Emily said, her hands flying to her mouth as horror dawned on her face. "When we interviewed him, he spoke about Sarah like she was... like she was clean now… He looked at her clothes, her belt... he said she was carrying rot on her skin."
"He's consecrating them," Spencer whispered, a tear finally spilling over his lash line. "He thinks he's saving her. Where would he take her? Where is the highest, most isolated consecrated ground?"
He slammed his hand down on the map, his thumb hovering over a faded blue landmark buried deep in the green expanse of the marsh. "The old sunken chapel. St. Jude's in the Fens is already flooded, but there's a twin site built by the same settlement in 1888, the Chapel of the Seven Wounds. It's built on a hill inside the basin. It’s accessible only by the drainage access roads he maintains!"
"Load up," Hotch barked, unholstering his weapon to check the chamber. "We move. Now."
–
Meanwhile, miles away inside the gloom of the Chapel of the Seven Wounds, consciousness returned to you in agonising stages.
The air was heavy with the reek of burning tallow, heat radiating from dozens of candles ringing the hand-carved altar. You opened your eyes to find yourself strapped down, your wrists bound tightly with hemp rope to iron rings embedded in the oak block. You were stripped of your clothes, wearing the same unbleached linen gown as the other victims. The lye paste already smeared across your neck and collarbone bit into your skin like hundreds of hot needles.
Eli Smith towered over you, his eyes wide with a terrifying, ecstatic devotion as he carefully mixed a bowl of white chemical paste with a wooden spoon.
"You're awake," Eli murmured softly, setting the bowl beside your head. "Good. The soul must be present for the scrubbing. It loses its grace if the body sleeps."
"Eli..." you gritted out, forcing your voice through the chemical haze in your lungs. You looked up at him, focusing on keeping his attention locked on you, trying to buy every second possible. "Eli, listen to me. Your sister... Sarah... she didn't want this. She loved you. You don't have to carry out Silas Thorne's sickness."
Eli’s face contorted violently, a sudden, blinding rage flashing in his pale eyes before vanishing back into hollow calm. "Do not speak his name in this holy place. Pastor Thorne is a hypocrite. He talks of judgment, but he is weak, He lets the rot walk the streets. He let Sarah buy tickets for the bus. He let her laugh in the square."
"So you killed her to keep her from leaving?" you asked, gasping as a drop of lye splashed onto your shoulder.
"I saved her!" Eli said, leaning over you, his breath sour and hot against your face. "I washed her clean before the city could put its black marks on her soul. I placed her spotless before the throne… And now... now He gave me you. The boldest one. The one who carries the gun and speaks with the voice of men."
He picked up the boar-bristle brush, soaking it in the thick lye solution. "When I am finished scrubbing you, you will be white as wool. They will find you, and they will see what true purity looks like."
You pulled against the ropes with all your strength, the coarse fibers tearing into the skin of your wrists, blood slicking the wood.
"Let the men come," Eli whispered serenely, bringing the bristled brush down hard against your exposed neck.
You screamed as the caustic paste seared through your flesh, tears streaming down your face as you fought against the unbearable heat.
"Scour the stain!" Eli began to chant, his voice rising over the howling storm outside as he scrubbed violently. "Scour the flesh until the spirit shines!"
"FBI! Don't move!" Hotch's voice boomed through the high-vaulted, burning room.
Eli froze, his wide eyes turning toward the entrance. Through the haze of candle smoke and rising heat, you saw Morgan and Hotch with their weapons drawn, taking point, with Gideon right behind. And behind them, his face pale with utter terror, was Spencer.
"Drop the weapon! Put your hands on your head!" Morgan roared, stepping around a cluster of burning tallow candles.
Eli looked down at you, then up at the agents. A sickly, triumphant smile spread across his face. "You cannot stop the consecration!" he said, his voice too calm for the current predicament.
With a sudden, violent sweep of his arm, Eli knocked a heavy iron candelabra containing dozens of open flames off the altar. It crashed into a stack of dry, resin-soaked pine firewood and ancient, dry-rotted velvet pews. The flames took instantly, hungry for oxygen, roaring up the walls in a terrifying wall of fire that completely severed the altar from the chapel entrance.
"Fallback! The roof is going to collapse!" Hotch shouted, grabbing Morgan's vest as a blazing cypress beam crashed down near the entrance, showering the room in sparks. "Reid, stay back!"
Spencer didn't hear him. Or rather, he completely ignored the direct order of his senior agent.
His eyes were locked on you, on your body bound to the oak altar, the red burns on your skin, the raw terror in your eyes as the flames began to lick at the edges of your linen gown.
"Spencer, NO!" Hotch yelled.
Spencer didn't hesitate. He threw his arms over his face and hurled his body directly through the wall of roaring fire.
He crashed onto the burning floorboards on the other side, his tweed jacket catching fire at the hem. He scrambled to his feet instantly, beating out the flames on his sleeve with his bare hands, his eyes wild as he sprinted to the side of the altar.
"I've got you, I've got you," Spencer sobbed out, his voice cracked with raw, unadulterated emotion. He pulled a heavy pocketknife from his trousers, his hands shaking violently as he worked the blade under the thick hemp ropes at your wrists.
Behind him, Eli lunged forward with the heavy iron wedge, his face contorted in rage, but a single shot echoed through the roar of the fire, Morgan had found a narrow angle through the smoke, dropping Eli to the floor.
The hemp rope snapped. You pulled your hands free, instantly reaching up to grab the lapels of Spencer’s singed jacket. He sliced through the ankle bindings in seconds, then gathered you up into his arms, pulling your trembling, chemical-burned body tightly against his chest.
"I have you," he whispered frantically into your wet hair, his body trembling violently against yours as heat roared around you both. "I've got you. You’re okay."
He hoisted you up, carrying your weight with a frantic strength you didn't know he possessed. He carried you through the blinding, choking smoke, dodging falling embers as Morgan and Hotch cleared a path through the burning structural debris, guiding you both out into the torrential, cool deluge of the Mississippi rain.
The air outside felt cold and shockingly pure.
The storm was beginning to pass, the heavy rain washing away the stink of lye and tallow from your skin. Paramedics immediately swarmed the area, placing a thick, warm blanket over your linen gown and tending to the chemical burns on your neck and arms with soothing ointment. Nearby, Eli Smith was being hauled into the back of a state trooper's cruiser in handcuffs, his lips still moving in silent, mad prayers. Pastor Thorne stood near the edge of the police perimeter, watched closely by Gideon, the pastor's authority completely shattered as the town watched his loyal follower led away in irons.
Spencer refused to leave your side. He sat on the back bumper of the ambulance right next to you, a blanket wrapped around his own singed shoulders, his hands raw, soot-stained, and blistered. The rest of the team was giving you both space, Hotch standing near the lead vehicle, watching Spencer with a quiet, knowing expression before turning to speak with the state troopers.
You sat shivering, staring down at your bandaged hands. "Spencer..."
He turned to look at you. In the faint, soft blue light of the emergency vehicles, his brown eyes were glossy with unshed tears. The usual calculated, analytical barrier he maintained was completely gone, shattered by the night's horrors.
"When I saw that car empty..." Spencer began, his voice barely louder than a whisper, trembling with an intensity that made your heart stop. "When I saw your notebook in the mud... my heart stopped. I couldn't process the statistics. I couldn't process the profile. All I could think was that the world couldn't exist without you in it."
He reached out, his soot-stained, trembling fingers gently taking your bandaged hand, holding it like something impossibly fragile.
"I.. I’m so sorry" Spencer said softly, leaning his forehead against yours, his warm breath fanning across your damp cheek. "I love you. I think I've loved you since the moment you walked into my life."
You looked at him, feeling the heat of his skin, the frantic, steady beating of his heart beneath your hands, and for the first time all night, the cold darkness of Oakhaven completely vanished.
You leaned in, resting your cheek against his shoulder, closing your eyes as his arm wrapped tightly around you, holding you safe against the dark.
"what if someone regrets transitioning" if you are 18 or over in free country usa you can walk into any tattoo parlor and ask for a tattoo that will be on your body forever and ever and ever and they will give it to you with the understanding that if you dont like the result or you regret it later that's your fucking problem and not theirs
is anyone else annoyed that "ai" encompasses both chatgpt and tools we train to do repetitive tedious work for us. and by the ripple effect of articles like "scientists develop ai to detect cancer early" that make people argue for the merit of chatgpt or become anti-medicine. and by the general state of the world and society
andulkaphoto
izzy806
dailybridgerton
amandla
origamiaround
pixelskylines
