✓ | sick of losing soulmates [SPENCER REID]

13.2

Even though she well-and-truly has him, she nonetheless looks surprised and taken-aback when he yanks open the door, the cold air from the hallway flooding into his previously warm apartment. Her chest and shoulders swell as she takes a deep breath, eyes absorbing his appearance like she's seeing him for the first time in years.

"What?" he snaps, staring at her.

She exhales, shoulders dropping, and her mouth opens but no sounds come out for a little while. "I — I just came to say I'm sorry," is all she says at first, playing awkwardly with her fingers.

An apology is something he's willing to accept, so Spencer nods hesitantly, propping the door open with his shoulder and folding his arms.

Iris breaths deeply once or twice, but seems capable of reading him well enough to know that his nod was a sign to go on. "It was shitty of me to lie to you. You deserved better than having to hear it from Strauss, of all people. And I know I should have said this a long time ago — that's why I came over, but you were drunk... and then stuff got in the way... And... And I'm sorry. I'm just...sorry."

"Yeah," Spencer agrees gruffly. "You should have spoken to me about it."

Iris opens her mouth, but then closes, hands dropping to her side as her head falls forward.

Spencer's heart softens, but he keeps his eyes cold, swallowing against his closed-up throat. "I want you to do what makes you happy, Iris," he says. "But the fact that you didn't warn me? Didn't talk to me about it, at all — not about how you were feeling, or your doubts, or your concerns? Do you know how that makes me feel?" Iris doesn't look at him or give any sign of answering, so he does it himself. "Really, really shitty. Like we were never really friends."

That, she does look up at, quite sharply, in fact. "Spence, that's not — "

"I know it's not true," he says, just as sharply. "But, Iris, the thing is. The rest of the team — they're free to treat me like a child. I'm the youngest, I'm a little different, I get it. But you," he jabs his finger at her, "you have never treated me like that. And that's why you've always been my best friend. But then, with this, you suddenly decided I didn't deserve to know?"

"I didn't know how to tell you," she says, voice a little strangled.

"What? Didn't think I could handle it?" he snaps, maybe a little cruelly, maybe a little unfairly. "Because, Iris, I've experienced a lot of pain in my lifetime, and I think I'm fully capable of handling the fact that you're leaving."

He's right; he has experienced a lot of pain. He's been punched, and shot, and tortured and kidnapped and forced to dig his own grave. But finding out Iris lied to him, and was leaving him, and, worst of all, hearing it from Erin Strauss? It was like all of that combined (...well, maybe he's being dramatic, but still. It hurt a lot, that's all he's trying to say).

"Is this about your observational skills — "

"—Observational skills—?!"

"—because if it is—"

He's gone through quite a whirlwind of emotions throughout his life: vulnerable, sad, desperate, lonely — but another peculiar emotion that he hasn't felt for years rises up in him as he glares down at Iris: pure and complete and utter fury. How could she try to put his on him?