Your favorite holiday growing up was New Year's.
New Year's meant restarting. It was a way to challenge yourself to be better than you were, to achieve more than you already had. New Year's washed away the failures of the past year and gave you the chance to try again and succeed. And your parents' New Year's party was the highlight of it all. Gathered in your townhouse, your family and your parents' friends, all dressed in some sort of gold and silver, all tipsy from the champagne, would watch the Times Square ball drop on television and count down all the way from sixty together, toasting and kissing and cheering when they finally got to zero.
You loved running around that house with Elizabeth during those sixty seconds, making sure everyone was watching and participating. The two of you would have sparkling white grape juice in your hand to pretend like you were just like all the adults.
You wanted to be an adult so badly so you could celebrate the holiday properly with them. You couldn't wait to grow up.
Now, New Year's was the bane of your existence. It was impossible to escape the New York City ball drop celebration; every public television on the east coast had it playing on their screens, Ryan Seacrest's face smiling at you in mockery. And you hated watching everyone's face as they cheered along with the festivities on the television. You hated hearing their screams as the ball began descending down the pole on top of One Times Square. You hated seeing happy couples kiss each other to bring in the new year and people pretend like they could ever be better than they were.
No one ever became better than they were. That was what you learned once you finally became that fabled adult.
Your New Year's tradition now went as follows: put the New York City celebration on your television to see if you could tolerate it this year, immediately turn it off because you couldn't tolerate it, drink so much champagne (usually three to four bottles, depending on the day) that you literally pass out on your couch well before midnight so you don't have to watch the world pretend to "reset."
When the jet touched back down in Quantico after this latest case at 10:27pm on December 31st, you were already thinking about how many bottles of champagne you had in your wine fridge and wondering if the liquor store around the corner from your apartment would have any Veuve Clicquot left, even as you checked your phone to find three missed calls from the same number with a Manhattan area code. You had rolled your eyes and thought nothing more of it; the New York division had been calling you daily at this point. They just wouldn't let up. Now, you just resolved to ignore their calls.
And then Rossi, after you all had returned to the bullpen to grab the rest of your things and file away papers, cleared his throat on the steps to call all of your attention.
"Alright," he said, holding his hands up, "I have a case of vintage Dom Perignon champagne in my wine cellar and enough cured meat to whip up a mean charcuterie board. All in favor say 'Dave, you're a godsend.'"
"Dave, you're a godsend," Prentiss sighed as she walked past.
"Seconded. Might as well try to salvage this holiday somehow," Morgan muttered bitterly.
On and on, the rest of the team, all in various states of discontent, nodded or grunted their agreements. None of you had anticipated getting back before New Year's day, and so, everyone had cancelled their plans as soon as the case came in. The case had ended abruptly, however when the unsub turned herself in. She had been posing as a nurse in various local hospitals and stealing and murdering newborns as a way to cope with the stillbirth of her own child. You had narrowed down her identity fairly quickly, but she had disappeared; none of you were able to track her down.
Obviously, you were all grateful that she still had enough of a good conscience to turn herself in, but on the plane ride back, everyone had been irritated at having cancelled plans they still could have made. Derek had cancelled on Savannah the second the case came in, not wanting her to wait for something that might not happen, so she had gone home for the holidays. JJ had told Will to take the boys up to Pennsylvania to celebrate with her parents. And Hotch had Jessica watching Jack, who, according to Jessica, was more than happy to celebrate with his cousins.
Watching them all lament over not being with their families this holiday made you wonder what it would be like to miss someone who could miss you back, and then, unintentionally, your eyes had flitted over to Reid, passed out on the jet's bench, his knees tucked up so that his legs would fit and using his blazer as a blanket.
Then, you had wondered if Reid had any plans he was missing out on. If he maybe was going to visit his mom, wherever she was now, or if he was going to spend it by himself.
"Y/N?" Rossi's voice pulled you back from your thoughts.
You looked up and found the entire team staring at you, waiting for an answer. By the looks on their faces, you assumed that they were all planning on heading to Rossi's to ring in the New Year. The words "no, sorry" were poised instinctually on your tongue, but what came out instead was, "Sure, I didn't have plans anyway."
So you ended up on the metro to Rossi's and were now standing in his kitchen, smiling and laughing on New Year's Eve for the first time in over a decade, draining a champagne flute with your arm twined around Garcia's.
If your fresh-out-of-the-academy-self could see you now, she'd be shocked. Hell, if even yourself from just three months ago could see you now, she'd be shocked.
You now were shocked.
In that split second before voicing your decision, you saw two possible versions of yourself: a tortured woman sitting alone among ghosts, and a successful agent celebrating among friends.
You had decided that you didn't want to be the former anymore.
Or, at the very least, you didn't want to hurt others in the process of being that woman. The look on your friends' faces, your newfound family's faces, as you laughed and joked and celebrated with them was worth the guilt that forever lingered in your heart. The fact that Maryanne and Boucher were fully in control of the operation now was becoming more and more palatable. And though you hated the fact that you felt like a burden of sorts had been lifted from you, though you felt infinitely selfish for feeling that way, you were also relieved to be able to breathe.
You knew that such a mindset wasn't so easily swayed like this, and you knew that you would vacillate between states of acceptance, but at least for tonight, you were present, you were happy, and you felt alive.
You had spent so long forcing yourself to just barely survive as a way to ease your own guilt that you had forgotten what it was to try and live. Tonight felt like a good start towards relearning. It felt like a step towards becoming a person again, not just a human.
Maybe New Year's really could reset a few things for you this time around.
In the midst of your revelry, Rossi drew the attention of the team to him by standing from his seat and clinking a tiny metal fork against his champagne flute. The laughter died down; the banter stopped.
Rossi shared a look with Hotch, passing an easy smile to his longtime friend, before looking back out at the rest of you. "I want to say a few things before it gets any closer to midnight," he began.
You stole a glance at your watch: 11:43pm. How did the hour pass so quickly?
Rossi continued, "I know this is far from any of our ideal evenings. Believe me; I get enough of you daily as it is." A round of chuckles from the crowd. "But there's an Italian superstition that the first person you see in the new year will either bring you good or bad luck, so you want to be surrounded by friends and family when the year changes." Rossi raised his champagne flute in a toast. "I'm lucky to be surrounded by the best damn family I could ask for."
"If we're toasting," Hotch said, also standing from his chair, "then I have a few words I'd like to share as well."
And so it went on, each member of the team sharing sappy sentiments with one another, about the family they had within the group, about the memories they'd shared, about what they wanted to bring into the new year.
And when it was your turn, you paused. This was all so new to you; what could you say that hadn't already been said?
And then you caught Spencer's eye, and suddenly, with a small smile on your face, you breathed a laugh and said, "You know, stupid fact about me, but I love poetry." Your eyes flitted from face to face, and when you found nothing but warmth radiating off of each member, you continued, "My favorite poet is Emily Dickinson. And, funnily enough, she's what spurred me to finally join the FBI."
"Really?" Prentiss asked. There was no judgement in her tone—just mild confusion.
You nodded and looked down at the drink in your hand. "Yeah. I mean, I had... other reasons—" An understatement "—but she has one poem that really stuck with me. It's one of her more famous ones, but the opening lines are 'if I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.'" A soft, sad smile lifted to your face as you recited the line.
The poignancy in your expression was lost on the rest of the group. As you spoke, it dawned on you that perhaps Boucher was right in calling your operation an "obsession." Somehow, in the midst of everything, you had lost that simple message that spurred you on this path: the message of a woman who wanted to leave the world better than she found it. Who wanted to leave people better off than when she met them. Who just wanted to help save others because she could not save the people she loved.
You'd been unable to recognize yourself for so long that you didn't quite know who you were anymore. But renewing yourself, redefining yourself, didn't seem so frightening anymore among your peers, your friends, your family.
So you continued, "And that's at the core of what we do, right? If we can save just one person, even if it's just one, then we still did something right." When you looked back around the room again, you found Hotch smiling fondly at you and Garcia, ever the drama queen, dabbing a tissue at the corners of her eyes. You cleared your throat and raised your glass. "So, uh, here's to stopping more broken hearts this year than the last."
The team raised their glasses with you.
"Hear, hear," Spencer added quietly, and you smiled at him.
And then the moment shattered when JJ stood, glancing down at her phone screen, and asked, "Dave, can we turn on the New York special? The boys are watching it and want to make sure we see the year change all together. Henry loves the ball drop."
Rossi grinned. "I can think of no better way to end the evening."
But while the rest of the team all shuffled into Rossi's living room, you stayed by the kitchen island, your feet frozen to the hardwood floors.
Spencer lingered by the doorway as everyone disappeared down the hall. "Are you coming?" he asked.
You gave him a tight smile. "Yeah, I'll be there a few. Save a seat for me."
He looked like he might press for more information, his brows furrowing slightly in confusion, but then he just nodded and headed after the rest of them.
You looked back down at your watch: 11:55pm. You just had to hope that they wouldn't notice your absence for five minutes.
You wanted to be able to watch the ball drop with them. You wanted to be able to watch people in the streets cheer and celebrate something as simple as the passing of time. But you couldn't. Not yet.
And then you heard the television turn on, the channel change, and the familiar sounds of the New Year's special. Your breath hitched as you heard the host commentate on the festivities, announcing that there was but five minutes left until you left this year and entered the next.
So instead of joining them, you left your champagne flute on the kitchen island, your face still flushed and a little warm from the drink coursing through your veins, and turned to Rossi's patio door. You walked out into his backyard, and through the open door, you could still hear the faint sounds of the television, of the laughter of your peers.
And as you tilted your head back to the sky, taking a shaky breath, you wondered when it would finally stop—this pain, this guilt, this darkness that festered deep within you. You knew that time would never heal this wound (and that it was a fool's dream to ever believe it could), but eventually, something in you had to give, right? Eventually, you would have to learn to exist alongside it, right?
Your phone vibrating in your back pocket drew you from your thoughts, and you squeezed your eyes shut tight, a burning irritation slicing through your chest. When you slid it out of your pocket and looked at the number—the same Manhattan number that had been calling you earlier—you had to bite back a shout of frustration. It was three minutes to midnight and they were still calling?
And maybe it was the mild inebriation from the champagne and the emotions that this holiday drudged up for you, but you found that you couldn't care about propriety or professionalism when you answered the phone. You were done.
"Hi! This is SSA Y/N Y/L/N," you grit out in a deceptively saccharine tone, "and I am not interested in transferring to the New York City division. Kindly tell your superiors, or Director Boucher, or whoever the fuck keeps telling you to bother me, to go fuck themselves. Thanks!"
But before you could hang up, you heard a voice that knocked the breath from your lungs. "I think you've mistaken me for someone else," it said.
You'd never forget that voice even if you tried. And you had tried.
So you froze, silent for a few passing moments, before quietly asking in a shaky voice, "Alexander?"
"Hello, Y/N."
You took a deep breath, a shiver wracking your body. "How did you get my number?"
"Samuel gave it to me."
You were going to kill Boucher. As soon as you could stop your hands from trembling, you were going to kill him. He had no business, none, trying to insert himself into your life like this, regardless of how much he had tried to make himself into a surrogate parent.
You hated the waver in your voice as you asked, "Why are you calling me now?"
It was his turn to be quiet. If you closed your eyes, you knew you would still be able to see the exact expression on his face: pensive, blue eyes pointed up in thought, and jaw set. You could imagine him raking a hand through his sandy brown hair, and you wondered if he still wore it long, much to Victor's eternal disapproval. You hated the fact that you hoped he did; he looked nice with longer hair.
Then he said, "Am I not allowed to miss you from time-to-time? We were engaged, Y/N, unless you've forgotten that." His voice was quiet, familiar, but no less bitter as he referenced your engagement.
You shut your eyes tightly. Of course you hadn't forgotten; you just wished you could.
Immediately, your senses were assaulted with the memory of blinding lights, of the sterile smell of a hospital, of lies, of excuses, of—
"Don't call me again," you whispered, barely hearing his quiet "Y/N, wait" before you ended the call.
You stared at the screen, waiting for his number to pop up again, but when it didn't, you shoved your phone back into your pocket and dragged your hands down your face. From inside the house, you could hear the countdown begin.
59...
58...
Tears pricked the backs of your eyes, and your breath quickened while you took a staggering step forward in Rossi's backyard. Your heart twisted in your chest, your world spinning around you as the air grew thinner and thinner. You had done so well blocking out that time in your life—the part of your story that you shared with no one. But hearing Alexander's voice—a voice that made your blood run cold just as much as it made your heart warm for the nostalgia of his touch—dragged you back into the all-consuming funereal darkness.
What a fool you were to think that you could even try to endeavor to reshape yourself. You were only ever going to be what you were, what you'd always been: cowardly, weak, and alone.
You would only ever be alone. That was simply how you had to be.
But as you gasped and bent over at the waist, your hands resting on your knees as you desperately tried take in enough oxygen just to think for a second, you heard a voice from behind: "Y/N, you're going to miss the—"
You shot back up and turned around, locking eyes with Spencer standing on the patio. He started when he saw the expression on your face. You weren't sure what you looked like, but something between pitiful and insane seemed likely.
45...
44...
"—countdown..." he finished.
42...
41...
You took a deep shaky breath, wiping at your eyes with the back of your hand. "Um," you began, your voice wavering, "it's okay. I'm just... I just... it's..."
Silence. You couldn't even form the words for an excuse. For a lie.
38...
37...
"What's wrong?" he asked quietly, his hands in his pockets. He took one step towards you, onto the grass, but maintained his distance. You didn't blame him; the last time you'd been in such a state, you'd lashed out like a caged animal.
But this time, you didn't feel caged so much as you felt lost—escaped from your own prison but without a place to go.
And when you thought about how alone you really were, how alone you were in comparison to the people inside Rossi's house, who could love and cherish each other and the people in their lives without reservation, a sob bubbled out of your throat. You clapped a hand over your mouth as if you could stop the torrent of emotion bursting from your body.
You had just spent so long in that cage that you'd forgotten that the outside wasn't much better, that there was a certain comfort in being trapped that was almost appealing compared to the vast world. At least in the cage, loneliness was your reality instead of something you felt you needed in order to survive. Something you deserved.
And you were terrified by how much you wished it were otherwise. By how much you wished you had a home to return to.
But then, when you looked back at Spencer, his face open and eyebrows knit with worry, you didn't feel that familiar anger that accompanied others' concern for you. You didn't feel the all-consuming need to shove him away when he tried to get closer. You didn't feel the need to run like you thought you would.
Because, now, when you looked at Spencer, you saw a place to go. You saw open arms, warmth, shelter from the storm that raged inside you. Every time he looked at you like you were something better than you were, every time he kissed you like you deserved more than you did, every time he wrapped his arms around you like you were something precious he had discovered, you felt like you had finally found a home after years of travel.
And even if you knew that you couldn't stay, you also couldn't stand to walk away. Not tonight.
Just for one night, you could stay in his warmth. Just one night.
20...
19...
"Reid?" you said, tears running down your cheeks. A cold wind blew by and made you shiver.
"Yes?" he asked. He took a hesitant step towards you, and when you stood your ground, he took another.
You took a shaky breath.
15...
14...
"Rossi said that the first person you see in the new year either brings you good or bad luck. Which are you?" you asked, your breath hitching. "Because I just really, really need something good."
You knew that Spencer didn't believe in luck, nor was he a superstitious person, but after studying you for a moment, Spencer quietly said, "I like to think I'd be good luck."
And there it was again—that look in his eyes that only ever came up when his eyes were trained on you. Even while weeping without explanation, even while spouting incoherencies, they never grew hard with judgement nor anger. Frustration, maybe, and concern, always but never anger. And now, he was looking at you just like he had after Garcia's—like you were the key to all the world's treasures.
You thought you could be perfectly content to live and die in that gaze. You wanted to live and die in that gaze.
But more than anything, you just wanted him to hold you, to tell you that everything would be alright even when it was just as terrible as it had always been, to quell the beast that raged on and on within you just by existing beside you.
So you asked, "You promise?"
5...
4...
He nodded and took another step forward. "Yeah."
3...
2...
1...
"Good," you whispered.
The sound of celebration, of glasses clinking against each other, of cheering from inside the house didn't register with you as you closed the rest of the distance between you and Spencer, threw your arms around his neck, and kissed him. You felt an ache in your torso as you stretched into the position, still bruised from when you'd been shot, but you couldn't bring yourself to care or readjust.
Spencer did not hesitate to wrap his arms around your waist, pulling you close to him and kissing you back.
You knew that this would have consequences, that this extra thing that had suddenly grown between you was not viable, but for tonight, you could pretend like it was. You needed to, otherwise you would be swimming in a darkness you still could not navigate after all these years.
Otherwise, you would sink alongside your demons.
So you poured out all that you could not say aloud to Spencer, kissing him like you were drowning and he was oxygen. You let him in on that darkness, on that story that would never be told, like you could warn him of all that lurked beneath the surface of your skin. You kissed him like he was your lifeline, and in many ways that you didn't quite understand yet, he was.
You just gave him everything—all without words. There was no need.
And Spencer took it all without hesitation, lifting a hand and curling his fingers into your hair. He inhaled you, meeting each kiss with the same fervor, the same desperation.
This was a kiss unlike any you had shared previously. This was that more—the more you had tried so desperately to stifle. And when you grew shy over the fact that this kiss was indicative of that, when you tried to pull away out of instinct, Spencer tightened his grip on you and kissed you deeper.
And even though you knew that in the morning all of this would dissipate, you just wanted to pretend like you could truly have more under the guise of this night.
Finally, you pulled away, panting, and Spencer pressed his forehead against yours. Your eyes were closed, but you could feel his breath fanning out against your face.
"Can you come over tonight?" you whispered to him.
"Yes," he breathed. "Yes."
And when Spencer finally extracted himself from you, he lifted a hand to cradle your face. His thumb swiped across your cheek, catching a stray tear that had lingered there, and then he leaned down to kiss where the tear had been.
For once, you let yourself acknowledge the way his actions filled your heart. You let yourself be comforted by him without shame or fear.
The two of you returned to the interior of the house, helped clean up a bit with the rest of the team, and then feigned fatigue from the case when the team asked why you were leaving so soon.
You bid the team a happy New Year and ordered an Uber for the two of you. The drive to your apartment was swift, and when you arrived, you both barely made it over the threshold of your door before your hands were on each other again.
The air was electric with desire, and you were certain that the world outside had simply stopped moving. Time itself slowed. All other responsibilities, concerns, worries, and fears ceased to exist. There were no dynamics, no power over the other, no attempt to adopt a facade. Your bedroom personas had been cast aside for the evening.
There was just you and Spencer and this moment shared between you. It was a raw vulnerability that you had never allowed yourself to explore, but you were not afraid as Spencer kissed you, and kissed you, and kissed you—his touch but a gentle reassurance of safety.
He dropped his go bag by the door, his hands flying to your hips just as yours found their way to his face, and began to back you up towards your bedroom.
Once there, his hands slid up your torso underneath the silk of your blouse and roamed your skin before he tugged it above your head, throwing it to an unknown location in the room and leaving you in your bra. You began unbuttoning his shirt, never breaking your kiss, as his hands then slid down to your ass, pulling you hard against him again. You gasped as you felt the bulge in his pants press against your front.
Once his shirt had fluttered to the ground, your hands roved over the toned plains of his body before one of them reached down to palm him through his pants. He groaned into your mouth, his hips bucking forward into your hand.
And then he continued backing you up until the backs of your legs hit your mattress, and his arms, still wrapped around your torso, gently laid you back with your legs still dangling off the end. He trailed kisses down your jaw, your neck, down between the valley of your breasts as his hands massaged them both, drawing a quiet moan from you, before continuing his journey down to your naval. Then, still kissing and dragging his tongue across your abdomen, he unbuttoned your pants and pulled them all the way off, panties included.
Spencer got down on his knees, put your thighs on both of his shoulders, and licked a stripe up your folds to your clit. Your hands flew to his hair, your back arching as a long moan lifted from your chest and echoed through the room.
He picked up a relentless pace, his eyes fluttering shut as he licked and sucked around your clit. Your hips bucked in response, grinding against his tongue, and he wrapped his arms around your thighs to keep you in place.
His name was both a plea and a prayer on your tongue, and when you felt that familiar knot growing in your abdomen, when you felt it nearing its breaking point and your legs began trembling, you whispered, "Please don't stop."
So he didn't, and when your orgasm hit you, and your back arched off of the mattress again, your legs squeezing around his head, he continued his assail on your clit. He didn't let up, even when you tugged on his hair and wiggled your hips to try and indicate how sensitive your clit was. But he continued on, only pulling you closer to him, until you came on his tongue again, this time harder than the last, your moans and pants louder than the last.
Your body felt like it was curling in on itself as he wrenched gasp after moan from your lips. And even though you felt like you might split in two from the sensitivity, he continued flicking his tongue against your clit until you begged, "Reid!"
That seemed to break his spell, and he lifted his head from between your legs. In the dim lighting, you could see the evidence of your pleasure dripping from his lips and chin. He stared at you, blinking, before whispering back, "Yes?"
And you, still gulping down air, forced yourself to a seated position, letting your legs fall from his shoulders and wincing as the movement caused friction on your oversensitive clit, and you ran your fingers through his hair. Spencer's eyes fluttered shut as he leaned into your touch.
You kissed him gently this time, no longer spurred by a desperation to feel him, to be consumed by him, and you tasted yourself on his lips. Here he was, kneeling before you, ready and willing to give himself up completely to you just as you were to him. So when you pulled away, your hands fell to his shoulders, and you nudged him to stand.
He did, slowly, and stood still with his hands threading through your hair as you undid his belt and unzipped his pants. He quickly shed them, leaving him standing completely naked, and you leaned forward to take his cock in your mouth.
You took him slowly, and he didn't seem inclined to rush you, even as a quiet groan fell from his lips and his fingers tightened in your hair. You swirled your tongue around the head, bobbing down inch by inch until you felt him hit the back of your throat. You began sucking him off, but he quickly stopped you by taking a step back.
When you looked up, eyes wide and searching his face for something wrong, he shook his head. "What?" you asked.
He didn't answer verbally, but instead, cradled your face between his hands and kissed you deeply. This was unlike the kisses from earlier, which were an urgent frenzy for one another. Instead, this was slow, his tongue sweeping across your bottom lip, his lips melding perfectly with yours. He kissed you delicately, reverently, as if trying to tell you something this time: that you were deserving of care, of comfort, of this more.
You couldn't explain to him why he was incorrect, but even if you didn't believe it, you could have cried over the sentiment.
So you gently pulled him towards you again, and he clambered onto the mattress, backing you up until your head was nestled in your pillows. He held himself up with one arm and used the other to bring a hand to your face again. Spencer brushed a piece of hair from your cheek, and he kissed you again as he slowly slid into you.
You moaned quietly into the kiss, hooking your leg around his hip as he began to take up a slow pace. He rolled his hips into you as his hand slid into your hair, and when you pulled away from his kiss to gasp as he hit that particular spot within you, he buried his face into the crook of your neck, latched his lips onto your skin, and began picking up the speed.
Eventually, the room was filled with the sounds of skin against skin, of panting, of sloppy kisses and whines of pleasure. This wasn't just fucking anymore; this was an exploration of whatever had grown between you. You were a song sung from the beginning of time—a joyous harmony that echoed through the years.
In this moment, you and him were infinite.
And when you felt yourself reaching the edge of that precipice again, you gasped, "Reid, I..." You were cut off by another moan, your face scrunching up with it. You were close.
"What is it?" he breathed as he lifted his head from your neck and stared down at you. His voice was tight with pleasure.
You lifted your head from the pillow and pressed your forehead against his. "I want you to cum with me," you said, your breath hitching.
He just nodded and took your lips with his again, picking up his pace and thrusting faster and deeper into you. The knot in your abdomen grew, and grew, and grew, until it burst yet again, and your head fell back against the pillows, your body arching into Spencer. The second your walls began clenching around him, his hips stuttered, a loud groan echoing through the room as he spilled himself into you.
The two of you lied there for a few moments, Spencer still inside you, trying to catch your breaths. And then he pulled out with one final groan and fell onto the mattress beside you.
You rolled over on your side and stared at him.
He stared back.
And then he smiled gently, reaching across to gently take your hand with his. He brought your hand up to his mouth and brushed his lips across your knuckles. You thought your heart would burst at the sight.
Then, the smile faded, and Spencer cast a quick glance over his shoulder to the door. "I, um..." he whispered, as if speaking any louder would shatter the illusion of whatever you had created in this room together, "It's late, so I should leave, right?"
You didn't say anything as he slowly sat himself up. Immediately, you were assaulted by the chill of his absence. But even more, you were immediately confronted with the fear of being left alone again. Between the call and the holiday, you didn't want to be left to wallow, to drown in yourself. And despite everything, despite the fact that you knew that the smart thing was to let him get his clothes back on and leave your apartment, you found yourself sitting up abruptly and reaching out before he could even stand from your bed.
You grabbed his bicep. "Reid, wait."
He froze, turning back towards you and eyes widening slightly in surprise. "What?" he asked quietly.
Your heart hammered in your chest, and you could feel your cheeks warming. "Can you stay?"
Spencer raised his brows. He was quiet for a few moments, and just when you were about to recant your statement and tell him to leave, he whispered, "Okay." He looked over his shoulder again. "I can set up the couch myself if you jus—"
"No," you interrupted, swallowing. "I mean..." The spell between you had been broken. The world continued moving. Reality set in. And the emotions that had overtaken you while in Rossi's backyard were slowly seeping back into your body. "Can you stay here, with me? I just..." Your voice dipped to a husk whisper edged with distress. "I just really don't want to be alone tonight."
Realization crossed his face. His eyes flitted from you, to the mattress below you, and then back to your eyes. "Yes," he said finally, "if that's what you want."
You gave him a tight smile. "Thank you."
"Of course," he answered, and then he leaned towards you again and brushed his lips against yours, tilting his head to the side and letting his eyes flutter shut.
Maybe it was selfish of you to break the rules of your arrangement, to ask this of him. There was a reason you had put this specific rule in place, after all, a reason why you wanted to avoid anything that might make your arrangement with Spencer feel like it was more than it was. But there already was more between you two, and though you would not bring it up, nor would you put a name to it, you could still acknowledge its presence.
All would be back to normal in the morning anyway, and you and Spencer would return to what you were and would always be: friends, colleagues, and coworkers. But tonight, you could indulge, and by the way he kissed you, by the way he held your face to his with a feather-light hand on your jaw, you had a feeling that he was inclined to do the same.
So when you could finally stand to separate from one another, you directed him to the bathroom down the hall so he could wash up and get ready for bed while you did the same in the master bath.
And when he returned to your bedroom, clad in his flannel pajama pants and a white cotton t-shirt, you had already slid underneath your sheets and comforter. Spencer stood by the side of your bed after turning out the lights, staring at you, like he was unsure of how to proceed. There was a notch between his brows, and his head was tilted to the side.
You flipped the covers back over and gestured for him to join you with an outstretched hand, which he gingerly took as he lowered himself down into your bed.
And for the second time that night, the two of you lied on your sides and stared at each other. He was close enough that you could feel the heat from his body radiating towards you from underneath the comforter, calling to you like a siren would a sailor.
You had already broken one rule. What was one other?
Slowly, you inched towards him until your head was tucked under his chin, and you snaked an arm around his waist, shutting your eyes. You had never derived comfort from physical affection like most people did. But Spencer's presence always surprised you in ways you didn't understand.
All you wanted was for him to hold you.
And you were self-aware enough to know what that could mean for you, what this thing that had grown between you implied. Your sense of self-preservation was just stronger, and so, banished that thought from your mind.
Spencer initially tensed up. You couldn't blame him; you weren't exactly acting like you usually did tonight. But he quickly wrapped his arm around you, too, pulling you close to him. He nuzzled his face into your hair, breathing a quiet sigh before planting a kiss to the top of your head.
"Goodnight, Spencer," you said quietly into the fabric of his shirt.
He didn't respond for a few moments, and then, so quiet you could barely hear him, he whispered, "Goodnight."
And for the first time in fifteen years, you embraced sleep as it claimed you, lulled into its gentleness by the steady beating of Spencer's heart and the quiet sounds of his breathing.
***
Spencer Reid didn't like to curse.
The second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary listed that there were 171,476 words in current use. (This number, of course, excluded the approximately 828,524 that had fallen into obscurity with time by the general public). Including the fact that Spencer also spoke Latin, Korean, and Russian fluently, he could understand practically every Germanic and Romantic language purely based on his knowledge of linguistic theory.
Therefore, there was rarely a need for Spencer to speak obscenities when he had myriad better options. The general cultural lexicon that his peers embraced never appealed to him in the same ways, not when other languages often provided better descriptors for distress than any English swear word ever could.
So when Spencer said that he was in deep shit, he really meant it.
You had fallen asleep ages ago, and Spencer had been frozen in the same position that he started in. It was a wonder how he hadn't woken you up yet; he could hear his heart so clearly hammering in his chest, the chest that you were snuggled into.
He closed his eyes again and swallowed thickly.
This was not supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen, from the arrangement you'd struck up together to the fact that he, despite all of his best efforts, could no longer think of you as his friend.
He realized this after Garcia's Christmas party, after receiving a gift that made him want to both laugh and cry with happiness, and after kissing you so tenderly he thought his heart might burst.
And then reality struck him like lightning when you'd called him your friend.
And it had hurt so god damned much that he'd finally had to confront the truth he'd known for a while now. The truth that simultaneously terrified and thrilled him. The truth he still couldn't officially name, not even in his head, for fear that it would tear him apart.
He never thought this was in the cards for him. Maeve was the only person who really ever understood him, the only person that he had connected with on a rare intellectual level. But, retrospectively, though he knew that what he felt for her was just as legitimate as what he felt for you, Maeve was also but an enigma to him. He'd never really know if things could have worked out between the two of them. For a long time, that left a gaping hole within him.
And then, on a random Wednesday morning two and a half years ago, he spotted you standing in Hotch's office.
And when you were assigned to create geographical profiles with him, and he'd seen your brain operate like a computer with the numbers and logic required of the task, he was intrigued.
And when he would spout his facts and go on tangents, and the rest of the team would dismiss him with a wave of their hands, you would always smile and respond with a knowledge and comprehension that shocked him. He didn't realize how nice it was to be listened to, to be heard by a peer, to have his thoughts appreciated, before you walked into his life.
Back then, your smile never reached your eyes. It was tired, worn down, an imitation of the bright and wonderful thing that he knew it once was. But tonight, when he couldn't tear his eyes off of you as you laughed along with the rest of them, there was a spark that had been put back into it, like something had soothed a long opened wound inside you.
And when you smiled, he smiled wider. When you laughed, his heart felt like it might leap from his chest. And when you cried, he knew he would tear the fabric of the universe itself apart if it meant finding whatever hurt you so badly.
And when he found you in Rossi's backyard, eyes wide with a fear and a darkness that terrified him, all he wanted was to take whatever that pain was onto himself. Your eyes had been blown into voids, taking in everything and returning nothing but the promise of oblivion, and the tears that marred your beautiful face made his chest ache for the justice that the world owed you.
He knew that look; he'd seen it in countless victims in their cases. It was the look of someone on the verge of succumbing to an irreparable trauma.
He didn't know what the hell had happened to you in the five minutes he'd left you, what had happened to you in the past to create such terror, but he did know that his first instinct was to hold you close to him, to kiss your tears away, to promise that he would do everything in his power to keep you safe beside him.
And now, he was at least doing that first thing. A part of him didn't even want to fall asleep; he wanted to stay awake the entire night, to burn every single sensation of this night into his memory.
Because he knew that in the morning, you would almost certainly retreat again.
How cruel the world was to make you fit so divinely in his arms when he couldn't hold you like that until the end of time. When you didn't want him to do so.
He could have held the entire world in his arms, and it still would not have compared to the feeling of holding you.
Spencer had always dreamed of what it would be like to meet someone like you, someone who matched him in every way on every level, who shared similar interests, who loved learning and literature and culture and art the way he did.
Were he a lesser man, he would have thought you the Juliet to his Romeo. Romeo and Juliet, however infamous for their ill-fated love, were far from Shakespeare's greatest couple, after all.
No, he had always dreamed of finding the Beatrice to his Benedick, of finding a woman who challenged him with wit and grace, who loved the people in her life with a terrifying ferocity, who would rattle the stars and tear apart mountains with the power she emitted. He dreamed of the witty banter, the push back, and the intellectual discourse exemplified best by the iconic couple from Much Ado About Nothing.
And at one point, Spencer thought he might have found that in you.
But now, he realized that he was not the Benedick to your Beatrice, but rather, he was the Dante to your Beatrice.
14th century epic poet Dante Alighieri is rumored to have drawn his inspiration for one of his greatest works La Vita Nuova from a woman named Beatrice, whose true identity and relation to Dante has long since been shrouded in mystery. Beatrice appears in both La Vita Nuova, and in his best known work, Divine Comedy, as a guide. Scholars had concluded that despite having nothing more than a fleeting interaction with him when the two were children, Beatrice was the truest and greatest love of Dante's life. And Dante, married to another woman, immortalized his love for her in his poetry, destined to never have her.
So, yes, you were still Beatrice: the brilliant woman, the beautiful woman, the strong outspoken woman. The type of woman about whom epic poets wrote their masterpieces.
But he would only ever be your Dante: a genius left to pine from afar with nothing but a memory of you to inspire him in the end. A genius fated to never have you.
And he wished to god that he could have been Benedick instead. He wished to god that you could have been Shakespearean lovers together instead.
But wishing would get him nothing. All he had was now, this moment, with you safe in his arms. Trusting him.
And even if that was all he would ever get from you, Spencer decided that he would be okay with that. Because even if it was just for an evening, he could pretend that whatever delicate thing had grown between you two could blossom into something more.
Just for an evening, he could pretend that you perhaps loved him, too.
The illusion, however, was shattered when your phone began vibrating on your nightstand.
You took a sharp intake of breath and stirred, and Spencer, not wanting you to think he'd been watching you sleep (even though that was kind of what he'd been doing) closed his eyes. You slowly extracted yourself from him before reaching out to the nightstand and declining the call. Then, he felt the mattress shift, like you'd swung your legs down, and then a pause.
And then he felt a hand on his face gently brushing a lock of hair from his forehead.
And then he felt your soft lips brush against his cheek.
Spencer thought his heart might have stopped at the gesture.
Perhaps his case wasn't as hopeless as he'd thought.
But then you stood from the mattress, and he heard you pad across the room and open the door. When he finally opened his eyes again, he could see a crack in the door, and within seconds, heard your quiet whispers filtering into the room.
"Why the fuck are you calling me at 3am, Preston?"
Preston? As in Special Agent Christopher Preston? Spencer was not proud of the jealousy that bubbled in his gut.
You continued, "What? Slow dow—Pres, slow down. What do you need?"
Silence.
"I, uh, I can try to track Maryanne, if that'll make you feel better... are you sure?" A shorter pause. "I'll use the software I made for Anti-Trafficking. Yeah. Yeah. I'm on it now."
And then he heard you walk further down the hallway, rifle through something in the main room, and then walk back, keys jingling quietly as you unlocked a door and disappeared behind it.
Spencer sat up.
You yourself were somewhat of a mystery to him. At some point, he had tried to stop digging into your life because it got him nowhere, but that what he'd just heard was... alarming.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Who were you, really?