Garcia raised her hands up, her third glass of spiced sangria high in the air. "Again, please, if you would all be so kind," she requested.
You rolled your eyes as JJ laughed and Prentiss sighed. In unison, the three of you reiterated with varying levels of enthusiasm, "Penelope Garcia is the backbone of the FBI."
She grinned and took another deep sip. "And don't any of you forget it!" Then, she leaned back in her seat with a sigh and added, "You know, I really like 'Appreciate Penelope Garcia Night'."
"I propose we make a week of it," you quipped, and Garcia's smile widened as she held her glass up to yours. You clinked your glasses together while JJ and Prentiss laughed to themselves.
As per Garcia's request after missing out on the vineyard wedding case, you, JJ, and Prentiss were treating her to dinner and drinks. And after the garbage week that you'd had, you were glad to have a night out with them, even if your mind was still stuck on Samantha Lark's disappearance.
Preston had essentially told you that neither of you could be involved in tracking down Samantha Lark. You shouldn't have been surprised; you weren't supposed you know of her existence in the first place, but after the terrible night you'd had, with guilt still weighing heavily in your mind, you'd nearly burst into tears of frustration in the middle of the ViCAP office, which would have been just as embarrassing as it was out-of-character for you.
You were just missing something. You knew you were, but you just weren't smart enough to figure out what it was. And after two years of dead-ends and disappearances and failure, you were struggling with all of the factors now out of your control. You couldn't help Maryanne undercover. You couldn't present another solid lead to Boucher and ask for bureau resources. You couldn't even help Anti-Trafficking and WitSec to find Samantha Lark.
You were useless, again. Unable to help, again. Forced to watch without being able to take real action, again.
It was making you restless, and it stirred that long-borne darkness in you. Poked at the beast. Dared you to explode.
So keeping your mind busy and distracted was the only thing that you could really do, and fortunately for you, between Spencer and this night out with the ladies, you had your fair share of comforts.
But the night was coming to a close, with the four of you having finished your desserts and on your last drinks at the restaurant. Prentiss waved your waiter down and signalled for the check. Once he dropped it off at your table, Prentiss tossed her credit card into the receipt dish along with yours and JJ's before standing up with a quiet groan.
"I'm heading to the restroom before we head out," she announced.
Garcia immediately perked up again. "Oh, I'll come with you!" And at Emily's raised brows at her enthusiasm, Garcia unsubtly nudged JJ with urgency as she stood from her seat as well. "Buddy system, you know? Can't be too safe," she added while tossing a look of feigned innocence to you. "There'll probably be a line, too. It might take a few." And then she all but dragged Prentiss away towards the restrooms.
You and JJ shared a look and a quiet laugh.
You rarely spent time with her by yourself, her perhaps less than Garcia or Prentiss. Even on cases you were seldom paired together.
But you shrugged and nodded your head towards her. "What was that about?" you asked, referencing Garcia's obvious attempt to leave the two of you alone.
JJ's eyes fluttered shut as she breathed a laugh to herself, dropping her head. "Yeah, you know Penelope. She's the world's least subtle person."
"Agreed."
A slightly uncomfortable silence settled between you two. You took another sip of your sangria, wishing that the pitcher on the table wasn't empty so you could refill.
"So, between the two of us," JJ began at last, training her blue eyes on you, "what's been going on between you and Spence, lately?"
You nearly choked on your drink, managing to pass it off as a grunt of confusion. You cleared your throat and asked, "What do you mean?"
"Well, to be honest, I've... noticed it for a little while too, but Garcia's got it in her head that he's got a little bit of a 'crush' on you. And you've been spending a fair amount of time together," she answered with another huffed laugh. "We were just wondering. But I hope you know that I won't say anything you don't want me to. I'm, uh, not really one for gossip."
You blinked, and your heart rate picked up. You instinctually responded, "We're just friends."
She smiled, her brow creasing slightly in confusion. "You can't honestly tell me you don't notice the way he looks at you."
Of course you did. You loved the way he looked at you. And you knew what she was talking about. Spencer was literally in your apartment by himself while you were sitting here. He'd been sleeping over every night for the past few days, sleeping in your bed with you despite the fact that you knew better than to not only let him do such things but actively encourage him.
You wanted him there with you. His mere presence chased away the shadows that loomed over you. He filled long cold nights with comfort and warmth. He made you less afraid of yourself.
But you were still just friends, even if a part of you was starting to acknowledge that you perhaps didn't want to be just friends anymore. It was not a want you could indulge, at least not until you closed your own case.
So you gave JJ a tight smile. "We're just friends," you repeated. What else could you say?
JJ breathed another laugh to herself, turning her gaze back down to the table. "Okay," she said, "that's fine. Just..." She trailed off, tightening her grip around the base of her glass. She rolled the bottom around on the table between her hands as she considered her next words. Finally, she looked back up at you. "Spencer's had a tough break. Don't make it tougher for him."
Her tone left no room for questions nor discussion nor denial, but you took offense to the implications it held—that you would ever try to hurt him. You couldn't blame her for thinking you might; you hadn't exactly presented yourself as the most nurturing individual.
But, still, the fact that it was a thought in her mind left a bad taste in your mouth. Especially since you knew that you could not be what he wanted you to be at this point in your life. You knew you couldn't give him what he wanted.
But you just kept pretending you could.
So you just pressed your lips together and echoed for a third and final time, "We're just friends."
She didn't look convinced. You didn't try to convince her.
The two of you sat in silence until Garcia and Prentiss, at last, returned.
After paying the bill, the four of you said your goodbyes in front of the restaurant. You got into an Uber and leaned your head back, closing your eyes with a sigh.
And when you finally arrived back at your apartment, you found Spencer lying on his side on your couch, fast asleep with the main room lights dimmed. The television was set to a nature documentary about the ocean, and David Attenborough's quiet voice pervaded through the space. Spencer had one arm bent under his head as a pillow, his legs curled up to fit on the couch, and a soft blue light was cast on his face from the television as the documentary delved into the mysteries of the Mariana Trench. Your copy of I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb was resting on the glass coffee table in front of him.
And despite the still present guilt and worry regarding Samantha Lark, despite JJ's words and their implications, you couldn't help but smile at the sight of him.
You silently took your shoes off and dropped your purse off by the door before hanging up your coat and walking over to him.
He stirred with a sharp inhale as you perched on the edge of the couch. His eyes fluttered open, and he sleepily murmured, "Hi, you're back."
"I'm back," you whispered back. You couldn't help but run your fingers through his hair, still slightly damp from a shower.
Spencer sighed and leaned into your touch. He swallowed before a smile rose to his lips, lifting a hand to his face to rub his eye. "I finally read that book. I'm trying to be more up to date with contemporary fiction," he said, opening his eyes and pointing to the coffee table.
An amused smile spread across your face. "I noticed. Was it good?"
He laughed and answered, "I can see why Oprah would choose it for her book club, now. I, uh..." He laughed to himself again, finally sitting up. "I read it in less than fifteen minutes, but I didn't expect it to be quite such an emotional experience."
You stole a glance at the nearly 1,000 page book on your coffee table. I Know This Much is True told the story of Dominick Birdsey, a forty-year-old man struggling to find forgiveness and healing while being the sole caretaker for his identical twin brother Thomas, a paranoid schizophrenic.
You could see why it might have struck something with Spencer.
"What'd you think?" you asked.
Spencer thought for a moment. "I expected it to be more of a drama given the opening incident, but I wasn't disappointed with where it ended up. I don't really... love contemporary literature that delves into severe mental illness. I find that contemporary authors often romanticize it for the sake of entertainment, which is always extremely off-putting. But that was..." He trailed off, glancing down at the novel again. "That was incredibly dark, and real, and gripping, and not for the faint of heart. Three and a half out of five stars."
"Why only three and a half?"
Spencer shrugged. "The ending felt a little bit insincere, a little bit too... neat." Then he thought a bit more and added, "But perhaps that was the point. Okay. Four out of five stars, if for nothing else than for the line 'But what are our stories if not the mirror we hold up to our fears.'"
You laughed and answered, "Yeah, Wally Lamb is pretty quotable."
It was true, but as you locked eyes with Spencer, your mind went to a particular quote from Lamb's debut novel, She's Come Undone:
If you risked love, it took you wherever you wanted to go. If you repressed it, you ended up unhappy.
You'd read that novel years ago, fairly soon after you moved to Virginia, but that quote had stuck with you. You didn't really understand it at the time. Frankly, you hadn't wanted to and found the notion of "happiness" relying on "love" laughable. After everything with Alexander, after believing that your ability to "love" another had been stolen from you, you were content to never understand the breadth of that quote as the average unburdened person might.
Now, though, after all this time and despite your best efforts to avoid such a feat, you wondered if you were inadvertently beginning to understand it at last.
But then JJ's words echoed in your mind, and you quickly cast the thought away, clearing your throat and standing up. You held out a hand for Spencer. "Come on. I'm going to get ready for bed."
You went about your nightly routine while Spencer settled into your bed, and you joined him about half an hour later.
It was just past 11pm, and you couldn't recall the last time you'd consistently went to bed before midnight. Honestly, with Spencer staying over, you'd expected both of your terrible sleeping habits to worsen the other's, but it appeared that just as Spencer acted as your own dream catcher, your presence seemed to lull him into a deeper slumber as well.
The fact that the two of you slept together in more than one way every night also probably helped.
But as you straddled Spencer's hips, tenderly kissing him with one hand buried in his hair and the other braced against the mattress to keep you balanced, you couldn't quiet the disarray in your mind.
JJ had a right to be skeptical of you, of your "intentions." You couldn't keep indulging in this fantasy, especially when everything you'd spent so long chasing was in limbo. Even against your best intentions, even if you'd never actively try to hurt him, you knew you would. That was just how you operated, and as soon as the other shoe dropped (and you knew it would), it would get unbearably messy. And if Samantha Lark became yet another ghost story, another Missing Person without justice, you weren't sure what you would do. Could you even live as you had been knowing that you might have led to her—
Spencer pulled away from you, gently pushing you up, and asked, "What's wrong?"
You blinked. "Why do you think something's wrong?"
He breathed a laugh and slowly began sitting up, leaning back on his hands just as you settled back on your heels, your knees still on either side of his hips. "You, uh... physically withdraw when something's weighing on you, like you're trying to make yourself smaller. And I can tell just by the way you're kissing me, honestly. I'd tell you how connected physiology and psychology are, but I'm sure I'd just be telling you things you already knew."
You should have known that Spencer would notice, but what could you say? It wasn't as if you could tell him about Samantha Lark (even if you wanted to), and you couldn't lament to him about the tribulations of your own case. Both of those would require a larger conversation, one you knew you never wanted to have with him. Even if you did want him to know that part of you, even if you were allowed to disclose the case to him, you were certain you'd never be ready for the "My Entire Family was Murdered" conversation.
Or maybe you would just never be ready for his view of you to change.
Yes, tragedy colored your perception of the world, but sometimes, you felt that it colored the world's perception of you. You didn't need it to change Spencer's perception of you, too.
Quite frankly, the only reason that Preston even knew, the only reason that he was as close to you as he was, was because he'd endured something similar and had drunkenly told you first within hours of meeting you.
Like had called to like. Broken to broken.
But just as he was your rock, he was also a mirror in many ways, and you weren't fond of your reflection most of the time.
Spencer's voice drew you from your thoughts. "Did I do something?" he asked softly.
"No," you answered immediately, interlacing your fingers behind his neck. "You're perfect. You always are."
"Then what is it?"
You swallowed. The rational voice in your head told you to tell him to stop sleeping over after tonight, to stop sleeping in your bed with you, to stop holding you close to him every night as you fell asleep. It told you to erect a wall between the two of you before you inevitably hurt him. It told you to tell him to stop touching you so gently when you were tangled underneath your silken sheets, caressing every curve of you like you were something precious, something worth care.
But you just couldn't. You didn't want to. And you didn't have the mental space to ponder how selfish that made you.
Instead, you thought about your "arrangement" with Spencer—no longer much of an arrangement at all, it seemed, but a state-of-being you shared. You thought about how this had all just started as a means of distracting each other from the horrors of your career, about how the gentle hands that slid tenderly across your body used to pull and grab and squeeze you with reckless abandon with dominant undertones. The more that had grown between you now was enough of a distraction that neither of you needed personas to lose yourselves in; you simply now lost yourselves in each other, as you were.
But you wondered if that combination would be enough to give you respite from all that ailed you.
So you said, "It's just been a long week. I have a lot going on right now."
"I've noticed."
"So I would love to not think about any of it for a little while."
"Oh," he said. His brows furrowed slightly. "Why didn't you just say that earlier?"
"Well, I..." You trailed off, warmth rising to your cheeks. You didn't pass judgement on either of your sexual inclinations, nor were you ashamed of your own, but asking outright yourself was still a little embarrassing. "I just don't... I mean... I didn't..."
As you fumbled, Spencer shifted his weight onto one hand while raising the other to your face. He brushed a lock of hair behind your ear before sinking his fingers into your hair and yanking your face towards him.
You let out a sound of surprise at the sudden movement, your lips crashing into his, but you quickly recovered and raised your hands to the sides of his face to meet him with the same fervor.
One moment you were straddling his hips while you inhaled each other, and the next you were flipped onto your back, your wrists pinned by his hands on either side of your head, and his knee was wedged between your legs, right up against your core.
You instinctually rolled your hips against his knee, a quiet moan lifting from your lips as you relished in the delicious friction. You could already feel yourself saturating your panties.
Spencer tightened his grip on your wrists and, after nipping your bottom lip and drawing another sigh from you, trailed his lips down your neck, where he dragged his tongue across your skin. He continued licking and kissing and sucking on your neck hard enough to leave bruises in his wake. In the moment, you couldn't care about the inconvenience they would pose. You were too busy grinding yourself against his leg.
Then, he continued his path to your collarbone peeking out from the collar of the oversized shirt you wore to bed. Finally blocked by the cloth, Spencer released your wrists in favor of grabbing the hem of your shirt, roughly lifting it up over your breasts, where he resumed his assail.
You arched into him, a proper moan finally echoing through the room as he took one of your nipples between his lips and sucked, swirling his tongue around its stiff peak. Your hands flew to his shoulders, eager to touch him, but as soon as you made contact, his own hands grabbed your wrists again and pinned them back against the mattress.
He moved his knee away from you (much to your frustration) and lifted his head from your breast long enough to say, "Don't touch me unless I say you can."
You didn't need to be told twice.
You nodded your obedience, and a smile flickered on his lips before he dipped his head down to attend to your other breast. He kept his leg away from your core but still between your legs so that you couldn't even cross them to try and create your own friction. His teeth grazed the tip of your nipple.
A pathetic whine passed your lips. "Spencer..."
"So impatient," he murmured against your skin, finally continuing his trail down your stomach and your naval. His hands had to release your wrists, but instead of threading your fingers through his hair like you typically would, you opted for grabbing at the sheet underneath you.
You hadn't put on pajama bottoms, so Spencer just quickly slid your panties from your legs and settled himself between them. But rather than touching you where you wanted him most, he dragged his tongue up the inside of your left thigh, and then your right. And just when he neared where you were already practically dripping for him, he returned to the inside of your left thigh and lightly nipped at the sensitive flesh.
You gasped, twisting the sheets between your hands. "Spencer, please."
He hummed a laugh against your skin, but finally, at long last, turned his attention to your clit. He dragged his tongue slowly up your folds, collecting all of the evidence of your pleasure on his tongue, before slowly circling your clit with it.
You tried to roll your hips against his face in an attempt to hasten him, but he kept at the same torturous pace for what seemed like an eternity. And when it seemed as if he was content with just how wet he'd made you, how desperate you'd become for anything that would satisfy the pulsing ache in your clit, Spencer finally began flicking his tongue against you faster.
It didn't take long for that familiar pressure to begin building in your abdomen. Your grip on the sheets tightened, your back arching as you whined his name and continued to grind yourself against his tongue.
But just when you reached the edge of that precipice, just when you were about to crest that wave of pleasure, Spencer moved away from you and instead turned his attention back to the sensitive flesh of your inner thigh.
You groaned, "Seriously?"
Spencer didn't respond, instead moving from thigh to thigh, licking and nipping and sucking. After several moments, when you'd felt that knot slowly fade as your clit began aching even more, he turned back to the epicenter of your pleasure and took up his relentless pace again.
You careened back up that cliff within seconds and found yourself at the edge yet again. Your thighs trembled around his head as your back arched off the mattress, ready to take that plunge, only for him to move away again at the last second.
Something between a moan, a sob, and a groan left your mouth. You shamelessly angled your hips to try and chase his mouth, but he continued nipping at your inner thighs completely unbothered.
And the cycle continued for five times in a row.
By the fifth time he'd edged you, you could feel tears pricking the back of your eyes out of frustration, your engorged clit begging for release. You hadn't wanted to beg him, but you would have done anything for him to finally let you fall off that edge.
"Spencer, please..." you finally whispered. "Please make me cum."
"What was that?" he asked into the flesh of your thigh.
You groaned. You would have rolled your eyes had your mind not been operating under the strict laws of lust. "Please make me cum," you reiterated, this time a bit louder.
Spencer hummed in contemplation. He slowly flicked his tongue out against your clit, and you whimpered in response. "I'm not quite sure I understand," he answered before resuming his agonizingly slow circles around your clit.
Your mind was so clouded with desperation that you'd forgotten his earlier instructions. One of your hands flew to his hair, threading his soft brown locks between your fingers, but you didn't even have time to repeat yourself yet again before he abruptly sat up on his knees.
"I told you not to touch me unless I said you could," he said darkly. His eyes roamed your body, a smile gracing his face despite your disobedience as he caught a better look of you—eyes wide with desperation, squirming slightly with how uncomfortable the lack of release had become, hair plastered to your flushed face with sweat. "Okay," he said at last.
Spencer stood from the bed and shed his pajama bottoms and boxer briefs, his painfully hard cock springing free. Then, he lied back down onto the bed beside you as you watched. He gestured to himself. "If you want it so badly, do it yourself."
At any other moment, you would have been embarrassed at how fast you scrambled to straddle him again.
You quickly sank down on him, and you could feel his body tense up with pleasure, a quiet groan passing his lips. He didn't raise his hips to meet yours, instead opting to watch you fuck yourself on him. Your movements were sloppy and rushed, but within seconds, you felt yourself rushing towards that glorious end, faster than you'd ever experienced, harder than you'd ever had before. And just as you were beginning the crest of that wave, Spencer used his thumb to begin rubbing tight circles around your clit.
But his other hand grabbed one of yours from where it had been balled up on his chest, and through his own pants and groans of pleasure, he lifted both of your hands to your throat. Your fingers instinctually wrapped around the sides of your throat, just beneath your jaw, and his larger hand quickly engulfed yours, squeezing down lightly on the sides and essentially making you lightly choke yourself with him.
A deafening strangled cry left your mouth, and your vision exploded into white light as you finally came. Your body wanted to curl into itself with the intensity, but with yours and Spencer's hand on your throat, you couldn't move. And when your legs were trembling, and you couldn't bear to keep fucking yourself, Spencer finally took up the motions himself. He hammered into you from below, his thumb not leaving your clit for even a second of reprieve.
You didn't know you could even make the noises you were making, nor feel the way you felt, but you could still feel your walls clenching hard around him when he finally came, spilling himself deep inside you. Your whole body felt like it had melted and been born anew, but you watched as Spencer's jaw clenched, his head falling back hard against the pillows, his hips desperately milking himself with you as he continued to fuck you through his own orgasm.
And when the two of you had finally come back into your own bodies, you lifted yourself off of him with a wince and collapsed onto the mattress beside him.
This time, you didn't even try to pretend you didn't want him to hold you close to him afterwards. You'd never been the cuddling type, but after those activities, the urge to feel his arms wrapped around you was stronger than usual.
He was still on his back, his chest heaving as he took in breath after breath, and you tossed your arm around him as you rested your head on him. Immediately, his arms were around your body, and he gently kissed you on the forehead.
"Are you okay?" he asked softly.
You couldn't help but laugh at his immediate change in demeanor. You lifted your head and rested your chin on his chest to look up at him. "That was fantastic, Spencer."
He smiled. "I'm happy to be of service." Then, his brows furrowed again, and he gently pushed you off of him. "Give me one second."
Spencer stood from your bed, and you pretended to not immediately miss his absence deeply. He walked into your bathroom. You heard the faucet running for a few moments, and then it turned off.
He returned to your bedroom with a wet face towel, sitting down on the edge and gesturing for you to spread your legs.
"Oh, you really don't have to do that. I can get it," you insisted as you sat yourself up and reached for the cloth.
Spencer held it out of your reach. "You know, contrary to what you might think, but I do actually want to take care of you sometimes. It's not an obligation to which I feel like I must attend. I wish you'd let me."
Your hand dropped to the mattress. Not even your pride could make you refuse that, could deny him that.
So you leaned back against your pillows again, spreading your legs. Spencer gently began wiping the warm cloth up and down your inner thighs before running up your folds. You winced when it brushed against your clit, now overly sensitive, and he murmured a quiet apology.
Never did you think you'd be here. The "you" that first joined the BAU those few years ago would have gagged at the sight of this, at even the mere prospect of it.
The current "you" felt so cared for that you felt tears pricking the backs of your eyes. You quickly blinked away, momentarily confused by the sudden burst of emotion you'd felt, but no less off-put by his actions.
And when he had decided that he was finished, he set the washcloth to the side and looked back at you. His eyes had completely softened. And you couldn't stop yourself from sitting up, leaning in to kiss him, perfectly content to stay up all night if it meant not missing a moment of him looking at you like that.
But as your lips just barely brushed against his, your doorbell rang.
Your entire body seized up.
And then it rang again. And again. And again. And again—like someone was rapidly pressing the button.
You only knew one person with enough audacity to show up to your apartment near midnight and do that.
So you scrambled off your bed, leaving Spencer to look between your bedroom door and you as you grabbed your bathrobe from your bathroom and hastily shoved it on. Spencer stood as you headed towards your door, but before he could even open his mouth to ask, you quickly said in a voice laden with irritation, "Stay here. Maybe put clothes on."
You strode out into your hallway, shutting your bedroom door behind you, and hurried to the front door. All the while, the echo of your doorbell filtered through your apartment.
Finally, you unlocked all three locks on your front door and flung it open.
Preston didn't even wait for you to move completely out of the way before he barged in. You caught a whiff of whiskey as he brushed past you, heading straight for your living area and plopping himself on the couch.
"Thanks for calling ahead of time. I love having visitors at fucking midnight," you hissed, trailing him.
Preston looked up at you. His eyes were narrowed with annoyance, his jaw set and his body tense. "I did call. You didn't pick up. Seems to be your thing nowadays." And then his gaze dipped to your neck, and he stood up, rolling his eyes and walking past you again. "Christ. What are you? Fifteen?"
Your cheeks erupted with warmth, and you couldn't stop yourself from clapping a hand over your neck, no doubt decorated with bruises from your activities. "Is there a reason you're here, or are you just going to be a dick?"
Preston didn't respond. Instead, he continued pacing around your living area, lifting a hand to rub the overgrown stubble along his jaw with the other shoved deep in the pocket of his jeans.
You narrowed your brows and took a step towards him. "Pres, what's wrong?" you asked a bit more softly.
He finally stopped pacing and ran both hands down his face. After several beats, he quietly rasped, "I know Boucher told us to stay out of it, but I've been in contact with Maryanne's supervisor up in the city. She missed her third check-in in a row today."
Your heart stopped. "What?"
Preston looked back over to you. His face was etched with exhaustion and fear, tired lines marring the skin around his eyes and below his cheeks, making him appear gaunt. "I tried calling you after the first time, but you didn't pick up. Then I thought I'd just wait and see what happened" He looked down and cleared his throat. "I didn't want you to think that her and Samantha Lark were connected. I didn't want to think that. But, sweetheart, the timing is... it's too much of a coincidence to think otherwise."
You stayed frozen on your spot, your mouth half open, your eyes wide.
You and Maryanne were far from close, but you knew enough about her, her life, and her career in the FBI to know that if she was consistently missing check-ins, it wasn't due to negligence. Maryanne was the best field agent in the New York City division; it was the reason you'd asked her to join your case. It was the reason you trusted her enough to be a part of it.
She'd been undercover countless times before, for a variety of different bureau operations. She was excellent at her job and highly regarded on a national level.
Something had happened to her. Something bad.
Fuck.
Fuck.
"Oh my god," you whispered.
"Yeah." Preston cleared his throat as he gestured down the hallway towards your office. "I need you to download whatever you've got on Maryanne, even if you don't think it's worth anything, on a flash drive. Now. Please."
You didn't waste a second grabbing your office key and speeding down the hallway, not even giving a second thought to the fact that Spencer was separated by a thin wall from you. You unlocked the office door, grabbed a new flash drive from one of your desk drawers, and shoved it into a USB port in the system unit beneath your desk. After a few keystrokes, your computer began sending copies of all your files on Maryanne to the empty flash drive.
"It'll just take a minute," you said as you turned back to Preston, now leaning in the doorway. Your voice was tight. "What are you going to do with them?"
He pushed himself off of the doorframe. "We're going to New York right now to meet with her supervisor as soon as the office opens. I'll pack you a bag while that's downloading."
Preston turned away from you and towards your bedroom door just as your eyes widened. "Wait," you blurted out, sprinting into the hallway.
He craned his neck around to look down at you, a brow raised, his hand hovering over your bedroom door handle.
"I... can't go anywhere right now," you rushed out. "And it's the middle of the night. It doesn't make sense to go now. Let's go tomorrow morning."
"It's not like you go to bed before 4am anyway." But when you didn't relent, your eyes flickering between Preston and your bedroom door, he narrowed his eyes as he finally took in your attire, disheveled hair, and flushed face.
Preston rolled his eyes. "Since when do you care about your one-night-stands?" he asked, turning back to your bedroom door and opening it as you hissed for him to stop again. He ignored you, instead poking his head into the bedroom while saying, "Hey, buddy, time to head ou—"
He cut himself off.
You froze as Preston pushed the door all the way open to reveal Spencer sitting cross legged on your bed, one of the books from your bookshelf open on his lap.
Spencer gave him a tight smile. "Um. Hi. Special Agent Christopher Preston, right?"
Preston was still for a few beats before answering in a low growl, "In the flesh."
"I'm Dr. Spencer Reid from the BA—"
"I know who you are," Preston cut him off. Spencer pressed his lips together in response.
"Pres..." you tried.
But when Preston turned to look at you, his brows had narrowed, and the muscle in his jaw jumped as he bit down. He ran another hand across his mouth, rubbing at the stubble again, and then rubbed the back of his neck as he looked down.
"Okay, you know what? I'll go to New York myself," he ground out. Without giving you a second to speak, he strode past you, down the hall, and out your front door. He ignored you as you called out after him.
"Uh—" Spencer started.
You whipped around and pointed to him. "Stay there," you commanded. From inside your office, your desktop pinged with an indication that all of the files had been copied onto the flash drive. You ran back into your office, ejected the flash drive from your system, grabbed it, and then sprinted back out into the hallway.
In your frenzy, you didn't think to lock the door behind you.
You slipped on the first pair of shoes you saw by the door and then wedged a sneaker in the doorway so it wouldn't lock behind you.
Preston was already headed down in one of the elevators, so without regard for the fact that you were completely naked underneath your robe, you ran to the stairwell and dashed down all fifteen floors. Thomas made a sound of surprise as you ran across the lobby, your flats squeaking against the marble floors, but you ignored him.
Preston had already made it to his car parked across the street.
As you crossed the street, you yelled, "Preston, wait!"
He paused in front of the hood of his car, turning around to face you with barely controlled irritation. Before you could get another word out, he pointed back to your apartment building. "So is that why it's been impossible to get a hold of you lately?" he spat.
You panted, trying to catch your breath. "We're friends, Pres. Why the fuck does it matter?" And when he cut you a sarcastic glance, you added, "You can't seriously be mad at me right now."
He barked a laugh, but the smile that took over his face was anything but kind. "Actually, sweetheart," he began, the once affectionate moniker now a weapon in his verbal arsenal, "I think I'm perfectly entitled to be pissed." He took a menacing step towards you, jabbing a finger in your direction. You held your ground. "I work my ass off for you. I stay up night after night, digging through files and sources and witness testimonies, for you. I fall behind on my own fucking work sometimes for you. So I can help you solve this fucking joke of a case. And, now, you can't even be bothered to call me back when I need you to because you're too busy—" He waved his hand in the direction of your building. "—screwing your way through your office."
You clenched your jaw at his accusation, heat erupting in your face. "You didn't seem to care when you thought it was a random one-night-stand," you argued. "What's the difference?"
He laughed bitterly again. "That's not the point, Y/N." He took another step towards you, and you tightened your grip around the flash drive in your hand. "I don't give a shit about who you're fucking. But I do give a shit about why you've been MIA for the past two weeks, especially now that all of this... shit is going down, and you can't even pick up the phone for long enough for me to tell you! Do you even fucking care about your own cause?"
"Of course I care! How could you even say that?"
"If this were my family, sweetheart, then nothing—and I mean nothing—would distract me from hunting down the son-of-a-bitch that killed them. Nothing."
"But it's not your family!" you bit back, taking a step towards him this time. The two of you were nearly toe-to-toe. "You tell me yourself all the fucking time that I deserve a break, that I need to relax, that I need to go... blow off steam. Now that I take a little bit of time to not feel like killing myself over this, suddenly it's an issue?"
"I told you that when this case was going nowhere!" he shouted. "When we had nothing real to go off of, when you kept chasing your fucking tail like a god damned dog, when I thought that there was barely a case!"
"What, so you only started helping me because you felt badly?"
"Yes!" And when you recoiled from him, he let out a sigh of frustration. "You've been chasing a ghost for years, with barely anything to go off of. You can't blame me for not thinking we'll actually get anywhere."
You didn't respond, still taken aback by his confession. He'd been helping you all of this time out of pity, not because he'd believed in you. Not because he actually cared about you getting your family justice.
That shouldn't have hurt as much as it did.
Preston ran his hand down his face again, pointing to your flash drive. "Are you gonna give me that or what?"
You handed it to him wordlessly, clenching your jaw.
"Now," he began, turning his back to you and walking to the driver's side door. "I'm going to New York to try and figure out what to do next, because now, someone I care about is missing. But after this..." He shook his head to himself, looking down at his feet. "Sweetheart, you're on your own. I'm sorry, but I'm done. Have fun with the doctor."
Without another word, Preston slipped into the driver's seat, started the car, and began driving away.
You watched his car until it disappeared around the corner of the street, closing your eyes as you felt tears welling up, that ever familiar lump appearing in your throat again.
In a way, you couldn't help but feel that Preston was right. Spencer was a distraction; that was the entire purpose of your arrangement with him. That was what it was built on. But you'd never anticipated the fact that he would also distract you from the thing that should have mattered most to you, that should have taken precedence over anything else.
No, he didn't distract you. You distracted yourself from the case. You made the choice to let it fall to the side, to yield to Boucher when he told you to stand-by, to be selfish for just a little while and try to not think about all that plagued you.
That darkness inside you was fuel, after all, and perhaps in chasing the light you'd lost some of that drive.
You couldn't help but think that if Samantha and Maryanne were dead, it was on you.
You'd process all of that in the morning. Right now...
Right now you just wanted to go to bed.
So with heavy feet, you dragged yourself back into the building, ignoring Thomas when he asked if everything was alright. The adrenaline was fading from your system as you rode up the elevator, and when you arrived back at your front door, you sighed heavily.
But as soon as you walked through the door, your heart rate picked up again as you found your office door wide open and your bedroom empty.
No.
You sprinted down the hallway, skidding to a stop in front of the open door, and breathed, "What the fuck are you doing?"
Spencer looked up from where he was holding a family photograph in his hand. He glanced around the room, his brows knit with concern, his lips parted. "I could ask you the same thing," he answered.