Spence - Tumblr Posts
idk spence is just v special to me. the realistic thoughts of depression hurt to read bc i relate too hard. aspects of my life were imagined even tho i had no real drive of getting to that point and i really didn’t think i’d make eighteen but here i am. idk, felt this fic in my soul and in a good way 🙂 (imcrying)
your life and my life have kissed 𓇢𓆸 s. reid/sunshine!reader
you're learning to love the world. you think you might learn to love him, too.
tags/cws: sunshine!reader, post-prison spence, reader implied to be a poc but there are no physical descriptions, just a lot of fluff really, descriptions of injury, mentions of depression, references to suicidal thoughts, pre-relationship shenanigans, longing, reid being reid wc: 6.2k a/n: you can think of this as taking place before my other two sunshine!reader one-shots. also, reader has a history of depression in this fic, but she's quite far into her recovery journey so any discussion of mental illness is done in retrospect and without major details. this is a pro-healing story, there's literally zero angst
Even after you get settled into the BAU, you and Reid don’t actually have any full conversations until you get stabbed.
All noise has been strangely muffled since the knife went in, but you hear the team when they arrive. Sirens wail; wheels skid across the gravel with a grating crunch. The car beacons bathe everything in their eerie, flashing glow.
Red. Blue. Red again. You feel like you’re underwater.
Someone runs towards the porch. Drops to their knees in front of you.
“Hey.” That voice, like a prayer. “You’re okay, alright? You’re gonna be okay. Medic! We need a medic!”
Blood must have gotten into one of your eyes; you can’t quite bring his face into focus. You squint one eye, then the other. “Doctor.”
“Yeah, I’m here, you’re okay.” His hands whisper over your hairline and prod at the back of your head, clinical. Pain flares when he gets to the base of your skull; you must make a noise, because he withdraws immediately. “Sorry, I’m sorry. You’re okay. I’m going to lay you down now, alright?”
Your brows furrow as he eases you down. “Doctor.” Ville is in the basement. Someone should get him stabilized so he doesn’t bleed out before he’s taken into custody. “He’s in the house. I got his leg. I don’t know where my gun is.”
“Okay, don’t worry about that. We’re handling it now, okay? JJ—he’s in the house!” Footsteps thud past you. You’re facing the sky, now. There are no stars; it must be cloudy.
Reid has clever hands. That’s one of the first things you noticed about him when you first walked into the bullpen, almost three months ago.
He’d just gotten back from one of his teaching sabbaticals. Dressed smartly, in a nice trench coat and a charcoal gray button-up; his tie was a deep ocean blue. “Doctor Spencer Reid,” he said.
His lips pulled into a funny, flat sort of smile when you said your name. Polite, but awkward. You liked that face right away.
Like birds, his hands fluttered in perpetual motion—lithe, graceful. Tapping the surface of his desk; mapping things out in the air; twisting together thoughtfully.
Now, they station themselves on either side of your face. Warmth seeps into your cheeks, which is odd. For some reason, you’d assumed Reid would run cold. “Hey, look at me? I need you to try and focus, okay?”
Distantly, you feel your hand coming up to hold his wrist. Under your fingers, the skin is smooth, interrupted by only the slightest raised line: a scar, maybe? You hold onto that feeling, blinking rapidly.
Slowly, Reid’s fingers crystallize into focus. He looks down at you with those wide eyes of his, mouth set in a deep, tense line.
Beautiful, you think. The blood loss is getting to you.
“Hi,” you manage.
Reid huffs out something that might be a laugh. “There you are. Just keep looking at me, okay? The medics are on their way.”
“Didn’t take the knife out.” Your tongue feels thick and cottony in your mouth. “Not supposed to take things out of stab wounds.”
“Yeah, that’s right, you did good. Leaving it in can block off broken blood vessels, minimize the bleeding. Honey, I’m sorry, but I need to put pressure around the wound. You need to let go of my hand, okay? I’m right here, you’re gonna be okay.”
You didn’t even realize you were gripping his wrist that hard. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay.” When his palms press down on your abdomen, you make a soft, helpless noise. “I know, I’m sorry. Just keep focusing on me and stay awake. It helps to talk—just keep talking to me, okay?”
You don’t particularly have much to talk about. You’re bleeding. Blood vessels. Blood cells. This isn’t helping. “I can’t—Can you… Give me math problems?” Numbers are something you can focus on.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. What’s negative three times e to the pi—“
“No,” you groan. “No letters.”
He laughs weakly, again, which elicits a strange burst of pride in your chest; totally appropriate emotion to experience while bleeding out on a random porch in the middle of nowhere. “Right. Okay—what’s four to the fifth power, if you subtract eight squared plus thirty-two?”
Four to the fifth power. That’s manageable. Eight squared is sixty-four. “Nine hundred and twenty-eight.”
“Good. What’s five to the fourth power if you add seven squared minus one?”
That would… You should solve for the second part first. Seven squared is forty-nine. Then… “Six—six hundred and seventy-three.”
“That’s right. Um—should I do decimals?”
“Doctor.”
“Okay, okay. You—you really don’t have to call me Doctor, you know? What’s nineteen squared minus eighteen squared?”
You don’t know how long you go on like this, back and forth, before the medics arrive. Thirty seconds? Two hours? You don’t track time as it crawls by; just train your eyes on that line etched between Reid’s eyebrows, that permanent, thoughtful furrow.
Right when you hear voices shouting, coming up the driveway, it happens.
The sky lights up. Pale lines arc through the clouds, flashing into existence and back out in the breadth between one heartbeat and the next.
Lightning.
Thunder follows closely on its heels, roaring not even two seconds later. It cuts through the mess of noise all around you: the sirens, the EMTs coming nearer, someone yelling something from inside the house.
Not Reid’s voice, though. “The medics are here, they’re going to take care of you, okay? You’re going to be fine. Alright?”
Lightning dances across the sky again. It cuts through the pattern of blue light, red light, blue, red, blue—casts everything, for an instant, in stark black and white, as though the world is carved of marble.
A smile blooms across your face to mirror the lightning strike, pushing into your eyes and cheeks.
You must look insane. Reid blinks down at you, says your name quizzically.
It’s a dry night—no rain. Just for a moment, though, you let yourself imagine it: the steady drumming of drops hitting the ground in time with your heartbeat.
“Lightning,” you murmur, just as the EMTs reach you. “It’s storming.”
Healing from a stab wound is weird—weirder than it is painful, really—which is what you tell your friends when they find out what happened and begin barraging you with anxious texts. The injury isn’t too bad, all things considered, and though the amount of bedrest you’re put through is maddening, it does boost your body through a swift recovery.
You’ve never been stabbed before, though, is the thing. Never been shot, either. The sensation of your insides knitting themselves together is entirely, bafflingly new.
Once you’re not all woozy from pain meds, your friend messages you: So what does it feel like to get stabbed
At first, you barely felt anything. You’ve gotten quite a few piercings in your ears, and the initial pain of the knife was similar to a needle: a sharp pinch and a push, knocking a harsh exhale out of you. Nothing you couldn’t handle; you’d aimed at Ville’s leg and shot his kneecap out without faltering.
The blood, though. You noticed it halfway through staggering up the basement stairs: its warmth, the slow seep of it. That’s where your memory turns fuzzy, where your brain tries to smooth things over.
Pain everywhere. That was the strangest part—that everything would hurt, not just the wound. You dropped your phone without managing to call anyone. Only made it out onto the front porch by grabbing onto whatever walls or counters were nearest to you, like a stumbling drunk.
By the time Reid reached you, the pain had ebbed back to just your gut, and you felt very strange, like you were floating outside yourself. He talked to you, you remember; put his hands on you, your blood oozing through the gaps between his fingers.
Numbers. He counted, maybe? Or—he gave you math questions. Trying to keep your eyes open.
Ice and fire. Cold all over, except for where the knife was: that place burned. Burned until the paramedics reached you, upon which you drifted away.
You text back: like something sharp got pushed into ur gut lol. It’s all you can bear to say.
Prentiss gives you two months of leave. Forces you into them, more accurately—she won’t let you back into the field early no matter how hard you plead, just gives you small tasks to complete remotely if you’re so bored, Sunshine, really, a break is supposed to be a good thing!
It is not a good thing. Work is the sun around which the rest of your life orbits. Without it, you have nothing.
Nap. Cook. Sleep. Read. Nap. By the third week, you decide to take up baking. Everyone on your floor gets cookies; your landlady gets a pan of nutty, chocolate-swirled bread; you drop muffins off at the Bureau, which excites Garcia so much that she finally overcomes the last vestiges of her routine suspicion towards rookies.
“You,” she says, mouth full of raspberry goodness, “are officially in my good books. Not that you were ever in my bad books! I don’t—I don’t hate anyone! But I’ve never been good with change, not really, and I’d never met you before you joined the team, and Prentiss wouldn’t let me look any deeper into your history than what we already had on file, and—I totally didn’t stalk you. I didn’t do that. I’m digging the hole deeper, aren’t I.”
Your history of hospital stays and list of medications are in the BAU’s records, but Prentiss never batted an eye at any of it, and you don’t really care to keep it a secret. You laugh. “It’s okay, Garcia, really. I’d be nervous about someone new coming in, too.”
Vivid purple lips stretch into a bright grin. “Okay, good, ‘cause I totally need some of your recipes. And I love that pin on your bag, I watched that show when I was little—!”
You already liked Garcia when the two of you were just on polite terms: experiencing the full warmth of her affection is near-overwhelming in the best possible way. Your watch parties and baking hangouts alleviate your stir-craziness just enough to keep you from accosting Prentiss and demanding chores: something that’s just as much of a relief for her as it is for you, you’re sure.
Though lacking certification as a profiler like the rest of the team, Garcia reads people better than anyone else you’ve ever met. She hoards information about her teammates like a dragon might collect precious metals and gems, her love for her teammates shining through each time she mentions something offhandedly.
Oh, Matt’s kid likes peanuts, but he hates almonds, she might say, or I saw JJ wearing a sweater from this brand the other day—I should tell her they’re having a sale!
It’s unbelievably charming. Enlightening, too: through her, you catch glimpses into the sides of your teammates that they hold close to the chest; the versions of themselves that they show only when they feel completely, utterly safe.
You want to know those parts of your teammates, too. So you bake peanut butter cookies, making enough so that there are leftovers for Simmons to take home even after the team has eaten their fill. When Garcia invites you to go shopping with her and JJ, you accept, joining Garcia in goading JJ into buying a pretty plum-colored dress.
When Garcia takes a bite of your billionaire’s shortbread and remarks, “Oh, Mr. Genius would love these,” you squirrel it away in your memory. Later that night, when the ache of your wound quickens your heart rate too much for sleep, you gather the ingredients and bake another batch.
Morning crawls in slowly, the sky easing slowly from deep sapphire to periwinkle, bursting into orange-gold-pink for a brilliant moment before settling into a sweet baby blue, almost lilac. Burbling song trickles from the trees as the birds stir into awareness. One particularly loud chick-a-dee-dee-dee! just above your head draws your eye to a little gray-tan fellow perched on the branch nearest to you, head capped with inky black.
He cocks his head this way—then that. Takes off with a little chirp, disappearing into the wind. Joy infects you, the kindest disease, pulling your mouth into a wide smile.
When you were younger, it was so hard to look up from the ground; the trilling of birds never even reached your ears. Life was so long, in your eyes—and you were so small. You’d never felt a knife slide through your skin; had never known, either, that you had it in you to be happy.
You look into the forget-me-not sky. Think, What a pretty morning, before skipping to your favorite café, heart bouyant like a chickadee in flight.
By the time you’ve completed your errands and scuttled your way to your final destination, the class has already begun. A great number of students are hobbling in alongside you, though, eyes heavy-lidded and bleary with exhaustion. You feel a pang of pity—morning classes should be a crime, in your opinion.
You slide into a seat in the very back of the lecture hall, in a shadowed corner. You’ve no doubt that if he were looking at the door, Reid would’ve spotted you immediately; luckily, though, his attention is currently drawn by a questioning student in the first row.
He dresses just as formally when he teaches as he does when he’s working, as it turns out: a sharp blazer and matching slacks, a crisp button-up, tie done up with expert precision. You wonder if looking into his closet would just reveal a row of copies of the same outfit. He’s almost like a cartoon character.
A really cute cartoon character, you think, and smile into your coffee.
“What the misinformation effect teaches us is that eyewitness testimonies aren’t always unquestionable truths. The introduction of misinformation after the event can easily taint a witness’s memories, to the point where they unwittingly twist details—or, in more extreme cases, completely omit parts of the story or add things in that weren’t there at all. In one study, an eyewitness recalled seeing a large barn that didn’t actually exist!”
Listening to Reid teach is even better than you expected. It’s the version of him that emerges when he’s rattling off a fun fact, but uninterrupted; you can see the gleam in his eye even from where you’re sitting. His expression is relaxed, lacking the tense furrows that often score his face when the team is working a case. Every time a student raises a hand with a question, he lights up visibly, eager to dive into extra details and anecdotes.
He’s a brilliant professor. And by the enraptured looks on his audience’s faces—your opinion is shared by many.
Even once the lecture is over, there’s a small crowd of students who linger with questions and comments. You take the opportunity and sidle in behind the last person in line, rocking restlessly back and forth on the balls of your feet.
Once the last student coasts out of the auditorium, his eyes finally land on you. They go wide, the rest of his features slackening for a moment before his face rearranges into a puzzled smile. “Hi.”
“Professor.” You dazzle a grin at him. “Nice lecture.”
He blinks down at the cup you push into his hand. “I—what’s this?”
“A thank you.” When he knits his brows, you add, “For sitting with me till the medics came. My memory’s kinda fuzzy, but, um, I remember that you stayed with me. So thank you. It’s just a latte, with cardamom, and, uh—“ You reach into your bag for the bag of shortbread, brandishing it at him in offering. “Garcia said you like sweets.”
Slowly, he accepts the shortbread, staring down at it with something approaching wonder. “I do, you—“ He shakes his head a bit, laughing breathily. “You didn’t have to get me anything, you know?”
“I know. I wanted to.” You shrug. “You really helped. I think I would’ve freaked the hell out if you weren’t there.”
“You were very calm, all things considered. I think you would’ve been alright.” His voice and eyes are soft; your heart squeezes.
“That’s what you think. I was ready to scream and puke everywhere, the EMTs would’ve had to leave me on the side of the road—Did I make you ask me math problems? Did I make that up?”
Reid smiles properly, now. The force of it reveals dimple-like smile lines in his cheeks: a sight which burns itself shamelessly into your memory. “No, ah—You did do that. I tried asking if you wanted any with decimals, but, um—that pissed you off, I think.”
Good God. You look off to the side, embarrassed laughter bubbling up from your lips. “Wow, okay. Great! Cool. That’s… I’m so glad.”
“I enjoyed it.” Reid shrugs, before his smile shifts into something a little more bashful. “Did you actually sit through the lecture?”
“Yeah, I wanted to see Professor Reid! You’re way better than the professors I had, when I was in the academy—they would literally just read off their notes on the board. They made murder sound boring.”
“Hold on, let me get my bag—I’m glad I, um… make murder interesting. I feel like that’s not a very high bar.”
“You exceed all the bars, not just that one.” When he tilts his head towards the exit, you follow alongside him. “I was watching your kids’ faces, you know. They’re, like, obsessed with you.”
He ducks his head, unable to conceal a pleased smile. “They’re really great. You know, one kid’s been asking me for more resources on strain theory specifically in the context of mentally ill individuals? He says a family member of his has schizophrenia and something I mentioned in lecture made him think of her.”
“Oh, that’s amazing!” Your smile widens. “They’re so lucky to have you, having a good professor who’s actually passionate about what he teaches can mean everything. If that kid ends up writing something about that for your class, can I read it?”
A huffed laugh. “Technically, I don’t think I’m supposed to share my students’ work, but…” He gives you a sideways smile, eyes glimmering. “I might be able to make an exception.”
Excited, you bound into the air—“Yay!”—then stop short—“Oh, shit, I’m not supposed to do stuff like that. Hold on.” You concentrate for a second, squinting, but no ache blooms in your abdomen. “Okay, we’re good. Yay!”
“You really should be more careful.” Reid eyes you critically, taking a sip from his coffee. Blinks. “What’s in this?”
“Isn’t it good? It’s a latte, but the milk is steamed with cardamom syrup—I used to get it all the time, but I stopped drinking coffee last year, now I just get their chai—I love this place, I’ve been meaning to show it to Garcia, too!”
“It’s really good.” He lifts the cup, looking at it like it holds life-changing secrets. “I’ve had a cardamom latte from another place, but it wasn’t very good.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“Stillwater’s? It’s a few minutes from here.”
“Okay, see, that’s why it sucks! You can’t trust white people to make coffee.”
He snorts, brows going up. “Noted. Any other coffee-making tips?”
“They’d be wasted on you, I’ve seen how you make coffee in the Bureau.” Two words: sugar mountain. “It actually scared the shit out of me, the first time I saw you doing it. I thought you were going to poison yourself.”
“I like my coffee sweet!”
“How many sugar packets do you use? Twenty?”
“I’ve never used more than fifteen at a time.”
You actually gag. “Professor. Professor, I’m going to die. That’s disgusting.”
“Stop calling me that!” His smile makes it impossible to hold your scrunched-up expression for long. “See if I hold your hand the next time you get stabbed—Hey! Stop!”
“People who make me mad don’t get shortbread!” You make another grab for the bag, face burning; he evades it easily. “Rat!”
“You gave it to me, it’s mine now.” He holds the bag to his chest, shameless and lovely. “Have you had breakfast?”
“What?” Surprised, you stop trying to kick his shins. “Oh—No, not yet.”
“Want to grab some?” Tawny hair falls over his forehead, stray strands gilded in the morning light. His eyes crinkle at the outer edges. “There’s a place nearby with good donuts.”
Donuts! Just that would be enough to make you wiggle with excitement—the idea of donuts for breakfast with Reid lights you up like a Christmas tree. “Oh my God, yes! Are you serious? Wait, what flavors do they have? Do they have chocolate?”
The most magical thing about it all is that your happiness just keeps growing within you, a flower in endless bloom. Every time you pepper Reid with another question and he looks at you with those doe eyes, you feel as though you might explode. You didn’t even know a crush could feel like this.
And it really is a crush, you realize. Because Reid is smart, and beautiful, and so, so kind. You were teetering on the edge before you ever even had a proper conversation with him, and now you’re falling, tumbling into this thing that makes your heart race in the best possible way.
As you watch him bite into a piece of shortbread, smile radiant enough to rival the sun, you think of the chickadee. The sweet sound of his voice; that swift path of flight.
You want to swallow the sun and savor it like candy. Let it burn you from the inside out, remove the memory of the knife and replace it with something good. You didn’t know it was possible, to want to live this much—Is this what life is supposed to be like? Each day something bright, an offering from the world?
Years ago, you were sure you’d be dead by twenty-five. Today, you laugh. You walk towards love, and you eat.
“How can a baby be so cute? How is this possible?”
“Bah-bah!”
“Yes, that’s you! You’re a cute baby!”
“Buh…”
“Hi, baby. Hi, sweet baby!”
Charlie dribbles spittle down his chin. Luke lets out a vague distress call. Laughing, you pull Charlie into your own arms, uncaring when his spit-up smears on your shirt.
“You’re so squeamish,” you say to Luke teasingly, before returning to cooing in your mother tongue. “The big man is wimpy! Is he so wimpy? I know, yes!” Charlie honks happily; you beam.
Luke defends himself. “Look, I like babies. I just don’t like their… fluids.”
Matt eyes him with amusement. “They’re babies, man, they’re all fluids. How’re you gonna be a dad if you can’t handle a little spit?”
“A little? It’s all over him and Sunshine!” Luke gestures at the two of you wildly.
Sticking your tongue out at him, you tug your shirt material to wipe Charlie’s face. “Squeamish.”
His entire face scrunches in disgust. “Yeah, you know what, I am. I like kids, but I’ll take them after they learn to keep their saliva in their mouths, thanks.”
Matt rolls his eyes, ever the jaded father, as you snicker.
Luke declares that he won’t tolerate bullying and flounces back off to the room with the team’s materials. Officer Torres is still in her meeting with the sheriff, so you walk in slow circles around the office, bobbing Charlie gently in your arms. Though he’s wide awake, he sits in your embrace without complaint, peering around inquisitively. He’s such a sweet baby—just stared up with big eyes when his mother handed him off, burbling quietly. When he reaches for a strand of your hair, you let him hold it tight in his fist without complaint.
“Sweet boy,” you croon. “Happy boy. You’re the cutest.”
A few circuits later, someone knocks; the door clicks open. “Hey, we’re back. Luke said you’d be in here.” JJ smiles at Matt, then you, then blinks at Charlie. “Oh, who’s this?”
“Officer Torres’s kid,” Matt explains. “Nanny’s out sick, so she brought him in just for today. She’s in a meeting right now. Hi, Reid.”
Reid is indeed standing behind JJ. You smile brightly at him before swiveling so Charlie can see the two of them, cooing, “Charlie, who is that? Are they your friends JJ and Doctor Reid? Say hi to JJ and Doctor Reid!”
Charlie gawps towards them, then releases an unintelligible squeal. You bounce him up in your arms, laughing. “Yes, hello! You saying hello?”
JJ approaches with a soft smile. “Is your name Charlie?” she murmurs. “Hello, Charlie. What a calm boy you are.”
“He might just like Sunny,” Matt says wryly. “Luke tried holding him and he puked on him.”
“What? No, he liked Luke!” You crane your neck to look into Charlie’s face, prompting, “You liked Luke, right? Sweet boy! You liked your friend Luke!”
He smacks his lips thoughtfully, prompting a peal of laughter around the room.
When you look up at Reid, he’s standing still in the doorway, eyes gone wide and mouth pressed into a thin line. He looks thunderstruck. Is he really that intimidated by babies? You grin at him. “Reid, come say hi!”
Reid opens his mouth; closes it. JJ follows your gaze, brows lifting almost to her hairline. She whistles. “Spencer…”
With a jolt, Reid awakens from his trance. He blinks rapidly for a few moments before ducking his head, tips of his ears turning pink. Walking over, he leans in to speak softly to Charlie. “Hi, Charlie. My name’s Spencer. Are you here to work? Do you want to join the FBI?”
Your heart swells to near-bursting. The sight of his gentle expression hovering over a baby is already too much for you to bear, and when he lets Charlie wrap his fist around one long finger, you almost pass out on the spot. Thrumming alongside your fondness is shock—you’ve never seen a man with a baby and felt this surge of yearning within you, so strong it hurts. Each time you think This is it, this is a record high for how much I want him, it can’t get stronger than this, Reid proves you wrong without even trying.
“That’s my hand,” Reid whispers. “There’s thousands of germs on there, but that’s okay. I washed my hands. Exposure to a healthy amount of germs familiarizes your immune system with common contaminants so you’re less likely to get sick, did you know that?”
JJ snorts. “I still can’t believe even your baby talk is scientific.” To you, she says, “When Henry was little, Spence used to read him biology textbooks.”
That’s so Reid, and so, so cute. You laugh, catching his gaze. “You wanna hold him? My arms are getting tired.”
Transferring Charlie to his arms brings your face dangerously close—you can see each of his features up close, catch his scent. Your arms press against his, your skin brushing as you retract your hands. You hold back a shudder.
For a few moments after you pull back, Reid just looks at you, eyes heavy-lidded. Unreadable. You feel caught in his gaze like a fly trapped in honey, helpless against your racing heart.
Charlie babbles; both of your focus flies to him. The spell breaks. Stepping away, you turn so you can’t catch his eye again. You tell Matt, “I’m gonna go to the bathroom and try to clean some of his spit offa me. Be back in a sec.”
He gives you an easy thumbs-up and a smile; you slip from the office.
Pain. Agony! Your mind won’t stop throwing the image of Reid holding a baby at you, repainting in horrid detail the exact lines of the veins in his hands, the way his hair fell forward as he leaned down to speak to Charlie. The gentle cadence of his voice, soft velvet.
Your entire face burns hot, as if you’ve spent too long in the searing summer sun that bears its heat against the earth outside. Your throat is thick with longing.
In truth, you thought about it even when you were at your lowest. Having kids. Babies.
Not with any real weight. To you, the future was like a distant dream, something you pondered idly when you had nothing else to do; without the intention to do anything to reach it. Growing old and happy was something that happened to other people, not you. You were fated from the very beginning to dry up and wither before you ever made it to maturity.
In dreams, you pondered. You were always softhearted, good with kids: you thought that maybe, in another life, you would’ve had children. At least two, because you thought every child should grow up with a sibling.
These days, strangely, thinking about anything in your life beyond the present day is hard. Going any farther than a few years into the future makes a lump grow in your throat, choking you with something close to fear.
The hardest part of letting go of the wish to die is that you have to come to terms with living. Even now, you struggle with the mere thought of it: a long life. A full life.
I don’t know how to do it, you said to your therapist once, in tears. I don’t know how to imagine a future where I’m alive.
Minute by minute, she responded.
You take it minute by minute. Then hour by hour. You’re more capable than you think.
“So you balance the first one on your middle finger, here—“
“I know how to do that.”
“Okay, then you hold the second one in these fingers. See?”
“And I only move the top one. I know all the theory of it, it’s carrying it out that’s the problem!”
You burst into laughter, dropping Reid’s hand to cover your mouth. “The theory?”
“Chopstick theory…” Garcia muses around a crab rangoon. “Is this going to be our little genius’s next PhD?”
“To get a PhD in it, I’d have to be able to do it…” Reid fumbles with the chopsticks in his hands, scowling as he drops another mouthful of noodles. “I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong!”
JJ snorts. “Just give him a fork, guys, he won’t be able to eat a bite of dinner this way.” Reid shoots her an injured look, but catches the fork that Matt tosses in his direction.
You pat his shoulder consolingly. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you training chopsticks.”
“Training chopsticks?”
“They’re these chopsticks with loops for your fingers, to help practice!” you say brightly. “They’ll work for you.”
Matt chuckles. “My son’s already graduated from having to use those.”
When Reid looks to you plaintively, you admit, “I only needed them until I was six.” He wilts; you add hastily, “But that’s only because I was using them all the time! You didn’t grow up using them, it’s totally normal to need some practice!”
Stabbing his fork into his noodles, he grouses, “I just don’t think it’s meant to be.”
“Man of science,” Rossi goads, “believing in predestination because of a pair of chopsticks?” Holding his own expertly, he waves a piece of broccoli tauntingly in Reid’s direction.
You put your face in your hands as Reid protests, unable to stifle your laughter. The team’s only just returned from a weeklong case, and you’re bleary from a lack of sleep; it makes you feel a little floaty, like you’re riding the waves of the team’s voices.
There’s a distinct sense of togetherness that hits you at times like this, hours past midnight, everyone lingering at the dinner table because no one’s ready to end the night just yet. With Reid on your left and Garcia on your right, you’re sitting snug between two people who you love. Happy.
When you resurface from your giggling fit, Reid’s watching you. Traitor, he mouths, knocking his leg against yours. You fake a scandalized expression, knock his right back.
Neither of you move after that, leaving a warm bloom of contact between your knee, the outer side of his thigh; his body’s heat reaching yours even through two layers of clothing. It’s the same with your feelings for him, you suppose: always stretching towards him, through everything.
When another joke makes you dissolve into wild, helpless laughter, Luke raises his brows. “Okay, Giggles, I think somebody needs to get home and in bed.”
You try—and fail—to scowl at him. “No curfew can control me.”
Luke just scoffs and gives Reid a pointed look before turning away. You watch the exchange with only vague attention, fighting to keep your eyes open.
“No curfew can control her, she says.” Reid’s hand comes down on your thigh, and you’re suddenly very, very awake. You jolt; he eyes you with amusement. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”
Briskly, he rubs your leg a few times before standing. It takes you a moment to collect yourself, blinking up at his silhouette before you jump to your feet. “Wait—how do you know my address!”
“You’ll give it to me!” he throws over his shoulder.
And, well, alright—you can’t argue with that.
The metro’s quiet. Only a few passengers are scattered throughout the car, besides you and Reid; the man just across from you has a miniature journal, so little that his one hand nearly engulfs it. Spectacles slide down his nose as he studies whatever the pages hold, face relaxed and content.
Reid sits companionably at your left. You have your side pressed against his, and he doesn’t move to put space between you even though there’s a line of empty seats beside him. You look down at his hand, resting in his lap; remember the broad expanse of it moving along your leg. How would you even package it into words to tell him, you wonder—I want you to touch me like that all the time. I want to walk around in your mind.
You reach one leg out just a bit, knock your boot against his ankle. “You thought about what Luke said? About that volunteer program?”
“I think me showing up would cause more problems than it would help. Are you thinking about it?”
“Yeah. I used to walk dogs as a job when I was in high school, actually. I’ve wanted one for, like, forever.”
“Why haven’t you gotten one?”
“Um…” You wrinkle your nose, shrugging. “The job, I guess? I mean, we’re away from home so much of the time. I wouldn’t be a very fun owner.”
“Luke travels with us, and he has Roxy,” Reid points out. “And JJ’s on the team, and she has two kids.”
“Luke and JJ aren’t real humans. Normal people can’t take care of a dog while flying out of town every other day.”
He hums in acknowledgement. “Maybe one of the dogs at the shelter will change your mind.”
You really don't need more puppy-dog eyes in your life—you have Reid already. You echo, “Maybe.”
The last ten minutes or so of the ride are an exercise in keeping your eyes open; each time you blink into alertness enough to look over, Reid's watching you, corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement.
Balmy summer air strokes your cheeks when you disembark and surface from the metro station. After the snowy-white fluorescent lights of the train, the black sea of the night sky is enchanting; it’s like you’ve emerged into a strange new world. Stars burn throughout the endless expanse.
Reid cranes his neck, face opening up towards the near-full pearl of the moon. Moonflower. He murmurs, “Look, to the right of the moon.”
You look. Reid’s voice finds you in the dark. “Virgo. In Ancient Greece, many associated the constellation with Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and her daughter Persephone.”
“Persephone’s the goddess of springtime, right?”
“Yeah. She lived with her mother until she was taken by Hades, god of the underworld. He tricked her into trapping herself in his realm and marrying him by manipulating her into eating seeds from a pomegranate. Fruits in the underworld would force anyone who ate them to remain there forever.”
“Yum. That’d work on me.” The sideways glance he shoots you below raised brows makes you laugh. “Joke, I’m joking!”
“Remind me to keep you away from pomegranates.”
When you two are in front of your door, you spin to face him.
He’s painfully handsome in the dim, warm light of the hallway. You try your best to memorize the look of him, cast in amber, eyes trained on yours like a promise. Fondly, you say, “Thank you for walking me home.”
“Of course.” He raises a hand to brush your elbow before stepping back, putting himself on the opposite side of the hallway. “Sleep well.”
“You, too.” You wonder if you’ll dream of him. “Goodnight, Reid.”
His mouth twists, accompanied by a soft huff of laughter. What he finds so funny, you have no idea. He backs up towards the stairs slowly, keeping his eyes on you as long as he can. “Goodnight.”
Heart in your throat, you open your door. “Goodnight,” you call again, faintly. The quiet song of his laughter follows you inside.
if this feels kind of dischordant/unfinished, it's because it's technically a draft of another story i'm still working on. i'm also very bad at writing long strings of plot—i only ever write fics as little collections of slice of life moments, which is fine when you're writing a blurb, but inconvenient when you want to write anything longer than 2k words...
reader got stabbed in one of the lower corners of her abdomen, below the waist. these lower quadrants are generally the least risky place to get stabbed in on the torso, since there are no (entirely necessary) major organs. people who are afab can experience greater complications if their uterus has a lower placement and gets nicked, but for the sake of the story, that didn’t happen to reader here. shoutout to this reddit post for guiding me through describing the feeling of getting stabbed.
strain theory is a sociological concept that explores how socioeconomic factors pressure individuals into committing crimes by causing stress.
in a few episodes, jj whistles at spence like a little bird when he’s rlly concentrated on something and she’s trying to get his attention. it’s very cute. it also goes the other way: in one episode, spencer snaps jj out of a daze by saying “what is it, jennifer?” my theory is that it works to get her attention because he usually only calls her that when he’s mad.. which is very funny to me
thinking realistically, reader probably would not be able to find training chopsticks that spence would be able to use. they’re literally only made for babies, and with his huge ass yaoi hands it just wouldn’t work. he’s doomed to be a chopstick flop forever
the dc metro stops running at midnight, but i’m pretending it provides 24-hour service for the sake of the story.
“i want to walk around in your mind” comes from the song “i’d like to walk around in your mind” by vashti bunyan.
New favourite episode bruhhh
Also, Spencer with two guns? Throwback to like 1x6 much lmao
wait a fucking minute-
THIS
is literally =
THIS
kill me if im wrong