fic: we're reeling through an endless fall (criminal minds)
Apparently, this is what they call having a muse.
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Title: we're reeling through an endless fall
Words: ~4.7k
Rating: FRM/FRAO. Warnings for mild profanity, very mild descriptions of crime scenes and mild sexual content. [I cannot write smut to save my life, so it's more implied than anything else]
Notes: General spoilers through seasons 3,5,6,7,8. Specific spoilers for Zugzwang and Magnum Opus (slightly). I twisted a few minor details throughout the series, but on the whole, I like to think it's fairly canon-compliant.This is not my first CM fic, although this is the first one I've posted to LJ. I had about half of this written a while back, and then Zugzwang happened, and I thought this fic might be a way to tie it all together. The narrative and the timeline jump around, but it's (supposed to be, at least) intentional. I hope it isn't too confusing. Feedback, concrit, anything and everything is greatly appreciated!
Summary: lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life. Back then, Spencer had replied, "I love you too. I love you very much." This could be a love story someday. [spencer reid, aaron hotchner, reid/hotch, reid/maeve]
Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.
Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being
*
Later, he will think: I should have seen this coming.
Later, Morgan will tell him he’s so sorry, so very sorry for his loss and is there anything he can do.
Later, Rossi will tell him he did everything right, followed protocol to the letter, that there is nothing that anyone else would have done differently. This is not meant for comfort, but he will listen anyway.
It is unimportant what happens later because now, now there are two bodies on the floor, dead on the scene. There’s blood on the floor, too much blood, staining their clothes, staining their tears and their eyelashes.
There is a hand on his shoulder, it might be Morgan or Blake but it doesn’t matter, because he has eyes only for her, and she is lying there in a pool of her own blood, lying there with her eyes closed, her hands at her side with her nails digging crescents into her palm. A few stray strands of her hair have gotten stuck in her tears but the tears are drying and now there’s only blood everywhere.
She looks peaceful, not quite content but accepting; she could be sleeping if it weren’t for all the blood.
Later, JJ will hug him and cry on his shoulders and he will feel a flash of irritation because this isn’t her loss and she has no right to cry over something that wasn’t hers.
Later, Garcia will hold him tight and say things that end up meaning oh, honey and he will stand there, count the patterns on her dress and feel nothing.
But now, the paramedics are on the scene and separating her from Diane and loading them on stretchers. He watches them take her away and someone in the background asks if he wants to go with them, go say goodbye to Maeve and he shakes his head. He will not let his last memory of her be on a stark white, cold tile, wrapped head-to-toe in a thin sheet.
Thomas Merton, he remembers, but he still had refused to believe, to acknowledge -
Later, Blake will hold his hand, clench it tightly and not let go, and for that he will be thankful.
Later, Hotch - Hotch will say nothing.
Now, he can almost feel his mind screeching to a halt - and this is a miracle in itself, this has practically never happened before - until all he can do is scream inside, scream her name over and over again. His mind screams maeve, maeve, maeve and he purses his lips, stays silent.
*
There is a knock on his door just after midnight. He only has vague recollections of what happened after. He can paint a more concrete picture if he puts his mind to it, but that isn’t what’s required here, what’s required of him.
There is a knock on his door just after midnight and he opens the door to see Hotch standing on his doorway. He’s changed out of the clothes he’d worn during, and Spencer feels a rush of gratefulness wash over him for that.
“What are you doing, Hotch?” he asks. His throat catches on his words.
“You should be more careful while opening doors,” Hotch says, and Spencer has no patience for this, not now.
“Hotch.”
Hotch’s shoulders slump. He makes a vague gesture with his hands. “It’s my job to check on you-”
Spencer slams the door on his face before the sentence is even finished.
*
The second time there’s a knock on his door, Spencer knows its Hotch just by the way his fingers rap against the door. He doesn’t bother to answer.
He lies on his bed, curling the sheets around himself, clutching its edges tightly around its fingers until his nails scrape through the fabric. He closes his eyes and waits for the knocks to subside before bringing his legs up to his stomach and curling his hands around them. After a while, his back starts aching and it makes him uncomfortable; nevertheless, he curls around himself and tries to feel.
*
The first time, well, not exactly, but:
Hotch had said, a lifetime ago, “Do you want to stop for something? There’s a diner not far away from here.” They had been on their way back from interviewing Chester Hardwick, and the car ride had been relatively quiet after Hotch’s mild confession about his divorce.
Spencer had shrugged.
They pulled into the parking lot of a diner and while Hotch ordered a coffee, Spencer took the time to read through the menu, weigh the pros and cons and order a mango smoothie, with an extra scoop of ice-cream, extra cream and sprinkles. Hotch looked a little green as he tried to mentally calculate the amount of empty calories the drink would entail and Spencer laughed.
“I know it sounds a little… preposterous,” he said, “but I can assure you, it will taste extraordinary.”
Hotch’s lips twisted upwards. Spencer paid for his drink at the counter and pushed it towards him. “Try it,” he said.
He watched as Hotch took a sip, licked his lips, considered and took another one. “See,” he smiled widely. “It’s a lot better than it sounds.”
Minutes later, when they were settled into their booth, Hotch cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry for dumping my personal problems on you. That wasn’t fair of me.”
Spencer shrugged. “I’m, ah, sorry about the divorce, for what it’s worth.”
Hotch nodded. “Me too. Haley didn’t - well, there were too many things we disagreed on.”
“Was it the BAU?” Spencer asked around a mouthful of smoothie, and then grimaced. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to be presumptuous.”
Hotch made a vague dismissive gesture with his hands and eyed the large glass of smoothie Spencer was powering through. “It was mostly the job,” he said, weighing the words in his mouth before spitting them out. “But I think it was a also a little about how we started branching out. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we both would do anything for Jack, but beyond that, I think we just started loving other things more.”
Spencer nodded while Hotch considered his next words. “It’s also slightly to do with how I started having a rapidly deepening crush on my genius coworker. She figured it was actually something after I started talking about you.”
Spencer choked on his drink and drops of smoothie came out of his nose. Hotch dutifully passed him a couple of napkins and tried to thump him on the back. “Man, what the fuck,” Spencer finally spit out, when he thought he could breathe without spontaneously combusting.
Hotch leaned back, and set down his cup. “Well, it’s not like it could complicate things any further.”
Spencer stared at him for a good, long while and tried to think of something, anything coherent beyond fuckfuckfuck. He glanced mournfully at his half-finished smoothie. “Slightly?” he asked, his voice still choked.
Hotch smiled. “Like I said, you managed to come up in conversations.”
This is not the first time, but this is important enough to count. This is almost, quite- enough.
Let’s call this the prelude, then.
*
The third time Hotch knocks on his door; he doesn’t bother ignoring it and instead peeps through the keyhole, just for good measure. Hotch looks wary, like he has one foot out of the door anyway, like he would vastly prefer to not be here at all. It is with just the littlest bit of vindication that Spencer opens the door and invites Hotch in.
Hotch carries himself in Spencer’s apartment like it’s a recent crime scene, walks around with practiced comfort and just the slightest amount of unease. He doesn’t comment on the general levels of messiness, simply opens a bottle of scotch and fills two glasses.
“I know how it feels, you know,” Hotch says, fingers wrapped tightly around the half-finished glass of scotch in front of him.
Spencer shakes his head.
“Reid,” Hotch takes a deep breath and loosens his tongue. “I couldn’t save Haley either.”
Spencer slams his glass down on the table and it shakes slightly. “Don’t,” he spits out.
“Spencer,” Hotch’s voice is calm, conciliatory, and it reminds Spencer of the tone he uses when talking to deranged unsubs, and suddenly rage bubbles inside of him, makes him shut down like someone has thrown a bucket of ice water on him.
“You didn’t save Haley,” he says calmly, arranges his words like a bow and arrow and then shoots. “You are what killed her in the end.”
For a terrifying moment, Hotch looks like he’s going to break down right here in his goddamned mess of a living room and cry. “Fuck you,” he mumbles instead, and smashes the glass on the floor. If his voice shakes, his hands tremble or his eyes shine, well, Spencer ignores that.
Hotch is the one who slams the door this time, on his way out. Spencer sweeps up the pieces of glass and throws them in the trash.
What he’s looking for here isn’t absolution. He doesn’t quite know what he’s trying to find but this isn’t it, this much he’s sure of.
*
“So,” he had said once in the break room, leaning through Hotch to retrieve a mug for his own coffee,” in the interest of complicating your life further, how is this: I’m pretty sure I’m attracted to you too.”
He had hidden a smile when Hotch accidentally spilt a little coffee on his hand and hissed a little. When he turned to look at Spencer, he was all Aaron and his smile was all teeth, blinding, true.
He opened his mouth to say something but JJ poked her head inside the door and announced the briefing for a new case. “We’re being called to Boston,” she said, “it’s about the Reaper.”
*
The first time, the real first time had been at Haley’s wake.
Of all the places, of all the times, of all the people, it had been them.
Reid had been coming out of the bathroom when he saw Hotch leaning in front of a mirror, breathing harshly into the empty sink in front of him.
“Hotch?” he asked, sliding up next to him to wash his hands.
Hotch turned to look at him, and Spencer could see the slightest tinge of red at the corners of his eyes. “Spencer,” Hotch breathed, and pulled him closer. Before he could open his mouth to say anything, Hotch’s lips pressed against him, ferocious, tragic, and bruising all at once. He tried to lean back, retrieve some sort of stability and he kept taking steps backwards until he felt himself hitting the wall. Hotch’s mouth was all fire against him, his lips chapped and metallic from biting his lips again and again, and Spencer had not thought of love then, had not closed his eyes until Hotch had tugged at his hair, at his neck, at his back. There was something wild in his eyes, something close to desperation or pleading - Spencer would never know, fully -, but he let Hotch grab him and bruise his arms with calloused fingers, he let Hotch kiss his lips and his cheeks and his neck, let him take until his lips had bled, too.
“Please,” Hotch had almost sobbed, and Spencer had wrapped his wiry, thin, bony arms all around the other man’s torso and started a constant chant, music of I’mherei’mherei’mhere. He had brought his lips to Hotch’s face, tried to kiss each of his eyelashes, the corners of his eyes, as if to prevent any tear from escaping, as if this would rein in all his sorrow and then -
There had been a knock on the bathroom door, a phone call, a case.
The point here is: there had always been something else.
*
There is an empty syringe and a vial of Dilaudid on Spencer’s coffee table. This isn’t the whole truth, this isn’t quantum mechanics, this isn’t spontaneous. It would be better, more accurate to say: Spencer has an empty syringe and a vial of Dilaudid on his coffee table. It isn’t a lethal dose - of course not, if he had wanted to die, he would have done it long back, and in a more comfortable fashion -, but it is enough for him to fly.
Once, a man with three minds had said: Choose, and prove you’ll do God’s will.
Once, a man with three minds and a kind, kind heart had taken pity on him. He had flown, then. He had forgotten, too, in that drug-induced chemical haze; he had forgotten pain and death and all about God.
Except, except, he had seen his childhood. That had been a whole different kind of pain on its own.
He picks up the syringe and the vial and his hands do not shake. He draws the clear, odorless liquid from the vial and brings it up to his left arm. At that moment, he is so close to forgetting, so close to flying, so close that he can feel the faintest prick of the needle against his skin and he closes his eyes, presses the syringe with his thumb and any moment now, he will be free, any moment now, -
The phone vibrates on the table. The syringe falls.
*
His phone rings; there is a new case no one can solve.
That much, at least, remains constant.
*
The second time had been right after JJ left for Pentagon.
That time, he had been the one reaching out to Hotch, his voice trembling over cartons of Chinese and he had said, “Aaron.” Hotch’s eyes had been kind, too kind, too understanding, too helpless, because he understood what it’s like to lose a team-member, and because he almost understood what it’s like to lose a friend like that.
Hotch - Aaron- had leaned over and kissed him, kissed every strand of hair that had fallen on his face, kissed him until his vision had cleared. Later, he had tugged at Aaron’s hand and pulled him to his bedroom, laid him down on his bed, kissed every inch of his neck and chest, kissed away all the residual pain in all of his scars - both the visible and the invisible.
“Aaron?” Spencer had asked, and Aaron had looked at him with dilated pupils and mussed hair, with swollen lips and flushed cheeks.
“Spencer,” he had breathed, like the name had been a prayer.
“Take me, Aaron,” he had said, and although his hands had trembled and his grip on his own stability and his own feet had been tenuous at best, his voice had been steady. Aaron had smiled, kissed him like his life had depended on it, pulled him closer.
*
There is a stunned moment of silence when they see him in San Francisco. He doesn’t know why they’re looking at him; there’s an unsub bleeding his victims out, surely that should be the concern.
He hugs JJ and tries to meet Hotch’s eyes over her shoulders. They all look worried, but they’re relieved to see him functioning, murmured words like thank god and welcome echo all around him.
The breakthrough for the case falls effortlessly from his lips; let it never be said that he wasn’t exceptional at his job.
He looks at Hotch as they are leaving to interrogate a suspect, makes sure to catch his eye and asks, how long. It’s the closest he will ever get to an apology.
Hotch says, we are all here for you but at no point does he say, I am here for you.
He is a profiler; these are the things he picks up, discards.
*
In the end, it isn’t the repercussions of his job or sighs of disappointment of his team or Maeve that makes him reconsider another vial. He thinks back to when he was going through withdrawal, remembers the constant nausea and the crippling headache and cramps, remembers his whole being shivering and it is enough to make him reconsider. For now, at least.
Instead, flips his open and hits the speed dial. “I almost threw my sobriety away,” he sighs into the phone and runs a hand through his hair.
John inhales a sharp breath at the other end. “Spencer, where are you?” he asks, urgency coating his words.
“Don’t worry, I’m with the team. Kind of,” he says. Then he runs a hand through his face and flinches at the picture of a broken vial in his living room. “Shit,” is how he sums it all up.
John’s voice is calm, balanced as he rattles out the address of a NA meeting in San Francisco.
“Spencer,” he says, and there is no admonishment in his voice, only concern. “Take care, okay?”
There’s no disappointment either, and this is where he takes solace.
*
He tries going to a church, because at the back of his never-ending abyss of a mind, there is a kind man with three minds chanting: god, god, god. He tried to branch out, too. He attempts to go to a temple, a mosque, a synagogue. But mostly, he tries to look beneath the devotion plainly etched on masses of unknown faces and he desperate wants to shake them, ask them why, scream don’t you see -
He goes through the same motions, kneels down, clasps his hands together, closes his eyes and -
He draws a blank, cannot think of anything beyond help me, please. He remains silent.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. God remains silent too.
*
The third time had been after Emily’s death. For all his genius, Spencer had not known there were layers to death, back then.
They had been at Aaron’s place, on Aaron’s bed, and there were tears on both their cheeks, and Aaron’s eyes had been shining too brightly for it to be with happiness.
“Please,” Aaron had said in a voice that had melted into a sob. “I need to feel you tonight.”
Spencer had obliged, he had kissed Aaron at the nape of his neck, trailing kisses through the arch of his back, the lines of his hips, the contours of his skin. A while later, Aaron had come in a way that made him see white, stars, bliss, and for an insane moment, he had felt like he could do anything at all.
Spencer had still been inside him when he had expelled a harsh breath, and through the sweat sticking on his forehead and the slight ache radiating through his lower half, he had said the only thing that had been true, that had always been the truest of all.
“God, Spencer,” he had breathed. “I love you.”
*
The fourth time, well, the fourth time Hotch doesn’t knock on his door at all. The last person Spencer is expecting is Hotch, and when he hears the key turn, he simply assumes that it’s Morgan using his spare key.
Hotch finds him sitting in the centre of a disorganized chaos of books and papers and words and for an improbable moment, he is afraid they will suck Reid into a vortex.
“I don’t know the point,” Spencer says with a dry face and hollow eyes and the noises he makes are so horrible, so sad, that it takes him a moment to realize that they’re coming from his own self.
“Spencer,” Hotch breathes again and cups his face tightly with his hands, like he’s afraid Reid’s going to disappear, that this is all a dream, that he will never get to tell him he’s forgiven. “You are a fucking miracle,” he whispers reverently.
“But, I don’t know what is there to live for,” Spencer hiccups and doesn’t cry, not yet.
Hotch’s laugh is sharp, disbelieving. “Don’t you see?” he asks, and Spencer opens his eyes and sees his desperation in his eyes, and wills himself to understand. “You are what I- what we live for,” Hotch says earnestly,” You are our miracle. Even if people don’t know you, you root for them nonetheless. You are their hope. You are all our hopes.”
Spencer stares wide-eyed, does not comprehend this at all. “Aaron?” he asks hesitantly, in a subdued voice.
“You are my hope,” Aaron says and embraces him so tightly the he feels all the breath knocked out of him. Aaron’s arms are harsh, elbows digging into his ribs, hands rubbing against his back in a way that’s not pleasant, but he lets himself fall until he is dead weight against Aaron’s hold and doesn’t - cannot- feel his own self.
Falling is just like flying, except, except -
Aaron scoops him up and kisses his eyelids, his cheeks, his lips. He tastes salt on Aaron’s lips, raises a hand to his own cheek and thinks oh.
*
They might as well tell you this: this might be a love story someday.
Back at Aaron’s place, on Aaron’s bed, Spencer had kissed him on the forehead after they had made love. He had kissed his cheek, his jaw, and had used one of his calloused thumbs to rub Aaron’s lips. In response, Aaron had bent down to kiss him back and later, he had rested his head on Aaron’s shoulders and they had been broad, self-assured and perfectly willing to support his extra weight. He had squinted upwards and Aaron had smiled and he had smiled back.
Back then, Spencer had replied, “I love you too. I love you very much.”
*
[Spencer wields tragedy like a dagger and wears intelligence like a shield; in some cases, he reminds Aaron of a crouching tiger in a jungle full of animals he doesn’t trust. He always waits, always on the defensive, and looks people in the eye and breaks them without a second thought if they so much as turn to look back at him.
It makes Aaron’s heart hurt, because Spencer is barely thirty and too buried in layers of grief to function, and yet he still has that spark of innocence in his eyes that won’t, can’t be beaten out of him, no matter how many people, how many unsubs try. When Spencer looks around, all he sees is another person he can save, another person who can have a second chance, another person who can walk out and see that they have choices. And sometimes - and only in the darkness of his living room, and only when he is alone - Aaron is struck, completely overwhelmed by the love he is capable of feeling for a man who just wants to save another someone from his own fate, a man who wants to make the world a little bit more tolerable than his own world had been.
He will learn this much later, much too late for it to change anything at all, and for all that he is a profiler, he does not see this coming: saving everyone is just another way of saving no one. Loving everyone is yet another way of loving no one at all.
Later, Aaron will realize this too, and this is the one that will break his heart: All Spencer’s love is used up, consumed by a poor, old woman who sits by the window and dreams of sixteenth century love stories and feels nothing resembling recognition at Spencer.
There is no room for anyone else at all.
Almost.
This is the keyword here, pay attention.]
*
There is a new email in his inbox from Yale, inviting him for an extensive Q&A on his latest paper in Nature Neuroscience. There’s an opportunity to take up a coveted faculty position with fast-track tenure, the email doesn’t say, but he has always been good at reading between the lines.
There’s another email from Northwestern, congratulating him about his citations in his recent article in behavorial psych and would he be free for a conclave they’re arranging.
There is one email, another email, another letter and they all the same thing: you will be an asset to us. There is not one that promises the opposite.
There is a 7.5% unemployment rate in the United States of America. He powers his laptop off.
*
He will not tell anyone this. They will all figure it out sooner or later on their own, but he will not tell anyone this. They will guess at it, and they will all be right.
Maeve’s voice is a melody, a tune of joy, a tune with fast beats and the occasional laughter and the occasional gasp of disbelief peppered with smiles, and Spencer can’t really remember hearing anything like that before. Maeve’s voice is an assortment of science and literature, of humanity and philosophy and astronomy and anatomy, and it cuts through Spencer’s heart and makes him bleed and makes him feel things. Maeve’s voice is a rush that leaves him breathless and wanting for more, more, more. Maeve’s voice is like a key to the universe, it opens doors and shutters out windows; it raises curtains and makes him see, makes him notice. Maeve’s voice is that extra spoon of sugar in his morning coffee, the fine print of a first-edition classic and her voice resounds in the blue sky, splatters in the rain, reverberates around him and holds him all together.
Maeve’s voice.
Saves.
Him.
(almost, but you knew that already.)
*
The fourth time -
There had never really been a fourth time. It had been after Emily’s return, after they had found out the whole truth, seen her return, rising from the ashes of what she once was and returning a barely functioning shell of her previous self.
“Spencer,” Hotch had grabbed his wrist in the parking lot, and maybe he had meant to say: please or forgive me, but that was never them in the first place.
Spencer had turned to him and said, “I don’t know how to trust you anymore.” He had wrenched his hand out of Hotch’s grasp, and Hotch had let him go.
A few weeks later, there is a triathlon and a woman slipping her arm through the crook of Aaron’s elbow. Beth rolls out far easily, far uncomplicatedly than any other name from Aaron’s tongue. Spencer pours his heart into psychology, publishes everywhere and emails copies of his scans to a woman who has potential solutions to his headaches.
These events are not an example of cause and effect. They are not coincidence, either, because Spencer is too jaded to believe in anything circumstantial.
These events are merely rendered somewhat together through an unfortunate sense of timing, and he categorizes this like he does most everything else: insignificant.
Except, in the parking lot in the dark, after Emily’s return, Spencer had wrenched his hand out of Aaron’s grasp and he had said, I don’t know how to trust you anymore. It had not meant, never meant, I don’t love you.
They hadn’t been paying attention, then. There had always been a difference, after all.
*
He sits on his clean couch - clean apartment, really, now that everyone had been cleaning around him - and looks at the phone. There is a single voicemail, and it’s from Hotch and its half pleasing, half hopeful. Spencer, please just, is all the message says, and trails off in silence until the default beep.
Spencer sits on his couch and thinks of the once-broken vial on his floor, of the stacks of unread invitations baring their teeth and coming after him. He picks up the phone and dials a number from his perfect, unwavering memory. When there is answer on the other side, he wills his voice not to crack. “In the interest of complicating your life further,” he says into the phone, “how is this: if you’re willing, I would like to get together and talk.”
He means: I need you.
He means: please, don’t leave me alone.
He means, more than anything: one day, I will love you like you deserve.
*
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Title: we're reeling through an endless fall
Words: ~4.7k
Rating: FRM/FRAO. Warnings for mild profanity, very mild descriptions of crime scenes and mild sexual content. [I cannot write smut to save my life, so it's more implied than anything else]
Notes: General spoilers through seasons 3,5,6,7,8. Specific spoilers for Zugzwang and Magnum Opus (slightly). I twisted a few minor details throughout the series, but on the whole, I like to think it's fairly canon-compliant.This is not my first CM fic, although this is the first one I've posted to LJ. I had about half of this written a while back, and then Zugzwang happened, and I thought this fic might be a way to tie it all together. The narrative and the timeline jump around, but it's (supposed to be, at least) intentional. I hope it isn't too confusing. Feedback, concrit, anything and everything is greatly appreciated!
Summary: lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life. Back then, Spencer had replied, "I love you too. I love you very much." This could be a love story someday. [spencer reid, aaron hotchner, reid/hotch, reid/maeve]
Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.
Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being
*
Later, he will think: I should have seen this coming.
Later, Morgan will tell him he’s so sorry, so very sorry for his loss and is there anything he can do.
Later, Rossi will tell him he did everything right, followed protocol to the letter, that there is nothing that anyone else would have done differently. This is not meant for comfort, but he will listen anyway.
It is unimportant what happens later because now, now there are two bodies on the floor, dead on the scene. There’s blood on the floor, too much blood, staining their clothes, staining their tears and their eyelashes.
There is a hand on his shoulder, it might be Morgan or Blake but it doesn’t matter, because he has eyes only for her, and she is lying there in a pool of her own blood, lying there with her eyes closed, her hands at her side with her nails digging crescents into her palm. A few stray strands of her hair have gotten stuck in her tears but the tears are drying and now there’s only blood everywhere.
She looks peaceful, not quite content but accepting; she could be sleeping if it weren’t for all the blood.
Later, JJ will hug him and cry on his shoulders and he will feel a flash of irritation because this isn’t her loss and she has no right to cry over something that wasn’t hers.
Later, Garcia will hold him tight and say things that end up meaning oh, honey and he will stand there, count the patterns on her dress and feel nothing.
But now, the paramedics are on the scene and separating her from Diane and loading them on stretchers. He watches them take her away and someone in the background asks if he wants to go with them, go say goodbye to Maeve and he shakes his head. He will not let his last memory of her be on a stark white, cold tile, wrapped head-to-toe in a thin sheet.
Thomas Merton, he remembers, but he still had refused to believe, to acknowledge -
Later, Blake will hold his hand, clench it tightly and not let go, and for that he will be thankful.
Later, Hotch - Hotch will say nothing.
Now, he can almost feel his mind screeching to a halt - and this is a miracle in itself, this has practically never happened before - until all he can do is scream inside, scream her name over and over again. His mind screams maeve, maeve, maeve and he purses his lips, stays silent.
*
There is a knock on his door just after midnight. He only has vague recollections of what happened after. He can paint a more concrete picture if he puts his mind to it, but that isn’t what’s required here, what’s required of him.
There is a knock on his door just after midnight and he opens the door to see Hotch standing on his doorway. He’s changed out of the clothes he’d worn during, and Spencer feels a rush of gratefulness wash over him for that.
“What are you doing, Hotch?” he asks. His throat catches on his words.
“You should be more careful while opening doors,” Hotch says, and Spencer has no patience for this, not now.
“Hotch.”
Hotch’s shoulders slump. He makes a vague gesture with his hands. “It’s my job to check on you-”
Spencer slams the door on his face before the sentence is even finished.
*
The second time there’s a knock on his door, Spencer knows its Hotch just by the way his fingers rap against the door. He doesn’t bother to answer.
He lies on his bed, curling the sheets around himself, clutching its edges tightly around its fingers until his nails scrape through the fabric. He closes his eyes and waits for the knocks to subside before bringing his legs up to his stomach and curling his hands around them. After a while, his back starts aching and it makes him uncomfortable; nevertheless, he curls around himself and tries to feel.
*
The first time, well, not exactly, but:
Hotch had said, a lifetime ago, “Do you want to stop for something? There’s a diner not far away from here.” They had been on their way back from interviewing Chester Hardwick, and the car ride had been relatively quiet after Hotch’s mild confession about his divorce.
Spencer had shrugged.
They pulled into the parking lot of a diner and while Hotch ordered a coffee, Spencer took the time to read through the menu, weigh the pros and cons and order a mango smoothie, with an extra scoop of ice-cream, extra cream and sprinkles. Hotch looked a little green as he tried to mentally calculate the amount of empty calories the drink would entail and Spencer laughed.
“I know it sounds a little… preposterous,” he said, “but I can assure you, it will taste extraordinary.”
Hotch’s lips twisted upwards. Spencer paid for his drink at the counter and pushed it towards him. “Try it,” he said.
He watched as Hotch took a sip, licked his lips, considered and took another one. “See,” he smiled widely. “It’s a lot better than it sounds.”
Minutes later, when they were settled into their booth, Hotch cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry for dumping my personal problems on you. That wasn’t fair of me.”
Spencer shrugged. “I’m, ah, sorry about the divorce, for what it’s worth.”
Hotch nodded. “Me too. Haley didn’t - well, there were too many things we disagreed on.”
“Was it the BAU?” Spencer asked around a mouthful of smoothie, and then grimaced. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to be presumptuous.”
Hotch made a vague dismissive gesture with his hands and eyed the large glass of smoothie Spencer was powering through. “It was mostly the job,” he said, weighing the words in his mouth before spitting them out. “But I think it was a also a little about how we started branching out. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we both would do anything for Jack, but beyond that, I think we just started loving other things more.”
Spencer nodded while Hotch considered his next words. “It’s also slightly to do with how I started having a rapidly deepening crush on my genius coworker. She figured it was actually something after I started talking about you.”
Spencer choked on his drink and drops of smoothie came out of his nose. Hotch dutifully passed him a couple of napkins and tried to thump him on the back. “Man, what the fuck,” Spencer finally spit out, when he thought he could breathe without spontaneously combusting.
Hotch leaned back, and set down his cup. “Well, it’s not like it could complicate things any further.”
Spencer stared at him for a good, long while and tried to think of something, anything coherent beyond fuckfuckfuck. He glanced mournfully at his half-finished smoothie. “Slightly?” he asked, his voice still choked.
Hotch smiled. “Like I said, you managed to come up in conversations.”
This is not the first time, but this is important enough to count. This is almost, quite- enough.
Let’s call this the prelude, then.
*
The third time Hotch knocks on his door; he doesn’t bother ignoring it and instead peeps through the keyhole, just for good measure. Hotch looks wary, like he has one foot out of the door anyway, like he would vastly prefer to not be here at all. It is with just the littlest bit of vindication that Spencer opens the door and invites Hotch in.
Hotch carries himself in Spencer’s apartment like it’s a recent crime scene, walks around with practiced comfort and just the slightest amount of unease. He doesn’t comment on the general levels of messiness, simply opens a bottle of scotch and fills two glasses.
“I know how it feels, you know,” Hotch says, fingers wrapped tightly around the half-finished glass of scotch in front of him.
Spencer shakes his head.
“Reid,” Hotch takes a deep breath and loosens his tongue. “I couldn’t save Haley either.”
Spencer slams his glass down on the table and it shakes slightly. “Don’t,” he spits out.
“Spencer,” Hotch’s voice is calm, conciliatory, and it reminds Spencer of the tone he uses when talking to deranged unsubs, and suddenly rage bubbles inside of him, makes him shut down like someone has thrown a bucket of ice water on him.
“You didn’t save Haley,” he says calmly, arranges his words like a bow and arrow and then shoots. “You are what killed her in the end.”
For a terrifying moment, Hotch looks like he’s going to break down right here in his goddamned mess of a living room and cry. “Fuck you,” he mumbles instead, and smashes the glass on the floor. If his voice shakes, his hands tremble or his eyes shine, well, Spencer ignores that.
Hotch is the one who slams the door this time, on his way out. Spencer sweeps up the pieces of glass and throws them in the trash.
What he’s looking for here isn’t absolution. He doesn’t quite know what he’s trying to find but this isn’t it, this much he’s sure of.
*
“So,” he had said once in the break room, leaning through Hotch to retrieve a mug for his own coffee,” in the interest of complicating your life further, how is this: I’m pretty sure I’m attracted to you too.”
He had hidden a smile when Hotch accidentally spilt a little coffee on his hand and hissed a little. When he turned to look at Spencer, he was all Aaron and his smile was all teeth, blinding, true.
He opened his mouth to say something but JJ poked her head inside the door and announced the briefing for a new case. “We’re being called to Boston,” she said, “it’s about the Reaper.”
*
The first time, the real first time had been at Haley’s wake.
Of all the places, of all the times, of all the people, it had been them.
Reid had been coming out of the bathroom when he saw Hotch leaning in front of a mirror, breathing harshly into the empty sink in front of him.
“Hotch?” he asked, sliding up next to him to wash his hands.
Hotch turned to look at him, and Spencer could see the slightest tinge of red at the corners of his eyes. “Spencer,” Hotch breathed, and pulled him closer. Before he could open his mouth to say anything, Hotch’s lips pressed against him, ferocious, tragic, and bruising all at once. He tried to lean back, retrieve some sort of stability and he kept taking steps backwards until he felt himself hitting the wall. Hotch’s mouth was all fire against him, his lips chapped and metallic from biting his lips again and again, and Spencer had not thought of love then, had not closed his eyes until Hotch had tugged at his hair, at his neck, at his back. There was something wild in his eyes, something close to desperation or pleading - Spencer would never know, fully -, but he let Hotch grab him and bruise his arms with calloused fingers, he let Hotch kiss his lips and his cheeks and his neck, let him take until his lips had bled, too.
“Please,” Hotch had almost sobbed, and Spencer had wrapped his wiry, thin, bony arms all around the other man’s torso and started a constant chant, music of I’mherei’mherei’mhere. He had brought his lips to Hotch’s face, tried to kiss each of his eyelashes, the corners of his eyes, as if to prevent any tear from escaping, as if this would rein in all his sorrow and then -
There had been a knock on the bathroom door, a phone call, a case.
The point here is: there had always been something else.
*
There is an empty syringe and a vial of Dilaudid on Spencer’s coffee table. This isn’t the whole truth, this isn’t quantum mechanics, this isn’t spontaneous. It would be better, more accurate to say: Spencer has an empty syringe and a vial of Dilaudid on his coffee table. It isn’t a lethal dose - of course not, if he had wanted to die, he would have done it long back, and in a more comfortable fashion -, but it is enough for him to fly.
Once, a man with three minds had said: Choose, and prove you’ll do God’s will.
Once, a man with three minds and a kind, kind heart had taken pity on him. He had flown, then. He had forgotten, too, in that drug-induced chemical haze; he had forgotten pain and death and all about God.
Except, except, he had seen his childhood. That had been a whole different kind of pain on its own.
He picks up the syringe and the vial and his hands do not shake. He draws the clear, odorless liquid from the vial and brings it up to his left arm. At that moment, he is so close to forgetting, so close to flying, so close that he can feel the faintest prick of the needle against his skin and he closes his eyes, presses the syringe with his thumb and any moment now, he will be free, any moment now, -
The phone vibrates on the table. The syringe falls.
*
His phone rings; there is a new case no one can solve.
That much, at least, remains constant.
*
The second time had been right after JJ left for Pentagon.
That time, he had been the one reaching out to Hotch, his voice trembling over cartons of Chinese and he had said, “Aaron.” Hotch’s eyes had been kind, too kind, too understanding, too helpless, because he understood what it’s like to lose a team-member, and because he almost understood what it’s like to lose a friend like that.
Hotch - Aaron- had leaned over and kissed him, kissed every strand of hair that had fallen on his face, kissed him until his vision had cleared. Later, he had tugged at Aaron’s hand and pulled him to his bedroom, laid him down on his bed, kissed every inch of his neck and chest, kissed away all the residual pain in all of his scars - both the visible and the invisible.
“Aaron?” Spencer had asked, and Aaron had looked at him with dilated pupils and mussed hair, with swollen lips and flushed cheeks.
“Spencer,” he had breathed, like the name had been a prayer.
“Take me, Aaron,” he had said, and although his hands had trembled and his grip on his own stability and his own feet had been tenuous at best, his voice had been steady. Aaron had smiled, kissed him like his life had depended on it, pulled him closer.
*
There is a stunned moment of silence when they see him in San Francisco. He doesn’t know why they’re looking at him; there’s an unsub bleeding his victims out, surely that should be the concern.
He hugs JJ and tries to meet Hotch’s eyes over her shoulders. They all look worried, but they’re relieved to see him functioning, murmured words like thank god and welcome echo all around him.
The breakthrough for the case falls effortlessly from his lips; let it never be said that he wasn’t exceptional at his job.
He looks at Hotch as they are leaving to interrogate a suspect, makes sure to catch his eye and asks, how long. It’s the closest he will ever get to an apology.
Hotch says, we are all here for you but at no point does he say, I am here for you.
He is a profiler; these are the things he picks up, discards.
*
In the end, it isn’t the repercussions of his job or sighs of disappointment of his team or Maeve that makes him reconsider another vial. He thinks back to when he was going through withdrawal, remembers the constant nausea and the crippling headache and cramps, remembers his whole being shivering and it is enough to make him reconsider. For now, at least.
Instead, flips his open and hits the speed dial. “I almost threw my sobriety away,” he sighs into the phone and runs a hand through his hair.
John inhales a sharp breath at the other end. “Spencer, where are you?” he asks, urgency coating his words.
“Don’t worry, I’m with the team. Kind of,” he says. Then he runs a hand through his face and flinches at the picture of a broken vial in his living room. “Shit,” is how he sums it all up.
John’s voice is calm, balanced as he rattles out the address of a NA meeting in San Francisco.
“Spencer,” he says, and there is no admonishment in his voice, only concern. “Take care, okay?”
There’s no disappointment either, and this is where he takes solace.
*
He tries going to a church, because at the back of his never-ending abyss of a mind, there is a kind man with three minds chanting: god, god, god. He tried to branch out, too. He attempts to go to a temple, a mosque, a synagogue. But mostly, he tries to look beneath the devotion plainly etched on masses of unknown faces and he desperate wants to shake them, ask them why, scream don’t you see -
He goes through the same motions, kneels down, clasps his hands together, closes his eyes and -
He draws a blank, cannot think of anything beyond help me, please. He remains silent.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. God remains silent too.
*
The third time had been after Emily’s death. For all his genius, Spencer had not known there were layers to death, back then.
They had been at Aaron’s place, on Aaron’s bed, and there were tears on both their cheeks, and Aaron’s eyes had been shining too brightly for it to be with happiness.
“Please,” Aaron had said in a voice that had melted into a sob. “I need to feel you tonight.”
Spencer had obliged, he had kissed Aaron at the nape of his neck, trailing kisses through the arch of his back, the lines of his hips, the contours of his skin. A while later, Aaron had come in a way that made him see white, stars, bliss, and for an insane moment, he had felt like he could do anything at all.
Spencer had still been inside him when he had expelled a harsh breath, and through the sweat sticking on his forehead and the slight ache radiating through his lower half, he had said the only thing that had been true, that had always been the truest of all.
“God, Spencer,” he had breathed. “I love you.”
*
The fourth time, well, the fourth time Hotch doesn’t knock on his door at all. The last person Spencer is expecting is Hotch, and when he hears the key turn, he simply assumes that it’s Morgan using his spare key.
Hotch finds him sitting in the centre of a disorganized chaos of books and papers and words and for an improbable moment, he is afraid they will suck Reid into a vortex.
“I don’t know the point,” Spencer says with a dry face and hollow eyes and the noises he makes are so horrible, so sad, that it takes him a moment to realize that they’re coming from his own self.
“Spencer,” Hotch breathes again and cups his face tightly with his hands, like he’s afraid Reid’s going to disappear, that this is all a dream, that he will never get to tell him he’s forgiven. “You are a fucking miracle,” he whispers reverently.
“But, I don’t know what is there to live for,” Spencer hiccups and doesn’t cry, not yet.
Hotch’s laugh is sharp, disbelieving. “Don’t you see?” he asks, and Spencer opens his eyes and sees his desperation in his eyes, and wills himself to understand. “You are what I- what we live for,” Hotch says earnestly,” You are our miracle. Even if people don’t know you, you root for them nonetheless. You are their hope. You are all our hopes.”
Spencer stares wide-eyed, does not comprehend this at all. “Aaron?” he asks hesitantly, in a subdued voice.
“You are my hope,” Aaron says and embraces him so tightly the he feels all the breath knocked out of him. Aaron’s arms are harsh, elbows digging into his ribs, hands rubbing against his back in a way that’s not pleasant, but he lets himself fall until he is dead weight against Aaron’s hold and doesn’t - cannot- feel his own self.
Falling is just like flying, except, except -
Aaron scoops him up and kisses his eyelids, his cheeks, his lips. He tastes salt on Aaron’s lips, raises a hand to his own cheek and thinks oh.
*
They might as well tell you this: this might be a love story someday.
Back at Aaron’s place, on Aaron’s bed, Spencer had kissed him on the forehead after they had made love. He had kissed his cheek, his jaw, and had used one of his calloused thumbs to rub Aaron’s lips. In response, Aaron had bent down to kiss him back and later, he had rested his head on Aaron’s shoulders and they had been broad, self-assured and perfectly willing to support his extra weight. He had squinted upwards and Aaron had smiled and he had smiled back.
Back then, Spencer had replied, “I love you too. I love you very much.”
*
[Spencer wields tragedy like a dagger and wears intelligence like a shield; in some cases, he reminds Aaron of a crouching tiger in a jungle full of animals he doesn’t trust. He always waits, always on the defensive, and looks people in the eye and breaks them without a second thought if they so much as turn to look back at him.
It makes Aaron’s heart hurt, because Spencer is barely thirty and too buried in layers of grief to function, and yet he still has that spark of innocence in his eyes that won’t, can’t be beaten out of him, no matter how many people, how many unsubs try. When Spencer looks around, all he sees is another person he can save, another person who can have a second chance, another person who can walk out and see that they have choices. And sometimes - and only in the darkness of his living room, and only when he is alone - Aaron is struck, completely overwhelmed by the love he is capable of feeling for a man who just wants to save another someone from his own fate, a man who wants to make the world a little bit more tolerable than his own world had been.
He will learn this much later, much too late for it to change anything at all, and for all that he is a profiler, he does not see this coming: saving everyone is just another way of saving no one. Loving everyone is yet another way of loving no one at all.
Later, Aaron will realize this too, and this is the one that will break his heart: All Spencer’s love is used up, consumed by a poor, old woman who sits by the window and dreams of sixteenth century love stories and feels nothing resembling recognition at Spencer.
There is no room for anyone else at all.
Almost.
This is the keyword here, pay attention.]
*
There is a new email in his inbox from Yale, inviting him for an extensive Q&A on his latest paper in Nature Neuroscience. There’s an opportunity to take up a coveted faculty position with fast-track tenure, the email doesn’t say, but he has always been good at reading between the lines.
There’s another email from Northwestern, congratulating him about his citations in his recent article in behavorial psych and would he be free for a conclave they’re arranging.
There is one email, another email, another letter and they all the same thing: you will be an asset to us. There is not one that promises the opposite.
There is a 7.5% unemployment rate in the United States of America. He powers his laptop off.
*
He will not tell anyone this. They will all figure it out sooner or later on their own, but he will not tell anyone this. They will guess at it, and they will all be right.
Maeve’s voice is a melody, a tune of joy, a tune with fast beats and the occasional laughter and the occasional gasp of disbelief peppered with smiles, and Spencer can’t really remember hearing anything like that before. Maeve’s voice is an assortment of science and literature, of humanity and philosophy and astronomy and anatomy, and it cuts through Spencer’s heart and makes him bleed and makes him feel things. Maeve’s voice is a rush that leaves him breathless and wanting for more, more, more. Maeve’s voice is like a key to the universe, it opens doors and shutters out windows; it raises curtains and makes him see, makes him notice. Maeve’s voice is that extra spoon of sugar in his morning coffee, the fine print of a first-edition classic and her voice resounds in the blue sky, splatters in the rain, reverberates around him and holds him all together.
Maeve’s voice.
Saves.
Him.
(almost, but you knew that already.)
*
The fourth time -
There had never really been a fourth time. It had been after Emily’s return, after they had found out the whole truth, seen her return, rising from the ashes of what she once was and returning a barely functioning shell of her previous self.
“Spencer,” Hotch had grabbed his wrist in the parking lot, and maybe he had meant to say: please or forgive me, but that was never them in the first place.
Spencer had turned to him and said, “I don’t know how to trust you anymore.” He had wrenched his hand out of Hotch’s grasp, and Hotch had let him go.
A few weeks later, there is a triathlon and a woman slipping her arm through the crook of Aaron’s elbow. Beth rolls out far easily, far uncomplicatedly than any other name from Aaron’s tongue. Spencer pours his heart into psychology, publishes everywhere and emails copies of his scans to a woman who has potential solutions to his headaches.
These events are not an example of cause and effect. They are not coincidence, either, because Spencer is too jaded to believe in anything circumstantial.
These events are merely rendered somewhat together through an unfortunate sense of timing, and he categorizes this like he does most everything else: insignificant.
Except, in the parking lot in the dark, after Emily’s return, Spencer had wrenched his hand out of Aaron’s grasp and he had said, I don’t know how to trust you anymore. It had not meant, never meant, I don’t love you.
They hadn’t been paying attention, then. There had always been a difference, after all.
*
He sits on his clean couch - clean apartment, really, now that everyone had been cleaning around him - and looks at the phone. There is a single voicemail, and it’s from Hotch and its half pleasing, half hopeful. Spencer, please just, is all the message says, and trails off in silence until the default beep.
Spencer sits on his couch and thinks of the once-broken vial on his floor, of the stacks of unread invitations baring their teeth and coming after him. He picks up the phone and dials a number from his perfect, unwavering memory. When there is answer on the other side, he wills his voice not to crack. “In the interest of complicating your life further,” he says into the phone, “how is this: if you’re willing, I would like to get together and talk.”
He means: I need you.
He means: please, don’t leave me alone.
He means, more than anything: one day, I will love you like you deserve.
*