Exceptions
Title: Exceptions
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Reid/Garcia
Rating: PG13
Summary: Penelope is not a morning person, but she makes exceptions.
Warnings: A bit of Reid-angst, a minor sexual reference, mostly fluff.
Notes: I wrote this for the Sleepover Meme at cinnatart's LJ. Just because I wanted to :D
Penelope is not a morning person, but she makes exceptions. In fact, she makes a lot of exceptions - working at the BAU gives her no choice. She finds herself awake at hours no human being should ever see, and she has learned to do so with a certain modicum of cheerfulness. Someone has to do it, after all.
But there are some mornings where it is more a pleasure than a chore; some mornings where she rolls onto her back and grins, stretching out her arms before the sun can blink its bleary eyes at her and beam; some mornings where she lays there in the quiet and the dimness and thinks that she might be the luckiest thing alive, unholy hours and all. These mornings are rare, and she understands that. It's all right.
This life she's chosen - that he's chosen, also - isn't ever going to provide them with the luxury of waking up beside one another every day, or slipping under the blankets together at night without their phones on the nightstand, or even waking up in the same city, under the same sky, more than two or three nights in a row sometimes. It's the nature of the beast.
And that's what makes it such a pleasure. That's what makes these mornings a different sort of exception.
She props herself up on an elbow and stares at him, long and lean in the light that's patterning his back in blocks like a windowpane. Spencer is lovely all the time, but she thinks him loveliest this way - bare and still and peaceful, warm with sleep, unburdened.
He thinks too much. He worries too much. He turns things over and over and over inside of his head until they spin him against the edges of madness and he is bouncing off of everything he touches. Sometimes, she has to throw herself against him like a wrench into a machine, put herself between the teeth of his thoughts until he crashes against her body and knocks them both flat - against the wall or the kitchen table or the mattress, grinding to a halt inside of her and holding on like he's going to disappear every time he comes.
Not that Penelope minds. She doesn't. She loves him for it - for thinking too much, caring too much, needing too much and never admitting it.
But she loves him this way, too. She loves him sprawled out beside her, his hair everywhere, his lashes long and low, his brow smooth and unfettered by anything at all. She loves him with his pretty hands stuffed under the pillow and the blankets haphazard across his hips. She loves him with his even breath and open throat. Like this, he's just a man. Nobody's hero. Nobody's savior. Nobody's victim. Nobody's hostage.
Laying in her bed, he's just Spencer, and she's just Penelope, and this is just a night turning into a day. There is no way to know what it will hold in the next second or minute or hour, but right now, this is all that is.
And for that, well, she's willing to wake up as early as she has to.
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Reid/Garcia
Rating: PG13
Summary: Penelope is not a morning person, but she makes exceptions.
Warnings: A bit of Reid-angst, a minor sexual reference, mostly fluff.
Notes: I wrote this for the Sleepover Meme at cinnatart's LJ. Just because I wanted to :D
Penelope is not a morning person, but she makes exceptions. In fact, she makes a lot of exceptions - working at the BAU gives her no choice. She finds herself awake at hours no human being should ever see, and she has learned to do so with a certain modicum of cheerfulness. Someone has to do it, after all.
But there are some mornings where it is more a pleasure than a chore; some mornings where she rolls onto her back and grins, stretching out her arms before the sun can blink its bleary eyes at her and beam; some mornings where she lays there in the quiet and the dimness and thinks that she might be the luckiest thing alive, unholy hours and all. These mornings are rare, and she understands that. It's all right.
This life she's chosen - that he's chosen, also - isn't ever going to provide them with the luxury of waking up beside one another every day, or slipping under the blankets together at night without their phones on the nightstand, or even waking up in the same city, under the same sky, more than two or three nights in a row sometimes. It's the nature of the beast.
And that's what makes it such a pleasure. That's what makes these mornings a different sort of exception.
She props herself up on an elbow and stares at him, long and lean in the light that's patterning his back in blocks like a windowpane. Spencer is lovely all the time, but she thinks him loveliest this way - bare and still and peaceful, warm with sleep, unburdened.
He thinks too much. He worries too much. He turns things over and over and over inside of his head until they spin him against the edges of madness and he is bouncing off of everything he touches. Sometimes, she has to throw herself against him like a wrench into a machine, put herself between the teeth of his thoughts until he crashes against her body and knocks them both flat - against the wall or the kitchen table or the mattress, grinding to a halt inside of her and holding on like he's going to disappear every time he comes.
Not that Penelope minds. She doesn't. She loves him for it - for thinking too much, caring too much, needing too much and never admitting it.
But she loves him this way, too. She loves him sprawled out beside her, his hair everywhere, his lashes long and low, his brow smooth and unfettered by anything at all. She loves him with his pretty hands stuffed under the pillow and the blankets haphazard across his hips. She loves him with his even breath and open throat. Like this, he's just a man. Nobody's hero. Nobody's savior. Nobody's victim. Nobody's hostage.
Laying in her bed, he's just Spencer, and she's just Penelope, and this is just a night turning into a day. There is no way to know what it will hold in the next second or minute or hour, but right now, this is all that is.
And for that, well, she's willing to wake up as early as she has to.