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Chapter Text

Spencer

Our footsteps filled the once quiet library. No one looked up. In fact, no one seemed to care that five smartly dressed, sunglasses-wearing, impassable people were clomping their way down the long, reverberating aisles.

We were gathered around the ‘European History’ section. I noticed a book on the Bayeux Tapestry – I needed to remember to grab 5 minutes to read that before we left.

 “Mrs Tollit, are you sure you haven’t seen this man?”

I looked at Hotch. He was talking to the head librarian, Claire Tollit, in his usual, no-nonsense manner. I wondered if I’d ever be as commanding as him, be able to hold the attention of the room with a single look…probably not.

Mrs Tollit shook her head, “I’m sorry but…this looks like 100 different men,” she said, gesturing to the composite sketch we had with us, which admittedly looked like every other 30 something year old white man.

Gideon sighed. “Prentiss and I will go and speak to the library staff, the rest of you; ask the people here if they recall seeing him.”

Gideon thanked the head librarian and wandered off to the other end of the library, leaving me and Derek where we stood.

My eyes once again darted to the book, maybe I could just read it now?

No, focus.

I looked around the large library and felt that all too familiar unease within my chest.

“Why do you look so nervous, kid?” Morgan asked me.

I wasn’t nervous, I was distracted. I was much better at interacting with the public than I had been when I’d first started the job. My confidence was growing, but I felt as though my ability to focus on my job was falling day by day. I had other things on my mind.

Morgan sighed and gave me a firm pat on my shoulder. “Let’s start small, okay?” he suggested.

He felt sorry for me, all of the team did. A case gone awry a couple of months back (if you can call getting kidnapped and forcefully injected with drugs ‘awry’) had knocked my confidence a bit, but I was fine, really. I just had some…stuff…I needed to deal with and I’d be back on track.

“Let’s talk to her,” Morgan said, pointing to a young girl with shoulder length, raven black hair who was busy scribbling away in a notebook. A black dress cascaded down to her ankles, with big sleeves that swept across the table, dislodging some of the papers and books spread around her every time she moved. A re-useable coffee mug decorated with bats was clutched in her left hand, yet it seemed to be more of a comfort item as opposed to a functional one due to the fact she was carelessly waving it around.

Okay, so I wasn’t as nervous as I used to be, but I wasn’t by any means fully capable. I shook my head violently. “No.”

“Why not?” Morgan asked with a quirked eyebrow.

“She’s- uh… just…not her.”

Morgan’s confusion soon turned in to a smirk. “You think she’s pretty,” he stated.

I felt my cheeks flush pink. “What?  No, I – no-“

“Spencer,” Morgan cut over my stuttering. “We have a job to do and I suggest you start by asking the pretty, goth bookworm over there. Come on, I’ll take the lead,” he said, beginning to walk in the direction of the woman.

“Morgan, no!” I hissed, but it was too late. I clung tighter to the strap of my bag as I pattered after him, whispering pleas that fell on deaf ears.

My skills with women were poor, to say the least. Not that I was going over there to flirt with the girl, but even so I knew I’d end up fumbling my words somehow. God knows how I’d managed to get the actress Lila Archer to kiss me in her pool – I put that one down to trauma bonding and a subconscious need for her to prove her gratitude for my protection. It certainly that it wasn’t because I had ‘wooed’ her with flirting and endearing smooth talk.

“Ma’am, do you think you can spare us a few moments of your time?” Morgan asked the woman as we approached her table.

She lifted her head up from her books and looked at us with incredibly vibrant, blue eyes. Her lips were painted in a bright red that framed every inch of their delicate curves and lines. 

“Of course,” she smiled. A smile that made my heart do a little flip in my chest. “What can I do for you, agents?”

My panic was replaced with confusion as I glanced at Morgan.

“How did you know we’re agents?” Morgan queried.

“I noticed you when you first came in,” she explained. “I knew you must be law enforcement in some capacity – but then I clocked Mr Men in Black over there flashing his badge around,” she said, gesturing to Hotch who was a few feet away, talking to an older gentleman.

She was observant. Unusually observant. I glanced down at her text book; forensic psychology. Well, that answered that question. Plus, Hotch wasn't exactly discreet in his look.

Morgan chuckled. “You have a good eye. I’m SSA Derek Morgan and this,” Morgan grabbed me by the arm and dragged my unwilling self in front of her, “is Dr Reid.”

I gave a thin-lipped smile and a wave, which was really just me showing her the palm of my hand.

She nodded at me and then turned her attention back to Morgan. “I’m Briana, what can I help you with?”

Briana. What a beautiful name.

“I’ll let Dr Reid explain, I’m going to go and talk to a few more people,” Morgan replied, giving me a ‘thumbs up’ gesture that Briana could not see and walking away from us.

Briana looked at me, her brilliant blue eyes blinking expectantly, framed by dark hair and pale skin that looked as clean and crisp as snow.

Say something you idiot.

“Um…Miss…”

“Martin.”

Briana Martin…

“But I’d prefer it if you called me Briana, or Bree,” she added in after a few moments of silence. It was a good job she did say something, as I was merely just staring at her, unable to formulate a coherent response as I repeated her name over and over in my head like a mantra.

“Okay…” I nodded, as acknowledgement and as a way to perhaps shake some words out of my mouth. “Uh…we’re looking for this man,” I placed the image from the sketch artist in front of her. “We believe he frequents this library, perhaps as a student or as a member of staff, do you recognise him?”

She screwed her face in to a look of deep thought.  “This isn’t really much to go on, Dr Reid,” she said with a weak smile as she studied the image.

There went that little flip in my stomach again as my name left her perfectly plump lips…

Focus.

I sighed. She was right, it wasn’t much to go on.

“But, I’ll keep an eye out,” she said, sliding the image back to me.

She was staring at me again. Why was she staring? Oh, right, the UnSub. “My number is on this card,” I informed her matter-of-factly as I handed her one of my cards. “If you do see him, give us a call.”

She nodded as accepted the card, causing some of her perfectly straight hair to fall over her face. “I’ll do that.”

I looked at the textbook that lay open next to her and instinctively reached out to grab it. “You’re interested in Psychology?” I asked her as I scanned through the book.

“Well I’d better be,” she chuckled dryly, “otherwise I’ve just wasted the last five years of my life studying it for nothing.”

“You know we’re with the Behavioural Analysis Unit, right?”

Her face lit up. “Wow! So you’re here looking for a serial killer? Or a bomber?  Or someone with a chemical weapon of mass destruction?”

“Serial killer,” I nodded, lightly amused at her enthusiasm for the subject. “He’s murdered 4 college aged women in the last month by slicing their throats and cutting out their tongues.”

She gave a small grimace. “A woman hater then, what a refreshing change.”

I assumed she was being sarcastic, though I wasn’t great at picking up on stuff like that.

“Reid!”

I spun my head to see Hotch, striding over to us with a look of determination.

“We’ve got a call from  Garcia, she’s-“

His voice trailed off when he saw who I was talking to. He instantly softened his hardened look and fixated his gaze on the beautiful woman next to me.

“SSA Aaron Hotchner,” he said, offering his hand for Briana to take.

Handshakes are wildly unhygienic. They probably don't even know...I should tell them.

“The number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering,” I helpfully informed the two of them as their hands lingered together, “it’s actually safer to kiss.”

Bree blushed, and withdrew her hand from Hotch’s. She bit her lip lightly as she looked up at him, and he just stared down at her with what I can only describe as a smirk.

“Don’t mind him,” Hotch said to Bree in an uncharacteristic light tone. “For all of his genius he sometimes forgets to think before he speaks.”

Bree let out a light laugh. It was quiet, but I heard the notes that the vibrations of her vocal chords made. I heard the softness in which her – wait, what did Hotch mean by that comment? Did I say something wrong?

“Well, Agent Hotchner,” Bree smiled, “I hope you’d at least buy me a drink first.”

Hotch chuckled, he actually chuckled, meanwhile it dawned on me what my helpful, fun fact had accidentally alluded to. I needed to clarify my meaning and fast. “Oh, wait - no, I-“

“It’s fine, Dr Reid,” Bree giggled once more, her vocal inflection wrapping me in what felt like silk. “I know what you meant.”

“Has Reid shown you the sketch?” Hotch asked her, changing the subject.

She nodded. “Yes but, I’m afraid I cannot recall seeing the non-descript white man that you’re looking for, Agent Hotchner.”

Hotch sighed. “That’s what everyone has said.” He scanned his eyes over Bree before adding in, “and call me Aaron.”

I can’t say for certain if my jaw slackened to the point of my mouth being agape, but it sure felt like it. I don’t think in the few years I’d known Hotch that I’d ever heard him tell someone to call him Aaron…especially not a stranger or a potential witness. Why was he behaving so out of character?

More importantly, what about Haley? It was no secret that their marriage was on the rocks, that is if Hotch’s grumpier than usual mood and the fact I’d seen him looking at apartments on his computer screen were anything to go by, but they were still married. Hotch loved Haley far more than she loved him, it seemed, and so this acute flirtation was truly unexpected from him – even if their marriage was on the path to failure.

“Reid,” Hotch’s voice dragged me from my thoughts, “we’d better get back, we’ve got no leads here.” He turned to face Bree. “Briana, it was a pleasure to meet you,” he said to her, offering yet another handshake.

I chose not to re-iterate my point about the cleanliness of a handshake, they clearly didn’t care.

“Agent- Aaron,” she smiled shyly. She glanced at where their fingers were interlocked, and her eyes flitted to his left hand which remained at his side. She clearly spotted his wedding ring, and released her grip quickly. She turned to me, mastering an expression of neutrality.  “Dr Reid, I won’t offer you a handshake, but it was lovely to meet you.”

I gave her what was no doubt the world’s most awkward smile, and headed off after Hotch feeling even worse than when I’d walked in, which was impressive by even my standards.

I could kill Morgan for putting me through that.

~~~

Bree

What an interesting day this was turning out to be. I allowed myself a few moments to mull over the last 20 minutes of my life, despite the fact I really needed to be getting on with my work.

I watched as Aaron disappeared down an aisle, and Dr Reid stopped to pick up a book from the ‘European History’ section. He opened it and his eyes started rapidly scanning over the words. He flipped the page. Then another. Then another. I felt my brow crease; there was no way he was reading that, right? I watched in wonderment as he leafed through the book at a more than impressive speed.

After a while of me marvelling at the sight before me, Dr Reid closed the book. He lifted his head and found me staring at him.

Shit.

I looked away and prayed that he didn’t think I was weird.

He seemed sweet, probably a similar age to me, and yet so much older than his years. I mean, he was a ‘Doctor’ and a fully-fledged member of the FBI, whereas I was only just finishing my BA and barely managing to balance that with a part time job at a café  – yep, like Aaron had said, he really must be a genius.

He was pretty, too, but I supposed that didn’t really matter as he’d looked at me as if I was an armed robber holding him at gun point. I guessed he did not feel similarly about me.

I groaned and allowed my head to fall to the desk. As exciting as meeting the agents of the BAU was, I still had a lot of work to get through. I threw the business card given to me by Dr Reid in my bag, hoping that ‘out of sight, out of mind’ would encourage me to focus on what I was meant to be doing.

//x//

After over an hour of fighting with myself to maintain momentum on my tasks, I threw my pen down and resigned to just leaving it for the day. The words on the page in front of me had coalesced in to one big squiggle, and my eyes were hurting from the strain. I packed everything in to my bag and glanced around the library, people watching as they say, my mind drifting to my plans to go to my local bar after I was done at the library.

Eventually, a few tables away from where I was sitting happily in the corner, my eyes rested on a man. He had a book open in front of him, yet he didn’t appear to be reading it, instead focusing on two first year college girls.

I looked back at the man again, and my blood ran cold.

He wasn’t just a man; he was a miscellaneous white man. He was the man that the BAU had been looking for.

As the realisation dawned on me, the man rose from his seat and wandered over to the bookcase that was situated nearer to the girls.

Oh fuck.

I scrambled around in my bag to find the business card Dr Reid had given me.

Dr Spencer Reid

Behavioural Analysis Unit

I quickly grabbed my phone and plumed in the number on the card before tossing it to one side. The phone started ringing, and all I could do was try to stop my heart from beating from my chest as I waited for him to pick up.

“Reid,” he answered.

“Hi!” I said a little more enthusiastically than I intended. “It’s Bree, urm, we met a couple hours ago in the library… I’m the one with the black hair and the -”

“Hi Bree,” he cut over me with a little stutter. “I remember you. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“Um well, I’m pretty sure the man you are looking for is here…” I said in a whisper.

There was silence on the other end of the line, followed by the sound of shuffling, followed by muffled voices that I couldn’t quite make out.

“Are you sure it’s him, Bree?” Dr Reid’s voice came through the phone.

“I mean…yes? He looks just like the sketch you showed me, but he’s got more of a beard…” I explained, keeping one eye on him as he feigned interest in the book he was holding.

“Do not interact with him, Bree,” a different voice instructed me, a voice that belonged to Agent Hotchner.

My heart rate picked up even more as I replied, “Okay, but he’s clearly very interested in some young college girls that are sitting not too far from me.”

“Are either of them brunette?” a female voice I didn’t recognise asked from the other end of the line.

“They both are,” I informed her.

“Do not speak to him, don’t go near him, stay exactly where you are - I mean it,” Agent Hotchner commanded me.

I chewed my lip. “Okay, Aaron.”

There was a beat of silence before I heard the voice of Dr Reid once more. “We’re on our way.”

The phone hung up and I was just left there to…what? Keep an eye on him? It’s not like I could do anything to physically stop him, I couldn’t batter a fish, but I felt that somehow the responsibility to not allow anything to happen to these girls now fell on me until the FBI could get there.

I watched in abject horror as the two girls stood up, giggling amongst themselves and blissfully unaware of the danger a mere 7 feet away, and began to walk out of the library. The man closed the book, and I could see that he was about to walk after them.

I had to do something.

With little regard for my safety or the instructions of Aaron, I slung my bag over my shoulder, shot to my feet and allowed them to carry me over to the man. Adrenaline coursed through my veins with each hurried step. I reached him in a few paces, and plastered my biggest, most friendly smile on my face.

“Hi!” I grinned widely.

He turned to face me, looking completely thrown off. “Hi?”

“I just saw you from where I was sitting and I thought you looked a little lost,” I said, delivering the best lie I could on the spot.

Despite my natural introversion, I knew I was usually good at making friends and being conversational. I hoped and prayed I could force on that friendly mask and win him over, at least for a while.

His eyes were flitting between me and the two girls that were withdrawing further away. “No, I’m not lost,” he replied coldly, before starting to walk away.

“What are you reading?” I asked him cheerily, reaching out my arm and grabbing the book from his hand.

“It’s…uh…”

I looked at the cover. The Divine Comedy. Shit, I hadn’t read that in years, and even then I hadn’t managed to make it the whole way through, but something told me that he hadn’t either.

“Oh, this is the one about the circles of Hell, right?” I questioned, maintaining eye contact so that he would, hopefully, feel compelled to talk to me. “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” I continued, desperately gripping on to my terrible conversation starter.

He glanced back at the girls, and I saw him start to clench and unclench his fists. “Uh yeah, yeah that’s the one. Look if you don’t mind I really have to-“

“I haven’t seen you here before,” I cut over him just as he’d begun to walk away. “Are you new to the area?”

He looked utterly furious, but he had stopped trying to walk away. “No, I’m not,” he replied, not looking at me but looking down the now empty hallway where the two girls had disappeared from sight.

I knew if I could keep him here just bit longer, then the girls would hopefully be well away and the BAU would arrive. There was only one thing that my stupid, cortisol producing brain could think of; “Would you like to get a coffee?”

That one caught his attention. He turned to face me, properly, and finally studied my appearance. I felt myself shudder as his eyes raked me up and down.

I kept my tongue firmly in my mouth after recalling what Dr Reid had told me about the man in front of me and his penchant for tongues – or rather the removal of them.

The man was, in a very basic sense of the word, attractive. It was probably part of his ruse to gain access to his victims, so I was hoping he wouldn’t find my suggestion of a coffee too outlandish and become suspicious of me.

“How old are you?” he asked me, eyes still running over my body and lingering at my chest.

“20,” I lied. His type was clearly younger college girls, and I hoped that even though I was 24, I could still pass for 20…maybe a bit of a reach but it was the best I had.

His eyes continued their assault on me for a short while longer before he said, “Okay, let’s get coffee.”

My relief that my plan had worked quickly turned in to panic as I realised what I had just done. He began to walk away, so I placed the book on a table and quickly followed.

“There’s a coffee shop in the library, you know?” I asked him as he began to head for the exit.

“Yeah, but there’s a better one a block away,” he countered.

Oh fuck. I’d really got myself in to some shit this time.

We exited the building and my eyes scanned around wildly for any sign of the FBI agents coming to my rescue.

Fortunately, the girls he had been watching were nowhere in sight. Unfortunately, I seemed to have made myself the next target. The only sliver of hope I could hold on to was that I had black hair, not brunette as appeared to be his type.

“We’ll go this way,” he announced, turning the corner, “it’s a short cut.”

I stopped dead. There was no way I was going down a dingy side-street with a serial killer. I would be dead within moments, my self-defence skills being akin to that of a sloths’. As much as my willingness to stop the man from following those girls had brought me this far, it would not take me down that alleyway.

“Uh…you know I just remembered I have somewhere to be,” I lied, poorly.

He cocked his head. “I thought you wanted to get coffee?”

“I do! I’m just…super forgetful and I have an appointment…” I lied a bit better this time. “Maybe I can get your number?” I added in, hoping that maybe the FBI would be able to track him that way.

He looked angry, no, he looked furious, but through gritted teeth he replied, “Fine. I’ll give you my number.” He stretched out his hand and gestured for me to hand him my phone. I fought off the shake of my hands as I reached in the bag to grab it and hand it to him.

He was stationary, clearly not willing to take the few steps closer to me he needed in order to take my phone off me so, against my better judgement, I moved closer to him and down the alleyway.

As I reached him, I heard sirens approaching. Swallowing back the sigh of relief that overtook my body, I handed him my phone. I knew the sweat must have been beading off my forehead with how hard I was trying to keep down my nerves, and God held me if I needed to say something – I was sure my voice would shake enough to give me away.

He was clearly distracted now as the sirens could be heard just around the corner from us. He glanced to me, and I guess my face was not as calm and I’d hoped, because while he had no way of knowing that those sirens were for him, he panicked, and I suddenly felt the hard, unmistakeable barrel of a gun press firmly in to my side as he slammed me against the wall of the alleyway. 

“Are you a fucking cop?” he hissed at me as I tried to regain my breath.

“No,” I replied, winded. “What are you talking about?”

He brought the gun to my head. “Don’t lie to me you little bitch. I should have known you were. Fluttering your eyelashes at me like a stupid slut.”

I wanted to chastise him for his words, but I figured now wasn’t the time. I wasn’t even aware I was an ‘eyelash flutterer’.

“I’m not a cop, Jesus, I just wanted to get coffee with you!” I said to him, this one not strictly a lie.

He searched my face for a moment, and I guess he found innocence because he removed the gun from my temple and clicked the safety back on.

My relief, however, was short lived as the next sensation I had the joy of experiencing was the hard grip of the gun making contact with the side of my head. It was like a thunderclap had gone off inside me. Dazed, I watched as the man ran off. Then I was out cold.

Chapter Text

Spencer

“Where is she?” I asked while attempting (and largely failing) to keep my emotions in check.

I had been incredibly agitated lately, finding that I was very quick to anger. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know why that was, and I’d also be lying if I said that our newest Agent, Emily Prentiss, had not been on the receiving end of most of my irritability.

It’s not that I didn’t like her it’s just that…she wasn’t Elle.

I missed Elle. Sometimes I thought that Elle liked me as a bit more than a friend…sometimes I thought I liked her as a bit more than a friend too, but I could never be sure. And before I had a chance to explore that possibility, she was gone. Walked, or I more suspect forced, out of the team and on to a different path. I wanted her to be happy, and I was sure she was, but I know that Elle would have been there for me while I was going through what I was.

I felt the stress start to tick at my jaw. My mind wandered to the one thing I knew would help to calm me down.

No, focus. Bree needs you.

“I told her, I specifically instructed her, to stay here,” Hotch stated as we all exited the library, satisfied that Bree, and our UnSub, were not inside.

“Something must have happened,” Prentiss chimed in.

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for pointing that out, Emily.”

I felt everyone glaring at me, but I didn’t care. We needed to focus on Bree.

“We need to fan out and explore the perimeter. Morgan and Reid, you go left, the rest of us will go right, and we’ll see if there’s any sign,” Gideon ordered us.

We split up in to our groups and began to comb the surrounding area. I could quite literally feel my heartbeat in my throat, which I noted was an unusual response for someone I’d only just met. Definitely not an appropriate reaction for a witness and potential victim in an active case.

I was starting to lose hope that we’d find her, and I was starting to feel the blinding panic as I realised our UnSub might have taken her, when Morgan and I came upon an alleyway. I glanced down it as a reflex, a conditioned response to check to danger at every corner; however I did a double take when I noticed something on the floor.

Not just something. It was a raven haired, bleeding something slumped against the wall.

“Bree!” I ran to her, Morgan following closely behind once he’d realised why I’d taken off running.

I dropped to my knees, trying to assess the damage. What the hell had happened to her? She had a large wound on the side of her head that was coated in now dried blood.

“We need medical,” I heard Morgan say, assumingly on his comms device.

“Bree? Briana can you hear me?” I asked her with gentle firmness, brushing the blood-matted hair from her face.

I could hear Morgan saying something behind me, but I was too focused on the bleeding girl in front of me.

“What happened?”

I heard Hotch approach us, dropping to his knees on the other side of her.

“I don’t know,” I said through my panic-stricken state. “I just found her like this.”

“Briana, can you hear me?” He spoke assertively, as always. I watched as he pulled his jacket from his shoulders and placed it over her.

Damn, I really should have thought to do that.

“EMT is 3 minutes out,” Morgan informed us, joining me by my side.

“Aaron…”

I felt solace wash over me at the sound of Briana’s soft voice. Her eyelashes were fluttering open as she mumbled Hotch’s name.

I scrunched up my face. Why did she ask for Hotch?

“I’m here,” he soothed her, brushing her hair from her face just as I had done moments before. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”

Everyone was gathered around now, staring down at the stranger who had clearly risked her safety in order to aid in our apprehension of the UnSub.

Bree groaned and finally opened her bright blue eyes. She winced at the daylight and immediately shut them again.

“No, no, keep them open for me,” Hotch commanded her in a voice softer than I was sure I’d ever heard from him.

She begrudgingly opened her eyes. “Are you always this bossy?”

“Yes,” he affirmed. “Now keep your eyes open and keep looking at me.”

She chuckled. “I’m more than okay with that.”

Everyone exchanged a series of looks, ranging from amusement to confusion, meanwhile I felt as though I had just swallowed a pile of rocks that were now weighing me down, dragging me beneath the surface. Dragging me further from sight of Bree.

“What happened?” I asked Bree, drawing her attention to me.

She groaned as her dazed eyes focused on me. “I found the guy you were after.”

“I told you not to confront him,” Hotch said, once again taking her attention away from me.

I seethed under the surface as I vied for her recognition. “Where did he go?” I asked. “What was he wearing?”

She groaned again. “He ran back towards the library. He was wearing…urm…light blue jeans and a grey hoodie. It had some kind of logo on it…I think it was a…fuck I can’t remember!” she cried out in frustration, moving her body with a sudden jolt.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Hotch soothed her, placing a firm hand on her shoulder to keep her from moving. “You don’t have to remember right now, let’s just get you checked over by the EMT’s okay?”

She mumbled something that sounded like an agreement. Then on cue, the ambulance rounded the corner. I watched helplessly as the EMT’s, and Hotch, aided her up off the floor and in to the back of the ambulance. 

“We need to take you to the hospital to check you over properly,” one of the EMT’s informed her as they began to clean up her wound.

“No, no I’m fine!” she protested and, stupidly, went to stand up. I was by her side in a shot as her knees buckled from underneath her. Both myself and Hotch went to help her, holding one of her arms up each.

“You are not fine, and you are going to the hospital,” Hotch stated, leaving no room for argument.

She sighed and looked at Hotch, then at me. “Fine.”

“Do you want someone to come with you? Or is there someone we can call?” the EMT asked her as they re-settled her on the gurney.

I didn’t even need to question who she’d want to go with her. Obviously it was Hotch.

“Dr Reid, will you come with me, please?”

My eyes must have widened to the point of near popping from my head. “Yeah…yeah of course I will.”

I followed the EMT in to the back of the ambulance as they lifted Bree up. She protested that she could walk, but they wouldn’t let her.

“Call me with any updates,” Hotch ordered me just as the doors were closing, giving me a rather disconcerting glare.

I nodded, then the doors shut and I was in the back of the ambulance with Briana Martin, utterly clueless as to how I’d even got there.

Why did she ask for me?

~~~

Bree

I woke up to blinding lights, and immediately shut my eyes again.

Why the fuck is it so bright in here?

“Hey…”

The soft voice from next to me reminded me of where I was, and what had happened. I guessed I’d fallen asleep in the ambulance, or passed out, I didn’t know, all I knew was that Dr Reid was sitting beside me and my head felt fit to burst.

God, how embarrassing. I’d not only gotten myself knocked out, but I’d also pathetically begged for Dr Reid to come with me, to what, hold my hand? Pathetic. I couldn’t even remember the guy’s name. Stephen? Simon? All I knew was that he smelled amazing and the way his voice sounded was like a warm blanket laced with silk being draped over my shoulders and enveloping me in the comfort I so desperately needed.

“I’m sorry,” I said, once the initial pain in my head had subsided.

“Why are you sorry?”

I managed to turn my throbbing head to face him. “You have way more important things to be doing than sitting around and waiting for me to wake up."

“Actually I don’t. We need to do a cognitive interview with you when you’re up to it so someone would have had to come see you anyway.”

“Oh…okay.” I mean I knew that the reason he was sat there was all part of his job description, but a tiny part of me had hoped that maybe he was there just because…I don’t know, he wanted to be?

An utterly ridiculous line of thought for someone I’d just met, but having spent my entire life alone, I often found that I was reaching out to grab a hold of anyone that came close enough.

“How do you feel?” He asked me.

“Shit,” I replied.

He frowned. “The Doctor said you have a concussion but don’t worry, most concussions aren’t serious if you’ve never had one before. Have you had one before? Because three or more is highly linked to brain damage in later life.”

I bit back my chuckle as I tried to keep up with the rapid rate at which he was firing words at me. “Uh, no. No prior concussions.”

He nodded in approval of what I’d said. “Good.” He stood from his seat. “I’m gonna get the Doctor to check you over and then we’ll do the cognitive, okay?”

The last thing I felt like doing was a cognitive interview, something which I’d read about during my studies and sounded particularly taxing, but I knew I needed to help in any way that I could. “Okay.”

//x//

They caught the UnSub, thanks to me, or in spite of me. I really wasn’t sure whether I’d helped or hindered their investigation.

During the interview I’d remembered some pertinent details. Mainly, that the logo on his hoodie was from a local pizza restaurant and that he was indeed the most average looking man you could find. Kind of like a blank avatar on a ‘create a character’ simulator.

Anyway, the information led the BAU to him. His name was Lyle Roberts, apparently, and Dr Reid gave me play by play updates at the rest of his team raced to his address.

“Don’t you need to go with them?” I asked him after their technical analysist, Garcia as I had been informed, had found the man’s address.

He shook his head. “Nah, they can cope without me.”

“I’m not sure how,” I said. I meant because he appeared to be some sort of genius that knew everything and could read at the speed of light, but I failed to mention that part.

He just looked at me, blinking steadily over his hazel eyes. “Why did you ask for me?”

“What?”

He shifted in his seat slightly. “You asked for me to come with you, not Hotch, why?”

I had no idea why it mattered, but I’d already embarrassed myself beyond reconcile so what was once more? “Because you’re the first person I thought of when I woke up.”

“Oh…but you said Hotch’s name when you woke up.”

 Did I? I didn’t really remember. “Probably because his was the first voice I heard.”

“Oh…”

I glanced over, and he was stationary, still just staring at me. Did I break him?

“I’m sorry, you know, if it was an inconvenience that I asked for you,” I said, “I just wanted someone with me and you’re, well, you know.”

He pressed his lips together. “No, I don’t know.”

God, this man was making my life difficult. And I was somehow successfully digging myself in to a deeper hole of embarrassment. “You’re nice…and your voice is comforting.”

He looked at me like I’d just fired off a round of bullets. “What?”

“Don’t make me say it again, please. This is already embarrassing enough.”

He studied me for a moment. “You were flirting with Hotch.”

I shrugged. “He was flirting with me, too. Besides, it appears he’s married so it doesn’t mean anything…not that you’d care if it does, of course, you don’t even know me.”

I wanted him to care, I wanted him to be jealous, but I knew that was probably a futile line of thought. Dr Reid seemed like the kind of man that did not engage in the alpha male pursuits of a woman.

His eyes continued their assessment of me before he sharply got to his feet. “Well I should, you know, call the team and get an update.”

Nice one, Bree, you scared the poor man off.

“Yeah, of course.”

//x//

He returned 15 minutes later.

“They got him,” he informed me.

 “Oh, good, this concussion wasn’t for nothing, then,” I half-joked.

Judging by the way he was looking at me, he did not find it funny. “You shouldn’t have got involved. Something could have gone really wrong.”

I knew he was right, of course, I was entirely stupid, but when I’d seen their suspect eyeing up those poor girls…I just felt that I had to do something, because I was the only one there that had the capability of doing so.

“I know, it was stupid,” I sighed. “But what’s one concussion for the sake of someone’s life, right?”

“You’re not an FBI agent, you’re just a college student. Why did you try to be a hero?”

I frowned at his snippy tone. “Why do you care? You got the guy, didn’t you? Yes I took a risk, but it was a calculated one, and it worked out in the end. Don’t lecture me.”

“I’m not lecturing you, I’m pointing out where you went wrong.”

“Well thank you for your observations,” I snapped.

“Don’t get uptight with me because you can’t see where you went wrong.”

Jesus, this guy was relentless when he needed to prove a point. What happened to the guy that could hardly introduce himself or maintain eye contact with me?

“You were barely able to hold a conversation with me a few hours ago,” I pointed out with a sharp edge to my words. He was pissing me off. “Where has this sudden superiority complex come from?”

His hazel eyes widened a fraction, before narrowing in to a look of disdain. “It’s not a superiority complex, I’m merely stating the facts, and the fact is that you put yourself in harm’s way for no reason other than to feel important to the investigation.”

In that moment I wished I was more than concussed, because fuck, this guy might be cute but he was also a grade A asshole. “I put myself in harm’s way because I didn’t want that guy to kill those girls.”

“We’d have got there in time.”

“Okay, whatever you say,” I huffed. I really just wanted him and his snippy attitude to fuck off.

He sighed and sat down. “How will you get home?”

“I’ll walk.”

“You have a concussion.”

“I’ll get a cab then.”

He sighed again, more exaggerated this time. “Is there anyone I can call to accompany you?”

“No.”

“No one at all?”

“No,” I said again. “No one at all.”

He frowned at this, and his snappiness dissolved just a little bit. “There must be someone…”

I rolled my eyes. This man was too persistent. “No, Dr Reid, I have no one, okay? No friends, no family, it’s just me.”

I had no idea why my irritation levels were so high….probably because the handsome doctor was grilling me like a burger on the 4^th of July.

“I’m not leaving, not until you’re cleared to leave and you’re in the cab.”

I groaned, defeated, and agreed to his terms.

What a day this was turning out to be.

I needed a fucking drink.

Chapter Text

Spencer

Bree got discharged half an hour later and I did, as I said I would, wait until her cab arrived to take her home.

I was kicking myself for being so short with her, but my brain had begun to focus on matters far more pressing than sitting in the hospital. I was craving, and I needed to get out in order to fix the gnawing need growing inside of me.

I never used to be that person. I never used to snap at people for minor things or have so little capacity for patience that everything irritated me like Velcro on bare skin, but I wasn’t who I used to be.

I’d been fundamentally changed, and that meant that I, and everyone else, would have to just suck it up and accept the person I was now. And the person I was now had only one thing on their mind, one thing that might help take away the stresses of the day and send me to a place where none of it mattered…

I glanced at Bree, who was watching the route her Uber driver was taking like it was the most fascinating thing on the planet.

“You sure you’ll be okay?” I asked her, still shaking with need but consumed by guilt.

She nodded, blinking up at me with those blue eyes of where the horizon meets the open ocean. “I’ll be fine.”

The cab arrived, and she hurried to open the door and jump in.

“Thank you for everything, Dr Reid,” she said with a wry smile. “I do appreciate it, even if you are a supercilious ass.”

My mouth fell open.

I couldn’t even think of a comeback in enough time, because after her parting comment she shut the door and the cab took her out of sight.

Supercilious ass.

That was a new one. I’d been called all sorts of things in my time, but that wasn’t one of them.

Was I supercilious? I didn’t believe so. I didn’t look down on anyone - figuratively speaking. And I sure didn’t look down on Bree…did I? She was charismatic, she was intelligent and she was valid as a person, of course she was…but I supposed I did say she was ‘just a college student’ and insult her intelligence by berating her decision to go after the UnSub. I made out that she was foolish, incapable of making the right choices and worth less because of that.

Huh, maybe I was supercilious.

There was probably a logical explanation for the way her words made me feel, some kind of science behind the fact my body reacted the way it did, but I couldn’t find it as I stood there, watching her cab drive away, and feeling inexplicably, dare I say, aroused? Aroused by her, and at the idea of having this arrogant superiority complex she accused me of, one thing I’d never have said I had.

Me, arrogant? It was laughable, considering how every waking moment was a fight just to get by in social interaction, but God all I could think about in that moment was showing Bree just what I could do with that arrogance. Show her exactly what I felt like to be worth less than me, to be beneath me and beg for my approval.

Woah. What the fuck is wrong with you?

I don’t believe a thought like that had ever crossed my mind, something so sexually vile and deviant and downright wrong. Those thoughts were not me, they were not who I was…so why were they all that I could think about on the way home?

Cravings. That was all. The drugs, or lack thereof, were screwing with me. Or maybe it was because I’d had to vie for her attention over Hotch, and I hated the idea of losing out against someone because my competitive streak was far too strong. Or maybe it was because I was addicted to fucking drugs and that had turned me in to a raging asshole. Perhaps it was that I’d never been in control, never been the one to take charge or have any sort of upper hand, and I relished in the thought of being given that opportunity.

Whatever it was, I feared Bree had awoken something in me that I would not be able to put back to sleep.

//x//

It’s not true what they say, that all virgins think about is sex.

I mean, I definitely thought about it a lot when I was a teenager, and it crossed my mind on occasion, but quite honestly I was content with ignoring sex and forgetting it existed. Rarely at the forefront of my mind, and never something I’d actively seek out…

That changed the day I met Bree, I realised, as the entirety of that week all I could think about was sex. Specifically, the kind of sex that would make us profilers raise an eyebrow.

Maybe that was why I’d never really cared about sex before, because I’d never thought about it in the way I was now -  the opportunity for me to take control, to finally make someone else feel beneath me for a change…

God, it was wrong. It was so painfully wrong that I even considered asking Morgan if he was in to any of the kinky stuff. Or asking Gideon if the road I was going down was veering hard on to the path of ‘UnSub’.

I didn’t ask them, I didn’t know how to broach that particular conversation, but damn I wanted to. Just to check that I wasn’t losing my mind for thinking about what it would be like to have Bree on all fours, crawling towards me and begging for me. Because each of these vivid sexual images? They all contained her. There was not one that drifted to replace her with Lila Archer, Elle, or any other woman. No, they were all Bree. The woman I’d met once and barely knew at all.

The following Sunday, finally a day off for the team, I did what I always did on a day off and went to the coffee shop at the nearby park for a coffee and to read a book (or four).

It was warm, June in full swing and the heat of the summer bouncing off the pavements. I really wasn’t a summer person - it made my chosen attire of cardigans and sweater vests a difficult wear -  so I often had to opt for just a shirt. Even the shirt was too hot, but I had to wear the damn long sleeves due to the fresh track marks on my arms from the previous night’s indulgence in to my new favourite habit.

I already craved it again. I already couldn’t think straight as incoherence clouded my brain and demanded that I have just one more hit to carry me for the day.

I ignored that voice. I could do that, sometimes. I’d found that if I gave in to it three or four times a week, it was nowhere near as loud as when I ignored it all together. I tried to only listen on my days and nights off, staying well clear during work hours but…that wasn’t always possible. Not anymore.

The team knew something was up, I could see it in their eyes, but no one cared. No asked me what was wrong, or made an effort to reach out and help me. Only Gideon. Gideon cared, but he hadn’t been the same since he lost out on apprehending Frank Breitkopf the other month. He was distracted, always waiting for the moment he spotted Frank and Jane and could finally get the closure he needed.

It was just me, really, as always. Alone, and dealing with a shit show of issues that were enough to drive anyone to do what I did. I’d never have turned to drugs had I been given the choice, but that choice was taken away from me the day Tobias kidnapped me and pumped them in to my arm. That was the day I lost myself.

I fought, for a little bit, to claw the remnants of the person I was back to the surface, but I soon realised it was futile.

Life was cruel. There was no such thing as luck, good or bad, it was just hard reality and my reality was that I’d rather stick that damn needle in my arm if it meant I could have even a few moments of ephemeral peace.

Now, of all of the 5,545,000 people that live in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, imagine my surprise when I encountered the one I could not stop thinking about as I went to settle myself outside the coffee shop with my first book of the day.

Bree was there, in a short black sun dress and black wedge heels, sipping on what looked to be an iced coffee, and flipping through a textbook.

My dick instantly responded, no surprise there considered this woman had been the cause for some indecorous sexual awakening that I had no desire to psychoanalyse for fear of what I may discover.

I caught her eye, and she gave me this dazzling smile that made my stomach respond with some kind of summersault.

Fuck.

I could cope with sexual urges, but did she have to make the rest of me feel so intensely, too? I didn’t know whether I wanted to fuck her, kiss her or have coffee with her. All of it at once? But none of it, because that would be incredibly inappropriate given she was a material witness and victim of a case. Granted the case was closed but…

She waved me over to her.

Fuck, do I go? Is it rude if I don’t? Or is it professional?

That familiar anxiety started to bubble away as I made the decision to go over, not to sit down, but at least be polite and say hello…even if she had called me a supercilious ass the last time I saw her.

“Dr Reid,” she greeted me as I approached her. “Fancy seeing you here.”

I gave her a weak smile, distracted by her red lips and waterfall of dark hair, not as straight as it had been the last time I saw her, looking so fucking pretty that I could barely think straight.

“Hi Bree, how are you?” I greeted her with as much politeness as I could muster.

 “I’m great,” she smiled. “No concussion now, so everything’s back to normal.”

I had no idea why she was being so nice to me, considering we’d near argued the last time we saw each other and she’d departed our interaction with a little bombshell of a phrase that had left me, uncharacteristically, speechless.

“Great…” I had no idea what I was meant to do now, but my dick, my heart and my head were all screaming for attention. I was shit at talking to people, especially girls, but I was also on an extreme comedown and entirely distracted by Bree’s bright red lips.

I decided that I’d just leave. It was the most logical thing to do, given the extreme circumstances I’d somehow found myself in.

“Would you like to sit down?”

For fucks sake.

“No, thank you.”

Her face fell. “Oh, right. Yeah of course, you’re probably super busy, sorry.”

“I’m not busy,” I informed her. Because it was true, I had literally nowhere to be, I just didn’t want to be with her. Correction, I didn’t feel able to be with her.

“Oh…”

Ah, shit. I’d said the wrong thing again.

“I’m sorry for calling you a supercilious ass,” she said, blinking up at me with wide eyes that had me tripping over myself. “I mean, you are, but it was rude of me nonetheless.”

God, I loved her direct manner. There was no guessing what she was thinking, because she just said it as it was, much like myself. I didn’t have to look for hidden meaning or read between the lines with her, something which I found to be particularly taxing when interacting with others. She just…said it. That was refreshing.

I’m gonna regret this.

“I forgive you, there were extenuating circumstances, after all.” I took the empty seat opposite her and set my drink on the table. “How’s your studies going?” I asked her, hoping she’d skip over my U-turn of accepting her invitation to sit.

She did skip over it, and replied, “Good! I mean, some of it is a bit confusing and I’m struggling to keep up with college and a job but I’m managing.”

“What are you confused by?” I was genuinely curious – maybe I could help? She was studying the one thing I knew better than anything, after all.

“Everything…” she sighed. “And yet nothing at the same time. I just have so much going on in my head that it all ends up becoming white noise and it turns in to nothingness. Does that make sense?”

Yes, it made sense. In fact, I don’t think anyone had ever put it as accurately as she had.

I mean, I was sure she didn’t have as much going on in her head as I did…I had an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory, so I was clearly more intelli- woah… I cut off my train of thought before it went any further.

Fuck, I actually AM supercilious.

“It makes sense,” I nodded. “Sometimes there’s so much that it turns in to nothing.”

She smiled then, her eyes brightening with my agreement…my approval.

“You know much about Dr Paul Ekman?” She asked, sliding her text book over to me.

I shifted as an inconvenient thought sent a shudder through my body. “Yes, I know Ekman.”

Dr Paul Ekman, leading pioneer in micro-expressions, deception detection and all things behavioural science. His strengths were as valid as his weaknesses, hence academia’s interest in picking apart or validating his ideas. A lot of the BAU’s work was rooted in Ekman’s theories.

“Well he’s pissing me off,” she exclaimed dramatically. “I mean, super intelligent guy, he’s good at what he does, but it’s confusing. Does this mean that every time someone deflects a question, they’re lying? Or is it just sometimes? And how do I tell what’s a manipulator versus what’s simply an itchy ear?”

They were valid questions. The science of deception and behavioural analysis wasn’t an exact science, and that was something that had really bugged me when I first started out - the fact that despite all my facts, statistics and knowledge, sometimes there really was no definitive answer, and I had to trust my gut.

I leant over to grab Bree’s textbook, tried to ignore the fact that a heavy hit of rich vanilla perfume encased my senses, and began to explain.

Bree

We’d been there for two hours, Dr Reid and I. He’d explained the parts I was struggling with in thorough detail, and he’d explained them well.

Granted, I found myself getting distracted by the veins in his hands and the length of his fingers, but I still learnt a hell of a lot. He was a great teacher.

I must not think about what it would be like to call him Sir.

I still didn’t know his name, and by now it was far too late to ask. It had been on his business card when I’d called him to tell him about the UnSub, but I really hadn’t paid attention to anything but the number, and I then proceeded to lose the business card in the rush. I was 99% sure it began with an S, but other than that I was at a loss.

The man really was supercilious…or condescending, or haughty, or whatever other synonym you wish to use on the matter. I don’t even think he meant to be, but the way he came across was very ‘holier than thou’ and ‘I know best’. He conducted himself in a very matter-of-fact way, his words and observations always stated as fact, and leaving no room for any debate.

Okay, so 90% of the time it was fact, and he was right, but over the two hours he was teaching me I caught a few incidences where he stated what was merely his opinion as though it was unequivocal fact. He just always thought he was right, (probably because he was used to being so), and that no one else could possibly understand because no one could ever be as intelligent as him. Hence, the supercilious ass comment I’d made.

I didn’t mean it harshly, not really, but I couldn’t deny myself the opportunity to call him out after he’d been so snippy with me in the hospital.

He’d done a full 180 from the stuttering, nervous man that introduced himself, and crashed through the barrier with a brash, domineering snappiness that had really caught me off guard.

I’d asked him to go with me because I thought he was comforting, warm and soft, but when he was laying in to me for my decision to try and stop their UnSub, I really started to wonder if I should have asked for Aaron to go with me and not him.

I mean, Agent Hotchner was undeniably attractive, and sure we’d flirted a bit, but it didn’t go any deeper than that. It never did with me. Flirt, have sex, move on. Sex was a means to an end, a physical release to detract from the stresses of day-to-day life. Intimacy beyond hair pulling and degradation was highly overrated, in my opinion.

Thinking about it, about the type of sex I so desperately craved, ended up getting me inconveniently hot next to Dr Reid’s espresso and autumn scented body.

He’d been talking about equivocating, I think, but all I could focus on was how the muscles in his forearms were flexing underneath the sleeves of his shirt. I wondered if he was a one night stand type of guy? The sort that could fuck me until I cried and then skip out to save the next day awkwardness?

I decided no. He could barely hold a conversation when we first met, and despite the fact that he was clearly far more confident than he’d initially seemed, he did not strike me as the ‘pump and dump’ sort. A real shame, because the things I’d let that man to do me were-

“Are you even listening to me, Briana?”

Oops.

“Yes,” I lied. “I’m listening.”

“Then what did I just say?”

Ah, fuck.

“I wasn’t aware there would be a test,” I joked.

He did not laugh.

I rolled my eyes and tried to remember the last thing I’d heard him say. “Equivocating is the act of using ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself to something.”

“I went over that approximately 3 minutes and 23 seconds ago,” he sighed. “What did I say after that?”

Double fuck.

Had I really been fantasising about him for that long? “I…”

He placed the book down. “You have no idea, do you? What on Earth were you thinking about that was more important than me taking time out of my day off to help you?”

What your hands would feel like around my throat.

“The...weather”

He raised an incredulous eyebrow. “The weather?”

“Yeah,” I said, now committed to the poor lie. Fuck, I really did need to study Dr Ekman more because I had no idea how to lie effectively. “It’s nice.”

He looked up at the sky. “Yeah, it’s nice.” He looked back me. “If you’d like to pay attention?”

“Why are you being so bossy?” I scowled. I wasn’t great at doing what I was told…or least; I preferred to be made to do as I was told.

“I’m the one putting myself out for you,” he half-snapped.

“Save yourself the hardship then,” I said, gesturing for him to leave. I didn’t mean to sound so ungrateful, but this guy really knew how to wind me up.

“You know, I think it’s you that needs to do some character assessment,” he chastised me as he grabbed his bag. “I may be a supercilious ass but at least I’m not an entitled bitch.”

My mouth fell open.

Hell no.

I followed after him as his long legs carried him quickly away from me.

“Come back,” I demanded.

He didn’t stop.

“Dr Reid stop walking right now!”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Briana,” he said over his shoulder.

I quickened my pace to an almost jog and caught up to him. “You just called me a bitch and I demand that you apologise!” I said, tugging him to a halt.

He looked thoroughly irritated by my presence.

“I’m sorry for calling you a bitch.”

I glared at him, “No you’re not. You answered too quickly.”

“Oh, so you were listening to what I was telling you, then?”

“Yes I was.” I huffed, “I’m sorry that I got distracted for 3 minutes and 25 seconds but-“

“23 seconds,” he corrected me.

I gave a sarcastic smile. “Fine, 23 seconds, but that was all. Everything else you said I listened to every word. Not everyone is a genius that reads books at the speed of light and has a PhD in whatever so don’t get mad at me just because I can’t keep up!”

He sighed and dragged a hand through his floppy, mid-length hair. “Well what were you so distracted by?”

“You!”

He looked at me as if I’d informed him I’d committed mass murder. “Wha-“

“Yes,” I cut over him, in so deep that I simply did not care to try and swim back out. I had a tendency to ‘say it as it is’, usually to my detriment, and I had a feeling that this time would be no different, but I really wasn’t one for mincing my words. Life was too short not to cut to the chase. Besides, what were the chances I'd see him again, anyway? “I was thinking about what it would be like to have sex with you, okay? Happy?”

Oh, fuck. The way his pupils grew and his breath shallowed told me that maybe I would get what I wanted, and that Dr Reid would turn out to be the type to rough me around and fuck me senseless.

Before I could say anything else, I was being slammed in to the brick wall behind me.

I gasped at the sudden, hard contact against my back. Who was this man? An enigma wrapped in a mystery. One that I was desperate to try and work out.

“Don’t say things you don’t mean, Bree,” he said in a harsh whisper.

Well, this is unexpected.

I leant closer in to him, desperate to push further and see if he’d act on what he was clearly thinking. “Well, you’re the expert, Dr Reid,” I replied as our breath tangled in the air around us. “Look me in the eye and tell me if I’m lying when I tell you all I’ve been able to think about is taking your dick.”

He did look me in the eye, lustful and hungry, and then his lips crashed against mine. Desperate, needy and slightly messy.

He was uncoordinated at first, licking and kissing wherever he could, but as the kiss deepened so did his restraint, and it quickly became a kiss that set my entire body alight with want.

He pulled away from me, panting and dark eyed. “I live a block from here, will you come back with me?”

I couldn’t help the way I bit my lip in anticipation. “Yes.”

Chapter Text

Spencer

I’d gone from being a 25 year old with almost no experience with women, to being a 25 year old with…unusual…sexual desires and a woman lying on his bed waiting to get fucked, in 8 days, 21 hours and 14 minutes.

And I had no idea what to do.

I knew what I wanted to do, but how the fuck did I go about doing it?

Bree and I had made the short walk back to mine, and the moment the door to my apartment was shut I was on her again, desperate and insatiable. Kissing I could do, I’d done kissing before, and she seemed to like the way I was doing it, judging by the soft moans that kept escaping her perfect, red painted lips.

But as I pushed her back on to my bed (trying to ignore the fact her ‘outdoor’ clothes were on my bedding) and she stared up at me, waiting for whatever came next, I froze. I froze because no matter how vivid my imagination of what I wanted to do to her was, I had no idea how to implement it.

“Dr Reid?” She questioned me.

Fuck, why did she insist on calling me that and not just Spencer? Hearing my name in the breathy, almost pleading tone made me lose all sense.

“Bree, I-“

I what? I’m a virgin and have no idea what I’m doing? Yeah, great dirty talk, Spencer.

“Is something wrong?” She asked, concern now overriding her previous expression of desire.

All I could do was groan, and sit next to her on the bed in an expression of frustration and drag my hands through my hair.

God. This had to be the worst situation I’d ever been in. I didn’t even think it was possible for me to get a girl like Briana to even look at me, let alone have her wanting to sleep with me – and the best I could give her was a thin-lipped smile and stare at her like she was the Enigma Code.

The embarrassment of the whole thing sent me in to a spin. I should not need teaching on the art of sex. Books meant very little when you couldn’t apply the theory. Most people got their fumbling sexual experiences out of the way when they were teenagers, but me? I’d waited 25 years because, let’s be honest, this was one of the only times a woman had been attracted to me.

My arm began to itch, not even physically, but a phantom itch reminding me of the one thing that could eliminate the worries and the stress.

I normally fought that urge when I was with people, or at least tried to, but right now I didn’t want to. I just wanted it all to stop. Everything was too much. The sudden sexual urges, the feeling of the unknown, being in a situation in which I was not the one that held all of the knowledge. It was too fucking much. “You need to leave,” I said abruptly, standing from my bed.

“Oh…” Bree got up and awkwardly fixed her dress. “Of course, I’m sorry.” She slid on her shoes without complaint and grabbed her bag. “Can I…at least call you, maybe?”

I looked her up and down. How I hadn’t scared her off I’d never know, but she didn’t seem to be perturbed by my dickish behaviour or my inability to have sex with her. I’d be a fool if I rejected her attempt at keeping a relationship between us.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Yep, I was a fool.

She bit her lip and averted her eyes, but to her credit she took my poorly decided upon rejection well. “Okay.” She said with a high pitched tone. “Well it was nice to meet you, best of luck with everything, bye!” And with that she breezed out my door, leaving me in a wake of vanilla perfume and a crippling sense of regret.

I wanted Bree, of course I did, but there were two things stopping me. 1) I didn’t want to disappoint her and embarrass myself, and 2) Bree deserved much better than a broken beyond repair FBI Agent that kicked her out of his house so that he could use drugs.

~~~

Bree

I did not take rejection well. I never had. I mean, I don’t know why I was surprised. I’d been incredibly forward with him. It was no wonder he wanted me gone.

Normally people had sex with me before throwing me out, so this was at least a refreshing change.

None of the words I used to try and comfort myself helped, so instead of walking home I chose to walk to the one place that might help. The place that would wrap me in a blanket of comfort and hold me close until I finally, finally, could release myself from the feelings of self-hatred – the bar.

Since admitting to myself I had an alcohol problem the longest I’d gone without relapse was a month. I was currently a day away from making one week, but fuck it. Alcohol accepted me when no one else could. Alcohol made everything better.

It had been just over a year since my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I’d started off dedicated, committed to fighting my problem and bettering myself. But then my sponsor tried it on with me, got violent when I rejected him, and was currently serving a jail sentence for it. So, with a black eye and a head full of self-recrimination, I fell off the wagon and had not successfully managed to haul myself back on just yet.

I’d decided that I didn’t really care. Not about myself, not about anything. Ironic really, considering I was using every hour God sent to work at my local café on the morning shift, and to complete a degree that I would likely never do anything with. Who wants to hire a forensic psychologist with a preference for whisky over therapy?

And yes, whisky. The one thing my father left me with, that wasn’t severe trauma, was a taste for Scotch whisky. I’d happily drink any other countries offerings, but Scotch was where my heart lay, and it would always be my first choice. Well, that or red wine, because self-loathing tastes very good when it comes in the form of red wine. There’s something about the headiness of it. Red wine is a drink that really lets you know you’re drinking, and you’re doing it because you’re trying to drown your mind in to silence.

24 and an alcoholic, is it any wonder you’re so unlovable?

I arrived at my chosen location for a drink, and hopped up on the bar stool at the counter.

“Hey, Briana how’s it going?” the owner of the bar, Steve, greeted me with his usual smile.

He was a good guy, made an effort to know his customers orders and chat with them. To be honest I viewed him more as a friend, or dare I say father figure, than as just a man who worked behind the bar, and I knew he felt the same about me. Our bond was more than the polite exchanges of customer and bartender.

Laughable, really, that the closest thing I had to a friend was the 50 something year old owner of my local bar.

If he suspected I had an issue with the Demon Drink he didn’t say anything, and I doubted he had any clue because I was very good at hiding it by now. Drinking almost daily since the age of 15 does more than wreck your liver, it also makes you an excellent liar.

“It’s been quite a day,” I replied.

He started pouring me a large glass of red.

“Just hand me the bottle,” I said as he unscrewed the cap. “It’s a bottle kind of day.”

He chuckled and slid over the bottle, and a glass. “Wanna talk about it?”

The satisfying glug of the red liquid filling the glass hit my ears. “How long you got?”

Steve looked around the near empty bar. “As long as you need.”

I took my first sip of my favourite vice and instantly felt the relief wash over me. I was so sick of fighting what I was craving. I gave Steve a weak smile, took a deep breath, and began to talk about my problems.

Chapter Text

Spencer

My head was away, away in the various places it liked to go when I was high.

Sometimes it took me to the clouds, a floating feeling of catatonic bliss. Sometimes it took me underground, so far down I felt like I was at the centre of the Earth itself and that I may never come back up. Sometimes it took me to darkness, a space void of anything and consumed with enteral black nothingness.

On this occasion, I was underground. I was swallowed by the mass around me, buried alive by the dirt and the debris. I didn’t like it when this happened, it ruined the purpose of getting high. My head was always so full, so busy. I got high to that I could escape, so that I could forget it all and float away, but my brain had other ideas, other things to focus on; perpetual loneliness and an impressive ability to fuck everything up.

It was no wonder that my father didn’t want me, that I grew up with no friends, that no one in my life understood me. Why would anyone want to be around someone like me?

From underneath the dirt, a dull noise sounded. It started eating away at me, screaming for recognition.

I rolled over on my side and pleaded for the noise to stop. I needed escape, I needed silence.

The noise just kept going, over and over. So incessant that I had no choice but to leave the grave I had dug for myself and claw my way back to the surface. Fight through the dirt and force my head back above ground.

Feeling air return to my lungs after so long buried, I opened my eyes and came back to reality.

The noise. The noise was my phone.

Shit. We must have a case.

“Reid,” I answered. I think. I was still hazy.

“Hello, Dr Reid?” the voice on the other end sounded.

I pulled a face. That wasn’t the voice of Hotch, or Gideon, or any of the others. I pulled my phone away and glanced at the caller ID.

Briana Martin. I’d saved her number after she’d called me about the UnSub…just in case.

Still, the person on the other end of the line was not Bree, unless she’d somehow made her voice to masculine and aged a few decades. Still coming down from my high, I started to panic.

“Who are you and where is Briana?” I demanded.

“She’s fine, she’s with me,” the voice replied. “My name is Steve I own O’Donoghue’s, the Irish bar on-“

“I know where it is,” I snapped unintentionally, some clarity of thought finally returning to me. I really just wanted to get the point of why this Steve was calling me off of Bree’s phone.

“She’s had…a few too many,” Steve explained. “I told Briana I wouldn’t let her go home alone, but she said she didn’t have anyone to call…she’s passed out on the sofa in the back now.”

I sighed and rubbed my hand across my face, trying to fight for some sense of cognitive ability. “And you’ve called me because?”

“Well…yours was the last number called, she has no texts, and she mentioned you a few times tonight so…”

Fuck. Had Bree not spoken to anyone since I’d met her over a week ago? That’s the only reason mine would be the most recent number called.

My mind flashed back the hospital. She’d said she didn’t have anyone then; no friends and no one to call, that she was all alone…I hadn’t known she’d meant that literally.

I felt like an asshole now. This man, Steve, had called me because I was the only person available to call. The only person that could be there for Bree.

 I stood from my bed and moved my limbs around, trying to shake some sense in to myself. “Stay with her, I’ll be right there.”

O’Donoghue’s was only a 10 minute walk from me, so I immediately grabbed my jacket and headed for the door. There was no way I could drive, I was still pretty fucking high, and I had no idea how I was going to get Bree back safely, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. For now, all I needed to do was get to her and make sure she was safe.

//x//

I stormed in to the bar. “Where is she?” I demanded from the young man behind the counter.

He looked at me blankly.

“Where is Briana?” I demanded again.

“Oh, the drunk girl? She’s in the back with Steve,” he said, gesturing to the closed door behind the bar.

I strode over, despite the guys protests that I couldn’t go back there, and pushed open the door.

The man who I assumed to be Steve was sitting next to Bree, trying to get her to drink some water while she was drunkenly protesting.

“Dr Reid?” Steve asked as I burst through the door. “Thank you for coming, I really didn’t know who else to call.”

Literally anyone else would have been nice.

I waved him off and knelt next to Bree. She was paralytic, swaying about and mumbling to herself. Rage shot through me.

“Why the hell did you let her get this bad?” I questioned Steve furiously.

“Our new bartender out there appears to have a misunderstanding of when to stop serving someone more booze,” he explained. “I’ve been in the back doing paperwork for the last couple hours. Had I seen how bad she was I’d have put a stop to it.”

I wrapped Briana’s arm around my neck and pulled us both to our feet. She mumbled something about me being an asshole, but she clung to me anyway.

I glared at Steve. “You wanna get more competent staff.”

“I care about Briana,” Steve replied, his face fully serious. “She’s a good customer, a friend even, just…please make sure she gets home safely, alright?”

I hauled Bree’s stumbling ass out of the office and through the bar.

Since when did I get so strong?

“You,” I said, pointing at the bartender who’d over delivered on Bree’s drinks. “Learn how to do your fucking job.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but Steve placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head.

I didn’t say goodbye, I just aided Bree out of the bar and on to the street.

Now what?

“Bree,” I said, trying to angle her near boneless body to look at me. “Bree, where do you live?”

She jutted her right arm out dramatically. “That way,” she said before letting her arm drop back to her side like a dead weight.

I glanced in the direction. “Where abouts that way?”

“In my house, silly,” she mumbled, resting her head on my shoulder. “God, you smell good.”

I re-adjusted my grip on her and heaved a heavy sigh. “Briana please, I need to get you home. Tell me where you live.”

“Creep,” she muttered.

I exhaled in an attempt at grounding myself. Since this woman had come in to my life, she’d done nothing but cause me headache after headache.

“Fine,” I said, steering her to walk with me. “You can stay at mine.”

She groaned. “Will you take me back there just to kick me out?”

I tried to ignore her, but guilt began to eat at me.

“I can’t take it twice, Dr Reid,” she continued, though her words were barely coherent. “I don’t handle rejection well, probably because my father always rejected me.” She started to giggle. “I can’t believe I’m the daddy issues stereotype.”

I really felt guilty then. Was I the reason Bree had drank so much? It sounded incredibly egotistical of me to assume that me and my behaviour had taken up enough brain space to warrant getting wasted, but that’s certainly how it was seeming.

“I didn’t mean to reject you, or kick you out,” I said as we made slow progress towards my apartment. “I just…panicked.”

She mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out, and then proceeded to go almost non-verbal for the rest of the walk, only managing a few slurred words here and there.

I finally got her in to my apartment, and on to my bed - not even 12 hours later and there she was in a completely different context. I dug around for some clothes that might fit her, but by the time I’d found some she was already asleep, one shoe still on.

It felt very weird for me, taking off her other sandal, but I really didn’t want her shoes in my bed…it was bad enough that she was wearing outdoor clothes on my bed – again, so shoes were where I really drew the line. I grimaced at the thought of all the germs in my clean bedding.

It’s fine, you can change the bed tomorrow.

I got a glass of water and placed it at the bedside for her.

God, I hoped she wasn’t going to wake up and think she’d been kidnapped or something.

I sighed and grabbed my own pyjamas (or more, clothes that I used as pyjamas) and left her asleep. I’d never tried out my spare room, so I guessed tonight was as good as any.

~~~

Bree

My head hurt. It hurt so bad. It felt like a pea in a whistle, and the whistle was being blown repeatedly.

How did I even get home last night?

I groaned and rolled over, blindly searching for my comfort teddy.

Wait. My bed does not smell like cinnamon. And my bed sheets do not feel this soft.

My eyes shot open.

Oh, my God. I was in a strangers house. I’d once again hooked up with someone just to feel something other than intense loneliness. It had been a good few months since I’d done that, probably a record for me, so I wasn’t overly surprised that I’d slipped back in to old habits.

As my eyes came in to focus on the room around me, realisation dawned on me. I knew this room. I’d been in this room before. I was in Dr Reid’s fucking bed.

I glanced at my clothing. Still dressed, thank God, and the other side of the bed looked like it hadn’t been slept in.

Flashes of the night’s events started coming back to me, slowly. I remembered speaking to the new bartender and ordering another bottle of wine, then I remembered Steve talking to me in the back office…and then I remembered clinging to Dr Reid’s jumper as he walked with me.

Oh God, how embarrassing.

Why the hell was he even there? Had I called him? As I wound myself in knots over exactly what occurred, I realised it was probably best to just bite the bullet, find him, and ask him.

I winced as I stood from the bed, the movement making my head feel that much worse. I padded out of the door and in to the living room.

Dr Reid was sitting on an arm chair, reading something at the speed of light.

“Uh…hi…” I croaked out.

God, Bree, you sound ridiculous.

He looked up and gave me a tiny smile. “Good morning, how are you feeling?”

“Not bad,” I said, awkwardly shifting in the spot I stood.

“I have to go to work soon,” he said, putting down his book. “But I can get you some breakfast before I leave.”

I shook my head. “No, no. You’ve already done so much, too much, really it’s okay. I’m so sorry for…whatever happened last night.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “You don’t remember?”

“No,” I admitted. “Well, I remember bits of it.”

He sighed and gave me a quick rundown of the events. The more he spoke, the more mortified I became.

“I’m so sorry,” I apologised again as Dr Reid got up and started making me a coffee, despite my protests. “I don’t know why Steve called you, I guess you were just the most recent call on my contacts.”

“I assume that to be the case,” he replied, handing me the cup. “It’s been well over a week since you called me. Steve said you have no texts, either.”

I knew that meant ‘why haven’t you spoken to anyone else in that time?’ The truthful answer was that I had no one. No parents, no family at all, and not a single friend as I had spent the majority of my teenage years and early twenties choosing the company of myself and a bottle of whisky instead of trying to form normal connections – but on this occasion I didn’t feel like telling the truth.

I leant against the kitchen counter. “I use WhatsApp,” I lied.

He assessed me for a moment. “Funny, I thought you were going to tell me that when you told me that day in the hospital you had no one, you really meant it.”

I scowled at him. “You’re not on the clock yet, Dr Reid, so don’t profile me.”

“So I’m not wrong then?” he countered.

I continued to glare at him as I sipped my coffee, but refused to dignify him with a response.

“Don’t you have any colleagues at least? People from college?” he pressed, because as I had realised the man was awfully persistent.

“I don’t know anyone from college. And my colleagues are fine, just not friends,” I responded quietly.

He nodded slowly and took a sip from his coffee. “Where do you work?”

“Just a café by my apartment. Part time while I study.” I finished the drink quickly and stood up straight. “If I could use your bathroom, and then I’ll be on my way.”

“Down the hall, on your left.”

I tried to make my hair look slightly more presentable, but the knots were beyond redemption. My dress was creased and my makeup was smudged. I rubbed the eyeliner and red lipstick off as best as I could, but it was no use. This was the first time I’d be doing the walk of shame home without even getting laid.

I exited the bathroom and made a quick dive back in to the bedroom to grab my sandals that I’d seen had been placed neatly at the foot of the bed.

Did he take my shoes off?

I slipped them on my feet and wandered back in to the lounge. Dr Reid was pulling on a jacket and adjusting his little sweater vest that I had to admit was rather sweet.

“Thank you,” I said as a way to announce my return. “And I promise I won’t let anything like this happen again…I’ll lose your number, don’t worry.”

He drew his bottom lip in between his teeth and studied me for a moment, before saying, “I didn’t kick you out because I don’t like you. I kicked you out because I’ve never had sex before.”

The admission came so out of the left-field that it took me a while to gain some composure. “Oh…”

“I’m sorry that it drove you to get drunk,” he said.

“How do you know I was drinking because of you?” I returned, annoyance flaring at the appearance of his little arrogant side that he seemed to possess.

He just raised an eyebrow, “You pretty much admitted it.”

“Oh…”

“So maybe we can try again?”

I blinked wildly. “Excuse me?”

“If you want to,” he quickly added in. “But, you know, maybe we could…try again.”

“Are you…” I was so confused I was hardly able to form a sentence. “Are you…asking to make an appointment for me to take your virginity”?

He nodded, then began twisting his fingers around themselves in an awkward, nervous manner that reminded me of how, despite his sometimes snappy tone, he was really a shy person.

“I don’t know…feels kinda…prostitutey…”

He frowned. “Well I won’t be paying you, so not really.”

“Are you sure that you want…me?”

The pupils in his eyes grew slightly as he looked me up and down. “I want you.

Chapter Text

Spencer

It was a blur, the next week of my life. We’d caught Frank Breitkopf, the UnSub that had eluded us a while back, and I thought that maybe things would start to level out again. That Gideon would go back to his old self and thigs would return to some equilibrium. But that wasn’t the case. Frank had murdered Gideon’s friend, or should I say date, and he’d understandably not taken it so well. He hadn't been the same since. I wanted to reach out to him, to ask if he was okay, but I barely had the headspace to care for myself, let alone anyone else.

When I finally got home I did the one thing I’d been craving to do since the case began – I got high and allowed the world to slip away.

I text Bree first to let her know that I hadn’t forgotten about her and that I still wanted to take part in my crazy proposal.

Because crazy is exactly what it was. I had no idea why those words left my mouth, but I couldn’t very well take them back once they did. But then again she had agreed, so maybe it wasn’t that crazy?

I was just so sick of being sexually inexperienced, and God did Bree awaken something within me that I was desperate to try and satiate. Suddenly, sex was all I could think about and Bree was the only person I wanted to do it with. I feared she’d have given up on me, given that I’d gone ghost over the last week or so because of work, but she replied almost instantly and offered some days that she was free.

We agreed on meeting the following day, so I tossed my phone to the side and finally allowed myself to fall in to my escape.

//x//

Bree arrived at 4pm sharp, carrying a bottle of wine and wearing a black, low cut top that left very little to my imagination.

“You look incredible,” I said as she breezed in to my apartment, because fuck, she really did.

 She had a subtle gothic vibe to her clothing and accessories every time I saw her, but it was more pronounced today. Black tights with little rips across them clung to her thick thighs that were covered by a black mini skirt. She had laced up boots with a platform heel on her feet, finally elevating her to be somewhat closer to my height, and a floaty, 70’s style black cardigan over the whole outfit. The black vest top was low cut, exposing the cleavage of what were undoubtedly large breasts, and fitted perfectly to her waist which drew in to form a dazzling hourglass figure. Incredibly X-rated images flashed through my mind as the idea of what she might look like without the clothes on crossed my mind.  

She blushed at my compliment. “Thank you, Dr Reid.”

I led her to the kitchen where I poured us a glass of the wine she had brought. Nerves started to wrack my body as the weight of why she was actually here dawned on me.

She was here to have sex with me, like it was some kind of business deal, and I was sitting with her and making small talk like it was a date…was it a date? I wasn’t really sure where we stood. Was this meant to be a quick, no nonsense interaction, or was I meant to wine and dine her first?

“Don’t look so nervous,” she said, picking up on my famed inability to manage interactions with others. “We can just drink and chat and see what happens. There’s no pressure.”

I nodded steadily. I liked the sound of that - no pressure. Just chit chat and maybe sex if it felt right. I mean, the idea felt right, but I was starting to realise that perhaps treating losing my virginity as though it were a simple business transaction was not my best idea.

So, we did what she suggested; drank wine and chatted.

An hour or so passed, and I relaxed myself more and more in her company. She was easy to talk to, and I found that for once I was not having a conversation with someone and worrying what they were thinking of me. She didn’t judge me when I rambled on about stuff, she listened when I gave her facts or information and she even laughed at some of my jokes, the kinds of jokes most people don’t normally even understand. She was…amazing.

She stood from the sofa where were sitting. “Got anymore wine? This one’s empty,” she said, gesturing to the bottle.

I nodded and got to my feet, walking with her to the kitchen and opening up the cupboard which I kept the wine in.

I poured the glasses, aware of how close to me she was standing, her rich perfume encasing me until all I could focus on was her proximity.

I placed down the bottle and turned to face her. Fuck it. “I want to kiss you.”

She smiled. “What are you waiting for then?”

I grabbed her face in both hands and pulled her lips in to mine, hard. She moaned slightly at the unexpected speed of the action and wrapped her arms around my neck, hands running through my hair blindly as we kissed each other like two people starved of touch.

I wordlessly led her to my bedroom, Deja vu from the last time she was here creeping over me as she sat on the edge of my bed and began to remove her shoes.

“You know, I usually don’t like outdoor clothes on my bed,” I said as she kicked the second boot from her foot.

She stood back up, suddenly much shorter. “Well then you’d better take them off me.”

I grabbed her, hungry and desperate to feel and see every inch of her. I shrugged her cardigan from her shoulders as she began to slide the tights from her legs. Next followed her skirt and, fuck ,I think it took everything I had not to groan at the sight of her lacy black underwear covering the one thing I wanted the most. I pulled her thin little vest top over her head to reveal a bra matching the underwear, covering perfect breasts that hardened my cock even further - not that I thought it was possible given how ready for her I was.

I pushed her back on to my bed ad climbed on top of her, ignoring my rule about no outdoor clothing being allowed on the bed.

“Hey,” she pouted. “You’re breaking your own rule.”

“My house,” I countered as I began to kiss down her neck. “I can break the rules.”

“I have to say,” she said through ragged breath, “you’re very good at kissing, Dr Reid.”

I loved hearing her call me Dr Reid, there was something about it that made me feel very powerful, but I did wonder why she refused to call me by my name.

“You don’t have to call me that, you know?” I said, rocking back from her slightly.

She chewed her lip. “Well…what else should I call you?”

“My name?”

She nodded slightly and averted her gaze from mine. “Yeah…your name…”

Oh my God…

“You don’t know my name, do you?”

She thinned her lips, looking at me for a moment, before finally shaking her head.

Rage flared inside me. How the hell could she not know my name? I was about to lose my virginity to someone who didn’t even know my fucking name?

I pushed myself off of her. “You just screw anyone without knowing their name?” I questioned her, furious.

She glared at me. “You never told me! And when I called you from your business card I wasn’t looking at your name, only the number. And then everything happened so quick and by the time I realised I didn’t know your name it felt too late to ask.”

Her explanation made sense, but it didn’t placate the anger rising inside me, or stop insane amount of blood rushing to my groin as I pictured how I could punish her for this.

“Take off your underwear,” I ordered her, the fear of not knowing what to do completely overridden by my aching need to gain dominance over this woman who’d walked in to my life and fucked up my brain.

She did as I asked without protest, which surprised me as she usually loved to fight me on things, but her compliance to do as I said only deepened the twisted thoughts already spinning in my brain.

As her naked body lay in front of me, the first woman I’d ever seen naked in real life, I think I short-circuited. She was stunning, likely the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes on. Soft curves and pink nipples and a steady rise and fall of her breasts that were heaving with anticipation. I’d seen a naked woman before of course, but seeing one in real life? Everything else paled in comparison to the woman in front of me.

My hands grabbed at her, grabbing and gripping and stroking any area I could access, just desperate to feel every bit of her. My hands traced blind pathways across the swell of her stomach, up the curve of her waist until I finally lay my hands on her breast, kneading and gripping at it until I had to remind myself to rein it in so as not to bruise her.

She moaned softly as my fingers reached her nipple. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was doing, but as I rolled it between my fingers she let out a moan that shuddered through my entire core.

“My name,” I said, leaning in to her ear and allowing my lips to ghost the skin on her neck, “is Spencer.” My hand trailed down her body until it reached her pussy. “Let me hear you say it.”

“Spencer,” she breathed, her voice almost a whisper as I dragged my finger over her slit, which was fucking soaking and sending me insane.

“Wait here.” I stood from the bed and went to the bedside draw, making sure that she wasn’t looking too hard in case she spotted the other items I kept in there and not just the condoms I’d bought for the day.

Fortunately, she appeared to be too fixated on other parts of me to peer inside. I stood at the foot of the bed and pulled my pants down just enough to allow my cock to bounce free, and I fucking revelled in the way she looked at it.

“It’s big,” she stated, matter-of-factly. I had no idea if she was being honest or not, but the ego boost was fantastic.

I leant over and grabbed her legs, dragging her to the end of the bed. Her pussy was so pretty. Pretty and wet and ready for me.

I rolled on the condom and lined myself up to her.

“Aren’t you going to take your shirt off?” she asked me.

I wanted to, it was only fair, but I couldn’t. She’d see the marks on my arms. And somehow, as she lay there in front of me, I realised that there was something incredibly arousing about the fact she was naked in front of me while I was still practically fully clothed. It was so fucking wrong, but my cock was aching with the power trip. Aching with the feeling that I was the one in control and she was there to be used by me.

I needed to take her the way the darkest parts of my mind craved.

You need to go to therapy.

“I don’t think you’ve earned it,” I said eventually. “You didn’t even know my name, Briana, what makes you think you’ve earned the right to see the body of the man that’s fucking you?”

Jesus. Where did that come from?

I truly did not recognise myself. It was both unnerving and exciting in equal measure.

Her eyes widened, and a tiny smile crept on the corners of her mouth.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know your name,” she said, a wicked smirk playing on her face. “Maybe you should punish me.”

I appreciated her encouraging me, letting me know that the way I was speaking to her was okay. The last thing I wanted to do was overstep a boundary.

I looked down to the place where my cock was mere centimetres away from entering her, the sight filling me with an ache like nothing I’d ever felt. I pushed the head forward, slowly, allowing the first feelings of her to encase me.

Oh, fuck.

Fuck, she felt good.

Did it always feel this good? I hoped so, because the tightness of her walls clenching around my cock was something I truly hadn’t anticipated. She felt far better than I ever could have imagined.

“Fuck,” she gasped out, arching her back slightly.

I pushed myself all the way in and rested there, fearing that if I moved too quickly I’d explode. I’d never experienced a need like this before.

“You okay?” she asked me, reaching out to place her hand on my chest.

I nodded, daring to look in to her eyes. They were near black, the vibrant blue swallowed by lust and filled with a look I wanted to see over and over again.

I finally moved, dragging myself out of her and slowly pushing back in.

I’d have paid more attention to the pure salaciousness of her moans if it weren’t for the fact my mind and vison were exploding in to thousands of tiny pieces. All I could focus on was how was incredible this feeling was,  how it was so much more than I’d ever imagined, and how I wanted to chase all of my highs inside of her from now on.

I moved quicker, finding a steadier rhythm as I lost myself in the feeling of her. Had I known sex was this good, I’d have probably tried to have it long before now.

I gripped her thighs and pulled her closer in to me, that extra bit of leverage allowing me to bury myself so deep inside her I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to come out.

“Oh, God!” she gasped, gripping the sheets in her hands.

I pounded harder, her words and moans spurring me on.

I let my hand drift down to her clit – I may not have touched a woman before but I was well read on the anatomy – and applied light pressure to it, rubbing a gentle circle and just praying I was doing it right.

Her back arched again as she gasped and moaned and squirmed underneath me.

Okay, so I think I’m doing it right.

I wanted her to feel as good as I felt. I wanted to make sure that this wasn’t just some awkward, incredibly poor sex for her. Just because I hadn’t done this before didn’t mean I wanted her to leave regretting the interaction.

“Tell me what you want, Briana,” I instructed her. “Tell me how to make you feel good.”

She grabbed my other hand and, without hesitation, brought it to her neck.

I wavered. This kind of behaviour was UnSub territory, I was sure of it. Sure, not everyone in to the kinky stuff was a murderer but given my line of work I was apprehensive about exploring that kind of thing.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it, but I feared that once I crossed the threshold I’d never be able to return.

“Please,” she begged me, her wide eyes pleading as they stared in to mine. “Please choke me.”

Well, I wasn’t going to be rude and deny her what she’d so politely asked for, was I?

I applied light pressure to her neck, squeezing at the sides because I didn’t actually want to kill her.

“Yes,” she gasped out, her hands flying to grip my shirt.

Okay, well, damn the consequences because fuck that felt good - too good.  Having my hand around her throat while I fucked her until she could do nothing but moan for me was everything I craved and more. I was pretty sure I was going to Hell, but I really didn’t care.

“I’m going to come,” she said, her breaths shallow. “Choke me harder.”

This girl was going to be the death of me.

I gripped harder, and her walls began to contract around me. The feeling was too fucking much, and I thrust myself harshly in to her body while rubbing firmer circles over her clit.

“What’s my name?” I hissed at her, watching gleefully as she fought for breath under my grip.

“Spencer,” she just about managed to rasp out.

“What’s my fucking name?” I asked again, harsher, letting go of her just enough for her to get the word out properly.

 “Spencer!” she cried as I felt her walls tighten around me, and her body begin to shake. She came all over me, moaning and trembling and clinging on to me as if I was the only thing keeping her alive.

The feeling, the sight and the sound were too much for me to handle, and I felt my own release wash over me with little warning. My hips stuttered, cum shooting out of me and God how I wished it was going straight inside her and not the condom. I groaned, burying myself as deep inside of her as I could as I watched her ride out her own orgasm.

We both came down, shaking, breathing erratic and bodies still attached.

“That was,” I panted, still breathless, “incredible.”

She grinned at me, her face more beautiful than I’d ever seen it. “You’re telling me.”

We stayed like that for a few moments longer. Entwined. I’d never felt a connection like it. It was as though my very soul were reaching out to grab on to hers. Is that what true, real human connection felt like? I already wanted more. I wanted to feel her next to me every day until the world stopped turning and the stars burnt out.

As I finally began to come down from the high I’d just experienced, I realised that I had undoubtedly found my new addiction.

~~~

Bree

Spencer. His name was Spencer.

Man, I felt like a total dick, but in my defence he hadn’t told me his name. And in any case, I think that it sparked…something…inside him as he demanded I call him by his name while he choked me, so I wasn’t too upset about the fact I didn’t know his name until he was making me come undone underneath his touch.

Considering that was his first sexual encounter, I was more than pleasantly surprised. In fact, I was enamoured. The way he touched me, spoke to me and fucked me was unreal, and I’m not just saying that to be polite.

I’d had a lot of sex in my time, and that ranked very fucking highly. I even wondered at one point whether the whole ‘virgin’ thing was just a hustle to get women in to bed, because surely he couldn’t be that good with no experience?

I had a feeling, however, that he was just well-read on the art of sex and the kind of man that likes to please his partner, so I pushed aside the doubts. I trusted him. Despite the fact I barely knew him and thought he could be a bit of a dick at times, I trusted him.

We were lying on his bed, me in a large shirt he’d let me borrow and him still in his shirt and pants.

Even though he was fully clothed, it was clear from what I’d felt that he had toned muscles, subtly sculpted on to his lightly tanned skin and creating perfect lines. He wasn’t one of those overtly muscular men that lived for lifting weights and bulking up, no, his body was a gentle kind of muscular that meant he was still lovely to cuddle and soft to touch. He was perfect, actually.

I had no idea what to do next. He hadn’t asked me to leave, but I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. I wasn’t really sure about the terms of the arrangement. Was this just a fuck and chuck for him, or was I meant to stay and fall asleep in his arms?

The idea of the latter filled me with more joy than I cared to admit. I was not a ‘stay overnight’ kind of girl. I much preferred to keep sex as a transaction as opposed to an intimate affair…but I thought that perhaps with Spencer I wouldn’t mind so much, that the idea of being held by him really wasn’t so bad.

He made my decision for me.

“I have to change my bed and shower,” he stated, his voice cutting through the silence we’d spent the last few minutes in.

Man, this guy hated germs.

“Okay,” I nodded, shifting myself from next to him so that I could stand.

“Would you like to shower, too, or will you do it when you get home?”

I guess he wants me gone, then.

I couldn’t exactly be upset, I was the CEO of having sex and then disappearing off in to the night…but a part of me had hoped that maybe things with Spencer would be different.

Stupid, really. It was clear from the way he worded his messages that this was just a simple exchange of function for him, and I kicked myself for even entertaining the idea of anything more.

I’d never thought like that, and I was irritated as hell that he’d managed to sway my life-long ethos of ‘no feelings, just sex.’

I was used to being used for sex, to the point where I’d closed off any part of my brain that would allow me to consider anything more…until him. He made me want more, and I hated him for it.

“I’ll shower when I get home,” I said, jumping up and hurriedly gathering my clothing so I could dress myself.

He watched me for a moment before nodding. “Okay.” He got off the bed and began to strip away the sheets while I got dressed.

“I’ll urm…go then,” I said once dressed.

He stopped what he was doing and came over to me. “I’ll see you out.”

“It’s fine,” I stated, opening the door of the bedroom and making my way out. “I’ll see you around.”

He didn’t follow after me, but I felt his stare on me as I made my way from his apartment.

God, I needed a fucking drink.

Chapter Text

Spencer

I had a feeling that letting her leave was the wrong thing.

I hadn’t wanted her to feel obliged to stay, but I was aware that she didn’t seem too happy with me at the end there. I assumed that she viewed the night as ‘just sex’ and that she’d want to go home, but now I wasn’t so sure.

I was standing underneath the shower, the almost scalding hot water cascading down on me as I washed away the remnants of my night.

Funny, I hated the idea of germs and I always wanted to feel clean, but as the water disappeared down the drain I felt like I was washing away her. Washing away the memory of how she felt, how she tasted, until the water had burnt away the layer of comfort she’d wrapped me in and left nothing but bare, exposed skin once more.

It was highly inconvenient that I’d managed to gain some…feelings…towards Bree. I’d been single my entire life, and generally not regarded the idea of having a connection with a woman, besides the odd kiss or moments when I thought maybe someone liked me, but with Bree I found I was searching for it. Looking for anything that might indicate that she liked me, too. She liked me enough to have sex with me, sure, but did she want more than that? Probably not now that I’d kicked her out of my house…again.

Fucking idiot, Spencer.

//x//

I didn’t text her the next day. Or the day after. Largely because work got in the way, but also because I wasn’t sure what I’d say. I had no idea if she even wanted to hear from me again, so the thought of texting and receiving her rejection was almost too much to bear.

Three days after our exchange the team decided that drinks were in order as we would likely have a case coming in very soon. I hoped we would go to our usual bar for a quiet drink so that I could soon slink off home to bed.

Garcia and Morgan had others ideas to my ‘quiet night’, and they suggested we head elsewhere for a ‘proper night out.’ Everyone was in agreement so I had no choice but to go along with it. I’d just have one or two then leave - they were used to me going home early.

We headed to a bar not too far from my place. Hotch and Morgan went to get the drinks while the rest of us settled in to a booth in the corner.

I was irritable, the noise of the bar setting me on edge as my brain worked in overdrive. I’d been craving like mad. I was eager to get home and finally ‘relax’… and I was worried as hell about Gideon.

It had been almost a week since anyone had heard from him, and my focus was on how to get him to come back. Everyone was concerned, of course, but they were just happy to accept that he needed some time off after what had happened. Sure, that was true, but something was up. I knew it.

I began bouncing my leg as I waited patiently for my drink to arrive. I’d drink it and I’d go home. I wasn’t sticking around. These days being around everyone pissed me off. I’d stopped engaging in conversation, I was less inclined to share facts and knowledge and I was basically shut off from anything that wasn’t the urges. Urges to escape and to let it all fall away in to darkness. Turned out I much preferred the silence.

As the team chatted away I scanned my eyes across the bar to see how Hotch and Morgan were getting on with the drinks. I had to double take when I saw the bright red lips and wide doe eyes that were smiling up at Hotch when I glanced over.

Bree.

Hotch said something, and Bree threw her head back in a laugh. I felt my jaw clench. There was no way Hotch was that funny.

Morgan grabbed a tray of drinks and headed over to the table.

“Guys!” he hissed, gaining everyone’s attention. “Hotch is over there talking to that Briana girl from the Lyle Roberts case.”

Everyone’s eyes shot over to where the two of them were still at the bar. They observed for a moment, before everyone simultaneously launched in to chatter.

“She’s so pretty.”

“Is Hotch smiling?”

“He’s definitely in to her.”

“Look how close they’re standing!”

My blood boiled in my veins until pure heated rage was coursing through me. I was in a foul mood anyway, and this tipped me right over the edge.

Bree wasn’t mine. I had no right to get jealous, in fact until that moment I wasn’t aware that I was the kind of person that did get jealous, but seeing Hotch quite clearly flirt with her shot anger through me at the speed of light.

I’d all but kicked her out of my house after sleeping with her so I couldn’t be mad that she was simply flirting with someone else, but for once in my life I couldn’t see the rationale as I stood from my seat and headed over to the bar.

When I reached where they stood the smile wavered slightly on Bree’s face as she nodded at me. “Hi, Spencer.”

“Bree, good to see you again,” I said as calmly as I could. I turned to face Hotch. “I came to see if you needed a hand with the drinks, you seemed to be taking a long time.”

Hotch cast his harsh eyes over me. I never knew what Hotch was thinking, his face remained expressionless 90% of the time, but I was pretty sure I detected a hint of frustration behind that stoic demeanour.

“Thanks Reid,” he said eventually. He gestured to the three remaining drinks at the bar. “That one is yours and that one is JJ’s.” He grabbed the pint of lager in the middle. “This one’s mine.” He nodded at me and turned back to Bree, his way of ‘dismissing’ me.

The rage reached boiling point as I grabbed the two drinks and headed back over to the table. I handed JJ her drink and immediately spun back to look over at the bar.

The team were still harping on about Hotch and Bree, about how they’d make such cute raven haired babies and about how Bree was ‘the perfect height for him’ – what the fuck did that even mean? Their incessant chatter was like nails scraping against a chalkboard and it was everything in me not to snap at them all.

“Aren’t you all forgetting something?” I said harshly, drawing the team’s attention to me.

They all looked at me blankly.

“Hotch is married,” I reminded them, utterly confused as to why they were allowing such an important thing to slip their minds.

“Ah…” Morgan sighed and put his arm around me to pull me closer to him. “They’ve separated.”

Oh…

“When?”

“Last week, I think. He hasn’t actually told us, but Prentiss overheard a phone call of his the other day.” Morgan looked back at Hotch and Briana. “Having a little fun could be good for him.”

Bree moved closer to Hotch and whispered something in his ear, causing him to smirk, before walking away and towards the back of the bar.

That was it. I boiled over. I didn’t care that I’d kicked her out, I didn’t care that she was single and could do what she wanted, and I didn’t care that my competition was Hotch.

Sure, having fun might be good for him, but he sure as shit wasn’t going to be having it with Briana.

It was my dick inside her the other day. It was my touch making her moan. It was my hand choking her until she gasped for breath. And I didn’t want anyone else to have it.

I slung back my drink, slammed it on the table and followed after her. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I sure wasn’t going to let her just walk away.

~~~

Bree

I strode away from Agent Hotchner, or Aaron, or whatever the hell I was meant to call him, and headed for the bathroom.

It was harmless flirting, he was actually very good at it, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the reaction it got out of Spencer.

Cruel? I’d say yes if he hadn’t made it clear that our ‘relationship’ was purely sexual. As we stood, there was no discernible reason why I couldn’t flirt with someone else.

I washed my hands and exited the bathroom, fully intent on either drinking myself in to oblivion or using a one night stand with Aaron to get me out of my head (I’d noted the lack of wedding ring) when I felt strong arms grab and pull me around the corner that led to some kind of staff room.

I gasped out and when to scream, but was met with a hand over my mouth and dark, hazel eyes staring straight in to mine.

Spencer.

When he was satisfied I knew it was him, he removed his hand from my mouth.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I hissed, pushing his chest.

He didn’t move. “I could ask you the same question.”

I rolled my eyes as I shifted underneath his body that was pinning me against the wall. “I was trying to go and get a drink.”

He grabbed my waist to stop me from moving. “Oh, here was me thinking you were going to try and get my boss in to bed.” His voice was pitched up an octave making his frustration evident.

“So what if I was?” I glared at him. “That’s got nothing to do with you.”

His grip on my waist tightened. “I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

I scoffed. “You don’t have any right to dictate what, or who, I do.”

His hand began to move from the curve of my waist and up my body, leaving a path of electricity in his wake. His languid movements traced the swell of my breast before he ghosted his fingers tips across my collarbone. “I don’t want anyone else to have you.”

Arousal was pooling in my stomach, my legs desperate to buckle from the weight of his heady aura. But I wasn’t going to give in that easy. “You should have thought about that before you kicked me out of your house…again.”

His hand reached my neck, his fingertips brushing over the skin softly and making me shudder. “It won’t happen next time.”

“What makes you so sure there will be a ‘next time’?”

His hand closed over my throat. “There will be a next time.”

I rolled my head back as he started to plant small kisses across the bits of skin that weren’t encased by his hand.

“I don’t want anyone else to feel you or touch you,” he said against my skin, his hot breath skittering down my spine and in to my very veins. “I don’t want anyone else to have you. You’re mine.”

“You’re pretty sure of yourself,” I remarked. “I thought you were meant to be shy and awkward.”

His grip around my throat tightened. “You can’t get mad at the side of me you’ve brought out.”

Even though his hand was literally wrapped around my throat, I’d never felt more powerful. It appeared I’d awakened something incredibly dark within Dr Spencer Reid, and I was desperate to experience as much of it as I could.

“It was my cock you were coming on the other night,” he remarked as his kisses left searing fires on my skin. “It was my name you were screaming. Remember that next time you want to behave like a little slut in front of me.”

I should have been annoyed at his words, but in honesty all they did was increase the pooling wetness between my legs.

“I’m starting to think the whole virgin thing is a ruse,” I stated. “You seem to know what you’re doing.”

“All I know, Briana Martin, is that your pussy is the only one I have ever felt, and the only one I will ever feel again.” He pulled the top of my shirt down to expose my breasts and began to run his finger underneath the seam of my bra.

My pussy clenched around nothing, crying out for the ache of him as he whispered the filthy words in my ear, groping me like we weren’t in public where anyone could see.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, his previously frustrated tone now morphed into something far more seductive, the agitated rise in his voice replaced by a deep timbre. “You’re going to go out there, you’re going to tell Hotch that you got a better offer, and then you’re going to go to my apartment, leave the door unlocked and wait for me like a good girl.”

He reached in to his pocket and handed me a key. “The code for the building is 1012. I assume you remember which apartment is mine?”

I nodded. It was all I could do.

He smiled, but it was much darker than the smile I’d grown used to, and stepped away from me, leaving my body and my brain aching from the loss of contact.

“Off you go.”

My legs were shaking despite the fact he’d barely even touched me as I hurried out of the dark corner, leaving Spencer and whatever remained of my dignity behind.

I re-entered the bar until my eyes found Aaron. He noticed me and gave a tiny smile as I made my way over to him, where he was now sitting with all of his and Spencer’s work colleagues.

He stood when I reached the table and gestured for me to take a seat. I gave him a polite smile and shook my head.

“Actually, I’m afraid something has come up and I have to leave.” I said as nonchalantly as I could.

I tried to ignore the burn of the stares of his work colleagues. We weren’t exactly speaking in private.

I glanced behind me to see Spencer exiting from the door that led to the bathrooms, his eyes immediately finding mine. I gave him a wink and turned my attention back to Aaron.

As much as I loved being told what to do, I loved acting out more.

I stood on my tiptoes and Aaron’s hand instinctively grabbed my waist. I pressed a kiss in to his cheek just as Spencer re-joined the table. “I hope to see you soon, Agent Hotchner.”

He only looked mildly taken aback. He gave me a curt nod and said, “And I you, Miss Martin.”

His hand lingered at my waist before he withdrew. I turned on my heel and, shooting Spencer one last wink, I headed out of the bar.

Chapter Text

Spencer

I was furious with her. I knew what she was doing, acting out in front of me just to get a rise. Well, it fucking worked. And that’s why I allowed Morgan to get me another drink before I left to meet her at my place.

She wanted to misbehave? I’d punish her for it.

I was constantly flitting between revelling in my new-found sexual awakening, and berating myself for having such dark thoughts.

This behaviour from me was not only completely out of the blue and uncharacteristic, but it was bordering on some of the stuff we see from sexual sadists that end up being killers.

I knew that most people in to BDSM, power play or various other more taboo kinks did not end up as killers or criminals, but being a profiler really opens your eyes to the fact the correlation between the two cannot be mere coincidence.

Still, that niggling thought that was eating at my brain was consistently overpowered by the sheer force of my desire for Briana. She was better than any drug, but I feared she would end up being just as harmful.

I finished my drink at a somewhat leisurely pace before bidding goodbye to the team and making my way home.

No matter the duality of my morals, there was no way that I was ending tonight without the feeling of Bree wrapped around my cock.

I got home in record time and headed up to my apartment. I tried the door. It was unlocked, just as I’d instructed. I was aware that asking her to leave the door unlocked wasn’t exactly safe, but I was confident that my building was free from danger.

I slung my jacket over the coat hook, my cock straining against the zipper of my pants as I pictured what I’d do to Briana now that I was home.

I made my way to the bedroom, eager to see how she’d be waiting for me, but the sight that greeted me was not one that had crossed my mind.

Bree was sitting on my bed, cross legged, with a vial and a needle set in front of her.

Oh, fuck.

I’d forgotten that I’d left the stuff out before I’d dashed off to work that day. I’d fallen so deep in to my high the night before that I’d lost track of time and ended up nearly being late.

Oh, fuck fuck fuck.

How was I going to explain this?

Fuck, who was I kidding? There was absolutely no way of explaining this. There was literally nothing I could say to make this look better than it was, and no lie I could come up with to convince her that this wasn’t exactly what it looked like.

“Briana I-“

She raised her hand to silence me.

I did as she asked.

I was rooted to the spot. Waiting for her to shout, to kick off, to run out of the door, to do literally anything, but she didn’t. She just sat there.

 “You’re addicted to opioids.” Her words came out as a statement, not a question.

All I could do was nod.

 “I guess that explains why you can be so snappy.”

That was… definitely not what I thought she’d say.

She took a deep inhale of breath, and finally raised her head to look at me. “I’m an alcoholic.”

That was also not what I thought she’d say.

I wanted to say something, anything, but my mouth was dry with anxiety at the fact someone knew what was happening. Someone had found out. My veins felt like they were collapsing in on themselves as I scrambled through the panic.

“Does anyone know?” she asked me, her voice impressively levelled and a far cry from the shouting I’d expected.

I shook my head.

She glanced back at the vial and needle on the bed. “Why do you do it?”

I swallowed past the coarse dryness in my throat and moved to sit next to her on the bed, the knowledge that I’d once again have to change the sheets in the back of my mind.

The air was thick with a kind of stillness and tightness that shrouded everything until it felt like it was just me and Bree, the only people in the universe and the only thing that would ever matter. Time was suspended as I finally had the opportunity to talk about the one thing I thought I’d take to my grave.

“It wasn’t a choice, not really,” I began. “I was on a case and the UnSub kidnapped me and drugged me…”

“You kept doing it. That was a choice.”

I stiffened up at her words. “Well why do you choose to drink? If it was that simple, you could just choose not to.”

She turned to look at me. “I’m not judging you, Spencer. Sorry, that came out wrong.”

I sighed and ran my hands through my hair. How much should I say, if anything at all? I’d always thought it was better left in the dark, shoved in to a corner never to be spoken about. But Bree was here in front of me, asking for me to talk to her, willing to listen. I’d be crazy not to reach out and grab hold of the only lifeline I’d been thrown.

Fuck it. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” I began. “I had the opportunity to grab the vials and I just…did it. My whole life I’ve been alone, and despite the fact I was beaten and bound to a chair, those moments where Tobias gave me the drugs were the only ones where the loneliness was finally less heavy. It was the first time in my life I’d ever felt the weight of who I am, the weight of the burdens my mind carries, be lifted from me until I could float freely through space without a single care. My brain finally shut off, and I finally found some peace within the perpetual chaos that surrounds me.”

Bree remained silent while I spoke, but her hand reached out to grab hold of mine and I didn’t once think to pull away with thoughts of germs or pathogens. It was comforting. It was nice.

“I understand,” she whispered. “And I’m sorry.”

I kept hold of her hand tightly, my thumb tracing small circles over her soft skin.

“I drink because my father used to,” Bree said eventually, after it became apparent I was done talking about my issues. I wanted to hear hers. “He’d never liked me, he wasn’t a man made for fatherhood, but when my mom left he said that I reminded him of her, and he couldn’t stand the sight of me. I was desperate for his approval, desperate to feel the love of the man who was meant to love me more than anything, so I started sitting with him when he got drunk just to experience those brief moments where he was so wasted that he couldn’t muster the energy to hate me. When I got older, about 15, I started to drink with him, as some twisted attempt at father/daughter bonding. It worked, kind of. I’d get my hands on a bottle of Scotch and me and my father would drink it in silence. We didn’t speak, but at least we didn’t argue. He died when I was 18, liver cirrhosis, but by then it was too late, the damage was done. I was addicted to alcohol and I have been since I was 15.”

My heart broke for her, it really did. What she’d been through was…awful. Horrendous. Her poor mind and body must have felt broken beyond repair. Not only was she navigating this world alone, but she was doing it with a heavy burden that I understood all too well.

We sat together in silence for some time. Her hand remained firmly in mine, occasionally squeezing at mine for support I was more than willing to provide.

“Do you want to quit?” Bree asked, breaking the stillness of the room.

I shut my eyes and exhaled. “Not really.”

“Neither do I.”

I twisted so that I was facing her. “But I should. We both should.”

“What’s the point?”

I raised my hand to cup her face. “I’m not really sure.”

She rested her cheek against my palm, her eyes flickering shut as the steady rise and fall of her breath filled the space between us. “Do you still want to have sex?”

I couldn’t prevent my chuckle at her unexpected question. I stroked my thumb across her cheek and down to her lip. “Do you?”

Her eyes opened, pools of blue dragging me under the tumultuous waves she created whenever I was around her. “Now more than ever.”

~~~

Bree

It was not missed on me that suggesting sex after we’d both just pulled our traumas out of our souls and laid them bare for the other to see was probably ill-advised, but I didn’t care.

I fucking needed him.

It felt wholly different now to how it had felt when we first had sex. There was something deeper there now, something shared in just 10 minutes, and yet something that I would carry with me for the rest of time.

Connection. Real, human connection for probably the first time in my life.

I was seen by someone, heard by someone, and I was able to provide the same for them. That kind of thing drives you deeper in to desire than anything else. Nothing in this world could hold a candle to the moments shared between two vulnerable people that wanted nothing more than to be understood. That desire of pure lust had suddenly morphed in to something far more intense, something far more innate, than anything else could.

Spencer didn’t seem to care about the poor timing of my sexual desires because the moment those words left my lips he was on me.

He kissed me like a man deprived of human contact for a lifetime. Maybe he was. Maybe he was like me, and I was like him.

My arms wrapped around his neck as he pushed me down on to the bed, his lips never once leaving mine as he unbuttoned his shirt with one hand.

I had a good idea then of the real reason he didn’t want to take off his shirt the last time we had sex, because as the pale white cotton of his shirt slid from his body and exposed his delicately toned form, my eyes found the track marks on his arms from where he had injected himself.

Both old and new marks littered the skin of both arms, mainly his left, each one serving as a reminder of what he was going through. Each mark bore the reality of his life. Etched in to his skin was a tragic story written in blood and the sharp scratches of a needle. And he’d never looked more beautiful.

“I’d rather you didn’t look at them,” he said, noticing where my eyes were fixated.

“Why?”

He shifted his position so that he was comfortably straddling me. “Because they don’t exactly serve as good foreplay.”

I chuckled lightly and gave him a small smile. “Trust me, marks or no marks, I’d want you.”

He kissed me again, harder. Like he was sinking in to my very skin and seeping in to every ounce of my being.

“You’re fucking beautiful, Briana,” he murmured against my lips.

Every time he swore it caught me off guard. They weren’t words I expected to hear from his mouth, but God did they make me aroused. I wasn’t sure why, maybe because he didn’t seem the type to swear, or maybe it was because he just made it sound so sexy, but either way it never failed to set desire coiling in my stomach.

His hands began to roam across my body, aimless in their wandering but seeming to find the right destination nonetheless.

“I want to be consumed by you.” He started kissing down my neck and across the expanse of skin across my chest. “I want to sink in to you until you’re the only thing I can think about, until you’re the only thing I care about.”

He swiftly pulled my shirt from over my head and reattached his lips to the skin of my breasts. “I want to fall in to you and never come back out.”

Fuck, this kind of talk was dangerous after only knowing each other for a couple of weeks, but it was setting my entire world ablaze with thoughts of nothing but what that would be like. Thoughts about finally having someone else in my life, and no longer being so alone. Thoughts of how my universe now looked with Spencer at the centre of it and me orbiting around him, sucked in by such a strong gravitational force that I couldn’t fight it even if I wanted to.

“I want that,” I said as he unclipped my bra and helped me work it down my arms and on to the floor. “I want you. More than anything else on this planet, I want you.”

He licked across my nipple, his tongue tracing light movements and sending shudders firing through my entire body. “You’re mine now, Briana, and I am yours.”

I moaned and arched in to him, desperate to feel him in any capacity I could.

His hands moved to the hem of my skirt, pulling it up and trailing his fingers lightly across my thighs. “Let me hear you say it,” he commanded softly.

“I’m yours,” I breathed.

His fingers reached my underwear, and he gently slid it aside to gain access to my soaking core. He slid his finger across the wetness, a pace so slow it was like torture and pleasure all at once.

“Say it louder,” he demanded, more firmness in his voice now.

His finger slid inside me as I gasped out, “I’m yours, and you’re mine.”

He added another finger, working me slowly as he kissed down my body in languid movements, eventually reaching my pussy.

“I’ve dreamt about what you’d taste like.” He licked across my clit, and my hips bucked involuntarily at the feeling. “I bet you’re sweeter than anything else I’ve had on my lips.”

He dove in to me, his tongue pressing firmly against my clit and working a circle as his fingers continued to pump in and out of me.

I swear the man was an expert, no prior experience needed. I’d never been made to feel like this before, so utterly and completely consumed by another person. It was fucking addicting.

I moaned loudly, incoherence clouding my brain at the sheer intensity of what I was feeling.

“Fuck, you taste incredible,” he rasped, licking the wetness I was pooling with like it was his only source of life.

His movements became firmer, more rapid, and after only a few minutes the coil in my stomach reached a tightness I was unable to control.

“I’m gonna come,” I managed to gasp out just as my orgasm crashed down on me.

It was intense, all consuming. I had never felt anything like it before. It was utter euphoria, a high so intense that I felt as though my soul was floating out of my body and entwining with Spencer’s somewhere out in the ether.

“Oh, fuck,” he groaned as I came over his fingers, his tongue now swiping gently across the sensitivity of my clit. “That’s it, pretty girl. You look so beautiful when you come.”

I shook, my whole body alive with the way he’d made me feel. I was breathless, needy, and utterly lost in him.

 “I want to come inside you,” he said after my orgasm began to plateau. “Can I?”

I nodded, still dazed from the high I’d just experienced. “I’m on the pill, and you’re the only person I’ve slept with since my least check.”

He made light work of the clothes preventing him from gaining access to me. I was only just regaining comprehension as I felt the head of his large cock press against my entrance.

He paused there for a moment, eyes fixated on where we were about to join, before he pushed himself inside of me.

He slid in easier than the last time, the wetness from my orgasm providing a slick path for him to follow.

A guttural moan left him when he finally bottomed out in me, and the sensation of being so filled by him took my breath away. He filled me so completely, so entirely, that I couldn’t remember a time where I wasn’t taken so wholly by him. I couldn’t remember a time where I’d not had him spilling in to every cell of my body and owning me from the inside out.

He finally started to move, his thick length dragging in and out of me, each thrust knocking any remaining sense of who I was out of me. I was consumed by him.

“Your pussy is going to feel so good with my cum inside it,” he said as his thrusts picked up in pace. “You’re going to look so fucking pretty as I fill you with me, as I paint the inside of you with me until I’m the only thing you know.”

I threw my head back in a moan.  “Fuck, Spencer,” I gasped, his words taking me closer to another orgasm that was sure to be just as shattering at the first.

His hand came to encase my throat, and he squeezed with more pressure than he ever had before. “I want to steal every breath from your lungs until I’m the only reason you want to breathe."

Fuck. His words were sending me to a place darker and more depraved than I’d ever thought capable. The sheer magnitude of what he was saying, the pure desire he had for me, brought my second orgasm to the brink as the blood began to roar in my ears.

The orgasm ripped through me, harder and more intense than anything I’d ever experienced.

“Yes.” His grip on my throat tightened until stars danced in my vision. “Come for me. Only for me.”

As though intrinsic, written in the stars and destined to be, my entire body collapsed under the touch of him. I fell in to bliss as he guided me through the most mind-shattering orgasm of my life.

He released my neck and I inhaled a deep breath, refilling my lungs with oxygen as he pounded a merciless pace that did not once relent until I felt his hips began to stutter in their movements.

My own orgasm still rolling over me in waves, he came, moans and groans of nothing but sin leaving his lips as he grabbed my waist and held me down on him while he emptied every drop of himself inside me.

I squirmed underneath his hold, the sensation of being filled by him rippling little aftershocks of my orgasm through me.

He dropped his head to the crease of my neck, panting heavily and placing soft kisses along my collar bone. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give you up, Bree.”

I was still dazed by the pleasure I’d just experienced, my mind smashed in to a thousand pieces and waiting to be put back together again, but I knew one thing for certain. “I don’t want you to give me up, Spencer.”

Chapter Text

Spencer

I didn’t kick Bree out this time, and I even managed to sleep in the bed without changing the sheets. There was no way I was interrupting that moment.

Bree was pressed against me, with my arms wrapped firmly around her, and was softly breathing as I traced my fingers across the skin on her stomach.

I’d meant what I’d said. I was not giving her up. Not for anything in this world.

For the first time in a long time I slept peacefully that night. No nightmares, no drug needed to lull me in to nothingness. Just Briana.

That feeling, the feeling of having her, was far more euphoric than any drug. It was far more intense, beautiful and addicting than anything I’d known.  

If I could just kick these damn drugs then maybe I could help her, too. Maybe I could help Bree with her addiction and we’d both be free. Free of the substances that controlled our lives and free to focus completely on one another. I’d meant what I said about wanting to be completely consumed by her. I wanted her and not a single other thing.

I woke up first and she was still there with me. She hadn’t left me. I wanted to stay there forever. I wanted to keep her against me until the stars burnt out and the Earth stopped turning – but I couldn’t. There was something I needed to do.

I shifted gently and tried to slide out from the bed without waking her, but I’d made barely more than a couple of movements before she was stretching against me and fluttering open her eyes.

“Having doubts already?” she teased, her delicate hand reaching behind her and coming to encase my wrist and pull me back in to her.

“No,” I chuckled. “I was going to get a shower.”

She pressed her ass against me and hummed contently, closing her eyes again. “You can stay for a little while longer.”

She was right, I could.

I wrapped my arms around her once more, my hand at her waist dragging her perfectly round ass in to me further. “Although I can’t promise that I can spend the entire time just cuddling.”

I was ridiculously hard, and the more she wriggled against me the less restraint I had.

“That’s okay,” she muttered, still half asleep. “I said I was yours, so that means you can take me whenever you want me.”

Fuck. I jerked my hips against her instinctually in response to her words. She was driving me out of my damn mind with ideas and fantasies.

I trailed my hand over her hips and her waist as I absently-mindedly rocked my erection against her. “You’re going to send me insane, giving me thoughts like that.”

She pressed back against me. “Good.”

I fucked her in that position. Hard and desperate and fuelled by the fantasy of Bree being mine to use and play with as I saw fit. She lay there and took it, moaning and gasping as I chased my high inside of her, only finishing after her sweet pussy clenched itself around my cock and she was a shaking, boneless mess in my hands.

When I had finished I pressed kisses all long her shoulders and neck. “You were so good,” I praised her.

“Only for you,” she murmured, now exhausted from her orgasm on top of only just having woken up.

The welcome distraction fled from my mind as quickly as it had entered, and the reality of my day came crashing back to me with an unwelcome force.

“I have to shower,” I stated, this time refusing to be lulled back by her siren call. “There’s something I need to do today, but you can stay here as long as you like.”

When I came back from my shower Bree was still lying in my bed, eyes closed, though she was clearly awake.

“Do you have work?” I questioned.

“No,” she sighed, opening her eyes and turning to look at me as I got up from the bed. “I’m off today and tomorrow.”

“Will you stay here?”

She finally sat up. “What, like tonight?”

“No, today.”

“You want me to stay in your apartment all day?”

“Well, no.” I sat on the edge of my bed. “You can go out but I just mean I’d like it if you were here when I got back.”

She could clearly see the tension I was carrying in my neck, because her hands reached out and began to work the rigid muscles underneath my shoulders. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“I have to do something today and I have a feeling I won’t like what I find.”

She placed a gentle kiss on my shoulder blade. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I stretched the muscles that her fingers had just been kneading. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”

She placed a few more kisses across my back. “Okay. Well I’ll be here waiting for you when you are.”

//x//

We had sex again, and by the time I’d had another shower and made us some food, I was hours behind my planned schedule for the day.

Not only that, but the drive took ages.

I didn’t like driving at the best of times, and with the weekend traffic it frayed me even further. But I had to hold out, I had to be strong. I had to keep myself together, just long enough for me to see it through. Just long enough for me to get the answers I needed – even if no one else seemed to care to search for them.

The sun had drained from the sky when I arrived. Dark clouds began to form overhead as the once bright day became shrouded in a dark and grey film that set the world around me in an inky hue.

I didn’t believe in omens, but if I did I’d have said it was one.

In the quiet of the surrounding trees, with the faint whispers of wind kissing the leaves of the tall pines, my heartbeat was the clearest thing of all. It was in my ears, in my chest, threatening to burst straight from my body as the walls of the large forest appeared to close in, as if the treeline crept closer every time I wasn’t looking.

I knocked. I called. Nothing came. No answer, not a single sound. Even the birds held their breath. A lone cicada accompanied me on my journey, its chirping matching the erratic rhythm of my heart.

The door was unlocked. A low groan sounded from the wood as I eased it open and stepped in to the familiar space.

I’d been here before, but on that day it was nothing like the memories I had of bright open spaces and warm summer nights. No, on that day it was as if darkness himself had made his home there, festering in the corners and infecting the building with stagnant poison until the foundations themselves seeped with the ache.

I flicked on my flashlight to reveal…nothing. No personal items, none of the things I recalled that made this place so personal, so comforting. It was barren, stripped of anything that gave it life and transformed in to a cold, soulless shell.

I switched on the lamp, hoping that the act would bring some comfort to me in my isolation. It did not.

My shoes connected with the wood floor, the sound reverberating in the emptiness. I’d come here knowing what I’d find, and yet with each step that drew me closer and closer to the table, it was as if lead blocks were being added to my feet until I was fighting with everything I had to move forward.

I came to a halt at the table and sat at the chair.

A badge and gun rested atop it, along with an envelope, sealed and addressed to the one person who cared. The one person who, out of everyone, didn’t want this reality to be true. Me.

Hands shaking, anxiety coursing through my body as the waves of radical acceptance began to wash over me in a torrent of inner pleas of a different outcome, I opened the envelope and unfolded the paper within.

Spencer,

I knew it would be you who came to the cabin to check on me.

Tears formed in the first sentence, hot and laced with the knowledge that once again I was to be alone.

Despite the fact I could read 20,000 words per minute, it took ten of them just to get through the words scrawled before me.

Gideon had gone. He had left.

Something about me made everyone leave. Something about me meant I was destined to live a life without a single person by my side until the end.

My mentor, my friend, my father figure, had walked out. He’d walked out in search of his happy ending.

He deserved one, a happy ending, but that thought was brief and fleeting as self-righteous indignation, or perhaps simply heartache, had me asking; what about my happy ending? Would I ever get one? Would there ever be a time, a single moment, where I saw a future for myself that didn’t look so dark?

25 years old, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered my own ending - happy or otherwise. Just an ending. A gun on the table, my own in the cab of my battered old car – an ending. An ending I choose for myself. That’s happy, isn’t it? Choosing a way to go was better than riding the waves of chance the Universe so frequently drowned me in. An ending in a place where the thicket of trees would drown out the sounds of my torment ceasing.

Would anyone look for me? Or would I be forgotten about? Who was left out there to care about me?

I thought about Briana, sitting in my apartment and waiting for my return.

Briana would care.

Despite having only known her a short amount of time, I knew in my heart that there was something deeper between us. There was something far more than just a shared moment of intimacy or baseless words that failed to hold up the weight of their context.

I was hers, and she was mine.

After this, after another instance of having the person I loved most ripped from underneath me, I knew with 100% certainty that I was never letting her go.

~~~

Bree

I did as Spencer asked and stayed at his apartment all day. I know he said he didn’t actually expect me to stay there, but I did so anyway. Whatever it was he was doing that day, whatever it was that he didn’t feel able to talk about, was clearly something that meant he didn’t want to be coming home to nothingness. He needed me, and I’d be there. By staying there all day, I knew I’d be home for whenever he got back.

It was going on for 2am when I heard his key in the lock. I shot up from my place on his sofa, already feeling truly at home despite the fact that we’d only known each other for a few weeks.

‘Red flags’, something in my head called out to me, but I didn’t listen. Red was my favourite colour. The red of wine, the red of blood. Rich and deep and soulful and possessing only an ounce of the passion and the desire that I felt for the man that was now entering through the front door. Red flags could wave as high as they wanted for all I cared.

His breath was shallow, hair knotted from hands trailing a repetitive path through the sunlight spun locks of an autumn day.

“Spencer what’s-“

“Don’t,” he breathed. “I can’t…just…don’t.”

I swallowed back the emotion in my chest. “Okay.”

I had no idea what had happened, but whatever it was it had turned the seemingly put together man I knew in to someone utterly unrecognisable.

His eyes were red, stained with his tears, and his face marred with deep set angst that stripped his youthful appearance and replaced it with the face of a man who had seen too much, the face of a man that was hanging by such a thin thread that even the slightest breeze would cause it to snap.

“I need-“ he cut himself off so that he could inhale a proper breath. “I need you.”

I hurried to him, pressing my body against his and taking in the scent of cinnamon and coffee as he wrapped his arms around my body.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered through the shake of his breath.

“I won’t.”

He gripped me tighter. “I can’t take it again, Bree. Please. Don’t leave me.”

“I promise you. I will never leave you.”

//x//

We didn’t sleep that night, instead lying in silence, my head on his chest, as the hours on the clock crept by.

When dawn approached, and the birdsong of the new day began to sound, he spoke.

“I think I was going to kill myself earlier.”

My head shot up from its position on his chest. “What?”

He remained motionless, not even looking at me, but gestured for me to retake my place. I did so hesitantly and waited for him to speak again.

“It’s not like I haven’t thought about it before,” he said in to the barely lit room. “Injecting more than I should, using my gun to end it swiftly.” He inhaled a shaky breath and began to trace his fingers through my hair. “But I thought about you, Briana. I thought about you and what we share, what I promised, and I knew that I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave you like so many others have left me.”

My chest cracked, the contents pouring from the cracks and spilling its potent feelings throughout my entire bloodstream until my heart pulsated only to match his.

“Why, Spencer? Why would you want to do something like that?”

Another uneven breath. “Gideon left.”

“Who’s Gideon?”

“My friend. My mentor. The closest thing I’ve had to a dad since mine walked out.”

I craned my neck to look up at him. His sharp cheekbones and jawline glowed in the rising light of the day, illuminating every inch of his perfectly flawed skin. The dark circles, the lines of worry on such a young face, the toll of opioid usage and the weight of the world. He was perfect, and he was mine.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I really am.”

He finally moved, looking down at me with his hazel eyes, still shining from tears both fallen and yet to fall. “I can’t lose another.”

I pressed a gentle kiss against his chest. “You won’t have to.”

Chapter Text

Spencer

I spent the following day after my discovery running on zero sleep and fighting the growing need inside me. How I’d managed to get through the night without using I had no idea. I only knew that Bree being there, in my arms, seemed to dull that ache in to something more manageable.

I made my way over to Hotch’s new apartment (the address of which he had reluctantly informed me) to tell him about what I’d found at the cabin. He didn’t seem impressed that I was ruining his day with his son, but I didn’t really care.

“Reid,” he greeted me monotonously when I arrived at his doorstep. “Come in.”

Jack was at my side in a shot, and it took everything in me to force a smile and interact with the kid.

“Hey buddy,” I greeted the ball of energy zipping around my legs. “How’s it going?”

“Good! Daddy is taking me to the park for ice cream!”

“That sounds great!” I enthused. To be fair, ice cream did sound good.

“Jack can you give daddy and Uncle Spencer a minute?” Hotch said to his son, unrecognisable with him in comparison to how he was with everyone else. “Go finish getting ready, okay?” Every time I watched Hotch interact with Jack I was reminded that he was indeed human.

Jack nodded and dashed off, leaving me and Hotch standing in his apartment living space. There were boxes piled high, dust sheets still over furniture and the distinct energy of a middle-aged man wallowing in self-pity. It was a sad state, but any empathy I may have had soon left as I remembered his hand on Bree’s waist.

“So, what’s going on Reid?”

It took me a few moments to compose myself, but I eventually managed to stutter out an explanation for what I’d found, producing both the badge and the gun that Gideon had left in the cabin.

Hotch blinked, probably the first time I could recall him doing so. “I don’t…I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I…” I muttered.

He shook his head and let out a light sigh. “This isn’t like him. I thought he was just taking some time off.”

Something snapped inside of me. “Did you even call him to check in?” I bit. “Did you ever consider going to the cabin? We haven’t heard from him in ages, Hotch, and no one gave a shit!”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Reid…” he was cut off by the ringing of his phone. He shot me a warning a glare, which at one time would have had me quaking in my boots but now just served to anger me further, before answering his phone.

I listened to one side of the conversation, and heard enough to know what was going on.

“That was Strauss,” he said as he hung up. “She wants to know why she’s just received an email from Jason tending his resignation with immediate effect. She’s tried calling him but-“

“He won’t answer,” I cut over him. “I’ve tried. Even the email is probably automated. He’s long gone.”

I could tell Hotch wanted to reprimand me for my outburst, but he clearly thought better of it as he took in the threadbare appearance of me.

“Go home, Reid,” he said softly. “Get some sleep.”

I nodded, downcast and unable to look my boss in the eye.

He sighed a placed a hand on my shoulder, a gesture that may have been comforting if he wasn’t the human equivalent of a slab of concrete. “I know this must be hard for you. It’s hard for me, too. He was my friend.”

Despite the lack of vocal inflection or movement of his facial muscles, I could see the look in his eye. This had hurt him, too.

I turned to leave, but at the last moment I spun back and asked my burning question. “Have you heard from Briana?”

“Who?”

My jaw clenched. “Briana? The girl with black hair, from the Lyle Roberts case.”

“Oh!” He shook his head slightly. “No, I don’t have her number.”

“Good,” I mumbled.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Do you…like her?”

He shrugged. “I mean…she’s pretty, I guess, but Haley and I have only just separated, I don’t want anything serious. Why do you ask?”

Rage burned through me. Bree was far more than ‘pretty’. She was everything. She was my everything.

“Well, I’d prefer it if you didn’t think about her, or how ‘pretty’ she is, again,” I snapped.

Hotch raised a quizzical eyebrow, his patience with my snappy tone starting to wear thin. “Why?”

“Because she’s my girlfriend.”

His head pulled back. “I’m sorry?”

I shrugged. “You’re forgiven.”

His dark eyes narrowed in to even darker slits. “What the hell has gotten in to you, Reid?”

I breathed through the bubbling fury, my mind now consumed by the ache in my arm, begging me to silence it with hot liquid that might still the raging storm overhead.

“I’m sorry I just…” I exhaled a harsh breath. “I’m just upset. There’s a lot going on.”

He nodded slowly. “I understand. Please, go home and get some rest before work tomorrow.” I headed for the door as he said, “And Reid…congratulations on your…girlfriend…”

I gave a thin lipped smile, but I couldn’t ignore the scepticism laced throughout his usually flat tone.

//x//

I went home to Bree, and she stayed by my side the whole time, whispering sweet words in my ear and quieting the screaming urge to reach in my bedside cabinet and make the world go silent.

We slept early, while the sun was still up, but both of us needing the extra hours we could get.

Before long it was the morning, and both of us had work. Both of us had to leave our protective bubble and go back in to the world.

She kissed me goodbye, still wearing my sweats and my t-shirt, and hurried off home to prepare for her day.

The moment she left I felt as though a part of me had been removed. As though the very fibre that stitched together the pieces of my cracking soul was unravelling until I was nothing but a pile of tattered pieces. She was holding me together, because I sure as shit couldn’t do it myself.

The team gathered in the bullpen. They were chatting away, more melancholic than usual, but their voices still grated on me as I re-read Gideon’s letter over and over, clinging on to any word I could that might provide deeper insight as to why he’d abandoned me. Tying myself in knots over his verb usage and syntax, desperate for a shred of something other than a few page’s worth of excuses.

I found nothing in those words. Nothing hidden in those gaps between lines that people so often said I failed to read between. Nothing but more questions than answers.

We were called away on a case, and I had to force myself to focus my attentions as Hotch gave a half-assed few words on the matter before focusing his attention on the task at hand. I got it, we had a job to do, but a little more than a mere nod to Gideon’s existence would have been nice.

We were off to Portland, Oregon, and so I text Briana to let her know we’d be away for a while. She replied immediately, and I had to wonder how she’d so effectively mastered the art of texting. I often pressed the button too many times and skipped over a letter, or pressed the wrong one completely. It took me a fair while longer to type out my reply.

The jet was in the air, we’d worked on our preliminary profile, and as it was a long flight I settled in to daydream my ‘girlfriend’ for as long as I could spare. I had yet to inform her I’d announced our relationship, but I figured she wouldn’t mind. ‘I am yours and you are mine’ was pretty self-explanatory.

“Hey kid,” Morgan’s voice came from next to me. He slid in the seat opposite me and handed me a mug of coffee. “How you doing?”

I gave him a weak smile. “I’m fine.”

“Come on now,” he encouraged. “You don’t have to lie to me.”

“I really don’t wanna talk about it.” I gestured to the case file in the table. “I’d rather just focus on the case.”

He sighed and placed his mug down. “Okay, okay. I understand.” He leant in closer, a conspiratorial look in his eye and a smirk on his face. “So, I hear you’ve got a girlfriend…”

I shot a look at Hotch, but he was too busy chatting to Emily to notice me.

“Don’t look at him like that,” Morgan said lightly. “He’s worried about you. We all are.”

“He’s worried about my love life?” I asked incredulously. “I think perhaps he might be more worried that my girlfriend chose me over him.”

Morgan furrowed a brow. “What are you talking about?”

“Briana,” I clarified.

“Briana Martin?” Morgan asked, his eyes widening. “From the Lyle Roberts case? That’s who you’re seeing?”

Ah, so Hotch obviously hadn’t told Morgan everything.

“Yep,” I said casually.

Morgan shook his head. “But she’s…”

“She’s what, Morgan?” I prompted when he failed to finish his sentence.

“Well I don’t know…” he paused for a moment before saying, “She’s not who I’d picture you with.”

“Well, who would you picture me with?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know…someone a bit more…like you.”

It was because Briana was hot. It had to be. I knew everyone called me ‘pretty boy’ but I never saw myself as particularly good looking. Briana was completely out of my league. Would she wake up one day and realise she’d settled? Anxiety began to worm its way through me.

“She likes me,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I believed it. “Even if she is better looking than me.”

Morgan quirked an eyebrow. “Come on now, Pretty Boy, you know I’m not talking about her looks. I just meant she seems a bit…”

My fingers began to scratch against the case file under my hands, that famed anger rising to the surface again. “A bit what, Morgan?” I snapped, my voice rising a few pitches. “Spit it out.”

My outburst caused the rest of the team to look over.

“What’s going on?” JJ asked. “Everything okay?”

“Ask Morgan.” I shot him a glare.

He sighed deeply and turned to address the group. “I was just talking to Reid about his girlfriend.”

Both JJ and Emily let out a gasp and fully turned their attention to me.

“Who is she?” JJ queried. “Oh this is so exciting!”

“That’s the thing,” Morgan replied carefully. “It’s Briana Martin.”

Emily curled her lip. “From the Lyle Roberts case?”

Morgan nodded.

“Oh…”

“What the hell is the problem with that?” I snapped.

“Well don’t you think it’s a bit…off…” Emily began tentatively. “That she flirted with Hotch so boldly but moved straight on to you…”

The first time she’d flirted with Hotch we’d hardly known one another, and the second time she’d only done it to get a rise out of me. It really wasn’t as deep as they were making out, was it?

“Well, are you mad about it, Hotch?” I asked. “Were you in to her?”

Hotch hated talking about his personal life and feelings, but through a forced voice he said, “Not really. I can’t say I’ve ever given her a second thought beyond our brief interactions.”

“See!” I said, throwing my hand in the air and becoming aware of the rise in my tone of voice, the one thing that always gave away how frustrated I was. “It’s not an issue for me, Hotch, or her, so I don’t understand why everyone has a problem with this!”

“It just seems odd to me,” Prentiss stated. “I’d never do something like that.”

“No, you’re too busy making ‘fuck me’ eyes at our boss,” I retorted.

“Enough!” Hotch’s voice was not a shout but still deep and loud enough to shake the jet. “Reid if you don’t watch your tone you’ll be on leave for the foreseeable future, is that understood?”

I clenched my jaw so hard I could have cracked a molar. “Understood.”

The jet fell silent, and even Morgan left his seat with me in favour of talking to JJ.

I didn’t care. As far I was concerned they could all choke on their stupid opinions. They were wrong about Bree. They knew nothing about her, or our relationship. One day I’d be able to prove that to them, and show them and me and Briana were better than the rest of them put together.

~~~

Bree

I sat in O’Donoghue’s bar, Steve at the other side pouring me my second whisky.

Spencer was away on a case, and I was drowning in college work. I had work in the morning and still had 2,000 words left on an assignment due in a week, but the pull of a glass of whisky? Well, that was far stronger than anything else.

“You seem upbeat,” Steve, the closest thing I had to a friend, commented. “Everything okay since the little incident the other week?”

I had not been in since I got wasted and had to be carried home by Spencer. It’s not that I felt awkward, it’s that I was so swept up by him that I hadn’t had time it. In fact, now that I thought about it, I hadn’t had a drink in days.

“I’m sorry about that. Too much on an empty stomach,” I said with an easy smile.

Steve waved me off. “Don’t you worry, Bree. I’ve seen far worse in my time.”

I smiled and took a sip of my drink. “I’m very good, actually. I’m seeing someone.”

Steve smacked his hand on the bar in a display of enthusiasm. “Well good for you! Who is it?”

“Spencer. You know, the guy who came to pick me up the other week.”

Steve grinned. “I had a feeling you’d say that. Good looking guy, you could do a lot worse…he’s a bit snappy though.”

I chuckled. “He can be, yeah.”

Steve was pulled away by customers, leaving me to prop up the end of the bar.

I’d gotten good at playing off my drinking as normal, usually choosing to only go in two or three times a week, and only having a couple before either moving on, or going back home to finish off the night.

I knocked back the drink and said my goodbyes, heading off to stop via the other bar I frequented, which was actually closer to Spencer’s apartment than my own.

I came here less, much preferring the company of Steve and the quiet Irish bar, but I couldn’t very well stay there all night, not if I wanted to keep drinking there and not get cut off (because if I knew Steve, the moment he saw a hint of a problem he’d be on me to quit.)

I entered through the doors, nodding to the bartender who surely recognised me by now, though not by name.

“Hi, what can I get for you ma’am?” he asked with a smooth smile and a southern drawl.

“Double whisky, neat please,” I said, hopping up on the bar stool.

It wasn’t a weekend, so the bar wasn’t super crowded, but there was enough people there so that I didn’t look like a complete loner by sitting on my own.

I paid for my drink and took a sip, just as my phone buzzed with a text.

Spencer, 11:43pm

Hi beautiful. Im at the hotel. how are yov?

For a genius, his texting could really use some work.

Me, 11:44pm

Hey, I hope your day was okay. I’m good but I miss you ☹

Spencer, 11:45pm

Ill be home soom.

His poor texting lay somewhere between endearing and making me feel like I was dating an old man.

I texted him back and forth for a little while longer, smiling to myself, my heart so incredibly full, before the bartender was at my side.

“Another?”

I nodded, and he delivered me another drink.

In truth, there was only one thing I wanted, and it wasn’t another whisky. I wanted Spencer. I wanted to be wrapped in his arms, experiencing the intimacy I’d spent a life time dreaming about. I wanted to fall so deeply in to him that I could never get out. I wanted to be nowhere that wasn’t with him.

After what he’d said about his friend, Gideon, and confessing to me those awful thoughts about wanting to end his life, I’d been totally consumed by him, even more than I already was. I wanted to save him from the shit that the world had thrown at him, and hold him against me until the pain went away.

He’d been through so much, and I was sure that I didn’t even know the half of it. No one deserved that pain, and I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that he never had to feel it again.

I glanced at the glass of whisky sitting before me.

How could I help him if I couldn’t even help myself?

The recognition that I needed to work on myself didn’t stop me from knocking back the drink before me, but it did at least stop me from drinking any more.

I went home and I slept, determined to do my best to heal – for him.

I’d do anything for him.

Chapter Text

Spencer

Two weeks went by. Two weeks without Gideon, and two weeks of me gradually trying to stich myself back together - only more and more pieces seemed to be falling off. As fast I re-threaded the fabric, it was already unravelling again from the other end.

The only positive was that, despite the fact Gideon had been replaced far too quickly, his replacement was the one and only David Rossi. The guy was a legend, and I was eager to get to know him better.

Briana had been at my place every spare moment we got and she helped to ease some of that perpetual ache that I carried in my chest. I hadn’t even used drugs for over a week.  

Bree on the other hand…well, she was still drinking. Though it was a lot less than she had done previously. She’d told me that she’d only drank six times in those two weeks, and the pride I felt for her made my heart heal just a bit. She was trying, and that’s all anyone could ask.

Things were starting to level out for me on the surface, but inside, every night when the darkness filled the room and encroached on my mind, I always found myself stuck in the same cycles of thinking. Thinking about Gideon, thinking about my future, my addiction, my cravings. On the surface, I could just about muster through day to day life, but deep down it was a different story, one that only I and Bree knew.

I told her most of what I was feeling, I didn’t want to hide anything from her, and she did the same for me. We were both open and honest with one another, and that was just one of the many reasons I loved her.

Yes, love. After just over a month, sounds crazy, right? Well, not to me.

I know what addiction is like, what it’s like to be so obsessed with something that you can’t even think, and that’s what it was like with Bree. This all-consuming devotion that was the driving force behind every single thing I did. And what is that if not love?

In work on Monday I was approached by Rossi, who had a wide smile on his face and a spring in his step.

“Spencer,” he greeted me. “I was hoping that you’d be available on Saturday? I’d like to have the team over to my place, as a thank you for your friendliness and understanding with me.”

Rossi had a rocky start with us, being a little too obstinate for his own good, but he’d eased in with the help of the team (a stern word from Hotch).

I figured it was the right thing to do, to go to his and make him feel welcome in the team, but I couldn’t help but think of Bree. I’d promised her I’d spend Saturday night with her.

I was about to reject his offer when he said, “Oh, and bring your girlfriend, too. We’d all love to meet her.”

Bree spending time with the team… I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Not after the conversation from the jet, where no one hid the fact they weren’t her biggest fan.

But then, I’d said to myself that day I’d prove to them that Bree was a good person, and that she was right for me. I told myself I’d show them all how wrong they were.

Briana and I could go to Rossi’s and everyone could meet the real her, the one that I’d fallen for, not the all black wearing, red-lipped flirt they thought she was.

“Sounds great, Rossi, we’d love to come.”

//x//

6pm on Saturday, Bree and I stepped out of my car and headed up Rossi’s drive. Bree had said she’d be the designated driver that night, so that I could let go and she wouldn’t risk embarrassing herself by over-consuming the drinks.

I knew it would be hard for her to avoid all that alcohol when everyone else around her would be drunk, but she promised she’d tell me if it got too much for her. She’d not touched a drop in 5 days by that point, and I could see the determined look in her eyes, the look that said she wanted to heal with me. We’d get through it together, I knew it.

“Spencer!” Rossi greeted as he swung open his door. “Thank you for coming!” He looked at Bree, and I tried incredibly hard to rationalise as he took in the sight of her low-cut black dress. He wasn’t lecherous, he wasn’t ogling her, but it angered me all the same. “And you must be Briana,” he smiled warmly. “Lovely to meet you.”

Briana grinned, her white teeth showing through the parting of her red lips. “Hi, thank you so much for inviting me, you have a lovely home.”

He did have a lovely home, too. It was more of a mansion, really. I had no idea book sales could earn so much money. Perhaps I was in the wrong career. I could likely write a best-selling book within a week.

He showed us through the expansive home and in to the back garden where everyone was gathered. The team were sitting around on the large patio, a small fire burning away in the pit in the middle of the circle.

The moment we walked through door, everyone was on their feet, apart from Hotch, and rushing over to us like we were the latest toy in the store.

“Hi!” Garcia greeted us first. “You must be Briana – I’m Penelope!” She pulled Bree in for hug, and Bree returned the hug with only a slightly taken aback look in her eye.

“Nice to meet you,” Bree smiled. “And please, call me Bree.”

“Reid, you didn’t tell me your girl was so smoking hot,” Garcia exclaimed. Out of everyone, Rossi and Garcia were the only ones who hadn’t met her.

Bree blushed but didn’t say anything.

The rest of the team greeted Bree in a friendly way, none of them giving any indication that they might not like her. Perhaps they’d gotten over the ‘flirting with Hotch’ thing. It had been a while, after all.

We were ushered to the fire pit, where Hotch was sat with Rossi.

“Aaron,” Bree nodded awkwardly.

She must have felt weird about the situation – even if she did flirt with him just to irritate me.

“Briana,” he greeted politely.

She went to take a seat next to Morgan, but Garcia swooped in before she could even get close, and that left the only seats available between Hotch and JJ. I wasted no time in taking the one next to Hotch. I’d be happy if the man never so much as looked at my girlfriend again.

Rossi asked what we wanted to drink, and when he disappeared off to get them, JJ pulled Bree in to conversation. They chatted easily, and I was incredibly grateful to JJ for making Briana feel welcome. Garcia and Emily joined in their conversation too, and soon enough all four of them were laughing and chatting like old friends.

I knew they’d warm to her if they just gave her a chance.

//x//

The night was going well, and everyone seemed to like Bree. She held my hand, kissed me, and proved to everyone who may have had doubts that she was wholly and truly mine.

Bree excused herself to the bathroom and other people wandered off to get drinks or go and dance, leaving just me and Morgan at the fire pit.

“She’s nice,” Morgan commented. “I mean it, she seems lovely.”

I smiled. “She is.”

 “So, how long have you been seeing each other now, like a month?”

“One month one week and two days,” I replied.

Morgan nodded slowly. “You seem to be very comfortable with one another. I think I’d wait at least couple of months before I introduced a partner to friends.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I often missed any hidden meanings behind people’s words, but even I could tell there was something he was keeping unsaid.

“Nothing, just an observation,” he replied simply, before looking around. “Where is she? She’s been gone a while.”

He was right, Bree had been gone much longer than the average bathroom break took.

“I don’t know…maybe I should go and look for her…”

Morgan laughed and patted my firmly on the back. “She’ll be fine, kid. She’s a big girl.”

 “Do you think the others like her?” I asked him tentatively. “Do you think they’ve gotten over the Hotch thing?”

Morgan sighed and adopted an expression of sympathy. “Yes, they like her, and yes, they’re over it. It’s clear she’s only got eyes for you.” I nodded in acceptance of his answer as he said, “Hey, I gotta ask, is she like, a goth or something?”

I shrugged. “Not really. She just likes black.”

“Black is Hotch’s favourite colour.”

I whipped my head to look at him properly. “Excuse me?”

“Just saying,” Morgan replied innocently.

The thought of Hotch sent alarm bells screaming in my ears. He’d gotten up from the fire pit just after Bree did, and I hadn’t seen either of them since. I shot to my feet.

“Black isn’t even a colour,” I mumbled before making my way inside.

~~~

Bree

Spencer’s friends were all really nice. I’ll admit, I’d been worried going in to the evening, considering they likely hadn’t had the best first impressions of me, but they’d all made me incredibly welcome.  

I excused myself from the chatter and headed for the bathroom. Unfortunately, I had extreme trouble locating it as David Rossi’s house was more like a labyrinth than a home.

David Rossi – the David Rossi. The guy that my college professors spoke about as if he was some sort of God, the guy whose books I’d studied both in and out of school hours. The David Rossi, and there I was, hopelessly lost in the hallways of his spectacular home.

I rounded the corner back to the kitchen, deciding to go left and not right in search of the bathroom, when I walked straight in to someone.

“Shit! Sorry!” I apologised quickly.

A low chuckle vibrated in my chest as a heady hit of musky cologne filled my nostrils. “It’s fine.”

It was Aaron, looking down at me with a raised eyebrow and a small smile on his face.

“Any reason why you’re coming at me at full speed?” he queried.

I laughed and took a small step back. “Sorry, I’m looking for the bathroom.”

He gestured down the hall. “I was just heading there myself. I’ll show you.”

I followed after him, trying to keep up with his long strides.

I felt horrendously awkward, given that on the two occasions I’d seen him I had flirted with him, and yet there I was as someone else’s girlfriend. I really wanted Spencer’s friends to like me, and I figured, as I often did, that there was no point in leaving anything unspoken. Always better to just say it as it is.

“Look, about the last time I saw you-“ I said as we reached the door to the bathroom.

He held up his hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

I glanced down at his left hand, to see that his wedding ring still gone, only this time he noticed I was looking.

“I separated from my wife a couple of weeks ago,” he informed me.

“Oh…I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s fine. I knew it was coming. I have to say, having a beautiful woman like you flirt with me was a welcome distraction.”

I was sure I blushed at the compliment, but I quickly remembered that the BAU member I was interested in was not the one in front of me (even if he was making my daddy kink purr a little), but was the gorgeous man sitting outside who treated me like a Goddess and fucked me so good I spent most of my free time thinking about it. He was the only man I wanted.

“I’m sorry,” I said, putting some space between us, “for flirting with you and stuff. Spencer and I weren’t really official until after that. I don’t want you to think that I’m a bad person or that I don’t love Spencer, because I do. Love him, that is. I really do.”

Aaron’s expression took one something I’d liken to incredulity, but he quickly gave me a small smile. “Briana, please, don’t worry. I’m just made up that Reid’s found someone. He seems incredibly happy with you.”

“As I am with him.”

He extended his hand. “So we start again. Hi, I’m Aaron Hotchner, I am a divorced father and I have never flirted with you.”

I chuckled and accepted the handshake. “Hi, I’m Briana Martin, I am a forensic psychology student and I’ve never even considered flirting with you.”

Aaron’s hand gripped mine firmly and shook it. I made the mistake of looking in to his dark eyes, which were completely fixated on me, surveying me from head to toe.

I felt myself heat up under the scrutiny. I didn’t feel objectified, I felt more like a germ under a microscope. Assessed, analysed, anatomised. Like he was reading so deep in to my soul that it begged for respite from his examination.

I released his hand, giving him my best smile, and as fate would have it Spencer chose that exact moment to appear next to me.

“Bree.”

My cheeks flushed and I stepped back from Aaron.

Aaron cleared his throat. “I’ll go ahead and use the bathroom upstairs.” He left sharply, not even sparing a glance at Spencer.

“What the fuck, Bree?” Spencer glowered.

“What?”

He stepped closer to me. “You say you’re going to the bathroom, but I find you skulking in corners with my boss?”

“I am not ‘skulking’.” I pointed to the bathroom door beside me. “And I am going to the bathroom.”

“Get on with it then,” he snapped.

I glared at him and stepped in to the bathroom, slamming the door in his face. Why was he behaving like such an asshole? I hadn’t even had the chance to explain what my conversation with Aaron was about, he’d simply just arrived and kicked off at me.

I took my time, needing a few moments to prepare myself before Spencer no doubt got snappy with me again. I’d forgotten what he could be like. I’d forgotten he had that side to him.

The first month had been a whirlwind, but this little incident had reminded me of when we’d first met, how he’d made me so damn mad that I’d gotten out of the hospital and, against all medical advice, necked a bottle of wine to drown out the sound of his voice.

He was so lovely, so utterly devoted to me most of the time, that I’d forgotten he could be a real prick.

After leisurely washing my hands I opened the bathroom door, steeling myself to face the argument that was no doubt about to ensue. Only seconds later, I was being pushed back inside and spun around so that the door was at my back, Spencer’s large hands resting on my shoulders keeping me in place.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I hissed at him, still shocked from the unexpected move.

He reached with his left hand and locked the door. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I was apologising to Aaron for flirting with him,” I explained as I tried to move my shoulders. “And he was saying that he didn’t mind.”

Spencer’s eyes darkened further. There was rage there, more than I’d ever seen before. If I didn’t know him better, it would have scared me. “Oh, I bet he didn’t mind.”

“Spencer, you’re being ridiculous.”

He bent his head down so that it was at my ear. “I don’t like sharing what’s mine.”

Heat began to pool in my stomach. I scalded myself for the feeling – we were meant to be arguing, now wasn’t the time for getting aroused, even though that’s exactly what his possessive side did to me.

“You can’t behave like this every time I talk to someone who isn’t you,” I argued.

“I was out there singing your praises, and I come in to find you practically pressed against my boss in the hallway,” he hissed. “So I can behave how I damn well please.”

“You’re being dramatic,” I snapped. “It was nothing like that and you know it! You know I only want you, Spencer. You know that I’m yours.”

He brought his left hand to cup my cheek before crashing his lips in to mine. I kissed back eagerly, my hands flying around his neck, fingers interlacing through his hair. I had to force myself to pull away, reminding myself that this was an argument.

“Spencer, stop it.” I panted, and he moved off me slightly. “This is serious, you can’t behave like a caveman every time you see another man talk to me.”

He trailed his hand over my shoulder and chuckled lightly. “Oh, Briana, if I were to behave like a caveman, I’d already have you whimpering underneath me by now.”

My lips parted in a silent moan. Fuck, I was aroused. I knew it was wrong, and that I should be more mad at him, but I couldn’t find it in me to care as he began to trail his fingers down to my breasts.

“If I were to behave like a caveman I’d have taken you right there in front of him.” He took a step forward, reclosing the gap and pressing against me with the hard planes of his body, his breath hot across my neck and dripping over me like warm honey.

He kissed my neck before sucking at the pulse point, his tongue and teeth tattooing him on to my skin until I wanted to be forever marked by him. I gasped out a moan, my breath shaking as he used his left hand to slide under the neckline of my dress and began kneading my breasts.

 “Would you have liked that?” he mused “Would you have like it if I hitched up this pretty little dress and bent you over in front of him like a desperate whore?”

I nodded, breathless and aching in response to him. No matter what, I’d always want him like this. Dominant, possessive, wanting me so badly that he was willing to take me right there in his friend’s bathroom. He could chase off every man in the tri-state area for all I cared.

His right hand slid down the curve of my waist, languid and tantalising, each movement methodical and calculated. He reached the hem of my dress and pulled it up, his large hand wasting no time in finding its way to my desperate core.

 “We’ll have to be quick, baby,” he whispered. “And we’ll have to be quiet.”

I bucked my hips against his hand and nodded. “Okay, okay I’ll be quiet.”

He kissed my lips softly before, in paradoxical feeling, he roughly tore off my panties and tossed them to one side. He undid his belt and freed himself just enough, before both his hands came to rest under my ass. He gestured for me to jump, which I did, and he lifted me up and pressed me against the door, before sliding me back down on top of him in a hurried but sensual movement.

His arm wrapped around my back, his fingers anchoring themselves in my hair, while his other arm remained underneath my ass. In this position, with his strong arms around me and the door at my back, he could slide me on and off of him with ease. I had no idea I was that easy to pick up. Curves equated to weight, but Spencer held me with ease, his toned arms deceptively strong against his slight stature.

I let out a moan as he filled me, my nails digging in to his back as he began to pound up in to me.

His hand moved from my hair and clamped over my mouth. “Shhh, pretty girl,” he cooed. “You have to be quiet. We can’t have all my friends knowing what a little slut you are, can we?”

I nodded desperately, and he continued to fuck me at a merciless pace. His teeth found my neck, and he sunk them in to me, sucking and biting as he panted out soft, low groans.

“I can’t control you, Bree,” he breathed. “I can’t tell you who to speak to or what to do.” He thrust himself harshly inside me. “But I can remind you who you belong to. I can remind you that it’s me who gets to use your sweet body.”

My orgasm was fast approaching, and I clung to him desperately, nails and fingers gripping at his shirt as his words and actions sent me hurtling towards the edge.

“And doesn’t it feel good?” he continued, his voice barely a whisper. “Doesn’t it feel good to be mine?”

I tried to talk under the muffle of his hand, and so he removed his hand from my mouth. “Speak.”

“I don’t want anything else,” I gasped. “Please, Spencer I only want you. I want to be yours, only yours.”

He kissed my lips roughly. “Good.”

I fell over the edge, his hand moving back to my mouth to quieten the sounds of my orgasm. He faltered in his pace and followed after me, still gently pushing himself in and out of me as he came inside me, breathless and planting kisses across my neck.

He set me down, and my hips had almost seized up completely. We cleaned ourselves up, and he bent down to pick up my torn off underwear.

“Guess you won’t be wearing these,” he grinned.

I snatched them off him and shoved them in my purse. “Asshole. Are you really happy that I’ll be spending the rest of the evening with your friends in no underwear?”

His eyes flashed. “Just no bending over.”

I placed a small kiss on his cheek. “Only for you.”

He grabbed my face with both hands and pressed his lips in to mine. “When we get home I’m going to make sure you know exactly how the thought of you wearing no panties makes me feel.”

“I look forward to it.”

Chapter Text

Spencer

Taking Briana to meet the team had been a success, all things considered.  Okay, so I’d gotten a little out of hand with my new-found possessive side, but that couldn’t be helped. She made me possessive, made me insane. She’d woven herself so deeply in to the essence of who I was that I no longer saw her as an individual person, but rather an extension of me. It was like she was part of me, an organ vital to my survival. She was mine, and I didn’t want anyone else to have her.

A few days later the team was called away on a case, and the moment the jet was in the air and the preliminary talks about our UnSub were over, the conversation turned to me and Briana.

“So, Reid,” Emily began. “I can’t believe you’ve bagged yourself a big tiddy goth girlfriend.”

Morgan snorted out a laugh, and even Hotch’s lips tipped up slightly.

“A what?” I asked. I always seemed to miss the joke. “What are you talking about?”

JJ patted me on the shoulder. “It’s nothing.”

“She’s not a goth,” Morgan pointed out. “Prentiss in high school, that’s a goth.”

“Hey!” Emily pouted. “I told Garcia not to show anyone.”

“Nothing stays a secret in this team for long,” Morgan smirked.

“I think Briana is wonderful,” Rossi stated, guiding the conversation back to me. “And I think the team all owe you an apology for being so dubious about her, don’t we?”

The team murmured agreements, and apologies - apart from Hotch who remained expressionless.

“She is wonderful,” I said, aware that I was now blushing. I wasn’t good at talking about my personal life. “I love her.”

“Love?” Morgan asked with gentle incredulousness. “Bit soon for that, don’t you think?”

I scowled at him, about to bite back, when Rossi spoke up.

“There are no time limits on emotions,” he stated. “When you know, you know.”

I gave him an appreciative, thin-lipped smile.

“Briana said she loves you, too,” Hotch said, finally joining in the conversation. “So I’d say you’re well-matched.”

As good as that was to hear, I seethed at the thought that Hotch had engaged in enough conversation with her to know how she felt about me. That tick of rage began to work itself up inside me.

“I think it’s very sweet,” Prentiss chimed in, not that I cared one bit for her opinion. “You needed someone like her in your life.”

“Oh, because you know so much about me after three months of knowing me?” I retorted, sarcasm lacing my tone and delivering the line with a particularly harsh bite.

“Reid,” Morgan snapped. “What the fuck, man?”

Everyone on the jet was staring at me with a mix of confusion and anger, and Hotch was giving me a look that said ‘you’re on thin ice’.

“Sorry,” I murmured. “Just didn’t sleep well.”

It was true, I hadn’t slept well. Bree had stayed at her own place because she had an assignment due, and so I’d spent the whole night fighting the urge to reach in to my bedside cabinet and take the drugs I’d managed almost two weeks without. I was now three days over my previous record for amount of time gone without, and that small fact, knowing that I was slowly beating it, had been the only thing that had stopped me from succumbing the night before – it had meant I’d had a completely sleepless night fighting it, however.

“Sleep or no sleep,” Morgan continued to chastise me, “there’s no need to be an asshole.”

“It’s fine,” Emily said quietly. “I understand.”

I let my head fall against the headrest.  I was well aware I was being a complete prick – I just couldn’t find it in me to care. Not when my mind was flitting between the cravings to use both drugs and Briana.

I was horny all the time. If I wasn’t thinking about Bree I felt like I wasn’t alive. I spent every waking moment thinking about her breasts, her thighs, her lips, her pussy. It was like a sickness of the mind, taking over until everything other than her had been eradicated from existence.

I realised then that I’d completely forgotten the details of the case we were working on.

That had never happened to me before.

I was intelligent beyond most people’s comprehension – I remembered everything, but as I stared at the case file in front of me, I found I was struggling to recall the stats and numbers that everyone relied on me to know.

What was happening to me?

Had I simply replaced one drug with another?

The realisation might have hit me harder had my phone not buzzed with a message from Bree, instantly filling my heart and my head with nothing but the intense joy I felt when I thought of her.

I picked up my phone to reply, not even bothering to re-read the case file.

//x//

In the police precinct in Norman, Oklahoma, I was working on a geo-profile while Hotch and Prentiss were interviewing friends and family of the victims and JJ was preparing a press conference. Morgan and Rossi were both at the latest crime scene.

I’d had to re-check the details, but once I’d read them all again I’d retained the information with my usual efficiency.

Sometimes my brain was just so full that things slipped through the cracks, I decided. It could happen to anyone…even if it had never happened to me before.

Hotch and Emily joined me in the conference room we were set up in and began discussing the outcomes of their interviews.

“Daisy knew nothing about her sisters’ whereabouts before she died,” Prentiss began. “But she said on Friday’s she usually went to the same bar.”

“Our second vic’s mom said the same – that every Friday she had the same routine,” Hotch stated.

“So he’s stalking them.”

Their chatter continued, irritating me no end as I tried to work on my geo-profile.

Prentiss’s voice had a fine way of pissing me off, and the low vibrations of Hotch’s dull as fuck tones had the ability to send me to sleep. I could normally work with the noise, but for some reason, that day, it was really irking me.

The phantom itch began in my arm, the cravings screaming at me for attention. I tried to shut it out, tried to focus on my job, but the call got louder and louder as Hotch and Emily continued their droning in the background.

Everything felt so loud. The noise of the precinct, the hum of the fan, the chatter of Hotch and Prentiss, the screaming in my head. It was too. Fucking. Loud.

“Will you shut up?” I snapped, whipping my head to my two team members. “How am I meant to think with you two yapping on?”

Oops.

That filter I so famously lacked had done a complete vanishing act as the reality of what I’d just said slammed in to me.

Hotch rose to his feet, eyes utterly filled with quiet, dark rage, and stalked over to me.

“I have given you more than enough chances to rectify your behaviour and sort out your attitude,” he stated with lethal calm. “As it is apparent you cannot follow that instruction, perhaps this one will be clearer; I want your badge, your gun, and you out on the next flight back to D.C.”

Shit. Shit.

“Hotch I-“

“Do not,” Hotch cut over me, “think that you can speak to me, or any other member of the team, in the way you have been doing over the last few months. Perhaps a few days leave will remind you of how to behave like an adult.”

I could fight it, if I wanted to. I could argue my case, maybe even apologise but…really I just wanted to get fucking high.

I held his stare for as long as I could stomach (the man was truly the most intimidating I had ever met), before grabbing my bag and storming out, not so much as sparing a glance at Prentiss as I went. Fuck it.

//x//

I stormed up the stairs and in to my apartment.

“Bree,” I called out.

I’d text her the moment I was out of the precinct and in the car on the way to the airport to tell her that I was coming home, and that I wanted her to be at my place when I got back.

Rage and fury were controlling every movement I made, every thought I had, until I was on overdrive from the adrenaline.

Fuck Hotch, fuck the job, fuck Gideon, fuck everything. What did any of it matter, anyway? After landing a dream job in the FBI at just 22 years old, having three PhD’s, and possessing intelligence over most people’s quantifiable calculation, I was nothing but bitterly unhappy. I’d worked my entire life for something that was slowly leeching the will to live from me. Drug addiction, abandonment, arguments…that’s all I’d gained in the two and a half years I’d been with the BAU.

Well. That wasn’t quite true. I’d gained Briana, too. Somehow she made the shit show worth it. And when I entered my apartment, feet heavy with the weight of my frustration, there she was, sitting on my sofa, smiling widely at me with her red lips and brilliant, ocean blue eyes that begged for me to dive in and swim in for all eternity.

She was wearing a deep, wine red sundress than clung to every damn curve, short enough to expose the place where her thighs touched together in fucking delicious invitation for me to spread them apart.

I was fucking angry, so fucking angry, and that red dress was like a rag to a bull.

“Hey baby, how are-“

“Take your clothes off,” I ordered her, cutting over her greeting.

“Wha-“

“Don’t ask questions, just do as I say.”

She stood from where she was seated and eyed me. “Do I not get a hello?”

I stalked closer to her, reaching her in just a few paces, and gripped her hips with bruising force. “Not when you look so damn fuckable you don’t. Take that dress off before I tear it off.”

She lifted her chin in defiance. “Say please.”

My nostrils flared as the grip I held on her became tighter. “I don’t say please.”

“Then I don’t take the dress off.”

What happened next was a blur.

The thin, red material of the sundress covering Briana’s curved frame was torn clean off her, revealing her black underwear – my favourite set, which were cut with a lace trim and pushed her breasts together in the most enticing way.

She let out a small squeal as I ripped the dress down its seams, but didn’t protest further as I dragged her lips in to mine and kissed her with such ferocity that it was barely even a kiss.

This wasn’t about some sensual act of love making, this wasn’t an exchange of anything other than primal rage and lust, both of which were firing through me in equal measure, fuelling the very depths of my depravity until I longed for nothing more than to see my beautiful Briana fucking begging beneath me.

I broke the kiss and spun her around, baring her ass to me I slipped the scrap of cloth covering her soaking pussy down her legs.

“Spencer,” she gasped, both aroused and confused, “what are you-“

“Shut up,” I hissed. “I don’t want to hear another sound from your mouth unless it’s moaning or begging.”

I wasn’t I the mood for arguments or small talk. I didn’t care about sweet nothings and whispered promises. I wanted to fuck her until the pain went away and the urge to pump my veins full of drugs dissipated.

I pushed her head down in to the cushions on the sofa and tugged her ass in the air, practically salivating at the sight in front of me.

I tugged my cock free of my pants, and in one swift movement I was inside her, burying myself fully and not giving her a second to adjust.

She cried out, gripping the sofa underneath her as I immediately set a relentless pace.

“Good girl,” I rasped, my right of my hand digging at the side of her hip, using it as leverage tug her on and off of me while I pounded my anger straight inside of her, my left hand keeping her head shoved down in to the sofa.

I’d never behaved this way with her. I’d always been the dominant one, and we’d always enjoyed it a little rough, but this was new depths even for me. In that moment I simply did not give a shit what Briana wanted, I only wanted to chase my own release.

“Fuck, Spencer,” she gasped, though the cushion her head was shoved in to muffled the sound.

I released her head and tugged her up harshly by her hair, arching her backwards to meet me. My other hand encased her throat, squeezing harshly. “Do you like it? Do you like when I use you like this?”

She gave me an agreeable moan.

 “Good,” I whispered, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. “So you’re going to be quiet and take what I give you.”

Her compliance, her willingness, her submission to me had me violently high on the power. I’d never felt in control in my life, never had the power over anyone, and Briana walked in to my life and showed me how it felt, even if it was just in these moments, to be in control.

Dizzy on the idea, nothing but burning hot anger coursing through me, I dropped her head and let her fall back down as I picked up my pace again. I was close, so fucking close, and desperate to empty myself inside her willing body.

She was moaning and whimpering, hands gripping desperately to whatever they could latch on to as I mercilessly thrust myself in to her over and over, my hands creating large bruises on her hips and thighs from where I’d been harshly gripping her.

Her pussy became tight around my dick, and her moans stuttered out in to breathless pleas. Her orgasm crested just as mine broke, and soon we were crashing in to one another with breakneck force, getting utterly swept away in the current.

The anger I’d been feeling shot out of my body as I emptied myself inside of her, that burning wrath lighting me from head to toe reverberating around me in one final blow as I breathlessly shook from my release.

Anger. So much anger.  I was shaking, my body running on nothing but adrenaline as I began to come down from the intensity.

I remained attached to Bree, each breath steadying more than the last, as those tendrils of fury began to dissipate.

As my high plateaued, so did my wrath.

I removed myself from Bree, my body shaking violently, reality pouring straight in to me and guilt starting to settle in the places that ire had once dwelled.

Briana shifted, her naked body bruised and trembling as she curled herself in to a ball. She blinked up at me, blue eyes marred with a red tinge and shrouded by the black smudges of her makeup. She looked…broken.

What the fuck had I done? This wasn’t me. I was not the type of man to treat a woman like that, not now, not ever.

I hadn’t once heard her utter the word ‘yes’, I hadn’t once checked in to see if what I was doing was okay. I’d just used her for my own purposes, callously ignoring the fact she was a real person with real fucking feelings. My stomach lurched violently, the little food I had eaten that day swirling rapidly with the remorse now curling itself around me.

What have I done?

 “Bree…”

“Yes?”

I grabbed the blanket from the back of the sofa and draped it over her. “Are you…okay?”

She wrapped it around her tightly as I came to sit by her side. “I’m okay.” She shuffled closer to me, resting her head on my shoulder. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” My heart wrenched at the sound of her soft voice, so much more delicate than her normal blunt manor. I wrapped my arms tightly around her. “I’m so sorry.”

She nestled further in to me. “What for?”

“For…treating you like that…” I could barely get the words out, each one choking me on my own self-hatred.

“You obviously needed the release,” she said quietly. “I’m more than happy to provide it.”

I shook my head violently. “No I…shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have used you to get my anger out.”

Fuck, I didn’t even recognise myself. Who was this man sitting on my sofa, hugging my girlfriend, living in my head? Because he sure as shit didn’t resemble Spencer Reid.

“Why are you so angry?” she asked.

I stroked her dark hair gently, trying not to tangle in the knots that had formed. “We’ll talk about that later, my love. For now, I’m going to run you a bath.”

She hummed her approval and moved so that I could get up and run her bath.

The hot water filled the tub, steam rising and clouding the room just as my brain began to cloud with the harshness of my iniquity.

I’d never loved one like I loved Bree. And this was how I behaved when I found the one person I’d willingly give my life for?

I shuddered at the memory of the man I’d been not 10 minutes prior. Remorse, regret and penitence overtook me until I could barely think straight, barely fucking breathe.

When the bath was ready I returned to the living room and scooped Bree up in to my arms, who muttered soft noises of happiness, clearly nowhere near as bothered about what had just happened as I was.

I washed her body, head to toe, uttering soft words of love and adoration, apologising over and over for what I’d done and how I’d treated her.

She didn’t say much, in fact she barely spoke a word, but her calmness, the fact she still wanted my hands on her, set me in to enough ease to not lurch over the toilet bowl and throw up.

I settled her in to bed wearing one of my t-shirts and slid in next to her.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again, kissing her shoulder. “Please tell me you forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” she replied. “I understand.”

My kisses peppered across her skin until my lips were sore. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too.” She turned to face me, her eyes fixating on mine, wide and warm and full of love. “After care is what’s important, and that’s what you’re giving me now. You can fuck me as hard and as angrily as you want, so long as I get these moments afterwards.”

I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “But-“

“No buts.” She brought her hand up to cup my cheek. “If I had a problem, I’d tell you.”

“But you’ve been so quiet since.”

She gave me a soft smile. “It’s a lot for me to take, yes, but I relish in the peace after it. I like the quiet, gentle touch of your hands and the stillness of simply existing together. It’s perfect. You’re perfect, and I don’t want you any other way.”

Some of my guilt slackened as her words sank in, but they didn’t eradicate the screaming of my overwhelmed conscience completely.

The man I’d been when I got home was a man I didn’t know, a man I didn’t recognise. I loved Briana more than life itself. She deserved better than what I’d just given her.

I shuddered, panicked thoughts about what might happen if she woke up the next day and decided that she actually did mind, and that she didn’t want to be with a man like that.

I pulled her in to me, tighter and closer than I ever had done, and vowed with every single beat of my battered heart that I would never fucking let her go.

I’d spend every single moment of my life making sure that Briana got every single bit of me that I could spare. I’d spend the rest of my life giving myself to her. She deserved nothing less than the world, and I’d stop at nothing to give it to her.

Chapter Text

Spencer

I awoke with Bree still wrapped in my arms, me still clinging to her as if she might slip from my arms at any moment.

She’s going to wake up and hate you. She’s going to leave.

The nagging thoughts in my mind got louder and louder with each inch that the sun crept over the horizon. Eventually, my dark bedroom was split by the dawn’s light, whispers of warmth trying to creep in to the cold and dark corners.

She’s going to leave.

My chest pinched at the thought. I pulled Bree closer in to me, desperate to cling on to what bit of her I had left before she inevitably awoke and decided I was too broken to bother trying to fix.

The movement stirred her, and a soft sigh left her lips as she snuggled closer in to me.

“Good morning,” she said, her voice low and sleepy.

The air whooshed from my lungs at the sound of her voice. She seemed to happy, so content…nothing like she was considering walking out.

“Good morning,” I rasped out, my throat tight from the silent sobs that had wracked my body through the night. “Did you sleep well, beautiful?”

She hummed quietly and turned to face me. “I did. Did you?” She analysed my face before saying, “I’m guessing no.”

“I feel…” I cupped her pale face in my hand, my thumb relishing in the smooth touch of her skin. “I feel awful.”

She sighed gently and laced her fingers through my hair, which was growing longer by the day. “I’m not mad at you, and you have no reason to feel guilty.”

I looked in to her eyes, so forgiving, so understanding. Not at all judging me or hating me for the behaviour I’d displayed the night before.

“Briana, what I did…the way I treated you…” I choked on my words again, my attempt to recall the events getting stuck in my throat and jamming my usually impeccable thought processes.

“I told you, I don’t mind,” she said. “I just want you to be happy.”

Tears welled in the corners of my eyes. How the fuck did I do to get so lucky? “I am happy, so long as I have you.”

She pressed a soft kiss on to my lips. “You’ll always have me. For as long as you want me.”

~~~

Bree

Spencer was tearing himself apart.

It was all over his face, his usually placid expression marred with remorse and contrition.

I meant what I’d said, I didn’t mind.

Okay, so it had caught me off guard and shaken me at the start, but I didn’t protest what he was doing because…well, I loved him. I loved him so much it hurt, and I’d do fucking anything to help him work through whatever it was he was feeling.

I’d had sex like that before, hell, I’d been in plenty of BDSM scenarios and dom/sub dynamics in my time, it wasn’t new to me. It was new from Spencer, sure, but it wasn’t new.

In all of the sex Spencer and I had had over our relationship it had been clear that there was a well-established dynamic. He’d always liked it a bit rough, he’d always been teetering around the edges of something more intense than what he was giving me, and that night he’d just finally caved.

I didn’t blame him, and I didn’t hate him. How could I when I loved him so deeply?

There was one burning question on my mind though; why? Why had he snapped?

He’d made me breakfast, pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup, and made a big pot of coffee. He’d fussed over me all morning, brushing off my questions over why he’d been feeling the way he was the night before, and instead showering me with so much affection I could drown in it.

I loved it.

I loved the attentiveness, I loved the pandering. I’d never had anyone care for me. I’d practically raised myself since my mom had walked out when I was a kid, my father was no use, and I’d never had solid relationships or intimacy beyond a one night stand or that one time I had a ‘fuck buddy’.

I’d never had this. Love. True and real love, love that ran so deep my bones ached with the weight of it. I wanted Spencer to fawn over me and look after me for the rest of our lives.

As I sipped on my second mug of coffee, my eyes snagged on the clock above the kitchen door.

“Shit, babe,” I jumped up. “You’re late for work.” I ushered him to the bedroom. “Go get dressed I’ll get you a mug of coffee to take with you.”

“Bree,” he said lowly.

I didn’t listen, wittering on about how if he left then and there he’d only be ten minutes late.

“Bree,” he said again, firmer this time.

I stopped talking.

“I’m not going to work today.”

I cocked my head. “Why? Aaron give you the day off?”

“Um…” he sighed deeply and sat back down at the kitchen island. “I guess you could say that…” He ran a large hand through his knotted hair, tugging at the root and exhaling a pained sigh. “I’ve been suspended.”

“What?” Surely not? Dr Reid, certified team genius, had been suspended? “Wha- why?”

He stared deep in to the mug of coffee in front of him, black but loaded with enough sugar to make a dentist blush. “I…snapped. At Emily, and Hotch.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “That seems a little dramatic to suspend someone over.”

Stupid Aaron fucking Hotchner and his miserable face.

“It wasn’t the first time,” he confessed. “I’ve been…on edge for a while.”

“Oh…”

I knew Spencer could be snappy, hell, I’d been on the receiving end of it many a time, but just how irate was he being if it warranted suspension?

“It’s just a few days,” he clarified. “I think Hotch just wanted to scare some sense in to me.”

“Has it worked?”

He offered me an apathetic shrug as a response.

I twisted to grab the coffee pot, and a little jolt of pain shot through my hip where bruises littered the skin. I didn’t do a good job at hiding the wince on my face.

“You’re hurt.” Spencer stood from his seat and pulled the t-shirt I was wearing up over my hips.

“Fuck.” His faced paled. “Fuck I…oh God.”

I’d had bruises after sex with him before, but these were particularly bad…and abundant. They weren’t just on my hips, either. They were scattered across my thighs and hidden under my hair, too.”

“It’s fine,” I insisted, tugging the top back down. “It’s just a few bruises.”

When I’d caught sight of them in the mirror that morning I’d felt heat flood my stomach, which was ironic considering how the man who gave them to me apparently abhorred the sight of them.

“I like them,” I said, standing on my tiptoes to kiss him. “It reminds me that I’m yours.”

“Shit, Bree.” He sucked in a harsh breath and pressed me against the counter. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Why not?”

He rocked his hips in to me, his erection pressing against me. “Because every single day you give me another reason to lose my mind over you.”

Fuck. He drove me crazy. He was so hot, so fucking attractive, that I could barely go a few minutes without having some kind of sexual thought about him.

I kissed him again, this time with more intent that a simple peck, sliding my tongue across his bottom lip and begging for permission to deepen the kiss. He opened his mouth to allow me in, and wrapped an arm around my waist.

Just as it was heating up, just as my body was crying out for him to add more bruises to the ones he’d already made, there was a knock at the door.

We reluctantly split apart, and Spencer went to answer the door as I began to clean up the breakfast plates.

I heard muffled voices coming from the living room and soon enough curiosity got the better of me. I headed out to see who it was.

It was Aaron. Standing there in his charcoal grey suit, his frame and sheer aura somehow filling the living room.

I glared at him, not bothering to hide my disdain. I didn’t know exactly what had gone on with Spencer, but I was almost sure it didn’t warrant suspending him over.

“Oh,” he stopped talking to Spencer as I entered the room. “Sorry, I didn’t realise you were here, Miss Martin.”

“Oh, so I’m Miss Martin, am I?” I huffed.

Aaron quirked an eyebrow. He looked as if he was about to say something, but his eyes began to rake over my appearance. He shamelessly swept my body with a look, his eyes lingering on my thighs, Spencer’s t-shirt resting just above the middle of them, before moving upwards and zeroing in on the curve of my shoulders and neck, lastly straight in to my eyes.

Those dark eyes had many an unspoken word in them, I could see them, swimming through pools of espresso and ghosting across unsmiling lips. Maybe he wasn’t as okay after me flirting with him thing as I thought?

“Perhaps I should come back later,” Aaron said, tearing his eyes away from me and back to Spencer. “We should have this conversation in private.”

“I can go,” I offered. As much as I wanted to stay and tell Agent Fucking Hotchner exactly what I thought of him, Spencer’s career was more important.

But Spencer shook his head and said, “We can have this conversation now. Anything you have to say, you can say with Bree in the room.”

Aaron seemed uncertain, but gave a slight nod and rolled back his shoulders. “I’ve come to see how you’re doing after your little outburst yesterday.”

“Fine, thanks,” Spencer responded tightly. “I take it the case is solved?”

“We just got back,” Aaron explained. “I came straight here.”

“Did they drive a dark 4x4 car? Like I said?” Spencer asked. “Most 4x4 owners are male, although in rural areas that number depletes by at least-“

“Yes, Reid,” Aaron cut over him. “He drove a 4x4.”

I frowned. I hated hearing someone cut over Spencer’s talking. I loved it when he gave me his little facts.

Now that I thought about it, he’d been spouting less and less of them lately. It was as if his mind was always elsewhere, never fully in the room, never fully focused. In fact, I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen him pick up a book.

“Reid we need to talk about what happened,” Aaron said, distracting me from my thoughts.

Spencer scoffed. “I thought you wanted me gone for a few days?”

Aaron loosed a sigh and pinned Spencer with a look that could make even the strongest man break. “I hoped that last night might have given you time to think. I don’t want to suspend you, not really, but I cannot allow that type of behaviour in my team. I know you’ve been going through a lot, so I’ve made some allowances, but this cannot continue and you know it.”

Bullshit. Aaron had no idea what Spencer was going through. The problems he thought Spencer was facing barely scratched the fucking surface. If he knew everything then why wasn’t he doing more to help?

“I know,” Spencer said eventually. “I don’t know what’s gotten in to me. I’m sorry.”

Aaron’s harsh expression softened marginally. “Look, it’s Wednesday now, so take the rest of the week off, paid, and come back fresh on Monday, okay?” Aaron reached behind him and produced a gun and a badge, handing them to Spencer. “I’m sorry that I was so harsh, but you need to learn that no matter what, we are a team, and we don’t treat our team the way you’ve been treating us…especially Emily.”

I had no idea why Emily seemed to have been getting the brunt of Spencer’s frustration. I could only assume she deserved it.

“Look after yourself,” Aaron stole a glance at me, “and Briana,” he looked back at Spencer, “and come back on Monday with a better attitude, okay?”

Spencer simply nodded. “Okay.”

Aaron inclined his head and made for the door. He stopped just as he opened it and looked back at me. “Take care of yourself, Miss Martin.”

I gave him my best smile, although it was about as genuine as the email I’d received from an Egyptian Prince promising me money, and said, “Thanks Aaron, you too.”

He shut the door with a dull thud, leaving me and Spencer to stew in the silence.

“Well, that was-“

“I don’t like the way he was looking at you,” Spencer cut over me.

I shrugged. “I can’t say I noticed.”

Okay, I did notice, but Spencer had a tendency to get jealous. I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire over some simple glances.

“The average man thinks about sex 19 times a day,” Spencer informed me, “and I think Hotch just used up his quota looking at you.”

I let out a chuckle and made my way over to him. “Let’s not talk about what your boss spends his spare time thinking about,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck, “and instead, let’s think about finishing what we started in the kitchen.” I swiped my hair from my neck and gestured to the purple mark. “I’d like another one of these on the other side to match, please.”

//x//

Spencer and I spent the whole day having sex and being as lazy as we could.

I had college work to do, but I figured that it could wait in favour of trying to take Spencer’s mind off of his work stress.

He’d explained a little more to me about what had happened to get him ‘suspended’, and while I was still mad as hell at his boss, I supposed I understood at least a little bit why Aaron had made the decision he had – Spencer really needed to take some down time.

He seemed to get over his guilt for the night before the moment he sank in to me again, and by the time the evening rolled around we were so lost in each other that we didn’t even realise where the day had gone.

We stayed curled in one another’s arms for a peaceful sleep, but with the light of the following day came unfortunate reality.

“I’m sorry, my love,” I whispered as I crawled out of the warmth of his bed and arms. “But I have to go to work.”

“No, you don’t,” he muttered, still half asleep, his voice coated with a husky tone that dropped it down an octave.

“I do.” I leant over to kiss him. “I have to go to the library after work, but when I’m done I can come back?”

He finally opened his eyes, those gentle hazel pools staring up at me like a puppy dog. “I’ll miss you.”

My heart squeezed. I wanted nothing more than to crawl right back in to that bed and spend another day with him. It would be so easy to just call in sick and-

No.

I had to work, or I’d have no money, and if I didn’t get my head down with my college work soon I’d end up falling irreparably behind…even if I was sure my degree was a waste of time and money anyway.

“I’ll be back by 5, I promise,” I said, fighting the ongoing war on whether to just sack it all off and stay with him.

He looked like he was about to argue, but he just said, “Okay, I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

//x//

I headed to my apartment, which was only a 20 minute walk from Spencer’s, my hair and clothes both in a state of disarray. I made a mental note to ask Spencer whether he’d mind if I brought some stuff over so that I wouldn’t always leave his place looking dog-eared as Hell.

As I headed past O’Donoghue’s bar, I caught sight of Steve pulling up in his battered old Volkswagen.

“Hey,” I greeted him cheerfully as he stepped out of the car. “How’s it going?”

He gave me a warm smile and replied. “I’m good, how are- Jesus, Briana,” he said, his face draining of its enthusiasm, “what the hell happened?”

I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean?” I asked, glancing down at my creased dress. “I know I don’t look great but surely I don’t look that bad.”

He shook his head. “No, your neck!”

My hand shot up to my throat. “What about my-“

Ah, shit. The bruises.

I gave him a weak smile, unsure of how openly to discuss my sex life with him. “They’re nothing.”

He took a step closer, concern apparent in his grey eyes. “They don’t look like nothing. What happened?”

“Well, they’re…um…”

“Is it that boyfriend of yours? Did he do this to you?”

“Well, yes…but not in the way that you’re thinking,” I replied, awkwardly as fuck and willing the ground to swallow me whole.

“I don’t…” I saw the moment it registered on Steve’s face. “Ah…” he said, knowingly. “Okay, I understand.”

I pressed my lips together to form a thin smile. “Yeah.”

“Kids these days,” Steve said, shaking his head. “When I was your age I thought that doggy style was kinky.”

“Steve!” I sputtered. Steve and I had never discussed sex, and it sure felt weird as fuck hearing him say such things.

“It’s true,” he shrugged. “My wife and I still only do it occasionally, anniversaries and such. She once asked if I’d do anal but-”

“Okay!” I exclaimed, putting my hands over my ears. “Stop talking.”

He chuckled and flicked some of his long grey hair back from his face. “Sorry, sorry.”

“Let’s just agree to never discuss our sex lives again, okay?” As much as Steve was a friend, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t view him as more of a father figure.

He nodded. “Deal.” He cast another glance at the purple and blue marks across my neck. “Just so long as you’re alright.”

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Now please forget this conversation ever happened.”

“I can do that,” he said with another one of his raspy chuckles.

We said our goodbyes and I hurried home to get ready for work.

I knew the bruises weren’t exactly pretty (though I’d beg to differ), but did they really insight such an intense reaction?

I got home and headed for a shower, trying to feel less like I’d been getting railed all night and more like a fresh-faced barista eager to make a latte.

I peeled my dress off and looked in the mirror. Okay, so there were a lot of bruises. Steve would have had a heart attack if he’d seen the ones on my waist.

After my constant reassurance to Spencer that I didn’t mind when he got a bit rougher he’d spent the rest of the day experimenting with it, trying out both of our limits.

I had yet to find one, and it appeared he had too.

I was definitely an enabler of this side of him, the one that chokes and fucks with more force, but I couldn’t help it – I fucking loved it. There was something about seeing him like that, so wound up and passionate for me. The look in his eyes when he watched me choke, the twitch of his cock when I whispered ‘harder’ as he fucked me mercilessly. It was too fucking good.

The memories washed over me, and I forced myself in to the shower to try and cool some of the heat rising in me. I couldn’t fucking wait for this day to be done so that I could get back to him and let him repeat all of the previous day’s activities.

I was utterly obsessed with him, and not just his body, his mind too. His aura alone was enough to send me heady with desire and love. No one had ever loved me like did, no one had ever cared for me like he did, and certainly no one had ever made me forget about the existence of alcohol – even if it was just for a bit.

He hadn’t used for over two weeks, as far as I knew, and I hadn’t touched a drop for eight days. We were healing each other, helping each other, each of us leaning on the other for support when it was most needed. It was the perfect match, just two people trying their best and falling in love along the way.

‘Two people replacing one vice with another’ a harsh voice whispered to me, but I shut it down immediately.

That was what people on the outside might say, people who didn’t understand the depths that mine and Spencer’s love went to.

We were so much more than a sublimation for our addictions – weren’t we?

Chapter Text

Spencer

Bree left. I instantly felt the loss.

I forced myself out of the bed and in to the shower, but each droplet of water that washed over me didn’t cleanse me like it usually did. That familiar feeling of being clean just washing away her energy.

Not that there is such thing as a person’s energy. I laughed to myself. Though saying that, everything is made up of energy, and people are therefore energy, which puts forward a good argument that-

I got very lost in my thoughts after that, spending the entirety of my shower trying to decipher how I felt about the notion of individuals having a unique aura. I didn’t care, not really, but it was a distraction from the woman who seemed to otherwise completely fill my headspace any moment she got the chance.

I spent hours milling around my apartment, not a single thing to do other than wait for Bree to get home.

Home.

This wasn’t really her home, but without her in it the walls felt empty, lacking, as if when she left the life left with her, leaving me like the ghost of a jilted lover doomed to wander the cold rooms until her return.

The needle in my bedside called to me, the danger of boredom making itself known with an ever loudening call.

I didn’t crave the drug, not like I had been known to crave it…but fuck, did I want it. How I’d gone over two weeks without was beyond me, but there I was, finally making it past a point I thought never possible.

Two whole weeks. Closer to three, actually.

I slammed my bedroom door shut. I was not going to give in that easily, not anymore.

I pulled on my shoes and grabbed my keys from the hook. Whatever I ended up doing for the next 4 hours until Bree got home, it wasn’t going to be drugs.

I set out on foot with no destination in mind, but found myself at the bookstore. It had been a long time since I’d read a book. It had been a long time since I’d enjoyed anything much at all, apart from getting lost in Briana. Not that it mattered to me – I’d happily replace any hobby I may have had for the sake of having her.

I got myself a coffee and sat in the park, flipping lazily through one of the books I’d purchased and trying to read it slow on purpose – it didn’t work, and I ended up reading all four of the books I had bought rather swiftly.

As the sun sank in the sky, I made my way back. It was nearly 5, and I needed to be home in time to see Bree.

//x//

“Bree, I’m home,” I called out.

Nothing. No answer.

“Briana,” I called again, but was still met with radio silence.

I whipped out my phone. It was dead on five. She said she’d be home by now.

It’s not like she had work at that time of night. Briana only worked morning shifts, and she always finished up her college work by 4pm. I knew her routine like the back of my hand.

I dialled her number and waited for her to answer, but the phone went straight through to voicemail.

Where the fuck was she?

Anxiety ticked at my jaw as I searched my apartment for any signs that she may have been there. She still lived at her own place, but she had a spare key to mine.

She’d said she’d be there. Why wasn’t she there?

I waited half an hour.  She didn’t show.

Panic ensnared me, my heartbeat roaring in my ears as I dialled Bree’s number again.

She said she’d be here.

By the time six o’clock rolled around I was in complete meltdown.

The fact her phone went straight to voicemail, the fact there was no sign of her having been in my apartment at all, had my brain hurtling towards all kinds of ideas. The biggest and scariest one being that she had abandoned me.

She hadn’t forgiven me for the night before, for the way I’d behaved. She’d left and realised what she’d walked away from – a fucking mess. The moment she’d stepped out of my apartment she’d had a moment of clarity, and she’d fucking bolted while she had the chance.

She’d seen who I was and she’d gone. She’d finally gotten over the ‘honeymoon’ phase of our relationship and realised that I wasn’t some drop-dead gorgeous, confident man who could sweep her off her feet.  I was a possessive, fucked in the head kid who thought War and Peace counted as a light read. Why would anyone want me? My dad didn’t, Gideon didn’t. Hell, even Elle didn’t stay in touch.

Why would anyone want me?

I arrived in my bedroom, sheets still unchanged from when Bree and I had slept together in there, and my eyes landed instantly on the bedside drawer.

Now, there was one thing that could take away the stress.

As if on autopilot, I yanked open the drawer and pulled out the vial and the needle. I loaded it up, heartrate thundering in anticipation of the sweet release I was about to feel, when I remembered. I remembered how far I’d come.

Was the urge really so strong that I wanted to throw away that clean streak?

I pulled out my phone again, dialling Bree’s number one more time. It was for her. It was all for her.

She didn’t answer.

The abandonment, the fear of rejection and loss, wrapped itself around me so tightly that my breath caught in my throat. It constricted until my lungs burnt and my heart cracked.

It was all for Bree, and without her it wasn’t worth a damn thing.

Before I could even register what I was doing, before I could try and find some rationality to her absence, the needle was in my arm.

//x//

“Spencer.”

Somewhere out in the world, my name was being called. It was distant, haunting, but not enough to pull me from the cloud I was floating blissfully on.

“Baby.”

That voice was peace in itself. I recognised those sweet, symphonic tones. I could listen to them forever.

“Spencer, please open your eyes.”

Briana. My wonderful  Briana. My Briana who loved me and who-

Wait.

My eyes shot open.

There she was, my Briana. The woman who hadn’t answered my calls.  The woman who I’d thought had abandoned me.

“Spencer,” she breathed. “What happened?”

My high was still present, coherence seemingly out of reach as I adjusted myself on the bed at tried to sit up. “I thought you left me.”

“What?”

“I thought…” my words cut off by the shake in my voice, a sob threatening to tear through my very chest at the notion that I’d have to be without her. “When you weren’t here, when you didn’t answer, I thought you’d left me.”

“Oh, God.” She shot over to me on the bed and wrapped me in a tight embrace, pulling me against her chest and lacing her hands through my hair. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. My phone died and I didn’t realise the time, then I stopped to get us food on the way here. I didn’t think.”

Of course. Of course there was a rational explanation. Of course she’d not abandoned me.

I, Spencer Reid, outstanding in the field of rationality, had been reduced to an IQ of nothing down to simple fact I was terrified of being alone. Terrified of losing another.

I clung to Briana and wept, so soul-shatteringly guttural that it felt as though the sobs weren’t even from me. With my body still clinging to the effects of the drugs, and my mind so utterly exhausted that I couldn’t even remember the most basic of things, I was out of my own body, watching the scene before me like some kind of sick movie.

Me, head on Bree’s chest, clinging to her like she was some sort of life line while she soothed my cries, one hand tracing gentle circles on my back, the other lacing itself through the knots in my hair.

“I’m so sorry my love,” she soothed me. “I’m so sorry. I’ll never leave you, I promise.”

My tears soaked through her black sweater, my breathing skirting on erratic as I entwined myself in to her, in every sense of the word. Mind, body and soul, all of it wrapped so deeply in to Briana that I forgot where I ended and she began.

She hadn’t left me. She was right here, just like she promised.

I closed my eyes, the soothing tones of her voice lulling me in to a peaceful darkness.

But soon the sounds of Briana’s voice faded.

The darkness became empty, threatening, and my dreams took over the spaces in my mind that I felt slipping away by the day.

I found no peace in the darkness that night.

~~~

Bree

I barely slept.

Spencer was resting his head against me, finally so still, finally seeming at peace, yet I was plagued with a torrent of emotions, all begging for time at the surface as I fought just to keep my head above the swell, each wave of distress crashing over me before I’d even had chance to draw breath from the last.

When I’d found him, spaced out and incoherent on his bed, the needle carelessly tossed at his side, his breath so shallow I could barely feel it, my own heart stopped instead.

This was my fault.

I’d let my phone die, I’d let him think I’d abandoned him when I’d promised I’d do no such thing. And because of that, he’d used those damn drugs after so long without.

My lack of thought had driven him to this.

With Spencer’s ragged breathing permeating the thick fog that filled the room, my thoughts drifted to my own addiction. My own saving grace when things got too much.

It had been a good week since my last drink, and I’d managed to negate those overwhelming urges by replacing them with the man in my arms, but now, now that I’d failed him, I struggled to see the point of trying so hard.

I’d always be a failure. I’d never be enough. What was the point in trying at all?

If Spencer hadn’t been clinging to me even as he slept, I’d have gotten from that bed and found the stiffest drink I could, but knowing what it would do to him if he awoke and saw me gone was enough to keep me rooted to the spot in which I lay as the night crept in to morning, and daylight finally broke through the shroud of darkness that surrounded me.

I technically should have been at work the next morning, but when Spencer went for his shower I called in sick. He needed me more than my job did.

I spent the day with him, gently reassuring him of my love by caring for him in all the ways I could think of; making him breakfast, playing with his hair while we watched his obscure choice of movie, sitting for an unknown amount of time while he explained the ins and outs of biological anthropology. Whatever it was he needed, I gladly gave it. And when he’d exhausted his verbal bit-torrent we had enough sex to exhaust us both in to sleep well before night even fell. But we needed that. We needed that day just for us.

He didn’t talk about the fact he’d used, and I didn’t push him. There was little sense in dwelling on the past, he’d said, and that the past is where it should stay. I didn’t argue.

Chapter Text

Bree

I called in sick again on Friday, and with Spencer still on leave, I suggested we head out for the day. He still needed me.

He took me in to D.C., where he insisted he pay for all of the books I wanted at the bookstore, and the food at the restaurant we went to. He wasn’t a fussy eater, per se, but he was rather particular with how he ate his food and where he ate it, so finding a mutually agreeable place due to my dietary restriction of being vegetarian wasn’t easy, but we made it work and found a Thai food place which suited both of our needs.

He was the most wonderful and loving someone could be, so utterly devoted to ensuring that I had a good day, showering me with affection at any spare moment. It was truly everything I could have wanted.

As we began our walk back home…back to his…he said, “Why don’t we ever go to your place?”

The question raised my heckles, but I feigned indifference as I replied, “Because your place is nicer.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter whose place is nicer – I’d like to see yours.”

No. No, no, no.

I’d hoped this topic would never come up. I’d hoped he’d be happy to live in his well-maintained bubble of his particular standard of cleanliness and forget I even had an apartment of my own.

“It’s small,” I said casually. “And it doesn’t get much natural light. We’d be more comfortable at your apartment.”

The truth was that my place was what would best be described as a well-maintained crack den.

I lived alone, a studio apartment above a shop that I was pretty sure was a front for some kind of drugs operation. My front door was in an alleyway that had more garbage and human piss than it did asphalt, and my standard of living was…not as impeccable as his.

It wasn’t bad, necessarily, but it wasn’t up to Spencer’s standard by any means. I had takeout cartons that were at least a week old still sitting in the kitchen, a floordrobe not a wardrobe, my bed sheets had been on there for at least a month and empty alcohol bottles seemed to pile up faster than I could remove of them. Spencer would likely have a fit in my apartment.

I didn’t want Spencer to see that side of me. The side that struggled to even get out of bed some days. The side that sometimes sank so deep in to melancholy that house chores felt like an unclimbable mountain. Over the last few months I’d spent most of my time at Spencer’s, work, the library or the bar – my apartment was sitting rather neglected, serving as a place where I could merely rest my head at night and shower in.

“Please,” Spencer pressed. “I’d like to see it.”

My mind flashed to the milk I’d left sitting out on the side when I’d left two days ago. “No.”

He frowned. “Why are you being snappy?”

“I’m not being snappy,” I, ironically, snapped. I took a levelling breath and said, “I’d just rather go to yours.”

“Is there a reason you don’t want me at your place?”

Man, I’d forgotten how incessant he could be.

“No, no reason. Your place is just nicer.”

He stopped walking and tugged at my hand to pull me in to him. “You’re hiding something from me.”

“Don’t profile me, Spencer. You promised you wouldn’t.”  I was beginning to get incredibly wound up by his refusal to let the matter go.

“I’m not profiling you, I’m sensing that there is something wrong with my girlfriend,” he argued.

I took a step away from him. “Why can’t you just let it go?”

 “Why can’t you just be honest with me?” he snapped, his own calm demeanour beginning to disappear.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Me, the self-professed lover of being honest, was having a really hard time admitting to this particular flaw of mine.

“Back off, Spencer,” I bit. “You’re so fucking overbearing.”

He let out a humourless laugh. “Oh please, Bree, you’re just as overbearing as I am.”

“Bullshit. Don’t deflect.”

“I’m not deflecting, I’m pointing out your flaws sine you seem so happy to point out mine.”

God, this argument was fucking stupid. It was the most dumb, unnecessary thing I’d ever argued over, and yet my inability to back down from a challenge meant that I refused to be the one to try and see rationale. If he wanted an argument I’d fucking give him one. This was the Spencer I’d met that day at the library. This was the Spencer who was burnt out, focused on when he could have his next hit, and so up his own ass that he was blind to everything else. This was the Spencer I’d have been glad to never see again.

“Not everything is as deep as you make it out to be,” I spat. “Why do you have to over-react?”

“Over-react?” His voice did that thing where it pitches up, and his words became much faster, as he proceeded to do what I could only describe as tear me to absolute shreds. “It’s funny, Briana, how you say you won’t ever leave me and yet do things to push me away. Is that because your mother abandoned you and you think the best way to prevent that happening is to ensure no one else gets close enough to hurt you? Or perhaps it’s because your father was a drunk who didn’t spare you the time of day and so now you compensate by delivering the same behaviour to others? Or maybe, maybe it’s because you’re so busy thinking about where your next drink is coming from that your ability to form healthy relationships is non-existent.”

His words cut me, one harsh blow after the other until I was sure I was bleeding from the impact. It only took me a few seconds to gain composure, and to see that look of absolute disdain in his eyes, disdain directed at me, before I was fighting back with all I had. “You ever consider that the reason you had no one before me was because you’re a fucking asshole? You whine on and on about how everyone in your life abandons you, and how everyone you’ve ever cared about has walked out, but then you behave like this and still can’t see the matter for what it is; you are unlikeable. It’s no wonder Gideon left without looking back.”

Okay. In hindsight, that was a bit harsh, but I meant the words as I said them. He’d hurt me so fucking much that I wanted to ensure that I got him back just as bad. It was rare that someone got out of an argument with me unharmed.

After I finished my tirade of insults I didn’t wait for him to reply, I simply turned on my heel and walked away.

Unfortunately, he had other ideas.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me,” he hissed, grabbing my arm one he caught up with me. “You don’t get to say shit like that and then walk away.”

I tugged my arm free of his grasp. “So you get to say what you like about me, but I can’t say shit to you?”

The night had fully closed in now, and the dark alley we were in was poorly illuminated by a singular streetlamp letting off an orange hue. People walked by on the main street, but they spared no glance to us down the alleyway, firing verbal bullets at each other behind the large dumpster that obscured most of our view to the main road I’d been trying to get back to.

“You can say what you like, Briana,” Spencer replied, “but I’d hoped you’d be adult enough to stick around to face the consequences of your actions and not run away…although I know that’s hard for you because that’s all anyone has ever done from you, isn’t it? Even your own father had to drink just to tolerate you.”

His words opened old wounds, the scarring from my childhood so deep that it was embedded in to my very soul and causing the inky blackness that infected it to bleed out.

Something wet hit my cheek. I swiped it away, but my cheek was damp again moments after.

Oh. I was crying.

“Fuck you, Spencer,” I managed to gasp out through what was now an embarrassing amount of tears falling from my tired eyes.

“What?  Can’t take it now it’d gotten too personal?” His eyes were alight with such anger. It was so much worse than anything I’d ever seen from him. It scared me.

I tried to shove my way past him, but he used his deceptive strength to push me against the brick wall.

My heart was now thundering in my head, fear igniting as my fight of flight response started to kick in to over-drive. He was so much taller than me, so much stronger…if he wanted to, he could end this argument by snapping my neck and I’d be helpless to stop him.

There was a time where I’d have said that he would never hurt me, never even considering him hurting me, but the way he was looking at me, the way his eyes appeared devoid of any emotion other than hatred, I really wasn’t so sure.

The man before me did not resemble the man I fell in love with.

I struggled to free myself from his firm grip, but when that failed I simply raised my hand and punched him square in the face.

He hissed and let go of me, a small amount of blood spilling from his lip. He stumbled, tripping over himself and slamming against the floor. The clatter of his gun skittering across the floor rang out. In unison, both of our eyes flitted to it.

“Briana,” Spencer warned. “Don’t even think about it.”

But it was too late, I was launching forward for the gun, desperate to have anything to protect myself.

Just as my hand reached for the handle I was hauled back, literally lifted in to the air and tossed aside while Spencer leant down to grab his gun.

I shrank back in to the wall, blocked by the dumpster on one side of me and him on the other.

He slowly turned to face me, head bent down slightly as the dull glow of the streetlamp illuminated him from behind. He looked at me through the waves of messy of hair falling about his face, chest heaving with anger as he stalked towards me, the unmistakeable click of the safety being removed from the gun sounding as he did so.

He reached me, and brought his thumb to swipe the blood from split in his lip. He looked down at the blood on his hand.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he rasped, his voice lethally quiet, calm.

“Spencer I-“

His hand wrapped around my throat silencing any words I might have said.

“What were you going to do, Briana?” he hissed, tightening his grip. “Were you going to take my gun and shoot me right here?”

I shook my head as best as I could. Though in all honesty, I really wasn’t sure.

He brought his gun up from his side and pressed the barrel in to my neck, just above his hand. “How does it feel?  How does it feel knowing the one you love might end your life?”

He was right, it did not feel good at all. I didn’t know what I was thinking. Would I really have used that gun on him if given the chance?

I was shaking now, trying to fight the sobs from wracking my whole body.

“Pretty girl,” Spencer cooed with such calm that I was starting to think I’d just dreamt up the argument we’d had – were meant to be having, “even when you cry, you are so beautiful.”

He released his grip on my neck. I gasped to inhale some air as his strong arms came to wrap around me.

I did nothing to fight him off despite how hurt and downright terrified I was. He held me against his chest while I wept in to him.

I loved him. I’d never fucking hurt him. There was no way I’d have used that gun on him, right? I was just scared, my body in fight or flight and reaching out for anything that resembled safety. Even if it was overkill.

He pulled away from me slightly before placing a soft kiss on my cheek where a tear was sitting. I shuddered, almost repulsed by the contact considering his gun was still pressed against my neck. He planted more kisses on to the tear stains, kissing away my fear with each intentional movement, each purposeful placement.

“I don’t want to hurt you, my love,” he whispered between kisses, “and I’d really rather you didn’t try to hurt me.”

“I’m sorry,” I gasped as his lips reached my neck, my mind and body now warring with each other on how best to respond to the current situation.

I should have been disgusted, I should have been fighting to get away from him, but instead I remained motionless as his left hand gently came to rest on my waist, his right hand clicking the safety back on to his gun.

I leased a breath at that sound, the immediate danger disappearing, despite the fact his gun remained firmly pressed against me. Of course he wasn’t going to hurt me, just as I wasn’t going to hurt him. This whole thing had just gotten out of hand.

“Sorry,” he said, finally alleviating some of the pressure on the gun, “doesn’t really make up for it, Briana” The cold metal of the gun dragged down my neck until it hit my collarbone. “Sorry doesn’t mean you are absolved.” He continued to trace a line with the tip of the gun, over the swell of my breasts until the barrel lodged against my breastbone. “Sorry doesn’t mean that I forgive you.”

I was shaking violently, fear and arousal coursing through me until I was almost blinded by the adrenaline.

Spencer’s hand tugged at the base of the tank top I was wearing. The material slid easily over my breasts, exposing them to him as his hand slid down my body and came to rest on my stomach. “You like this gun, Briana?” he said, dragging the gun down the exposed skin on my torso.

I shook my head. I hated his stupid gun.

“Funny,” he said, the cold, harsh feel of the gun now dragging down my thighs, “you seemed eager on getting your hands on it a few minutes ago.”

He stopped at the hem of my skirt before using the tip of the gun to lift it up. He hissed in approval and moved the gun to my inner thigh. “You’re wet, Briana,” he remarked. “I can see it coating your thighs.”

It was true, I was fucking soaked, and the thin lace panties I was wearing were not doing a good job of hiding it.

He hitched my leg up around his waist. “Do you want this?” he asked me steadily. “Do you want me to take you here in this alleyway like the pathetic whore that you are?”

‘No’, ‘yes’, my head and body both screamed at the same time.

I looked in to his eyes, finally coated with an expression that wasn’t unadulterated anger, and I melted.

“Yes,” I whimpered.

He smirked. “Of course you do.”

I expected him to remove the gun from me, but he did no such thing, instead yanking up my skirt and looking down at where the tip of the gun rested dangerously close to my panties.

The blood from where I’d punched him had dried on his lips, and the sight of something so downright fucking depraved sent another wave of arousal rushing through me.

He chuckled lowly as I shuddered underneath him. “You wanted this gun so bad?” He dragged the gun to the seam of my underwear and slid it to one side. “You can have it.”

The tip of the metal pressed firmly against my clit, causing me to moan in response.

Spencer pressed firmer, but brought a hand up to cover my mouth. “Quiet now,” he ordered. “We can’t have anyone coming back here and seeing you like this, can we?”

I nodded, but he kept his hand where it was he continued forming slow circles across my clit.

My body erupted in to euphoria, shudders wracking all of me as he brought me closer and closer to the edge.

“Look how you get off to this,” he remarked, his breath ragged in my ear. “Look how badly you want me to use you like this.”

My mind was now on the side of my body, no longer scared at all and just screaming out for release. I was utterly and completely captivated by the man literally holding a gun against me. I loved him so much I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fucking think, and as my orgasm began to creep over me, I was sure that I’d put up with as many arguments as I could if I meant I got to have him.

I tried to speak through his hand, so he removed it quickly in time for me to say, “I’m going to come…” Cruelly, he ripped the gun away from me and let me go just as I was about to peak. I wined at the loss and glared at him. “Prick.”

He tutted at me and licked at some of the dried blood on his lip. “You think you deserve to come after tonight?”

I gave him my best eyelash flutter – turns out I was an eyelash flutterer after all. “Please…”

He groaned and dragged the gun across the slit of my pussy until it found the entrance. “I love it when you beg me.”

He pushed it in, slowly, the size of it not really allowing for me to be filled as I craved so deeply, but as he worked it in and out of me, the ridges and bumps of the weapon dragging across the walls of my pussy, he brought his other hand down to press against my clit and start rubbing harsh circles. It was uncomfortable, bordering on painful, and yet somehow that just made me love it all the more.

I did my best to stifle my moans, aware that a main street was a mere 500m away, and that anyone could decide to use this alleyway as a shortcut – even if it was almost pitch black down there.

“You look so pretty,” he said, picking up the pace. “So needy that you’ll take whatever I give you.”

My orgasm came back swiftly, and this time I decided that I wasn’t going to tell him in case he took it away from me again.

I came with a bone-shaking shudder, slamming my own hand over my mouth to dampen the sinful moans that were escaping my lips. Spencer didn’t stop as I came all over his stupid fucking gun, instead helping me to ride out my orgasm with expert ease from his fingers and movements.

I came down gradually, shaking and whimpering as Spencer withdrew from me.

“I’m disappointed in you,” he stated. “You didn’t tell me that you were about to come all over me.” He glanced down at the gun in his hands, suddenly looking like the Spencer I’d always known, “We’re not supposed to get these wet…”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Sorry.”

My amusement was cut short by the gun coming to rest at my lips. His eyes flared again, but finally, they didn’t seem as callous as before. “Suck it.”

Oh, fuck.

I opened my mouth willingly, allowing him to slide the gun in to my mouth. I did as he asked and wrapped my lips around it, tasting myself and the tang of the metal combined as he pushed it slowly in to my mouth.

“Good girl,” he remarked, removing it from my mouth with a ‘pop’. “Now…” he reached behind him and re-holstered his gun. “I’d take you right against this wall but I’m pretty sure I can hear voices coming towards us.”

Shit.

I quickly dropped my leg down and pulled my shirt back over me.

Sure enough, two voices were now approaching us, two men by the sounds of it, laughing and joking with one another, blissfully unaware of what they’d almost walked in to.

Spencer expertly adopted a neutral expression and took hold of my hand. “Come on, my love, let’s go home.”

Chapter Text

Spencer

I don’t know what came over me.

One minute Briana and I were fighting, the next I was fucking her with my gun. Urgh, my FBI gun that I was meant to never use for ‘personal’ reason. I technically shouldn’t have even had out with me that day. But the urge to protect Briana was so strong that I’d felt compelled to take it, just in case. I wasn’t the best at physical fighting, and the idea of being met with anything that might endanger her was too overbearing. I needed to be on my guard, always looking out for her. She was mine, and I needed to ensure I’d taken every measure possible to keep her safe.

Hotch would have a fit if he knew that’s what I’d done with my gun a few days after I’d gotten it back.

We’d walked back to mine in silence, hand in hand, and as soon as we were through the door I was running her a bath, gently soothing her and caring for her.

She wasn’t mad at me, it was like the argument had never happened at all – and I wasn’t mad at her, either.

Okay, so her words had stung (as did her fist), but there was no sense in dwelling on it. I didn’t want to bring it up when we’d clearly worked out our differences, albeit unconventionally.

One might argue that it was unhealthy to ignore the events that had occurred, but I knew that Bree and I were strong. The night had just been a minor blip in the road. If she was fine, I was fine.

After she’d had a bath and we’d eaten, we had sex. I showered and then slid next to her in bed and waited for her to fall asleep. By this point it was early morning, about 5am. With me needing to go back to work that day I decided I should just get up and get myself ready. I was used to running on no sleep.

I’d grappled with the feelings of guilt a lot when it came to Briana. The sexual awakening she’d provided me with had left a lot of question marks over my morals and desires, but with her curled up next to me, sleeping soundly, for the first time in our sexual history, I felt no remorse for my actions.

She’d liked what we’d done, just as much as I had. What was the point in feeling guilty over something two adults consented to do? My behaviour was nothing like those UnSubs we dealt with at work. I was fine. We were fine.

I shifted myself from Bree, who remained sound asleep, and went about getting ready for work.

I knew I’d have to go in and apologise for my behaviour – especially to Emily and Hotch. I wasn’t keen on the idea, but I supposed Hotch was right. I’d been an asshole, and that was no way to continue my career I’d worked so hard to build…that was, if I even wanted that career still.

I shoved that thought to the back of my mind and stepped in to the shower. Everything would be fine. It had to be. Without that job I had nothing else. All my years of work would be for nothing at all…even if the only things I could think of that the job had brought me were a drug addiction and a girlfriend.

By the time I was out of the shower Bree was awake, still curled up in the bed, but her eyes watching me steadily as I re-entered our bedroom.

“Good morning,” I greeted her, dropping the towel from me as I went to grab my clothes.

Her blue eyes lit up, and she reached her arms out in a motion for me to go to her.

I went to her side of the bed as she scrambled to sit up and get hold of me.

“You have no business looking this good so early in the morning,” she said, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me in to her.

“Hm, the feeling is mutual,” I said as I slid my hand across her soft stomach. “You look too good in my t-shirts.”

She released some of her hold on me so that she could pull back and look in to my eyes. “I meant to ask you, would you mind if I brought some stuff to leave here? It’s just that I hate always going back to my place looking and feeling rough as fuck…”

I pressed a soft kiss in to her lips. “You can bring as much of your stuff here as you like.” I paused for a moment before saying, “You can move in, if you’d prefer.”

Bree’s eyes widened a fraction before softening in to the most beautiful expression I’d ever seen. “I’d love that.”

My heart jumped, skipped and summersaulted with joy. So what it had only been a few months? When you know, you know. “I’ll help you move in this weekend.”

She grinned widely and re-took her position wrapped in my arms. After a few moments she said, “Do you think we should talk about last night?”

“Do you want to talk about last night?”

She sighed. “I just…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you.”

I ran my fingers through her dark hair. “Don’t be sorry. I was cruel to you with what I said and how I behaved.”

“I was just as bad to you.” She pulled me tighter to her. “I didn’t mean any of it.”

“Neither did I, my love.”

“You don’t hate me?”

I pulled away from her so I could cup her face in my hand. “Briana Martin, I could never hate you.”

//x//

I trudged in to the BAU, head admittedly hung in shame as I made my way over to my desk.

JJ was the only one I could see, apart from Hotch who was holed up in his office as always.

“Spence,” JJ greeted me with a smile. “How are you doing?”

JJ was the only person who called me Spence. I liked it, made me feel like I was important to her somehow – like maybe I actually was her friend and not just someone she tolerated because she had to work with me.

Morgan was my friend too, and Garcia was everyone’s friend. Hotch was…like a father who scared me a bit, and I supposed Rossi and I were becoming close. Emily was fine, I guessed. I made a mental note to be less harsh on her.

I did like my colleagues, but I never really knew if they were anything more. I’d never had friends – I was years younger than everyone else in my school, the weird kid, and so now I struggled to differentiate between having colleagues and having friends, but as JJ and I engaged conversation, I thought that maybe I did have some friends after all.

“I’m fine,” I said quietly. “How are things here?”

She finally looked at me properly, and her soft blue eyes widened. “What the hell happened?”

I was about to answer with my pre-planned reason as to why my lip was split when Morgan appeared behind her.

“Woah, who did that to my pretty boy?” he remarked. “You get in a fight or something?”

“Please, Morgan,” I scoffed. “When have you ever known me to get in to fights?”

 “Well what did happen?” JJ asked, reaching out to touch my face.

I snapped my head away from her and backed up a couple of steps. I didn’t want anyone touching me that wasn’t Bree.

The cut on my lip was hardly even a cut. It was less than an inch in length and had already healed in to a scab, but I did work with some of the world’s most observant people, and I knew I wouldn’t get away with saying nothing.

“I tripped up the steps in my apartment building,” I said, “smashed my lip on the handrail.”

JJ and Morgan both winced.

“Of course you did,” Morgan said with a laugh. “You are the clumsiest person I know.”

I rolled my eyes but appreciated his light-hearted banter. I was fearful I’d come back and be met with hostility, but so far everything seemed normal.

Rossi was next to arrive, followed by Garcia. Last through the door was Prentiss. She made her way over to the team but gave me a wide birth as she slotted in to the gap beside JJ.

“Hi, Emily,” I greeted her.

“Hey.”

“Can I urm…talk to you, please?” I asked quietly.

She nodded, something akin to relief on her face, and we stepped to one side.

I knew it was unfair of me to target my aggression to Emily just because she’d replaced Elle and I was having a shit time. Emily was nice, and she was good at her job.  I needed to get a hold of myself before I ruined our working relationship beyond repair.

“I’m sorry,” I said, unable to give her full eye-contact. “I’ve been an asshole and you don’t deserve it.”

She smiled softly. “It’s okay, Spencer. I understand.”

“No, it’s not okay, and I know it’s not.” I sighed and tugged at the roots of my hair. “It’s been a stressful few months for me and I took that out on you.”

“I’ve had worse,” she said calmly. “I just hope we can move on from this now.”

“Me too.”

“How are you feeling?” she asked carefully. “Looks like you’ve worked out your aggression in the boxing ring,” she said, pointing to my lip.

“Just tripped up,” I replied. “But did you know that boxing is used as sublimation for anger in a large number of cases, with lots of professional boxers citing that boxing helped them to overcome disproportionate levels of anger and aggression?”

“I did know that,” Emily said lightly.

“Oh, right, yeah of course…”

Sometimes I got so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn’t really think before I said them. Of course Prentiss knew was sublimation was.

“But I tell you what,” she said, “you’re far more interesting to listen to than the guy who trained me at the academy.”

I might have blushed. “You think?”

“For sure,” she grinned. “Perhaps you could be a lecturer someday.”

The thought of standing up and speaking in front of all those people made my stomach churn – I could barely get through delivering a profile even with help from the team, but still I smiled back and said, “Thanks, Emily.”

Maybe we could be friends after all.

“Reid.” We both looked up to see Hotch standing on the mezzanine level landing. “A word, please?”

I headed up to face my boss, who no doubt had a lot to say to me – not much of it good.

“Hotch,” I greeted him as I closed the door to his office.

“Sit down, Reid,” he said in his usual no-nonsense tone.

I did as he asked and sank in to the seat opposite his.

“How are you feeling?” he asked me, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the desk.

“Fine, thank you.”

He raised an eyebrow that told me I was going to have to say a lot more than just that.

“I’m sorry for my behaviour,” I said. Man, I was doing a lot of apologising today. “I’ve been very stressed with what’s gone on and I took it out on those around me. It won’t happen again.”

Hotch seemed more satisfied with that answer. “If there’s anything you need, Reid…we have programmes, therapy, things that can help with whatever it is that’s troubling you.”

“I don’t need any of that.” And I didn’t. I had Bree, and I had determination to fix myself. That was more powerful than stale coffee and baring my trauma to other addicts or some random therapist.

Hotch studied me for a moment before saying, “I know I’m not Gideon, and I’ll probably never mean as much to you as he did but…I’m here for you, Reid. We all are.”

I had to admit, that warmed my heart a bit. Even Brick-Wall Hotchner cared, it appeared. Was I really as alone as I thought?

“Thanks Hotch,” I smiled weakly.

He stood up so I did the same, and he walked me to the door of his office.

“How is Briana?” he asked as we reached the door.

My heckles raised instantly. I had to tread very carefully, considering the tentative bridge I had just built, but hearing Bree’s name in his boring mouth made me want to punch the dull expression clean off it.

“She’s fine,” I replied tightly. “Why do you ask?”

He shrugged. “Just asking.”

I thought back to how he’d looked at her that day in my apartment, his eyes continually roaming over her like he had the right to do so. My blood heated, and it was everything in me to cool the rising anger.

“Bree told me you made her feel uncomfortable the other day,” I hurried out.

I hoped Bree could forgive me for lying and using her as a way to inform Hotch of my frustrations.

His eyes widened a fraction. “She did?”

“Yes.” I said firmly. “I know she’s pretty but…she’s my girlfriend. And I’d…we’d…both appreciate it if you didn’t, you know…”

“Look at her?” Hotch finished off my sentence.

“Uh…yeah.”

He nodded slowly. “I understand. Please tell her I never meant to cause her any…distress. I shall refrain from doing so again.”

I gave him a weak smile and left his office, slightly better off than when I’d first entered.

I had my job back, I’d made amends with Prentiss, Hotch said he’d stop eye-fucking my girlfriend, and I was likely to be able to go home to Briana that night. Things were finally looking good.

~~~

Bree

Spencer had left for work in a breeze, and that meant I could finally get some college work done – and go to work after calling in sick for days. I’d tell my boss that I had a bug that wiped me out Thursday through to Sunday. It would be fine. People got sick all the time. I only felt marginally guilty for calling in sick. Spencer needed me more.

I headed in to the café I worked at, where my boss, Maggie, was standing at the counter. Maggie was a real task master. She valued efficiency, organisation and a general lack of empathy. She wasn’t horrible, but she certainly wasn’t the kind of woman you’d go to for comfort.

“Ah, Briana,” she said. “Glad to see you could join us today.”

There was something in her tone that put me on edge, just I just smiled and said, “Yeah, I’m feeling much better now.”

Maggie hummed and thinned her lips. “Come with me in to my office, please.”

When in the back office, which was really more of a glorified cupboard, Maggie sat at her desk and gestured me to do the same.

“Briana,” she said, levelling me with a look far colder than usual. “I know you weren’t sick.”

Well, shit.

“No I-“

“Do not make this worse for yourself,” Maggie cut over me. “I saw you yesterday with that lanky boy. He was…” Maggie shuddered, “feeding you ice cream.”

I had to bite back my smile at the memory of Spencer and I eating ice cream in the park, trying to feed it to each other with our arms locked around one another.  It was just a stupid, silly moment, but it warmed my heart so thoroughly that all I wanted was for the moment I could be in his arms again.

“I’m sorry Maggie,” I sighed. “Spencer has been having a really tough time and he needed me…”

“Be that as it may, I need staff that I can trust.”

“Please Maggie…”

I really needed this job. How would I afford to live otherwise? My student loan barely covered my rent, and my wage from the café was only just enough to pay for any extras each month.

“You’ve barely been present for months, Briana,” Maggie stated. “And I don’t mean physically, I mean mentally. Over these last few weeks you’ve been showing up late, making mistakes and Anita even told me you snapped at a customer the other day.”

Fucking Anita. She was always looking for a reason to undermine me just because she caught her husband staring down my top one time.

I mean, I had snapped at a customer, but that was only because she didn’t understand the fact that flat white coffee did not come in a ‘large’ size no matter how many times I told her.

“I’ll do better,” I pleaded Maggie.

“I’m sorry Briana but my mind is made up. I was going to talk to you about your recent behaviour today, but after seeing you out yesterday I’m afraid I have no other choice. I need staff that I can trust.”

Maggie and her stupid employees were more like a coven than a group of colleagues, and I’d be gladder to be rid of them if losing the job didn’t leave me in financial dire straits.

Tears began to well in my eyes, but I held them back well as I picked up my bag from the floor and rose to my feet. “I’m sorry I let you down.”

“Me too, Briana. Me too.”

I left the café, making sure to give Anita the middle finger as I did, and rounded the corner outside before allowing myself to cry.

I had no idea what I was going to do, but I needed to formulate a plan of action and quickly. I could try and find a cheaper apartment further away from the centre, or perhaps I could somehow get a job before my rent was due. My student loans wouldn’t cover everything.

I hurried towards my apartment, blind panic controlling my every movement.

I passed by the shops and restaurants on the street, all setting up or their day of business. My rushed steps slowed as I passed by the small bar I’d gone to with Anita and Maggie when I first joined the café, before I realised they were both insufferable and I wished to spend no longer with them than absolutely necessary.

It was too early to drink. Too early.  I needed to get my life together, formulate a plan… I glanced at the  time on my phone. It was 11am…

The sun is over the yardarm I heard my father’s voice in the back of my mind, his favourite expression when coming up with an excuse to drink.

But I was not my father. I would not become like him.

“You alright?”

I raised my head to see that someone had come out of the bar, eyeing me as I’d spent the last 30 seconds staring blankly in to the space.

“Sorry…”

He cocked his head to one side. “Are you coming in?”

I am not my father.

“Yes.”

I was not my father – but I was in need of a drink.

Chapter Text

Spencer

5pm rolled around and I was heading straight for the door, eager to get home to Bree and plan for her to move in that weekend.

“Woah, what’s the rush, Reid?” Rossi asked after I nearly knocked him over in my haste.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Just eager to get home.”

“Briana staying at yours tonight, I take it?” he asked with a smile.

My face lit up, happy for any excuse to talk about Bree. “Actually, she’s moving in with me this weekend!”

Rossi’s eyes widened. “Already?”

I bit back the frustration I felt over his disbelief and said, “We spend so much time together that it just makes more sense to live together.”

Fortunately, David Rossi was a hopeless romantic, and so his disbelief was soon replaced by content. “Good for you kid, I’m really happy for you.”

I smiled and went to head on out, but Dave was speaking again.

“Are you having a house warming?”

I quirked a brow. “I’ve lived there for almost two years.”

“Yes, but Briana hasn’t,” he pointed out. “Doesn’t she have any friends she wants to invite over?”

I decided it best not to inform him that Bree had no one in her life but me as I said, “I don’t think it’s Bree’s kinda thing…”

Rossi shook his head gently. “Look, I know I’m the new guy, and I don’t get a say, but I think you could benefit from a little…team building. Invite us all over, loosen some of the tension. You see what I’m saying?”

I considered for a moment. After the events of recent days it would score me some brownie points if I invited everyone over, and prove to Hotch that I was still a ‘team player’.

With a deep sigh I agreed and told Rossi to tell the rest of the team.

I just hoped that Bree wouldn’t be mad that I was throwing her a housewarming when she had no one to welcome to the house…

//x//

Bree was mad. Pretty furious actually. Not only that, but halfway through the argument I realised that she was drunk. When I confronted her about it, she told me that she’d lost her job.

“I don’t even think I can move in now,” she sobbed in to my chest, forgetting completely about the argument as she broke down in to tears, “when I can’t afford to pay the rent.”

“Hey, shh” I soothed her. “You wouldn’t need to pay rent here anyway. I’m on fixed bills, it doesn’t make a difference whether there’s one or five people living here.”

“But what about everything else I need to pay for? Food, my phone bill…” she cut herself off with more cries.

I tucked her hair behind her ear and shushed her once more. “I will pay for everything until you find yourself another job, okay?”

She sniffled. “You can’t do that.”

Actually, I could. I earned more than enough money. I had no social life, so I’d spent years saving up, too. And if there was one thing I wanted to spend my money on, it was her.

“I insist,” I said firmly. “It won’t be forever, so just let me help where I can, okay?”

She nodded gratefully. “Thank you.”

“I just need you to do one thing for me in return.”

She blinked up at me. “Anything.”

“Agree to have this housewarming party.”

She sniffled back a few more tears. “Yes, okay.”

“Thank you.” I kissed her forehead gently. “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

~~~

Bree

I knew that Spencer said he’d help me move, but I was determined for him not to see my apartment, so since I was out of work I spent every day that week moving my stuff from my place to his. It was only a short walk but some of my bags were heavy, so I’d enlisted the help of Steve (and his car) in the hours that O’Donoghue’s was closed.

Over the course of the working week I managed to move what few belongings I had over to Spencer’s place. My landlady was pretty glad to see the back of me, and I wasn’t surprised when she said I wasn’t getting my deposit back. The place was a dump, but I really could have done with the couple hundred dollars. I winced at the memory of the red wine stain on the carpet and the amount of junk I’d had to clear before I handed the keys back. I hoped that Spencer wouldn’t get mad at my untidiness when we lived together.

By the time Saturday came around, we were able to spend the whole day unpacking my boxes and making his place in to our place. His awards and certificates moved over to make room for my books and paintings. Our clothes hung neatly together in the closet. My hair products sat on the shelf next to his. Within a day, it already looked and felt like our home.

“How come your friends are coming over tomorrow and not today?” I asked as Spencer and I finished changing the bed.

I’d initially been furious at the idea of having a house warming when I had no one to invite, but I had to get over it pretty swiftly after Spencer had been so good to me about the whole ‘losing my ‘ thing.  Plus, Spencer reminded me that I could invite Steve and his wife. They weren’t coming, they had some important Celtic music festival at the bar, but it was good to know that I had at least some people…even if it was the 50 something year old owner of the bar that fuelled my alcoholism.

“I wanted us to have today to get you settled,” Spencer explained. “Plus, inviting them over on a Sunday means we all have work the next day, which means they won’t be drinking much.”

I knew that was his way of trying to remove temptation for me. God, he was so thoughtful.

“Thank you my love,” I smiled, pressing a kiss on his cheek. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

//x//

Spencer’s friends arrived at 3pm on Sunday. JJ brought flowers, Emily brought beer, Derek brought tequila, Dave brought wine and Penelope brought a potted plant, a bottle of vodka and an embroidered pillow. I hoped they’d all drink it before they left because I wasn’t sure I’d cope with that amount of temptation in the house.

I’d told Spencer I wouldn’t drink, I hadn’t drank since the day I’d lost my job, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of his friends. I’d managed to get by without booze last time I’d seen them all, so I could do it again.

Aaron was the last to arrive, half an hour late. Spencer was busy chatting with JJ when the door went so I excused myself from the light small-talk I’d been making with Emily and opened the door.

“Hi, Aaron,” I greeted him with as friendly a voice as I could manage. I was still pretty pissed at him for his wandering eye and his ‘unjustified’ suspension of Spencer. “Thanks for coming.”

He gave me a tiny smile. “Hello Bree, thanks for having me.”

I stepped to one side so that he could come in, notes of his musky cologne pricking my nostrils as he brushed past me.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said as he shrugged off his jacket. “Jack was refusing to leave to go to his mom’s.”

I offered to take his coat. “Jack is your son?”

He nodded and finally showed me his actual smile. It made him look 10 years younger and 40% more approachable. “Yeah. He’s just turned two.”

I smiled back. I wasn’t a fan of kids, but it was nice to see that Aaron had at least one thing in his life that didn’t make him seem like such a robot.

I hung Aaron’s in the closet down the hall and then guided him through to where everyone else was in the apartment. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Just a beer would be great, thanks.”

I nodded and turned away, but he placed a gentle hand on my arm. I instinctively flinched from the unexpected touch. Hm, odd. I’d never been a jumpy kind of person.

“Sorry,” he said cautiously, taking note of my reaction. “I just wanted to give you your house warming gift.”

He handed me the bag he’d walked in with.

I opened it, expecting the usual bottle of booze or ‘home sweet home’ wall art, but instead was met with a very beautiful, and very heavy, set of leather-bound books.

“Woah,” I gaped, pulling them out of the bag. “Aaron, these are beautiful. You didn’t have to do this.” I looked at the spines. Each book was an extensive encyclopaedia on a different area of forensic psychology.

“Reid told me you’re studying forensics. These books will be your best friends,” he said light-heartedly. “They also make a great weapon.”

I chuckled, though I didn’t really know if he was joking.

Spencer glanced over, took one look at what was in my hands and excused himself from his conversation with JJ.

“What are they?” he asked, coming to rest at my side and placing his hand on my shoulder.

“A house warming gift from Aaron,” I beamed, proudly showing Spencer the books. “They’ll look great on the bookcase, won’t they?”

Spencer cast a look down at the books, which were now getting very heavy in my hands, and then shot a look at his boss. “Yes, they will.”

I shrugged off Spencer’s attitude and placed the books on the table next to me. “I’ll grab you that beer, Aaron.”

I headed to the kitchen and, with all the willpower in the world, avoided the open bottles of booze around me in order to get Aaron his beer. Hell, the man deserved a brewery after that gift. I was blown away by the gesture. It was far too much for someone I barely knew…and not really a housewarming present, either. It was far more personal than that.

“For my birthday last year I got a ‘sorry it’s late’ card and a pint at our local bar.”

I whipped my head around to see Spencer leaning against the door frame, his face a scowl.

“What are you talking about?”

“Hotch,” he said, pushing himself off the frame and walking over to me. “He’s never given me a gift like that.”

I just smiled. “He’s only trying to be nice, Spencer.” I twisted the cap off the beer and flicked it in the bin.

“Everyone else bought booze and flowers – why did Hotch bring an expensive gift only for you?”

“It is my housewarming, remember?” I countered. Spencer’s jealously was infuriating.

Spencer’s face darkened. “And you’re my girlfriend.”

“God, Spencer!” I threw my head back in frustration. “I can’t do this every time your boss even looks at me!”

“I think he wants to do more than look at you.” Spencer swiped the beer from my hands and tipped it down his throat. “I thought I’d made myself clear when I spoke to him.”

I tried to ignore my shock at seeing Spencer drink like an 18 year old at a frat party, and instead focused on my shock at the latter half of his sentence. “You’ve spoken to him about this?!”

He nodded and finished the beer, slamming the glass on the kitchen counter. “Apparently the message wasn’t clear enough.”

“Spencer, please. You’re being ridiculous.” I went back in to the fridge to get Aaron another beer. “Don’t see in to something that isn’t there.”

I stood back up to find Spencer had closed the gap between us and was now right behind me. “I’m not an idiot, Briana.”

“I never said you were.” I pushed him away. “But I’m starting to change my mind.”

I was getting hot with both anger and arousal. When Spencer got jealous, he liked to remind me I was his in the most animalistic ways.

Just as I’d hoped, his hand came to rest at my throat, his grip tight. “Don’t test me.”

I smirked. “But you love tests.”

The sound of laughter from the living room broke us apart. Spencer cleared his throat and re-adopted his usual aura of ‘awkward and unsure’, of which it was abundantly clear to me it was a complete falsehood. Fighting the pulse between my legs, I stepped to one side. “I have to take this to Aaron.”

Once again, he snatched the bottle from my hands. “I’ll do it.”

He left without looking back, leaving me desperate to pick a fight with him just to feel something other than the urge to drink.

My eyes scanned the open bottles of booze that littered our kitchen. I thought Spencer had said a Sunday meant no one would be drinking as much?

Derek was on beer two, Dave was raw-dogging the whisky’s, JJ, Emily and Penelope were on their second bottle of wine and they’d all had a shot of tequila – and they’d barely been there an hour!

The image of Spencer swigging from the bottle of beer rose up in my head. He’d done that on purpose. He’d have known that me seeing him do that that would have triggered me to want to drink, surely.

My eyes fell back on the tequila bottle. Well, it had fucking worked.

I grabbed it and knocked back at least 4 shots worth. My throat burned as I pulled the bottle from my lips, gasping with both relief and discomfort.

“Woah, steady on.”

I nearly dropped the bottle as I spun to see Aaron entering the kitchen.

“I’m guessing this isn’t the bathroom…” he said, eyeing me and then the bottle of tequila.

I jerked my head to the left of me. “Next door.” And with that the bottle was back against my lips.

“Uh…Briana…”

I begrudgingly lowered the bottle to look at him. “What?”

His dark eyes were narrow with concern, his brow wrinkled and his usual stoic expression setting the look to stone. “I don’t mean to pry but are you…alright?”

“Just peachy.” I took another swig.

“I’m gonna go and get Reid…” he said, backing away.

That snapped me out of it. “No!” I slammed the bottle down and ran to his side. “Aaron please don’t tell Spencer!”

If Spencer knew I’d just downed a quarter of a bottle of tequila he’d have a conniption.

Aaron’s eyebrow quirked before his face turned serious. “Why are you so afraid of him?”

“I’m not!” I argued quickly. “Really…I just…it’s not a good look to be necking booze while you’re meant to be hosting…”

“Well, why are you?”

“Nerves…” I lied.

He sighed and leant against the kitchen island. “I hope it’s nothing to do with me.”

I swallowed. Now I was nervous. “No…why would it be?”

“Spencer told me what you said…”

I stared at him blankly, waiting for him to fill in the missing pieces because I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about.

“About how I made you feel,” Aaron continued when it was clear I was clueless. “The other day when I came around, he said I made you uncomfortable.”

My eyes must have popped out of my head. “He said that?!” That sneaky bastard playing off his insecurities as my problem!

“Yes and I’m sorry…but I want to assure you that I was actually looking at-“

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” I cut over him, not interested in which part of my body his eyes were enjoying. “I never said you made me uncomfortable. This is all Spencer, projecting.”

Aaron’s stupid bushy eyebrow was quirked again. “Oh?”

“Trust me, I have no problem with it. It’s all him.”

Aaron shifted himself slightly. “You have no problem with it?”

“Shit, that came out wrong…” I stuttered, feeling heat enter my cheeks. Not because I meant what I’d implied, but because I’d implied it at all.

He half-chuckled. “It’s quite alright Bree, I know what you meant.”

“Look, Aaron,” I took a deep sigh and leant next to him on the kitchen island, the tequila I’d just thrown down my neck beginning to work its drunk-maker magic. “Spencer is a jealous man, and you have to admit you’re not exactly subtle with your eyes.”

“Bree, I swear, I’m just-“

“Aaron, you’re a very handsome man,” I said, words verging on a slur as I reached for the bottle and took another swig, no longer caring what my ‘guests’ may think of me. “It’s no wonder he’s jealous, and if this were a different time in my life I’m sure we’d have done more than flirt by now, but I love Spencer…and he doesn’t love you staring at me, so just cool your wandering eye, okay?”

Aaron actually blushed as the words left my mouth, but any and all argument died on his lips as he just said, “Yeah, okay Briana.”

I offered him the bottle of tequila. He took a decent swig before handing it back to me. We passed the bottle to and fro a few times more, chit chatting about life. It was perhaps the most peaceful 20 minutes of drinking I could ever recall having.

With my nerves all but gone, I pushed myself off the counter, offering him my hand. “Let’s join the others.”

As Aaron stood I lost my balance, falling straight in to him.

And of course, because the God’s of Luck had damned me from birth, that’s the moment Spencer chose to walk in.