#climacteric 🪶

[reiding-writing]

Hi congrats on the Milestone, for the event can i ask for prompts 15 and 16 (angsty ones) Ty! 💖💖

EAVESDROP [CLIMACTERIC]

/ˈiːvzdrɒp/

15. "You heard that?”

16. "I didn't mean it.”

WARNINGS: miscommunication (i hate and love miscommunication way too much), happy ending

spencer reid x gn!reader || fluff || 3.0k || event masterlist!!

a/n: when i said that these were going to be coming out slower i unfortunately meant it 😭 didn’t help that i had massive writer’s block with this one either rip—

main masterlist!!

You really didn’t mean to eavesdrop. You just happened to get to the office early that morning and figured it’d be an opportune time to make yourself some coffee.

But once you heard your name in the mix of the conversation that Spencer and Morgan were having you found yourself waiting around the corner until they finished what they had to say.

“—should just ask,”

“That’s awkward, besides, if I was going to then it’d have to be something more meaningful,” You can hear Spencer sigh in exasperation as he shuts down Morgan’s suggestion, and your imagination tells you he probably has his face furrowed almost in a pout like he usually does when he’s frustrated.

“Then plan something, you can’t just wait for something to happen, you have to take action man,” Morgan sounds determined in his beliefs, and it leaves you with a furrowed expression as you try and piece together what they’re talking about and how it relates back to you.

Spencer wants to ask you something. In a ‘meaningful’ way. Because he’s been sitting around waiting for something for too long.

What?

“I know that,” Spencer lets out another sigh, and you can hear the sound of his mug hitting the kitchenette counter. “I’m just afraid that they’re going to turn me down, okay? I really like them and I want this to go well,”

If their conversation was a tv show you would’ve rewound it to hear what Spencer just said again.

Spencer Reid. Dr Spencer Walter Reid just openly admitted to liking you.

There’s a major part of your brain that tells you that he just meant it platonically, that he just really valued your friendship and didn’t want to ruin it by asking you whatever he was going to.

And then there was another part of your brain telling you that that was complete bullshit, because what kind of question could possibly be so bad that it would mean you didn’t want to be friends with him anymore?

It had to be something inherently romantic, or Spencer’s concerns wouldn’t make any logical sense, which was a very off brand thing for him.

“It’ll never ‘go well’ if you don’t actually ask,”

The small flutter in your heart only proves to increase at Morgan’s reply, and if you were an actual part of the conversation you’d agree with him.

You wanted Spencer to ask you whatever was plaguing his mind, whether it be to take you on a date somewhere or even if it’s just to get lunch with him on your shared break. Any step forward was a step in the right direction, and you wanted that next step.

He doesn’t.

The whole day goes by without a single peep from Spencer in relation to his little pep talk with Morgan in the morning, and it was beginning to frustrate you just a little.

Of course you wouldn’t actually be frustrated if you hadn’t overheard the conversation they were having, but that wasn’t your fault. It was like the fates were trying to bring you together.

And you were letting them drag you in whatever direction they deemed fit.

“Hey Spencer!” You catch him right as he steps into the elevator, and he sticks out a hand over the motion sensor to keep the door open for you.

“Hey,” Spencer gives you a small, awkwardly endearing smile as you join him inside the elevator, retracting his hand to grip the strap of his messenger bag.

“Thanks,” You let out a stuttered exhale as you catch your breath from the mild jog you made to reach the door, pulling on the shoulders of your shirt to straighten it back out.

“No problem,” He gives you another small smile, and then the conversation falls silent, the sound of the doors opening as the two of you reach the ground level being the only thing to break the stillness of your joined company.

You couldn’t really tel whether the lack of conversation was awkward or not, but you did know that the longer you were in his sole company the more that you wanted to oust your knowledge of his earlier conversation with Morgan, to the point where you were rehearsing how to bring it up in your head.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Spencer gives you a small wave as the two of you step out of the elevator and into the covered parking lot, stuffing his hands into his pockets and turning around to walk away before you can reply.

You swear you catch the tiniest glimpse of him mouthing something to himself with a furrowed expression as he turns around, like he’s berating himself for something, and your brain decides that it’s the perfect time to just go for it, his name tumbling out of your mouth to no consciousness of your own.

“Spencer—”

He turns around at your call and your throat goes dry, your impulsiveness biting you right in the ass as you lose your confidence immediately under his gaze. “Yeah?”

“You… uh-” You watch as his eyebrows furrow slightly in confusion, and you clear your throat to throw your inhibitions out the window. You couldn’t just not tell him now. “I overheard the conversation you were having this morning with Morgan, the uh… the one about me?”

You can practically see the colour drain from his face at your admission, and it immediately makes you regret bringing it up. He wasn’t ready yet.

“You-” He lets out a sharp exhale through his mouth, tugging at the strap of his back awkwardly. “You heard that?”

You give him a small guilty nod with your lips pressed together, and he sucks in a breath like he’s forgotten how to breathe. “How much of it did you hear..?”

“About… three quarters of it,”

He shuts his eyes, head dropping until the hair framing his face catches against his eyelashes.

Of course you’d heard it all. Because him stumbling over himself over how to properly approach you to Morgan wasn’t humiliating enough.

No, you just had to be there to hear it.

There went any minuscule chance he had of actually managing to build something with you. You probably thought he was some weirdo who had some stalkerish fantasy of you.

“Spencer—”

“I didn’t mean it.” Your attempt at elaborating was very quickly short lived as he cuts you off.

“I- What?”

“I didn’t- I was just saying that to get Morgan off my back about not dating anyone,” Spencer knows he’s speaking straight out of his ass, but it’s the only thing that he can think of to say to possibly salvage a fraction of your friendship with him without making everything weird. “I didn’t actually mean any of it-”

There’s a small pause, silence flooding the space between you until you feel like you’re drowning in it.

“Oh,” There’s a split second where the astonishment shows across your face, and Spencer swears he catches a glimpse of disappointment in your irises before it’s covered up with something else. “Right- Yeah no that makes sense he can be quite annoying about that stuff can’t he?”

He gives a pathetic laugh at your response. “Yeah…”

“Well I’ll uh, see you tomorrow then…” There’s no mistaking the awkward tension between the two of you as you rifle in your pocket for your car keys.

“Yeah… See you tomorrow…”

—

“I messed up. I messed up really bad.” Morgan barely has time to leave the elevator before Spencer is practically dragging him into the conference room to speak to him privately, without any chance of their conversation being heard.

“Well good morning to you too boy genius,”

“I’m serious Morgan, this is really bad-” Spencer’s face conveys absolute desperation, almost bordering patheticness from just how rifled he seems.

“Okay okay damn,” Morgan raises his arms in surrender, a silent vow to take Spencer’s worries seriously.

“They overheard our conversation, the one about me being afraid to ask them out.” Spencer sighs in absolute indignation, taking a hand through his hair with an expression like his doctor just told him he wasn’t going to wake up tomorrow morning.

“Oh-” Morgan’s eyes widen slightly at Spencer’s confession, straightening up and furrowing his eyebrows. “And?”

“And I told them that I was just saying I wanted to ask them out to get you off my back about dating-”

Morgan’s shoulders drop, and he narrows his eyes slightly in a mix of confusion and absolute astoundment that he would fumble the bag that hard. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I didn’t want things to get awkward, but when they walked into the office this morning they didn’t even say good morning and we’ve been sat in a stalemate for almost ten minutes which suggests that they didn’t believe what I said and I did make it awkward and-”

“Reid-” Morgan holds up a hand to stop Spencer’s rambling mid-sentence. “Slow your roll a minute, what actually happened?”

“They caught me on the way out of the elevator to the parking lot yesterday and told me that they overheard our conversation,” Spencer drags his hand down his face in exasperation. “And I panicked and said that I didn’t mean it and that it was just to get you to stop asking me about my dating life, so that it wouldn’t make our friendship awkward…”

He exhales heavily, leaning his body weight against the conference table in defeat. “But I don’t think they believed me, and now they’re acting like I’m a stranger to them and I don’t know what to do,”

“Right… Okay,” Morgan takes a few seconds to take in the information through furrowed eyebrows. “And you’re sure it’s because they don’t believe you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” It was Spencer’s turn to furrows his features at Morgan’s response. What else could it possibly be to do with?

“Look, I’m not going to say anything, but you need to come clean and talk to them, right now.”

“What—” Spencer barely gets the question out of his mouth before Morgan is leaving his side to open the door of the conference room and yelling your name across the bullpen to bring you over.

“What are you doing?” Spencer Whisper-yells through his teeth as he watches you approach from over Morgan’s shoulder, and he watches the way your curiosity turns to begrudgement as you realise that Morgan wasn’t the only one there.

You literally fizzled out after realising that Spencer was there, what else was he supposed to think?

“You two need to have a conversation,” Morgan points between the two of you before tugging you into the room by your forearm. “I am going to stand outside that door and you are not allowed to leave until you’ve spoken to each other properly, no bullshit. You hear me?”

It feels like you and Spencer are two five year olds as Morgan looks between you, but you both nod stuntedly either way, and true to his word, Morgan leaves the room and leans his weight against the closed door so you can’t push it open to leave.

“So…”

“So-”

The tension between the two of you is palpable as you both try to start the conversation at the same time, but the fact that you were so similar in your awkward attempts at breaking the silence makes you laugh a little, which in turn makes Spencer laugh as well.

It was a little silly, but you were both glad for the break in the stalemate you’d put yourselves in, even if just for that moment before you found yourselves surrounded by silence once more, albeit a slightly more comfortable one.

“Well… Uh…”

“I’m sorry I assumed you liked me, romantically I mean,” You cut off Spencer’s awkward attempt at breaking the silence with your own blurted excuse. “I didn’t mean to make things awkward between us I just thought—” You cut yourself short before you can finish to save yourself from your own embarrassment.

Spencer can only blink at your apology.

“I— What?”

“When I cornered you in the parking lot yesterday, I should’ve known it was just Morgan bothering you, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” You clasp your hands behind your back, nervously wringing your hands together.

So it wasn’t because you didn’t believe him. You did. And you looked… upset about it? Dejected maybe? Spencer couldn’t be quite sure, but whatever emotion you were displaying it wasn’t something objectively positive.

“I— You didn’t—” Spencer exhales heavily through his mouth, clenching his hands into fists as he internally fights with himself over whether to just spit it out and get it over with.

‘You need to come clean’.

Morgan sounded extremely assured in his statement when he directed Spencer earlier, like he knew what the outcome was going to be.

It wasn’t a case of ‘come clean because the truth is better than lying’, it was a ‘come clean because whatever happens afterwards isn’t going to be negative’.

“I lied to you,”

Spencer’s brain always worked faster than his body, but apparently he’d managed to override his own instincts and let his mouth make the decision for him before he could think through all of the possible consequences.

“…What?” The traces of disappointment in your eyes are diluted by a mix of surprise and confusion as you turn them up to his, and Spencer feels his throat dry out almost immediately.

“I wasn’t trying to get Morgan off my back, I…” Spencer lets out another small sigh. “I really was asking him for advice, I… I really like you, a lot, and I just didn’t know how to tell you without ruining our friendship so Morgan was trying to help,” He lets out a small laugh, his fingers raking through his hair animatedly as he laments his own patheticness. “It didn’t go very well, clearly,”

There’s a small pause after his confession, the silence settling in Spencer’s chest and making him feel nauseous as he waits for a sign of how you’re going to respond.

The blankness on your face isn’t very reassuring.

“You’re being serious?”

“…mhm…” Practically all of the conviction in Spencer’s tone disappears at your question, and he half-wishes that he could travel back in time so this conversation never happened.

“I like you too Spencer,”

“I underst—” Spencer lowers his head as he dejectedly accepts your rejection. Except it’s not a rejection. “What?”

“I like you too,” You repeat yourself with determination, your eyes practically boring holes into his, and he swears he can feel his knees trying to buckle underneath him.

“You uh… Really?” Spencer blinks at you like a deer in headlights, his genius brain seemingly unable to comprehend how the conversation, one Spencer was sure would end in your rejection and end with the two of you as practical strangers, somehow turned into this.

You give him a firm nod. “I’d like to go out with you Spencer, on a date, anywhere you like,” Your confidence starkly contrasts his shattered composure as you give him your proposal like you’re presenting in a board meeting. Although he’s sure it’s almost entirely feigned, and the way you fiddle with your fingers is evidence enough of his theory. “Please?”

There’s a tinge of desperation in your tone as you add your small plea at the end, and it makes Spencer realise that he’s just blankly staring at you.

“I— Yes— Yes I’d love to go on a date with you Uh—” Spencer thoroughly stumbles over his words in his rush to wipe the traces of doubt in your features. “I’d really like that…”

“Good— Good,” You let out a short laugh of relief at his answer, and he echoes it with your own as you stand in a shared dome of fluster together.

“Do you want to get lunch? Uh, together?” The way Spencer phrases the question was like a middle schooler trying to ask out their crush rather than a grown man, but it only makes the sentiment more endearing.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Your answer is joined by a soft laugh that echoes from the back of your throat, and it makes Spencer’s heart flutter.

“Okay,” Spencer returns your chuckle with his own, gesturing curtiously towards the closed door like a true gentleman, and you have to suppress the urge to stamp a kiss against his pink cheeks as you pass him to push it open.

There’s less resistance than there should be as you push it open, with Morgan decidedly having left the two of you to your own devices to return to his desk without either of you realising.

He shoots the two of you a wink and a thumbs up as you walk down the stairs, and Spencer’s cheeks turn a slightly darker shade of red at the ‘unfortunate’ realisation that he’s due in for a whole load of jests and teases from him going forward.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #mgg #climacteric 🪶

[reiding-writing]

hi! could you write prompt 6 from the angsty dialogue prompts for the climacteric event? fem/gn reader whatever you prefer, i was thinking that reader finds out something about spencer and it results in this messy situation, but honestly how you want to do it is all up to you!

JEALOUSY [CLIMACTERIC]

6. “Don’t touch me.”

WARNINGS: spencer is a bit of a twat but apologises profusely afterwards, arguing, happy? ending

spencer reid x gn!reader || angst || 2.5k || event masterlist!!

main masterlist!!

a/n: majority vote chose this one to come out first 🫶 they also chose for it to have a happy ending bc y’all are really boring /j (i love you guys you aren’t boring i swear 🫶)

Spencer Reid grew up too fast.

He was remarkably smart for his age, that much was a given, but in terms of emotional development Spencer was forced to skip what should’ve been his childhood.

He didn’t get to experience what it felt like be praised over a rudimentary piece of ‘art’ by his parents, because he was ‘too intelligent’ for that.

He didn’t get to go out on a Saturday morning with his father to learn how to play a ball game because his dad was never around.

He didn’t get to be coddled by his mother when he cried because by the time he was nine he was her full time carer.

Ironically, his childhood was an era of time where he could barely remember a single detail, despite his renowned eidetic memory, and it only seemed to further prove that Spencer Reid’s childhood didn’t exist.

All he could remember was what didn’t happen. The key milestones of his life that he never got to live through.

To say that impacted his emotional availability was an understatement. Spencer had never been one to ask for help from other people, but in instances where he really felt like he was about to fall apart it was even worse. He’d grown up with the expectation that he was responsible for his own well being. That him and him alone was the only thing that could get him through whatever dark patch that he went through.

He didn’t need anyone else. He wasn’t allowed anyone else. It was just him, always.

You were decidedly the opposite. You wore your emotions on your sleeve, and for the most part, Spencer found it entirely refreshing to watch you be able to express yourself with no holds barred and no internal monologue telling you that what you were doing was wrong.

Sometimes he wished he could do the same.

There were times of his career where he wished you’d do something wrong, that you’d make a mistake or cross a boundary and it’d allow him to exert all of the anger and deep-seeded jealously he felt whenever he saw you be so open with yourself.

He knew it was horrible of him, and more often than not the minute those thoughts invaded his mind he thought of nothing more than how much of a terrible person he was. He was wishing ill on you just because you’d managed to have a healthy emotional output.

Because he was inherently broken from all the years of keeping everything to himself.

“Are you okay?”

Spencer furrowed his eyebrows at the sound of your voice, gaze turning upwards from the mug of coffee sitting on the kitchenette counter to meet your face, covered in worry lines as you furrow your own eyebrows.

He hated when you looked at him like that. Like he was something to be pitied.

“I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?” Spencer presses his lips together in an awkward line of a smile, a staple of his character that seemed much less genuine than usual from your point of view.

“You’ve uh- You’ve been stood here staring at your mug for almost five minutes,” Spencer flickers his eyes up to the analogue clock on the wall at your declaration.

You were right, he’d been stood in a state of dissociation for almost a whole five minutes without realising it. Great, that’s just wonderful. Like his life couldn’t get any worse.

“Everything’s fine,” He gives you another one of those awkward smiles as he takes his mug in between both of his hands, the ceramic barely even warm anymore, which tells him that his coffee isn’t hot enough for him to actually enjoy it, but right now he’d take a cup of warm coffee over standing here talking to you about his ‘feelings’.

But you’ve never made things easy.

“It’s not though is it? Something’s wrong Spencer, everyone in the office can tell,” You sigh softly at the indignation on his face as you prod at what’s going on inside his head. “We’re worried about you…” You reach out your hand slowly to lay it on his arm, and he pulls away from you without a second thought.

“Please don’t touch me,” He takes a step to the side, clearly trying to bypass you and get back to his desk so he can escape the conversation. “I said I’m fine.”

“And you’re lying Spencer.” You step in the same direction that he does, effectively blocking his path out of the kitchenette. “We need to know what the issue is or we can’t help you Spencer,” Your voice is tinged with a small amount of desperation, and it irks Spencer in a way that he can’t even fully comprehend.

“You want to know what the issue is?” He puts his mug back down on the counter with enough force that small droplets of coffee spill over the rim and onto the granite underneath it. “It’s you.”

He leans forward slightly like he’s trying to emphasise his point. “You are the issue.”

His words hit you like a ton of bricks, and all of a sudden you’re regretting caring so much.

God you’re beginning to regret even waking up this morning. Maybe that would’ve spared you from the stake in your heat that was Spencer Reid explicitly telling you that you were the sole reason why he was acting differently. Why he was being cold and distant from the team and their genuine want to just make sure he’s okay.

Because they couldn’t do that. Because you were a part of the team. And as long as you were there that coldness wouldn’t go away.

“Right…” You press your lips into a line. “Sorry for asking.”

Spencer regrets what he said almost as soon as the words come out of his mouth. He watches as that usual sparkle of compassion in your eyes literally fizzles out right in front of him, and all of a sudden he feels like an absolutely horrible person.

As you turn to leave he reaches out a hand to stop you. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, how could he possibly redeem himself after a comment like that? But his body runs on autopilot and all he knows is that he needs to apologise to you. “Wait—”

“Don’t— touch me Reid,” You pull your arms further into yourself to stop him from reaching out to them, and he swears his heart breaks at the sight of you being dismissive. And then there was the added blow of you using his surname to further distance yourself from him and making him want to cut out his tongue so saying something so rash with absolutely zero provocation. “I understood you the first time.”

It was a complete turn of your character, all semblance of warmth and vulnerability evaporated and replaced with a cold, hard shell that Spencer could see calcifying behind your eyes.

“I-“

“I’ll leave you be now.”

And with that you disappear around the corner, leaving Spencer alone with his thoughts. His terrible thoughts that rightfully pummel him into the ground for so much as suggesting that you could ever be a problem.

—

When you said you’d “Leave him be”, he didn’t think it meant you’d literally avoid him like the plague. God you’d even roped Emily into switching desks with you so you wouldn’t have to sit opposite him anymore.

How was he supposed to grovel for your forgiveness if you wouldn’t so much as spare him a glance?

How was he supposed to explain to the team that the reason the two of you suddenly weren’t talking to each other was because he’d fucked up so badly that he felt like he was going to implode?

And most importantly, how on earth was Spencer Reid supposed to make you listen to him so he could explain himself and try to reconcile with you?

He’d considered cornering you in the break room, or catching you in an elevator on your way to the parking lot, but he knew that would only make things worse.

He’d considered turning up to your apartment your favourite snacks and begging you to let him inside, but that would be weird and borderline stalkerish.

He was really running out of ideas, and the longer he went without saying something the deeper he felt he was being pulled into the pit of despair that he’d dug himself to the point where he wasn’t sure if he as going to be able to claw himself out of it.

He had to speak to you. And he had to make sure that you didn’t run away.

The opportunity practically handed itself to him during a case. He knew budget cuts would mean that the team paired up when staying at a NYC hotel, and after some under the table begging for the other team members to room with each other so you didn’t have any choice but to room with him, he took his chance.

There was a very obvious blanket of tension between the two of you as you entered the room together, your apparent vow of silence continuing as you dump your bag on one of the twin beds to claim it as your own before shutting yourself into the bathroom to ready yourself for sleep.

He could tell that you weren’t happy about the arrangement, and despite how much you were distancing yourself from him you still wore your emotions on your sleeve, and right now they were telling him that you would literally rather be anywhere else.

You skirt past him as you exit the bathroom in your pyjamas, leaving your clothes and your bag on one of the decorative chairs to climb into bed with the continued silent treatment you’re serving him.

Spencer sighs dejectedly as he watches you take a seat on the edge of the bed with your back to him. “Can we talk? Please?”

“What is there to talk about?” Your voice washes him like a cold shower, your vocal chords dipped in ice and your words a perfect combination of blunt and dismissive. He can’t see your expression as you speak, but has a pretty good idea of the furrowing of your eyebrows and the narrowing of your gaze.

“I want—” Spencer lets out another sigh, raking his fingers through his hair in internal frustration. “I need to apologise to you. What I said was horrible and I’m sorry,”

“I don’t forgive you.”

As much as the words cut through his heart like a knife, he can’t blame you.

“I understand… I just wanted you to know that I really regret what I said, and that it’s been tearing me up thinking about it,”

“Right…” You let out a short, sarcastic laugh that causes Spencer’s eyebrows to furrow. “Because it’s all about you right?”

“That’s not what I—”

“Goodnight Reid.” You punctuate your sentence by shutting of the lamp on your side of the room, officially putting an end to your side of the ‘conversation’.

Spencer wasn’t done with it quite yet.

“I’m jealous of you. That’s why I said that ‘you were an issue’. You’re not. I am the issue and I was projecting it on to you. That was unfair of me and I need you to understand that I am apologising to do right by you, not to make myself feel better.”

“You have no reason to be jealous of me Reid,” You still haven’t turned to face him, but he’d rather be talking to your back than not be talking to you at all.

“Please stop calling me that..” Spencer lets out a small breath at the end of his sentence, words tinged with a small amount of desperation. He didn’t want to be ‘Reid’ in your mind, he wanted to be Spencer. “I have a lot to be jealous of when it comes to you,” Admitting his faults outright made him feel nauseous, but he needed to break this brick wall you’d built around yourself when it came to him.

He couldn’t stand being an outsider in your life.

“I mean, you’re sweet, kind, you have an inherent knack for social situations that I could only dream of possessing,” He takes a small break in his sentence to nervously chew on the inside of his lip. “and your emotional vulnerability makes me so jealous of you that I want to just—” He exhales sharply.

“It’s very easy to be jealous of you,”

There’s a small pause after Spencer’s confession, tension lingering in the air as he watches you aimlessly fiddle with the edge of the sheets whilst you debate how to respond.

“Those are stupid things to be jealous of,”

Spencer physically deflates at your answer. “They’re not, people like you are envied because you’re so open with yourself, that’s something not a lot of people have, myself included,” Spencer takes a small step forward, cautious about scaring you off if he approached too quickly. “even if I wish I did..”

He places a deft hand on your shoulder and you jolt at the contact.

“I’m really sorry.” His voice drops to a point where it’s almost inaudible, and you swear you can hear his voice catch as he tries to maintain his composure. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore… please,”

You let out a small sigh of indignation, and Spencer knows he’s won you over. “Fine,”

“Thank you,” He gives your shoulder a small squeeze, and you return it with one of your own as you rest your hand on top of his.

“I’m still angry with you,”

“I know…”

“You’ve got a hell of a job making up for it,”

“I know,”

“Good,” You finally turn to look over your shoulder at him, and Spencer is glad to see that your expression isn’t one of loathing or frustration. “Get some sleep Spencer,”

“Okay…” He gives you a soft nod and a half-awkward smile, the sound of his name rolling off your tongue one that fills him with more contentment than it probably should. “Goodnight…” He hesitantly pulls his hand from your shoulder to walk back to his own hotel bed, walking as you tuck yourself into yours.

“Goodnight Spencer, we’ll talk about this in the morning,”

“Yeah… Thank you…”

Spencer flicks off the lamp beside him, relaxing as the room is shrouded into darkness and allowing himself to get the first proper night of rest he had in weeks now that he’s finally made his peace with you.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid angst #criminal minds angst #mgg #climacteric 🪶

[reiding-writing]

Hiiii, first of all i wanna say congratsss!! You’re an amazing writer and i LOVE your stuff! Secondly, i would like to mention that i’ve never actually made a request before so bear with me 😬 Okay okay, so i was wondering if you could write cold!reader with angsty prompt 28. "I can't believe I didn't see that coming." and general prompt 23. “I thought I’d lost you.” Maybe spencer gets hurt and reader shows emotion (maybe some tears) and the team is all like ???

(feel free to ignore this btw 💗💗)

CLOSE CALL [CLIMACTERIC]

28. “I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming.”

23. “I thought I’d lost you.”

WARNINGS: fem!reader, guns, hostage situation, character death, reader is her typical rash self, happy ending

spencer reid x cold!reader || hurt/comfort || 2.8k ||

a/n: thank you <3 i’m honoured to be the conduit you chose for your first request and i hope this is what you envisioned 🫶

main masterlist!! ⋆｡°✩ cold!reader masterlist!!

event masterlist!!

Spencer’s hands shake so much as he pulls off his bulletproof vest you’re not sure how he has enough articulation in his fingers to do so in the first place.

“Reid, you’re not ready to do this.” Your words aren’t as harsh as they are truthful, but it cuts him down the same anyhow. “Let me or Hotch do it.”

“No, I need to do this myself,” Spencer shakes his head determinedly, and if he wasn’t so focused on the sheer amount of adrenaline running through his veins right no he’d probably be proud of himself for standing up to you and not just following your word as law, but alas, the only thing he could feel right now is absolute dread. “He won’t listen to you.”

Why was it always him that got personally involved with the unsubs? It was like they were a heat-seeking missile locked only onto his location.

Literally locked onto his location in this case. He’d seen him —Daniel as he called himself— on the train home from work, in the coffee shop he frequented, the local library, and he swears he also saw him parked in his apartment building’s parking lot.

It was like he was silently screaming at Spencer to notice him, and when he finally got to speak to the man, he asked for help. He was afraid. He was afraid of himself because he was having horribly intrusive thoughts that made him want to do terrible things and he viewed Spencer as his only scapegoat. Pros and cons of being all over the news for his job he supposes.

Spencer really did try to help him, but every suggestion he made was shut down like they weren’t good enough, like Daniel wanted Spencer to physically go into his brain and remove all of the faulty parts that were making him feel insane.

Spencer’s help just wasn’t good enough, and it lead to multiple people dying as a result.

And now Daniel was holding a woman hostage in her own house.

How was he supposed to not feel solely responsible for that?

Spencer had to be the one to speak to him. Not you or Hotch and your negotiation training, him and his personal connection to all the deaths that had happened because he wasn’t able to help someone that was begging him to save them from their own mind.

He practically shoves his revolver into your hand as he commits to going inside, taking a second to regulate his breathing before emerging from behind the SUVs to approach the closed front door, leaving you all in wait, guns raised at every window in the event that something goes wrong.

Something was bound to go wrong.

“Reid the minute that something feels off you leave, understand?” It technically wasn’t your call to make, but as you spoke into the small radio on your chest you weren’t really thinking about that. It’s not like Hotch would disagree with you anyway.

There’s a few seconds of silence over the radio, even though you know he heard you from the slight jolt in his spine as he reached the front door of the house. “Reid. Tell me that you understand that.”

“Copy,”

You had half the mind to drag him back into the car from that response alone. He clearly wasn’t listening to you, not properly anyway, and having such an emotional involvement in something like this was going to get him killed if he treated it the wrong way.

“Be careful,” Hotch was less antagonistic in his warning, but it held the same message.

Spencer threw an arbitrary thumbs up above his head before knocking on the door of the house and entering slowly with both his arms raised.

Then it was a waiting game. A stalemate where you had to sit with your guns trained and just wait for any sign of change. It was like absolute torture.

It was virtual silence and tumble weeds for the best of five minutes, and then there was a loud gunshot sound that echoed from inside the walls of the house, and all of that waiting felt for naught as you pressed the button on your radio with a steady stream of trepidation raising in your throat that he might not answer you. “Reid? Reid come in.”

You wait for something to come from the other side of the radio, even if it’s just the crackle of static from him pressing the button without actually speaking into it. But all you get is silence, and it makes that sinking feeling grow until you literally feel like you’re about to throw up your stomach.

You don’t think twice about running towards the front door of the house after you don’t get an answer, ignoring the calls of Hotch for you to back down and let SWAT take care of it so he didn’t possibly lose two agents instead of just one.

He knew you weren’t going to listen to him either way.

You open the door with your pistol raised at your eyes, the weight of Spencer’s revolver tucked into the waistband of your jeans acting both as an instrument to ground you and as a torturous reminder that the gunshot you heard couldn’t have possibly been from him.

It had to have come from Daniel.

Logically you should’ve swept the ground floor first before rushing straight into the dining room where you knew the three had been last, in case Daniel had left the room and approached you from behind.

You don’t of course, and you kick open the barricaded dining room door with enough force to splinter the door frame holding the hinge pin in place, the door hitting the wall with a thud.

The sight you’re met with is not what you expected to find.

“Reid—” You drop your gun to your side the second your eyes land on the back of his head, his back to you and his eyes locked on Daniel, lying on his back on the dining room floor with a bullet hole to the side of his head, his blood slowly pooling on the linoleum.

The woman he had hostage was alive too, thank god, practically trying to melt into the corner as she cried into her hands, obviously still in shock over what happened.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming,” Spencer’s words didn’t feel like they were coming from himself as he spoke, his voice feeling detached from his consciousness as his mind focused on fully comprehending the situation.

“I can’t believe how stupid you are—” Your body forces a sharp breath to leave your mouth as it cools don from the adrenaline rushing through your system, and you pull Spencer backwards by his arm to stop the blood from Daniel’s body reaching his shoes. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I just- I don’t know,” Spencer gives up on trying to find an explanation for his actions before even really thinking about it. He knows there’s no use, because he really wasn’t thinking, it was just acting on instinct.

“You see this Reid?” You give the radio on his chest a pull with your hand, causing him to stumble forward towards you in the process. “It’s a radio, use it.” There’s no denying the insurmountable rage in your tone as you berate Spencer for his carelessness, something that he most definitely deserves as he stands there nodding at you like an idiot.

You let go of his radio with a small push, sending him stumbling backwards this time, and you take a second to compose yourself before pressing on your own radio to communicate with the rest of the team. “I’ve got Reid and the hostage alive. The unsub shot himself.”

“Copy that, we’re coming in.”

Hotch’s voice may as well be a leaf in the wind as Spencer puts his full focus into how absolutely furious you seem with him.

“I’m sorry—”

”Sorry isn’t good enough.” You ignore the arrival of your teammates in the house, how they carefully guide the hostage outside to get her looked over by the ambulance waiting outside and how they secure the scene for the forensics team to deal with. “You cannot throw your life away by running head first into a dangerous situation knowing you can’t defend yourself.”

“I thought—”

“What? That it’d be fine? That you all of a sudden had all the training you needed to talk down an armed serial killer with serious delusions that could leave you as his next victim?” Maybe you we’re being a bit too harsh on him, but it was important he understood exactly what could’ve gone wrong. “You might be a genius Reid, but you are the dumbest goddamn person I have ever met.”

Spencer presses his lips together into a line at your declaration, lowering his head until his gaze is firmly planted on the floor.

“You are not an expendable resource, you can’t be replaced, and you need to understand that before you throw yourself into a possible line of fire do you understand me?” You ignore the lingering gaze of Hotch as you continue your verbal assault on Spencer, and you know you’ll probably get an earful yourself for being so hard on him, but he gave you a real scare, and you were expressing that to him in the way that suited you most.

“Yes I understand, I’m sorry…” The slight waver of his voice as he responds to you is enough to knock your anger down a peg, and you drag your hand down your face with a sigh.

“We were scared for you Reid, you could’ve died.”

“I know…”

You give another soft sigh at the voice he barely keeps his voice controlled as he whispers out his answer to you, on the verge of tears from your thorough verbal assault.

“Don’t do it again. I thought I’d lost you.” You lift up one of your hands to put it on his shoulder, although it lands closer to the curve of his neck, prompting his face upwards to meet your eyes once more. “And as much as you can be idiotic, the team needs you alive.”

He gives you a soft hum as an answer this time, not trusting his voice to not crack if he were to speak properly.

He tries not to focus on the warmth of your hand on his neck, nor on the fact that you’d said ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ when talking about being concerned for his safety under fear of only worsening his attempts at keeping himself composed.

Your gaze softens marginally as you spot the glassiness of his eyes, and for a second he swears that the protective shield you cover yourself with disappears to show the amount of concern you truly felt for him.

“I’m okay… I promise,” He nods softly at you with rounded eyes. He’s mildly flattered by how much you care, but he doesn’t want you to show it as concern, positive emotions suited you much better he thinks.

“You’re lucky, and it won’t last forever,” You use you hand against his shoulder to turn him around, pushing him gently towards the front door and using the opportunity of him not facing you to swallow the start of your own tears, clearing your throat into your elbow as he takes your lead in leaving the house.

“Reid,” Hotch is on top of the two of you before you even walk out the door. “Go and meet Morgan by the ambulance, I want you checked over,”

“But—“

“Go,” Hotch’s inherent ability to be authoritative trumps Spencer’s resistance immediately, and Spencer begrudgingly leaves your side with a small “yes sir,” to go and be checked out by one of the EMTs.

You attempt to follow him at first, but you’re promptly stopped by Hotch raising his hand in your direction, and then gesturing you over to him.

“Berating somebody for running into a dangerous situation head first with how you responded is very—“

“Hypocritical, I know,” You interrupt the end of Hotch’s sentence by finishing it yourself. “But if he hadn’t gotten into that situation in the first place then I wouldn’t have had to respond the way I did,”

“I understand you care about Reid,” Hotch crosses his arms over his chest, and although there is zero malice in his expression or his tone, you can still tell that he’s not exactly happy with you right now. “But you also need to be more careful with how you handle yourself,”

You narrow your gaze at him a little, and he mirrors it right back at you. “You can’t worry about keeping Reid alive if you’re not alive yourself, you need to be more careful, understand?”

“Yes sir,” The words are almost begrudging as they leave your mouth, but you know he’s right really. Running in after Spencer without a second thought and then berating him for being reckless was hypocritical, and you probably deserved to be reprimanded for it.

—

“You really gave her a scare you know,” Morgan speaks, prompted by Spencer’s very obvious lingering glances in your direction as you speak with Hotch.

“I know,” Spencer sighs dejectedly as he finally removes his eyes from you to allow the paramedic in front of him to check his pupillary response. “She made sure of that,”

“She cares about you Reid,” Morgan gives him a squeeze on his shoulder. “You’re gonna give the poor girl a heart attack if you keep this up,”

“That’s quite dramatic, the chances of somebody going into cardiac arrest from shock is extremely low, only 5% of all cases, and technically it would actually be cardiogenic shock, which isn’t a heart attack,”

“It’s a figure of speech Reid,” Morgan gives him a small playful shove after the paramedic has finished his evaluation, rolling his eyes. “Point is, you scared her, and I don’t know whether to be amazed or concerned at the fact that’s even possible,”

“She’s just as likely to be afraid as anyone else,” Spencer bites his cheek at Morgan’s declaration, unsure whether he should feel guilty or flustered at just how much you seemed to care about him, from the words of the rest of the team anyway.

“I mean yeah we were all worried about you, but she ran head first into the house with a potentially manic shooter inside, by herself, after Hotch told her to wait for backup,” Morgan gives Spencer a light nudge with his elbow, raising his eyebrows with an amused expression. “You know what I call that? Favouritism,”

Spencer lets out a small airy laugh, shaking his head as he stands from the edge of the ambulance.

“Face it pretty boy, you’re stuck with her for life, even if it means she follows you into an early grave,” The teasing in Morgan’s voice is unmistakeable, but his words ring truth either way. “Let’s just make sure you don’t end up in an early grave alright?”

“Yeah—” Spencer lets out another small breath through his mouth as Morgan pats his hand between his shoulder blades, gesturing for Spencer to follow him towards the rest of the team with a nod of his head.

Spencer doesn’t want to cut himself short just yet, especially if that means you’ll serve yourself the same fate. Although the idea of having you accompany him, even if it did mean in whatever lies after death, didn’t sound like too bad of an idea.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid angst #criminal minds angst #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #climacteric 🪶

[reiding-writing]

hi red !! i'm sending through a rec for your climacteric event hehehehe <3

spencer reid x fem!reader with the colour prompts red 1 ("You're bleeding."), green 2 ("You're safe here, I promise."), and purple 1 ("You know you're my best friend, right?") please? LOVE YOU LOADS RAHHHH

SCARECROWS [CLIMACTERIC]

1. “You’re bleeding.”

2. “You’re safe here, I promise.”

1. “You know that you’re my best friend, right?”

WARNINGS: reader injury, blood duh, mentions of being stabbed <3

spencer reid x reader || hurt/comfort || 1.6k || event page!!

a/n: you adding the direct quotes made my job so much easier in finding them rip 😭 thanks for the request ml <333

main masterlist!! ⋆｡°✩ event masterlist!!

Sometimes you wondered why you joined the FBI.

If by making one different decision you’d be in a completely different career in a different part of the country with a husband and children living in a two story house with a white picket fence.

Spencer would probably fill you in on the butterfly effect, how a single flap of a butterfly’s wings could change the trajectory of the wind and spin into a tornado, or in your case, leave you stranded and unarmed in an overgrown cornfield with your only company being the crows flying overhead.

It was arguably, definitely, your fault, but what were you supposed to do when the unsub was running off into the night after you’d finally tracked him down.

He’d slipped under the radar for too long, you weren’t going to let it happen again.

Though you weren’t going to lie, you were starting to regret not waiting for the rest of the team.

How were you supposed to know that the welfare check you were sent on would turn into a chase?

They were twelve minutes out last time you checked. You didn’t have signal anymore, who knew how close they were now.

All you knew was that you were a sitting duck with an empty magazine in an unfamiliar location with a light level so low you could barely see your own feet.

You’d lost the unsub a good few minutes ago, and you weren’t about to stand around with nothing to protect yourself with, so you started running back the way you came, hopeful that it would bring you out back at the farmhouse, with floodlights and a phone signal.

You weren’t that lucky.

You never were.

—

“Oh my god—“ Emily sounds like she’s seen a ghost as she cups her left hand over her mouth, her right lowering to her side until her gun is limply resting in her fingers.

Her face is a mix of relief, astonishment and absolute horror, and as the team follow her gaze they mirror one by one until the whole group is frozen in abject shock.

You were alive, thank god, but you were also stumbling backwards out of the corn field like a final girl in a horror movie, completely disheveled and torn up with your attention completely focused on the rows of stalks in front of you like you were afraid something was going to pop out and finish you off.

The sight was enough for Spencer to feel like he was going to throw up his stomach, although whether out of relief or anxiety he wasn’t exactly sure.

Either way he was pocketing his gun and practically sprinting in your direction the second he got a full view of you, no care for what you were running from in his mind whatsoever.

At least you were okay.

“Hey-” His hand barely grazes over your shoulder before your instincts kick in and you swing your elbow outwards with the intent of sending it straight into his face.

It hits him directly underneath his nose, sending his neck back sharply to stop any worse injury occurring under the force of your arm.

It doesn’t deter him though, and he doesn’t so much as even cover his nose from the pain as he takes your arms in his hands to swivel you in his direction so that you can see that you aren’t in danger.

“Hey- Hey, it’s just me you’re okay, you’re safe here I promise,”

The flicker of absolute terror in your eyes makes him swear his heart is going to shatter, and even as he watches it fizzle out under the realisation that he wasn’t someone to be afraid of that small pit in his stomach didn’t disappear.

You looked bad.

Your hands were grazed and raw, you were covered in mud, half of your shirt had been ripped from the hem and tied around your left thigh — presumably as some sort of makeshift bandage, and you were so much paler than you usually were, all of the colour completely drained from your face until you looked almost translucent under the mix of moonlight and blared foglights.

“You’re bleeding— Did I do that? I’m sorry—” You reach up your hand towards and he swerves to take it in his own with a shake of his head, clasping his fingers gently around your shaking palms, careful not to irritate the angry red covering them.

“Don’t worry about me, are you okay? What happened?” His eyes roam anxiously over your frame, lingering specifically on the torn piece of fabric around your thigh that is slowly but surely turning from a charcoal grey to a dark maroon the longer you stand talking.

“I- He ran and- and I followed him and then I lost him and- I don’t- He doubled back on me and I didn’t-” Half of the words coming out of your mouth were almost completely incoherent, and he could see your pupils refusing to dilate even under the direct beam of one of the SUVs’ headlights.

“Okay okay, calm down, take a breath for a second,” Spencer gives your arms a small squeeze to cut off your attempt at an explanation, glancing over your shoulder where the team is still grouped together, with Morgan and Hotch on the phone — presumably for an ambulance and some backup respectively— and the others watching you cautiously, unsure whether they should join in on Spencer’s examination of your health.

“How did you hurt your leg?” You follow Spencer’s gaze downwards towards your thigh, and it’s like the second your eyes recognise what it is you completely loose control of all of your motor functions from waist down.

“Woah—” Spencer takes the sudden change in your weight distribution in his stride, or at least he tries to, shifting his arms underneath your armpits to stop you from hitting the ground underneath you and supporting your weight with his own as he stumbles a few steps backwards. “Guys—”

Emily is at your side immediately, alleviating some of your weight onto herself so the two of them can hold you upright.

“He had a weapon…” You wince under the searing pain in your leg, the adrenaline wearing off fast and hard now that your body knows it’s no longer in danger.

“What kind of weapon?” The concern seeps from Spencer’s voice to soak into your skin, leaving your heart to accelerate under the knowledge that you were injured bad.

“A uh… fork, like a gardening fork… He stabbed me with it…” Although more coherent now, your voice was slowly fading into small mutters and whispers, like the exhaustion in your body was catching up to your mind and making even your tongue too languished to move. “I’m really tired…”

“Hey no- not yet-” Emily shakes her head with a conviction. “There’s an ambulance on the way, you have to stay awake until then,”

“But…”

“Emily‘s right, stay awake you’ll be fine,” Spencer sounds like he’s more trying to convince himself than you as him and Emily support your weight back towards the cluster of SUVs, and the added weight of your head resting against his shoulder doesn’t help his anxiety whatsoever. “Hey, come on…”

He lifts his shoulder slightly to shift your head and you let out a soft noise of discontentment. “I’m awake I’m awake, just conserving my energy…”

“Just keep your eyes open okay?”

You give him a small hum as the two of them sit you down on the hood of one of the cars, and Emily leaves you in Spencer’s care to check with Morgan on the arrival of the ambulance.

“You know that you’re my best friend, right?” You turn your head a little further into Spencer’s shoulder as he becomes the sole pillar of your support, blinking slowly in an attempt to keep your eyes open.

“Don’t say that to me right now,” He shakes his head with furrowed eyebrows, a dark line forming between his eyes as the skin pinches together in his worry.

“But you are though,”

“You can remind me of that after you’re in the hospital,”

“I hate hospitals,” You let out a small, fatigued huff, rolling your eyes at the prospect. “I’m gonna be in there for god knows how long and I just wanna find this guy before he hurts anyone else…”

“Well, he has hurt you, and that’s what’s important right now,” Spencer’s tone contradicts itself between concern and relief. You’re alive, but you’re not in good shape. “We need to make sure that you’re okay before anything else,”

And in an act of holy divination — or just coincidence if Spencer was concerned — right as he mentions making sure that you’re okay the blaring lights of the called ambulance come into view, joined by a shrill, sharp ring that seems to echo over the field.

You all but hobble over to it once it’s parked, successful only in the fact that Spencer is actually supporting more of your weight than you were.

At least he stays by your side the entire time.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #mgg #spencer reid angst #criminal minds angst #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #climacteric 🪶

[reiding-writing]

hello!!!! could i get a continuation fic for "breaking the ice"? this time it could be like after a hard case and reader actively seeks out spencer for comfort (CONGRATS ON 1K FOLLOWERS!!! <33)

BREAKING DOWN [CLIMACTERIC]

/ˈbreɪ.kɪŋ daʊn/

spencer just wants to be there for you when you need him, but you get overwhelmed by his constant worrying and push him away, only to crawl right back into his embrace when you really need it.

WARNINGS: fem!reader, reader is mean to spencer in the beginning but apologises later, child death, guilt, reader having an emotional breakdown, angst to hurt/comfort

spencer x cold!reader | hurt/comfort | 2.4k | climacteric event

a/n: hit two birds with one stone for this one, god sometimes i forget how much i like writing characters suffering man-

this fic is a continuation of ‘breaking the ice’, but can be read as a stand alone!

main masterlist!! ⋆｡°✩ cold!reader masterlist!!

climacteric event masterlist!!

You felt like an idiot the first time Spencer caught you crying, failing to compose yourself in the office bathroom for no good reason and looking like an absolute wreck because your brain had just decided it wanted to ruin your day.

There’d been a few times since then when he’d caught you on the brink of a breakdown, but you’d masked them better the more he tried to look into your psyche.

“It’s okay not to be okay sometimes,” He said those few months ago. “I’m here for you, whatever you need.”

That was all said and good but it didn’t mean that you wanted him to be there whenever you were overwhelmed or emotional. Sometimes you needed the space to work through your emotions on your own.

“Reid. Leave me alone.” You turn to him sharply, impatience written all over your features.

He’d been asking you about your emotions for the past fifteen minutes after noticing you turn down one of the sugary treats Garcia had brought into the office and using the small amount of favouritism you had towards him as leeway in terms of you not getting angry.

But you had your breaking point even with him.

The harshness spilling from your lips wasn’t something that was ever directed at him, so much so that it actually took him a second to register that it was him you were snapping at and not some invisible person standing behind him.

He didn’t even have time to respond to you. You were already around the corner by the time he’d come back to his senses.

He didn’t bother you after that.

At all.

There was no small talk at the beginning of the office days, no conversations on the jet between cases. He stopped waiting for you before leaving the office and picking you up coffee on days he knew you’d be late.

It threw you back in time to the first few years of working with him. And it seemed that the rest of the team was feeling the inherent ‘nostalgia’ as well, and not in a good way.

The small lingering glances and silent conversations you’d engage in had completely disappeared, and not having Spencer has the bridge of proper communication between you and the rest of the team made merging your psychological profile with the main behavioural profile for your most recent case three steps longer than it needed to be.

Because he was basically refusing to speak to you. Following your instructions to a T.

It didn’t help that it was a child case either. You always seemed to have issues with those. You worked twice as fast, but also made twice as many mistakes, and without someone like Spencer to filter your thoughts through to make sure that they were all objective it meant that your profile was lagging behind.

The child you were looking for died before you found him.

And by the time you’d reached the jet to fly back to Virginia, you’d already internalised his death as your fault.

You kept yourself together through the airport, through boarding and take-off and until you watched your team members fall into a blanket of uneasy sleep as everyone tried to brush off the emotional wreckage that they’d seen over the last few days and detach themselves from the child they’d failed to save.

You were usually pretty good at that part.

Separating yourself from your work came naturally for you, and it was something you were extremely grateful for when getting rest after a particularly hard case. But children were different.

They always were. Especially when it felt like you had a personal hand in their death.

With an internal sigh you accepted your fate of staring at the beige walls of the jet’s cabin until you inevitably couldn’t take it anymore and barricaded yourself in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight.

Now’s about the time where you’d probably distract yourself by starting Spencer on a tangent. Getting him to talk about something that was completely unrelated to the case you’d just sat through to drown out the voices inside of your head and allow you to rest peacefully despite yourself.

But you couldn’t do that right now.

Half because Spencer was already asleep and half because you’d pushed him away.

And now you had to lie in the hole you’d created for yourself.

You didn’t even end up making it into the bathroom.

You curled your legs up into yourself in the corner chair you’d bagged yourself, rested your elbows on your knees, and covered your face with your palms as the tears started a steady flow down your cheeks.

It was honestly one of the worst feelings in the world. Curled up into yourself with your hands cupped over your mouth to keep your staggered breathing quiet enough to not wake the other agents sleeping around the cabin.

As you sat there, the weight of your emotions pressing down on you like a heavy blanket, you couldn't shake the feeling of regret for pushing Spencer away.

His concern was always genuine, his presence a source of comfort even when you didn't realise you needed it. Now, in the silence of the jet cabin, his absence felt like a void.

Each tear that slipped from your eyes felt like another weight added to the burden you were already carrying.

The familiar ache in your chest threatened to consume you as you struggled to contain the flood of emotions threatening to spill over and wake your teammates.

Despite the exhaustion pulling at your bones, sleep remained unobtainable, lost in the emotional maze of regret and self-blame that you’d managed to lose yourself in to the point where you couldn’t even stand up to give yourself some privacy.

You felt utterly alone, isolated by your own actions in every sense of the word. Each passing minute stretched on for what felt like hours, dragging you deeper into the abyss of your thoughts.

You weren’t quiet enough apparently, and you hear a small shift from the long sofa to your right as your emotional breakdown seemingly catches someone’s ears to the point where they’ve woken up.

“…are-” Spencer’s voice is quiet and mildly groggy as he wakes from the sounds of your internal anguish, and he cuts himself off before getting his whole question out.

You wanted him to leave you alone.

“sorry…” He shifts onto his side until his back is facing you, not wanting to pry if you were uncomfortable with it but also not willing to watch you break down if he knew he couldn’t do anything about it.

“I’m not okay Reid…” Your words are caught in between stunted breaths and shaking movements. “I need help-”

Your words sent an ache right through his heart that made him think it was going to split in two. He can hear the tremor in your voice, the shakiness in your tone as you force yourself to be vulnerable with him. And it makes him want to join you in a fit of tears.

If you were actively reaching out like this, it had to be bad.

“I know…” His voice is barely above a whisper as he slowly turns his body, still hesitant to look you in the eyes but wanting to see your expression.

He doesn’t know if you want comfort or advice, but he knows which he’d prefer to give as his eyes land on your face and take in the sight of you, curled up into yourself with tear stains tracking down your cheeks in the cabin’s low lighting.

“But I don’t know how to…” The silence is the worst part of the conversation from his end of things – a silence that was deafeningly loud. His eyes dart between the cabin door and you.

But he doesn’t move. He doesn’t get up, or get closer. He just stays put.

He doesn’t know what to do.

“Tell me how to help you…”

“I don’t-” You barely get the chance to start speaking before your crying renders you effectively mute, your throat filled with sobs that leave your mouth into the palm of your hand as you attempt to silence yourself and not ruin anyone else’s slumber.

He can see your fingers trembling as you hold back the noise. From across the aisle, Spencer watches the way you shake until his stomach ties in a knot just from seeing you distressed.

But there’s nothing he can do.

“Can I try something?” He murmurs his words softly, like he’s afraid of frightening you further as he pulls himself upright on the couch seat to plant his feet firmly on the floor.

You answer him with a nod, too unstable to even think about trying to answer him verbally under the threat of breaking down further.

He pads across the aisle deftly, taking a seat in the chair beside your own and deftly bringing his arm across the back of your shoulders to rub lines against your back.

It’s a somewhat pathetic pat, a mix of fatigue and hesitation mixing in his movements and making his attempt at comforting you feel clumsy and mildly awkward.

But he was trying, and that was the main point.

The awkwardness really held no ground under your inherent need to just feel comforted in the moment, and you take no note of it as you turn your head into Spencer’s shoulder with your hand still cupped over your mouth as you tremble under his arms.

His hand becomes a little more confident once you accept his attempts.

He didn’t know how to help you.

He didn’t know how to soothe you.

And the thought of not being able to save you from yourself was tearing him up inside.

But the least he could do was this.

Spencer’s touch is gentle as he places his other hand onto the back of your head, fingers brushing along your hairline as he encourages you further into his embrace.

There’s nothing he should say right now, nothing he could say right now.

Whatever would come from him would be a string of false assurances he wasn’t sure he would even believe himself.

Instead, he settles for the soft touches, his gentle fingers and trying to soften your breathless sobs into something less heartwrenching.

It felt mildly awkward to be the source of someone else’s comfort — he’d usually been on the receiving end of it — but it was working, and he could slowly feel your shoulders relax under his hands, your sobs reducing to small sniffles as you calmed under Spencer’s influence.

“Breathe…” He whispered the words quietly against the top of your head, making a show of taking deep breaths that you could feel against his chest as a silent instruction for you to mirror.

The rise and fall of his chest underneath your hand was crucial in helping you slowly regulate your breathing to match his, the remnants of sniffles that caught in your throat slowly dissipating until they were non-existent.

The peak of your distress slowly eludes you as you sink down to a gradual calm, and the harsh beating of your heart against your sternum was slowly regulating itself as well until it was soft enough that it didn’t ring in your ears.

Spencer remains quiet as he continues to rub gentle lines over your spine. If he kept you him his grasp like this for long enough, your fatigue might catch up to you and make you fall asleep. And that would be alright with him.

“I shouldn’t have snapped at you for trying to help me,” You air out your half-apology once you’re confident enough that speaking won’t send you down another spiral, your words muffled slightly against his shirt.

It’s a sudden break to the small pocket of silence you’d created, and Spencer’s hand pauses for a fleeting second before continuing to trace its path over your back. “You were stressed and I pushed a limit, it was understandable…”

He wouldn’t lie to you and say that everything was alright and he didn’t take it personally. It did hurt for you to be so harsh to him, but hearing you try to apologise made it feel a little better at least.

“I just wanted to help…”

“I know…” You turn your head further into his shoulder until your face is hidden in the curve of his neck. “I’m sorry,”

Your apology, voiced properly this time, elicited a small sigh from his lips, and he adjusted his arm around you to accommodate the new position you were in.

The feeling of somebody leaning on him, relying on him so much for comfort was a rather novel experience. He liked his distance, his personal space, and his preference for not being touched always trumped anything else. But this was different.

“Don’t apologise…” Spencer shakes his head against yours as he murmurs out his words. “Just rest…”

You give him a small hum as your only indication of acknowledging his suggestion, letting out a small yawn into his neck as the consequences of your emotional breakdown catch up to you and riddle your body with fatigue.

You were practically melting into him by now, your weight resting against his side, but Spencer wasn’t complaining.

It made you seem so vulnerable, so small and relaxed and different from how you usually presented yourself to the world.

Once your yawn reached his ears he knew your body was preparing to slip into unconsciousness.

But he couldn’t bring himself to move away from you.

He’d seen you fall asleep before; he’d seen the way your mouth had parted slightly right before a small snore left your lips, the delicate rise and fall of your chest as your breathing evened out and the way your eyebrows furrowed when you fell into a dream.

He didn’t want to interrupt his comfort by moving away. So he didn’t. It wouldn’t hurt to hold you for a little bit longer.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid angst #criminal minds angst #mgg #climacteric 🪶 #asks 🫶

[reiding-writing]

REDDD ‼️ MAJOR CONGRATS FOR YOUR MILESTONE YOU DESERVE IT AHHHH

may i request 1 & 7 from the general dialogue prompts with spencer reid please 🥹🫶

SENDING YOU KISSES ☝️🤭😚 XOXO

POOL ‘PARTY’ [CLIMACTERIC]

/pul ˈpɑːrti/

1. “Okay, maybe I have a crush on you! So what?”

7. “I don’t want anyone else.”

WARNINGS: based on 01x18, minor lila slander, spencer thinking of someone else whilst making out with lila, arguing

spencer reid x gn!reader || flangst || 1.9k Il climacteric event!!

a/n: THANK YOU ML <3333 enjoy me dabbling back into my angst game again, with a happy ending ofc 🫶

main masterlist!! ⋆｡°✩ event masterlist!!

You approach Spencer with a raised eyebrow and a click of your tongue, eyes scanning over Spencer’s completely soaked appearance.

His eyes turn to you widened in surprise, but his expression quickly morphs into guilt as he meets your eyes. “I uh- fell in,”

“I’m sure there are plenty of photos of you ‘falling in’,” Your eyes narrow with a scoff, and you cross your arms over your chest in very clear disappointment at his recklessness.

“I- It really wasn’t meant to happen I swear-” You cut off Spencer’s attempt at an explanation by shoving a beach towel against his torso, and he lets out a small groan from the force.

“You have to be the stupidest person i’ve ever met.” Spencer flinches at your tone, hands wringing at the towel as he lowers his head.

He supposes he deserves the scolding, he’d broken so many rules of professionalism and put Lila’s life in danger.

The worst part was that he didn’t even enjoy it.

He’d ruined everything and didn’t even enjoy what he was risking everything for.

He truly was an idiot.

“I’m sorry-”

“I don’t want your apology.” You cut him off with a hand raised in his direction. “If you want to apologise to someone, apologise to Lila, because you won’t be seeing her for the rest of the case.”

Lila’s name is dripping with venom as it rolls off your tongue, and Spencer presses his lips into a tight line with a small nod in your direction.

It’s a proportional punishment, but it’s not like he wanted to see her again anyway. Even the thought of what he’d done made him want to punch himself.

“I really didn’t-” He stops himself this time, knowing that you don’t want to hear his excuses. “I’ll… go change now…”

“There’s clothes in the SUV.” He sighs dejectedly at the coyness in your tone, and he swears he’ll cry if you keep this up.

“Right…” He gives you a soft nod, and you have half the mind to feel bad about the way you’re treating him, but for some reason the image of the two of them in the pool together fills you with some unforeseen, insurmountable rage that you can’t seem to suppress.

After he’s changed and dry, he reapproaches the front of the house cautiously. He knows that he probably won’t be allowed back inside, but he also doesn’t want to hang around the SUV looking like an idiot, he’d made himself a big enough one already.

You’re the only one still outside, standing with your arms crossed with your eyes following his movements through your narrowed gaze.

You were still angry with him. Great.

He didn’t want you to be angry with him. That was the last thing he ever wanted.

“I…” Spencer exhales softly as he comes up short on something to say. You didn’t want him to apologise. You didn’t want him to explain himself. What was he supposed to say?

You answer his question for him with one of your own. “Was it worth it?”

He flickers his eyes towards yours, guilt and regret written all over his features. “No…”

“Didn’t think so.”

Spencer can feel the tears prick at his eyes as your tone continues to wash over him like an ice-cold shower, and he takes a shuddered breath in through his mouth, clearing his throat and blinking rapidly to keep his gaze clear.

“I didn’t want to… I didn’t even enjoy it…” He frowns through glassy eyes and you crumble almost immediately. How are you supposed to be angry at him when he looks like that?

“Why did you do it?” Your voice is considerably softer this time, and as much as Spencer is grateful for it, it doesn’t stop a single tear from trickling down his face.

“I don’t know-” He sighs heavily as he wipes his cheek with the back of his hand, running his other hand through the still damp mess of his hair.

He did know.

Kind of anyway.

He’d always prided himself on having a vivid imagination, one that he had been using during what happened with Lila.

And you could read his dishonesty immediately.

“Spencer.”

He knew he’d been caught. “I don’t want to talk about it,”

He crosses his arms over his chest defensively as he evades eye contact with you.

“Spencer.” You were going to get to the bottom of his reasoning behind breaking one of the cardinal rules of being an FBI agent.

“I was imagining that she was someone else okay?” He raises his voice slightly in his defensiveness, and you have to take a second to actually soak in his sentence and the implications of it.

“You- What?” You can do nothing but stare at him in a state of absolute shock at his confession.

“I was imagining that I was kissing somebody else…” He repeats his statement with much less vigour the second time around, biting the inside of his cheek.

“Does she know that?” You raise an eyebrow slightly as you ask your question. God knows you wouldn’t want to be kissing someone only to find out that they were thinking about somebody else the entire time.

“We had an argument about it before you guys turned up…”

So she did know. That made it a little better at least.

“So who was it then?”

Spencer turned his eyes back to yours again with a surprised expression. “What?-”

“Who were you thinking about?” You’re not sure exactly why you want to know who Spencer was thinking about during his little ‘pool party’, and you had a feeling you wouldn’t be satisfied with whatever answer you gave him, but some twisted part of your mind felt the need to know.

“I-” Spencer pressed his lips together tightly. “You don’t need to know that,”

“Why not?” You furrow your eyebrows as his defensiveness escalates again. “What’s there to hide?”

“Maybe I just don’t want my personal life being aired to the people I work with?” He mirrors your expression with his own as he rubs his hands up and down his arms.

“Fine, keep your secrets then,” you say, a hint of frustration in your voice. “But just know, you can't keep messing up like this. It's not just about you.”

"I know that," he returns your frustration with his own. “But who I’m interested in is nobody’s business except my own.”

“Why are you so defensive about this?”

“Why do you want to know who it is so badly?”

The tension crackles between you two, each word adding fuel to the fire of the argument.

“Because,” you retort sharply, “I need to know if I can trust you. If your mind is somewhere else when you're supposed to be focused on the mission, it puts everyone at risk,”

Was that the real reasoning behind why you wanted to know so badly? No. But you didn’t exactly know what was.

Spencer's jaw tightens, his eyes flashing with a mix of frustration and hurt. “You think I don't take this seriously? You think I don't care about the mission?”

“I don't know what to think anymore,” you admit, your voice softer now, but no less charged with emotion. “All I know is that you've been acting recklessly, and I can't afford to have that kind of distraction.”

“I'm not distracted,” Spencer protests, his voice tinged with desperation.

“You just verbally admitted to thinking about somebody else whilst making out with someone, that’s not distracted?” You gesture outwards exasperatedly. “We can’t be sure that you’ve got the right head in the game unless you say who you were thinking about.”

“It was you okay?” Spencer’s voice raises again as he throws out his arms in frustration. “Happy?”

You didn’t have the mental capacity to decide if you were happy.

You barely computed his answer in the first place. Were you happy that it was you? Was that the reason you pressed him so hard?

What on earth was happening?

“What-”

“Okay yeah, maybe I have a crush on you, so what?” Spencer continued to verbalise his defensiveness in exasperation. “It’s not like it was ever going to go anywhere.”

“You were thinking about me?” You still haven’t fully comprehended his confession yet, and Spencer mistakes your slowness for sarcasm.

“Yes. I was thinking about you. There’s no need to rub it in my face.” Spencer's frustration is palpable, his shoulders slumping as if the weight of the world rests upon them.

But beneath the frustration, there's a vulnerability, a rawness that tugs at your heartstrings.

You realise then that this argument, this tension between you, it's not just about the mission or the case—it's about something deeper, something you've both been trying to ignore or brush aside.

"I'm not trying to rub it in your face," you say softly, your voice barely above a whisper. "I'm just... trying to understand."

“I mean-” You fumble over your sentences as you try to make sense of everything. “Why would you kiss somebody else? Why would you imagine it was me whilst you did it? I just- I don’t get it,”

“I don’t want anybody else. I never wanted anybody else. But what was I supposed to do?” Spencer sighs as he takes his fingers through his hair.

“Tell me?”

“And have you rip me to pieces? I’d rather spend my whole life as just your friend than risk something like that-” He doesn’t have the chance to finish his sentence.

Your lips press against his hard, your hand anchored at the side of his neck as you take what you deem a reasonable action to get him to just stop talking for a second.

In your defence, it does work, all of Spencer’s frustration dying on his tongue as he slowly starts to reciprocate, his hands half-hesitantly coming up to cup your face so that he wouldn’t lose the contact with you even if you tried to pull away, which of course, you weren’t going to do unless strictly necessary.

He finally didn’t have to imagine what your lips would taste like anymore, and he wasn’t going to let the moment end before he got his fill of you.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid angst #criminal minds angst #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #mgg #climacteric 🪶

[reiding-writing]

congrats on 1k followers!!! u deserve it sm u're literally my favorite cm writer on here <333

i'd like to request spencer/cold!reader with 4 from blue (color prompts)

TRYPANOPHOBIA [CLIMACTERIC]

/ˌtaɪpənəˈfoʊbiə/

4. "Will you hold my hand?”

WARNINGS: fem!reader, needles, suturing, allusion to spencer’s past addiction, blood, reader injury

spencer x cold!reader | hurt/comfort | 1.6k | climacteric event

a/n: thank you <3333 made the quote a little more blunt bc yk, cold reader, but i think it works either way. cold!reader is slowly developing her own lore and i’m living for it honestly.

main masterlist! ⋆｡°✩ cold!reader masterlist!

⋆｡°✩ event masterlist! ✩°｡⋆

You’d consider yourself pretty strong, mentally and physically.

You’d had your fair share of bumps and scrapes in your job that’s left you in the temporary care of EMTs sat in the back of an open ambulance. You’d been hit, kicked, slashed, shot at, and basically every other thing that you could possibly think of.

And it always came out alright in the end.

Most of the time the paramedics didn’t have to do more than clean out your injury with an antiseptic wipe and send you on your way.

But your luck had to run out eventually.

You’d garnered yourself a pretty nasty gash on your left bicep, one that the paramedic said would probably scar even with stitches.

Of course it would.

Either way, he seated you down on the edge of the open ambulance prepped your arm in the hopes that having it stitched closed would at least minimise the mark left behind. But it was never going to be that easy.

—

Morgan nudged Spencer’s arm with his elbow, nodding his head over to where you were sat on the edge of the ambulance with a very firm look on your face as you shake your head at the paramedic in front of you, who is seemingly trying to explain something that you’re not listening to. “Something tells me the Ice Queen might want some backup,”

“She told me to leave her alone,” Spencer shrugs slightly through furrowed eyebrows, eyes fixed on you despite the fact that he’s talking to Morgan.

He was the one who pointed the gash out to you in the first place. He knew that you had a high pain tolerance, but to not at all notice the blood trailing down your arm— even with the adrenaline in your system —was absolutely insane to him.

You tried for almost two minutes to brush him off, but he managed to convince you to get check out by the ambulance eventually. Even if it did result in him being on the receiving end of one of your disgruntled glares.

He’d rather that than you getting an infection.

“Come on man she’s clearly not enjoying herself over there,” Morgan tilted his head at Spencer with a knowing look. “Go and do your thing before she gives the poor guy a heart attack,”

Spencer doesn’t really have an option as Morgan pushes his shoulder in your direction, sending him stumbling a few steps forward.

—

“I said no.”

“Please miss it’s to make you more comfortable-”

“You are not putting that in my arm.”

“Is everything okay over here?” Spencer furrows his eyebrows, catching the tail end of your argument with the paramedic as he approaches you. “Are you alright?”

“I would be if this fucking-“ You exhale heavily through your nose to compose yourself.

It’s not his fault. He’s trying to help you. Don’t think about smashing his face into the tarmac.

“I don’t see why you need to stick me for a strip of butterfly stitches.” Your eyes are cold and unwavering as you glare right into the paramedic’s soul, and Spencer can see him take a small step backwards to steady himself under your scrutiny.

“I told you miss, butterfly stitches aren’t viable for your injury, they wouldn’t hold. You’ll have to have traditional sutures,” The paramedic argues his point hesitantly, but Spencer is surprised he’s even managing to argue in the first place with how harsh your expression is.

“Getting stitches for a serious injury can reduce the risk of infection by up to 86%,” Spencer takes a seat at your side cautiously, his eyes soft and non-confrontational as he tries to mediate your seething refusal to the idea of getting your injury stitched.

It looked bad. Something that he’s sure most people probably would’ve passed out from under the combination of pain and the fountain of red spurting from inside it.

“You need to get it treated…”

“I don’t do needles. It isn’t going to happen.” You don’t look at Spencer as you voice your reason for refusing medical attention, but you don’t have to, he can practically feel the anxiety radiating from you the second the possibility leaves your mouth.

You had a fear of needles.

Now that was something he never expected from you.

To be honest he was under the general impression that you weren’t afraid of anything. Especially not needles.

But he couldn’t exactly blame you either.

He also hated needles, although he was sure his reasoning was different from yours.

Either way, he knew what the anxiety felt like. But it didn’t change the fact that you needed stitches. That gash wasn’t going to heal on it’s own.

“Hey, uh,” Spencer bit the inside of his cheek as he spoke to you, glancing between the back of your head and the paramedic stood with an anaesthetic needle in hand, expression furrowed with no idea of how to convince you into letting him do his job. “There are several methods for effectively dealing with phobias during situations like this, I can walk you through one if you’d like?”

“I’m not getting a needle in my arm, let alone multiple.” You turn your sternness in your decision towards Spencer for the first time, and he almost folds immediately under the harshness of your glare. But he doesn’t, and his resistance to your defences is beginning to become increasingly torturously frustrating.

“The best first step is to turn away from the area of insertion,” Spencer moves his gaze from you to the paramedic and gives him a small, almost imperceptible nod to move forward. “Then you should focus on finding a suitable breathing pattern,”

“Reid I’m not-” There’s a sharp sting in your left shoulder that cuts your sentence short, and your eyebrows furrow and then rise in a mix of pain and shock as you turn your head just in time to see the top of the now empty needle leave your arm.

“Distraction is usually the easiest option…”

You turn to look at Spencer again with a look of absolute betrayal on your face, your eyes narrowed so far that it almost looks like your scleras are blackened through only your pupils being visible. You open your mouth to say something, but nothing except an astonished breath leaves your mouth.

“I’m sorry…” Spencer presses his lips together with a guilty expression. He couldn’t quite determine whether you wanted to shout at him or cry, and it was one of those times where he was reminded that you were a real person with real emotions underneath the wall of ice you protect yourself with. “It’s really in your best interest I promise,”

The paramedic gives you a guilty look of his own as he returns with a suturing needle attached to some thread. “You won’t feel anything I promise, just keep your eyes on your friend alright?”

“I am so going to kick your ass for this.” You turn your head as far away from the paramedic as possible as you reluctantly accept your fate, hissing your words out through your teeth as you face Spencer directly.

“I know,” Spencer gives you a small nod, guilt still riddling his features as he sighs. “I’m sorry,”

“Hold my hand.” You extend your right hand out towards him, palm upwards expectantly.

“I- what?” Spencer stares at it like he’s never seen a hand before in his life.

“You’re putting me through this, it’s the least you can do.”

He slips his hand into yours cautiously, your grip immediately tightening to a point where your knuckles clash together almost uncomfortably and his palm bumps into yours.

It’s enough to make his cheeks bloom red and his throat go dry, and yet you seem entirely unaffected apart from the tenseness in your shoulders in the anticipation of feeling the suturing needle in your arm.

It doesn’t come.

“All finished. Keep them dry for the next week or so and they should dissolve on their own,” Your eyebrows furrow as you break your stare on Spencer to look back towards the paramedic and then down to your arm. He’d literally stitched it shut without you feeling anything.

“…Thank you,” You still look absolutely furious, anger still coating your words, but you’re thankful nonetheless, and the paramedic gives you a short smile.

“Thank your friend, he did the hard work,” He gestures towards Spencer with a nod before leaving the two of you to regroup with the rest of the EMTs.

You watch the paramedic walk away for a few seconds before you turn your attention back to Spencer, and his eyes are already locked on you as you meet his eyes.

“Are you- uh- ready to go back to the station?”

You give him a short nod as you stand, inadvertently pulling him to his feet alongside you through your still connected hands.

They stay that way as you reapproach the rest of the team, and none of them have the gall to mention it under the lingering discomfort in your narrowed gaze as Spencer helps you into the car.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid angst #criminal minds angst #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #mgg #climacteric 🪶

[reiding-writing]

congrats on 1000 followers!! I love your fics sm <333

could I request early seasons!spencer x bau!reader with prompts 12&19 from the general dialogue list?

maybe some inexperienced!reader and fluff??

A MUTUAL SECRET [CLIMACTERIC]

12. “You can’t tell anyone. Seriously. Even them.”

19. “I think about you all the time.”

WARNINGS: N/A

s1!spencer reid x gn!reader || fluff || 1.0k || climacteric event!!

a/n: tyy <333 this was so cute to write man 😭

main masterlist!! ⋆｡°✩ event masterlist!!

Oh to think that you’d managed to worm your way into a relationship with Spencer Reid.

More like he’d wormed himself into a relationship with you.

First it was him making an extra coffee and sitting it on your desk. Then it was waiting for you before leaving the office so you could get the metro together. Then it was inviting you over for movie nights and getting tickets for the philharmonic orchestra.

And then all of a sudden you were going out for dinner and he’d bought you flowers and then you were kissing under your porch canopy.

It was a lot.

It was the first real relationship you’d ever had. The first serious relationship. A relationship that involved full transparency and trust and vulnerability that you’d never shared with somebody before.

“Can we uh, talk for a second?” You dump your go-bag on your hotel bed, watching as he does the same for his own. You’d managed to pair up pretty inconspicuously, the hotels were usually doubled up for simplicity reasons, and you and Spencer being so close even before you got together allowed you to snatch him as your roommate with no suspicion from any of your teammates.

“Yeah, are- are you alright?” Spencer furrows his eyebrows in concern, walking around his bed towards yours, rubbing his hand deftly over your left bicep. “Is something wrong?”

“No no it’s nothing like that,” You shake your head quickly, bringing up your right hand to rest on the curve of his neck. “I just wanted to speak about something with you,”

“Okay…” He gives you a small nod, offering no resistance as you guide him to sit on the edge of the bed with you, your hands sliding down his arms to hold his.

“So,” You give his hands a soft squeeze as you start, trying to shatter the growing anxiety in his irises before it can wash over his entire face. “I really like you Spencer, and these last few months have arguably been the best of my life, even with all the crazy shit we go through at work,”

You laugh toward the end of your sentence, and it’s contagious enough for a smile to break out onto his face as well, but that small well of anxiousness still lingered behind his gaze, anticipating the turn of the conversation. “But..?”

“But nothing,” You let go of one of his hands to cup the side of his face, your thumb rubbing over his cheek. “I look forward to where this relationship is headed,”

“Okay- uh- me too…” He nods slowly against your palm, bringing his hand up to cover your own. “So, what is this about then..?”

“I know we’re profilers, and no one really listens to the ‘don’t profile your team’ rule, but uh, I’m not sure that I’m ready to them that were… together yet,”

“Oh- right yeah- that’s- that’s it? That’s all?” You can see his eyes visibly relax at your confession, like he’s physically relived it’s not something worse.

“You’re not- upset? Angry?”

“Why would I be?” He turns his head further into your hand. “Our relationship is about me and you, not the team,” He laughs softly against your palm, one that you reciprocate with a soft smile.

“Good- good okay…” You laugh softly with a short nod. “I’ve been uh thinking about how to bring it up to you, a lot, I think about you a lot in general though, like most of the time actually—”

“I think about you all the time,” Spencer’s confession cuts off your own, and you both stare at each other blankly for a few seconds before bursting into a shared fit of quiet giggles.

It was like the two of you were a pair of teenagers in your first ever relationship. To be fair it was your first ever relationship. For the both of you.

“Seriously though—” Once your giggles subsided you tugged him closer to you, resting your foreheads together. “You can’t tell anyone, seriously, even them okay? Not until we’ve got this properly figured out,”

“Sounds good to me,” he nods against you gently, bumping your noses together. “I still get to keep you either way,”

“I’m all yours Doc,” You link your arms around his neck, leaning forward like you’re going in for a kiss and swerving at the last second to bury your head into his shoulder and pull him down until you’re both laying flat across the mattress of your twin-sized hotel bed.

“I think this bed is a little small to support the both of us-” Spencer laughs as he turns onto his side, anchoring his hand over your waist. “why don’t we—”

“—push them together?”

“Push them together?”

The two of you sound like synched metronomes with how perfectly you match suggestions, and it’s enough to send you both into another fit of giggles as you nod enthusiastically at your shared idea.

“Okay, you get this one and i’ll get the other one,” Spencer sits up with pointed fingers as he lays out your plan, and the giggling for continues right up until you’re both tucked up under the sheets like two desperately in love peas in a pod.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fluff #spencer reid fluff #mgg #climacteric 🪶

[reiding-writing]

hi! first of all, congrats! can i request something from the colours list, blue - 3?

CRUSHED UP [CLIMACTERIC]

/krʌʃt ʌp/

Blue - 3. "Did you take your medication?”

WARNINGS: established relationship, injured reader, pills

spencer reid x gn!reader || fluff || 0.8k || event page!!

a/n: based on my own hatred for tablets that don’t have a hard coating over them 🫶

main masterlist!! ⋆｡°✩ event masterlist!!

Your groan practically echoes through the apartment, a sure fire announcement of your reluctant wake into the real world.

You’d languished in your fatigue for the last few days, spending your time bundled up underneath Spencer’s scented sheets in the hopes that breathing in his pure essence would relieve you of the absolute agony searing through your left shoulder.

It did not.

It was arguably better when he was lying in bed with you, but Spencer was an avidly early riser, meaning that you always woke up in bed alone. Granted, most of the time it meant you woke up with an in-home room service, but you didn’t care about food right now, you just wanted Spencer to hold you until the pain went away.

It was collateral damage of your job unfortunately. When you’re chasing after armed suspects, you were bound to get shot at some point, it was just basic probability. But damn did it not hurt like a bitch.

You sitting upright was like the nail in the coffin, a sharp pain tearing through the muscles of your back until you could feel it in your hips as you dragged yourself out of bed, another pained groan leaving your mouth in it’s wake.

You drag yourself all the way to the kitchen, following the sound of the coffee machine until you drape yourself over Spencer’s back and lean on him until you’re not supporting your own weight anymore.

“Good morning-” He lets out a small huff as he shifts to support the new weight, a small chuckle leaving his mouth as your forehead comes into contact with his shoulder.

“No good, just morning…” Your voice is drenched in a mix of fatigue and anguish, and Spencer has to stifle a smile so that he doesn’t look like he’s finding amusement in your pitiful state. “What are you making..?”

You don’t sound all that interested in his answer as you worm your arms underneath the t-shirt his wearing to run your hands over his torso. Your freezing cold hands that make Spencer physically jolt from the temperature difference, although he doesn’t make any move to stop you from warming yourself against him like he’s a human radiator.

“Toaster waffles?” He laughs lamely at his own answer. “I was going to make omelettes but we’ve run out of eggs,”

You give him a soft hum as an acknowledgment of his answer, your nose buried in his shoulder with your eyes closed as you try to focus on the soft pulse in his neck instead of pulsating pain in your back.

“Still hurting?” He halts his coffee making momentarily to rub his hand over the section of forearm that hasn’t disappeared under his shirt, letting the side of his head rest against yours.

“Mhm…” You nod tiredly against his neck. “It’s like someone’s taking a hammer and chisel to my shoulder blade,”

He gives a soft sigh as your answer, turning his head to press a kiss against your temple. “Have you taken your medication?”

“Not yet…” It’s your turn to sigh now, shaking your forehead against the fabric of his t-shirt. “It doesn’t do anything…”

“You need to take it angel, even if you don’t think it’s doing anything,” He eases your arms from around him so he can turn around and face you properly. “Studies suggest that 54% of adult americans stop taking their course of medication before they’re supposed to because they feel like the medication isn’t doing anything for them anymore, which isn’t true,”

He pulls you back into his arms again, careful to not bump your shoulder whilst also trying to relieve the dull ache you’re feeling by massaging soft circles against your spine. “It’s the only thing stopping you from getting an infection and needing another surgery, so please humour me okay?”

“Okay…” You agree reluctantly, pressing your lips against his neck in a series of fatigued open-mouth kisses. “Can I crush them at least? They taste horrible..”

He gives you a soft hum of approval and a nod, swaying you back and forth gently in his grasp in an attempt to wash away the sleep ravaging your body. “Of course angel, i’ll mix them into your coffee,”

“Thank you…”

“Of course baby,” He leaves a sticky kiss against the crown of your head. “I love you,”

“I love you too Spence…”

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #mgg #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #climacteric 🪶

[reiding-writing]

HI AT FIRST I WANT TO SAY CONGRATULATIONS, AND I REALLY LOVE YOUR WORKS, LITERALLY ALL OF YOUR WORKS OMGGG

can i get a fic for number 22 and 23 of the general dialogue prompts for the climacteric event? maybe with a little angst at first but end it with a fluff?

THANK YOU SM, ILY ANGEL<3333

REUNION [CLIMACTERIC]

22. “I think I missed you more than you missed me.” 

23. “I thought I’d lost you.”

WARNINGS: minor spoilers for the prison arc, bro is just a little guy who needs a hug fr

spencer x gn!reader | hurt/comfort | 0.8k | climacteric event!!

a/n: THANK YOU <3333 a little less angsty than originally planned but full of wonderfully sad emotions 😭

main masterlist!! ⋆｡°✩ event masterlist!!

After 84 days of damn near radio silence, you were finally standing in front of Spencer Reid again.

He looked thinner than before, dark purple bags collecting under his eyes and cheekbones more prominent under the harsh florescent lighting. His hair was longer, curling over his forehead and at the nape of his neck, and there was no spark in his gaze anymore, his scleras a blank slate of absolutely nothing; Like all human emotion had been washed away in those short three months.

Except it didn’t feel short.

It felt like the longest god damn three months of your life and you weren’t even the one in the prison. You can’t imagine how long it felt for Spencer.

But at least now he was home.

Home and safe. For the most part anyway.

“Hi,” You speak almost breathlessly, wringing your hands together behind your back to suppress the urge to just throw yourself at him in relief that he wasn’t suffering behind bars anymore.

“Hi,” God how you missed his voice, flowing through your ear canals like silk and making you melt at his greeting like he’d recited some niche romantic poetry in your ear.

He looked like he was holding back just as much as you were. His fingers tugged the cuffs of his sleeves against his palm, and he traded gazes between you and the floor as he swayed ever so slightly on his feet in an attempt to relive the nervous tension running through his body.

It was like the two of you were locked in a stalemate, neither wanting reach out under the shared knowledge that you’d both break if you do.

But you’d waited eighty four days to see him again, and god would be damned if you had to wait any longer.

“I missed you…”

You swear you can see Spencer’s self-restraint shatter the second the words leave your mouth, and he takes a step forwards to anchor his hand around your back and pull you against his chest, his head pressed securely against your shoulder as he breathes you in.

You return his efforts fervently, bringing your arms up to rest over his shoulders with one splayed in his curls as you hold him tight to you, like you’re afraid it’s the last time you’ll ever get the chance to do so before he disappears again.

“I think I missed you more than you missed me…” His words are muffled against the cotton of your shirt as he buries himself as deep into your embrace as he can, his hands connecting together behind your back as he squeezes you as securely as possible.

You wouldn’t be able to get out of his hold if you tried, but that was the last thing you were worried about.

“That’s not true,” You shake your head against the side of his, sighing next to his ear as you turn to speak into his hair. “I really thought you weren’t coming back… I thought I’d lost you…”

You swear Spencer sinks further into your arms as you confess your lingering worries even though it isn’t humanly possible with ho tightly you’re holding onto each other already. “I’m here… I’m okay…”

“I’m so glad…” Your voice cracks, and that’s it.

You knew you’d break once you finally got him in your arms again, but this has gotta be a record.

Your shoulders begin to tremble softly as the first tears leave your eyes, and Spencer unlinks his hands to rub them in lines over your back.

And then you’re sobbing into his shoulder. Your tears dapple the beige-grey of his blazer, leaving dark stains in their wake, and the hand wrapped around his back leaves wrinkle in the fabric from how tightly you’re holding onto him.

It doesn’t take long for Spencer to mirror your emotional state as he turns his head into your neck, the moisture of his own tears falling down the line of your neck and under the collar of your shirt.

In any other instance you’d probably find it mildly uncomfortable, but you didn’t exactly have the mind to care right now. You finally had Spencer in your arms again, that was worth anything.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid angst #criminal minds angst #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #mgg #climacteric 🪶

[reiding-writing]

OH MY GODDDD CONGRATS IN 1 MILLION FOLLOWERS ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

Could I request the colours red, with dialogue prompts 1 and 3 <3333

HANDKERCHIEF [CLIMACTERIC]

1. “You're bleeding.”

3. "They're so hot."

WARNINGS: mildly suggestive, guns, blood

spencer reid x gn!reader || ???? || 1.3k || climacteric event!!

a/n: add 3 zeros and then i’m at a million 😌 you see my vision of hot people (even though you don’t even watch the show 😭😭😭)

main masterlist!! ⋆｡°✩ event masterlist!!

Sometimes you wished you’d taken Morgan up on his offer for you to join his daily gym sessions, you did not do enough cardio to be chasing an armed assailant around without feeling the effects of it on your lungs.

He’d actually run out of pistol bullets about a quarter of a mile ago, so at least he wasn’t actively shooting at you any more, but you were still reeling from the shortness of oxygen in your system.

You were half debating giving up on the chase entirely. Spencer and Morgan were already way ahead of you and you were just playing catch up. Surely they’d be able to handle it on their own.

Or maybe not.

You can just barely see Spencer reach out to grab the unsub as he rounds a corner, and instead of actually managing to stop him, he’s met with a sharp hit from the back of the pistol in the unsub’s hand.

The sound of the contact makes you flinch a little, and you abandon your plans of catching up to Morgan as he continues the chase as you stop at the corner to check if Spencer is alright.

“Hey-” You call out to him breathily, staggering yourself to a stop through broken inhales once you’re a few feet away from his back. “Are you okay?-”

You hear a low groan from him, presumably in pain — which you definitely can’t blame him for — and then he’s turning to face you and your jaw practically drops to the floor like one of those cartoon characters.

He has his hand cupped under his nose, dark red spilling down the expanses of his fingers and pooling in his palm to leave small droplets on the floor below him, his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes narrowed as he hisses through the pain.

“You’re bleeding-”

“I’m alright-” He gives you a half nod, his nose scrunching slightly as it brushes the side of his index finger and sends another sharp wave of pain up his septum.

You watch a small trail of blood trickle over the back of his hand, falling down between the crevices of his knuckles until it collects underneath his pinkie finger and lets gravity pull it onto the concrete at your feet with wide eyes, blatantly staring with no acknowledgement of what he’d said whatsoever.

“You don’t have to look so shocked, it’s really not that bad,” Spencer uses his left hand to tug a handkerchief from his pocket that replaces his right under neath his nose, the white fabric slowly turning red as his blood spreads through the fibres. “It’s probably not even broken,”

You again don’t acknowledge his attempts at waving off his worries, your eyes following his right hand as he lets it rest at his side, separated slightly from his leg so he didn’t stain his new slacks to instead let the lingering blood fall down to his fingertips.

Spencer furrows his eyebrows at your apparent distraction, causing another wave of pain to shoot up his nose and eliciting a pained groan from his lips.

It didn’t help your situation.

“Are you- Uh- Hello?” He tilts his head slightly at you, with a raised eyebrow, slowly removing the handkerchief from his nose once he’s sure his nose isn’t bleeding anymore.

“You’re so hot- I mean- you look- No- Your face- Your face is red and you look like your hot—warm—are you sure you’re okay?” You reach up to the back of your hand to press it against Spencer’s forehead in an absolutely horrible attempt at covering yourself under your running mouth, definitely digging yourself into a deeper hole in the process.

His face wasn’t even red. Well it was now but it wasn’t when you’d blabbed about him ‘looking like he was hot’. God what had you done? You’d managed to blab yourself into a pit and make Spencer uncomfortable.

“I’m- I’m okay,” Spencer gives another small nod as the back of your hand brushes his forehead, and you retract it the second he opens his mouth to stuff it in your pocket and look down at your shoes like the idiot you were.

Now that he was thinking about it, he was feeling quite warm. His cheeks honestly felt like they were burning, but it wasn’t a side effect of his nose bleed, they don’t cause temperature fluctuation unless you’re hit hard enough to get a concussion, and Spencer didn’t feel light headed.

He did feel a little dizzy though. The type of dizzy where you don’t actually feel dizzy but your stomach drops a little and you feel like your head is full of clouds instead of a brain.

“Sorry you uh-” You point a finger underneath your own nose with a small amount of hesitation. “You’ve got-”

“Hm? Oh-” Spencer brings up his left hand, contaminated handkerchief still held in his fingers as he instead chooses to wipe away the small staining under his nose with the back of his hand instead, leaving a small red streak on the surface of his skin. “Thank you-”

“Yeah no problem…”

The two of you stare at each other like you’re locked in a stalemate, both unsure of exactly what to say in continuing the conversation. You don’t have to wait too long before you’re interrupted.

“Damn you look like you’ve been mauled,” Morgan chortles shortly as he walks past the two of you with your unsub in cuffs being pulled along beside him. “You should be careful pretty boy you’re going to stain your pants,”

Morgan gestures towards Spencer’s right hand with his head, and Spencer finally breaks eye contact with you to look down at it. “Oh- Right- Yeah thanks,”

“No problem, now lets get this guy to the station so we can get lunch, I’m starving,” Morgan continues back to the SUV without waiting up for the two of you.

“Here let me-” You slide the handkerchief out of his left hand to pick up his right with it as a shield between his tainted hand and your clean one, slowly wiping away the starts of stains where the blood was oxidising around his fingers.

“Thank-” Spencer clears his throat animatedly. “Thank you…” His gaze flickers between where your hand was tending to his and the red dappled concrete beneath him like he wasn’t sure which one to look at.

The way you pulled the fabric down the lengths of each of his fingers felt oddly intimate, and that hazy cloudy feeling was slowly overtaking his mind again as his eyes settled on watching you work.

“Oi lovebirds lets go I’m hungry!” Morgan’s voice reverberated down the street and caused you both to physically jolt as you’re ripped out of the little atmosphere you’d trapped yourselves in.

You back away from him first, stuffing his handkerchief in his hand with a feigned cough before wringing your hands together behind your back and turning in Morgan’s direction. “Coming!”

This would have to be a conversation you saved for later.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fluff #spencer reid fluff #climacteric 🪶

[reiding-writing]

thank you to everyone who participated in my 1000 follower climacteric celebration!! the event is now officially closed, meaning i will not be taking any more requests, but for those who sent in a request before the deadline, i will be completing them at my earliest convenience <3

thank you guys so much for all the support, i love you 🫶🫶🫶

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #climacteric 🪶

[reiding-writing]

ask game for your climacteric event hehehe

📷, 😏, 🍪 for the emoji ask game pleaseee mwah mwah <33

thank you ml <3333 (for your request too 🤭)

📷 What's set as your phone's lockscreen?

lock screen and home screen bc i pride myself on my aestheicness 🫶

😏 Are you on discord?

i’m not actually- sometimes i feel like i might be missing out on stuff but i don’t know how it works or why people use it over other socials 😭😭😭

🍪 If you were a cookie, what kind would you be?

@flowersfromautumn has determined me an oreo 🫡🫡

#climacteric 🪶 #ask games 💃

[reiding-writing]

HELLOOO !! im back with general ASK questions this time 🤭 5, 6, and 11 please 🥹🩷🩷 MWAH

ofc ml ty for participating 🫶🫶🫶 ⋆｡°✩ climacteric event!!

5. what made you start your blog?

honestly can’t remember specifically what made me start uploading on this blog, but i remember having a chat with some friends about actually posting fanfiction online and things just kinda spiralled from there 😭

6. what's the best and worst part of being online/a creator?

the best part is definitely the people that you meet/interact with for me, genuinely met some really nice people on tumblr since i started writing and it’s nice to bond with people over common interests

worst part is probably the writers block for this blog specifically, because it just sucks man

11. what do you consider to be romance?

as someone who’s aroace irl, i feel like my perception of what romance actually is is really skewed, but i would say that romance is going out of your way to do something thoughtful and meaningful for the person that you’re interested in that you wouldn’t really do for anybody else

#climacteric 🪶 #ask games 💃

[reiding-writing]

climacteric event masterlist

CLIMACTERIC [NOUN]

/klaɪˈmæktərɪk/

A critical period or event. (aka 1000 people deciding that my attempts at writing are good enough to follow me)

☆ main masterlist!! ⋆｡°✩ climacteric event page!! ☆

HURT/COMFORT

iron wall

30. “leave me alone.” “is that really what you want?”

reunion

22. "I think I missed you more than you missed me."

23. "I thought I'd lost you."

typanophobia (cold!reader)

4. “Will you hold my hand?”

breaking down (cold!reader) - continuation

spencer just wants to be there for you when you need him, but you get overwhelmed by his constant worrying and push him away, only to crawl right back into his embrace when you really need it.

scarecrows

1. “You’re bleeding.”

2. “You’re safe here, I promise.”

1. “You know that you’re my best friend, right?”

close call (cold!reader)

28. “I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming,”

23. “I thought I’d lost you.”

tbc...

ANGST

jealousy

6. "Don't touch me."

tbc...

FLUFF

a mutual secret

12. “You can’t tell anyone. Seriously. Even them.”

19. “I think about you all the time.”

crushed up

3. "Did you take your medication?”

eavesdrop

15. “You heard that?”

16. “I didn’t mean it.”

tbc...

ETC.

pool 'party' (flangst)

1. "Okay, maybe I have a crush on you! So what?"

7. "I don't want anyone else."

handkerchief (what genre even is this?)

1. "You're bleeding.”

3. "They're so hot."

tbc...

thank you to everyone who has sent requests in! <3

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid angst #criminal minds angst #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #mgg #climacteric 🪶 #red’s masterlists 🍒

[reiding-writing]

howdy!! I luv ur writing and congrats sm on the 1000 followers milestone :)

I'd like to request a spencer reid/reader fic with 30 from the general dialogue prompt! Thx!

IRON WALL [CLIMACTERIC]

30. “Leave me alone.”

“Is that really what you want?”

WARNINGS: mentions of spencer’s kidnapping, elusions to spencer’s withdrawals, spencer is a tiny bit of a twat

spencer x gn!reader | hurt/comfort | 1.1k | climacteric event!!

a/n: thank you <3333 back on my angsty game fr-

main masterlist!! ⋆｡°✩ event masterlist!!

“Reid?” You furrow your eyebrows at his dissociation, resisting the urge to wave your hand in front of his face as you approach him. “Spencer? Hello?”

He doesn’t turn his eyes upwards at your calls, keeping them locked on the trembling plastic lid of his take out coffee cup as he sits stationary at the round table with it cupped in his hands.

He does however give you a small hum so that you know he’s acknowledging your existence.

“Are you Okay?”

Obviously not. Spencer was probably going through the most uncomfortable day of his life. He felt like his brain was physically trying to escape from his skull and his stomach was clawing its way up his esophagus.

“I’m fine.” Spencer knew that he didn’t sound at all convincing, but he didn’t really have the mind to care at the moment. He was trying to focus on not ripping out his own eyeballs so that he could massage away his pounding headache from the inside out.

“You’re shaking,”

“I didn’t notice.” His snark isn’t something you’re used to, and it’s so out of character that you have to physically take a few seconds to check that this was indeed Spencer in front of you and not some doppelganger that had taken his place.

Him changing after the kidnapping was to be expected, he’d been through a lot of trauma that would surely impact the way he portrayed himself, but you never though that it would be this type of change.

You expected the quietness, the dissociation, even a level of defensiveness. But outright abrasiveness was something you weren’t prepared for.

“Do you want to talk about it?” You try to approach the topic carefully, your voice softened tenfold as you take a seat on the edge of the table next to him, but it seems that it wasn’t careful enough.

“No.”

“Spence-”

“Just leave me alone.” Spencer finally turns up to look at you, but instead of those round and bright eyes that you’d grown used to over the last few years, you’re greeted with nothing but blank slates that are furrowed under his eyebrows, a metaphorical iron wall spreading across the expanse of his scleras to block you from reading his emotions.

The one thing you can read from his expression is his impatience with you, and you’d be lying if you said that it didn’t sting a little.

“Is that really what you want Spencer?” Your shoulders drop a little, a small sigh leaving your mouth as you rub your hands over your arms. “You won’t feel better by bottling everything up, you know that…”

“I won’t feel better by telling anyone either.” Spencer turns his gaze away from you again so that he doesn’t have to look at the pitiful expression on your face. He didn’t need your pity, it wasn’t like it was going to do anything.

“You don’t know that…”

“I do know that.” Spencer scratches the inside of his right elbow during his retort, a self-soothing method that you’d noticed had developed after his kidnapping. “This isn’t something you can fix with some ‘words of affirmation’.”

“That’s not what I’m saying Spencer,” You sigh softly as his continued attempts at shutting down your advances, and you wonder whether you should just give up and let him deal with whatever he’s going through by himself.

But he doesn’t look okay, and you’re not sure that he can work through whatever it is by himself.

“I just want to help you…”

The subtle change in Spencer’s gaze tells you that the dejection in your tone might’ve cracked those iron walls a little bit, and he closes his eyes momentarily to take a deep breath in through his nose. “I’m sorry for snapping at you, but you really can’t help me,”

“Spencer please,” You sigh softly. “Even if it’s just getting everything off your chest,”

He bites the inside of his cheek, picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of his shirt as he seemingly deliberates whether to let you in on what he’s feeling, and the second you hear that sigh of exasperation leave his throat you know you’ve managed to worm your way in.

“I’m having headaches, I can’t sleep, I constantly feel like I’m going to throw up and I can’t even drink my coffee without spilling it all over myself because my hands just won’t stay steady no matter how much I try to keep them stable-”

Spencer spills his issues to you in one long, unbroken sentence, and you’re half-surprised he even had enough breath to make it through the whole thing.

And the worst part is you know that there are things that he’s left out. But it’s a start at least.

You let out a small exhale as you absorb his words for a moment. “Do you want comfort or solutions Spencer?”

Spencer exhales heavily, the tension in his shoulders visibly relaxing as he considers your question. After a moment of contemplation, he looks up at you with a small, weary smile. "Comfort, please."

“I can do that,” You walk over to where he’s sitting to stand behind him with your hands resting gently on his shoulders, not wanting to push his physical boundaries too much or else force him back into his shell.

As you offer your comforting presence, you feel Spencer's shoulders slump as he leans into your touch, as if the weight of the world has been momentarily lifted off of him. His breathing slows down, and you can sense a slight ease in his demeanour.

You stay with him for a while, not saying anything, letting the room fall into a comfortable silence only broken by the sound of your hands rubbing against the fabric of his shirt against his shoulders. Eventually, he straightens up a bit, turning to look at you with a hint of gratitude in his eyes.

“Thank you…” His voice is quiet, barely a whisper, but tinged with a warmth of appreciation.

You smile back at him, relieved to see some of the tension in his face ease away. It might not solve all of his problems, but sometimes, just knowing that someone cares can make all the difference.

"Anytime, Spence," you give his shoulders a gentle squeeze. "We're in this together, okay?"

“Yeah…”

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid angst #criminal minds angst #mgg #climacteric 🪶