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tacticaldiary · 10 days

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Roses and Purple Scarves

PAIRING: Spencer Reid x Reader

SYNOPSIS: He catches her eyes in the window's reflection, and there's a small part of him that's waiting to catch the frown on her face, or see her nodding along while looking down at her phone pretending to listen.

His heart skips a beat when he finds her looking directly at him with a smile, eyes so soft and interested it makes something warm settle in the pit of his stomach.

NOTE: I am NOT taking requests at the moment.

"Spencer I don't need more flowers," She laughs, trying to yank at his arm to get him moving. It's to no avail by the way he stays rooted to the spot in front of the display window. "I still have the last bouquet in a vase at home."

"I know." He says it so matter of factly, it makes her raise her brows and stop tugging.

"What do you mean 'you know?'" She relents, joining him to look into the store's window.

"I keep a flower from all your bouquets for myself. That way I know when they wilt so I can get you new ones." She's stunned at the answer, the gesture is so thoughtful and...and nice. It's so Spencer, and by the half smile on his face he's trying to hide, he knows it too.

"You're too good to me." She says after a beat, meeting his eyes in the window's reflection, "I don't need a dozen roses to know you love me, for the record...but they are appreciated."

"Flower language." Spencer hums, peering through the glass at the colorful array of petals. "It's fascinating actually, people tend to associate the origin of floriography to be from the old victorian era, but traces of meaning can be tracked all the way back to Persia and the Middle East much before that." He catches her eyes in the window's reflection, and there's a small part of him that's waiting to catch the frown on her face, or see her nodding along while looking down at her phone pretending to listen.

His heart skips a beat when he finds her looking directly at him with a smile, eyes so soft and interested it makes something warm settle in the pit of his stomach. Spencer blinks, turns to face her for real. "I read a book about it a while ago," He shrugs, offering her a smile.

"I'd love to borrow it sometime." She responds, looping their arms together. It's a chilly day, snowflakes peppering down casing the cobblestone street below in specks of icy white.

"Really?" Spencer raises an eyebrow.

"You know I love flowers." She confirms as they continue down the little street. "I've always wanted to have a garden of my own, but the balcony of my apartment isn't big enough."

Spencer listens attentively, keeping her close to his side. It's instinct, the way his gloved hand rests against her waist as they walk, the gentle push and pull of weaving through among other people going this way and that. The contact makes her feel warm and wanted, a small gesture that encompasses all of what Spencer is.

Meaningful. If she could describe Dr Spencer Reid with one word, it would be meaningful. Everything he does is purposeful and attentive.

Remembering how she takes her coffee in the mornings without her ever mentioning it. Watching her frown at the days crossword because he knows that if she wants his help she'll ask for it (even if Spencer can't help but cringe at her sighing dramatically loud at a puzzle he'd solved in his head 25 minutes ago). It was the little things, woven with meaning that made her feel seen.

Made her feel understood.

Reaching down between them, she grabs his hand, intertwining their fingers, squeezing gently.

"You could always look into aeroponics." Spencer smiles as they come to a stop in front of a crosswalk. He pushes the button with his elbow and the both of them are left to wait for the indication to cross.

"The exposed roots freak me out." Remembering the pictures she's seen sends a shudder down her spine. "I mean, it doesn't look natural does it? Plants were meant to come from the earth, watching them dangling in the air just feels wrong," When she glances up to gauge his agreement, the rest of the words die on her tongue.

Spencer stares at her with a soft smile and enamoured eyes. If you asked him, he wouldn't be able to repeat half of what she'd just said despite his impressive memory.

It's frightening, how often he gets lost in her. In the way she furrows her brow, the manner in which she moves and the cadence of her voice that make him lean in closer to hang on to every small inflection like a siren's melody.

"What?" She asks, brow furrowed. "Have I got something-" He leans down and steals the words from her before she can finish, kissing her soft but firm, hands tangling in the hair at the back of her head. He can't help it, especially when he sees the little parts of himself that she's adopted, mirrored from how much time they spend together. Time and time again she's assured him that she thinks his monologues and rambling are endearing, pulled him out of his head with sweet words and lips when he gets too wrapped up in himself.

He's starting to understand. Watching her talk about roots and plants...God, she could talk about paint drying and he'd listen and commit each word to memory.

Kissing Spencer isn't fireworks.

It's a symphony.

From start to finish, he puts his heart into every movement, feeling bleeding into every quirk of his hands, every tilt of his head.

She mumbles his name against his lips and he barely stops himself from chasing her when she pulls back with a hand on his chest. Taking a minute to catch her breath, she graces him with a radiant smile that knocks his away. "I didn't know you loved plants that much."

"I love you." He knocks their foreheads together.

The indicator flashes green across the street, prompting them to cross, but the two stay where they are letting the atmosphere sink in. Spencer smiles softly, moving to brush off the snowflakes on the shoulders of her coat.

"You're cold." He observes when his hand brush against her neck.

"It is snowing." She smiles. Spencer huffs, unwinding his scarf from around himself. Ignoring her protests, he wraps it around her snugly.

The purple is a horrific clash to her outfit, but it's warm, and it smells like him, the calming scent washing over her as she sinks into it and takes a deep breath. "Won't you be cold?"

"I've survived worse." He chuckles when she smacks his shoulder.

"That's not funny!"

"It's a little funny." He argues, smiling against her lips.

The crosswalk flashes red, cars start moving but the world stays still around them.

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(19/04/2024)

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tacticaldiary · 25 days

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Revelations and Reverence Pt.2

PAIRING: Spencer Reid x Reader

WARNINGS: Kidnapping, Torture, Drugs, S2 E15

SYNOPSIS: Season 2, Episode 15 where Tobias kidnaps Spencer, but this time she gets taken with him.

"I killed a man." She repeats, swallowing hard. Her hands are shaking, but Spencer's been left alone and that's all she wants. "He was a father. He had two daughters and a wife. I...I shot him two months ago. Killed him. I killed him."

PART 1

NOTE: I am NOT taking requests at the moment.

They say words are insignificant when one's body language is more expressive than a testimony of truth.

Spencer looks ragged. Through a blurry haze, that's all she can make out. The worry in his eyes that never seems to go away, laced with muted panic as his eyes flicker over her head to look at-

She breathes in a hiss of pain as her head is yanked back by her hair, and the pain is enough to bring her out of her medicated sludgy mind. "Shit..." She groans quietly, and the curse is met with a grunt and a shove to her head which lolls to the side as she tries to get her bearings back.

Whatever that fucker injected her with turned her bones into lead, but it seemed to be wearing off.

"You ready?" Tobias says, and his demeanour is so much different than the scared earnest one from before it'd be enough to give her whiplash in a more normal scenario.

"Ready for what?" Spencer says immediately, trying to get the attention off of her. It works, because Tobias turns to glare at him instead. Spencer tenses, sits a little straighter though his eyes never seem to stray away from her for long. Always flicking back and forth like the tail of a cat.

"My weakling son thinks God gave you both to us for a reason. Let's see if we're both right."

Spencer's chair makes a horrific scraping noise as he turns it around to face a couple of monitors and what she can now make out as a tripod and a camera.

"What are you doing?" She croaks, promptly ignored in favour of setting up the machines.

While his back is turned, Spencer turns to look at her, wide-eyed.

People say he's hard to read. She thinks they just don't hard enough. Spencer's an open book to her. Words aren't the only form of communication for the soul, and her boyfriend speaks fluent in body language. His hands gesturing quicker when he's excited, pressed against his eyes during a migrane. The slight quirk of his lips when she whispers something in his ear that's definitely not work appropriate in the middle of the office, the tips of his ears that redden whenever she's modeling a new outfit for him.

It's so...him. It's him. That's the only way to describe it. She could find him in the darkness of pitch black, could run her hands over his shoulders, and read the tension like it's written in braille.

He's terrified. There's a lot he's neglecting to say at the moment, but she gathers it all from a single glance. Spencer's eyes flicker up and down her body, lingering on her arm where the needle went in prior.

Guilt. He feels guilty and she can't wait to remind him that he's not. That she was glad it was her, that she wants him to stop trying to protect her because she's aware she's tough when it comes to herself, but might just break if Spencer were to get hurt.

She offers him a shaky smile, a small solace in the hell that caves in the walls around them.

He can't return it, can't bring himself to, merely presses his lips together, eyes softening.

And it's enough. She understands.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

"Far right screen."

Tobias rattles off the woman's name and address.

Something in Spencer shatters.

This wasn't...he wasn't...no, he was, wasn't he? He saved and doomed a life, he's been forced to play God for someone who believes they're someone affiliated.

He can't tear his eyes from the screen away as the woman on the far right shuts her laptop screen. Can't quite bring himself to say anything as Tobias announces his departure.

There's a buzzing in his ears, something eating away at the inside of his flesh. He feels like his heart is wrong, or twisting in a shape unrecognisable. It's not logical, it's scientifically impossible actually but it's the only metaphorical way to describe the sickness he feels.

At Tobias. At these bloodied cuffs that cut into his skin. At the weight that pressed down on his shoulders as each second ticks by.

At himself.

"Spencer?" Her voice floats somewhere around him. He's always loved her voice. A sweet melody, the lilt of it was fascinating. He'd die happy if it meant she was talking to him in his last moments. Maybe this was what that was? But he must be inherently selfish for being relieved to hear her voice because that means that she's still here with him, trapped just like him. Spencer squeezes his eyes shut for a second until the ringing stops, until her voice gets louder.

"He made you." She speaks steady. Steadier than he's felt in...how long has it been? Hours? Days? A week? His throat closes up at the thought, and then some more at the the notion of believing that he can't remember.

"Spencer!" He swallows, turns to finally look at her.

Urgency floods her eyes as she takes him in, the paleness of his skin, the confused, distraught look in his eyes.

Shaky breathing fills the silence from both parties for a moment.

"I think you're in shock." She says to him, eyes wide. "You-...you need to come back to me, okay? Spencer?"

His brows furrow, something cutting through the noise in his mind. "I...no, that's not..." He trails off for a second, "I'm not injured seriously enough, shock is often associated with heavy external or internal bleeding from a serious injury. I'm not...not in shock-"

"I can't do this without you." She blurts out, and suddenly Spencer couldn't give less of a shit about himself. His focus snaps to her, clear headed as can be.

"I'm not going anywhere, honey." He assures her, the gentleness she's used to hearing creeping back into his voice. "I'm not leaving. We're...we're going to be fine, they'll find us. Hotch will figure it out."

She nods along, only because considering the opposite is too daunting.

There's movement on the screen in front of them suddenly. Both of them watch as one of the women is brutally murdered, throat slit like a sacrificial lamb and left the gargle the remnants of her life out.

There's solace in the silence, knowing that both of them still have enough humanity to be horrified after working a job like this for so long. Neither of them comment, neither of them speak.

Spencer lets out a shaky breath when Gideon talks to him.

She knows he doesn't believe him

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Watching Spencer try to convince Tobias to let them go is something straight out of a horror movie. The semi-calm, soft, wavering voice, eyes flickering cautiously to the needle Tobias pulls out and fiddles with. It makes her heart twist as she watches.

A glance between them both and she's understood Spencer's plan to try and coax their location out, had let him take the lead.

But this was getting too close. The finger of the plunger, the drugs being sucked in.

"It's not worth fighting." Tobias sounds honest, which is the sickest part of the entire situation. Her mind is racing watching the needle. She can't let him inject Spencer with that, doesn't want him to suffer anymore than he has to.

"I want it!" She says suddenly, unable to stay quiet any longer.

Tobias pauses. And it's all she needs.

Spencer is alarmed, catching onto her intentions immediately. She knows better than to hesitate lest he snatch the reins away from her right now.

"My arms, they still hurt." She pleads. "Feels like they're broken. They were bleeding a moment ago, please Tobias." It's not hard to fake the break in her voice, not when she's begging a murderer who might slit their throats the next time he steps into this room.

"No-" Spencer says quickly,

"I always thought it wore off too quickly." Tobias nods slowly, leaving Spencer's side. The wave of relief that crashes into her is promptly replaced with dread when he turns the point of the needle on to her again. "I'll get another dose for him the next time I'm here."

"That sounds lovely." She plays along. "Thank you." The words are acrid on her tongue whist he rolls her tattered sleeve up.

All she can do is make eye contact with Spencer while it happens. The drug is fast acting, lucky for her, because one moment she's looking at Spencer's distraught expression and the next she's under, darkness replacing the meagre light trickling into the room from the cracks in the walls.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

"Do you think they'll notice if we show up late tomorrow?" She mumbles to him, head buried into the crook of his neck. He smells nice, pine and sandalwood, earthy and grounded.

"Considering we have to be in the air at 7, I think so." Spencer hums back, melting into the hand running through his hair. Dying light trickles into the room through sheer curtains neither of them can be bothered to get up and close.

"I hate this job." She groans, mellowing out when Spencer's arms come around her tighter with inkling of a laugh.

"We both know that isn't true."

"It should be. God forbid I get a good night's sleep with you for once."

"We're here now, aren't we?"

She leans up, props her chin on his chest to meet his eyes. Soft and gentle, loving in a way only Spencer can achieve.

"I guess we are." She says quietly, pressing her lips to his jaw.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The shift in the air is palpable. Even in her weary, drugged state, she can feel the minute the atmosphere turns the razor sharp scent of danger.

"They're trying to silence my message!"

"I can't control what they do, I'm not with them, I'm with you." Spencer argues, tensing up.

Her heart sinks when the video of Gideon pops up on the screen, Tobias' gaze unflinchingly furious. Call it a profiler's intuition but she can tell this isn't going to end well.

"You think you can defy me?"

"We don't know what...what he's talking about." She breathes out, loud enough to crack through the room. "We're here with you-"

"Silence." He slams his hand on the table making both her and Spencer flinch.

Something she's notices is Tobias doesn't address her unless necessary. He doesn't glance at her, doesn't talk to her, doesn't give her the same decisions as Spencer. What she's deduced so far in between her periods of being conscious is even in this fucked up situation Tobias seems to be gripping onto traditional gender roles.

The man makes the decisions, so he tells Spencer to choose.

The woman needs to listen, so he forces her to watch.

It's sick, twisted and a fucked up view of the world, and maybe she'd be more angry about it if she has an atom of spare energy to use. It's much easier to be indignant about the big picture right now.

The camera's switched on.

Perhaps there might have been some comfort knowing their friends are watching, that they're getting more crucial information, but then Tobias stops in front of Spencer.

"Confess your sins." The only noise out of Spencer is a ragged exhale.

Tobias cracks his hand across Spencer's face so hard it makes her audible gasp. She jerks out of her chair on instinct, wanting to be there, wanting to skin Tobias alive. Her efforts are rewarded with metal cutting into her wrists and the cool pinch of her handcuffs.

"Confess."

"I haven't done anything." Spencer insists choked up, still reeling.

The next punch from Tobias pulls out a sob from him that makes her heart twist, urgency flooding her veins. She can't breathe, she can't breathe watching him get beat, the same man who stayed awake with her for two days to console her after a case hit too close to home. The same man who held her hair back when she was sick, that remembered all the little insignificant things she told him about and knew her better than she knew herself.

He pleads out for Tobias to help him, and the begging makes her snap.

"I killed someone." She blurts out shakily.

Everything stops. Spencer's cries die down for a second as he gasps for air, hunched over.

"What?" Tobias narrows his eyes.

She leaves out the fact that he had an assault rifle and seventeen hostages in an elementary school.

Tobias's eyes narrow. "So you confess?"

Spencer straightens up, panic in his eyes. He shakes his head at her subtly, pleading with her to not continue. They know what happens when Tobias' victims confess.

He remembers the videos. They flash across his mind the moment she keeps going.

"I confess."

Slowly, Tobias approaches her, stops barely an inch away. "Thou shalt not kill. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment."

She swallows as he bears down onto her, cold, lifeless eyes scanning her for any hint of a lie.

They stop on her arm.

It's too late to pull her sleeve down. Tobias bands his hand around her arm in an iron grip, shoves up her sleeve to reveal the needle marks. "You're pathetic." He spits. "Just like my son." He yanks her out of her chair and shoves her roughly to the ground.

Spencer cries out for her as Tobias kicks her in the ribs, spitting insults, quoting passages that she's not familiar with. "You think you can outsmart God?" She sobs as he head snaps back, colliding with one of the wooden beams in a sickening crack. "You think you have the right to take a man's life of your own accord?" Her ribs are on fire, at least three of them broken, she thinks.

Curling up into a ball to protect herself, it doesn't save her much from the vicious onslaught. She can vaguely make out Spencer speaking and being ignored, can make out her own cries and the sicking thud of his boot colliding with her bloody form.

Then it stops. Just like that.

Breathing hurts. Twitching hurts. Thinking about moving hurts.

"Grab her." He hears Tobias command her boyfriend. "Bring her out to the yard." He's clicked free from the shackles, pale and clammy as Tobias grabs a shovel and heads towards the door.

Spencer doesn't need to be told twice. He stumbles out of his chair and onto his knees beside her, gathering her up into his lap in trembling arms. "I'm so sorry." He presses his face into her hair, tears soaking into the strands. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, I'm really sorry. I'll- I need to...I'm so sorry." His voice shakes, apologies falling from his lips like a prayer.

She can't bring herself to speak, her chest feels caved in and lit on fire, but a trembling hand comes up to grip the front of his sweater vest anyway, bloodied, shaky, but reassuring. Spencer grabs it, brings it up to cup his face. "I'm sorry." His voice breaks.

"Hurry up, boy. Or you'll be digging in the frozen ground." Spencer swallows, and slowly stands up, helps her to her feet the best she can stand. He's trying to be gentle, trying to mind her injures but every whimper that breaks through her lips makes his heart break and his guilt triple. Anger takes it's hold somewhere in the midst of it all, anger that he's too weak to act upon.

He's led to a cemetery. Part of him is relieved that he was correct, hopes that Hotch got the message from before and pieced them together. He'd been dropping hints there and there about where he thought they were, hoping that it'd pay off later.

So far no luck.

A shovel's pressed into his hands.

"Dig."

"Dig?" He repeats shakily, setting her down at the base of a nearby tree.

"A body needs a grave, doesn't it?" He jerks his head towards her, and suddenly Spencer's paralysed. He wouldn't let it happen. Wouldn't take part in burying her, wouldn't watch while she choked on dirt and suffocated.

He needs time, needs to think, to come up with a plan.

But plans take time, and the only time he can get is by playing along.

So he digs.

He hopes she's not conscious enough to listen and understand what's going on.

For a few minutes there's nothing but Spencer's attempts to dig through the cold ground. Through stingy hair, he glances at her every now and then, just to make sure she was breathing, that she was still here with him. He'd felt blood on her when he carried her, felt it dripping down the back of her head. At this point he can't tell if the blood staining his clothes and hands is his, hers, or both-

"Dig faster." Tobias barks

Spencer's grip on the shovel tightens, "I'm not strong enough." He breathes. Something grabs his attention in the forest behind Tobias while the man strips off his jacket, throwing it onto the floor with a spat insult. Flashlights...people? Flashlights meant...

Metal catches the light in one of the pockets of the discarded jacket.

Tobias seems to notice his gaze and whips around to spot the light. Something determined and desperate kicks Spencer into drive, the first glimpse of hope in the midst of this hell, perhaps? The thought that maybe they'd be saved, that she'd be okay and they could go home.

Regardless, he snatches the revolver out of the coat and aims it at Tobias without hesitation. The clicking of the safety makes Tobias whirl around and bring up his knife.

She watches it all happen, watching through laboured breathing and half open eyes.

"Only one bullet in that gun, boy-"

The shot makes her flinch.

The thud of Tobias' body hitting the floor makes her want to cry. Her eyes slip shut as Spencer shuffles to the body, throwing the knife out of reach. There's voices, but she can't bring herself to tun into them.

Was it over?

Someone crunches the leaves next to her, and she flinches away at the touch.

"It's me," Spencer breathes, "It's just me, we're done. It's over. We're going home."

"Home?" She manages to repeat, and it hits Spencer so hard he blinks back tears of his own.

"Yeah," he sniffles, letting out a humourless chuckle, "Home." He tries to reach out again, and this time she leans into it. It's all the encouragement Spencer needs to gather her into his arms.

He keeps her so close it hurts, but she'd rather die like this than have Spencer let her go. This little bit of comfort breaks the dam and suddenly she's sobbing into Spencer's shirt. The man brings her face to press against the crook of his neck shakily, whispering to her. Sweet nothings, apologies, smoothing her hair back while she cries.

Spencer tenses as familiar faces fill the clearing, glancing up but unwilling to let go.

Hotch is the first to reach them. He says both their name, squeezes her hand and lets Spencer clutch his other in a deathly grip. "I knew you'd understand." His voice breaks. The trust he had in these people, in his family was the only thing that kept them going. The only light in the throes of darkness.

As they crowd around them, he swears he'll never let this happen again, he can't.

"I love you." He whispers onto the top of her head. "I'm sorry I-"

"Not you." She cuts him off hoarsely. "...not your fault."

"I know, but-"

"No." She sniffles, and even after being beaten half to death, the determination and finality in her chiding tone makes him choke out half a laugh.

"We're gonna be okay." He whispers, tightening his arms around her as the EMT's start trickling into the room.

She nods with a sigh, feeling the tension drain out her shoulders for the first time.

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(04/04/2024)

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