DON'T THEY KNOW? (IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD) || BENEDICT BRIDGERTON (1)
pairing: benedict bridgerton/fem!reader
additional tags: zombie apocalypse au, graphic depictions of gore/violence, fluff, angst, biology stuff i just made up so it's probs super inaccurate lol, slow burn, friends to lovers
summary: ravaged by a relentless virus, the world as you knew it falls into ruin. survivors are hardened by the blood on their hands and the horrors in their minds. amidst the end of everything, benedict proves that there is still hope, and perhaps something more, for the two of you.
word count: 6.4k
author's note: welcome to the first part of my new zombie au series with our boy benedict! for those who don't know, this is based entirely on the fic "i'll be seeing you" by @eleanor-bradstreet! thanks again to them for letting me vomit up this fic based on their incredible one <333 anyway, this chapter is mostly exposition, so most of the benedict/you romance will really start in the succeeding parts. hopefully, you find this chapter interesting enough to stick around! (+for readers of my dean winchester series, don't worry! chapter 3 will come out soon!)
masterlist | series masterlist | ao3 | next chapter
CHAPTER ONE: HERE, IN THE END
The world had been so loud before.
The droning noise of traffic. Of the intermingling of a thousand phone calls, nestled in between cheeks and shoulders. Of people talking at each other, screaming over each other, fighting to get the final say in even the tiniest little thing. Everything blurred together into one great ocean of sound. You could drown in it, especially in the big cities.
You were right in the middle of it all: a drifter. It took a while but eventually, that ocean of sound became your home. You struggled to recall what it was like before that. That too, was blurry now along with everything else from Before. All you had now were fading fragments of a dream to be someone. Anyone.
That was how you met him, just before the beginning of the end. You still weren’t convinced that Benedict Bridgerton wasn’t some kind of romance novel character come to life; a talented artist from a long line of English nobility, and the first friend you ever made in New York. It was like something out of a crappy Hallmark movie. He laughed at your reaction upon learning that his brother was an actual viscount and that Benedict himself technically should be referred to as “the Honourable Benedict Bridgerton”, but despite all the grandeur that came with his heritage, Benedict was still… Benedict. In time, he became just Ben. He’d paint while you ranted about your borderline dangerous work hours or how your parents were bugging you to settle down. In turn, he shared with you his frustrations as an artist trying to make it in the world, without his family name, and how at the same time he missed his mother’s cooking. Conversations with him were always lovely, like breathing in the air in the middle of a field of flowers after a decade of being locked inside a dark, stuffy room. He was just like you. Just trying to be someone.
But those conversations all seemed so far away now. If you had known then what would become of your life, of those dreams to be someone, maybe you would’ve just let yourself drown in that ocean of sound.
It only took two weeks for the world to fall into ruin. Only fourteen days for everything to go up in flames.
The virus was ruthless. The most efficient killer the likes of which no one had ever seen. A terrifying force of nature seemingly tailored for the extinction of humanity. You were right in the middle of it all. You saw it with your own eyes, a cluster of people beginning to form in Times Square. With New York being New York, you thought nothing of it. You walked away none the wiser.
Until you heard someone scream, a gut-wrenching, visceral scream, followed by a sound you would never forget. A sound you’d have to hear over and over again for the better part of the next ten years, though you didn’t know it yet at the time: teeth ripping flesh from bone and the primal snarls accompanying it that couldn’t have been anything except inhuman. Monstrous, even. It sent ripples into the great big ocean you called home, altering it so permanently just seconds before you even realized what was happening.
Sound, quickly followed by sight.
The people huddled on the outer edges of the crowd ran off in terror, revealing the gruesome remains of what used to be a person. Even that was something you barely registered at first, eyes too focused on the bloody mouths feasting on it and white, foggy eyes. One of those things stopped its chewing, head snapping up suddenly. It sniffed the air for a while, as if sensing your fear even from twenty feet away. Those white eyes were looking at you now. Staring you down. Seconds later, the corpse being eaten started writhing back to life, or a perverted version of it. Its jaw was skewed, perpetually stuck wide open as drool and blood ran down its chin. You weren’t someone then. If your body hadn’t gone into autopilot, legs taking you as far away as they could, you would’ve been one of them. That was the very first day of what would be the longest two weeks of your life. You remembered it well.
There was no time to think or breathe. Even when your chest hurt from overexerting yourself and your lungs screamed for a break, you ran. You ran as fast as you could, crashing into people, some of which were still unaware of the horrors spreading just a block away from them. In the corner of your eyes, you knew that there were others like you, scrambling to go home, to go anywhere but here. Cars stopped in the middle of the road, curiosity killing the cat as drivers left their vehicles to see what was going on, only to be met with the same sight you were: death. In only a few minutes, nearly a third of the people on the streets were running, too.
A little girl cried in her father’s arms, a teddy bear left behind and forgotten on the cement road as they also tried to get away. The realization dawning on the faces of onlookers that they should be doing the same.
You reached your apartment building, not really knowing what you would do next, just that you needed to get away. The hallways were empty. A part of you hoped Ben was far, far away from here. A more selfish part of you hoped otherwise.
Supplies. You needed supplies. Food, clothes, water. Emergency kit, tools, weapons. Weapons. You had no fucking idea what to do with any of this! Just yesterday, you held a steady, if not miserable, office job. Today, you had to survive against whatever-the-hell those things were and perhaps even other people. The weight of that sudden realization twisted your guts in a sickening way, enough to make you almost throw up.
Peeking through your blinds, there were already three or four ambulances rushing to the direction of Times Square.Those things were not here yet and still, you naively hoped that help would come and dispatch of them before it got out of control.
You barely noticed the sweat that began to trickle down your forehead and back, hairs raising out of instinct. Your whole body was going into overdrive, hyper-aware of the fact that you were in danger.
The rapid knocking on your door nearly frightened you to death, until you heard Ben’s desperate calls of your name. Out of breath and scared… much like you. You wondered if he had seen it, too. When you confirmed through the peephole that it was, in fact, him, you dragged him inside your apartment. Your hands were on his face as soon as he was inside, needing to know that he was here, he was with you, he was alive. It seemed he had the same need, icy blue eyes taking you in with such an intensity you’d only ever seen when he was painting. It was easy to feel small under his gaze.
“Are you alright?” he breathed heavily, larger hands covering your own.
You could only nod, the words stuck in your throat, “Did you- did you see-”
“I saw them,” he said, his composure faltering for a split second. “I saw them.”
You could hear more sirens outside, one after another, disrupting the ocean you had grown so familiar with. Louder and louder.
“We need to leave, get out of New York,” he ran a hand through his hair, eyes moving wildly as he tried to come up with a plan. It was the Bridgerton in him: the bravery of his father, the gentleness of his mother. It didn’t need to be said out loud that the moment he saw those things, all he could think of was you. Getting to you and getting you safe. His only true friend in this city. It took all of fifteen minutes before you were out the door, nearly overwhelmed by the swarm of people all running away from Times Square. Ben held your hand tightly, and you did your best not to look behind you.
The sun was beginning to set, wrapping the city in a bright orange light. It felt ominous somehow, so unlike every other time you’d seen it. Like this was some form of judgment. As if at any moment, you’d hear the seven trumpets telling you that this was the end. You learned later on that you weren’t the only one that thought that. Bile threatened to rise in your throat when the shadows of night grew with each passing second. It felt like it was going to swallow you alive.
The road was packed full of people, crying and yelling and praying for salvation. Ants begging to get away from the magnifying glass only to be burned anyway.
The screams grew louder and against your better judgment, you looked back. You were too far away to see everything clearly, and because Ben was constantly pulling you forward, but you could make out the smaller swarm of walking corpses slowly coming into view. The poor souls who weren’t able to keep up with the main crowd were dragged away to be bitten, spreading the godforsaken disease. More and more bodies littered the streets, staining the concrete with the blood of dozens. Then, not even a minute later, they would rise with jaws gnashing and wide white eyes, their humanity lost forever.
Your legs felt so heavy, as did the rest of you. If it weren’t for Ben’s ferocious determination to get out of the city and to keep the both of you safe, you wouldn’t have survived that first day at all. Helicopters flew above and across the city, the whooshing of its blades mingling with the screams. The ocean of sound was threatening to drown you. You didn’t look up anymore. It would’ve shattered you if you had, because you knew there weren’t nearly enough choppers to save everyone in the city. It was impossible. Your heart broke for all the people, all the someones, who were dead long before they could even fight for the chance to live.
The sky was dark now.
By some miracle, you reached the army’s barricade. Soldiers ushered people to safety, including you and Ben. You squeezed his hand, causing him to look at you for a moment. A temporary reprieve from that day’s horrors. His fair skin was shiny with sweat, his hair sticking to his forehead like black tendrils. It was like everything slowed down, but maybe it was all just in your head. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell, rose and fell. The moment was cut short when you heard an explosion from behind you. Your head snapped to the direction of the noise, so did Ben’s, and the “small swarm” of the undead from before had multiplied to thrice its size in the short few minutes you spent running away.
Gunfire rang in your ears once the monsters got a little too close for the army’s liking, but the crowds of the living and the undead had already begun to mix by that point. Bullets meant to pierce rotting flesh ended up killing people who were very much alive and uninfected. You could only watch, from behind the barricade of soldiers, the people in the perpetually moving crowd who would stop once they realized their loved ones were no longer beside them. You could only watch when the body of a child (belonging to the same little girl you saw earlier that day, you realized grimly) was forcefully torn from the arms of her father when a soldier spotted the bite mark on her leg, bleeding and angry. Her plump, tear-stained cheeks that were once symbols of her youth and innocence were ruined by a sickly green that rose to the surface, emphasizing violet veins that always looked like it was crawling, spreading just underneath the skin. Then, she was one of them. Writhing, bones cracking. There was no recognition in her cloudy eyes when her father begged for his baby girl to come back to him.
Ben held you tighter, his hand cradling your head as the other soldiers evacuated as many people as they could.
“We need to go,” he pleaded, still firmly holding on to you as you were both pushed around by the crowd. “Please, love, just look at me.”
So you did. Those eyes, brilliant and blue and full of worry, were the only things that pulled you back down to Earth. Tears were shed and prayers were whispered on the chopper that whisked you away from New York. A couple hundred feet into the air, you could see the city crumble. You remembered briefly wondering how many bodies were left behind or how many turned into one of those things.
Everything changed in those first fourteen days of the Outbreak. Eighty percent of the world’s population had been wiped out, unprepared to face a force so vicious. That was how effective the virus was, which was later dubbed the “Gaia Virus”. Mother Nature’s wrath.
The survivors in the States were brought to “safe zones” all over the country, areas barren and isolated enough that the Infected, which mostly stayed in the previously overpopulated cities and towns, were unlikely to get to them. The first few months after the Outbreak were spent being transferred to different safe zones, never staying for more than a week at a time.
At first, the safe zones were supposed to be a temporary refuge for survivors. The government, or what was left of it, promised to reclaim the cities within a year and make them habitable again. Then a year passed, and they said it would take them another year. So another year passed and they said the same thing. Over and over until… radio silence. No one brought it up again. The few who did were not treated kindly by the rest of the survivors.
Most people caught onto the memo fairly quickly, with soldiers and generals making up the new leadership hierarchy of the safe zones in place of politicians and peacemakers: you keep your head down, you do as you’re told, and you’ll get food and water and blankets.
The people brave (or stupid) enough to make a scene were never heard from again by the next week.
So there you were, moving across the country, going from state to state and living off of food rations and hope. Both were two resources that were steadily depleting. Benedict was there with you through it all, your steadfast companion. Conversations about surrealism and horrible bosses turned into questions about whether or not your friends and families were safe, if they had made it to the safe zones. That was the first time you saw him cry, not able to withstand the possibility that his beloved mother and siblings were gone, perhaps now part of the Infected. Even if they survived, he knew there was a slim chance he would ever see them again. He cursed himself sometimes, him and his foolish need to be someone. If he had stayed in Kent, if he just settled down like his brothers, perhaps he would still be with them today. But his mother was the kindest woman he had ever known and he knew deep down that she forgave him long before he realized what he’d done. He knew they all did.
Grief was your (and Ben’s) constant state of being. It weighed you down on most days, making your feet dig deeper into the dirt when you walked. On some days, it was all-consuming. It was the only reason most survivors rarely caused any trouble. As horrible as humans could be to each other, this shared grief that echoed through the hearts of everyone was translated into little acts of kindness that, at the best of times, were life-saving. To be given a drop of water by a woman dying of thirst. To be offered a piece of bread by a man whose stomach rumbled louder than his voice. More often than not, it was always the eldest survivors that did this. Perhaps it was because they knew that they had already lived long, fulfilling lives. Perhaps it was because they knew Death was already at their door, so they might as well help someone else live.
Of course, there would always be people looking out for themselves, you and Ben had expected that from the get go, but it still surprised you how much compassion a person could still have at the end of the world. It didn’t happen too often though, but the times that it did were memories you held close to your heart.
The days went by, often cruel and unforgiving to those who couldn’t adjust to the new reality, but Ben still found ways to make you smile.
“It’s the artist in me,” he said to you one night, three years after the Outbreak, when you had asked him how he could bear to still be so… him. There was a secluded spot you two often escaped to whenever there was a need for it, a small cliff at the edge of the safe zone. You were both slightly tipsy from whiskey you traded some radio parts for. “The whole world’s gone to shit and I can’t help but still find it somewhat beautiful. It’s like a movie, isn’t it? Two friends at the end of the world— and besides, what else are we supposed to do? Wallow in self-pity? I think you and I do enough of that.”
The sun was beginning to set, something you had grown to dislike since that first day. You decided to lie down for a moment, uncaring if bits of soil got in your hair. You closed your eyes, trying to just be. You didn’t always get the opportunity to do that anymore.
“Look,” he nudged your side after a while, his accent slurring a little as he pointed at something. You raised a brow at him, now-open eyes following what his finger was pointing at. The sky. It was pitch black, but a splash of stars covered the heavens like a mural. You had never seen that many stars before, certainly not in the cities you’d lived in your whole life. Ben sighed and your attention was back on him. “You couldn’t see them as clearly back home, but I used to stargaze often with my siblings.”
“That sounds lovely,” you whispered.
“It was.”
The two of you were silent for a while, just sitting on that patch of dirt, overlooking the vast lands that spread as far as the eye can see. That was how isolated these safe zones were. The gentle night breeze tickled your skin.
“I haven’t really looked at the sky properly since the Outbreak,” you confessed, slumping in your seat. “I think it makes me feel small. And sad. Look at us. Our tiny little planet, how fucked up everything is. Look at us. And there’s a whole universe out there that’s completely indifferent to everything that goes on down here.”
“It’s humbling,” he hummed in understanding. “To be a speck in a great big universe yet feeling a whole universe worth of emotion.”
“That’s good,” you chuckled. “Very poetic.”
He grinned at you, cheeks flushed slightly, “I try.”
Another bout of silence.
“Thank you, by the way.”
“Whatever for, love?” he raised a brow in curiosity, his tone soft. It always was.
“For being here,” you took a deep breath. “For sticking around.”
His smile shone brighter when he heard this, his hand finding its way around yours. “You’d be mad to think I’d ever leave you here. If anything, you’re stuck with me. I’m just—” he cleared his throat. “I’m just sorry that… that it has to be like this. Drifting, never staying too long in one place to be able to call it a home. You deserve more. You deserve better.”
“You say that like it’s your fault,” your hand squeezed his in hopes of bringing him some comfort. “I’m not gonna lie and say we’re doing alright because we honestly look like shit”—that earned you a hearty chuckle from him—”but we’re doing better than most. And that’s because we’ve had each other all this time. That’s one of the things I was thanking you for. None of this on you, Ben. You deserve more, too. You hear me?”
He straightened his back and flashed you a soft smile, “I hear you.”
The two of you looked back up at the sky, admiring the twinkling of millions of stars. You were somewhere in Arizona, according to the other survivors. Soldiers kept the exact location under lock and key to dissuade survivors from sharing it with others who were still out in the open world. There just wasn’t enough room. But you had a feeling that it had more to do with the risk of attracting Infected. Limited armada and manpower meant the military was just unable to handle that kind of scenario.
You learned more about the Infected over time, having worked odd jobs for the military for more food, water, or supplies. Even something as simple as filtration duty on Tuesdays earned you tidbits of information.
From what you could piece together in the past couple of years, the Gaia Virus most likely came from melting glaciers and ice caps, triggered by global warming. It polluted bodies of water across the world, eventually making its way into reservoirs undetected. It was the perfect way to spread. Nobody can last more than three days without water, so the virus made sure no one would last at all. Once fully turned, Infected were nearly perfect killers. Soldiers sometimes told stories of their encounters with them. They were completely blind, though that much was obvious from the milkiness of their eyes. Infected also didn’t react to any physical damage done to them. Whether or not they felt it was a different story. With possibly two of their senses out of the picture, the rest were heightened. They could hear and smell better than people. If prey were close enough, all those things had to do was follow the scent trail. The fact that these monsters could perceive things humans could barely register was a terrifying thought.
Bodies of Infected retrieved from the destroyed cities were studied, Ben himself had seen this on one such odd job. The virus kills its host before taking over the body, this much was known. However, the brain was shown to endure, preventing the more advanced stages of decomposition. It raised questions about whether or not hosts really died, or if a tiny part of them still lived on even as they transformed into flesh-eating beasts. You’ve heard whispers that it was more like the brain sent constant streams of adrenaline even after death, keeping the body going long after it was supposed to fall apart and rot. True or not, it was the only explanation you had.
You’d seen your fair share of people who’ve fallen victim to a bite; doomed to have their life snuffed out as soon as that was discovered, whether that was by execution or dying to the virus.
The time it took to die after being bitten was different for everyone. Some died within minutes, others within hours. The longest one you’d seen was a soldier brought back to the Detroit safe zone after a patrol gone wrong. A stray Infected had sensed him and attacked him during the night, leaving a massive bite on his shoulder. He fought so fiercely against the symptoms of the fever, hovering between life and death for nearly an entire day before finally succumbing to the virus. You couldn’t forget how pale he was when he was wheeled into the makeshift camp on a gurney, watching the life be drained out of him in real time. He was shot in the head by his comrades as soon as he turned. The event shook everyone. The disappearances began shortly after that.
The people who spoke up against the military drew the ire of everyone: the military didn’t tolerate people who questioned their authority and everyone else just wanted to mind their own business. When these undesirables began to disappear, everyone chalked it up to them just being hard-headed. The popular theory was they got sick of the military’s iron grip and decided to leave the safe zone, and then probably died. Nobody took it too seriously. Nobody could have done anything about it anyway. Everyone was just focused on staying alive.
Cooper was another survivor in the Arizona safe zone. You and Ben had been there for a month, and he was the first and only person to welcome you with open arms. He was a lanky man, and had blond hair and kind, brown eyes. Only a few years younger than you. He was the jovial type, often inviting you and Ben to tag along with him on whatever job he found earlier that day. His Boston accent was unmistakable, often getting stronger when offered liquor.
He was also in strong opposition to the militant lifestyle in the safe zones, though he knew better than to broadcast his distaste. Cooper joined you and Ben on the night the two of you were stargazing, eyes wide in terror. You had never seen him like that before. He was always one to stay optimistic, which was a wonder considering the state of the world. Cooper looked like he ran to get to you, his damp tattered shirt sticking to his body.
He grabbed you by your shoulders, fingertips digging into your skin deep enough to make you wince all while a jumble of words were frantically spewing out of his mouth. Ben immediately got up, nearly growling at Cooper for hurting you, “Get your hands off them.”
It seemed as though Ben’s warning briefly snapped Cooper back to reality, because the man did pull away but his hands still trembled violently.
“What’s wrong?” you furrowed your brows in worry, unused to seeing Cooper in such a state.
“You need to get out of here,” it felt like there was something darker lingering behind his words. He looked at Ben. “You need to go.”
“Hold on, hold on,” Ben cut him off, his protectiveness from before calming down when he finally noticed the genuine panic and fear in Cooper’s eyes. “Tell us what’s happening.”
The poor man looked like he was ready to explode right then and there. He was practically soaked in his own sweat, both from the exhaustion of running to get to you and Ben, and the shock of the news he brought, it seemed.
“They were taking them,” he choked back tears, his feet stuck to the ground. His nostrils were flaring from how hard he was breathing.
“Who, Coop? Who’s taking who?” this time it was your hands on his shoulders, though your touch was gentle, trying to keep him grounded.
“The soldiers,” he whispered, his voice grim. “We- we thought they were executing them for questioning the army but I saw them! I saw them. In the big tent. They’re trying… they’re trying to make a vaccine.”
The severity of his tone reminded you all too much of Ben at your doorstep on that very first day of the Outbreak.
Ben’s surprise was palpable, “What?”
“A vaccine,” Cooper stressed, each breath he drew was ragged (you could hear it from how close he was standing to you), “but it’s not working. I saw the bodies. Whatever they’re doing, it’s torture— you should’ve seen them. They infected them on purpose.”
Your blood went cold, like liquid nitrogen shocking your system. That’s what the army had been doing all this time? It made perfect sense, but the new information flooded your brain with images of those people who went missing, strapped to a table, and being injected with the virus. If they were trying to make a vaccine, they—the test subjects—would have to have been kept alive for as long as possible, conscious of the parasite invading their body. It made your stomach churn, forcing you to step back and look away. Ben was similarly devastated, jaw clenched as he stared at Cooper. He zeroed in on a different piece of information.
There were Infected in the safe zone.
“That’s… they can’t just keep taking people,” he gritted his teeth. Cooper stayed silent. Ben spoke again, firmer and more desperate this time, “...can they?”
“Nobody’s gonna come looking for you even if they did,” Cooper said, defeated. Still breathing hard. “We’re too far away. And if the rest of the safe zones aren’t already in the same situation then they aren’t gonna waste gas to go all the way here. The soldiers here can just make up something and no one would know.”
An “oh, God” left your lips, your hands shaking, mirroring Cooper’s. From where you stood, you could see the main camp and the largest tent, the main military tent, in the middle of it. You’ve walked past it, stared at it a hundred times, and never knew what was going on inside. You found yourself asking if there was a time when you stared at that tent, and just on the other side was someone just like you being experimented on with the deadliest virus known to mankind.Your eyes stung with tears when your treacherous mind thought of Ben in that position, bruised by different needles and tubes protruding from him.
“Please, you need to go,” Cooper pleaded with the two of you desperately, his head hanging low.
“Shit,” Ben cursed under his breath, rubbing his eyes with one hand in frustration. “All of our supplies are back in the main camp.”
“You can’t go back!”
“We’ll die out there if we don’t get those supplies,” you pointed out to the blond. “We wouldn’t last a week.”
Ben had already begun to walk back to camp, masking his anxieties to the best of his abilities if what Cooper was saying was true. You weren’t that far behind, ears ringing with Cooper’s pleas not to go back. He didn’t chase after you anymore, falling silent once he realized there was nothing he could do to change your mind. It was only a short trek from the cliff back to the main camp. The outer perimeter of the safe zone was always being patrolled by soldiers which meant, without any weapons, you would’ve been dead if you tried to escape right away. A checkpoint came into view along with the two guards, Paul and Walter, holding rifles on either side of the path. You were familiar with each other from how often you passed through this checkpoint to get to the cliff.
“Paul, Walter,” Ben smiled coolly at the guards once you were finally standing in front of them. “Late shift? I thought you’d have switched with Reese by now.”
“Higher-ups needed more men in other places, so here we are,” Paul sighed, before turning his attention to you. “You guys back at the cliff again?”
“Yeah,” you mimicked Ben, feigning a smile of your own. You still weren’t completely sure if Cooper had been telling the truth, but interacting with Paul felt different now that you knew what could’ve been happening behind closed doors. “Camp can be a little too much sometimes, y’know? No offense. Just… needed to get away for a while.”
Paul nodded in understanding.
“Okay, you know the routine,” Walter shrugged, handing you and Ben a bloodchecker each. It was a small vial full of a blue solution, connected to a thin, replaceable tube ending with a needle. The solution would turn clear if mixed with Gaia-infected blood, and a dark muddy brown if the blood was clean. You pierced your arm with the needle, watching your blood travel through the tube and drip down into the solution, turning it brown as you had expected. Glancing over at Ben’s bloodchecker, you found that his was the same. Thankfully.
You were about to pass through the checkpoint when Walter pulled Ben aside, muttering something you couldn’t quite make out, but you saw Ben’s reaction. To anyone else, it would have seemed like he didn’t react at all. Most people only would’ve noticed his polite smile and hushed ‘thank you” to the guard before returning to your side, but you saw through it: the slightest twitch of his hand and the way his lips tightened at what Walter told him. It was so clear to you that he was bothered by it, whatever it was.
“What was that?” you asked him, trying to keep up with his fast-paced stride.
He only spared you a single glance, only a single moment of softness, but now you were inside the central safe zone. Soldiers were standing guard in every direction. There seemed to be more of them than usual. Ben continued forward to the direction of your tent which was a bit farther from everyone else’s. He kept his voice low, “Not here.”
Your shared tent with Ben was bare. The apocalypse didn’t exactly grant you a life of luxury, but that tent was yours. It stayed the same after every new safe zone you were transferred to. Next to the two worn down single mattresses were your backpacks, one of the only things you still had from before the Outbreak besides each other. While you double-checked your supplies, making sure nothing was missing while you were gone, Ben slid one of the mattresses to the side, which was sitting on top of an old rug. He pulled that aside too, his hands digging into the soil, digging and digging until finally, you could see the lid of a crate you had buried.
The crate was filled with jugs of water. Clean, pure, uninfected water. The result of three years of patiently collecting rainwater and saving up whatever the army gave you, carefully filtering each drop throughout the night when you knew no one else would be bothering you. This water was precious. It was gold. And it was a pain to move from safe zone to safe zone. You and Ben had had to resort to bribing and lying for the past three years to make sure it was safe.
Once you were done checking over the supplies, you knelt by Ben’s side. “So… are you gonna tell me what Walter said to you or are you gonna keep being mysterious?” you tried to keep your tone light.
“They were looking for Cooper,” his gaze didn’t leave the jugs of water. His hands, once always covered in paint, were now caked in dirt. “Said we should report him if we did.”
“What?” you questioned. “That doesn’t make any sense, everyone has to go in and out of that checkpoint to get to the cliff. There’s no way Paul and Walter didn’t see him.”
“So how could he have seen all of those supposed experiments in the main tent?” he turned to face you, his expression severe. “That tent is the most heavily guarded thing in this camp. If what he said is true, then there was no way he could’ve left and not be spotted and then somehow manage to get to us without going through the checkpoint.”
The two of you sat in silence for a while, racking your brains for any sort of information that could help you get closer to solving this mystery. It was entirely plausible that Cooper had been lying about the experimentations and the vaccines but despite having only known him for a short while, you knew he wasn’t the type to do something like that. He wouldn’t lie about something like that. Hell, he was the kind of person that worked overtime during the apocalypse. He was an honest man.
Then you remembered something.
“It’s Tuesday today.”
Ben looked at you, puzzled, “Yes, it is… What’s going through your head, love?”
“Filtration duty,” you answered. “They filter out the water in the main tent…”
“...then dump the waste outside of camp,” Ben finished for you, eyes widening. “You think Cooper was in the main tent on purpose?”
“I mean, that’s the only explanation, right? Nothing else has left camp since last week and nobody checks a truck carrying waste. Maybe Cooper was on one of those trucks,” you said before looking back at Ben. “I… I thought I was just seeing things. Did you notice how he was earlier?”
“Out of breath from running…?” Ben frowned, not quite following your train of thought as easily as he usually did.
“He wasn’t just out of breath. He was smelling me.”
You could practically hear the cogs turning in his head as he put the pieces together. He couldn’t quite believe the conclusion he arrived at, that much you could tell, but the disbelief washed away when no other possible explanation presented itself to him.
“How?” his voice was shaky, a quiet sort of devastation clouding his features. Cooper was likely already infected earlier, though you couldn’t tell which stage of infection he was at. The signs pointed to a peculiar middleground between the fever that occurred right before death, and the grotesque reanimation once the virus had complete control over the body.
“Maybe he was telling the truth. Part of it, at least.”
You both looked back at the jugs of water, taking out a few of the smaller containers before hurriedly placing the lid back on the crate. With the crate concealed by the soil and rug, you and Ben made quick work of gathering your things, hiding the small jugs of water underneath clothes, foods, and whatever else were in your bags.
You always made sure to have a plan in case you ever needed to leave a safe zone. The water you collected was too valuable; you had to be able to move it whenever and wherever you needed, but with all the soldiers standing guard outside, you knew this would be impossible even with all of your planning. You just had to bring what you could.
Without uttering a word, you and Ben both knew this was the last night you were ever going to spend in this place.
-
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WHEN YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW | Spencer Reid x Sunshine!Reader
Description: Sunshine rookie gets a boyfriend, and Spencer can’t help but thing he would be so much better for her. But that definitely isn’t the jealousy talking, right?
Length: 8k
Warnings: nothing really, jealousy? talks of sex? embarrassment? Mention briefly of vomit because of allergic reaction.
main masterlist.
author’s note: I want to write for these two until my fingers are two little stubs and even then I’ll learn with my toes. Can be read as a stand alone!
He thought he was going to be sick when he saw her that random Thursday, leaning against her desk, a sweet, bashful smile on her face. Or, more specifically, Spencer thought he was going to need to at least sit down when he saw the man standing next to her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, the little daisy earrings Penelope bought her for her birthday almost laughing at his gobsmacked expression.
He liked Agent Taylor Bingley. He respected the fresh faced desk jockey from the third floor that swanned around their bullpen, usually discussing warm up routines with Luke. He was quick on his feet, a pretty decent shot. Never missed a report, never tardy, even offered his parking spot up to Spencer on more than one occasion because he didn’t mind the long walk from the other lot. He flew under the radar, and when he was noticed, it was because he was a particularly kind soul.
Spencer didn’t think he’d ever seen him without those rosy cheeks that made him look almost always sunburnt, or that trademark boyish grin a handsome guy like him had down to a tea. So it really shouldn’t have been such a surprise to see him lingering around his sunshine girl.
Except she wasn’t his, not by a mile. They just spent almost every second of the work day together.
“Check it out, rookie has an admirer,” Tara said, the heels clicking against the floor as she passed the door, where Spencer seemed to have stopped, his eyes narrowing at the happy couple, “Can’t say I blame him. She’s a pretty girl, don’t you think, Spence?”
She didn’t realise she was rubbing salt in a superficial wound, but Spencer felt his jaw feather with annoyance. Because she was beyond a pretty girl, she was honey and all the months of Spring and a hot drink on a rainy day and finishing a good book and the dessert your mom let you have on your tenth birthday. Not that he could admit that. So he just nodded, right as Taylor leaned over to kiss the apple of her cheek.
She shied away, smiling to her lap and playing with her fingertips, not looking up from her little potted plant that sat next to her on her desk, and Spencer knew it was because she floundered when people gave her too much attention.
Like when Garcia had said her blouse and bun combo she’d worn the other day made her look like a sexy teaching assistant, she’d stammered something close to a thankyou and headed to the kitchenette to get herself a glass of water. Or when Rossi had said the bangs she had cut herself two weeks ago looked cute, that his daughter had been desperate to try something similar, she’d spilled her coffee down her front not even two seconds later because she had been so occupied telling the man it was no big deal.
“Morning, Doctor Reid, Doctor Lewis,” Taylor said, his pearly white teeth gleaming with that West Coast, surfer boy tan that made Spencer want to huff. The man was insufferable. Well, correction, he was insufferably nice for someone Spencer was desperate to pick apart with faults the second he’d seen her preening over their sunshine rookie.
“Morning, Agent Bingley,” Tara said civilly, smiling back at the Agent that passed them to head to the elevators. She caught a glimpse of Spencer, and was quick to make herself scarce in the interest of needing to check in with Penelope, because she knew what that stormy look in his eye and the way his lips pressed into a thin line meant, profiler or not.
Spencer didn’t pay much attention to Lewis leaving his side, not that he was trying to be rude, his eyes were zeroed in on the way she fumbled around her desk, looking for imaginary mess to tidy, which included rearranging the pots of glitter pens and highlighters next to her monitor, only to put them back exactly how they were before.
“Agent Bingley, that’s new,” Came a voice over her shoulder, that made her jump in her seat, and her expression was skittish when she swivelled around, Spencer towering over her with calculating eyes. Luke rolled his chair around the divider to lean in on the conversation, having witnessed the whole thing in high definition since her desk was right next to his.
“Oh, Taylor?” She squeaked, and Spencer didn’t need to touch her face to know it had gone hot just by the way she simpered and fiddled with the hem of her knee length skirt, avoiding their gaze, “Yeah, he took me to the aquarium at the weekend and we got lunch. It’s not really serious or anything, I don’t think,”
She seemed unsure, her lips pursed together and a tiny crease between her brow he hated, and it was then Luke’s deep laugh rumbled next to them.
“Does he know that?” Luke asked, and she shot him a look, wide eyed and confused, as he cleared his throat, “I was thinking I could take you out again in that pretty red dress-”
She threw a wad of scrunched up notepaper at him, an embarrassed smile on her face as she shook her head at him, “You have spent way too much time with Penelope, you’re turning into gossiping school children,”
But she seemed happy, like the thought of the conversation she’d had with Agent Bingley made her all the more girlish herself as she giggled lightly, her gaze meeting Spencer’s empty expression. He wished he could hide his jealousy better, perhaps even seem happy for her. She deserved someone soft and saccharine and humane like Bingley, not a rough shell of what once was a brilliant man. He knew he should feel somewhat pleased for her, at least now he had empirical, hard evidence on why he couldn’t have her, but he couldn’t.
“All I’m saying, rookie, is if you got that man bringing you breakfast and sweet talking you after one date, you’ll have him wrapped around your pinky by the time he’s your boyfriend,” Luke chuckled, and Spencer thought he might just burst a vessel with how hard he clenched his jaw at that dreaded b word.
Alvez had no idea just how much he had twisted a knife in Spencer’s gut, which was plunged even further when he saw that sparkle in her eye when she looked up at him.
“Ignore him, he’s a busy body,” She chirped, her teeth peeking from her lips when she hid a grin, “You wanna get coffee later? Taylor brought me tea and I’m dying for the good stuff,”
Spencer nodded with a small smile, because her attitude was infectious, and selfishly thinking that Bingley couldn’t be that perfect for her because she only ever wanted tea when she felt sick, usually towards the start of the month that he guessed was in correlation with her menstrual cycle but would never ask. She wouldn’t want tea for another two weeks, and would likely take an extra shot in her cappuccino today because this was when she felt the most lethargic.
Swivelling back around in her chair to log onto her computer, she remained completely oblivious to his inner turmoil.
For once, Spencer wished he’d been late to work.
–
Two months. They had been dating for two fucking months. As far as Spencer could tell, from Penelope’s need to chatter about their sunshine rookie and her hot, stud muffin of a boyfriend, things had only been official for about five weeks of that time, but it hadn’t stopped Spencer from wanting to swallow glass because that would likely be less inconvenient than seeing the two of them together.
Taylor usually brought her breakfast whenever they would get back from a case, which infuriated Spencer because he always bought her tea. She was a people pleaser, Spencer knew it before he had ever thought of her as anything other than the shiny newbie with too much joy and doe eyes he’d never seen before. But now, knowing her better than anyone else in the office did because she practically shadowed his footsteps, it was blaringly obvious to him that she had either never told him she didn’t like tea first thing in the morning, or he had never bothered to take notice.
Spencer felt an odd puddle of smugness and fury when on more than one occasion he saw her pouring it down the drain, cold after sitting there for hours until it was unbearable and she couldn’t force herself to drink anymore. It was obvious to him, so why wasn’t it obvious to her own boyfriend? Spencer thought bitterly. But then Agent Bingley did leave a sour taste in his mouth these days.
Speaking of which, Spencer felt that pang in his chest the way he always did when the happy couple walked into the office together. Her hand was usually in his, though she seemed to simper under the weight of the team's glances; knowing and teasing as he’d take her to her desk and whip out the to-go pastries that he’d bought them that morning.
“Morning, Spence,” She skipped past his desk, Taylor trailing behind her like a dog, though she seemed not to mind keeping him waiting a moment as she spoke to her friend, “How was Doctor Who?”
He smiled despite his grudge, because she always remembered what he said. He’d told her once that Thursdays were his evening to watch the show, and every time Friday morning rolled around, she’d bound up to lean over his computer and ask.
“It was okay, I’m excited to see what they do with a Female Doctor, even if I’ll miss Capaldi,” He replied earnestly, and her eyes filled with glee.
“Did they give her a new one of the doo-hickies they have?” She asked, his chest butterflying with an aching sort of affection because she seemed to remember everything he ever told her.
“Sonic Screwdriver?” She nodded her head, even though Spencer knew she didn’t quite understand the show entirely, “Yeah, I prefer Sarah Jane’s Sonic Lipstick however,”
“I wish I had one of those, I could reapply and save the world, how cool would that be?” She said, and they laughed together a little, before Taylor popped his head over Spencer’s computer with that dentist white beam and his excitable eyes, bluer than any sea rolling onto shore.
“Morning, Doctor Reid,” Agent Bingley said, and the smile withered from Spencer’s face, morphing into a civil nod, his expression unreadable.
“Morning, Agent,” He said, his eyes tracking back to his screen as he suddenly found Emily’s group email about staff room fridge etiquette invigorating.
Taylor must have taken it as a sign the Doctor Reid was busy and finally let him have a minutes peace, that is until she took a seat at her desk and he leaned next to her, handing her a warm bagel.
Spencer heard them chatting for about ten minutes, of which he was trying anything to tune them out, including roping Luke into their own conversation. It wasn’t until there was a lapse in the chatter that Spencer’s ears pricked up, and he heard her stand up from her desk, eyes wide as she spat a mouthful out into a tissue.
“Does this have coconut in it?” She asked somewhat fearfully, Spencer’s head whipping around to her little corner of the bullpen. Her little self help stickers dotted around her desktop stared back at him, her reminder to ‘drink water’ almost horribly ironic the second he’d heard her question.
His stomach dropped when Taylor frowned, “Yeah, it’s coconut and raspberry, is-is that not okay?”
Spencer was quick to stand up out of his own seat, rifling through his satchel to dig out his water bottle, making it to her desk in just two long paces and handing it to her without another word as she looked up at him worriedly.
“If you need to puke, it’ll probably be for the best so that you can get the traces out of your stomach. You can’t have the steroids before you hurl or it won’t work,” He soothed, and she nodded, sipping on his water with shaky hands, and Spencer was quick to catch the way her skin had a slight sheen to it that hadn’t been there before. He put a hand on her shoulder, trying to gage if she was well enough to make it to the bathroom on her own or if he would need to drive her to the ER. Either way her expression worried him.
“I-I thought it was white chocolate,” She peeped, looking extremely sorry for herself as she dumped the chewed up brownie in her bin, and Taylor almost appeared at her side, looking entirely lost as he stroked a hand down her hair.
“Talk to me, what’s wrong?” He asked, seafoam hues trailing down her sweating face in terror.
“She’s allergic to coconut,” Spencer cut in, his tone a little harsher than needed, and her boyfriend’s expression wilted like a kicked puppy.
“Shit! You never mentioned, I’m so- I’m so sorry, honey,” Taylor went pale, and she didn’t look much better as she pushed past the two of them, heading for the bathroom, Spencer a single pace behind her.
“I got her, don’t worry,” He called over his shoulder to Agent Bingley standing there like a gaping fish, his hand running through his blonde sweep as he watched her all but running out of the office, Spencer’s long legs keeping up with her.
“Is your skin getting prickly yet?” Spencer asked. Swouldn't go into anaphylaxis, at least not as far as they knew, but the large hives that would appear on her chest and neck and the vomiting was not ideal. She kept a tray of steroids in her desk incase an accidental cross contamination happened (and because Spencer had forced her to have some on hand), but seeing her panicked eyes as she tasted the chalky fruit had made him fawn over her like she was marked for the plague.
“Neck is getting itchy,” She replied, tugging at her collar and pushing the door to the unisex bathrooms open, heading for the nearest stall, “You don’t have to stay for this bit, it’s not-”
He cut her off by sweeping her hair into a ponytail, as if to tell her to stop worrying about him, and he stroked a hand over her arm to let her know he was right there, because he knew she really hated anything gory and gross like that.
He hushed her when she’d try to apologise, hand her his bottle of water in between moments where her whole body seized.
And for a minute, she thought that Spencer might be the only person who she’d ever let see her like this. Not Luke, or Garcia and certainly not Taylor.
The thought of it kept her quiet for the rest of the morning.
-
They seemed to move past the whole debacle quickly. Luke said Taylor had taken her to a fancy restaurant uptown to apologise, making a huge point to avoid the coconut banoffee pudding like it was an explosive.
“You guys are so cute, you’re like Jane and he’s literally your Bingley. I swear your kids are going to be sweet enough I could drizzle them right next to ice cream,” Penelope said over the SUV console speaker, Spencer in the driving seat and her in the passenger, flicking through her files as they approached the victim’s house.
The rookie blanched, “Woah, woah, kids?” She protested, and even Spencer felt himself nearly swerve the minute the bubbly IT geek said it. She looked shaken, awkwardly chuckling and reaching to tuck hair behind her ear, “Slow down, Garcia, we’ve not even- you know what, I think we’re talking about the wrong thing here-“
“You’ve not even what?” Penelope burst out, her need for the lastest gossip overwhelming the reading of the room. She swallowed heavily, shifting in her seat to face out of the window, her knees touching the door with a thud, “Have you guys not had sex yet?”
“Penelope!” The woman screeched, her face hot and gobsmacked that she’d even said it out loud.
But it was telling enough, and Spencer’s face whirled over the console to her, guilt written on her features.
“I just assumed you guys had done it seeing as both of you are the hottest couple I know, I mean I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you if I was a guy-“ Penelope tried to save herself in the only way she knew how, by digging herself a deeper hole.
Spencer’s hand shot out for the centre screen, “We’re losing you, Garcia, you’re breaking up, bye,” He pressed the end call button, and he didn’t need to look at the girl’s face to know she was the epitome of mortified.
Spencer opened his mouth to say something, the awkward silence of the car killing him as much as he knew it was her, but he thought better of it and clamped his mouth shut. It took him a minute before he opened his mouth to speak again, if not to ask her if she wanted to stop at a drive thru for breakfast, but she beat him to it.
“I was going to say we’ve not even said I love you yet,” She murmured, keeping her body entirely swivelled away from him, her arms crossed over her chest in an attempt to make herself smaller, as if she could just smush herself into the seat so he wouldn’t say anything. She cleared her throat, scratching her wrist nervously, “But I guess that’s also true too,”
“Why not?” Her eyes snapped onto Spencer when he braved those two words, and he sensed he’d overstepped some sort of boundary before he realised it sounded like he’d been speaking about the latter, “Why haven’t you said it?” He clarified.
She went quiet, her shoulders shrugging being the only sign that she’d heard him, gaze trailing back out her window.
“He’s not said it yet either, and I don’t think I want him to. Not yet at least,” Her voice was soft, heavy as if every single one of them was coming from her heart, “Love is such a big emotion I think if he did say it, I wouldn’t know how to respond. Like, if I’m going to say it back to someone, I want to be sure I feel it otherwise it’s like I’m betraying everyone else’s version of love, you know?”
He thought she might just be an angel bottled up and thrown into his life, and he sometimes wished he could take a look inside that head of hers because how she had protected her beautiful look on the world after seeing so much hurt staggered him. He had become cruel and cold and heavy where she looked at the lecherous shithole heading for disaster they called Earth and saw right to its soul, gave it a hug, told it she would care even when no one else would.
He tore his eyes from the road, and took in the outline of her face, mindlessly watching the pedestrians on their daily commute to grab lunch, a dog peeing against a lamp post, a motorcyclist bobbing and weaving in between the midday traffic, her doe eyes never missing a trick.
Forcing his gaping expression back on the road, because he might just swerve and hit the damn rider off his bike if he let himself get lost in his little dreamscape that consisted of nothing but her and her face and her thoughts and her words, he cleared his throat, not sure how to add to the poetic, rose tint she seemed to see the world in.
“That’s good, that you’re taking things at your own pace, atleast,” He said, not particularly profound but at least it was something, “You shouldn’t do things just because someone else wants you to, even if you think it would make them happy,”
“But I like making people happy,” She countered, her expression troubled as she looked over at him with a quirked brow, “I like making you happy especially,”
“What makes you think I’m not happy?” Spencer asked, his mouth drying up, his stomach flipping in cartwheels when she giggled to herself like for once she was the smart one snd he was the one who needed teaching.
“It took you three and a half weeks to crack a smile when we first started working together,” His jaw clenched, because he was the one who counted the statistics. Perhaps he was rubbing off on her. “Honestly, I thought you hated me. I thought a seasoned agent like yourself probably would get frustrated teaching the dumb newbie the ABC’s, even ones that admire him. But then I thought, instead of getting so butt hurt about it all, I could just give you a reason to smile and you’d see that I’m not just a useless rookie learning to roll over for treats.”
Spencer’s throat bobbed. He’d hate himself forever for being so cruel to her those first few weeks, the clipped tones when she’d add something in a particularly chirpy voice, the way he would forget his manners sometimes when she’d bring him a coffee, because his head had been so deep in survival mode that being nice didn’t matter. Being nice had got him nowhere in Mexico, in fact it had shown his soft underbelly and drawn a target on it.
“I never hated you,” His voice croaked out, weak and pathetic, and it's times like that he remembered ten years ago talking to her would have made him blush, pop a boner, and lose half his IQ all in one go. Coughing, his knuckles turned white at the wheel, and he avoids her gaze that feels like a pitfall trap, “It’s difficult to go back to how you used to be when you’ve got a thousand eyes on your back waiting for you to lower your guard,”
“I know, I know that now, I jus-” She floundered, worried she’d touched a nerve, but he stopped her by leaning over the console and putting a gentle hand on her kneecap.
“Relax, I know I wasn’t the most pleasant person to be around,” Spencer said, his timbre quiet but honest, “You were one of the few things I looked forward to, if I’m honest.”
“Really?” She said, agog, like she was waiting for him to turn around and say it had been a joke, “You didn’t think I’m too loud or, like, too much?”
“How can there be too much of you? If your body wasn’t in correct proportion, your organs wouldn't function-”
“Spencer,” She said, though he knew she was smiling even without having to look, “You know that’s not what I meant,”
“I know,” He replied, a smug little smile quirking on his own lips because he loved making her happy too, “No, I could never find you too much.”
She simpered under his words, his hand a stoked flame on her skin as she brought her fingers over the top of them to squeeze them together, before she changed the subject because she knew her cheeks might just explode if they heated anymore.
–
They were back from a long case, one that had made everyone tired and grumpy, especially because they needed to swing by the office for an hour of admin even Emily couldn’t wriggle them out of.
And ofcourse, as he always was when Spencer was feeling like he was already about to strangle someone out of annoyance, Agent Bingley was right there when they entered the lobby.
She hadn’t slept well on the jet, despite Spence loaning her his jumper to use as a pillow, and she was in desperate need of coffee, the kind that Spencer and Penelope forced her to try instead of the cold caramel thing she liked. She’d even go for one of Luke’s zero sugar, zero milk atrocities right now.
“Hey guys, how was the flight?” Taylor jumped in to ask, and everyone gave some sort of variation of a groan because that was exactly how it had felt. His attention turned to her, as she pulled up the rear with Spencer attached her her hip because she had been practically sleepwalking the entire way there, “Hi honey,”
“Taylor, hi,” She said, her eyes perking up when he held out a hot take away cup for her, “You really didn’t have to,”
“Nonsense, herbal tea is supposed to alleviate headaches and help get you to sleep,” He replied, his other hand behind his back quickly whipping out to produce a bunch of flowers in front of her face.
She barely had time to flash him a grin to hide the disappointment that it was nowhere near as caffeinated as she’d like, nor that she didn’t even liked herbal tea, before a bunch of lilies were thrust her way.
“Lillies,” She said, her hand covering her chest at the touching sentiment, “Taylor, you shouldn’t have,”
“I know they’re your favourites,” The blonde replied, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and effectively putting a wall between her and Spencer, whether he meant to or not. Her expression wavered, and Spencer's eyes went straight to her, waiting for her to correct him. Because they weren’t her favourites, not even in her top five. Hyacinths were. Or Foxglove. Or Delphiniums. Not Lillies.
She nodded wordlessly, and the three of them headed for the lift, where the rest of the team held the door for them, her expression tiptoeing between guilty and smiling, Taylor’s almost ecstatic to see her after her long few days away, and Spencer’s entirely pissed off that the sun kissed jerk couldn’t see every sign blaring in his face.
“I might have to cut off the stamen when Ace comes over,” She queried, her eyes roving over the beautiful white petals opening towards her like a book.
“Ace? Who’s Ace?” He said, and Spencer and JJ exchanged a glance, because the whole elevator was now privy to their conversation as David pressed the six button. Taylor reached forward to push the three for himself.
“The dog I foster sometimes, the one I told you about. He helps me when I need to talk through some things. He’s a very good listener,,” She said with a dopey smile on her face, her eyes casting over her boyfriends face with a willing expression, because she knew for a fact she’d told him at lengths about the bouncy Spaniel that adored her, “He comes over for playdates, but the pollen inside lilies are poisonous to dogs,”
Taylor scrunched his nose up, “Ugh, I hate dogs, they’re so slobbery and the always seem to smell awful,” He commented, her face dropping the slightest in a way that made Spencer’s hand curl into a fist, because how dare Agent Bingley take that away from her, “I thought you were a cat person?”
“I like them both equally, but Ace is sweet. He curls up on my legs after we’ve gone for a walk,” Taylor still didn’t seem convinced, and she felt stupid for even mentioning it, well aware that the rest of her team were listening in on her childish description of the old dog that wanted nothing but love.
“Why do you need a dog to talk anyway, babe? You have me,” Taylor said, in a way that was supposed to sound comforting but made Spencer want to shake him and tell him to listen to a damn word she was saying. Her eyes dimmed, and she looked at the lilies again, feeling entirely ungrateful for wishing they were something else, and the elevator doors opened onto the third floor. Taylor kissed her cheek and waltzed out of the lift with a quick goodbye to her team that was returned in murmurs. Turning to look at her, his body already in the anteroom of his own floor, he smiled sweetly at her, “I love you,”
JJ and Emily whipped their heads to her face, expecting to see some kind of puppy love blossom there, only to find wide-eyed panic, her smile slowly slipping. Rossi cleared his throat when she said nothing, the air turning stale as the team waited for her response, Taylor looking at her expectantly, and she wished the ground would open up then and there to swallow her whole, because that would probably be better than whatever this was.
Tara nudged her shoulder, waking her out of her daze, Luke scratching the back of his neck awkwardly, and it was then after a beat more of silence that Taylor opened his mouth again, “Babe, did you hear what I-”
She leaned forward to press the close door button, her doe hues in full flight mode, her fingers only picking up the pace when her boyfriend took a step closer towards the elevator, and Emily brought a hand over her mouth in muffled laughter when the doors slammed shut in front of him, their sunshine rookie entirely spooked and needing a quick exit.
The tiny metal box went silent, Spencer watching her face meld from alarm to horror, to sheer embarrassment.
“I mean, I’ll give it to you kid, that’s one way to do it,” Rossi said, patting her on the back and she shoved her face in her hands, the stems of the dove white flowers brushing against her cheek roughly.
“Please tell me that didn’t just happen,” She groaned through her fingers, JJ chuckling as the doors to their own floor opened up.
“Oh honey,” She said, rubbing the girl’s back gently, leading her out onto the BAU carpet that felt harsher against the souls of her shoes than it ever had before, “I think what you need is a coffee and a long talk with someone who isn’t a dog,”
Spencer watched her shuffle to slump down behind her desk, her expression still rattled and lost, JJ’s eyes flicking to him every now and then in a way that urged him to be the one to do just that because it was obvious by now who she talked the most openly to in the office.
But by the time he’d braved walking over to her desk, she’d already rushed through her report, excusing herself home for the day, and he knew her well enough to know she needed some breathing room before he could approach the subject, otherwise she would shut the doors on him too.
He hated the spiteful part of him that revelled in Taylor’s expression when that metal screen had slammed in his face.
—
It was three days later, and she had enforced a strict ban on talking about that day in the office. For once she didn’t look like she was going to break her resolve either, since every time someone tried to weasel information of her she would either pretend she hadn’t heard, or would excuse herself to make her fifth coffee of the day, or even had thrown her paperwork on the floor when Luke had pushed her for an answer just for an excuse to avoid the topic.
In fact, Spencer himself had been tempted to get her alone because he knew she would crack without much pressure from him, though the thought of using her trusting nature against her seemed wicked, and so he stopped himself and settled for curiosity.
It wasn’t until they were away on a case and they were shoved in a room together that the subject of Taylor was even brought up, and even then it was entirely out of his control.
“I’ll take the couch,” Spencer said, his eyes falling on the double bed in the centre of the room, striding over the other side of the room to throw his to go bag down on the two seater sofa that would wreck his back.
“Don’t be silly, we can just share the bed.” She said, as if it was the most obvious solution, which it was, “I sleep talk a little, but just give me a shove and I’ll shut up,”
Spencer paused, watching her fumbling around her bag for her toothbrush and paste.
“Won’t your boyfriend mind?” He asked, his palms clammy because he worried for a moment it was wrong to bring it up, and his chest butterflied when she froze, “Sorry, I know you didn’t want to talk about it, I just thought I wouldn’t like my girlfriend sharing a bed-”
“We broke up,” She said, taking pulling a large pink shirt out her bag and some strawberry printed shorts, her toiletries stuffed in her pockets, “So don’t worry about any of that stuff, we can share,”
And she waltzed into the bathroom without any more explanation, the lock clicking behind her and leaving Spencer alone with his thoughts.
They had broken up? Was it because of what happened in the elevator? Was it because of what Penelope said in the car? Was she the one to break up with him or the other way around?
Spencer felt like a gossip, even though his thoughts had gone no further than his cranium, and by the time she emerged from the bathroom, fresh faced and in her pyjamas, he had already changed himself, tucked himself under the cover in the hope she understood they didn’t need to talk about it if she didn’t want to.
She smiled at him, tucking her dirty clothes back in her bag and heading for the bed, slipping under the plush duvet with a soft ooft.
“Light on or off?” She asked, her finger hovering over the switch beside their bed.
“On, if that’s okay?” He replied and she nodded wordlessly, shuffling down under the covers, pulling them up to just below her armpits. Crossing her arms over her stomach like she was snow white waiting to fall into a poison-laced slumber, her eyes bore holes into the ceiling, and his thoughts banged loudly against his temple. The silence of the room seemed to only turn their avoidance tactics into a cacophony they couldn’t ignore.
“If you’re going to ask questions, I might as well tell you before we get back to Quantico.” She said finally, her sigh heavy and exhausted and she looked over at him, his brunette locks splaying over the pillow in waves, his facial hair scratching against the sheet when he flicked his head over to her too.
Hazel had never been such a pretty colour than when they sat in silence for a moment, staring at one another, almost daring the other to speak first. He swallowed, his mouth watering at how she looked, tucked under the sheets, her body lax and soft under her pyjamas, her hands skimming over her stomach nervously.
“Is it because of the day in the elevator?” Spencer asked after a few minutes, breaths suddenly becoming difficult to regulate naturally unless he forced them to be, because he was so close to her under the covers, his entire body too long and gangly for just a twin bed, he could smell her shampoo and conditioning combo in full force. Her spearmint tongue rolled words around her mouth for a minute, dropping down to his Star Wars shirt he felt childish for wearing the minute he saw her looking at it.
“Kind of, he just wanted us to move so fast, it just kinda made me nervous, but I always thought being nervous was supposed to be good, you know?” She sighed, forgetting to breathe in between her splurge of words that had been building up inside her for weeks, “Like you said the feeling of excitement and fear are almost identical so I think I just convinced myself I was being dumb and I was being a bad person for not just giving him what he wanted. I’m supposed to love him, right? Being his girlfriend and all that,”
He had said that; because scientifically that was exactly correct. The hormones released during love and during fear were, down to their core, chemical matches, and it felt funny she’d remembered that fact considering she made him feel somewhere in between too. He knew she was special, just as much as he knew the idea of tainting her with his core terrified him. Like he secreted some kind of radiation that would ruin her if she got too close for too long. But he couldn’t help it. How do you stop yourself from wanting something good? It was just science. A Pavlovian response.
“You’re not supposed to do anything. There’s no timeline for how you feel, and you can’t force yourself to feel something any quicker or stronger than you do,” He said, shaking his head when she bit her lip, her fingertips playing with one another ontop of the sheets.
“He wanted to know when I was ready to have…” She swallowed, her cheeks heating, “Intimacy with him. A-and it’s not like I’ve not done it before, I had a boyfriend in high school, but I just felt like with him…”
“He didn’t pressure you, did he?” Spencer asked, his brows furrowing as he felt a surge of annoyance flash through his blood that she had wound herself up so much just because of some guy who couldn’t keep it in his pants for a few months.
Her eyes widened, taking in the storm brewing in that beautiful woodland gaze of his, and she shook her head quickly, “No, no, nothing like that. This was all on me, it was all just me being dumb,”
“You’re not being dumb just because some guy didn’t like the answer you gave,” He corrected, exhaling deeply and letting his frown drop, because he knew she hated when he did that, “Why didn’t you want to, if you don’t mind me asking?”
She shrugged, looking back up at the dusty lamp shade hanging from the ceiling, the cobwebs that smattered around the wooden panels.
“I don’t know, I just kind of never saw the two of us.. becoming intimate, you know?” She said, her tone sheepish like she was in confession and he was a priest sat on the other side of the divide. He looked over at her, scanning the outline of her face, but she seemed adamant on avoiding his gaze, because she knew she would spill everything the minute she looked at him. With Spencer, there were no secrets, and that was entirely the problem.
Spencer’s lips pursed, thinking of exactly the right thing to say to such a delicate soul when she was laying herself hypothetically bare for him.
“You don’t have to be intimate in a relationship if you don’t want to. No one who loves you should ever make you feel like there’s an expectation or like you owe them that,” Spencer explained softly, edging his pinky finger out the tiniest bit to catch the back of her hand that now lay flat on the bed, her head turning up to meet his round forest hues that looked down at her with more softness than he’d felt in a long time.
He wished he could stay here with her forever. In the quiet of this room, they were just the two of them, not Doctor Reid and the Special Agent he had a huge hopeless crush on that was years his junior and thought she could fix everything wrong with the world.
“I know,” She sighs, and his heart caught in his throat when her pinky raises up to meet his own, the tips of their fingers brushing against one another like they were meeting each other for a slow dance. He had touched her many times before, but there was something illicit about this time. Like their skin had become oppositely charged and was pulling the other one in with an electric crackle, “He never pressured me but I felt like I could have tried harder to want it.”
“If you don’t want it, you don’t ever have to have it. A lot of people reach your age when your frontal cortex is developed and realise they might be asexual, it’s not a bad thing-” He tried reassuring her, but she was quick to shake her head again, bashfully ripping her eyes away from him to look at their caressing fingertips.
“No, no. It’s not that I never want to be intimate ever, I just never really felt comfortable around him enough to let myself want it. Like I couldn’t just be me with him, I was just being what he wanted me to be. Like he never really knew the real me,” She explained, and she rolled over onto her side to face him, her other finger coming up to absentmindedly trace over the prominent vein that ran up his arm, stopping just below where his old needle scars were at the crook of his elbow. If she saw them, she didn’t say a word, but Spencer felt like she was trailing a flame over his skin. He thought if she took his manhood in her hand she’d probably get the exact same response from him, because with every invisible swirl and line she drew over his skin, he felt a heat ripping through his loins. “Does that make sense? Like I didn’t think he would like the ikky parts of me so I ended up putting on a charade,”
“Y-yeah,” He replied, and his stammer made her look up, eyes wide and innocent as she watched him all but falling apart under a single fingertip. God he was pathetic. Mid thirties and nearly finishing in his boxers over a pretty girl touching his arm. Only it wasn’t just a pretty girl. It was her. His sunshine girl. “But I don’t think you have any ikky parts, to be honest,”
Her eyes deepened into pools of awe, and he watched her trail a glance down his nose to his mouth vulnerably.
“Spencer, you’re being too kind,” She whispered, and he swore his chest lurched.
He cleared his throat, and moved to roll over towards her too, hoping to disperse some of the energy that was clogging between them, only for it to become dialled to a hundred, trapping them in a tiny box where they were looking at one another, laying on the bed they were being forced to share and almost holding hands, because committing to full thing was scary like they were ten years old in a playground.
“Of course that makes sense. It’s much healthier to form intimate relationships with people we trust and feel safe with than rushing into things,” Spencer tried to breeze past the tension, but her breath was fanning over his face, almost tripping him over his words, because she was still looking at him like he knew all the answers. Because he usually did. Except for this time. This time, he felt like he was walking blind towards his point, “Not that one night stands should be shamed or anything, but it’s much better to engage in sexual intercourse with someone when it feels right,”
She breathed out deeply, licking her lips, and her finger movements stopped.
“So it’s just a when you know, you know, kind of thing?” She asked, her brows pulling together in a saddened frown, “I’m not, like, broken or anything?”
He sat up on his elbow, grabbing her wrist tight enough she would listen the minute he said it to her, because he never wanted to hear her say that again, “There is nothing wrong with you, you hear me?” She looked up at him with glassy eyes, wide and shocked to see him so desperately insistent over her, “You feeling secure is more important than any guy out there, no matter how nice they are, got it?”
She nodded after a beat, because she thought her brain might have stopped working with the way he was leaned over her, looking down at her with a glimmer of the harshness he’d been drowning in when she first met him. These days he seemed to have mellowed out the tiniest bit, except the straightforward tone he held with everyone else who wasn’t her, or the general heavy handedness he didn’t seem to realise he was capable of. Like in the way his warm, rough hands gripped the skin of her wrist, his expression somewhat frustrated though not with her as he looked down at where she was half beneath him.
“Spence?” She whispered into the electricity between them, her eyes trailing over his nose again and ghosting over his half attempt at facial hair. They were just whisps, but they suited him embarrassingly well. He didn’t reply, just stared at her to wait for her response, “I feel safe with you, you know that?”
He swore his heart was thumping out of his chest. She looked divine under his hand, sweet like a pudding begging him to taste, and he couldn’t help it when his thumb trailed up the side of her jaw, brushing just under her bottom lip, and she seemed to press herself further into his touch, a cat being scratched behind velvet ears.
“You’d tell me if you ever wanted me to stop, wouldn’t you?” He murmured, gooseflesh crawling up his arm when she nodded, her eyes boring holes into his soul when she looked up at him like that.
“Always,” She answered honestly, blinking at him once, twice, before she took a deep breath for courage, “But what if I never wanted you to stop?”
Spencer nearly moaned when he crashed their lips together, and he heard her squeak in delight beneath him, his large hand cupping her jaw, weaving into her hair, tugging her closer. She felt like her was consuming her whole, and she had no qualms about it, not when she reached a hand up to his shoulder and tugged him even more on top of her, the weight of him on her chest comforting and achingly right.
He pulled away to breathe for a moment, but she was chasing his lips, her touch maddening and he swore his brain switched off when she ran a hand up his spine, slipping under his shirt and tracing over every one of his vertebrae making him shiver. Her lips were stronger than any craving he had ever felt, the instant dopamine rush embarrassing for a man of his age, so hardened by the world reduced to putty, ready to beg for more because now he’d had a taste of her ambrosia, he didn’t think he could ever think straight again. A man sent crazy by forbidden wine.
He pushed her hair away from her face, using his long fingers to wrap around the back of her head and pull her impossibly closer to him, his other arm skirting down to her clothed waist and pressing their bodies together. She whined in his mouth, and Spencer thought he could finally die happy.
He pulled away to let her catch a gasp, her fingers carding through his long, brown curls, scratching against his scalp in a way that drew a low growl from his throat. He needed more, needed her, more than the air he gulped down ravenously and he found himself kissing at her soft neck, her head tipped back in bliss as he kissed every inch he could.
“The reason I didn’t want it with Taylor,” She choked between manic breaths, her hands holding onto him so tight he knew she didn’t have any intention of asking him to stop, “Was because it didn’t feel like this,”
Spencer wove their fingers together, pushing her hand above her head as the other came up to tilt her face towards him, looking into her bleary eyes for a second, their noses ghosting past one another, her mint breath delicious on his lips.
“It never feels like this, baby,” He whispered, their foreheads pressing together before he gave into her again and pressed his lips against hers so hard she whimpered into his mouth.
And she believed him.
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