You'll Never Be Whole Until You Lose Control- Spencer Reid

4.) shc

I've been sleeping, waiting for something
To feel nothing
At all
Avoid the call
Sometimes I'm reckless
Sometimes misdirected
And sometimes when I'm tested I tend to do nothing at all
When I'm alone, there's a ghost that keeps talking
And I know there's gotta be more
For sure
SHC, Foster the People

Spencer

"I met someone."

Sarah, my therapist, had done a double take, eyes wide. "You met someone?"

I looked down and rested my head in my hands, the drug them through my hair. With a deep exhale, I looked her in the eyes again. "Yeah, I did..."

"You're apprehensive."

"Absolutely."

"What's going through your head, Spencer?"

What was going through my head?

"I can't be with her."

Sarah had audibly groaned.

And now as I sat next to Luke at our desks, he did the same thing.

"Spencer," he sighed.

"I'm going to ruin her life."

"No, you're not. All of our lives are better because you're here," he pushed back from his desk.

"It doesn't feel that way. I hurt everyone- my god damn mother was essentially kidnapped because of me for fucks sake."

"You know that wasn't your fault."

"Fucking feels that way."

"All I'm hearing is that you really like this girl, and she seems to really like you too," he said as my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I pulled my phone out, and sure enough, it was Anna.

She had sent me a photo of freshly unpacked malachite pieces captioned, 'made me think of you!'

"Look, Spencer, I know it's scary."

"Luke, the last girl I loved got murdered right in front of me," I shuddered. "And... I keep thinking about this innocence that's in her eyes, and I know I'll taint her with the things I've done. I can't just... destroy her too. She's young and beautiful and I can't live up to what she deserves after all I've done."

"All you've done? Reid, all you've done is survive in the circumstances you were put in, which is pretty fucking incredible."

"And how fair is it to her to be stuck with a broken man?"

"Well, she wouldn't be stuck if she put herself there willingly," he said, then took a sip of his stale coffee.

"That's not- that's- fuck," I buried my head in my hands.

He was logical and if the roles were reversed, I would have said the same things to him.

"She makes me feel alive for the first time since..."

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and texted her back.

Anna

I had left the spell I'd made for Spencer on my altar to charge in the moon and the sunlight before slipping it into my purse to bring to work to add a few extra crystals to it: aquamarine for courage- a stone that paired perfectly with the amethyst that was already in it, white howlite for sleep, ocean jasper and brecciated red jasper for grounding and silver-sheen obsidian for protection. Then, the next night, I slipped it under my pillow before going to bed, hoping that it would send him comfort in his.

We had been texting often the last few days; which he said that he'd never checked his phone so much in his life, a self admitted technophobe.

Before I laid down to go to sleep, my phone rang and I smiled when I saw it was him.

"Hey," I said.

"Hi," his voice sounded tired, as if he'd had a long day.

"How are you?"

"I'm fine, yourself?"

"Peachy keen as ever," I sat up in my bed, bringing my blankets with me. "About to go to sleep, actually."

"I was afraid of that," he sighed. "I just wanted to... hear your voice," he admitted, as if the words held as much weight as Atlas holding up the world.

"You're too sweet," I smiled into the phone.

"No, you are, pretty girl."

Pretty girl? "You wouldn't think that if you had seen me earlier with a face mask on in just my paint covered pajamas."

"I would absolutely still think that," he laughed. "It was just a long day and I wanted to be reminded of the good in the world."

"It must be hard, your job."

"It can be," his voice was quiet; reserved. "Well, if you're tired-"

"No, Spencer, I want to talk."

"I don't want to keep up up."

"I'm fine, what do you want to talk about?"

"What did you do today?"

"Well, I worked. I made some custom tea blends for the shop that I'm going to charge under next week's fully moon in Libra, and then we sold this really cool quartz sphere that had a bunch of pyrite and galena in it to this Wiccan couple who wanted it for their divine masculine altar. Then I took a bath, sketched and now I'm talking to you."

We talked for a while before Spencer made me hang up because he knew I was tired. I, queen of no self-preservation, was fine to stay awake but he said he would feel bad if I were tired in the morning.

"Go to sleep, pretty girl," he instructed.

"Mmhmm, you too, Spencer."

Spencer

Hearing her sweet voice briefly made the walls stop closing in as I paced my bedroom.

I could envision her wrapped up in her quilt, endless hair damp from her bath, ready for bed; and how part of me deeply longed to hold her while she slowly fell asleep. How she would feel curled into my chest, my arms wrapped around her, hearing her heart beat, and she would cling to me the same way I held onto her...

But every time, my thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the screams; the ghosts were never far. And she was never close enough.

Ever since I was a child, my mother had read me classic romances with brave heroes overcoming every obstacle to be with the woman they fought for. I developed the fantasy of love as my parent's relationship crumbled- became infatuated with it. To cherish someone beyond reason, to kiss and adore unconditionally. The prince who would walk gallantly and heroically through thorns and hellfire to save his princess.

JJ had only ever seen me as a friend, and now, years after the failed date to the Redskins game, I viewed her as a sister. I was happy for her and Will, and I adored my Godsons more than anything.

While working a case years ago, actress Lila Archer and I had formed a relationship that could only now be described as 'friends with benefits.' She moved on to the next thing that caught her eye too quickly, never staying tethered down in one place too long. And I on the other hand.... when she came to DC for projects we managed to hook up, but it was nothing more than that.

Then there was Maeve Donovan. I had failed her on every level. I had saved so many other people, but hadn't been able to save her. I had never gotten the chance to tell her I that loved her.

But maybe I wasn't the hero anymore.

I'd done things that no Prince Charming would ever dream of doing in his most wild of nightmares.

Maybe I was the Phantom of Opera, looming in the darkness, or Hades stealing away Persephone's innocence, one sinfully sweet pomegranate seed at a time- for Anna was springtime personified; and everything I seemed to touch would soon burn to ash.

But what an extraordinary supernova we could be.