the devil may care // s.reid

chapter 3 - don't you dare to judge me

tw: mentions of drugs and drug use, being high, guns

After that last case Hotch pretty much ordered the whole team to go home as soon as the jet landed. Obviously Melanie didn't complain, she would gladly leave the paperwork for some other day.

She had taken a shower and gotten changed into more comfortable clothes. She didn't really mind being alone, but somehow her apartment felt so empty now that she wasn't surrounded by her friends from the criminal organization anymore. She really missed them. Sometimes she blamed herself for being the one who was offered a completely new life instead of prison.

Melanie didn't really like the new person she was becoming. Always mean and emotionless. It gets exhausting after a while. She wasn't really like that, Moreno just needed to put on an act to protect herself. And after it gets rough she would smoke her bad feelings away. It's not like she was doing cocaine, she only smoked some weed. She made herself a promise that she would never use anything else.

She was smoking her second joint of the night when she heard someone knocking on her door. She instantly grabbed her gun and silently walked to the door. She looked trough the peephole and instantly put away her gun. There he was. Outside her door.

She opened the door. Melanie could instantly feel the eyes of Dr. Spencer Reid on her. They were both as equally shocked. What was he doing here? Was he surprised that she opened the door?

"Doctor, what do i own the pleasure of having you behind my door?" Moreno asked softly smiling at him. He looked her with slight shock in his eyes. Yes doctor i'm being nice, get over it she thought
"Um may i come inside?" He asked slightly embarrassed. She moved away from the door letting Spencer into her apartment. She closed the door and locked eyes with him.

Spencer's POV

He looked her up and down, he wasn't used to seeing her dressed like this. Were those Hello Kitty pants? The white top without a bra wasn't really covering anything. A bellybutton piercing and wait- nipple piercings. His face turned red when he realized he was quite literally starting at her boobs.
"It's rude to stare" she said to him with a smirk.

"Oh yeah s-sorry you must be wondering why i am here" Spencer tried to ignore the embarrassment he was feeling. "Well i kinda realized that you don't like paperwork and since i was accusing you earlier i just thought that i give you these" Reid tried to say as professionally as he could while handing her a stack of papers. "I-i did all the paperwork from the case that i possibly could do. I obviously couldn't fill the ones that needed to have your experiences on them but i just-" he stopped mid sentence when Melanie hugged him. She was hugging him, Melanie Moreno was hugging him.

"Thank you Spence, you didn't have to do this for me" she said with pure joy in her voice. Spence? She was using nicknames as well? Something was off, this wasn't the agent Moreno that he was used to seeing at work.

"How do you know where i live?" She finally realized to ask. Spencer's face turned red. "Oh i couldn't sleep so i asked Garcia to figure out your address so i could drop the papers" his voice was silent but Melanie just smiled at him. "And i really wanted to apologize about my accusations, it wasn't fair. It was your first case and you really did a good job" he said.

Melanie's POV

She just looked at him. She got compliments from Dr. Spencer Reid. Melanie was kinda feeling bad that Spencer was so sorry about the conversation that happened on the case. He was right about the whole thing, but her lies had made him feel this bad. Stupid weed, it was making her all emotional and vulnerable. "Don't even think about it anymore, you are forgiven" she said gently.
She was as high as a plane having a conversation with an FBI agent that hated her. This is kinda weird.

She walked to her living room with the paperwork. She put the papers into her bag so that she wouldn't forget to take them with her tomorrow. She didn't realize that Spencer followed her to the living room. His eyes were clearly fixated on all the things on her living room table: rolling papers, a grinder, a pen, tip papers, weed. Oh my god, the weed.
"Don't you dare to judge me" Melanie said bluntly.

Spencer's POV

So this was the reason why she was so nice. She was high. How didn't he realize it right away? The slightly red eyes, bubbly but calm attitude, the strange smell in her apartment, her slightly raspy voice. He should've noticed it. And here he thought that she was just being a nice person.
"I won't judge you" he still reassured. He wasn't the one to judge. "But this isn't good for you and it's illegal, and what if Hotch finds out-" he started rambling but she interrupted him. "You know i'm not really a person who cares about something being illegal" she probably tried to joke about the situation to ease the mood.

She obviously wanted to say something but held her words back. He didn't like that, weirdly Spencer really wanted to know what was going on in her head. "Hey you know you can talk to me without judgment and if you feel like it we can forget this whole thing tomorrow" he said gently.

"I'm not going to ask you to keep this a secret, you can tell Hotch if you want to. But i just, i don't even smoke that often. I guess it's just a habit i picked up from my old life, smoking when you want to avoid the negative feelings" she spoke up and he listened. He was a good listener, or at least people had told him that. "I just really like myself when i'm high" she said now looking at the ground. That sentence made Spencer feel this weird feeling in his stomach. Like he wanted to hug her, comfort her and take away those negative feelings she obviously tried to hide.

"I really think you should leave" Melanie said. He was surprised. He didn't think that she would open up to him but this wasn't exactly what he was expecting either. To be honest he didn't really understand what he was feeling in this situation. Melanie clearly meant her words and he didn't want to make her feel any worse. "Are you sure that you are okay with me leaving?" He asked just to be sure. "Reid i'm fine, it's late and i think that both of us need some sleep" she said firmly. "I promise i won't tell Hotch" he reassured and she only gave him an thankful nod. And with that Spencer was out of her apartment and she was all alone in there. Spencer didn't have a good feeling about this, maybe he should've tried harder to stay with her.

— — —

It was a new day at the BAU and Melanie had been avoiding Spencer the whole two hours that she had been working. She dropped all of the paperwork about the previous case into Hotchners office. Even though Reid was the one who did most of it.

She looked around as she walked towards Spencer's desk. "We need to talk" she said sharply. "Alone" Melanie added when she realized that here people might hear them. They went into one of the empty offices and Spencer clearly seemed a little stressed.

"Now hear me out pretty boy: yesterday never happened. I don't want you to even think about that I'm even slightly close to being the person I was yesterday" Moreno said rudely. "But like i said i really appreciate your apology and in my eyes you are still forgiven. So no need to worry about that" she said.

She still felt kinda bad about lying to him and making him feel like he needed to apologize. "Forget about yesterday, it never happened. Got it?" she asked and as soon as she saw him nod Melanie walked out of the office leaving him alone. She didn't even let him speak because she really didn't want to hear what he had to say. This is how it should go and Reid's words couldn't change that.