Soulmate AU
Spencer Reid had his quirks. He hated modern technology, and he blamed this on multiple readings of Bradbury and Orwell in his early years, efficiently scaring him into getting rid of all electronics in his room out of fear of Big Brother and the like, spare his miniature television, VCR player, and box of recorded Doctor Who and Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes. He was incredibly socially awkward. In fact, he marveled at the amount of friends he had been able to rack up despite his constant rambling and bouts of statistics. And, the most annoying of all, he was a germophobe through and through, which was extremely unfortunate taking into consideration the natural order of the world he lived in.
Soulmates, the unfortunate law of nature he was getting at was soulmates. The one person he would be completely perfect for in every possible way and vice-versa; the one person he could be honest and open with, that he could love and cherish; the one person out of billions of people that could only be found with a simple touch, a brush of the hand that would introduce him to a chromatic world he could only read about. And he was terrified. He'd known that to find this person would mean coming into physical contact with another person he did not yet know, a stranger, crawling with germs and bacteria and possible diseases whom he was supposed to love. He really hated his memory sometimes, and regretted reading so many medical journals at a young age.
It wasn't as if he hadn't given this any thought, in fact it plagued (bad choice of words) his thoughts constantly, to the point where he accepted the grey hues that his world was doomed to be forever made up of. He weighed his options and decided that eternal color-blindness was exponentially better than having to come into contact with bacteria-infested strangers in hope that he could catch a glimpse of the world he had been blocked off from his entire life.
His friends had discouraged him from making this choice, of course, as he predicted they would. Rossi, whom had had so many "soulmates" that his vision was just varying shades of brown, encouraged him to "put himself out there". Derek, Garcia, and Prentiss, who had not yet found their respective matches, had invited him to multiple speed searching sessions, which consisted of gathering in a room with a decent amount of strangers, and shaking hands with everyone in that room, which was the least appealing of the options. JJ and Hotch, who had both found their matches, constantly encouraged him that there was someone out there for him.
The only one of his friends that had not pushed him to find his "match" was Y/N, who also had yet to find hers. Instead, he and Y/N developed a strong bond over their shared interests in literature and media. They often found themselves debating the probability of Star Wars theories or sharing memories of the happier parts of their respective lives.
She had always accepted his many quirks and respected his wide boundaries from the moment they met, and for that he was thankful. When they first saw each other, she had reached in for a handshake, and he had settled for a small wave. After explaining the situation to her, she had never attempted to force him into physical contact. A few days after their first meeting, she had bought him a travel size hand sanitizer to keep with him, just in case others weren't quite as understanding as she. It has been in its own pocket in his messenger bag ever since, and he has never let it empty.
She had never talked about her search for her match, and she attempted to play it off as if it didn't matter to her, yet every time one of a colleague mentioned a hue, her eyes fell, even if just for a fraction of a second. He knew she wanted to find her match, and secretly, though he would never admit it aloud, he wanted her to find hers as well. He wanted her to be happy, even if it meant possibly losing his best friend to a stranger who would whisk her away into a world he could never give her.
"Spencer? Spencer, we have a case. Wheels up in 10," Y/N's voice snapped him out of his daze, and he followed her to the tarmac, grabbing his go bag and willing himself to face yet another day of gore. After boarding the plane and taking off, Hotch began to brief on the case...
——
Three gunshots rang out in the stagnant midnight air.
He shouldn't have let her go in there alone, he shouldn't have, he shouldn't have, why the hell did he let her do that? He kept repeating the question in his head as he ran towards the abandoned house, dirt and dust be damned. He pushed open the ancient door with his elbow, gun in hand. He heard a solid thud resounding throughout the frail house, emanating from somewhere upstairs. He took the rickety steps two at a time, narrowly avoiding a weak spot and probable injury. This was also the point where he realized where he stood: in the middle of a dusty house that hadn't been touched for decades, then suddenly took up use as the hiding place for a murderer and his victims. How many diseases could he rack up from a mere touch of the fading, peeling floral wallpaper?
All these thoughts rushed from his head as he turned the corner in the upstairs hallway and came face to face with two fallen persons, one being the elusive unsub they had been working nonstop for a solid week to catch, and the other being Y/N, unconscious with a dark stain blooming from her side.
"WE NEED A MEDIC," Spencer shouted into the radio seated on his right shoulder, dropping his gun and assessing the situation before him. The bullet appeared to have hit Y/N on her left side near her hipbone, not too severe, but nevertheless bleeding heavily. He quickly placed his hands over it, stopping the steady stream of blood and putting pressure on the wound. He squeezed his eyes shut, seemingly willing her to stay lucid, to stay with him. He couldn't lose her. He heard the thumps of multiple pairs of feet scrambling to climb the staircase, making their way towards him. Opening his eyes, he froze. The room began to shift, the greys giving way to a sight he couldn't even begin to explain. He looked down, his hands against the skin of Y/N's hip, realizing that in all the years he had known her, he had never touched her, never brushed against her hand, never come into any sort of physical contact with her whatsoever.
The medics burst into the room, removing his trembling hands and placing a pressure pad on where they once were. Two of the medics swiftly picked up her unconscious form and placed it on a stretcher leading her out of the room. The remaining medic started out of the room, yet stopped when she spotted Spencer, handing him a shock blanket and ushering him into the ambulance alongside his one true match.
——
JJ walked briskly into the waiting room, finding Spencer perched upon one of the stiff, sad excuses for an armchair, staring at a medical poster that hung against the bare, white-painted stone brick wall. His knuckles were white; clutching his copy of Something Wicked This Way Comes that he had kept in his messenger bag since Y/N gave it to him on his 25th birthday. It was autographed and had an inscription from Bradbury himself, easily making it his most prized possession. He had never let anyone touch the thing, let alone read it. Most brushed this off as yet another facet of his many phobias, yet JJ had always suspected it was because of another, deeper reason.
JJ took a seat on the armchair facing his, Spencer seemingly not noticing, for he had not broken his gaze from the bland blue and red poster, announcing new medical standards that the state of Virginia had just recently put into place.
"Is that what it looks like?" Spencer finally asked, breaking the icy silence.
"What does what look like?" JJ furrowed her brow.
"Red. You've described it to me before, but I never knew..." he trailed off, his gaze abruptly shifting to the bewildered blonde, his stare reflecting how scared and confused he felt.
Realization bloomed across her face as she processed what the genius had just asked her. "You can see it? You can see colors?" she questioned, shocked as he was.
He nodded, turning back to face the poster.
"But who... oh. Spencer, I-"JJ started, but was cut off by the sight of a single tear cascading down the side of his cheek. "I'm going to check with the nurse, I'll be right back."
Spencer somehow tore his eyes from the piece of paper and turned his attention to the volume sitting in his lap. Hands shaking, he picked up the book, running his fingers over the dully colored binding, tracing the outline of the familiar illustration of a flame with a renewed curiosity, reminding him of the occasion on which he had received the book. Smiling softly, he flipped open the cover, his eyes sliding over the dark signature of the beloved author and moving onto the cover page, her neat handwriting staring up at him:
Happy 25th Birthday! –Y/N
He flipped through the pages, astonished to see that many lines were highlighted in a bright yellow, previously hidden from sight within the darker shade of the discolored pages. He stopped at a page about ¾ of the way through the book, seeing a few lines where the bright color had darkened slightly from the highlighter running over the words multiple times.
Where was I? Leading up to love, I think.
A fresh bout of tears threatened to spill over as her read over the lines that were oh so familiar, yet taking on a new meaning in the wake of recent events.
Could he say love was above all, common cause, shared experience... You start with little common causes...We love what we know, we love what we are. Common cause, common cause, common cause of mouth, eye, ear, tongue, hand, nose, flesh, heart and soul.
But how to say it?
Tears ran freely now, sprinkling the page with tiny dark circles of saltwater.
"Y/L/N?" A nurse called out. Spencer snapped the book shut and quickly stood up, following the nurse into the winding, bright white halls of the emergency ward, stopping at an oversized wood door, the numbers 1021 emblazoned on it. The nurse's pager buzzed, and Spencer was left alone.
He gently nudged the door open, the large piece of lightly colored oak squeaking on its hinges, opening into a stereotypical hospital room, much like the ones he had stayed in before. He took a few hesitant steps into the room, the hospital bed coming into his line of sight, Y/N laying unresponsive, bandages covering her abdomen and tentacle like tubes connecting IV's and monitors to her unconscious frame.
Spencer walked towards her, taking a seat in the armchair adjacent to the bed and placing his head in his hands, prepared to wait for the sleeping beauty to awaken. He could not, however, tear his eyes away from her face. Her once greyish hair was breathtaking, the (Y/H/C) strands shining, even under the harsh florescent light of the hospital. Her lips were slightly parted in her state, colored with a shade he couldn't even begin to describe. Everything was different about her, yet exactly the same, as if he was seeing an old friend for the first time in decades.
For the first time through this ordeal, he realized: she was his soulmate. He was meant to cherish only her, love only her. She was perfect for him in every way imaginable. He smiled. He knew it, deep down somewhere in the depths of his enormous mind. He had always known it. Or maybe he had just hoped it would be true. Yet, here it was, the truth revealed and his suspicions confirmed. She was his soulmate, and he was hers.
Or was he?
There had been instances of a one-sided soulmate relationship. Statistically, 1 in 175 people wouldn't find a soulmate in their lifetime, 1 in 560 wouldn't have their respective soulmate reciprocate their feelings. It was devastating, of course. Traumatizing, for some. Many an unsub had found themselves in the exact situation, driving themselves mad with pining for their unrequited love.
Am I her soulmate?
His smile faltered, his insecurities bubbling to the surface. Had she shown any sort of clue that she was slightly interested in him whatsoever? Was she just being polite? Was-
"Spence?"
Her quiet voice pulled him from his thoughts, grounding him in the present. He looked up slowly to see her staring intensely at him, her eyes wide and brimming with tears. It seemed like hours before she finally spoke, her quiet voice breaking the icy silence that hung in the air.
"D-Do you see it?" she stammered, swallowing heavily. "Please tell me you see it."
"I do," he replied, letting out a sigh of relief. Her face softened, tears of joy sliding down her cheek. She let out a small laugh a few seconds later, coupled with one of her signature smiles that brightened the room immediately.
His gaze migrated from her lips to her hand, feeling the sudden urge to touch her. His head was screaming at him to stay away, flashing lists and statistics of diseases that are commonly contracted from contact with a hospital patient. His heart was coaxing him to move closer to her, to touch her, to hold her, to take her hand and never, for the sake of anything, let it go. Slowly, gently, he captured her hand with his, noting how her delicate fingers perfectly intertwined with his.
She was astounded by this small yet miraculous gesture. She had never felt his soft touch on her skin, and she savored the feeling, fearing that it might be snatched from her at any second. A smile slowly spread across her face.
And the colors grew brighter.
