Front Lines| Spencer Reid + Anne Grey

thirty two

"Hey, I'm back," Spencer Reid announces, shutting the door to his apartment behind him. He sets a few grocery bags on the counter, starting to unpack them and put everything that he had bought in it's correct place.

"Hm? Oh yeah, hey," Anne Grey sleepily returns, her voice coming from the living room.

Reid laughs slightly, asking, "Were you napping?" He smiles to himself, opening a cabinet and putting a bag of potato chips on the inner shelf.

"No, why would you ever think that?" she sarcastically answers, sitting up halfway with a few pained breaths.

Abandoning the rest of the groceries that he hadn't quite managed to put away yet, Spencer heads into the living room, stepping around to the front of the couch and sitting down in an open space. "How're you feeling?" he asks, holding tentative eye contact with Anne.

Sighing, she honestly answers, "Not so hot. It's okay, though." She would've laughed, if that wouldn't have caused intense pain on her end.

Leaning up a bit more, she grabs Spencer's hand and says, "Hey, c'mere." She guides him to readjust, until they were both lying on the same side of the couch. Exhaling in lieu of a laugh, she sets her head on his chest, mumbling, "Thanks."

"How's the book?" Reid asks, glancing at the copy of Dune by Frank Herbert on the table. He sets a hand on Anne's shoulder, brushing his fingertips across her back aimlessly. He begins to internally question whether or not any of the groceries he had gotten would go bad without going in the refrigerator, and eventually comes to the conclusion that they wouldn't.

"I like it so far," Anne assures. "Gideon called after you left so I didn't get that far into it."

Spencer cracks a smile. "Then you fell asleep?" he proposes.

"No, not at all. Wide awake," she denies, clearly joking.

"Yeah, okay, sure," he responds. "It wouldn't be a bad idea to sleep for a while and reset, y'know."

Grey sets her left hand on Reid's chest, saying, "Yeah, maybe." She was tired, admittedly, and wouldn't mind some sleep.

Spencer nods, appealing, "We could probably have a nap, then get up at like two, have some breakfast, watch tv..."

Anne lifts her head. "Did you take off work tomorrow?" She figured he had, since he wouldn't suggest sleeping now and waking up at 2 A.M. if he hadn't. What she primarily wanted was an explanation.

He nods, chewing on his lip as he explains, "Hotch forced a vacation day on me while we were in the E.R. for my stitches."

"Hm. Gang," she nonchalantly replies, holding up a fist.

Reid completes the fist bump with a grin, lightly laughing.

Grey sighs, eventually digressing, "My face is fucking sore. How's your leg doing?" She runs her fingers along the stitches on her cheek, feeling pure tension in her skin as she did.

"Skin around it feels really tight, yeah?" he confirms.

She nods, agreeing, "Uh huh, like I can't move the left side of my face." She attempts to draw the left side of her lips upward, quickly failing.

"I would say it'll get better tomorrow, but it'll probably be more sore then," Reid honestly says, his lips curving from the hint at humor.

Anne finds it funny as well, harshly exhaling instead of laughing. "Yeah, I made a great decision, getting wrecked with an M-16."

"Ah, yes, because that was a personal choice."

She gives an almost nonexistent giggle again. "In the long run, maybe." Her eyes wander the room as she thinks on it, wondering if that was the truth. At this point, it was just an automatic response to take the blame and make it into a joke.