puzzles of a heart | spencer reid ✓

four

The side of her body moulded into the silken sheets against the restful mattress, her cheeks pressing against the pillow, Valeria watched with an unexpected serenity at the obscure sea. The lacey balcony curtains had been left open deliberately upon her earnest request; she wanted to sleep beside the stars.

The sound of his evened breathing was comforting, homely. Valeria was sure that she was the lone person awake within the room, and she tossed around in her bed; a wave of abrupt consternation washed over her and created a dent in her peaceful ponder. It was the kind of angst with no origin or outcome, simply a flurry of a defective combination of electric signals in her brain.

For a while, she considered taking the sleeping pills she had seen in Spencer's maroon crossbody bag, the bright orange pill bottle which caught her attention as he was digging through it at the bookstore. It seemed each layer of him was coated with vagueness and complex connections, and the more she spent time around Spencer, the more she was aware of the hints of obvious trauma underneath his well-played facade.

"Can't sleep either?" His voice whispered carefully and measured as if he wasn't sure she was awake.

Valeria was startled. "You've been awake this whole time?"

"I can't sleep in a new place very well... at least the first few nights."

Was this the consequence of something in his past?

"Yeah, I guess I'm the same." She agreed in a pitiful tone, rolling over so she was facing him - and finding that he was already looking at her through fatigued eyes in the low light. Her lips pulled into a tiny smile out of the sudden warmth stirring in her stomach, and Valeria closed her eyes to savour the unanticipated feeling.

"So uh, when I was younger, right, I used to pretend I was asleep to fall asleep-"

"What-?" She sniffled a laugh as he broke into a beam, his weary features turning soft. It suited him.

"I know, what? But believe it or not - it works," Spencer spoke proudly of his quirky tactic, his head leaning against his arms.

"No wonder I thought you were asleep." The drowsiness was infiltrating her consciousness, and it was invariably like this during the dead hours of the night. She was bound to say something to regret, or risky, but Valeria welcomed the chances.

"What can I say? I'm a trickster, or is it expert magician? Ha-"

She reached over to stroke the messy strands of his wavy hair, her arms extended the close distance between the two beds. Spencer was momentarily stunned, stopping mid-sentence and his eyes asking a million questions.

"What was that for?" He regained his senses as Valeria pulled back and rested her arms inside the comforts of her own covers again.

"Your hair looked soft, and I felt a sudden need to."

"You felt a sudden need to touch my hair?" Spencer repeated her truthful statements. "You know that is indeed a rather odd thing to do at this point in the night, I can't help but wonder if you're under the influence of-"

Valeria grunted at his tumble of rambling and sat up, stretching her arms a bit above her head to loosen up the tensed muscles. She stared down at Spencer in the dim ambience and a smirk present upon her face. "I got an idea."

"No. Okay, what is it?"

"Let's go explore the ship or whatever." She spun in a half-circle before falling back onto her bed facefirst.

"It's three AM, is it not?"

Valeria checked the digital clock on the shared bedside table. "So?"