My heart screams autumn but the calendar says July 

Second Date

Word Count: 1.3

Summary: Kissing over burnt coffee and film festival plans is never romantic. Unless it is.

Note: Ahh!! I hope you all like this one!! Let me know what you thought :)

—

The break room coffee is notoriously either burnt or weak, and on the rare occasion it’s both too weak and too burnt. Spencer, who’s main sure of energy is derived from coffee and crosswords, pretends he doesn’t taste it. He pours the coffee into his mug before he throws in a ton of sugar on top. Spencer wonders, as he stirs in the sweetness, if it’s actually the ritual of getting the coffee that gives him energy more than the caffeinated properties in the coffee. Whatever it is, Spencer’s grateful for the hot beverage.

"I think what hurts is the fact that I thought you felt the same."

- but you dont (via written-on-polaroids)

all these criminal minds yet the most criminally out of their minds were the writers.

derek: do you ever want to talk about your emotions, emily?

emily: no

spencer: I do

derek: I know reid

spencer: I'm sad

derek: I know reid

series masterlist

masterlist

fic summary: Going undercover as serial killer bait was simple. Going undercover as serial killer bait three months after being kidnapped was not so simple. Going undercover with the love of my life and having to pretend to be in love with him while also pretending I was pretending was….well it was about as complicated as it sounds.

read on ao3

[Prologue] [Night 1] [Night 2] [Night 3] [Night 4] [Night 5] [Night 6] [Night 7]

Waking up in a hospital always disoriented me. No matter how many times it had happened, all the different stimuli overlapping didn’t piece together until my eyes were open and I could take in my surroundings. The loud, repetitive beeping, uncomfortable bed, soft hand on my own, pressure in my elbow, my other arm in a sling. My eyes opened and saw the white walls and thin curtain separating the room, and only then did it all click.

Timothy Clark had shot me. Spencer had saved my life. I looked down and saw him, asleep at my bedside. His hand was clasped over mine, and his other arm was resting on the side of my bed, supporting his sleeping head.

He looked so peaceful, calm. I couldn’t bring myself to disturb him. And I knew I needed a moment to myself, too. A lump formed in my throat as my mind drifted back to laying on the floor of the bedroom, feeling Spencer’s hands put pressure on my wound, watching his panicked face as he tried to keep me awake.

I took a sharp breath and felt hot tears pour down my face. My cries were silent, tears of fear and anxiety but most of all relief. Because I was here, and Spencer was with me, and we were okay. We were safe.

when hotch drops that “stop, everybody right now what’s my worst quality”

Hotch: Reid is late again.

Emily: I woke him up at 8 and pretended it was 11

JJ: I wrote a fake schedule

Derek: I set his clock frame AM to PM

Hotch: I think you all may have overdone it-

*Spencer bursts through the door in his pajamas*

Spencer: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHAT YEAR IS IT?!?!?!?!!!??

reid, packed with class A drugs wilting in new orleans: im struggling

gideon: son lemme give you a word of advice here. Real Eyes realize real Lies <3

reid: yeah that doesnt. doesnt really help me, like at all

Mistletoe & Magic [Spencer Reid x fem! Reader]

Find my masterlist here. Taglist is back open, find the form here.

I am currently taking requests for holiday themed fics only. Send me a request here.

I will be trying to write as many holiday themed fics as possible over the course of December. This one is coming out the gates angsty, but the rest of my ideas are much fluffier I swear! Each fic will be named based off a Christmas song, this was named after "Mistletoe & Wine."

Summary: You’re a recovering addict and the holidays are the hardest time of year for you. So when you find yourself at an NA meeting on Christmas Eve with only one other participant, will you be able to rediscover the magic of Christmas and sobriety together?

Set around season 3.

CW: mentions of drug use (dilaudid and oxy), mentions of death of a loved one, car accidents, general angst with a fluffy ending.

WC: 2.9K

—————————————————————

Mistletoe & Magic

Hindsight was a wonderful thing, Spencer thought bitterly as he clawed at his bedsheets.

Staying home for the holidays had been just what he thought he’d needed. He was a recovering addict and although alcohol had never been his drug choice, being surrounded by it didn't seem like a smart idea.

So he’d declined Rossi’s invitation to spend Christmas with him. He’d also declined JJ’s and Morgan’s. He’d had a harder time declining Garcia’s given how persistent she was but eventually he’d gotten out of that too, thinking the best idea was to stay home out of temptations way.

Hindsight was a damn bitch.

He pulled at the seam on his bedsheets and watched as the stitches popped loose. He tried to focus on that and only that. But of course his brain had other ideas.

He’d been sober for two hundred and thirty five days, seven hours and, a quick glance at the clock told him, sixteen minutes. Not that he kept count. Not deliberately anyway.

But he knew no matter how long it had been, he would always be a slave to his addiction. He would always belong in a cabin in the woods, strapped to a chair while Tobias Hankel shot him up with dilaudid.

He’d escaped the cabin, he’d tried to tell himself. But why did it never feel like he really had escaped?

It was worse when he was alone, he should have known that. He should have gone to Rossi’s or JJ’s or Morgan’s or Garcia’s. He shouldn’t have been alone today.

He finished pulling apart the seam of his bedsheet and stared at his unintended destruction for a few seconds before he jumped up from the bed.

He started pacing the length of his bedroom, his fingers busily working on picking at the hem of his cardigan now.

Dilaudid would make this better. But it would also make everything worse.

Spencer couldn’t decide which was the preferable option.

how the team handled reid's addiction/recovery

//tw for mentions of drug abuse, addiction, overdose, recovery; gonna be a bit of a long one//

~ reid knew that gideon, no matter how much he cared for him, would never do anything to help him. everything with frank was haunting his mind, and he was far too distracted to really notice how much reid was struggling, but gideon knew that he was using

~ after about 2 weeks from his abduction, he'd been using steadily every day, and hotch was the first member of the team to notice him slipping to the bathroom more than usual during the day.

~ that night after the rest of the team had left, hotch went to gideon and asked if reid had said anything about the abduction, to which gideon gave a noncommittal grunt of "he's stressed, he just died. cut the kid a break"

~ so hotch kept an eye out, off-handedly mentioned that he was there for reid if he ever needed anything

~ 3 weeks and 4 days after he spoke to gideon, he was woken up at 2 am to a frantic call from reid, saying hankel was in his house and was going to hurt his mom. he can't remember the last time he drove that fast, but when he got to reid's apartment he saw the other man shaking and crying on the floor of his bathroom, the tourniquet still tied around his arm and a near-empty bottle of dilaudid next to him. he immediately went into dad-hotch mode, got him a glass of water and just sat with him while he cried.

~ reid wrapped himself around hotch and sobbed, begging him not to report this to anyone because "you guys are my family, i can't lose you, you're all i have" and hotch just lets him, petting his hair and promising him that he won't say anything

~ from then on hotch became the person reid called if it ever got too bad, because he was the only one who he was certain wouldn't judge him. he knew the others would be more than willing to help, but it scared him to be so open with even hotch, let alone the entire team.

~ and hotch keeps his word, he never says anything outright to anyone else on the team. but he does mention to them, on a day reid called in sick, that he's struggling right now and they all need to be there for him. gideon knows, but he never speaks up.

~ penelope and derek were the first after hotch to step up and see what they could do. penelope was the one to finally realize he was using, and when she proposed the theory to derek it took everything in him not to go up and grip reid by the shoulders, shake some sense into him and beg for a way to help him get better, because he just couldn't stand seeing his best friend so hurt.

~ so instead of being overly dramatic about it, they decide that they'll invite him to their weekly movie night and snuggle up on penelope's couch and watch shitty comedies that derek rented from blockbuster until 1 am. spencer falls asleep between them and sleeps soundly for the first time in months, his hand still in the popcorn bowl.

~ after them was emily, who knew all too well what a drug-addled young man looked like. she saw traces of matthew in reid, and was determined to make sure that he didn't turn out the same, because this time she would do something.

~ she started to bring him coffee and danishes in the morning, knowing that he likely wasn't eating nearly as much as he should've been. it was more casual at first, only once a week or so saying "they made extra at the coffeeshop" and placing it on his desk before he could argue. but before long, they were eating breakfast together every morning, and some days even meeting up at a cafe or diner to talk about an obscure french novel they'd both read.

~ jj was the last one to notice something was off about reid, struggling with her own trauma from hankel. she was still blaming herself for him even getting taken, so despite her best efforts to look out for him she barely even noticed when he got bad. after hotch said something to them at the roundtable, she kept a closer eye out for him.

~ she wasn't even sure that she completely understood what was really going on with reid, she just knew that her friend was struggling and that she needed to help him in any way she could. so she started letting him ramble on whatever topic his brain focused on that day, and she did her best to try and understand what he was talking about. she even asked penelope to look up some of the science theories he was talking about so that she could talk about them with him too. seeing how he lit up when someone actually listened made her heart burst.

~ spencer had a feeling, deep down, that they all knew what was going on with him. he also knew that hotch never said anything, just that the people he worked with were incredibly talented profilers and no matter his best efforts to hide from them they'd always know what was going on with him.

~ in fact, hotch never said anything outright to him either, after that first night. but he'd come and stay with reid on the really bad nights, and was the one to set him up at NA meetings, to get him a sponsor. he never made a big deal out of anything, but spencer knew that he probably cared the most out of anyone else on the team

~ and once he got better, started the recovery process, he slowly repaid the team for their kindness. he started paying for breakfast with emily, and hosted movie nights at his house every few weeks. he even watched a soccer match with jj, since that was something she cared about. he never had to do anything for hotch, because he just knew that nothing would ever be enough to show his gratitude. but he'd watch jack so he and haley could go on date nights, and picked up extra paperwork at the office. and it was enough.

//god this one hurt but it needed to be done, idk why but the only way reids recovery makes sense is if the team knew but just kept it on the dl for him and helped him in small ways, ways to make sure he knew they cared//

Spencer!!! 😭 he was trying so hard. The look on Derek's face ahh if only he would just hug him and tell him he'll be okay :(

if you're miserable, maybe u need to eat more citrus & open the windows a little wider & read that poetry book you've been putting off & enjoy hot bread with melted butter & go to bed with your phone on do not disturb