Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

—Please, let him be happy ( j.p. )

Spencer offers Derek a weak smile as they sink into their seats on the jet. It’s all he can really manage, considering the emotional exhaustion the case had brought on, fatigue settling deep into his bones as he relaxes into the comfortable fabric of his chair. He keeps his eyes closed to avoid Derek’s anxious, imploring gaze for as long as possible, but he can’t help them opening on instinct as soon as the plane takes off the ground, and his stomach does its familiar vault at the increasing G forces.

“Baby?” Derek asks softly, as soon as he sees Spencer’s eyes flutter open. “What’s wrong?”

Spencer sighs, turning his head to face the evening sunset for a brief moment before looking back to his boyfriend. “I’m just tired, Der,” he lies, throwing in what he hopes is a reassuring smile to try and seal the deal.

It seems to work, some of the anxiety relaxing from his face — though, Spencer notes, the slightly pained expression remains — as he reaches across the table in between them to take Spencer’s hand. He complies, placing his hand in Derek’s and allowing himself to relish in the comfort of his warm, protective hold despite how he’s feeling.

“I’m sorry, Spence. We’ll get dinner from that Thai place and head straight to bed when we get home, yeah? You’ll feel better then.”

Spencer can’t help the flare of anger in his chest at that — so strong he has to shut his eyes tightly against it for a second. How can Derek not realise what’s wrong? How can he sit opposite him, bruised, cracked ribs and all, and not understand that everything is not at all ‘eat Thai food in bed’ okay?

He forces his eyes open again. “Yeah. That sounds good.”

Derek squeezes his hand once before letting go and thankfully, finally, dropping the subject. The sunset is a pretty blend of pinks and oranges as they fly down from New Jersey towards home, but Spencer doesn’t focus on the aesthetics of the sky. Not when that awful, tiny voice keeps whispering in the back of his head: how many sunsets does Derek have left?

★

It might have been a lie, but the tired excuse seems to work. Derek doesn’t try to make conversation with him on the drive to DC, instead settling for reassuring touches that Spencer finds himself pressing back into despite himself.

He dives straight for the shower once they get back to their apartment, vaguely hearing Derek on the phone placing their standard Thai order as he sheds his restrictive suit and steps into the shower, immediately relaxing as the hot water cascades down his back. All of a sudden, the weight of the case catches up to him and he lets himself cry. Afterall, his desperate, grief-filled sobs can’t be heard over the water and he can blame his sore, red eyes on the shampoo.

When his tears eventually dry up and he exits the warm bathroom into the air-conditioned apartment, Derek’s sat on the edge of their bed fiddling with his phone next to an outfit of Spencer’s favourite loungewear neatly laid out. He always does it and it always makes Spencer smile, but this time his heart just clenches painfully and he has to fight back the hot tears threatening to spill down his cheeks.

“Hey, baby,” Derek says, voice concerned at the sight of his visibly upset boyfriend. His wince as he gets off the bed to come over to Spencer is the final straw, though, and he can’t help the violent, choked sob that forces its way past his lips, his body heaving with the myriad of emotions running rampant. “Spencer?”

He ignores him as he drops his towel and hurriedly pulls on the clothes Derek set out for him, tears spilling down his cheeks one after the other, indicating no sign of slowing down anytime soon.

“Spencer? Baby?” he pleads desperately as Spencer continues to ignore him. “I know you’re tired, but this isn’t like you. Why—”

“No!” he cries, turning to face him. “It’s not like me! Because even though I feel like this after every case I’m usually so good at holding it in! But I can’t do it anymore, Derek. I can’t keep feeling like this.”

“Baby, talk to me,” Derek begs. “We can work this out, we’ll figure this out together, but I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

All of a sudden, it’s too much. Standing there in their bedroom facing his injured, self-sacrificing, perfect boyfriend as emotion and fear choke the life out of him is killing him, and all he can do is grab his phone, hastily pull on a pair of shoes, and run out of the apartment.

If it wasn’t for his bruised ribs — Christ, if it wasn’t for Derek being shot not four hours earlier — Spencer never would have outrun him, but as it stands, he escapes the apartment building with only Derek’s pleading cries following him.

He runs through the streets of DC, half-blind from unshed tears, until he sees a bus coming down the road, and before he can overthink it, he’s boarding, paying, and taking a seat right at the back. The streets outside blur as the bus accelerates down the street and the tears he’d been holding back since he left the apartment, spill over, joining the countless tear tracks already decorating his cheeks.

Soon he’s not seeing the vibrant streets of the Adams Morgan district anymore, his brain replaying the shoot-out that ended the case instead. They’d finally cornered their suspect in a dilapidated barn in the middle of nowhere, and Spencer had honestly thought that their attempts to talk him down were working, when he’d suddenly pointed his gun straight at JJ. Derek had easily predicted his next move and wasted no time in pushing her out the way, diving straight into the bullet’s trajectory, shot in the middle of his vest.

Hotch had taken care of the unsub and Spencer had gone straight to Derek’s side, his heart in his mouth as fear overrode rationality with ease. He’d been fine: checked out by an ambulance on site and prescribed some moderate painkillers and a few days rest until his ribs healed up, but Spencer had struggled to see it so positively.

Anger flares up in his chest again at the memory of Derek’s blatant disregard for his own well-being. JJ’s a trained and experienced agent: she could have shot the unsub before he even took the shot if Derek hadn’t pushed her aside, and even if she hadn’t, why was it better for Derek to take the bullet than JJ?

As much as he tries not to take it personally, part of him can’t really help but feel hurt. What if the bullet had missed the vest? What if Derek was really shot? He could have so easily died — in an alternate universe, Spencer is mourning the tragic loss of his boyfriend right now. Does he really not care that all this heroic self-sacrifice could leave Spencer a grieving widow one day?

He feels selfish. The world needs Derek: it needs his heart and his courage and his fierce sense of justice, it needs him to fight for the underdog, it needs him to stop at nothing to apprehend the bad guy, it needs anything he can give them.

But in this moment, Spencer doesn’t care anymore. He doesn’t care about what the world needs. He cares about what Dr Spencer Reid, book nerd and genius prodigy of Nevada needs, and that’s his boyfriend, alive, next to him.

The bus passes a church and Spencer immediately presses the button, getting off at the next stop and retracing the road until he’s standing in front of the beautiful architecture of a Catholic Church. Peace and quiet is exactly what he needs right now, so he takes a deep breath and walks through the heavy wooden doors into the building.

The smell Spencer associates with the churches he’d visit in his childhood when William would dress them up and parade them around a church as the perfect little family for as long as Diana’s meds lasted hits him as soon as he crosses the threshold, and something about it feels comforting. He walks through the small foyer and into the main congregation hall, thankful that no service is taking place. There’s a woman in a pew at the front with her head bowed, but otherwise it’s completely empty, and it emboldens him enough to slip into the back row.

He lets himself zone out, taking in the stained glass windows and the elaborate arcades as well as the ornate statues and decorations around the nave as his mind finally drifts from the torture of his thoughts.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” a voice asks, snapping him out of his trance. He looks over to see a priest standing just to his right, a kind look on his face.

“Uh— yes,” Spencer replies, a little flustered. “Very. An old friend of mine did a PhD in the history of church architecture years ago, but even his high praise doesn’t do it justice in person.”

“Not a regular church-goer, I take it?” the priest asks, smiling warmly.

“Not sure the church would be happy to have me,” he says drily, “on the account that I live with my boyfriend.”

The priest’s face saddens at that. “Would you mind if I sat?”

“As long as you don’t try and convert me.”

He laughs at that, taking a seat next to Spencer. “That’s not my job anyway,” he reassures him. “God takes care of that side of things.”

Spencer nods once, before looking down at his fidgeting fingers.

“What’s led a non-Christian to a Catholic Church on a random Tuesday evening, then?” the priest asks warmly.

“Oh… I’m not sure you’d want to hear about it,” Spencer says awkwardly, blushing a bit at the thought of discussing his relationship troubles with a priest.

“Try me.”

Spencer takes a deep breath. After all, he desperately wants to talk about this with someone, and who better than a completely impartial person whose opinion doesn’t matter anyway?

“I work for the FBI,” he starts, “I have done for nearly a decade now. It’s where I met my boyfriend, actually; we work for the Behavioural Analysis Unit. I love the job, it’s given me pretty much everything I have, really, but… but I don’t know how much longer I can do it.” He takes a shaky breath in to try and abate the tears again, but when the priest lays a warm hand over his own, he can’t hold them back anymore.

“Derek— Derek is so strong. He’s fierce and he’s powerful and he’s a hero, and I used to be so proud of him for that, I still am, but now… all it does is scare me. Today he took a bullet for another team member, he pushed her out of the way and it landed in his own vest. He’s fine, but this isn’t the first time he’s done something like this. He’s run into burning buildings, driven bombs across cities to stop them from blowing up in a populated area, thrown himself into the line of fire to save others countless times, but one day… he won’t be so lucky.

“One day, it’s going to catch up to him, and he’s going to be killed by his own calling. He’s so selfless that he’s truly going to give everything to the job until it kills him… and where does that leave me?” He looks up and meets the priest’s kind, empathetic gaze for the first time, comforted by the reassurance he finds there.

“I never really had a family. My father walked out when I was ten and left me with my sick and confused mother, knowing that she couldn’t take care of me, knowing that he was leaving his child to take care of his mother for the next eight years. When I found the BAU, I found a family, and I found Derek. I love my whole team, but when it comes down to it, he’s all I really have left.

“If he stays in this job, I’m going to end up alone. There will never be another person for me, not after Derek. When people sit in this very building and pray for justice,” Spencer says tearily, “God answers that prayer with Derek Morgan. And those prayers, those pleas for mercy are going to take him away from me one day.”

The priest sits quietly for a moment, thinking, maybe praying, as he bows his head. “Child, God makes heroes for a reason. I know he’s so proud of Derek, that he cherishes all the lives he’s saved, but I also know that God cherishes Derek’s life, and yours, too. Derek sounds like the kind of person who loves with his whole heart, and I suspect that he loves you deeply. The Bible teaches us the importance of kind and honest communication, as well as the value in understanding the people you love, and I think you know that your only shot at a happy ending here is to tell Derek all that you’ve told me.”

Spencer’s always rejected the idea of telling Derek how much it breaks his heart to see him running at danger head on because he can’t think of any possible resolution they could come to — it’s not like he can simply turn off his self-sacrificing tendencies — but he doesn’t really see any other way out now.

He looks up at the priest. “Yeah,” he sighs. “I’m not sure I have any other choice.”

“I’ll leave you to your peace and quiet,” he says as he gets up to leave, “but please never think that God doesn’t want to know you because of your loving relationship with Derek. He loves you both so much.”

Spencer smiles, feeling a little bit lighter after getting everything off his chest. “Thank you.”

As he watches the priest walk out of the nave and into what Spencer suspects is the Sanctuary, he hears something that simultaneously warms his heart and twists his stomach in anxiety.

Derek, calling his name.