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Spencer isn’t sure when it changes – when he tips over the line between maybe yes and surely no, when he tumbles headfirst into the dangerous land of roots and blossoms, when cold logic finally grasps him by the heart and squeezes all the tentative emotional hope out.
(This is a lie. He does know. He has a perfect memory, after all.)
All Spencer knows is this: one moment he is watching Aaron cross from the ensuite bathroom to the walk in closet and admiring that muscled form only half hidden underneath a towel desperately trying to obey the laws of gravity, and the next, he is coughing loud enough to be heard in the apartments below.
He coughs and he coughs and he coughs, and finally when the spasm fades, he lowers his hands from his mouth and spies a delicate flower. It has five overlapping petals that encircle the stigma and stamens, and the color is a deep and vibrant color. It is a flower he has never seen before and he does not know the name.
(This is also a lie. He does know. Gladiolus oppositiflorus, the sword lily.)
“Spencer? What was that? Are you all right?”
Somehow, Spencer manages to hide the flower before Aaron fully emerges from the closet. He couldn’t say where he shoved it, but by the time Aaron reaches the bed, the flower is nowhere in sight and Spencer is sitting up like a normal person, easy and relaxed as though nothing has happened.
“Just a tickle in my throat,” Spencer says, trying for a smile and mostly failing.
Fortunately, Aaron has seen him many times before he gets coffee in him and doesn’t take offense. He merely steps closer, brow furrowed in concern, and reaches out to cup Spencer’s cheek as if he’s barely restraining himself from going to measure Spencer’s temperature with his hand.
“It didn’t sound like just a tickle,” Aaron says. “That sounded like you were about to hack up a lung.”
That sounds unpleasant and also physically very unlikely, and Spencer informs him as such. It makes Aaron laugh, deep and carefree in a way he never is in the office, and Spencer relishes it.
Still, even after the laugh, Aaron remains concerned. Nothing, Spencer has learned, can trigger Aaron’s protective instinct more than the hint, no matter how vague, that someone he cares about might be in danger or trouble. And Aaron has more cause than most to feel justified in his hypervigilance. Usually Spencer enjoys being on the receiving end, because even if he’s disagreeing with Aaron’s decisions in the field, it still warms his belly to know that Aaron cares so much about him.
Aaron does check his temperature, and then he slides his hand down to his neck and feels his pulse. “Are you sure there isn’t anything wrong?” he checks.
Spencer puts his palm over Aaron’s. “Yes,” he reassures him.
(It is a lie. He does know. After all, there’s only one reason an otherwise healthy human being coughs up flowers from their lungs.)
So Spencer musters a smile and nudges Aaron with his knee. “Now go get dry, you’re dripping all over the bed.”
That, at least, finally makes Aaron’s brow smooth out. “You’re on coffee duty,” Aaron shoots back.
He starts finally properly toweling himself as he heads back into the closet, and Spencer takes the moment to shamelessly and desperately brand the image into his memory forever. It’s a perfect memory: the morning sun casting the room into golden perfection, the water droplets beading down Aaron’s skin, the muscles on full display as Aaron stretches and moves. Everything Spencer thought he could never have, and everything he was so shocked to gain access to when they fell into bed.
Once upon a time, Spencer might have even hoped Aaron might love him.
Apparently, that hope has come to an end.
He crushes the flower and flushes it down the toilet as Aaron makes breakfast. No sense in worrying Aaron, after all. Idly, he wonders if he might be able to find a cure that is more palatable than the standard full-removal surgery. He’s fairly motivated, after all, and he’s got plenty of time to research, and science evolves every day.
(This is a lie. He does know there is no cure besides the one impossibility: of Aaron loving him back.)
Spencer learned about Hanahaki disease from movies and books and television shows, just like everyone else. It’s a starring feature in most romance plotlines, complete with a swooning damsel and a last minute confession at sunset or in an airport or during a wedding. Each story has its own variations, but the foundation is the same: someone is in love, and that love is not returned, and so it takes root in the victim’s lungs until it grows large enough that breathing is impossible.
The gladiolus was small and singular, so he knows he’s in the early stages yet. He has time, at least, before the coughing spasms become constant, and he isn’t just passing flowers, he’s vomiting stems and roots and blood.
Aaron will most certainly notice that.
Of course, Spencer could elect for medical intervention. There are many skilled surgeons nowadays who could excise the whole plant, root and seed and all. Of course, in doing so, they would also excise in the entirety Spencer’s ability to feel emotions, and while Spencer is not quite the biggest fan of how emotions can cloud judgment, he has at least learned that they make him a better profiler, not a worse one.
And how could Spencer give this up? Give up the warm glow when Aaron praises the connections he makes, set aside the comforting reassurance when Aaron sits next to him on the plane and watches over him during cases, abandon the joy that comes when Aaron laughs because of something he said?
Even if Aaron never, ever, ever loves him back, how could Spencer let go of this?
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Aaron asks, looking absolutely devastating in his perfectly pressed suit with his briefcase in one hand and his other on the door handle.
“Of course I am,” Spencer replies, and lets Aaron help him out of the car.
(This is a lie. But then again, Spencer has told so many lies to protect people. What’s one more?)
They go on cases, chasing leads and saving victims and catching killers. Aaron is his usual scrupulously stubborn and fair self, so they don’t always share a hotel room; Aaron keeps a rotation, out of fairness. No one argues with this, although sometimes Morgan rolls his eyes and Prentiss smirks.
Spencer does not argue. For one thing, Aaron’s strict self-control is part of the draw. He is always the anchor Spencer can count on to keep him steady, the unmoving lighthouse Spencer can use to guide him home, the immovable wall Spencer can brace himself against when things are falling apart.
Secondly, they spend an awful lot of time on cases together anyways, since Spencer is usually best suited to filter all the information coming in and make patterns while Aaron usually gets stuck wading through all the inevitable bureaucratic red tape.
And, of course, with Aaron rooming with Rossi and Morgan listening to music, Spencer doesn’t have to worry about hiding the flowers coming out of his mouth.
Instead, he takes a long, hot shower, hoping the humidity and heat will ease his throat.
It doesn’t, really, but Spencer wakes up to only one or two flowers instead of the four he’d coughed up the night before, so he mentally adjusts his plan of care. And also flushes the flowers down the toilet before Morgan catches on.
Morgan must mention the coughing, though, because after their morning debriefing and distribution of assignments, Aaron brings him tea and honey.
“Please drink that; let’s not alarm the local LEOs,” Aaron says.
His hand is curled into a fist at his side. It’s loose, but the fist alone tells Spencer everything he needs to know. Aaron is a very tactile creature; he brushes shoulders, he holds hands, he reaches out, always, to reassure himself and to reassure Spencer. He won’t in public, but Spencer is very familiar with what it looks like when Aaron desperately wants to.
“It’s just a cough, nothing serious,” Spencer says, but he drinks the tea anyways. The honey will give him a boost, after all, and he can pretend, if only for a moment, that the warmth comes from the liquid and not the way Aaron must have gone out of his way to find not only Spencer’s favorite brand of tea but honey.
He might as well get the practice at pretending, after all.
They solve the case and fly home. Aaron claims the seat next to Spencer without even pretending to consider the other available seats. He also gets out his briefcase and starts going through reports, but one large hand finds its way to Spencer’s thigh, comforting and warm, and Spencer doesn’t remove it or comment on it.
In fact, he leans into it, and they both ignore the knowing eyes of their team.
This does, however, make it rather difficult to hide the gladioli Spencer is starting to cough up with more frequency. He is able to swallow a few and stifle some more, but eventually, as night falls and most of the team drifts off, the pressure becomes too much.
Fortunately, Aaron is still awake, and so he obligingly moves aside when Spencer nudges him, therefore allowing Spencer to dash into the bathroom and heave out what feels like an entire bouquet of gladioli.
Unfortunately, Aaron is still awake, and so as Spencer lays his head on the cool toilet rim and wheezes for breath, between the thundering hammer of his heart, he can hear Aaron knocking on the door.
As Spencer flushes the toilet, he dimly notes that the gladioli are purple and red now.
“I think you need to see a physician,” is the first thing Aaron says when Spencer finally weakly manages to unbolt the door.
Spencer shakes his head, but he also can barely breathe and the world is spinning a little bit and Aaron is actually very blurry, even though he’s kneeling right in front of Spencer and trying to examine his eyes.
“Spencer – ”
“You’ll ruin your pants.”
“I don’t give a damn about my pants,” Aaron snaps, and his tone is uncharacteristically sharp Spencer actually flinches. “Why didn’t you tell me it had gotten so bad?”
For a moment, Spencer’s heart rate elevates dramatically – does Aaron know? How? Did he forget a flower on the floor? – but then he calms back down when he realizes Aaron thinks it must be influenza or another illness, because Aaron is trying, once again, to take his temperature and check his pupil response.
If Aaron knew it was Hanahaki, he’d be listening to Spencer’s lungs instead.
Or abandoning him in disgust, but, well, Spencer is trying very hard not to think about that.
“I don’t like hospitals,” Spencer says eventually, because no one on the team does, not even Aaron. They’ve all spent too much time there.
“There are more places to seek care than the emergency room,” Aaron points out with a sigh. His fingers clench on Spencer’s shoulders – Spencer isn’t entirely sure when they got there, but he leans into them all the same, and Aaron’s eyes soften. “Spencer, please. Let me take you the doctor, I want – please.”
Spencer can never deny him anything, not when he uses that tone of voice. He nods.
Aaron, true to his word, drives him straight to the nearest urgent care office still open. He doesn’t pace, but he does keep a hand on Spencer’s back or shoulder the entire time. Even when the doctor politely moves him aside to continue her physical examination, Aaron remains hovering in the background, seconds away from pouncing, eyes laser focused on every moment.
The doctor puts her stethoscope on Spencer’s lungs and instructs him to breathe. He does so. She frowns and makes him repeat it again, and then again.
Then she stands up and politely but firmly kicks Aaron out into the hallway.
“So,” she says briskly, once they are alone, “I think we both know the cause of your coughing, don’t we, Mr. Reid?”
Spencer almost corrects her, but he bites down on his tongue instead. “Yes,” he says.
“What stage? Flowers, stems, or roots?”
“Flowers still.”
“Any blood?”
“Not yet.”
“How much time between fits?”
“If I am relaxed, as much as a few hours. If there’s . . . stress, sometimes as little as thirty minutes.”
The doctor sighs and pulls up a stool. She laces her fingers together and looks him dead in the eye, serious as any doctor Spencer has ever gone to. “You seem like a smart man,” she says. “I think you know the statistics. You’re still in a phase where surgery would be a clean option with minimal damage to – ”
“No,” Spencer says. Minimal damage would still mean losing Aaron, and that’s beyond the realm of acceptable minimal damage.
Her eyes go soft. “It’s the man who brought you in, isn’t it?”
Spencer looks down. He hates being so obvious, but then again, she is a doctor. She’s probably seen many cases.
“Have you told him?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to? I’ve done it before – ”
Aaron, be told about Spencer’s embarrassing, silly, stupid infatuation? Aaron, be informed about Spencer coughing up flowers and blood? Aaron, find out that Spencer falling in love when they’re just meant to be friends who sometimes share a bed?
Spencer says, “Absolutely not.”
The doctor’s mouth hardens into a thin line. It isn’t necessarily disapproval of his choices, Spencer knows, but merely concern that he isn’t thinking straight. And maybe he isn’t. But he won’t lose Aaron. Not over this.
“Soon, you’ll be at a stage where he’ll find out anyways,” she points out. “Wouldn’t it be easier for him to find out now?”
“We aren’t – like that,” Spencer forces out. “I won’t – he isn’t – he can’t know.”
“Have you considered that maybe he reciprocates?”
Spencer snorts before he can stop himself. Aaron reciprocating his love is about as likely as gravity ceasing to exist. Aaron is their unit chief, their port in the storm, their leader through thick and thin, an amazing father, a wonderful partner, a generous and caring supervisor. Spencer is so, so, so grateful for the small sprinkling of attention and care he receives now, but to ask for more would be greedy and foolish and impossible.
Aaron would never love someone like Spencer: chaotic and rambling and easily distractible. He’s not even sure why Aaron even came to him in the first place, beyond loneliness and the fact that Spencer was available and around and already familiar with his quirks.
Eventually, he gathers himself up enough to put it into words. “That’s very unlikely.”
“I’ve seen many unlikely things.”
“So have I. This one won’t become one of them.”
The doctor sighs. “Well, Mr. Reid, if you don’t consent, I can’t say anything. But I will remind you that he is your medical proxy. Sooner or later, he will learn. I would think about doing it sooner rather than later.”
“A few more weeks won’t kill me.”
“Hmm,” she says, and writes him a prescription for medication to soothe his throat.
Aaron is, in fact, pacing in the waiting room when Spencer comes back out. When he hears the door, he turns around and is on Spencer in seconds, one hand at his waist like he can’t stop himself. It’s flattering, and in a better world, Spencer can almost pretend that Aaron does so because he loves him.
“Are you all right?” Aaron asks, and his voice is so tender and concerned.
Spencer forces a smile. “Yes,” he lies. “Of course I am.”
Aaron searches his face, but he must find no trace of dishonesty, for his shoulders slump and his grip gentles. He pulls Spencer closer and rubs his palm up and down, as if reassuring himself, and entreats, “Come home with me tonight?”
And Spencer really should go home and take his medication and perhaps a long hot shower, but he can’t refuse Aaron, not with that voice. “Of course,” he says, and ensures that he sleeps closest to the bathroom so he can dash there and flush away the flowers before Aaron notices.
The doctor is correct, of course. Aaron does find out, and it is so much worse than Spencer could have ever dreamed.
The situation starts off fairly normally. They bring five different witnesses to the crime and split them up for interrogation. No one has really pinged their radar yet, but it’s always better to gather more information and rule people out afterwards than make a mistake by crossing persons of interest off too early. So Aaron takes one, and Prentiss takes one, and Morgan takes one, and JJ takes one, and Spencer takes the last, a lanky and small teenager who looks more suited to sulking in a bedroom than viciously stabbing three victims to death.
Or at least, he does at the start, right up until Spencer lays down the last photograph of the most recent victim, a young woman with a sweet face and curly blonde hair.
It’s a bit of a blur, after that. The table gets overturned, for one thing. The teen hurls the chair at the window and almost cracks it, for another. Thirdly, he socks Spencer so hard in the gut that Spencer goes to his knees from the pain and vomits.
He vomits blood, of course, which would be alarming but not really surprising to his team. Unfortunately, he also vomits a string of flowers.
Spencer stares at the green stems and purple-red petals and yellow stamen.
Aaron, who is currently passing off the suspect to Morgan after burst into the room and having wrestled him into the submission, also stares at the red blood and green stems and purple-red flowers.
“What,” Aaron says, his voice like thunder, “is that?”
Spencer closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. He opens his mouth and –
Coughs up more flowers, so many that he passes out.
The last thing he sees is Aaron, racing towards him, alarm and fury mixed in his eyes, alongside the dawning realization that he has lost Aaron forever.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know how.”
(This is a lie. He does know. He just was too scared to.)
Aaron’s face doesn’t change, and neither does his stance or his tone. He’s too steady a man for that. He has been through too much loss for that.
But he still walks away, and Spencer feels the blow as if Aaron had been the one to kick him and not the suspect.
The next flowers he vomits are covered in specks of bright red blood and translucent salty tears.
They make Spencer go through a full physical and mental evaluation. Normally he would fight it or delay it, but the loss of Aaron has cut at the very foundation of him. He feels unmoored and adrift, unable to find purchase. He can’t even focus enough to start a chess game, or read a book, or even cook a meal. He’s barely been subsisting off of takeout – when he remembers to eat, of course.
Aaron used to be the one to make sure he ate. In the beginning, as the team leader, he would be the one to order food when Spencer was distracted or pick a menu option if Spencer wasn’t sure what he would like. Then, after they began sleeping together, Aaron began cooking and foisting leftovers on Spencer or “forgetting” that he left food in the fridge.
Every time he eats now, it feels bland and tasteless, as if he’s lost his scent or burned off all his taste buds.
He doesn’t tell the medical doctor that, of course. Or the psychiatric one. He regurgitates the same, standard, bland answers that will check all the boxes and not raise any red flags, because the entire team knows how the game is played. Besides, it’s not the first time he’s wormed his way past them after a loss.
They are aware of that, but he gives them no openings to question him and no warning signs to put down. The medical doctor notes that he is in perfect health, aside from the coughing fits that are now accompanied by green stems and red flowers. The psychiatric doctor reluctantly documents that he is mentally stable and adjusted to the condition. The panel that reviews the evaluations rubber stamps Spencer as fit and capable, and within a week, he’s trudging back into the office, book bag over his shoulder and file folders in his hands, as if nothing has changed.
Everything has changed, though. Prentiss actually pulls out his chair for him. Morgan claps him on the shoulder, but much more gently. And Aaron –
Aaron sends him a terse, formal email requesting his presence for a review of his evaluations.
Spencer swallows hard, visits the bathroom to vomit up the next batch of flowers, and then downs half a cup of tea with honey to soothe his throat and hide the smell.
Stepping into Aaron’s office is very strange. Usually, entering Aaron’s domain – and it is Aaron’s domain, undeniably, since he has made it his with his books and his degrees and his comfortable sofa – makes Spencer relax, because he knows that here he is safe, here he is welcome, here he belongs. Whenever he felt like he was spinning out of control, he would come to Aaron’s office, and be comforted by the way Aaron’s scent and presence has saturated the entire place. He’s spent countless nights on the sofa, curled up under Aaron’s coat, and countless days pouring over documents on Aaron’s desk; he was the only person who had the unspoken right to enter without knocking.
Right now he feels he barely has the right to sit on the edge of his chair.
And Aaron notices, of course he does, but Aaron doesn’t say anything. He just clears his throat and smooths down his tie and opens the folder with Spencer’s evaluations in them.
“Reid,” he says, and it’s not unusual for him to use Spencer’s surname in the field or office, but it still stings.
“Hotch,” Spencer replies out of habit, and watches the way Aaron blinks.
“ . . . I see you passed the evaluations.”
Spencer shrugs. “I meet the physical requirements for operations in the field, and I’m mentally stable.”
“Even with the coughing fits?”
“I’m on medication.”
“Hmm,” Aaron says. His tone is mild and hardly has any disapproval in it, but Spencer can hear the disbelief all the same. He’s learned Aaron too well. “I think it would be in our best interests that you remain behind in the field for now. Or maintain a presence at the base of our operations.”
Spencer just shrugs again. It’s not an unexpected request, and Spencer usually lets Aaron or Morgan handle the chasing of suspects or kicking down of doors anyways. As long as Aaron doesn’t bar him from flying, it should be fine.
“Does the – Do we.” Aaron coughs, almost awkwardly, and then resumes. “Do you know how far . . . along you are?”
There are, technically, four stages to Hanahaki disease. Stage one is when blossoms or flowers appear, the easiest stage when coughing spasms are few and far between. Stage two is when those flowers begin to emerge with stems attached, and sometimes blood. Stage three is when the flowers come out root and stem and petals, the direst stage, the last possible moment of intervention.
Stage four, of course, is the one that kills you, the one where the flowers take root so deeply in the lungs that they cannot be coughed up, the one where you drown in blood as the roots pierce the lungs or asphyxiate because flowers are filling up all the spaces where air used to flow. It is the end, and Spencer is not looking forward to it.
But: “I’m fit for duty, sir,” Spencer says, because that’s all Aaron needs to know.
Aaron walked away, after all. He finally saw sense, and it burns, but Spencer won’t drag him down this path of thorns anymore. He doesn’t need to know that Spencer coughed up a root in the bathroom five minutes ago, and that it came out soaked in blood.
All he needs is the bare minimum. That’s all a team leader needs, really.
The paper crinkles in Aaron’s fist. He catches the movement immediately and stops it, but they’re both profilers, trained to notice the miniscule and minute. Spencer sees, and he knows Aaron knows he sees.
They both don’t comment on it. Nor do they comment on the fact that once upon a time, Spencer handed over his entire medical file to Aaron when he designated him as medical proxy and has never held back anything about himself or his treatments ever since he got clean and started attending NA meetings.
Aaron take a deep breath and opens his mouth and – coughs.
And then he keeps coughing, until he has to drop the files he’s holding and go for a tissue.
Spencer finds himself on his feet, evaluations and medical conditions forgotten in a flash, but when he reaches out he has to stop himself. They’re not – well, they weren’t dating. But they aren’t intimate anymore. He doesn’t get to touch Aaron like that anymore.
By the time he has wrestled back control of his hands, Aaron has finished coughing and is breathing deeply and calming, as if he’s just come off of a long run.
“Are you all right, sir?” Spencer asks, because just because Aaron’s wised up and left him, it doesn’t mean Spencer won’t fret every second Aaron’s in danger.
Aaron does answer, presumably, for his mouth opens and his voice ripples through the air, but Spencer doesn’t hear it. Or rather, he does, because he doesn’t register the syllables and tone; he just lets it wash over him and settle in his memory, to be replayed and filed away later, because –
Because the tissue Aaron just brought away from his mouth has a flower in it.
Ice runs down Spencer’s spine, shocking and freezing and painful. Suddenly the ache in his lungs means nothing compared to the tearing agony in his heart, because if Aaron has Hanahaki – if Aaron is pining for a love unrequired – if Aaron had Hanahaki and hid it as well –
Then maybe they were doomed for the start.
“Aaron,” Spencer starts, and then the rest of the words get stuck somewhere in the tangles of roots and flowers in his lungs and don’t make it out.
Aaron’s eyes are wide and panicked. He folds the flower into the tissue, going so slowly and smoothly that Spencer knows Aaron actually really wants to just get rid of the evidence swiftly but is resisting the temptation. Then he clears his throat and forces a little smile and says, “My apologies for the disruption, Reid.”
Their gazes meet and there’s a question in Aaron’s eyes, but Spencer can’t quite parse it.
Doesn’t dare to parse it.
“I don’t know what kind of flower that was, sorry,” Spencer blurts out, before Aaron can put it into words and damn them entirely, and then he flees the office as fast as he can.
(This is a lie. He does know. Camellia sasanqua, the symbol of admiration, perfection, and faithfulness.)
They take more cases, flying out to chase leads and find victims and catch killers. Aaron no longer sits by Spencer in the plane, or brings him food unless he’s bringing it for the whole team, or has a rotation that allows for Spencer to be roomed with Aaron. Spencer no longer looks to Aaron first when realizations hit, or lingers by Aaron’s side when local LEOs make him nervous, or steals his coat or jacket for warmth when he’s cold.
The team notices. They are profilers, it’s what they do.
Besides, it’s not like either of them can hide the coughing or the flowers.
That being said, Spencer really didn’t think they would take any action on it. After all, there’s only one cure for Hanahaki disease, and the entire team has seen the effects of the surgery, so they understand why both Aaron and Spencer are not considering it. So he figured they would all gracefully leave them alone, and maybe sneak extra treats into their bags or make playful, gentle jokes about the petals strewn all over the plane.
Then one night, his hotel key doesn’t work for the room he’s been assigned to share with Rossi. When he goes down to the front desk, because Rossi isn’t answering his calls and isn’t in the room, the front desk cheerfully explains that he’s been moved because the room has an issue and hands him a new key with a new room. Which is fine, they’re all used to it, but then Spencer keys into his new room just in time to see Aaron walking out of the bathroom with a towel on his head and another slung about his waist.
They both freeze.
“How did you – ” Hotch starts, and then he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “So that’s why Morgan grabbed his bag.”
“Um,” Spencer says, because he has no idea what else to say. They’re both smart enough to know when they’ve been played.
Besides, his gaze and attention is more focused on the tiny camellia petals caught in the folds of the Aaron’s towel.
Aaron notices his gaze and firmly moves the towel around his body, so that the petals are out of sight, as if Spencer will forget that they exist simply because they are no longer in his direct line of sight. Spencer isn’t sure whether to be insulted – he has an eidetic memory and Aaron certainly knows this – or relieved, now that he no longer has a glaring reminder that Aaron will never love him the way he wants.
Spencer plays with the strap of his bookbag. It doesn’t need attention, but anything is better than focusing on the camellia petals. “Do you know what stage you’re at?”
Aaron’s entire face goes smooth and blank. He has different varieties of his blank face, but Spencer knows this one very well, mostly because he uses it a lot when he tells local LEOs to butt out of the team’s business. Once upon a time, it was reassuring, because it usually meant that Aaron was protecting them in general, and Spencer in particular, from being questioned or taunted for their capabilities.
Now, it just means that when Aaron says, “I believe that’s my business” it’s like a knife to the gut.
Unfortunately, because Spencer can never leave well enough alone, he rewinds his memory back and focuses on the camellias. They were a good size blossom, but there wa no sign of stems attached to them, and no broken stems lying in Aaron’s wake. That puts him at stage one at least. A recent commitment of the heart, then.
They’ve been sleeping together for at least a year. Spencer has no idea who else could have possibly caught Aaron’s fancy, or when. Aaron does go out with the team, sometimes, but he’s a homebody just like Spencer is, and prefers coming home and curling up on the couch instead of jaunting about the town. He even dodged all the subtle blind set ups – or not so subtle set ups – Rossi made for him the entire year they were together, and Spencer had been foolish enough to think that meant Aaron was his, at least until Aaron wised up. He’d expected Aaron’s realization to hurt, but he’d accepted it as an inevitability.
He hadn’t thought it would be accompanied by Aaron falling in love with someone else.
The pain from the thought grows and grows, until Spencer’s breath goes raspy and he realizes abruptly that it isn’t just emotional pain – that’s physical pain, and it’s sharp and piercing and –
“Excuse me,” Spencer gasps out, and then he drops his bag and pushes back Aaron into the bathroom.
He makes it to the toilet, at least, and after that, he isn’t aware of much else besides pain and blood and flowers.
When the coughing fit ends, the toilet bowl looks more akin to a terrarium than a repository for waste. It’s a riot of colors – reds and purples and greens – and long, gnarly roots with tendrils and blood clinging to the end. They’re large and damning and Spencer knows he’ll need to fish them out and put them in the trash bin rather than risk flushing the toilet, but that’s an exhausting thought, so for now he just sets his head to the cold porcelain and just tries to catch his breath.
“Breathe,” a voice says in his ear.
Spencer heeds it automatically – the voice is warm and familiar and strong, and Spencer knows it better than his own. It’s led him into fire, but it’s also guided him back out into safety. It’s welcomed him home, and it’s sent him to new and exciting horizons. It is Aaron, crouched on the floor, dignity and wet hair forgotten, rubbing his back in calming circles.
“I’m fine,” Spencer croaks out.
“You’re at stage three, aren’t you,” Aaron says, and it is not a question.
Spencer closes his eyes.
“Damn it, Reid, why didn’t you tell me?”
Aaron’s voice is frustrated, just enough to put Spencer on edge, and the use of his surname is the last straw. He opens his eyes and glares back up at Aaron, because he can give as good as he can get.
“You didn’t tell me,” he points out.
“I could have helped – ”
“I am not getting surgery.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Aaron says, his voice gentling. He sighs and settles more firmly on his knees, which is going to really hurt. “But I could have helped, Spencer.”
“I don’t need help. I need – ” you, he doesn’t say.
He bites his cheek instead, until his mouth tastes like blood again.
Aaron opens his mouth, as if to argue further, but then he turns his head and has a coughing fit of his own. It is then Spencer’s turn to hold Aaron steady through the spasms and try to rub comfort into his back. He almost wishes that he could take the pain for Aaron, foolish wish that it is.
He can’t do that. What he can do is feel the swell of jealously and anger and give it voice.
“Whoever it is,” Spencer says, when Aaron has stopped coughing and just looks miserably agonized, “they don’t deserve you.”
Spencer is mostly expecting a bland response, because Aaron is a master of deflection. He might have even expected Aaron to get up and leave, because if Aaron doesn’t feel like fighting, he’ll usually leave.
He does not expect rage.
“Do not,” Aaron growls, deep and angry, “speak of yourself like that.”
What, Spencer thinks.
“You deserve the world and I will not let anyone put you down,” Aaron continues. “Not even you. You are kind and fearless and good. You deserve everything.” He pauses. “Someone better than me, certainly.”
What, Spencer thinks again, a little more hysterically.
Aaron flinches back from him.
Oh. He said that aloud.
Well.
“What?” Spencer repeats, a little too loud, so that it echoes all over the shiny white porcelain walls.
Aaron’s shoulders go firm. He raises his chin and meets Spencer’s eyes, as calm and ready to weather the storm as he is when he battles legal challenges or questions about his team.
“I said,” he repeats, “you deserve everything, Spencer. I had hoped – but no. You deserve someone better than me. I just wish they saw you for you, so you wouldn’t have to . . . suffer. I wish you could be happy with them.”
“But,” Spencer says feebly, “I. I was. I mean. I am. I am happy with you.”
Aaron blinks. “What?”
“I,” Spencer says, and has to stop to cough up a flower. “This. It was. You didn’t know?”
The look on Aaron’s face says that he very much did not know.
But Aaron is a man who has faced surprises before, and he adapts very well. It’s part of what makes him an excellent team leader. It’s even more so why Spencer loves him, because he is already ready and willing to brace himself against the world to offer shelter to Spencer.
So Aaron takes a deep breath and says, “So your – you thought. You thought I didn’t love me?”
Spencer can only shake his head mutely. It’s that or cough.
“Spencer,” Aaron says, his voice tinged with longing, as if Spencer isn’t right in front of him. “Spencer, of course I love you. I thought you didn’t . . . love me.”
Hence the Hanahaki disease, his self-deprecating wave at his own form indicates.
“So we both – ”
“Yes.”
“But how – ”
Aaron grabs him then. He telegraphs his movements, so Spencer isn’t surprised, but his hands land on Spencer’s shoulders and his eyes are ablaze with emotion, alive and beautiful, the way he comes to life in a courtroom or during a case, and Spencer loves him so much; he would jump into a fire for Aaron, if he had to.
From the look on Aaron’s face, the feeling is mutual.
“I love you, Spencer Reid,” Aaron states, as bold and loud as though he’s trying to shout down an objection at a wedding. “You, and no one else. I thought you didn’t love me.”
“Well, I thought you didn’t love me,” Spencer grumbles, because it’s that or give into the embarrassment churning in his gut. “But I do. Love you, I mean.”
Aaron’s eyes dart to his lips. “Can I – ” he begins.
“Yes,” Spencer says, because he’s missed many things about being with Aaron – home cooked food, a warm body to cuddle with, a ready and willing mind to verbally spare with – but nothing more than just kissing.
Aaron tastes like blood and dirt and, strangely, a bit like flowers.
That’s more than okay with Spencer.
Epilogue
“Hey, Pretty Boy,” Morgan smirks, when Spencer pushes his way into the unit, “I hear somebody got a little something something?”
Prentiss doesn’t say anything, but she does wolf-whistle, which is fairly restrained for her. Even Rossi gives them a look from across the bull pen.
Spencer holds up his new medical clearance in its folder, but he doesn’t pause at his desk. For one thing, if he does, they’ll descend on him and ruffle his hair and clap his shoulder and make a mess of his desk. For another, he has another more pressing destination in mind; he can always stop by his desk later.
He knocks, just because this time, and Aaron says, “Come in” in a very distracted voice, which is par for course.
“I’ve been cleared, sir. Thought you’d want a copy of the report.”
Aaron’s pen pauses mid scratch. He looks up, his gaze flickering from Spencer’s feet to his head, that same assessing look he casts on everyone he comes into contact with. Some people find it uncomfortable, but Spencer just feels warmed all over, as if by the sun, knowing that Aaron is checking to see if he’s okay because he loves Spencer.
Even now, acknowledging that fact is still a heady drug to Spencer.
Aaron sets the pen down, deliberate and steady. “Well, let’s see it, Reid,” Aaron drawls, holding out a hand.
Spencer hands it over, careful to keep his facial expression neutral. He also, after Aaron tilts his head towards the window, moves to close the blinds. Aaron usually leaves it open, as an expression of trust and availability for his team as well as the chance to monitor their wellbeing, but leaving them open for this is in invitation for the entire team to spy on them.
Not that they won’t tease them regardless, but Spencer can at least cut down on their material.
By the time he’s finished and sat down, Aaron has flipped through the file.
“It says you’re fully cleared for duty,” Aaron notes. “Congratulations, Dr. Reid.”
“It’s nice to be back,” Spencer says honestly. He takes a deep breath, savoring being able to without coughing. He doesn’t think he’ll take the ability to breathe for granted ever again.
Aaron raises a brow. “They would have sent me a copy of the report, though. Why bring it to me personally?”
“I’m cleared for full physical duty in the field.”
“Yes, I noticed.”
“Which includes strenuous activity. Even strenuous activity for extended periods of time,” Spencer says pointedly.
Aaron’s eyes are sparkling, because he gets it, but to his credit his face doesn’t change. “I wasn’t aware that you were a fan of extensive strenuous activity in the field, Dr. Reid. Didn’t you say that kicking down doors was best left to me and Agent Morgan?”
Just for that, Spencer has to kiss him.
“What was that for?” Aaron laughs, but his hand is warm and gentle and steadying on Spencer’s hip, and he doesn’t pull too far back. Spencer could easily kiss him again, if he wanted to.
“I love you,” Spencer tells him. It bears repeating, given their misunderstanding. “Also, I want sex.”
“We are in a government building that is monitored 24/7,” Aaron says dryly. “And you needed time.”
Because Aaron had been wary of the damage done to Spencer’s lungs, and in Aaron’s defense, it had taken him a while to heal. But he had healed, and yet Aaron had still pointedly stayed away.
Once, Spencer might have had second thoughts, or doubts, or wondered if Aaron no longer wanted him.
Now, though, he just smiles cheekily. “That’s why I helped myself to your apartment key,” he says, and twirls it around his finger from where he’s liberated it from Aaron’s jacket pocket. “You should really keep a better eye on your belongings, sir.”
“You minx,” Aaron says, laughing, and he makes no attempt to recover his key. “Get back here and let me kiss you again.”
So Spencer kisses him again and lets himself be warmed through every fiber of his being by their love, the best remedy ever for sore throats and bloodied lungs and wounded hearts.
FINIS