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To love is to dance on a chessboard.
Weaving between pieces, cloaked in black and white, sticking to your obligatory spaces and remembering how you’re expected to move. Shy opening. Hesitant placements. A middle game blending flirtation with fencing. A flicker of truth in your sudden compulsion, seeing how the game will end and being unable to stop it, no matter what that looks like. A grand endgame, even if it’s quiet.
Loving Spencer Reid is spending a lifetime in your flicker of truth, unsure if you will be the victor or not – debating if there even will be one. All is fair in love and war, wrote John Lyly in 1578, but fair does not mean there will be no losers. Some days, you wonder if that’s all you are destined to be; that you were doomed from the opening, that there’s not a move you could take nor sacrifice you could make that would relieve you from your destiny.
You are Prometheus. You ponder if Spencer is the eagle gnawing your organ to shreds or the god who tied you to the rock in the first place.
But you love him. Even when it hurts.
When you open the bedroom door, having cried yourself to a headache submerged in the darkness, you find Spencer in his window seat, playing a game of chess against himself. In his creamy white jumper, he is charming in the cloud light, and you are reminded of the first time you ever met and how you decided it was going to be him.
Even if it kills me. That’s what you said.
That is what you said.
Spencer glances up at you and your eyes meet across the distance.
Your lips part to speak but all you do is breathe, and you wince away from the sunlight casting through the windows. Spencer’s apartment is mostly sunk in shadows aside from squares of white light waltzing on cold floorboards.
Spencer waits for you to speak.
You both say nothing.
He resets the board.
Your palms stroke along your black cardigan, stolen from Spencer but yours, nonetheless.
You breathe. You cross the distance between you in calculated steps along the quietest of floorboards, dancing yourself, to settle in the chair opposite him, gazing at the pieces.
Your bloodshot eyes sting in the light.
Spencer agreed long ago to let you always start a chess game – even though it broke the fundamental rule of white moving first.
You begin as you always have. Shy opening.
“I thought you left.” you say.
Spencer’s brows pinch, though he doesn’t meet your gaze as he makes his move.
“No, I was just being quiet.” He rasps – his move is harsher than yours, bolder, though promises no early threats, “You look like you’ve been crying.”
“You were being quiet, you know I was crying.” Your pawn matches your tone.
Spencer blinks at your response, sucking in a breath.
“I was respecting your privacy. You didn’t want to see me. The – uh – door slam made that clear.”
Your face warms at the memory of how you’d closed the door with the subtly of an avalanche, and you wonder where it came from. Anger is not an easy emotion for you – frustration, perhaps, but not the rage that slams doors behind you.
You want to apologise. This does not come easy.
You respond with a subtle move of your pawn. He takes it the second it lands on its square. You suppose you deserve it.
But this isn’t your fault. None of this fight is your fault. What is it within you that cowers so easily?
You both move in silence for a short while. With each placement, his shoulders deflate and his brows, once furrowed with frustration, gradually soothe. He analyses your shadowy expression.
“I told Hotch I – uh – couldn’t come in.” he says quietly, and you try to supress your surprise, “Said I just… needed to handle things at home. Personal stuff.”
Your stomach churns at knowing your confrontation is right in front of you and will not be snatched away any time soon.
You opt not to respond. You swallow hard against the dryness of your throat.
“He said he understood,” Spencer adds in hopes to coax a response from you, “said he knew how work could get in the way of things… and I should take some personal time…”
“He did, did he?”
Attack is the best defence. Spencer ignores this because he believes defence is the best defence.
“Yes. So…” he gazes at you, puppy eyes both adoring and serious, “you have me until Monday.”
A whole week.
You strangle all expressions at the base of your throat to keep your face calm and composed. Chess is like poker sometimes – you never let your opponent see your pride nor weakness.
Spencer takes a leap of faith and sparks the gunpowder of your argument once again.
“You never had a problem with my work before.” he says.
You wait on your next move. Spencer’s never been one for the hour-per-player rule in chess, and makes no attempt to rush you or remind you how long you’ve got left.
“I know it’s hard. I hate being away from you just as much as you hate being away from me-,” he continues.
Aggressive move.
“It’s not fair that I talk to you about how hard it is, and your response is same.”
Your bishop crushes its square.
Spencer raises a brow at you, though remains composed in the face of your sudden scratching.
“That’s not what I’m saying.” He replies, “You’re putting words in my mouth.”
“I’m repeating what you say back to you. It’s not my fault if you don’t like it.”
The game freezes for a moment with a piece toying in Spencer’s hand as he ponders what to do with it. Your board cast in cloud light displays a brutal blend of fragility and war, neither of you certain on your tactic. You, typically bold, stay far too close to your own side of the board, whilst Spencer, whose play is tactical and smart, is wrecked with impulsive moves and emotional bursts that he’s paying for. Neither of you are winning nor losing for sure. Once you gain your courage back, you’re sure to ruin his play, but that is if you can find your courage again.
Spencer sighs.
His rook twirls between his fingers.
“What I mean to say is… we’ve found ways to make it work. We call, we text, we… send each other silly gifts and photos and… make up for lost time when I am here.” He sighs, placing his piece in a defensive position, “So… what’s changed?”
“Nothing’s changed.” You rasp.
“Sweetheart…” you’re surprised by the term of endearment – you expected the chess pieces to go flying like bullets through the room before you anticipated a form of affection. His brows knit together again as he gazes at you. “We don’t fight.”
But this is not a fight. This is a war.
Wars are smart. Wars play out over sixty-four squares. There’s always a winner in a war, even if you’re both at complete losses.
“I know I was away for a while last time. Is that what this is about?”
You don’t let him see your gaze as you move your queen for the first time, marvellous in her midnight cloak, taking centre stage under the overcast spotlight.
“If you need to go to work, you should just go.” You tell him.
He tuts at you, shifting a pawn one place, unthreatened by your display.
“I know I don’t take as many personal days as I should. I – uh – find it hard to… let go.”
Your eyes flick between his as though his words are laced with nightshade. When you find none, you respond.
“The BAU’s important to you, I know that.”
“You’re also important to me.” he reminds you, not letting your ever-so-sly hierarchy go unnoticed.
“Well, I’d never take that away from you.”
“I know.” he says, “But I would never ask you to be okay with everything it demands from me.” his jaw tightens, “I know how lonely it can be here.” He glances around his apartment that you’d somewhat moved into, your own home gathering dust but not 'officially' resigned, and when he meets your gaze again, his eyes are sympathetic, “So…”
“Don’t say it.”
He doesn’t need to pry into your thoughts to gather what you mean. Games end one way. Someone loses. It’s why they’re so much fun.
But no victory is true. At least, not now.
You glance at the board.
“I know how this ends.”
“You do?” his brows cocks.
You toy with the head of your king, spinning him in his starting place, where one wrong flick of your finger could send him tumbling to his defeat. Instead, you tilt him back to his firm stance.
“I don’t have… a big problem with you going to work – flying away, all that.” you gulp.
You find an unmoved pawn – small, dainty, the first to be sacrificed in the game of life, looking to you for protection only for you to slaughter it the first chance you get.
If it can make it to the other side, it will not be the same. It will be traded for something greater. The pawn that crossed the board will not be the pawn that returns.
You are your own pawn. Even when you were just three-foot-tall and Bambi-eyed. You are a million and one of them. You ponder how you can be the product of so many sacrifices, and if you are the pawn, then who it is that moves you. Is it life? Is it God? Is it the stars?
“I…” you sigh.
“What?” Spencer asks, not so subtly toying with his cream sweater as he anxiously waits your response.
“I’m here.”
He runs your words through his head over and over again.
“Not with you.” You clarify.
You feel so childish being so emotional. It's your youngest self that moves your next piece and it's a pathetic, unworthy play.
Spencer, somehow, smiles softly.
“If I could take you with me, I would.” his voice is light.
But you don’t find the humour in this.
If anything, your eyes glaze over again and you return to staring at your sixty-four squares of separation.
Spencer monitors your micro-expressions and how you slouch back in your seat.
“So… it’s not… my absence here, but… your absence there?”
He watches you swallow the stones of your nettled breath. He thinks about holding your hand but opponents do not embrace the other to make a loss easier.
“Well, as I say, I would never take your job away from you…” you remind him, “that job – despite how… hellish it seems at times – is good for you, in… ways. I could never compete with that. I would never try. You’re more confident, even just since I met you. I can’t take the credit for that.”
His head cocks to the side.
“Being loved by you is golden armour.” He smirks, aware of his pedantic statement, though he hopes it amuses you some.
“Poetic, and yet…” you glance at him, your smile almost melancholy, “factually ineffective.”
He rolls his eyes. Of course, now is the time you start fishing for holes in his comparisons.
“Actually, gold is incredibly dense and lacks durability due to its malleable nature, not to mention it being expensive in comparison to practical metal like steel, so…”
If not for your earlier upset, you might have smiled.
“But… gold is… rare in the Earth’s crust… and requires numerous resources to obtain. It’s incredibly valuable, and… does not corrode. It’ll remain perfect.” He adds.
He sighs.
“What do you mean by compete?” he follows up, leaning forward in his seat, chasing your slouched demeanour.
“Hm?”
The next moves on your board are somewhat friendly – as friendly as a game of war can be – and you shift in your seat.
“You said you’d never try to compete with my job. What do you mean by that?”
“I’d never ask you to leave. I know how much it means to you. They’re your family.” You meet his gaze, arms resting in front of you, the clouds casting their glow across your features as you shift into the light, “You’re committed to them – to your work – in the same sort of way you commit to me, and… they came first, so…”
Spencer values your insight into the significance of his job to him, though finds himself suddenly feeling very exposed at the intimate level to which you’ve described his loyalty.
“That’s a very… reverent way of speaking.”
“Is that bad?” you ask.
“No,” he straightens, “but it’s interesting to see how you view it.”
“Do you not feel that way?” your head cocks, “A sense of duty – of… belonging – that goes far beyond the average job?”
As discomfort trickles down his spine, Spencer shakes his head – not denial, but deflection.
He finds his queen then and moves her three steps forward.
“What is it about not being with me that makes you so uncomfortable when I’m away?” he questions.
You take one of his bishops and he watches it join the collection of his pawns you’d gathered.
“Your absence, not mine, bothers you.” Spencer notes, “So… it’s something about what happens when you’re not there.”
Your jaw tightens at the invasion. You’ve never been one to let your guard down, and you don’t intend to let it slip now, especially not in such a… violently intimate way.
You recruit your rooks to fend him off and protect your king.
“Is it about me getting hurt? The idea that, if you’re there, nothing bad can happen to me?” he proposes.
You say nothing, but he finds your lack of response, both in words and face, to reveal this to not be the case.
His head cocks.
He observes the game as an objective viewer for a moment, hoping it’ll shed light on it all. Gazing at you across from him, Spencer digs into his own fear about not being with you in hope to find some truth.
He plants his king one step to the right.
“You think I’ll forget about you.”
“What?” you scoff a bit too loudly.
“You think I’m distracted with all those new, shiny people, and busy, important cases that… my love for you somehow dissipates.”
“N-no…” your head shakes, but your hand wavers above the board and you can’t decide what piece to move next – if you will attack or defend or find some pathetic middle ground that allows you to determine what he’ll do next.
You would give him the upper hand for just a moment if it allowed you to work out how you were expected to respond. Chess – and war – is a dance, after all.
Someone has to lead.
“If it’s not that, then what is it?” Spencer asks.
“I-,” you hope something will come to mind as the vowel claws up your throat, but nothing presents itself easily.
You return to attack.
“Well, you’re married to your work – you’d sooner put a ring around your desk’s name plate than you would around me.”
His brows raise.
He’s almost amused by your response – about how much it reveals.
“Hm.” Spencer drones, eyes narrowing at you, “Marriage?”
You wonder if you should sacrifice the war to keep your dignity as he pries further than you wish. You watch your queen – once steadfast and perverse – suddenly remembering that she might be the most powerful on the board, but not the most important.
Against all odds, you try to be kind.
“It was a comparison around duty.” You glance out the window and trace the world below, “About what it means to commit. You… have given your whole life to your team, to the work. I know you always will. I know… you will never leave.”
Spencer offers you a break and takes a slice of discomfort for himself, deciding it’s only fair.
He sighs deeply and realises that someone has to relent first, even slightly, and offers you up a share on a silver platter.
“Being in the BAU is… the first time I really felt like I was needed somewhere, ‘nd… I don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t doing this job…”
“I know.” your voice is content, not at all like bullets or arrows, “You might not be a man of God, but…” you shrug, “I know you think this is your path – that, if anyone’s meant to do anything, then you’re meant to do this.”
Spencer smiles slightly at your understanding, even if your pride is laced with pain.
“The first place you felt like you belonged.” You sigh, gazing at him, “Where you felt like you fit. Where you were accepted.”
You judge Spencer’s pawns on the board and then meet his gaze, resting your head on your knuckles as you peer at him. The tiniest of pieces are the first ones threatened. The slightest glance of any chess game tells you this.
Spencer licks between his parted lips and swallows. You see him. It’s violent. It reminds him of his days in school when he’d do something wrong and feel very, very watched for all his wrongs. He does not, however, find this judgement in your eyes, of course. You have never tried to play God. Not like anybody else. Your eyes glint – you’re glad he has purpose – even though it aches.
He clears his throat.
“After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.”
Your brow perks.
“Mark Twain.” You note.
“Yes, The Diaries of Adam and Eve, written in nineteen-o-six.” He shifts his bishop, “Check.”
You glance down at the board, half-forgetting the game, and swallow at the imminent threat.
“And why does that thought come to mind?” you ask.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
A soft silence swells in Spencer’s apartment as no pieces move and no words are exchanged, and clouds drown you in a heavy stage light. You are performing.
“Am I Eve or is the BAU Eve?” your question is mockingly cruel, but Spencer is unfazed.
In fact, he smirks.
“I... well, I hadn't meant it to be, but I... I suppose both.”
You suppress the ache building in your chest as you disarm Spencer and save yourself.
“Just what a girl wants to hear.”
Spencer shuffles in his seat.
“It’s true I find belonging in the BAU – that it does transcend the typical relationship a person has with their job, and I couldn’t imagine not doing it; I would be lost.” He looks at you, “But… the first moment I have where… it’s quiet… where I’m not thinking about a case… where… I haven’t got Doctor Reid-brain on… I’m thinking about you… about how…” he sighs, “I face terrible things because… it gives me a sense of control over the world – like I can take care of it – and… by proxy, take care of you. You know, I spent a long time, before we met… trying to work out why I did this job. I mean, I have all this ‘genius-ness’, but… I do the same job as lots of other people who aren’t considered geniuses – not that that’s a bad thing but it’s about the expectation – and… I never really found myself satisfied with an answer, until… until I realised that… this job is not about brains. It’s about the kind of person you are and the kind of world you wanna make.” He sighs, “In the broad sense, yes, the BAU is my Eve and the garden is my life…" his eyes roll, "but… I hadn't meant it like that when I said it. If the BAU is the garden, then you are my Eve. I would stand far outside it if you asked me to. That's what I meant.”
You try to restrain the heat clambering your face. He swipes one of your rooks and watches your queen a little too closely. You realise you are under attack.
“But you know I won’t ask you to.” you remind him.
Spencer ponders your statement by watching dust particles skip along the air.
“Angel,” he sighs, “is that what this is about?”
“What?”
He leans across, eyes burning into yours, and despite their intensity, at their very scorching core is love.
“You want me to leave, but you’re too nice to ask?”
“No,” you retort, “no, I just…” you swallow the crack in your voice.
Resignation seems to be the only way forward.
Spencer is kind enough to let you start the game, but he is always the one to finish it – his hidden competitive streak and open adoration for you would never do you the dishonour of feigning a victory.
“Don’t want to be left behind?” Spencer enquires, “Is that what you’re afraid of?”
Your youngest childhood-self moves the next piece, not knowing how to play the game but wanting to be a part of it.
You feel her gentleness in how she handles her knight, thumb stroking along the horse’s mane, thinking about dancing him across the squares with a click-clack of its invisible trotting hooves. When you look up, you wonder if Spencer has already left you even though he sits there still.
Leaving is not a physical act. Forgetting does not have colours. It’s all a feeling that sits right in your heartstrings – a unique sensation that turns you into an instrument.
“Do you think we belong together?” you ask then, “You’ve said you belong to your team, but you’ve not once said that about me here.”
Despite how your question has flipped the board, it is still your move, and you’ve yet to make a proper play. You cling to your little horsey and wonder how you’re meant to compete during a time like this.
Spencer smiles at you. It’s sad.
“I do.” he answers.
You are, however, left unsatisfied. Spencer senses this in how your eyes return to the board and you make an unthreatening move, one that dares him to finish you off for the sake of an ending.
“Love is an incredibly human thing. Lions do not reason with each other. They do not try to compromise, they just… tear the object of their shared desire, or the other, apart. But if it takes a million games for us to both come out of this together, and happy, then I will sit here and play a million games with you. I have no intention of us being not together… if that’s what you want…" he blinks and his brows flicker in thought, carefully forming his sentences, "because you can’t be with a person you’re growing to resent.”
“I’m not growing to resent you, I just… it frustrates me that…” you suck in a deep breath and sigh deeply, “the distance between us is an uncompromisable attribute of the job.” You meet his gaze, much more docile than you have for the last hour, “And there’s nothing you or I can do to negate that, and… you can’t change who I am-,”
“I have no aim of doing anything like that.” Spencer interrupts firmly, “I know how you think… how you feel… what you talk about when you talk about marriage.”
He holds your beating heart in his hands. Fuck, isn't it horrible?
Spencer's knee brushes against yours under the table. Your instinct is to pull away but you nail your foot into the ground.
“Not only do I belong with you, but… I’m beginning to understand what people mean about luck.” He scoffs, “Luck is about odds, with the odds being in your favour… but… when you think about the odds of you and I existing together at the same time – of the thousands of lives and millions of events that had to happen exactly the way they did – of us meeting, and… the rest of it… the odds were not in our favour at all.”
He toys with his king, just like you had.
“I know that what you and I have is not luck." he tells you, "It’s… serendipity.”
“Are they not the same?”
He smirks.
“You’re a smart girl, you know they’re not. Luck is a force – a hand. Serendipity is about… happy accidents.”
Spencer sighs deeply and meets your gaze, eyes flicking between yours as though the holy answer resides in them.
“I promise to take more personal time off. I know I don’t, and I know that affects you. I know that… my issues with belonging and… finding a place in the world… make you feel like you’ve been shelved – like you’re not a priority, and that’s my fault, and I’m sorry. More than anything, I promise that… there is no forgetting you. I mean, I have an eidetic memory-,” you knew he was going to bring this up at some point and you scoff, smiling a little wider than usual because you’ve been so sad, “so, I’m going to remember you forever. I remember everything. Every shy text, every bashful phone call, every time I almost said ‘I love you’ far too soon…” he sighs, “but… I need you to meet me halfway and trust me on that.”
Your jaw tightens.
That word seems to appear in every argument.
You have to trust me. Why don’t you trust me? I knew you didn’t trust me. You said you trusted me. You’re never going to trust me, are you?
You know it will one day tear the object of your desire apart. Your heart might not be a beast but that doesn’t mean your instinct isn’t.
“It’s hard.” You say, ashamed.
“I know.”
“I don’t know what to do about that.”
“Trust is an act.” He says, “That grows into a feeling.” His brows pinch as he contemplates his role in building trust, “What do you need from me?” he asks, very simply.
“I don’t need anything-,”
“Angel,” he calls, seriously, and God, his eyes are marvellous, and you understand how he breaks people down in interrogation rooms, “I am offering, so what do you need?”
You resent the ghosts you’ve spent your whole life exorcising. They all belong to you, even if not all of them are yours. Their fingers lace your limbs and tug you back to safety, but Spencer’s presence is light and promising, and in your infinite strength, you lean forward and set aside your fears of neediness because you do, in fact, need something.
“You still love me even though we fought?” you ask.
Spencer grieves your question. The very fact that it exists breaks his heart.
“I am always going to love you. Fighting doesn’t change that.”
He gulps then.
“But this – your worry that I’ll somehow forget you – questions my commitment to you, is that right?” he doesn’t give you space to answer because he knows he’s right, “Okay…” he hums in thought, “well… this is not exactly the romantic setting I wanted to propose this in, but…” he smiles a little, “I’d like you to move in with me… o-or we move someplace else together, or I could move in with you. Whatever makes you happy. It means we could spend more time together and, hopefully, would stand as a bigger gesture of my commitment to you.”
“You don’t have to ask me to move in with you just because I’m upset.”
He looks at the chess board again.
“I’m not the yelling type. No good can come from names and profanities. I believe in tactical moves and resolutions. This is my move.”
He scoffs.
“We belong together, after all.” he chuckles at his dramatic flair, entirely ironic and self-mocking, but knowing the certainty of the statement comforts you, “My want of this isn’t invalidated by the circumstances. If anything, I think this argument has proved that… it’s time and it’s a good idea. Of course, you don’t have to-,”
“I want to.” you say.
He smiles. You try to smile too, but you find it hard, even if you mean it.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” You add for good measure.
“You were upset.”
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
“You…” he sighs, “felt like you were running out of time, with me needing to leave. It’s understandable, it’s a… nasty side effect of the ‘fight-or-flight’ response.”
Spencer does not add that people can unconsciously raise voices in arguments if they’d learnt in adolescence it was the only way to be heard. He does not add that the same is to be said about slamming doors. And expecting people to leave. And believing yourself to be immediately unloved.
He smiles at you instead.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” you say.
“Then…” he shrugs, “I’m not mad at you.”
He sighs as he gazes down at the board. It’s his move. He returns to toying with his king piece. You’ve played a good match and been a fair competitor, but Spencer’s done with games and tactics and just wants to hold you.
He flicks his king piece over and the white crown hits the board with a thump.
“You’re letting me win?” you ask.
“No,” he sighs, “but… I think we’re destined to end in a stalemate if we’re both trying to win. I don’t want either of us to come out of this feeling like we’ve won at the other’s expense. So… I resign.”
You find both logic and sentiment in his reasoning.
Gazing at the board, littered with a variety of styles and tactics, you too tip your king over and it smacks Spencer’s on the way down.
Your ghosts sit at the table too.
He smiles at you.
“I'm sorry that I've not made you feel part of my work life to the point that... we've reached this kind of impasse. I'll do better. Now, come on… no more fighting… I’d rather think about if I have to make room in my closet or if I have to make peace with your shower’s terrible water pressure.”
“I’m moving in here – you’ve got all the books and antiques a girl needs.” You beam.
“So, I have to reorganise my collection to accommodate your crude adult fiction?”
He straightens from his seat then and comes to crouch in front of you, adorned in white light, and as his hands clasp yours in your lap, puppy eyes gazing up, you find in yourself the ability to trust even just a tiny bit.
“Or we could put in a shelf for me?” you grin.
“I like that thought a little better. Always full of bright ideas…” his thumb strokes along your knuckles, “and I’ll tell you something else – the next time the team are talking about going out after we land or… heading to a restaurant after work… I won’t decline just so I can come to you sooner. I’ll invite you. We’ll all spend some time together, so… my work like and my personal life don’t seem so separated. Does that sound good to you?”
You smile, heart exploding.
“Yeah, that sounds perfect.”
Spencer kisses your knuckles.
"I thought so." he says.
The clouds part at last. The sun burns through. The light turns golden.
"And... just for the record... I fully intend on putting a ring on you... especially before I put one on my desk's name plate... and not just because the average gold ring is too rigid to expand around-,"