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Elle has never lived a life where she wasn’t angry. Spencer wonders why she puts it like that, like she has lived many before her time now on the planet. She doesn’t tell him it’s because of his recent theory on reincarnation.
What she does tell him is that he’s missing the point, she’s angry. She doesn’t know why. She’s always been this way.
He tilts his head, in his stare that’s never judging and is always studying. She watches him, and it’s only in his eyes that she feels peace. He asks her what anger feels like to her, and she bites back saying that anger could never be him.
Spencer Reid is not anger, he is not the bile she feels in her heart during situations. He is refuge, she swims in his eyes when her own get especially heated.
She says the anger feels like never being satisfied. Never a solution, never a kind word to soothe the fire. The anger feels like a part of her, and that’s what scares her. She doesn’t know who she is if she’s not constantly angry.
There’s something in him that wants to understand. She sees it in his eyes, the way his brain is whirring to get her, but what is there to be gotten. She doesn’t know why she bites, why she gnarls, why she’s quick to defend when there’s no fight to be won.
Elle leans back against her couch, Spencer doing the opposite by leaning on his knees as he pondered. Hunched over himself in her old worn-down armchair, she’s not sure why he stays.
“What makes you angry?” He asks finally, an eyebrow quirked. He sits up a bit, eyes back on her. They trail slowly over her face, dragging down the bridge of her nose and over the curve of her lips.
“I don’t know. I just..am. It lives in me. It..festers,” she slowly is able to get out. She leans on the arm of her couch, moving her legs so her knees brush his.
Silence. Deafening, mind-eating silence. She huffs.
”God, what is this, read me for a night?” He says nothing. He watches her. She’s sick of being watched. “I’m getting coffee.”
“Two shots of-”
“Espresso, I know.” Her voice cuts. It’s tired, she’s tired. She drowns it all in bad Keurig coffee. The silence is filled with the buzzes of the machine as it poured liquid into mugs. Reid’s silent. Her blood thrums.
“You’re doing it again.” She groans a bit and leans against her kitchen counter, finding him suddenly next to her.
“What. What am I doing again.”
She’s done. She hates being read, by him most of all.
“You hide when you’re angry. You hide because you’re scared of what you’ll do and what you’re capable of when you really get angry,” he says simply, a shrug in his voice. Elle blinks, pausing mid-sip. She pushes his mug away from him after taking it off of the Keurig.
“You don’t get your coffee anymore.” Spencer’s face falls a bit before recovering and giving her the signature glance, gaze washing over her posture. Her heart flutters like it always does around him, and she’s going to pound something into the ground.
Moments pass, it’s him looking at her with answers she doesn’t want and her looking at him with questions she hates having. She steps closer to him, she wants to test something. She wants. The feeling stumbles in her stomach and she hates it but she wants.
“What makes you angry?” He asks finally, breath hitching a bit and hastily reaching for his mug.
She shrugs. She looks at his hands instead.
“People.”
“Like?”
”Like unsubs. Like some officers during a case. They make me angry, others often do. I don’t mean to, maybe I’m just impatient,” she says, sipping her coffee and averting her gaze. He doesn’t stop watching her.
“That sounds like normal anger to me.”
”No. I’ve felt both. This lives in me. I feel it everywhere. I feel it in everyone I meet, I tear them apart, Reid. Anger’s supposed to dissipate, it’s supposed to leave. I am this.” Silence again.
“Is there anyone you don’t feel angry at? Maybe that’s a good place to start.” Her stomach stirs again. A flutter, something that hits at the walls of her abdomen.
“You.” His eyes widen. She gives a small smile, as if it will do anything. It doesn’t, he only gapes at her.
Finally, with a strength-sip of coffee, he replies.
“I, uh. I’m glad I do that for you.”
”So you’re a good starting point, huh?” He blanched, choking a bit on his coffee before coughing and reclaiming his voice. His cheeks flushed, she couldn’t help the satisfaction that built in her chest.
“I just want to help, Elle. I, uh. I’m glad being around me is enough for you in that sense.” She smiles, her heart swelling. Tilting her head, studying his body language. Nervous suddenly, unsure of how to continue. He steps a bit closer to her, patting her hand with a smile that makes her stomach flutter enough to make her nauseous.
“Are you angry, ever?”
”Rarely. I have more to think about than being angry.” She nods.
”Do you want to feel what anger is?” Cocking his head, clearly curious. His flush is more noticeable now, highlighting his cheekbones. She smiles, closing the space between them. Just to test. Always to test.
She kisses him. She doesn’t think about hiding or hurting or anything but him knowing her anger.
His hands move slowly to her hips. Tangled in his hair, her hands back up to his cheeks to hold his face.
She pulls back first, and he’s looking at her different than he has all night. His eyes gleam. They’re not heavy with trying-to-understand, they‘re barely breathing.
“You’re pretty angry, I take it.” She grins and touches her lips to his again.