Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s been a year since anyone saw Reid.  A year, almost to the day, since they found out the Winchesters had been regularly kidnapping their agent.

A year since Reid was placed in witness protection somewhere “outside the Winchesters’ reach.”  They’d deduced from the videos the guard had shown them that Reid was settling in on Hawai’i.  Morgan’s joke hadn’t been as much of a joke, after all.  

A year since the BAU vowed to take down the Winchesters once and for all.

Things have changed.  Dr Tara Lewis was brought in to fill the gap Reid left behind, and she’s been a perfect replacement.  Morgan had stepped up as temporary unit chief for a few months while Hotch took a step back to consider himself and his own actions in the Winchester case.

But they’ve never given up.  They’ve always intended to take down the Winchesters, and to get Reid home.

And now, they have their chance.  Garcia has found their faces on a security camera just a few hours north of Quantico.

The team is on the road before Garcia can finish explaining what she saw.  How they were heading for an abandoned building with only one entrance.

The sun is setting and the media has caught a whiff of something big going down.  Piles of reporters are gathering outside the building where the notorious Winchesters have reportedly been “hiding out” as the team members get ready.

One way or another, the Winchesters are going down tonight.

Hotch leads the pack as they open the door and head inside.  The windows are boarded up and the lights are out, except for a single, dangling, yellow light bulb hanging over an empty chair.  Under the chair is an encircled pentagram, painted in a dark red.

Everyone there knows the significance of that scene.  Even Dr Lewis, who had been shown the footage Garcia had saved when the team filled her in on the details of the case.

There’s no sound as they fan out, staring at the scene in front of them.  The Winchesters are putting on a play for them.  

Slow claps echo through the empty space as Dean approaches.  But he’s not alone.  He dragging someone with him.  Someone dressed in red Converse, mismatched socks, pants that are just too short, and a sweater-vest.  His head is covered by a bag.  But it looks a lot like Reid.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Dean huffs as a half-dozen guns are pointed at him.  “Shoot me, and this one goes too.”

“Glad to see you’re all well,” Sam’s voice booms, and the echo means it’s impossible to place where it’s coming from.  “It’s good to see you all got the little memo we sent miss Garcia.”

“Come out of the shadows, Sam, and we can talk,” Hotch suggests.  But a gunshot goes off and Morgan hits the deck instead.

“Morgan?”  Prentiss asks worriedly.

“I’m good,” Morgan groans.  “Bastard hit me in the knee.”

“Now, now, Sammy, be a good boy and come out here,” Dean coos.  “No need to hurt these ones, you know that.”

A sigh echoes through the room before Sam steps into the light, from the other corner of the room than Dean had approached from.  But he doesn’t have a gun on him.  “Fine, fine, I guess,” he says, rolling his eyes like a defiant teen and not a mid-30s wanted delusional serial killer.

“Do you know where our precious doctor was taken, agent Hotchner?”  Dean asks.  “My brother and I looked all over for him, but we couldn’t find him anywhere.”  He runs his hand down the chest of the man in the chair, the man that looks just as gangly as Reid.  “Did you take him out of our hunting grounds?”

“I don’t know where Reid was taken,” Hotch tells him plainly.  “And even if I knew, why would I tell you?”

“Oh, maybe because you sent him to Hawai’i?”

“I didn’t send him there.”

“So you did know where he was,” Dean grins.  “Can you guess where he is now?”

Hotch swallows, letting the question hang in the air.  “At work.”

“Well, look at that, Sammy.  Aaron’s not as stupid as you thought!”  Dean grabs the bag over the Reid-alike’s head and pulls it off.  And it isn’t Reid.  But they’ve seen that face before.

“You must be Gabriel,” Hotch assumes.

“Correctomundo, Aaron Hotchner,” Gabriel grins at him and stands up as if he wasn’t tied down at all.  The ropes around his wrists fall to the floor.  “Do you like the stage we set for you?”

“Gabriel…” Sam says slowly, reaching out and placing his hand on his shoulder.  Gabriel turns his head and cocks an eyebrow, only for Sam to shake his head.  Gabriel isn’t afraid of the Winchesters, but the Winchesters aren’t afraid of him.  They push and pull at him and he accepts it gleefully.  Gone is the defiant teen, and back is the wanted, haunted, dominant serial killer.

“You don’t do things by accident,” Hotch praises hollowly.  “Your wardrobe, down to your body language, matches Reid’s.”

“So how’d you know I wasn’t the good doctor?”

“Dean.”

“Aww, Aaron, how rude,” Dean pouts, pulling a knife from his belt and playing with it.  “What about my actions told you it wasn’t my favorite doctor?  Well, second favorite.  Nobody can top Doctor Sexy.”

Hotch lifts his gun and aims it right at Dean without answering.

“Oh, really?  Not gonna answer me?”

“It’s because he didn’t know,” Sam announces.  “He guessed.”

Dean laughs and twirls the knife.  “21 feet, Aaron.  I’d estimate the distance between you and me right now is, oh, 15?”

“13 and a half,” Sam supplies.  

“Why Reid?”  Hotch asks.

“He’s so pretty, don’t you think?”  Dean counter-asks.  “You’re telling me you never looked at him and thought ‘damn, what a fine piece of ass’?”  Silence from the team.  “Really? None of you?”

“I think, first time I saw him was in Vegas,” Sam muses, leaning on the back of the chair.  “I saw him from across a room and fell in love,” he sighs, his eyes glazing over.  “He was so beautiful.  I knew I had to have him, right then and there.  Did you know he was wearing this exact outfit?”  Sam grabs the shoulder of Gabriel’s sweater vest.  “I recreated it using his own wardrobe.  I miss him, agent Hotchner.”

“Sam, you’re better than this,” Hotch tries, only for Sam to scoff.

“Better?  What could be better than love?  Love is the purest form of emotion.”

“Sammy…”

Sam pouts and pulls back.  

“Dean, Reid isn’t a monster.”

“And that’s why we didn’t kill him,” Dean shrugs.  “But you wanna talk monsters?  Sure, we can do that.  But only if you put down your guns.”

“I can’t do that, Dean.”

Dean shrugs a shoulder.  “Good enough for me. Then we’re done talking.”  He flips the knife in his hand before throwing it at the agents, and it lodges itself in JJ’s right shoulder as several gunshots go off.  Gabriel throws himself in front of Dean, but there are too many bullets and both of them fall to the floor.

Sam screams and kneels by his brother, hands shaking as he cradles Dean’s head in his lap.  “Dean?  Dean!  No, no, no, not like this,” he whimpers, pulling his brother’s lifeless body closer.  “You can’t leave me now, please, Dean,” he sobs, before looking up at the agents.  “You!  You killed my brother, and our friend, but not me?  How could you?!”

“Sam, come with us,” Hotch tries to persuade as Lewis is tending to JJ behind him.

“I’m not coming with you.  I’m not leaving without my brother!”  Sam wails and sobs as he curls over his brother’s body.  “Why won’t you shoot me?!”

“Sam, you don’t have to die,” Prentiss tries, taking a step forward and lowering her gun.  

“Dean was my everything!  The only thing I did was love my family, agent Prentiss.  Where’s the sin in that?”  Sam looks up at her with tears coming down his eyes.

“You’ve killed, Sam.”

“I loved him.  He was all I had,” Sam whimpers, lowering his head and reaching behind himself.  “Fine.  If you won’t do it, I’ll do it myself,” and he places the gun to his chin.  “I’ll see you soon, big brother,” he whispers, closes his eyes, and pulls the trigger.  He slumps down over his brother, and that is the end of the Winchester saga.

“We need an ambulance, now.  Two agents are down.”

—

“Several gunshots have been heard inside the building where an FBI team have traced the Winchester brothers, a serial killer pair that have tormented the States for over a decade.  Reports of two injured agents are coming through, but there is no current status on the Winchesters.”

Mark Porter bites at his fingernail as he watches the news broadcast.  His coworker, Lisa, pokes her head into his office. 

“You okay?”

Shaking his head, Mark clears his throat.  “Yea- uh, yeah, I’m just watching the news.  Check this out, they’re about to catch the Winchesters.”

“The Winchesters?”

“The Winchester brothers are suspects in several brutal crimes that have been happening over on the mainland since 2005,” Mark explains.  “They’ve been hunted down for years, it seems they’re finally caught.”

Lisa nods, huffing.  “Well, think you can see that through later?  Got a couple of kids here asking for you.  At least, they’re asking for the magic man, and I guess that’s you?”

Mark laughs and wipes his hands on his pants as he stands up.  “Well, I better get out there, then.”

But in the back of his mind, he knows something is about to go very, very wrong.

—

Closing the library is a freeing experience, and Mark and Lisa part ways as they each go back to their homes.  But there's a looming sense of dread that only seems to grow with each step Mark takes.

A dread that grows when Mark is approached by one of the Marshals right outside the place he's called home for the past year.

"Is it over?"  Mark asks nervously, but he doesn't get a response as the Marshal leads him into the house.

The door is closed and the curtains carefully drawn before Mark is sat down on the couch and handed a cell phone.

Swallowing, Mark places the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Boy genius?  Is that really you?"

Nobody's called him boy genius in over a year.  But he knows that voice.

"Garcia?"  And suddenly he's no longer Mark Porter, librarian and student at the University of Hawaii, he's instead Doctor Spencer Reid, FBI agent with the Behavioral Analysis Unit.  And his skin itches.

"They did it!  They're dead, they're dead, Reid and you can come home!"

"They killed them?"  His voice shatters.

"Turn on the TV, sweetcheeks."  

Reid reaches for the remote and turns on the TV.  It's on the news station, like it always is.

"They are in the process of removing the bodies from the scene.  Three adult men, two of them identified as Sam and Dean Winchester and the third thought to be an accomplice, are confirmed dead by on-scene paramedics."

Reid chokes as the camera pans over to the entrance, and he sees his old team, the people he hasn't seen in a year.  He recognizes Hotch and Prentiss helping a limping Morgan.  But he doesn't see JJ or Rossi.

"They're dead," he whimpers.  "Oh, god, they're dead."

"Morgan got shot, Reid.  They shot him in the knee."

"Can you- can you put me through to Hotch?"  Reid asks meekly.

"Sure thing, gorgeous."   There's a beep on the line and Reid turns off the TV.  He can't watch.  They said Gabe had a plan for them, but this?  There's no way they would do this.  Not to him.  

Not when they've just come out to his coworkers.  It’s only been a bit over a month since he sat down with all of them and introduced them to them.

"Hey, Reid," Hotch's voice comes through.  "Garcia said you were on the line."

"I- I had the news on, they said that there were two agents hurt.  Is it true?"

"Sam blew out Morgan’s knee.  Dean threw a knife and hit JJ in the shoulder."

Reid chokes.  His two closest friends from the team.  That can't be a coincidence.

"So they're dead?"

"Dean and Gabriel went down after the knife was thrown.  Gabriel threw himself in front of Dean as we fired at them.  They were both dead before they hit the ground."

"And Sam?"

"He begged us to kill him.  When we wouldn't, he did it himself.  Gunshot to the head.  It's over, Reid."

Reid sighs shakily.  "It's over."  His voice cracks.

"We can start the process of getting you back once everything is settled."

"I need… I need some time to think about that, Hotch.  I- I don't know how much you know, but I've… I'm working on another degree at the University of Hawaii.  Library Science."

"Library Science?  Perhaps you can help me get Jack to read more," Hotch jokes.

Reid laughs, but the laugh is wet with tears.  "So I can keep in touch with you guys, now?”

“Double check with the Marshal, but it shouldn’t be an issue.”

Reid looks up at the Marshal and pulls the phone away from his ear.  “Would it be possible for me to go back to the mainland now and contact my team independently?”

The Marshal nods.  “Yes.”

“He says I can keep in touch,” Reid says into the phone.

“I’m going to go with Morgan and JJ to the hospital.  Let me know when you’ve made up your mind.  There’s always a spot on the team for you.”

“Thanks, Hotch.  Can you- can you say hi to the others, for me?”

“Of course.”

“Bye.”  Reid passes the phone back to the Marshal, and only faintly hears the “goodbye, Reid” from Hotch.  He looks up at him, blinking as tears fall.  “I- uh, I would like to make some calls, in, in private, if that’s okay.”

The quiet-mannered Marshal nods and leaves, closing the front door behind him right as everything falls apart.

Dead.  Suicide by cop and suicide.  But they told him they loved him!  How could they- how could they just leave him like that?

Mark Porter- no, Spencer Reid, his name is Spencer Reid, his name is Ma-Spencer Reid, Doctor Doctor Doctor Spencer Reid, FBI.  Mark Porter, librarian, student- no, Spencer Reid.

“My name is Doctor Spencer Reid, I work for the Behavioral Analysis Unit in the FBI with Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, Jennifer Jareau, Emily Prentiss, David Rossi and Penelope Garcia.  I hold doctorates in Engineering, Mathematics and Chemistry.  I’m in witness protection to hide from the Winchesters.”

“My name is Mark Porter, I work as a librarian for the Manoa Public Library in Honolulu, Hawaii.  I’m currently working on my Masters degree in Library Science.  I work with Lisa, Jack, Alani, Perse and Danny.  They are my friends.  My partners are Sam and Dean.”

“My name is Mark Porter.  Mark Porter.  I’m working on a Masters degree in Library Science at the University of Hawaii.”

“Spencer Reid.”

“Mark Porter.”

“Mark Porter.”

“Spencer Reid.”

Eventually he grabs his phone and picks the top contact, calling it.

“Lisa?  Hi, yeah, it’s me.  Can you come over?  I- I’m having a bad night.”

Chapter Text

The entire team, including Will LaMontagne and his two children, are in the waiting room of the hospital.  Five people are waiting for news on two agents, but for three of them, one person matters more than the other.

Garcia is focusing on keeping Henry and Michael busy, leaving Will to get the briefing from the team on what they know.

"They didn't aim to kill," Hotch tells him.  "Dean said Sam didn't have to hurt 'these ones', referring to us."

"But they're dead, right?"  Will asks.

"Yes.  The Winchesters are dead.  Dean threw the knife in our direction when we refused to lower our guns to talk."

"It hit JJ in the shoulder and lodged in there," Lewis explains.  "She's gonna need some rehab for her right arm, but eventually, she should make almost a full recovery."

"She ain't gonna be the same, is she?"  He asks, dismayed.

"Probably not.  The knife lodged itself right underneath the clavicle, right where the arm begins.  It severed the outer vein and she lost a lot of blood," Lewis continues.  

Will looks over at his sons.  "But she's gonna be alright?"

"There shouldn't be any risk of her losing her arm, no.  But we'll have to see what the doctors say when she's out of surgery."

Everybody's on edge, and Hotch and Rossi step away from the group.

"Are you alright?"  Rossi asks quietly.  "And don't give me that 'I'm fine' bullcrap, Aaron."

Hotch sighs shakily.  "It's over.  But it doesn't come without a cost.  The bullet shattered Morgan's knee."

"You're wondering why we’re still here," Rossi guesses.

“They could have easily blown up the entire building with us inside.  We’ve seen them use explosives before.”

“So why didn’t they?”

“They went into that building knowing it was their final stand, and they had no way out.”

“Why not take us down with them?”

“They couldn’t get to Reid directly,” Hotch mumbles.  “They wanted us to tell Reid that they were gone.”

“Wouldn’t the destruction of his team be a more effective message?”

“The Winchesters wanted to go out on their own terms.  Dean wasn’t going to talk about his delusion to someone with a gun aimed at him.”  

“But why go as far as to get himself killed?”  Rossi asks.  “Guy like that must’ve had something to live for.”

“Thrill.  The biggest thrill is going out with a bang.  But that wasn’t the plan.  Sam didn’t know it would go that way, or he would have acted with rage and tried to kill all of us.  Instead, he crumbled over the body of his brother and took his own life so he wouldn’t have to live without him.”

“We profiled codependency, but we’ve seen them act alone, too.  Why would Sam suddenly decide that he’s no longer able to operate without his brother?”

“Being separated is one thing, death is a barrier they cannot cross.  He cannot find his brother again apart from in death,” Hotch muses.  “Perhaps that weight was too much to bear.”

—

Lisa, bless her, is at his doorstep ten minutes later, her bike haphazardly thrown into the bushes in his garden.

“Well, Po, I heard you were having a bad night, so here I am.  You know me, I don’t sleep much at night anyways,” she teases, but stops as she takes him in.  “Oh, baby, what’s the matter?”

He swallows and lets her in, walking with her into the living room.  “There are… things… that I think I have to tell you.  I have to tell someone, but the people I would normally tell-”

“Your boys,” Lisa interjects, and he nods.

“Yes, them, they… how do I put this?  They’re involved.”

He turns on the TV, where Sam and Dean’s mugshots are plastered on the screen.

“Sam and Dean Winchester, violent serial killers who have been on the FBI’s most wanted list for close to a decade, have been confirmed dead in an abandoned building near Hanover, Pennsylvania.”

Lisa looks at the screen.  “Wait, they look just like- isn’t that- isn’t that your-”

“Yes.”  He turns off the TV again, unable to bear listening to the reporter.

“Marcus Ray Porter,” Lisa says, and he looks at her.  “Are you trying to tell me that you just lost both of your boyfriends in one night in a shootout with the FBI?”

He nods once.  It isn’t the phrasing he expects, but that is the gist of it.

“Oh, Mark…”

“That’s… that’s not all.  I guess it hasn’t been officially lifted yet, and I’m definitely not supposed to tell you this, but- my name, it isn’t Mark.  I am Doctor Spencer Reid, I used to work for the FBI, and I was placed here under witness protection to protect me from the Winchesters.”

Lisa tilts her head, narrows their eyes, stares at him for a second, before she leans back and takes a long sip of her Red Bull.

“You really had these boys twirled around your finger, eh?  Not a lot of people handle the travel to and from the mainland on the regular.”

He chuckles sadly, looking down at his lap.  “Yeah, they… they were special.”  Why isn’t she focusing on the fact that I’ve lied to her face about myself and my lovers?

“Must’ve been one hell of a ride, huh?”

“My team thought they kidnapped me,” he admits, and it makes Lisa laugh.  “They were supposed to be these violent criminals, right?  But you know them.  They’re brilliant.  They- they were brilliant, and kind, and understanding, and-” his voice trembles and breaks and he digs his hands into his hair and curls over and sobs.  “And they’re dead.”

Lisa doesn’t approach to console him, nor offer empty words of condolences.  And he appreciates that, that they let him just sit and grieve in their company.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he lifts his head and wipes his face.  “Sorry for making you come all the way here just to see me break down.”

“I’m sure Alani will let you have tomorrow off if you need it.  Which, to be real with you, Mark, you look like you need.  I’ll cover your shift, yeah?  You just… take the time.”

“Take the time for what?”  A voice rings out from upstairs, and he leaps to his feet because he knows that voice.

“What?”  Lisa yelps, standing up as well as two figures come down the stairs.

“To mourn you!”  He sobs, running over to Sam and punching his chest as Sam’s arms come to wrap around him.  “How could you?!”  He pounds his fist against his chest several times before grabbing onto his shirt and clinging to him.

“We meant to come back sooner, sweetheart,” Sam soothes, rubbing his back as he sobs anew into Sam’s chest.

“You could have at least told me what you were planning, instead of- instead of doing this!”

“Would you mind filling me in, Dean?”  Lisa asks.

“Only if you’re ready to hear a lot of truths, Lisa,” Dean replies.

“You know I’m a truth-seeker, darling,” she teases.

He pulls back and looks up at Sam.  “Hotch- he told me you shot yourself,” he whimpers, reaching up and cupping his cheek.  

“Come sit with us, dear,” Sam urges, going with Dean and Lisa back to the couch area.

He places himself between Sam and Dean, grabbing onto Sam’s shirt and clinging to him, as if he’ll disappear if he lets go.  Dean’s got his arm wrapped around his shoulders, too, to ground him.

“First things first,” Lisa begins.  “Are you two actually the Winchester guys on TV?”

“Yeah,” Dean tells her plainly.  “That’s us.”

“But then you’re dead.”

“Death doesn’t stick for us,” Dean says boldly.

“That’s… not how death works.”

“How about we start from the beginning?”  Sam suggests.  “Lisa, you come from a traditionally white, American Christian household.  What would you think if we said that God is real?”

“I’d say that God’s an asshole,” Lisa answers immediately.  “And most of his followers can still suck my ass for pretending to be good people while actively hating everyone not like them.”

“I knew I liked this one,” Dean mutters, shaking his head fondly.

“So, the reason Dean and I know so much and we can argue for hours with Danny about mythology and religion is because we’ve fought it all our lives,” Sam continues.  “We’ve gone up against gods, angels, demons, every monster you can think of…”

“So which one is right?”  Lisa asks.

“What?”

“Which religion, mythology, whatever, which one’s the right one?  That’s the big question that seems to be on the forefront of all Christians’ minds when it comes to proof of faith.”

“Well, all of them, actually,” Sam admits.  “There was a party of gods during the Apocalypse with guests from, among others, Norse, Roman and Hindu faiths.  In addition to Gabriel the archangel.”

“The Apocalypse?”  Lisa stumbles only a little bit over the word.

“Dean and I sort of started, and ended, the apocalypse, yeah.”

“So they’re all true?”

“We perceive Heaven and Hell as they appear in Christian faith,” Sam continues, “but I don’t think that’s the absolute truth.  That’s the truth we have experienced.  But that’s not to say that others don’t experience other things after death.”

“So how are you here, if you’ve died?”

“Gabriel, the archangel, had all of this media bonanza thing going,” Dean takes over.  “He’s the asshole, now that God’s no longer around.  But he’s good at mirages.”

“The bodies that dropped in that house in Pennsylvania are, for all intents and purposes, dolls,” Sam explains.  “He let us control them, while our actual selves were safe elsewhere.”

“How long had this been planned?”  He whispers, looking up at Sam from where he’s nuzzled against him.

“He told us about it today,” Sam tells him gently, stroking his cheek.  “He wanted us to go out with a bang.”

“But it was your choice to put a gun to your head?”  He interrogates, and Sam looks down.

“They killed Dean right in front of me, and refused to do the same for me.  At that point, I had two things I could do.  I could shoot one of your team members to make the rest of them shoot me, or I could go out on my own terms.”

“Did you have to hurt Morgan and JJ specifically?”  He accuses.

“Morgan was the most likely to rush us, and I was aiming for his leg to incapacitate him.”

“JJ was practically right in front of me,” Dean excuses.

“So the agents on TV that caught these guys were your friends?”  Lisa asks.

“Yes, I worked with them before I came here.  It feels like a lifetime ago,” he admits with a sad chuckle, looking down.  Not just a lifetime ago.  A different life altogether.  A different name.  A different me .

“Do you think you could go back to that?”

“I don’t know.”

Lisa stands up, and he follows their movement with his eyes.  “We’ll be here, no matter what you decide - you’ll always be Mark to us,” they tell him.  

“Thank you, Lisa.”

“Now, it looks like you need these two more than you need me.  But you know I’m only a call away if you need to bitch about these two not letting you in on their plans.”

“You’re very okay with the world,” Sam comments.  “And with us.  I don’t think most people would be nearly as kind with who we are.”

“Why should I care about that?  You’re supposed to be dead, remember?”  Lisa teases with a grin.  “Still want me to tell Alani you won’t be coming to work tomorrow?”

“Yes, thank you,” he answers quietly.

Silence falls over the living room as the front door closes.  And he doesn’t know what to think.  He doesn’t know what to do.  In that moment, he doesn’t know who he is.

Is he Spencer Reid, the FBI agent labeled a genius, with three doctorates, who chases down the most violent criminals the US has to offer?  The man who was teased about being robotic and awkward and the kid, no matter how many years they’d had to get to know him?

Or is he Mark Porter, a librarian who definitely isn’t the “odd one out” among his coworkers, because each of them are perfectly weird in their own way?  Who has started a Masters Degree in Library Science to expand his range of knowledge to become a better distributor of wisdom?  

Maybe the library degree was what Spencer Reid had been missing.  Spencer Reid was intelligent, but he never knew how to share what he knew in an interesting way that would captivate his coworkers.  They always blew him off, made him feel weird, like he never belonged in the same room.  Except when he was useful.

Mark Porter doesn’t have to be “useful”.  He can just exist and be himself and there are people who listen to him, who love him, who care about what he has to say, even when he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say.  “Supposed to say” doesn’t exist in the library.

But Mark isn’t him.   He was Spencer Reid for close to 40 years.  He’s been Mark Porter for just one.

So why does Mark Porter feel so much more comfortable in his skin than Spencer Reid ever did?

Spencer Reid had been through so much.  So much loss, so much pain, so many failures.  Mark Porter, on the other hand, was… average.  Not much family, not much of note about his life.  Had tried some jobs here and there, but ended up at the library, coming back after years of not visiting, only to find himself just as much at home there that he had felt as a curious, developing child.

Perhaps returning to the library as an adult was more than just rediscovering the joy of reading for fun.  Most adults return to the library because they have children of their own now, and they want to bring the kids in for a cheap (free) way of enjoying literature, teaching them how to read, how to love reading.  But some return to the library to rediscover themselves.

How do you rediscover who you are, if you never had the chance to find out in the first place?

College at 13.  Your formative cultural year is 14.  That’s when you develop yourself the most, when you listen to the music your friends listen to instead of what your parents listen to.  Then, what happens when you spend that year studying, with no friends, spending all your time with people ten years older than you in a mathematics curriculum?  That’s no way to form your cultural self.

Chapter Text

In many ways, the library had been the one constant throughout Spencer Reid’s formative years.  At first, he used it to escape when the world got too loud, where he could curl up in a corner for hours just to read.  Then, it became his solace from the bullies.  Then, once he got to college, it became his favored place to study.

He’d lost the connection to the library when he became an FBI agent.  He didn’t have the time.  But why not?  Why not continue to use the one space he felt like himself?  Spencer Reid told himself he didn’t have the time.  Spencer Reid was always running in the FBI.  Running to catch the next unsub.  Running after his teammates to get them to like him.  Running to get another degree to be a better profiler.  Running to be liked.  So he kept running past the library.  

Spencer Reid never took the time to slow down again.  He just kept running towards a goal that… didn’t exist.  What had been his goal?  Finishing the next case?  Getting that next degree?  Being accepted as a valuable member of his team?

Spencer Reid didn’t stop running until he hit the brick wall named Sam and Dean Winchester.  They’d kidnapped him and forced him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about the world.  They’d forced him to slow down, to stop running.  And the first people that ever showed him true, unfiltered, unhindered affection in his adult life were those two.  And Spencer Reid had fallen head over heels for them both.  He loved them, and they loved him in return.

Mark Porter kept that love as he came to Hawai’i, and he was building friendships with his coworkers quickly.  But the day Sam Winchester crashes into his life again, simply by coming to the library, is the day Mark Porter realizes he feels at home.  Sam Winchester didn’t just come to the library, he came to his library where he worked with his friends.

That’s why Mark Porter had done something Spencer Reid never could have done:  he had come out as demisexual.  Lisa had taught him the words for all the things swirling in his head on one lonely, empty evening in the library, when sexuality had been brought to the table by a new book that had just been brought in.  Lisa, they… they are a gem, Mark’s favorite coworker, even though she always takes naps in the office in the middle of the day.  She stays up all night reading the newest books, and Spencer knows that if they had a reading competition, they could definitely give him a run for his money.

Lisa had just finished reading This Book is Gay, and had been telling Mark about her own journey.  And Mark hadn’t been able to not tell his own story - of course, altering a few details to avoid slipping up about his own manufactured backstory - one true enough to where he felt like Lisa wouldn’t judge him for it.  Lisa isn’t a judgy person at all.  She wouldn’t have judged Mark.  But it was still difficult to talk about it with someone who didn’t know the full story.

Perhaps, if he stays, Mark and Spencer can begin to merge.  That he can still be the Mark Porter that is accepted and loved by his coworkers, but at the same time he can still be Spencer Reid with his degrees and his pool of knowledge and his past.

Perhaps he doesn’t have to choose.

No, a choice has to be made.  Right now, Spencer Reid can go back to who he used to be, but that would be who he used to be.  Not the Spencer Reid that existed in limbo for three months.  The Spencer Reid that didn’t know the truth of the world, that didn’t know that monsters were real.  The Spencer Reid that had never loved, nor been loved in return.  Because the Spencer Reid that had loved wasn’t wanted by his team.

Or he can stay here.  Mark Porter can stay and work as a librarian while he completes his Masters Degree, and then just… stay.  The library has welcomed him, an outcast, with open arms, and he can’t just leave.  Not when his friends are there, and the hours are steady.  No working into the night, only to sleep for two hours and be right back at it the next morning.  No chasing down delusional, single-minded criminals that he would have to talk down.  Decision after decision, discussion after discussion.

Worrying if you could ever do enough.   

Then there’s the middle ground.  Staying here, but telling his friends about his past.  Lisa had been understanding, but would all of them accept who he truly is?  Mark Porter has been his truest self while he’s been there, but is that who Spencer Reid was?  He doesn’t know.  But he doesn’t feel like it.

Spencer Reid, before meeting the Winchesters, would have looked at him now and found him impossible.  How could he find himself loving two men that had murdered so many and ruined even more lives?  The men who took a husband and father out of his home and brainwashed him into thinking he’s an angel.  More than that, how could he simply settle for life as a librarian?  Why doesn’t he long to be out on the streets, running to save more lives?

That Spencer Reid couldn’t settle.  That Spencer Reid had only his mother to worry about when he left for the next case.  He had no outside friends that he kept in touch with, no family, no loved ones.

Mark Porter would have everything to lose if he did the same.  The friends he has surrounded himself with, their partners, their spouses, all the library patrons that would remember him and strike up conversation while he was out getting groceries.  Everybody whose life he had touched, and had touched him in return.

He remembers a conversation, held in a kitchen deep underground.  About how the people around you shape the soul that is you.   About soulmates.  Mark Porter wonders if his new coworkers have become close enough to be considered “soulmates” yet.  If they aren’t, they should be.  Spencer Reid had never asked if there were more soulmates of his out there.

Perhaps Mark Porter ought to ask that question.

A hand in his hair brings him back to the now, to where he’s still curled up on the couch between the two men he thought he had lost.  Who his old team thought were dead.   His life is permanently changed.  He can never introduce them to the men he loves.  No matter if he goes back or not.

And if he goes back and they find out?  He’ll lose his job anyhow.

So he sits up, swallows as Dean’s arm falls from around him, and he straddles Dean’s thighs.  He grabs his face with both hands and kisses him, he kisses him long and deep until he can’t breathe.  And once he pulls back to catch his breath, Sam wants his turn. 

And Mark Spencer Porter Reid is not going to deny him that.  Not when it’s the only thing he wants.

—

They’re curled up in bed half an hour later, after they all take a much-needed shower and get changed into pyjamas.  Which mostly means Spencer wearing a t-shirt and underwear, while Sam and Dean both wear sweatpants and nothing else.

The blanket lays haphazardly over them as they all lie on their backs in the king-sized bed Spencer had invested in early on in his stay.  

“They want me to go home,” Spencer says quietly, when everything has settled.

“But is that what you want?”  Sam asks gently, rolling onto his side and resting his hand on Spencer’s stomach.

“I… I don’t think so.  If I go back, I have to give you up completely, or risk my team learning about you still being alive.  And me just… existing with you would put my job in jeopardy.  I’m harboring criminals,” he answers with a light chuckle.

“Could always stay here,” Dean shrugs.  “You’re in the middle of a degree.  Can’t just abandon that, now can you?”  He teases.

“I could probably transfer the credits to another university on the mainland, but I just… I like it here.”

“Then you don’t have to go,” Sam tells him.  “They might have been your team, your friends, your family, but… things change.  People change.”

Spencer nods.  “I’ve changed, and I think… that they’ll just have to accept that.”

“Good boy,” Dean praises, and Spencer can’t help the whimper those words punch out of him.

“You’re still not forgiven for making me think I would never hear you say that ever again.  You could at least have called me.”

“I’m sorry, baby,” Dean murmurs, wrapping his arm around Spencer’s waist and pulling him closer, pressing kisses to the back of his neck.  “Will you let us make it up to you?”

“Tomorrow,” Spencer sighs, relaxing against the familiar weight of Dean against his back.  “I got an unexpected day off.”

“Tomorrow it is,” Sam promises and leans in, kissing him slowly.

—

JJ’s been lucky.  She could have lost her arm, had the knife been any longer or hit her differently.  The muscles were sliced clean through and will need time to heal, meaning she’s out of the field for a while.  She still has some movement in her fingers and arm, but they’ve advised her to let the muscles rest for at least a month, until the major healing has been done.

Morgan hasn’t been as lucky.  The bullet had shattered his kneecap and ended up lodged between the femur and fibula, and it had taken the doctors a long time to extract the bullet.  They had also had to rebuild the kneecap, but he’s been put on strict bedrest for the first two weeks.

They’re gathered around Morgan’s hospital bed, except JJ, who remains in her own room.

“How do you feel?”  Garcia asks.

“Like I got run over by a car,” Morgan mutters, pushing himself into an upright position.  The cast is molded from the middle of his thigh down to the middle of his calf, leaving him free to move his foot, but completely immobilizing the knee itself.  “How long was I gonna have to keep this thing?”

“Eight weeks, the doctors said,” Hotch replies from where he’s standing at the end of his bed, his arms crossed.  “Reid says hi,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.

“How was he?”  Prentiss asks.

“He was… okay.  He told me he’s going for another degree,” he continues.  “Library Science, a Masters.”

“Library Science?  That’s not one you hear about all too often,” Rossi comments.

“So he’s been working as a librarian the year he’s been gone,” Garcia hums, smiling to herself.  

“Is he going to be finishing the degree before he comes back?”  Prentiss assumes.

“That’s what it sounded like.  But he wanted me to let you know that he was okay, and that he says hi.”

“We should go see him!”  Garcia announces.  “Because we can, now, right?”

“It’ll take a few days for the papers to get through, but yes.  As long as Reid wants us there. I hear exam season’s coming up soon.”

—

It’s past noon when the three get out of bed the next time.  Dean had only disappeared for a moment to get a washcloth to clean them up.  Spencer’s body is covered in the ghosts of kisses and hands, but also in bitemarks and hickeys.  Dean’s still as possessive as always, even when his touch is reassuring and warming.

Spencer’s wearing Sam’s too-large sweatpants as he makes his way downstairs and into the kitchen, turning on the coffee maker.  It roars to life and hides the sound of his footsteps as his bare feet pitter-patter around the small kitchen island, picking out three mugs and putting sugar in two as he waits for the pot to be ready.

He’s standing in front of the coffee maker, tapping his fingers in the rhythm of a song he heard a long time ago, whose lyrics elude him, but the meaning feels familiar all the same.  Something about being true to who you are and no longer being bound by the devils of your past.  Spencer had found it ridiculous when he had first heard it, but now?  Perhaps the lyrics he remembers may be more fitting than he knows.

“You try to act as if you’re saving me, but you wouldn’t cut the rope if it was hanging me.”  The lyrics fall from his lips without his permission, but they’re drowned out by the gurgle and bubble of the machine.  

The team hadn’t been able to save him from the Winchesters’ grasp.  They hadn’t been able to save him from Hankel.  He’d gotten himself out of those situations, one way or another.  When he was drowning, none had pulled him back to the surface.  They had all known, and let him struggle and flail and scream for help, only for the scream to fill his lungs with more water.  None of them had reached out.  Spencer had had to pull himself up from the water, to grab his own arms and pull himself out.

He knows the official reason.  It would have tainted his record if he got ‘official’ help.  But why had that stopped everyone from at least trying?   Talking to him, reaching out.  

But the difference between himself and them were the friends they had.  The friends outside of the workplace.

The friends he didn’t have.  As much time as they all spent together beyond the cases, perhaps they were never truly his friends.

Spencer Reid never felt like he was the priority.  He was only invited because he was also there when the public invitation was given - he can’t remember a single time he received an invitation that wasn’t belated or stilted.  And sure, he gets it, people have friends from all their walks of life, and they’re all important.

So why did he never truly feel important in the face of his team?  His supposed family?

He’s brought out of his head when two hands slide around his waist and pull him back against a warm chest.  Sam.   Dean’s never that warm unless it’s been less than ten minutes since he had exercised (or had sex).

“Thought you might’ve gotten lost, honey,” Sam murmurs against his ear, and Spencer realizes the coffee maker has gone silent.  “Turns out you just got lost inside your head again, hm?”  He pulls back as Spencer pours the coffee into the three mugs on the tray, letting him move freely instead of boxing him in and holding on to him.  Because he knows.  Spencer needs to be held, but not captured.   He needs to be the one in control of the touch, even if he lets them initiate it.  He needs to be able to pull away.

Dean had called him a cat, once.  “Aww, you’re just like a cat, baby.  Except I’m not allergic to you,” he had teased fondly before kissing him.

And perhaps there is something to that.  Spencer had never considered his behavior to be cat-like in any way, but Dean had sounded so sure that Spencer immediately accepted that he was cat-like.  He’d never had a cat, nor had he taken the time to study them whenever he’d been in one’s presence.  

Spencer probably is cat-like, he considers as he carries the tray back up the narrow flight of stairs.  And maybe that’s part of growing with someone - you give and you take, and you learn and you teach.  Perhaps about yourself, perhaps about the other person.

And as he sets down the tray on the nightstand before crawling into bed to hide halfway under the covers, he thinks to himself that he’s right where he’s supposed to be.

No matter what anyone else might say.

Chapter Text

“There are no fingerprints on the knife,”  Prentiss mumbles as she walks into Hotch’s office a few days later.  “There are no fingerprints on the knife,” she repeats, louder, as she walks towards him.

“What?”

“The knife that hit JJ, the knife that Dean threw, with his bare hand, doesn’t have prints on it,” she exclaims and explains, shaking her head.  “How is that possible?”

“Did we fingerprint Sam’s gun, or anything else from the scene?”  Hotch asks.

“Yes, and they all came back clean.  No smudges, no nothing.”

“They could have burned off their fingertips, getting rid of their fingerprints,” Rossi muses from the doorway.  “Not unheard of for seasoned unsubs.”

“We know they used a lot of counter-forensic measures,” Hotch agrees.

“Yeah, but burning off your fingerprints?  That’s pretty intense, even for guys like these, don’t you think?”  Prentiss counters.

“Their main counter-forensic measure is fire, not something permanent like this.  They’re well known criminals, why bother hiding who they are?”  

“Were the bodies fingerprinted?”  Rossi asks.  

“I don’t even think an autopsy was performed before they were sent to cremation,” Prentiss sighs.  “Seems like they wanted the Winchesters out of their hair as much as we did.”

“We saw that they were the same guys that took Reid,” Rossi reasons.  “Our own bullets took out Dean, and as good as they are, there’s no way they could manage to fake their own deaths using our weapons.”

“Dean’s been declared dead before,” Hotch reminds them.

“Not by our guns,” Prentiss counters.  “They may have the act down pat to play into their own sanity, but that emotion coming from Sam?  That was raw.”

“Either that was real, or we all better re-examine our profiling skills,” Rossi agrees dryly.

“And either way, Sam shot himself.  You don’t get that sort of splatter from a fake suicide.”

“So why doesn’t it feel like we’re done with the Winchesters?”  Hotch asks them.

—

Mark Porter is back at work, flitting about the library, to and from, shelf to shelf, helping patrons find the book they’re looking for, or helping them find other sources.  He’s smiling and content and he loves his job.

But his coworkers are walking on eggshells around him.  He’s not sure how much Lisa told them - probably just more than enough, knowing her - but they all seem… a little more gentle than normal.  Danny’s helping him shelve, even though Danny’s least favorite thing to do at the library is shelve books.  Perse has helped him place the orders for the new books, which they never do, they always stay in their own lane.

It’s their regular Monday Library Coffee Break two weeks after the news broke, where they’re all gathered before the afternoon influx of customers come in, when Mark decides to talk about it.

“Guys, guys, I, uh, I appreciate that you’ve all been very gentle with me, since that Wednesday two weeks ago,” he begins, swallowing as all eyes are on him.  “And, well, I think it’s time I told you guys the truth.  Lisa knows, they helped me that night, that’s why they covered my shift.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sam poke his head into the library to check on them.  Mark nods, and Sam walks up behind him, resting one hand on his shoulder as the other steals Mark’s coffee cup.  

“I came here under witness protection, to be kept safe from the Winchesters.”  There’s not a sound coming from the roundtable.  “Most of you probably don’t have much of an association with the Winchesters, given that almost all of you are kama’aina, but the Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean, have been wanted by the FBI for murder, arson, kidnapping, torture and more since 2008, all across the connected 48 states.  Sam and Dean Winchester were arrested in Oregon 15 months ago.  My team and I had just finished a case in that same town, and we were brought in to question them.  I ended up kidnapped by them, and was in their hands for almost a week.  Three months later, they kidnapped me again, only to release me the morning after, and I was placed in witness protection here a few days later.”

“Sam and Dean, huh?”  Danny asks, looking up at the man standing behind Mark with a knowing look.

“My name was Doctor Spencer Reid,” Spencer announces.  “I worked with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.  I have three doctorates, in engineering, chemistry and mathematics.  And I fell in love with Sam and Dean while I was kept by them.  I can assure you, I was treated like a most revered guest.”

“The news mentioned the Winchesters that week,” Perse says carefully.  “It must’ve been Wednesday night, we always get real busy at the restaurant Wednesday nights.”  Perse helps out at their family’s traditional Hawai’ian restaurant three times a week, whenever they’re not at the library.

“And Lisa took your shift on Thursday because you had a pō pōʻino,” Alani nods, and for a moment, Spencer feels like he’s back with his team.  If his team was a mishmash of librarians and library assistants.

“The news said the Winchesters were dead,” Jack recalls.  “But if Sam is standing right behind you, right now, and he’s one of the ones that died… are we all dead?” He asks worriedly, furrowing his brows and tightening his lips as if he’s reconsidering everything he’s ever done.

“None of us are dead, Jack,” Spencer assures him.  “The Winchesters that died, back then, it… it wasn’t my Winchesters.  My Winchesters are right here.  I just… wasn’t sure, for a bit.  If they were mine or not.”

“Dean’s out stocking up on groceries right now,” Sam supplies helpfully.  “Told me to pop by to say hi.”

“So there are two sets of Sam and Dean Winchester, wanted criminals?”  Danny asks.

“All mythology and religion is real,” Sam tells the group, and Spencer longs to deliver a kick to his shin, but Sam’s standing carefully out of kicking range.  “Everything.  Every monster, every creature, from any old ghost to gods like Kanaloa.  The reason we were targeted as criminals is that we hunted down the monsters that were out there, killing people.  Looked like we were doing the killing instead of the saving.”

“Like those guys in the Supernatural novels!”  Lisa realizes loudly.  “They were named Sam and Dean, weren’t they?”  She jumps out of her chair and runs over to the fantasy shelf, picking out a few installments, before returning to the table and passing them out to the others.  They sit back down as Danny, Perse, Jack and Alani open the books they had been given.

“A Christian prophet wrote them,” Sam supplies.  “He had visions of what would happen to us, and he would publish them as stories that came to him in his dreams.”

“So these books aren’t fiction?”  Danny asks.

“They’re… the fictionalized truth,” Spencer reasons. 

“The guy who wrote them wasn’t a good author,” Sam agrees.  “But the story beats and the overarching plots actually happened.  Except when god or an angel decided to unwind time so it never happened.  But that’s a whole bunch of timeline stuff that I am not ready to get into, I could spend hours going back and forth about that.  But everything in those books, yeah, that happened, in one way or another.”

Spencer smiles up at him before looking back at his friends.  “Either way, I’m still Mark.  I’m still me.  And… I’m going to stay here.  I’m not going back to my team, back to the FBI, back to the mainland, call it what you like.  You guys mean the world to me, and you took me in even when I didn’t have the faintest clue on how to work a library,” he chuckles at himself, shaking his head.  “This is home now.”

“I’m glad you wanna stay, Mark,” Lisa tells him.  “I don’t think the kids would like losing their ‘magic man’ anytime soon,” she teases, and Mark looks down with a chuckle.  

“Thanks, L.”

“Do you want us to call you Spencer, or Mark?”  Danny asks.

“I’ve been thinking about it.  But I would like you to continue calling me Mark,” he explains.  “But I won’t correct you if you call me Spencer.  Both of those names are me, now.”

“I’d better get back before Dean starts looking for me.  See you tonight, babe,” Sam hums and leans down, pressing a kiss to his cheek before giving him the coffee cup back.  Mark moves to take a sip as Sam leaves, only to find the cup empty, and he pouts.

The pout doesn’t go unnoticed, however, and Lisa laughs as she holds out the coffee pot.  “Need a refill, Po?”

“Yes, please,” Mark answers, holding out his cup towards them.  But there’s a smile on his lips.  He belongs here.  These people are his.  And he is theirs.

—

“Are you going to go see him?”  Garcia asks Morgan.  

“Are you kidding?  Babygirl, have you looked at the flight prices?  Not to mention, when would I find the time?  Cases have been piling up on us for months.”

“I just feel like - I miss him, you know?  I feel like we should visit.  He used to be my best friend - not that you aren’t one of my closest friends too, but Reid and I - we had - we had this bond, you know?  I could nerd out to him and he could nerd out to me and we were buddies!  And I miss him, and I wanna see him again.”

“You can call him, Garcia,” Morgan reminds her.

“Yeah, but that’s not the same.  I wanna be face to face, to sit on the same couch and watch the same Doctor Who episodes together again.  Oh!  Or we could watch Sherlock, I wonder if he’s seen it.  He probably has, but I want to watch it with him.”

“He could come back, too, you know.  You’ll have plenty of time when he does.”

“But what if he doesn’t come back?  A year is a long time, what if he’s found out he doesn’t want to do this anymore?”

“Garcia, this is Reid we’re talking about.  Mr ‘the average number of active serial killers in the United States at any given time ranges between 25 and 50’.  He’s not gonna be able to quit this job.”

“Gideon did.”

“Yeah, well, Gideon isn’t Reid,” Morgan tells her.  “The kid’s been through hell, but he’s always come out better, stronger, smarter.  He’s gonna come back, and he’s gonna prove you wrong, and then you two can go to comic con again together.”

“Buy us dinner if he comes back,” Garcia dares him.

“You got a deal, babygirl,” Morgan grins, patting her shoulder.  “But I am picking the restaurant when it happens.”

—

Dinner is cooking in the kitchen as Spencer walks through the front door that evening, and he smiles as he draws in a deep breath through his nose, letting the aroma of Dean’s cooking fill his nostrils.  “I’m back!”  He calls out, even though he knows they know he’s arrived.  They can’t turn off their instincts.  He shrugs out of his light wind jacket and hangs it up beside Dean’s leather jacket, the one he uses for aesthetic purposes when he wants to look cool.  

Hawai’ian weather isn’t kind to Dean wanting to look cool - most days are far too warm to wear his leather jacket.  Spencer usually finds him wearing the jacket when he’s just arriving from a trip to the mainland, but even those have grown sparse.  The trip that got them killed at the hands of the FBI had been their first longer stay in weeks.  These days, they spend most of their days fielding calls for other hunters, picking up the torch that Bobby Singer had put down upon his death.

But Spencer can tell that both of them are still jittery.  There’s been a lot of tension the past two weeks, with all the uncertainty about Spencer staying as a librarian, going back to the FBI, or doing neither and disappearing off the map with the Winchesters.  After the sensual, intense morning, there have been no distinct sexual encounters, which was out of the ordinary for them.  Usually, in that time, there would be plenty of sex to go around, but Spencer hasn’t even considered it while he’s been working on sorting his brain out.  But they had stayed with him, they hadn’t even considered going back to the mainland.

The last two weeks haven’t been easy for any of them.  But now, it feels like things are finally evening out for them.

Sam’s sitting at the kitchen island, talking on the phone.  It’s a hunter, given his tone, and the fact that Sam only talks to hunters on the phone.  It’s late, though, just past 7 pm Hawai’i time, meaning it’s likely a west coast encounter, or someone working late into the night further east.  It reminds Spencer of the late nights working with the BAU, and he finds he doesn’t miss it.

Sam hangs up and turns to smile at him, and Spencer steps into his reach easily.

“Ghoul sighting in Kentucky.  Needed to confirm some details about ghoul behavior,” he explains before kissing him, and Spencer smiles against his lips as he pulls back.

“You didn’t have to tell them all about the monsters,” he says playfully, walking his fingers up Sam’s chest.

“What?  You were gonna let them think there were two sets of serial killer brothers named Sam and Dean Winchester running around?”  Sam asks, laughing.

“I - I would’ve figured something out,” Spencer excuses.

“So it’s final, then?  You’re staying here?”  Dean asks.

“Yes.  I’ve been thinking about the degree, and I think I want to get a PhD in library science, aimed at how kids behave in the library space, and how they are and should be accommodated in those spaces.”

“That sounds like something just up your alley,” Sam hums appreciatively, kissing his cheek.

“Come on, go wash your hands, dinner’s ready in a moment,” Dean urges, and Spencer smiles as he heads up the stairs, dropping his button-up into the hamper and instead seeking out one of his favorite at-home t-shirts.  It was the same t-shirt he’d worn to dinner in the bunker after Sam gave him his first blowjob.  Call him sentimental, but it still gives him comfort each time he wears it.

Spencer looks around the room before deciding against changing out of his current pair of pants.  They’re comfortable enough to wear for a night in, he decides as he goes to wash his hands and look at himself in the mirror.

Spencer Mark Porter Reid.  All four names that had, at some point, felt foreign.  Spencer.   The name his mother had called him, the name that had gone unused so often on its lonesome.  It had always been in tandem with his surname.  Reid.   The name that connected him to the man that abandoned him.  The four letters that had taken him to the steps of the FBI.  The one constant in the sea of othering nicknames his coworkers had given him.  The name he hadn’t been called until he once again heard Garcia’s voice use it.  Mark Porter.   The name he had been given, another thing that had been chosen for him, instead of by him.  The name he had been forced to learn to answer to.

All the names that he finally had learned to associate with himself.

Taking a deep breath, Spencer turns away from the mirror to go back to the kitchen.

Chapter Text

“My exams are next week,” Spencer mentions as they clean up after dinner.  “And I’d like some space to study beforehand.  I put it off with everything about your deaths and the team.”

“The bunker hasn’t seen much action lately, and neither has Baby,” Dean agrees.  “She’s gonna start thinking I don’t care about her enough,” he teases.

“Dean and I could go tomorrow,” Sam suggests.  “Is there anything you’d like done before we go?”

“Hang out the laundry before you go.  Just leave it on the drying rack in the backyard, I’ll take care of the rest.”

Dean smiles and leans over, kissing his cheek.  “Sure thing, Spence.”

“You can always call us,” Sam reminds him, wrapping his arms around Spencer’s waist and resting his head on his shoulder.

“I will,” Spencer tells him with a smile, turning his head so his cheek brushes against Sam’s slight stubble.  He always gets a bit prickly in the evenings, but Spencer has never minded that.  It makes him real.

Part of him worries, sometimes, that he doesn’t get to have this.  That he doesn’t get to have happiness and love, that this isn’t the truth.  But it is.  It is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  Just like Sam had promised him.

It may have only been a year, but it feels like a lifetime.  A lifetime Spencer isn’t willing to give up.  

And perhaps that’s selfish of him - prioritizing his own comfort over the safety of all the people he could have saved as an agent.  But just because he isn’t saving lives directly, that doesn’t mean Spencer isn’t helping.   He’s giving out information, he’s teaching, spreading knowledge and wisdom to the next generation of kama’aina, the children of Oahu.

If he didn’t have this, who would he be?  Would he be the same Spencer Reid that was stuck in his ways at the BAU, always around to be called a robot, a boy genius, a freak, someone other, all the while carrying vital information?  Was he ever really at home there, like he felt here?

Spencer doesn’t think he ever was.  Not like this.

He’s seen the way that Sam has been getting the last two weeks.  He’s deferring more to Dean, he’s not as outspoken as he usually is, and Spencer recognizes what it is.  Sam spent years being Dean’s only focus, and in that exclusive relationship he submitted to his brother.  And then Spencer barged into their lives and kissed them and was the new one.   Spencer hogged the attention, and Sam’s dominant tendencies got to play as well.  But Spencer being there so completely had meant that Sam got very little time to submit the same way he’d done before.

Spencer has exams next week, and with that comes a want to study in his own peace and quiet.  But that’s not the only reason he’s suggesting they should take those two weeks back at the bunker.

—

Dean has noticed Sam dissociating more, and he knows it’ll come to a head soon.  Spencer’s study break is the perfect chance, and Dean isn’t about to wait for Kansas to get started.  

The minute Spencer leaves that morning, Dean summons a collar with a snap of his fingers.  A simple black strip of leather with a ring at the front.  Sam watches him, but doesn’t say anything.  He only lowers his head and closes his eyes, letting Dean snap the collar closed around his neck.

“Good boy,” Dean praises quietly, and Sam’s breath hitches as he lifts his head just enough to look Dean in the eye.  With a grin on his lips, Dean strokes Sam’s cheek.  “C’mon, Sammy.  Let’s get the laundry out of the way, and then we can get out of here.”

Sam nods, biting the inside of his lip.  And Dean knows those wavering knees.  They always show up when Sam wants to drop to kneel for him.

“Not yet.  Bunker,” Dean tells him, and Sam nods again with a shaky breath as he heads for the washing machine, the one that’s beeping at them to let them know it’s done and would like to be emptied.

They empty it quickly, and it’s easy to hang it all to air dry in the Hawai’ian sun.  Even on an overcast day like today’s brewing to be, they should dry quickly.  Dean leads the way back inside and shuts and locks the doors, making sure the protections are up to par before he meets Sam in the main room.  His brother seems small and unsure of himself where he stands, and Dean knows what he needs.  

Sammy needs to be taken care of.

And Dean knows just the way to take care of him.

Dean hooks a finger in the ring on the collar and snaps his fingers, and the scenery changes.  From the lightly colored, blue tones of the Hawai’ian house, to the deep grays and reds of their bunker bedroom.  Sammy’s eyes are watching him, and once Dean nods, he sinks to his knees.

He shuts his eyes as Dean rears his hand back and slaps him across the face, a loud smack echoing in the silence around them.  Sammy gasps and shudders, but doesn’t move.  It’s part of the act.  He’s trying to be strong, just for Dean to break him.  Sammy needs Dean to break him, just as much as Dean needs to break him and rebuild him from the ground up.

So Dean backhands him, his ring catching on Sammy’s cheekbone and leaving an angry, red stripe.

“You don’t think we noticed?”  Dean spits, grabbing Sammy’s face firmly and forcing him to look into his eyes.  “You thought we would just let you hide away?  You don’t get to hide, Sammy.  Big brother knows all.”

Sammy nods into his grip, swallowing.  “I- I’m sorry-” but he cuts himself off as Dean lets go of his face to slap him again.

“Shut up.”

Sammy whimpers, but he doesn’t reply.  He knows better.

“That’s more like it.”  Dean walks around him, letting his hand slide across the cotton of his t-shirt.  Tilting his head, Dean snaps his fingers again, leaving Sammy naked save for the collar that stands firm around his neck.  “There we go.  Much more fitting for what I want to do to you.”

He stops in front of Sammy and pulls him to his feet using the ring on the collar as leverage.

“Over the bed.  Hands behind your back. Now.”

Dean lets go and watches him turn around and bend over the edge of the bed, closing his hands together on the small of his back.  Good boy, he thinks as he opens the toy chest and digs into it.  He pulls out Sammy’s own cuffs and a paddle.  

It’s easy to cuff his hands together and to tell him to keep them there.  Practiced, even if a bit rusty.  It’s even easier to position himself and to raise the paddle.  Sammy stays still, even holds his breath as he waits for the first blow.

And Dean makes him wait for it.  They both know it’s coming, but Dean doesn’t deliver it until Sammy’s thighs are trembling.  And then he paddles him once, twice, thrice in quick succession, sharp cries escaping Sammy’s lips on each strike.  Cries of pain, and of need.  It’s what he’s been craving.

Sammy’s biggest problem is that he refuses to voice what he needs, meaning Dean has to learn his tells.  Which he has, over the years, but sometimes Dean wishes Sammy would just tell him straight up.

Sammy’s ass is red and blue and purpling fast when Dean finally puts down the paddle, smoothing each hand across one ass cheek to feel the heated, aching skin underneath his fingertips.  Sammy’s hands are balled up in tight fists and he’s panting hard, and as Dean pulls him upright, he sees the tear streaks.  But through the tears, he recognizes Sammy's bliss.  Dean knows that look.  It's just what he's been craving.

So Dean pushes him to his knees and stands in front of him.  "Open up," he orders gruffly as he undoes the front of his jeans, pushing them down and out of the way.  His right hand tangles in Sammy's hair as his left steadies his dick.  Sammy's lips fall open so easily, eyes glazed over as Dean pulls him onto his cock.

They know this song and dance, they have gone through it a thousand times.  Dean will grab Sammy's head with both hands and fuck his mouth, and Sammy will take it happily.  Then, Dean's going to set his foot between Sammy's thighs, right up against his crotch.  While Sammy takes the throat fucking, he has a chance to get off.  Usually he does, rutting against Dean's leg.  Making a mess of himself like a good little whore.

“Such a slut,” Dean mutters as his hips thrust steadily, punctuated with groans.  “Fuck, Sammy, this is what you needed, huh?  Needed your big brother to take care of you?”  

Whines and moans escape from around his dick as Sammy shuffles forward on his knees, his own cock hard and leaking as he begins rutting against the rough fabric of Dean’s jeans.

“That’s it, bitch, get yourself off,” Dean orders, tugging on his hair just the way Sammy likes it as he fucks his mouth, grunting and groaning as he feels himself get closer.  But he holds back, doesn’t give in to topple over into the throes of orgasm.  Not until he can feel Sammy’s hips jerk and tremble as a choked moan escapes him.  A glance down confirms his suspicions that Sammy has finished, and then Dean lets go of himself and growls as he fucks his throat until he reaches his own high, pulling Sammy onto his dick until his nose is against his stomach and he can pump his release down his throat.

“Good boy,” Dean breathes out as he pulls out, urging Sammy to his feet and making him turn around.  The cuffs come undone before Dean helps him lay down on the bed, on his stomach.  He spends some time making sure Sammy’s comfortable before he undresses, tossing the jeans aside, and lays down with him.  Dean presses a kiss to his forehead, smiling slightly as his brother shifts onto his side and tucks himself against him.

“Get some sleep,” he murmurs against Sammy’s hair, pulling the blanket over them and closing his eyes.

—

Having the house to himself is a blessing and a curse, Spencer finds, a few days later.  He’s gotten so used to Dean or Sam or both (Dean was determined to make Sam a functional chef, one meal at a time) already making dinner when he gets home from work.

But he’s managed to get a lot of the cleaning he’s put off done.  The kitchen, the living room, the hallways, cleaning out cabinets and sorting and labeling the things that required sorting and labeling.  Of course, Spencer has taken the time to study as well, reading each piece of recommended literature and even settling in to make notes.  It’s not necessary, but Spencer enjoys the process of it.  Taking in and then writing down the information is crucial to format it properly in his brain.  

He had three doctorates and two bachelor degrees, yet it took until he sat down and started working on a masters in library science that Spencer really figured out how he enjoyed learning and structuring his own knowledge.

He’d never taken the time to do that before.  He’d been too busy rushing the credits and the research and the degrees to actually work out how he wanted to study.

Spencer is sitting in the clean living room with a messy coffee table in front of him, papers all over and a laptop pushed to the side.  The TV’s on for background noise, just enough to keep his mind buzzing as he reads.

Ding.  Dong.

The doorbell rings, but Spencer doesn’t register it at first.  It fits with the scene on the show that’s currently on.  So he continues reading, flipping another page.

Ding.  Dong.

Frowning, Spencer checks his watch.  It’s not Lisa, she doesn’t use the doorbell.  Any of the others would have called him before checking in.  Shutting the book, Spencer stands up and looks himself over.  One of Dean’s band t-shirts and gray sweatpants.  Presentable.  He straightens out his shirt and runs his fingers through his hair as he walks towards the front door.

Pulling it open, Spencer barely manages to keep his jaw from dropping.

“David Rossi?”

Chapter Text

Spencer almost manages to not slam the door shut right in Rossi’s, David’s, face.  But he has to catch it so it doesn’t smack shut right on him.

“Nice place,” he comments dryly as Spencer pulls open the door again, stepping to the side.

“Come in,” Spencer urges, “oh, but take off your shoes, I just cleaned.”

David cocks an eyebrow as he walks in, but does as he’s told and leaves his shoes in the entranceway.

“Is everybody here?”  

“No, just me.  Morgan’s still on bedrest and JJ isn’t cleared for long-distance flights,” David explains, and Spencer’s chest aches with the knowledge that his lovers are the cause for two of his friends’ pain.  His coworkers.  Could he even still call them friends?

“Good…”  Spencer trails off as he leads the way back into the living room.  “Sorry about the table, I’ve got three exams next week.”

“Wouldn’t you be able to just read the material the night before?”  David asks dryly.

“Well, technically, yes, but I’ve found that to be an inefficient learning type for me.  Even if I retain the information, it doesn’t feel good to just cram all that information all at once.  Can I get you anything?”

“Do you have anything to drink?  It’s a long flight from DC.”

Spencer nods, remembering the feeling of being sat on a plane and sent off, not even knowing where he was headed.  He walks into the kitchen area and pulls out a bottle of wine and two glasses.  “At least you knew where you were going when you got on the plane,” he comments as he opens the bottle and pours two glasses.

“You weren’t told where you were headed?”  David asks.

“I was led to the gate and sat on the plane with my details,” Spencer explains.  “The first time it hit me where I was, was when the Marshal met me and said ‘Welcome to Hawai’i’.”  He takes the two glasses and heads back to him, passing one to David.

David takes the glass with a nod and takes a sip.  “Any plans to come back to the mainland?”

“About that…” Spencer grimaces as he sits down on the couch.  “I was going to wait until my exams were over for the semester before telling you, but now that you’re here and asking, I guess I should just come out and say it.  I’m not coming back to the Bureau.”

“Care to tell me why?”  David says as he settles in the chair, Dean’s chair, and Spencer doesn’t know where to start.  

He could start with the fact that he feels at home here, that he’s made friends, that he’s happy here, but he doesn’t think that would satisfy the seasoned agent.  Spencer could tell him he’s fallen in love, but that’s a risky move.  David Rossi would angle his questions until Spencer would reveal everything about everything.  And that would risk his safety.  And Sam and Dean’s safety.

“I’ve spent a year thinking about what I want, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I want a break.  I want the life that’s been built around me here, that I’ve built, everything I’ve done here.”

“Heard you were studying library science from Hotch.”

“Yep.”  Spencer pops the ‘p’ with a smile.  “It’s a truly fascinating field.”

“You could come back to the Bureau and finish the degree there,” David tells him, and Spencer’s smile disappears, and he sinks back against the pillows.

“Why would I uproot everything I’ve worked so hard to plant down?  I’ve worked so hard to fit in here.  Why would I give that up now?”  He takes another drink of his glass of wine, grimacing.  

“Everybody’s waiting for you to come back, you know,” David continues, and Spencer sets down his glass before rubbing his temples with both hands.

“Why?  Why are they waiting for me?  Doctor Lewis is filling in my spot on the team, I’ve heard she’s doing a great job.  She was one of my professors during one of my degrees, she’s a good profiler.”

“They’re expecting you, Reid.”

“Spencer.”

“What?”

“My name is Spencer.”

David watches him, but Spencer doesn’t budge.  He stares at his former coworker, waiting for him to respond.  But a response doesn’t come.  Not for a long time.  But eventually, David brings the glass to his lips again, breaking the standoff.

“Do your coworkers at the library call you that?”

“No, they call me Mark.  We operate on a first-name basis towards the library patrons to ensure that they feel connected to us.  We aren’t in a position of authority just because we’re behind the help desk.  We’re someone they can connect with and ask anything.”

“Then why does it matter if I call you Reid?”

Spencer clenches his jaw and swallows.  “Because it matters to me.”  Because you guys are the only ones that call me that.

“Do you live here with someone?”  David asks, changing the subject.

“No.”

David looks around.  “I see three distinct personalities in the interior.”

Spencer crosses his arms.  “I can have romantic relationships without having that person living here.”

“So you’re dating someone.”

“Why do you care?”

“We worked together for 10 years, Reid.”

“Spencer.”

“Spencer.  Would you blame me for being interested in your wellbeing?”

“Why did you even come here?”

“You’re not picking up the phone, according to Garcia.”

“I’ve tried to tell her she’s calling while I’m at work,” Spencer sighs.  “I can’t just pick up the phone whenever I want.”

“So, what’s she like, your date?”  David asks, conveniently ignoring what he’s been trying to say.

Spencer swallows.  “He is lovely.  He cares about me, and he knows what I’ve been through and still loves me for it.”

“You never told us.”

“Derek was too busy trying to push every woman in sight towards me to care.  You’re not entitled to know my sexuality.”

“How did you meet?”

And there’s the kicker.  What does he tell him?

“He is a regular.  We chatted for a while at work before he invited me out.”

“Is he from the island?”

“No, he’s from Kansas originally, but he moved out here a few years ago to pursue a career.”  It’s the closest thing to the truth he can muster.  “He’s a researcher, specializing in research regarding mythology and religion.”

And then everything goes wrong.  Because Dean is standing in the living room, right beside them.

“Spence, hey, don’t worry, I’m not staying.  Just gonna grab some clothes and then you can get back to-” Dean stops and looks at David, a grin on his face.  “Ah, Dave, good to see you.  Don’t distract my boy too much, ey?  He’s got some big exams coming up.”  And he heads up the stairs.

Silence fills the living room as Dean walks around upstairs, before his footsteps disappear.  He doesn’t come back down.  He zapped back to Kansas, leaving Spencer to figure out what the fuck to tell his former coworker.

“Was that-”  David pauses, looking into his wine glass.

“Was that what?”  Spencer asks.  “Did anything happen?”  And he feels so bad for trying to gaslight David Rossi, but right now, he feels like that’s his only option.

“That looked a lot like Dean Winchester to me.”

“But he’s dead.  You guys killed him and Sam.  That’s why you can sit here and talk to me.”

David furrows his brows and sets his glass down, and it takes everything in Spencer’s being not to move it off of the papers he placed it on.  “The knife Dean threw didn’t have fingerprints on it.”

“They must’ve removed them,” Spencer reasons.  “If you weren’t sure they were dead, you wouldn’t have come to see me.  Sam and Dean were obsessed with me and the power I gave them.  And by extension, the power they had over you.  You wouldn’t lead them to me unless you were certain they were gone, right?  You wouldn’t put me in danger, just to ask me to come back to the Bureau.”

“I see you haven’t lost your skills,” David replies.  “There’s still a spot for you on the team, if you want it.”

“I don’t,” Spencer tells him.  “I don’t want that spot.  The FBI doesn’t want to budget in a seventh member of the BAU, and Doctor Lewis seems to fit in with you.  More than I ever did, anyway.”

“You’ve got more muscle on you.”

“I don’t have a car here.  When I don’t walk, I use my bike.  Honolulu is a very walkable city, and it’s less than a twenty-minute walk from here to my job.  And books are heavy, carrying books around is more muscle-building than you would think.  In the beginning, I used to overextend myself by bringing too many books with me at once,” Spencer explains with a chuckle.  “But I just kept reading and kept going. I’m no Derek yet, but I’m definitely stronger.” 

“He’d be proud of you, Reid.”

“Spencer.”

“Morgan would be proud of you, Spencer,” David corrects himself.

“How is he doing?”

“The bullet shattered his kneecap and lodged itself in between the femur and the fibula, he was in surgery for several hours for reconstruction and removal of the bullet.”

“How much longer is he on bedrest?”

“They’re letting him out of bed this week, as far as I heard.”

"Good… and JJ?" 

"She's stuck at the office with Garcia, but she's handling it well so far.  You could reach out to them, you know."

Spencer looks down.  "I was going to, but I have… struggled, the past two weeks."

"Wanna talk about it?"

Shaking his head, Spencer reaches for his glass again.  "No, no, I've…  I think I've worked it out."

"Yeah?"

"I'm not returning to the BAU.  This is my life, and I like it the way it is.  That's the decision I've come to.  And I can't be persuaded otherwise, so don't even try, Dave."

David raises both hands.  “I wasn’t going to, kid, calm down.”

Spencer huffs.  “As if that isn’t why you’re here.  To guilt me into coming back.”

“Don’t you miss it?”

“Do I miss feeling like I don’t belong?  No.  Do I miss being called a robot, a ‘boy genius’, a kid?  Not really.  Intelligence isn’t quantifiable, calling me ‘genius’, not for the things I’ve accomplished but because of who you perceived me to be, isn’t the compliment you seem to think it is.  I know there’s a generation between you and me, Dave, but didn’t you ever consider I didn’t like being called a kid?  Did you ever bother asking if I was okay with that?  A-and it may have escaped you, but I’m currently working on my sixth degree and I would like some peace.”  Spencer stands up.  “I’d like you to leave now, David.  And you can tell the team that I’m not coming back.  Or maybe you want it in writing?  I could do that.  Maybe I should write down all the reasons I’m not coming back to the FBI.  Maybe then you’ll finally see what you’ve put me through.”  He begins pushing David towards the hall.  

“How about we start with the Winchesters, the men who got me placed out here.  I should thank them, really, for proving how flawed the BAU really is.  I spent a week in their clutches, and you couldn’t do a thing to find me.  They’re delusional, power-hungry hunters, stalking their prey until they find the time to strike.  But you know what they told me?  Dean’s afraid of flying.  That’s why I’m out here on O’ahu, because he’s just a scared little wimp who can’t handle a little turbulence.  That’s the only reason they only went for the connected 48, Dean drove everywhere because he’s nothing but a scared little asshole.  Where does that fit into the BAU’s profile of him?  Hmm?  Oh, ‘you never told us’?  Yeah, well, you never considered that they had limits, and you never bothered to ask.  The mainland might be a big comfort zone, agent Rossi, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a distinct comfort zone anyway.”

Spencer pushes open the front door and pushes him out of the door, bending down and grabbing David’s shoes for him, tossing them at him.  “So yeah, I’m not coming back to the BAU.  Because why should I trust that you even killed them?  They’ve committed suicide by cop before and then returned to continue hunting.  Why should this time be any different?”

Slamming the door shut, Spencer flips the lock before leaning on the door and sliding down until he’s sitting, knees tucked to his chest.  What has he just done?

—

“Why would this time be any different?”

“Did you guys get all that?”  Rossi asks as he walks away from the house, pulling an earpiece out of his pocket and inserting it.

“Crystal clear,” Garcia pipes up.  “But who was that, Rossi?  That wasn’t our boy genius.”

“He’s not coming back to the Bureau,” Hotch says firmly.  “He made that clear.”

“Come on, what was that about the nicknames?”  JJ asks.  “Everybody here’s got nicknames all around.”

“I think what he meant was that he felt personally insulted by the nicknames you gave him,” Lewis suggests.  

“I didn’t even call him a robot,” Prentiss defends.  “And what, that happened once across the ten years we’ve worked together!”

“It mattered to him,”  Hotch sighs.  “He called Dean a wimp.  Said he was afraid of flying, and that’s why he’s been safe from them.”

“We never considered that the ‘mainland’ as their hunting ground was restricted.  What other sort of unsubs have that big of a comfort zone?”

“Not many,” Rossi tells them.  “Did you guys hear the third voice?”

“There was a third voice?”  Hotch asks.

“Yes, in the middle there, I could’ve sworn Dean Winchester popped in beside us, told Reid he was ‘getting some clothes’, then he walked up the stairs and disappeared.”

“I didn’t catch anything like that, Sir,” Garcia insists.  “But I can scrub the tape to see if I can enhance some background noise.”

“Reid told us he doesn’t believe the Winchesters are actually dead.  He said they’d lived through a suicide by cop before,” Hotch remarks.  “Do we have that anywhere in our records?”

“Maybe the Winchesters did something so drastic it’s been classified?”  Prentiss suggests.  “Do you guys remember the scandal with the president having a child with his aide, and then some chatter about an attempt on his life and hers?  Doesn’t that scream ‘Winchester’ to you?”

“They never go for high-profile targets like that,” Hotch dismisses.

“Except when they do.  And they do so to fake their deaths publicly.”

“Let’s say they were captured after an attempt on the president’s life,” Rossi entertains.  “What would happen to them?”

“They’d get sent to a black site,” Prentiss says immediately.

“Where they would disappear from the public eye forever.”

“Unless they fake their deaths within the black site and run away,” JJ suggests, mostly jokingly.

“They would have been kept separately, how would they have coordinated such an escape?”  Hotch asks.

Chapter Text

“I- I know I said I wanted space to study and clean but- but, please, would it- could you guys come back?  Just for tonight, I need- I need someone here tonight.”

The next thing Spencer knows, there are two men standing in his living room, right in front of him.  He’s quickly pushed out into the kitchen, and he watches the two hunters check the living room.  For what?  He’s not sure, until Dean picks out what looks like a bug from the chair Rossi had been sitting in.

“Dean told me you had a visitor,” Sam says quietly as he approaches, and Spencer nods as he takes a step forward, pushing into Sam’s embrace.

“I kicked him out,” Spencer mumbles against his chest.  “I kicked David Rossi out of my house after explaining in detail how their nicknames had made me feel.”

“I’m proud of you,” Sam murmurs, kissing the top of his head.  “C’mon, Spence, let’s get to bed, yeah?  You look like you need a good cuddle.”

Spencer nods and pulls back, his hands still trembling.  “I had to lie to him about you, Dean,” he says, breathing harshly.  “Do you know how scary that was?”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Dean mutters, reaching up and ruffling his hair.  “Did you check him before you let him in?”

“No.  I figured the wards would be enough.”

“We found a bug.  The entire team probably heard you.”

"Why do you think he would do that?"

"Think about it, Spence," Sam says gently.  "Why would he just show up on his own?"

"Because he's David Rossi, he's liable to do anything.  He's one of the only ones on the team with enough disposable income to come here on short warning," Spencer explains.  

"Which makes him the perfect target to get you to relax and be truthful," Dean counters.  

"You know these things, and they know you know," Sam continues.  

"But this means every one of them heard me come out.  And every one of them heard me say that there's no way I'm coming back to the FBI." 

"And every one of them heard you call me a wimp," Dean laughs.

"You did what?" Sam asks.

"I called Dean a 'wimp for not being able to handle a little turbulence' because he's afraid of flying, and said that that's the only reason I've been safe here," Spencer explains.

Sam laughs, a bright, happy sound that makes Spencer blush.  

"I need to remember that one," Sam huffs out between bursts of laughter.

They walk together through the house and up to the bedroom.

"You've gotten a lot of cleaning done," Sam comments.

"And you've gotten the funk fucked out of you?" Spencer counters as he tugs his shirt over his head.

It's Sam's turn to blush, now, and he clears his throat.  And as he shrugs off his shirt, the myriad of bruises and bite marks that show themselves tell a story.

"I'll take that as a yes," Spencer hums as he lays down in the middle of the bed.  

"Yeah, yeah, that's… thank you."  Sam lays down next to him, and Spencer moves to run his hands over the bruises lightly.  "How did you…?" 

"How did I know you needed time to submit?  I'm a profiler, Sam.  I could tell.  It's been over a year where you've mostly been in bed with me and Dean or just me.  When you went on hunts, you had some time, just the two of you, but for the past two months you've barely visited the bunker.  You spent five years with Dean, exclusively submitting.  Then, I barged into your life and you got thrown into a domming role.  One you enjoyed, no doubt, but I became the focus and I realize that.”

“So what you said about needing space, it was just as much for me as it was for you?”  Sam asks.

“Of course.  You and Dean needed each other, and I needed space to read and think about the exams.  It just so happened that you needing to submit and me needing to study came to be at the same time.”

“Sammy’s not gonna tell you if it happens again,” Dean says, laying down on the other side.  “As much as he loves his chick flick moments, he’s real bad at communicating when he needs it.  He’s just always been this way, but I know his tells.”

“There is a certain shame in needing pain, especially as a man who, to a stranger, looks like a man who would appreciate being the one in control instead of the one giving it up,” Spencer reasons.  “You’re traditionally handsome, and you have a lot of muscle.  That speaks, to most people, to a dominant man.  There’s also the factor of you being hunters and getting hurt on the job.  Why should you enjoy being in pain during sex when you obviously don’t get turned on experiencing essentially the same pain on a hunt?”

“Alright, alright, enough with the hypotheticals,” Dean dismisses gently, and Spencer looks up to see that Sam is looking uncomfortable.  Dean had stopped him, not because he didn’t care, but because Sam was fidgeting and looking away.  “And either way, Sammy, you know we won’t judge you for needing what you need, yeah?”

Sam nods as Spencer reaches up to cup his cheek, pulling his face back towards them.  “Hey there,” he urges, in the same way Sam would urge Spencer to look at him whenever Spencer was flustered or holding back.  And it seems to work, because it brings a smile to Sam’s face.

“Thank you,” Sam whispers and leans in, kissing Spencer softly before shifting to kiss Dean as well.  “Both of you.”

“You’re welcome, Sammy,” Dean mutters.  “Now, let’s sleep, and tomorrow we go back to the bunker, so Spence can continue studying.”

Sam nods and closes his eyes, tugging the blanket up to cover the three of them.

“G’night, Spence,” Dean mumbles behind him, his arm wrapping around Spencer’s waist.

“Goodnight,” Spencer whispers, closing his eyes.

—

“Kelly Kline, former presidential aide and lover to the 45th President Jefferson Rooney,” Garcia announces, “died in childbirth after giving birth to her son, Jack Kline.  Jack Kline disappeared soon after, and at least one witness reports seeing a black Chevrolet at the scene.”

“Why would they kidnap a child?”  Morgan asks, leaning on his crutches.  

“We have no information on Jack, and he’s not been seen since, we have to assume he is dead,” Hotch tells them.

“In no other known case have the Winchesters been seen targeting kids,” Prentiss argues.  “Why Jack?”

“If President Rooney was Jack’s father,” Rossi begins, looking out at the team from behind his Hawaii screen, “and the Winchesters were caught in a supposed assassination attempt towards the President, could they have seen the President as some sort of monster?”

“Do halflings exist in their delusion?”  

“We don’t know.  Our best lead as to that, Reid, won’t speak to us.”

“Spencer,” Garcia mutters under her breath.

“But if halflings do exist,” Hotch interrupts,  “then they would have kidnapped Jack Kline because he was one.”

“We don’t even know if the Winchesters were behind the attempt on the President’s life,”  JJ argues.  “All we’re going off of is one sentence that Reid threw at Rossi as he kicked him out.”

“Spencer.”

“What was that, Garcia?”  Hotch asks.

“You all heard him,”  Garcia says, standing up.  “He asked Rossi to call him Spencer.  That’s the name he wants to be called.”

“But Reid-” “Spencer” “he’s not even here,” JJ says.  “Why does it matter?”

“Do you call JJ ‘Jennifer’ when she’s not here?”  Garcia asks the rest of the team, and one by one, they shake their heads.  “So why call Spencer ‘Reid’ when he had to repeatedly ask Rossi not to do that?  It’s not like it’s a hard change to make.  We all know his name.”

“We’ve always called him-”

“If I got married and changed my last name tomorrow, I’d wager it would take, I don’t know, a week?  Tops, before you all started using my new last name,” Garcia tells them.  “So why won’t you call him Spencer?”

She doesn't get a response.

"I'll be in my office."  Garcia grabs her tablet and papers and leaves, her heels clicking against the floor as she walks away.  "Starting to understand why Spencer reacted the way he did," she mumbles as she walks, shaking her head.  "Stupid, stupid profilers."

—

It feels… safe, to wake up in the middle of the two men he calls his boyfriends.  Spencer has his back pressed against Dean's chest, and Sam is curled around him, arms and legs wrapped over them.  Closing his eyes again, Spencer curls up against his sleeping partners and lets out a soft purr.  The cat ears that now adorned the top of his head flicks a little before settling again, and his tail curls around his legs.  Gifts from Gabriel.

He doesn’t realize he’s fallen asleep again before Spencer wakes up to gentle hands petting his tail and thumbing across his ear.

“Morning,” Sam hums, leaning in and kissing the top of his head, and as he rubs his eyes gently, Spencer lets out a quiet “mrrp”.  Dean’s arm around his waist tightens, and Spencer’s head tips forward as lips are pressed against his neck.

“Mm… morning,” Spencer mumbles, reaching out and pulling Sam closer.

“Did you sleep okay?”  Dean asks.

Spencer sighs.  “I dreamt that David Rossi bugged my home, and that he and the rest of the BAU ended up coming here to force me back to them.”

“Well, the bug is there,” Dean begins, and Spencer’s ears flick annoyedly.  “But there’s no way we’re gonna let them force you back there.  That doesn’t sound very friendly of the people who claimed to do everything to get you out of our grip.”

Spencer shakes his head.  “It’s not even illegal for him to record our conversation without my knowledge or consent.  Hawai’i is a one-party-consent state.  Now, leaving the bug here is strange.  Why would he want to keep recording me?”

“To keep an ear on you?”  Sam suggests.  “Do you want us to get rid of it?”

“No, not yet, that’ll just make them come back to ‘check on me’ again and I don’t think I can handle that right now.  Was I too harsh on him?”  Spencer asks, frowning up at him.

“I don’t think so.  You’ve grown and changed out here, and them expecting you to still be the same person that you were a year ago is absurd.  People change all the time, why shouldn’t you be allowed to?”

“Because I’m Doctor Reid, supercomputer,” Spencer sighs.  “I’m supposed to have all the knowledge about statistics and the reading speed of ten people and I’m apparently the only one that can do that.  So they need me back to get back ‘the old team dynamic’.  I’m not supposed to change because they need me to be useful.”

“Hey, Sammy, you know what I was thinking?”  Dean asks.  “That we could screw over the feds with that bug.”

“Oh no,” Sam breathes out.  “I don’t like that you’ve got an idea,” he teases.

“What’s the idea?”  Spencer asks.

“Well, little kitty cat,” Dean begins, scratching behind Spencer’s cat ear and drawing a purr out of him.  “I was thinking that this is your house and your space, yes?  What better way to display that it’s your space by fucking in the living room?”

“Dean!”  Sam says sternly, but Spencer’s ears perk up as his tail smacks against their thighs under the blanket.  

“You want us to have sex in the living room to make them regret bugging my home?”

“Yeah.  Good as way as any, huh?  If they’re listening, they get an earful of my pretty little kitty, and if they’re not listening, no harm no foul.  It’s your home and you should be able to do whatever you like in it, yeah?  Their fault they decided you had to be bugged.”

Spencer shifts to sit up as he nods, a glint in his eye and a grin on his lips.  

“But won’t they recognize you?”  Sam asks his brother.  “We’re supposed to be dead, remember?”

“And Spence here decided to tell them we’ve faked our deaths by a cop’s hand before,” Dean shrugs.  “If they figure out it’s me, that’s on them to figure out.”

“I could be arrested for harboring criminals,” Spencer adds, but he doesn’t seem any less eager to make a fool out of his team.  “If they find you.”

“We better make sure we’re not found, then,” Dean hums, pushing himself up to sit as well.

“Well, you guys do that, and I’ll go take a shower,” Sam says, pointing his thumb to the bathroom.  “Just remember, Spence needs to study today too, yeah?  That was the deal.”

“Sure, sure, Sammy,” Dean says, rolling his eyes as he pulls Spencer towards himself and kisses him.

—

Garcia doesn’t like the bug.  She doesn’t touch the headset that would let her hear what’s going on in Spencer Reid’s (no, Mark Porter’s) home unless she has to.  Luckily for her, most of her workday is kept busy with other work, and the time zone difference means Mark Porter doesn’t wake up until noon for Garcia.

I’ve tried to tell her she calls while I’m at work.   

She’d tried to call him, mostly just to talk to him, but also to let Spencer Reid know that they’d get in touch and try to convince him back to the team.  But she’s not the night owl she used to be, and has had to go to sleep before he can pick up.  Damn time zones.

On one of her smaller screens, she has the audiograph connected to the microphone Rossi placed in his living room.  But after Rossi had left, there had been nary a scuffle of movement.  She had heard Spencer talk to himself about something before there had been nothing but silence.  She reasons he probably went to bed.  

So the graph has been a straight line all morning and into the afternoon.  That's why she doesn't even notice when the bars start moving.

Garcia hesitates as she reaches for the headset, not wanting to invade his privacy.  This is Spencer.   Her best friend.   So she shuts her eyes and swallows hard as she puts the headphones over her ears.

Two voices, one high-pitched and whiny and the other deep and gravelly.  

"Please, fuck, please Daddy, harder," the high pitched whine begs.  She knows that voice.  That's Spencer.

"That's right, kitten, such a good little boy for me."   And that’s all it takes for Garcia to throw her headphones onto the desk and rush for her phone.

"Sir?  Dean Winchester is in Spencer's house.  I've got him on the bug.  No, you don’t understand, he is in Spencer’s house.   I can hear him, on the bug."

Chapter Text

Spencer is beyond feeling bashful for what he wants.  So when Dean sits down on the couch, naked, Spencer straddles his lap and kisses him, one hand on his chest and the other wrapping around Dean's cock.  He strokes him as they make out for a bit, just letting Dean's hands roam.  He loves the way Dean's calloused fingers slide across his skin, and Spencer can feel his tail tremble with excitement.

Dean lays him out on the couch on his back, and Spencer's ears perk up as he hooks one leg over the back of the couch and planting the other on the floor, enticing Dean to kneel between his legs and kiss his way up his torso.  He stops at the tattoo, teeth brushing against the edge of the flames before flattening his tongue to soothe the bite marks.

Dean continues his travel up Spencer's torso and neck until he reaches his lips, kissing him deeply.  Spencer kisses back with a happy sound coming from deep in his throat as Dean's slicked fingers slide into him easily.

It's a short prep, but then, it doesn't need to be more.  Dean lifts himself up over Spencer before thrusting into him, pushing a high-pitched moan out of him.  He sets a steady, slow rhythm at first, fucking into him as he towers over Spencer.

"Please, fuck," Spencer whines, hands reaching for him.  "Please, Daddy!  Harder!"  

The title makes Dean's eyes go dark, and he growls and leans down over him, pulling back before slamming into him roughly.  "That's right, kitten, such a good little boy for me," he praises, and Spencer keens.  

"Daddy!  Please, please, I-" 

"Come on, kitten, that's it," Dean growls, snapping his hips to pound into him roughly.  Spencer's moans are high-pitched and loud, and maybe some of them sound more like mewls and meows instead of moans.  But Spencer’s gasps and cries are blissful and wonderful and he cries out as he comes, “Daddy!” erupting from his lips as he explodes between them.

Groaning, Dean fucks into Spencer’s tightened body and he follows him over the edge.  They stay there, panting, for just a moment, before Dean pulls out and Spencer sits up, his tail gone and his ears returning to normal.  Dean stands up and pulls Spencer with him upstairs, where they get cleaned up and dressed without a word.

Sam’s waiting for them up there, two plates of food for himself and Dean.  He kisses Spencer gently before winking as Dean snaps his fingers and disappears, leaving Spencer to fend for himself.  

And now that he’s alone, Spencer can go back downstairs, sit down at the kitchen island, and begin eating his breakfast.  He’s only a few bites in when there’s a rapid, intense knock on his door.

—

“Garcia, are you sure?”  Hotch asks.  “Dean Winchester is dead.”

“No, you don’t understand, he is in Spencer’s house.   I can hear him, on the bug.”

“Okay, Garcia, we’ll be there.”  Hotch hangs up and rises from his seat, heading out into the bullpen.  “Garcia needs us.  Now.”

And so the entire BAU piles into Garcia’s cramped office space, huddling around the desk as Garcia pulls out the headphone jack.  She closes her eyes and plugs her ears because she can’t leave but she can’t listen to this.  She can’t listen to her best friend having sex.

“Please, Daddy, please, I-”

Reid.  Spencer.  They’re all thinking it.  But nobody dares say it, in case they miss anything.

“Come on, kitten, that’s it.”   And there’s not a doubt in Hotch’s mind that he is listening to Dean Winchester’s voice.  He pulls out his phone and calls Rossi.

“Dave?  I need you out to Reid’s house, now.   Dean Winchester is there.”

“Dean Winche-”

“GO, Dave, now,” Hotch tells him firmly before hanging up.

Reid’s loud, blissful cries and moans and - mewls? echo past the silent BAU members as they listen for any details.  But they don’t get any more audio from Dean.  When Reid finally falls silent after a final cry, there’s not a sound until they can hear Rossi’s pounding on the door.

“What the-”   Reid’s voice is level, normal, and there’s a bang in the background from the door slamming open.  “What is happening?”   He’s scared.  Why is he scared?  It’s just Rossi.

“Tell me where he is, Reid.”

“Please lower your gun, what are you doing?  Stephen, I’m trying to eat my breakfast here.”

“Stephen?”  Lewis asks, furrowing her brows.

“Dave’s middle name,” Hotch supplies quietly.

“Where is he, Reid?”

“Lower your gun, Stephen.”

“Why are you calling me that?”

“Why are you calling me Reid?”

“He’s making a point,” Garcia whispers, her arms wrapped around herself.

“Where is Dean Winchester?”

“Lower your damn gun, Stephen.  Buried and or cremated, last I checked.  At least, according to you guys.  What, did something happen?  He is dead, isn’t he?”

“Why wouldn’t he be dead, Reid?”

“Thank you.  You see, Stephen, there’s this thing called inference from incomplete data.  And right now I’m inferring that you believe I know where Dean Winchester, my kidnapper , is, even though he’s supposed to be dead by your own bullets.  Why are you barging into my house at 9 in the morning, ready to shoot someone’s head off?  Wait, you don’t have to tell me.  You heard me having sex, since you decided to bug my home.  You thought my boyfriend sounded like Dean Winchester.  Why else would you be here, waving your gun around like a maniac?  You just missed him, by the way, he’s already on his way to work.”

“He knew about the bug.”

“There was no action on the bug after he kicked Rossi out last night,” Garcia tells them.  “I checked.”

“What bug?”

“This one.”   And the room fills with crunching static, and then they have nothing.

“I knew we shouldn’t have done it, I knew we shouldn’t have bugged his house, I can’t believe I let you bully me into doing this,” Garcia mumbles, turning around to look up at them.  “Out, out, out.  Get out of my space.  All of you!”  She yells, palms landing on her desk with a loud bang.   And the BAU shuffles out the office in awkward silence.

—

“He knew about the bug,” Morgan repeats as the five regroup in the meeting room.  

“He used the bug to bait Rossi into coming back,”  Prentiss says with a shudder.  

“But what was that audio from? That was definitely Dean Winchester’s voice,” JJ asks.

“If he was repeatedly kidnapped before he was placed in witsec, he could have used his own projected predictability of the Winchesters to record the brothers having sex while he was kidnapped,” Lewis suggests.  “If he did that, it would just be a matter of substituting Sam’s voice for his own and then play it back in front of the bug.”

“That’s a lot of premeditation for something Reid couldn’t predict.”  JJ shakes her head.  “He’s a genius, but he’s not that good.  And he admitted to having sex.”

“Plus, if he did find the Winchesters kidnappings to be predictable, why wouldn’t he get one of us to go with him home?”  Prentiss asks.

“You saw how that went for me,” Morgan comments.  “Cuffed to my own car.  Couldn’t do a thing as they grabbed him.”

“Because we didn’t get him out the first time, he didn’t trust us to help him the other times,” Hotch agrees solemnly.

“Could it have been a real tape?”  JJ asks.  “That somehow, during one of the kidnappings, Reid was forced to make a sextape with Dean for some sort of perverted fantasy?”

“Reid knows more than he’s let on, and he knows we’re trying to catch him in a lie,” Hotch sighs.  “At this point, we have to assume there is something going on with the case we were lured into.”

“What if the Winchesters were never delusional?”  Prentiss asks on a limb.  “How would that change things?”

“It would change our perception of the world.  Everything we thought we knew would immediately be thrown out and we would have to start over on the profile.”

“How would that change them always getting away with everything, even when they’re dead?”  

“Either death wouldn’t be as permanent as we thought, or the Winchesters would have some powerful allies.”

“Was Reid trying to gaslight Rossi into thinking that he had imagined the voices on the bug?”  Morgan asks.

“I think it’s more likely he was trying to catch Rossi in an impossible situation, where he would have to reveal that we were listening as well.  One person would be easy to fool if they weren’t even certain of what they saw.  But having an entire team to back you up that you weren’t imagining it?”

“Why did Reid call Rossi Stephen?”  JJ prods.

“It’s his middle name, Dave doesn’t go by it,” Hotch dismisses.

“It was consistent,” Prentiss agrees.  “It’s got to be intentional.  Is he really that bothered by the nickname thing?”

“Spencer tried to set a boundary with Rossi and when Rossi kept crossing it, Spencer did the same,”  Garcia huffs from the doorway.  “I can’t get in touch with Rossi.  He’s not picking up his phone.”

—

Spencer breathes out a sigh of relief as Rossi finally lowers his gun.  But he knows the battle isn’t over.

“Thank you.  You see, Stephen, there’s this thing called inference from incomplete data.  And right now I’m inferring that you believe I know where Dean Winchester, my kidnapper, is, even though he’s supposed to be dead by your own bullets.  Why are you barging into my house at 9 in the morning, ready to shoot someone’s head off?  Wait, you don’t have to tell me.  You heard me having sex, since you decided to bug my home.  You thought my boyfriend sounded like Dean Winchester.  Why else would you be here, waving your gun around like a maniac?  You just missed him, by the way, he’s already on his way to work.  We just decided to have a little morning fun.”

“What bug?”

Spencer rolls his eyes and heads for the chair, Dean’s chair, and he digs between the pillow and the armrest, pulling out the bug.  “This bug.”  And he grabs a shoe from the hall, drops the bug on the floor, before he slams the shoe down on it, shattering the bug.  “There we go.  Now we can finally talk in peace.”

“Why are you doing this, Reid?”  Rossi asks, and Spencer doesn’t know why he’s confused.

“Why am I-? You, the team, decided, instead of openly asking me to talk to everyone, you would come here under the guise of being a worried friend, and get me to open up based on the work relationship we had a year ago.  Not only that, but you came here the week before my exams for the semester, which means that the time I am wasting talking to you could have been spent studying.  I don’t appreciate being listened in on without my consent.”

“Your boyfriend sounded a lot like Dean Winchester,” Rossi comments.

“I ask him to imitate him.”

“Why?  You yourself call him your kidnapper.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Reid.”

“Agent Rossi.”

“You ask your boyfriend to imitate your kidnapper and you don’t think that’s something worth talking about?”

“To a therapist?  Sure.  To my former coworker?  Not so much.  You’re not entitled to know about my sex life.”

“I worked your case.  We performed a rape kit on you after you got back from the Winchesters.”

“Inconclusive,” Spencer reminds him.  “They didn’t come to a conclusion.  There was no semen, but they weren’t sure.”

“You told us they weren’t interested in you sexually.”

“What was I supposed to say, agent Rossi?  That I spent hours every day being passed from one brother to the other?”  Spencer yells, walking Rossi backwards towards the door.  “That they made me come on their cocks and now I’m conditioned to need them to get off?  Is that what you want to hear?  Because nobody ever seems to care about what I want.  I don’t want to go back to the BAU.  I don’t want to talk about my time with the Winchesters.  I don’t want to talk about how I need them now, because I was conditioned by them.  But do you know what I see when I look at you?  I see a man that failed.  You failed to rescue me from them.  You failed.  You couldn’t do it.  They had to let me out on their own free will.  If they hadn’t?  I would have still been in their grasp.  Maybe they never should have let me go.  At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about you knocking down my door while I’m eating my breakfast.”

“Reid…”  

Spencer pushes him out of the front door.  “Don’t come back, agent Rossi.  I’m not interested in talking to you anymore.”  He shuts the door and locks it before going around the house and drawing closed every curtain, so Rossi can’t watch him.  He grabs his phone from the nightstand in the bedroom and opens it as he sits back down to eat his now cold breakfast.

He sends off two texts to Garcia’s number.

Get Rossi to go home. -MP

Now. -MP

Spencer turns off his phone.

—

“I-”  Garcia interrupts herself when her phone goes off twice in quick succession.  She furrows her brows as she reads the messages.

Get Rossi to go home. -MP

Now. -MP

“MP…” Garcia mumbles, before her eyes widen.  “Mark Porter!  Spencer!”

“What’s going on, babygirl?”  Morgan asks.

“Spencer just texted me.”  She shows him the texts.  “He wants Rossi to leave Hawaii.”

“Officially, Rossi’s on leave,” Hotch says.  “We can’t force him to come back for another week.”

“But we’re using FBI resources to spy on Spencer,” Garcia argues.  “And Spencer has exams next week.  Do you even care that he’s made a life for himself out there?  He’s studying for his exams and Rossi almost broke down his door.  What kind of friend does that?”

Hotch’s phone rings.  “It’s Dave.”  He picks up.  “You’re on speaker.”

“We have to rethink the Winchesters.”

Chapter Text

“So Reid asks his boyfriend to imitate Dean Winchester in order to get off?”  Prentiss asks, grimacing.  

“How do we know his boyfriend isn’t Dean Winchester?”  JJ considers.

“Because Dean Winchester is dead,” Rossi replies.

“But that was Dean’s voice.  I have no doubt about that,” JJ says with a shake of her head.

“If Dean is alive, could Sam be as well?”  Lewis muses.

“No.  The Winchesters are dead.”  Hotch stands firm on that.  “But we have to reconsider everything Reid told us about the Winchesters, from the moment he was taken.”

“What did they do to Reid?”  JJ whispers.

“They raped him.  They groomed him into enjoying it,” Morgan spits angrily.  “If they weren’t already dead, I would-”

“The room he was in on the streams was all just for show.  Whatever dungeon they had him in, it wasn’t where he was kept,” Hotch continues.  “They just wanted us to believe that.”

“But isn’t repeated assault typically an attempt to break their victim’s willpower?”  Prentiss asks.  “They didn’t try to brainwash Reid.”

“Not overtly, but they have altered his state of mind.  What he told Dave is proof of that,” Hotch explains.  

“So they didn’t manage to brainwash Reid into their delusion.”

“No.  But I don’t think that was ever their plan.  Sam had stalked us for months and picked out Reid specifically.  Before he died, he said he ‘fell in love’.  It was always the goal to find Reid and use him for their own sexual goals.”

"At first we assumed it was for Sam to get Dean's sexual attention, but now we have to reconsider that," Rossi says.

"If Reid is telling the truth now," Morgan interjects, "and I don't think we should assume he is, that means he has suffered through extensive sexual trauma and has not processed it.  He didn't even accept that it had happened when he came back to us.  It's likely he compartmentalized it and refused to accept that it happened, until he found a sexual partner."

"Once the boyfriend became a part of his life and they got sexual, it's likely things went wrong.  But how did the boyfriend even know what Dean would have sounded like?"  JJ asks.

"What if Dean Winchester is the boyfriend?" Prentiss suggests.

"Sam and Dean Winchester are dead," Hotch tells them firmly.

"But what if they aren't?"  

"We gunned down Dean, and Sam took his own life," Hotch reminds them.  "They're dead."

A message ticks in on Hotch’s phone, then, and he taps at the screen to pull it up.

Dr. Reid is very pretty today, where he sits.  I wonder if he knows we’re watching? 

The phone drops and clatters on the table.  

—

Spencer sits in the darkness of his unlit bedroom, curled up on the bed with only the light from the sunset peeking through the drawn curtains.  It’s stupid.  Rossi knows he’s there.  He’s probably watching the house, ready to strike if he so much as even suspects that something is wrong.  But being able to curl up with his studies used to help his anxiety.

“It’s not working,” he whispers to himself, his empty voice echoing in the deafening silence surrounding him.

He likes being alone, but he likes being alone and feeling safe.   He has felt safe in this room since a month into his stay, when the Winchesters found him again and held him and kissed him and loved him.  But now?  Now that Rossi has proved he is willing to break into his safe space?  Spencer doesn’t know where he can feel safe.

“Gabriel?”  He asks into the air, voice trembling with insecurity.

“That’s not a happy voice, Spency,” Gabriel comments, popping into the room.  “What can I do you for?”

“I- I wanted to ask if there was a way to… I don’t know… split up soulmates?”  

“Which one of them is bothering you?  Is it the author?”

“All of the BAU, really.  They don’t… they don’t feel like my friends anymore,” Spencer admits, hugging his knees to his chest.  “Do soulmates stay soulmates, even if you hate that person?”  He doesn’t hate Rossi, necessarily, but he doesn’t know what he feels about him.  Right now it’s ambivalent at best.

Gabriel sighs and crosses his arms.  “I told you soulmates can grow together.”

“That doesn’t mean they can grow apart.”

“Strictly speaking, because your fates have been so intertwined in the past, there will always be a part of you that’s associated with that person or those people,” Gabriel explains.  

“You said the BAU are all my soulmates.  Are there- are there other soulmates for me, out there?” 

“You cannot tell me you haven’t felt it already,” Gabriel huffs with a grin.  “But there’s a crew of assorted librarians at a certain Manoa Public Library that certainly seem to fit the bill.  And before you ask, they weren’t already connected to you.  You made that connection yourself, Mark Porter.   No interference from me.”

“If you hadn’t interfered in the first place, I wouldn’t be here in Hawai’i, questioning everything I thought I knew about myself and the BAU,” Spencer accuses.

“Well, I can tell you that your former boss, an Aaron Hotchner, got a very interesting text message from an unknown number just a few hours ago.”

“What?”

“Dr. Reid is very pretty today, where he sits,” Gabriel recites.  “I wonder if he knows we’re watching?”

“Oh god,” Spencer breathes out, his book falling shut in his lap.  “They’re going to bring the entire BAU out here on a manhunt.  What are they thinking?”

“But the guys they’re hunting are dead,” Gabriel muses.  “They’ll never get the go-ahead from the bosses to get out here.”

“They have a jet.  They already sent Rossi out here.”

“If I see that they intend to get out here, I’ll change their mind before they can even voice it.”

Spencer frowns.  “Gabriel…”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t know and that’s the worst part.  I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Would it help if you weren’t in this house?”

“If I leave, they’re going to ransack this place and find Sam and Dean’s clothes and they’ll know that I’ve been lying to them.”

“Okay, so no leaving,” Gabriel nods.  “Want me to snap the boys in here?”

“No, they need the time alone.”

“So what do you want?”

“I want the ability to feel safe in my own home again.  That’s all.”

Gabriel nods slowly, sighing.  “I get it, Spency.  I do.”  He straightens up and looks at the window.  “Oh, that’s my signal.  Cassie needs me.  But just call for me if you need anything.”  And he’s gone in a poof of theatrical smoke, and Spencer huffs.  Typical Gabriel.

Spencer rubs his eyes and decides to give up reading.  He tugs his shirt over his head and pulls the blankets over himself.  The best part about reading in bed was the ability to just roll over and close your eyes.

And maybe the sun hasn’t even set yet, but after what Rossi had put him through that morning?  That outburst?  Spencer felt like he had earned an early night.

—

“Welcome back to the BAU, Reid,” Hotch greets him, shaking his hand firmly.  “It’s good to have you back.”

“Happy to be back, Hotch,” Reid hums, smiling as he turns to look at his team.  Morgan pats him on the shoulder and laughs.

“Good to see you’re back to your old self, pretty boy,” Morgan teases, nudging him with his shoulder as JJ approaches him.

“C’mere, pipe cleaner, lemme get a good look at you!”  She announces, pulling him into an easily reciprocated hug.  “Wow, you actually built some muscle in Hawaii!  And you’ve even got a tan.”

“Hawai’i was good for you,” Prentiss compliments.  “You almost look human.”

“Yeah, but I’m glad to be back.  It’s time to finally stop letting the Winchesters rule my life,” Reid agrees happily.

“There you are, kid,” Rossi huffs.  “Was worried you’d stand us up,” he teases.

“When have I ever?”

“Spencer, Spencer, Spencer!”  Garcia shrieks, running across the bullpen towards him.  “You’re actually back!  God, do you know how much I missed you?  Did you already watch the new season of Sherlock without me?”

“Saved it for when we could watch it together,” Reid tells her with a fond smile.  “I missed you, Penelope.”

“Are you going to keep working on that degree you started out there?”  Hotch asks.

“What degree?”  Reid asks, tilting his head.  “We’ve got unsubs to catch.”

Spencer shoots up in bed, panting harshly and looking around in a panic.  A nightmare.   It was just a nightmare.  A nightmare about returning to his old team.

You almost look human.

Pipe cleaner.

Pretty boy.

Kid.

Reid.

Angry tears bubble to the surface as Spencer stumbles out of bed and into the bathroom.  Fumbling with the light, he blinds himself as the bright ceiling light fills the room.  He grips the edge of the counter with both hands as his eyes fixate on his own reflection.

His eyes are wild and scared, and there are tear streaks down his cheeks.  Spencer’s hair stands out in every direction, sleep-tousled and damp with sweat.  His chest still heaves, the black ink standing out against his white skin.  He’s got a tan.  He’s got muscle.  And as he flexes in the mirror, Spencer can even see his abs.  He’s stronger now.  

He’s not a pipe cleaner anymore.  Sure, he’s still lithe compared to his lovers, but they’re fighters.  Spencer isn’t.  He’s not the sickly pale that he had been at one point in his life.  The healthy tan coming from living on an island in the Pacific Ocean has helped him look older, firmer, more established.

Dean and Sam call him beautiful.  They call him pretty.  But they don’t call him pretty boy the way Morgan did.  They say it in hushed breaths against chilled skin, in loving and caring voices as they hold him.  They don’t say it and in the same breath ask him to take some of the workload.  Sam and Dean do their own work.  

He’s not a kid.  He’s an adult that can make his own decisions, and has to answer to his own actions.

He’s not Reid anymore.  He’s not the isolated entity that is Reid anymore.  He’s Doctor Spencer Reid, a complete person disconnected from his workplace.

Spencer knows he can never go back to his team.  Because he’s no longer who his team wants him to be.  And he doesn’t want to be that person.  He wants to be who he is right now - surrounded by coworkers who love and understand and respect him and his decisions.

He wishes he could see the BAU’s faces if they ever find out his lovers are Sam and Dean Winchester.  If only to get them to see how little they actually know about the real world.

Spencer takes a deep breath and looks himself in the eye.  

“You need to hold your own.  You can do this.  You’ve got a job to do.  And that’s not being an agent.”

—

The text was a dud.  Garcia found that it was a prepaid phone purchased in Hawai’i, and that's it.  It had pinged near the Manoa Public Library, and then there was nothing.

But it means that someone is after Reid.  And the BAU can’t do a thing about it.  Because there is another case waiting for them.  Missing kids.  That takes priority.  It always does.

And either way, nothing seems to come from the text.  No further texts, no new threats, and Rossi doesn't even get to see Reid.  He had stopped by the library to see if he could find Reid, because the house was locked down, but his coworkers were stubbornly loyal and wouldn't even tell them that Reid was working there.

Rossi had described the library workers he'd met to the team as a bunch of weirdos.  There was a white girl who looked like she was about to fall asleep standing and at the same time had enough energy to wear out Rossi as she tried to recommend him literature.  A black person with butterflies clipped all over their hair and a lanyard filled with hand-drawn badges they were giving out to excited children.  Someone standing in the mythology section, obsessively changing the order of the books, and then changing it again.

But he hadn't seen Reid there.  None of them seemed to know who he was talking about.  And the boss at the library wouldn't give out employment records without a warrant.  Rossi wasn't there on official business, so he couldn't get one.  So no luck.  

He tried to keep watch of Reid's house, but didn't see Reid or anyone else go in or out.  The only time he'd seen Reid was one morning when Reid had gotten on his bike and sped off before Rossi could greet him.

But his week came and went and Rossi had to go back to the mainland feeling like he'd failed.  Just like Reid told him he had.

—

Spencer walks out of the examination building with a smile.  The exam had gone brilliantly, that was his last this semester, and Rossi was out of his life.  Hopefully for the foreseeable future.

He unlocks his bike from the rack and turns it towards home.  Home.   Spencer finds himself looking forward to unlocking the door, making himself a cup of tea, and settling out on the back porch, just to himself.  It's a little overcast today, but the sun is peeking out between the dotted clouds as he pedals along.  It's shaping up to be a nice evening.

There aren't many cars out and about, and Spencer enjoys the quiet the absence of engines running gives.  After living life in city after city, car after car, there’s a solace in the silence.  

As he dismounts the bike outside his front door, Spencer finds that the door is unlocked.  Normally, that should be a cause for alarm, especially since Spencer knows he locked it before leaving for his exam.  But he has a gut feeling that it’s not Rossi ransacking his home.

And right inside the door, there hangs a leather jacket that has been oddly absent for the past week.

Two voices in the kitchen.

Spencer toes off his shoes and drops his bag by the shoe rack before going in, smiling at the two men. 

“Congrats on finishing the semester!”  Sam announces, sweeping him up into a hug that makes Spencer laugh, a bright, comforted sound.

“I didn’t realize you’d be back today,” he says when Sam sets him back down.

“Dean wanted to come back yesterday.  But I figured we’d wait until you’d had your last exam.  Couldn’t have you distracted,” he teases gently as he cups Spencer’s cheek.

“Thank you.”

“Sam made me make you a salad,” Dean huffs amusedly from the counter.  “Said you’d need something light after the exams.”

Spencer smiles.

“Welcome home.”

Chapter Text

“C’mon, Mark, let’s get out of here, it’s lunchtime,” Lisa tells him, poking his shoulder.  Mark looks up from the orders he had been working on placing.  “We gotta celebrate that you’re done with your semester!”

Mark chuckles and nods, locking his screen and grabbing his office keys as he gets to his feet.  “Alright, as long as it’s your treat,” he teases.

“Nuh uh, you’re paying for your own food, mister,” she says, looking up at him with that grin of hers.  “As are everyone else.  This is a celebration.”

“Everyone else?”

Lisa nods excitedly.  “Yeah!  Everybody’s here.  We’re going out to your favorite cafe.”

“I don’t have a favorite-”

“Yes you do, Mark, it’s the one down on the corner, the one that always gives you enough sugar in your coffee.”

And yeah, they’re right.  That is his favorite cafe.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming,” Mark huffs amusedly as he follows them.  On the way down the street, the two are greeted by Perse and Athena, Perse’s partner, Danny and Jack and Mona, Jack’s fiancé.

“You weren’t kidding when you said everyone,” Mark comments as they reach the cafe.

“Oh, that’s not everyone,” Lisa says ominously as they push open the door.  

“Mark!”  A familiar voice greets.  Dean.   He’s sitting with Sam at a large table, made up of three smaller tables put together.

Mark laughs and goes over to them, plopping down in the space they’d kept between them.  Sam greets him with a kiss to the cheek.  “Lisa’s a crafty one.  Made me swear I’d get Dean out here,” he teases.

“Lisa had to do no such thing, I was fully on board with this,” Dean argues.  The banter creates a laughter that goes around the table - it’s commonplace to expect the interactions to go that way when Sam and Dean are in the same room.

“Did you get a new dye, Mona?”  Sam asks, turning his attention to Jack’s fiancé.  Their hair is a vibrant purple, and they wear it up in spikes.  Mark knows they prefer their hair shorter so it doesn’t get in their eyes while they’re working.  And he understands that - the only reason he’s let his hair grow out again is that he hasn’t taken the time to get it cut.

“Yes, actually, I’m just trying it out.  But I think I like it,” Mona tells him with a smile.

“It looks great on you.  I’ll have to convince Dean to try that look sometime,” Sam jokes, and Mona laughs, tipping their head back.  Mark hides his own chuckle behind the coffee cup that’s been placed in front of him.  Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sam pull out a phone that’s not his own from his pocket.  He taps at it for a moment before putting it back in his pocket and smiling at him.

“What was that?”

“Nothing important,” Sam assures him with a hum, kissing his cheek.

“Mark, that guy that was at the library a week ago, looking for you…”  Lisa begins.  “David Rossi, the author.  You used to work with him?”

Mark nods.  “Yeah.  I used to think he was the best.  Not so much when he almost broke down my door.  Thanks for not telling him where I was.”

“He asked if he should sign his books,” Danny says.  “I told him no, that it would make the books more likely to be stolen from the library, but he said it was just a favor.  We were even in the wrong section, I was working on the mythology setup again.  No true crime in sight.  He was strange.”

“I had to step in," Perse huffs.  "He really wouldn't quit.  Kept insisting that a 'Spencer Reid' was a friend of his, and that he was working here.  He said he was a concerned friend."

"Concerned?  Yeah.  Friend?  Now that's debatable," Mark mutters.  "He bugged my house so that my former team would know what I was up to."

"What the fuck?"  Lisa exclaims.  “Not to bash your old crew, Markothy Rupert Porter, but that’s fucked up.”

“Yeah, he came to the cottage and tried to pretend to be worried,” Dean rolls his eyes.  “But he had Mark’s old team listening in.  We got our revenge, though.”  He smirks and winks at Lisa, while Mark feels a blush rising on his cheeks.

“Keep it PG, we’re out in public,”  Perse reminds him dryly, looking around beyond their group.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean dismisses playfully.  “Mark here crushed the bug in front of the guy.  Pretty badass, wish I was there to see it.”

“I don’t think I looked all that badass.  I mostly yelled at him and grabbed a shoe to smash it on the floor,” Mark admits bashfully.

“Nonsense.  You stood up to a guy that broke your trust,”  Jack tells him.  “He should’ve had your back, that’s what teams are for.  Teams aren’t for backstabbing you and dragging you back to somewhere you don’t want to be.”

“You know, Jack, I think that’s the most profound thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Lisa jokes.

“Oh, actually, Mark,” Athena interrupts with a smile.  “I finished that drawing you asked for.  I didn’t think to bring it, but I’ll stop by the library or have Per take it with them.”

“Thank you, Athena,” Mark hums thankfully.  “But you know you’re welcome to come to the house, too.”

“It’s a bit far for me,” Athena admits.  “The bus doesn’t go out that way, and it’s hard for me to walk out there.”

Mark nods, grimacing a little at his assumption.  “Sorry.”

“It’s alright, I don’t really talk about it.”  Athena looks at the cane resting against her chair.  “But this thing has brought me a lot of places,” she says fondly.  “And Per is a great help.”  She smiles at her partner and leans over, pressing a kiss to their cheek and leaving a faded, pastel pink lipstick mark that stands out against Perse’s deep, rich skin.

—

10:35.  Lunch at the cafe.

JJ stares at the text message.  In small text, above the message, was the received timestamp.  3:35 PM.  She keeps her phone on DC time to make sure she knows what time the boys get out from school and when they’re going to bed, so she can get in touch with them.  JJ has just been cleared for flight, but she’s still stuck at the stations for now.

“What’s up, Jayje?”  Prentiss asks, peeking over her shoulder.  “What the-”

“Ten thirty-five,” she mutters.  “But it’s 3:35 in DC right now.”

“That’s Hawaii time,” Prentiss tells her.  “But what does the message mean?”

“What does what mean?”  Lewis prods as she sits down.  JJ shows her the message.  “Huh.”  She calls Garcia.

“Goddess of wisdom, how may I help you, mortal?”   Garcia’s cheerful voice chirps across the speakers.

“Garcia, Jayje just got a weird text, can you check the number for us?”  Prentiss asks.

“Anything for you, sweets.”

JJ reads out the number, and there’s silence in the room as Garcia works her magic.

“Not again.”

“What is it?”  JJ asks worriedly.

“Prepaid phone number, bought at a kiosk in Hawai’i.”

“It’s Reid’s stalker,” Prentiss mutters, closing her eyes.

“But it doesn’t sound like the first one, does it?  What did it say? ‘I wonder if he knows we’re watching’?”  

Lewis furrows her brows.  “The first one said ‘we’.  Could this be the second person’s work?”

“What’s happening?  Any developments in the case?”  Hotch asks as he enters.

“Reid has a second stalker,” JJ tells him.  “I just got a text.”  And so Hotch, too, sees the offending message that had rattled their day.

—

Mark waves to his coworkers as he leaves for the day,  a few days after the cafe celebration, before shoving his hands in his pockets and regretting not bringing an umbrella.  It had looked like it would be a clear day, but around noon, the weather had instantly grayed over and opened up into heavy rain.  But at least it’s a warm rain and not the usual cold, stinging rain of DC.  If he wasn’t bothered about his clothes soaking through and himself looking like a drowning cat, Mark might have even enjoyed the walk.

Twenty minutes feels endless.  Logically, he knows that he’s not spending any more time than normal on his walk home, but somehow, trudging through quickly-appearing puddles with wet Converse and soaked socks makes it feel so much longer.  That’s why Sam appearing halfway through his walk with a large umbrella to shield him makes Spencer smile.

“You could have called, I’d have met you at the library,” Sam tells him gently, pressing a kiss to Spencer’s wet forehead.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Spencer admits.  “I should have brought an umbrella.”

“It looked like another sunny day when you left,” Sam reminds him.

“I should have an umbrella in my office for days like these.”

“Now that’s an idea I can get behind.”

Spencer knows Sam is trying to change how he’s thinking about himself.  He’s not stupid for not bringing an umbrella.  He couldn’t have predicted that the weather would shift so drastically.  But having an umbrella in the office is a precaution in case it happens again. He’s adapting and preparing instead of punishing himself for past mistakes.

Sam holds his arm out for Spencer to take, and it makes him look up at him.  “You’re going to get wet too.”

“I don’t mind,” Sam assures him, and it’s not that Spencer doesn’t believe him, it’s that - well, wrapping his arm around Sam’s would press the already soaked shirt against his skin and Spencer isn’t sure he wants to deal with that right now.  So Spencer doesn’t take his arm, but he does take Sam’s hand, tangling his fingers with Sam’s large, calloused ones.

“Dean’s gonna shove you right into the shower when you get back,” Sam informs him with a chuckle.  “He’s not gonna let you do anything before you’re cleaned up and dried off.”

“‘This is why we should have brought Baby out here with us’,” Spencer imitates Dean, before having to stop himself with a laugh.  A laugh that Sam echoes easily.

“‘If we had Baby here, I could have picked you up from work’,” Sam parrots, interspersed with laughter.  

Spencer laughs and shakes his head, rainwater spraying across Sam’s chest.

“Thanks for coming to meet me,” he says gently.  “Even though I’m soaked, this is much more enjoyable than walking alone.”

“I would have met you at the library, but there was a hunter that wouldn’t stop asking questions.”

“A newbie?”

“No, that’s the thing, we’ve known this guy for years.  It’s a miracle he’s still alive.”  Sam’s tone is teasing, and Spencer finds himself laughing again.  

Spencer crosses the road and heads for the front door, having his hand on the handle when he realizes Sam stopped walking with him.  Turning around, he sees Sam pocket his phone and hurry across the road right after a car.

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing important,” Sam assures him with a kiss, lowering his umbrella and shaking it before taking it with him indoors.  

—

Rain is beautiful, when it pours over a man.  Perhaps, one day, I can pour myself over him again.

Tara Lewis eyes the text message she just received from a new number.  The number is familiar, however.  It’s the same number that had messaged JJ a few days before.

“Another message,” she announces, garnering the attention of several BAU members.  “Same number as JJ’s.”

“Is it the same format?”  JJ asks, making Lewis shake her head.

“No.  It’s… poetic.  But it’s the same number, so it should be the same sender.”

“Or we could be dealing with three stalkers,”  Morgan counters. 

“Why would two of them use the same number?”

“We could be dealing with a twofold unsub,” Hotch tells them.  “One with two distinct writing styles or sets of behavior.”

“The message you received was from a different number, right, Hotch?”  Prentiss asks. 

Hotch nods.  "We're looking at two stalkers."

"But what kind of stalkers are they?  Usually the goal would be to get to Reid.  Why are they contacting us?" JJ sighs.  "How do they even have our numbers?"

"They're probably highly advanced unsubs," Hotch agrees.  "Their goal isn't to scare Reid, but us.  Perhaps, in a twisted way, they think they're doing us a favor.  Keeping us updated on how Reid is at home over there."

“‘Perhaps one day, I can pour myself over him again’,” Lewis quotes.  “That implies he’s had previous contact with Spencer.”

“Nobody knows he was relocated to Hawai’i.”

“Except us, the Marshals that placed him there, and the Winchesters,”  Prentiss sighs.

“Which means that we and the Marshals are the only ones from before witsec that knows Reid is there,” Hotch presses.  “Has Reid been involved in anything while he has been in witsec?  Garcia, has Mark Porter reported anything to the police?”

Garcia shakes her head.  “Squeaky clean.  Nothing to suggest anything hinky.”

“So why does he have two new stalkers?”  JJ asks.  “Two stalkers who only care about us?”

—

They all get texts, eventually, over the next few weeks.  From the same two prepaid numbers.  And each number has a distinct writing style.

From the first number, Rossi receives a text in the mid-afternoon.

I wonder if Spencer Reid knows how beautiful he is in the shower.

From the second, Morgan gets a text while he’s sleeping.

01:23.  Snoring.

The second number texts Prentiss the following day.

In sleep is when true beauty manifests.  In soft, open snores, life breathes so solemnly.

JJ refuses to look at her phone the next time the first number texts her.  Morgan reads it for her.

Mark Porter had a quiet day at the library today.  I bet he was thinking about us.

Lewis gets a text in the middle of giving out a profile, and her heart is beating loudly in her chest as the team gathers around her to look at the new message.

Except it’s not a text.

It’s an image.  A picture of Reid.

Chapter Text

The picture is of a candid Reid walking alone.  The photographer was on the other side of the street, and the angle was low, suggesting a crouched position in the ditch, or perhaps behind some brush.  Reid didn’t appear to realize he was being watched in the photo, either.

Then there was the caption.

He’s got more muscle now.  I wonder if he misses the feeling of us around him.

It’s from the first number, nicknamed 241 for the last three numbers.

And the BAU doesn’t know what that means.  

It's been a month, and this is the first picture they've received.  So far it's been creepy, poetic or cryptic messages at irregular intervals.  The image means they're getting bolder, whoever they are. 

But it's a generic image, one that could have been taken anywhere.

It looks like Reid is talking to someone, smiling or even laughing.  But they're not in frame, it seems like Reid is lagging behind.  Strange, for an agent who used to take such long strides and always kept a good pace with his other agents.  Whoever he's walking with is probably taller, then.  

They postulate it's the elusive boyfriend that Rossi had never seen.  The one that had the uncanny ability to parrot Dean Winchester.  None of the library workers Rossi had encountered, the strange conglomeration of people that had so vehemently refused all his courtesies and offers to sign his own books on the library's shelves, were even close to tall enough to have Reid fall that far behind.

241 kept sending two sentences.  The first updated them on Reid, and the second was a creepy, usually sexually loaded remark about how Reid felt about the sender.  

025, the second sender, was erratic.  It deviated between the short, vague, cryptic timestamps and the longer, strangely ethereal poetry.  But they were obviously connected to 241, because when 025 had sent a message, there was nothing from 241.

Now, they're just waiting for what 025's next move will be.

But they're all anxious about what it means for their former coworker.

—

"You sat in a bush to take a picture of me?" Spencer asks Dean, laughing.

"I needed the right angle, okay?" Dean pouts.

"You've been sending them ominous texts ever since Rossi left.  From those second phones you seem to think I don't know about," Spencer tells them amusedly, looking between the two brothers.

"We're just showing them how it's done," Sam shrugs.  "The whole stalking thing."

"Good old author man might be a good writer, but he doesn't really got it in him to be a stalker," Dean agrees, his hands in his pockets.

"And you do?"  Spencer asks, raising an eyebrow.

"We're hunters," Sam reminds him.  "Not a lot of difference, when it comes down to it."

"You're much more likable than him."

"More fuckable too," Dean says, winking at him and startling a laugh out of Spencer.

"More fuckable?  Really?  That's your main selling points?  Better at stalking and more fuckable?"  

"Well, it's the truth, isn't it?" Sam teases.

"Of course it is, Sammy," Dean announces, patting his back.  "I'm the most fuckable guy around."

"I think, strictly speaking, I'm the most fuckable," Spencer interrupts, "you know, since I can take both of you at once." 

Sam stops, freezes, and then has to lean on the doorway as he tries not to laugh too hard.  "He's got a point," he gasps out between bursts of laughter.

"I'll show you how fuckable you are," Dean growls teasingly, walking Spencer back towards the kitchen island and caging him in.  Spencer grins and wraps his arms around Dean's neck, tugging him into a kiss.  It's rough, it's hungry, it's devouring.

"I know exactly how fuckable I am.  But… maybe you could show me, anyhow?"  Spencer asks as they pull apart, grinning at him.

"Sure, as long as you can handle waiting an extra half hour for dinner."

“I think I can live with that.”

—

An hour later, and Sam slips away from dinner onto the back porch before they’re done eating.  Spencer looks after him questioningly, but focuses on his food again.  And then Dean distracts him with a joke and Spencer laughs and smiles, food remaining on his fork halfway between his plate and his mouth.  Less than a minute later, Sam has returned, and Spencer notices the stealthy way he slides the burner phone into his pocket.

“Stalkers typically don’t leave an interaction to go take a stalker picture, only to return to the interaction they took a picture of,” Spencer comments, pointing his fork at Sam.

“Hey, we ought to keep up appearances.  I’ll send it in a few days, but you looked so peaceful, it was the perfect opportunity.”

Spencer smiles.

“You made sure I wasn’t in the picture, right?”  Dean asks.

“Of course I did,” Sam shakes his head.  “It’s too soon.”

“Too soon?”  Spencer prods.

“Well, these guys are eventually going to figure out who’s sending these texts, right?” 

“Not necessarily.  They have no concept of dolls or shapeshifters or monsters or gods, and so they will refuse to believe that you are still alive until they see real, pressing evidence.  They are most likely refusing to even entertain the idea that you two are the ones behind the messages.”

“Really?”

“Of course.  You’ve grown up with monsters and mortality as a different concept than they have.  To the BAU, monsters are child molesters and serial killers, and death is a one-and-done deal.  Even if I told them that you’d faked your death to cops before, they’re not going to believe that it could happen to them.   They most likely think they’re ‘better’ than to be fooled by such a scheme.”

“Why the fuck would you have two sets of stalkers?”  Dean blurts.

“That’s not for me to figure out,” Spencer tells him simply and continues to eat.  “But if we are going to let them in on the secrets of the world, I want to be in on the deal.”

“Yeah?” 

“Well, it’s not like I can let you guys have all the fun, now can I?”

Sam smiles and leans over, stealing a kiss from Spencer’s lips.  “Alright, then.  Should we get you a second phone as well?”

“No, I’ll initiate conversation with Garcia on my own phone.  Just to talk, at first.”

“Really, now?  It sounds like you’ve got something bigger planned than ‘just talking’,” Dean teases.

“I’ll need your help with some of it.  Some pictures that I need to take, stuff like that.  Opening up the channel of conversation with Garcia would open me up to contacting the rest of the team in the future,” Spencer explains.  “I just think it would be appropriate for me to take back some of my autonomy from the team.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“By telling them to fuck off.”

“Attaboy!”

—

Hey, Garcia.  At least, I hope you still have this number.  Kind of awkward if it’s not. -SR

Spencer?  -PG

Yeah.  -SR

How are you? -PG

Figured you knew how I was, considering Rossi bugged my house. -SR

I didn’t want to, I promise, I tried to tell them it wasn’t a good idea but they wouldn’t listen.  The team… they’re different.  -PG

Speaking of them, don’t tell them about this.  I don’t think I can take another surprise visit from them, or having them bombard my phone with messages begging me to come back. -SR

They’re out on a case.  Congrats on the boyfriend! -PG

Thanks, Pen.  -SR

What’s he like? -PG

He’s great.  He’s smart, and compassionate.  And Pen?  He’s super hot.  -SR

Well he’d had to be, to catch your attention ;) -PG

You should send a pic of you two -PG

He’s not the picture guy.  The only picture he is OK with is his ID. -SR

Really?  Usually super hot guys love taking pics of themselves ;P -PG

He’s not your typical super hot guy. -SR

So what’s his name? -PG

Spoilers. -SR

Cmon, Spencer, not even his name? -PG

You’re gonna look him up in your systems.  -SR

Of course I will!  Gotta know you’ve got yourself a catch. -PG

I’ll tell you later. -SR

Make that a promise! -PG

I promise. -SR

I’d just like to keep him to myself for a while longer. -SR

I get it. -PG

I’m sorry, BTW, for all the shit. -PG

Never realized how much you didn’t like the nicknames. -PG

You weren’t the only one. -SR

But thanks. -SR

TTYL, Spencer, bossman needs me. -PG

Talk to you later, Penelope. -SR

You sure I can’t tell them abt this? -PG

Yes. -SR

Okidoki.  You got it. -PG

—

Spencer’s looking at himself in the full-length mirror, his phone in hand, when Sam comes up behind him and places his hands on Spencer’s bare chest.

“Mm, what’s on your mind, Spence?”  Sam hums, leaning down and pressing a kiss to his shoulder.

“Thinking about the BAU,” Spencer admits quietly.  “What would they say if they could see me now?  Fraternizing with the enemy,” he jokes lightly, lifting his phone to take a picture of their reflection.

“Is that what you call falling in love and in bed with us?”  Sam teases, nosing up his neck.

“Hold that thought,” Spencer mutters, laying his left hand over Sam’s on his lower stomach and lifting his right, the one holding the phone, to right in front of Sam’s face so it’s hidden in the view of the phone camera.  He takes a few pictures.  “But yes, that’s exactly what I’ve done.”  He turns around in Sam’s arms and grins at him.  “Do you think Penelope would recognize you if I sent her one of those?”

“Depends, can you see my face?”  Sam hums, snatching the phone out of Spencer’s hand and thumbing through the pictures.  “Well, my face isn’t visible, so we should be fine.”

“She is so excited about you, by the way.”

“Why do you say me?  Dean’s just as much your boyfriend as I am.”

“Well, I haven’t exactly told them I have two boyfriends.  There are just too many two’s in my life.  Two stalkers who kidnapped me and kept me for a week.  Two new stalkers who have found me in Hawai'i.  And also two boyfriends?”

“Why’d you pick me over Dean?  I’m the more recognizable one, out of the two of us.”

“Because you’re the type of man they would expect.”

“And I’m not?”  Dean asks teasingly, cocking an eyebrow from the doorway.

“They would expect a man they would be able to identify as ‘queer’,” Spencer explains awkwardly.  “You look too much like a regular straight man.  And they might hail themselves as progressive, but they’re firmly stuck in their old-fashioned ways.”

“Huh.  So what you’re saying is that I look less gay than Sammy?”  Dean teases.

“Sadly, with the way our society is built, that’s what they’ll think, if they saw both of you and had no biases towards who you were.  If only because Sam’s hair is longer and he doesn’t have your scruff.  You’ve got more of the traditionally heteronormative handsomeness.  And… I don’t think they’ve fully understood that I am gay.  Well, demisexual leaning towards men.”

“For profilers, they seem to be really bad at knowing when they’re hurting the people close to them,” Sam comments.

“No kidding.  When your agent would rather hang out with two delusional serial killers, you gotta realize you’re doing something wrong,” Dean jokes.

“Except you’re neither of those things,” Spencer corrects, showing Dean the picture he’d picked out.  “What do you think?”

“I think you should send that to me first, Spence,” Dean says with a wink, grabbing the phone out of his hands.  “Didn’t know you were such a good photographer.”

“I’m not-”

“Want me to send it to your old boss?”

“No!”  Spencer blurts, lunging for his phone and grabbing it off of Dean.

“You know if you sent it to Hotchner, he’d find out it’s us.  That we’re the people stalking Spence,” Sam reasons.

“C’mon, wouldn’t it be fun?”  Dean teases.

“I should never have told you I used to have a crush on him,” Spencer mutters with a pout, holding his phone close to his chest and moving to sit on the edge of the bed.

“How do you think he’d react if he knew about it?”

“He’d flay me.  A crush on my direct superior?  Blasphemy.”  Spencer chuckles self-deprecatingly.  "What do you say to the man you kicked in the stomach in front of an unsub with Hero Syndrome when you discover he found out he had a pain kink from that experience?"

Sam laughs gently and sits down next to him.  "That's how you found out?"

"It was an instigator, yeah."

"He kicked you in the stomach?"

"Hotch wears an ankle holster.  The unsub had him give up his first gun."

"And yours?"  Dean asks.

"I'd failed my certification, so I wasn't allowed to carry," Spencer explains.  "Morgan gave me a whistle to blow in case of emergency."

"Real dick move," Dean mutters.  "A rape whistle?  Really?"

"Wait, so he kicked you repeatedly while you were on the floor to make you grab the gun from his ankle holster?" Sam clarifies.

"Yes.  He kicked me and belittled me in front of the unsub," Spencer sighs.  "Figured out quite quickly in that moment that I could do pain but not humiliation."

“That was pretty early in your career, wasn’t it?”

Spencer nods.  “Yeah.  You know, that might be when they all got it cemented in their heads that I was some sort of kid who needed to be protected.  I wasn’t allowed to carry, what kind of federal agent was I trying to be?”  He asks bitterly.

“Did you get the shot when it mattered?”  Dean asks.

“Right in the forehead,” Spencer confirms simply.

“That’s my boy!”  Dean grins, chuckling.  Spencer smiles and turns his phone around, fiddling with the unlock screen before shaking his head and placing it on the nightstand.

“Not gonna send the picture we took?”  Sam asks.

“She’ll be asleep.  I’ll send it tomorrow,” Spencer tells him, laying out on the bed.  “Or in a few days.  We’ll see.  She called me Spencer in the texts.  Seems like Rossi might’ve been an outlier.  Maybe the rest of the team got it.”

“You gonna reach out and find out?”  

“Eventually.”

Chapter Text

“It’s not that I don’t love you, babygirl, but I really need to get out of this office and back onto the field,” Morgan tells Garcia.  

“You only have one more week with the cast, right?”

“Yep.  But then I gotta start training the leg back up.  I swear, if Sam Winchester wasn’t dead, I would’ve killed him for destroying my knee.”

“You’re not gonna be door-kicker Derek anymore,” Garcia teases warmly, and Morgan groans.

“Don’t even joke about that, Garcia.  Hey, d’you think Reid’s” “Spencer’s” “ever gonna come back?”

“I don’t know.  He seemed pretty sure when he said no to Rossi.”

“He’s got stalkers out there too.  If he was back here, at least we coulda kept an eye on him.”

“I’m sure Spencer can handle himself,” Garcia tells him, before being distracted by the sound of a steel guitar coming from her phone.

“What kind of alert is that, sugar?”  Morgan asks, frowning.

“It’s for-”  Garcia stops herself as she opens the message, gasping.  “Oh, boy, oh boy, Spencer!  Look at you!”  She coos, and Morgan leans over her shoulder, letting out a long whistle.

Reid’s shirtless, and there’s a guy wrapped around his back with his mouth attached to Reid’s neck.  The guy’s face is hidden by the phone, but he looks strong.  Tall.  And he’s got long hair, and in the lighting, Morgan swears he looks a lot like-

“Isn’t that Sam Winchester?”  He asks angrily.

“What?  Morgan, don’t be stupid.  The Winchesters are dead.  And after everything they put Spencer through, why would he do this?  Look at the caption.”

Morgan squints and looks at the message serving as the caption.

He finally agreed to a picture, as long as his face was hidden.  But I got a good one, Penelope.  A real good one. -SR

“He’s been texting you?”  Morgan blurts.

“Yes, he has,” Garcia tells him, putting her phone down and crossing her arms.

“So why hasn’t he reached out to the rest of us?”

“Morgan, I love you, but he spent a year out there, no contact.  He’s just trying to ease into it again.  Rossi overwhelmed him.  Like, a lot.  There was a lot going on already, and Rossi showing up at his door probably didn’t help Spencer.  Maybe he’s scared of making contact.”

“Why would Reid” “Spencer” “be scared of us?  We’ve been his friends for a decade.  I was his best friend,” Morgan argues.

“If you’re Spencer’s best friend, why is it so hard for you to call him Spencer?  He was very explicit with Rossi with that boundary, that he didn’t want to be called Reid.  That that wasn’t him anymore.”

“But that’s his name-”

“He’s lived under a fake name for over a year.  Nobody’s called him Reid for that long.  He’s probably used to his fake name by now.  He’s gotta be.”

“But why wouldn’t us calling him Reid be refreshing?  Someone knowing who he really is?”

“Do we really know who he is?”  Garcia counters, making Morgan frown.

“What do you mean by that?”

“We didn’t know he was into guys.  He kept almost the entire week he was with the Winchesters a secret, only feeding us bits and pieces of what we wanted to hear.  He never told us that they kept coming back for him.  What else could he be hiding from us?”

“That’s just how he is,” Morgan dismisses.  “He doesn’t talk much about himself.”

“What if that’s just because you made fun of him for the things he liked?  How many times did you dismiss him as he was talking about something that interested him?  How many times did we all do that?”

“We had cases-”

“Now you’re just being dense on purpose,” Garcia huffs.  “You know I’m talking about between cases.”

“So it’s my fault I’m not interested in his Star Wars or Star Trek babble?”

“You think he was interested in hearing about the fifth brunette of the month you went out with?”  Garcia bites back.  

"That's different!"

"Oh, really?  How is it different, Derek Morgan?  Why should he have to listen to you talk about this girl's tits or that girl's drinking habits if you won't listen to him talking about the Doctor Who episodes I watched with him?"

"Because I'm talking about the human experience, Garcia.  He's talking about science fiction and that's just not my jam, you know that.  That's the difference."

Garcia pushes away from her desk and stands up, pointing her finger at him.  "That's your experience.  That's not Spencer's experience.  Why does he have to listen to your escapades just because you judge them to be 'the human experience'?  You know that he never went home with any of those ladies you shoved his way.  So your sex life isn't his experience." She stabs her fingertip against the middle of his chest.  "Get out of my office.  Spencer sent me a picture of himself and his boyfriend, and he's happy and I'm going to congratulate him on it."

—

Wow, he's a big guy.  Nice catch.  -PG

Yeah.  First time he came to the library, I had to look up, and then up again, and then up again to see his face. -SR

Love at first sight? -PG

No, he had to spend a month coming to the library before I’d go out with him. -SR

That’s way too sappy.  -PG

I'm jealous.  How tall is he?  -PG

6'4.  -SR

Hot damn.  Does he have a brother?  -PG

As a matter of fact, he does.  -SR

He's taken.  -SR

Boooooo.  -PG

So no chance?  -PG

Nah, the husband isn't going anywhere anytime soon.  -SR

Shame.  -PG

—

"You told her I have a husband?" Dean asks incredulously. 

"Yes!  It's not like she knows who you are," Spencer argues.  “I figured the more secure you sounded in your relationship, the less likely she is to try to get me to hook you up with her.”

“You could have said I didn’t have a brother,” Sam suggests plainly, not bothering to hide his amusement.  

“I could have,” Spencer concedes.  “But I wanted to see if I could still banter with her.”

“Like the old days,” Dean nods.  “You wanted to know if you could reconnect without all the bullshit.”

“Could you?”  Sam asks.

Spencer nods, smiling down at his phone.  “Yeah.  Yeah, we could.”

“Do you want to go see her?  The mainland’s just a snap away.”

“Not yet.  If I’m snapping there, she needs to know the truth.  I can’t just show up at her door, no matter how much I want to.”

“Husband,” Dean mutters to himself, shaking his head.  “What, d’you expect me to propose, is that it?  Not like we can exactly go legal.  What Sammy and I are doing isn’t exactly kosher.”

“Not to mention we’re legally dead,” Sam adds.

“I wasn’t trying to insinuate marriage, I know how impossible that is,” Spencer chuckles.  “I promise.  I like us just the way we are.”

“Even with your cat ears?”  Dean teases fondly.

“Especially with my cat ears,” Spencer tells him, said ears now perking up on top of his head.  “I never thought the ruler of Heaven would be, ironically, down to earth enough to do something like this.”

“Yeah, he’s all over the place, but you gotta love him.”

“He made me relive the same day 100 times, I have to admit I’m a little more ambivalent,” Sam says dryly, even as he reaches up and scratches behind Spencer’s ear, drawing a teasing little purr out of him.

"Without Gabriel, you wouldn't be here with me right now," Spencer reminds him gently.

"Without Gabe, you'd still be in the FBI," Dean counters.  "No kidnapping a fed, no streams, no late night kisses."

"No cuddles, no mind-blowing sex, no love," Spencer sighs, leaning against Sam and letting his eyes slide shut.  "No you.   No us."

Sam kisses his forehead.  "I see your point," he hums and reaches around him, lifting Spencer to sit in his lap.  "How do you think Penelope will react if she sees these?"  He asks, thumbing across his ear.

"Mm…" Spencer purrs, leaning into the touch.  "If she doesn't know about monsters yet, she's going to wonder if they're props."

"Very lifelike props," Dean muses dryly, grinning as he shuffles closer to them.

 "If she knows, she's going to call me a cat.  She might, anyways."

Sam smiles and holds him as Spencer snuggles against his chest, resting his head against Sam's shoulder.  "You are a cat," he teases fondly, scratching his ears and luring more purring out of Spencer.

"Our little kitten," Dean agrees, reaching out and cupping Spencer's chin.

"Yours," Spencer mumbles contently, leaning into the touches.  "And I wouldn't want to be anywhere but here.  With you."

"This is home," Sam hums.  "Just us, and just this house."

"Home.   Never thought I'd find somewhere like this."

"Dean has always been home to me," Sam explains.  "Then we found the bunker and we settled there.  But now? I don't miss it.  I've got you and Dean right here.  Home."

"And we won't let anyone uproot it," Dean promises.

Spencer hopes it's a promise he can keep.

—

“Did you guys know Reid was texting Garcia?”  Morgan asks, leaning on his now one crutch.

“Why does that surprise you?  They were always close, and she’s the one that’s the most disconnected from the mess with the bug,” JJ explains.

“Has he reached out to any of you?”

They all shake their heads.

“He sent Garcia a shirtless picture of him and the boyfriend.  A shirtless selfie,” Morgan reiterates.  

“What’s the boyfriend look like?”  Prentiss asks.

“Reid was hiding his face, but he’s white.  Tall, probably a few inches taller than Reid.  His arms were scarred, so he probably does physical labor.  His hair is long, like the same length Sam Winchester had.  I don’t know, he looked a lot like Sam Winchester to me.”

“Perhaps Spencer’s trauma manifested in a form of Stockholm Syndrome where he’s now drawn towards people with similar characteristics to his captors,” Lewis suggests.  “We’ve already seen that his sexual trauma has manifested in having his boyfriend pretend to be his other captor.  Perhaps he chose this boyfriend for Sam’s looks and Dean’s demeanor?”

“There’s a lot we don’t know about the boyfriend,” JJ interjects.  “I don’t think we should jump to any conclusions about Reid’s boyfriend.  There’s obviously a lot to the relationship that we’re not privy to.”

“Doesn’t it bother you guys, that he didn’t reach out to anyone else?”  Morgan asks, sitting down at the table.

“He’s cautious, I don’t blame him,” Prentiss shrugs.  “Rossi probably didn’t help.”

“We got another picture,” Hotch announces as he walks in.  “I just received a message from 025.”

Garcia follows closely and taps on her tablet, blowing the picture up onto the screen.  “The caption is ‘Peace is a rarity in the busy life of an agent.  It’s a shame it never lasts, even for a librarian’ .”

The picture is of Reid, taken through the kitchen window.  Reid is sitting at the kitchen island, smiling with his fork loosely gripped in his right hand.  They can see a set of tableware for another person, but whoever they are, they’re not in frame.

“Eating dinner with the boyfriend, and 025 is taking pictures of them.  That’s bold,” Rossi comments as he sits down.

“They know where he works,” JJ comments, playing with her pen.

“Of course they do, they’ve been stalking him for over a month,” Morgan argues.  “But doesn’t Reid know he’s being watched?”

Garcia’s phone chirps with the steel-guitar sound, and she scrambles for it, quickly unlocking the device.

“I know they’re watching me.  They’ve watched me for months.  -SR,” she reads out loud with a trembling voice, quickly tapping at her phone.

“But the picture isn’t new, it’s barely 9 AM in Hawai’i and that’s dinner,” Prentiss comments.

“Does Reid somehow know that 025 sent that picture?”  Rossi ponders.

“Spencer isn’t working today,” Garcia tells them.  “He’s got the day off, maybe he went outside and caught a glimpse of one of them before they scuttered away?”

Hotch shakes his head.  “The boyfriend is facing the camera.  They’re bold.  If they knew they’d been caught in the act, they wouldn’t run away.  They would take him and prove it to us.”

“The boyfriend is deliberately out of frame,” JJ adds.

“Spencer is the focus, the boyfriend isn’t important.  It’s likely they keep this material as some kind of personal portfolio of him,” Lewis continues.  “They send the pictures to us, not in the moment they’re taken, but when they want us to know about it.”

“But some of the texts from 025 were timestamped accurately in the Hawai’i timezone,” Prentiss sighs.  “The first one was sent at 3:35 PM DC time, and timestamped 10:35 AM.  That was written in the moment.  Why are the pictures different?”

“They use the photos.  We get them once they’re not enough.  We should expect an escalation in the invasion of privacy,”  Hotch announces.

—

“You want to take a picture of me doing what, exactly?”   Spencer asks for clarification.

“Jerking off,” Dean says plainly.  “However you wanna do it, that’s up to you.  I’m gonna be outside, taking a picture through the window, and then I’ll send it to Rossi later.”

“You’re gonna send him pornography.”

“He’s already heard you get fucked,” Dean shrugs.

“Hearing it over a bug is different from receiving it in picture form,” Spencer argues.  “And I’m pretty sure you’d be committing a crime?  You’re a stalker, you’re not going to ask for my consent to send off pornography off my body.”

“Is it still a crime if I’m legally dead?”  Dean asks.

“In the United States, dead men cannot be charged with a crime,” Sam supplies helpfully.  “There is no one to punish, so there is no point in charging a dead man with a crime.  The US is a nation that relies on its prison population to do work, so why would they waste their valuable police and judge time and resources by charging someone who can’t work off their sentence?”

“Are you sure you’re not going back to school to be a lawyer?”  Spencer asks.

“Why?  I’m a dead man.  Dead men can’t change laws.  And we would have to change a lot of laws for the US to stop relying on its prison population for labor.  Abolishing private prisons would help, but there are too many hands in too many pockets for that to work as it stands.”

“It’s the death or permanent injury of workers that have created labor laws and instances like OSHA,” Spencer tells him.  “Laws are reactive, not proactive.”

“I shot myself in the head in front of the FBI.  I don’t think I’m gonna be changing any labor laws,” Sam says dryly, making Dean laugh.

“Sammy’s got a point.”

“It doesn’t have to be right now, right?”  Spencer asks, furrowing his brows and bringing the subject back to the start.

“Nope.  Should probably be at night, easier for me to clamber around on the outside of your home.”

“Our bedroom’s on the second floor,” Spencer reminds him.

“There’s a tree in the yard.  Should hold me,” Dean shrugs.

“Should?”   Spencer asks, cocking a skeptical eyebrow.

“C’mon, it’s only the third picture we’re sending them.  We can’t be in the house yet.”

“If me jerking off is the third picture, how do you plan on escalating that?”  

“Dunno yet.  What do you think, Sammy?”

“Privacy isn’t necessarily sexual,” Sam hums.  “My number would take a picture from the doorway to the bedroom while you’re sleeping.”

“But it would mean more if you managed to sneak in and take the picture while I was sleeping next to someone,” Spencer says.

“So I should take the picture while Sammy’s snuggled up to you,” Dean announces.  “We’ve got his shape on camera already, so he should be the cuddler.  Easy.”

“Just make sure my face isn’t in frame,” Sam reminds him, looking up from the book he’s been reading on the couch.  Spencer’s got Sam’s feet in his lap, and Dean’s in his chair with his laptop on his knees.

“I’m nothing if not careful,” Dean promises, making a dual scoff erupt from the two men on the couch.  

“Oh, really, now?”  Sam teases.  “Maybe you could start prepping dinner for us, then.  It’s movie night, remember?  Lisa and Danny are gonna come over.”

“Alright, alright, smartypants,” Dean mutters, rolling his eyes and clapping his laptop shut.

Chapter Text

Penelope paces her office.  Back and forth.  Back and forth.  Spencer, her Spencer, has two stalkers that are getting closer and closer to him.  And there’s nothing she can do.  She’s too far away.

She wants to see him again, but she knew how it had gone when Rossi had gone out there.  Would Spencer even welcome her?  Would he want her there?

Only one way to find out.

How do you feel about me coming to see you? -PG

Actually, I’d like to come see you first.  Don’t tell them I’ve been thinking about it.  Just you.  -SR

Morgan was in my office when you sent the hot pic.  -PG

Damnit.  -SR

Are you alone now at least?  -SR

Morgan’s getting the cast off, he’s not in today.  The rest of the team are casing away like normal.  -PG

Got an idea of when you’ll be coming?  -PG

Not yet.  Probably a few weeks out, at least.  -SR

Penelope, do you believe in monsters? -SR

Penelope stares at her phone for a moment before calling him.

“Spencer, dear, what do you mean do I believe in monsters?”

“Penelope,” Spencer whispers, as if it’s been a lifetime since he heard her voice.  “It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“I miss you, Spencer.  But I know why you’re not coming back.  You’re happy out there, aren’t you?” 

“I am.  Yeah.  I’m happy here.  I’m asking if you believe in monsters, Penelope.  Vampires, werewolves, sirens, anything.”

Does she believe in fairytales?  Penelope supposes she doesn’t.

“I mean, I hope they’re not real, you know?  Would kind of suck if all those fairytales were just walking around.  But you never hear about them, so I guess not?”

Spencer chuckles, a gentle sound that Penelope had missed so dearly.  But she doesn’t tell him she missed that about him.  She’s not going to try to guilt him into coming back.  He’s been clear on that.

“You know, that’s the answer I expected from you, Penelope.”

“You’re being very cryptic here, Spencer.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I’ll explain later, okay?  I just need to sort out some things first.  Do you know how long the team will be away?”

“Well, they left this morning, but with the pattern, they have three days to capture the guy before they find another victim.”

“Will you let me know when Morgan’s cleared to go with them?”

“You really don’t want to see them, huh?”  Penelope asks, sighing in understanding.

“There are just things I’m not ready to talk to them about.  That I probably won’t ever be ready to talk about with them.  And… I think they’ll just have to accept that.”

“Spencer… the team… they’ve been getting messages, and- and now there are pictures.”

“I know.”

“You know?  But why aren’t you doing anything about it?”

“Mark Porter doesn’t have a license to concealed carry,” Spencer explains, as if that solves anything.  “Police can’t do anything until I’ve been assaulted, and even then, they might not get anything.  But it’s nothing I can’t handle, Penelope, I promise.  I’ve been through worse,” he reminds her with that dry humor of his.

“I know- I know you have, Spencer, but aren’t you worried about them?”

“Of course I’m worried, but I’m not going to let myself be paralyzed by fear anymore.  If I show them I’m not afraid, they’ll lose interest, right?  They feed on fear.”

“Spencer…”

“Oh, I better go.  I have the late shift tonight, I still haven’t showered.  Talk to you later, Penelope.  And- anything in this call is not to be shared with the BAU, right?”

“... Right.  See you later, Spencer,” Penelope says quietly before the line goes dead.  Her first conversation in over a year with Spencer, and she’s left more confused than she was before she called.

Why had Spencer asked her that question?  The very question that had been so vital in the delusion of the Winchesters?

—

“You asked your former coworker if she believes in ghosts?”  Lisa asks Mark the next day, grinning as they lean on the help desk and look at him.

“I need to know where she stands if I’m going to tell her who my boyfriends are,” Mark reasons.  "If she already believes, it'll be easier to tell her the truth.  She'll be more open to it.  If she's a true skeptic, I'll have to pull out some bigger truths before showing her my boys."

Lisa chuckles, shaking her head.  "Alright, you're the pro."

"I am, in fact, the pro," Mark teases, grinning at her.  

"So what's she like, this former coworker of yours?"

"Her name is Penelope, she's the technical analyst.  She's the one that does all the digital stuff, digging through databases and finding records.  We went to a con together, years ago.  I had knitted the fourth doctor's scarf myself," he tells her proudly.

"You kept that tidbit to yourself, I didn't know you could knit," Lisa teases.

"I haven't done it in years, but, like most things, it's mostly math.  And… it wasn't exactly the most advanced knitting."

"Most guys barely even know the word knitting.  Have you been knitting while you've been here?"

Mark shakes his head.  "I haven't been knitting since before I met my boys." 

"Why not?  Too busy having hot, steamy sex?" Lisa jokes, and Mark chuckles as his cheeks flush.

"I didn't get to bring my knitting needles on the plane," he defends.  "Didn't want to risk sharp objects on the flight."

"I'm surprised they let you on the plane with that wit of yours," she says dryly.  "Do you have any plan for the afternoon?  We could head down to the craft store.  Have you ever crocheted?"

Mark shakes his head.

"Crocheting is easier.  You only need a hook, instead of a dozen needles.  I'll teach you."

"L, you don't have-"

"Yes I do," they tell him.  "We're gonna sit out in your backyard with our cups of tea and our crochet hooks and our balls of yarn and gossip like little old ladies."

"Except neither of us are old or ladies," Mark notes dryly, grinning at her.

Lisa laughs.  "Yeah, you got me there.  C'mon, Markiplier, it'll be fun."

"Alright, alright, you've got me convinced.  Lounging in the sun, doing crafts and drinking tea."

—

The rain always seems to come at the least opportune times.  Lisa and Mark had to run into the mom&pop craft store to avoid the sudden downpour, and they laugh among themselves as they walk between the tall, narrow displays of crafting equipment.  Lisa drags him over to the intimidating wall of yarn.

“Your favorite color is purple, yeah?”  And she doesn’t wait for an answer before she’s pulling out several different purple skeins of yarn, placing them in his hands.  “What are Sam and Dean’s favorites?”

“Lisa, I don’t think-”

“What are their favorite colors?  Sam wears a lot of red,” Lisa trucks on, as if they know already and are just making polite conversation with Mark.

“Dean’s more into the darker colors,” Mark notes.  “We’ve got this car on the mainland, she’s a 1967 Chevrolet Impala, he loves her shiny black coat of paint.  But I don’t think that’s his favorite color.”

“If I asked him, I bet I’d get something real sappy, like ‘the color of his eyes’ or something,,” Lisa comments, standing on her toes to reach for the red skein she’s got her eyes on.  Mark adjusts his grip on the purples and moves up behind them, reaching up and grabbing a skein from the shelf they’re reaching for.  “Damn you for being tall,” she mutters teasingly, shaking her head.

“If you worked in the children’s section, at least you wouldn’t have to worry about not reaching the top shelf,” Mark banters easily as he steps back, grinning as Lisa turns around to glare at him.  Their hands are on their hips in a defiant stance.

“I am not short, you and your boys are just mega tall,” they pout.

Mark laughs and shakes his head.  “I’ll be needing more than just yarn for crocheting,” he comments, and Lisa perks up, bounces on their feet as they push past him towards the register.  But she stops and squints at the differently sized hooks.  And Mark hadn’t known there were that many different sizes for the crochet hooks, from the miniscule to the ridiculously large.  Luckily, Lisa seems to pick out one in the medium range for him before herding him towards the cashier.

“Unlucky with the weather, children,” the older woman at the register greets them.

“Well, it’s nothing we can’t handle, māmā,” Lisa assures her, and Mark notes that they are using the Hawai’ian word, not the English one, from their inflection.  But knowing Lisa and their irregular life, they’re probably familiar with the owners of the store.  “This is Mark, you remember I told you about him?  How he came to the library out of nowhere and settled in like nobody’s business?  Yeah, I’m gonna teach him how to crochet.”

“You ought to teach him to bring an umbrella, kama,” the woman chides playfully as she rings up the skeins of cotton yarn and the hook.  Mark pulls out his card and pays for the items as Lisa stuffs them into a plastic bag.

“You know how fast the weather shifts out here, māmā,” Lisa hums.  “Mark’s been an inland boy all his life, he’s not used to the ocean’s whims and tells.  He grew up in Las Vegas, you know.  Desert all around him.”

“He should be a faster learner, then, to learn the tells of the water,” she comments, and Mark laughs gently as he puts away his wallet.

“I’ve never paid much attention to the weather, before coming out here,” he explains.  “I would go everywhere by car or plane, and as long as it wasn’t storming, it wasn’t a problem.  But I should be accustomed to the playful nature of the weather out here.”

The old woman looks at him over the rim of her glasses.  “Yes you should, kama.”

“Looks like the downpour has mostly passed,” Lisa muses.  “We should get going.  Thanks for the help, māmā.”

“Aloha, Lisa.”

“Aloha!”  She chirps and grabs Mark’s arm, pulling him out of the store and into the afternoon.  Drawing in a deep breath, Mark takes in the scent of rained-on asphalt and the petrichor of the surrounding greenery.  It never ceased to amaze him how green and lush Manoa is.  The Manoa valley is lush with vegetation, and even though Mark doesn’t live in Manoa itself, working in the public library there has taught him so much about plantlife.  The University there also has his chosen area of study, and it’s been a joy to be able to trek through the valley on his way to and from work and school.

But the valley is so plentiful because it rains.  And Mark usually is lucky enough to escape the rain by being in the library or at home, but it catches him unaware on the most inopportune moments.  The crafts store lady is right.  He should learn to bring an umbrella.

“You’ve lived in Manoa your entire life, right, Lisa?”

Lisa nods, smiling. 

“How come you also never bring an umbrella with you?”

“I’m better than the rain,” they claim, straightening their back and lifting their head.

“Yet you were the one who pulled me into the crafts store when we got caught in it,” Mark notes.

“That’s because I know you’re less waterproof than I am,” she tells him plainly.  “You look like a drowned cat when you get wet.  Me?  I look like a siren, or a mermaid.”

“Are you sure you aren’t a mermaid?”  Mark asks teasingly.

“Are mermaids real?”

“Of course they are.  Sirens too, except… they’re not really the ‘ethereal beauty sitting on rocks against a cliffside in the ocean’ type.”

“Oh, really?  Greek mythology lied to me, then.”

“Not necessarily.  It’s been several thousand years since the Greek myths took place,” Mark explains.  “Monsters evolve very differently than humans to adapt to new circumstances.  When sailors stopped going out those ways for the Golden Fleece or to kill cyclops, sirens stopped hanging out on rocky cliffs to lure sailors to their deaths.  They got on land and started being shapeshifters who took the form of your greatest desire to lure you to your death.”

“You see, Mark?  That’s why I love you,” Lisa tells him.  “I don’t think anyone else I could have asked would have given me an actual, real reason.”

“Sam would,” Mark teases.  “He’s the one that told me about his and Dean’s encounter with a siren.”

“You see, you three are so strangely normal that I forget your boys are literally characters in a shitty fantasy book series.”

Mark chuckles and nods.  “I don’t think about it much either.  But I don’t think ‘normal’ can describe any of us.”

Lisa huffs and rolls their eyes.  “Yeah, alright, fine.  You’re so strangely cool and awesome and weird that it’s hard to believe that I know your two boyfriends from a series of shitty fantasy books.  I should reread them.”

“You say that about every book we talk about,” Mark notes.

“And?  The world is my oyster and I will read any book I please, Markbert Ronald Porter.”

Mark grins and crosses the street in front of his home, their home.  Home.   “C’mon, let’s get inside before God drops another bathtub on us.”

“I’ll hold you to your promise of tea and gossip!”

—

Three days later, Rossi wakes up to a text message blinking on his phone.  From 241.  Great , he thinks to himself sarcastically as he unlocks the device and opens the message.  The image is blurry as he squints to look at the caption first.

He’s calling my name.  I can hear him, even from out here.

Blearily, Rossi taps the picture to enlarge it as he sits up, resting his elbows on his knees as it loads in.  He has to blink several times to come to terms with what he’s actually seeing.

It’s Reid.  That much was obvious before he even opened the image.  The image is dark, and taken through a window.  Half of the picture is obscured by a curtain, but the other half is lit up by a bedside lamp.

Reid is naked.  The picture is taken from the side, revealing his arched back and his bent knees.  But there’s… something, under his ass, and Rossi is pretty sure he’s watching Reid jerk off.  Fucking something into himself.  And apparently, calling someone’s name.

Rossi locks his screen and puts the phone down before placing both palms against his eyes, trying to get the image of his former friend masturbating out of his head.

My name.   Reid is calling his stalker’s name.   Why?  He’s said that he was conditioned into needing the Winchesters, Dean specifically, to get off.  But the Winchesters are dead.

Reid said they’d faked their deaths before.  Even in front of cops.

But how the hell do you fake bullets to the head?  Both Sam and Dean died that night, in the abandoned building.

A copycat.  It's got to be a copycat.  It has got to be.  There is no other possibility.  Death is death is death.  There is no way around that.

Chapter Text

Morgan went with the team today.  -PG

Already?  -SR

Officially he's not cleared but it's an emergency.  -PG

So big you won't have time for me?  -SR

I'm sure I can spare some time for my favorite librarian.  -PG

Are you at the office or home? -SR

Home.  -PG

Why?  -PG

What sort of shenanigans are you up to, Spencer? -PG

Check the door.  -SR

—

“Check the door.  What, is he going to just appear here like he’s the Doctor and he’s got his own TARDIS?”  Penelope mumbles to herself as she stumbles off the couch, almost tripping herself in the blanket she’d had over her legs.  But before she can reach the door, the doorbell rings.

“No way.”

Penelope opens the door, and there he is.  Spencer Reid.  Mark Porter, librarian.  Spencer.

“How a-”

“I’ll explain everything, Penelope, I promise.  Just… Don’t tell the team.  You cannot tell them.”

“Tell them wha-”  she cuts herself off as two figures appear behind Spencer.  Two dead men.  Two dead men with their hands on Spencer’s shoulders and gentle smiles on their faces. 

“Penelope, this is Sam, my boyfriend.  And Dean, my other boyfriend.”

“Spencer, are you-”

“Let’s get out of the hall,” Sam, Sam Winchester, urges, and Penelope, dumbfounded, finds herself unable to refuse.  She steps to the side, and Spencer walks in with a smile.  He stops in front of her and pulls her into a hug, and it feels like forever since she last got to touch him.  Perhaps it has.  But she hugs back, wraps her arms around his frame.  It’s familiar, but strange at the same time.  Spencer’s more muscular, he seems fitter, and he has more energy.

And that’s how Penelope finds herself with two dead men and their boyfriend in her living room, on her couch.  Penelope sits closest to the door, ready to run away if it comes down to it.

“Okay, so, first things first.  You’re not dead, you’re supposed to be very dead,” Penelope says, pointing to Sam and Dean.

“Yes,” Dean agrees, and they’re not even refuting her claims.  They recognize that the two of them are supposed to be dead.  So what are they doing in her home?

“How are you here?  Am I hallucinating all three of you in my abject horror at how poorly I’ve treated Spencer as a friend for as long as we’ve known each other?”

“I’m not a hallucination,” Spencer assures her.  “And neither are they.”

“Spencer, it’s not that I’m not thrilled to see you, believe me, I am, I really am, but - how did you get here?”

“You remember how I asked you if you believed in monsters, ghosts, that stuff?”

Penelope nods slowly.  “Yes…”

“It’s the truth,” Sam says plainly.  “They’re real.  Dean and I were never delusional serial killers.  We’re hunters, we’re out there chasing all the monsters that are out there killing people.  Just like your BAU does.  Just like Spencer used to do.  Except our monsters aren’t human.”

“But- but the streams, the threats, the bruises- Spencer,”   Penelope says exasperatedly.  

“All for show.  It was supposed to be easier that way, to make them believe that we were crazy,” Dean explains.  “Didn’t expect to get a lover out of it,” he teases, wrapping his arm around Spencer’s shoulders and pulling him against himself.  And Penelope watches as Spencer smiles and leans into it.  Her touch-averse Spencer cuddling and snuggling with a wanted man.

“So this is-”

“Consensual, yes.  I wasn’t coerced, or lured,” Spencer assures her.  “Perhaps I was shaped by the circumstances, but I chose this.  This wasn’t chosen for me.”

“We’re not the type,” Dean dismisses.

“Not the ty- we believed Spencer was being tortured, kidnapped, stalked.  The bruises?”

“Some were from having sex,” Spencer confirms and Penelope thinks she’s going to faint.  “But most of the ones I had when I returned to the team were from a fistfight Dean and I had.  I was… going through a lot of emotional turmoil at the time and was frustrated.”

“I won,” Dean announces.  “I won the fight.”

“I knocked you off your feet,” Spencer reminds him, grinning proudly.

“And Spencer wasn’t exactly in fit fighting form,” Sam comments dryly from the sideline.  “We’ve got a lifetime of fighting experience on him.  I would have been more concerned if you lost.”

Banter.   Penelope is sitting here, watching Spencer banter with two dead serial killers, who he calls his boyfriends.  Her Spencer was not only into men, but also polyamorous.  How had she never known this about one of her best friends?

“I got what I needed out of it,” Spencer shrugs, crossing his arms.  “I needed the team to see bruises, and that’s what I got.”

“You needed - Spencer, do you know how worried we were about you?”  Penelope blurts.

“I know.  I know, Penelope, that’s all I was thinking about when I was there,” Spencer sighs regretfully.  “How you were worried about me.  But from the moment they grabbed me, there was no way for you to find me.”

“We’d already been zapped to Kansas by the time you guys got your wits about you,” Dean tells her.

“Kansas?  So that is where your home base is.   I was right.  Why couldn’t I trace you?  What type of program did you use?”

“Magic,” Sam says dryly.  “Like, actually.  Our home base is an old bunker designed to be secret.  Any attempts at getting in without permission, whether through hacking or other methods, just don’t work.  That’s why Dean could call Hotchner, but he couldn’t call us.”

“Magic?  My wonderful machines can’t handle magic?”  

“Yes, that’s the gist.  Now the defunct, untraceable email address?  That one’s one of my own,” Sam tells her, grinning.  “I wasn’t joking when I said we’d crossed paths before, a long time ago.  Although I think one of our old friends had more contact with you than I ever did.”

“So you are a hacker.”

“Yep.”

“But you hunt monsters.  Any monsters?”

“Basically,” Dean shrugs.  “Vamps, weres, ghosts, gods, you name it, we’ve probably killed at least one.”

“You never answered how you were here, Spencer.  You had work this morning, there’s no way you got here on a plane.”

“The perks of saving the world is a little heavenly goodwill,” Dean hums.  “Gabe’s got me hooked up to some of his archangel powers, meaning we can zap to and from wherever we want to be.  Ten minutes ago we were outside in Spencer’s backyard drinking coffee.”

“You- teleportation?”

“That’s how they got me to Kansas.  And why I knew you wouldn’t be able to get me back,” Spencer says, his hand clutched in Sam’s as if he was scared of her reaction.  “I was terrified.  I didn’t know what to think.  Sam and Dean… they’re not like they showed you.  They’re kind, and they’re understanding, and they treated me like a person.  Like I was worth something more than just what I could do for the team.  What you saw, what we made you see…  it was all deliberate.  Every last bit of it was curated to ensure the secret stayed a secret.”

“The secret of monsters, not the secret that we’re actually, you know, not terrible people,” Dean clarifies.  

“Wait, Spencer, wait a moment.  The picture you sent, the one Morgan saw, of you and your boyfriend - he said he looked like Sam Winchester.  Oh my god, Morgan was right.”

“I told you I was the more recognizable one out of us,” Sam reminds Spencer playfully.  “Without his face, Dean just looks like a generic hot white guy.”

“A straight generic hot white guy,” Spencer corrects, and the smile on his face - Penelope doesn’t think she’s ever seen him smile like that before.  

“You guys do know that I’m sitting right here, yeah?”  Dean grunts, reaching up and ruffling Spencer’s hair in a very familiar gesture.  It’s the same type of ruffling Morgan would do to Spencer, where Spencer would always duck away from it.

Spencer doesn’t duck away from Dean’s hand, instead, he leans into it.  “What are you going to do about it?  Punish me?”  He teases Dean, his tongue between his teeth as he grins at the monster hunter.

“Oh, you know it,” Dean growls, grinning as he leans over Spencer, his right hand trailing up his leg.  But he doesn’t get far before Sam slaps his hand away.

“Dude!  We’re not alone,” Sam hisses, pointing to her, and Penelope clears her throat.

“I- uh, I can’t say this is what I expected when you said you’d found a boyfriend,” she admits shakily, before realizing something.  “Oh no.  Oh no.  When I heard you on that bug, and thought it was Dean Winchester, it was him?”

Dean laughs and nods, leaning back, his left hand still tangled in Spencer’s hair.  “Yeah, that was me.  We knew the team would be listening.  Sorry you had to hear that, it was mostly directed at that author.”

“You wanted Rossi to hear Spencer have sex?” Penelope blurts.

“I am a sexually active civilian, and shouldn’t have to worry about my home being listened in on without due reason.  It’s my space, and if my partner and I decide to have sex in the living room on an early morning, then we’re going to do that,” Spencer says matter-of-factly.

“I wasn’t a part of that planning,” Sam pipes up.  “That was all those two.”

“Spencer, are you happy?”  It’s a genuine question, asked out of worry for her friend.

He nods, smiling as he leans on Sam.  “Yes.  I am.  And I hope you understand why I’ve changed so much over the past year.  I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about who and what I want to be.”

“Oh, Spencer, of course I understand,” Penelope assures him, smiling.  “And don’t worry.  Your secret is safe with me.  Ah, actually, now that you’re here… do you want me to officially resign you from the Bureau?  You’re still on file.”

“Not yet.  I want to do it myself.”

“You want to see Hotch’s face again,” Penelope deduces, grinning as Spencer nods.

“I want to see his face when he sees me walk into his office and hand in my official letter of resignation.”

“So that’s it?  No more profiling for you?”

“No more profiling.  Just me, Sam, Dean and all the friends I’ve made at the library.”

“No wonder you didn’t want to give me a name or his face,” Penelope teases.

“Yeah.  I just… didn’t know, where we’d be, what kind of relationship I could have with you.  And I needed to make sure you wouldn’t immediately tell them.”

“They really made you feel at home, out there, huh?”

Spencer nods, smiling.  “You’d love them.  All of them.”

“Maybe I could meet them, one day,” Penelope suggests.  “If you want me there.”

“I’d love that, Penelope.”

—

Rossi forgets his phone at home.  He doesn't even mean to, it gets lost in the sheets when he finally gets out of bed.  He doesn't even realize until he's halfway to the office.

They get swept up in a kidnapping case, four long days of constant driving and profiling and chasing.  Rossi forgets about the picture.  At least, he forgets until they're on the plane back from Wisconsin.

"We usually get a picture at least once a week.  Did something change?"  JJ asks, and Rossi feels the color drain from his face.

"They've been consistent so far.  Did Reid catch them in the act and make them stop?"  Prentiss asks.

"Reid isn't strong enough for that," Morgan dismisses.  "It's a two versus one."

"You said his boyfriend was strong.  Maybe he managed to overpower them with Spencer's help," Lewis considers.

“I don’t think so.  We would’ve heard something about it,” Hotch dismisses.

"There is an image."  Rossi speaks up.  "I received one the morning we left for this case."

"Is that why you haven't had your phone all case?  You left it at home?"  Hotch teases.

“It came in while I was sleeping,” Rossi defends.  “Either way, it’s… I think it’s best you see for yourself.”

“What was the caption?”  Morgan prods.

“He’s calling my name.  I can hear him, even from out here,” Rossi quotes.

“Calling his stalker’s name?”  JJ asks.

“Reid was… the picture was taken through the bedroom window.  It’s a picture of him masturbating,” Rossi explains carefully.  But even the careful explanation makes half the team cringe away.

“It’s purposeful, that you received that picture,” Hotch sighs.  “It’s a message.  Think about it.  Lewis, the one least connected to Reid, got the first picture, the most disconnected from Spencer.”

“You got the next one, where he’s eating dinner,” Prentiss remembers.  “That’s more intimate, but still fairly distant.”

“So why did I get this one?”  Rossi asks.

“Because you’re the one that knocked down Spencer’s door,” Hotch says.  “You were the one physically in Spencer’s space, leaving the bug.  Invading his privacy.  His stalkers are targeting each of us on purpose to make us uncomfortable.”

“You wanted to know what Reid was doing, this is what he’s doing,” Prentiss agrees, grimacing.  

“Why do these stalkers care that Reid’s privacy was invaded?  That’s exactly what they’re doing!”  JJ exclaims, frustrated.

“They’re showing us how it's done.  The bug was only there for a night, and after Dave forced his way into the house, Spencer managed to escape him,” Hotch explains.  “These two have been at it for a month, and he just lets them.  Meaning he finds them less intrusive than Dave.”

“Or he’s working with them to fuck us up,” Morgan jokes.  “I mean, come on.  Isn’t it convenient that Garcia got a text minutes after the second picture?  I know they’re watching me or whatever the hell he told her.  Isn’t that suspicious, given that the picture wasn’t sent when it was taken?”

“That would explain why they have access to our phone numbers,” Rossi concedes.

“What the hell?  You’re blaming the guy being stalked?”  Prentiss blurts.  

“Think about it, Prentiss,” Morgan urges.  “Reid gets visited by Rossi, he drops the bug and leaves and the next morning Reid has sex with someone who sounds a lot like Dean Winchester.  Rossi comes back, Reid smashes the bug, and a few short days later ominous texts begin popping up.  Isn’t it too convenient?”

“What if Reid hired two people to stalk him?”  JJ considers.  “That he is just using this to, I don’t know, teach us a lesson?”

“Reid’s not that kind of guy,” Morgan says, shaking his head.

“I don’t think we should assume that Reid is working with these stalkers.  It could have been a coincidence,” Hotch refutes.  “But if Reid was calling someone’s name while jerking off, and his stalker claims he’s calling ‘his’ name… just who are we dealing with?  The Winchesters are dead.”

Chapter Text

“There was one thing you didn’t tell Penelope,” Sam muses as they appear back in the Hawai’i cottage.

“Oh?”  Spencer asks, tilting his head as he looks up at Sam.  “Just one?”

“Your… feline features.”

“If I told her about those, right now, she wouldn’t have believed anything.  She would’ve thought she was simply dreaming,” he justifies.  “I didn’t want to overwhelm her.  We already did, showing up as we did.”

“She seemed to take it pretty well,” Dean shrugs, hanging up his jacket and toeing off his shoes.  

“Yeah, but she didn’t wanna freak out.  This was the first time she’s seen me in… one year, one month and 27 days,” Spencer tells him.  “She was probably afraid that I’d run away if she freaked out.  She is probably freaking out right now.”

“Could that freaking out make her reach out to the BAU?”

“No, they’re on a case.  A big one, according to her.  It must be, if they needed Morgan on site just a day after the cast came off.”

“So you’re not worried she’s gonna be frazzled when talking to them?”

Spencer shakes his head.  “Penelope’s always had a hard time when it comes to big cases - they stress her out and she worries so much about the victims.  It’s nothing new to see her on edge around the more intense cases.”

“No offense to Penelope, but is she sure this is the right path for her?  The BAU are constantly handling high-profile, high-risk cases with vulnerable victims,” Sam says, frowning.  “Is there something else keeping her at the BAU?”

“Other than the fact she was a hacker and was given the chance to work for the FBI instead of getting charged?”  Spencer asks.  “Her sense of justice.  Penelope has always, always been an advocate for the victims and the victims’ families.  She holds meetings for people who have lost loved ones.  That’s how she is, she knows people and she likes working with people through to the end.  Further than we ever saw the families, anyway.”

Sam nods, biting the inside of his lip.  “How do you feel?”

“How do I feel?  I guess… good.  I knew I would need to go back there to hand in my resignation, but other than that, I never missed it.  The mainland, the BAU, any of it.  I think I was ready to move on long before I met you.”

“‘Met’ is a very interesting word choice, there, kitten,” Dean teases, reaching up and pinching the tip of one of his cat ears.

"Technically I met you before I was kidnapped by you," Spencer counters.  "I sat down and talked to both of you.  I'm the only one that sat down face to face with both of you.  Hotch only saw Sam, and Morgan, Rossi and Prentiss only saw you.  At least until you and Gabriel decided to go out with a bang.  Did either of you consider that I was the thing Gabriel had sent you to Oregon for?"

Sam shakes his head.  “No.  We didn’t figure it was supposed to be a person until we talked to him about it.”

“So he just is like that.  Never telling you his plans, only dropping you off somewhere and having you figure it out,” Spencer sighs.

"We really made a show of that night.  Part of me wishes you could've seen the stage we set," Dean hums, stroking his tail lightly, making it tremble.

"You never did tell me what actually happened.  All I know is what Hotch told me."

"Gabe set the stage.  He dressed up as you and got the room to look exactly like the dungeon."

"He really wanted to freak them out," Spencer mutters.

"That's what he does."

"He made sure Penelope saw us go in and sent the team after us," Sam continues.  "I stayed in the shadows, taunting before I shot out Morgan's knee.  I was aiming to just incapacitate him, but he moved as I was aiming, so I ended up shattering the kneecap."  

"I teased Hotchner, telling him how we missed you," Dean hums, his hands sliding across Spencer's stomach as he leans over his back.  "He didn't seem surprised that we found out you were out here."

"He probably expected you to find me, and find that I was out of reach."

"Turns out, sending you out here got him out of their grasp pretty firmly instead," Dean murmurs, pressing kisses to Spencer’s exposed shoulder and neck.  

"I don't think that's what any of them expected, when I was sent into witsec.  But I think it could happen to anyone," Spencer hums, tilting his head as his long-haired tail curls up between their bodies.  "I never thought I'd see the day Jason Gideon quit the BAU, but he did.  But I think everyone has their breaking point.  He found his.  And I found mine."

"I think we sort of found it for you," Sam admits with an awkward smile.  

“You made me stop and think.  Really think about what I’m doing.  If it’s worth all the pain.”

“And you found out it wasn’t.”

Spencer nods.  “I wasn’t going to quit the BAU, after we became us.  But then the decision was made for me, to place me in witness protection.”

“We liked the way it worked out,” Dean hums.  “You got to chase down the human monsters, and we got to chase the monster monsters, and we got to come together for some good cuddling and even better sex.”

“And then I got shipped out to Hawai’i three days after Morgan caught you making a nest in my home.  I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

“You could have texted us, once you got a new phone out here,” Sam says gently.

“My correspondence was being monitored, you know that,” Spencer sighs, closing his eyes.  “I probably could have gotten a burner, but I was too busy trying to become Mark Porter.”

“I know, Spence, it was one hell of an adjustment,” Sam assures him, tipping Spencer’s head up with a finger as he leans down, kissing his lips gently.  “One you handled with grace.”

“And one it seems your team was very ready to just pull you out of, without consideration of your own wants and needs,” Dean mutters disdainfully.

“Fuck them,” Spencer exclaims.  “None of them even texted me while we were together those three months.  It was like I didn’t exist outside of work.  You’d think one of them would at least hit me up, right?  I spent a week in your clutches, three days in the hospital, and they never even stopped by, beyond Morgan driving me home.  I even told him I wasn’t okay, but he just… he just left.”

“At least you had us,” Sam whispers, running his hand through Spencer’s hair slowly, thumbing across his flicking ears.  And Spencer nods.

“I don’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t had you.”

“What you’d always done.  Pushed it down and kept working,” Sam tells him, kissing him again.  Spencer sighs as he closes his eyes and kisses back, hands reaching up to cup Sam’s face to keep him there.

“Don’t leave me.”  The words are whimpered against Sam’s lips, but they’re loud enough for both of the men wrapped around Spencer to hear him.

“We’re in too deep for that, kitten,” Dean’s deep voice soothes him, his hands running up and down his sides.

“We’ve got you, Spence,” Sam promises, a whispered breath of hot air that fans out across his cheeks.  “We’re not going anywhere.  And nobody’s going to take you away from us.”

—

Rossi describing the image he had been sent hadn’t given it justice.  It’s… intrusive.  Garcia had put it up on the screen in the meeting room, taken one look at it, yelped, and scurried out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

And the others didn’t blame her.  Seeing their friend in the throes of self-induced pleasure didn’t give them much.  Other than a sense of strange confusion.  But the caption is interesting.

Rossi had recited it perfectly, as if it had been seared into his brain.

He’s calling my name.  I can hear him, even from out here.

But it’s impossible, right?  The Winchesters are dead.  Very dead.

“You don’t come back from a bullet to the head.”

But Tara knows that isn’t necessarily true.  She knows what the Winchesters have seen.  Has heard their stories.  Of a family that faced heaven and hell, and somehow made friends with both sides.  Of prophets publishing their stories.  And she knows that what they saw, the night they met, wasn’t the whole truth.  It was too easy.  After fighting and winning over Hell itself, the Winchesters were gunned down by federal agents?

Gabriel had been there, too, which made even less sense.  Gabriel is an archangel, no mortal weapon could harm him.  But he collapsed in the same way as Sam and Dean.  Two humans.  Tara knows something isn’t right.  Something about the Winchesters and Spencer has been wrong from the moment she was brought in on this case.

And it seems like none of her coworkers even have a clue.

Tara wants to speak up about it.  She has the knowledge.  But she lacks the evidence.  How do you prove the existence of monsters to a group who can’t even fathom that there is a possibility?

After coming home for the day, Tara does something she hasn’t done in years:  she prays.  She prays to an angel.

“Well, well, well, Taralicious,” a voice teases her.  “It’s been a long time since you last called for an angel.”  Opening her eyes, she swallows.

“Take me to them.”

“Now, now, not even letting me introduce myself?”

“I don’t need your name to have you take me to them,” she says.

“Balthazar.”

“What?”

“My name.”

“Are you going to take me to them or do I have to call another angel?”  Tara asks dryly, crossing her arms.

“Gonna need some specifics here, ma’am doctor.  Which ‘them’?”

“Sam and Dean Winchester.”

“Heard they were dead.”

“I’m tempted to think otherwise,” Tara counters.  “Take me to them.”

“You’re a very bold woman, Tara Lewis.  I can respect that.  Fine, I’ll take you to them.  But are you prepared for what you’ll see?”

Tara pulls a knife from her belt and nods.  “Yes.”

Balthazar raises an eyebrow before lifting his hand and snapping his fingers.  And instead of her apartment, Tara now stands in front of a cottage in the sunny afternoon.

Not the typical place the Winchesters would hang out, she thinks to herself as she rings the doorbell.

—

Ding dong.  Ding dong.

“We didn’t invite anyone over,” Sam muses, lifting his head.  

“Could be door-to-door salesmen,” Spencer suggests.  “I’ll check the door.”  He stands up, sneaking a kiss from Dean in passing as he heads for the front door.  “Sorry, we’re not interest-” he cuts himself off from his prepared speech when he sees the person on the other side of the door.  “Doctor Lewis?”

“Spencer?”  She seems, at least somewhat, surprised.

“You- why are you here?”  And then Spencer notices the knife in her hand and he flinches backwards.  “Christo,” he speaks and watches her, but she doesn’t react.  No demonic possession.  But she doesn’t step inside either.

“I’m not here from the FBI.”

Spencer hears footsteps behind him, and he knows his partners are on high alert.  He watches Tara Lewis, his old psychology professor, the one who had taken his old spot on the BAU, lift the knife and put it to the skin on her arm, drawing blood with it.

“Doctor Lewis, wha-”

“Tara.  Call me Tara.”  And her eyes are glued to the men behind Spencer.  “I knew it was too easy.”

“What are you talking about?”  Spencer blurts as Sam’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder.

“She knows about the world,” Sam tells him quietly.  “Come inside, Tara.”

“Thank you, Sam.”  

Spencer closes the door behind Tara and locks it.  “So you’re not here like Rossi was?”

“The angel Balthazar brought me here.  I think that should speak for itself.”

“You’re a hunter?”

“No.  I just know what’s out there.”

Spencer frowns and stays close to his partners as they head into the living room.  The three men sit down on the couch, Spencer in the middle and the brothers on either side, while Tara takes the chair.

“Seems like you’ve got a bit of an arrangement going on here,” Tara comments, and Spencer feels his face heat up.

“That’s one way to put it,” Dean shrugs, his arm slung across Spencer’s shoulders and his fingers stroking Sam’s cheek.  “Works for us.”

“If you were going to come here to arrest us, you wouldn’t have come by angel,” Sam agrees, his arm similarly resting over Spencer’s shoulders, but his hand hangs between him and Dean.  “You would have taken the entire team and broken down this door.”

“You had everything you wanted,” Tara notes.  “You had your peace.  Why taunt us?”

“You guys started it,” Dean dismisses.  “If David Rossi hadn’t come knocking down our door, ready to drag Spence back to the BAU, none of this would’ve happened.  Spencer would’ve been able to make his own decisions in his own time, and everything would’ve been peachy.”

“So the texts are your way of saying ‘back off’?”  Tara questions.  “Well, it’s not exactly working, is it, if it’s brought me all the way out here,” she teases.

“It’s as much for me as it is for them,” Spencer sighs.  “When I left the BAU a year ago to come here, I decided to leave it behind.  But I couldn’t communicate that to you.  And then everybody was so excited at the thought of me coming back to the FBI, something I did not want, but they were so sure that I was coming back - it just became too much.  I needed out.  But the space that was supposed to be mine wasn’t mine anymore.  Rossi proved that.  I didn’t feel safe in my own home after he decided to break in.  If you as a team hadn’t decided your peace of mind was more important than my safety, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Do your coworkers know what’s going on?”

“Not that these two are pretending to stalk me, but they know the rest.  They’ve read the books and they’ve come to know us, all three of us.”

“I got the BAU version of the story with you three.  The curated one.  Think you can tell me the real thing?”  Tara asks, crossing her arms and grinning at the three.

Chapter Text

“That’s a lot to go through to keep your secret, only to so blatantly reveal yourselves again a month later,” Tara comments, taking a sip from the glass of wine Sam had poured her.

“The communication isn’t going to last,” Dean dismisses, tossing back the remainder of his beer bottle.  “A few more pictures, maybe a video to finish it off, and then we’re done.  Nothing from the Winchesters.”

“Are you still hunting?”

“Nah, we took over from Bobby,” Sam tells her.  “Information service.  We will go back to the mainland if we’re needed, but we’re mostly here on the island with Spence.”

“Soulmates, huh?”  Tara teases gently.  “Cute.”

"Soulmates are actually an incredibly wide specter," Spencer begins.  "The concept of the soul itself is built on you and your relationship with others, meaning soulmates can be created if you are around certain people enough.  Although, some soulmates, like my connection to Sam and Dean, was predetermined by Heaven, according to Gabriel.  That's why he sent them out to Oregon for that case.  He knew one of the BAU was their soulmate, just not which one.  And it was me."

"And you found this out…"

"By asking Gabriel directly.  He may be a Trickster, but he's also the ruler of Heaven, alongside his mate Castiel and their children."

"Casti- James Novak?"  Tara asks.

"Yes.  Jimmy is dead and in heaven, but he let Cas continue piloting his body around when he's down here," Dean explains.

"He was a devout follower of God when Castiel approached him and showed him the divinity of the Lord," Sam continues.  "No brainwashing of anybody.  Especially not Spencer."

"Does Penelope know about this?  We heard she's been talking to you."

"Yes, we visited her while you were on that last case.  She doesn't know they’re the stalkers but she knows they're both my boyfriends."

"That last picture you sent was very interesting," Tara says.  "Which one of you is which number?"

"You're the profiler," Dean tells her.  "You tell us."

"Well, 241 is very distinctly possessive and intrusive, while 025 is erratic.  Sometimes it's a timestamp with only a few words, sometimes it's poetic, signaling a disjointed personality."

"And?"

"You're 241.  Sam is 025.  Throughout the entire profiling of Sam you've been described as erratic, impossible, disjointed, two-faced, both submissive and dominant, both normal and psychotic."

"I didn't realize our birthdays lined up with the numbers we got," Sam muses.  "Those are the last three digits, right?"

"Yes, it was our way of easily distinguishing which sender we were talking about," Tara explains.

"Do you think that'll fuck up the BAU even more when they find out?"  Dean asks Sam, who shrugs.

"It's likely.  Even if it was unintentional on our end, it'll still play into their expectation that everything we do is premeditated and executed perfectly."

"You two have profiled us better than we have profiled you," Tara chuckles.

"Yeah, well, feds are easy," Dean shrugs.  "You all think in the same veins until you learn the truth."

"Like Henriksen?"

"Yeah.  He was possessed by a demon before he realized shit was real.  We won't go that far."

"How far will you go?"  

"That's a surprise," Dean says with a wink.

"He's got a plan, but he refuses to share it with us," Sam elaborates.  "But it should be without any physical pain.  Can't promise on the emotional part, I've got a feeling a few of your fellow agents have, let's say, a complicated relationship with God and faith.  But we won't be in the same space as your team."

"You don't know that, Sammy, I haven't told you my plan," Dean teases, poking Sam’s cheek with a finger.

"We're going to cut them off from us, not approach them for a collaboration.  If we meet them face to face, chances are good that at least four people end up dead, including us.  We're not going to end this with death.  Spencer deserves better than that."

"So you not only profile us, you also profile each other," Tara comments.

"Occupational hazard," Sam dismisses.  "Hunting is easier when you know how your partner thinks."

“And it’s easier to know how your partner thinks when you know them inside and out.”  Dean grins as Sam runs a hand over his face with a groan.  

“Don’t mind him, he’s always like that.”

“What?  I didn’t even say anything dirty!  Want me to say something dirty?”

“No!”  The exclamation echoes from both Sam and Spencer.  Tara can’t help the small chuckle that escapes her at the sight.  

“You’ve grown very close to Spencer, haven’t you?”  She muses.

“Sammy’s always quick to love,” Dean excuses.

“And you?”

“Your team sent Spencer in to me with the intention of getting me to open up about myself because he looks and talks like Sammy.  He’s the one that flirted with me.  And what can I say?  I have good taste.”  Dean looks over at Sam and Spencer with a grin.  “I mean, look at ‘em.”

Spencer scratches the back of his head with an awkward grin.  “We’re not that similar.”

“Similar enough.  You got the hair,” Tara comments.  “From what I’ve heard, Sam’s got a good head on his shoulders, like you do.”

“I guess.”

“I don’t have Spencer’s drive,” Sam admits.  “I had to give it up or it would get me killed.  I’d bounce from hunt to hunt with no downtime and it almost broke me.  I had to slow down.”

“The first time I slowed down was when I hit a brick wall named Sam Winchester,” Spencer teases.  “You’re built like a wall, at least.”

“And me?”  Dean asks, mock offended. 

“I kissed Sam first,” Spencer reminds him.

“Alright, alright, but without me, we wouldn’t be here at all,” Dean huffs, pouting.

Spencer laughs and turns, leaning over him and kissing the pout away.  “I know,” he murmurs against his lips.

—

Hotch sits in his office with the blinds closed as the sun sets outside his window, his hand over his mouth.

The picture of Spencer haunts him as he closes his eyes.  He can hear the caption, spoken in Dean Winchester’s voice.  He’s calling my name.

Hotch knows Dean Winchester is dead.  His own bullet struck him down.  But somehow, he’s never felt his death settle in him like others have.  Foyet’s death had torn him to shreds and put him back together again in one.  But Sam and Dean Winchester?  They continued to haunt him.  241.  025.  January 24.  May 2.  Their birthdays correspond to the phone numbers stalking Spencer.  They’re everywhere.  Even the ways the numbers talk to them seem reminiscent of their respective Winchester.

Spencer.  His former subordinate.  For years, the youngest, but brightest member of the team.  Spencer, who told so little of himself and still so much.  Spencer, who Hotch a long time ago accepted that he loved and could never act on it.

And now he doesn’t have a chance.  Spencer loves someone else, now.

So why doesn’t the picture of him jerking off go away?  Why is Hotch imagining him calling out his name as he gasps and moans and comes?  Why can’t he stop thinking about Spencer whimpering Aaron into the air?  How it would feel to slide in between his legs, to kiss him, to fuck him?

Hotch knows he can never have Spencer.  The most recent picture is proof enough of that.

So why is it so hard for him to accept?

Hotch is losing his grip because he can’t let go.  He can’t let go of the Winchesters.  He can’t let go of Spencer.  He needs to let go.

But the Winchesters have to let go of him first.

—

Morgan’s fingers clench tightly around the steering wheel as he drives home.  The picture of Reid keeps flashing before him.  It makes him angry.  And he doesn’t know why.

Reid’s a grown man.  He’s got his own wants.  He’s his own person.  

So why is Morgan so angry that Reid’s got a boyfriend?  A boyfriend that, apparently, could meet every sexual need Reid had.  No matter how disturbing.

As he parks in his garage, his still healing knee screaming as he walks, he knows why he’s so angry about it.  He wants that boyfriend to be him.   He wants to be the one that Reid is jerking off thinking about.  Morgan wants to feel Reid’s hair in his fingers as he kisses him, or the smooth, pale skin under his palms as he pulls their bodies together.

And now Reid has someone else.  Someone else who kisses him, who sleeps next to him, who takes care of him the way Morgan should be the one doing.

Locking his front door behind him, Morgan sighs shakily and leans on it, releasing the pressure from his aching knee.  Reid should be his.

But now he’s gone.  Out of reach.  And it’s his fault.

If he hadn’t left him alone with Dean Winchester in that interrogation room, he could have had Reid by now.  Reid would have been his, if only he hadn’t let himself manipulate by someone pretending to be a police officer.

Reid was his best friend.  And now the guy won't contact him and Garcia won't give Morgan his number so he can reach out.  The only thing Morgan could do now was solve who was stalking him.  Maybe that would make Reid realize who he could be.

—

JJ stands in the doorway, watching her sleeping son with a tender smile on her face.  She loves her family, more than anything.  She watches the way Will, her beloved husband, strokes their son’s hair away from his face before he stands and walks over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her into a familiar, soft, gentle kiss.

Will’s hand comes to rest on her shoulder, where the Winchesters’ blade pierced her.  JJ knows they didn’t intend to kill her.  Dean had wanted to hurt her, to debilitate her.  And her right arm is still weaker than her left.  It shakes when she tries to write.  Her hand trembles as she raises her gun.

It’s been two months since they died, but the Winchesters continue to haunt her.

Henry has asked for his godfather, but JJ has had to tell him he can’t come see them.  It’s been two months since Reid could have come to visit them, but he hasn’t.  JJ hadn’t told Henry that.  She knew how it would affect him.  He loves his “uncle Spencer”, and knowing that he could, but won’t come visit would break him.  She’s already endured evenings of crying about Reid’s absence.  

JJ doesn’t understand why Reid doesn’t come back.  Not even for a visit.  At this point, they’re all well aware that he’s not coming back to the Bureau, and she doesn’t fault him for that.  The BAU has a tough job, and at some point, you have to tap out.

She does fault him for not coming back to see the people he has repeatedly hailed as his “only family”.  Reid isn’t making the moves to approach them.  And JJ doesn’t get why.   Why her?   She understands him not wanting to contact Rossi - the man bugged his house.  But JJ - she’s been one of his closest friends for years.  They went on a date, for god’s sake!

JJ still remembers that date fondly.  Even though nothing ever came out of it, she got a friend out of it.  She doesn’t think the date going badly closed any doors for their future relationship.  Even though she loves Will dearly, she can’t help but wish it was Reid instead.  Her Spence.   She imagines what it would be like to love him, instead of Will.  If Henry was Spence’s son instead of Will’s.

A lot would be the same.  The same arguments about going into the field - Spence would be understanding of the dangers of the job, sure, but she would probably face the same arguments as she does with Will.  Spence would kiss her, hold her, even though he hates it when people touch him.  He would let her because he would love her.

But she can’t have him.  He’s too far away, now.  Untouchable.  And he’s in a relationship.  Not that that would have stopped her - she may hold Will close to her heart, but JJ loves him.  She’s sure he would understand.  Will always was the understanding type.

She isn’t sure she loves this Reid, though.  The Reid he became, after he was tortured by the Winchesters.  He felt so… distant.  Like he wasn’t fully there with them.  Like a part of him was left in that… place, where the Winchesters kept him.  He had returned bruised, but not tortured.  Not physically, at least.  But his mind… it seemed broken.   He was no longer Spence.   Just Reid, someone unfamiliar, someone JJ didn’t know.

Someone JJ didn’t love.

JJ sighs and shuts the door to Henry's room.  She wants Reid back.  If only for her sons' sakes.  They deserve their godfather back.

—

After Tara leaves with well-wishes and a thankful hug from Spencer at her promise that she would let them do their thing, Spencer grabs his phone and sends a text to Penelope.

Tara is safe.  She knows about monsters.  And us.  -SR

She knows??? What happened???  -PG

Call me.  -SR

And Penelope does.  The phone rings and Spencer picks up.

"What do you mean Tara knows?"

"She apparently knew about monsters for a long time," Spencer begins.  "She called for an angel to take her to Sam and Dean.  And… she found us.  All three."

There must have been something in his tone, because Penelope laughs.

"Ooh, she caught you in the middle of a little afternoon fun?"

"What?  No, Penelope, she just didn't expect to see me with them, that's all.  No funny business."

"Why did she come?"

"I think she just wanted to prove to herself that her theory was right.  That they are alive."

"Sounds like she got more than she bargained for."

"Yeah," Spencer chuckles, smiling.  "We talked for a while.  I wouldn't be surprised if she approaches you, now that you both know what's going on out here."

"You really think so?"

"Yeah.  She's the type of woman to want to know everything about a situation."

"You know, Morgan and Jayje have been hounding me to get your new number."

Spencer cringes and grimaces.  "Well, given that I haven't been drowning in calls and texts, thank you for not giving them my number."

"Anything for you, Mark-y."

Spencer smiles at the nickname - Penelope’s taken to interspersing her nicknames with versions of Mark.  He has noticed that she hasn't called him a single name that isn't a variation of either Spencer or Mark.  A correction of her previous behavior that he hadn't addressed with her directly.  She'd heard him set the boundary with Rossi and adjusted herself accordingly.

Spencer loves her for that.

"Thank you, Penelope."

"You said that twice now, Spencer."

"For… for understanding."  Spencer doesn't know what else to say.  How to word it.

"Oh, Spencer…  I’m sorry, I really didn’t know and you know I felt so terrible learning that you hated all those nicknames-”

“Penelope,” Spencer stops her.  “Out of the nicknames, yours weren’t the worst.  I much prefer ‘Mighty Professor’ to being called a robot or a pipe cleaner.”

“I’m sorry anyway.”

Spencer can tell that she wants to say more, but she’s holding back.

“I appreciate that, Pen.”

“Tara, huh?  Not Doctor Lewis?”   Penelope asks teasingly.

“I haven’t worked with her.  To me, to Mark Porter, she’s simply Tara.  And I like it that way.”

“I’m so happy you’ve found yourself, Mark Porter.”

“So am I.”

Chapter Text

Tara Lewis knocks on the doorway to Penelope’s office the next morning, causing her to turn around.

“Oh- Tara, hi,” she says, eyes flicking from her screens to the agent in her doorway.  “Come in, uh, is there anything I can do for you?  Do you need anything for a new case?  I - has the bossman dug up a case for us without telling me?”

“It’s not about a new case,” Tara tells her, shutting the door carefully behind her.  Penelope frowns and furrows her brows before her face falls open in understanding.  

“Is this about-”

“About the Winchesters, yes.  And how they’re alive and well in Honolulu.”

“Spencer said you might come.  I didn’t expect you to just come to my office - normally all these dealings have been kept strictly off the clock.”

Tara smiles and leans on the wall.  “So you knew?”

“Only for a few days, they came to visit me before - uh, before the last picture was brought up,” Penelope explains awkwardly, not liking having to think about the very intimate picture that was taken of Spencer.

“Dean’s got a flare for the dramatic, doesn’t he?”

“What-”

“Sam and Dean are the ones sending the messages and pictures,” Tara says plainly.  “I figured they told you.”

“No- no!  They never told me that!”

“Everyone else on the team got messages.  But not you.  Didn’t you question it?”

“Not really?  I- uh, I figured I didn’t count in the stalkers’ eyes, I guess?  But I was talking to Spencer.  Not that I, you know, wanted to get sent weird, off-putting, intrusive stalker messages about my best friend, but I never really thought it was odd.  I’m a technical analyst, not an agent.”

“Apparently, Dean’s got something big planned for some kind of reveal.  My guess is it’s going to be one big reveal - that they’re alive, that they’re in a relationship with Spencer, and that monsters are real.”

Penelope frowns.  “Why does that make me worried?  How are they going to ‘prove’ that monsters are real without putting everyone in danger?  They’re not going to put anyone in danger, right?”

Tara shakes her head.  “Sam promised no physical pain on any BAU members.”

“No physical pain implies there might be other kinds of pain involved,” Penelope says worriedly.

“Yes.  I don’t think that’s avoidable.  It’ll be a shock.”

“Wait… how do you know monsters are real?  When did you learn?”

Tara looks down.  “My dad used to hunt, much like John Winchester.  But he quit and went into the army instead, so he taught Gabriel and I about the things that were out there.  And how to stay hidden from them.  Symbols, pendants, anything he could find that could protect us from the monsters, he got us or taught us how to make.”

Penelope nods.  “Are there a lot of hunters out there?”

“Sure there are.  If you know where to look.  Transients, people without home addresses, people who disappear off the map, some of them are hunters.  We’ve met one or two, just in the year I’ve been here.”

“Really?”

Tara nods, turning her head towards the door as it opens to Hotch.  “Ah, good, there you are, Lewis.  We’ve got another case.”

—

They’re all thinking about it during the case.  They should be focused on the spree on their hands, but there’s a thought lingering in the back of everyone’s heads: when will the next text come?   And it seems to rattle everyone.  Not enough to get the attention of the locals, but they can all tell the others are thinking about it as well.

Prentiss is the (un)lucky recipient of the next picture.  It wakes her up as it ticks in, and she sits up as she blinks away the sleep from her eyes.  She opens the image and sighs shakily, turning on the lights to wake her eyes up.  And in the process, waking JJ on the other bed.

“What’s going on, Em?”  JJ mumbles, moving to sit up to face her.

“I got a picture.  It’s taken from inside the house.  They’re in his house.”

“What?!”  JJ yelps, rushing over to look at the picture on Prentiss’ phone.

00:54.  Snoring.

“025 has entered Reid’s house and is taking pictures of him while he’s asleep,” Prentiss says, swallowing back the bile that’s rising in her throat.  

“And Reid’s not alone,” JJ whispers, pointing to the two sleeping figures on the bed.  Reid is curled up against a tall, shadowed figure.  They can clearly make out Reid in the moonlight, but his partner seems completely in the shadows, even though they’re curled up against each other.  Prentiss hadn’t even noticed them.

“He managed to get in without either of them noticing, and the only thing he does is take a picture and send it to us?”

“These stalkers aren’t out to harm Reid.  Just to show us they can.”

"Just like-"  Prentiss cuts herself off.  It’s impossible.

"Just like the Winchesters," JJ finishes with a sigh.  "Em, what is going on?  This is making less and less sense."

Prentiss doesn't respond as she stares at the picture.  Reid looks… peaceful.  It feels so personal, seeing the picture of someone sleeping.  She shouldn’t be seeing this.  This is Reid’s space, a space she shouldn’t be privy to.

“I should tell the others,” Prentiss decides suddenly, pushing to her feet and grabbing her clothes, throwing them on as she heads for the door.

But she’s not alone in the hall - Morgan is there, his phone in his hand.

“Morgan?”

“Prentiss?”

“I got a picture from 025.”

“I got a message from 241.”

—

“Two messages,” Hotch announces.  “One from each.  This is new.”

“00:54.  Snoring.   Typical for 025,” Prentiss sighs.  “But the picture is unsettling.  I can’t tell if it was taken and sent immediately, or if it was kept like the others.”

“241 is coordinating with 025.  The messages came within minutes of each other,” Lewis muses.  “That’s not a coincidence.”

“He always sleeps better in someone’s arms.  A shame it’s not mine,” Morgan quotes, spitting the words like they’re poison on his tongue.

“The message is obviously meant to be taken in the context of the picture.  So why didn’t 241 send both the picture and the message?”  Rossi asks.

“Perhaps it’s an agreement between them?  So far the pictures have been alternating between them.  The messages weren’t perfectly split, but they were mostly even,” JJ suggests.

“So who’s in control?”  Prentiss questions.  “One of them has to be in control.”

“241.  He’s the stable one,” Hotch insists.

“But then why wouldn’t he override 025 and send both the picture and the message himself?”

“Perhaps he has respect for 025?”

“025 is unpredictable and eccentric.  What sort of dominant personality would have respect for someone like that?”  Rossi continues.

"025 isn't steady enough to be the dominant personality, but one half of him seems educated and poetic," JJ muses.  

"Two people breaking into your home have to make noise," Morgan sighs.

"Not necessarily, if they've worked together for a long time," Hotch corrects.  "Speaking in looks or hand gestures is an easily taught trait.  As long as the entry is silent, it's not necessarily guaranteed that they would have to speak to each other to communicate."

"These guys are seriously organized," Prentiss mutters, staring at her phone.  "What if these are accomplices of the Winchesters?  Keeping an eye on Reid now that they're dead?"

"The only other known associate of the Winchesters is James Novak, and he hasn't been witnessed for several years," Hotch dismisses.  "James only worked with them, and he was always shown as a submissive partner.  He didn't have the steady dominance of 241, nor was he the unstable personality we see in 025."

"Dean has been buried before, declared dead by police coroners," JJ remembers.  "Could they-"

"I don't understand how they could have faked that," Morgan shakes his head.  "It wasn't smoke and mirrors."

"They perfectly set the stage for us," Rossi considers.

"If they wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, why didn't they kill us?"  Lewis asks.  "They were in control."

"They knew there was a media circus around them.  They wanted us to be the heroes of their story," Hotch muses.

"Why?  Why would we be the heroes?  Guys like them have Hero Complexes the size of their gun collection," Morgan argues.  "Guys like us are never the heroes in these bastards' stories."

"The Winchesters were always different.  All they did on camera was for us.  Their deaths were also for our benefit."

"Why the hell would they do all of this for us?"  Morgan almost yells.

"It's not for us," Tara realizes.  "It's for Spencer."

—

Spencer stretches his legs in front of himself as he sits in the shade of the parasol on his back porch, a book in his lap.  It's one he's been meaning to read for a while.  But then again, all the books he's been reading lately have been stuck on his "to be read" list for months, if not years.

It's a funny thing, working in a library.  All the books you could wish for, and yet it seems immeasurably difficult to get started on those books on your ever-growing list.  Spencer's current venture is into Rick Riordan's series', about gods and demigods and halfbloods and grand battles for the safety of the world.

Spencer knows he would have loved these books as a child.  As an adult, knowing these fantastical gods and monsters are real, in one way or another, somehow does diminish the feeling of wonder.  But it doesn't make the stories themselves less enticing and exciting to read.  And for a moment, Spencer imagines what a story about Sam and Dean might have been like, if Riordan was their prophet instead of Chuck Shurley.  Perhaps the story of the Winchesters would have been more known.  Perhaps even a TV show could be made about their story.

Spencer pushes away the thought.  If the Winchester Gospels were well-written and popular, there is no way the secret of the supernatural would have been able to stay hidden.  If everyone had read those stories, and even only a fraction believed in them, what sort of tulpas could that have created?  What havoc would have wrecked across the States, hell, even beyond these borders?

"Oh, you're reading the Kane chronicles," Sam notes as he sits down in the other chair, placing a tall glass of iced tea on the table between them.  He's wearing shorts and sunglasses and not much else as he leans back.  "I read them years ago.  They're fun stories and I enjoyed his writing style."

"I was thinking about what it could've been like, if an author like Riordan had written the Gospels."

Sam huffs and takes a drink from his own glass before tipping his head back and resting it against the outer wall of the house.  "I'm glad they weren't.  We can't have people running around pretending to be monster hunters for shits and giggles when the real thing is out there, ya know? The convention was bad enough as it was.  Apparently, God's dad was an alcoholic bisexual," Sam tells him.  "That's the kind of stuff Chuck Shurley revealed about himself at the convention."

"Was he God at that point?"  Spencer asks, closing his book and reaching for the glass.  The outside is slick with condensation and the wetness is uncomfortable, but at the same time welcome as it cools Spencer's hand in the process of bringing the glass to his lips.  

"We don't know, but then again, we don't know if Chuck Shurley was ever God, or if he was always God.  All we know is that that’s the vessel he chose to appear to us in."

“You know, I was thinking about God and the concept of falling angels,” Spencer says, shifting to look at Sam, leaning on his elbow.  “Isn’t it a major flaw of Christianity that angels can fall, but demons can’t rise?  What does that say about the infallible nature of sin?  Humans are born with sin, and we can rise to Heaven upon our death.  But why cannot demons and devils rise?”

Sam considers it for a moment, a frown on his lips.  “Demons were human.  Every single demonic cloud of black smoke was once a bright, vibrant human soul,” he begins.  “Hell is… horrible.  It breaks you.  It tears your soul apart until there’s nothing left, and then it builds you back up into a twisted, dark, broken version of what you once were.  Dean’s soul is still tainted by it.  We both have tainted souls - souls darkened by the deepest pits of hell.  Demons can’t rise because there is nothing left to uplift.  There is only darkness.”

Spencer nods, swallowing back a sigh.  He knew that they had been through so much, but he never realized truly how much his lovers had done.  And he doesn’t think he can ever truly learn everything.  But perhaps that is a blessing.  His lovers are tormented, haunted by their pasts, even now, when they have settled in alongside him.  Just like he is.

“But can fallen angels rise back up?  Not every angel falls as far as Lucifer did,” Spencer asks instead.

“Cas fell.”

“Oh.”

“So the stories in the Bible aren’t the full truth.  Angels can both rise and fall.  If they prove themselves.  The human soul, however, can be forever warped and twisted and broken by Hell to the point where it’s unrecognizable as the soul anymore.”

Spencer nods, taking another drink of his iced tea.  “Mm, thank you.  This was just what I needed.”

“You’re welcome.”  Sam adjusts the chair so he’s out from the shade of the parasol.  “Mm, you’ll wake me up if I fall asleep, yeah?”

“Sure,” Spencer hums and opens his book again, settling in the comfort of the shade.  And life may not be perfect for them, but right now?  Spencer thinks he’s as close as he can get.

Chapter Text

The spree killer ends up dead a day after Prentiss receives the intrusive picture.  And so, on the plane back to Quantico, conversation drifts back to Reid’s stalkers.

“We should go out there, check on him,” Morgan says.

“He doesn’t want us there,” Rossi tells him.  “Remember how he shut me out?  How would it turn out if we all went?”

“The guy’s being stalked, Rossi, and we’re not supposed to do a thing about it?”  Morgan asks angrily.  “Isn’t that what doing this job is?”

“We cannot officially work the case, we’re too involved,” Hotch reminds them.  “If Reid’s stalker case was brought to the BAU, it wouldn’t be to our team.  Another team would be given the details, and we would be firmly kept at arm's length during the investigation, when the evidence we have isn’t pertinent.  At this point in time, officially, the case is a local matter.”

“But what if the local police asked us for help?”

“They won’t do that,” Lewis dismisses.  “Spencer won’t approach them with it unless he’s directly harmed, and even then, he might just choose to live with it.”

"What do you mean, choose to live with it?   Why would he choose to live with people stalking him?"

"As long as they're stalking him, he can keep us away," Lewis explains.  "We aren't welcome there.  And we can't go there now because he's being stalked and that could agitate his stalkers.  Not to mention he doesn't want us there.  Any of us.  Garcia is the only person with his number.  He's scared of us."

"Scared of us?" JJ asks, frowning.

"We bugged his house.  That means, to Spencer, that there's a plausible risk we will intrude on his safety again."

“We’re his friends.”

“Are we?  I’d wager Garcia is.  I was his professor, I’m not his friend.  Perhaps there was a time when this team could be considered his friends.  But I don’t think that’s true anymore,” Lewis says plainly.  “The moment the bug was left in his house, we broke whatever trust remained.” 

Then, a phone goes off with the sound of a message.  Rossi’s.  They’d all set special tones for 241 and 025, to make sure it was easy to distinguish from other matters.

And that was 025’s alert.

“It’s barely been a day.  It’s too fast.”

—

Mark relaxes back into the couch with a cup of perfectly doctored coffee as he watches Sam, Dean and Lisa mill about.  They’d just had an early lunch together, before he and Lisa were going to go to the evening shift.  Sam and Dean were going to clean up after lunch, but Lisa is a gem and insists on helping.

Closing his eyes, Mark enjoys the latter half of his coffee and closes out the world in favor of the inside of his cup.  So he doesn’t notice Lisa approach until the couch dips beside him, and he opens his eyes to see them with a phone in their hand.  Not her own phone, but Sam’s second phone.

“Sam told me about this little scheme you’ve got going on with your old team,” they tell him.

“Yeah, they’re getting pretty close to revealing that they’re not, you know, dead,” Mark explains with a grin.

“Oh, no, Marker, I know,” Lisa teases with a grin.  “So I had an idea.  Wouldn’t it really screw with them if I sent something?”

“It would,” Mark muses.  “What did you have in mind?”

Lisa wraps their arm around Mark and lifts the phone.  “C’mon, selfie time!”  She laughs, and with a contagious laugh like she has, how can Mark refuse?  He tilts his head and smiles, the mug still tightly curled in his hands as he leans close to them.  The camera on the phone clicks a few times, and in the corner of his eye Mark can see Lisa pulling several faces.  As they lower the phone, Mark laughs and tips back the rest of his coffee.

“Go on, send it,” Mark urges.  “What are you going to caption it?”

“Oooh, I get to caption it too?”  Lisa asks excitedly.

“Well, you’re the one making that call,” Sam says.  “But all the other pictures have captions.  I think yours should too.”

“Alright, I get it,” Lisa hums and thumbs through the pictures they took.  Mark watches them pick out one where her tongue is sticking out, and they start writing.

Surprise!  Bet this isn’t what you expected.  Say hi to David Rossi for me.  Big fan of you trying to pull employee information out of us without a warrant.

“Good one,” Sam notes when he sees it.

“That’ll throw them for a loop,” Dean nods.  “Which number are you sending it to?”

“The one labeled R,” Lisa says as they hit send.

“You sent that directly to David Rossi,” Sam comments.

“I did whAT?”  Her voice rises at the end, before she laughs.  “Oh that’s just even better, isn’t it?”

“It will confuse them,” Mark agrees, smiling.  “C’mon, Liz, we better get to work before Alani tells us off for being late again.”

“Oop!  Better take our bikes, then.”  Lisa hands Sam back his phone.  “Can’t have the boss berating us quietly in our offices so the patrons can’t hear.”

“You really should start leaving earlier,” Sam comments as he slips the phone back into his pocket.

“But where’s the fun in that, Sammich?”  Lisa teases, grinning.  “You know I love living on the edge.”

Sam shakes his head as he chuckles.  “See you tonight, babe,” he hums and pulls Mark into a short kiss before letting him out of reach.

Mark smiles and kisses back.  “See you tonight,” he replies as he follows Lisa out of the house.

—

“What the hell?”  Rossi mutters as he stares at the picture.  “This makes no sense.  What are they doing?”

“What is it?”  JJ asks.

“It’s a picture of Reid and one of his new coworkers.  It doesn’t make sense, she’s not organized enough for this.”

“Dave?”  Hotch presses.

“Her name is Lisa, I think,” Rossi sighs.  “I met her when I was at the library Reid works at, trying to see him there.  She’s the one that looked like she was falling asleep standing up and at the same time had enough energy to try to recommend me over a dozen books in a single minute, ranging from crafting to some series about monsters to god knows what.”

“Sounds like she could be 025,” Prentiss muses teasingly.  “What’s the caption?”

Rossi hands her the phone, and with raised eyebrows, Prentiss reads the message aloud.

“Surprise!  Bet this isn’t what you expected.  Say hi to David Rossi for me.  Big fan of you trying to pull employee information out of us without a warrant.”

“Say hi to David Rossi for me,” Lewis echoes.  “But it’s sent directly to him.”

“That’s what I don’t get.  Is she taunting me?  Is this her way of saying each of us don’t matter, that we exist as a unit and not as individuals?”  Rossi asks.

“But the previous pictures contradict this.  241’s picture of Spencer masturbating was sent to you because it was intrusive, in direct response to you bugging Spencer’s house,” Hotch reasons.  “Lewis getting the most disconnected picture and my receiving the picture during dinner in a very domestic and homely setting is taunting me about the family that I have and had.”

“So why is this Lisa girl sending this?  Is this the final message we’re gonna get?”  Morgan asks.

“I don’t think so.  241 is the boss, and he’s the one that’s in control.  Lisa is unpredictable, 241 is going to want the final word.”

“Could 241 be one of the other employees?  Did any of them strike you to fit the profile?”  

Rossi shakes his head.  “Perse was too timid and Danny was hyperfocused on the mythology section.  If I hadn’t talked to him, I don’t think he would have noticed I was there.  And they were the only other employees I saw before Lisa almost booted me out the door for daring to suggest I could sign my books for them.”

“What if 241 is Reid’s boyfriend?”  JJ suggests.  “If Reid was drawn to him because he’s Dean Winchester-like, chances are he’s a control freak.  He’s definitely dominant.”

“So if we postulate that 241 is Spencer’s boyfriend, and 025 is Lisa, his coworker, what does that say about Spencer’s position?”  Hotch questions.

“That he’s not in any danger whatsoever, and we are being pranked,” Morgan grumbles, crossing his arms.

“So why would they go to these lengths to ‘prank’ us?”  JJ sighs.

“Because we intruded on Spencer’s privacy and his new life.  He wasn’t ready to reach out to us, and we didn’t respect that he needed time,” Hotch tells them.  “They’re telling us to back off and give up.”

“But Lisa’s selfie with Reid doesn’t make sense.  Why make the reveal this?   Why not anything else?”

“Perhaps this isn’t the end,” Lewis postulates.  “I doubt this was the end of the saga that 241 expected.  There’s only so much you can hide in your wording.  He is clearly not done.”

“241 wouldn’t want Lisa to have the final word,” Rossi agrees.  “She’s too wild.”

—

Sam has always loved the sea and walking along the beach, barefoot.  He’s never been the type of guy to want to bundle up in winter, in layers upon layers of clothing, even though that’s exactly what he’s had to do for hunts all his life.  That’s why Spencer being placed on Hawai’i was a blessing.

There weren’t many blessings in Sam’s life.  Right now, it seemed like most of them revolved around Spencer.  Their unexpected soulmate, the man that stumbled into their life and loved them so shamelessly.  No matter how much he had to hide them away from his team, Spencer had never been ashamed of them.  And Sam had always appreciated that about him.  That Spencer hid their love because he had to, not because he wanted to keep them a secret. 

It had been hard for him, coming out to his coworkers at the library.  But they’d been so supportive.  Lisa had baked them a cake.  It had been a terrible mistake of a cake, but it had been made with love and they all got a good laugh out of it.  Spencer’s coworkers were lovely, they all had their own quirks, but they worked so seamlessly together.  Sam had spent a lot of time in libraries, but he’d never paid much attention to the interpersonal relationships within the library.

Sam stops and digs his toes into the wet sand as he feels the water wash over his feet, and he watches the sun slowly descend towards the blue horizon of the ocean.  And he thinks about blessings.

Spencer was their blessing, their light, their missing piece, as cheesy as it sounded.  Their soulmate.  One chosen by Heaven, not curated on their own.  It’s perhaps the only blessing Sam has received directly.  

Dean was sought after by the angels.  The Righteous Man.  Michael’s vessel.  The vessel of Good.  He received Gabriel’s blessing, his powers, the ability to teleport them anywhere with the snap of his fingers.

Sam, however, was tainted.  From the ripe age of six months, he had been chosen by the demons, by Hell.  From birth, he was Lucifer’s vessel.  He was addicted to demon blood, filled with power by it.  It still tingles in him, on the bad days.  Where he thinks about it, where it makes his skin crawl.  Dean has powers, why don’t you?  You could get them back, and you could be so much stronger than him.   But the voice in the back of his head is taunting him.  It’s egging him on, just like Lucifer did.  Sam isn’t Lucifer.  And he isn’t Dean.

He may not have powers, but that doesn’t make him lesser.

Spencer… Spencer had also been blessed by Gabriel, in the form of his appearance.  His cat ears and his long, fluffy tail solidifying him as belonging to them.  Spencer had been blessed by being sent to them.  Gabriel had placed him in their life, as his blessing for the three of them.  But Sam thinks it might have been mostly for Spencer - their lover deserved so much more than the life he had been leading in the FBI.

Sam didn’t receive a blessing so tangible from the archangel.  And perhaps he isn’t worthy of one.  He is still tainted by Hell, after all.  The touch of Heaven isn’t in the cards for him.

“Now, now, Sambo, no thinking like that,” Gabriel chides, standing next to him in the sand.

Sam turns his head and looks down at him.  “Reading my thoughts is intrusive,” he muses, before turning his face back towards the seas.  “I don’t need your blessing.”

“But you still want one,” Gabriel says knowingly.  And with a snap of his fingers, Sam stumbles backwards as weights attach to his shoulder blades.  He manages to right himself again as Gabriel laughs.  “There you go, moose.  Your very own blessing, signed, the ruler of heaven.  Take them for a test drive, the winds are in your favor.”

“I told you, I don’t need-”

“You don’t need one.  But you want one,” Gabriel tells him plainly before disappearing without giving him a chance to respond.  Sam frowns, and the weight on his back shifts as something spreads out behind him.  Turning his head, Sam glances over his shoulder to see- feathers?

Take them for a test drive, the winds are in your favor.

Gabriel has given him wings.   Feathery, light gray wings that probably weigh half of his body weight.  Closing his eyes, Sam tries to focus on them, but finds them hard to control.  

“How does Spence deal with his tail?”  Sam mutters to himself.  Spencer’s tail usually moves with his emotions.  Perhaps these wings are the same.  Instead of focusing on the wings themselves, Sam focuses on the feeling of the wind and what he wants the wings to do.

And, by some miracle, it works.  Sam loses his footing as he shoots skyward in a move that makes his stomach surge.  And when he opens his eyes, Sam is 30 feet above where he had been a second before.  Breathing deeply to settle himself, Sam feels the wind on his face and the careful flap of his wings behind him.  Leaning forward, Sam sets his sights on the horizon and the sunset, and he soars.

A laugh bursts from his lungs as he flies, his new appendages carrying him high up into the air before sending him diving towards the water’s surface.   But they don’t let him touch the water, Sam straightens out and he skates across the sea, fingers reaching out and breaching the calm, gentle water that the wind of his wings is disrupting behind him.  Letting his eyes close again, Sam trusts the wings as they bring him sky high again, up, up, and up.

It’s freeing, this feeling of flying.  It feels like he finally had a chance to let go of his past, of the pain, of the wounds that his addiction had caused.  Like the demonic traces are left in the washed-away footprints in the sand where he last set foot on the ground.  And Sam knows it’s not permanent - he has to come down sometime - but for now?  He’s going to let the past be the past and fly.  

When Sam finally lands back on the empty beach, the sun has long since set, casting long shadows in the last remnants of its warmth.  And Sam walks home, not needing to think to feel the wings disappear.  The weight is off his shoulders before he can even imagine them gone.

Chapter Text

“You’re late, was starting to get worried,” Dean comments light-heartedly as Sam steps through the front door.  “You’re always back before the sun’s gone.  Spence is going to be home in a few.”

“Got a little distracted,” Sam excuses, grabbing a towel to clean his feet.  “Gabe dropped by.”

“Yeah?  He got any news about something?”

“No- uh, he, he brought me something.”

“Uh-huh,” Dean says, cocking an eyebrow as Sam closes his eyes and focuses.  And suddenly the hall is filled with light gray feathers and sturdy wings.  “Oh.”

“Yeah.  They work, too,” Sam tells him, smiling awkwardly.  “I, uh, he suggested I take them for a test drive.  Was a little late getting back.”

Dean smiles.  “Wash your hands, Sammy, and then set the table by the TV.”

“Got it,” Sam hums and disappears into the downstairs washroom, the wings disappearing with him.  Dean smiles as he returns his attention to the pots and pans in front of him.  He’s become pretty efficient over the stove, even better than he’d been back at the bunker.  And sure, he misses the comforts of the bunker kitchen, but this feels more like a home.

He’s just a few pieces of wood and a kid or two away from the American Dream.  The picket fence isn’t there in favor of a hedge separating their backyard from the neighbors, but other than that, the house is the pinnacle of the Dream he thought he’d never have.  The Dream that was supposed to be out of reach for a guy like him.

Dean’s been domesticated.  That’s really the only word he has for it.  Spencer and Sam managed to tame the beast, somehow.  Sam would deny it, spout something about Dean’s sexual behavior, while Spencer would back him up with his numbers and psychology facts.  Dean smirks at himself.  “Never thought I’d end up like this.”

“Say something?”  Sam asks, popping out from around the corner, beelining it for the cabinets to bring out the plates.

“Look at me, I’m settled down.  Last time I tried this, Lisa and Ben almost got killed, and they almost got me too.”

“You figured we’d go down swinging, you and I,” Sam muses, and Dean nods.

“Didn’t you?”

“We duked it out against the Darkness and came out on top.  Since God wasn’t interested in fighting, I figured we’d… done it all, ya know?  We were on top of the world.”

“We’re still human,” Dean reminds him.  “We kept hunting.  Each hunt could’ve been our last.”

Sam nods as he walks around the kitchen island.  “Yeah, I know.  But we never lost.”

“And then Gabe sent us to pick up Spence.”

“Yeah,” Sam huffs.  “What a year it’s been, huh?”

“Year and a half, at this point,” Dean shrugs.  “But who’s counting,” he teases, and his brother laughs that gentle laugh of his.  

“Yeah, who’s counting?”  Sam echoes, a smile in his voice as he clears the table.

“Spence is,” they both say at the same time.  They both know he can’t help it, that brain of his retains information like a sponge that doesn’t actually give the water back, no matter how hard you try to squeeze it.

“Those wings of yours don’t fit in this house,” Dean comments.  

“I know.  I don’t really understand why Gabe decided that was the best course of action for me,” Sam admits as he returns to the kitchen.

“Probably something about you being birdbrained,” Dean jokes.

“But while I was up there,” Sam continues, pretending he hadn’t heard Dean’s joke, “I felt… free.”  Dean turns around and leans on the counter as he watches him.

“Free?  You were jealous that Spence had his cat ears and I had the magic fingers.”

Sam sighs.  “I hate that you know me so well,” he mumbles, shaking his head in the way that meant he didn’t actually mean that.  “But yeah.  I was.  You got your things so long ago, and I was… sort of waiting for my turn?  It was ridiculous, Spencer being in our lives and letting us be in his is a blessing in and of itself.  That was really all I needed.  I didn’t need a set of large, bulky, unruly wings that I don’t know how to control.”

“C’mon, Sammy,” Dean mutters, reaching out and pulling him in, standing on his toes to kiss him.  “No talking like that.  Just because you didn’t get that tangible ‘blessing’ or whatever you wanna call it, doesn’t make you less important, yeah?  Do we need to take a weekend, just you and I?”

Sam sighs into the kiss, his big hands closing on Dean’s arms.  “No- no, that’s not necessary.  A-and it’s not that I need to let go or shut my brain off.  It’s just the itch talking.  It’ll pass, it always does.”

And then Dean understands.  The demon blood is taunting his brother, clawing at his insecurities.  Telling him he’s lesser, that he could be better if only he had just a single drop of the stuff.

“If I keep giving in to the- the blood, it’ll only cause me more pain,” Sam insists.  “Gabe giving me the wings set me free from it, if only for a while.  But… I don’t know if that’s the answer I need.”

“You know best, Sammy,” Dean whispers, his hand cupping Sam’s cheek as his thumb slides across his skin gently.  “I know Spence knows what you’re going through better than I ever could.  Promise me you’ll talk to him if the itch comes back, yeah?  Don’t bottle it up on your own, mister ‘chick flick moments’.”  There’s a light tone to his voice.

“I promise,” Sam whispers, before wrapping his arms around Dean and pulling him into a tight hug.  Breathing out, Dean wraps his arms around Sam in return and holds on to him. 

“That’s it, baby brother,” Dean murmurs, patting his back.

“I’m home!”  Spencer announces as the front door swings open, and Dean gently nudges Sam to break the hug and pull away.

“Perfect timing,” Dean says, smiling at him before turning to put the finishing touches to their meal.  

“Welcome home,” Sam hums, his qualms seemingly forgotten as he approaches their lover to embrace him and pull him into a kiss.

—

Sam plays with his phone, the one Lisa had borrowed.  And he wonders how the BAU are handling the selfie.

Part of him worries the image they took was too much - that they’d given them too much information to go off of.  That perhaps, somehow, they would issue a warrant for Lisa’s arrest for stalking.  But as he looks at the picture, of his Spencer smiling so openly, so happily, he thinks that the BAU would be fools to think that Spencer was coerced into it.  That he, somehow, wasn’t in on the game.

Dean’s caption should have given them food for thought about the second phone belonging to Spencer’s mysterious boyfriend.  They all knew Spencer was seeing someone.  And calling your boyfriend’s name during masturbation would be the highest form of flattery, right?  Sam knows he himself found it incredibly arousing, watching Spencer arch and gasp with his hand around his dick, whining out their names, their titles.  Daddy.

And it played into the BAU’s worst fear, before Lisa sent the selfie - that they aren’t dead.  That ‘The Winchesters’ are still kicking, are still following Spencer, and that Spencer is infatuated with his kidnappers.  His stalkers.  For all accounts, his rapists.   Sam feels sickened that the word is even associated with the two of them - they were extremely careful not to pressure or coerce Spencer into anything.  And their history shows a lot of one night stands, sure, but there’s no history of sexual violence.  Not even the “repeated stabbing” that Spencer had talked about representing “unreleased sexual desires” or even “impotency”.  There’s none of that.  But Sam knows the BAU had been expecting it.

Perhaps it was because they saw him and Spencer as interchangeable, at least in his brother’s eyes.  That the BAU saw Sam - tall, strong, long-haired, intelligent - and saw Spencer - tall, lanky, long-haired (at the time), intelligent - the same way.  Or, in any case, expected Dean to see them as one and the same.  That somehow, Dean would ‘revoke’ his sin of incest in favor of raping a man that looked ‘just like his brother’.

Sometimes Sam wonders how smart the BAU actually are.  Sin is sin, no matter how delusional they’re supposed to be.  The sin that has been committed cannot be undone.  It can be repented, sure, but the sin still lingers.  It still waits for the day you grow weak to its temptation.  Sam knows that firsthand.  The demon blood will always linger in the depths of his soul, awaiting the day he breaks.

Sam unlocks the phone and types out another message - no picture attached this time.

I want him in my arms again.  The Heavens would have treasured a man like Mark Porter.

He sends the message to Aaron Hotchner.  And then he follows it up immediately with another one.

Don’t believe the lies of the front camera.  Its mirrors deceive.

And Sam can only hope it'll confuse them just enough to put Lisa out of their heads.  They don't deserve to be profiled so intensely.  And she doesn't deserve to have all his madness attributed to her.

—

I want him in my arms again.  The Heavens would have treasured a man like Mark Porter.

Don't believe the lies of the front camera.  Its mirrors deceive.

The messages tick in on Hotch's phone in rapid succession just a day after they received the picture of Lisa and Spencer.  He's in his office, and he expects a picture to accompany the messages, but none come.  How peculiar.

Its mirrors deceive.

Hotch had known Lisa's writing had been very different from the typical messages they had received from 025, and he doesn't think she is the owner of the phone.  It's clear someone wants him to dismiss any accusations towards Lisa.

But does that mean she's guilty?  Or that she took the phone from someone close to Spencer and there are now three people at play here?  Were there always three people?  Is 025's split personality a cause of two people sharing that phone?  Lisa with the erratic timestamps and the stalker with the poetry?

I want him in my arms again.   It feels like 241's, the possible boyfriend's writing, not 025's.  Are they switching it up to confuse them?  They've been concrete so far.

What worries Hotch is that they're being concrete.  It's meant to unsettle, he knows that.  But it's been messages three days in a row.  Will this trend continue?  Will they see an escalation of threats, of desire, of proximity?  Will Spencer get hurt?

So far there hasn't seemed like they intend to hurt Spencer.  Just show them how close they are.  Whoever they are.

It's frustrating him, and Hotch doesn't know how it all fits together.  It all feels disjointed, like a 2000 piece puzzle that has pieces scattered across three tables and two houses, where you have managed to piece together a frame and small sections, but you have no idea what you're supposed to be puzzling together.  Each new section you manage to put together just refutes any other information you may have had previously.

He doesn't even know if Spencer is in danger.  There are powers at play that supposedly want him to think so, but then there's the selfie.  The lie.   And he can't make it make sense, no matter which way he looks at it.

But that's not quite true.  There is one impossible scenario where it fits.

The Winchesters are alive, and Spencer is in a relationship with them.  Perhaps they share him.  But they would have the knowledge, the personalities, everything would line up.  His stalkers being the Winchesters would solve almost every problem that has been the source of the team's confusion. Especially if they're in a relationship with Spencer.

Except for the fact that they're dead.  And that Spencer would never willingly enter a relationship with a serial killer.  Would he?  Hotch couldn't imagine Spencer's morals allowing him to love someone that kidnapped him.  That tortured him, if not physically, then mentally.  But perhaps his imagination is clouded by his own affection for the doctor.  That he doesn't want to see Spencer with anyone but himself.

But the Winchesters are still dead.  Very much so.  So they can't love Spencer, and Spencer can't love them.

Hotch doesn't tell the team about the messages.  They've got more important cases to worry about.  But he keeps them in the back of his head, just in case.

—

"I'm going out to stretch my wings," Sam tells Dean as he heads for the back door.

"Make sure nobody sees you, yeah?" Dean teases, lifting his head to look at him.  "Leave your phone in case a hunter calls.  Just take your second."

Sam nods and fishes his phone out of his pocket, leaving it on the counter.  "I sent Hotchner two messages earlier, just to make him rethink Lisa's picture."

"Good thinking.  Shouldn't be too long until my plan is ready.  Just need to record some stuff." 

"Record?" Sam asks, frowning.

"You'll see in time, Sammy.  But it'll be epic.  I promise."

Sam laughs, and Dean watches him shake his head as he leaves the house.  Grabbing the phones and his laptop, Dean heads upstairs to the bathroom, closing himself in there.  It's got the perfect echo to record in for his purposes.  And after setting up his script and phone, he hits record.

"Good afternoon, agents.  My name is Dean Winchester, and I'm going to tell you a story.  Our story.  The story of Sam Winchester, of Dean Winchester, and of their unexpected soulmate, Mark Porter."

Chapter Text

“So, just walk me through it one more time,” Spencer says.  “You’ve been making a video compilation about your stalking me?”

“Yep,” Dean announces, popping the P with a grin.  “But it’s missing the finishing touch.  I’ve already got Gabe on board.”

“On board for what?”

“Faking your death on camera to show the feds how easily it’s done.”

“Really?”  Sam blurts.  “That’s your master plan?  Faking Spencer’s death?”

“They’re gonna know he’s not dead!” Dean defends.  “C’mon, Sammy, I need you to man the camera for like five minutes.”

“I didn’t even say I was in,” Spencer comments, leaning on his chair.

“You didn’t shut me down, which you usually do when I get some of my ideas,” Dean counters.

“I didn’t,” Spencer acknowledges, smiling as he shakes his head.  “Alright, say I’m in.  Do you have, like, a script or anything?”

“Nah.  Gonna wing it.  Got a good feeling for what I’ll say, either way.”

Spencer looks over at Sam, who just shakes his head.  “The sooner we agree, the sooner we get this over with.”

—

The messages keep ticking in over the next week.  They're unevenly spread across the team, with Hotch, Morgan and JJ getting a disproportionate amount of the weird, creepy, devolving text messages.

It seems they're no longer sending pictures.  At least not often.

They only got one picture from 241, and it's of Reid at work at the help desk.  Do you know how much he misses his Daddy?  He knows I'm so close.

It all makes them uncomfortable, but there's nothing they can do.  Garcia had asked Spencer what was going on, but he hadn't seemed worried at all.  It seemed like he didn't even care that there were two people sending his old team messages about his life.

Well, it would make sense that he doesn't care, if they really are his boyfriend and his coworker.  But it feels wrong to keep receiving these messages.

The sun and I shine through the sliver in the curtain onto him.

8:37.  He's thinking of us.  Of me.

He used to love pressing his fingers against the bruises we left.  I wonder if he still does.

I need to touch him.  I need to feel his skin break under my fingernails as I tear him apart and put him back together again.

I need him.  I need him.  I need him to scream my name.

Need became a word that lost its meaning in the messages.  As did the assigned personality associated with each number.  They switched phones randomly, and it became impossible to separate them back into their distinct personalities.  They were devolving into the same unhinged creature of perverted desire.

And then, one day, nothing.  They all walked on eggshells, their phones in their hands, awaiting the fateful moment the next message would show up.

But it never did.  One day, two days, a week passed without a single text or picture or anything.

Until the day Spencer Reid arrives on the doorstep of the FBI for the last time.

—

“You sure you’ve got everything?”  Sam asks, for the tenth time.

“Letter of resignation, federally issued gun, badge, and the USB,” Spencer recites, holding up each item.  “Dean will zap me to the entrance of the FBI, and then zap me out once I text you that it’s done.”

“Attaboy,” Dean praises, grinning as he wraps his arm around Spencer’s shoulders and pulls him into a sideways hug.  “Ready to go?”

“I’ll never be ready to confront my entire old team about what they did,” Spencer tells him frankly.  “But this is the closest I’m getting.”

“Remember, text us as soon as you need to get zapped,” Dean says before snapping his fingers, and Spencer finds himself outside the gates to the FBI.  Drawing in a deep breath, the air feels so different from the Hawai’ian air he’s become accustomed to.  It feels stale, filled with the fumes of exhaust of the cars driving all around him.

Spencer walks in, like he’s done a thousand times before.  Like he’ll never do again. 

The guard at the door is the same as when he’d left.

“Doctor Reid!  Welcome back,” he greets, and Spencer flinches at hearing his surname spoken back to him.  But he takes a deep breath and smiles.

“Thank you, Jimmy,” he replies politely as he walks in.  “Ah, actually, could you get me a visitor’s badge?”

“Oh, um, sure, Doctor Reid, I can do that, just a moment,” Jimmy answers, confused at his request.  “To which name?”

“Mark Porter,” Spencer tells him.

“Friend of yours?”

“Not exactly.”

Jimmy must be surprised when Spencer clips the visitor’s badge to his own shirt as he walks in and heads for the elevator.  Spencer doesn’t blame him.

The ride up to the BAU causes his stomach to stir.  He’s actually doing this.  He’s finally approaching his team.  It’s time to end this charade, once and for all.   The elevator dings and the doors slide open, revealing the glass doors into the bullpen he’d called his office for over a decade.

It’s amazing how foreign it feels to push open that door, now.

Spencer had expected the BAU to be milling around in the bullpen, like they always seemed to do, but he doesn’t see any of them.  Hotch’s door is ajar, as is Rossi’s, and through the blinds, Spencer sees that Hotch isn’t in the office.  Holding his breath, Spencer’s eyes cross the bullpen and focus on the meeting room.  What if they’re out on a case?  All of this is for naught, he’ll have to come back another day-

But no, the team is sitting in the meeting room, eating lunch together, apparently.  Mark strides confidently across the bullpen, drawing the attention of several other agents he’d only peripherally worked with.  Stopping outside the door to the meeting room, Mark breathes in deeply and fixes the items in his hands.

And then he pushes the door open.  Whatever conversation that had been ongoing was immediately stilled, and Mark’s eyes slide across the team members.  Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, Jennifer Jareau, Emily Prentiss, Tara, Penelope, and David Rossi.

“Spencer!”  Penelope announces.

“Reid,” Derek Morgan begins, rising to his feet, and Mark can’t help it, he flinches again as he’s called his surname.  It just feels wrong, now.

“I’m not here to come back,” Mark says immediately, shaking his head.  “Hotch,” he continues, stepping forward and placing the items in front of him.  “I officially resign from the FBI, effective immediately.  My name is Mark Porter.  Here’s my gun, my badge, and on the USB is everything you need to know.  I suggest you all give it a watch together.  It should clear some things up, since it’s clear my own words aren’t enough.”

And he turns around, heading back to the door as he feels his tail and ears make themselves known.  “Oh, and if it wasn’t clear enough, I’m not really interested in being friends with the people who decided the best course of action was to bug my house instead of letting me process everything on my own terms.  I’ve really got nothing else to say but fuck you.  Fuck all of you for not respecting what I want.”   Mark slams the door to the meeting room shut and pulls out his phone, texting Dean.

Get me out.  Now.

And in a flash, he’s back in Hawai’i, and Mark Porter collapses into Sam’s arms, the man who catches him and carries him so easily to the couch.  His head rests on Sam’s chest as Mark trembles, whimpering quietly as his fingers tighten in his shirt to cling to him.

“You did so good, sweetheart,” Sam mumbles.  “We’ve got you,” he promises, fingers running through Mark’s hair and playing carefully with his ears.  “I’m so proud of you.”

“Why do I feel so drained?  It took less than five minutes,” Mark mutters.  “I should be fine.”

“You just cussed out the people you called your family for over 10 years,” Dean notes unhelpfully.  “That’ll take a toll on anybody, no matter how much you don’t like them now.  They meant a lot to you.  They were also your soulmates,” he explains, a surprisingly sober line of thinking for the former hunter as he sits down next to the two.

“I guess,” Mark sighs.  “Thank you.”

—

Penelope doesn’t know what to think.  Spe- no, Mark Porter, Mark, had just burst through the door, dropped his resignation like a bombshell and then left after cursing at all of them.  Part of her is so proud of him for standing up for himself against the shitty attitude the team has had the past months.  But another part of her laments the fact that she had been included in Mark’s cursing.  She knows she also failed him as a friend.

And now she finds herself with a USB drive that he had left for all of them.

“I need you to scan this for viruses before we open it,”  Hotch tells her, and Penelope wants to scream.  How can he distrust Mark so readily?  How?

“Mark wouldn’t do that,” Penelope says firmly instead.  “He wants us to see the truth.  That’s all he ever wanted.  And we all let him down.  He wants the truth to reach us.  He wouldn’t destroy us in the process.”

“He seemed ready to tear us to pieces,” Rossi comments dryly.

“Did- did any of you also see-” JJ cuts herself off, her voice shaking slightly.  “He- he had…”

“Cat ears and a tail,” Hotch sighs.  “The truth.  Garcia, plug in the drive and open it on the TV.”

Penelope nods and grabs her laptop, plugging the USB drive in and opening it.

It’s almost empty.  But only almost.  There are two things in the root:  a folder named “Spencer” and one file.

TheDeathOfSpencerReid.mp4

Holding her breath, Penelope opens the video and plays it on the TV in front of all of them.

Dean Winchester’s face fills the screen, and four agents rear back.  Penelope and Tara don’t react, but neither does Hotch, Penelope notices.

“Hey there, agents.  Since you’re seeing this video, my pretty little kitten has done his job.”  He steps back, and as does the cameraman, and Mark Porter is standing there, smiling until Dean draws his gun on him.  “This.  Is the death of Spencer Reid.”

Spencer in the video seems terrified, his hands up in the air as he takes a half-step back.  “Dean- Dean, no-” but he’s cut off with the sound of a gunshot, and he drops to the floor with a bullet hole in his head.  A yelp escapes Penelope, and she shrinks back.

“See how easy it is?”  Dean taunts them as a form walks into frame.  Mark Porter, sporting the tail and ears, wraps his arms around Dean’s waist and kisses him, pulling him close. Mark Porter is kissing Dean Winchester.   Penelope shouldn't be surprised, she knows already, but it still makes her reel to see him do such a thing in front of all of them.

“Once you know how to do it, it’s surprisingly easy to create a body double,” Mark hums as the kiss is broken.  “You just need a little archangel goodwill.  Luckily for us, we got plenty of that.”

And the video cuts out, replaced with an image of Mark walking.  The image Tara had received from 241.  From Dean.   A voiceover begins to play.

“Good afternoon, agents.  My name is Dean Winchester, and I'm going to tell you a story.  Our story.  The story of Sam Winchester, of Dean Winchester, and of their unexpected soulmate, Mark Porter.”

The image is replaced, and it's the same, but now Mark isn’t alone.  Sam Winchester is walking with him, and they’re laughing together.  Penelope gets the feeling she knows what's to come.

“You see, there’s a lot you don’t know about the world.  First of all, I guess I gotta announce it: Sammy and I aren’t crazy.  We’re just fucked up kids shown the worst of the world before we could even toss a ball.  And the true vessels of Michael and Lucifer, but, you know what?  We’ll get back to that.  Let's start at the beginning.”

"The beginning?" JJ whispers as the image changes, to the one Hotch had received.  Mark sitting at the kitchen island, eating dinner.

“We’re actually going back to 1973.  Mom and dad first met, and dad died.  A demon came and mom made a deal with him.  Bring back good old dad, and he gets free reign in her home one night ten years later.  She takes the deal, and badabing badaboom, Sammy’s a demon blood addict at the ripe age of six months to the day.”

The image stutters, and now Dean’s at the table with him, his fork out towards Mark with a grin on his face.

“That night she died, Yellow-eyes came to say hi to Sammy.  Was choosing him to be in the next season of Hell’s Next Top Model.  But mom caught him in the act and- well, you all saw how that ended.”

This time the picture is new - at least for most of the BAU members.  It’s the picture Mark had sent Penelope of his new boyfriend.

“That’s how most people get into hunting.  Family gets shanked by hellspawn and boom! You’re in the middle of the hot mess that is monsters.  Dad dragged us along for the revenge plot.  Taught us all the crap that’s out there.  Doctor Lewis knows what that feeling’s like - Sammy got a .45 shoved into his hands at 9 when he said he was scared of the thing in his closet.”

And this time, when the image shifts, Sam’s face is more visible and Mark is smiling into the mirror, Sam’s fingertips digging into his skin as his lips are sucking a hickey into his neck.

“So how’d we figure out Mark Porter is our soulmate?  Well, we didn’t know until after we brought him back home, with a little angelic help.  But things have a funny way of working out.”

The screen goes black, and for a moment, Penelope thinks the video is over - but of course it isn’t.  A video fades in, of Mark, of Sam, and of Dean, and things aren’t quite right.  Mark Porter has cat ears and a fluffy brown tail, and there are wings, large, massive, impossible wings encircling the trio, the trio that is laughing soundlessly and Mark stands on his toes and kisses Sam’s cheek as Dean’s fingers move through Mark’s hair.

“Yeah, things have a funny way of working out.  Take a look at the rest of this thing.  Should be interesting.”   The voiceover ends as the video cuts, and then there’s nothing but silence.

Tapping on her laptop, Penelope opens the folder labeled “Spencer”.  It’s an assortment of files.  Pictures.  Documents that appear to be records of text messages.  Links to sites on the deep web about monsters - not your typical conspiracy sites, but journals and documentation on various instances of monstrous activity throughout the United States.

“We were wrong all along?”  JJ asks, voice trembling.

Chapter Text

“He lied.”

“He lied for months about what he had been through, in an effort to keep their secret.”

“He’s not even human.”

“What were we working with, all these years?”

Penelope hears the voices scramble among themselves all around her as she focuses on the screen in front of her.  She’s trying to research something, something that can tell them all who Mark Porter really is.

“Kitsune!”  She announces suddenly, interrupting Morgan in the middle of a religious frenzy.

“What?”  Prentiss blurts, lifting her head from where she’s had it in her hands, her fingers dragging through her hair as she contemplates the information they have just received.

“Mark!  He’s a kitsune!  He has to be.  A-and I know they’re foxes and those were cat ears, but I’ve gone down the list of things he could be and kitsune is the only thing that’s close to what he is!”

“So the Winchesters sought him out because he’s a kitsune?  So why didn’t they kill him?”  Rossi asks.

“Soulmates!  Soulmates, they’re real and Spe-Mark, Mark, he is their soulmate and they’re probably each others’ soulmates too,” Penelope rambles.  “Oh, he told me about this, about this theory about soulmates that he had, what was it he said…”

“Soulmates aren’t only a result of divine intervention, but also through your own actions,” Tara interjects calmly.  “This team, all of you, were, are, his soulmates.  Your actions affect each other, and you give and take.  And that happens in your soul, too.  That’s the bond that humans can create, beyond what’s meant for them from up above.  Mark knew you were his soulmates, but you rejected him so firmly that now, he wants nothing to do with you.”

“You knew about all of this?”  Morgan asks her.  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You wouldn’t have believed me,” Tara says simply.  “Not without evidence.  And I didn’t have evidence.  This is the firmest evidence we could have received without being put in danger ourselves.”

“What do you mean?”  Hotch questions.  

“Sam and Dean were hunters.  Some of the best, actually.  They saved countless lives on their treacherous journey,” Tara begins.  “They prevented the end of the world more than once.  Remember Dick Roman, the businessman that ran for president and inexplicably disappeared?  He was a Leviathan, a monster that predates God’s creation of mankind.  He was taken out by Dean Winchester.”

“So it’s real?  God really is real?”  Prentiss asks shakily.

“Yes.  But, last I heard, he’s not around.  Gabriel the archangel is running the show,” Tara explains.

“That’s rightarooni, Tarby,” a voice announces, and suddenly three men are standing by the couch.  One they recognize as ‘Gabriel’, one Penelope knows as James Novak, and a third, younger man, who looks 25 at most.  “Hello, agents,” Gabriel greets.

“James Novak?”  JJ asks carefully.

“My name is Castiel,” he tells her.

“And this is Jack Kline,”  Gabriel says, patting the young man on the top of the head.

“Jack Kline should still be a child,” Hotch notes carefully.  “If he was the son of President Rooney.”

“Yeah, well, growing up fast comes with the territory when you’re a nephilim,” Gabriel excuses.  “He’s been helping us rebuild and reshape Heaven.  Been a bit of a dump for the past millennia.  Anyway, we were just popping in to make sure there wasn’t any doubt about the whole monster and gods thing being real.  Any doubts?  Because, like, I can fix that if there is.”

“No, I- I don’t think there’s any doubt now, considering you came in here without going through any doors,” Rossi stumbles over his words a little.

“Good, good…” Gabriel trails, nodding to himself.  “Because I could always show you what I can really do.  Like zap you into another dimension.  Make you relive the same day over and over.  Oooh, or my favorite!  Send you into a bunch of different TV shows!  I know the boys loved that one.”

“You turned Sam into a talking vehicle,” Castiel tells him dryly.  “He kept reminding me of that. It was my impression that he did not love that.”

“C’mon, Cassie, don’t be so uptight about it,” Gabriel teases, wrapping his arm around his waist and pulling him close.  “You know Sambo’s just upset because he didn’t get to stay a talking car.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

Gabriel rolls his eyes fondly and turns to face him, both hands on Castiel’s waist.  “Yeah?  Did you ask him, Cassie?”

“He told me enough.”

“Don’t mind them,” Jack says, stepping forward as if to shield the two men from them.  “They, uh, they can be a bit much, but they’re good parents.”

“They’re your parents?”  Prentiss asks skeptically.

“They brought me up, and although they knew who my father was, they helped me learn how to control my powers,” he explains.  “Is that not what parents are?”  It’s such an innocent question and Penelope’s heart breaks a little for this child.   That’s what he is.  A child, that literally grew up too fast.

“Yes, yes, that’s exactly what parents are supposed to do,”  JJ answers quietly, and as Penelope looks at her, she sees that gentle smile JJ always has when she’s talking to children.

“Where is James Novak?”  Hotch asks.

“He’s got his own little space up in Heaven,” Gabriel says with a smile.  “One of my brothers may have disintegrated him after being hit by a Holy Molotov.  But don’t worry, his soul is completely fine.”

“Di-disintegrated?”  Morgan stutters.

“With the snap of his fingers.  Boom.  Not that hard for an archangel.”

“Just like it’s easy to fake someone’s death while leaving their body,” Hotch confirms.

“Yep.  Genius, wasn’t it?  Would’ve been easy to just cut contact right then and there.  They were dead and your precious teammate was safe.  But then again, they always did have the flair for the dramatic.  I, personally, would’ve just zapped you out of existence for hurting Spencer.  It’s your fault he’s decided to give up that name entirely, by the way.  You caused this.”

“Gabriel…”  Castiel warns, a hand on his arm and a frown on his lips.  “Don’t.  This isn’t our battle.  The war is over.”

“C’mon, Cassie, they wanted to listen in on the guy’s house!  That warrants a scolding.”

“We need to get back.  Kamael and Lieke are waiting for us,” Castiel reminds him.  “This is not worth it.”

Gabriel sighs and his face softens into a gentle smile.  “You’re right.  The war is over.  Come, Jack.  It’s time to go home.” 

And so, the three men disappear in the blink of an eye.

The war is over.   The words twist and turn in Penelope’s head.  War.   They had been at war with the Winchesters.  Or, maybe more correctly, Mark Porter and the Winchesters had been at war with them.   A war that was, at its root, unnecessary.  Caused by their own impatience and unwillingness to give their friend the time to make his own decisions.  

But it's over now.  Mark is free from the stress and the anguish the team has caused.  And Penelope looks at the image on the screen, of Mark, Sam and Dean looking so comfortable and in love, and she smiles.

"Why aren't we going out there to arrest them?" Morgan asks, standing up as his palms hit the table.  Penelope flinches and swallows, and she knows why he's angry.  She's seen it on him, in the darkness of her office while his leg was still healing.  He was stewing in his own head, feeding anger with whatever feelings he once held for Spencer.  Morgan loved Spencer and lost his chance.

"They're not serial killers," Tara reminds him.  "They're hunters.  They don't kill or hurt humans.  What they've done, they've done to survive.  They've saved the world."

"If they've been blessed by an archangel, they must have done something right," Rossi concedes.

"We won't interfere.  The Winchesters are dead in the eyes of the law, and it's time to lay this all to rest," Hotch announces.  "Mark Porter is not a part of the FBI, and not our responsibility."

And Penelope looks at the screen again and smiles.  Goodbye, Spencer Reid.

—

"Have a nice day at work," Sam hums and kisses Mark quickly before handing him his bag.

"Thank you.  Can one of you pick up groceries while I'm at work?  The list is on the counter."

"Sure thing," Dean tells him, smiling.  "I could do with a trip into town."

"Thanks," Mark smiles and opens the front door.  "See you tonight."

"See you tonight," Two voices echo as he disappears out the door, and once the door is shut, Sam looks at the two phones lying innocently on the kitchen island.  The two phones that had been the only line of communication to Spencer's old team.

It's time to end it.  Sam swipes both phones and heads for the back door.

"I'll be right back," he announces before walking outside and spreading his wings.  Taking flight, Sam soars towards the water.  The crisp blue of the ocean below him is mesmerizing, and it draws him in. 

Far from shore, he pauses and sinks down to the water's surface.  And then, the phones slip from his grasp, sinking into the depths immediately.  And as Sam rises again, far above the docile waves, the weight of their actions disappear.  It dropped with the phones, far down into the ocean.

The war is over.  The war fought with stalking messages and pictures and secrets.  There aren't any more secrets now.  It's all out there.  And it's time to move on.

No more BAU.  No more FBI.  No more.  

No more war.

Sam takes off back home.  Home.   It's nice to have a place, a house, to call home.  Especially now that they're all safe.  

The bunker was nice, it was serviceable, but Sam had never liked the lack of windows and wood that it had presented.  It had never felt truly like a home.  Sure, Dean was there, and Dean's always been Sam's home, but having a cozy little light blue cottage with a backyard and a hedged-in front yard is practically the dream he never thought he'd get.  

He'd seen himself in a house like this, once.  With Jess.  Sure, it hadn't been in Hawai’i, but it had been a small, two-story house with a garage and a nursery and a guest room.  The cottage in Hawai'i doesn't have a garage, or a nursery, and what once was a guest room but now functions as his and Dean's office when they're taking hunting calls.

Sam lands in their backyard, and in the blink of an eye, his wings are gone as if they'd never been there.

"Done?" Dean asks.

"Never to be seen again," Sam confirms.

"I scrubbed the laptop," Dean tells him.  "Nothing left."

"The war is over," Sam sighs as he wraps his arms around Dean.

"The closest we can get to world peace," Dean teases gently, pulling him down into a kiss.

"Yeah," Sam breathes against his lips.  "It's done.  We got our happy ending, after all."

"Never thought I'd live to see it."

"Neither of us did."

"But we got it.  You, me, and Spence.  We finally did it."

Sam smiles.  "We did it.  He did it."

"And now he's got the whole world ahead of him."

"Just like we do."

Dean nods, pulling back and heading into the living room.  "C'mon, Sammy.  Time to relax.  With no distractions.  There's a doctor Sexy marathon ongoing."

Sam laughs and shakes his head as he follows, sitting with him on the couch with his arm around Dean's shoulders.  Peace.

Chapter Text

It's long overdue, when Aaron Hotchner finally hangs up his suit jacket and tie and gives in from the push and pull of profiling.  Jack is off to college, going into law school just like he had, and Aaron finds that he could use some new scenery.

So he packs a suitcase, places his furniture in a storage unit, and steps onto a plane bound for Honolulu, without a return ticket.

He wasn't trying to lie to himself.  He wasn't just "looking for new scenery" when he chose Honolulu.  Aaron chose Honolulu because that's where Mark Porter is.  Where the Winchesters are.  Aaron was always curious about them.  About the hunt.  About their relationship.  But there was never time.  Too many cases, too many unsubs, too many victims.

Aaron understands why Mark chose to quit when he did.  A year away from the job puts it in perspective.  

He wonders how Mark is faring.  Aaron knows he's got a doctorate in library science now.  Aaron had skimmed through his thesis, and it had been a fascinating read.  He wishes it had been around to help him make Jack read more as a child.  

Standing outside the Manoa Public Library,  Aaron is worried that he won’t be welcome there.  It’s been seven years since they last saw each other.  Since the last time any of the BAU had directly spoken to Mark.  He knows Penelope has messaged and called Mark from time to time, but that’s their business.  And Mark had been adamant that he hadn’t wanted to speak to them.

Aaron wonders if he is overstepping yet another boundary for the librarian.  And he almost turns away, right at the cusp of the library entrance.  But he opens the door and walks in, hearing the delightful sound of children laughing.  Looking beyond the entrance into the children’s section, he sees Doctor Mark Porter for the first time in seven years.  He’s got a table between himself and the group of mesmerized children.

“Okay, everyone, for the last trick, I’m going to make this can into a rocket,” Mark tells them with a grin that, even from the side Aaron can see him from, creates wrinkles around the corner of his eyes.  “But to do that, I need all of you to cover your eyes.  And no peeking, otherwise the magic won’t work!”  

Aaron leans on the bookshelf beside him and is brought back to a similar scene, except it’s so different either way.  A young Spencer Reid, making JJ, Emily and Penelope turn around so he could recreate the rocket trick for the third time that morning.  An empty film canister that lands in front of him, and watching the ladies scurry away as he approaches Spencer’s desk, canister in hand.

“Okay, everybody open your eyes, hold your breath, and just watch,” Mark urges, and the silence falls on the library for a splendid few seconds as the contents of the small can fizzles, and finally explodes into a rocket that lands not far away from Aaron.  The kids all squeal with joy as Mark Porter announces the end of today’s magic show, and they disperse into the seemingly limitless children’s section.

Aaron crouches down, cursing his bad knee under his breath, and picks up the discarded “rocket” before approaching Mark as he packs down his box of magic tricks.

“You’re really getting some distance on these, now,” he compliments, holding the can out towards him from across the table.

Mark freezes for a second as he takes him in, in his t-shirt and khaki shorts and out of place black dress shoes, and Aaron feels like he’s about to be thrown out of the library.  But then Mark smiles, takes the can and places it in its place, and looks at his face. 

“Thank you, Aaron.”

Aaron.   Aaron sighs, content with the outcome.  Mark had been so particular about the names he used towards them, ever since he went into witsec.  Perhaps even before.  So Aaron knows that the way Mark calls him Aaron is his way of telling him he’s accepted.

“I quit,” Aaron tells him after a moment of silence where Mark continues packing down his set.

“I could tell,” Mark replies easily, smiling up beyond his hair.  “Sam is coming to join me for lunch.  You can join us.”

“I’d love to.”