The hotel has a shuttle that Cletus' family paid for since enough of the wedding guests are staying in the same place. Reid and I cram inside it, filing into a back corner. Too many people squeeze in so my knee is pressed into his and I'm sure he's rather uncomfortable pinned between me and the window. We had to abandon the rental car back at the wedding venue, but so long as we pick it up early in the morning, no one will care. Stéphane will drive me to pick it up, I'm sure.

People are still having fun on the bus. As much as I rag on Cletus, his family knows how to have a good time. Guests are singing, kissing, and laughing, and people are drunk but no one is throwing up. It doesn't take more than ten minutes to get to the hotel, but I don't mind the moment.

Soon enough, we load off and into the parking lot. Men stumble on the concrete, laughing and pushing one another. Women take off the heels of their shoes and whine about their aching toes. I marvel at the sight. My brothers are there too, Bastien holding Stéphane in a headlock while flirting with a bridesmaid. Decidedly she's not his date, nor the secret boyfriend I suspect he's hiding somewhere, but he's twenty-two and allowed to not have his shit together. I don't either.

Reid's arm grazes against mine. I look up at him.

"I'm not sure how they still have energy," I gesture over to my brother's bigger and broader than me, swinging at each other wildly.

He looks at them all, "high intensity exercise can make it more difficult to fall asleep. They all seem intoxicated though, so I doubt they will continue to make a ruckus much longer."

"I'm not waiting up for them," I feel myself yawn.

Reid shows me the way into the hotel. He got the room number from someone else, but we have to grab our stuff from the initial room still. Reid and I make it out there before Cletus' parents come. I wait in front of the door.

"You look tired," he says. "Or drunk."

When I press the back of my hand against my cheeks, my cheeks feel so hot. That, or my hand is frigid. I close my eyes before I blink and open them.

"Not drunk, at least," I tell him.

He nods. Reid leans against the hallway wall next to me. Even though he must be tired as well, he does not slouch. For once, I don't mind the height distance. It doesn't feel weird, having him above me.

"I had a good time," he tells me.

Then, I smile.

The elevator doors ding and Cletus' mother comes out. Her husband leaves the elevator as well, dragging three suitcases off. Cletus' mother barely makes eye contact with me, hurrying to the door beside us and opening it. We hurry in to grab our stuff.

"Here," she passes Reid a keycard. "You should have just kept one of the keycards, so you didn't have to wait for us."

Reid thanks her and we head out with our few bags in tow. I can't wait to sleep on a bed. Really, at this rate I'm getting close to being able to sleep standing up. We only have to go up two floors, the journey feels so quick given how high my office and my apartment are in the buildings I live in. And then, we are navigating to the hotel room.

"Sorry you're stuck out here," I tell him. "I know how much you hate hotel rooms, being on the road so much."

Reid shrugs, "I'll live. It's one night."

He unlocks the door and we step inside. Reid flicks the light on and stops in the doorway, I squeeze past him, stepping into the bathroom where I drop the bag over my shoulders. I begin to unpin my hair, letting the braids come loose and the hair that has since become frizzy fall around my shoulders. As I do, I kick off the heels on my feet, and step out of the bathroom.

"Is it all right if I get ready first?" I peer down at Reid, who stands in the middle of the room.

He stands at the foot of the bed. I feel my jaw slack. It should have occurred to me that when we switched rooms this one would have just one bed. Of course, it didn't. I was thinking about the speech and desserts and Caro, and I hadn't really paused to think that Cletus' parents' would have a room with one bed.

"Should we ask to switch back?" I ask, looking over.

Reid blinks, turning, to look at me, "no, it's fine."

Then, I nod, "I'll get ready first."

Without another word, I get ready. I brush my teeth and shower and wash my hair. At this ungodly hour, it's rude to blow-dry it, especially before bed, but my hair is clinging to me and I can't handle it. So, I at least get most of the water out of it, even if it isn't perfectly dried and styled. There's no grime and product, no sweat clinging to my skin any longer. I drag my pajamas out of the bag and then let Reid in to get ready.

The lukewarm shower has me more awake now. Against my better judgement, I grab a small bottle of sparkling wine. There isn't enough in it for more than two glasses, so I pour myself one. It tastes tart against my minty breath. While the shower turns on, I start to set up a little spot for myself. There is a sofa, so I steal a pillow off the bed and I grab the thin grey blanket off the hotel bed and throw it onto the sofa. My spot will be ready.

There is a balcony as well, which I step out onto. Tonight, there is no wind. Though I opted for an apartment with a balcony, I rarely spend as much time on it as I would like. Estelle will occasionally do coursework outside, and sometimes I will attempt to do a puzzle on the little table we brought outside even though it's far too small for puzzles. Really, balconies are only the same late at night. I like them when there is noise inside and I get to step away from it all.

It's when I'm alone, but I don't feel lonely. I'm surprised I like that feeling as much as I do.

The door slides open behind me. Reid steps out, the last of the bottle of sparkling wine in a glass in his hand. He smiles at me, joining me in leaning on the railing.

"Did you bring your own soap?" I ask.

He smells like himself, more so than usual, I think. It's strong, the citrus that wafts off him.

Reid nods, "yes. I'm not all that keen on hotel soap."

"Sometimes, I forget you're a germaphobe," I smile a bit, bringing my glass to my lips and taking a sip.

He drinks as well. The silence is comfortable. I hadn't expected it. Reid and I can talk and talk for hours. We can disagree for weeks, bicker for months, and so maybe I hadn't expected a silent night beside him to be so comfortable. There is no party indoors drowning out my thoughts, no counting down to the new year when things are going to reset and him and I will both promise ourselves we will finally become fully self-actualized people. There is nothing I'm hiding from. Maybe for the first time in thirteen years, exactly to the day.

"Your family is really nice," Reid offers when both of us are close to the bottom of our glasses, and the time must be dipping closer to two in the morning. "Your siblings seem to care for you deeply."

"They are great," I agree. "They meddle too much though."

"You complain a lot about people who love you enough to try to improve your life," Reid points out.

I roll my eyes, "improvement is subjective."

With our glasses empty, we head back out into the hotel room. I turn to the sofa where I plan to sleep, but the pillow and blanket are no longer there. Reid moves past me, heading to a spot on the floor where they've been laid out beside each other. As he gets on the ground, I plant my hands on my hips.

"What are you doing?"

He looks up at me as he squats down. Reid furrows his brow, "the couch isn't long enough for me to lie down comfortably. The floor will be better."

"The bed will be more comfortable. I was going to take the sofa."

Reid sits down on the ground and starts to adjust the blankets. He doesn't respond, and I try to glare at him sharply. He doesn't even look at me.

"Do you mind getting the light when you're ready for bed?" he asks.

I make my way across the room, past him. When the light flicks off, the darkness overtakes the room. With the curtains pulled back from the balcony doors, moonlight streams in through the doorway. The bed is made, immaculate and crisp, but it is missing a pillow. Reid's shadow shifts on the ground, the single blanket he has ruffling as he lies down.

Fuck it.

I go to the bed and grab a pillow. Then, I throw it down onto the ground beside Reid and start to lie down.

He doesn't say anything at first, not as I lie down on the ground. Of course, I had expected a reaction out of him. Some protestation at my insistence upon lying on the ground would be welcome, mostly so I could convince him just to take the bed. He doesn't answer, not until I'm lying the next to him without a sheet to cover me.

"Hotch thinks you've become less aggressive over the last few months, and up until right now I think I would have agreed with him."

I roll my eyes.

Then, I lie down. I wait for Reid to move, to say something else, but no words come. After a minute, I realize I'm not expecting sleep to find me. While I have been very good at hiding from others for longer than a decade, I have not been able to truly evade sleep. Insomnia is less familiar than my office, at this point.

The room is quiet, but I listen for Reid's breaths. They are soft, quiet, and I worry he's fallen asleep. So, I roll over to look at him.

He's staring at me, lying on his back but his head turned to face me. My heart beats, a rhythm faster than any that we've heard while dancing. While I'm not wearing a blanket, I'm warm.

"When..." he trails off.

His eyes move from mine to my lips. I feel something tug deep inside me. It anchors me to the ground here. No part of me wants to move. Not to the bed, not to the couch, not anywhere that I couldn't be beside Reid. No state or country or home do I desire more than one where I am this close to him.

This is why I move around. I have not dated someone since Luc, had no desire to try. Longing is always better than having. Four years in Australia was too long, one in England just perfect enough, and then France, and now here. I've not even known him two years, and already I want to stay.

"When you said, in the car on the way here yesterday, that you lied to your siblings about the nature of our relationship, I wasn't upset that you were bringing me into a lie with them," Reid swallows.

He looks back up at my face. I'm aware of the exposed skin of my arms, prickled and bumpy but not from the cold. I'm aware of the beginning of stubble that pokes through his cheeks, and how his lips are slightly parted. I'm aware that I'm leaning in toward him, how many inches there are between our bodies, how it's less space than when we have danced together and how much I want to touch his hands, to feel him touch the small of my back.

I'm aware that maybe I never hated him. Maybe I've always been intimidated by him and his presence. At some level, I'm sure I've always known that if I let Dr. Spencer Reid in, this was bound to happen. When I first asked him what his field of study was, someone in the office closer to my age, who I could want to be with, and then who I could push away. Like I flee everything.

Last February, I was held at gunpoint. Lying here next to him is more dangerous, more sinful than anything that happened in New Orleans during Mardi Gras.

"Well, I was a little bit upset, but not for the reason you think," he doesn't speak, he rasps. "Upset about the lie, I mean. Generally, I don't mind undercover work, but I didn't know I was going to be undercover this weekend. I thought I was here as your date. Your actual date. Erroneously, obviously, a mistake on my part. But that's why I was upset."

I crackle, wood roasting, not much myself anymore, certainly very little besides warm. His chest is rising and falling, fanning the flames, and I want so desperately to blame the alcohol for this feeling inside me, but it's not the liquor. It's Spencer Reid. It's Reid saying my first name on the phone to JJ, it's him buying me a magic set and him taking dance lessons so he can match my pace. It's him, staying at the office after hours to look at my eyes, to tell me to put down my work and just look at him. And I'm looking.

His eyes slowly droop. Reid turns his head back and starts to shift away from me. I reach forward, snatching his wrist and pulling him back in toward me. My eyes linger on his face, searching for words. I always have them, in abundance, and now I have nothing.

"Reid, I..." the words are running away from me. I don't chase them. I'm not going anywhere. "I..."

He reaches up toward me, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. My neck feels damp, but by now my hair is completely dry. My body has finally thawed.

My hand teeters. I managed to bring it up to his face. My other continues to grasp his wrist, clutching too hard. I want to touch him, but I'm worried I'll grip him too tightly. Somehow, I worry that I'll scratch his cheek. My fingers hover over his lips. Lower, lower, but not able to touch them.

My breath is shaky.

Only one word do I finally settle on, "Spencer."

He cups my cheek and pulls himself in close. I kiss him. My brain goes hazy, my fingers numb, and he's kissing me back and for a second, I'm not sure it's really happening. My body goes numb, and I stop moving.

He notices. I feel him stiffen next to me. His lips, wet, warm, pull back from me and I pull him in closer, kissing him back. I press myself into him. Closer and closer. No space. No distance. Him and I and nothing else but swollen lips and gasping breaths.

I want to stay. I want to stay.

~~~~~

WELP. There is it is. Anything particularly surprisng here? Or any predictions?