here’s the thing about reid and prentiss. here’s the fucking thing. they’re in love. with each other. they just have no idea that this is what is happening.

let’s go back to the beginning. once upon a time, spencer reid loved elle greenaway. she was his friend and he cared about her and when she lost herself and left the BAU he blamed himself for not helping her, not “saving” her. even though he saw the signs. even though they drank bourbon in an anonymous hotel room and her hair was shorter than it was when he met her and her eyes were haunted and she told him that she could still feel the fisher king’s fingers in her bullet wound. even though he could see the pain and rage plainly when nobody else would acknowledge it, and he did not know how to make it gentler. he only knew how to spot it, and what it meant.

elle left. reid’s friend, elle, she left wounded and nobody cared. nobody but him. shortly thereafter the BAU got a nepo hire named emily prentiss. no one knew anything about her but she fit into the team seamlessly, getting along with everybody except for a chronically distrusting hotch and a bitter, self-blaming reid. she wasn’t actually elle’s replacement but to reid maybe she was. maybe that’s why when the signs of his dilaudid abuse became apparent and prentiss was the first to notice, he felt nothing but anger. he knew elle and he loved elle and if he couldn’t stop her from hurting herself then where the fuck does prentiss get off thinking she can stop him from doing the same, when she doesn’t know him at all, when she has no reason to love him? who does she think she is?

what he doesn’t know is that when prentiss looks at him going through that she just sees matthew benson. the first boy who ever loved her, who she lost in the dark, who she could not save. she’s been here before.

reid gets sober. we can see him and prentiss getting to be friends. he makes her laugh. she makes him smile. they agree on deep philosophical topics that the rest of the BAU doesn’t. they get each other. reid trusts her because she never treats him like a baby. prentiss trusts him because he doesn’t know how to be anyone else but who he is. prentiss, the consummate liar, the woman with ten names, ten pasts. made her bones with the foxes. but she’s found a safe place to land, for once, for maybe the first time in her life. not moving, not running: in a place of her own, with a family she chose. and then her ghosts come knocking.

she did love ian doyle. that can’t be denied. it started out as a job but lost that shape soon enough. when he comes back for her, she’s terrified. who notices? reid. constantly, constantly, it’s reid. you’re biting your fingernails again. who’s lauren reynolds? the pinpoint accuracy with which he observes her every nuanced movement in the valhalla arc is unreal and frankly unprecedented. he’s seen gideon leave, seen elle leave: seen the signs. he’s seeing them again. still, he opens up to her about his headaches. he’s never opened up to ANYBODY like that before. and he just casually does it. at his desk. AT WORK! AND THEN INVITES HER ON A DATE TO SEE SOLARIS IN THE ORIGINAL RUSSIAN BECAUSE “REALLY WE’RE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN UNDERSTAND IT.” LIKE LINGUISTICALLY OR IN YOUR HEARTS?

i’m not answering your question. my favorite aspect of their relationship is that they’re the goth and the nerd. my favorite aspect of their relationship is that it’s rooted in missed signals. two ships passing, close enough to touch, in different directions: over and over and over again. a veritable trove of almosts. 75% of their chemistry is in what you can see they’re always ABOUT to say to each other. and then she has to fake her death and run away and can they ever recover from that? he cried at JJ’s house EVERY NIGHT FOR TEN WEEKS. watch the scene where they slow-dance together in that one episode their expressions are so fucking telling. they are haunted by things they will not say to each other.

EVIDENCE LIST:

canonical prentiss line “love dating readers. hate profiling them.” what? at work!

prentiss staring at him with a complex and gentle expression and asking him if he ever wants kids. at work!

reid calling everyone else on the team by their last name. except emily. none of the other men calling her that except him. what? at work!

reid being totally un-curious about the sin to win weekend comment. because he was also going to be there? and they count cards together? and have sex? at work!

real canon interaction where prentiss tells a story about a star puzzle that represents a star that broke because a prince dropped it after catching it for a princess and it can’t be put back together and reid puts it back together and hands it to her. what? at work!

he recognizes her in the doctored photos of declan BY HER HANDS. by the blurred out of focus sight of her hands. “guys, look at the fingernails.” WHO LOOKS AT THAT BUT YOU? AT WORK!

real line doyle has about how she could be on the metro with dr. reid going back to his apartment like what? the music sting right after? his knowing smirk? “well, that one [reid] does have some quirks” WHAT??????? HER EX SAYING THIS???

i haven’t seen the later seasons but that reid wanted to kill someone because of what they did to prentiss like. saying after what he did to you if i would have found him i would have killed him and i’d have slept well. what? at work!

they’ve both flatlined. he saw a warm light and she saw a cold darkness. they told each other this. in a conference room. AT WORK!

^ how she looks at him btw

I FEEL EVERYTHING POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ABOUT HIEI AT ONCE. I WANT TO HOLD HIM IN MY HAND AND ALSO PUT HIM IN ONE OF THOSE MACHINES THEY STICK CHRISTMAS TREES ON TO SHAKE THE LOOSE NEEDLES OFF OF THEM. he would be so clean after, so fresh. ugh. i love hiei

hiei’s influence cannot be overstated. like on me but also on History? no one else was doing it like him until everyone was. now every shounen has a sauceless hiei. every single one.

i projected onto hiei a lot way back when because he’s like the fear that no one loves you because you’re rotten taken to the absolute extreme. i never went to that extreme but it was easy to relate to i guess? at the time.

he should have gotten bullied more. more people should have followed yusuke’s example and pointed out that he’d have to stand on a stack of phone books to check out at the konbini. god can you imagine hiei in a konbini. he would hate everything about it but then do a 180 and want to go there all the time. just to stand there. and buy meiji baby choco for yukina.

i want him to be happy and loved and i also want him to be teased into hell by his three best friends and his deeply bonded frenemy keiko