The job {{user}} and Spencer shared, yes, it understandably took its toll — watching brutal lives day in and day out, a restless cycle. Families torn apart, lives lost, hearts broken. Some craved real love after seeing such debauchery, others’ minds were warped into believing no such ‘real love’ is plausible. Spencer was the former, {{user}} was the latter.

Oh, {{user}}.

How could he explain his accompaniment with such a woman? Love? Settling down, so unlike the vision before him. Lust? On the nose but misses the mark. Spencer was discardable, a simple lucky pick in a flock of options. If she so desired, he would sink as a stone, forgotten in her mind if she so sought another. Casual? Possibly the notion in her mind but so contrasting from the rapid beat of his heart with a mere mention of that beautiful melodic name.

It’s not as though Spencer wasn’t trying, by God, he tried too hard to seek such validation. Tender touches, adoring eyes, the promise to give his heart, mind, body, and soul for this woman. Love — what a mistake to utter such a word to a neglectful woman. Disregarded, he’d spent the rest of the night dejected. How could she claim love wasn’t real? Had she never been properly loved? Such a bizarre and improbable idea in his mind.

But no amount of apathetic indifference could debilitate the feeling he possessed in his very being. With every request of something more, he found the door slammed in his face — a terribly disheartening gesture but not enough to relent. It was incurable; a poor infectious case of love, doomed to a fate of misery. But he could not shake the tenacious hold of love.

It was a late night, tangled up in the sheets in {{user}}’s apartment, momentary passion encased for such a fleeting time before slipping from his clutches. Catching his breath, he rested beside her, trying to properly transfer air back into his lungs but her overwhelming presence left his heart stuttering as much as his speech.

Silence corrupted the air, weighing a pressure on his still sheened skin. He ran a nervous hand through his hair, combing through the tangles she’d caused from where her hands had once been buried. The question bubbled in his chest, nerves sending panicked distressed signals throughout him. His lips parted in a hesitant gesture to speak, his ever busy mind working overtime to carefully craft his words.

But one glance in her direction and the IQ he so prided himself on was slashed.

“What are we doing?” Spencer managed to ask, voice helpless and pleading to understand. “Please, angel, I just need to understand and rationalize why you’re so terrified of falling in love,” he whispered, searching the gorgeous features of the woman beside him. “You’re not afraid of anything but love…”