It was wildly unfortunate for Spencer that you liked to smoke.

In the early hours of the morning, when the sun still hadn’t broken the crystalline quality of the stars in the night, he’d feel you get out of the bed. He didn’t tell you that he knew, that he heard you fumble for a cigarette and a lighter. A minute or so later— or 57 seconds, he’d timed it once— he’d hear the front door click closed. He wondered if you were ever actually asleep before you got up to smoke. He wondered if you waited to do it until this hour in the night for his sake.

When you’d come back, he’d hear the opening of the door and the creaking of the faucet that told him you were brushing your teeth. You’d climb back into bed, and he’d pretend to stir, just to get a chance to kiss you. He could still taste the faint smoke, still smell it on the baggy shirt you wore. He didn’t bring it up, knowing he would lose any battle he tried to pick about why you should really stop, for your own health.

He wondered if the nicotine was what made you so addictive to him.

He’d never realized how much people smoked until after you. It was almost as if you were taunting him. On every street corner, every parking lot, he’d find himself looking over when he smelt the familiar chemicals, only to find someone who wasn’t you. Of course, he’d never find you— you moved to LA.

It didn’t seem right to him, even if he’d nobody to voice it to. You were meant to be admired under the natural, cosmic beauty of the stars, not billboards and city lights. As hard as he’d try, the images of you and the city never quite meshed.

When the team had to go to LA on a case for the first time since you and he parted ways he was, stupidly, overjoyed. He knew the chances were slim, zero, really, and yet he wondered if he’d see you. He considered himself to be a scientific man, but maybe he’d let fate intrude just this once.

Just that it did.

A victim of the current killer they were chasing so happened to be one of your friends. One he’d heard few details about, but then again, you weren’t the storytelling type. He jumped at the opportunity to question you, a bit too quickly for being in a room of profilers, and then he was driving to your apartment.

He couldn’t stop thinking about how you were doing, what you were doing, now. He’d wondered if you’d finally dropped smoking.

”You should really stop smoking these, you know,” He pointed out one night, holding a box of your cigarettes in his hands and stalling putting your belongings into neatly packed boxes. Stalling you from going away.

You looked up from the pile of books you were putting into the cardboard, faint smile playing at your lips, “Ask me nicely, next time, and maybe I’ll consider it.”

As much as he really did care about your health, the boyish part of him simply didn’t want someone else to worship the taste of nicotine on your lips the way he did. He didn’t want anyone else to ever experience your late-night ritual. He wanted to feel special.

When he approached your door, Converse crunching on an old doormat, he almost considered leaving. His job, and a childishly hopeful part of him he’d long tried to smother were the only things that stopped him. He raised his hand, knocked on your door, and was swiftly surprised at how fast it opened. He beheld you, standing in front of him. Wearing a baggy shirt, and holding a cigarette and a lighter.