The Birds & The Bees | S.R.

Ch. 11 | Hawking Radiation

Summary: Bunny gets paired with a familiar face at volunteering, and Spencer meets a colleague on a date.

Content Warning: Embarrassment, arguments, yelling, death penalty mention/semi-canon consistent character death (Cat)

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Our minds remember things in very mysterious ways. Although there is surely a science to the transmission of signals through synapses, I am forever amazed at the human mind's ability to connect the most inane, commonplace objects to memories that had no business being recalled on an early Thursday afternoon.

This is all to say that, while I tried to comfort myself in the absence of my normal muse, I had come to an odd, but understandable conclusion.

I needed to buy a new chair.

I hadn't seen her in a week, and I knew I probably wouldn't be seeing her again anytime soon. But each incessant creaking of plastic and scraping of metal was driving me insane. I couldn't replace the desk where she'd sat, but I could at least buy myself something new to hopefully dull the vibrant memories of her.

But, as I recalled the other memories, those that were purely beautiful and good and not at all tainted, I found myself hating that I'd ever thought to try to rid myself of her. I could see her struggling with plastic utensils as she rocked in my seat, speaking passionately about one of her many talents.

Her laughter still covered the walls. Sometimes, I swore I could still smell her perfume when I watched her seat carefully enough. It reminded me of the way it felt for her to bounce in my arms, pressing her cheek against me and hoping to leave an impression that would be remembered.

She had. She was a little too good at it, really.

The curtains and the blinds hadn't been opened again since that morning, but the lights still felt bright to bleary eyes. My mind hadn't let me sleep, and I thought that it had been quite right to spare me the suffering of reliving those moments.

It wasn't even because I thought the downfall would be painful — I relived that perfectly fine while awake. It was everything before. It was the softness and vulnerability when I was between her legs. It was the way she called my name without any hesitation, clinging to me and kissing me with unpracticed lips.

I could handle the hatred that came with hurting her, but I couldn't suffer through the memory of loving her.

Yet there her ghost sat in front of me, with her hands holding down her skirt as she kicked her feet and waited for me to come hold her again. She lingered, lustful and lovely, as if I'd never hurt her at all.

Maybe I did need a new desk, after all.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Come in," I called, never once looking away from the mirage created by an exhausted mind. I knew she wasn't the one at the door, and I wasn't ready to say goodbye to the memory just yet.

But then I was torn out of my reverie by a voice that I hadn't heard in some time.

"Hi, Professor Reid!" she called, but it wasn't what I heard; the words had been overshadowed by a different memory.

'Yeah, right. He would never be interested in someone like her.'

With hands immediately balled in fists but hidden beneath the desk, I answered as happily as I could, "Hello Miss Fletcher, I'm surprised to see you here. I figured your first office hours experience had scared you away for good."