Title: Living in Danger
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Spencer Reid
Fandom: Doctor Who/Criminal Minds
Rating: PG-13
Table: 17, 5_prompts
Prompt: 2, Living with me isn't easy
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Spencer Reid, unfortunately. Please do not sue.

***

Spencer sighed, sinking down onto the couch and resting his head in his hands. He was still trembling from what had happened on the last planet he and the Doctor had visited; they'd had what he considered a very narrow escape.

What had those creatures been? Spencer asked himself, shuddering at the memory of them. They'd looked like nothing so much as huge bees, even though they'd been the wrong color. But they had been able to fly -- and they'd had long pointed .... stingers.

All right, so maybe that wasn't an accurate way of describing them, he told himself with a wry smile. But if he or the Time Lord had been so much as scratched by one of those pointed blades, they would both have been dead in a matter of seconds.

The Doctor had nearly been skewered, but had managed to free himself from the barbed wire that had caught his coat and leap away from the onrushing blade at the last moment. Spencer's heart had been in his mouth, his body paralyzed, incapable of movement.

Even if he could have moved, there would have been nothing he could to do save his lover if the Time Lord hadn't been able to get free. He'd been too far away; there would have been too much ground to cover for him to get to the Doctor in time.

He'd only been able to stand there and watch helplessly as one of those creatures had made a beeline -- what a horrible pun, he said to himself, filing it away in his mind nevertheless -- for the Doctor, in what looked like a suicide dive.

Spencer had wanted to scream, but his throat had closed. All he'd been able to do was watch, sure that the Doctor would die before his eyes and he would be trapped here on this planet, at the mercy of these creatures, to die along with the man he loved.

But that hadn't happened; the Doctor had wrenched his coat free and leapt aside, rolling on the ground and then seeming to get to his feet in an instant, running toward Spencer and shouting at him to run. Spencer had obeyed, his body automatically taking over for his mind.

Now they were safely back in the Tardis, away from that planet, and he was sure that the Doctor didn't plan to go back there again. He felt sorry for the next people who landed a ship there, thinking that the place would be benign and friendly.

He hardly heard the Time Lord's footsteps when the other man entered the room; a hand on his shoulder startled him away from his thoughts. Spencer looked up to see the Doctor's dark eyes regarding him anxiously, worry clouding their dark depths.

"Spencer, are you all right?" the Doctor ased him, his voice soft, more than a hint of worry in his tone. "Ever since we left that planet you've been deep in thought -- and you're still trembling." His gaze fixed on Spencer's face, a frown creasing his forehead.

"What almost happened to you scared the crap out of me," Spencer whispered, looking up at the Time Lord. "I've been in a lot of bad situations before with the BAU, but never anything like that. I was sure we were both dead."

"I've come through worse than that," the Doctor told him, sitting down and taking Spencer's hands in his own. "It isn't easy living with me, is it, love? I throw you into strange situations more often than I should. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to go back to your life."

"No!" Spencer shook his head, a flash of fear running through his body at the idea that his lover might want him to leave. "I don't want to leave you. And I don't want you to change your life for me. It might not be what I'm used to, but I can adapt."

"It wasn't fair of me to take you there without telling you that the place could be that dangerous," the Doctor sighed, squeezing his hands. "I'd never been there before, but I didn't think it would be so bad. I don't blame you if you're tired of living in danger."

Spencer shook his head again, taking a deep breath. "Look, you shouldn't expect yourself to hold back from what you feel you need to do just because I might not be expecting weirdness. I don't think you did with other companions, so you shouldn't with me, either."

"But you're much more than just a companion, Spencer," the Doctor told him, his dark eyes meeting Spencer's gaze. "You're my lover, the man I've bonded with. I've cared for all my companions, of course, but never in the way that I care for you."

"I'm here to be a companion to you, too," Spencer pointed out, moving closer to the Time Lord. "I'm your lover, yeah, but I'm here to watch your back as much as to love you. Believe me, after my time in the BAU, I'm used to doing that for people."

"Ah, but you didn't have the kind of relationship with any of them that you do with me," the Doctor said, a small smile tugging at his lips. "Unless there's some deep dark secret that you haven't told me yet. Is there anything I should know?"

Spencer laughed, feeling his tension start to drain away. He knew that the Doctor didn't mean his words; he'd told the Time Lord everything about his friendships with the BAU team, and he had no fears that the other man could be jealous.

"Living with you might not be easy, but it's the only place I want to be," he said softly, sliding both arms around the Doctor's waist and pulling the other man close against him. "That's why I was so scared. I didn't want to lose you."

"I almost thought that I wasn't going to get away," the Time Lord admitted, resting his forehead against Spencer's shoulder and sliding his thin arms around his boyfriend's waist. "I was just as scared as you were, love. Maybe even more so."

"I can't imagine you being scared of anything," Spencer told him, a hint of laughter still in his voice. "My invincible Time Lord. Anything that scares you must be one hell of an intimidating sight, with all that you've seen and done in the galaxy."

"I was shaking in my trainers!" the Doctor exclaimed, raising his head to look into Spencer's face. "No, I'm not joking. I really was. But all's well that ends well, right? We got away, we're both safe, and we know not to go back to that planet again."

"Definitely not," Spencer agreed, shivering as the mental image of those creatures loomed up in his mind again. "But hey, it was an adventure, right? We'll just have to look at it that way. Something to look back on later."

No, living with the Time Lord might not always be easy for him, Spencer thought, raising a hand to smooth back an errant lock of the Doctor's hair. But it would always be interesting, and he wouldn't trade this life for any other that he could possibly have.

***