Summary: You, Spencer, your kitchen in the morning. You love each other. That's all.
Category: so so so so so much fluff
Wordcount: 800ish
a/n: very first post!!! aaah!!! nervous!!!! (also gosh I cannot express in words how much I need this reader to be me????)
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You awoke groggily in the half-dark of your bedroom, instinctively reaching for Spencer's familiar warmth to your right. When you found it to be missing -a frantic hand only clutching sheets- your heart immediately sank. You rolled onto your side, limbs still sleep-heavy, and scowled at your alarm clock. Way too early to be awake, but for Spencer, anything.
You dragged yourself out of the cozy warmth of your bed, shuffling your feet into your bunny slippers, you smoothed one hand over your face as you took a sip of water with the other.
A soft clang in the kitchen caught your attention, the prospect of finding Spencer there even more alluring to you than sleep. You shuffled to the kitchen in a slow rhythm reserved for the elderly and the just-woken-up, treasuring Spencer's adoringly scolding look upon seeing you awake.
"I thought you'd sleep in today, sweetheart," he says softly, the amber softness of his eyes betraying how glad he was you didn't. A wave of rush flowed through you as you took in his still messy hair from sleep, his oversized sleep shirt still loosely clinging to his torso and his checkered pyjama pants which were obstructed from view by an open cabinet. You thought this is what all the songs must have been on about.
"Wanted to see you," you muse sleepily as you stroll closer to him, "wanted to say goodbye."
He closed the cabinet and opened his arms, a small and silken-soft smile playing on his lips. You fit into his embrace as a love letter in an envelope, perfectly. His arms around your frame, your head on his chest, his sleepy softness seeping through your skin like warmth from a campfire.
"I thought we'd said goodbye yesterday? He says, not quite a whisper, but no need for anything much stronger either.
You had. At length. Spencer was set to leave for a case in a few hours, one all the way in Oregon, and you would have to miss him for a couple of days. It was hell, you decided right there and then, to even miss him for a morning, how would you manage a week? Of course this was not the first time, but it somehow always felt like it. Spencer's presence had become so natural, so necessary, such a part of you, that it seemed foreign to be away from him at all.
"We did," you relent, burying your face even deeper into his warmth and scent, "but I already missed you."
Spencer chuckled softly, all the world's affection captured in a sound. "My sweet girl," he whispers into your hair, "I missed you too."
And you could eat him right there, you could hold him forever, you could do just about anything with the electricity you felt blooming in your heart and cheeks. "Hey, I have a great idea," you mumble into his embrace.
"Oh yeah," you can hear the smile in his voice, he can hear the sentence you're about to say, because you say it every time, "and what's that?"
"Don't go."
"You make it so hard on me," his smile is broad and kind and kissable.
"I have to, don't I? Fighting for my cause and all that," you put your chin on his chest, looking up at him with half-shut eyes.
"So proud of my little activist," he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear.
"So you're staying?" a glint of a smile tugs on his lips, you ask this every time.
"Wish I could, sweetheart, wish I could," he bends down slightly to capture your lips in a quick, soft kiss. You're in love. You're in love.
You wind your arms around his neck and start planting small kisses along the column of his throat. He smells like himself, you can't get enough.
Spencer's eyes flutter shut, a content hum leaving his lips.
You punctuate your love with a particularly loud kiss behind his ear, drawing a small chuckle from Spencer, who softly caresses your sides over your worn t-shirt. He nuzzles his nose into your hair and breathes out, the picture of morning ease and contentment.
"You didn't have to get up for me," he tries again, his voice almost lost in your hair.
"I wanted to."
You feel him smile against the skin of your neck. "Secretly, I don't really mind it…" he trails off.
"Oh, you 'don't mind it'?" you tease, stroking his jaw and bringing his face closer to yours.
"Hm-hm," he shakes his head, smile rivaling the sun in July, "kind of like it, actually."
You love him like this. Soft and warm and all yours. The world is still asleep, it's only you two on this planet, or in this kitchen, same thing. With Spencer, same thing.
The coffee machine whirs, asking some of Spencer's precious attention. He kisses the top of your nose before tending to its needs (you're not jealous, you swear). "You want a cup?" he asks, already reaching for your favourite Miffy mug.
You smile and nod, he knows you.
☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️
a/n: aaaah guys! first post!!! tell me what you think!!!!
𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: you got used to running away from the consequences of your actions, but it turned out to be incredibly difficult when the consequences are your coworker and their name is spencer reid.
𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬/𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐰: spencer reid x fem!baureader, canon typical violence and topics, season 1/2 reid, GLASSES REID, queen elle greenaway herself, gideon being a little creep (as usual), reader clearly ovulating lmao, mention of a trauma connected with drowning, mention of one night stands of the reader, inspired by taylor swift song "the bolter", dominant reader (mostly), spencer being awkwardly sweet
𝐚/𝐧: i should be doing my history assigment now instead of writing another freaky long fic but here i am
𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 10k
Fuck, you thought the moment you realized you’d woken up in someone’s arms.
Double fuck, you added as it dawned on you that this wasn’t some random guy you met at a club, the kind who’d bought you a drink, whose name you hadn’t even tried to remember, and whose life you could easily disappear from without a second thought. Instead, you were lying in the bed of a coworker—a teammate you saw almost every single day.
Triple fuck.
Maybe even quadruple, because of how much you liked it. That is, lying next to his bare skin. In a position where one of his arms was wrapped around your body, his face buried in your hair, in the curve of your neck. His breathing steady, occasionally tickling you. Pleasant. It was pleasant.
You were up to five fucks already, and you hadn’t even left the bed yet.
There was no doubt in your mind that you were going to do it. By the time Spencer Reid opened his gorgeous, chocolate-brown eyes, you’d already be gone. Long gone, behind the wheel of your car, speeding at the maximum legal limit with the window cracked open, despite the icy gusts of winter air rushing in.
You’d been perfecting this strategy for years. First, you’d lose yourself in strangers’ sheets with moans and gasps, only to slip away in the early morning, filled with a thrill even greater than what you’d felt just a few hours before. Why? A very good question. You wished you had the answer to it.
This situation shouldn’t have been an exception, though theoretically, it already was. After all, you’d never even considered doing this with people you knew so well. People you couldn’t just ghost without consequence. People you—leaning over to check the clock on the bedside table—were supposed to see again in less than an hour!
You rubbed your sleepy face with your hand, silently cursing yourself. If only you’d been drunk the night before. People dodge the consequences of far worse actions than having a sex with a coworker simply by blaming it on alcohol. But no—when all of this started, you’d been completely sober and fully aware. Incredibly turned on, it’s worth mentioning.
Before the memories of the previous night could start ambushing you, you scrambled out of the bed. First, of course, you had to untangle yourself from the mess of limbs—carefully, so as not to wake him. You gently moved his arm aside and adjusted the blanket over his hips. Where this sudden care and tenderness came from was yet another very interesting question.
Tiptoeing around the bedroom, you gathered your clothes. Your panties and bra you shamelessly clutched in one hand, intending to shove them into your jacket pocket later. Before heading for it, though, you paused for a brief moment in front of the bed, in front of the still-sleeping Reid.
The blanket, pushed low, revealed the upper half of his lean body—his prominent collarbones and the smooth, even tone of his delicious skin. His chest rose and fell steadily, his hand resting in the spot where you’d been lying just moments ago. As if you were still there.
What a shame it was only a one-time thing.
Some people, looking at his innocent appearance, had no idea how much he had to offer. Their loss, you thought, leaving the apartment on shaky legs, feeling soreness in most of the muscles in your body. When you finally got inside the car and the wind began to cool your flushed face and cheeks, the guilt faded away. You didn’t feel as good as usual, your heart wasn’t racing, and the adrenaline wasn’t surging through your veins the way you craved. Strange. Did it have something to do with who your one-night lover was? You shook your head, trying not to dwell on it.
You’d had a really great time together that one night, but that was it. You were officially leaving it behind, forgetting it.
Just like you always did.
It wasn’t an exception, you told yourself, as you took a quick shower in your own apartment.
It wasn’t an exception, and the fact that you worked together didn’t change a thing.
It wasn’t an exception, you kept affirming, crossing the threshold of the office with still-damp hair and the buttons of your fitted black shirt unevenly fastened.
“Are we not greeting each other anymore?” someone’s question snapped you back to reality.
Lost in thought, you realized you’d passed your friend Elle’s desk without even nodding at her. She was sitting on the edge of it, arms crossed over her chest, her dark eyes seeming to pierce through your skull, sifting through your memories. She was sharp—sometimes, too sharp. With nothing more than a sly smile, she let you know she knew something was going on.
"Sorry. I'm still half asleep," you said, approaching her for a hug. You let out a chuckle. "Or maybe I'm completely asleep if I missed such a hot chick in my path."
Elle pushed you away by a finger’s length, her eyebrows raised in a challenge.
"You think you're gonna distract me with compliments? Better start talking—who's the guy?"
“What guy?” someone asked, surprisingly not you, but Derek, who stepped into the room with a massive cup of coffee, nearly dropping it as he tried to greet both of you. You loved the laid-back atmosphere of the early mornings at work, when you had a moment to chat about whatever. “Well, good morning, ladies. From the looks on your faces, I’m guessing you had a nice weekend?”
"From that huge cup of coffee, I’m guessing you did too, if you need that much caffeine. Partying on a Sunday night, you should be ashamed," you replied sarcastically, eyeing your coworker.
His eyebrows shot up.
"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," he whistled.
"She's just trying to change the subject," Elle informed him. "I was just interrogating our little bolter.
You rolled your eyes at hearing that nickname again. They’d started using it a while ago, as soon as they found out how you handled things with guys. There was nothing judgmental about it—they just really liked to tease you.
It took Morgan a moment to piece together what was going on. When he did, laughter burst from his lips.
"Is that why your hair is still wet? You left in such a rush you didn’t even have time to dry it?"
"She was afraid the sound of the hair dryer would wake the guy up," Elle snorted. "And, heaven forbid, they’d actually have to talk to each other."
“Oh, screw you both,” you muttered, aiming to act your age—in this case, by flipping them off. Before you could, Derek caught your hand, stopping you from spinning on your heel and stomping back to your desk.
“You know,” he said, suddenly a touch more serious, as if the question genuinely intrigued him, “I can’t help but wonder why you actually do it. For me, personally, waking up next to a lovely lady who made the night worthwhile is kind of the best part...”
"Are you asking about the psychological aspects behind it?" You raised an eyebrow. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed Elle tilt her head slightly, clearly intrigued. "I don’t know. Something from childhood, probably. Everything stems from there, doesn’t it? Or maybe the reason is something else," you lowered your voice to a near conspiratorial whisper, leaning in closer to their faces as if about to reveal some great secret. "I simply enjoy it. As they say, you don’t pry into people’s bedrooms or wallets."
"That rule doesn’t apply to our friendship, sweetheart."
You chuckled at the remark; sometimes, you really did share a lot with each other. In any case, your response had nothing to do with modesty or shame on those topics. You chose to answer evasively because you didn’t feel like describing how addictive that feeling of escape was, how much control it seemed to give you. How your heart would race in those moments, and how all your fucking lives seemed to flash before your eyes then.
It was sick, many people have already told you that. Still, you couldn't stop.
"Good morning, everyone." Suddenly, JJ burst in, clutching a briefcase the size of an encyclopedia under her arm. "Hotch wants to see us all in five minutes, we have a new case. You'll find out everything in a moment, but I’ll say right away that it looks like a little trip is in store. Bring warm jackets."
"Mercy, not another case from Alaska..." Morgan started, rolling his eyes.
"Not this time. By the way, has Reid already arrived?"
Elle glanced around and shrugged.
"I don’t see him. Besides, if he were here, he’d already be telling us everything about the weather conditions in Alaska."
"Strange," Derek muttered under his breath. "I can’t remember the last time he was late."
You fixed your gaze on your shoes, as if there was something fascinating about them.
"It’s not like him," JJ agreed, a little worried. "Maybe I should call him..."
"He’s definitely stuck in traffic," you interjected quickly, forcing yourself to sound casual, though you tensed up involuntarily. The thought of confronting Spencer slightly scared you, though you wouldn't admit it to yourself. "I’m almost 100% sure. Anyway, shouldn’t we be heading out?"
You changed the subject, nodding toward the exit with your chin. And then, by accident, you made eye contact with Elle.
Elle, who knew you better than anyone.
Elle, who always, always knew when you were lying or hiding something. And whose eyes widened when she realized.
Feeling the blood rush to your ears, you subtly shook your head, silently pleading for her not to speak. But she, to your horror, opened her mouth.
"You two, go ahead," she directed at Morgan and JJ. Then she fixed her intense, demanding gaze directly on you. "We’ll join you in a minute. I need to have a word with our girl, privately."
Barely were you alone when she exclaimed:
"Did you sleep with Reid?!"
"Goddammit, Elle, could you say it any louder?" you hissed, glancing toward the door where your colleagues had just disappeared moments ago.
"Why not? So, you had sex with Dr. Spencer Reid...!"
"FOR GOD'S SAKE..."
"...our genius boy and a member of the same team?!"
"I’m fucking sure even Strauss heard that in her office," you sighed. "But yes, I did it, I regret it, and most importantly, this has to stay between us. Not a word to Derek, JJ, or Penelope, understood?"
To your surprise, Elle burst into laughter and raised her hands in a defensive gesture.
"You know I wouldn’t tell anyone without your permission. I was just playing around Anyway..." she sighed. "I find it hard to believe. You two? Honestly, there’s always been something between you…”
"No," you interrupted her sharply. The words left a ringing in your head. "There was nothing between us."
"So, you decided to sleep together just like that, out of boredom?"
"We need to go, Elle. The rest is probably waiting for us."
You moved forward, your friend trailing right behind you, like that little voice in the back of your mind urging you to order pizza at midnight.
"Oh, one more thing. You said you regret it. So, what, our genius didn’t meet your expectations..."
"End of discussion..."
"Last thing, you told me not to mention it to Garcia, Morgan, or JJ. What about Hotch? Can I tell him?"
You couldn’t keep up the seriousness any longer and burst into laughter, joined by Elle.
"Tell me what?" a voice called from behind you.
Fuck multiplied by twelve thousand seventy-nine.
Somehow, your boss appeared in the same hallway, probably heading to the same room where you were going to be briefed on your next case. You noticed how all the amusement disappeared from Elle’s face. You both exchanged a look, like teenagers caught smoking a cigarette by their parents.
You both turned, silently negotiating through eye contact—arguing, really, over who should speak up and save the situation. It fell to you.
"Um... we were wondering... if we should tell you... that we absolutely love your tie. It's so... red and... long..." It was only then that you noticed it was a gray tie. "Not that one. Another one. Absolutely stunning. And I’m actually looking for a birthday gift for a friend. He’s... a huge fan of... ties."
You tried not to look at Elle, fearing she might burst into laughter. She already seemed like she was suffocating inside. Improvisation was never your strong suit; you always had to say too much.
"So, I hope you don’t mind me asking where you bought it. That’s exactly the kind of tie I’m looking for. Red..." You bit your tongue before you could say long again. "Good quality. One that you’d just want to untie..."
Hotch’s completely stoic expression didn’t help.
"Oh." Suddenly, you realized you hadn’t even greeted him. "Good morning, boss. Are you having a good day?"
"Average," he replied, completely ignoring your whole tie spiel.
Silence fell. Elle stared at the floor, and the corners of her mouth twitched dangerously.
"Let’s get to work," Hotch suggested, clearing his throat. He extended his hand, gesturing for you to go ahead. As soon as you turned, you squeezed your eyes shut in embarrassment. "I got it from Hailey," he spoke to you in a quieter tone, opening the door to the room where the rest of the team was already gathered. "But if you really care, I can ask her where she bought it."
Sometimes you had a hard time figuring out if the guy was serious or just messing with you.
"I’d be greatly appreciative," you managed to say, quickly passing him and taking a seat at the long table.
You heard Elle whispering to Morgan something that started with "You won’t believe this…” and contained a combination of the words red, long, and untie.
Actually, saying that all the team members were inside wasn’t entirely true. One of them was missing.
"Reid’s late?" Penelope wondered, just as your gaze fell on his empty seat.
"Let’s start without him," Hotch decided. "This can’t wait. JJ?"
She handed out the case files to everyone and moved to the screen, where the most important details and photos related to the case were being displayed. Before he could even say a word, a late Spencer burst into the room.
"Sorry, really, sorry..." he said frantically. "I know this never happens, but I overslept..."
He stopped mid-sentence as soon as his eyes met yours. It felt like he might as well have shouted, Hey, you know we had sex last night? and it would have been less suggestive. Or maybe it was just your inner paranoid voice talking.
"You could’ve informed us you’d be late," Hotch said.
Reid was still desperately trying to catch your eye, even though you were determinedly focusing on everything except him. It wasn’t until a moment later that he realized Hotch had said something to him, and he sighed in surprise, snapping back to reality.
"Oh... yeah, I should have. Definitely. Actually... I actually sent a message to y/n."
At that moment, all eyes turned to you. You furrowed your brow. There was no way he had written or called you — you would have heard it… which, of course, didn’t mean you would have replied. Your hand went to your pocket…
"I forgot my phone."
Only then did you look at Reid, your expression should have given him the message you intended. I left my phone at your place...
“I’ll look for it for you,” he offered. He immediately panicked, probably realizing that you'd rather keep your night together a secret. “I mean, I’ll help you look for it. If you want…”
“Reid, please, sit down,” Hotch stopped him from completely humiliating both of you. At that point, you had a burning desire to bang your head on the table. “And close the door.”
“Right…”
He followed the order and took a seat next to JJ, across from you, sending a small, uncertain smile. You didn’t react, your face remained unreadable, even irritated by how much he was giving away about what had happened between you.
Still, seeing his slightly wrinkled shirt, the same one he wore the previous evening when he opened the door for you, you couldn’t help but let your mind wander. Those small imperfections in the fabric were, of course, from how hastily you had removed it and tossed it to the floor, where it had stayed all night…
The first time you had met outside of work, as two ordinary friends and not colleagues, was a few weeks ago. You had to drop by his place in the evening to pick up some documents you needed for the next day at work.
“Thank god,” you sighed as the door opened. “Elle isn’t picking up at all. I have no idea what she’s doing or where she is, and I seriously need this. If I don’t bring it, I can pretty much say goodbye to BAU.”
Only then did you lift your gaze to the man standing in front of you, too absorbed in your panic over the missing papers to actually take a good look at him. One hand rested on the doorframe, dressed in a sweater vest with the collar of a shirt peeking out beneath it.
“I’m glad I could help,” he replied. Thin-framed glasses rested on his nose, which he only wore occasionally for work. It was a shame because they suited him well. “But I’m sure Hotch wouldn’t throw you out just for being one day late.”
“I’ve been putting it off for three weeks.”
“That definitely changes things. Are you coming in? I need to... check if I have everything. “I’m really sorry, but you actually called just a moment ago and I didn’t manage to…”
“Don’t worry about it,” you waved a hand reassuringly. “I should’ve reached out earlier and not bothered you at this hour. But since you’re inviting me, I’m coming in. I’ve never been to your place before.”
“You’re not bothering me at all,” he assured you as you both walked further into the apartment. The lighting was dim, creating a cozy and relaxed atmosphere.
You stopped in the living room when a familiar sound reached your ears—a melody you knew all too well. Without a second thought, you followed it to its source.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you huffed in surprise, coming to a halt in front of the glowing TV screen, its bright light cutting through the dim surroundings.
“What?” Spencer finally noticed you had wandered off and joined you a minute later. “Oh, sorry. I was watching it earlier and forgot to turn it off…”
“No!” You stopped him before he could reach for the remote. “Don’t you dare. History’s Mysteries is my favorite show.”
Spencer looked at you as though he expected you to burst into laughter any second and admit you were joking. But no, you genuinely, wholeheartedly loved that program. Especially the episodes about extraterrestrial life—deep down, you’d always been a bit of a nerd.
You crossed your arms over your chest, pretending to be annoyed.
“What?” you challenged, raising an eyebrow. “You think just because I’m hot, I can’t have any intellectual interests?”
He widened his eyes, shaking his head.
"Don't put those words in my mouth. I’d never say—or even think—something like that."
"That I’m hot?"
"No! What? I mean… I wouldn’t assume you couldn’t have intellectual interests just because you’re…"
"Hot," you finished for him, letting out a laugh. "Relax, Reid, I’m just messing with you. By the way, you have a really nice apartment. Honestly, I kind of expected, I don’t know, a lab or something."
"Well, so far, you’ve only seen the living room," he replied.
"And I'd love to see the rest of it," you announced, rocking slightly on your heels. "But I haven't seen this episode yet, and I'm very curious about what it's about."
You noticed him hesitate, clearly unsure how to respond.
"Unless, of course, you don’t want me to stay. Maybe you're expecting someone. A girl or a guy?"
"No, no, I’m not expecting anyone," he replied quickly, swallowing nervously. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—barely noticeable, but it was there. "You’re absolutely not bothering me. Actually, it’ll be... it’ll be nice to have you stay. But, um... the documents. I should—I'll go get those ready for you. Would you like something to drink?"
"...Four bodies were retrieved from a hole in the ice of a completely frozen lake. All the victims were young girls, aged thirteen to nineteen and each of them was involved in prostitution."
You were brought back to reality by JJ's words. You felt someone's gaze on you, surprisingly not from the direction you had expected. It was Gideon, and you were sure he had noticed the strange tension between you and Spencer. That was likely the reason behind his scrutiny. You had always thought he was a solid guy, but at times, he scared you. He looked at people as if he could see their original sin, not just theirs, but also that of five generations back in their family.
You shuddered, but for another reason. The subject... frozen lake, bodies pulled out... even though so many years had passed, and you could barely remember the event, the chill still crept down your spine, and your heart raced like you were running away.
"Wait a minute," Derek said, furrowing his brow thoughtfully. "How thick could the ice be on that lake?"
"Given the current almost extreme temperatures, probably around 50 inches. That's thick enough for even cars to move safely on it," Reid explained without hesitation.
You sighed, trying to hide a fleeting smile. You just... sounded like a fetishist, but you couldn't deny that it was a little exciting when he did that. He delivered long, flawless explanations, all while looking genuinely fascinated by the topic. It didn't matter what you were talking about.
Elle raised an eyebrow. You decided to ignore her.
“Doesn’t it make you wonder how he managed to cut a hole in the lake, in such thick ice, without anyone noticing?” Morgan continued.
“Actually, he didn’t have to do it personally,” Reid replied again. He took off his glasses and thoughtfully turned them in his hands. “Under different weather conditions, we might consider that, but these were most likely holes made for other purposes. Fishing, mostly, but also to test if the ice can support vehicles, for example. The unsub could have simply shown up, discarded the body, and that’s it.”
You all started the discussion on the topic without your input. You should have stayed focused, but you couldn't help but keep glancing back at his long fingers, holding the glasses...his touch so delicate and skilled…
The door opened once again, just like every Sunday, when the two of you caught up on the weekly episode of the show. After you stayed over at his place once to watch it together, it simply became a tradition. An unspoken one.
With each meeting, you talked less and less about work. It was still kept in a purely friendly atmosphere—otherwise, you wouldn't have shown up. You weren't looking for a committed relationship, but lately, the usual physicality wasn't enough, and you needed a new conversation partner on a deeper level. The range of your topics was vast, from casual chatter to deep analyses of the content you watched (you could talk for hours about conspiracy theories), or serious yet comforting conversations about life and the world.
"Where's my pillow?" you asked, pointing to the spot on the left side of the couch where you always sat.
"I spilled coffee on it, by accident. It's in the laundry. Sorry."
"Did you really just apologize for taking your pillow from your own apartment?"
"Sorry, It’s just my thing”
You both burst out laughing, sitting side by side on the couch.
"I miss something to rest my head on," you complained after just a minute. "I’ve got neck pain from sleeping on the jet."
"So, you should definitely sleep on a flat surface," he teased. "See, I took the pillow out of concern for you."
"Ladies and gentlemen, Spencer Reid before you. The man who will always find a scientific reason to make your life harder. Maybe I should just sleep on a bed of nails instead of a mattress, huh?"
“I just suggested a slightly flatter surface! Where did the nails come from?”
“That’s the same to me. I need softness.”
Spencer shook his head.
“I can bring you a pillow from my bedroom.”
“The episode is starting.”
“I’ll be back in a second…”
“Oh, and then you’ll complain you can’t talk about the plot because you missed the first minute, and so much probably happened,” you stopped him from getting up, grabbing his wrist. “Sit. I’ll survive the neck pain. Or… or I’ll just lie down here.”
Saying this, you simply rested your head on his lap, settling comfortably on your side.
“What did the autopsy reveal?” Elle asked. “Did the victims die from drowning, or were their bodies just dumped in the water with a different cause of death?”
You should have focused on the case at hand, but you couldn’t shake the discomfort this topic caused you. No wonder your thoughts kept straying to more pleasant places as you tried to distance yourself from it. Still, you read through the case files, knowing you had to stay focused to solve this. Lives depended on it.
“They were all alive when they were thrown into the water,” JJ said with tightly pressed lips. “And each of them suffered a heavy blow to the head.”
“That’s how he abducts them,” Derek summarized. “Knocks them unconscious with a strong hit. Maybe he pretends to be a client, and once they leave with him, he strikes.”
“The question is, why specifically the lake’s ice hole?” you mused, tapping your nails on the table in an anxious gesture. “Is it purely practical? Did he think it was the easiest place to dispose of the bodies?”
You couldn’t take your eyes off the photos of the drowning victims—it felt like self-inflicted torture. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed Reid staring at you differently than before. Once, you’d told him a story about something that happened to you as a child, more like a casual anecdote than a heartfelt confession. Even so, you thought you saw some worry etched on his face.
For the first time since he walked through the door, you met his eyes directly, responding to his desperate attempts to catch your gaze. Surprised that you finally looked at him, he froze, his slightly parted lips emitting a short sound as if he wanted to say something but forgot what it was at the last second.
"No... I don't think so," he finally said, drawing out the syllables absentmindedly. The slight furrow in his brow suggested he was deep in thought. "Bathing in water symbolizes cleansing from sin in many religions, both physically and spiritually. For example, in Christianity, baptism washes away original sin. Prostitutes are often the targets of serial killers who believe they’re purging society in some way. Since we’ve ruled out a sexual motive, maybe this is where we should focus our attention."
"That’s a good lead," Hotch agreed, as the rest of the team considered the analysis in silence. "In that case, we’re likely dealing with a religious fanatic. Such perpetrators often believe they’re acting in the name of God or some higher good. Worse still, they see their actions as morally justified, which means they feel no remorse."
"And that, in turn, means they won’t stop killing until they’re caught," Gideon concluded.
"Then there will soon be another victim. We need to move now," your boss decided, quickly straightening his papers against the table before tucking them into his briefcase. "See you on the jet in fifteen minutes."
Throughout the meeting, you'd laid out the victims' photos in front of you, studying them closely. Preoccupied with gathering them up, you could hear everyone heading toward the door, convinced you'd been left alone in the room.
But when you looked up, you found yourself face-to-face with none other than Reid. Your breath hitched for a moment. You knew this confrontation was inevitable, but you'd worked so hard to push the thought of it away…
"Hey," he greeted with a small smile on his lips. He seemed almost excited about the conversation. "I just wanted…to ask how you're doing."
You shrugged, forcing indifference.
"Fine, I guess."
You finished sliding the photos back into the case file, closed it, and pressed it to your chest.
"We should get going. Hotch gave us fifteen minutes, but the sooner we leave, the better..."
"You don't even want to talk to me?" he asked unexpectedly, shaking his head slightly in genuine disbelief. He swallowed hard and added, "About last night?"
You squeezed your eyes shut for a moment. You hated this—hated it with every fiber of your being. That awful moment when you had to tell someone you'd spent the night with that it didn’t mean anything to you, that you didn’t want to keep seeing them, let alone get involved. And it was so much worse this time. This wasn’t some random guy. This was Spencer—your friend, someone you genuinely cared about, whose friendship you couldn’t afford to lose, especially since you worked together.
Your body was conditioned to run, to escape. Waking up in someone else’s bed always signaled an immediate sprint to the finish line. But this time, it felt like you’d tripped over an untied shoelace barely a meter in.
"There’s nothing to talk about," you replied. The strange tension of being in the same room with him again, just the two of you in this small space—so much like last night—settled over you. "Actually, wait. There is. I think I left my phone at your place, though it might’ve fallen somewhere in the car. Could you look for it when we get back?"
He didn’t respond. You weren’t sure why, but you kept your gaze fixed anywhere but on him—his shirt, the space behind him, anything to avoid his eyes. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe you should look directly at him, let your words carry the weight they were supposed to.
Spencer suddenly let out a short, sharp laugh, filled with shock and maybe even… sarcasm?
"Did it really mean so little to you that you can't even look at me?"
You gave in and lifted your gaze. His head tilted slightly to the side, his brow furrowed. He looked somehow hurt even though hurt seemed too strong a word.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean how you disappeared this morning. I thought maybe you were in a rush or didn’t want to wake me, but when I got there, you barely even looked at me. Sorry—actually, you looked at me only once”
"What did you expect, that I’d throw myself at you and kiss you?"
"No, I expected that we’d talk about it like normal people."
"But there’s nothing to talk about. It happened, and that’s it. I don’t see any reason we should have to debate about it..."
Spencer wasn’t angry, like others might have been. He was simply stunned.
"I don’t understand this," he finally confessed, adjusting his glasses on his nose. It was as if they suddenly became a bother, so he adjusted them again, then, after a moment of hesitation, took them off. "Do you regret what happened?"
“No,” you answered quickly, it was the first honest thought that came to your mind. You pinched the bridge of your nose, unable to find the right words. “Well… I don’t regret it in the way you might think. It’s just… I’m not sure what you expect from me now. We spent one night together, it was amazing, but I don’t have anything more to offer you.”
“I don’t want you to offer me anything,” he said, irritation beginning to creep into his voice, though it didn’t seem to be directed at you. “The only thing I want is… to understand where we stand now. Look, we’ve been spending a lot of time together lately, I thought you liked me…”
“Because I do like you,” you interrupted him mid-sentence. "Let me be honest with you, Reid. I don’t do relationships. And just so you know, I don’t usually sleep with my friends either, but it happened, and I can’t undo it, nor would I want to. Because I enjoyed it, I like you, and I have a great time when I’m with you. And up until now, I’ve really enjoyed how things have been between us. I don’t want anything to change."
You summed up what had been weighing on your heart, hoping with all sincerity that he’d understand. Spencer leaned his hands on the back of an empty chair, turning his body slightly toward you.
"So," he said, letting out something between a chuckle and a pained sigh. "Maybe you shouldn’t have gone to bed with me."
"Listen, sex doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a physical act, it doesn’t affect our friendship in any way."
"Do you really believe that?"
“Yes, I do,” you insisted stubbornly, refusing to let yourself even blink. Spencer turned his face toward you, looking for signs of a lie or uncertainty in your expression.
He wouldn’t have been able to find any, even if he tried with all his might. Because you were a brilliant actress. And it wasn’t that you hid your feelings so well. It was more that everything about you was so contradictory that it created a whole range of possible interpretations. And Spencer, with his deeply rooted need to hurt himself and test his own worth, chose to settle on the one that would guarantee him that.
“Well, good for you,” he finally replied, before leaving the room completely, not even turning back over his shoulder.
For a moment, you stood in silence, unable to identify what you were actually feeling. In truth, your earlier words had been honest. You cared about your friendship, the connection, the conversations, and the time spent together. But at the same time, you couldn’t deny that he simply attracted you. Just yesterday, you had convinced yourself it was probably just curiosity. Sometimes people wonder what it would be like to try something with a friend, they do it, and then all those similar thoughts fade away.
But was it the same for you two?
Your head and shoulders had been resting on his lap for a while, your cheek comfortably pressed against his thigh, and the glow of the TV occasionally lit up your focused face when something brighter appeared on the screen.
Spender seemed tense about the position for just a minute, then, for the next five, he was simply surprised. Although you focused your attention on the program, you could feel his gaze falling on your figure from time to time, stopping on it for a moment. After ten minutes, you were both lying comfortably, with mutual ease, and after an unknown amount of time, one of his hands was resting on your side.
Every now and then, you spoke to each other, exchanging short, often sarcastic comments about the episode. During one of these interactions, something caught your attention.
"Where are your glasses?" you asked. You turned onto your back, resting the back of your head on his lap instead of your temple and cheek.
You could look up at him from that amusing, lower perspective, from which everyone looks particularly unflattering. You smiled at his expression when he tilted his head to look at you.
"Oh, I have them here," he replied, lifting the glasses he must have set on the couch.
"But why aren’t you wearing them?" You could swear that when you started watching, they were on his nose. You had noticed because you really liked how he looked in them.
He shrugged.
"You’re straining your eyes. Put them on," you asked.
Spencer moved his hand as if he wanted to reach for them, but at the last moment, he hesitated.
"I... I don’t exactly like how I look in them," he finally confessed.
After those words, you stared at the ceiling for a moment, then pushed yourself up on your elbow, almost aggressively. His eyebrows shot up at that.
"You must be joking."
"What?"
"I said, you must be joking. You look great in them. They really suit you," you assured him, sitting up. "You know, when I was a teenager, I always wanted to wear glasses. I even envied the girls with poor eyesight."
"You know, I’m fully aware you’re saying this just to get me to wear them?"
"True, you got me. Did it work?"
"Not really."
You bit your lower lip, thoughtfully considering a certain idea.
"Okay, give them to me for a moment," you asked, extending your hand. "I’ll tell you something that will convince you to wear them. From now on, you’ll even sleep in them. Well, maybe especially sleep in them."
He tilted his head, trying for a moment to read your intentions from your face, but he couldn’t. He sighed and handed you the glasses.
"Don’t..."
"Don’t grab them by the lenses, I know that," you finished, rolling your eyes. "I’m not some animal."
With his glasses in hand, you changed your position on the couch, kneeling so that you were more or less facing each other.
"I’m waiting for your arguments," he said, his voice sly, to which you raised an eyebrow.
"Well, this will be an argument combined with a little presentation," you clarified. "Have you ever heard of the glasses theory?"
"Is that an actual concept in human psychology, or something you just made up? If it’s the latter, I’m afraid I haven’t”
Listen, it’s very simple, but you’d better focus on me," you demanded, ignoring his previous remark.
"I’m focused."
Indeed, he was. His gaze was fixed on you with such intensity and engagement, as if you were about to deliver a speech that could change the fate of the universe. Or maybe it just seemed that way because you were so close to each other.
"Forgive me for the unacademic language, Doctor, but I don’t like to complicate things too much. This theory says that with glasses, you can only look one of two ways: smart or hot."
Spencer had already chuckled, ready to jump in with a sarcastic comment, but you pressed your finger to his lips, moving even closer.
"Don’t interrupt me for now, I’m not done yet. This theory also says that your look in glasses will always be the opposite of your usual, everyday look. So, if without them you look like the typical intellectual who knows the meaning of every word in the dictionary, then in them…" You paused, tilting your head to the side. Up until now, your finger had been resting on his lips, which it had landed on by chance, but you couldn’t stop yourself from trailing it along his chin and jawline. He didn’t take his eyes off you, which only made it harder to stop. "In them, you look really, really attractive. Like, you know, sexually attractive”
You felt his chest rise. You felt it because one of your hands was resting on it as you sat on his lap, though you had no idea how you had ended up there. Spencer had been entirely focused on your face until now-on your speaking lips, not on how your bodies were positioned in relation to each other. He exhaled, loudly, far too loudly for comfort, the breath he'd been holding in. The sound escaped as you settled your full weight on his lap instead of just hovering above it.
“Do you really mean that?”
Yes, you wanted to respond briefly, right into his ear.
“That’s the theory. And I… I agree with it. I even have another example. You won’t deny that I’m hot, right? It’s just something people think when they see me. A statement of fact. So… when I put on glasses…” Saying this, you slid his glasses onto your own nose. Your entire field of vision blurred slightly, making it hard to see his reaction. You could only feel how his body responded..“Well? How do I look?”
He didn’t answer. His breathing grew deeper, his pulse quicker. You knew this because your hand, which had been exploring every corner of his face, had already made its way to his neck and decided to stay there for a while.
“Spencer,” you prompted, “I asked how I look.”
He lowered his head, the top of it brushing against your sternum, lingering there for a moment. When he straightened again, his eyes were in constant flux, like those of someone torn by too many desires at once.
“Smart,” he replied, his voice barely audible, the word catching in his throat. “Now you look really smart.”
You shifted higher on his lap, drawn to him by the pull of his voice.
“Smart,” you repeated with a laugh, your tone edging toward a whisper, slipping between the two of you and filling the small space like liquid poured into a vessel. “That confirms the theo—…”
You broke off when his lips finally surged toward yours, impatient and pushed to the very edge of restraint. His jaw pressed against yours, forcing your entire body to tilt back. You swayed on his lap, both of his hands falling tou your hips, his fingertips pressing firlmy into your skin to hold your body at the same place, right next to him, close, closer.
The kiss, born of desperation, quickly transformed into the release of a long-hidden hunger shared by you both. It was equal on every level, matched in intensity and force.
In the midst of it all, you lost your breath, repeatedly pulling your lips away from his to gasp for air, only to reconnect moments later. One of those brief pauses drew a wretched, urging whimper from him.
It was around then that you felt the pressure, growing stronger against your core.
An involuntary smile spread across your lips, breaking the kiss, during which you briefly took control, tilting his neck back for better access. Pulling away by barely an inch, you managed to notice that his barely open eyelids were still fixed on your lips, glistening with saliva and flushed with desire.
“Spencer? What is it? “
After asking that question you pressed yourself to his hips, pointing to the obvious hardness. His eyes widened, as if all the previous actions had taken place far beyond his body, to which he had only just returned. He inhaled sharply, his fingers gripping your body firmly and decisively as if trying to slide you off his lap. Something in the intensity of his touch and his attempt to take control only made you cling to him more.
“Didn’t expect you to be that hard after a kiss, but maybe it’s my fault” You muttered a joke under your breath, your lips briefly marking the space along his jawline, chin, and finally his lips. In the meantime, while one of your hands remained firmly on his neck, the other decisively reached its target. Then, griped it through the fabric of his pants. His lips parted, b loout no sound came out; it seemed to have been swallowed by his surprise. “Do you want me to take care of it?”
Your hand remained still, waiting for an answer. At first, he was silent, focused on his own breathing, not looking at your face, which you found quite unsettling.
"Spencer, I want you to answer me."
When he hesitated again, you gently brushed your lips against the lobe of his ear. But before you could repeat your request, he unexpectedly pulled both of you to the side, positioning you beneath him.
You gasped, surprised by the shift in dynamics.
“I want this” he whimpered into your ear, covering it with his mouth along with the space around it. “I really, really want this, please…”
But was it the same for you two?
You repeated the question in your mind and recalled how, arched like a bow, you placed the glasses on his face, wanting to see him wear them as he made you come.
You stood there in the empty room, replaying that moment in your head, well aware that you should join the rest of the team, but not so sure about the answer
*
"Please don’t tell me that those fifteen minutes when you were alone..."
"Disgusting, Elle, you’re just disgusting."
Your friend, sitting across from you on the jet, smiled as if you’d just given her a compliment. The rest of the team either engaged in conversation with each other or reviewed the case files once more, looking for new clues. Reid belonged to the latter group, though his absent expression didn’t suggest he was deep in thought about the case. But you made an effort not to look at him, feeling a bit guilty for how things had unfolded.
"What exactly did you tell him?"
"That I don’t date and I’m not looking for anything serious."
"You just told him that?"
"What was I supposed to do, draw him a picture?"
"It’s not about that, it’s just..." Elle hesitated, unsure of what she wanted to say. She didn’t seem as cheerful as before. "I guess you didn’t say it that directly, right? Don’t get me wrong, but it’s kind of... cruel."
Her gaze briefly shifted toward the subject of your conversation, looking concerned.
"Would you have come to that conclusion if it were any other guy you didn’t know?"
She sighed.
"Probably not, and that’s why I think I’m having some sort of moral crisis."
You fell into a bit of an unpleasant mood for the rest of the flight. Unsure of what else to do, you decided to think a bit about the case and the murders. You even came to a conclusion and were about to stand up to discuss it when it hit you that you wanted your conversation partner to be...Reid. You sighed and stopped halfway, not knowing if he was ready to talk to you again.
Soon enough, you arrived in the small town where the murders had taken place. Naturally, you headed straight to the site where the bodies were discovered. Bundled up in thick down jackets, the crunch of deep snow underfoot accompanied your every step. You busied yourself talking to the local police, deliberately keeping your distance from the lake. The vast expanse of frozen water seemed to glare at you, challenging and mocking, as though daring you to come and play. Every glance at the ice awakened an inexplicable urge to sprint to its center, to feel the chills coursing through your body and surrender to a reckless exhilaration.
Rain drummed against the bridge like a barrage of tiny bullets, sharp and unrelenting, as if determined to pierce straight through you. You stood huddled beneath an umbrella with Reid, but both of you were already soaked to the bone, shivering from the relentless cold.
“Where the hell are they?” you asked through chattering teeth.
As part of your investigation, you and Reid had been sent to a nearby high school to interview the teachers of a missing teenager. The rest of the team had been assigned different tasks, and someone was supposed to pick you up at the agreed-upon spot and time so you could regroup and share your findings. But the wait was dragging on far longer than expected.
“I’d just like to remind you that you laughed at me when I took this umbrella, saying there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky and it definitely wouldn’t rain,” Spencer remarked, switching the umbrella from his red, cold hand to the other one he had been keeping warm in his coat pocket.
You looked at him with envy. Your jacket didn’t even have pockets, and you started wondering why you’d even bought it in the first place.
“This is not the time to point fingers at me,” you retorted. “This is the time to make sure I don’t die of hypothermia. Come closer. And don’t stand so close to the railing.”
“We’re nearly two meters away from it,” he pointed out, but still followed your request and stepped forward. You took the opportunity to shove your hands into his coat pockets for even a momentary bit of warmth. His coat smelled like rain, and your nose accidentally brushed against it. Your hands touched his in one of the pockets.
“Jesus, it’s like touching an ice cube,” he muttered.
“You still have feeling in your hands?”
“Still do, but I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time,” he replied.
“They’ll freeze and have to be amputated. We’ll be the only two handless FBI agents. Hotch will never send us on an assignment together again,” you joked.
He chuckled softly and shifted the umbrella to his other hand once again. For a moment, you both stood in silence—him staring at the river flowing beneath the bridge, and you gazing toward the direction where you hoped your rescue would arrive.
“Can I ask you a question?” he broke the silence, looking down at you.
You were standing so close, your hands buried in his coat pockets, that you had to tilt your head back significantly to meet his gaze.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Are you afraid of water?”
You stared at his face, taken aback by the question. His wet hair was plastered to his forehead, and for some inexplicable reason, you felt a sudden urge to push it back.
“Why do you ask?”
He shrugged.
“It’s just something I noticed today—though, of course, there’s a possibility I’m wrong. But we’ve been standing on this bridge for twenty minutes, and you haven’t looked down once. And you keep telling me to step away from the railing.”
“I’m just looking out for your safety, klutz,” you teased, lowering your gaze. He wasn’t wrong about the water, and it surprised you that he had even picked up on it.
“When I was six, I almost drowned in frigid water,” you admitted, the words spilling out before you could stop them.
Spencer’s brows furrowed with concern.
“At least, that’s what I’ve been told,” you added before he could say anything. “Apparently, my dad took me and my sisters to a lake to go ice skating. He used to go there as a kid with his siblings, and the ice was always thick enough that no one even considered it might break. But that was twenty years earlier. He didn’t account for climate change. The ice cracked right beneath me.”
“God,” he sighed. “You know… maybe it’s for the better that you don’t remember it. At least not exactly.”
“Maybe. Apparently, I spent the next two weeks in the hospital with pneumonia, but I don’t have a single memory of that. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that I shudder at the mere sound of water.”
“Your body must remember what your mind suppressed. But wait, didn’t you have to pass a swimming test to get into the FBI?”
“I did. But it was in a pool, where the water was calm and not trying to kill me. Hey, do you see that car? Isn’t that for us?”
After a few hours, you began to appreciate living in a state where winters were mild. Your hands were even colder than they had been that time on the bridge, despite wearing leather gloves. The hood over your head muffled the sounds around you so much that the first time Hotch called your name, you didn’t even hear him. You only approached him when you noticed him waving in your direction.
Something in his expression made you quicken your pace.
“We have the unsub’s identity,” he said before you could open your mouth to ask what had happened.
The rest of the team had already gathered. Reid’s cheeks were red from the cold, and he wasn’t wearing his glasses. He wasn’t looking at you, so you avoided looking at him.
“What?” you blurted, surprised. “How?”
“He abducted another victim, but this time he wasn’t as careful, and one of the cameras caught him. Using the footage, Penelope tracked down his information. She also found out that he came from a very poor family, and his sister turned to prostitution at the age of fourteen to support both of them.”
“I don’t understand. Then why does he kill young girls, just like his sister, who sacrificed herself for their survival?” Elle asked, suddenly appearing behind you.
Her question echoed in your mind.
“He thinks that by drowning them in freezing water, he cleanses them of the sin of prostitution—a sin he believes was unjustly forced upon them because of poverty,” you said suddenly, the chill biting into your body far more sharply than before.
“The unsub might even think he’s doing them a favor,” Reid added, animated, picking up your line of thought. “That he’s their savior, granting them a departure free of that sin.”
His eyes met yours, a flicker of admiration glinting in them. But then, as if reminded of everything, he quickly looked away. You felt like sighing. So this is how every single one of your interactions was going to look from now on?
“We need to catch him before he drowns another victim. We don’t have much time; it’s getting dark,” Hotch issued commands quickly. “Gideon, me, JJ, and Elle will head to one lake, Morgan, Y/N, and…”
“I should go with you,” Reid interrupted. “Elle can go with Morgan, and…”
“This is not up for discussion,” Hotch replied in a firm tone, a flicker of surprise crossing not just his face but everyone’s. When it came to time, his decisions were final. You all knew that. "Go," He commanded, his voice leaving no room for argument.
Before you knew it, you were in the speeding car. The tension and sense of mission always left you silent, focused, and most of all, determined.
“He’s here. Do you see him? He’s dragging her toward the hole in the ice!”
Throughout all of it, not once did it cross your mind—the obvious fact that you’d have to set foot on the frozen lake. Before you even had a chance to react or fully realize it, Reid unexpectedly grabbed your sleeve, pulling you toward him. He seemed surprised by his own action, his eyes darting with adrenaline across your face.
“The ice won’t break, do you understand?” he said, not letting go of your arm. “It’s thick enough that cars can drive on it. “It’s safe, trust me. And if you feel like you can’t do it, just stay behind,”
His voice was surprisingly steady, offering a sense of comfort that you hadn’t expected. You listened, almost stunned, not just by the care in his advice, but also by the fact that he was even speaking to you at all.
You didn’t have time to respond or even nod; the car came to a stop, and every second counted. Somewhere deep inside, though, you felt a surge of gratitude for his gesture and words. Because as soon as you set foot on the ice, it was as though your senses vanished. All that mattered was the water—cold, sinister, and waiting for you deep beneath the blue surface.
Morgan and Reid moved ahead of you, with the latter turning his head over his shoulder. You saw it, even as the darkness quickly closed in around you.
“If you feel like you can’t do it, just stay behind,” echoed in your mind.
But you couldn’t just stand there and watch while the victim’s life was hanging by a thread. Focusing entirely on his words and voice, you moved forward, gripping your weapon tightly, yet with a steady hand.
And it was your shot, fired in a moment of desperate resolve, that brought the unsub down, giving Morgan the chance to catch the unconscious victim in his arms and rush her to the shore as quickly as possible.
You stood there, breathless, still holding the gun high, completely unaware of it until someone gently touched your hands, guiding them downward.
“It’s me,” Reid said quietly as you flinched. Only then did it start to sink in that you were standing on the ice. Your imagination began to feed you the feeling of the bone-chilling cold, the water pressing against your body with all its might. After all these years, still so vivid. You grabbed onto his arms tightly, your legs suddenly slipping beneath you. Why hadn’t they slipped before?
“Hey, careful. The ice is thick, remember? It won’t break,” he reassured you.
He held you tightly, offering you support as you both made your way to the shore, taking small, uncertain steps. You could barely breathe, let alone speak. Yet, a question loomed in your mind, one you were desperate to ask: why was he even still with you? Why hadn’t he just left you there, maybe for some internal satisfaction?
Finally, you were on solid ground, no longer gripped by panic. Still, your breath was rapid, every cell in your body shaking in spasms, but not in that teasing, playful way it had when you played the role of the bolter.
“Why did you do it?” you asked, still holding onto him like a lifeline. “I thought you were mad at me.”
Before answering, Reid studied you in silence for a moment.
“I could be furious with you, but I wouldn’t leave you there, alone and scared,” he said.
You opened your mouth, a warmth spreading across your chest, something that felt almost like a comforting embrace. But before you could say anything, the rest of the team reached you, with Elle hanging onto your shoulder, her voice full of concern as she asked how you were feeling.
In the darkness and the flood of emotions, his face blurred, along with the faces of the others. You closed your eyes for a moment, surrendering completely.
It was only then that you began to calm down, though it would take many hours before your hands stopped shaking.
*
You nervously paced around the office, two pairs of eyes watching you with clear amusement.
"Do you think he called me in because of that whole tie incident?" you asked, nervously biting one of your nails. "Shit, it’s definitely about that. It was so inappropriate, he’s probably going to fire me."
"Calm down," Derek said to you, the corner of his mouth constantly rising and falling. "First of all, if Hotch were going to fire you for every dumb thing that comes out of your mouth, you'd be gone after a week. Second of all, it probably has nothing to do with that. Knowing you, it’s probably some overdue paperwork..."
"You’re not helping," you said, raising a warning finger.
Elle’s laugh mixed with her yawn.
"God, I’m exhausted from this day. I’m out of here. Call me later and let me know what this was all about," she kissed your cheek as a farewell.
You briefly hugged her with one arm.
"Keep your fingers crossed," you asked them as they walked away.
Both of them raised their hands, making the gesture.
It was evening, and you had just returned to the office after closing the case. You had hoped to head home and sleep off all the emotions from the day, but then you found out that Hotch had called for you. And you had no idea why.
Before opening the door with his name on it, you crossed yourself in your mind.
"Listen, Hotch, about that tie, it was really just some messing around," you blurted out, before even fully stepping inside.
The man sitting at his desk raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t alone—across from him, in a chair, looking like a student called to the principal’s office for punishment, sat Spencer, looking just as confused as you felt.
"Did you want to see me now? Or did I mix up the time or the days...?"
"I wanted to see both of you," he replied, pointing to one of the two chairs next to Reid.
You exchanged a brief glance with your colleague. Since your last interaction on the frozen lake, neither of you had spoken a word, but the atmosphere wasn’t as tense as before. That didn’t, of course, mean that everything between you was back to normal.
"Listen, I’m just as exhausted as you, but I need to have this conversation with you now so we can resolve it as quickly as possible."
You shook your head in confusion.
"Resolve what?" Reid asked.
"Whatever happened between you two," Hotch started seriously, his gaze moving between your faces. "Any argument, I don’t care what it was about or how serious it is, it cannot affect your work or professional relationship in any way."
You couldn’t help it and let out a laugh. You imagined Elle’s expression on the other end of the phone when you’d tell her the real reason behind this summons…
"Hotch, there was no argument," you assured him, maybe not entirely honestly, but in an attempt to wrap up this somewhat, let's be honest, embarrassing conversation as quickly as possible.
Spencer nodded enthusiastically.
"Absolutely none. Never."
"I'm not blind or, as you’re both well aware, stupid," Hotch continued, his gaze shifting between you both. "I can see what's going on, and I’m telling you now—I don’t want any conflict in my team."
You let out a snort.
"So what are you going to do?" you asked challengingly. "Force us to shake hands and make up? If we do that now, can we finally go home?"
He met your gaze, his expression as stoic as ever, but you were certain—absolutely certain—that deep down, he was amused by it all. To your surprise, he suddenly stood up from his desk.
"No, I'm going to do something more effective," he declared. "I'm leaving you two alone for ten minutes. No one leaves this office. When I come back, everything needs to be settled. Understood?"
"Isn’t this some sort of elementary school method of discipline?" Spencer asked, raising his eyebrows, but out of the corner of your eye, you saw that beneath his amused expression, there was also a hint of concern.
"Exactly how it sounds," you agreed, briefly meeting his gaze before shifting it to your boss with a pleading look. "You're not our father, Hotch. We're adults, stop treating us like children..."
His hand landed on the doorknob without a moment’s hesitation.
"Then stop acting like children and talk to each other," he said, glancing at his watch. "I’ll be back in ten minutes."
You could’ve sworn there was a subtle smile playing on his face as he left.
You watched his figure disappear in disbelief.
And then, you turned to Spencer, who was already staring at you.
Spencer gets a bad bout of amnesia. Or, your boyfriend forgets he’s your boyfriend, but he still has a crush on you. [3k]
c: fem, bombshell!reader, head injury, hospitals, amnesia, fluff, spencer can’t believe he bagged you, requested here
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Spencer wakes to an empty room.
He lays on a pillow too flat, neck twinging, the back of his eyes throbbing when he moves them.
He takes a deep breath. He struggles to breath through his nose and lets his mouth open for a few big, achy breaths, his mouth dry like he’s been sucking on cotton balls.
Spencer’s alarmed, without a clue what it is he’s done. He wonders where Gideon is, if the older man came to see him yet. He hopes somebody told his mom he’s okay.
Maybe Hotch will come to see him. He and Hotch have grown closer while Gideon was on his mandated recovery time; Gideon spends less time in the office now, sticking to lectures, seminars and consults, while Hotch, Morgan and Spencer handle the away cases. Spencer might go as far as to say Hotch likes him. And Morgan can tolerate him now, less grudging when Spencer offers a random fact or statistic to further the case.
A stab of pain at the back of his head makes itself known.
Spencer doesn’t want to move, but he needs to assess things. He frowns at his arms, naked as they are. His silver watch is missing. A t-shirt that he doesn’t remember buying stretches over his chest. What state are they in, and who dressed him?
He’s scowling at the window with it’s wide-open blinds and all the sun when the door opens.
You’re looking at the bags on your arm as you come in. Spencer startles in his blankets —what are you doing here? Agent L/N, Morgan’s friend and a candidate for the open position on the BAU team. You’re from the Sex Crimes Unit, like Greenaway.
Spencer flusters every time he sees you, not just because of how kind you’d been the first time you met, or even the easy flirtation you send his way when you cross paths. It’s because you’re possibly the prettiest woman he’s ever met. It’s better when you notice he’s awake and light up like he’s the winning numbers for tonight’s lottery pull. Everything about you illuminates.
“Hey, babe!” you say, not not yelling as you drop your bags in the seat by the bed and reach for him.
He doesn’t think to move away as you take his face into your hands.
“I’m so glad you’re finally awake, you almost slept for the full twenty four hours.” Your hands are soft. They smell like neroli. When you stroke his cheek and lean down to give him a chaste peck, he almost passes out there and then. “It's a good thing, obviously,” you say, and then kiss him again distractedly. “You heal more when you’re asleep. Or so I’ve heard.”
You pull away. You have such a nice mouth, but Spencer’s never thought about what it might feel like on his. He doesn’t have the audacity: in what world would you ever kiss him? That’s the joke, right, when you flirt with him in the office? It’s funny because you’d never date him.
“How are you feeling?” you ask, losing some of your pep. “How’s your head, handsome? You know, there are easier ways to get a haircut.”
“They cut my hair?” he croaks.
“Shaved it at the back to stitch you up. Not much, don’t worry. They were pushing for a buzz cut but I put my foot down on that one,” you joke. You nudge his legs aside without worrying about sitting on him as you get comfortable. “It’s not much. You can’t tell.”
“I…”
“You feeling okay?” you ask softly. Your nice mouth purses. Your eyebrows pinch. They’re cute eyebrows.
“You look different than the last time I saw you.”
He doesn’t mean to say it aloud. He’s noticing things now. You’re wearing less powder under your eyes than you used to. You seem to have gained a little weight, and you look good. You didn’t look bad before, but this is different. Your hair isn’t too different, nor your brows, but you’ve begun lining your lips in a new way. Your blush is a subtler hue. Spencer doesn’t claim to know everything about you, but he can say that you look neatly the same each time you visit.
“It’s hard to sleep when your favourite person in the entire world gets his head cut open,” you say, taking his hand where he’d left it loose in the blankets.
Your fingers slip into his with ease.
“Can I tell you something?” he asks, attempting to swallow his nerves.
“Of course you can.”
He licks his lips. “Uh, I think I’m confused. I don’t– I don’t remember what happened, and…”
“Oh, right. They told me this might happen.” You draw yourself up with a breath. He’s fascinated by the movement, an air of heat around him as you begin rubbing the back of his hand with your thumb. “You got hit in the back of the head with a cinder block, honey. Went down like a lead balloon.” You turn your face to show your cheek. “We’re even now on good scares, yeah?”
You have a scar on your face he’d missed, carefully concealed but yet not invisible. Your hand in his feels so alien he holds it wrong, fingers twined but palms apart.
“What happened to you?” he asks.
Your brow crinkles. You go very still. “My cheek?” you ask.
“What…”
“Spencer, what’s the last thing you can remember, honey?” you ask, all the horror in the world to be found in your eyes.
“Uh…”
“Spencer?”
He feels sick to his stomach. Without having to be told, you slip off of the bed with two taps of your shoes and reach for the bedpan, thrusting it into his lap.
His mouth fills with spit. “I’m fine,” he says.
“No, I don’t think so. Let me get a doctor.”
“Wait,” he says, clutching the bedpan and pushing his wave of nausea as far down as he can. “Please don’t go.”
“My face was months ago, honey. I got hit in the face with a hammer, you don’t remember?” you ask incredulously.
“Why do you keep calling me honey?” he asks. He knows the answer, but it’s not computing.
Your face drains of any happiness. “I’m going to get a doctor,” you say, shoulders rigidly tight as you exit the room, leaving Spencer in your wake wishing he’d just pretended he knew who you were, just until you kissed him again.
—
“And he really can’t remember you at all?” Morgan asks.
You’re a little less startled than you had been, and you’re trying not to punish poor Spencer, but realising your boyfriend forgot years of flirting, and yearning, and friendship —years of kissing in secret and otherwise, years of holding hands, and staying at each other’s places to get that extra time together, even if it was just getting to sleep in the same bed between cases— was a slap.
“He remembers me,” you say, leg crossed over the other, arm over the railing of Spencer’s bed to hold his hand. “He just doesn’t remember a thing after Gideon came back, after Boston.”
“I remember when you had hair,” Spencer says to Derek.
Derek glares at him, “This Spencer doesn’t get to sass me.”
“But I do eventually?”
“How come you’re holding hands if he doesn’t know who you are?” Derek asks pointedly.
You shrug. “We talked about it, didn’t we?” you ask Spencer, who perks up every time you talk, which isn’t unlike your usual Spencer, but whenever he catches himself doing it he flusters. Every time you call him baby he loses his mind. “He doesn’t remember me, but he wants to. And I remember him.”
“This must be pretty weird for you, kid,” Derek says.
“Sort of,” Spencer says.
It’s funny. Now you know Spencer thinks he’s twenty three again, you can’t not notice his shyness and his awkward tries at casualness. You’d forgotten what he was like back then.
“Wait, does that mean you don’t remember Emily?” Derek asks.
Spencer frowns. “Uh, no?”
You sit up in your chair. “Emily’s one of your best friends, honey. She joined the BAU when Greenaway left.”
“Not you?” he asks.
You dramatise your pain as Derek laughs. “Not me. I didn’t transfer for a long time, unfairly. It’s okay, though, you’ll remember Emily eventually.”
When you realised Spencer wasn’t as okay as you’d thought, you gathered a gaggle of agitated doctors to assess him. He knew his name and birthday. He was wrong about the date, the president, and the state. You’re in Arizona where he’d thought Indiana. Your bag talks to the heat: Spencer’s fan, his sunblock, his antihistamines. He couldn’t believe it when he asked where his stuff was and you passed him your handbag.
You’re trying to drive home to him that you’re not just dating, you're common-law partners, Spence. He adores you. You’d spend life in his lap if you could afford it.
“How’d she get you to believe her?” Derek asks Spencer.
“Uh.”
“I kissed him a couple of times before he came clean about the amnesia,” you say. “So I didn’t have to explain.”
“I didn’t mean to lie,” Spencer says.
He’s looking less haggard now you’ve brushed his hair. It was sweet to watch his shoulders relax. He shuddered when you tucked a strand behind his ears, and didn’t flinch when you asked if you could kiss his cheek. It’s hard to have him vulnerable here and not be allowed to lick his wounds for him. You feel better the better he feels. You’ve fluffed his pillow, wrapped him tighter in blankets. When he got up to pee and you offered to help, he gave a resolute No Thank You, which in hindsight is hilarious but at the time made you wanna squeeze your eyes out.
“It’s okay,” you say softly, “I don’t mind kissing him, even if he doesn’t remember me. Just so long as he doesn’t mind it back.”
Spencer manages to squeeze your hand. It’s a soft one, but it’s real. “I don’t mind.”
“You dog,” Derek says.
“Stop, stop. He’s not doing anything wrong, is he?” you ask. “I’m the evil one, forcing kisses on him when he doesn’t know me.”
“I do know you,” Spencer says.
“What’s it like to have a crush on your own girlfriend?” Derek asks, unwilling to quit his teasing where he’s crossing his arms in the chair opposite, his cup of coffee drained on the side table.
Spencer swallows. “Uh, nerve-wracking.”
“Believe it or not, that’s not so different to now,” Derek says.
Spencer looks to you for confirmation, which you love. You slide your chair closer to him and clasp his wrist with your free hand. “Sometimes you're still a little shy, but it’s not so bad. Full of myself I may be, Spencer Reid, but you do love me. It’s easy with us.”
“Do we really live together?” he asks. “You said common-law.”
“Not technically. I stay at your place four nights a week. You stay with me for the weekends.”
“Every week?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“We’re never apart?” he asks.
His face is turning pink. You could kiss every bit of colour on his cheeks.
“Derek, would you get Spencer something to eat from the cafeteria? Please?” you ask, levelling your friend with a pleading gaze.
Derek gathers himself up. “Sure. We gotta feed the string bean something, don’t we?” he asks.
Alone again, you draw lines up and down Spencer’s arm with your nails. You’re going to be indulgent in yourself, and ask him everything you’d ever wanted to know. And then a little extra, too.
“You’re not as skinny anymore, have you noticed? You’re quite lean.” You stand to sit where you’d put yourself before he confessed. Your hand falls to his knee. “Solid, sometimes. You and Derek go for walks occasionally.”
“We do?”
“Mm-hm. And me and you do yoga in the living room when we can be bothered. We tried couples Pilates, but Pilates is hard.”
“We did?”
You smile warmly. “It’s nice to be in love with someone who loves in the same way.”
“How do you love?”
His ears are bitten-red. “Oh, you know. I’m too affectionate. It’s hard not to be with you. Everyone used to think we were… I don’t know, playing a game.” You slide your hand up his thigh, leaning on him to watch his pupils blow. “But I love you for far more than your propensity to blush. You get me flowers every time you see my favourites, and you never let me go to sleep without a kiss. Usually here.” You poke the skin beside your eye. “But sometimes you’ll surprise me and kiss my nose.” You're going lax with love, remembering things he’s done, and does every day. “On a Saturday morning we make tea and I put my hands in your t-shirt. You do the crosswords for fun. Sometimes we time them.”
“That’s not how you love, that’s what you love,” Spencer says.
“Oh, you want a play by play of things?” He ducks his chin, but he smiles when you laugh.
“I just can’t believe this is happening.”
You try to think of things you don’t think about anymore. “You love my sugar lip gloss, so I always wear it.”
He reaches out tentatively. Shy as a wren in a hedgerow. You let him curl a hand over your elbow, feel the crook of it with his index finger.
“I buy you stamps, and t-shirts for bed, and stupid stuff you wouldn’t get yourself. We’re… it’s like, it doesn’t feel like gift giving anymore because we’re always getting stuff for each other. You’re just as sweet, you know? When I first started sleeping over you bought me this huge pack of socks ‘cos yours are all odd,” you laugh. “I knew I loved you already, but…”
It’s a little sad, actually. He can’t remember all the stuff that makes you the couple you are. It’s not what you’d meant to get into.
“Can I ask you something?” you ask.
“Anything.”
He’s slept-in and breathless, like he ran laps in his dreams.
“What do you think of me now? I always wondered if you liked me back then, or if I just caught you off guard.”
“Who wouldn’t like you?”
“But did you?”
He looks away hurriedly, his hand dropping from your elbow. “I guess so. But it’s not– not real. I have a crush on you.” His mumbling is sweet. “I have no idea why I’m telling you that.”
“I had a crush on you, too, back then. It wasn’t anything serious, but it was real. And the more time we spent together, the more I thought we could fall in love,” —you take his hand and put it back on your arm— “and we did.”
You toy with his fingers. Without looking, ashamed of your own self-indulgence, you ask another question. “What do you think of me now?”
“I can’t remember,” he says sorrily.
“What do you think?”
“You feel like a dream.” He shakes his head. “You’re, like, the most beautiful girl in the world. I don’t really get how this is real.”
You shouldn’t be surprised that he’d say it, you practically begged for it, but you can’t stop yourself from sitting up to kiss his forehead gently. “It’s real. Promise. And for the record, you’re handsome. They stopped saying ‘aged like fine wine’ a while ago. Now they just say ‘aged like Spencer Reid’.”
He gives a choky laugh.
The door opens again. You lift your head expecting Derek and find a weather worm Hotch in the doorway. “Reid, you’re awake,” he says, not bothering with a smile. “Morgan said you have amnesia?” He directs it at both of you.
Spencer’s looking at Hotch in clear shock.
“He hasn’t aged that badly,” you chastise teasingly.
“Hotch, you’re– I thought you would’ve–”
Hotch squints. “You didn’t think I had the stamina for it?”
Spencer squirms under his gaze. “No, sir, it’s not that–”
“Sir,” Hotch says, and then he smiles. “I forgot when you both used to respect me.”
“I have the utmost respect for you, sir,” you say through your own smile.
“Has she been kind to you, Reid?”
“Uh, yes? Is she not usually?”
Hotch presses his lips together rather than answer. There’s a sympathy in his expression you resent.
—
It’s a thankfully quick bout of amnesia. The memories start to draw in like a dusting of powdered sugar, his head finely silted, one particle at a time. He finds that the more you talk, the quicker his memory is jogged. You tell him about your first kiss —I tried to kiss your cheek but you moved, it was the funniest thing— and your second. You spin stories of cases, the worst ones and the best, all the times you held hands without people knowing, the times you’d been caught. He can’t imagine it, goes hot with the memory, picturing kissing you as you’d described and the mortification of being walked in on.
You tell him about your vacation to Nevada a few months ago and he thinks about how you’d fallen asleep on the plane. Your nose in his arm, your unhappy sigh at the tight leg space.
Remembering you is more than half of remembering himself.
Your hands —his hands. Your smile —his laugh. The way you fold his hands in your lap —the urge to catch your chin for a kiss.
He doesn’t know how to deal with it, and then suddenly he feels like Spencer. Your partner, your love, his proudest title for years. You’re standing at the end of the hospital bed in pajamas folding your clothes, allowed to stay the night while he’s so urgently confused and upset, you can’t make him stay here alone, please, I know you guys have those little cots for the kids ward, and he just knows you completely.
Hours of diligent if embezzled storytelling gives it all back to him.
“I like the lipgloss because you used to wear that perfume that smelled like sugar donuts,” he says, scratching a hand through limp hair. “And every time I crossed the square by the station–”
You let out a surprising squeal of joy. “Spencer!” you say, racing to take his hands, “Yes! The donut truck!”
You go in for a kiss he gladly returns. “Oh, you remember,” you say, softening as he takes your neck into his hand. “I was getting worried.”
“Some of it’s still hazy. But not so much you.”
You wrap your arms around him for a hug, careful of his sore head. “I missed you, Spencer. I still loved you when you couldn’t remember me, but I missed you. Do you remember you?”
He traces the scar on your lower cheek with his thumb. He’s genuinely relieved to be able to say he does. He’s not scared of what you think of him anymore, ‘cos he knows that everything he feels for you is mutual. “I remember you telling me my bad feeling was just a case of the heebies.”
You bend into his touch. “Honey, I’m sorry. How was I supposed to know you’d get your skull whacked with a cinder block? It was a bakery.” You kiss his nose quickly. “I’m so glad you’re you. Now I can sleep in the bed with you, and not that collapsible camping cot.”
He shushes you. “Don’t give us away. They’re not gonna let you stay if they think I’m fine.”
You giggle excitedly, arms around him again for another squeeze. “I missed you so much. You’re so tricky now.”
He rubs your back. “I missed you too. And I still have a crush on you, I swear.”
You’re in love with Spencer from the minute he gets you in his bed. [4k]
c: fem/afab. smut mdni, p in v sex, oral, fluff, aftercare, early intense feelings, spencer in sweetheart mode, flirting.
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It’s a cold day in November when you see him across the bar. He’s sitting at a table of friends drinking from a tall glass of coke. He’s normal. Non-imposing, undeniably cute, laughing with a smile that shows his teeth. His tie is to his belt and his suit jacket’s been thrown over the back of the chair.
He looks like he might have fun with you, if you can catch his attention. Something about him seems… eager to please.
You watch him, and you watch his friend. He seems more your usual type, muscled, confident. He’s the key. You let your gaze linger on the curly-haired boy until the friend glances your way. You give him a look. Hey, who’s your friend?
You look away once you see an arm rise. There’s elbowing, arguing. You sit relaxed at the bar and twists your straw through cherry spritz, ice cubes tinkling. After a minute you think, Oh, come on. After two you worry you aren’t his type.
Then comes salvation. The curly haired boy slots between your seat and the next, beckoning the bartender forward with a nearly perfect, “Excuse me?”
“Right there with you.”
You wait. He seems cute, but you’re not trying to take him home if he doesn’t have the chops for it. And not because you see yourself as some deadly thing to be pleased, but you can’t spend another night fluffing someone else’s feathers.
“Hey,” he says finally, surprisingly without the nerves you’d read before. He must’ve breathed through them. “How’s it going?”
You lift your gaze from the dark purple of your spritz. The first thing you notice are the beauty marks you couldn’t see before, along his cheeks and hiding among a light shadow of stubble. “Hi, handsome,” you say softly. You can’t imagine him liking a firm touch, but that might become more apparent later on. “Nothing’s going on, I suppose I was just waiting for you.”
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Mm-hm.”
He puts one arm on the bar. You let your eyes dawdle on his hand. “Are you here alone?”
“I was with a friend,” you confess, lifting your gaze to his, making steady eye contact for as long as he’ll allow you to. His gaze flits to your mouth as you continue. “But she met somebody. I was told not to wait up.”
“So you’re in need of company?”
You tip your head to give him the best glance at you, all eyes and gentle smiles as you nod. “Would that be you?”
“What are you drinking?”
“Cherry spritzer.”
“Can I buy you another one?”
“Just one, please.” You believe in the overarching reach of sexuality, of being with someone, but you don’t believe in drinking and sex, nor allowing a man to pave the way. “This is my first. If I have more than that I’ll be too tipsy to do what I want tonight.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
You tap your nose. The boy —the man— to your delight, seems to like the gesture very much.
The bartender approaches. Your unknown, lovely looking man asks for a coke and a cherry spritzer, extra cherries, though you didn’t tell him too. He nods to your little plate of cherry stems and asks, “Can you tie a knot?” But before you can answer, he adds, “I’m good at it.”
Spencer proves to be good at a few things. Kissing, touching, his face in sweet places and his spit-wet thumb to a nerve. One moment you’re sitting at the bar wondering if he’ll take you home and the next you’re taking a taxi, you’re lying in his bed being stripped of your stockings, being laid on top of. You didn’t know he had it in him, this sweaty, adoring kissing in the dark; there’s a difference between kissing for hunger’s sake and kissing with love, and for some strange reason Spencer doesn’t seem to know the difference.
“Have we met before?” you ask, the ache between your legs sharper than ever as his hand flirts with the boundary of your stomach and the apex of you, begging to go back there and prolong what he’d started.
“No.” His lips are on your neck, kissing as he slips a finger behind your ear. “I’d remember.”
His chest pushes into yours again, triggering a breathy gasp as the button of your nipple takes the brunt of him. He turns your face, that flirting hand abandoning your wanting cunt to squeeze at your sides, your ribs, the soft hill of your breast.
“Do you wanna cum again?” he asks softly. The best part is that he’s earnest, not a second of bravado in it as he lays his lips against your cheek.
You could. He’d done stuff with his mouth you’ve never experienced before, fingertips teasing your wetness as he told you something about tantrics and pleasure, his hand under your knee, holding you open. You’d felt so suddenly out of control and —and honestly, you’d thought yourself half in love with him for the way he was kissing you alone. No shyness, but softness. No rushing, no annoyance when it took you time to tip into pleasure. He’d been delighted when you seized, had sat up to draw the climax out with circles, matching pace to your rising chest.
You slip a hand into his curls and treat him with the same sweetness he’d given you, kissing him like you love him: for whatever time this is, you really do. He’s the prettiest boy you’ve ever fucked. All it took to meet was a snowstorm and a need to escape the rigid cold.
“I think you should fuck me now,” you say, scratching his scalp lightly, not so frantic, no more pulling. “Please.”
He kisses you, kisses your jaw, and doesn’t pretend he isn’t eager as he snatches the condom from the dresser. For a while things are giggly and breathless, nervous for a pause, then achingly tight. You stay and Spencer wraps his arms behind you, kissing your neck as you let your leg fall to the side.
“When did you tell me your name?” you ask, breathless again as his kiss matches his rhythm, slow grinds of his hips, flirting as his hand had been, just a few inches from filling you completely.
“I don’t remember,” he says through a kiss.
“Spencer.”
“Yeah?”
“I just thought I’d try it,” you say, covering your eyes with your hand as his hips flex and he touches that worst part of you over, and over, and over.
Spencer turns your face to take your hand, slowing to a crawl. He checks your gaze, and sinks into you again. Slow fucking, long kisses, his hands rubbing up the juncture of your neck and down again, then stroking your arms, comfort for a pain you don’t feel.
“What do you want me to do?” he asks quietly.
“Just this.”
“No, but what do you want?” he asks, lips pulled into a smile that didn’t quite make it into a laugh. “What feels best? I can get you there again.”
So you end up more on your side than your back. He helps you lift a leg over his hip and then he’s back to kissing you senseless. You can’t think of anything but being kissed, being fucked, it doesn’t just feel like an okay pastime with a vaguely handsome guy heightened by a drink, it’s fucking with intent. He curls an arm behind your back to hold you against him and he lets you have everything.
Something must give you away, a shaking leg, the way you breathe; he knows you’re ready before you do, kissing down your chest as his hand sinks between your hot thighs. Slick or not, he finds where he wants to touch, your eyes filling with heat as he slows.
He draws it out. The second his lips find your chest you trip into cumming for the second time. You hadn’t realised he was close but you cum and he quickly follows, his nose at your collar. He sounds insane. Beggy, breathy moans, a shade from laughter.
“Can I keep going?” he asks just under your ear.
You can’t say yes fast enough. He’s kind, ignoring your desperate tone.
You don’t count the number of times you fuck that night. It’s not clear, really. They aren’t separate occasions. You come down and he’s stroking the skin of your neck as you catch your breath, drawing lines down your arm, murmuring, “You okay?” as you nod and slip a hand behind his back.
He hugs you like he’s known you for years. When you kiss his blushing chest, kiss downward, he turns breathless. It goes on like that for a while. Afterwards, he situates himself between your legs and lets his weight force your thighs into your abdomen, just enough to feel the pressure, searching kisses pressed to your knee.
It’s not that you fuck all night, it’s just different than before. And when he encourages you under his sheets to lay behind you, there’s a part of you that wants his hand to stray between your legs again, no matter how tired you are.
“I’d say sorry for keeping you up, but you sounded like you liked it,” he murmurs in the dark, wrapping a solid arm around your stomach and pulling you tightly to him.
You have no regrets. For perhaps the first time ever, it feels as though all your gasps and teary sighs were adored, and not just smugly kept. “You didn’t notice me falling asleep?”
He laughs at your teasing, his breath kissing the back of your neck. “When did that happen?”
“…I don’t want to fall asleep, now.”
“You don’t have to… I can make you a cup of tea, or…” He draws another line down your arm, ending in a swirl before your elbow. “You could shower.”
Both sound nice, but no. Your legs are still weak from being held, the ache of a good fuck taking home in your stomach. Truthfully, nothing could make you wanna leave whatever it is he’s doing to you now. The shape of his lips warms your shoulder.
“That was amazing.”
“You’re amazing,” he says, wrapping you up all over again. He can’t decide how to hold you. You grab his hand and keep it there under your breasts, letting your eyes flutter closed.
How can he say that? He has this strange way of touching that’s making you feel yards prettier than you usually do, and he’d just fucked you like a dream. You couldn’t manage that sort of pleasure alone.
“Where have you been hiding?” you whisper, toying with his fingers. Might as well do everything you can while you can.
“Nowhere.”
“So where have you been?”
He takes a breath. “Turn around?”
You begin turning and he takes you like a dance, leaning in slowly to kiss you, until his smoothness gives way to a smile. He pulls back. In the barest lick of light from the window, you can see a blush spreading across his nose.
“Sorry. I should ask, I shouldn’t just kiss you,” he says, cupping your cheek.
How might you go about marrying this boy? You decide to play it cool, kissing him until you fall asleep in his arms, your lips still parted for another lazy press of his as he pulls the sheets over your shoulders.
—
You wake to something new. There isn’t a man against you hinting for a morning tryst, nor an empty bed, a note to let yourself out when you’re ready. There’s a real, gentle hand on your neck. It slides to your shoulder and rubs.
“You okay?” a voice asks.
You force your eyes open, blurry vision further occluded by a face.
His hair is damp. Like he showered a while ago. Spencer’s hand travels to the back of your neck and touches accordingly. “I wouldn’t have bothered you, but it’s almost one. I was worried you might be sick.”
You close your eyes, smiling, better when he scratches the back of your neck with short nails. “I was up late.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
You wait for him to tell you why you have to leave, any manner of excuse, but nothing comes.
“So are you? Okay?” he asks gently.
“I’ll leave soon.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to say. If you’re not sick, you can go back to sleep.”
“And just lay in your bed all day,” you murmur, disbelieving.
“If you wanted to. Or… you can shower, and I can make you something to eat.” His thumb takes to your cheek. One night stand sex can’t be something he does often, or there’s a real possibility that he’s the first man to ever do it right.
His eyes are so much bigger than you realised. “Do you wear glasses?”
He stammers, embarrassed, “How would you guess that?”
You raise a hand to his face and draw a short line against his nose. “You have the marks here. Were you reading?”
“Just while I was waiting for you.”
“What do you do?”
“What?”
“I didn’t ask what you do, I don’t think we managed to ask each other much of anything,” you say, rewarded for your vulnerability with a chest-aching smile, his canine teeth peeking from under his lips. He still looks kissed, lips a shade of sore you’re sure you’d see on yourself in the mirror.
“I work for the government,” he says, catching your hand to cradle your wrist, “for something called the behavioural analysis unit.”
“Like, statistics?”
He lets your hand fall against his chest, a thin grey t-shirt under your knuckles failing to hide the shapes of him, of which you’d explored at length last night. You kissed as much of his chest as you could and it hadn’t felt like enough, Spencer leaner than you’d realised with a stomach on the soft side, easy to kiss relentlessly.
Your mouth is drying thinking about it. Spencer watches you wordlessly, before saying, “I guess it is like statistics, especially for me. We try to think about serial criminals in terms of their motives. It’s an attempt at math for something not usually quantitative.”
“And you’re good at it.”
“I’m good at math, yeah.”
“Probability of a,” —your breath betrays you, slightly too hopeful as it catches— “morning kiss if I brush my teeth first?”
His eyes light up. He leans down carefully, and gives you a chaste, firm kiss.
You forget that you’re naked, not worried about being shy. The sheets fall away from you as you lift up to meet him. He holds them to your naked waist, the other hand skirting just below your breast. You wish he’d touch you like he did last night, but he isn’t so forward. His kiss is kind. You frown as he pulls away.
“I had a really great time, last night,” he says, tip of his thumb setting your nerves aflame as it drifts over your skin. “Really great.”
“Me too.”
“And you’re okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing hurts?” he asks.
“No, of course not.” Your confusion clears. “No, you weren’t like that. I think my legs might be aching but that’ll go away in the shower.”
“I can run you a bath, if you want. It’s a half bath so you might not be able to stretch out, but it’ll help.” He gives you a smile. The familiarity between you doesn’t want to ebb.
“Shouldn’t have showered without me,” you say, soft, lest playful be something he doesn’t want on a new day.
“My hair was greasy. Someone kept touching it.”
You sit up. Spencer’s hands fall to yours.
It’s hard not to play with someone’s hair when it’s in their face, and when they’re trailing kisses in warm places. He doesn’t blame you really, you can see it in his eyes.
For a pause, you just sit.
This is nice. Not being thrown out, left with that aching gap in your chest like you gave something you hadn’t intended when it started. Sex will never be easy again, you realise, not when you know it can be good.
“You’re not working today, are you?” you ask.
“No, why?” he asks in turn, his thumb brushing over your knuckles.
“Maybe we…” He waits. He’s pretty enough to force your hand. “We could get to know each other,” you say, gaze taking refuge on his hands. “If you want to.”
”Really?”
“I’ve never had that with someone. Maybe we’re, I don’t know, compatible in more ways than one.” You remember yourself, lifting your head, startled by the sheer want in his expression as he holds your fingers. “You’re handsome, and you seem kind. We could have fun.”
“We could have so much fun,” he says, that flushed blush already spreading across his nose again.
You draw a line up his chest. “I might need help getting my back, in the shower. That’s not a tight squeeze, is it?”
“We might have to stand very close.”
You giggle wildly as he pulls you up, worse when he drapes a sheet over you worrying about the cold. It’s treatment you could grow used to.
—
Spencer’s trying to figure out how he got here. You, across the bar sending him looks —Derek swore you were— and the second he got to your chair he realised you were out of his league, but he had nothing to lose beside his pride.
Then there was you, in bed, pulling on his tie murmuring sweet somethings, sweet pleadings, really, taking another kiss as he moved as you asked.
Then you, the morning after. You’d slept for long enough to scare him, but when you woke you were exactly the girl you’d been the night before, only slower. Ever so slightly bashful. We could get to know each other.
Spencer’s not sure how he managed it, but you don’t go home. And on Monday you go to work and come back. On Tuesday he meets you outside of your building to take you for dinner, and you come back with him again, another night up in his arms, tangling his hair with enthusiastic fingers. The sex is good, it is, not just ‘cos his past catalogue of lays were with women who wanted casual experiences solely, or those few times with Ethan where it ended too fast and left him useless. You fuck him like you love him. It’s crazy, except he’s acting the same way.
When you’re not fucking you’re in his lap, or sitting at the coffee table with your face on his thigh driving him crazy, or you’re laying with your feet tucked under him telling him something about you. He is desperate for the details.
Like, this is it. You’ve pulled your chair as close to his as humanly possible and thrown both legs over his, basically sharing his seat as you laugh around a messy mouthful of Thai noodles.
“Don’t look, I’m being disgusting–”
“You’re never disgusting, let me–”
He’s heard you pee. He’s kissed you all over. The human aspects of you don’t bother him.
“Spence, can you–”
“It’s going up your nose–”
“–stop, holy s–”
He pinches your nose clean. “Tada. Kiss now?”
“You wanna share?”
“Yes!”
“No.” You press your hand to your mouth before he can lean in.
He lets you swallow your mouthful. Your ankle is cool in his hand. When people talk about love, it’s about meeting someone, the dates and the phone calls, the big questions. Spencer didn’t know you could do it like this. Every time you go home, you’re asking if you can come back or pestering him to come your way.
“Can I kiss you now?” he asks imploringly.
“No, we’re done kissing for a bit. I want another one of those massages.”
He can’t joke about it or he’ll turn crimson. You enjoyed a polite leg massage, until he got to your thighs, and things got out of hand.
“No massages.” He taps you under the chin, letting his hand travel wherever it wants over the side of your face.
“Fine, no massages. Unless you want one?”
“No, we agreed tonight we’d just– sleep. My boss is onto me.”
You wink involuntarily as he cups your cheek, his fingers pushed lightly over your eyes.
You aren’t fiends, but finding someone who matches as you do makes it hard to abstain from the fun. Last night was tame, though; he’d made sure you were happy and fallen asleep to grateful neck kisses. Tonight, he won’t say no, but these all-hours affairs have to stop. Derek’s suspicious of him, Hotch has the situation entirely sussed, he's sure, and Spencer’s sixty percent sure Rossi saw you both outside of Quantico tonight kissing against a toll booth.
Not that it matters. Spencer has a good feeling you’re not a fling.
“I got you some stuff earlier,” he says.
You pull his hand from your face and ask, “What stuff?”
“Like, stuff you need here. I don’t know what you like, but there’s a cleansing balm– are you allergic to chamomile?” You shake your head. “Um, it might be weird, I got you underwear, just ‘cos of the situation yesterday–”
“I liked wearing boxers, they were snug in a certain region is all–”
“–and some shampoo. That sort of stuff. Just so you can stop suffering with mine.”
“You know what shampoo I use?”
“I deduced it.”
“Ah, yes, mister profiler,” you mumble, bending into your knees to hold his face. “If I hadn’t looked you up online I’d think you were a stalker. How can you guess my favourite ice cream flavour when I never told you?”
He smiles shyly. “I just can.”
“Is there anything else you’ve guessed about me?”
“Every meal with you takes a half hour. You’re easily distracted.”
He laughs as you protest, “You’re distracting! You don’t need to guess that.”
“You distract me, too.”
You gather yourself up and stand over him to kiss his nose. “Spencer,” you whisper, your fingers sliding into his hair, “thank you. You don’t have to buy me stuff, I could’ve just gone home.”
“I don’t really want you to.”
You raise your head to see him eye to eye. “I don't want to either. This is… I like you.”
He hums, wrapping his arms around you. The hugs are rarer than kisses, but only because you’ve shared so many of the latter in the dark. He’s been thinking of kisses as the extension to fucking, that they’re okay as long as it’s done in bed, but the more time you stay, the more kisses you’ve shared for no reason at all. You kissed his cheek on the train earlier and he felt it like a shock, tipping his chin down to peck you on the lips, your arm curled behind his back as the traincar rattled over a bend.
“I like you too,” he laughs.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, of course I do.”
“Not just…”
“It’s not just the sex,” he says, waving his hand behind your shoulder as you curl into him all over again. It feels amazing.
“Should we go out, then?”
“We do.”
“No, should we date? We could be partners, officially.”
Spencer can’t take it, scooping you into his lap, though you do sit obligingly on his thigh. He shifts to take the weight.
“Please, let’s be partners,” he says softly.
“Maybe we shouldn’t, it’s still soon.”
“Five days and counting. That’s longer than some marriages, you know.”
“Maybe we can be, like, tentative boyfriend and girlfriend. If you change your mind, no hard feelings.”
“And if I don’t?” he asks.
“Then we get married in Vegas.”
“You could meet my mom.”
“I’d love to meet your mom.”
“Do you really wanna be my girlfriend?” he asks.
“I mean… there’s not such a big difference in dating and what we’re doing, right? This is relationship stuff, we just sort of skipped the awkward first dates.”
“We did,” he says, failing to hide his grin.
You stroke his cheek with your nose.
Your attempt at abstinence doesn’t last, but neither party is to blame. You have to celebrate somehow. So you finish your takeout dinner and wash dishes bumping hips. He locks the door for the night and you, giggling, struggle to change his A/C. When he drags you by the sleeve to the bedroom, he doesn’t intend on jumping right into it, and for a while he doesn’t. You lay on top of him between his parted legs and he spends a sluggish hour stroking your hairline, listening to you talk. But his devotion turns to your ear, and he’s kissing behind it, and you’re hitching yourself up his chest soon enough.
“That cherry spritzer was worth it, huh?” you ask lowly, scratching his jaw as you sit over him.
You really are pretty, amplified by your syrupy smile.
“I guess that depends what you think. Was I as good at making knots as I promised?” he asks.
“I can’t remember.”
“I can remind you?”
“That might be prudent, Dr. Reid.”
“I never should’ve told you about that,” he murmurs, your lips atop his, ready to be parted.
“I would’ve found out eventually. I’m gonna find out everything about you, honey.”
Spencer lets his eyes shutter closed. Me first, he thinks, giving in to another endless kiss. He has the advantage, after all.
˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚⋆
thank you for reading!! if you enjoyed please consider liking reblogging or leaving a comment/reply it makes my day and I am so grateful<3
ive got quite a few... but we will start off simple and with something ive been DAYDREAMING about for a while
so reader is a new forensic scientist that started a lab in office for easier analysis of evidence (garcia reasonablism and best friendedness obviously) and earlier seasons reid likes to go in and hang out with her often and just be with her and they are both idiots in love and the first kiss is super rushed and akward; TEETH ROTTING FLUFF
i am too cryptic i fear but i will sell my left kidney for this fic PLEASE
spencer reid x forensic scientist!reader. fluff. 1.4k words. s1 spence!! descriptions of a case (typical cm stuff). std discussion? sorta? it's about a victim. reader doesn't have one don't worry. they're nerds your honour.
a/n: i am SO sorry this took me so long?? writing fluff is not my strong suit (clearly). i researched bacteria for this fic. and std's. if penelope garcia looked up my search history she would ask why i'm asking about how to treat chlamydia. if the science talk is wrong, no it's not this is MY alternate reality. also i am but a wee acting major i know nothing about science? ANYWAYS thank u for the request angel it was so fun to write i hope i did it justice ♡
"Hey... I brought coffee."
Your head lifted from the computer screen you had been staring at for the past hour and a half, blinking your eyes to readjust to a light that wasn't blue — you were a big believer in warm toned overhead lights or nothing, and it was your first order of business upon getting a lab in the Quantico building.
Your eyes softened upon recognising the man in your doorway, and your hands outstretched towards him to take the paper cup from him.
It was a particularly gruelling case — a man putting victims through a meat grinder (charmingly so) meant your ability to positively ID victims based on... well, anything you'd usually ID them on, was out of the question. You were down to tampered with blood samples, and you were getting nothing.
"Angel. Sent from heaven, I swear," you said, taking a sip of the warm, sweet (because anybody who drinks coffee black should be locked up) beverage that would help you in the long run. Spencer Reid's lips twitched into a smile — anxious, like the rest of him usually is whenever he's in your lab — and he dropped his gaze to the floor with a small shrug.
"I thought you might need it. I know it's hard. This case," he said, and you nodded your head with an affirming nod.
"Tell me about it," you mumbled, spinning around in your chair, back to your computer, waving him over. "See this?" you pointed to the list of findings in one of the samples.
Your breathing hitched when you felt him behind you, not expecting him to be so close, his own breath audible by your ear.
He hummed quietly as he read through the list, and you turned your head to the side to look at him. His lips were pulled into a frown as you watched him register everything — and God, was he pretty. "Yeah... Salmonella, Enteritidis, Listeria... they're all bacteria you can find in chicken. Raw chicken, to be precise. Did they send you chicken blood by mistake?"
"That's what I thought," you said, snapping out of your Reid-induced-haze, and clicked at your computer until you pulled up another list. "But then I found these as well; Streptococcus mutans, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Fusobacterium and Lactobacillus. From the same sample. And I cross-checked it with all of them, and they're all like that. So I sent that to Garcia and asked if she could do some looking into butcher shops in the area, and she came up empty. So now I'm at a loss."
"Weird," he murmured, leaning further forward over your shoulder to stare at the screen a little more intently, and you found your breath hitching at it. Again.
"What do you see?"
"Chlamydia trachomatis."
"Oh. Yeah, all of the samples have it," you explained, and he nodded his head, before turning it to look at you.
"Well, what do you do when you have a sexually transmitted disease?" he asked.
"Me? I don't—I don't know. I've never had a—" you cut yourself off when you saw his lips twitch into a smile, and your brain caught up with what he had just said, and your lips parted in an 'o' shape in realisation. "You'd go to your doctor."
"And if they all have it, then that means that—"
"—it's the UnSub whose got it," you cut him off, eyes lighting up as you sat up straighter. "Oh my God, I don't know how I didn't make that connection. Spencer Reid I need to reiterate that you are an angel sent from the heaven above, I could kiss you."
His eyes went wide, and his entire being froze, followed swiftly by you yourself freezing too, words you let spill past your lips registering a second too late.
He stared at you. You stared at him. It was an awkward game of who would look away first, and it went on for hour long minutes. You needed to clear your throat but refused to, your lips opening and closing as you searched your brain for something — anything — to say to break up this tension.
"Are you serious?"
It was a meek whisper, and had you not been so hyper focussed on his lips, you probably would've missed it. You forced your gaze up to his eyes, catching the red tinge on his cheeks, mirroring your own. You decided if the one in a billion chance of a black hole swallowing the earth decided to happen now, you wouldn't complain.
"I mean, no," you force past your lips. A sentence you soon sorely regret when you watch a flicker of what you recognise to be hurt flash across his face. Maybe your brain made that expression up. Maybe it didn't. If it did, it was too late to consider that option, because you were already rambling again. "Unless you want me to be serious. In which case yes, I am totally serious. If not, then I'm not."
His eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and an embarrassingly nervous laugh left your lips.
"Yes. I'm serious," you finalised. Because at least if he found that embarrassing and didn't feel the same back, you could kick him out of your lab and avoid him until you manage to swap units. Or move halfway across the world. Whichever came first.
Neither needed to come first, it seemed. Because his tense body shifted, turning to face you, his own eyes seemingly locked on your lips, the same way yours were only minutes prior.
"Is it okay if I..." he trailed off, a hesitant hand reaching up to your face, waiting for your confirming nod before his fingertips relaxed on your cheek. You weren't even kissing him yet, and you already felt that nervous-excited mix pooling in your stomach.
He was in the same boat as you, his own breathing hitching when you didn't pull away instantly from his touch. But then he simply stared at you, for maybe a minute too long, because an exasperated sigh left your lips before you could stop it.
"You know, you actually have to put your lips on mine to kiss, Spencer," you say, and though your intent wasn't to fluster him, you did.
"Yes, I—um, I know. I've just never... what if I screw this up?" he stammered, and your lips pulled into a smile.
"Worst thing you can do is be a bad kisser."
"That's embarrassing."
"Just a little," you agreed with a nod, watching his face fall, and you laughed at the expression. "I'm kidding. It's not that hard, and you're good at everything."
"Not this."
"You don't know that."
He fell silent, and you knew you had won the verbal argument — he was certainly still disagreeing in his mind, but he was always good at picking his battles.
But you knew he was never going to kiss you first. Not when one hand was flexing weirdly by his waist, unsure of what to do with it, and he was so awkwardly holding one cheek with the other.
It was the only reason why you placed two palms on his own cheeks and pulled his face towards you. He let out a shocked yelp that had you laughing for only a second, cutting the sound off short with your lips on his.
Spencer Reid was in fact good at everything.
He was hesitant at first, and you wondered if he was ever going to kiss you back. But he did, and then you wondered if he was lying about never kissing anybody before.
Because he was insanely good, and the way he kissed you was maddening and addictive and it seemed you were (addictive) as well, for he was chasing your lips even when you tried to pull away. So you didn't, and instead allowed him to keep kissing you with so much pace and force you thought you'd break.
"Spence... can't... breathe," you gasped out, and he pulled back in an instant, his eyes going wide.
He was stammering out apologies that fell on deaf ears, because you were staring at him and he was gorgeous. In every sense of the word. With hair that had fallen into his glassy eyes, cheeks as pink as his lips that were screaming to be kissed again, need for oxygen be damned.
And actually, if the one in a billion chance of a black hole swallowing the earth decided to happen now, you would complain. Very loudly.
your reblogs and replies are always appreciated dearly ♡
in which spencer reid doesn't like that flirty!reader is going on a date. he makes that known. (bandages universe)
flangst, 18+ for discussions of sex
warnings/tags: gn!reader I think, mentions of going to a bar/going for drinks, very suppressed mutual pining, jealousy from Spencer, reader implied to engage in casual sex, reader calls themself a slut somewhat disparagingly but like as a joke, it all gets resolved, he is very sweet, he rambles when he's nervous
a/n: oh God I love them so much they are like so in love and they literally have no idea at all because they're so dumb... but WE can tell.. turning point for them
“Penelope wanted me to confirm that you guys are coming to drinks with us tonight?”
It’s something of a standing tradition for the BAU on the last Friday of every month, and usually you’d agree, but tonight, you have other plans.
“Raincheck for me,” you say, sliding some files into your bag which you do not plan on reviewing. “I have a thing.”
“What thing do you have on a Friday night?” Morgan asks skeptically. You don’t bother looking at him as you hide a smile.
“A date, Morgan. You jealous?”
“You’re going on a date?”
You’d nearly forgotten Spencer was in the room until he spoke—he’s been in one of those quiet moods of his where he sort of floats around everyone else and makes himself insubstantial. As you cast him a sidelong glance, trying to figure out his tone of voice, you see he’s frowning. Nearly grimacing. His brows are drawn so tight you’re worried he’ll give himself a headache.
“Uh, yeah. I am.” Suddenly, your parade feels a little rained on.
“With who?”
You pause, looking back down at your desk with a new frown of your own and shaking your head as if you could clear it that way. “Just… some guy from OT.”
“Dalton?”
Ding ding ding. Somehow he got it right on the first guess, and for some reason, you wish he hadn’t. You don’t want Spencer knowing who you’re going on a date with. It feels wrong.
“Does it matter?” You evade, shoving your things with a little more force into your bag.
“Well Dalton is an idiot, so I guess I’m just trying to figure out why you’d go out with him.”
“And if it’s not Dalton?”
“Then I’d tell you all the guys in OT are idiots and you shouldn’t waste your time on any of them.”
“Alright—” Morgan passes between your desks, placing a friendly hand on your back as he does. “I’m gonna let you two hash this out by yourselves.” He gives you a look, eyebrows raised, unsmiling, that means, go easy on the kid. It makes you feel terribly guilty. And more than a little defensive.
“Night,” you call halfheartedly. He only waves as the glass doors swing shut behind him, leaving you and boy genius alone in the bull pen.
Silence falls, cloistering you as you finish packing up together. It seems to magnify the buzz of the overheads. You notice him intentionally lingering, and you sling your bag over your shoulder with a sigh.
“Okay,” you say, turning to face him with your whole body. He seems uncomfortable with that, but you’re not letting this go. “What is this? Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you,” he mumbles, refusing to meet your eyes. “I just think—”
“Yeah. You’ve made your thoughts abundantly clear. I don’t know why you’re judging me for going on a date.”
“I’m not judging you! I just think you deserve better than a guy who looks like he… snorts protein powder for every meal and has less capacity for intelligent conversation than a mealworm.”
“Okay. Do you have someone in mind?”
The words come out a little sharper than you’d meant for them to. A little louder. Spencer looks like a scolded puppy as he swallows.
“Not specifically. Just—someone more like you.”
He just doesn’t get it. You fold your jacket over your arm.
“Yeah, well, until someone more like me comes along and asks me out, Dalton is the best I’ve got. I know he’s not my soulmate, Reid. But he asked me to drinks, and I said yes.”
The room is mostly dark. Only a few fluorescents remain on to cast Spencer in an almost clinical glow against a dark grey background. You’ve been here before. It feels like an interrogation. An environment where you’re practically begging for the truth without saying please, but there’s only room for measured dishonesty.
Spencer speaks under his breath, fiddling with the strap of his own bag. “He’s not good enough for you.”
“What do you want me to do?” It’s an exasperated, confrontational sigh. Your arms raise and fall heavily back to your sides. Another long grey hallway of silence that leads nowhere. When it becomes clear he doesn’t have the answer, or he’s not comfortable sharing, you straighten. “I’ll see you Monday, Reid.”
Your spirits are completely dampened as you trudge to the elevators. What once seemed like an exciting opportunity now only serves as a depressing reminder that you’re wasting your time with a man who isn’t what you want. Maybe you should just call the whole thing off.
“Wait,” Spencer calls, half-jogging to catch the open elevator. His bag bobs with every step, pens and things jingling around inside. It’s endearing, even though you’re upset with him. Your arms remain stubbornly crossed, but he makes it anyway. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your mood.”
You laugh dryly. “Yeah, well…”
“It’s just that…” he sniffs and looks down, hair falling in front of his face. He really is sweet, even when he’s kind of a dick. He’s full of so much sincerity he doesn’t know what to do with it all. “I know how you are—you’re special, and funny, and intelligent, and, and Dalton—all those qualities are wasted on him. He looks at you and he just sees a pretty face. It may sound trite, but… he doesn’t deserve you.”
You sigh again, heart squeezing. The glowing light on the panel of floor numbers flickers. “I know your heart is in the right place, alright? But it’s not about who deserves me or who doesn’t. I’m not a prize. I’m a person, and people like to feel wanted. Sometimes, it’s just—it’s about who’s there, and who likes me enough to say it to my face. Sometimes that’s all I need, and I know you didn’t mean it like this, but when you say he doesn’t deserve me, it really seems like you’re not considering what I might want at all. Maybe Dalton is what I want.”
God—this elevator ride is like, comedically long.
“Is he what you want?”
At least he has the bravery to ask.
You glance over at Spencer, washed out bloodless and looking like he’s prepared to flinch, like he doesn’t know if he’s ready for the answer. The doors ding and slide open, and stale air whooshes from the chrome compartment into the lobby like a held breath finally exhaled. You swallow.
“I don’t know why it matters to you.”
“Because you’re my friend and I want to see you happy,” he insists, trailing after you as you speed walk through the lobby. Every click of your heeled boots echos.
“Then shouldn’t you be supporting me?”
“I’m not going to support you in making the wrong choice.”
The conversation spills out into the bitter-cold parking lot. You turn around to face him.
“Respectfully, you have no idea what’s right or wrong for me. I don’t like whatever this is,” you say, gesturing with a finger between the two of you, as if the conflict were a tangible thing—a phone line hanging between your hearts. “I don’t know if it’s, like, jealousy, or some misplaced feeling of possessiveness, or protectiveness, or—”
“It’s not like that!” He splutters.
“Okay—so what is it like? If you want to see me happy, why don’t you support me in pursuing the things that make me happy? And if that’s meaningless sex with some guy from operational tech, so be it! You are not in a position to give your two cents on who I sleep with!”
“I wasn’t trying to—I wasn’t even thinking about—about sex! I don’t care who you sleep with!”
He’s turning increasingly pink.
“Fine. But if you weren’t thinking about sex, if you thought I was under any illusion that Dalton was going to be my fucking Prince Charming then clearly you’re not equipped to have this conversation. I know he’s an idiot. I’m not looking for my soulmate—thank you, though, for reminding me that it’s completely fucking pointless to even pretend. I love you, Spencer, but grow up. And stay out of my business.”
And with that, you’re turning on your heel and marching toward your car. Spencer calls your name—once. Twice. The wind lashes against your bare arms and stings your eyes as you fumble with your keys.
It’s just the wind.
Nothing else.
-
Maybe you’re simply not meant for love.
It’s a narcissistic thought in the sense that everyone has it at some point in their lives—everyone falls victim to the delusion that they are so uniquely wretched, so singularly incapable of being understood by another person. It’s the universal illusion of solitude. And you’d thought yourself above it for a long time. In college, there was fling after fling. Your bed was never empty if you didn’t want it to be. In your young adult life, you have other priorities—but you rarely have to be alone.
Now, though, as you sit on a rickety metal stool deep in the bowels of the Bureau’s records room, banished to sort through files in search of one that had been mishandled during a cold case and is now supposedly relevant again, (although you’re not sure it actually exists) you’re pondering the nature of those connections you’d been so sure your life was full of. Were they all artificial? Designed by you subconsciously to manufacture a sense of complacent satisfaction? To stave off the aching, gnawing loneliness in your gut that you’re only now becoming aware of and has been eating you away in bigger and bigger bites since Friday night?
Morgan was supposed to be just as arm-deep into a box of dusty manila folders as you are now, but he talked his way out of it, and you’re sitting in an awkward twenty-minute-long-so-far silence with Spencer. Which isn’t helping anything.
The tension comes and goes like the moon pulling the tides. It’s like you can sense it wafting off of each other—you feel it in the prickle on the back of your neck and the buzz in your stomach when he’s about to say something, and you glance over, and he’s already looking at you with his lips parted, and then he doesn’t say anything after all, and the silence reinforces itself.
It gets frustrating.
Not to mention this task is equal parts mind numbing and infuriating. Maybe Hotch just hates you.
Eventually Spencer clears his throat, and you welcome the distraction.
“What year are you on?”
You give him a long look which he doesn’t reciprocate, because you want to say, really? But eventually you pick up the edge of the box you’re sifting through and double check.
“Uh… June 1979 through August 1979.”
He nods matter-of-facts. “They should be making us wear gloves.”
Your incoming tangent spidey senses are tingling. It’s not exactly an opportune time, but it’s better than silence.
Plus—you’re pretty sure this is his idea of a peace offering.
“Why’s that?” You mutter, flicking through yellowed papers.
“Wood pulp paper contains an alum-rosin mixture to minimize ink bleeding, but in the presence of moisture such as that introduced in trace amounts by our fingertips it generates a diluted sulfuric acid solution. They didn’t start adding alkaline buffers into paper until 1986, and the cellulose chains that comprise the structure of the paper inevitably shorten and break down over time, so we’re actively degrading these documents by touching them without gloves.”
“Did you say sulfuric acid?”
“I said a diluted sulfuric acid solution,” he clarifies, utterly missing the point of your question as he so often does in that disarmingly endearing way of his. “Sorry, by the way.”
You look up from a photo of bloodied bell-bottom jeans. He’s caught you by surprise.
“For what?”
“For—”
He struggles with the words—you watch his lips form a few silent ones before he gives up on the nonchalant act and sets his file on his lap. He can’t seem to tear his eyes from it, but you don’t mind.
“For everything on Friday. I… I know it was none of my business. I sometimes struggle with… keeping my thoughts to myself. Especially when it concerns someone I care about. But I wasn’t judging you, I swear. What you said about—about sex, I—” he sighs, obviously frustrated with himself, and pushes a bit of hair out of his eyes. “That’s not where my mind was at, at all. Whatever you… do, or don’t do, is none of my business. Obviously. You don’t need me to tell you that. You don’t need me to tell you anything. I just really wanted to clarify that I wasn’t shaming you or judging you for—”
“Spencer,” you say gently, cutting him off and reeling him in before he can dig any deeper.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
He glows under the canned lighting, a soft aura of white blurring the edges of him. The stale room buzzes. It’s otherwise quiet down here. Peaceful, almost.
From anyone else, you might consider it overstepping.
You wouldn’t have been willing to forgive them in the first place.
But it’s not anyone else.
“Thank you, for apologizing. I really appreciate it.”
He glances up at you, sort of hunched—always trying to make himself smaller than whatever force created him had intended. The deep brown of his eyes is melted and swirling and sweet and nervous. He’s not naturally good at these interpersonal things, but he’s always trying. He’s always pushing himself for you.
Do you ask too much?
Do you offer enough in return?
Struck by sudden insecurity, you look away. Go back to your files.
Perhaps you made a mountain out of a molehill and told him to climb it.
“I mean, I am kind of a slut. I wouldn’t blame you for thinking so,” you laugh airily. “Maybe it was a good reality check.”
A trailing silence. An air conditioner kicks on.
“What? That’s not—that’s not at all what I was trying to say.”
“Spencer, it’s fine.”
His stool squeaks as he sits up straighter.
“No, I really want you to understand. Even if I cared or thought about how many people you might sleep with—which I don’t—and even if I determined that you were… sexually promiscuous, I wouldn’t assign a moral value to that judgement. Sexual promiscuity is observed all the time in the animal kingdom, it’s biologically sound and justified and in less misogynistic cultures where bonds forged between humans weren’t socioeconomic arrangements dependent on women being viewed as commodities first and foremost, it’s completely unremarkable. But I haven’t made that determination. All I know is that… you’re you. And that’s all that’s ever going to matter to me.”
Silence falls. Your voice gets stuck in your throat.
How does he so casually show you more kindness than anyone else has ever managed to show you in your life?
Spencer takes pity on you.
“And… we’ve talked entirely too much about something that’s none of my business today.”
It’s wry and earns a chuckle from you. Even Spencer manages a chagrined smile. That same strand of hair falls loose as he looks down. Light bounces from his self-effacing smirk.
You fiddle absentmindedly with the fraying corner of a folder, and you’re about to open your mouth, about to speak into the sparkling cloud that the easy laughter and the melted tension has left in its wake, and tell him how much you appreciate him and how kind he truly is and undoubtedly whatever you say will be made more beautiful because of it—because of the affection you have for each other—and then you stop, eyes catching on the case file between your fingers. You frown.
“Wait—what’s the case number we’re looking for?”
“91 18 00063 7.”
You hold the file up, eyes alight.
“I found it.”
Spencer frowns and takes it without asking. You watch as he reviews the number in tiny black typeface along the top of the document. His brow scrunches in disbelief.
“I genuinely didn’t think we were ever going to find it,” he murmurs after leading through the photos and glances back up at you. “We had thirty years of boxes to look through and you found it in under an hour. You’re like magic.”
It’s impossible not to smile. You feel all warm and sparkly as you snatch it back from him and stand, straightening your jacket.
“Will you tell that to Hotch?”
“I… will tell anyone who will listen,” he assures you, and you’re confident he’s following as you make your way through the maze of stacks. “Are we not gonna clean up our mess?”
“There are people who will take care of that later.”
“Yeah. Like me. During my lunch break.”
“Don’t worry. You’re going to be well rewarded for your efforts today.”
“What does that mean?” He mumbles, and you can practically hear his blush.
You smile to yourself.
Still got it.
for more of these two, check out the bandages universe masterlist!
summary: early season!spencer is reluctant to request nudes from gn!reader while hes gone on a case.
warnings & key info: nudes (what an ugly word), sexual themes implied, nothing rlly explicitly stated. a very reluctant and maybe insecure spencer, a hint of teasing
a/n: this is rlly just a drabble but i love the idea of early season!spencer who is kind of nervous to ask for things but also rlly down bad for reader! maybe i’ll make more with this pairing bc its so fun.
word count: 1.5k
my masterlist!
Spencer flopped back into the queen-sized bed with a sigh. The hotel room was small, the generic beige walls blending into the generic beige room. The only light source he had at present from was the warm, yellow light of the bedside lamp and the screen of his phone.
The team had successfully closed another case. The unsub was apprehended after a week-and-a-half long chase, but he didn’t feel any better.
The relief that followed long cases like this one was different. Of course the week had been long and tiring. He hadn’t exactly slept well between the late nights at the local precinct and the looming anxiety about finally catching the guy. When Hotch made the decision to fly out the following morning to allow the team to get some sleep, he wasn’t so thrilled.
He had returned to his hotel room, showered off the day (and it’s germs) before attempting to get into bed, but something was amiss.
Catching the unsub didn’t mean just another solved case, but it also meant coming home to you. Maybe it was selfish, sure. Still, he had looked forward to it all day, and the sudden change in plans threw him off. Here he was, on top of the scratchy maroon bedspread of the hotel, very awake and very much frustrated by the prospect of spending another night apart from you.
Sexual frustration and Spencer were two things you never would have put together. He was the most patient man in the world to you. Sometimes you still consider it his biggest flaw. When you first began dating him, it took weeks for him to work up the nerve to kiss you first. Sex was another beast. Somehow he wasn’t comfortable initiating anything for fear that he was pressuring you, and it seemed that no amount of reassurance would encourage him to make the first move.
You were half asleep in bed when you heard the buzz of a new notification. You lifted your head from its spot in the pillow, and patted your hand around to find your phone somewhere in the mess of sheets in your bed. When you found it, you squinted as your eyes adjusted to the bright screen in the darkness of your room. He never liked to interrupt you when you were sleeping. It was another one of his obscure demonstrations of love. If you ever texted him past 9 PM, he would delve into a rant about how the blue light of your screen would keep you up all night, or how sleep deprivation could cause a multitude of issues, and “I just don’t want to be the reason you didn’t get a good night’s sleep.”
Patient, kind, respectful, and painfully so.
Which was why you were thoroughly confused when you received what could only be interpreted as a very Spencer Reid version of a ‘u up?’ text at 12:51 AM.
Spencer: Hi. I miss you. Are you awake?
You: i am now :) i miss you more.
Spencer struggled to find the right words to type. He always relied on you dragging it out of him. He drafted a few responses, deleting them immediately. His fingers hovered the keyboard for a moment, contemplating if he should just let it go.
You watched the ellipses come and go as he typed. It disappeared for a few seconds, and then reappeared. Eventually, you decided to call him.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Hey,” he said. His voice was soft, maybe more so than usual. “I’m sorry for waking you.”
“You don’t need to apologize. I was hoping to hear your voice,” you replied.
“But it’s so late. You should be sleeping, and now-”
“Spencer,” you replied, cutting him off. “I don’t care about that. You’ve never been one to message so late, so I know something must be bothering you. Talk to me.”
You heard the soft rustle of fabric against the microphone.
“I was just really looking forward to coming home tonight.”
You sighed. “I know. I was looking forward to it, too.”
“I just…” he trailed off. “I was thinking about you all day. Thinking about seeing you, thinking about… just thinking about you.”
“Hm.” You sandwiched the phone between your ear and shoulder before sitting up. The jersey sheets pooled around your waist as you leaned across your nightstand, flicking on the bedside lamp. Your room filled with the soft glow. “Thinking about me?”
“Yeah.” His voice was almost a whisper. “That’s all.”
“I don’t think that’s all, honey.”
You could visualize his reaction through the phone, the same reaction he always had when you pinned down his real intentions. He probably made an attempt to roll his eyes and brush off your comments, but he’d blush seconds later and avoid eye contact, knowing you were right.
“Why do you… say that?” Somehow his voice was even softer.
“It’s one in the morning, Spence. You never call this late,” you explain. “And you’ve been away for a whole 10 days.”
“Yeah.” He swallowed audibly.
“Yeah,” you repeat. “So you clearly want something from me.”
Silence.
“Do I need to drag it out of you?”
He huffed. “It feels really juvenile. And I just respect you so much, and I don’t want you to ever think that I’m using you for anything, or that I don’t value you-”
“Spencer. We talked about this.”
“Right.” He sighed. He held the phone to his ear with one hand, the other pressing into his eyelids as he formulated a response.
“So,” you clear your throat, and sit back into your pillows, your phone lying across your chest. “Ask me.”
“I don’t…” he exhales. He’s struggling to come to terms with the fact that you have him figured out so well. He’s quiet for a few seconds before he gives in reluctantly. “I was looking forward to seeing you tonight. Not just talking.”
“Spencer Reid,” you reply, amused. Teasing him was just too easy sometimes, especially when he was so easy to rile up, even if he knew you were just joking with him. “Are you asking me for nudes?”
“I… It just sounds so wrong. Nevermind. Forget I said anything.”
“Oh, come on. Just ask me.”
He groaned. “I don't want you to think that my love for you has anything to do with your body. You know that, right? Because it doesn't. Although I do love… looking at you. That sounded weird. I just mean that I don't want to put you in a position where you feel commodified based on something like your physical appearance when you have so much more to give, and it's not respectful of you. You're brilliant and kind and so, so good to me, and it’s just so vulgar, I think-”
He fell quiet as his phone buzzed in his hands. He could just see the preview of the text you had sent him. After changing the call to speakerphone, he opened it, scrolling through the carousel of photos, taking in the images.
“You think..?”
“Jesus Christ…” he breathed, opening a slideshow of photos you had taken just for him. Sent to him, for his personal use. He would have felt bad about it if he wasn’t so horribly entranced by the sight of them. Whatever was left of his rambling fizzled out.
“You're not gonna finish your sentence?” You asked.
“I…” swipe. “God, I don't remember what I was saying.”
You chuckled. “Does that fix your problem?”
He was clearly short circuiting. “Mhm. It does.”
“See what happens when you ask, Spencer?”
“I feel guilty,” he replied, his voice breathy and quiet. He was clearly having some kind of internal struggle about the ethicality of the situation. It didn’t bother him enough to look away, though.
“Why?” You ask.
“Because… these are really…” He stopped. Although you couldn’t see it, his cheeks were burning red. “Are you sure you’re okay with me having these?”
“Spencer,” you say. “You’re being ridiculous. You’ve seen me naked plenty of times. I watched you fold and organize my sock drawer without my asking last week. You preheat my coffee mug for me every morning. I’m not just okay with you having these. I want you to have them.”
Oh. He swallows thickly, forcing himself to close the app and come back to his senses.
“But…” He trails off. He still sounds a little distant, pausing a bit too long between words, clearly still looking the photos over. “How did you… did you have these ready to send?”
“I did. I took them the other night. I was just waiting for you to ask.”
You wait a few seconds to see if he says something else. He doesn't. The line falls silent.
“Are you okay over there?” You ask.
“Yeah,” he clears his throat, exiting the app and putting his phone down on the pillow next to him. “Yeah. Sorry. I just… wow.”
You were used to his continual praise, but somehow his lack of words was the best compliment he could have offered you.
“Next time just ask, okay?”
He swallows. “Mhm. I will.”
“You should go have fun. I'm gonna go back to sleep. I'll see you soon, pretty boy.”
“Yeah… you should get some sleep. I’ll… see you tomorrow. Thank you.”
Summary: Spencer discusses daddy issues. His boss, who is also his girlfriend’s father, has a question.
Request: Reader is hotch's daughter and after hotch learns that they are dating their interactions are kind of weird in a funny way
Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader
Category: Fluff
Content Warning: Mild awkwardness
Word Count: 900
MASTERLIST
The jet ride to a crime scene is rarely a pleasant experience. Each team member holds their folders filled with horrors, and they display an abject apathy. After all, they are quite familiar with the worst side of humanity. Some days, though, when the worst crimes are still hypothetical and the victims are alive, the team can maintain some semblance of their usual personality.
Spencer is usually the first one to share something interesting about the theoretical or identified unsub. This is because he has a broad knowledge on, well, most things, and he also manages to read through the stack of papers much quicker and with a greater detail than the others.
This day, however, Spencer is silent. And everyone knows why.
Because just one measly week ago, Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner found out that Spencer Reid was dating his daughter.
Beyond the initial, incredibly uncomfortable conversation, Hotch had barely spoken a word about it. A fool might think that meant he has no qualms with it, but Spencer knows him better than that.
No, it is infinitely more likely that Hotch is stewing in his rage about his daughter’s Freudian taste in men. Hotch is just too smart to strike without the possibility of maximal damage.
So, Spencer knows to keep his guard up.
But he never could keep a thought to himself, could he?
Derek lets out a deep breath with a soft whistle before he tosses his folder onto the desk beside him. As the others peek up at him, he shakes his head with an enthused but horrified expression.
“Talk about ‘daddy issues,’” Derek mutters.
The others smirk in response, but they say nothing else.
Until, inevitably, Spencer does.
“The correct term would be ‘father complex,’” he says with an attempt to sound disinterested in one of his favorite philosophers, “It was a shared theory between Freud and Jung, and it’s actually very interesting.”
No one says a word. Spencer does not notice the warnings flashing in their eyes because he is too afraid to accidentally look at Hotch.
They all know what’s coming.
He continues, anyway.
“While Freud was more interested in how men might become distrusting or intimidated by older male authorities, Jung extended his analysis to women with emotionally or physically absent fathers.”
Despite the roaring engines and the full cabin, the jet is silent. If Spencer had looked up then, he would have seen how everyone immediately glances over at Hotch.
Hotch, however, maintains his stoic stare. He is looking directly at Spencer, who is still staring at the document in the folder he has already read several times over.
“There’s a more contemporary term for the phenomenon that would probably be more fitting,” Spencer announces.
“Really?” Emily asks. The rhetorical question is dripping with sarcasm in a final attempt to stop him.
Spencer is so lost in thought at this point that he does not even notice. Instead, he marches on to his downfall.
“It’s called ‘Father hunger,’” he explains coolly, “and it explains the over-trust in authority figures and the search for an older man that reminds them of the father they never had.”
“Are you talking about yourself or my daughter?”
Every muscle in Spencer’s body seizes at the question. Quickly, he raises his head to find himself trapped in the paralyzing, disapproving stare of Aaron Hotchner.
“What?” he squeaks.
The man does not answer.
“N-No! No, I was just explaining the origins of the term,” he insists.
He tries—but fails—not to think about you. Just one remark, one casual reminder of your existence makes his skin ripple with goosebumps. Overcome with guilt—but never regret—his mind tugs forward every memory shared between the two of you.
The smell of your perfume, the softness of your lips, the comfort he finds in your arms.
His life is flashing before his eyes and every part of it looks like you.
He raises his hands in surrender before he sputters, “I would never—!”
“Reid,” your father commands.
Your boyfriend flinches.
“It’s a joke,” Hotch says just before he smiles.
Immediately, Spencer is surrounded by familiar smiles. He feels the visceral pain of a joke made at his expense while at the same time, he is cloaked with relief.
“Funny joke,” he says under his breath.
Hotch detects the sarcasm but decides to let it go.
He had won the exchange, after all.
Spencer also tries to let it go. Because if this was the height of Hotch’s rage over the ultimate violation of his home life, he’d basically gotten away with murder.
Still, he can’t shake the burning red blush. That and the trembling from the adrenaline felt almost permanent.
Just as the thought occurs to him, Derek takes a seat beside him.
He leans closer even as Spencer leans away.
Then, in the quietest whisper, he asks, “Which one of you does she call daddy?”
Yes, Spencer realizes. The blush is going to be permanent.
“Stop talking,” he orders with a startlingly amount of finality.
From across the table, Emily provides Derek with the audience he wanted. Her giggles alone assuage his desire to make Spencer’s day just a little bit more chaotic.
The two relent. Spencer is alone with his thoughts again, and he wonders whether he will ever feel at home in his new position.
But then he thinks of you, and he knows that he is exactly where he is meant to be.
(Tell me what you thought about this fic here!)
If you're looking for more to read, check out my full-length smut story "My Boss's Daughter," where Reader is Hotch's daughter that is in love with Spencer!