Synopsis: You and Spencer don't exactly have the same definition of entertainement at the beach than the rest of the team
Warning/content: established relationship, bau reader, no use of y/n or physical description, kinda sexual undertone once in a while (but it's more like getting flustered), not proofread.
a.n.: 1.7k words- hope you guys enjoy this and don't hesitate to send me spencer reqs
You closed your eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun hitting your back. You were laying on your stomach, a beach towel between your skin and the sand. That was definitely a nice way to relax. Days off were rare at the BAU. But after a particularly hard case, the team had decided to spend a weekend at the beach.You weren’t going to refuse good-earned days of rest.
“Don’t you come and dip a toe in?” JJ asked as she, along with Derek and Emily, was heading towards the waves.
You shook your head “I’m good for now, just want to lay here”
“Yeah, same,” Spencer said as he sat by your side.
Derek scoffed with a small smile “Now, you could just admit you wanna stay with your little sweetheart”
“And how is that wrong, uh?” you teased “Just say you don’t have anyone to bring”
Derek rolled his eyes and let out a groan when the girls just laughed along. “You’re not going to defend me?” he asked JJ, faking offense.The three of them walked away, still bickering.
Spencer chuckled next to you “He’ll never change”
He handed you your current read and your fingers brushed against his as you grabbed the book “Thanks baby,” you said gently.
Spencer couldn’t help a smile and answered a quiet “You’re welcome”
The two of you laid on your beach towels, reading in silence for a little while. Well you only had the time to read 30 pages that he had already finished. But he still stayed next to you, watching you as you read. The slight frown when you focused, the subtle way you were biting your lower lip, your index finger playing with tip of the pages, that new swim suit you had just gotten-
“Spence,” you called, closing your book, blocking the current page with your finger. “What does ‘rigmarole’ mean?”
You tilted your head, waiting for his answer. Spencer looked good in the summer sun, tone warmer than usual, the subtle sweat that made his skin glisten. It was a sight you were enjoying.
“Rigmarole,” he said, correcting your pronunciation, “is a long and confusing speech. We use it to talk about someone talking and rambling but no one understands him and it’s just daunting and boring. What’s funny is that it comes from the phrase ‘Ragman rolls’ which are long legal parchments from 13th century England. And the word ‘Ragman’ itself comes from a 12th century word game where people would pick strings that are attached to a roll, and that was a way to read fortunes.”
Spencer was talking with such enthusiasm, a big smile pasted over his face, that could just listen to him, amused. “Thanks,” you chuckled “I still don’t understand where you learn all of this”
“I read,” he simply stated.
You shook your head “Clearly, we don’t read the same books, then,” you said as you glanced at your summer read. Meeting the word ‘rigmarole’ had been the only difficult part of this book so far. But what was more summer-y than casual family dramas at the beach with an eccentric grandma that uses the word ‘rigmarole’?
“I’m not sure reading an etymology book about old english expressions is your kind of fun,” he answered, his lips tugging into a teasing smile.
You let out a laugh “Yeah, definitely not.”
Spencer had nothing left to read but he just wanted to stay around so he pulled you closer. You rested your cheek on his chest, and read your book for a little while. The silence between the two of you was calming, the only sounds you could hear were the distant lapping of the water and the laughter of children playing in the water.
His right hand stayed on the small of your back while the other one was playing with your hair, his fingers occasionally brushing your ear. It was distracting you from your story and you found yourself reading the same sentence twice when his hold on your back lowered for a second.
Clearly anyone who found reading at the beach boring had never done it pressed against Spencer.
Your calm reading time was interrupted by a ball hitting Spencer right in the face “Ouch,” he winced, his hand rubbing his cheek.
Derek was standing there, a big grin on his face “Won’t you two join us for a bit?”
“Does it have to involve being kicked in the face?” you asked, standing up.
Before you could do anything, Spencer brushed some sand that had stuck to your skin. Maybe it was the way his hand grazed your lower back, or the gentle press of his fingers against your spine but his warmth was more intense than the sun’s.
The two of you followed Derek to the ocean. It was cold, making you suck in your stomach as you lowered yourself into the water, you heard Spencer let out a small yelp
“How do you guys even enjoy this?”
Emily laughed “Oh come on. We’re on a break and you two plan to just stay on the beach and read?”
“It’s more relaxing than this,” you said as you threw a seaweed that had stuck to you with a small sound of disgust and it landed with a ‘splash’. Spencer looked just as uncomfortable as you, his face was twisted by a frown.
“You two have really found each other, but in a very cute way. You’re disgusted by the same things” Garcia said with a bit too much enthusiasm.
You raised an eyebrow “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“See? She’s right” JJ said. You glanced at Spencer to see he was making just the same face as you : a crease between his eyebrows, a corner of his mouth tugged up in confusion, and his eyes squinted to try and avoid the direct light of the sun.
You shook your head, trying to hide your amusement “Whatever makes you happy,” you mumbled.
You leaned against Spencer, with your wet hair pressing against his shoulder, making him shiver. He wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you closer.
“That’s cute,” Derek said “But I pulled you two here to play volley”
“In the water?” you asked
Derek nodded “Yes, makes it easier to dive in,” he said before dividing the team into two groups. You, Spencer, Hotch and JJ would have to play against Derek, Rossi, Garcia and Emily. And seeing the determined looks on Derek and Emily’s faces… you were going to suffer.
Nothing about that game was relaxing. You ended up diving head first into the water three times– and waterboarded yourself in the process. And after an approximate score of 32 to 8 (though no one was counting, and the quicker their team won, the quicker you’ll be back to tanning) Hotch asked to stop the game.
This time, you and Spencer weren’t the only ones who took the initiative to just lay on the sand. Playing volley against Derek wasn’t for the weak.
You grabbed your book but as you were about to start, you saw from the corner of your eye that Spencer had opened his crossword book. You sat up and rested your chin on his shoulder “‘Duplicate item’ is ‘replica’” you said.
You knew he already knew. In fact, he had probably solved the whole puzzle already. But he found it way more enjoyable to do it with you. Spencer smiled, feeling your hair brush against the skin of his cheek, red from the sun.
“Mmh…” you thought “‘Force out’ in 5... maybe pushed- yeah no that doesn’t work, it’s 6”
You focused on the grid, while Spencer focused on you. He could just tell you that it was ‘Expel’ because the first E meets with the one in ‘Helium’ but it meant not being able to see you this way.
Spencer didn’t really know why, but seeing you think deeply, trying to grasp everything you read, solving puzzles, was his favourite sight of you. Maybe it was because of the way he had seen it so many times that he felt like he could now feel the gears moving in your brain, or maybe was it the way your pursed your lips into a small pout when you started to get frustrated, or it was that he never thought he’d meet someone that’d understand the excitement in filling out his daily sudoku in the morning and yet now he had you.
But yeah, he couldn’t exactly tear his eyes off of you.
“Spence?” you called, amused at the way he was staring. “I said ‘Without delay - type of coffee’ is ‘instant’, right?”
Spencer cleared his throat, his cheeks gaining a deeper hue of red “Y-yeah sorry. Yeah it’s instant” He grabbed the pencil from your hand to fix a word you had written “It’s uhm…Largo, not ‘Large’ so now you can uhm… you can find ‘Onerous’”
“You’re so bad at pretending you’re focused, you know that?”
Spencer laughed, a huff of air warm against your neck as he scouted closer “I’m trying”
You felt Emily’s eyes on the two of you “You guys have a really special meaning of ‘relaxing’, reading and crosswords? That’s just boring, we’re at the beach!”
“Retirement home already has a room ready for you two,” Derek chuckled.
“What’s amusing about just being in the water without doing anything?” you asked, pointing at the waves with your thumb where JJ and Hotch were still talking.
Rossi shrugged “Because at least you clear your mind”
“The only way to clear a mind is to keep it busy,” you said as you flipped the page to start a new crossword puzzle. You shifted your body to now lay on your stomach, your elbows propping you up.
“Did you solve it?” you asked Spencer. He nodded “How screwed am I?”
“I got it in 20 seconds more than average so… a lot”
You groaned and let your head drop. That was still more fun than a swim in the ocean.
Description: Spencer has kept every note you’ve ever written for him. You just weren’t supposed to find out.
___________________________________
Title: Things Spencer Reid Keeps
The first note fell out of Spencer’s wallet while he was searching for his Metro card. It landed facedown beside your shoe, folded twice along lines softened from use. You picked it up before he noticed.
“Is this important?”
Spencer looked down and his entire expression changed. “I—yes. Thank you.”
He reached for it too quickly, but not before you recognized the pale yellow paper and the small coffee stain in one corner.
“Wait.” You unfolded it.
Spencer made a quiet sound of protest.
The handwriting was yours: Don’t forget to eat lunch today. Coffee doesn’t count as a meal, no matter how much sugar you put in it.
Beneath it, you had drawn a terrible little cartoon of him wearing glasses and holding an oversized mug.
You stared at the note. “I wrote this.”
“Yes.”
“Three years ago.”
“Two years, nine months, and eleven days.”
You looked up slowly. “Why is it in your wallet?”
Spencer shifted his satchel higher on his shoulder. Around you, the rest of the team continued gathering their things, too distracted by the promise of going home after a twelve-hour day to pay attention.
“It reminded me to eat.”
“You memorized it the second you read it.”
“That doesn’t mean reminders are ineffective.”
“You’ve carried this around for almost three years?”
His ears began turning pink. “It’s durable paper.”
“It came from a legal pad.”
“I reinforced the folds.”
You looked at the small square in your hand again. There was clear tape along one edge, carefully applied where the paper had begun to tear. Something warm and dangerously hopeful stirred in your chest.
“Do you still forget lunch?”
“Occasionally.”
“Then I should probably write you a new one.”
Spencer took the note from you with surprising gentleness. “This one still works.”
Before you could ask what that meant, Morgan called for him from the elevator. Spencer tucked the note safely back into his wallet and followed.
You spent the entire journey home thinking about it.
•••••••
The second note appeared two weeks later.
You were at Spencer’s apartment, helping him reorganize the books that had taken over his dining table. He insisted there was a system. You insisted that stacking books on every available surface did not qualify as one.
You had just lifted a thick Russian novel when a small blue slip of paper fluttered onto the floor.
You recognized that one too.
You did everything you could. Be kind to yourself tonight.
You had written it after a case in Ohio. Spencer had blamed himself for failing to reach a victim in time, and you hadn’t known what else to say.
When you turned around, he was standing completely still beside the bookshelf.
“You kept this one too.”
Spencer looked at the note, then at the open wooden box on the table.
Your eyes followed his.
Inside were dozens of folded pieces of paper.
Napkins. Sticky notes. Torn corners of reports. The back of an old boarding pass.
All covered in your handwriting.
You approached the box slowly.
Your lecture was incredible. Stop reading the negative reviews.
There’s tea in the break room. The kind you like.
You’re allowed to have a bad day.
Good luck. Not that you need it.
One was only a poorly drawn smiley face beside the words Welcome back. That one had been left on his desk after his first day returning from medical leave.
“Spencer.”
He pushed his hands into his pockets. “I can explain.”
“I’d really like you to.”
He looked toward the window, visibly searching for somewhere else to focus.
“People speak approximately sixteen thousand words per day, though studies disagree significantly based on the collection method. Most of those words are forgotten almost immediately.”
You waited.
“But written language is different,” he continued. “It exists outside the moment in which it was created. You can return to it.”
His gaze dropped to the note in your hand. “Sometimes I needed to.”
Your heart tightened. “So you kept all of them?”
“Not all.”
You glanced into the nearly full box.
“Most,” he corrected.
“Why mine?”
Spencer was quiet for so long that you wondered if he would answer.
Then he crossed the small distance between you and took the blue note carefully from your fingers.
“Because you write things you don’t always say.”
“What things?”
“That you were worried about me. That you noticed when I was having a difficult day.” His thumb moved across the edge of the paper. “That I mattered to you.”
“You do matter to me.”
“I know.”
The certainty in his voice caught you off guard.
Spencer finally looked at you.
“I didn’t know whether I mattered in the way you mattered to me.”
Every clever response disappeared.
“You could have asked.”
“The potential consequences seemed considerably worse than uncertainty.”
“You face armed killers for a living.”
“They aren’t you.”
It was such a Spencer answer that you nearly laughed, except his expression was too open, too nervous.
You reached into the box and found an unused sticky note tucked along the side.
“Do you have a pen?”
He handed you one immediately. You turned away slightly while you wrote, shielding the words with your hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Updating the collection.”
You folded the note once and held it out. Spencer opened it.
I love you too.
He read it in less than a second, but continued staring at it as though the words might rearrange themselves.
“I didn’t say that I—”
“You didn’t have to.”
His eyes lifted to yours. “Is this real?”
“You have an eidetic memory, Spencer. I’m pretty sure you know what my handwriting looks like.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
You softened. “Yes. It’s real.”
Spencer placed the note inside the box with extraordinary care.
Then he leaned in and kissed you.
It was hesitant at first, his hand hovering near your waist as though he was still waiting for permission. You closed the distance yourself, and the quiet breath he released against your lips felt almost like relief. When you pulled apart, his forehead remained against yours.
“You know,” you whispered, “most people keep photographs.”
“I have photographs.”
“Of me?”
His silence answered for him.
You laughed, wrapping your arms around his neck. “How many?”
“That information isn’t currently relevant.”
“It’s extremely relevant.”
Spencer kissed you again before you could continue the interrogation.
Later, the newest note went into his wallet. The old one stayed there too.
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