certaimromance

we lay here for years or for hours, so long we become the flowers

[certaimromance]

.⠐𓈒 ✿. i miss borrowin' your books. —⋆. mon. 20. she!her. half time writer. sentimental lady. sirius black's twin. lover of nerdy boys, green tea, chocolate, books, art, poetry, music, pastel pink & my rabbit. request are open. keep ai out of creative spaces. masterlist. —⋆. to read your notes in the margins. ❤︎ .⠐𓈒

♥︎ 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓: positive in love & wine — spencer reid. my baby goes away — spencer reid. with a heart forever — conrad fisher. still want me? — spencer reid. ups, wrong brother — sam winchester. summer contact — steve harrington.♥︎

✶ get notified about all my fics here: @booksofcertaimromance ✶

[certaimromance]

⊹ ࣪ ˖ My Heart's In Atrophy ─ Spencer Reid.

Working another case with the FBI was already unbearable. Getting hurt was worse. Letting Spencer Reid change the bandage on a wound far too high on your thigh? Absolutely humiliating. Especially when the pain leaves you with your forehead buried in his shoulder…and his sweater between your teeth.

୨ৎ ──── accidental intimacy. 4,7k. police officer!reader. biting ups. no medically accurate. two idiots rivals in love. english isn't my first language. main masterlist.

If someone had told you just a few hours ago that Spencer Reid—the Spencer Reid, the FBI agent with three PhDs, an eidetic memory, a vocabulary that could make a dictionary feel insecure, and the emotional composure of a confused Victorian gentleman who had accidentally wandered into the twenty-first century—would be kneeling on the filthy bathroom floor of your precinct with both hands buried in your personal belongings, you would have laughed so hard you probably would have needed medical attention yourself. Then, once you recovered, you would have arrested them for wasting police resources with such an obviously fabricated story, and you would have made absolutely certain they stayed in a holding cell long enough to reconsider the poor life choices that had led them to invent something so utterly ridiculous.

Spencer Reid rummaging through your bag? Spencer Reid voluntarily touching the floor of a public restroom? Spencer Reid invading your privacy without first presenting a carefully structured explanation complete with statistics, historical precedent, and at least three apologies?

Impossible. Entirely, categorically impossible.

Except it wasn’t.

It was, unfortunately, your current reality.

The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed with an irritating hum that seemed impossibly loud inside the cramped precinct bathroom, casting everything in that sickly pale light that made every bruise look darker, every stain look suspicious, and every person look like they hadn’t slept in days. The room smelled faintly of industrial disinfectant desperately trying to overpower the lingering scent of old plumbing and cheap hand soap. The white tiles beneath Spencer’s knees had long since stopped pretending to be clean, marked by years of scuff marks, scratches, and the kind of permanent discoloration that no amount of bleach could ever erase. You were almost certain he knew exactly how many different bacterial colonies were thriving beneath him at this very moment, and yet he hadn’t spared the floor so much as a second glance before dropping onto it the instant he realized you were hurt.

Which, frankly, was almost more alarming than the injury itself.

Your back rested against the cool tiled wall, one hand pressing instinctively against the side of your leg where a burning ache pulsed beneath the hastily wrapped bandage. Every heartbeat seemed to push another wave of warmth against the fabric, and you were making a very conscious effort not to think too hard about what that warmth probably meant. Looking at blood had never bothered you, not after years of police work, but there was something profoundly unsettling about seeing your own. It had a remarkable ability to make every injury feel twice as serious, every sting twice as sharp, every worst-case scenario suddenly seem embarrassingly plausible. So instead, you focused on Spencer.

Who was currently emptying the contents of your bag with the concentration of a man attempting to defuse a bomb.

Everything emerged with almost absurd care. Your notebook. Your wallet. A handful of pens you kept insisting worked better than department-issued ones. Lip balm. Painkillers. An absurd number of loose receipts you had promised yourself you would throw away weeks ago. A tiny packet of tissues. Spare hair ties. A granola bar that had probably expired sometime last month. Spencer examined each item with astonishing efficiency before placing it neatly beside him in organized little rows across the bathroom floor, as though your purse wasn’t the physical embodiment of controlled chaos. Somehow, against all laws of nature, he managed to make the contents of your bag look like evidence laid out at a crime scene.

“I still think we should go to a hospital,” he muttered, his voice quieter than usual, almost drowned out by the rustling of plastic packaging as he finally located the first-aid kit.

His fingers moved with practiced precision as he spread everything out in front of him—sterile gauze, antiseptic wipes, fresh bandages, medical tape, gloves—all arranged in perfect order before he even looked up at you. There wasn’t a single wasted movement.

“You know that’s not happening,” you replied, forcing far more confidence into your voice than you actually felt.

The words came out just a little tighter than intended, and you hated that he probably noticed.

He noticed everything.

He noticed when people blinked too often, when their breathing changed by half a second, when their pupils dilated, when they shifted their weight unevenly because something hurt. There was a reason he was one of the best profilers in the country, and unfortunately for you, you were currently giving him a front-row seat to every involuntary sign your body could produce.

His eyes lifted from the supplies to your face, and for a fleeting moment neither of you spoke. He didn’t need to. His expression alone carried enough quiet disapproval to rival an entire lecture. There wasn’t frustration there, nor irritation. Just concern. Deep concern that settled heavily behind his tired hazel eyes and made him look far younger than usual, as though worrying stripped away the layers of academic confidence until all that remained was Spencer, the man beneath the titles and degrees, who cared far too much for his own peace of mind.

“You need stitches,” he said after the silence had stretched almost painfully long, his voice gentle enough to avoid startling you but firm enough that it sounded less like an opinion and more like a diagnosis carved into stone. “And, statistically speaking, probably therapy after being attacked by a suspect who attempted to stab you during an arrest.”

“I need a clean bandage,” you answered immediately. “And silence.”

“You need stitches.”

“I need to close this case and have your entire team leave my city.”

The words escaped before you could stop them, delivered with the same automatic irritation that had colored nearly every conversation you’d shared since the BAU arrived four days ago. It wasn’t even personal anymore. It had become routine. You complained about federal agents meddling in local investigations; Morgan rolled his eyes; Garcia made some sarcastic comment over the phone; Hotch remained infuriatingly unreadable; and Spencer usually responded with a statistic that somehow made the argument even more irritating. Somewhere along the way, bickering with him had become as much a part of your day as your morning coffee.

“You are actively bleeding,” he replied, almost sounding tired now, as though he genuinely couldn’t comprehend how the conversation had somehow turned into another jurisdiction dispute while you were leaking blood onto the bathroom floor. He glanced briefly toward the stained bandage before pinching the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “I’m…honestly still trying to understand how this became the hill you’re willing to die on.”

You let out a slow breath through your nose, deliberately keeping your eyes fixed on the cracked mirror behind him instead of the steadily spreading crimson beneath your hand. Looking at the blood would make it real. If it became real, Spencer would notice. If Spencer noticed, he’d insist on taking you to the emergency room with the stubborn persistence only he seemed capable of. And if he started arguing again, you weren’t entirely convinced you still had enough strength left to keep arguing back.

“You’re a doctor, right?” you asked instead, forcing the corners of your mouth into something vaguely resembling a smile. It was a terrible attempt. Judging by the way his expression didn’t change even slightly, it fooled absolutely no one. “Just do it.”

He didn’t answer.

He simply looked at you.

“…Please,” you added after another long moment, your voice quieter now.

The word barely rose above a whisper.

Something changed.

It was subtle enough that anyone else would’ve missed it, but you saw it anyway. His eyes widened just slightly behind his glasses before softening in a way you’d never witnessed before. Because in all the years the two of you had spent circling each other with mutual irritation, sarcastic remarks, and endless arguments over federal jurisdiction, you had never once asked him for help like this. You tolerated him because you had to. You challenged every conclusion he made. You rolled your eyes every time he quoted statistics. You complained about the FBI planting themselves in investigations they barely understood.

To Spencer, your hometown wasn’t another case file. It was where you had grown up, where everyone knew your name, where every street corner held a memory. Of course you hated outsiders arriving with badges and assumptions. Of course you fought them. Maybe, standing there in the suffocating quiet of the bathroom, he finally realized that none of this had ever really been about him.

This wasn’t another argument over jurisdiction.

This wasn’t about pride.

This wasn’t about proving local police could solve cases without the BAU riding in to save the day.

This was simply him trying to help you.

The realization settled visibly across his face. The frustration dissolved first, followed by the determination to keep arguing until you gave in. What remained was reluctant acceptance, threaded together with concern so obvious it made your chest ache almost as much as the wound itself. He exhaled slowly, lowering his gaze for just a second before reaching for the gloves. The latex snapped softly against his wrists as he pulled them into place, the sharp sound startling in the otherwise quiet room.

“I don't like this plan,” he murmured, almost under his breath, more to himself than to you. He flexed his fingers once before meeting your eyes again, his expression resigned. “And…I’m not the kind of doctor you need.”

There was the faintest pause before he added, with the smallest, self-conscious shrug, “Technically, I have doctorates in mathematics, chemistry, and engineering. None of those are especially useful for closing stab wounds. Although…” His gaze flickered briefly toward the first-aid supplies. “I do know enough emergency medicine to keep you from making this significantly worse.”

You just nodded.

Spencer reached for one of the antiseptic packets, turning it over in his hands before tearing it open with careful movements. The sharp scent of alcohol immediately cut through the stale air of the bathroom, replacing the smell of industrial soap with something unmistakably clinical. He soaked a piece of sterile gauze, his expression growing almost apologetic as he glanced between the wound and your face. And, for a moment, he simply held the gauze there, suspended in his hand, as though delaying the inevitable by a few extra seconds might somehow lessen what was about to happen.

“This,” he said quietly, “is going to hurt.”

You huffed a dry laugh.

“I just…I don’t want you to think I’m being rough.” His voice dropped lower, almost embarrassed by the admission. “The antiseptic is necessary. The knife wasn’t sterile, the environment wasn’t sterile, and this bathroom certainly isn’t sterile.” His eyes flicked briefly toward the grimy tile beneath them before returning to you. “Preventing an infection is considerably easier than treating one.”

“I know.”

“It’ll burn.”

You rolled your eyes, though there wasn’t much strength behind the gesture anymore.

Spencer inhaled slowly, the gauze still poised in his hand.

“When you’re ready.”

You looked at the blood soaking through the ruined bandage, then at the antiseptic and then back at him and finally give him a nod.

He waited another second anyway.

The first touch wasn’t painful, it was cold. Just enough to trick your body into believing it might not be so bad. Then the antiseptic reached the open tissue and a sharp, vicious burn exploded across your side so suddenly that every muscle in your body locked at once.

“Oh, God—”

The curse broke off into a hiss as your hand instinctively searched for something, anything, to grab onto.

The nearest thing happened to be Spencer.

Your forehead bumped awkwardly against the center of his chest before you even realized what you were doing. One hand caught a fistful of the front of his sweater, wrinkling the soft knit beneath your fingers as you tried to breathe through the searing sting. You could hear his heartbeat immediately, muffled beneath layers of wool and cotton, much faster than you expected. Whether it was from kneeling on a dirty bathroom floor performing first aid or because you had suddenly buried your face against him, you couldn’t tell.

For one startled heartbeat, Spencer froze completely. His free hand hovered uncertainly in the air and you expected him to awkwardly pull away.

Instead, he stayed perfectly still.

“So…” he said carefully, his voice noticeably quieter now, “that reaction falls…within the expected range.”

“You talk…” You squeezed your eyes shut as another wave of burning rolled through the wound. “…way too much.”

The corner of his mouth lifted into the smallest smile before disappearing again as he concentrated on finishing disinfecting the injury. Every movement remained impossibly gentle, his hand steady despite the way you could feel yourself clutching the front of his sweater tighter every time the antiseptic stung.

When he finally pulled the gauze away, the burning gradually faded into a dull, throbbing ache.

“There,” he murmured. “That’s the worst part over.”

You let out a shaky breath against his chest.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

That actually earned him a tired laugh.

He waited until your breathing settled before reaching for the small sterile suture kit.

The moment your eyes landed on the curved needle, your stomach sank.

“No.”

His expression became apologetic all over again.

“You need the wound closed.”

“I’ll simply…heal.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“It could.”

“It biologically cannot.”

You groaned, letting your head fall back against the tiled wall.

“I liked you better thirty seconds ago.”

“I don’t think you liked me thirty seconds ago either.”

Spencer opened the sterile package with practiced care, arranging the needle holder and forceps beside him.

“I’ll inject a local anesthetic around the wound first,” he said. “It won’t remove every sensation, but it should significantly reduce the pain from the stitches.”

You nodded tensely.

The injections themselves stung, but nowhere near as badly as the antiseptic had. After waiting a short while for it to take effect, Spencer gently tested the area.

“Can you feel this?”

“Pressure.”

“And this?”

“Pressure.”

He gave a small nod.

“Good.”

Even dulled by the anesthetic, the sensation of the needle passing through your skin was deeply unpleasant, not sharp so much as strange, a tugging pull that made your whole body tense.

Your jaw clenched, and you pressed your tongue against your teeth, then bit down on the inside of your cheek to keep from making a sound.

Spencer noticed immediately and paused halfway through another stitch. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are actively biting the inside of your mouth.”

“It’s…distracting.”

“It can also injure the inside of your cheek.”

“It’s better than yelling at you.”

He looked at you for a thoughtful moment.

Then, with complete sincerity and absolutely no hint that he realized how intimate the suggestion sounded, he shifted a little closer.

“You could bite my shoulder.”

You stared at him.

“What?”

“My shoulder.” He pointed vaguely toward himself with the hand that wasn’t holding the needle holder.

“If you need something to redirect the pain response.” His ears were already beginning to turn pink. “People instinctively clench their jaw or bite down during acute pain. Having something external is generally safer than repeatedly biting your own cheek.”

“You want me to bite you.”

“I…yes.” He say quickly. “It’s…practical.”

“You are offering yourself as a chew toy.”

“When you phrase it like that, it sounds considerably less scientific.”

“It sounds insane.”

“There are studies suggesting that controlled pressure or biting can help some people cope with acute pain by competing with pain signals.” He cleared his throat, avoiding your eyes now. “Besides, sweaters are fairly thick.”

You looked at him and noticed how he wasn’t joking.

He was blushing furiously, avoiding eye contact, and offering his own shoulder with the same earnest seriousness he’d used to explain blood loss and infection.

“You don’t have to,” Spencer said after a few seconds, clearing his throat. “It was…merely a recommendation.”

You looked at the suture needle glinting beneath the fluorescent lights. Then, with the kind of resignation usually reserved for people accepting an unavoidable fate, you leaned forward.

“Fine.”

He blinked.

“Fine?”

“If I break your shoulder, that’s on you.”

“Your bite force is unlikely to fracture the clavicle.”

A tiny breath of laughter escaped you, though it quickly dissolved into a wince as you shifted closer.

The position was awkward.

The bathroom was far too small.

“So,” he murmured, trying to sound completely professional. “I’m going to start.”

You nodded.

His left hand rested gently against your side, two gloved fingers bracing the skin around the laceration with incredible care. The touch was featherlight, almost hesitant, as though he was afraid too much pressure would hurt you more than the injury already did.

His right hand lifted the needle holder.

The curved suture needle caught the harsh fluorescent light for the briefest moment before descending.

You felt the pressure immediately. A pulling sensation that made your stomach twist despite the lack of true pain.

He guided the needle through with astonishing precision, movements slow enough to minimize trauma to the surrounding tissue. His brow furrowed in concentration, lips pressed into a thin line as he tied the first knot with practiced fingers.

“…One,” he murmured almost unconsciously.

“What?”

“I…” He glanced up briefly, looking vaguely embarrassed. “Counting helps me maintain consistency. It also reduces procedural errors.”

He reached for the second stitch.

This one pulled more and the muscles in your abdomen tightened instinctively. Your jaw clenched so hard it ached. So without thinking, you bit down on the inside of your cheek again.

Spencer noticed before you even realized you’d done it.

“I wasn’t joking.”

You looked up.

“What?”

“My shoulder.”

He shifted a little closer until one side of his sweater was only inches from your face.

“If it helps…” His voice was almost apologetic. “Go ahead.”

Your eyebrows lifted.

“You are aware this is incredibly weird.”

“I’m aware.”

“And if anyone walked in right now—”

“They would almost certainly misinterpret the situation.”

Another stitch.

Another sharp pull.

The breath caught painfully in your throat.

Without thinking any longer, without giving yourself the chance to overanalyze just how ridiculous this entire situation had become, you leaned forward.

Your teeth closed over the thick wool covering his shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt. Just enough to keep yourself from making a sound.

Spencer went completely still because he clearly hadn’t expected you to actually do it.

You felt his entire body tense beneath the sweater before he relaxed again.

“Better?” he asked, his voice noticeably higher than usual.

You answered with a muffled, unintelligible noise against his shoulder.

“I’ll…interpret that as yes.”

He swallowed.

Then returned to the stitches.

Outside the bathroom, someone laughed somewhere down the hallway. A phone rang. A printer whirred to life. The precinct carried on exactly as it always did, blissfully unaware that one of the FBI’s youngest profilers was quietly stitching up a stubborn police detective while trying very hard not to acknowledge the fact that she was currently biting his shoulder.

Spencer focused on counting.

“Three…”

The thread tightened.

“…Four…”

Another neat knot.

His heartbeat, however, betrayed him completely.

Even through the layers of his sweater, you could feel it beneath your cheek, no longer keeping the measured, almost mathematical rhythm it had carried at the beginning of the procedure. It was faster now. Noticeably so. Not frantic, not frightened, just undeniably alive, each beat arriving a fraction sooner than the last as he focused on keeping his hands steady.

His heart, apparently, wasn't helping.

He tied the final knot with painstaking care, his gloved fingers lingering for a moment as he inspected the stitch before moving on. Then another. Then another. His hazel eyes followed the delicate line he’d painstakingly reconstructed, studying every millimeter with the same concentration he reserved for blood spatter patterns and crime scene photographs. He adjusted the angle of his head ever so slightly behind his glasses, checking the tension of the thread, the spacing between each stitch, the way the edges of your skin met without strain. Perfection had never been the goal, he knew medicine rarely allowed for perfection, but he wanted right. Safe. Clean. Something that would heal.

Only when he had convinced himself there was nothing left to correct did he reach for the small surgical scissors, trimming the final thread with a soft metallic snip.

“There,” Spencer said quietly, the word leaving him in a breath more than a sentence. Relief softened his features almost immediately, easing the tension that had lived between his brows ever since he’d found the blood soaking through your bandage. “That should hold.”

You slowly pulled away from his shoulder.

Only then did you notice the unmistakable imprint your teeth had left behind.

The thick brown wool had been pressed into a faint crescent where you’d held on through every careful stitch, the fibers flattened despite their best efforts to spring back into place. There was nothing dramatic about it, no torn fabric, no damage beyond a few stubborn creases, but it was enough. Quiet evidence that, for several long minutes, the only thing standing between you and the pain had been him.

Heat rushed instantly to your face.

“…Sorry.”

Spencer followed your gaze almost automatically. His eyes dropped to the shoulder of his sweater, and his gloved hand drifted up to smooth the wool with gentle, absent-minded strokes. He tried once. Then again. The crease refused to disappear, clinging stubbornly to the fabric as though it had decided it belonged there now.

His ears turned the softest shade of pink.

“It’s alright,” he replied after a brief pause, a little too quickly to sound entirely convincing. “I…was the one who suggested it.”

The words were true.

They were simply incomplete.

He didn’t mention that after the first startled second, after the instinctive tightening of his shoulders and the realization that you had actually taken his advice, he’d almost forgotten about it entirely. Not because the sensation had disappeared, but because it had quietly become part of the rhythm of what he was doing. Every time the needle passed through your skin, your grip had tightened almost imperceptibly. Every careful knot had been accompanied by the gentle pressure against his shoulder, warm through the thick layers of wool, steady enough that, somewhere between the third stitch and the last, he’d stopped registering it as unexpected.

It had become…reassuring.

A strange realization settled somewhere in the back of his mind, one he couldn’t quite explain.

He had expected the distraction to make his hands less steady.

Instead, it had done the opposite.

The warmth resting against him had anchored him with surprising ease, each quiet breath against his shoulder serving as a constant reminder that you were still there, still conscious, still trusting him to finish what he’d started. It should have made him nervous. It should have embarrassed him far more than it did.

Instead, it left behind an unfamiliar, almost pleasant ache in his chest that had absolutely nothing to do with medicine.

He didn’t know why.

And Spencer Reid had never been particularly comfortable with not knowing why.

His mind immediately attempted to supply an explanation. Perhaps it was simple positive reinforcement; the human brain often associated successful outcomes with the circumstances surrounding them. Perhaps it was relief, his subconscious attaching comfort to the moment he realized your injury wasn’t as catastrophic as he’d feared. Perhaps—

No.

The thoughts stopped there.

He recognized, with mild horror, that he was beginning to psychologically profile himself.

Again.

Deciding that was a dangerous road to travel, Spencer quietly abandoned the subject altogether.

Instead, he reached for the fresh bandage with almost exaggerated focus, grateful for something practical that required both his hands and all of his attention. He laid the sterile dressing carefully over the neat line of stitches before smoothing it into place with fingertips so gentle they barely disturbed your skin. Each strip of medical tape was pressed down with meticulous care, his thumb lingering just long enough to ensure every edge was secure.

“There,” he murmured, his voice so quiet it was almost swallowed by the distant hum of ringing telephones beyond the bathroom door.

He studied the fresh line of stitches one last time, eyes moving slowly from one end of the wound to the other, searching for the smallest imperfection. Only when he seemed genuinely satisfied did he smooth the clean bandage carefully into place, his fingertips lingering just long enough to make sure every edge was secure.

“That should heal nicely.” His hand hovered for another heartbeat, reluctant to leave, before retreating. Almost absentmindedly, his fingers brushed over the shoulder of his sweater again, finding the faint crease your teeth had left behind. He paused. This time, he didn’t try to smooth it away. “Just…don’t reopen it,” he said, returning to the familiar safety of practical instructions. “No running, no lifting anything heavy…and if it starts bleeding again, we’re going to the hospital.”

He stood first, gathering the discarded wrappers and slipping the last of the supplies back into the first-aid kit before offering you his hand without hesitation.

You accepted it, your fingers fitting into his almost automatically.

The movement pulled sharply at the fresh stitches, forcing a quiet wince from you as your balance faltered for the briefest instant.

Spencer reacted before either of you had time to think about it, his other hand settling lightly around your elbow to steady you with instinctive care. Neither of you acknowledged the gesture. You simply adjusted your jeans over the clean bandage while he straightened his tie, brushed invisible dust from the sleeves of his sweater, and—without realizing he was doing it—let his fingertips drift once more to the shoulder where your bite had left its stubborn mark. His thumb lingered there briefly before he lowered his hand as though nothing had happened.

The moment the bathroom door swung open, the quiet world the two of you had occupied dissolved into the familiar chaos of the precinct. The bullpen was alive with movement: telephones ringing incessantly, keyboards clattering beneath hurried hands, detectives weaving between desks with overfilled case files tucked beneath their arms, voices overlapping with dispatch calls and half-finished conversations. It felt strangely impossible that the world had continued uninterrupted while, only a few feet away, time had narrowed to antiseptic, careful hands, quiet breathing, and Spencer Reid counting stitches beneath his breath.

You walked out side by side in complete silence.

Close enough that your shoulders nearly brushed.

Far enough apart that no one would think twice.

To everyone watching, you looked exactly like two investigators returning from a routine search for a first-aid kit.

Neither of you dared acknowledge that the last twenty minutes had been anything but routine.

It might have worked.

It almost did.

“Kid?”

Morgan’s voice carried effortlessly across the room.

Both of you stopped.

He leaned casually against the edge of a desk, a paper cup of coffee balanced in one hand, already wearing the unmistakable grin of someone who had noticed something before anyone else. His eyes swept lazily over Spencer before narrowing with growing amusement. Then they landed on his friend's shoulder.

More specifically on Spencer’s hand.

Without realizing it, he’d let his fingertips drift back to the same spot again, absentmindedly smoothing over the faint wrinkle your teeth had left in the thick brown wool. He froze the instant he realized what he was doing, but it was already too late.

Morgan’s grin spread wider.

“Reid,” he called, pointing his coffee toward the shoulder. “The hell happened to your sweater?”

Spencer blinked.

His hand dropped immediately to his side.

A lot.

[girllblogging777]

i’m barking biting chewing on him like a toy you’re so talented

[certaimromance]

djnfcjfnj thank you, my love<3 i always get so excited whenever i see your comments

[certaimromance]

⊹ ࣪ ˖ My Heart's In Atrophy ─ Spencer Reid.

Working another case with the FBI was already unbearable. Getting hurt was worse. Letting Spencer Reid change the bandage on a wound far too high on your thigh? Absolutely humiliating. Especially when the pain leaves you with your forehead buried in his shoulder…and his sweater between your teeth.

୨ৎ ──── accidental intimacy. 4,7k. police officer!reader. biting ups. no medically accurate. two idiots rivals in love. english isn't my first language. main masterlist.

If someone had told you just a few hours ago that Spencer Reid—the Spencer Reid, the FBI agent with three PhDs, an eidetic memory, a vocabulary that could make a dictionary feel insecure, and the emotional composure of a confused Victorian gentleman who had accidentally wandered into the twenty-first century—would be kneeling on the filthy bathroom floor of your precinct with both hands buried in your personal belongings, you would have laughed so hard you probably would have needed medical attention yourself. Then, once you recovered, you would have arrested them for wasting police resources with such an obviously fabricated story, and you would have made absolutely certain they stayed in a holding cell long enough to reconsider the poor life choices that had led them to invent something so utterly ridiculous.

Spencer Reid rummaging through your bag? Spencer Reid voluntarily touching the floor of a public restroom? Spencer Reid invading your privacy without first presenting a carefully structured explanation complete with statistics, historical precedent, and at least three apologies?

Impossible. Entirely, categorically impossible.

Except it wasn’t.

It was, unfortunately, your current reality.

The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed with an irritating hum that seemed impossibly loud inside the cramped precinct bathroom, casting everything in that sickly pale light that made every bruise look darker, every stain look suspicious, and every person look like they hadn’t slept in days. The room smelled faintly of industrial disinfectant desperately trying to overpower the lingering scent of old plumbing and cheap hand soap. The white tiles beneath Spencer’s knees had long since stopped pretending to be clean, marked by years of scuff marks, scratches, and the kind of permanent discoloration that no amount of bleach could ever erase. You were almost certain he knew exactly how many different bacterial colonies were thriving beneath him at this very moment, and yet he hadn’t spared the floor so much as a second glance before dropping onto it the instant he realized you were hurt.

Which, frankly, was almost more alarming than the injury itself.

Your back rested against the cool tiled wall, one hand pressing instinctively against the side of your leg where a burning ache pulsed beneath the hastily wrapped bandage. Every heartbeat seemed to push another wave of warmth against the fabric, and you were making a very conscious effort not to think too hard about what that warmth probably meant. Looking at blood had never bothered you, not after years of police work, but there was something profoundly unsettling about seeing your own. It had a remarkable ability to make every injury feel twice as serious, every sting twice as sharp, every worst-case scenario suddenly seem embarrassingly plausible. So instead, you focused on Spencer.

Who was currently emptying the contents of your bag with the concentration of a man attempting to defuse a bomb.

Everything emerged with almost absurd care. Your notebook. Your wallet. A handful of pens you kept insisting worked better than department-issued ones. Lip balm. Painkillers. An absurd number of loose receipts you had promised yourself you would throw away weeks ago. A tiny packet of tissues. Spare hair ties. A granola bar that had probably expired sometime last month. Spencer examined each item with astonishing efficiency before placing it neatly beside him in organized little rows across the bathroom floor, as though your purse wasn’t the physical embodiment of controlled chaos. Somehow, against all laws of nature, he managed to make the contents of your bag look like evidence laid out at a crime scene.

“I still think we should go to a hospital,” he muttered, his voice quieter than usual, almost drowned out by the rustling of plastic packaging as he finally located the first-aid kit.

His fingers moved with practiced precision as he spread everything out in front of him—sterile gauze, antiseptic wipes, fresh bandages, medical tape, gloves—all arranged in perfect order before he even looked up at you. There wasn’t a single wasted movement.

“You know that’s not happening,” you replied, forcing far more confidence into your voice than you actually felt.

The words came out just a little tighter than intended, and you hated that he probably noticed.

He noticed everything.

He noticed when people blinked too often, when their breathing changed by half a second, when their pupils dilated, when they shifted their weight unevenly because something hurt. There was a reason he was one of the best profilers in the country, and unfortunately for you, you were currently giving him a front-row seat to every involuntary sign your body could produce.

His eyes lifted from the supplies to your face, and for a fleeting moment neither of you spoke. He didn’t need to. His expression alone carried enough quiet disapproval to rival an entire lecture. There wasn’t frustration there, nor irritation. Just concern. Deep concern that settled heavily behind his tired hazel eyes and made him look far younger than usual, as though worrying stripped away the layers of academic confidence until all that remained was Spencer, the man beneath the titles and degrees, who cared far too much for his own peace of mind.

“You need stitches,” he said after the silence had stretched almost painfully long, his voice gentle enough to avoid startling you but firm enough that it sounded less like an opinion and more like a diagnosis carved into stone. “And, statistically speaking, probably therapy after being attacked by a suspect who attempted to stab you during an arrest.”

“I need a clean bandage,” you answered immediately. “And silence.”

“You need stitches.”

“I need to close this case and have your entire team leave my city.”

The words escaped before you could stop them, delivered with the same automatic irritation that had colored nearly every conversation you’d shared since the BAU arrived four days ago. It wasn’t even personal anymore. It had become routine. You complained about federal agents meddling in local investigations; Morgan rolled his eyes; Garcia made some sarcastic comment over the phone; Hotch remained infuriatingly unreadable; and Spencer usually responded with a statistic that somehow made the argument even more irritating. Somewhere along the way, bickering with him had become as much a part of your day as your morning coffee.

“You are actively bleeding,” he replied, almost sounding tired now, as though he genuinely couldn’t comprehend how the conversation had somehow turned into another jurisdiction dispute while you were leaking blood onto the bathroom floor. He glanced briefly toward the stained bandage before pinching the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “I’m…honestly still trying to understand how this became the hill you’re willing to die on.”

You let out a slow breath through your nose, deliberately keeping your eyes fixed on the cracked mirror behind him instead of the steadily spreading crimson beneath your hand. Looking at the blood would make it real. If it became real, Spencer would notice. If Spencer noticed, he’d insist on taking you to the emergency room with the stubborn persistence only he seemed capable of. And if he started arguing again, you weren’t entirely convinced you still had enough strength left to keep arguing back.

“You’re a doctor, right?” you asked instead, forcing the corners of your mouth into something vaguely resembling a smile. It was a terrible attempt. Judging by the way his expression didn’t change even slightly, it fooled absolutely no one. “Just do it.”

He didn’t answer.

He simply looked at you.

“…Please,” you added after another long moment, your voice quieter now.

The word barely rose above a whisper.

Something changed.

It was subtle enough that anyone else would’ve missed it, but you saw it anyway. His eyes widened just slightly behind his glasses before softening in a way you’d never witnessed before. Because in all the years the two of you had spent circling each other with mutual irritation, sarcastic remarks, and endless arguments over federal jurisdiction, you had never once asked him for help like this. You tolerated him because you had to. You challenged every conclusion he made. You rolled your eyes every time he quoted statistics. You complained about the FBI planting themselves in investigations they barely understood.

To Spencer, your hometown wasn’t another case file. It was where you had grown up, where everyone knew your name, where every street corner held a memory. Of course you hated outsiders arriving with badges and assumptions. Of course you fought them. Maybe, standing there in the suffocating quiet of the bathroom, he finally realized that none of this had ever really been about him.

This wasn’t another argument over jurisdiction.

This wasn’t about pride.

This wasn’t about proving local police could solve cases without the BAU riding in to save the day.

This was simply him trying to help you.

The realization settled visibly across his face. The frustration dissolved first, followed by the determination to keep arguing until you gave in. What remained was reluctant acceptance, threaded together with concern so obvious it made your chest ache almost as much as the wound itself. He exhaled slowly, lowering his gaze for just a second before reaching for the gloves. The latex snapped softly against his wrists as he pulled them into place, the sharp sound startling in the otherwise quiet room.

“I don't like this plan,” he murmured, almost under his breath, more to himself than to you. He flexed his fingers once before meeting your eyes again, his expression resigned. “And…I’m not the kind of doctor you need.”

There was the faintest pause before he added, with the smallest, self-conscious shrug, “Technically, I have doctorates in mathematics, chemistry, and engineering. None of those are especially useful for closing stab wounds. Although…” His gaze flickered briefly toward the first-aid supplies. “I do know enough emergency medicine to keep you from making this significantly worse.”

You just nodded.

Spencer reached for one of the antiseptic packets, turning it over in his hands before tearing it open with careful movements. The sharp scent of alcohol immediately cut through the stale air of the bathroom, replacing the smell of industrial soap with something unmistakably clinical. He soaked a piece of sterile gauze, his expression growing almost apologetic as he glanced between the wound and your face. And, for a moment, he simply held the gauze there, suspended in his hand, as though delaying the inevitable by a few extra seconds might somehow lessen what was about to happen.

“This,” he said quietly, “is going to hurt.”

You huffed a dry laugh.

“I just…I don’t want you to think I’m being rough.” His voice dropped lower, almost embarrassed by the admission. “The antiseptic is necessary. The knife wasn’t sterile, the environment wasn’t sterile, and this bathroom certainly isn’t sterile.” His eyes flicked briefly toward the grimy tile beneath them before returning to you. “Preventing an infection is considerably easier than treating one.”

“I know.”

“It’ll burn.”

You rolled your eyes, though there wasn’t much strength behind the gesture anymore.

Spencer inhaled slowly, the gauze still poised in his hand.

“When you’re ready.”

You looked at the blood soaking through the ruined bandage, then at the antiseptic and then back at him and finally give him a nod.

He waited another second anyway.

The first touch wasn’t painful, it was cold. Just enough to trick your body into believing it might not be so bad. Then the antiseptic reached the open tissue and a sharp, vicious burn exploded across your side so suddenly that every muscle in your body locked at once.

“Oh, God—”

The curse broke off into a hiss as your hand instinctively searched for something, anything, to grab onto.

The nearest thing happened to be Spencer.

Your forehead bumped awkwardly against the center of his chest before you even realized what you were doing. One hand caught a fistful of the front of his sweater, wrinkling the soft knit beneath your fingers as you tried to breathe through the searing sting. You could hear his heartbeat immediately, muffled beneath layers of wool and cotton, much faster than you expected. Whether it was from kneeling on a dirty bathroom floor performing first aid or because you had suddenly buried your face against him, you couldn’t tell.

For one startled heartbeat, Spencer froze completely. His free hand hovered uncertainly in the air and you expected him to awkwardly pull away.

Instead, he stayed perfectly still.

“So…” he said carefully, his voice noticeably quieter now, “that reaction falls…within the expected range.”

“You talk…” You squeezed your eyes shut as another wave of burning rolled through the wound. “…way too much.”

The corner of his mouth lifted into the smallest smile before disappearing again as he concentrated on finishing disinfecting the injury. Every movement remained impossibly gentle, his hand steady despite the way you could feel yourself clutching the front of his sweater tighter every time the antiseptic stung.

When he finally pulled the gauze away, the burning gradually faded into a dull, throbbing ache.

“There,” he murmured. “That’s the worst part over.”

You let out a shaky breath against his chest.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

That actually earned him a tired laugh.

He waited until your breathing settled before reaching for the small sterile suture kit.

The moment your eyes landed on the curved needle, your stomach sank.

“No.”

His expression became apologetic all over again.

“You need the wound closed.”

“I’ll simply…heal.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“It could.”

“It biologically cannot.”

You groaned, letting your head fall back against the tiled wall.

“I liked you better thirty seconds ago.”

“I don’t think you liked me thirty seconds ago either.”

Spencer opened the sterile package with practiced care, arranging the needle holder and forceps beside him.

“I’ll inject a local anesthetic around the wound first,” he said. “It won’t remove every sensation, but it should significantly reduce the pain from the stitches.”

You nodded tensely.

The injections themselves stung, but nowhere near as badly as the antiseptic had. After waiting a short while for it to take effect, Spencer gently tested the area.

“Can you feel this?”

“Pressure.”

“And this?”

“Pressure.”

He gave a small nod.

“Good.”

Even dulled by the anesthetic, the sensation of the needle passing through your skin was deeply unpleasant, not sharp so much as strange, a tugging pull that made your whole body tense.

Your jaw clenched, and you pressed your tongue against your teeth, then bit down on the inside of your cheek to keep from making a sound.

Spencer noticed immediately and paused halfway through another stitch. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are actively biting the inside of your mouth.”

“It’s…distracting.”

“It can also injure the inside of your cheek.”

“It’s better than yelling at you.”

He looked at you for a thoughtful moment.

Then, with complete sincerity and absolutely no hint that he realized how intimate the suggestion sounded, he shifted a little closer.

“You could bite my shoulder.”

You stared at him.

“What?”

“My shoulder.” He pointed vaguely toward himself with the hand that wasn’t holding the needle holder.

“If you need something to redirect the pain response.” His ears were already beginning to turn pink. “People instinctively clench their jaw or bite down during acute pain. Having something external is generally safer than repeatedly biting your own cheek.”

“You want me to bite you.”

“I…yes.” He say quickly. “It’s…practical.”

“You are offering yourself as a chew toy.”

“When you phrase it like that, it sounds considerably less scientific.”

“It sounds insane.”

“There are studies suggesting that controlled pressure or biting can help some people cope with acute pain by competing with pain signals.” He cleared his throat, avoiding your eyes now. “Besides, sweaters are fairly thick.”

You looked at him and noticed how he wasn’t joking.

He was blushing furiously, avoiding eye contact, and offering his own shoulder with the same earnest seriousness he’d used to explain blood loss and infection.

“You don’t have to,” Spencer said after a few seconds, clearing his throat. “It was…merely a recommendation.”

You looked at the suture needle glinting beneath the fluorescent lights. Then, with the kind of resignation usually reserved for people accepting an unavoidable fate, you leaned forward.

“Fine.”

He blinked.

“Fine?”

“If I break your shoulder, that’s on you.”

“Your bite force is unlikely to fracture the clavicle.”

A tiny breath of laughter escaped you, though it quickly dissolved into a wince as you shifted closer.

The position was awkward.

The bathroom was far too small.

“So,” he murmured, trying to sound completely professional. “I’m going to start.”

You nodded.

His left hand rested gently against your side, two gloved fingers bracing the skin around the laceration with incredible care. The touch was featherlight, almost hesitant, as though he was afraid too much pressure would hurt you more than the injury already did.

His right hand lifted the needle holder.

The curved suture needle caught the harsh fluorescent light for the briefest moment before descending.

You felt the pressure immediately. A pulling sensation that made your stomach twist despite the lack of true pain.

He guided the needle through with astonishing precision, movements slow enough to minimize trauma to the surrounding tissue. His brow furrowed in concentration, lips pressed into a thin line as he tied the first knot with practiced fingers.

“…One,” he murmured almost unconsciously.

“What?”

“I…” He glanced up briefly, looking vaguely embarrassed. “Counting helps me maintain consistency. It also reduces procedural errors.”

He reached for the second stitch.

This one pulled more and the muscles in your abdomen tightened instinctively. Your jaw clenched so hard it ached. So without thinking, you bit down on the inside of your cheek again.

Spencer noticed before you even realized you’d done it.

“I wasn’t joking.”

You looked up.

“What?”

“My shoulder.”

He shifted a little closer until one side of his sweater was only inches from your face.

“If it helps…” His voice was almost apologetic. “Go ahead.”

Your eyebrows lifted.

“You are aware this is incredibly weird.”

“I’m aware.”

“And if anyone walked in right now—”

“They would almost certainly misinterpret the situation.”

Another stitch.

Another sharp pull.

The breath caught painfully in your throat.

Without thinking any longer, without giving yourself the chance to overanalyze just how ridiculous this entire situation had become, you leaned forward.

Your teeth closed over the thick wool covering his shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt. Just enough to keep yourself from making a sound.

Spencer went completely still because he clearly hadn’t expected you to actually do it.

You felt his entire body tense beneath the sweater before he relaxed again.

“Better?” he asked, his voice noticeably higher than usual.

You answered with a muffled, unintelligible noise against his shoulder.

“I’ll…interpret that as yes.”

He swallowed.

Then returned to the stitches.

Outside the bathroom, someone laughed somewhere down the hallway. A phone rang. A printer whirred to life. The precinct carried on exactly as it always did, blissfully unaware that one of the FBI’s youngest profilers was quietly stitching up a stubborn police detective while trying very hard not to acknowledge the fact that she was currently biting his shoulder.

Spencer focused on counting.

“Three…”

The thread tightened.

“…Four…”

Another neat knot.

His heartbeat, however, betrayed him completely.

Even through the layers of his sweater, you could feel it beneath your cheek, no longer keeping the measured, almost mathematical rhythm it had carried at the beginning of the procedure. It was faster now. Noticeably so. Not frantic, not frightened, just undeniably alive, each beat arriving a fraction sooner than the last as he focused on keeping his hands steady.

His heart, apparently, wasn't helping.

He tied the final knot with painstaking care, his gloved fingers lingering for a moment as he inspected the stitch before moving on. Then another. Then another. His hazel eyes followed the delicate line he’d painstakingly reconstructed, studying every millimeter with the same concentration he reserved for blood spatter patterns and crime scene photographs. He adjusted the angle of his head ever so slightly behind his glasses, checking the tension of the thread, the spacing between each stitch, the way the edges of your skin met without strain. Perfection had never been the goal, he knew medicine rarely allowed for perfection, but he wanted right. Safe. Clean. Something that would heal.

Only when he had convinced himself there was nothing left to correct did he reach for the small surgical scissors, trimming the final thread with a soft metallic snip.

“There,” Spencer said quietly, the word leaving him in a breath more than a sentence. Relief softened his features almost immediately, easing the tension that had lived between his brows ever since he’d found the blood soaking through your bandage. “That should hold.”

You slowly pulled away from his shoulder.

Only then did you notice the unmistakable imprint your teeth had left behind.

The thick brown wool had been pressed into a faint crescent where you’d held on through every careful stitch, the fibers flattened despite their best efforts to spring back into place. There was nothing dramatic about it, no torn fabric, no damage beyond a few stubborn creases, but it was enough. Quiet evidence that, for several long minutes, the only thing standing between you and the pain had been him.

Heat rushed instantly to your face.

“…Sorry.”

Spencer followed your gaze almost automatically. His eyes dropped to the shoulder of his sweater, and his gloved hand drifted up to smooth the wool with gentle, absent-minded strokes. He tried once. Then again. The crease refused to disappear, clinging stubbornly to the fabric as though it had decided it belonged there now.

His ears turned the softest shade of pink.

“It’s alright,” he replied after a brief pause, a little too quickly to sound entirely convincing. “I…was the one who suggested it.”

The words were true.

They were simply incomplete.

He didn’t mention that after the first startled second, after the instinctive tightening of his shoulders and the realization that you had actually taken his advice, he’d almost forgotten about it entirely. Not because the sensation had disappeared, but because it had quietly become part of the rhythm of what he was doing. Every time the needle passed through your skin, your grip had tightened almost imperceptibly. Every careful knot had been accompanied by the gentle pressure against his shoulder, warm through the thick layers of wool, steady enough that, somewhere between the third stitch and the last, he’d stopped registering it as unexpected.

It had become…reassuring.

A strange realization settled somewhere in the back of his mind, one he couldn’t quite explain.

He had expected the distraction to make his hands less steady.

Instead, it had done the opposite.

The warmth resting against him had anchored him with surprising ease, each quiet breath against his shoulder serving as a constant reminder that you were still there, still conscious, still trusting him to finish what he’d started. It should have made him nervous. It should have embarrassed him far more than it did.

Instead, it left behind an unfamiliar, almost pleasant ache in his chest that had absolutely nothing to do with medicine.

He didn’t know why.

And Spencer Reid had never been particularly comfortable with not knowing why.

His mind immediately attempted to supply an explanation. Perhaps it was simple positive reinforcement; the human brain often associated successful outcomes with the circumstances surrounding them. Perhaps it was relief, his subconscious attaching comfort to the moment he realized your injury wasn’t as catastrophic as he’d feared. Perhaps—

No.

The thoughts stopped there.

He recognized, with mild horror, that he was beginning to psychologically profile himself.

Again.

Deciding that was a dangerous road to travel, Spencer quietly abandoned the subject altogether.

Instead, he reached for the fresh bandage with almost exaggerated focus, grateful for something practical that required both his hands and all of his attention. He laid the sterile dressing carefully over the neat line of stitches before smoothing it into place with fingertips so gentle they barely disturbed your skin. Each strip of medical tape was pressed down with meticulous care, his thumb lingering just long enough to ensure every edge was secure.

“There,” he murmured, his voice so quiet it was almost swallowed by the distant hum of ringing telephones beyond the bathroom door.

He studied the fresh line of stitches one last time, eyes moving slowly from one end of the wound to the other, searching for the smallest imperfection. Only when he seemed genuinely satisfied did he smooth the clean bandage carefully into place, his fingertips lingering just long enough to make sure every edge was secure.

“That should heal nicely.” His hand hovered for another heartbeat, reluctant to leave, before retreating. Almost absentmindedly, his fingers brushed over the shoulder of his sweater again, finding the faint crease your teeth had left behind. He paused. This time, he didn’t try to smooth it away. “Just…don’t reopen it,” he said, returning to the familiar safety of practical instructions. “No running, no lifting anything heavy…and if it starts bleeding again, we’re going to the hospital.”

He stood first, gathering the discarded wrappers and slipping the last of the supplies back into the first-aid kit before offering you his hand without hesitation.

You accepted it, your fingers fitting into his almost automatically.

The movement pulled sharply at the fresh stitches, forcing a quiet wince from you as your balance faltered for the briefest instant.

Spencer reacted before either of you had time to think about it, his other hand settling lightly around your elbow to steady you with instinctive care. Neither of you acknowledged the gesture. You simply adjusted your jeans over the clean bandage while he straightened his tie, brushed invisible dust from the sleeves of his sweater, and—without realizing he was doing it—let his fingertips drift once more to the shoulder where your bite had left its stubborn mark. His thumb lingered there briefly before he lowered his hand as though nothing had happened.

The moment the bathroom door swung open, the quiet world the two of you had occupied dissolved into the familiar chaos of the precinct. The bullpen was alive with movement: telephones ringing incessantly, keyboards clattering beneath hurried hands, detectives weaving between desks with overfilled case files tucked beneath their arms, voices overlapping with dispatch calls and half-finished conversations. It felt strangely impossible that the world had continued uninterrupted while, only a few feet away, time had narrowed to antiseptic, careful hands, quiet breathing, and Spencer Reid counting stitches beneath his breath.

You walked out side by side in complete silence.

Close enough that your shoulders nearly brushed.

Far enough apart that no one would think twice.

To everyone watching, you looked exactly like two investigators returning from a routine search for a first-aid kit.

Neither of you dared acknowledge that the last twenty minutes had been anything but routine.

It might have worked.

It almost did.

“Kid?”

Morgan’s voice carried effortlessly across the room.

Both of you stopped.

He leaned casually against the edge of a desk, a paper cup of coffee balanced in one hand, already wearing the unmistakable grin of someone who had noticed something before anyone else. His eyes swept lazily over Spencer before narrowing with growing amusement. Then they landed on his friend's shoulder.

More specifically on Spencer’s hand.

Without realizing it, he’d let his fingertips drift back to the same spot again, absentmindedly smoothing over the faint wrinkle your teeth had left in the thick brown wool. He froze the instant he realized what he was doing, but it was already too late.

Morgan’s grin spread wider.

“Reid,” he called, pointing his coffee toward the shoulder. “The hell happened to your sweater?”

Spencer blinked.

His hand dropped immediately to his side.

A lot.

[certaimromance]

i put my whole heart into making this something worthy of being read while listening to hozier, and i really hope i managed to capture even a tiny bit of the magic his music has

btw, i’m emptying my drafts during my vacation, say thanks and give me love♥︎

[certaimromance]

⊹ ࣪ ˖ My Heart's In Atrophy ─ Spencer Reid.

Working another case with the FBI was already unbearable. Getting hurt was worse. Letting Spencer Reid change the bandage on a wound far too high on your thigh? Absolutely humiliating. Especially when the pain leaves you with your forehead buried in his shoulder…and his sweater between your teeth.

୨ৎ ──── accidental intimacy. 4,7k. police officer!reader. biting ups. no medically accurate. two idiots rivals in love. english isn't my first language. main masterlist.

If someone had told you just a few hours ago that Spencer Reid—the Spencer Reid, the FBI agent with three PhDs, an eidetic memory, a vocabulary that could make a dictionary feel insecure, and the emotional composure of a confused Victorian gentleman who had accidentally wandered into the twenty-first century—would be kneeling on the filthy bathroom floor of your precinct with both hands buried in your personal belongings, you would have laughed so hard you probably would have needed medical attention yourself. Then, once you recovered, you would have arrested them for wasting police resources with such an obviously fabricated story, and you would have made absolutely certain they stayed in a holding cell long enough to reconsider the poor life choices that had led them to invent something so utterly ridiculous.

Spencer Reid rummaging through your bag? Spencer Reid voluntarily touching the floor of a public restroom? Spencer Reid invading your privacy without first presenting a carefully structured explanation complete with statistics, historical precedent, and at least three apologies?

Impossible. Entirely, categorically impossible.

Except it wasn’t.

It was, unfortunately, your current reality.

The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed with an irritating hum that seemed impossibly loud inside the cramped precinct bathroom, casting everything in that sickly pale light that made every bruise look darker, every stain look suspicious, and every person look like they hadn’t slept in days. The room smelled faintly of industrial disinfectant desperately trying to overpower the lingering scent of old plumbing and cheap hand soap. The white tiles beneath Spencer’s knees had long since stopped pretending to be clean, marked by years of scuff marks, scratches, and the kind of permanent discoloration that no amount of bleach could ever erase. You were almost certain he knew exactly how many different bacterial colonies were thriving beneath him at this very moment, and yet he hadn’t spared the floor so much as a second glance before dropping onto it the instant he realized you were hurt.

Which, frankly, was almost more alarming than the injury itself.

Your back rested against the cool tiled wall, one hand pressing instinctively against the side of your leg where a burning ache pulsed beneath the hastily wrapped bandage. Every heartbeat seemed to push another wave of warmth against the fabric, and you were making a very conscious effort not to think too hard about what that warmth probably meant. Looking at blood had never bothered you, not after years of police work, but there was something profoundly unsettling about seeing your own. It had a remarkable ability to make every injury feel twice as serious, every sting twice as sharp, every worst-case scenario suddenly seem embarrassingly plausible. So instead, you focused on Spencer.

Who was currently emptying the contents of your bag with the concentration of a man attempting to defuse a bomb.

Everything emerged with almost absurd care. Your notebook. Your wallet. A handful of pens you kept insisting worked better than department-issued ones. Lip balm. Painkillers. An absurd number of loose receipts you had promised yourself you would throw away weeks ago. A tiny packet of tissues. Spare hair ties. A granola bar that had probably expired sometime last month. Spencer examined each item with astonishing efficiency before placing it neatly beside him in organized little rows across the bathroom floor, as though your purse wasn’t the physical embodiment of controlled chaos. Somehow, against all laws of nature, he managed to make the contents of your bag look like evidence laid out at a crime scene.

“I still think we should go to a hospital,” he muttered, his voice quieter than usual, almost drowned out by the rustling of plastic packaging as he finally located the first-aid kit.

His fingers moved with practiced precision as he spread everything out in front of him—sterile gauze, antiseptic wipes, fresh bandages, medical tape, gloves—all arranged in perfect order before he even looked up at you. There wasn’t a single wasted movement.

“You know that’s not happening,” you replied, forcing far more confidence into your voice than you actually felt.

The words came out just a little tighter than intended, and you hated that he probably noticed.

He noticed everything.

He noticed when people blinked too often, when their breathing changed by half a second, when their pupils dilated, when they shifted their weight unevenly because something hurt. There was a reason he was one of the best profilers in the country, and unfortunately for you, you were currently giving him a front-row seat to every involuntary sign your body could produce.

His eyes lifted from the supplies to your face, and for a fleeting moment neither of you spoke. He didn’t need to. His expression alone carried enough quiet disapproval to rival an entire lecture. There wasn’t frustration there, nor irritation. Just concern. Deep concern that settled heavily behind his tired hazel eyes and made him look far younger than usual, as though worrying stripped away the layers of academic confidence until all that remained was Spencer, the man beneath the titles and degrees, who cared far too much for his own peace of mind.

“You need stitches,” he said after the silence had stretched almost painfully long, his voice gentle enough to avoid startling you but firm enough that it sounded less like an opinion and more like a diagnosis carved into stone. “And, statistically speaking, probably therapy after being attacked by a suspect who attempted to stab you during an arrest.”

“I need a clean bandage,” you answered immediately. “And silence.”

“You need stitches.”

“I need to close this case and have your entire team leave my city.”

The words escaped before you could stop them, delivered with the same automatic irritation that had colored nearly every conversation you’d shared since the BAU arrived four days ago. It wasn’t even personal anymore. It had become routine. You complained about federal agents meddling in local investigations; Morgan rolled his eyes; Garcia made some sarcastic comment over the phone; Hotch remained infuriatingly unreadable; and Spencer usually responded with a statistic that somehow made the argument even more irritating. Somewhere along the way, bickering with him had become as much a part of your day as your morning coffee.

“You are actively bleeding,” he replied, almost sounding tired now, as though he genuinely couldn’t comprehend how the conversation had somehow turned into another jurisdiction dispute while you were leaking blood onto the bathroom floor. He glanced briefly toward the stained bandage before pinching the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “I’m…honestly still trying to understand how this became the hill you’re willing to die on.”

You let out a slow breath through your nose, deliberately keeping your eyes fixed on the cracked mirror behind him instead of the steadily spreading crimson beneath your hand. Looking at the blood would make it real. If it became real, Spencer would notice. If Spencer noticed, he’d insist on taking you to the emergency room with the stubborn persistence only he seemed capable of. And if he started arguing again, you weren’t entirely convinced you still had enough strength left to keep arguing back.

“You’re a doctor, right?” you asked instead, forcing the corners of your mouth into something vaguely resembling a smile. It was a terrible attempt. Judging by the way his expression didn’t change even slightly, it fooled absolutely no one. “Just do it.”

He didn’t answer.

He simply looked at you.

“…Please,” you added after another long moment, your voice quieter now.

The word barely rose above a whisper.

Something changed.

It was subtle enough that anyone else would’ve missed it, but you saw it anyway. His eyes widened just slightly behind his glasses before softening in a way you’d never witnessed before. Because in all the years the two of you had spent circling each other with mutual irritation, sarcastic remarks, and endless arguments over federal jurisdiction, you had never once asked him for help like this. You tolerated him because you had to. You challenged every conclusion he made. You rolled your eyes every time he quoted statistics. You complained about the FBI planting themselves in investigations they barely understood.

To Spencer, your hometown wasn’t another case file. It was where you had grown up, where everyone knew your name, where every street corner held a memory. Of course you hated outsiders arriving with badges and assumptions. Of course you fought them. Maybe, standing there in the suffocating quiet of the bathroom, he finally realized that none of this had ever really been about him.

This wasn’t another argument over jurisdiction.

This wasn’t about pride.

This wasn’t about proving local police could solve cases without the BAU riding in to save the day.

This was simply him trying to help you.

The realization settled visibly across his face. The frustration dissolved first, followed by the determination to keep arguing until you gave in. What remained was reluctant acceptance, threaded together with concern so obvious it made your chest ache almost as much as the wound itself. He exhaled slowly, lowering his gaze for just a second before reaching for the gloves. The latex snapped softly against his wrists as he pulled them into place, the sharp sound startling in the otherwise quiet room.

“I don't like this plan,” he murmured, almost under his breath, more to himself than to you. He flexed his fingers once before meeting your eyes again, his expression resigned. “And…I’m not the kind of doctor you need.”

There was the faintest pause before he added, with the smallest, self-conscious shrug, “Technically, I have doctorates in mathematics, chemistry, and engineering. None of those are especially useful for closing stab wounds. Although…” His gaze flickered briefly toward the first-aid supplies. “I do know enough emergency medicine to keep you from making this significantly worse.”

You just nodded.

Spencer reached for one of the antiseptic packets, turning it over in his hands before tearing it open with careful movements. The sharp scent of alcohol immediately cut through the stale air of the bathroom, replacing the smell of industrial soap with something unmistakably clinical. He soaked a piece of sterile gauze, his expression growing almost apologetic as he glanced between the wound and your face. And, for a moment, he simply held the gauze there, suspended in his hand, as though delaying the inevitable by a few extra seconds might somehow lessen what was about to happen.

“This,” he said quietly, “is going to hurt.”

You huffed a dry laugh.

“I just…I don’t want you to think I’m being rough.” His voice dropped lower, almost embarrassed by the admission. “The antiseptic is necessary. The knife wasn’t sterile, the environment wasn’t sterile, and this bathroom certainly isn’t sterile.” His eyes flicked briefly toward the grimy tile beneath them before returning to you. “Preventing an infection is considerably easier than treating one.”

“I know.”

“It’ll burn.”

You rolled your eyes, though there wasn’t much strength behind the gesture anymore.

Spencer inhaled slowly, the gauze still poised in his hand.

“When you’re ready.”

You looked at the blood soaking through the ruined bandage, then at the antiseptic and then back at him and finally give him a nod.

He waited another second anyway.

The first touch wasn’t painful, it was cold. Just enough to trick your body into believing it might not be so bad. Then the antiseptic reached the open tissue and a sharp, vicious burn exploded across your side so suddenly that every muscle in your body locked at once.

“Oh, God—”

The curse broke off into a hiss as your hand instinctively searched for something, anything, to grab onto.

The nearest thing happened to be Spencer.

Your forehead bumped awkwardly against the center of his chest before you even realized what you were doing. One hand caught a fistful of the front of his sweater, wrinkling the soft knit beneath your fingers as you tried to breathe through the searing sting. You could hear his heartbeat immediately, muffled beneath layers of wool and cotton, much faster than you expected. Whether it was from kneeling on a dirty bathroom floor performing first aid or because you had suddenly buried your face against him, you couldn’t tell.

For one startled heartbeat, Spencer froze completely. His free hand hovered uncertainly in the air and you expected him to awkwardly pull away.

Instead, he stayed perfectly still.

“So…” he said carefully, his voice noticeably quieter now, “that reaction falls…within the expected range.”

“You talk…” You squeezed your eyes shut as another wave of burning rolled through the wound. “…way too much.”

The corner of his mouth lifted into the smallest smile before disappearing again as he concentrated on finishing disinfecting the injury. Every movement remained impossibly gentle, his hand steady despite the way you could feel yourself clutching the front of his sweater tighter every time the antiseptic stung.

When he finally pulled the gauze away, the burning gradually faded into a dull, throbbing ache.

“There,” he murmured. “That’s the worst part over.”

You let out a shaky breath against his chest.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

That actually earned him a tired laugh.

He waited until your breathing settled before reaching for the small sterile suture kit.

The moment your eyes landed on the curved needle, your stomach sank.

“No.”

His expression became apologetic all over again.

“You need the wound closed.”

“I’ll simply…heal.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“It could.”

“It biologically cannot.”

You groaned, letting your head fall back against the tiled wall.

“I liked you better thirty seconds ago.”

“I don’t think you liked me thirty seconds ago either.”

Spencer opened the sterile package with practiced care, arranging the needle holder and forceps beside him.

“I’ll inject a local anesthetic around the wound first,” he said. “It won’t remove every sensation, but it should significantly reduce the pain from the stitches.”

You nodded tensely.

The injections themselves stung, but nowhere near as badly as the antiseptic had. After waiting a short while for it to take effect, Spencer gently tested the area.

“Can you feel this?”

“Pressure.”

“And this?”

“Pressure.”

He gave a small nod.

“Good.”

Even dulled by the anesthetic, the sensation of the needle passing through your skin was deeply unpleasant, not sharp so much as strange, a tugging pull that made your whole body tense.

Your jaw clenched, and you pressed your tongue against your teeth, then bit down on the inside of your cheek to keep from making a sound.

Spencer noticed immediately and paused halfway through another stitch. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are actively biting the inside of your mouth.”

“It’s…distracting.”

“It can also injure the inside of your cheek.”

“It’s better than yelling at you.”

He looked at you for a thoughtful moment.

Then, with complete sincerity and absolutely no hint that he realized how intimate the suggestion sounded, he shifted a little closer.

“You could bite my shoulder.”

You stared at him.

“What?”

“My shoulder.” He pointed vaguely toward himself with the hand that wasn’t holding the needle holder.

“If you need something to redirect the pain response.” His ears were already beginning to turn pink. “People instinctively clench their jaw or bite down during acute pain. Having something external is generally safer than repeatedly biting your own cheek.”

“You want me to bite you.”

“I…yes.” He say quickly. “It’s…practical.”

“You are offering yourself as a chew toy.”

“When you phrase it like that, it sounds considerably less scientific.”

“It sounds insane.”

“There are studies suggesting that controlled pressure or biting can help some people cope with acute pain by competing with pain signals.” He cleared his throat, avoiding your eyes now. “Besides, sweaters are fairly thick.”

You looked at him and noticed how he wasn’t joking.

He was blushing furiously, avoiding eye contact, and offering his own shoulder with the same earnest seriousness he’d used to explain blood loss and infection.

“You don’t have to,” Spencer said after a few seconds, clearing his throat. “It was…merely a recommendation.”

You looked at the suture needle glinting beneath the fluorescent lights. Then, with the kind of resignation usually reserved for people accepting an unavoidable fate, you leaned forward.

“Fine.”

He blinked.

“Fine?”

“If I break your shoulder, that’s on you.”

“Your bite force is unlikely to fracture the clavicle.”

A tiny breath of laughter escaped you, though it quickly dissolved into a wince as you shifted closer.

The position was awkward.

The bathroom was far too small.

“So,” he murmured, trying to sound completely professional. “I’m going to start.”

You nodded.

His left hand rested gently against your side, two gloved fingers bracing the skin around the laceration with incredible care. The touch was featherlight, almost hesitant, as though he was afraid too much pressure would hurt you more than the injury already did.

His right hand lifted the needle holder.

The curved suture needle caught the harsh fluorescent light for the briefest moment before descending.

You felt the pressure immediately. A pulling sensation that made your stomach twist despite the lack of true pain.

He guided the needle through with astonishing precision, movements slow enough to minimize trauma to the surrounding tissue. His brow furrowed in concentration, lips pressed into a thin line as he tied the first knot with practiced fingers.

“…One,” he murmured almost unconsciously.

“What?”

“I…” He glanced up briefly, looking vaguely embarrassed. “Counting helps me maintain consistency. It also reduces procedural errors.”

He reached for the second stitch.

This one pulled more and the muscles in your abdomen tightened instinctively. Your jaw clenched so hard it ached. So without thinking, you bit down on the inside of your cheek again.

Spencer noticed before you even realized you’d done it.

“I wasn’t joking.”

You looked up.

“What?”

“My shoulder.”

He shifted a little closer until one side of his sweater was only inches from your face.

“If it helps…” His voice was almost apologetic. “Go ahead.”

Your eyebrows lifted.

“You are aware this is incredibly weird.”

“I’m aware.”

“And if anyone walked in right now—”

“They would almost certainly misinterpret the situation.”

Another stitch.

Another sharp pull.

The breath caught painfully in your throat.

Without thinking any longer, without giving yourself the chance to overanalyze just how ridiculous this entire situation had become, you leaned forward.

Your teeth closed over the thick wool covering his shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt. Just enough to keep yourself from making a sound.

Spencer went completely still because he clearly hadn’t expected you to actually do it.

You felt his entire body tense beneath the sweater before he relaxed again.

“Better?” he asked, his voice noticeably higher than usual.

You answered with a muffled, unintelligible noise against his shoulder.

“I’ll…interpret that as yes.”

He swallowed.

Then returned to the stitches.

Outside the bathroom, someone laughed somewhere down the hallway. A phone rang. A printer whirred to life. The precinct carried on exactly as it always did, blissfully unaware that one of the FBI’s youngest profilers was quietly stitching up a stubborn police detective while trying very hard not to acknowledge the fact that she was currently biting his shoulder.

Spencer focused on counting.

“Three…”

The thread tightened.

“…Four…”

Another neat knot.

His heartbeat, however, betrayed him completely.

Even through the layers of his sweater, you could feel it beneath your cheek, no longer keeping the measured, almost mathematical rhythm it had carried at the beginning of the procedure. It was faster now. Noticeably so. Not frantic, not frightened, just undeniably alive, each beat arriving a fraction sooner than the last as he focused on keeping his hands steady.

His heart, apparently, wasn't helping.

He tied the final knot with painstaking care, his gloved fingers lingering for a moment as he inspected the stitch before moving on. Then another. Then another. His hazel eyes followed the delicate line he’d painstakingly reconstructed, studying every millimeter with the same concentration he reserved for blood spatter patterns and crime scene photographs. He adjusted the angle of his head ever so slightly behind his glasses, checking the tension of the thread, the spacing between each stitch, the way the edges of your skin met without strain. Perfection had never been the goal, he knew medicine rarely allowed for perfection, but he wanted right. Safe. Clean. Something that would heal.

Only when he had convinced himself there was nothing left to correct did he reach for the small surgical scissors, trimming the final thread with a soft metallic snip.

“There,” Spencer said quietly, the word leaving him in a breath more than a sentence. Relief softened his features almost immediately, easing the tension that had lived between his brows ever since he’d found the blood soaking through your bandage. “That should hold.”

You slowly pulled away from his shoulder.

Only then did you notice the unmistakable imprint your teeth had left behind.

The thick brown wool had been pressed into a faint crescent where you’d held on through every careful stitch, the fibers flattened despite their best efforts to spring back into place. There was nothing dramatic about it, no torn fabric, no damage beyond a few stubborn creases, but it was enough. Quiet evidence that, for several long minutes, the only thing standing between you and the pain had been him.

Heat rushed instantly to your face.

“…Sorry.”

Spencer followed your gaze almost automatically. His eyes dropped to the shoulder of his sweater, and his gloved hand drifted up to smooth the wool with gentle, absent-minded strokes. He tried once. Then again. The crease refused to disappear, clinging stubbornly to the fabric as though it had decided it belonged there now.

His ears turned the softest shade of pink.

“It’s alright,” he replied after a brief pause, a little too quickly to sound entirely convincing. “I…was the one who suggested it.”

The words were true.

They were simply incomplete.

He didn’t mention that after the first startled second, after the instinctive tightening of his shoulders and the realization that you had actually taken his advice, he’d almost forgotten about it entirely. Not because the sensation had disappeared, but because it had quietly become part of the rhythm of what he was doing. Every time the needle passed through your skin, your grip had tightened almost imperceptibly. Every careful knot had been accompanied by the gentle pressure against his shoulder, warm through the thick layers of wool, steady enough that, somewhere between the third stitch and the last, he’d stopped registering it as unexpected.

It had become…reassuring.

A strange realization settled somewhere in the back of his mind, one he couldn’t quite explain.

He had expected the distraction to make his hands less steady.

Instead, it had done the opposite.

The warmth resting against him had anchored him with surprising ease, each quiet breath against his shoulder serving as a constant reminder that you were still there, still conscious, still trusting him to finish what he’d started. It should have made him nervous. It should have embarrassed him far more than it did.

Instead, it left behind an unfamiliar, almost pleasant ache in his chest that had absolutely nothing to do with medicine.

He didn’t know why.

And Spencer Reid had never been particularly comfortable with not knowing why.

His mind immediately attempted to supply an explanation. Perhaps it was simple positive reinforcement; the human brain often associated successful outcomes with the circumstances surrounding them. Perhaps it was relief, his subconscious attaching comfort to the moment he realized your injury wasn’t as catastrophic as he’d feared. Perhaps—

No.

The thoughts stopped there.

He recognized, with mild horror, that he was beginning to psychologically profile himself.

Again.

Deciding that was a dangerous road to travel, Spencer quietly abandoned the subject altogether.

Instead, he reached for the fresh bandage with almost exaggerated focus, grateful for something practical that required both his hands and all of his attention. He laid the sterile dressing carefully over the neat line of stitches before smoothing it into place with fingertips so gentle they barely disturbed your skin. Each strip of medical tape was pressed down with meticulous care, his thumb lingering just long enough to ensure every edge was secure.

“There,” he murmured, his voice so quiet it was almost swallowed by the distant hum of ringing telephones beyond the bathroom door.

He studied the fresh line of stitches one last time, eyes moving slowly from one end of the wound to the other, searching for the smallest imperfection. Only when he seemed genuinely satisfied did he smooth the clean bandage carefully into place, his fingertips lingering just long enough to make sure every edge was secure.

“That should heal nicely.” His hand hovered for another heartbeat, reluctant to leave, before retreating. Almost absentmindedly, his fingers brushed over the shoulder of his sweater again, finding the faint crease your teeth had left behind. He paused. This time, he didn’t try to smooth it away. “Just…don’t reopen it,” he said, returning to the familiar safety of practical instructions. “No running, no lifting anything heavy…and if it starts bleeding again, we’re going to the hospital.”

He stood first, gathering the discarded wrappers and slipping the last of the supplies back into the first-aid kit before offering you his hand without hesitation.

You accepted it, your fingers fitting into his almost automatically.

The movement pulled sharply at the fresh stitches, forcing a quiet wince from you as your balance faltered for the briefest instant.

Spencer reacted before either of you had time to think about it, his other hand settling lightly around your elbow to steady you with instinctive care. Neither of you acknowledged the gesture. You simply adjusted your jeans over the clean bandage while he straightened his tie, brushed invisible dust from the sleeves of his sweater, and—without realizing he was doing it—let his fingertips drift once more to the shoulder where your bite had left its stubborn mark. His thumb lingered there briefly before he lowered his hand as though nothing had happened.

The moment the bathroom door swung open, the quiet world the two of you had occupied dissolved into the familiar chaos of the precinct. The bullpen was alive with movement: telephones ringing incessantly, keyboards clattering beneath hurried hands, detectives weaving between desks with overfilled case files tucked beneath their arms, voices overlapping with dispatch calls and half-finished conversations. It felt strangely impossible that the world had continued uninterrupted while, only a few feet away, time had narrowed to antiseptic, careful hands, quiet breathing, and Spencer Reid counting stitches beneath his breath.

You walked out side by side in complete silence.

Close enough that your shoulders nearly brushed.

Far enough apart that no one would think twice.

To everyone watching, you looked exactly like two investigators returning from a routine search for a first-aid kit.

Neither of you dared acknowledge that the last twenty minutes had been anything but routine.

It might have worked.

It almost did.

“Kid?”

Morgan’s voice carried effortlessly across the room.

Both of you stopped.

He leaned casually against the edge of a desk, a paper cup of coffee balanced in one hand, already wearing the unmistakable grin of someone who had noticed something before anyone else. His eyes swept lazily over Spencer before narrowing with growing amusement. Then they landed on his friend's shoulder.

More specifically on Spencer’s hand.

Without realizing it, he’d let his fingertips drift back to the same spot again, absentmindedly smoothing over the faint wrinkle your teeth had left in the thick brown wool. He froze the instant he realized what he was doing, but it was already too late.

Morgan’s grin spread wider.

“Reid,” he called, pointing his coffee toward the shoulder. “The hell happened to your sweater?”

Spencer blinked.

His hand dropped immediately to his side.

A lot.

[certaimromance]

just finished my last exam of the semester!!! i’m officially free

now i’m all yours<3 send me requests, recommend me books, movies, and series, tell me about your current obsessions, or just come talk to me about absolutely anything. i’ve missed being here without feeling guilty sooo much♡

[certaimromance]

do u have any advice for new writers?

hi!<3 i shared some writing tips a while ago here, but i think the most important one i can give now is: always write because you want to, and write the way you want to

when i started posting, i was honestly so scared of you all😭 i was coming from a lifetime of writing on wattpad in spanish, and suddenly i was writing in english for strangers. i was so restrictive with myself because i was terrified of being boring, making too many grammatical mistakes, or just not being good enough. please, never do that to yourself. people here are so kind most of the time, especially when you’re sharing free content about a character we all love<3

but now i genuinely think there’s nothing better than having your own writing style. you don’t have to write like someone else just because their posts get lots of notes:p we’re writing fanfiction! be weird, be intense, be dramatic, be dirty, be cruel. spend an entire paragraph inside a character’s head. describe the sky for half a page if that’s what your story needs. write the kind of fic you would stay up until 3 a.m. reading

and again, if you have any specific questions and i can help somehow, just tell me!<3 i’m always happy to help

[certaimromance]

⊹ ࣪ ˖ Positive in Love & Wine ─ Spencer Reid.

Hiding your pregnancy is getting harder and harder, especially when you agree to go to a dinner party and Spencer has to drink every glass of your wine to keep the secret.

୨ৎ ──── fluff. 5,4k. fem!reader. drunk reid. english isn't my first language. main masterlist.

David Rossi loved hosting dinners.

Not because he particularly enjoyed cooking—though he’d spend the entire evening pretending he did, shooing away anyone who wandered too close to the stove with the indignation of a Michelin-star chef—but because dinner was one of the rare occasions when the people he cared about gathered for reasons that had nothing to do with bloodstained crime scenes or the worst humanity had to offer. Around his dining table, they weren’t profilers or agents or supervisors carrying the weight of impossible decisions. They were simply friends. They laughed a little louder, lingered a little longer over dessert, argued about books instead of behavioral patterns, and, for a few precious hours, remembered what life looked like outside the Bureau.

At least for the first twenty minutes.

After that, someone inevitably mentioned a case.

“You realize,” Morgan announced as he reached across the kitchen island and shamelessly stole a piece of warm bread straight from the basket, “this is exactly how horror movies start.”

Rossi didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder. He merely stirred the sauce with practiced ease, entirely unfazed by the theft.

“The difference,” he replied smoothly, “is that my guests survive dessert.”

Morgan laughed, surrendering with an exaggerated nod before tearing into the bread anyway.

The house was already alive with familiar voices.

Soft jazz drifted through hidden speakers, blending with the rhythmic clatter of pots and the comforting aroma of garlic, rosemary, simmering tomatoes, and freshly baked bread. Warm light spilled from antique lamps, reflecting against framed photographs and shelves lined with decades of books and souvenirs collected from places Rossi rarely spoke about. Every room carried that unmistakable feeling of having been lived in, a home that had witnessed countless celebrations, quiet conversations over late-night whiskey, and the occasional impromptu team meeting when cases refused to stay at Quantico.

Emily wandered into the kitchen, accepting a glass of wine from Rossi before immediately rolling her eyes at something Morgan said.

Garcia was already circling the living room in complete admiration, pausing every few steps to gush over a painting, a sculpture, or an antique clock.

“Oh my God, Rossi,” she gasped dramatically, “this lamp is gorgeous. It’s giving wealthy Italian novelist who solves crimes in his free time.”

“It was just a lamp until you said that.”

JJ slipped toward the patio with Henry balanced comfortably on her hip, the little boy already fascinated by the garden lights beginning to glow outside. Will followed behind carrying an impressive collection of toys that looked capable of entertaining an entire daycare, smiling patiently as Henry reached for everything except the toys he’d brought.

Hotch, unsurprisingly, had arrived exactly on time.

Not a minute early. Not a minute late.

His jacket was already neatly folded over the back of a chair, a glass of sparkling water in one hand as he quietly observed the controlled chaos with the smallest hint of amusement softening his usually unreadable expression.

And, of course, Spencer’s attention had been on you from the moment the two of you stepped through Rossi’s front door.

Before anyone could greet you, Spencer was already helping you out of your coat with the quiet attentiveness that had become second nature over the past several weeks. His hands were careful as he eased the fabric from your shoulders, lingering for just a heartbeat as if making sure you were steady before draping both your coat and his neatly over the rack by the entrance. It was such a small gesture that no one else would have noticed it.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, leaning close enough that only you could hear him beneath the lively chatter filling the room.

You offered him a reassuring smile, hoping it looked more convincing than it felt.

“Perfect.”

The word came automatically, polished by repetition until it sounded almost believable. You’d said it to your mother over the phone earlier that week. To your coworkers when they’d commented on how pale you’d been looking lately. To the cashier who had apologized after you’d abruptly abandoned a shopping cart halfway through the supermarket because someone nearby had opened a container of tuna. You were becoming remarkably good at pretending everything was normal.

Spencer, however, had never been particularly easy to fool.

His honey-colored eyes lingered on your face for another moment, quietly studying you with the same careful concentration he reserved for unsolved cases and impossible puzzles. He noticed everything: the faint shadows beneath your eyes despite the makeup you’d carefully applied that afternoon, the way your smile didn’t quite reach them, the almost invisible hesitation before you shifted your weight from one foot to the other. For a second, you watched concern flicker across his expression, followed by the unmistakable impulse to suggest going home instead. You knew him well enough to see the thought forming before he gently pushed it aside. You had insisted you wanted to come. You’d been looking forward to seeing everyone. If he asked again, you’d only reassure him again.

So instead, he simply intertwined his fingers with yours for the briefest moment and gave your hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it, silently reminding you that if you needed to leave, even five minutes after arriving, you only had to say the word.

Because the truth was…you hadn’t exactly been perfect lately.

For nearly eleven weeks, your body had seemed determined to reinvent itself overnight, transforming familiar routines into unpredictable obstacles and ordinary sensations into impossible challenges. Pregnancy wasn’t anything like the books had described. It wasn’t the glowing skin and sentimental smiles people loved talking about. At least, not yet. Right now, it was exhaustion so profound it settled into your bones no matter how much you slept. It was waking up starving only to burst into tears because the toast you’d been craving suddenly smelled unbearable. It was dizziness when you stood too quickly, headaches that appeared without warning, and emotions that shifted so rapidly they often left you laughing one moment and crying the next.

And the smells were by far the worst.

It was as though someone had turned every scent in the world up to an impossible volume.

Coffee, the rich aroma you’d once relied on every morning, now seemed so overwhelmingly bitter it made your stomach twist before you even entered the kitchen.

Garlic lingered in the air like smoke.

Perfume clung to strangers in grocery stores so intensely that you found yourself instinctively holding your breath as they walked past.

Gasoline from passing cars seeped through open windows with startling force.

Fresh paint, cleaning products, scented candles, everything had become an enemy.

Even the earthy fragrance of Spencer’s favorite loose-leaf tea, a scent that had always reminded you of rainy afternoons spent reading together on the couch, had betrayed you. One quiet Saturday morning, he’d barely begun pouring the boiling water over the tea leaves before your stomach lurched violently. You hadn’t even managed to explain what was wrong. You’d simply clamped a hand over your mouth and hurried toward the bathroom, leaving Spencer frozen in confusion beside the kettle.

When he’d found you a few minutes later, you were sitting on the cool tile floor with your knees pulled to your chest, wrapped in one of his oversized cardigans because you hadn’t had the energy to put on your own sweater after climbing out of bed. Your eyes were watery, your face pale with exhaustion, and the half-steeped tea sat forgotten in the kitchen.

He’d knelt beside you immediately, rubbing slow circles against your back until your breathing steadied.

“I think,” he’d said carefully, as though presenting a well-researched hypothesis, “we should buy different tea.”

The absurd sincerity of the suggestion had broken something inside you.

You’d laughed, the kind that left tears streaming down your face and your stomach aching until Spencer began smiling too, still entirely unsure what had been so funny.

An hour later, you’d taken the pregnancy test.

You remembered sitting together on the edge of the bathtub, your shoulders pressed together so tightly they might as well have been one person, both pretending not to stare at the little plastic stick resting on the counter. Spencer’s knee bounced nervously the entire time, though he’d deny it if anyone ever asked. When the result finally appeared, neither of you moved.

Positive.

You’d looked at him, and he’d looked at you.

For a long moment, there had simply been silence, stunned, breathless silence, as though neither of you trusted your own eyes enough to speak first.

Then Spencer had whispered, almost reverently,

“We’re having a baby.”

The memory still settled warmly inside your chest every time you thought about it.

Only the two of you knew.

No one else.

Not the team, your parents, or his mother.

No one.

It wasn’t because you weren’t excited.

God, you had never loved someone you’d never met quite so fiercely. And you had never been so afraid.

At night, when the apartment had gone quiet and Quantico seemed impossibly far away, the two of you often found yourselves lying awake long after the lights were off, talking in hushed voices about a future that suddenly felt both unimaginably distant and frighteningly close. Spencer wondered aloud whether babies recognized music before they were born and whether reading aloud during pregnancy had any measurable effect on language development. You debated names neither of you was ready to admit you genuinely liked. You imagined tiny knitted sweaters, impossibly small socks, sleepy mornings, first birthdays, scraped knees, school concerts, and the possibility—one that made you laugh every single time—that Spencer might accidentally teach your future toddler quantum mechanics before the alphabet.

Other nights, words simply weren’t necessary.

You would lie tangled together beneath the blankets, your head resting against his shoulder while he absentmindedly traced slow circles over your arm. Eventually, almost without thinking, his hand would drift lower, settling with extraordinary care against your abdomen. There was hardly anything to feel yet. At eleven weeks, your stomach remained almost perfectly flat, your dresses fitting exactly as they always had. If someone didn’t know, they would never have guessed. But Spencer touched you as though the slightest movement might disturb the tiny life growing there, his palm resting so gently against you that it sometimes made your chest ache. He would smile into the darkness with an expression so impossibly soft it stole your breath every single time, as though he could already sense the little heartbeat hidden beneath his fingertips. Sometimes he whispered things you weren’t sure he realized he was saying: little observations about fetal development he’d memorized from medical journals, promises about museums he’d one day visit with your child, absentminded thoughts about buying children’s editions of classic literature. Other times, he simply stayed there, smiling quietly, overwhelmed by the astonishing reality that someone already existed. Someone who belonged entirely to the two of you.

Every ultrasound photograph had become a treasure.

The first one lived inside an ivory envelope that had already begun to soften at the edges because neither of you could stop taking it out to look at it. Realistically, there wasn’t very much to see. To anyone else, it was little more than a grainy black-and-white blur surrounded by indecipherable shadows and medical measurements. Yet the two of you had spent embarrassing amounts of time staring at it as though it were the most extraordinary piece of art ever created. Spencer, naturally, had analyzed it with the same enthusiasm he brought to everything else.

Of course, once the initial excitement had settled, he had immediately begun worrying about where to keep the photographs.

Not because he thought someone was going to steal them.

Because he wanted them safe.

You still remembered finding him standing in front of his bookshelf one afternoon, head tilted thoughtfully as though he were solving one of the Bureau’s most complicated cases. He had scanned hundreds of titles before finally pulling out one of the thickest mathematics textbooks you had ever seen.

“They’re going inside my copy of Differential Geometry,” he’d declared with complete confidence while carefully sliding the envelope between two chapters.

You had stared at him, blinking in complete confusion.

“…Why that one?”

Without so much as lifting his eyes from the pages, he’d answered with absolute certainty.

“Statistically speaking, no one voluntarily opens my copy of Differential Geometry.”

You had laughed so hard your stomach hurt.

Weeks later, the ultrasound photographs remained exactly where he’d hidden them, tucked safely between chapters discussing curved manifolds and tensor fields, untouched by anyone except the two of you. Every now and then, usually late at night, Spencer would quietly retrieve the envelope before climbing into bed beside you, and together you’d study the tiny image all over again, smiling as though seeing it for the very first time.

You weren’t keeping the pregnancy a secret because you were ashamed.

If anything, the secret had become almost impossible to contain.

You loved this baby already with a depth that surprised you daily. Sometimes you caught yourself resting your hand absentmindedly against your stomach while reading on the couch or waiting in line for coffee you could no longer stomach. Sometimes Spencer would catch your eye from across the apartment, and without either of you saying a single word, you’d both smile, remembering the extraordinary little secret that existed only between you. It felt like carrying a universe inside your chest, one that threatened to spill into every conversation, every laugh, every quiet glance exchanged across a room.

But eleven weeks still felt fragile.

Delicate.

As though happiness itself had become something you were afraid to hold too tightly.

You knew the statistics.

So did Spencer...perhaps better than anyone.

The first trimester carried uncertainties neither of you could ignore, no matter how desperately you wanted to celebrate. So you had made a quiet promise together. Just a little longer. One more week. Maybe two. Long enough for the fear to loosen its grip. Long enough for the joy to feel louder than the anxiety. Then you’d tell everyone. Properly. Surrounded by the people who loved you most.

Which was exactly why tonight needed to remain wonderfully, blissfully ordinary.

Smile.

Compliment Rossi’s cooking.

Laugh at Morgan’s increasingly terrible jokes.

Listen to Garcia declare herself emotionally attached to another one of Rossi’s antique decorations.

Eat dinner.

Go home.

And above all else, pretend that beneath the soft fabric of your dress, your entire world wasn’t quietly growing one tiny heartbeat at a time.

***

For the first few minutes, everything went exactly according to plan.

The conversation flowed effortlessly around the table, moving from travel stories to teasing remarks about Rossi’s inability to let anyone else near his kitchen. The warm glow of candlelight reflected against crystal glasses, silverware clinked softly against porcelain plates, and the rich aroma of roasted vegetables, fresh herbs, garlic, and homemade pasta drifted through the dining room. It was warm. Comfortable. Familiar. Exactly the kind of evening you’d hoped for.

Then Rossi appeared beside the table carrying a bottle of red wine.

With practiced ease, he moved from place to place, pouring generous servings into each waiting glass until he eventually reached yours. Deep ruby liquid swirled elegantly into the crystal, catching the candlelight before he continued around the table without another thought.

Your smile froze.

Your stomach dropped so suddenly it almost felt like missing the last step on a staircase.

Of course. Wine.

You hadn’t thought about the wine.

For one long second, you simply stared at the glass sitting innocently beside your plate, your thoughts racing far faster than they should have. Refusing it outright would be strange. Claiming you weren’t in the mood might invite questions. Pretending to sip it was risky, especially with Rossi proudly watching everyone’s reactions to the bottle he’d undoubtedly spent far too much money on.

Across the table, Spencer had arrived at the exact same realization.

His eyes drifted from his own glass to yours.

Then to you.

You watched the understanding settle across his face almost instantly.

Without either of you exchanging so much as a glance, he quietly reached across the table toward your place setting, his movements so natural they might have gone completely unnoticed.

“I’ll take yours,” he said casually, lifting the untouched glass before anyone could question it.

Morgan blinked. “You stealing her wine already?”

The question earned a few amused smiles around the table.

Spencer answered so quickly it almost sounded rehearsed.

“She’s driving.”

For a single heartbeat, the entire table fell into that peculiar silence that followed an answer no one had expected. You turned your head slowly to look at him, your expression carefully composed despite the disbelief bubbling beneath it.

Driving? You hated driving.

Everyone at the table knew you hated driving. Morgan had teased you about it for years after you’d once admitted that parallel parking made you feel like you were diffusing a bomb. Garcia had jokingly offered to create a color-coded GPS system “for emotionally distressed drivers.” Even Rossi had learned long ago that inviting the two of you over automatically meant Spencer would be behind the wheel on the way home. If given the choice between navigating rush-hour traffic yourself or spending an hour on public transportation with three transfers, you’d choose the train without a second thought. Spencer knew that better than anyone. Which was precisely why, judging by the fleeting look of horror that crossed his face, he realized what he’d said the exact moment the words left his mouth.

Your eyes met across the table for the briefest instant.

He knew. You knew.

Neither of you dared acknowledge it.

Fortunately, Morgan simply shrugged, entirely unbothered.

“Fair enough.”

The conversation drifted elsewhere almost immediately, someone making a comment about Rossi’s pasta sauce before Garcia launched into a dramatic story about accidentally adopting another stray cat she absolutely insisted she hadn’t meant to bring home. Around the table, laughter resumed, forks scraped softly against porcelain plates, and the comfortable rhythm of dinner settled back into place. You released a slow breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, allowing yourself to believe, if only for a moment, that perhaps the obstacle had been overcome more easily than you’d feared.

Or so you thought.

Barely ten minutes later, Rossi reappeared beside your chair carrying the bottle of red wine in one hand, his attention immediately falling to the untouched glass still sitting exactly where he’d left it. His thick brows drew together in mild confusion before his expression softened into concern.

“Oh, bambina,” he said, tilting his head slightly as he gestured toward the glass. “You haven’t touched your wine.”

Your heart lurched.

For a fraction of a second, your mind raced desperately through possible explanations. You weren’t feeling like drinking. You were waiting until dinner. You had a headache. None of them felt convincing enough, particularly not with Rossi watching you so expectantly.

Before you could utter a single word, Spencer calmly reached across the table, lifted your untouched glass as though it had belonged to him all along, and took a generous sip.

“I did.”

Rossi looked between both of you.

“You finished two glasses already?”

“I was thirsty,” Spencer replied with complete sincerity, sounding as though that single sentence explained everything.

Rossi stared at him.

“You were thirsty.”

“Yes.”

“For wine.”

“Correct.”

For another beat, Rossi simply looked at him, clearly debating whether there was any point continuing the conversation. Eventually, with the resigned expression of a man deciding that Spencer Reid’s brain operated on principles beyond ordinary comprehension, he shrugged lightly and reached for the bottle once more.

“There.”

Deep red wine flowed smoothly back into your crystal glass until it sat nearly full again.

“There we go.”

“Thank you,” you offered with what you hoped was a perfectly natural smile.

Rossi nodded once before wandering toward the other end of the table to refill Morgan’s glass, already distracted by an entirely new discussion about baseball statistics.

The instant his back was turned, Spencer moved.

Without saying a word, without drawing attention to himself, he rested one hand casually beneath the edge of the tablecloth and, in one fluid movement, exchanged your freshly filled glass with his own half-empty one. The motion was so smooth it could have passed for absentmindedness, his fingers never fumbling despite the growing amount of alcohol already in his system. By the time Rossi looked back toward the two of you, Spencer was quietly lifting the newly acquired glass toward his lips while your place setting once again held one that appeared partially consumed.

No one noticed.

Well…almost no one.

Across the table, Emily’s conversation with JJ faltered for just a fraction of a second.

She didn’t say anything.

She simply took another sip of wine while her gaze lingered thoughtfully between the two of you before returning to her plate.

Another half hour slipped by beneath easy conversation and frequent bursts of laughter. Stories gave way to teasing, teasing turned into old Bureau memories, and before long the first bottle stood empty in the center of the table. Rossi noticed almost immediately.

“Well,” he announced proudly as he disappeared toward the kitchen, “that means it’s time for the good one.”

He returned carrying another bottle with the reverence of someone transporting a priceless family heirloom.

“This one’s from Tuscany,” he declared, carefully peeling away the foil. “I bought it during my last trip. You have to try it.”

The cork eased free with a satisfying pop.

You felt your stomach sink all over again.

One by one, Rossi circled the table, refilling each glass with generous enthusiasm.

Including yours.

Again.

You forced another smile.

“Thank you.”

Your glass remained untouched.

Again.

Spencer noticed before anyone else did.

Again.

Without hesitation, he reached over sometime during the next conversation, lifted your glass as naturally as though the two of you shared everything—which, technically, you did—and quietly added yet another serving to the growing collection he’d already consumed.

By now he’d finished one glass.

Then two.

Then three.

Now…four.

Under ordinary circumstances, four glasses of wine spread across an entire dinner might not have seemed particularly remarkable.

For Spencer Reid, it was becoming increasingly obvious.

A warm flush had spread across his cheeks, dusting the bridge of his nose with soft pink that somehow made him look several years younger. His posture remained perfectly straight, and his words retained the precise articulation that years of lecturing and endless reading had ingrained into him. If anything, he enunciated even more carefully than usual, each syllable pronounced with meticulous clarity. Spencer Reid, it seemed, was physically incapable of slurring his words.

Instead, he simply became significantly more talkative.

“Do you know,” he announced to absolutely no one in particular while thoughtfully examining his wineglass as though it were a fascinating scientific specimen, “that the average adult liver metabolizes approximately one standard alcoholic beverage per hour? Assuming average enzymatic activity and normal hepatic function, I’m currently operating at a significant biochemical disadvantage.”

Morgan leaned back in his chair, grinning so broadly it bordered on smug satisfaction.

“You drunk, pretty boy?”

Spencer looked genuinely offended by the suggestion.

“No.”

He paused.

Thought about it.

Then nodded once with complete seriousness.

“Probably.”

The table erupted into laughter.

Even Hotch lowered his gaze toward his plate to disguise the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

You couldn’t help laughing too, though yours carried a distinct note of affection.

Spencer looked utterly adorable.

Hopelessly, undeniably adorable.

Across the table, however, Emily wasn’t laughing nearly as much.

She watched Spencer lift your glass instead of his own.

Again.

She watched you politely thank Rossi for every refill without drinking a single sip.

Again.

She watched Spencer volunteer to finish both glasses with increasingly enthusiastic determination.

Again.

Something about the evening refused to fit together.

Emily wasn’t quite sure what the answer was yet.

But she knew, with absolute certainty, that something wasn’t adding up.

***

By the time coffee replaced the wine, the evening had settled into that wonderfully unhurried stage that always followed one of Rossi’s dinners. Dessert plates had been pushed aside, empty bottles stood abandoned along the center of the table like evidence of a celebration well enjoyed, and the rich scent of freshly brewed espresso drifted through the dining room, mercifully replacing the overwhelming aroma of alcohol. Conversations had fractured into smaller ones, overlapping comfortably without anyone needing to follow every thread. Garcia and JJ were animatedly debating vacation destinations, Garcia insisting that every itinerary should be based entirely around bookstores and bakeries while JJ attempted, unsuccessfully, to convince her that beaches had their own merits. At the other end of the table, Morgan and Rossi had somehow wandered into a passionate disagreement over baseball statistics, each one accusing the other of remembering history incorrectly despite both sounding equally confident. Hotch sat quietly between them, one hand wrapped around his coffee cup, saying very little but wearing the faintest trace of amusement at the corners of his mouth as he watched the familiar chaos unfold around him.

Beside you, however, sat the true consequence of the evening.

Spencer Reid was undeniably drunk.

Not the loud, reckless kind of drunk that knocked over glasses or forgot people’s names. Spencer remained perfectly articulate. Every sentence emerged with the same impeccable diction he used while lecturing, every word carefully pronounced as though he were still delivering an academic presentation. If anything, the alcohol had only made him even more determined to enunciate correctly. His tie had been loosened somewhere between the second and third bottle, though neither of you remembered who had done it. His curls had escaped in every direction until they framed his flushed face in complete disarray. A warm blush stretched across his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose, his eyes had taken on a dreamy softness you rarely saw, and he had developed the oddly adorable habit of pausing before every answer, nodding solemnly to himself as though consulting an invisible committee inside his own mind before reaching a unanimous decision.

Watching him was almost painfully endearing.

You couldn’t help smiling as your fingers found the middle of his back, rubbing slow, comforting circles through the fabric of his shirt.

“You okay?”

He turned toward you immediately, his entire face lighting up with such overwhelming affection that your heart threatened to melt on the spot.

“I love you.”

The words came so easily, so honestly, that several people around the table instinctively smiled.

You laughed quietly.

“I love you too.”

“No…” He shook his head with exaggerated seriousness, lifting one finger as though correcting an important scientific misconception. “I don’t think you understand the statistical magnitude of how much I love you.”

Morgan snorted into his coffee.

“Oh, this is priceless.”

Spencer didn’t even acknowledge him.

His complete attention remained fixed on you, his expression one of absolute sincerity as he searched painstakingly for the perfect description.

“You are…” He frowned thoughtfully, eyes drifting toward the ceiling for several long seconds before returning to you with visible satisfaction. “…my favorite person.”

Warmth spread through your chest so quickly it almost hurt.

God, he was going to destroy you.

“You’ve had enough wine,” you said gently, brushing one of his unruly curls away from his forehead.

“I have had…” He stopped speaking to count carefully on his fingers, restarting twice after apparently losing track somewhere around three. “…more wine than you.”

“Yes.”

He nodded proudly, pleased that you’d confirmed his calculation.

“Because you couldn’t.”

Every muscle in your body went rigid.

The smile disappeared from your face almost instantly.

“Spencer.”

He looked delighted with himself.

“I helped.”

Across the table, Emily glanced up from her coffee.

“So noble.”

“It was.” Spencer nodded once, completely accepting the compliment. “Because it’s a secret.”

Your stomach dropped so violently you were certain everyone could hear it.

Without thinking, you reached for his hand beneath the table, gently squeezing his fingers.

“Sweetheart—”

He leaned closer immediately, lowering his voice in what he clearly believed was an incredibly discreet whisper.

It wasn’t.

“We’re very good at secrets,” he confided with unmistakable pride.

The entire table continued talking.

No one seemed to notice.

Relief washed over you so suddenly you nearly laughed.

Then Spencer smiled thoughtfully, as though another important realization had just occurred to him.

“Although…”

Every instinct in your body screamed.

“Oh no.”

He looked around the entire table before announcing, in a voice loud enough for everyone in the dining room to hear with perfect clarity, “keeping a baby secret is significantly harder than I expected.”

Silence.

Morgan blinked once.

“A what?”

Garcia’s mouth slowly fell open.

JJ lowered her coffee cup so carefully it barely made a sound against the saucer.

At the far end of the table, Hotch’s eyes shifted from Spencer to you with the calm expression of a profiler mentally reorganizing every unusual observation he’d made over the previous several weeks: your sudden avoidance of coffee during morning meetings, Spencer’s increasingly protective behavior, the mysterious disappearances during cases to “find crackers,” the exhaustion, the nausea, the untouched wine.

Pieces quietly clicked into place.

Rossi simply stared.

His mouth opened slightly before closing again.

For perhaps the first time in anyone’s memory, David Rossi seemed completely incapable of finding words.

Emily, meanwhile, merely closed her eyes and a slow smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“Oh,” she sighed, sounding more relieved than surprised. “I knew it.”

You buried your face in both hands.

“Spencer…”

He looked around the table with complete confusion, blinking at everyone’s expressions as though he genuinely couldn’t understand why the conversation had stopped.

“What?”

“You…” you whispered through your hands, shaking your head helplessly. “You just told them about our baby.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“I did?”

“Yes.”

A long pause.

He frowned thoughtfully.

“I wasn’t supposed to.”

“No.”

“Oh.”

He considered that information with remarkable seriousness, nodding slowly as though accepting constructive criticism.

For one suspended heartbeat, nobody moved.

Then Garcia exploded.

The delighted shriek that escaped her was so loud it probably startled every bird within a three-block radius. She launched herself out of her chair before anyone else had even processed what was happening, one hand already covering her mouth as tears filled her eyes.

“I can't believe it!” she squealed. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

JJ was crying before she’d even reached you.

She wrapped her arms tightly around your shoulders, laughing and wiping away tears simultaneously.

“I am so happy for you,” she whispered.

Morgan shot to his feet with a bark of laughter, pointing triumphantly between the two of you.

“I knew something was going on!”

Emily looked at him flatly.

“You absolutely did not.”

“I suspected!”

She folded her arms.

“You spent the entire evening convinced Spencer had developed a drinking problem.”

Morgan hesitated.

“I was…close.”

Rossi finally recovered enough to laugh, a deep, warm laugh that echoed through the dining room as he crossed the room and pulled both you and Spencer into one of his characteristically overwhelming hugs.

“I’ve spent years trying to get this kid drunk,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief as he stepped back to look at Spencer with unmistakable affection. “Years.”

His eyes flickered toward you before returning to Spencer.

“I have to admit…”

He smiled.

“I didn’t expect this to be what finally loosened his tongue.”

Even Hotch stood.

He wasn’t particularly demonstrative, never had been, but the smile he offered the two of you was genuine enough to soften every sharp line in his face.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” you whispered, your voice thick with emotion as you leaned instinctively against Spencer’s shoulder, still half laughing and half hiding your burning face from everyone’s delighted attention.

Spencer looked down at you with sleepy affection, completely oblivious to the fact that he had single-handedly dismantled weeks of carefully orchestrated secrecy. He leaned over and pressed the gentlest kiss against the top of your head before sighing softly.

“I ruined the surprise.”

“You did.”

“I’m sorry.”

You looked up at him.

His expression was so genuinely remorseful, so heartbreakingly sincere despite the unmistakable haze of alcohol clouding his thoughts, that you couldn’t possibly stay embarrassed.

A smile spread across your face.

“I’ll forgive you.”

His eyes brightened immediately.

“You will?”

“Eventually.”

The relieved smile that followed was almost childlike.

“Good.”

He sat quietly for another few seconds, apparently satisfied that the crisis had been resolved.

Then he turned toward Rossi with complete seriousness.

“Can I have some water now?”

[certaimromance]

⊹ ࣪ ˖ Positive in Love & Wine ─ Spencer Reid.

Hiding your pregnancy is getting harder and harder, especially when you agree to go to a dinner party and Spencer has to drink every glass of your wine to keep the secret.

୨ৎ ──── fluff. 5,4k. fem!reader. drunk reid. english isn't my first language. main masterlist.

David Rossi loved hosting dinners.

Not because he particularly enjoyed cooking—though he’d spend the entire evening pretending he did, shooing away anyone who wandered too close to the stove with the indignation of a Michelin-star chef—but because dinner was one of the rare occasions when the people he cared about gathered for reasons that had nothing to do with bloodstained crime scenes or the worst humanity had to offer. Around his dining table, they weren’t profilers or agents or supervisors carrying the weight of impossible decisions. They were simply friends. They laughed a little louder, lingered a little longer over dessert, argued about books instead of behavioral patterns, and, for a few precious hours, remembered what life looked like outside the Bureau.

At least for the first twenty minutes.

After that, someone inevitably mentioned a case.

“You realize,” Morgan announced as he reached across the kitchen island and shamelessly stole a piece of warm bread straight from the basket, “this is exactly how horror movies start.”

Rossi didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder. He merely stirred the sauce with practiced ease, entirely unfazed by the theft.

“The difference,” he replied smoothly, “is that my guests survive dessert.”

Morgan laughed, surrendering with an exaggerated nod before tearing into the bread anyway.

The house was already alive with familiar voices.

Soft jazz drifted through hidden speakers, blending with the rhythmic clatter of pots and the comforting aroma of garlic, rosemary, simmering tomatoes, and freshly baked bread. Warm light spilled from antique lamps, reflecting against framed photographs and shelves lined with decades of books and souvenirs collected from places Rossi rarely spoke about. Every room carried that unmistakable feeling of having been lived in, a home that had witnessed countless celebrations, quiet conversations over late-night whiskey, and the occasional impromptu team meeting when cases refused to stay at Quantico.

Emily wandered into the kitchen, accepting a glass of wine from Rossi before immediately rolling her eyes at something Morgan said.

Garcia was already circling the living room in complete admiration, pausing every few steps to gush over a painting, a sculpture, or an antique clock.

“Oh my God, Rossi,” she gasped dramatically, “this lamp is gorgeous. It’s giving wealthy Italian novelist who solves crimes in his free time.”

“It was just a lamp until you said that.”

JJ slipped toward the patio with Henry balanced comfortably on her hip, the little boy already fascinated by the garden lights beginning to glow outside. Will followed behind carrying an impressive collection of toys that looked capable of entertaining an entire daycare, smiling patiently as Henry reached for everything except the toys he’d brought.

Hotch, unsurprisingly, had arrived exactly on time.

Not a minute early. Not a minute late.

His jacket was already neatly folded over the back of a chair, a glass of sparkling water in one hand as he quietly observed the controlled chaos with the smallest hint of amusement softening his usually unreadable expression.

And, of course, Spencer’s attention had been on you from the moment the two of you stepped through Rossi’s front door.

Before anyone could greet you, Spencer was already helping you out of your coat with the quiet attentiveness that had become second nature over the past several weeks. His hands were careful as he eased the fabric from your shoulders, lingering for just a heartbeat as if making sure you were steady before draping both your coat and his neatly over the rack by the entrance. It was such a small gesture that no one else would have noticed it.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, leaning close enough that only you could hear him beneath the lively chatter filling the room.

You offered him a reassuring smile, hoping it looked more convincing than it felt.

“Perfect.”

The word came automatically, polished by repetition until it sounded almost believable. You’d said it to your mother over the phone earlier that week. To your coworkers when they’d commented on how pale you’d been looking lately. To the cashier who had apologized after you’d abruptly abandoned a shopping cart halfway through the supermarket because someone nearby had opened a container of tuna. You were becoming remarkably good at pretending everything was normal.

Spencer, however, had never been particularly easy to fool.

His honey-colored eyes lingered on your face for another moment, quietly studying you with the same careful concentration he reserved for unsolved cases and impossible puzzles. He noticed everything: the faint shadows beneath your eyes despite the makeup you’d carefully applied that afternoon, the way your smile didn’t quite reach them, the almost invisible hesitation before you shifted your weight from one foot to the other. For a second, you watched concern flicker across his expression, followed by the unmistakable impulse to suggest going home instead. You knew him well enough to see the thought forming before he gently pushed it aside. You had insisted you wanted to come. You’d been looking forward to seeing everyone. If he asked again, you’d only reassure him again.

So instead, he simply intertwined his fingers with yours for the briefest moment and gave your hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it, silently reminding you that if you needed to leave, even five minutes after arriving, you only had to say the word.

Because the truth was…you hadn’t exactly been perfect lately.

For nearly eleven weeks, your body had seemed determined to reinvent itself overnight, transforming familiar routines into unpredictable obstacles and ordinary sensations into impossible challenges. Pregnancy wasn’t anything like the books had described. It wasn’t the glowing skin and sentimental smiles people loved talking about. At least, not yet. Right now, it was exhaustion so profound it settled into your bones no matter how much you slept. It was waking up starving only to burst into tears because the toast you’d been craving suddenly smelled unbearable. It was dizziness when you stood too quickly, headaches that appeared without warning, and emotions that shifted so rapidly they often left you laughing one moment and crying the next.

And the smells were by far the worst.

It was as though someone had turned every scent in the world up to an impossible volume.

Coffee, the rich aroma you’d once relied on every morning, now seemed so overwhelmingly bitter it made your stomach twist before you even entered the kitchen.

Garlic lingered in the air like smoke.

Perfume clung to strangers in grocery stores so intensely that you found yourself instinctively holding your breath as they walked past.

Gasoline from passing cars seeped through open windows with startling force.

Fresh paint, cleaning products, scented candles, everything had become an enemy.

Even the earthy fragrance of Spencer’s favorite loose-leaf tea, a scent that had always reminded you of rainy afternoons spent reading together on the couch, had betrayed you. One quiet Saturday morning, he’d barely begun pouring the boiling water over the tea leaves before your stomach lurched violently. You hadn’t even managed to explain what was wrong. You’d simply clamped a hand over your mouth and hurried toward the bathroom, leaving Spencer frozen in confusion beside the kettle.

When he’d found you a few minutes later, you were sitting on the cool tile floor with your knees pulled to your chest, wrapped in one of his oversized cardigans because you hadn’t had the energy to put on your own sweater after climbing out of bed. Your eyes were watery, your face pale with exhaustion, and the half-steeped tea sat forgotten in the kitchen.

He’d knelt beside you immediately, rubbing slow circles against your back until your breathing steadied.

“I think,” he’d said carefully, as though presenting a well-researched hypothesis, “we should buy different tea.”

The absurd sincerity of the suggestion had broken something inside you.

You’d laughed, the kind that left tears streaming down your face and your stomach aching until Spencer began smiling too, still entirely unsure what had been so funny.

An hour later, you’d taken the pregnancy test.

You remembered sitting together on the edge of the bathtub, your shoulders pressed together so tightly they might as well have been one person, both pretending not to stare at the little plastic stick resting on the counter. Spencer’s knee bounced nervously the entire time, though he’d deny it if anyone ever asked. When the result finally appeared, neither of you moved.

Positive.

You’d looked at him, and he’d looked at you.

For a long moment, there had simply been silence, stunned, breathless silence, as though neither of you trusted your own eyes enough to speak first.

Then Spencer had whispered, almost reverently,

“We’re having a baby.”

The memory still settled warmly inside your chest every time you thought about it.

Only the two of you knew.

No one else.

Not the team, your parents, or his mother.

No one.

It wasn’t because you weren’t excited.

God, you had never loved someone you’d never met quite so fiercely. And you had never been so afraid.

At night, when the apartment had gone quiet and Quantico seemed impossibly far away, the two of you often found yourselves lying awake long after the lights were off, talking in hushed voices about a future that suddenly felt both unimaginably distant and frighteningly close. Spencer wondered aloud whether babies recognized music before they were born and whether reading aloud during pregnancy had any measurable effect on language development. You debated names neither of you was ready to admit you genuinely liked. You imagined tiny knitted sweaters, impossibly small socks, sleepy mornings, first birthdays, scraped knees, school concerts, and the possibility—one that made you laugh every single time—that Spencer might accidentally teach your future toddler quantum mechanics before the alphabet.

Other nights, words simply weren’t necessary.

You would lie tangled together beneath the blankets, your head resting against his shoulder while he absentmindedly traced slow circles over your arm. Eventually, almost without thinking, his hand would drift lower, settling with extraordinary care against your abdomen. There was hardly anything to feel yet. At eleven weeks, your stomach remained almost perfectly flat, your dresses fitting exactly as they always had. If someone didn’t know, they would never have guessed. But Spencer touched you as though the slightest movement might disturb the tiny life growing there, his palm resting so gently against you that it sometimes made your chest ache. He would smile into the darkness with an expression so impossibly soft it stole your breath every single time, as though he could already sense the little heartbeat hidden beneath his fingertips. Sometimes he whispered things you weren’t sure he realized he was saying: little observations about fetal development he’d memorized from medical journals, promises about museums he’d one day visit with your child, absentminded thoughts about buying children’s editions of classic literature. Other times, he simply stayed there, smiling quietly, overwhelmed by the astonishing reality that someone already existed. Someone who belonged entirely to the two of you.

Every ultrasound photograph had become a treasure.

The first one lived inside an ivory envelope that had already begun to soften at the edges because neither of you could stop taking it out to look at it. Realistically, there wasn’t very much to see. To anyone else, it was little more than a grainy black-and-white blur surrounded by indecipherable shadows and medical measurements. Yet the two of you had spent embarrassing amounts of time staring at it as though it were the most extraordinary piece of art ever created. Spencer, naturally, had analyzed it with the same enthusiasm he brought to everything else.

Of course, once the initial excitement had settled, he had immediately begun worrying about where to keep the photographs.

Not because he thought someone was going to steal them.

Because he wanted them safe.

You still remembered finding him standing in front of his bookshelf one afternoon, head tilted thoughtfully as though he were solving one of the Bureau’s most complicated cases. He had scanned hundreds of titles before finally pulling out one of the thickest mathematics textbooks you had ever seen.

“They’re going inside my copy of Differential Geometry,” he’d declared with complete confidence while carefully sliding the envelope between two chapters.

You had stared at him, blinking in complete confusion.

“…Why that one?”

Without so much as lifting his eyes from the pages, he’d answered with absolute certainty.

“Statistically speaking, no one voluntarily opens my copy of Differential Geometry.”

You had laughed so hard your stomach hurt.

Weeks later, the ultrasound photographs remained exactly where he’d hidden them, tucked safely between chapters discussing curved manifolds and tensor fields, untouched by anyone except the two of you. Every now and then, usually late at night, Spencer would quietly retrieve the envelope before climbing into bed beside you, and together you’d study the tiny image all over again, smiling as though seeing it for the very first time.

You weren’t keeping the pregnancy a secret because you were ashamed.

If anything, the secret had become almost impossible to contain.

You loved this baby already with a depth that surprised you daily. Sometimes you caught yourself resting your hand absentmindedly against your stomach while reading on the couch or waiting in line for coffee you could no longer stomach. Sometimes Spencer would catch your eye from across the apartment, and without either of you saying a single word, you’d both smile, remembering the extraordinary little secret that existed only between you. It felt like carrying a universe inside your chest, one that threatened to spill into every conversation, every laugh, every quiet glance exchanged across a room.

But eleven weeks still felt fragile.

Delicate.

As though happiness itself had become something you were afraid to hold too tightly.

You knew the statistics.

So did Spencer...perhaps better than anyone.

The first trimester carried uncertainties neither of you could ignore, no matter how desperately you wanted to celebrate. So you had made a quiet promise together. Just a little longer. One more week. Maybe two. Long enough for the fear to loosen its grip. Long enough for the joy to feel louder than the anxiety. Then you’d tell everyone. Properly. Surrounded by the people who loved you most.

Which was exactly why tonight needed to remain wonderfully, blissfully ordinary.

Smile.

Compliment Rossi’s cooking.

Laugh at Morgan’s increasingly terrible jokes.

Listen to Garcia declare herself emotionally attached to another one of Rossi’s antique decorations.

Eat dinner.

Go home.

And above all else, pretend that beneath the soft fabric of your dress, your entire world wasn’t quietly growing one tiny heartbeat at a time.

***

For the first few minutes, everything went exactly according to plan.

The conversation flowed effortlessly around the table, moving from travel stories to teasing remarks about Rossi’s inability to let anyone else near his kitchen. The warm glow of candlelight reflected against crystal glasses, silverware clinked softly against porcelain plates, and the rich aroma of roasted vegetables, fresh herbs, garlic, and homemade pasta drifted through the dining room. It was warm. Comfortable. Familiar. Exactly the kind of evening you’d hoped for.

Then Rossi appeared beside the table carrying a bottle of red wine.

With practiced ease, he moved from place to place, pouring generous servings into each waiting glass until he eventually reached yours. Deep ruby liquid swirled elegantly into the crystal, catching the candlelight before he continued around the table without another thought.

Your smile froze.

Your stomach dropped so suddenly it almost felt like missing the last step on a staircase.

Of course. Wine.

You hadn’t thought about the wine.

For one long second, you simply stared at the glass sitting innocently beside your plate, your thoughts racing far faster than they should have. Refusing it outright would be strange. Claiming you weren’t in the mood might invite questions. Pretending to sip it was risky, especially with Rossi proudly watching everyone’s reactions to the bottle he’d undoubtedly spent far too much money on.

Across the table, Spencer had arrived at the exact same realization.

His eyes drifted from his own glass to yours.

Then to you.

You watched the understanding settle across his face almost instantly.

Without either of you exchanging so much as a glance, he quietly reached across the table toward your place setting, his movements so natural they might have gone completely unnoticed.

“I’ll take yours,” he said casually, lifting the untouched glass before anyone could question it.

Morgan blinked. “You stealing her wine already?”

The question earned a few amused smiles around the table.

Spencer answered so quickly it almost sounded rehearsed.

“She’s driving.”

For a single heartbeat, the entire table fell into that peculiar silence that followed an answer no one had expected. You turned your head slowly to look at him, your expression carefully composed despite the disbelief bubbling beneath it.

Driving? You hated driving.

Everyone at the table knew you hated driving. Morgan had teased you about it for years after you’d once admitted that parallel parking made you feel like you were diffusing a bomb. Garcia had jokingly offered to create a color-coded GPS system “for emotionally distressed drivers.” Even Rossi had learned long ago that inviting the two of you over automatically meant Spencer would be behind the wheel on the way home. If given the choice between navigating rush-hour traffic yourself or spending an hour on public transportation with three transfers, you’d choose the train without a second thought. Spencer knew that better than anyone. Which was precisely why, judging by the fleeting look of horror that crossed his face, he realized what he’d said the exact moment the words left his mouth.

Your eyes met across the table for the briefest instant.

He knew. You knew.

Neither of you dared acknowledge it.

Fortunately, Morgan simply shrugged, entirely unbothered.

“Fair enough.”

The conversation drifted elsewhere almost immediately, someone making a comment about Rossi’s pasta sauce before Garcia launched into a dramatic story about accidentally adopting another stray cat she absolutely insisted she hadn’t meant to bring home. Around the table, laughter resumed, forks scraped softly against porcelain plates, and the comfortable rhythm of dinner settled back into place. You released a slow breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, allowing yourself to believe, if only for a moment, that perhaps the obstacle had been overcome more easily than you’d feared.

Or so you thought.

Barely ten minutes later, Rossi reappeared beside your chair carrying the bottle of red wine in one hand, his attention immediately falling to the untouched glass still sitting exactly where he’d left it. His thick brows drew together in mild confusion before his expression softened into concern.

“Oh, bambina,” he said, tilting his head slightly as he gestured toward the glass. “You haven’t touched your wine.”

Your heart lurched.

For a fraction of a second, your mind raced desperately through possible explanations. You weren’t feeling like drinking. You were waiting until dinner. You had a headache. None of them felt convincing enough, particularly not with Rossi watching you so expectantly.

Before you could utter a single word, Spencer calmly reached across the table, lifted your untouched glass as though it had belonged to him all along, and took a generous sip.

“I did.”

Rossi looked between both of you.

“You finished two glasses already?”

“I was thirsty,” Spencer replied with complete sincerity, sounding as though that single sentence explained everything.

Rossi stared at him.

“You were thirsty.”

“Yes.”

“For wine.”

“Correct.”

For another beat, Rossi simply looked at him, clearly debating whether there was any point continuing the conversation. Eventually, with the resigned expression of a man deciding that Spencer Reid’s brain operated on principles beyond ordinary comprehension, he shrugged lightly and reached for the bottle once more.

“There.”

Deep red wine flowed smoothly back into your crystal glass until it sat nearly full again.

“There we go.”

“Thank you,” you offered with what you hoped was a perfectly natural smile.

Rossi nodded once before wandering toward the other end of the table to refill Morgan’s glass, already distracted by an entirely new discussion about baseball statistics.

The instant his back was turned, Spencer moved.

Without saying a word, without drawing attention to himself, he rested one hand casually beneath the edge of the tablecloth and, in one fluid movement, exchanged your freshly filled glass with his own half-empty one. The motion was so smooth it could have passed for absentmindedness, his fingers never fumbling despite the growing amount of alcohol already in his system. By the time Rossi looked back toward the two of you, Spencer was quietly lifting the newly acquired glass toward his lips while your place setting once again held one that appeared partially consumed.

No one noticed.

Well…almost no one.

Across the table, Emily’s conversation with JJ faltered for just a fraction of a second.

She didn’t say anything.

She simply took another sip of wine while her gaze lingered thoughtfully between the two of you before returning to her plate.

Another half hour slipped by beneath easy conversation and frequent bursts of laughter. Stories gave way to teasing, teasing turned into old Bureau memories, and before long the first bottle stood empty in the center of the table. Rossi noticed almost immediately.

“Well,” he announced proudly as he disappeared toward the kitchen, “that means it’s time for the good one.”

He returned carrying another bottle with the reverence of someone transporting a priceless family heirloom.

“This one’s from Tuscany,” he declared, carefully peeling away the foil. “I bought it during my last trip. You have to try it.”

The cork eased free with a satisfying pop.

You felt your stomach sink all over again.

One by one, Rossi circled the table, refilling each glass with generous enthusiasm.

Including yours.

Again.

You forced another smile.

“Thank you.”

Your glass remained untouched.

Again.

Spencer noticed before anyone else did.

Again.

Without hesitation, he reached over sometime during the next conversation, lifted your glass as naturally as though the two of you shared everything—which, technically, you did—and quietly added yet another serving to the growing collection he’d already consumed.

By now he’d finished one glass.

Then two.

Then three.

Now…four.

Under ordinary circumstances, four glasses of wine spread across an entire dinner might not have seemed particularly remarkable.

For Spencer Reid, it was becoming increasingly obvious.

A warm flush had spread across his cheeks, dusting the bridge of his nose with soft pink that somehow made him look several years younger. His posture remained perfectly straight, and his words retained the precise articulation that years of lecturing and endless reading had ingrained into him. If anything, he enunciated even more carefully than usual, each syllable pronounced with meticulous clarity. Spencer Reid, it seemed, was physically incapable of slurring his words.

Instead, he simply became significantly more talkative.

“Do you know,” he announced to absolutely no one in particular while thoughtfully examining his wineglass as though it were a fascinating scientific specimen, “that the average adult liver metabolizes approximately one standard alcoholic beverage per hour? Assuming average enzymatic activity and normal hepatic function, I’m currently operating at a significant biochemical disadvantage.”

Morgan leaned back in his chair, grinning so broadly it bordered on smug satisfaction.

“You drunk, pretty boy?”

Spencer looked genuinely offended by the suggestion.

“No.”

He paused.

Thought about it.

Then nodded once with complete seriousness.

“Probably.”

The table erupted into laughter.

Even Hotch lowered his gaze toward his plate to disguise the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

You couldn’t help laughing too, though yours carried a distinct note of affection.

Spencer looked utterly adorable.

Hopelessly, undeniably adorable.

Across the table, however, Emily wasn’t laughing nearly as much.

She watched Spencer lift your glass instead of his own.

Again.

She watched you politely thank Rossi for every refill without drinking a single sip.

Again.

She watched Spencer volunteer to finish both glasses with increasingly enthusiastic determination.

Again.

Something about the evening refused to fit together.

Emily wasn’t quite sure what the answer was yet.

But she knew, with absolute certainty, that something wasn’t adding up.

***

By the time coffee replaced the wine, the evening had settled into that wonderfully unhurried stage that always followed one of Rossi’s dinners. Dessert plates had been pushed aside, empty bottles stood abandoned along the center of the table like evidence of a celebration well enjoyed, and the rich scent of freshly brewed espresso drifted through the dining room, mercifully replacing the overwhelming aroma of alcohol. Conversations had fractured into smaller ones, overlapping comfortably without anyone needing to follow every thread. Garcia and JJ were animatedly debating vacation destinations, Garcia insisting that every itinerary should be based entirely around bookstores and bakeries while JJ attempted, unsuccessfully, to convince her that beaches had their own merits. At the other end of the table, Morgan and Rossi had somehow wandered into a passionate disagreement over baseball statistics, each one accusing the other of remembering history incorrectly despite both sounding equally confident. Hotch sat quietly between them, one hand wrapped around his coffee cup, saying very little but wearing the faintest trace of amusement at the corners of his mouth as he watched the familiar chaos unfold around him.

Beside you, however, sat the true consequence of the evening.

Spencer Reid was undeniably drunk.

Not the loud, reckless kind of drunk that knocked over glasses or forgot people’s names. Spencer remained perfectly articulate. Every sentence emerged with the same impeccable diction he used while lecturing, every word carefully pronounced as though he were still delivering an academic presentation. If anything, the alcohol had only made him even more determined to enunciate correctly. His tie had been loosened somewhere between the second and third bottle, though neither of you remembered who had done it. His curls had escaped in every direction until they framed his flushed face in complete disarray. A warm blush stretched across his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose, his eyes had taken on a dreamy softness you rarely saw, and he had developed the oddly adorable habit of pausing before every answer, nodding solemnly to himself as though consulting an invisible committee inside his own mind before reaching a unanimous decision.

Watching him was almost painfully endearing.

You couldn’t help smiling as your fingers found the middle of his back, rubbing slow, comforting circles through the fabric of his shirt.

“You okay?”

He turned toward you immediately, his entire face lighting up with such overwhelming affection that your heart threatened to melt on the spot.

“I love you.”

The words came so easily, so honestly, that several people around the table instinctively smiled.

You laughed quietly.

“I love you too.”

“No…” He shook his head with exaggerated seriousness, lifting one finger as though correcting an important scientific misconception. “I don’t think you understand the statistical magnitude of how much I love you.”

Morgan snorted into his coffee.

“Oh, this is priceless.”

Spencer didn’t even acknowledge him.

His complete attention remained fixed on you, his expression one of absolute sincerity as he searched painstakingly for the perfect description.

“You are…” He frowned thoughtfully, eyes drifting toward the ceiling for several long seconds before returning to you with visible satisfaction. “…my favorite person.”

Warmth spread through your chest so quickly it almost hurt.

God, he was going to destroy you.

“You’ve had enough wine,” you said gently, brushing one of his unruly curls away from his forehead.

“I have had…” He stopped speaking to count carefully on his fingers, restarting twice after apparently losing track somewhere around three. “…more wine than you.”

“Yes.”

He nodded proudly, pleased that you’d confirmed his calculation.

“Because you couldn’t.”

Every muscle in your body went rigid.

The smile disappeared from your face almost instantly.

“Spencer.”

He looked delighted with himself.

“I helped.”

Across the table, Emily glanced up from her coffee.

“So noble.”

“It was.” Spencer nodded once, completely accepting the compliment. “Because it’s a secret.”

Your stomach dropped so violently you were certain everyone could hear it.

Without thinking, you reached for his hand beneath the table, gently squeezing his fingers.

“Sweetheart—”

He leaned closer immediately, lowering his voice in what he clearly believed was an incredibly discreet whisper.

It wasn’t.

“We’re very good at secrets,” he confided with unmistakable pride.

The entire table continued talking.

No one seemed to notice.

Relief washed over you so suddenly you nearly laughed.

Then Spencer smiled thoughtfully, as though another important realization had just occurred to him.

“Although…”

Every instinct in your body screamed.

“Oh no.”

He looked around the entire table before announcing, in a voice loud enough for everyone in the dining room to hear with perfect clarity, “keeping a baby secret is significantly harder than I expected.”

Silence.

Morgan blinked once.

“A what?”

Garcia’s mouth slowly fell open.

JJ lowered her coffee cup so carefully it barely made a sound against the saucer.

At the far end of the table, Hotch’s eyes shifted from Spencer to you with the calm expression of a profiler mentally reorganizing every unusual observation he’d made over the previous several weeks: your sudden avoidance of coffee during morning meetings, Spencer’s increasingly protective behavior, the mysterious disappearances during cases to “find crackers,” the exhaustion, the nausea, the untouched wine.

Pieces quietly clicked into place.

Rossi simply stared.

His mouth opened slightly before closing again.

For perhaps the first time in anyone’s memory, David Rossi seemed completely incapable of finding words.

Emily, meanwhile, merely closed her eyes and a slow smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“Oh,” she sighed, sounding more relieved than surprised. “I knew it.”

You buried your face in both hands.

“Spencer…”

He looked around the table with complete confusion, blinking at everyone’s expressions as though he genuinely couldn’t understand why the conversation had stopped.

“What?”

“You…” you whispered through your hands, shaking your head helplessly. “You just told them about our baby.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“I did?”

“Yes.”

A long pause.

He frowned thoughtfully.

“I wasn’t supposed to.”

“No.”

“Oh.”

He considered that information with remarkable seriousness, nodding slowly as though accepting constructive criticism.

For one suspended heartbeat, nobody moved.

Then Garcia exploded.

The delighted shriek that escaped her was so loud it probably startled every bird within a three-block radius. She launched herself out of her chair before anyone else had even processed what was happening, one hand already covering her mouth as tears filled her eyes.

“I can't believe it!” she squealed. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

JJ was crying before she’d even reached you.

She wrapped her arms tightly around your shoulders, laughing and wiping away tears simultaneously.

“I am so happy for you,” she whispered.

Morgan shot to his feet with a bark of laughter, pointing triumphantly between the two of you.

“I knew something was going on!”

Emily looked at him flatly.

“You absolutely did not.”

“I suspected!”

She folded her arms.

“You spent the entire evening convinced Spencer had developed a drinking problem.”

Morgan hesitated.

“I was…close.”

Rossi finally recovered enough to laugh, a deep, warm laugh that echoed through the dining room as he crossed the room and pulled both you and Spencer into one of his characteristically overwhelming hugs.

“I’ve spent years trying to get this kid drunk,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief as he stepped back to look at Spencer with unmistakable affection. “Years.”

His eyes flickered toward you before returning to Spencer.

“I have to admit…”

He smiled.

“I didn’t expect this to be what finally loosened his tongue.”

Even Hotch stood.

He wasn’t particularly demonstrative, never had been, but the smile he offered the two of you was genuine enough to soften every sharp line in his face.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” you whispered, your voice thick with emotion as you leaned instinctively against Spencer’s shoulder, still half laughing and half hiding your burning face from everyone’s delighted attention.

Spencer looked down at you with sleepy affection, completely oblivious to the fact that he had single-handedly dismantled weeks of carefully orchestrated secrecy. He leaned over and pressed the gentlest kiss against the top of your head before sighing softly.

“I ruined the surprise.”

“You did.”

“I’m sorry.”

You looked up at him.

His expression was so genuinely remorseful, so heartbreakingly sincere despite the unmistakable haze of alcohol clouding his thoughts, that you couldn’t possibly stay embarrassed.

A smile spread across your face.

“I’ll forgive you.”

His eyes brightened immediately.

“You will?”

“Eventually.”

The relieved smile that followed was almost childlike.

“Good.”

He sat quietly for another few seconds, apparently satisfied that the crisis had been resolved.

Then he turned toward Rossi with complete seriousness.

“Can I have some water now?”

[certaimromance]

why am i suffering over the world cup final when i don’t even like football

[certaimromance]

VIVA ESPAÑA

[certaimromance]

why am i suffering over the world cup final when i don’t even like football

[certaimromance]

⊹ ࣪ ˖ Positive in Love & Wine ─ Spencer Reid.

Hiding your pregnancy is getting harder and harder, especially when you agree to go to a dinner party and Spencer has to drink every glass of your wine to keep the secret.

୨ৎ ──── fluff. 5,4k. fem!reader. drunk reid. english isn't my first language. main masterlist.

David Rossi loved hosting dinners.

Not because he particularly enjoyed cooking—though he’d spend the entire evening pretending he did, shooing away anyone who wandered too close to the stove with the indignation of a Michelin-star chef—but because dinner was one of the rare occasions when the people he cared about gathered for reasons that had nothing to do with bloodstained crime scenes or the worst humanity had to offer. Around his dining table, they weren’t profilers or agents or supervisors carrying the weight of impossible decisions. They were simply friends. They laughed a little louder, lingered a little longer over dessert, argued about books instead of behavioral patterns, and, for a few precious hours, remembered what life looked like outside the Bureau.

At least for the first twenty minutes.

After that, someone inevitably mentioned a case.

“You realize,” Morgan announced as he reached across the kitchen island and shamelessly stole a piece of warm bread straight from the basket, “this is exactly how horror movies start.”

Rossi didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder. He merely stirred the sauce with practiced ease, entirely unfazed by the theft.

“The difference,” he replied smoothly, “is that my guests survive dessert.”

Morgan laughed, surrendering with an exaggerated nod before tearing into the bread anyway.

The house was already alive with familiar voices.

Soft jazz drifted through hidden speakers, blending with the rhythmic clatter of pots and the comforting aroma of garlic, rosemary, simmering tomatoes, and freshly baked bread. Warm light spilled from antique lamps, reflecting against framed photographs and shelves lined with decades of books and souvenirs collected from places Rossi rarely spoke about. Every room carried that unmistakable feeling of having been lived in, a home that had witnessed countless celebrations, quiet conversations over late-night whiskey, and the occasional impromptu team meeting when cases refused to stay at Quantico.

Emily wandered into the kitchen, accepting a glass of wine from Rossi before immediately rolling her eyes at something Morgan said.

Garcia was already circling the living room in complete admiration, pausing every few steps to gush over a painting, a sculpture, or an antique clock.

“Oh my God, Rossi,” she gasped dramatically, “this lamp is gorgeous. It’s giving wealthy Italian novelist who solves crimes in his free time.”

“It was just a lamp until you said that.”

JJ slipped toward the patio with Henry balanced comfortably on her hip, the little boy already fascinated by the garden lights beginning to glow outside. Will followed behind carrying an impressive collection of toys that looked capable of entertaining an entire daycare, smiling patiently as Henry reached for everything except the toys he’d brought.

Hotch, unsurprisingly, had arrived exactly on time.

Not a minute early. Not a minute late.

His jacket was already neatly folded over the back of a chair, a glass of sparkling water in one hand as he quietly observed the controlled chaos with the smallest hint of amusement softening his usually unreadable expression.

And, of course, Spencer’s attention had been on you from the moment the two of you stepped through Rossi’s front door.

Before anyone could greet you, Spencer was already helping you out of your coat with the quiet attentiveness that had become second nature over the past several weeks. His hands were careful as he eased the fabric from your shoulders, lingering for just a heartbeat as if making sure you were steady before draping both your coat and his neatly over the rack by the entrance. It was such a small gesture that no one else would have noticed it.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, leaning close enough that only you could hear him beneath the lively chatter filling the room.

You offered him a reassuring smile, hoping it looked more convincing than it felt.

“Perfect.”

The word came automatically, polished by repetition until it sounded almost believable. You’d said it to your mother over the phone earlier that week. To your coworkers when they’d commented on how pale you’d been looking lately. To the cashier who had apologized after you’d abruptly abandoned a shopping cart halfway through the supermarket because someone nearby had opened a container of tuna. You were becoming remarkably good at pretending everything was normal.

Spencer, however, had never been particularly easy to fool.

His honey-colored eyes lingered on your face for another moment, quietly studying you with the same careful concentration he reserved for unsolved cases and impossible puzzles. He noticed everything: the faint shadows beneath your eyes despite the makeup you’d carefully applied that afternoon, the way your smile didn’t quite reach them, the almost invisible hesitation before you shifted your weight from one foot to the other. For a second, you watched concern flicker across his expression, followed by the unmistakable impulse to suggest going home instead. You knew him well enough to see the thought forming before he gently pushed it aside. You had insisted you wanted to come. You’d been looking forward to seeing everyone. If he asked again, you’d only reassure him again.

So instead, he simply intertwined his fingers with yours for the briefest moment and gave your hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it, silently reminding you that if you needed to leave, even five minutes after arriving, you only had to say the word.

Because the truth was…you hadn’t exactly been perfect lately.

For nearly eleven weeks, your body had seemed determined to reinvent itself overnight, transforming familiar routines into unpredictable obstacles and ordinary sensations into impossible challenges. Pregnancy wasn’t anything like the books had described. It wasn’t the glowing skin and sentimental smiles people loved talking about. At least, not yet. Right now, it was exhaustion so profound it settled into your bones no matter how much you slept. It was waking up starving only to burst into tears because the toast you’d been craving suddenly smelled unbearable. It was dizziness when you stood too quickly, headaches that appeared without warning, and emotions that shifted so rapidly they often left you laughing one moment and crying the next.

And the smells were by far the worst.

It was as though someone had turned every scent in the world up to an impossible volume.

Coffee, the rich aroma you’d once relied on every morning, now seemed so overwhelmingly bitter it made your stomach twist before you even entered the kitchen.

Garlic lingered in the air like smoke.

Perfume clung to strangers in grocery stores so intensely that you found yourself instinctively holding your breath as they walked past.

Gasoline from passing cars seeped through open windows with startling force.

Fresh paint, cleaning products, scented candles, everything had become an enemy.

Even the earthy fragrance of Spencer’s favorite loose-leaf tea, a scent that had always reminded you of rainy afternoons spent reading together on the couch, had betrayed you. One quiet Saturday morning, he’d barely begun pouring the boiling water over the tea leaves before your stomach lurched violently. You hadn’t even managed to explain what was wrong. You’d simply clamped a hand over your mouth and hurried toward the bathroom, leaving Spencer frozen in confusion beside the kettle.

When he’d found you a few minutes later, you were sitting on the cool tile floor with your knees pulled to your chest, wrapped in one of his oversized cardigans because you hadn’t had the energy to put on your own sweater after climbing out of bed. Your eyes were watery, your face pale with exhaustion, and the half-steeped tea sat forgotten in the kitchen.

He’d knelt beside you immediately, rubbing slow circles against your back until your breathing steadied.

“I think,” he’d said carefully, as though presenting a well-researched hypothesis, “we should buy different tea.”

The absurd sincerity of the suggestion had broken something inside you.

You’d laughed, the kind that left tears streaming down your face and your stomach aching until Spencer began smiling too, still entirely unsure what had been so funny.

An hour later, you’d taken the pregnancy test.

You remembered sitting together on the edge of the bathtub, your shoulders pressed together so tightly they might as well have been one person, both pretending not to stare at the little plastic stick resting on the counter. Spencer’s knee bounced nervously the entire time, though he’d deny it if anyone ever asked. When the result finally appeared, neither of you moved.

Positive.

You’d looked at him, and he’d looked at you.

For a long moment, there had simply been silence, stunned, breathless silence, as though neither of you trusted your own eyes enough to speak first.

Then Spencer had whispered, almost reverently,

“We’re having a baby.”

The memory still settled warmly inside your chest every time you thought about it.

Only the two of you knew.

No one else.

Not the team, your parents, or his mother.

No one.

It wasn’t because you weren’t excited.

God, you had never loved someone you’d never met quite so fiercely. And you had never been so afraid.

At night, when the apartment had gone quiet and Quantico seemed impossibly far away, the two of you often found yourselves lying awake long after the lights were off, talking in hushed voices about a future that suddenly felt both unimaginably distant and frighteningly close. Spencer wondered aloud whether babies recognized music before they were born and whether reading aloud during pregnancy had any measurable effect on language development. You debated names neither of you was ready to admit you genuinely liked. You imagined tiny knitted sweaters, impossibly small socks, sleepy mornings, first birthdays, scraped knees, school concerts, and the possibility—one that made you laugh every single time—that Spencer might accidentally teach your future toddler quantum mechanics before the alphabet.

Other nights, words simply weren’t necessary.

You would lie tangled together beneath the blankets, your head resting against his shoulder while he absentmindedly traced slow circles over your arm. Eventually, almost without thinking, his hand would drift lower, settling with extraordinary care against your abdomen. There was hardly anything to feel yet. At eleven weeks, your stomach remained almost perfectly flat, your dresses fitting exactly as they always had. If someone didn’t know, they would never have guessed. But Spencer touched you as though the slightest movement might disturb the tiny life growing there, his palm resting so gently against you that it sometimes made your chest ache. He would smile into the darkness with an expression so impossibly soft it stole your breath every single time, as though he could already sense the little heartbeat hidden beneath his fingertips. Sometimes he whispered things you weren’t sure he realized he was saying: little observations about fetal development he’d memorized from medical journals, promises about museums he’d one day visit with your child, absentminded thoughts about buying children’s editions of classic literature. Other times, he simply stayed there, smiling quietly, overwhelmed by the astonishing reality that someone already existed. Someone who belonged entirely to the two of you.

Every ultrasound photograph had become a treasure.

The first one lived inside an ivory envelope that had already begun to soften at the edges because neither of you could stop taking it out to look at it. Realistically, there wasn’t very much to see. To anyone else, it was little more than a grainy black-and-white blur surrounded by indecipherable shadows and medical measurements. Yet the two of you had spent embarrassing amounts of time staring at it as though it were the most extraordinary piece of art ever created. Spencer, naturally, had analyzed it with the same enthusiasm he brought to everything else.

Of course, once the initial excitement had settled, he had immediately begun worrying about where to keep the photographs.

Not because he thought someone was going to steal them.

Because he wanted them safe.

You still remembered finding him standing in front of his bookshelf one afternoon, head tilted thoughtfully as though he were solving one of the Bureau’s most complicated cases. He had scanned hundreds of titles before finally pulling out one of the thickest mathematics textbooks you had ever seen.

“They’re going inside my copy of Differential Geometry,” he’d declared with complete confidence while carefully sliding the envelope between two chapters.

You had stared at him, blinking in complete confusion.

“…Why that one?”

Without so much as lifting his eyes from the pages, he’d answered with absolute certainty.

“Statistically speaking, no one voluntarily opens my copy of Differential Geometry.”

You had laughed so hard your stomach hurt.

Weeks later, the ultrasound photographs remained exactly where he’d hidden them, tucked safely between chapters discussing curved manifolds and tensor fields, untouched by anyone except the two of you. Every now and then, usually late at night, Spencer would quietly retrieve the envelope before climbing into bed beside you, and together you’d study the tiny image all over again, smiling as though seeing it for the very first time.

You weren’t keeping the pregnancy a secret because you were ashamed.

If anything, the secret had become almost impossible to contain.

You loved this baby already with a depth that surprised you daily. Sometimes you caught yourself resting your hand absentmindedly against your stomach while reading on the couch or waiting in line for coffee you could no longer stomach. Sometimes Spencer would catch your eye from across the apartment, and without either of you saying a single word, you’d both smile, remembering the extraordinary little secret that existed only between you. It felt like carrying a universe inside your chest, one that threatened to spill into every conversation, every laugh, every quiet glance exchanged across a room.

But eleven weeks still felt fragile.

Delicate.

As though happiness itself had become something you were afraid to hold too tightly.

You knew the statistics.

So did Spencer...perhaps better than anyone.

The first trimester carried uncertainties neither of you could ignore, no matter how desperately you wanted to celebrate. So you had made a quiet promise together. Just a little longer. One more week. Maybe two. Long enough for the fear to loosen its grip. Long enough for the joy to feel louder than the anxiety. Then you’d tell everyone. Properly. Surrounded by the people who loved you most.

Which was exactly why tonight needed to remain wonderfully, blissfully ordinary.

Smile.

Compliment Rossi’s cooking.

Laugh at Morgan’s increasingly terrible jokes.

Listen to Garcia declare herself emotionally attached to another one of Rossi’s antique decorations.

Eat dinner.

Go home.

And above all else, pretend that beneath the soft fabric of your dress, your entire world wasn’t quietly growing one tiny heartbeat at a time.

***

For the first few minutes, everything went exactly according to plan.

The conversation flowed effortlessly around the table, moving from travel stories to teasing remarks about Rossi’s inability to let anyone else near his kitchen. The warm glow of candlelight reflected against crystal glasses, silverware clinked softly against porcelain plates, and the rich aroma of roasted vegetables, fresh herbs, garlic, and homemade pasta drifted through the dining room. It was warm. Comfortable. Familiar. Exactly the kind of evening you’d hoped for.

Then Rossi appeared beside the table carrying a bottle of red wine.

With practiced ease, he moved from place to place, pouring generous servings into each waiting glass until he eventually reached yours. Deep ruby liquid swirled elegantly into the crystal, catching the candlelight before he continued around the table without another thought.

Your smile froze.

Your stomach dropped so suddenly it almost felt like missing the last step on a staircase.

Of course. Wine.

You hadn’t thought about the wine.

For one long second, you simply stared at the glass sitting innocently beside your plate, your thoughts racing far faster than they should have. Refusing it outright would be strange. Claiming you weren’t in the mood might invite questions. Pretending to sip it was risky, especially with Rossi proudly watching everyone’s reactions to the bottle he’d undoubtedly spent far too much money on.

Across the table, Spencer had arrived at the exact same realization.

His eyes drifted from his own glass to yours.

Then to you.

You watched the understanding settle across his face almost instantly.

Without either of you exchanging so much as a glance, he quietly reached across the table toward your place setting, his movements so natural they might have gone completely unnoticed.

“I’ll take yours,” he said casually, lifting the untouched glass before anyone could question it.

Morgan blinked. “You stealing her wine already?”

The question earned a few amused smiles around the table.

Spencer answered so quickly it almost sounded rehearsed.

“She’s driving.”

For a single heartbeat, the entire table fell into that peculiar silence that followed an answer no one had expected. You turned your head slowly to look at him, your expression carefully composed despite the disbelief bubbling beneath it.

Driving? You hated driving.

Everyone at the table knew you hated driving. Morgan had teased you about it for years after you’d once admitted that parallel parking made you feel like you were diffusing a bomb. Garcia had jokingly offered to create a color-coded GPS system “for emotionally distressed drivers.” Even Rossi had learned long ago that inviting the two of you over automatically meant Spencer would be behind the wheel on the way home. If given the choice between navigating rush-hour traffic yourself or spending an hour on public transportation with three transfers, you’d choose the train without a second thought. Spencer knew that better than anyone. Which was precisely why, judging by the fleeting look of horror that crossed his face, he realized what he’d said the exact moment the words left his mouth.

Your eyes met across the table for the briefest instant.

He knew. You knew.

Neither of you dared acknowledge it.

Fortunately, Morgan simply shrugged, entirely unbothered.

“Fair enough.”

The conversation drifted elsewhere almost immediately, someone making a comment about Rossi’s pasta sauce before Garcia launched into a dramatic story about accidentally adopting another stray cat she absolutely insisted she hadn’t meant to bring home. Around the table, laughter resumed, forks scraped softly against porcelain plates, and the comfortable rhythm of dinner settled back into place. You released a slow breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, allowing yourself to believe, if only for a moment, that perhaps the obstacle had been overcome more easily than you’d feared.

Or so you thought.

Barely ten minutes later, Rossi reappeared beside your chair carrying the bottle of red wine in one hand, his attention immediately falling to the untouched glass still sitting exactly where he’d left it. His thick brows drew together in mild confusion before his expression softened into concern.

“Oh, bambina,” he said, tilting his head slightly as he gestured toward the glass. “You haven’t touched your wine.”

Your heart lurched.

For a fraction of a second, your mind raced desperately through possible explanations. You weren’t feeling like drinking. You were waiting until dinner. You had a headache. None of them felt convincing enough, particularly not with Rossi watching you so expectantly.

Before you could utter a single word, Spencer calmly reached across the table, lifted your untouched glass as though it had belonged to him all along, and took a generous sip.

“I did.”

Rossi looked between both of you.

“You finished two glasses already?”

“I was thirsty,” Spencer replied with complete sincerity, sounding as though that single sentence explained everything.

Rossi stared at him.

“You were thirsty.”

“Yes.”

“For wine.”

“Correct.”

For another beat, Rossi simply looked at him, clearly debating whether there was any point continuing the conversation. Eventually, with the resigned expression of a man deciding that Spencer Reid’s brain operated on principles beyond ordinary comprehension, he shrugged lightly and reached for the bottle once more.

“There.”

Deep red wine flowed smoothly back into your crystal glass until it sat nearly full again.

“There we go.”

“Thank you,” you offered with what you hoped was a perfectly natural smile.

Rossi nodded once before wandering toward the other end of the table to refill Morgan’s glass, already distracted by an entirely new discussion about baseball statistics.

The instant his back was turned, Spencer moved.

Without saying a word, without drawing attention to himself, he rested one hand casually beneath the edge of the tablecloth and, in one fluid movement, exchanged your freshly filled glass with his own half-empty one. The motion was so smooth it could have passed for absentmindedness, his fingers never fumbling despite the growing amount of alcohol already in his system. By the time Rossi looked back toward the two of you, Spencer was quietly lifting the newly acquired glass toward his lips while your place setting once again held one that appeared partially consumed.

No one noticed.

Well…almost no one.

Across the table, Emily’s conversation with JJ faltered for just a fraction of a second.

She didn’t say anything.

She simply took another sip of wine while her gaze lingered thoughtfully between the two of you before returning to her plate.

Another half hour slipped by beneath easy conversation and frequent bursts of laughter. Stories gave way to teasing, teasing turned into old Bureau memories, and before long the first bottle stood empty in the center of the table. Rossi noticed almost immediately.

“Well,” he announced proudly as he disappeared toward the kitchen, “that means it’s time for the good one.”

He returned carrying another bottle with the reverence of someone transporting a priceless family heirloom.

“This one’s from Tuscany,” he declared, carefully peeling away the foil. “I bought it during my last trip. You have to try it.”

The cork eased free with a satisfying pop.

You felt your stomach sink all over again.

One by one, Rossi circled the table, refilling each glass with generous enthusiasm.

Including yours.

Again.

You forced another smile.

“Thank you.”

Your glass remained untouched.

Again.

Spencer noticed before anyone else did.

Again.

Without hesitation, he reached over sometime during the next conversation, lifted your glass as naturally as though the two of you shared everything—which, technically, you did—and quietly added yet another serving to the growing collection he’d already consumed.

By now he’d finished one glass.

Then two.

Then three.

Now…four.

Under ordinary circumstances, four glasses of wine spread across an entire dinner might not have seemed particularly remarkable.

For Spencer Reid, it was becoming increasingly obvious.

A warm flush had spread across his cheeks, dusting the bridge of his nose with soft pink that somehow made him look several years younger. His posture remained perfectly straight, and his words retained the precise articulation that years of lecturing and endless reading had ingrained into him. If anything, he enunciated even more carefully than usual, each syllable pronounced with meticulous clarity. Spencer Reid, it seemed, was physically incapable of slurring his words.

Instead, he simply became significantly more talkative.

“Do you know,” he announced to absolutely no one in particular while thoughtfully examining his wineglass as though it were a fascinating scientific specimen, “that the average adult liver metabolizes approximately one standard alcoholic beverage per hour? Assuming average enzymatic activity and normal hepatic function, I’m currently operating at a significant biochemical disadvantage.”

Morgan leaned back in his chair, grinning so broadly it bordered on smug satisfaction.

“You drunk, pretty boy?”

Spencer looked genuinely offended by the suggestion.

“No.”

He paused.

Thought about it.

Then nodded once with complete seriousness.

“Probably.”

The table erupted into laughter.

Even Hotch lowered his gaze toward his plate to disguise the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

You couldn’t help laughing too, though yours carried a distinct note of affection.

Spencer looked utterly adorable.

Hopelessly, undeniably adorable.

Across the table, however, Emily wasn’t laughing nearly as much.

She watched Spencer lift your glass instead of his own.

Again.

She watched you politely thank Rossi for every refill without drinking a single sip.

Again.

She watched Spencer volunteer to finish both glasses with increasingly enthusiastic determination.

Again.

Something about the evening refused to fit together.

Emily wasn’t quite sure what the answer was yet.

But she knew, with absolute certainty, that something wasn’t adding up.

***

By the time coffee replaced the wine, the evening had settled into that wonderfully unhurried stage that always followed one of Rossi’s dinners. Dessert plates had been pushed aside, empty bottles stood abandoned along the center of the table like evidence of a celebration well enjoyed, and the rich scent of freshly brewed espresso drifted through the dining room, mercifully replacing the overwhelming aroma of alcohol. Conversations had fractured into smaller ones, overlapping comfortably without anyone needing to follow every thread. Garcia and JJ were animatedly debating vacation destinations, Garcia insisting that every itinerary should be based entirely around bookstores and bakeries while JJ attempted, unsuccessfully, to convince her that beaches had their own merits. At the other end of the table, Morgan and Rossi had somehow wandered into a passionate disagreement over baseball statistics, each one accusing the other of remembering history incorrectly despite both sounding equally confident. Hotch sat quietly between them, one hand wrapped around his coffee cup, saying very little but wearing the faintest trace of amusement at the corners of his mouth as he watched the familiar chaos unfold around him.

Beside you, however, sat the true consequence of the evening.

Spencer Reid was undeniably drunk.

Not the loud, reckless kind of drunk that knocked over glasses or forgot people’s names. Spencer remained perfectly articulate. Every sentence emerged with the same impeccable diction he used while lecturing, every word carefully pronounced as though he were still delivering an academic presentation. If anything, the alcohol had only made him even more determined to enunciate correctly. His tie had been loosened somewhere between the second and third bottle, though neither of you remembered who had done it. His curls had escaped in every direction until they framed his flushed face in complete disarray. A warm blush stretched across his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose, his eyes had taken on a dreamy softness you rarely saw, and he had developed the oddly adorable habit of pausing before every answer, nodding solemnly to himself as though consulting an invisible committee inside his own mind before reaching a unanimous decision.

Watching him was almost painfully endearing.

You couldn’t help smiling as your fingers found the middle of his back, rubbing slow, comforting circles through the fabric of his shirt.

“You okay?”

He turned toward you immediately, his entire face lighting up with such overwhelming affection that your heart threatened to melt on the spot.

“I love you.”

The words came so easily, so honestly, that several people around the table instinctively smiled.

You laughed quietly.

“I love you too.”

“No…” He shook his head with exaggerated seriousness, lifting one finger as though correcting an important scientific misconception. “I don’t think you understand the statistical magnitude of how much I love you.”

Morgan snorted into his coffee.

“Oh, this is priceless.”

Spencer didn’t even acknowledge him.

His complete attention remained fixed on you, his expression one of absolute sincerity as he searched painstakingly for the perfect description.

“You are…” He frowned thoughtfully, eyes drifting toward the ceiling for several long seconds before returning to you with visible satisfaction. “…my favorite person.”

Warmth spread through your chest so quickly it almost hurt.

God, he was going to destroy you.

“You’ve had enough wine,” you said gently, brushing one of his unruly curls away from his forehead.

“I have had…” He stopped speaking to count carefully on his fingers, restarting twice after apparently losing track somewhere around three. “…more wine than you.”

“Yes.”

He nodded proudly, pleased that you’d confirmed his calculation.

“Because you couldn’t.”

Every muscle in your body went rigid.

The smile disappeared from your face almost instantly.

“Spencer.”

He looked delighted with himself.

“I helped.”

Across the table, Emily glanced up from her coffee.

“So noble.”

“It was.” Spencer nodded once, completely accepting the compliment. “Because it’s a secret.”

Your stomach dropped so violently you were certain everyone could hear it.

Without thinking, you reached for his hand beneath the table, gently squeezing his fingers.

“Sweetheart—”

He leaned closer immediately, lowering his voice in what he clearly believed was an incredibly discreet whisper.

It wasn’t.

“We’re very good at secrets,” he confided with unmistakable pride.

The entire table continued talking.

No one seemed to notice.

Relief washed over you so suddenly you nearly laughed.

Then Spencer smiled thoughtfully, as though another important realization had just occurred to him.

“Although…”

Every instinct in your body screamed.

“Oh no.”

He looked around the entire table before announcing, in a voice loud enough for everyone in the dining room to hear with perfect clarity, “keeping a baby secret is significantly harder than I expected.”

Silence.

Morgan blinked once.

“A what?”

Garcia’s mouth slowly fell open.

JJ lowered her coffee cup so carefully it barely made a sound against the saucer.

At the far end of the table, Hotch’s eyes shifted from Spencer to you with the calm expression of a profiler mentally reorganizing every unusual observation he’d made over the previous several weeks: your sudden avoidance of coffee during morning meetings, Spencer’s increasingly protective behavior, the mysterious disappearances during cases to “find crackers,” the exhaustion, the nausea, the untouched wine.

Pieces quietly clicked into place.

Rossi simply stared.

His mouth opened slightly before closing again.

For perhaps the first time in anyone’s memory, David Rossi seemed completely incapable of finding words.

Emily, meanwhile, merely closed her eyes and a slow smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“Oh,” she sighed, sounding more relieved than surprised. “I knew it.”

You buried your face in both hands.

“Spencer…”

He looked around the table with complete confusion, blinking at everyone’s expressions as though he genuinely couldn’t understand why the conversation had stopped.

“What?”

“You…” you whispered through your hands, shaking your head helplessly. “You just told them about our baby.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“I did?”

“Yes.”

A long pause.

He frowned thoughtfully.

“I wasn’t supposed to.”

“No.”

“Oh.”

He considered that information with remarkable seriousness, nodding slowly as though accepting constructive criticism.

For one suspended heartbeat, nobody moved.

Then Garcia exploded.

The delighted shriek that escaped her was so loud it probably startled every bird within a three-block radius. She launched herself out of her chair before anyone else had even processed what was happening, one hand already covering her mouth as tears filled her eyes.

“I can't believe it!” she squealed. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

JJ was crying before she’d even reached you.

She wrapped her arms tightly around your shoulders, laughing and wiping away tears simultaneously.

“I am so happy for you,” she whispered.

Morgan shot to his feet with a bark of laughter, pointing triumphantly between the two of you.

“I knew something was going on!”

Emily looked at him flatly.

“You absolutely did not.”

“I suspected!”

She folded her arms.

“You spent the entire evening convinced Spencer had developed a drinking problem.”

Morgan hesitated.

“I was…close.”

Rossi finally recovered enough to laugh, a deep, warm laugh that echoed through the dining room as he crossed the room and pulled both you and Spencer into one of his characteristically overwhelming hugs.

“I’ve spent years trying to get this kid drunk,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief as he stepped back to look at Spencer with unmistakable affection. “Years.”

His eyes flickered toward you before returning to Spencer.

“I have to admit…”

He smiled.

“I didn’t expect this to be what finally loosened his tongue.”

Even Hotch stood.

He wasn’t particularly demonstrative, never had been, but the smile he offered the two of you was genuine enough to soften every sharp line in his face.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” you whispered, your voice thick with emotion as you leaned instinctively against Spencer’s shoulder, still half laughing and half hiding your burning face from everyone’s delighted attention.

Spencer looked down at you with sleepy affection, completely oblivious to the fact that he had single-handedly dismantled weeks of carefully orchestrated secrecy. He leaned over and pressed the gentlest kiss against the top of your head before sighing softly.

“I ruined the surprise.”

“You did.”

“I’m sorry.”

You looked up at him.

His expression was so genuinely remorseful, so heartbreakingly sincere despite the unmistakable haze of alcohol clouding his thoughts, that you couldn’t possibly stay embarrassed.

A smile spread across your face.

“I’ll forgive you.”

His eyes brightened immediately.

“You will?”

“Eventually.”

The relieved smile that followed was almost childlike.

“Good.”

He sat quietly for another few seconds, apparently satisfied that the crisis had been resolved.

Then he turned toward Rossi with complete seriousness.

“Can I have some water now?”

[certaimromance]

⊹ ࣪ ˖ Positive in Love & Wine ─ Spencer Reid.

Hiding your pregnancy is getting harder and harder, especially when you agree to go to a dinner party and Spencer has to drink every glass of your wine to keep the secret.

୨ৎ ──── fluff. 5,4k. fem!reader. drunk reid. english isn't my first language. main masterlist.

David Rossi loved hosting dinners.

Not because he particularly enjoyed cooking—though he’d spend the entire evening pretending he did, shooing away anyone who wandered too close to the stove with the indignation of a Michelin-star chef—but because dinner was one of the rare occasions when the people he cared about gathered for reasons that had nothing to do with bloodstained crime scenes or the worst humanity had to offer. Around his dining table, they weren’t profilers or agents or supervisors carrying the weight of impossible decisions. They were simply friends. They laughed a little louder, lingered a little longer over dessert, argued about books instead of behavioral patterns, and, for a few precious hours, remembered what life looked like outside the Bureau.

At least for the first twenty minutes.

After that, someone inevitably mentioned a case.

“You realize,” Morgan announced as he reached across the kitchen island and shamelessly stole a piece of warm bread straight from the basket, “this is exactly how horror movies start.”

Rossi didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder. He merely stirred the sauce with practiced ease, entirely unfazed by the theft.

“The difference,” he replied smoothly, “is that my guests survive dessert.”

Morgan laughed, surrendering with an exaggerated nod before tearing into the bread anyway.

The house was already alive with familiar voices.

Soft jazz drifted through hidden speakers, blending with the rhythmic clatter of pots and the comforting aroma of garlic, rosemary, simmering tomatoes, and freshly baked bread. Warm light spilled from antique lamps, reflecting against framed photographs and shelves lined with decades of books and souvenirs collected from places Rossi rarely spoke about. Every room carried that unmistakable feeling of having been lived in, a home that had witnessed countless celebrations, quiet conversations over late-night whiskey, and the occasional impromptu team meeting when cases refused to stay at Quantico.

Emily wandered into the kitchen, accepting a glass of wine from Rossi before immediately rolling her eyes at something Morgan said.

Garcia was already circling the living room in complete admiration, pausing every few steps to gush over a painting, a sculpture, or an antique clock.

“Oh my God, Rossi,” she gasped dramatically, “this lamp is gorgeous. It’s giving wealthy Italian novelist who solves crimes in his free time.”

“It was just a lamp until you said that.”

JJ slipped toward the patio with Henry balanced comfortably on her hip, the little boy already fascinated by the garden lights beginning to glow outside. Will followed behind carrying an impressive collection of toys that looked capable of entertaining an entire daycare, smiling patiently as Henry reached for everything except the toys he’d brought.

Hotch, unsurprisingly, had arrived exactly on time.

Not a minute early. Not a minute late.

His jacket was already neatly folded over the back of a chair, a glass of sparkling water in one hand as he quietly observed the controlled chaos with the smallest hint of amusement softening his usually unreadable expression.

And, of course, Spencer’s attention had been on you from the moment the two of you stepped through Rossi’s front door.

Before anyone could greet you, Spencer was already helping you out of your coat with the quiet attentiveness that had become second nature over the past several weeks. His hands were careful as he eased the fabric from your shoulders, lingering for just a heartbeat as if making sure you were steady before draping both your coat and his neatly over the rack by the entrance. It was such a small gesture that no one else would have noticed it.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, leaning close enough that only you could hear him beneath the lively chatter filling the room.

You offered him a reassuring smile, hoping it looked more convincing than it felt.

“Perfect.”

The word came automatically, polished by repetition until it sounded almost believable. You’d said it to your mother over the phone earlier that week. To your coworkers when they’d commented on how pale you’d been looking lately. To the cashier who had apologized after you’d abruptly abandoned a shopping cart halfway through the supermarket because someone nearby had opened a container of tuna. You were becoming remarkably good at pretending everything was normal.

Spencer, however, had never been particularly easy to fool.

His honey-colored eyes lingered on your face for another moment, quietly studying you with the same careful concentration he reserved for unsolved cases and impossible puzzles. He noticed everything: the faint shadows beneath your eyes despite the makeup you’d carefully applied that afternoon, the way your smile didn’t quite reach them, the almost invisible hesitation before you shifted your weight from one foot to the other. For a second, you watched concern flicker across his expression, followed by the unmistakable impulse to suggest going home instead. You knew him well enough to see the thought forming before he gently pushed it aside. You had insisted you wanted to come. You’d been looking forward to seeing everyone. If he asked again, you’d only reassure him again.

So instead, he simply intertwined his fingers with yours for the briefest moment and gave your hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it, silently reminding you that if you needed to leave, even five minutes after arriving, you only had to say the word.

Because the truth was…you hadn’t exactly been perfect lately.

For nearly eleven weeks, your body had seemed determined to reinvent itself overnight, transforming familiar routines into unpredictable obstacles and ordinary sensations into impossible challenges. Pregnancy wasn’t anything like the books had described. It wasn’t the glowing skin and sentimental smiles people loved talking about. At least, not yet. Right now, it was exhaustion so profound it settled into your bones no matter how much you slept. It was waking up starving only to burst into tears because the toast you’d been craving suddenly smelled unbearable. It was dizziness when you stood too quickly, headaches that appeared without warning, and emotions that shifted so rapidly they often left you laughing one moment and crying the next.

And the smells were by far the worst.

It was as though someone had turned every scent in the world up to an impossible volume.

Coffee, the rich aroma you’d once relied on every morning, now seemed so overwhelmingly bitter it made your stomach twist before you even entered the kitchen.

Garlic lingered in the air like smoke.

Perfume clung to strangers in grocery stores so intensely that you found yourself instinctively holding your breath as they walked past.

Gasoline from passing cars seeped through open windows with startling force.

Fresh paint, cleaning products, scented candles, everything had become an enemy.

Even the earthy fragrance of Spencer’s favorite loose-leaf tea, a scent that had always reminded you of rainy afternoons spent reading together on the couch, had betrayed you. One quiet Saturday morning, he’d barely begun pouring the boiling water over the tea leaves before your stomach lurched violently. You hadn’t even managed to explain what was wrong. You’d simply clamped a hand over your mouth and hurried toward the bathroom, leaving Spencer frozen in confusion beside the kettle.

When he’d found you a few minutes later, you were sitting on the cool tile floor with your knees pulled to your chest, wrapped in one of his oversized cardigans because you hadn’t had the energy to put on your own sweater after climbing out of bed. Your eyes were watery, your face pale with exhaustion, and the half-steeped tea sat forgotten in the kitchen.

He’d knelt beside you immediately, rubbing slow circles against your back until your breathing steadied.

“I think,” he’d said carefully, as though presenting a well-researched hypothesis, “we should buy different tea.”

The absurd sincerity of the suggestion had broken something inside you.

You’d laughed, the kind that left tears streaming down your face and your stomach aching until Spencer began smiling too, still entirely unsure what had been so funny.

An hour later, you’d taken the pregnancy test.

You remembered sitting together on the edge of the bathtub, your shoulders pressed together so tightly they might as well have been one person, both pretending not to stare at the little plastic stick resting on the counter. Spencer’s knee bounced nervously the entire time, though he’d deny it if anyone ever asked. When the result finally appeared, neither of you moved.

Positive.

You’d looked at him, and he’d looked at you.

For a long moment, there had simply been silence, stunned, breathless silence, as though neither of you trusted your own eyes enough to speak first.

Then Spencer had whispered, almost reverently,

“We’re having a baby.”

The memory still settled warmly inside your chest every time you thought about it.

Only the two of you knew.

No one else.

Not the team, your parents, or his mother.

No one.

It wasn’t because you weren’t excited.

God, you had never loved someone you’d never met quite so fiercely. And you had never been so afraid.

At night, when the apartment had gone quiet and Quantico seemed impossibly far away, the two of you often found yourselves lying awake long after the lights were off, talking in hushed voices about a future that suddenly felt both unimaginably distant and frighteningly close. Spencer wondered aloud whether babies recognized music before they were born and whether reading aloud during pregnancy had any measurable effect on language development. You debated names neither of you was ready to admit you genuinely liked. You imagined tiny knitted sweaters, impossibly small socks, sleepy mornings, first birthdays, scraped knees, school concerts, and the possibility—one that made you laugh every single time—that Spencer might accidentally teach your future toddler quantum mechanics before the alphabet.

Other nights, words simply weren’t necessary.

You would lie tangled together beneath the blankets, your head resting against his shoulder while he absentmindedly traced slow circles over your arm. Eventually, almost without thinking, his hand would drift lower, settling with extraordinary care against your abdomen. There was hardly anything to feel yet. At eleven weeks, your stomach remained almost perfectly flat, your dresses fitting exactly as they always had. If someone didn’t know, they would never have guessed. But Spencer touched you as though the slightest movement might disturb the tiny life growing there, his palm resting so gently against you that it sometimes made your chest ache. He would smile into the darkness with an expression so impossibly soft it stole your breath every single time, as though he could already sense the little heartbeat hidden beneath his fingertips. Sometimes he whispered things you weren’t sure he realized he was saying: little observations about fetal development he’d memorized from medical journals, promises about museums he’d one day visit with your child, absentminded thoughts about buying children’s editions of classic literature. Other times, he simply stayed there, smiling quietly, overwhelmed by the astonishing reality that someone already existed. Someone who belonged entirely to the two of you.

Every ultrasound photograph had become a treasure.

The first one lived inside an ivory envelope that had already begun to soften at the edges because neither of you could stop taking it out to look at it. Realistically, there wasn’t very much to see. To anyone else, it was little more than a grainy black-and-white blur surrounded by indecipherable shadows and medical measurements. Yet the two of you had spent embarrassing amounts of time staring at it as though it were the most extraordinary piece of art ever created. Spencer, naturally, had analyzed it with the same enthusiasm he brought to everything else.

Of course, once the initial excitement had settled, he had immediately begun worrying about where to keep the photographs.

Not because he thought someone was going to steal them.

Because he wanted them safe.

You still remembered finding him standing in front of his bookshelf one afternoon, head tilted thoughtfully as though he were solving one of the Bureau’s most complicated cases. He had scanned hundreds of titles before finally pulling out one of the thickest mathematics textbooks you had ever seen.

“They’re going inside my copy of Differential Geometry,” he’d declared with complete confidence while carefully sliding the envelope between two chapters.

You had stared at him, blinking in complete confusion.

“…Why that one?”

Without so much as lifting his eyes from the pages, he’d answered with absolute certainty.

“Statistically speaking, no one voluntarily opens my copy of Differential Geometry.”

You had laughed so hard your stomach hurt.

Weeks later, the ultrasound photographs remained exactly where he’d hidden them, tucked safely between chapters discussing curved manifolds and tensor fields, untouched by anyone except the two of you. Every now and then, usually late at night, Spencer would quietly retrieve the envelope before climbing into bed beside you, and together you’d study the tiny image all over again, smiling as though seeing it for the very first time.

You weren’t keeping the pregnancy a secret because you were ashamed.

If anything, the secret had become almost impossible to contain.

You loved this baby already with a depth that surprised you daily. Sometimes you caught yourself resting your hand absentmindedly against your stomach while reading on the couch or waiting in line for coffee you could no longer stomach. Sometimes Spencer would catch your eye from across the apartment, and without either of you saying a single word, you’d both smile, remembering the extraordinary little secret that existed only between you. It felt like carrying a universe inside your chest, one that threatened to spill into every conversation, every laugh, every quiet glance exchanged across a room.

But eleven weeks still felt fragile.

Delicate.

As though happiness itself had become something you were afraid to hold too tightly.

You knew the statistics.

So did Spencer...perhaps better than anyone.

The first trimester carried uncertainties neither of you could ignore, no matter how desperately you wanted to celebrate. So you had made a quiet promise together. Just a little longer. One more week. Maybe two. Long enough for the fear to loosen its grip. Long enough for the joy to feel louder than the anxiety. Then you’d tell everyone. Properly. Surrounded by the people who loved you most.

Which was exactly why tonight needed to remain wonderfully, blissfully ordinary.

Smile.

Compliment Rossi’s cooking.

Laugh at Morgan’s increasingly terrible jokes.

Listen to Garcia declare herself emotionally attached to another one of Rossi’s antique decorations.

Eat dinner.

Go home.

And above all else, pretend that beneath the soft fabric of your dress, your entire world wasn’t quietly growing one tiny heartbeat at a time.

***

For the first few minutes, everything went exactly according to plan.

The conversation flowed effortlessly around the table, moving from travel stories to teasing remarks about Rossi’s inability to let anyone else near his kitchen. The warm glow of candlelight reflected against crystal glasses, silverware clinked softly against porcelain plates, and the rich aroma of roasted vegetables, fresh herbs, garlic, and homemade pasta drifted through the dining room. It was warm. Comfortable. Familiar. Exactly the kind of evening you’d hoped for.

Then Rossi appeared beside the table carrying a bottle of red wine.

With practiced ease, he moved from place to place, pouring generous servings into each waiting glass until he eventually reached yours. Deep ruby liquid swirled elegantly into the crystal, catching the candlelight before he continued around the table without another thought.

Your smile froze.

Your stomach dropped so suddenly it almost felt like missing the last step on a staircase.

Of course. Wine.

You hadn’t thought about the wine.

For one long second, you simply stared at the glass sitting innocently beside your plate, your thoughts racing far faster than they should have. Refusing it outright would be strange. Claiming you weren’t in the mood might invite questions. Pretending to sip it was risky, especially with Rossi proudly watching everyone’s reactions to the bottle he’d undoubtedly spent far too much money on.

Across the table, Spencer had arrived at the exact same realization.

His eyes drifted from his own glass to yours.

Then to you.

You watched the understanding settle across his face almost instantly.

Without either of you exchanging so much as a glance, he quietly reached across the table toward your place setting, his movements so natural they might have gone completely unnoticed.

“I’ll take yours,” he said casually, lifting the untouched glass before anyone could question it.

Morgan blinked. “You stealing her wine already?”

The question earned a few amused smiles around the table.

Spencer answered so quickly it almost sounded rehearsed.

“She’s driving.”

For a single heartbeat, the entire table fell into that peculiar silence that followed an answer no one had expected. You turned your head slowly to look at him, your expression carefully composed despite the disbelief bubbling beneath it.

Driving? You hated driving.

Everyone at the table knew you hated driving. Morgan had teased you about it for years after you’d once admitted that parallel parking made you feel like you were diffusing a bomb. Garcia had jokingly offered to create a color-coded GPS system “for emotionally distressed drivers.” Even Rossi had learned long ago that inviting the two of you over automatically meant Spencer would be behind the wheel on the way home. If given the choice between navigating rush-hour traffic yourself or spending an hour on public transportation with three transfers, you’d choose the train without a second thought. Spencer knew that better than anyone. Which was precisely why, judging by the fleeting look of horror that crossed his face, he realized what he’d said the exact moment the words left his mouth.

Your eyes met across the table for the briefest instant.

He knew. You knew.

Neither of you dared acknowledge it.

Fortunately, Morgan simply shrugged, entirely unbothered.

“Fair enough.”

The conversation drifted elsewhere almost immediately, someone making a comment about Rossi’s pasta sauce before Garcia launched into a dramatic story about accidentally adopting another stray cat she absolutely insisted she hadn’t meant to bring home. Around the table, laughter resumed, forks scraped softly against porcelain plates, and the comfortable rhythm of dinner settled back into place. You released a slow breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, allowing yourself to believe, if only for a moment, that perhaps the obstacle had been overcome more easily than you’d feared.

Or so you thought.

Barely ten minutes later, Rossi reappeared beside your chair carrying the bottle of red wine in one hand, his attention immediately falling to the untouched glass still sitting exactly where he’d left it. His thick brows drew together in mild confusion before his expression softened into concern.

“Oh, bambina,” he said, tilting his head slightly as he gestured toward the glass. “You haven’t touched your wine.”

Your heart lurched.

For a fraction of a second, your mind raced desperately through possible explanations. You weren’t feeling like drinking. You were waiting until dinner. You had a headache. None of them felt convincing enough, particularly not with Rossi watching you so expectantly.

Before you could utter a single word, Spencer calmly reached across the table, lifted your untouched glass as though it had belonged to him all along, and took a generous sip.

“I did.”

Rossi looked between both of you.

“You finished two glasses already?”

“I was thirsty,” Spencer replied with complete sincerity, sounding as though that single sentence explained everything.

Rossi stared at him.

“You were thirsty.”

“Yes.”

“For wine.”

“Correct.”

For another beat, Rossi simply looked at him, clearly debating whether there was any point continuing the conversation. Eventually, with the resigned expression of a man deciding that Spencer Reid’s brain operated on principles beyond ordinary comprehension, he shrugged lightly and reached for the bottle once more.

“There.”

Deep red wine flowed smoothly back into your crystal glass until it sat nearly full again.

“There we go.”

“Thank you,” you offered with what you hoped was a perfectly natural smile.

Rossi nodded once before wandering toward the other end of the table to refill Morgan’s glass, already distracted by an entirely new discussion about baseball statistics.

The instant his back was turned, Spencer moved.

Without saying a word, without drawing attention to himself, he rested one hand casually beneath the edge of the tablecloth and, in one fluid movement, exchanged your freshly filled glass with his own half-empty one. The motion was so smooth it could have passed for absentmindedness, his fingers never fumbling despite the growing amount of alcohol already in his system. By the time Rossi looked back toward the two of you, Spencer was quietly lifting the newly acquired glass toward his lips while your place setting once again held one that appeared partially consumed.

No one noticed.

Well…almost no one.

Across the table, Emily’s conversation with JJ faltered for just a fraction of a second.

She didn’t say anything.

She simply took another sip of wine while her gaze lingered thoughtfully between the two of you before returning to her plate.

Another half hour slipped by beneath easy conversation and frequent bursts of laughter. Stories gave way to teasing, teasing turned into old Bureau memories, and before long the first bottle stood empty in the center of the table. Rossi noticed almost immediately.

“Well,” he announced proudly as he disappeared toward the kitchen, “that means it’s time for the good one.”

He returned carrying another bottle with the reverence of someone transporting a priceless family heirloom.

“This one’s from Tuscany,” he declared, carefully peeling away the foil. “I bought it during my last trip. You have to try it.”

The cork eased free with a satisfying pop.

You felt your stomach sink all over again.

One by one, Rossi circled the table, refilling each glass with generous enthusiasm.

Including yours.

Again.

You forced another smile.

“Thank you.”

Your glass remained untouched.

Again.

Spencer noticed before anyone else did.

Again.

Without hesitation, he reached over sometime during the next conversation, lifted your glass as naturally as though the two of you shared everything—which, technically, you did—and quietly added yet another serving to the growing collection he’d already consumed.

By now he’d finished one glass.

Then two.

Then three.

Now…four.

Under ordinary circumstances, four glasses of wine spread across an entire dinner might not have seemed particularly remarkable.

For Spencer Reid, it was becoming increasingly obvious.

A warm flush had spread across his cheeks, dusting the bridge of his nose with soft pink that somehow made him look several years younger. His posture remained perfectly straight, and his words retained the precise articulation that years of lecturing and endless reading had ingrained into him. If anything, he enunciated even more carefully than usual, each syllable pronounced with meticulous clarity. Spencer Reid, it seemed, was physically incapable of slurring his words.

Instead, he simply became significantly more talkative.

“Do you know,” he announced to absolutely no one in particular while thoughtfully examining his wineglass as though it were a fascinating scientific specimen, “that the average adult liver metabolizes approximately one standard alcoholic beverage per hour? Assuming average enzymatic activity and normal hepatic function, I’m currently operating at a significant biochemical disadvantage.”

Morgan leaned back in his chair, grinning so broadly it bordered on smug satisfaction.

“You drunk, pretty boy?”

Spencer looked genuinely offended by the suggestion.

“No.”

He paused.

Thought about it.

Then nodded once with complete seriousness.

“Probably.”

The table erupted into laughter.

Even Hotch lowered his gaze toward his plate to disguise the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

You couldn’t help laughing too, though yours carried a distinct note of affection.

Spencer looked utterly adorable.

Hopelessly, undeniably adorable.

Across the table, however, Emily wasn’t laughing nearly as much.

She watched Spencer lift your glass instead of his own.

Again.

She watched you politely thank Rossi for every refill without drinking a single sip.

Again.

She watched Spencer volunteer to finish both glasses with increasingly enthusiastic determination.

Again.

Something about the evening refused to fit together.

Emily wasn’t quite sure what the answer was yet.

But she knew, with absolute certainty, that something wasn’t adding up.

***

By the time coffee replaced the wine, the evening had settled into that wonderfully unhurried stage that always followed one of Rossi’s dinners. Dessert plates had been pushed aside, empty bottles stood abandoned along the center of the table like evidence of a celebration well enjoyed, and the rich scent of freshly brewed espresso drifted through the dining room, mercifully replacing the overwhelming aroma of alcohol. Conversations had fractured into smaller ones, overlapping comfortably without anyone needing to follow every thread. Garcia and JJ were animatedly debating vacation destinations, Garcia insisting that every itinerary should be based entirely around bookstores and bakeries while JJ attempted, unsuccessfully, to convince her that beaches had their own merits. At the other end of the table, Morgan and Rossi had somehow wandered into a passionate disagreement over baseball statistics, each one accusing the other of remembering history incorrectly despite both sounding equally confident. Hotch sat quietly between them, one hand wrapped around his coffee cup, saying very little but wearing the faintest trace of amusement at the corners of his mouth as he watched the familiar chaos unfold around him.

Beside you, however, sat the true consequence of the evening.

Spencer Reid was undeniably drunk.

Not the loud, reckless kind of drunk that knocked over glasses or forgot people’s names. Spencer remained perfectly articulate. Every sentence emerged with the same impeccable diction he used while lecturing, every word carefully pronounced as though he were still delivering an academic presentation. If anything, the alcohol had only made him even more determined to enunciate correctly. His tie had been loosened somewhere between the second and third bottle, though neither of you remembered who had done it. His curls had escaped in every direction until they framed his flushed face in complete disarray. A warm blush stretched across his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose, his eyes had taken on a dreamy softness you rarely saw, and he had developed the oddly adorable habit of pausing before every answer, nodding solemnly to himself as though consulting an invisible committee inside his own mind before reaching a unanimous decision.

Watching him was almost painfully endearing.

You couldn’t help smiling as your fingers found the middle of his back, rubbing slow, comforting circles through the fabric of his shirt.

“You okay?”

He turned toward you immediately, his entire face lighting up with such overwhelming affection that your heart threatened to melt on the spot.

“I love you.”

The words came so easily, so honestly, that several people around the table instinctively smiled.

You laughed quietly.

“I love you too.”

“No…” He shook his head with exaggerated seriousness, lifting one finger as though correcting an important scientific misconception. “I don’t think you understand the statistical magnitude of how much I love you.”

Morgan snorted into his coffee.

“Oh, this is priceless.”

Spencer didn’t even acknowledge him.

His complete attention remained fixed on you, his expression one of absolute sincerity as he searched painstakingly for the perfect description.

“You are…” He frowned thoughtfully, eyes drifting toward the ceiling for several long seconds before returning to you with visible satisfaction. “…my favorite person.”

Warmth spread through your chest so quickly it almost hurt.

God, he was going to destroy you.

“You’ve had enough wine,” you said gently, brushing one of his unruly curls away from his forehead.

“I have had…” He stopped speaking to count carefully on his fingers, restarting twice after apparently losing track somewhere around three. “…more wine than you.”

“Yes.”

He nodded proudly, pleased that you’d confirmed his calculation.

“Because you couldn’t.”

Every muscle in your body went rigid.

The smile disappeared from your face almost instantly.

“Spencer.”

He looked delighted with himself.

“I helped.”

Across the table, Emily glanced up from her coffee.

“So noble.”

“It was.” Spencer nodded once, completely accepting the compliment. “Because it’s a secret.”

Your stomach dropped so violently you were certain everyone could hear it.

Without thinking, you reached for his hand beneath the table, gently squeezing his fingers.

“Sweetheart—”

He leaned closer immediately, lowering his voice in what he clearly believed was an incredibly discreet whisper.

It wasn’t.

“We’re very good at secrets,” he confided with unmistakable pride.

The entire table continued talking.

No one seemed to notice.

Relief washed over you so suddenly you nearly laughed.

Then Spencer smiled thoughtfully, as though another important realization had just occurred to him.

“Although…”

Every instinct in your body screamed.

“Oh no.”

He looked around the entire table before announcing, in a voice loud enough for everyone in the dining room to hear with perfect clarity, “keeping a baby secret is significantly harder than I expected.”

Silence.

Morgan blinked once.

“A what?”

Garcia’s mouth slowly fell open.

JJ lowered her coffee cup so carefully it barely made a sound against the saucer.

At the far end of the table, Hotch’s eyes shifted from Spencer to you with the calm expression of a profiler mentally reorganizing every unusual observation he’d made over the previous several weeks: your sudden avoidance of coffee during morning meetings, Spencer’s increasingly protective behavior, the mysterious disappearances during cases to “find crackers,” the exhaustion, the nausea, the untouched wine.

Pieces quietly clicked into place.

Rossi simply stared.

His mouth opened slightly before closing again.

For perhaps the first time in anyone’s memory, David Rossi seemed completely incapable of finding words.

Emily, meanwhile, merely closed her eyes and a slow smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“Oh,” she sighed, sounding more relieved than surprised. “I knew it.”

You buried your face in both hands.

“Spencer…”

He looked around the table with complete confusion, blinking at everyone’s expressions as though he genuinely couldn’t understand why the conversation had stopped.

“What?”

“You…” you whispered through your hands, shaking your head helplessly. “You just told them about our baby.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“I did?”

“Yes.”

A long pause.

He frowned thoughtfully.

“I wasn’t supposed to.”

“No.”

“Oh.”

He considered that information with remarkable seriousness, nodding slowly as though accepting constructive criticism.

For one suspended heartbeat, nobody moved.

Then Garcia exploded.

The delighted shriek that escaped her was so loud it probably startled every bird within a three-block radius. She launched herself out of her chair before anyone else had even processed what was happening, one hand already covering her mouth as tears filled her eyes.

“I can't believe it!” she squealed. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

JJ was crying before she’d even reached you.

She wrapped her arms tightly around your shoulders, laughing and wiping away tears simultaneously.

“I am so happy for you,” she whispered.

Morgan shot to his feet with a bark of laughter, pointing triumphantly between the two of you.

“I knew something was going on!”

Emily looked at him flatly.

“You absolutely did not.”

“I suspected!”

She folded her arms.

“You spent the entire evening convinced Spencer had developed a drinking problem.”

Morgan hesitated.

“I was…close.”

Rossi finally recovered enough to laugh, a deep, warm laugh that echoed through the dining room as he crossed the room and pulled both you and Spencer into one of his characteristically overwhelming hugs.

“I’ve spent years trying to get this kid drunk,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief as he stepped back to look at Spencer with unmistakable affection. “Years.”

His eyes flickered toward you before returning to Spencer.

“I have to admit…”

He smiled.

“I didn’t expect this to be what finally loosened his tongue.”

Even Hotch stood.

He wasn’t particularly demonstrative, never had been, but the smile he offered the two of you was genuine enough to soften every sharp line in his face.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” you whispered, your voice thick with emotion as you leaned instinctively against Spencer’s shoulder, still half laughing and half hiding your burning face from everyone’s delighted attention.

Spencer looked down at you with sleepy affection, completely oblivious to the fact that he had single-handedly dismantled weeks of carefully orchestrated secrecy. He leaned over and pressed the gentlest kiss against the top of your head before sighing softly.

“I ruined the surprise.”

“You did.”

“I’m sorry.”

You looked up at him.

His expression was so genuinely remorseful, so heartbreakingly sincere despite the unmistakable haze of alcohol clouding his thoughts, that you couldn’t possibly stay embarrassed.

A smile spread across your face.

“I’ll forgive you.”

His eyes brightened immediately.

“You will?”

“Eventually.”

The relieved smile that followed was almost childlike.

“Good.”

He sat quietly for another few seconds, apparently satisfied that the crisis had been resolved.

Then he turned toward Rossi with complete seriousness.

“Can I have some water now?”

[certaimromance]

⊹ ࣪ ˖ Positive in Love & Wine ─ Spencer Reid.

Hiding your pregnancy is getting harder and harder, especially when you agree to go to a dinner party and Spencer has to drink every glass of your wine to keep the secret.

୨ৎ ──── fluff. 5,4k. fem!reader. drunk reid. english isn't my first language. main masterlist.

David Rossi loved hosting dinners.

Not because he particularly enjoyed cooking—though he’d spend the entire evening pretending he did, shooing away anyone who wandered too close to the stove with the indignation of a Michelin-star chef—but because dinner was one of the rare occasions when the people he cared about gathered for reasons that had nothing to do with bloodstained crime scenes or the worst humanity had to offer. Around his dining table, they weren’t profilers or agents or supervisors carrying the weight of impossible decisions. They were simply friends. They laughed a little louder, lingered a little longer over dessert, argued about books instead of behavioral patterns, and, for a few precious hours, remembered what life looked like outside the Bureau.

At least for the first twenty minutes.

After that, someone inevitably mentioned a case.

“You realize,” Morgan announced as he reached across the kitchen island and shamelessly stole a piece of warm bread straight from the basket, “this is exactly how horror movies start.”

Rossi didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder. He merely stirred the sauce with practiced ease, entirely unfazed by the theft.

“The difference,” he replied smoothly, “is that my guests survive dessert.”

Morgan laughed, surrendering with an exaggerated nod before tearing into the bread anyway.

The house was already alive with familiar voices.

Soft jazz drifted through hidden speakers, blending with the rhythmic clatter of pots and the comforting aroma of garlic, rosemary, simmering tomatoes, and freshly baked bread. Warm light spilled from antique lamps, reflecting against framed photographs and shelves lined with decades of books and souvenirs collected from places Rossi rarely spoke about. Every room carried that unmistakable feeling of having been lived in, a home that had witnessed countless celebrations, quiet conversations over late-night whiskey, and the occasional impromptu team meeting when cases refused to stay at Quantico.

Emily wandered into the kitchen, accepting a glass of wine from Rossi before immediately rolling her eyes at something Morgan said.

Garcia was already circling the living room in complete admiration, pausing every few steps to gush over a painting, a sculpture, or an antique clock.

“Oh my God, Rossi,” she gasped dramatically, “this lamp is gorgeous. It’s giving wealthy Italian novelist who solves crimes in his free time.”

“It was just a lamp until you said that.”

JJ slipped toward the patio with Henry balanced comfortably on her hip, the little boy already fascinated by the garden lights beginning to glow outside. Will followed behind carrying an impressive collection of toys that looked capable of entertaining an entire daycare, smiling patiently as Henry reached for everything except the toys he’d brought.

Hotch, unsurprisingly, had arrived exactly on time.

Not a minute early. Not a minute late.

His jacket was already neatly folded over the back of a chair, a glass of sparkling water in one hand as he quietly observed the controlled chaos with the smallest hint of amusement softening his usually unreadable expression.

And, of course, Spencer’s attention had been on you from the moment the two of you stepped through Rossi’s front door.

Before anyone could greet you, Spencer was already helping you out of your coat with the quiet attentiveness that had become second nature over the past several weeks. His hands were careful as he eased the fabric from your shoulders, lingering for just a heartbeat as if making sure you were steady before draping both your coat and his neatly over the rack by the entrance. It was such a small gesture that no one else would have noticed it.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, leaning close enough that only you could hear him beneath the lively chatter filling the room.

You offered him a reassuring smile, hoping it looked more convincing than it felt.

“Perfect.”

The word came automatically, polished by repetition until it sounded almost believable. You’d said it to your mother over the phone earlier that week. To your coworkers when they’d commented on how pale you’d been looking lately. To the cashier who had apologized after you’d abruptly abandoned a shopping cart halfway through the supermarket because someone nearby had opened a container of tuna. You were becoming remarkably good at pretending everything was normal.

Spencer, however, had never been particularly easy to fool.

His honey-colored eyes lingered on your face for another moment, quietly studying you with the same careful concentration he reserved for unsolved cases and impossible puzzles. He noticed everything: the faint shadows beneath your eyes despite the makeup you’d carefully applied that afternoon, the way your smile didn’t quite reach them, the almost invisible hesitation before you shifted your weight from one foot to the other. For a second, you watched concern flicker across his expression, followed by the unmistakable impulse to suggest going home instead. You knew him well enough to see the thought forming before he gently pushed it aside. You had insisted you wanted to come. You’d been looking forward to seeing everyone. If he asked again, you’d only reassure him again.

So instead, he simply intertwined his fingers with yours for the briefest moment and gave your hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it, silently reminding you that if you needed to leave, even five minutes after arriving, you only had to say the word.

Because the truth was…you hadn’t exactly been perfect lately.

For nearly eleven weeks, your body had seemed determined to reinvent itself overnight, transforming familiar routines into unpredictable obstacles and ordinary sensations into impossible challenges. Pregnancy wasn’t anything like the books had described. It wasn’t the glowing skin and sentimental smiles people loved talking about. At least, not yet. Right now, it was exhaustion so profound it settled into your bones no matter how much you slept. It was waking up starving only to burst into tears because the toast you’d been craving suddenly smelled unbearable. It was dizziness when you stood too quickly, headaches that appeared without warning, and emotions that shifted so rapidly they often left you laughing one moment and crying the next.

And the smells were by far the worst.

It was as though someone had turned every scent in the world up to an impossible volume.

Coffee, the rich aroma you’d once relied on every morning, now seemed so overwhelmingly bitter it made your stomach twist before you even entered the kitchen.

Garlic lingered in the air like smoke.

Perfume clung to strangers in grocery stores so intensely that you found yourself instinctively holding your breath as they walked past.

Gasoline from passing cars seeped through open windows with startling force.

Fresh paint, cleaning products, scented candles, everything had become an enemy.

Even the earthy fragrance of Spencer’s favorite loose-leaf tea, a scent that had always reminded you of rainy afternoons spent reading together on the couch, had betrayed you. One quiet Saturday morning, he’d barely begun pouring the boiling water over the tea leaves before your stomach lurched violently. You hadn’t even managed to explain what was wrong. You’d simply clamped a hand over your mouth and hurried toward the bathroom, leaving Spencer frozen in confusion beside the kettle.

When he’d found you a few minutes later, you were sitting on the cool tile floor with your knees pulled to your chest, wrapped in one of his oversized cardigans because you hadn’t had the energy to put on your own sweater after climbing out of bed. Your eyes were watery, your face pale with exhaustion, and the half-steeped tea sat forgotten in the kitchen.

He’d knelt beside you immediately, rubbing slow circles against your back until your breathing steadied.

“I think,” he’d said carefully, as though presenting a well-researched hypothesis, “we should buy different tea.”

The absurd sincerity of the suggestion had broken something inside you.

You’d laughed, the kind that left tears streaming down your face and your stomach aching until Spencer began smiling too, still entirely unsure what had been so funny.

An hour later, you’d taken the pregnancy test.

You remembered sitting together on the edge of the bathtub, your shoulders pressed together so tightly they might as well have been one person, both pretending not to stare at the little plastic stick resting on the counter. Spencer’s knee bounced nervously the entire time, though he’d deny it if anyone ever asked. When the result finally appeared, neither of you moved.

Positive.

You’d looked at him, and he’d looked at you.

For a long moment, there had simply been silence, stunned, breathless silence, as though neither of you trusted your own eyes enough to speak first.

Then Spencer had whispered, almost reverently,

“We’re having a baby.”

The memory still settled warmly inside your chest every time you thought about it.

Only the two of you knew.

No one else.

Not the team, your parents, or his mother.

No one.

It wasn’t because you weren’t excited.

God, you had never loved someone you’d never met quite so fiercely. And you had never been so afraid.

At night, when the apartment had gone quiet and Quantico seemed impossibly far away, the two of you often found yourselves lying awake long after the lights were off, talking in hushed voices about a future that suddenly felt both unimaginably distant and frighteningly close. Spencer wondered aloud whether babies recognized music before they were born and whether reading aloud during pregnancy had any measurable effect on language development. You debated names neither of you was ready to admit you genuinely liked. You imagined tiny knitted sweaters, impossibly small socks, sleepy mornings, first birthdays, scraped knees, school concerts, and the possibility—one that made you laugh every single time—that Spencer might accidentally teach your future toddler quantum mechanics before the alphabet.

Other nights, words simply weren’t necessary.

You would lie tangled together beneath the blankets, your head resting against his shoulder while he absentmindedly traced slow circles over your arm. Eventually, almost without thinking, his hand would drift lower, settling with extraordinary care against your abdomen. There was hardly anything to feel yet. At eleven weeks, your stomach remained almost perfectly flat, your dresses fitting exactly as they always had. If someone didn’t know, they would never have guessed. But Spencer touched you as though the slightest movement might disturb the tiny life growing there, his palm resting so gently against you that it sometimes made your chest ache. He would smile into the darkness with an expression so impossibly soft it stole your breath every single time, as though he could already sense the little heartbeat hidden beneath his fingertips. Sometimes he whispered things you weren’t sure he realized he was saying: little observations about fetal development he’d memorized from medical journals, promises about museums he’d one day visit with your child, absentminded thoughts about buying children’s editions of classic literature. Other times, he simply stayed there, smiling quietly, overwhelmed by the astonishing reality that someone already existed. Someone who belonged entirely to the two of you.

Every ultrasound photograph had become a treasure.

The first one lived inside an ivory envelope that had already begun to soften at the edges because neither of you could stop taking it out to look at it. Realistically, there wasn’t very much to see. To anyone else, it was little more than a grainy black-and-white blur surrounded by indecipherable shadows and medical measurements. Yet the two of you had spent embarrassing amounts of time staring at it as though it were the most extraordinary piece of art ever created. Spencer, naturally, had analyzed it with the same enthusiasm he brought to everything else.

Of course, once the initial excitement had settled, he had immediately begun worrying about where to keep the photographs.

Not because he thought someone was going to steal them.

Because he wanted them safe.

You still remembered finding him standing in front of his bookshelf one afternoon, head tilted thoughtfully as though he were solving one of the Bureau’s most complicated cases. He had scanned hundreds of titles before finally pulling out one of the thickest mathematics textbooks you had ever seen.

“They’re going inside my copy of Differential Geometry,” he’d declared with complete confidence while carefully sliding the envelope between two chapters.

You had stared at him, blinking in complete confusion.

“…Why that one?”

Without so much as lifting his eyes from the pages, he’d answered with absolute certainty.

“Statistically speaking, no one voluntarily opens my copy of Differential Geometry.”

You had laughed so hard your stomach hurt.

Weeks later, the ultrasound photographs remained exactly where he’d hidden them, tucked safely between chapters discussing curved manifolds and tensor fields, untouched by anyone except the two of you. Every now and then, usually late at night, Spencer would quietly retrieve the envelope before climbing into bed beside you, and together you’d study the tiny image all over again, smiling as though seeing it for the very first time.

You weren’t keeping the pregnancy a secret because you were ashamed.

If anything, the secret had become almost impossible to contain.

You loved this baby already with a depth that surprised you daily. Sometimes you caught yourself resting your hand absentmindedly against your stomach while reading on the couch or waiting in line for coffee you could no longer stomach. Sometimes Spencer would catch your eye from across the apartment, and without either of you saying a single word, you’d both smile, remembering the extraordinary little secret that existed only between you. It felt like carrying a universe inside your chest, one that threatened to spill into every conversation, every laugh, every quiet glance exchanged across a room.

But eleven weeks still felt fragile.

Delicate.

As though happiness itself had become something you were afraid to hold too tightly.

You knew the statistics.

So did Spencer...perhaps better than anyone.

The first trimester carried uncertainties neither of you could ignore, no matter how desperately you wanted to celebrate. So you had made a quiet promise together. Just a little longer. One more week. Maybe two. Long enough for the fear to loosen its grip. Long enough for the joy to feel louder than the anxiety. Then you’d tell everyone. Properly. Surrounded by the people who loved you most.

Which was exactly why tonight needed to remain wonderfully, blissfully ordinary.

Smile.

Compliment Rossi’s cooking.

Laugh at Morgan’s increasingly terrible jokes.

Listen to Garcia declare herself emotionally attached to another one of Rossi’s antique decorations.

Eat dinner.

Go home.

And above all else, pretend that beneath the soft fabric of your dress, your entire world wasn’t quietly growing one tiny heartbeat at a time.

***

For the first few minutes, everything went exactly according to plan.

The conversation flowed effortlessly around the table, moving from travel stories to teasing remarks about Rossi’s inability to let anyone else near his kitchen. The warm glow of candlelight reflected against crystal glasses, silverware clinked softly against porcelain plates, and the rich aroma of roasted vegetables, fresh herbs, garlic, and homemade pasta drifted through the dining room. It was warm. Comfortable. Familiar. Exactly the kind of evening you’d hoped for.

Then Rossi appeared beside the table carrying a bottle of red wine.

With practiced ease, he moved from place to place, pouring generous servings into each waiting glass until he eventually reached yours. Deep ruby liquid swirled elegantly into the crystal, catching the candlelight before he continued around the table without another thought.

Your smile froze.

Your stomach dropped so suddenly it almost felt like missing the last step on a staircase.

Of course. Wine.

You hadn’t thought about the wine.

For one long second, you simply stared at the glass sitting innocently beside your plate, your thoughts racing far faster than they should have. Refusing it outright would be strange. Claiming you weren’t in the mood might invite questions. Pretending to sip it was risky, especially with Rossi proudly watching everyone’s reactions to the bottle he’d undoubtedly spent far too much money on.

Across the table, Spencer had arrived at the exact same realization.

His eyes drifted from his own glass to yours.

Then to you.

You watched the understanding settle across his face almost instantly.

Without either of you exchanging so much as a glance, he quietly reached across the table toward your place setting, his movements so natural they might have gone completely unnoticed.

“I’ll take yours,” he said casually, lifting the untouched glass before anyone could question it.

Morgan blinked. “You stealing her wine already?”

The question earned a few amused smiles around the table.

Spencer answered so quickly it almost sounded rehearsed.

“She’s driving.”

For a single heartbeat, the entire table fell into that peculiar silence that followed an answer no one had expected. You turned your head slowly to look at him, your expression carefully composed despite the disbelief bubbling beneath it.

Driving? You hated driving.

Everyone at the table knew you hated driving. Morgan had teased you about it for years after you’d once admitted that parallel parking made you feel like you were diffusing a bomb. Garcia had jokingly offered to create a color-coded GPS system “for emotionally distressed drivers.” Even Rossi had learned long ago that inviting the two of you over automatically meant Spencer would be behind the wheel on the way home. If given the choice between navigating rush-hour traffic yourself or spending an hour on public transportation with three transfers, you’d choose the train without a second thought. Spencer knew that better than anyone. Which was precisely why, judging by the fleeting look of horror that crossed his face, he realized what he’d said the exact moment the words left his mouth.

Your eyes met across the table for the briefest instant.

He knew. You knew.

Neither of you dared acknowledge it.

Fortunately, Morgan simply shrugged, entirely unbothered.

“Fair enough.”

The conversation drifted elsewhere almost immediately, someone making a comment about Rossi’s pasta sauce before Garcia launched into a dramatic story about accidentally adopting another stray cat she absolutely insisted she hadn’t meant to bring home. Around the table, laughter resumed, forks scraped softly against porcelain plates, and the comfortable rhythm of dinner settled back into place. You released a slow breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, allowing yourself to believe, if only for a moment, that perhaps the obstacle had been overcome more easily than you’d feared.

Or so you thought.

Barely ten minutes later, Rossi reappeared beside your chair carrying the bottle of red wine in one hand, his attention immediately falling to the untouched glass still sitting exactly where he’d left it. His thick brows drew together in mild confusion before his expression softened into concern.

“Oh, bambina,” he said, tilting his head slightly as he gestured toward the glass. “You haven’t touched your wine.”

Your heart lurched.

For a fraction of a second, your mind raced desperately through possible explanations. You weren’t feeling like drinking. You were waiting until dinner. You had a headache. None of them felt convincing enough, particularly not with Rossi watching you so expectantly.

Before you could utter a single word, Spencer calmly reached across the table, lifted your untouched glass as though it had belonged to him all along, and took a generous sip.

“I did.”

Rossi looked between both of you.

“You finished two glasses already?”

“I was thirsty,” Spencer replied with complete sincerity, sounding as though that single sentence explained everything.

Rossi stared at him.

“You were thirsty.”

“Yes.”

“For wine.”

“Correct.”

For another beat, Rossi simply looked at him, clearly debating whether there was any point continuing the conversation. Eventually, with the resigned expression of a man deciding that Spencer Reid’s brain operated on principles beyond ordinary comprehension, he shrugged lightly and reached for the bottle once more.

“There.”

Deep red wine flowed smoothly back into your crystal glass until it sat nearly full again.

“There we go.”

“Thank you,” you offered with what you hoped was a perfectly natural smile.

Rossi nodded once before wandering toward the other end of the table to refill Morgan’s glass, already distracted by an entirely new discussion about baseball statistics.

The instant his back was turned, Spencer moved.

Without saying a word, without drawing attention to himself, he rested one hand casually beneath the edge of the tablecloth and, in one fluid movement, exchanged your freshly filled glass with his own half-empty one. The motion was so smooth it could have passed for absentmindedness, his fingers never fumbling despite the growing amount of alcohol already in his system. By the time Rossi looked back toward the two of you, Spencer was quietly lifting the newly acquired glass toward his lips while your place setting once again held one that appeared partially consumed.

No one noticed.

Well…almost no one.

Across the table, Emily’s conversation with JJ faltered for just a fraction of a second.

She didn’t say anything.

She simply took another sip of wine while her gaze lingered thoughtfully between the two of you before returning to her plate.

Another half hour slipped by beneath easy conversation and frequent bursts of laughter. Stories gave way to teasing, teasing turned into old Bureau memories, and before long the first bottle stood empty in the center of the table. Rossi noticed almost immediately.

“Well,” he announced proudly as he disappeared toward the kitchen, “that means it’s time for the good one.”

He returned carrying another bottle with the reverence of someone transporting a priceless family heirloom.

“This one’s from Tuscany,” he declared, carefully peeling away the foil. “I bought it during my last trip. You have to try it.”

The cork eased free with a satisfying pop.

You felt your stomach sink all over again.

One by one, Rossi circled the table, refilling each glass with generous enthusiasm.

Including yours.

Again.

You forced another smile.

“Thank you.”

Your glass remained untouched.

Again.

Spencer noticed before anyone else did.

Again.

Without hesitation, he reached over sometime during the next conversation, lifted your glass as naturally as though the two of you shared everything—which, technically, you did—and quietly added yet another serving to the growing collection he’d already consumed.

By now he’d finished one glass.

Then two.

Then three.

Now…four.

Under ordinary circumstances, four glasses of wine spread across an entire dinner might not have seemed particularly remarkable.

For Spencer Reid, it was becoming increasingly obvious.

A warm flush had spread across his cheeks, dusting the bridge of his nose with soft pink that somehow made him look several years younger. His posture remained perfectly straight, and his words retained the precise articulation that years of lecturing and endless reading had ingrained into him. If anything, he enunciated even more carefully than usual, each syllable pronounced with meticulous clarity. Spencer Reid, it seemed, was physically incapable of slurring his words.

Instead, he simply became significantly more talkative.

“Do you know,” he announced to absolutely no one in particular while thoughtfully examining his wineglass as though it were a fascinating scientific specimen, “that the average adult liver metabolizes approximately one standard alcoholic beverage per hour? Assuming average enzymatic activity and normal hepatic function, I’m currently operating at a significant biochemical disadvantage.”

Morgan leaned back in his chair, grinning so broadly it bordered on smug satisfaction.

“You drunk, pretty boy?”

Spencer looked genuinely offended by the suggestion.

“No.”

He paused.

Thought about it.

Then nodded once with complete seriousness.

“Probably.”

The table erupted into laughter.

Even Hotch lowered his gaze toward his plate to disguise the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

You couldn’t help laughing too, though yours carried a distinct note of affection.

Spencer looked utterly adorable.

Hopelessly, undeniably adorable.

Across the table, however, Emily wasn’t laughing nearly as much.

She watched Spencer lift your glass instead of his own.

Again.

She watched you politely thank Rossi for every refill without drinking a single sip.

Again.

She watched Spencer volunteer to finish both glasses with increasingly enthusiastic determination.

Again.

Something about the evening refused to fit together.

Emily wasn’t quite sure what the answer was yet.

But she knew, with absolute certainty, that something wasn’t adding up.

***

By the time coffee replaced the wine, the evening had settled into that wonderfully unhurried stage that always followed one of Rossi’s dinners. Dessert plates had been pushed aside, empty bottles stood abandoned along the center of the table like evidence of a celebration well enjoyed, and the rich scent of freshly brewed espresso drifted through the dining room, mercifully replacing the overwhelming aroma of alcohol. Conversations had fractured into smaller ones, overlapping comfortably without anyone needing to follow every thread. Garcia and JJ were animatedly debating vacation destinations, Garcia insisting that every itinerary should be based entirely around bookstores and bakeries while JJ attempted, unsuccessfully, to convince her that beaches had their own merits. At the other end of the table, Morgan and Rossi had somehow wandered into a passionate disagreement over baseball statistics, each one accusing the other of remembering history incorrectly despite both sounding equally confident. Hotch sat quietly between them, one hand wrapped around his coffee cup, saying very little but wearing the faintest trace of amusement at the corners of his mouth as he watched the familiar chaos unfold around him.

Beside you, however, sat the true consequence of the evening.

Spencer Reid was undeniably drunk.

Not the loud, reckless kind of drunk that knocked over glasses or forgot people’s names. Spencer remained perfectly articulate. Every sentence emerged with the same impeccable diction he used while lecturing, every word carefully pronounced as though he were still delivering an academic presentation. If anything, the alcohol had only made him even more determined to enunciate correctly. His tie had been loosened somewhere between the second and third bottle, though neither of you remembered who had done it. His curls had escaped in every direction until they framed his flushed face in complete disarray. A warm blush stretched across his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose, his eyes had taken on a dreamy softness you rarely saw, and he had developed the oddly adorable habit of pausing before every answer, nodding solemnly to himself as though consulting an invisible committee inside his own mind before reaching a unanimous decision.

Watching him was almost painfully endearing.

You couldn’t help smiling as your fingers found the middle of his back, rubbing slow, comforting circles through the fabric of his shirt.

“You okay?”

He turned toward you immediately, his entire face lighting up with such overwhelming affection that your heart threatened to melt on the spot.

“I love you.”

The words came so easily, so honestly, that several people around the table instinctively smiled.

You laughed quietly.

“I love you too.”

“No…” He shook his head with exaggerated seriousness, lifting one finger as though correcting an important scientific misconception. “I don’t think you understand the statistical magnitude of how much I love you.”

Morgan snorted into his coffee.

“Oh, this is priceless.”

Spencer didn’t even acknowledge him.

His complete attention remained fixed on you, his expression one of absolute sincerity as he searched painstakingly for the perfect description.

“You are…” He frowned thoughtfully, eyes drifting toward the ceiling for several long seconds before returning to you with visible satisfaction. “…my favorite person.”

Warmth spread through your chest so quickly it almost hurt.

God, he was going to destroy you.

“You’ve had enough wine,” you said gently, brushing one of his unruly curls away from his forehead.

“I have had…” He stopped speaking to count carefully on his fingers, restarting twice after apparently losing track somewhere around three. “…more wine than you.”

“Yes.”

He nodded proudly, pleased that you’d confirmed his calculation.

“Because you couldn’t.”

Every muscle in your body went rigid.

The smile disappeared from your face almost instantly.

“Spencer.”

He looked delighted with himself.

“I helped.”

Across the table, Emily glanced up from her coffee.

“So noble.”

“It was.” Spencer nodded once, completely accepting the compliment. “Because it’s a secret.”

Your stomach dropped so violently you were certain everyone could hear it.

Without thinking, you reached for his hand beneath the table, gently squeezing his fingers.

“Sweetheart—”

He leaned closer immediately, lowering his voice in what he clearly believed was an incredibly discreet whisper.

It wasn’t.

“We’re very good at secrets,” he confided with unmistakable pride.

The entire table continued talking.

No one seemed to notice.

Relief washed over you so suddenly you nearly laughed.

Then Spencer smiled thoughtfully, as though another important realization had just occurred to him.

“Although…”

Every instinct in your body screamed.

“Oh no.”

He looked around the entire table before announcing, in a voice loud enough for everyone in the dining room to hear with perfect clarity, “keeping a baby secret is significantly harder than I expected.”

Silence.

Morgan blinked once.

“A what?”

Garcia’s mouth slowly fell open.

JJ lowered her coffee cup so carefully it barely made a sound against the saucer.

At the far end of the table, Hotch’s eyes shifted from Spencer to you with the calm expression of a profiler mentally reorganizing every unusual observation he’d made over the previous several weeks: your sudden avoidance of coffee during morning meetings, Spencer’s increasingly protective behavior, the mysterious disappearances during cases to “find crackers,” the exhaustion, the nausea, the untouched wine.

Pieces quietly clicked into place.

Rossi simply stared.

His mouth opened slightly before closing again.

For perhaps the first time in anyone’s memory, David Rossi seemed completely incapable of finding words.

Emily, meanwhile, merely closed her eyes and a slow smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“Oh,” she sighed, sounding more relieved than surprised. “I knew it.”

You buried your face in both hands.

“Spencer…”

He looked around the table with complete confusion, blinking at everyone’s expressions as though he genuinely couldn’t understand why the conversation had stopped.

“What?”

“You…” you whispered through your hands, shaking your head helplessly. “You just told them about our baby.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“I did?”

“Yes.”

A long pause.

He frowned thoughtfully.

“I wasn’t supposed to.”

“No.”

“Oh.”

He considered that information with remarkable seriousness, nodding slowly as though accepting constructive criticism.

For one suspended heartbeat, nobody moved.

Then Garcia exploded.

The delighted shriek that escaped her was so loud it probably startled every bird within a three-block radius. She launched herself out of her chair before anyone else had even processed what was happening, one hand already covering her mouth as tears filled her eyes.

“I can't believe it!” she squealed. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

JJ was crying before she’d even reached you.

She wrapped her arms tightly around your shoulders, laughing and wiping away tears simultaneously.

“I am so happy for you,” she whispered.

Morgan shot to his feet with a bark of laughter, pointing triumphantly between the two of you.

“I knew something was going on!”

Emily looked at him flatly.

“You absolutely did not.”

“I suspected!”

She folded her arms.

“You spent the entire evening convinced Spencer had developed a drinking problem.”

Morgan hesitated.

“I was…close.”

Rossi finally recovered enough to laugh, a deep, warm laugh that echoed through the dining room as he crossed the room and pulled both you and Spencer into one of his characteristically overwhelming hugs.

“I’ve spent years trying to get this kid drunk,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief as he stepped back to look at Spencer with unmistakable affection. “Years.”

His eyes flickered toward you before returning to Spencer.

“I have to admit…”

He smiled.

“I didn’t expect this to be what finally loosened his tongue.”

Even Hotch stood.

He wasn’t particularly demonstrative, never had been, but the smile he offered the two of you was genuine enough to soften every sharp line in his face.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” you whispered, your voice thick with emotion as you leaned instinctively against Spencer’s shoulder, still half laughing and half hiding your burning face from everyone’s delighted attention.

Spencer looked down at you with sleepy affection, completely oblivious to the fact that he had single-handedly dismantled weeks of carefully orchestrated secrecy. He leaned over and pressed the gentlest kiss against the top of your head before sighing softly.

“I ruined the surprise.”

“You did.”

“I’m sorry.”

You looked up at him.

His expression was so genuinely remorseful, so heartbreakingly sincere despite the unmistakable haze of alcohol clouding his thoughts, that you couldn’t possibly stay embarrassed.

A smile spread across your face.

“I’ll forgive you.”

His eyes brightened immediately.

“You will?”

“Eventually.”

The relieved smile that followed was almost childlike.

“Good.”

He sat quietly for another few seconds, apparently satisfied that the crisis had been resolved.

Then he turned toward Rossi with complete seriousness.

“Can I have some water now?”

[certaimromance]

this again because THIS is the song of all my fluffy fics<3 it’s what real love sounds like to me

[certaimromance]

⊹ ࣪ ˖ Positive in Love & Wine ─ Spencer Reid.

Hiding your pregnancy is getting harder and harder, especially when you agree to go to a dinner party and Spencer has to drink every glass of your wine to keep the secret.

୨ৎ ──── fluff. 5,4k. fem!reader. drunk reid. english isn't my first language. main masterlist.

David Rossi loved hosting dinners.

Not because he particularly enjoyed cooking—though he’d spend the entire evening pretending he did, shooing away anyone who wandered too close to the stove with the indignation of a Michelin-star chef—but because dinner was one of the rare occasions when the people he cared about gathered for reasons that had nothing to do with bloodstained crime scenes or the worst humanity had to offer. Around his dining table, they weren’t profilers or agents or supervisors carrying the weight of impossible decisions. They were simply friends. They laughed a little louder, lingered a little longer over dessert, argued about books instead of behavioral patterns, and, for a few precious hours, remembered what life looked like outside the Bureau.

At least for the first twenty minutes.

After that, someone inevitably mentioned a case.

“You realize,” Morgan announced as he reached across the kitchen island and shamelessly stole a piece of warm bread straight from the basket, “this is exactly how horror movies start.”

Rossi didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder. He merely stirred the sauce with practiced ease, entirely unfazed by the theft.

“The difference,” he replied smoothly, “is that my guests survive dessert.”

Morgan laughed, surrendering with an exaggerated nod before tearing into the bread anyway.

The house was already alive with familiar voices.

Soft jazz drifted through hidden speakers, blending with the rhythmic clatter of pots and the comforting aroma of garlic, rosemary, simmering tomatoes, and freshly baked bread. Warm light spilled from antique lamps, reflecting against framed photographs and shelves lined with decades of books and souvenirs collected from places Rossi rarely spoke about. Every room carried that unmistakable feeling of having been lived in, a home that had witnessed countless celebrations, quiet conversations over late-night whiskey, and the occasional impromptu team meeting when cases refused to stay at Quantico.

Emily wandered into the kitchen, accepting a glass of wine from Rossi before immediately rolling her eyes at something Morgan said.

Garcia was already circling the living room in complete admiration, pausing every few steps to gush over a painting, a sculpture, or an antique clock.

“Oh my God, Rossi,” she gasped dramatically, “this lamp is gorgeous. It’s giving wealthy Italian novelist who solves crimes in his free time.”

“It was just a lamp until you said that.”

JJ slipped toward the patio with Henry balanced comfortably on her hip, the little boy already fascinated by the garden lights beginning to glow outside. Will followed behind carrying an impressive collection of toys that looked capable of entertaining an entire daycare, smiling patiently as Henry reached for everything except the toys he’d brought.

Hotch, unsurprisingly, had arrived exactly on time.

Not a minute early. Not a minute late.

His jacket was already neatly folded over the back of a chair, a glass of sparkling water in one hand as he quietly observed the controlled chaos with the smallest hint of amusement softening his usually unreadable expression.

And, of course, Spencer’s attention had been on you from the moment the two of you stepped through Rossi’s front door.

Before anyone could greet you, Spencer was already helping you out of your coat with the quiet attentiveness that had become second nature over the past several weeks. His hands were careful as he eased the fabric from your shoulders, lingering for just a heartbeat as if making sure you were steady before draping both your coat and his neatly over the rack by the entrance. It was such a small gesture that no one else would have noticed it.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, leaning close enough that only you could hear him beneath the lively chatter filling the room.

You offered him a reassuring smile, hoping it looked more convincing than it felt.

“Perfect.”

The word came automatically, polished by repetition until it sounded almost believable. You’d said it to your mother over the phone earlier that week. To your coworkers when they’d commented on how pale you’d been looking lately. To the cashier who had apologized after you’d abruptly abandoned a shopping cart halfway through the supermarket because someone nearby had opened a container of tuna. You were becoming remarkably good at pretending everything was normal.

Spencer, however, had never been particularly easy to fool.

His honey-colored eyes lingered on your face for another moment, quietly studying you with the same careful concentration he reserved for unsolved cases and impossible puzzles. He noticed everything: the faint shadows beneath your eyes despite the makeup you’d carefully applied that afternoon, the way your smile didn’t quite reach them, the almost invisible hesitation before you shifted your weight from one foot to the other. For a second, you watched concern flicker across his expression, followed by the unmistakable impulse to suggest going home instead. You knew him well enough to see the thought forming before he gently pushed it aside. You had insisted you wanted to come. You’d been looking forward to seeing everyone. If he asked again, you’d only reassure him again.

So instead, he simply intertwined his fingers with yours for the briefest moment and gave your hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it, silently reminding you that if you needed to leave, even five minutes after arriving, you only had to say the word.

Because the truth was…you hadn’t exactly been perfect lately.

For nearly eleven weeks, your body had seemed determined to reinvent itself overnight, transforming familiar routines into unpredictable obstacles and ordinary sensations into impossible challenges. Pregnancy wasn’t anything like the books had described. It wasn’t the glowing skin and sentimental smiles people loved talking about. At least, not yet. Right now, it was exhaustion so profound it settled into your bones no matter how much you slept. It was waking up starving only to burst into tears because the toast you’d been craving suddenly smelled unbearable. It was dizziness when you stood too quickly, headaches that appeared without warning, and emotions that shifted so rapidly they often left you laughing one moment and crying the next.

And the smells were by far the worst.

It was as though someone had turned every scent in the world up to an impossible volume.

Coffee, the rich aroma you’d once relied on every morning, now seemed so overwhelmingly bitter it made your stomach twist before you even entered the kitchen.

Garlic lingered in the air like smoke.

Perfume clung to strangers in grocery stores so intensely that you found yourself instinctively holding your breath as they walked past.

Gasoline from passing cars seeped through open windows with startling force.

Fresh paint, cleaning products, scented candles, everything had become an enemy.

Even the earthy fragrance of Spencer’s favorite loose-leaf tea, a scent that had always reminded you of rainy afternoons spent reading together on the couch, had betrayed you. One quiet Saturday morning, he’d barely begun pouring the boiling water over the tea leaves before your stomach lurched violently. You hadn’t even managed to explain what was wrong. You’d simply clamped a hand over your mouth and hurried toward the bathroom, leaving Spencer frozen in confusion beside the kettle.

When he’d found you a few minutes later, you were sitting on the cool tile floor with your knees pulled to your chest, wrapped in one of his oversized cardigans because you hadn’t had the energy to put on your own sweater after climbing out of bed. Your eyes were watery, your face pale with exhaustion, and the half-steeped tea sat forgotten in the kitchen.

He’d knelt beside you immediately, rubbing slow circles against your back until your breathing steadied.

“I think,” he’d said carefully, as though presenting a well-researched hypothesis, “we should buy different tea.”

The absurd sincerity of the suggestion had broken something inside you.

You’d laughed, the kind that left tears streaming down your face and your stomach aching until Spencer began smiling too, still entirely unsure what had been so funny.

An hour later, you’d taken the pregnancy test.

You remembered sitting together on the edge of the bathtub, your shoulders pressed together so tightly they might as well have been one person, both pretending not to stare at the little plastic stick resting on the counter. Spencer’s knee bounced nervously the entire time, though he’d deny it if anyone ever asked. When the result finally appeared, neither of you moved.

Positive.

You’d looked at him, and he’d looked at you.

For a long moment, there had simply been silence, stunned, breathless silence, as though neither of you trusted your own eyes enough to speak first.

Then Spencer had whispered, almost reverently,

“We’re having a baby.”

The memory still settled warmly inside your chest every time you thought about it.

Only the two of you knew.

No one else.

Not the team, your parents, or his mother.

No one.

It wasn’t because you weren’t excited.

God, you had never loved someone you’d never met quite so fiercely. And you had never been so afraid.

At night, when the apartment had gone quiet and Quantico seemed impossibly far away, the two of you often found yourselves lying awake long after the lights were off, talking in hushed voices about a future that suddenly felt both unimaginably distant and frighteningly close. Spencer wondered aloud whether babies recognized music before they were born and whether reading aloud during pregnancy had any measurable effect on language development. You debated names neither of you was ready to admit you genuinely liked. You imagined tiny knitted sweaters, impossibly small socks, sleepy mornings, first birthdays, scraped knees, school concerts, and the possibility—one that made you laugh every single time—that Spencer might accidentally teach your future toddler quantum mechanics before the alphabet.

Other nights, words simply weren’t necessary.

You would lie tangled together beneath the blankets, your head resting against his shoulder while he absentmindedly traced slow circles over your arm. Eventually, almost without thinking, his hand would drift lower, settling with extraordinary care against your abdomen. There was hardly anything to feel yet. At eleven weeks, your stomach remained almost perfectly flat, your dresses fitting exactly as they always had. If someone didn’t know, they would never have guessed. But Spencer touched you as though the slightest movement might disturb the tiny life growing there, his palm resting so gently against you that it sometimes made your chest ache. He would smile into the darkness with an expression so impossibly soft it stole your breath every single time, as though he could already sense the little heartbeat hidden beneath his fingertips. Sometimes he whispered things you weren’t sure he realized he was saying: little observations about fetal development he’d memorized from medical journals, promises about museums he’d one day visit with your child, absentminded thoughts about buying children’s editions of classic literature. Other times, he simply stayed there, smiling quietly, overwhelmed by the astonishing reality that someone already existed. Someone who belonged entirely to the two of you.

Every ultrasound photograph had become a treasure.

The first one lived inside an ivory envelope that had already begun to soften at the edges because neither of you could stop taking it out to look at it. Realistically, there wasn’t very much to see. To anyone else, it was little more than a grainy black-and-white blur surrounded by indecipherable shadows and medical measurements. Yet the two of you had spent embarrassing amounts of time staring at it as though it were the most extraordinary piece of art ever created. Spencer, naturally, had analyzed it with the same enthusiasm he brought to everything else.

Of course, once the initial excitement had settled, he had immediately begun worrying about where to keep the photographs.

Not because he thought someone was going to steal them.

Because he wanted them safe.

You still remembered finding him standing in front of his bookshelf one afternoon, head tilted thoughtfully as though he were solving one of the Bureau’s most complicated cases. He had scanned hundreds of titles before finally pulling out one of the thickest mathematics textbooks you had ever seen.

“They’re going inside my copy of Differential Geometry,” he’d declared with complete confidence while carefully sliding the envelope between two chapters.

You had stared at him, blinking in complete confusion.

“…Why that one?”

Without so much as lifting his eyes from the pages, he’d answered with absolute certainty.

“Statistically speaking, no one voluntarily opens my copy of Differential Geometry.”

You had laughed so hard your stomach hurt.

Weeks later, the ultrasound photographs remained exactly where he’d hidden them, tucked safely between chapters discussing curved manifolds and tensor fields, untouched by anyone except the two of you. Every now and then, usually late at night, Spencer would quietly retrieve the envelope before climbing into bed beside you, and together you’d study the tiny image all over again, smiling as though seeing it for the very first time.

You weren’t keeping the pregnancy a secret because you were ashamed.

If anything, the secret had become almost impossible to contain.

You loved this baby already with a depth that surprised you daily. Sometimes you caught yourself resting your hand absentmindedly against your stomach while reading on the couch or waiting in line for coffee you could no longer stomach. Sometimes Spencer would catch your eye from across the apartment, and without either of you saying a single word, you’d both smile, remembering the extraordinary little secret that existed only between you. It felt like carrying a universe inside your chest, one that threatened to spill into every conversation, every laugh, every quiet glance exchanged across a room.

But eleven weeks still felt fragile.

Delicate.

As though happiness itself had become something you were afraid to hold too tightly.

You knew the statistics.

So did Spencer...perhaps better than anyone.

The first trimester carried uncertainties neither of you could ignore, no matter how desperately you wanted to celebrate. So you had made a quiet promise together. Just a little longer. One more week. Maybe two. Long enough for the fear to loosen its grip. Long enough for the joy to feel louder than the anxiety. Then you’d tell everyone. Properly. Surrounded by the people who loved you most.

Which was exactly why tonight needed to remain wonderfully, blissfully ordinary.

Smile.

Compliment Rossi’s cooking.

Laugh at Morgan’s increasingly terrible jokes.

Listen to Garcia declare herself emotionally attached to another one of Rossi’s antique decorations.

Eat dinner.

Go home.

And above all else, pretend that beneath the soft fabric of your dress, your entire world wasn’t quietly growing one tiny heartbeat at a time.

***

For the first few minutes, everything went exactly according to plan.

The conversation flowed effortlessly around the table, moving from travel stories to teasing remarks about Rossi’s inability to let anyone else near his kitchen. The warm glow of candlelight reflected against crystal glasses, silverware clinked softly against porcelain plates, and the rich aroma of roasted vegetables, fresh herbs, garlic, and homemade pasta drifted through the dining room. It was warm. Comfortable. Familiar. Exactly the kind of evening you’d hoped for.

Then Rossi appeared beside the table carrying a bottle of red wine.

With practiced ease, he moved from place to place, pouring generous servings into each waiting glass until he eventually reached yours. Deep ruby liquid swirled elegantly into the crystal, catching the candlelight before he continued around the table without another thought.

Your smile froze.

Your stomach dropped so suddenly it almost felt like missing the last step on a staircase.

Of course. Wine.

You hadn’t thought about the wine.

For one long second, you simply stared at the glass sitting innocently beside your plate, your thoughts racing far faster than they should have. Refusing it outright would be strange. Claiming you weren’t in the mood might invite questions. Pretending to sip it was risky, especially with Rossi proudly watching everyone’s reactions to the bottle he’d undoubtedly spent far too much money on.

Across the table, Spencer had arrived at the exact same realization.

His eyes drifted from his own glass to yours.

Then to you.

You watched the understanding settle across his face almost instantly.

Without either of you exchanging so much as a glance, he quietly reached across the table toward your place setting, his movements so natural they might have gone completely unnoticed.

“I’ll take yours,” he said casually, lifting the untouched glass before anyone could question it.

Morgan blinked. “You stealing her wine already?”

The question earned a few amused smiles around the table.

Spencer answered so quickly it almost sounded rehearsed.

“She’s driving.”

For a single heartbeat, the entire table fell into that peculiar silence that followed an answer no one had expected. You turned your head slowly to look at him, your expression carefully composed despite the disbelief bubbling beneath it.

Driving? You hated driving.

Everyone at the table knew you hated driving. Morgan had teased you about it for years after you’d once admitted that parallel parking made you feel like you were diffusing a bomb. Garcia had jokingly offered to create a color-coded GPS system “for emotionally distressed drivers.” Even Rossi had learned long ago that inviting the two of you over automatically meant Spencer would be behind the wheel on the way home. If given the choice between navigating rush-hour traffic yourself or spending an hour on public transportation with three transfers, you’d choose the train without a second thought. Spencer knew that better than anyone. Which was precisely why, judging by the fleeting look of horror that crossed his face, he realized what he’d said the exact moment the words left his mouth.

Your eyes met across the table for the briefest instant.

He knew. You knew.

Neither of you dared acknowledge it.

Fortunately, Morgan simply shrugged, entirely unbothered.

“Fair enough.”

The conversation drifted elsewhere almost immediately, someone making a comment about Rossi’s pasta sauce before Garcia launched into a dramatic story about accidentally adopting another stray cat she absolutely insisted she hadn’t meant to bring home. Around the table, laughter resumed, forks scraped softly against porcelain plates, and the comfortable rhythm of dinner settled back into place. You released a slow breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, allowing yourself to believe, if only for a moment, that perhaps the obstacle had been overcome more easily than you’d feared.

Or so you thought.

Barely ten minutes later, Rossi reappeared beside your chair carrying the bottle of red wine in one hand, his attention immediately falling to the untouched glass still sitting exactly where he’d left it. His thick brows drew together in mild confusion before his expression softened into concern.

“Oh, bambina,” he said, tilting his head slightly as he gestured toward the glass. “You haven’t touched your wine.”

Your heart lurched.

For a fraction of a second, your mind raced desperately through possible explanations. You weren’t feeling like drinking. You were waiting until dinner. You had a headache. None of them felt convincing enough, particularly not with Rossi watching you so expectantly.

Before you could utter a single word, Spencer calmly reached across the table, lifted your untouched glass as though it had belonged to him all along, and took a generous sip.

“I did.”

Rossi looked between both of you.

“You finished two glasses already?”

“I was thirsty,” Spencer replied with complete sincerity, sounding as though that single sentence explained everything.

Rossi stared at him.

“You were thirsty.”

“Yes.”

“For wine.”

“Correct.”

For another beat, Rossi simply looked at him, clearly debating whether there was any point continuing the conversation. Eventually, with the resigned expression of a man deciding that Spencer Reid’s brain operated on principles beyond ordinary comprehension, he shrugged lightly and reached for the bottle once more.

“There.”

Deep red wine flowed smoothly back into your crystal glass until it sat nearly full again.

“There we go.”

“Thank you,” you offered with what you hoped was a perfectly natural smile.

Rossi nodded once before wandering toward the other end of the table to refill Morgan’s glass, already distracted by an entirely new discussion about baseball statistics.

The instant his back was turned, Spencer moved.

Without saying a word, without drawing attention to himself, he rested one hand casually beneath the edge of the tablecloth and, in one fluid movement, exchanged your freshly filled glass with his own half-empty one. The motion was so smooth it could have passed for absentmindedness, his fingers never fumbling despite the growing amount of alcohol already in his system. By the time Rossi looked back toward the two of you, Spencer was quietly lifting the newly acquired glass toward his lips while your place setting once again held one that appeared partially consumed.

No one noticed.

Well…almost no one.

Across the table, Emily’s conversation with JJ faltered for just a fraction of a second.

She didn’t say anything.

She simply took another sip of wine while her gaze lingered thoughtfully between the two of you before returning to her plate.

Another half hour slipped by beneath easy conversation and frequent bursts of laughter. Stories gave way to teasing, teasing turned into old Bureau memories, and before long the first bottle stood empty in the center of the table. Rossi noticed almost immediately.

“Well,” he announced proudly as he disappeared toward the kitchen, “that means it’s time for the good one.”

He returned carrying another bottle with the reverence of someone transporting a priceless family heirloom.

“This one’s from Tuscany,” he declared, carefully peeling away the foil. “I bought it during my last trip. You have to try it.”

The cork eased free with a satisfying pop.

You felt your stomach sink all over again.

One by one, Rossi circled the table, refilling each glass with generous enthusiasm.

Including yours.

Again.

You forced another smile.

“Thank you.”

Your glass remained untouched.

Again.

Spencer noticed before anyone else did.

Again.

Without hesitation, he reached over sometime during the next conversation, lifted your glass as naturally as though the two of you shared everything—which, technically, you did—and quietly added yet another serving to the growing collection he’d already consumed.

By now he’d finished one glass.

Then two.

Then three.

Now…four.

Under ordinary circumstances, four glasses of wine spread across an entire dinner might not have seemed particularly remarkable.

For Spencer Reid, it was becoming increasingly obvious.

A warm flush had spread across his cheeks, dusting the bridge of his nose with soft pink that somehow made him look several years younger. His posture remained perfectly straight, and his words retained the precise articulation that years of lecturing and endless reading had ingrained into him. If anything, he enunciated even more carefully than usual, each syllable pronounced with meticulous clarity. Spencer Reid, it seemed, was physically incapable of slurring his words.

Instead, he simply became significantly more talkative.

“Do you know,” he announced to absolutely no one in particular while thoughtfully examining his wineglass as though it were a fascinating scientific specimen, “that the average adult liver metabolizes approximately one standard alcoholic beverage per hour? Assuming average enzymatic activity and normal hepatic function, I’m currently operating at a significant biochemical disadvantage.”

Morgan leaned back in his chair, grinning so broadly it bordered on smug satisfaction.

“You drunk, pretty boy?”

Spencer looked genuinely offended by the suggestion.

“No.”

He paused.

Thought about it.

Then nodded once with complete seriousness.

“Probably.”

The table erupted into laughter.

Even Hotch lowered his gaze toward his plate to disguise the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

You couldn’t help laughing too, though yours carried a distinct note of affection.

Spencer looked utterly adorable.

Hopelessly, undeniably adorable.

Across the table, however, Emily wasn’t laughing nearly as much.

She watched Spencer lift your glass instead of his own.

Again.

She watched you politely thank Rossi for every refill without drinking a single sip.

Again.

She watched Spencer volunteer to finish both glasses with increasingly enthusiastic determination.

Again.

Something about the evening refused to fit together.

Emily wasn’t quite sure what the answer was yet.

But she knew, with absolute certainty, that something wasn’t adding up.

***

By the time coffee replaced the wine, the evening had settled into that wonderfully unhurried stage that always followed one of Rossi’s dinners. Dessert plates had been pushed aside, empty bottles stood abandoned along the center of the table like evidence of a celebration well enjoyed, and the rich scent of freshly brewed espresso drifted through the dining room, mercifully replacing the overwhelming aroma of alcohol. Conversations had fractured into smaller ones, overlapping comfortably without anyone needing to follow every thread. Garcia and JJ were animatedly debating vacation destinations, Garcia insisting that every itinerary should be based entirely around bookstores and bakeries while JJ attempted, unsuccessfully, to convince her that beaches had their own merits. At the other end of the table, Morgan and Rossi had somehow wandered into a passionate disagreement over baseball statistics, each one accusing the other of remembering history incorrectly despite both sounding equally confident. Hotch sat quietly between them, one hand wrapped around his coffee cup, saying very little but wearing the faintest trace of amusement at the corners of his mouth as he watched the familiar chaos unfold around him.

Beside you, however, sat the true consequence of the evening.

Spencer Reid was undeniably drunk.

Not the loud, reckless kind of drunk that knocked over glasses or forgot people’s names. Spencer remained perfectly articulate. Every sentence emerged with the same impeccable diction he used while lecturing, every word carefully pronounced as though he were still delivering an academic presentation. If anything, the alcohol had only made him even more determined to enunciate correctly. His tie had been loosened somewhere between the second and third bottle, though neither of you remembered who had done it. His curls had escaped in every direction until they framed his flushed face in complete disarray. A warm blush stretched across his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose, his eyes had taken on a dreamy softness you rarely saw, and he had developed the oddly adorable habit of pausing before every answer, nodding solemnly to himself as though consulting an invisible committee inside his own mind before reaching a unanimous decision.

Watching him was almost painfully endearing.

You couldn’t help smiling as your fingers found the middle of his back, rubbing slow, comforting circles through the fabric of his shirt.

“You okay?”

He turned toward you immediately, his entire face lighting up with such overwhelming affection that your heart threatened to melt on the spot.

“I love you.”

The words came so easily, so honestly, that several people around the table instinctively smiled.

You laughed quietly.

“I love you too.”

“No…” He shook his head with exaggerated seriousness, lifting one finger as though correcting an important scientific misconception. “I don’t think you understand the statistical magnitude of how much I love you.”

Morgan snorted into his coffee.

“Oh, this is priceless.”

Spencer didn’t even acknowledge him.

His complete attention remained fixed on you, his expression one of absolute sincerity as he searched painstakingly for the perfect description.

“You are…” He frowned thoughtfully, eyes drifting toward the ceiling for several long seconds before returning to you with visible satisfaction. “…my favorite person.”

Warmth spread through your chest so quickly it almost hurt.

God, he was going to destroy you.

“You’ve had enough wine,” you said gently, brushing one of his unruly curls away from his forehead.

“I have had…” He stopped speaking to count carefully on his fingers, restarting twice after apparently losing track somewhere around three. “…more wine than you.”

“Yes.”

He nodded proudly, pleased that you’d confirmed his calculation.

“Because you couldn’t.”

Every muscle in your body went rigid.

The smile disappeared from your face almost instantly.

“Spencer.”

He looked delighted with himself.

“I helped.”

Across the table, Emily glanced up from her coffee.

“So noble.”

“It was.” Spencer nodded once, completely accepting the compliment. “Because it’s a secret.”

Your stomach dropped so violently you were certain everyone could hear it.

Without thinking, you reached for his hand beneath the table, gently squeezing his fingers.

“Sweetheart—”

He leaned closer immediately, lowering his voice in what he clearly believed was an incredibly discreet whisper.

It wasn’t.

“We’re very good at secrets,” he confided with unmistakable pride.

The entire table continued talking.

No one seemed to notice.

Relief washed over you so suddenly you nearly laughed.

Then Spencer smiled thoughtfully, as though another important realization had just occurred to him.

“Although…”

Every instinct in your body screamed.

“Oh no.”

He looked around the entire table before announcing, in a voice loud enough for everyone in the dining room to hear with perfect clarity, “keeping a baby secret is significantly harder than I expected.”

Silence.

Morgan blinked once.

“A what?”

Garcia’s mouth slowly fell open.

JJ lowered her coffee cup so carefully it barely made a sound against the saucer.

At the far end of the table, Hotch’s eyes shifted from Spencer to you with the calm expression of a profiler mentally reorganizing every unusual observation he’d made over the previous several weeks: your sudden avoidance of coffee during morning meetings, Spencer’s increasingly protective behavior, the mysterious disappearances during cases to “find crackers,” the exhaustion, the nausea, the untouched wine.

Pieces quietly clicked into place.

Rossi simply stared.

His mouth opened slightly before closing again.

For perhaps the first time in anyone’s memory, David Rossi seemed completely incapable of finding words.

Emily, meanwhile, merely closed her eyes and a slow smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“Oh,” she sighed, sounding more relieved than surprised. “I knew it.”

You buried your face in both hands.

“Spencer…”

He looked around the table with complete confusion, blinking at everyone’s expressions as though he genuinely couldn’t understand why the conversation had stopped.

“What?”

“You…” you whispered through your hands, shaking your head helplessly. “You just told them about our baby.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“I did?”

“Yes.”

A long pause.

He frowned thoughtfully.

“I wasn’t supposed to.”

“No.”

“Oh.”

He considered that information with remarkable seriousness, nodding slowly as though accepting constructive criticism.

For one suspended heartbeat, nobody moved.

Then Garcia exploded.

The delighted shriek that escaped her was so loud it probably startled every bird within a three-block radius. She launched herself out of her chair before anyone else had even processed what was happening, one hand already covering her mouth as tears filled her eyes.

“I can't believe it!” she squealed. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

JJ was crying before she’d even reached you.

She wrapped her arms tightly around your shoulders, laughing and wiping away tears simultaneously.

“I am so happy for you,” she whispered.

Morgan shot to his feet with a bark of laughter, pointing triumphantly between the two of you.

“I knew something was going on!”

Emily looked at him flatly.

“You absolutely did not.”

“I suspected!”

She folded her arms.

“You spent the entire evening convinced Spencer had developed a drinking problem.”

Morgan hesitated.

“I was…close.”

Rossi finally recovered enough to laugh, a deep, warm laugh that echoed through the dining room as he crossed the room and pulled both you and Spencer into one of his characteristically overwhelming hugs.

“I’ve spent years trying to get this kid drunk,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief as he stepped back to look at Spencer with unmistakable affection. “Years.”

His eyes flickered toward you before returning to Spencer.

“I have to admit…”

He smiled.

“I didn’t expect this to be what finally loosened his tongue.”

Even Hotch stood.

He wasn’t particularly demonstrative, never had been, but the smile he offered the two of you was genuine enough to soften every sharp line in his face.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” you whispered, your voice thick with emotion as you leaned instinctively against Spencer’s shoulder, still half laughing and half hiding your burning face from everyone’s delighted attention.

Spencer looked down at you with sleepy affection, completely oblivious to the fact that he had single-handedly dismantled weeks of carefully orchestrated secrecy. He leaned over and pressed the gentlest kiss against the top of your head before sighing softly.

“I ruined the surprise.”

“You did.”

“I’m sorry.”

You looked up at him.

His expression was so genuinely remorseful, so heartbreakingly sincere despite the unmistakable haze of alcohol clouding his thoughts, that you couldn’t possibly stay embarrassed.

A smile spread across your face.

“I’ll forgive you.”

His eyes brightened immediately.

“You will?”

“Eventually.”

The relieved smile that followed was almost childlike.

“Good.”

He sat quietly for another few seconds, apparently satisfied that the crisis had been resolved.

Then he turned toward Rossi with complete seriousness.

“Can I have some water now?”

[certaimromance]

haiii!!! was wondering if youre still writing stuff for the father figure! hotch au ?

hii! yes, absolutely<3 it’s been a long time, but i haven’t forgotten that reader at all. i’m actually always excited to write more about that dynamic

[certaimromance]

𝄢 Last Kiss.

Spencer Reid x Ex gf!reader

speak now; mini series | chapter one, two, three, four

Summary: Ever since he found out about your boyfriend, Spencer has been dreaming about you telling him that you broke up with him. Unfortunately, just when he thinks it's about to happen, something unexpected occurs.

Words: 4,4k.

Warnings & Tags: this is part of a mini series, so make sure you're on the right chapter. fem!bau!reader. mentions of serial killers, injuries, weapons, hospital, and marriage. suggestive themes. angst. love triangle?. second chance romance. english isn't my first language (sorry for my mistakes, be kind please).

Note: Don't hate me and trust me, I promise this will be good and beautifully dramatic at some point! I always fix my messes.

Spencer Reid cared about everything.

He cared about how you felt and whether you’d remembered to eat that morning or if you were running solely on coffee and nerves again. He cared about the soft tremble in your voice when you were tired and the way you tried to hide it behind a smile. He cared about the color of your clothes, how you always wore that pale blue sweater on rainy days, and how you wore his favorite one, the one with the tiny embroidered stars, on his birthday every single year, even after you’d broken up. He cared about the way your hands shook when you kissed him goodbye for the last time, a year ago, the day the two of you sat in his car in silence for ten minutes before finally saying the words: we can’t do this anymore. The day you promised to be friends, even as your voice cracked and your heart didn’t believe it.

But more than anything, he cared about your arm: about whether the wound you’d sustained three months ago during that chaotic confrontation with an unsub had truly healed. Not just the surface, not just the skin, but the muscle beneath. The way you favored it now without realizing. He cared about your comfort when you stepped into the bullpen for the first time in months, about how the welcome-back party felt to you, and whether the pastel pink balloons, the ones Garcia had so carefully picked out, were too bright or too childish or just right. Whether the fresh flowers on your desk—tulips, your favorite—weren’t hidden by paper stacks or the giant “WE MISSED YOU” card signed by the team. He cared that you felt safe, surrounded by people who loved you. People who had waited for you.

And—God help him—he cared, maybe most of all, whether you were still with him. Not him Spencer. Him, the man you’d started seeing six months after the breakup. The one who worked normal hours, who didn't have to ask you for time in the middle of a difficult case because he was overwhelmed, who was the kind of doctor everyone listened to, who could hold your hand in public without risking an internal investigation. The one who was, in every practical way, perfect.

“Would you like some cake, Spence?”

Your voice pulled him back like a soft tether, gentle but impossible to ignore. He blinked, realizing just how long he’d been staring: at the tulips on your desk, at the fading scar beneath your sleeve, at you. At the quiet miracle of your return and the way you somehow still looked like home, even in this too-bright conference room.

You stood beside him now, close enough that he could count the delicate flecks of frosting on your wrist from where you’d accidentally brushed the edge of the cake. It made him ache, the domestic intimacy of it, the memory of a hundred ordinary moments you used to share without thinking. And that scar…it still pulled something sharp and helpless from the center of his chest every time he looked at it.

Spencer cleared his throat. “Sure. Thank you.”

You handed him the plate, your fingers grazing his. The contact was brief, but enough to steal the breath from his lungs. For a second, everything folded in on itself—time, memory, the hollow distance between now and then. It felt like before again. Like your laugh still lived in his apartment. Like your toothbrush was still by his sink.

And God, he wanted to hug you again. Not the careful, too-brief one from earlier when you stepped out of the elevator. Not the one that was polite and practiced, the kind you give to coworkers returning from medical leave. No, he wanted you, your arms around him like they used to be, like he could hold onto you and never let go.

You both stood quietly now, shoulder to shoulder, angled toward the break area, watching the rest of the team. Garcia was dramatically scolding a stack of rebellious napkins that kept catching on the air vents, while Emily crouched beside her, trying to weigh them down between fits of laughter. JJ had a photo of Henry as a baby in her hand and was showing it to Morgan, who burst into a wide grin and said something that made her roll her eyes fondly. Hotch and Rossi were nowhere to be seen, probably tied up with some quiet bureau matter behind one of the closed doors.

Everything looked the same. The lights, the voices, the energy. But standing beside you, Spencer felt how different everything truly was.

“Three months is a long time,” you murmured, your voice soft. “Feels like I forgot how to be here.”

He glanced at you, his chest tightening. “You didn’t.” His voice was low and certain. “You just paused. Now you’re pressing play again.”

You gave a half-smile, tilting your head. “That’s a very you way to put it.”

He smiled too, but there was something else behind it. Something unspoken. Something fragile and too big for a room full of unspoken rules and people pretending not to watch.

You took a bite of the cake, slowly, as if you weren’t even tasting it. Then you set the plate down on the windowsill. You didn’t look at him when you said it.

“I was going to call you. A couple of weeks ago.” Your breath hitched a little. “I had something I wanted to tell you.”

His pulse jumped. “Why didn’t you?”

You hesitated. “I didn’t know if I had the right…or if you were busy with a case.”

He turned toward you then, fully, plate forgotten in his hand. “You always have the right. Even if I’m busy. Even if…” He trailed off, too aware of how close you were. “Especially if it’s something important.”

You finally turned to him then. Your eyes met his with a softness that stunned him. It wasn’t the tired, cautious gaze of two people trying to stay in each other’s orbit after a breakup. It was something else. Something warmer. Braver.

Your lips parted slightly, like you might say it right then. Whatever it was, whatever had lingered in your chest for weeks, you looked ready to say it.

And Spencer leaned in, just a little. Drawn by that pull he thought he’d finally trained himself to ignore. But he hadn’t. He never could. Not with you.

His chest was tight with everything he’d missed: your voice in the morning, your shoes by his front door, the way you always touched his shoulder when you passed him in the kitchen. He saw all of it in a blink. And something else, the tremble in your fingers. The same tremble you’d had the first time you’d told him you loved him, whispering it across the space between your bodies like you were afraid it would break the world if you said it too loud.

“Agent,” Hotch called from the hallway, his tone low but expectant. “Can I speak with you for a minute?”

You blinked, breath hitching, and stepped back like the sound had broken a spell. Your hand fell from the windowsill. The words disappeared again.

“Of course,” you said quickly, brushing your hands off on a napkin. You glanced at Spencer, apologetic. “I…I’ll tell you later, okay?”

You touched his arm gently, nervously, and then you were gone, moving toward Hotch with a practiced, measured pace. He stood there, frozen in place, the imprint of your touch burning through his sleeve.

A few seconds passed before Morgan appeared beside him, holding a second slice of cake and chewing thoughtfully.

“You okay, pretty boy?”

Spencer startled slightly. “Yeah. Just…thinking.”

Morgan gave him a look—the kind of look that said, Don’t lie to me; I’ve seen you lost in a footnote, and this isn’t that. He followed his friend’s gaze as it lingered on the door you’d disappeared through.

“So. That wasn’t about the frosting, huh?”

Again, Spencer tried to play dumb, but his voice came out rough, like someone who hadn’t spoken in hours. “What?”

“Don’t even try it. You’ve been stuck on her since she walked back in here. What happened just now?”

Damn, that was the biggest problem of working with profilers.

Spencer didn’t look at him at first. Just exhaled slowly. “She was about to tell me something.”

Morgan stood next to him, arms crossed loosely, cake in hand but forgotten. “Yeah,” he said after a beat, “I figured.”

Spencer nodded, then shook his head once like he was trying to clear it. “It felt like something…real. Something important. The way she looked at me, the way she kept hesitating. I—I thought she was going to tell me she—”

He cut himself off, embarrassed suddenly by the hope in his voice. The part of him that still believed maybe, after everything, you were still his.

Morgan waited a second, then said quietly, “You’re still in love with her.”

Spencer didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

“You never stopped.”

It wasn’t a question. Just the truth, spoken gently.

He finally looked at his friend. His voice was soft. “Do you think it’s stupid? Holding onto something that ended a year ago?”

“No, man. Not when it looked like that.” Morgan met his eyes.

After a beat, Spencer spoke again, quieter now. “Do you…um. Do you know if she’s still with him?”

Morgan glanced sideways at him. “With who?”

“The…guy,” Spencer said, awkwardly adjusting his grip on the plastic fork in his hand. “The one she was seeing. The emergency medicine fellow with the curly hair. She mentioned him once. Or Garcia did. I can’t remember who told me first because my brain blocked it. But I remember his name was Sean. Or Seth.” He paused. “Something statistically overrepresented among men born in the 1980s.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow, just a little. “I haven’t heard anything. But that doesn’t mean much. She wouldn’t exactly come to me for relationship talk.”

In truth, Derek didn’t know much about everything that had happened in recent months, not the full story, anyway. He hadn’t asked, and you hadn’t volunteered, not because you didn’t trust him, but because some things were too raw to say out loud. Besides, he’d always been closer to Spencer than to you, always protective of him in a quiet, loyal kind of way, the way older brothers sometimes are without needing to announce it. And maybe that made it harder. More complicated. It felt strange, almost disloyal, to bring your heartache to him when he’d been one of the first people to believe Spencer deserved someone who really saw him. Someone who would stay.

It was ironic, really. Morgan had been the one who nudged you toward him in the first place: subtly, kindly, with that knowing glint in his eye and a playful shove that masked how deeply he understood the way Spencer’s heart worked. He saw it before you did. The way you looked at Reid across the jet. The way Reid lit up when you said his name. He knew that you were meant for each other even before you did.

“I thought…I thought maybe she was going to tell me they broke up.” Spencer finally confesses.

Morgan studied him for a long second, the joking absent from his face for once. “What makes you think that?”

Spencer shifted. He hated that he sounded so transparent. So hopeful. “She looked like she wanted to say something. And then she didn’t. But her body language: her hand trembled a little when she touched my arm. That’s a nervous gesture. One she usually only makes when she’s unsure or emotionally overwhelmed. The last time I saw her do that was the night we—” He stopped. Swallowed. “It felt…significant.”

Derek let out a breath. “You’ve been thinking about this all day, haven’t you?”

“I’ve been thinking about this for a year,” Spencer said before he could stop himself. The words slipped out, raw and quiet.

Morgan’s gaze softened. He didn’t tease, didn’t smile. He just nodded once, like he understood something Spencer hadn’t admitted aloud before now.

“You want her back,” Morgan said.

Spencer nodded slowly. “Yes. But only if she wants it too. I just…I don’t know how to ask. I’m not even sure if I’m allowed to ask. If I ask and she’s still with him, I ruin whatever peace we’ve rebuilt. If I say nothing and she was going to say something—” He shook his head, his voice tightening. “I don’t know which mistake is worse.”

“Well, if anyone knows whether she’s still with him, it’s probably JJ, Garcia, or Prentiss. But if you want my two cents?”

Spencer looked at him, waiting.

“I saw the way she looked at you,” he said simply. “That wasn’t small talk. That wasn’t just friendly. She looked at you like there’s still something there.”

Spencer looked down, fidgeting with the edge of the paper plate, then up at the door again. “What if I just imagined it?”

Morgan gave a small, steady shrug. “Then you imagined it. But if you’re right, and I think you are, don’t let the moment pass you by again.”

Spencer didn’t respond right away. His brain was running too many simulations, too many outcomes, each one stacked with what-ifs and quiet disasters.

But even through the tangle of doubt, one thought kept rising above the rest:

She almost told me something.

And for the first time in a long time, he wanted to believe the almost still meant something.

You hated secrets, especially big ones.

It wasn't even your goal to hide anything from Spencer. God, why would you hide it? Yet, you couldn't help doing it and keeping your hands free in front of him.

And he also hated secrets.

But your first case back at work had been too chaotic and horrific to put into words, too raw to discuss without the unsettling presence of bloody testimonies and haunting images etched into your mind. Though the darkness wasn’t new to you, the scenes still struck with brutal clarity: shattered lives, desperate screams, and the cold, unyielding facts of violence. You were, unfortunately, accustomed to this grim reality, yet it never dulled the ache deep inside. The horror of it all still gnawed at your stomach, erasing any appetite for dinner afterward. But despite the gut-wrenching aftermath, the case was still justifiable, because every harrowing moment was a battle fought to save an innocent victim, to pull someone back from the brink. That thought was a fragile lifeline, the only thing steadying you amidst the chaos.

It wasn’t unusual for a case to stretch beyond a single day. The team was used to booking last-minute hotel rooms, catching fragments of sleep between long hours of profiling and chasing shadows. It was part of the job, expected. But tonight felt different. The silence in your hotel room was too loud, the sheets too cold despite the heat of the day. Sleep wouldn’t come, not because you hadn’t tried, but because the case had burrowed under your skin in the way the worst ones always did. The brutality of it lingered behind your eyelids each time you closed them. But that wasn’t the only thing keeping you awake.

He was.

Spencer.

It's not that you hadn't gotten over him—

You had a new boyfriend. For months now, actually. A doctor—despite the fact that you’d never really trusted them growing up, never liked the way they looked at people like they were puzzles to solve. But Seth was different. Kind in a practiced way, gentle in a learned one. He was perfect in all the ways you used to think mattered. Attentive. Accomplished. Predictable. The kind of man who answered your texts within five minutes, who brought you dinner without being asked, who called you “darling” like it was a language he’d always spoken.

You met him a few weeks after everything fell apart with Spencer. After the break-up, it had never really felt like a choice. You’d just wrapped a brutal case—one that left you hollowed out and bone-tired—and were driving home when a car ran a red light and collided with yours. Nothing fatal. Just enough to land you in the ER with a concussion and a fractured wrist. Seth was the on-call physician. He was the first face you saw through the haze. Calm. Capable. Steady.

Later, you crossed paths again at the hospital while questioning a witness. A shaken woman with blood on her hands and trauma in her eyes. Seth had been there again, clipboard in hand, speaking gently to her like he had all the time in the world. And when he saw you, he smiled like maybe the universe had planned this twice.

You told yourself it was fate. That maybe you deserved something easy for once.

So you said yes when he asked you out for the first time.

But fate was fickle.

Because the next time Spencer saw you, you were laughing at something Seth had said. Your hand briefly on his arm. Your body tilted toward his in a way that used to belong to Spencer. And Spencer—God, Spencer—he didn’t say anything. He never did. But you felt it. The way he stilled. The way his eyes lingered too long. The quiet shift in his shoulders, the sudden sharpness behind his silence.

“You fell asleep, darling?”

The voice pulled you out of the haze like cold water to the face.

Shit.

You blinked. “No, sorry. I was…I was thinking,” you murmured, realizing your phone was still pressed to your ear. Your thumb had gone numb around it. “I must’ve gone to another planet.”

“I asked if you told them,” Seth said again, more slowly this time. But you were still only half-listening, distracted by the soft chatter of hotel hallway voices. “Did you do it? You told them?”

“Told…what?” You asked, genuinely confused. The case had scattered your brain like paper in the wind. The exhaustion made everything blurry.

“About us,” he said, gently but clearly.

Your stomach tightened.

You turned onto your side, fingers curling in the hotel sheets. “Uh…not yet.”

A pause.

“Oh.”

You reached for a reason. “The case was intense. Everyone’s tense. I am too. It didn’t feel like the right time.”

“Maybe good news could help, then,” he offered, voice still even. Still patient. “I’ll let you sleep, darling. Try to get some rest.”

“Okay,” you said softly. “You too.”

You ended the call and stared at the ceiling, the phone still warm in your hand. The room was quiet again.

But in your chest, something restless refused to settle.

Finally, the knock came just after midnight.

Two short taps. Precise. Hesitant.

Spencer sat frozen on the edge of the bed, the glow from his bedside lamp casting golden light across the pale hotel walls. He’d been staring at the same sentence in the case file for the better part of an hour, his mind anywhere but focused. Mostly on you. On what you almost said before Hotch came in. On the soft way you looked at him on the plane. On the idea, the delusion, that maybe, just maybe, this was the beginning of something again.

And now, you were at his door.

When he opened it, you stood there in the soft, humming silence of the hotel hallway. Still in your work clothes, though your blazer was gone and your blouse was wrinkled slightly from the long day. Your sleeves were pushed up to your elbows, revealing the faint scar on your forearm, the one that still made his chest tighten when he looked at it. A strand of hair had slipped free from your usual tucked-behind-the-ear neatness. You didn’t fix it.

You held two paper cups, steam curling between them like breath in winter air.

“I brought tea,” you said, your voice a little breathless, a little unsure. “Chamomile. I figured…neither of us would be sleeping.”

Spencer’s heart clenched in that same painful, familiar way it always did around you. Like it remembered things before he did. Like it still hadn’t accepted how much time had passed.

He nodded. Stepped back silently to let you in.

You walked past him without a word, the soft floral note of your perfume lingering in the space between his breath and his chest. You made your way to the small circular table by the window and set the cups down with a gentle thud. Then you turned, leaned against the edge of the table, arms loosely crossed, and looking at him.

There was something about your face—tired, soft, almost apologetic—that made his stomach twist.

And then he saw it.

The ring.

It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t even obvious. Just a slim gold band, delicate, elegant, with a small, tasteful diamond that caught the lamplight as you shifted your hand.

His breath caught in his throat like someone had knocked the wind out of him.

You noticed. Of course you did. You always did.

You didn’t hide your hand. In fact, you lifted it slightly, then let it fall again, your fingers curling back in on themselves before resting at your side.

“I was going to tell you earlier,” you said softly, eyes dropping.

Spencer blinked once. Then again. He could already feel the words sinking like lead into his chest. “Tell me…what?”

You exhaled, like it physically hurt to say it out loud.

“Seth proposed. Last week.”

The words hit him like a punch to the chest.

Proposed.

Last week.

You said it so gently, like you were trying to lessen the blow. But it didn’t matter. There was no soft way to say something that broke him.

You turned your face slightly toward the window, away from him. “I said yes.”

The silence that followed felt suffocating.

It draped over the room like snowfall: quiet, soft, devastating.

Spencer’s eyes dropped to your hand again. To the ring. To the fingers he used to trace absentmindedly under blankets, the hand that once reached for his across bustling sidewalks, that had tucked itself into his coat pocket on cold nights without needing to ask. The hand that used to write him little notes during briefings just to make him smile. The hand that had trembled in his hair the last time you made love.

That hand now wore a promise meant for someone else.

“That’s…” he started, but the words scraped in his throat. He cleared it. Tried again. “That’s…amazing. Congratulations.”

You looked at him sharply. As if you didn’t believe him.

He pushed a smile to his face, fragile and fraying at the edges. “Really,” he added, louder now, like maybe volume could make it more believable. “I’m…I’m happy for you.”

Your eyes narrowed, not in anger, just in knowing. You knew him too well. You could see the fracture spreading across him even as he stood there, still, hands loose at his sides, smile practiced.

“I didn’t want to blindside you,” you murmured.

He shook his head quickly. “No. No, of course not. Why would you? We’re friends first, right?”

You didn’t respond.

“I want you to be happy,” he added. “And if he’s good for you…then this is good. It’s great. Really.”

He moved toward the table, reaching for the cup you’d brought him. The lid was slightly loose. His hands trembled a little as he adjusted it. He turned his back to you and took a sip, hoping the bitterness would anchor him in the present.

Behind him, you were silent for a moment. Then, you said quietly, “He’s good to me.”

Spencer nodded once. Still facing the window. “I know, that’s why it’s okay.”

But it wasn’t.

Not really.

Because he remembered everything.

He remembered how you used to steal his scarves and wear them even in spring. How you kept a list in your phone of books you wanted him to read aloud to you someday. How you had once fallen asleep mid-sentence during a documentary about black holes, your head on his shoulder, your hand resting lightly on his chest like gravity itself had chosen to settle there.

He remembered how you once said “I love you” in the middle of an argument. Angry, exasperated, crying, and still choosing love first. He remembered the way you clutched his hand in the elevator after a particularly brutal case, both of you too shaken to speak but unwilling to let go.

And now…now it didn’t care anymore.

You stepped up beside him again, and for a moment, he thought you might say something more. That maybe this was just a test. That maybe you didn’t mean it. That maybe—

But your phone buzzed in your pocket.

You glanced at it, then sighed. “Hotch wants us to regroup in the morning. 7 a.m.”

Spencer nodded.

You didn’t move right away. He didn’t either. The space between you was closer than it should’ve been. But not close enough to fix anything.

Finally, you offered a small, strained smile. “Thank you. For being happy for me.”

He nodded again, mechanically. Then, unable to stop himself, he pulled you into a hug. It was brief. It was too long. It was too much and not enough. He tried not to cling too tightly, not to memorize the way you still fit against him like a missing part. He tried not to count the seconds.

When he pulled away, your smile was even softer.

“Goodnight, Spence.”

You turned toward the door.

And then he saw it again, the glint of the ring as you reached for the handle. Catching the light like it belonged there.

“Goodnight,” he said quietly.

The door closed behind you with a soft click.

Spencer stood still in the center of that silent room, staring at the empty space where you’d been. The untouched tea cooled beside him. The shadows shifted with the late hour.

And when the weight of it finally settled, when the finality carved itself into his chest, he sat down at the edge of the bed, covered his face with both hands, and cried harder than he ever remembered crying.

Not because you chose someone else. Not because he feels like you forgot him. Not because now he has to see your life in other people's photos.

But because, deep down, he understood why.

And he never stopped loving you anyway.

[certaimromance]

it's speak now tv day!!! so go read my mini series inspired by the album💜

[certaimromance]

tysm for the conrad fic!! i missed him sm and your fic gave me life

awww thank you!!! i missed conrad sooo much too, so writing him again honestly felt like catching up with an old friend</3

thank you for reading and for taking the time to tell me that ♡