Pre-menstrual depression is always depicted as like "He He! I had a box of icecream bars and cried while watching the Titanic!" But in reality, it's more like, "I'm standing the edge of an abyss. There is nothing good inside of me, I'm filled with rage and desperation."
It's crazy that being told how to deal with that is never a part of anyone's menstrual sex education.
This has already been said in the notes, but if PMS causes extreme depression and even suicidal ideation, that is in fact something that most people do not experience and it can be treated
Like for the majority it really is "oh i'm hungrier and moodier than usual"
^this should be a part of sex education so the point still stands
I went to my doctor after I was walking to work one morning and saw a bus coming and actually took a step to throw myself in front of it before I pulled myself together. Later that day I started bleeding and was literally like someone flipped a switch and I didn't feel suicidal anymore. Which made me feel like I was loosing my mind because who goes from 'I want to throw myself in front of a bus' to 'I'm perfectly fine' just like that? I did some research, I went to the doctor and described my feelings, he looked me in the eye and gently asked what I thought it was, I said I'd read about PMDD and I thought it might be that, he said 'I think so too' and wrote a prescription.
If, before you get your period, you feel furiously angry, suicidal, irritated by every tiny thing to the point you want to murder someone, stuck in a black hole you'll never escape from. If you are experiencing extreme emotions for what seems like no good reason, especially if you get your period and those extreme emotions just go away. You're probably not just PMSing , you may have PMS's feral big sister PMDD and it's treatable.
Also this is something that can develop as you get older. So if you used to get normal PMS but what I wrote above sounds more like your norm now then don't just write it off as regular PMS.
Summary: just because you and Spencer have gotten together, does not mean the fun fact challenge is over to you (fluff, established relationship)
Note: Thank you for all of the love on fun fact. You guys are the best xx. In honor of fun fact hitting 1K notes, here is a bonus bit that did not make it to the final draft bc of the big word count (I was so sure not many people would read an 11k long fic, but thank you for proving me wrong).
Word count: 1k
You walked into the office, shrugging off the purple cardigan that was slightly bigger than your usual size and draping it over your chair. As usual, you placed your bag under your desk and turned on your PC before settling down, ready to focus for the day. Though, the second you spotted Spencer approaching, you instantly announced your daily fun fact.
“Did you know that peanut butter can be turned into diamonds? Fun fact.” From the corner of your eyes, you saw Emily pause at your statement. Spencer, on the other hand, grinned at your words.
“Good morning.” Spencer placed his coffee cup down on his desk first before coming to your side, holding yours out for you. You carefully took the ceramic vessel from him, muttering gratitude at his kind action. His other hand lingered on your back before withdrawing out of respect for the fact that you were both clocked in at work.
His eyes soon noticed the clothing item that hung on your chair.
“Was wondering where that one went,” your boyfriend murmured.
Boyfriend. Even after three months and having grown used to calling Spencer by that title, you still feel giggly at such a term. In fact, your lips curled right then while thinking of the word again.
You took in Spencer’s attire, specifically, the way that his purple button-up (coincidentally) matched the purple cardigan you had stolen from him two weeks ago. For a split second, you considered coordinating outfits deliberately with him, but in subtle ways.
“Hold on a second, peanut butter can what?” Emily double checked.
“I know, right?” you breathed out before reaching under your desk and pulling out an information-packed tome, dropping the heavy object onto the furniture’s surface.
It was Rossi’s courtesy. A month and a half ago, the old man decided to give you a fact book in hopes you could still win this bet before eight months were up. Unfortunately, his gift was unable to aid you much in your intellectual combat against Spencer, and thus, failed to prevent Rossi’s loss of his bet on a victory before the eight-month mark.
You carefully opened to the page where you had seen the fact and held it up for Emily to see.
“Well, would you consider having a peanut butter diamond ring?” she joked, though Spencer quickly jumped in.
“Actually, I would advise against it. Oftentimes, the lab-manufactured results are small. So they’re unsuitable for proposal rings.” His words almost felt personal with the way Spencer’s eyes fell to your hand, and you smirked teasingly.
“Why? You think I should have a big diamond instead of a small rock?” Instantly, your boyfriend’s ears grew hot, and you almost laughed at the way he started stuttering.
“Well, I just—on average, women tend to prefer a sizable diamond ring when proposed to. But also, like—well, I mean—you—”
“Me?”
“With your finger size—”
“How do you know my finger size?”
“Your ring was next to a couple of coins the other day—”
“Oh? And you decided to notice and remember this information, why?” You smirked, enjoying the way your relentless teasing was turning Spencer into a mess. But in all honesty, you were not that surprised. Spencer’s brain often stored information that most tend to overlook.
“Yeah, Spencer. Planning to drop down on one knee soon?” Emily’s added effort to poke at Spencer only made him more flustered, though the genius eventually was able to overcome it and continued speaking.
“With your finger size, the most suitable—preferences aside—would be a 1.0-1.5 carat diamond ring, and the peanut butter manufactured ones would be nowhere near that. Besides, diamonds made of peanut butter are often discolored largely due to impurities such as hydrogen and nitrogen, which are non-carbon components, getting trapped during diamond formation processes that involve high heat. Meanwhile, diamonds are mainly made of carbon atoms.”
“Would you like to know my diamond size preference, Spence?” was your only reply, and those words had Spencer’s face blooming bright red. Once again, he stammered to organise his words, yet a sentence could not be strung together.
Together, you and Emily burst out laughing at Spencer’s speechless state. Though the two of you began shifting to get back to work. Emily returned to her own desk, amusement lingering on her face. Meanwhile, you slowly spun your chair back to your PC, your laughter replaced by a full-on smile.
Yet, Spencer did not move from his spot. In fact, the sight of you smiling and your eyes crinkling had Spencer’s gaze softening.
Eighty seven days since he had told you that you were his favorite fun fact, a title Spencer continued to frequently refer to you as.
Prior to the prospect of you two, Spencer had made peace with a mundane dating-less life, living in a repetitive monotone manner. But now that he has you, that kind of life sounded dreadful. With you, mundane things became highlights of his day and the staples of his boyfriend-adjusted daily routine.
But above all, every day, he got to learn new things about you, like where you like to read in your apartment, how you like to separate your laundry, or your preferred side of the bed. Each and every new detail he discovered folded into the wrinkles of his brain like all along, the organ was made just to hold facts about you.
The genius bit back a smile.
That afternoon, Spencer walked you to your car like always. But instead of saying goodbye and heading off to the metro station by himself like before, the genius got into your passenger seat, and the two of you left the office together. As you were driving both of you back to his apartment, Spencer’s eyes darted to your hand again.
His forever favorite fun fact.
Spencer found himself really liking the sound of that.
The corner of his lips lifted before he looked away.
Maybe someday.
・┈・┈・┈・┈・┈・
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Summary: You came in to work every day with a fun fact, determined to catch the BAU's genius with one that he wouldn't know (friends to lovers, co-workers to lovers, mutual feelings, fluff, confession)
Note: my spencer reid debut fic <3 sorry if there are any inaccuracy, just started rewatching after 3 years
Word count: 10.9k (sorry)
“Small facts lead to great knowing” - Patrick Rothfuss (2011)
“I can’t believe anybody would do something like this,” you commented whilst looking down at the two documents in your hands—your thoroughly highlighted case dossier and your finished report. Every new case always exhibits unimaginable horror and unfortunately, there will always be something worse than your current worst.
You turned to Spencer whilst perched cross-legged on the edge of his table.
The corner of the genius’s mouth curled at your words. They were the very same ones that sprouted daily despite the nature of your job. But to Spencer, there was a strange comfort in such small repetitive murmurs of disbelief.
“I gotta agree with Rossi. This job really includes some of the worst lunatics out there.” You sighed before straightening up at a sudden thought. “Actually, fun fact…” You noticed the way your words peeled Spencer’s attention from his report. He finally glanced up, eager for the second half of that sentence.
“The word lunatic was invented based on the belief that mental illnesses were affected by moon phases.” You beamed at the idea of potentially providing your genius friend with new knowledge.
“Yeah, and it actually originated from the Latin word ‘lunaticus,’ which means moonstruck or influenced by the moon. The word was first used for conditions like epilepsy or overall just madness,” Spencer replied, perking up at the thought of a potential conversation about this.
The excited smile on your face instantly faltered and you groaned in feigned annoyance. Perhaps you should have known better than to think you could out-fact Spencer and say something he had not already known.
“Is there anything you don’t know, Spence?” you glowered jokingly.
“Well, it’s hard when you’re a child prodigy and genius.” You let out a scoff-like laugh at Spencer’s cocky admission, but you knew he was joking. Despite his IQ of 187, Spencer rarely ever announced himself a genius. It was a title dubbed by those around him. You knew if you had Spencer’s brain, though, you would hardly ever stay as humble as him.
“I’ll get you someday.”
Your declaration drew a snort from another work desk and you twisted around to face the source of such a faithless sound.
“You don’t believe in me, Derek?” You arched a brow, your competitiveness rising to the surface.
“Sweet girl, I believe in you for many things, but this is just not one of them.”
“But surely there is one single fact out there that Spencer doesn’t know about.” Penelope piped up from next to Derek, defending you.
“We’re talking about the same Spencer, right? Spencer Reid? Three PhDs and an IQ of Einstein?” JJ spoke as she made her way down the bullpen.
“Actually, there is no way of measuring Einstein’s IQ as he never took the test, so to say that—” Derek quickly interrupted Spencer.
“Come on, pretty boy. She’s backing you up.”
“Sounds like grounds to start a betting pool going,” Rossi spoke up as he approached the whole group, briefcase in one hand, car keys in the other. “$20 says she’ll do it within four months.”
“I think she can do it within three months.” Emily chimed up from her desk.
“I’m placing my bet on eight months,” Penelope added confidently.
“Alright, and if she can’t do it within one year, JJ and I will split the win,” Derek announced before directing his next words to you, “Stakes are on, sweetheart.” He winked.
“Yeah, yeah. I got it.” You rolled your eyes before turning towards Spencer, declaring to him with exaggerated cockiness, “I’m gonna get you real soon, just wait.”
“You’re welcome to try.” The challenging glint in Spencer’s eyes met your own. Again, you knew better than to think that you would know something Spencer did not already know. He was practically the master of facts. But, unfortunately, you were incredibly bad at quitting.
So, let the challenge begin.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Did you know that Australia is wider than the moon?” you questioned the second you saw Spencer enter the office the next morning. “Fun fact.”
“Yes, diameter-wise. Australia is almost 4,000 kilometres wide, while the moon’s diameter is nearly 3,500 kilometres. However, in terms of their masses, the moon is still larger.” You sighed dramatically at Spencer’s reply before spinning your chair towards your computer, turning the device on.
“And day one status: unsuccessful,” you grunted to yourself, catching Spencer’s grin from your peripheral vision.
“Oh? It’s gonna be daily?”
“You bet your ass it’s gonna be. There’s a betting pool and I’m unfortunately too competitive for my own good.” You caught the amusement dancing in Spencer’s gaze.
“Well then, good luck.”
“Won’t need it.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Did you know a cloud can weigh like a million pounds?” You crossed your arms while peering at the cotton candy-like objects floating amidst the bright blue summer sky. “Fun fact.”
Both of you had your bulletproof vests on, leaning against a car while waiting for JJ to finish speaking to the press before driving back to the precinct. Another case wrapped. Another unsub locked up.
Under the nice weather, you had your cap and Spencer’s sunglasses on, having forgotten yours. He had heavily insisted so, even after you had declined a handful of times.
You turned and looked at Spencer briefly. Though, for a split second, your body stilled as the sun played in his favor, casting nice highlights to his woodsy colored locks. The light crinkle of his nose and his squinting eyes made your lips curl, cause once again, it showcased just how self-sacrificing Spencer can be when it came to the people close to him.
“Yeah, because they contain different states of matter like trillions of condensed water droplets and ice crystals. Its weight is equivalent to the world’s largest aircraft working at full capacity. Though despite its heaviness, clouds have lower density in comparison to the dry air around them, enabling them to float in the same way as oil floats on water.” Spencer tried to maintain eye contact with you despite the blaring sun shining into his eyes.
“Hmm…” you pursed your lips before removing your navy blue cap and placing it on your friend’s head. This cast a shadow over his eyes, blocking the harsh sun from blinding his vision. “Beautiful weather to fail at winning this fun fact thing again.”
Spencer didn’t reject the clothing item.
Some time in the history of human beings, the act of sporting others’ clothing items—especially of the opposite gender—had been made to seem important. Spencer has never understood the significance in such a small exchange. But as your hat landed on his head, Spencer felt an added weight that was beyond the small clothing item.
Neither did he have it in him to adjust how you had left the cap on him, even if it didn’t sit on his head perfectly.
“I still have time to get you,” you continued after a moment of silence.
“359 days left.”
“More than enough.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
The clock was close to hitting 11pm. The whole team was taking a short break for a fresh perspective. Most were on their phones or taking a quick nap, but Spencer and you were playing a round of cards.
“Did you know ketchup used to be medicine? Fun fact.”
Both Emily’s and Derek’s watchful gaze panned from you to Spencer, anticipating his reaction to your daily shot at winning the bet.
“Around the 1830s, yeah. They marketed it as a cure for various ailments such as indigestion and diarrhea.”
Emily instantly groaned at Spencer’s reply while Derek snickered. Once again, Spencer already knew the information you provided, just like the 13 previous times.
“See? Not a single thing he doesn’t know,” Derek chirped up, earning him a glare from the co-worker beside him.
You finally placed your next card down, instantly eying Spencer, wanting a read of his reaction to your play. There was a distant look in his eyes, a clear indication that he was taking this game just as seriously as you were.
Your eyes swept over the rest of your opponent. The un-neat edges in his usually tidy work attire and the way his hair stuck in different directions had your lips curling. They were details that only unveil during late work hours after a long day. But strangely enough, there was something endearing about the slight tiredness in his eyes and the way his cardigan hung disheveledly on him.
“I won.”
Your eyes snapped to the pile of cards on the table at Spencer’s declaration.
“What?! No way. You must have cheated.”
“Now, now, don’t be a sore loser just because pretty boy over here won,” Derek teased you, despite also highly suspecting that Reid had cheated.
“Are we talking about the same pretty boy who is banned from many Vegas casinos because of his expert skill in counting cards?” JJ countered, placing her phone down.
Your co-workers’ discourse began fading out of your focus as Spencer took out a ticket from his bag and handed it to you with a cheeky grin. With hesitation, you took the paper begrudgingly. You knew you had to hold your end of the deal. You had lost, after all.
You glanced back at the winner of the card game, catching his toothy grin at your sulking manners. Against all maturity, you poked your tongue out in petulance, but such childish action had Spencer laughing quietly in his spot, eyes gleaming with fondness.
“Sore loser.”
“Cheater.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
Hotch halted in his tracks upon spotting you and Reid in the break room.
Both of your heads were side by side, just a hair short from touching, fighting to have adequate sight of the newspaper that the two of you were sharing. Each of you also sported a pen in hand, scribbling hastily onto the delicate paper with vigorous competitiveness.
The unit chief entered to refill his coffee, though his eyes continued investigating you two. In the narrow gap between your heads, Hotch caught sight of Spencer rapidly filling out a crossword puzzle. Meanwhile, just as fast, you were solving a Sudoku piece that resided on the same page.
“Did you know, like fingerprints, people also have unique tongue prints?” you murmured, eyes still glued onto the puzzle in front of you. “Fun fact.”
“Yeah, humans have unique color, tongue shape, and textural features, therefore making it a great form of identification. However, we currently do not have the suitable technology to capture intricate surface details of tongue prints. Also, switching costs are high partially because the idea of having to stick one's tongue out in public for authentication can be seen as rather awkward, unhygienic, and undignifying.”
You pursed your lips at another unsuccessful day. But such expression vanished when you dropped your pen on the table and declared with unadulterated joy:
“Done!”
Your victory drew a defeated noise from Spencer.
“Imagine though, having to stick your tongue out at airport immigration and place it onto a public scanner or something like that.” You cackled at Spencer's grimace and the way his body slightly shivered from such a mental image. Eventually though, your laugh reduced to a teasing smile.
Spencer’s gaze lowered to the little crinkle that appeared around your eyes as you smiled, before holding eye contact with you. Spencer knew there was no such thing as “eyes twinkling,” but you had him doubting that scientifically established truth for a second. It was lighting and he knew that, but he had to admit that he could finally somewhat understand why poets and writers were so obsessed with dedicating lines towards such a tiny detail.
Because even though there was no reason for him to, his own lips began to curl, mirroring the smile on your face.
From behind you both, Aaron Hotchner took a sip of his coffee before departing the room. Though on his way out, his eyes glinted a knowing look, while his lips lifted just the slightest bit before schooling back to a neutral expression again.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Did you know that back then, when raising a toast, people would literally drop a piece of toast into their wine?” you blurted out the second you slid yourself into the empty seat opposite Spencer at his breakfast table. Never have you ever skipped free hotel breakfast and today was no exception.
“Well, hello to you too.” Spencer grinned at your straight-to-business behavior.
He carefully placed the coffee he made for you into your hand—a casual daily routine. You took a good whiff of the comforting aroma before humming at the first taste. It was exactly how you liked it: a dash of milk along with two and a quarter teaspoon of sugar.
To date, Spencer has never asked how you liked your coffee.
He simply has always gotten it right.
It was not hard to guess that he had learnt your preferences from watching you make your coffee in the past. But you could not help but wonder if he took mental notes on others the same way he did with you. However, like every other time, you dismissed it as an occupational habit. Every member has been trained to be observant and notice little details. Spencer probably knew everybody’s coffee preferences.
“It actually originated from Ancient Rome, and back then, toast was an act to honor the gods and people would pour wine onto the floor. However, the custom evolved in many ways over time, depending on geographic regions. Around the 1600s, it became a common custom in England and this is where people would put a piece of spiced toast into their wine. They did it to improve the flavor of their beverage and also to “toast” to good health.”
Spencer caught your hum of satisfaction at the coffee and instantly felt pleased.
Science has long documented humans as naturally validation-seeking creatures. Your existence often humbled him from thinking he was not a recurring participant in that particular human instinct.
His eyes fell from you to your coffee—a particular mix that has ingrained itself into his memory since your first meeting. Funny that some time since then, he could no longer look at the beverage without ever thinking of you.
Neither could Spencer for the life of him recite the coffee order of anybody else at the BAU.
“36 days down…” you murmured, already picturing yourself rummaging the internet for more fun facts tonight.
“Maybe tomorrow.” The words came out softly, almost encouragingly. You hummed before matching his tone.
“Maybe.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Flies rub their hands as a sanitizing act, rather clean for an insect commonly associated with dirty places, no?” you murmured before peering up from your book whilst curled up in your seat on the BAU’s jet.
“Yes, it’s a self-grooming act. They do this primarily for two reasons. First and foremost, it’s because their legs are their flavour receptors, so they rub their front legs to ensure they can taste when eating. The other motivation is to remove dust and debris, therefore, ensuring survival.”
Your bottom lip jutted out slightly at another unsuccessful attempt.
“I’ll get you tomorrow…” you murmured with a teasing smile before re-immersing yourself in the fantasy world of your current novel.
Reading has become your escapism and method of self-grounding prior to any case. You tried to plunge into fictional worlds while flying to prepare yourself for the terrible realities that accompanied upcoming cases. Though at one point, Spencer started joining in. But instead of having his own book, he would lean over and scan your current page with unrealistic speed while you leisurely let each letter sink in. It became a routine that occupied your journey from Quantico, whereas on the way back, Spencer and you maintained your tradition of engaging in chess matches.
Spencer spotted your finger flipping the page once more and his eyes instantly swept over the printed words hastily.
Twenty thousand words per minute. That was Spencer’s known reading speed, which meant in merely two seconds or three, he was already done with the two pages in front of you both. As always, you were still reading at your own pace, unhurried. He knew he could adopt a slower speed to enjoy your chosen fictional literature. But lately, he found himself in a hurry, rushing himself to finish pages in a way that made him think maybe he was now above his previously established reading speed.
Why?
His gaze flicked over to you, mulling over the familiar details that made you, you. He studied the way your fingers trace the fore-edge of the book mindlessly, lingering on the way you tease your lips with your teeth as you registered the adventure that the story was taking you on. Spencer caught the slight shift in the space between your eyebrows and how they slightly twitch according to plot progression, displaying your commitment to your reading content.
Spencer would not classify himself as a people watcher, despite his necessary observant and analytical traits as a profiler. Yet, somehow, watching you had become one of his favorite quiet activities. In your little habits were his comfort. In moments when cases were overwhelming, his eyes have made a tendency to land on you. The spike in his heartbeat would normalize, whilst rapid thoughts would regulate. It was only in moments when Spencer would get caught by you that he would tear his gaze away sheepishly, before attempting to pretend that he was looking elsewhere instead.
The sound of paper rustling pulled Spencer out of his mind, and he instantly plunged himself into the same self-established cycle again.
And despite his fondness for literature, for once, it did not hold a candle in his eyes.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Cows have best friends, how great is that?”
Spencer stopped eating his ice cream the second he spotted someone passing the two of you in a cow onesie, giving away why you decided on that particular fun fact. His eyes fell back on you, glimmering with amusement.
“Yes, cows do have a ‘best friend’ who they tend to share spaces and rest side by side with. Research shows that when separated, these cows would show signs of stress and anxiety with higher heart rates.”
You hummed at that. By now, you were used to his immediate expansion on your facts, no longer surprised or disappointed every time he added onto your words.
In fact, you fondly looked forward to hearing what he had to say about whatever fact you would sprout. There was a deep sense of appreciation that you have grown for this challenge. You felt like, intellectually, your general knowledge had expanded immensely, both from researching fun facts to tell Spencer and also from the informative responses that you would receive from him.
“You know, cows also can develop what some may refer to as ‘accents.’ Research observed variations in their moos based on different regions and herds.” Spencer leaned closer to you before adding cheekily, “Fun fact.”
“Nuh uh, don’t go stealing my line. You’re not allowed to put me out of business.”
This tore a laugh out of Spencer, and you immediately bit back a smile at such a sound.
If humans have the ability to bottle noises for keepsake, you know now what sound you would try to capture.
Surprisingly, this was only the second time that Spencer and you had spent time together one-on-one out of work.
With the working hours at the BAU that forced you and all your co-workers to be in close proximity for an extensive amount of time, you tend to allocate your scarce free time to those who were outside of your work circle. But something about spending time with Spencer today had struck you with an epiphany:
You really, really wanted to see Spencer outside of work more often.
Both your phones started ringing at the same time.
“Penelope, is everything okay?” you answered quietly.
“Emily?” Spencer whispered at the same time into his phone.
After a few seconds, you both ended your respective phone calls before slowly turning to face each other again. You scanned yours and Spencer’s outfit before sighing.
“There’s not enough time to go home and change.” The devastation in your voice was imminent.
“I know.”
A few minutes later, both of you entered the office, and almost instantly, the noise level declined significantly as the whole team paused their actions. You winced, knowing immediately that you two were about to be the butt of many incoming jokes.
“Whoa, what time period did you guys travel back from?” Emily teased.
“We were at a convention, okay?” You huffed, picking up your go-bag from under your desk for a change of clothes.
“And you two are dressed up as…?” Rossi crossed his arms, undoubtedly amused.
The team scanned over both of your outfits. Spencer was wearing a brown fedora hat, an oxblood colored corduroy jacket, and grey pants. Despite the only semi-chilly weather, he also sported a colorful striped knitted scarf around his neck. As for you, you were in an all pink attire, but what stood out was your long pink coat, high pink boots, and long white scarf.
“The fourth doctor and Romana II, from Doctor Who,” Spencer answered, grabbing his go bag.
Derek’s eyes comedically bulged out at that, and he immediately spun his chair towards you. “Blink twice if Reid is blackmailing you with something to make you go to this convention with him.” You laughed at his remark.
“Listen, remember the card game I lost two months ago? That’s why I had to go, but when I actually started the show, I really enjoyed it.” You raised your hands in surrender.
“Oh, we lost another one. She got Reid-ified,” Derek exclaimed dramatically before placing a hand on his chest in jest heartbreak, grinning at your eye roll.
By now, Spencer had returned to your side with his go-bag. Though just as you two turned around to head off and change, an abrupt flash halted you both in your steps. Blinking away the after-effect of the blinding light, you saw Penelope with her phone facing you two and a cheeky grin on her face.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Delete that,” you immediately instructed, hands on your hips while your brows furrowed in fussiness. You then sucked in a deep breath and used your hand to comb through your hair before a smile broke your feigned annoyed expression. “I was not ready.”
Then, with dramatic flair, you posed properly for the camera, grabbing Spencer’s scarf exaggeratedly with both hands while tugging him lightly.
Spencer was unsure if his knees had buckled due to a slight loss of balance or from your proximity. He glanced at the camera, face slightly flushed, before witnessing another flash go off, evidencing his blush and putting it on record.
Your hands were gone from his scarf like a breeze.
“Alright, I’m gonna go change now.” By the time Spencer registered your words, you were already gone. All that was left at the spot you previously occupied was his attention. Spencer's eyes eventually moved when he heard a quiet giggle from Penelope, who was indescribably entertained by the dazed look on his face.
The tech expert slowly angled her phone towards Spencer to show what she had captured, and she carefully observed Spencer’s contemplative gaze. His eyes landed on you first, and they softened at the sight of your beaming face. They then traced the slope of your smile and the crinkle of your eyes before reluctantly trailing down to your hands and the way they bossily clung onto his scarf.
The sentiment of pictures has always been just a concept to Spencer Reid. He does understand the logic behind people’s attachment to colored captures of moments and why people have ‘important’ photos in their wallets or have framed physical copies. But personally, he rarely ever practiced it. Yet, in this precise moment, he suddenly wanted to begin.
Without even looking at himself in the photo, Spencer murmured to Penelope:
“Can you send that to me, please? Thank you.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Where is she?” Derek’s gaze darted up to his friend. One glance at Spencer and the man already knew who he was referring to.
“Garcia said she called in sick this morning. Why?”
“Nothing.”
Derek scanned over Spencer from head to toe properly this time. Realisation flashed through his eyes before the man smirked as he looked back down at his work.
Ah, the perks of being a profiler.
“Sure, pretty boy.”
“What was that loo—”
The sound of Spencer’s phone ringing interrupted his question. He took the device out of his pocket, and the phone almost flew out of his hand when he saw your name flashing on the screen. He immediately picked up and placed the device beside his ear, breathing out your name in greeting.
Instead of your usual cheery tone, Spencer was met with a muffled voice and snifflings.
Immediately, his body stiffened.
“Are you okay?” He was by his desk within seconds. His fingers grazed over his jacket, as if prepared to scoop the clothing up and dash out of the office if your answer indicated any distress.
“My nose is blocked. Both sides. It’s horrendous,” then came a dramatic sigh, “I’m becoming a mouth breather, Spence.”
Your melodrama tore a laugh from Spencer’s throat.
Derek’s lips curled discreetly at the noise.
“Anyway, don’t think you can escape your daily fun fact just because I’m not physically in the office.” Spencer was glad you were not physically with him, because if you were, you would have seen the idiotic grin stretching his face. But how could he not smile at your stubborn resilience, and the cute sound of your nasally voice that was slightly more high-pitched than normal.
“You’re sick, and you took a day off work, but not off the fun fact thing?”
“In sickness and in health, as they say.”
Spencer accidentally snorted at your words and immediately cleared his throat in an attempt to cover it.
Derek’s brows scrunched at that.
“Apparently, while wired to specific scientific machines and whatnot, two lucid dreamers can have two-way communication in real time. How cool is that?” Spencer hummed fondly at your words before sitting down, his plan to flee from office hours long gone.
“That’s quite a recent fun fact. The study was recently concluded just about two years ago,” his voice came out soft as he focused on any sound that the technological device beside his ear could carry over from your end.
He caught your hum, though the sound resembled the same one you always did while sitting next to him on the jet as the team flew back to Quantico. The noise that often preceded the soft landing of your head on his shoulder and the way he’d sit straighter up to accommodate you entirely despite his germaphobia-led touch aversion.
“You should sleep and rest,” he whispered, despite wanting to hear your voice for longer. But selflessness came easy when you were in consideration.
Spencer carefully began listing all the things you ought to do later to get better. But halfway through, he noticed the lack of noise from the other end, except for your rhythmic breathing, signaling your sound asleep state. Spencer sighed before removing the phone from his ear. He stared at the device in long contemplation before clicking the end call button.
Finally placing down the device that signified his only contact with you today, Spencer flipped open today’s case dossier. However, he found himself re-reading the first sentence over and over again. His eyes kept scanning over the same words, and he felt the way they slid past his comprehension the same way small external details occasionally would escape his notice whenever he spent time with you.
Spencer’s mind kept trailing back to the phone call and to you.
It’s familiarity—he tried to tell himself. Humans were, afterall, creatures of habit, and considering you have been swirled into his daily routine like a necessity, it made sense that the lack of your presence had set him off balance.
Eventually, Spencer got up and went to the break room for coffee. But the second he opened the cupboard and his eyes landed on your mug, he felt his mouth run dry.
For the past one and a half years, he has always made two cups of coffee instead of one at the start of each day.
His eyes darted to his mug right next to yours. The idea of separating them sent some sort of ache in his heart, even if logically they were just ceramic vessels.
Perhaps he had mislabeled what missing someone meant all along, because your absence was bringing a hollowness that nobody had managed to carve out of him before. It was the kind of emptiness that made him feel incomplete, as if a piece of himself was not with him. Yet, as opposed to the expected numbness that often accompanied such a feeling, Spencer felt every second of your absence with a constant stinging ache that felt too akin to withdrawal symptoms.
Eventually, Spencer shut the cupboard and returned to his desk, coffee-less.
That evening after work, Spencer made a detour instead of going straight home, missing the way his friends huddled together, exchanging hushed whispers about his departure.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
Twenty two hours, forty eight minutes, and thirty one seconds.
Spencer witnessed as time quietly slipped through the cracks of his remaining strength.
The whole bullpen lacked the life his work family usually colored in. The janitor had long shut off the main lights, so the only thing illuminating the space near Spencer was his desk lamp. Everybody else had gone home except for Hotch, but the unit chief was in his office, leaving Spencer as the last man standing in the bullpen.
After a few more ticks, Spencer finally tore his gaze from the timing instrument and glided his vision back down to the pen in his hand, forcing it to ink his unfinished report, but words refused to string together.
Spencer’s free hand began tapping his desk rhythmically in a pathetic attempt to comfort himself.
Twenty two hours, fifty one minutes, and twenty one seconds.
Spencer wanted to say that it didn’t matter. Why should it? But he knew damn well that the answer was because the team mattered to him.
However, perspective was truly a funny thing. Someone could be your number one priority, and you barely just made it in their list.
Spencer averted his gaze from the unfinished report to the brand new photo frame on his desk, where a captured version of the recent memory of you two as Doctor Who characters resided.
It did not take a genius to see that you two were closer to one another than with others on the team. However, the fun fact challenge had truly unlocked another level of bond. It was the kind of connection that meant he had started placing you above the others, a position that implied he also expected more from you, cause perhaps he thought you had also valued him just as much as he treasured you in his mind.
So as much as the whole team was the source of his dismay, there was a spotlight reserved for your absence, one that was beyond glaring and punched his guts in ways that others could not.
His eyes traced your face in the photograph again, like they had done every morning since he had gotten the picture framed.
Oftentimes, you could never be absolutely sure where you stand in someone’s life.
Twenty two hours, fifty nine minutes, and ten seconds.
A resigned breath escaped the narrow gap between his lips.
With more effort than it usually took, Spencer got on his feet, hoping that another cup of coffee would be the cure for his inefficiency. He slowly placed more weight on one side of his body to turn around. At the same time, Spencer began rubbing his face in hopes that exhaustion and melancholy would push themselves aside for a brief moment so that he could finish this impending task.
When Spencer finally reopened his eyes to navigate the darkness, he froze at the sight that was once behind him.
Eight steps away was you, looking like a deer caught in headlights.
Then came your escaped nervous laughter, like you were scared of screwing up, but that was only because you were unaware that you could almost never do wrong in Spencer’s eyes. His heart—which Spencer’s brain has been having a harder time controlling lately—provided you with a much larger margin for error than anybody else.
Your gentle tone filled the fragile silence that was intertwined with suspense.
“Fun fact, birthday cakes are traditionally round as an Ancient Greek tradition to resemble the moon for the goddess Artemis.” Your eyes crinkled as your lips curled into that familiar smile that had previously held Spencer powerless on numerous occasions. “Happy Birthday, Spence.”
There you were, cake in hand after a long day of work on a gruesome case.
There you were, with a homemade cake after a long day of him thinking everybody had forgotten his birthday, or more importantly, that you had forgotten.
But maybe his probability was not entirely against him.
“I know I’m quite late, but trust me, there’s an explanation. When I got to the office this morning, I realized that I had forgotten your cake at home. I was planning to grab it after work, but the case kept us all back so late, and then traffic was super bad because of a concert today. But hey, I got the cake now, and I really hope you like it.”
You peered down at your own baking product and the slightly wonky penmanship before turning your eyes back onto Spencer.
“Also, since it’s your birthday, I’ll give you a bonus fun fact. There are roughly 30,000 people who have their birthdays on October 12th in the States, but…”
Your voice fell quiet as your eyes diverted back to the cake again.
“You’re my favorite October 12th.”
And right at that second, all of Spencer’s previous attempts at rationalising his feelings via scientific explanations collapsed. For once, science could no longer shield him, because as much as it was a field built on facts of concrete evidence, there was also an undeniable truth: he liked you.
It might not be rational, but it was still a fact, and that alone terrified Spencer.
And while he was your favorite October 12th, you were his favorite every day.
Spencer glanced down at the handmade cake and the singular purple candle pierced in the center. The tiny flame provided just enough light for the space between you both. His eyes then flicked back onto you, and they softened.
God, you were so clueless about the effect your actions have on him and his whole world.
One breath extinguished the fire, and grey smoke fluttered into the air.
Then, for the first time since he saw you five minutes ago, Spencer managed to form the only words he felt were worthy enough of your time.
“Thank you.”
Even if the significance behind those words didn’t reach you today, it was okay. But they carry the weight of his whole heart and every unspoken reason behind his gratefulness.
Thank you for not forgetting about him today. Thank you for always being so kind and paying attention to the details about him. Thank you for being such an important part of his life. Thank you for choosing the exact career path that you did to lead you to him. Thank you for existing.
And someday, maybe Spencer Reid will gather enough courage to tell you all of this.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
You halted in your step, and almost immediately Spencer followed suit. His eyesight followed yours, and he instantly knew what you were gonna ask from him.
“Come on, can you play for me? Please?” you urged, and it didn’t take more than your pleading face to make him approach the instrument that lay abandoned in the corner of the hotel where the whole team was staying.
Saying “no” became a significantly harder task for Spencer ever since he realised what kind of position his feelings were in when it came to you. It especially felt like an impossible task when your words came in that pleading tone and the smile that had him wishing stopping time was one of his abilities.
You followed Spencer and leaned against the instrument eagerly. You observed as he lightly cracked his knuckles, eying the mixture of ivory and ink-dark keys with a calculative gaze before placing his fingers delicately on them while his foot pressed gently on one of the pedals at the base.
For a moment, you wondered what Spencer would play. Maybe one of the classical pieces he liked a lot. Perhaps Bach? Or—
A familiar tune overtook the pleasant quietness in the empty hotel lobby, and recognition struck you with every flawless execution of each note.
First off, you knew he was a liar, saying he only dabbled in piano. But what caught you off-guard was hearing the piano version of your favorite song.
It was things like this that made you conclude that Spencer Reid was one of the sweetest individuals you have ever had the privilege to know. From making you coffee daily to hunting down first editions of your favorite books (the most recent one in which he handed over along with soup the day you got sick and were off work). Now, he was learning your favorite song on the piano.
Lucky felt like an inadequate word to describe your position in life when Spencer was in the equation.
Only when he finished the very modern composition did you speak up.
“I thought you only listened to classical?”
“I…did,” was all that came out of Spencer’s mouth, but it was enough for you to catch his implication that he had learnt this song specifically on the piano for you.
Spencer sniffled, diverting his gaze from you shyly as he inspected the keys in front of him again.
Ever since his birthday, Spencer could constantly feel the urge to confess right on the tip of his tongue while his lips trembled in self-control to keep them to himself for now. According to the internet and its various articles, he should try to ‘woo’ you first, and hence these actions instead of confessing right away. He wondered if you got his message. He wondered if you could tell this was his version of flirting. However, Spencer also knew that he had accidentally portrayed himself as an extremely sweet friend from your perspective, so thoughtful actions with the aim of impressing you romantically were most likely ruled as platonic gestures.
You began toying with the ring on your middle finger, the flattery from his sweet action manifested itself through the heat beneath your cheeks. For the first time in your almost three years of friendship with Spencer, you were struck by a minor nerve-wracking sensation. There was also a fleeting stutter in your chest that you decisively ignored.
You moved on with a quiet murmur.
“You know, humans owe squirrels a lot. They have planted at least thousands of trees.” You gave him a soft smile when his eyes met yours again. “It’s accidental, but no less a noble act contributing to the environment.”
“Yeah, they would bury nuts for later usage, but forget their locations. Many forgotten nuts can grow into trees, therefore, contributing to forest regeneration.”
“Anddd another fun fact failure.” You groaned, though your expression melted into a smile when you heard Spencer chuckle at that.
“We should head up. It’s getting late.”
You nodded in agreement and began walking, but looked back briefly at Spencer. “But it’s not too late for an episode of Doctor Who, right?”
An outstretched grin spread across Spencer’s face at your words.
“Never.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“No way.” You were speechless as you made way out of Spencer’s car, staring at the building in front of you in disbelief. “Don’t tell me…”
“Yeah, it’s for your favorite film,” Spencer confirmed your suspicion.
“So, it didn’t matter that I had lost, huh?”
Shortly after your Doctor Who convention together, Spencer had invited you to this event that was two and a half months after. Though he insisted on keeping the details a secret, relaying only the dress code—smart casual, but whatever you were most comfortable with.
The secretive factor of the whole ordeal had you guessing in suspense for the entire two months, but now that you were here, you fully understood why.
This was the event that you both would have gone to instead of the Doctor Who convention if you had won that game of cards.
An orchestra movie concert of your favourite movie.
Spencer sucked in a deep breath, fingers toying with the loose threads of his cardigan. There he went again, attempting to present to you that he was an option—the best one, at that—and giving signals that he was pursuing you. He has read at least five hundred online articles on the art of flirting in the past week alone. If Derek ever found his online searching history, Reid would never live it down.
“God, this is the best thing ever.” Seeing how pleased you were with his action made Spencer want to physically preen with pride.
Once you two had settled down inside, you took a couple of photos and observed your surroundings. You looked around at your neighboring audiences before averting your gaze to the empty chairs that were soon to be filled by instrumental experts. Your body was flooded with excitement at the prospect of finally being at this event.
You decided to chime in with your daily fun fact just minutes before the concert was due to start.
“Did you know that there’s a planet that is ⅓ made of diamonds?” you whispered.
“55 Cancri e, right?” he matched your volume, shifting in the chair beside you to make himself comfortable.
“Yeah, that one,” you confirmed, turning your head back to him. “Go on, I know you have details on it.” You encouraged, shifting yourself into a comfortable position as well.
“55 Cancri e is a super-Earth exoplanet, approximately twice the size of Earth, though roughly eight times heavier in terms of mass. First sighted and discovered in 2004, scientists have found that it is a very hot and rocky planet with a molten lava ocean surface due to its incredibly close orbit to its star…”
You were leaning into your palm while listening to him, clinging onto every word as they absorbed into your brain. The space you left in between you both out of consideration for Spencer gradually lessened as he leaned in closer the more he talked. His tone, too, grew more quiet as he went on, as if the information he was telling you did not exist in some cyclopaedia, but a secret passed in full trust.
The corners of your lips curled at the twinkle in Spencer’s eyes as he detailed out knowledge that previously sat in the corner of his brain, collecting dust.
Spencer’s intellectual rambling will always be one of your favorite things about him. You loved hearing him talk and the way he enunciated each syllable so clearly, as well as his wordings and his tonal patterns. You should have gotten used to it by now, but it marvelled you every single time that you had the chance to listen to him talk about things you would rely on an internet search to know. Just like usual, today was no different.
Spencer Reid was remarkable. It was almost impossible to take your eyes off him when he talked. He was a bundle of many things that made him an individual worth a lifetime of getting to know.
You wondered if you were looking at him a little bit too fondly right now. But how could you not when he was whispering sweet facts to you as if he only wanted you to know of it? It felt almost as if this fun fact challenge had turned into a sacred tradition between you two.
“Even though it is widely said that the planet is ⅓ of diamond, this is actually still only a theory and yet to be proven. So, to dub it the Diamond Planet when they’re not even sure if there are diamonds on the planet itself is like…suspecting you are a quarter or half French and then introducing yourself as French to people anyway.”
Your laughter burst out unfiltered, and you instantly grounded yourself by clearing your throat and pulling yourself away from Spencer slightly, putting yourself on timeout.
That was kind of embarrassing.
The joke was slightly funny, but nowhere close to warranting that kind of laughter.
It sort of reminded you of the videos you have seen on the internet about the kind of laugh that people would let out in reaction to their crush’s jok—
Oh.
You subtly slid deeper into your chair as thoughts shot in your mind at a hundred miles per second. Your fingers immediately curled into your palms to dig at it. You could not look back at Spencer in fear that he would notice that something was wrong.
Oh God.
But were you really surprised though?
A part of you had seen it coming, because as much as you adore all your co-workers, you knew in the bottom of your heart that Spencer was the only one you were willing to lessen your sleeping hours to prolong hanging out and conversing with. Also, to be immune to such sweet actions, you would have to be some statue made of stone. For years now, Spencer had intently taken time to know you and go out of his way just to make you happy. If anything, you were grateful that your heart had picked someone so kind and worthy to give itself away to.
You glanced at Spencer from the corner of your eyes, and just the sight of him alone had your heart hiccupping in a way that you had become familiar with for the past month. It was the kind of stutter that you had outright been trying to ignore and written off as nothing. But unlike all the previous times, you knew you could no longer deny that man next to you was the reason for such palpitations.
And maybe it was also time to face it: you like Spencer Reid, your genius of a friend and very much also a profiler.
Your eyes snapped away from him the moment you realized the significance of playing it cool. You could not have him picking up the signs and figuring out that you have feelings for him. But then again, you have seen how clueless he was around women who were hitting on him and failing to pick up their signals. So, maybe he would not notice your current body language either.
Before you could think more on the matter, the lights dimmed and instruments began stringing together in a well-rehearsed manner. It was only then that you began breathing again, relieved that you had two hours to collect your thoughts and come to terms with the newly attained knowledge about yourself.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Alright, what’s the fun fact of today?” you heard Spencer’s voice before peering up and seeing him behind your chair, hands on the back of the furniture, looking down at you with a shy smile. The sight of his adorable expression made your cheeks heat up, and you had to avert your gaze to prevent him from spotting signs of your flustered state.
The other members just boarded the jet as well, settling into their own spots after a tiring case. You were much less the same, sporting the now more noticeable eye bags that matched Spencer’s. Yet, that does not deter his gaze from the warmth they hold.
You gestured to Spencer’s usual seat right next to you. Once he had settled down, you made your next move on his chessboard, resuming your current ongoing match with him. You could see the instant way the cogs in his brain started spinning. At that, you provided your fun fact of the day, hoping it would serve as a distraction.
“You know, I read that there are more possible variations of chess games than the number of atoms in the universe.”
“Yeah, it’s known as the Shannon number—the number of possible chess games, I mean, which is 10120. Meanwhile, the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe is 1080to 1082.”
He made his move, catching your discreet yawn in the corner of his eyes.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” The weight behind your eyes turned them half-lidded. They landed on the chessboard, trying to formulate the next best move, but your brain refused to cooperate as a fog of sleepiness overclouded your judgments.
“You don’t have to play now, you know. We can just play next time.”
“No, no. Give me a second, I’ll make my move.”
“You’re tired.”
You slowly turned your head towards Spencer, and there it was again. You caught the concern leaking from his gaze, and it instantly reminded you just how caring Spencer was to those in his life and especially you. Your mouth formed a tired yet grateful smile at his expressed worry.
You felt sorry for those who have never had the opportunity to be the subject of his affections.
For a split second, you pondered the kind of doting that Spencer would do if he were pursuing someone romantically. You have never seen him express interest in any woman during your time at the BAU, despite the advances he has gotten from various good-looking women. But if he was already this sweet platonically, you were fairly certain your heart would give out at what he had in mind as romance.
Your shoulders finally slumped before a truthful sigh escaped from you. “Yeah.”
Unlike usual, where you would fall asleep and land on his shoulder while you were knocked out, he outright shifted to sit up straighter for you, offering his shoulder.
Spencer never admitted it out loud, but he had foolishly started wanting the friction of your skin against his or the fabric of his belongings. It was an impossible he thought would never occur, but here he was, anticipating the next rare moment of physical touch beside the one where his shoulder would become your pillow.
Of course, he had noticed it—your lack of touch when it came to him. He was devastatingly aware of your mindfulness of his germaphobia, and Spencer was grateful, he really was. However, your reservation to accommodate his tendencies had begun feeling like deprivation. In fact, Spencer could count on one hand the amount of times you had ever touched him deliberately, with the last one being one hundred and sixty three days ago.
But it was that particular initiative factor that Spencer deeply yearned for. He craved and awaited for a touch made with purpose.
He wanted you to mean it.
You stilled at such a small action, gaze stopping on his shoulder. You did not want to over-interpret such a simple movement, but knowing Spencer, there were implications and significance in that little offering.
You knew it had become a recurring thing. As embarrassed as you were, you could not help the fact that you were the type to move around a lot in your sleep. You had tried using an airplane pillow, leaning against the wall, and so many other methods. However, most of the time, you would still wake up on Spencer’s shoulder before instantly jolting up and freeing him from the physical touch.
But the certainty on Spencer’s face left your rejection stuck in your throat.
Hesitantly, you began shifting closer, giving Spencer just enough time to retract the offer if he wanted to. But he stayed confidently still as your head started leaning down before finally landing on his shoulder.
One single small action had Spencer questioning how much longer he could go on like this. How much longer could he keep these feelings tightly locked and concealed? Because Spencer was utterly gone for you. Gone in the kind of way where one casual compliment from you about the cardigan he was wearing had him immediately putting the item into his clothing rotation a lot more frequently.
“I’m gonna get you some day, Spence…” Spencer watched as you drifted to sleep before closing his own eyes, all while he wished the flight back would last forever.
Unbeknownst to you both, the team exchanged knowing looks and discreet smiles at the sight they were witnessing. There had been nothing more obvious to them than this, but instead of intervening, they decided to let things play its course.
Because, despite the uncertain nature surrounding the occurrence of events in life, this was the one thing everybody was sure was inevitable.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏
The jet finally arrived back at Quantico around 11pm. Spencer had finished his report a few minutes before you did, but lingered behind as usual to wait for you. About two weeks ago, he had established a new routine between you both.
“Ready?” Spencer carefully peeled your bag from your hand, checking his watch to see that it was already past midnight, marking a new day.
“Yeah…” you breathed out tiredly, eager to collapse in bed. “More than ready.”
You like to think you have kept it cool well, in general. But Spencer’s new routine of walking you to your car after work had you a nail tip away from laying all your cards bare and revealing your feelings. Even on days when you finished your report first, he would walk you to your car before returning to the office. But the thing was:
Spencer Reid rarely ever drove to work, which meant he was going to the employee parking lot every day with you for no reason.
Well, for no reason but you.
The elevator began making its descent from the sixth floor with both of you inside. You were listening carefully as Spencer discussed an academic paper he had read last night. The doors soon jerked open, revealing the fairly empty parking lot. At the sight of your car, you subtly began slowing down your steps, biting back a smile when you noticed him mirroring your change of pace.
You observed as he animatedly gushed about the methodology of the research paper, paying particular attention to the tiny detail of his body language. The way his hands were passionately waving around, exaggerating certain points Spencer was trying to make. The flutter of his eyelashes as he blinked a bit faster than he usually would—a habit that often occurs when he speaks quickly, as you have learned. The smooth movements of his lips as his mouth tried to rush out words to match the pace of his incredibly brilliant brain.
Now that you were looking at his lips, you have to admit that it was kind of hard to look away.
Suddenly, an idea brewed in your mind, and it felt like the holy grail had finally landed in your lap. Who would have known that a random Thursday would be the day you ought to finally win this challenge and put Spencer in checkmate.
“Spence?” Your lips curled mischievously, observing the way Spencer halted in his steps at your tone.
God, despite being subjected to harsh and unflattering parking lot lights, Spencer still had the audacity to look good in a way that tugged at your heartstrings. The sight had you questioning if he was capable of ever looking bad. His warm eyes colored with interest as he eagerly awaited your next words. You took a couple more steps forward, wanting to hide the plotting expression on your face.
“Fun fact…” You paused before peering back at him. At those two words, you instantly caught the anticipation rolling off him. There was also a subtle confidence from him that signalled he was sure he already knew whatever you were planning to tell him. But you knew that this time, things would be different.
With a competitive glint in your eyes, you finally divulged today’s fun fact, your voice calm and stable.
“I like you.”
Just as you predicted, Spencer froze while his mouth fell agape. No words fell out of those talkative lips, a stark contrast to how fast he was speaking a couple of seconds ago. You practically beamed in victory at such a reaction. You wanted to celebrate, you really did. But you decided not to gloat about your win yet. Instead, you prioritised the better option: teasing your friend.
“I recalled you mentioning once that kissing spreads fewer germs than shaking hands?” You winked playfully, expecting nothing from it. It was simply a joke to make Spencer flustered for your entertainment, and there was zero expectation that he would somehow miraculously confess that he had been secretly liking you too and would actually kiss you at your workplace’s parking lot at 1am.
Because there was no way Doctor Spencer Reid liked you, right?
You observed as his lips slowly curled up in amusement as your words sunk in, and that partially made your shoulders relaxed. Well, at least your joke landed, and your friendship would make it out intact despite your confession.
But then, out of nowhere, that closed-mouth smile stretched into a full-on grin before a chuckle of disbelief escaped from Spencer.
Now, you were on alert. Instantly, you tried to read his reaction—was he in disbelief that he was finally stumped by a fact he had not yet known of? Was he amused by your clever trick of using your own feelings as a fun fact? But the elation on his face and the awestruck look in his eyes hardly aligned with someone who had just lost a long-term challenge.
Your lips parted as you continued assessing the man, but you caught the way his eyes flickered down at that small movement before he sucked in a deep breath.
Oh…?
Suspicion crept in, but confirmation came quicker.
In the blink of an eye, Spencer had completely eliminated the two steps between you both, sealing you two in a proximity that was closer than you had ever been with him. His palms found your face, and they cupped your cheeks in a careful yet certain way.
Spencer’s eyes darted all over your face, searching for all the clues that you were okay with what he had next in mind. He could see that your pupils were slightly dilated, as well as feel the way you were leaning into his touch and the heat that was transferring from your cheeks to his hands. Though it was only when you did not pull away and instead, had your tongue dart out to wet your lips, did Spencer kill the remaining space between your faces.
His lips slanted against yours in a desperate manner that outmatched his need for oxygen, kissing you like it was long overdue. He swallowed the gasp escaping your throat and the surprised noise that followed. There was an urgency he could not hide as his straining self-control snapped from your green light.
You began kissing him back just a second or two after, and almost instantly, you heard a sigh of relief. Your lips curled, but any trace of smugness vanished when his thumb began rubbing your cheek fondly. Suddenly, you were aware of just how close you two were. Every point of contact was sending a searing heat through your body, because despite his fears of germs, Spencer was touching your skin like it was a need, rather than an obligation for moments like these.
You pressed your lips harder against his.
Good lord, Spencer could do this forever.
He might have been able to count the number of times you have touched him on one hand, but even with the whole team, there were not enough fingers to account for the number of times he had glanced at your lips this week alone.
Your own hands touched the sides of his waist, and you instantly caught the longing noise that escaped from Spencer’s throat, echoing onto your lips. At such an encouraging sound, you curled your hands to the back of his body and snaked them up his back. Your lips smirked against his at the way he arched into your touch.
One hundred and sixty three days—Spencer reminded himself again, humming in utter satisfaction at the way those numbers spun down to zero. Finally, you were touching him on purpose and with purpose. He practically melted at the way your hands roamed so confidently without any trace of guilt that he was uncomfortable, because he was far from that.
In fact, he eagerly wanted to keep the number of days since the last time you touched him at zero permanently.
You picked that precise moment to pull away, documenting the way his eyes fluttered open and dawned into existence the unadulterated glimmer of yearning in them.
You have always thought he was gorgeous, but how he looked right then rendered the word inadequate. It was a vision exceeding all your daydreams, and to be the reason behind the look made you feel like you were an award winning fashion designer who had just invented a magnificent masterpiece. But unlike most, you had no intention of sharing this artwork with the world or with anybody else.
Spencer felt his heart squeeze at the sight of you again. Was it possible to miss someone so badly from not having a visual on them for approximately a minute? Maybe he was more screwed than he thought.
Breathlessly, he finally whispered the confession that he had long to say for a month.
“Despite all the facts I already know and have learnt during my whole entire life, you’re my favorite thing to study and know more about, and have been since you stepped into my life. Nothing I learnt after felt like it could outrank anything I learnt about you.” It was true. Every speck of information about you gets the forefront of his memory’s line-up, taking priority over every other knowledge. Spencer licked his own lips for remnants of you before continuing, “You’re my favorite fun fact, you know that?”
Your heart tugged at his words. You had no idea how you managed to compete with the vast amount of interesting information that existed in the world, but under Spencer’s stare, you truly could see he meant every word.
“But…” The smile on your face instantly dropped at that single word from Spencer. Good rarely ever followed that three-letter conjunction.
“But?”
“I do have to admit that, uhm…” The familiar sheepish glint in his eyes had one of your eyebrows shooting up. “I kinda already know that fun fact already, that you liked me.” Your hands on him stilled their movement before falling onto your sides in disbelief.
“Oh, come on. You can’t be serious.” He resisted the urge to whine at the lack of physical touch from you. “But you looked shocked.”
“I was shocked you actually said it. I didn't think you’d do it today…or tomorrow…or maybe ever–” You slapped his arm, but he gladly welcomed that contact. Anything was better than nothing.
“I thought you’re like highly oblivious to romantic signals? I’ve seen you being completely clueless and not picking up on the fact that women were flirting with you.”
“I think I wasn’t clueless when it came to you because my eyes were always on you.” Those words came out shamelessly. In fact, Spencer almost sounded proud of himself. You tried not to let his words make you flustered.
“When did you figure it out?”
“That you like me? At the orchestra.”
“How? I barely figured it out myself that I liked you then.”
“Yeah, I could tell.” Your huff drew a chuckle from him.
You finally peeled yourself completely away from Spencer, grabbing your bag from his hand before making your way to your car. As you unlocked the vehicle and swung the driver’s door open, you could hear his footsteps following. You crouched to lean into your car and place your bag onto the passenger seat. You could feel Spencer’s presence stopping just behind you, standing much closer than he had ever before tonight.
As you bent back up and leaned against your car, you didn't miss the way Spencer’s fingers twitched, giving away his urges for physical contact. You crossed your arms before tilting your head back teasingly.
“I’m still gonna get you someday.”
Spencer’s gaze melted to an even softer look than before at your declaration. There was a freeing component in his eyes, showcasing the joy from being able to openly look at you in the way he had really wanted to for a while. His voice lowered to a sweet, promising whisper.
“I’m counting on that.”
With that, Spencer leaned in again, wanting a second run of things before the two of you had to part ways for the night.
You grinned into the kiss and quickly wrapped your arms around him again. Quietly, your mind logged in today’s score.
Day 187 status: unsuccessful.
But it hardly matters when you think you’ve already won something a lot better.
・┈・┈・┈・┈・┈・
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You and Spencer Reid were paired the day you met at the FBI Academy, and neither of you ever really chose to be apart again. He cries when you cry, you laugh when he laughs, and he falls in love only when you do. You mirror each other without trying, orbiting the same gravity, bound by something deeper than choice. Like the sun and the moon—forever aligned, forever drawn—yet never granted the stillness of an eclipse.
Warnings & Tags: this series will go through almost every chapter of every season but it's going to rewrite them! i will stray from the canon quite a bit at times. suggestive themes and eventual explicit. extra slooow burn. friends to something weird to lovers. lack of communication. situationship of more than ten years.
Note: Honestly this is my new hobby and my perfect excuse to watch the show for the thousandth time:) so don’t worry, it won’t affect the posting of my other fics <3
Summary: What starts as a routine shooting test unravels when Spencer becomes painfully aware of everything he thinks he lacks and everything you seem to have without him.
Words: 4,7k.
Warnings & Tags: this is part of a series, check the masterlist to make sure you are in the correct chapter. typical cm stuff. extra slooow burn. friends to something weird to lovers. frustrated & jealous!reid. so much tension. HURT/comfort. english isn't my first language (sorry for my mistakes, be kind please).
Note: Hi again<3 I just wanted to clarify, in case it wasn’t very obvious, the chapters of this series are meant to be about the moments we didn’t see in the show!!! I’m assuming you already watched the episode we’re currently in, so for me there’s no point in repeating everything exactly the same just to insert my reader into it...BUT if I miss out any details from an episode you want to see, just let me know and I’ll give you some extras!!!
“I know you're hopin' to find someone who's gonna give you peace of mind when times go bad.” — Second Hand News, Fleetwood Mac
It was your first proper breakfast after weeks of surviving on vending machine coffee, protein bars stolen from the jet, and sleep schedules so fractured they barely qualified as human anymore. A real breakfast, eaten in a cramped roadside diner where the windows sweated from the contrast between rain-chilled glass and overheated air. And somehow, despite everything you had lived through recently—the gun pressed against your temple last week, the unsub who nearly blew apart the apartment complex in Baltimore, the blood still staining the cuff of one of your jackets because you kept forgetting to wash it—none of it tightened your chest the way Spencer Reid quietly sitting across from you did now.
Because hostage situations ended eventually. Terror had structure. There were protocols for fear, procedures for violence, training for life-or-death moments.
But this?
Watching Spencer fail at something that mattered to him so deeply and pretending not to watch him unravel from it felt infinitely worse.
The plates between you looked like evidence of exhaustion more than an actual meal now, abandoned in uneven stages as the conversation stretched longer. Your pancakes sat half-destroyed beneath glossy streaks of syrup gone tacky with cooling air, powdered sugar dissolved into pale paste along the rim of the plate where your sleeve had brushed through it absentmindedly. Spencer’s breakfast had barely been touched after you slid the donut across the table toward him earlier. The triangle of toast near his wrist had gone completely cold, butter hardened back into the bread in dull yellow patches. His eggs sat forgotten. Even the hash browns had begun losing their crispness beneath the diner lights.
But the donut had disappeared almost immediately.
The empty wax-paper wrapper still rested near his elbow, dotted with fallen rainbow sprinkles and smudges of melted chocolate frosting. You had watched him eat it piece by piece while the rain battered softly against the windows beside him, his long fingers pulling apart sections with distracted precision instead of biting into it properly at first. Like his brain had still been too occupied trying to replay every mistake from the exam to fully process hunger. He hadn’t even realized how fast he was eating until halfway through, when exhaustion finally overpowered frustration enough for instinct to take over.
That had been the first moment all morning where his shoulders loosened even slightly.
Not because of the sugar itself. Not really.
Because you had walked into the diner already knowing what he’d need before he could ask for it.
A donut.
He sat folded inward across from you in a way that made your chest ache if you looked too long.
His long legs cramped awkwardly beneath the table, knees bumping occasionally against the underside of the booth whenever he shifted. One shoulder rested lightly against the fogged-up window beside him as though he’d leaned there unconsciously at some point and never moved back. His dark sweater hung loose, sleeves shoved halfway toward his elbows before falling back down repeatedly because he kept fidgeting without noticing. His coffee remained mostly untouched except for the constant restless rotation of the mug between his palms, fingertips curled tightly around the warmth like he was grounding himself through temperature alone.
His gaze drifts sideways toward the storm-darkened window rather than meeting your eyes when he finally speaks.
“The qualification standard is actually lower than most federal agencies,” he says after a moment, voice steadier now than it had been earlier but still threaded tightly with the kind of self-awareness that bordered on self-punishment. “Which statistically makes this worse, not better.”
You snort softly into your coffee before you can stop yourself.
“What?” he asks, brows pulling together faintly.
You lower your cup slowly, lips twitching despite yourself as you point toward him lightly with your spoon. “That,” you say. “That is exactly what I mean.”
His frown deepens immediately, confusion overtaking the wounded look. “About what?”
“You say things like that after failing one shooting exam.”
“It wasn’t just one shooting exam.”
The correction comes instantly. Reflexive. Defensive enough that you can practically see the thought process firing behind his eyes before the words even leave his mouth.
“Spencer.”
“No, listen.” He leans forward now without fully realizing he’s doing it, elbows brushing the sticky edge of the diner table. “Field agents are expected to maintain competency under pressure. That’s the entire operational basis behind firearms qualification. Fine motor accuracy—”
“You’re doing it again.”
He stops.
The sentence cuts off mid-thought.
For a second, Spencer only stares at you from across the table, blinking once, like someone abruptly surfaced from deep underwater before fully orienting himself. His mouth remains parted slightly around words he no longer seems certain he wants to say. Outside, rain taps steadily against the glass beside his shoulder. Somewhere near the counter, the coffee machine hisses again.
“What?” he asks quietly this time.
“You’re turning it into statistics,” you say gently, your thumb brushing unconsciously along the warm ceramic of your mug as you watch him. “Because that’s easier than saying you’re embarrassed.”
The words don’t land like a correction. Just truth, offered plainly enough that he can either pick it up or leave it there. And somehow that makes it harder for him to ignore than anything sharper would have been. You see it immediately in the way Spencer stills, the smallest interruption of motion passing through him like a ripple. His gaze drops almost at once to the coffee in his hands, as though the surface of it has suddenly become more manageable than your eyes.
“It’s easy to say that when you passed without even blinking,” he mutters, the words slipping out rougher than he intends. “No one would ever think you’re incapable.”
“That’s not true,” you say quietly.
Spencer lets out a soft breath through his nose, something caught somewhere between disbelief and frustration. His gaze stays fixed on the table, fingers tightening slightly around the ceramic mug in front of him. The coffee has long since cooled, but he still holds it like it’s anchoring him to something solid.
“You passed the first time.”
“And?”
“And you don’t understand what this feels like.”
The sentence lands harder now, frustration dragging the words loose before he can soften them properly. But beneath the irritation, you hear the real thing hiding underneath it: panic. The fear that if he cannot excel immediately, if he cannot master something as quickly as everyone expects him to, then he becomes lesser somehow. Less useful. Less impressive.
Less worthy of being here.
Including to you.
For a moment, you just watch him.
“Look at me.”
His jaw tightens immediately at the request.
“Spencer.”
Slowly, reluctantly, he lifts his head.
His eyes meet yours only briefly at first, hesitant in a way they almost never are with you, before settling fully. There’s frustration there still, yes, but also exhaustion, the fragile rawness of someone who already regrets the direction of the conversation but doesn’t know how to pull it back.
“You think people don’t question me?”
He blinks once, clearly thrown off-course by that.
“What?”
“I’m younger than half the people at Quantico,” you continue evenly, your voice calm enough to soften the tension still sitting sharp between his shoulders, “just not younger than you.” The corner of your mouth lifts faintly, though there’s no real humor in it. “I’m emotional on cases. I carry a camera around the BAU like some art student who got lost and wandered onto the wrong floor.” Your thumb drags absently along the rim of your coffee cup before you glance back up at him. “Half the senior agents thought Hotch hired me by mistake when I started.”
Spencer studies you now with a faint crease between his brows, confusion gradually giving way to disagreement.
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re…” He stops abruptly.
Your brows lift slightly. “I’m what?”
For a second, Spencer looks genuinely trapped.
Not because he doesn’t know the answer, but because he knows it too well.
You can see the words forming behind his eyes faster than he knows how to organize them safely. The problem is that none of them exist in isolation anymore. Not for him.
Capable.
Observant.
Steady in ways he isn’t.
You walk into crime scenes and somehow remain soft afterward. You notice details everyone else overlooks, not because you memorize patterns statistically, but because you pay attention to people like they matter. You understand emotional shifts before they fully surface. You calm victims down without trying. You make rooms feel less cold simply by standing in them.
And you’re beautiful, so beautiful.
That part arrives unwanted and immediate, buried beneath the others before it can fully surface.
“You’re good at this job,” he says finally, quieter now.
You hold his gaze for a second longer than necessary before answering.
“So are you.”
His gaze flickers away again.
The waitress chooses that moment to return, breaking whatever fragile quiet had just begun settling carefully between you.
She appears beside the table with the effortless rhythm of someone who has spent years navigating crowded aisles and half-finished conversations, coffee pot balanced expertly in one hand, order pad tucked against her hip. The scent of fresh coffee follows her back to the booth, warm and bitter beneath the lingering sweetness of syrup and chocolate frosting still hanging faintly in the air between you. Somewhere deeper in the diner, dishes clatter against each other in uneven stacks while the old jazz station overhead dissolves briefly into static before smoothing itself out again.
“You two need anything else?” she asks automatically.
You and Spencer answer at the exact same moment.
“No, thank you,” he says quickly, almost before she finishes the question.
“I’m okay, thanks,” you add a beat later.
The overlap makes Spencer glance up briefly, startled by the coincidence in a way that almost makes you smile immediately. The waitress doesn’t seem to notice. She simply reaches forward to refill both coffee cups, steam curling upward in soft white ribbons beneath the fluorescent lights.
Spencer thanks her again as she finishes, formal enough that it sounds oddly sincere for such a small interaction.
The waitress gives him a small smile that lingers half a second longer than necessary before she moves away toward another table, sneakers squeaking softly against the checkered tile floor. A moment later, the bell above the diner door chimes as someone new steps in from the rain, cold air sweeping briefly through the room before the door swings shut again.
Only once the interruption passes do you let yourself settle back into the conversation fully.
You tilt your head slightly, pressing your mouth against the rim of the cup to hide the faint smile threatening there.
“You know she thinks you’re a professor, right?”
Spencer blinks once, caught off guard. “What?”
“The waitress,” you repeat, as if that should clarify everything.
“How could she possibly infer that?” he asks immediately, brows drawing together in genuine confusion.
You let out a small breath that almost turns into a laugh. “You use words like infer in casual conversation.”
“That’s a normal word,” he replies immediately, just defensive enough to be endearing. His posture straightens slightly now, like he’s instinctively preparing to defend either linguistics or his own dignity, possibly both. “Its usage frequency has actually increased significantly in conversational English over the last—”
“Spencer.”
He stops.
You finally let yourself smile properly into your coffee.
“Not in diners before noon.”
For the first time since you sat down, something in his face visibly loosens.
Not a full smile. Not yet.
But close enough that you catch it anyway.
God.
It’s embarrassing sometimes, how much of your emotional equilibrium depends on tiny shifts in Spencer Reid’s face.
You glance down at the swirling coffee in your mug before adding, casually:
“She also said we make a cute couple.”
“What?”
His voice comes quieter now.
You shrug lightly, leaning back against the cracked vinyl booth like the statement means absolutely nothing at all.
“Probably because we come here almost every day at the exact same hour and share food like…” You gesture vaguely between the two of you. “An old married couple.”
“We don’t share food,” he says after a second, though the argument already sounds weak even to him.
You raise an eyebrow slowly.
Then, before he can react, you lean across the table and steal the last piece of toast directly off his plate with the kind of effortless confidence that only exists after years of familiarity.
The motion is so instinctive neither of you really thinks about it.
Your fingers brush briefly against the edge of his plate. You tear off a piece with absolutely no shame whatsoever, settling back into your side of the booth as though the toast belonged to you from the beginning.
Spencer watches the entire thing happen with quiet disbelief.
Not because he’s upset.
Because he always watches you like that.
Like every small thing you do exists slightly outside the normal rules of behavior and he’s still trying to understand why he lets you get away with all of it so easily.
You take a bite calmly under his stare.
“We don’t have two decades of marriage,” he mutters.
“No,” you agree easily, reaching for your coffee again. “Just almost two years of partnership.” You pause deliberately before adding, softer now, “And longer being friends.”
Something flickers briefly across his face at that.
You swallow the last bite of toast before tilting your head slightly toward him, expression gentler now beneath the teasing.
“That’s why I know you so well, genius.”
Outside, the rain keeps falling with patient persistence, tapping steadily against the diner windows in a rhythm that has slowly become part of the atmosphere itself. Beyond the glass, the city has dissolved into softened edges and muted colors, wet pavement reflecting blurred headlights. Somewhere near the counter, someone feeds coins into the jukebox, and an old jazz track crackles faintly to life overhead, brass notes low and tired and warm enough to settle into the empty spaces between conversations without interrupting them. The entire diner feels suspended slightly outside of time, like nothing inside it is expected to move too quickly.
For a little while longer, neither of you says anything.
You both drift naturally into the familiar ritual of leaving without needing to acknowledge it aloud. Spencer folds his napkin absentmindedly into precise quarters before setting it beside his empty plate. You slide your coffee cup away, fingers lingering briefly against the warmth left in the ceramic before letting it go. Your coats come next, sleeves pulled on slowly, bags gathered from the edge of the booth, movements unhurried in the comfortable way routine becomes after enough repetition.
Spencer stands first.
He almost always does.
Not out of impatience, but because his body tends to move before the rest of him fully catches up, thoughts still running several steps ahead even in moments as small as this one. He reaches automatically for both your bag and his before realizing midway through the motion that yours is already over your shoulder.
You notice.
You always notice.
But you only smile faintly to yourself instead of saying anything.
The bell above the diner door jingles sharply when you push it open.
Cold air rushes in immediately, crisp and damp against your skin after the warmth inside. The scent of rain-soaked asphalt and distant exhaust fills the space around you, clean in that specific city way that only exists after steady rain has washed everything down. The sudden chill makes you pull your coat closer instinctively as you step onto the sidewalk, the world outside feeling sharper somehow than the soft cocoon of the booth you just left behind.
Beside you, Spencer adjusts the collar of his sweater automatically beneath his jacket, shoulders hunching slightly against the cold as his gaze flicks once down the street in quick habitual assessment before settling again.
You fall into step together without needing to discuss it.
The diner glows faintly behind you through fogged windows and yellow light, already beginning to feel separate from the rest of the morning. Ahead, the street stretches toward Quantico in long wet ribbons of pavement and reflected traffic lights, familiar enough that neither of you really has to think about where you’re going anymore.
Just movement.
Just habit.
For a while, neither of you speaks.
Your footsteps blend into the soft hiss of rainwater sliding along gutters, distant engines rolling through intersections, tires cutting through wet roads somewhere nearby. Spencer walks slightly to your left without realizing he’s doing it, close enough that your shoulders brush briefly whenever the sidewalk narrows around lamp posts or overflowing newspaper stands. His hands stay buried in his coat pockets, but you can still read the tension left in him through posture alone.
When he finally speaks again, his voice folds quietly into the rhythm of walking, softer now without the contained pressure of the diner booth around him.
“I just…” He exhales lightly, eyes fixed somewhere near the rain-dark pavement instead of ahead. “I don’t understand why this specifically is difficult for me.”
You glance at him briefly.
At the slight furrow between his brows. The way he’s watching the ground like the answer might reveal itself somewhere between cracks in the sidewalk if he thinks hard enough about it.
“You know why,” you say simply.
His head tilts a fraction immediately, the reflexive disagreement arriving before he’s fully processed the statement.
“No,” he says, quieter now but no less stubborn. “I actually don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
That earns you a look.
“If this is another conversation about childhood bullying affecting confidence development—”
“It’s not that conversation,” you interrupt gently, but firmly enough to stop the spiral before it fully forms.
Your breath fogs faintly in the cold air as you adjust your grip on the strap of your bag. Rainwater drips steadily from the edges of awnings overhead, gathering in shallow puddles near the curb.
“It’s a conversation,” you continue evenly, “about the fact that you expect yourself to master everything immediately.”
“That’s objectively not true,” Spencer replies at once.
You don’t answer immediately.
Instead, you just look at him.
And Spencer Reid, for all his intelligence, has never been particularly good at surviving silence when it’s directed at him, especially when it's you.
One second passes.
Then another.
By the third second, he exhales through his nose in quiet defeat.
“…Okay,” he admits finally, gaze sliding toward the wet street beside you instead of your face. “It’s partially true.”
You huff a small laugh under your breath, shaking your head as you step around a shallow puddle, the water reflecting distorted fragments of streetlight as you pass. “You skipped grades,” you say quietly, voice softer now that you’re walking side by side instead of sitting across from each other. “You walked into the BAU at twenty-two. Everyone treats you like some kind of genius phenomenon all the time.” Your eyes drift toward him briefly, catching the faint line of his jaw, the way he’s listening even when he doesn’t want to fully admit it. “You don’t really know how to fail at things.”
“That’s not—”
“You hate not being naturally good at something.”
Spencer doesn’t even get the chance to finish whatever protest was forming on his tongue.
The moment the glass doors of the BAU slide open, the tension between the two of you gets absorbed by the building itself, swallowed whole by fluorescent lights and movement and noise, like the bureau has long since decided personal feelings are things to be postponed until further notice. Recycled air rushes out to meet you immediately, warm against skin still cold from the rain, carrying the familiar mix of burnt coffee, printer toner, old paper, and something faintly metallic that never fully leaves the building no matter how often the ventilation runs.
The bullpen is already alive.
Phones ring in uneven bursts across the room. Chairs scrape against tile. Agents move quickly between desks with files tucked beneath their arms, conversations overlapping in half-finished fragments as everyone tries to catch up with a day that already feels halfway gone. Somewhere near the conference room someone laughs too loudly at something that probably stopped being funny thirty seconds ago. The BAU always feels like it exists slightly ahead of the rest of the world, constantly moving, constantly chasing, never fully still.
You and Spencer slip back into it automatically.
The rain gets left behind first. Then the diner. Then the lingering tension from breakfast that never fully resolved but softened enough to stop hurting.
Your body remembers the rhythm of arrival before your mind does: bag sliding off your shoulder, coat pushed back, keys dropped onto your desk without looking. Beside you, Spencer mirrors the same familiar routine, movements quieter, more careful, still carrying traces of the exhaustion sitting low beneath his posture.
And then you see it.
A coffee cup.
It sits directly in the center of your desk like it was placed there with deliberate precision, too neat to be accidental. The sleeve has been adjusted carefully around the cup, lid secured tightly, a folded napkin tucked underneath to stop condensation from soaking into paperwork. Steam no longer rises from the opening, but the faint ring of moisture beneath it says it hasn’t been there long.
Your name is written across the side in thick black marker.
For a second, you just stare at it.
The noise of the bullpen continues around you, but your attention narrows instinctively, the rest of the room softening at the edges until all that exists is the coffee sitting on your desk and the strange, immediate awareness that someone thought about you long enough to leave it there.
Behind you, Spencer slows slightly.
You don’t have to turn around to know he’s noticed it too.
Before you can decide whether the gesture is sweet, suspicious, or deeply inconvenient for your emotional stability, a familiar voice cuts cleanly across the room.
“Well, well.”
Derek Morgan leans casually against the edge of his desk a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest, already smiling like he’s just stumbled onto the best part of his morning. His eyes flick from the coffee to you, then very deliberately toward Spencer standing just behind your shoulder.
“I leave for like five minutes,” he says slowly, amusement thick in his voice, “and suddenly we’re doing gifts now?”
You blink. “What?”
Morgan gestures lazily toward the coffee cup sitting in the middle of your desk like it’s Exhibit A in a case he’s already solved. “That,” he says, dragging the word out with visible satisfaction. “Coffee. On your desk.” His grin widens slowly as his eyes flick toward the far side of the bullpen. “Pretty sure Anderson just walked by looking way too proud of himself.”
Across the room, Grant Anderson immediately raises one hand in a half-hearted wave without fully looking away from his computer screen, which somehow confirms everything more effectively than an actual explanation would have. His mouth curves with the faintest trace of self-satisfaction before he lowers his head again, clearly pretending he is not actively listening to every second of this conversation while revising files that should have been done hours ago.
Behind you, Spencer goes very still.
Not frozen exactly. Most people in the bullpen probably wouldn’t notice anything at all. But you know him too well for that. His footsteps slow almost imperceptibly behind your shoulder, the subtle shift in his posture giving him away before his expression ever does. His gaze settles on the coffee cup in your hand with unsettling focus, like his brain has momentarily paused to reorganize information that no longer fits neatly into the category he originally placed it in. There’s a faint tightening around his mouth, tiny enough to escape anyone who hasn’t spent years learning the microscopic language of Spencer Reid’s moods.
“There’s no reason to make that face,” you mutter automatically, already rubbing lightly at your temple as exhaustion settles behind your eyes. “It’s a deal.”
Morgan’s eyebrows lift immediately with theatrical interest. “A deal.”
“Yes,” you repeat flatly, though the defensiveness creeping into your tone only seems to entertain him more. “He asked me to proofread all his reports. I told him I’d do it if he bought me coffee.” You pause, realizing too late how that sounds. “Well. If he guessed my order correctly.”
The correction lands a full second too late to save you.
Morgan points at you instantly like he’s just uncovered corruption at the federal level. “Oh, that’s worse.”
“It is literally not.”
“That,” he says with complete confidence, “is the most flirtatious thing I’ve heard all week.”
You stare at him in disbelief. “It’s caffeine and administrative labor.”
“Anderson!” Morgan calls suddenly across the bullpen without taking his eyes off you. “You courting federal agents now?”
“I’m multitasking,” Anderson replies without missing a beat, still typing.
A couple nearby agents laugh under their breath.
You consider leaving the country.
“It’s not romantic,” you insist, lowering the coffee back onto your desk with more force than necessary. The cup rattles faintly against the wood. “It’s a mutually beneficial exchange of services.”
“Uh-huh.”
Morgan leans back farther against the edge of his desk, arms folding comfortably over his chest like he’s settling in to watch a movie he’s been waiting for all week.
“And Reid?”
Beside you, Spencer straightens slightly on instinct. “Yes?”
Morgan tilts his head, studying him now with obvious amusement sharpening the edges of his expression. “You really gonna let her get free coffee from another guy like that?”
The question is absurd enough that under normal circumstances it would dissolve immediately into background noise. A joke. Nothing more than Derek Morgan tossing chaos into the bullpen because he enjoys watching people scramble after it.
You know that.
Morgan knows that.
Even Anderson looks like he knows that from across the room.
But Spencer processes social situations in dangerous little fractions sometimes, tiny windows where instinct reaches the conclusion before interpretation catches up.
You feel the shift happen beside you before you fully see it.
His attention flicks immediately toward the coffee in your hand, lingering there a beat too long. Then toward Anderson across the bullpen. Then back to you again, expression unreadable in that careful way he gets when he’s internally sorting through possibilities at alarming speed.
God.
You close your eyes briefly.
“Your jokes are so boring,” you tell Morgan finally, voice flat with exhaustion as you lift the coffee and take a sip before he can say anything worse.
And immediately regret it.
Your entire face tightens before you can stop it.
The coffee is black.
No sugar. No cream. Nothing.
It tastes like punishment.
Morgan bursts into laughter almost instantly.
“Oh, he failed failed.”
You stare down at the cup in genuine offense. “This tastes like depression.”
Across the bullpen, Anderson finally laughs outright, leaning back in his chair. “I was trying to seem sophisticated.”
“You profiled me as someone who drinks black coffee voluntarily?”
“In my defense,” he says, still grinning now, “you absolutely look like you would.”
You narrow your eyes at him, already abandoning your bag beside your desk as you walk toward him through the bullpen, coffee still in hand. Agents move around you in blurred motion, voices overlapping beneath the constant drone of the office, but your attention narrows instinctively toward his desk and the deeply personal betrayal currently sitting inside the paper cup.
“You know what,” you say as you stop beside him, “this is actually insulting.”
Anderson looks entirely too pleased with himself. “You’re still drinking it.”
“That’s because I’m exhausted, not because it’s good.”
Near your desk, Morgan watches the entire interaction with growing delight before reaching over to clap one heavy hand onto Spencer’s shoulder.
“Damn,” he says sympathetically, though his grin completely ruins the sincerity. “Lose your gun qualification and your girl in the same week?” He shakes his head slowly. “Bad luck for the genius.”
Spencer doesn’t answer.
Doesn’t even seem to hear the second half immediately.
His attention remains fixed across the bullpen instead, gaze following the shape of your laugh when Anderson says something else too quiet for him to catch beneath the ringing phones and rustling paperwork around the room. You’re leaning slightly against the edge of his desk now, one hand curled loosely around the ruined coffee cup while the other gestures absentmindedly as you talk, rainwater still clinging faintly to the sleeves of your coat beneath the harsh fluorescent lights.
And weirdly, something unpleasant twists low in Spencer’s stomach.
Maybe what you needed this morning was someone who could actually carry a gun.
i'm probably gonna say very little about fandom discourse around this ep because spring break starts next week and i'm running out of sanity but actually. i love everyone on the pitt being flawed and fucked up and nasty sometimes. i love robby being a hypocrite and repulsed by samira's anxiety because he's repulsed by his own. i love that, alternatively, samira is repulsed by her mother's loneliness because she's repulsed by her own, too. i love santos blaming langdon for her ostracization at the ED and her unwillingness to see that, separate of the langdon issue (however separate you can make it), if you go around being an asshole to your peers all the time, some people are just not going to fucking like you. i love that its garcia specifically who checks santos for the lack of decorum she's displaying in front of their patients in this ep because garcia herself could arguably stand to have a bit more decorum when talking about patients and she's also treating santos like a dogggg right now. i love that mel is overstepping boundaries with becca and coddling her in a way that doesnt allow becca the space she deserves to be an autonomous adult with autism who should be respected on her own terms because mel's also struggling with what it means to be an autonomous adult with autism who should be respected on her own terms. i think there's a difference between a show depicting characters behaving badly and cosigning their bad behavior. i think a good character and a good person are separate categories. i love that this is a show that isn't so obsessed with likability that it keeps its characters from behaving badly.
frankly, i hope these characters keep fucking up, and i hope they keep getting checked by their fellow fuck ups, because that's life, brother. there is no divine priestly class of sinless people who exist to tell the "bad" people off for their missteps. and i hope that, as the show progresses, we see robby, santos, mohan, langdon etc make more mistakes and better mistakes. and i love that this show, for all its flaws, is (imo) still holding true to its premise that people are not wholly defined by their best moments or their worst. no matter how uncomfortable it is to sit with that nuance or how tense that makes an episode of television lol.
How it feels to genuinely enjoy the Pitt and not get caught up on every little bad thing a character has done because they’re all complex human beings and none of them are truly evil like everyone in this fandom seems to think
this is so late renaissance early mannerism. the controversial male nudity? the lighting and value on the figurenof emphasis?? him bathed in light and placed ABOVE while the police are clad in dark and BELOW?? Uh HES HITTING THE CONTRAPPOSTO??
Jacob being healthier for Bella in New Moon (movie):
Contrast already set up with Jacob being willing to work on the bikes, not telling her no, that it’s reckless (like Edward asking her not to do anything reckless); “age is just a number, baby” and the age game: Bella is actually okay with being older, getting older (with Edward she's not) — “what’s up with you and age?” (Jacob picks this up and has no problem confronting her on it)
The minute she’s around Jake, it’s the first time we see her smiling and chuckling since before Edward/the Cullens left
“You know, sometimes you gotta learn to love what’s good for you” - Sue is good for Charlie, Phil is good for Renee - since this line is about Bella's life with a subtle inclusion of Jacob, he is who is being implied in that lineup - Edward was never good for Bella
Bella doesn’t need to apologize to Jacob for bleeding (unlike with the Cullens and Edward) and he’s able to help her - it’s after this, Bella attempts to reconnect with her human friends (indicating that Jacob’s healthier)
Mike: “Dude is weird” -> Sam: “Jake was right. You’re good with weird.” - she is good with weird but I also love this wording
When Jacob leaves, Bella’s still functioning though she misses him (reiterated by Harry telling Charlie he needs to go fishing when Charlie is about to go back into routine with Bella, proving once more that Jacob/the wolves/Quileutes/life are better and healthier for Bella & have helped to get her out of that rut)
Two break up scenes: Edward & Jacob (Bella equated them with “It’s not you, it’s me, right? Really?” “You can’t break up with me” so they really are two break up scenes)
Other than the first bike ride with Jacob, Bella didn’t see Edward anymore, not until the meadow scene when Jacob isn't with her and he disappears again (once Jacob and the wolves arrive to save her) until the cliff dive
Bella is willing to leave again, this time for Jacob to help him get away from whatever he’s in (not for herself like it would've been when she was going to leave with Edward in the beginning of the movie)
Jacob initiates contact in this film whereas Bella always initiated contact with Edward/had to ask for it
“My hands are freezing. It must be nice never getting cold” - this is after Bella attempted to see Edward, Jacob saves her, and now she’s moving into the warmth; also, Bella never liked the cold so it's weird that she chooses an eternity of it
Two eye shots - all Jacob sees is Bella; the contrast between the two is that Edward is now over Bella's shoulder in the second one
New Moon means a new beginning, it's the beginning of a new lunar cycle and ends the one that came before it - no coincidence that Jacob (and the wolves) came heavily into play here in Bella's story once Edward and the Cullens are gone
When the phone rings, Bella is leaning into Jacob (and the kiss) while he pulls away to answer it
Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.
