warnings: slight reference to bleeding and small injuries, fluff kinda, mutual pining, but both are oblivious.
you had started working at the BAU for almost a year. almost exactly a year. your first day on the job was the 4th of january, you recalled. it was an intimidating first place to start working at, being surrounded by some of the country's most talented profilers and authority figures all older than you, but you couldn't help but feel right at home with these people, the same ones who were offering you a beer in that exact moment.
"you know, now that i think about it, i don't think i've ever seen y/n drink." emily points out, not in a rude or standoffish way, just in an emily prentiss sarcastic kind of way.
you noticed the team's heads slowly turning to you and you suddenly felt very seen. "wait... you're right, how come we've never witnessed such event?" morgan adds.
you jokingly roll your eyes and sigh dramatically earning them a laugh. being the youngest in the team had its perks, until it came to moments like these. "ha ha. i drink a bunch, just not around you..." you remark with your voice getting lower and less believable as you finished your sentence. the team scoffs and you notice in the corner of your eye spencer softly grinning. he was the only one not laughing. not that you minded them taking the piss out of you, it was just nice to know that the retired youngest in the group sort of had your back and didn't seem to want to make you feel stupid.
sometimes you wondered how he felt about you taking his 'place' in the team as the youngest. did he mind? was he bothered with your presence? did your voice irritate him? these thoughts crossed your mind regularly when you would as much stand beside him. you didn't want to be disliked, especially not by him. you didn't know why, you wanted to make a good impression in front of him and never let your guard down around him. he seemed to do that too, in a way. the times you had been left alone, you either talked about work or listened to him ramble about his fun facts. you din't mind, though. something about the way he spoke so passionately about things he cared and had knowledge about made you interested too, making you listen to every word he said with careful attention and care. you found yourself going home every day researching about things he said that day, and would greet him the next day with a warm smile, thinking about what new topic he was going to introduce you to.
seeing him grin that way made you shy... you didn’t know why though. you grew conscious of the heat forming in your cheeks and excused yourself quickly by going to the bathroom in hurried and clumsied steps.
as you felt the cold water hit your face, you thought about how you truly hadn't drunk in front of your colleagues. well. except for that one time with penelope when she invited you over to her house and you got so drunk you ended up in the ER... all it took? two beer. two beers knocked you out cold. the entire situation of ending up in the hospital with garcia holding your hand and almost laughing in your face as you woke up made you coerce her into never ever telling the story of the time you embarrassed yourself in your first month working at the BAU in front of one of your colleagues. she would then proceed to laugh some more, but even pinky swear that she would never tell a soul.
you looked in the mirror briefly after drying your face and dried it swiftly with a paper towel, in order for your colleagues to not worry about your delay.
picking up your flip phone on the sink, you open the door, and immediately notice a change in the environment. the whole space has gone quiet and when you enter the room you’d been celebrating earlier on, was empty. you look around trying to see if anyone had left a note, but nothing.
‘maybe they left already?…’ you think to yourself sitting down. ‘i should probably wait’
and so you do. 2 minutes turn into 5, and then into 10. after some time of waiting you decide to gather your things and get going, accepting that they’re not coming back.
you double check the entire place making sure everything is locked before texting garcia making sure they weren’t coming back.
inattentively, you open the door of entrance to the building and as you begin to step out your body almost crashes against someone’s. the tall frame in front of you scares you and you look down trying to regain your composure. “sorry, i didn’t mean to scare you!” the recognizable voice exclaimed genuinely. you immediately look up and there it is, the tight lipped smile on the face of the one and only spencer reid.
grinning at your own reaction you playfully hit him in the chest and exhale. “if i had hiccups before, i definitely don’t have them now.” you joked.
spencer manages out a chuckle. “you know, that’s funny. contrary to popular belief, scares never actually helped with hiccups. i mean they happen because the diaphragm spasms, so in theory, scaring someone with hiccups, would probably be worse.” spencer explained with almost no breath pauses in between. you raised your eyebrows and listened to what he said conscientiously while giving him an awkward yet sincere smile.
“then what should one do when with hiccups?” you asked hoping it’d sound genuine, although it had come out a bit sarcastic.
“holding your breath for 10 seconds seems to be a success for most people. but then again, there isn’t a medical cure for hiccups.” he finished.
“yet…” the second that word had come out of your mouth, your body cringed. you felt your body shrinking in front of him and immediately regretted what you’d said to him. ‘sometimes i just need to shut up and that’s okay’
to your surprise, that response earned you a grin from spencer, which made you feel better straight away. it was embarrassing how nervous you’d get whenever you were around this man. all your life you’d been able to analyze people from the get go, but it was different with him. he was like, almost impossible to read, never knowing what he was thinking or what he’d do next. eventually, you’d gotten used to the unpredictability of spencer reid’s mind, but to say it didn’t still bother you a bit that you didn’t know much about him, was a huge understatement.
snapping out of it, you recompose yourself. “but anyway, what are you doing here? i thought all of the team had left when i went to the bathroom.” you pointed out.
“oh uh hotch was drunk out of his mind and the others opted to take him home before he puked.” he nervously answered. his answer made you wonder. you’d been a relatively short amount of time with the team but you knew that hotch wasn’t much of a drinker.
“hotch? he was drunk?” you instigated and spencer nodded scratching his neck. “he didn’t seem drunk earlier when i left.” you thought out loud to yourself. “but either way, why are you here?” the million dollar question. you could only hope that your question didn’t sound too brute.
“oh, see i…” he looked nervous trying to reply. you gave him a worried look and he exhaled right after. “i didn’t want to leave you alone and confused as to why they’d left you” spencer honestly responded.
your heart warmed at the reply and you could feel a slight flush on your cheeks and ears. you tried to speak but spencer was quicker and spoke first. “i also know that new year’s is one of the only festivities you celebrate, so if you were alone for it, i don’t think i could forgive myself.” hearing those words coming out of his mouth made you feel your heart beat out of your chest and quite sincerely, wondering if he could even hear the sound. your lips were parted and your eyes on his face, almost dumbfounded.
suddenly you were aware of your every bodily reaction and you looked down to shield yourself. ‘why do i feel like this’ was all that was running through your mind as you tried your best to act as normal as possible.
you stood tall and looked back at him with flustered cheeks but managed to say: “that’s… really considerate of you. thank you spence.” working to softly smile at him, you looked down briefly, and when you suddenly remember the time, you scavenge through your bag in an attempt to find your flip phone.
"everything okay?" spencer asks as you continue to search.
"yeah, it's just-" you groan. "my stupid phone..." you take a deep breath and take your hand out of your bag to look at him. he's not wearing his glasses like he usually is, in fact, you wonder if he's using contacts. either way, he looks handsome. handsome? maybe that's a strong word, and probably an inappropriate one, considering he's your co-worker. but what other word can you use to describe how he looks right there in front of you without sounding unprofessional? only when you hear a car passing down the street do you snap back into reality and panic once again. "do you by any chance know what time it is?" you inquire, swiftly running your fingers through your hair.
"11:49" he answers almost immediately. for a moment you think to ask how he knows the time from the top of his head, you even contemplate if he's just messing with you. however, the short time you'd known spencer, had told you enough about how he wasn't a liar, and if he were one? he'd be a damn bad one, that's for sure.
with all the bars around town being packed and your apartment being 20 minutes away, you had no idea of how you would spend the year's passage. sure, you could always wait inside until the clock hit 12:00 am, like how the team was planning to do, but now it was different because you were with him alone, and you weren't good with small talk.
you could feel the time pass as you and spencer headed inside. you saw him throw away the empty bottles of beer and decided to join, as a way to ease the awkward environment.
in a matter of a minute, you two had gotten rid of almost all the glass bottles. you reached to grab the last one on one of the ends of a shelf right above a loaded desk with a scary amount of documents on top of it. you tried your best to not mess with the order of those files while also attempting to get the bottle with your index and middle finger. you stretched as hard as you could when your heel suddenly gave up on you and just about made you trip as you gripped the ends of the desk to not fall flat on your face. the silence that'd once been flooding the room, was now interrupted by the shrilling sound of glass hitting the floor.
spencer turned around suddenly. the view before him made him want to laugh. you, rubbing your eyes and just slightly laughing disappointed at your slip. "sorry, I don't know what happened. I'll clean this up don't worry." you stated as you lowered yourself to pick up the glass.
"don't do that! i'll go get the broom!" he hurriedly said.
"it's fine! look, all done!"
"you're bleeding.” he says, matter of factly. suddenly, spencer is running out to the men’s bathroom while you stand paralyzed waiting for him.
“spence, it’s fine!!” you shout out into the office, hoping he hears, which he does, but just chooses to ignore. only a few seconds later, he comes back with a hand full of paper towels and in the other, wound disinfectant. “seriously, look!! a little bruise.” you show him the new open bruise on your hand. “it’s not even deep, i’ll just take care of it when i get ho-“
“sit down, please.” spencer calmly requests with a tight lipped smile. and so you do. he reaches his hand and gestures to see your wound. his hand brushes against yours in a soft manner and holds it in his own, inspecting the depth of the wound. he reaches for the wet paper towel he got and gently cleans the blood around the place that got injured. “are you always this stubborn?” he asks, still cleaning your blood painted skin.
the question takes you aback, but makes you grin. “i don’t know, depends on what your definition of stubborn is.” you respond, emphasizing the word ‘stubborn’.
that earns you a soft smile from him. “only a really stubborn person would say that, you know?” he remarks finally looking up to you after cleaning the blood. “you don’t usually let people help.”
“ouch.” you say, pretending to be hurt. you think to yourself if this is something that has been on spencer’s mind or if it randomly popped up in his head after almost refusing treatment from him. quiet was something you were used to with spencer. it wasn’t suffocating, like being with someone who always feels the need to talk to ease the tension. you actually liked quiet, but the silence hanging in the air between you and spencer this time was different, almost as if there was stuff that had been left unsaid in the past that was finally going to be talked about. you’re the one to break the silence. “is that a… bad thing?”
he looks at you again. “what is?”
“not asking for help.” you clarify. “i mean, isn’t it good to be independent? isn’t that what we’re taught since we’re kids?” suddenly, you hiss. spencer had started to disinfect your hand.
“sorry!” he quickly replies. “i should’ve warned you i was going to do that.”
you shake your head and smile as a way to say it was fine. he continues to disinfect your wound and your question remains unanswered, when he gains courage to speak. “we’re taught a lot as kids though. we’re taught to never talk back, even if we were disrespected first.” you look at him, wondering where he’s getting at. “gosh, even to salute to the flag every morning, but i know you never did that.” you laugh. you had mentioned that small fact about yourself when you first got hired, but you never imagined that would stick in spencer’s mind, almost a year later. “what i’m trying to say is, we learn a lot of useless stuff from adults when we’re young and impressionable. just because you think you don’t need help, or that you shouldn’t feel the need for help, doesn’t mean you can’t ask any of us for help. you can ask me for help, for anything.” those last words hit you like a brick and you didn’t know how to react. all you can manage out is a breathy sigh. not of boredom, not of sadness, but of something that had been building inside of you since the moment you had met spencer. blinking slowly, you quickly turn your look down to hide the flushed look on your face.
“1 minute!” you both hear voices from outside and like clockwork, your faces turn to look at each other.
“wait, can you just check the time?” you try to snap out of whatever trance you were under and manage to ask spencer. he also seems to gain more awareness once you ask him. ‘was he also nervous?’
“11:59.” he simply states. just like that, an idea surges through your head.
“upstairs. follow me!” you hurriedly say and start quickly moving up the stairs to see the fireworks outside. you hear footsteps right behind you and you smile. you could’ve betted that the the concrete floor of the stairs had never had people rush through them just to see some fireworks.
once you get to the top, you let the door open for spencer to follow you to the railing. you get there and cross your arms over it in anticipation as you see spencer’s tall figure settle right next to you.
a few seconds pass, and suddenly the sound of the entire street counting down to next year starts. as you wait nervously for the moment you'd been anticipating the whole day, your mind can't help but replay the conversation you'd just had with the man standing next to you, the man who didn't need to be there, who could very easily go home or help hotch sober up. it dawns on you that spencer reid wasn't just another coworker you got nervous for approval of, he was the coworker who had unmistakably pulled your heartstrings.
"spencer." you call him out.
the street chanted "10! 9! 8!".
he turns his gaze towards you. "you can always ask me for anything as well." you admit with a smile, letting your guard go down for the, what you remember, first time with him.
"1! happy new year!" the two of you can only grin at each other as the celebrations are in place and the sky lights up with artificial colors that illuminate each other's faces, highlighting the happiness of the instant.
the fireworks continue for about 5 minutes, the only thing distracting you from the sky and spencer is the ringing sound coming from your back pocket.
"garcia! happy new year!" you basically shout over all the fireworks.
"happy new year! ms. l/n! are you seeing the fireworks right now?"
"yeah, i'm with spencer!" you direct the phone his way telling him it's garcia and they exchange their new years' greetings.
once you get your phone back, garcia doesn't hold back on teasing you about you being alone with spencer and you can't help but nervously laugh. "how's hotch by the way? has he sobered up yet?" you ask over the line and you notice spencer stiffen next to you and widen his eyes at the question.
"hotch? he's been sober the entire night. we left for a bar and spencer said he needed to run back int- ohhhh!" realization hits her as she speaks. you only look at spencer, who's now facing down, as you're trying not to laugh when you end the call with garcia.
you smugly stand near the railing and fail to hold back a teasing smile. "hotch was drunk out of his mind huh?"
he scoffs to himself. "i should've known that one was going to come bite me back in the ass sooner or later." you laugh as you playfully hit him in the arm. despite the embarrassment, he breaks out into laughter with you but turns to look at the sky once again to hide from you.
"next time you want to talk to me, you don't need to find an excuse to do it by the way... or make up a really bad lie." you don't know if it's the alcohol or the man you like in a white button-up looking really good in front of you that make you bold, but you like it. teasing him.
he only shakes his head in disappointment, but still chuckles. "noted. got to make up a really good lie next time, then."
ahhhhhhhh, my first oneshot!! which you can probably tell but it's ok!! i have a lot to learn so any feedback to improve my writing would be amazing
also, i started writing this like a year ago when i started watching cm so if it's inaccurate... yeah you can see why lol, its been a whiiiileeeee
