Spencer gets a bad bout of amnesia. Or, your boyfriend forgets he’s your boyfriend, but he still has a crush on you. [3k]
c: fem, bombshell!reader, head injury, hospitals, amnesia, fluff, spencer can’t believe he bagged you, requested here
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Spencer wakes to an empty room.
He lays on a pillow too flat, neck twinging, the back of his eyes throbbing when he moves.
He struggles to breathe through his nose and lets his mouth open for a few achy breaths, his mouth dry like he’s been sucking on cotton balls.
Spencer’s alarmed, without a clue what it is he’s done. He wonders where Gideon is, if the older man has come to see him yet. He hopes somebody told his mom he’s okay.
Maybe Hotch will come. He and Hotch have grown closer while Gideon was on his mandated recovery time; Gideon spends far less time in the office, sticking to lectures, seminars and consults, while Hotch, Morgan and Spencer handle the away cases. Spencer might go as far as to say Hotch likes him. And Morgan can tolerate him now, less grudging when Spencer offers a random fact or statistic to further the case.
A stab of pain at the back of his head makes itself known sharply.
Spencer doesn’t want to move, but he needs to assess things. He frowns at his arms, naked as they are. His silver watch is missing. A t-shirt that he doesn’t remember buying stretches over his chest. What state are they in, and who dressed him?
He’s scowling at the window with it’s wide-open blinds and all the sun when the door opens.
You’re looking at the bags on your arm as you come in. Spencer startles in his blankets —what are you doing here? Agent L/N, Morgan’s friend and a candidate for the open position on the BAU team. You’re from the Sex Crimes Unit, like Greenaway.
Spencer flusters every time he sees you, not just because of how kind you’d been the first time you met, or even the easy flirtation you send his way when you cross paths. It’s because you’re the prettiest woman he’s ever seen. He’s not talking about the golden ratio or statistical beauty, you’re just stunning. You stop him in his tracks whenever you steal into the office. It’s better when you notice he’s awake and light up like he’s the winning numbers for tonight’s lottery pull. Everything about you illuminates.
“Hey, babe!” you say, not not yelling as you drop your bags in the seat by the bed and reach for him.
He doesn’t think to move away as you take his face into your hands.
“I’m so glad you’re finally awake, you almost slept for the full twenty four hours.” Your hands are soft. They smell like neroli. When you stroke his cheek and lean down to give him a chaste peck, he almost passes out there and then. “It's a good thing, obviously,” you say, and then kiss him again distractedly. Spencer squeezes his eyes closed. “You heal more when you’re asleep. Or so I’ve heard.”
You pull away, Spencer blinking for his life. You have such a nice mouth, but Spencer’s never thought about what it might feel like on his. He doesn’t have the audacity: in what world would you ever kiss him? That’s the joke, right, when you flirt with him in the office?
“How are you feeling?” you ask, losing some of your pep. “How’s your head, handsome? You know, there are easier ways to get a haircut.”
“They cut my hair?” he croaks.
“Shaved it at the back to stitch you up. Not much, don’t worry. They were pushing for a buzz cut but I put my foot down on that one,” you joke. You nudge his legs aside without worrying about sitting on him as you get comfortable. “It’s not much. You can’t tell.”
“I…”
“You feeling okay?” you ask softly. Your nice mouth purses. Your eyebrows pinch. They’re cute eyebrows.
“You look different than the last time I saw you.”
He doesn’t mean to say it aloud. He’s noticing things now. You’re wearing less powder under your eyes than you used to. You seem to have gained a little weight, and you look good. You didn’t look bad before, but this is different. Your hair isn’t too different, nor your brows, but you’ve begun lining your lips in a new way. Your blush is a subtler hue. Spencer doesn’t claim to know everything about you, but he can say that you look neatly the same each time you visit. Why the sudden change?
“It’s hard to sleep when your favourite person in the world gets his head cut open,” you say, taking his hand where he’d left it loose in the blankets.
Your fingers slip into his with ease.
“Can I tell you something?” he asks, attempting to swallow his nerves.
“Of course you can.”
He licks his lips. “Uh, I think I’m confused. I don’t– I don’t remember what happened, and…”
“Oh, right. They told me this might happen.” You draw yourself up with a breath. He’s fascinated by the movement, an air of heat around him as you begin rubbing the back of his hand with your thumb. “You got hit in the back of the head with a cinder block, honey. Went down like a lead balloon.” You turn your face to show your cheek. “We’re even now on good scares, yeah?”
You have a scar on your face he’d missed, carefully concealed but yet not invisible. Your hand in his feels so alien he holds it wrong, fingers twined but palms apart.
“What happened to you?” he asks.
Your brow crinkles. You go very still. “My cheek?” you ask.
“What…”
“Spencer, what’s the last thing you can remember, honey?” you ask, all the horror in the world to be found in your eyes.
“Uh…” He feels sick to his stomach.
“Spencer?”
Without having to be told, you slip off of the bed with two taps of your shoes and reach for the bedpan, thrusting it into his lap.
His mouth fills with spit. “I’m fine,” he says.
“No, I don’t think so. Let me get a doctor.”
“Wait,” he says, clutching the bedpan and pushing his wave of nausea as far down as he can. “Please don’t go.”
“My face was months ago, honey. I got hit in the face with a hammer by a UnSub, you don’t remember?” you ask incredulously.
“Why do you keep calling me honey?” he asks. He knows the answer, but it’s not computing.
Your face drains of any happiness. “I’m going to get a doctor,” you say, shoulders rigidly tight as you exit the room, leaving Spencer in your wake wishing he’d just pretended he knew who you were, just until you kissed him again.
—
“And he really can’t remember you at all?” Morgan asks.
You’re a little less startled than you had been, and you’re trying not to punish poor Spencer, but realising your boyfriend forgot years of flirting, and yearning, and friendship —years of kissing in secret and otherwise, years of holding hands, and staying at each other’s places to get that extra time together, even if it was just getting to sleep in the same bed between cases— was a slap.
“He remembers me,” you say, leg crossed over the other, arm over the railing of Spencer’s bed to hold his hand. “He just doesn’t remember a thing after Gideon came back, after Boston.”
“I remember when you had hair,” Spencer says to Derek.
Derek glares at him, “This Spencer doesn’t get to sass me.”
“But I do eventually?”
“How come you’re holding hands if he doesn’t know who you are?” Derek asks pointedly.
You shrug. “We talked about it, didn’t we?” you ask Spencer, who perks up every time you talk, which isn’t unlike your usual Spencer. Whenever he catches himself doing it he flusters. Every time you call him baby he loses his mind. “He doesn’t remember me, but he wants to. And I remember him.”
“This must be pretty weird for you, kid,” Derek says.
“Sort of,” Spencer says.
It’s funny. Now you know Spencer thinks he’s twenty three again, you can’t not notice his shyness and his awkward tries at casualness. You’d forgotten what he was like back then.
“Wait, does that mean you don’t remember Emily?” Derek asks.
Spencer frowns. “Uh, no?”
You sit up in your chair. “Emily’s one of your best friends, honey. She joined the BAU when Greenaway left.”
“Not you?” he asks.
You dramatise your pain as Derek laughs. “Not me. I didn’t transfer for a long time, unfairly. It’s okay, though, you’ll remember Emily eventually.”
When you realised Spencer wasn’t as okay as you’d thought, you gathered a gaggle of agitated doctors to assess him. He knew his name and birthday. He was wrong about the date, the president, and the state. You’re in Arizona where he’d thought Indiana. Your bag talks to the heat: Spencer’s fan, his sunblock, his antihistamines. He couldn’t believe it when he asked where his stuff was and you passed him your handbag.
You’re trying to drive home to him that you’re not just dating, you're common-law partners, Spence. He adores you. You’d spend life in his lap if you could afford it.
“How’d she get you to believe her?” Derek asks Spencer.
“Uh.”
“I kissed him a couple of times before he came clean about the amnesia,” you say. “So I didn’t have to explain.”
“I didn’t mean to lie,” Spencer says.
He’s looking less haggard now you’ve brushed his hair. It was sweet to watch his shoulders relax. He shuddered when you tucked a strand behind his ears, and didn’t flinch when you asked if you could kiss his cheek. It’s hard to have him vulnerable here and not be allowed to lick his wounds for him. You feel better the better he feels. You’ve fluffed his pillow, wrapped him tighter in blankets. When he got up to pee and you offered to help, he gave a resolute No Thank You, which in hindsight is hilarious but at the time made you wanna squeeze your eyes out.
“It’s okay,” you say softly, “I don’t mind kissing him, even if he doesn’t remember me. Just so long as he doesn’t mind it back.”
Spencer manages to squeeze your hand. It’s a soft one, but it’s real. “I don’t mind.”
“You dog,” Derek says.
“Stop, stop. He’s not doing anything wrong, is he?” you ask. “I’m the evil one, forcing kisses on him when he doesn’t know me.”
“I do know you,” Spencer says.
“What’s it like to have a crush on your own girlfriend?” Derek asks, unwilling to quit his teasing where he’s crossing his arms in the chair opposite, his cup of coffee drained on the side table.
Spencer swallows. “Uh, nerve-wracking.”
“Believe it or not, that’s not so different to now,” Derek says.
Spencer looks to you for confirmation, which you love. You slide your chair closer to him and clasp his wrist with your free hand. “Sometimes you're still a little shy, but it’s not so bad. Full of myself I may be, Spencer Reid, but you do love me. It’s easy with us.”
“Do we really live together?” he asks. “You said common-law.”
“Not technically. I stay at your place four nights a week. You stay with me for the weekends.”
“Every week?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“We’re never apart?” he asks.
His face is turning pink. You could kiss every bit of colour on his cheeks.
“Derek, would you get Spencer something to eat from the cafeteria? Please?” you ask, levelling your friend with a pleading gaze.
Derek gathers himself up. “Sure. We gotta feed the string bean something, don’t we?” he asks.
Alone again, you draw lines up and down Spencer’s arm with your nails. You’re going to be indulgent in yourself, and ask him everything you’d ever wanted to know. And then a little extra, too.
“You’re not as skinny anymore, have you noticed? You’re quite lean.” You stand to sit where you’d put yourself before he confessed. Your hand falls to his knee. “Solid, sometimes. You and Derek go for walks occasionally.”
“We do?”
“Mm-hm. And me and you do yoga in the living room when we can summon the energy. We tried couples Pilates, but Pilates is hard.”
“We did?”
You smile warmly. “It’s nice to be in love with someone who loves in the same way.”
“How do you love?”
His ears are bitten-red. “Oh, you know. I’m too affectionate. It’s hard not to be with you. Everyone used to think we were… I don’t know, playing a game.” You slide your hand up his thigh, leaning on him to watch his pupils blow. “But I love you for far more than your constant propensity to blush. You get me flowers every time you see my favourites, and you never let me go to sleep without a kiss. Usually here.” You poke the skin beside your eye. “But sometimes you’ll surprise me and kiss my nose.” You're going lax with love, remembering things he’s done, and does every day. “On a Saturday morning we make tea and I put my hands in your t-shirt. You do the crosswords for fun. Sometimes we time them.”
“That’s not how you love, that’s what you love,” Spencer says.
“Oh, you want a play by play of things?” He ducks his chin, but he smiles when you laugh.
“I just can’t believe this is happening.”
You try to think of things you don’t think about anymore. “You love my sugar lip gloss, so I always wear it.”
He reaches out tentatively. Shy as a wren in a hedgerow. You let him curl a hand over your elbow, feel the crook of it with his index finger.
“I buy you stamps, and t-shirts for bed, and stupid stuff you wouldn’t get yourself. We’re… it’s like, it doesn’t feel like gift giving anymore because we’re always getting stuff for each other. You’re just as sweet, you know? When I first started sleeping over you bought me this huge pack of socks ‘cos yours are all odd,” you laugh. “I knew I loved you already, but…”
It’s a little sad, actually. He can’t remember all the stuff that makes you the couple you are. It’s not what you’d meant to get into.
“Can I ask you something?” you ask.
“Anything.”
He’s slept-in and breathless, like he ran laps in his dreams.
“What do you think of me now? I always wondered if you liked me back then, or if I just caught you off guard.”
“Who wouldn’t like you?”
“But did you?”
He looks away hurriedly, his hand dropping from your elbow. “I guess so. But it’s not– not real. I have a crush on you.” His mumbling is sweet. “I have no idea why I’m telling you that.”
“I had a crush on you, too, back then. It wasn’t anything serious, but it wasn’t a joke. And the more time we spent together, the more I thought we could fall in love,” —you take his hand and put it back on your arm— “and we did.”
You toy with his fingers. Without looking, ashamed of your own self-indulgence, you ask another question. “What do you think of me now?”
“I can’t remember,” he says sorrily.
“What do you think?”
“You feel like a dream.” He shakes his head. “You’re the most beautiful girl in the world. I don’t really get how this is real.”
You shouldn’t be surprised that he’d say it, you practically begged for it, but you can’t stop yourself from sitting up to kiss his forehead gently. “It’s real. Promise. And for the record, you’re handsome. They stopped saying ‘aged like fine wine’ a while ago. Now they just say ‘aged like Spencer Reid’.”
He gives a choky laugh.
The door opens again. You lift your head expecting Derek and find a weather worm Hotch in the doorway. “Reid, you’re awake,” he says, not bothering with a smile. “Morgan said you have amnesia?” He directs it at both of you.
Spencer’s looking at Hotch in clear shock.
“He hasn’t aged that badly,” you chastise teasingly.
“Hotch, you’re– I thought you would’ve– You’re still–?”
Hotch squints. “You didn’t think I had the stamina for it?”
Spencer squirms under his gaze. “No, sir, it’s not that–”
“Sir,” Hotch says, and then he smiles. “I forgot when you both used to respect me.”
“I have the utmost respect for you, sir,” you say through your own smile.
“Has she been kind to you, Reid?”
“Uh, yes? Is she not usually?”
Hotch presses his lips together rather than answer. There’s a sympathy in his expression you resent.
—
It’s a thankfully quick bout of amnesia. The memories start to draw in like a dusting of powdered sugar, his head finely silted, one particle at a time. He finds that the more you talk, the quicker his memory is jogged. You tell him about your first kiss —I tried to kiss your cheek but you moved, it was the funniest thing— and your second. You spin stories of cases, the worst ones and the best, all the times you held hands without people knowing, the times you’d been caught. He can’t imagine it, goes hot with the memory, picturing kissing you as you’d described and the mortification of being walked in on.
You tell him about your vacation to Nevada a few months ago and he thinks about how you’d fallen asleep on the plane. Your nose in his arm, your unhappy sigh at the tight leg space.
Remembering you is more than half of remembering himself.
Your hands —his hands. Your smile —his laugh. The way you fold his hands in your lap —the urge to catch your chin for a kiss.
He doesn’t know how to deal with it, and then suddenly he feels like Spencer. Your partner, your love, his proudest title for years. You’re standing at the end of the hospital bed in pajamas folding your clothes, allowed to stay the night while he’s so urgently confused and upset, you can’t make him stay here alone, please, I know you guys have those little cots for the kids ward, and he just knows you completely.
Hours of diligent if embezzled storytelling gives it all back to him.
“I like the lipgloss because you used to wear that perfume that smelled like sugar donuts,” he says, scratching a hand through limp hair. “And every time I crossed the square by the station–”
You let out a surprising squeal of joy. “Spencer!” you say, racing to take his hands, “Yes! The donut truck!”
You go in for a kiss he gladly returns. “Oh, you remember,” you say, softening as he takes your neck into his hand. “I was getting worried.”
“Some of it’s still hazy, but not so much you.”
You wrap your arms around him for a hug, careful of his sore head. “I missed you, Spencer. I still loved you when you couldn’t remember me, but I missed you. Do you remember you?”
He traces the scar on your lower cheek with his thumb. He’s genuinely relieved to be able to say he does. He’s not scared of what you think of him anymore, ‘cos he knows that everything he feels for you is mutual. “I remember you telling me my bad feeling was just a case of the heebies.”
You bend into his touch. “Honey, I’m sorry. How was I supposed to know you’d get your skull whacked with a cinder block? It was a bakery. I thought the worst that could happen was getting a face full of red velvet or something.” You kiss his nose quickly. “I’m so glad you’re you. Now I can sleep in the bed with you, and not that collapsible camping cot.”
He shushes you. “Don’t give us away. They’re not gonna let you stay if they think I’m fine.”
You giggle excitedly, arms around him again for another squeeze. “I missed you so much. You’re so devious now.”
He rubs your back. “I missed you too. And I still have a crush on you, I swear.”
You begin to have intimate dreams about your roommate, Spencer. [9k]
c: pining roommates, dreams, tipsy non-confessions, spencer being a sweetheart. fem!reader. this fic was requested!
｡𖦹°‧⭑.
i. a dreamt bruise
“What are you doing?”
Your chest lists slightly forward as a body warms your back. Arms wrap around you, solid but gentle, arms you’ve been held by a thousand times.
You cover them with one of your own. “What does it look like I’m doing?” you feel yourself ask.
The room is golden, gaussian, better now he’s behind you.
“I don’t know, dove. That’s why I asked.” His voice is soft in your ear. His hair presses to the side of your face as he hugs you —you’ve never felt love like this. It’s palpable. It’s in his hands.
Nobody’s called you dove before, but he is, he has. It might feel strange if it weren’t for how softly he said it, affection in the very marrow of the word, warmth of it kissing your cheek as he holds you. He says ‘dove’, and it feels like he loves you. Feels like you’ve done something beautiful to earn it, but that’s the beauty of it: you didn’t do anything.
The room turns narrow, sunlight on the dining room table of your apartment. A table usually crowded thickly with books, or your work. A space has been cleared away and filled with pieces of a jigsaw.
“I thought you were going to do this with me,” you say, dragging a piece across the table with your fingertip.
“Maybe later.”
“You can’t stand there all night.”
Are you sure? you think he says, but things are hazy, and he’s turning you toward him suddenly, you’re standing, the puzzle forgotten. “How’s your bruise?”
“What?” you ask, almost sleeping as a big, kind hand drags up the front of your shirt, holding it to the underside of your breast.
“Does it still hurt?”
His thumb brushes over your contusion, skin on your side, your back. It’s tender. Any breath is lost, any sense of breathing at all. You’re not a girl so much as something being touched with care, warm joy and love and a contrasting ache wedged under your heart as he draws a circles into your skin.
He hums sympathetically, the weight of him ebbing as he leans away, letting your shirt fall back into place.
The dream stretches on for a lifetime, the two of you standing in your living room, dining table behind you, couch and TV opposite. Your life in one room, his life, his books, his furniture, but your home. You know it all well, just, in the light, you can’t see the stitching.
He takes your face into his hand. Nobody’s ever touched you like, turned your face up like they were moving through honey, staring at you with eyes that shade of brown. Brown, brown… so big. So melting.
Spencer holds your face gently.
His nose touches yours. He tips his forehead into yours, his breath skimming lips he’d just warmed as he says, “Don’t worry, alright? You’ll be okay. Just take it easy,” he says, the last of his pleading lost to your mouth.
You wake up with a caught breath.
Your eyes are glued together, eyelashes threaded, gummy. You turn into the pillow beside you, slightly deflated and cold where you’d turned away in the night.
The room is dark when you manage to pry your eyes open. You close them just as quickly, begging your body to sleep, to plunge back into the dream. Just five more minutes of golden colour, hugging your pillow, love in somebody’s hand, in Spencer’s hand… five more minutes…
Your eyes open again.
Spencer’s hand on your cheek, guiding you carefully upwards for a kiss.
You raise your hand, feeling along the swell of your bottom lip with your thumb and index finger. They tremble with the weakness of having just woken up. With having something torn away from you.
What was that? you think, the hook of sleep lodged in your throat as you struggle to sit up. Your face tips forwards heavily, but your back doesn’t hurt like it tends to in the early mornings before work. There’s no ache there —your body slept well. You use your hands as anchors and drag yourself foot first from the bed. Your sheets fall to the floor with a quiet shush.
It felt so real that for a moment you’re wondering where Spencer went.
He was touching you, he was caressing your waist. You rush to the door of your room, every night left ajar, pushing it open and beelining for the bathroom. You flick on the light and stop in front of the mirror, staring at yourself, wondering if you’re foolish enough to do this, before peeling your shirt from your stomach to analyse your bruise.
It’s not there.
You turn and contort yourself to catch the light. Maybe it was further back? But no… there’s no bruise, nothing for Spencer to check. Your torso is a stretch of unharmed skin to run your hand down without pain.
Your head whirs.
From somewhere in the apartment, Spencer puts down a mug. You flush with heat at the realisation that he’s home, and panic flares when his footsteps move in your direction. Your bedrooms are on opposite sides of the apartment, and there are two bathrooms —the bath and toilet near your room, and the en-suite to his room— meaning Spencer’s coming to see you specifically.
“Hey, Y/N?” he says.
It’s been a few days since he was home, and you aren’t just roommates, Spencer’s your friend. He sounds happy that you’re awake, pausing at your bedroom door.
“I’m in the bathroom!” you say, your dry throat turning your voice to fractures.
“I just wanted you to know I’m home. Are you working?”
“It’s Saturday.”
He laughs. “Oh. I know, I forgot. Well, can I make you breakfast? I was gonna have oats and sliced bananas and stuff.”
“Okay.” You clear your throat. “I’ll be right there.”
“Sorry,” he says, like he’s just remembered where you are. “This is harassment. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
You wash your face and brush your teeth. You head back into your room to change from your pyjamas into loungewear that’s just as soft. The flavour of your dream follows you around, you’d like to call it sweetness, saccharinity, but it doesn’t fit the bill. The feeling you’d woken with wasn’t a sugar high but contentedness, like a warm evening meal. You’d felt utterly sated, your arms reaching out for a body that wasn’t there.
A heaviness takes your heart. Suffocating longing, you carry it to the kitchen with you to find Spencer’s already made you a cup of your tea. He’s warming oatmeal on the stove, blueberries and bananas on the countertop. You sit at the island. You should hug him. If you hadn’t dreamt of his hands on your waist what felt like mere moments ago, you would’ve.
“Did you go shopping?”
“I did, I went to Leaven last night. You were already sleeping at ten.” He peeks at you from over his shoulder. “Long day yesterday?”
“I get too tired by Friday,” you say, averting your gaze to stare down into your mug, steam twirling up to kiss your chin.
“No, I get it. Me too. Are you feeling any better today?”
You were sick when he left. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, good. I’m gonna put the blueberries in with the oatmeal, is that okay?”
“Sure.”
“Okay.” Spencer’s gaze lingers on you. He turns back to the counter.
He cuts two bananas. You realise he has strawberries, too, watching as he cuts them, wetness leaking from their punnets where he must’ve rinsed them in the sink. He slices out the stems and cuts the strawberries in clean halves like hearts.
“I missed you,” he says.
You can’t read his tone, but you aren’t cruel, even feeling shy as you are. “I missed you too. How was the case? Everyone made it home in one piece, right?”
“Everyone’s fine. Emily got into a car accident and it was pretty bad, but she’s okay now. Recovering from her concussion at home with Sergei.”
That’s good. You’ve met Spencer’s boss, Agent Hotchner (very scary), and Emily, JJ, and Penelope (who aren’t scary at all). You’re glad to hear they’re all okay, because they’re good people, and they risk a lot to keep others safe. You forget sometimes how much Spencer puts on the line whenever he leaves.
You poke at him for details of the case, though legally there are things he has to keep from you, and you don’t mind either way. Nothing personal can crop up while talking of murder, and for now you’d like the conversation to stay far away from you and your bed and your sudden dream.
You assume you’re safe, but then Spencer mentions the bruise one of the sergeants got from their weapon’s kickback and you’re flushing nervously all over again.
Spencer grabs two bowls from the cabinet, dark brown ceramics he got from Koreatown, the perfect size for each helping of oatmeal. The purple from the insides of the blueberries bleed into the oats as he pours.
He lays each bowl with a curve of banana slices, strawberries, and covers half with a drizzle of dark fudge sauce. “Salt?” he asks.
“Yes, please.”
Spencer grabs two spoons from the cutlery drawer. He grins when he finally turns, bowls held aloft, making his way to the stool beside you. He puts his own down first, then the cutlery, standing ever so slightly behind you as he lays your breakfast down in front of you. “What have you been doing while I was away?” he asks softly.
You can’t look at him. Can’t think.
What are you doing?
What does it look like I’m doing?
I don’t know, dove. That’s why I asked.
You lean away from his presence, desperate to have him follow, and ashamed. Spencer’s a friend, a good one, he’s kind and loving and handsome beyond description, but you’ve never thought of him like that. Each time your mind slips wondering what he might be like in love, you’ve let the thought go. But now...
You shrug, grabbing your spoon. “Not much, Spencer. This looks amazing, it’s really pretty. Thank you for cooking.”
“No problem. Are you sure you’re feeling better? You don’t look so good.”
You take a quick bite of oatmeal, the spoon scalding your tongue, “Ah,” you say, breathing harshly around it, “I’m fine. Woke up a little wrong, that’s all.”
Spencer sits in the seat next to you with a soft smile. “Good. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
Oh, no, you think, reading way too much into how he says it. No, no, no.
—
ii facts
We should explore the city, Spencer declares after breakfast, before we forget what it’s like to be outside!
You were outside yesterday before you got home, and everything sucked as much as it usually did —it’s the weekend, and the point of it is to stay home resting and or lazing, but you wouldn’t usually say no to Spencer so you can’t now. He can’t ever know about your dream, so he can’t know how you’re feeling, so you have to be the friends you’ve always been.
Spencer analyses people for a reason, but you have practice. You’ve successfully hidden what it was that morning that made you feel cagey and tender. He knows something is wrong regardless. He attempts to fix it the best way he knows how: Spencer talks.
“Cheese production globally outshadows coffee, tea, tobacco, and chocolate, over twenty two million metric tons of it every year, with almost half of that made in Europe alone, which is only a half million metric ton more than what’s being eaten. The average American eats forty two pounds of cheese a year, but I don’t really like cheese that much? So I’m bringing the average down. Besides, every time I eat cheese I get strange dreams. There’s actually a chemical in cheese called tyramine which is linked to nightmares. Hey, you okay?”
“Cheese gives you weird dreams?”
“Why, have you been eating a lot of it lately?”
“No,” you say resolutely. “I hate cheese. I’ve never eaten cheese before.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Let’s get donuts.”
Spencer is easily swayed. You glance around the square for the McDonald’s and follow that to the street with the bakery, landmark to landmark, until the smell of sugar and oil is strong enough to follow. “Do you wanna know something about donuts?” he asks, crushing in behind you as you pass through the heavy wooden door of the bakery and join the line.
“Sure.”
“They were first called oily cakes.”
“I knew that,” you say, “you’ve told me that, Spencer. That’s the first fact anybody thinks of.”
“Okay, don’t be rude,” he says, giving you a playful poke in the ribs, right into the bruise that isn’t a bruise.
You look over your shoulder at him, catching his eye. You share a long look that’s daunted on your part and confused on his, brown eyelashes tangling in the corners the longer he looks at you. “What?” he asks, squinting.
”Nothing.”
“Okay,” he says, his voice lowering, quiet to match the hush of the bakery and its humming fridges, “don’t tell me. I’ll work it out eventually.”
“Dude!”
“What?” he asks with a laugh.
“Boundaries!” you laugh back. “Stop trying to figure me out.”
“But there’s something to figure out?”
He’s evil when he smiles like that. His pride is adorable, giving his sweet face an even fresher look. You’d pinch his cheeks if they weren’t already pinking in the October cold. His scarf hasn’t saved him, his coat buttoned tightly no match for the winds. Not to say it’s a bad day. The weather is fine if you keep your fingers in your pockets and your nose in the depths of your coat.
“What do we want?” you ask rather than answer.
They have white icing, chocolate with sprinkles, jelly middles, smiley faces. They have donut holes by the bag. “Hazelnut spread,” you say, pointing at the side of the case. “That looks good.”
He enters in conspiratorial whispers with you. “Apple cider doughnuts with cinnamon sugar,” he says, pointing at the row below. “What about a double chocolate chunk cookie? They look good. Hey, there’s cake in the fridge.”
You let him lean into your side. His hair kisses your cheek.
“Pick whatever you want, okay?” he asks, offering a smaller smile than before. “I’m buying.”
“You can’t, Spencer Reid, I want so many things.”
“It’s fine, I missed you, I dragged you out when you wanted to stay in bed.” He stares at you. “Let me,” he mouths.
You ignore the hot twist of your stomach and nod. Okay.
Spencer buys the baked goods you’d admitted to wanting and the three others you’d eyed, as well as a cookie and two fat slices of red velvet cake. He asks you to carry the box while he pays. The woman behind the counter gives you a knowing look and a flick of her head, as if to say, Lucky you. You can’t quite smile back, distracted by the insinuation. You haven’t thought of it before, but you and Spencer, naturally, look like a couple. You could easily be one. And the idea that she thinks so fills you with a shocking amount of smugness.
You and Spencer head home before dinner. On the walk back, he pulls the cookie apart and offers you half.
—
What if, when you fall asleep tonight, you dream of Spencer again?
You lay on your back with your hand on your chest, drawing circles. The cold of the evening is explained by the rain lashing your window, distant winds coming forceful now. A thunderstorm. You tap the middle of your chest in an attempt to be idle, rather than restless.
It isn’t a dream you’d like to have again, you decide. Spencer had been soft. You’d been familiar with each other.
What would it really feel like to have him touch you like that? Is Spencer confident, when he’s comfortable? Is he imposing?
My stomach, you think slowly, is never going to stop spinning.
“Y/N?” Spencer asks.
You can hear him all the way from the kitchen.
“Yeah?” you ask, raising your voice so it carries.
“Can I come and sit with you?”
It’s an odd request. You know Spencer’s like you, no social butterfly, quiet and content to spend time by oneself because being with others hasn’t always been an option. He isn’t timid, however, and his asking shouldn’t shock you, but it does. “Sure,” you say, shifting onto one side of the bed.
Spencer arrives at the ajar door and lets himself in. He carries two bottles of water and a heat pack, which he likes to use when the weather allows it. A creature comfort, you assume. Something soothing and constant, like the sound of a fan at night, or rain on a window.
“I can’t sleep,” he says, “which doesn’t make much sense.” Spencer sits on the empty side of the bed, his lips pulled into a grimace. “I like the rain.”
He’s more handsome when he’s smiling, but there’s a charm to him as he passes you a bottle of water and crosses his legs. The plaid slacks he’s wearing are rough with age, dark blues that seem black in the low lighting.
“Maybe it’s because of work,” you say.
“Maybe, but I’m pretty used to getting woken up.”
“Right. It’s not easy, though, the stuff you do. It would keep me up at night if I did your job.”
“I think sometimes doing my job is the only reason I can sleep.”
“It's hard. Sounds hard, Spence.” You relax into your pillow, turning to see him. Spencer’s eyes run along your hip for a millisecond, just long enough to remind you that he’s a boy, that he could see you in a different light.
“It’s okay,” he says.
“Was it hard, this time?” you ask.
“No,” he whispers. “I don’t know, it was bad when Emily got hurt, but she’s so stubborn. If Morgan didn’t strap her down she would’ve kept going like nothing happened.”
You and Spencer have lived together for so long that you remember a time before he even knew Emily. You answered his ad in the paper —you hadn’t realised people still put ads in the paper— looking for a roommate. His apartment was already furnished and he didn’t want to change much, but the second bedroom was spacious and the bathroom could be monopolised. As a girl, you’d been a little dubious reading about a single male looking for any gender, but his self-description was inviting. Twenty-two, just finished a doctorate, working for the FBI and expected to be away from the state at least once a month.
You’d met Spencer and felt even less intimidated. He was awkward and dorky but friendly, too, with his glasses he apparently didn’t want to wear, but would eventually give in (before choosing contacts), and his big red sweater fit for a grandpa. “I can make more room for you but I can’t get rid of the books,” he said, “so I don’t expect you to pay a neat half.”
How could you pass it up?
“I can’t believe I’ve never met them,” you say.
“Do you want to?”
He sounds so surprised. “They’re your friends. I’m your… friend.”
“You’re my best friend. I’ll arrange something, or try to. It’s hard to get us all in one room when that room isn’t the conference room,” he says.
“You look nice in a t-shirt,” you say, not thinking as the words come out.
Spencer leans in to whisper, “Thanks. You like this one?”
His t-shirt says, I may be NErDy, but only periodically. The NErDy is made up of elements from the periodic table. It’s a bad pun.
“I love it.”
He reaches for you. Tentative, he squeezes your elbow. “Is there something wrong? All day it’s like… I don’t know, did something happen when I was gone?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But…”
“Please,” you say, as he catches the last bit of light from the hallway, every eyelash illuminated for the counting. “I don’t wanna talk about it, Spencer. But thank you.”
He, in a move that’s almost uncharacteristic, pushes your arm into the mattress and leans over you. “I wanna be the first one to know when you do wanna talk,” he says firmly, holding your gaze.
How’s your bruise?
You nod mechanically. Spencer recedes. “Okay, good,” he says, grinning.
“Good,” you echo, thinking of Spencer in the dream, his hand on your hip and climbing up your sore ribs. “Let’s watch TV.”
—
iii. scared of snow
“You’re being weird.”
“I’m not,” you refute.
“You are.”
Spencer frowns at you, a show full downturn of the lips. A dusting of snow lands in his hair and you both look up to catch it, a drift of it from the marquee as you pass. You don’t remember when it started snowing, but it feels like it’s been coming down for days. It’s in his eyelashes. Your sleeves are wet with it.
“The snow’s making you strange.”
You hold out your hand with fingers parted, feeling his laugh travelling down his arm and into yours as he takes it, intertwining your fingers tightly. He doesn’t feel cold.
“It’s making you strange,” you mumble.
You and Spencer walk down a cobbled road. Snow crunches under your shoes, turned to slush in the high traffic spots by vendors booths left curiously empty of shopkeepers, though their festive wares still line the insides, carved cuckoo birds and metal ornaments, glass balls made to be personalised for mantles. You can smell orange oil and chocolate fudge, crepe carts and churros and cinnamon, and then suddenly any hint of your olfactory sense is gone.
“It’s so quiet.”
“It’s the snow,” he says, pulling your arm against his chest as you walk and walk, your footsteps the only sound. “It acts as a sound absorber when it’s fluffy like this. The sound waves get caught.”
Caught. You think, or say, not sure if it makes it out of your mouth.
“Like you,” he says, stopping in the middle of the road.
“What?” you ask.
Snow lands in his eyelashes. “You’re caught,” he says.
You wake up thinking his hand is on your cheek. Like a nightmare, you start, still picturing his lips moving around the words. Caught, you think again, heart a hummingbird in your chest. Your mouth is dry. The heat is up —Spencer must be home again.
You suck in a deep breath and sit up, curling over yourself protectively.
You dream about Spencer more often than ever, and half the time they’re normal dreams, which is to say, they follow no rhyme or reason, with no discernible plot. Spencer loses all his teeth, or he takes you to the movies to see one of his long Swedish films, or he’s an afterthought, a bystander. The main plot of your dream doesn’t involve him at all.
But the other half of the time is ruining your life. You dream of Spencer holding your hand like you had been, or touching your shoulder. Never again do you dream of that tender bruise, but Spencer lifts your shirt in other scenarios. He pulls your pyjamas off, his hand inching between your legs but never touching, or he helps you out of your bra. And every time you think, why is this happening to me? Perhaps a sex dream could be explained away by want and Spencer’s proximity, but all these constant intimacies weigh heavy in your head.
You head to the shower and picture Spencer helping you out of your bra, and all of you goes hot, so you turn the water to lukewarm and stand until you’re cold to the point of misery. You clamber out and shiver into a towel, then your robe.
Spencer’s humming in the kitchen.
You honestly wish that the dreams made you like him less, that the sound of him might send you running back into your room, but you poke your head out of the bathroom and wait until he enters the living room. He sees you waiting, his face splitting into a smile. “Hey, good morning, did you sleep better?”
You can’t explain the discombobulation of your dreams. Spencer had become convinced you have insomnia. You may have let him assume.
“Slept fine,” you croak.
“Okay, well get dressed and I’ll make you some coffee.”
“‘Kay.” Your stomach pangs with nerves seeing him, reminded of tonight’s big event. “Are we still, uh, on, for tonight?”
“Nervous?” he asks.
You feel like you're about to be a fish in a pool of sharks. “Of course not.”
“Yeah, still on, even JJ.”
Awesome. Spencer turns around to make you your cup of coffee and you go to your room, dressing quickly, two pairs of socks. You tone your face and moisturise, fanning yourself slowly. You don’t hurry to the living room, but you aren’t slow, and it’s not Spencer, you tell yourself. Not Spencer. You’re just craving the warmth of a cup of coffee.
You spend the morning together on the couch. Spencer reads and occasionally chats to you about whatever tome it is that specific half an hour. You make sandwiches at lunch time, he showers in the early evening. You get dressed and primped while he’s gone, and at 6PM, Spencer knocks your bedroom door to ask if you’re ready to go.
“Could I fake an illness?” you joke nervously.
Spencer’s hand falls on your handle. The door is ajar as usual, but he doesn’t tread any further inside.
“Come in,” you say.
Spencer takes a single step inside before stopping. He looks you up and down without the hunger you crave from him, a more clement, familiar appreciation to him as he says, “You look pretty.” He traces your arm, leaving the skin tingly in his wake. “Really pretty.”
“Thank you. I didn’t want to overdress.”
“It’s perfect, don’t worry. And no, you couldn’t fake an illness. They all know when I’m lying, especially Hotch. And Emily, actually.”
You squeeze your hands together tightly at your stomach. “I don’t know why I’m sooo nervous.” You lick your lips. “I feel like I can’t stop fidgeting.”
“They’re used to it, I promise. They know that they’re gonna make you nervous, but they’ve sworn to be on their best behaviour, and besides, you’re not the only plus one. JJ’s bringing Will, and Morgan’s bringing his sister, I’ve only met her once. The focus won’t be all on you.” He lowers his voice. “After two drinks they forget they’re supposed to be scary.”
“What if I say something extremely stupid to your boss and get you in trouble?”
“What are you going to get me in trouble for?”
“I don’t know. What if I accidentally tell him that that sick day you took a few weeks ago was to help me make brownies?”
“Everyone lies about sick days.” He deliberates. “Maybe not Hotch. But I’m pretty sure he knew I was lying, and it’s explainable. I felt… irate.”
You raise your eyebrows. “What?”
“Staying home with you made me feel better. Which made me a better worker the next day, it’s fine.” His phone rings from somewhere in the apartment. “That’ll be JJ. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah?” He grins. “Okay. You’re wearing a coat, right? It’s cold. The forecast says snow. It’s thirty degrees out.”
You layer a coat onto your jacket and a scarf to make him happy. You and Spencer get a taxi, black leather gritless under your hands, though you squeeze the seat like it’s gonna stop the car the whole time. Spencer doesn’t talk much, but he looks at you unapologetically, and he smiles, and the quiet is as severe as it was in your dream that morning. If this were a dream he’d be leaning over to cradle your ear. He’d ask in whispers if you were alright, and he’d let his hand rest kindly on your knee.
“What?” you whisper.
His lips part like he might answer. The car comes to a crunching stop outside the bar, and whatever it was he was going to say is kept for later. “I’ll tell you after,” he says.
He pays for the taxi before you can work it out and you say thank you to the driver. The sidewalk is clean, broad, and glowing with the last bit of light. The sun sets behind you. The bar beckons in front.
Your fear is daunting.
You have years of practice fooling Spencer. You know that he knows your tells, so you’ve changed them, and Spencer cares about you enough to ignore obvious truths if he thinks you might not want to share. His colleagues, FBI agents trained to detect deception, are going to take one good look at you and know you’re lying about… this.
You’re plagued by dreams of Spencer, but nothing can touch the real thing.
You feel the space between you like it’s aflame. Spencer checks you’re with him and opens the door.
The bar is busy even for a Saturday. You aren’t expecting the volume, the boisterousness of the patrons already slumped together over tables and waiting at the bar to get their drinks. It’s smaller than you’d pictured too, but its size is made up for with a patio at the back, smokers haunting the door, wary of the cold.
You know what his friends look like already, yet seeing them in person is odd. Hotch is taller than you’d thought, Emily more startlingly pretty. JJ’s frowning, and her partner Will looks like he’s about to fall asleep despite a lazy grin.
Hotch notices you first. He taps Emily on the elbow, who pauses in a thought to follow his gaze. Her face breaks into a smile, and if you weren’t in love with Spencer Reid, you might take a tumble for his pale coworker.
“Hello,” Spencer says, ushering you to the table with an arm behind your back.
“Hi,” you say.
“He-llo,” Emily says, leaning into the table, a strand of her hair dangerously close to a short glass of juice. “I can’t believe we’re finally seeing you in person. I’m Emily.”
“Y/N,” you say.
“Aaron,” Hotch adds. (Aaron! He’s far more intimidating casually than as a boss, it seems.)
“Derek was just here,” JJ says in way of greeting, while Will drawls from over her shoulder, “I’m Will, it’s nice to meet you.”
Spencer pulls out a chair for you and promptly sits in the one beside Emily. “Sorry we’re late. I forgot my wallet and we had to go back up to the apartment and the cab I called got so angry about it that he left.”
You slide between the table and your chair, looking to Spencer for guidance, but he’s distracted taking his coat off and you have to look at Aaron instead.
His smile is immediately knowing. Read for filth in seconds. “We don't bite.”
“Not so early in the evening,” Emily says.
You take a shuddering breath, thankful they can’t hear it over the sounds of the bar.
—
“I’m caught!” you exclaim.
Spencer hugs you under the arms. “I know,” he says gently.
“Caught!”
He holds back a laugh as your arms react, practically flung behind his head in a hug that threatens to cut off the oxygen supply to his brain. “I think you’ve caught me, instead,” he says.
You laugh in his ear. There’s gin on your breath and the sweeter smell of orange juice. It’s not bad, but weird to know it’s from your mouth. Or not weird. It gives Spencer a feeling like seeing the soft curve of your hip when you’re lying on your side. Like watching you bite your bottom lip when you’re distracted by the TV and worrying to yourself, which you do more often than not lately. They’re private things that Spencer shouldn’t know about.
“I’m not trying to,” you say, and Spencer can smell the shot of vodka you did too, which is less pleasant. “Not trying to catch you. Not… I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
Over your shoulder, Spencer spots Hotch’s entertained gaze. All the team has done since you sat down together was pick on Spencer and his obviousness. Boyfriend? they’d asked you. Looking? Sights set on someone? All while JJ nudged him under the table.
Things are falling apart now. JJ’d departed to hold Emily’s hair back, and Will with her. Hotch caught the eye of a woman across the way, and they sit chatting amicably at the bar with more peanuts than drinks. Derek, when he did appear, stayed for an hour with Desiree, recounting to you his most embarrassing stories of which Spencer had taken care to shield you from, and laughed at his subsequent blush.
He never wanted you to know about his run in with anthrax, and he especially didn’t want you to know he’d been stripped nude afterwards and hosed off like a muddy dog.
You’d turned to him with wide, worried eyes. “You were poisoned?” you’d asked.
It’s stuff like that that makes this difficult.
“I don’t know if you know this,” he says now, rubbing your back, “but I’m good with difficult concepts.”
“I did not mean to be like this.”
“You didn’t eat much.” Spencer helps you stand on your own two feet. “They kitchen’s still open. I can get you food, how about a burger? Or we can go find you something.“
“What kind of burger?” you ask, poorly concealing your excitement.
Spencer gets you back to the table. “I’ll be right back.”
“Wait, don’t go.”
“I’m gonna get food. Do you want fries?”
“Spencer, what if I throw up?”
Spencer shrugs. “I can rub your back?”
“I don’t want to throw up.”
“Then drink that,” he says, sliding his glass of coke toward you. “Alcohol irritates the lining of your stomach and increases the production of stomach acid. If you drink,” —he flinches as you knock the cup back— “slowly you can dilute your stomach contents without upsetting it. Slowly,” he says, squeezing your hand, “I’ll order food.”
“No, wait.” You drop the glass and grab him. “Please don’t go. I don’t want to throw up by myself.”
“You won’t throw up.”
“Please,” you say, holding his wrist in both hands, your eyes shiny. “Spencer, don’t go.”
“I won’t.” He doesn’t know how true it is and then suddenly he’s sat down. He won’t go. He wouldn’t leave your side ever again if that’s what you asked of him.
He puts your chairs together, entertaining your tipsy thoughts with light conversation and the occasional slight of hand. You have an aura about you, like Spencer’s doing more than close-up magic, hanging on his every word. Your nervousness had you gasping like a fish, not so subtly downing one drink, then another, but now that you’re feeling the effects of them (and a few extras), the tightness you’d held in your fingers is gone. You’re leaning against the back of the chair with all the ease of you on the couch at home, but the easy fondness you’d usually wear while he speaks is replaced by a bright and shining awe. A sweetness like he’s remarkable. The soft line of your lips and your widened eyes.
You’re not the sort of drunk that leaves you listless and ready for bed. This is giggly and fun, and so long as you don’t push it you’ll be alright. It wasn’t enough alcohol to leave you inebriated all night, anyhow. In a few hours the giddiness will wear away, leaving you with a headache and a deep longing for your missed dinner.
“I’m glad you didn’t let me fake food poisoning,” you say.
“Is that what you were thinking? That’s a terrible excuse. You need something with sudden onset symptoms, like an asthma attack, or pneumonia. An acute illness.”
You take his hand. “I love that you know that stuff.”
Feeling as in love with you as ever, and sorry for you drunken state —he could’ve stopped you, he just didn’t think— he folds your hands together, both of his, rubbing the hills of your knuckles with his thumb. Your hands look right together.
That’s what Spencer likes to think, anyway.
You slow like you’re tired, hand lax in his grips. Your mouth opens but nothing follows, no sigh or gripe or conversation.
“You okay?” he asks softly.
“I think I’m having one of those dreams again.”
“You’re awake,” he says.
“I don’t know about that. They’re all like this.”
He hums, smoothing his thumb down the back of your hand. “If this were a dream, you wouldn't have control over what you’re doing. Why don’t you do something you wouldn’t do in a dream?”
“Like what?” you ask.
“There’s a ton of stuff you can’t do in dreams. People find they have a poor memory, but I can’t ask you to recall anything. You might not remember regardless. How about temperature?” he suggests. “Most people can’t feel warm or cold in their dreams. Do you want to feel something cold?”
You watch him for a few seconds, your eyebrows pulled together unhappily. “Your hands are warm,” you say.
“Right.” He suspects they’ll feel warmer in just a few seconds when the hot flush in his face manages to work its way down. “I’m warm. So are you.”
“Sometimes I feel like you’re warm in the dream, though. You make me feel warm.”
“It’s remembered, maybe.”
You don’t look any happier. “Sometimes I wish I could stop having them, but…” You duck your head. “Sorry, Spencer.”
“What are you sorry for?”
Your head ducks lower. With a start to his chest, your shoulders shake, like you're inhaling the first half of a sob.
“Hey, hey,” he says, reaching for your cheek, ducking his own head to see you, “what’s wrong? It’s okay, you don’t have anything to be sorry for!” he whispers emphatically. “You have nothing to be sorry for, why would you think that?”
“I keep having these dreams, all the time, and– and I– I’ll mess everything up. Everything we have, I’m going to–” You hiccup, eyes turned glassy, imploring him to forgive you for something you haven’t done. “I don’t feel good.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he says, his hand sliding back to your ear, down to your neck, “you’re just drunk. You’re confused.”
“But the dreams–”
“What dreams?” he asks gently.
You blow out a daunted breath. “Where you love me.”
“I do love you.”
“But more than this. You love me more than this,” you say, shaking your head. “I really don’t feel okay… Do you think we could go home?”
You’re so sorry and frowny that Spencer would attempt, in all his unfitness, to climb Mount Everest for you should you ask. “Yeah, we can go home,” he says, rubbing your arm up and down and up again, a line of affection from shoulder to wrist. “I’ll take you home. It’s okay, Y/N. You don’t have to be upset, I shouldn’t have asked.”
He’s not sure what he asked, really, but the answer upset you. His heart’s racing like he just sprinted the length of the bar and you’re close to tears, this strange weepy sullenness about you as you say, “It’s okay. Let’s just go.”
—
It’s cold to be sitting out by yourself, though the snow stayed its hand another night while the temperature fell again. Your coat poses a weak defence against the chill, nipping at your nose, burning the insides of every breath, and your feet are stiff like ice in your shoes. Yet, the idea of returning to the apartment is a leaden stone in your stomach.
Spencer could barely look at you that morning. You hadn’t given him much of a chance, slipping out of the apartment with little more than a call to say you’d be back later. Your groceries freeze in a paper bag by your feet.
You’re not too embarrassed about getting tipsy. It was drinks with Spencer and his friends, not dinner. Emily had been twice as drunk, and Derek had encouraged you to drink with a round on him. You’re mortified, however, by what you’d said. Your memory is clear enough to know you’d told Spencer about your dreams.
He’d been confused at the time, but he’s a smart boy. He’ll figure it out.
“This headache,” you mumble, tipping your head into your hand morosely. You rub your brow, fingers against the ache, the cold getting worse.
Why did it take a dream for you to realise you had feelings for Spencer? And why did you have to realise at all? If you’d never had that dream, never had that phantom bruise, his hands careful and caring and touching up to the band of your bra, you wouldn’t know now what it is to want him. The dream gave you a bruise, and Spencer presses against it real or otherwise every time he looks at you. You were wrong thinking that it never happened; it’s still there, a purple lash against your ribs.
Every time he makes you breakfast, or he texts you from a different state, or he sits down on the couch just to talk to you. Every time he says something smart, or he tilts his head back as he laughs, or he draws a smiley face on the mirror by the door–
“About those dreams?”
You rub your eyes hard. Of course he’d come to find you. “Please don’t.”
“Please,” he says. You see him through your fingers. His thick scarf is unravelled at his neck, his hair ragged around his face like he’s been raking it repeatedly behind his ears.
You straighten.
“I don’t get it,” he says, “you’ve been dreaming about me? Why is that such a big deal?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“I dream about you all the time,” he says. “We’re in each other's lives, we live together, it makes sense that your hippocampus would use me. You have a lot of memories with me.” Spencer crosses his arms in front of you. “It’s freezing.”
“I’ll be home in a bit.”
“I’m not gonna go back without you,” he says, like that’s a given.
You move across the bench to make room for him. Spencer sits.
You settle. The occasional bus trundles past, a limited rota for an early Sunday morning. Spencer shoves his hands into his pockets. His lips are already turning blue.
“I know you know what I mean,” you say.
Spencer presses his knees together. “Even romantic dreams where I’m… where we’re together, it’s all easily explained away by brain science. You can’t control what you dream, and I’m not going to hold you to it.”
Silence, silence. You tip your head back to see a horrible grey cloud closing in on you both, the sun a white and gauzy memory behind it. Spencer’s right about control, but he doesn’t get that you like them. It’s not fair to him that you’ve somehow rallied a second life when you’re sleeping, where he’s your mind’s puppet, hugging and holding you, pressing his cheek to the side of your face. Saying things you wish he’d tell you now.
“Well, I like you.”
“What?” you ask, coughing.
“Not to make things awkward or anything, but I like you. Romantically.” Spencer’s voice takes a sharp veer into high-pitched freneticism. “Does that help at all?”
“What?”
“It’s far more embarrassing that I like you on purpose than your accidental dreams, right?” He thumbs at the inside of his wrist. “You don’t have to say anything, or think anything, and I’m not going to change, but I have feelings for you.”
You feel like you’re standing at the top of a very tall building. “Oh?”
“I kind of thought you knew.”
“How could I know that?” you ask, cringing as a cold gust of air bites at your face.
Spencer takes his scarf off and pushes it into your hands. “I don’t know. I guess we know less about each other than we thought.”
The way he says it.
Spencer wraps his scarf around you when it’s clear you aren’t going to do it yourself, and he touches your cheek briefly, a brush of his fingers like he thinks he’s doing something he shouldn’t be allowed to.
“I dream about you all the time,” he says quietly.
A bus passes by and shines headlights at your feet. The wind blows, your ears roar, and just above you, in a cold front to mark the season, snow begins to fall.
You look up simultaneously. A snowflake gets caught in Spencer’s eyelashes.
Just one.
“This is so weird,” you mumble.
Spencer wipes at his eye. “Could you tell me why?”
“I had a dream just like this.”
He laughs warmly. “Of course you did. Forget all reason, then. You’re prophetic.”
“I don’t think I could’ve predicted this.”
“Why? It’s only snow. Virginia gets an inch of snow most Decembers.”
You laugh. In a dream, this is where you and Spencer would kiss or hold hands, or rest your cheek on the other’s shoulder, but neither of you are brave enough. And, as the snow turns to a sleet below freezing, you can’t ignore the cold.
—
iv. the end
The longest anyone has ever slept in recorded human history is eleven days. Two hundred and sixty four hours, or nearly sixteen thousand minutes, just shy of one million seconds of sleep.
The first pillow was invented in Mesopotamia more than nine thousand years ago, in a time where the amount of pillows a person had directly correlated their personal riches. The history of pillows is tumultuous and eclectic. Headrests made of wood, stone, or jade. Curved neck holders worn soft with use.
And, of all Spencer’s gifted facts, you find yourself circling back to the same one as you wait for him to wake: most dreams are no longer than twenty minutes. However, it’s important to note that the longest dream ever officially observed was in 1994, when a man managed to be in REM for just over three hours. You’ve had dreams that felt like they lasted for hours, but likely took place for just twenty minutes. If you could dream for three hours a night, you could live an entire life of longing in a pocket of time.
Thankfully, you have no need to hide from reality anymore. Spencer sleeps beside you and you don’t want to sleep, you just want him to wake up.
“Good morning,” you whisper, drawing your fingertip across his cheek to encourage the hair that’s fallen there back in line.
He doesn’t stir. It’s alright, you hadn’t meant to wake him.
“I love you,” you whisper, shuffling across the sheets to feel the heat and weight of his body against your own. He doesn’t move for a while, snoring gently, his breath kissing the top of your head as you burrow into the slip of space under his chin. Then, as if he were awake, he wraps his arm around you and drags you in further. His face angles down and his nose finds your forehead, and a hum of what you’d personally say is content kisses your brow.
You tuck your hand behind his back and rub a circle.
Spencer didn’t last long after the initial realisation of requited feelings. In a day he’d asked if you wanted to be his girlfriend (vaguely apologetic, still worried about scaring you, though you’d already come clean about wanting him as you’d warmed your cold hands by the stove). A week later he kissed you on a date outside of the cosiest Indian restaurant in Washington, D.C, and things have been nothing but smooth sailing from there.
Now, when he’s feeling romantic, he brings home butter chicken and turns your face up for kissing, fork in hand. Every night before bed, he tells you to have good dreams, a self-satisfaction in his eyes that you dearly love.
You knew he was a dork and you liked him because of it, but the sheer increase in him is amazing. Yesterday he sent you Close to You by Carpenters over text claiming they wrote it about you. When he got home, he tried to make you dance with him in the living room. After two or three kisses, you’d let him pull you to your feet.
Spencer has turned loving one another into an everyday spectacularity, and not some mystical dream you ached for.
He squeezes the skin of your shoulder as he wakes. Heavy in the hands of sleep, Spencer rubs the tip of his nose to yours, nudging your face up, and waiting there with your lips a few millimetres apart as he finds his bearings. You don’t open your eyes. There’s no need.
“Time?” he mumbles.
“I don’t,” —you clear your hoarse voice, his hand flattening protectively behind you— “know, um. Maybe seven. The sun was rising…”
“You could have woken me up,” he says, and kisses you slowly. It’s almost gluttonous, how he does it. Not chaste at all. His hair falls into your face and tickles your cheeks, his nose smushes your own with his easy depth.
You hold his face and kiss him twice, following a line under his chin, where you pause, smelling yesterday's cologne on his skin. “I was hoping I’d fall asleep again,” you confess.
“Oh, no, don’t do that.” He scoops you against him and turns onto his back as you laugh. “Angel. Let’s stay up now. Let’s just… stay here.”
If you stay here he’s going to waylay you with a smattering of his voracious kisses, and he’s going to turn you on your back and kiss your neck. He’ll touch that place on your ribs where you’d once dreamt a bruise. It’s a secret you couldn’t keep. He likes to kiss you there when he remembers, but most of the time his hands run along it without mention. A slow caressing.
You push your face against his shoulder and sigh as his arms close in around you. With a little effort, you get your arms around him in turn, and you hug him for as long as you can stand the pins and needles in your fingers.
“You smell so good,” you mumble.
He pats your back absentmindedly.
Today, you’re going to make Spencer oatmeal with banana and chocolate. You’re going to shower, maybe together if the small space can handle it, laughing at the soap in his eyebrows and the way he squeals when you touch his hips. You’re going to drape yourself across his lap as he reads, and he’ll lean down to kiss the tip of your nose or some other strange part of you unused to affection. The top of your ear, the palm of your hand, maybe the crook of your elbow. He’ll ramble through dinner or creep up behind you to sniff your shoulder, and it’ll all be choices you’ve made. Nothing left to want or wanting, but being in love while wide awake.
“Are you tired?” you ask him.
He takes a deep breath of your hair. “No,” he says, drawing a light line up your side, “I’m okay. There are worse faces to wake up to.”
You try not to fluster noticeably. He’s always been a good roommate. You’re still getting used to the boyfriend part, the intimacy of being complimented, but Spencer seems to have slipped into the part easily.
“Sorry, that was mean. There’s nothing I’d rather wake up to.”
“Thanks,” you mumble.
You’re tired, suddenly. The minutes pass in heavy blinks —you don’t want to sleep now that he’s awake, but being here with him is warming you from the inside out. You doze and wake and Spencer doesn’t say a word. His breaths come evenly against your cheek.
Eventually, he clears his throat, asksing, “Did you dream at all?” His voice is hewn. He rubs your chest, right over your heart.
”I’m not so sure that this isn’t one,” you say, your heartbeat a crawl under his touch.
“That’s corny.”
“Mm, the Spencer in my dreams is usually kinder.”
“Does he ever get to hold you like this?” he asks, letting his hand fall from your chest to wrap it back around you again.
You take a sleepy breath in. “No,” you say slowly, “he doesn’t.”
｡𖦹°‧⭑.
thank youuuu for reading!! please like comment or reblog if you enjoyed!! thank you❤️
this fic was requested! I usually link to the request I was sent at the top, but I lost the post for this one, but this is what the request said:
“hi angel! i have a request for roommate!spencer where r has a very romantic dream about him and starts avoiding him because she's really embarrassed but spencer is so confused as to why his roommate suddenly can't even look him in the eye. maybe one of them realizes their feelings aren't entirely platonic in the end? love you!!!”
˗ˋˏ ʚ♡ɞ ˎˊ˗ Spencer thinks you’re a total bombshell —confident, high maintenance, and so, so pretty. you find yourself similarly obsessed with your dorky, handsome genius.
you meet Spencer and call him beautiful
you witness Spencer and Lila Archer
you make Spencer jealous
you hold Spencer’s hand after his abduction
you come for a teasing visit
your drunken flirting almost kills him
you invite a struggling Spencer over for dinner
your motorcycle jacket winds Spencer
you and Spencer share a room in Alaska
Spencer comforts you after a hard case
Spencer gets his boyband haircut
Spencer stands you up
you take Spencer’s hand when he’s distracted
you comfort Spencer on the brink of tears
you’re jealous of Spencer and a girl at the bar
Spencer reassures you that he likes your flirting
Spencer loses his mind over your dress
it’s Spencer’s fault when you get hurt
Spencer tends to a bad wound
you assure Spencer he’s your type
you’re hurt by a rude police officer
Spencer realises you really truly like him
Spencer tortures you, for once
don’t think I don’t like you
you and Spencer have your first kiss
Spencer calms you down when you’re nervous
you and Spencer miss you first date
Spencer sees you undone for the first time
you freak out after being held hostage
you’re obsessed with Spencer and his glasses
Spencer takes care of you when you’re sick
Derek catches you at Spencer’s apartment
Spencer calls you a pet name for the first time
you and Spencer are interrupted
good luck
Emily catches you and Spencer in a heated kiss
you drunk brag about your new boyfriend
you’re secure in your relationship
you get your period
Spencer likes that you’re high maintenance
you get very hurt in the field
Spencer watches over your recovery
you have your first big fight, you can’t sleep
Spencer allots time for your morning kisses
you take the leap and ask the big question
Spencer returns from prison
Spencer struggles to adjust after prison
you and Spencer talk about JJ
you comfort Spencer after Maeve
you find out that you’re pregnant together
you show Spencer your new necklace
you tell the team that you’re pregnant
Hotch gives Spencer some paternal advice
pregnant!you feel like you’re not yourself
you have an angry hormonal meltdown
pregnant!you falls down
Hotch checks in on pregnant!you and Spencer
your daughter is just like you, Spencer loves it
Amy video calls you on a case
Spencer is wrapped around Amy’s little finger
Spencer and Amy take care of sick!you
you and Amy visit Spencer in prison
hi!!! i have a request for roommate!spencer where he's injured during a case and reader show up at the hospital because she's his emergency contact but the team is really confused wondering who's this stranger fussing over spencer. hope you like it, love you!
thank you for requesting honey!! love you<3 fem!reader
“Close your eyes,” you command, voice all blown up and grand, already smiling. “Close your eyes, Spencer.”
“No.” He squints groggily. “What are you doing?”
“Close your eyes.”
“No, Y/N, what are you doing?” he asks.
You shake your spray bottle at him. He sighs a long-suffering sigh and finally admits defeat, his tired eyes shuttering closed all too easily. You rest your knee on the side of his bed and hear the metal squeaking at your added weight, your hand gentle as you cover his forehead. “You have greasy hair,” you say sympathetically. “This is gonna feel much nicer.”
You blast him with dry shampoo, his brown hair turning white with powder. You drop the can in his lap and set about rubbing the powder into his hair until the grease is soaked up, and his hair feels less miserably lank.
“When are they gonna let you shower again?” you ask quietly.
You’re still touching his hair. More for him than you, you hope he feels comforted, but mostly you just wanna affirm to yourself that he’s all in one bruised piece. Your heart still aches as much as it did when you got the phone call in the first place —Spencer Reid’s next of kin?
You suppose that’s you.
“I don’t know.”
You take his hair back into his current parting. “Well, let’s hope it’s soon. How are you liking the sponge baths? Are they awful?”
“Humiliating.”
Just outside of Spencer’s hospital room, Hotch and JJ stand together with a bag of essentials. They’d drawn to a sudden stop when they realised Spencer had company. “Who is that?” she asks.
Hotch, used to knowing everything, frowns very deeply. He doesn’t know who you are, but from the way you’re touching Spencer’s hair and face, he should.
JJ sounds a little put out. “She doesn’t work here.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Hotch says. His frown lightens as you laugh and scratch Spencer’s hair back behind his ears.
“Is it unkind of me to think he didn’t have any friends?” JJ asks.
Hotch knows Spencer has friends. He’s summoned Spencer from chess games and fan clubs, picking him up occasionally on the way to the office on cafe sidewalks as he waved goodbye to a glasses-wearing bibliophile, often in coats too big for them or with hair in need of a trim. Spencer attracts the unconventional because he, as anybody in this line of work tends to be, is inordinary. So JJ probably is being unkind, but Hotch knows what she means.
You look completely regular. You settle on one thigh on his bed while the other keeps you up and put your hand on his chest, chatting breezy words they can’t hear through the glass.
Spencer curls into you slowly.
“You’ll be home soon,” you say, rubbing his shoulder, “don’t worry.”
Hotch’s eyebrows rise of their own accord. He and JJ excuse themselves for coffee before they’re spotted, and when they return, you’re gone. “Spence, who was that girl?” JJ asks. Hotch notes the slightest line of jealousy tugging under her curiosity.
He sounds as though he could use some more pain medication, and a good night's sleep, but he’s proud as he says, “That’s my roommate. I told you about her.”
“Ah, your roommate,” Hotch says.
“What’s that mean?” Spencer asks.
“Nothing, Spencer,” Hotch says, using the young man’s first name in a rare show of affection. “That’s just an irregular word for it. I haven’t heard it in a while.”
JJ laughs. Spencer hides his face with both hands, a smudge of lip balm on his hand shining under the stark hospital fluorescents. “I’m too tired,” he complains.
Hotch hadn’t seen you kiss him, but he can imagine how it might have happened, how you’d leaned in for a kiss on the cheek goodbye and Spencer overwhelmed himself thinking about it. Or maybe it’s just an innocuous smudge. Maybe it’s nothing at all.
“We live together,” Spencer mumbles. “I couldn’t afford to live by myself at first, it’s D.C.”
“And now?” Hotch asks. He knows Spencer is on good enough money to afford an apartment by himself these days, a big one. He has no dependents.
“Didn’t seem fair… She’s nice. She’s, like, my best friend.”
“Don’t let Morgan hear you say that,” JJ laughs.
Hotch isn’t sure she gets it, but he does. “Well, you can ask her to come back. We have work to do.”
Spencer pretends he’s hesitant to pick up the phone. Your reply is an immediate beep. Hotch knows a good friend when he sees one.
all the bau meeting spencer’s badass gf who drives a motorcycle, has tattoos, dresses like a mob wife!!!! pls pls pls i need to read their reactions to bby boy pulling us
i can definitely do that for you !!
“You have to be nice.” JJ stared imploringly at Derek who looked back at her in shock across their booth in the bar, falling dramatically back into his seat.
“Nic—I’ll be more than nice.” He assured with the beginnings of a mischievous grin, only for Emily to slap him across the back of the head. “Hey!”
“I bet she’ll be so cute! Like a mini female Spencer all bundled up in fluffy cardigans and—aww I bet she’ll have big adorable glasses.” Penelope gushed excitedly, practically bouncing in her seat.
The sound of a motorcycle roaring distracted them and they all looked out of the window in that general curiosity that people get upon hearing a motorcycle, who was the potential hottie driving it.
Penelope gasped loudly, her drink splashing as it clanked against the wooden surface. Emily and JJ’s mouths dropped open, eyes popping out of their skulls dramatically. Derek genuinely felt lightheaded as he watched the scene before him—grasping desperately at the edge of the booth. Rossi’s eyebrows arched and he shook his head, chuckling slightly to himself. Hotch merely stared, though a smirk was twitching at his lips.
“Absolutely not—“
“What? HOW—“
“It’s a clone. An alien!”
The team’s startled chatter broke off as Penelope shushed them all loudly: everyone watched as their Spencer, boy genius, Reid got off of the back of the motorcycle, removing his arms from around the waist of the breathtakingly gorgeous girl. He offered her his hand as he stood in front of her and she rolled her eyes fondly at him, taking it. When she stood, he unzipped her motorcycle jacket for her and eased it off her shoulders—revealing a silky black halter dress, her arms scattered in tattoos, as were her thighs. Hoops dangled from her ears, red bottoms on her feet, nails manicured and hands adorned in rings.
Derek literally flopped back into his seat, starstruck.
All of them watched, heads turned accordingly to never stop looking at the pair of you (mostly you), as Spencer folded your jacket over one arm before taking your hand in his other as you both walked to the entrance—they could see he was rambling and you stared up at him, a charmed smile on perfectly painted lips.
“I—“ Emily sucked in a breath, flustered, “they’re coming now—act natural.”
At her hiss, Penelope purposefully fell back into what she thought was a more relaxed position, fluffing her hair. JJ awkwardly straightened out her clothes, leg bouncing. Emily leaned over the table ‘casually’ swirling her drink and Derek positioned himself with a broad arm flexed on the windowsill, looking out the dirty screen of the bar window with a smoulder.
Hotch looked at them all and silently shook his head, Rossi chucked silently at his face of disappointment.
The team heard the click of your heels approaching and vague remnants of your conversation with him that led Spencer to giggling.
Shocked looks were exchanged and Penelope looked like she was going to melt into a gooey puddle of awwwww.
“Hello everyone!” Spencer chirped as he reached their table, happier and more relaxed than they’d ever seen him be. “It’s nice to see you all—this-this is my girlfriend, Y/N.” 
“Hi.” Your voice was silky smooth and Penelope eyed your immovable un-smudged lip-combo with admiration. “It really is a pleasure to meet all of you.”
“The pleasure is absolutely all mi—“ Derek stopped, his sentence turning into a series of harsh wheezes as both Emily and JJ elbowed him in either side.
You blinked at them.
“It’s lovely to meet you.” He continued in a pained voice, collapsed dramatically into his seat.
JJ and Emily rolled their eyes.
“Hi! It is so so so cool to finally meet you—I’m Penelope and you are even prettier than Spencer described and, believe me, your doctor man used every ounce of this thick vocabulary to compliment you.”
You quirked a grin at the excited redhead in front on you, looking teasingly over at your boyfriend who was blushing bright red but he grinned shyly back at you.
“David Rossi.” The Italian introduced himself formally as you and Spencer sat down in the booth, opposite him. “I always knew Spencer was a man of good taste.” He gave you a mischievous smile.
“I would argue that we both have great taste.” You winked back, settling into your boyfriend’s side.
The team watched the easy way that Spencer allowed you into his space, the way in which he wrapped his arms around your waist with a comfortability they’d never seen before and the urge to smile was simply too much to ignore.
“I just want to say, If the genius ever messes up. .” Emily trailed off, making a phone with her hands and holding it against her ear, she mouthed ‘call me’ at you.
As laughter left your smirking lips, you looked up at your boyfriend who shook his head playfully down at you—you turned your head to kiss his cheek briefly, smiling up at him.
“I’ll be sure to give you a ring.” You promised her as the laughter around the quietened slightly.
“And me!” Morgan piped up happily only to groan unhappily again as JJ slapped him over the head.
“Don’t call Morgan.” JJ advised, leaning across the table as though to confide a secret in you, voice lowering to a mock whisper, “he’s got an STD he refuses to get rid off.”
“LIES AND SLANDER.”
“Not on his good name.” Penelope joined in, giggling all the while.
“It’s nice to finally meet you—I’m Aaron Hotchner.” Your boyfriend’s boss introduced himself to you as everyone got sucked into taking the piss out of Derek.
“It’s lovely to meet you Hotch.” You replied kindly, taking the name you’d heard them all call him.
“Please,” Aaron paused briefly, glancing at Spencer with a minuscule smirk, “call me Aaron.”
You nodded with an unaware smile but Spencer’s mouth dropped as his boss to a sip of his drink to hide his smirk, not him too.
i have a request for roommate!spencer where he's just miserable that no one remembered his birthday at work but when he gets home his roommate just welcomes him with the most thoughtful gift and a warm hug PLEASE
thank you for requesting! <3 fem!reader
The lights are off. The air conditioning blows a shade too cold. Spencer shrugs off his jacket and acknowledges that, despite his awful, aching day, it’s nice to be home.
The living room is clean where it hadn’t been this morning when he left. If he had to clean it by himself, he’d die. It must’ve taken a good hour or longer, even the floor shines sparkling clean.
“Hey?” he asks into the open air, wondering where you are.
“Spencer!” you yelp from the kitchen, “Hey, what took you so long? It’s almost seven!”
He sighs to himself with a great dash of self-pity. “I know. Had to stay and finish something. You cleaned?”
“I had to! Quick, come in here, I need your help with something.”
He doesn’t want to help, he wants to lay down in bed. Spencer wonders how a normal person, a normal boy, would feel after a day like today. He wonders if Morgan would go home and lay in bed and cry. He wonders if it could ever be possible for everyone to forget Morgan’s birthday.
Spencer hangs his jacket on the rack and puts his bag by the shoes. He’s tempted to go to bed and pretend he hasn’t heard you, but he supposes he shouldn’t. He’d sort of been hoping you’d text him happy birthday, and but that never happened. He doesn’t think anybody in the world besides his mom knows what day it is today, and Spencer had to remind her, so.
“Spence,” you say, your smile of a calibre he’s never witnessed, standing in front of the kitchen island with your hands behind your back, “I hope you know I’ve been waiting two whole hours for you to get back. Actually, I’ve been waiting all day, but you can’t be blamed for working. Okay. Are you ready?”
“Am I ready? What did you want help with?”
You step to the side, grinning, the sleeves of your nice blouse like big, soft petals around your wrists and against your thighs. “Tada!” you say, guiding his attention to the silver platter on the countertop, a chocolate cake at centre stage and stuck with candles, flames aglow. “I rushed to light them when I heard the door,” you tell him, and he can hear your breathlessness now, your excitement for him evident. “A lot of candles, you’re getting old! Too old for chocolate sprinkle. I should’ve got you something sophisticated.”
“You got me a cake?”
“It’s your birthday,” you say happily. “Happy birthday, Spencer. I got you some presents, too, but the cake is the best, it’s from the Leaven. How fancy is that?”
“Will you sing?” he asks.
He doesn’t know why he asks. He’s mostly kidding, but you smile shyly and beckon him toward you. “I’ll sing. Come stand over here.”
You sing him happy birthday, and he blows out his candles, only ten candles altogether but enough to feel like a kid as the heat kisses his chin.
“Okay, and I got you this,” you say, finally pulling both hands from behind your back, seemingly eager to move the focus from your performance.
It’s a bundle about as thick as an average novel. He knows it’ll be books before he opens it, because you know him, and it’s in your nature to give him your everything.
He doesn’t look at them. He takes the package blindly and shoves it onto the counter, wrapping you in a hug so hard it makes your back click. “I’m sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t let go. You don’t make him. “Sorry, I just– I–” You’re the only one who remembered. “Thank you for the cake.”
You hug him not quite as hard, but tight. “Hey, it’s okay. I love you, you’re my best friend ever, you can pop me like a roll of dough any day of the week.” You might be exaggerating. Spencer doesn’t know. “But especially today, you know. You can have anything you want.”
Spencer should let go. Anything you want, you’d said. He hugs you until he’s sure you’re sick of him, your thumb pressing little circles into his shoulder, his arms tucked up under your armpits and around your back. “Thanks,” you murmur.
“What?” he asks. “For what?”
“For such a good hug. And being a great roommate. And for not complaining about the candles.”
“The candles are perfect.”
You lean back in his arms. “Thank you. Now what do you want first, cake or dinner?”
Spencer really wants another hug. “Um. Cake?”
“Good choice, handsome.”
His cheeks are pink by the time he gets a slice, but it’s the best birthday cake he’s ever had.
Hiii!! Could I request a bombshell reader x Spencer where someone (a local police maybe) says something rude to her about her appearance or something and normally it doesn’t really get to her, but something snaps and she kinda shuts down/is rude to Spencer until he coaxes it out of her? Sorry it’s long I had an idea and ran w it loollll
ty for requesting angel! confident fem!reader, 1k
Spencer shouldn’t expect his colleague to hold his hand, especially one so confident. What sense would that make, a woman as established as you are, who smiles without a lick of worry nor smugness, wanting to hold his hand?
But you do it all the time, is the thing. In the car on the way to crime scenes, in the hallways of the office, under the round table. It started as a tethering for his distractedness, when one day he’d wanted to talk but hadn’t had the presence of mind to walk at the same time, so you’d taken his hand and led him to the office. You’ve been taking it at your discretion ever since.
Spencer knows something is wrong —you haven’t tried to hold his hand all day. And even if you aren’t interested in him romantically, Spencer has come to crave the touch. He’ll accept platonic hand holding. Anything, really.
“You’re staring very deeply, Dr. Reid,” you mutter, shades from your usual lightness.
“I’m thinking.”
“Aren’t you always?”
“About you.”
“Well,” you smile fleetingly. “You should always be thinking about me.”
“You’re truly humble.”
His joke doesn’t land, it crashes and burns; your smile fades completely into a short, sharp line. Your gaze moves back into the restaurant, waiting for the team's food order in silence once again.
Spencer’s pinky finger twitches across the gap.
“Is everything okay?” he asks.
“Fine.”
You stay quiet, Spencer worries. He takes the bags before you can when they bring your food to the collection desk, two lumps of heat he holds to his thighs as you begin the walk back to the hotel. Tonight, the team will pick at their food together and rehash the same arguments they’ve been making all day, filling in each other's gaps, and tomorrow the work will start again. He can’t have you this unhappy again tomorrow.
“You’re amazing,” he says, watching you turn to him from the corner of his eye, “you know you are, we all do, everyone who meets you. I know you don’t need me to tell you that, or to feel better, but… I’m here for you. If you want to talk. It’s been a hard couple of days, and talking about traumatic events as they happen and directly afterward make them easier to recover from.”
“I’m not traumatised.”
“Upsetting,” he corrects. “Having a shoulder to cry on is good for you, and I can be that shoulder. You know, if you need me to be.”
He can’t know this in the moment, though maybe one day you’ll tell him, further down the line when the hand holding is better defined, but you look at him and you love him. To know Spencer is to love him. Or at least that’s how you’ve always felt. You’d love to cry on his shoulder about what transpired that morning if it weren’t embarrassing to think about, you’re upset over a throwaway comment made by nobody important.
Spencer offers his company earnestly. He stammers. It’s amazingly sincere, as he usually is. He won’t mind if it’s embarrassing, he’ll just listen.
You clear your throat. “I know I’m not to everyone’s taste. I know that the way I… present myself isn’t what most men like. People love confidence, but not when it’s bossy, not when it’s– when it’s vain. And I am vain. I think about my appearance a lot, I think I’m beautiful most of the time, I try so hard to have that be true.” You eye him thoughtfully. “Do you realise that?”
He shakes his head gently, one ear toward one shoulder and then the other, as though balancing. “Sort of. I know you put effort into your appearance, but I also assume a lot of it to be natural.”
“Right, well. It’s not natural. Not really. My natural beauty wouldn’t be all the beautiful to most people. And I’ve accepted that, I know what I like about myself, and–” You’re losing the thread of your point, an upset creeping into your melodic tone and turning it ragged. “When people tell me they don’t like how I look now, I guess it hurts because I know they wouldn’t like me before, either, and I feel defeated because I know I can’t win.”
“Who said they don’t like how you look?” Spencer asks, confused, on his way to annoyed.
“Officer Friendly.” You look to your shoes, watching the steps you take. “Guess he wasn’t as nice as we thought.”
“What did he say to you?”
You shrug. “Same story. He doesn’t like girls who wear makeup. Doesn’t like uppity women.”
“Did he call you that?”
“What are you gonna do if he did?” you ask without malice.
“Morgan’s teaching me self defence for a reason.” You smile at his light joke, though it doesn’t last. He transfers the takeout bags into one hand, the other held out to you, his fingers sliding down your arm to your wrist. “You know you’re beautiful, with or without makeup. And you’re not uppity, you’re out of his league. There’s a difference.”
“You’re flirting with me.”
“No.” He wishes he had the wherewithal sometimes, but this isn’t flirting. “I’m being honest with you. Men like that don’t like you because they know they’ll never, ever have you, or anyone like you. There isn’t anyone like you,” he adds, sliding his hand into yours.
He squeezes all your fingers together twice in quick succession.
“Don’t let a jealous chauvinist halfwit make you think you’re not good enough,” he says.
You curl your fingers around his before he can take his hand back. Slowly, you squeeze his hand. Then, smiling, you let him go.
“I’ve never heard you say something mean like that,” you say. “Halfwit. That’s crass.”
“I was going to say he’s an asshole, if that’s better.”
Your laugh echoes off of the sidewalk. “That’s perfect. Say something meaner.”
uhh i was wondering if you could write sth based off the song “we’ll never have sex” by leith ross? pls dont feel pressured to write this btw😭😭😭 hope ur having a good day lovely💗💗
hello my love i have no self control so this is extremely long and plotty but i love this song and i hope that this is any good at all crying emoji (i'm on a laptop LOL) enjoy!!
warnings/tags: angst/fluff, fem!reader, negative self-talk from reader, mentions of past sexual coercion/feeling used, mentions of past excessive drinking to combat social anxiety, ive been watching a lot of new girl lately and i think it shows, SO FRIENDS TO LOVERS, happy ending
You weren’t expecting to end up on Spencer Reid’s worn-leather couch at two in the morning, clutching a chipped mug of coffee in your hands as you listen to the sounds of the city from the street below. But there you are, sitting with your legs folded under you, in your favorite dress and first date-night makeup (now bleeding and smudged from all the crying.) And realizing that despite considering him one of your closest friends, you haven’t been to his apartment in a long time. There are, of course, good reasons for that—but you try to push those from your mind.
“I’m really sorry about this,” you sigh, staring at your warped reflection in the glassy black surface of your coffee. Spencer is coming out of the small kitchen, now bearing his own cup.
“Please, stop apologizing.”
You glance up, tentatively studying him from behind the safety of your mug. While he may not have been asleep when you knocked on his door ten minutes ago, lachrymose and barely verbal, he must have been getting ready for bed. He’s clad in patterned pajama pants, mismatched socks, and an FBI crewneck that is just big enough to reveal the collar of the tee-shirt underneath. He’s already taken out his contacts, and you were startled by the reminder that he also has glasses.
“So...” he begins, bringing you back to the present moment, “we don't have to talk about anything, if you don’t want to, but...”
You sigh, watching coffee bubbles swirl like stars in a galaxy.
“It’s fine. Honestly, I’m kind of embarrassed. I didn’t really think, I just... ended up here.”
“Yeah... where did you come from?” he laughs quietly. “Not that I’m complaining. But I recall you not living super close by.”
“No, no. I was actually on a date. Kind of.”
“Ah.” There’s a beat of silence, and ostensibly Spencer is waiting for you to say more, but instead you take a sip from your mug. “At two in the morning?” You nod dully, staring at the labyrinthine pattern of the Persian rug.
“I’m taking it that it wasn’t a very good date...?”
A whoosh of air escapes from your puffed cheeks.
“No it was not. Not by the end, anyway. It actually started really well, which made it even more disappointing when he...” you laugh, but there’s not much humor in it. “Well, when he kicked me out of his car on a street corner because I didn’t want to sleep with him.”
You don’t look to see Spencer’s reaction—only take another long, baleful sip of coffee and ignore the heavy silence.
“I’m really sorry. You... you deserve so much better than that.”
An attempt at a jaded scoff from you falls flat.
“Yeah, well. Tell that to the last three white house interns I’ve gone on dates with. It’s the same thing every time.”
“Have you considered going on fewer dates with white house interns...?” The nervous humor is a thin veil over genuine critique. You shrug, biting the inside of your cheek.
“It’s not just them. Every single guy I’ve liked since I was 15 has been like this. Even my past relationships, I felt like I was almost... tricked into, you know? I mean, these guys, they act all understanding and willing to take it slow or whatever, until you’re in a relationship, and suddenly they’re guilt tripping you so hard and making you feel so obligated to...” you catch yourself just in time, glancing up at Spencer. You’re not sure what to make of his expression. The drawn brow and slightly squinted eyes trained so intently on you could be sympathy, or anger, or pity, or apathy—you look away, not sure you even want to know what he’s thinking. “Sorry. You don’t need to hear all about that. Basically romance is exhausting and since I’ll clearly be single forever I’m considering running away to join a nunnery.”
When he doesn’t respond for too long, you look back up quizically.
“I’m not sure you know what romance actually is,” he says as soon as your gaze meets his, like the eye-contact activated some kind of hair-trigger in his vocal box.
You blink, lowering the coffee cup to your lap.
Says Spencer Reid?
“...sorry?”
He flushes, stammering to clarify himself.
“I just meant—I—I know I’m not exactly fighting women off with a stick—” he interrupts himself with a self-conscious (adorable) laugh— “but... but I have been in love, at least once.”
“Maeve,” you say, gently—trying to shove down bitter guilt as you remember how jealous you’d been when Spencer had first told you about her. “I remember.”
He swallows and nods.
“We never even met—we just talked. All the time. I had no idea what she looked like. But it didn’t matter at all. Because I knew her, and I loved her. Maybe things would have gone further if I hadn’t been calling her from public phone booths, but that wasn’t the most important thing to either of us. We were still in love.” You try to shut out the sharp ache in your chest. Being jealous of the way he speaks about a dead woman is so wrong.
“What I’m trying to say is that romance isn’t solely about sex, or even physical appearance. It sounds to me like you’ve been with a lot of men who don’t understand that. And it would be such a shame for you to write romance off in general before you even get to experience it. You are... an extraordinary woman. You’re funny, and intelligent, and kind, and so capable of being loved. One day, someone is going to see beyond your pulchritude and prove that to you. I hope you let them try.”
More tears blur the pattern on the rug, pooling in the rims of your eyes before spilling down your cheeks in fast, fat drops. Shakily you set the cup down, resting your elbows on your knees and hiding your face in your hands. You sniff once. Twice. Shake your head quickly, attempting to wipe the tears away without further smearing your makeup everywhere.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” Spencer breathes, leaning forward but obviously unsure how to comfort you. “Please don’t cry, I wasn’t--I was trying to do the opposite of this.”
“No, I’m sorry! You didn’t have to—you didn’t—I’m sorry. That was way too nice.”
But you're not crying because he was nice.
Someone will love you, but not me. That’s all you can hear.
His voice is a mere whisper when he next speaks.
“I meant every word.”
You take a shuddering breath, allowing yourself a moment of reprieve behind the peaceful black of your eyelids. You can’t be looking at his face when you say what you’re about to say.
“I had a crush on you for the longest time, you know.”
Ringing silence. But it doesn’t last as long as you’d imagined. It’s not as world ending.
“Had?”
The little smile in his voice is like a fist around your heart.
“Yeah. You know what changed?”
“What’s that?”
Absolutely nothing.
“Every time I got super drunk and started hitting on you, you’d just drive me home. And I did it a lot. Like, for months. But you were such a gentleman. It drove me fucking crazy. So eventually I figured you just didn’t like me and I gave up.”
Another stretch of silence. A breeze comes in from the open window, fluttering the curtains and cooling the tears on your face. His response is sad when it finally comes.
“You thought I didn’t like you because I didn’t try to take advantage of you when you were drunk?”
“Pretty much.” You smile ruefully, fingertips still pressed over your eyes. “God, listen to me. No wonder I get treated like garbage.”
“Stop. Don’t talk about yourself like that. Did you hear anything I just said?”
You sniff, looking to the ceiling.
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. It was really sweet.”
More silence.
“But you don’t believe it.”
A bitter laugh poisons the air around you.
“I don’t know. I’m kind of tired of waiting for someone to prove it to me. Just for once, I want someone to be interested in me beyond having sex in the back of their fucking... Range Rover, or whatever. Like, maybe all that stuff you said is true, but there’s no evidence to support it, and I know logically you’re probably right but I can’t help wondering if... if I’m the outlier. Maybe there just isn’t someone for me like that. Maybe I’m just gonna be the sex in the back of the Range Rover girl forever.”
A noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob forces itself from your throat and you bury your face in your hands again, shaking your head.
“Wow, I am so sorry,” you say a little too loudly, “I did not mean to be this honest tonight. Did you spike my coffee?”
“You are not the outlier,” Spencer whispers.
You sniff, lifting your head haltingly to look at him.
“What?”
His voice shakes slightly as he speaks.
“You said you can’t help wondering if you’re the outlier, and maybe there just isn’t someone for you like that. That’s not true.”
“Spencer, those are just words. You can’t possibly know that. Statistical probabilities don’t count.”
“That’s... that’s not how I know.”
Your heart drops as you study his face.
No.
Surely he’s not saying what you think he’s saying.
Surely he wouldn’t do this to you after you’ve just told him everything you told him. You have been harboring feelings for him for years. Since you met. He can’t just spring this on you one night because you’re a little bummed out. If he felt the same, you would have found out a long time ago; he had ample opportunity to tell you. There was a period of months where you practically threw yourself all over him at every chance you got, and he did nothing. So this... this is just cruel—something you’ve never known Spencer Reid to be.
You stand up, trembling slightly with rage and grief and humiliation.
“Don’t do that. Don’t say things that you don’t mean just to make me feel better.”
“What are you doing? Don’t--”
You scoop up your purse, trying to get to the front door as fast as your gelatinous legs will allow. More tears are streaming down your face now and you don’t need him to see what he’s done to you—to see how much you care what he thinks.
“It’s fine. Thanks for the coffee, I’ll see you around—”
A hand around your wrist stops you in your tracks
“Stop. Just... please give me a second to talk, okay?”
With nothing left to give, you turn to him.
“Don’t be mean, Spencer. Don’t act like you liked me too. That makes me feel... so much worse.”
He takes a deep, shaky breath, as if steeling himself. Tawny eyes bore into your soul, and you realize that there is so much sheer nervous energy radiating off of him it’s infectious. Your heart begins to pound as he speaks.
“I’m not doing that. I’m being an idiot, because you just told me that you don’t feel that way about me anymore but... but I do. And I have to tell you now because for six months I tortured myself wondering why you would flirt with me so much when you were hammered and then act like nothing happened the next day. There were so many times I almost told you how I felt but I didn’t and now I am because even if it ruins our friendship you need to know that somebody... that I wanted to be that person for you. I still do.”
Your heart is like an unmoored zeppelin in your chest, bumping against your esophagus and threatening to either burst or jump out of your mouth. You take your chances, whispering so quietly it’s almost inaudible.
“You... you like me?”
“Yes,” Spencer sighs. “I have liked you for a very long time. And I’m sorry—”
Whatever ridiculous thing he was going to apologize for, you don’t give him the chance. Instead you launch yourself at him, capturing his lips in a kiss that feels so much better than it’d ever been in your fantasies because it’s real. You hear his sharp intake of breath, but it only takes a second for him to respond, cradling your face in his hands like you’re the entire world. For a moment, time bends. Years of longing, of buried dreams crash into the present in a brilliant, dazzling explosion.
And then, as quickly as it started, he pulls away. The absence of his touch is like a vacuum, so much worse now that you know exactly how it feels to have his lips on yours, even if it was only for a few seconds. How the hell did you live like that for so long? How are you supposed to live like that ever again?
“You’re not thinking clearly,” he breathes, tilting his head back toward the ceiling like he’s barely holding onto his self control. “You just want someone to comfort you, I’m not going to take advantage of you when you’re in an emotionally vulnerable state and confided in me which is manufacturing a false sense of attachment—”
You grab his wrists, which still graze your jaw.
“Spencer, stop intellectualizing for thirty seconds. I promise you I am thinking clearly.”
“You said you used to like me, past tense—”
“Yeah, I did. Do you believe every single murderer who says he didn’t do it?”
“No, but—”
“Have you ever heard the phrase; a drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts?”
“Of course I have.”
“Then what more could you possibly need to be convinced that I really like you? I already kissed you! What is stopping you?”
Another deep breath is taken by him that seems to suck all the air out of the quiet room. Briefly, you wonder if you’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake. If you really do like him so much more than he could ever like you.
Until he looks back down, eyes so golden-brown in the dim light, so kind and full of affectionate concern as he carefully assesses every square centimeter of your face, looking for... well, you’re not exactly sure what. It’s like he’s extracting every thought from your head, turning them over like sun-warmed stones until he finds what he’s looking for. He smooths his hands over your hair, brushing strands away from your teary face. Finally, after what feels like an eternity of holding your breath, he speaks.
“I just want you to believe what I believe about you. But I don’t want you to have to rely on me or anyone else for your own self-worth.”
“Well, don’t you think very highly of yourself,” you tease with a sniffle. He laughs—it's quiet, but his smile is so bright without even trying that suddenly you can’t remember why you’ve ever been sad. The small miracle of his laughter makes you feel so light, and you realize it has nothing to do with the way he makes you feel about yourself. It has everything to do with who he is.
Once the giggles die down, you tentatively mirror his hold on your face.
“Spencer, I don’t like you because you like me. I’ve liked you for an embarrassingly long time. I liked you enough that I gave myself a severe hangover at least once a week for three months just so I could have an excuse to flirt shamelessly with you.”
A half-sad smile pulls at the corner of his mouth, and he gently swipes under your eyes.
“You never had to do that. I would have welcomed your sober brazen flirting with open arms.”
“Well... do you believe me?” you plead. His amber eyes shine.
“I do.”
“Will you kiss me?”
“If that’s what you want.”
You nod, rising on your toes to meet him halfway.
When your lips meet again, it is sweet, and honest, and slow, and deep. Still, there is no desperation--no race to an imagined finish line, no clash of teeth and pawing hands. It is a kiss for the sake of it—as if it were the greatest intimacy. Not a precursor to sharing a bed, but something bigger than that in and of its own. Something just as worthy and important. For the first time, you think you’re beginning to understand romance. And while you wouldn’t mind if things did escalate, you also know that Spencer knows that’s not what matters right now. Because he actually understands you—he actually cares. He will wait until you understand that you mean so much more than that to him.
To that end, he pulls away, gently supplanting his absence with a kiss to the corner of your mouth.
“It would be polite of me to offer you a ride home, wouldn’t it?” he whispers, like it’s the last thing he wants to do. You bite the inside of your cheek, coming up with reasons not to go. One ridiculous one arises from the depths of your memory that you know he won’t be able to say no to.
“Or... I could stay here, and we could watch one of those nerdy foreign films you’re always talking about?”
A slow, perfect, high-watt smile blossoms on his face, and you know you’ve said exactly the right thing.
“Nerdy? Oh, my darling girl... Soviet-era filmography is far from nerdy. небесная машина will completely defy what you thought you knew about the life of an average Russian villager in the 1950’s.”
“Oh, good. Because I’ve really been meaning to change the way I think about the average 1950’s Russian villager,” you smile, already closing in to kiss him again.
------------------------------------------
epilogue
Three hours later, you’re crying because the life of the average Russian villager in the 1950’s was so much worse than you’d previously thought.
“It was good, right?” Spencer asks as the credits roll over a bleak snowy sepia landscape, leaning back to get a better look at you. You sit up from where you’d been leaning against him, furiously wiping your eyes.
“It was terrible! Why didn’t you tell me that everyone except the kid dies in the end?!”
“Because that’s the whole point of the movie!” he laughs, pulling you back into him. “I’m sorry. I probably should have explained how depressing this entire era of film was outside of the US.”
“And also how long the movies were. I was not prepared for how many five minute long clips of empty fields there were going to be.”
“You’re right,” he ammends, wrapping his arms around you in a way that gives you butterflies and makes you sleepy at the same time. “Next time we can watch whatever you want to watch.”
Time passes like that—you in his arms, watching weak light slowly flood the room with half-lidded eyes and listening to the sounds of the city waking up from the street below, underscoring the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. Thoughts float by like leaves on the ever-flowing current of your mind, and you’re happy to let them pass until one in particular catches your attention.
“Spencer?”
He hums, like he’d been deep in his own proverbial river of thought.
“What does pulchritude mean?”
It takes him a split second to remember the bit of conversation from earlier to which you are referring, but when he does, he chuckles, running his hand over your messy hair.
I know Reid is eventually going to get all dishevelled and sexy but his season 1 loser ass haircut and virgin energy is like siren calling me already I want him
don't mind me i'm just thinking about how Eddie Munson would SO pretend to be someone you know if you come up to him in a store or so and whisper to him how this guy has been creeping you out for ages 'n he would take to his role so well 😭 i need to shift dimensions I need to be with this guy
i'd commit unspeakable horrors to be his girlfriend
--
You almost feel bad practically tackling the man from behind. All he was doing was grabbing a can of soup off of the shelf, and you made him your impromptu best friend.
He lurches forward at the contact, and turns to look at you with fire in his eyes. You're absolutely certain he's going to scold you, but he sizes you up at his eyes soften slightly. He raises one eyebrow, a silent 'what the fuck do you want?' and you ramble breathlessly.
"Please pretend you're my friend," You whisper, the squeaky wheels of the cart you're dreading the owner of coming towards you down the aisle, "He's following me and I don't know what to do."
He doesn't even blink. His face doesn't shift in the slightest, and for a quick moment you're unsure whether he heard you at all. But his arm curls around your own, and he spins you to face the soups.
"-so I was thinking chicken and stars, but R2-D2 absolutely kills as a noodle," He drawls, ringed fingers gesturing vaguely at each can that he names, "'S whatever you want, babe."
You hear your supermarket stalker's wheels squeak to a stop at the end of the aisle, and you don't dare turn to see his face. You'd prefer never to see it again, a reminder of the lewd comment he'd made in the produce section about melons.
"Star Wars," You decide, plucking the can off of the shelf and handing it to him, "Uh, thank you."
"Now we need," He squints at his list, tongue poking out of his mouth and sticking to his upper lip, "Ritz crackers, and chicken for tomorrow night."
He mimes looking for the crackers, noticing the man standing at the end of the aisle, waiting.
"Oh, sorry," He lifts the back wheels of the cart with the handle, scooting it sideways so that the man can pass, though you both know he doesn't want to, "Were we in your way? Go ahead, we're gonna be here for a while."
The man stares at you, you can feel it. But your new best friend sets a hand gently, politely on the small of your back, leading you around him and sandwiching you between the aisle and him. He holds the list out in front of you, "Babe, can you tell what that says? Can't even read my own writing," He laughs good-naturedly, "I think it says 'blueberries'?"
"Or blub errands," You try deciphering his messy scrawl, weight lifting from your shoulders as the man finally decides to move, crossing your path and bumping the wheel of your new cart as he does.
"Definitely blub errands," The boy beside you snickers, glancing at the reflective panel of the aisle beside him to watch for when the man finally turns a corner, "Some nice improv, babe."
You're not sure why he's still using the nickname, the man is out of earshot. But you're too relieved to care, physically relaxing as your shoulders slump.
"Oh my god," You let out a much bigger breath than you intend to, almost dizzying yourself, "Thank you so much. I just- he was always there and I didn't know what to do! I'm sorry I almost knocked you over," You turn sheepish, eyeing his ankle that you're fairly certain he'd twisted in the meetup, "Are you okay?"
"You're fine," He waves off your apology, rolling the ankle in question with a cheeky grin, "I'm tough."
"You look it," You eye him up and down, a silver chain dangling from his belt that's almost covered by a leather jacket, "Do you have, like, a really big tattoo of a heart with a knife through it on your arm? Bonus points if it says mom."
He laughs incredulously, shrugging the shoulder of his jacket off to prove you wrong, "Uh, no, but thanks for the idea."
You let out a laugh, something that seems impossible considering how scared you just were, but one that comes naturally. The boy you'd found seems to be the type you'd go for both in and out of a life-threatening scenario, and you're starting to wonder if you'll get this lucky with any real relationships you're in.
"Well, listen," He stuffs the list in his pocket, a scrap of the paper sticking out, "I've only got a few more things. If you want, we can check out together," He motions towards the hand-held basket you're holding, "'Cause I don't think that guy's gone. I'd offer you a ride home," He reaches a hand up to scratch aimlessly at the nape of his neck, "But I drive a van, and I think me asking you to get into it would be creepier than anything that guy did."
"It's okay!" You assure him, a light laugh escaping you at his earnestness, "I'm sure I'll be fine driving home. But seriously, thank you," You smile at him, clutching the handles of your basket tighter in an effort not to hug him, "I really appreciate this."
"Anytime, babe." There's that nickname again, paired with the grin you'd seen before, "Now come walk with me, you're helping me find the blub errands."
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