tw: morgan and penelope meddling as per, hints of sad puppy spencer reid
word count: 1365
“jeez, they might as well be conjoined twins.” emily mumbles under her breath as she stirs her coffee.
“who?” jj appears next to her, a stack of files hugged to her chest. it’s not hard to figure out who when she looks in the direction emily is staring. “oh. them.” she grins at the sight before her, shaking her head because it just seems so ridiculous.
when you first joined the team, trying to get you to say more than five words was like pulling teeth. you hardly went out with the team, didn’t engage beyond cases and acted like the deer in the headlights whenever someone asked you a question about yourself. spencer was the same, for a little while, but not as long as you. it really was the relationship you shared with the genius himself that helped bring you out of your shell a little.
now, you sat across from reid with a chess board in front of the pair of you, both your eyes trained on the pieces. your legs were intertwined underneath the table, your fingers lacing each other’s with your hand that wasn’t moving the pieces. it seemed like being apart wasn’t even a possibility for the pair of you.
it had been like this once you’d opened up about your relationship two months ago. ever since then, his hand was practically glued to the small of your back, or your hands clasped to his. you often spent your time on the jet home from cases in your own little corner with a book in front of you, spencer reading at your speed despite the ability to read a mile a minute. it would be obnoxious if it wasn’t so sweet.
“it’s like they can’t go twenty four hours without clinging to each other like that.” morgan adds, their little huddle growing by the second until most the team were stood in the middle of the bullpen, staring at the pair of you.
“they are adults, remember? they do have some self-control.” jj replies, playing devils advocate.
“you wanna bet?” morgan raises an eyebrow.
and so, the bet was made. jj, and penelope had faith in your ability to keep your hands to yourself, whereas morgan, emily and rossi bet against that particular notion. hotch promptly walked away once he caught wind of the conversation, mumbling something about the dangers of gambling.
“pretty boy, pretty girl. we have a bet.” morgan saunters up to the pair of you, disrupting what was a very peaceful chess game, which you were winning for once, might i add (spencer was 100% letting you). both of you furrow your eyebrows, identical expressions of confusion lacing your features as morgan continues.
you can’t help but flush as they set out the rules (‘no holding hands, no kissing, no touching whatsoever, starting tomorrow’). you were shy enough here, you really did not need your team, who you had only just recently become comfortable with, acting like you were some clingy, needy girlfriend. well, you were, but still! it’s not like spencer wasn’t either.
and so, you decided you would follow their rules to a t. you wanted to prove your independence and assert yourself as more than just ‘spencer reid’s girlfriend’. morgan, rossi and emily losing was just a bonus.
so the next day, you texted reid to tell him not to bother picking you up for work like he usually did and took the subway instead. you didn’t immediately go up to him once you got to work either, you kept a professional distance and focused on your work.
spencer wasn’t particularly helping either, not with the way he left a cinnamon roll on your desk before you arrived for work, or with him wearing your favourite outfit of him. worst of all, every time you came up with some excuse not to talk, he gave you those sad brown puppy dog eyes that made you want to wrap him in a blanket a feed him hot chocolate until he never looked so lonesome again.
but morgan’s leering eyes and emily’s little comments reminded you of the task at hand. you could go a single day without being affectionate with your boyfriend, you weren’t weak. and so you kept to yourself, pouring yourself into your work rather than nattering about nothing with spence. this is going to go swimmingly, you can totally do this.
okay, so maybe you can’t do this. its 3pm, only an hour until the workday’s done, only an hour until the ban is lifted and you can be affectionate with spencer till your hearts content. and that hour is going by so dreadfully slow that you think you might burst. the clock is mocking you with its sluggish ‘tick, tick, tick’.
you can’t do this. you really can’t. its borderline inhumane to expect you to stay away from dr spencer reid for an entire day. with a quick look around the room, making sure everyone’s focused on their work, you pull your phone from your pocket and type out a message. ‘the little supply closet in the hall. pretty please. <3’
you get up from your desk, trying to look casual and unassuming as you walk from the bullpen into the hallway. really, you look like bambi on ice with how nervous you seem to be. once you get to the supply closet, you very covertly (obviously) sneak in, eyeing the passing agents as if they’re going to spill to your team what you’re doing. it all feels very scandalous and erotic what you’re doing, when all you’re probably going to do is peck your boyfriend like a chicken and have a very long hug. if he got your message.
oh god, what if he didn’t get your message? what if he was so engrossed in his work, as he often did, that he didn’t notice the buzz of his phone in his desk drawer? what if you were waiting for someone who wasn’t coming? flashbacks to your prom fill your mind, when what’s-his-name never showed up and left you crying on your front porch.
the sound of the door squeaking open and a body slipping inside pulls you out of your head. the two of you bump into each other in the stuffy closet, muttering whispered apologies and it takes you right back to when you first started dating. it’s strange what a few hours apart can do to you.
“is this weird? i feel like i’m violating some rule just by being here…” you whisper, voice hushed and rushed as if you’re about to be caught doing something unspeakable rather than simply standing in a janitors closet with your boyfriend.
“honey, what’s going on? why are we in here?” spencer matches your volume, but his tone is more confused than panicked, patient as ever.
“well, we only have an hour left and I am not losing this bet! not to derek morgan!” you whisper yell, looking more like an angry puppy than any actual threat.
“bet? what bet?”
if there was any person that would forget about a bet involving themselves, it would be dr spencer reid. eidetic memory aside, he seemed to be the most clueless man you had ever met. he could recite crime and punishment from memory, but anything that wasn’t somewhat academic? it seemed to go in one ear and out the other. “oh my god, you are so oblivious.” you say it like its simultaneously the sweetest thing ever and the most aggravating thing you’ve ever encountered. it’s both.
just as you wrap your arms around his neck to pull him into a hug, spencer’s hands instinctively reaching out to grip your waist, the door opens. the light blinds you momentarily, before you notice the outline of both a bald-headed man and a shorter woman, with some sort of whimsical hairstyle. you feel like you’ve been caught mid-murder, or at least in a position more compromising than this.
“a-ha! babygirl, you owe me twenty dollars.”
as the two of them walk off bickering back and forth, you slump into spencer’s chest.
tw: anxiety, reader being unable to communicate like a normal person
word count: 981
a/n: this is my first ever full fic so if its awful pls be nice
okay, okay, you can do this. you can do this. you repeat the words to yourself like a mantra all the way from your house to the subway station and now as you walk up the steps into the city. it’s a small city, not really imposing at all to the average citizen going throughout their day. but to you, all your hopes and dreams lie in this city and one particular building. and these hopes and dreams were reliant on the fact that you somehow got your brain to cooperate with you and not turn to mush the second you step foot into the fbi building.
you could take on quantico, virginia. Of course you can. it’s not as big or as imposing as somewhere as new york. you were a grown woman, and not one silly building full of silly fbi agents was going to bring you down.
your words die in your mouth (well, head) when you see the building. It doesn’t even look particularly imposing but seeing it and all it represents in your head, you might as well be staring up at the gates of hell. gulp. you really were a scaredy cat. You try and repeat the mantra that had been keeping you steady all morning, but your legs turn to jelly, and you can feel heat rising as you go up in the elevator.
you go through the motions with your brain turned off. everything is blurry and muffled, and despite the fact you can’t hear a word ssa aaron hotchner is saying, you manage to somehow give perfunctory answers. you’re introduced to the team, you set up your desk, all while your brain is somewhere completely different to your body. it’s only when you go to the break room to make coffee (well, hot chocolate, but nobody needs to know) when you start hearing your thoughts again.
you stare blankly down at the kettle as it whistles, hand automatically going to the locket around your neck. inside is a picture of your kitty, juno. techniclly, your apartment doesn’t allow pets, but juno is good and quiet so your landlord turns a blind eye. feeling the engravings in the locket and the cold metal under your fingertips helps to relax the rapid beating of your heart and the messy thoughts in your head, enough so that your almost calm.
that’s interrupted, however, when a body stands beside you. you hadn’t even heard anyone come in, too focused on calming the pounding in your chest and the margarine threatening to bloom. the person says something, what exactly you don’t know, but you look up with a dazed expression, like a deer in the headlights.
except…the headlights appear to be a very handsome man in a tie with messy hair. oh, right, okay. you don’t know quite what to say, so you continue to blink up at the handsome stranger for multiple seconds too long, forgetting that it’s not exactly socially acceptable to gawk at people. you only remember to talk when he prompts. “hot chocolate?”
okay, so now maybe you feel a tad embarrassed that your making hot chocolate on your first day at work, at the fbi of all things to make matters worse. it’s not even like you just been on a case and seen something traumatic and are now in need of some comfort. no, it’s just been a very trying Monday morning and you can’t deal with forcing down a bitter cup of coffee just to appear mature.
“uhm, yes. hot chocolate. yes.” you can already feel the blush blooming on your cheeks and the sweat beginning to pool in your underarms. you’d managed to go the entire morning (you’ve been here thirty minutes) without doing anything embarrassing, but now once a very cute fbi agent you are simultaneously praying is and isn’t a member of your team decides to talk to you, you can’t manage to answer a simple question.
he smiles awkwardly, already seeing a younger him in you. when he first joined the bau, he felt like he had entered another world and couldn’t quiet grasp the whole conversing thing. but now, years into the job, he was comfortable. he hadn’t changed, no, just became more accepting that he was a little different. “i was nervous when i first joined the bau, don’t worry. it gets a little easier over time.”
you want to crawl up in a whole and die, perish there, and become food for the worms. “i’m not nervous.”. well, that’s very obviously a lie. you were unbelievably nervous you’d think you were up for the death penalty rather than just a first day. what you meant was, you weren’t shy. and you weren’t, not really. you could be as loud and as confident as the rest of the team when you were comfortable. what you weren’t good at was the being loud and confident around strangers and becoming comfortable took longer than it did for most.
you curse yourself again. why are you arguing with the cute agent? it’s like your brain wants to embarrass yourself, like it’s setting you up for failure. he looks even more awkward and, god, you’d do anything to go back in time and not be so defensive. and maybe change into a different blouse. you’re rethinking it all.
“okay,” he just nods, finishing making his coffee whilst you just stand there staring into your empty cup, the bottom filled with light brown powder. he starts to leave and your about to scream into your hands, but his words interrupt you before you can start. “uh, i’m spencer, by the way.” then he’s gone.
that evening, your curled up in bed with juno, another hot chocolate steaming on the side table, journal sat open in your lap.
met a cute boy. embarrassed myself in front of him. great day
tw: alcohol, reader being awkward (who could've guessed), use of 'y/n' (im so sorry)
word count: 1689
if you were to have one fatal flaw, it would be this; the somewhat obsessive, borderline concerning need to keep yourself to yourself.
it had been a running theme throughout your childhood, into your youth and now into your adulthood. you just couldn’t seem to get yourself to put yourself out there and try to make friends. it wasn’t for lack of desire, no. in fact, you spent most nights pacing your apartment, wondering what it was that made you so scared to just walk up to someone and say hi. you actually cried over it, often. you really, really wanted friends, but somehow you couldn’t pluck up the courage to try, and when you did, it typically resulted in you embarrassing yourself or accidently insulting someone.
a few months had passed since you joined the bau, and whilst you had started getting comfortable in the office (you’d finally allowed yourself to take a handful of sylvanian families to decorate your desk with, along with a framed picture of juno), it was the conversing thing that you couldn’t quite wrap your head around.
when it came to cases, you could comfortably make an assessment about an unsub or discuss theories with the team, but when it came to the jet back from whatever city you’d been sent to? it’s like you lost the ability to speak entirely.
“y/n!” you hear a cheery voice that can only belong to one penelope garcia, the sound of her kitten heels clicking against the floor as she practically skips to catch up with you. if anyone, its garcia who you’ve gotten closest too, mostly because she won’t stop until you have matching tattoos (at least, you assume from how persistent she’s been). you bonded on your mutual love of trinkets and cardigans. “are you coming out with us? pretty please! i’ll buy you a pina colada.”
you almost say yes. you want to say yes. but something in your mind is screaming, ‘go home, where its comfortable, where its safe. nothing can go wrong at home’. the ache in your chest that appears every time you reject someones kindness and regret it is already blooming, even before the words leave your mouth. “y…es.”
the words leave you before you can even comprehend what you’re saying. ‘i said yes?’. it’s like the first day again, when your mouth worked without consulting your brain and just gave whatever answer seemed acceptable.
okay, you can work with this. it doesn’t matter that juno is at home, probably wondering where you are, and you have a book you’re itching to continue reading on your nightstand, because apparently, you’re being social tonight. you’re going to drink a fruity drink with a little cocktail umbrella and laugh at jokes that aren’t funny and it will be wonderful. hopefully.
everything blurs around you to the point where you don’t know who said what or what you’re drinking, and it has become your natural response to just laugh absently, everyone else having too good a time to notice.
the bar is too full, someone apparently forgot to wear deodorant today, and spencer reid is far too charming, especially when he explains the scientific reason alcohol makes you warm (because it causes vasodilation, a process where blood vessels near the skins surface expand until and fill with warm blood, stimulating heat-sensitive nerves, giving a sensation of warmth), which you won’t remember in the morning. you’re not even drunk; you’d ordered the virgin pina colada because the idea of getting drunk and embarrassing yourself in front of a group of people you hardly knew wasn’t exactly appealing.
it’s just spencer, and you know it. seeing someone so enthusiastic and nerdy and endearing is making your body react in ways you hadn’t before. you’d never really had a crush before. the guys you went to school with weren’t exactly the kindest and it’s not like you’d ever really put yourself out there before. it’s probably like that baby duck things, where they open their eyes for the first time and attach themselves to the first person they see.
but spencer’s not talking to you anymore, he’s talking animatedly to a group of girls about, i don’t know, quantum physics or something, and you’re staring like a big creep from your perch in the booth, that had since been abandoned by the rest of the team in lieu of dancing to bad music or playing darts.
“you should just talk to him, you know.” garcia slurs, sliding into the booth next to you, her drink sloshing over the side of the glass and onto your jeans, but you don’t say anything. “he’s, like, the sweetest ever and you’re totally his type.”
“i don’t know what you’re talking about.” you mumble, head ducked and hair falling down Infront of your face like a shield, a loose thread on your sleeve is suddenly very interesting.
“you always stare at him when you’re supposed to be going over files, and your feet are always pointing towards him.” she continues, ignoring your words. “apparently that’s a sign you like someone.”
again, you stay quiet, whilst that loose thread unravels. “he stares at you too, you know.” the peeks your attention, but you train your expression to remain neutral, beside from the blush increasing on the apples of your cheeks. “he thinks you’re angry with him, for some reason.”
you think back to that day in the break room, the way you’d been so unresponsive and defensive for no reason, nerves getting the better of you. that day is seared into your memory, and you wish it would just disappear. just then, you picture how he offered you a smile later in the day, and rather than just returning the gesture like a normal human, you looked down and continued to write down nonsense into your file.
the cold air is a welcome change to the sweaty warmth of the bar. you take deep breaths, rubbing your eyes as you try and wake yourself up some more. it doesn’t seem like the team plan on leaving anytime soon, and since you’d just finished a case and now have a few days off work, they have no real reason too. garcia, jj, and emily seem determined to tackle the entire cocktail menu.
your peace is interrupted when you hear the squeak of the door, and the drag of steps that abruptly stop when you lift your head and meant the mystery humans eyes. oh, of course, spencer reid. for some reason, just the sight of him causes your face to flush. guess that’s just the way it’s going to be from now on.
“oh. I didn’t see you leave.” he says, voice sleepy and soft, not slurred and shouty like the rest of the team. it’s an instant balm to the tension in your back from contending with unfamiliar drunk people for the last two hours. is that seriously all its been?
“it was getting a bit hot in there. needed some fresh air.” you shrug, fiddling with your fingers to distract from the intensity of being forced to make eye contact with what might be the world’s most beautiful man.
“are you leaving?”
“i think so.” you nod, eyes uncertain and searching his as if you’re looking for permission.
“you came in with garcia, right? do you have a ride home?” he asks, looking at you so intently that it seems as if he has known you for years rather than just a few weeks.
“i was just planning on getting the subway back.” you nod, trying to smile, but it comes out as awkward as you feel.
his eyebrows furrow in concern, agent hat right back on. “what? no. its late, that’s unsafe.” he says with a tone of such finality that you can’t find yourself to argue. “i can give you a ride home, if youd like?”
always the gentleman. god, spencer reid, i can’t handle this.
“you weren’t drinking?”
“i had an arnold palmer.” for some reason, the thought of him drinking an arnold palmer was adorable to you, because apparently everything this man did was endearing.
and so, that’s how you ended up in spencer reid’s car. the radio is set to the classical section, and you can’t help but notice the way his fingers tap on the steering wheel along to the beat. other than that, the ride is quiet, and the air is thick. rather than trying to fill that silence with conversation, even if it was (god forbid) small talk, you make yourself as small as possible in the passenger seat and stare into the sky (well, at first you stared at the delightful curve of his nose, but he titled his head and you wanted to curl up and die at the realisation that you’d been caught staring).
once you arrive at your apartment, spencer insists on walking you up, despite your assurances that you’ll be fine on your own. you feel like you’re walking home from a first date, with how awkward you both are. you’re still playing with your fingers with your head bowed, watching as your feet go up the steps one by one, whilst spencer hunches his shoulders in what seems to be an attempt to make himself smaller. each creek of the steps makes the silence even louder.
“thank you…for walking me home.” you manage to say. well done me, you think, you can converse like a normal person on occasion. point to me.
“no problem, it was nice seeing you. tonight. out. you don’t usually come.”
it takes everything in you not to be defensive, to fight your cause. you know nothing good will come from it, so you just nod. “yeah, i know. maybe i’ll come more often.” and by ‘often’ you mean ‘maybe annually’.
you both nod, and you fumble with your keys, awkward eye contact maintained until you enter your apartment and close the door, which you then slump against, your curious cat tilting her head not only at your late arrival but the flush on your cheeks.
tw: use of y/n, nudity (non-sexual, non-consensual), bullying, humiliation, insecurity (body), think I swore once of twice, spencer being a little creepy kinda
word count: 2269
a/n: I hate this. also I was inspired by another author but I cant for the life of me find their fic
spencer reid was a certified people watcher.
despite being a virtual ghost in the eyes of the rest of the school, he knew each and every name of every student that attended it. seriously, put a yearbook in front of him, face without their names, and he could pinpoint each and every one with not so much as a stutter.
not to make him sound like a creep, oh no. it was simply a biproduct of being a complete and total loser.
spencer spent most of his free time at school tucked away in the library, shoulders hunched as he crunched through as many books as the hour break he had would let him.
he even ate his lunch there.
on his first day, he tried sitting in the cafeteria with everyone else, but some jock at least two years his senior threw a panini right at his head, mayo splattering against his glasses. it was sad how quickly labels were assigned and people were sorted into their stations in the hierarchy of high school.
after that day, little fourteen year old spencer retreated to the safety of the library, where he could eat his lunch and read his books in blissful silence.
established in his role of ‘dork’, spencer became accustomed to watching rather than speaking. the days passed in a flurry of teenagers, talking about the parties they were invited too and who was hooking up with who, whilst spencer simply watched and kept a record of every single incident, his stubborn brain refusing to let them go.
some people found it creepy, how he knew every single name whilst never actually speaking to these people he seemed to know so intimately. what they didn’t know was that it was hard to do anything but know these people when nobody ever tried to know him.
but out of everyone he knew, he knew you the best.
you’d transferred to his school midway through second year, and were assigned the seat next to him in science. the rest of the class chuckled in sympathy, pitying you for having to sit next to nerdy, creepy spencer reid, who was too smart and too pedantic for his own good.
you, however, seemed to be oblivious of the very obvious social hierarchy that had been established long before your time, smiling at spencer the way you did with every other person.
that was probably a mistake.
because poor spencer hadn’t been given so much as a kind gesture for over a year. and that tiny little meaningless gesture meant the world to him.
from then, he’d been on your like a moth to a flame. well, kind of.
he observed you with more intent that he ever had with the rest of his peers, keeping a mental note of the days you came in beaming, and the days your smile seemed to drop. by your first month here, he had memorised your schedule and known you better than any of your friends whilst having little more than a polite conversation with you.
he thought you were perfect, from the way your hair seemed to effortlessly fall over your shoulder and how your eyes glistened in the sun.
your one flaw, he observed, was your friends.
unfortunately, you had fallen in with a group of less than kind people. to your oblivion, they often found themselves picking on the less popular kids and being all around dicks to everybody, but acting like regular, nice people around you. maybe they just liked taking advantage of your naivety and assumption in the good of all people.
it was today, however, that these people became real and more than just characters in his memory. he was, as usual, sitting in the library, entertaining himself with some light reading (i.e. war and peace), when harper hillman approaches him. he was already shocked that someone as popular as harper would come up to him, but even more so at the sight of seeing her in a library. “hi spencer.”
she sits down, as if she’s been invited too and not just interrupted his lunch, looking straight at him with purpose, her false politeness covering up a mischievous gleam behind her eyes. looking back, spencer probably should’ve noticed that.
“hi.” he peeps out, his voice barely more than a whisper, hoarse and a little croaky, to his embarrassment.
“how are you?” she keeps going with this façade of kindness, revelling in spencer’s nerves and obvious discomfort.
“i’m…fine.” his tone is laced with suspicion, shoulders hunching to make himself smaller.
“good.” she nods, fake smile gleaming, “so, you know y/n?”
he flushes a little at your name. it’s embarrassing how so little as your name reduces him to a blushing, stuttering mess. “yeah.” he nods, trying to think of anything else to cool his face down.
“well, she told me to tell you to meet her out by the football field.”
“what? why?”
“she wants to talk to you. just go, okay? she really wanted to see you.”
spencer can feel it as he stands up, the joke building, the humiliation foreboding. but something keeps his legs moving, all the way to the football field. his imagination is filled with images of you, sweet as ever, stood in the late afternoon sun, waiting for him with that lovely smile of yours. no matter his worries of it being some joke, of being bullied yet again, it all falls short at the possibility of you actually waiting for him.
but when he reaches the field, he doesn’t see you. instead, he’s met with what seems to be at least half the football team, along with a few of your female friends.
“hey, reid.” one of them says, tone laced with amusement.
“what…i don’t..” but he does know, he can see it in there smiles. well, smirks. he can see so plainly that this is yet another set up to humiliate him. he doesn’t know why he hadn’t realised, so blinded by the image of you that he couldn’t see what was right in front of him.
they grab him then, and he clenches his eyes shut and just waits for the beating. he takes one punch to the face before it all properly starts. it was a feeling he hadn’t been used to. the single mercy of being beaten up was that he’d experienced it before and the feeling was something he was familiar with, something he had become so accustomed to that it never felt as bad as the first time.
instead, he can feel them pulling at his clothes, dragging him to something until he can feel the sting of a metal pole against his back. he doesn’t even try to fight as they tie his hands behind his wrists, keeping his trapped against the goal post, focusing all of his attention of not letting the tears welling in his eyes fall. spencer was far used to being bullied, humiliated, that he had realised that dignity wasn’t lost in the beatings, the bruises they left, and the laughs from the onlookers. dignity was only lost when you let them know that it was getting to you.
the laughing is too much though, a heavy weight on his chest, reminding him of his stupidity. he let his crush on you, his stupid, built on nothing crush, lead him into yet another embarrassment that could’ve been avoided.
“let’s just hope y/n doesn’t see you like this, genius.” he can tell by the cruel tone of his voice and the harsh pat of his shoulder, that you would 100% see him like this. that’s when he lets his dignity slip.
he starts begging, not even entirely knowing what he’s saying, just pleading to be given his clothes back and set free. that just makes them laugh more.
if he wasn’t humiliated enough, that’s when he hears your confused giggle.
blindfolded and being guided by harper, you giggle obliviously as you stumble forward. “harper, what’s going on? what’s the surprise?”
“just wait, you’ll love it. i promise.”
your so blinded by your loyalty and affection for your friend, that you’re completely stunned when the blindfold drops. your blood runs cold, and your smile drops.
the first thing you see is spencer, hopelessly writhing against the goal post in a futile attempt to free himself. then, all you see is the sweet boy from science class who always helped you when you didn’t understand, who had never hurt anyone, who was so plainly innocent that he was the perfect target for cruelty. you just never assumed your friends would be the ones to enact such cruelty.
your friends only stop laughing when you stop moving.
“wait- what are you doing?” one of them asks, but you’re so laser focused on getting him free that you don’t even take notice.
you shrug off your jacket, and cover him the best you can with it, before turning back to your friends. “leave.” your voice is colder than you’ve ever heard it, firm and direct. in truth, you feel like crying for the poor boy, but you need them to know that this isn’t a joke, not to you.
“what?” harper spits, sounding genuinely confused as to why you aren’t thanking them for whatever this is. “y/n, we did this for you!”
“i don’t care, just leave!”
that does it. they’ve never seen you anything but pleasant and aimable, and so they take one last look, before stalking off the field.
you turned back to spencer, and see his lip quivering.
“okay, im going to get you off, okay? i won’t look, i promise.” your voice is back to its soft, sweet normality, just tinged with a little sadness and a little anger. you cover your eyes with your hand to give him a little more comfort.
you work at the ropes for what feels like forever, feeling spencer shake beside you as he doesn’t say a single word. but you eventually do free him, scampering to gather his clothes for him, and turning around as he changes.
“im done.” he says once he’s finished, and you turn around to see him. his clothes are smothering his mud from the wet field, and they look a little crumpled. he looks even worse. his eyes are bloodshot, staring down at the floor, shoulders hunched around himself to make him smaller.
you look at him for a second, and you start to feel yourself tear up. but you won’t cry. it’s not like his pity will make you feel any better. “i’m really sorry.” your voice cracks.
he just looks at you for a second, not really knowing what to say. “i…it’s not your fault.”
“i’m still sorry. i didn’t know,” you continue, the words spilling out of you. “if i did, i-…i would’ve tried to stop them. i’m really so, so sorry, spencer.”
he’s rendered speechless, and you feel a little bashful having him just stand there and stare at you like that, like you’ve grown two heads. you sway on your feet, waiting for him to say something or do something, but he never does, just keeps staring at you, and so you try and fill the noise. “um…do you have a ride home? can i drive you?”
he looks a little stunned for a second, but nods. “sure, if it’s not too much to ask.” he peeps out, tone awkward and uncertain.
“you didn’t ask. i offered.” you correct, beginning to walk, assuming he’s walking with you, but when you turn back to look, he’s rooted in place. “come on, spence.”
the nickname throws him for a second, before scampering to walk in tow with you. the walk to the parking lot is a little awkward. spencer’s mind is filled with the anxiety over the knowledge that you’ve seen him naked, with his scrawny legs and skinny ribs. he’d always been insecure about his body. he knew he wasn’t buff and athletic like some of the other guys at school, who’d you been seen with from time to time. it was bad enough the concept of you seeing him without the shield of his clothes. he’d never expected you actually ever see him like that.
he feels like he’s seen heaven when he sees your car, a little pink volkswagen beetle. the pair of you get in, and you immediately turn up the heat. you’d seen spencer shivering as the pair of you walked up.
the radio starts, playing your previously set station; 60s. he’d noticed you around the halls with your Walkman, but he’d never gotten close enough to hear whatever you were playing. turns out, you were a beatle-head.
the ride is silent, except for the low buzz of the car, the radio humming and spencer mumbling the directions to his house. you pull up to a small house, not far from your own, and still the car. spencer doesn’t move.
“thank you.” he says, finally breaking the silence. his voice is a little steadier, but there’s still a subtle shake and a quietness.
“of course, spencer. you don’t have to thank me.”
he nods, not saying anything. he then reaches for the door, but you put a hand on his arm to stop him.
he looks at you curiously, eyebrows slightly raised, big puppy eyes filled with confusion.
you lean forward, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. “bye. ill see you tomorrow, okay?”
he just nods, throat closed, mouth dry, the apples of his cheeks turning red. he stumbles out of the car, looking back once and waving, before going inside.
tw: use of y/n (only once im sorry), shit writing, sad puppy baby spence, insecurity
word count: 1855
spencer reid was evil. you were sure of it.
his existence had to be some kind of practical joke, sent from your friends to mock your need to be the smartest in every room. or perhaps a punishment from god, for your pride.
and as you stand there, staring at him as he introduces himself to the team. well, everyone except you. you stay firmly rooted to your place leaning against your desk, cup of coffee in hand, trying to decipher the new guy. you’d heard from hotch that he was brilliant, supposedly, with an iq of 186 and three PhD’s by the age of 22. and quickly, your pride is replaced with envy.
as accomplished as you were, you couldn’t top him. you were about a year and a half older, and were only midway through completing your second doctorate, this one in psychology, but your first being in english literature. whilst you loved saying “that didn’t happen in the book” or seeing the impressed look on people’s faces when you told them you studied literature, it wasn’t particularly handy in your field.
meaning, doctor reid with his doctorates in mathematics, chemistry and engineering, as well as BAs in psychology, sociology and philosophy meant that he had the upper hand. plus, that stupid eidetic memory of his. and he was younger than you.
it filled you up with an unbridled, all-consuming rage. you’d had academic rivals in the past, mainly in school, but it had never felt quite like this. at school, nobody cared if you got an a- or, god forbid, a b rather than an a. but here, at the bau, when you’d already established yourself as the brain box of the group, there was nothing more humiliating than getting knocked down a peg by someone younger.
apparently, your staring is palpable, because he turns his head and meets your eyes, despite still being engaged in conversation with the rest of the team. he smiles awkwardly, and you hate him even more for how endearing it is, how it makes you want to wrap him up in a blanket and protect him from all the horrors of the bau. you genuinely question whether he meant to sign up for this, whether he knew what he was getting himself into. you wonder if he’s ever actually seen a gun before. his sweater vest and satchel say otherwise.
“y/l/n” hotch calls, gesturing you over so you can no longer avoid interacting with who you’re sure will be your mortal enemy. you reluctantly walk over. “i’d like to introduce you to ssa spencer reid-“
“dr reid.” gideon interrupts, and whilst you know he doesn’t mean to, all it does is rub in how much smarter he is in comparsion to you.
you stick out your hand, begrudgingly.
but he doesn’t return the gesture.
“the number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering. it’s actually safer to kiss.” he says, reciting the fact as if he’d said it a million times over, adjusting the strap of his satchel.
your hand falls back to your side and you stare at him blankly. yet another endearing thing to make you hate him. this has to be a record for how quickly someone can detest a person they’ve just met.
spencer had been there over a month and you still didn’t like him.
it wasn’t a spit-in-his-coffee, tie-his-shoelaces-together kind of dislike, but it was close.
rather than greeting him in the mornings like you did the rest of the team or ever engage in conversation that wasn’t entirely professional or ever even look at him.
okay, except for maybe when he worked at the blackboard during a case, or worked on a case file, or did anything in concentration. somehow, you were entranced by him, and the way his tie is perpetually crooked, or how his glasses slide down his nose, or how his legs are just so long and lanky he doesn’t quite know what to do with them.
there’s a small part of you, buried deep inside of your gut, that feels a warmth for him. it’s not the typical burning you got when you felt jealous. it was cozy warm, like a mug of hot chocolate on a snowy day. and it stunned you, practically paralysed you, with the confusion of it all.
you hated spencer reid, that was certain. there was no debating that. the blushing and the butterflies and the obsessive staring was just a new development of your hatred. it had to be, there was no other plausible explanation.
spencer, on the other hand, was completely confuddled as to why you hadn’t been as friendly as the rest of the team, especially since you seemed to get along so well with everyone else. everyone but him.
he supposed he should feel used to people not liking him by now. growing up as a prodigal genius should’ve made him more used to judgement or distaste. people often saw his intellect and his assured nature as arrogance and assumed he thought he was better than those around him. and, yes, whilst he was comfortable sharing his knowledge, that was about the only area where he was comfortable with himself. he should be used to the judgement and the ridicule and the bullying, but apparently, he wasn’t.
and it wasn’t even that you had been rude. you’d been polite, friendly even, but he could tell that behind your eyes and behind your genteel nature, there was something about him that you did not like.
what he didn’t seem to realise was that it had very little to do with him and much more to do with you.
it was 9pm and you were still in the office. everyone else had already left except, you guessed it, dr spencer reid. you’d actually finished filling out your paperwork about an hour ago, but when it was clear he wasn’t going anywhere, you decided you weren’t either.
except, you’re getting tired and the fluorescent lights of your computer screen are practically burning your eyes. so, regrettably, you pack your stuff up, listening to the irritating scratch of spencer’s pen against his file. the good doctor was apparently a luddite and refused to use anything electronic. well, except his phone, but that was because it was practically impossible to live in the modern world without it.
you stalk your way to the elevator, and as you wait, impatiently, for it to reach your level, you feel the presence of another body appear next to you. you don’t have to look to know who it is, you can practically feel the superiority radiating off of him.
even being next to him evokes that pitiful burning in the pit of your stomach, and your skin feel like its crawling with a hundred tiny maggots, and all of it encompassed by an overriding feeling of not enough.
and that feeling makes you feel all the more pathetic.
you’d proved yourself, you knew you had. you were the first in your family to attend university, top of your class, you had a PhD. but something about the genius beside you, with his clueless superiority and arrogance, made it all seem like it was worthless.
and maybe, worse than anything, was that he really wasn’t arrogant. despite being the smartest in almost every room he walked in, he never entered it with an air of pretence or superciliousness. he constantly had people underestimate him and was always trying to prove himself. a part of you wished he thought more of himself, thought himself better than he was, so at least then you’d have a genuine flaw to point out, to make yourself feel better in the face of all of his accomplishments.
but his perfection, in every aspect of his life, was a slap in the face.
because despite your intellect, you were deeply flawed; insecure, jealous, petty. you had to live with all of that imperfection, whilst he traversed life flawlessly.
“the elevator’s taking a while to arrive.” he breaks the awkward silence, that always seems to form whenever it’s just the two of you, especially without a case to fill the empty space.
“yep.”
he just nods slowly, taking the hint that you have zero interest in conversing with him, but still feels a little ache in his chest from his lack of understanding as to why you couldn’t simply hold of polite conversation with him the way you did the rest of the team.
luckily, the elevator hears your prayers of escape and appears the very next second, and the two of you enter. unfortunately, you just feel claustrophobic, trapped in this tiny box with him.
the pair of you are silent the entire ride down, until you stop outside, surprised to see the streets splattered with rain. it seems the pair of you had been too consumed with your work to notice the outside world.
spencer decides this is the perfect time to approach you about his concerns, watching as you fumble to get your umbrella out of your bag.
“this might be inappropriate, but i have a question.” he says, his innocence being painfully endearing to you. “have i…done something? to upset you, i mean.”
you should’ve known this day would eventually come. you should’ve rehearsed the perfect response, the perfect explanation as to why you treated him painfully similarly to how you treated unsubs. but you didn’t, you couldn’t come up with any plausible explanation as to why you couldn’t just be polite to the poor guy.
“i-…” you think for a second, and a second more, watching as the rain splatters down onto the pavement. “no, reid, you haven’t done anything.” you say, because really what other answer is there?
“so why do you treat the rest of the team so differently than me?”
“i don’t treat you any differently. you’re just new, i suppose.” but that was hardly a fair response. he’d been at the bau months now, he had become a regular fixture in your day to day, so that excuse just fell flat and you knew it.
“y/n.” he says it with that infuriatingly endearing tilt of his head, tilting his head like a puppy. but his tone, so knowing and so certain, just reminds you of how much you envy him. you had never been certain about a thing, and him feeling certain about you after just months of knowing you enraged you, for reasons you couldn’t truly understand.
“i have to go, reid. have a nice evening.” you say with that polite tone, that is obviously covering up some kind of blatant dislike, and walk off into the rain, heels clacking against the pavement, umbrella still lost in the bottom of your bag.
and he stands there, his hair getting wet, adjusting the straps of his satchel the way he always does when he feels lost and unwanted. seeing you practically run into the rain, soaking yourself, pinches his heart, because he knows what that means. that you’d rather soak yourself to the skin that stay with him for a minute more.
not because he didn't want to come home, of course not, but because of how tired he became.
the second the final night ended, his shoulders would sag with sleepiness, his head would pound and his back would ache like he was a 60 year old man rather than in his twenties.
he hated the screaming, and the airports and the long, tediousness of it all. it made him feel all icky and as if his body was collapsing on itself.
but more than anything, he hated being away from his baby. and you, of course.
at every free moment, he would flick to the photo in his wallet, a little snap of the three of you; his wife, his baby girl and him. he'd drag his thumb over it, as if he could reach out and feel the plush, soft warmth of her skin, smell her sleepy scent, listen to her giggle. she giggled at anything, and he'd pay inordinate amounts of money to hear it, just for a second.
the journey just amplified that longing. every little thing seemed to take ten times longer with the anticipation of seeing the pair of you. going through security, sitting in the lounge, going through the passport check, it all felt like it took years, especially when knowing you were on the other side of that border.
he had even considered bringing you both along for tours, just to save him that yearning. but he ultimately decided against it, as to not uproot your life and stability, and to save himself the teasing he'd undoubtedly get from john.
so it meant he'd just have to suffer for however many weeks he was away, staring at that photo as if it was responsible for both his suffering and all of his joy.
but there was truly no better feeling than this.
he got out of the car with a thump, trudging his way to the front door with his suitcase rolling behind him, guitar slung over his shoulder, feeling like it weighed 300 pounds. the weight of everything bared on his shoulders, he felt as though the feeling might never go away, no matter how many hours of sleep he got or how long he rested between tours.
but opening the door to the smell of home (or in this case, garlic), and the sound giggling slowly getting louder, all of his troubles seemed to disappear. "daddy!" that little voice yells, and round the corner, there she is, voice as sweet as ever and his chest just warms.
she's exactly the same as he remembers; brown hair in tendrils, eyes glittering with childlike innocent, giggling like just the sight of him is funny. her features are so soft, not yet hard and set like his own, and the desire to reach out and squish that tender skin is almost irresistible.
"hi, sweetheart." he lets out a huff of air as she launches herself at him, stumbling back onto the floor dramatically. he's quick to bundle her in his arms, listening to her incoherent babbles of missing him so much. "you did? oh, well i think i missed you more."
his grin only widens at her protest, her angry, furrowed eyebrows as she argues that there's no way that he could've missed her more than she missed him. to silence her grumbles, he leans forward and presses kisses and blows into her neck, a familiar remedy to her grumpiness, usually resulting in her laughter. and, like usual, she erupts in giggles, argument forgotten.
once he's certain she's all tickled out, he pulls back and gazes at her with a look so fond its almost sickening. "now, where's mommy? you've been good for her, i hope."
"in the kitchen!" she hops to her feet, grabbing his finger in her tiny hand to pull him along. "im helping her make tea." she says proudly, marching towards the kitchen, the smell of garlic and tomatoes growing stronger.
and there you stand, your back facing the doorway, as you stir a pot of sauce, half-listening to the radio blare. the scene, so normal, so domestic, warms his heart so much more that he doesn't think he can take it.
"mommy!" your baby cries, and you turn around before he can sneak up on you.
for a second, he sees the tiredness in your eyes, that engrained, undeniable exhaustion that seems to have seeped into your bones. but it all disappears when your eyes land on him.
instead, they light up with that soft excitement that's reminiscent of the early days of your relationship. in that, he's sent back to when he was younger and every time you spoke his heart would race and your cheeks would flush with bashfulness.
that feeling, now more settled, always returns when he hasn't seen you in a while, and it makes all those weeks away worth it.
"george-!" your voice is soft and breathy and excitement, and he feels an urge to fall to his knees and worship you to his dying days. you hadn't expected him home, evident but the sweet surprise on your face, and he love that he still gets these moments to shock you.
he momentarily forgets your daughter as he comes up beside you, his hand cupping the back of your head as he leans down and presses a kiss to your temple. "hello, love." his words, short and sweet, make your stomach do flips and your embarrassed by how much you feel like a teenager again.
"still a man of many words i see." you manage to quip, before he folds you into his arms, hand still cradling his head, and you tuck yourself into his chest, arms wrapping around him.
you stand like that for who knows how long, george pressing kisses to your head so much he feels like he can never stop.
the pair of you are only brought our of that trance, when george feels a soft but insistent tugging of his trousers. "hm?" he lifts his head just enough to see her, arms still cradling you. he wants to be annoyed, but looking at her big eyes that are a reflection of your own, he just can't.
"daddy!" her voice is whiny and she's glaring up at the pair of you.
"what's wrong, honey?"
she mumbles incoherently, but her whiny tone is enough to prove that you've somehow committed a great atrocity against her.
"oh, i think someones jealous." he coos, tone teasing as he kneels down so he can scoop her up. she babbles about how she isn't, but a kiss to the cheek silences her complaints.
the rest of the evening is domestic bliss.
george helps making dinner. well, as much as he can with your toddler clinging to him. you sit and eat dinner in front of the television, until she falls asleep on his chest, drool soaking a patch in his shirt. he relishes the simple, mundane nature of tucking her into bed, brushing the messy tendrils and pressing a kiss between her eyebrows
when he finally gets to bed, you're half asleep, and he sees so much of his daughter in you. your lips form the same sleepy pout, and his heart aches with love. he almost feels nauseous from the overwhelming adoration he feels for you and the little family you've created.
he gets into his pyjamas almost silently, pulling back the covers and sliding in beside you. he leans over, kissing between your brows, staring down at you until the sleep consumes him also.
tw: use of y/n (im sorry), use of the word shit once I think, not proofread, spencer being a bit of a loser honestly, papa gideon, insecurity, Beatles mentioned (I couldn't help myself sorry)
word count: 2890
a/n: part 2 to this post! but can be read as a standalone
things had been extra tense with you and spencer since last week.
luckily, you’d had the weekend to decompress and procrastinate the inevitable awkwardness that was to come when you returned to work.
but that also meant you had an entire 48 hours to relive the entire conversation, wallowing in your own embarrassment for the way you had responded to what was just an honest, genuine question. his actions weren’t out of cruelty or to make you feel awkward, and you responded like a stray dog, with your teeth bared to disguise the vulnerability that was suddenly thrust upon you.
you’d hoped he would just forget about it, move on and busy himself with something more interesting, like reading crime and punishment again, presumably.
but the damned eidetic memory.
you knew, in the back of your mind, that he was sat in his apartment going through every single word and movement, exactly the way you were now.
the entire thing had sent him back to his adolescence, to the days when he was isolated from his peers, laughed at as he cowered in corners, completely oblivious as to why people didn’t like him. it was a feeling that had never fully left him, that sense of ‘other’, the little worm in his brain whispering that he’ll never be accepted or liked the way everyone else did, that he needed to prepare for a life of loneliness because the simple fact was that his personality wasn’t compatible with the rest of the world.
and whilst he knew how that that feeling was irrational and born out of teenage angst rather than reality, it would occasionally arise in moments like this, when people seemed to isolate him for seemingly no reason whatsoever. he’d gone through every single interaction the pair of you had since he joined the bau, from that very first handshake to you walking away in the rain. he analysed every miniscule detail, trying to uncover the reason behind your blatant dislike of him. had he accidentally shoved you? or stole your seat on the jet? not to his knowledge, and he had every single memory locked in his brain, ready to be relived.
he'd tried discussing it with morgan before, trying to see if he knew something spencer didn’t. he thought that maybe, since the pair of you were so close, you had confided in morgan about why you seemed to offer him no grace, why you looked at him with distaste hidden behind a veneer of politeness.
“i think you’re overthinking this, man.” morgan says, only half paying attention as he stirs his coffee. “you’re just new. she was like this with everyone when she first joined, just a little cold”
but spencer wasn’t convinced. maybe it was arrogant of him to assume it had something to do with him, but he couldn’t see what else it could be. he saw the way your shoulders tensed when he entered the room, or how you did anything in your power to avoid partnering with him on cases.
there was something about him that you just didn’t like, and he couldn’t quite figure out what.
despite the fact that it was right in front of him.
it was ironic, honestly, that such a smart man would be so blind to something that was honestly quite obvious. his entire job was understanding people, yet he couldn’t understand someone who was right beside him.
when he walked into the bullpen on monday, seeing you sat at your desk, your head not even looking up when he enters the room, he feels a little tinge, and any courage he had about approaching you to cool the air disappeared in an instant.
you were sat with that firm, borderline murderous look you had when you weren’t in a particularly good mood, and he decided that he might just burst into a puff of smoke if you so much as looked at him.
so he speedily passed your desk, making his way over to his and just committing to his work, doing anything in his power to preoccupy himself. it was, both luckily and unluckily, a very boring, uneventful day, most of it spent at his desk going through page after page of tedious paperwork and innumerable cups of coffee.
luckily for spencer, however, that meant he could sneak off to have a little heart to heart with gideon.
whilst he wasn’t usually good with expressing anything remotely emotional, he justified it by convincing himself it was simply him wanting to be a good coworker, not him being a little butthurt that the pretty girl who also happened to be a genius did not seem to have any interest whatsoever in interacting with him.
truthfully, spencer being so committed to becoming friends with you was rooted in so much more than just a response from his childhood bullying. as arrogant as it made sound, he wants to talk to someone on a similar intellectual level to him. that’s not to say he doesn’t appreciate the other friendships he has, but instead that he simply wants someone to nerd out with.
he's so used to the empty stares whenever he discusses quantum physics or people finding any excuse on the planet to avoid conversing with him, and he thought you were finally his opportunity to have someone who was just as interested in everything under the sun as he was.
when he heard about you in advance of joining the team, he’d done a little research. on the entire team, mind you, he wasn’t some creep. when he found out of your intellect and academic achievement, as well as some personal anecdotes from gideon about your dorkiness, he felt a little thrill in his chest. he felt giddy, practically on cloud nine, knowing that he was about to meet someone who might match him, who might finally understand him.
so when you met his enthusiasm with a cold politeness, he felt the rainbow above his head turn very quickly into a raincloud.
he feels a little silly, knocking on gideon’s door like a little kid who fell out with his friend, but he’s exhausted all of his options. “come in.”
gideon isn’t even working. instead, he’s watching charlie chaplin because of course he is.
“is this a bad time?” spencer asks a little sheepishly, head poking out from behind the door.
gideon shakes his head, mumbling a ‘no’, and pausing his tape. “what’s up, kid?”
spencer shuffles inside, closing the door, and taking the seat opposite him. “i just wanted to ask you something. and it might be stupid.”
“no questions a stupid question. go ahead.”
spencer runs his sweaty hands across his corduroy trousers, mentally preparing himself for asking something that feels so…adolescent.
“i..i had just noticed that, and i may be wrong, but i think y/n may have some sort of a, uh, problem with me.” his words come with an awkward stammer and shake, and he can feel himself heating up at it.
gideon looks at him for just longer than a second, then tilts his head. “i think you should probably already know the answer to that.”
“i should?”
“you’re a profiler, spencer.”
“i-i know,” he stammers. “but i don’t really profile the people around me.”
gideon sighs, like the answer should be right in front of him, but takes some pity. he always knew spencer had struggled socially, he could tell just by looking at him. spencer had always stood like he was taking up too much space, trying to shrink his lanky frame and stifle any sort of unconventional characteristic he had. he was the epitome of awkwardness.
“i’ll tell you, but it doesn’t leave this office, okay?”
you had started off at the bau a similar way to spencer. gideon had read an article you’d written on behavioural psychology or something of the sort and scouted you out. you were still at university at the time, completing your first PhD, and were a little stunned to be being approached by such a revered fbi agent. you were hesitant, originally wanting to become a journalist or perhaps a professor, but gideon managed to convince you that your intellect could be put to better use. it was like he knew, from the very first day, how much you could be convinced to do under the guise of bettering your brains.
and so, he was quite loyal to you in that way, having seen you grow from a little sprout just trying to prove yourself, to a fully-fledged member of the bau.
once spencer nods, he begins.
“as tough and assured as she seems, she’s actually very insecure.”
spencer is stunned, but doesn’t interrupt.
“she’s constantly second guessing herself, and is still trying to prove herself despite the fact that she’s well respected here.” he continues. “she doesn’t believe in herself. no matter how much she achieves or any amount of praise she receives, she is still convinced there is more she can do.”
“and you threaten her.”
gideon’s met with furrowed brows and spencer’s mouth agape. “i threaten her?”
“yes, spencer, you do.” he confirms. “you’re not even 30, and you exceed the entire bau with your intellect, and have achieved so much already. and whilst she too has achieved so much for such a young woman, you achieving more is seen as competition to her.”
“she wants to be the smartest in every room, and you being that and being younger just makes her feel like a failure.”
spencer is immediately overcome with guilt and shame and misery. he’d never assumed that you could be threatened by him, that he could be seen as better than you. you’d seemed so sure of yourself that the idea of you feeling insecure beside him baffled him.
“don’t feel bad.” gideon chastises. “don’t be ashamed of what you have accomplished because it makes someone feel bad. just prove to her you aren’t here to take her spot or whatever her brain has convinced her.”
and with that piece of advice, he leaves, still a little baffled and still trying to wrap his brain around it all.
truth be told, he was intimidated by you when he first joined. i mean, of course some of that was born out of how beautiful you were (because truly, you were beautiful, in that awe-inducing, i’d-let-you-run-me-over kind of way), but he was so impressed by you and your achievements, that a part of him had assumed the reason you didn’t seem to like him was because you thought he was beneath you.
he never truly believed his accomplishments were all that impressive, if he was honest. he was just lucky to be born the way he was, naturally curious and with an eidetic memory. he could understand the outward perspective, but living it was different.
so seeing you, almost as young as him when you gained your first PhD, he was genuinely impressed, and didn’t have any hint of a feeling that you were anyway less than him.
so, he decided he’d extend an olive branch.
he knew you weren’t the communicating type so another conversation wasn’t a viable option, so he had to think of something else.
he didn’t bother with bothering you. you were obviously in a less than stellar mood and he was worried that any kind of apology/olive branch he hastily thought out now wouldn’t be enough or that he’d find a way to mess it up somehow.
and so, instead of doing his work (because of course he had already finished it), he went through the catalogue in his brain titled ‘y/n’ and tried to remember any moment of uninterrupted vulnerability or simplicity of sorts so he could come up with an apt solution.
he considered buying you a copy of the trial, since he once heard you mentioning how much you had enjoyed franz kafka, but then he remembered jj got you a copy for christmas. then he thought about buying you a copy of a hard day’s night on vinyl, since he remembered hearing the beatles leaking out of your headphones one night in the jet and had a connection with a guy that sold rare and original records, but he thought that might be a bit much. he didn’t want something that would overwhelm you, as he knew you didn’t like over the top actions or unnecessary attention.
he was so close to giving up, to calling it a day and just surrendering to your resentment, but then his brain whispers to him, a reminder of something so small and insignificant that even he had almost forgotten it.
you loved tiramisu.
one night when the team went out for dinner, you practically shrieked in excitement when you read the dessert section and spotted it. it was a moment of pure, almost childlike joy, one that couldn’t even had been spoilt by his presence. he’d never seen you light up that way, abandoning your usual firm, straight face, your face filled with wonder and joy, as if it wasn’t something as simple as a dessert.
but you liked it. loved it, really. so, he decided that he’d stop by the bakery on his way to work the next morning and buy you one. it was small, and maybe you’d find him weird and creepy for remembering such a small moment months ago, but it’s not like you’re opinion on him could really get that much worse.
so the next morning, he steps out of the cold, 8am air, and into the warmth of the little bakery, tucked away out of sight that you’d only ever really notice it if you already knew it was there. or if your soul had a yearning for chocolate chip cookies.
immediately enveloped by the smell of vanilla, sugar and cinnamon, the light conversation of the early birds and a warmth that reminds him so intimately of childhood christmas. a big part of him wishes he could just stay here forever, tucked into the corner with a book and a hot chocolate and live his life out in the comfort and safety of this little room.
but no, he’s a man on a mission.
surveying the countertop, his heart stops for a second when he doesn’t see anything resembling tiramisu. he panics, brain racking through every memory of you and trying to remember something else you might like.
raspberry and white chocolate cookies? wait, no, you once said you didn’t believe white chocolate was even real chocolate. okay, what about a cupcake? well, the icing could get squished on the way and just end up looking sloppy when he gives it to you. that would be a bit of a shit apology.
just when he’s about to give up, he spots it, tucked away at the back. takeaway cakes in little boxes with a lid, one of which has a little sign that says ‘tiramisu coffee cake’, and spencer almost jumps for joy.
he awkwardly weaves through the throngs of people until he makes it to the counter, quickly ordering it before someone can snatch up the last one.
it feels like fate, that singular cake sat there, waiting for him. he thanks god, whatever god, for this little blessing for the day, and heads out the door.
luckily for him, you haven’t gotten to work by the time he gets there, meaning he doesn’t have to awkwardly shuffle towards you and present the cake, like a little boy with his colouring. he doesn’t have to watch you turn your nose up at him and reject his gift, and his cowardly little soul is relieved.
he places it carefully on your desk, pinching a post-it note from your desk and writes a quick note. ‘enjoy – spencer :)’
the smile is a little wonky and he’s worried you’ll get angry with him for using your stationary without asking, but it’s the best he can do, scampering away to his seat before you walk in and catch him.
it’s only five more minutes until you do arrive, and spencer’s head perks up at your entrance, quickly bowing his head just so, so he can still observe whilst hopefully not being too obvious.
he watches your eyebrows lift at the sight of the cake, and he can’t fully deicide if that’s a positive or a negative. picking up the note, you read it and your expression just slightly softens. he smiles faintly, before sensing your head move in his direction, quickly bowing back down and pretending he’s working on a file and not totally staring at you.
but he can feel you looking, and not with those piercing daggers that he had gotten accustomed to. when he feels you sit, he chances a look up, and sees you supressing a smile, brushing the note into the drawer (not the bin, he notes, and he takes it as a win) and taking the cake, along with you lunch, to the break room to put in the fridge.
and whilst he maybe never got a thank you, or even a fleeting smile across the room, he sees this as progress. you don’t glare at him as much, and don’t meet his polite conversation with faraway, empty responses.
it might be nothing, or it might be everything. spencer hasn’t decided yet.
he didn't plan or intend for this and all that mumbo jumbo, it just happened. like, seriously, the whole thing came out of nowhere and just crash banged into the middle of his usually normal, honestly kind of boring life.
all he had wanted to do this morning was do the normal gig at the cavern and move on with his night.
everything had gone as normal; he'd woken up, found that the newspaper had yet again written a piece about the band, had his breakfast, lounged about for the rest of the day until it was time to head down.
the gig went as planned, and he didn't get mauled by anybody so all in all it was a pretty good day.
it wasn't until after the gig when him and the boys were packing away their stuff that his world was tipped upside down.
as he was shutting his guitar case, he felt a presence in the doorway and instinctively turned his head.
and there you stood.
the light from the hallway behind you, once harsh and yellow, now seemed to form a halo behind you, making it seem like you were some kind of angel, sent purely for him.
and your face. oh my gosh, your face. in all his years of being, he can't imagine a face more beautiful that yours. the way your eyes sparkle, batting your eyelashes, with your hair framing your face so perfectly. he's about ready to propose marriage and carry you away to the chapel so he can make you his immediately.
his mind is completely boggled, and he's half convinced he might fall to his knees form how his legs have turned to jelly. he doesn't even care that you're a complete stranger and possibly some crazed superfan who managed to sneak into the back without anybody noticing.
all he can think about is your eyes and that hair and those lips, with that perfectly kissable cupids bow. he reevaluates any crushes he had in the past to recall if he had ever felt this way about someone before, and comes up short. his chest aches with this newfound, sudden affection he feels.
and then, all of his prayers are answered. you lips, perfect as they already are, spread into a full smile and he feels like he's just been shot by cupids arrow. everything feels like it's in slow motion. possibly the most beautiful girl on the planet is standing there, and she's smiling at him, and he feels like the most special man on the planet.
he can feel his pupils expand, his heart open, and suddenly birds are chirping and all atrocities in the world have ended.
and then paul pushes past him, and all of his joy dissolves.
he realises that he, stupidly, misunderstood the situation and really you were not looking at him, but rather paul, who was standing directly behind him. he deflates, and he wouldn't be surprised if he turned grey and a raincloud appeared above his head as he watches paul embrace you.
stupid paul.
the 'cute' beatle.
it makes him feel a little sick, then stupid.
"jesus. cheer up, buttercup." john's voice rings in his ear, forcing him out of his pity party. "can't be looking all solemn in front of a pretty girl."
meeting his eye, john realises that george isn't just in a grump, but that his heart was just torn out of his chest and stomped on a billion, jillion times in the span of about a minute. "ah," a smirk fills his face. "got your hopes up, eh?"
george wants to slap him, but he refrains.
he stays quiet as paul introduces you to the rest of the guys, and you smile like and angel and introduce yourself to each of them with a little wave and it makes his heart race in his chest like he's a schoolboy.
when you finally come to him, finally meet his eyes, he feels like if he opens his mouth he might explode or accidentally profess his love to you, or anything that disastrous. "hi," your voice is smooth and sweet like honey, and he wishes he could bottle the sound and listen to it forever.
he stands there for a few seconds, unable to speak, as you stare up at him with those expectant eyes. once he regains his ability to function like a regular human, he manages to peep out a little. "alright?"
you smile up at him, introducing yourself like you had with john and ringo, but all he can focus on is your eyes solely focused on him, the moment of your lips and the light flush of your cheeks. he wants to believe that it's because of him, and the guilt of it gnaws inside of him.
the pleasantries continue and george has to fight between his desire to memorise you and his fear of getting caught, his eyes flicking between you and a random spot on the wall. john smirks at it, and paul has no idea, smug with his arm thrown around your shoulders.
and its over as soon as it started. paul's guiding you out of the club, whilst george stands pathetically in the doorway, watching as you go, jealous of the arm around your shoulder like an immature child.
he has no right to feel jealous, you're not his.
he tries to convince himself that you must be annoying or rude or inconsiderate, but the concept of you being anything but perfect doesn't register.
so he stands there and watches as you're carted away from him, anticipating and dreading the next time he sees you. he can't imagine never seeing that face again, but he also fears what kind of stupid rubbish would come out of his mouth if he was made to speak to you. he assumes it would be just gibberish, but there's also a strong chance he'd just fall to his knees and beg you to be with him.
but then you turn back to meet his sad eyes, and he can just make out the small, shy smile that you're sending to him, and he feels like he's been shot by a second arrow. he breathes in a sharp breath, but before he can send you a smile back, you've disappeared.
