#and then later hotch being protective over garcia

[reiding-writing]

erotomania [ s.r ]

03 - revelations

Summary:

You try to put your conflicting feeling for Spencer aside to focus on the case, and the members of your team figure out something you haven’t quite yet.

WARNINGS: mentions of bodily harm, mentions of threats to animals, swearing

pairing: spencer reid x gn!bau!reader

genre: mystery

wc: 5.0k

main masterlist!!

a/n: props to my criminology classes for teaching me how to half-accurately create a typological profile, you’re really fuelling my hyperfixations here

series masterlist!!

01-exhortations, 02-avoidance, 03-revelations, 04-confession

taglist (slashed blogs couldn't be tagged): @starzqzi @duhduck @liveitdoll @alovesongtheywrote @bumblebea-xo @wolfstar-17 @yoonglestime @summerknights @spencer-reid-obsessed @rebloggiest-reblogger @blackbeautyiloveyouso @quackie15 @holymusicalmothman @haileycannotcometothephonern @wittle-bunny420 @yeonalie @shadowsmusical @user9170557484 @takethetongue @flowersfromautumn @minhosdoormat

Spencer sighs and closes his eyes, trying to keep his mind off of the fact that the love of his life had just walked out the door.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

You drag your sleeve over your cheeks as you retreat down the hallways of the hospital towards the waiting room where you assumed that Morgan had left to, taking a series of deep breaths as you tried not to break down over the fact that you’d just turned down the man that you were in love with and in turn, put him in even more pain than he was already in.

Morgan’s eyes meet yours almost immediately as you turn the corner, and you don’t need to say anything for him to know that it’s time to leave.

He could see Spencer later.

“Come on,” Morgan pulls your head into his shoulder as the two of you meet at the edge of the room. “Let’s get you home,”

“I don’t want to go home…” You surrender to Morgan’s comfort as you shake your head, your words muffled by the fabric of his shirt. “I want to catch this bastard. Right now. Before he can do anything else.”

Morgan sighs softly at your insistence, his shoulders dropping slightly as he gently pulls you out of his embrace. “You are not in the right mental state to be working right now,”

“And I will only get worse if you leave me to rot in my own mind.” Your expression says that you’ve made up your mind, and Morgan is all to aware that once you’ve decided something there is no chance of getting you to change it. “Please Morgan… I just want to help…”

Morgan studies your determined expression for a moment before finally nodding in reluctant agreement. He knows you well enough to understand that trying to dissuade you from your decision would be futile.

"Alright," he concedes, "but we're doing this my way. The moment I see you're not handling it well, we're out, no questions asked. Got it??"

You nod, appreciative of Morgan's concern and grateful for his willingness to let you be a part of the investigation. With that settled, Morgan insists on being the one to drive the two of you back to the BAU office, where the team is huddled, sorting through old profiles of obsessional cases to help them structure yours, and Garcia glances up as Morgan enters, concern etched across her usually upbeat face.

"Hey," she starts, her tone shifting to seriousness as she spots you enter behind him. "Why are you back here? I thought you were going home?"

The team exchange glances as Garcia outs your presence, and you take a step forward, determination radiating from you,

"I know you told me to rest, but I can't just sit back and do nothing.” You cross your arms over your chest in an attempt to make your standing more confident as you speak directly towards Hotch. “I need to be a part of this. I need to catch him."

Hotch examines your expression, concern etched on his face. "Are you sure about this?" He flickers his eyes over to Morgan as he asks the question.

"They want to help catch this guy," Morgan explains, casting a protective glance in your direction. “Obsessional crimes are easier to profile with the victim present,”

Hotch sighs but ultimately concedes, understanding the need for your involvement. "Fine, but we're keeping a close eye on you, and I will not hesitate to remove you from this investigation if I think you’re not handling it, understood?"

“Yes sir,” You give him a short nod with pursed lips, grateful that he wasn’t immediately casting you out of the investigation because of your personal involvement.

The conference room is filled with the hum of computers, the occasional murmur of conversation, and the determination of everyone involved. Despite your initial emotional turmoil, being engrossed in the work provides a temporary distraction.

“Alright,” Hotch stands at the head of the table “We’re going to get this done and we’re going to do it fast. So lets start with what we already know,”

Hotch gives a small nod towards Morgan who gives your shoulder a soft squeeze before joining Hotch at the head of the table. “Obsessive stalkers are often known to their victims. They usually have repetitive thought patterns that play like a broken record, so they gradually become so preoccupied with their target, they’re unable to sleep, forget to eat, and can sometimes let their jobs go to the wayside.”

“So, lets start with people you know, has anyone you’re acquainted with been acting odd around you? Awkward or disrespecting social boundaries?” Morgan’s eyes follow you as you take a seat, and you rub your hand over the lower half of your face, trying desperately to rack your brain for any weird interactions you’d had over the past few weeks.

“I- I’m not sure-” You were trying, you really were, but every time you tried to venture into the abyss of your own mind all you could see was the state of Spencer’s face when you found him in his apartment.

“It’s alright sugar, take your time,” Garcia places a comforting hand on your shoulder, rubbing her hand up and down your arm slowly.

“I-” You try to bury your feelings surrounding Spencer, knowing that you need to focus on the case and not the amount of conflicting feelings shadowing your subconscious mind.

“Alright,” Morgan holds up a hand in your direction, gesturing that you don’t have to continue. “Let’s try something a little more straight forward,”

“This guy left things for you right, as ‘gifts’?” You give Morgan a short nod, pursing your lips together. “Can you lay them out in order?”

“Uh-” You lean back against your chair slightly, straightening your posture a little. “There was a rose on my doorstep but I’m not sure that’s actually related, then it was a printed out poem that was posted through my door, uhm-”

You fiddle with the cuffs of your sleeves as you try to recall everything in the correct order. “Then a succulent that I didn’t buy turned up on my windowsill,”

Garcia’s expression changed ever so slightly as she recalled the phone call you had given her a few weeks ago regarding your succulent collection.

“Then another poem, but it was handwritten this time, and the next day a annotated copy of Romeo and Juliet was left here at the front desk, and then-” You cut yourself off before mentioning what happened to Spencer, and it didn’t take a team of behavioural experts to know that thinking about it was making you increasingly upset.

“He uh-” You push yourself to continue through your discomfort to mention the last thing the stalker had ‘left behind’. “He left a quote from Romeo and Juliet on a scrumpled piece of paper in Spencer’s hand.”

“Do you still have all of these things?” Hotch noted down each thing you mentioned, looking up at you momentarily to ask the question.

“I uh- the rose I don’t, but again I’m not actually sure about if its actually related or not because my neighbours have a rosebush and it could just be a coincidence-” Garcia’s hand placed again on your shoulder cuts you out of your tangent of a ramble, and you take a sharp breath in through your nose before continuing.

“And I threw the first poem away because i thought someone had posted it through the wrong door by mistake…”

Hotch nods along to your short explanation, taking out his phone. “Alright, I want you to go back home and pick up anything you still have related to this, JJ I want you to join them,”

JJ gives you that soft almost maternal expression as she uncrosses her legs.

“Prentiss I want you to head to the hospital and get the medical notes on what happened to Reid,” He turns his attention across the table towards Prentiss next, nodding slightly in her direction

“Garcia i want you to take a look at the security cameras over the last few days, find out who left that book at the front desk.” She taps her fluffy pen against her chin with a look of determination. “Yes sir, I’m on it,”

“Morgan, I want you to stay here and get a start on the profile, Rossi and I are going to head to Reid’s apartment, see if we can gather anything,”

With a collective agreement from the team, everyone departed from the conference room, intent on solving this as quick as humanely possible.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The first thing that came back was the CCTV footage. Garcia had recovered it almost as soon as everyone had left the office after retreating back to her tech dungeon. Although due to the unfortunate coincidence of it being late November and therefore literally freezing, she couldn’t get a concrete image of the person’s face nor any definitive features due to the thick coat, gloves, and hat he was wearing.

She did however keep it readily available in case you were able to recognise anything when you returned to the office.

Prentiss returned next, a filed copy of Spencer’s medical notes from the hospital in hand.

Needless to say this guy had done a number on him, starting with a heavy blunt object to the side of his head with the rest of the beating occurring whilst Spencer was unconscious.

“Son of a bitch-” Morgan was not happy when reading through the notes to help him with the profile. “What kind of coward delivers a beating to somebody who can’t fight back?”

“Somebody who can’t win when his victim can fight back?” Prentiss read through the notes again as she sat on the edge of the conference table. “Although the fact that Reid wasn’t killed says something,”

“It was a warning,” Morgan nods slowly as he jots down important points from the medical file. “He didn’t want to kill Reid he wanted to make sure Reid knew what was coming to him if he didn’t back off,”

You and JJ returned to the conference room next, all of the ‘gifts’ collected in a bag that you unloaded on the side of the table. “This is everything…”

Morgan halts from his progress on the profile as you lay out all of the objects on the table to get a proper look at them.

“Talk about bad handwriting,” Prentiss picked up the hand-written poem from the table, scanning over it with her eyes. “I can’t even tell what half of this says,”

“And the half that is readable is definitely something-” Morgan flicks through the pages of the book on the table, his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth downturned.

JJ gently guided you away from the two to sit at the other end of the table, her hands rubbing over your arms. “Do you want me to get you a drink? I’ve got some pods of hot chocolate stowed away,”

You let out a short breath with a small smile. “Thanks JJ, that would- be really nice actually,”

She gives you a gentle smile before heading out of the room to go and make you a drink, and it’s barely a few seconds before Prentiss is calling over to you from the other side of the table.

“Is the letter ‘R’ significant to you? It’s signed at the end of this poem,” She squints her eyes a little to make sure that she’s seeing the scrawled letter correctly.

“Yeah it’s mentioned a few times in here too,” Morgan flicks through the copy of Romeo and Juliet, and you find yourself comparing how little of the book he’d gotten through in the last five minutes to how Spencer had finished the whole thing in that time only a few days ago.

The thought immediately makes you feel upset again, and your co-workers share a glance of shared concern. “Is it- have you-“

You shake your head at their misunderstanding, tugging at your sleeves. “Sorry- I just- got caught up in my own head,”

You furrow your expression as you start going through all of the people you know with the initial ‘R’, again getting caught on Spencer as his surname repeats in your head, not allowing you to think of anything else.

You were beginning to become increasingly frustrated with yourself. Why couldn’t you just not think about him for one goddamn minute?

You didn’t have time to mentally punch yourself over not being able to fully focus on the investigation as Hotch and Rossi made their return from Spencer’s apartment, a small plastic bag in Hotch’s hand containing an authentic 1800’s copy of The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, bound in leather and fit with a metal plated spine.

“Looks like we found our heavy blunt object,” Prentiss eyes the bag as the two entered, and Hotch dropped it on the table next to the other things that you’d laid out.

You couldn’t help but notice the dark reddish-brown stain covering the top edge of the spine plate, presumably from where the impact had cracked Spencer’s skull, the thought only making your mind circle back to Spencer, thankfully again interrupted by the return of JJ with a cup of hot chocolate in her hands.

“Here we go,” She placed the mug in front of you carefully, squeezing a hand against your shoulder before taking a seat besides you.

“Thank you JJ,” The mug felt warm under your fingers, a stark difference to the shudders that were periodically shooting their way down your spine, and the sweetness of the drink did indeed help you calm down, even if only by a little bit.

“Alright, so we have an offender organised enough to be able to break in to two separate houses without leaving any trace of himself behind but unorganised enough to use an improvised weapon that he left at the crime scene?” Morgan furrowed his eyebrows as he examined the book on the table, paying extra attention to its spine plate.

“This guy isn’t your typical stalker, he’s smart, smart enough to know how to not leave a single trace of himself behind unless it’s intentional, so why would he improvise a weapon?” Rossi shook his head slightly as he spoke.

“Anger can make people forget their rational mind,” Hotch examines all of the objects on the table one by one. “Crimes like these are usually driven by extreme levels of emotion,”

The door of the conference room opens with the soft click of heels against the carpet, Garcia entering with iPad in hand. “This is all I could-”

She starts making her way across the room with the iPad outstretched towards you, although stops halfway down the length of the table, turning her head towards the collection of ‘gifts’ that you’d laid out. “Hey, I recognise that succulent,” She points a finger towards the plant with a slight tilt of her head.

“What do you mean babygirl?” Morgan raises an eyebrow slightly, expression still furrowed as he gestures for Garcia to continue.

“When we went plant shopping a few weeks ago,” Garcia turns her head to speak towards you, “In that little plant shop by your house,”

It takes you a second to realise what she’s talking about before your mind seems to compute everything all at once.

A perfectly pruned rose left on your doorstep.

Envelopes with little flower stickers.

A succulent left on your windowsill after you’d bought three of your own.

The letter ‘R’ being left around.

“Riley, Riley Fontana he’s a florist he- he works around the corner from my house,”

The puzzle pieces all seem to fit into place at once, and you find yourself feeling incredibly stupid that you weren’t able to put them together sooner. It was so obvious.

“Sugar, does this look like him?” Garcia continued her original venture down the length of the table to show you the screencap from the office’s CCTV, the clearest picture that she could get without all of the person’s features being covered by heavy winter clothing.

It was the hat that you recognised. A striped black and yellow beanie that Riley would sometimes wear in the shop if it got too cold whilst he was working. It wasn’t exactly the most common thing for someone to wear.

You remember complimenting the nature of the hat when you went to pick up a fresh bunch of flowers for your dining room a few months ago, saying that it ‘kept the florist vibe’ through the way it resembled the striped colouring of a bumble bee. And you remember the way his face flushed pink with awkward gratefulness afterwards.

Knowing what you knew now made that exchange bring a bad taste to your mouth, and you give a half-nod to Garcia as you avert your eyes from the photo. “He wears that beanie whilst he’s working sometimes.”

Morgan and Hotch share a glance before they’re they’re both leaving the conference room with an air of determination, and you figure it won’t be long before they’re returning with Riley in tow.

“Alright sweetheart, you’ve done everything you can for us for now, let me take you home alright?” JJ gives you that stern but tender look that says ‘don’t even try to fight me on this’, and you give her a small nod as you let her lead you out of the office.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Riley hits hits hands against the table as he leans back in the chair he was sat in, becoming increasingly frustrated at the endless questioning he was receiving from Morgan.

“Don’t play dumb with me kid.” Morgan leans on his hands against the other side of the table, towering over Riley with the two’s difference in muscle mass.

“I’m not ‘playing dumb’, you are making no sense.” Riley expresses his frustrations through gesturing with his hands.

“So you’re telling me that you don’t recognise this?” Morgan puts the plant on the table to start with.

“It’s a succulent?” Riley raises an eyebrow at Morgan, his expression silently asking what the point of the question was. “A succulent from your flower shop,”

“And? we have dozens of them, we’re a flower shop,” Riley’s expression continues to show frustrated confusion, and Morgan delights in telling him how it ‘mysteriously’ showed up in your apartment.

“A little suspicious don’t you think?” Morgan tilts his head at Riley in slight condescension.

“What, you think I broke into somebody’s house to leave a plant there? What kind of ridiculousness is that?”

“Lying isn’t going to get you out of this,” Riley bites his tongue with an exasperated expression. “For the 100th time I am not lying to you!”

Morgan puts the copy of Romeo and Juliet on the table much more aggressively than he needs to, it making a loud noise with it’s impact that causes Riley to flinch slightly in his chair. “What about this? Remember this?”

“No?” Riley furrows his eyebrows as if the answer was obvious, his tone conveying the same.

“Then why do we have this picture of you leaving it here a few days ago?” Morgan flips open a small manilla folder that he’d left on the table at the start of the interview, turning it so that Riley could see the CCTV photo of himself clearly.

Riley examined the photo for a few seconds. There was no point in denying that it was him. He was wearing the same beanie and the same coat as he sat, making it look like he’d literally stepped right out of the photo. There was no getting out of this one.

“I didn’t know what was in the parcel,” Riley shrugs, as if him saying that was absolving him of any possible guilt. “I was just dropping it off for my sister,”

Morgan furrows his eyebrows before raising one, not convinced of a single word leaving Riley’s mouth. “Your sister?”

“She said it was something she found second-hand and she couldn’t drop it off herself because she was working a shift.” Riley shrugs again, sighing exasperatedly. “Look, I don’t know man, they talk about old romance books all the time, I have no knowledge nor interest in any of it,”

Morgan gave Riley one final look over before pushing himself upright on the edge of the table and leaving the room without saying a word, shutting the door behind him harshly.

“So, what do we think?” Prentiss uncrosses her arms as she meets Morgan’s stare, eyes flickering between him and the view she had of Riley through a one-way mirror on one of the walls.

Morgan sighs, rubbing his hand over his face in frustration. “I’m not sure,”

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

“So, what’s going on with you and Spencer then?,” You hesitate slightly as you hand JJ a mug of tea, joining her on your sofa as you curl your legs up underneath you. “What do you mean?”

JJ accepts the mug with a thankful smile, although her voice remained knowing. “You’re not just avoiding talking about him because he’s injured, something happened at the hospital didn’t it? When you went to visit him?”

It’s times like these where you’re forcefully reminded that you friends and co-workers are profilers, although your half-certain that even a normal person could’ve figured out the weird atmosphere surrounding you when Spencer’s situation was brought up.

”It’s really nothing JJ,” You mirror her as she takes a sip of her tea, the warmth helping soothe you a little, joined by the relief of having somebody keep you company.

“Come on, you can’t fool me.” JJ adjusted her seating position slightly to lean closer to you. “Spill.”

You give her a short sigh and a silent plea for her not to press you on this but her eyes don’t waver, intent on getting to the bottom of your odd demeanour. “He- told me that he was in love with me…”

You keep your keep your eyes trained ahead of you on the turned off screen of your tv, fingers threatening to shake and spill your tea over your trousers.

JJ lets her mug fall into her lap, obviously not expecting to hear what came out of your mouth. “And?”

“And-” You take a deep breath in through your nose. “I turned him down and left-”

“I- Why? You two obviously have something there…” JJ tries to prod as gently as she can without making you over uncomfortable or emotional. “The whole team can see the way you two look at each other…”

“It’s not that- I mean-” you sigh as you lean your head back against the sofa.

“You’re in love with him too, aren’t you?”

Your eyes flicker to JJ’s for a second before you avert them to the floor, suddenly extremely interested in the lines of your hardwood floor.

“…Aren’t you?” JJ reiterates the question again, tilting her head slightly. She knew your answer, but she wanted to hear it from you directly.

“I-“ you purse your lips together, discarding your mug on the coffee table, no longer interested in drinking the rest of your tea. “I’ve put Spencer through a lot, and the best thing I can do right now is take a step back-”

JJ opens her mouth to dispute you, but she barely gets out your name before she’s cut off by a short knock at your door, and she stands from the couch first to answer the door ahead of you, her eyes telling you that she’s going to continue this conversation with you later as she reveals the person on the other side of the door.

“Rachel?” You stick your head around JJ’s shoulder as the familiar length of mouse-brown hair caught your attention. “Hey uh, sorry i’m here about Riley? Apparently he was escorted out of the shop by two FBI agents earlier and my parents are really concerned.”

“Oh, yeah uh…” You pause for a second as you mull over your options for what to say. Do you tell her that Riley might be stalking you and possibly assaulted one of your closest friends? You didn’t want to ruin the family dynamic that you’d witnessed from the Fontanas, especially if you were wrong in your assumption, even if it was extremely obvious in the signs that it was him.

“Uh-” You look between JJ and Rachel for a second. “Do you- wanna come in?”

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

“Hey so I did some digging on our little florist,” Garcia waltzes into the conference room holding Morgan, Prentiss, and Hotch, iPad in hand. “And nothing,”

“No delinquency, no social discrepancy, nothing. His record is squeaky clean.” The three seem to visibly deflate a little at that, and Garcia made her way around to stand at the head of the table.

“However, his older sister is another story,” She holds free her hand up in front of her, waving it around to emphasise the difference between the two siblings. “She enrolled in a local college just outside of Quantico, formed a very close attachment to her tutor to the point where he filed a restraining order against her, and then dropped out to work in her mother’s flower shop, where she still works today.”

“What was the restraining order for?” Prentiss raises an eyebrow as she straightens her posture in her chair.

“According to the reports she broke into his apartment whilst he was at work, set up a ‘romantic dinner’, and then threatened his cat’s life when he turned her down,” Garcia’s eyes scan over her iPad screen as she summarises the report. “She had to be escorted out by the police,”

Morgan sits turning his swivel chair back and forth for a second as he listens to Garcia, and something seems to click in his mind as he suddenly stops, his eyes conveying pure urgency. “Does her name start with the letter R?”

“Uh-” Garcia scans over her screen for a second before looking up with a nod. “Yes, her name is Rachel, Rachel Fontana.”

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

“Oh no, that’s awful,” Rachel gives you a solemn frown as you gloss over the details of the situation and why Riley had to be taken in for questioning, sipping on the mug of tea you’d offered her after inviting her inside. “Although Riley is a really good kid, i’m sure it must just be some awful coincidence,”

She places a comforting hand on your knee, and you place your own on top of hers, giving it a small squeeze. “Yeah I hope so,”

“I’m sure this will all be settled soon,” She gives you a soft smile of comfort, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Yeah you know how the team are, we’ll have it solved in no time,” JJ joins in on the reassurance before being interrupted by the vibrating of her phone on the table, picking it up and showing you the caller id displaying Hotch’s name. “Speak of the devil.”

JJ holds up a finger as she answers the phone, getting up from the sofa to excuse herself to the next room over. “Hey Hotch,”

“Where are you?” Hotch’s voice was stern and almost demanding, and JJ explained how the two of you were in your house with a furrowed expression, concerned by Hotch’s tone.

“Hotch what’s wrong?”

“The stalker isn’t Riley,” His voice sent an almost visible tremor up her back.

“It’s Rachel Fontana.”

#criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #mgg #criminal minds angst #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid angst #erotomania

[anothermansjeans]

idk how you feel about songfics but i’m obsessed w tswift’s dbatc rn and i’m just thinking about spencer reid having a secret relationship that he leaves bc he’s afraid his so will be killed by an unsub but his so is like a local singer and garcias a huge fan and is like omg this song is so beautiful and sad happy ending or angst ending doesn’t matter i just think that song encompasses how i would feel if i loved and lost reid sorry for rambling anywayyy

i am a woman on a mission and ik you just requested this but as soon as i saw it i got immediate inspo

i also have a hotch x reader fic called death by a thousand cuts BUT i had to do this one as well 🫶 also i’m so sorry if it’s shit i’m so tired lmaoooo

I Can’t Pretend It’s Okay When It’s Not

spencer reid x fem!reader

When Penelope gushed about a local musician she absolutely adores playing at the cafe she visits frequently and forced the entirety of the BAU team to tag along, she forgot to mention what Spencer would deem the most important piece of information— her name.

At first, when they walked into the coffee shop already a couple songs in due to the team's later arrival (much to Penelope’s dismay), Spencer wasn’t completely aware of the angelic voice completing beautiful melodies. His main focus being on getting coffee into his system asap, while he was up at the counter, he tuned it out almost completely— again, almost. The moment he heard her speak was a completely different story.

“Um, so this is a new song…” the woman on the small five inch high stage started, “I actually wrote it a couple weeks ago after a very… difficult time in my life… a time I’m still actually going through, but I hope you guys have it in your heart to give it a listen with open minds. This is Death by a Thousand Cuts.”

Spencer slowly walked back over to the team, eyes wide and fixed on the woman he believes is the love of his life. The only problem being he has no right to call her his anymore.

Soft strumming of the guitar began, with low my’s being sung, and he heard a soft gasp come from his left. “Oh, this is gonna hurt,” Penelope said, one hand placed on her chest while the other hugged around her body.

“Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts

Flashbacks waking me up

I get drunk, but it's not enough

'Cause the morning comes and you're not my baby

I look through the windows of this love

Even though we boarded them up

Chandelier's still flickering here

'Cause I can't pretend it's ok when it's not

It's death by a thousand cuts”

Not even a minute in and Spencer feels as though he’s been stabbed through the heart. It’s difficult hearing it from her perspective. When he made the decision to end what they had, it was out of protection— it was so that she wouldn’t have to deal with the burdens of his job.

“I dress to kill my time

I take the long way home

I ask the traffic lights if it'll be all right

They say, "I don't know"

And what once was ours is no one's now

I see you everywhere

The only thing we share

Is this small town”

“You said it was a great love

One for the ages

But if the story's over

Why am I still writing pages?”

Spencer thinks back to their love story, back to when it began and the blissful moments, the rendezvous’, and the unasked questions about why they only ever had real dates inside and why no one on the team or anyone with any semblance of importance in Spencer’s life knew of them.

He thinks back to how happy she was, and how she was content with just being with him. How when her eyes lit up the first time he said he loved her, but also the dim the second he ended things.

He thinks about the nightmares he thought were over. How instead of Maeve being the victim it was now her. How if it wasn’t for those nightmares, the onslaught of “what-if’s” wouldn’t plague his mind. How if he had a less dangerous job, a job that didn’t take every ounce of life or happiness out of him, he would and could still be with her.

And as he thinks of these things, he suddenly becomes aware of the blazing eyes that had locked with his, and a tiny gasp is heard from the microphone before she starts playing with more vigor.

“My heart, my hips, my body, my love

Trying to find a part of me that you didn't touch

Gave up on me like I was a bad drug

Now I'm searching for signs in a haunted club

Our songs, our films, united we stand

Our country, guess it was a lawless land

Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand

Paper cut stings from our paper thin plans”

It hurt. So much. And it was clear it wasn’t only him because each word she sang was aimed to puncture him. The tears brimming in her eyes were also evident. To anyone else, her words are curated from past

memories from someone who hurt her, but to Spencer, it was a message. A message that every single part of their relationship was taken into account while writing this song. A message that everything they’ve ever said or done had been tainted with the memory of him leaving her with no explanation.

“My time, my wine, my spirit, my trust

Trying to find a part of me you didn't take up

Gave you too much but it wasn't enough

But I'll be all right, it's just a thousand cuts”

He watches as she screws her eyes shut, and the sharpness of her words becomes duller as she sings on. He knew he fucked up the moment he walked out of her apartment the night he ended it, but he has never regretted it more than now. He misses her. He misses smiles, the laughter, the unconditional love that radiates from her. He would do anything to get that back.

He doesn’t realize he’s standing there, staring at her in awe mixed with sadness until applause is heard throughout the cafe and Penelope lets out a small “so sad and and beautiful,” while wiping under her eyes. He also doesn’t realize that after she announces a small break that he was walking up to her in a daze, the entire team behind him eyes wide with shock.

He also doesn't realize the first words he speaks to her are what they both longed to hear between the two for weeks.

“I miss you so much.”

She’s shocked to say the least. She’s completely speechless to the point where he begins to speak again due to the lack of words on her side.

“I’m an idiot— I’m, I’m so stupid. You’d think with an IQ of 187 I would be able to not make decisions like leaving the one woman I love the most in the world. Y/N, I swear I thought I was keeping you safe because with me and my job, that’s not always a guarantee, but listening to you and what you’re going through, I can’t— I know it wasn’t the right thing to do—”

“Spencer,” she finally cut him off, placing her hand on his arm and shifting her eyes to the people behind him who had been standing with him. “Later, okay? You can tell me everything later when we aren’t surrounded by a bunch of people.” The look in her eyes was genuine, but there was still hurt swimming in them. He wanted to say something, anything to ease it, but before he could open his mouth she grabbed the acoustic guitar and gave him a small smile. “And I miss you too,” she said before walking back up on the small platform and adjusting her mic.

While introducing her next song, Spencer slowly made his way back to the group who were going to ask the inevitable questions, but that didn’t stop the small smile from making its way to his lips, and he thought that maybe, just maybe, they won’t have to pretend to be okay anymore.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #dr spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #anne marie answers

[spencermyangel]

prompt for where Spencer was in a secret relationship with Gideon from before the BAU and the rest of the team finds out when Gideon leaves and are really concerned about it - up to you if it was healthy or toxic though

CW - Grooming

Morgan walked past Spencer's desk, catching a glimpse of the letter Gideon had left him. He sighed, Spencer must have been reading it again. But then something caught his eye, he didn’t mean to start to read the letter but it was addressed to,

Spencer, My Love. 

Morgan returned to his desk, coffee forgotten as his thoughts raced. 

*

Later that day Spencer noticed Morgan was subtly glancing at him throughout the day. 

“If you want something you can just ask,” Spencer said, flipping to the next page of the file. 

Morgan was slightly embarrassed at being caught staring, even so he made his way over to Spencer’s desk. “Reid. I didn’t mean to see the letter, but it was open on your desk.” as Morgan spoke the colour drained from Spencer’s face. “It's just, he called you his love. It seemed romantic.” Morgan bit his lip before asking, “was it?”

Spencer’s heart pounded against his chest but he calmed himself and simply said, “yes.” He then turned back to his files, signaling to Morgan that the conversation was over.

Morgan stood frozen in shock before coming back to himself and rushing to Garcia’s office. 

“Oh!” Garcia exclaimed as she spun around and saw him standing in the doorway, “what brings the deliciously handsome Derek Morgan to my office?” 

Morgan let out a soft chuckle before turning serious again, “it’s about Reid.”

Garcia’s face instantly dropped in worry, “why? What’s wrong with my baby genius?” 

Morgan hesitated and sighed, “I found out some worrying information. He told me Gideon and him were in a relationship.”

Garcia’s mouth dropped open but she quickly composed herself, “and?”

“Well, It’s just… Reid was so young when he met Gideon, he was underage. I don’t know when their relationship started but it just seems like grooming.” 

“Do you think we should tell Hotch and Rossi?” Garcia asked. 

Morgan thought about it, “I think so.” 

*

After informing Hotch and Rossi, the two of them, along with Morgan, decided to have a conversation with Reid about his relationship with Gideon. 

“Am I in trouble?” Spencer asked as he sat down across from the three men.

“Not at all,” Rossi assured him, “we just want to ask you some questions, Bambi. Make sure you’re okay.” 

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

Hotch hesitated before speaking, “Morgan has informed us that you told him you were in a relationship with Gideon? Is this true?”

Spencer’s eyes shifted to glare at Morgan briefly, who looked away, uncomfortable.

“Yes, it’s true,” Spencer confirmed, his voice quiet and small. “Why… Why are you asking? I mean it doesn’t matter anymore. Gideon left, he’s gone.” 

“Bambi, it matters because you were very young when you met Gideon. We just want to make sure you weren’t pressured into anything.”

Spencer tensed, “I wasn’t.” He tried to convince them, but his voice wavered.  

“Pretty boy. If he did you don’t have to be ashamed and you don’t have to protect him. Please believe me,” Morgan spoke with heavy emotion in his voice, giving Spencer a meaningful look. 

Spencer rocked back and forth and sniffled, “I just… he helped me so much. I felt like I owed it to him when he asked me to….” he cut himself off and shook his head. 

Rossi blinked back tears as he comforted Spencer, “Bambi, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

“You didn’t owe him anything, Reid,” Morgan’s voice was tense and pained as he spoke.

“But… he helped get into the FBI academy. He helped me when I had hardly any money,” Spencer avoided looking at them, tears streaming down his face.

“That doesn’t matter,” Hotch told him, “People should help others to be nice, not to manipulate someone.” 

Spencer blinked at Hotch before slowly nodding.

Send in asks and requests here

Masterlist

Reblogs, likes and comments are appreciated :)

#criminal minds #spencer reid #derek morgan #aaron hotchner #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #autistic spencer reid #jason gideon #bau team #spencer reid angst #spencer reid whump

[nicodemuslily]

Departure

(Irk! Here it is. We are now stuck with the new post generator that doesn't like sketchdumps and turns them into text just because... So, I'm sorry about that but, as I don't want to stick with the blog sets imposed by Tumblr (and I don't want to lose time cutting my sketchdump into multiple separate sketches), you won't be able to see clearly my sketches anymore. >_<)

Well, what this is about?

I still haven't seen the episode where it is said that Hotch won't come back because he wants to take care of Jack only now, but I already imagine the way it could have happen (it probably won't fit the canon story, but I don't care. XD).

So, after a year far away from the BAU, taking care alone of Jack, Aaron realised that he felt better, as he stopped feeling guilt toward his son and his ex-sister-in-law, and he felt less stress too. As so, he decided to not come back to the FBI and, most of all, to leave the town to definetely cut the ropes with his past life.

He warned Jessica first as Jack was still her nephew and even if she was sad and upset, he told her that she would still be welcomed at their place, wherever they ended in the country. He also told her that he planned to go back as an attorney, like he was before (because the need for justice was still deeply anchored in him).

Then, he turned back to Quantico to give back the last federal stuff he still had with him. But he took the decision to not go to the sixth floor because it would be too painful for him to see his team for the last time and because he knew that they would try to convince him to stay. To not be tempted, he avoided this floor but, the moment he left the building, he meet Reid (late, as always). The young agent was surprised to see him around and asked what he was doing here. Hotch lied to him and Reid bought it. Already about to cry, he asked for Reid to take care of himself as a last advice. Reid smiled, wished him a good day and went into the building.

Hours later, Garcia rushed into the bulpen, yelling that Hotch's file was moved to archives. Prentiss immediately ran to the Witness Protection and the director confirmed her that, yes, his federal career was over. Furious, Prentiss tried to call him but a random junky answered his phone. She drove to his place, kicked his door but the owner told her that Hotch and his son moved weeks before. Deeply hurt, Prentiss commanded Garcia to find him on the spot, but she refused. She refused because she had guessed why he did what he did, why he ran away without a word. Because if it was painful for them, it was otherwise more painful for him. He created this team, he lead it for years, he loved them like his own kids, but for some (surely good) reasons he had to turn them down. So, no, she won't help her to find him even if she felt hurt too.

Later in the evening, Prentiss went to see Jessica because she needed answers. And Jack's aunt confirmed what Garcia said. He ran like a coward just because he couldn't face them again. He didn't have the strenght to see them sad and to hear their arguments. But this decision (taken for Jack's well-being) was a real heartbreak for him, she has no doubt about that.

And yes, miles away, Hotch was driving to his new place, tears on his face. He cleaned them when he get into the new house and smiled around Jack, but later in the night, he just burst into tears, feeling the deepest pain of his life.

___

@the-sith-in-the-sky-with-diamond

___

Here is the link to my DA page (for a better insight) >> Departure by NicodemusLily on DeviantArt

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanart #sunday sketch time #cm #fanfic illustration #bau team #aaron hotchner #hotch #agent hotchner #penelope garcia #agent garcia #garcia #emily prentiss #prentiss #agent prentiss #david rossi #agent rossi #rossi #spencer reid #doctor reid #reid #jessica brooks #sketches #sketchdump

[maschotch]

I saw people online today complaining about how often people cut Reid off from his rambling and were talking about hotch and Rossi specifically and not Jj which is so bizarre to me. I might be super biased but hotch never cuts Reid off to be rude? I mean his rambling sometimes isn't beneficial to the case so he gently steers him back on track. The examples they used are of when Reid is rambling when Rossi first joins and hotch tells him to slow down because Rossi will be there for a while and when Reid is literally taking down those windchimes of human bone and is rambling about chocolate and hotch asks him to stop. It's just so funny that Reid stans paint hotch out to be the mean one on the team when he's just trying to keep the team on track because that is literally. His job lmfao. I don't think he's expressly rude about it ever, it feels more gentle and paternal most of the time than anything, and it's also not like it's on personal time lmfao they're literally in a government job, of course his boss is going to stop him from rambling when he needs him to work before more people literally are fucking murdered lmfao. But whenever hotch puts him back on track Reid fans are like "oh no Spencer poor bb :( no one ever listens to him :((( hotch is such a meanie :("

And Reid girls definitely have a point that people are mean to him. But then turn around and act like JJ is his best freind when she's the worst of them all lmfao. And Rossi and Derek definitely have their moments too, but I'd like to think most of the time it's meant playfully at least

But why does everyone get mad at hotch for literally doing his job??? Even in elephants memory people get mad at him for telling Reid to go back to the house so he stops yelling at police officers 🙄 like babe this is the equivalent of a timeout he's not being bullied he's being parented for the first time at the ripe age of 27

I can't stand that so much of the fandom both sexualizes and babies Reid, and when hotch actually treats him somewhat like an adult with a function job, he's the bad guy?

(I might be a little over protective of my middle aged emotionless man but it's fine)

i never understand why people will be upset w hotch before being upset w jj about this. the only times we see hotch cut reid or garcia off is when they’re going on tangents when there’s a time sensitive case they need to focus on. he won’t insult them or even poke fun at them, he’ll just remind them of what they were initially saying/changing the subject back to the case at hand.

meanwhile jj makes some snarky comment every time reid or penelope start rambling. she’ll roll her eyes or even make comments to others about how annoying they are when they start talking about things they’re interested in. my least favorite moment is sometime in the later seasons when matt is listening to reid’s rambling with genuine interest and jj passes by and tells matt he made a mistake by getting reid started.

rossi, morgan, and emily will also make fun of reid, but it seems less mean-spirited? rossi is just a grandpa and they just say whatever so it doesnt matter as much skfhkshd but even morgan/emily will make sure reid knows its a joke. i think the most important distinction is that morgan emily and hotch all have moments when they do listen to what reid says and let him ramble, even responding with their own knowledge or asking questions. they make fun of him, but they dont discourage him

#ig its just frustrating bc jj… isnt ever nice?? #everyone else is usually nice but the ONLY thing she does is roll her eyes and make mean comments #asks #anti jj #char crit

[anathenaeum]

William "Will" LaMontagne, Jr.

William "Will" LaMontagne, Jr. is currently married to SSA Jennifer Jareau.

Will’s father, also named William, was a police detective for the New Orleans Police Department. His father died during Hurricane Katrina, which he refused to evacuate from while investigating a serial killer he was obsessed with. As an adult, Will followed in his father's footsteps and also became a detective.

Will is first seen investigating the serial killer case that initially belongs to his father. The killer is believed to have suffered the same fate, but when evidence to the contrary arises, Will takes over the case using the work his father had done (and a single word carved on the wall of his father's home). Will eventually calls in the BAU to assist him and they are ultimately successful in capturing the murderer. During the case, he and JJ are seen to develop an attraction towards each other.

In May of 2008, it is discovered that JJ is pregnant with their child. Soon after, Will tells JJ that he is willing to give up his job in New Orleans to have the baby with her. He also asks her to marry him, which she declines but considers it.

He is present at his son's birth and tells Reid along with JJ that he would like him to be Henry's godfather, and also tells Garcia along with JJ, that he would like her to be Henry's godmother.

As the BAU attempt to track down George Foyet, Will and JJ take Henry to a pharmacy, where JJ finds out an important clue in the case. The clue helps the BAU find Foyet's address in Washington, D.C., but they find him gone. After Hotch's ex-wife, Haley is killed by Foyet, Will is one of those attending her funeral, where he offers Hotch his condolences.

Nearly two years later, Will and JJ are taking care of a sick Henry when she gets called into work. Will becomes unhappy with JJ's job and wishes she still worked at the Pentagon so she could have nights and weekends off. She offers to stay home but he tells her to go. While presenting the profile of a killer who strikes during tornadoes, Will calls and sends her text messages about an emergency concerning Henry. When she calls him back, Will tells her that he is at the hospital because Henry had a seizure. She makes plans to leave immediately but the weather has grounded all flights. She finishes the case and the episode ends with Will putting her on speaker phone so the two of them can read Henry a story at bedtime.

Living with JJ, Will now works with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department as a police detective. He shoots and mortally wounds Oliver Stratton after his partner is killed by Oliver, earning him the hatred of Oliver's brother Chris. During the subsequent hostage situation at the Colonial Liberty Bank, in which three more people are killed, Chris asks for Will to enter the building. Feeling he is responsible for the deaths at the bank, Will accepts the call despite the protests of JJ and the rest of the BAU and calmly walks inside the bank, confronting Chris, who asks him his name. When Will states his name, Chris promptly shoots him twice. While a bulletproof vest protected him from one of the bullets, Will is hit in the shoulder and seriously injured. He is treated by two hostages before confronting Chris again, telling him that his partner Izzy Rogers was secretly planning behind his back. To convince him otherwise, Chris takes him to the gas lines, where they find Izzy setting a bomb. The bomb detonates, killing several hostages and allowing Chris and Izzy to flee with Will as a new hostage.

Chris and Izzy later force a medic at gunpoint to mend Will's wound before the latter kills the medic, and eventually Chris. Izzy then picks up Matthew Downs, a former Marine who happened to be one of the hostages treating Will's wound at the bank. They go to Will and JJ's house, where they find Henry under the watch of a neighbor. Will, being forced to be compliant, convinces the neighbor that Izzy is his cousin and that she will be babysitting Henry before leaving with Matthew, who takes him to Union Station. All the while, Downs rants on about how disconnected from the world he felt after serving several tours as a U.S. Marine. The two stop at Union Station; Matthew takes Will to a bathroom and straps a bomb onto him, intending to detonate it and kill Will and anyone else still in the building. However, he is found by Prentiss and she successfully defuses the bomb, while Matthew is shot and killed and Izzy is arrested before she can do any harm to Henry. At her request, Will proposes to JJ again and the two are married at Rossi's place.

They later have a second son, Michael.

Verses:

From this moment on: follows canon Criminal Minds up to the end of season 10

Road less traveled: any AU threads

Starter Call

#muses #notes; will lamontagne

[sodone-withlife]

I will forever love Hotch and Emily’s conversation right after the title sequence in 4x08 because I’d like to imagine thats how the team reacts to Hotch’s lack of self care and healthy sleeping habits: with shock and fearful (for his health and sanity) awe.

Emily: you wanted to see me?

Hotch: yes the Huston case, I’m missing the coroner’s supplemental for victim 3.

Emily: that’s supposed to come in this afternoon… *what the fuck* I just turned that in last night. When do you sleep?

Hotch: *ignores the question* get me the supplemental so i can close the case?

Emily: *of course he’s not going to answer* yes sir.

And then I assume she leaves the office and asks the others about Hotch’s recent sleeping habits, cue a collectively exasperated and worried team

#this episode was a wild ride #but I love this scene #and then later hotch being protective over garcia #garcia is the extrovert #who adopted Hotch the introvert #and they are so protective over each other #aaron hotchner #criminal minds #emily prentiss #bau

[reidsnose]

Nose Taps (spencer reid x reader)

overview: the newest member of the bau develops a cute secret language with the resident genius

genre: fluff

a/n: this is my first fic so my apologies if its bad lol i tried. also its very short sorry ! but yeah lmk if u like it :)

masterlist

From the first day you walked through the doors of the BAU, you were incredibly charming in a unique way. You knew exactly how to talk to everyone, an amazing intuition letting you know just what to do. Spencer's curiosity had fallen on you; he was absolutely enthralled by your entire being.

the first thing that caught his attention was when you hand had accidentally grazed his.

it was a small meaningless gesture as you slipped past him, but he thought about it for weeks afterwards, in a good way. he thought about your smile as you apologized for "bumping into him". he missed the tingles that shot up his arm where your skin met his.

the second thing was much larger, he began to notice your kindness.

on only your second day in the office you stayed late to help hotch with paperwork so he could get home to jack faster. it was not a selfish act to get on his good side, rather an act of complete and utter kindness.

you brought JJ cheetos when she was feeling down because you saw her munching on them on the jet once.

you even got morgan to talk about his feelings for 4 hours one night after something was clearly bothering him. and morgan never talks about his feelings.

though you had just recently met them, you showed them how sweet you were without even trying. and Spencer Reid was no exception.

you stayed attentive to everyone who spoke to you, and when you noticed that people would often interrupt him or brush him off, it didn't sit right with you. after talking to him about it, the two of you developed a system. every time he didn't get to finish his thought, you would tap your nose to show him you noticed and wanted to hear about it later. then, at the end of the day, either in the hotel or on the jet, you would tally up the number of nose taps and he would get to ramble about all of it to you. it wasnt intentionally a secret but it was kept between you two, your little thing.

spencer thought it was the most endearing and kind thing anyone had done for him.

and you ate up every second of it, watching his eyes grow wide and then crinkle at the corners when he grew giddy about a certain statistic or historical story. you didn't understand how anyone could not want to listen to him.

soon, however, the nose taps evolved into something more. a whole little language grew between the two of you.

one nose tap from either party meant "im listening".

two nose taps meant "i have to tell you something".

three meant "i have to tell you asap".

an eyebrow tap meant "this reminded me of you" or "im thinking about you".

so on and so forth.

the team picked up on this little code between the two of you, but couldn't for the life of them understand what it all meant or when it had started. to be fair, they didn't have much time to decode while on cases.

to Spencer, this secret language was his most treasured peice of knowledge. And to you, it was your most treasured secret. and to both, unforgettable.

though Spencer had noticed your striking beauty when he first laid eyes on you, spending tome with you only intensified it. he found himself often marveling at the little details, especially on the jet.

the way your hair fell on your shoulders, the angle of your eyelashes, the blush that graced your cheeks when you laughed, the way you chew on your lip when you're thinking, even the barely noticeable wrinkles you have in your forehead from raising your eyebrows all the time. he was falling helplessly in love with every bit of you.

you did that same to him. admiring the itty bitty bump on the bridge of his nose right above the perfect little button tip, the curls in his hair, the way he puckered up a little as he talked, the way his whole face would crinkle up when he laughed really hard, his eyes squinting so hard they were barely visible. you were falling helplessly in love with every bit of him.

the team had OBVIOUSLY picked up on this, and though they would tease the both of you in private, they didn't dare embarrass you in front of each other. they weren't that sadistic. or so you thought.

one evening at rossis the team decided to have a powerpoint night. everyone chose a funny topic to make a power point and present about.

jj went first, presenting the slideshow titled "ways my clashing aesthetics present themselves through my sons"

next went morgan: "reasons i should be allowed to not wear a shirt under my bullet proof vest".

followed by Rossi who did "list of the fakest Italians weve ever encountered (they cant even pronounce gnocchi)"

after him was prentiss with "things i did while pretending to be dead"

and then hotch who made "ranking the bau from most to least childish"

then you went with "animals i think all of you resemble"

followed by reid who did "top 5 worst hospitals based on jello rating"

and last but not least, garcia. she went with "agents i think should just get married already we are literally not getting any younger"

you all laughed until the slide moved and there was a picture of Spencer and you, asleep on each other on the jet. his arm was wrapped around you protectively as you were cuddled up to his chest. you looked over at spencer who was matching your bright red face.

"y/n and spencer." garcia spoke before clicking to the next slide.

"wow she just cut right to the chase huh," prentiss laughed.

more images that the team had sneakily taken of the two of you riddled the screen.

one of you braiding his hair. one of him wiping frosting on your face from your birthday. on of the two of you mid laugh, mirroring each other exactly. a few more of you two on the jet, on cases, or even out at bars or at rossis with the rest of the team. so many of them and as much as you were embarrassed, you really loved all of those pictures.

"i really dont think i need to explain much, these speak for themselves," garcia chirped.

"i like that one," reid spoke up, pointing to the braiding one. ok so were going about that like this.

"i was just about to say that, but this ones also a close contender," you replied pointing to the frosting one.

"and that my friends, concludes my slide show!" garcia laughed.

"wait seriously? just us?" you laughed.

"yea.." she started, a giddy smile decorating her face. you looked over at Spencer and tapped your nose twice. he did it back but three times, cracking a cheesy grin. "see! and they have their little secret nose code thing! is that not relationship material?"

"you guys noticed?" spencer asked, clearly oblivious.

"duh." rossi joked.

#criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #aaron hotchner #reid #hotch #jj #jennifer jereau #jereau #emily prentiss #prentiss #derek morgan #morgan #penelope garcia #garcia #david rossi #rossi #spencer reid fanfic

[specialagentsergio]

rationalizations

rationalizations: a defense mechanism in which one makes up a false but reassuring explanation to explain their behavior and/or feelings to both themselves and others, thus avoiding the reality of why they are really acting or feeling as they do.

summary: You’re the psych evaluation for Spencer. You think he’s full of shit, so you refuse to sign his clearance form until he actually tells the truth.

pairing: spencer reid x f!reader

category: angst (happy ending)

content warnings: spencer’s canonical trauma, flashbacks, mentions of suicide and suicidal ideation, swearing

a/n: i wrote this for @imagining-in-the-margins‘ enemies to lovers event. it’s not my favorite trope, but one of the prompts sparked inspiration for me. i also took a good amount of inspiration from meredith’s various therapy scenes in grey’s anatomy, so if some of it feels familiar, that’s why! i swear i intended to make this cute and funny, but, well… here we are lmao.

word count: 3.6k

masterlist

Spencer throws his bag onto his desk with a frustrated huff. It thumps loudly, startling JJ at her desk across from his. She gives him a sympathetic look regardless. “Still not cleared yet?”

“No!” Forgetting that it’s wheeled, he drops himself into his chair. It skids backwards and he has to scramble to grab something to keep from falling out of it.

“Careful there,” JJ says, trying valiantly to suppress a laugh. “That psychologist's got you really worked up, huh?”

“I don’t know what she wants from me!” he complains. “It’s been nearly a month! Hotch’s ex-wife was murdered by an unsub, but they cleared him. I was only shot in the neck.”

“I mean, that’s still kind of a big deal,” she says. “You could’ve died, from the gunshot, or from the nurse that tried to kill you afterwards.”

“Speaking of that nurse,” he starts, “Garcia is the one who shot him and she’s been a wreck over it. She insisted on going to the guy’s execution. But the therapist cleared her!”

“Penelope’s not in the field,” JJ points out.

He crosses his arms. “Still. This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot. That possibility is part of the job. It’s not like it came out of nowhere and I was completely unprepared for it.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Spence,” she says. “Just keep all of your appointments and I’m sure you’ll be cleared soon.”

He pulls a stack of papers on his desk towards him. Paperwork—one of the things he’s actually allowed to do. “I better be,” he mutters.

---

“And it was really scary, you know?” Spencer wipes at his eyes with a tissue. “Not knowing if I was going to live or die.”

“Mm-hmm.”

He takes a deep breath. “But… it’s over now. The preacher who shot me died in the same shootout. Owen McGregor, the leader of the corrupt deputies, died later that night, in another shootout. And Greg Baylor, the one who posed as a nurse and tried to kill me, was sentenced to death row and he’s gone now, too.”

His psychologist makes a note on the paper in front of her, but doesn’t say anything, so he continues.

“I… I feel better now, just letting that out.” He takes a new tissue and dries his nose. “I feel ready now. Ready to go back to work.”

She nods slowly, considering him. But she doesn’t even look towards her desk where the clearance form sits, frustrating him to no end. After five minutes of silence, he breaks.

“You can’t be serious.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I’ve been coming to these sessions for over a month, and I’m still not cleared to be in the field. I…” He musters up more tears and makes sure his voice wavers during his next words. “I just don’t know what you want? I’ve tried everything.”

“No, you haven’t,” she says plainly.

He blinks in surprise, sending some of the crocodile tears down his cheeks. “What?”

She crosses her legs. “You’re full of shit.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re not being honest with me, and I don’t think you’re being honest with yourself either,” she says. “You’re a great actor. I can see how you’ve gotten clearances easily before. But that stops with me.”

Spencer stares at her. “I don’t understand.”

She moves her notebook to the side. “What happened in Texas isn’t the first time your life’s been in danger. Why do you think that is?”

“Wh—that’s part of my job,” he argues, fake crying long since forgotten.

“Not to the extent that you take it. I’ve read your file,” she says. “You take unnecessary risks with regularity.”

The tissues crumple in his hand as he clenches it. “I do not.”

“Let’s go back to the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?”

“Of your career.” Yet she doesn’t take out his file, or look at her notes. She speaks from memory. “2005. The BAU is assisting with a hostage situation. You go into the train, posing as someone who is there to remove a microchip from the unsub, but the first thing you do? You take off your bulletproof vest.”

“Okay, clearly you don’t understand what the situation was,” Spencer cuts in. “Ted Bryar was suffering from a psychotic break. He was somewhat unpredictable, and he told me to take off the vest.”

“And you just listened?”

“He—he had a gun, and was threatening both me and the other passengers with it!” he says. “What was I supposed to do, not listen?”

“Uh, yeah,” she replies. “You easily played into his delusions just a few minutes later to distract him. Why not do that to keep yourself safe?”

“I was twenty-four and was running on adrenaline,” he says defensively. “And it was my first time doing something like that. You can’t expect me to think of everything.”

“You’re right, I can’t,” she agrees. “So let’s jump forward a few years. How about the time you approached a teenager who was wielding an assault rifle with no protection, not even your own firearm?” she challenges.

“You mean Owen Savage? That was a unique situation,” he protests. “I knew I could talk him down.”

“No, you didn’t. You thought you had a good chance, but there’s no way to be one hundred percent sure of that. He was volatile, and on a killing spree,” she counters. “You didn’t know if you’d succeed--”

“I did!” He startles himself by unconsciously raising his voice, but he doesn’t apologize. “I did, because….”

“Because you related to him,” she fills in. “And that’s fine. Having empathy for an unsub doesn’t suggest something’s wrong in and of itself. But you still put yourself, and the rest of your team, in danger, didn’t you?”

He crosses his arms. “I got that lecture from Hotch when it happened, okay?”

“So then why’d you confront an unsub alone a few years later in Miami?” she asks. “You didn’t even tell anyone where you were going. You left your vest behind and just ran off.”

“I was having a head—wait, how do you even know that happened?” he questions. “It wasn’t in the report.”

“Well, first of all, you just confirmed it,” she points out, and he wants to kick himself. “Secondly, I can read between the lines.”

“I was having a headache,” he repeats. “I wasn’t thinking all that clearly. I just knew Julio’s life was in immediate danger, so I went to help him.”

“Uh-huh. More recently,” she says, brushing past his excuse, “You confronted your girlfriend’s stalker without your vest or gun.”

Spencer’s getting angry now. “I was trying to save Maeve. She asked me to leave them behind.”

“And you simply listened. Do you see the pattern I’m drawing here, Dr. Reid?” she asks. “These are just a few of the instances that stand out. Time and time again, you put yourself in unnecessary danger. So I’ll ask you again. Why do you think that is?”

Spencer looks over her—really looks over her, trying to understand what she’s getting at. “Are… are you suggesting that I’m suicidal?” he asks quietly.

She looks him straight in the eye. “You don’t act like someone who wants to be alive.”

It’s like she set off a bomb in his brain. Memories, and the feelings attached to them, emerge—Elle handcuffed to a seat, a teenager with a rifle, a blinding headache, Maeve and blood on the warehouse floor.

“Here’s what I see,” she says. “I see a man who’s been through so, so much. Your mother is mentally ill, your father left--”

His father is packing a suitcase. Spencer doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do or say, so he falls back on what he knows.

“Statistically, children who grow up in two-parent households attain three more years of higher education than children from single-parent households.”

It doesn’t help. “We’re not statistics, Spencer.”

“Your file says she’s staying at an institution, and with your father out of the picture, I can only assume you were the one who had her admitted--”

“Spencer, please don’t do this to me!” she cries as she’s escorted out of the house by Bennington Sanitarium’s transport staff.

“A few years into your work here at the FBI, you were kidnapped, tortured and drugged--”

He’s tired and cold and his whole body aches. Tobias—the real Tobias—looms over him with a syringe.

“Please. I don’t want it,” he pleads of his captor. “I don’t want it, please.”

The needle punctures his skin regardless.

“—you were held hostage by a cult leader--”

Emily sits across from him on the plane with a black eye. “What Cyrus did to me is not your fault.”

He pretends to agree.

“—you went through the death and reappearance of Agent Prentiss--”

He’s tried to make it clear to Jennifer that he wants to be left alone, but she won’t stop trying to talk about it with him, and he’s had enough.

“I came to your house for ten weeks in a row crying over losing a friend, and not once did you have the decency to tell me the truth.”

“—and your girlfriend was shot in front of you.”

“Who’s Thomas Merton? Who is he?” Diane demands, gun pressed against Maeve’s head.

“He’s the one thing you can never take from us,” Maeve replies, and Spencer’s heart drops. Thomas Merton is Maeve’s way of saying goodbye—she’s giving up.

“Wait!” he cries out, but it’s too late.

“This is just some of the more traumatic stuff. And then there’s what happened last month, which is why you’re here. You present a face of not being bothered by all of this, because that’s what you’ve been doing all your life, but I think you are bothered. You really, really are. And you don’t want to admit to anyone just how much it all has affected you. Maybe you don’t even want yourself to know.” Her expression and tone of voice are certain.

Spencer can’t take it anymore. The whirlwind of emotions and memories is overwhelming.

“The number of times you’ve almost died is staggering--”

“Yeah, and sometimes I wish I had!” He glares at her, breathing heavily. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

But she doesn’t seem intimidated or alarmed at all. She leans back in her armchair. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

The response only serves to make him angrier. She questioned him relentlessly and made him admit something he swore in the dark hours of sleepless nights that he’d never think again, never voice, let alone admit to anyone. She forced it out of him, forced. She made him say it against his will.

So why does he feel a sense of relief?

“I…” Tears well up in his eyes—real ones this time. “I’m done,” he chokes out.

He pushes himself off of the couch and out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

---

He storms in Hotch’s office and demands to see a different psychologist. But she was one step ahead of him—a few hours before the appointment, she had emailed Hotch and told him that under no circumstances should Spencer be allowed to get a clearance from someone else.

“And you’re going to believe her?” he cries.

“She’s doing her job, Reid.”

“You barely know her! You’ve known me for a decade!”

“Yes, I have,” Hotch agrees. “And you’ve told me yourself that you’ve fooled psychologists and therapists before. So if this one is saying you’re not ready yet, I’m inclined to believe her.”

Spencer just stares at him, but as usual, Hotch doesn’t blink.

“Unbelievable,” Spencer eventually mutters.

“Take the rest of the day off,” Hotch replies, glancing down at fists Spencer hadn’t realized he was clenching.

“Fine.”

Too agitated to stand in the elevator, he takes the stairs. As he stomps down them, he swears he’ll never go back to her office, even if it means never going into the field again.

A week passes, then two, and he hasn’t seen the psychologist since. But he doesn’t feel any better—he actually feels worse. It’s like her words broke a dam in his mind, in his gut, and feelings of unease and uncertainty won’t pass. It keeps him up at night. Her words echo in his head. “You don’t act like someone who wants to be alive.”

Spencer’s had yet another sleepless night and is struggling not to doze off at his desk despite the coffee he’s drinking. He stands up with the intention of splashing some water from the bathroom sink on his face, but his feet take him somewhere else.

He stares at the nameplate on the door. He swore he’d never go back, yet he feels compelled to knock.

It only takes her a few moments to answer. “Dr. Reid. Can I help you?” she asks.

“I…” He sighs. “Are you busy?”

“No. Come on in.” She steps to the side, opening the door wider to let him pass. He sits down on the couch.

She waits patiently. She doesn’t rush him. She lets him speak first.

He wrings his hands in his lap, staring down at them. “Something you said is bothering me.”

“What was it?”

“About… living,” he admits quietly. “I… I think you might have been right.”

When he gets the courage to glance up at her, he finds a soft smile on her face. “Would you like to talk about it?”

Spencer hadn’t realized he was expecting judgment and disdain until it didn’t happen. His shoulders slump down in relief. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I think I would.”

---

“You’re still thinking about her, aren’t you?”

Spencer looks up from his paperwork, slightly out of it, to find Derek watching him. His coworker had, indeed, caught him thinking about her again. His psychologist. Well, former psychologist. After his second session back with her, she’d handed over a clearance form and a referral to a therapist outside the bureau to see long-term.

“And you better follow up with that,” she’d told him, the corner of her mouth turning up despite her serious tone of voice. “I’ll know if you don’t.”

He’d promised that he would, and had followed through. But despite the progress he was making with the new therapist, he was feeling a little disappointed that he didn’t get to see her anymore. He only saw her in passing, sometimes in the elevator or walking down the hallways of the building. They would exchange hellos, she would ask how he was doing, then give him a little wave as she left. Each time his heart would skip a beat, and he’d feel an urge to follow her to wherever she was going.

Yet he hadn’t quite realized why he seemed to be preoccupied with her until a dream he had a few weeks ago—a dream in which he found himself kissing her. Despite being alone in his bedroom, he’d woken up feeling embarrassed. He promised himself that he would put her out of his mind. Having a crush on his psychologist? It was ridiculous.

But then he saw her in the elevator a few days later and he couldn’t help but analyze her body language. It was open, and she twirled her hair around a finger while she looked at him to ask him how he was. A few other people entered the elevator on the next floor, but her attention remained on him. They were subtle signs, but signs that he recognized nonetheless—signs of attraction. And once he started seeing them, he couldn’t stop.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Spencer tells Derek, picking back up the pen he hadn’t noticed he dropped.

“You can’t pull that on me, kid,” he replies. “It’s your psychologist. You can’t stop thinking about her, can you?”

Spencer sighs. “So what if I can’t?”

“So go ask her out already!” Derek says like it’s obvious.

“You don’t think that’s just a little inappropriate?”

“You’re not seeing her as a client anymore, are you?” he points out. “Go for it, kid. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

Spencer takes the advice—as soon as Derek said it, he knew he was right. He would regret not taking a chance on her and the connection he felt. Sure, she’d helped him with therapy, but it went deeper than that. It feels like she knows him.

He leaves the bullpen ten minutes early that evening, hoping to catch her before she leaves for the day. On her doorstep, he feels just as nervous as he did on the day he admitted that she was right, but it’s a different kind of nervous. An excited nervous. He knocks on the door.

She’s surprised when she seems him. He watches as her pupils dilate, and it boosts his confidence. “Dr. Reid. Can I help you?”

“You can. I’d like to talk,” he says.

“Oh. Well, I guess I could do that,” she says. “I thought things were going well with the therapist I referred you to, though.”

He shakes his head. “No, I don’t mean I want an appointment.”

Her eyebrows come together in confusion. “Okay, then, what do you want?”

Spencer doesn’t hesitate. “I want to take you out to dinner.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I really like you, and I think we’re meant to be together,” he replies, voice softening a bit.

She pauses before answering. When she does, her voice is gentle. “Dr. Reid, sometimes a medical professional’s care can start to feel like affection over a period of time, but--”

“No one has ever listened to me like you do,” he interrupts.

“That’s my job,” she points out.

“I’ve seen therapists before, but none of them have been like you,” he counters. “You understand me.”

She sighs. “Well, I’m glad I was a good fit and was able to help you. But that doesn’t mean that I see you as anything more than a client.”

“You’re lying.”

“Excuse me?”

“You do feel something more for me,” he says firmly, but then backtracks a little. “Well, I know you’re attracted to me at least.”

She blinks and shakes her head slightly, take aback. “Dr. Reid, this is not appropriate--”

“Please call me Spencer,” he says, then jumps into his explanation. “See, when we’re attracted to someone, our bodies display involuntary signals, and I’ve seen you do some of them when you’re around me. Whenever we run into each other here, your body will turn a little towards me and you’ll play with your hair. Your attention is almost entirely focused on me. And, when you see me, your pupils dilate. They did it when you opened the door just a few minutes ago. Oh, and I’m attracted to you, by the way,” he adds as he realizes how one-sided he’s been. “I imagine my pupils probably dilate when I see you, too.”

Her mouth opens and closes a few times, like she wants to speak but doesn’t know what to say. She looks flustered, and he wonders if maybe he’s pushed it too far or said too much, but he can’t turn back now. “So, please, let me take you out,” he says quietly. “Just… just give it a chance.”

She bites her lip and looks at the ground. There’s a crease between her eyebrows, which he’s come to learn means she’s thinking. She speaks seriously when she looks back up. “If I go out with you, I can’t treat you anymore. If you ever need another evaluation or session, you’d have to get it from someone else.”

“I know,” he says. “I get along well with the therapist you referred me to, though. And having to get clearance from a different psychologist at the bureau is something I’m willing to give up in favor of getting to know you better.”

She considers him. “You’re serious about this,” she states.

It’s not a question, but he answers it anyways. “I am.”

She tilts her head to the side, eyes unfocusing as she ponders the situation. Eventually, she says, “Let me think about it.”

It’s not exactly the answer he was hoping for, but he’ll take it.

---

It’s only six PM, but Spencer is already exhausted. He unlocks his apartment door, fully intending to collapse onto his bed, but instead receives a pleasant surprise in the form of his girlfriend waiting for him on the couch. He can’t help but smile.

“Sweetie, what are you doing here?” he asks, then adds, “Not that I’m complaining.”

“Penelope told me it was a bit of a rough case,” she replies. “And I missed you.”

She holds out her arms and he takes the invitation, joining her on the couch and laying down between her legs, placing his head on her chest. “I missed you, too.”

Her next words are overly familiar. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Hey, we agreed to no therapy,” he says. “Something about I can’t be your client anymore?”

She huffs. “This isn’t therapy. This is being a good partner.”

Spencer smiles into the fabric of her shirt, snuggling in closer. “I know, I’m just teasing you. I don’t need to talk about the case,” he says, finally answering her original question. “I feel fine now that I’m here with you.”

She lets out a pleased hum and starts running her fingers through his hair. “I ordered take-out for dinner, by the way.”

“Where from?”

“You know where.”

A wide grin spreads across his face. She must have ordered take-out from the restaurant he took her to on their first date. He lifts his head to look her in the eye. “Aren’t you glad you said yes to me all those months ago?”

“Oh, I suppose,” she says with pretend annoyance, rolling her eyes.

Then she kisses him.

Spencer’s never been so happy to be alive.

---------------

tell me what you thought here!

please note that i DO NOT ENDORSE asking out your therapist/former therapist. this is fanfiction. thank you.

general taglist: @calm-and-doctor​ , @spencerreid9​

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid angst #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds self insert #spencer reid #angst #my fic #i just cannot stop myself from writing about mental health issues and treatment can i

[sasarahsunshine]

Okay so I have this idea for a pretty dark-ish fic (with a happy ending, don't worry) but I have no idea if I would ever actually write it. I just need to get this idea bug out of my head and onto "paper."

TW and tags: major character injury, cult-like activities, blood, some gore (not in too much detail, just mentioned), major plot twists, guns, Spencer Reid WHUMP. Minor Hotchreid, Rossi as a good dad, protective Morgan, cursing, and an ambiguous ending (for this post, since I'm just posting the idea for a fic).

All of it's under the cut! Let me know what you think?

So, the plot: Part of the team goes to the middle-of-nowhere (either in the "deep south" or up in the northern mountains of Montana or Washington, near the Canadian border) to help solve a string of disappearances that someone uncovered, linking them all to that central location (either an outside source or perhaps one of Penelope's programs that keeps tabs on missing persons' cases sees a pattern). Those who arrive are Hotch, Reid, Morgan, Rossi, and Prentiss. JJ and Garcia stay behind (JJ is injured and/or pregnant maybe? no idea where in the timeline this is yet, but post-season 5).

The people of the town are, for lack of a better word, hostile towards them. The local police are Not Happy about them being there and seem to be fighting against them the whole time. Gaslighting, lying, being genuinely unhelpful. One or two officers (maybe the sheriff and one other) seem to be friendly, though. Trying to get the others to cooperate, being the civil one between Hotch and the officers.

From what the team gathers, tourists and people who pass through the area seem to just... vanish. No trace left of them. Sometimes a car or luggage is found days later, but always abandoned, always swiped clean of fingerprints or evidence. Not even blood is left behind, no bodies are found, nothing.

They think there's a serial killer living in the woods/mountains nearby, and it's possible the townspeople know of them and are protecting them. Rossi and Morgan come up with the idea that maybe the people think "if he kills strangers, he won't kill us," so it's become a twisted sort of reliance on the killer. Think of how people in the past would sacrifice a young person to a monster or dragon or God to keep themselves safe.

Hotch is unsettled the whole time they're there. It feels like everyone is constantly watching them. The town isn't very big, maybe 300-400 people total in the whole population of the area, but it seems like everywhere they go, someone is there to keep an eye on them. Sizing them up. He decides to not let any of his team be alone at any point in time. Always buddy-up.

The scene that's been stuck in my head specifically is this: Hotch and Reid have decided to stay late at the station on their maybe 5th or 6th day there. Hotch sent everyone back to the cheap (and frankly, filthy) motel for some sleep. He wanted to send Reid too, but Reid insisted on the "buddy-up" rule that Hotch himself made (making Hotch chuckle a little, though he nods and replies with, "Alright, you might want to make another pot of coffee then.").

The two are there until maybe 2am, looking through some medical records and newspaper clippings that go back twenty or so years, trying to see if there's any pattern to when the disappearances happen (Reid brought up the idea of them being cult or religion connected).

Hotch rubs his eyes, exhausted, suggesting they also go back to the motel for some much-needed sleep. It'll be easier to look at all of this stuff in the morning, once they've eaten and feel more rested. Reid agrees, shouldering his bag, the two heading to the car.

It's about a twenty-minute drive to the motel (everything is so spread out for such a small town, it's ridiculous). Halfway there, they get pulled over. Which is odd. Hotch wonders if maybe he swerved a little from his tiredness. Don't the locals know their SUV by now?

He rolls down his window, already recognizing it's the sheriff. Arching an eyebrow, he asks the sheriff what's up. Another officer is circling around to the other side, by Reid's door.

Reid feels sick to his stomach. Something's not right.

"Well," the sheriff starts, leaning against the vehicle, looking at Hotch with a small smile, "My men finally figured you guys out."

Hotch hardens his expression, "What do you mean by that?"

"We weren't sure how to make this seem like an accident, at first. Not so soon, anyhow," as he's talking, Reid pulls out his phone and keeps it close to his hip. He dials Rossi, hoping the man answers.

Rossi does, sleepy and disoriented, "Yeah, what do you need kid?"

When Reid doesn't respond, he peers at his phone to make sure it's still connected, "Kid?" Then he hears the sheriff.

Morgan and Prentiss are in his room. He turns on the light, puts the phone on speaker, and wakes them both in time to overhear the sheriff's little speech.

"It's always hard when Feds show up. When Feds vanish, more Feds come looking for them. But if we make it seem bloody enough, then, well, they call off the search and rescue."

"Am I correct in assuming you're threatening us right now?" Hotch asks, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. He knew something was off from the moment they arrived. He knew there was something sick and twisted about this whole damn town. Even the children seemed off.

Cult was the only word he could focus on. They stumbled upon some kind of cult.

"Not a threat," the sheriff replies cooly, tapping his gun on the side of the door in command for Hotch to get out, "a promise."

Morgan is grabbing their bags and throwing them into their other SUV, not listening anymore after hearing Reid's shaky voice say, "Hotch?"

He checks their guns, makes sure they're all loaded, grabs some clean linens/sheets and towels from the motel room, and throws them in the back. Grabs some pillows, cursing under his breath, "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!" He slams his fist into the wall. Hotch and Reid are fucked-- this whole damn town is fucked! What the hell kind of place is this?

Rossi stays listening to the phone, hoping Reid can somehow send them a message--where are they? Who is all there? Not just the sheriff, clearly, because otherwise, Hotch would overpower him. They must be outnumbered.

They can hear Hotch and Reid being forced to the ground (Reid was smart, putting his phone in his shirt pocket, making sure to use it as some sort of "wire" for the team to listen in). Reid's voice is shaky, terrified, his words stuttered, while Hotch is composed, strong, and unreadable.

"You underestimate my team," Hotch is heard saying. Car doors slam closed. The sheriff scoffs, "Your team? Supposedly you're the best profilers in the nation, and yet you all came nowhere close to solving your case. I have men on their way to make sure your team can never solve it."

Reid whimpers, hoping Rossi heard that. Please get somewhere safe, he's thinking.

Rossi did, in fact, hear that. He gets Emily and Morgan into the car, peeling out of the nearly abandoned parking lot under the cover of darkness. They drive down the road a ways until they see a pull-off, hiding under the darkness of the trees, turning the vehicle off.

"This whole damn town is after us," Rossi says quietly. Morgan growls to himself, unable to reach Penelope. The service out here sucks.

Suddenly they hear Reid yelp, then the connection goes dark.

-

Reid wakes up sometime later, freezing.

He's shivering, his teeth chattering, his shoulders aching so much-- his arms are numb? What..?

It takes a moment for him to realize where he is. Across from him, hanging from a hook, is Hotch. Unconscious, nude, dried blood on the side of his face, and frost clinging to his hair and his body. His wrists are tied together by rope, held up by the hook from the ceiling, toes barely scraping the cement floor--Reid is in the same shape, he realizes.

Next to Hotch is another man, long dead, pale, covered in frost--and (TW: GORE) only from the torso up. His bottom half is missing. Nearby on a metal table is another body, a woman, who looks to have been carved into. A shelf lines the wall, Tupperware and glass jars holding cuts of meat, organs, blood, brains-- oh God. Reid might be sick. Actually, he is sick. He manages to swallow back the urge to puke, however, not wanting to cover himself in vomit.

The cult, he comes to realize with horror, is an entire town of cannibals. That's why the bodies are never found. They're eaten.

#sarah posts #dark fic idea #i really need to work this out a little more #idk if i will write it but i want to #hotchreid #kinda #criminal minds blurb #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fandom #criminal minds #aaron hotchner #hotch #spencer reid #david rossi #derek morgan #emily prentiss #spooky idea #horror fic idea #with a happy ending of course

[letarasstuff]

“Daddy, I don’t feel so good.”

(A/N): This is definitely not a Marvel reference. Nope.

Summary: The youngest Reid got sick, but the babysitter can’t come. Spencer has no other chance than to bring her into the office.

Warnings: Except for talking about sickness (nothing graphic) and medicine none.

Wordcount: 1.2k

✨Masterlist✨

_____________________________

Spencer would never call himself a helicopter parent. Of course he protects his daughter and worries about her pretty much all the time, though he tries to keep it to a reasonable amount.

But a few words can make his world stop.

He woke her up a few minutes ago to get her ready for school. (Y/N) always needs one or two moments to get to herself in the morning, so Spencer let her stay in bed for the time being. That’s why he is confused to hear the sound of little feet paddling on the floor earlier than usual.

“Baby, are you ok?” he asks her after picking the little girl up. When she mutters six little words he immediately kisses her forehead to measure her temperature.

“Daddy I don’t feel so good.”

“I can only imagine. Seems like you got a fever, bug. What about your tummy?” Spencer goes into mother hen mode almost immediately. Waiting for (Y/N)’s answer he sets her on the kitchen counter and rummages through the cabinets for medicine.

“It feels a little funny. And my nose hurts and I can’t breath through it. My throat is itchy”, she explains, her voice sounding nasal.

“Here, take this, it will make you feel better in no time. You can’t go to kindergarten today and the babysitter isn’t able to come in on such short notice. I think you have to visit daddy at work. Do you want to visit me at work?”

(Y/N) claps her hands in excitement and nods her head rapidly.

A little later a disheveled Spencer and a slicked (Y/N) on his hip enter the bullpen. She has her blue little backpack on her Auntie Pen gifted her last christmas.

The doctor’s first trip is to Hotch’s office. He knocks on his door softly, waiting for the “Come in”.

“Hey Hotch, uh (Y/N) got sick overnight and nobody was able to watch her. Is it ok for her to spend the day here today? I will take a sick day tomorrow, but there is this important paperwork I have to finish”, Spencer over-explains.

“Hi Uncle Hotch!” The little girl exclaims tiredly. The medicine begins to work, making her a bit loopy.

“Hey (Y/N)”, he smiles at her, “It’s not a problem, Reid, as long as she is not a distraction.”

At this both men know who is meant: The whole team. But you can’t blame them, Reid’s daughter is too adorable for her own good.

After a brief “thank you” Spencer goes to his desk, setting his girl beside him in a chair.

“Sweetheart, I need you to stay here and be quiet, ok? You got your entertainment with you, do you?”

“Yes daddy!” Then she pulls out several pencil cases and a coloring book, keeping herself occupied.

One after the other the rest of the team arrive at the scene. Each of them greets the little family, swooning over (Y/N), but are also worried over her flushed cheeks and red nose. Especially JJ has a look on her face that can only be described as Momma Bear.

“Do you need anything, Honey? I’m pretty sure I got some nice tea in my office. And a blanket. I’ll get them for you. Do you need anything, Spence? Will gets off early today, he wanted to watch some movies with the boys, I’m sure he won’t mind watching over (Y/N)”, she offers.

“Thank you, but we got everything situated. (Y/N) has her favorite blanket with her, I have a travel mug prepared with her favorite tea and I got medicine with me for her. Her backpack is filled with books, coloring books and pencils, her stuffed sloth she got from Morgan and I downloaded a few movies and shows on my phone as well as some audiobooks. We are prepared for anything.”

Spencer is certain he thought everything through. That he counted every possible scenario in and that there is nothing he doesn't have a plan for. But there is one thing he completely forgot:

His daughter gets extremely clingy when she is either tired or sick. At the moment, she is both.

“Daddy, can we cuddle? Professor Curie feels lonely.” To emphasize her point (Y/N) holds her stuffed sloth up. Only a child of Spencer’s would be nerdy enough to name her toy after an accomplished female scientist.

“Baby, I have to work. When we get home we can cuddle as long as Professor Curie wants. How does that sound?” The doctor looks down at her, which is his biggest mistake, because he is met by her big puppy dog eyes. Prentiss often half heartedly jokes she got not only her brains from him, but also this look.

With a sigh Spencer gives in. He pushes his chair a bit back and picks (Y/N) up from hers. The doctor sets her down on his lap and drapes the TARDIS patterned blanket he couldn’t resist buying her over her back. The little girl’s head lays on his chest, listening to his heart beat, which makes her fall asleep.

A while later - Spencer is totally engrossed in his paperwork - Penelope enters the bullpen after hearing her favorite Reid is here today. She absolutely isn’t prepared for the scene she is greeted by:

(Y/N) snores softly, her fist balling into Spencer's sweater vest and her stuffed animal is dangerously close to falling down.

“Spencer Reid, I don’t know why you didn’t tell me my favorite human being, no offence Chocolate Thunder, visits the bureau, but I can’t even be mad at you at this picture of pure cuteness and innocence”, she says in an accusatory tone.

“I’m sorry, Garcia, but (Y/N) got sick overnight and I didn’t know where to go with her since I got this important paperwork to fill out”, Spencer excuses himself, running a hand through his messy hair. He is happy that his daughter isn’t super difficult to handle when she is sick. Still he feels more stressed than ever.

“No offence taken”, Morgan mumbles, looking at his goddaughter.

“No problem, Boy Wonder. When she wakes up, tell Wonder Baby her Aunt Penelope loves her and hopes she gets better soon.”

A couple mugs of coffee later, which are brought to him by his best friend, Spencer gently and carefully packs up both his and his daughter’s belongings before setting her on his hip, cautious to not wake her up. He says his goodbyes to his colleagues, getting a few promises to come visit both of them over the next days to help him out a bit.

“Daddy? Are we going home and cuddle?” (YN) asks sleepily. Her father’s heart melts at her small voice.

“Yes, we are. Do you want some chicken noodle soup later, baby?”

“Only if we eat Jell-O for dessert.”

“Of course, bug.”

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x child!reader #spencer reid x daughter!reader #bau x child!reader #bau x reader #bau #Criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfiction #fanfiction #aaron hotchner #jennifer jereau #derek morgan #penelope garcia #x child!reader #I hope you like it

[something-fanfiction-ie]

The Years

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Warnings: *SMUT* So you embarrass yourself in front of Derek and Spencer, the details of the case are mentioned and are a little intense, and smut. Like, rough, Spencer smut because there is nothing you can say that could convince me that Spencer Reid is a bottom. And swearing.

A/N: AH THE ENDING PROBABLY SUCKS BUT I TRIED REALLY HARD I PROMISE. Also, this is ridiculously long and not all of it is smut. For a hot second this WAS an OC story but I thought you guys would enjoy a self-insert more so I changed it. LOTS AND LOTS OF THANKS TO MY FAV FIC WRITER AND NEW TUMBLR FRIENDS, @reidmorefanfics and @pomsephone Y’all are the best. Also, remember to shower me in reblogs, comments, asks, messages, likes, and anything else you can think of to boost my ego. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AND THANK YOU GUYS FOR READING!!!

___

“Actually, that reminds me of a joke that I know.” At the front of the crowded lecture hall, a young Dr. Spencer Reid looks over at his partner eagerly, a smile already splitting his lips apart. Derek Morgan, however, looks over at his partner with a mixture of fear and secondhand embarrassment.

“Reid, I don’t think-” Morgan tries to save him, he really does, but Reid tucks his hair behind his ears and ignores him by starting the joke.

“Einstein, Heisenberg, Newton, and Pascal are playing hide and seek. Einstein covers his eyes and begins counting. While Heisenberg and Pascal run off and hide, Newton takes out some chalk and marks a square on the ground with a side length of exactly 1 meter, then sits down inside the square. When Einstein is finished counting and sees Newton sitting on the ground, he yells, "Ha, I've found you, Newton!". Newton however replies, "No you haven't! You've found Pascal!’”

A short, surprised laugh joins Spencer’s small chuckles, dragging his eyes to the location the sound had come from. Derek looks too, completely taken aback that anyone other than Reid had actually understood the joke. Yet, lo and behold, a young girl sitting in the front row with her cheeks stoplight red and her hand nervously covering her mouth.

Proudly, Spencer nods for Morgan to end the talk, his chest a little puffed out and a smug smile twitching at his lips. They wrap things up quickly, eager to grab some food after leaving campus and before heading back to the BAU.

When Spencer turns to gather his things, grabbing his bag, he notices the soft shuffle of feet against the hardwood flooring of the stage. A pair of black converse peek into his peripheral vision, attached to a pair of long legs that make Spencer blush for noticing at all. Lifting his eyes further, he meets the shy gaze of the only person who had laughed at his joke. It came as no surprise when he sees that your tee shirt had a picture of a cat with the words ‘Wanted: Dead and Alive’ in block lettering.

“Dr. Reid,” Your left hand comes up to push a stray lock of hair away from your face, a single gold band wrapped around your left index finger, “I’m (Y/N) (Y/L/N). I just, uhm, I had a couple questions?”

Looping the strap of his bag over his head and letting the familiar weight of it settle against his hip before he responds, Spencer ignores the way Derek looks at him by pretending he isn’t there at all.

“Of course,” Spencer meets your eyes, which are a beautiful shade of (y/e/c). “I like the shirt by the way. I’m not usually much of a t-shirt person, but I might wear one like that.” You laugh, shifting on your feet and twisting the ring on your finger.

“Thank you, I got it as a Christmas present. Along with ten billion other nerdy t-shirts. But uhm, I was curious how old you were when you joined the FBI?” Morgan holds his tongue, pretending to shuffle papers around and not pay attention to the poor girl’s crush.

“I was twenty-two. I finished two of my doctorates the year prior.”

“I thought you had to be twenty-three? I’ve always wanted to join the FBI as soon as I could but I thought I had a little more time. That’s what I read anyways. I could be wrong, you would know more than I do.” You looked down at your shoes, kicking the toe of one converse into the wood, your hair falling forward over your shoulders.

“No, you’re right. I had an age waiver. You’re eighteen? Nineteen? You’ve still got some time to prepare.”

“I’m seventeen, actually.” Your lips skewed to the side, the confession barely above a whisper as you continued to stare at your feet. Spencer blanched, unable to contain his surprise. He was quick to school his features, though, when you finally looked back at him.

“You’re seventeen and you understood his joke?” Morgan couldn’t help but cut in now, stepping away from the table he’d been pushing papers around on and toward the two younger people left in the room.

“A pascal is a unit of measurement equal to one Newton per square meter. By sitting in a square meter, Newton was being one newton per square meter. Which is, again, equal to a pascal. So he was Pascal.” A smile had worked it’s way past the nerves that jumped around your body. You weren’t very used to talking to young, attractive, intelligent doctors who worked for the FBI.

“Although, even if I hadn’t understood the science behind the joke I might have still laughed. You see, there is this thing called the Halo Effect, which is basically a cognitive bias you might develop based on your initial impression of someone that can change how you feel about their specific traits. Essentially, one example would be that someone you find attractive may seem funnier or more intelligent simply because you find them attractive.”

It takes all of a second for your face to turn beat red as you realizes your nervous ramblings have made you reveal the silly crush you had started to develop on the young doctor. Derek’s lips purse in amusement when he sees the similar shade of red that has colored his partner’s cheeks.

“Not that I’m saying I find you attractive,” Your heart stops cold in your chest and you are quick to retract the statement. “Not to say you’re ugly either, because that’s not what I’m trying to say at all. Just that my first impression of you as a nice and attr- I mean, intelligent man could have very well made my amusement slightly biased because I was more willing to like you based solely on my first impression of you. Which was that you are very nice and, and intelligent.”

It takes all the willpower in the world for you not to throw yourself down the stairwell later that day, the embarrassment having barely faded even hours later. The two men had been quick to assure you they knew you weren’t saying you had a crush on Dr. Reid, but they were obviously just trying to protect your feelings. They wouldn’t be FBI Profilers if they couldn’t tell you had a crush on him. The conversation was pretty much over after that, you being suddenly desperate to make an escape and Dr. Reid just as eager to leave the campus grounds.

The whole team teased him about his teenage fan for months after it happened, Derek had been quick to let everyone know when they came back. Reid had tried to hide from them by scrunching down into his seat and covering his face with a book, but it hadn’t helped him at all.

Eventually though, both you and Spencer were able to move on from the embarrassing moment, though neither of you forgot it. Those moments where you’re all alone and the most embarrassing moments of your life come to creep up and embarrass you all over again? The memory always came back during those moments.

The team, however, seemed to forget about it, Gideon and Elle leaving and Rossi and Prentiss replacing them as the years faded the memory for them.

It wasn’t until JJ took her new position at the Pentagon and Ashley left after her brief consultation on the case in New Mexico that the memory came back to truly haunt you both.

The whole team had heard whispers of a ‘probationary agent’ that would be stepping in to assist wherever needed. Hotch was good at keeping quiet and avoiding questions on the matter, somehow keeping Penelope just as much out of the loop as the rest of the team.

No one was even sure when the new agent was supposed to be coming until the glass doors to the BAU opened and in stepped a young woman with (y/h/c) hair and (y/e/c) eyes. Derek squinted his eyes, your face tickling the back of his memory in a way that annoyed him. Spencer tensed, his eidetic memory quick to remind him of the seventeen year old girl that had basically confessed she thought he was cute, and then called him ‘not ugly’ to try and cover her tracks.

“Agent (Y/L/N), nice to finally meet you.” Hotch said, holding the door open as you nodded your thanks and slipped inside his office with a box in your arms.

“That must be the probationary agent.” Prentiss directed the comment at Reid, oblivious to the resurfaced embarrassment that boiled his cheeks to that same shade of red he’d been in that lecture hall seven years ago. He kept his book up in front of his face while he tried to cool his cheeks, looking over the top of the binding and into Hotch’s window.

You’re sitting ram-rod straight in the seat in front of Hotch’s desk that is closest to the door, your box of things clutched tightly in your white-knuckled hands. Your hair is still the same length, swaying at your shoulders. You’ve switched the Schrödinger’s cat shirt for a deep velvet red dress shirt with the sleeves rolled at your elbows.

But even with the obvious nerves displayed in your current body language, it’s easy to see you aren’t the same stuttering seventeen year old Reid remembers. You holds steady eye contact with Hotch, nodding and fluidly responding in such a way that the usually stoic unit chief actually breaks into a grin that dimples his cheeks. When he stretches over his desk for a handshake, your left hand comes up and grips Hotch’s firmly.

“I’m glad it’s a girl, it was starting to feel a little too testosteronie around here with JJ gone.” Garcia had made her way into the bullpen, a cup of tea balanced in her bejeweled fingers as she, and the rest of the team, size up the girl heading for Hotch’s door.

“I don’t think ‘testosteronie’ is a word, baby girl.” Derek teases, trying to ignore the nagging feelings that he knows this girl from somewhere. Maybe they’d met on a case? But no, that doesn’t feel right.

“It is now, Derek. Don’t argue with me or I’ll have to punish you.” She brings the lip of her cup up, sipping at the lukewarm tea still inside and patting Morgan’s cheek with her free hand. Hotch’s door finally opens again and you step out after Aaron.

A hush falls over the room, all eyes trained to the newest and now youngest member of the team.

“We’ll do introductions on the plane, for now I need everyone in the conference room for a case.” Hotch is quick to make eye contact with everyone, his gaze stern and demanding.

Spencer is the last one into the room, practically dragging his feet to one of the chairs around the circle table. Thankfully, you were sitting across the table. Somehow you haven’t seemed to notice him.

“Yesterday Dawes County police found the body of Julia Hastings along a hiking trail in Kladon. This is the second body they have found in the area in two weeks, the first belonging to Heather Greenaway. Both victims are in their early to mid twenties. Hands and feet bound, buried face down. Each victim was struck once in the back of the head, making cause of death blunt force trauma.”

From your spot at the table, you glance up with narrowed eyes as you open the file you’d been given at the beginning of the meeting.

“Where did they disappear from?” Reid asks, a connection forming in his brain as each picture and detail flies up from Garcia’s tablet and onto the projected pictures before them.

“Night clubs around the area, they were working on the night they each went missing. Both girls were bartenders, had been working at their new jobs a week before they were kidnapped.”

“Justin Millers had the same M.O., kidnapping new female bartenders fitting this exact victimology and holding them hostage for a course of five days, beating and raping them before eventually hitting them on the back of the head with a tire iron.” You don’t look up from the file as you speak, flipping through the pictures and quickly noticing the small odd similarities in the victims between this case and Millers’ case.

“Millers has been locked away for a year and a half.” Derek pointed out, using the opportunity to stare at the face of the girl he was sure he knew but still couldn’t place. When you look up at him, your eyebrows furrowed in a way that reminds him of Reid and your head tilted just a little to the side, he can feel his brain grab onto the memory just before it slips back through his fingers.

“I’d guess a copycat. Something seems different, I just can’t put my finger on it.” Your gaze slides over the table, looking at faces to get a gauge of their opinions on you. When you make eye contact with Reid, your eyes widen just a little before you duck your head. You should have known he was still here at the BAU, you’d only hoped he’d went to another unit out of desperation for this job.

“We’ll look into that theory, for now I just want a profile as if this unsub is working from his own killing preferences. We’ll discuss more on the way there. Wheels up in thirty.” Hotch stands, flipping the cover over the top of his iPad before making his way out of the room. Go bags are grabbed, certain persons avoid bumping into other certain persons, and then the eight hour plane ride to Kladon, Nebraska begins.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N).” Emily tests the name on her lips, having chosen to move by the younger girl after the fourty five minute theory discussion that started the plane ride.

“You can call me (Y/N/N), that’s what my best friend calls me.” You had popped the first two buttons open of your dress shirt and slipped your shoes off to tuck your feet underneath you. Tucked between your thigh and the arm of the seat is a book with a Greek title, in your hands is the open case file.

“Just your best friend?” Rossi asks from across the way, just as curious about the new girl as the rest of them, but a little better at hiding it.

“She’s really my only friend.” You shrug, but not in such a way that you seem bothered by the fact. You reach up to push a strand of hair behind your ear. Reid notices the gold ring that still circles your left index finger, light coming from the window glinting off the metal when you move. It’s the only jewelry you wears.

“A bit of a loner?” Derek joins the conversation, moving up the aisle of the jet with a cup of something hot cradled in his hands. He takes the seat directly in front of you, blowing at the liquid in his cup.

“I was more focused on getting through school than making friends. Emma just happened to be the only person who wouldn’t let me shake her.” There’s a smile on your lips as you talk about your best friend, your eyes soft.

“What did you go to college for?” Derek is fishing, looking for something to tell him where he knows you from. It amuses Reid, who has sequestered himself into a corner a little further away from you than everyone else.

“I have a masters in philosophy, with a focus in Ancient Greek philosophy. I have a bachelor’s in Greek, which is the only other living language I can speak and read outside of English, and I have two doctorates; one in Classic Studies and one in Criminology.” Rossi whistles, shaking his head and leaning back into his seat to express what everyone else is feeling.

“You young people just keep getting smarter and smarter. You know how many doctorates I had at your age? None. You know how many I have now?” You look at him with genuine curiosity, drinking in all the information you can about the people around you like it was a class you were taking to survive.

“None.” The laugh that bubbles from your lips is infectious and carefree, it pulls Reid’s attention away from his book and it drags Hotch from the constant state of worry that he mentally paces in. Emily, Derek, and Rossi all exchange looks before their own laughter fills the air. It’s nice.

The feeling reminds you of that scene in Mary Poppins where Dick Van Dyke and Ed Wynn laugh themselves into the ceiling. So light and carefree that it could lift them into the sky.

“Why all the attention on the Greek?” Prentiss manages when the laughter subsides, reaching down for the book the young doctor has tucked away. Η φόνισσα, it reads with a black and white picture of arms twisted to the side of the bookcover. You make no move to grab for it, letting the other woman flip through the pages.

“My father was a Greek Philosophy professor before he died, I suppose it’s my way of trying to stay close to him.” Prentiss looks up from the pages, a look of sympathy in her eyes.

“And your mother?” The change in your entire demeanor is like cold water on the conversation, freezing the group in their spots. You reach for the book, tucking it back into the space between your thigh and the seat.

“I don’t know.” It’s the only blatant lie you’ve told since they started talking to you, averting your eyes and shifting in your seat. No one presses the topic, giving the new girl the space you need.

You take the case file with you when you go to make a cup of coffee in the small kitchenette situated in the back of the plane. Reid is already back there, pouring a steady stream of sugar into the otherwise black liquid.

“Dr. Reid.” You nod your head in greeting, avoiding his eyes by setting your folder on the counter and pretending to read it. You’ve been going over every detail of the case for so long that you’ve memorized everything there is to know. There are notes and theories scribbled into the margins and little sticky notes with questions scattered around the papers.

“It helps to step away for a little bit, that way when we land you come back to it with fresh eyes.” The utensils drawer clicks shut as Reid grabs a spoon to stir his coffee, risking the chance to finally look at you.

You’re twisting the ring on your finger and chewing the inside of your cheek. Without your shoes on, the top of your head comes to his shoulders.

When you look up at him, (y/e/c) eyes thoughtful and just as curious as the day they met, Reid can’t fight the urge that draws his gaze to your lips. The skin there is so very soft looking, surprising him when the thought of kissing them hits him like a train.

He clears his throat, focusing all of his attention on the coffee cup in front of him. The sugar is completely stirred in at this point, but he kind of wants to stay in the hopes that you’ll strike up a conversation.

“But everyone is different so you don’t have to listen to me, just do whatever helps you.” His shoulders lift in a shrug and he’s glad that nobody is there to see him interact with this girl. They would know how he felt before he could even come to terms with it himself.

As quickly as you are there, you leave. Completely flustered and unsure how to go about navigating a relationship that’s foundation was an unintentional love confession. Maybe, you thought as you leaned into your seat and closed your eyes, if I just ignore him then everything will be fine.

By the time the jet touched down in Nebraska, you had fallen into a dead sleep with your book sitting open in your lap. Emily was the one to reach out and gently shake your shoulder, the smile on her face gentle and motherly. Still blinking away sleep, you quickly scrambled to grab your bag and book before rushing for the exit.

Unfortunately for you, the shoe laces on one of your shoes hadn’t been completely tied. Add that to the speed in which you were trying to separate yourself from Reid, and you managed to trip over your feet and right into the person you were trying to avoid.

Your bag hit the ground, the book following suit as a warm hand grabbed you by your upper arm and pulled. When you collided with someone’s chest, you didn’t have to look up to know who it was. Reid smelled like old books, laundry detergent, and cinnamon.

“Your shoe is untied.” He said, his voice rumbling in his chest. You didn’t look up, afraid the heat in your cheeks would give you away. You looked down instead, noticing the way your feet were inside the breadth of his stance. One shoe’s laces laid precariously around your foot as if mocking you. Quickly, you took a step away and almost tripped again on your bag. You caught yourself on one of the seats, holding a hand out to keep Reid from grabbing you again.

“Thank you, I’m okay. Really.” You didn’t meet his eyes, every lewd thought you’d had during that stupid lecture about his lips and hands and hair came rushing back at you with every glance. You wouldn’t be surprised if he could see each fantasy written on your face like a lusty, ten-cent romance novel.

Morgan, having stopped to watch the two doctors in your clearly flustered states, suddenly felt it click in his brain. Sure, you were older and not as squirrelly as he remembered, but the way you were looking at his partner was nearly the exact same as you had seven years ago.

Feeling smug for finally figuring it out, he walked up to Spencer with his bag thrown over his shoulder, stopping beside him as they both watched you rush for the exit.

“Can you imagine someone having a crush on you for seven years? Oh, wait.” Bending down to grab his bag, Spencer shook his head in such a way that a few loose curls tangled on his eyelashes. A simple sweep of his hand across his face helped to push it away.

“It took you long enough to figure it out.” Spencer took the lead, dreading the car ride with Derek to the medical examiners. He had been hoping his older partner wouldn’t remember who you were, at least, until the case was solved.

“Oh ho ho, don’t think you can avoid this conversation with insults, pretty boy.” Morgan was hot on his tail, and that was exactly where he stayed for the next three days that the team was in Nebraska.

The killer was, in fact, a massive fan of the infamous Justin Millers. It was just a matter of pinpointing which of the crazy fanatics he was, which might have been easier if the local populace was more open to talking to law enforcement.

It was by a brilliant stroke of luck, or rather misfortune, that the team realized sending you undercover would help on many different levels. Not only did you fit the victimology, (all they needed to do was get you a ‘job’ at one of the local bars) but you would also be able to get information from the civilians that were unwilling to talk to the FBI.

Four days into your undercover mission, you found yourself wiping down the counter after closing. The band was packing up their equipment on stage and your boss had already left. Laily, the only other bartender here tonight, was flirting with the drummer while you closed things up behind the counter.

As was customary, the members of your team had taken turns following you around everyday just in case anything happened. Today just so happened to be Spencer’s turn, you’d managed to slip him into the back room before all the customers had left for the night. It was the only reason you gave Laily the okay when she asked if you would be cool closing by yourself tonight.

“I can’t believe after five years of college, I’m back to bartending.” You grumbled, shouldering the backroom door open with a box full of beer in your hands. Spencer jumped up from the crate he’d been leaning against, holding the back of the door open so you could get in a little easier.

“You were a bartender before?” He asked curiously, trying to ignore the way the low-cut black uniform shirt you were wearing fit against your figure and twisted his insides. Factor in the tight jeans that hung on your hips and the sheen of sweat on your skin from the hot summer night and he could barely focus, let alone protect you from any possible threats.

“The years between my college graduation and my joining the FBI, yeah. I could have done something different, I guess, but I wanted to have a normal young adult job before I spent the rest of my life chasing serial killers and such.” You turned to face him, actually meeting his eyes for the first time this week.

Unlike you, he was wearing his FBI Kevlar. The navy blue tie that he wore was tucked into the top of it, the baby blue sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up around his elbows. You, yourself, were having an awful time trying to keep from getting all kinds of flustered just looking at him.

The young profiler you remember was all wiry and clean cut, the man in front of you is more scraggly. His hair curls around his jawline and his forearms are far more attractive than anybody’s forearms ought to be.

His parents were just showing off, casually bringing a child into the world that looks like that.

“I don’t want things to be weird between us.” He blurted, surprising himself. You could tell by the way his brows dipped down and he took a step back immediately after saying it. Even his cheeks were a little pink.

“What happened between us was like seven years ago and all you did was tell me you had a crush on me. And then take it back. I just don’t want it to affect our work relationship because everyone already likes you a lot and I want to get the chance to like you as well.” For someone who always seems so very shy and awkward, his eyes look directly into yours, narrowing just a little. His tongue pokes out from between his lips and turns all of your bones to jelly underneath you.

He just ages like fine wine and you know that, should you be offered a permanent position at the BAU, that you would have to spend the rest of your working days keeping yourself in check while the man in front of you continued to evolve into a more gorgeous version of himself every year. The Spencer you remember had felt like peak Spencer, now this Spencer felt like peak Spencer, but who is to say that five years from now, when he decides to grow a little stubble and style his hair differently, that he wouldn’t somehow get even more attractive?

You open your mouth to come up with some bullshit answer that you didn’t really mean in order to smooth things over, when the door opens again. Spencer, standing directly infront of said door, looks not unlike a deer caught in the headlights of a truck barreling right at him going way too fast on a backroad.

Time crawls at an unusual pace, the door slowly creaking open and Laily’s voice filtering in the opening. Why did he have to wear that stupid vest? Surely the FBI has bullet proof vests you could wear under your clothing. The only idea you could come up with was, honestly, not a very good one. But it was the only one you had.

Practically launching yourself across the room, you catch Spencer’s lips against your own like the world depends on it. Using your own hands, you position Spencer’s arms around you with one hand on the back of your head and the other grabbing underneath your leg that hooks around his waist. The vest uncomfortably digs into your chest with how close your bodies are against one another, your arms now thrown around his neck, but if he keeps kissing you like this then you’ll be inclined to ignore it.

Just seconds ago he had been begging you to have a normal relationship despite your silly ‘past’ crush, now his tongue was fighting for dominance in your mouth. The irony was not lost on you.

“Oh.” Laily gasps a little when she sees you in such a compromising position. The lights from the bar illuminating every detail so that she could see the way Spencer’s fingers desperately tangled in the strands of your hair or how the muscles in his forearm strained as he hungrily pulled your body even closer than before.

The blush on your cheeks and neck are real when you pull your lips away, fire erupting in the pit of your stomach when Spencer catches your bottom lip in between his teeth for just a second. The look in his eyes is devilish when you tilt your head over your shoulder to meet her gaze.

“I’m sorry Laily, this is my boyfriend, Lance. I just- I heard about all those girls that have been going missing and I asked if he would drive me home.” The look in your coworkers eyes is all you need to know that this does not look like just a ride home. Although, it very well could have led to a ride somewhere if she had been just a handful of minutes slower.

“Nice to meet you, Lance. Gwen, I’ll see you tomorrow. Just,” the mischievous twinkle in her eyes does not go unnoticed by the two doctors in the room still tangled around each other, “maybe clock out before things get anymore heated.” She teases, the tone of her voice suggesting that you will be hearing more of this tomorrow.

“Bye, Laily!” The door clicks shut behind her, followed by the chuckles and giggles of Laily and the band as they leave for the night. You relax into Spencer’s arms, moving as if to pull out of them before they tense around you.

“We should be safe now.” You whisper, looking up into his eyes that burn with an intensity you’ve never seen in them before. That damn tongue sweeps across those perfect lips again, drawing your attention and reminding you that you now know what they feel like locked with yours.

“I think I hear somebody coming.” He whispers back, aware that you can both hear the soft bang of the front door closing and locking shut from the outside. Since the killings, the door was always locked if employees were still inside, as a safety precaution. Nobody else was coming in tonight unless they had a key.

Your lips meet his anyways, too tired to pretend that the heat between you wasn’t there. If this was the excuse he needed to kiss you, then you were all the more willing to give it to him. His tongue sweeps across the seam of your lips, causing them to open against his mouth and deepen the kiss.

Both of his wide hands splay against your hips, curling into the soft skin there and pulling you toward him with such force that you nearly trip. The hard edges of his Kevlar vest dig into your ribs and collarbone, the rough material scratching against your exposed skin as you push yourself up on your toes. When he breaks from the kiss, both of you gasping for air not from the length of it by from the passion, it is not to end your tryst.

His lips find the pulse at your neck, sucking a bruise at the soft skin there and pulling a moan from deep within your chest.

“Won’t- Won’t Morgan and Prentiss get worried,” your brain feels like the motherboard of a computer that Spencer has taken into his hands and slammed into a countertop, you can’t think when his teeth nip a love bite to the hickey he’s made on your neck, “if we, uhm, we take too long?”

If you thought the Spencer you met seven years ago was different from the Spencer you knew now, it was only because you’d never seen his bright hazel brown eyes darken with lust from beneath those impossibly long golden lashes. He was a completely different person as he unstrapped himself from the Kevlar, laying it on the floor with a solid thunk before gathering you back into his arms.

“They’ll be okay,” He said in between kisses trailed along your jawline. His movements are confident as he dips a hand down the front of your jeans and into your underwear. Your arms tighten around him, pulling your face into the crook of his neck when his fingers find the already wet entrance to your sex. His answering growl does nothing to keep you from coming undone as he presses the pad of his thumb to the bundle of nerves there. “I’m guessing it won’t be long before I have you in the palm of my hands, anyways.”

You rock your hips into him, your eyes fluttering shut with a gasp when he thrusts two long fingers inside of you. His other arm is wrapped around the center of your back, holding you to him because lord knows you can’t be trusted on your own two feet at a moment like this.

“Is this why you planned on ignoring me? Because you wouldn’t be able to handle it if I didn’t give you this?” You whimper a response, too focused on the relentless pace he has set with his fingers to come up with anything coherent. Everything about the moment is raw and animalistic, every fantasy you’d had about him during the fifty minute lecture did not even begin to touch on the feeling of his hand actually inside of you.

“Spencer, please.” You whined, dropping your arms from his shoulders and gripping onto his biceps like it will keep your soul from leaving your body. Yet, as heavenly as this felt, and as much as it exceeded your fantasies, you wanted more. Every part of you craved the feeling of his skin pressed against yours, sticky with sweat and feverish to the touch.

On a tight time constraint, Spencer doesn’t make you beg anymore than that. Instead, he delights in the way you cry out when he pulls his hand out of your pants and up to his lips. Your own lips part with a tiny popping sound when you watch him put those same fingers into his mouth with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

“Strip.” He commands, licking the taste of you off his lips and leisurely working at the knot of his tie. You don’t waste a second in crossing your arms over your body to pull the black material over your head and drop it at your feet. Next to come off is your shoes, clattering across the wooden floor when you kick them to the side.

By the time you make it to your pants, Spencer has only undone a quarter of the navy blue buttons on his shirt.

“I need you now, Spencer.” The buttons slip through your fingers, your hands shaking with excitement more than nerves. Although, the nerves are definitely apart of it. Never in a million years did you think you would be here; in the backroom of a bar in Nebraska, with Spencer Reid doing salacious things to you. While on your first case with the BAU, nontheless.

Doing a complete one-eighty, his hands come up to cover your own just before the last button comes undone. His touch is gentle and prompts you to look up into his coffee colored eyes. The light from the single bulb dangling from the ceiling is no good, and yet somehow he manages to look like a piece of artwork painted by the most skilled hand known to mankind.

“We don’t have to do this here. We don’t have to do this at all, if you don’t want to.” You squint your eyes up at him, using your fingernail to pop the last button through the hole on the other side of the shirt. When you let go, the pieces fall away from his chest like he’s caught in slow motion on a Calvin Klein commercial.

“I said I needed you now, not later.” In response, he scoops you into his arms and wraps your legs around his hips. The electricity that pops and crackles between you is nearly visible in the dimly lit room, the fabric of your bra skimming against his collarbone when you breath.

The little whines and whimpers that fall from your lips are driving Spencer crazy, forcing him to push through the door and lower you to a shorter countertop meant for making drinks. Tonight it would be used for other, more wicked things.

“Someone’s a bit excited.” You breathed. There was no way you could take a full breath in a moment like this. Everything was so heated and yet nothing was really happening.

“Shut the fuck up.” And then he was kissing you, his lips warm against your own. Despite the fact that you didn’t think it was possible, he pulled you closer. You knitted your fingers into his curls and gave them a slight tug. God, you loved these curls.

He began sucking a heated trail down your throat, quite possibly leaving a pathway of hickeys. You would be putting makeup over them for at least thirty minutes before you left your hotel room tomorrow, but for now they were heavenly fire against your skin.

Spencer took away his lips long enough to strip from his remaining clothes and throw them over his shoulder. When he stood in front of you looking like a Roman god, bared to no one but yourself, it made you feel like the luckiest person alive.

“I’m so in love with your body.” He groaned just before his lips found your breast, sucking on your nipple. Your head fell back and your eyes rolled to the back of your head. You fumbled for a moment, patting around the countertop before your brain turned on long enough to get your hand between your legs and down to his naked erection.

He moaned into your breast as you began to move your hand. He let go of your boob and went straight back up to your mouth. His whole body was tensed up but his lips were soft as they parted against against your lips. The whole world felt like it was on fire, and his every touch was another lick of flames.

You move your hand faster, enjoying every groan and grunt and moan that finds it’s way out of his mouth and into yours. He’s already close to orgasm, you can tell by the way he breaks from the kiss, your foreheads pressed together and your breath stirring in the small space between your faces. His grip is tight when he grabs your wrist to make you stop.

“No.” Every nerve and thought and feeling was consumed by you and everything else short-circuited. Spencer couldn’t get the words out of his mouth to properly express what he wanted, it wasn’t often that the young genius was rendered speechless.

But you knew, you knew that he wanted to be inside of you. You knew that because you wanted him inside of you just as much, if not more, than he did. You shift your hips around on the counter, getting closer to the edge as you widen your legs.

“I’m on the pill.” You whisper, watching the sudden realization that he hadn’t come prepared widen his eyes for just a small fraction of a second. Just as quickly, the fear turns into that devlish grin you weren’t aware someone so beautifully shy and awkward could possess.

“Thank you, Pincus, Sanger, and McCormick.” You barely have time to question the comment, although later you’ll realize he’s probably talking about three of the minds behind the invention of the birth control pill. No longer taking his time, Spencer positions himself right at your entrance before running the tip of his cock along your wet folds.

“Fuck!” He slams into you, running his entire length into your body, hitting depths you didn’t even realize had never been touched until he was thrusting against them. It sends a wave of pleasure through every cell in your body as you wrap your arms around his shoulders and kiss him like you’re running out of oxygen.

He holds onto your hips as he repeatedly rams his hips into yours. He has buried his face into the crook of your neck, letting every curse and moan muffle into your skin. The glasses under the counter jangle with every merciless thrust inside you. The sharp bite of his nails digging into your hips makes you hiss, but it’s more from pleasure than pain.

There’s no dirty talking anymore. Every ounce of pretend you both go through while around one another is shed like seconds skins, leaving two people so hungry for each other that it had been too much to bare.

Your fingers are twisted around the short curls at the nape of his neck and your teeth are biting into the solid muscle at his shoulder. The bar always had whiffs of sex and sweat in the air that mixed with the smell of alcohol and perfume, but now it was the strongest scent in the room.

Even as your orgasm starts to build in your belly, you want more. You want to hold him so close that your brain wouldn’t be able to distinguish where you ended and he began. Letting go of his shoulder, your head lolls back and your own nails draw long lines of red down his neck.

“Spencer!” His name leaves your lips in a mix of a sob and a moan, the ecstasy of just his touch alone driving you higher and higher. The sting of his nails leave your hips, one hand reaching to the place where your connected and the other coming up to grip your jaw in his hand.

His thumb rubs against the little button of pleasure that causes your legs to start to tingle like they’ve been asleep for too long. All the while, he ruthless pace doesn’t falter. Sweat sticks a few of his curls to his temples, providing a beautiful glowing effect across the smooth planes and angles of his shoulders and collarbones.

He leans forward to catch your lips in a kiss that ends much too quickly for your taste, but you can feel the rapid exhalation of his breaths as it fans across your cheek.

“Come.” Usually a man of so many words, you had always assumed it would be the same in his sex life. Maybe it was true in most cases, but right now his desire to see you succumb to the pleasure of him inside of you outweighs the need to taunt and tease you with words.

Meeting his eyes, getting off on the smug look that twists his lips as much as you are getting off on his dick actually inside of you, you let yourself fall into the sweet release of your orgasm. Spencer doesn’t stop as you come around him, instead he quickens the pace as his own release works its way to the edge.

Your legs are still shaking when he buries himself into you with one final thrust, capturing your bottom lip between his teeth. He chases the sting of his teeth away with the softness of the kiss that follows, loosing himself in the aftershocks of your own orgasm.

Neither of you move, although he ends the kiss to gasp for air with your foreheads once again pressed against each other. His eyes are closed, the dark pink on his cheeks and neck making him look so much younger than he was. You keep your eyes open, trying to drink in every second and commit it to your memory the way it would forever be in his.

When he steps away, leaving you feeling much more empty than you’d felt in a really long time, the cocktail of your orgasms spill down the inside of your thighs. Suddenly feeling a bit self conscious, you slip off the counter with your arm wrapped around your bared breasts.

The air seems too cold, the bar too quiet, and your mind was too loud with insecurities as you tried to steady yourself on wobbly knees. Nevertheless, you attempt to make a beeline for the backroom door. If you go and put your clothes back on then maybe you could go back to pretending like he doesn’t exist and everything will be fine.

That is until one of those solidly handsome arms come out to stop you in your pursuit of denial.

He’s still naked, standing next to you like a statue carved by the hands of Michaelangelo himself. Although, you aren’t sure the renissance artist would sculpt nail marks into his skin, the signs of your heated escapade only darkening with time. You can only imagine what your own neck looks like, several spots of sensitive skin still overly stimulated from his wandering mouth.

From your vantage point, you can see his swollen lips open to say something, probably that this had been a mistake, when his phone rings from the pair of pants he’d so carelessly thrown to the floor earlier. A small frown mars his angelic features, the side of his mouth twitching with aggravation.

His lips on yours are a surprise you weren’t expecting, despite the sexual encounter you’d just had. This kiss speaks more words than he could ever possibly say, easing all the post-coital dysphoria that comes with the sudden fall from the high you’d been on. It’s gentle and warm, the hand on your arm squeezes reassuredly before he breaks away with one last peck to your forehead. It nearly tears your beating heart out of your chest.

“Come to my hotel room later.” And then he bends down to snag the phone from his pants with an aggravated growl, turning away from you as he lies through his teeth to a worried Prentiss on the other end.

In the backroom, having shimmied back into your pants and going to put your shirt back over your head, you fingers find your lips. They’re just a little swollen, exactly like his, but you wonder if he can still feel that final kiss against them the way that you could.

Oh boy, were you in trouble.

#spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x oc #spencer reid angst #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfiction #dr spencer reid #spencer reid #spencer reid imagines #spence reid #dr spence reid #criminal minds self insert #criminal minds #criminal mind imagine #criminal minds smut #smut

[wheelsup]

that wasn’t for you

summary: spencer receives a valentine that the reader intended to give to someone else

category: fluff/humor

warnings: none

word count: 1.1k

While February 14th marked a holiday that most adults, especially those of the single variety, came to despise, it was one that you absolutely adored. Relationship or not, you looked forward to a designated day for which people could let their love outpour from within. Given the less than lovely acts you saw on the daily, it felt even more necessary to overcompensate with the brightly colored decorations, saccharine confections, and little valentine cards that denoted the holiday. Luckily, there was one woman in particular that shared your love for being over-the-top: Penelope Garcia.

Over the weekend, Penelope invited you over to her place to make personalized, handmade valentines cards for your entire team. With a craft store bag full of construction paper, heart-shaped stickers, glitter, gluesticks, and colored pens, you arrived, ready to get to work. Some of the cards contained jokes geared toward the recipient’s taste, others had little motivational or appreciative words that you knew the person deserved to hear. Each member was receiving a handful of their own cards, with a heart-shaped lollipop taped to the back, because you and Penelope just couldn’t hold back. By the time you two finished working on the notes, Penelope had pink and purple glitter in her hair and you had a stomach ache from the too many lollipops you’d consumed absentmindedly while working. It was everything an afternoon with your best friend should be.

On the day of, the two of you distributed the notes throughout the day, sprinkling little love letters whenever you felt like it. You handed Derek one during the morning briefing, earning a laugh and playful eye roll at the inscription: I was going to make a football pun, but I’m too hot to watch sports. Sorry. You left one on Hotch’s desk and stealthily watched him open it, peeking into his office through his blinds. It was to let him know that he was doing a great job, both as a boss and a father, no matter how much it felt like he was slipping up at both. He tucked the note into his jacket pocket for safekeeping, patting it twice over the fabric.

The remainder of the day went in the same tune; dropping off valentines randomly between paperwork and coffee breaks, sometimes handing it to the person directly and sometimes leaving it as a surprise. During the very last hour of the work day, you hand delivered your last valentine to the office of Penelope Garcia. You’d been saving this one.

When she gently unsealed the card - she wanted to preserve it as best as possible, it was going into one of her scrapbooks later - Penelope’s face was not the giggly one you were expecting. She was confused by the note inside, but nodding along like she liked it anyways so as not to offend. But ultimately, she had to ask, “Was this meant for me?”.

She flipped the note to you, and it read: What did thymine and guanine say to adenine and cytosine? You complete me!

It was meant for Spencer. Not Penelope. Which meant something worse than Penelope receiving Spencer’s valentine. It meant Spencer received Penelope’s.

Turning right out of Penelope’s office, you bee-lined towards the bullpen, crossing your fingers and toes that you could intercept the note before Spencer came back from the restroom and found it. No such luck. Spencer was standing next to his desk, reading the note over and over.

“Spencer, no!” You lunged forward, trying to grasp the note out of his hand as if he hadn’t already seen it.

“You have a cute butt. Can I squish it?” he recited incredulously.

You already knew what was in the note, but hearing him read it back made your entire face and neck heat up with embarrassment. You lunged at it again, and once again Spencer yanked his hands away from you, the card firmly in his hold.

“Spencer, give it back.”

“No, it’s mine.” He kept tiptoeing away every time you stepped closer, protecting the valentine with one arm in front of himself to keep you back and the other holding the note as far from you as possible. You dived forward, and he pushed your shoulders back. You went for the low shot, ducking under his limbs, but he rolled away. Spencer thwarted each attack on the valentine with a precision you had yet to see on the field. “What made you realize it was so cute? Are my squats finally paying off? Derek will be so proud.” he teased, laughing at your humiliation.

“That was a joke valentine for my best friend! It wasn’t meant for you!” Spencer guessed that much already, but it didn’t stop him from enjoying this any less.

“Are you sure? I think I should keep it.”

You huffed and dropped your arms, retreating back to your desk. If he wanted to have it so bad, let him have it. Wrestling a co-worker in the middle of the office was sure going to cast a shadow on your professionalism.

“Hey,” Spencer called and you turned back around, “was it the black pants I wore last week?”

You snorted at yourself for being naive enough to expect he’d be done joking about this. Years of knowing Derek had finally rubbed off on the doctor, and somewhere around his seventh year at the Bureau, he gained all of the self-confidence in the world.

“I’d say the gray ones do more for the eye, actually,” you retorted, hoping to get a rise out of him the same way he was trying to get one from you.

Spencer could try and act like that didn’t affect him in any way, but the blush creeping up his neck was his tell.

Satisfied with his reaction, you packed up your things and left for the day, feeling as if you won that battle.

Come next morning, you found out that you very much did not.

Spencer came into the office clad in those gray trousers that stretched across his toned thighs and pushed his pert little butt upwards.

You counted four times that got up from his desk to visit Penelope’s office, twice that he got a fresh cup of coffee, and once where he simply got up just to take a lap about the bullpen, only to sit back down in his seat. Each time, he made it a point to walk past your desk, giving his hips an extra bit of motion as he did.

And it would be a lie to say that you didn’t watch him go each time he passed, eyes drifting to his backside in the most subtle way you could manage.

Regardless of if Spencer noticed your stares or not, he already decided to purchase three more of those pants, just to make you suffer all the more.

a/n: hope u enjoyed a little appreciation for this mans barely-there booty <3 s/o loml @ellesgreenaway for helping me beta this lol

taglist: @ellesgreenaway @mercy-burning @reidspurple @honeyboysteezy @blondefrnk @ssa-kassidyhughes @joodeduarte @mediocre-writer @suburban--gothic

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid insert #mgg #matthew gray gubler #criminal minds #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid self insert #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds fic #my fic

[differentkettleoffishalltogether]

I’m On Fire [Chapter 1]

Summary: With her sister’s wedding fast approaching and her Mom hounding her about finding a date, Y/N makes a terrible decision that lands her and her least favorite genius in a confusing situation.

A/N:  This is the first part in a series, I’ve written the first few chapters already so I’m hoping to update pretty regularly! I hope you guys enjoy, and any feedback is always appreciated! ❤️

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem Reader

Category: Fake Dating, Enemies to Lovers, (Eventual) Smut, Fluff, Angst, it’s a Slow Burn Baby

Warnings: None really for this chapter, cursing? Mean-ish Spencer

Word Count: 6.5k

Next Chapter

Series Masterlist

Masterlist 

I wasn’t at the BAU long before it started to feel like home. The team became my family, pure and simple.

Having been recruited by Hotch at only 22 I'd sort of fallen into the roll of the little sister to the team without really meaning to. It's not that I was naive, or particularly sheltered even. I know I'm good at my job, and I'd want to be, given how my life's revolved around it almost entirely. But the team seemed to adopt a protective mindset over me right off the bat.

When I first joined the FBI everything was terrifying. I worked so hard for my PhD, trying to get into the unit, but there's almost nothing that can actually prepare you for the real thing. Being out in action in the field, working the cases out in real time. Sometimes they had a smooth, easy conclusion followed by loud obnoxious drinks together. Then there were the others, the ones that kept me up for days after and felt as though they owned little pieces of my heart still.

It was JJ that helped the most on those horrible flights back on the jet. Noticing my anxious ticks and uneasy disposition after that first case that had ended badly. JJ had been through it all before, taking too many cases home with her. Seeing her son's little faces in the kids that we couldn't help. If I was the baby of the team JJ was the big sister, looking out for everyone.

Morgan on the other hand was the outrageously cool older brother, the one you just wanted to be. Early on he'd helped my weak self with the ruthless fitness regimen the FBI required, he offered to pull some strings and get the test written off. But I couldn't accept that, there was something in me that just wanted to impress Morgan, and honestly still does. Like somehow if he thought you were cool, then it became true. So I passed the exam, but getting up a flight of stairs was near impossible for a week after.

Emily was probably the fun aunt. The one that would sneak you booze at the family gathering, or take you to your first concert. Emily was actually the one who'd found me, digging around colleges for potential recruits she'd had me picked out for a while I later found out. Insisting that Hotch give me a shot. It was reassuring to know I had someone who would stick up for me from day one.

I was an tech analyst, among other things, sort of a counterpart for Garcia in the field. So it was no surprise to anyone when the two of us hit it off as though we'd known each other forever. We weren't the same by any means though. Penelope was bold, and bright, and confident beyond measure, where I've typically felt like more of a blend into the background type. I've always thought of myself that way, despite my achievements. I'd also always believed I was fairly inoffensive, no one I'd met had ever had a huge problem with me, 'till I got to the BAU that is.

Every rose has its thorn I suppose.

That thorn in my side was Dr. Spencer Reid.

It wasn't that Dr. Reid was a bad agent, or even a bad person. I hadn't actually met him before that first day in the conference room, but I'd known who he was for a long time. Before I came along he'd held the mantle of 'youngest ever recruit' in the unit, while I was studying I'd read any of his work I could get my hands on because of that fact.

I figured it must've been some sort of hazing when he looked me up and down that first day I was introduced, and then proceeded to blank me entirely for a full week. Up until I'd wrapped my first case.

The whole team went straight from the jet to the bar. Proceeding to get far too drunk. Spencer joined, which the rest of the team found unusual, and I probably should've taken as a sign of things to come.

That case went well, and everyone was in high spirits but Reid had a sour disposition, at least it seemed that way every time he looked at me. After a few too many drinks I went outside in an attempt to sober up in the cold air, unfortunately Reid must've snuck outside not long before.

"Ugh" was all he said when he first caught my silhouette approaching him. The night was unusually cold so it had been deserted outside the bar that evening. I wasn't really sure why it made me nervous to be alone with him like this, the two of us leaning back against the same small area of brick wall, looking out at the cold night.

"Nice to see you too doctor" was all I could muster, I was drunk enough that I let my sarcastic tone leap out, "you can relax, I'm just trying to get some fresh air, it's too stuffy in there, and loud. I'm not here to talk to you or anything."

"Well aren't you a sensitive thing" he responds in kind, at that point I wasn't really sure if it was a coincidence or if he'd been genuinely avoiding me, but things were starting to clear up.

"I'm sensitive, that's a fun take on things" I joke, taking a long sip of cold water from my glass.

"And what's that supposed to mean, newbie?" his emphasis on the last word all but confirms my suspicions.

"Fuck man, what's your problem with me? Is it because I'm new, or because I beat your stupid record?" I quip. hoping that at the very least it might coax him out of his shell. Dr. Spencer Reid getting angry at me could honestly be better than the nothing I'd been experiencing from him until now.

"What stupid record?" he sounds genuinely confused

"I'm the youngest BAU recruit now?" I didn't know why else he could be so sour. He'd never met me before last week, and since he'd ignored me that first day I'd done all I could not to step on his toes. So if he had a reason to hate me this much, it wasn't something I'd done on purpose.

He takes a few moments to respond, raising his eyebrows and considering the information. He chuckles. He fucking chuckles.

"That's funny." he says, his voice leveling out, "I didn't peg you as funny newbie" that word sets something off in me again. Something about it is dismissive, or belittling. Before I could fight back he starts to move, maneuvering around me and heading back inside. A little too tipsy to think of anything constructive to say, I just mutter "Fuck you Spencer."

He swings open the door, as he walks inside he just says "See you Monday, Newbie" without even looking at me.

And that was only the beginning.

----

"You know I'm just trying to make sure you get enough rest sweetheart. There's no need to get so defensive!" it was far too early in the morning to be dealing with this call. Since joining the BAU a few years ago this was a standard call from my Mom. Equal parts well meaning and over-bearing, and generally asking far too many questions.

"I'm not getting defensive Mom, I get plenty of rest, my job is just very important to me and you know that." I knew she was right to be at least a little worried, this job was consuming, and in all honesty I wasn't sure how people like JJ were married and still here. It seemed like an impossible feat.

"Fine sweetie, how are your co-workers doing then? How's Penelope? Give her my love" she loved Penelope, I think she thought that Penelope tethered me to the normal world, and in a way she was right. She kept me sane, and fun, and made me eat pizza and do face masks once a week at least. Even when I didn't think I wanted to.

"Pen's great Mom, everyone's good. Well, the usual ones get on my nerves, but I'm fine." As I say it I glance across at Dr. Reid, the only person who's also in as early as I am most days. I'm not sure if he can hear me but he's tapping his pen so loud on his desk that it takes all of my energy not to walk across the bullpen and stab him with it.

"Y'know what Mom, I'm actually just after getting to work and it's a busy day so can I call you back later?" I chance, getting her off the phone is always an ordeal.

"Fine, fine, I'll let you go. But wait one last thing!"

I knew what was coming. It was always coming.

"Are you seeing anyone, Margot's been wondering too, just thought I'd check in?"

Pinching the bridge of my nose and trying not to scream down the line, I just sigh out the frustration instead.

"No Mom, believe it or not, I've made no progress on that front since you asked me all of 3 days ago."

"See you are being defensive!" she snaps

"I gotta go, bye Mom. Love you!" I say, hanging up quickly before dropping my head down into my arms on my desk, resting like that for a few moments in silence.

Hearing Garica chuckle behind my ear I perk up and spin around. She's holding a small paper cup of coffee and hands it to me. I look at it confused, "Sorry about the paper, I couldn't find your mug in the cabinet" she apologizes, looking over at Dr. Reid and rolling her eyes. Now I know he can hear me from his seat, he takes that moment to sip from my mug and place it gently back on his desk.

It hadn't taken long for him to start toying with me. It was always stupid childish things. Things I couldn't get genuinely annoyed at, that would give him far too much satisfaction, knowing he was getting to me in any real way. This was one trick he liked to play if he got into the office before me, he'd take my mug and make his coffee in it, just to spite me I guess.

"Why does he even do that, it's so stale" she said, just a little louder than normal to make sure he could hear. Garcia and Reid were still good friends and team-mates but she liked to stand up for me when she could. He liked to avoid me as much as possible so he'd usually go to Garcia before me if he needed help with something. Even when the two of us were out in the field together. Which was obnoxious but it was just another thing I'd gotten used to over time. And as long as it didn’t interfere with the case I just forced myself to let it go.

"I know it's such low grade bullying isn't it?" I shot back with a chuckle.

"So I'll take it that was Mommy dearest" Penelope gestures to my phone. She knew my Mom, and she knew about her general overbearing energy. I let out a groan thinking about the call again, and the calls that were to come.

"Isn't it always Mommy dearest?" I joke

"So she's still on your ass about the wedding then?" I'm sure Penelope was almost as sick of hearing about it as I was,

"Margot's getting married in like 4 months now, and every time Mom calls there’s just some new hometown loser she wants to set me up with Pen. It's fucking exhausting" I take a sip of the coffee she made me, savoring the bitter taste. She sits down on my desk for a moment, leaning in.

"Honey, did you ever think that if you got out there and found someone, she wouldn't be on your ass at all?" I don't want to think about that, about how she's completely right. All I can do is let out another small groan and lean back down onto my desk.

"Too early Pen" I say, it's muffled by the desk but she gets the message. Hopping up and heading to her own office as some more people start to arrive for the morning.

Leaving me alone to make a start on my paperwork that had built up throughout the week. Fridays were usually slow like this, giving me a little too much time to think. I couldn't shake the thought that my Mom and Penelope were actually right. Maybe I was a bit too invested in the job, and maybe that was a pretty big factor in why my last relationship imploded but I wasn't about to admit that to anyone.

----

After that the day crawls by, thankfully no cases pop up so the weekend might actually be free. Trying to make sure I clear up all of my paperwork takes a little longer than I'd hoped and leaves me alone in the bullpen. It seems like everyone's gone home by the time I've packed up and I'm ready to leave. Which wasn't as out of the ordinary as I'd like it to be really. Everyone else seemed to have somewhere to be on a Friday night.

Waiting for the elevator to arrive my phone started to ring, I could see my Mom's caller ID on the screen. If I just let it go I know she'll call back later, may as well get it out of the way. I take a deep breath in anticipation before I answer.

"Hey what's up?" I answer, stepping inside the elevator as the doors ping open.

"Hi sweetie, I've got good news! Do you remember David? That lovely boy, he helped out your Father that summer in high school?" I know what's coming and rub my temple, trying to stifle the headache I know is coming. As I answer a hand slides between the elevator doors, popping them open again.

Dr. Fucking Reid walks in, and he looks about as happy to see me as I am to see him. I make eye contact and look away just as fast, willing him away with my mind. "Yes Mom, I remember him, why are you telling me this?" I already know the answer but I'm fed up, she still sounds excited when she responds.

"Well you won't believe it! I ran into him at the market this morning and I thought you'd like it if I passed on your phone number to him, maybe for the weddi-" it took all I had not to shout into the receiver, and maybe I would've had the elevator been empty.

"Mom! Jesus!" I have to reign myself in, but I have a bad idea, "You know what, I'm actually sorted. I've got a date lined up now" I'm not sure why I said it with no real plan in place. She sounds even more excited than I've ever heard her.

"Oh my, that's amazing sweetie! That was fast, I can't believe you found one since this morning, it's someone from work so?" she assumes, and I'm just not thinking fast enough to correct her.

"Mmhmm, yeah" I'll figure out the logistics later I rationalize.

"Oh! Is it that boy you're always on about, the one who teases you?" she asks, and her voice is full of joy, and it makes me feel horrible that I'm lying already, and that I'm going to let her down.

"Yup, that's the one, look Mom I gotta go, I'll talk to you later! Night" I blurt out so fast it has to be obvious I'm nervous.

I can hear a stifled chuckle behind me. Fuck. How loud is my phone speaker. Could he hear that. Surely not. But this elevator was completely silent. The doors open and I have to stop myself from running to my car at top speed. Instead I walk out just a little faster than normal, turning around to shoot him a small wave goodbye. And he's got this devious smirk on his face that makes my stomach turn.

Sitting into my car I pull out my phone to text Garcia immediately.

I'm on my way to yours right now. It's urgent.

——

Traffic's light so it takes maybe 10 minutes before I arrive at Garcia's place. My mind's racing and my body takes me there on autopilot. Why did I say any of that, why did I even answer the damn phone. Why did I wave goodbye to Spencer, I never usually did that. Maybe that's why he had that look on his face. Maybe he was just thinking of something funny that happened earlier and it had nothing to do with me at all. That was something he'd do to mess with me for sure.

How was I going to walk this back with my Mom, she was just gonna have more questions that I couldn't answer. Fuck.

Garcia buzzed me up and her door was open for me by the time I got up the stairs. This little purple apartment had become my second home. It was where I spent most of my evenings off, laughing on the same sofa I was collapsing face first into right now. Garcia nestles in beside me and runs her hand over my hair, "Hey sweet pea, what's happening? I don't want to sound too concerned but you're not giving me much to go off? Are you dying, is there drama? You're going to have to tell me what's so urgent before I burst a blood vessel?"

I let out a muffled, "is drahmuh" into the pillow, Garcia shakes my shoulders.

"Sit up babe, damn!" I have to heave myself out of the pillows, sitting upright on the sofa beside her, clutching one of the pillows in my arms.

"It's drama" I repeat,

"Well, out with it then, you know I'll take all the drama I can get! Spill, spill" she rushes me along. I'm already apprehensive, Reid's her coworker too, but if anyone would understand why this was such an issue it was gonna be her.

"Okay, I'm after doing something stupid and I think I really need your advice" I cringe already, thinking back to the elevator, throwing out my words faster, I continue the story, mostly trying to get it over with, "my Mom called again when I was on the way out tonight and she was trying to set me up with this guy, and Reid was there, and I got all flustered, and I told her I had a date already" I throw my head down into the pillow again.

"Wait why was Reid there?" she looks like she's trying to fit puzzle pieces together and she's getting nowhere, "And what's the drama?"

"Shit Garcia, it was in the elevator and it was all quiet, and maybe he heard the call, maybe he didn't but he had this fuckin' look on his stupid face" I can't shake the smug little smirk, it's burned inside my eyelids. Garcia's face falls in what looks like disappointment.

"Ugh Y/N! That's nothing chill out, why does it matter if he heard your call? I know you guys are all weird but none of that is any of his business anyway!" she shoo's her hand in the air, dismissing the whole situation.

"No Garcia, it is his business now" I have to close my eyes when I say it, I can't look at her "I told my Mom that he was my date, well, I didn't say his name or anything, she assumed it was someone from work and so I just agreed, and then she suggested that it was him and then I fucking panicked Pen, I fucked up so bad. What do I do?"

I finally opened my eyes to look up at Garcia. She was sitting in pure silence, pursing her lips in what seemed like contemplation. The puzzle pieces finally slotting together. It's as though a light bulb goes off behind her eyes and she bursts out in fits of laughter. Doubling over on herself before finally taking a few breaths to calm herself down. I'm honestly not sure why she finds the whole thing so funny, she know's how needlessly annoying he's made my life, she's seen it first hand and heard me talk about it over and over again in this very apartment over pizza.

"Garcia, this is not fucking funny! This is serious!" I try to calm her down, I need advice not whatever this is.

"I'm so sorry Y/N, I love you dearly. But this isn't funny, this is hilarious. It's like you're Sandra Bullock in some mid-90's rom com. I love it" I don't love it, in fact I hate it. I nearly snap at her but pull myself back.

"Pen, come on, help me out. What do I do with this, how do I fix it?" I plead.

She stops laughing and pulls out her phone, "Okay, I'm sorry. I'm going to order us a pizza, and we're gonna sort this thing out together, sound good?" I just nod and collapse back into the sofa. I think I feel better now that I've gotten it out in the open.

----

Penelope makes us tea while we wait for the pizza, she keeps lemon & ginger in her cabinet for me, just like I keep mint for her. The warm mug and the steam calm me down. After a few minutes alone to think about it I start to figure it out a little better. I figure I can just lie to my Mom for a while, it might suck but I can pretend for a bit and then make up some excuse as to why he can't come closer to the time. Then I can just bring Garcia instead and everyone's happy. I'm about to float my plan to her there's a knock on her door. I was so caught up that I hadn't really noticed quite how starving I'd gotten. Leaping up of the sofa to grab the door.

I swing it open but it's not the pizza guy. Somehow it's the opposite of the pizza guy, my worst nightmare is on the other side of the door. He must notice my eyes blow completely wide. "Y/N!" he says, more of a statement than a question really, like he's telling himself that he's actually seeing me in the doorway. I'm not as gentle.

"What the fuck are you doing here Reid?!" I can't even disguise my anger. He seems a little flustered, like he's got absolutely no idea how to proceed.

"Um, uh, is Garcia here? I can, um, I can just come back later?" he swallows hard and shakes his head, before I can agree and tell him to get lost Penelope races to the door, pulling it wide open.

"Nope, that won't be necessary Doctor! Come on in, you're right on time sweetheart" she waves him in and he walks past me, his demeanor changing almost instantly. He's smug, like he's won whatever battle this was. And I hate it. Though he's still as confused as me despite the newfound attitude. Reid sits down on the sofa, right where I had been sitting. I bite my tongue and sit on the opposite end.

"Are you okay Garcia?" he asks with a genuine concern, "What's going on, what was the emergency?". He's not stupid, he knows she's not in danger now that he's here. But he wants answers. I don't know that I've ever seen him this confrontational with anyone, well anyone but me. The entire time I’m staring her down as she sits in the armchair opposite the two of us. My keys are in my pocket and my car's right outside. I could just jump up and make a break for it. Escape.

"You know what Doc, you won't believe it but I'm not actually the one with the emergency" she takes a beat, and I'm starting to think that I might understand why people murder other people after all these years, "Y/N has something urgent she needs to talk to you about" she's silent for another moment, and she almost looks giddy, "Actually Spencer, you might already know a little something about the matter already, now that I think about it" she smirks, and it's pure joy.

My keys are in my hand ready to bolt when the doorbell chimes again. "Oh, that'll actually be the pizza this time, if you two will excuse me" she hops up out of the armchair and races to the door, leaving the two of us alone in a horrible silence. The tension is almost too much, I want to speak but I really have no idea what to say, or how to even start saying it. But he starts.

"Y/N what's going on, I feel like I'm out of the loop here? What am I missing?" he asks, and there's something uncharacteristically genuine about the way he says it, but he can't turn to look at me as he speaks. I almost want to let my guard down and just have a conversation but I can’t force myself to do it. "Shut up Reid." is all I mutter, folding my arms across my chest.

He turns sharply on the sofa to face me. "Hey Y/N. Believe it or not I'm about as happy as you with whatever kind of Parent Trap situation Garcia's got going on here. But from what I'm picking up on you've got a problem and I'm supposed to be able to help with it. So do you want to tell me what's going on or not? I can just go?" I can see that there's an anger bubbling right below the surface, threatening to burst. I know I shouldn't but I let him stew in silence for a little too long and he jumps up off the sofa.

"Y'know what, typical" he mutters, rolling his eyes as he says it, "this is all about you." he throws his bag over his shoulders and begins to walk towards the door. Something in me just snaps.

"All about me?! Are you fucking kidding? I've been tip-toeing around you for years, ever since I joined this damn unit!" I shout as Garcia comes back into the room, pizza box and plates in her hands.

"So, who's hungry?" Garcia asks, trying to break the tension, or pretending there's no tension at all. Reid shakes his head in disbelief and rubs his temple before he speaks again, "Actually I was just gonna head out" he gestures to the door, "I'm clearly not wanted here so I'm gonna leave you guys to it." Spencer makes a move to leave but Garcia grabs the strap of his shoulder bag, yanking him back ever so slightly before he really has the chance to escape.

"You are going absolutely nowhere kid" She points back to the sofa, "get back there" she glances to me, staring with far too much intensity. "You too, sit." Her voice is more stern than I've ever heard it, even while we were on a case. I can't help but obey her command and I sit back down on the sofa in silence. Followed by Reid, clearly processing the same uneasy feeling of a serious Penelope.

She sits opposite the two of us again. "Y/N, Spencer, I love the two of you with all of my heart, albeit separately, and I would die for either one of you. But you've got to chill the hell out!" she says it like she's had it bottled up forever. The tension that releases from her as she says it looks euphoric.

She opens up the pizza box and lays it on the coffee table and takes out a slice for herself. Taking a bite she leaves the two of us in stunned silence. Once she finishes the mouthful she turns to me specifically, "Y/N you tell him, or I will." dead serious. And the feeling in my belly is like I've just fallen down an elevator shaft.

My stomach is in knots as I turn to Spencer on the sofa next to me. His face is puzzled and I think I might be able to make out pure terror in his expression. I don't know that I've ever been looked at like this before and my stomach screws up tighter. I have to take a deep breath and I can't believe I'm about to say it. "Fuck it" I have to take another breath almost immediately so I just have to force the rest out, "I don't know if you heard the call I was on while we were in the elevator earlier?" I look up to gauge his reaction and I can see his face relax, and worse than that, one corner of his mouth lifts into a sort of smile. It's a look of pure smug satisfaction and I think I might scream. I have to close my eyes because I really don't think I can look at that face as I say the next part.

"My sister is getting married in a few months and my Mom's been on my ass to find a date for the wedding and she keeps trying to set me up with these losers, so I fucking panicked, and I told her you were my date." by the time the sentence is out my eyes have screwed up so tight it feels like I have to pry them open.

He sits in silence for too long. Thinking, maybe?

"So I'm the boy who teases you then?" he grins. So he did hear. And he did laugh. He looks far too self satisfied. Now he knows he's right. He knows I've talked to my Mom about him, that he's gotten in my head. I can tell from his smile that he's savoring the moment. Mostly because I can't slap the smug smile off his face I drop my head into my hands. In an effort to disappear I guess.

"So," he says, taking a moment, "is that all you wanted to say then?" he asks, lighthearted and obnoxious, back to his usual self. I snap back to reality, shooting my head back up.

"What do you mean is that all?" I throw back genuinely shocked,

"Is that all you had to say Y/N? Can I go now? It's a long bus ride home y'know" he smirks but makes no effort to move. He can't possibly be making me do this.

"Well no, obviously!" I stutter, "I mean, are you, will you, uh?" I can't bring myself to say it out loud. He leans in on the sofa looking directly at me, refusing to break eye contact.

"Did you have something you wanted to ask me Y/N?" I just want to smack that fucking look off his face,

"Fuck you Spencer Reid" I almost whisper under my breath, but Garcia snaps me back to reality.

"Hey!" she looks at me, stern again, "Ask him." it's not a question, or a suggestion, it's a command.

"Fine okay" I scrunch my eyes up again, "Will you come to my sisters wedding with me as my fake boyfriend?" I curl up into myself as I say it, I can almost feel the bile rising up from my stomach. Like I'm having a biological reaction to the whole thing.

Reid crosses his arms and sinks back on the sofa, like he's performing the act of thinking. He's considering my offer to make me squirm.

When he finally speaks he says "Well I would Y/N, but I really fail to see what's in it for me" he's after getting cocky now.

Garcia pipes up, excited, "Oh, Oh! I know! I have an idea!" she interjects, "Spencer remember how a while ago, back after your apartment flooded you were all all worried about your antique books and prints and stuff?" he nods, "Well Y/N could digitize the collection for you as a back up? I know you're a technophobe? C'mon Y/N, you know you could do that no sweat, and it would take you a lifetime alone Spencer?" I really don't want to admit it but she's right. Even I knew Reid was adverse to any technology that wasn't vital, but it was your specialty. And maybe that was a good trade off, a job like that would be near impossible for him to pull off without help. I take a glance over at Reid and he seems to have had the same train of thought as me. He lets out an exaggerated sigh and relaxes his posture.

"Fine, I guess that's a fair trade. I'm in." he resigns and I almost can't believe it. I'm barely processing the whole conversation as he sticks his hand out to me, I'm confused for a second before I grab it and shake it firmly. Condemning myself to whatever's about to happen. And it's not the time to be thinking about it but maybe this is the first time Spencer and I have ever touched? But I shove that thought away.

Garcia's positively beaming and she's not even trying to hide it. "Now it's like you're both in a Sandra Bullock movie, oh, but you're Hugh Grant maybe?" she points to Reid.

"Don't push it" I shoot in her direction, taking a slice of pizza, now that my anxiety stomach has sort of passed.

Once the pizza's been eaten in near completely awkward silence Spencer stands up off the sofa. His unsure demeanor has returned and he looks nervous. "I actually should get going this time" he says but Garcia pipes up to protest,

"No, it's not even late!"

"It takes me a while to get back home, thank you though Pen. For... this?" he gestures to the whole living room, "Night" he waves. He's almost made it to the door before I stand up out of my seat. I'm not really sure what comes over me, maybe it's gratitude, maybe it's guilt, or maybe I'm just exhausted.

"Wait Spencer. Let me give you a ride home?" I ask and it's like it's not even me saying it .

"Thanks, but I think I can make it home just fine" he dismisses, and there’s an antagonizing tone in his voice that snaps me right back to our usual rapport.

"I'm trying to do a nice thing here, fuck! Just let me do something nice!" I snap, and he throws his arms up in surrender.

"Fine alright, if it'll make you feel better"

"Fuck you Reid" I mutter under my breath and I sort of hope that he does hear me really. If he's gonna be hostile about this I can be too. I give Garcia a hug goodbye but I'm going to scold her for this whole thing later.

----

I lead the way outside and climb into my car, Spencer hops into the passenger seat and it feels as strange as always to be alone with him. Especially because it's not an accident, and it's not in work. Maybe this was a horrible idea. He seems like he's unwilling to break the silence, so I just get it over with.

"Where the hell do you live man? I'm gonna need directions." I say, as deadpan as I can muster, which probably isn't all that intimidating.

"Sorry, yeah, so you're gonna want to turn on the ignition" he teases. I definitely wasn't intimidating enough.

"Don't push it" I say, turning to give him a cruel stare, he just reacts with a smirk, that same one from the elevator earlier.

"Oh, I'm pushing it?" he asks, feigning disbelief

"I'll kick you out of this damn car" is all I can think to say. He barely responds, he just lets out a soft chuckle. I want to ask 'what's so funny' but he speaks before I can get the words out.

"I can't believe you talk to your Mom about me" he continues to laugh. That's enough.

"You know what Reid, of course I have! I work with actual murderers on a daily basis and somehow you've been the only real source of friction in my life since I joined the BAU!" He stops giggling a little, but not entirely, he looks like he's making an effort to contain himself.

"I'm sorry. I guess I just never knew I got to you like that" he still finds the whole thing amusing, but I sure as hell don't.

"Directions, now" I demand, looking straight out the front windshield.

"Fine, keep going straight on this road for a while and I'll tell you when to turn" he says, finally playing nice.

The two of us drive silently for most of the journey, the radio playing softly in the background. Eventually we arrive outside his building, and it's nicer than I thought it would be. But I have no idea what I was really basing that on. For some reason it hadn't occurred to me that Dr. Reid lived in an actual home, I had pictured him sleeping upside down in a cave maybe, or in a cryogenic chamber with all the other life-like genius robots.

"So," he says, breaking the silence, "When is this wedding?"

"4 months from now, in and around" I respond, matter of factly. Spencer nods, taking it in.

"Alright, so I've got 4 months, in and around, to learn enough to convincingly pass as your loving boyfriend. Doesn't sound so difficult." he jokes, his tone harsh and sarcastic.

"Look Spencer, I know this is insane and honestly kind of stupid. But in all seriousness, you can back out right now if you're not on board with whatever this is. I'm telling you this is the last exit ramp." I try to say it with sincerity, giving him a genuine out if he's not comfortable with the weird set-up that Penelope pulled on us both. He thinks on it for a moment and shakes his head.

"So how are we gonna do this?" he asks, and I really thought he was going to back out. So I don't have an actual answer.

"Well, I uh, I haven't really given a plan much thought. How about I come over and start working on some of the stuff you want digitized like Garcia mentioned and I can use the time to give you the footnotes on my life?" I suggest, at least that would make it easier to knock things out all at once. Rather than having to spend even more of my free time with Reid than necessary. He looks content with the improvised plan.

"Alright, sounds good." he undoes his seatbelt and opens the door to hop out of the car before turning back to me, "Are you coming inside or what?"

— —

Next Chapter

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid smut #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid angst #criminal minds smut #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #Criminal Minds #criminal minds imagine #Matthew Gray Gubler #matthew gray gubler smut #matthew gray gubler x reader #spencer reid x y/n #dr spencer reid #dr spencer reid smut #dr spencer reid imagine #dr spencer reid angst #mgg #mgg imagine #mgg smut #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #dr reid #enemies to lovers #fake dating au

[spencermyangel]

more spencer as a cat pls plssss he’s so cute ;D

Thank you for the request :)

Part 1

Spencer walked into his apartment after a long day at work, he sighed and sat down on the couch rubbing his hands over his face. Maybe he should have stayed a cat, he thought, then he could just relax all day. It had been a few weeks since the cat incident, as they had begun calling it. Almost as soon as he had that though he felt himself transform, Spencer looked around his apartment in shock and then down at his paws. He was a cat again! Spencer’s mind began to race, no, I didn’t mean it, he thought, I like being human. And with that he felt himself transform back into a human.

Spencer looked at his hands curiously, could he transform at will? He tried again, wishing to be a cat, and suddenly he was! This could be interesting, he thought.

*

About a month later Spencer was in cat form, sleeping in his hotel room. He had discovered he slept better in cat form. He still had not told the team about his new ability, he didn’t know how they would react.

Spencer’s door opened, waking him.

“Reid! We’ve called you 10 times. We’ve had a break in th…..” Morgan’s voice trailed off as he realized his friend was not in front of him, instead there was a familiar brown and white cat.

“Reid?” Morgan asked cautiously.

Spencer let out a soft meow, stretching and walking over to Morgan.

“How did this happen?” he started to panic “Cassius is in prison! We have to tell Hotch.”

Spencer quickly transformed back into his human form “No! It’s fine, see?”

Morgan looked at Reid, eyes wide. “You can… transform into a cat, like whenever you want?”

Spencer nodded, “it must be a side effect of the potion, I haven’t figured it out yet.”

Morgan sat down on the bed in shock “this is not something I ever thought would happen in my life. My best friend can shapeshift.”

Reid sat down beside him staying silent.

Morgan glanced over at him “do you always sleep like a cat?”

“Yes, I sleep better that way.” Spencer answered.

“We have to tell the team.” Morgan stated, pointedly.

“Okay but not now, at team dinner next week.” Reid agreed.

*

The day had come to tell them, the team was finishing up the traditional Italian pizza Rossi had taught them to make.

“Um… I have to tell you guys something.” Spencer said nervously.

The team looked at him expectantly, but also with slight confusion.

“You guys remember the uh, cat incident?”

The team nodded with Garcia sighing longingly,

“You were so cute. I mean you’re always cute. But you were just adorable.”

Spencer nodded, avoiding the team's eyes and fidgeting “there might be some side effects?”

“What do you mean, Bambi?” Rossi asked.

Spencer didn’t answer, he simply transformed into the tiny cat. The team stared in shock before being snapped out of it by Garcia squealing and running over to pick Spencer up.

“Oh my gosh, you’re so cute.” She cooed, petting Reid and cuddling him.

Emily and JJ walked over, joining her in fawning over Spencer.

Hotch cleared his throat “we have to talk about this.” He said after getting the team's attention.

Spencer jumped out of Garcia’s arms and transformed back.

JJ looked at Hotch with concern “You’re not going to like, report this are you?”

Penelope defensively shielded Reid “No! You can’t. We have to protect him, we can’t let the FBI take him and do experiments on him.”

Emily laughed, “Garcia, we are the FBI.”

Spencer gripped onto Garcia, fearfully looking over at Hotch. He didn’t want to be treated like some kind of freak and experimented on.

Hotch sighed “I’m not going to tell anyone.”

“None of us are.” Rossi added reassuringly.

“Right,” Hotch stated “I was going to say, we have to keep this a secret. Okay? People can’t find out.”

Everyone nodded in agreement before JJ asked Reid to transform into a cat again so they could play with him and he happily complied.

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Send in requests or asks here

#spencer reid #derek morgan #david rossi #criminal minds #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #jennifer jereau #bau team #penelope garcia

[spencers-renaissance]

Fic Rec Thursday

In order to accommodate my new posting schedule, I’ve moved fic recs to Thursday, even though it doesn’t have the same ring to it :/ But ultimately it’s the best day to keep my OC posts evenly spaced! It’s mostly Moreid this week as it’s what I’ve been reading to get back into reading CM fic, but I hope you enjoy :D

5 Fics

🍓Pretty Boy by recklessDreamer - 2.8k, 1ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, 5 + 1 Things, Gun Shot Wounds, Getting Together, First Kiss, Insecure Spencer

5 times Morgan calls Spencer 'Pretty boy' and 1 time Spencer actually believes that he means it.

🍉two left feet by @oliverbrnch - 1.1k, 1ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, TikTok, Dancing, Clumsy Spencer, Domestic Fluff, Slice of Life, Humour

Derek is a fan of TikTok trends, and he wants Spencer to do one with him. 

💔High School Never Ends by @casparwrites - 1.4k, 1ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Hurt Spencer, Protective Derek, Established Relationship, Homophobia, Bullying, Past Childhood Trauma, Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort (TW for a Violent, Homophobic Police Officer)

Las Vegas always brought back painful memories for Spencer, but this one was unexpected.

🍎Midnight Meetings by CoffeeBuddha - 1.5k, 1ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Meeting the Parents, Outside POV, Fluff, Protective Derek

Fran's first meeting with her son's lover doesn't go exactly as planned. For starters, she didn't even know he had one. Rec courtesy of @negativefouriq who consistently sends me amazing fics 

And finally, one of my favourite fics of all time that I reread the other day:

🍒Chain Reaction by EloquentDossier - 42k, 16ch, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Alternate Universe, Texting/Dialogue-Only, Self-Esteem Issues, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Past Drug Use, Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Oblivious Aaron Hotchner, Getting Together Canon Divergence

A dialogue-only AU in which Hotch texts what he thinks is Rossi's new number but is actually the slightly eccentric stranger whom Hotch knows only as "Spencer." What follows is something neither man could have ever quite expected.

Marked For Later

🍋Model Apparitions by @guccifloralsuits - 3.1k, 1ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Ex-Model Spencer, Ex-CIA Spencer, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Angst, Mystery, First Meetings, Episode: S1E6 LDSK

Dr. Spencer Reid, Hotch called him. Apparent genius and ex-CIA. Three PhDs to his title and over 6 years of prior agency experience. 22 years old, assigned straight to the most prestigious unit in the FBI. According to Gideon: “The most brilliant mind I’ve had the chance to witness.” (It does nothing to dispel Morgan’s concern).

🍌you can cry into my shirt by evangelx - 2.4k, 2ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Cheating/Infidelity, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Abandonment Issues, Protective Derek Morgan, Sad Spencer Reid, Fluff, Angst, Pre-Relationship

Derek overhears that Spencer was cheated on. Now he wants to help.

My Fics

🍰let him be soft (and let him be mine) - 4.5k, 2ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer,  Reid, Hurt/Comfort, Abandonment Issues, Crying, Injured Derek, Hurt Spencer, Self-Sacrifice, Miscommunication, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Protective Derek, Some Religious Imagery & Symbolism

After Derek pulls another self-sacrificing stunt at the culmination of their most recent case, Spencer runs out of their apartment as he desperately grapples with how it makes him feel.

or; Derek's self-sacrificing tendencies meet Spencer's abandonment issues. It gets messy before it gets better.

🧁The Colour of Healing is Yellow - 3.6k, 1ch, Gen / Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid Whump, Major Character Injury, Assault, Recovery, Aftermath of Violence, Trauma, Protective Aaron Hotchner, Dad Hotch, Crying, Hospitals, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff

After a violent assault, Spencer's stuck in a hospital bed, and Hotch is stuck watching him suffer, powerless to change what's passed, desperate to change Spencer's future.

This fic follows the police visiting Spencer, his fear in the aftermath of his assault, Penelope being the best friend ever, and the eventual end to his hospital stay. Part Two to the Colours Series.

🍦Rain is a Chance to be Touched - 3.4k, 1/17ch, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Hurt Spencer, Angst, Getting Together, Protective Aaron Hotchner, Fighting, Making Up, Fluff, Domesticity, Season/Series 05, Angst with a Happy Ending (Lots of TWs // WIP)

When Spencer is shot in the knee and Hotch's whole family comes under attack, the depression that's been slowly creeping up on him over the last couple of months takes over, shrouding him in a dark cloud he can't escape.

Hotch finally realises what's going on, but before he can say anything Spencer leaves the BAU. He throws himself into the life of the younger man, desperate to make him happy again, but will their budding new relationship actually blossom? And is Spencer's relationship with the team broken forever?

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @suburban--gothic @takeyourleap-of-faith @negativefouriq @makaylajadewrites @iamrenstark @livrere-blue @hotchseyebrows @reidology @spencerspecifics @bau-gremlin @goobzoop @marsjareau @garcias-bitch @oliverbrnch @physics-magic @sbeno22 @im-autistic-not-stupid (taglist form)

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds angst #cm #cm fic #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fic rec #cm fic rec #moreid fic rec #moreid #moreid fic #derek morgan #spencer reid #aaron hotchner #hotchreid #hotchreid fic #hotchreid fic rec #aaron hotchner x spencer reid #spencer reid x aaron hotchner #derek morgan x spencer reid #spencer reid x derek morgan #aaron hotchner/spencer reid #spencer reid/aaron hotchner #spencer reid/derek morgan #derek morgan/spencer reid #moreid fluff #hotchreid angst #hotchreid fluff #moreid angst #fic rec friday