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“How ’bout you, (y/l/n), you in?”
You looked up from where you were packing up at your desk to find Derek awaiting your answer. Emily and JJ stood nearby, all waiting so they could head out to the bar together.
“Oh, guys, I really wish I could, but…rain check? I sort of have to be somewhere.” You braced yourself for the inevitable follow-up questions. The team was pretty good about respecting each other’s privacy when it counted, but after a trying case that chipped away at everyone’s hope only to take a last-minute swerve that saw the unsub apprehended and the potential victims rescued, spirits were higher than they’d been in a while, exhausted though you all were.
“Somewhere?” Emily made no effort to mask her surprise. Just then, Spencer emerged from Hotch’s office, his attention immediately falling on the group congregated by your desk. “Do tell,” she said.
“Is it really that big a surprise?” you mumbled as you packed away the last folder in your bag. You weren’t exactly known for your active social life, but it didn’t mean you liked to be reminded of it.
“Hey, no offense meant,” Derek said lightly. “You know none of us are exactly out bar-hopping every night, either. Unless you got some whole other wild second life we don’t know about. In which case you’ve definitely been holding out on us.”
“Well, I could tell you,” you said, “but then I’d have to kill you.”
“What’s going on?”
You turned at the sound of Spencer’s voice to find him joining the group and looking between you and the others.
“We asked (y/n) if she was up for drinks, but she said she had somewhere to be,” JJ said.
“You still coming?” Emily asked Spencer.
“Yeah, yeah, I just had to speak with Hotch for a second—wait, you have somewhere to be?” He shifted his entire body in your direction. His question resulted in a few chuckles from the others.
“Yes.” You were more than a little peeved—and mortified—that even Spencer was joining in the apparently shocking spectacle of your having plans. “Jeez, do I really come off as that pathetic to you guys? Anyone want to alert the media while you’re out?”
“Oh, come on, you know we’re just teasing, (y/n),” Emily said. “Like Morgan said, we’re not exactly the poster girls and boys for thriving social lives here, either.”
“Well, actually, depending on your interpretation of ‘thriving,’ Morgan might actually be the most active out of all of us,” said Spencer. “At least, this is judging purely from the information he’s willingly given us over the years.”
Emily snorted. “Active. That’s how you want to put it.”
“Well, I-I mean active as in socially active,” he said. “Not, you know—I mean, maybe that, too, I don’t know, I—and in any case, are we entirely sure this isn’t an inappropriate topic of discussion per HR policy?”
“Hey, you’re the one who brought it up with the whole ‘active’ thing,” Derek said. “And seriously, will y’all stop making me out to be some sort of dog, already? So I go out on dates. We all do from time to time, when we can. I know Prentiss does. Even you sometimes, Reid.”
Your glance automatically cut over to Spencer. His gaze quickly shot downward, a boyish pinch appearing at his mouth.
“Yeah, well, unless you count Henry and Will, I’m not exactly overflowing with dates, either,” JJ said. “Though Will and I are actually trying to work on doing date nights more often.” She offered you an understanding glance. “Don’t worry about it, (y/n). There’s always next time.”
Except there was no knowing when next time would be. The team didn’t socialize after work all that often, but you loved it whenever you did. You really were like a little family. Which had you wishing you could join them that night even more.
“I really wish I could go, but…” You gave a somewhat sheepish look. “I sort of have a date.”
“A date? Oh, now, this we got to hear,” Emily said.
“Next week.” JJ took Emily by the arms in an attempt to herd her toward the doors. “Or whenever she feels like it.”
“Hey, just be glad Garcia isn’t in the room to grill you on all the details,” Emily said.
“I’m sure she’ll get her wish eventually,” you said, stifling a snort at the picture she and JJ made as one woman guided the other out the door. It left you with Derek and Spencer, the latter of whom you’d noticed out of the corner of your eye had subtly shifted his demeanor at the admission of your date.
“So, a date, huh?” Derek said. “Well, I say good for you. You don’t need us to tell you how tough it can be with this gig sometimes. This your first time going out with him?”
“Yeah. We’ve got a mutual friend in common. He’s supposed to be a really great guy or something.”
“Aren’t they all?” He tapped your desk with the stack of folders in his hand as farewell. “Well, have a good time. Who knows, he might just be the one.” He turned and left.
The bullpen was quiet and empty, save for you and Spencer. Hotch was still tucked away in his office finishing up some reports. The others were probably by the elevator along with Rossi and Garcia or down in the lobby. They were likely waiting for Spencer, which he must’ve known, except he stayed behind, lingering as you checked something at your desk. When you were done, you gave him a quick smile and walked out with him.
“So, uh,” he said as you pressed the elevator call button. The others were nowhere to be seen. “Do you know what he’s like?”
You looked at him from the side. He was stood casually with his hands in his pockets, his satchel thrown across his torso. He had on another one of those sweater vests you secretly adored—okay, positively fawned over—on him. The sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up to his forearms, and his ever-present watch lay around his wrist with the face pointing off to the side. It was always difficult to take your eyes away from him, which was why you made sure never to look for too long, which in turn made you no doubt come off as dismissive at times. But better that than to give away any hint of your unresolvable feelings for the man beside you.
You weren’t sure when it’d all started. It might’ve been anything. Something new he’d done to his hair, his brilliant, brilliant mind, or how he’d come to you following more than a handful of exceedingly disturbing cases and wanted to make sure about the faraway look in your eyes without making you feel like a fragile piece of glass needing to be handled with care.
Or more likely it was a mixture of all those things and much more, an extensive collection of observations and interactions you’d had with him over the years until one day he came to the roundtable for a briefing looking like he’d always looked, except the eyes through which you saw him were suddenly, unsettlingly brand new.
He was startlingly handsome. Startlingly…everything.
Now, every part of you was attuned to every part of him. You were aware of every time his eyes landed on you, every time his long leg stretched out under the table and his shoe rested two inches from yours. Every time you watched him go off on one of his tangents and found yourself focusing on his lips instead of the words coming out of them. You took note of how, without calling attention to it, he often waited until you’d gotten out of the car and reached his side before you walked into a crime scene, police station, whatever it was, together. You knew it every time your arms accidentally brushed or he shot a soft, tired smile your way or you exited a room only to nearly bump straight into him as he entered and his body heat wrapped around your skin like a blanket for those brief seconds his body hovered inches from your own.
You were glad you’d gotten to know him as colleagues first and foremost, then eventually as friends. It’d been intimidating enough meeting the actual genius that was Dr. Reid; to meet him under the circumstance of romantic prospection would’ve been too much and, frankly, would’ve landed absolutely and unequivocally nowhere. You and Spencer were not even a possibility within a possibility. You were not the type he went for. And if you’d ever had any doubts about it, the fact that he’d never shown even the slightest indication that he felt a fraction of what you felt for him put them all to rest.
Sometimes when another agent would join the team for a while, the others would tease him if they thought he was interested in her. If anyone noticed how you never joined in—and you were sure they had—they never said anything. Even the proximity and familiarity that stemmed from being around you day in and day out wasn’t enough to attach himself to you like it’d been on your end.
It was you who’d gone and done the stupid thing. Falling for a teammate. A colleague. A friend. Someone who might’ve been all that and more in perhaps only one of an infinite number of far-off parallel worlds. Because the odds were not in your favor. Not with him.
But, as Derek had said, maybe they would be with the man you were meeting that night. Part of you hoped for it, if only so it might put out the torch you held for your teammate and help you move on. So that if there were more dates to go on with more men and he asked things like do you know what he’s like? you’d be able to answer without your stomach feeling like it was folding in on itself.
“I mean, I don’t know much,” you said. “My old friend set us up and she thinks we’d be a good match, and, to be honest, I’m too tired to say no anymore.”
The elevator opened and the two of you stepped in. The silence, whereas it was usually companionable, was oddly noticeable this time.
“She tries to set you up a lot, I take it, your friend?” he said.
“Kind of. Now that I think of it, I’m kind of jealous she knows so many cute guys who happen to be single.”
Silence again. As always, you were aware of how he stood right beside you, his arm inches from yours. When the elevator arrived at the lobby, you were reluctant to remove yourself from the space you occupied together but knew it had to be done. You willed your feet forward into the lobby, and he followed right at your back. You could sense his gaze on you the entire time.
You’d never been more glad to see the rest of the team.
“Took you long enough, Reid,” Derek said. “What, she kidnap you or something? Almost went up there to check up on you.”
“It really wasn’t that long,” Spencer muttered over your shoulder.
You noted Garcia’s absence. You figured she’d already gone ahead to the bar, and you couldn’t deny your immense relief. Emily hadn’t been lying when she’d said Garcia would be looking to grill you on the details of your date.
“All right, well, you guys have fun,” you said. “I got to head home and change, you know, for…”
“Yes,” Emily said, amused. “Your date.”
You threw out a wave, eyes finding everyone’s until they landed briefly on Spencer, who looked back with a tight smile before averting his gaze. Before anything else could be said, you made your exit instead of walking out with everyone.
It would do you no good to be distracted on your date. No good at all to be on a date with this man and be able to think only of that distantly polite look on Spencer’s face as you’d said goodbye. No good when you’d heard Derek say Spencer himself went out on dates. How often, you had no idea. You were friends, but you made sure to make yourself scarce whenever the topic-slash-teasing came up among the others.
You didn’t want to hear about him with other women. Burying your head in the sand wouldn’t make it any less of a reality, but if he did eventually find a nice, genius woman, you wanted to know as little about it as you could reasonably help.
The weekend came and went, as did your date. He—Marcus—was cute, affable. A perfectly nice guy…of whom you felt absolutely no dizzying awareness. But maybe that would come with time. You figured maybe it wouldn’t get any better than that for you, that maybe despite your most secret, buried hopes, a deep, true love just wasn’t in the cards for you. So when he said he’d like to see you again, you agreed.
Which was immediately followed by regret. What if it actually went somewhere and that tepid attraction never grew hotter? Never sizzled and burned like it did whenever Spencer was near, never had you drawing closer to him like he was the north pole to your south? You didn’t know the other man well, but surely he deserved better than someone who wasn’t truly in it.
But perhaps you were thinking too far ahead. Maybe you should just let it play out and see where it went.
You put all thoughts of the date out of your head when it was time for the briefing the following Monday. When it was over, with Hotch declaring wheels up in thirty, everyone filed out of the room. You lagged behind to stack together some files, noticing how Spencer took his time putting his own folders together, all the while sneaking glances your way.
You didn’t normally feel the need to fill the silence with him, especially since he often found something to say anyway, but this time felt different.
“You think it’s possible to rent out a place on the jet? I feel like I spend more time on that thing than in my own apartment.” You threw out a casual, if not somewhat strained, smile.
“It’s a pretty nice jet,” he said, smile equally strained.
Eager to escape the awkward atmosphere, you moved past him out the door.
“Hey—(y/n), hey, wait up.” He quickly caught up to where you were picking up some things from your desk. “I just…uh, I guess I just wanted to ask…how was your date?”
“My date?”
“Yeah. It was this past weekend, right?”
“Yeah.” You shouldn’t be so caught off guard. You were friends. It was normal for him to ask. “It was nice.”
“Nice?”
“Yeah.” You glanced at him curiously as you gathered your go bag. He followed your movements with a keen, rapid eye, like a dog did its favorite treat. There was a strange undercurrent of urgency to his behavior. Like he was running out of time. “He, uh, said he wanted to see me again,” you said.
“Oh.” His voice rose in pitch slightly and he walked out with you. “That’s nice. Are you?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I said yes, but to be honest, I’m still a little unsure. But…” You glanced around to make sure no one could hear. “I don’t know, maybe this is it. I don’t exactly get a lot of chances. Maybe this is my best shot at…it. Whatever ‘it’ is.”
“Wait, are you talking about settling?”
“Maybe it just feels like that now. Maybe it’ll feel different in the future, you know, when—if—things are more serious.”
“Well, I mean, (y/n), you hardly know the guy.”
“Yeah.” Your chuckle lacked humor. “That’s sort of what dates are for. You should know, right?”
His widened eyes latched onto yours. “Me?”
“Yeah. Morgan was talking about how you go out on the occasional date, too.”
“To be honest, I think he was just saying that to make a point about how we all have lives outside of work. The truth is I don’t, really. Date, that is. Not like you think.”
“Well, I don’t really…” I don’t really think, you didn’t say. Because I don’t want to think about you with other women.
His phone went off and he looked down at the text. “Rossi needs to speak with me before we go. It probably won’t be long. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you on the jet.” It sounded almost like a question, and something in his eye said he was watching carefully for your response, but you couldn’t fathom why.
“Yeah,” you said.
After another oddly charged moment, he finally turned in the other direction, leaving you to look after him.
The case was wrapped up, and there was one fewer serial killer out on the streets. Still far, far too many for your liking, however.
You needed to decompress with a long hot bath. Afterward, you roamed the apartment in your towel while snacking on whatever you could find, not up to cooking. You’d just decided to order in when a knock came at the door.
You stilled. You didn’t often get visitors. Silently, you padded over to look through the peephole, and your heart jumped violently when you saw who it was.
Still in his work clothes, Spencer waited on the other side, that same urgent quality to his posture, except this time it was overt. You reared back on instinct, wondering what on earth he was doing there. He knew where you lived, but he’d never actually been over.
You raced to the bedroom, haphazardly threw on some sweats and an old hoodie, then raced back to open the door just as he knocked again.
“Spencer.”
His eyes flitted down your outfit before he seemed to catch himself. “Hi.”
“What are you doing here?”
His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Well, there are several ways I could answer that question, but I…I think I’ll settle for this one.”
You looked back in confusion.
“(Y/n), I…dating as we know it today is a relatively recent convention, one whose ultimate goal is to end in long-term commitment with, one hopes, the mate of his or her choosing.”
“…Right.”
He wet his lips again and shifted on his feet. His mouth worked before the words came out. “You think I can come in?”
The door was swinging fully open when he quickly said, “No, wait, that’s presumptuous of me. Never mind.”
“Spencer?”
“No, wait, actually—yeah, I think I should come in for this. I’m not sure the hallway is the most suitable place for what I came here to say.”
You were stepping aside to make room for him.
“No, wait, actually—”
“Spencer, will you just get in here, already?”
His lips pressed together in resolve and he stepped inside. His eyes roved over the apartment until you shut the door, and then he turned to face you. “Is this a bad time? I might be interrupting.”
“No, I was just about to order some food. You want anything? I was thinking of ordering from that place that just opened up a couple blocks down.”
He waved it off like he was in a rush. “No. Thank you. Uh, okay, I guess I should make this quick, then. (Y/n), I-I think you should cancel your date. With that other guy. Marcus, you said his name was?”
You stared at him. Then at last you remembered how to speak. “Uh, yes. Marcus. Spencer, what—”
“Right, well, frankly, I don’t really care at all what his name is. Of course I remember it, but I don’t care because the point is, I think you should cancel your date with him and…”
Your eyes were locked on him. Whatever he was asking of you, it had to be a dream. That was the only explanation for why he’d shown up at your apartment at seven in the evening going off about the date you assumed he’d forgotten all about. Not in the literal sense, of course, what with his eidetic memory, but you’d figured he heard about it, asked about it, then gave it no second thought afterward.
“And…?” you said.
“And…go out with…me, maybe.”
You were frozen in shock. “What?”
He took in your expression, and something in his own expression fell. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that. I have zero right to ask that of you, I’m aware, but I thought maybe this would be my only shot and you talked about it possibly being your best shot before and I just came here to tell you it’s not true because how could it be and—”
“Spence, Spence, slow down.” You let out an incredulous laugh. “You’re going a million miles per second here.”
“I’m sorry. You make me nervous.”
“Wha—I make you nervous?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“Well, yes.”
His head shook immediately, like the gesture was involuntary, springing from some deep, hidden passion itching to burst forth. He stepped closer, the magnet of his body heat drawing you in. “(Y/n), you’re…how could you really not know? Listen, you talked about this guy being your best shot, and I-I wanted to tell you that’s not true.” His eyes, so open and earnest, searched yours. “I can be your best shot.”
Your heart was threatening to burst out of your chest. “Spencer, what are you saying?”
“Probably not what I should be. I’m really no good at these things. Like I said, I don’t date, and you make me nervous.”
Despite your better logic, a seed of hope began to take root in your chest, permeating and painful. Painful because it would crush you to the point of no return if it turned out you somehow misunderstood what he was saying. “Are you…asking me out?”
“If those are the terms you’d like to use, then yes. I am.”
“But I…I thought you didn’t like me.”
“Like you?” His breathy chuckle was one of disbelief. “(Y/n), as a person, I like you plenty. I’d hoped our friendship made that clear. And in a more romantic capacity, I still like you plenty. A lot more than plenty if I’m being honest. Like, a lot more.”
You had no words. You let it all sink in as he witnessed it.
“When you talked about settling, it really hit me then that unless we try, we might never get what we actually want,” he said. “And I realized this could be my only shot to let you know how I feel before I chickened out and let you get away. And even if you decide to throw me out and ask me to pretend this never happened, and years down the road we’ve gone our separate ways and I kick myself over how much I still miss you, wishing it could’ve gone differently, I’ll have to learn to accept that no matter how hard it’ll be because unless I try, I’ll never know.”
Somehow, he looked at you like you were his world. Like he was going to die tomorrow and this was the last thing he knew he had to do.
You swallowed past the knot in your throat, giving in to the urge to rub the spot where it physically ached in your chest. “Spencer…you good with Vietnamese?”
A dip formed between his brows, confusion quickly mingling with anxiety. “Huh?”
“You’re good with Vietnamese food, right? I was thinking of ordering in.”
His gaze darted away like he was trying to work it all out. Then finally, he looked at you. Let it sink in. His throat bobbed. “Yeah,” he said softly at first. “Yeah. I’m fine with whatever.”
You smiled at him. A true, slow-to-blossom smile. He looked back like you’d hung the moon and all the stars in the night sky. When you drew closer, gently taking his hand in yours, he looked down at it in wonder.
“You’re right. We can’t let it get away.” You gazed up at him, his fingers slowly entwining with yours. “So let’s do something about that best shot.”