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ihatethecrowdsyouknowthat · 3 days ago

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First, the message. Uncomplicated, but not arrogantly direct. Then the meeting itself, first the door to his apartment, stepping inside and the meeting. The conversation, which sometimes felt as if he was having it as a punishment. But only when he felt like pretending that he respected you, such a sadistic role play or just a simple variety. Or when you, at all costs, needed to feel that way.

I'M SO PAINED BUT SO HAPPY. THANK YOU FOR MAKING ME FEEL.

ps it's hard to be mad at a fic with shirtless spencer...

sweet strawberries and bitter sneezes

summary: breathing dreams like air is harder to put into practice when a blocked nose makes it difficult to breathe, and the man who is the object of your nighttime sweet fantasies only wants you in the dark, in cool sheets, back-to-back, instead of on meadow pillows, tangled on a checkered blanket.

contents/tw: spencer reid x reader, implied intimacy, flangst (don’t let that cute header and pastel colors fool you) lowkey ooc spencer, but honestly, that man was sometimes a jerk even in canon, so here he is ×5

who to blame? @ihatethecrowdsyouknowthat 'cause i wrote it for her birthday and i have proof it was her idea. besides, happy birthday to the most gorgeous, most hilarious girl in the world!

Spencer Reid made you fall in love with routine.

That didn’t automatically mean he was a complete control freak with a strict, unchanging daily schedule, but he definitely had certain preferences. He always added the same number of teaspoons of sugar to his coffee (5) (part of his yearly routine also included very regular dentist visits), liked to wear that specific tie on Thursdays (paisley pattern, solid color, purple), and maybe he didn’t go to bed at exactly the same time, he had trouble with that, but he always spent time in bed before falling asleep reading.

You yourself used to cringe whenever you heard that word. Routine, that is, not reading. Reading, you loved it with all your heart. It simply reminded you of nothing but unpleasant things. The necessity of getting up at the same time, too early, for work. The inevitability that after your favorite season came the next one, the hated one.

Some people found comfort in repetition. You weren’t one of them, but Spencer did. He had told you that himself, to which you gave him a skeptical look. Repetition? Pleasant? To you, it meant boredom, especially in a relationship. At least, that’s how it seemed to you before you met him. Before you slowly started creating your little relationship routine. Little things, little gestures, coming and going, anticipated and adored by you.

Like how on Saturday nights you always ended up on the floor. You had a very, very comfortable couch in your apartment. But also a floor with a pull as strong as gravity on Earth, or maybe simply tempting for what it offered. Tempting with the idea of sliding onto it with laughter, the way your heads touched, and one hand found the other, forming the letter A. A like Affinity, Italian Amare, or Turkish Aşk, not Anthrax or Autopsy, to be precise.

Or your favorite restaurant literally around the corner, where you’d drop in regularly, but it never got boring. The same with the walk over that one specific bridge you always crossed, and how, for some unknown reason, you always ended up talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald then.

Or the nights when each of you had your designated side of the bed. With fluid boundaries, but boundaries nonetheless. And even though you had to get up too early, at least you got up early every day with him, always the first one, able to watch his relaxed features in sleep.

A small life with small celebrations of love, without fireworks unexpectedly cutting across the sky or romantic wildness. Sweet, comforting routine could brighten even the gray and dull, make it shine with gold.

So Spencer appearing in the doorway of the apartment on a sunny mid-August day, holding a large picnic basket in his hands, was a kind of display of spontaneity.

You wrapped yourself in your sweater, tilting your head to the side with a smile.

“So, no dinner out tonight and we’re not going to talk about The Great Gatsby once again?” you teased lightly, feeling a pleasant warmth in your stomach. Warmth mixed with a tingle of excitement about where you were going.

“I think we’ve tried every dish on this place’s menu already. And we’ll probably try again, but there won’t be many more opportunities this summer for chocolate to melt in the sun by itself,” he replied, shifting the basket from hand to hand, dressed in a light white shirt with an almost old-fashioned cut. “Sorry, Mr. Gatsby.”

“We chose strawberries with chocolate over you,” you added. You sighed with mock guilt. “We’ve betrayed him. He’s probably tearing his hair out, crying into his pillow right now.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Spencer said, reaching out his free hand, the one not holding the basket.

You closed the door, and without taking anything with you, you slipped your hand into his, intertwining your fingers. “It’s hot. Our hands are going to sweat, and one will slide in the other. I repeat, they will sweat. You’re ready for this sensory ordeal?” you asked as you walked toward the car.

Spencer let out a soft snort of laughter, almost like a slightly louder exhale. “There are some sensory ordeals I can handle. Otherwise, I’d never be able to hold your hand again.”

You wrinkled your nose. “You’re so romantic today.”

He slowed your shared pace so he could lean in and kiss the little crease on your nose, instantly smoothing it out and creating two more at the corners of your eyes.

“It’s the weather,” he explained with a murmur.

You raised an eyebrow.

“The weather makes you romantic?”

“The weather made you notice it. I’ve always been like this.”

“Mhm. I don’t recall you ever planning a surprise picnic for us before. With strawberries and…what else do you have?” You wanted to peek into the picnic basket to see what else was inside.

Spencer pulled it just out of your reach, a teasing smile flashing across his lips as he shook his head. “It’s a surprise. You’ll find out when we get there.”

“Get where?”

He looked at you with his dark, warm eyes but didn’t answer. You sighed, though in reality, the uncertainty thrilled you. It made the drive more than just about the destination, you actually noticed the scenery outside the car window. And that day was so beautiful that even the air seemed worth admiring. If it weren’t for the slight cold bothering you and your nose not being in the best shape, you might have tried to slowly breathe it in, savoring the summer mix of freshness and something almost dense.

The meadow was covered in tall grass, a mix of green and yellow. Sometimes its dry blades brushed against your calves, causing a slight, harmless scrape. Spencer walked two steps ahead of you, his hand behind his back in your grasp, the other holding the picnic basket. You hold onto each other as if this grass, barely reaching your knees, could suddenly become a labyrinth of Daedalus, confuse you, make you lose your way. To be separated—that would be the worst.

Sunlight fell on your backs, as if pushing you forward.

You found your spot under a solitary tree. The checkered blanket, thrown on the grass, lay oddly because of the height of the blades, but when you lay on your back, it molded beneath you like a pillow. You deliberately chose to lie on your back so you could watch Spencer, bathed in sunlight, kneel on the blanket, straightening it to perfection and placing the box of strawberries on it. From time to time, he glanced at you out of the corner of his eye, as if habitually, unconsciously, not expecting you to return the gaze.

You did. He slowed in place, his lips lifting into a smile.

One moment he was kneeling before you on the blanket, the next he was hovering just above your body, pressing a lazy kiss to your lips, tasting so sweet himself. Strawberry-sweet. He must have tried one while you weren’t looking, but the proof rested right there in his mouth. To make sure, you deepened the kiss, placing your hand on the back of his neck, warm from the sun along the way.

A tickle in your nose.

You pulled your face back from his; he let out a protesting hum. You raised a finger, signaling him to wait. Then it came—a sneeze. Spencer sat down next to you while you lay on your back. Your hands were intertwined on your stomach in a little basket, and he covered them with his, brushing hair from your face with the other.

“A cup of hot tea would do us good,” he said. “It’d help with your illness. Sorry, I didn’t think.”

“It’s just a cold, Spence,” you replied gently. “Funny that it caught me in summer, but oh well. You couldn’t have known.”

“I want to take care of you. Somehow.”

You looked at his face, more tanned than usual lately, more alive. You blinked slowly, focusing on his hand covering yours. “Just be here with me.”

“I am. And I will be.”

“And don’t leave. And don’t make me leave.”

Spencer shook his head with sudden amusement, leaning over you once more. Only a brush of your lips. “How did that even cross your mind, silly?” he murmured into your lips.

You shrugged, because you really didn’t know—maybe the heat was affecting your speech, making absolute absurdities fall from your lips. You closed your eyes for a moment, sniffing. “And feed me strawberries,” you added.

Above you, Spencer snorted. “As you wish.”

You propped yourself up so that you could be face-to-face. You didn’t know where he had gotten the strawberries, but they were huge and deep red, looking so juicy. “Here you go,” he murmured, bringing one slowly to your lips.

Carefully, like a fruit critic, you bit into it. Juice immediately ran out, which wasn’t so common for strawberries and spoke to its incredible ripeness. You murmured in surprise and tried to wipe the trail of juice from your chin, but Spencer let out a quiet shh and wiped it himself with his thumb. You finished the strawberry, and his finger returned to your face.

Gently brushing your lower lip, probably stained red. Your eyes stayed on his as his stayed on your lips, in absolute focus. His thumb traced their length twice before brushing the corner of your mouth, then your cheek—and then, finally, your eyes really met.

“You look so beautiful today,” he said, his voice, as always, hovering on the edge of a whisper. He didn’t need to speak loudly when he was this close. And his words were meant for you, not the world. “Like an angel, really.”

“An angel?”

“Mhm. My angel.”

“Your angel.”

“Mhm.”

Spencer let out a quiet laugh again, lowering his gaze and leaning in for another lazy kiss, holding your face in both hands like a warm cup of tea. Lazy, like the whole day had been. Or maybe a better word was unhurried. Immersed in the moment, fully present in it, not rushing anywhere else. Thoughts, plans, intentions. Only there, only with you. Fully present with his whole self, and all of yours—whispered I love you in that same quiet, private tone, meant only for the two of you.

Then, you sneezed.

🍓

You stirred, hovering between sleep and wakefulness, your bare skin brushing against the cold, white sheets. Cold sheets, despite the fact that you’d both spent the entire night in them. Somehow their chill never faded, as if mocking you. Two people in the same bed, lying on opposite sides, no longer touching. Between you—cold. So much cold.

You shifted again, sniffing with some difficulty. You’d caught your first cold of the autumn, feeling fine just yesterday and quietly hoping it would pass. It never did—it only came back stronger the next morning. And it wasn’t the only thing advancing on you in formation, along with it came memories of last night.

Not last night in the literal sense—not the physical, not what really happened, again, because that was a dull and repetitive subject by now. You were thinking of your dream—of its warmth spread across you just moments ago, still lingering, still resisting the chill of the sheets.

You rolled onto your side. It made it easier to breathe through your stuffy nose. Another sniff; well, there was nothing you could do about it. You blinked, eyes still heavy with sleep.

In front of you stretched a back, ending in a tousled mess of brown hair. He was close. Spencer was close to you. When you reached out, your fingertips could just graze the surface—softly, so as not to wake him—tracing lightly along it. You weren’t writing anything in particular. Well, the first letter somehow came out as a P, just like the word pathetic. An instinct, a reflex, half-asleep mind shaping it without conscious thought, running on whatever the subconscious fed it.

You and Spencer had your routine.

Then the mattress beneath your back, the first chill of the sheets taken on like a shield in the form of clothing, but soon you got rid of that form of defense. Loud breaths, never in sync, though sometimes you tried. You didn’t know why—there was something seemingly romantic about it. Breathing the same air, some illusion of spiritual connection, devotion, dedication, warmth, Orpheus turning back for Eurydice, love songs from the eighties, a big mishmash of your definition of love filling your head for a moment, allowing a few drops of delusion.

You sniffled twice, stifling an oncoming sneeze.

“Can you stop?” a question in the dark, a murmur, his morning voice hoarse. Irritated.

You froze, only then realizing your finger was still tracing along his back. You sniffled and nodded, though of course he couldn’t see it, turned away as he was. But you stopped, and that’s what mattered.

“The nose thing too,” he added.

“What?” you croaked, maybe too sleepy to understand. Or maybe it was because you were talking to his damn back, which made basic communication significantly harder.

“It’s keeping me from falling asleep.”

“I can’t breathe any other way. You want me to suffocate?”

He exhaled through his nose — you heard it. “At least do it less often.”

Morning grumpiness. That’s just how he was, something you’d learned a long time ago. Sometimes it was afternoon grumpiness too. And evening. But last week, when you’d also stayed the night and taken a shower at his place in the morning, there had been a TV show playing that you both liked, and you’d even laughed together as the sounds of a fully awake city drifted in through the cracked balcony door. You knew how to cling to those scraps of good memories like a life preserver, and ride them straight into the depths of the Mariana Trench. Optimism or stupidity. Sometimes you asked yourself that question, then flipped a coin. The answer was, therefore, variable.

You tucked your hand under your cheek, drawing your knees closer to your body. Spencer was silent, and the silence filled his half-shadowed bedroom. You kept your eyes on his back, on the movement of his shoulder blades as he breathed. Uneven, a sign he wasn’t asleep.

You could picture his dark eyes, almost absent but open, fixed on some point in front of him. Maybe he was staring at a wrinkle in the sheets and thinking it looked like a giraffe. No, scratch that. This was Spencer Reid. Maybe he was staring at a wrinkle in the sheets and thinking it looked like the Greek letter lambda.

That he was awake didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to talk to you. But you did want to talk. And you so rarely put yourself first that he ought to forgive you for it. You sniffled — quieter this time.

“I had a dream,” you said.

At first, he didn’t answer. You weren’t even sure you wanted to tell him about it. Maybe not on your own, but if he asked—

“Like all people, sometimes.”

You closed your mouth. The position you were lying in had grown uncomfortable, but you stayed in it anyway. “You had one too?”

A moment of silence and stillness. His neck moved slightly, as if he’d tried to shake his head no.

“Not today.”

You bit the inside of your lower lip, briefly summoning the warm memory of the dream and the few rare shared memories you could even loosely compare it to. He’d never fed you strawberries or told you he loved you — but still. The bedroom was cold, and you wanted to fill it with that fleeting warmth, to use it, even if it would serve only you and annoy him.

You drew in a breath through your clogged, barely-working nose.

“And you were there too. I opened the door, and you were standing there with a basket, and you said you were taking me on a picnic. And you were wearing one of those old-fashioned white shirts.”

You added that part as though it were essential to the dream’s plot. Maybe it simply helped you recall as many details as possible before they slipped away.

Spencer’s back didn’t move for a long moment — a moment that made you start to accept that you were going to be ignored, not for the first time. But then, with a quiet sigh, he turned onto his back, the blanket reaching about up to his ribs.

It brought you slightly closer to each other. You didn’t move, so with your cheek still resting on your flat palm, you found yourself right next to his shoulder.

“How old-fashioned?” he asked. In a strange tone. Both interested and as if he couldn’t care less.

Trying to ignore it, you didn’t understand the meaning of his question, letting out a short huh? You saw him roll his eyes.

“I’m asking how old-fashioned the shirt was. Like a founding father type of shirt?”

“Oh,” you murmured in understanding. You immediately made a face. “No, ew, no. If you were dressed like a founding father, I wouldn’t have gone with you.”

“No?” he asked, somehow more gently, as if certain of the answer.

You pushed out your lower lip. You would have gone. You would have cursed his choice of outfit, but you would have gone.

“Anyway,” you cut in a bit more firmly, sniffing again. “We went to a meadow. In this dream, I mean. We sat under a tree on a checkered blanket and ate strawberries. With chocolate. Melted chocolate.”

You had a view of his profile, you could see that for a moment he didn’t blink, lost in thought.

“That sounds kind of good” he finally said, slowly, weighing each word.

Something stirred strangely in your chest. It even seemed as if some kind of warmth was born there. A faint smile on your lips.

“Really?”

He shrugged, as if unfaithful to his own opinion, holding onto it only because he couldn’t be bothered to change it.

“Really. Strawberries and chocolate. That sounds good.”

The cold of the bedding between you, the sound of you swallowing.

“Right,” you murmured under your breath. Louder, you added, “That combination’s as old as the world, Spence.”

You saw it — that subtle grimace on his face. He didn’t like it when you called him Spence.

“Neither strawberries nor chocolate are as old as the world. Do you even know how old the world is?”

You raised your hand, moving it like a mouth. A mouth that was saying one big blah, blah, blah.

He tried to grab your hand to make you stop the gesture, but you quickly pulled it back.

His quiet snort, the faint twitch of the corners of your lips.

“And then,” you began to continue, somehow more animated, your thoughts returning to your dream. So suddenly. Right with your words, Spencer shifted in bed, reaching to grab something from the nightstand on his side, his brows furrowed. You didn’t watch him too closely, focused on what you were telling. “You were feeding me strawberries. Cliché, I know, but the director of my dream was my brain, not some guy with three Oscars in his pocket, so. Oh, and one more thing. Then you told me something.”

You trailed off in your words, as if forgetting you were saying this to him.

“You told me you lo—”

A hand covered your mouth. Firmly. You lifted your eyes upward. Spencer was sitting up in bed, the blanket having slipped from his stomach, his posture slightly hunched. He wasn’t looking at you — his attention was on the phone pressed to his ear.

“Now?” he asked, making sure. You let out a quiet sigh of understanding, still into his hand. He sighed too. “Alright. I’ll be there soon.”

Only after he finished the call did he remove his hand from your mouth, sending you a quick, questioning glance.

“What were you saying?”

You shook your head slightly from side to side. Nothing.

He nodded faintly, then got up from the bed, the mattress uncovered where he had just been sitting. Lying there, you watched as he hurriedly dressed, saying nothing, giving you no explanation. Really, he didn’t have to. You guessed they probably got a new case to work on, sudden, important.

You began scanning the floor for your pants somewhere near the bed. Honestly, you didn’t really know what to do with yourself in this situation. “Should I go?” you asked, propping yourself up into a sitting position.

Spencer froze, motionless, pants pulled up but still with the belt unfastened, shirtless. He looked at you for a moment without a word, clearly thinking. He fastened the belt buckle.

“No. You don’t have to,” he finally said.

You relaxed slightly. It was good to know he wasn’t kicking you out.

“Just…don’t be here when I get back. And close the door when you leave.”

Then he opened the closet in search of a fresh shirt, while you stayed in the same position for a moment longer, taking a deeper breath that trembled at the very top as it passed through your mouth.

#michaela's recs<3 #matilda🫀

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