#criminal minders reader insert

[musingsby-night]

Aviophobia

Summary: Aviophobia (the fear of flying in an aeroplane) had plagued you for as long as you could remember. Then one day on a flight from Las Vegas to Washington, you end up seated next to Dr Spencer Reid, and suddenly air travel doesn’t seem so bad anymore. 

Pairing: Spencer Reid x reader

Warnings: none!! Just our favourite federal agent being a big sweetheart.

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Aeroplanes were by far the worst thing that had ever been invented, in your opinion. 

Sure, they had their perks. Long-distance travel was now relatively easy and accessible when it hadn’t been for a very long time. Planes allowed one to travel between two far away points in a short period of time, which was undeniably pretty handy. 

You tried to tell yourself that planes really weren’t so bad, and you almost managed to convince yourself of this fact until you once again found yourself seated in one of the cramped metal death traps, and then the only thing you could focus on was how much you utterly loathed them. Which was the predicament you now found yourself in.

As the plane let out a loud revving noise and begun to move slowly down the runway, you let out a quiet groan and clutched the armrests in a deathly tight grip. 

Just think of something else, you told yourself, beginning to mentally make your way through your Mothers overly complex custard pie recipe to try and keep focused on something else. 

It didn’t work. It never worked. 

The next few moments were utter hell on earth, as far as you was concerned. Taking off and landing were your least favourite parts of flying- although you didn’t enjoy being in the air in any capacity, the experience at the very beginning and the very end always managed to shoot your anxiety through the roof. 

Shifting your mind from your Mothers recipe, you instead tried to envision that you were somewhere- anywhere- else, perhaps a nice beach or something of the like. 

If you had been paying attention, you would have noticed the brief, worried glances that the man sitting beside you had been continuously throwing your way since the plane begun to move. As it was, the only thing that you could focus on was how clammy you felt in response to the anxiety pulling at your stomach.

“Nervous flier?”

It took a moment to realise that these words had been directed at you. When you eventually understood, you blinked open your eyes and turned to the source of the words- the man sitting beside you.

You’d been one of the first to board the flight and had kept your eyes tightly closed ever since you’d sat down; your preoccupation with your own anxiety had prevented you from noticing that anybody had actually taken the seat next to you. The man was tall and lanky, with a frame that was clearly too large to find comfort in the small, cramped plane seats. He had scruffy brown hair and thick glasses covering his hazel eyes, which were trained intently on you. A friendly smile was on his lips, which you attempted to return (but it likely turned out more of an anxious grimace). 

Swallowing nervously, you jerked your head in a nod of affirmation.

“It’s really very common; you’re not alone,” the man said. “In fact, about 1 in 5 people have a fear of flying, or aviophobia.”

You blinked, a bit thrown by the suddenness of his statement. “Really?” you asked, your voice hoarse from the dryness in your throat.

His smile widened at hearing your voice for the first time. “Yeah! The most common phobia on the planet is arachnophobia- fear of spiders. Almost 48% of all women suffer from it, but it’s less common among men.”

Turning your head to properly face him, you continued to blink at him in confusion. “Oh wow- that’s interesting.”

“Ophidiophobia, the fear of snakes, is the second most common, and acrophobia, the fear of heights, is the third most common. Pretty much every single person alive has some sort of irrational, strong fear,” the man rattled off the string of facts. “In fact, fear of flying is the ninth most common phobia worldwide.”

“It’s kind of nice to know that I’m not alone,” you said. “It doesn’t make the anxiety go away, though.”

“What is it specifically about planes that you’re frightened of?” he questioned curiously, tilting his body to better face you.

Bringing your hand up to nervously rub your forehead, you replied “Just the entire thing is really unpleasant, isn’t it? I hate the idea of being so high up off the ground in this fragile little metal object, hurtling at unnatural speeds through the air.”

“That’s understandable; it’s not exactly natural for human beings to be this far off the ground,” the man said. “Flying is very common though; over 2 million passengers board over 30,000 flights every day in the United States. Do you travel very much?”

“Oh, that’s so many,” you said, slightly surprised. “I really do try and avoid it whenever possible, but unfortunately I do end up travelling a lot more than I’d like to. My family are in Michigan and I hate not seeing them, so I try and suck it up so I can visit them.”

Taking a moment to observe him, you noted that apart from the fact that his body was too large to comfortably fit in the small seat provided, he seemed otherwise completely at ease.

“You seem really relaxed,” you observed aloud. “You’re not bothered by planes?”

“I fly a lot for work,” he replied easily. “It bugged me at first, but it worked as a kind of systematic desensitisation. Now I’m just about as comfortable in the air as I am on the ground.”

“I don’t envy you,” you said with a shudder. “I think I’d have to quit my job if it required regular air travel. What exactly is it that you do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I don’t mind,” he answered cheerily. “I’m an Agent for the Behavioural Analysis Unit with the FBI.”

“Oh, wow!” you replied, a bit thrown. “That’s amazing! You must do some really fascinating work then.”

He ducked his head a bit nervously, shrugging slightly. “Yeah, it’s certainly never dull,” he replied. “What do you do?”

You told him your job title, and he smiled widely. “That’s awesome!” he replied excitedly, but you waved off his words.

“Oh, it’s absolutely nothing compared to what you do, Mr. FBI agent,” you laughed, and he flushed. He was about to speak again when the plane suddenly gave a quick lurch as it hit a patch of turbulence. Your fingernails scraped against the leather chair as your entire body tensed up, eyes snapping closed as you focused on fixing your suddenly irregular breathing.

The man shifted in his seat to be a bit closer to you, before he said softly “Turbulence is unpleasant but it’s just the plane moving through an air current. It’s completely normal.”

“I know,” you mumbled. “I know that it’s nothing to worry about but I can’t help but think every time that it means somethings wrong with the plane and we’re going to crash.”

“The risk of being killed in a plane crash for the average American is about 1 in 11 million,” the man said, and you blinked your eyes back open to meet his hazel gaze. What you found there was surprising; this complete stranger wasn’t just being polite, but reflected in his gaze appeared to be a genuine care for your wellbeing. You found yourself feeling touched, and a new fondness for this stranger spread through you. 

Taking your surprised silence for fear, he continued to ramble on “the risk of being killed in a car accident, on the other hand, is about 1 in 5,000. You’re significantly more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash; you’re really safer up here than you are on the ground.”

“I didn’t know that,” you said softly, and the man nodded.

“On the off chance that we were to crash, though, 95.7% of all people involved in plane crashes ultimately survive.”

“I didn’t know that either,” you murmured. “I suppose that that’s actually quite comforting, in an odd sort of way.”

The man glanced down at his fingers, which you just now realised were clutching a new-looking novel. You was about to speak up when he beat you to the punch.

“I’m really sorry,” he apologised, and your brows furrowed in confusion. The man ducked his head nervously, his eyes remaining downcast. “I shouldn’t have overstepped my boundaries and bothered you. I just-”

“Oh, honey, you didn’t overstep anything,” you was quick to reassure him, smiling when his gaze shot back up to meet yours. “Honestly, please don’t apologise. You didn’t overstep anything. Actually, I should be thanking you. I’ve barely thought about how nervous being on a plane makes me the entire time that we’ve been talking, and it’s usually the only thing I can focus on. And believe me, I’ve tried pretty much everything to make flying easier. My last trick was to play music really loudly to drown out the sounds of the plane so I could forget where I was, but that stopped working when I started thinking that if something did go wrong, I wouldn’t be able to hear it, so that made my anxiety worse.”

He laughed slightly. “Well, I’m really glad that I could help you,” he said. “That’s all I wanted to do.”

“You really did; it looks like you’re the solution to my phobia. Guess I’m just gonna have to bring you along every time I fly from now on,” you said with a joking wink, and he laughed, ducking his head again.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he joked. “Let me know if it gets too much though, I know that my rambling can be annoying-”

“You’re not annoying,” you interrupted him, your tone surprised at the idea that this seemingly incredible man would ever think that he was in any way irritating. You smiled when his gaze shot back up to meet your own. “Honestly, please don’t apologise. I’m really enjoying talking to you, actually.”

“Oh,” he replied, seeming to be thrown by your words. “Really?”

Your smile widened. “Yeah, of course,” you said. “You’re fascinating; how do you know all these random facts? Your brain seems like an encyclopedia and it’s actually pretty awesome.”

“I read a lot,” he said with an embarrassed sort of shrug. “I have an eidetic memory and an IQ of 187.”

Surprisingly, his words weren’t spoken in the bragging tone a statement like that felt like it warranted. He was just stating facts about himself, as though these things were no big deal.

“Well, okay, wow,” you replied, “so you’re a genius too. You’re quite impressive, do you know that?”

He flushed pink, and you couldn’t help but smile at how adorable it was. You were about to speak again when something suddenly struck you.

“What’s your name?” you asked, and he blinked in surprise.

“Oh, I forgot that part,” he mumbled, sticking his hand out to shake your own. “I’m Spencer Reid.”

“It’s really nice to meet you, Spencer,” you said sincerely, shaking his hand as much as the cramped space would allow. “I’m Y/F/N.”

“That’s really pretty,” he blurted out, before he seemed to realise what he’d said and flushed pink again.

“Thank you,” you replied, smiling at his sweetness. You nodded down to the book he still held clutched in his hands. “I should probably be the one apologising for bothering you; you probably wanted to get some reading done instead of taking care of some random girl.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, I’m enjoying taking care of you very much,” he said eagerly. “I can read anytime. And honestly, the book really isn’t that good anyway.”

“What is it?” you asked, and he held up the novel so you could get a better look. The front cover featured a very muscly looking man holding a machine gun and staring menacingly off to the side, an extremely attractive and busty woman cowering behind him. You couldn’t help but let out a laugh at the tacky looking novel. “It looks… interesting…”

“Please don’t judge me,” he begged, his tone embarrassed. “My friend Derek is making me read it, it’s his favourite book. He says I need to branch out a bit from my usual interests.”

You laughed again at his confession. “Well then, Spencer, what exactly are you interested in?”

The total in-air flight time from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Washington, DC, was just over four hours in duration. It took you approximately a quarter of that time to become utterly smitten with Dr Spencer Reid.

Conversation flowed easily with the sweet man. He spoke so quickly that his words tended to merge together, and rambled off on tangents about things which he was passionate about, and you thought he may have been the loveliest person you’d ever met. He asked you questions about yourself and intently listened to your responses, turning excited when the two of you found yet another factor which you had in common. 

You’d almost managed to forget entirely that you were aboard a plane, Spencer making your aviophobia disappear entirely. Even when the Captain announced over the loud speaker that the plane would begin its descent momentarily, you completely forgot to be nervous.

It wasn’t until the aeroplane made a sudden downward turn to head closer to the ground that your anxiety returned almost full-force, your stomach dropping to the floor and your hand shooting out to tightly clutch the armrest for stability. 

Spencer begun rattling off an amusing little story about his friends Derek and Penelope in an attempt to pull your mind away from the fear rolling through your entire body. You pushed yourself to focus on Spencer’s voice and nothing else, slowly managing to push your fear away.

It took a few moments longer for you to realise that the thing you were clutching in your hand wasn’t the smooth leather of the armrest. Glancing down, you realised that when your hand had shot out, you’d subconsciously grabbed onto Spencer’s hand. He hadn’t pulled away, but merely threaded his fingers through yours and clutched your hand back, his thumb brushing against your knuckles in an attempt to help soothe you, a motion which he continued for the rest of the flight. 

For the first time in your life, you found yourself dreading the plane landing and the flight ending.

You and Spencer lingered in your seats whilst everybody else rushed to exit the plane, making you the very last to descend the stairs and set foot back on solid ground. Although you made the trek from the tarmac to the arrivals zone in the airport at a slow, leisurely pace, time felt as though it was suddenly moving at twice the usual pace until the moment finally arrived when you knew that you couldn’t drag this out any longer. It was time to say goodbye. 

“So, um, thank you,” you said sincerely. “I had a really nice flight, which is something I’ve never actually said before.”

He smiled widely.

“I’m really glad I could help, Y/N,” Spencer said eagerly. “I- I really, really enjoyed talking to you.”

“So did I, Spence.” 

You held eye contact for a long moment, whilst Spencer seemed to want to say something- you allowed yourself to dream for a moment that perhaps he’d ask for your phone number, that he’d say he wanted to see you again-

But he didn’t.

Instead, Spencer dropped your gaze and begun fidgeting with his bag, and you began to think that maybe you’d been reading his interested signals wrong the whole time. 

Either way, you knew that if you stood here for any longer then things would look strange, so you built up all your resolve and said weakly, “well, bye, Spencer.”

His suddenly downtrodden gaze shot back up to meet your own and he replied quietly “Bye, Y/N.”

Giving him one final smile, you spun on your heel and begun to walk away from him. Your mind was racing, running over the past few hours- the connection the two of you had made, the conversation which had flowed freely, the comfort he’d brought you... and the fact that you desperately didn’t want to leave that airport knowing that you’d never see him again. 

Oh, fuck it, you’ve got nothing to lose, you thought. You were just about to spin back around and tell Spencer that you wanted to see him again, when his now familiar voice called out your name.

You turned back around to find that he hadn’t moved from the spot that he’d been standing in when you left him, his eyes still intently trained on you. “Y/N, do you want to go out with me sometime?” he asked, his tone of voice indicating how nervous he was.

A bright smile stretched out over your face, and in a second his nervousness had disappeared, replaced with an eager grin.

“Spencer, I would absolutely love to.”