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icarryitin · 4 months

Text

Pretty

spencer reid/gn!reader

i realised i’ve done a lot of introspective narratives about Feelings™️ but not a whole lot of interaction so pls have some as a treat ilu🧡

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word count: 1.9k // warnings: there is so much pining in here it could be a forest

summary: Late nights in strange towns lead to the most unexpected conversations and confessions.

You can’t sleep.

Sheep have been counted over, and over, and over again and still, it evades you. For a day where you’d been looking forward to nothing more than collapsing into bed at the end of it; you’re not best pleased. It’s a rough case as it is, you don’t want to be sleep deprived on top of everything else. But it just isn’t happening.

You count seventy three individual little swirly panels on the ceiling before you decide to get up. A walk might go a fair way to unravel your nerves enough to get a couple of hours, at least you hope it will.

With your jacket thrown over your old college hoodie, you don’t bother changing your sweatpants for jeans, and just slip your feet into your boots. Garcia would be outraged at the clashing colours. The look won’t win any best dressed awards, but at this time of night you’re more concerned with clipping your holster in place. You’re not taking any chances. Especially not with the victimology of this case - although you do have the advantage of knowing the Unsub is out there somewhere. It’s still not an overly comforting thought. But you’re out of options, it’s this or counting the rest of the ceiling panels and, frankly, you’re sure you’ll go blind if you have to stare at plaster swirls for much longer. So you tuck your phone and room key into your coat pockets, and leave the dingy little room behind for a while.

The hotel is, thankfully, almost completely dead, save for the night manager dozing at the front desk. Faded carpet plush under your feet, you’re quiet as you descend the stairs to the lobby and its dimmed lights. The world is dark outside the front doors and you hesitate. Is it really the best idea? To walk around in a city that’s home to a serial killer whose victims bear a striking resemblance to yourself? No, no it’s not. Especially not at, you tug your phone out of your pocket to check the time - jesus, two o’clock in the morning.

“Hey, you.”

It would honestly be wrong to say you’re not expecting his voice - if you were to guess which of the team would still be up and about at this time of night, you’d pick Spencer. It’s a no-brainer.

“Hey, me. Couldn’t sleep either?” Your smile is more strained than you mean for it to be when you turn it to him in response, he must have just come back, snuck in unnoticed while you were glaring at the time on your phone. He’s similarly dressed, coat huddled around mismatched pyjamas, another victim of case-induced insomnia then. His eyes are tired, they are more often than not these days. Yours aren’t all that better.

There’s a comfortable moment of silence where you just exist together, in the hushed quiet of the hotel lobby. Breathing in the calm of the night. It almost makes up for the chaos you know awaits the team in the morning.

“Is it nice out?” You ask, toeing the carpet with your scuffed boot.

“You’re not going for a walk, are you?”

“I’m armed, genius, and I’m twice as scary as anything out there.”

Spencer just huffs your name through an exasperated sigh and looks at you as you waltz past him with your hands in your pockets, turning at the waist to watch you go.

“So come with me.” There’s the vaguest hint of a teasing smile on your lips as you walk backwards towards to the front doors. He’s still not moved when you spin on your heel to push them open and walk off into the night - but you could live a hundred lives and still know the footsteps that follow you down the concrete steps anywhere.

He’s not exactly intimidating, but having him by your side in the small hours makes you feel safer than the weight of the gun at your hip ever could. You try not to think too hard about what that means.

“How many ceiling panels are in your room?” Your breath puffs out in a cloud, words winding around each other in the chill of the just about morning.

“A hundred and nine, if you count the ones that are cut in half.”

“Damn, I gave up at seventy three.”

“I’m not sure how much I believe that, I’ve never seen you give up on anything.” Spencer kicks a pebble into the road at the same moment your feet stop working.

To think he’s paid enough attention to you to notice a thing like that. Maybe you should expect it, especially being part of the team that studies human behaviour, but it still takes you by surprise. The idea that he could, would want to, notice things about you. It’s borderline dangerous. Stubbornness isn’t cute - you’ve been accused of being like a dog with a bone when it comes to your theories more than once. But the way he says it so casually yet so reverently, like it’s something to be proud of, like it’s something he admires. You just about manage to get your legs to cooperate before he can realise you’ve fallen a step behind.

He offers his elbow to you, an uncharacteristic first move, and you almost don’t know what to make of it. Spencer doesn’t initiate contact, ever. Or at least, you’ve never known him to unless it’s to check your tac-vest, and yet here he is. Hands in his pockets, sticking his arm out for you to take. You’re sliding your own arm through his before you even really realise it. Well, it would be rude not to wouldn’t it? When he’s offered so kindly?

In the name of safety, presumably. When there’s a killer on the loose and you just so happen to fit the victimology. Keeping you close is a precaution. You steer the conversation towards the case, if neither of you are resting then you might as well be trying to unravel the latest psycho’s motivations. Another precaution, although a little selfish this time around, to save your heart from falling even further for the man beside you.

“Statistically, people who are attractive are targeted more often that those who aren’t. This Unsub isn’t exactly going against the grain, he’s picking pretty victims.” He rattles off the thought as though it doesn’t threaten to stop your heart in your chest.

It was Spencer who’d pointed out the striking similarities between you and the victims in the first place.

“Doctor Reid, do you think I’m pretty?” Your scandalised gasp matches the hands you press against your chest in faux-shock. And, for once in his life, he doesn’t seem to have any words. He just stands there beside you, gulping like a fish. You like him too much to leave him squirming any longer than he already has.

“I, uh-“ He scrambles for a response.

“Because you’d be right, I am pretty.”

The answering chuckle you get is enough to encourage you to link your arm back through his.

“What you’re saying is,” You press on, shaking off the moment, giving him the time to recover, “There’s no shock factor. Single bullet to the head, dumped unceremoniously with the trash. There’s nothing that says ‘hey look at me’ about this guy.”

Spencer hums in agreement, suddenly very interested in his shoes as they traipse along the drizzle dampened pavement beside yours, and the conversation lulls. But you don’t mind. It’s never an uncomfortable silence with him, it never has been. You’re both more than content to just exist in the same space together - his is a calming presence, for all his nervous energy. There’s never any expectation to be anyone but yourself when you’re around him, no judgement, no pressure.

You’re more than happy to trundle along beside him between the streetlights, dodging puddles, the weight of your linked arms nestled comfortably between you. Except, you’re a profiler. So, for all his valiant efforts to keep your suspicions to a minimum, they’re just not quite effective enough. One glance at his face confirms that he’s thinking far too hard about something. You let your shoulder knock into his, your elbow in his side jolting him out of his thoughts.

“You’re doing it again.” It almost feels blasphemous to disturb the peace that’s settled over you.

Spencer releases his lip from between his teeth.

“There’s something we’re missing.”

“We’ll find it. With fresh eyes in the morning, I bet it smacks us right in the face.”

He doesn’t look like he believes you, and you’d have to agree with him there, but the furrow of his brow relaxes at your gentle reassurance. That’s enough for the moment.

A car door slams up the street and makes you both jump. For all the security the gun at your hip awards you, you’re still a little on edge. It’s just you, Spencer, and the door-slammer on the street - though the stranger seems to be so absorbed in his own world that he barely registers the pair of you. While you’re both fairly confident that the man walking towards you isn’t the Unsub, Spencer tugs you closer into his side by your linked arms all the same. He makes sure he’s solid where he stands between you and the passing stranger, even though you both know he wouldn’t stand a chance in that fight with his lanky frame. There isn’t a bit of you that minds the protection. Something catches in your chest, blooming, warming you from the inside out. It’s dangerous.

You’re not sure when you looped back onto yourselves, but the shadow of the hotel looms and suddenly there’s plush carpet under your feet again. Part of you is glad that your chances to embarrass yourself tonight are numbered. He’d be kind enough not to point it out if you did, though.

The elevator is too close to the front doors, there aren’t enough storeys to pass to get to the floor commandeered by the team, and your rooms are the first in the hallway. Doors opposite each other, the irony of the parallel isn’t lost on you. But it’s so rare that you get to spend time with him without any external pressures of a case or the prying eyes of more than a few colleagues. It feels a little unfair that the time has gone so quickly - an hour, your phone confirms when the screen lights up as you fish around in your pocket for your room key. There’s that pang in your chest again, the one that makes you feel like an impatient child. You know you can’t have him the way you want, you know why you can’t, you know it would probably end in heartbreak for everyone. But god, do you want him. It’d be worth every painful second.

Spencer’s voice across the hall stops your hand, room card outstretched halfway to the scanner in your fingers.

“For the record, I do.”

He’s chewing his lip again.

“You do what?”

You know what he means. He knows you know what he means. But neither of you will admit to it out loud. So it just hangs there, in the air between you, as you stand in front of your respective hotel room doors for a moment longer. And then he’s in his room, and you’re swiping your own keycard through the slot, and you’re shut away again. No less wired than you were when you left - but it’s hard to find it in yourself to worry about the sleep you definitely won’t be getting tonight, there’s no doubt about that.

Because Spencer Reid thinks you’re pretty.