#really makes a girl go ''can my fbi agent quit being a pussy and end my entire existence''

[calyroco]

I have never before experienced controls that feel as annoying to use on a switch game as the controls to build things in MySims Kingdom and hopefully I never do again.

[spacedikut]

how to ask a girl out ; spencer reid

pairing: spencer reid (criminal minds) x reader

summary: elle sees an opportunity to teach spencer about asking a girl out. 3275 words

a/n: based on this scene. this is the longest fic ive ever written so sorry if it’s a painful read 

Spencer feels creepy staring at you like this.

There’s no other way to put it. He feels like he’s twelve again, the youngest in his Las Vegas high school, staring at all the pretty girls that get his heart racing just by existing. But you’re more enchanting than those girls. He could watch you do anything, he thinks, because no matter what you’re doing you look picture perfect, like you don’t have a single bad angle.

Spencer still has the social skills of twelve year old him, though. Especially when dealing with cute people.

“You know,” The voice makes Spencer jump, “If you stare long enough, she just might notice.”

Elle is smirking with her arms crossed, shooting Spencer an incriminating look. He tenses.

Seeing his discomfort, Elle relents, “I’m teasing, Reid.” He visibly relaxes against the door frame he’s half hiding behind, half leaning against.

“I’m not trying to be weird.” He mumbles. Elle thinks he sounds like a kid that was caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“I know you’re not. Have you… spoken to her?”

You’re somewhat new to the unit. Some kind of assistant to JJ who joined several months ago (three months and three days, if Spencer counted correctly) (he did), which means the team don’t see you that much, just enough that you’ve been the topic of discussion a few times. It doesn’t help that JJ sings your praise, and Hotch recently revealed you made yourself available for babysitting his new-born if he ever needs it. Every time someone mentions you, it’s followed by some kind of compliment. Everyone loves you. Spencer has said all of five words to you, and he’s smitten.

“Hi. I’m Spencer. A doctor.”

When you were introduced you didn’t pay him much attention. He can’t blame you, it was overwhelming for you – being introduced to a whole bunch of FBI agents and then thrown head-first into sorting cases for them. But Spencer paid attention. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. Derek’s caught him staring one too many times, but it isn’t Spencer’s fault he can’t stop thinking about you. You enter the room and Spencer’s attention is pulled to you, like a magnet.

Derek thinks it’s time he made a move. Spencer agreed and maintained that confidence for all of fifteen minutes, until he heard your joyful laugh dance down the hallway and his tongue felt too heavy to form words.

That’s when Elle noticed.

Across the room, you’re laughing at something Derek said with JJ. Seeing you smile makes Spencer smile, and Elle nudges him.

“Have you considered approaching her? Rather than, you know, watching her from afar like she’s prey?”

Spencer huffs, “You think I haven’t tried?”

Every time he’s moved to start a conversation, he finds himself unable to complete a single sentence. After he says hello, then what? He dies?

Elle breathes through her nose in frustration. “She’s a nice girl. I’ve spoken to her a couple of times. She mentioned the other day she wants to visit the local museum, since she just moved and hasn’t really explored yet. Shame no one is available to accompany her, right?”

“Are you implying something?”

“Yes.”

“I-I don’t. I can’t-“

“You can’t or you won’t?”

Spencer’s always admired Elle’s ability to be blunt and fearless. But he isn’t Elle, Elle isn’t him, so to him it doesn’t feel like he simply chooses to pussy out of talking to you – it feels like he’s physically constrained. Like he’s fighting against the tide of the ocean to reach you, and he keeps getting pushed back, further and further away from you.

Elle’s eyes shift between you and Spencer, like she’s watching a tennis match. “Just go up and ask her. It’s that simple. If she says no, she says no. No big deal!”

Spencer shakes his head, “I can’t do that. It’s Y/N! She’s-she’s-“

“A normal human being. You know, like you and me? The second you start putting people on pedestals is when things start falling apart.” She pats him on the shoulder as encouragement, “Have some confidence, Reid.”

And she walks away, as if just telling him to have some confidence will make him suddenly have the courage to whisk you off your feet.

He wishes he could whisk you off your feet.

+++

The paperwork is never ending. Times like this, Spencer considers recanting his stance on technology – maybe having everything on an online database would be a good idea. The stacks upon stacks around him would agree.

A paper ball hits the back of Spencer’s head.

He turns, slowly, and Elle gives a wave from her desk. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Can I… help you?”

“Yes, you can.” She nods to the paper on the floor, “Read it.”

He leans and grabs the ball from the floor, opening it with furrowed brows.

Step 1: Actually talk to her.

Suddenly, Elle is standing right next to him, looking all-too-pleased with herself. She leans over him.

“What does this mean?”

“You wanna date Y/N? Talk to her. That means marching right up to her pretty little face and saying more than, like, a few words to her. You need to have a conversation with her to let her know you’re interested.”

Elle’s clearly confident in her plan, but it seems she’s forgetting an important detail – this is Spencer that she’s dealing with. Not Derek, who can charm anyone out of anything (or into anything), not Hotch who, when he wants to be, is the smoothest criminal ever. Not even Gideon, with his soft eyes that make anyone that stares into them feel safe. He’s Spencer Reid who, according to one guy, looks like a pipe cleaner with eyes.

Spencer’s hesitant to take any of Elle’s advice.

“What would I… say to her?” He asks. If he does talk to you, what does he even say? Do you even want to talk to him? What if you immediately hate him and JJ beats him up? She could do it. He’s seen her guns.

Elle looks at him incredulously, “Reid! C’mon! Anything! Ask how her day has been, if she had a good weekend, are there plans for this weekend… Literally anything.” Spencer gives a look of distrust, “You’ll know if she’s interested, trust me. She’ll reciprocate. If she doesn’t, she’s not up for it, and there’s your answer without even asking her out.”

At that moment, you and JJ appear from thin air, whispering to one another with your arms full of files. Both Spencer and Elle’s watchful gazes follow you right up until JJ’s office door is clicked shut and when you can only slightly be seen through the blinds, Spencer still stares. Elle hits him over the head.

“Pay attention!”

“She’s distracting!”

“She walked by you, not gave you a lap dance! Focus on the plan!”

With a sigh, he looks back to the crumpled paper in his hands. “What’s step two?”

The paper’s yanked out of his hands and Elle furiously scribbles something before handing it back to him.

Step 2: Make her laugh.

“I can’t do that.”

She scoffs, “Reid.”

“People laugh at me, Elle, not with me. The only way she’ll laugh is if I make a complete fool of myself and when I do that, I’m running away and never looking back. You’ll never see me again.”

Sick of the self-deprecation, Elle leans close to Spencer’s face and begins to whisper menacingly.

“Listen, bud,” She threatens, “You need to stop being so hard on yourself. You’re young, you’re inexperienced – that’s why approaching Y/N is so terrifying. Not because she’s out of your league, or you’re not good enough, it’s because you’ve never done this before. It’s simply a fear of stepping out of your comfort zone, so stop being so hard on yourself.”

Spencer isn’t sure how to respond, silently wishing something could get him out of this situation. He’s not used to being complimented so ferociously.

God answers his prayers. In the worst way possible.

“Incoming. Make her laugh, Reid.” Elle says, slinking off back to her desk.

Spencer quickly realises you’re approaching and his hands grip the armrests of his chair. He’s not ready for this. He wishes he had time to prepare, maybe google how to woo a woman, but you’re in front of him, all precious smiles with a manila folder in your hand.

“Hi, Doctor Reid.”

Your voices sounds like heaven. He can’t help but think, despite only listening to classical music, he could listen to your voice and only your voice if given the option. It’s like honey, sweet and smooth, and something inside him stirs. Everything about you is lovely.

He clears his throat and nervously wipes at his nose, “Hey. What can I do for you?”

“I was told to bring this to you,” You hand him the folder, “And JJ wanted me to check up on you. She said you’ve been working non-stop and that you probably consumed your bodyweight in coffee with enough sugar to give a small army diabetes. My guess is she wants to check your heart is still beating.”

Spencer laughs at that, which encourages you to giggle along. He freezes when he sees the way your eyes scrunch and smile widens when you laugh – he’d only seen it from a distance, up close it feels intimate and causes his throat to tighten. When your laughter dies, you’re left with an awkward silence as he stares. You shuffle your feet.

Elle is trying to look like she isn’t paying attention, but in her head she’s screaming at Spencer to say something!!!

“Sorry for disturbing you if you’re – um – if you’re busy.” You gesture to the mess on Spencer’s desk, and it’s then that he realises how his silence could’ve looked – to him, you quite literally took his breath away, but to you? He’s a weirdo that is still holding the file mid-air and hasn’t said a thing for far too long.

“No! No,” Spencer brushes his hair back, “Thank you for the file. JJ’s right, I should probably take a break-“

He looks up then. This is his chance, right?

“Are you busy right now?”

You glance around and your eyes find JJ’s office, where she’s signalling for you to come over, “Yeah. Sorry.”

It feels like a punch in the gut – is this rejection? – but there’s a look of sadness that crosses your face. Your mouth falls at the edges and your brows slightly crease – do you wish you weren’t busy?

If Spencer didn’t feel like he’s seconds away from vomiting, he’d ask. Maybe. That sounds a whole lot like flirting and he isn’t sure he can handle that.

You quickly leave, not before you tell him to look after himself (his heart swells), and the second you’re far enough away Elle is marching right over and throwing the paper at him, again, even though she’s standing right in front of him.

“She rejected me.”

“Yea- wait, what?” Elle starts to celebrate, but stops at her words, “No she didn’t. Did we see different things?”

“It sure felt like rejection. Felt weird.”

“That was the perfect chance to ask her to go out after work or maybe on the weekend, but, in your defence, that’s a Derek-level response and we’re not quite there yet. Step three, go.”

Spencer unfolds the paper ball begrudgingly, wondering if any of this is actually worth it.

Step 3: Get JJ to back the fuck up.

Spencer laughs.

“Either you tell JJ you like her assistant and ask for her help, or you tell JJ you like her assistant and that she needs to stop using her so much.” Elle sounds matter-of-fact and confident.

“You want me to tell JJ to stop giving her assistant work?” Spencer asks, face scrunched.

With a shrug, Elle says, “Or you could ask her to help you. She knows the most about Y/N.”

Looking up to JJ’s office, he realises how true Elle’s statement is. JJ knows you better than anyone else here, you’ve quickly become good friends, and JJ wouldn’t lie to Spencer about you if it involved his feelings. He trusts JJ like that.

But then you throw your head back in laughter, a hearty laugh that JJ follows with her own tinkling chuckle, and Spencer is reminded of the sinking feeling he’s had when he’s been rejected before. The emotional slap in the face that causes you to lose all confidence. In his head, he rationalises that attempting to ask you out is pointless. You won’t like him, scrawny profiler who follows his team members like a lost puppy, the guy unable to maintain eye contact for more than four seconds. The logical side, however, the side that runs the show when Spencer is on a case and hides his feelings, tells him he has nothing to lose. Morgan would be proud of him, not ashamed, because Spencer had the guts to ask someone out – Spencer! Elle would understand and tell him something about learning for next time, and the rest of the team wouldn’t really care.

He has nothing to lose and everything to gain. A date with you? A relationship with you? That’d feel like winning the lottery. It feels more likely than winning the lottery, too.

Then Morgan walks past him, more like swaggers, all good looks and charm and everything Spencer doesn’t have.

Spencer decides he’ll save himself the rejection.

+++

JJ gets involved without Spencer realising. He connects the dots on the way back to Virginia, after a case in which you were brought along instead of JJ.

There was a “family emergency”, apparently, after the debrief and right before take-off. Although it wasn’t your first case, it was your first time travelling with the team. When you pad in, sparkling eyes gliding all around the jet, Spencer zeroes in on the gruesome scene photos to avoid being caught staring.

You fit into the role flawlessly. It’s like you were born for the part, effortlessly slipping into the job of communicator between the team and the police force, standing fearlessly in front of the press as they piled on the pressure.

In the conference room where the team set up, he noticed you actively try to stay out of the way whilst simultaneously help in any way you could. You offered coffee every two hours (Spencer counted), cleaned up any and all rubbish the team left around – burger wrappers, useless post-it notes – and mothered the team by reminding them they need breaks, too.

At the hotel, you jokingly poked Spencer in the shoulder and said, “No more coffee for you. You’ll get a sugar rush and won’t be able to sleep.”

“Like a toddler?”

“Exactly like a toddler. Straight to bed for you.”

You grinned at eachother before you separated to go to your rooms. Around three am, Spencer instinctively went to make himself a drink but stopped and thought of you. He decided for that night, just that night, he could get a somewhat decent amount of sleep.

Now, on the flight home, Gideon pauses before his move in their third game of chess to stare at something behind Spencer’s shoulder. When he notices, Spencer turns to see what has his mentor’s attention and stutters when it’s you. You, looking like you’re straight out of a cheesy romance movie when you push your hair back while reading your book.

Gideon switches from staring at you to staring at Spencer.

“She’s a pretty girl, huh?”

Spencer knows where this is going.

“Elle told me you’re sweet on her.”

“Elle shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Elle has been watching you two the entire case.”

“Elle-“

Gideon clears his throat, making Spencer finally make eye contact, “You scared? Worried?”

“About what?” Spencer asks.

“Rejection. If she’ll laugh in your face, say something about never wanting anyone like you.”

Sometimes, Spencer is terrified of Gideon’s ability to read people. He swears he has this inhuman ability to take a peek into people’s minds, read their most intrusive and negative thoughts, and confront them about them. Like he’s doing to Spencer now.

“Something like that, yeah,” Spencer murmurs. He shuffles uncomfortably in his seat, “It’s your move.”

“I know.” Gideon nods to you, making Spencer look again, “Don’t you think, in twenty years’ time, you’d want to look back at this moment and be glad you asked? No matter the outcome? Rather than wondering if she’d said yes, asking all kinds of what-ifs…”

“You’re telling me to ask her out?”

Gideon gives Spencer a smile that fills him with confidence. He doesn’t know what it is, but he trusts Gideon with his whole life. If he tells him to go for it, then he should go for it, right?

“I happen to know the Virginia museum is having a deal on tickets if you order them online. Might be something to look into.” He sounds borderline smug now.

With one last look to Gideon, he stands and slowly waddles to the chair opposite you.

“Mind if I sit?” He asks, a hand gently resting on the back of the empty seat. You startle slightly at the unexpected voice, but gesture for him to sit with a smile.

“How are you feeling?” You wonder, squinting slightly as the sun shines in your eyes. It makes them sparkle, and Spencer has never understood wanting to drown in someone’s eyes until that moment.

“Just glad the case is over. You did a great job, by the way, filling in for JJ last minute.” Spencer is surprised that his voice doesn’t crack or stop completely.

You beam at the praise, “Thank you. JJ’s got some big boots to fill, even if it’s for one case.”

He shrugs and pulls a face as if you’ve said something ridiculous, “Don’t sell yourself short. When she realises how good you are, she’ll start taking all kinds of holidays.” He jokes.

He can’t help but grin when you laugh.

Elle passes. In the very brief eye contact they make, Elle’s eyes are wide and jumping from you to Spencer, Spencer to you. She’s sending him a message, and he bets Gideon is watching, too.

“Hey,” He starts, leaning on the table between you. You instinctively lean closer, too, which Spencer takes as a positive sign, “How would you.. like…”

He has to take a second to inhale a shaky breath and nervously push his hair behind his ears. You wait, all patient and divine, and his eyes dash around your face.

“To go to the museum with me?”

It comes out rushed and you look confused. “Huh?”

Spencer tries again, after clearing his throat, “How would you like to go to the museum with me? When we get back. As a date.”

“You’re asking me on a date?”

“…Yes?”

If you weren’t staring directly at him, he’d think you were making fun of him and about to unleash a nice bout of rejection.

You move one hand to lean your face against, moving in a little closer, “I would love that.”

Spencer is speechless. You would love that?

“Oh- wow. Yeah, thanks. Good.”

Who says thanks when someone agrees to go on a date with them?

You giggle.

“We’ll plan when we get back?” You ask.

“Yes. Definitely.” He nods three times.

You can’t help but bite your lip, he’s too cute, and it immediately draws Spencer’s attention.

Behind you both, Gideon turns to Elle. “Success.”

Elle rolls her head against the back of her seat and stares out the window, “Step four: Get Gideon to get the job done.”