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When you first started you were quite looking forward to meeting the ‘genius’ you’d heard so much about, especially since you were only a year apart in age. You did your research on everyone in the BAU before you had your first day and you genuinely thought the two of you would’ve been good friends from your initial impression of him. Boy were you wrong.
“Reid, you annoying her again?”
“Everyone needs a hobby.”
At that your head shot up, glaring at him.
“If your hobby is annoying younger girls to try and relive the time of your youth, then I pity you.” You snapped, keeping eye contact with him. You could see the fury in his eyes build and if you were honest with yourself, you were pleased to get this reaction out of the usually calm doctor.
“Our age difference is nowhere near big enough for that to even be a plausible thought. If you were talking about mental age however, seeing how yours is that of a twelve year old that insult approached being almost technically correct.”
Your hands twitched and you could feel a vein pulsing in your forehead.
"You wanna bet?"
“I do.”
“Well then why don’t we do a test, I bet I’ll have a higher mental age than you.”
“I bet-“
“If you two don’t stop with your screeching I swear I’m gonna hit you both.” Morgan interrupted your rants, looking over at the man you could see he was genuinely frustrated so for his sake, and his alone, you held back your retorts and went back to work. You definitely didn’t make sure to stick your tongue out at Spencer before going back to your computer though.
“Morgan! She-“
With a groan Derek stormed out of the room, heading towards what looked like Garcia’s office. Which was a little unfair seeing as that was your safe haven where you went to rant about the doctor but you let it slide, allowing yourself the small victory.
Smiling smugly you started concentrating back onto the mounds of paperwork you had piled on your desk, already dreading Spencer’s face when he’d finished way before you with his stupid reading speed.
Your phone buzzed next to you again, knowing who it was you ignored it. You really weren’t in the mood for your mother’s criticism on something new she’d found she didn’t like about you. You were going to be zen for the rest of the day, as calm as calm could be. Maybe check out those crystals Penelope recommended that apparently help clear your mind. Soon enough the buzzes were in the back of your mind. Apparently though, they weren’t in someone else’s.
“If you’re not going to answer those texts then at least turn your phone off.”
You seriously hated whoever decided your desk had to be next to Spencer’s. Breathing in slowly you reminded yourself, you are zen. You turned to your right to face him.
“Unfortunately Doctor Reid I cannot do that as I am an FBI agent and communication is a very important aspect of my job. If it bothers you that much then you’re more than welcome to leave.” You smiled.
“Trust me, I don’t want to spend any more time near you than I need to.”
You. Are. Zen.
“Tough luck then, Spencer. Gonna have to put up with it.”
Your phone of course decided to buzz again at that moment, deciding that yes okay maybe it could be a little bit annoying you decided to be the bigger person and unlock your phone.
You instantly regretted it.
Like you suspected it was your mom, apparently your smile in your recent Facebook post reminded her to remind you to invest in dental treatment. Of course even your outfit you were wearing in the picture suffered from her tirade. Whilst you were in the middle of reading her fifth message your phone died, cursing you realised it’d look like you left her on read and that’d wind her up even more.
Going through your drawers you searched for your charger, knowing it was somewhere in there.
“What’re you looking for?” Spencer piped up.
“A normal person, obviously I’m gonna have to look harder.”
He rolled his eyes before opening his drawer and passing you his charger.
“We have the same phone unfortunately, and yes being able to communicate with an FBI agent is just a little bit essential. I want it back though.”
You stared at him in uncertainty, this had been happening a lot recently and it was confusing the hell out of you. You’d be bickering like you usually were and then he’d suddenly do something borderline nice? Even thoughtful?
A few days ago you were on a case that hit you hard, the victims all looked like you and were murdered brutally. On the plane ride back when Spencer made himself some coffee as he usually does, he casually put one of the two coffees he had in front of you before returning to his seat. Last week he let you have the last donut even though it was his favourite one just because you hadn’t eaten much that day. Just yesterday he helped you out with some of your paperwork! Yes okay, he may have said how the only reason he was doing it was because the speed you were going at was stressing him out but that isn’t the point, he voluntarily helped you out. The list was growing endless and it was weird to say the least. You didn’t know where you stood with him sometimes.
Realising you were staring you mumbled your thanks, taking it from his hand before plugging it in and charging your phone with it. Within a few seconds your phone lit up again, when it turned back on you had 8 missed calls and 19 new messages.
Sighing, you decided you didn’t have time for it and blocked her. You’d blame it on service later when you got home but you were determined to finish your report before the day ended.
“Did she not like the way your left pinky looked in a photo or something?” Spencer asked. He knew about your relationship with your mom, it was strange to say the least when you both opened up all those months ago about your personal lives. You hadn’t really talked about it since but you privately researched more into schizophrenia afterwards to educate yourself on it. Not because of Spencer, just because of your own personal interest. It had nothing to do with him.
You glanced over at him, “I think my pinkies were the only thing that didn’t suffer from her rant. But you never know, maybe one day they’ll personally offend her in some way.”
“Studies show that mothers who over criticise their daughters are actually critiquing themselves but at the same time don’t want to admit that they’ve done anything wrong due to possible narcissism or past trauma.” Spencer rushed out, speaking at such a speed it was as if he couldn’t contain himself.
“The most traumatic thing that woman’s gone through is me not letting her control every aspect of my life.” You mumbled, “thanks though.”
You were given exactly four seconds of peace before he started talking again.
“Have you ever tried family therapy? Though their reasons for visiting a counselor may vary from yours 47% of Americans consistently indicate the experience is very positive.”
Sighing, you gave up on your report and turned fully to face Spencer seeing he was already looking directly at you.
“With this job I count myself lucky if I have time to have a bath nevermind scheduled therapy sessions I’d have to blow off more often than not when we have an unexpected case.”
He stared at you with something that looked close to pity, “You make a good point.”
“I do that sometimes.” Your computer screen turned black due to the lack of attention you’d given it, groaning you went to shake your mouse pausing when you saw your reflection.
Maybe you could’ve fixed your hair up a little bit more, it did look a bit messy. Were your teeth really that bad? At your last dentist appointment he said they were fine, should you make another appointment sooner than you were going to? You did forget to brush them when you got back from a case the other day, you were just so tired you just went straight to sleep. Would that make them yellow? You hadn’t noticed any difference but what if-
“Hey.” Spencer spoke softly, stopping your thoughts in their tracks. “Stop that. You look beautiful.”
When you were younger you would often climb into the tree in your backyard and read. One day you accidentally dozed off and fell ten feet to the ground, landing on your back. It was as if the impact had knocked every wisp of air from your lungs, and you lay there struggling to inhale, to exhale, to do anything.
That's how you felt now, trying to remember how to breathe, unable to speak, totally stunned as the words he spoke bounced around inside your skull.
Before you could even start thinking about what you would say back, Derek flopped back into his chair opposite you both seemingly back from his visit to Garcia. Snapping the two of you out of the moment, you both suddenly spurted back into motion as you instantly started typing on your computer again.
“Did I miss anything?” Derek asked, a smug smile playing at his lips with an all too knowing look in his eyes.
“Nope.” You replied, refusing to make eye-contact with him.
After that for the rest of the day things went back to normal. You carried on with your usual banter, entertaining your team on most occasions.
But later on that day when you went home, as you thought back to that moment, your future self would identify it as the start of your journey of falling in love with Spencer Reid.