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“Come on, surely you have something floating around in that noggin of yours.”
Your under eyes ache; you can feel your tolerance for this party wearing thin. Sitting right by you on the settee you’re perched on, Spencer leans back and stares up at the vaulted ceiling, palming a tangerine in his hand. You’re at some fancy bar to welcome in the new year, coming off the tailend of a case very luckily on the thirty-first of December. Due to fueling delays regarding the jet, you’d all agreed to just fly back to D.C. tomorrow and spend the night celebrating in Connecticut, instead. The social butterflies of the team- Derek and JJ - organized a small Bureau get together, which Hotch showed up for out of obligation and Elle for the drinks. Originally, you hadn’t wanted to go, regardless of who was or wasn’t there. You don’t enjoy being around alcohol, let alone enjoy drinking it, and parties weren’t- aren’t -exactly your thing. You’re fine with spending time with yourself. It saves you the headache and hurt feelings of being ignored and unwanted.
You’re really only here for Spencer’s sake. Garcia, over the phone, had managed to convince him to attend, at least until midnight to watch the ball drop on the large plasma TV hung in the eating area. He, like you, doesn’t enjoy going out with the rest of the team like this- he doesn’t drink, either, nor does he find this sort of socializing appealing. You both usually end up on the outskirts of every conversation, game, inside joke; since he was so hell bent on keeping his promise to Garcia- that he’d actually show up, and try something new -you decided to put your own feelings aside to keep him company.
Not that you mind. You’re comfortable with each other. Neither feels the pressure to be anything more or less than they actually are with the other. It’s a nice, welcome change in pace for the two of you. He loves you because you listen to him talk, and you love him because he’s deemed you worthy of his chatter. You both see each other: that’s all that matters to the both of you. You enjoy listening to him talk. Knowledge is power, as Francis Bacon put it. And even if it isn’t, you like Spencer too much to ever turn him down.
After a moment of racking his brain, he turns his head to look back at you. “The first people to actually celebrate the new year were the Babylonians in 2000 BCE. But it wasn’t the ‘new year’ on the Gregorian calendar, it was the first new moon after the vernal equinox. The Gregorian came much later at the hands of Pope Gregory the thirteenth.” He pauses, splitting open the tangerine and offering half to you. You gladly take it, giving him a smile in return along with a chipper ‘thank you!’, and begin to pick off the peel. “You know, it was Julius Caesar who declared the first of January a national holiday. Well, after he named the month after Roman god Janus, the one who presided over doors and gates. Oddly specific, but still fitting.” He takes a tangerine cell and pops it into his mouth.
“All roads lead to Rome,” you muse, earning a soft huff of a laugh from him. “Didn’t he do that because he was standardizing his own calendar?”
“I think that’s a valid conclusion to make. It was, is, the better system, regardless of the era or technology available. Caesar crafted the Julian calendar with the help of Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, who advised him against using a model based off of the lunar cycle, which was what the then current Roman calendar was built on. It sucked on just… so many levels. For one, it was practically never accurate. It kept having to be changed to match with the seasons as they turned, but also” -he perks up, which you know means he’s hitting a point he particularly finds interesting, and therefore loves- “it was used to tamper with politics. The pontifices in control of the calendar would add days to prolong political terms or to even rig elections. Instead, because of the lunar model’s issues, Caesar based his calendar on the solar cycle, which gives us three hundred and sixty-five days plus one every leap year, which Caesar himself actually accounted for and put into the calendar.”
“Probably why he got assassinated,” you say, enjoying your half of the fruit. “Making things slightly more fair in a dictatorship? For shame.” The sharp clatter of glass shattering draws your attention away from Spencer’s face. You’ve noticed his hair’s beginning to fluff up and out of its usual slick back, curling slightly over his forehead and ears. You prefer it. It suits him. You redirect your gaze back to him. “Are you excited for the ball to drop?”
“It’s kind of boring, to be honest.” He notices you’ve finished your part of the tangerine and gently plucks the peel from your grip and gets up to toss all the scraps into the garbage. “I’d rather watch the people in Maine lower the plastic lobster from the sky.”
“They do that?”
“Every state ‘drops’ something different. In some, a bunch of cities all drop different things.” He sits back down next to you, a little closer this time. “In 2011, New Jersey lowered Snooki in Seaside Heights,” he tells you, allowing himself a small chuckle.
You laugh with him, the moment enveloping you in a welcome warmth. That fuzzy feeling dissipates as you look around, the air inside the bar threatening to suffocate you- and your ideas of fun and joy. As your smile slowly melts from your face, you ask bluntly, “Why are we even here?”
“I… shouldn’t have let Garcia convince me of anything. You would think she had majored in psychology,” he says back. He checks the watch face resting on the inside of his wrist. “There’s a documentary about penguins about to play on National Geographic. If, uh, you want to come watch it with me. Instead of this,” he manages out, his voice taking on a nervous warble.
“How do you know that?” you ask, smiling. “Never mind, that sounds fun. Are we going to need to call a cab or something?”
“The hotel is a ten minute walk, if you’re okay with that.” He stands from the couch, poised towards the exit, before stopping himself and turning back to face you still on the couch. “But if you want a cab, I’ll get a cab,” he adds quickly, shouldering his messenger bag.
“I don’t mind a walk,” you admit, and before you know it, you’re regretting ever learning how to speak as you shuffle along the sidewalk in the dead of winter in Connecticut. “God, Spence, you can still feel your fingers?” you ask, watching him reach out to push the “walk” button with the back of his gloved hand.
“I’m not really bothered by the cold,” he murmurs back, his breath puffing up in the air around his face.
“Okay, Elsa, good to know. You grew up in the middle of the desert, so how?”
He shrugs. “I find it refreshing.”
The light turns from the orange stop to the white walk, and you both begin your journey across the crosswalk.
You hurry the rest of the way there for the sake of your poor, practically frozen over fingers. Spencer holds the gilded door of the hotel open for you, wedging his foot over the edge of it to keep it from closing on you. You make your way up to the BAU’s floor, the heat finally returning to your face. Bless the heaters.
“Which one’s you again?” you ask, looking down the hall of identical doors. The only thing that differentiated them from each other were the numbered plaques put up by the peepholes.
“One over and across from you,” he answers, fumbling with the key fob as he approaches his door. When you enter, you’re pleasantly surprised. You’re not sure what you were expecting, exactly, so maybe what you’re feeling is more aptly described as just pleasant. Everything is meticulously tidied up, from spare shoes lined up by the closet to his perfectly made up bed. The more you think about it, actually, the more it makes sense.
He dumps his bag onto the floor, pressing the heel of his palm into his temple. “You okay?” you prod gently, setting your things neatly on the small table by the door. “I can go get you some ice water. It’s been a long day.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m fine, just tired.”
“If you change your mind, I can always go to the ice machine-”
“When they’re dirty and not properly taken care of, ice machines like the ones in hotels- the one up the hall, in this instance -can be home to mold, rust, and or bacteria like E.coli, salmonella, or listeria. Maybe even all three at once.”
You feel your face and stomach sour in tandem. “I’ll buy you a bottle from the concierge downstairs,” you amend, folding away the urge to hurl the contents of your digestive system onto the otherwise droll, beige carpet.
“I’m okay, really,” he insists. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful for your kindness or anything. Thank you for caring. I’ll pay you back if you do end up buying me anything.” He gives you an awkward smile, not looking you directly in the face.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s what friends do,” you intone, mindlessly reaching out to grasp his hand comfortingly before immediately jerking it back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…”
His thumb dashes over the part of his palm your fingers touched, that same nervous smile projected on his lips. “No, it’s okay. It’s fine when it’s you.” His smile breaks his face now, evolving from its earlier meekness into a true, elated grin. “Besides, I know you wash your hands,” he teases.
“Ooh, Dr. Reid is making a joke!” you exclaim, finally shucking your shoes off and allowing yourself to tip backwards onto his bed. “I’d never thought I’d see the day.”
He follows your lead, albeit leagues more cautiously. Stiffly, after placing his shoes next to yours, he climbs onto the bed, situating himself so that he’s sitting cross-legged next to you. “So, penguins?”
“I love penguins,” you say as requital, voicing your approval for the documentary that brought you here in the first place. “They’re so cute. I feel like they’d be great pets.”
Spencer fumbles with the remote to the hotel restricted TV, trying to work it. “You know, out of the seventeen agreed upon species of penguin, thirteen are threatened or endangered. Some are even on the brink of extinction.”
“Way to ruin the moment.”
“If it makes you feel better, the species most populated is the Macaroni Penguin, with over eleven million pairs.”
“I want a Macaroni penguin. I feel like one’d be a great pet. I’d name it Ice Cube.” You sit up and extend your hand for the remote, silently offering your help. “Do you know the channel number?” you ask after he passes it to you, jamming your finger onto the power button. The hotel logo flashes on the screen before being replaced by the channel catalogue. You squint at the too-small text squiggling across the screen.
“Sixteen.”
After a minute of you mashing buttons in a vain attempt at navigating the cable, you manage to turn to channel sixteen just as a tiny penguin stumbles its way through the screenful of snow now flickering on the old television. “Oh my gosh, it’s precious. Look at its little arms!”
The camera pans underwater, following the penguin as it dives. The narrator reads, “A natural carnivore, penguins obtain all their nutrients from the sea. Large penguins, on some dives, can resurface with up to thirty fish at once.” The penguin emerges from the water with a couple of fish and toddles away on the ice. “Little Adelie penguin- although all Adelie penguins are little -Patty brings krill and fish home for her chicks. The babies’ father, Pickles, will have to go hunt for food on his own time.” You watch her drop all the collected food into her nest before her chicks pounce. The father casually preens at his feathers; this is just another normal day.
The documentary goes on. At some point, your attention wanes from the TV. You take a sideways glance at Spencer. A little twinge of something flits through your chest, trickling down into your stomach and erupting into a greenhouse of butterflies.
He must sense your stare lingering on him. He turns to meet your gaze, an inquisitive gleam in his eyes. You notice his fingers are knitted together, his one thumb twiddling absentmindedly over the other. A butterfly must’ve gotten lodged in your ribs under your heart.
“You know, penguins, like humans, mate for life. Well, like most humans.” He glances back at the screen. “Pickles here probably courted Patty for ages before they built a nest and had chicks. They, in my opinion, are couple goals. Just them specifically, though. A third of female humboldt penguins cheat on their spouses with other female humboldt penguins. ”
You’re caught off guard; you laugh so hard you snort. “Why would you ruin penguins for me like that?”
A shy smile curls the corners of his mouth, his eyes tracing your radiant features. “I have to do something with all this useless knowledge, don’t I?” A chick prances about on the TV. “Most of them are faithful, don’t worry. Male Gentoo penguins gift their partners pebbles throughout their relationships. It’s actually sort of comparable to a promise ring in our culture; most of the pebbles exchanged eventually are contributed to a nest built to raise chicks.”
“Hmm, good save.” The leftovers of your earlier fit of butterflies embolden you. “I’d rather just listen to you instead. Over the documentary,” you clarify, stumbling slightly over your words.
Spencer’s face brightens like you’ve never seen before. A genuine grin splits his face, and oh. You thought he was handsome before, but now? He smiles at you like heaven has come down and settled around him. He smiles at you like he can feel his soul intertwining with yours.
“Really?” he asks quietly.
“Really.” You maneuver yourself so that your body mirrors his. You fold your feet under your knees, your shoulders lining up with his. “I don’t even care if it’s about penguins anymore.” You turn off the TV, tossing the remote off to the side. “What do you want to talk about?”
He’s fucking elated. “Before I start running my mouth, can I do something a little weird?”
“Sure. I like weird.”
He holds out one of his hands in a ‘stay here’ motion, sliding off the bed and padding to where he’d discarded his bag earlier. His socks make a soft, strangely soothing noise against the scruffy carpet. He retrieves something from a pocket in the bag, closing his fist around it and hiding it behind his back.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a while. But I’m not exactly experienced when it comes to things like this.”
Your stomach flips. “What kinds of things?” you ask, despite having an answer you hope is true.
He slides back onto the bed, facing you again. “You know what I’m talking about. Us. Relationship things.”
“You made a joke earlier. It’s fantastic progress.”
He takes his free hand and offers his palm to you face-up. Slowly, you place your hand on top of his, giving him enough time to draw away if he wants to. He turns your hand over, making it look as if he’s about to read the lines of your palm.
“Is this progress, too?” he asks weakly. “I’d hold your hand, but… but I don’t think I’m there yet.”
“Of course it’s progress,” you reassure him. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
He gives you a grateful nod before making haste and dropping a pebble into your open palm.
“You sneak! You planned this, didn’t you?”
“Did it work?”
“...Of course it did.” Your fingers tighten around your new keepsake, desperate to keep it close. “But you still have to ask me anyway.”
He draws his hand away from yours and places both his palms on his knees. “Well, ah, I think I’m far past just liking you and I’m right before really, really romantically loving you. So, um, it’d make me happy if… if we could start seeing each other. Officially.”
“I’d love that, Spencer.”
All of a sudden, loud pops and crackles sound from outside the window, drawing your attention from each other. You look over Spencer’s shoulder and at the analog clock sitting on the nightstand. It reads twelve o’clock- midnight, at last. He follows your gaze. “Fireworks,” he murmurs. “Happy New Ye-”
You surge forward, making sure to keep your hands tucked behind your back, and plant a quick kiss to his lips.
“Happy New Year,” you respond when you lean back, brushing a bit of curled hair from his face.
Kissing exchanges less bacteria than handshakes, anyway.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱ • ⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
It all starts with linked pinkies.
Under the round table, sitting next to each other on the jet, walking around on your first date. As time went on, Spencer got more comfortable around you. And time flew.
You eventually graduated from pinkies, although you still found it cute. It stays a thing between you two your entire relationship, mostly when he's too shy to fully take your hand. Spencer says that it's your special thing to make himself feel better about being shy, but you really believe it. Pinky holding is your thing, and you think it;s cute.
It happens one night in his apartment, the two of you lounging on the couch watching another animal documentary- it had become a habit. You feel his pinky loop around yours before his hand shifts entirely to instead lace all your fingers together. He even brings your knuckles up to his mouth to kiss.
Weeks turn into months, which turn into years. You move in together. You talk about getting married. Maybe rescuing a dog or cat.
At his previously empty desk in the bullpen, framed photos of you just appear. At first, just one from a vacation the two of you took together.
You decorate more liberally, you think. A tacky coffee mug or five, trinkets you’ve collected from around the country, gag gifts given to you over the years. But most importantly, a miniature nest of pebbles sits right by a framed photo of Spencer all done up on your wedding day, shit-eating grin on his face that makes you feel a certain type of joy that you only get when you’re with him.