"You shall love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart." - W.H. Auden

He never went to these things. Spencer was highly self-conscious and bit of a recluse by nature, so the more crowded nights weren't his favorites to go out. After dumping the contents of fourteen sugar packets into his coffee, he mixed his light and sweet drink and surveyed the room. The lamps had been dimmed and the aging light fixtures warmed the hue of the dark painted walls to a subtle burgundy. The small café had always been a comfortable place for his coworkers and him to escape their work and regroup.

"Coffee with your sugar, kid?" Derek grinned, sipping his darker beverage and glancing across the room and checking out the other patrons. Spencer responded with an eye roll and a half-hearted smirk, glancing off towards the makeshift stage at the rear of the room before bringing his gaze back down to book of essays he'd brought along for light reading.

The MC of the night was a tall kid with a wealth of visible piercing around his face and a sleeve of tattoos coloring his left arm. Spencer had seen him brewing coffee at least three times a week for as long as he'd been frequenting the establishment.

"Welcome to 'Out loud at the Burrow' " his voice was quiet and his hands hung loosely at his hips, fingers digging into the pockets of his tight jeans, "First up is one of our regulars, Katherine Holmes."

A girl stood up and made her way towards the stage toting a beautiful guitar in one hand and a water bottle in the other. She sat on the stool and adjusted the microphone, leveling it with her lips.

"Hey there!" she strummed gently once she plugged her instrument in, the strings sang lightly through the speakers. She shot her fingers towards the tuning pegs and adjusted her B string before strumming once more. "I hope ya'll are having a great night." She smiled upwards, looking to make eye contact with as many members of the audience as she could. She blew a fly away strand of dark hair out of her face and glanced towards the neck of her guitar. "This is a song I wrote a few years back…" she launched into a finger-picking riff before softly singing into the microphone.

"Not bad." Derek glanced at his friend, "A little slow for my usual taste, but with a voice and a body like that…" His white teeth flashed, the dimples appearing on his face as he smiled an all-American smile.

"She is…" Spencer shrugged, closing his book, "pretty." He looked a bit longer, based on her pale skin and the overall lightness to her complexion, she seemed European. She couldn't be more than twenty-five and had a lower voice with a subtle hint of a southern upbringing. Her fingers moved quickly across the frets of the instrument and she looked out further as she sang. Her song reminded Spencer of the old records his mother used to play, especially the Bob Dylan and Joan Baez songs she would hum to him after they'd read together; She'd keep humming in her slightly off-key tones until he fell asleep.

He looked a little closer and found himself drawn to the way the lights would flash and reflect off her blue, nearly gray, eyes. Her hair was long and it looked soft as it fell down her shoulders and towards her rib cage. She was more than pretty; she was beautiful. The kind of beautiful woman that hung on the arm of men like Derek Morgan and thus the kind of beautiful woman that wouldn't look twice at a lanky kid like Spencer Reid.

Not to mention she had talent. Spencer was always a fan of poetry. He could recite volumes of verse tracing back to the fifteenth century. However, much to his mother's disdain, his genius left him vastly incapable of writing anything beyond scientific or encyclopedic prose. He didn't quite have the gift of brevity or the ability to paint a picture with words, despite all the words he may know.

"You should talk to her." The older agent enjoyed getting a rise out of his younger companion, noticing the rise of blood to his cheeks.

"That would be," he flipped open the cover of the book once more and scanned the page he had long since memorized; the paragraphs and sentences all took a shape in his mind the second he looked away he could recite the third and fifth chapters or the sixteenth word on the 300th page ("abhorred"). "Absolutely horrendous. You know my track record with females is less than glorious." he grimaced.

"That's because you've yet to find your game."

"One can't find something that doesn't exist." Spencer listened as her song came to an end. For a split second, her eyes roamed along the perimeter of the room and made contact with his. She smiled warmly before taking a bow. The crowd kept a steady clapping rhythm, as several additional people had made their way in during the performance.

"Buy her a drink."

"I'm pretty sure the performers get drinks on the house." Spencer responded with such innocence that Morgan turned his head into his shoulder to hide his laughter in his shoulder and spare him the grief before allowing him to witness the severe rolling of his eyes. "If you don't go over there, I will."

"Morgan, I appreciate your concern but I'm not going over there and making a fool of myself."

"Oh yeah?" he took his friend's overly sweet drink and dumped it into the soil of a nearby potted plant.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Morgan chuckled as Reid's already high voice lifted up another octave. "That's not going to do anything. I'll just get another coffee, I don't need to talk to her." He stood up and trudged over to the counter.

"Yeah, yeah. Thank me later, lover boy." He dismissed his friend's whining and watched him awkwardly avoid eye contact with the girl who'd caught his eye. He laughed to himself, wondering how Spencer had missed the two or three times the girl's eyes fell on their table and the boy with his head in the book. Morgan couldn't help but think that Spencer needed a distraction after the last few weeks. The two had made a tradition out of having some male bonding time when they get back from hard cases, sometimes Hotch and Rossi come along when they're not dealing with their families or book tours, but for the most part it gives the two younger officers a nice way to unwind. In the last few weeks, his friend had seemed extra lonely and even less sociable than normal.

"It's not what he meant though; he wasn't trying to be ironic." her voice got higher as she seemed to get more frustrated, her hands worked their way into her hair as she spoke to the skinny barista. "It's not that there isn't a trace of irony in the text, it's that the irony isn't the point of the text. It's so dense because it's meant to be inclusive." Spencer couldn't help but wonder what she was discussing in such an animated way. He approached the counter to order, hoping she would continue as he glanced down to his hands. He contemplated faking a yawn to allow him to get another peak at her.

"Hey." She smiled, raising an eyebrow as she spoke. He had to blink twice and work his abnormally fast brain exponentially harder to realize that she was addressing him.

"Oh, erm, hello." he leaned back on his heels and looked at the price listing.

"You look like a learned person." she commented, startling him again as she seemed to be leading him into a question.

"Uh, well, I'd say I'm part of academia." an uncomfortable laugh trailed behind this assertion. He felt like an idiot.

"Fantastic." she smiled and turned back to her friend, positioning herself to include Spencer in the conversation "You could probably settle this. Are you familiar with David Foster Wallace?"

"These things you find so weak and contemptible in us - these are just the hazards of being free."

"Infinite Jest." she smiled and he nodded, smiling a little too.

"I've read all his work. Now, what would I be settling?"

"Jonathan here," she gestured towards the barista with a punch to his arm, "doesn't quite understand that Wallace's approach to writing was meant to counter the poisonous atmosphere our irony-drench society created. It's length and amount of footnotes isn't meant to alienate the reader, but to provide such a breadth of narrative to create an 'infinite' and inclusive environment."

"Actually, that's true. Wallace constantly wrote about the themes of irony and solipsism as he struggled with the flaws in communication his entire life as a result of his clinical depression."

"Bam. I win." She thrust her fist in the air, sticking her tongue out childishly towards her friend. "You owe me free coffee for the rest of the week." He reached for a mug. "and one for my friend." Her eyes flashed to Spencer. "You just saved me three bucks. I like you." she waited for her cup. "Your name is…"

"Uh, Reid, I mean, it's Spencer, except no one ever calls me Spencer really, most people just call me Reid or Dr. Reid. But, err, you don't have to call me doctor." He could feel the words tumbling out of his mouth clumsily, he was flinching before he finished the sentence.

"Nice to meet you Spencer." she responded to his awkward introduction by ignoring his uncontrollable word vomit and choosing his first name. She figured it would be embarrassing to point out the flood of unintentionally volunteered information and she was intrigued enough by the doe eyed young man to give him a free pass. "My name's Katherine. So, a doctor, huh? What kind of doctor?"

"Purely academic." his eyes widened a bit, surprised that the conversation was carrying. "I work at the FBI base up in Quanitico."

"Should have known you were a doctor that reads." she laughed to herself, "You hunt aliens, or something?"

"Serial killers actually."

"That sounds warm and fuzzy." she deadpanned. Her eyes shifting towards the floor. Spencer always felt like his job was the ultimate deal breaker with pretty girls.

"Actually," he began a serious answer before noting the wry smile on her face, realizing she was kidding. "It sure is." she reached for her coffee and took a grateful sip, he mirrored her actions. She shuffled back onto her heels and glanced back up to him, acknowledging for the first time the drastic height difference. Her eyes found his and she smiled again, waiting for him to say something else.

"Your, uh, your playing was really nice." He took a sip of the cup, trying not to visibly cringe from the bitter liquid.

"Milk?" she raised an eyebrow handing an antique metal milk dispenser to him.

"uh, no, it's fine." She rolled her eyes and poured the milk into his cup before reaching behind the counter and chucking an unnecessarily large amount of sugar packets at him.

"You look like a light and sweet kinda boy." She drawled with a smirk, taking a gulp of her black coffee like a pro.

"I have a bit of a sweet tooth."

"Figured." she grinned, tossing a small red stirrer to him. "and thanks, I've been playing for a while. I love coming here to try out song ideas. It's a relaxing atmosphere."

"I could never stand on a stage and do anything like that." He added, "Not that I can sing or play an instrument of any type."

"Have you ever tried?" her eyebrows raised.

"My mom had me attempt to learn the violin, she thought it would help me relax, but she couldn't put up with the horrible noise of practicing and determined I didn't have a musical bone in my body."

"Understandable." she blew a strand of hair out of her face, "No one and nothin' sounds any good on the violin." Spencer laughed causing Katherine to laugh and there they stood laughing together for a minute while neither found what was just said to be all that funny. Spencer thought she had the most beautiful laugh. Katherine thought Spencer was so much more attractive when he smiled, but she sensed he didn't do it enough.

"Kat, hey, you have to get back up there for your closing set." She glanced back to Spencer and watched his face fall slightly.

"Where does the time go?" she rolled her eyes, "stick around after the set, we can talk more." her eyes were a beautiful steely blue that, when viewed up close, left Spencer wondering whether they were actually a shade of gray. She had that exotic look of dark hair and light eyes that was slightly unnerving and yet startlingly beautiful at the same time.

"I'd like that." While his social and romantic prowess had never been apparent, every alarm and whistle was going off in his brain telling him that an incredibly attractive female wanted to talk to him more. She smiled and walked around the counter to pick up the guitar she had placed in a case below, put her strap around her shoulder and made her way to the stage.

"To close the show, I'm happy to present to you again, Katherine Holmes!" Jonathan made the final announcement and left the stage with a spring in his step.

"Hey kid!" Derek appeared behind Spencer's shoulder. He looked over at Katherine as she took her place on the stool and noticed that Spencer's eyes followed her. "Looks like you two got on pretty well." Her eyes found the younger agents and she beamed at him. "That's my boy."

"Hey everyone," she kept herself open with the audience, smiling and making as much eye contact as she could, though she found her eyes working back across the room to meet with the warm eyes of her new acquaintance. "I hope you all enjoyed the show tonight; I got suckered into closing too!." a couple of renegade cheers broke through the crowd and a random, clearly drunk voice shouted that she was hot, to which a bright flush grew in her cheeks. "Er, thanks." she plucked at the highest string on her guitar and fiddled with the tuning peg as she bit her lip. "I wrote this a couple years ago, I hope you like it."

Spencer felt a vibration in his pocket, his fingers grazed over it to pick it up, but he was determined not to let his eyes leave the stage.

"You got that too? JJ needs us ASAP."

"I told her I'd be there when she got off stage to talk, she'll think I just left." the worry was visible in the crease in his forehead. "I don't want to be rude."

Thrusting a napkin and a pen into the younger agent's hand, he pulled out his car keys. "Then write her a note and I'll meet you out front." He quickly jotted out a note.

"Do you think you could, uh, maybe give this to Katherine?" Spencer asked Jonathan, feeling the unnerved break in his voice as he handed him the napkin he'd scrawled on seconds before.

"Sure thing." he smiled, knowing full well that his friend was watching the shy man throughout her performance. Spencer offered a smile and glanced back once more to the girl on stage before heading out to work.