It was a Monday morning and Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid had come in extra early to make sure no one was around when he placed the photograph on his desk, next to his computer at work. He knew he was allowed to have photographs on his desk, JJ's office was cluttered with baby photos and Derek even had one of Savannah. But Spencer had never felt the need to have a picture on his desk, after all, he had an eidetic memory. This, however, was different. It was not so much something he wanted to be reminded of, but more to remember that it was actually real.
On Friday night he had gone home early. There had been no cases and he had finished his paperwork in record time. He had read his book for a bit and distracted the others by talking about random facts and statistic, finally deciding to go home when even this got boring. The train had been late and the people on it were rude, but by this time Reid didn't care. He had something to look forward to when he got home.
Spencer Reid's boyfriend of 7 months 5 days had just moved in with him. He knew he was away a lot on cases, so it made more sense that they live together so that they could spend all their time together. Tom Williams was kind, funny and easy to talk to. To Spencer he was the most beautiful person in the world, and most importantly, Tom made him feel safe. They didn't even need to talk to understand how the other was feeling. Sometimes, after a particularly rough day, they would just sit for hours on the sofa, curled up together, not talking, but not doing anything else either. Spencer knew from the moment that they had met that they were meant to be, and so far nothing had disproved his theory.
The only slight problem was that he had yet to tell the members of the BAU team about Tom. It wasn't because he was ashamed of Tom, or because he thought they wouldn't get along, it was more because he didn't want there to be another reason that he was different. Spencer had tried his whole life to just fit in, but being a genius didn't make that very easy and with always being younger than everyone else at school, he had just never bothered to tell people that he was gay. In fact, he had only really recently accepted it himself. So he had just never told them, always telling himself that it was a problem for another day.
But on this Friday, Tom had been waiting for him. He had gotten Spencer to dress smartly and they had gone out to a fancy restaurant for dinner. Before dessert, Tom had gotten down on one knee and proposed. It was the happiest moment of his entire life. They had spent the rest of the weekend celebrating their engagement with long walks, trips to tiny coffee shops and lots of sex.
The photo that he had placed on his desk was taken by a waiter just after he had said yes. They were holding hands, grinning at each other like idiots, and it was his favourite picture in the entire world. He was also finding it hard to believe that this had actually happened to him.
As much as he was happy though, he was also scared. Scared of how the team would react. Reid hadn't exactly lied to them, he had just opted not to tell them the truth. They all seemed to be under the impression that he was straight and single, rather than gay and engaged.
He laughed in spite of himself. Gay and engaged almost rhyme.
So now it was a Monday morning and he was sat in the middle of an empty bullpen laughing to himself about an almost rhyme. It was going to be a weird day.
He looked at his watch. There was time to get to his favourite coffee shop on the street opposite and if he hurried, he could get back before anyone else arrived.
—
An hour and a rather long queue for coffee later, Spencer Reid stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for his floor. There weren't that many people around, so he was still hoping that no one from his team had arrived yet, in case they saw his photo when he wasn't around. Why had he gone all the way to get that stupid coffee? He stared at it mournfully then took a sip and decided that it was definitely worth it.
The elevator doors slid open at his floor and he stepped out, then walked through the doors to the bullpen. The situation was worse than he could possibly have imagined.
JJ and Derek Morgan were stood talking to each other at his desk. These were the two people that he was looking forward to explaining this to the least. He had been counting on them being the last ones to arrive, what with Derek having a girlfriend and JJ having Henry. Spencer was just considering walking out of the office, going home and never coming back when they spotted him from across the room.
"Time to face the music" he muttered under his breath and started walking towards them, plastering what he hoped to be a convincing smile on his face.
"Hey guys did you know that-" he was cut off mid sentence by Derek, who was looking at him as if he were from another planet.
"Nice photo pretty boy, who's you're friend?"
Clearly Morgan was choosing to ignore the obvious signs of homosexuality in the photo.
"That's Tom" he said matter-of-factly.
"How come we've never met him? It seems like you guys are pretty close?"
It was JJ's turn to ask the stupid questions. 'Pretty close', they were holding hands and staring into each other's eyes. They were supposed to be profilers, these are pretty clear signs of a romantic relationship.
"Me and Tom have been dating for 7 months and 5 days, so I guess we're pretty close, especially considering he proposed to me on Friday"
He smiled as a look of shock and realisation crept onto their faces.
"Boyfriend? How come you never told us?" It was JJ again, he had avoided answering the last question about why they'd never met him, but he had no way to get out of answering this question.
"I guess I just didn't want you to treat me any differently, or change the way you thought about me, I don't really know."
As he said this, he glanced down nervously. This was probably the hardest thing he had ever done. What if they never trusted him again? What if they never spoke to him again? What if he had ruined their friendship? What if-
His thoughts were cut off by JJ hugging him and the sound of Derek laughing.
"It's going to take a lot more than you having being engaged to a guy to make us not friends anymore", Morgan had understood what he had really been worried about.
Reid let out a breath that he hadn't even realised he had been holding.
"Er JJ, you can let go now"
"But you're getting married" he somehow hadn't realised that she was crying.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm just so happy for you."
"Oh, um, thanks"
He felt awkward being the reason for her tears, but at least neither of them were angry at him.
"You do realise that Penelope is going to freak when she finds out" Derek's words created a look of panic of Spencer's face that made JJ and Morgan start laughing.
"What are you guys laughing about?" David Rossi asked, as he walked into the bullpen.
Between laugh's Derek choked out "Reid's getting married, and he hasn't told Garcia yet."
Rossi smiled fondly at the two laughing agents and Reid, who was beginning to look even more scared every second.
"Congratulations Spencer, who's the lucky girl?"
At this, JJ and Morgan started laughing even louder and JJ had to actually sit down.
Looking rather uncomfortable Reid replied "Er his name is Tom"
Rossi raised his eyebrows in slight surprise, "Well, I hope I get to meet him soon", and with this he walked up the stairs and into his office.
That was another one down, only two more left to go.
—
Next had been Aaron Hotchner, who had walked past Reid's desk on his way to his office.
"Nice photo"
Reid had been busy doing paperwork and had jumped at Hotch's comment.
"Thanks, yeah, it's my favourite photo"
"Who's the guy"
At least Hotch had understood from the photo that they were in a relationship.
"That's Tom"
"Is it serious?"
"We're engaged"
It was Hotch's turn to be surprised at the news, but to be honest, he wasn't that surprised at all. He didn't like to make a habit of guessing people's sexualities, but he had had a suspicion that Reid might not be as straight as the rest of the team thought he was.
"Congratulations, and when do we get to meet him?"
"Erm, maybe you'll all come round for dinner soon." He nodded to himself, confirming it in his mind that it would be a good idea.
"Well I'll look forward to it" and with that, it was just Penelope Garcia left to tell.
—
"Maybe you should just go and find her and tell her now." Derek was saying from his desk. It was mid morning and everyone was in the office now.
"If she finds out from someone else it will be even worse"
What Morgan was saying made sense, but it still didn't make him want to face Garcia.
"Look man, just get it over with, then that way you won't be worrying about it all day."
Again Derek was being the voice of reason.
"I'm going to keep bugging you until you go and do it."
Spencer glared at him.
"Spencer and Tom sitting in a tree K-I-S-S—"
"Fine, fine, I'll go and do it" he stood up in defeat.
As he was walking out of the bullpen he called over his shoulder "come and get me if i'm not back in 30 minutes."
Once he reached Garcia's lair, he stood outside waiting for a minute. This could be the end for him. Penelope might actually murder him for hiding this from her. 'I wonder what Tom will say at my funeral if she does murder me?' Reid thought, but shook his head, the sooner he did this the better. He knocked on her door.
"You may enter the lair of technology if you wish" came the muffled voice of the technical analyst.
Opening the door, he thought he might as well do it quickly,
"I'm gay and I have a boyfriend who is now my fiancee named Tom" he said in one breath.
Garcia sat silently trying to process the information that she had been given at lightening speed.
"Well that's all I'm going to go now" Reid started to back out of the room, and had gotten the door halfway closed before he heard Penelope call out;
"Not so fast"
He closed his eyes and let out a sigh. So close, he was so close to leaving. He reopened the door, to reveal Garcia grinning with a mad look in her eyes.
"So tell me absolutely everything about Tom, and if I think you're leaving anything out I'll use my computers to find out everything. And I do mean everything."
Spencer gave a nervous half smile, shut the door and sat down on one of that chairs she kept the the office for when members of the team came to visit.
—
20 long and painful minutes later, Spencer emerged from Garcia's lair having told her everything she wanted to know before the questions started to get a bit too personal and he had pretended that he had more work he needed to do.
"Thought I was going to have to come rescue you for a minute there" Derek had said when he had finally reentered the bullpen and sat at his desk.
"I wish you had, it was the longest, most embarrassing conversation I've ever had."
But, upon reflection, Reid didn't really mean it. Actually he was just glad that everyone had taken the news so well. They had taken it so well in fact that he was beginning to wonder why he hadn't told them sooner.
By the end of the day though, he couldn't wait to go home, just so he could avoid the constant stream of questions from all of the team members about his fiancee. It was a struggle to remind himself that it was at least a good thing that they wanted to know more about his future husband. It was funny to think that this had all started because of the photo on his desk.