When Spencer opened the door to his apartment, three things happened, almost simultaneously and certainly like clockwork.
First and foremost, the brunette scrubbed a hand over his face as he placed his bag in the chair closest to the door, trying to avoid letting his knees buckle under the pressure of the day.
A group of teen kids, high fiving and stage whispering, crept out of the back of his house with excess nylon rope and a bit more fuel for their egos. They got into their truck
And then Spencer looked up.
Of all sights he'd seen before in his life, of all the cruel gifts he'd gotten over the years, of all the pranks he'd ever been tormented with, this was either his favorite or his least favorite. He didn't quite know yet.
"Oh, my God?" He mumbled, tilting his head as he tried to understand everything that was sitting in front of him.
He wasn't sure just why a tied up Hotch was passed out on his couch, and he definitely didn't have any of those friends that would totally drug and kidnap his crush and plant him in Spencer's living room, so the only plausible explanation was that those annoying kids from the community college down the road were taking out their blue-balled frustration by fucking with someone else's life. And that was only from a completely normal and non-FBI point of view.
He wasn't sure if those kids were aware of his crush or if this was just an unhappy mistake. But Spencer was somewhat grateful that they'd picked his house because someone else might have totally ruined this opportunity.
He wondered exactly how to go about things. Spencer wasn't entirely sure how long Hotch had been unconscious in his house, but if he started to untie him now it wouldn't seem so off later on if he came-to while some pretty much random person was untying him in a totally unfamiliar house.
However, that was exactly what happened.
Hotch's eyes fluttered open just as Spencer started to try and loosen the Gordian knots around his wrists, and Spencer immediately went into panicking-explaining mode.
"Hi, I didn't do this," Spencer said, his hands frozen on the cheap rope as his eyes widened and his breathing began to speed up, "Do you know what happened? Because I don't, and you're just here, and I-"
Hotch blinked a few times, still hazy, "You're Spencer."
"...Yes."
"Okay, good," Hotch sighed out and nodded, looking down at himself with blurry eyes, "Yeah, I know you didn't do this."
"What?"
"I paid JJ to try and get you to ask me out once and she told me you almost had a panic attack," Hotch said, wriggling his wrists, "Do you have any scissors?"
After a prolonged and awkward silence as the two of them collaborated on breaking Hotch free of a very complicated rope-prison, they sat on the floor trying to think up things to say in this very odd situation.
"Wait..." Spencer said after a long deliberation, "You paid JJ to get me to ask you out? How'd that happen? Why me?"
Hotch rolled his eyes, "If you haven't noticed, I've had a crush on you for a long time. Those asshole kids probably found out and gift wrapped me and put me in here as a joke."
"But it's not my birthday?" Spencer mumbled to himself before shrugging, "I guess we're dating now."
"Are we? Does this count as a first date?"
"I don't know. This has never happened to me before."
"What, the whole crush thing or the me-being-kidnapped-and-"
"Both," Spencer decided before standing and offering his hand to his new boyfriend, "Definitely both."
He wondered if their second date would be arresting those jerks from the college.
