[Spencer]
"Look, Spence! It's an elephant!" Sam squealed excitedly the moment they entered the main lobby of the Smithsonian Institution. She started bouncing on the heels of her feet, frantically pointing at the enormous elephant statue stationed behind the information desk. "Look, look, look!"
"I see it," he chuckled at her enthusiasm.
He could see the sparkle in her light eyes as she looked between him and the statue. He smiled softly at her. She was blissfully unaware of the people staring at her strangely.
Hesitating for a moment, he walked closer to the brunette and slipped his arm through hers. She looked up at him curiously, then her lips spread into a wide grin as she pointed at an entrance to their left, "Let's start with the mammals and make our way around. Sound good?"
"Sounds like a plan to me," he nodded, smiling sheepishly at her.
"Then let's go!"
"Whoa!" he yelped as she pulled him towards the Mammal Hall entrance. She had a single arm thrusted into the air, like she was leading her own parade.
Ͽ . . . Ͼ
"Oh, wow," she said in awe. Her eyes bounced over each object in the exhibit area as she held onto his arm. "Look, it's a walrus! The cows of the Artic!"
"Basically," he snickered, casually shoving his hands in his pockets. He let her pull him closer to the exhibit, "However, they're actually carnivorous."
She looked up at him with curiosity swimming in her blue eyes, and he felt his breath catch in his throat. She raised a single dark brow at him, "Well, yeah, I wouldn't think that there's a lot of vegetation in the snow and ice. They eat a lot of fish, right?"
He gulped down his nerves and stated, "A-Actually, they favor eating shellfish."
"Really?" she tilted her head at the large mammal.
He pulled a hand from his pocket to point at the yellowish whiskers poking out of the creature's thick lips, "They have about four-hundred and fifty whiskers, which they use to detect the shellfish in the dark depths of the ocean. A single walrus can eat approximately four thousand clams in one feeding."
When he looked down at the brunette, she was staring at him owlishly. Her lips were slightly parted; she was speechless.
He felt his face flare with warmth as he rubbed his neck anxiously, "S—"
"Wow," she cut him off. A large grin spread across her face, "You know a lot about animals, huh?"
"That's what happens when you spend your childhood in the library," he shrugged his shoulders awkwardly. "You read. A lot."
"Well, you've gotta' keep that big brain active, you know," she winked at him. She pointed at one of the animals in the case. "Hey, check it out, Spence. This one is kind of cute."
He raised an eyebrow. She was staring at the miner's cat—a mammal that looked like a hybrid between a cat, raccoon, and a lemur—above the taxidermal rabbit to the left of the massive walrus. Her face was filled with adoration as she took in the details of the creature.
"Look, they even have bats!" She squealed suddenly, causing him to flinch. She dragged him over to the next case by his arm. He nearly stumbled over his own feet.
He felt his chest bubble with laughter from her enthusiasm as she pressed her face close to the glass to peer at the branch lined with bats hanging by their clawed feet. There were a few around the branch that were hung by thin strings to stretch the length of their wing and provide a better looked at their tiny faces.
Spencer allowed his eyes to roam around the room. With each creature he saw, there were two or three more in his peripheral vision. Sam continued to gush over the bats as he walked to the case opposite of her—to the left of the mammal entrance—and looked at the large moose. He looked above it to the spider monkey crouched upon a platform, which led his eyes to the left. Just above the entrance they had walked through, he spotted a Bengal tiger frozen in mid-lunge from savannah grass.
"Hey, Sam, look up here," he called to the brunette, raising his arm to point at the feline.
He heard her footsteps against the tile as she walked closer to him, and he heard her breath intake as she saw the tiger herself.
"Oh, wow," she said, barely above a whisper. "How tragically beautiful."
"Tragically?" he asked her, looking down to find her curling her slender fingers around his bicep. "How so?"
She pried her icy eyes from the tiger to gaze at him, "If you think about it, these animals don't receive a peaceful funeral and burial like us humans do. They become taxidermy products for museums, such as this one, for people to gaze upon. If you think morbidly about it, we come here, to a type of morgue for the deceased animals. Now, if it were modern-day dead humans—you know, not made of wax or from prehistoric times used to study—then the museum wouldn't exist."
He stared at her for a long, unwavering moment, "I don't think I've ever thought of it that way."
She shrugged and smiled, "I like to think that my sense of morbidity entails knowledge for the unthinkable."
He stared at her for a long moment as she turned her attention back to the tiger. Her strange bouts of wisdom surprised him – it was always unexpected.
They looked at the rest of the animals in the first section of their adventure through the Smithsonian. Sam mostly fawned over the small mammals that speckled on platforms, and Spencer laughed when she said that the rhinoceros was a "chubby unicorn." She read aloud the large, glowing sign that explained how the mammals have special ear bones before she tugged his sleeve towards the African animal exhibit.
He rolled his eyes at her, but he couldn't stop the smile from stretching across his face as she childishly pulled him over to the lion case. Two lionesses were fighting a wild bison. Beside them, a male lion proudly stood at the top of a large sign that stated several facts about Africa.
She pulled her hand away from the crook of his arm and went over to the giraffe by the entrance. Her fingers were laced behind her back as she gazed up at the tall creature stretching its long neck to a branch of fake foliage attached to the wall, "Did you know that they have purple tongues?"
"Well, that's due to the melanin on their tongues," he told her matter-of-factly, striding over to her.
"Melanin?" she tilted her head, "What's that?"
He enjoyed feeding her curiosity, "It's the same pigment that causes your skin to turn darker when you're in the sun all day."
She made a "pfft" sound followed by, "Yeah, I don't exactly tan. It's more like I burn to a tomato color then get even paler after it heals."
"I don't burn easily, but I don't tan, either," he shrugged nonchalantly.
He followed beside her was she went to each animal, following down the path of silver hoof-prints painted on the floor. They took turns reading the tablets in front of the cases that explained different facts about them, and she watched her squeal over the fennec foxes.
Sam giddily chattered about which ones she saw in The Lion King movie, especially about the hyenas. He laughed at her comical impressions of the characters he had never heard of.
"Look at this thing!" she said, pointing at the hippopotamus beside another, smaller giraffe craning its neck downwards to drink from an imaginary waterhole. "I could fit my entire head in its mouth!"
"I wouldn't recommend it," Spencer smirked at her.
She glared at him, "Well, duh. This thing would smash my head like a grape. They're surprisingly aggressive animals."
"And fast, too," he nodded.
"The Hungry, Hungry Hippo just gets more and more dangerous with each second," she clicked her tongue and shook her head, earning another chuckle from Spencer, as she turned away from the creature. "I knew that game was always weird."
They walked passed an anteater with its head in an enormous anthill structure. However, Spencer heard Sam's under-breath comment about how "huge" the mammal was as they approached the leopard. It was sleepily perched on a large tree beside a dead gazelle dangling limply on the branch.
"Such a pretty kitty," Sam smiled up at the leopard. "Deadly, yes, but it's so pretty.
They travelled from Africa to the Australian mammals, where the brunette cooed over a kangaroo. She meekly peered at the variety of monkeys displayed in the rainforest room afterwards, and he got the feeling that she wasn't very fond of them. He walked swiftly beside her as they entered a winter wonderland behind glass.
Spencer stood beside the large grizzly bear, hiding a smile behind his fist, as he watched her gaze from bobcat to the white artic fox curled up on a platform of artificial snow. She crouched slightly to see a small rabbit buried deeply into the snow where its nest of straw and grass had been created. He was stunned be her childlike awe as she stared at each animal.
Suddenly, she turned around with a smile on her face and took his hand in hers, "Hey, the humanitarian exhibit is next. Let's go."
He stared at their grasped hands as she led him to the next area. He felt the warmth that transferred from her palm to his. The way her fingers curled perfectly around his hand made the corner of his mouth twitch upwards slightly.
It's almost like… it's a date, he thought to himself. He shook his head, internally scolding himself, what am I even thinking about? I invited her out to the museum to cheerher up.
"Hey, Spencer?"
He snapped away from his daze to look at the brunette as she pulled her hand away, "Hm? What is it?"
Her lips were twisted in a concerned frown, "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," he smiled at her, pushing his previous thoughts away.
"Good." The frown faded away quickly. "Oh, hey, there was something I wanted to ask you about."
"Maybe I'll have an answer for you," he jested, earning a laugh from her.
"So…" she shifted her feet, crossing her arms in front of her. He watched her left thumb nervously stroke against her bicep, just under her shoulder. She bit down on her lower lip as she thought about the words in her head. Her eyes shifted from his to the skulls stationed on podiums around them.
"So…?" he repeated her questioningly.
She heaved a breath, "Well, I kind of… I mean, this morning..." She seemed frustrated with her wording, but then she blurted out in a rush, "I got a message this morning from Derek, and I wanted to know if you'd be okay with me going to dinner with him."
Spencer froze. His mind momentarily flashed back to when Derek and Sam were dancing at Rossi's house when he first brought her around his friends. The ring of her laughter as he spun her around and the skirt of her dress flared out around her.
Spencer felt one of his hands curl into a fist as he heard the brunette's familiar ring of laughter as Morgan spun her around and dipped her. The skirt of her dress pouring around her legs like melted rose petals. Her hands clutching Morgan's shirt, clinging to him and causing her partner to laugh.
"Green is not a good aura for you," Garcia's voice broke Spencer's focus on them. His head snapped to find her looking at him with a cat that caught the canary grin on her devilishly lips. "Someone's jealous – even more than me."
"What are you talking about?" he frowned at the bubbly blonde, furrowing his brows. He forced his body to relaxed the tension building inside him. He noticed that Hotch focused on Jack's portable gaming device and his phone instead of the current conversation.
"You know," she leaned back against the arm chair, looking over her purple-painted fingernails, "if it bothers you that much, then you should just go cut in."
He blinked away his memory as he gazed down at the hopeful look in her eyes. He internally sighed to himself. If I don't agree, she'll be mad at me. If I do, then she might get hurt by Morgan's flirtatious character…
He offered her a smile, "It's not like I can stop you." Even if I wish I could.
"Really, Spence?" she perked up. "I mean, if it's going to make you feel uncomfortable, I totally won't do it, you know that, right?"
He felt a twinge in his heart from her consideration of his feelings on the matter, so he knew he had to give her the same, "Hey, maybe we could all go on a double-date together."
A wide grin spread across her face, "I'd like that."
"Come on," he reached offered his arm to her. "We still have the rest of the museum to enjoy."
She happily took his arm without hesitation. She reached up on her toes and pecked his cheek, "You're the best, Spencer Reid."
Usually, his face would burn from embarrassment, but his mind was in a daze.
Sam was going to go on a date with the womanizing Derek Morgan, and Spencer was going to finally come face to face with his distant girlfriend, Maeve Donovan.
Ͽ . . . Ͼ
The next evening.
Spencer was packing up his satchel from a day full of paperwork when he saw Morgan walking towards the elevators. He had avoided eye contact with Morgan most of the day, but he knew he had to confront him before he left for the day. He jammed the rest of his supplies in his bag and hurried to catch up with his coworker.
"Hey, Morgan," he called after him. "Hang on a second."
Morgan paused at the button and turned to face Spencer, "What's up, Reid? You need something?"
"Yeah, I-I wanted to talk to you for a minute."
Morgan's face revealed a sense of exasperation, "Is this about my date with Sam tonight?"
Spencer nodded stiffly. He curled his shaking hands into tight fists – he didn't like confrontation, especially those he considered friends. He had been thinking about what he was going to say to his teammate all day, attempting to perfect the best way of phrasing what he wanted to say.
The elevator dinged its arrival, and both men entered it. Morgan hit one of the buttons on the wall, causing the elevator to halt its decadence to the building entrance. He casually leaned against the wall, crossing his arms in front of him, "Okay, Reid, spill it."
Spencer inhaled deeply, mustering his confidence, "Just… don't hurt her."
"What makes you say that?" Morgan's brows furrowed. He was offended by the accusation, despite his well-known history.
"We both know you haven't had the… best track record with relationships," Spencer trekked the conversation cautiously. He didn't want his friend to hate him, but he wasn't going to just stand by. "Sam isn't like your usual hook-ups. She's better than that."
"Firstly, it's just dinner together," Morgan stated irritably, hitting the button again to activate the elevator. He was defensive. "And, secondly, I don't believe it's really any of your business as to what she and I do together, Reid. She's a big girl, and she can make her own decisions."
"I'm not saying that you shouldn't take her out," Spencer spat, frustrated. His own irritation was forming. "I'm just saying that I don't want to see her crying because you did something to her."
"I thought you knew me better than that, Reid," Morgan shook his head in disappointment. He had nothing more to say to him.
The elevator dinged again, and the doors slid open. Morgan swiftly left Spencer behind as he exited the building.
Spencer went to his car, carelessly tossed his satchel into the passenger's seat, and slammed his clenched fists against the steering wheel.
He knew he was developing a small crush on the brunette—he couldn't deny it any longer. He knew the signs, the body language, the frantic mental state; it was basic psychology. However, he despised the frustration overwhelming him at the thought of Morgan dating her. He wanted to continue an untainted friendship with her, but he couldn't stop the confused feelings swirling inside of him. It was eating away at him.
He exhaled his frustration loudly.
"This Sunday," he told himself, searching for logic behind his madness, "I'm going to finally meet Maeve, and it will all fade away. I only have these feelings towards Sam right know because I'm unable to be with Maeve in the same way. As soon as she and I are officially together, then this stupid crush will disappear."
Satisfied with his hypothesis, he nodded his head to himself despite the unsettling churn in the pit of his stomach. He shifted his car into gear and headed home, where quickly ducked into his apartment before Morgan arrived to pick Sam up for their date. He didn't want any more uncomfortable talking — especially in front of her.
