Human Connections
AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: Hey guys, I'm so sorry this chapter is so late. I hit a major road block in all my stories I just had no motivation to write or post since last week and I'm trying my hardest to get everything published and to catch up to what I missed. So the chapter we have here hasn't been properly edited, I'm hoping to have an edited version up ASAP but i make no promises. This is more fluff and cute moments. We have more coming next two chapters and then we go into the DRAMA I have planned. So hopefully I get my mojo back so I can get those chapters out in a timely fashion. As always don't forget to leave a review, or a fav and a follow and I'll (hopefully) see you guys next week!
Chapter 7
Spencer couldn't believe that, just short of two months ago, he had found out he had a sister. A sister that was now adamant on throwing him and Halloween themed birthday party.
His team often tried to throw him little birthday parties, but this was the first time someone outside of his immediate family or work friends, was actually putting in effort. For no reason other than she wanted to spend a birthday with him. A first birthday them together.
She said it was selfish for her to hog him though, so she was planning a party, he could invite whoever he wanted. He chose to only invite work friends.
She had put a lot of effort into this party apparently. She had booked the banquet room of the hotel she was staying at and Spencer already felt bad, because it was only going to be about seven people coming to this event. When he relayed that to her, she had said that it was alright, she just needed to space for all her activities, seven people going through it would be just fine.
The night of his birthday came and Spencer was both excited and nervous at the same time.
At first he was worried that he wouldn't be able to make it as a case had come through last minute but it had cleared up in time. Spencer had been told that it was a costume party but because they were coming off of a case none of them had been able to change.
But Ryanne had been thinking about that. As soon as they got close to the banquet hall they found Ryanne waiting outside with a table of clothes and accessories.
Ryanne was dressed as a black cat. She was in a black dress with black fishnets and then had cat ears on her head and whiskers and a nose drawn in in black on her face. She smiled all warmly at them as they came in.
"I had a feeling you guys might not have time for costumes so I have some for you," she said to them. Each of you have a bag, most of you don't have to change, and I have one of Emily's makeup artist friends here if you guys want to add some make up to your outfit, no pressure if you don't."
They each took their bag and then went to get their stuff on, while she waited by the door.
Reid was given a white wig, a pair of glasses, a fake white mustache and a pipe. So she had him going as Albert Einstein, so that was kinda cute. And she even had a lab coat in his size. In fact this might have been his lab coat.
Morgan came out in a number 4 Reds Jersey with the name Phillips on the back with a matching red cap. He said he was a well-known baseball player, but Reid hadn't heard of him before.
Garcia only had to put on a head band that had a medium sized plastic green diamond above her head. This came from a computer game called Sims, he knew the basics of that game but had never played it. Garcia thought it was cute.
Rossi was given a Fedora, a fake gun and spats to wear on his shoes, clearly very happy to be an olden styled Italian gangster.
Emily came out in a red trench coat with a red hat, and Reid knew that reference right away. She was Carmen Sandiego.
JJ had the most drastic change. She had a grey cardigan and a kilt to put on, and the makeup artist did up her hair in white fluffy scrunchies and braids. He had no idea what that was until she told him. It was a look from Britney Spear's first music video.
Then she got them into the actual banquet hall and oh my god.
She had turned into a Halloween carnival just for him. There was a picture taking area, with cut outs to stand behind. There was a bobbing for apples station, a pumpkin painting table, a cookie decorating table and a beanbag toss.
On top of that there was a table dedicated to food and drink to help themselves too.
The lights were dimmed, and a disco ball was flashing. The walls were decorated with hanging Halloween themed streamers and cut outs, like witches and pumpkins and ghosts. There was fake spider webs everywhere and Halloween music playing
Spencer had never been so happy in his life.
"Kay so we can do everything together or you guys can splinter off…" and like that his friends had rushed off to wherever they wanted to go, and though Spencer wanted to too he stayed with Ryanne.
"This is pretty cool!" he cried still looking around.
"You like it? For real?" she asked. "I rather gleaned from your excitedly recounted information about Halloween that you were a bit of a Halloween fan."
"You guessed right," Spencer said and her smile widened on her face in a way that made him feel happy.
"Did you know…"
"I'm going to say no," she said cutting him off. "But if it's about Halloween you probably already told me."
Also true.
Ryanne looked around to all the different places where his work friends were trying out her games and cookies and picture booth.
"What do you wanna try first?" she asked him.
What did he want to try first? "I kind of want to paint a pumpkin," he said and her smile stayed bright and cheery.
"Yay! I've got all sorts of stencils and paints… even glow in the dark!"
He was glad she was so excited, he was glad that his friends had fun. He was glad that he had birthday cupcakes with sparklers instead of a cake with candles to blow out, cause he didn't need a birthday wish this year.
This year he had everything he wanted around him.
Except for Hotch who was too busy with paperwork to come, but had slipped him a birthday gift when he wasn't looking and told him to have extra fun for him. At this rate, Spencer was certain that Hotch would never meet Ryanne.
CM-CM-CM-CM
Spencer had put up all the photos from his birthday, or at least the favourites of his, up on his cubicle wall so he could always look up and see them.
It had been two weeks since he had last seen Ryanne, but he felt better being able to look up to see a picture of her and him, both in their costumes, holding a birthday cupcake together. Side by side it was easy to see the similarities between the half-siblings and Spencer was quickly starting to think of her as a real sibling, without the half tacked onto it.
Already he was thinking about what he'd have to do for her party. This, of course, would start with having to contact her best friend, Emily, who had been planning her birthday parties since Ryanne turned 16. He would be crazy to try and steal the planning away from Emily but at least wanted to be a part of it. And he was sort of hoping that the party would be done here in Virginia and not in Vegas, cause his work friends wanted to come, but if he had to fly to Vegas he would.
He had gotten an email from her that morning, asking if he was in the office or off that day, and he had responded right away that he was in the office. Catching up on his own paperwork and waiting for a case to come in, he could have gone home if he wanted to, would have gone home if she had said anything.
Instead he got a short email back saying: "Kay :)" and Spencer was a little disappointed by that. He had sort of wanted to fake an excuse to go home and spend time with his little sister, but if she was busy, then she was busy. And he did have work too…
"Hey Spence!" Spencer jumped and looked up to Ryanne who had a big bag clearly filled with books. "You're not busy, are you?"
He wasn't anymore.
"No, no, I mean yeah I have paperwork but I always have time for my baby sister."
He had picked the baby sister nickname up from Morgan. He used it because it would make Ryanne's nose curl up in a way that told him she didn't like it, and he liked teasing her in that way.
"Oh good, is everyone else free too?" she asked glancing around to the others, Spencer noting that Morgan was the first out of his chair. "I brought presents."
"I'm always down for presents," Morgan said with a smile and Ryanne smiled too.
"I don't know if you guys will like them… well… I know Emily will, I unno about the rest of you…"
She made a big show of putting her giant bag of books onto Spencer's desk and then began to pull them out.
His coworkers all gathered around them watching as she pulled out stack of stack of books, all with the same covers. It was clearly her series, or all the current books in her series.
"Emily said that she wanted her books signed," Ryanne said, "Which you can still do by the way."
Emily looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "I can go home and get them…"
"Well I don't mean right now silly," Ryanne cried. "Besides, I have these here. These are special, limited edition runs that I created just for you guys. You've got a special binding and dust jacket and all the books are signed for you. I had to do a certain number of these, and so even though Emily was really the only one interested, I thought maybe you guys might like these… you don't have read them, you can sell them if you want there were only 10 copies of each…"
"Right so these would be worth a good couple bucks," Morgan asked, picking up a stack that had a sticky note on it that said his name. Already he was looking through the covers.
Emily had lunged for her set, gasping at each cover and double checking each signature. "And I'll still sign your other copies too, Emily," she said. For a second there Spencer was worried that she'd faint from excitement.
"I have a set for Garcia and for Hotch too," she said. "Is he free? I could finally introduce myself…"
"He's in a budget meeting right now," Rossi said picking up his own stack to go through it. "But we'll pass along the gift to him."
Spencer pulled his copies to him. He hadn't told her yet but he had bought her whole series and read through it as quickly as he digested the other books he had read. He was a speed reader after all. And while she had been right, those books weren't his usual genre, he did enjoy reading them. They were interesting, well written and, according to Emily, eerily similar to covert ops that the CIA had run a few years back. But Emily already knew that Ryanne had no prior law enforcement connections so that was just a coincidence.
But that didn't mean he didn't want these books. He totally did. And apparently so did everyone else because they had all grabbed their copies and then thanked her.
Then Emily was discussing which books she liked the most and which was her favourite and how she couldn't wait to read the whole series again when the next book came around. Then she pointed out which book she thought each would like most.
"Actually, my favourite is was Shadows of Siberia," Spencer said before Emily could suggest a different one and suddenly Ryanne was looking at him surprised.
"You read my books?"
"I did. I bought the whole series the day after you told me it's name," he said. "I got through all five books in one sitting. They were rather enjoyable, I can see why they are so popular. But Shadows of Siberia is my favourite, because it deals with the mental instability and you don't know who to trust until the very end. It was very challenging."
Ryanne was suddenly beaming, like his opinion mattered the most out of all of them, and once again Spencer found himself smiling too, because he loved to make her smile like that.
Not long after that, Ryanne and Spencer went for lunch and he spent the whole time making her smile by picking out his favourite bits of her books. Yes, Spencer Ried was really enjoying having a little sister and he doubted that was ever going to change.