A/N: I'm sorry I havent updated in so long. But corona and stuff happened. Luckily CM is back on a streaming platform I have. So yay! I have another chapter I'm a bit nervous about posting, but I'll get there hopefully. :) Please tell me if you like it.
He left me at the hospital giving me a hug goodbye while Morgan watched, he was the one picking Spencer up. I imagined it would be Rossi who would volunteer to pick me up. Sadly I was stuck there for another day, bloody flu shots.
As we were hugging he quickly and quietly leaned in to whisper in my ear.
"I know I kinda sprung it on you yesterday. And I don't need you to say anything, just give me a pen if you feel anything like I do for you. Take as long as you need. Okay?" He whispered and quickly leaned back and smiled holding me for a moment and I nodded still trying to process what he said to me, I tried to mask it with a smile.
He finally let go, and Morgan hugged me goodbye and told me he looked forward to seeing my little ass back at the office. Making me laugh a little at his stupid comment. He also gave me a knowing look but I looked at him confused, as to indicate that there was nothing to see there.
I spent the day bored out of my mind, flipping channelles and nurses checked on me, and I got a new roommate. And a doctor came and checked me out of the hospital. I was happy to be able to go home, and back to work. Since Spencer left, it had been awfully lonely here. Thankfully Rossi walked in the room, a smile on his face.
"Time to go signorina." He said and dropped a bag of clothes on my bed. I smirked and grabbed it to go change out of the hospital gown. I walked out and smiled at Rossi.
"Good to see you up and about, let's go. And next time, don't do that please." He said and I rolled my eyes, it is not like there I had a tendency to engage in risk taking behaviour, oh wait. Yes I did.
I bit the inside of my lip as we walked to his car, and I got in. I had thought a bit throughout the day about what Spencer had said. If I felt the same way he did? I had no idea. I liked him, he was sweet and surprisingly funny if you paid attention, he was tall and not too bad to look at. But how did he feel? How did he want me to feel? It had been a heat of the moment kind of thing. I mean I kissed him once at the club because I was drunk and thought it would help him out, but I thought nothing of like. Like when I made out with my fellow thief Haymitch because we were about to get caught somewhere, and someone seeing two teenagers making outs immediate thought is not: They must be thieves. It is the perfect cover. I thought nothing of it, just like with Spencer. I had leaned on him because I was feverish and about to die. I did not think it had too much to do with him other than the fact that he was in the room. But then he kissed me in the hospital, and it was nice, it was very nice. But I had no idea how I actually felt, how to deal with it. It was not like I had much experience with relationships at all. And would the bureau approve or kick me out from the one good thing I had going for me? I felt like I was swimming in these thoughts trying to find the logic to them but they kept drowning me and repeating themselves. I had no idea how I felt about anything and even if I did, then what? Rossi cleared his throat from beside me and I was pulled out of the thoughts.
"You're awfully quiet. Realised something important when you were almost dying?" He asked joking a little and I rolled my eyes and smiled a little at his dumb joke. If he only knew what the two kids from the team had been doing after they left. But I was not telling him.
"I would kill for some proper food, some pasta aligio e olio, uh or putanesca." I said trying to cover up what I was really thinking about. And musing a bit, I did love those dishes and it was not like we had a lot of time to cook with our jobs. He smiled and reached into the backseat for something.
"You know. I figured you would say something like that." He said before pulling out a container with pasta puttanesca in it. I smiled widely and looked up at him genuinely happy that he had thought of me, and knew me well enough to know I would want something like this. He laughed a little seeing my face light up like that.
"You didn't?" I said a little in disbelief and he just laughed again.
"Yeah yeah, just, no eating in my car. I can't have that stinking it up." He said and I laughed a little but nodded and put the still warm container on my lap. I could not wait to get home and eat this, sadly he checked his phone and turned his car around.
"Duty called?" I asked and he nodded with a sigh, I did too leaning back into my seat. I wanted to go home, and shower and think about how to handle all of this before I had to face Spencer. Now I had to think on my feet, which I was good at, but it was annoying me at the moment.
We walked into the briefing and I put the pasta on my desk, hoping I could eat on the plane. I gave Spencer and awkward smile as I walked in and sat down beside him and Rossi like I normally would, very conscious to not change up my behaviour too much around all of these psychologists. We were briefed on the case, and I paid attention and chipped in when I could, with my usual comments. Thankfully we were going out of town for this one. And I smiled as I drove with Rossi to the airport. I knew it was weird when I usually rode with Spence and Morgan, but I hoped no one noticed. I generally tried to stay closer to Rossi right now. I had no idea how to act and Morgan was clearly sense something was off. I opened the somehow still lukewarm container on the plane and dug in as we looked at photos of the crime scene. Morgan looked at me a little disgusted as I did so.
"You can eat while we're looking at disfigured corpses?" He said and I shrugged.
"You would be surprised what I could eat through, this is awesome by the way Amico." I said and he nodded also looking a bit weirded out. I just shrugged.
"Look, in my profession, you ate when there was food, because there was a good chance I wasn't eating in another few days. So, yeah, I can stomach a lot." I said taking a bite of my rolled up pasta on my fork and smirking. Morgan laughed a bit and shook his head at me as we continued to look at the victims. It was horrible, who would burn out their victims eyes? But this pasta was good enough to cover all of that.
We landed late at night and headed straight for the hotel to be fresh on the case this morning. I leaned back praying a bit I was not rooming with Spencer. Sadly my luck persisted and we were assigned the same room, and there was a mix up so the only room they had left was with a double bed. I looked around and sighed a little annoyed as I looked into the tiny hotel room. I looked at the bed annoyed, seeing I could not even sleep on the floor.
"Look, I know this is a lot, but we are just sleeping. I meant what I said about you having all the time you need." Spencer said breaking the silence, and I sighed and nodded.
He was right, it was just sleeping, right now we were just colleagues sleeping in the same bed because of some stupid circumstances. It was fine, I did not have to deal with it right now. We got ready for bed, backs turned to each other. I got in bed first not knowing how to process this still. I had barely had any time to do anything or think anything through. But as Spencer turned the lights off and got in on the other side, being careful not to touch me. I sighed a little and gathered up a little courage.
"Hey, Spence?" I said not knowing how to start this, I felt like the words were somehow stuck in my throat. He hummed in response at first.
"Yeah?" He said clearly trying to remain calm. He was not exactly the best at social cues so he was probably worried he had done something too wrong. But right now I could not worry about that too much. I just needed to ask him a simple question and I could get on with my thinking. I just needed to ask him. But those words just seemed to not be able to come out. I could feel my heart pounding and I just, I could not no matter how hard I tried form the words.
"Just, don't be too loud tomorrow morning okay?" I said chickening out, I would just ask him another time.
"And don't tell the others we slept in the same bed. They're gonna have way too much fun with that information." I said and he laughed a little and I could feel him nodding from across the bed. I smiled a little, this was good, I had at least talked to him. I turned to the side and tried to get some sleep. Hoping I would have a clearer head in the morning.
I woke up, slowly, it was so nice. I was warm and almost felt like someone was hugging me. And I was holding something, probably a pillow. I snuggled into it not feeling like waking up yet. When I did I felt a little weirder, I was not cuddling a pillow it was a person, and suddenly I woke up very quickly, everything coming back to me. I opened my eyes to see that we had moved throughout the night. My leg in-between Spencers, his arms around me, still sleeping peacefully, my arms wrapped around his torso, my head underneath his. Suddenly there was a knock on the door that woke up Spencer quickly. He looked down to see himself wrapped around me and looked shocked. He clearly did not remember getting into this position either. Suddenly the door was swung open and I quickly tried to push him off me and not look guilty, as Morgan waltzed in.
"Rise and shin-" He paused mid sentence and started laughing before pulling out his phone and taking a picture of the two of us.
"Oh this is priceless. Anyway, get up, breakfast and then we're going to the local PD's office." He said looking at us still laughing, I gave him an annoyed look.
"You have 10 minutes to meet us downstairs. I will leave you two lovebirds alone till then." He said winking and I looked at him annoyed.
"We didn't do, anything, it was just– there was a mixup with the rooms. Morgan." Spencer yelled after him and I sighed as he left the room. So much for being sneaky while I figured out my feelings luckily we did have an alibi. Spencer turned to me and looked at me apologethically.
"I am so sorry Lola, I didn't mean to do anything, I don't know how we ended up like that. I really wanted to give you space to figure out how you feel, and–" He started but I cut him off.
"It's fine Spence. I don't remember either ragazzo. I imagine we both thought we were hugging a pillow or something in our sleep. It's fine. Let's just get to breakfast before Morgan tells the whole team." I said and he nodded knowing how annoying Morgan was going to be about this. This was just what I had feared would happen. We walked down to breakfast dressed and sat down with the others to eat.
"So, me and JJ slept in the next room, we heard nothing. Either the walls are very thick or you are good at being quiet." Emily said and I rolled my eyes at her as she laughed.
"Oh, and congratulations on popping your cherry Reid, it was about time." Morgan said laughing with Emily and Spencer just sighed at the comment, clearly much more used to being bullied from his school days than I was.
"Would you all just shut up? Huh? Yes. Me and Spencer slept in the same bed, because the hotel had a mix up and that was the only room that was left. No we did not have sex on that bed, and even if we did it would be non of your god damn business. Now can we please enjoy our breakfast and catch a murderer instead of talking about who slept with who like a couple of housewives?" I finally snapped after a few more comments. I looked all around, JJ looked a little proud at me, as did Hotch, Rossi just smiled a little. Morgan and Emily looked a little shocked but clearly shut them up, Spencer looked to me and smiled a little.
"Looks like we found the thing you could not stomach while eating." Rossi said joking and I laughed a little with the rest of them. We finished up quickly and was assigned different objectives. I went to the dumpsite with Rossi and we looked it over and talked about it.
"Looks, sadistic, I mean, it's like he was trying to be that last thing they saw before they died." I said and Rossi nodded as we walked back towards the car to go to the precinct.
"So, Dr. Reid?" Rossi said in a knowing tone, and I just rolled my eyes at him.
"We just slept on the same bed, would you just let it go?" I asked annoyed, also because I still did not know how I felt about Spencer yet. I did not need all of them catcalling and stuff when I was still trying to figure out how to be around Spencer after we kissed. Rossi smiled at me knowingly.
"Oh, I was refering to you sitting next to me more than usual, and barely being able to look at the doctor. And he in turn will barely look away from you." He said and I looked at him with wide eyes. I thought I was pretty good at covering my tracks, but clearly that was not the case. He smirked seeing my reaction.
"You can't hide anything from profilers." He said knowingly and I rolled my eyes and got into the car with him.
"It's nothing. Nothing happened. We just. When I thought I was dying I kissed him because I didn't want to die unloved. I was feverish and stupid, and that is it." I said lying but trying to went my real frustrations. I had felt stupid after that and then it got even more complicated when he kissed me and gave me this weird confessional option. It was just terrible. I had no idea how to feel about anything and I kind of just wanted to silence it all so that I could breathe and not have to think about all of this stupid stuff. Rossi looked at me comforting and I looked over at him and sighed.
"So, do you like him?" He asked and I shrugged. As a friend I knew I liked him very much, but how would a relationship work? We would come home every now and then but then what? What would happen when he realised there was not that much too me? Or when he would get tired of me not being able to keep up with him intellectually? Or would we not get sick of each others company, we worked at the same job? And I had no idea how to be with someone like that. Hell I was not even used to having friends. All of this was so new to me, and I did not feel like dealing with it right now so I sighed and looked over at settled on an answer.
"Not like that." I said keeping it short trying to contain my emotions Rossi nodded but seemed like there was something he was not saying.
"Good. Mixing business like that is almost always a bad idea." He said but he looked like he wanted to say something else but kept his mouth shut. We talked about the case exclusively for the rest of the ride.
Thankfully we were able to solve the case fairly quickly and we did not get much sleep so me and Spencer could avoid the awkwardness of sleeping in the same bed twice. Morgan still made a few jokes every now and then but now I just rolled my eyes at him. We all said goodbye at the airport and went home, too tired to do anything else, we were allowed to meet in later the next day in order to catch up on sleep. Which I was grateful for, I smiled at Rossi as he dropped me off and I waved back at him. Thankfully I was practically asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was a little glad, I would not have to think too much about what Spencer had said.
I walked into the office well rested, the rest of them looked it too. I smiled at them and got to work on my now specialised computer to fill out the rapports. Everything was much faster and a hell of a lot easier now that I knew I was dyslexic, this computer could read for me, spell for me and even guess words where I only knew part of the spelling. I was much happier now that I actually had some help with this. But after eating lunch with the gang I noticed like Rossi said, how Spencer kept looking at me. I was still a little confused about everything, but I figured it would be cruel to have him wait too long. So when we went back to our desks and he was reading his book. I walked over and dropped off some files on his desk.
"Here." I said trying to seem professional, I knew that this was weird, but I had no idea what else to do at the moment. So I just padded it and walked to the kitchen to get some coffee I did not want to see his reaction to this. I walked back to see Morgan looking at him like he was weird. Spencer was sat there starring at the pencil I had put on top of the files and he knew that it was my answer hopefully from the way I looked at him when I did it. He was starring at it like it held the answers to the universe if he could just crack it.
"What you got there genius?" Morgan said looking at Spencer amused and I opened my laptop and put on my headphone to pretend that I was not listening in on this conversation. Spencer sat there still seemingly confused by this.
"It's a pencil." He said a little stunned or something. Morgan laughed a little at him but looked at him confused but also a little amused.
"And why are you starring at a pencil." He asked and Spencer shrugged, still seeming confused and somewhat stunned.
"I asked for a pen." He said in utter confusion. And Morgan laughed a little at him but also seeming confused. It had never been a problem before, why the hell did it matter if it was a pencil or a pen? I knew what was happening but looked at my computer and said nothing. I was hoping Spencer did not comment any further on it, but luckily Morgan came to my rescue.
"Have one of mine if it means that much to you." He said throwing a pen on Spencers desk I wanted to laugh but I kept quiet. Spencer seemed to realise where he was and gave Morgan an appreciative smile before getting back to work. Morgan shook his head at his strange behaviour but did the same, and I sighed a little in relief.
We went out on a hard case after that, and I did not even have time to think about Spencer. I was too tired when I was finally home afterwards, looking forward to just spending a weekend at home. It was beginning to look at least a little homey around my little apartment. I had save some money on food to buy more personal things to make the place more homey. It was my first real apartment, I actually wanted stuff I liked in here. I was not used to be able to get stuff like that, because I could not have anything I would miss too much. However at around 2 in the morning there was a knock on my door I opened the door and Spencer walked in. I figured this would happen eventually and shut the door behind him, and turned to face him.
"You gave me a pencil." He asked frustrated, and I nodded not knowing how to approach this, I was probably going to break his heart like this and that was the last thing I wanted with that.
"Yes." I said and he nodded still seeming distressed.
"But I said a pen." He said and I nodded a little more calmly showing that I understood. He looked me over and his expression seemed to fall as he seemingly realised something.
"This is your way of saying no? Isn't it?" He muttered, clearly hurt by this and I sighed.
"No." I simply said knowing my words had a tendency to get stuck in my throat when it came to talking about feelings like this. He looked first happy then even more confused, before he could ask again I interrupted him.
"It's a maybe." I said and he furrowed his brows just confused now.
"I don't know how I feel Spencer, everything is so confusing, and there is a lot of things I am not sure you have considered. I don't wanna mess up the good things I already have." I said a little sadly. And he nodded seeming to understand.
"I know. But there is no rule against fraternisation between agents." He said and I nodded and sighed.
"Yeah, but I am not an agent Spencer. No matter how much of an equal you guys treat me as, I never will be. And maybe they don't have a rule against fraternisation between agents, but I don't wanna get sent back to prison for this." I said trying to make him understand, no matter how much it did not feel it when I was with the team. It was the truth. If the bureau were to find out, who do you think they will fire? The wonder kid? Or the convinct? I have an inkling. And this felt like the first good thing I have had in my life since I got out of prison. I did not want to mess it up.
"You're not getting sent back to prison." He said and I rolled my eyes at him.
"How can you be so sure? Huh? What about in five years when I am still in this job, and I feel stuck? I am a criminal, I always was and I always will be. My solution to problems aren't legal. I may not be clepto, but I am pathological and you should know that." I said stunning him. I knew deep down it was the truth. I hated myself for it, but it was the truth. Ever since I was a kid I had learned that you solve your problems in certain ways. I did not care about the law, the law was mostly just guidelines as to what to avoid to get caught. That was never going to change.
"Once a criminal, always a criminal." I said looking at him sternly hoping he would just give up. Maybe I was just scared and trying to push him away, because I knew there was a real chance I was right. What would happen when I felt too restless? Or when I got angry and needed to act out? I always knew I would end up in prison, because that was just the hand I was dealt. And no amount of being a CI was going to change that. He looked at me concerned.
"You're not a criminal. You were dealt a bad hand. But so what? If you end up in prison we'll figure that out. If the bureau wants to fire you we'll figure that out. Look, all of this is just hypotheticals. I like facts. And facts are, I really like you. And I wanna be around you as much as possible while I can." He said looking me in the eyes earnestly and I sighed not know how to deal with that. So I decided to be honest, I did like him, I liked spending time with him. And I really liked kissing him.
"I have no idea how. I have been on the run for most of my life, and when I wasn't I was in prison. I am still adjusting to living like this. This is a whole other level. I have no idea how to do. I haven't exactly done anything like this before." I said feeling super weird about spilling everything like this. I was a pathological liar so this was weird. Especially when it came to my feelings.
"It's okay. I don't know what I am doing either. I am not exactly Don Juan." He said and I rolled my eyes at him, feeling a little frustrated trying to explain it was not just the inexperience that bothered me.
"You don't understand Spence, I have never had a relationship with anyone, I barely had friendships before I got out of prison. I used to be a thief, I could never know where, who or why the people I worked with were. The first thing you learn on the streets and the first thing uncle Eddie taught me, was: A thief needs to be able to leave everything behind. A thief can never have anything or anyone that they cannot leave in a heartbeat. That way you can run if things get bad." I said trying to explain everything to him, make him understand that I had no idea how to maintain anything.
"But you don't need to run if things get bad anymore." He said and I sighed, he was still not really understanding. He looked at me a little pleadingly as I got frustrated.
"I know! But I have not had anything I could not discard in 13 years. I don't know if I can handle suddenly having something I could lose, while also still adjusting and trying to learn how to be in a relationship." I said, truly it was just overwhelming already and I was not sure I felt like adding to it. He looked like he understood for a moment before smiling a little and nodding he looked at me like I was so precious and like I was made of glass it was a little weird, but even weirder that I did not hate it.
"Okay, how about we take it slowly. Doctor who and take out? We had plans to do that as friends anyway. So no pressure right. It's not a date, we're just hanging out, and I don't care if you're wearing terrible clothes or haven't showered for a few days. Hell I will even not shower if it means you'll show up." He said taking my hand as he said it and I sighed, it was not like I was not prone to reckless behaviour anyway. So a little part of my brain said fuck it.
"Okay." I said and he smiled.
"Wow, okay, cool. Uhm text me when you wanna come over?" He said seeming giddy and I walked him to the door and nodded. He walked away clearly a little bit of a skip in his step. We were just hanging out, and then he would find out how boring I truly was and it would be fine. I closed the door wondering if I had made a huge mistake just then.