"It is not physically possible to be that uncoordinated, Spencer. It can't be. It's a Wii, for God's sakes, it's not even real baseball!" Rowena laughs, pitching another fastball that goes through Spencer's avatar's head.
"Well, it would seem reality contradicts that and- would you stop pitching so fast!" Even though Spencer is only a few IQ points above Rowena, she outstrips him pretty quick when it comes to physical activity. After a rollerblading disaster, the couple decided that perhaps video and board games are a better idea. Rowena is smoking him at baseball, after destroying him in tennis and bowling.
"What, can't keep up?" Spencer silently sulks in reply and tries a swing once more, futilely. All of the furniture in the room has been cleared away and two glasses of lemonade are half full beside each other on the table, sunlight from the back porch window filtering through them to cast shadows like robin's eggs on the table. Mild, pleasant spring has given way to a typically toasty summer and only the screen is pulled across to divide the porch from her living room.
Rowena looks over and sees him pouting, and decides to call mercy. She depresses the button on her remote to turn the Wii off and Spencer blinks when the screen goes out.
"Rowena, I wasn't serious." He points out, setting his remote aside. She shrugs lightheartedly and takes a long draught of her lemonade, walking into the kitchen with it.
"It's alright, Spen. Are you hungry yet? We haven't had dinner." The truth is that Spencer is a bit sensitive about his manliness, being a slender geek and all, and Rowena does her best not to injure his pride. Personally, she sees no reason to for him to be concerned, but men will be men. If there's anything being partners with a man's man like Cal taught her, it's that taking the extra couple feet to not injure a man's pride makes life so much easier.
"Sure. Do you want to order takeout?" She looks at him curiously.
"Um, don't you get enough of that stuff when you're out of state?"
"I, uh, don't want to make you cook for me again." Spencer mutters, fidgeting from Chuck Taylor to Chuck Taylor. Once again, his hand starts to play with a certain folded sheet of paper in his pocket. For a couple of four months, they've been forced into some pretty unusual situations with each other and its resulted in Spencer being utterly confused at what to label this.
"As if you make me do anything." He doesn't answer, looking away. "Spen!" His head snaps up and Rowena tilts her head at him. "Spencer, where were you? You just left me for a second." He sighs, looking at her carefully. It strikes him belatedly, and immaterially, that she looks incredibly young in denim shorts and a white t-shirt, but he snaps out of it again.
"Sorry, I was just thinking."
"About what?" Rowena asks again. Spencer doesn't answer, but sits on the stool and puts a hand to his forehead, lightly rubbing his temples. If there's one thing Rowena's gotten quite skilled at, it's recognizing when she's losing him.
"Ah!" He yelps when her hands start to massage his shoulders, and then begins to melt against the counter. "How are you so good at this?" Spencer manages to mumble, turning into a mewling kitten in her warm hands.
"I had back problems for a couple of years, and massages are great. You learn a lot from receiving them, actually. Now, what are you thinking about?" Her thumbs dig in particularly hard and he twitches, recognizing the gentle threat. He tries to think how to phrase his thoughts.
"You're like the cheerleader." Spencer lets out, then freezes, as do her hands.
"What?" She asks incredulously. He sighs, there's no going back now. One of his hands strays to cover hers and lightly squeezes her wrist.
"You're brilliant, hilarious…"
"Oh, God, don't start with the flattery again. Then I'll to reciprocate and you'll reciprocate more, and then I'll just have to kiss you senseless and then where will we be in this conversation?" Rowena grins when she feels a shiver roll through him, he's so easy to play with sometimes. "But just how awesome we are is not what's on your mind. Scroll down for me, dear." The rolling, kneading motions relieving his tension resume.
"Guys like me don't date girls like you." He murmurs, and Rowena's hands finally stop for good. She sits beside him to meet his eyes, but Spencer looks away, ashamed.
"Spen, please look at me." His warm whiskey eyes meet hers at last and she smiles at him, taking his hands and resting them on her knees. "I was just like you in high school. I guarantee it. I still am, actually, I just got my braces off and started dressing better. I'm an FBI accountant with thick glasses, for God's sakes. Society's standards just make a few more allowances for me because my skin cleared up and I finally slimmed down."
"That doesn't explain why you're with me." She sighs, deciding to take a different track.
"You're the profiler, Spencer. Why am I with you?"
"I don't want to profile you. I can't, I won't." Spencer says instantly. He can't open that dark door in his subconscious without unleashing a whole world of things better left at work. Rowena searches his eyes, and sees that something more is necessary.
"Hold on, I'll be right back." She darts upstairs and the moment she's out of sight, Spencer bangs his head against the counter three times. It seems as though his insecurity may be doing what he was afraid neediness would do instead. "Spen." He looks up and Rowena's gotten so close that he can smell her wonderful, naturally fruity scent all around him and she smiles, dangling a key chain from her index finger.
"What's that?"
"A spare key to my house; it's yours if you'll take it." His stomach drops out from under him at the gesture of faith. Rowena trusts him enough allow him into her home whenever he so desires. The back of his neck feels warm suddenly, the inside of his head is stifling and claustrophobic. His mouth is dry as the sun on the pavement when he tries to muster up words.
"I don't want you to do this just to make me feel better." Rowena chuckles and sits beside him again, cupping Spencer's baby soft cheek in one hand and he almost unconsciously nuzzles against it for comfort.
"Spencer, a back massage is to make you feel better. Coffee and tea are to make you feel better. A key to my house is none of those things. I want you to have this key because I trust you, Spen, and I think you need to be reassured of that. So how about you take the key, and I'll sign the form you've been carrying around like a safety blanket?" Spencer blinks, and she chuckles. Oh, it's a nice surprise to see him speechless for once. "JJ and I are close, Spencer. You should remember that, having an eidetic memory and all."
"No, I know that, but why would she tell you?"
"I was terrified that you were waiting for the right moment to tell me something awful, or break up with me." He sighs. There's a lot of awful things he should tell her, but keeping his relationship with Rowena pure and away from the nightmare of the BAU is perhaps his first priority.
"I didn't want to push too hard, but…" Spencer pulls the sheet from his pocket and sets it down, and Rowena looks warily at him. "What?" She holds up the hand with the key hanging from her finger.
"Take the key, and I'll sign the form." Spencer finds only bottomless affection when he searches her, and it makes his stomach pleasantly squirm. For her part, she finds gentle warmth, and she has to smile at the endless gentleness of the tall, gangly man. It's one of the many things she's growing to love about him.
"Okay." His fingers wholly envelop the key and he slides it into his pocket as he pulls the form from the other. Rowena takes it and signs it neatly, sliding the thin packet back across the table to him.
"Are we alright?" She asks quietly, unsure why he's so stiff still.
"Are you my girlfriend now?" Spencer asks, beginning to smile a bit at last and Rowena lights up, a glow suffusing her skin. He can feel the same sentiment in him; this is what he's wanted, something official that he can hold onto when his insecurities threatens him.
"Yes." She kisses his cheek. "Now can we please do something fun?" A perhaps silly idea occurs to him and he nearly falls out of his chair to rush to the bookshelf. "Spen, what on earth are you doing?" He turns with a lovely, leather-bound copy of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer clutched like a lifeline in his spidery hands.
"Who gave this to you?" Childlike joy makes him vibrate and she laughs.
"Um, my Literature professor in community college. She liked me and I liked her. She didn't get students who actually paid attention and enjoyed the material in a mandatory class all that often."
"Can I maybe read this to you?" He asks a little more calmly this time.
"Okay." She replies, a bit confused but not unduly. The couch gives out a weary creak when they flop on it and a few softer growls as Spencer and Rowena situate themselves. She sits beside him, but Spencer pulls her closer and she smiles as he does. He always has trouble asking for what she supposes could be qualified as cuddling, but no problem shyly taking it. It's an amusing trait, but she's very okay with it. Spencer folds his long, spindly legs underneath him and puts a pillow over his pointy knees, looking at her hopefully, and she takes the cue to stretch across his lap, resting her head on the arm of the sofa. Spencer immediately wraps one of his hands in her dark hair and nimbly flips open the book with his other.
"Are you comfortable?" Spencer asks, looking down on her fondly. There's so much he wants to tell her. Why he was addicted to Dilaudid, that their children would be predisposed to schizophrenia, that he's predisposed to schizophrenia, so much that he's terrified to even think of broaching in conversation. But as he looks down at her bright brown eyes, smiling up at him, Spencer gets almost a supernatural sense that it will all be okay.
"Of course. Are you? Wouldn't be easier to read with two hands?" The hand in her hair gently strokes her scalp, his soft calluses tickling her and making her giggle. It's a bit odd that Spencer would request this, but Rowena finds it ridiculously comfortable and doesn't protest.
"It would, but, uh, I like your hair. It's soft." She rolls her eyes but ends up closing them as he begins to read. Spencer's brain power is enough that he can read the Old English while thinking, and his mind turns as he speaks. Whenever his mother would read to him, it was like a reorientation of reality towards what was best in the world, towards heroes and damsels and dragons. Rowena shifts her position and Spencer smiles; she looks so content and innocent. Of course he knows that she's seen nearly as much evil as he has, but there's still something pure about her mischievous nature and dark, shining eyes. "Rowena?" He asks suddenly, and those eyes flicker open. She was already dozing off, but the seriousness with which he's looking at her makes her sit up to put her head at his chest.
"Yeah, Spen?" Rowena murmurs, resting her head on his shoulder. He puts the book down beside them and kisses her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, then her lips; Spencer kisses her slow and sweet, but briefly. He pulls away but only a few hairsbreadths, his warm breath ghosting across her lips when he speaks again.
"I'd slay any dragon for you." He says fiercely, his hand in her hair still soft in its rhythmic strokes, and she can see that he needs her to understand it.
"I believe you." Rowena replies, planting a quick peck on the corner of his mouth, but then she smirks. "Let's be honest though, I'd save you from the dragon." He pouts.
"I'd let myself be taken by the dragon to save you." Spencer counters, starting to grin.
"No. You'd have your nose in a spellbook up in some ivory tower, and then a dragon would take you, and then I would have to kill it to get you back." He considers arguing but decides that kissing is a much better way to solve problems. After almost no debate, Rowena agrees.
A/N
I apologize if this is getting a bit angsty, but I feel like any story about Spencer has to be a bit angsty. Thanks for reviews! All are appreciated.