spencer can sometimes struggle to sleep, that is not a secret. he can toss and turn and stare at the ceiling in bed for hours until his mind lets him fall asleep and stay that way. he’s found pressure helps – a heavy blanket that he can curl up into a ball beneath. as soon as you enter his life, you become that blanket. he will tangle your legs with his, tuck you into his chest, and sleep far more soundly like that – a mess of long limbs wrapped around you.

has a killer sweet tooth, and while he usually has an aversion to shared food, he will share his sweet treats with you. in the early days he does not go so far as to share a fork with you, but further into your relationship he has been known to hold his desserts up to your lips for tasting, fork or fingers, he doesn’t mind.

his favorite late-night indian place becomes your regular spot – it makes sense, given that his strange, unpredictable working hours means planning dates is far from an exact science. it’s comfort and predictability, everything he loves. he stops asking the team to go with him, securing it as your special place.

spencer never lost his love of being read to, and he would ask, sheepishly, in the beginning if you would read aloud when he caught you with a book. the quiet propositions settled into him laying his head in your lap when a tome was balanced in your palms, waiting patiently for your story to begin and your fingers to find his hair.

he’s tall, almost prohibitively so, often slouching or stooping his shoulders so as to not stand out quite so much. he straightens quickly when he sees you across a room, so you might spot him (you do, of course), and stoops only to brush your hairline with his lips when no one is looking.

while tall, he has no aversion to being the little spoon. whether you’re curled against his back with your nose pressed to his spine, or he’s tucked into the crook of your shoulder with his cheek smooshed against your chest, he doesn’t mind. after so long alone, it’s simply nice to be held again.

it would be impossible for him to have written his daily letters to his mother without mentioning you. your name appeared scarcely at first – a slow means of introduction, drops of your habits, fragments of his feelings. by the time he finds the courage to introduce you, diana understands your small intricacies perfectly, can recognise the tiny eccentricities spencer found that you’d become blind to – each loved in equal measure – that it feels as if she had somehow known you for years.

having spent so much time looking after his mother, and in spite of his frequent interjection of fact and statistic, there are few better nurses than spencer. be it a simple cold or a chronic illness, he tends to every whim, every ache, whenever he physically can.

clumsy, clumsy, clumsy. there are few words that describe him better. it’s endearing, in truth, but there are moments where you wonder how your giraffe of a man has made it so far with all of his fingers. cooking, in particular, is troubling. burnt fingertips are usually the extent of your concerns. he is lucky those deep, wet, puppy dog eyes are so sweet as you force his hand under a cold running tap and fetch the aloe vera from the cabinet beside the sink. it’s nothing a kiss better won’t fix.