#mistiemoon

Everyone called her Honey. Spencer refused to call her by the saccharine, ironic nickname that the rest of the team had decided on. In her first week, people noticed that she only took tea with honey mixed in. Someone called her Honey, and the name stuck. It reached a point where the team only referred to her as that or by her surname. The name cemented itself in stone when even Hotch referred to her as Honey.

Spencer wasn’t sure what he had said, or done, to make Honey dislike him so much. Every day was the same routine. She’d walk in late more often than not, say hello to everyone on the team, even making a point to pop her head into Hotch's, Rossi's, Penelope's, and JJ's offices before walking off to her desk, completely ignoring him. She would grace him with one shooting glance, and that would be it until the morning briefing.

During said morning briefing, she would, again, show up late and often barge past him, knocking his shoulder while miraculously avoiding everyone else. She sat down in the free space next to him, a sick joke that Morgan had been playing ever since she joined. He  quickly figured out how much they disliked each other, and decided to change his unofficial official seat next to Emily, leaving the spot next to Spencer free.  

Spencer figured he must have done something awful in a previous life to deserve sitting next to her every day. Not only did he have to put up with her during the morning briefing, he also had to sit opposite her in the bullpen.

Through the divider between their desks, in the gap between their monitors, every ten minutes he could see her reapplying the same cherry-scented, cherry-tinted lip gloss. With every micro-movement of her head, the light reflected off the shine, catching his eye every time.

The same could be said about her perfume. Every half an hour, she was somehow determined to gas out the room with a scent that could only be described as Spencer's personal kryptonite. He hated how much he liked that smell. He would never admit it to anyone, not even himself, but whenever she walked past him, he found himself inhaling a little deeper than usual, just to catch a whiff of the woody, vanilla-like scent she doused herself in.

What he hated the most, was how Hotch constantly turned a blind eye to her behaviour. Turning up late, the ignoring, constantly missing deadlines, and how all she has to do is bat her eyelashes and apologise and everything is forgiven. Perhaps it's the fact she isn’t a profiler, and Hotch’s personal assistant, perhaps it’s because he doesn’t feel the need to hold her to the same standard as the rest of his team. Which isn’t fair, as Spencer has a firm belief that your team is only as good as your weakest member, which is obviously her. 

He particularly hated that she came with them on cases. It didn’t make sense to him. She wasn’t a profiler, all she did was manage Hotch’s diary, book hotels and arrange the fights. She could do all of that from the office. Perhaps Hotch just liked her there. Spencer couldn’t argue the fact that the whole team has been in a happier mood since Honey joined. She brings humanity and warmth to their often dark and all encompassing Jobs. 

So far today, it has been the usual. Honey gave him a death stare, sat down, tapped away at her keyboard for ten minutes, applied lip gloss, fumigated the room, and then did something completely unexpected. So out of the ordinary he didn’t even acknowledge it at first.

“Yoo Hoo? You with me Spencer?” She said, waving her hand about and raising her eyebrows. 

“Huh, What?” He said, not out of rudeness, but out of sheer shock. Honey would never willingly strike up a conversation with him, even if it was work related, she would usually try to find a way to talk to him without ever using words, passing notes through the divider, emails, asking the team to talk to him, like some kind of modern day Hermes. 

“I said, are you going to Ernesto’s tonight like the rest of us? Or do you have some other plans?” She asked with an unusual tone to her voice. It sounded similar to genuine intrigue, however Spencer knew Honey would not be so kind as to actually care what he was doing after work, considering she rarely gave two shits about what he did in work. 

“Erm, Ernesto’s? No I don’t think so” Spencer said, suddenly unsure with his words. 

He grew to know what to say to people depending on their personalities. How kind to be, how direct he needed to be, how little or much he needed to say. With Honey, he hadn’t ever actually prepared for a time where he would need to talk to her. 

“No? Come on Reid. I’m sure they serve port or whatever old man drink you like” she teased, putting her elbow on the desk with a dull thud, resting her chin in her palm. 

“Why do you care? You said to Emily a year ago that whenever I go out with the team, it’s ‘like watching a guppy learn what social cues are’” 

She snorted, clearly impressed with past self about coming up with such a creative insult.

“Not to inflate your ego, but you’re right. I don’t care if you come or if you stay at home” she paused briefly. Spencer could almost see her picking the correct words in her head. Something he was sure she had never done before. “I’m trying to be more…amicable with you” 

This time it was Spencer’s turn to scoff. He hadn’t been looking at her, but this one, blatant lie made him turn to face her. 

He caught her eye between the gap in their monitors, and it took him by surprise. Spencer may be a profiler, a pretty good one at that, but for once, when he looked in her eyes, he wasn’t sure if she was actually lying. 

“Hotch told you to say that. Didn’t he?” 

“Fine. You got me” she said with an annoyed huff, turning away from him again, flicking her hair over her shoulder as she reached down to her bag, no doubt to pull her lip gloss out and reapply for the eighth time already today. 

Spencer on more than one occasion, thought about how many tubes of lipgloss she went through. He makes the mental note to monitor how quickly this full tube goes down, then he can estimate how many she gets through within a month. Then further estimate how much money a year she spent on lip gloss alone. The thought that would be a pretty good insult to have in the back pocket. 

“I might just go to ruin your night,” he said slyly. He regretted it the minute he said it. 

Once it was out in the air, he couldn’t now take it back. She would use that as ammunition. He could picture it now. ‘Spencer said he was coming to ruin my night, only the spineless amoeba was too scared to face me!’ 

“Actually, you make my night when you do come out with us” she said quietly, unassumingly, not looking at him, instead holding her little mirror up and swiping the sticky, red gloss across her lips. The small action which Spencer seemed to hate how entranced he felt. 

“How so?” he asked not particularly caring what her answer would be. 

“I love watching you fail to notice girls trying to get your attention” she said, locking eyes with him, shutting the small mirror with the snap, a saccharine smile plastered across her face. 

Spencer ignored her, rolling his eyes as he turned back to his monitor. He knew this was all a ploy to get under his skin. Honey was smarter than she looked. She knew to use his insecurity about his dating life to rattle him. 

Where Spencer never talked about sex or dating, Honey filled the void by constantly rattling on about her recent ‘sexcapades’ as she liked to call them. Even more so when she had a few drinks in her. Mondays were the worst, Morgan and Emily crowd around her desk, and she has no problem delving into what she got up to at the weekend.  

He knew far too much about her sex life for what a colleague should know. He knew what positions she liked, that she liked fingers run through her hair, where the sensitive spot on her neck was. He found himself curious to know more, despite his dislike towards her. 

Like a fourteen year old boy going through puberty, on more than one occasion, found himself getting hard picturing the sight of her in those situations. He may not like her, but he couldn’t deny she was unbelievably beautiful. Which made the situation worse. It would be easier to be disgusted by her stories if she wasn’t so pretty.

In the middle of the night sometimes. He would wake up and remember his dream, and curse his eidetic memory. He pictures the fake moans she does when recounts her weekend with a random, nameless and faceless man, and curses himself for even thinking about her in his own free time. 

“Don’t lie, Honey. It doesn’t suit you” he swallowed before he called her by her nickname. He tried to avoid saying her nickname at all if he could, often thinking about the best way to reframe his sentences so he didn’t have to say her name. In this case, he wanted to try it out. Perhaps it would soften her? 

“I swear to god, Doctor, you're absolutely oblivious to it” 

Wrong, he was so wrong it was almost laughable. She bit her lip before she spoke. Clearly it fueled her, like she was waiting for him to eventually cave and call her Honey.

“In your effort to be more ‘amicable’ perhaps you could point it out next time. As I’m apparently so ‘oblivious’” 

She hummed in thought, tilting her head. “Oh I will, watching you crash and burn trying to flirt would be so amusing” 

“What happened to amicable?” He said, frustration seeping in. Quite frankly, this is the longest they’ve ever held a conversation for, and he was reaching the end of his tether. 

“I can only be nice for so long,” she said plainly. “But, I did notice Amy from record management looking at you at the Christmas party. She seems your type” 

“You can’t possibly know what my type is” He shot back. Not once has Spencer ever told, or insinuated to anyone what his type is. But of course, Honey thought she knew best. 

“Sure I do, you’ve had the most history with blondes, but you prefer brunettes. You tend to gravitate towards women who are reserved, however something tells me you prefer to be  more….submissive in a relationship” 

He felt his cheeks warm at her brazenness. His first thought was to adamantly deny, but she was completely correct. There was also no use in trying, Honey was clearly more observant than he gave her credit for. 

“That’s just grossly inappropriate” 

“Yeah maybe, but you didn’t say I was wrong” she gloated. 

“You know you’re not, what’s the point in trying to argue” He didn’t even bother to try and add any emotion into his words. Admitting Honey was right felt bitter on his tongue. 

Spencer spent his life reading people. He knew what micro-expressions meant, could identify deception in less than a second, could tell when someone was about to cry before they even realised it themselves. Somehow, Honey had quietly been doing the exact same thing to him without him noticing.

"So?" she prompted.

"So what?"

"So are you going to ask what your type says about you, or are you pretending you don't care?"

"I don't."

"Liar."

He looked over the divider again.

"Why should I? You've called me oblivious, socially incompetent and apparently submissive in the space of five minutes."

"I also complimented your taste in brunettes."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"It was from my perspective."

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was becoming increasingly obvious that arguing with her didn't matter if you were objectively right, somehow she'd drag the conversation somewhere else before you had the chance to prove it.

Morgan, who had been pretending not to listen from three desks away for the last several minutes, barked out a laugh loud enough that Emily looked up from her paperwork. 

“I think you’ve met your match pretty boy” 

“We are not comparable. I’m far more intellectual” He replied with a scoff, finally looking away from her between the gap of the divider, glancing down at his paperwork which he now wasn’t interested in. 

“Honey’s far more personable” Emily chimed in quickly, before muttering a small sorry before wincing and looking away. Adding fuel to the fire before realising that this situation did not require any more kindling. 

Emily gave Honey an apologetic smile. "Oh no, I wasn't taking sides! I was making an observation."

Honey pointed at her. "Exactly." 

Honey folded her arms on top of the divider separating their desks, resting her chin on them as she looked at him. There was something almost childishly smug about the expression on her face. Like she'd been handed evidence she'd been waiting for. "You know what's funny?"

"I imagine you're about to tell me regardless."

"I've never once called you stupid."

"I should hope not."

"I've called you awkward."

"You have."

"Socially inept."

"You definitely have."

"Painfully oblivious."

"Repeatedly."

"But never stupid."

Spencer frowned despite himself. He wasn’t exactly sure where she was going with this. 

"Because you're obviously intelligent." She shrugged as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Just not in the areas you think you are."

He wasn't entirely sure why that irritated him more than if she'd simply insulted his intelligence."What areas would those be?"

"People."

"I literally profile people for a living."

"No," she corrected, shaking her head. "You profile criminals for a living. Normal people? You're hopeless."

"You don't have to sound so happy about it."

"I've been telling you that for years."

"And I've ignored you for years." 

"Perhaps now you should listen," Honey smiled sweetly.

Emily cleared her throat, trying very hard not to smile. "In fairness..." 

Spencer turned hopefully. "Yes?"

"...you are really bad at noticing when people flirt with you."

He stared at her. "You too?"

She lifted both hands defensively. "I'm just saying."

Honey looked almost unbearably pleased with herself.  "You know, Amy wasn't even subtle."

“Is this really relevant?” 

"Of course it is. She practically followed you around all evening."

"I thought she was looking for Penelope." He said wholeheartedly.

"Oh my God," she breathed. "You actually thought she was looking for Garcia! She approached you when you were standing alone next to the bar” she said if that made it any clearer.

"If I remember right..” Morgan started, peering upwards to reach back into his memories. “...She asked you if you wanted another drink” 

“That's right…” Emily chimed in “..and you said no” 

 “Because he was halfway through his!” Honey finished the story, trying not to laugh, although she didn’t try to cover it up. 

He hated that the workplace he'd grown to love had somehow transformed into a more sophisticated version of secondary school. Everyone else seemed to understand the joke except him. They'd all watched the same interaction unfold, recognised something he'd completely missed, and now he was the only person left trying to work out where he'd gone wrong.

Eventually, Morgan shook his head, still grinning to himself, and rolled his chair back towards his desk. Emily offered Spencer one last apologetic smile before burying herself in her paperwork once more.

Once they had calmed down, Morgan and Emily returned to their work, leaving Spencer to fight alone in the shark infested waters. To assumingly further torment him, Honey left her seat, circled around the desks and lent on his. 

She bent down, close enough that he could smell her perfume mixed with the warmth of her skin, creating a different scent altogether, muskier and more human than the chemical fragrance he usually caught second-hand. He swore he could smell the cherry-scented lip gloss that permanently seemed to coat her lips.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, in a rare show of genuine empathy.

He looked up at her, which could have been his biggest mistake. Spencer had never been this close to her before, and he was suddenly realising why. He had never noticed the tiny flecks of green scattered through her eyes. He hated how much they humanised her.

For a few glorious moments, they simply looked at each other, no venom between them. He had no doubt she was sincere in her apology.

“I can teach you, if you'd like?”

Just like that, whatever sympathy he felt for her in that moment, whatever softness had begun to warm inside him, popped and deflated like a balloon. His ego was far too big to let Honey, of all people, teach him how to flirt. Absolutely not.

On the other hand, he had no doubt that, in some twisted, dystopian way, he trusted her. Perhaps more than the others on the team. There was no denying she could teach him a few things. Honey was a serial dater. She loved the thrill of the chase. She knew how to draw people in and how to flirt purely for the fun of it. Of course, he would never be able to flirt to Honey's calibre. She was a master of her craft. He would merely be her awkward, bumbling apprentice with zero experience and even less enthusiasm to learn.

Sure, like any man, Spencer desired the outcome of successful flirting, but his lack of knowledge made that outcome rather difficult to achieve. Morgan had told him about the apps if he ever wanted a "fun time fling." Spencer, however, couldn't think of anything worse. He would feel eternally guilty for the poor woman who showed up expecting a date, only to meet the disastrous Spencer Reid, who had an unfortunate habit of sticking his foot in his mouth.

So, in a moment of weakness, Spencer decided to do the one thing he'd promised himself he would never do, follow Honey blindly into his almost certain demise.

“Okay… sure… yes.”

Like Spencer, she wasn't entirely sure when it had all started. She just remembered walking into work one morning, her usual bubbly, ray-of-sunshine demeanour immediately met with Spencer's coldness. She vividly remembered how much it had put her off, enough that it set the precedent for their entire relationship. 

All she knew now was that she loved arguing with him. He might have been intelligent, but Honey was quick, sharp with her comebacks, and she loved watching him crumble, stumbling over his words as he desperately searched for something witty to throw back at her. She thrived on it.

Despite all of that, she couldn't help but have a soft spot for Spencer.

Whenever he came back from a case looking visibly shaken, or worse, injured, Honey never went over to check on him. She knew that would probably only make things worse. Instead, she'd keep her distance, quietly watching him from across the bullpen while feeling an uncomfortable pinch in her chest. She never stopped checking on him from afar.

That being said, she felt an entirely unwarranted responsibility to give him a sense of normalcy. That meant being the feisty, sharp-tongued, bitch of a woman who put him in his place. She was convinced he secretly liked it. He wasn't nearly as subtle as he thought with his staring. She noticed the blush creeping across his cheeks whenever she swore at him, and she certainly noticed how he always came back for another round of verbal sparring. No matter how many arguments he lost, he never stopped starting the next one.

The second time he came over, she had just walked into the small stationary cupboard, with him sneaking in behind, standing squarely in the doorway. She would’ve thought it was hot if Spencer hadn’t tried to start another argument. Honey reassured Spencer again, this time, she plastered on the most innocent, kindest voice she could muster. She even touched his forearm, just a small pat. 

He looked down at her hand on his arm like some plague had riddled in through his shirt. She noticed throughout the day he would stroke the same spot absentmindedly, she liked to believe it was out of fondness, but in reality it was most likely because he thought he was infected. 

The third and final time, he sent her an email. 

Hello,

Just wanted to confirm the details of this evening,

and if you are still planning to attend. 

Please may you let me know at your earliest 

convenience. 

Kind Regards,

Spencer Reid

Supervisory Special Agent

Honey rolled her eyes once the email pinged up in her inbox. Naturally, she was in a budget meeting with the senior executive team, and really didn’t have the time to be fussing around trying to hold Spencer's hand and calm his nerves. 

Reid, 

If you ask me again, I’ll staple your tie to your forehead. 

In regards to details, meet me at The Hungry Fork at 7pm. 

Please dress like a functioning human. 

Warmest Regards,

Honey

Senior Executive Assistant. 

Two hours later, Honey applied her lipgloss once more, sprayed herself with copious amounts of perfume, gathered her belongings and flung her bag over her shoulder. She could feel Spencer staring at her with an intention as clear as day. He wanted his fourth and hopefully final reassurance. 

She breathed out once, turned to face him and leaned in over the dividers. 

“Spencer. I’m not doing this to embarrass you, I don’t have any hidden agenda, I’m doing this to help you out. You can either choose to believe me or not, but I swear to god, if you stand me up, I’ll never let you forget it” 

With that, she turned on her heels, and walked out of the glass doors of the BAU to return home, pull on her finest tutoring attire, already preparing herself for what she suspected would be the longest evening of her life.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Honey arrived five minutes late, as always. She'd picked the diner with Spencer in mind. It was quiet enough that he could openly discuss something potentially awkward, but busy enough that he wouldn't convince himself everyone was listening. Not that she'd put that much thought into it. She'd picked it because it was five minutes from her flat and she was lazy. The fact it also happened to suit Spencer was purely... convenient. 

As she walked in, Spencer was already sitting down at a booth far furthest away from any other tables. It was obvious he was nervous. He kept checking his watch, scanning the diner, flinching every time somebody laughed a little too loudly. 

“You’re late, again” was the first thing Spencer said as she sat down opposite him. Carefully eyeing her pulling out her notepad, placing it down on the table with a thud. 

 “I’m not late, I’m just not on time” 

“Not being on time is late” 

“Oh I’m sorry Reid, do you have something to do after this? No? So it doesn’t matter that I'm not on time” 

She rolled her eyes as she looked down at the notepad in front of her, flipping it open to the front page. She'd purposely picked the brightest pink notebook she owned so there wasn't even the slightest chance she'd accidentally throw it into her work bag tomorrow morning. 

“For god's sake, I said dress normally” 

She said once she clocked his outfit. He didn’t at all change from what he wore to work. Still wearing his navy blue shirt and purple tie. At least his slacks were long enough to hide his one pink dinosaur sock and one orange striped sock. 

Honey liked how he only wore mismatched socks, she was happy he had a sense of individuality. But she thought it may be a detriment to his chance of attracting someone. 

“Wrong, you said dress like a functioning human. I’m wearing my work attire, therefore demonstrating I am, in fact, a functioning human”

They both blinked at each other for a few seconds. Honey fought the urge to throw a dig at him. He was ridiculous, yet she also fought back the smile that she felt forming. 

“I need to ask you a few questions so I can gather some knowledge of your competency in this subject” She said, ignoring him completely and diving straight into it. She wasn’t here for a date, she knew how difficult these next few weeks will be, may as well rip the bandaid off now. “When was the last time you remember flirting with someone?” 

Unsurprisingly, Spencer looked shocked at the speed in which the first question was being flung at him. Pinching his eyebrows together with a startled look in his eyes. 

“I…don’t think I ever have” he managed to stutter out. “Oh, no, maybe on a case a few years ago with a witness… which now I say it out loud it sounds bad” 

Honey nodded once and wrote down his basic answer on the page. To which Spencer made a strangled sound and went to grab the pen out of her hand. She managed to move her hand back in time for her to look up at him and shoot daggers into his eyes. 

“You’re not writing this down!” He quietly screamed at her. 

“Unfortunately we don’t all have eidetic memories, Reid, so I'll have to write it down, otherwise I can’t help you can I?” 

Spencer watched as she scribbled something else beneath his first answer. "Can you at least tell me what you are writing?"

"My notes."

"I can see that, but what notes?"

Honey clicked her pen a couple more times before looking back up at him.

"'Displays severe denial'"

His eyes widened.

"You did not write that."

"No." She grinned. "But the fact you almost believed me is concerning."

Honey drew a line across the page before tapping the end of her pen against the notebook. She hadn't actually written anything useful yet. The first page consisted mostly of doodles, Spencer's name underlined three times, and the words chronically suspicious written in the corner. 

She was beginning to realise she'd perhaps overestimated her own qualifications, she could flirt however teaching somebody else how to flirt was apparently an entirely different skill.

"Right then. Question two."

Spencer visibly braced himself. It amused her that he looked as though she was about to interrogate him like an unsub under a single swinging lightbulb instead of asking him questions in a diner.

"When was your last date?"

"... You mean like a proper date?" He scratched absentmindedly at the back of his neck. “It depends how you define a date."

Leave it to Spencer Reid to turn a question with a perfectly straightforward answer into a philosophical debate.

"...Reid."

"What?"

"Just answer the question"

After a while of avoiding her eyes, suddenly engrossed in flicking his napkin between his fingers, he answered.

"...Three years ago…It wasn't a very good one."

"Were there any good ones?" she asked, making sure she didn’t sound condescending. She had already gotten to this point, she didn’t want him to suddenly close up and tell her nothing. 

"No."

She found herself studying him, there wasn't any self-pity in the answer, no bitterness, he said it so simply it made something in her chest tighten ever so slightly. Honey knew plenty of people who pretended every failed relationship had been someone else's fault. Spencer somehow managed the opposite. If something went wrong, she suspected he'd shoulder all of the blame before even considering another possibility.

"I usually get... distracted."

"By?"

"I start explaining things."

She couldn't help the small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, of course he did, she'd seen him explain the history of fountain pens to Rossi after he'd asked to borrow one.

"I've noticed."

"They ask questions."

"So you answer them." She said plainly. 

"I answer them thoroughly."

"I know."

"And then..." He hesitated. “...They stop asking."

Honey's smile faded, Spencer believed people didn’t stick around because of it. She'd spent all this time assuming Spencer was painfully self-assured. He corrected people constantly, quoted statistics every other sentence and rarely admitted when he didn't know something, apparently she'd been completely wrong.

"What do you think happens?" she said quietly. 

"I bore them."

The answer came so quickly she wondered if he'd even realised he'd said it, she looked at him for a second longer than she intended. There was no sign of self deprecation, he wasn’t fishing for reassurance, he genuinely believed that he bored them. Honey had to fight the urge to say he isn’t boring in any way. 

Without saying a word, she wrote something else in the notebook, this time it wasn't for appearances. Spencer leaned forward, trying to read it. She covered the page with her hand.

"No looking."

"I'm not looking."

"Yes you are, stop lying”

"I simply wanted to verify the accuracy of your notes."

"My notes are for me."

"My profile is about me."

"Our profile."

"There isn't an 'our'."

"There is now."

He looked horrified and Honey couldn't stop herself from smiling. She'd forgotten how unintentionally expressive he was. He clearly believed he had an excellent poker face, but every emotion crossed his features before he had a chance to stop it. Confusion, annoyance, embarrassment, curiosity. They were all there for anyone paying enough attention.

"Question three."

He groaned. "I haven't even recovered from question two."

"Tough."

She rested her chin in her hand, she was enjoying herself far more than she'd expected, not because she was embarrassing him, although that was admittedly a small bonus. It was because, for the first time since she'd joined the BAU, Spencer wasn't trying to win an argument with her. He wasn't trying to prove he was smarter or get the last word. He was actually answering her questions.

"What do you think flirting is?"

Spencer frowned. "...Behaviour intended to establish mutual romantic or sexual interest through verbal and non-verbal communication."

"...That," she said eventually, "might be the least sexy sentence anyone has ever spoken."

"That’s the definition!"

"No, That was boring."

"Okay. Noted."

Honey glanced down at her notepad. She tapped the end of her pen against the page a couple of times, pretending to read over the few scribbled notes she'd made. In reality, she was simply letting the silence settle. She had one more question in mind before she could even begin to think about teaching him anything.

She already knew he was going to hate it. Which, admittedly, made her want to ask it even more. 

"Are you any good at kissing?"

Spencer, who had just taken a sip of his coffee, promptly inhaled half of it. He coughed violently, setting the mug down with far more force than intended as Honey watched him with entirely too much amusement.

"I'm sorry," he spluttered, clearing his throat. "Could you repeat the question?" 

“You heard me” 

“I don’t understand how this relates to flirting. Flirting doesn’t imply needing to kiss someone” he choked out. Words spluttered out as he tried to avoid the question. 

He was right of course, kissing had no real relevance to flirting. However she was aching to know. Honey didn’t know why, but she needed to know for herself. Something to keep in her backpocket. Not to tease or bring up at a later date, just something to reflect upon later

"Come on, Reid, this is basic stuff. You flirt, you flirt some more, you go on a date, you start touching each other, you kiss, and eventually you end up fucking. Unlike me, most people flirt because that's the outcome they're hoping for." 

Honey watched him squirm for a moment longer. He was avoiding the question beautifully. Any other person would've simply said they didn't want to answer it. Spencer, however, had clearly decided to construct an entirely new argument in his head in the hopes she'd forget what she'd asked in the first place; she almost admired it.

"I can see you're trying to change the subject."

"I'm actually trying to expand on the subject."

"No, you're trying to distract me."

"I disagree."

"You've disagreed with everything I've said for the last half an hour."

"That's because you've been wrong."

Honey smiled, and to her surprise, Spencer smiled too. It wasn't much, just the corner of his mouth twitching upwards, but it was the first smile she'd ever seen from him that wasn't sarcastic or self-satisfied. Somehow, despite arguing for the last half an hour, it felt as though the ice between them had finally started to crack. 

"So," she said, leaning back in the booth. "Let's circle back."

He visibly tensed. "Must we?"

"We must."

"I don't see why."

"Because you still haven't answered me."

"I believe I have."

"You haven't."

"I've implied an answer."

"You've danced around one."

He let out a quiet sigh.

Honey almost laughed. She'd never seen him look so cornered before. It wasn't unpleasant to watch, not because she enjoyed making him uncomfortable, but because for once he wasn't the one dissecting somebody else's behaviour. 

"I'm simply saying," Spencer began carefully, "that being able to kiss somebody and being good at kissing are entirely subjective." 

“So basically, what you are saying is you think you’re bad at it?”

His eyes flickered away for barely a second, It was enough of an answer. She could almost see the thought forming behind his eyes. What if I finally get everything else right....and ruin it anyway? For all his intelligence, for all the confidence he projected at work, there was something strangely innocent about him. 

"You know," she said carefully, "we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. I mean you haven't even learnt how to flirt yet.. so let's cross one bridge at a time." 

He nodded slowly. 

"And..." She twirled the pen between her fingers, trying to sound far more casual than she felt. "When we get there..."

She paused for half a second.

"...if you're still worried..."

Spencer waited.

"...I'll help you with that too."

Spencer didn't argue, he didn't ask for clarification, he simply looked at her. Honey felt a strange flutter low in her stomach, one she immediately blamed on the terrible diner coffee. 

She wasn’t sure why she offered. Like usual, it was one of those statements she threw out without any real thought as to what the consequences may be. Of course she didn’t absolutely hate the idea of kissing Spencer. She did notice his round, pink plumb lips and thought, briefly, he might be a better kisser than he thought.

She'd expected another debate, another lecture. Instead, after what felt like an eternity, Spencer gave a single, almost imperceptible nod. His jaw tightened as he bit the inside of his cheek, blinking several times before quietly looking back down at his coffee. 

It dawned on her then that she'd never actually spent time alone with Spencer before, there had always been somebody else. Morgan making inappropriate comments. JJ trying to mediate. Garcia talking enough for everyone. Even on cases there was always something demanding their attention.

This was just Spencer, and he was considerably quieter than she'd imagined, not because he had nothing to say, but because he seemed to test every sentence before deciding whether it deserved to exist. She wondered how exhausting that must be, she couldn't remember the last time she'd thought before speaking. Usually the words came out first, and she'd decide whether they were appropriate afterwards.

Perhaps that's why irritating him has always been so easy.

Without saying anything, she drew a line clean across the page before writing another heading in slow, neat handwriting.

SMART Targets

She heard Spencer shift opposite her before she looked up. It wasn't much, just the quiet scrape of fabric against the booth as he sat forward, but it was enough. For the last thirty minutes, she'd watched him physically recoil every time she'd ventured anywhere near the subject of romance, yet the moment she'd started writing headings and underlining words, he'd unconsciously moved closer to the table. It was subtle enough that he probably hadn't even realised he'd done it himself.

"I'm assuming," Spencer said eventually, his eyes never quite leaving the page between them, "that acronym wasn't an accident."

Honey couldn't stop the small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. She'd deliberately left the notebook facing herself, yet he'd managed to read it upside down from the other side of the table. She wasn't even remotely surprised.

"No," she admitted, finally lifting her eyes to meet his. "It wasn't."

For a brief second, neither of them said anything. Honey noticed the way he'd abandoned the coffee entirely now. Earlier in the evening he'd clung to the mug like it was some sort of emotional support, lifting it every few minutes whenever the conversation wandered somewhere uncomfortable. It had long since gone cold, but he hadn't realised. His attention had shifted completely onto the notebook, his curiosity quietly overpowering his nerves.

"I've been thinking," she began, turning the notebook around so it sat between them instead of belonging solely to her side of the table. The movement felt oddly symbolic, like she'd stopped interviewing him and started involving him. "You and I don't actually learn in the same way."

Spencer's eyes flickered over the page before returning to her. He looked thoughtful rather than defensive now, which Honey considered an improvement.

"What makes you say that?"

"I learn by making a tit of myself."

He looked genuinely puzzled.

"I'm serious." Honey laughed quietly, shaking her head at herself. "If I embarrass myself once, I usually don't make the same mistake twice. That's how I learn most things. I throw myself into them, they go catastrophically wrong, I survive, and somehow I come out slightly better for it."

She watched him considering that, not because he disagreed, but because he was trying to understand it.

"You don't do that."

"No."

Honey leaned back into the booth, folding one leg beneath herself. She'd started the evening expecting to spend most of it talking. Somewhere along the line she'd realised she enjoyed listening to Spencer considerably more than she'd expected. 

"You don't learn through failure," she continued. "You learn through understanding. If somebody explains why something works, you remember it forever.. If I just throw you into a bar and tell you to flirt with somebody, you'll spend the entire evening wondering whether you're doing it correctly instead of actually talking to them."

"So," she said, tapping the notebook lightly with the end of her pen, "we're not doing that."

She paused deliberately, giving him enough time to realise she'd already thought this through more than she'd originally admitted.

"We're going to treat this exactly the same way I'd train somebody new at work."

For the first time all evening, Honey watched genuine interest replace uncertainty. Spencer straightened almost instinctively, his forearms finally resting properly on the table instead of hovering awkwardly near his lap. It was such a small change most people would've missed it entirely, but Honey noticed because she'd spent the last hour watching every tiny shift in his posture. The mention of a plan had done something she'd been trying unsuccessfully to accomplish since she'd arrived.

It had made him feel safe.

"I hate vague advice," she said, more to herself than to him. "People always say things like, 'Just be yourself,' or, 'Be more confident,' as though those are actual instructions. They aren't. They're completely useless. If I told you to be more confident, you'd spend the next week trying to work out what confidence actually looks like."

Honey spent the next hour talking him through what she had quickly begun referring to as The Plan. Much to her surprise, Spencer offered remarkably little resistance. He questioned almost every objective she wrote down, naturally, but his questions came from curiosity rather than defiance. Every so often he'd interrupt to ask why she'd structured something a particular way or how she'd decided one lesson should come before another. Honey had expected him to poke holes in the entire thing, to prove her wildly underqualified to be teaching anybody anything. Instead, he'd quietly accepted most of her explanations, occasionally suggesting a slight adjustment before settling back into his seat and letting her continue. 

She wasn't teaching him how to become somebody else. She wasn't trying to sand off all the peculiar little edges that made Spencer... Spencer. She'd met enough men who relied on rehearsed lines and forced confidence to know that pretending to be charming only worked until somebody asked a second question. 

Spencer's problem had never been a lack of personality. If anything, he had far too much of it. He simply buried it beneath overthinking, apologising and the overwhelming need to get every interaction exactly right. Honey doubted she could teach him confidence in three weeks. Confidence didn't work like that. What she could do, however, was convince him to stop getting in his own way. 

By the time she finally closed the notebook with a satisfied sigh, the diner had noticeably quietened around them. Families had filtered out one by one, the chatter that had greeted her when she'd first arrived replaced by the low murmur of only a handful of occupied tables. 

Honey hadn't realised how late it had become until she glanced towards the windows and found the sky outside had faded to an inky blue, the streetlights reflecting softly against the glass. 

The waitress wandered over carrying the small black bill folder tucked beneath one arm, offering them an apologetic smile as she quietly explained they were beginning to close. Time had slipped away from them so gradually that Honey hadn't noticed it passing. 

She reached for the bill almost automatically, years of habit taking over before she'd even thought about it, only for Spencer's hand to reach for it at the exact same moment. Their fingers brushed lightly against one another, both instinctively withdrawing before either of them had a chance to actually take hold of it. 

Honey looked up to find Spencer already watching her, the same polite determination she'd seen several times throughout the evening settling across his face.

"I invited you," she said, pulling the bill gently back towards herself. "It'd be a bit unfair if I made you pay for your own interrogation."

Spencer's gaze dropped to the folded receipt before returning to her. Honey noticed he'd stopped looking away every few seconds now. Earlier in the evening she'd almost had to chase his attention around the diner, watching his eyes dart to literally anything that wasn't her whenever she'd asked something even remotely personal. Now he simply looked at her.

"You also spent hours helping me," he replied, his voice quieter than it had been when they'd first sat down. There wasn't any argument in it, nor that familiar need to prove her wrong that she'd grown so accustomed to over the last year. If anything, he sounded oddly matter-of-fact, as though he genuinely couldn't understand why she wouldn't let him contribute. "It doesn't seem right that you pay as well."

She rested her elbows on the table instead of reaching for her purse, deciding the bill could wait another minute.

"Can I tell you something?" she asked, watching the way his eyebrows pulled together ever so slightly. He gave a small nod, the movement enough to tell her she had his full attention before she'd even spoken. "You're exhausting."

"I fail to see how that's an appropriate response after I offered to pay."

"I'm not talking about the bill."

"Then what are you talking about?"

"You." Honey smiled, not because she was trying to wind him up this time, but because she wasn't entirely sure how else to explain it. "You spend so much time trying to make everything fair that you don't actually let people do nice things for you. You immediately start trying to repay them."

"I suppose..." he began eventually, his eyes dropping briefly to the table before returning to hers, "...I hadn't really thought about it." 

She couldn't explain why she was so certain. Perhaps because she'd watched him for over two years, perhaps because she'd quietly paid attention in all the ways he'd assumed she hadn't. It was strange, really. They'd spent all this time convincing one another that they were fundamentally incompatible, yet she'd noticed the way he only ever drank coffee once it had cooled down, how he rubbed the bridge of his nose whenever paperwork gave him a headache, how he instinctively stood slightly behind the rest of the team whenever they walked into a room together. She wondered, with no small amount of apprehension, whether he'd been noticing things about her too. 

"Besides," she continued, her fingers finally closing around the bill folder, "I'm investing in you."

Honey stood, slinging her handbag back over her shoulder before fishing her coat from the back of the booth. Spencer followed suit a second later, considerably slower than she had, carefully straightening the chair beneath the table before reaching for his own jacket. She watched him smooth an imaginary crease from the sleeve without thinking, another tiny habit she'd somehow never noticed before tonight. 

They started walking towards the car park together, leaving a comfortable stretch of pavement between them. Honey realised, somewhere between listening to Spencer explain why the streetlights in Quantico had changed to LEDs that they hadn't argued for the better part of an hour. 

They'd disagreed, naturally. Spencer Reid would disagree with the weather forecast if he thought the methodology was flawed. But the sharpness had gone. The need to score points had somehow disappeared.

She wasn't naïve enough to think it would last, tomorrow morning she'd probably walk into the bullpen five minutes late, he'd make some comment about punctuality, she'd tell him to mind his own business, and Morgan would inevitably find a way to make the whole thing worse.

Oddly enough...She found herself looking forward to it.

“Spencer, can I ask you one more question? I promise it’s the last one,” Honey said, looking up at him as they walked side by side beneath the glow of the streetlights.

“Sure.”

She hesitated for a moment, choosing her words more carefully than she had all evening.

“Would you rather I explain everything first and then let you try it out yourself, or… would you prefer to do it with me?”

Spencer didn’t answer immediately. Honey watched him glance down at the pavement, his hands disappearing into the pockets of his coat as he thought it over.

“You,” he said eventually, looking back across at her. “With you… please.”

Honey felt her stomach tighten for reasons she’d rather not examine. She told herself it was simply because she’d expected another question, another request for clarification. Instead, he’d answered almost instinctively, the words leaving his mouth before either of them had the chance to think too hard about how they sounded.