rapline enthusiast

Completely finished.

Your legs were uncertain beneath you. Your arms felt like they belonged to someone with less reason to use them. The rawness that had been sitting close to the surface since the fever broke was closer still. The bath having done something to the last of the management you’d been applying to it, the warm water and John’s hands and the specific intimacy of the last hour having worked on the thin boundary between inside and outside in a way that left it thinner than before.

You held onto the doorframe.

And looked at them.

Kyle was closest, something folded over his arm, and behind him — you saw it over his shoulder, past him — Johnny and Simon were at the nest. The old sheets were gone. Simon had an armful of them and Johnny was shaking out something fresh. They move with the specific focused industry of two people who have divided a task and are executing it, and the sight of it was so unexpectedly domestic that you stood in the doorway and looked at it for a moment longer than you meant to.

Simon glanced up and caught you looking.

Something moved through his expression.

He didn’t say anything. He turned back to the sheets and tucked the corner with the same focused attention he gave everything that mattered, and you watched his hands smooth the fabric flat and thought about those hands doing a great many things over the last several weeks and what they could do in the coming weeks too.

Kyle stepped forward.

“Right then,” he said. He held out the pyjamas and you took them, and the smell hit you before anything else.

Mango and peach.

Warm from being held against his arm, the fabric impossibly soft, the kind of soft that comes from washing rather than newness.

Washed and washed until the fibres had given up any resistance to softness and simply become it. You brought them closer without quite meaning to and the smell was so specific and so yours, so completely removed from the clinical smell of the med suite and the fever and the last two weeks, that your throat tightened before you’d prepared it not to.

Then you actually looked at them.

White. Small baby blue bows, delicate and precise, running along the collar and the cuffs and the waistband of the bottoms. So completely, specifically sweet that you looked at them and then looked at Kyle and he looked back at you with the expression of a man who has made a selection and is entirely at peace with it.

“Kyle,” you said trying not to smile.

“They’re warm,” he said, which was not the point and both of you knew it. “Non-bio sensitive. Same wash.” He paused, something moving at the corner of his mouth. “The bows were non-negotiable.”

Something in your chest did the thing it did — the warm complicated thing that kept happening and which you’d run out of shelf space for. You looked at the bows. You looked at Kyle. The rawness was very present and your legs were uncertain and you were so tired, so genuinely and completely tired, and he had washed pyjamas with baby blue bows in mango and peach.

“H-How did you know?” you asked, voice trembling more than you’d like. "That that’s my favourite."

He was quiet for a moment. "You had a candle," he said. "On your desk. Two years ago. Every time I walked past reception it smelled of mango and peach." He shrugged once, contained. "Didn't seem like a coincidence to try."

You stared at him. Blinking faster than usual as you took that in.

Two years ago. He'd noticed two years ago and filed it away and retrieved it when it was useful and said nothing about it until you asked directly.

That was so completely Kyle that it made your chest ache, it was getting harder to dismiss as insignificant.

“Thank you,” you said. Your voice was thinner than you wanted it to be.

“Come on then, princess,” he said, gently, the word landing soft and certain the way it always did from him, like something that had always been yours. “Let’s get you sorted.”

John and Kyle helped you into them together.

John held you steady, his hand at your arm, the same anchor he’d been all morning — present and certain and asking nothing back for the certainty.

Kyle managed the practical business of it with the efficiency that was his particular gift, and you let them, because your arms were not reliable and your legs were making their position on any further independent effort very clear, and because you’d stopped performing fine when fine wasn’t true.

The fabric settled around you.

The warmth of it was immediate.

The smell of it was immediate.

Mango and peach, and soft cotton, and the little blue bows at your wrists and you stood in the middle of the med suite in the most absurdly gentle pyjamas you’d ever owned and felt something that was definitely not small move through you.

“There,” John said quietly. He looked at you in the way he looked at you when he was taking inventory of how you actually were versus how you were presenting, the complete attending look that you’d stopped trying to deflect because deflecting it had never worked anyway. “How are you doing, little one?”

“Tired,” you said honestly. “Very tired.”

“I know,” he said. “Nearly done.”

The nest was finished.

You saw it properly now — what Johnny and Simon had made while you were being helped into the pyjamas. Fresh sheets, white, crisp against the built-up softness of the blankets and the pillows arranged around the edges.

It looked different from the fever nest. Cleaner and brighter, the shape of it rebuilt with the specific intention of something made rather than simply used.

And the scent of it reached you from where you were standing.

You belong in this space and this space belongs to you. Woven into every sheet and every pillow and every fold of the blankets.

Your wolf went absolutely still.

Then she surged forward with a want so complete and so unambiguous that it bypassed every higher function you possessed and simply existed, present and total, the wanting of something that had been offered and recognised as exactly what was needed.

Your throat closed.

You didn’t say anything.

You didn’t have to. John’s hand was at your elbow and he could feel the change in you. The stillness, and he didn’t comment, just stayed close, just let you have the moment.

Johnny appeared at your side.

He had a towel in his hands and he looked at you with his whole face the way he always did, the open unmanaged honesty of him, and something in his expression was very soft and very careful.

“Come here, doll,” he said. Gentle. Just that. “Let’s sort your hair.”

He sat you in the chair at the small desk.

It was a better angle for it — higher than the nest, the right height for him to work standing behind you.

You sat in it and felt the specific relief of not having to hold yourself upright actively, of the chair doing the work your legs were no longer interested in doing. Your hands rested in your lap and the mango and peach smell of the pyjamas was close to your nose. Warm and the room was quiet.

Johnny settled behind you.

The towel first — gentle pressure, working the water out with the patient thoroughness you’d come to know from him. Not the rough vigorous drying that would have made your head swim but the slow careful kind that took longer and asked less of you. He worked through it section by section, methodical, and his hands were warm and the towel was soft and you sat still and let him.

You were barely hanging on.

That was the honest description of it — not a physical thing specifically, not about to fall down or lose consciousness, just the last of everything being very clearly last. The bath and the dressing and the standing and the walk and all of it combined had spent what you’d had and left you with something that was more like the shape of yourself than the substance, a person-shaped space that was very much looking forward to being horizontal.

The brush came next.

That first pass through your hair — smooth and unhurried, starting at the ends, working upward with the same patience he’d shown the first time — and something in your shoulders dropped that you hadn’t realised was held up. The specific involuntary release of tension that the body does when something it needed and didn’t know it needed is provided.

You felt your eyes close.

Johnny kept going.

He didn’t talk.

The brush moved through your hair. You sat in the chair and drifted in the specific way of someone whose body has already made its decision and is simply waiting for the rest of the proceedings to conclude.

“You did really well today, doll,” he said quietly. Not loud enough to break the silence, just part of it, just something warm said into the room.

You didn’t answer. You didn’t have to. You knew that deep in your bones.

He kept brushing.

The rhythm of it was hypnotic in the specific way of gentle repeated things; the careful passes, the sound of it, the smell of the room, all of it working together with the accumulated weight of everything your body had been through to pull you steadily toward the rest you’d been owing yourself since long before any of this began.

You were almost gone when he finished.

You felt the brush still and felt his hands gather your hair lightly and do something — something quick, neat, keeping it back from your face — and then he came around to crouch in front of you and looked at you with the honest open face of him.

“There you are,” he said softly. “Beautiful.”

Your eyes were barely open.

He smiled at you — the specific Johnny MacTavish smile that started small and meant everything — and then he stood and looked behind you and you felt rather than saw the communication that passed between him and Simon, the wordless kind that belonged to people who had been through things together.

Then Simon was there.

He didn’t ask.

He crouched down in front of you first, putting himself at your level, and he looked at you with the expression that was Simon without the armour — just him, just present, reading you the way he always read you, directly and without softening what he found.

You were exhausted and raw and wearing pyjamas with baby blue bows.

Something moved through his face that he didn’t bother containing.

“Alright, sweetheart,” he said drawing out every syllable, low and certain. “I’ve got you.”

His arms came around you.

He lifted you with the ease that always surprised you slightly. Your head ended up at his throat and your wolf turned toward it immediately, the musky certain scent of him, and you didn’t have the energy to redirect her and you stopped wanting to.

His chin came down near your temple.

“There she is,” he said quietly, to no one, or to you, or just to the room. “There you go.”

You closed your eyes.

He carried you to the nest.

The scent of it closed around you the moment he settled you into it.

All four of them, warm and layered, and your wolf made a sound that was not small. Not the quiet contented murmur of recent weeks but something fuller, something that recognised and acknowledged and received, the specific sound of a wolf who has been given something she has been asking for and is not pretending otherwise.

Simon settled behind you.

His chest at your back, his arm coming around you, and then his face at your neck — at your scent gland, gentle and deliberate, the specific slow communication of here and safe and present, and your wolf leaned into it with a completeness that bypassed every remaining argument you might have had.

You were already drifting.

The nest and the scent and Simon’s warmth behind you and his nose at your throat and the mango and peach and the little blue bows and the exhaustion.

You were barely there.

Just warm. Just held. Just the low sound of your wolf, settled and certain, and Simon’s slow breathing behind you and the nest smelling of pack and home.

Kyle appeared at the edge of the nest.

He had a small bowl — soup, tomato, the familiar smell of it reaching you through the haze of almost-sleep, and he settled close and looked at you with an expression that contained everything.

“Just a little, princess,” he said softly. “That’s all. Just a little.”

Simon’s arm shifted, adjusting, giving you enough room to turn your head toward Kyle without pulling you away from the warmth of him, the specific thoughtfulness of the adjustment making your chest do the thing.

He held the spoon to your lips.

You let him.

The soup was warm and simple and your stomach received it with the same cautious provisional acceptance of recent days.

Kyle fed you slowly, not rushing, not pushing, each spoonful given with patience. He watched your face between spoonfuls with the contained careful attention that was Kyle’s specific kind of love, the kind that showed itself in temperature checks and non-bio sensitive washing powder and baby blue bows and being exactly as present as was needed and not one degree more.

When you turned your face slightly away from the next spoon he stilled immediately.

“Good girl,” he said quietly. “That’s enough.”

He set the bowl aside and his hand came to your hair briefly — just a pass, just the warmth of it — and then he settled back and you settled deeper into Simon.

Simon’s nose found your scent gland again and the scent and the soup worked together on the last of your consciousness with gentle collective efficiency.

John came in quietly.

You heard him rather than saw him. He sat at the foot of the nest and you felt the familiar touch of his hands finding yours first.

The lotion was cool.

Then warm.

He worked it into your hands. The thin skin over the backs of your hands that had been dry since the cottage. The places between your fingers. Every part of you that the last six months had marked.

He worked in silence.

The kind of silence that was full rather than empty — full of the room and the warmth and Simon behind you and Kyle close and Johnny somewhere at the edges, all of them present, all of them here, the specific fullness of a space that has the right people in it.

You were almost entirely gone.

John moved to your feet.

You weren’t done fighting.

That was still true.

But you understood now that fighting and this were not opposites. That the tree and the terms and the six months of running and the choice were not cancelled out by the nest and the pyjamas and the soup and these hands, warm and slow, moving over your feet.

That you could be both.

That you had always been both.

That the pack in this room had never once asked you to be only one for them.

The tears came without announcement.

Slow and warm, rolling without urgency down your face in the low dim light of the evening, and you didn’t wipe them and you didn’t stop them and you didn’t say anything about them because you were too tired and too raw and too full of things that had finally found somewhere to be that wasn’t a shelf.

You thought about the cottage.

The map. The moment your wolf had stirred and said here and you had whispered okay into the empty room like a promise you hadn’t understood you were making.

She’d known then.

She’d known before you did, the way she always knew before you did, and she had been patient about it in the specific patient way of something that understands that the person it belongs to needs time and has decided to give it.

She’d given you six months of running and three missed heats and a treeline and a tree and a med bay and a fever and a nest and pyjamas with little blue bows.

She’d given you all of it.

And here you were.

John’s hands were warm and slow on your feet.

Simon’s nose was at your throat.

Kyle was close.

Johnny was at the edges.

And you were in a nest that smelled of pack and home and mango and peach. You were wearing the softest thing you’d ever worn. Someone had brushed your hair for twenty minutes because slow was the only right speed. Someone had carried you three steps because he wanted to. And someone had remembered a candle on a desk two years ago, and someone had sat on a bathroom floor and let you see his hands shaking.

“Thank you”, you whispered.

Barely sound. Barely breath. Just the shape of the words released into the warm quiet room.

To all of them.

To the thing you’d been running toward without knowing it was what you were running toward.

John’s hands stilled.

Just for a moment.

The room held its breath.

Then his hands continued, slow and warm, and Simon made a sound low in his chest that had no words and needed none, and Kyle’s hand found the edge of yours in the blankets and rested there, and Johnny said nothing because Johnny understood that this was not a moment for words.

The tears dried on your face.

Your wolf made her sound.

Low and full and settled in the specific way of something that has come home.

And you followed her down into the warmth and the dark and the rest that your body had been owed for six months. The last thing you were aware of was the weight of John’s hands and the warmth of Simon behind you and the scent of all of them surrounding you like something that had always been there, like something that had been waiting, like something that was, finally and completely and without condition —

Yours.

Not the strong of the cottage and the logging tracks and the two hundred and forty steps — that was a different kind of strong, the wiry desperate kind that runs on necessity, and you knew better than to expect it back quickly.

But stronger than the fever’s worst. Stronger than the shaking and the sick bowl and the fine continuous tremors that had made Kyle hold a water glass to your mouth without comment and without making it into anything.

Strong enough, apparently, for John to ask.

He came in the mid-morning, which was his time — not the small hours vigil, not the evening check, but the specific window of mid-morning that you’d come to understand was when John Price had things to say rather than things to do.

He sat in the chair beside the nest and looked at you with the complete attention of someone who had been thinking about something and had decided the time was right.

“Would you like a bath?” he asked, carefully, cautiously.

You looked at him.

Not a shower — the word was specific and you registered the specificity of it. A shower was functional. A shower was the clinical business of getting clean. A bath was something else, carried something else, the word itself containing warmth and stillness and the particular comfort of immersion, of being held by something warm that asked nothing back.

You thought about the last time you’d been properly clean. The day before you ran, probably. The inn in the Scottish village felt like it belonged to a different person’s life.

You thought about the effort of it. Getting to the bathroom. The small bathroom attached to the med suite that you’d noted when Dr. Caldwell mentioned it and filed under things you’d get to eventually. Getting into the bath. The reality of your current strength versus the logistics of all of that.

You thought about saying no, I’m fine, I can manage, I don’t need help, the specific inventory of refusals that had been your first language for so long.

But instead, “Yes,” you replied.

The word came out before the refusal inventory had finished loading and you decided that was the correct order of operations.

John nodded once. Not making it significant. Not registering the fact that you’d said yes without arguing as the notable departure from pattern that it was. Just — nodded, and stood, and moved toward the small bathroom, and you heard the water begin to run.

He was in there for several minutes.

You listened to the sounds of it — water running, the particular echo of a small tiled room, small adjustments, the temperature being tested and adjusted and tested again.

The specific sounds of someone doing something with care rather than efficiency, taking time with it, and you lay in the nest and looked at the ceiling and felt the rawness of the last few days sitting close to the surface the way it had been sitting since the fever broke.

The rawness hadn’t gone.

You’d expected it to improve as you got stronger — expected the thinning of the boundary between inside and outside to resolve itself as the body recovered, the defences reassembling themselves the way the body reassembles everything given time and resource.

And it had improved, somewhat.

The first morning had been the most exposed, the most genuinely unable to manage the distance between what you felt and what you showed. You were better at the management now.

But underneath the management, the rawness was still there.

The shelf was still full. Still creaking and angry at you when you piled more on it.

You were still, in the specific honest privacy of your own head, more undone than you’d been before the fever.

You were different.

You’d been different since the nest and the scenting and the my alphas, that you still hadn’t looked at directly.

John appeared in the bathroom doorway.

“Ready,” he said.

You looked at him.

“I’m going to need help getting there,” you said sheepishly. The honest version. The version that would have cost you a great deal two months ago and which came out now with the flat simplicity of a true thing said plainly. “My legs are—”

“I know,” he said softly, and crossed to the nest and held out his hand.

You took it.

Getting upright was its own small project.

Your legs did what legs did when they’d been largely horizontal for a week — registered objection, wobbled, made their position on bearing weight known through the specific medium of making everything harder than it should have been.

John’s hand was steady under yours and his other hand came to your elbow, not gripping, just present, and you got yourself vertical through the combined effort of your own stubbornness and his steadiness, which was probably the accurate description of most things you’d managed in the last several weeks.

The walk to the bathroom was short.

It felt longer than it was.

Not because it was difficult — though it was certainly difficult. Your legs uncertain and your body informing you at every step that it had opinions about this expedition — but because John was beside you the whole way and his presence was the specific close presence of someone who is ready to catch you without making you feel like you’re about to fall, and the rawness sat close to the surface of all of it and you kept your eyes forward and concentrated on the walking.

The bathroom was small. Clean. The bath was running still, steam rising, and the temperature of the room was warmer than the med suite and the smell of it reached you immediately — something in the water, something gentle, not clinical, not the antiseptic of the last two weeks but something that smelled like clean and warmth and nothing complicated.

You looked at the bath.

You looked at your current state — the pyjamas that had been on you for several days, your hair that had not been properly washed since before any of this, the general accumulated reality of a week of fever — and you made the assessment honestly.

You could not do this alone.

Your arms were not reliable enough to wash your own hair. Your legs were not reliable enough to manage the getting in and getting out without significant risk. Your body had opinions about exertion and those opinions were not compatible with independence right now.

You knew this.

You’d known it before you said yes to the bath, probably. Some part of you had done the calculation and arrived at the conclusion and then said yes anyway, and you were now standing in a warm bathroom with John Price and the gap between what you’d agreed to and what it required was sitting right there in front of both of you.

“There’s no room for dignity in this,” you said. To the bath, mostly. Stating it plainly before it could become something that needed to be navigated.

“No,” John said. Simply. “There isn’t.”

You looked at him.

His expression was the one you’d been learning to read over months of watching it — not the authority, not the patience, not the careful steadiness. The one underneath all of those. The one that was just him, just present, just here because he wanted to take care of you and was going to do it correctly.

“Alright,” you said, nodding.

He helped you out of the sweaty pyjamas with the specific impersonal efficiency of someone who has made a decision about what this is and is applying it completely.

Not clinical — not the detached remove of a medic performing a function — but not charged either, not loaded with anything that would make it harder for you. Just practical. Just the business of getting you ready for the bath in the way that needed to happen.

You let him and strangely or maybe not strangely, it felt nice to let him. To give him the control. To let him take care of you.

One of the screws on the shelf came loose.

That was the thing you noticed — the letting. Not the resignation of someone who has run out of resistance, not the compliance of someone who has been worn down. The genuine choosing of it, the specific decision to receive help that was being offered without strings, to let someone take care of you in a way that had nothing to do with owing anyone anything.

It was harder and easier than you’d expected, simultaneously.

Getting into the bath was managed between the two of you — his hands steady at your arms, the slow careful business of it, your legs doing their unreliable best — and then the warm water closed around you and you exhaled a breath that had apparently been waiting several days to be fully released.

The warmth was immediate and total.

Not the warmth of the nest, not the warmth of Simon’s arm or John’s hands or any of the human warmth that had been surrounding you for weeks.

Something simpler than all of those. Just warm water and the weight of it and the specific relief of immersion, of a body that has been fighting being allowed, finally, to float.

You closed your eyes.

For a moment there was nothing except the warmth and the steam and the sound of your own breathing, slower than it had been, the ache in your chest easing with the warmth the way it hadn’t quite eased with anything else.

John sat on the low stool beside the bath.

He didn’t rush you.

He washed your hair first.

You’d expected to find this difficult — the specific intimacy of it, someone else’s hands in your hair, the vulnerability of tipping your head back over the edge of the bath and trusting someone else with the management of it. You’d expected the rawness to make it harder, the thin boundary between inside and outside that had been there since the fever broke, the way everything had been sitting close to the surface.

It wasn’t difficult.

That was the thing.

He worked through it carefully. The water warm over your hair, his hands methodical, starting at the ends, working without pulling, taking the time it needed.

You kept your eyes closed and felt the warmth of the water and the warmth of the room and the specific sensation of being taken care of that you’d spent so long keeping at arm’s length that you’d half-convinced yourself you didn’t want it.

You wanted it.

You wanted it so bad you could cry. The specific honest wanting of care, of warmth, of someone’s hands in your hair and the safety of the room and the knowledge that nothing was going to be asked of you in return.

You wanted it and you were letting yourself have it and the rawness made that both harder and, somehow, easier to admit.

The shampoo smelled clean. Nothing complicated. He’d chosen well or he’d asked Kyle who had known, the way Kyle always knew, and the smell of fresh apples mixed with the steam and the warmth and you lay in the bath and breathed and let your wolf sit close.

She made her noise.

“Tell me if the temperature’s wrong,” he said. First words since you’d gotten in.

“It’s right,” you said sighing. The water was more hot than cold and it was beautiful.

He continued.

He washed the rest of you with the same quality of attention.

Practical and gentle and completely without any element that would have made it something other than what it was — care, plain and unambiguous, applied without condition.

Your arms, which had been through things and had the evidence of it. Your hands, the knuckles, the places where the bark of the tree in the Scottish woods had taken something. The scar on your upper arm, healed clean now, which he moved around with the specific awareness of someone who knew its history and respected the fact of it without making it into a conversation.

You kept your eyes closed for most of it.

The rawness sat with you and you let it sit. Didn’t manage it, didn’t construct anything between it and the outside. Just let it be there, the thinness of it, the specific exposure of someone who had been stripped down to their essentials and hadn’t yet rebuilt anything over the top.

It was strange to be this known.

John rinsed your hair a final time, the warm water thorough and careful, and then he said: “Ready to get out when you are.”

You opened your eyes.

The steam had softened the edges of the room. Your skin was warm and your hair was clean and your body felt lighter than it had in days, the accumulated weight of fever and days in the nest and everything before that washed away in the specific way that warm water manages.

“I’m ready,” you said.

Getting out was the reverse of getting in — his hands at your arms, steady, the slow careful business of legs that were less reliable than you wanted them to be. You stood wrapped in a towel and leaned against the wall while the last of the effort from the bath recovered itself, your hair dripping, the room warm around you.

John stood close.

Close enough to catch you if your legs made good on their threats. Far enough to give you the room to be upright on your own.

You looked at him.

He was looking back with that expression — the one underneath all the others, the one that was just him, just present, just the man who had sat on a bathroom floor and let you see his hands shaking and who had run scrambled eggs for breakfast the morning after you’d asked and who had felt the mate bond go wrong for two days and had moved toward it for every minute of both of them.

The rawness was very present.

The shelf was very full.

“John,” you said.

“Mm.”

“That was nice.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I’m glad little one.”

You cleared your throat. “The shelf was getting very full. I’m not ready yet. But I’m—” You stopped. Started again. “I’m getting there.”

John looked at you for a long moment.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “You are.” He said it like he was relieved. Happy even.

The warmth of the room sat around you both. Your wolf made her sound, low and certain, and you let her.

You pushed off the wall on your own legs.

“Right,” you said. “Let’s go back.”

He walked beside you, close enough to catch you, and his hand wrapped around the doorknob.

By the time the sun began its slow descent toward the horizon, you had developed a reluctant rhythm.

The herd moved.

You followed.

Part of it was practical. The walkers moved with surprising consistency, and keeping track of them was easier when you weren’t constantly lagging behind. The other part was something that you were considerably less eager to acknowledge.

Curiosity.

You were terrified of the walkers— that much hadn’t changed.

Every instinct still recoiled at the sight of them. Years of consuming zombie-based media and basic common sense had thoroughly convinced you that standing anywhere near the undead was a bad idea.

However, the longer they ignored you, the more difficult it became to sustain that fear at its original intensity.

Only a few hours ago, you had been convinced that getting within twenty feet of a walker meant death. Now you found yourself walking close enough to distinguish individual faces.

It was a little concerning just how quickly you’d adapted to this… condition of yours.

You kept expecting your courage to fail. Every time you drifted a little nearer to the herd, your body tensed in anticipation of disaster. Yet the disaster never came.

The walkers just kept moving forward.

Eventually, you found yourself matching pace with one of them.

The corpse was an older man, or at least it had been at one point. Wisps of white hair still clung stubbornly to his scalp. A faded plaid shirt hung loosely from his frame, stained with dirt and other things you didn’t want to think too hard on. One sleeve had been torn away completely, revealing a skeletal arm mottled with decay.

You couldn’t stop staring.

On television, walkers always seemed interchangeable. Up close, individual details emerged.

This man had once chosen that shirt.

Someone had probably bought it for him— a wife or a child, maybe.

Someone had known his name.

The thought settled like a stone in your chest.

Your gaze drifted to another walker nearby. This one appeared much younger. A woman in what looked like a nurse’s uniform shuffled through the grass some yards away. The fabric was soiled beyond recognition, but fragments of a hospital logo remained visible near the collar.

You wondered if she had worked during the outbreak, whether she’d stayed behind trying to help people.

Whether she had family somewhere.

The questions came too easily and none of them had answers.

For the first time since arriving in this world, you found yourself studying the walkers for reasons unrelated to survival.

One limped badly on a ruined leg.

Another dragged a foot behind him.

A little girl wandered near the center of the herd clutching a filthy stuffed rabbit against her chest.

You looked away immediately.

All the knowledge in the world couldn’t have prepared you for this. These weren’t props covered in makeup, or people excited to be in the background of their favorite show.

They were the remains of human beings whose lives had ended in one of the worst ways imaginable.

As the herd reached the outskirts of a neighborhood, the sun had reached its final destination.

The light had softened considerably since the brutal heat of midday, painting the landscape in warm shades of gold and amber. Long shadows stretched across the ground, weaving between the walkers as they continued their steady march forward.

You found yourself paralleling them without consciously meaning to.

At some point, the herd had stopped feeling like an immediate threat and started feeling like a strange sort of constant. They were still unsettling to look at, and the smell lingered in the air whenever the wind shifted. Every now and then, you would catch sight of an especially gruesome injury and have to force yourself not to stare.

And yet…

There was something oddly reassuring in their proximity.

There was no arguing, or demands made, or questions asked.

They simply moved.

Hour after hour, they shuffled onward with the same mindless determination, and after spending most of the day among them, you had begun adjusting to their presence.

It was something that probably should have alarmed you more than it did.

You walked alongside a woman who had likely been in her forties before her death. Most of her dark hair had fallen out, leaving uneven patches across her scalp, and the floral pattern on her dress had long since faded beneath layers of dirt and weathering.

She didn’t acknowledge you.

You wondered if that would ever stop feeling strange.

Your gaze drifted ahead as the neighborhood came into view.

Rows of houses emerged beyond the trees, their rooftops visible above overgrown hedges and neglected lawns. Even from a distance, the place carried the familiar appearance of suburban America. Mailboxes stood beside cracked sidewalks, driveways stretched toward garages, tall trees lined the streets.

The sight stirred something unexpectedly painful in your chest.

They reminded you of home.

Not because they looked exactly like your own neighborhood, but because they belonged to the same world. The same civilization. The same life that had existed before everything fell apart.

The herd drifted into the neighborhood without hesitation.

Walkers spilled across the streets and sidewalks like a slow-moving river, weaving around abandoned vehicles and overgrown yards. A rusted bicycle lay forgotten near a driveway. One house still displayed the remnants of holiday decorations that had somehow survived months of exposure to the elements.

Your stomach growled.

The sound startled you enough that you glanced downward.

Right, food.

You hadn’t eaten since arriving in this world, and your body was beginning to remind you of that fact with increasing urgency. Your throat remained dry and your muscles still ached from earlier. The initial surge of panic and adrenaline had faded hours ago, leaving behind a very tired, very hungry human being.

The houses surrounding you suddenly seemed far more interesting.

Some had broken windows while others appeared untouched. A few still had vehicles parked neatly in their driveways, as though the owners might return at any moment.

The sight sparked a thought.

If the herd had been moving through this area regularly— or even if large groups of walkers simply wandered nearby— then many survivors would likely avoid the neighborhood entirely.

The risk just wouldn’t be worth it.

Clearing a house was one thing— clearing a house while multiple walkers roamed the surrounding streets was something else entirely.

For the first time all day, genuine hope lightened your frame.

If you were right, there might still be supplies here. Food, medicine, water. The possibilities seemed almost too good to believe.

Your steps slowed as the herd continued onward.

Immediately, a surprising feeling tugged at your heart.

Reluctance.

The emotion caught you completely off guard. Objectively speaking, you should have been thrilled to leave.

You had spent damn near the entire day surrounded by flesh-eating monsters! Normal people did not become attached to zombie herds!

Yet as you watched them continue down the street, you felt a faint sense of unease.

The herd had become familiar— safe.

At least, as safe as anything in this world could be.

Leaving meant stepping back into uncertainty. Leaving meant being alone again.

You paused before laughing softly.

Nope, you weren’t going to think about it. If you didn’t acknowledge the sinking feeling in your gut, it didn’t exist.

Food first, mental breakdown later.

Drawing in a steadying breath, you stepped away from the herd and crossed the street.

The neighborhood lacked the obvious signs of repeated scavenging. There were no doors hanging from hinges, no smashed-in walls— no evidence that desperate survivors had stripped the houses bare.

Hope fluttered in your chest again.

Carefully, you made your way up the driveway of the nearest home.

The house itself was modest but charming. It was painted a soft shade of blue that reminded you of the sky on a sunny day. Flower beds bordered the front walkway, now overgrown with weeds and wild grass. A wooden rocking chair sat abandoned on the porch.

You lightly trailed your hand against the armrest of the chair, swallowing thickly as you did so.

Someone had once considered this place home.

You forced yourself to keep moving. You reached the front door and grabbed the bronze doorknob with a shaky grip.

The front door stood unlocked.

That fact alone told a story.

You couldn’t imagine leaving your house unlocked under normal circumstances. Whatever had happened here had happened quickly. The owners had likely rushed out with only the things they could carry, fully expecting to return once the emergency ended.

Nobody had returned.

The interior was quiet as you crossed the threshold of the house. Not eerie, exactly. Just empty.

Dust coated the interior in a thin gray layer. Sunlight filtered through the windows, illuminating tiny particles that drifted lazily through the air. Family photographs decorated the walls of the hallway, smiling faces frozen in moments of happiness that felt impossibly distant now.

The pictures made this harder.

It was easier to think of abandoned houses as resources.

It was much harder when confronted with evidence that real people had once lived inside them.

The kitchen became your first target.

Mostly because food was your immediate priority, but also because focusing on a practical task prevented you from dwelling on everything else.

You gently pried the door to the pantry open and froze, your mouth falling open in shock.

The shelves were still stocked.

Rows of canned vegetables sat neatly arranged beside boxed pasta and bags of rice. Soup cans occupied an entire shelf. Crackers, peanut butter, oatmeal, and various other non-perishables remained untouched.

A smile stretched across your face before you could stop it.

“Oh my god.”

Relief washed over you so suddenly that your knees nearly gave out.

You had prepared yourself to find scraps, a few overlooked items. Maybe enough food to survive a day or two if you were lucky.

Instead, you were looking at enough supplies to last for weeks.

‘No sane survivor would willingly search houses surrounded by walker herds.’

For the first time all day, you found yourself genuinely appreciating your absurd decision.

Following the herd had actually worked.

You quickly began removing items from the pantry, placing them in neat piles across the kitchen counter. Cans went together. Boxes went together. Anything remotely useful was carefully sorted into groups.

It wasn’t until you’d accumulated an impressive mountain of supplies that a new problem occurred to you.

You had absolutely no way of carrying any of it.

You stared at the collection.

The collection stared back.

A loud groan reverberated from the back of your throat. You dragged a hand down your face, your eyebrows pinching together in frustration.

Of course it couldn’t be that easy.

Leaving the food behind felt physically painful, but there was little point gathering supplies if you couldn’t transport them.

You stepped away from the kitchen and began searching the house.

The living room yielded little beyond dusty furniture and more reminders that people had once lived here. A blanket remained draped over the arm of a recliner. A few books rested on a side table beside a pair of reading glasses.

You hurried past both.

The hallways led to four rooms. You chose the first one and stepped in.

The bed remained neatly made. Family photographs occupied the dresser. Sunlight spilled across the carpet through partially opened curtains.

For a moment, you just stood there.

There was something uniquely unsettling about bedrooms. More than every other room in a house, they felt personal. You pushed the discomfort aside and began checking the room.

It didn’t take long for you to find what you were looking for.

Tucked near the back of the closet sat a large duffel bag.

The bag looked sturdy enough to carry a significant amount of weight. It was larger than anything you could have hoped to find.

You unzipped it and discovered a collection of colorful envelopes, folded paper decorations, and greeting cards stacked neatly inside.

For a moment, confusion replaced your excitement.

Then understanding followed.

Birthday cards.

Years worth of them, judging by the quantity.

You could have read them but you quickly squashed down the thought. Taking the bag already felt uncomfortable enough. Reading the cards would be crossing a line.

Carefully, you removed the contents and placed them in a tidy stack on a nearby shelf. You avoided looking too closely at the writing. A few colorful envelopes slipped loose during the process, revealing fragments of cheerful handwriting and cute stickers.

You ignored them.

Some things weren’t yours.

The cards remained where you left them as a monument to people you would never know.

Once the bag was finally empty, you slung it over your shoulder and headed back toward the kitchen.

As you began carefully packing the cans and boxes into the duffel, a reluctant thought surfaced.

Maybe following the herd hadn’t been the worst decision you’d ever made.

————————————————

Your shoulder was beginning to ache from the weight of the duffel bag.

The discomfort was worth it, though.

The bag was stuffed with canned food, bottled water, batteries, flashlights, spare clothes, and enough miscellaneous supplies to make you feel almost optimistic. Considering you’d arrived in this world with absolutely nothing, the transformation felt borderline miraculous.

You’d already searched most of the houses.

The first had been terrifying.

The second had been awkward.

By the third, you’d accidentally started developing a system.

Kitchen first, medicine second, anything useful afterward.

Somewhere around house number five, you had also realized you’d begun talking to yourself.

Quite a lot, actually.

The discovery had been prompted by a walker wearing a wedding ring.

You’d spotted it while crossing a driveway and spent nearly ten minutes wondering about the person’s life before abruptly catching yourself speaking your theories out loud.

The walker hadn’t cared.

At one point, you’d even found yourself walking alongside a woman in a tattered yellow cardigan while discussing the merits of canned ravioli.

She didn’t respond, obviously, but you’d like to think she agreed with you.

The house at the end of the street finally drew your attention away from your silent walking companion. You bid a quick farewell, to which she only groaned. Rude.

The house sat slightly apart from the others, partially hidden behind a collection of mature oak trees whose branches stretched over the roof like protective arms. The yard was overgrown, but less so than some of the neighboring properties. Ivy climbed one side of the house, softening the structures edges and making it feel oddly secluded.

Something about the place tugged at your memory. For a few seconds, you stood in the driveway trying to place it.

Then you shrugged.

You’d spent years watching The Walking Dead. You were beginning to suspect that half the state of Georgia felt familiar now.

The front door was locked.

The discovery should not have been surprising, yet it frustrated you all the same.

You rattled the knob one last time before stepping back with a sigh. The windows proved no more cooperative. Whoever had lived here had made damn sure the place was locked tight before they left.

Alright then.

Improv has always been one of your strong suits.

Your gaze drifted toward one of the decorative rocks lining the porch, already weighing whether it was worth sacrificing a window, when something else caught your eye.

A squat little stone frog sat beside the front steps, grinning at you with the vacant optimism only lawn ornaments seem capable of.

Well… it couldn’t hurt to try.

You crouched and lifted the statue.

Sure enough, tucked neatly beneath its stony ass sat a small brass key.

Thank god for cliches!

Sliding the frog aside, you snatched up the key and returned to the front door. It slipped into the lock with an almost disappointingly soft ‘click’.

And just like that, you’re in.

The door creaked open as you peeked your head inside.

Two walkers occupy the foyer. Neither seemed particularly interested in you. They barely spared you a glance before returning to… whatever it was walkers did when they weren’t trying to eat somebody.

Fine by you.

You let them to whatever depressing hobby occupied the undead and headed straight for the kitchen.

Throwing open the pantry door, you fully expected to find shelves lined with canned food like the rest of the neighborhood.

Instead, a pair of spiders and several enthusiastic dust bunnies greet you.

The spiders scattered as you stared into the empty pantry, thoroughly betrayed.

“Guess I got too cocky…”

With a sigh, you shut the pantry and started opening cupboards instead. No matter, surely there had to be—

A single can of dog food on the shelf.

It somehow managed to look smug.

Huh.

Alright, so the kitchen is a bust. Go figure.

You trudged back through the foyer, brushing past the walkers with an exaggerated groan when one of them happened to turn its head in your direction.

“Oh, don’t start!”

Couldn’t they see you were in the middle of a crisis?! Who knew when you’d stumble across another neighborhood this untouched?

Your footsteps echoed through the house as your search continued, each room somehow more disappointing than the last. By the time you climbed the stairs, your patience had all but vanished.

The second floor wasn’t any better than the first!

Bedroom, bathroom, closet— all useless!

Finally, you stopped in the doorway of what looked like a teenagers bedroom, your foot tapping impatiently against the hardwood floor.

Band posters plastered nearly every inch of the walls. Some you vaguely recognized, but most you didn’t.

None of them held your attention for long.

No…

What caught your eye was the bulky old computer sitting on the desk beneath the window.

Your eyes lit up.

The thing was practically a museum exhibit! It still had the giant monitor box and everything!

You wandered over, looking it over with open curiosity. A tape-recorder sat precariously on the edge of the desk, while the keyboard was surrounded by multiple cassette tapes. A few had handwritten labels, but most were left blank.

You picked one up.

Across the faded strip of masking tape, someone had scribbled:

‘Pops Mix :P’

A smile tugged at your lips.

Your dad used to ramble for ages about how much of a pain making mixtapes had been back in the day. Sitting by the radio for hours, finger hovering over the record button, praying the DJ wouldn’t start talking halfway through the song…

So for some moody teenager to make one for their dad…

They must’ve been close.

Carefully, you set the cassette back on the desk before sifting through the others. The labeled tapes followed much the same pattern— Mom’s Road Trip Mix, Summer Songs, a few dedicated entirely to individual bands.

A whistle pushed past your pursed lips as you took it all in. This kid had been obsessed with music.

Then something else caught your eye.

Nestled innocently among the chaos sat a Walkman

A delighted squeal escaped before you could stop it.

You knew what a Walkman was, of course, but only because your dad had brought his old one out for you to gawk at. They’d gone out of style before you were even born!

You snatched it up like you’d just discovered buried treasure.

A pair of worn headphones was already plugged into it. You settled them over your ears, then spent the next minute squinting at the buttons with growing determination.

“C’mon…”

The thing couldn’t be that complicated!

Eventually, stubbornness won out and you pressed Play.

For one long, agonizing moment… nothing.

Then the cassette whirred to life and the blessed sound of music flooded your ears.

Your eyes widened when the song was something you knew.

“… The Wanderer?”

You’d know that song anywhere!

Sure, it was decades older than you were, but after sinking an embarrassing number of hours into Fallout 4, hearing it felt strangely… comforting.

The familiar tune washes over you, filling a silence you hadn’t noticed until now. Ever since you found yourself stranded in this nightmare of a universe, there had been no music.

Just groaning walkers.

You hadn’t realized how much you missed it.

By the time the chorus rolled around, there was an undeniable spring in your step.

You gathered up the remaining cassettes, carefully slipping every labeled one into your duffel bag.

Your hand hovered over ‘Pops Mix :P’.

Would taking that one be crossing a line? You didn’t take the letters from the other house, why should this be any different?

You stared at it for a few quiet seconds before sighing and picking it up anyway. These tapes had been made with love. Leaving them here to gather dust— or worse, rot away with the house— felt like the greater tragedy.

Once the cassettes were safely tucked away, you turned your attention to the rest of the room.

The closet was stocked with graphic tees and faded band shirts, but one in particular caught your eye.

A nearly pristine Transformers T-shirt.

You couldn’t help but grin.

The Walking Dead never nailed down an exact year for the outbreak, but most fans agreed it kicked off sometime around 2010. If that theory held true…

The first couple of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies would have already been out.

Across the black cotton, Bumblebee posed triumphantly in bright yellow. Childlike glee fills your form as you grab the shirt. Little you would have killed for a shirt like this!

“I’m just gonna… take this.”

Your voice filled the empty room, but it’s not like you were expecting an answer. Still, your next words come out all the same.

“Thank you.”

It felt silly talking to an empty house, even sillier thanking people who were almost certainly dead.

Still…

You hopes they would’ve understood.

Setting your duffel bag onto the floor, you peeled off your sweat-soaked shirt with a grimace. It clung stubbornly to your skin before finally coming free.

You send a silent ‘thank you’ to every god that you can think of that you decided to wear a sports bra instead of going commando.

The clean shirt slipped over your head a moment later, and you practically sighed in relief as fresh cotton settled against your skin. It wasn’t just cleaner, it felt… normal.

For a few precious seconds, you could almost pretend you weren’t scavenging through the apocalypse.

You clipped the Walkman onto the waistband of your jeans, settled the headphones over your ears once more, and slung your duffel bag back across your shoulder.

One room left.

You nudged open the door— and immediately stumbled back with a startled yelp.

A massive owl stared back at you, its golden eyes never blinking.

“Oh.”

Your heartbeat slowly drifted back down from your throat.

The owl remained perfectly still, save for a slight puff of its feathers that managed to convey mild irritation.

“…sorry.”

You couldn’t help yourself.

Owls had been one of your favorite animals ever since third grade. You still remembered sitting cross-legged on the classroom carpet while your teacher explained how silently they could fly. Eight-year-old you had been completely obsessed.

Standing only a few feet away from one now felt…

Weirdly familiar.

Like there was something important sitting just beyond the edge of your memory. A frown tugged at your lips.

Slowly, you raised your hands in a placating gesture and crouched a little lower, trying to make yourself appear as unthreatening as possible.

“Hey, buddy…”

The owl regarded you with all the enthusiasm of an exhausted customer service worker, but it didn’t fly away.

Small victories.

Music continued humming softly through your headphones as you closed the remaining distance one careful step at a time.

When you were finally close enough, you hesitated before slowly reaching out.

Your fingertips brushed impossibly soft feathers and you smiled.

The moment lasted exactly two heartbeats.

Something hard pressed into the center of your back.

Every muscle in your body locked and your breath caught in your throat.

Not a walker.

The ones downstairs would’ve been moaning long before they reached you, and if they’d somehow wandered up here, the bird would’ve caught their attention first.

This…

This was a person.

Before you could react, the headphones were ripped from your head. The music died, and a rough, gravel-worn voice spoke directly behind you.

“Stay still.”

Cold metal dug harder between your shoulder blades.

“Move…”

A beat of silence.

“And I kill you.”

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Finally bringing the main cast into play! I was going to start with Reader finding Hershel’s farm, but I got lazy and decided to just jump headfirst into season 3 😭

Hope y’all enjoyed!

Your lungs burned.

The feeling struck somewhere between your fifth and fiftieth glance over your shoulder. Time had become meaningless the moment you started running. Every thought had narrowed into a single desperate objective: put as much distance between yourself and the walkers as physically possible.

The problem was that your body had never received the memo.

You weren’t Rick, or Daryl, or Glenn, or Michonne, or any other badass main character from the show.

You weren’t even one of the background survivors who somehow managed to sprint across forests every other episode without collapsing from exhaustion.

You were a person who had spent most of the evening curled up beneath a blanket with a bowl of popcorn.

The difference was becoming painfully apparent.

Your legs felt like lead. Each step jarred through your knees and hips. Dry grass slapped against your calves as you stumbled through the field, desperately trying to maintain a pace that your body was increasingly unwilling to provide.

A stitch had developed in your side ten minutes ago. At least, you thought it was ten minutes. It might have been less, it might have been more. Your heart was beating so hard that it felt impossible to judge anything accurately.

The only thing you knew for certain was that you couldn’t keep this up forever.

The thought sent another surge of panic through you.

Because the walkers could.

Walkers didn’t get tired.

They didn’t need water.

They didn’t need sleep.

A human could outrun them for a while, but eventually exhaustion would win.

It always did.

You risked another glance over your shoulder.

The herd remained there.

A sprawling mass of bodies moving steadily across the landscape.

The sight nearly made your stomach drop out through your shoes.

You immediately turned forward again and pushed yourself harder.

Your breathing had become ragged, every inhale scraping against your throat. The afternoon heat only made things worse. Sweat soaked through your clothes and clung uncomfortably to your skin.

The Georgia sun.

Of course it had to be Georgia.

You had never appreciated just how miserable Georgia looked until you found yourself running through it.

A hysterical laugh almost escapes you.

The absurdity of that thought was enough to make you feel slightly unhinged.

You had been transported into a zombie apocalypse.

You were being chased by a herd of the undead.

And somehow your brain had chosen that exact moment to complain about the weather.

Maybe panic was finally frying your remaining brain cells.

The field gradually gave way to a sparse collection of trees. You veered toward them immediately, driven little more than by instinct. Open ground felt dangerous. Trees meant cover.

Not that you had any idea what you were covering yourself from.

The walkers had already seen you.

At least, you assumed they had.

Several of them had been looking directly at you.

The memory alone sent another burst of adrenaline through your veins.

You pushed between two trees and nearly tripped over an exposed root. A startled yelp escaped before you managed to catch yourself.

Your foot slipped.

For one horrifying second, you thought you were going down.

Images flashed through your mind with brutal speed.

You falling.

A broken ankle.

The herd catching up.

Tearing hands.

Rotting teeth.

The end.

Somehow, you regained your balance at the last second and a shaky breath pushed itself from your chest.

“Okay,” you wheezed.

The word sounded more desperate than reassuring.

You forced your legs to keep moving, ignoring the burning that spreads through your body.

Eventually, your body makes the decision for you.

The adrenaline that had fueled your escape could only carry you so far, and it had long since begun to burn itself out. No matter how desperately you tried to force your legs onward, they felt heavier with every step. The stitch from earlier had only worsened, your throat felt raw from panting, and each breath seemed to bring in less air than the one before it.

You staggered toward the nearest tree and braced a hand against the trunk, bending forward as your lungs fought to recover. Sweat dripped from your forehead and into your eyes, stinging enough to make you wince. For a few moments, all you could do was stand there and breathe, focusing entirely on the simple act of remaining upright.

Gradually, the worst of the dizziness began to fade.

The moment it did, panic returned.

The walkers.

Your head snapped up and you immediately regretted the movement when the world tilted slightly beneath your feet. Ignoring the sensation, you turned toward the direction you’d come from and searched for the herd.

They were still there.

The walkers continued their slow march across the countryside, their movements as steady and relentless as ever. The sight alone was enough to send your pulse racing again. Yet as you watched them, something about the scene felt strangely off.

You frowned and squinted into the distance.

The herd wasn’t closing in.

At least, not in the way you had expected.

You had spent the last twenty minutes running as though your life depended on it. Given the amount of noise you’d made, the walkers should have been converging on your location. They should have been drifting toward the sound of your movement and your voice.

Instead, the herd appeared to be following the same general course it had maintained from the beginning.

For a moment, you wondered if exhaustion was clouding your judgement.

A few walkers wandered near the edge of the herd, occasionally turning their heads as though reacting to distant sounds. One of them seemed to look directly toward your position.

You choked on a breath and pressed yourself closer to the tree.

The walker lingered there for a moment, its ruined face angled in your direction, and a familiar surge of fear swept through you. You could practically feel your body preparing to run again.

Then the walker simply turned away.

No lunge.

No sudden burst of movement.

No reaction at all.

It resumed shuffling forward alongside the rest of the herd as though you weren’t standing there.

You stared after it.

Several seconds passed.

Then several more.

Nothing changed.

The herd continued onward, paying no more attention to you than it did to the trees or the grass around it.

Slowly, confusion began to push its way through the panic.

You remained where you were, watching the walkers disappear farther into the distance while your thoughts raced to catch up with what your eyes were seeing. The longer you stood there, the harder it became to ignore the growing inconsistency.

Walkers didn’t behave like this.

You knew that better than most people. You’d spent years watching the show. You knew what attracted them, what distracted them, and what happened when a living person made the mistake of drawing their attention.

A person running across an open field while shouting would have been impossible for them to ignore.

Yet that was exactly what they seemed to be doing.

Your thoughts drifted back to the moment you’d arrived. At the time, sheer terror had overwhelmed everything else. You had seen walkers and immediately focused on escaping them.

Now, with a little distance from that initial panic, details you hadn’t noticed before began to resurface.

The walkers had looked at you, you were certain of that.

Multiple had turned their heads in your direction.

But none of them had changed course, none of them had sped up.

None of them displayed the slightest indication that they viewed you as prey.

For a long minute, you remained exactly where you were.

Your back rested against the tree trunk while the herd continued its slow progress across the countryside, utterly indifferent to your existence. The walkers drifted through the tall grass in loose clusters, occasionally bumping into one another before correcting course and continuing onward. From a distance, they almost looked peaceful.

The illusion vanished the moment you focused on the details.

Sunken faces.

Rotting flesh.

Torn clothing stained with months of dirt and decay.

They were still walkers. Still monsters. Still the same creatures that had spent over a decade terrorizing television audiences and devouring unfortunate survivors.

The fact that they weren’t trying to eat you did little to make the sight less disturbing.

You scrubbed a hand over your face and immediately regretted it when you realized how much sweat had accumulated there. The sun felt relentless. Combined with the panic attack, the sprint across half a field, and the general trauma of being ripped out of reality and dropped into a television series, you felt absolutely miserable.

Your throat was dry.

Your legs ached.

Your entire body felt one minor inconvenience away from simply lying down in the grass and giving up.

The thought was alarmingly tempting.

Unfortunately, dying of dehydration in a field would be a particularly embarrassing way to end your story.

Assuming this was a story.

The uncertainty surrounding your situation continues to gnaw at you. Every now and then, your brain attempted to convince itself that none of this was real. Perhaps you were unconscious somewhere. Maybe this was just an extraordinarily vivid dream.

Then the hot wind would brush against your skin or your aching muscles would remind you of their existence, and the fantasy would crumble.

Dreams weren’t usually this uncomfortable.

Your gaze drifted back toward the herd.

They had moved farther away during your rest.

Not much, just enough that you could feel the distance growing.

You should leave.

The thought returned for what felt like the hundredth time.

You should head in the opposite direction and put as much space between yourself and the undead as possible. Every piece of common sense you possessed agreed with that assessment.

The problem was that common sense wasn’t offering any alternatives.

You were stranded in the middle of rural Georgia with no supplies, no shelter, and no real idea where you were.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

You had a general idea.

You knew you were somewhere in The Walking Dead universe. Unfortunately, that information was significantly less useful than it sounded. Georgia contained a lot of land. Knowing you were somewhere within it didn’t magically provide directions.

You could wander for days without finding another person.

And if you did find another person…

You grimaced.

Not everyone would be as kind as the main cast.

One of the first lessons The Walking Dead taught its audience was that other survivors were often more dangerous than the walkers. Given the choice between encountering a random stranger and encountering a random walker, you weren’t entirely sure which option was supposed to be more reassuring.

With a groan, you tilted your head back against the tree.

“Okay,” you muttered. “Let’s think.”

The request was immediately complicated by the fact that panic continued to occupy approximately ninety percent of your brain.

Still, you tried.

The walkers ignored you.

That much appeared undeniable.

You had screamed, run, stumbled, and generally behaved like the worlds least competent survivor. Under normal circumstances, a herd should have torn you apart long ago.

Instead, they had barely acknowledged your existence.

The implications of that were bizarre enough to deserve their own breakdown later.

For now, the important part was that the walkers didn’t seem dangerous to you.

At least not directly.

The thought lingered for longer than it should.

Slowly, a deeply questionable idea began to form.

The more you considered the possibility, the worse it sounded…

Which, unfortunately, didn’t make it any less practical.

“No.”

You shook your head fervently, almost in an attempt to shake the thought away.

Absolutely not, that was insane! The sort of decision made by horror movie extras moments before their untimely deaths!

But…

The walkers ignored you. Better yet, everyone else feared them.

Large herds acted like moving exclusion zones. Survivors avoided them whenever possible. Nobody willingly approached hundreds of walkers— not unless they had a death wish.

Which meant the herd offered something surprisingly valuable.

Privacy.

Protection.

A giant warning sign visible from miles away.

You briefly imagined approaching another survivor alone. The image was not encouraging.

For all you knew, they could rob you, kill you, or do something that was far worse.

The herd, on the other hand, was predictable.

Terrifying, rotting, horrifying…

But predictable.

You knew exactly where they would be, how they would behave, and for reasons beyond your comprehension, they wanted absolutely nothing to do with you.

It was still an unbelievably terrible idea.

You swallowed thickly before pushing yourself away from the tree.

Every muscle immediately complained— you ignored them.

The herd continued their funeral procession through the field.

You stared at the sea of rotting corpses stretching across the landscape and wondered if you had finally lost your mind.

That honestly felt like the most reasonable explanation.

Then, with all the enthusiasm of someone volunteering for their own execution, you started after them.

You kept your distance at first, staying far enough back that you could convince yourself you weren’t actually walking alongside a herd of the undead. The distinction was largely meaningless, but your rapidly deteriorating sanity appreciated the effort.

Walking after the herd, one single thought bounced around your head:

This was the stupidest thing you had ever done.

The rain had been falling for hours.

Distant thunder rumbles as water continues to pelt against your windows, turning them into mirrors that reflect the warm glow of the living room back at you. Every now and then, headlights from passing cars streaked across the glass, brief flashes of white and red before disappearing into the wet darkness outside.

It was the perfect weather for lazing about inside.

You were curled up on one end of the couch, wrapped tightly in your favorite blanket until only your head remained visible. The blanket had long since trapped your body heat, turning the little nest you’d created into a cocoon of warmth that made the thought of standing up feel genuinely offensive.

A half-finished bowl of popcorn sat on the coffee table within easy reach. Beside it rested a large cup of soda, beads of condensation slowly sliding down the plastic. The open bag of Reese’s Pieces was tucked against your hip, forgotten for the moment as your attention remained fixed on the television.

The familiar opening theme of The Walking Dead echoed softly through the apartment.

Again.

At this point, you couldn’t even pretend this rewatch hadn’t been planned.

You had intended to watch a single episode, maybe two at the most.

Instead, several hours had vanished without your notice.

The second season had always been one of your favorites. It wasn’t the most action-packed season, and it certainly wasn’t the fastest, but there was something about Hershel’s farm that kept drawing you back. Maybe it was the temporary illusion of safety, or maybe it was the way the characters still had enough hope left to believe things might eventually get better.

Or maybe you were just nostalgic.

Either way, you had found yourself back here yet again.

You watched as the survivors argued on-screen, already knowing exactly how every conversation would end. Every reveal, every betrayal, every death had been permanently etched into your memory years ago.

That didn’t stop you from watching with rapt attention.

When a character made a terrible decision, you rolled your eyes.

When someone said something hypocritical, you immediately called them out despite being completely alone.

When one of your favorite scenes appeared, you found yourself smiling before it had even properly begun.

There was something deeply comforting about knowing what would happen next.

Life rarely offered that luxury.

Stories did.

The episode continued to play while rain tapped gently against the windows and the occasional crackles of lighting lit the room up in bright spurts. Time slipped by unnoticed. One handful of popcorn became another. Then another. Somewhere along the way, the candy bag grew lighter.

By the time the credits rolled, you were surprised to discover the popcorn bowl was nearly empty.

You leaned forward and grabbed the remote from the coffee table, intending to turn the television off.

Instead, your thumb hovered over the button.

The next episode was already loading.

You stared at the countdown.

Five seconds.

Four.

Three.

“I should go to bed…”

The empty apartment failed to offer an opinion.

Two.

One.

The episode started.

You sighed dramatically and settled deeper into the couch.

“One more.”

A promise neither you nor the universe believed as the opening scenes began to play. The farm was gone and the group was on the road.

Lost.

Exhausted.

Surrounded by an endless world of death.

You watched the familiar images unfold while absentmindedly reaching for your bag of candy. Your fingers dipped into the bag and camp up empty.

Frowning, you peered inside.

Nothing.

You blinked.

Hadn’t there been half a bag left?

The realization made a laugh bubble up in your throat.

Apparently not.

Setting the empty bag aside, you stretched beneath the blanket. Your shoulders popped pleasantly. The warmth around you seemed to double the moment you relaxed.

You glanced toward the kitchen, the microwave clock catching your attention.

11:47 PM.

Later than expected but not surprising.

The rain continued pouring outside while the TV cast flickering light across the room.

Everything felt peaceful.

Safe.

For a moment, you simply sat there and enjoyed it. A yawn escaped before you could stop it, causing your eyes to water. The characters on-screen continued their journey down an abandoned road while you fought off a second yawn.

You were losing.

Badly.

The sounds of the episode gradually blended together with the rain. The groans of distant walkers mixed with the hum of the refrigerator. The steady rhythm of dialogue became harder to follow as your attention drifted.

Your eyelids felt heavier with every passing minute.

You blinked once.

Twice.

The television seemed strangely bright when you opened your eyes again.

The image on-screen had shifted to a massive herd of walkers moving together through the countryside.

Something felt… off.

You blinked a few times, trying to clear the lingering haze from your mind.

The herd was still crossing the screen. Hundreds of walkers shuffled together beneath an endless blue sky, moving with the same relentless pace that had made them so unsettling all those years ago. It should have looked familiar. You had seen the episode countless times.

Instead, you found yourself frowning.

The image looked unusually sharp, noticeably lacking the visible grain that was present in the early season.

The sunlight looked brighter.

The details seemed clearer somehow.

You shifted beneath your blanket, intending to sit up a little straighter, only to pause when something hot brushed against your face.

Hot?

That wasn’t right.

Your apartment was comfortably warm, but not hot. Certainly not hot enough for sunlight to feel like it was resting directly on your skin.

Slowly, you became aware of other sensations as well. A breeze stirred against your arms. Somewhere nearby, grass rustled softly. The sounds were faint, but distinct enough that they immediately felt out of place.

Confusion began to replace the last remnants of drowsiness.

You blinked again.

The television remained bright.

Too bright.

A knot of unease formed in your stomach.

When you looked upward, expecting to see the familiar ceiling of your apartment, your mind simply stopped.

For one impossible moment, your thoughts went completely blank.

There was no ceiling.

No light fixture.

No apartment.

Above you stretched a vast blue sky unmarred by anything except a few drifting clouds.

You stared at it.

Then stared some more.

Your brain stubbornly refused to make sense of what your eyes were telling it.

That wasn’t possible.

You had been sitting on your couch.

You remembered the weight of the blanket wrapped around your shoulders. You remembered the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and the candy tucked beside you on the cushions. You remembered the rain tapping against the windows.

You remembered it all with perfect clarity.

So why were you looking at the sky?

A sharp jolt of fear shot through your chest.

You pushed yourself upright so quickly that dizziness washed over you. Instead of sinking into couch cushions, your hands met rough grass and uneven dirt. The texture scraped against your palms, startlingly real beneath your touch.

The sight of it sent your pulse racing.

You scrambled to your feet.

The world spun around you.

A wide field stretched around you, interrupted only by patches of trees and distant hills. There were no buildings. No roads. No signs of civilization. Nothing remotely familiar.

For several seconds, you simply turned in place, searching desperately for something that made sense.

There had to be an explanation.

A prank.

A dream.

A medical emergency.

Anything.

Your breathing quickened as you gaze swept across the landscape again and again. The harder you looked, the worse the panic became. Every direction revealed more of the same empty countryside.

“No…”

The word slipped out before you could stop it.

Your voice sounded wrong in the open air.

Too small.

Too fragile.

You swallowed hard and tried to steady yourself, but your hands had already begun to shake. Reaching into your pocket was almost instinctive. You searched for your phone, hoping for something familiar to anchor yourself to.

Your pocket was empty.

A fresh surge of panic crashed through you.

You checked again, turning it inside out.

Then your other pocket.

Then both a third time, despite knowing how ridiculous it was.

Nothing.

No phone.

No wallet.

No keys.

The realization struck with alarming force. Whatever had happened, you hadn’t simply wandered outside while half asleep. Everything from your life was gone.

You felt your chest tighten.

The beginnings of a panic attack clawed their way upward.

“Help!”

The shout burst from your throat before you consciously decided to call out.

Your voice carried across the field.

No answer came.

You shouted again, louder this time.

Still nothing.

The silence that followed was somehow worse than if no sound had existed at all. It left you along with your racing heartbeat and spiraling thoughts.

Then the wind shifted.

The smell hit you almost instantly.

Rot.

Your stomach lurched.

It was a foul, sickening odor that seemed to coat the back of your throat. Instinctively, you raised a hand to cover your nose, but it did little to help.

The smell only grew stronger.

A chill crawled up your spine.

Something about it felt familiar.

Not because you had ever encountered anything quite like it before, but because your brain had already begun drawing connections that you desperately did not want to acknowledge.

Slowly, you turned toward the source.

The figure emerging from the tall grass looked human at first glance.

At second glance, it looked anything but.

Its movements were wrong. Its skin hung in gray, decaying strips. Part of its face appeared to have collapsed inward, exposing darkened teeth beneath ruined flesh.

A scream caught in your throat.

Every instinct screamed at you to run, yet you remained frozen where you stood.

Because you recognized it.

Not the person.

The creature.

You knew exactly what it was.

A walker.

Years spent watching episodes on your couch. Endless discussion posts online. Character deaths that had left you staring at your television is disbelief.

As though determined to confirm your worst fears, another figure staggered into view behind the first. Then another.

A herd.

A cold wave of dread washed through your entire body.

The possibility that had been lurking at the edge of your thoughts suddenly stepped into the light, impossible to ignore any longer.

The realization shattered whatever composure you had managed to cling to.

Tears stung your eyes. Your breathing became shallow and uneven. Every horrifying memory associated with the series seemed to crash into your mind at once. You remembered the deaths. The starvation. The violence. The countless ways people suffered long before they died.

Most terrifying of all, you knew that unlike the characters, you weren’t written for this world.

You weren’t a survivor.

You were a fan who had been watching from the safety of a couch less than five minutes ago.

And now that safety was gone.

With barely any time to think, you turned on your heels and ran.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

New story, woohoo! Hope y’all liked it!

You walked into the office, shrugging off the purple cardigan that was slightly bigger than your usual size and draping it over your chair. As usual, you placed your bag under your desk and turned on your PC before settling down, ready to focus for the day. Though, the second you spotted Spencer approaching, you instantly announced your daily fun fact.

“Did you know that peanut butter can be turned into diamonds? Fun fact.” From the corner of your eyes, you saw Emily pause at your statement. Spencer, on the other hand, grinned at your words.

“Good morning.” Spencer placed his coffee cup down on his desk first before coming to your side, holding yours out for you. You carefully took the ceramic vessel from him, muttering gratitude at his kind action. His other hand lingered on your back before withdrawing out of respect for the fact that you were both clocked in at work. 

His eyes soon noticed the clothing item that hung on your chair. 

“Was wondering where that one went,” your boyfriend murmured.

Boyfriend. Even after three months and having grown used to calling Spencer by that title, you still feel giggly at such a term. In fact, your lips curled right then while thinking of the word again.

You took in Spencer’s attire, specifically, the way that his purple button-up (coincidentally) matched the purple cardigan you had stolen from him two weeks ago. For a split second, you considered coordinating outfits deliberately with him, but in subtle ways.

“Hold on a second, peanut butter can what?” Emily double checked.

“I know, right?” you breathed out before reaching under your desk and pulling out an information-packed tome, dropping the heavy object onto the furniture’s surface. 

It was Rossi’s courtesy. A month and a half ago, the old man decided to give you a fact book in hopes you could still win this bet before eight months were up. Unfortunately, his gift was unable to aid you much in your intellectual combat against Spencer, and thus, failed to prevent Rossi’s loss of his bet on a victory before the eight-month mark. 

You carefully opened to the page where you had seen the fact and held it up for Emily to see.

“Well, would you consider having a peanut butter diamond ring?” she joked, though Spencer quickly jumped in.

“Actually, I would advise against it. Oftentimes, the lab-manufactured results are small. So they’re unsuitable for proposal rings.” His words almost felt personal with the way Spencer’s eyes fell to your hand, and you smirked teasingly.

“Why? You think I should have a big diamond instead of a small rock?” Instantly, your boyfriend’s ears grew hot, and you almost laughed at the way he started stuttering. 

“Well, I just—on average, women tend to prefer a sizable diamond ring when proposed to. But also, like—well, I mean—you—”

“Me?”

“With your finger size—”

“How do you know my finger size?”

“Your ring was next to a couple of coins the other day—”

“Oh? And you decided to notice and remember this information, why?” You smirked, enjoying the way your relentless teasing was turning Spencer into a mess. But in all honesty, you were not that surprised. Spencer’s brain often stored information that most tend to overlook.

“Yeah, Spencer. Planning to drop down on one knee soon?” Emily’s added effort to poke at Spencer only made him more flustered, though the genius eventually was able to overcome it and continued speaking.

“With your finger size, the most suitable—preferences aside—would be a 1.0-1.5 carat diamond ring, and the peanut butter manufactured ones would be nowhere near that. Besides, diamonds made of peanut butter are often discolored largely due to impurities such as hydrogen and nitrogen, which are non-carbon components, getting trapped during diamond formation processes that involve high heat. Meanwhile, diamonds are mainly made of carbon atoms.”

“Would you like to know my diamond size preference, Spence?” was your only reply, and those words had Spencer’s face blooming bright red. Once again, he stammered to organise his words, yet a sentence could not be strung together.

Together, you and Emily burst out laughing at Spencer’s speechless state. Though the two of you began shifting to get back to work. Emily returned to her own desk, amusement lingering on her face. Meanwhile, you slowly spun your chair back to your PC, your laughter replaced by a full-on smile.

Yet, Spencer did not move from his spot. In fact, the sight of you smiling and your eyes crinkling had Spencer’s gaze softening.

Eighty seven days since he had told you that you were his favorite fun fact, a title Spencer continued to frequently refer to you as.

Prior to the prospect of you two, Spencer had made peace with a mundane dating-less life, living in a repetitive monotone manner. But now that he has you, that kind of life sounded dreadful. With you, mundane things became highlights of his day and the staples of his boyfriend-adjusted daily routine.

But above all, every day, he got to learn new things about you, like where you like to read in your apartment, how you like to separate your laundry, or your preferred side of the bed. Each and every new detail he discovered folded into the wrinkles of his brain like all along, the organ was made just to hold facts about you.

The genius bit back a smile.

That afternoon, Spencer walked you to your car like always. But instead of saying goodbye and heading off to the metro station by himself like before, the genius got into your passenger seat, and the two of you left the office together. As you were driving both of you back to his apartment, Spencer’s eyes darted to your hand again.

Calling you his forever favorite fun fact instead?

Spencer found himself really liking the sound of that.

The corner of his lips lifted before he looked away.

Maybe someday.

・┈・┈・┈・┈・┈・

⟡ navigation ⭒ masterlist

⟡ spencer reid masterlist

⟡ join my spencer reid tag list (or to remove yourself from)

・┈・┈・┈・┈・┈・

“Small facts lead to great knowing” - Patrick Rothfuss (2011)

“I can’t believe anybody would do something like this,” you commented whilst looking down at the two documents in your hands—your thoroughly highlighted case dossier and your finished report. Every new case always exhibits unimaginable horror and unfortunately, there will always be something worse than your current worst. 

You turned to Spencer whilst perched cross-legged on the edge of his table.

The corner of the genius’s mouth curled at your words. They were the very same ones that sprouted daily despite the nature of your job. But to Spencer, there was a strange comfort in such small repetitive murmurs of disbelief.

“I gotta agree with Rossi. This job really includes some of the worst lunatics out there.” You sighed before straightening up at a sudden thought. “Actually, fun fact…” You noticed the way your words peeled Spencer’s attention from his report. He finally glanced up, eager for the second half of that sentence. 

“The word lunatic was invented based on the belief that mental illnesses were affected by moon phases.” You beamed at the idea of potentially providing your genius friend with new knowledge. 

“Yeah, and it actually originated from the Latin word ‘lunaticus,’ which means moonstruck or influenced by the moon. The word was first used for conditions like epilepsy or overall just madness,” Spencer replied, perking up at the thought of a potential conversation about this.

The excited smile on your face instantly faltered and you groaned in feigned annoyance. Perhaps you should have known better than to think you could out-fact Spencer and say something he had not already known.

“Is there anything you don’t know, Spence?” you glowered jokingly.

“Well, it’s hard when you’re a child prodigy and genius.” You let out a scoff-like laugh at Spencer’s cocky admission, but you knew he was joking. Despite his IQ of 187, Spencer rarely ever announced himself a genius. It was a title dubbed by those around him. You knew if you had Spencer’s brain, though, you would hardly ever stay as humble as him.

“I’ll get you someday.”

Your declaration drew a snort from another work desk and you twisted around to face the source of such a faithless sound.

“You don’t believe in me, Derek?” You arched a brow, your competitiveness rising to the surface.

“Sweet girl, I believe in you for many things, but this is just not one of them.”

“But surely there is one single fact out there that Spencer doesn’t know about.” Penelope piped up from next to Derek, defending you.

“We’re talking about the same Spencer, right? Spencer Reid? Three PhDs and an IQ of Einstein?” JJ spoke as she made her way down the bullpen.

“Actually, there is no way of measuring Einstein’s IQ as he never took the test, so to say that—” Derek quickly interrupted Spencer.

“Come on, pretty boy. She’s backing you up.”

“Sounds like grounds to start a betting pool going,” Rossi spoke up as he approached the whole group, briefcase in one hand, car keys in the other. “$20 says she’ll do it within four months.”

“I think she can do it within three months.” Emily chimed up from her desk.

“I’m placing my bet on eight months,” Penelope added confidently.

“Alright, and if she can’t do it within one year, JJ and I will split the win,” Derek announced before directing his next words to you, “Stakes are on, sweetheart.” He winked.

“Yeah, yeah. I got it.” You rolled your eyes before turning towards Spencer, declaring to him with exaggerated cockiness, “I’m gonna get you real soon, just wait.”

“You’re welcome to try.” The challenging glint in Spencer’s eyes met your own. Again, you knew better than to think that you would know something Spencer did not already know. He was practically the master of facts. But, unfortunately, you were incredibly bad at quitting.

So, let the challenge begin.

﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏

“Did you know that Australia is wider than the moon?” you questioned the second you saw Spencer enter the office the next morning. “Fun fact.”

“Yes, diameter-wise. Australia is almost 4,000 kilometres wide, while the moon’s diameter is nearly 3,500 kilometres. However, in terms of their masses, the moon is still larger.” You sighed dramatically at Spencer’s reply before spinning your chair towards your computer, turning the device on.

“And day one status: unsuccessful,” you grunted to yourself, catching Spencer’s grin from your peripheral vision.

“Oh? It’s gonna be daily?”

“You bet your ass it’s gonna be. There’s a betting pool and I’m unfortunately too competitive for my own good.” You caught the amusement dancing in Spencer’s gaze. 

“Well then, good luck.”

“Won’t need it.”

﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏

“Did you know a cloud can weigh like a million pounds?” You crossed your arms while peering at the cotton candy-like objects floating amidst the bright blue summer sky. “Fun fact.”

Both of you had your bulletproof vests on, leaning against a car while waiting for JJ to finish speaking to the press before driving back to the precinct. Another case wrapped. Another unsub locked up.

Under the nice weather, you had your cap and Spencer’s sunglasses on, having forgotten yours. He had heavily insisted so, even after you had declined a handful of times.

You turned and looked at Spencer briefly. Though, for a split second, your body stilled as the sun played in his favor, casting nice highlights to his woodsy colored locks. The light crinkle of his nose and his squinting eyes made your lips curl, cause once again, it showcased just how self-sacrificing Spencer can be when it came to the people close to him.

“Yeah, because they contain different states of matter like trillions of condensed water droplets and ice crystals. Its weight is equivalent to the world’s largest aircraft working at full capacity. Though despite its heaviness, clouds have lower density in comparison to the dry air around them, enabling them to float in the same way as oil floats on water.” Spencer tried to maintain eye contact with you despite the blaring sun shining into his eyes.

“Hmm…” you pursed your lips before removing your navy blue cap and placing it on your friend’s head. This cast a shadow over his eyes, blocking the harsh sun from blinding his vision. “Beautiful weather to fail at winning this fun fact thing again.”

Spencer didn’t reject the clothing item.

Some time in the history of human beings, the act of sporting others’ clothing items—especially of the opposite gender—had been made to seem important. Spencer has never understood the significance in such a small exchange. But as your hat landed on his head, Spencer felt an added weight that was beyond the small clothing item. 

Neither did he have it in him to adjust how you had left the cap on him, even if it didn’t sit on his head perfectly.

“I still have time to get you,” you continued after a moment of silence.

“359 days left.”

“More than enough.”

﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏

The clock was close to hitting 11pm. The whole team was taking a short break for a fresh perspective. Most were on their phones or taking a quick nap, but Spencer and you were playing a round of cards.

“Did you know ketchup used to be medicine? Fun fact.”

Both Emily’s and Derek’s watchful gaze panned from you to Spencer, anticipating his reaction to your daily shot at winning the bet.

“Around the 1830s, yeah. They marketed it as a cure for various ailments such as indigestion and diarrhea.” 

Emily instantly groaned at Spencer’s reply while Derek snickered. Once again, Spencer already knew the information you provided, just like the 13 previous times.

“See? Not a single thing he doesn’t know,” Derek chirped up, earning him a glare from the co-worker beside him.

You finally placed your next card down, instantly eying Spencer, wanting a read of his reaction to your play. There was a distant look in his eyes, a clear indication that he was taking this game just as seriously as you were.

Your eyes swept over the rest of your opponent. The un-neat edges in his usually tidy work attire and the way his hair stuck in different directions had your lips curling. They were details that only unveil during late work hours after a long day. But strangely enough, there was something endearing about the slight tiredness in his eyes and the way his cardigan hung disheveledly on him. 

“I won.”

Your eyes snapped to the pile of cards on the table at Spencer’s declaration.

“What?! No way. You must have cheated.”

“Now, now, don’t be a sore loser just because pretty boy over here won,” Derek teased you, despite also highly suspecting that Reid had cheated.

“Are we talking about the same pretty boy who is banned from many Vegas casinos because of his expert skill in counting cards?” JJ countered, placing her phone down. 

Your co-workers’ discourse began fading out of your focus as Spencer took out a ticket from his bag and handed it to you with a cheeky grin. With hesitation, you took the paper begrudgingly. You knew you had to hold your end of the deal. You had lost, after all.

You glanced back at the winner of the card game, catching his toothy grin at your sulking manners. Against all maturity, you poked your tongue out in petulance, but such childish action had Spencer laughing quietly in his spot, eyes gleaming with fondness.

“Sore loser.”

“Cheater.”

﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏

Hotch halted in his tracks upon spotting you and Reid in the break room.

Both of your heads were side by side, just a hair short from touching, fighting to have adequate sight of the newspaper that the two of you were sharing. Each of you also sported a pen in hand, scribbling hastily onto the delicate paper with vigorous competitiveness.

The unit chief entered to refill his coffee, though his eyes continued investigating you two. In the narrow gap between your heads, Hotch caught sight of Spencer rapidly filling out a crossword puzzle. Meanwhile, just as fast, you were solving a Sudoku piece that resided on the same page.

“Did you know, like fingerprints, people also have unique tongue prints?” you murmured, eyes still glued onto the puzzle in front of you. “Fun fact.”

“Yeah, humans have unique color, tongue shape, and textural features, therefore making it a great form of identification. However, we currently do not have the suitable technology to capture intricate surface details of tongue prints. Also, switching costs are high partially because the idea of having to stick one's tongue out in public for authentication can be seen as rather awkward, unhygienic, and undignifying.”

You pursed your lips at another unsuccessful day. But such expression vanished when you dropped your pen on the table and declared with unadulterated joy:

“Done!”

Your victory drew a defeated noise from Spencer.

“Imagine though, having to stick your tongue out at airport immigration and place it onto a public scanner or something like that.” You cackled at Spencer's grimace and the way his body slightly shivered from such a mental image. Eventually though, your laugh reduced to a teasing smile.

Spencer’s gaze lowered to the little crinkle that appeared around your eyes as you smiled, before holding eye contact with you. Spencer knew there was no such thing as “eyes twinkling,” but you had him doubting that scientifically established truth for a second. It was lighting and he knew that, but he had to admit that he could finally somewhat understand why poets and writers were so obsessed with dedicating lines towards such a tiny detail. 

Because even though there was no reason for him to, his own lips began to curl, mirroring the smile on your face.

From behind you both, Aaron Hotchner took a sip of his coffee before departing the room. Though on his way out, his eyes glinted a knowing look, while his lips lifted just the slightest bit before schooling back to a neutral expression again. 

﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏

“Did you know that back then, when raising a toast, people would literally drop a piece of toast into their wine?” you blurted out the second you slid yourself into the empty seat opposite Spencer at his breakfast table. Never have you ever skipped free hotel breakfast and today was no exception.

“Well, hello to you too.” Spencer grinned at your straight-to-business behavior. 

He carefully placed the coffee he made for you into your hand—a casual daily routine. You took a good whiff of the comforting aroma before humming at the first taste. It was exactly how you liked it: a dash of milk along with two and a quarter teaspoon of sugar.

To date, Spencer has never asked how you liked your coffee. 

He simply has always gotten it right.

It was not hard to guess that he had learnt your preferences from watching you make your coffee in the past. But you could not help but wonder if he took mental notes on others the same way he did with you. However, like every other time, you dismissed it as an occupational habit. Every member has been trained to be observant and notice little details. Spencer probably knew everybody’s coffee preferences.

“It actually originated from Ancient Rome, and back then, toast was an act to honor the gods and people would pour wine onto the floor. However, the custom evolved in many ways over time, depending on geographic regions. Around the 1600s, it became a common custom in England and this is where people would put a piece of spiced toast into their wine. They did it to improve the flavor of their beverage and also to “toast” to good health.”

Spencer caught your hum of satisfaction at the coffee and instantly felt pleased.

Science has long documented humans as naturally validation-seeking creatures. Your existence often humbled him from thinking he was not a recurring participant in that particular human instinct.

His eyes fell from you to your coffee—a particular mix that has ingrained itself into his memory since your first meeting. Funny that some time since then, he could no longer look at the beverage without ever thinking of you.

Neither could Spencer for the life of him recite the coffee order of anybody else at the BAU.

“36 days down…” you murmured, already picturing yourself rummaging the internet for more fun facts tonight.

“Maybe tomorrow.” The words came out softly, almost encouragingly. You hummed before matching his tone.

“Maybe.”

﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏

“Flies rub their hands as a sanitizing act, rather clean for an insect commonly associated with dirty places, no?” you murmured before peering up from your book whilst curled up in your seat on the BAU’s jet.

“Yes, it’s a self-grooming act. They do this primarily for two reasons. First and foremost, it’s because their legs are their flavour receptors, so they rub their front legs to ensure they can taste when eating. The other motivation is to remove dust and debris, therefore, ensuring survival.”

Your bottom lip jutted out slightly at another unsuccessful attempt.

“I’ll get you tomorrow…” you murmured with a teasing smile before re-immersing yourself in the fantasy world of your current novel.

Reading has become your escapism and method of self-grounding prior to any case. You tried to plunge into fictional worlds while flying to prepare yourself for the terrible realities that accompanied upcoming cases. Though at one point, Spencer started joining in. But instead of having his own book, he would lean over and scan your current page with unrealistic speed while you leisurely let each letter sink in. It became a routine that occupied your journey from Quantico, whereas on the way back, Spencer and you maintained your tradition of engaging in chess matches. 

Spencer spotted your finger flipping the page once more and his eyes instantly swept over the printed words hastily.

Twenty thousand words per minute. That was Spencer’s known reading speed, which meant in merely two seconds or three, he was already done with the two pages in front of you both. As always, you were still reading at your own pace, unhurried. He knew he could adopt a slower speed to enjoy your chosen fictional literature. But lately, he found himself in a hurry, rushing himself to finish pages in a way that made him think maybe he was now above his previously established reading speed. 

Why?

His gaze flicked over to you, mulling over the familiar details that made you, you. He studied the way your fingers trace the fore-edge of the book mindlessly, lingering on the way you tease your lips with your teeth as you registered the adventure that the story was taking you on. Spencer caught the slight shift in the space between your eyebrows and how they slightly twitch according to plot progression, displaying your commitment to your reading content.

Spencer would not classify himself as a people watcher, despite his necessary observant and analytical traits as a profiler. Yet, somehow, watching you had become one of his favorite quiet activities. In your little habits were his comfort. In moments when cases were overwhelming, his eyes have made a tendency to land on you. The spike in his heartbeat would normalize, whilst rapid thoughts would regulate. It was only in moments when Spencer would get caught by you that he would tear his gaze away sheepishly, before attempting to pretend that he was looking elsewhere instead.

The sound of paper rustling pulled Spencer out of his mind, and he instantly plunged himself into the same self-established cycle again.

And despite his fondness for literature, for once, it did not hold a candle in his eyes.

﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏

“Cows have best friends, how great is that?”

Spencer stopped eating his ice cream the second he spotted someone passing the two of you in a cow onesie, giving away why you decided on that particular fun fact. His eyes fell back on you, glimmering with amusement. 

“Yes, cows do have a ‘best friend’ who they tend to share spaces and rest side by side with. Research shows that when separated, these cows would show signs of stress and anxiety with higher heart rates.”

You hummed at that. By now, you were used to his immediate expansion on your facts, no longer surprised or disappointed every time he added onto your words. 

In fact, you fondly looked forward to hearing what he had to say about whatever fact you would sprout. There was a deep sense of appreciation that you have grown for this challenge. You felt like, intellectually, your general knowledge had expanded immensely, both from researching fun facts to tell Spencer and also from the informative responses that you would receive from him.

“You know, cows also can develop what some may refer to as ‘accents.’ Research observed variations in their moos based on different regions and herds.” Spencer leaned closer to you before adding cheekily, “Fun fact.”

“Nuh uh, don’t go stealing my line. You’re not allowed to put me out of business.”

This tore a laugh out of Spencer, and you immediately bit back a smile at such a sound. 

If humans have the ability to bottle noises for keepsake, you know now what sound you would try to capture.

Surprisingly, this was only the second time that Spencer and you had spent time together one-on-one out of work. 

With the working hours at the BAU that forced you and all your co-workers to be in close proximity for an extensive amount of time, you tend to allocate your scarce free time to those who were outside of your work circle. But something about spending time with Spencer today had struck you with an epiphany:

You really, really wanted to see Spencer outside of work more often.

Both your phones started ringing at the same time.

“Penelope, is everything okay?” you answered quietly.

“Emily?” Spencer whispered at the same time into his phone.

After a few seconds, you both ended your respective phone calls before slowly turning to face each other again. You scanned yours and Spencer’s outfit before sighing.

“There’s not enough time to go home and change.” The devastation in your voice was imminent.

“I know.”

A few minutes later, both of you entered the office, and almost instantly, the noise level declined significantly as the whole team paused their actions. You winced, knowing immediately that you two were about to be the butt of many incoming jokes.

“Whoa, what time period did you guys travel back from?” Emily teased.

“We were at a convention, okay?” You huffed, picking up your go-bag from under your desk for a change of clothes.

“And you two are dressed up as…?” Rossi crossed his arms, undoubtedly amused.

The team scanned over both of your outfits. Spencer was wearing a brown fedora hat, an oxblood colored corduroy jacket, and grey pants. Despite the only semi-chilly weather, he also sported a colorful striped knitted scarf around his neck. As for you, you were in an all pink attire, but what stood out was your long pink coat, high pink boots, and long white scarf.

“The fourth doctor and Romana II, from Doctor Who,” Spencer answered, grabbing his go bag.

Derek’s eyes comedically bulged out at that, and he immediately spun his chair towards you. “Blink twice if Reid is blackmailing you with something to make you go to this convention with him.” You laughed at his remark.

“Listen, remember the card game I lost two months ago? That’s why I had to go, but when I actually started the show, I really enjoyed it.” You raised your hands in surrender.

“Oh, we lost another one. She got Reid-ified,” Derek exclaimed dramatically before placing a hand on his chest in jest heartbreak, grinning at your eye roll.

By now, Spencer had returned to your side with his go-bag. Though just as you two turned around to head off and change, an abrupt flash halted you both in your steps. Blinking away the after-effect of the blinding light, you saw Penelope with her phone facing you two and a cheeky grin on her face.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Delete that,” you immediately instructed, hands on your hips while your brows furrowed in fussiness. You then sucked in a deep breath and used your hand to comb through your hair before a smile broke your feigned annoyed expression. “I was not ready.”

Then, with dramatic flair, you posed properly for the camera, grabbing Spencer’s scarf exaggeratedly with both hands while tugging him lightly. 

Spencer was unsure if his knees had buckled due to a slight loss of balance or from your proximity. He glanced at the camera, face slightly flushed, before witnessing another flash go off, evidencing his blush and putting it on record.

Your hands were gone from his scarf like a breeze. 

“Alright, I’m gonna go change now.” By the time Spencer registered your words, you were already gone. All that was left at the spot you previously occupied was his attention. Spencer's eyes eventually moved when he heard a quiet giggle from Penelope, who was indescribably entertained by the dazed look on his face.

The tech expert slowly angled her phone towards Spencer to show what she had captured, and she carefully observed Spencer’s contemplative gaze. His eyes landed on you first, and they softened at the sight of your beaming face. They then traced the slope of your smile and the crinkle of your eyes before reluctantly trailing down to your hands and the way they bossily clung onto his scarf. 

The sentiment of pictures has always been just a concept to Spencer Reid. He does understand the logic behind people’s attachment to colored captures of moments and why people have ‘important’ photos in their wallets or have framed physical copies. But personally, he rarely ever practiced it. Yet, in this precise moment, he suddenly wanted to begin.

Without even looking at himself in the photo, Spencer murmured to Penelope:

“Can you send that to me, please? Thank you.”

﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏

“Where is she?” Derek’s gaze darted up to his friend. One glance at Spencer and the man already knew who he was referring to.

“Garcia said she called in sick this morning. Why?”

“Nothing.”

Derek scanned over Spencer from head to toe properly this time. Realisation flashed through his eyes before the man smirked as he looked back down at his work. 

Ah, the perks of being a profiler.

“Sure, pretty boy.”

“What was that loo—” 

The sound of Spencer’s phone ringing interrupted his question. He took the device out of his pocket, and the phone almost flew out of his hand when he saw your name flashing on the screen. He immediately picked up and placed the device beside his ear, breathing out your name in greeting.

Instead of your usual cheery tone, Spencer was met with a muffled voice and snifflings.

Immediately, his body stiffened.

“Are you okay?” He was by his desk within seconds. His fingers grazed over his jacket, as if prepared to scoop the clothing up and dash out of the office if your answer indicated any distress. 

“My nose is blocked. Both sides. It’s horrendous,” then came a dramatic sigh, “I’m becoming a mouth breather, Spence.”

Your melodrama tore a laugh from Spencer’s throat.

Derek’s lips curled discreetly at the noise.

“Anyway, don’t think you can escape your daily fun fact just because I’m not physically in the office.” Spencer was glad you were not physically with him, because if you were, you would have seen the idiotic grin stretching his face. But how could he not smile at your stubborn resilience, and the cute sound of your nasally voice that was slightly more high-pitched than normal. 

“You’re sick, and you took a day off work, but not off the fun fact thing?”

“In sickness and in health, as they say.”

Spencer accidentally snorted at your words and immediately cleared his throat in an attempt to cover it.

Derek’s brows scrunched at that.

“Apparently, while wired to specific scientific machines and whatnot, two lucid dreamers can have two-way communication in real time. How cool is that?” Spencer hummed fondly at your words before sitting down, his plan to flee from office hours long gone.

“That’s quite a recent fun fact. The study was recently concluded just about two years ago,” his voice came out soft as he focused on any sound that the technological device beside his ear could carry over from your end. 

He caught your hum, though the sound resembled the same one you always did while sitting next to him on the jet as the team flew back to Quantico. The noise that often preceded the soft landing of your head on his shoulder and the way he’d sit straighter up to accommodate you entirely despite his germaphobia-led touch aversion.

“You should sleep and rest,” he whispered, despite wanting to hear your voice for longer. But selflessness came easy when you were in consideration.

Spencer carefully began listing all the things you ought to do later to get better. But halfway through, he noticed the lack of noise from the other end, except for your rhythmic breathing, signaling your sound asleep state. Spencer sighed before removing the phone from his ear. He stared at the device in long contemplation before clicking the end call button.

Finally placing down the device that signified his only contact with you today, Spencer flipped open today’s case dossier. However, he found himself re-reading the first sentence over and over again. His eyes kept scanning over the same words, and he felt the way they slid past his comprehension the same way small external details occasionally would escape his notice whenever he spent time with you. 

Spencer’s mind kept trailing back to the phone call and to you.

It’s familiarity—he tried to tell himself. Humans were, afterall, creatures of habit, and considering you have been swirled into his daily routine like a necessity, it made sense that the lack of your presence had set him off balance. 

Eventually, Spencer got up and went to the break room for coffee. But the second he opened the cupboard and his eyes landed on your mug, he felt his mouth run dry. 

For the past one and a half years, he has always made two cups of coffee instead of one at the start of each day.

His eyes darted to his mug right next to yours. The idea of separating them sent some sort of ache in his heart, even if logically they were just ceramic vessels.

Perhaps he had mislabeled what missing someone meant all along, because your absence was bringing a hollowness that nobody had managed to carve out of him before. It was the kind of emptiness that made him feel incomplete, as if a piece of himself was not with him. Yet, as opposed to the expected numbness that often accompanied such a feeling, Spencer felt every second of your absence with a constant stinging ache that felt too akin to withdrawal symptoms. 

Eventually, Spencer shut the cupboard and returned to his desk, coffee-less.

That evening after work, Spencer made a detour instead of going straight home, missing the way his friends huddled together, exchanging hushed whispers about his departure.

﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏

Twenty two hours, forty eight minutes, and thirty one seconds.

Spencer witnessed as time quietly slipped through the cracks of his remaining strength. 

The whole bullpen lacked the life his work family usually colored in. The janitor had long shut off the main lights, so the only thing illuminating the space near Spencer was his desk lamp. Everybody else had gone home except for Hotch, but the unit chief was in his office, leaving Spencer as the last man standing in the bullpen.

After a few more ticks, Spencer finally tore his gaze from the timing instrument and glided his vision back down to the pen in his hand, forcing it to ink his unfinished report, but words refused to string together. 

Spencer’s free hand began tapping his desk rhythmically in a pathetic attempt to comfort himself.

Twenty two hours, fifty one minutes, and twenty one seconds.

Spencer wanted to say that it didn’t matter. Why should it? But he knew damn well that the answer was because the team mattered to him. 

However, perspective was truly a funny thing. Someone could be your number one priority, and you barely just made it in their list.

Spencer averted his gaze from the unfinished report to the brand new photo frame on his desk, where a captured version of the recent memory of you two as Doctor Who characters resided.

It did not take a genius to see that you two were closer to one another than with others on the team. However, the fun fact challenge had truly unlocked another level of bond. It was the kind of connection that meant he had started placing you above the others, a position that implied he also expected more from you, cause perhaps he thought you had also valued him just as much as he treasured you in his mind. 

So as much as the whole team was the source of his dismay, there was a spotlight reserved for your absence, one that was beyond glaring and punched his guts in ways that others could not.

His eyes traced your face in the photograph again, like they had done every morning since he had gotten the picture framed. 

Oftentimes, you could never be absolutely sure where you stand in someone’s life.

Twenty two hours, fifty nine minutes, and ten seconds.

A resigned breath escaped the narrow gap between his lips.

With more effort than it usually took, Spencer got on his feet, hoping that another cup of coffee would be the cure for his inefficiency. He slowly placed more weight on one side of his body to turn around. At the same time, Spencer began rubbing his face in hopes that exhaustion and melancholy would push themselves aside for a brief moment so that he could finish this impending task. 

When Spencer finally reopened his eyes to navigate the darkness, he froze at the sight that was once behind him.

Eight steps away was you, looking like a deer caught in headlights. 

Then came your escaped nervous laughter, like you were scared of screwing up, but that was only because you were unaware that you could almost never do wrong in Spencer’s eyes. His heart—which Spencer’s brain has been having a harder time controlling lately—provided you with a much larger margin for error than anybody else.

Your gentle tone filled the fragile silence that was intertwined with suspense.

“Fun fact, birthday cakes are traditionally round as an Ancient Greek tradition to resemble the moon for the goddess Artemis.” Your eyes crinkled as your lips curled into that familiar smile that had previously held Spencer powerless on numerous occasions. “Happy Birthday, Spence.”

There you were, cake in hand after a long day of work on a gruesome case.

There you were, with a homemade cake after a long day of him thinking everybody had forgotten his birthday, or more importantly, that you had forgotten.

But maybe his probability was not entirely against him. 

“I know I’m quite late, but trust me, there’s an explanation. When I got to the office this morning, I realized that I had forgotten your cake at home. I was planning to grab it after work, but the case kept us all back so late, and then traffic was super bad because of a concert today. But hey, I got the cake now, and I really hope you like it.”

You peered down at your own baking product and the slightly wonky penmanship before turning your eyes back onto Spencer.

“Also, since it’s your birthday, I’ll give you a bonus fun fact. There are roughly 30,000 people who have their birthdays on October 12th in the States, but…” 

Your voice fell quiet as your eyes diverted back to the cake again. 

“You’re my favorite October 12th.”

And right at that second, all of Spencer’s previous attempts at rationalising his feelings via scientific explanations collapsed. For once, science could no longer shield him, because as much as it was a field built on facts of concrete evidence, there was also an undeniable truth: he liked you.

It might not be rational, but it was still a fact, and that alone terrified Spencer. 

And while he was your favorite October 12th, you were his favorite every day.

Spencer glanced down at the handmade cake and the singular purple candle pierced in the center. The tiny flame provided just enough light for the space between you both. His eyes then flicked back onto you, and they softened.

God, you were so clueless about the effect your actions have on him and his whole world.

One breath extinguished the fire, and grey smoke fluttered into the air.

Then, for the first time since he saw you five minutes ago, Spencer managed to form the only words he felt were worthy enough of your time.

“Thank you.”

Even if the significance behind those words didn’t reach you today, it was okay. But they carry the weight of his whole heart and every unspoken reason behind his gratefulness. 

Thank you for not forgetting about him today. Thank you for always being so kind and paying attention to the details about him. Thank you for being such an important part of his life. Thank you for choosing the exact career path that you did to lead you to him. Thank you for existing. 

And someday, maybe Spencer Reid will gather enough courage to tell you all of this.

﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏

You halted in your step, and almost immediately Spencer followed suit. His eyesight followed yours, and he instantly knew what you were gonna ask from him.

“Come on, can you play for me? Please?” you urged, and it didn’t take more than your pleading face to make him approach the instrument that lay abandoned in the corner of the hotel where the whole team was staying.

Saying “no” became a significantly harder task for Spencer ever since he realised what kind of position his feelings were in when it came to you. It especially felt like an impossible task when your words came in that pleading tone and the smile that had him wishing stopping time was one of his abilities.

You followed Spencer and leaned against the instrument eagerly. You observed as he lightly cracked his knuckles, eying the mixture of ivory and ink-dark keys with a calculative gaze before placing his fingers delicately on them while his foot pressed gently on one of the pedals at the base.

For a moment, you wondered what Spencer would play. Maybe one of the classical pieces he liked a lot. Perhaps Bach? Or—  

A familiar tune overtook the pleasant quietness in the empty hotel lobby, and recognition struck you with every flawless execution of each note.

First off, you knew he was a liar, saying he only dabbled in piano. But what caught you off-guard was hearing the piano version of your favorite song. 

It was things like this that made you conclude that Spencer Reid was one of the sweetest individuals you have ever had the privilege to know. From making you coffee daily to hunting down first editions of your favorite books (the most recent one in which he handed over along with soup the day you got sick and were off work). Now, he was learning your favorite song on the piano. 

Lucky felt like an inadequate word to describe your position in life when Spencer was in the equation.

Only when he finished the very modern composition did you speak up.

“I thought you only listened to classical?”

“I…did,” was all that came out of Spencer’s mouth, but it was enough for you to catch his implication that he had learnt this song specifically on the piano for you.

Spencer sniffled, diverting his gaze from you shyly as he inspected the keys in front of him again.

Ever since his birthday, Spencer could constantly feel the urge to confess right on the tip of his tongue while his lips trembled in self-control to keep them to himself for now. According to the internet and its various articles, he should try to ‘woo’ you first, and hence these actions instead of confessing right away. He wondered if you got his message. He wondered if you could tell this was his version of flirting. However, Spencer also knew that he had accidentally portrayed himself as an extremely sweet friend from your perspective, so thoughtful actions with the aim of impressing you romantically were most likely ruled as platonic gestures. 

You began toying with the ring on your middle finger, the flattery from his sweet action manifested itself through the heat beneath your cheeks. For the first time in your almost three years of friendship with Spencer, you were struck by a minor nerve-wracking sensation. There was also a fleeting stutter in your chest that you decisively ignored.

You moved on with a quiet murmur.

“You know, humans owe squirrels a lot. They have planted at least thousands of trees.” You gave him a soft smile when his eyes met yours again. “It’s accidental, but no less a noble act contributing to the environment.”

“Yeah, they would bury nuts for later usage, but forget their locations. Many forgotten nuts can grow into trees, therefore, contributing to forest regeneration.” 

“Anddd another fun fact failure.” You groaned, though your expression melted into a smile when you heard Spencer chuckle at that. 

“We should head up. It’s getting late.”

You nodded in agreement and began walking, but looked back briefly at Spencer. “But it’s not too late for an episode of Doctor Who, right?”

An outstretched grin spread across Spencer’s face at your words.

“Never.”

﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏

“No way.” You were speechless as you made way out of Spencer’s car, staring at the building in front of you in disbelief. “Don’t tell me…”

“Yeah, it’s for your favorite film,” Spencer confirmed your suspicion.

“So, it didn’t matter that I had lost, huh?”

Shortly after your Doctor Who convention together, Spencer had invited you to this event that was two and a half months after. Though he insisted on keeping the details a secret, relaying only the dress code—smart casual, but whatever you were most comfortable with.

The secretive factor of the whole ordeal had you guessing in suspense for the entire two months, but now that you were here, you fully understood why.

This was the event that you both would have gone to instead of the Doctor Who convention if you had won that game of cards.

An orchestra movie concert of your favourite movie.

Spencer sucked in a deep breath, fingers toying with the loose threads of his cardigan. There he went again, attempting to present to you that he was an option—the best one, at that—and giving signals that he was pursuing you. He has read at least five hundred online articles on the art of flirting in the past week alone. If Derek ever found his online searching history, Reid would never live it down.

“God, this is the best thing ever.” Seeing how pleased you were with his action made Spencer want to physically preen with pride.

Once you two had settled down inside, you took a couple of photos and observed your surroundings. You looked around at your neighboring audiences before averting your gaze to the empty chairs that were soon to be filled by instrumental experts. Your body was flooded with excitement at the prospect of finally being at this event. 

You decided to chime in with your daily fun fact just minutes before the concert was due to start.

“Did you know that there’s a planet that is ⅓ made of diamonds?” you whispered.

“55 Cancri e, right?” he matched your volume, shifting in the chair beside you to make himself comfortable.

“Yeah, that one,” you confirmed, turning your head back to him. “Go on, I know you have details on it.” You encouraged, shifting yourself into a comfortable position as well.

“55 Cancri e is a super-Earth exoplanet, approximately twice the size of Earth, though roughly eight times heavier in terms of mass. First sighted and discovered in 2004, scientists have found that it is a very hot and rocky planet with a molten lava ocean surface due to its incredibly close orbit to its star…”

You were leaning into your palm while listening to him, clinging onto every word as they absorbed into your brain. The space you left in between you both out of consideration for Spencer gradually lessened as he leaned in closer the more he talked. His tone, too, grew more quiet as he went on, as if the information he was telling you did not exist in some cyclopaedia, but a secret passed in full trust. 

The corners of your lips curled at the twinkle in Spencer’s eyes as he detailed out knowledge that previously sat in the corner of his brain, collecting dust.

Spencer’s intellectual rambling will always be one of your favorite things about him. You loved hearing him talk and the way he enunciated each syllable so clearly, as well as his wordings and his tonal patterns. You should have gotten used to it by now, but it marvelled you every single time that you had the chance to listen to him talk about things you would rely on an internet search to know. Just like usual, today was no different.

Spencer Reid was remarkable. It was almost impossible to take your eyes off him when he talked. He was a bundle of many things that made him an individual worth a lifetime of getting to know.

You wondered if you were looking at him a little bit too fondly right now. But how could you not when he was whispering sweet facts to you as if he only wanted you to know of it? It felt almost as if this fun fact challenge had turned into a sacred tradition between you two. 

“Even though it is widely said that the planet is ⅓ of diamond, this is actually still only a theory and yet to be proven. So, to dub it the Diamond Planet when they’re not even sure if there are diamonds on the planet itself is like…suspecting you are a quarter or half French and then introducing yourself as French to people anyway.”

Your laughter burst out unfiltered, and you instantly grounded yourself by clearing your throat and pulling yourself away from Spencer slightly, putting yourself on timeout.

That was kind of embarrassing. 

The joke was slightly funny, but nowhere close to warranting that kind of laughter.

It sort of reminded you of the videos you have seen on the internet about the kind of laugh that people would let out in reaction to their crush’s jok—

Oh.

You subtly slid deeper into your chair as thoughts shot in your mind at a hundred miles per second. Your fingers immediately curled into your palms to dig at it. You could not look back at Spencer in fear that he would notice that something was wrong. 

Oh God. 

But were you really surprised though? 

A part of you had seen it coming, because as much as you adore all your co-workers, you knew in the bottom of your heart that Spencer was the only one you were willing to lessen your sleeping hours to prolong hanging out and conversing with. Also, to be immune to such sweet actions, you would have to be some statue made of stone. For years now, Spencer had intently taken time to know you and go out of his way just to make you happy. If anything, you were grateful that your heart had picked someone so kind and worthy to give itself away to.

You glanced at Spencer from the corner of your eyes, and just the sight of him alone had your heart hiccupping in a way that you had become familiar with for the past month. It was the kind of stutter that you had outright been trying to ignore and written off as nothing. But unlike all the previous times, you knew you could no longer deny that man next to you was the reason for such palpitations.

And maybe it was also time to face it: you like Spencer Reid, your genius of a friend and very much also a profiler.

Your eyes snapped away from him the moment you realized the significance of playing it cool. You could not have him picking up the signs and figuring out that you have feelings for him. But then again, you have seen how clueless he was around women who were hitting on him and failing to pick up their signals. So, maybe he would not notice your current body language either.

Before you could think more on the matter, the lights dimmed and instruments began stringing together in a well-rehearsed manner. It was only then that you began breathing again, relieved that you had two hours to collect your thoughts and come to terms with the newly attained knowledge about yourself.

﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏

“Alright, what’s the fun fact of today?” you heard Spencer’s voice before peering up and seeing him behind your chair, hands on the back of the furniture, looking down at you with a shy smile. The sight of his adorable expression made your cheeks heat up, and you had to avert your gaze to prevent him from spotting signs of your flustered state.

The other members just boarded the jet as well, settling into their own spots after a tiring case. You were much less the same, sporting the now more noticeable eye bags that matched Spencer’s. Yet, that does not deter his gaze from the warmth they hold.

You gestured to Spencer’s usual seat right next to you. Once he had settled down, you made your next move on his chessboard, resuming your current ongoing match with him. You could see the instant way the cogs in his brain started spinning. At that, you provided your fun fact of the day, hoping it would serve as a distraction.

“You know, I read that there are more possible variations of chess games than the number of atoms in the universe.”

“Yeah, it’s known as the Shannon number—the number of possible chess games, I mean, which is 10 to the power of 120. Meanwhile, the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe is 10 to the power of 80, to 10 to the power of 82.”

He made his move, catching your discreet yawn in the corner of his eyes.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” The weight behind your eyes turned them half-lidded. They landed on the chessboard, trying to formulate the next best move, but your brain refused to cooperate as a fog of sleepiness overclouded your judgments.

“You don’t have to play now, you know. We can just play next time.”

“No, no. Give me a second, I’ll make my move.”

“You’re tired.”

You slowly turned your head towards Spencer, and there it was again. You caught the concern leaking from his gaze, and it instantly reminded you just how caring Spencer was to those in his life and especially you. Your mouth formed a tired yet grateful smile at his expressed worry.

You felt sorry for those who have never had the opportunity to be the subject of his affections.

For a split second, you pondered the kind of doting that Spencer would do if he were pursuing someone romantically. You have never seen him express interest in any woman during your time at the BAU, despite the advances he has gotten from various good-looking women. But if he was already this sweet platonically, you were fairly certain your heart would give out at what he had in mind as romance.

Your shoulders finally slumped before a truthful sigh escaped from you. “Yeah.”

Unlike usual, where you would fall asleep and land on his shoulder while you were knocked out, he outright shifted to sit up straighter for you, offering his shoulder.

Spencer never admitted it out loud, but he had foolishly started wanting the friction of your skin against his or the fabric of his belongings. It was an impossible he thought would never occur, but here he was, anticipating the next rare moment of physical touch beside the one where his shoulder would become your pillow. 

Of course, he had noticed it—your lack of touch when it came to him. He was devastatingly aware of your mindfulness of his germaphobia, and Spencer was grateful, he really was. However, your reservation to accommodate his tendencies had begun feeling like deprivation. In fact, Spencer could count on one hand the amount of times you had ever touched him deliberately, with the last one being one hundred and sixty three days ago.

But it was that particular initiative factor that Spencer deeply yearned for. He craved and awaited for a touch made with purpose. 

He wanted you to mean it.

You stilled at such a small action, gaze stopping on his shoulder. You did not want to over-interpret such a simple movement, but knowing Spencer, there were implications and significance in that little offering. 

You knew it had become a recurring thing. As embarrassed as you were, you could not help the fact that you were the type to move around a lot in your sleep. You had tried using an airplane pillow, leaning against the wall, and so many other methods. However, most of the time, you would still wake up on Spencer’s shoulder before instantly jolting up and freeing him from the physical touch.

But the certainty on Spencer’s face left your rejection stuck in your throat.

Hesitantly, you began shifting closer, giving Spencer just enough time to retract the offer if he wanted to. But he stayed confidently still as your head started leaning down before finally landing on his shoulder.

One single small action had Spencer questioning how much longer he could go on like this. How much longer could he keep these feelings tightly locked and concealed? Because Spencer was utterly gone for you. Gone in the kind of way where one casual compliment from you about the cardigan he was wearing had him immediately putting the item into his clothing rotation a lot more frequently.

“I’m gonna get you some day, Spence…” Spencer watched as you drifted to sleep before closing his own eyes, all while he wished the flight back would last forever.

Unbeknownst to you both, the team exchanged knowing looks and discreet smiles at the sight they were witnessing. There had been nothing more obvious to them than this, but instead of intervening, they decided to let things play its course. 

Because, despite the uncertain nature surrounding the occurrence of events in life, this was the one thing everybody was sure was inevitable.

﹏ ﹏ ﹏

The jet finally arrived back at Quantico around 11pm. Spencer had finished his report a few minutes before you did, but lingered behind as usual to wait for you. About two weeks ago, he had established a new routine between you both. 

“Ready?” Spencer carefully peeled your bag from your hand, checking his watch to see that it was already past midnight, marking a new day.

“Yeah…” you breathed out tiredly, eager to collapse in bed. “More than ready.”

You like to think you have kept it cool well, in general. But Spencer’s new routine of walking you to your car after work had you a nail tip away from laying all your cards bare and revealing your feelings. Even on days when you finished your report first, he would walk you to your car before returning to the office. But the thing was:

Spencer Reid rarely ever drove to work, which meant he was going to the employee parking lot every day with you for no reason. 

Well, for no reason but you.

The elevator began making its descent from the sixth floor with both of you inside. You were listening carefully as Spencer discussed an academic paper he had read last night. The doors soon jerked open, revealing the fairly empty parking lot. At the sight of your car, you subtly began slowing down your steps, biting back a smile when you noticed him mirroring your change of pace. 

You observed as he animatedly gushed about the methodology of the research paper, paying particular attention to the tiny detail of his body language. The way his hands were passionately waving around, exaggerating certain points Spencer was trying to make. The flutter of his eyelashes as he blinked a bit faster than he usually would—a habit that often occurs when he speaks quickly, as you have learned. The smooth movements of his lips as his mouth tried to rush out words to match the pace of his incredibly brilliant brain.

Now that you were looking at his lips, you have to admit that it was kind of hard to look away.

Suddenly, an idea brewed in your mind, and it felt like the holy grail had finally landed in your lap. Who would have known that a random Thursday would be the day you ought to finally win this challenge and put Spencer in checkmate.

“Spence?” Your lips curled mischievously, observing the way Spencer halted in his steps at your tone. 

God, despite being subjected to harsh and unflattering parking lot lights, Spencer still had the audacity to look good in a way that tugged at your heartstrings. The sight had you questioning if he was capable of ever looking bad. His warm eyes colored with interest as he eagerly awaited your next words. You took a couple more steps forward, wanting to hide the plotting expression on your face. 

“Fun fact…” You paused before peering back at him. At those two words, you instantly caught the anticipation rolling off him. There was also a subtle confidence from him that signalled he was sure he already knew whatever you were planning to tell him. But you knew that this time, things would be different. 

With a competitive glint in your eyes, you finally divulged today’s fun fact, your voice calm and stable.

“I like you.”

Just as you predicted, Spencer froze while his mouth fell agape. No words fell out of those talkative lips, a stark contrast to how fast he was speaking a couple of seconds ago. You practically beamed in victory at such a reaction. You wanted to celebrate, you really did. But you decided not to gloat about your win yet. Instead, you prioritised the better option: teasing your friend.

“I recalled you mentioning once that kissing spreads fewer germs than shaking hands?” You winked playfully, expecting nothing from it. It was simply a joke to make Spencer flustered for your entertainment, and there was zero expectation that he would somehow miraculously confess that he had been secretly liking you too and would actually kiss you at your workplace’s parking lot at 1am.

Because there was no way Doctor Spencer Reid liked you, right?

You observed as his lips slowly curled up in amusement as your words sunk in, and that partially made your shoulders relaxed. Well, at least your joke landed, and your friendship would make it out intact despite your confession.

But then, out of nowhere, that closed-mouth smile stretched into a full-on grin before a chuckle of disbelief escaped from Spencer. 

Now, you were on alert. Instantly, you tried to read his reaction—was he in disbelief that he was finally stumped by a fact he had not yet known of? Was he amused by your clever trick of using your own feelings as a fun fact? But the elation on his face and the awestruck look in his eyes hardly aligned with someone who had just lost a long-term challenge.

Your lips parted as you continued assessing the man, but you caught the way his eyes flickered down at that small movement before he sucked in a deep breath.

Oh…?

Suspicion crept in, but confirmation came quicker.

In the blink of an eye, Spencer had completely eliminated the two steps between you both, sealing you two in a proximity that was closer than you had ever been with him. His palms found your face, and they cupped your cheeks in a careful yet certain way.

Spencer’s eyes darted all over your face, searching for all the clues that you were okay with what he had next in mind. He could see that your pupils were slightly dilated, as well as feel the way you were leaning into his touch and the heat that was transferring from your cheeks to his hands. Though it was only when you did not pull away and instead, had your tongue dart out to wet your lips, did Spencer kill the remaining space between your faces.

His lips slanted against yours in a desperate manner that outmatched his need for oxygen, kissing you like it was long overdue. He swallowed the gasp escaping your throat and the surprised noise that followed. There was an urgency he could not hide as his straining self-control snapped from your green light. 

You began kissing him back just a second or two after, and almost instantly, you heard a sigh of relief. Your lips curled, but any trace of smugness vanished when his thumb began rubbing your cheek fondly. Suddenly, you were aware of just how close you two were. Every point of contact was sending a searing heat through your body, because despite his fears of germs, Spencer was touching your skin like it was a need, rather than an obligation for moments like these. 

You pressed your lips harder against his.

Good lord, Spencer could do this forever. 

He might have been able to count the number of times you have touched him on one hand, but even with the whole team, there were not enough fingers to account for the number of times he had glanced at your lips this week alone.

Your own hands touched the sides of his waist, and you instantly caught the longing noise that escaped from Spencer’s throat, echoing onto your lips. At such an encouraging sound, you curled your hands to the back of his body and snaked them up his back. Your lips smirked against his at the way he arched into your touch. 

One hundred and sixty three days—Spencer reminded himself again, humming in utter satisfaction at the way those numbers spun down to zero. Finally, you were touching him on purpose and with purpose. He practically melted at the way your hands roamed so confidently without any trace of guilt that he was uncomfortable, because he was far from that.

In fact, he eagerly wanted to keep the number of days since the last time you touched him at zero permanently. 

You picked that precise moment to pull away, documenting the way his eyes fluttered open and dawned into existence the unadulterated glimmer of yearning in them. 

You have always thought he was gorgeous, but how he looked right then rendered the word inadequate. It was a vision exceeding all your daydreams, and to be the reason behind the look made you feel like you were an award winning fashion designer who had just invented a magnificent masterpiece. But unlike most, you had no intention of sharing this artwork with the world or with anybody else.

Spencer felt his heart squeeze at the sight of you again. Was it possible to miss someone so badly from not having a visual on them for approximately a minute? Maybe he was more screwed than he thought.

Breathlessly, he finally whispered the confession that he had long to say for a month.

“Despite all the facts I already know and have learnt during my whole entire life, you’re my favorite thing to study and know more about, and have been since you stepped into my life. Nothing I learnt after felt like it could outrank anything I learnt about you.” It was true.  Every speck of information about you gets the forefront of his memory’s line-up, taking priority over every other knowledge. Spencer licked his own lips for remnants of you before continuing, “You’re my favorite fun fact, you know that?”

Your heart tugged at his words. You had no idea how you managed to compete with the vast amount of interesting information that existed in the world, but under Spencer’s stare, you truly could see he meant every word.

“But…” The smile on your face instantly dropped at that single word from Spencer. Good rarely ever followed that three-letter conjunction.

“But?”

“I do have to admit that, uhm…” The familiar sheepish glint in his eyes had one of your eyebrows shooting up. “I kinda already know that fun fact already, that you liked me.” Your hands on him stilled their movement before falling onto your sides in disbelief.

“Oh, come on. You can’t be serious.” He resisted the urge to whine at the lack of physical touch from you. “But you looked shocked.”

“I was shocked you actually said it. I didn't think you’d do it today…or tomorrow…or maybe ever–” You slapped his arm, but he gladly welcomed that contact. Anything was better than nothing.

“I thought you’re like highly oblivious to romantic signals? I’ve seen you being completely clueless and not picking up on the fact that women were flirting with you.”

“I think I wasn’t clueless when it came to you because my eyes were always on you.” Those words came out shamelessly. In fact, Spencer almost sounded proud of himself. You tried not to let his words make you flustered.

“When did you figure it out?”

“That you like me? At the orchestra.”

“How? I barely figured it out myself that I liked you then.”

“Yeah, I could tell.” Your huff drew a chuckle from him.

You finally peeled yourself completely away from Spencer, grabbing your bag from his hand before making your way to your car. As you unlocked the vehicle and swung the driver’s door open, you could hear his footsteps following. You crouched to lean into your car and place your bag onto the passenger seat. You could feel Spencer’s presence stopping just behind you, standing much closer than he had ever before tonight.

As you bent back up and leaned against your car, you didn't miss the way Spencer’s fingers twitched, giving away his urges for physical contact. You crossed your arms before tilting your head back teasingly.

“I’m still gonna get you someday.”

Spencer’s gaze melted to an even softer look than before at your declaration. There was a freeing component in his eyes, showcasing the joy from being able to openly look at you in the way he had really wanted to for a while. His voice lowered to a sweet, promising whisper.

“I’m counting on that.”

With that, Spencer leaned in again, wanting a second run of things before the two of you had to part ways for the night.

You grinned into the kiss and quickly wrapped your arms around him again. Quietly, your mind logged in today’s score. 

Day 187 status: unsuccessful. 

But it hardly matters when you think you’ve already won something a lot better.

link to: epilogue/bonus bit

・┈・┈・┈・┈・┈・

⟡ navigation ⭒ masterlist

⟡ spencer reid masterlist