#spencerreidimagine

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Small Gestures

Summary: After a reading lesson with your favourite colleague, you become entirely distracted with his hands. To begin with, it doesn’t seem like he’s noticed but things aren’t always what they seem.

A/N: I wasn’t kidding when I said multi-fandom! I’ve been binging Criminal Minds and couldn’t resist.

It had all started so innocently.

It had been a quiet few days, strangely so for the BAU, but unfortunately for you that also meant that paperwork had become the top priority.

Weighed down by the compact text you were trying your best to skim through, you quickly gave up and slapped the heavy file onto your already cluttered desk. Groaning, you rubbed the heels of your hands over your tired eyes.

“You okay?” Came a familiar voice from your left.

Swinging your chair to face Spencer, you gave him a lazy smile – the kind you knew made his eyes dart down to your lips, as much as he always clearly tried to stop himself. Smile widening into a full grin as he did exactly as you anticipated, you decided to take pity on him with a distraction.

Pushing the discarded file further from yourself on the desk, you looked to his uncluttered workspace and felt an envy burn through you. “How come you don’t have any paperwork?” Your whined question had been paired with a childish pout of your lips, something that had pulled his eyes straight back to them. Looking down to your hands, you wryly considered the fact that you weren’t doing a particularly fantastic job of distracting his easily diverted attention.

When he recovered himself, attention finally seeming to focus on the question you had posed, he shook his head as though to clear it before answering. Tapping his pen against the desk in an almost nervous manoeuvre, he twisted his lips with the words; “well, about eighty percent of all paperwork is simply reading. So, it doesn’t take me that long and…” He trailed off at the squeaking sound of your chair’s wheels shifting – eyes darting to you as you stood and moved to his desk.

“Teach me,” you requested playfully.

As was often the case, the doctor was unsure how exactly to respond to your playfulness. This time he settled into a serious response – seemingly taken aback by your request, he looked at you with a crinkled brow. “It’s not something you can learn in ten minutes,” he tried to reason.

One hand on the back of his chair, you peered over his shoulder. “C’mon,” you murmured close to his ear, “indulge me, doc.”

As you had anticipated, he obliged you quickly.

To begin with, he had simply talked you through how it worked. You were surprised by how much verbal explanation was apparently required but you had always been happy to listen to him ramble on about anything and everything. After the stress that had bunched your shoulders due to your excessive paperwork, it was relaxing to listen to his voice.

Eventually, he moved onto a practical demonstration. And that was when disaster struck.

It had always been fairly obvious to you that you found Spencer attractive. Your eyes would often linger a little too often, albeit more subtly than his, and your heart often fluttered when you looked at him. The way that he often looked at you, unable to stop himself despite the obvious heaviness in his gaze, never bothered you. If some small town local detective ever looked at you with that same, subtle longing, you would immediately make it clear you were not interested. Those kind of looks felt uncomfortable because you didn’t want them. But with Spencer, it was entirely different. You almost revelled in how hard he clearly found it to keep his eyes off you.

You had always felt as though you held the power in your not-quite-relationship with him, able to pull his gaze to you whenever you craved it but always in control of your own reactions to him.

Until this fateful afternoon, at least.

The lithe finger that slid down the page took entirely too much of your attention, your mind wandering over all the possibilities attached to his large hands. Tongue darting out to wet suddenly dry lips, you felt the hand gripping the back of his chair tightening as your mind wandered a little too far from the very professional workplace you were currently occupying.

Of course, he noticed the change in your demeanour. “Are you okay?”

Delayed, your brain struggled over a response. “Uh…” you let out dumbly before forming a more coherent response that was still filled with stuttered pauses. “Yeah, I’m fine… J-just trying to – uh – keep up.”

Confusion crimpled his features briefly before he nodded offhandedly and continued his instruction; once again drawing your eyes to his fingers and sending your thoughts scattering in a salacious direction once again. How you were supposed to keep your composure, in this situation you had placed yourself in no less, you weren’t sure.

Luckily for you, your job very rarely allowed long periods of relaxation and the pair of you were quickly interrupted by Garcia’s clacking heels. “We’ve got a case, kids!” Her voice whizzed past the two of you, almost trailing behind her as she tottered past you.

Strangely, instead of jumping into action as you normally would, the pair of you paused. Eyes catching one another, a moment of silence stretched between the two of you. Eyes ducking shyly from yours after only a more extended gaze, he closed the book slowly and placed the heavy tome back on his desk. “We should get going,” the words were less than enthusiastic and he made no immediate attempt to move away from you.

Although, neither did you. Instead, you met his gaze once more.

You were forced to move, however, when Morgan appeared behind the two of you. “You two not hear the woman?” he asked, a grip on your shoulder grounding you into reality. “Let’s go,” he encouraged, a hand gesturing for you to move.

Spencer very quickly came to his senses and jumped up from his chair, sending it skittering backwards on its wheels in his haste to escape. He spared you a final glance before rushing away entirely.

Your thoughts threatened to spiral over his hands once more but Morgan unknowingly pulled you back. “He alright?”

Too quickly, you responded with an aggressive nod. “Think so,” you muttered before rushing to the meeting room.

——————————————————————————

As days went by, your ability to concentrate around Spencer diminished at an alarming pace.

The first time it happened again, the pair of you were discussing case details in the cramped spare office of a police station in rural Louisiana. The room was hot, to put it mildly. You had popped loose the top few buttons of your shirt, your modesty mostly covered by a black camisole you wore underneath but even that barely allowed you relief. It was almost hard to look at Reid, with all his layers of clothing still firmly in place, the mere appearance of his sweater vest almost infuriating in this heat. How could he still be wearing that?

The air conditioning unit stuttered uselessly in the corner as you fanned yourself with a crudely folded paper fan. He faltered in his words, mouth opening as if to say something else but clicking back shut when he thought better. “What?” You asked, suddenly impatient.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, he shifted in his seat, eyes darting back up to your eyes when he noticed your gaze. You felt some relief when you wondered over where exactly those eyes had darted up from. Although that thought sent an entirely new heat stifling through the room.

“Well,” he started slowly, before launching into a very in character explanation. “Fanning yourself is only going to make you warmer.” Immediately believing him, even without the imminent explanation, you tossed your poorly made fan back onto the table. “The contraction of your muscle actually creates heat in your body and therefore actually warms the air around you even more-so.”

You grumbled incoherently in response.

“Sorry,” he gave you, sheepish.

Perplexed, you leaned further over the table. “Why? You’re stopping me from overheating.” He nodded, eyes returning unseeingly to the papers before him. “Although,” you injected enough playfulness into your tone that he immediately looked back up with that perfect mix of excitement and trepidation. “You could fan me, huh? Then I wouldn’t get too hot.” You gave him an obvious wink, letting him know you weren’t really expecting him to perform such a service for you.

Still, in a pedantic show of dramatics, you slid the fan over the table towards him. You were gifted a lopsided grin as he leaned forward to take the outstretched object from you. Just briefly, the pads of his fingers brushed against yours before he pinched the folded paper from your grip.

Too obviously, you sucked in a heavy breath at the contact but he seemed too distracted by the dimensions of your fan to notice. “You know if you wanted to make this more effective you should actually fold it more like this.” Slender fingers turned the paper over, creasing it multiple times and presenting the finished product to you with a grin. “See?”

You would have replied, surely, were you not so distracted. His hands worked so quickly, effectively – every movement almost exactly calculated to complete his task. It was almost impossible not to consider other tasks he could complete with similar dexterity and efficiency.

You weren’t entirely sure what was wrong with you. It wasn’t like you to get so stuck on something so simple, but it was beginning to severely impact your ability to think around the man.

The second time it happened was immediately afterwards, except there were far too many witnesses for you to come away unscathed.

The rest of the team rapidly bundled into the small room, their body heat causing you to almost melt into your chair but you kept your groan of aggravation to yourself. Prentiss almost collapsed into the chair beside you; the pair of you sharing an overheated look of similar distress.

Quickly, Hotch directed the group to summarise what details had been gathered about the case. Morgan and Prentiss quickly confirmed they had found nothing of particular interest from the victim’s home; Rossi explained that the crime scene indicated high levels of aggression; and JJ gave a rundown of her conversation with the wife.

When it was time to talk through the geographical profile, you were more than happy to let Reid jump up and explain your work to the team. It seemed far easier than peeling yourself out of the chair and sweating through an explanation that Spencer would enjoy delivering far more than you. Although your plan failed almost immediately.

Spencer had always been expressive with his hands, but you swore there was something different about how he used them in this explanation. His fingertips slid over the circles he had marked onto the map as he described… something… to the team. You reassured yourself that it didn’t really matter if you didn’t listen; you had worked up this profile with him so you could afford a little distraction.

In resistance to biting your bottom lip, you chewed on the end of your pencil in a mock show of thoughtfulness. But then, something strange happened. With his fingers still running along the lines of the map and his mouth still working to explain his train of thought, his honey eyes flickered over to yours. It was a quick little look, something strange sparkling in his eyes, but he didn’t stumble in his words as he usually would and he looked away so quickly you could forgive yourself for considering it a mere glance.

That was until he looked back at you. It was subtle enough that no one else seemed to notice, and his lips quirked up slightly before he looked away and continued with his explanation. He tapped one particular spot on the map with a pair of fingers before circling them around the spot once and moving on to do the same with two other locations. By the time his fingers had moved off the board entirely your eyes narrowed as you stared him down. He couldn’t know what he was doing to you, surely he couldn’t.

Hotch’s voice quickly commanded the attention of the room. Well, all except for yours and the doctor’s. Boldly, Spencer caught your gaze again and at the sight of your intensity trained on him he was forced to stifle a gleeful yet breathy laugh. Internally, you cursed him.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

Luckily, you managed to tune back into the conversation in time to hear Hotch’s orders. Thankfully, you weren’t expected to move from this room. Unfortunately neither was Spencer. The two of you tasked instead with narrowing down the location even further.

Your pencil was still caught between your teeth, eyes refusing to leave the back of Spencer’s head. He had turned to look at the board again, leaving himself free from your dissecting gaze as the others quickly left the room.

“Looks like the heat’s getting to you, huh?” The unexpected voice beside you pulled a yelp from you and sent the abused pencil clattering against the table.

Eyes darting to face him, narrowing in a glare this time, you scolded him. “Jeez, Morgan, you scared the shit outta me.”

“Not my fault you’re so distracted,” he told you. The wickedly amused smirk he paired with the words made you sink several centimetres in your chair. Of course Morgan noticed your obvious distraction at the hands of Reid.

Embarrassment flooded your cheeks as you sent him a half-hearted glare. “Bite me,” you bit out, grumbling as he chuckled and left the room.

Eyes following Morgan from the room, Spencer quickly approached you as the door clicked closed. Instead of taking the chair he had previously occupied, he dropped into the one directly beside yours. Raising an eyebrow at him, you tried to follow his example and concentrate on the board in front of you. That clearly was not where he desired your attention, however, as he quickly began thrumming his fingers against the desk.

They caught your eye, as he had likely calculated they would, but you resolutely decided it was time to take control of this situation. He had enjoyed this for far too long.

You stood up quickly. With a single, huffed iteration of his name you managed to gain all of his attention. He gave a curious hum in response, eyes darting to you and immediately shining with that addictive mix of excited trepidation at your approach. You turned his chair for him, leaving him looking up at you and you revelled in the way his Adam’s apple visibly bobbed as he craned his neck.

“It’s like a thousand degrees in here, Reid.” You began, softly untucking his tie from his vest. You moved slowly, ensuring he knew he could pull away if that’s what he really wanted. If anything he shifted imperceptibly towards your hands. “Let’s loosen this tie a little, hm?”

“Uh-“ he struggled, squirming as your fingers brushed his neck, “sure.”

Loosening the already wonky tie was too quick, you wanted him to suffer a little longer. Tucking the loosened tie back into his vest you tapped his chest lightly as you wondered over what your next move should be. His top button was rarely done up and today was no exception but the button below it was tightly secured.

Slowly, you walked your fingers up his chest and towards this button. His tongue darted out to wet his lips as your fingers stopped over your target. You looked up to his eyes as though to ask permission and he tilted his head to the side, eyes trained so steadily on yours. You felt his hand close over your wrist, two fingers swiping over your hammering pulse. At the sensation, he shot you a smirk filled with pride.

Maybe he was still winning in this strange game of yours. It didn’t really matter, you were enjoying yourself too much to continue keeping score.

With one hand, you skilfully undid the button. Hooking one finger beneath the fabric, allowing your knuckle to brush against the skin you had just revealed, you pulled the fabric open by mere millimetres. It was doubtful anyone else in this situation would find such a small reveal so intensely satisfying, but the idea that he was letting you do this in only a semi-private space sent your heart pounding just a little more. Something he clearly noticed, given the widening of his grin as his fingers pressed slightly over your pulse.

Distantly recalling that the pair of you were actually at work right now, you flattened your palm against his chest and pushed him back slightly in his chair. “Much better,” you lamented, softly pulling your wrist free and turning back to your own chair.

“Shall we get back to work?” You asked, as you dropped into the chair, the playful tone never quite escaping your voice.

Part 2|Part 3

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