i wish i knew you wanted me - s.r.
a/n: okay this ended up being so so long forgive me!!! i hope you like<3
summary: based loosely on 'bad habit'. spencer got asked out by reader 5 years ago, when he was recovering from his dilaudid addiction, and turned her down. now, he's in love with her, and pining for her. also, jealous!spencer. she fell first, he fell harder. wc: ~2k
She’s very pretty. It’s distracting. Right now, she’s staring intently at his hands, and he feels hot under her gaze. It’s been a while since he’s done this, the little rocket trick, but she’s visiting the office, and Garcia had mentioned he’s a magician.
“That’s incredible!” She exclaims, a giggle in her laugh, and he feels the swoop of his stomach, the butterflies of it all, “You got them so high up!”
“It’s just physics,” he laughs, meeting her warm gaze. Her smile is one for the ages.
She’s here dropping off a file. They’ve known eachother a really long time, actually. She was an expert witness for them, once, years ago. She spoke with ease, both on the stand and in person. Equal measure kind and measured, and Spencer had adored her on first glance. They’d met when he was just getting clean from Dilaudid, and Spencer’s been in love with her since not long after than first meeting. That’s pretty much the only thing about her he wishes he could take back.
He still has a hard time thinking about it, the fact that he met her when he was barely himself. Still, she’d been kind, listened to him talk and let the others tell her that he was…going through something. It was on his two month sobriety date (which she’d had no way of knowing) that she’d asked him out.
Sometimes, when he can’t sleep, he replays the memory in his head. How she works just south of their office, and how they’d meet at the café nearest, and chat for an hour before calling a cab home.
On the other side of the veil, he can picture that night, years ago now. How she’d looked with the snow kissing her nose, dotting the edges of her faux-fur hood. She’d stuck out her tongue to catch a snowflake, and he’d almost combusted and the adorability of it.
“You look nice,” she’d said, although at the time he’s pretty sure he looked gaunt. He’d only recently started to gain the weight back- but still, her praise felt like stardust.
“You look nicer,” he’d said back, gently bumping her shoulder as a fond gesture. Her little grin is well-worth how awkward they both look on the street.
“Listen,” she had said, stuffing her hands into her pockets, the size of the coat causing her hands to disapear from sight entirely, “I asked JJ and Morgan, and they said you’re not seeing anyone.”
“Oh, yeah. They love reminding me of that. Not everyone can be like Morgan and have dated half the western hemsiphere.”
He felt embarrassed, her watching him. It’s nice, but sometimes feels like staring into the sun.
Her chuckle was nervous, not fully reaching her eyes.
“You okay?
“Yeah,” she swallowed again, before speaking, “I was wondering, um, if you might want to grab a drink with me?”
“Sure,” he’d replied back, amenably. He couldn’t tell why she looked so nervous, “I can’t really do hard liquor, though. Maybe we can invite the team.”
“No, Spence, I was wondering if you and I could go on a um, a date.”
And he’s frozen. Because this might be the second time he’d ever been asked out, and second, this might be his dream girl. She’s gorgeous and kind and she’s in front of him, asking him out.
“I um,” his mouth was dry. He’d be a bad boyfriend. He was a recovering drug addict who already was bad at talking to people, and she lit up a room whenever she walked in. She finds him easy to be with, easy to care for and he’s bound to fuck it up. He couldn’t imagine giving that up because he was too greedy to take what he got. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
He almost took it back with incredible speed, with that flash of disapointment on her lovely face, and the knowledge that it’s because she wanted him, before she quickly regained her speech.
“That’s totally alright! We’ll just be good friends, yeah?”
In the here and now, they are friends. Best of, really. And he made the right choice. He’d lashed out at Emily a month later in a withdrawl, and he knows that he’d have done the same to her, and now, she’s still in his life.
The drawbacks of course, to being her friend, means she has dates. Boyfriends, as well, and he’s been a…friend, through it all. Good friend. She’s never suspeced him of anything more, of course, after he’d categorically rejected it.
(Even though this rejection plays in his head all the fucking time, like a torturous groundhog day.)
She’s beautiful today, a blue blouse with a scarf lazily around her neck, and the way she’s leaning over his desk to see the trick before she drops off her analysis.
“Alright, Spence,” she says, her rose perfume wafting in the air prior to her hopping off the corner, “Did you need anything else? Today is my half-day, and Harry wanted to take me to Art Insititute.”
Harry, is the boy on rotation at the moment. Spencer has no impulse control and a super-computer expert best friend, so Spencer knows that Harry is 6’0 on his Driver’s License, and is a Financial Analyst. Spencer knows from her own mouth that this will be the third date, and that he’s a little boring but she’s attracted to the fact that he was direct and wanted to go out again.
Low bar, but one Spencer couldn’t even clear. He doesn’t say any of that, though.
“That sounds fun,” he says, instead of saying that he’d love to walk her through the inscriptions on each art piece, love to kiss her in front of something thats’ beauty does not come close to her’s. “Are you thinking it might run long, or are we still doing the bookstore and TV at mine after?”
He’s been looking forward to this all week. He bought special marshmallows for her cocoa. He also htes to imagine her date running long.
“Nah,” she smiles, “besides, he’s just some guy. You’re Spencer.”
Morgan doesn’t say anything when he looks down at his. paperwork, and scribbles instead of thinking, the best he can.
________________________________
Don’t think about the fact she was on a date. Don’t think about how Harry might have got to kiss her. Just don’t bring it up.
“How was the date?”
She shrugged, pulling at the spine of a hardcover novel.
“It was fine. Like I said, he was kind of boring.”
“So why’d you go out with him again?”
“I dunno, Spence, I just… I want a boyfriend, you know? I want someone to want to be with me.”
She is so beautiful. She laughs with her whole chest, and she listens to his stories and chimes in with her own expertise. She has a voice that seems like it’s spun gold thread, and he’d give anything to kiss her.
“I get that,” he says, instead of anything he’s thinking. She’s wearing brown lipstick, transfer proof. He’s in love with her. “There’s got to be guys lining up for a girl like you.”
“That’s a nice thought, Spence. Not the ones I’d like.”
___________________________
This thought haunts his evening, and when he parks and they start the walk-up to his apartment, a confession hammering at his throat, a physical urge. She’s giggling at some long physics joke he’d made, and he’s addicted to the soft bell of her laughter.
His apartment is small and lovely, and he enjoys having her in the small and dark of the night, the sun set over what he wishes were two lovers.
“You are really pretty, you know,” he says, once she’s settled into his chest, a sick satisfaction of knowing Harry got a quick thank you text before she darted over to Spencer’s arms.
“Thanks, Spencer. You’re a good friend.”
“Why do you always say that?”
“That you’re a good friend?”
“I’m not saying you’re pretty because I’m a good friend. I’m saying it because it’s true, and I enjoy saying true things.”
“You don’t…I don’t know why you’re saying that, Spencer. We’re friends and I adore you and I’m here right now, but you don’t need to make it harder on me.”
She looks nervous, and a little disapointed. He wants her to know, that even if he’s missed his shot, she’s not going to be alone. He’s gonna spend the rest of his life hating whoever knew to take the best thing offered to him, but Spencer- he knows he is not going to be the last to love her. He grabs her hand without thinking, her doe eyes peering into his with some emotion he can’t pin down.
“Hey, I’m not trying…to make anything hard for you. I don’t ever want to do that. I just… some day someone’s gonna see you and want to be with you and I’m going to watch it and know it was inevitable.”
The words taste like barbed wire.
Ask me again, he wants to beg, I’m ready now. I’ll do it right.
Is that even true? Is it just that he wants her bad enough he’s willing to risk not doing it right?
“You’re so sweet,” she sobs, and oh, she’s crying. Just a little, but tears prick at the corners of her eyes. “You make it so hard to be your friend. And I know that’s my problem, that you’ve always been straight up with me. I asked you out and you said no, and I know that-“
“I know that I was too late, and freaked out about being with someone like you when I was still so fucked up.” they’re so close to eachother, he can smell her chapstick. His chest aches. “Sweetheart, that had nothing to do with you. It was all me. It’s a train I missed that I’m gonna spend the rest of my life wishing I’d caught.”
He feels uncomfortably bare, even in the oversized sweater that she’d gotten him last Christmas, and that he’d pretended had been from his lover all of that week. But it’s important that she knows.
“What do you mean, ‘too late’?”
Her voice is small, so quiet he barely hears it. She threads her nimble fingers into his slender ones, and his heart is hammering.
“I-I was on Dilaudid, or just barely off, you know- you wouldn’t want to be with someone like me. You asked me out when you didn’t even know that.”
“I know you now. Years worth of knowing.”
“And you haven’t asked me since.”
“Spencer,” her voice is warm, rich like silk and grainy old music, and he wants to drink this image in, her fingers stroking the side of his face like he’s holy. He wonders if he’s dreaming, with how good she feels to be so close to.
Ask me again, he wants to beg. I’m ready, now.
“Spencer Walter Reid,” she says, properly holding his hand, bringing her soft lips to his hand, kissing his knuckle. He feels anointed, blessed by a higher power. “Could I take you out on a date?”
“Yes,” he says, finally. Five years of waiting melts away as he kisses her, warmth and light seeping into existence, a dream brought to tangible life, to touch and reality, “Actually, wait,” he says, and finishes before her face can fall, “Would you be my girlfriend?”
It’s maybe playing his cards too much, but her wide, ear to ear splitting grin is everything he needs to see, everything he might need to see for the rest of his life.
“Took you long enough, boy-genius.”
“All you had to do was ask again!”
If she has a complaint about that, it certainly couldn’t be heard by the many, many kisses that would follow.
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If you please; what is your Tolberone theory of knowledge?
My theory, which I thought up a few weeks ago while sick with covid, is that all knowledge is a form of art, and that there are very broadly three basic types of knowledge arts: physical arts, philosophical arts, and scientific arts, and that pretty much all academic, artistic and practical disciplines exist somewhere in that triangle spectrum.
Physical arts are knowledges of how to actually, physically do things. The purest front of physical arts are things like dance and navigation.
Scientific arts are knowledges of things that can be tested and proven. Computer programming and Quilting are both scientific arts: they work, or they don't.
Philosophical Arts are knowledges of things which while not objectively provable, are still very real. History and Being A Good Listener are philosophical arts.
Nearly every discipline of knowledge is some combination of all three. Cooking is largely applied chemistry, a scientific art, but it's also a philosophical art because flavor is extremely cultural and contextual, and a physical art because you have to know how to hold the damn knife and heat when it's done.
The first part of toblerone theory is that, like how each piece has three sides, any given project needs at least one person who has a good grasp of each of the underlying arts involved or it's going to go sideways at best. For example:
Physical and Scientific arts, no philosophy: Jurassic Park. They need someone to point out that, while very possible, it's not necessarily a good idea.
Philosophy and Science, no physical: that dril tweet about the forum debate locked by a mod after 12,000 pages of heated debate. They need someone to drag them away from the keyboard and actually do something.
Philosophy and Physical, no science: that cult in midsommar that put a guy in a bearsuit. Without the ability to engage measurably with the world, they give into fear and behave like reactive animals. Also the "rare chicken steak" phenomenon.
You can have differing ratios of each type- Jurassic Park really only needed two philosophers: one animal behaviorist and an OSHA inspector, and 98% of the issues would have been avoided- but you do need at least ONE of each underlying art to check each other's work.
The second part of toblerone theory is that, like how the toblerone is made of many triangle pieces, there are poles to the triangle spectrum. Practical vs Esoteric arts. Short term and long term arts. High stakes vs for funsies arts.
While you have have different ratios and levels of expertise in each of the arts, you do all need them to be on the same piece of the bar, or they won't take each other seriously. A UN Diplomat and a climate scientist aren't going to take the advice of physical artist my uncle Bobby the plumber re: global warming, but they will take the advice of physical artist my Aunt Cheryl the civil engineer, a world expert in getting shit done.
The same applies for the other end of the spectrum. Aunt Cheryl the civil engineer isn't going to get much milage with the local high school student council and principal Waley when the problem at hand is "what are we going to do for this year's prom theme?"
I gotta go to therapy now, pictures later.
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Today in measuring your peahen, Bug is casually 2 foot, 3 inches tall (she can stretch a little taller when she REALLY wants a treat). This is just tall enough to see over a tray table and pull things off of nightstands and end cabinets.
Bug is also a little over 3 feet long from tail tip to beak tip. Most of Bug is made up of tail and neck. There is a 6lb dead weight in the middle somewhere that she knows how to directly place onto the ball of one foot while standing on you.
Bug's wingspan is around 3.5 feet, thought I didn't get a measurement. It will be over 4 feet as an adult.
Bug is growing in her spurs. As a Spalding (hybrid) hen, Bug will likely have one inch bone knives conveniently attached to her tarsometatarsus. This is technically fused foot bones, not a leg bone. Curiously, pure Pavo cristatus hens have spurs, and pure Pavo muticus hens have spurs, but many domestic Pavo cristatus and low-percent Spalding hens lack them. This is one of the indications of domestication in the cristatus species. As I prefer the wild type, I prefer my hens spurred, so this is a good sign!
Bug's toes measure a smidge over 5 inches from the tip of her rear-facing to to the tip of her longest front facing toe. Try measuring that on your hand.
Bug's nails measure 1/2-3/4 an inch long, depending on the toe. That's almost as long as one finger section for most people.
When I had snakes, I got asked all the time if I was afraid of them biting me. The answer is no. I have been bitten by a 6 foot long, 20lb boa constrictor, and have no scars to prove it. Meanwhile I have so many scars from peafowl sitting on me, particularly on my forearms, that I have had to reassure people I am not a danger to myself.
I post these photos as a reference, but also as a precaution. This is a BABY peafowl, and a female at that. She is only 6 months old and weighs a little over 6lbs, which means she's about 2/3 of the way grown, and adult hens are typically 3/4 the size of an adult male. These are BIG birds that can do a LOT of damage, even accidentally. When they become aggressive, as in the case of hand-raised males or poorly bred birds, they become a potentially fatal threat to any other fowl you have. Unlike chickens, they are more than capable of (and prone to!) jumping to human face level before they flog (kick with their feet in a way that allows their spurs to hit home), which means they could easily take out an eye or cause other serious facial injury if they get a lucky strike. I have seen more than a few people end up with stitches, and more than a few birds end up euthanized because people think they are gonna be cute cuddly friends.
I know that Bug is a cute bird, but I also want to stress that a) she has an outstanding personality as a result of breeding choices and socialization b) she hasn't hit maturity, and won't do so for another 2+ years, so her personality could change considerably still and c) I have been raising peafowl one way or another for my entire adult life, which has been structured around keeping them. I love my birds, and I would love for more people to keep peafowl as they are great animals, but they are not casual animals. They are large and potentially dangerous farm fowl that take a lot of space, care, and knowledge to keep.
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