#but at least i have audios of Spencer Reid

[sushi-rat]

"My child is completely fine"

Ma'am. Your child is listening to an asmr audio of their favorite character saying "I love you" to them because of the intense desire to be near someone who doesn't mind that they're a little messed up and broken mentally and physically but life has shown them that people like that only exist in media, which they've been using to drown their sorrows for years due to immense isolation from their peers

[getlostsquidward]

a shot in the darkest dark

pairing: emily prentiss x reader; emily prentiss x andrew mendoza

a/n: pls excuse the rusty writing. it's been almost 2 years since I've written something andddd this is my first time writing for emily teehee :D

warnings: angst, hurt/(a bit of) comfort, canon-typical violence (plot is set between events of 14x15 to 15x2 with some plot changes for self-indulgent purposes), gun violence, gunshot wounds, blood and injury

summary: to save the lives at stake in the hands of an unsub, you dared yourself to reveal your deepest, darkest truth.

Everyone is tensed as the unsub, Casey Pinkner, is forcing Melissa to kill the store manager, eager to prove that she’s just as capable of hurting other people as anybody is. Casey hands Melissa the gun, reminding her that her daughter will be dead if she doesn’t follow.

JJ intervenes. “Come on. She’s got nothing to do with this, okay? Just let her go. She’s not a part of this. You have no reason to hurt her. Just let her go.”

Casey smirks, a new idea seemingly brews in his head. He grabs the gun from Melissa, walks over to JJ, and grabs her hair. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

You and Spencer stay still and silent as you let things unfurl, that is until the unsub pushes the poor store manager away and shoots her.

“Do not move!”

Casey then hands the gun to Melissa again, which she accepts easily this time. “New deal. Now you need to kill one of these three.”

She’s shaking but aims the gun in your direction still.  “Who’s it gonna be?”

Melissa looks the three of you in the eye and pleads, “Please, I don’t want to do this.” 

Looking at your peripheral vision, you know that JJ and Spence have something up their sleeve to avoid having Melissa shoot one of you. Spencer never wavers with his eye contact with Melissa, while JJ looks ahead with a determined look on her face.

“Judge, you’ve got to decide. That’s what you do, right? Decide life or death with a flick of your gavel.”

The judge trembles while aiming the gun at each of you until the shrill ring of the telephone makes all of you jump. Finally, they’ve opened a line of communication with Casey, and you were just hoping that he at least take the call even though you know that he has what he wants and most likely won’t negotiate. 

He lets it ring, contemplating if he should pick it up. Reid encourages him. “Answer it, Casey.”

Casey tells Reid to shut up, further confirming your feeling that he won’t talk to somebody from the outside. He turns to Melissa. “Pull the trigger.”

By this time, Melissa’s gun is aimed at the ground, and you’re currently steeling yourself to what might happen next — until Casey does the unexpected. 

He lets the phone off the receiver but doesn’t pick it up to speak with your team outside. He just…let it in the open, letting everyone hear what’s happening inside.

Huh.

He turns his focus back on Melissa. “Pull the trigger.”

You share a look with JJ and Reid, and before any of them can speak up. You kneeled from your position. “Casey. If Melissa won’t play, I will.”

JJ and Spence looked at you as you tried to settle with the unsub, the blonde shaking her head. You knew JJ was planning to do it as well but you beat her to it.

“Truth or dare. That’s your game, right?” You asked, standing slowly. Casey hesitates but aims his gun at you nonetheless. “I’ll play.”

On the other hand, your team outside has finally accessed the security feed, all the while listening to you. The good thing was even though the camera wasn’t capable of audio, the unsub let them listen through the phone.

“All right, looks like Reid, Y/L/N, and JJ are tied up, and it’s the shop manager that was shot. Right? Look. She’s still moving.”

Simmons studies the feed, and points at the door caught by the camera. By now they’re delegating the police with their positions and Tara asks Garcia to route the video and sound feed to the local police department where Emily is.

“Melissa, the weapon, now!”

“Casey, I know what it’s like, to be wrongly accused, sent to prison for a crime you didn’t commit,” Reid says, trying to empathize with the unsub.

As expected, Casey didn’t buy it even if it was the truth. He then turned his attention to you. “Okay, agent…” 

“Y/L/N.”

“Agent Y/L/N. Truth or dare.”

Without hesitation, you responded. “Truth.”

“If I think you’re lying or stretching the truth in the slightest, I’ll kill these two.”

When you nodded, Casey continued. “You ever shoot anybody before?”

“Yes, I have.”

“You enjoy it?”

“No.”

“Liar!”

“No, no, no. I’m not lying. I had no choice when I shot those people. But I did not enjoy it. I didn’t.” He seems to accept your answer somehow, and when doesn’t follow up, you do. “Okay, you asked, and I told the truth, okay? It’s the truth. So now it’s my turn, right? That’s how this game is played. We take turns. Truth or dare.”

“Truth.”

“What’s it gonna take for all of us to walk out of here alive, for this to end peacefully?” You know it’s a long shot, but it never hurt to try when yours and four other lives are at stake. Casey shatters your hope with his response.

“I ain’t going back to prison. My turn. Truth or dare?”

You still picked truth, knowing that if you chose the other option, he most likely would dare you to kill JJ or Spencer or one of the civilian hostages—or yourself.

“I want you to say something you’re afraid to say, that you’d never tell anybody. And you better make it good, because if it’s not, it’s gonna be the last thing you ever say.”

You nod in understanding, wracking your brain for anything that you can use to say. You gasped as he shot Melissa, cutting you off as he viewed what you said as boring. “Next!”

Your chest is heaving as you think carefully about what to say next, nerves getting the best of you. Knowing very well that time is of the essence, your throat then decides to close up as if it’s physically hurting you to say the words that will come out of your mouth. Casey was having none of it as he dragged you back on your knees. “Last chance. Something you would never say aloud, not even to your partners here. Your deepest, darkest secret. Impress me, or I kill them both.”

You’re so close to hyperventilating as you look at your two teammates with tears in your eyes, and before you pass out and drop the chance to save everyone, you rush the words without thinking anymore.

“Um...I'm seeing someone, a lovely woman, but I'm... still hung up on Emily. My boss,” you chuckled sadly. Looking up as the unsub reaches out for the phone, assuming that he wanted to let your team outside hear what you have to say, you continued. “She and I uh, we kind of had a...I'm not even sure what to call it. We had a thing before she left for London. Of course, we still had communication, but we never got to talk about that. Talk about us, and now the rest is history.”

Back at the station, Emily gulped when her name was mentioned, feeling Luke’s curious eyes on her as he got ready to go to rescue Melissa’s daughter. Her jaw clenched as she kept her features schooled, she could not let her emotions take over her right now. There's a nothing-to-lose unsub with two civilian and three federal agents hostage in closed quarters. An erratic unsub whose gun is pointed at your head, for god's sake. She can deal with that later.

“I thought I'd get over it, you know. But what's that saying? Distance makes the heart grow fonder. That's when I realized that I...” you trailed off, shaking your head. The unsub is having none of it when he reminds you of the gun on your head. “When she came back to the BAU I was prepared to take this feeling down to the grave.”

“Go on, say it. Don't hold back.”

Your eyes darted to the ceiling, searching for any CCTV that could capture your face. There was none, you figured it was placed somewhere out of your line of sight. Relieved that none of the team could see your face, you took a big breath as you finally revealed your deepest secret to everyone. To her.

“I'm in love with you, Emily Prentiss. I always have, and I always will. I was fine without you knowing this, but god I think about what could've been, every waking moment of my life.”

It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off your chest as you finally confronted your feelings. You know that you've been in love with Emily for a long time now but you didn't have it in you to put it in words. Confronting your feelings for her made you scared, so much so that you waited for Emily to say something first until case after case passed…until she eventually left to work in Interpol, words left unsaid. Years have passed and you didn't hear a peep about it from the woman, which left you hanging on to your feelings for the BAU Unit Chief. You knew that you should’ve moved on a long time ago, but you just…couldn’t.

“Hot damn,” Casey chuckles. “That’s what I’m talking about. Now those are some last words right there, but not good enough to save your life.”

The relief in saying it out loud almost made you overlook the unsub’s finger onto the trigger until Spencer shot him in the gut. You and JJ turned to him, noticing the gun holster in his ankle. As if on cue, the police then bursts out the door. You let JJ them about the wounded, allowing yourself to ruminate on what just happened.

Once outside, you let the cool night’s air hit your face, hoping that no one talks to you about what happened tonight—though knowing that you’ll have to deal with this confession sooner or later once you return home.

Perhaps it can wait until after Dave and Krystall’s wedding.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

The world seems to have given you its grace as Emily didn’t bring Mendoza with her…but you know full well that grace can be and will be recalled anytime as your plus one chat with Penelope, Spencer, and Tara at the bar. 

While Penelope keeps them busy, you give in on doing what you deprived yourself of the past couple of hours—indulging at the sight of Emily, how her off-shoulder dress allows you to drink in the skin of her neck and shoulders, and how you used to—

Nope. Don’t.

Before you can’t help but go down the rabbit hole that is Emily Prentiss, you turn your attention back to the bar. “Pen, can I have double of your fancy drinks?”

“Babe, what’s wrong?” Sophie asks, her hand on your back. 

“Hmm? Nothing, just wanted to feel the bite of ‘The Rossi’,” you smile, and before she can comment on it, you let the drink burn through your throat until there’s nothing left on the glass. 

Emily goes to put her gift on the side, standing next to JJ as she subtly looks around the room to search for you. She spots you at the bar, shaking your head as you set your glass down. Emily makes a mental note to ask for one of those later, knowing that she needs to have liquid courage if she has to watch you with your date all night. She’ll need all the help she can get to talk to you.

She’s yet to speak her side about your confession, deliberately separating yourself from her as you got into the other SUV on the way to the airport that night. As she expected, you’d also kept your distance from her on the jet.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

The ceremony was short and simple, but the love between the wedding couple made it so much special. You can’t keep the smile off your face as you watch your friend and father figure to get his second chance with the love of his life.

“Their marriage was in the stars…”

You find yourself mustering all of your resolve to not look at Emily as she gives her toast, so you let her voice lull you back to that rabbit hole again. With your feelings for her out in the open, it was hard not to fall back to the routine where you’ll think back to the nights of passion and words of ardor whispered to each other’s ears only, and soft smiles are exchanged. Moments which you hold very dear to your heart.

“...Twin flames, two souls that are always meant to be together.”

You keep your tears at bay on how beautiful Emily’s toast speech is, and how you can’t help but think that maybe…you wish that there’s a part of her that thinks of you while she utters those words. You wish those words were meant for you, too, because right now, she’s all you can think of. 

“Sometimes it takes time, sometimes it takes a parallel universe or something, but the thing about twin flames is that nothing can keep them apart…”

A sad smile appears on your face. Maybe, in a parallel universe, Emily Prentiss is in love with you too.

“To David and Krystall.”

The crowd’s cheer rouses you out of your deep thoughts, raising your glass to make a toast. You had the full intention of avoiding Emily physically tonight, but alas, the world has had enough of you running away as you find Emily’s dark eyes on you—like you’re the only person in the room.

Emily felt like her heart restarted again when you finally returned her gaze—and kept it. It made her burn inside. So when she spotted you walking to the bar alone, she kept that fire blazing and started up a conversation.

“Hey.”

Emily knew you’d already seen her coming and was glad you didn’t try to escape. “Hey, you,” you replied, a ghost of a smile appearing on your lips. It was fast, but Emily caught it still. She’s thinking carefully about what to say next when you speak again.

“Look, what I said back there, I needed to say something that would get his attention, and I needed to get to say something that would get everyone’s attention, you know, so I uh- I just needed to throw him off balance,” there was a slight waver in your voice which you played off with a nervous chuckle.

Emily knows that…but she needed to confirm something that’s been at the forefront of her mind lately. She needs to hear it, to see it. “Y/N… Truth or dare.”

Her eyes, at this close distance and with the lighting, offer its lucky spectator with the gold specks within her brown eyes. Before you could get yourself lost in it again, you answered. “Truth.”

“Did you mean it?”

You tried your best to convey it with your eyes, though you know she needs to hear it too—but then someone bursts the bubble you and Emily are in, effectively cutting off your trance. “Guys, they’re about to cut the cake," Sophie says, before kissing your cheek and interlacing her fingers with yours. She then turns to Emily. “Can I steal her for a second?” 

Emily nods, letting her whisk you away. Although baby steps were made today, she’s afraid that she might have to live with never hearing your answer.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

The wedding allowed everyone to take a short reprieve from the horrors of your job, but the Everett Lynch case has been giving everyone a migraine (Rossi in particular) that sometimes you just want to bash your head in your desk in frustration. You feel for the man and his commitment to catching Lynch, which is why you’re now flooring the pedal on the way to the US Attorney’s Office to make sure Everett doesn’t break his daughter Grace out.

You can’t wait for backup any longer so you, JJ, and Reid split off to cover the underground garages where you can cut Lynch and Grace off. Reid and JJ ran off to the parking in Piedmont and 10th, while you now entered the parking in Trade Plaza as you spotted the father and daughter were about to get into a van. 

“Everett Lynch! FBI! Stop! Drop your weapon and place your hands on your head. Now!”

Lynch slowly puts his gun on the ground and kicks it over, so you order to do the same with her backpack. 

You've been in the same positions enough to know not to take your eyes off the suspects, even for a split second, but you guessed you’re not always lucky as you didn’t anticipate Grace shooting you down. 

It wasn’t in her profile. Like father, like daughter, you mused.

And well, your luck must have run out already, because in all places to have been shot, it’s in a place that’s not covered by your vest. You’re lying on the pool of your blood as the tires of their getaway car squeal out of the parking lot. You try to reach out for your gun in an attempt to shoot it down, but your vision is already blurring at the sides. 

You could faintly hear Spencer’s voice on your earpiece, but you can’t find the strength to answer it as you’re holding on to what remaining energy you have from succumbing to the darkness.

Eventually, you did, and the last thing you know is unfamiliar faces hovering over you, and the harsh lights of the hospital. 

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Your heart stopped.

Emily’s might as well do, too. 

“If I’d believe you, maybe-”

“No. There’s only one person to blame for this. Everett Lynch. He’s the one who shot Y/N, and he’s the one that we’ll move heaven and earth to bring to justice.”

Rossi reminded Emily that none of this is her fault, but she can’t help her mind going haywire over the thought of you getting hurt. She lets a few tears escape her eyes, before taking a deep breath and joining the others at the round table.

“Y/N’s gotta be okay, right? But what if she’s not okay? What if she’s—”

“Y/N’s strong, and she’s in good hands.”

Emily placed her hands at the back of the chair to keep her grounded, but her trembling hands hadn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of the team. “Spence is staying at the hospital. He’s gonna keep us updated. In the meantime, the best thing we can do for Y/N-” her voice falters at your name, but she also has to keep her head in the game as the unit chief. “-Is to find Everett and Grace before they go deep underground.” 

She reads Spencer’s update to the team that you’re now in surgery, and then her heart stutters over the next text she gets.

It’s going to be a while. She’s gonna want to see you too when she wakes up, Emily.

The sun has long been set when Emily couldn’t hold herself back anymore and asks Rossi to take charge in the meantime. The unit chief arrives just in time as the doctor tells Reid that you're out of surgery. “Is she gonna be okay?” She asked with bated breath.

“She’s lost a lot of blood, but she’s currently stable.”

“Can we see her right now?”

The doctor nods and leads the two to your room. Emily lets out the breath that she's been holding as soon as she hears the steady beeping of the monitor. She couldn't help herself as she approached your still sleeping figure, her hand cupping your face, thumb softly caressing the apple of your cheeks. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were missing sooner,” Spencer whispered.

“You haven't talked with her yet.” He continued, but it’s no longer directed at you.

It's not a question, everybody knows the tension that's been up with the two of you ever since the confession. No one attempted to bring it up—not when the two of you are present, anyway.

You, nor Emily didn’t bring it up anymore after the wedding, either, as both of you didn’t know how to talk about it. Now you’re back to walking on eggshells around each other.

How do you even go back to how you were before?

Emily retracted her hand. “Unless it's about a case, no.”

“Have you ever talked to anyone about it?”

“No.”

Sad would be an understatement for Emily. She's been oceans apart from the team, from you, when she was in London but right now, you've never felt so far. Emily desperately wanted to reach out to you, but she didn't know what to say. There's also the fact that you're keeping her at arm's length, and that drives the two of you even further away from one another.

“You should, right now. The doctor said it’s unlikely that she can hear us, but it’ll be good for you to let it out.” Spencer pats her shoulder as an offer of consolation. “I’ll be right out.”

Unlike before, Emily didn’t bother to collect her thoughts anymore, letting her heart speak instead. “I know things between the two of us have been kind of weird lately…ever since you said you’re in love with me.”

It has been playing in her head since that moment…then there was one night when she’d hit rock bottom, and asked Penelope to get the audio file of your confession sent to her phone. It was the closest thing to ‘bringing it up’ with anyone from the team, but even then when Garcia asked Emily about it when her head was clearer, she shrugged the technical analyst off.

“I heard it, and it’s yet to leave my head, but the truth is I don’t know what to do with that. I mean I know why you said it, but what I’m itching to know is…if you meant it. But now, all of a sudden none of that matters. What matters is that you wake up. Come back to me, so I get to have more time with you.”

Emily sits at the edge of your bed and takes your hand in hers. The feeling of your soft and gentle touches against her skin now felt like a fever dream, something that she was not sure if it had happened with how long ago it was. “I can’t imagine my life without you in it, Y/N. Please don’t leave me.”

She lets out a breath that she’s been holding, taking in the features of your face. How your lashes kiss your skin, the way your brow furrows together as you read case reports, or how your nose scrunches up when you smile.

Emily dreams of you that night.

“Em.”

She only hums in response.

“Emily Prentiss,” you tried again, but she only groaned. “Em.” This time, you take your free hand to her head, because she’s taken your other hand hostage.

Finally, she stirs awake at your touch. “Did you sleep here all night?”

“Huh?”

You chuckled at her groggy features. She’s adorable. “How are you more out of it than I am?”

Emily only laughs softly in return, letting go of your hand as she sputters apologies.

“I’m glad you’re here, Em.”

“You’re my best friend. Where else would I be?”

…Right. I’m your best friend.

When you didn’t answer, Emily stood up. “I should go and let you get some rest.” 

“No. No, not yet,” you racking your brain on what to say next, to prevent Emily from leaving. “I…I’ve missed you.” You’ll just blame it later on the drugs they put you in.

“Me too.”

“It’s my fault that things have been weird between the two of us.” Emily tensed up at that, so you went on. “Yeah, I heard you…Um, we do need to talk about what I said.”

“No, we don’t-”

You grasped Emily’s hand in yours to stop her. She lets you continue. “I needed to say something real, and that’s what came out, and I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I never meant to do that to you…or her, to Sophie. I was prepared to take that secret to the grave, but now it’s out. And I can’t…lie to you and say I didn’t mean it. Because I do. I’m deeply in love with you. I know that’s not fair, springing this onto you when I know you love Andrew, and I want you to be happy…and I just want us to be okay.”

“We are,” Emily smiles, genuinely for the first time in days, also while keeping her tears at bay. She squeezes your hand in assurance.

You’re the first one to let go of her touch, already missing her hand that you think perfectly fits with yours.

Baby steps. 

But this time, maybe, you can let Emily go the same way you’ve always loved her. Silently.

[racingairplanes--archive]

↪︎ There's a corollary for friends. When you meet a true friend, you will be bound together though space and time for 500 years.

⊹ 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @blakes-dictionxry @everything-is-alrightt @reese-the-edgy-enby @moreid187 @agentshortstacc @cloudy-reid @moreidism @ssaemxlyprentxss @luke-alvez @pretty-b0yy

[golden-barnes]

Tongue tied

Spencer Reid x  F!Reader

Summary: Y/N helps out with a case and Doctor Reid becomes a man of few words.

Word count:1.1k

Warning: Some mention of the case, that I created nothing too explicit 

A/N: This is sorta set on season 7 of criminal minds but with a made-up case. Not the best work but I wanted to talk about it.

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”

– Ludwig Wittgenstein

It’s been over 5 hours and they had nothing. They had hit a dead end in the case. The profile just didn’t fit. On paper, they were looking for a white male in his late 30s with a severe case of mommy issues yet nothing. There was something missing, something that they weren’t getting. They even had voice recordings but even the genius doctor Reid couldn’t find any clues that would lead to them capturing this sick son of a bitch.

That’s why Rossi decided to call in someone to maybe find another perspective. He brought her to the station they were working in. To see the team shaking their heads and filling up their coffee mugs because it has been a rather long day. They turned to look at Rossi and the mystery woman. Spencer was intrigued by her. She walked with confidence and stepped into the station with certainty.

“Team, this is Doctor Y/L/N. I think we could use a new set of ears to solve this.” The woman gave the team a small smile and a wave. Spencer felt his chest tighten a bit. 

“Call me Y/N please.” She said sitting down next to the young doctor and gave him a warm smile.

JJ replayed the voice recordings and the Y/N was paying very close attention to what the unsub was saying. Spencer already knew what he was saying. He was reading the little prince, at least fragments of the dialogue. That said nothing about the crimes he had committed. Just that he has read the book at least once in his life and that he was a sick man.

“He’s bilingual. Probably speaks more than two but I can only assure you that he speaks English and French, probably learned both languages simultaneously. Forced by a parent or because they have a non- English speaking parent. I suspect it’s the mother by what Rossi told me. ” Y/N declared once the audio stopped. Spencer looked at her with wide eyes. Morgan scoffed at her.

“What type of doctor are you?” Morgan asked. She smiled at him.

“I’m a linguist but I specialize in Romantic languages, such as French, Portuguese, Spanish and etcetera. This is sorta my area of expertise. The unsub has problems with some pronunciations. Like with the word the, there’s a slight eu sound. The sound of the schwa or silent e. He also subconsciously pronounced important in french. Well, at least the first sound. He probably read the little prince in french. Several times. He is probably accustomed to reading the original version, so these mistakes are subconscious. Hell, he must have memorized it.” Y/N rambled 

“Great, it’s like another Reid,” Emily said in a whisper. JJ stifled a laugh and Morgan chuckled. Both doctors lowered their heads. Spencer wanted to tell his friends off for embarrassing him in front of a woman like that. But before he could even open his mouth, a cop from the precinct entered the office.

“There’s been another murder.” The man said before rushing out.

“Okay. Rossi, JJ, and I will go to that new crime scene. Morgan and Prentiss, I want you guys to check the one before that, see if we missed any. Reid, stay here with doctor Y/L/N, check if there’s anything else you can find in the recordings. Something that we can nail this profile with.” Hotch said, grabbing his things from the desk. Everyone hurried out the door and left the two doctors alone.

Spencer’s hands were getting clammy. He didn’t know why he was so nervous. It was just a really beautiful woman who took his breath away the moment he saw her and now he is alone with her to solve a case. Get it together Reid! He noticed she hasn’t said anything. She looked deep in thought. 

“What are you thinking about?” Spencer asked in a low tone. Y/N looked at him and he felt his breath hitch again.

“If he learned both languages simultaneously, it means the household was bilingual. Or that-” 

“In his house, they spoke English but he lived in a french speaking country.” Spencer finished saying. The missing pieces of the case finally revealing themselves. Y/N started to pace around looking at the boards. Spencer just sitting there, petrified with the possibility of making a fool of himself.

“Military families!” She exclaimed and grabbed his forearm from excitement. But let go quickly when she saw Spencer’s shocked expression

“Opps sorry. But yeah, he could be a military brat, whose parents were stationed in France. It would explain his tactfulness and how he is so good with weapons. It makes sense right?” If Spencer wasn’t infatuated with her before, now he definitely was. Y/N kept looking at him with doe eyes. Is this how a heart attack felt like? 

“I’ll- uhm call Garcia and see if there’s any man whose parents were stationed in France. Uhm you can wait here.” Spencer sturred. Y/N gave him another warm smile.

“Okay, I’ll be here waiting.” She said sitting down in one of the chairs.

Y/N was right. It was a man whose family was stationed in France. His mom was the soldier and basically questionned everything he would do. Another white man with severe mommy issues, just that he knew how to do counter measures.  She had figured it out in 0.3 seconds while it had taken the team 5 hours. Reid couldn’t believe what he saw. It was as if the woman was drawn exactly from his dreams. 

“Ah there she is! Bella!” Rossi exclaimed going to hug the woman that had been ruling Spencer’s mind.

“Thank you so much doctor for your help.” Hotch said, you could almost see him smiling. Everyone else started to congratulate and thank Y/N for her help. But Spencer hadn’t say a thing.

Rossi nudged the silent boy genius. Reid almost didn’t even feel it, he was too captivated with the other doctor.

“She’s really smart, right?” Rossi whispered to the young man, who only nodded his head.Rossi slipped a paper in Reid’s hand. It was phone number with Y/N’s name written on it.

“She’s also single and available. Call her.” He said quietly.

“But-”Spencer tried to protest but Rossi shused him.

“Call her!” said the older man in a commanding tone. Spencer gulped and looked at the paper in his hand. He looked up to see Y/N looking at him. She gave him a smile. Maybe he might call her.

[motherjoel]

get her (spencer reid x fem!reader)

summary: you finally get a boyfriend after pining for spencer for years, but spencer is suspicious of him

a/n: idek how i got this idea but i hope you guys like it lol. also we all know how sassy spencie gets when he’s upset afbjvbadas

wc: 2.3k

warnings/includes: some language, angst & fluff

“Someones looking chipper today,” said Emily as you walked into the bullpen with a smile on your face.

“What, just cause we catch serial killers for a living, I can’t have a good night?” you asked and shot her a wink. This caught JJ’s attention from a desk over.

“Alright, I’ll bite. Who’s the guy?” she asked, opening the files on her desk. You blushed for a moment before deciding to indulge them in the details.

“If you must know, his name is Justin and we’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks now,” you smiled, giggling at your friends reactions. Garcia was nearby, pouring herself a mug of coffee.

“Wait, my ears were burning. Are we talking about love?” she asked, taking a sip of coffee and leaning on your desk.

“I wouldn’t call it love, but it’s something,” you wiggled your eyebrows. Spencer and Derek entered the bullpen together, walking over to the crowd you had assembled.

“Woah, how come I wasn’t invited to the party?” Derek asked, setting his bag down at his desk and joining the rest of you. Spencer lingered near your desk, curious about the gathering as well.

“Well, Y/N here has a special someone…” Emily said, raising her eyebrows. You didn’t notice Spencer visibly deflate from beside you, but JJ did. Spencer had confided in her about the crush he had on you- he never planned to act on it, but now that he knew you were taken, he regretted keeping it to himself. Spencer was almost thankful when Hotch left his office to announce a case. He didn’t want to hear the “dirty details” (as Garcia called them) with this Justin guy. What kind of name is that, anyway, he thought. Everyone stood up to make their way to the conference room before Hotch stopped them.

“A child was declared missing after her family was killed. Time is of the essence, we will debrief on the plane,” he said. Everyone grabbed their go bags and you shot a quick text to Justin, letting him know you wouldn’t be home for a few days. Spencer noticed you smiling at your phone and looked away, trying his best to ignore it. 

After debriefing, everyone was scattered throughout the jet to go over their files and come up with theories. You normally sat with Spencer- he was your best friend in the office- so you made your way to the seat across from him. Although he was your best friend, you hadn’t mentioned Justin to him before today. You’d had feelings for Spencer when you joined the team, but you never thought he would feel the same way so you did your best to move past said feelings. They still lingered, however, when you fell asleep basically on top of each other on many jet rides home, or when he would bring you your favorite coffee on fridays. You decided that the best thing to do was to get in a relationship, which you did. Spencer didn’t look up when you sat across from him on the jet.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about him before,” you said, feeling bad that you kept a relationship from your best friend.

“Hm? Who?” Spencer asked, feigning cluelessness. 

“Justin, my-uh, my boyfriend,” you said. Spencer tensed.

“Oh, that’s okay. You don’t have to tell me anything,” he shrugged and looked back down at his files. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it, but he was acting weird. 

“I know, I just feel like… you’re my best friend, and I should have told you about him,” you said, suddenly feeling foolish. Your use of “best friend” seemed to warm Spencer up.

“Really, Y/N. It’s fine, as long as you’re happy,” he said with a soft smile. You nodded and silently opened the manila folder, returning focus to the missing girl.

-

You had been working the case nonstop for hours without any leads, and you were feeling hopeless. After a long time of staring blankly at an evidence board, you excused yourself to call your boyfriend. Once you stepped outside, you hit call, only to be sent straight to voicemail. That’s weird you thought. You didn't want to bother him if he was busy, so you sent him a text.

hey, it’s a pretty rough case and I just wanted to call and talk to you. call me when you get the chance <3

You hit send and walked back inside, visibly deflated. Spencer took notice of your disappointed slouch, but remained focused on the profile, as did you. A call from Garcia came in after you had all been sitting in a stumped silence for a good 20 minutes.

“Guys, there was a little girl who just called the police, she claimed to be Sammie Smith,” said Garcia, voice laced with concern. 

“Were you able to triangulate the call?” asked Hotch.

“Unfortunately no, but let me play it for you. It sounds like there's some sort of train in the background,” Garcia said, proceeding to play the audio. You all listened intently.

“Spence, how many trains go through the geographic profile?” you asked, walking over to the map Spencer was looking at and leaning down next to him, unintentionally pressing your chest to the side of his arm.

“Um, just one, but the unsub could be keeping her anywhere along the tracks,” Spencer said, ignoring the feeling of your warmth. 

“Garcia, can you play it again,” asked Prentiss, leaning on the table.

“Sure thing.” You all listened intently. 

“It sounds like the train stops during the recording- maybe she’s being kept near the station? Garcia, what’s the address of Sammie’s uncle?” you asked, thinking about a possible lead.

“Let me see… it’s 327 Lavender Road… which is a block from one of the train stations in the geographic profile,” she said urgently.

“Thanks Garcia,” Prentiss said as you all raced out of the conference room and into your SUVs. 

-

The case was successful- or about as successful as catching a serial killer could be. You had saved Sammie’s life and she had an aunt across the country who would care for her. As you all piled onto the jet, you checked your phone again for a text from Justin. Nothing. You sat with Spencer on the couch, taking a deep sigh.

“He still hasn’t texted you back?” Spencer asked, looking between you and your phone. 

“How did you know?” you asked, shoving your phone into your pocket.

“Well, you left the conference room yesterday and you came back discouraged, and you’ve been constantly checking your phone since then. Basic profiling,” he said, pulling a book out of his bag.

“Hey, whatever happened to the moratorium on profiling each other,” you said with a raised eyebrow. Spencer shrugged.

“I don’t know, I was just skeptical of this Justin guy. I mean, maybe there was a reason you didn’t tell any of us about him until now,” he said nonchalantly. You felt a little sting.

“Spencer, don’t you think that’s a little presumptuous? I mean, you didn’t tell any of us about Maeve,” you said.  Spencer snapped his eyes back up to you. You felt bad bringing up his old scars but you needed to defend yourself.

“What’s this got to do with Maeve? At least she returned my calls,” he said, more angry than before.

“Spencer, why are you being like this?” you asked, getting the attention from the other team members now.

“Why am I being like this? I wasn’t the one who took a break from our job to call a boyfriend that won't even call me back,” he snapped. His eyes widened a little when he realized what he had just said. He had hurt your feelings. You stood up, tears brimming in your eyes. “Y/N, wait-” he started.

“No, I get it. I’m just gonna sit over there,” you said, grabbing your things and moving to the opposite end of the jet next to Emily. Spencer watched you walk away and he had never felt more guilty. He looked at Morgan who was sitting nearby and witnessed the whole fight. 

“What do you have against Y/N dating?” Morgan asked, moving to sit next to Spencer. He seemed to already know the answer.

“Don’t make me say it,” Spencer put his head in his hands. Morgan clapped his shoulder, laughing lightly.

“Reid, we’ve all seen you two together. You guys cuddle on the jet home after cases. Cuddle. Spencer ‘I don’t shake hands’ Reid is tangled up with a girl he doesn’t even call his girlfriend,” Morgan said, shaking his head.

“She has a boyfriend Morgan. I’m in love with her and she’s-she’s taken,” Reid said, more quietly now. Derek widened his eyes.

“Damn, this ain’t no puppy love then. You’re in love with her?” he asked, taking on a more concerned tone. Spencer nodded his head, resting his chin on his hand and looking at you, trying to get some sleep in the uncomfortable chair. You probably would’ve slept better next to him. 

“Then you gotta get her,” Morgan said before standing up and walking back to his original seat, putting headphones on. Spencer thought about what Derek had said, but decided that he would wait a bit. He wasn’t the type to just “get her.” With one last look at you shifting in your sleep, Spencer opened his book and tried to read, being only plagued with thoughts of you the entire ride home.

-

You exited the jet even more tired than you were before, if it was possible. After fighting with Spencer, you just wanted to see Justin. You wanted to prove to yourself that he was real, that he was a good guy. So, the second you got back to the office, you hopped onto the metro and took the train to his apartment, saying quick goodbyes to most of the team. Spencer not included. You walked up to his door and gave a knock, which was met without a reply. You tried again before wiggling his doorknob a bit. It was unlocked, which was odd for him. You began to worry a bit, so you decided to go inside and check it out. Your gun was drawn, just a precaution, when you heard screaming coming from his bedroom. You ran quickly to his room before bursting inside, pointing your gun at the source of the noise. Or, sources.

He was on his bed, presumably naked, under the sheets. Next to him was a woman you didn’t recognize, similarly naked. You opened your mouth in shock, slowly lowering your gun.

“So this is why you weren’t answering my text,” you said, still in a state of shock.

“Y/N, I-” Justin began.

“Nope. Nuh uh, I’m good, I’m… I’m gonna go,” you said, tears brimming in your eyes. As you stormed out of the apartment building, you walked and walked until you had finally stopped crying. You felt so stupid. And you were lost. With a sigh, you pulled out your phone and called the first number that came to mind.

“Hey, uh I’m lost and… can you pick me up?” you asked, sniffling a bit.

“Send me your location, I’m on my way,” Spencer said before hanging up. You sat down on the sidewalk and sent him your location. He lived nearby, so it only took a few minutes for him to arrive. Once he saw you, he stopped his car and got out, sitting next to you on the ground. You sniffled back a few tears.

“I found out why he wasn’t answering my calls,” you said, fiddling with a pebble you found on the ground. Spencer looked at you, waiting for you to continue. “Turns out I wasn’t the only woman he was fucking,” you said, standing up angrily. Spencer winced at your harsh language. You started to cry again, this time from anger. “But I’m okay!” you said pacing for a bit.

“Don’t lie to me,” Spencer said, watching you warily.

“I mean, god! How could I be so stupid to think I had finally found someone?” you asked angrily, repeatedly kicking a lamp post. 

“Y/N…” Spencer stood up and walked over to you.

“No, I’m an idiot!” you yelled, angry tears streaming down your face. Kick, kick kick. When kicking wasn’t enough to satisfy you, your fists began to bang on it repeatedly. Poor lamp post.

“Y/N stop!” Spencer said, trying to grab your fists. “You’re going to hurt yourself,” he said, gently grabbing your wrists and turning you to face him. You took one look at his face and collapsed into his embrace, both of you sinking to the ground as he held you and shushed you, whispering confirmations in your ear. “Just breathe, breathe,” he said softly, stroking your back. Once you had calmed down, he spoke again. “Hey, look at me,” he said, and you did, looking up at his sympathetic face. “You deserve someone who values you,” he said softly.

“Like who?” you looked down at your entwined hands, heart drumming against your chest. 

“Like… like me,” he confessed, eyes flickering down to your lips. You slowly removed your hands from his and put them on the sides of his face, gazing into his sparkling eyes.

“I don’t deserve you,” you said softly. As if to prove his point, Spencer leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to your lips, tasting your salty tears. You pulled away after a moment, savoring the way he tasted.

“You deserve everything,” Spencer said before kissing you on the forehead. You giggled and pulled him in by his tie, slamming your lips together again, this time with more intensity. He was surprised at first, but his hands quickly found their way into your hair as he moved in synchronicity with you, eventually pulling away for air.

“I love you Y/N, I always have,” he said, breathlessly.

“I love you too, Spencer Reid.”

-

taglist: @rigatonireid​, @yesimaunicorn​, @aworldoffandoms​

[pastpatientlywaitingforimagines]

Supernova | Spencer Reid x Reader Platonic

WC: 2712

A/N: This technically is part 2 to Galaxy, but can be read standalone. Mostly I just wanted to write a fic for Entropy and already had a universe that I could work with. 

GALAXY MASTERLIST

Warnings: Mentions of anxiety, PTSD, alcohol. SPOILERS FOR 11x11 (Entropy).

“Let me go.”

“No,” your unit chief didn’t look up from the file he was reading as you paced in front of his desk.

“Let me go with JJ,” you tried again.

“No,” Hotch’s eyes stayed glued to the information in front of him.

“Let me go with Rossi, he won’t let me do anything irrational. I won’t do anything irrational anyways, I don’t need a babysitter, but I will literally do anything if it means you’ll let me go to that restaurant.”

“You’re not going.”

“Hotch-”

“I’m not going to tell you again, (y/n). I know you want to help, you can do that from here,” he finally looked up at you, stone-faced. You sighed in defeat and left his office, slumping down at your own desk once you had crossed the bullpen. A steaming cup of coffee was slid in front of you, Penelope’s gentle hand resting on your shoulder for a moment before she sat down across from Spencer’s desk.

“Thanks,” your words were quiet and defeated, characteristics that weren’t normal for you. You took the cup in your hands but it was only a matter of minutes before you were pacing again, watching your friends- your family gather as they prepared for the events that were about to happen.

JJ, clad in a fluffy burgundy jacket, approached you slowly, “you ok?”

“I should be going with you,” you told her, “Hotch thinks I’m a liability, but I don’t see how keeping a fully functioning agent on the sidelines is any better.”

“Are you fully functioning? I’m sorry, (y/n), but I agree with Hotch. We’ll keep him safe, you do what you can from here.”

“That’s just it, Jayje. I can’t do anything from here. We already have a profile, all of my other skills are entirely field-based. I’m going to spend all night pretending to go over the case files while the rest of my family takes down a hitwoman.”

You glanced over your shoulder to where Spencer was standing by Garcia, quickly tying his tie as they searched for information. You had lived through so many cases with the boy wonder by your side, and somehow this was the one that was making your heart stop and it hadn’t even happened yet.  

“Why is it always him?” JJ’s eyes narrowed as you spoke.

“What do you mean?”

“The train, the shed, the cult, the Anthrax, Maeve, Gideon, shot in the knee, shot in the arm, shot in the neck,” you listed, “I know what we do is dangerous but even for an FBI agent he’s experienced so much…trauma. I just want to put some bubble wrap on him for once.”

“He’s going to be ok,” she reached out a reassuring hand. You leaned into her, still feeling like you were suffocating with what-ifs that could happen to your best friend while you were stuck in the office.

Spencer strode over to you shortly after, sticking his arms through a suit jacket as he crossed the room.

“Hey handsome,” you tried impossibly hard to keep your tone light, not wanting to worry your friend before he went out on this case. His face still softened when he saw your disheveled state. JJ squeezed your arm lightly before walking over to Rossi, leaving you alone with the doctor.

“You’re worried about me,” he observed.

“Is that a crime? You’re having dinner with a hitwoman, I have every right to be worried, especially since Hotch sidelined me.”

“Yeah… about that,” Spencer stuck his hands in his pockets nervously, his tongue flickering over his lips.

“You didn’t,” you wanted to get angry as it dawned on you, but you were still too convinced this was the last time you were going to see your best friend.

“I could tell you weren’t happy with the plan when I first pitched it to you. I asked Hotch to keep an eye on you just in case. He’s being careful, (y/n).”

“I’m still not happy with this plan. I’m even less happy that I’m not allowed to participate,”

��I know, but once Cat is in custody you can come over to my apartment and we’ll watch as many episodes of Doctor Who as you want,” he proposed.

You shifted your weight as you considered his offer, “are you sure this is going to work?”

“There’s no other way.”

“Fine,” you sighed, “but we’re starting with Nine. Chris Eccleston is severely underrated.”

“Perfect,” Spencer smiled softly at you before checking his watch, “we should get going. You’re going to be ok here with Garcia.” You nodded, following him towards the glass doors as the dread of what he was walking into crept up your spine again.

He pushed the button on the wall, idly twisting his fingers together as you waited for the elevator to arrive.

“Spencer,” he turned to you with the most genuinely soft Spencer smile, “you’re the only you we’ve got. We can’t-” you cleared your throat, “I can’t lose you.”

“I know,” his voice was soft and calm and embodied everything you loved about the genius. Anything he was going to say after that was interrupted by the ding of the elevator doors opening beside you.

As much as it pained you to watch him get onto the elevator and leave you behind, you had complete faith in his abilities. It was the unpredictable nature of everyone else involved in the network that scared you the most. The rest of the team came from behind you, each patting your shoulder as they passed. Derek was the last, pulling you into a tight hug.

“We’ve got this. He’s got this,” he whispered.

“Promise you’ll bring him back alive?”

“I promise,” he squeezed you even tighter before letting you go and joining the rest of your colleagues.

“This is the worst part,” Penelope said from your side as you watched the elevator doors close.

“I can’t keep wallowing. I need something to do. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“We’ll go to the batcave! There’s plenty to do there,” she smiled, grabbing your hand and pulling you into her office. Eventually Hotch joined you, directing Garcia to start patching in the various team members.

You could feel the stagnant tension between you and the unit chief and you didn’t like it. As seemingly emotionless and serious as Hotch was he filled a certain void in your life that had been missing since you were young. He was your boss though, and you had just tried to go against his orders so the tension was unavoidable.

While everyone was getting situated Hotch tasked you with going over every bit of information that had been gathered from the Sniper. It was a menial task like you had predicted, everyone had poured over these files a million times prior to tonight, and though you appreciated the attempt at distraction you couldn’t help but turn your head to Garcia’s monitors any time you heard something from the team.

“JJ stand down,” Hotch directed. Abandoning your files you scooted your chair to Garcia’s other side to watch the screen in front of you. You didn’t dare say anything, this was Hotch’s call to make. You started listening deeper to the conversation Spencer was having with Cat, chewing on your bottom lip as you did so. You had spent years listening to him talk, but this was a whole new level of banter. Cat was keeping up with him at an impossible speed. You watched as she reached up to grab Spencer’s tie.

“She muffled the mic, we lost audio,” Garcia practically whispered next to you. You waited for what felt like an eternity before you heard Reid’s voice again.

“Rossi, stand down. Please,” his eyebrows furrowed as he tucked his tie back into his vest.

“I should be in there,” you mumbled, eyes glued to his face on the screen.

“She doesn’t know about Morgan and Lewis,” Hotch reminded you. You held back your retort when the team collectively learned about the bomb that was planted under the building. The impending danger gave your intuitive mind something more productive to focus on, but amidst the chaos you still heard Spencer’s voice, clear as day.

“Double or nothing I can get you to sit back down.”

“Reid, what are you doing?” Hotch asked, still trying to work out the bomb situation.

“Spencer,” you hissed even though he couldn’t hear you, pressing your earpiece impossibly further into your ear. You listened as Spencer countered with Cat until she sat down again and he resumed his story.

“Wait. Your mother- tell me.” As Spencer started talking about his trip to Las Vegas, you felt your breath catch in your throat. Penelope looked at Hotch.

“Did you know?”

“No,” she turned to you.

“Did you know?”

You cleared your throat slightly, though it didn’t seem to help, “no, he said he’d tell me about his trip later, once we were done with the case.” You were shocked, to say the least, and frustrated that you hadn’t seen something like this coming. Spencer had seemed so normal when you met up with him at work earlier that day, even hugging you when he found you spinning in your desk chair waiting for him.

“I’ve got her,” Lewis’ voice broke your thoughts as she and Morgan started moving towards the Bomber. In your earpiece you could hear their struggle, but all you could see was Cat pointing the gun at your best friend’s face. Penelope reached over to grab your hand as Morgan started talking to Cat.

“Kid I am trying to save your life, now let me do that.”

“He promised,” your voice was so soft you weren’t even sure if you were speaking aloud, “he promised, he promised, he promised.”

As Spencer had previously mentioned, this was not the first time a killer had pointed a gun at him. It was also not the first time you had seen a gun pointed at him. The difference was that all of the other times you had seen Spencer at gunpoint you had been on site with him. You knew the doctor could handle himself, he didn’t need you to save him, but if he got shot in that restaurant you wouldn’t be there fast enough to say goodbye.

Your eyes narrowed and your brows smashed together as Cat was placed in handcuffs. You didn’t like the way she requested Spencer walk her out.

“You want to go home?” Hotch asked Garcia, putting his hand on her shoulder. The woman beside you was sobbing as she nodded. You couldn’t imagine the relief she must have been feeling, though you were experiencing your own kind of relief knowing that Spencer was safe.

You helped Penelope pack up her things and drove home with her, thankful for the distraction because you knew it would still be a while before Spencer came back to the office.

“I’m going over to Derek and Savannah’s for drinks, are you coming? We’re celebrating my freedom!” She called from her bedroom.

“I don’t know, Spencer and I were going to watch Doctor Who at his place,” you fiddled with the buttons on your phone, waiting for Reid to call.

“He can meet you at Derek’s. Come on, it’ll be fun,” she took your hand, not giving you another option. Normally you would be more gung-ho about spending time with your friends, especially with an outcome as positive as the one that had happened in that restaurant, but there was a weight on your chest that wasn’t going away and it made you unsettled.

This feeling continued even when Penelope started drinking. Savannah gave you a glass of wine, but you only had a few sips before excusing yourself to the bathroom. Standing over the sink, you struggled to breathe and it felt like your heart was going to explode out of your tightening chest. You couldn’t get the image of Spencer being held hostage out of your head. It felt like every flashback you had experienced since coming home from overseas, though you hadn’t had an episode like that in months.

You focused on your breathing, deep breaths that rattled your bones, and tried to calm yourself down. You vaguely heard a commotion coming from the front of the house, so you focused on that until you could breathe normally again. You brushed a wayward tear from your cheek, then stepped out of the bathroom. Penelope was wearing significantly less clothing, and Derek was standing in the entryway with Savannah.

Derek released his grip on his girlfriend to hug you, “I told you I wouldn’t let him die.”

“Where is he?”

“He said he was going home. He only left a few minutes ago, you should be able to catch up to him,” Derek pulled away from you.

“Thanks,” you told him sincerely, grabbing your phone and keys before heading out the door. You didn’t expect to find your friend so soon, but his lanky frame was unmistakeable sitting on a swing in the park between Derek’s house and Spencer’s apartment.

You didn’t say anything when you approached, instead sinking down onto the swing next to him and digging your feet into the woodchips beneath you.

“Were you at Derek’s?” he finally spoke.

“Yeah, Garcia made me go. I thought she told you,” you laughed quietly.

“No, I would have waited for you if I had known. Do you still want to come back to my place?” he turned to you for the first time. Even in the darkness you could see the circles under his eyes.

“Are you sure? I can take a rain check if you need some time to breathe. That case was…” you trailed off, not sure if you could find the words to explain the evening’s events. Spencer didn’t answer, instead leaving a pregnant pause in the warm evening air before finally speaking.

“It’s kind of ironic.”

“What is?”

“My whole life the one thing I’ve been good at is remembering, and now I’m faced with a disease that could take that away,” there was melancholy in his words, a vulnerability you hadn’t seen since the night he had told you about his Dilaudid addiction.

“Are you going to get tested?” you knew he wasn’t looking for advice or your opinion, the best you could do was help lay out what you knew was a tangled mess of thoughts inside his mind.

“I can’t. I’m too young to show the chromosomal indicators,” he went back to looking at his feet, “I just need to fix it to help my mom and maybe I’ll figure out a solution for myself along the way.”

“Your mom is a tough lady. Whatever you work out in that brain of yours, even if it ends up being completely wrong, it’s going to be with the best intentions for your family. You have a heart of gold, Spencer Reid,” you saw the corner of his mouth pull upwards.

“I would really like it if you would come over,” he stood up from the swing, “I don’t think either of us should be completely alone tonight.”

“What makes you say that?” you asked as you joined him, starting to walk shoulder to shoulder down the sidewalk towards his building.

“You had a panic attack earlier,” his nonchalant words caught you off guard.

“Yeah, at Derek’s house. It was mild though, I worked through it pretty quickly. How did you know?”

“You’ve been fidgeting with your bracelet this whole time. You only do that when you’re trying to ground yourself.”

“You know me too well,” you smirked.

“You know me in a way I never thought possible,” he retorted emphatically.

“I know I make it look easy but trust me, it’s not,” your tone was light and teasing, a much needed lapse of normalcy from the otherwise heavy night.

You and Spencer were two inseparable souls, intertwined because the universe saw two lost kids who desperately needed someone to understand them in a way only the other could provide.

“You were wrong, by the way.”

“Wrong? About what?”

“There are plenty of things you’re good at besides remembering. Don’t sell yourself so short.”

GALAXY MASTERLIST

[emberfrostlovesloki]

# 12 Comic Con

Gif credit; @prettyboyspence​

Prompt: Comic Con - Spencer and Garcia go to a convention in Pennsylvania so Spencer can see his favorite cosplayer [the reader]  again in person.

Couple: Spencer Reid/ Reader (female)

Category: Fluff

Content Warning: None

A/N: I wanted to write something completely fluffy, because I’ve only written angst for either the Reader or Spencer and I thought I should switch it up a little. This one shot is based on the reader being a cosplayer, but as long as you have a basic understanding of conventions this shouldn’t pose a problem. It’s not a super romantic fic, but it leans in that direction. I hope you enjoy! Like/ reblog please. 

List with all stories

Word Count: 6K

_y/n_ = your name 

_y/i_ = your initials 

_h/c_ = hair color

Spencer tried to make himself comfortable in the economy seat of the airplane he was currently on. With his long legs, unfortunately, the task was futile. After he gave up, the lanky man returned to his book. The genius FBI agent was not on the plane for a case, in fact he was on the plane for pleasure, or at least future pleasure. Reid was on his way to Pennsylvania to attend Steel City Comic Con. He had never attended the convention before, what was really drawing him to the state of virtue and independence was the cosplayer FrindlyFighter. 

Reid had stumbled across their account a few years ago. They cosplayed from Star Trek, Marvel, and many other fandoms that Spencer enjoyed. He had the opportunity of meeting FriendlyFighter at San Diego Comic Con in 2017. She was hosting a panel about the psychology of the Red Shirt from Star Trek. Although they hadn’t gotten all of the hard science right, Spencer was still enamored at someone being dedicated enough to do the research to pull off the panel. After the discussion was over he had approached the area where the host was chatting with some of the volunteers at the convention. She had noticed him and turned and walked up to him. “Hey, how are you enjoying the convention?” Spencer had stumbled over his words as he replied, “I’m good, I mean the convention has been great. I was really excited to see that you were hosting a panel this year.” The cosplayer smiled at his statement and asked, “So you’re interested in the psychological elements of Star Trek? It’s good to hear because every time I give one of these panel’s I’m not sure why there are so many people in the audience. You might say I’ve got impostor syndrome.” FriendlyFighter laughed at her self-deprecating humor and Spencer quickly replied, “I’m very interested in what you have to say. I actually use psychology a lot where I work, and I don’t think you’re an impostor. Upon hearing that one of her fans was more qualified in the field of psychology than her, she asked, “Where do you work?” She had not expected his response of, “I’m a profiler for the FBI, actually.” Her eyes grew wide at the information and she quickly said, “Wow, that must be a very difficult job. You’re a lot better at the science than I am. How did I do up there? Did I butcher all of the science?” The woman cringed at the idea, but she had asked and wanted to know if she was super off base in her assertions. Thankfully the man said, “You did really good. Not all of your claims are bullet proof, but generally you got it right.” The cosplayer relaxed and the knowledge and said, “Sorry I’m interrogating you over here, I haven’t even asked your name.” Spencer smiled and said, “My name is Spencer Reid, it’s nice to meet you.” She at him and said, “It’s nice to meet you Spencer.” The tall man stood for a second. He hadn’t realized that a short line of FriendlyFighter’s fans had formed behind him. The panelist looked back at him and said, “Would you like a picture.” At this statement Spencer smiled and fumbled for his phone. He positioned himself beside the cosplayer. She lifted her hand in the Vulcan salute and Reid snapped the photo. He said, “Thank you so much.” To which she replied, “Of course. Have a good rest of the con.”  

Spencer was brought back into the moment when the wheels of the plane touched the earth with a lurch. After he had grabbed his suitcase from the baggage terminal the agent flagged down a taxi and went straight to his hotel. The hotel was just across the road from the Monroeville convention center where the event was taking place. The hotel was already bustling with guests with large props and costume pieces on their luggage carts. The atmosphere was so different from his normal 24/7 work induced stress. After the lean man made it up to his room on the fourth floor he set his suitcase in the entrance way and he flopped down on the bed. He told himself that after a short nap he would go out on the town to find something to eat, but right now he was content to rest. While Reid was sleeping Garcia was sitting on a train, also headed to Pennsylvania. She was listening to one of her favorite trashy audio books and was thinking, ‘how the hell did Reid rope me into this mess.’ After all it had only been a week ago when she had asked him, “So do you have any plans for the weekend.” The boy genius had casually brought up that he was going to a convention. Garcia wasn’t really paying attention to his rambling conversation and she cut off his stream of conscious monologue by asking, “So who’s going to be at this convention, anyone special?” When she asked this Reid changed gears and started listing off names, saying, “Well I’m really excited to see a cosplayer named FriendlyFighter, she’s part of the opening ceremony and is holding a few panels, also Denis Lawson, Wil Wheaton, Catherine Tate.” The lanky agent continued listing the names. Garcia was about to start tuning out the man, but then he said the magic words, “and some guy named Duke Lancelot of Camelot.” When Spencer said this the technical analyst quickly swung around in her chair, mouth open in surprise. Upon seeing her expression Spencer asked, “Is everything okay?” Garcia closed her mouth and said, “Duke Lancelot of Camelot is one of the most famous players of World of Warcraft. He’s a legend, Reid.” Although Spencer had never heard of this legend he said, “Well you could come with me and meet him. Just get a two day pass or something.” Garcia was so enamored with the idea of meeting one of her video game heroes that she said, “I am absolutely coming with you Spencer.” The male agent hadn’t expected such a fast response and said, “Cool. I’ll catch up with you after work and we can figure out the details.” And that was how Penelope Garcia was convinced to go to a comic con in Pennsylvania. 

While Garcia was taking the slower, and safer method of getting up to the convention Spencer was just getting to the front of the registration line. A woman motioned for him to move forward to the window that she was sitting behind. When he got to the window the woman asked, “Do you have your pass pre-printed or do you need to pick it up, or are you going to buy a pass now?” As Spencer rummaged through his bag he said, “I have it pre-printed.” When Reid finally found the badge in his bag he pulled it out and held it up for the woman to see. The convention staff worker took a moment to look at the pass before she turned to the computer in front of her. She input his name and crossed it off the excel spreadsheet. After she finished this she said, “Have a nice convention Mr. Reid.” Spencer said thanks and walked toward the main hall. The opening ceremony of the con was going to start in fifteen minutes, and he wanted to be close to the front. When he had first met FriendlyFighter, or her other name on social media of _y/i_, she was a small cosplayer who had a small following. But after a few months she had grown in size, and started appearing at more and more conventions. Spencer couldn’t tell what had changed, after all she hadn’t changed her content too much. Spencer took a moment to consider that the cultural zeitgeist had changed around popular culture and conventions in general. It was true that attendance at conventions like  Blizzcon or Emerald City Comicon had been going up by twenty percent each year. As he was musing over these facts the lights in the ballroom dimmed and a loud male voice came over the hotel sound system. “Friends, fans and people of all sorts, welcome to Steel City Con 2019!” The crowd cheered as the man who was making the announcement came out from behind the red curtain and stood in the center of the stage. The master of ceremony said, “My name is Greg Hicks and I’ll be your master of ceremony for the weekend. But I know you’re not here for me, so let me introduce you to just a few of the very talented people you can meet this weekend.” At this statement the crowd went wild again. Reid had to cover his ears to stop a headache from forming. Greg continued by saying, “First of all we are happy to welcome, Megan Coffee!” Megan came out from the curtain dressed as a Pokemon Go character, she waved at the crowd and said into a microphone attached to her shirt, “Hi everybody! I hope you’re ready for a good weekend.” The woman walked to the other side of the stage. Greg announced a few more people, including Duke Lancelot of Camelot. Finally the MC said, “And last but certainly not least we are happy to announce the charming FriendlyFighter!” The crowd gave less cheers as the young cosplayer came out dressed as Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Spencer clapped quietly and listened as she said, “Good evening fellow fans. I’m so happy to get to see, and meet you all this weekend.” The gathered crowd dispersed after the ceremony. Many of the younger participants would stay up all night to talk or work on last minute costumes, Reid on the other hand headed back to his room at the hotel. 

When he walked through the sliding glass doors Garcia was standing at guest services getting the key to her room. The tall agent used his stealth skills to walk right behind Garcia and tapped her shoulder and said, “Hi.” at the same time. The computer genius was so startled that she jumped up, screamed, spun around and hit Spencer in the stomach. The tall agent coughed and grabbed onto his abdomen and wheezed out, “Geez Penelope, I thought you were excited to hangout with me this weekend.” When Garcia realized who it was she said, “Oh my God Spence I’m so sorry.” She wrapped him in a hug and whispered in his ear, “Never sneak up on me again.” Spencer smiled at the pseudo threat and said, “I’ll take that into consideration.” Reid waited for Garcia to get her key and walked her up to her room. The blonde agents room was three doors down from his. After Garcia was settled in her room Spencer said, “I think I’m going to go to my room and do some reading.” When she heard this, the computer analyst said, “Would you wait a minute. There’s a 24 hour gaming room and I’ve heard the servers are really good. I’m going to go over there and play for a few hours. Would you walk me over?” Spencer was already feeling tired, but knew that it was 22% safer for a woman to walk at night with a man, rather than walking alone. So he replied, “Sure thing.” Garcia took off her blazer and put on a more comfortable sweatshirt over the bright pink shirt she wore. Of course Spencer had turned toward the door to not look at Penelope change, even though it was just a piece of outer clothing. As the pair returned to the convention center Garcia was catching Reid up on the interesting passengers on her train ride up to the con. Once inside the main lobby of the building Penelope took in the size of the convention. There were groups of people lounging around at the tables and couches, some in cosplay and some in regular clothes, or the people in their pajamas. Garcia thought, ‘Now those people have the right idea. But if I was in front of Reid in my P.J.’s I’d probably scar him for life.” As her eyes danced around the room they landed on a Catra cosplayer. When she saw her she grabbed Spencer's arm and said, “Oh my God. I have to get a picture with that woman.” Spencer followed the direction of her finger and he saw that it was _y/i_. The male agent could see that the guest attendant was talking to two other cosplayers and said, “That's FriendlyFighter, the person I came here to see. She looks a little busy right now.” Garcia looked up to Spencer and was shocked to see that his cheeks were flushed. With this detail in mind the analyst said, “Come on Reid, you know that guest attendants at cons usually wear a different costume each day. Maybe two costumes a day. This might be my only chance to get a picture with her.” Reid sighed and gave in saying, “Alright.” 

The pair of FBI agents approached the group of cosplayers. As the agents approached the She-Ra group, they looked up at the pair. Garcia stepped forward and said, “You all look so amazing! Could I get a picture with your group?” FriendlyFighter smiled and said, “Sure thing.” The group got up and stood beside Penelope. Garcia waited a second and completely forgot that she needed to have a device to take the picture on. She fished around in her pocket and pulled out her phone, saying, “Wow I can be totally brain dead when I’m around talented people.” She found her phone and extended it out to Spencer saying, “Spence can you take the picture please?” Reid took the phone and said, “Of course.” As he swiped to open the camera, Penelope took her place again, and smiled broadly. FriendlyFighter put her arm around Garcia’s shoulder and gave the peace sign, while the Bow cosplayer held his prop bow and arrow, and Glimmer took her classic power stance. Reid held up his hand and signaled three, two, one, while saying, “Three, two one.” The lanky man took a few pictures and then stepped forward to hand Penelope her phone. As the blond woman checked her photos FriendlyFighter smiled at Reid. Once Garcia was satisfied with the quality of her pictures she said, “Thank you all so much. Your costumes are really amazing!” The whole group chorused, “You’re welcome!” and the two agents continued down the hall toward the gaming room. 

As they were walking away FriendlyFighter was thinking about the tall man and wondered, ‘have I met him somewhere before.’ She wasn’t sure, but she wanted to find out, so she said to the other members of her group, “I’m going to find something out. I’ll find you in a few minutes.” The cosplayer walked after the pair moved further into the convention building. The cosplayer quickly caught up with Reid and Garcia. When the agents saw her they stopped walking and Penelope said, “Is something wrong?” FriendlyFighter blushed and said, “Um, this is kind of awkward, but have I met you before?” She pointed to Spencer and the agent opened and closed his mouth for a second. He was surprised that she would remember him at all. He considered, ‘Maybe she’s just mistaking me for someone else.’ After a moment of silence the cosplayer said, “I don’t mean to hold you up from something. I know it’s a weird question.” Spencer snapped out of his head as Garcia sharply elbowed him and the male agent replied, “I met you at SDCC in 2017. You gave a panel on the psychology of the Red Shirt in Star Trek. It was really cool.” The cosplayer nodded as she thought back to the convention so long ago. She muttered, “Yeah,” and then more loudly, but still with some hesitation, asked, “You were into psychology weren’t you. You said I didn’t completely fuck up the science?” Spencer smiled and quickly replied, “Yup, that’s me.” FriendlyFighter’s eyes lit up and she said, “Wow, that’s super cool. Sorry I don’t mean to keep you both standing here. Where are you walking, do you mind if I come with?” Spencer looked to Garcia and she smiled and said, “Where'd love for you to walk with us.” The trio continued on their journey to the game room and FriendlyFighter said, “My name is _y/n_, I’ve unfortunately forgotten yours.” The cosplayer extended her hand to Spencer, and he took it and said, “I’s Spencer Reid. Nice to meet you again _y/n_.’ _Y/n_ then looked to Garcia and extended her hand. Garcia shook it enthusiastically and said, “I’m Penelope Garcia.” “It’s nice to meet you Penelope, “ _y/n_ replied. The cosplayer turned back to Spencer and said, “I know this is already weird, but I’m giving a panel on Saturday on Trauma and Grief in the Star Wars squeals and I know that you’re really good at analyzing character traits. Would you be willing to look over my notes and make some corrections? You can totally say no, I get that it’s a big request. It’s just that I haven’t given a big panel over character psychology in a while. And now that I’m more popular I’d like to have my facts as accurate as possible.” The group had arrived at room #115 where the gaming was taking place and they all stopped. Spencer thought about the possibility for helping out one of his favorite creators and said, “I’d be happy to.” The two nerds smiled and Garcia looked at them and rolled her eyes and said, “I hate to break up this moment, but I’m just going to say goodnight to this dork.” _Y/n_ snapped out of her trance at smiling at Spencer and the male agent did the same. Spencer turned to Garcia and said, “Well, have fun in there. If you plan on coming back to the hotel later tonight, or some other ungodly hour just call me.” After _y/n_ had said goodbye to Penelope, her cosplay group found her and she was whisked away to a rave on the third floor. But not before she got Spencer’s email and said, “I’ll send you the document with my notes for Saturday.” 

The next morning Spencer woke up to find an email from _y/n_ with a seven page document of well planned notes. At the top of the first page was a thesis statement that Spencer wanted to study right away, but decided to wait until he could procure some coffee. Twenty minutes later the agent was at a coffee shop, a five minute walk away from the hotel with this computer open, coffee in hand, ready to make notes on the document. Garcia had not called him last night and he assumed that she had stayed up all night and was currently sleeping off the late night gaming. After an hour Spencer had gotten his caffeine fix and added some notes to _y/n’s_ panel discussion. Spencer considered email that he had made some changes, but was cut off when he realized that a panel he wanted to see was starting in twenty minutes. He quickly closed his laptop and made a mental note to email _y/n_ by the evening. 

Before Reid knew it the day was almost over. Whenever he was at a convention time seemed to slip away from him. He was currently sitting with Garcia, who had woken up at 2:00 P.M., in a panel hosted by Duke Lancelot of Camelot. The older man was giving tips on the best shortcuts to getting a high ranking in World of Warcraft. The panel had started at 8:30 P.M. and had been going on for about ten minutes and people were slowly trickling in. After another ten minutes there was only room to stand and sit at the back of the room. The door opened one more time and Penelope turned and saw _y/n_ walk in and take a seat at the back of the room. She was wearing her Mr. Spock cosplay. She apparently knew a few people already seated and she was quietly talking to them. Garcia looked over to Reid, who was zoning out of the discussion. She elbowed him again and leaned over and whispered. “Hey Spence, you’re favorite cosplayer is here. At least she has good taste.” Spencer looked confused and Garcia jerked her head in _y/n’s_ direction. Spencer turned to see _y/n_. At the same time he did this FriendlyFighter looked up and saw him looking at her. The cosplayer raised her hand slightly and waved at the agents. After the panel was over the duo walked out of the room. _Y/n_ was leaning against the wall and when she saw them she walked toward the pair. She smiled at both of them and said, “Hey, are you having a good time so far?” Garcia quickly replied, “Absolutely. I’ve been so excited for this panel, and it was worth coming up here for it.” _Y/n_ smiled and said, “The Duke is a pretty cool dude. Have you had a good time?” Spencer smiled back and said, “Yes, it’s been very fun. I actually have a few notes for you. I can email them back to you, but it might be easier to explain them if I could do it in person?” _Y/n_ nodded and said, “I think that would be useful. I need to do some last minute costume alterations and ironing, could you possibly come over to my room in an hour? I’ve got a photo shoot in ten minutes, but I’ll be free after then.” Spencer’s cheeks flushed and said he stuttered out, “Uh, yeah of course.” The man was panicking and added on, “Can Penelope come too?” _Y/n_ looked disappointed for a microsecond and then replied, “Sure thing. I’m at the hotel across the street. Room #301. See you two in an hour. Sorry I’ve gotta run, I look forward to it.” With that the cosplayer dashed down the hallway. Once she was out of earshot Garcia grabbed onto his shoulder and almost screamed, “Why would you invite me to the room with you! Reid this was a great chance for you to meet someone new. Someone who seems to be into you, shares the same interests as you.” Spencer was blushing now and said, “Well I realized that and panicked. Sorry I don’t want to make it weird.” Penelope shrugged her shoulders, understanding that Spencer’s social skills were not the greatest. She replied, “Hey I get it Spence. I’ll come with you for a little bit, but I’m going to have to dip after a while. The Duke is going to be playing World of Warcraft live and I’m not missing that for anything. 

An hour later the agents walked up to room #301. Spencer knocked on the door and heard the response, “One second.” After five seconds the door swung open and _y/n_ stood in a long sleeved shirt and shorts. Her _h/c_ hair was pulled back with a headband. She stepped beside the door and said, “Please come in and make yourselves comfortable.” Once Spencer and Reid were in the room she closed the door and pulled out the chair from the desk for one of her guests to sit in. She continued saying, “Feel free to sit on the bed, I don’t mind.” At the offer Penelope made a beeline for the bed and sat down falling back and sighing deeply. At seeing this _y/n_ laughed and said, “I feel you Penelope. I love a con, but it’s killer on the feet.” Garcia laughed and replied, “Talk about it, I must have walked ten miles alone today.” While this conversation had been happening Spencer took a seat at the desk and pulled out his computer. He looked over to _y/n_and said, “If you give me a second I can pull up my notes, if that’s cool with you.” _Y/n_ nodded and said, ``That sounds awesome.” As Spencer booted up his computer the cosplayer walked back to the iron draped in a black robe. She picked up the steaming device and looked down pressing the seams of the fabric to create a crisp seam. Garcia was looking around the room and her eye’s caught sight of the three light sabers in the room and had to ask, “Um, _y/n_, I’ve always wanted to get a light saber. Could I test your’s out? I promise I’ll be gentle.” The cosplayer laughed again and looked up to Penelope saying, “Well they're not all mine. It was my job to be the pack horse for my group in terms of the light sabers. The trisaber is mine and you are absolutely free to try it out. Press the top button to turn on the light and the bottom button for sound effects.’ Garcia giddily got up and cautiously held the replica of Kylo Ren’s trisaber. She pressed both buttons. She swung it around carefully. Spencer turned to look at his friend being a child , and then turned to _y/n_ saying, “I’ve got my comments pulled up, if your ready.” _Y/n_ turned from Garcia’s enthusiasm to Spencer's down to earth manner. She turned off the iron and was about to sit down on the ground, but before she could Spencer stood and said, “Please take the chair.” The cosplayer smiled and said, “Thanks.” Penelope quieted down and returned to the bed. She silently watched Reid interact with the other woman. It was so rare to see him with someone else that was not the team. It made Penelope's heart glad. 

The two nerds were on paragraph three and _y/n_ was saying, “So do you think that my analogy between Ben and Rey and Romeo and Juliet is too cliche?” Spencer replied, “No not at all. But I do think that you need to specifically pin down how their relationship is considered in the genre of star crossed lovers.” _Y/n_ got up from her seat and reached into a suitcase and pulled out her copy of Romeo and Juliet. As she opened the first page she said, “I need to find a scene that will give supporting evidence to the claim.” Before the girl could even turn to the second page Reid had said, “Act 3 scene one page 6.” Before Reid could quote it to her, the cosplayer said, “Get thee to a nunnery, go. Farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.” Reid nodded and the woman in shorts said, “That’s perfect, It would totally parallel when Ben and Rey see each other through their dyad bond in The Last Jedi.” Reid agreed with the assertion. Before the pair could spring into the next paragraph Penelope got up from the bed and said, “Alright team. It sounds like you’ve done some good work, but from what I hear from Spencer you have at least another hour of work to do; and I have a panel to get too. So I’m going to boogie out of here and leave you to work.” Spencer and _y/n_ turned, almost forgetting that Garcia was in the room. Spencer took his arm off the back of _y/n’s_ chair and stood up straight. _Y/n_ got out of the chair and held out her arms and said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m a hugger.” Penelope leaned into the woman's arms and said, “I hope you know you’re really cool.” _Y/n_ smiled at the complement and opened the door for Garcia, after the blond agent assured Spencer that she did not need to be walked over to the convention center. Once Penelope had left _y/n_ looked to Spencer and said, “You’re girlfriend, partner, wife, is really cool.” The cosplayer didn’t know Reid’s relationship to the other agent, and she didn’t want to assume anything. She looked up to Spencer who’s cheek’s were redder than before. He said, “Penelope’s just a friend from work. We’re not together.” Now it was _y/n’s_ turn to blush and she cleared her throat before saying, “Oh, um, sorry for assuming. I just thought..” Spencer released a breath and then replied, “So you want to get back to work?” At the last page of notes the panelist put her hands over her eyes and said, “Could I take a quick break. Looking at a screen for so long makes my head hurt.” Spencer replied, “Of course.” The young woman stood up and moved over to the bed and lay back on it, like Garcia had done an hour earlier. Spencer, who thought that being alone in a room with _y/n_ would be very uncomfortable, was finding the sound of her breathing very comforting. The man looked around the room and stared wistfully at the light saber Garcia had banished earlier. _Y/n_ noticed the direction of his glance and said, “You can try it out too if you want.” Spencer got up and inspected the light saber. After examining it closely for a minute the man said, “This is so accurate to the real prop. Did you make it yourself?” The girl on the bed smiled and replied, “I’d give most of the credit to my grandfather. I’m not very good with electronics.” After Reid had swung the object around for a few minutes he set it down. The man looked to the computer and the last page of the document. The cosplayer looked at the screen and blinked a few times before hesitantly asking, “Would you mind if you brought the computer over to the bed, and we finished it here.” The women moved over the bed to make room for Spencer. The blush was back on Reid’s face as the man grabbed the computer and sat down on the bed. It only took five minutes to finish the last page and Reid wasn’t sure how, or what to do next. Thankfully _y/n_ sat up and said, “Thank’s Spencer. I’m sure this job doesn’t seem very important, but my joy comes from talking to people as characters that I like, and I want to make the most of my fans happy as possible. My other job is a dead end, and at least here I can live a little. I owe you for this one.” Reid smiled and said, “I think you make a lot of people happy with this work. You make me happy.” The last sentence came out unintentionally but it made _y/n_ happy to hear. She got up and plugged the iron back in and looked back at Spencer on the bed and said, “You can hang here as long as you want. Just be prepared for me to curse at my inept ability to sew.” Reid ended up staying another thirty minutes helping the woman hold onto loose fabric that couldn’t be reigned in by the iron. When he left her room she had said goodnight, and he was shocked that there was no hint of awkwardness around them. It was a new sensation for him. She had even asked him and Penelope to come backstage before she went to her panel, she offered to get him the best seats in the room if he wanted. 

The next day arrived and Spencer accompanied Garcia to her photo op with the Duke and they both watched one of the cosplay competitions that _y/n_ was judging. The award had gone to a younger cosplayer that had accurately recreated a costume from Hamilton. In the next hour Spencer and Garcia were standing at the lobby of the hotel when FriendlyFighter approached them in her Kylo Ren costume, sans mask. She smiled when she saw them and said, “I’m happy you want to come backstage. It’s pretty boring, but something that not every con goer gets to see.” The group crossed the street and the panelist checked her guests backstage. When behind the curtain she pointed to two chairs in front of the room that were marked as ‘reserved.’ When it was ten minutes to the panel _y/n_ turned to Spencer and said, “How would you like me to credit you for your contributions to the panel?” The male agent replied, “You can just say that a friend looked it over.” Reid said this to both conceal his identity, and because he was just happy to help a friend out. The cosplayer was struggling to put her helmet on, plus hold her notes and light saber when Spencer offered to put the helmet on for her. _Y/n_ handed the agent the helmet and Spencer placed it over her head. Just as the FBI duo was about to walk to their reserved seats Penelope’s phone went off. The agent picked up and her appearance suddenly looked very seriously. The other two nerds looked her way when she said, “Yes Sir. We’ll catch a flight right away. Yes of course, I’ll tell Reid.” When Penelope hung up Spencer looked over to her and asked, “New case?” Garcia nodded and said, “In rural Ohio. We need to go right away.” Spencer nodded and turned to _y/n_ who was looking concerned for both of her new friends. Reid said, “I’m sorry, we have to go for work. It was really fun meeting you. Have a great rest of your convention.” Before Reid could walk away the cosplayer grabbed a pen from a nearby table and took Spencer’s arm, scribbling her number on his arm. After doing so she said in a muffled voice, “Text me, stay safe out there.” She then turned and took a couple of deep breaths to calm her nerves. As Spencer and Garcia ran out of the backstage area they could both hear the Imperial March playing over the ballroom speakers, The panel was beginning. 

It wasn’t until the con going agents were in the jet with the rest of the team that Penelope asked Spencer the question that had been on her mind for an hour. The team had made an emergency landing to pick up Spencer and Garcia from the Pennsylvania airstrip. Garcia snapped back to the present and asked, “Are you going to text her?” Spencer’s eyes snapped to hers. He bit his lip and said, “We’re going to find a serial killer that targets people _y/n’s_ age. How can I text her when my job is to find monsters lurking among us?” Penelope looked sad and replied, “And what are you going to do when we get him Spence? Who are you going to go home to and relax with, because I sure as hell know you’re not relaxing in your apartment when you come home after cases like these.” Penelope left the question open as she stood up and sat next to J.J. After another ten minutes Spencer pulled out his personal phone typed in _y/n’s_  number. The ink from her writing still faintly showing on his arm. He texted, “Hey, it’s Spencer Reid. Sorry I had to run earlier today. I hope that I can see you again soon under less stressful circumstances for both of us.” After Reid hit send he relaxed back into his chair. It wasn’t until after the panel, that had been a roaring success that _y/n_ saw the text from Spencer. The cosplayer pulled off her right glove so she could text back, “Sounds good. Stay safe and let me know when it’s convenient to plan a get together. I’m giving a panel on The Lord of The Rings and I need my resident expert to give me notes while I plan my speech.”C

_________________________________________

Shakespeare, William, and Anne Collins. Romeo and Juliet. Pearson Education Limited, 2017.

[angelswithcigarettes]

[If you know me - you don’t]

“Frame”

Summary: The team finds out

Series: Lover boy

Summary Series: Spencer sleeps with both Hotch and Morgan

Warnings: Sexual Content

Relevant Tags:Dom/Sub Undertones

Word Count:1247

Chapter: 2/2

Ao3:

First Chapter:

It doesn't happen often that they all sleep together but the relationship between Morgan and Hotch starts getting different. More trusting. And even more teasingly if they have him for himself.

Morgan knows Hotch is still at the office, when he sends him a picture of Spencer on his knees, cum on his face looking up into the camera.

Hotch does the same with a video one week later, chocking Reid while thrusting into him and then cutting it off shortly before he cums.

The first one finding out about it is Rossi, walking in on Hotch in his office watching a Video Morgan had send him. Hotch immediately locks his phone but the audio keeps playing and he tries picking it up again but it is what it is with technology it takes a moment and by the time he unlocks it, his face is already red up to his ears and Spencer is moaning Derek's name while Rossi just starts laughing at Hotch's embarrassment. "I am so sorry."

"Was that the boy wonder?" He asks sceptical pointing at the phone.

"I am so sorry that was unprofessional what did you want?"

"I want an explanation because either you are watching porn were someone moans one of your agents names or you watch porn of one of your agent and I am pretty sure by the looks you give him it's the second one." He walks closer to the desk, leaning his hands down on the rest of the chair in front of Hotch's desk.

"You are not letting this go are you?"

"Just enjoying teasing you about this."

"Then you already know you are right."

"How long?"

"Shortly before me and Haley divorced."

The next person is Garcia, she steps by at Morgan's on a sunday morning and they just had finished and Spencer is cuddled in on Morgan's bed after Morgan had edged and overstimulaed him all morning. "It's a bad timing."

"I am just bringing you this pots back and I will be out of your hair."

"Fine." He leads her into the kitchen were she puts the bag down. She had borrowed them for a recipe she cooked for a party last week. "Thanks for bringing them over baby girl."

"I borrowed them, that's the least I can do." She smiles at him and then sees Spencer messenger back and jacket on the chair. "Wait a second-"

"Penelope-"

"You are shirtless."

"I am."

"And these are Spencer's things." She exclaims.

"They are."

"You are- You are not sleeping with our baby genius."

"Babygirl-"

"You are not. Tell me you are not." Morgan runs his hand down his face and then shrugs. "Since when?"

"A few months."

"A few months?"

"Garcia-"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it's not an relationship we are just sleeping together. And I would really appreciate if you could keep this between us."

"Does Hotch know?" She asks while walking to the door.

"Actually- Maybe- You know- maybe this is a threesome thing."

"Oh god this is worse than I thought. How can you keep this from me?"

"Now you know and I promise you I will buy you your favourite coffee from Lonicorns and I will tell you every detail you want to know." He leans down kissing her cheek. "Please don't he mad."

"I am super mad." She tells him. Pointing with her finger at his chest. "And I still want that coffee and details."

"So we are okay?"

"You are on thin ice Derek Morgan."

When he gets up into his bed, Spencer clinches to him,needing the skin to skin contact. "Who was that?"

"Garcia."

"What did she want?"

"She had stuff from me don't worry."

-> Second chapter is already up on Ao3

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter (Saturday August 4th 2018)

DAWN: When I was younger, I used to put my chopsticks in my mouth like this, (She puts chopsticks into her mouth so they stick out like very long fangs) and then Buffy would chase me around the house yelling, (makes claw hands) 'I'm the slayer, I'm going to get you!' (Laughs) ANYA: That's disturbing. You're emotionally scarred and will end up badly. DAWN: (removes chopsticks) No, it was great. I mean, she didn't actually stake me in the heart, you know.

~~Into The Woods~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Shoe Misery Loves Company (Crossover with The Avengers, Buffy, Xander, G) by berifanfic

A Guy Walks Into a Bar (Lindsey/Angel, T) by cmk418

An Unexpected Guest (Crossover with MCU, Buffy, PG) by glitterangelem

Guardians Assemble (Crossover with MCU, Buffy, Dawn, Willow, Spike, FR13) by jerseyfabulous

1000 Years of Light (Crossover with World of Warcraft, Buffy, G) by jeymien

Regular Date Night (Crossover with MCU, Xander, FR13) by indraleigh

Built on a House of Cards (Crossover with Criminal Minds, Dawn, PG) by hermione2be

One Night Stands: Spencer Reid (Crossover with Criminal Minds, Buffy, M) by 3am-moonlight

Angel's Girl (Angel/Cordelia, G) by katleept

Where's My Love (Wesley/Illyria, E) by kcblossom

Plan B (Spike, Buffy, G) by EllieRose101

Your Legend, Should You Choose to Accept It (Crossover with Mission Impossible, Willow, Buffy, G) by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)

Neither Fall nor Fade Away (Spike, G) by JayeMaru

Blossoming (Spike/Buffy, Xander/Anya, G) by cindergal/

Closest Thing to Crazy (Angel/Buffy, E) by kcblossom

[Chaptered Fiction]

It's All About Power (Chapter 1) (Willow, K) by MissKraken

Slowly Giving In (Chapter 9) (Spike/Buffy, PG-13) by jamsu

A Small Boat On The Ocean (Chapter 68) (Spike/Buffy, PG-13) by sandy_s

Of You I Love Day and Night (Buffy/William, NC-17) by AvocadoMillennial

The Blonde Across The Pond (Chapter 8) (Spike/Buffy, NC-17) by -Carrie-Ann-

New Beginnings (Chapter 4) (Spike/Buffy, NC-17) by All4Spike

As You Are (Chapter 5) (Spike/Buffy, PG-13) by Serenitey

Ruff Times (Chapter 7) (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by othellia

[Images, Audio & Video]

Artwork: Random Angel/Cordelia Graphic, Til My Dying Day (Angel/Cordelia) by geckogirl89

Artwork: damn. just when we made it so nice. (Faith) by tarastheory

Artwork: “We’re slayers, girlfriend. The chosen two.” (Buffy, Faith) by lrbuniverse

Artwork: The Chosen One, acrylic on 8x10 canvas (Buffy) by macedoniasky

Artwork: The Banner/icon meme Challenge - Buffy Forums (Various) by

Video: Buffy and Spike white Demon Love Song (Buffy/Spike) by Buffy Spike

Video: (Buffy/Spike) by Buffy Spike

[Reviews & Recaps]

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 1 Review by Liam Duke

Buffy Rewatch: The Body (5.16) by elsalapizza

Buffy Rewatch: I Was Made To Love You (5.15) by elsalapizza

[Community Announcements]

I Will Remember You 2018 Sign Ups! by angelus2hot

[Fandom Discussions]

Giles and Buffy dynamic by sulietsexual

What music from the shows do you love most for Bangel? by we-pay-for-everything

Parellels between The Vampire Diaries and Buffy by we-pay-for-everything.tumblr

“You sent away the one person that has been watching my back.” I still do not see the issue with Buffy saying that about Spike by millennialslayer

Two odd events in Older and Faraway by stalwartsandall

What did Angelus feel for Buffy? by various posters

I Only Have Eyes For You by various posters

In The Gift, Giles says that they have prevented "at least six" apocalypses. Which 6 do you think he's remembered best? by various posters

Question on The Watchers' Council by various posters

Did the first bring back Angel or was it the powers that be by various posters

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

Sciencefiction.com: James Marsters Would Play Spike In The ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ Reboot

[thedeadshotnetwork]

The 4-Hour Workweek' author Tim Ferriss reveals what he's learned after a difficult year of introspection, and how he built a passionate fanbase of millions . Sarah Jacobs/Business Insider Tim Ferriss first found fame in 2007 with the massive bestseller "The 4-Hour Workweek." His interview podcast, "The Tim Ferriss Show," has been downloaded nearly 200 million times. His newest book, "Tribe of Mentors," is a collection of advice he gathered from some of the world's most successful people. Ferriss explained how this year was a time of introspection and learning. Tim Ferriss first found fame with his 2007 book " The 4-Hour Workweek ." After taking a break from writing, in 2012, he became an accidental podcast star with " The Tim Ferriss Show ," which is approaching 200 million downloads. He's an investor and self-described human guinea pig. He sat down for an interview with Business Insider senior reporter Richard Feloni for our podcast, " Success! How I Did It ." This past year hasn't been typical for him. He celebrated the 10th anniversary of "The 4-Hour Workweek" and then decided to leave his successful "4-Hour" brand behind him. He's out with a new book, " Tribe of Mentors ," in which he collects advice from 140 successful people, a project that was as much for him as it was for his audience. Ferriss has spent the last year thinking a lot about his own life. He lost some friends, he got a lot of attention for talking about his struggle with depression in a viral TED Talk , and he turned 40. On this episode of "Success! How I Did It," Ferriss spoke with Richard Feloni about all of that and more, including how wrestling shaped his childhood, the original title of "The 4-Hour Workweek," and why he hopes no one considers him a role model. Listen to the episode: Subscribe to " Success! How I Did It " on Apple Podcasts , Google Play , RadioPublic , or your favorite app. Check out previous episodes with: LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman "Shark Tank" star and real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran Former White House press secretary and Fox News host Dana Perino Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff The following is a transcript, which has been lightly edited for clarity. A year of reflection Andrew "Drew" Kelly Tim Ferriss: Turning 40 didn't, as a number, scare me, or throw me off, at all. I'm very comfortable being 40. But as a thought exercise, you know, I asked myself, "If this is the halfway point, if we're just looking at the actuarial tables, it's like, all right, if I'm at 50%, right, I'm halfway through this race called life, and when I hit the finish line, you're dead at 80, how might I want to rethink trajectory? How might I want to rethink over-planning versus under-planning? Even though I'm trying to improve my relationships with others, are they dependent on my relationship with myself? If so, how should I even conceptualize improving that, right? If it's never been part of my repertoire? And all these questions sort of came to the surface, and, rather than try and go at it on my own, which has been my predisposition and my reflex for decades, I figured, why don't I just take these questions and, given the reach of the podcasts and books and everything else at this point, why don't I just reach out to 130 or 140 people and ask them all the same questions? People who are the best at what they do, in many, many dozens of different fields — and then just try to borrow? Why not do this the potentially easier way? Rich Feloni: It seems an extension of what you've done that past 10 years. Even beginning with "The 4-Hour Workweek," which is dabbling in a bunch of different things and seeing what works and then sharing that with an audience. Ferriss: Yeah, it's exactly the same. I mean, really I view my job more almost as a field biologist or anthropologist, where I'm collecting practices. I'm collecting techniques. Then testing them on myself, and if I can replicate results, and then share those with, say, six to 12 friends, and they're able to replicate results, then fantastic, off to thousands or millions of people it goes. Laying the foundation in childhood Courtesy of Tim Ferriss Feloni: And did this constant love of learning anything and everything, did it start as a kid? Ferriss: Yeah. My parents did a great job of raising me and my brother. Very supportive parents. Did not have a lot of money, and the one exception they made: "We always have a budget for books. So if you want to get a book, we will figure out a way to get the book." So what does that do to a child brain? It makes you excited to figure out ways to get books. And so we became fascinated at a very early age with books. And I remember to this day this book called " Fishes of the World ," I think it was, that I carried with me. This huge hardcover — I mean I was a little runt, I was a really small kid growing up, and it was this gigantic hardcover, beautifully illustrated book on marine biology, and I took it with me to school every day, because the playground was not a safe place for me. I was born premature, I was really small and got my ass kicked mercilessly up until about sixth grade. So I wouldn't go out to the playground. That was a danger zone. I would stay by the classroom and kind of sit on the step leading out to the playground, and I would read this book. Feloni: Was being a small kid and someone picked on for his size — was that an impetus for getting involved in body experiments? As you say, you're a human guinea pig. Is that when it started? Ferriss: It wasn't a deliberate decision to become Captain America or anything. I was really small and had a lot of health issues growing up. I mean, not compared to some people certainly, but I had a number full-body blood transfusions when I was kid. Premature, so I can actually — this is audio, most likely, so people can't see it — if you look here, Rich, on my wrist, it looks like a cigarette burn, and that's actually from being intubated. And then I have another one under my left lung, where my lung collapsed, where my blood was being oxygenated. Nonetheless, so all of these various issues, and to make my parents' lives more difficult, really hyperactive. And some other mothers told my mom, "You should put him into something called 'kiddie wrestling,' because that'll drain his batteries, and then when he gets home he'll just fall asleep." Wrestling is unique among sports because it's weight-class-based. So you could have the puny runt from Class A competing against the puny runt from Class B. So it's a situation which one of the puny runts can actually win at something. And my mom inserted me into kiddie wrestling, and I took to it, and that became my sport, until the very end of high school effectively. But the confidence built on the wrestling mat as a puny, little — God knows, like 40-pound kid — is where a lot of it started. Feloni: I've heard you downplay your time in high school, like your time as a student and all of that. But you ended up at Princeton, which doesn't happen by accident. Ferriss: Yeah. My brother and I were always told, maybe not in these words, but if you get really good grades, you can do whatever you want in life. In effect, that's your ticket. And I transferred from a high school on Long Island to a high school in New Hampshire, which was a much better school called St. Paul's. Very well known — it's one of the older boarding schools in the US. Feloni: "Dead Poets Society" type of thing? Ferris: Very — feels like "Dead Poets Society." So you'd have seated meals, seated dinners a few nights a week, with suit and tie, and classes six days a week, chapel almost every day of the week, mandatory sports. And I was encouraged to go there — or to at least leave high school on Long Island — by teachers who could see me getting complacent. Like "All right, you think you're pretty good because you're a big fish in a small pond, but you should go somewhere else." Number one. And then one of my friends — just one of my classmates, because very few people left where I grew up in Long Island, or relatively few people — and one of my friends had gone to a boarding school and came back and effectively was, like, "I've seen the promised land — you need to get the hell out of here," and so I was able to get support from my grandparents, and kind of extended family, got a few small scholarships, and go to St. Paul's. And St. Paul's really set the stage for everything else and really opened the door, or even the possibility, of even thinking about applying to a place like Princeton. Finding himself in his 20s Tim Ferriss/Flickr Feloni: At Princeton you studied East Asian studies, and you took a break as well. Ferriss: I took a year away from school, which was in the middle of my senior year. It was a very, very, dark, dark, dark time for me, due to a bunch of — just a conflagration of all sorts of heavy things hitting me at the same time. And that is when I came close to sort of the precipice of total self-destruction. I don't want to belabor it here, because I've spoken about it at TED and people can certainly just search "Tim Ferriss suicide TED" and it'll pop right up. During that time, I saw my classmates competing, because that's what they were good at. I mean, you take kids who go to a school like Princeton, they're used to competing, and they're used to being No. 1, so if something seems coveted, they will compete for it, whether or not they really want that thing. And in this case, the thing would be, say, a job at McKinsey or a job at Goldman Sachs. And everyone was competing for these, and I ended realizing very clearly I did not want to do either of those things. And I felt very lost. So during that year I tried all sorts of things. I spent six months in China, mainland China, and then went to Taiwan, and just fell in love with Taiwan. So I had this dream of opening a gym chain in Taiwan and went pretty far down the line of trying to figure out all the details, this that and the other thing, meeting with gym owners throughout Taiwan, and ultimately you had to interact with, like, paying, in some cases, protection money and so on, to Triads, and organized crime, and it just got so involved, it was, like, "You know what, this is just a little bit above my pay grade — don't think I can handle this." So came back, ultimately rejoined school, and graduated a year later. Most of my friends had already graduated. I walked away with an illustrious degree in East Asian studies. Feloni: And the foundation of your career over the past 10 years was "The 4-Hour Workweek." And key to that coming together was your experience with BrainQuicken, the first company that you started. And so, it's a young guy, and he's selling supplements out of his house. That sounds a little sketchy. Ferriss: OK, all right — what's your question? Feloni: I've seen you refer to it as, like, you jokingly refer to yourself as a drug dealer or something. Ferriss: In fairness, I was actually neuroscience before East Asian Studies and had some of the wherewithal to determine what might make a good product, because as someone making 40,000 pretax in Silicon Valley, in those days, with roommates, and a hand-me-down minivan, did not have a whole lot of disposable income, but nonetheless was spending an absurdly high percentage of my take-home income on sports nutrition. I was, like, "All right, I have some ideas of the pain points and needs of this market, and know what I would want to create if I had the budget for myself," and, which would in effect be what we ended up labeling a "neural accelerator." BrainQuicken was a real learning-on-the-job MBA. I mean, it was very, very difficult. Achieving unexpected success and creating a brand TED Feloni: So "The 4-Hour Workweek" comes out in 2007. It seemed like no one really expected that to be success, including yourself, right? Like, a massive success. Ferriss: Nobody expected it. I mean, I had an initial print run of 10,000 copies, which isn't even partial national distribution. So for those who don't know, the premise of "The 4-Hour Workweek" — which, by the way, was initially titled "Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit" — is a collection of tactics and tools and case studies of people who have designed ideal lifestyles for themselves by thinking about this nonrenewable resource of time and how they want to spend their day-to-day, week-to-week, and then reverse-engineering that by building a business, a cash flow, or a career that allows for remote work and so on. So that's "The 4-Hour Workweek" and those are the basics, but nobody expected it to do anything. Feloni: Yeah, and it led to this "4-Hour" brand essentially. Ferriss: Yeah. Feloni: "The 4-Hour Body," "The 4-Hour Chef." Ferriss: Very accidental, but yeah. Feloni: And I've seen you lately kind of be self-deprecating about it, like, "Oh, this makes me sound like an infomercial guy or something." Do you actually regret the title? Ferriss: No, no. Feloni: Would you have changed it? Ferriss: No, no, no. Definitely not. No, I don't regret it at all, but, you know, there comes a point where all good things must come to an end. And in the beginning, you want to be pigeon-holed, in a sense, you want to be clearly defined in the very beginning. But past that point, and I did. You want to diversify your identity so you don't become a parrot who regurgitates the same party lines over and over again. So in the beginning, "4-Hour" this, "4-Hour" that, fantastic. But right after "The 4-Hour Workweek," I was heavily advised by many people that I should do "The 3-Hour Workweek" or "The 4-Hour Workweek Revisited" or something along those lines. I felt, if I didn't do something that was a complete left turn in a different field, I would forever be thought of as "The 4-Hour Workweek" business guy. Which is why I took the same approach and applied it to physical performance and sort of physical manipulation. And then with "Tools of Titans" retired the jersey of "4-Hour." And you know, who knows? Maybe it comes back at some point, but probably not. Living the Silicon Valley investor life Garrett Camp via Tim Ferriss/Flickr Feloni: At what point did investing enter the picture? You had a public post that you essentially retired from it in 2015, but you had deals that — most any one of them — people would kill for. Uber, Facebook, Twitter. Ferriss: Yeah. Feloni: How did those happen? Ferriss: Yeah, I've had a fortunate run. So in the case of angel investing, in 2007, "4-Hour Workweek" pops and suddenly it's a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and so on. I'm not so naive to think that I can just put lightning in a bottle and do that over and over and over and over again. I thought to myself, "Well, if this is really my moment, like the opportunity window, what might I do with this?" And around the same time, I was having lunches with Mike Maples. Feloni: And Mike Maples is? Ferriss: So Mike Maples, at the time, was a very successful angel investor, meaning he invested his own money in generally small-ish checks into very, very early-stage embryonic startups. He's now a founding partner of Floodgate, which is a successful venture-capital firm. And at the time, we would meet up for lunch or brunch at a place called Hobee's in the Bay Area, and we would very frequently talk about launch strategy or PR angles that his startups could use. In return, I would ask him about deal structure, about company selection. "Why did you choose this company instead of A, B, or C companies? What are the most important points in deal negotiation for, say, a seed round of financing?" And over the span of a few months of asking him these questions, I had decided that, rather than go to Stanford Business School, what if I took $120,000 of my money, which I would have spent on Stanford Business School for two years at the time and instead created a real-world MBA for myself where I create the "Tim Ferriss Fund," in quotation marks, and invest $120,000 in startups over two years with the expectation that I'm going to lose all of that money. In other words, every startup will fail, but the relationships developed — that I develop and the skills that I develop, the knowledge that I acquire, will, and so forth and so on, will more than make up for that over time. So I asked Mike if I could co-invest with him in a few deals and that's how it started. Feloni: You had a good run. Ferriss: I had a good run. The first one was not a good run. The first investment I made — I won't mention the name. But I invested — now keep in mind, I'm looking at 120K over two years, right? So the first investment, I want to say I put in — it's so stupid — I put in 50K in the very first investment, because I got so excited. This is one of the risks of being an angel investor who's a former entrepreneur, is you can sometimes get very easily excited. And Mike says — I remember Mike saying to me, "Don't you think 50K might be a little aggressive?" — given that my allocation for the year is supposed to be 60. And I was, like, "Oh man, but no, based on your description, based on this, this, and this, no, I'm so bullish," and it promptly just went sideways and became walking dead. Over time, as I started to learn, "All right, well now that I've overspent my budget, I need to figure out also how to become an adviser." And an adviser, for those who don't know, really just means that I am acting as a consigliere or consultant slash adviser, and instead of getting paid in cash, I get paid in equity. I get paid in a portion of the company over time. And so that — that then led to some very good decisions, and I had very lucky timing also. Because, say, 2008, 2009, there was less capital in the startup game, and that allowed me to invest in some great companies, and, like you mentioned, some of them — I mean, the Facebooks and Twitters and being an early adviser to Uber and then later Ali Baba, and I was the first adviser to Shopify, which had eight employees at the time and now has 2,500 to 3,000, and is a publicly traded company, and so on and so forth. So ultimately, the portfolio ended up being, I want to say, 60 or 70 companies, currently. A new chapter as a podcast star The Tim Ferriss Show Feloni: So, Tim, you've had a few books at this point, but whenever I mention your name to someone now, what typically comes up is the podcast, and this is something that you started a few years ago. The way you put it, it almost seems like it came up as a lark type of thing. Ferriss: Oh, it did. It's not just the way I put it — it totally was, dude. It totally did. Feloni: How did that happen? Ferriss: Well, after "The 4-Hour Chef," which was a very complex book, I was very burned out and wanted to take a break from anything that was writing-focused. And I was interviewed at the time on Joe Rogan's show, Marc Maron's "WTF," "Nerdist" with Chris Hardwick, which has since exploded into its own industry unto itself, and I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it because I could be myself. I could curse if it came out, from Long Island and all, and there was very little censuring. A and B, the format was long enough that I could get into the details, I could dig into the nuances, and I didn't have to try to encapsulate everything about a 600-page book into 20 seconds of scripted time when the person I'm talking to is reading a teleprompter over my shoulder. And in those interviews I had so much fun, No. 1, and then, No. 2, they moved a lot of books. I was blown away by how many books these podcasts moved. It just completely made my jaw drop compared to a lot of other media. And I committed to six episodes to start. I felt like that would give me a certain critical mass, where I could develop new skills, maybe remove a few verbal ticks and decide and assess fairly whether I enjoyed it or not. So I committed to six episodes. First one was a softball with my buddy Kevin Rose. Didn't even have a name for the podcast at that point, and we got — or I got, I should say; I'm trying to use the royal "we," but it was me — I got sloppy drunk because I was nervous, I was really nervous to interview one of my best friends, partially because he was busting my balls the whole time, and after six episodes I decided to keep doing it. I was having a lot of fun. And now, 300 episodes or so later, I'm still going and it's become, like you mentioned, what almost anyone who comes up to me in the street mentions. Feloni: I've noticed in your podcasts, it seems to be a common thing that you interview people across all kinds of industries. You even have some maybe experimental episodes where you're talking about things like your morning routine or things like that. When I look at the past 10 years or so of your career, it seems that you — this a common theme — that you jump around among things. Do you get bored with stuff easily? Ferriss: Oh, I would say I get bored with things easily, but the jumping around is also a protective mechanism. So much like, I had mentioned diversifying my identity with content by going from "4-Hour Workweek" to "4-Hour Body," even though I'm still ... I still had interest in business stuff, but I wanted to establish the precedent of me exploring different subject areas with the same framework. The insertion of experimental episodes into the podcast, say, the "drunk dial" episode, would be a good example. So I decide, all right, what would this look like if it were easy? Well, I would put out a note on social. I'd say, "Hey, guys, fill out this Google form, give me your phone number or Skype handle, and I'm just going to sit down with some gin and soda and I'm going to start drinking and then I'm going to call the first 15 people or 20 people and you can ask me anything you want, and that's going to be a podcast episode." So it self-selects for an audience who's up for that type of experimentation. What it means to be Tim Ferriss "The Tim Ferriss Experiment" Feloni: I've heard you call yourself a dilettante before. Someone — Ferriss: Yeah. Feloni: Dabbling in a bunch of different things. And what is it that you specialize in? Ferriss: I specialize in pattern recognition and accelerated learning. So taking a subject that seems very complex or that can be presented in a very complex way, and distilling it down into the fewest number of moving pieces that really matter. So the 20% that gets you 80% of the results that you want. And then imparting that to other people. Feloni: So with that perspective, you've built up a good amount of success over the past 10 years, but something that I find interesting about you is that, more so than a lot of even entrepreneurs in tech, that you're really open about your failures, whether that was being turned down by publishers or your TV show being dropped or just a wide variety of things. Is that deliberate on your part? Is that as much for you as it is for your audience? Ferriss: It's very deliberate. I don't know if it's "for me" because it's painful. Feloni: Well, maybe coming to terms with the pain? Ferriss: No, no, I mean it's not really a cathartic exercise for me — I suppose it has that effect — but I talk about my failures because I think it's dishonest to only talk about your successes. It's so critical that people realize mistakes are part of the game. Unforced errors are part of the game and as soon as that becomes the norm or the expectation, people can persist when they inevitably flub or drop the ball. I've had a bunch of what people would consider failures, in TV, in books, in any domain that I've participated in, I've made huge mistakes, massive errors of judgment. And nonetheless, if you focus on acquiring skills and relationships — acquiring — developing skills and relationships, if that's your focus, over time, you will win. Feloni: Do you see yourself as a role model at this point? Ferriss: I ... no. "Role model" is ... I wouldn't call myself a role model. I would call myself a teacher, certainly. I think there are certain tool kits that I've acquired, or approaches that I've tested that people can emulate, certainly, and use to replicate results. I mean, that's what I do. But I wouldn't anticipate, nor really want anyone to look at me and say, "I want to be Tim Ferriss." No, that shouldn't be the goal, and trust me, I mean, I talk about a lot of my demons. Like, I don't think you want to sign up for that necessarily. I want to be the teacher who makes his students better than he was. I want to give people the tools and say, "OK, look, I made this shitty little birdhouse that people seem to be impressed by, but you can go build a Gothic cathedral if you want with the same set of tools, right?" That's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea, and then send people on their way to have their own adventures. Feloni: Well, thank you so much, Tim. I really enjoyed talking to you. Ferriss: Yeah, likewise. NOW WATCH: The 60-minute morning routine that productivity expert Tim Ferriss swears by November 18, 2017 at 02:18PM

[ramialkarmi]

The 4-Hour Workweek' author Tim Ferriss reveals what he's learned after a difficult year of introspection, and how he built a passionate fanbase of millions

Tim Ferriss first found fame in 2007 with the massive bestseller "The 4-Hour Workweek."

His interview podcast, "The Tim Ferriss Show," has been downloaded nearly 200 million times.

His newest book, "Tribe of Mentors," is a collection of advice he gathered from some of the world's most successful people.

Ferriss explained how this year was a time of introspection and learning.

Tim Ferriss first found fame with his 2007 book "The 4-Hour Workweek." After taking a break from writing, in 2012, he became an accidental podcast star with "The Tim Ferriss Show," which is approaching 200 million downloads. He's an investor and self-described human guinea pig. He sat down for an interview with Business Insider senior reporter Richard Feloni for our podcast, "Success! How I Did It."

This past year hasn't been typical for him. He celebrated the 10th anniversary of "The 4-Hour Workweek" and then decided to leave his successful "4-Hour" brand behind him. He's out with a new book, "Tribe of Mentors," in which he collects advice from 140 successful people, a project that was as much for him as it was for his audience. Ferriss has spent the last year thinking a lot about his own life. He lost some friends, he got a lot of attention for talking about his struggle with depression in a viral TED Talk, and he turned 40.

On this episode of "Success! How I Did It," Ferriss spoke with Richard Feloni about all of that and more, including how wrestling shaped his childhood, the original title of "The 4-Hour Workweek," and why he hopes no one considers him a role model.

Listen to the episode: 

Subscribe to "Success! How I Did It" on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, RadioPublic, or your favorite app. Check out previous episodes with:

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman

"Shark Tank" star and real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran

Former White House press secretary and Fox News host Dana Perino

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff

The following is a transcript, which has been lightly edited for clarity. 

A year of reflection

Tim Ferriss: Turning 40 didn't, as a number, scare me, or throw me off, at all. I'm very comfortable being 40. But as a thought exercise, you know, I asked myself, "If this is the halfway point, if we're just looking at the actuarial tables, it's like, all right, if I'm at 50%, right, I'm halfway through this race called life, and when I hit the finish line, you're dead at 80, how might I want to rethink trajectory? How might I want to rethink over-planning versus under-planning? Even though I'm trying to improve my relationships with others, are they dependent on my relationship with myself? If so, how should I even conceptualize improving that, right? If it's never been part of my repertoire?

And all these questions sort of came to the surface, and, rather than try and go at it on my own, which has been my predisposition and my reflex for decades, I figured, why don't I just take these questions and, given the reach of the podcasts and books and everything else at this point, why don't I just reach out to 130 or 140 people and ask them all the same questions? People who are the best at what they do, in many, many dozens of different fields — and then just try to borrow? Why not do this the potentially easier way?

Rich Feloni: It seems an extension of what you've done that past 10 years. Even beginning with "The 4-Hour Workweek," which is dabbling in a bunch of different things and seeing what works and then sharing that with an audience. 

Ferriss: Yeah, it's exactly the same. I mean, really I view my job more almost as a field biologist or anthropologist, where I'm collecting practices. I'm collecting techniques. Then testing them on myself, and if I can replicate results, and then share those with, say, six to 12 friends, and they're able to replicate results, then fantastic, off to thousands or millions of people it goes.

Laying the foundation in childhood

Feloni: And did this constant love of learning anything and everything, did it start as a kid?

Ferriss: Yeah. My parents did a great job of raising me and my brother. Very supportive parents. Did not have a lot of money, and the one exception they made: "We always have a budget for books. So if you want to get a book, we will figure out a way to get the book." So what does that do to a child brain? It makes you excited to figure out ways to get books. And so we became fascinated at a very early age with books.

And I remember to this day this book called "Fishes of the World," I think it was, that I carried with me. This huge hardcover — I mean I was a little runt, I was a really small kid growing up, and it was this gigantic hardcover, beautifully illustrated book on marine biology, and I took it with me to school every day, because the playground was not a safe place for me. I was born premature, I was really small and got my ass kicked mercilessly up until about sixth grade. So I wouldn't go out to the playground. That was a danger zone. I would stay by the classroom and kind of sit on the step leading out to the playground, and I would read this book.

Feloni: Was being a small kid and someone picked on for his size — was that an impetus for getting involved in body experiments? As you say, you're a human guinea pig. Is that when it started?

Ferriss: It wasn't a deliberate decision to become Captain America or anything. I was really small and had a lot of health issues growing up. I mean, not compared to some people certainly, but I had a number full-body blood transfusions when I was kid. Premature, so I can actually — this is audio, most likely, so people can't see it — if you look here, Rich, on my wrist, it looks like a cigarette burn, and that's actually from being intubated. And then I have another one under my left lung, where my lung collapsed, where my blood was being oxygenated.

Nonetheless, so all of these various issues, and to make my parents' lives more difficult, really hyperactive. And some other mothers told my mom, "You should put him into something called 'kiddie wrestling,' because that'll drain his batteries, and then when he gets home he'll just fall asleep."

Wrestling is unique among sports because it's weight-class-based. So you could have the puny runt from Class A competing against the puny runt from Class B. So it's a situation which one of the puny runts can actually win at something. And my mom inserted me into kiddie wrestling, and I took to it, and that became my sport, until the very end of high school effectively. But the confidence built on the wrestling mat as a puny, little — God knows, like 40-pound kid — is where a lot of it started.

Feloni: I've heard you downplay your time in high school, like your time as a student and all of that. But you ended up at Princeton, which doesn't happen by accident.

Ferriss: Yeah. My brother and I were always told, maybe not in these words, but if you get really good grades, you can do whatever you want in life. In effect, that's your ticket.

And I transferred from a high school on Long Island to a high school in New Hampshire, which was a much better school called St. Paul's. Very well known — it's one of the older boarding schools in the US.

Feloni: "Dead Poets Society" type of thing?

Ferris: Very — feels like "Dead Poets Society." So you'd have seated meals, seated dinners a few nights a week, with suit and tie, and classes six days a week, chapel almost every day of the week, mandatory sports. And I was encouraged to go there — or to at least leave high school on Long Island — by teachers who could see me getting complacent. Like "All right, you think you're pretty good because you're a big fish in a small pond, but you should go somewhere else." Number one.

And then one of my friends — just one of my classmates, because very few people left where I grew up in Long Island, or relatively few people — and one of my friends had gone to a boarding school and came back and effectively was, like, "I've seen the promised land — you need to get the hell out of here," and so I was able to get support from my grandparents, and kind of extended family, got a few small scholarships, and go to St. Paul's. And St. Paul's really set the stage for everything else and really opened the door, or even the possibility, of even thinking about applying to a place like Princeton.

Finding himself in his 20s

Feloni: At Princeton you studied East Asian studies, and you took a break as well.

Ferriss: I took a year away from school, which was in the middle of my senior year. It was a very, very, dark, dark, dark time for me, due to a bunch of — just a conflagration of all sorts of heavy things hitting me at the same time.

And that is when I came close to sort of the precipice of total self-destruction. I don't want to belabor it here, because I've spoken about it at TED and people can certainly just search "Tim Ferriss suicide TED" and it'll pop right up.

During that time, I saw my classmates competing, because that's what they were good at. I mean, you take kids who go to a school like Princeton, they're used to competing, and they're used to being No. 1, so if something seems coveted, they will compete for it, whether or not they really want that thing. And in this case, the thing would be, say, a job at McKinsey or a job at Goldman Sachs.

And everyone was competing for these, and I ended realizing very clearly I did not want to do either of those things. And I felt very lost. So during that year I tried all sorts of things. I spent six months in China, mainland China, and then went to Taiwan, and just fell in love with Taiwan. So I had this dream of opening a gym chain in Taiwan and went pretty far down the line of trying to figure out all the details, this that and the other thing, meeting with gym owners throughout Taiwan, and ultimately you had to interact with, like, paying, in some cases, protection money and so on, to Triads, and organized crime, and it just got so involved, it was, like, "You know what, this is just a little bit above my pay grade — don't think I can handle this." So came back, ultimately rejoined school, and graduated a year later. Most of my friends had already graduated. I walked away with an illustrious degree in East Asian studies.

Feloni: And the foundation of your career over the past 10 years was "The 4-Hour Workweek." And key to that coming together was your experience with BrainQuicken, the first company that you started. And so, it's a young guy, and he's selling supplements out of his house. That sounds a little sketchy.

Ferriss: OK, all right — what's your question?

Feloni: I've seen you refer to it as, like, you jokingly refer to yourself as a drug dealer or something.

Ferriss: In fairness, I was actually neuroscience before East Asian Studies and had some of the wherewithal to determine what might make a good product, because as someone making 40,000 pretax in Silicon Valley, in those days, with roommates, and a hand-me-down minivan, did not have a whole lot of disposable income, but nonetheless was spending an absurdly high percentage of my take-home income on sports nutrition.

I was, like, "All right, I have some ideas of the pain points and needs of this market, and know what I would want to create if I had the budget for myself," and, which would in effect be what we ended up labeling a "neural accelerator." BrainQuicken was a real learning-on-the-job MBA. I mean, it was very, very difficult.

Achieving unexpected success and creating a brand

Feloni: So "The 4-Hour Workweek" comes out in 2007. It seemed like no one really expected that to be success, including yourself, right? Like, a massive success.

Ferriss: Nobody expected it. I mean, I had an initial print run of 10,000 copies, which isn't even partial national distribution. So for those who don't know, the premise of "The 4-Hour Workweek" — which, by the way, was initially titled "Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit" — is a collection of tactics and tools and case studies of people who have designed ideal lifestyles for themselves by thinking about this nonrenewable resource of time and how they want to spend their day-to-day, week-to-week, and then reverse-engineering that by building a business, a cash flow, or a career that allows for remote work and so on. So that's "The 4-Hour Workweek" and those are the basics, but nobody expected it to do anything.

Feloni: Yeah, and it led to this "4-Hour" brand essentially.

Ferriss: Yeah.

Feloni: "The 4-Hour Body," "The 4-Hour Chef."

Ferriss: Very accidental, but yeah.

Feloni: And I've seen you lately kind of be self-deprecating about it, like, "Oh, this makes me sound like an infomercial guy or something." Do you actually regret the title?

Ferriss: No, no.

Feloni: Would you have changed it?

Ferriss: No, no, no. Definitely not. No, I don't regret it at all, but, you know, there comes a point where all good things must come to an end. And in the beginning, you want to be pigeon-holed, in a sense, you want to be clearly defined in the very beginning. But past that point, and I did. You want to diversify your identity so you don't become a parrot who regurgitates the same party lines over and over again.

So in the beginning, "4-Hour" this, "4-Hour" that, fantastic. But right after "The 4-Hour Workweek," I was heavily advised by many people that I should do "The 3-Hour Workweek" or "The 4-Hour Workweek Revisited" or something along those lines.

I felt, if I didn't do something that was a complete left turn in a different field, I would forever be thought of as "The 4-Hour Workweek" business guy. Which is why I took the same approach and applied it to physical performance and sort of physical manipulation. And then with "Tools of Titans" retired the jersey of "4-Hour." And you know, who knows? Maybe it comes back at some point, but probably not.

Living the Silicon Valley investor life

Feloni: At what point did investing enter the picture? You had a public post that you essentially retired from it in 2015, but you had deals that — most any one of them — people would kill for. Uber, Facebook, Twitter.

Ferriss: Yeah.

Feloni: How did those happen?

Ferriss: Yeah, I've had a fortunate run. So in the case of angel investing, in 2007, "4-Hour Workweek" pops and suddenly it's a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and so on. I'm not so naive to think that I can just put lightning in a bottle and do that over and over and over and over again. I thought to myself, "Well, if this is really my moment, like the opportunity window, what might I do with this?" And around the same time, I was having lunches with Mike Maples.

Feloni: And Mike Maples is?

Ferriss: So Mike Maples, at the time, was a very successful angel investor, meaning he invested his own money in generally small-ish checks into very, very early-stage embryonic startups. He's now a founding partner of Floodgate, which is a successful venture-capital firm. And at the time, we would meet up for lunch or brunch at a place called Hobee's in the Bay Area, and we would very frequently talk about launch strategy or PR angles that his startups could use. In return, I would ask him about deal structure, about company selection. "Why did you choose this company instead of A, B, or C companies? What are the most important points in deal negotiation for, say, a seed round of financing?"

And over the span of a few months of asking him these questions, I had decided that, rather than go to Stanford Business School, what if I took $120,000 of my money, which I would have spent on Stanford Business School for two years at the time and instead created a real-world MBA for myself where I create the "Tim Ferriss Fund," in quotation marks, and invest $120,000 in startups over two years with the expectation that I'm going to lose all of that money. In other words, every startup will fail, but the relationships developed — that I develop and the skills that I develop, the knowledge that I acquire, will, and so forth and so on, will more than make up for that over time.

So I asked Mike if I could co-invest with him in a few deals and that's how it started.

Feloni: You had a good run.

Ferriss: I had a good run. The first one was not a good run. The first investment I made — I won't mention the name. But I invested — now keep in mind, I'm looking at 120K over two years, right? So the first investment, I want to say I put in — it's so stupid — I put in 50K in the very first investment, because I got so excited. This is one of the risks of being an angel investor who's a former entrepreneur, is you can sometimes get very easily excited. And Mike says — I remember Mike saying to me, "Don't you think 50K might be a little aggressive?" — given that my allocation for the year is supposed to be 60. And I was, like, "Oh man, but no, based on your description, based on this, this, and this, no, I'm so bullish," and it promptly just went sideways and became walking dead.

Over time, as I started to learn, "All right, well now that I've overspent my budget, I need to figure out also how to become an adviser." And an adviser, for those who don't know, really just means that I am acting as a consigliere or consultant slash adviser, and instead of getting paid in cash, I get paid in equity. I get paid in a portion of the company over time. And so that — that then led to some very good decisions, and I had very lucky timing also. Because, say, 2008, 2009, there was less capital in the startup game, and that allowed me to invest in some great companies, and, like you mentioned, some of them — I mean, the Facebooks and Twitters and being an early adviser to Uber and then later Ali Baba, and I was the first adviser to Shopify, which had eight employees at the time and now has 2,500 to 3,000, and is a publicly traded company, and so on and so forth. So ultimately, the portfolio ended up being, I want to say, 60 or 70 companies, currently.

A new chapter as a podcast star

Feloni: So, Tim, you've had a few books at this point, but whenever I mention your name to someone now, what typically comes up is the podcast, and this is something that you started a few years ago. The way you put it, it almost seems like it came up as a lark type of thing.

Ferriss: Oh, it did. It's not just the way I put it — it totally was, dude. It totally did.

Feloni: How did that happen?

Ferriss: Well, after "The 4-Hour Chef," which was a very complex book, I was very burned out and wanted to take a break from anything that was writing-focused. And I was interviewed at the time on Joe Rogan's show, Marc Maron's "WTF," "Nerdist" with Chris Hardwick, which has since exploded into its own industry unto itself, and I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it because I could be myself. I could curse if it came out, from Long Island and all, and there was very little censuring. A and B, the format was long enough that I could get into the details, I could dig into the nuances, and I didn't have to try to encapsulate everything about a 600-page book into 20 seconds of scripted time when the person I'm talking to is reading a teleprompter over my shoulder.

And in those interviews I had so much fun, No. 1, and then, No. 2, they moved a lot of books. I was blown away by how many books these podcasts moved. It just completely made my jaw drop compared to a lot of other media.

And I committed to six episodes to start. I felt like that would give me a certain critical mass, where I could develop new skills, maybe remove a few verbal ticks and decide and assess fairly whether I enjoyed it or not. So I committed to six episodes. First one was a softball with my buddy Kevin Rose. Didn't even have a name for the podcast at that point, and we got — or I got, I should say; I'm trying to use the royal "we," but it was me — I got sloppy drunk because I was nervous, I was really nervous to interview one of my best friends, partially because he was busting my balls the whole time, and after six episodes I decided to keep doing it. I was having a lot of fun. And now, 300 episodes or so later, I'm still going and it's become, like you mentioned, what almost anyone who comes up to me in the street mentions.

Feloni: I've noticed in your podcasts, it seems to be a common thing that you interview people across all kinds of industries. You even have some maybe experimental episodes where you're talking about things like your morning routine or things like that. When I look at the past 10 years or so of your career, it seems that you — this a common theme — that you jump around among things. Do you get bored with stuff easily?

Ferriss: Oh, I would say I get bored with things easily, but the jumping around is also a protective mechanism. So much like, I had mentioned diversifying my identity with content by going from "4-Hour Workweek" to "4-Hour Body," even though I'm still ... I still had interest in business stuff, but I wanted to establish the precedent of me exploring different subject areas with the same framework. The insertion of experimental episodes into the podcast, say, the "drunk dial" episode, would be a good example. So I decide, all right, what would this look like if it were easy? Well, I would put out a note on social. I'd say, "Hey, guys, fill out this Google form, give me your phone number or Skype handle, and I'm just going to sit down with some gin and soda and I'm going to start drinking and then I'm going to call the first 15 people or 20 people and you can ask me anything you want, and that's going to be a podcast episode." So it self-selects for an audience who's up for that type of experimentation.

What it means to be Tim Ferriss

Feloni: I've heard you call yourself a dilettante before. Someone —

Ferriss: Yeah.

Feloni: Dabbling in a bunch of different things. And what is it that you specialize in?

Ferriss: I specialize in pattern recognition and accelerated learning. So taking a subject that seems very complex or that can be presented in a very complex way, and distilling it down into the fewest number of moving pieces that really matter. So the 20% that gets you 80% of the results that you want. And then imparting that to other people.

Feloni: So with that perspective, you've built up a good amount of success over the past 10 years, but something that I find interesting about you is that, more so than a lot of even entrepreneurs in tech, that you're really open about your failures, whether that was being turned down by publishers or your TV show being dropped or just a wide variety of things. Is that deliberate on your part? Is that as much for you as it is for your audience?

Ferriss: It's very deliberate. I don't know if it's "for me" because it's painful.

Feloni: Well, maybe coming to terms with the pain?

Ferriss: No, no, I mean it's not really a cathartic exercise for me — I suppose it has that effect — but I talk about my failures because I think it's dishonest to only talk about your successes. It's so critical that people realize mistakes are part of the game. Unforced errors are part of the game and as soon as that becomes the norm or the expectation, people can persist when they inevitably flub or drop the ball. I've had a bunch of what people would consider failures, in TV, in books, in any domain that I've participated in, I've made huge mistakes, massive errors of judgment. And nonetheless, if you focus on acquiring skills and relationships — acquiring — developing skills and relationships, if that's your focus, over time, you will win.

Feloni: Do you see yourself as a role model at this point?

Ferriss: I ... no. "Role model" is ... I wouldn't call myself a role model. I would call myself a teacher, certainly. I think there are certain tool kits that I've acquired, or approaches that I've tested that people can emulate, certainly, and use to replicate results. I mean, that's what I do. But I wouldn't anticipate, nor really want anyone to look at me and say, "I want to be Tim Ferriss." No, that shouldn't be the goal, and trust me, I mean, I talk about a lot of my demons. Like, I don't think you want to sign up for that necessarily.

I want to be the teacher who makes his students better than he was. I want to give people the tools and say, "OK, look, I made this shitty little birdhouse that people seem to be impressed by, but you can go build a Gothic cathedral if you want with the same set of tools, right?" That's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea, and then send people on their way to have their own adventures.

Feloni: Well, thank you so much, Tim. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Ferriss: Yeah, likewise.

SEE ALSO: LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman reveals what it was like building PayPal with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and what it takes to make a $26.2 billion company

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NOW WATCH: The 60-minute morning routine that productivity expert Tim Ferriss swears by

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The 4-Hour Workweek' author Tim Ferriss reveals what he's learned after a difficult year of introspection, and how he built a passionate fanbase of millions

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Sarah Jacobs/Business Insider

Tim Ferriss first found fame in 2007 with the massive bestseller "The 4-Hour Workweek."

His interview podcast, "The Tim Ferriss Show," has been downloaded nearly 200 million times.

His newest book, "Tribe of Mentors," is a collection of advice he gathered from some of the world's most successful people.

Ferriss explained how this year was a time of introspection and learning.

Tim Ferriss first found fame with his 2007 book "The 4-Hour Workweek." After taking a break from writing, in 2012, he became an accidental podcast star with "The Tim Ferriss Show," which is approaching 200 million downloads. He's an investor and self-described human guinea pig. He sat down for an interview with Business Insider senior reporter Richard Feloni for our podcast, "Success! How I Did It."

This past year hasn't been typical for him. He celebrated the 10th anniversary of "The 4-Hour Workweek" and then decided to leave his successful "4-Hour" brand behind him. He's out with a new book, "Tribe of Mentors," in which he collects advice from 140 successful people, a project that was as much for him as it was for his audience. Ferriss has spent the last year thinking a lot about his own life. He lost some friends, he got a lot of attention for talking about his struggle with depression in a viral TED Talk, and he turned 40.

On this episode of "Success! How I Did It," Ferriss spoke with Richard Feloni about all of that and more, including how wrestling shaped his childhood, the original title of "The 4-Hour Workweek," and why he hopes no one considers him a role model.

Listen to the episode: 

Subscribe to "Success! How I Did It" on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, RadioPublic, or your favorite app. Check out previous episodes with:

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman

"Shark Tank" star and real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran

Former White House press secretary and Fox News host Dana Perino

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff

The following is a transcript, which has been lightly edited for clarity. 

A year of reflection

Andrew "Drew" Kelly

Tim Ferriss: Turning 40 didn't, as a number, scare me, or throw me off, at all. I'm very comfortable being 40. But as a thought exercise, you know, I asked myself, "If this is the halfway point, if we're just looking at the actuarial tables, it's like, all right, if I'm at 50%, right, I'm halfway through this race called life, and when I hit the finish line, you're dead at 80, how might I want to rethink trajectory? How might I want to rethink over-planning versus under-planning? Even though I'm trying to improve my relationships with others, are they dependent on my relationship with myself? If so, how should I even conceptualize improving that, right? If it's never been part of my repertoire?

And all these questions sort of came to the surface, and, rather than try and go at it on my own, which has been my predisposition and my reflex for decades, I figured, why don't I just take these questions and, given the reach of the podcasts and books and everything else at this point, why don't I just reach out to 130 or 140 people and ask them all the same questions? People who are the best at what they do, in many, many dozens of different fields — and then just try to borrow? Why not do this the potentially easier way?

Rich Feloni: It seems an extension of what you've done that past 10 years. Even beginning with "The 4-Hour Workweek," which is dabbling in a bunch of different things and seeing what works and then sharing that with an audience. 

Ferriss: Yeah, it's exactly the same. I mean, really I view my job more almost as a field biologist or anthropologist, where I'm collecting practices. I'm collecting techniques. Then testing them on myself, and if I can replicate results, and then share those with, say, six to 12 friends, and they're able to replicate results, then fantastic, off to thousands or millions of people it goes.

Laying the foundation in childhood

Courtesy of Tim Ferriss

Feloni: And did this constant love of learning anything and everything, did it start as a kid?

Ferriss: Yeah. My parents did a great job of raising me and my brother. Very supportive parents. Did not have a lot of money, and the one exception they made: "We always have a budget for books. So if you want to get a book, we will figure out a way to get the book." So what does that do to a child brain? It makes you excited to figure out ways to get books. And so we became fascinated at a very early age with books.

And I remember to this day this book called "Fishes of the World," I think it was, that I carried with me. This huge hardcover — I mean I was a little runt, I was a really small kid growing up, and it was this gigantic hardcover, beautifully illustrated book on marine biology, and I took it with me to school every day, because the playground was not a safe place for me. I was born premature, I was really small and got my ass kicked mercilessly up until about sixth grade. So I wouldn't go out to the playground. That was a danger zone. I would stay by the classroom and kind of sit on the step leading out to the playground, and I would read this book.

Feloni: Was being a small kid and someone picked on for his size — was that an impetus for getting involved in body experiments? As you say, you're a human guinea pig. Is that when it started?

Ferriss: It wasn't a deliberate decision to become Captain America or anything. I was really small and had a lot of health issues growing up. I mean, not compared to some people certainly, but I had a number full-body blood transfusions when I was kid. Premature, so I can actually — this is audio, most likely, so people can't see it — if you look here, Rich, on my wrist, it looks like a cigarette burn, and that's actually from being intubated. And then I have another one under my left lung, where my lung collapsed, where my blood was being oxygenated.

Nonetheless, so all of these various issues, and to make my parents' lives more difficult, really hyperactive. And some other mothers told my mom, "You should put him into something called 'kiddie wrestling,' because that'll drain his batteries, and then when he gets home he'll just fall asleep."

Wrestling is unique among sports because it's weight-class-based. So you could have the puny runt from Class A competing against the puny runt from Class B. So it's a situation which one of the puny runts can actually win at something. And my mom inserted me into kiddie wrestling, and I took to it, and that became my sport, until the very end of high school effectively. But the confidence built on the wrestling mat as a puny, little — God knows, like 40-pound kid — is where a lot of it started.

Feloni: I've heard you downplay your time in high school, like your time as a student and all of that. But you ended up at Princeton, which doesn't happen by accident.

Ferriss: Yeah. My brother and I were always told, maybe not in these words, but if you get really good grades, you can do whatever you want in life. In effect, that's your ticket.

And I transferred from a high school on Long Island to a high school in New Hampshire, which was a much better school called St. Paul's. Very well known — it's one of the older boarding schools in the US.

Feloni: "Dead Poets Society" type of thing?

Ferris: Very — feels like "Dead Poets Society." So you'd have seated meals, seated dinners a few nights a week, with suit and tie, and classes six days a week, chapel almost every day of the week, mandatory sports. And I was encouraged to go there — or to at least leave high school on Long Island — by teachers who could see me getting complacent. Like "All right, you think you're pretty good because you're a big fish in a small pond, but you should go somewhere else." Number one.

And then one of my friends — just one of my classmates, because very few people left where I grew up in Long Island, or relatively few people — and one of my friends had gone to a boarding school and came back and effectively was, like, "I've seen the promised land — you need to get the hell out of here," and so I was able to get support from my grandparents, and kind of extended family, got a few small scholarships, and go to St. Paul's. And St. Paul's really set the stage for everything else and really opened the door, or even the possibility, of even thinking about applying to a place like Princeton.

Finding himself in his 20s

Tim Ferriss/Flickr

Feloni: At Princeton you studied East Asian studies, and you took a break as well.

Ferriss: I took a year away from school, which was in the middle of my senior year. It was a very, very, dark, dark, dark time for me, due to a bunch of — just a conflagration of all sorts of heavy things hitting me at the same time.

And that is when I came close to sort of the precipice of total self-destruction. I don't want to belabor it here, because I've spoken about it at TED and people can certainly just search "Tim Ferriss suicide TED" and it'll pop right up.

During that time, I saw my classmates competing, because that's what they were good at. I mean, you take kids who go to a school like Princeton, they're used to competing, and they're used to being No. 1, so if something seems coveted, they will compete for it, whether or not they really want that thing. And in this case, the thing would be, say, a job at McKinsey or a job at Goldman Sachs.

And everyone was competing for these, and I ended realizing very clearly I did not want to do either of those things. And I felt very lost. So during that year I tried all sorts of things. I spent six months in China, mainland China, and then went to Taiwan, and just fell in love with Taiwan. So I had this dream of opening a gym chain in Taiwan and went pretty far down the line of trying to figure out all the details, this that and the other thing, meeting with gym owners throughout Taiwan, and ultimately you had to interact with, like, paying, in some cases, protection money and so on, to Triads, and organized crime, and it just got so involved, it was, like, "You know what, this is just a little bit above my pay grade — don't think I can handle this." So came back, ultimately rejoined school, and graduated a year later. Most of my friends had already graduated. I walked away with an illustrious degree in East Asian studies.

Feloni: And the foundation of your career over the past 10 years was "The 4-Hour Workweek." And key to that coming together was your experience with BrainQuicken, the first company that you started. And so, it's a young guy, and he's selling supplements out of his house. That sounds a little sketchy.

Ferriss: OK, all right — what's your question?

Feloni: I've seen you refer to it as, like, you jokingly refer to yourself as a drug dealer or something.

Ferriss: In fairness, I was actually neuroscience before East Asian Studies and had some of the wherewithal to determine what might make a good product, because as someone making 40,000 pretax in Silicon Valley, in those days, with roommates, and a hand-me-down minivan, did not have a whole lot of disposable income, but nonetheless was spending an absurdly high percentage of my take-home income on sports nutrition.

I was, like, "All right, I have some ideas of the pain points and needs of this market, and know what I would want to create if I had the budget for myself," and, which would in effect be what we ended up labeling a "neural accelerator." BrainQuicken was a real learning-on-the-job MBA. I mean, it was very, very difficult.

Achieving unexpected success and creating a brand

TED

Feloni: So "The 4-Hour Workweek" comes out in 2007. It seemed like no one really expected that to be success, including yourself, right? Like, a massive success.

Ferriss: Nobody expected it. I mean, I had an initial print run of 10,000 copies, which isn't even partial national distribution. So for those who don't know, the premise of "The 4-Hour Workweek" — which, by the way, was initially titled "Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit" — is a collection of tactics and tools and case studies of people who have designed ideal lifestyles for themselves by thinking about this nonrenewable resource of time and how they want to spend their day-to-day, week-to-week, and then reverse-engineering that by building a business, a cash flow, or a career that allows for remote work and so on. So that's "The 4-Hour Workweek" and those are the basics, but nobody expected it to do anything.

Feloni: Yeah, and it led to this "4-Hour" brand essentially.

Ferriss: Yeah.

Feloni: "The 4-Hour Body," "The 4-Hour Chef."

Ferriss: Very accidental, but yeah.

Feloni: And I've seen you lately kind of be self-deprecating about it, like, "Oh, this makes me sound like an infomercial guy or something." Do you actually regret the title?

Ferriss: No, no.

Feloni: Would you have changed it?

Ferriss: No, no, no. Definitely not. No, I don't regret it at all, but, you know, there comes a point where all good things must come to an end. And in the beginning, you want to be pigeon-holed, in a sense, you want to be clearly defined in the very beginning. But past that point, and I did. You want to diversify your identity so you don't become a parrot who regurgitates the same party lines over and over again.

So in the beginning, "4-Hour" this, "4-Hour" that, fantastic. But right after "The 4-Hour Workweek," I was heavily advised by many people that I should do "The 3-Hour Workweek" or "The 4-Hour Workweek Revisited" or something along those lines.

I felt, if I didn't do something that was a complete left turn in a different field, I would forever be thought of as "The 4-Hour Workweek" business guy. Which is why I took the same approach and applied it to physical performance and sort of physical manipulation. And then with "Tools of Titans" retired the jersey of "4-Hour." And you know, who knows? Maybe it comes back at some point, but probably not.

Living the Silicon Valley investor life

Garrett Camp via Tim Ferriss/Flickr

Feloni: At what point did investing enter the picture? You had a public post that you essentially retired from it in 2015, but you had deals that — most any one of them — people would kill for. Uber, Facebook, Twitter.

Ferriss: Yeah.

Feloni: How did those happen?

Ferriss: Yeah, I've had a fortunate run. So in the case of angel investing, in 2007, "4-Hour Workweek" pops and suddenly it's a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and so on. I'm not so naive to think that I can just put lightning in a bottle and do that over and over and over and over again. I thought to myself, "Well, if this is really my moment, like the opportunity window, what might I do with this?" And around the same time, I was having lunches with Mike Maples.

Feloni: And Mike Maples is?

Ferriss: So Mike Maples, at the time, was a very successful angel investor, meaning he invested his own money in generally small-ish checks into very, very early-stage embryonic startups. He's now a founding partner of Floodgate, which is a successful venture-capital firm. And at the time, we would meet up for lunch or brunch at a place called Hobee's in the Bay Area, and we would very frequently talk about launch strategy or PR angles that his startups could use. In return, I would ask him about deal structure, about company selection. "Why did you choose this company instead of A, B, or C companies? What are the most important points in deal negotiation for, say, a seed round of financing?"

And over the span of a few months of asking him these questions, I had decided that, rather than go to Stanford Business School, what if I took $120,000 of my money, which I would have spent on Stanford Business School for two years at the time and instead created a real-world MBA for myself where I create the "Tim Ferriss Fund," in quotation marks, and invest $120,000 in startups over two years with the expectation that I'm going to lose all of that money. In other words, every startup will fail, but the relationships developed — that I develop and the skills that I develop, the knowledge that I acquire, will, and so forth and so on, will more than make up for that over time.

So I asked Mike if I could co-invest with him in a few deals and that's how it started.

Feloni: You had a good run.

Ferriss: I had a good run. The first one was not a good run. The first investment I made — I won't mention the name. But I invested — now keep in mind, I'm looking at 120K over two years, right? So the first investment, I want to say I put in — it's so stupid — I put in 50K in the very first investment, because I got so excited. This is one of the risks of being an angel investor who's a former entrepreneur, is you can sometimes get very easily excited. And Mike says — I remember Mike saying to me, "Don't you think 50K might be a little aggressive?" — given that my allocation for the year is supposed to be 60. And I was, like, "Oh man, but no, based on your description, based on this, this, and this, no, I'm so bullish," and it promptly just went sideways and became walking dead.

Over time, as I started to learn, "All right, well now that I've overspent my budget, I need to figure out also how to become an adviser." And an adviser, for those who don't know, really just means that I am acting as a consigliere or consultant slash adviser, and instead of getting paid in cash, I get paid in equity. I get paid in a portion of the company over time. And so that — that then led to some very good decisions, and I had very lucky timing also. Because, say, 2008, 2009, there was less capital in the startup game, and that allowed me to invest in some great companies, and, like you mentioned, some of them — I mean, the Facebooks and Twitters and being an early adviser to Uber and then later Ali Baba, and I was the first adviser to Shopify, which had eight employees at the time and now has 2,500 to 3,000, and is a publicly traded company, and so on and so forth. So ultimately, the portfolio ended up being, I want to say, 60 or 70 companies, currently.

A new chapter as a podcast star

The Tim Ferriss Show

Feloni: So, Tim, you've had a few books at this point, but whenever I mention your name to someone now, what typically comes up is the podcast, and this is something that you started a few years ago. The way you put it, it almost seems like it came up as a lark type of thing.

Ferriss: Oh, it did. It's not just the way I put it — it totally was, dude. It totally did.

Feloni: How did that happen?

Ferriss: Well, after "The 4-Hour Chef," which was a very complex book, I was very burned out and wanted to take a break from anything that was writing-focused. And I was interviewed at the time on Joe Rogan's show, Marc Maron's "WTF," "Nerdist" with Chris Hardwick, which has since exploded into its own industry unto itself, and I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it because I could be myself. I could curse if it came out, from Long Island and all, and there was very little censuring. A and B, the format was long enough that I could get into the details, I could dig into the nuances, and I didn't have to try to encapsulate everything about a 600-page book into 20 seconds of scripted time when the person I'm talking to is reading a teleprompter over my shoulder.

And in those interviews I had so much fun, No. 1, and then, No. 2, they moved a lot of books. I was blown away by how many books these podcasts moved. It just completely made my jaw drop compared to a lot of other media.

And I committed to six episodes to start. I felt like that would give me a certain critical mass, where I could develop new skills, maybe remove a few verbal ticks and decide and assess fairly whether I enjoyed it or not. So I committed to six episodes. First one was a softball with my buddy Kevin Rose. Didn't even have a name for the podcast at that point, and we got — or I got, I should say; I'm trying to use the royal "we," but it was me — I got sloppy drunk because I was nervous, I was really nervous to interview one of my best friends, partially because he was busting my balls the whole time, and after six episodes I decided to keep doing it. I was having a lot of fun. And now, 300 episodes or so later, I'm still going and it's become, like you mentioned, what almost anyone who comes up to me in the street mentions.

Feloni: I've noticed in your podcasts, it seems to be a common thing that you interview people across all kinds of industries. You even have some maybe experimental episodes where you're talking about things like your morning routine or things like that. When I look at the past 10 years or so of your career, it seems that you — this a common theme — that you jump around among things. Do you get bored with stuff easily?

Ferriss: Oh, I would say I get bored with things easily, but the jumping around is also a protective mechanism. So much like, I had mentioned diversifying my identity with content by going from "4-Hour Workweek" to "4-Hour Body," even though I'm still ... I still had interest in business stuff, but I wanted to establish the precedent of me exploring different subject areas with the same framework. The insertion of experimental episodes into the podcast, say, the "drunk dial" episode, would be a good example. So I decide, all right, what would this look like if it were easy? Well, I would put out a note on social. I'd say, "Hey, guys, fill out this Google form, give me your phone number or Skype handle, and I'm just going to sit down with some gin and soda and I'm going to start drinking and then I'm going to call the first 15 people or 20 people and you can ask me anything you want, and that's going to be a podcast episode." So it self-selects for an audience who's up for that type of experimentation.

What it means to be Tim Ferriss

"The Tim Ferriss Experiment"

Feloni: I've heard you call yourself a dilettante before. Someone —

Ferriss: Yeah.

Feloni: Dabbling in a bunch of different things. And what is it that you specialize in?

Ferriss: I specialize in pattern recognition and accelerated learning. So taking a subject that seems very complex or that can be presented in a very complex way, and distilling it down into the fewest number of moving pieces that really matter. So the 20% that gets you 80% of the results that you want. And then imparting that to other people.

Feloni: So with that perspective, you've built up a good amount of success over the past 10 years, but something that I find interesting about you is that, more so than a lot of even entrepreneurs in tech, that you're really open about your failures, whether that was being turned down by publishers or your TV show being dropped or just a wide variety of things. Is that deliberate on your part? Is that as much for you as it is for your audience?

Ferriss: It's very deliberate. I don't know if it's "for me" because it's painful.

Feloni: Well, maybe coming to terms with the pain?

Ferriss: No, no, I mean it's not really a cathartic exercise for me — I suppose it has that effect — but I talk about my failures because I think it's dishonest to only talk about your successes. It's so critical that people realize mistakes are part of the game. Unforced errors are part of the game and as soon as that becomes the norm or the expectation, people can persist when they inevitably flub or drop the ball. I've had a bunch of what people would consider failures, in TV, in books, in any domain that I've participated in, I've made huge mistakes, massive errors of judgment. And nonetheless, if you focus on acquiring skills and relationships — acquiring — developing skills and relationships, if that's your focus, over time, you will win.

Feloni: Do you see yourself as a role model at this point?

Ferriss: I ... no. "Role model" is ... I wouldn't call myself a role model. I would call myself a teacher, certainly. I think there are certain tool kits that I've acquired, or approaches that I've tested that people can emulate, certainly, and use to replicate results. I mean, that's what I do. But I wouldn't anticipate, nor really want anyone to look at me and say, "I want to be Tim Ferriss." No, that shouldn't be the goal, and trust me, I mean, I talk about a lot of my demons. Like, I don't think you want to sign up for that necessarily.

I want to be the teacher who makes his students better than he was. I want to give people the tools and say, "OK, look, I made this shitty little birdhouse that people seem to be impressed by, but you can go build a Gothic cathedral if you want with the same set of tools, right?" That's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea, and then send people on their way to have their own adventures.

Feloni: Well, thank you so much, Tim. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Ferriss: Yeah, likewise.

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