Spencer Reid- 100 followers special

Spencer Reid has always been good at recognizing patterns. That is, arguably, the entire problem. He notices the way {User} unconsciously mirrors his posture during briefings, the way her feet seem to angle toward him even when she is speaking to someone else, and the way she leans in slightly whenever he speaks. He has read about those things before. Mirroring can indicate rapport, comfort, or subconscious synchronization. The direction of someone's feet can sometimes indicate who they are most interested in engaging with. And then there is the way someone's eyes occasionally drop to another person's lips. Of course the last one isn't entirely scientifically conclusive, and Spencer knows better than anyone that correlation does not equal causation. But Spencer has never needed absolute scientific certainty to recognize a pattern.

The two of them have had a certain kind of tension for months. It is never openly acknowledged, never discussed, and certainly never pursued. It is the kind of tension that both of them seem to instinctively understand is dangerous. The FBI Employee Handbook is very clear about workplace relationships, conflicts of interest, and inappropriate conduct between colleagues. Spencer has read the handbook more than once, which means he knows exactly how many reasons there are for the two of them to stay away from each other. That should make it easier. It doesn't. Every time Spencer tries to create distance, {User} somehow ends up standing beside him again. Every time he tells himself he is imagining things, he catches her looking at him. And every time he looks back, he begins to wonder if he has been imagining anything at all.

The BAU is sent from Quantico, all the way down to Florida during one of the hottest times of the year to assist with a disturbing case involving two illegal mass graves. The local police department is cramped and poorly equipped to accommodate an entire FBI team, leaving Rossi, Hotch, Morgan, Reid, {User}, JJ, and Prentiss working in an uncomfortable room with files spread across every available surface. The heat is oppressive, the air conditioning barely helps, and everyone is exhausted from the flight and the case itself.

The first mass grave contains the remains of men. The bodies show evidence of brutal, prolonged violence, with injuries varying from victim to victim. Some were beaten, some were mutilated, and some appear to have been subjected to methods that suggest the unsub may have experimented with different ways of killing them. The second grave contains women and children, most of whom appear to have been poisoned. The bodies date back nearly two decades, with some victims having been buried years apart from one another. The separation between the two graves is clearly deliberate, but no one can explain why. The unsub is initially believed to be male based on the physical brutality inflicted upon the men and the organization required to maintain the graves over such a long period of time, but the motive remains unclear. There is no obvious connection between the victims, no apparent reason for the separation, and no clear explanation for why the men were violently murdered while the women and children were poisoned.

The more the team investigates, the stranger the case becomes. The graves do not seem to be the work of someone simply trying to hide bodies. The separation is almost ritualistic. The men are in one place, the women and children in another, and the different methods of death suggest that the unsub has created a system of rules that only makes sense to him. Spencer becomes increasingly convinced that understanding those rules will be the key to finding the killer.

Unfortunately, the case is not the only thing Spencer is having trouble understanding.

{User} is sitting across from him during one of the team's briefings, and Spencer is trying very hard to focus on the evidence. He notices her shifting in her chair, crossing her legs, leaning forward when someone speaks, and then, without seeming to realize it, mirroring the way he is sitting. Spencer looks down at their feet and notices that both of them are angled toward each other. He immediately begins trying to explain it away. People mirror each other all the time. It is common subconscious behavior. It can indicate rapport, comfort, or social synchronization. It does not necessarily indicate attraction.

Then he looks up and catches {User} staring at his mouth.

Spencer freezes for half a second. Normally, this is where he would look away. He would adjust his glasses, glance toward the case board, or find some excuse to focus on literally anything else. Looking back feels too much like admitting that he noticed, and admitting that he noticed feels too much like admitting that he likes it. But this time, Spencer doesn't look away. He looks directly at her.

The moment {User} realizes he has caught her, something changes. She becomes visibly flustered, and Spencer, who is normally terrible at understanding social situations, understands this one perfectly. She wasn't imagining the tension either. Neither was he. His heart begins beating too quickly, and his brain immediately starts searching for a rational explanation. Adrenaline. Heat. Stress. Lack of sleep. The case. Any explanation is better than the obvious one.

And who else saw this tension? Morgan.

Morgan catches Spencer looking at {User}, then catches {User} looking at Spencer, and immediately understands what is happening. Spencer sees the exact moment Morgan puts the pieces together, and Morgan's grin is unbearable. He doesn't even need to say anything at first, which somehow makes it worse. Eventually, Morgan makes some comment about how the two of them need to stop “eye-fucking each other across the room” if they are going to keep pretending nothing is happening. Spencer is immediately horrified.

“I don’t think that’s an accurate assessment of the situation,” Spencer says quickly, his voice going slightly higher than usual. “And even if it were, which I’m not saying it is, I fail to see how you would have enough observational data to reach that conclusion.”

"The why are you ears red pretty boy?" Morgan hits back.

“It’s because of the temperature,” Spencer insists.

Morgan slowly looks toward the air-conditioning unit, which is blowing cold air directly into the room. Then he looks back at Spencer.

Spencer follows his gaze, his eyes flicking toward the vent before returning to Morgan. There is a brief silence.

“The air conditioning is clearly malfunctioning,” Spencer says.

Honestly, who would buy that? The worst part is that Spencer knows his excuses are not working; Morgan isn't entirely wrong.

Spencer has noticed {User} looking at him. He has noticed himself looking back. He has noticed the way the tension changes whenever they are alone, and increasingly, he has begun to wonder whether the reason he keeps finding excuses to be near her is because he wants to. As the case continues, the tension becomes impossible for him to ignore. They work together on the victim timeline, stand shoulder-to-shoulder at the evidence board, reach for the same file, and almost touch hands. Neither of them says anything. Spencer becomes hyper aware of every small interaction: every time she stands too close, every time she looks at him, every time their eyes meet across the room. The worst part is that he has started looking back deliberately, sometimes just to see what happens and whether she will look away first.

Sometimes she does. Sometimes he does. And sometimes neither of them does.

Those moments are the most dangerous because they feel like something neither of them is willing to name.

Eventually, {User} begins to understand the separation between the graves and points it out. The men and women were not separated randomly. The unsub has created categories. The men were viewed as threats, while the women and children were viewed as something else. Not necessarily innocent, not necessarily victims in the unsub's mind, but part of a different category. The killings may be connected to an old family or community structure where the unsub believed certain people had to be punished while others had to be removed or protected. The violence against the men is personal, while the poison used on the women and children is impersonal. The unsub did not want to fight them. He wanted them silent.

The deeper the team investigates, the more they realize the unsub's motive may be rooted in a twisted form of protection, revenge, or purification. Someone has been recreating the same system for twenty years, and if the most recent victims were buried recently, then the unsub is still active. The team is running out of time.

Eventually, the heat, the case, and the tension become too much. {User} leaves the cramped police department room to get coffee, and Spencer watches her go. He tells himself he is only watching because he is thinking about the case, but then realizes he has no idea what anyone is saying anymore. He finishes reading the same line of evidence several times, pretends to organize a stack of files, checks the timeline, and then quietly leaves the room.

He doesn't follow immediately. That would be obvious.

When Spencer finds {User} near the coffee machine, the police department is quieter. Without the rest of the team around them, the tension feels different. More obvious. More dangerous. For a moment, he simply stands there, trying to figure out what exactly he is doing. He tells himself he is checking on a colleague. He tells himself he noticed she seemed distracted. He tells himself there is nothing strange about following someone to ask if they are okay.

But he knows himself well enough to recognize that this is not the only reason he followed her.

Spencer asks if she is okay, trying to make it sound casual and professional. He watches her carefully, his eyes briefly flicking toward her lips before returning to her face. This time, he catches himself doing it. The distance between them feels suddenly deliberate, and Spencer takes a small step closer. Not enough to cross any obvious line. Not enough to be inappropriate. Just enough to make him painfully aware of how close they are.

“Statistically speaking, interruptions and distractions in the workplace can significantly increase the time it takes to return to a task, particularly when the work requires sustained attention. So if something is distracting you, it could affect your performance.”

He has spent months analyzing every possible sign of attraction between them. He has studied the way they mirror each other, the way their bodies turn toward one another, the way their eyes linger too long. He has catalogued every possible explanation for it, searching for a rational answer that would allow him to dismiss the tension as coincidence.

But standing there with her, Spencer finally realizes that he may not actually want an explanation.

He looks at her, his expression thoughtful and concerned, but there is something else there now too. Something neither of them has been willing to acknowledge. His gaze briefly drops to her lips again before returning to her eyes, and this time, he doesn't look away.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

He waits, studying her expression.

“Because you seem like something's been on your mind.”

There is another pause. Spencer's eyes remain fixed on her.

Then, quieter, with a slight tilt of his head, he asks the question he has been avoiding.

“Or someone?”