doctor spencer reid was, unfortunately, a genius.

unfortunate was perhaps not the word most would use to describe his memory's savanted state, but the social hindrances proved it to be, frankly, a pain in his flat ass.

the wide-eyed, constantly surprised puppyish look in his eyes had stopped being considered cute at a whopping twenty-four and five weeks. people just took him less serious because of it.

and it wasn't like he could exactly help it- it was his resting face. how would he remember to keep up a face that suggested being wise-- he could hardly remember to eat if he got super interested in something.

he'd mostly given up on being treated like a competent f.b.i agent off the get-go, and reverted right back to his natural state: dressing like various cartoon nerds- doug funnie, in his defence, had excellent fashion taste- and occasionally heath ledger's joker.

he was unapologetically a dork, and had given up on protesting otherwise. he'd almost snorted when an unsub had decided to point out his autistic tendencies as a way to jab at him.

he didn't know he'd been portraying it as a secret.

no factoids in the world could make up for the fact that he did not know how to talk to people, in his eyes.

in yours?

oh, lord, he could spout statistics to you all day. the prettiest boy in the goddamned universe.

you were the second-youngest member of the bau- he wasn't exactly sure how old you were, but he knew you were younger than the median but not a glaring outlier. within five years of him.

he liked you.

a lot, actually- you were easily in his top three if he made a list of favorite people in the world.

which, he hadn't. as far as you knew, though you wouldn't put it past his painfully organized, everything-in-boxes nature.

he talked to you. all the time. mainly because you listened, and responded back at times he anticipated, and seemed genuinely interested. you didn't poke at his sore spots, either. as far as he was concerned, you were perfect.

which objectively, he knew you weren't. everyone was flawed, it was just how people were, but the more time he spent with you the more the flaws faded into the background noise.

so he contined to let his metric tons of words pelt you on lunch breaks, and you continued to just...look at him in a way he couldn't quite place.

maybe he could place it. maybe he was too jittery and nervous to do so.

today was a normal day. normal for anyone in your profession, at least. you'd just arrested a guy for the murder of two families- suspected of six more (bone-chilling. even for a seasoned professional like gideon), and were on the plane back to quantico.

gideon was god knows where- probably obsessing over something else- and the rest of the team were chatting around a table.

you and spencer, however, were sat across from each other at a smaller table, a chess board between the two of you. he was winning by miles.

he'd been complaining about the sun in his eyes a moment ago- which usually wouldn't bother him, but the way it was filtering oddly through the clouds? it was taking years off his life and making his head start to pound.

so, you, as his friend and totally-not-huge-crush, offered him a pair of sunglasses.

he was currently adjusting them on his face.

"do i-" he paused, eyes narrowing beneath the dark lenses as he reached up to tug a strand of brownish blonde from beneath them.

"do i look, uh, cool?"

a joke, mostly, but achingly endearing. he looked overwhelmingly dorky, and overwhelmingly nice.