Notghostqueen - 𝓠𝖚𝖊𝖊𝖓

SLIDE NUMBER 42

spencer struggles to stay focused during his FBI seminar after watching you accept another man's phone number

pairings: spencer reid x shy!reader warnings: post prison spencer, fem reader, fluffy fluff, pre-relationship mutual pining, jealousy, hot people who don't know they're hot, reader is so oblivious wc: 2.4k request: here

His speech is going fine. Good even, by technical standards. Solid pacing, no detectable tremor in his voice, and the audience seems engaged, or at least polite enough to fake it.

No eyes have glazed into vacant stares of boredom, no one has made sudden exits conveniently coinciding with his most critical points. Someone even laughed at his heuristics joke. Sure, that laugh might have stemmed from social obligation rather than genuine amusement, but Spencer’s ego isn’t picky. Validation is validation, however pitiful its origins.

After a hundred (give or take, but who’s counting? Certainly not him anymore) FBI seminars, public speaking has downgraded itself from gut-twisting terror to something more akin to low-level tinnitus. Persistent, yes, but easily ignored if he doesn’t focus on it.

Today, though, there’s a blemish in his confidence, a nearly imperceptible fissure disrupting an otherwise flawless delivery, and annoyingly, he knows exactly what’s causing it.

Or rather, who.

It would be easy, tempting, even, to attribute it to jet lag or his questionable decision to skip breakfast, despite knowing precisely how much glucose his brain demands to function optimally.

It’s approximately 130 grams daily, for the record.

But under close examination, these excuses collapse.

His mouth dutifully churns out the familiar concepts — cognitive shortcuts, behavioral reinforcement, and a half-dozen other psychological principles he could probably recite even if heavily sedated.

His eyes, though, are less disciplined.

Spencer no longer pretends he isn’t looking for you. Plausible deniability lost its appeal around the hundredth time, so now he’s squarely planted in the acceptance stage, routinely scanning briefing rooms, glancing down the jet aisle, even sweeping through crowded streets that realistically hold zero probability of your sudden appearance.

Stranger things have happened though.

Your usual chair, predictably front and center, has been taken by someone else. The disruption alone unsettles him, an absurd reaction, he knows, considering the concept of assigned seating vanished after high school.

But worse, far worse, your new seat, slightly further back to the left, is paired closely with a stranger. A male. A male stranger.

Did he mention that?

From this distance, Spencer reads you the way he would scrutinize grainy case footage — frame by frame, microexpression after microexpression. You sit poised, shoulders relaxed in a way that seems sincere, fingers neatly intertwined in practiced, polite calm. The hesitant half-smile on your face is one he’s memorized by now, the kind you deploy when responses fail you but courtesy remains compulsory.

There’s nothing outwardly troubling. No anxious shifts, no rapid blinking patterns, no unconscious signals suggesting underlying distress. And the man beside you remains scrupulously neutral, displaying no signs of threat or territorial intent. No encroaching hand, no aggressive hand over your chair.

Textbook respectful. Harmless, even.

Spencer hates him, regardless.

Maybe hate is a strong word. Spencer is self-aware enough to admit that. He’s nothing if not precise with language, after all. But the irritation brewing in his chest feels warranted, even if it’s inconvenient and flagrantly unprofessional.

He should be paying attention to his own presentation, should be demonstrating at least a shred of respect for the material, and especially for the painstaking work you poured into it.

Last Thursday alone, you spent two entire hours rearranging his deck into a visual narrative.

He had fun watching as you tensed each time his hand brushed yours or whenever he leaned a fraction too close, your shoulders tightening in a way he mentally filed under adorably flustered.

He also (less fun) watched you agonize over font choices as though the fate of the world depended on serif or sans-serif, and the way you had gotten so worked up trying to pick between two indistinguishable shades of blue.

Eventually, he broke. Softly, half-laughing, he told you, it doesn’t matter which one, I’ll love it regardless because you picked it.

He could almost hear your internal plea for the earth to kindly intervene and swallow you whole. And as usual, Spencer pretended he saw nothing, politely glossing over the obvious.

It had, after all, become his speciality — noticing everything about you and pretending he didn’t.

His eyes focus back on you, in the present to see that there’s a napkin involved with the stranger, accompanied by a ballpoint pen scratching digits hastily onto the flimsy, coffee-stained paper, folded once before sliding across the table.

You accept it without hesitation, slipping it beneath your fingers. To any else, the exchange would seem mundane. And maybe it genuinely is mundane.

Maybe people pass you phone numbers all the time and Spencer’s just blind to it, trapped comfortably back in plausible deniability.

And honestly, why wouldn’t this be a regular occurrence? He should’ve considered this months ago. From a purely observational standpoint, you’ve practically designed to attract attention. Intelligent. Kind. Beautiful. Very beautiful in a soft, disarming way that defies simple categorization.

He expends enormous effort pretending your very existence doesn’t accelerate his heart-rate into concerning ranges. It’s possible that other, saner men don’t waste precious energy on such fruitless, exhausting self-deception.

Spencer blinks slowly, disoriented by the sudden wave of heat climbing uninvited from beneath his collar. The fabric feels restrictive, as though actively tightening, trying to suffocate him purely out of spite.

For the life of him, he can’t remember which slide he’s on, or even if the current slide bears any relation to the words he was previously speaking. His pointer hand hovers mid-gesture, awkwardly frozen.

There’s a distracting ringing in his ears — no, he corrects himself, not ringing.

Silence.

His own silence stretching across the room as he mentally scrambles to pinpoint exactly when he stopped talking. Judging from the expectant stares, probably mid-sentence.

Your eyes find his almost instantly, brows pinched the tiniest bit, like you’re puzzled but trying not to be disrespectful about it. Spencer can feel the sweat prickling beneath his shirt.

But then you smile and give him a thumbs up.

Big and bright and encouraging like you’re trying to telepathically remind him that he’s doing great, as if this is only a mild, forgivable stumble from a nervous academic tripped up by nothing more serious than transition slide number 42.

It’s not funny. He tells himself that with conviction. But there’s some part of him that wants to laugh anyway, if only to release the pressure building inside him.

Instead, he settles for a restrained nod, stretches a smile over clenched teeth, pretends it feels natural then regains his place in the presentation.

Guilt rushes in on the tail end of his anger (anger? jealousy? — the terminology feels suspiciously accurate, but labeling it as so feels premature and vaguely terrifying). He’s uncertain what specific transgression triggered this, but his nervous system apparently feels apologies are overdue, regardless.

Possibly because his thoughts are increasingly heading into Neanderthal territory with every look the man gives you.

Thankfully around halfway, maybe just past that mark, the nameless man beside you rises. It’s discreet, he simply leans in toward you, exchanges some hushed, unintelligible words, then slips away.

The second the chair beside you empties though, that pressure in his chest loosens like a long-held muscle finally unclenched. Like oxygen flooding back into a room that had been vacuum-sealed.

Spencer rushes through his concluding remarks, murmuring a perfunctory thanks to the audience and moves swiftly off the stage.

No handshakes, no small talk, no waiting around to see if anyone has further questions. Frankly, he doesn’t have the bandwidth to pretend he cares.

His mind is fixated solely on you, his priority laser-focused on bridging the gap he’s spent the past hour actively trying not to acknowledge, intent on reaching you first before anyone else gets the chance.

You can’t help yourself from smiling the instant he comes into view, then immediately worry that it’s too much smile, a full wattage beam reserved for grander occasions than a simple post-presentation hello.

But then again, this is Spencer.

Spencer, who just minutes ago had half the room on the edge of their seats, eyes round with wonder, absorbing each detail like children watching a magic trick unfold.

You’re fairly certain he would appreciate that comparison.

“You were incredible,” you say, feeling a little winded by your own excitement. Hopefully, that accounts for the weird expression you’re pretty sure is plastered all over your face. “Seriously, you sounded so confident, and that one part, the twins with the shared delusion? You could hear everyone holding their breath.”

Spencer holds your gaze, expression carefully blank, as if he’s momentarily forgotten how to react. He finally swallows, glancing downward briefly before forcing his eyes back to yours.

“Thanks,” he says, “to tell you the truth, it felt a bit… off.”

“Really?” you blurt out. “It was probably the slides, honestly. I knew I should’ve picked the darker blue for the headers. The light blue looked fine on my laptop, but projected up there it looked way too… fluorescent. Sorry if it threw you off, or you know, temporarily damaged your retinas.”

His lips curve into something resembling a smile, but there’s a noticeable emptiness behind it, a shadow of the quietly affection grin he saves for Garcia when she insists on inventing some silly nickname for him, or that gently softened look he gives you when you ask him to double-check emails you’re irrationally convinced you wrote incorrectly.

This one feels different. More distant, maybe.

Was that too much? Did you overshoot the tone? Did you mistake his pause for an opening and trample right through it? Did the slides really throw him off? You don’t know, but your mouth is already moving again.

“I mean, no one probably even noticed the color thing. I just… I did. Not that it mattered. The content was what people were paying attention to. Your content, not mine, obviously. Just — sorry, I —”

“The slides were perfect,” he cuts in, shaking his head. “Really, thank you for putting them together.”

Warmth blooms aggressively across your cheeks, spreading upward to your ears until you’re positive they must be visibly burning.

You nod vigorously, maybe too much so, because words seem hazardous at this point. You’re 90% sure the only sound you would make is some kind of mouse-adjacent squeak.

He nods toward the row of now-empty chairs.

“Next time, would you mind sitting a bit closer?” he asks. “If there’s a technical glitch, having you close by could save me from another awkward pause.”

“I was planning to.” You let out a laugh, ducking your head. “But someone got there first and I thought it’d be weird if I challenged them to a duel or something.”

He laughs at that and your heart reacts accordingly.

“Tell you what,” he says, “next time I’ll reserve your seat myself. No need to resort to sword fights on my behalf.”

A chair scrapes violently a few feet away, loud enough to startle you mid-nod. You flinch, pivot slightly, and your purse, which was balanced precariously on the back of your chair, swings off and to the floor.

Lip balm tubes, scattered pens, mint wrappers, crumbled receipts, and a pitiful handful of coins erupt from the bag like tiny projectiles, landing messily at Spencer’s feet.

You’re halfway through an apology that’s shaping up to be spectacularly frantic when he crouches beside you.

“It’s fine —” he reassures, patiently herding your scattered belongings until his hand stops dead, hovering oddly over something.

A folded napkin. He picks it up gently, like he’s trying not to crumple it, and you immediately recognize it, the paper, the stupid casual tilt of the handwriting. The guy’s phone number paired with an invitation for coffee or drinks or something similarly forgettable.

Honestly, you barely registered it at the time, dismissed it entirely after a polite smile and obligatory nod. It meant nothing then. It means even less now.

Your brain lurches, caught in a panicked tug-of-war between explaining yourself, pretending nothing happened, or diving headfirst into an apology (your well-worn, anxiety-ridden default).

Because it all suddenly feels painfully amateurish, unbelievably unprofessional, especially in the relentless spotlight of being the newest face, the eager-to-please media liaison who occasionally gets mistaken for someone’s assistant or coffee-fetcher at least twice per conference.

You already feel like you’re playing catch-up to the rest of them, especially him.

And now, somehow, you’ve inadvertently become the girl who collects phone numbers at work functions. It’s not that you wanted it, but refusing just felt unnecessarily harsh.

And what were you supposed to say?

Sorry, but I’m secretly nursing a hopeless infatuation for the lanky genius on the stage with an alphabet soup of degrees, beautiful hands, and a voice you would happily let narrate even your most tedious existence?

Arguably even less professional.

You take the napkin from his hand quickly, tucking it deep into your bag like maybe that’ll erase the last thirty seconds.

“That wasn’t, um, supposed to be…”

“You don’t have to explain,” Spencer interjects, gaze lowered, “I imagine it happens often.”

You press your lips together. Nervously, you steal a glance at him, noting the clench of his jaw and the almost angry crease between his brows.

“It doesn’t, actually.”

Both of you straighten at once, shoulders grazing clumsily as he smooths down his sleeves.

You silently wish, not for the first time, you could translate his face into something tangible. Profiler by osmosis, apparently, isn’t a thing.

“Well,” he says, like he’s still thinking it over. “They’re clearly behind the curve.”

Your stomach dives into freefall, landing roughly somewhere near where your purse had just been. Still, you muster a breezy smile, hand flicking dismissively.

“Oh, um, you don’t need to say that,” you say lightly, even though your mind is already sprinting between seven — no, eight — different theories on what exactly he meant by that. “But thanks.”

“I think I kind of do. Because if anyone’s asking for your number, I think it should be at least someone who —”

“Dr. Reid?” Someone interrupts, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Do you have a second to talk about the regression data on slide 19?”

Spencer nods, starting to turn, but not before his eyes catch yours again. Just once.

His mouth curves into the slightest of smiles, teasing in a way you’ve never seen, as though he’s entirely aware of the words left unsaid and exactly how they’re going to occupy your thoughts in the meantime.

You despise this new smile. You adore this new smile. You’re doomed, either way.

Without a second glance, you fish the napkin from your purse, walking to the nearest trash can and dropping it inside.

You wonder if he’ll circle back. If he’ll finish the sentence.

And if he doesn’t, well, you’ll be thinking about it anyway.

💌 masterlist taglist has been disbanded! if you want to get updates about my writings follow and turn notifications on for my account strictly for reblogging my works! @mariasreblogs

824 notes View Post

notghostqueen

2 years ago

Piglins Can Shapeshift So They Are Comfortable In Both The Overworld And The Nether. Also Ranboo Is Confused

piglins can shapeshift so they are comfortable in both the overworld and the nether. Also ranboo is confused

17K notes View Post

notghostqueen

1 year ago

BAIFERN GIF PACK

In the source link below, you will find 598 gifs in 245x150 of BAIFERN PIMCHANOK (1992) in Beauty Newbie (2024). She is Thai and of Chinese descent, so please cast accordingly. All gifs were made from scratch by me and are for roleplay purposes only. Please consider giving this a reblog if using or if you found this to be useful. Do not repost or claim as your own. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

[ ! ] this pack will be updated as the show airs