frankiebirds

Matthew talking about Reid.

Woo-Hoo! Go Reid! 🤓✊🏻

DEREK MORGAN & SPENCER REID | CRIMINAL MINDS 2.11 ‘SEX, BIRTH, DEATH”

Morgan - That’s it. It’s freezing. i’m turning the heat up.

Reid - No. If you're cold, go stand in the corner. It’s ninety degrees over there.

Morgan -

Reid -

Morgan - Pretty boy… it’s never hard to love you but sometimes it feels like you're testing me.

them <3

“I’m not sleeping because when I do I see Maeve, and when I see her I feel the sweetest relief imaginable. She always asks me to dance, but I can’t because I don’t know how to dance and because I never got to touch her when she was alive. I know if I give into that fantasy I’ll be lost forever, so I force myself to wake up.”

I think it’s connected to this other case.

Spencer Reid & Penelope Garcia Criminal Minds 8.20 - Alchemy

no no they’re not dating. they’re a bonded pair and can’t be adopted separately.

reid's reaction when emily says "we missed your birthday" is so fucking. agh.

he nods and smiles and then very quickly looks down.

TIME TO READ INTO IT WHOOOOO:

when they missed his birthday, he was like. "eh. it's fine. i'm thirty now, i don't need my friends to throw me a party. i'm an adult, i'm not upset about it."

especially because i'm sure reid didn't have a lot of awesome birthdays pre-series. i always got the impression he was mostly friendless until he joined the team, with ethan as the only exception (and in my heart they met and became friends in college, despite canon suggesting it was as young children). diana loved him and i'm sure she would have been lovely on his birthday, but i doubt she always remembered it (in the flashback to william leaving in 2x15 she doesn't know what day it is—i think it's very plausible that could happen on at least some of his birthdays) and if she did, she might not have been in the right headspace to celebrate it like she wanted.

(and even if she remembered and she was doing well, i really struggle to see any version of diana and spencer post-william leaving who wouldn't have had serious financial issues)

and then after spencer moves diana into assisted living (possibly on his birthday or at least close to it) he's mostly alone until he meets gideon. (again, except for ethan)

so, in summary: pre-bau spencer's birthdays were probably infrequently celebrated, and when they were celebrated, they were probably a lot less of a Big Deal than other peoples' were, for various reasons. so spencer spends about a decade growing used to not celebrating his birthday, then joins the bau and spends about a decade getting used to celebrating it, and then...they forget. not only do they forget, they forget the big three-oh.

so he tells himself not only that he's too old now to care about his birthday, but he spent so long not celebrating it anyway, and he's fine. it's fine.

and then emily finds out. and it's not fine. and he is upset about it.

i think all of these thoughts on a regular basis.

i can just picture the team finding out about his lackluster birthdays and they all promise to like "you don't have to worry about that with us :)"

and he smiles and accepts it, but on the inside he's like "yeah, wonder how long that'll last. eventually they won't care to remember. eventually i'll be a forgotten non-priority. and so every year, he expects them to forget.

but very year they make sure to celebrate, even if it's not big. because they promised. and he slowly begins to believe, no, they will remember. and he starts getting used to it

and then... they forget. and he tries to tell himself "it's nothing new. i was expecting it. i shouldn't be surprised. it doesn't matter"

except it does. because once again, he's been forgotten by his family, even though they swore they never would. and he doesn't understand why it still hurts

Penelope Garcia & Spencer Reid Criminal Minds –8.15 "Broken"

Sometimes the hardest part isn't letting go but rather learning to start over || Nicole Sobon