Be Forever Young (Reid Fluff Fic)
Summary: After Penelope’s resignation from the BAU, she attempts to set up her tech protégé, Reader, with Reader’s intellectual match yet much older counterpart - Dr. Spencer Reid.
A/N: The POV switches between Reader and Spencer, just use context clues to detect who the narrator is.
Pairing: Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid
Content Warning: 21 year age gap, headcannon proposal
Playlist: Cloud 9 by Beach Bunny
Word Count: 6.1k
✧・゚: *✧・゚:*
Prologue
Events like these weren’t exceedingly rare. They weren’t anything like Halley’s Comet, by any means, where it only happens once in your lifetime - if you’re lucky. But they weren’t exactly sunrises - something that you can count on occurring every day without fail.
The best celestial phenomenon I could compare it to are blue moons. Rare enough to still have an element of surprise when they came, but not so rare that I should never expect them.
These ‘blue moons’ are actually the events in which I meet an intellectual match.
It’s not too often that I find a mind quite like mine, so you’ll forgive me for the reaction it elicits to watch them transcend the physical level and connect with me on the psychological one. There’s only been a handful of people who’ve ever had the exact standard of aptitude to be permissible into this metaphysical world with me, but now - there’s a handful and one.
The newest addition to the list is her.
_ _ _
Getting a word in edgewise when it comes to a conversation with Penelope Garcia is nearly impossible. Getting a word in edgewise when it comes to a conversation with Penelope Garcia about Dr. Spencer Reid is impossible.
I couldn’t tell you when the first time she brought him up was, but I could probably tell you just how many times since then she’s mentioned him.
A trillion. At least.
For months on end, he was the only thing she would talk to me about. Morning, noon, and night. Every single day she’d gush about him with the same unrelenting zeal as she had the day before and the day before that. It was both scary and impressive how she never seemed to run out of good things to say about him.
“You would just die for his apartment. It’s got this super chic dark academia thingy going on. You’d be really into that,” she would say. Or something to that effect. I was never really listening.
Not that I wasn’t interested in learning about Dr. Reid - I was very interested in him.
As a superior.
I first learned of him when he taught my Psych 101 class. Freshman year me was simply enthralled with him as a speaker, probably due to the charm of his awkward humor. I found it eerily relatable and touching, in a way. That was probably my favorite class, minus the assholes who made it less than enjoyable at times. (That’s a story for later).
The next interaction I had with him happened not even a year later when he came back after temporarily teaching to sit in on a philosophy class. Even though he was only auditing the lecture, whereas I was enrolled in the course, he ended up sitting in the seat right beside me. Had he not been gifted with an eidetic memory - a fact I found out during one of my obsessive research sessions - I doubt he would’ve even remembered sitting next to me.
Our shared field of work helped to bring us back together repeatedly throughout college. I would run into him at seminars, workshops, once even at a library where we were both looking for the same book.
But for the most part, our relationship was parasocial. It largely consisted of me learning from him at a distance. I would use his brilliant research to support my own assignments, read the books he recommended, audit the classes he would teach.
Rather than accurately interpreting my very limited, very professional connection to Dr. Reid, Penelope was deliberately using it as ammunition for her arsenal of reasons why I should consider dating him.
“You guys are basically already friends, and nothing is cuter than the friends-to-lovers trope!” Now that she actually did say, and the only reason I remember it verbatim was it was so outrageous I couldn’t not remember it.
And probably because she just said it to me right now.
“We’re not friends! We’re ... acquaintances. Colleagues, if you will.” My attempts to gain distance from Penelope and this topic of conversation were crashing and burning. The more I tried to walk away from her, the faster she would chase me. It was inconceivable how she managed to do that and continue to pelt me with her perky persistence.
“Even better! You know I’m no stranger to workplace romances.”
That I did. One Derek Morgan or one Luke Alvez ring a bell?
“Dr. Reid and I don’t work together,” I reminded her, if only to burst her bubble of insanity.
“Exactly my point! If you two don’t work together, then there’s nothing keeping you apart.”
I was stopped dead in my tracks, almost causing Penelope to trip since she was right on my heels.
“Nothing? Really? Try 21 years.”
That surely kept us apart.
Our age gap was one of those glaring disparities Penelope couldn’t wave away with her magic wand. Frankly, it wasn’t an age gap so much as it was an age Grand Canyon. He was a whole person of legal drinking age older than me!
Hell - our age gap itself was older than me!
Maybe there weren’t any contracts or agreements or supervisors to keep us apart, but there was still one significant thing doing that.
Time. Arguably the most important thing you needed to get right for a relationship to work.
If there were any chance that he and I were good together, that was squandered by our divergence in age.
Right person, wrong time ... but wrong time by more than two decades.
I could see the smallest fragment of hope wither away in Garcia’s eyes, and it actually hurt to have known that I caused that. Her voice was more solemn when she said, “You don’t have to date him, I just want you to go on a date. Get to know each other better. Who knows? You might finally graduate from colleagues to BFF’s.”
Not that I was seriously considering the possibility of growing closer to Dr. Reid, but there was one question lingering in my mind.
“Does he even want to go on this date? Have you asked him how he feels about it?”
Part of why I was wondering was on the off chance that she’d tell me he had the same objections towards this that I did, which would be good news for me since it would mark my reluctance as a sound judgment. If there was anyone whose opinion was worth something, it was his, right? After all, he was the provable genius in the same compromising position as me.
“Trust me, he’s been dying to do this.” In spite of her preface to trust her, I didn’t. I couldn’t be sure if she was suggesting that he’d been dying to go on a date with me or if he’d been dying to go on a date in general.
No offense to him, but I guessed it was the latter, and if that was the case, he was only being a team player because she hadn’t told him it was me she was setting him up with. Already suspecting that I’d probe further to navigate through her vagueness, she cut in with one last Hail Mary. “One date! That’s all!”
Whether you believe me or not, 100% the only reason why I said what I said next was to put an end to this madness. “Fine. I’ll go.”
Maybe 99.99%.
_ _ _
I never knew how I could lose so much time. Sure, if anyone asked, I could probably account for everything I’d done in my day, second by second. But still, there was this cloudiness, a fog, inhabiting my brain, casting this haze on whatever else dwelled in my mind, too.
I couldn’t focus on anything for more than 4 seconds at a time, and while that wasn’t incredibly concerning for the average human, it was disconcerting for me.
What was going on?
What is going on?
“What’s going on?”
Suddenly, a hand began to wave in front of my face. “Yoo-hoo? Anybody in there?” JJ wondered aloud, causing me to realize it was her voice that asked the question from before.
“Yeah, sorry,” I shook my head to regain some clarity, but that did me no good. My foggy brain still remained. It goes without saying my words were worth nothing as well. JJ saw right through me in a way that never failed to scare me shitless. I could never conjure up a lie good enough to follow that look she’d give me. So I settled for the truth. The question that cast the haziness in my brain to begin with.
“What do you think about me dating again?”
If I thought that first look was bad, then the one she was giving me now was something of a nightmare. At least with the first, I knew what she was thinking. With this one, I hadn’t a clue.
To relieve us from some of the insufferable silence, I found myself speaking again in my defense. “Garcia mentioned something earlier about setting me up with someone and it got me thinking.”
Thinking about Max that is.
Being my most recent girlfriend, it made sense why she was freshest in my mind. That being said, we’ve been broken up for 14 months, which in any other context would seem like more than enough time to start dating again, but therein lies the catch.
We didn’t just break up. She said “no” when I asked her to marry me, which, if you ask me, is one hell of a way to break up.
So from that perspective, it obviously begs the question: is 14 months too fast to move on from something like that?
JJ sharply inhaled. “Well, are you ready to start dating again?”
I still didn’t have an answer for that myself. “I don’t know. There isn’t exactly a rulebook on how long you have to wait until it’s socially acceptable-”
“Lemme stop you right there, Spence,” She placed her hand on top of mine. “You can’t just do whatever statistics or studies or science say is right all the time. You not only need to be more in tune with your own needs but accepting of them, too. Screw what anyone else has to say about you dating again - including Socrates, including Einstein, including Aristotle ... including me. Do whatever you think is acceptable by your standards - not society’s. Do what you wanna do and I’ll support that.”
There was something special about having JJ’s approval. It was like getting permission to be excited, something I didn’t know I needed or wanted.
“I’m ready.”
Born ready, as Penelope herself would say.
_ _ _
I was starting to get suspicious that maybe I had an invisible string attached to me and on the other end of that string was Penelope. It was the only explanation as to how she managed to trail behind me at an isochronal pace. Perfectly equidistant, perfectly equal intervals of time. Must’ve been some form of magic that she was able to synchronize that connection for as long as she did as we pranced around the office, basically chasing me.
“Okay, I know the date isn’t until Saturday, but I really think we need to amp up your wardrobe choices ... like stat.”
Hearing that I was seeing my superior still didn’t settle well with me. I don’t think I could ever get used to the thought.
I should’ve been offended at her suggestion to change my clothing taste as it implied my stylistic choices weren’t up to par, but a part of me, a very small part of me, knew she was right. And just because I wasn’t keen on the idea of going on a date with Spencer didn’t mean I didn’t want to look nice for him for it.
“I’m assuming you’ve got some ideas in mind,” I said in a teasing voice, knowing that’s precisely why she brought it up.
“See! You are a genius! Exactly why you and Spencer are meant to be together!” Her exclamation was just as loud as it was outlandish.
“Alright, calm down sparky,” I shot a warning look. “It’s just one date - we’re not soulmates.”
Then, talking in the quietest voice I didn’t think Penelope was capable of speaking with, she said, “Not yet.”
I knew the minute I showed even the littlest bit of interest in Penelope’s fashion guidance, I’d end up draped in ruffles, sequins, glitter, tulle, rhinestones, or all of the above. Nothing again Penelope’s personal style - it’s just not mine.
I was scared to ask, but I had to know. “So what were you thinking?”
Before my very eyes, Penelope’s constantly-there smile transformed, something akin to the mischievous grin of the Cheshire Cat. “I was thinking …”
In a Mary Poppins-esque fashion, Penelope produced a dress that in no feasible reality should have been able to fit within that little Hello Kitty side bag.
I suppose it must’ve been absolutely backbreaking for Penelope to refrain from choosing a multicolor or at least pattern-riddled dress, so as compensation for the fact that it was only one singular color throughout, it had to be a bold one.
Red.
“Not too shabby, right?” Her eyebrows jumped on her forehead, knowing she’d made a good choice.
And a part of me actually died saying this, but it was pretty perfect.
_ _ _
My life didn’t flash before my eyes, per se, the moment I finally arrived at the delicatessen. It was more like a very specific, singular memory had flashed before my eyes.
That story for later? This is the one.
Psych 101 was my best class in Freshman year ... by a long shot. Come rain, wind, or snow, I was always excited to go. It was a standout course on its own, but not because it was terribly spectacular or the most fascinating subject in the world, but more so because of how it changed my own person. It challenged me, like all worthwhile things do.
There were more judgmental meatheads - boys, if you will - than not, who would jump down my throat for being a smart ass or a teacher’s pet if I so much as answered one of Dr. Reid’s questions. Par for the course, really.
As a result, I had a proclivity to avoid raising my hand. It wasn’t that I was hyper-fixated on managing my reputation, just that participating wasn’t worth the eventual harassment from my dimwitted classmates.
Nonetheless, one day, I felt compelled to answer Dr. Reid when he asked what our thoughts were about the sampled, pretense manifesto.
No one else was jumping at the chance to speak, perhaps they were just as cowardly as I was, and it was clear that he was going to stand there waiting until someone finally would. The silence was painfully awkward for everyone and so I felt obligated, as a student who was actually enrolled in the class for credit and not just to audit like 90% of the other girls here, to break it.
Slowly, ever so slowly, my hand hesitantly inched up into the air until it floated just high enough above the student in front of me’s head. As soon as I knew he saw it, I let it plunge straight back down.
“Yes, Ms. (y/l/n)?”
I could already feel the dirty looks and snide comments coming before I even said a word.
“I know we’re all collectively referring to this unsub as a man, and while that might just be a general assumption or Freudian slip perhaps ... I think the language is steeped in betrayal and contempt. And it would be ignorant not to notice how it reads more like the wrath of a woman scorned than your typical jilted male lover.”
“Lover?” Someone two rows back snickered quietly, clearly to mock my choice of words. I didn’t even have to look to know it was Brad who had said that. Nevertheless, Dr. Reid was impressed with my answer. His lips curved into the faintest smile as he nodded his head. If he had heard the commentary of one Brad Sterling, he made no visceral reaction to it.
With an extended hand, palm facing up, he gestured for me to, “Please. Stand up.”
I fumbled my way up and out of my seat to possibly delay the shit I’d get for this mere action.
“That, ladies and gentleman, is what it looks like to have courage,” He underlined his words with a grand flourish of his hand in my direction. “Putting yourself on the line even in the event you’ll be mocked and ridiculed or deemed wrong. That’s something you’ll need if you are seriously considering being part of the BAU, or the FBI at any capacity.”
My face was flushed from the acclaim he was showering me with. Suddenly, I was glad I volunteered.
Taking me completely by surprise, Dr. Reid wasn’t done yet.
“So, Mr. Sterling,” He began, directly calling out the boy in the back who without a doubt made the remark. I wouldn’t have had any reason to believe he heard it since his attention never diverted away from me long enough to catch the comment, much less the culprit. I wonder if he’d heard all the times Brad made jokes at my expense. Was he finally at his wits end with the sarcasm? “Make fun all you want, but might I suggest that if you like a girl, you do the opposite of that.”
His sickly sweet drawl was followed by a short wink at me as if to say ‘I have your back’, and I was lucky to have already been in the process of sitting back down because my knees would’ve given out underneath me from the sheer exhilaration of his praise.
The thought never once crossed my mind that Brad was so fixated on me because he had a crush, but it all made sense once it did. And if I didn’t know any better, Dr. Reid only humiliated him and brought it up because the realization dawned on him, too.
Was it possible that Dr. Reid was ... jealous?
In the spirit of complete transparency, that suspicion may have lit the tiniest wildfire imaginable in my chest. A wildfire that, even now, has yet to extinguish. Perhaps that little flame is the 0.01% of the reason I said yes. I could only imagine what kind of omnipotence it would soon gain if this date went well.
If he could light such an enduring kindle with simple praise, think about what would happen if he smiled at me. If he laughed at my jokes. If he held my hand.
If he kissed me.
Dr. Reid’s validation would be something I actively sought from all walks of life, I knew that much. What I didn’t know was how far that desire would take me.
I would have never guessed it would lead me here.
Standing in front of a fancy restaurant in a pretty red dress with the tenuous hope that the professor inside might just like it so much that he’ll end up liking the girl wearing it, too.
_ _ _
No matter how many times I adjusted the bouquet of poppies, they sat perpetually crooked on the table. Much like the dark gray tie around my neck that tightened around my throat with every passing second. I had to keep messing with it to loosen the noose-like grip it had on me. Who knew if it actually was becoming more restricting or it was the flourishing bundle of nerves in my stomach that made it harder to breathe.
I was never very good at lying in wait patiently. Especially if I was expecting something. Now that I was expecting someone? I could say with perfect clarity - I was not good at waiting.
I don’t wanna seem the way I do
Every time the door opened, my eyes flashed to it instantaneously. And every time it wasn’t her, a little part of me was disappointed. It was still too early to say for certain that she was standing me up, but my mind was doing what it did best. It wandered. There was nothing else to do after all.
Except maybe adjust those blood orange poppies one more time.
I’d picked them out specifically because Penelope slipped in a not-so-subtle comment about her dress being “a perfect match to the color of papaverales” - her words exactly. I thought if she went through that much trouble to find a color coordinated plant and say the scientific name for me to decode, it was worth picking up a bouquet of them on the way.
It was only the most ironic occurrence in the world that when I went to rearrange them one last time, I devoted my full attention to the action, missing the very moment I was on the lookout for the past hour and a half.
I didn’t even see her until the red poppies camouflaged into the identically colored setting of her dress.
Then there she was.
All the disappointment in the world was worth that first time I saw her with fresh eyes.
I was dumbstruck for a moment, long enough that it warranted an apology for not standing up sooner.
“(Y/n)! Hi!” I accidentally squealed. I couldn’t control myself, let alone control the pitch of my voice apparently.
I could see, in her, youthful naivete where, in others, I saw their age. She paradoxically had not aged a minute, and yet a new womanhood was piercing through her ultimately adolescent appearance.
“Hi, Dr. Reid,” She said through a laugh and a smile, shaking my hand politely and professionally. She was greeting me like I was still her professor and she’d just happen to run into me on an errand. Next, she’d be attempting small-talk for as long as it took for me to let her go.
Unfortunately for her, I had no plans for that.
But I’m confident when I’m with you
“Please, it’s just Spencer,” I reminded her, hoping to break down that governing image of me she surely maintained.
“Spencer,” She tried again; doing it more to be obedient to my instruction than to satisfy her own desire. It sounded so unnatural to her, just as it did to me. I found it adorable, actually. It seemed like she was breaking this unspoken, and very much illusionary rule to say my first name. “It’s nice to see you again,” She added after I pulled out her chair for her.
“Is it?” I asked when I rounded the table to get to my seat. “I get the feeling you’re a little disappointed.” The only reason I pointed it out was that it was true, not just that I’d observed the notion grow more poignant in her face for the past minute.
“Not at all,” She shook her head, which luckily for me, drew a line of congruence between her body language and verbal language. At least, she was being truthful. “It’s just that I’m sort of embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed?” I repeated in astonishment, unable to cultivate a list of reasons that would justify her feeling that way. I couldn’t think of a single thing I’d done to provoke that emotion, and it nearly broke me to consider her internal being substantiating it.
“Embarrassed isn’t the right word, but I can’t find a more accurate one for what I’m feeling,” She shied away from my eyes when she lowered her head as she spoke.
“You could try to explain it to me?” I offered gently. It took an overwhelming amount of self-restraint to not offer my hand with it. It would’ve been so easy to slide my hand across the threshold to enter her territory of the table, but who knows if doing so would just make her that much more uncomfortable.
“Well for one thing, I don't really go on dates,” From this alone, I could already relate to her enough to laugh at the fact. “Don’t laugh at me! You know how dangerous first dates can be,” She swatted her hand in my direction to chastise me.
“I do! I do! I think it’s really good that you’re protecting yourself to the point of avoiding dates,” I was teasing the implication that she wasn’t asked to go on very many, which was thankfully delivered well enough to make her laugh again.
“Hey! Many people have wanted to go on dates with me, thank you very much. You included.”
“Me included.” I nodded in approval. We sat in a short period of silence while we exchanged one soulful glance, borne from the insinuation of what I just said.
“And for another ... I respect you too much as a figure of authority to see you in that way.”
_ _ _
“In what way?”
Rather than tossing me a lifeline, he was feeding me to the sharks. Forcing me to dive into the deep end. He wanted to see me struggle to stay afloat in the sea of his sticky toffee eyes. He knew I'd get suspended in them when he gave me that look. How much I’d be willing to get lost in them just so I could wander in the depths of his honeyed orbs for a little bit longer.
That look ...
“You don’t find it weird?” This was the most honesty I could’ve demonstrated.
“Find what weird?” For someone with such a high IQ, you’d think he’d be quicker on his feet.
“This! You - me. On a date!” I gestured to the space between us. “You’re ... well frankly, Spencer, you’re old enough to be my father.”
“Does that make you uncomfortable?” He genuinely cared about the answer.
“Only in theory. Not in actual life,” was the most precise response I could give.
“So what is making you uncomfortable?” Again, I could tell my answer mattered to him.
“You were my professor once, and now I’m just supposed to go on a date with you and see you as my equal when I’ve spent the entire time I’ve known you, putting you on a pedestal? Do you know how much pressure that puts on me? To be perfect?”
“Who says you have to be perfect? Who says you’re aren’t already?”
That one caught me off guard. I had to gulp down the lump of shock.
“You think I’m perfect?”
“That, or you’re pretty close to it.”
Lately all I feel is bad and bruised
I could’ve smiled, I could’ve thanked him, I could’ve fallen at his feet and thrown my dignity down there along with it, but I just laughed. I laughed.
“That’s ridiculous! You barely know me.”
“You’re wrong,” He simply replied with a firm shake of his head and a cavalier sip at his drink. It showed just how confident he was in his answer. How cocky he was.
“How am I wrong?”
He cleared his throat as though he were preparing to deliver the world’s greatest speech. Then, he leaned forward, motioning with his fingers for me to do the same.
“If I’m remembering correctly, which you know I am, you were the student who had the gall to raise your hand and correct me on my gender identification of the unsub, right?”
The second the sentimental thought, ‘aww he remembered’, came into my head, it was soon followed by, of course, he did, idiot. Eidetic memory, remember?
Tired of tripping on my shoes
“What does that have to do with me being perfect? Or so you claim?”
He was piercing deep into my eyes now, his gaze overwhelming my senses and sending shockwaves akin to the feeling of butterflies everywhere … and I mean everywhere.
“Bravery is the audacity to be unhindered by failures, and to walk with freedom, strength, and hope, in the face of things unknown.”
I recognized the quote as one of Morgan Harper Nichols, but the words went right to my chest like they were his own.
That damn wildfire just got a whole lot bigger.
“I’ve always thought about how if I could be unfazed by failure or even just the prospect of it, if I could just be strong enough or have enough hope to face what I couldn’t predict, I’d be set. I’d be golden,” He paused. “I’d be perfect ... but you? You, little one, have already got that figured out. So whether that means you’re perfect on your own because of your bravery or you're a perfect match for someone fainthearted like me, is up for you to decide. Whichever interpretation of being perfect you choose would be correct, but you should know - I meant both either way.”
But when he loves me I feel like I’m floating
When he calls me pretty, I feel like somebody
Even when we fade eventually to nothing
You will always be my favorite form of loving
“Do you want to get out of here?” He asked when he finally refound his voice.
“Since the minute I walked in.” I replied after refinding mine.
_ _ _
“You always take girls to your apartment on the first date, Doctor?” Asking this in the name of taking a jab at him was the most clever way I could think to conceal my underlying motive of trying to gauge how giddy I could let myself feel about the fact that he’d taken me to his ‘super chic dark academia’ themed residence - Penelope’s words, remember?
“Well, in my abundant dating history,” He sarcastically began, “I can’t say I ever have, no. You’d be the first.”
That shot another quick bolt of lightning to the wildfire in my heart that I’m ashamed to admit made the heat reinvigorate. The flame must’ve been too much for my chest to contain so it had to relocate to my face, where my cheeks were left to burn under his gaze and thanks to his admission.
I was the first.
He must’ve seen the glint localizing on my countenance and decided to speak on it. “Why does that amuse you?”
“I don’t know,” I dumbly but truthfully replied. He didn’t need any more information to get his answer, though. Because even if I didn’t know what amused me about being his first, I never denied that it did, and that was more than enough confirmation for him.
“You promise to be here when I come back?” He wagged a cautionary finger at me like it might persuade me to stay and hold me accountable if I didn’t.
Spencer needed to go into his room to collect an item that ‘shall not be named’ but was apparently essential for our super secret plans tonight (secret to even me) and he was leaving me in the living room while he did so. I guess being the initial girl he took home on a first date was okay, but being the initial girl he took into his bedroom on a first date was crossing a line.
That was alright with me, though. I was in this for the long haul.
“I promise I pose no flight risk, Your Honor,” I taunted with a coy tone. “But I can’t promise I won’t snoop around some.” Hey, at least I was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
“Snoop around all you want,” He laughed ruefully, demonstrating an openness I quite envied and admired. “You’ll probably learn a lot about me that way. And you won’t even have to talk to me to do that!” I knew he was only saying that out of self-deprecating tendencies he harbored, but I couldn’t help feeling that a small part of him actually believed that I wasn’t interested in talking to him.
“Spencer, you know I do like talking to you right?” I caught him just before he ran into his room. Already halfway in the door, I could still catch the megawatt smile on his face.
“So stay then,” His smile grew impossibly bigger. “We can talk all you want when I get back.”
The door closed, and then suddenly reopened to let just his face through, a face that said, ‘Don’t go anywhere.’
After a few minutes of loudly sorting through his room, I heard the sanctimonious cry of victory. “Found it!”
I could hear the little pad of his feet and he happily trotted out of the room. “Ta-da! My stargazing kit.” He said it as though he were introducing the basket he was holding to me, and me to it. Like it was a real person he wanted me to know. I almost felt obliged to say, ‘Hi stargazing kit! It’s so nice to meet you. I’m (y/n)!’
“Let’s go,” He smiled, reaching for my hand.
I unabashedly took it, because although it meant that I was truly leaving his apartment, I had a very strong feeling that I would be back here again one day.
_ _ _
We were lying there on this big quilted comforter that was stashed away in that stargazing kit of his, staring up at the sky, drunk on the sound of our occasional fits of laughter.
“It’s Earth Day, you know that?” I wondered aloud in a state of complete euphoria.
“I actually did,” He said through a sheepish laugh, almost as if he was admitting the knowledge of it against his own will to protect my fragility.
From out of nowhere, there was a small tug on the skirt of my dress. I looked down to find Spencer’s hand there, playing with the fabric until it lay perfectly on my leg.
I coughed to possibly relieve the tension brewing in my loins. “So then you know the Lyrid meteor shower is tonight,” I moved the tiniest bit closer to lean into his touch.
“At exactly 4:33 a.m,” He moved too.
“Is that why you brought me here? To watch the shooting stars? To make a wish?” I thought for a second that I would appear exceedingly childish - more so than I already did being 21 years his junior. But he didn’t judge me at all for the kid-like notion of making a wish on a shooting star or the implication that I still believed in those things.
In fact, I piqued his curiosity, telling by the way he moved only his head to the side to watch my reaction. “Say I did. What would you wish for?”
In the throws of dreamy elation, I softly murmured the only honest answer. “To be older. But not the unfulfilling 9 to 5, loveless marriage, ‘I do my taxes for fun’ older. I want to be old in the ways that the stars and the sky are old. I want to be infinite.”
“...To be infinite.” He whispered my wish back, sounding sort of in awe of me.
Just then, the overhead horizon grew larger. With no buildings or people to block the view, it was just us, the stars, and the sky. I could actually feel that I was lying on a planet. It was so wide. So infinite.
“Can I hold your hand?” I asked softly, in a manner so vulnerable it scared me.
Without any words or hesitation, he put my hand in his.
“The universe seems so big right now. I just needed something to hold onto.” I explained quietly, practically with the hopes that he wouldn’t hear me. But he heard.
“I’m here.”
We didn’t know what was ahead of us then. We were just two people, looking up at the sky on a cold February night. We weren’t divided by power, or age, or space. We were ourselves and no one else.
My eyes fluttered shut again and a smile stretched across my face. “Stargazing was a good idea.”
The world and the sky and the stars and I - we were all infinite. I couldn’t have felt bigger in my own body. In the best way possible, I was taking up so much space. I was occupying the earth. I was made up of matter. I mattered.
Just as I began to open my eyes, I caught a glimpse of a fading shooting star. Though I had wished to be older, I still felt like a child. Then it hit me. I didn’t feel older because I wasn’t older.
I was infinite.
Yes, I was a child, but not in the pinch your cheeks, bottles and pacifiers, babyish way. I was a child in the ‘you have a life full of possibilities ahead of you’ way.
You are young. He tells me with his eyes. And that is a good thing. Be forever young.
✧・゚: *✧・゚:*
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so get this. I was gonna roll around in Tombstone related fluff today - but no, no - this post came across my dash so Now We Are Gonna Discuss the Carnal Consumption of Meat as it appears on That Show Supernatural. YEAH BUDDIES!
(also my sincere apologies to OP of the inspiration post who innocently tagged it with “lunch date!” because I am about to go Elsewhere, cursedly).
Let’s all go meat man, after the cut!
This analysis centers primarily on 5x14 Bloody Valentine. The title of course is a semi-homage to a 3D Slasher Film Jensen starred in circa 2009.
Which I will be renting soon I guess. ,[<- parasocial panda GET BACK IN YOUR ENCLOSURE]
Also Its Really Fun that the trailer for Said Cinema ends with “nothing says date movie like a 3-D ride to hell” [are you also thinking of Cas pulling Dean out of hell, or are you normal?] ***unironically the teaser for 5x14 is -
EXT. SIDEWALK - IN FRONT OF ALICE'S APARTMENT BUILDING
RUSSEL
First date.
They then eat each other. Literally they eat each others flesh. They also do it while dirty talking about it. SPN IS A SHOW
ALICE Ugh! I've been so alone. So empty...
RUSSEL I know. Me too.
ALICE I want you, Russel---All of you... inside me...
[they both take bites out of each other, Alice chewing on a piece of Russel's flesh]
****Remember this detail, as it is important.
ANYWAY, it’s truly Cursed that not only are we doing an homage to this 3-D Jensen Horror Date Flick but also this episode is specifically centered on Valentine’s Day. The day honoring romance and love Now Coopted by Hallmark, everyone, that is the day spn writers chose to introduce us to
Sir Horseman of THE Biblical Apocalypse Famine.
Canonically, we are aware that the show is drawing from the book of Revelations in its depiction of the Four Horsemen. Here’s what it says about Famine -
"When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, "Come." I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.”
-Revelations 6:5
Famine holds scales (used to weigh out grain in times of food scarcity). Spn’s depiction is represented as hunger, a bottomless pit of need. It consumes souls (demon and human alike).
Cas describes Famine a little more poetically:
CASTIEL
"And then will come Famine riding on a black steed. He will ride into the land of plenty... "
"... and great will be the Horseman's hunger, for he is hunger. "
"His hunger will seep out and poison the air. "
***Consider a prior season in which we are introduced to the Seven Deadly Sins. Which are the sins associated with hunger?
Gluttony
and Lust.
***this is also important
Back to the episode. Case cold open, and we find out that Alice was a Nice Girl. In that she didnt drink, smoke or
have premarital sex.
***So Alice’s hunger for the sin of Lust caused her to succumb to it; and her demise was presented as Gluttony (literally eating her partner’s flesh). HMM
Famine’s presence is affecting the town, and Cas is not immune.
DEAN
And when did you start eating?
CASTIEL
Exactly. My hunger-- it's a clue, actually.
***They lay it out a little more in case you missed it ->
SAM
I thought famine meant starvation, like as in, you know, food.
CASTIEL
Yes. Absolutely. But not just food. I mean, everyone seems to be starving for something--Sex, attention, drugs, love...
***this is so important. but of course because its spn and our textual narrators are generally unreliable (even in a Ben Edlund episode, yes I know)
we get a red herring
CASTIEL
Right. The cherub made them crave love, and then Famine came, and made them rabid for it.
***but that’s not accurate. they didn’t get married or become obsessed with each other (remember the cursed coin in 4x08 Wishful Thinking and the unconditional love wish? not what happened here). they had premarital sex. they did the thing Alice considers wrong, and dark, and sinful. and then they ate each others’ flesh.
DEAN
Okay, but what about you? I mean, since when do angels secretly hunger for White Castle?
CASTIEL
It's my vessel-- Jimmy. His, uh, appetite for red meat has been touched by Famine's effect
***mad lad Jimmy Novak’s hunger is for...red meat? He is starving for red meat? You are telling me that the Novaks, red blooded conservative religious midwestern Novaks, ate RED MEAT SO SPARINGLY that Jimmy Novak was LITERALLY starving for it?!?! No way. Absolutely no way. This is a man who was such a religious zealot he STUCK HIS HAND IN BOILING WATER and accepted an angel of the lord into his own body but his secret hunger was for fucking ground beef?
give me a damn break.
to me this is an absolute coverup. Because Cas’s burger consumption is not related one iota to his vessel Jimmy Novak.
it is a representation of Cas falling. Cas’s cravings for meat represent his growing (and very much prohibited) feelings for...humanity (Dean Winchester), and they are presenting as Gluttony in the form of his downing more and more copious amounts of red meat.
SERIOUSLY, consider this - at one point the depiction is so desperately carnal that he is eating raw ground beef with his bare hands. It is fucking uncomfortable. and it is SUPPOSED to be. Famine stirs up hunger for the prohibited. For the sinful. That which we are starving for but do not believe we can ever have, so we lust and we lust and we LUST after it, but should we allow ourselves even just a taste of what we have been ravenously craving, we binge it until we ourselves disappear into the oblivion of our own sinful, dark desires.
Since You Want More Examples of why this cant possibly be hunger for Cheeseburgers and Cheeseburgers alone, Consider Famine’s effect on Dean. Remember his doctor kink?
**when its revealed that Doctor Corman has succumbed to Famine’s poison by drinking himself to death, Dean - very uncharacteristically by the way - reacts by saying out loud
DEAN Thanks. Crap! I really kind of liked this guy.
***please note that Doctor Corman says the following to Dean in the prior scene they have together -
DR. CORMAN [to Dean]
Agent Marley, you just can't stay away.
****was that a flirtation?
***Also, Dean doesn’t want to go out and chase tail for Valentines Day.
SAM
I mean, what do you always call it-- Uh, unattached drifter Christmas?
DEAN
Oh, yeah. Well... be that as it may...I don't know. Guess I'm not feeling it this year.
SAM
So you're not into bars full of lonely women?
DEAN
Nah, I guess not. [takes a sip of his beer] Ahh. What?
SAM
That's when a dog doesn't eat-- That's when you know something's really wrong.
***oh look we are relating things to eating again. sex/lust to gluttony. hmmm hmmm hmmm
ANYHOW - *takes deep breath*
this is also the Episode Where This Scene Lives
****JACKTING JOICES
oh and speaking of jacting joices, this is also the Dean Notices Cupids Crotch Episode.
frAckles, I am once again asking why you only permit celestial beings to hug you from behi-[gunshots]
but Dean isn’t hungry. Why? Famine has the explanation, and we get it after Dean immediately runs inside after Cas heads in to complete his portion of their plan barely giving him any time to do so because he misses him that much.
FAMINE
I disagree. [Famine moves closer to Dean and touches him] Yes. I see. That's one deep, dark nothing you got there, Dean. Can't fill it, can you? Not with food or drink. Not even with sex.
DEAN
Oh, you're so full of crap.
FAMINE
Oh, you can smirk and joke and lie to your brother, lie to yourself, but not to me!
***not Dean making all of those homophobic/homoerotic jokes every time he’s in danger or feeing uncomfortable; not that, that can’t possibly be what Famine is referencing, right?
I can see inside you, Dean. I can see how broken you are, how defeated.
***not THIS parallel:
AMARA:
You're a mystery. I can see inside your heart. Feel the love you feel, except… It's cloaked in shame
You can't win, and you know it. But you just keep fighting. Just... keep going through the motions.
***not the motions of performative heterosexuality!!
***Dean’s not hungry because in his heart he truly believes that he can’t actually have what he hungers for. That Thing Which This Episode Overtly but Also Very Clearly Made Obvious. It’s an angel riding shotgun [I did Do That and I am Not Sorry], eating a burger in the front seat of the impala. But, I’ve deviated from the meat of this essay [gunshots] [this time just for the bad joke].
BONUS
there’s Exists another episode in which a man ravenously consumes red meat; eventually succumbing to eating raw beef with his bare hands in the season prior to this one.
Yes Supernatural the Show That Brought Us Not One But Two Scenes of Persons Carnally Consuming Red Meat With Their Bare Hands.
This episode is a MOTW - the man in question is a rougaru - a monster that starts out as human but due to some specific genetic disorder (hmmm hmmm hmm crack in THE chassis hmmm hmmm) soon begins to be extremely hungry - “for everything, but eventually long pig.” AKA human flesh.
Wanna know the kicker?
Episode’s called Metamorphosis.
(GIF by jackttwist)
I’ll see myself out.
[DOUBLE BONUS for extra credit:
if you really wanna wild out, go watch the scene of Jack the rougaru looking at himself in the mirror in 4x04 - and then meander on over to 7x01 and check out God!stiel looking in the mirror as the leviathans writhe inside him over there. It’s worth the walk.]
***oh and @lilac-void im tagging you in this one because in exchange for your KIND creator content nomination I guess I will respond by cursing you with an Honorary tag in this, a Meat Meta. you’re welcome slash I'm sorry XO [but seriously thank you again for your kindness and appreciation; it really motivated me to sit down and get moving on making more content <3]
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