Consume Me Like a Fire

“Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.” –Jane Austen

Spencer walked back into his office with a silly grin on his face. He wasn’t paying much attention to anything else around him. All he could think about was how he had a great time with Shiloh and the quick kiss they just shared.

Spencer took his bag off his shoulder and draped it over his chair before sitting down at his desk to get back to his paper work.

“Yo, Reid! I’ve been calling your name forever. Did you space out there?” Derek asked sitting down on the edge of Spencer’s desk. Spencer snapped out of his trance and looked up at his muscular friend with a blank face.

“Was I? Sorry, just got lost in my thoughts for a second,” Spencer mumbled not wanting to tell Derek about the kiss. Yes, they were good friends, but he doesn’t want the entire office knowing about his personal life and Derek doesn’t have the quietest voice…

“Yeah, were you too busy thinking about a certain blonde?” Before Spencer could retort, a livid Penelope came running around the corner. Her newly re-dyed blonde hair was crimped and pulled up in three pony tails while she was sporting her usual colorful clothes. She stomped over to a confused Spencer and dragged him back to her office. The team ran after them with the exception of Hotchner. He simply shook his head and walked back into his office.

“Ow, Garcia, what’s wrong?” Spencer asked trying to free his arm of her death grip.

“Sit down! Do you know what I just saw as I happened to be ‘spying’ on FBI personnel?” she asked using air quotes around spying because Hotchner always tells her to stay away from the FBI’s security cameras.

“Uh no?” he questioned. The team looked on from the doorway, too scared to get involved. You don’t mess with a mad Garcia…

“I see this!” she angrily hits enter on her keyboard and brings up video surveillance. Spencer watches his kiss with Shiloh that happened less than ten minutes ago… Spencer lowers his head and stands up. Penelope moves out of his way as he walks to the computer and turns the video off.

“Spencer, she stole a kiss from you…” Penelope mumbled, her anger quickly fading when she saw how upset she made Spencer.

“She didn’t steal anything, Penelope. And I don’t see why it matters to you or anyone else. I don’t want everyone to know what happens in my personal life. And if I did, then I would tell you that that wasn’t the first time we kissed! I'm tired of everyone treating me like a child, I’m 28 if you haven’t noticed!” Spencer shoved past the team and angrily walked back to his desk.

Derek looked over at his baby girl and gave her a sad smile.

“I was only looking out for him…”

“I know, Baby girl. He just needs some space. He’s right though. We treat him like a little kid sometimes. He needs to get out there and experience life for himself.”

~*~

Shiloh smoothed her shirt once more while looking in the mirror. Butterflies were swarming in her stomach. She got nervous every time she thought about going over to Spencer’s place. He said he recently moved into a small bungalow type house 15 minutes away.

Shiloh checked her teeth and grabbed her keys to go. The cold air nipped at her nose as she walked to her car. She got the odd feeling someone was watching her, but no one else was around. She pushed the feeling away and pulled her jacket on tighter as she jogged to her car. She blasted the heat once she got in and began the short drive to Spencer’s.

The drive didn’t take as long as Shiloh expected and soon she was walking up to his front door. The porch light was on and Shiloh looked to her right and saw a cute front porch swing swaying in the winter breeze. Shiloh rang the doorbell and waited for Spencer to open the door. There was fumbling on the other side before Spencer pulled the door open in a rush.

“Hey! Come in,” he said quickly and shut the door behind her. Shiloh sighed in relief once the heat enveloped her. She glanced in his living room and saw a fire blazing in his stone fireplace.

“So, I hope you give me brownie points for trying to cook…” Shiloh raised her eyebrow at Spencer’s comment.

“What did you do?” she asked softly, amusement coating her voice. Spencer held back a blush that threatened to cover his face and led Shiloh into his kitchen. There were pans of burnt food on the stove and it smelled like smoke in there.

“I obviously wouldn’t feed you that so I hope you don’t mind take out,” Spencer mumbled. Shiloh grinned and pecked his cheek to reassure him it was fine.

“I love take out. What did you get?” she asked taking one of his hands in hers.

“Uh almost everything on the menu…” Shiloh laughed and walked with him into the living room. Shiloh took off her jacket and Spencer put it up in his coat closet. He rejoined her and showed her the bags of take out he bought.

“You weren’t joking,” she whispered taking out all the boxes. Spencer smiled shyly and laid a blanket down in front of the fire so they could eat next to the warmth. Shiloh handed him a box of food and a pair of chopsticks. He stared at the thin pieces of wood before opting for a plastic fork.

“You don’t use chopsticks?” Shiloh asked popping a piece of orange chicken into her mouth with hers.

“I find it much easier to stab my food,” he joked. The two ate the food before picking up the conversation again.

“So did anything interesting happen at work after lunch?” she asked. Spencer inwardly groaned, but he still told her. He didn’t want to keep something from her and then regret it later. You can't build a relationship on secrets. Relationship…. Is that was they were trying to have together? Spencer snapped out of it and answered her.

“Well, our tech analyst decided to spy on us and then we had a disagreement because she likes to treat me like a little kid. Honestly, I couldn’t wait to get out of there…” he grumbled.

“I’m sorry. Hopefully you two will resolve things soon,” Shiloh said placing her hand on top of his. Spencer returned her smile and then the two cleaned up their food once they were done.

“You're going to have so many leftovers,” Shiloh laughed as she put more white boxes in Spencer’s fridge.

“You’ll just have to come over more to eat them!” he remarked with a grin. They walked back into the living room and that was when Shiloh noticed his impressive book collection. There was a large bookcase that almost took up an entire wall. Books were littered all over it; there were too many to count.

“What kind of books do you have?” she asked walking over to look at them.

“Uh, I have a little of everything. I’ll read just about anything,” he chuckled and watched Shiloh run her fingers along the spines of a few of his books. Spencer was overcome with an indescribable feeling. Without thinking, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her backwards into his chest softly.

“Spencer?” the feeling of his arms around her made Shiloh feel giddy. Her heart was thumping erratically and she hoped he couldn’t hear it. Spencer grinned and looked out the window.

“It’s snowing outside…”

“Snowing?” Shiloh was pulled out of her trance and panicked for a second.

“Is it bad? I hope the roads don’t ice over; traffic will be horrible going home,” she grumbled and leaned back into Spencer. The profiler studied the girl in front of him. The snow was coming down hard and the roads would most likely get closed off.

“Shiloh, you can stay the night if the roads get shut down,” he answered quietly. He swallowed the nervous lump in his throat and waited for her answer. Shiloh pulled away from him and turned around the face him.

“Spend the night?” she asked and glanced at the clock. It was pretty late and she didn’t really want to drive all the way home, but would spending the night be taking things too fast? They weren’t official or anything…

“Yeah, just spend the night. I don’t want you on the roads with bad drivers,” he whispered tucking a piece of blonde hair behind her ear. Shiloh blushed lightly and seemed to have lost her voice. She subtly nodded her head and reached for Spencer’s hand. He gripped it tightly and led her into his room.

“I think I have some clothes that may fit you. I was pretty scrawny in college,” he joked and released her hand to open his dresser. He pulled out a small pair of sweatpants and then an old Harvard shirt. Shiloh thanked him and went into the adjoining bathroom to change her clothes. She needed to get a hold of her nerves. Nothing was going to happen, they were only going to be sleeping in the same bed…

~*~

“Boss, we found something that you may want to see.” The man said holding up a manila folder. Ian slowly turned around in his chair and held his hand out to take the folder. He opened it and dumped the contents on his desk. Inside were several pictures of the members of Emily’s team. He grinned evilly and picked through them.

“I've found the first targets,” he said and held up a picture. It was taken from outside Spencer’s house. He had his arms wrapped around Shiloh while they stood in his living room.

“Emily took away my son so I will take away her family,” Ian hissed under his breath and handed his henchman the picture.

“Tell the others of the plan.”