Gentle Epiphany // Criminal Minds

Chapter Seven - Wildest Dreams

🪐 Daphne 🪐

I'm juggling a birthday basket with one hand while the other is wiping my sweaty palm on my pant leg of my overalls. I'm a nervous mess. At the time I got excited about buying Spencer some birthday gifts, I had talk to JJ about throwing him a small office party and she loved the idea so much she sorta ran with it. I tired to have more say in what was bought, like the type of cake or the fact that he probably wouldn't have liked the birthday hat and trick candles. But JJ seemed so excited about her ideas I just kept quiet after a while. 

I see Spencer sitting at his desk alone, I quickly try to make my way over towards him suddenly feeling really embarrassed about how many gifts I ended up buying him. Birthdays were always a big deal in my house growing up, clearly that continues to be the same now. I stop right in front of his desk, placing the birthday basket with wrapped gifts in front of him. He looks at the basket and then up at me a small smile tilting the corner of his lips, making my heart skip. 

"Happy Birthday Spence." 

His smile grows bigger, "Daph...." He gets cut off when Derek comes up behind him placing the tall birthday cake hat on his head taking Spencer off guard. JJ and Elle walk over with the cake, cups, plates, and forks pushing my birthday basket out of the way. I guess he can open them later, it's not a big deal anyway. We begin singing to him as Gideon and Hotch stand back watching the celebration. 

"Make a wish." Elle tells him before he tries to blow out the candles failing because they were trick ones. He gets confused trying his best to continue to blow them out. "Come on, man. Blow, baby! Blow!" Derek teases him. 

"I thought you were full of hot air Reid" Elle joins in on the joke. 

I give them both a pointed glare before letting Spencer know that they were trick candles and that they were basically impossible to blow out unless you run them under water. 

"Hope you like chocolate?" JJ says as she takes the candles off to cut the cake, the flavor was the only thing I said that she took into consideration.  

Spencer grabs my birthday basket, "May I?" He questions meeting my stare. 

"Oh um...yeah it's your gift." My heart starts to race as I wipe my palms again on my legs. 

He starts taking out wrapped gift by wrapped gift. Opening them one at a time, he starts with the smallest to the biggest. First a lightsaber pen it even has sound effects, a sonic screwdriver replica from Dr. Who, this old school magic kit set I found at a thrift store, homemade rice crispy treats, a mug that said Genius on it, a box with two tickets to the Phantasmagoria he loves, a medieval british army antique copper metal chess set, and lastly a special edition complete novels of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 

"Daphne...this is...." He meets my nervous stare. My teeth biting the crap out of my bottom lip hoping he doesn't hate it. He smiles sheepishly at me, looking back down at all his gifts in awe. "These are my favorite things.....the amount of money some of these items cost you." 

"Oh...I got really good deals." I lied, getting completely embarrassed. If he knew how much I actually spent....god I would be mortified. 

"Thank you." He bites his lip debating something before standing up to hug me. The smell of old books and coffee meet my nose enjoying the way his arms feel around me. Derek says something to him causing him to quickly let me go and step away. I put my cold hands on my heated cheeks trying to cool myself off. 

Hotch comes walking over after taking a call, "Sorry guys, the party's over." He states as we all set down our cake and head for the conference room taking our seats and waiting for Hotch and JJ to come in with the files.