A Few Thoughts

Fandom Meme!

2009-12-03T02:49:54Z

*sigh* I'm such a whore. My only excuse is that it's finals time.

THE FANFICTION LOVE MEME

Fic: Rooftops

2009-10-15T01:21:49Z

Title: Rooftops
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Summary: Calvin in college.
Disclaimer: I don't own Calvin and Hobbes.
Notes: Had to do something creative for my Calvin & Hobbes class. Shockingly, I decided to write fanfic! Written last night. Very late. Or early. It probably sucks.

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Rooftops

His foot slipped on the gutter and the impact of his knee on the slippery shingles sent throbbing pain shooting down to his toes. He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on his backpack, stilling the rest of his body. The wind whipped his hair in and out of his eyes. He counted in heartbeats, taking slow, careful breaths until the pain had diminished enough that he could resume his path up the roof of Theta Theta Kappa house, and he opened his eyes.

It was dark out, but the street light and the golden light coming from inside the house gave him enough light that he could see the rows of shingles, and where a small satellite dish had been installed with a few two-by-fours and an old coat hanger. He stretched and pushed his bag all the way up behind it with the hand that wasn't splayed across the shingles, trying to get as much traction as he could. This would not end well if he fell off the roof, especially with the number of very, very drunk people in the house tonight. He'd only just escaped them this afternoon.

His backpack was securely behind the satellite. Breathing a sigh of relief, he flattened himself against the roof and prepared to crawl upward.

It was about twice his height to the top of the roof, and once he pushed off from this gutter, the only thing keeping him from falling off would be his sneakers and his fingernails. Slipping would mean a two-story fall down into mud-slathered grass, and possibly breaking the only two things that were going to get him out of this yard.

But getting to the top meant he got to the chimney, and getting to the chimney meant getting his revenge for his ruined final project.

He grinned, spreading his fingers and digging into what he could, and he pushed off.

He'd spent hours on it, rolling and packing, angling and squinting—they'd had to sculpt something, and as much as he loved getting his hands messy with clay, his favorite medium had always been snow, and probably always would be. Except now he'd have to throw something together within the next three days, because the Theta Theta Kappa morons had decided to launch a sneak attack Thursday morning, when he'd been out on the quad alone, having had a thought for the third movement of his series over breakfast.

Stupid jerks.

The snow had melted away by yesterday morning, leaving him with no snow sculptures, another pair of ruined jeans, and a sprained knee. And a deadline that needed to be met, like, yesterday.

He loved being an art student, most of the time, but Theta Theta Kappa never failed to remind him of where he stood outside of the world he walked around, dreaming about.

“Just wait,” he muttered, his voice lost in the howling December wind, smirking. “We'll see who gets the last laugh.”

He was making steady progress up the roof. His hands were almost on level with his backpack, and he figured that he would be at the top within the next minute or—

A head poked up from the other side of the roof, and he froze.

Silhouetted and faceless, the head tilted to the side, short curls blowing in the wind like they were about to be sucked away at any moment.

He willed himself to blend in with the roof, even as he knew that it was impossible, that he wasn't an iguana and he wasn't Stupendous Man and, yes, the lighting was just enough that one could see the rows of shingles and the satellite dish and the geeky art student that one had just spent yesterday afternoon beating up. He was done for.

“Who are you?” the head demanded.

He reached over and tried to grab his backpack from behind the satellite, but his hand swiped thin air—he tried twice more before his fingers finally closed around the strap, and he tugged.

Nothing.

He tugged again, but it wasn't budging.

“Hey—who are you?” the head demanded, moving closer to reveal the body attached to the head, which did not look like a Theta Theta Kappa body. In fact, it looked very much like the body of Isaac, a boy in an intro class he was teaching this semester.

He squinted, trying to get a better look.

“Isaac?”

A beat.

“Calvin?”

And so they were.

“What—what are you doing up here?” Isaac asked, glancing around the roof nervously, as though Theta Theta Kappa members were going to spring up through the attic.

“What are you doing up here?” Calvin shot back.

“I—uh...”

“This is school-owned property, you know.” This was true. “Anyone found up here who's not in Theta Theta Kappa can be prosecuted for trespassing.” That was semi-true, anyway. You'd certainly get the snot beat out of you. “A girl last year got expelled.” That might have been stretching it a little.

Whatever, the kid was a freshman. Like he knew any better.

“They didn't tell us that in orientation,” Isaac said, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“They also don't tell you that three years ago, Kendra Busse drowned in her own vomit in McCarty 215,” Calvin replied smartly.

That bit was also true. It had resulted in a very awkward visit from his parents, wherein his dad had attempted to have a manly father-son conversation about drinking and girls and peer pressure, and his mother had done all of his laundry.

“I can go wherever I want,” Isaac insisted, crossing his arms.

“Including other people's roofs?”

It was in this moment that Calvin noticed the backpack Isaac had slung over his shoulder.

“What's in the bag?”

“What's in yours?” Isaac retorted.

“None of your business,” Calvin said, with as much dignity as he could muster, clinging to a wet roof while still attempting, discretely and fruitlessly, to dislodge his backpack from whatever it had gotten stuck on.

Isaac smirked. “Want a hand?”

“No,” Calvin said sullenly.

Isaac offered it anyway.

Scowling, Calvin gave one last pointless yank on his backpack, then took Isaac's hand and allowed himself to be pulled up for the remaining distance.

“Thanks,” he muttered, settling on the very top of the roof. The wind seemed even more intense now that he wasn't plastered to the roof, and his hands gripped the shingles a little tighter as his hoodie billowed out around his thin frame.

“What are you doing up here?” Isaac asked, carefully seating himself across from Calvin.

Ignoring him, Calvin reached down and freed his backpack with a sharp, quick yank, and he pulled it close.

“Are you in Theta Theta Kappa?” Isaac tried.

Calvin shot him a withering look. “Yeah, that's why they were stringing me to that tree yesterday—it's part of the secret handshake.”

Isaac winced. “Right. Sorry.”

Calvin's fingers drummed on his backpack.

“Wanna know what I'm doing up here?” Isaac asked, suddenly eager and grinning.

“Why not?”

Still grinning, Isaac unzipped his backpack and opened it wide enough so that Calvin could just barely see what was inside.

“Stink bombs?”

Isaac's grin was devilish. “They threw my computer into the snow this morning—it's time they learned not to mess with a physics major.”

Calvin raised an eyebrow. “You're a physics major and that's the best you can come up with? Stink bombs?”

“Well, you're an art major,” Isaac said waspishly, glaring at him. “What do you do, throw paint at them?”

Calvin's eyes narrowed.

“Uh, not that art isn't cool,” Isaac added hastily, apparently having remembered that he was talking to his teacher. “Totally cool. I just had to—”

“Fulfill distribution requirements, I know,” Calvin interrupted, waving one hand impatiently as he unzipped his backpack with the other. “Let me show you how the art majors get revenge.” He shifted, making sure that Isaac wouldn't see what else was inside the backpack, and then very carefully pulled out his treasure.

Isaac's eyes widened.

“Whoa.”

Calvin smirked.

“Dude. That's seriously dynamite?”

“Someone was making stone sculptures for their final project this term,” Calvin said smugly. “I have keys to the independent study room.”

“But—” Isaac frowned. “Wait, you've gonna blow up the house from the roof? Wouldn't it make more sense to blow it up from the bottom, so you could run away?”

Calvin shook his head, zipping his backpack shut before anything could happen to the contents. “Watch and learn, Isaac.”

He could feel Isaac's eyes on him as he pulled himself along the roof toward the chimney, using one hand because the packs of dynamite were held tightly in his other. The wind was still blowing his hair, almost blowing him to the side as well, but he made it to the chimney without falling off and immediately grabbed onto the wet, sooty brick. He slung his backpack over his shoulder, where he would be sure that it wouldn't fall, and then began setting up the dynamite pack. One would do it. Last summer, he'd gotten his hands on some, in addition to an air hammer, and he'd gone to town in the gully that he'd constantly crashed his wagon into, as a kid.

Practiced, he studied the chimney with a quick sweep of his eyes and quickly figured out which way the wind was blowing, and then set up the pack accordingly.

“Should I get off the roof now?” Isaac asked hesitantly.

Calvin, grinning wickedly, looked at him over his shoulder. “Wait. You're gonna wanna see this.”

Isaac swallowed, expression nervous. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure.” Red on red, white with white, greens crossed. All set. “Gimme your stink bombs.”

“I thought they were lame?”

Calvin scowled at the chimney and wordlessly held out a hand.

There was the sound of a zipper, and then two small vials were pressed into the palm of his hand.

He glanced down at them, and then straightened, peering down into the chimney. The sounds of music and laughter echoed up to his ears, and he was suddenly aware of the sharp throbbing of his knee. It was here. He was ready. It was here.

He threw the stink bombs down into the chimney with all the force he could muster, and didn't even strain his ears to hear them break over the noise of the wind. He moved quickly, punching in the sequence on the dynamite cord, and slipped the release into his pocket.

“Down,” he ordered, turning around to face Isaac. “Follow me down, we're hitting the fusebox.”

Adrenaline surging through his veins, he didn't even bother to see if Isaac was following him. He lay flat on the shingles and let himself slid down to the gutter, and then carefully swung himself over the side, slipping his sneakers around the siding until he found traction on the lattice. He slipped his toes into the slats and started lowering himself, moving his hands and feet with a coordination that, for a few dizzying moments, really did make him feel like Stupendous Man. There was a roaring in his ear, and he couldn't hear the party anymore, not even the pounding baseline. The wind stung his cheeks silent.

He hit the ground on all fours, and his palms slid right through the muddy grass, almost sending him flat into a belly-flop, but he managed to keep himself from falling at the last second. His backpack slid down, hitting him in the back of the head. Fusebox. Right.

Scrambling to his feet, he began making his way over to the fusebox, whose lock he'd had the foresight to pick before climbing up to the roof. Behind him, there was a thump that was probably Isaac, but his fingers were already prying the fusebox open and he didn't turn around the check. Opening fusebox, locating the right switch—thank god they were labeled—and pulling the release out of his pocket. This was it. Really it.

He stopped, crouched, staring up at the chimney, breathing hard.

“Calvin?”

Payback.

His finger pushed down on the release and his other hand pressed down solidly on as many switches as he could cover.

A bang like a gun sounded and all the lights went off. There was the sound of wood snapping, things falling, people screaming, Isaac swearing—it was a medley of chaos and he smiled. Take that, Theta Theta Kappa. Take that.

And now he had to run.

“C'mon,” he said, grabbing Isaac's arm as he stood up, tugging him away from where he was standing there, staring as people flooded out of the doors and windows, screaming. “We've gotta go.”

“But—but—”

Calvin pulled him away, away into the next yard, where people were poking their heads out, interested in what was going on. He cut through their backyard, moving into the trees in front of the mysterious warehouse whose purpose no one was ever quite sure of, and kept going until he was certain that no one was following, and then he stopped, letting go of Isaac, letting himself breathe and feel the adrenaline.

He'd done it. He'd really done it—he'd gotten his revenge.

“Dude,” Isaac said blankly. “You blew up Theta Theta Kappa.”

“Blew it up?” Calvin laughed breathlessly. “That wasn't blowing it up! I just got the chimney.”

“It collapsed!”

Calvin looked at him, unable to wipe the wide smile off of his face, but beginning to come back down enough that he realized that Isaac didn't sound entirely impressed. “What? C'mon, those lunkheads threw your computer in the snow!”

“You blew up their chimney!” Isaac said incredulously.

Calvin rolled his eyes. “Please. They probably would have done it themselves on a dare sometime this year, anyway. I'll see you tomorrow in class, okay? I've gotta go get started on my final project. Again.”

“Yeah,” Isaac said slowly. “Sure. See you.”

Still grinning widely, Calvin nearly skipped away, the sound of firetrucks wailing in the distance. Revenge. His knee barely hurt anymore. And as soon as he got far away enough, he let his backpack swing forward, and he unzipped it so that he could see the stuffed tiger sitting there, his beaded eyes staring up at him.

“I did it, Hobbes,” Calvin told him in an excited whisper. “I did it!”

And in the shadows, it almost looked like Hobbes was smiling.

Posted Publically Because YES

2009-10-12T23:38:52Z

All ye who read fanfiction and use Firefox. You must get the Read It Later add-on. It helps me not procrastinate so much it's crazy.

That said, this LJ entry is not helping me not-procrastinate, so it's back to the books. Yay for midterms.

A Blind Date for Reid

2009-10-08T03:58:11Z

Title: A Blind Date for Reid
Rating: G
Pairing: None
Summary: From Criminal Minds big anonymous meme-ing thing.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: It may suck. Hardcore. Also, it is cracky.

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A Blind Date for Reid

She's pretty enough to send a rush of butterflies down to Spencer's stomach when he first sees her, and for a minute, he almost turns around and walks out. He's already freaked out by the fact that this is Rossi's friend's daughter, and by the fact that this is a blind date. Her pale skin, dark brown hair and pretty little black dress do nothing for his nerves. He tries to remember the pep talk that Morgan had given him on the ride here, but for once his memory fails him.

He's Dr. Spencer Reid. He can do this. This will go well if he tries hard enough.

“Miss Swan?”

She looks up. “Oh! Um, Dr. Reid. Spencer. Spencer?”

She's nervous. And pretty.

“Spencer.” He tries to smile, but thinks it ends up as more of a grimace.

“Bella.” She holds out a hand, and they shake.

Reid sits down and picks up a menu.

“I'm sorry I'm late,” he says, before the feeling of awkwardness can fully settle in.

“You're not.”

Reid frowns. “Oh.”

He can't tell if she's mad or not.

“I was worried you weren't going to show up, though,” Bella says suddenly. “My last boyfriend, Edward—well, he wasn't really my boyfriend. He was kind of my fiancé. But anyway, he left, and I haven't really gotten over it yet.”

“I'm sorry,” Reid says, and then he wonders if he's being repetitive. “I, uh, what happened?”

“I don't like to talk about it,” Bella says shortly.

“I'm sorry,” Reid apologizes again.

“Don't be,” Bella says, smiling slightly. “I just miss him a lot. His name was Edward. I loved him so much, it hurt to breathe when I was around him sometimes, and he had a body like Adonis. A marble Adonis. And he was so romantic.”

Reid feels slightly uncomfortable talking about Bella's ex-boyfriend on their first date, but she certainly looks more put-together than he is, so he'll go with it for now.

“You, ah, sound like you really loved him,” he says awkwardly.

She nods, her expression going a little dreamy. “Yes. Before we started dating—before I knew that he liked me, even—he would sit outside my window and watch me sleep... all night long.”

“He would?”

Bella nods enthusiastically. “Yes! I had no idea I talked in my sleep until we got together.”

Reid frowns. What kind of man was this Edward? If he was using this to profile, he might label him as a stalker.

“I'm sorry,” he says again. “He sat outside your window?”

“Yes,” she sighs happily. “He said he liked to watch me sleep.”

Reid blinks. “That's, um, nice.”

There is a pause. Bella kind of stares off into the distance with a smile on her face.

“So, have you ever been here before?” Reid asks, making an attempt at conversation.

Bella continues staring off into the distance.

Reid frowns. “Bella?”

Her head tilts to the side, and she lets out a soft sight.

“Bella?”

She blinks, jumping to attention.

“Sorry,” she says, shaking her head. “I was just thinking about him. What did you say?”

“I asked if you'd, uh, ever been here before,” Reid says again.

“I haven't,” Bella answers. “I'm only in the area for a while, and then I'm going back to Charlie.”

“Who's Charlie?” Reid asks.

“My dad. I call him Charlie.”

Disassociation. Lack of respect for the father, possibly a “buddy” parent, probably not around much when Bella was a child.

“Where does he live?” Reid asks, trying to shut down his profiling brain.

“Forks.” Bella glances at the menu. “It's a little rainy suburb in Washington. State, that is.”

“I'm originally from the west coast,” Reid offers. “Las Vegas.”

Bella wrinkles her nose. “Too much sun.”

Too much sun?

“You don't, ah, like the sun?” Reid asks, trying not to sound too disbelieving.

“Edward doesn't like it.”

“But you two are separated, right?” Reid asks.

Bella sighs. “Oh, I don't know. I just—I loved him so much. He wanted me to go off and go to college and...” She waves her hand. “Do stuff. I don't know. I just wanted to stay with him and his family in Forks, where we could be together, but... He wouldn't have it.”

“Well, statistically speaking, college—”

He stops himself. Swallows. Stretches his fingers and takes in a deep breath.

“College is a pretty important part of development,” he points out mildly.

“Yes, but it's so much time without him!” Bella insists. “I mean, four whole years? And for what? I don't need a job, his family would have taken care of everything we needed.”

“His family?” Reid asks, raising his eyebrows.

“It's a little strange,” Bella admits, her eyes going down to the table. “His parents—they're wonderful people. His father's a doctor, and Esme... She's just wonderful. They take in foster children. There's Alice and her husband Jasper, and Rosalie and her husband Emmett. And Edward and I, of course. They live in this beautiful house...” She suddenly blushes. “Sorry.”

“It's okay,” Reid says, suddenly feeling a rush of confidence that now the conversation feels as if it will move away from Edward and his strange, cult-like family. “It sounds like Edward was very important to you.”

“He is,” Bella agrees.

“Is?” Reid asks.

“He's my soul mate,” Bella says seriously, looking Reid straight in the eye. “We may be angry with each other right now, but I will never stop loving him. Ever.”

Reid frowns. “Then... I'm afraid I'm a little confused. Isn't this a date?”

“Of course, right,” Bella says eagerly, sitting up straight in her hair. “It is. But I don't think it'll go anywhere. I mean, I went on these sort of dates with my friend Jacob all the time—but he had a huge crush on me, so that was pretty awkward, and people accuse me of being completely insensitive for my friends' feelings, but you know, sometimes you just want casual, you know?”

“Casual?” Reid repeats.

There's a buzzing sounds, and Bella snatches her purse up off the ground.

“I'm sorry,” she says, pulling out her phone. “I have to take this, it might be Alice with an update on what Edward ate for lunch today—I'll be right back...”

She hurries away, her heels clicking across the floor.

Reid sighs.

He will never, ever have a normal date. It's fate.

Jack, At Least, Has Manners

2009-10-07T03:53:46Z

Title: Jack, At Least, Has Manners
Rating: PG
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: Jack wanders around the BAU, but always says excuse me.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: Humor. Cuteness. It's hot chocolate for these cold, free-time-barren times. Written in about an hour, so typos are probably rank.

.

Jack, At Least, Has Manners

Daddy's work is really boring. Last time, I brought a baseball and broke something, so now all I have is this weird silver thing.

“Agent Emily,” I say, tugging on her pants from where I'm seated on the ground, underneath her desk like a hidey-hole for a JI Joe. “'Scuse me, Agent Emily.”

The clicking noise stops and her face appears. “Yes, Jack?”

“What is it?” I ask, thrusting it out so that she can see.

She grins. “It's a slinky.”

“A what?”

“Watch,” she says, taking it from me. She balances it on one of her palms, and then does something and suddenly it's on both of her palms! She moves them up and down and the slinky moves back and forth, making a noise like the pennies in my piggy bank. It's so cool!

“I wanna do it!” I shout, jumping up before I remember that I'm under the desk. I rub at my head as I clamber out of my JI Joe hidey-hole. “I wanna do it, please, can I see it, please Agent Emily?”

She puts it back in one of her palms and puts a finger to her lips.

Oh. Right.

“Indoor voices,” I whisper, nodding.

Agent Emily hands me the slinky and I put it in one palm, just like she did. Then I try to get it on the other hand, but it falls to the ground. I scramble to pick it up, trying again, but I miss and it rolls away from the desk. I go after it, chasing it all the way to another desk—the magic-tricks desk! I know the magnet on the cabinet, white with blue letters. And—hey! I know these letters! H, and O and W and M. That's a... Y? Or is it a A? I never remember. They're really confusing letters. It's easy when they're in order because A is on the left and Y is on the right, but here I don't know.

“'Scuse me, Agent Emily,” I say, remembering to use my indoor voice.

She looks up.

“Is it a Y or a A?” I point to the letter.

“It's an A,” Agent Emily says. “Do you know the next one?”

I turn back. “Yep. That's a N. And the next one—that's a Y, right?”

She grins. “Right! I can't believe you know your letters already—did you learn that in preschool?”

“Miss Jeniffer sings the alphabet song and points to the letter line every morning,” I tell her. “Didn't she do that when you were there?”

“I don't think I went to the same preschool as you, Jack,” Agent Emily says.

There are other preschools? Everyone goes to my preschool. Agent Emily just don't remember right, I think, and I want to tell her, but she's on her computer again and I don't want to bother her again. Instead, I turn back to the magnet and practice my letters again.

F, R, E, U, D, I, A, N, S, C...

There's more, but I get bored and look up, but the chair is empty.

“'Scuse me, Agent Emily,” I say, turning around. “Where's Dr. Agent Spencer?”

Agent Emily looks up, and then she frowns. “I don't know. I haven't seen him or Derek for a while, come to think of it...”

That's Agent Derek she's talking about, but I want Dr. Agent Spencer to do a magic trick for me again. Last time, he found enough quarters behind my ear to buy M&Ms from the machine, and he let me eat all the green ones.

“Jack, can you do me a big-boy favor?” Agent Emily suddenly asks.

I straighten. “Yep!”

She puts a finger to her lips.

“Sorry,” I whisper, remembering my indoor voice again.

“I need to deliver something to my friend. Can you sit here at my desk for a few minutes?”

I glance back at the magnet, and the magic-tricks desk, but there's still no Dr. Agent Spencer.

“Sure thing,” I said, running back to her desk. “Can I sit in the chair?”

“Can you sit really still?” Agent Emily asks.

I shake my head.

“You can't?” she asks, sounding surprised.

“I have ants in my pants,” I tell her. “They make me move too much in storytime.”

“Are you sure you can't sit still?” Agent Emily asks.

I nod.

“Well, then, you'll just have to stay put on the floor,” she decides, and I plop down and sit cross legged.

She pats my head (I wrinkle my nose) and then leaves.

Almost immediately, I spy the slinky under the desk, and crawl underneath to get it. I hold it in my palm very carefully, then try to put it in my other hand—and it goes, but then it's just my other palm. I want it in both. I try again, but this time I drop it and it goes rolling. I follow it and pick it up, then try to do it again.

It works.

My eyes widen and I left up my hand—the slinky moves! It makes the pennies noise and moves from my one hand, all the way down to the other hand.

“Agent Emily!” I shout, but she's gone. I look around, but I don't see her. Where did she go? She said she was delivering something. I need to show her what I can do! “Agent Emily,” I call, making my way around her desk. She isn't there, either. She isn't in this room. I think I saw her go this way...

The hallway is long and empty.

“Agent Emily?” I call again. I knock on a door, and when no one answers, I try to turn the handle, but it won't move. She must not be there. I try the next one and the next one, holding on to the slinky with my other hand, but none of the doors will open. “Agent Emily? Agent Emily, I can do the slinky...”

Just when I'm about to give up and go back, I find a door that's just for me. It's only a little bit taller than me, and the handle is just right. I turn it—and it opens. It's like a magic portal! I look up and down the hallway, but no one sees me, so I step inside. It's like at the playground, where the floor has little holes that I can poke my fingers through, except they're in the floor and the walls and the ceiling. It's a tunnel of holes!

I get down on my hands and knees and crawl forward.

The tunnel is really short, though, and I come out someplace that smells like under the sink. I wrinkle my nose and stand up, moving a mop out of the way. Then I hear the weird noises, like when Mommy does her workouts. I think I'm in a closet. Who's working out in a closet?

I move past the mops—it's Dr. Agent Spencer and Agent Derek! But boy, are they being weird. Agent Derek is holding Dr. Agent Spencer up against the wall, and they're licking each other and stuff. They're also making those weird noises, and they're saying stuff really quietly and I can't hear what it is.

“'Scuse me, Dr. Agent Spencer and Agent Derek,” I say. “Did you see Agent Emily?”

Agent Derek almost drops Dr. Agent Spencer, and I giggle as Dr. Agent Spencer almost falls to the ground, and ends up holding onto a shelf to keep himself up. They both turn to stare at me, breathing hard.

“Jack,” Agent Derek says, his voice like Mommy after finishes working out. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm looking for Agent Emily,” I tell him, holding out the slinky. “I can do the slinky now and I wanted to tell her, but she left so I tried a bunch of doors and then I found one just for me, and then I was here. What were you guys doing?”

They look at each other.

“Um,” Dr. Agent Spencer says.

“Were you working out?” I ask. “You sounded like Mommy when she works out.”

“Uh, yeah,” Dr. Agent Spencer says. “We were working out.”

“But it's a special FBI workout,” Agent Derek quickly adds, “so you can't tell anyone.”

“Right,” Dr. Agent Spencer agrees. “Not even your dad.”

“But Daddy is FBI,” I say, frowning. “Doesn't he know it?”

They look at each other again.

I notice something.

“Dr. Agent Spencer, why are your pants down? Did you forget a belt?”

“Uh...”

“It's part of the workout,” Agent Derek says. “It's really special. Your dad doesn't know it yet because we haven't showed him it yet—it's gonna be a surprise.”

“A surprise party!”

Both Agent Derek and Dr. Agent Spencer jump, and I clap a hand over my mouth.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “I forgot my indoor voice again.”

“It's okay,” Agent Derek says. “Look, Jack, why don't you go back to the bullpen—uh, to Agent Emily's desk—and wait there for her?”

“Does Agent Emily know about the special workout?” I ask.

“No,” Dr. Agent Spencer says. He brushes hair out of his eyes. “No one but Agent Derek and I know about it, so you can't tell anyone, okay?”

I nod very seriously. “Okay. I won't tell nobody.”

“Anybody,” Dr. Agent Spencer says.

“That's what I said,” I tell him, frowning.

“It's grammatically incorrect to use two negatives, Jack—when you say you won't tell nobody, you're effectively saying that—”

Agent Derek puts his hand over Dr. Agent Spencer's mouth.

“Go find Agent Emily, Jack. Don't worry about Dr. Agent Spencer, he just lacks a sense of timing.”

“A what?”

Dr. Agent Spencer swats Agent Derek.

“You shouldn't hit people,” I say immediately, folding my arms over my chest like Daddy does. “That's bad, Dr. Agent Spencer.”

“Very bad,” Agent Derek says, letting his hand fall away from Dr. Agent Spencer's mouth, but he doesn't sound angry. He just sounds silly, and his face is really close to Dr. Agent Spencer's, like they're going to kiss or something.

“Jack, go find Emily,” Dr. Agent Spencer says, and his voice all funny, too.

I make a face and then turn around, going back through the mops to get to the playground tunnel. When Agent Emily comes back, I almost tell her about the secret workout, but I remember it's a secret and I don't. I do feel bad for leaving the slinky in the closet, though. I'll get it next time.

oOo

Hotch watched his son stab at the macaroni-and-cheese-and-hotdog mixture with a voracity that belied his size, eyes not even going to the files that he'd brought home from work. It had been more because his briefcase felt too strange when it wasn't loaded down with files than because he actually planned on getting any work done this weekend. Within mere minutes, Jack had finished the entire bowl.

“Are you done, kiddo?” he asked.

Jack nodded proudly, setting down his fork. There was cheese all around his mouth, and probably on his hands as well, but bath time was only a half an hour away.

“I'm sorry you had to sit around the office for so long,” he said. “Daddy had a lot of work to do.”

“I had fun anyway,” Jack said, grinning. “I learned to do a slinky. Do you have a slinky, Daddy? They're really fun.”

“I don't think I do—but we can get one, if you want,” Hotch told him, unable to repress a smile. “Who gave you a slinky?”

“Agent Emily,” Jack said. “She's nice. I showed her my letters on Dr. Agent Spencer's magnet.”

“Really?” Hotch asked.

Jack nodded. “Yup. I knew all of them.”

“What else did you do?”

And then all of a sudden, Jack got a strange expression on his face.

Hotch frowned. “What?”

“It's a secret,” Jack said, shaking his head.

“What's a secret?” Hotch asked. He didn't like the sound of this.

“Nothing.” Jack's eyes were wide, guilt written all over his face.

“Jack.”

“I can't tell you, Daddy, that's why it's a secret!” Jack whined, bouncing in his chair a little. “You're not supposed to know.”

Hotch frowned. What on earth could Jack be talking about?

“Jack, I want you to tell me what it was,” Hotch said seriously, making eye contact. “I need to know. It's my job to know secrets.”

Jack frowned. “Well... But then you won't be surprised.”

“Daddy doesn't like surprises.”

Jack's face twisted up. “Daaaaaddy...”

Hotch's expression did not change. “Jack.”

“Fine.” Jack looked around the room, as if he were expecting other people to pop out of the shadows. “But you have to pretend to be surprised.”

Hotch nodded.

And so Jack told him all about the secret workout, and was rather confused when his father wasn't interested in being shown how it was done.

Fic: Disposable Heroes

2009-09-30T02:50:01Z

Title: Disposable Heroes
Rating: R
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: I think he's just trying to do the right thing—he sees what his father does for a living. This is his way of trying to save lives, too.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: Written because I have a chem test tomorrow and I needed stress relief (and also because I may possibly need love tomorrow morning, after it's over and I have miserably failed it, so please leave nice comments). Coda to 5.01, largely centering around Morgan.

.

Disposable Heroes

“He didn't care,” Spencer whispers. “Hotch could have been dead and he didn't care as long as his son was okay, he wouldn't have cared even if I'd told him. And I—I got so angry. I was so angry at him.” He shudders and closes his eyes. “I wanted to... I could have said so many terrible things.”

“But you didn't,” Derek reminds him, brushing hair back from Spencer's face. Even in the dark lighting of the hospital, he can see the shadows, the hollows of Spencer's face, and the wide, sleepless eyes that are watching him.

“But I wanted to.”

Derek's fingers trace the curves of Spencer's face. “But you didn't. You did everything the way you should have.”

Spencer exhales.

“Except for the whole getting-shot part,” Derek amends, trying to sound light about it even as his chest seizes up and the urge to pull Spencer closer nearly overpowers him. He resists, letting his fingers go back into the soft, fine hair just above Spencer's ear.

Spencer smiles so slightly that it almost looks like a grimace. “Sorry. I didn't mean to.”

“It's okay,” Derek assures him, even though it isn't.

“But it isn't.”

Derek's fingers still and he closes his eyes, holding back the surge of fury, holding himself back from taking hold and never letting go, because in this moment everything in him just wants to protect. “It isn't,” he agrees softly, dangerously. “It isn't okay. But that could have been me—that could have been you that Foyet went after, and I'd rather have you here with a bum leg than—than gone, for god knows how long.”

Cool fingers run down his arm. “I know.”

He says nothing, does not take his hand out of Spencer's hair, just lies there and trembles.

Spencer scoots closer, burying himself.

oOo

Derek's best hours as a police officer occurred on October 31st, 1982, from 7:00-9:00 pm. He wore his dad's hat (stuffed with tissue paper so that it wouldn't fall down over his face), a blue button-down shirt that his mother had stitched his name into, and a water pistol that he managed to empty within the first five minutes of trick-or-treating, all over his cousin Krista's Snow White costume. She had cried, and he hadn't been allowed to have the pistol for the rest of the night. He'd been allowed to arrest his parents, Desiree, and several other cousins over the course of those two hours, though.

He went to bed that night, hands sticky and feet sore, certain that he was going to be the best cop there ever was. He'd arrest all the bad people and help kids cross the street and he'd slide down the fire pole—and he was really good at the last part, already, after his dad had let him go down it a few times last month. He wasn't allowed to play with the sirens, though. That was for when he got older.

oOo

The following morning, Derek takes one look at Emily and passes her his coffee cup.

She downs half of it then says, “If the next words out of your mouth have anything to do with backwash, I'm telling you right now, I don't care.”

“You look like hell,” Derek tells her instead.

Emily grimaces. “I spent the night at the hospital.” Then she frowns. “I thought I heard you tell Rossi that you were staying the night—is there some trick to sleeping in chairs that I don't know about? Because you look like you actually slept more than two hours.”

“I didn't,” Derek says.

He isn't lying—he spent most of the night watching Spencer sleep.

But Emily is not pleased to hear this. She scowls at him and takes another sip of his coffee.

“Did Hotch wake up?” he asks.

“Once or twice. He didn't really say anything.”

It's Derek's turn to frown. “You know that he appreciates you being there, right? You're doing a good thing for him.”

Emily makes a face. “I'm not actually doing anything in there—it could be anyone, you know. I just sit there and call the nurse when his pee-bag is full.”

“If just anyone could be in there with him, then why is it you who spent the night last night?” Derek counters.

“Because I was available?” Emily suggests, but her tone is less cynical. “I don't know. I think I need more coffee.”

Derek moves out of the way, allowing her access to the hallway that leads to the coffee machine. He wants to say more because regardless of what she believes, she is making a difference that no one else on the team could have made, but he doesn't. He stands there in the hallway, keeping his thoughts to himself.

oOo

The backs of his shoes bounced off of the bottom of the hospital bed. He stared blankly at the floor as he heard his mother come into the room in a flurry of tears, grabbing him and pulling him into a hug, sobbing into his neck. Derek was complacent, limp, allowing his mother to pick him up and hold him close.

“Oh, baby,” she cried, cradling his head like he was still a toddler and hadn't turned ten just last week. “Oh, oh, my baby, I love you so much, my brave little boy...”

Pink, sneaker-stained tile stared at him, but all Derek saw was father lying on the ground, eyes dark, arm twitching even though he was dead. Gone. Dead. The robbers were dead, too, but so was his dad. It was a lifetime before the ambulance came. He'd sat alone in the convenient store with the three dead people, he'd sat behind the register, clutching his father's gun to his chest until someone had picked him up and carried him out.

He didn't think he wanted to be a police officer anymore.

oOo

“You couldn't stay away, either?” JJ asks, incorrectly assuming that Derek is here for Hotch.

“Reid's being discharged,” Derek tells her. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do for a friend. “But yeah, I was gonna see Hotch, too. How is he?”

“How are you?” JJ returns, lifting an eyebrow.

Derek raises both of his. “Me? Hell, I'm not the one who might never see my kid again—I'm fine.”

It's quiet for a beat.

“I think about what would have happened if Foyet had decided to come after me instead of Hotch,” JJ says quietly, turning to look at him. Her eyes are shining. “I think about Henry and Will, and I don't know how I'm supposed to do it. How can I go home every night, knowing that just by opening the door, I'm putting them in danger? I—”

She stops, too choked up to speak.

Derek places a hand on each of her shoulders, readily meeting her eyes. “JJ. Listen to me. You go home every night to your son because you are his mother and you love him, and you have every right to love him. Don't let this son of a bitch take that away from you. Foyet picked Hotch. God knows why, but he did, and that's what we've got to focus on right now. Got it?”

“I know,” JJ sniffles, wiping at her eyes. “I know, I'm sorry. I just—sometimes, I think that you and Rossi and Reid, you guys are so lucky to have no one to worry about. It's horrible.”

It's not horrible. Foyet would have won, if he'd known that taking Spencer would have broken Derek in minutes, and it makes Derek wish that he were as alone as the world thought he was. It would make things so much easier.

“It's not horrible,” Derek says aloud.

JJ wipes underneath her eyes, careful of her makeup. “It is. Having a baby doesn't make me any different than anyone on the team.”

The elevator dings.

“I'm going to get Reid, and I'll stop in to see Hotch later,” Derek tells her, even though he knows he won't.

“Thanks for the...” JJ waves a hand inarticulately.

“Yeah. Anytime.”

oOo

His mother hadn't spoken to him for a week. Desiree had cried and Sarah had driven the seven hours to his place just to slap him across the face. His best friend from college thought it was brilliant. Derek still didn't know why he'd signed up to work for the bomb squad, with a history of football and two college degrees, but it felt right. It felt good. He felt like he was finally doing something that would be worthwhile, something that would make a real difference in the world, and that was enough for him.

Derek loved working on the bomb squad from his very first day.

He got reprimanded on the third day for taking off his vest in the middle of a crisis. No one seemed to care that it had been to save the life of an innocent bystander whose name he never caught.

oOo

“I hate crutches,” Spencer mutters, as he attempts to slide out of the car and onto said crutches without killing himself. Derek is tempted to just pick him up and carry him to his apartment, but he doesn't think that Spencer would appreciate it, so he just does his best to help without helping.

He holds the crutches steady.

“When have you had crutches?” Derek asks, as he watches Spencer's grip on the door handle tighten.

“I sprained my ankle when I was ten, and I... may or may not have gotten hit by a car when I was twenty-one.”

Derek's eyes widen. “You what?”

Spencer's grin is sheepish. “I was reading, wasn't looking where I was going. The car was going about ten miles an hour—I ended up with a broken ankle, a sprained wrist and a few bruised ribs. I wrote my thesis paper in the hospital.”

Derek leans one crutch against the car and, holding the other up with one hand, grabs Spencer's forearm and guides him as he steps down onto the pavement. Spencer grabs onto the lone crutch almost immediately.

“I'm never letting you read and walk again,” Derek informs him, as he holds up the other crutch for him to take.

“I'm not the one kicking down doors all the time,” Spencer retorts.

Derek frowns, shifting Spencer's bag on his shoulder. “You know, I'd like to think I do more than kick down doors.”

“You do,” Spencer allows, swinging himself forward with the awkward familiarity of one riding a bike for the first time in years. “But you're always the one kicking down doors, stepping out in front of agitated unsubs, jumping into trucks loaded with bombs, tackling people and—”

He stops, grunting a little as he maneuvers himself around a corner.

“And what?” Derek asks.

“And I hate it,” Spencer finishes, very matter-of-fact.

“Someone's gotta do it, pretty boy.” Derek opens the door, standing back to allow Spencer to go in.

“It doesn't always have to be you,” Spencer says sullenly. “We're all here, too.”

“I'll let you kick down the next door, okay?” Derek promises. “After you get off your crutches and they let you back into the field in, you know, six months.”

“Ha ha.”

“Seriously,” Derek says. “I'll even give you as many tries as you want.”

“I'd rather not make a fool of myself, thanks,” Spencer says dryly.

“Then don't complain about me being the one to kick down doors,” Derek tells him, smirking.

“It's not about that,” Spencer says. He stops, and Derek realizes that they're at his apartment. “It's about the fact that you think you're disposable.”

“Disposable?” Derek unzips the bag and starts rifling around for keys. “Kid, I don't know what drugs they've got you on, but—”

“I'm not on drugs,” Spencer says, sounding annoyed. “I wouldn't let them give me any. You think that you're less valuable, just because you don't have a child, or because you're not famous, or because you don't speak four languages, or—”

“Bed for you,” Derek interrupts lightly, finding the keys at last. He unlocks the door and pushes it open. “C'mon.”

“I'm being serious!” Spencer protests. “You're always putting yourself in dangerous positions like you don't care what happens to you.”

“You haven't had a good night's sleep in two days,” Derek says, setting the bag on the ground. “Go to bed. I'll be there in a minute.”

“I'm fine,” Spencer says irritably. “You're avoiding the subject—you purposely put yourself in dangerous positions and I—”

“I'm not suicidal. Bed.”

“I'm not saying your suicidal! I'm saying that you could let someone else be the one to kick down the door for a change.”

“Bed,” Derek repeats.

Spencer glares at him, but starts off toward the bedroom, dropping the conversation.

Derek watches him go, shaking his head. They must have him on some kind of drugs, because he's seen Spencer on this kind of lack of sleep before, and he's never been as unreasonable as this. Poor kid. And in crutches for the third time, too. He wishes that Dave had sent Emily to the school and him to the house with Spencer, because he would have been there. He could have been there, and he could have been the one to take that bullet.

Fic: Somebody's Eyes Are Watchin'

2009-09-21T05:04:05Z

Title: Somebody's Eyes Are Watchin'
Rating: PG
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: Prentiss makes observations and draws conclustions.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: blueraccoon prompted me to write some Morgan/Reid fluff with broken alarm clocks, so... This is what popped out!

.

Somebody's Eyes Are Watchin'

“Morning,” Reid said pertly, sitting down at his desk.

Prentiss scowled at him over her mug of coffee.

“Present for you,” Morgan sang as he passed behind her, dropping a file on her keyboard. He dumped his bag on his chair and then glanced over to Reid. “Coffee, kid?”

Reid shrugged. “Sure.”

Prentiss eyed them warily. Something was up.

oOo

Prentiss glanced up from her desk, straightening her pile of papers as her eyes locked onto Morgan and Reid, who were entering the bullpen together. Again.

“Case,” she announced as they approached.

They glanced at each other.

“Conference room in five,” she added, before stuffing the papers into a file and then grabbing her coffee. “Hotch is pissy already, it isn't good.”

Morgan muttered something.

“Derek!” Reid squawked.

She heard Morgan laughing.

But...

Derek.

First names.

Most unusual.

oOo

“Morning,” Reid greeted.

Prentiss looked up, hearing Morgan passing behind her. She watched Reid set his stuff down, then turned so that she could watch Morgan at the same time.

Morgan glanced at her. “Something up?”

Glaring darkly, she lowered her eyes and went back to her email. Or at least, she clicked around for a while as her brain tried to puzzle this out.

oOo

Stupid coffee. Stupid filter. Stupid JJ and her stupid boyfriend who bought her stupid Starbucks. Stupid coworkers who didn't make coffee because they had stupid Starbucks. Stupid water fountain.

Prentiss glanced down at the cup, pushing down on the switch as though it would make the water come out any faster.

It didn't.

The elevator doors dinged, and she glanced over to see Morgan and Reid stepping off the elevator together, laughing about something, tripping and swatting and falling on each other. She blinked as she watched them make their way down the hallway, oblivious, and told herself that it wasn't what she thought it was. That would be wrong. That would be wrong on so many levels, she'd need this elevator she was standing next to in order to sort it all out, and even then, it'd still be wrong.

oOo

“You're letting me get my coffee first?”

“Sure.”

“Um...”

“What?”

“You never let me have the top of the pot. Last Tuesday, you said 'I don't know why it matters whether you get the top or the bottom, since all you taste of it is sugar anyway. Move over'. Then you pushed me out of the way.”

“Pretty boy, you're imagining things.”

“I am not!”

“Grouchy this morning, aren't we?”

“I need coffee.”

“Go ahead. You always come first, in my book.”

Prentiss tried to stop herself, but her mind was plummeted right into the gutter within seconds. She was a horrible person. Really. She just needed to sit here and drink her coffee and think nice, innocent thoughts about her coworkers, not—

“Or you did last night, anyway.”

She choked.

oOo

She stumbled off the elevator, attempting to keep her mocha latte level as her bag fell against her thigh with every step.

“We've got a case,” Morgan told her as he passed by.

“Conference room in... 2.4 minutes,” Reid added, hot on Morgan's heels.

“Don't be late!”

Their cheeriness did nothing to stop her from noticing that the belt Reid was wearing was decidedly not his, or that Derek was wearing one of his trademark turtlenecks—the one she and JJ had taken to calling Sultry Lover (the dark green one was Exotic Mistress, the gray one was Sexy Lady, and the dark one with maroon and white stripes was Black Magic Woman).

Prentiss smirked.

oOo

“Ugh,” she groaned, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. Her head throbbed.

“Stop drinking so much,” Morgan's voice remarked. “It helps.”

“I didn't drink last night,” she groaned. “I just woke up with this headache and it sucks. It's like adding insult to injury. Not only did I have to get up, but I had to get up in pain, dammit.”

“I'm sorry.”

There was a thump across from here, signaling that Reid was also here, setting his bag down.

“Ugh.”

oOo

“Good morning, darling,” Morgan said, ruffling her hair as he sailed past her.

Prentiss turned her head slowly, watching him dump his bag at his desk with narrowed eyes.

Morgan glanced back at her. “What? Bad night?”

Her expression did not change.

“Whatever,” Morgan decided, shrugging. His eyes went to Reid, who had already sat down and was turning his computer on, and Prentiss watched his grin go from happy to just plain stupid.

“Ridiculous,” she muttered into her coffee.

Morgan blinked, the stupidly-in-love expression fading as he turned to her. “What?”

Prentiss bit her tongue and returned to her computer, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

oOo

She glanced at the clock, watching another number slip by. Ten o'clock, and she'd only just seen Morgan's car pull into the parking lot a few minutes ago—and as she raised her eyes, sure enough, Morgan and Reid were hurrying into the bullpen, striding fast enough to make it obvious that they were very late and very aware of this, but sedate enough that people wouldn't be sticking their heads out of their offices to see if there was a fire. She let the smirk slide onto her face easily, readily.

“Morning,” Morgan mumbled as he brushed past her.

“What happened?” Prentiss asked.

“Alarm clock. It got unplugged.”

Her smirk only widened.

Morgan frowned. “What?”

“Nothing,” Prentiss said innocently. “Just strange, you know. You and Reid being late together.”

She watched the two exchange what was probably supposed to be a subtle glance.

“I mean, the two of you have been coming in together at the same time for, like, the last two weeks. And now you're coming in late at the same time. It's a little coincidental.” She shrugged. “There's fresh coffee, by the way. If you want some.”

Reid dropped his bag. “Coffee sounds good.”

“Yep. Later, Prentiss.”

“Bye.”

And they were gone.

Prentiss closed her eyes and let her head fall back onto the back of her chair, grinning to herself. She wondered how much longer she could get away with this.

Fic: May Cause the Following Side Effects (2/2)

2009-09-12T04:13:37Z

Title: May Cause the Following Side Effects
Rating: R
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: Clocks tick, always tick, counting up and counting down.
Warning: Character death, suicide, mental illness, dark themes
Prompt: 'A moment lost' from criminal_prompt
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: Posted this as soon as I got it back from my beta because I feel awful for going over the deadline by, oh, eleven days. Ouch. Thanks to lady_of_scarlet for working her magic on this story.

2 weeks 6 days 23 hours 37 minutes

Dr. Gurgis smiled. "You must be Derek Morgan."

Morgan nodded, shaking the hand that was offered to him. "Yes. It's nice to meet you, Dr. Gurgis."

"Jim, please."

Morgan glanced over to where Reid was sitting, reading another journal. He exhaled.

"Look. Jim. I know this is probably against the rules, but..." He shook his head. "Before he started getting treatment, he told me that he didn't want to fight. He said that he'd rather die than try to fight for his sanity. I—I wrote it off as him being hysterical—you didn't see him, he was—but last night he brought it up again. He's serious about it. He wants to die."

Jim offered a half smile. "I know."

Morgan looked at him helplessly. "What do I do? I can't watch him every hour of the day, how am I supposed to—I mean, do I let him? If it's what he wants, do I have the right to get in his way?"

"Derek," Jim interrupted gently. "What you need to understand is that you're not talking to your lover anymore. Spencer is not there. He does not have logical thought patterns, and even with medication, he probably never will again—the chances of him ever being self-sufficient again are very slim."

"How do you know that?" Morgan asked. "There are thousands of schizophrenics who lead normal lives, why the hell can't he be one of them?"

“There's a chance," Jim allowed, nodding patiently. "But given the severity with which his mother has deteriorated, it's a very small chance."

Morgan's eyes narrowed. "So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that you need to do what's best for Spencer."

oOo

3 weeks 1 day 14 hours 21 minutes

"Reid?"

Reid sat very quietly, picking at his dinner. He hadn't said a word since waking up.

"Reid, look at me. I'm not angry with you."

The fork peeled off the top layer of lasagna, and Reid began picking out the tomatoes and putting them into a little pile in the corner of his plate.

Morgan set down his fork. "Spencer. Please."

For the first time, he noticed Reid's hand was trembling.

He reached over and grabbed it, holding on tightly and forcing Reid to make eye contact with him. "Listen to me. When you don't talk to me, it makes me worried. I'm not angry."

"That's what you said yesterday," Reid mumbled, eyes going down to the table.

Morgan frowned. "It's true. I'm not mad. If I was mad at you, I would tell you."

"You should be," Reid said, pulling his hand free. "You should be mad. I—I have bad thoughts. You wouldn't like them."

"Bad thoughts? Like what?"

Reid put down his fork and pushed back his chair, getting ready to leave. "I shouldn't think them."

"Where are you going?" Morgan asked, rising along with him.

No answer. Reid was headed for the bathroom.

"Spencer?"

Morgan followed him anxiously down the hall, fighting the impulse to help him walk, because Reid was walking quite fine. They made it to the bathroom without even stumbling, and Reid promptly knelt down in front of the toilet, closed his eyes, and then vomited.

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey, Spencer..."

Morgan was down on his knees in seconds, holding Reid's hair back as he continued to throw up for another minute. He murmured softly, stroking and rubbing and doing everything he could to make this easier.

Reid mumbled something.

"What?" Morgan asked.

Reid raised his head. "I want to die now."

Something in Morgan went cold.

"Reid, that's ridiculous. You don't want to die."

"I told you I did," Reid said calmly. "I really don't know why you care. I was just another fuck to you until I told you I had schizophrenia."

"That's not true!" Morgan protested.

"You didn't have a problem with it when I told you that night."

"I thought you were hysterical!"

"I wasn't. And I'm not."

And with that, Reid leaned over and threw up into the bowl again.

oOo

3 weeks 5 days 19 hours 7 minutes

Morgan listened to the phone ring again and again, willing Reid to pick up even though he knew that, as this was his fourth attempt in a row, no one was going to pick up. He turned his eyes up to the ceiling, praying for Reid to just pick up the fucking phone already, but it didn't do any good. The answering machine was playing in his ear again, moments later.

"Spencer?" he said, careful to keep his voice down in the station. "Pick up the phone, kid. Please. I heard you were really good with Garcia, and I just wanted to tell you that I'm not mad at you. I just want to talk to you."

He waited, hoping that Reid would pick up.

No such luck.

He exhaled. "All right. Call me, okay? Love you."

Shutting his eyes, he closed his phone, not moving from his seat even though he knew that he was supposed to be reviewing local arson cases from the 1950's right now.

"Morgan?"

His eyes snapped open and he sat up straight. "Sorry, I was—"

Hotch put a hand up.

Morgan winced.

"It's okay," Hotch said gently, surprising the hell out of Morgan. "I understand. I just wanted to give you something to consider."

"What?" Morgan asked, slightly wary of the other shoe.

Hotch's gaze was steady. "If you're going to be Reid's primary caretaker throughout this, I would not object to you staying off the field, or even taking leave, for a while. I know how emotionally draining it can be."

Morgan frowned. "Hotch, if you think I can't handle—"

"It's just a suggestion," Hotch interrupted calmly. "Think about it. Don't be afraid to ask me."

Slowly, Morgan nodded.

oOo

3 weeks 6 days 14 hours 24 minutes

"How did it go?" Morgan asked anxiously.

That he did not immediately receive a bright, snappy response told him enough. He winced.

"How bad was he?"

Garcia sighed. "He was... It was, like, depression. Meets African sleeping sickness. And they had an accidental love child."

"Is he okay?"

"I guess," she said, sounding uncharacteristically disheartened. "He was just lying on the bed, kept telling me how he'd been bad and he needed to lie down. It... It isn't right. That isn't Reid. It's not our Reid."

"Did he take his medicine?"

"Yes," Garcia said, sounding a little happier. "I got him to do that. Is that what he's like all the time?"

"It changes," Morgan sighed. "The medication. It's going to throw him around for a while until they find a good dosage for him."

"Poor baby..."

Morgan exhaled. "Well, thanks for checking up on him. I'll try calling him later."

"Anytime, hot stuff. Love you."

"Love you, too, baby girl."

oOo

1 month 23 hours 31 minutes

"Spencer—"

"I don't want her here," Reid repeated, glaring at him. "I'm not a freak show, Morgan."

"You need someone to take you to the psychologist," Morgan reminded him patiently. "I don't know how long I'll be gone—you know how these cases are."

"I did," Reid said bitterly.

Morgan exhaled. "It's only Penelope. She cares about you. She misses you, pretty boy."

"Well, I'm glad that this is all about me," Reid muttered, glaring down at the table.

"Please?" Morgan asked. "For me, Spencer? I know that this is unfair to you, and I'm sorry, but until I can find a better solution, it's the way it has to be."

"Whatever."

"Spencer—"

"Whatever. Fine, go, she can come over. Maybe I'll fuck her, too, hm?"

Morgan's jaw dropped. "What the hell do—"

"Ah, there it is," Reid said, smirking at him. "The righteous anger. On her behalf, too. It's always been about Penelope, hasn't it?"

Calm, Morgan reminded himself. The books had told him to stay calm. It wasn't Reid talking, it was the disease.

"It's not about Penelope," Morgan ground out. "It's about you. I love you."

Reid snorted. "Just because you called your mom and told her—"

"I'm leaving," Morgan said tightly, cutting him off. "Take your medicine and be polite to Garcia. I'll see you in a few days."

"Don't cheat on me too much!" Reid called after him.

Morgan slammed the door.

oOo

1 month 1 week 2 days 19 hours 52 minutes

Morgan took in a deep breath and hit Call before he lost his nerve. The phone rang four times—he actually got his hopes up that it would switch to the answering machine and he wouldn't have to have this conversation right now—before his mother picked up.

He swallowed.

"Hi, Mama."

"Derek? Is this my son? You're not due to call for another eight months, I think," she teased gently.

"I called you last year on Thanksgiving," Morgan defended immediately. "And I told you I'd be up for this year's Fourth of July, remember? I've got the time in already."

"Well, good," his mother said decidedly. "You wouldn't believe the boy your sister picked up. He's making her pay for herself on dates!"

"You know that's how Desiree likes it," Morgan reminded her patiently.

"Well, Roger wouldn't hear of it, when they were dating. I liked him."

Morgan made a face. "Mama, he smoked."

"He had manners," she countered. "Which is more than we can say about this Liam."

"What does Sarah think?"

"We won't talk about that," his mother said darkly.

Morgan smirked. "So she agrees with me?"

"I told Dinnie, I think Desiree's blackmailing her—the three of you still won't tell me which one of you spiked the punch at Kelly's wedding last Christmas."

"It wasn't us!" Morgan protested.

"Derek, you're a terrible liar," she informed him. "I saw the bottle of Jack in the fridge before the wedding, and it mysteriously disappeared by the next morning."

"It was a wedding gift?" Morgan suggested.

"Is that what I should get you, then, when you get married?"

Morgan swallowed again. This was his opening.

"Actually, Mama, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

She was instantly quiet, but he could practically hear her silent explosion of Ohmygodmybabyboyisgettingmarried!

He winced.

"I, um, I'm in a relationship right now," he started cautiously. "And it's pretty serious."

"And?"

He thought he heard a very quiet squeal of excitement from his mother.

"Mama, I'm not getting married," he said slowly, and then he paused, both to give her a moment to process this and to give himself a moment to screw up his courage. "I'm in love with a man."

Silence.

"Derek?"

He cleared his throat. "Yes, Mama?"

"You sound more panicked about this than I am, baby. Are you okay with this?"

Morgan blinked. "Wha—yeah! Yeah, I don't have any... Love's love, right? I was just, you know, I didn't know how you'd..."

"You thought I'd be mad?"

"It's not every day your son turns out to be a flamer, is it?"

"Derek Andrew Morgan, I know I did not raise you use that term."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You love who you love. Just because you're in a relationship with a man doesn't mean that I expect fashion consults or Christmas cards from South Beach."

"What is it with the South Beach?"

"What?"

"Nothing. Just something somebody at work said."

"Is someone giving you a hard time about this at work? I saw on Dateline the other night—"

"No, Mama," Morgan said patiently, interrupting his mother before she got going. She loved her Dateline NBC. "We've been keeping it very quiet, and no one's given us any problems. It's—do you remember Dr. Spencer Reid?"

"Do I remember him? Derek, he's hardly a forgettable person, especially with the amount of hours you spend talking about him."

"I do?" Morgan asked, completely thrown.

"Sarah's been referring to him as your boyfriend for... three years? Four? I forget."

Morgan blinked. "Oh."

"So will Spencer be coming up with you for the Fourth of July?" his mother asked, moving right along.

"Well..." Morgan inhaled. "That's the other thing. He's—he's developed schizophrenia."

She gasped softly. "Oh, baby..."

"His mother has it," Morgan said grimly. "Reid—Spencer started having symptoms a couple of months ago. He's quit the BAU and he's on treatment now, but he's..."

"Oh, baby, that's just awful. You remember—well, no, of course you wouldn't, you were just a baby, but your Grandpa J had schizophrenia. He was always refusing to take his medication, and he'd get so violent, always shouting and throwing things and... Well, of course, the medicine helped a lot," she added hastily. "Always calmed him down."

Morgan had been reading up on it. He knew what would come.

"We're working through it," he assured his mother. "He's already up-to-date on all the latest treatments, because of his mother. He's just got to decide what he wants to do."

"Do you want me to talk to your grandma?" she asked. "I can ask her about Grandpa J for you and see if there's anything that helped."

"That would be great. I—thanks, Mama," Morgan said, his eyes falling shut. "Thanks. I—I've gotta go."

"Oh, Derek... I'm so proud of you. Even if you never give me any grandbabies."

Morgan snorted.

"And baby?"

"Yeah?"

"Anytime you need to talk to me—you pick up that phone and call, you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I love you."

"I love you too, Mama."

oOo

1 month 1 week 4 days 3 hours 59 minutes

Morgan spat out his mouth guard. "Dammit."

Above him, grinning, Ken held out a hand. "C'mon, get up. I want another match."

"You've won three already," Morgan grumbled, allowing himself to be pulled up off the mat.

Ken's grin widened. "I know. I never win."

Morgan sighed, turning his head so that the muscles in his neck stretched. His body was still alive with adrenaline, ready to go for another match, but his mind was elsewhere.

"Just one more," Ken promised. "Then we can call it quits."

"Yeah," Morgan agreed, grudgingly.

Ken frowned at him as he took his stance. "Everything okay? I'm serious, man, you never do this bad."

"I..." Morgan adjusted his feet and lowered his center of balance. His mouth guard was still in his hand. "I'm with this girl, you know? And she's just having some problems. I can't stop thinking about it."

Ken studied him, then slowly lowered his arm. "You didn't get her pregnant, did you?"

Morgan laughed outright, dropping his stance. "No, no way. She's—got schizophrenia. I just found out a few weeks ago."

"Schizophrenia? Shit." Ken stared at him. "That... That fucking sucks. You serious about her?"

Morgan nodded, closing his eyes.

"Shit. And it's bad?"

"Yeah," Morgan sighed. "The medicine's supposed to start working soon, but it's... it's bad."

"It's like that guy from A Beautiful Mind, right?" Ken asked. "He was married, wasn't he?"

"Yeah," Morgan sighed, not bringing up the fact that it had ended in a forty-year divorce. "He was."

"Not that I'm saying you should marry her or anything," Ken added quickly, holding up his hands. "Hell no. I'm just saying, you know."

"I know." Morgan resumed his stance. "One more fight?"

Ken nodded, slipping his mouth guard back in. He grinned purple plastic.

oOo

1 month 1 week 4 days 13 hours 39 minutes

"Side effects of the medicine," Reid mumbled, bringing his head up from the toilet bowl. "Or it—"

He heaved, then threw up again. Morgan sat next to him, rubbing his back and murmuring softly. He waited until Reid had gotten the last of it up, spitting a little to get some of the taste of bile out of his mouth, to ask.

"Or it could be what?"

Reid shook his head, reaching for toilet paper to wipe his mouth. "Nothing."

"Reid."

"My head," Reid said irritably, turning to face him. "It keeps telling me that it's a government plot, that someone's poisoning me. And I know it's just me being... paranoid. Crazy. But I can't help it. I'm scared. It could be a conspiracy—they could be poisoning me. They could be. You know they keep track of me and what I'm doing, I've always known it. Remember, Garcia was on that list? I'm on something like that. They keep track of all of us and make sure that we're following the..."

He stopped, very slowly closing his eyes.

Morgan stopped rubbing his back, waiting.

"Oh, God," Reid whispered. "I sound like my mother."

“No, you don't," Morgan said, sitting back. "You know why?"

Reid smiled humorlessly, opening his eyes. "Why?"

"Because you knew," Morgan told him. "You knew what was happening and you got treatment. You're fighting back against that voice in your head. And you're going to win."

"They really do watch," Reid said, staring down at the floating chunks of vomit in the toilet. "Can you imagine what I could have done if the military had gotten their hands on me? Around 51% of the world's scientists work for the military—that's probably where they wanted me, before I went crazy. Maybe now that I'm worthless, they'll stop protecting me and just let all the unsubs kill me."

"Listen, Reid—Spencer—" Morgan shook his head. "The government can blow it out their ass. There's no way in hell I'm gonna let anyone kill you, okay? No one's gonna get their hands on you—not while I'm around."

Reid snorted. "I'm going to kill you in your sleep—you work for the government."

"Oh, come on," Morgan said, grinning. "You couldn't kill me, you love me too much."

"I could—"

Reid stopped, his grin dying. He exhaled.

“What?" Morgan asked, frowning.

Reid shook his head. He wouldn't look Morgan in the eye. "Just... Just tell me that you really do love me? And it's not a plot to kill me?"

And Morgan did, his heart breaking as he realized that he was losing Reid, and he was losing him fast.

oOo

1 month 1 week 5 days 23 hours 46 minutes

Garcia was waiting for him outside the conference room. He only got in half of his "Hey, baby girl," before she grabbed him by the collar and dragged him into the next room, shutting the door behind them.

"You're sleeping with Reid," she announced, unceremoniously letting go of Morgan's collar.

He gaped at her. "How the hell did you know that?"

"That morning on the elevator," Garcia informed him. "And normally, I would be slapping you upside the head for not telling me sooner, and then squealing because I have no doubt that you and Reid together is absolutely adorable, but—"

"Adorable?"

"—instead all I'm going to say is that I love you both, and I'm expecting a postcard from South Beach. Got it?"

"Uh... Yeah," Morgan said slowly, still trying to figure out how Garcia had known.

Garcia stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. "Good."

oOo

1 month 1 week 6 days 15 hours 37 minutes

Reid took another careful bite of his sandwich, paranoid after the first one had resulted in an explosion of mustard. Morgan watched him out of the corner of his eye.

"These are typically considered a lunch food," he commented after he had swallowed.

"Cuban sandwiches are good at any time of the day," Morgan informed him.

Reid was quiet for a moment, chewing.

"You're really serious about me calling you?" he asked hesitantly, after a moment of silence. "I mean, there's going to be a lot of appointments. I don't want to bother you all the time, especially if you're on a case."

"You won't. And, you know," Morgan added, "I've been reading about it—"

"You have been?" Reid interrupted.

Morgan nodded. "Yeah. At work. Anyway, they say that having a support network really helps. Is there anyone else you'd want to... I don't know. Help? Talk to?"

"I don't—" Reid stopped, frowning as though he was listening for something. He exhaled and pushed his chair away from the table. "I'll get it."

"Get what?"

"The door," Reid said, standing up.

Morgan frowned. "There's someone at the door?"

"Someone knocked," Reid insisted, making his way around the table to get to the door.

"Reid," Morgan said slowly, his heart sinking. "Nobody knocked."

"They did."

Morgan quickly pushed his chair out and stood up, going after Reid. "Spencer, come on. There's nobody there. You probably just heard something else."

"No, I heard..."

Reid swung the door open, revealing no one. He froze, staring out into the empty hallway.

The apartment was silent.

Softly, Morgan came up behind him and put a hand atop Reid's shoulder, and they stood there for a long time, waiting for someone to come.

oOo

1 month 2 weeks 5 days 15 hours 10 minutes

"Making a Taco Bell run," Prentiss announced, sticking her head in the room.

Morgan looked up. "Uh... Three soft tacos, and some of those cinnamon things."

Prentiss scribbled it down in her notebook. "Gotcha." She turned and started walking away, but suddenly spun back around and pointed her pen at him. "You. Reid. I heard you talking to him on the phone earlier—what's going on?"

"He has schizophrenia."

It was kind of messed up, actually, how matter-of-factly he could say it.

"Oh my god," Prentiss said. She stepped into the room and sat down in the closest chair. "You're kidding. Is that why... that's..."

Morgan nodded. "Yeah. That's why he left."

"Shit," she muttered. "That... I'm sorry. Really."

"Yeah," Morgan said. "Me too."

Prentiss continued to sit there, staring at the table, Taco Bell apparently forgotten.

oOo

1 month 3 weeks 1 hour

The elevator doors parted, revealing Garcia leaned up against the back wall, arms crossed and a stern expression on her face. For a moment, Morgan almost didn't go in, but this was the only elevator up to the bullpen and he was already a few minutes late. Plus, it was only Garcia.

Reluctantly, he stepped in and heard the doors close behind him seconds later.

"So," Garcia said.

Morgan arched an eyebrow. "So?"

She reached over and pulled the emergency stop, and the elevator jolted.

"Garcia!"

"So," Garcia said again, planting herself in front of the switch. "I have been abandoned. I have been neglected. I have been ignored. I have been patient with you, Derek Morgan, but my patience has run out and I am demanding some answers!"

Morgan glared. "You've been riding up and down this elevator all morning, waiting for me to come in, for this?"

"Silence. I have questions, you will answer. You do not get to have questions, because I have no answers. Got it? Good. First question—where is Reid and why is everyone saying that he quit?"

"He did quit. He's at home."

Garcia gaped. "What? Why? You let him?"

"Reid has schizophrenia." Morgan said it very plainly, very bluntly.

Garcia stared at him blankly for a few seconds.

"Oh, god," she whispered. "Oh, god, you're not joking, are you? Oh god..."

The emergency stop continued to ring.

"He's known for a few months," Morgan told her, this time gentling his tone. "He has an appointment with the doctor today to finally get some medicine for it, and to start some treatment to try to slow down the progress of the disease."

Garcia's mouth was open and her eyes were filled with tears. "But—but he—Reid..."

Morgan pulled her into hug, holding on to her tightly.

oOo

1 month 3 weeks 1 day 20 hours 21 minutes

It was as though the sobs were being ripped from him, each one making his whole body shudder, and Morgan could only hold him tighter, murmur things that were so quiet and so quick that they probably didn't even make sense and gently carding his fingers through Reid's hair. He could feel a warm wetness on his shirt, where Reid's face was buried, but it was the last thing on his mind. All that mattered right now was getting Reid to calm down and breathe.

"Shh..." he whispered, leaning in closer. "Shh, shh, shh..."

Jagged syllables choked their way out of Reid's mouth, too painful and broken to form words.

"Shh..."

oOo

1 month 3 weeks 2 days 20 hours 58 minutes

Reid watched him quietly, waiting. No more talk of ticking.

And when it finally clicked, Morgan sat down on the coffee table. Hard.

"Derek?" Reid asked hesitantly, sitting up. "Look, I—"

"You have schizophrenia," Morgan said blankly.

"Yes."

Morgan blinked a few times, the implications of this not really processing.

"I haven't been officially diagnosed yet," Reid said, his voice very quiet. "I wanted to wait. I tried to ignore it. But I hear crying when there're no babies and I have dreams... And they aren't dreams."

Silence.

"That's why I have to leave the BAU."

Morgan looked up, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse. "But there's—there's medicine. Pills. You can still work."

Reid smiled briefly. "No. I'm going to hang in for as long as I can and then... Well, I'll see."

"We'll see."

"What?"

Morgan swallowed. "We'll see. I'm not going anywhere."

"Derek, this really isn't—"

"I'm not going anywhere," Derek repeated. "I'm not. I love you."

Reid snorted. "Love is blind."

"Love is insane," Morgan said, reaching out for Reid's hand. "And you know what? That makes me just as crazy as you."

"Derek, the person you're in love with? Me? He's dying," Reid said softly, gently trying to tug his hand out of Morgan's grasp. "He's dying."

"He's right here."

"For now. Derek, you don't know what it's like to sit by and watch—"

"I don't care."

"But you will," Reid insisted, yanking his hand free and pushing himself up on his elbows, clearly frustrated. "I won't do that to you. I don't even know if I'm going to..."

"To what?" Morgan asked.

oOo

1 month 3 weeks 2 days 21 hours 10 minutes

Morgan pounded on the door. "Reid! Reid, open the door!"

"Go away," was the muffled reply.

"Reid, I'm not kidding! I'm going to break down your door if you don't let me in."

Silence.

The door was unceremoniously yanked open.

"What?" Reid demanded.

"This!" Morgan exploded, pulling the letter out of his pocket. "What the hell is this?"

"A resignation letter."

Morgan folded his arms over his chest. "Bullshit."

"No, I'm pretty sure that's what it is," Reid said mildly.

Morgan took two strides forward, forcing himself into Reid's apartment. "What the fuck is wrong with you? You can't quit!"

Reid smiled grimly. "Too late."

"It's not too late," Morgan informed him, brandishing the resignation letter again. "Did you really think that I was going to turn it in?"

"Not really," Reid replied, eyeing the letter. "I emailed Hotch a copy of his own."

That plan thwarted, Morgan threw the letter onto the coffee table. "Hotch won't take it. You're out of your mind, kid."

Reid laughed bitterly. "Yeah."

Morgan's eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"If I hadn't quit, I would have been asked to leave anyway," Reid said, shrugging. He flopped down onto the couch in a way that was entirely too loose and casual for Spencer Reid, sprawling out longways, his feet hanging over the side. "Just preemptively dealing with the situation."

"Look, kid," Morgan said, taking a seat on the coffee table so that he was directly across from Reid. "We all fuck up. Yeah, you did some stupid shit, but nobody's dead—Hotch isn't going to fire you."

Reid laughed again, and turned his head to look at him, a grin on his face. "You know what I hear, Morgan?"

It entered Morgan's mind that Reid was acting like he was high. Or drunk. There was something... Something was off about him.

"What?" he asked.

"Ticking."

High, Morgan decided. Or seriously drugged. He glanced around for pill bottles, rolling papers, spoons, lighters, but couldn't see any. Was this why Reid had been so closed off for the last few months? Or was this simply how he was escaping it?

"I hear ticking," Reid went on, turning his gaze back up to the ceiling. "All the time. Yesterday. This morning. Right now."

"Reid, look at me," Morgan ordered.

"It's like a clock," Reid continued, unconcerned. "Always marking time passing, always forward, never backward—have you ever read The Sound and the Fury? Faulkner. My mother loved Faulkner. One of the prevalent themes in Quentin's section—throughout the whole book, really—is time. It drives him insane. In the end, you know, he kills himself. Weights himself down and sinks to the bottom of the river."

Morgan stood up, leaning over Reid to check the dilation of his pupils.

Reid frowned up at him. "I'm not drunk. I hear ticking noises."

"Ticking noises," Morgan repeated dubiously. "Right."

Reid turned to stare at him.

"My mother heard ticking noises."

Fic: May Cause the Following Side Effects (1/2)

2009-09-12T04:08:10Z

May Cause the Following Side Effects

0 minutes

Fran fumbled with the lock on the door, blinking sleep out of her eyes. She had no idea who would be knocking on her door, but whoever it was, they had to have a good reason for waking her up. She hadn't been awake at this hour since New Year's Eve, when all of her children had been here, when Desiree hadn't been dating that awful Liam boy. It could be Dinnie, she supposed...

But when she swung the door open, she found her son standing on her doorstep.

She frowned. "Derek?"

He blinked. "Hi, Mama."

"Hi," she said slowly. She tried to look behind him to see if Spencer was with him, or if there was anyone that might be able to explain what had happened to cause her son to look this lost and defeated, but there was no one standing there but Derek. She focused back on her son. "You want to come in, baby?"

"He's gone," Derek whispered.

It took Fran a moment to realize who he was talking about.

"Spencer?" she asked softly.

And if there had been strings holding up this strange, empty puppet of her son, they were cut the instant she said the name. His face crumpled and his knees buckled, and Fran tried to catch him under the arms but instead all she managed to do was ease him down to the ground and lean forward, allowing him to cling to her as he sobbed. She closed her eyes and rubbed his back, murmuring softly as memories of the gangly, disheveled, doe-eyed Spencer Reid flashed through her mind.

"Oh god," Derek moaned. "Oh god, oh god, oh god..."

Fran hugged him with all she had, wishing that she could take all of the strength she'd gained from the death of her husband all those years ago and give it to him. Anything to help him through the hell that would be the next few months, as he tried to figure out how to live without Spencer Reid.

oOo

0 minutes

A hand touched his shoulder.

He didn't jump. He moved slowly, turning his head upward to find Garcia standing above him. He found himself not caring.

"Derek?" she ventured cautiously.

He really, really couldn't care right now.

"Derek, I need you to talk to me," Garcia said, her voice quivering. "I need you to tell me if Reid's okay. I need to know that he's okay, because everyone's been trying to call you for the last two hours and you're not answering and that is really, really not a good sign, you know? And now I'm here and you're just sitting here and not saying anything and it's scary. I need you to tell me that Reid's okay. Tell me. I need you to tell me, okay?"

He shook his head.

"No?" Garcia asked. Her eyes shone with tears. "No, what? No, he's fine?"

Morgan closed his eyes and shook his head again.

"He's—he's not fine?" Her voice was high and desperate. "Derek?"

He couldn't say it. He couldn't.

oOo

0 minutes

Time passed.

And Reid was dead.

oOo

0 minutes

They took Reid from his arms.

They worked quickly and routinely, throwing around terms like BLS and cardiac arrest.

No one told him it was going to be okay.

They counted to three and lifted the stretcher off the ambulance.

They passed him seamlessly off to a waiting team of doctors, who immediately took over compressions and pumping the bag, while someone shouted for charcoal.

They curtained Reid off.

And still, no one told him it was going to be okay.

They were suddenly quiet.

They began to leave, one by one, throwing things in the trash and pushing carts away.

They disconnected the wires, the tubing and the heart monitor.

They drew back the curtain.

And then Morgan understood, it wasn't going to be okay. Reid wasn't going to be okay. It was over.

It was over.

oOo

9 minutes

"Hotchner."

"It's Morgan. I need off the case." Morgan sailed through a red light, beyond caring. "I think Reid just tried to kill himself."

There was a brief silence.

"You think?" Hotch repeated.

"He called me," Morgan said shortly. Behind him, sirens were blaring. "I called 911—I'll call you when I know more."

"I'll find someone to take your place." Hotch paused. "You get to Reid. Bring him back."

"Thanks."

Morgan hung up the phone, pressing down on the gas pedal.

oOo

22 minutes

The phone rang.

"Dammit," Morgan muttered, his concentration shattering again. He paused the video footage that Hotch had just sent him, while reaching over and grabbing the phone with his other hand. "Morgan."

In the corner of his screen, another message from Garcia popped up—something about Hotch's cell being busy.

"Hi."

And all of Morgan's thoughts about the case went out the window.

"Hey," he said, a grin coming to his face. "How are you?"

"I miss you."

Morgan's heart was dancing. "I miss you, too. I'll try to work it so that I can come home for lunch, okay?"

"No," Reid sighed. "It's okay. I—I have to do this now."

"Did you take your pills this morning?" Morgan asked, frowning.

"Derek, listen," Reid said slowly. "I... I didn't want to do this over the phone, but I—I don't think I could have done it when you were here, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Derek."

Morgan felt creeping dread. "Spencer. You need to take your pills. I know you feel better without them, but—"

"I don't," Reid interrupted. "Yesterday, I heard ticking. Whispering. I kept hearing the phone ring, and I kept hearing someone screaming for help, but none of it was real."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Morgan asked, his heart beating faster. "Why didn't you take them?"

"I wanted... I don't know. But I'm sorry. I shouldn't have put it on you, and I'm sorry."

Morgan swallowed. "Spencer. I want you to take your pills, and then go to your room and start reading that new psych journal you got yesterday, okay? I'll be home soon."

"It's too late."

"Take your pills," Morgan ordered, grabbing his jacket as he stood up.

Reid exhaled. "I did take my pills, Derek. I took a lot of pills."

The world froze.

"It—you—you what? What do you mean, a lot?"

"This is the sanest I've been in weeks, Derek. I love you. I—I'm sorry."

Morgan flew.

oOo

5 hours 39 minutes

For the first time in weeks, Morgan didn't feel like the hope was crushing him. It was making him fly. He felt like he could soar through the air, his mind lighter and freer than it had been in ages. He had gotten next to no sleep, but it had been worth it to see Reid, coherent. Knowing who he was. Knowing that no one was plotting to kill him. Knowing that he was loved and loving back—and the memory of Reid, sleepy and glowing post-coitally, was one that Morgan never planned on forgetting. The pace had been frantic and demanding at first, taking and pushing in an explosion of need, but it had tapered into a slower, lazier something that had involved lots of sighing and cuddling.

If Reid was like this when he didn't take his pills, then how much of it was the medication? How long had it been bringing Reid down? In all the books he'd read and all the internet sites he'd spent hours clicking around, he'd never heard of this. What did it mean? He'd have to ask Dr. Gurgis—who, by the way, had been wrong. Reid could have rational thought patterns, and last night was proof.

But really, it didn't matter. He was still flying. Reid was getting better, who cared about anything else? Even the thought of the endless hours of deskwork that awaited him couldn't wipe the smile off his face.

oOo

10 hours 11 minutes

When Morgan opened the door to Reid's apartment, he was surprised to find all the lights off.

"Spencer?" he said softly, slipping off his shoes and setting his bag near the door. He padded through the living room and down the dark hallway, opening the door to the bathroom as he passed, but everything was dark. Cautiously, he opened the door to the bedroom and was surprised to find Reid under the covers, clearly sleeping. Morgan stared at the sight for a good thirty seconds, marveling at the fact that not only was Reid sleeping at night, but he was sleeping in bed, and under blankets.

As he made his way over to the bed, he was careful not to make any noise.

Reid moaned a little as he climbed in, and rolled over.

Morgan squinted in the darkness. "You awake?"

"Am now," Reid mumbled, blinking his eyes heavily. "What're you doing home?"

"I got a few hours off," Morgan answered, pulling the blankets up around him. "I'm going back in later. How are you?"

Reid studied him for a long moment. "I'm... I didn't take my pills today. And I feel so much better."

"You didn't—you need to take them," Morgan whispered, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. "Spencer—"

"I feel alive."

Morgan frowned. "What?"

"I feel alive," Reid repeated. "For the first time in weeks, I feel like I'm living. I know who I am. I taste things. I smell things. I want things."

"Spencer, you need to take—"

"I want things," Reid said again, pushing himself up.

And suddenly, Morgan got it.

"Spencer, I don't think—"

"You think too much," Reid murmured, crawling on top of him, his mouth coming down. "Stop."

"But—"

"Shh," Reid whispered, and then leaned down and very gently, very lightly, kissed him

Morgan sucked in a breath, trying to fight the sudden rush of desire that came over him, but he lost the battle before he could really begin. Coming in for another kiss, Reid moved on top of him, his hands grabbing and his hips rolling, and almost reflexively Morgan rolled them over so that he was on top—and staring down at Reid, who lay breathless beneath him, his hair wild and his eyes hungry, he knew that his control was gone. He wanted this.

He wanted Reid, and he wanted him now.

oOo

20 hours 28 minutes

"Hello?"

Morgan blinked. "Spencer?"

"Derek?"

Morgan pushed his brain into action.

"You, uh, picked up the phone," Morgan said, attempting to keep the shock out of his voice.

"Yeah," Reid agreed. "I did."

"Okay," Morgan said slowly.

In all the times that he'd called home, Reid had never picked up. He'd just gotten used to leaving a message. So why...

"Is everything all right?" he asked, barely keeping his sudden rush of panic out of his tone. "Are you okay? Everything's okay?"

"Everything's fine," Reid assured him. "It's just—it's a great day. I wish you were here with me."

Morgan felt something in his chest twist. "So do I, kid, but we've got this case... Some sick fucker's got a classroom of kindergartners hostage, and we're working with three other departments on it—it's a nightmare. I don't know when I'll be home." He paused. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I did laundry," Reid said suddenly. "I did all the laundry."

"Yeah?" Morgan asked, sitting back in his chair. "You doin' the dishes next?"

"No. Maybe. I cut my finger open on a knife when I was nine, and Mom wouldn't let me go to the hospital. She said they'd put a tracker in me and take samples of my blood. I still have the scar."

Morgan frowned. "Is that what that is? On your right thumb?"

"I thought she was crazy, then," Reid said. "Now I'm crazy. All the crazies believe each other."

"You're not crazy."

"Not right now," Reid answered. "I have to go."

And do what? Morgan almost asked, but he held his tongue and instead said, "Love you, pretty boy."

There was a soft laugh. "I love you, too."

Morgan's eyes widened. "Wha—Spencer? Spencer?"

But the dial tone was already humming away in his ear.

Still reeling, he set the phone back in its cradle. Reid had never said that before.

oOo

1 day 2 hours 50 minutes

The phone rang. Insistently.

Morgan reached out for it blindly, and ended up knocking his alarm clock off the nightstand and spilling a water bottle before he finally found the damn thing.

"'lo?" he grunted, trying to force his eyes open.

"Hey, it's JJ. We've got a case."

Morgan almost said he'd be there in fifteen minutes, when his brain started sludging through the morning muck and reminded him that he didn't go off on cases anymore. He groaned. "I don't do that anymore, remember?"

"I know," JJ said patiently. "But we need you back here at the office to start running through evidence while we fly. This one's bad."

"Yeah. Okay. Be there in fifteen."

"Thanks."

Morgan flipped his phone shut and rolled over. Reid was lying next to him, not sleeping as usual, and reading some book or other. Clumsy with sleep, he reached over and tapped Reid's chest.

"Gotta go in. Take your pills, okay?"

Reid made a noncommittal noise.

oOo

5 days 2 hours 59 minutes

Morgan stretched, extended his leg a little further, double checking that his front leg was bent at a right angle. He inhaled, counting to fifteen in his head.

"So you still with that girl?"

"What girl?" Morgan asked, turning to look at Ken, who was bringing his forehead up from his ankles.

"The one with schizophrenia," Ken said. He took in three deep, even breaths, then uncurled his legs. "You were telling me about her, what, a month ago? You still with her?"

"Yeah." Morgan turned, stretching out his leg behind him and bending the other one at a right angle. He started counting.

"How's it going?" Ken asked. He stood up, rolling his neck as he did so.

Morgan glanced at him, then pushed himself out of his stretch. "Not well. You ready?"

Ken frowned, but just reached into his pocket and pulled out his purple mouth guard. "Yeah. Let's go."

Morgan swallowed and tried to focus on the match.

oOo

1 week 31 minutes

Morgan sat with his head in his hands, staring down at the table. The room was silent.

"I'm sorry to put all this on you," he muttered, looking up to Hotch. "I just—I know that you and Reid..."

"Are you going to tell Rossi as well, then?" Hotch asked, raising an eyebrow.

Morgan smiled grimly. "Rossi believes in happy endings. If you don't want to say anything, man, I can just go and this conversation never happened, but... I could really use some help."

Hotch inhaled. "Derek..."

"It's okay," Morgan said quickly, pushing his chair back. "I'm sorry. I'll just—"

"No," Hotch interrupted, getting up and reaching for him.

Morgan stopped, hand on the door.

Hotch exhaled, leaning on the desk. "Look, Derek... Isn't Spencer seeing a psychologist?"

"Yeah," Morgan said, with a derisive snort. "But it's not like the guy's going to say anything. I could sue him clear to Africa for telling me that I should just let Reid kill himself."

For a long moment, Hotch said nothing, his expression inscrutable. Morgan watched him warily, trying to decide what would be an appropriate length of time to wait before it would not be rude to open the door and leave. He'd taken a risk, coming here to ask Hotch for advice, one that he was starting to regret.

But then Hotch met his eyes.

"Hope is crippling."

A phrase they'd heard last year.

"What are you saying?" Morgan asked slowly.

"You could wait for him to get better," Hotch told him, shaking his head, his eyes on his desk. "You could wait for months. Years. Decades. But how long until it's too long?"

Morgan's hand fell away from the door.

"You can spend years and years waiting for Reid to get better, letting him lie around, drugged out of his mind or scared out of his mind that someone's going to kill him, or..." Hotch took in a measured breath. "Or you could release both of yourselves. Free both him and yourself. I know how it sounds, Derek, but both of you deserve so much better."

"So I should just let him die?" Morgan asked in a strangled voice.

Hotch shook his head. "I don't know. You're in an impossible situation—there is no right answer."

There was a long silence.

"Thanks," Morgan said at last, his voice quiet, and he pulled the door open.

Hope was crippling.

oOo

1 week 6 days 2 hours 6 minutes

The rest of the team understood. They seemed to know that in less than two months, his entire world had shifted so that it no longer revolved around the job, but around Reid.

Garcia respected his privacy, which was certainly more than she did for any other person on this planet, and she hugged him even when she wasn't the one he wanted.

Rossi gave him books and told him stories that always had happy endings.

Prentiss had taken on the odd role of his caretaker, pouring him coffee every morning and raising hell whenever anyone bothered him. She had almost been kicked off the last case.

JJ had quietly accepted the fact that Reid didn't want to see her, and brought in homemade meals for Morgan every Friday.

And when Morgan had approached Hotch that morning, saying that he was ready to accept his earlier offer if it was still on the table, Hotch had just nodded his head and handed him pre-signed paperwork.

In turn, Morgan understood that it wasn't that any of them thought that he was weak. All of their love and protectiveness was for Reid, and he was the closest they could get, now.

oOo

1 week 6 days 12 hours 5 minutes

"No cameras," Reid muttered, his fingers running along the painted walls. "No cameras, no microphones, no sens—"

"Spencer," Morgan interrupted. "This is safe."

"Not the bed," Reid said, eyeing it. "Bombs. Bombs in the mattress, I can hear it ticking. It isn't safe."

"Okay," Morgan agreed. "No mattress."

Reid stopped, his fingers splayed on the wall, a ghostly white in the darkness of the bedroom. He slowly turned, falling back against the wall, and he closed his eyes as he slowly slid down to the floor. "They're coming. We're going to die, Derek."

"But that's okay," Morgan said gently, sitting down next to Reid and pulling him close.

Reid whimpered, moving, grabbing, trying desperately to get closer, but it wasn't going to work sitting up, so Morgan laid them down and allowed Reid to cling to him. He ran a hand through Reid's hair, taking in deep breaths.

"It's okay," he repeated in a whisper. "I'm right here. We'll die together."

As Reid tried desperately to choke back sobs, Morgan stared at the painted walls of his own bedroom and tried to stop thinking.

oOo

1 week 6 days 13 hours 2 minutes

"Under this nickname, W. Mark Felt leaked info to Woodward & Bernstein that toppled a president."

"Deep Throat," Reid muttered.

Morgan couldn't help but snort. "Makes you wonder how he got that info."

Reid frowned, concentrating on the show. Dr. Gurgis had suggested it, as trivia really was Reid's thing, and it would help to keep his brain pathways active at the same time.

"In 1996 this Russian chess champ bested an IBM computer in a 6-game tourney; in '97, Deep Blue returned the favor."

"Kasparov."

"Remember playing chess with Gideon?" Morgan asked. This was the second part of the idea—Reid might begin connecting trivia with memories. "You said he was the only person who'd ever beat you twice."

But Reid's entire attention was on Alex Trebek, who was already reading the next clue.

"On June 20, 1947, this gangster found out exactly how displeased Meyer Lansky was about the cost of the Flamingo Hotel."

"Turn it off," Reid whispered.

Morgan glanced over to him, and was startled to find Reid frantically searching for something, his eyes wide and his expression panicked.

"What's wrong?" he asked, trying to reach over and get a grip on Reid's wrist. "Spencer?"

Reid's head whipped around, staring at him with obvious terror. "Didn't you hear? They know I'm watching! I need the remote, I need to turn off the TV, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!"

"Okay," Morgan said quickly, standing up. He managed to cross over to the TV in two strides and punch the power button with his thumb before moving back to Reid, crouching in front of him. "Okay. Okay, it's off now. Tell me what's wrong."

"We've got to get out of here," Reid said frantically, trying to stand, but Morgan pulled him down before he was halfway up. "Let go of me! We've got to leave before they come!"

Dr. Gurgis had also told him to know when not to argue.

"All right," Morgan said calmly, rising. "Let's go. C'mon. Down to the car."

"No," Reid said, shaking his head. "No, not the car. Bombs."

"I know a safe place," Morgan told him, his mind racing.

"They won't find us there?" Reid asked, looking up to him with still-wide eyes. "You promise?"

"I promise."

oOo

2 weeks 1 day 6 hours 42 minutes

The door was unlocked. Morgan let himself in, glad that he wouldn't have to wake Reid up to let—

But this train of thought was cut off as he stepped in and saw Reid sitting on the couch, one of his enormous tomes open, his finger running down the page. He held another hand up, signaling that he would talk in a minute.

Morgan slipped off his shoes, setting his go-bag on the floor, and made his way over to where Reid was sitting.

"Did you really need to pick the lock?"

Picking locks again?

Morgan frowned down at him. "No. You left it unlocked."

Reid exhaled, running a hand through his hair. "You said you were coming over here when you got back."

"I did," Morgan agreed, sitting down next to him gingerly. Cautiously, he reached over and put his arm around Reid's shoulders.

Reid stiffened, but didn't move away.

"There's ticking," he muttered. "I can't tell whether things are moving forward or if it's counting down—but counting down to what? What's it counting down to? I keep wondering, why am I hearing this, and I don't know—I don't know."

"It's just a hallucination," Morgan reminded him softly, squeezing him a little. "Once those drugs start working, it'll go away."

"I don't think it will," Reid said, looking down at his hands. "I don't think it will."

"Hey," Morgan said, looking over at him. "Positive attitude."

"I need to read this," Reid suddenly decided, turning back to the book. "Go away."

Morgan blinked. "Wha—Reid?"

Angling his body away from Morgan, Reid went back to his enormous book, shrugging off Morgan's arm. "They said to pick one, I'm picking one, now go away."

"Can I help?" Morgan asked.

"Go away."

Morgan swallowed his frustration. "What are you trying to pick? A trial?"

"No!" Reid slammed the book shut, shoving it forward onto the coffee table and standing up. "No, that isn't it."

Morgan stood up, reaching out for him. "Hey—"

“I told you to leave,” Reid snapped, stepping away from him. “Don't you listen?”

Morgan raised his hands up. “Okay. Okay, Spencer, I'm sorry. Why don't you sit down and read? I'm sorry I interrupted.”

Reid eyed him suspiciously.

Morgan took a cautious step backward, keeping his hands in the air.

Reid continued to watch him for another thirty seconds, and then at last, he sat back down on the couch, pulling the massive book toward him. He curled up, opening the book to wherever he'd left off at, and then began running his finger down the page as he read.

Being as quiet as possible, Morgan grabbed his bag from by the door and made his way down to Reid's bedroom, pushing the door mostly shut behind him. Inside, he flopped down on the bed and let the rush of exhaustion carry him off to sleep.

oOo

2 weeks 2 days 17 hours 21 minutes

"Mama? It's Derek."

"Hey, baby."

"Hi."

"Is everything okay?"

Morgan sighed. "No. No, it's really not."

"What's wrong?"

"Mama... How did Grandpa J die?"

"Ah..." She sucked in a slow breath. "Well, he wasn't like Spencer—it didn't set in until he was in his early sixties. Two years after he was diagnosed, they found some spots on his liver, and... a month later, he was gone. It was very quick. Grandma always said she was grateful for it."

"Oh."

"Why?" she asked, sounding concerned.

Morgan swallowed. "Did he ever talk about... suicide?"

"Derek! What on earth is going on?"

"It's nothing."

"Derek," his mother warned.

He sighed. "Okay, it's not nothing. It's a lot. Just—when Spencer first told me that he had schizophrenia, he said that he didn't want to live like—like this, you know? Crazy. He said he'd rather be dead."

His mother said nothing.

"He said that he'd rather kill himself than live like that," Morgan said quietly, his eyes falling shut. "And I... I don't know what to do, now."

"I don't think he was thinking clearly, Derek," she said gently. "You said that he'd told you after he'd been having symptoms for a few months, right? People say things when they're scared and upset—I can't count the number of times Sarah told me she was going to break up with John, when they were dating in high school."

"He was a complete wreck that night," Morgan admitted, opening his eyes. "But you don't know him, Mama. He doesn't say things he doesn't mean. He barely has any idea who I am anymore, and just last week he brought it up again. I don't think this is something that he suddenly decided on that night."

"Isn't Spencer going to see a psychologist?"

"Yes. I talked to him about it, and he wasn't real helpful. Told me that I need to do what's best for him." Morgan exhaled, tilting his head back to stare up at the ceiling. "I don't know what to do."

"Do you want to know what I think?"

Morgan grinned faintly. "I know you're gonna tell me anyway."

"Baby, listen," she said, ignoring his attempt to lighten the situation. "Right now, I think you're under a lot of stress and a lot of pressure, and you just need to make it through these first few weeks. Your grandma said that they were the worst. She said that once they got the right dosage of medication down, things almost went back to normal for Grandpa J."

"Really?" Morgan asked, frowning.

"Yes," his mother said firmly. "And I know that if you stick it out, the medicine will start working and things will get better. Trust me."

"But..."

Morgan's protest died away as a hundred more rose up in his head. What if it didn't? The psychologist had said that it wasn't likely that medication was going to help Reid very much. And it had been Reid's wish. How was this any different from a living will? Reid had known what he'd wanted done if something like this were to happen, and he'd entrusted the task to him, Derek Morgan, taking it for granted that Morgan would go through with it. What if he—

He swallowed.

"I don't know. I don't—I mean, it was what he wanted. He trusted me to do this for him, and I feel like I'm letting him down, Mama."

"Do you remember Dinnie's son, Jack?"

Morgan frowned. "Jack? Yeah, I think so. Why?"

"When Dinnie was pregnant with Jack, you know what the doctors told her? They told her that her baby had Down's Syndrome. Craig—her husband Craig, he used to repair your bicycles all the time—he wanted her to have an abortion. The doctors wanted her to have an abortion. They gave her all these statistics about quality of life, and how much more expensive it would be to raise a Down's child—she's still got the pamphlets, if you want to see them—but anyway, she wouldn't hear of it. And you know what? Jack came out perfectly normal."

"Didn't his team win some Little League World Series?" Morgan asked, scouring his memory for more information. Jack had been ten years younger than him and he'd barely paid attention to him.

"Yes. But the point is, if Dinnie had chosen to have an abortion, she would have killed a perfectly healthy little boy. And all those people out there who did chose to have an abortion, you know that choice is going to haunt them for the rest of their lives, because there are false positives. There are false negatives."

"Spencer has schizophrenia," Morgan put in. "They've done all the tests that they can, checking for brain tumors and nerve damage and all these diseases—it's not a false positive."

"I know that," his mother said patiently. "But if you choose to let Spencer have his way now—maybe in two weeks, the medicine will start working and he'll be himself again. He could be fine for years and years. Could you live with yourself, knowing that you took that chance away?"

Morgan sighed, his heart sinking. "No."

"I'm sorry, baby," his mother said softly. "I'm so sorry. If I could make it better, I would, but this is life. You just have to be patient."

"He could go back to normal," Morgan said, images of Reid flying through his mind. "I can wait."

He'd wait forever, if it meant having him back.

oOo

2 weeks 5 days 23 hours 30 minutes

Morgan gritted his teeth. "Spencer, please get up. You have to take your pills."

Reid continued to stare up at the ceiling, reciting something silently to himself.

"Spencer. Look at me. Spencer."

Slowly, Reid's lips stopped moving and he turned to look at Morgan. "You're very annoying. Did you really need to pick the lock?"

Morgan frowned. "I've been here for two days."

"It wasn't you," Reid snapped. "It was the other one. You think I don't know?"

"It's been me this whole time," Morgan insisted. "I swear, it's only been me."

Reid's eyes narrowed. "They must be using you, then. They wouldn't do that if you'd just leave me alone."

Morgan exhaled slowly.

"I love you," he said, focusing as he remembered what he'd read. "I'm not going anywhere."

Reid studied him critically.

"I promise," Morgan told him, sitting down on the bed. "I'm right here. I just want you to be happy and safe, and to do that, I need you to take your pills."

"You saved my life." Reid frowned. "You put out the fire. I was burning and you put it out."

It took Morgan a moment.

"You're talking about that case three years ago? When the house was burning?"

"No," Reid said simply, turning his eyes up to the ceiling.

"What did you mean?"

Reid didn't answer.

Part Two

Fic: Blow Your Head Apart (9/9)

2009-09-10T04:28:25Z

Title: Blow Your Head Apart
Rating: R
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: Two weeks after Hankel, Hotch brings Reid back out onto the field on a consult. It doesn't go well.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: Posted tonight because ~~I want to sleep for an extra half hour tomorrow morning~~ I love you all so much. Plus, it's the last chapter and that's just exciting! Thanks to every single person who reviewed this story--I appreciate hearing all of your comments. It makes my day like you don't even know. Also, tune in for my next piece, a one-shot that will hopefully be post sometime in the next month or so--it's slowgoing.

.

Blow Your Head Apart

Chapter 9

Reid drove.

Morgan sat next to him, staring out the window silently.

Clooney slept in the back, thanks to a handful of Benadryl.

"Are you sure about this?" Reid asked tentatively, as he braked for a stoplight. "I can still... I know I didn't tell you about the Dilaudid. I don't even know where I'm going. And you're still not under arrest, you know, you could probably get your job—"

"Stop," Morgan said flatly, turning his gaze away from the window to look at him. "Look. Do you want me to come?"

"Of course!" Reid said immediately. "I mean, of course I do, but it's just—"

"This isn't a game of buts." Morgan's expression was nothing but serious. "I'm here. I'm going with you. Got it?"

Reid nodded timidly, avoiding Morgan's eyes.

Morgan exhaled. "What, do you want me to be pissed about the Dilaudid?"

"You're not?" Reid asked hesitantly.

Morgan shook his head. "No. I'm pretty fucking mad at Hankel, but not you."

Reid bit his lip, his eyes going back to the road as the light turned green.

"I didn't take any. I didn't. I wanted to, but I didn't."

There was a silence.

"I got rid of it," Morgan said finally. "So it's over, okay?"

Reid nodded, flicking on his turn signal.

"We're in Virginia now, right?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah." Reid pointed to the backpack that was sitting on the floor of the car, between Morgan's feet, without taking his eyes off the road. "It's in the front pocket."

Morgan bent down, and Reid heard the sound of the backpack unzipping, and then of paper shuffling, and then Morgan sat up.

"Find it?" he asked.

"Yeah."

Reid turned left, pushed down on the gas, and drove down the ramp of the highway, getting ready to merge into the nighttime traffic. Next to him, he heard Morgan punching in the number. He prepared to listen with half an ear, and focused on driving—as it was a Saturday night, traffic was slightly crazy with tourists. But for once, that actually worked to their advantage. More traffic and more tourists meant that they were less likely to get pulled over, and that their car was less likely to be traced via cell phone, when it was surrounded by so many other cars.

"Hey, baby girl," Morgan said softly.

They were almost sideswiped by a minivan. Reid switched lanes, even though he knew that statistically speaking, the amount of time that was saved by passing cars on the highway was almost always negligible.

“You got to the video footage at the bank okay?” Morgan paused, and then snorted. “No, I don't doubt you. I just want to be sure.”

Reid took that as a yes.

"Yeah, kind of,” Morgan said lightly. “Depends. You know."

A pause.

"It could be. It could be years, princess."

Reid pulled ahead of the minivan and then swung back into the other lane, letting off the gas as he adjusted the speed.

"We've got him—he'll be fine."

Clooney, probably.

"I'm gonna call them tomorrow, wherever we are."

Derek's mother and sisters?

Reid frowned, thinking that this was probably right.

"What do you mean, what about you?" Morgan asked, as though he couldn't believe she even had to ask such a question. "You, Penelope Garcia, are the most amazing woman I have ever met, and I love you. Got it? No other guys while I'm gone—you're my baby girl."

Reid stared pointedly at the road, determined to at least look like he couldn't hear the conversation.

Morgan laughed. "No, he's a guy, hot stuff, he's not my baby girl. Yeah—yeah, sure, he's my baby boy. I'm sure he's not the jealous—Garcia! No. No, the mental image is not appreciated. Ugh."

Restraining laughter, Reid bit down on his lip.

"All right, that's it. I'm cutting you off. What? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Here." Morgan, still grinning, held out the phone to Reid. "It's for you."

Reid took the phone, carefully keeping his eyes on the road and trying to ignore the statistics about cell phones and highways and dead bodies that were flying through his mind.

"Hello?"

"So Derek tells me you're a bossy bottom."

"Garcia!" Reid yelped, gripping the steering wheel more tightly. "I'm driving!"

She giggled. "So tense. Really, Spencer, you need to run away to the Bahamas or something."

"I don't mix well with sun."

"Hm..." Garcia said, apparently thinking about this. "Yeah, you would look weird with a tan. Never mind. How about one of those spa resorts up in Norway, then?"

"Maybe."

"No?" Garcia giggled. "Well, where are you going, then?"

"You'll tell us in a bit," Reid said cryptically, a grin tugging on the corners of his mouth.

"What? Me?"

"Trust me," Reid assured her. "You'll see."

"Ooo... kay," Garcia said slowly. "And I can call this number, right? And you guys will pick up?"

"Yeah. And, um, Garcia..." Reid hesitated.

Ahead of him, the car braked and he was quick to follow suit.

"What is it, sweetcheeks?"

Reid bit his lip. "My mom... There's another account that I use to pay for her hospitalization. If we, um, end up away for a long time... I mean, it's unlikely, but there is a chance, and I just... You know. I was wondering—"

"Absolutely," Garcia declared, cutting off his fragmented attempts at saying what he needed to.

Reid breathed a sigh of relief, feeling an immense weight lift from his chest. "Thank you. I just—I mean, I don't plan on—but..."

"Consider it taken care of."

"Thank you."

"And don't think I don't love you too," Garcia suddenly added, her tone threatening him with certain bodily harm should he deny this. "You're on my Christmas card list, buster.”

Reid vividly remembered the clouds of glitter that had nearly choked him to death last year, after he'd pulled her card out of the envelope too quickly.

"Yeah, I know."

"Okay."

He heard Garcia take in a shaky breath.

"It's, um—you know—we're not saying goodbye," Reid told her awkwardly. "I mean, we are, of course, but not forever. Just right now."

"Shut up," Garcia said in a strangled voice.

"She's crying," Reid hissed at Morgan, careful to angle the phone away from his mouth. "What do I do?"

"I'm not crying!" Garcia called. "I'm just—sniffling—dammit!"

Morgan took the phone.

"Hey—you're not crying, are you?"

Reid could hear Garcia's sullen "No" even over the noise of the highway.

"Well, if you were, I'd tell you that Reid's right—no, he's not always right, just most of the time—and I'm gonna see you again. I promise. Okay?"

A pause. Reid couldn't hear Garcia's response.

"Okay. Now get back to work, all right? We don't need you under arrest, too. Yeah. I love you too. Bye."

Morgan hung up the phone, exhaling.

Reid glanced at him nervously.

"Are you sure—"

"Reid, I swear to god, if you're gonna ask me if I want to stay behind again—"

"Okay, okay!" Reid said quickly. "Sorry."

It was silent for about five seconds, and then there was a strange grunting noise from the back.

"Clooney," Morgan muttered, when Reid glanced back. "He snores."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

oOo

The man's name was Eric Hymes. He had been a sophomore at Georgetown when he'd been drafted into the Vietnam War, and because of his PTSD, he'd been in and out of various hospitals over the last thirty years and had been unable to finish his education.

"They were supposed to protect me!" he screamed, slamming a hand down on the table. "I was a college student, I was supposed to be safe, dammit! It was Georgetown University, I had a scholarship—why didn't the fucking government just pick people from state schools? It was Georgetown. They should have done something. I heard they saved their students at Harvard, but not Georgetown, no. Were we not smart enough? Not valuable enough? Why didn't—"

MacConnell turned to Hotch.

"I think he's your guy," Hotch said dryly.

"One of them."

"Mr. Hymes has already said that he's never heard of Spencer Reid or Derek Morgan," Hotch countered evenly.

"He could by lying," MacConnell muttered, throwing Hymes a nasty glare.

"He admits to killing four people, but not to having help?" Hotch asked, raising an eyebrow.

"He's got nothing to lose. Why not?" MacConnell answered.

Hotch took in a deep breath, and quietly released it.

"I think that what we all need right now," he said, "is a good night's sleep. We have the unsub—let everyone go home and recuperate for a few hours, and then we can look at this with fresh eyes in the morning."

"A few hours to recuperate, or a few hours for you to come up with a plan to save your sorry ass?" MacConnell challenged. "Or, no, I know. A few hours so that you can go help Morgan and Reid sneak across the border into Canada, right? Here, go now, I'll even let you get a head start."

"Detective MacConnell, you are out of line."

"You have a conflict of interest and have yet to remove yourself or any of your agents from this case," MacConell fired back, her eyes flashing.

"I've already told you—if you think that any one of us are acting impartially, it is your responsibility to dismiss us," Hotch reminded her. "Let's let everyone rest for a few hours and deal with this in the morning."

MacConnell eyed him for a minute or so, and then at last growled, "Fine. Go get some sleep. But expect to wake up to a renewed arrest warrant for agent Morgan. We've got him on assaulting an officer, fleeing the scene of a crime, aiding and abetting and accessory to murder, now. It's almost as long as Reid's list."

She slammed the door behind her.

Behind Hotch, Gideon cleared his throat.

"That went well," he said, sounding almost amused.

Hotch shook his head, closing his eyes. "She'll gain some perspective after she's calmed down."

"I still don't think it would be smart for Morgan and Reid to be found right now," Gideon commented.

"With any luck," Hotch muttered, "they'll manage to stay off the radar until after Hymes is convicted and the public has settled down."

"Oh, I think they'll manage."

Even without turning around, Hotch knew that Gideon was smiling his strange little knowing smile.

Hotch decided that he didn't want to know.

oOo

Reid leaned out the window and grabbed the stub, handing it to Morgan as he rolled the window back up. Then he pulled forward, allowing the car behind them to take their ticket, and stared at the two ramps before them.

"Well, it's either north or west," Morgan offered. "Your head's not telling you anything?"

"North," Reid mumbled, staring at it.

Morgan frowned. "You have a headache? You okay to drive?"

"For now," Reid said, then sent Morgan a sidelong glance, suppressing the urge to ask Morgan if he was really, truly sure about this, just one more time.

"North it is, then," Morgan decided, shrugging.

Reid hesitated, then let his foot off the brake and started forward, going up the ramp that would take them north.

"Most people go to Vermont in the winter."

Garcia, in the middle of packing her bag to go home, looked up to find Gideon standing in the doorway.

"Vermont? No plans to go there. I like to eat popsicles, not become one."

Gideon smiled briefly.

Garcia frowned. "I was just going home. Should I stay? I can steal some No-Doze from security." She grimaced. "Again."

Silent, Gideon held up a finger.

"I have a cabin up there, in Vermont," he continued. "Everyone goes to Vermont for the skiing, and they miss out on the spring—the air up there is so crisp and clear, it's like an oxygen high. The forests are majestic, everything just coming into bloom, and there's a morning mist that hangs in the air for hours after the sun rises."

Garcia wondered where he was going with this. Her mind was already racing to come to one conclusion, but she didn't even dare to think of it.

"It's a lovely cabin. Plumbing, electricity, a full kitchen, security cameras..." Gideon raised his eyebrows. "There's a key to get in, hidden in a birdhouse near the door."

"Would this be where you flew back from last year, when all you guys went on vacation?" Garcia asked suspiciously. "Because I checked, and you don't have any properties in the woods. Or anywhere at all, except here in DC."

Gideon's expression gave away nothing as he pulled out hand-written directions.

"Tell them to watch the news," Gideon told her as Garcia took the piece of paper, wide-eyed. "Wait until the trial is over, until all the publicity has died down. Tell them we'll be waiting."

Garcia stared down at the directions in her hand.

You'll tell us in a bit.

"I—how—"

When she looked up, Gideon was gone.

fin

Fic: Blow Your Head Apart (8/9)

2009-09-07T05:55:03Z

Title: Blow Your Head Apart
Rating: R
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: Two weeks after Hankel, Hotch brings Reid back out onto the field on a consult. It doesn't go well.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: Posted tonight, because tomorrow morning is a hardcore study session--no room for distractions. Happy Labor Day, to all ye who hail from the US!

.

Blow Your Head Apart

Chapter 8

“Where is Spencer Reid?”

Morgan stared at the wall.

“Where is he headed?”

Again, Morgan said nothing.

MacConnell leaned over the table slightly, giving him a hard stare. “Who is his next victim?”

“He's innocent,” Morgan growled, his head snapping up to stare back at her.

“Then why did he run?”

Morgan swallowed, reigning in his temper and going back to the wall.

“Why did you go with him?” MacConnell pressed. “You're federal agents, you know how the law works.”

Morgan stared fixedly at the green-painted cinder blocks.

“Why were you at Georgetown University last night?”

Morgan began counting in his head.

One.

Two.

Three.

Fo—

“How did you know that Freddy Salzman was going to be the next victim?”

Five.

Six.

“Agent Morgan!” MacConnell barked.

Morgan gritted his teeth.

Leaning forward, MacConnell spoke to him in a low voice. “I don't have time for staring games—I have a killer on the loose and people are dying. Give me the answers I need, or when I find Reid—because I will find him—so help me god, I will make him wish he were dead.”

Morgan swallowed.

“He's pretty, you know,” MacConnell said, voice still soft and low. “Pretty is bad, in prison.”

Oh, fuck.

He inhaled, trying to stow his rising panic at the thoughts her words were bringing to mind.

“You'll be fine, I'm sure, but Reid barely passed his academy training, so my guess is that a lifetime sentence won't bode too well for him.”

It was pounding in his chest, in his veins, burning through him like fire, and his hands balled up into fists.

“What do you think?”

His nails were digging into his palms.

One.

Two.

Thr—

“Think he'll last?”

He snapped.

“Leave him the hell out of this,” he snarled. “He isn't any of your fucking business!”

MacConnell raised an eyebrow, a smile playing on her lips, and Morgan sat back in his chair, breathing hard and hating himself for falling into her trap.

Dammit.

“That's right.” Her tone was nothing short of amused. “He's your 'fucking business', isn't he? So to speak.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

MacConnell smirked. “I think you know.”

“Fuck you,” Morgan spat.

MacConnell opened her mouth, a gleeful look on her face, when a cold voice stopped her.

“Detective MacConnell.”

They both turned to stare at Hotch, who was standing in the doorway.

“Can I help you?” MacConnell asked tightly.

“I'm stepping in as his lawyer,” Hotch told her, voice still cold. “And this interrogation is over.”

“If you step in as his lawyer, you'll have to remove yourself from the case. It's a conflict of interest,” MacConnell reminded him pointedly.

“I'm aware. Agent Gideon is more than capable of taking over.”

MacConnell's eyes went from Hotch to Morgan, her expression nothing short of furious, and then in one movement she snatched her files up from the table, stood up, and walked swiftly towards the exit, pausing only to mutter something to Hotch. She slammed the door behind her.

The room was silent. Hotch's quiet footsteps over to the table were barely audible.

Morgan eyed him warily.

“Good cop bad cop routine?”

Hotch glanced at him. “No.”

Suddenly getting the sense that he was in a whole shitload of trouble, Morgan looked down to the table. He swallowed, staring down at the grain, and then felt a sudden steeling of resolve and muttered, “I'm not gonna apologize.”

“All I want is information,” Hotch replied coolly. There was a scraping sound as he pulled the chair back. “I pulled myself off the case to help you, and you had damn well better make it worth my time.”

It was Chicago all over again.

Slowly, Morgan lifted his head to meet Hotch's eyes.

“Reid didn't do anything. He's innocent.”

“Where is he?”

“I don't know.”

Hotch's gaze was unrelenting. “We have attorney-client privilege. Whatever you say right now is off record. Where is he?”

“I don't know,” Morgan repeated. “We were in the subway station and one moment he was there, and the next, he was gone. He didn't even leave the backpack.”

"Backpack?" Hotch asked, frowning.

“It had all the money in it—his clothes... I don't know what he's gonna do. It's gotta be dark out by now.”

“How much money does he have?” Hotch asked.

Morgan shrugged. “I didn't count it.”

“So where would he go?” Hotch asked.

“Hell if I know. He didn't say anything about...” Morgan shook his head. “I don't know. I don't know what the hell he was thinking.”

Hotch raised his eyebrows. “So you just decided to turn yourself in?”

“You said I wasn't under arrest for anything,” Morgan said, shrugging. “I could have either searched on my own or searched with you guys. I picked the one more likely to find him.”

“But you knew that they could hold you for 24 hours,” Hotch pointed out.

“What was I supposed to do? You guys put a target on my back—I would have gotten caught anyway!”

“I'm not accusing, I'm just asking,” Hotch said neutrally. “It's my job to ask. What happened the night you and Reid disappeared?”

Morgan inhaled.

This was where things got tricky.

“I noticed Reid was acting weird after you two came back from that consult so I went over to his apartment later that night. He was about to run out the door—he was all packed and everything—said that the cops were going after him. There was no way in hell I was letting him go alone, so I went with him.”

“You didn't try to talk him out of it?”

Morgan shook his head. “At that point, I was thinking of Reid's mother having schizophrenia. Paranoid delusions, you know. I didn't want Reid running around the city completely whacked.”

“And then you went to the motel?” Hotch prompted.

“Yeah,” Morgan confirmed. “You've got the footage, you know we didn't leave until later that evening.”

Which made him realize what question was coming next, and in a desperate move to avoid it, he blurted out the first question that he thought of.

“How did you know?”

Hotch frowned. “Know about what?”

“About me and Reid,” Morgan said. “MacConnell said—how did you find out?”

Hotch's expression made it clear that he knew exactly what Morgan was attempting to avoid, and that they would be discussing it at some point in the near future.

“The DCPD interviewed Reid's neighbors.” His tone was not approving, but it wasn't accusatory either. “There was also... evidence in the motel room.”

Oh, hell.

Talk about embarrassing.

Morgan had been hoping for something more along the lines of, “I knew all along” or “We didn't know, actually, but you just confirmed it” but instead he was sitting here, discussing his sex life with his boss.

Brilliant.

“Right,” he said, just to say something.

Hotch gave him an unreadable look.

“Do you have a problem with it?” Morgan ventured.

“Considering the position that you and Reid have put yourselves in, I hardly think that's relevant,” Hotch said, in that same neutral tone.

Morgan winced. It was true—if this went down the wrong way, his relationship with Reid would be the first on a long list of many things that would become irrelevant.

“So,” Hotch said, leaning forward slightly. “Tell me how you knew about Freddy Salzman.”

oOo

On his way back from a briefing with some of the DC police force, Gideon had just finished talking to MacConnell, who had called to inform him that Hotch had stepped in as Morgan's lawyer and therefore the responsibility of leading the case now fell on him. He snapped his cell phone shut, sighed, and went to slip it back into his pocket when it suddenly went off again, and he quickly opened it and brought it back up to his ear.

“Gideon,” he answered.

“Oh, thank god, this is the eighth time I've been transferred,” a woman sighed.

Gideon frowned and stopped walking. “Who is this?”

“Sorry—my name is Rachel Wu. I'm filling in for Marcia Litchner today, on the tip lines.”

“Yes?” Gideon prompted, when she didn't continue.

“We just received an anonymous tip that the killer will be taking another professor tonight.”

Gideon started walking again, going as fast as he could without breaking into a jog. “That's all he said?”

“He described it,” Rachel told him, her tone conveying that he'd done this in a very weird way. “It's... Well, here, let me send it to your phone. Can you give me your number?”

Stopping, Gideon relayed his number to her and then hung up. He looked around him, and then realized that he needed to go down and tell Hotch. Morgan's lawyer or not, this was big enough to break protocol over.

As he turned and pushed open a door to a stairwell, his phone vibrated, letting him know that he'd received Rachel's recording.

Seconds later, Reid's voice was playing in his ear, terrified and shaky.

“I—there's another professor that's going to be taken tonight. His name is Jeremy, he has his own office in the English wing, and the unsub—the killer—the GU serial killer, he's going to take him tonight at nine. You've got to tell Agent Hotchner or Agent Gideon. And tell them to bring Morgan. Please. He just—he doesn't have to go in with them, he can sit in the patrol car, whatever. Just bring him.”

“Sir, how do you know this?”

There was rapid, shallow breathing, and then a click.

“Sir? Sir! Shit—Rachel!”

The recording ended and Gideon pushed open the door that led out of the stairwell, striding down the hallway and almost bowling a few people over. Reid had said nine o'clock and it was almost seven-thirty now, which only gave them an hour and a half to get together a team and get over to Georgetown.

Dammit.

His eyes scanned the numbers on the interrogation areas, passing twenty, eighteen, sixteen, fourteen—

Twelve.

He pushed the door open, coming into the outside room, and he barely spared the window a glance before he pushed open the door to the interrogation room.

“I can't do anything if you won't talk to me.”

Morgan was staring stonily at the wall behind Hotch.

“We keep coming back to this, Derek. You'll answer everything but the very question that's holding you here and—”

“Aaron.”

They both turned to look at him, surprised.

Hotch sighed, looking frustrated. “I told MacConnell to tell you that—”

“She called me,” Gideon interrupted. “I know. But you need to hear this.”

He held out his cell phone, and Hotch took it, a frown on his face. His eyes went to Morgan for a moment, and then he pressed play and listened.

The room was perfectly silent.

So perfectly silent, in fact, that the edge of Reid's voice was audible and Morgan heard it.

“That's Reid,” he stated, looking up at Gideon with wide eyes. “I can hear him, Gideon, that's Reid. Why is he on the phone?”

“It's a recording.”

“Of what?” Morgan pressed. “Who was he calling? Did he call you? There's another professor about to go missing, isn't there?”

“Yes,” Hotch confirmed, snapping the phone shut. “There is.”

“Let me go.” Morgan's eyes went from Gideon to Hotch. “Let me go with you.”

“You're under twenty-four hour hold,” Hotch reminded him.

“Screw the twenty-four hour hold. Let me go with you,” Morgan argued. “I can help.”

Hotch stared at him impassively.

"Reid wants you there," Gideon told him.

Hotch's gaze snapped up to Gideon, and although his face was impassive, Gideon knew him well enough to know that he was not happy that they were giving Morgan this information.

"Any idea why?" Gideon continued, temporarily disregarding Hotch.

Morgan shook his head, looking bewildered.

"Uh... No. Not really." Morgan hesitated. "But—but could I? I just... Afterwards, I just want to see that he's okay, you know?"

Gideon glanced at Hotch, this time seeking his opinion.

"MacConnell will have my ass," Hotch shrugged.

She's been up our asses for the last three days, Gideon wanted to point out, but instead he turned to Morgan and said, "You can stay in the car. If Reid is there and if we get him, you two can talk before we Mirandize him, so it'll be off-record. All right?"

Morgan nodded. "All right."

oOo

Reid was not at Georgetown. At least, he wasn't in the building that Jeremy—the targeted victim for tonight—worked in. Hotch wasn't really surprised, because Reid would have to have known that half the DCPD would be on Georgetown's campus tonight, but he'd still been mildly hopeful that this chase would finally come to an end. He was tired of fighting MacConnell, tired of guessing, and tired of treating Reid like the suspect that Hotch knew he wasn't. All he wanted was Reid back, safe and sound—even if it meant in a jail cell—and some answers. Morgan was flat-out refusing to tell him how they'd known about Freddy, and how Reid had known about Wendell still remained a mystery as well.

If MacConnell hadn't appeared at Georgetown two minutes after he had, demanding all the answers that Hotch wanted himself, he would have worried that in his absence she'd gone back to harassing Morgan. Or tried to, anyway, and then called up Hotch, madder than a swatted hornet upon discovering that Morgan was no longer in the interrogation room.

It wasn't that Hotch didn't like her, or understand her position. She was under a great deal of pressure, and had this been a normal case he'd have probably been a whole lot more sympathetic to the position she was in, but even he couldn't help but be a little emotionally compromised when one of his agents was the prime suspect.

As it was, he still hadn't told her that Morgan was sitting in a squad car in handcuffs, under the guard of a police officer, a hundred feet away in the parking lot.

"This is covert!" MacConnell barked, directing men around. "That means when I walk down this hallway, I don't see your boots, I don't see the plant leaves rustling, and if you've got a cough you'd damn well better learn to stop breathing."

Jeremy Adams, the young professor of African American literature, was now en route to a police station along with his wife and twin daughters. The plan was to get the unsub into Jeremy's office, where Hotch, Gideon and MacConnell would be waiting for him—the problem was getting him all the way into the office without him realizing that it was a trap.

"Quarter to nine," Gideon announced quietly.

Hotch's radio crackled. "Perimeter established."

"Stay in position," MacConnell ordered, coming back to Hotch, apparently done directing her men. Clipping her radio back to her belt, she swallowed and then spoke to Hotch in a more normal tone. "I think we're ready. Fifteen minutes to go."

Hotch nodded. He glanced around the office, then reached over and started turning down the picture frames.

"What are you doing?" MacConnell asked curiously.

"In case he has a gun," Hotch responded, turning down the last frame.

"You really don't think that Reid is setting a trap?" MacConnell asked dubiously.

"I don't." Hotch sat down behind the desk. "I believe you said that you were going to cover him from behind, detective?"

MacConnell nodded, turning to leave the room with her hand on her gun, when she stopped and pulled out her cell phone.

"Dammit, Richard, I said not to call me until—"

She went silent.

Hotch watched her intently, Gideon alongside him, waiting to hear what was going on. Uneasily, he wondered if something had happened to Jeremy Adams or his family, but told himself that they were safe. They were with at least two cops, and probably at the station right now. Maybe it was about Reid.

MacConnell swore loudly.

"You're kidding—oh, fuck... Fuck. Get two more units over there immediately—what? Oh, dammit, of course there aren't any... I'll just send two over from here."

Hotch's radio crackled again. "Man entering building. Roughly six feet, appears to be unarmed."

MacConnell closed the phone with a snap and spun around furiously.

"Your agent," she hissed, "has just withdrawn all of his money from his accounts—from a bank in Columbia Heights. That's an hour away from here on foot! And our night patrols are skeleton crews right now because they're all here. The little fucker planned this, I told you it was a trap!"

"Detective—"

"Oh, don't you even start," MacConnell snapped, jabbing a finger in Hotch's direction. "Your agent's gone, Hotchner. Spencer Reid just signed his own death warrant. I don't want to hear anything in his defense right now."

"Suspect engaging in assault, possible officer down!"

Their eyes met simultaneously, widening.

A gunshot rang out.

Hotch was out of the office in seconds, MacConnell and Gideon hot on his heels, and ran down the hallway, pulling out his gun as he went. Something was crackling on his radio, but he didn't have time to stop and listen to what they were saying. He cursed himself for putting himself so far away from the entry, for thinking that an ex-military man wouldn't notice a trap—dammit, dammit, dammit.

He burst into the main entryway, coming to a stop when he saw the man from the video, their unsub, backed into a corner by three cops with their guns raised, and an officer lying on the ground a few feet away, unmoving.

The entire room was silent and still, as though everything had frozen, and the only one moving was the unsub.

He sat with his hands over his ears, rocking back and forth, whimpering to himself, oblivious.

Hotch slowly lowered his gun and tried to make sense of what had happened, taking in the situation around him.

"What happened?" MacConnell barked, striding past him.

The spell seemed to be broken amongst the three cops, and two of them immediately went forward, one pulling out a pair of handcuffs and both keeping their guns raised. The other—Wally Krupke, Hotch recognized—slowly turned around, his eyes going to the fallen officer.

"Don't touch him," Hotch ordered, just before the cop handcuffed the unsub. "Don't move him. Just leave him alone."

The man nodded, backing away, and his partner followed suit a moment later.

Gideon led Krupke down to the ground, where he sat down. Hard.

"What happened?" Gideon asked gently.

Krupke blinked, and then slowly shook his head. "I don't know. One moment, he was just walking through, and the next thing you know Murph's on the ground and there's this sick—this horrible, horrible cracking noise and he ain't moving and we're moving in. Charlie went to shoot him, but he missed and you know, when the gun went off, he just... He went all like that. And now Murph's dead. Jesus."

Gideon glanced up at Hotch, from where he was crouched next to Krupke.

"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," he murmured, glancing at the unsub again, who appeared to be off in his own world still. "Shell shock."

"Morgan and Reid were right about him being a war veteran, then," Hotch agreed quietly, nodding.

They shared a knowing glance together, for a moment, and then Gideon turned back to Krupke and started talking to him in a low, soothing tone.

Hotch looked around for MacConnell, wanting to let her know what they were dealing with, when Emily burst through the doors.

She skidded to a stop and looked around in confusion, clearly out of breath.

"I heard gun shots," she panted, catching sight of Hotch and Gideon, and then her eyes found the unsub and they widened. "What happened? Is that the unsub? Where's Reid? I thought he was supposed to be here."

"Reid didn't—"

"Agent Hotchner," MacConnell interrupted, marching up to him. "Why aren't we moving this man?"

"Hang on," Hotch muttered to Emily, then turned to MacConnell. "He has shell shock, and we don't know how he'll react."

MacConnell raised her eyebrows. "Shell shock? Didn't he shoot his victims?"

"Yes, but in that case, he was the one with the gun," Hotch reminded her.

She didn't look entirely satisfied, but apparently decided to let it go for the time being, because she left him alone and turned and busied herself with a passing cop.

Deciding that it was as much as he was going to get right now, Hotch went back to Emily.

"Sorry about that—yes, we're pretty sure this is our unsub, and no, Reid didn't show up. He went to a bank in Columbia Heights and withdrew all his money. Can you tell the officer sitting down with Morgan to take him back to the precinct?"

Emily nodded, holstering her gun. "Yeah."

Hotch watched her take a few steps back, pulling out her radio, and then he turned to the two officers who were still standing around the unsub, watching him rock back and forth with wary expressions on their faces.

"Has he said anything?" Hotch asked.

"No," one of them said, and the other shook his head.

Hotch nodded. "All right. When he snaps out of it, I want to know—don't touch him."

His gaze lingered on the man sitting on the ground, whose name and history was still unknown. Hotch wondered which war he'd been in—he looked just old enough to have been in the Vietnam War, but there had been a dozen wars since then, including the Gulf War and the current wars that the US was waging in Iraq and Afghanistan. At what point had he gone from a soldier to a serial killer?

"Aaron."

Hotch looked down to Gideon, who was still crouched with Krupke.

"I'm going to work on Reid. I'll see you back at the station," Gideon said, standing up.

"Good luck," Hotch said dryly.

Gideon nodded, smirking slightly, and then he walked off, leaving Hotch alone again.

Around him, police were moving about. He could easily see that MacConnell hadn't been exaggerating about her night patrol being on skeleton crew right now, given the number of cops here. It was almost excessive. But on the other hand, they had caught their guy—sirens were blaring in the distance, probably bringing an ambulance, an ME, and a crew of CSIs.

MacConnell appeared again, glanced down at the unsub, and then unceremoniously announced, "Agent Reid was right."

Hotch raised an eyebrow.

"They found a car out in the parking lot. Blood on the carpeting in the trunk, and a gun that matches the make and model of the last three killings. I'm not saying the son of a bitch isn't framing this guy, but for the moment, he's right."

"Who's the car registered to?" Hotch asked.

MacConnell shook her head. "I don't know yet. It should be coming up in a minute or two."

"Are you going to release Jeremy Adams and his family?"

"I'm going to send an officer home with them. Just in case."

Hotch nodded in approval.

"Let me know when the—"

"Hotch!"

Hotch's head snapped over to the doors, which Emily had just come running through.

"Morgan's gone," Emily said breathlessly, coming to a stop in front of Hotch and MacConnell.

"Morgan?" MacConnell repeated. "Agent Morgan?"

Emily nodded, closing her eyes as she worked on getting her breathing under control. "I tried to get in contact with the officer he was with, but—but there was no answer. I ran out to the parking lot. Morgan's gone. The officer that was with him is unconscious."

Hotch felt something very heavy land in the pit of his stomach.

Son of a bitch.

"Why was he here?" MacConnell asked slowly, turning to look at Hotch. "He was under a twenty-four hold. He should be back at the station—why the hell did you bring him here?"

"Reid instructed us to," Hotch sighed.

"And you always acquiesce to the demands of a serial killer?"

"We saw no harm in it, at the time," Hotch answered, internally wincing. He knew that there was nothing he could say right now that would make this situation better—they'd messed up. He shouldn't have trusted Morgan, especially not after Chicago, and especially not when it was his own job on the line.

MacConnell let out a bark of laughter.

"You still think they're innocent, now? Huh? They planned this—your goddamned agents are guilty, and you couldn't keep yourself objective enough to see it, and now we've got jackshit on this investigation!"

"You have your serial killer," Hotch reminded her, keeping his tone calm. "That's the crucial thing here—your people are safe."

"Fuck you," MacConnell spat, and stormed off.

Hotch watched her walk away, pinching the bridge of his nose in attempt to fend off his oncoming headache.

"Um, sir?"

He suddenly remembered that Emily was still standing there.

"Get in touch with Garcia," he told her, opening his eyes. "Get her on the video footage in the parking lot, and have her look into what happened at the bank in Columbia Heights."

The sirens cut off as they arrived, and then there were the sounds of car doors slamming and feet pounding on the ground as even more people arrived at the scene.

oOo

Tapping away frantically at the keyboard, not even breaking to take a sip of the coffee that she was desperately craving right now, Garcia sat in her chair. Her shoulders were tense, hunched, and adrenaline was shooting through her system as she got closer and closer to finishing. She was so close to being done—so close, so close, so close—and she'd done it absolutely flawlessly. The FBI had recruited her because she'd messed up, but now she was smarter and her guns were bigger and better than last time, and she wouldn't get caught.

Normally, she'd be a nervous wreck. But right now, running on this little sleep and this much coffee, it was kind of like autopilot-Garcia.

"Gotta do this more often," she muttered, typing out a few more sequences of code, compiling a quick logarithm in her head, then closing up her tags and—pausing for a quick inhale—hitting enter.

The terminal blanked, went white, and then shot off into its program.

She grinned.

The phone rang and she jumped a mile, almost spilling her coffee.

"Dammit," she muttered, grabbing the phone. "Penelope Garcia."

"Hey," Emily greeted.

Not who she'd been hoping for, but Emily was okay, too.

Garcia managed to sum up some bounciness.

"Hey there!"

"You don't sound like you've slept," Emily observed, sounding amused.

"I tried adding a twenty-fifth hour to the day once," Garcia said seriously. "Strangely enough, NASA didn't appreciate it."

Emily laughed. "Was that before or after the BAU?"

"Week before they hired me, actually," Garcia told her brightly. "So. What can I do for you tonight, my lovely?"

"Reid withdrew all his money from the bank."

Garcia felt a sudden rush of nervousness.

Hacking, yes. Lying, no.

"Yeah, the alarm we had on his account went berserk," she said, trying to keep her voice calm. "I assumed DCPD, being police and everything, had jumped on it with their mad policing skillz."

"Not really," Emily snorted. "Most of them were here at Georgetown, they didn't catch him. And Morgan's gone, too—he ran. Can you get video footage from the parking lot and the bank?"

"Oh, yeah," Garcia said with a smirk, sitting back in her chair, and then she remembered that that was the wrong answer, and quickly wiped the smirk off of her face. "But, um, you know. Not legally. Get me access from DCPD and I'm your girl. Legal girl. That's me!"

"Comin' right up," Emily promised. There was a click, and she was gone.

Garcia sighed, hung up the phone, then sat back and stared at her monitors. The program had finished. It was finished.

"Fly, my pretties," she murmured, clicking out of the terminal. "Fly, fly, fly..."

Fic: Blow Your Head Apart (7/9)

2009-09-03T14:25:40Z

Blow Your Head Apart

Chapter 7

Hotch pushed open the door to Garcia's bunker and strode in. Garcia, seated in front of her multiple monitors as usual, spun around to face him.

“I've got it!” she sang, practically bouncing up and down in her chair. “I got it, I got it, I got it!”

“Something off the GU security cameras?” Hotch asked, stopping just short of her chair.

“You betcha,” Garcia confirmed happily, swiveling back around and punching a sequence of keys on her keyboard. “Here. Watch this.”

A video popped up on the left screen. The angle was from a building along a street, and both part of the street and the sidewalk were visible—as were the two figures that came walking into the shot. One appeared to be holding the other up, and for a moment, Hotch thought that it was Morgan and Reid, but then the image sharpened and one of the faces became visible, revealing itself to be Freddy Salzman. The other—the unsub, presumably—was slowly moving him along.

Reid entered the picture, coming out onto the sidewalk.

Hotch bent over, squinting at the image.

The unsub stopped, there was a pause, and then he jumped at Reid a split second before another figure sprang out from behind Reid, and they went down in a tangle of bodies. The second figure rolled off, and in the moment of stillness Hotch identified it as Morgan. Morgan immediately dove back into the fight, wrestled the unsub off of Reid, tussled with him for about ten seconds, until the unsub did something that made Morgan go limp, and then sprang up.

Meanwhile, Salzman had been taking small, careful steps away from the scene, but apparently Morgan had been right about the broken leg, because he wasn't getting very far. The unsub grabbed onto him as soon as he left Morgan, and steered the man away, out of the view of the camera.

Morgan and Reid lay on the ground, motionless, for a good thirty seconds, before Morgan sat up, went still, and then slowly turned his head to look at Reid. There was apparently conversation, and Morgan reached out to touch Reid but Reid smacked him away, then pushed himself away from Morgan. Moments later, Morgan rose up into a crouch, and they stood up together, walking away unsteadily.

The video paused, and Hotch looked over to Garcia.

“Proof,” Garcia declared, “that Reid is innocent.”

“Can you identify the victim as Freddy Salzman?” Hotch asked.

Garcia winced, some of her bounciness fading. “Is that the guy they found this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, I can do that. I'll work on getting a decent image of the unsub, too...” She frowned, then brightened. “You want me to wire the video to DCPD? That would totally make my day, you have no idea.”

Hotch's cell phone rang.

“Send it to them,” he ordered as he pulled his cell phone out, straightening. “Hotchner.”

“We've got a tip on Reid. He and Morgan were at a diner a few blocks from the motel, ran out when the owner recognized them.”

"They got away?" Hotch asked, then frowned at his own phrasing.

"Yeah. By the time we got there, they were long gone. We're taking eyewitness accounts now."

"Get me copies," Hotch ordered, and hung up.

oOo

Reid stopped outside the bar, eying it dubiously.

“I don't think that alcohol is really what we need right now.”

Morgan pulled him forward. “It's not for the alcohol. We're hiding.”

“We're hiding out in a bar?” Reid asked incredulously. “You're kidding, right?”

“Trust me,” Morgan promised, stopping to look back at him. “A bar is the best place to go to hide from the cops.”

“But—but there's a television,” Reid protested, trying uselessly to pull out of Morgan's grasp.

“And it's also dark.” Morgan pushed the door open. “Come on. Have a little faith, pretty boy.”

Still uneasy, Reid allowed himself to be pulled into the dark, smoky bar. His eyes immediately went to the two men sitting up at the counter, but neither one of them even looked up at their entrance. The bartender's eyes flicked over to them for all of a second, but his expression remained passive and he didn't dive for the telephone—despite the fact that the news was on the television, flashing with updates on the GU serial killer.

“I'm gonna go get something to drink,” Morgan muttered, dropping Reid's hand. “Get a table.”

Reid wanted to point out that he was the one with the money, and also that he didn't think alcohol and his precognition thing—not to mention, the Dilaudid thing—would mix too well, but instead glanced around at the five or so tables that were scattered around the room. He picked the one farthest from the pool table and sat down, wincing slightly as his back came into contact with something sticky.

Morgan had been right about one thing—it was dark in here. The windows were boarded up and the lights were dim and yellowed with smoke—and one of them was going to go out in about five minutes. In fact, the only decent light source in the place was the television, which luckily had closed captioning on it. Reid read what was being said as he waited for Morgan to get back.

Again, investigators have confirmed that this latest murder—Freddy Salzman, a professor of mythology at Georgetown University—is connected to the string of GU murders that have been occurring over these last two weeks. He was taken last night, but our sources tell us that as the professor lived alone and had no classes today, no one noticed his disappearance until it was too—

“Here you go,” Morgan said, sliding a drink across the table. He sat down, holding a mug of beer himself.

Reid eyed it. “I'm not really in the mood.”

But Morgan shook his head, setting his mug down. “No, you don't actually drink it—just pretend to take a sip every so often so that they don't kick you out.”

Oh.

Obligingly, Reid lifted his glass and pretended to take a sip.

Morgan grinned at him. “By the end of this, we'll be able to send you in undercover, kid—Reid. Sorry.”

Reid winced.

“You can call me kid,” he said awkwardly. “When I said that—I didn't mean...”

“Yeah, well, it makes me feel like a pedophile."

“Oh yeah...” Reid wrinkled his nose. “All right. I guess you'll have to come up with something new, then.”

“How about pookie bear?” Morgan suggested.

Reid's eyes widened.

“That's a joke, right?”

Morgan's grin widened. “Angel? Dumpling? What about love muffin?”

“Morgan!” Reid hissed furiously.

“Cutie patootie?”

“My name is just fine!”

Morgan laughed softly. "Okay, okay. Just your name."

Reid glared at him, and then took another pretend sip of his beer. He set it back down after a second or so and his eyes went back to the television, but it was only playing a commercial for Tylenol.

“The professor—the one from last night—his name was Freddy Salzman,” Reid said finally, turning his gaze back to Morgan.

“Yeah?” Morgan asked.

Reid nodded, his eyes going down to the table. Above him, the light went out.

Without warning, there was a sharp flash of pain in his head and he shut his eyes, his hands reflexively gripping the edge of the table. Sharp, stabbing pain, down to the center of his skull, making him grit his teeth and swallow down the nausea that was drilling into the bottom of his stomach.

"Reid?" Morgan asked.

"Wait," Reid gasped, trying to get control over his breathing. Blood vessels exploded inside his head.

"Are you having another one of your... things?"

"New suspect." Reid did not let go of the table. "Won't find a match. Phone call, Hotch, you—you—"

He choked, gagging and gasping, and let go of the table, doubling over. His hands were pushing on his skull, trying to press the pain out as it continued to come, clawing its way into his mind and ripping it to shreds. He felt hands on his shoulders—Morgan, that was probably Morgan—but his mind was spinning and his brain throbbed. He gritted his teeth, trying simultaneously to ignore his brain and process everything that was coming in, but then thankfully, it began to subside.

Letting his hands fall, Reid took in unsteady breaths of air.

"He just choked on his drink for a minute," he heard Morgan saying. "He'll be fine."

Getting a handle on himself, he looked up and saw Morgan crouched in front of him, studying him with dark eyes. Irritation rose up almost immediately, hot and prickly, but he pushed it away and met Morgan's gaze.

"What?" Morgan asked cautiously.

"I—I don't know how it's going to end." The pain continued to fade, leaving him with an empty feeling, despite all of the knowledge that was now swimming around in his head. "I don't know. But there's two ways we can do it."

"Do what?"

Reid swallowed. "Do you think that if we let ourselves get caught, we'd come out okay?"

"Okay?" Morgan repeated.

Behind him, on the television, was a blown up, grainy black and white image of the unsub—the real unsub—and below it was the same tip line number that had been below their photos earlier today. The closed captioning covered it up a moment later, detailing that the suspect was white, about six feet tall two hundred fifty pounds, and may have a history with the military.

There was a snort from one of the men up at the bar.

“Fucktards can't get anything right. Jesus.”

“You're telling me. Another refill, Paul...”

"What do you mean, okay?" Morgan asked, drawing Reid's attention away from the bar.

"Okay," he said. "Not in prison, with our jobs back. You think Hotch can do that?"

"I don't know," Morgan said. He moved back to his chair. "Why? Is there another option?"

Reid hesitated, and then nodded.

"Tell me."

oOo

At six foot four, MacConnell towered over most everyone at the BAU, including Hotch.

“Our tech analyst has also confirmed that agents Morgan and Reid did not leave their motel room last night,” Hotch told her calmly. “They were inside throughout the night and did not check out until after the body of Freddy Salzman had been found.”

Beside him, Gideon was examining the preliminary forensics reports from the motel room that Morgan and Reid had been staying in.

“No,” MacConnell countered, “she confirmed that they didn't leave through the front door.”

Hotch raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to ask if she was suggesting that Morgan and Reid had axed their way through the back wall, killed Freddy Salzman, and then spent the rest of the night doing repairs so that it would be impossible for the police to discover their exit, when Gideon spoke up with a less sarcastic presentation of this idea.

“According to this report, there are no exits from the room other than the front door,” he pointed out. “Also, they found evidence that would suggest that agents and Reid and Morgan were otherwise occupied last night. I understand that this is embarrassing for the police department, but you can't continue wasting resources on innocent men when the real killer is out there, preparing to take his next victim.”

“I'll use my resources however I deem,” MacConnell shot back, giving him a nasty glare.

"How do you propose they got Freddy's body to where it was discovered this morning?" Hotch asked. "They have no access to a car, so they would have had to carry his dead body eight miles, and they weren't gone long enough to have accomplished that."

"They're not innocent," MacConnell said flatly.

“Detective MacConnell,” Hotch started, sitting up in his chair, “you cannot sit here and refuse to take the evidence into account.”

“I am taking the evidence into account,” MacConnell informed him testily. “Like the fact that twice now, Spencer Reid has known where and when attacks will take place. Like the fact that he withdrew two thousand dollars from the bank an hour before we even put in for his arrest warrant. And the fact that he's currently on the run and obstructing a federal investigation. Maybe he didn't kill Freddy Salzman, but he's got something to do with it and I'm not about to let him get away with it.”

“There are people dying. Your main concern here should be the unsub.”

“Who we have absolutely nothing on? Or should we focus on the lead that we do have, and see if it brings us to the killer?” MacConnell challenged. “I put the photo out to the press. There's nothing more I can do.”

“Release the profile that we gave you,” Hotch pressed. “You cannot—”

“Agent Hotchner,” MacConnell interrupted. “You don't get to tell me how to run my investigation.”

Hotch stared back at her. “Detective MacConnell. You invited the FBI into your investigation. It is my job to put the good of the public above the lives of my agents. If you think that I or anyone on my team is losing objectivity on this case, you are welcome to ask us to leave, but until you make that call I can and will do everything in my power to make sure that you catch this serial killer. That includes disagreeing with you.”

MacConnell's eyes flashed, but she said nothing.

Hotch stared back steadily, refusing to look away.

The room was perfectly silent for an eternal ten seconds, until Gideon cleared his throat and closed the file, setting it on the table.

“Detective?” he inquired softly.

“I'll release the profile,” MacConnell said at last, dropping her gaze.

Gideon nodded. “Good. Please keep us—”

He stopped when Hotch's cell phone rang. As Hotch pulled his phone out of his pocket, MacConnell took back the file folder containing the preliminary forensic findings, and bent over to put it back in her messenger bag.

“Hotch,” he answered.

“It's Morgan.”

Hotch sat up straight in his chair, his eyes immediately going to Gideon.

“What?” MacConnell demanded, but Gideon held up a hand to silence her.

“Hi, Morgan."

MacConnell's eyes widened.

Next to him, Gideon pulled out his cell phone.

“Have you seen the news?” Hotch prompted, when Morgan said nothing in reply.

“Yeah. Did they rescind the arrest warrant for us yet?”

“There never was one for you,” Hotch told him. “But no, they're still looking for Reid.”

“Penelope?” he heard Gideon say softly. “Gideon. Morgan's calling Hotch, I need you to trace him. Cell phone. Thanks.”

“Reid's innocent,” Morgan said, and there was a hard edge in his voice. “He didn't do anything.”

“Then he shouldn't have run.”

Hotch felt around the keypad with his thumb, and switched it to speaker phone a moment later, bringing it away from his ear.

“Yeah, we've been over that,” Morgan muttered, in a tone that suggested they'd been over it many times.

When Morgan said nothing more on the subject, Hotch quickly pushed on, trying to keep him on the line long enough for Garcia to get a trace.

“We saw you and Reid trying to save Freddy Salzman last night.”

“Yeah. Did you notice the unsub's tactics?”

Hotch paused, frowning. “No. The angle and the quality of the footage weren't conducive to it. What about it?”

“He's ex-military,” Morgan told him. “Reid and I figured that he was probably a foot soldier during the Vietnam War. So he went Georgetown, but got drafted and had to drop out—explains the military background and the grudge against the educational system.”

“I'll tell Garcia,” Hotch promised.

“You mean she's not here right now?” Morgan asked.

“Right here, sugar,” Garcia suddenly piped up, surprising Hotch. “And you are going to be in so much trouble when we find you.”

“Love you,” Morgan said sweetly.

“No you don't, you love—”

There was a click.

“He hung up,” Garcia announced, unnecessarily.

“Did you get a location?”

“Did I get a location, he asks! Really, now, I'm insulted...”

Hotch rolled his eyes.

oOo

Reid watched Morgan hang up the pay phone, gripping the straps of the backpack and rocking back and forth on his heels slightly.

“All right,” Morgan said, turning around to face him. “He knows. And Garcia got our location.”

"Good."

Morgan studied him. "You're sure about this?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure," Reid said quickly, shaking his head a little. "Just..."

"Trust," Morgan told him.

Reid smiled weakly. "Trust. Right."

He turned, intending to start off, but Morgan grabbed his hand and pulled him back.

"I have to go," Reid hissed, his eyes darting around the street nervously.

"Reid—Reid, look at me."

Inhaling and pushing down his jitters, Reid focused on Morgan.

"This is going to work," Morgan told him, his voice sure and steady. "It will. Okay?"

Morgan had that look in his eyes—the hesitant, searching, somewhat-not-quite-almost resolved look in his eyes that meant that he was going to lean in for a kiss in a matter of seconds—and Reid got his hand up just in time.

"Wait," he said, suddenly making his decision and plunging a hand into his pocket.

"What?"

Reid pulled the vial of Dilaudid out of his pocket, then pressed it into Morgan's hand as he brought their mouths together, ensuring that Morgan wouldn't look down.

"Destroy it," he whispered, as they broke apart. "Please. I can't—just get rid of it."

Morgan was frowning at him in confusion. He glanced down at his palm, and Reid, unwilling to see Morgan's expression when he realized what it was, turned on one heel and walked away. It was three long steps, and then he was going down the stone steps that brought him into the subway station, where he would take a train far, far away from this area. Morgan would stand by the payphone, waiting for the cops to come and get him.

It was all part of the plan.

Next

Fic: Blow Your Head Apart (6/9)

2009-08-31T12:23:37Z

Blow Your Head Apart
Chapter 6

As soon as the door slammed shut behind him, Reid gripped the edges of the sink, staring down at the cracked porcelain bowl beneath him and trying to control his breathing. He didn't dare look into the mirror.

He didn't need to. He knew exactly what he would see.

So who's the sex toy now?

This is about you and the way you've been acting ever since Hankel took you.

I don't even recognize you anymore.

No, Reid didn't have to look up. He knew the face that would be staring at him in the mirror, the stranger that had been greeting him every morning in the bathroom for the last two weeks, with waxen skin, sunken cheeks and dark, bruised eyes. It was no wonder everyone was on eggshells around him—he looked as bad as he had the night that he'd come back from Hankel, and just as wasted and hollow as he always felt nowadays. However, he had a one-up on Morgan, because he knew why he was slowly transforming into this shell of who he'd used to be.

The Dilaudid.

On the other side of the door, he heard the television come on and almost immediately recognized which commercial was playing. It was one of those never-ending Life Alert commercials, the one that started with the old man in the electric wheelchair. The sad part was, Reid knew for a fact that two weeks ago, there was no way he would have recognized the commercial.

His headache—his ever-present headache—throbbed fiercely. Closing his eyes and not letting go of the sink, he gritted his teeth. The pounding pain spiked. He sucked in a breath, gripping the sink even tighter, and then slowly blew the air out as the pain faded.

Morgan would shut off the TV in about thirty seconds. A few minutes after that, the toilet in the room above him would be flushing.

Precognition was not, contrary to how it was typically portrayed in the media, always relevant.

As the pain in his head continued to lessen, he pried his fingers off of the sink and opened his eyes, studiously avoiding looking in the mirror. The Dilaudid in his pocket seemed to weigh about ten times heavier, and the fact that there was only one vial left weighed even more heavily on his mind. If this one broke, then there was a strong chance that he'd never get his hands on another vial of Dilaudid again. He could either take the last of it and relieve the ache for a few hours, or he could get rid of it and never feel the relief again.

He knew that it would fade with time. It had to. But right now, it was killing him to carry it around, day in and day out. Something had to be done.

He could use it the next time he was having one of his attacks, of course, but strangely, it seemed to be getting better. The last one hadn't been so bad, and now that his headache had faded, it had actually faded away to almost nothing. It was a barely-noticeable tension behind his eyes. He could almost forget about it completely, if he wasn't thinking about it, and that was a blessing right there. Of course, the headaches hadn't been this bad when he'd been a child, and he had already formulated a few theories about why that had been, but if they were getting less painful now, that meant that his—

The television went silent, as Reid had known that it would, which meant that Morgan was probably going to get up and talk to him soon.

Exhaling, Reid fell back against the bathroom door. Directly across from him was the shower, and it occurred to him that he definitely needed to do that before he went out in public smelling like sex. Because he'd had to go and mess everything up last night. Part of him wanted to blame this on Morgan for taking advantage of him in a moment of weakness, but he couldn't—he had been perfectly capable of saying no, and he hadn't.

Behind him, there was a knock on the door.

"Reid?"

Taking in a deep breath, not moving from his position against the door, he replied.

"Yeah. Here."

The door vibrated ever so slightly as something—most likely, Morgan's fists—landed against it.

"Look..."

Reid closed his eyes.

“Kid, I just—fuck.” A pause. “Fuck.”

“Morgan, you don't have to—”

“No,” Morgan interrupted. “No, I need to say this. Reid, I don't—I forget sometimes, that you're an adult. You know I've got problems with trust stuff, and I can be... overprotective. But you're twenty-six years old, and you're not stupid. I know that if you were really having a problem, you'd come to Hotch. Or Gideon. Or me. Or—dammit, I'm sorry, Reid. I trust you. Okay?”

The Dilaudid in Reid's pocket had turned to lead.

That trust was so unwarranted, Morgan would have been better off telling the bedspread that he trusted it.

“Reid?”

Reid swallowed.

Hard.

“Still here.”

“You know what else?” Morgan asked, his voice gaining strength. “I think that if we tried, we'd be a fucking awesome couple.”

Reid opened his eyes, trying to ignore the thick guilt that was building up in his chest.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He bit his lip, his hand fluttering over the Dilaudid in his pocket for a split second, before he pushed himself off of the door. Moments later, he was face to face with Morgan and still biting down on his lip.

“What do you say?” Morgan asked, his grin hesitant and slight.

Reid shrugged one shoulder, his eyes going down to the floor. “You know I'm no good at this stuff.”

“Well, good,” Morgan said decisively. “We can take turns.”

Reid grinned, meeting Morgan's eyes.

“Okay?” Morgan asked.

“Okay,” Reid said, nodding. “Yeah—I mean, I don't—I just—yeah.”

“Me first.”

Morgan took a step forward and put his hands on Reid's shoulders, bringing them closer together, and leaned down, clearly going for a kiss, when Reid put a hand on Morgan's chest and gently pushed him back.

“What?” Morgan asked, frowning at the hand on his chest.

“Not while the toilet's flushing,” Reid muttered, and a second later the sound of a toilet flushing came from above.

“Show off,” Morgan accused.

Reid grinned, and as the toilet above them had gone silent, he let his hand drop, allowing Morgan to lean in again..

Out of nowhere, his headache flared sharply, and Reid would have fallen to his knees if Morgan hadn't caught him.

“Reid! Shit, not again...”

oOo

Hotch strode into her bunker, still talking on his cell phone.

“Yes—yes, of course. Gideon and Emily are over at the other crime scene, but they can—okay. Okay, just keep me updated. Thank you, detective.”

Garcia paused her footage as he hung up, spinning her chair around so that she was facing him.

“Good morning!” she greeted pertly.

Hotch raised an eyebrow. “Yes. Good morning.”

“What happened?” Garcia asked, her smile dying a little.

“We put up a tip line for Morgan and Reid,” Hotch sighed, putting his cell phone back in his pocket. “Someone dialed in with the motel they were staying at, but by the time we got there, they were gone. They're wiring over the surveillance footage from the hallway outside their room and the parking lot, in a bit.”

“Oh,” Garcia said. Her smile died a little more.

“Do you have anything for me?” Hotch asked.

Garcia took in a big breath, pushing her grin back on her face. “Working on it, sir! I'm still making my way through the GU security cameras—I'm doing all the cameras and a ten minute time frame, which doesn't sound like a lot, but GU has over 400 security cameras on campus, so it's nucking futs. No joke. Even watching this stuff on super fast-forward is taking forever. And then if that didn't turn up anything, I was going to go back and widen the time frame by five minutes, just in case Morgan was off a bit, and go through it all again, but if you want me to process that motel footage instead I can pass all the other stuff off to some techie flunky dude. It's up to you!”

Hotch stared at her, his expression unreadable.

“Sir,” Garcia added quickly.

“When was the last time you slept?” Hotch finally asked.

“I'm good!” Garcia declared, sitting up straight in her chair. “I'm good! Staying awake is good! Coffee is good! Everything's good, good, good!”

Hotch opened his mouth, no doubt to disagree with every single one of these statements, when his cell phone rang and he had to pick it up.

“Hotchner.” He paused. “You're kidding.”

oOo

Reid drew little nonsensical figures on the table with his finger, not touching the plate of pancakes that had been placed in front of him.

“Tell me one more time?” Morgan asked, after swallowing a large bite of hashbrown.

With a sigh, Reid stopped finger-doodling and looked up. “The cops are coming to our motel. Or they were. They should be there right now, actually.”

“How did they find us?”

“I don't know.” Reid twisted his mouth as he tried to think about it, but he was coming up blank. “That's all I've got.”

Morgan shrugged and used his fork to cut off another overlarge bite of hashbrown. “You gonna eat?”

Reid gave it a glance. “I'm not hungry. Sorry.”

“Drink the orange juice,” Morgan ordered, pushing his untouched glass across the table.

Reid's first instinct was to tell Morgan to leave him alone, because he was twenty-six years old and was fully capable of taking care of himself, thank you very much, but he held himself back and put a damper on his annoyance. He had to be more patient. They were trying to do this... thing, now, and that meant that Morgan had a right to look after him.

So he picked up the glass and took a sip of orange juice.

It wasn't half bad.

“You still have a headache?” Morgan asked, as he set the cup down.

Reid inhaled, and glanced around the little diner. “The waitress is going to come with the check in a minute. The woman behind the counter is going to change the channel in about five minutes. And then about two minutes after that, five drunk teenagers are going to walk through the door and the manager is going to come out and yell at them.”

Morgan raised his eyebrows.

“It's not as bad as it usually is,” Reid admitted, lifting the glass to take another sip of orange juice.

“So you've really lived with this your whole life?”

Reid shook his head. “No. It just started after Hankel, and I had it for a few years years in high school and college. I think it's kind of like a self-defense mechanism, actually, because it's only developed after traumatic, life-threatening experiences.”

“You had traumatic, life-threatening experiences in high school?” Morgan asked, grinning.

“Kids tend to not have the best perspective on things,” Reid answered dryly.

“Not even you?”

Reid smiled wryly. “Not even me.”

“'scuse me,” the waitress interrupted, setting the check face-down on the table. “Can I get you gentlemen anything else?”

Morgan glanced at Reid, and he quickly shook his head.

“We're good, thanks,” he said, flashing her a grin, but as soon as she left, Morgan's attention went back to Reid. “So tell me more.”

Reid shrugged. “Well, it wasn't as painful in high school—I'd just get little headaches right before something big. Probably something to do with the fact that the brain is more versatile in youth. And it came in handy to know which street not to take on the way home, or what day to not stop at my locker before lunch. Freshman year at Cal-Tech was kind of the same way, until I got into the PhD program in my second year, and that's when everything tapered off. So... it went away.”

“But now it's back,” Morgan stated. He moved on to his sausage, cutting it into thirds. “Because of Hankel.”

“Right,” Reid sighed. He stared down at the glass of orange juice in front of him, wondering if he should take another drink of it. “The headaches were worse. The adult brain is less ready to adapt to changes, so it makes sense that it would be more painful now.”

“They were worse?”

“They're getting better.” Reid lifted the glass and put it to his lips, looking up at Morgan over the rim. “Kind of.”

Morgan nodded, chewing. "I noticed."

“I can control it, sometimes,” Reid offered, after he'd swallowed. “I got really good at it, when I was younger.”

“It'll come in handy at the BAU,” Morgan commented as he picked up the bill and looked at what they owed.

Reid frowned. “Morgan... I can't use it.”

Morgan looked up. “Could you not use it? Knowing how many lives you could save?"

“I don't—I mean, I did use it, with the Georgetown case, and look where it got us.” He gestured around the diner. “I can't just come out with a suspect without being able to back it up. Not to mention, if the government got wind of... me... I'd be gone in a second.”

Morgan's expression told him that this fact hadn't been lost on him, either.

“I know.” He sighed, closing his eyes and bringing a hand up to scrub his face. “How the hell are we even gonna get out of this mess?”

Reid shook his head, his eyes going down to the table. “They've got to catch the real unsub eventually.”

“Maybe—” Morgan stopped, and Reid looked up to see his expression.

It was torn.

Morgan inhaled, his eyes going down to his food. “Maybe you should just, you know, turn yourself in.”

Reid stared.

“They won't put an innocent man in prison,” Morgan added, looking up to meet his gaze. “You know they can't do that. They can do DNA testing, prove your innocence, and then they can stop wasting their time on us and work on finding the real killer.”

“They have probable cause,” Reid hissed. “Someone is going down for these murders, and if they can't find the real unsub, they'll be able to convict me in a matter of months.”

“Hotch would never let that happen,” Morgan insisted.

“You wanna take that chance?” Reid challenged. “Me in prison? I'm sure I'd survive. All I'd have to do is just lie down in my cell, spread my legs and wait for them to line up to fuck me.”

Morgan dropped his fork.

“Jesus,” he muttered, scrambling to pick it up. “Okay. Okay, the idea's out."

Letting out a breath he hadn't known that he'd been holding, Reid closed his eyes and let himself feel relief at the fact that he wasn't going to have to—to...

Thank god.

He opened his eyes just in time to see a woman lean over the counter to change the channel of the TV over by the register, and an image of a crime scene, yellow tape wrapped around trees in a makeshift kind of fence, was barely visible past a huge crowd of reporters and cops and CSIs. The camera zoomed out slightly, and then swiveled and focused on a news correspondent.

The woman turned up the volume of the television, and Reid could just barely hear what she was saying.

"The body has yet to be identified, but as you can see, a large crowd has gathered in the park, awaiting news. Investigators have declined to say whether this killing is related to the recent spree of Georgetown University killings. However, we expect to get some answers soon. If we move over here, we can—”

“What?” Morgan asked, turning around in his seat.

He froze, staring at the image on the screen.

The news correspondent carried on, unaware. “—and if this is another Georgetown murder, this will bring the number of dead professors now up to four. From the crowd gathered here, it seems to be the popular assumption, and I'm telling you, even if this murder is unrelated, the pressure on the DC police department to catch this killer is mounting. For those of you who didn't catch our morning broadcast, here's an update—the police are looking for two suspects, named Derek Morgan and Spencer Reid, and they've opened a tip line for you to call if you spot either one of these men.”

Side-by-side, color photos of them filled the entire screen.

Reid felt ill.

Morgan turned around and met his eyes.

“We need to go,” he murmured.

Reid already had the money down on the table and was pushing back his chair, grabbing his backpack.

“—both of these men are extremely dangerous and should not be approached on the streets. Again, the number is—”

They were almost to the door when it was thrown open, and the five drunk teenagers Reid had mentioned earlier stumbled in, laughing and shouting. Reid took a step back as they spilled into the diner, one of them almost running into him.

“No, no, no, I'm sorry,” an older man—the manager of the diner, Reid knew instantly and inexplicably—said loudly as he came out from the kitchen. “You need to leave right now.”

“Fuck, man, ain't it a free country?” one of them muttered.

Another dug out a fistful of bills. “Just some waffles. Real quick.”

“Out,” the manager said sternly, pointing to the door. “Right now, or I'm going to call the...”

His eyes were suddenly darting between where Reid and Morgan stood and the television screen, which was still showing their pictures and the tip line number below it.

“Fuck me, dude, it's those serial killer dudes!” the girl with green hair shouted, pointing at them. “Holy shit! That's fuckin' awesome!”

“Run,” Morgan muttered, pushing one of the kids out of the way as he bolted for the door.

Reid didn't need to be told twice.

oOo

Emily ducked under the yellow caution tape, and as she straightened, she brought her hands up to her face to shield herself from the barrage of reporters and civilians that immediately surrounded her. Ignoring the demanding questions that were being thrown at her, she pushed and elbowed her way through the crowd. A few feet away, Gideon was going by practically unnoticed, and Emily wondered if it was because he had some skill that let him not exude the presence of an FBI agent, or if it was because he was a man and was therefore, stereotypically, considered less likely to talk.

The world was just generally unfair, and never in her favor, she mentally grumbled as she ducked underneath a hulking camera. They never would have dared to attack Morgan or Hotch like this (although Reid, she thought with a little smirk, they probably would have kidnapped and carried away to a secret news correspondent hideaway).

As she finally emerged from the crowd, only tailed by one particularly insistent reporter, Emily found Gideon waiting for her.

A glare from Gideon, and the reporter shrank back into the crowd.

“Thanks,” she said as they started walking towards the car.

“I think sometimes we forget that the media have a purpose,” Gideon replied, his tone thoughtful.

Emily wanted to make a smart remark about what that purpose usually was, but instead she went back to the case before her mouth got her in trouble.

“So that's four professors dead,” she commented, as the path turned uphill.

“The number of days between victims hasn't changed, which means that the killer isn't devolving.” Gideon glanced at her, as though he was waiting for her to say something.

“Well, uh, it doesn't necessarily mean that,” Emily tried.

Gideon looked pleased; in a Gideon kind of way.

“What else could it mean?”

Emily's mind raced.

“That, uh, the unsub could have already devolved?” she suggested.

“But there's no evidence of torture or a change in the MO,” Gideon reminded her.

“No physical evidence,” Emily quickly countered.

Gideon nodded in approval. “Call Hotch.”

Emily quickly pulled out her cell phone and punched her number two speed dial.

The phone scarcely rang once before Hotch picked up.

“Hotchner.”

“It's Emily,” she greeted. “Gideon and I are finished with the crime scene—it's another Georgetown professor. Freddy Salzman.”

“Was there anything different? Anything to suggest devolution?” Hotch asked.

“No,” Emily answered, shaking her head. “It's just the same as the others. I—Gideon and I, we think that there might be some psychological torture going on. Also, the killings could be opportunistic, if he has a steady job.”

“How far away is the crime scene from DC?”

“Twenty minutes, driving,” Emily estimated. “It would take a good two hours to walk, at least, and that's a long time to lug a body—you're thinking that the unsub has a car?”

“I want you and Gideon back here as soon as possible,” Hotch ordered, and hung up.

Frowning, Emily snapped her phone shut and slipped it back in her pocket.

“Now that we've cleared that up...” she muttered under her breath.

“Here,” Gideon said, startling her.

He was holding out the keys. With no small amount of surprise, Emily suddenly realized that they were at the car.

“You're driving,” Gideon elaborated, when Emily continued to stare at him in confusion.

“I am?” she asked, before she could stop herself. “I mean, I am! Awesome. Thank you.”

She'd only driven once or twice in her months at the BAU, and never, ever when Gideon was in the car. Was this a test of some sort?

It was driving. How could driving be a test?

She glanced at Gideon, who was climbing into the passenger seat, and felt a sudden rush of nervousness.

It was definitely a test.

Shit..

Fic: The Power of Teamwork

2009-08-31T01:51:57Z

Title: The Power of Teamwork
Rating: G
Pairing: Gen
Summary: The Amazing Phlegm Girl, Captain Hotch, spandex... You know you wanna read it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: Fic!prompting with sandersyager a few nights ago turned out this piece of cracky awesomeness. Features the team... in spandex. And some capes. Hell to the yes.

.

The Power of Teamwork

“Look at them,” Derek muttered, glaring. “Disgusting.”

Emily sneezed, opened her mouth to answer, then sneezed twice more. “Yeah,” she agreed thicky, wiping her nose on her cape. “Di'gustig.”

“Says the Amazing Phlegm Girl,” Spencer muttered.

Dave ran a hand through his hair, staring at the media-dubbed 'Golden Couple' as they continued to pose in front of the still-burning building. “It really isn't fair. They didn't have to blow up the whole building just to stop one robber.”

Spencer tugged on his spandex sleeve, kicking the pavement. “Sorry, guys,” he mumbled. “I'm working on it.”

“It's okay,” Derek said, slinging an arm around Spencer's shoulders. “We can't all be crazy-awesome psychics.”

“Look at her!” Spencer said miserably, gesturing at JJ, who was forcibly turning Captain Aaron in the other direction so that they were back to back for another photograph. “She picks up cell phones. All I get are CB radios.”

“Could be worse,” Dave offered, gesturing down at his platform boots, heavy jewelry and white suit, which sparkled in the night. “What good's the power of disco in stopping a bank robbery?”

“You wud dat dadce codtest last bonth,” Emily said. She reached for another tissue. “We god duh tiggets.”

Derek grinned. “That concert was pretty awesome.”

“Except when they kicked us out because someone couldn't keep his shirt on,” Spencer said, eying Derek pointedly.

“Hey!” Derek protested. “Some chick pulled it off of me before I could stop her.”

Dave sniffed the air. “Speaking of which...”

Sighing, Derek pulled out another stick of deodorant, and Dave, Emily and Spencer all dutily closed their eyes and held their breath as he reapplied.

“Done,” he announced, capping it.

“How did you get both the power of seduction and the power of BO again?” Dave asked, raising an eyebrow.

“His mother worked two jobs,” Spencer answered brightly.

Derek scowled. “I was a hybrid. Back when they were testing out hybrid kids. You should see my sister.”

“Pedelope?” Emily asked, before she launched into another sneezing fit. Dave pulled out a tissue and held it out to her. “Thangs.”

“Pen, yeah,” Derek said, nodding. “She speaks in rhyme all the time, except it's always in Flemish, so none of us usually know what she's saying.”

“Leds go hobe,” Emily said, sniffling. “By allergies are baking be biserable oud here.”

“I want to watch,” Dave argued, looking back at the Golden Couple, who were now nuzzling each other. “Your allergies make you miserable everywhere.”

“What's there to watch?” Derek asked. Dressed only in his spandex pants, he was the coldest of the lot. “Just the two media whores sucking up all the attention, as usual.”

“Statistically speaking, the average lifespan of a media-celebrity relationship is about eight months,” Spencer told him. “Captain Aaron and JJ have only been popular for about five months—although their approval ratings have been abnormally high for a superhero team that has been in the public eye for this long, and I suspect—”

“Dude,” Derek interrupted. “Are you sure you don't actually have the power of, like, Google or something?”

“I think he does,” Dave agreed, eying Spencer. “He knows everything. Is there a power of everything?”

“Not yet,” Spencer answered promptly. “Although, actually, recent scientific research has shown that it isn't entirely out of the question for humans to be born with three, or even four powers with the help of artificial sequencing.”

“Spencer...”

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Cad we go dow?” Emily asked, pulling out another tissue.

“I want to stay,” Dave insisted.

“Why?” Derek demanded, throwing his arms up.

“Derek!”

“Dowd! Pud 'em dowd!”

“Jesus H. Christ on a crutch!”

“Sorry,” Derek muttered, bringing his arms down.

Emily, still struggling to breathe, staggered away, coughing up more mucus than usual into her cape.

“I want to stay,” Dave said stubbornly. “Something else could happen.”

“There are approximately two bank robberies every five minutes in the United States,” Spencer said helpfully.

Derek scowled.

“Anything going on with the CB?” Dave asked.

Spencer shook his head. “Just some truckers talking about the traffic jam on 57th. Something about Osama bin Laden, too.”

Three heads snapped up to stare at him.

“Osama bin Laden?” Derek repeated.

Spencer frowned. “Yes.”

Dave, Emily and Derek stared at each other with wide eyes.

“This could be it,” Dave whispered.

“Glory.”

“Power.”

“Headline news.”

“Late night TV!”

“Girls!”

“Boats!”

“Sex!”

“A decodgestant that fidally worgs!” Emily put in gleefully.

Dave and Derek exchanged a glance.

“Um, guys?” Spencer said hesitantly.

“C'mon,” Dave said, pulling a pick out of his back pocket and teasing his hair as he prepared to leave. “Quick, while Captain Aaron and JJ are busy with their photo opportunity!”

Emily nodded, blowing her nose one last time. “I'b ready!”

“Charge!” Derek cried, pointing down the street. He took off running a moment later, Emily and Dave hot on his heels.

Spencer stood there, blinking. In his head, the truckers continued to talk.

“What, are you recapping the whole skit?”

“YouTube it, man. SNL Osama.”

“You guys are sick.”

“Get a sense of humor, butthead.”

“Are we stilltalking about this?”

“C'mere and call me a butthead to my face.”

“He'd have to figure out which end was your face, first.”

“Anyone watch Letterman last night?”

Fic: Blow Your Head Apart (5/9)

2009-08-21T12:22:53Z

Blow Your Head Apart

Chapter 5

Garcia sighed mightily, staring at the map on her computer screen for another minute or so, and then reached for the phone.

“Hotchner.”

“It's Garcia.” She bit her lip. “Morgan just called.”

“You? On your cell phone?” Hotch asked sharply. In the background, she could hear papers rustling.

“No, he called my office line. I couldn't get a trace on where he was calling from—he didn't stay on long enough. So, uh, no dice,” Garcia lied, praying that Hotch was too busy to stop and listen to her tone of voice, because she was absolutely horrible at lying.

Hacking? Yes. Lying? No.

“What did he say?” Hotch pressed. "Did you record the conversation?”

Garcia slipped the post-it note with the traced address on it into her purse. “No. I completely freaked when I realized it was Morgan, and then I got so busy trying to trace him... I just forgot. Sorry. I'm not used to being called by the suspects—you guys usually do that, you know?”

“Well, why was he calling?” Hotch asked. He sounded frustrated.

“He had a description of the real unsub,” Garcia said, while replaying the conversation over in her mind. “Um, white, six feet tall, about two hundred fifty pounds, and a serious military background. And he's super good at martial arts. Oh! And he just took another professor.”

“How did he know this?” Hotch demanded.

“I asked, he didn't answer.”

Hotch exhaled. “Did he say anything else?”

“He implied that Reid might be hurt,” Garcia offered.

“Dammit,” Hotch muttered, and then took in a breath and audibly refocused. “Okay. Do we know anything about the professor that was taken?”

“He said it happened about twenty minutes ago, so maybe twenty-five minutes ago? And he said that the unsub broke the guy's leg,” Garcia added, with a wince. “I'm guessing that's where the good-at-martial-arts deduction comes from.”

“I'm going to get you access to Georgetown's security footage. I know it's tedious, but can you start going through it?”

Garcia was glad they were talking over the phone. She guessed that Hotch probably wouldn't appreciate her facial expression right now.

“Yeah,” she agreed grudgingly. “I can do that.”

“Thanks,” Hotch said, and there was a click as he hung up.

Garcia sat back in her chair, glaring at the monitor.

“You both are in so much trouble when this is all over...”

"Penelope Garcia?"

She almost jumped out of her chair.

"What?" she asked, spinning around in her chair so that she was facing the entrance to her bunker. "Oh, hi, officer. Coffee machine's that way, but Archives has got an espresso machine, if you ask real nicely."

The police officer smiled. "I'm afraid I'm not looking for coffee. My name is Wally Krupke—I'm here to ask you a few questions."

"Oh." Garcia swallowed nervously. "Um, okay."

oOo

In the solace of the bathroom, Reid fell back against the door, closing his eyes. He was still struggling to breathe a little and his head throbbed nastily in a way that had nothing to do with precognition and everything to do with the fact that his head had been slammed into concrete a half an hour ago and the subsequent knot that had formed in the back of his skull. He felt dizzy, and his entire body just hurt and really, what he wanted most of all right now was to crawl into bed and sleep forever.

Or to take some Dilaudid. That would be good, too.

He sunk down to his knees.

Opening his eyes, Reid slipped a shaking hand into his pocket felt the cool wetness, tiny shards, and the smooth roundness of the vial of Dilaudid that had survived the encounter with the unsub. Slowly, he closed his hand around it all and brought it out. He opened his palm and stared down at the contents.

Droplets of Dilaudid, clear and cold, were pooled in the wrinkles of the palm of his hand, running through his fingers and down to the floor.

Morgan had thought that it was blood.

And he wanted to lick it.

The thought shot through his mind and he pushed it out before it could even process, because he wasn't that far gone. He wasn't going to lick it. He was in control of himself, and he was stronger than this drug. He was Spencer Reid, the boy genius with an IQ of 187, three PhD's, and eidetic memory and the ability to read twenty thousand words per minute. He was stronger than the Dilaudid, and he would not lick it off of his hand.

Inhaling, using all the strength left in his body, he pushed himself away from the door and towards the toilet, careful not to clench his hand into a fist as he crawled because then the shards would cut into his hand and the Dilaudid would get in and that would be—

Bad. It would be bad.

But his mind was already alert to the possibility, and the more he tried to shun the idea the sharper the little shards in his hand seemed to become. Blood rushed to his head and his hand was literally shaking, his fingers twitching, almost spasming, and his endorphins were positively screaming for relief. His vision darkened. His muscles were weak and he felt out of breath, about to collapse. He put his head down on the rim of the toilet seat, counting.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Reid opened his eyes and with considerable effort, forced his palm to still.

He felt nauseous.

With a shaking hand, he plucked the still-intact vial of Dilaudid out from the mess of glass and wetness in his palm, and set it on the floor. He brought his hand above the trash can, inhaled, shut his eyes, and turned his hand—the shards of glass fell into the trash can with unceremonious little plinks, and when Reid opened his eyes, the only thing left on his palm was Dilaudid, running in little streams and dripping down into the trash.

Something powerful and hot surged through him.

Before he could properly think about it, Reid spun the dial in the shower and stuck his hand under the icy water that gushed from the spigot. He held it there, feeling the nerves in his hand scream in pain at the coldness of the water, and counted to three, then he pulled it out and turned off the dial with trembling, numb fingers. He stared at his hand.

It was impossible to tell if the cold liquid shining on his hand was Dilaudid or water.

But then again, it shouldn't matter. It didn't matter. The broken vial of Dilaudid was gone, and now he only had one left.

His eyes went down to the remaining bottle—all that he had left. He wouldn't let this one break. No, no, this one was going to be kept safe.

Promising himself this, Reid tucked the vial back in his pocket just as his head gave a particularly sharp throb—and not from the knot in the back of his skull. It was just behind his eyes, like a brain freeze or a hangover, and it was not going away, it was getting worse and worse by the second.

“Morgan?” he called in a shaky voice. “I need you.”

oOo

Morgan, still sitting on the bed and staring down at the phone he'd just hung up, snapped his head up at the sound of the voice.

“Morgan?” Reid's voice called, a little louder and more panicked.

Like a shot, Morgan was up off the bed and tearing over to the bathroom, pushing the door open so fast that he almost didn't catch it in time from smashing into Reid, who was knelt down on the ground, his face screwed up in an expression of pain and his hands grasping his skull.

"Fuck," Morgan muttered, crouching down. "Reid?"

"Uh huh," Reid said through gritted teeth.

Morgan looked him up and down, searching for some outward injury, something that he could touch and make better, but just like last time he couldn't see anything besides Reid in pain.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"Just—" Reid grunted, and Morgan could see his hands positively trembling as they strained to push into his brain. "Just—"

Morgan reached up and grabbed Reid's hands, pulling them away from his head before they did actual damage, and Reid gripped his hands so hard that it actually hurt. Gently, he pulled, and Reid's head tipped forward and landed on Morgan's shoulder.

"Breathe," Morgan murmured, while his mind raced as he tried to think of something to do. "Breathe, Reid, breathe."

“I don't—can't—I can't—” Reid was panting hard, clearly straining to talk. “They're gonna know. Cell phone.”

“What?” Morgan asked, trying to look down at Reid, but all he could see was Reid's neck.

Reid gripped his hands even tighter. “Cell phone. Gideon. Gideon, Gideon, Gideon, Gideon...”

He trailed off into incoherent mumbling, pressing his forehead down on Morgan's shoulder.

It was actually better than last time. The last time, Reid had been practically seizing with pain, had thrown up, and this time he was sitting up and talking, somewhat. Or maybe that was just how this worked? The pain levels varied?

Making a mental note to ask Reid about it, Morgan shifted and tried to wiggle his fingers a little bit, but Reid wasn't letting go. He'd stopped mumbling, and his entire body was clenched in pain, but he was still upright and that was something, at least. His breathing was shallow and quick. His hands were positively shaking, and quiet little noises were coming from the back of his throat.

Morgan exhaled, wishing now that his hands were free so that he could rub Reid's back or his shoulders or do something besides sitting here and feeling useless.

But then, to his surprise, Reid's grip on his hands suddenly loosened.

“Reid?” he asked tentatively.

Slowly but surely, Reid was relaxing. His breathing was slowing and his hands were slackening and his shoulders were slumped.

With obvious effort, Reid pushed himself up off of Morgan's shoulder. He sat up for about two seconds, eyes half-closed and vaguely crossed, and then his head rolled back and he collapsed onto the floor.

Morgan was over him in a second.

“Reid? Reid, c'mon... Say something, dammit.”

Reid took in several more deep breaths, and then he spoke, and his voice was hoarse. “You called Garcia.”

Morgan frowned, sitting back. “Yeah. So?”

“She'll get us next time. Not this time. She didn't tell Hotch this time.” Reid coughed. “If the cops find out, she's gonna go to prison.”

“The hell she will,” Morgan spat, sitting up.

“Just saying,” Reid mumbled.

“The hell she will,” Morgan repeated. “You're wrong. All the other stuff, whatever, fine, but she's not going to prison.”

“I said if. Are we fighting? I don't want to fight. Can we not fight? Just this once?”

Morgan opened his mouth to say that it was usually Reid who instigated all the fights in the first place, but figured that now probably wasn't the best time to bring up that argument. Reid looked for all the world utterly dead, and they weren't exactly getting along, it was better than the non-stop bickering that had been going on for the last few days. Weeks. Whatever.

“Yeah,” Morgan sighed, closing his eyes as he leaned back against the wall. “Yeah, we can do that.”

A sigh of relief from Reid.

The bathroom was quiet.

oOo

There was a shifting noise, and Reid cracked open his eyes—thankfully, his headache had faded enough that the light was only like an ice pick to his brain instead of a hot poker. On the other side of the little bathroom, Morgan was pushing himself away from the wall and towards Reid.

"What are you doing?" he asked, squinting in the light.

"Kid—"

Reid recoiled from the hand. "Don't!"

Morgan stopped, hand suspended in midair, and stared at him with obvious frustration. "You're shaking. You just had your head blown apart. Just let me—"

"No."

Morgan exhaled, and then took his hand back. He stared at Reid critically for a moment or so, and then shook his head. “Whatever, kid.”

“I'll be fine.” He swallowed, trying to get a grip on his trembling. “I'll be fine.”

"You know,” Morgan began, his tone conveying that this was something he'd been thinking about for a while, “ever since Hankel, you've been... You're moody. Withdrawn. You're not sleeping, you're not eating, and you won't let me touch you—”

“I told you, it's not all about you,” Reid muttered.

“You won't let anyone touch you—you haven't, ever since Hankel,” Morgan argued.

“I hugged JJ!” he protested. “And Garcia practically attacked me back at the hospital!”

“All women,” Morgan countered readily.

“And I hugged Hotch,” Reid added quickly.

But—wait, what?

His eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at?”

“Hotch is a father figure,” Morgan said, shaking his head. “C'mon, Reid, what's this the profile for?”

“I thought we weren't supposed to profile each other,” Reid said waspishly—and then it dawned on him, and the bottom of his stomach dropped out.

Morgan knew about the Dilaudid.

“I think this is an exception," Morgan said, and Reid came back into the conversation with a rising sense of panic.

"No, it's not," he insisted desperately, pushing himself up so that he was sitting against the bathtub. "It's none of your business. If I was having a problem, you know I'd go to Hotch, you know—"

"Of course you're having a problem," Morgan said exasperatedly. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

Reid's mind raced. "It's none of your—"

"Moodiness," Morgan said loudly, cutting Reid off. "Lack of appetite. Nightmares. Insomnia. Irrational fear of men. Put it together, Reid."

"I don't have a dr—"

He stopped. Fear of men?

"Wait," he said slowly, frowning. "You—you think that Hankel raped me?"

Morgan's expression didn't change. "The profile sure as hell fits."

He wasn't sure whether to be relieved that Morgan hadn't caught on to his problem with the Dilaudid, or to be properly furious with Morgan for thinking that he would be dumb enough to keep something like that to himself. Momentarily torn, he just sat there and stared at Morgan while his mind tried to function.

The bathroom was silent.

"Reid?" Morgan finally ventured. "Look, it's okay if—"

"He didn't rape me."

Morgan frowned. "Reid—"

"No!" Reid snapped. "He didn't rape me. I swear to you, he didn't."

Hankel had taken a lot of things from him, but he wasn't getting this one.

For a long moment, Morgan just stared at him. Slowly, he pushed himself away from the wall and onto his knees, so that he was kneeling next to Reid, and his hands hovered just above Reid's. He looked up, and their eyes locked. He was plainly seeking permission to touch.

Reid fought the urge to pull away.

Morgan, taking this as an okay, let his hands fall over Reid's, slowly grasping them. They were warm and solid and showed absolutely no interest in letting go.

"This is okay?" Morgan asked softly.

"It's fine."

It was fine. It was more than fine. The dizziness was still there, but something hot and pounding was sweeping over him and rushing through his veins, a reaction to Morgan's hands that was unlike anything he'd ever experienced before. His heart was beating faster and faster and a rush of blood to his head pushed his ever-present headache to some place where he didn't have to worry about it and oh god did that feel wonderful. It was the first time in two weeks that he wasn't struggling past the stabbing pain in his skull.

Morgan shifted and before Reid could think about it, he was moving with him until Morgan was fully on top of him, straddling him around the waist. His heart beat faster and his hands, still in Morgan's, grasped back and pulled Morgan closer.

Faces inches apart, they studied each other. Something in Reid's brain was screaming that he shouldn't be doing this and all sorts of nerve impulses were going to his muscles, trying to get him to wriggle free and run far, far away from here.

But he was frozen.

And frankly, he didn't really care. What wasn't screaming was rushing, spinning, pulling him down into a dark place that simply wanted touch. Taste. Love. Yearning was surging through him, taking him down with such force that he was certain that if he hadn't been frozen he would be trembling uncontrollably right now. He wanted.

He wanted.

More powerful than a craving for the Dilaudid was this rushing in his ears, this pounding in his chest, the complete and utter need to surrender everything.

“This is okay?” Morgan whispered.

“Not quite,” he managed, and then he broke free and brought his head up, sealing the deal with his lips.

oOo

There was knock at the door of her bunker, and Garcia tapped a key that paused the video playing on her screen, then spun around in her chair.

“Who dares to request access to my domain?”

The door opened, and JJ's head poked in. “Hi.”

“Do you come bearing gifts?” Garcia asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I have coffee,” JJ offered.

“Enter,” Garcia commanded at once, and JJ came all the way in, giggling. “And what the hell are you doing here at two in the morning?"

JJ grimaced. "I'm here to act as a base if the DCPD come up with anything."

“Ouch." Garcia gratefully accepted the mug of coffee that JJ handed her. "I'm here watching security footage. Hours and hours of security footage. Like, there's that white line hypnosis that truckers get? And then there's empty street hypnosis, which is what you get after watching four hours of security footage with no one on it. I have to keep pinching myself."

"Want some help?" JJ offered. "You're looking for the unsub and the professor, right? Why aren't some flunky cops doing this?"

"JJ, these are my babies. I can sacrifice a little sleep for them."

"True," JJ agreed, sitting down on the edge of the desk, holding the mug with two hands.

Garcia turned back to her monitors, pressing play on the video before her.

"Did they interview you?" JJ asked.

Nodding, Garcia lifted the coffee mug for another drink. "Yep. Officer Krupke; who did not take kindly to my West Side Story references."

"So you, uh, know about Morgan and Reid?" JJ asked hesitantly.

"Yeah." Garcia blinked as the footage came to an end, and she Alt-F4'd out of it and opened up the next segment. "I guess Emily was right, huh?"

JJ frowned at her. "You okay?"

Garcia shrugged a shoulder, pausing the video and looking up to JJ. "Yeah. It's stupid. I just—you know, I know that Reid's all skittish and paranoid and stuff, but Morgan and I aren't like that. I guess I wish he would have told me, you know?"

"Men are idiots," JJ reminded her.

"Even the gay ones," Garcia sighed, going back to the current video.

JJ smiled, and took another sip of her coffee.

oOo

Morgan woke up naked, sticky and tangled up in Spencer Reid.

The last two times, he'd woken up alone—and both times, he'd stumbled into Reid's kitchen to find a fresh pot of coffee waiting for him and Reid sitting at the table, freshly showered and busily filling out the New York Times crossword puzzle at an inhuman rate. Now, though, Reid was snuggled up against him, looking perfectly content and peaceful and unlikely to wake up any time soon. It had just taken two serial killers and a freaky, supernatural power to get him here—and given that, Morgan planned on savoring every second of this moment.

So his decision to go with Reid had been impulsive. Stupid, even. Even if the real serial killer was caught and Reid found innocent, they could both go down for obstructing justice, upholding a federal investigation, aiding and abetting, and possibly even fleeing the scene of a crime. His whole career would be destroyed. He couldn't imagine facing his mother through a plexiglass window, or talking to her over a prison phone. He'd rather be dead.

Despite this, though, he couldn't bring himself to regret his actions. The simple fact of the matter was that there had been no other options. If he hadn't gone with Reid, he knew for a fact that Reid would have been caught by now, or worse, killed. He'd have made the same choice a hundred times over.

There was, of course, the possibility that Hotch could pull some strings, work the system and maybe just get them off with some heavy fines and a note on their files, but it was pretty slim. He didn't want to put all that on Hotch, and even if they got magically cleared for everything, would Hotch still want them back? They'd shot off in the middle of the night, they hadn't notified the proper authorities like they should have and instead tried to take on the unsub themselves, letting him take another victim—and not to mention, they were goddamn fugitives of the law...

How would they ever explain it all? He knew perfectly well why Reid had kept his precognition thing a secret for so long—he had no doubt that the moment the government got wind of something like this, they'd wake up the next day to find every trace of Spencer Reid's existence gone from the planet, unreachable even by Garcia's skilled fingertips. But an excuse? A lie? They couldn't say that it had been good timing, or just sheer dumb luck... They'd have to work out a story of some sort.

Making a small whimpering noise, Reid burrowed a little deeper under the blankets, and Morgan momentarily tightened his grip.

He wondered how in the hell Reid had managed to hide this ability of his for the last two years. These vision things were not something that went unnoticed, even by people who weren't skilled FBI profilers, and there was no way Reid had just been sneaking off to the bathroom every time he felt one coming on. He would have noticed it. And besides that, Reid had never had a leap of logic that he couldn't explain. He often had long, convoluted thought processes that took the rest of them a few minutes of deep, slow thinking to follow, but never something out of the blue that was unconnected to any of the previous evidence.

Reid wasn't being entirely truthful about that part, Morgan was almost sure of it. Maybe he'd just started getting the headaches? Or maybe he'd just started using his precognition thing after Hankel? Did he have any control over it at all?

Reid stirred again, and this time it was more as though he were waking up, rather than trying to fall back asleep.

Morgan waited until his eyes started to flutter open to speak.

“Morning.”

Slowly, Reid opened his eyes, blinking heavily. “Morgan? What...”

“Right here,” Morgan assured him, pressing a kiss to the back of his head.

“No,” Reid muttered. “No, this isn't—no.” He squirmed his way out of Morgan's arms, rolling away and putting a good two feet between them.

“What?” Morgan asked.

“This shouldn't have happened.”

Dammit.

Morgan exhaled and rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.

“Look, kid...”

“I let you fuck me, and you're still calling me a kid,” Reid muttered. “You're unbelievable.”

“Uh-huh,” Morgan agreed, working to keep the anger out of his voice. “I'm the unbelievable one.”

Reid muttered something under his breath and then pushed back the covers, climbing out of bed.

Clenching his jaw, Morgan tried to hold back the anger that was quickly building in him. He reminded himself that these last few days—or for that matter, these last few weeks—hadn't been easy on Reid.

But dammit, these last few weeks hadn't been easy on him, either.

“So who's the sex toy now?”

Reid's footsteps stopped. “Excuse me?”

Morgan snorted. “You're the genius. You figure it out.”

“What—what, you wanted me to stay in bed? And do what, cuddle with you? Maybe you forgot, Derek—you're straight.”

“Yeah, that's really your call to make, Spencer.”

Reid exhaled. “Look. I'm sorry about last night.”

“I'm not.”

“I won't be your midlife sexuality crisis. If you want to experiment, you know there are places for that.” The footsteps picked up again, followed by the rustle of fabric. “But you and me—it... It can't happen.”

“Why not?” Morgan persisted, pushing himself up. “Why can't it happen?”

“Because it can't.”

“That's it?” Morgan demanded, incredulous. “That's all the reason I get? I think I deserve a little more than that.”

“Oh, please,” Reid said with a derisive little snort. “Like you give any of your one night stands more than that. How does it feel to be the one begging? Must be the first time the great Derek Morgan has ever had to beg for anything in his life. Gee. I feel so special.”

“Listen, kid,” Morgan growled, “I don't know where you get off judging me, but you'd better shut the hell up. Right now. You don't know the first damn thing about me.”

“We've worked together for over two years, and I'm a profiler,” Reid shot back. “Add that to the fact that we've had sex three times, now, and I think I've got grounds to say that I know you.”

“What the hell's the matter with you? I don't even recognize you anymore, Reid!”

“Why?” Reid asked contemptuously. “Because I'm saying no to you for once?”

“Oh, no. This is about you. You, and the way you've been acting ever since Hankel took you—”

“Don't bring Hankel into this!” Reid snapped. “He's not even relevant.”

“Of course he's relevant!” Morgan exploded. “He's redefined your entire life!”

“It's none of your business.”

“It sure as hell is."

“Oh, yes,” Reid said sarcastically, throwing his hands up. “Yes, let's delve into the life of Spencer Reid again, because apparently, he has no right to a little privacy! Morgan gets to keep his secrets, sure, but not Spencer. He's gotta lay it out there for the whole world to pick at!”

“Here we go with the pity party again. Jesus Christ, Reid, it's not like that and you know it.”

Reid raised an eyebrow. “Really? Okay. Let's talk about Carl Buford and how he's redefined—”

“Do not,” Morgan snarled, pushing himself off the bed, “bring Buford into this. He is none of your fucking business, you got that?”

He had Reid backed up against the wall before he even realized what he was doing.

Reid stared at him for a moment or so, his expression blank, and the room was silent except for Morgan's ragged breathing.

Reid laughed, humorlessly.

“What?” Morgan demanded.

“Oh, yeah. We'd make a great couple.”

He sidestepped Morgan, grabbed a final piece of clothing from the floor, and marched over to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

Next

Fic: Coming Home

2009-08-18T13:40:50Z

Title: Coming Home
Rating: G
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: Morgan comes home.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: A snippet from a story I'm working on that had to be cut, but was too cute to waste. 250 words. The adorableness is probably the only thing in it that makes sense.

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Coming Home

Morgan set his go-bag down on the floor, shut the door behind him and locked it. The apartment was quiet and dark. The car ride here had almost put him to sleep, and he'd almost pulled over on the freeway to take a ten minute nap, but the need to be home and see Reid and lay in a real bed for a change pushed him forward to this point. And now, finally where he wanted to be, Morgan stumbled down the hallway and into the bedroom, where Reid was not asleep.

"Hi," he said, looking up from what looked like a magazine, but Morgan knew better than that. It had to be a journal. Reid referred to magazines as "useless compilations of uncited summaries" and refused to read them.

"Hi," Morgan grunted, falling onto the bed. He closed his eyes, not even bothering with a sheet. His entire body was humming with exhaustion.

A page turned.

"Is this, um, normal?"

Morgan cracked an eye open. "What?"

"We haven't even been out on a date, and we're sharing a bed. I don't normally--I've never been in a relationship before," Reid explained awkwardly. "I mean, I don't have a problem with you here. It just--it seems weird?"

Morgan groaned and rolled over onto his stomach, reaching out and blindly jabbing at the magazine. "Go back to this. I'm sleeping."

"Um." Reid thought this over for a moment. "Okay."

Morgan buried his face in the pillow, falling asleep in moments

Music Meme!

2009-08-17T22:10:57Z

Comment on this post saying you want a letter - I'll give you one, then post to your journal your five favourite songs that begin with that letter - along with downloads if you like. Or music videos... whatever works.

shinealightonme gave me F!

1.) Fidelity ~ Regina Spektor
2.) Four Jews in a Room Bitching ~ March of the Falsettos
3.) First Time ~ Lifehouse
4.) Fix You ~ Coldplay
5.) Fools in Love ~ Inara George

Fic: Blow Your Head Apart (4/9)

2009-08-17T12:06:53Z

Title: Blow Your Head Apart
Rating: R
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: Two weeks after Hankel, Hotch brings Reid back out onto the field on a consult. It doesn't go well.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: I'm going away for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and therefore, comment replies will be delayed. I apologize. I will get to them when I get back, because I appreciate them so much!

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Blow Your Head Apart

Chapter 4

Reid was sitting back against the wall, eyes closed. His head throbbed and spun and his stomach was still rolling, and right now, he was just breathing. Concentrating on breathing deep, steady breaths, in and out, holding on to the knowledge that it wouldn't last forever. Last time, he'd been able to get up after about ten minutes—although that had been spurred by the fact that the life of Wendell Morris had been hanging in the balance—and this time, it had somehow seemed to not be as bad. This time it was him and Morgan and a professor that was going to be taken in nine hours.

There was no rush. He could sit here for a while.

"So, that's it?" Morgan's voice suddenly asked, sounding hesitant.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

"What?"

"Your magic power thing. Precognition. You go all epileptic and almost pass out?"

Breathe in.

"Yeah. Sort of."

Talking, moving his tongue, he tasted bile. It was all over the inside of his mouth.

“Just like that? Out of nowhere?”

Reid shook his head fractionally. “It builds. I thought it was just from the quarter.”

“So, what? Now you know what time the maid service is coming tomorrow?”

Irritation prickled at him.

“Yeah. Sure. Right after room service delivers breakfast.”

“Oh, don't do that,” Morgan snapped. “You tell me you're clairvoyant and then you go and have a fucking seizure. I'm trying, okay?”

“I already told you what it was about. Maybe you should try listening to people.”

“Dammit, Reid, I was a little busy trying to figure out if I should dial 911.”

Reid wanted him gone. He wanted to pull out one of the vials of Dilaudid from his pocket and stare at it for a few hours, and then maybe taste it. Just a little taste. No need to bother with a syringe.

All he had to do was get Morgan to leave.

“Another professor's being taken tonight. Eleven o'clock. Okay?”

“That's it?” Morgan asked incredulously. “All that—for that?”

Reid gritted his teeth. “Not so loud.”

Morgan exhaled.

“Sorry. You can't—does anything help?”

“Aspirin.”

Aspirin involved leaving to go to the store. This was good. Morgan could go to the store and he would be left alone, and then he could look at the Dilaudid.

“I think we're fresh out.”

The dizziness was starting to fade, but the urge to take out the Dilaudid was rising fast, gripping his every nerve and pulling. He wanted to look. Just look. No tasting, that wasn't necessary. No tasting, just looking. He just wanted to reassure himself that it was there and that he could have it, if he wanted it. Later. Not now. Now, he just needed to look.

“There's money. In the backpack. Left pocket.”

Leave, leave, leave...

“Oh, the hell I'm leaving you here, you can't even walk.”

“I'll be fine.”

He wanted the goddamn Dilaudid.

“I'm not leaving,” Morgan refused flatly.

Reid's hands balled into fists, trembling with the effort of suppressing the urge to touch the Dilaudid.

oOo

“So he was tortured, both physically and mentally, for two days, and then you left him alone for two weeks?” Krupke asked, raising an eyebrow.

Hotch tried not to bristle. “He had sessions with a psychiatrist every day, as well as several doctor appointments. If he was a danger to himself or others, I'm sure that Dr. Lashar would have never let him on his own.”

“And Dr. Lashar approved Agent Reid going back to work?” Krupke continued, turning a page in the file before him.

“He did not oppose it,” Hotch answered carefully.

“Did he even know?”

Wally Krupke clearly had experience with lawyers.

“Reid would have had to rearrange his appointments—I assume that Dr. Lashar knew he was back to work,” Hotch answered.

“So he didn't know," Krupke surmised.

"Don't twist my words, officer," Hotch warned. "I said I assumed. I don't know for certain."

"So, even without official notice, you let him return. You thought him competent enough to come back to work?” Krupke asked, while writing something down on the file. Probably a note to talk to Dr. Lashar.

“I thought that doing something and getting out of the apartment would be better than him just sitting around,” Hotch answered. “I let him do consults. He was only working a few hours a day, and it was all out of the office.”

“Until the Georgetown case?” Krupke asked.

Hotch nodded. “Yes. It wasn't a graphic case, it wasn't far from Quantico, and I thought it would be a good way to get him back in the field. Are you going somewhere with this, officer, or are you going to continue to make me repeat what's already in the report?”

Krupke looked annoyed. “Where was Agent Reid at the time Wendell Morris went missing?”

“We know that Morris went missing sometime between one and four,” Hotch said calmly. “Reid asked for a break around two-thirty, came back about three-thirty, at which point...”

There was no point in lying.

“At which point, he began insisting that Wendell Morris was the next victim,” Krupke supplied.

“Yes."

He closed his eyes as Krupke scribbled something down, trying to imagine what possible explanation there could be that would prove Reid's innocence.

oOo

"You hungry?" Morgan asked, glancing over to Reid, who had been lying on the bed next to him, staring up at the ceiling and reciting something to himself, for the past hour.

"You've asked me that three times already," Reid answered, his eyes on the ceiling.

Morgan pushed down on the reflexive flash of irritation.

"I'm waiting for you to say yes. It'd be dumb to go get something to eat when you're not hungry."

Reid closed his eyes. "Just go eat."

"Reid, you're going to eat dinner," Morgan said, his tone not brokering for arguments. "You didn't keep your lunch down, and we didn't even eat breakfast."

"I can start spouting off obesity statistics, if you want."

“What, you're anorexic now?"

"I do wear multiple layers of clothing all the time." The sarcasm dripped off of his tone in a way that made it almost unrecognizable that it was Reid speaking. "But it's heartwarming to know that you care so much."

Morgan gritted his teeth. "Reid, this isn't a game. I want you to eat something."

"Then it's a good thing that Copernicus disproved the theory of Derekcentricity four hundred and sixty-four years ago."

Snarling quietly, Morgan pushed himself off the bed and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

oOo

Several hours later, they stood on the fringes of Georgetown's campus, just outside of a ring of light being cast by a streetlight. The sun had set about an hour ago, and a spring chill was starting to set in.

"You're sure about this, kid?" Morgan asked.

Reid gave him a look.

"Okay, okay," Morgan said quickly, raising his hands. "Just asking. This is some pretty crazy shit, you know."

"You can go back," Reid suggested, his voice tart.

"I'm not leaving you alone."

Reid's eyes narrowed. "You don't have to babysit me. I'm not a child."

"You're sure acting like one," Morgan retorted.

"You don't—"

Reid stopped, looking frustrated.

Morgan raised an eyebrow.

"Never mind.” Reid blew out a breath. “Let's just go."

"We've got almost an hour,” Morgan pointed out. “You wanna sit in an alley for forty-five minutes?”

"Not really," Reid said, frowning, "but what else are we going to do?"

Morgan shrugged. "Walk me through this again."

"Actually—"

Reid hesitated.

“What?” Morgan asked, frowning.

“Just—when the unsub... We'll see him with the professor, and I—I kind of need to come out first.” Reid bit his lip. “It's the only way it'll work.”

Morgan snorted. “Oh, over my dead body.”

“Morgan—”

“No,” Morgan interrupted, folding his arms over his chest. “We have no idea who this guy is, what kind of training he has, what kind of weapons he'll have on him—he could have a gun, a bomb, we've got no clue. And you want me to just let you waltz out there by yourself? I don't think so!”

“He's unarmed,” Reid insisted. “I promise. You can come out right behind me and do all the tackling you want to—just let me step out first, okay?”

“Why?” Morgan asked.

Reid's mouth opened and closed twice. “It's—just the way it has to go.”

“No,” Morgan refused flatly.

Reid closed his eyes, exhaling.

“Okay. Look. I'm telling you, if you want to catch this unsub then you have to let me walk out first.”

Morgan's jaw was set. “No.”

“If we don't do this, this professor is going to die. You'd let him die just because you don't trust me?” Reid demanded.

“It's not about that, it's about you doing something stupid that could get you killed,” Morgan informed him testily.

“So—so you put my life above the life of a civilian?” Reid asked incredulously. “You can't do that!”

“I couldn't give a flying fuck about—”

Morgan realized what he was saying mid-sentence.

He had to hold himself back from yelling the rest of what he wanted to say, because it was wrong. He was wrong. He couldn't put Reid above civilians—it went against his very job description.

“Fine,” he ground out. “But I swear to god, I'm going to be six inches behind you.”

Reid did not look happy, either, but he didn't argue.

For once.

oOo

They walked across Georgetown's campus, Reid leading the way, until they reached a street that was crowded with small shops and restaurants instead of dorms and labs, at which point Reid had stopped in the middle of the street, glanced around, and then said, "This is it. There is where it happens."

And so they were waiting.

"We're gonna get arrested," Morgan muttered from his makeshift seat on an upturned cardboard box.

"They haven't put out a BOLO yet, we'll be fine," Reid replied, sounding vaguely annoyed, but Morgan saw his eyes dart to the street all the same.

"Yeah, but they've had to have doubled security around here." Morgan shook his head. "Two guys just standing around a dark alley doesn't really look great."

"We'll be fine," Reid repeated irritably, but then he stopped, frowning.

"You okay?" Morgan asked, making to get off of the box in case it was another one of Reid's weird attack vision things.

"I'm fine—be quiet, they're coming."

Morgan bit down on a retort, and instead silently pushed himself up off the box, listening to the abruptly quiet night.

Footsteps.

Quick, breathless pleading in the distance.

"Please, please, you can have all my money, I'm just a professor, please, I'll give you—"

Morgan really shouldn't have been so surprised that Reid had been right, even if they were dealing with the supernatural instead of intelligence now. Reid was just naturally right all the time, and he should be used to it by now.

But still. It had been one thing to see Reid calling heads and tails on a quarter but it was an entirely different thing to see him accurately predict the time and location of an unsub's next attack.

Reid stood just behind the corner of the alley, and Morgan joined him there, standing so close to him that they were nearly touching. Every muscle in his body was tense and ready to spring, like a tiger just waiting to pounce, and next to him he could feel Reid trembling ever so slightly. It lurked at the edges of his mind, fueling his adrenaline.

The sound of labored breathing reached his ears.

"Please," the man gasped. "Please, just let me go. I won't tell anyone, I swear."

Morgan's hands clenched into fists as they stepped into his line of sight, revealing the unsub holding the professor up, dragging him along. The professor was limping—hard, as though he'd broken his leg—and the sound of his breathing confirmed that he was currently in a lot of pain.

Then without warning, Reid stepped out and Morgan's stomach dropped out.

"Sir, my name is Spencer Reid. I'm with the FBI—I need you to let this man go."

Without a gun between his hands, the words sounded fragile and unsteady, and it was all Morgan could do not to leap out there that second, run past Reid, and tackle the unsub to the ground. He knew that he couldn't, because sudden movements were bad and even worse when he had no idea whether or not the unsub had a gun or a bomb or a kill switch, but seeing Reid standing there, as fragile and unsteady as his words had been and without even a vest to protect him—

The neurons in his brain were practically misfiring with the effort it was taking to control himself.

"I said, let the man go," Reid repeated, his voice quavering only for a split second.

The unsub, who had frozen, finally turned to look at Reid, and even in the darkness, Morgan could see the wild, terrified gleam in his eye.

Reid was shaking.

Morgan snapped, springing out of the alley, but it was a second too late.

The unsub had already launched himself at Reid, and all three of them went down in a punching, kicking heap. Morgan landed on top of the other two and immediately rolled off, and then he remembered that it was Reid down there with the unsub, and he dove back in, trying to wrestle the unsub away. The unsub was too goddamn strong. Morgan wriggled and shoved and maneuvered, fighting for any temporary hold he could get so that Reid would have enough time to escape, but the unsub had him matched, blow for blow.

Below him, Reid let out a sharp yelp of pain and Morgan's adrenaline surged, and he had the unsub off of Reid in seconds.

They rolled, both of them fighting for control. Morgan was being assaulted with techniques he'd never seen before, and he was scrambling to get into even a defensive position, but before he could register that he was losing this fight, the unsub had his hands around his head. Morgan kicked just as the hands started to turn, and sharp pain shot down his spine as he was released.

Seizing the opportunity, Morgan kicked as hard as he could, but the unsub grabbed his head again, lifted it up, and the next thing Morgan felt was an explosion of pain in the back of his head that rendered him senseless.

Dazed, he blinked up at the sky.

Somewhere in the distance, there was whimpering, footsteps, a harsh, guttural voice, and car horns honking. It was dark, fading in and out of darkness, and the noises were from far, far away. They echoed. Everything sounded distant and echo, echoy... Echoy...

Echoy?

With a snap, Morgan came back to himself and pushed himself up right—

Only to be belted in the stomach by nausea as his head swam. He froze, squeezing his eyes shut and waiting for the waves of sickness to fade away, mentally willing it to leave. He counted to one, two, three, four, five...

Shit.

He focused on breathing in and out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

And then he dared to open his eyes, careful to keep his breathing under control when the world immediately appeared in technicolor. He blinked a few times and gradually the world desaturated, coming back down to darkness and dim outlines, and the motionless body of Reid lying a few feet away.

Motionless.

His heart skipped a beat.

"Reid?"

There was no answer, but Morgan's vision was quickly sharpening and he saw Reid's chest rising and falling.

"Reid?" He couldn't keep the hint of panic out of his voice. "Reid, are you okay?"

There was a cough.

"Yeah."

Morgan suddenly remembered to breathe, and he let out a huge rush of air.

"Are you okay?"

"I—I think he tried to snap my neck."

It was as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on him.

"W—what?"

Death. Paralysis. Brain damage.

His mind was off like a shot.

"I'm fine," Reid said, coughing again. "They got away."

Refusing to take Reid's word for granted, Morgan made his way over to Reid on all fours. "Are you sure you're okay? No dizziness, no nausea, no... No whatever the hell you're supposed to look for? Gimmie the signs, Reid, c'mon, the signs..."

"He just—" Reid coughed again. "—knocked wind out of me. I'm fine."

Morgan frowned down at him. "Are you sure? Reid—Reid, you're bleeding! Shit! Here, take off your—"

"Don't!" Reid yelped, smacking his hand away and pushing himself back almost a foot, staring at Morgan with wide, panicked eyes.

Morgan blinked, hand suspended in midair.

"You're bleeding. Let me look at it."

"I'm fine," Reid repeated for the umpteenth time.

"You don't feel it?" Morgan asked, trying to swallow down the panic. "Nothing? Look, right there—your right leg—"

"It's not blood, okay?"

Morgan stared.

"Well then what the hell is it?"

"None of your business," Reid muttered, scowling at him.

Morgan closed his eyes and blew out a long breath.

When he opened his eyes, he spoke calmly and carefully.

"We have to go. Can you walk?"

"If I said no, would you carry me?"

"C'mon," Morgan urged, ignoring Reid's reply. "We've got to go. We'll stand up together—sit up."

"I'm not a baby," Reid muttered, but he did sit up. Slowly. And then he stopped for a moment, shutting his eyes, clearly waiting for his head to settle.

"Good?" Morgan asked, after a second or two.

"Oh, perfect."

"We're standing up now—one, two, three."

With a grunt, Morgan pushed himself off the ground and pulled Reid up with him, then held on tightly as the world rocked and spun. For a blessed ten seconds, Reid did not bitch about not needing help.

Of course, then came the eleventh second.

"I thought you said that we needed to go?"

Exhaling, Morgan opened his eyes and dropped Reid's hand. "Yeah. Let's go."

Reid led the way.

oOo

Unsurprisingly, Reid had not been entirely truthful about being 'fine', given the fact that he coughed all the way back to the motel, to the point where even the ear-budded teenager next to them on the subway got up to sit in another seat. Morgan restrained himself from commenting, and he attempted to keep his rising anger clamped down. He lasted until they made it back to the motel.

Reid sank down on the bed, putting his head in his hands.

Morgan went for the sink, turning on the water and then running his asphalt-burnt palms underneath the cool waterfall.

"They got away," Reid said slowly, thoughtfully, almost to himself.

"We're lucky we got away," Morgan shot back.

There was a surprised beat.

"What?"

Morgan moved his hand so that the spot where the skin had been rubbed raw was directly under the water. "That was stupidest thing I've ever done. Period. Frankly, I don't know how we're alive."

"It wasn't supposed to go like that," Reid sighed, but Morgan wasn't interested in hearing it.

"No—no, I don't care how it was supposed to go." Morgan turned off the water and snatched a towel off the counter. "It was a fucking stupid plan. We had no idea what could have happened—what if he'd had a gun? What if I hadn't managed to get him off of you in time? Hell, he tried to snap my neck—what if I hadn't managed to stop him?"

"I wasn't the only one who agreed to this, you know," Reid reminded him waspishly.

Morgan threw the towel back down to the counter, turning around to face Reid. "We're not doing this again. I don't care whether you have another one of your vision things, next time, we're just calling Hotch. Got it?"

"I wasn't wrong," Reid insisted. "I saw it—I knew it. The professor should have gotten away."

"Well, he didn't, and now thanks to you, we'll just have to hope that the unsub sticks to his MO and kills him quickly."

Reid flinched.

Morgan sighed. "Okay. Okay, not thanks to you, I went along with it too, but goddammit, you said—you said—dammit. Dammit, we should have called Hotch."

"No," Reid said stubbornly. "No, it should have been fine. Something went wrong, something changed..." His eyes widened and his head shot up, eyes locking onto Morgan's. "You—it was you! You weren't supposed to jump in to help with the unsub, you were supposed to help the professor get away. You should have trusted me."

"Trust—trust you?" Morgan sputtered. "It wasn't about trust! If I had been a second slower, you'd be dead right now!"

"But you didn't move when he tried to snap my neck, you moved before he'd even attacked," Reid argued. "You didn't trust me to hold my own."

"So I should have let you die?" Morgan demanded.

"You should have trusted me to do my job," Reid countered. "You had a choice between me and the victim, and you picked me. What's that say about you?"

"That I care about you!" Morgan exploded. "Jesus fucking Christ, I didn't mean to do it! I didn't even realize what I'd done until we were down on the ground! Do you think I like it? Do you think I like knowing that I can't even do my fucking job around you? I don't!"

"Oh, sure, it's all my fault," Reid said bitterly. "Great. What else can we blame on me?"

"Fuck you!" Morgan spat, turning and swiftly walking away from Reid, falling into a fervent pace before he punched something. "Fuck you, you know that, fuck you and your fucking pity party. I am so sick of your shit. All you do is argue and complain and twist my words, every single fucking day, and I'm done. I'm done! I'm out here risking my life for you, and you can't take a fucking second to stop and think about anyone other than yourself—"

A door slammed.

Morgan stopped and turned, seeing first the closed bathroom door and second, the empty bed.

His anger suddenly gone, the words that he'd just spoken slammed into him like a train, and he closed his eyes, steeling himself.

"Fuck."

oOo

“This is Her Royal Highness Penelope Garcia, how can you help me today?”

“Hey, baby girl.”

Garcia froze mid-keystroke, staring at her screen in shock for about two seconds, and then she snapped into action.

“Morgan?” she demanded, pressing the phone closer to her ear. “Is that you? Where the hell are you? Where's Reid? Do you have any idea—”

“No time,” Morgan interrupted. “There's another professor missing.”

Frowning, Garcia pulled up a trace on her computer and tapped into her line. “How do you know that?”

“It's another Georgetown professor,” Morgan told her, not answering her question. “He was taken about twenty minutes ago from the campus, and the unsub broke his leg. We didn't see the professor, but the unsub is white, about six feet tall, and somewhere around two hundred and fifty pounds. Definite military background, very skilled in martial arts.”

“What did you do, have coffee with him?”

Her computer began to search across the map for Morgan's location.

“You know Reid,” Morgan said dryly. “He never could resist a good cup of coffee.”

“Reid's there?” Garcia asked, sitting up straight. In front of her, the blue lines were moving across the map, waiting for the program to triangulate. “Is he okay? Is he with you?”

“He's fine,” Morgan answered.

She scrambled to keep Morgan on the phone. “What about you? Are you okay? Have you been eating?”

“You're trying to trace me, aren't you?” Morgan sighed.

Her screen flashed and the bars moved in, coming together underneath a flashing white dot, and an address appeared next to it.

“Um. Yes,” Garcia confirmed guiltily. She grabbed a pen and started scribbling down the address listed.

“Could you—not tell anyone... Where we are?” Morgan requested hesitantly. “Please?”

She stopped writing in the middle of the street name. “Morgan...”

“Look, Reid's... We just need some time to regroup, okay?”

“Reid?” Garcia asked. “What's wrong with him? Is he hurt? Did the unsub hurt him?”

“I've gotta go,” Morgan said.

“Don't you hang up on—”

There was a click, a beat of silence, and then a dial tone and the blue lines on her screen disappeared.

With a sigh, Garcia hung up the phone and sat back in her chair, staring at the screen in dismay.

Next

Fic: Blow Your Head Apart (3/9)

2009-08-14T12:04:38Z

Title: Blow Your Head Apart
Rating: R
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: Two weeks after Hankel, Hotch brings Reid back out onto the field on a consult. It doesn't go well.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes:I just realized--I'm moving into college in about a week and a half, and I don't know if I'm going to have time to update this throughout orientation. I'll probably stop at chapter five next week, which will leave you guys at a nice stopping point if I can't post new chapters for a week or so. Sorry about that!

.

Blow Your Head Apart
Chapter 3

Reid was on the run now.

Hotch was still having trouble digesting it.

Just yesterday, he and Reid had been consulting on the case, sifting through photographs and coroners' reports in order to come up with a profile, and now Reid was gone and they were treating him like a fugitive. Except that there was no "like" about it—he was a fugitive. It was just impossible for Hotch to wrap his mind around, because Reid wasn't a serial killer. He was sure of that much. But why run? Reid wasn't stupid; he had to know that running away didn't make anyone look innocent. And for that matter, if he was innocent, how had he known that he'd needed to run?

Morgan had gone with him, and that was both a comfort and an additional reason to be worried. The police seemed to think that Reid might have taken Morgan as his next victim, but Hotch knew better than to think that Reid would ever stand a chance of kidnapping Morgan. The entire idea was laughable. Obviously, Morgan had willingly gone with Reid, and Hotch trusted that Morgan wouldn't have acted so recklessly without a good reason.

But then, it was Morgan, and more than that, it was Morgan dealing with Reid. He tended to have about five seconds of self-control when it came to Reid.

Hotch sighed, wanting to just rewind to yesterday so that he could stop this from happening. He wanted more coffee. He wanted off this case. He wanted Reid here, in his office, where he would be safe from the DCPD and their accusations. But most of all, he wanted some goddamn answers.

He pushed the thoughts out of his head and pressed the button that connected him to Garcia's workstation.

“Hola!” Garcia said cheerily as her video feed popped up on his screen. “Cómo estás, señor?”

“Did you get the info I asked for?” Hotch asked.

Garcia nodded, some of her bounciness fading. “Yeah. Reid's cell phone is in his apartment—although it's probably being bagged as evidence right now—and Morgan's is outside the apartment complex, on the lawn somewhere, or possibly in the stairwell. These traces are only accurate to ten feet or so.”

Hotch nodded, scribbling this down on a legal pad. “Did you get to the rest?”

“Yes,” Garcia sighed. “I didn't like doing it, though. Just so we're clear.”

Hotch waited silently.

Garcia cleared her throat, getting the message. “Right. So. Reid hasn't used his credit card since yesterday afternoon at a drug store, but that isn't really surprising, when you consider the fact that he withdrew two thousand dollars in cash last night at 5:16.”

“Two thousand?” Hotch repeated disbelievingly.

Garcia nodded.

“Then he was clearly planning to run,” Hotch murmured as he wrote.

“Wait,” Garcia said slowly. “You think Reid did this? Seriously?”

“I don't think Reid is a serial killer,” Hotch said, looking up at her. “But I do know that the police have valid evidence against him, and that he isn't helping himself at all by running.”

“What valid evidence?” Garcia asked.

“He knew that the last victim was gone before anyone should have,” Hotch explained. “There were no clues, no patterns, nothing that would indicate who the unsub's next victim would be, but Reid suddenly began insisting that Wendell Morris was it. And the profile does resemble him.”

Garcia frowned. “What's the profile?”

“Socially awkward. Intelligent. Steady job. Having some sort of military or government training.” Hotch paused. “Holding a grudge against the educational system.”

“Reid doesn't have a grudge against the educational system,” Garcia stated cautiously. “Right?”

Hotch shook his head. “He certainly has the grounds for one—he was bullied in elementary school, high school, and probably college as well.”

“But...” Garcia bit her lip. “But it's Reid.”

“I know,” Hotch agreed quietly. And he did. But at the same time, he also knew that the moment that he lost his objectivity, the case would be transferred to another BAU team, and they'd be completely powerless to help Reid and Morgan. They needed to be on this case to make sure that in their desperation, the cops wouldn't get tunnel-vision and spend all their resources pursuing Reid. And he knew that the moment he started to let this case affect him emotionally, the rest of the team would follow him like falling dominoes.

Objectivity. He needed objectivity.

“Did you look into Morgan's financial records as well?”

oOo

Weekday afternoons meant two things: great traffic and lousy television.

Currently, the latter was what Morgan was bothered by. The shoddy little motel got all of five stations, so his current options were the news, Judge Judy, an infomercial for ShamWow, some gardening show and, ironically, a TV guide. He supposed that he was just used to staying in the business-class hotels that JJ usually booked them. Really, he should be grateful for the fact that the beds were somewhat comfortable, and that there weren't strange stains all over his sheets.

He watched the news with an idle disinterest.

Thankfully, though, Reid did not take forever and a day in the shower and was out in ten minutes, emerging from the tiny bathroom while still towel-drying his hair.

Morgan noted, with no small amount of interest, that there was still a bulge in Reid's pants. Obviously, whatever he'd had in his pocket yesterday was still in there, and Morgan had to stop himself from asking what it was.

“I got food,” Morgan told him instead, indicating the mess of fast food that was sitting on the other bed.

“Not hungry,” Reid said shortly, switching the towel to the other side of his head, rubbing furiously.

Morgan frowned. “You need to eat. You—”

“I don't need you to tell me what to do,” Reid snapped. He let the towel fall to the floor and marched to the other side of the room, where the backpack had been thrown against the wall. “I'm perfectly capable of keeping myself nourished.”

“No, you're not,” Morgan said calmly as he sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “Maybe last month you could, but right now, you look like you're ready to collapse. Eat.”

“I'm not hungry,” Reid insisted, folding his arms over his chest defiantly.

“I really don't care,” Morgan said frankly. “You're not sleeping, you're not eating, you—”

“You're not my mother and you're not my lover,” Reid said irritably, cutting him off. “You don't get to tell me how to live. And anyway, I'm fine.”

Morgan had had enough. He pushed himself off the bed, took three strides to cross the room, and then roughly grabbed Reid's shoulder.

Reid freaked.

“Don't!” he screamed, yanking away from Morgan's grip and recoiling, stumbling into the wall. He flinched, hunching his shoulders, and he sank halfway down the wall before he stopped reacting and started remembering who he was. Eyes wide and scared, his breathing fast, he stared up at Morgan in shock.

The room was silent for a minute or so.

“You're not fine,” Morgan said quietly, having just proven his point. “You won't even let me touch you.”

Reid took in a shaky breath, pulling himself up and moving away from the wall. He shook himself, and then turned to look at Morgan. “It's not all about you.”

Morgan sighed, running a hand over his head. “Eat, Reid. Or I swear to god, I will hold you down while I call DCPD.”

“I'll throw it up,” Reid informed him.

“You will not,” Morgan countered, folding his arms over his chest to reinforce this point. The hell if Reid was going to make himself throw up his food.

Reid shook his head. “No, I will. Do you have a quarter?”

Morgan stared. “What?”

“A quarter,” Reid repeated.

Morgan turned, leaning over the bed to grab the bag of fast food.

“Eat,” he ordered, holding out the bag.

Reid took it, glaring.

Morgan sat down on the edge of the bed, watching as Reid reached inside and pulled out a hamburger with a decidedly sullen look on his face. The look stayed in place as he set the bag down on the television, unwrapped the hamburger, and then took a bite.

Then Reid swallowed, and he looked nauseous.

“Do you have a quarter?” he asked again, slowly lowering the sandwich.

Reid was nothing if not persistent, Morgan thought as he fished around in his pockets until he found a quarter. He pulled it out, holding it out for Reid to take.

“Flip it,” Reid instructed. “It'll be heads.”

Morgan pulled his arm back, balanced the quarter on his thumbnail, and flipped it. He deftly caught it in the palm of his other hand, and then slapped it down on the back of his hand.

Heads.

He looked up at Reid with raised eyebrows. “And?”

“Flip it again,” Reid told him. “It'll be tails this time.”

Morgan tossed it into the air again, catching it with his other hand. He slapped it down on the back of his hand, and then looked.

Tails.

He looked at Reid again.

“Again,” Reid said. “Tails.”

This time, when Morgan caught it in his palm, he did not slap the quarter down on the back of his other hand—he just opened up his hand, displaying the quarter flat on his palm.

Tails.

“Kid, this is the wrong time for one of your magic tricks,” Morgan said, shaking his head as he stared down at the quarter.

Reid took another bite of the hamburger. “It's not a magic trick. It's precognition.”

Morgan flipped the quarter again. Vague memories of watching Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead with Garcia flashed through his mind, but he ignored it because it was crazy. Reid was crazy. Stuff like this didn't actually exist.

“Tails,” Reid whispered.

And it was.

Morgan shook his head, closing his hand around the quarter. “Kid, stuff like this doesn't exist in the real world.”

“It's how I knew that Wendell Morris was going to be next,” Reid said stubbornly. “And I can't testify in court that I have, you know, supernatural intuition—that's why I had to run.”

Snorting softly, Morgan opened his hand and picked up the quarter. “You really want me to believe that?” He glanced up. “And eat your burger.”

“Why would I lie to you?” Reid asked incredulously. “I'm a fugitive, now. What could I possibly stand to gain by making this up?”

Morgan flipped the quarter in the air, catching it deftly in the same hand.

Sullenly, Reid took another bite of his hamburger.

“Reid, look,” Morgan started, and he paused. Flipped the quarter into the air and caught it again. Thought about his words. “You can't just tell somebody that you've got supernatural powers and expect them to believe you based on a quarter trick. You're a scientist. You should know that.”

“You don't need a quarter trick to believe in god,” Reid pointed out resentfully.

“You're not god,” Morgan countered.

“No, I'm just your friend,” Reid shot back. “Or at least, I thought I was.”

Morgan clenched his jaw. “I'm not gonna do this, kid. You wanna wallow in self pity, that's fine, but you're not going to drag me into it. You got that?”

“I'm not wallowing,” Reid muttered.

In answer, Morgan flipped the quarter again.

“Will you quit doing that?” Reid demanded suddenly.

Morgan looked up. “What?”

Reid gestured impatiently. “Flipping the quarter. Please. It gives me a headache.”

Morgan raised his eyebrows. “It gives you a headache?”

“Of course it does,” Reid snapped, folding his arms over his chest and staring down at the ground agitatedly. “The human brain isn't structurally designed to work like this.”

“There's a scientific explanation for your—whatever?”

“No,” Reid said shortly. “Not really.”

Morgan flopped back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling and shaking his head.

“I don't know what you want me to tell you!” Reid burst out.

“How about this?” Morgan asked. “If you can see into the future, then why have I spent the last two years watching you nearly die once a month?”

And more importantly, why the hell hadn't he known to avoid Hankel?

oOo

They were both stoic. Murph hadn't been kidding about fibbies.

“And I'm sure you heard that we found Wendell Morris' body,” Wally continued, stuffing down his nerves. “Execution style—”

“Just like the others,” Agent Gideon murmured, nodding his head.

“We have two agents out at the scene right now,” Agent Hotchner added.

Wally nodded. He started fumbling around for his notebook. “We finished with Agent Reid's apartment, and we're going to interview coworkers next, so we'll be working through your staff over the next day or so.”

Agent Hotchner's stare somehow intensified. “You determined that Agent Reid had ample time to kidnap and kill the first two victims?”

Wally struggled to ignore the feeling that he was being observed, analyzed and judged by these two men. They were profilers. Who knew what they were gleaning about him just from the words he chose, the way he moved his hands, his stance?

He swallowed. “Not yet. We're still working on establishing a time line. But first...”

Agent Gideon's eyebrow quirked as Wally hesitated.

“Well, I wanted to ask what your policy was, as far as the relationship between agents Reid and Morgan went,” Wally said, forcing himself to be resolute about the question.

But there was no explosion. There was a break in the solemn expressions of the two agents, however, when Agent Gideon's eyebrows shot up and Agent Hotchner's furrowed.

“What do you mean?” Agent Hotchner asked, his voice careful.

“Well, there are a lot of offices where romantic interoffice relationships make things difficult for other employees, or where—”

“Excuse me?” Agent Hotchner interrupted. His voice now bordered less on careful and more on dangerous. “Romantic relationship?”

Oh.

Well, crap.

“Agent Morgan and Agent Reid are involved,” Wally explained cautiously. "I'm sorry—I'd assumed that it was common knowledge.”

“You have proof of this, Officer Krupke?” Agent Gideon asked, looking a good deal calmer than his partner.

Wally nodded. “We have a witness who saw them kissing in the hallway, and several others who have seen Agent Morgan coming and going from Agent Reid's apartment multiple times over the past six weeks or so. There's also a message on Agent Reid's phone that seems to indicate that they'd been together several times.”

It was silent.

“I guess I don't need to ask what your policy about it was, then?” Wally asked hesitantly.

For a split second, he swore that he saw the corners of Agent Gideon's mouth turn upwards.

oOo

Reid opened his mouth to answer Morgan, when suddenly the headache that had been pressing at his temples doubled, tripled, and then drove straight into the center of his brain.

He didn't realize that he'd fallen to the ground until his knees hit the carpet.

Everything was white, white and black and spotting everywhere, and his hands were on his head, fingers pressing into his skull. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think, couldn't even count through the pain because it was like a bomb was going off in his head, blowing any semblance of reason out of his skull. There was nausea. Waves of pain crushed his head and there was nothing there but pain and he wanted to die. He couldn't breathe.

"You gonna answer me or—Reid?"

Vertigo. Everything went black and he slammed into the ground, his stomach rolling. He was spinning, his head imploding, his mouth gasping for air and he prayed for unconsciousness. It hurt, it hurt so bad. There was a flash of white and then agonizing, stabbing pain behind his eyes, and he almost screamed. His mouth opened and instead of oxygen rushing in, something hot and thick came rushing up his throat and he tried to swallow too late and it spilled out of his mouth and all over the floor.

He writhed.

“Reid? Shit, Reid, what the hell?”

The world around him twisted violently and his head split in two, leaving him breathless and dizzy and sick with pain. He felt pressure and heat, and then movement. Everything was moving, shifting, flinging him up into nothing, and he just wanted to breathe for once. Just a breath. Just a breath, just a breath, just a breath.

He was the spinner on a game board, going round and round and round, and then his head surged and he was gone.

Staggering footsteps.

Please, please, you can have all my money, I'm just a professor.

Tall, thin. Pale. Let him go, the man says.

Release.

Tall man on the ground. Unconscious. Dead.

Staggering away.

Darkness.

And then the strings were cut.

He collapsed, his head throbbing, the world around him still whirling like a bent merry-go-round. Almost sobbing with relief, he gasped for air, and clutched at the hand that was gripping his. He didn't know whose it was or why they were helping him but it didn't matter. It was grounding him as his head continued to pound fiercely and the world kept spinning round and round and round.

He coughed, and then took in a huge, ragged breath that almost turned into a sob, it was so deep and painful. His hand was squeezed tighter.

Morgan, it suddenly occurred to him. It was Morgan holding his hand, it had to be.

And then it dawned on him, the information that had just been agonizingly ripped from his brain.

“Next—next victim,” he gasped.

“What?” Morgan's voice was panicked. “Reid, are you there?”

His head throbbed nastily, and he gritted his teeth against the pain. Colors flashed before his eyes.

“Reid? Reid, say something, dammit!”

“Next victim,” he repeated, forcing his lungs to expel air. “Next—professor. Tonight.”

The pressure around his head was slowly relaxing. He took in more deep breaths, steadying himself as the dizziness began to fade and the nausea began to disappear, and he felt Morgan's hand brushing gently at his hair. If he'd had more energy, he'd have swatted him away, but he didn't. It was enough to breathe, for now.

Tonight, another professor was going to be taken. He'd seen himself there, trying to help the man, and he'd seen himself lying on the ground, not moving. But he'd also seen the man walking away. Alive.

He took in another breath and forced the thoughts out of his head.

Cracking his eyes open, he saw the mess of vomit that was next to his head.

“Reid?”

Morgan's face was suddenly in his line of sight, tense and worried.

“Told you I'd throw it up,” Reid mumbled, and then he turned on his side, away from the vomit, feeling the two bottles of Dilaudid in his pocket roll over one another.

Next

Fic: Your Association

2009-08-13T04:05:05Z

Title: Your Association
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: Morgan and Reid have been captured by the unsub. Things heat up.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: A response to the "July/August Challenge". It's rather pointless, but fun. Also, this is, like, the first thing I've written that I've actually liked since... oh... June? Yeah. So read it.

.

Your Association

Morgan awoke with a splitting headache and a sharp, stabbing pain in his right ankle. Thankfully, wherever he was, it was somewhere dark. He couldn't see a thing. He could hear something like machines, steam-powered factory machines, and he could feel dirty, uneven concrete beneath his skin--which was nasty, because as far as he could tell, the only thing he was wearing was a pair of boxers. And it was hot. The heat was suffocating; he felt like he was breathing in water.

He coughed, making his head throb, and he groaned and brought a hand up to his head. This was how he discovered the blindfold.

"Morgan?"

The voice, even whispered, was recognizable.

"Reid?" he groaned, tugging the blindfold off.

It wasn't much brighter. They were definitely in some kind of old boiler room, with rusted pipes running along the veiling and walls, and the only source of light was a dim, yellowed light bulb dangling above him. Turning his head, he saw Reid, and quickly realized that he wasn't the only one in just his boxers. The kid was fucking glowing in the dark. Why the hell were they...

He groaned again.

"A--are you okay?"

"He got us."

Of course. All the victims had been found naked save for a pair of plain, black boxers--the same kind that he and Reid were wearing right now--and the lab had reported traces of iron oxide on both the boxers and the bodies of the victims. This explained that. And they'd gone to interview the brother of a victim and...

Shit.

All he remembered was asking to use the bathroom, searching through the medicine cabinet and finding nothing suspicious, going to open the door--and then nothing.

"I haven't seen him," Reid said, sitting down next to him. "I've been up and around the room a few times, I can't find a way out and there's not much here but piping, but without knowing what's running through it, it's no good--are you okay?"

He squinted up at Reid, whose movements in and out of the light had revealed several ugly bruises and a gash just under his cheekbone on the left side of his face.

"What the hell happened to you?" Morgan demanded, pushing himself up. "It looks like he fucking--"

"Pistol-whipped me?" Reid suggested grimly. "Yeah."

A white hot surge of fierce protectiveness shot through him and, hands almost trembling with suppressed fury, he reached out and turned Reid's face toward the light, surveying the damage for himself. The bruises had blossomed a sick yellow-green color, bleeding into dark purple, and the gash, though surrounded by dried blood, was deep enough that it was still open, glistening with fresh blood.

"Needs stitches," he muttered, pulling his hands away before they started moving on their own accord, running over Reid's jawline and cupping his chin and brushing across his forehead and--

Anyway.

"All your teeth good?" he asked, drawing his good leg in.

Reid nodded, looking shaken.

Morgan inhaled.

The room really was sweltering--there were already drops of sweat beading on his forehead--and it looked like Reid was right. The only way in and out of the room was through a metal door that, judging by the fact that they'd somehow gotten in this room, wasn't actually rusted shut. Despite its appearance. But other than the door, the only other thing in the room besides pipes was a small, circular drain in the center of the room.

"You didn't answer," Reid suddenly said, and he bit down on his lip when Morgan looked at him questioningly. "I asked if you were okay?"

Morgan shook his head, eyes going down to his foot. "My ankle's busted. Sprained, I think."

Reid's immediate thoughts could not have been plainer if he'd written them on his face with a Sharpie.

"This is not a no-man-left-behind situation," Morgan told him flatly. "If you get the change to escape, you're going."

"I'm not leaving you," Reid insisted, setting his jaw.

"Like hell--if you can get out, you can get back to the investigation with my location, and anyway, you're more important to--"

He stopped himself, closing his eyes and exhaling.

There was a pause.

"You think I'm more important to Hotch than you?" Reid asked tentatively.

"I know that your life is a lot more important to me than my own."

Morgan's eyes flew open as his words suddenly flew back to him, and he found himself staring at a just-as-stunned Reid.

"Look," he went on, determined not to linger on this, "it doesn't really matter. As it stands, neither one of us is going anywhere. Let's just..."

Reid's expression was expectant.

"Distract ourselves."

"Distract ourselves?" Reid repeated, now looking dubious.

"Yeah," Morgan said, gaining confidence. "Distract ourselves. We can, uh... play a game."

"A game? We've been captured by an unsub, we might die in the next twelve hours, and you want to play rock, paper, scissors?"

"It doesn't have to be rock, paper, scissors."

Reid looked at him expectantly.

"The, um, word association game?" Morgan suggested. Most of the games that were coming to mind were drinking games. "You know that one?"

"I know it," Reid said, rolling his eyes. "You start."

"Okay. Uh... Water."

"River."

"Baseball."

"Steroids."

"Roid rage."

"High school."

"Tests."

"Term papers."

"Scary."

"Your driving."

"Hey!" Morgan protested. "My driving is not scary."

Reid smirked. "Uh-huh."

Morgan huffed. "All right. Fine. What does my driving make me think of? Uh, roads."

"Rhodes Scholar."

"Africa."

"Paleontology."

"Jurassic Park."

"Implausible science fiction."

Morgan blinked. "I'm supposed to associate something with that?"

"Yes, you are."

"Fine. You."

"Wait, me? You associate me with implausible science fiction?"

Morgan shrugged. "It's my association, isn't it?"

Reid rolled his eyes. "Fine. Pronoun."

"English."

"Literature."

"College."

"Research."

"Medicine."

"JAMA."

"Uh. Jamming?"

Reid snorted. "Dancing."

"Clubs."

"Alcohol."

"Drinking."

"One-night stands."

Morgan choked. "What?"

Reid's eyes widened. "I didn't mean--"

"No, no, it's fine," Morgan reassured him quickly, pushing the mental images out of his head. "Whatever. It's your association, right?"

"I--uh--sure."

"Right," Morgan said, bringing himself back on track. "Um. One-night stand--hangover."

"Headache."

"Aspirin."

"Drugs."

"Cops."

"Handcuffs."

Morgan grinned. "Kinky."

"Um. Sex."

You.

"Condoms."

Reid frowned. "Why does this keep getting dirty?"

Morgan shrugged. "Beats me. We are guys, right? Ask any girl, it's inevitable. And it's your turn."

"Um, pink on blue?"

And yeah. Morgan's jaw dropped.

How the hell did Reid know about double-wrapping? More than that, colored double-wrapping?

His mind went to all the wrong places.

"Morgan?"

He shook himself, forcing the images out of his head. There was no way in hell he was saying his first couple of associations. "Right. Sorry, pretty boy. Protection."

"Safety."

"Guns."

"Bullets."

"Shooting."

"Target."

"Victim."

"Unsub."

"This room."

"Uh... Hot."

A pause.

"Sweaty."

Another pause.

"Skin."

Morgan swallowed, his throat dry.

"Naked."

Reid's eyes went down to Morgan's chest for an instant. "Bare."

"Surrender," Morgan said, leaning a little closer.

"Love."

Reid's eyes were dark and Morgan's heart was pounding.

"Desire," he whispered.

"Wanting," Reid breathed.

"You."

They stared at each other for an eternity.

"We're not talking about the room anymore, are we?" Reid asked, his voice the barest of whispers.

"No," Morgan answered, and that was it.

They were kissing.

Morgan grabbed Reid and pulled him closer, desperate for more, and Reid tried to twist a certain way that put him off balance, and Morgan fell back on the ground, pulling Reid with him. Both of them completely naked save for boxers, the skin on skin contact was almost too much to bear. Mouth on mouth. Hand in hair. Hand splayed on stomach. Hips rolling. Tongues pushing, slipping. Lungs burning for air. Hand on back. Hand going down, down into boxers, down to--

There was a great jolting noise and they broke apart, Reid pushing himself up just as the giant, rusted door swung open.

Prentiss stood there, looking down at them--as they had both frozen, Reid still straddling Morgan (although Morgan had had the presence of mind, at least, to take his hand out of Reid's boxers).

"Okay," she said slowly. "I'm gonna close this door, and when I open it again, you're both going to be in G-rated positions. Got it?"

The door slammed shut.

Reid glanced down at Morgan, eyes wide.

"We'll finish later," Morgan promised, before gently pushing back on Reid's shoulder. "And it could have been worse. It could have been Hotch, you know."

"Oh, god," Reid groaned, climbing off of Morgan.

The door cracked open.

"We're good," Morgan called.

Prentiss pushed it all the way open, stepping inside.

"Hi!" she said brightly. "Well, got the unsub, saved the last victim, no worries. Good to see you two again."

"Yeah," Morgan said.

Prentiss frowned at Reid. "You get pistol-whipped?"

Reid nodded. "Yes. It, ah, it was how he knocked me out. The unsub."

"Ouch." Prentiss made a face. "What about you? You all right, Morgan?"

Morgan grimaced. "Sprained ankle. I'll live."

"Okay," Prentiss said, with an air of finality. "Awesome."

There was an awkward silence.

"Whew," she said, reaching up to fan herself with her hand. "It's hot as fuck in here. I'm gonna go tell Hotch that I found you guys--try to control yourselves while I'm gone. Be right back."

And she was gone, leaving the door open behind her.

Reid glanced at Morgan.

Morgan grinned. "You and me, pretty boy. We're rooming together, remember?"

Reid's eyes widened. "But--but your ankle--"

"My ankle," Morgan interrupted, pointing at finger at him, "is not my dick. My dick is in perfect working order, thank you very much."

"That's, uh, good to know," Reid said.

Morgan's grinned widened. "It's very good to know."

Fic: Blow Your Head Apart (2/9)

2009-08-11T10:48:58Z

Blow Your Head Apart
Chapter 2

Morgan banged on the door again.

“C'mon, kid, I know you're in there!”

Silence.

Footsteps, at last. There was the sound of a deadbolt moving, a doorknob turning, and then—

“What?” Reid demanded, his head poking out.

Morgan, taken aback by Reid's tone, took a second to answer.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he said with a shrug, keeping his tone light. “You know, it's been a while.”

“Now's not really a good time.” He made to shut the door.

“Whoa—hey now!” Morgan protested, getting a hand on the door just in time and pushing it back. “Reid, we need to talk.”

“Tomorrow,” Reid said firmly, and Morgan felt him trying to push the door shut.

“Now,” Morgan insisted. “You've been avoiding me for two weeks.”

“Not everything's about you.”

Morgan raised his eyebrows. “I didn't—”

“Look, we'll talk later, okay?” Reid interrupted, and Morgan felt him try to close the door again.

Morgan kept his hand on the outside of the door, easily keeping Reid's efforts at bay. “Why not now?”

“It's not any of your business.”

“I'm worried about you.”

Reid glared.

Morgan took a second to look him up and down, and suddenly realized that Reid was not wearing the dress shirt and slacks that he'd worn in to work, but a pair of never-before-seen jeans and a t-shirt that Morgan recognized, with a jolt, as one of his own. More interestingly, though...

“So,” Morgan said, leaning casually against the door frame, a grin coming to his face. “Is that a cell phone in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

Reid looked utterly lost.

“What?”

Morgan's grin widened, and he gestured down to the bulge in Reid's pants.

“Oh!” Reid went scarlet. “That's—I mean, I—it's not...”

Morgan took a step forward, and Reid took three backwards, disappearing behind the door and, incidentally, leaving Morgan free to step right inside.

“Morgan!” Reid protested, apparently not having realized this. “Hey—hey, no! Tomorrow! This isn't really a good time right—”

The apartment was in complete disarray.

“—really busy at the moment as you can probably—”

More so than usual, anyway.

“—I'm in the middle of something, please, we can—”

“Reid,” Morgan said slowly, cutting off Reid's babbling, “what happened here?”

Reid was quiet for a minute or so, and then he halfheartedly mumbled, “Really, you should go.”

Morgan toed a toppled stack of books out of the way before taking a step forward. “I must have missed the earthquake.”

“Actually, in an average day, there are a little under 400 detectable earthquakes around the world, which seems like a lot until you compare it to the 3500 earthquakes that go undetected without—”

“Reid.”

Reid stopped.

Morgan took another step forward, avoiding an empty carton of Chinese food.

“Look, can't we do this tomorrow? I'm kind of busy right now.”

“With what, cleaning?” Morgan snorted. “Because if that's the case, I'll pitch in. This place doesn't even look safe to walk through.”

“We can talk about my negligent housekeeping tomorrow,” Reid said flatly. “You've seen me, I'm alive, now go.”

Morgan turned around to look at Reid, and was surprised to see that despite his pushy words, he had his arms over his stomach and was curled in on himself slightly, as though he had a stomach-ache. “Why do you want me to leave?”

“Because, believe it or not, I can actually function for two weeks without being your sex toy,” Reid retorted.

Morgan's eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me? My sex toy?”

“Sure,” Reid said, shrugging one shoulder, staring at the ground. “Gimp mask one night, butt plug the next, the skinny, socially awkward coworker the night after, then you go back to—”

“Look, kid,” Morgan growled, advancing. “I asked you. Twice. If you didn't have the balls to say no, that's on you, not me.”

“Yes, everything's my fault, isn't it?”

“Now you're going for self pity?” Morgan said disbelievingly. “I can't believe—”

Wait a minute.

Something in his head clicked, and he was suddenly even more incredulous.

“You don't really feel like I used you, do you?” he demanded. “You're trying to piss me off to get me to leave!”

Reid scowled at the floor and said nothing.

“What's the matter with you?” Morgan asked, frowning.

“Nothing. I'm just—” Reid's head shot up, his eyes widening and the blood draining from his face.

Morgan stared. “Reid? Are you okay?”

Reid stood stock-still, terrified expression frozen in place.

“Reid?” Morgan repeated.

Reid's mouth opened, and his lips formed a few soundless words before he finally seemed to get his vocal cords working. “I... I have to go.”

And then he was jamming his feet into a pair of shoes and grabbing a jacket off the couch, disappearing down the short hallway that led to the bedroom and bathroom. In the distance, Morgan could hear sirens, but... That couldn't...

“Reid?” he called, making his way back to the bedroom. “Reid, what—”

He stopped short at the sight of Reid zipping up a backpack—Morgan hadn't even known that Reid owned a backpack, for one thing, and for another, the room was strewn about with clothes and several drawers hung open in a way that put “clothing” as the most likely item to have just been stuffed in the backpack. Reid glanced up at him.

“They're coming to arrest me.”

Morgan stared. “What?”

Reid slung the backpack over his shoulder. “Look, I don't have time to explain—they think I'm the serial killer, the one who's been killing those Georgetown professors. It's not me, and I—I can't prove it. I have to go prove it. Tell them that you got here and I was already gone, okay?”

“No—Reid, slow down. Wait.” Morgan tried to grab Reid's arm, but Reid was too goddamn skinny and managed to slip past him. “Reid!”

Reid tried to rush down the hallway, but not before Morgan grabbed hold of the backpack and forcibly yanked him back, roughly spinning him so that they were face to face. Reid was breathing hard and looked absolutely terrified.

“The cops are coming to arrest you,” Morgan stated.

Reid nodded. He twisted slightly, obviously trying to get free, but Morgan wasn't letting him go anywhere.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“I just do,” Reid insisted. “Let me go.”

“If you're innocent, then running will only make you look guiltier,” Morgan continued.

Reid shook his head. “I can't prove I'm innocent, and judging by the heinous nature of the crimes and the complete lack of remorse that the killer would have to possess, precedent gives that the chances of the jury recommending a death sentence are almost nine in ten.”

“Reid, if you're innocent, then they can't convict you,” Morgan argued. “What evidence do they have against you anyway?”

“I knew that the professor was taken.” Reid's eyes went to the floor. “Before anyone reported it.”

“It's called victimology,” Morgan said, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Reid said, shaking his head. “It wasn't. There was no way I could have known, we didn't have a pattern in the victims.”

Morgan frowned. “What are you saying?”

“I—I know things,” Reid said, his eyes still fixed on the floor.

Looking down, Morgan's train of thought was momentarily derailed as he realized that the bulge in Reid's pants was still there—there must really be something in there, then. He wondered what it was.

And then what Reid had just said registered, and his eyes narrowed.

“What do you mean, know things?”

Reid visibly hesitated. “Do you know what precognition is?”

“Yes, but—” It dawned on him where this was going. “You're not serious.”

“I have to go,” Reid said, tugging against Morgan's grip.

To be fair, the sirens were pretty loud by this point.

Morgan let him go, and Reid got all the way to the door before he realized that Morgan was following him.

“What are you doing?” he demanded over his shoulder, walking out the door.

Morgan slammed the door behind him. “Going with you.”

“You can't!”

“I was a cop, I worked undercover,” Morgan pointed out. “I know how to hide from cops.”

Reid pushed open the door to the stairwell. “They'll charge you with obstructing justice.”

“Not if you're really innocent.”

They made it to the bottom of the stairwell and Reid pushed open the door to the outside. He paused, looking in either direction.

“So,” Morgan added, coming to a stop behind Reid, “if you're not actually innocent, now would be a really good time to tell me.”

Reid twisted his head around to stare, his expression incredulous. “You think I killed those people?”

“No,” Morgan said. “Go left, we're going to take the second-closest Metro station. It'll buy us some time when they start looking for us tomorrow.”

oOo

It wasn't too often that the cops came in and talked to Hotch.

Usually, if cops decided to come in, they were told that the most they could do was file a request for the help of the BAU, and if they wanted to do that, they were handed a small rainforest's worth of paperwork, and told to have a pleasant day. Only twice had a cop actually been allowed up in the BAU, and both times, they had been sent directly to JJ. This would be the third cop she'd seen in the BAU, but this one hadn't come knocking on her office door.

He was in Hotch's office, talking with both Hotch and Gideon, a file of papers and pictures spread out over Hotch's desk. JJ really hoped that they weren't going to take this case up, as she'd received a case from a suburb of New York City this morning that she wanted to take.

“What's going on in there?” Garcia asked as she passed, turning slightly to look inside Hotch's office.

“I don't know,” JJ replied, shaking her head. “I've never seen a cop in Hotch's office before.”

“Ooo... Interesting.” Garcia waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

JJ grinned. “What're you thinking?”

“JJ?”

She turned and found Hotch sticking his head out the door.

“Is that a case?” Hotch asked, indicating the folder in her hand.

JJ nodded. “Yeah. There's three dead girls in a suburb of New York City, all of them teenage African American—”

“We can't take it,” Hotch interrupted, his voice terse. “Pass it off to another team, and get everyone in the conference room right now. Is anybody besides Reid not here?”

JJ took a moment to process the fact that Hotch had interrupted her, something that almost never happened, and then another for the very weird fact that Hotch had known that Reid wasn't in when JJ herself hadn't known this. “I—uh, I don't know. I haven't been in the bullpen yet. Can I ask why?”

“Um, sir?” Garcia said hesitantly.

Hotch and JJ both turned to look at her.

“Morgan isn't here yet,” Garcia offered, looking awkward. “I, uh... He's just usually in by now. That's all.”

“Find out where he is and get him here,” Hotch ordered.

Garcia nodded rapidly, turning around and hurrying down the hallway.

Hotch gave JJ a nod, and then withdrew into his office, shutting the door.

oOo

“What, the FBI kid?” The man snorted. “You're kidding, right? Shit. I knew he'd be trouble.”

Wally raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“You're serious? You're serious. He works for the government, Al Qaeda probably has this place ready to blow at the push of a button,” Keith Lamberts cast a look at the wall that made it clear he was convinced that there were bombs wired just beneath the plaster. “I knew I should've kicked him out...”

“Did you hear anything unusual last night?” Wally continued, scribbling down a note to check into the history of this guy.

“Nothing I felt like leaving the game for.”

Wally dutifully wrote this down, also. He was beginning to get the feeling that this guy would end up being generally useless. “Can you tell me what Agent Reid is usually like?”

Lamberts frowned. “Pays his rent on time.”

“Anything else?” Wally prodded gently, when Lamberts said nothing more. “What about visitors?”

“Yeah, I memorize my tenants' friends. Sure. It's how I sleep at night.”

Wally resisted the urge to roll his eyes. This guy wasn't going to be any help at all. “Would it be possible for you to stay here for the next few hours?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Lamberts said, tone dripping with sarcasm. “I was planning on getting some knitting done today anyway.”

“Thanks for your cooperation,” Wally said with a nod, flipping his notebook shut.

Lamberts slammed the door shut.

Rolling his eyes, Wally turned and walked down the hallway, shaking his head. As he got closer to Agent Reid's apartment, the noise of the rest of the team working away got louder and louder until he could actually distinguish what people were saying—most of it was related to the case, but he caught snatches of gossip about Leslie's daughter in between it all. He stopped just outside the apartment, sticking his head in.

“Boss!” he called.

His boss, Laurel MacConnell, made her way over to him, towering over everyone else in the room as usual.

“What's up?” she asked as she approached the doorway.

“Landlord's useless,” Wally informed her. “Doesn't know Agent Reid from the guy down the street. Have you guys gotten anything here yet?”

“He's one smart son of a bitch,” Laurel said, scowling. “It was looking like he just ran, but then RJ called up and said that another one of Reid's coworkers didn't show up for work this morning. They can't find him.”

Wally grimaced. “What are you thinking?”

“Either Reid's got him captive along with Wendell Morris, or he and the other guy have been in it together since the beginning.” Laurel shook her head, exhaling. “I hate this case. Every time I think we've got something...”

“Did you get into his computer yet?” Wally asked tentatively.

“No. We're got someone from IT coming down to work on it—and with two dead, two missing, and our prime suspect at large, I'm sure that whoever it is will work their ass off to get us out intel.”

“I'll ask the neighbors about the coworker,” Wally told her, to give her a little hope. “What's his name?”

“Derek Morgan.” Laurel held up a finger, her other hand going to her wireless headset. “One sec. Yes—yes, this is MacConnell. Let me... Wait, what? You're kidding.”

Wally stood there as Laurel turned around, retreating back into the room to the coffee table that had been scattered with their own equipment and paperwork. She picked up a piece of paper and then started walking back towards him.

“Yeah. Yeah, great—thanks. Keep me posted.” Laurel switched off her headset and focused on Wally, holding out the paper. “Here.”

Wally accepted it, looking at the photograph printed on it. “Is this Morgan?”

“Yeah, that's him,” Laurel confirmed. She smiled wryly. “They just found his car in the parking lot.”

“This one?” Wally asked.

Laurel nodded. “Yeah. You need to ask about him.”

“On it,” Wally said, giving her a campy salute before heading off to the apartment next door and knocking on the door.

A woman in her twenties answered, one hand on the door and the other running a brush through her hair.

“Hi,” Wally said, pulling out his badge. “I'm Wally Krupke, with the Washington DC Police Department—can I ask you a few questions about your neighbor, Doctor Spencer Reid?”

“Krupke?” the woman repeated, grinning. “You're Officer Krupke? Really?”

Wally smiled thinly. “I get that a lot.”

You knew it was going to be a bad day when people start making fun of your name at eight o'clock in the morning.

Next

Fic: Lean

2009-08-07T14:50:03Z

Title: Lean
Rating: PG
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: The case gets rough, and Morgan and Reid turn to each other.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: Work is boring, and I've been in a writing funk lately. This is something that manged to turn out half-decent. The ridiculous sweetness may possibly cause cavities.

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Lean

Aaron doesn't think they even notice that they're doing it. Normally, Derek and Spencer are very good about staying behind the professionalism line--it's unusual, really, because Spencer is terribly at lying and Derek is a very tactile person, but they somehow manage to pull it off. Aaron has never once had to speak to them about it, not even when he'd first found out about them, just because he figured that if they'd managed to keep it a complete secret from everyone for three months, then being professional in the office and the field really wasn't going to be an issue.

Which is why he doesn't think they even notice that they're doing it.

It's day six of the case, god knows what hour, and it's nothing big. It's little things. Like the way that they hold eye contact for a second too long, or the way that they both reach for the same crime scene photo, or the way they stand a little bit closer together than usual, and really, they're so tired by this point that there's nothing sexual about it. Aaron is certain that if he hadn't been a trained profiler, he would have never picked up on the way they're starting to seek contact, comfort, a reminder of tenderness.

Day seven of the case dawns with another dead little girl. And maybe, as Derek and Spencer leave the crime scene, they walk so close together that if either one of them curled their fingers, they'd be holding hands. Maybe when Derek ruffles Spencer's hair, it ends up being more of a caress. Maybe there's a moment when Spencer stops in front of Derek and his head dips down, like he's going to rest it on Derek's shoulder, but then he jerks it up at the last second. Maybe. Aaron thinks that, with so little sleep, he might just be wanting to see the two of them turning to each other.

Day eight, and they've all run out of sleep. The only things that are keeping any of them going right now are coffee and vengence, and Aaron knows he's not imagining things, now. They sit around the table, staring at crime scene photos in some desperate hope that maybe they'll see something new, and Spencer is absently tracing patterns on the inside of Derek's forearm with his finger as he studies the pictures. They wait for the store manager to arrive so they can discuss his security camera, and Derek has a finger in Spencer's beltloop and stares off into the distance, eyes unfocused. In the car, Spencer is practically slumped against Derek. Aaron says nothing because the whole team is aching for that contact, and if Derek and Spencer can find that in each other, good for them.

Day nine. The plane ride home. Derek and Spencer take the couch and fall asleep in each other's arms.

Normally, Aaron wouldn't allow it, but right now, he's pretty sure that he'd snuggle with Dave if it meant he got the couch instead of these goddamn chairs. He's not small enough to curl up in them, like JJ and Emily can, and he's definitely not arrogant enough to put his feet up on the table like Dave's doing right now. Even when he's this exhausted, when he could barely keep his eyes open on the drive here, he can't sleep like this. He'd kill for the couch.

Dave lets out an snore that momentarily wakes Emily.

Then again, Aaron thinks with a soft snort, maybe sharing the couch with Dave wouldn't be so great. Derek and Spencer can have it.

Fic: Blow Your Head Apart (1/9)

2009-08-06T12:27:11Z

Title: Blow Your Head Apart
Rating: R
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: Two weeks after Hankel, Hotch brings Reid back out onto the field on a consult. It doesn't go well.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: For personal reasons, I have decided to drop out of the Criminal Minds Big Bang and post my story separately. So the badass story that I've been bragging about for the last few months? That would be this one. A huge thank you goes out to lady_of_scarlet for being the fantastic, amazing, wonderful, irreplaceable beta that she is, to shinealightonme for being the incredibly supportive friend that she is, and to bau_bigbang for pushing me to write the last 10,000 words of this by hand after my computer died. Chapters will be posted twice a week. Spoilers up to Revelations. Ready? Set? Go!

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Blow Your Head Apart
Chapter 1

Ruthenium, number forty-four, atomic weight 101.07, transition element, CAS ID 7440-18-8. Rhodium, number forty-five, atomic weight 102.9055, transition element, CAS ID 7440-16-6, palladium, number...

He stopped.

His mind balked, searching for something else to recite, but the throbbing in the back of his head silenced the urge.

It hurt. It hurt a lot.

And he was cold. The water that they dumped over him had not yet dried, and in the cool air of the September night, he wanted to shiver. He was so cold, so cold and hurt and sick, but if he shivered then it would... He'd...

Spencer squeezed his eyes shut even tighter as the memories of just a few hours ago swamped his mind.

oOo

“Have you ever said fuck before, Spencer?” Donny taunted, pulling Spencer's head up by his hair. “Hm? You ever said fuck? How about shit?”

“Yes,” Spencer whimpered. “I have, I've said it—please let me go. I won't tell anybody, I swear—”

“Say fuck,” someone else hissed. “Say fuck and we'll let you go.”

“F—fuck,” Spencer said, stuttering when Donny gripped his skull even more painfully.

There was an explosion of laughter. He tried desperately to hold back his tears, but they were coming hot and fast. He just wanted to get out of here.

“F—f—fuck!” Alexa hooted, somewhere off to the right. “Oh my god, he stuttered, I can't believe he stuttered!”

“Are you gonna get in trouble with your mommy for saying that?” someone else shouted.

Spencer swallowed, tight and painful, and told himself not to say anything.

“Does she wash your mouth out with soap?”

“Your mom washes your mouth out with soap!”

“Shut the fuck up, Crystal.”

Donny let go of his hair, and Spencer crumpled to the grass. “What are we gonna do with you Spencer?”

“Say fuck again,” someone whispered.

Spencer sobbed, unheard over the uproar of laughter.

oOo

He shivered as a gust of wind blew, and then whimpered. His skin was chaffed and raw from struggling against the rope.

Crying wouldn't help anything, he told himself. He had to be brave.

Hoping for a distraction, he opened his eyes, but he couldn't see anything.

It was dark, and the tears in his eyes made it impossible to make out shapes. He closed his eyes again, telling himself to take comfort in the fact that he could still feel the cold metal of the pole and the rope around his wrists and the cord around his stomach, and the fact that he was still alive.

But the back of his head was throbbing relentlessly, making it impossible to take comfort in anything.

When they'd pushed him against the goalpost, his skull had cracked on the cold metal. He'd been knocked senseless, too dazed to do anything as the bungee cord had caught him around the stomach and the rope had pulled his hands together behind him, and then he'd blinked and he'd found himself alone on the field.

Loss of consciousness. Concussion. Brain damage.

The pain was sharp and constant like a headache, except all in the back of his head, and for the last few hours it had been consistent. But now, out of nowhere, it was getting worse. It was building, spreading, going deeper into his brain, pounding, throbbing, and Spencer wondered if maybe he'd cracked his skull and he was having a hemorrhage, and he was going to die out here on this football field Who would find him? Would they know who he was? What would he look like?

He imagined his dead body tied the goalpost, the head lolling, the pale skin aglow in the misty dawn.

Would they go to jail?

He screwed his eyes shut against the pain, imagining what the back of his skull must look like. Gory. Bloody. His hair, wet and stringy, was probably soaked with blood—and when the coroner rinsed it off, he'd be able to see brain. Spencer's brain. The cause of his death on display for all the world to see.

He wanted to be laid face-down at his funeral. Let them see it, let them turn away in horror, struggling to comprehend who could have bashed in the head of a innocent little boy. Let them cry and vomit and lay awake at night, sleepless. Let them feel it.

Spencer shivered again, and before he could stop himself, his lips parted and he let out the smallest of whimpers.

He sucked in a breath as the pain in his skull spiked. The tears spilled over.

“I'm dying,” he whispered.

He struggled to breathe. He tried to open his eyes, but his head—his skull—it was being crushed, he couldn't breathe—

“I'm dying,” he said again, choking. “I'm dying. I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm dying.”

No one could hear him. He would die alone on this football field.

Hot tears streamed down his face, the air that he drew into his lungs choking him, and he stiffened against the pole as a blinding rush of pain surged to the very center of his brain.

“I'm dying,” he sobbed, throwing his head back again and again only to be met with air. “I'm dying! I'm dying! I'm dying!”

The pain in his head exploded and his scream, long and inhuman, echoed into the silent night.

I'm dead.

oOo

“Tick tock, tick tock, Prentiss.”

“No time limit,” Emily muttered, her concentration on the piece of paper taped to the wall not breaking.

Morgan raised his hands defensively. “No time limit, I'm just saying. I hope it don't take you this long to aim a gun.”

Emily didn't answer. She squinted, adjusted her thumb slightly, then brought her right hand back an inch or so.

Thwack!

The rubber band slapped the paper too fast for Morgan to see, falling to the ground, but left a wet line straight across the tiny center circle that had been colored yellow with highlighter for easy identification. It was a—

“Bullseye!” Emily crowed, her arms shooting up in victory as her chair spun in wild circles of celebration. “Yes!”

Morgan held back a wince.

Shit.

“Beat that!” Emily challenged, slowing her chair to a stop to face him, her triumph turning to smugness and her grin into a smirk.

Unwilling to admit defeat, Morgan dipped his own rubber band in the cup of water and then took aim—thumb against the front line of the band, line the index finger up with the target, bring the thumb down, lower the index finger to compensate the angle—shit, he was never going to do this—pull back, keep the angle, keep the angle, keep the angle, keep the angle...

“What are you doing?”

Thwack!

Morgan froze, silently cursing himself for jumping and letting the rubber band go. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Hotch, silent, face as inscrutable as always, bent over and picked up the two wet rubber bands. He turned, glanced at the makeshift dartboard, and then turned his stony gaze to Morgan and Emily. He took three steps, dropped the rubber bands on Morgan's desk, and then said very calmly, “Clean it up.”

They responded instantly.

“—yes, sir—”

“—sorry, sir—”

Hotch walked away as Emily grabbed the cup of water, rising to go pour it down the drain, and Morgan quickly dropped the two wet rubber bands into whatever drawer of his desk was currently open. He glanced around the room and saw that Hotch was not lurking in a corner, waiting to see if they would try for a second round. Feeling relieved that they'd gotten away with no more than a dirty look and an order to stop, he sat back in his chair and tilted his head back to stare up at the ceiling, spinning his chair around in a full circle before bringing his head down and opening up his email to check it one last time.

It was almost time to go. Hallelujah.

Hotch and Reid had been out on a consult today, which meant that the rest of them were all stuck in the office doing paperwork and, well, procrastinating paperwork with less-than-mature means of diversion—hence the rubber band shooting contest—but after two weeks of sitting on their butts, it had to be understandable. They weren't secretaries, they were field agents. They could only handle office work for so long.

Hotch had most likely been relying on Gideon to keep everyone in check, but apparently Hotch had forgotten that when they didn't have a case, Gideon had the tendency to lock himself in his office for hours on end, thus making him a fairly ineffective babysitter. Or, on the other hand, maybe Hotch had remembered this and decided to let it slide because of the aforementioned two-weeks-without-a-case thing.

Not that Morgan was complaining.

Well, actually, he was. He understood why they weren't taking cases, why Hotch had spent the last week taking Reid out on consult after consult, he did, but understanding and liking were two entirely different—

Reid rounded the corner, and Morgan instantly dropped the line of thought.

Dammit.

Reid looked terrible, and even that word didn't do him justice.

Pale. Thin. Empty. Trembling.

Reid trembled all the time.

“Hey,” he greeted as Reid passed by.

Reid turned his head to offer him a grimace, and then stopped at his desk and let his messenger bag fall to the ground.

Morgan spun his chair so that he was facing Reid. “How was it?”

“We didn't catch him, if that's what you're asking,” Reid said shortly. He unloaded several large, thick files from his bag.

“What did the profile end up being?” Morgan persisted, sitting up and leaning forward slightly.

Reid shook his head as he sorted through the papers inside one of the files. “There's another professor missing. Medieval Lit.”

He said nothing more and shut the file, furiously yanking another one from the pile. His hair fell out from behind his ear, hanging limply down in front of his face, and he made no move to tuck it back again.

“Hey, it's just a consult, kid,” Morgan reminded him gently. “It's not your job to catch the unsub. All you're supposed to do is give a profile.”

Reid said nothing, but the tension in his shoulders spoke loudly enough.

Morgan was about to ask him what he was doing tonight when Emily came back, sans cup.

“I won,” she informed him.

“I was interrupted!” Morgan protested, turning away from Reid to defend himself.

Emily's smirk was maddening. “Excuses, excuses, Morgan.”

Resisting the urge to mutter something unsavory under his breath, Morgan reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. As he unfolded it, he looked up briefly to glare at Emily, and then grudgingly got the ten dollars out and handed it over.

“Thank you!” Emily sang as she slipped it into her pocket, clearly pleased with herself.

She also completely missed the dark look Morgan sent her. Disgruntled, Morgan started to look back at Reid, when—

“It's five o'clock, duckies!” Garcia announced brightly, striding into the bullpen. “I'm going out, and I'm taking people with me. Who's coming?”

Morgan rolled his eyes, glanced back at Reid, and found him busily packing up his bag.

“I'll go!” JJ called, sticking her head out of the door to her office. “Give me five minutes and I'll be ready.”

Garcia turned to the rest of them. “Anyone else?”

Emily looked wary.

“You,” Garcia said, zeroing in on her. “You're coming. You look entirely too cute today to let it go to waste.”

“Well, I don't—”

“No excuses!” Garcia declared, holding up an imperious hand.

Morgan took another quick glance at Reid, and was surprised to see that he was now completely packed up and shutting down his computer. Determined to get something more out of Reid than their four-line conversation tonight, he quickly turned around and shut down his own computer, and then started gathering his files into one big pile so that his desk would look somewhat neat in the morning.

“Morgan?” Garcia asked.

“Sorry,” he said, shoving the haphazard pile off to a corner and standing up. “Busy tonight. You girls go have fun.”

Reid was already out of the bullpen. Morgan followed him, but slipped down a stairwell instead of waiting for the elevator, taking the steps two at a time. It had been two weeks since Hankel—but more than that, it had been two weeks since he'd touched Reid, and he refused to let it continue. Tonight, they were going to work things out, whether Reid liked it or not.

oOo

Emily drained the last of her beer, then set the bottle down and gave him a second look-over.

“Seven,” she said decidedly.

Garcia scrunched her nose in thought. “Yeah. Seven.”

“What about that one, the one by the pool table?”

“Tall, dark and handsome—nine.” Garcia tipped her glass in his direction, then went to drink but caught sight of something that made her change her mind. “Ooo! Just through the door, black t-shirt, insanely hot.”

“Smoker,” Emily pronounced.

“So?” Garcia asked, shrugging. “This is a game about sex, not marriage.”

“His breath would be disgusting,” Emily said, making a face. “And he's probably got yellow teeth.”

“Who's got yellow teeth?” JJ asked, returning from the bathroom. She plunked down on the seat next to Garcia, reaching for her half-empty glass of beer.

“Rating game,” Garcia said, by way of explanation.

“Oh, fun!” JJ said, brightening. She looked around the room. “Have you guys done that one?”

“Which one?”

“The one in the blue t-shirt?”

“No, the one who's dancing.”

“He's gay.”

“No, you're not looking at the right guy—the blond one.”

“The one with the really perky butt, right?”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah. Gay.”

“He is not! Garcia!”

Garcia shook her head. “Sorry, sweetie. I'm going with Emily on this one; I only know one straight guy with an ass that fine.”

Emily grinned. “And who's that?”

JJ rolled her eyes. “Morgan.”

“Morgan?” Emily repeated, confused.

“Do not tell me that you've worked with him for six months haven't managed to notice his amazing ass!” Garcia demanded.

“No, no, it is amazing,” Emily reassured her quickly. “I just, um, thought he was bi.”

Garcia choked, and JJ's eyebrows shot up.

“Morgan?!”

Emily shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably. “I don't know. I guess... I mean, he and...”

“Honey,” Garcia said, reaching across the table and covering Emily's hand with her own, “believe me when I say that if Morgan was bi, I would know about it.”

Emily grinned sheepishly. “So is my gaydar totally off here, then, or is Reid...”

Garcia snorted. “No, you're dead on there. Just ask JJ.”

“What?” Emily asked, turning to JJ curiously.

“He took me out on a date last year,” JJ admitted.

Emily raised her eyebrows.

“It, uh...” JJ seemed to be searching for a polite way to phrase it. “It was pretty awkward.”

Garcia opened her mouth to say something, but JJ frowned and then reached over for her purse. A moment later, she pulled out her phone and flipped it open, bringing it up to her ear.

Emily picked up her glass, intent on going for a refill, and pointed to Garcia's mostly-empty glass in askance.

“I'm good,” Garcia mouthed, shaking her head.

Nodding, Emily turned and wove her way through the crowd of people up to the bar. The glass was whisked away before she could even set it down, and handed back to her seconds later by a grinning bartender—at least an eight, but also at least ten years her junior—and she thanked him with another five dollar bill. She made her way back to the table, careful not to spill her drink as the froth continued to rise slightly.

“Hey,” JJ said when she came back. “Do you know what Reid was doing tonight?”

Emily frowned. “No. Why? What's up?”

“Hotch just called—he wanted to know if Reid was with us,” JJ said, sounding puzzled.

“Dunno,” Emily said, shrugging. “You think everything's okay?”

Garcia reached across the table and snagged Emily's beer. “It's Reid. What trouble could he possibly get into?”

“Hey!” Emily protested, grabbing for her glass, but Garcia had already tipped it back.

“There's a ten!” JJ suddenly hissed, and Emily's head immediately whipped to the right, searching the area near the door.

“Where?” Garcia demanded, the beer abandoned. “Over by the window?”

“No, by the pool table. In the black jeans.”

“Oh my god.”

“Ten.”

“Eleven.”

Next

Fic: I Tell Myself I'm Fine (2/?)

2009-07-31T17:56:56Z

Title: I Tell Myself I'm Fine (2/?)
Author: bookgodess15
Rating: R
Summary: Spencer hasn't talked for seven months, two weeks, six days and fourteen hours.
Notes: Still left room for more, but there are a lot more questions answered in this one, and some clever fiend out there might be able to figure out what's happened to Spencer. Maybe. In the meantime, beware language. Seriously. If it weren't for the language, this peice could probably get away with a PG rating.

Part One

T

I Tell Myself I'm Fine
Part 2

When Spencer came back into the cabin, just having returned from mailing his most recent transcription of The Regiment of the Princes to his mother, he expected to find Derek being moody on his bed, Aaron and Dave in the bathroom doing their thing, and maybe Penelope and JJ playing some sort of clapping game on the floor. That was the way it had been for the last three days, anyway. But today when he pushed open the door, he found the cabin deserted.

He poked a cautious head into the bathroom, just to be sure, when he heard Dave swear from out back, maybe behind the cabin.

Frowning, Spencer shut the bathroom door and made his way to the back of the cabin, clutching his notebook in one hand as he pushed open the back door.

Aaron and Dave were crouched on the grass, backs to Spencer, and Derek sat on a basketball a few feet away.

Spencer walked over, stopping just short of Aaron and Dave, craning his neck to look at what they were doing.

"Got a lighter, kid?" Derek asked, startling Spencer.

Eyes wide, Spencer shook his head, bringing his notebook back to his chest protectively in case they were looking for fuel for the fire.

"Prentiss has one," Derek informed Dave. "She smokes, you know."

"Fuck that shit, I ain't asking her," Dave muttered, intent on the pair of glasses in his hand that were being held just above a piece of paper and a stick.

"This is never gonna work."

Dave shot Aaron a dirty look. "Maybe if you quit talking, your hot air will stop blowing out the flames."

"You ain't got any flames to blow out," Derek snorted.

Dave threw the glasses down on the ground, sitting back on his butt and throwing his hands up in the air.

"Fine! Does anyone have a better idea?"

Spencer looked between the three boys, slowly putting together what was going on. Dave's lighter must have broken or run out of fluid, and that was why Aaron and Dave weren't in the bathroom doing their thing right now.

Blinking, he realized with a jolt that he did know how to make fire.

He was on his stomach in seconds, opening to a new page in his notebook and tearing it out, and then he closed the notebook and shoved it off to the side. He yanked off his own glasses and then held them in the light of the sun, focusing down on the small, glowing dot on the paper. Squinting, he moved the glasses up higher, making the diameter of the circle shrink until it was barely a pinprick.

"It doesn't work," Dave said dully, apparently having noticed what he was doing. "We've been out here for ten minutes."

Spencer shook his head, not taking his eyes off the paper.

"There isn't anything else?" Aaron asked, his voice edgy. "Where's Prentiss?"

"We're not asking her for her goddamn lighter," Dave snapped.

"So steal it."

Spencer's head shot up to stare at Derek in shock.

Dave was staring at the girls' cabin, his finger working the stick in his hand nervously. He licked his lips. "You think?"

"We're not stealing it," Aaron said incredulously. "No way!"

Derek raised an eyebrow at him. "Why? What's she gonna do, go running to Strauss? Say we grabbed her lighter?"

"Her parents are ambassadors. She didn't get kicked out last year when she kept sneaking out with her boyfriend—you think they're going to throw her out for smoking?" Aaron asked, raising a calm eyebrow.

"Just go in there and grab it," Derek urged, jerking his head in the direction of the girls' cabin.

Dave gave the cabin another nervous glance. "You go do it."

"I ain't doin' that, what d'you think I am, stupid? Fucktard."

There was a small crackling noise and Spencer looked down to see a tiny flame eating away at the piece of paper. Eyes widening, he pushed himself up on his elbows and looked over to the group frantically, but no one was looking at him. He reached over and frantically yanked on Dave's t-shirt, trying to get his attention.

"What—" The annoyed expression on Dave's face disappeared as soon as his eyes caught sight of the paper. "Holy shit!"

"You gotta be fuckin' kidding me," Derek muttered, leaning forward on his basketball to look closer.

Dave quickly thrust the stick into the growing wave of flame that was burning across the piece of paper. Quickly, Spencer put his glasses back on and then ripped another piece of paper from his notebook and held it over the flame. It caught almost immediately, and it let it drop.

"How'd you do that?" Aaron asked, his eyes on the stick that was refusing to catch fire.

Solar thermal conversion, Spencer almost said, but he caught himself at the last second. The explanation exploded in his mind, bursting to be spoken, sentences of parabolic troughs and the five basic principles of solar heat (gain, transfer, storage, transport and insulation) popping up before he could push them away.

He scrambled backwards as Dave and Aaron crowded around the fire, the thin bark around the stick beginning to pop. As an afterthought, he snatched up his notebook, too.

Minutes later, Dave and Aaron carried a flaming stick inside the cabin, moving as carefully as if they were holding a newborn.

"Crazy motherfuckers," Derek muttered, standing up and grabbing his basketball. He spared a glance at Spencer, eyebrows raised. "Ain't it time for you to get shrinked?"

Spencer glanced down at the watch Ellen had bought him, and realized with a jolt that Derek was right. His eyes widened momentarily, then he took off, running around the cabin and down the hill, completely forgetting that his notebook was still in his hand.

oOo

Emily slammed the door behind her as she stalked out of Dr. Gideon's cabin—which was quite a feat, Spencer thought, considering that it was only a screen door—and she stopped, scowling at him.

"Well, go on in," she spat, jerking her thumb back toward the door. "Just don't tell him if you're gay, because HE'S A HOMOPHOBIC PUSSY-EATING BITCH."

She shouted the last bit through the screen door.

Spencer clutched his notebook to his chest, unsure if he should attempt to slip into the cabin with her standing in front of the door, or if he should wait until she left. Emily scared him. The only reason he was certain that she wouldn't eat him alive was because she was a vegan—or, at least, she said she was, and she got special servings at meals. But maybe she'd make an exception for him.

"What?" Emily suddenly demanded, making him jump. "You got a problem with me being a dyke?"

Spencer shook his head quickly.

"Good," she said, still scowling at him. "Because some people are convinced that it's a phase. Um, I'm pretty sure it's my fucking vagina and I know what the hell I want up it, thanks. Just because I'm a teenager doesn't mean that I'm a fucking retard. Jesus. You know, all I want is a little goddamned respect around—"

"Emily, are you going to let Spencer in for his session?" Dr. Gideon interrupted, appearing on the other side of the screen door.

"Oh, blow it out your ass," Emily muttered as she stomped away. "Cocksucker."

The screen door opened, and Spencer scurried inside.

"I see you brought a notebook with you," Dr. Gideon commented as he sat down behind the chess board that was already set up, waiting to be played.

Spencer nodded, gripping it more tightly.

He wished he'd thought to leave it in the cabin. There wasn't anything in there but transcriptions of books, some math notes, and some thoughts about String Theory (okay, and maybe a few episode transcriptions of Star Trek but they were only key scenes from the latest season, and, well, maybe a few thoughts as to what could have happened in the episodes that he'd missed while in the foster home, but that was it, honestly), but it was still his notebook. The only lifeline of communication that he allowed himself. The only way that Dr. Gideon might be able to break his silence, snatching it up and demanding and forcing his way into Spencer's life.

His breathing quickened and he tensed, prepared to bolt.

Dr. Gideon sat back in his seat. "Do you want to be white or black?"

Spencer stared at him.

"Do you want me to pick?" Dr. Gideon asked gently, frowning.

Quickly, Spencer shook his head and he pointed to the white end of the board, the side closer to Gideon. He'd lost every single one of their four games, and even though studies had shown that the advantage of playing white was merely psychological, and that black did just as much counterplay as white, he was determined to scrape up every last bit of help he could get in order to beat Dr. Gideon.

The board of carefully spun so that the white pieces were on his side, and Spencer immediately began studying the board, mind going over the strategies that Dr. Gideon had employed over the last few days and the best way to open this game, and finally, he settle for moving his pawn forward to B4.

Dr. Gideon reciprocated with the mirroring move.

Spencer bit his lip, then moved his knight to C3.

"You know," Dr. Gideon said casually, surprising Spencer, "I think that you and Derek have more in common than you realize."

Derek?

Dr. Gideon moved another pawn forward. "I know he may seem a bit intimidating, but I think you'd be surprised at the boy underneath."

Spencer swallowed. Derek might not scare him, exactly, (or at least, not anymore) but the idea of approaching him and trying to bond with him certainly did. He got the idea that the only reason his head hadn't been shoved down the toilet yet was because he'd given Derek a wide berth ever since he'd arrived, and even if that wasn't the case, Spencer saw no reason to chance for error. High school had been bad enough, thank you very much.

"Also," Dr. Gideon went on, his voice soft as he surveyed Spencer over his glasses, "I'm going to be honest with you, Spencer. I think that right now you could help Derek more than I ever could. He doesn't need me. He needs what you have to offer."

And as if that weren't confusing enough, when Spencer glanced back down at the board, he realized with a start that he was already a step away from being in check.

oOo

As soon as his session was over, Spencer raced up to the cabin and shoved his notebook into his duffel bag, deep down inside, underneath the piles of clothing he had yet to wear, just in case. He sat there on his knees, staring down into the duffel bag for a long moment, trying to decide what to do next. Dave had his session with Dr. Gideon right now, which meant that Aaron was probably down at the lake with the girls, and Derek was never around when Spencer got back from his session, although where he went, Spencer wasn't quite sure.

He was considering going down to the lake, but he didn't want to swim and he strongly suspected that even if he was adamant about not going into the water, somehow, he'd end up soaked by dinnertime. Penelope had a slight tendency to push and pull him places. There was the rec room, where Aaron got his books from, and he could always work on writing more of The Regiment of Princes for his mother, but neither one sounded particularly appealing. He was tired of this camp, of the repetition, of the supervision. In college he'd essentially been on his own all the time, but that freedom had been snatched away from him after they'd pulled him out. He hadn't gotten it back since. He wanted to do something new and exciting, something of his own choosing without people watching.

He wanted to go for a walk in the woods. See if there was anything back there, if maybe there was an end to the property, and hear something different.

That was the thing about not talking—you heard a lot more. Sounds became more interesting. Voices were the most incredible thing—Spencer had, of course, read all about vocal cadence and dynamic, but his silence had caused him to fall into an utterly perfect understanding of it that he'd never had before. It wasn't intellectual. It was something that he knew now, something that came to him like an instinct and not with words and diagrams and statistics. But even better than listening to voices was to stand in an area, close his eyes, and just listen to the sounds. A radio playing, a door swinging shut, a diesel engine sputtering to life, the rise and fall of a cricket's song, they all made a picture. A dark, sightless picture made entirely of volume and harmony and story.

So lost was he in his thoughts about sound and being in tune with nature and his surroundings that, when the screen door of the cabin banged shut, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

Whirling around to see who had come in, Spencer saw JJ standing in the cabin, her eyes red and her expression lost.

He frowned.

"Can you listen?" JJ whispered. "Please. Just for a bit."

Spencer nodded, doing his best to keep his confusion off his face.

She sat down across from him and stared at the floor for a long moment, then sniffled and wiped her eyes, looking back up at him.

"Did you hear Emily's a lesbian now?" she asked quietly.

Spencer nodded again, and wondered if he should do something instead of just sitting here stupidly. Pat her shoulder, maybe? That was lame.

"Well—well, so am I. Or maybe not, I don't know, I just know that I love her," JJ said miserably. "But she doesn't—"

She choked on a sob.

Feeling awkward, Spencer bit his lip. He knew that JJ was a compulsive liar, and everything he'd learned in the last eight months was telling him that she was lying through her teeth, but he couldn't call her on it and he wasn't rude enough to just stand up and leave, and... Well, he kind of wanted to believe her.

"She's not messed up like me," JJ sniffled, wiping away more tears. "I mean, she's just here because she got pregnant and her mom didn't want to deal with her anymore, you know, she's not like me. I'm a freak who can't tell the truth long enough to keep a friend. I don't mean to lie all the time, you know."

Now, Spencer was conflicted. There was definitely a lot of truth in her words, like she was just embellishing a little bit, but how much of that was JJ and how much of that was the fact that he wanted some truth from her? This was so confusing.

"I really don't mean to. I'm—I mean, my life is just so boring, you know. I grew up in this small town and nothing interesting ever happened and I just wanted people to like me and I wanted to have fun, and it just didn't stop and now I'm here and Emily thinks I'm a freak!" JJ sobbed, burying her head in her hands. "And I don't even know if she even is a lesbian, because she's always saying things like she's a vegan, and she's a pagan, and she's an artist, and I don't know what to believe. What if I try to kiss her? What if she hates me? I can't tell Pen, I just can't Spencer, she'll think I'm lying and I don't know what to do..."

Spencer watched her with her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking. He was pretty certain that JJ was straight, at least if what Derek had said a few days ago was true, and he didn't know what to do. Why would she lie? Why would she come to him, anyway? Wouldn't she want someone that actually talked to listen to her?

But maybe... Maybe she liked him. She wanted him to comfort her and she appreciated the silence just like he did and maybe—

A swarm of butterflies arose in his stomach, and he blushed. What was he thinking? Of course JJ didn't like him. Like that. She couldn't. He was gangly and awkward and he didn't even talk, how could anyone like him?

He swallowed.

But then he was saved as Aaron strode into the cabin, stopping when he caught sight of JJ and frowning. His eyes quickly moved to Spencer in askance.

Spencer held up his hands, indicating that he wasn't the one who had made her cry, and Aaron nodded then rolled his eyes at JJ.

"What's wrong, JJ?" he asked, the concern in his voice tinged with slight exasperation.

"Emily," she sobbed, raising her tear-streaked face to stare up at him. "Please, Aaron, you've got to believe me, I'm not lying this time."

Aaron's expression was unreadable. He glanced at Spencer. "Would you mind leaving for a few minutes?"

Spencer quickly shook his head and scrambled to stand up, brushing off his clothes as he did so. He hurried across the room and out the back door, and for a brief moment considered hanging around outside the screen door to hear what Aaron had to say to JJ, but he shook the idea out of his head before it could even take root. That was private. If Aaron had wanted him to hear it, he would have let him stay. And besides that, now he was free to go explore the woods.

And so that was where he headed.

It wasn't hard. All you had to do was walk in one direction and within ten minutes, you'd find yourself out of the camp and into the woods—it was a far cry from the barren deserts that surrounded Las Vegas. The woods were shaded and cool, and he took immense pleasure in the crunch of leaves beneath his feet and crawling over fallen logs and jumping stone-to-stone to cross the river, the whole thing bringing out some kind of childish, gleeful fantasy of being a daring explorer discovering new lands. This land was already charted, of course, but he had hopes that he could discover some new little private space, just for him.

He walked around the forest, taking occasional glances at his watch to make sure that he wasn't about to miss dinner. The forest was incredibly full of sound. The leaves crunching like potato chips, squirrels skittering about trees like nails drumming on a desk, the wind blowing, knocking branches against each other, the fluttering of a bird's wings, the rhythmic thudding noise of...

Of what?

Opening his eyes, Spencer looked around the woods. He could hear a thudding noise in the distance, rhythmic and muted. Thud, beat, thud, beat, thud-thud, beat, thud, beat, thud, beat, thud-thud. It was definitely not natural.

Curious, Spencer took off in the direction that he was (pretty sure) the sound was coming from. He hadn't accidentally strayed off the campgrounds—this was a government facility, leaving this place wouldn't be just a simple matter of walking into the woods. He was still in the camp. It could be Emily, he supposed, but doing what?

As he moved forward, he was coming closer to a kind of clearing in the woods, and he could see somebody. Somebody male, somebody in a red t-shirt and jean shorts, someone with dark skin—

Derek.

He was...

Spencer squinted as he approached, trying to make out what Derek was doing between all the foliage. He was moving, almost dancing, grunting, and his hands were...

He was boxing, Spencer suddenly realized, as he caught sight of an old bag of corn feed. Derek was punching it, his hands taped, his shirt dark with sweat, and he was now close enough to see the intensity on Derek's face, making it obvious that every ounce of his concentration was locked onto that bag.

He hesitated. Dr. Gideon had said that he and Derek had a lot in common, and that Spencer might be able to help him more than anyone else in this camp could. He'd said that there was more to Derek than what met the eye.

Swallowing, Spencer screwed up his courage and stepped forward, coming out into the clearing.

But Derek was lost in his boxing and didn't even notice Spencer standing right next to him, chewing on his lip nervously, so Spencer did something, in retrospect, was pretty stupid. Actually, in retrospect, it was extremely stupid.

He reached out and tapped Derek on the shoulder.

And that was the last thing he knew.

oOo

"Oh shit, oh shit, shitshitshit—wake up, kid, wake up. C'mon, wake up, it's okay, come on, wake up, it's okay, it's gonna be okay, c'mon..."

Spencer woke up in the most uncomfortable bed ever—and that was saying something, considering the beds that he'd slept in over the last few years. It was bumpy and itchy and there were things poking at him everywhere, and his legs were tilted at a strange angle, and there was someone above him talking.

"Spencer? Kid, you awake? Say somethin', man, c'mon, wake up, please wake up, I'm serious, I'm gonna get in so much trouble—"

Groggily, Spencer opened his eyes, and then immediately groaned as blinding sunlight stabbed at his eyes.

The voice stopped.

"Shit," it said, sounding stunned. "I think that's the first noise I ever heard you make."

Spencer rolled on his side, bringing his hand up to the part of his head that was throbbing fiercely and rubbed at it.

"Kid—kid, open your eyes and look at me."

Slowly, Spencer opened his eyes, this time averting them from the sunlight, and found himself staring at Derek. His eyes widened as he remembered what had happened.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. He should have known better.

"You okay?" Derek asked seriously, and Spencer was surprised to see just how concerned he looked. "Dizzy? Nauseous? You remember everythin'?"

Spencer nodded.

"Yeah, you're okay?"

He nodded again.

Derek held up a hand. "How many fingers, kid?"

Spencer held up four of his own.

"Good. Let me—" He reached out, brushing hair away from Spencer's face, his fingers gentle and light around the throbbing are. "Okay. Fuck, that's gonna bruise. It ain't too bad, though."

He would have nodded, except Derek was still cautiously probing the area that he'd just punched, so instead he stayed still and waited for Derek to finish.

"Listen, kid," Derek said, meeting his eyes. "I, uh... Look, you can tell people that I hit you if you want, but I'm—I'm beggin' you not to, okay? If they find out—well, I mean, s'obvious what it looks like, and they ain't never gonna believe that I ain't makin' you lie for me—but if they think I'm beatin' you, they're gonna put it on my record. And doin' this camp, it's gonna get me outta juvie when I turn eighteen. I gotta get outta there, kid, you don't know, I'm goin' away for twenty years if I don't get out now."

Spencer's eyes were golf balls.

Derek was in a juvenile hall, and there was apparently some kind of deal where if he attended this camp and did well, he would get out when he turned eighteen, but if he didn't, he would be in prison for twenty more years. There were only a few crimes that could put people into a position like that, and the most common one was murder.

Was this how they were related? This was what they had in common? Derek was a killer and Spencer had almost been killed? How did Dr. Gideon think he could help a murderer?

"Kid?" Derek asked, his voice so hesitant it was almost timid. "Are... What are you gonna do?"

Spencer bit his lip. He pushed himself up off the ground, sitting up, but before he was halfway up he felt Derek's hands on his shoulders, pulling him up the rest of the way and steadying him. Derek must really be afraid that he was going to tell. For a second, it flashed through his mind that he could use this over Derek, but he was immediately horrified with himself. He couldn't do that. It had been his fault in the first place.

He reached up and grasped Derek's forearm, making eye contact, and he shook his head.

Derek blinked. "No. No, you won't tell?"

Hesitantly, Spencer smiled.

Derek's face split into a wide grin. "I knew you were cool, kid."

Cool? He was cool?

"C'mon," Derek offered, sticking out a hand. "We gotta get to dinner."

Shyly, Spencer took his hand and allowed himself to be pulled up, and they headed off to the dining hall.

oOo

Dinner was an affair.

"This is a new recipe," JJ stated, frowning down at the macaroni and cheese before them (except Emily, who had some kind of pesto).

"I like it!" Penelope said brightly, taking another bite. "Cheesy. Yummy. Stop being a stick in the mud, it's macaroni and cheese."

Emily wrinkled her nose at her.

"What's the matter?" Dave asked Emily, smirking. "Food taste like a rug?"

"Go fuck yourself," Emily spat.

"Dave, Emily, behave yourselves," Mrs. Strauss ordered.

"I told you I wasn't lying," JJ told Aaron smugly, her unrequited lesbian sorrows apparently forgotten.

"He started it!" Emily protested. "He's a homophobe!"

"You're not even a lesbian," Dave retorted. "You're just crying for attention again and it's pathetic—I mean, come on! Two weeks ago, you said that you were a witch—"

"Wiccan, you retard."

"—and before that, you were allergic to sunlight—"

"Xenophobic!"

"—and last month, you were running away with some guy named James—"

"His name was Justin!"

"—but it's always something! Always! Do your parents really ignore you that much that you have to make up shit like this to get their attention?"

The table was utterly silent.

Emily looked like she was about to cry.

"I'm not hungry anymore," she whispered, dropping her fork on her plate with a clatter, and she pushed her chair away from the table and fled.

"Emily—"

The door slammed shut, and all heads turned to Dave.

"What?" he asked indignantly. "It's true!"

JJ threw a slice of pear at him. "You called her a compulsive liar, you jerk. That's my issue."

"Don't throw food, please."

JJ stuck out her tongue at him. "Why don't you try being more like Spencer, Dave? I like guys who don't talk. They're smarter."

Mrs. Strauss, apparently convinced that things had settled back down, quietly excused herself, pulling out her cell phone as she left.

"That's right!" Penelope said suddenly. "Spencer, I heard you're, like, really smart."

Spencer shrugged, nodding at his food.

"My cousin skipped fourth and fifth grade," Dave informed them all. "When she graduated, she didn't even have her driver's license."

"Shut up," JJ said, throwing another pear at Dave.

"I didn't do anything!" Dave protested, removing the pear from his hair. "Jesus!"

"Did you skip a grade?" Penelope asked, turning the conversation back to Spencer.

Spencer shrugged.

JJ frowned. "You don't know? I mean, like, at my school they totally didn't tell anyone when they were skipping a grade—it was like, you'd just be in class one day and they'd come in, snatch you up—"

"JJ," Aaron interrupted, giving her a look.

She stuck out her tongue at him.

Aaron's expression didn't change.

"Anyway." Penelope leaned over the table, her excitement plain. "Did you skip a grade? Are you one of those freaky genius kids who graduated from high school when they were, like, ten?"

Spencer slouched down a little in his chair, staring at his food determinedly as he felt his face heat up. This was why he didn't talk. People got so pushy and he never knew how to say no, and he couldn't lie for anything. Sometimes, silence was just better than the truth.

"C'mon, smarticle, talk to us—we wanna know!"

"We'll ask yes or no questions and you can just nod," JJ offered.

"Yeah, and we're not gonna pick on you or anything," Dave added. "Really. Smart people are awesome—you can help me with my summer homework!"

"Spencer?"

"C'mon, we wanna—"

"Hey!" Derek snapped.

Everyone went silent.

"He doesn't want you bothering him about school. Back off."

Slowly, Spencer lifted his head to stare at him in shock.

Derek shrugged, looking a little awkward. "I mean, hey, we're at camp. Who the hell wants to talk about school? Leave him alone."

Looking hurt, Penelope slowly retreated back into her chair, and JJ and Dave both went back to their meals with uncomfortable expressions on their faces, but Spencer kept staring at Derek in confusion.

Derek ate, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was being stared at.

And Spencer wondered if maybe, for the first time in his life, someone was looking out for him.

CM Fic: Break

2009-07-16T15:00:33Z

Title: Break
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Summary: People break up. They break down. They break apart. Derek and Spencer break each other.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds & Co.
Notes: My attempts to be subtle. May possibly suck mashed potatoes.

T

Break

Derek Morgan is a profiler.

He knows what happened last night.

He is six feet and two inches of solid muscle. When he gets pissed, blood rushes in and logic flies away and he wants to hit something right then and there. He doesn't plan. He doesn't think. He barely sees. All he knows is that if he doesn't get the blinding rage out of his system right that second he is going to suffocate, and when his fist connects with something solid, a little bit of energy in him dies away. He regains control as he goes through the motions, pounding and pounding and pounding until he's calm enough to realize that he's not in front of the punching bag anymore.

Spencer is not physical. He has his intellect, but it is a scant defense in the face of Morgan's fury. He throws out everything and anything that he can get and somehow without even trying, he always says the right thing to put Derek on edge, to push him over the edge. He gets more and more desperate and he can't stop. He keeps talking. And when his mouth can no longer save him, he shields himself as best he can and lets Derek win.

Last night, Derek won.

Last night, Derek broke Spencer Reid.

oOo

Derek works on one of his houses all through the night and comes into work perhaps aching and exhausted, but he can't feel it. He's still in shock. There's a numb nausea, always cold in the pit of his stomach, always just short of making him sick, and he doesn't know how he's operating right now. He does not talk to Emily on the elevator. He does not rip off another joke from his day calendar. He sits numbly at his desk, methodically deleting memos without reading them.

He doesn't know why he's surprised to see Spencer come in.

The nausea in the pit of his stomach goes a little colder, climbing up to his ribcage and making his heart thud like every beat is his last, slow and heavy.

Spencer sits down at his desk and bends over, busying himself with his bag. JJ passes and says hello. Spencer looks up at her and flashes a grin, the fallen curtain of hair hiding the side of his face.

She walks away.

He goes back to his bag.

Derek goes back to his inbox, swallowing his words.

Emily comes over to Spencer's desk and tells him that there is fresh coffee and he's welcome to the second cup, but Spencer politely declines and tells her that he has orange juice this morning. She tells him that he's crazy, but whatever, it's more for everyone else.

Derek can feel her eyes on him. He can practically see her remembering the silent elevator ride as she tries to decide whether or not to approach him.

After several seconds, she walks away, cheerfully announcing to JJ that there is now coffee to be had.

Derek swallows as rapidfire memories of last night shoot through his mind, and reliving the fight is like watching a little boy fall to his death. He watches something so perfect, something so beautiful and innocent just plummet, not stopping, not slowing, just falling lower and lower and lower until there's no lower to go, and then—

Bam.

With a sickening crack, the little boy slams into the ground and dies instantly.

Derek cannot get the sickening crack out of his head. It plays again and again and again.

An IM from Penelope pops up, demanding to know what was so important that he hadn't had time to come down and visit her before he'd sat down at his desk, but he clicks out of it and signs out of his AIM account. He doesn't want to talk to her right now. He doesn't want to talk to anyone right now.

Spencer's keys click as he types away, and Derek cannot help but look over at him.

Intent on the screen, Spencer does not notice Derek's eyes on the side of his face, on his crooked tie, on his mis-buttoned shirt, on his hands as they fly over the keyboard, probably several sentences behind the mental composition already.

Derek notices something dark on the back of Spencer's hand and, at the risk of being caught, he squints and leans forward slightly.

He can't make out what it is. It's a black stain, slightly faded from a few handwashings. And it was not on Spencer's hand last night.

Something white pops up on his screen, and he tears his eyes away from Spencer to find that Garcia has logged him back on and is now demanding that he tell her what's wrong. She also unsubtly reminds him that logging into his AIM account is last on the list of horrible things that she can do to him.

He sends her a very curt reply and then logs off again, because he can't even bring himself to think about it, let alone say the words aloud. He doesn't need Garcia's obnoxiousness, her bossiness or her unshakable faith in him right now. He doesn't deserve it.

The clicking of the keyboard next to him stops, and Derek glances over before he remembers himself and sees Spencer pushing himself back from his desk.

Spencer pauses, stares at the screen, and then stands.

He stands. His movements are ones that Derek recognizes, that he knows, ones that he has seen a hundred times over, the way that he twists slightly as he stands and puts a little more weight on his left leg and the way that he pauses when he's fully upright—Derek sees the subtleties and the story that's hidden behind it, and for a moment his brain is in blank denial.

Spencer turns to look at him. He does not smirk, or nod, or shrug a shoulder—he just stares, and somehow it's even worse.

He knows.

The clothes, the mark on his hand, the orange juice. They all fit together into the profile.

This morning, Spencer wins.

This morning, Spencer breaks Derek Morgan.