Work Text:
Another year, another Valentines in the lab.
It had become a habit now, a routine. Show up at the lab, as always, find reports, fill reports, file reports, wait for Bev to show up and pull the oldest joke in the book.
“Will you be my Valentine?”
Bev stares at the heart that had once belonged to a physics teacher, now contained in a plastic box for cataloguing and analysis.
“Are you serious?”
Zeller just grins.
“Every year?”
“No one else appreciates it.”
“Z, I don’t appreciate it.”
The grin falls as quickly as it had shone.
“Oh come on. I can’t be single on Valentines again. Just for a day? One day!”
Bev just shakes her head, smile fond regardless of the obvious rejection, and pushes the heart in the tray back to Zeller.
“Then try a new line.”
-
Will proves just as uncooperative, though he says far less than Bev did. For a moment, Brian thinks it’s because Bev had caught him first and warned him – an unfair and cruel tactic he hadn’t expected.
“I don’t celebrate.” Will mumbles, arms crossed over his chest. Zeller just blinks at him.
“Seriously?”
For a moment, Will doesn’t respond beyond setting his jaw and casting his eyes up over the rims of his glasses.
“It’s a day funded by card companies to make millions in profit off of idiots.” Will murmurs, “Flowers that no one would consider buying for $50 suddenly find a place in everyone’s expenses. Chocolates. Soft toys no one will ever look at again. It’s a celebration of consumerism not love.”
”Did someone reject your advances today too?” Brian asks, tone resigned – he won’t get anywhere. Will just shrugs before unfolding his arms and returning to his paperwork.
“If you love someone you love them every day.”
“Alright, Dalai Lama, whatever.”
-
“No.”
“Got it.”
Jack doesn’t even look up from the reports he’s reading.
-
Hannibal opens the door with a slight frown, but he doesn’t turn him away, stepping graciously aside to let Brian into the spacious office the man hasn’t actually seen before. He whistles lowly and turns to the psychiatrist as the other clicks the door shut and follows him in.
“Agent Zeller,” he says, “I did not have an appointment scheduled for you.”
“Yea, this is a bit of a spontaneous whim.” Brian sighs. Hannibal gestures to the two facing leather chairs.
“By all means. What can I help you with today?”
“Uh –“ Zeller sits, hands clasped between his knees and eventually ventures his eyes up. “Loneliness.”
Hannibal just tilts his head. “On the day when those of us who have a significant other seek to publically display our affection for them, you find yourself alone?”
“More alone, I guess.”
Hannibal allows a single incline of his head in a nod.
“Is that why you came to seek me out today?” he emphasizes the last word carefully, watching the man across from him with calm, patient eyes.
Zeller fidgets.
“Uh… more because I was hoping… you would alleviate it a little.”
Hannibal blinks.
“The loneliness?”
Zeller’s brows furrow slightly. “Just for a day?” his own question’s lost its conviction now. The silence settles awkwardly between them.
He leaves with a gentle offer to try seeking someone he may not have considered, and still no date.
-
And so the day draws to a close.
Jack leaves his office first, talking to no one and heading home with a handful of files.
Will offers a brief nod as he passes by the lab, though perhaps it’s aimed more at Bev than it is at either Price or Zeller, but he does scan his eyes past them to include them in the acknowledgement.
The building grows quiet, and it’s Bev who leaves first of the three of them.
“Going to go while there’s still some evening left to enjoy.” She says, hanging up her labcoat to replace it with a leather jacket instead. Price lifts and eyebrow.
“You have a date?”
“I never said how I’d be enjoying the evening.” She shoots back, adjusting the collar with a grin. “And I actually never said I would be the one enjoying it.”
“Women.” Price shakes his head and ticks off another box on the form he’s holding. “Endless mysteries. Not even worth the trouble to navigate anymore.”
Zeller just frowns, watches Bev leave, and turns to face his friend.
“Men, on the other hand,” he completes the form with a flourish of his signature and folds it closed. “Usually so single-minded in their determination to get something they stay so blind to everything else.”
“That’s positive.”
Jimmy just snorts. “Because I am just a right old ray of positive sunshine.”
Zeller grins, sighs, and gestures vaguely at nothing in particular.
“Do you want to go to dinner?”
“Hmm.” The other doesn’t even look at him as he passes, replacing his labcoat as Bev had. “It really depends.”
Zeller looks bewildered. “On what?”
“Are you going to try the stupid heart in a box trick you try to woo Beverley with every year?” the man finally turns, “Because I want originality.”
There’s a silence, a long drawn-out pause, and then –
“I’ll drive.”
Price swings the door open far enough for Zeller to catch as he tosses his lab coat aside and flicks the lights.
Another year, another Valentines in the lab.