Chapter Text
The doorbell rings.
“Be there in a second!” you call. You blow on your nails as you walk, checking to make sure they’re dry. Lip gloss? Check. Mascara? Check. Clothes?
You slide the sleeve of your top a little lower.
Check.
You open the door.
“Oh my gosh, visitors!” you say, ebullient, beaming up at the vaguely startled faces of what appear to be FBI agents. That’s all right though, appearances aren’t everything. You chatter faster before they can open their mouths, ushering them in through your doorway. You pull the door shut as soon as they step through, listening for the click of the latch slipping into strikeplate. Once the door is locked, you feel the tension leaving your shoulders. “Jehovah’s witnesses? Come in! You'll have to excuse me, I’m not dressed for visitors right now, just give me a second and I’ll get the kettle started — oh, I’m sorry, I should ask first, huh? — do you prefer water? Coffee? Soda? But seriously, I just bought this tea and you have to try it, I've been loving how it makes me feel in the mornings! It’s called, um, Ceylon, have you heard of it?"
They exchange is this guy for real? glances. It’s a very specific, clearly well-worn look. Poor bastards.
"I could go for tea," the man says. The woman next to him gives him another look, this one even more exasperated than the last.
"We're not evangelizing," she says to you.
"Oh,' you say, frowning. "So... um. You're... solicitors?"
"Afraid not," she says.
"You're loiterers, then," you decide. "Or trespassers! Or all three! The sign out front says you're not allowed, you know."
"Well, no," the man says.
"Oh," you say. "...I'm out of things. You're sure you're not JW?"
“Fairly sure," the man says, folding away his sunglasses. He gracefully takes a seat at your little coffee table when you motion to it, and the woman follows soon after. “Agents Derek Morgan and Emily Prentiss with the BAU. Ma’am, we'd like to ask you a few questions.”
"Abso lute ly! It’s nice to meet you, Derek and Emily!” you say, not breaking your stride. You watch Morgan cover a wince. “You don’t have to pretend to be FBI, you know. I’m always willing to help out another student! So, what’s the survey? Shopping? Politics? Oh, it’s not politics, is it? I never know what to say to pollsters.”
“Ma’am,” Der— Morgan— says again. He looks amused, so you don’t bother dialing it back. “We’re real, honest-to-god FBI. You can call to check, if you want.” He again presents you with the badge you'd so carefully ignored.
“Oooh, really?” you say, excitement just real enough that you don’t have to try very hard to look interested. You whip your phone out and call the local FBI office that you’ve set on speed dial as load of swine.
They look vaguely approving as they pretend to sip their tea and watch you verify that yes, there are, unfortunately, real FBI agents in your house.
Bummer.
“We believe that you may be in danger,” Agent Prentiss explains.
“Wow."
They blink at you.
Oops. “Wow!” you repeat, positively thrilled, hurriedly blinking stars into your eyes. “Really? Me? I’m Communications. At Arkansas. I never thought that would happen to someone like me!”
They look vaguely unnerved, which. Fair.
“We believe you may have a stalker,” Agent Morgan elaborates.
Your grin immediately falls flat.
“You probably know him,” Agent Morgan says, eyeing you.
You... nod.
“I want you to think— is there anybody that comes to mind that… stares at you for too long, maybe. Talks to you strangely, brushes up against you? Anybody that gives you a bad feeling?”
You squint. “Excuse me?”
“He’s killed people before,” Agent Prentiss cuts in, staring intently at you. “Specifically, people that look a whole lot like you, go to the same school as you, and study the same things as you. You’re one of the few left in the area, and all modifications made—” she cuts herself off. “The bodies are… made to look like you. He’s specific and fixated, and you’re the fixation. There’s no way he hasn’t made contact yet — strange contact.”
“Excuse me?” you repeat, because this isn't exactly a big city. You think you would have heard if that many people were getting murdered and then— you would have heard.
She looks at you with sympathy. “I’m sorry,” she says, and you have a terrible feeling that it’s completely heartfelt.
Fuck.
“So. Our unsub,” Hotch begins. “What do we know?”
“No signs of sexual assault, but the stabbing screams sexual sadism,” Prentiss says.
“He's careful,” Rossi says. “Organized and specific.”
“Too specific,” Reid says, frowning. “Look at the facial features — they share the same postmortem modifications, to the point of obsession. He’s not just searching for a surrogate, he’s actively making them into someone he knows. If he's not in close contact with them, he'll be stalking them regularly.”
“And eventually, surrogates aren't going to be enough,” Morgan concludes. “We need to find the source.”
“Easier to say than do,” Garcia says. “But fortunately for you, both happen to be my areas of expertise. What am I looking for here?”
Reid looks back at the board. “Student, early twenties. Moved into town recently — no more than two months ago. Intelligent, relatively quiet, glasses, most likely majoring in a natural science, i. Probably transferred in as soon as school started this year. You'll know who it is. Just cross reference the face.”
“Right,” she says. “I’ll get back to you on that. Garcia out.”
“Sorry about this,” you tell the most recent agent to come play bodyguard. You… don’t remember his name, to be honest. You’re kind of in a daze right now. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s all right,” the figure says. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Go to sleep.”
You do. It occurs to you belatedly that you should probably have offered him an air mattress or something. As you're considering this, you fall asleep.
“— had to dig into social media, ran the photos through facial recognition —” Garcia chatters, picture blipping on screen. "— not a transfer, incidentally, she applied as part of the freshman class, which means that, at least in part, her application was fraudulent. Something must have spooked her pretty good to make her take that risk."
“Huh,” the detective says, raising an eyebrow.
“You know something?” Hotch says.
“Yeah,” the detective says, staring at the picture on the screen. “Met 'em once or twice. Kid's a regular hand in half the charity work going on around here."
His expression is a little off though. Reid has to go through his mental list of expressions to place it. Familiarity. Mild irritation. "She's only showing up for her CV?" Reid offers.
"No, no, she's a sweet kid, really tries to do good, you know?" he says. "The crowd she's in, on the other hand... no clue what's gotten into them recently. That sorority of hers threw that... what was it? Car wash for communism? Bunch of students just looking for attention. Don't know what they think they're doing.”
"Communist organizations aren't uncommon in institutions of higher education," Reid offers, and stops when Prentiss makes a frantic face at him behind the detective's back.
“Well, if anyone's interested,” Garcia says quickly. “Our mystery student used to live in Palo Alto up until just about a year ago. I did a little digging, and there’s two unsolved murders within a fifty mile radius of the Palo Alto area with the same eye and hair color, both stabbed. No signs of the... modifications.”
“That’s our unsub,” Prentiss says. “He moved with his target.”
“And progressed along the way,” Reid adds thoughtfully. “Eventually even similarities weren’t enough.”
“She's a good kid. She doesn’t deserve this,” the detective says.
“They never do,” Rossi shrugs. “Garcia, got an address?”
“She’s a good kid,” he repeats, an almost comically broken record. “A little airheaded, but a good kid.”
“Airheaded,” Reid echoes. He looks back at the board — victimology says intelligent, fairly reserved, background in the sciences, very specific eye color, jewelry, and hairstyle that match the picture on the screen to a T.
Intelligent.
The unsub has a very specific definition of what that means, and that's academic success in an academically rigorous field of study. There’s absolutely no reason for somebody who’s this specific to consistently get a core aspect of personality wrong. So that means — what, wish fulfillment? A surrogate of a surrogate? Something else?
“Whatcha thinking?” Morgan says, nudging him.
Reid startles. “What — oh. Nothing yet. I’d like to stay here a little while longer. Just… a hunch. Go on without me.”
You swipe on another coat of lip gloss.
“Where are you going?” the same agent from last night asks dubiously.
You stare at him blankly before rebooting. “Coffee!” you beam. “Want me to get you one?”
“And where are you going to get your coffee?”
“Coco’s,” you say breezily, refusing to take the bait. You widen your eyes belatedly. “Oh, are you one of those Starbucks purists? I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel right not supporting our local businesses, you know? Give me your order, though, and I’ll pick it up for you on the way!”
He stares at you, unimpressed. “No you won't,” he says. “A full half of the victims were abducted from public spaces. We can’t put you in that much risk.”
“But if he’s such a stalker, he’ll know something’s up if I don’t go to Coco’s,” you say, puffing out your cheeks. “And then he’ll be tipped off! I've managed just fine this far, haven't I?”
“You don’t visit with enough regularity that he’ll notice,” he says, quirking a brow at you. “Nice try.”
“He’ll notice,” you pout, almost to yourself. “He’ll notice and he’ll kill someone else just to prove he does.”
You don’t expect to be listened to. But he narrows his eyes at you and you think…
You may have a chance after all.
“What makes you say that?” he says, staring at you like you’re a puzzle he can’t make out. This is exactly what you didn't want, what you were trying so hard to avoid, but It’s not as uncomfortable as you thought it would be.
“I have a schedule,” you say, though the words feel like they’re being ripped from you. “I have… it’s… nevermind.”
You... don’t think your stalker’s picked up on your pattern. But enough to bank a life on it?
“Give me your phone,” he says, and you can see the gears whirring in his head. “You always visit before class?”
“Yes,” you say. You can admit that one freely. It’s the other one that breaks your heart as you swipe in your passcode and hand over your phone. He scrolls through, scanning the timestamps with unrealistic speed, so you aren't too worried, there's no way he can read fast enough to—
“You go on any date that’s written as a prime number?”
Fuck. That's so unbelievable it's almost unfair. The doubt written across his face would offend you if you weren't mirroring it on yours.
“...yes,” you say, because as much as you’re lying, you’ve never told a single falsehood yet, and you’re going to keep it that way. He stares at you a little more, and you roll your eyes. “Oh, relax, it’s not a compulsion or anything. It just started as a way for me to regulate my coffee intake — you know how many pounds I gained in my first month here because I went every day?”
He visibly restrains himself from answering.
“I practically survived on Coco’s affogato,” you chatter, like he hasn’t just mortally offended you in the funniest way possible. “I asked her a while back to make it with a double scoop of hazelnut praline and vanilla and it was heavenly. Can’t eat it all the time, though, praline's a total calorie bomb. So unfair because nuts are health foods and praline is just nuts, isn't it?”
“Right,” he says, still dubious about you, so you pull out the big guns.
“Sorry,” you say sheepishly, blinking your largest, most liquid-soft doe eyes up at him. “What was your name again…?”
His sputtering is music to your ears.
“Oh, her? Yeah, no, she doesn’t live here anymore,” the girl with bleach-straight hair says, acrylic nails clicking against her phone. “She asked to switch apartments a while back, said she hated the color of the linoleum in hers. I mean, don't tell her, but I'm pretty sure they're all the same? Bills are still under our old names, but we pay the difference in cash. For the better, if I’m being honest, she can barely even figure out how to Venmo. A total sweetheart, but dumb as bricks.”
Click. Click.
“And where is your apartment?” Morgan asks, resisting the urge to snap her nails off.
The clicking speeds up. The girl narrows her eyes. “What’s this about? If you’re trying to hurt her—”
“We want to protect her,” Prentiss says earnestly. “Just tell us where she is, and we’ll keep her safe.”
The girl stares for a moment longer before nodding.
You like tutoring. You may not like children, but you like tutoring. There’s something simple and pure about teaching — and teaching things right, without stamping all the joy out of it, without the busywork...
And you need the volunteer hours.
“Who’s Maury?” Isabella interrupts your easy narration. You look down at her, where she’s cuddled up in your side to better see what you’re reading from.
“Benjamin,” you answer, not in the mood to make her wait through half the book to learn.
You return to the page, back to where you were interrupted—
“Who’s Benjamin?” Isabella asks, genuinely bewildered.
You smile dryly, showing your teeth. “Maury.”
Isabella lets out a frustrated huff, scowling. You laugh at her, wrapping an arm around her in cajoling apology. “Maury is Benjamin is Benjy,” you say, swaying her until she hugs you back. “Isabelle. Izzy. Bells. Bella. Ella-Bella, c’monnnn”
Isabella sniffs.
“Izzyyyy,” you wheedle. “We need to speed up if we’re gonna finish this clusterfuck before summer’s over.”
“You said a bad word,” Isabella protests, one complaint tumbling over another. “Why are you calling it a clusterfuck? Why are we reading it if it’s a clusterfuck.”
“It’s a good clusterfuck,” you say, almost dying inside from the difficulty of not making the obvious orgy joke. “Hey, remind me about this moment when you’re older. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go make sure I don’t scar young and impressionable minds. Reread what we went through, and we’ll talk about it.”
With that, you calmly stand up, walk to the breakroom, and immediately begin cracking dirty jokes at your coworkers.
“What?” you say, head snapping up. “They— they’re really FBI? You… wait, you didn’t check?”
You press your lips together, phone against your ear.
“Okay — no, no! It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” you say, bright. “No — I promise, nothing is up.”
You giggle a little, eyes narrowing as you consider the window leading out to the streetfront. “Oh, yeah, maybe they’re here because of Cameron,” you tease, checking the blinds. “Oh my gosh, don’t say that!” you say, scandalized, steadily scanning for the tell-tale car. “Oh my gosh, Charlotte!”
Her laughter rings through the phone as she starts telling you about some guy who got into a fight with the mascot at yesterday's game. A dusty blue pickup rolls by. You move a little further away from the window. Charlotte's commentary is getting increasingly raunchy with every sentence, and you're honestly still not sure whether she has the hots for the guy who decided to deck the mascot or the mascot who got decked.
In the street below you, the passenger door to a perfectly nondescript sedan clicks open. You roll your eyes, smiling. “Thank you for telling me! Yep — yeah, see you!”
You hang up and let the curtain fall.
Showtime.
“Hotch? This girl is a Communications major.”
A telling silence from the other end of the line. “You’re sure?”
“She told us herself. Her friends don’t seem to think she’s all that bright, either,” Morgan says, studying the nearest conveniently placed photograph. It’s almost a Where’s Waldo to pick the you out of your crowd of friends. He pins you a little left of center, front row. Beaming smile, curled hair, several arms wrapped around your shoulders. “A social butterfly if I ever saw one.”
“You think the profile is wrong?”
Morgan shakes his head instinctively. “No, there’s — the first address we went to belongs to a different girl. She told us that they switched apartments off record. There’s something else going on here, Hotch.”
“Why would a girl trade her nice apartment for a place like this?” Emily says. “Smaller and further from campus, but money isn’t the issue.”
“The chief did say she was pretty involved in local charities. Could be altruism.”
Emily shakes her head. “No. If it were pure altruism she would have invited her to room and share rent, not completely switch apartments. She wanted to live alone, in this apartment, and she wanted it off the books.”
There’s a sharp bang. “Sorry!” you call, muffled. “Ran into the wall.”
“Update me when you figure it out,” Hotch says, and he almost sounds amused.
“So,” you say, nursing your affogato, lipgloss printed in a semicircle around the rim. “FBI, huh?”
He shrugs.
“What I never got,” you continue, poking your double scoop of hazelnut (Coco’s an absolute gem, you’ll have to apologize to her sometime for massacring her expresso). “What I never got is— well. Why does the BAU go out at all? I mean,” you gesture your spoon at him lamely. “You’re… not exactly —”
“We’re effective,” he counters. He’s drinking his coffee with two sugars and cream, which? Hello? Specialty coffee shop, who doesn't get the actual drinks? “Numbers don’t lie.”
“But statisticians do,” you say dryly. “Alright, hit me. How does the team of shrinks manage to survive in the field?”
“Because we’re able to address the root of the issue,” he says, and he’s serious about it, oh lord. “We’re able to attribute mental states — beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge — to unsubs. And ourselves. Well, Morgan's mostly the one doing that part.” He takes another drink of coffee. “We review crimes from both a behavioral and investigative perspective, and for profilers— that usually means interpreting offender behavior and interaction with the victim. It’s just… understanding psychologies that are different from our own.”
“Oooooh,” you say, eyes wide. “Very theory of mind. Much smart. Such scary.”
A pause.
“Sorry,” you say, abashed. “That was rude.”
He laughs, though, downing the last bit of his coffee like a shot. “No, no, you’re right. I told everyone that we should just say that, but they voted me down.”
“Glad I can be of use,” you say. “Now please tell them to change the pitch already.”
He makes a face at you. “Your filter doesn’t work in the mornings, does it.” You make a face back. But he’s right, and he gets a new coffee in smug silence.
“So,” you say, after a moment. “You’re bait, huh?”
He doesn’t ask how you know. “Yeah.”
You nod. “Cool.”
“Glad to see you’re so broken up about it,” he echoes, and you roll your eyes.
“Just don’t die, alright?” you say. “I don’t need more lives on my conscience.”
He doesn’t insult you by giving you a lecture on self blame, and you finish your coffee in comfortable silence.
“Okay,” you say finally, sitting back. “Not to give off the impression that French is in any way a reasonable language, but that? Entr'acte.”
A pause. His smile spreads out across his face, slowly, like he’s seeing you for the first time. “We’ll call it a fluke.”
“It’s her,” Reid interrupts the ongoing discussion, sliding his messenger bag down on the table. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Got that from one conversation, huh?” Emily pokes, grinning broadly. “Not dumb after all?”
“Enough to realize I was bait,” he says. A pause. “And to call me out on the company line. She agrees with me, by the way.”
Morgan scoffs in the background.
“Does she know who it is?” Hotch asks frankly.
Reid thinks, then shakes his head. “No,” he answers, and he knows it’s true. “She thinks lying outright is too easy. She’ll play games, but not with anything important. She’s scared, and she isn't going to risk an obstruction charge even if she does dislike us.”
“Okay,” Hotch accepts easily. “The plan hasn’t changed. You all know what to do.”
“Spaghetti or parm?” you call, fussing at your refrigerator. You may be under glorified house arrest, but at least that means you have time to make some bangin meals.
“You’re not asking just because I’m Italian, are you?” Rossi asks, sounding nothing short of amused. You hear him poking around in your poor excuse for a living room.
“Sorry!" you say, poking your head back out from your kitchenette. "I’m bad at that kind of thing but, hey, I’m flexible, let me fix that — fake spaghetti or fake parm?”
“...Spaghetti,” Rossi tells you. You hear something crash and promptly decide that it’s not your problem. “Please and thank you.”
“Sure thing,” you say cheerfully. “One spaghetti with ketchup sauce, coming right up.”
You hear the rustling of paper and tense.
"Lehninger’s Principles of Biochemistry ,” Rossi reads off idly. “Interesting choice of reading material for Communications.”
You spitefully decide to not salt the pasta water.
Garcia is used to not getting her way. God she may be, but nobody gets very far in the hacking world if they throw a tantrum over every encounter with a person with half a bit of programming knowledge.
Not that there's many of them anyways.
But you — well. Garcia could break the (admittedly good for an amateur) encryption on your computer, she could dig into your records and see what's going on. But that's — dirty pool. So she doesn't go looking for anything an average person couldn't get from your social media, and she knows her team isn't going to either.
You're not hiding, after all.
Not from them, at any rate. That's, well, that's the game, isn't it? They know everything important that pertains to the case, and while that's all they really need...
It's been a while since they've been able to have a bit of harmless fun. This is going to be good for them.
"I am not skipping another lecture," you say, chin held high. “I missed one day already, and people are starting to ask questions.”
"If he sees you..." Rossi warns.
"I've lasted this long without provoking any irregularities in his pattern," you refute, mouth set in a line. "So it follows that any deviations that occur now are going to cause deviations— am I going to have to have this conversation with every single one of you each time you switch shifts? Just— let me go to class, okay?"
Rossi holds firm. "Us being here is a deviation. We can't react as though this—"
Surprisingly, it's Emily who interrupts, holding your gaze. "No, I think I've got an idea."
"I haven't attended an art history lecture since I was twelve," Reid says, perking up (Mom-UNLV-Renaissance-rocaille-cartouche-cartoccia). “I’d like the opportunity to audit another.”
"Great!" you cheer. "I literally love you, Emily— I can call you Emily, right?— Remind me to do something nice for you once we get back."
Emily grins.
Reid doesn’t trust that look at all.
“Anybody who’s been to Palo Alto for a daytrip has a Stanford hoodie,” you say. “C’mon dude, you can do better than that.”
“Maybe,” he accedes, “but not one that’s shoved in the back of a closet. It has obvious patterns of wear, implying a frequency of use that should mark it as a staple of your closet, if not a favorite. And yet you’ve never worn it once so far.”
“...shut up,” you say eloquently.
His laugh is infuriating.
The walk to class is— you're tempted to say stressful, but it's not, really. There's an FBI agent at your side and pepper spray in your pocket. The real problem is the heat. After two months here, you're still not used to it. You're scanning the crowds around you when—
“Aw hell — Bells?” you say. “Hey, let’s go the other way.”
“What?” Reid says, but he doesn’t so much as pause before steering you in the opposite direction.
“Isabella Montgomery. Kid I tutored back in Washington,” you say, brow furrowed. “I forgot she had family here. And I guess it's spring break for her. As long as she doesn’t get a good look at my face it should be fine.”
He nods, raising his brows. “The perils of hiding your identity.”
“I prefer code switching,” you say, sniffing. “It’s not like other people don’t face the same problem, you know, even if they’re not as divided as I am. It’s a thing. How many people mix their friend groups? Nobody presents the same persona to every single person, that’s just inefficient.”
Reid makes a see-sawing motion.
"Okay, well— not everybody has the integrity to maintain an immutable public self image, Mister F-B-I ," you drawl, dragging out the syllables. "Some of us happen to actually mask once in a while."
A beat.
"That was a fluke," you say. "I plead the third."
"...you refuse to quarter troops in your home during peacetime?"
"I plead the fourth."
"That's unreasonable searches and seizures."
"...I hate you."
“He’s moved beyond just attempting to match your hair and eye color,” Reid tells you, sounding mildly fascinated. “He’s progressed. Blepharoplasty, brachioplasty— he’s even matched your antihelical folds. Complete facial reconstruction. From the waist up, they’re made to look exactly like you.”
“So what?” you laugh, the absurdity of the situation hitting you. “He’s a fucking — plastic surgeon? Here?”
“We believe he’s currently enrolled as a student in an unrelated major,” Reid tells you. You ignore how much it sounds like an accusation.
“Blepharo-what now?” Morgan says, staring at you with a look of faint disbelief on his face.
Aww, fuck. These FBI agents are really cramping your style.
Reid’s revolver sits awkwardly on his hip. Luckily, it's Arkansas, which means he can't possibly be the first person to conceal carry on campus.
You’d ensured that you’d both arrive late to class, in anticipation of dodging any awkward questions from friends. You’d taken seats in the back (forty five people in the room ), where you’re currently doodling mindlessly in your notebook and occasionally jotting down a line of notes.
He’s acutely aware that he’s technically on guard duty. So he doesn’t let himself get distracted by the lecture, (currently somewhere in early post-colonial African art. The wall flickers, and displays a slideshow about Cheri Samba) no matter how much he wants to.
You put your head down in your arms.
He’s about to poke you in the side, hiss, something — when he notices that your pen is still poised to write between your fingers.
You’re scanning the room, same as him.
He pokes you anyway. “If you haven't noticed him before, you’re not going to now,” he murmurs (met before-cognitive-contextual-forty five people). “Just pay attention.”
“I am,” you protest, hushed. At his unimpressed look, you slide over your notebook and insist, “I am!”
He takes a quick glance. And then another. The idle swirls and loops are visually unbalanced, but well within the bounds of normality— that is, if he hadn’t seen your to-the-point-of-obsession aesthetically chosen… everything, honestly. So the visual errors are on purpose and ordered, which means… “Uh... you made a conlang?”
“Dude, a code,” you say, offended. “Wait, no, uh. That is. Not code, because I don't need code for any reason whatsoever. Shorthand! It's shorthand. But God, conlang, you're such a nerd, my God."
"My experiences with ciphers are based in utility," Reid says, "and aesthetics have always seemed to be valued in conlangs." There's a hint of apology in it.
"Oh," you say, flattered. "If you think it's pretty. I mean! Yes! It's super pretty, that's how I designed it to be. And a headache to decipher if you’re not me.” A pause. “Or you. If you weren’t me-or-you.” Another pause. "And before you say anything, consider this a preemptive shut up."
“You know,” he starts, “there’s an awful lot of mathematical constructs in your code for a communications major.”
“Shorthand, and it’s a coincidence,” you say blandly. “Also, rude? There's a guy in one of my classes who's double majoring math and phil just for fun."
"Still not communications," he says.
"Okay, but my point still stands," you say. "My professors and sometimes classmates are some of the smartest people I've met, and I'm sure there are like, at least two of them that like math."
"That would be understandable," Reid says. "I like math too."
Ugh, why is he so earnest? "You have no proof my code has math," you argue. "It's shorthand, and mostly based on literature."
Reid makes a face. "Still doesn't fit the image you're trying to present."
"I happen to be widely read," you say blandly. "Literacy’s the first step towards communication — hey, have you read Kerouac's On the Road? I've just finished, and I really recommend it, it’s just so meaningful, so romantic —”
He makes a face that looks exactly how you feel: like throwing up. You blink innocently, smile never wavering.
“Must you?” he asks, pained.
It takes a concentrated effort not to laugh. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you not like Kerouac? Well, it’s better in... the… original — awwww.”
The grin that takes over his face is almost delighted. “In the what,” he says. “In the original what?”
"Anyways,” you backpedal. “What do you think of my outfit today? Do you like my nails? Why don’t we go back to my shorthand again? Anything, for love of god, please.”
“No, no, let’s talk about it,” he says. “You think Kerouac is better in the original French?”
“Quebec! French!” you protest. “Is different!”
“Is it?”
“...My shorthand is code, okay, I admit it,” you say, slumping in defeat. “But it’s because — um… Wait, give me a second to come up with something, will you? I never planned to be caught out like this.”
“Oversight,” he says.
“You think ?” you say, running through your dwindling list of bullshit. “Okay, okay, um— it’s code, it’s really cool, isn’t it? So I was shopping and there was this convention near the mall a while back — Shakacon, weird name, huh? — and there was this one panel on cryptography, and, well, I guess I just happened to pick it up!”
“Uh-huh,” he says. “And your passcode to your phone just so happens to be 628318, and your pin just so happens to be 1618 and your laptop password just so happens to be—”
“Okay, hold up,” you say. “How do you know my passwords?”
He shrugs. “You aren’t very concerned about your privacy, are you? Your friends told us. Like two triangles and an arrow pointing northwest, they said— all of them, actually. Except you told them that, didn’t you? People don't come up with consistent comparisons like that on their own. You let people know your passwords. Why?”
You shrug weakly. “Not everything I do has some greater reason. Not everything I do is rational.”
He spares you an exasperated look. “Come on, you’re really going with that? I’m in the behavioral analysis unit, I analyze behavior. The irrational is often the most significant.”
You stick your tongue out at him in response like the mature adult you are.
Reid watches as you catch the arm of a girl with bleach blonde hair ( Diodorus Siculus-ammonia-diaminobenzene-diaminotoluene-electrophilic aromatic substitution ). He instinctively glances down for acrylic nails and a water bottle. Bingo.
“Hey,” you say, reaching up for a hug. You exchange perfunctory kisses, strawberry lipgloss leaving glittery pink marks on her cheeks. “I — thank you.”
The girl gives you a wide grin. “Were those really FBI?”
Your eyes meet his before you shrug. “Ask ‘em yourself.”
The girl whirls. And then whistles. “Better be careful when walking back.”
You wince. “Oh no,” you say. “I totally forgot.”
He squints at you in silent question.
“Ana,” you say glumly. “We always bump into each other right around now — she has a lecture that starts in ten minutes, and it's on the way back for us.”
“And she’s totally into Cameron.”
He shifts his attention to your friend, and — “Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself,” he says diplomatically. “I’m D— I’m Spencer Reid, nice to meet you.”
“Charlotte,” she says, waiting a whole five seconds before retracting her outstretched hand (sample mean increase-Chebyshev's-variation ratio) . You make a face at her. She pokes you in the cheek before turning back to him. “She’s always been jealous of Cameron’s girlfriends— Ana, that is. She is absolutely willing to lie in order to try and break them up, and the worst part is that Cameron actually trusts her, the bitch—”
“Cameron’s my boyfriend,” you provide, dryly. “You know, just in case you want some context to go alongside all the exposition.”
“Girl, do… your FBI agents not know you have a boyfriend?” Charlotte says, visibly restraining herself from commenting further. It does not spare Reid from the judging glance she throws his way. “And — Ana’ll tell Cameron, and Cameron will probably try to get me to tell him where you are, and then he’ll make such a big deal out of it that everybody will know, and I think that that’s the exact opposite of what you want.”
“I always love it when people talk about me,” you counter, fluttering your eyelashes. “Don’t worry about it, Lottie.”
She looks unconvinced, but gets up anyways. “I’ve got to get to A and P, but we’re not done yet!” she announces, pursing her lips. “We are talking later.”
“Yes ma’am,” you laugh, beaming up at her. “Now go!”
Reid turns to you, brow furrowed. “You can deal with the rumors on your own, correct?”
“Or,” you offer. “I take myself out of the running.”
He nods thoughtfully. “I hope you have a plan for that.”
“Oh, absolutely not,” you reassure him, wry smile twisting your mouth. “Well. Ten minutes to go.”
“You’re not planning on confronting her,” Reid says.
“Of course not,” you say, offended. “No, we’re going to hide from her and then run back before anybody can see us and tell Cameron. What do you take me for, somebody that can actually stand conflict?”
“You need to eat dinner, you know,” Reid says, lingering in the doorway.
You glance up sharply. Nervous, twitchy, on edge. He can’t blame you.
You slump back down once you realize it’s him. “Ugh, it’s nine already? It’s fine, I’ll just eat a bigger breakfast tomorrow.”
“You don’t eat breakfast,” he says.
“Yes, thank you for that,” you say, wry. After a moment’s consideration, you close your tabs and pat the couch cushion next to you. “C’mon, movie night. It’s the least you can do while putting me under house arrest. I promise I’ll eat popcorn...”
“So long as I’m the one to make it?” he guesses dryly. “All right, twist my arm.”
He hears the start of what sounds to be an incredibly low budget documentary on ants over your cheers.
“What do you mean I can’t go out?”
“I mean you can’t go out,” Reid says. “Does that come as a surprise?”
“I— no--yes— I have a group project I need to work on!” you frown. “I have a party to attend! I have friends to harass! I can’t just stop going places.”
“We understand that,” Prentiss says, nodding. “But you will be in danger, and so will anybody you interact with— it’s safer here, alright?”
“Please,” you say. “He’s — saving me for last, right? I’m not gonna be murdered any time soon. Why can’t I just leave.”
“You have been leaving,” Reid points out. “But we can’t let you go out on nonessential trips. He could snap at any time — in fact, it’s probably better if you cut out all trips outside of this apartment at all.”
“What?” you say, smiling a little in disbelief. “You think I’m gonna listen to you and just... imprison myself in my apartment like some sort of — like some sort of kid who’s been grounded? Just uproot my entire social life?”
“Yes,” Reid says, studying you. “I think you will.”
You don’t deny it.
“Look who’s back,” Morgan greets. “How’s it going?”
“Predictably,” he answers honestly, because almost everything is, these days. That’s good, though. Unpredictable is bad. Unpredictable is what gets people killed. He spots you in the corner of the kitchen, bent over your laptop.
You glance up long enough to spare him a quick beaming smile. “Back home from the war, I see.”
A great opening, but he’s not bored enough to be that easily distracted yet. “What did you have for breakfast?”
“En-ough,” you shrug, sliding the vowels around in your mouth.
Morgan rolls his eyes at you. “An egg. How you manage to live like this—”
Reid squints at you. "Un œuf?”
Your fit of giggles is answer enough.
“I thought you hated French,” he mutters, but you just keep on laughing.
“Morgan will be here around four,” he tells you. “So don’t be alarmed if you think someone’s breaking into your house.”
You still, light from your laptop limning your face. He watches the resigned look cross over your face as you say, “Odd hour for a shift change.”
Ah. You’re still keeping up pretenses, then.
“Odd hours are required to catch a stalker,” he shrugs. The music in the background swells absurdly. An ant lifts the corpse of its sister on its back.
You hum. He doesn’t think you even realize it, but you’re throwing together a countermelody as you formulate a response. “Good luck,” you settle. “When will you be back?”
He’s caught off guard. “I… don’t know,” he admits. “I’ll be in and out. Back at eight in the morning, maybe, but not for long. You’ll have Emily here, too.”
He feels a little— well. It can’t be great, having someone lord their coming-and-going in face of your confinement.
“Back for sure at night?” you press, teasing. “I’d hate to have to make Morgan my new chick flick buddy.”
“Braid each other’s hair, paint each other’s nails?” he finishes wryly. “Oh, don’t worry. He’d love that. Just be done before ten.”
“An all-day thing, then,” you whistle. “Okay. We’ll save some face masks for you.”
“Please don’t,” he says, and your laugh is lighter than he’s ever heard before.
Morgan pokes at his lunch (pancakes, he’s going to have to get the recipe, because damn ), and watches as you mess around on your phone.
"Hey Charlotte, darling— yeah, yeah, I’m doing great! Listen, Lottie, honey-- I need you to cover me, okay? I’m saying I’m down with that bug that’s been going around, so if anybody tries to visit me with soup or notes or anything... yeah, that’d be great. Don’t tell anybody where I am, not even my asshole ex.”
You stare blankly at your nails, thoughtful face at odds with your bubbly tone.
"Hm? Yeah, we just broke up— Oh, could you? That would be— yeah, thank you! No, don’t worry about me, I’m fine, I promise. Just playing hooky, you know how it is. I’m thinking of taking a quick trip to Seville— oh, no, darling, I promise we’ll go to Paris sometime like we planned, don’t you worry….. Oh, remember to tell Professor Calloway that I’m going back to Washington for a family emergency….. What? Yes, my family lives in New York, but just do me this favor, okay? Yes, I am lucky you love me! I love you too!”
Morgan stares at you, pretending he can make you look up with the force of his gaze. Lying is one thing, but this is another. This is borderline social engineering and, well— at least you’re finally starting to fit the profile.
You pour a criminal amount of syrup over your plate, uncaring of his internal monologue.
"The FBI agents? Don’t worry about them, they’re in my kitchen eating pancakes… What? FBI need food too... Oh, thank you, you’re the best! Remember— I’m sick, okay? Not out of town, not hiding— sick. Love you loads… Mhm, you too, chérie! ” A short pause, and then you laugh delightedly. “Okay… okay, yeah! Let’s do it! ”
You hang up.
One down, two more to go.
You’re curled in in the corner of your couch, laptop set to a shitty documentary whose title you’ve forgotten. You offer to save him a face mask, he definitely needs some for those bags under his eyes.
“Please don’t,” Reid tells you.
You laugh, because you’re too tired to carry on the bit and because — this is nice. You...
You feel safe.
“Why’re you always on the night shift, anyways?” you ask, eyes fixed on the screen as it dramatically pans over an anthill.
You feel him shrug, a silhouette in your peripherals. “My sleeping schedule isn't the best in the first place. I’m… usually up anyways. It’s convenient.”
You make a soft noise of acknowledgement.
The ant on screen dies a gruesome death.
“I’m sorry,” you say, abruptly. “For… arguing. About going out… I know you guys are — it’s just—” you break off. “I’m sorry.”
How do you explain the frustration? The gut-wrenching feeling of being stuck with nothing to do, of being trapped in this shitty apartment, of having to make up an excuse and lie to people you love? (people you’ve known for two months, but who’s counting?)
Even if you could, it wouldn’t be anything he hasn’t heard before anyways.
“Don’t be,” he says. The ants skid around in a frothing, shiny carapaced fury. “We were getting worried there. It’s nice to see you act like a normal person.”
“As opposed to?” you ask, but only for the sake of continuing the conversation. You know full well—
“As opposed to one of the best social chameleons we’ve interacted with so far,” he says. “We thought you were just pretending, you know? But you actually switch your personality. Most of it, at any rate. It was a relief to see some managed to still slip through.”
You hum. “It’s not exactly like I’m trying,” you say, not sure whether you’re offended or not.
“No,” he agrees. “Even with your two identities, you’re still more transparent than almost everybody else we deal with.”
You settle on being flattered. “I try,” you say. The ant clicks its mandibles.
He hums back. “So what do you study? Biochemistry?”
“I study communications,” you say, deadpan, but there’s a persistent smile tugging at your mouth. You relent a little. “In high school— when I tutored— Izzie was my only oddball Eng Lit nerd in a sea of STEM.”
You see recognition spark in his eyes. “And that’s where you met her?”
You nod, wistful. “Bella requested me almost every time. She — everybody always joked that she was my little sister.”
He stretches out his legs, quiet. And then, “It must be hard,” he says, and he’s not fishing. He’s saying it earnestly, and you feel a bit like crying.
So you change the subject. “And what did you study, Doctor? How many degrees do you have — like, twenty?”
He lets you, though he makes a face at the obvious lack of effort. “My first was applied mechanics, Caltech. Identifying non-obvious relationship factors using cluster weighted modeling and geographic regression.”
You blink, and then scrunch up your nose. “Relationship factors to what?”
He grins, delighted. “You know, you’re the first person to really ask me that.”
Um?
“Um?” you say. “Not to be that person, but what was your committee doing? What was your supervisor doing? What were you doing?"
“Trying to get material for my next thesis,” he says blandly.
You take a moment as your opinion of him gets turned on its head. “You — wait… Wait, wait —”
Holy shit.
Pfft — the nerve...!
“Take your time,” he offers.
“Is your second degree in psychology?” you say, unwilling to process. “You — oh my god. Oh my god. You weren’t even questioned?”
“It’s impressive what you can get away with when you look like me,” he says. “Pretty damning evidence.”
“You and what representative sample?” you say, dealing with a minor existential crisis as an ant calmly eats a bit of leaf. “I— wow. I think I genuinely like you now.”
He makes a questioning face.
“Cops,” you explain.
“Ah."
An ant waves its antennae as it futilely tries to escape the pull of surface tension.
The credits roll on the screen, plunging the room into abrupt darkness. You sit in comfortable silence, illuminated by the soft blue glow of your laptop.
“Okay,” you say finally, reaching out to gently shut the screen. “That?”
“Entr’acte,” Reid grins. “Of course. I’m going to win this the right way.”
One down, two more to go.
“You do this often?” Morgan says mildly.
“No,” you say, eyes on the clock. You count out three taps of your fingers before you start ringing up your next call. “You gonna stay here the entire time?”
“Yeah.”
You have to struggle to keep your pleasant smile from dropping into a scowl. Morgan has no such compunctions.
The other end picks up. Your smile finally grows a little strained. You bring your phone up to your mouth again, not breaking eye contact. "Hey, babe? Yeah, it’s me— mm, love you too, baby. No, yeah I’m fine— look, how do you feel about playing hooky? You and me, a nice hotel in Seville…"
Morgan stares at you again, but decides that you probably know what you’re doing.
"Oh, you’ve been to Seville already? Oh, of course, silly me— yes, of course you’ve told me before! And— oh. Oh no, food poisoning? Yes, of course it was the fault of those horrid waiters— you’re absolutely right, there’s no culture in Spain. We should go somewhere more civilized…. maybe Barcelona?"
Morgan coughs delicately. You break character long enough to roll your eyes at him in sympathy.
"Babe, I know you’re busy — of course being a business major isn’t easy, I know that, but you work too hard, you know? I just thought…”
He must be frowning again, because you wave him off impatiently and turn in your seat. Morgan decides to eat another pancake.
"Babe ,” you say, adding a little tremble in your voice. “ It’s just… our two month anniversary… I thought—”
You blatantly tune out of your boyfriend’s explanations and eat a strawberry.
"Oh… ” you say, somehow managing to make your voice appropriately pathetic through your mouthful of syrup. "Okay, yeah... it was just an idea— yeah, you know I always love dinner at Vivace! But—”
You visibly have to fight down the glee in your voice as you say, “Are you sure this isn’t about Lola?”
Morgan pauses, fork stabbed in pancake.
"Oh, don’t tell me you have retrograde amnesia, babe,” and it only works because you sound very, very sincere and very, very concerned. "You know, Lola? Barcelona, three weeks ago? Tall, green eyes, perfect hair? ”
You eat another pancake. Morgan follows a moment later. Definitely not stupid.
"Of course I know about Lola,” you say, indignant. “She’s a sweetheart— oh, no, you’re not excused. You had your chance to come clean… Yes, a threesome would’ve been hot.” Morgan chokes, for real this time. You’re holding back a giggle yourself. “ …. No, you still should have said something…. What? You’re Poly? Babe, I hate to break it to you, but I’m pretty sure it's called Razorbacks.”
Morgan catches your eye again, but this time you… mean it.
Oh, christ. You are this stupid, aren’t you? He sees the exact moment where you realize, face scrunching, and make the decision to run with it.
“What? Polly? I mean, I support you, but being trans isn’t a reason for cheating... What? Yeah, I heard you the first time, and I’m telling you that…. Hm? P-O-L-Y? Um…? Oh! Okay, I still support you, but that's no excuse…. Yes, we probably would have. No, you definitely should have told me sooner. Actually, I think this would be a great time to break up!”
You poke at a stray strawberry. "Mm, yeah, no. Don’t call me again. Either of us. Bye! ”
Morgan thumps his chest. You look up. “What?”
“Nothing,” Morgan says, clearing his throat. “Nothing at all.”
“Awww,” you coo, hand on your cheek. “Is this a good time to talk about victorian slang?”
Emily lets out a low whistle. “Oh man am I jealous. You could break someone’s foot with those shoes.
“My only goal in life,” you solemnly swear, watching her try in vain to fit them back on the shoe rack. “Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ll deal with them later.”
You nudge your shoes against the side of the doorway, pretending like they aren’t going to stay there for the rest of the year.
“Awww,” you coo. “Is this a good time to talk about victorian slang?”
He stares at you, unimpressed.
You grin. You punch in the numbers to dial this time. “ Hey, Lola— yeah, hi! Remember what I said— you do? Yeah, he’s confirmed it…. I know, cheating on you and me? God, you’re right... Hey, don’t say that, his puta madre’s a wonderful person! ...Yeah, I guess he’s a pinche gilipollas too— hijueputa’s a little unoriginal, don’t you think? Well, yes, you could do that to his culo, but why not a tomar por culo instead? ..... Well I thought it was funny …. No— no, girl, don’t cry, he doesn’t deserve it. We’re gonna stay hot, and he’s not gonna ruin our nights, ‘kay?”
Morgan does the calculations in his head. Spain is… what, seven hours ahead? It is night there, and the fact that you didn’t even pause to think is telling. He stares at his plate and listens a little harder and he catches snatches of rapid-fire Catalan (Castilian? He never remembers the difference between the two) from the speaker.
You grin into the phone. “ Oh my god, I would pay money for you to say that to his face….. Yeah, he might call you— Atta girl! Don’t pick up, okay? He made a mistake and he is not gonna get the chance to ask for forgiveness….. Yeah— mmm, yeah, I’ll give you a call if I ever go to Barcelona. Same here, okay? If you ever want to visit this dump… Of course, darling. Don’t be a stranger, ‘kay? Awww, you too! Buh-bye!”
“Garcia sends her compliments,” Morgan says, leaning against your doorframe.
You glance back at him, brow raised in silent question before you remember to smooth it over. “Tell her I said thanks!” you say, smile almost blinding. “Who is she and what’s she complimenting?”
“Our tech analyst and your computer setup,” Morgan says, eyebrow raised in faint mockery of yours.
Oh shit.
“Oh gosh ,” you chirp, hand over your heart. Your eyes practically have sparkles in them. “She said that? Really? Tell her she’s so sweet , oh my gosh, does she like my monitor? I added the sequins myself!”
“She can’t see your monitor,” he squints, issue dropped for now. “But I can guarantee that she will adore it.”
“Let me guess,” you offer, hanging upside down off the side of your bed. “Cat person. Goth. Gets hit on by way too many men at the worst times and in the worst places.”
A surprised laugh. “To be fair, the goth thing was years ago.”
You grin back at her, playful. “Sureeee.”
She gives you a pitying look. “If you think this is goth…”
“Is that an offer to show me high school photos?” you press.
She pauses. “Did Reid put you up to this?”
“No,” you say truthfully, because you’d needed absolutely no urging to do this. At best he’d dropped a few hints he knew would be acted upon. “Not at all, why do you ask?”
“Uh-huh,” Emily says, laughing. “Still no chance.”
You pout for a comedically appropriate beat before saying, “Hey, Emily.”
Emily glances down. “...Yes?”
“Look at what I can do,” you say very seriously. “Are you watching?”
She nods, playing along.
“Okay, okay,” you say, squaring your shoulders dramatically. “Watch this.”
“I’m watching,” she says, and you stop giggling long enough to compose yourself, straightening out your face. And then you shoot her the most soulful pair of puppy eyes you can muster.
“Oh, damn it,” she says, falling back in your chair. “You’ve got me, I’m defeated.”
“Heck yeah I have and heck yeah you are!” you say, letting yourself flop onto the ground. “Now photos.”
Her phone’s halfway out of her pocket before she catches herself. “I don’t know how we keep falling for that,” she grumbles. “We know you’re faking.”
“The great thing about cognitive biases is that they don’t just stop once you learn they exist,” you say. “Now go make some kettle corn, please?”
“You know,” Morgan says, picking through your nail polish. “That can’t be easy.”
You’re spiteful enough to make him work for it. “Thanks!” you say, waving your hands so the fumes blow straight into his face. You smile prettily at his look of aggravation. “I guess I’ve just done it so much that it’s just muscle memory now! Even on my right hand— I’m not outside the lines at all ! It really helps if you just push your cuticle back a little, you should try it sometime, it helps the polish last longer.”
He gives you a look. “You know what I mean.”
“....My nails,” you repeat slowly, sweetly. “Now do you want pink or green?”
He plucks the pink from your hands as he says, “Breaking up with your boyfriend just because it was the only way to stay in hiding.”
“Because it was the easiest way to stay in hiding,” you correct. “No need to sugarcoat it.” You spitefully take the pink back from him and set it back on your shelf before picking out a topcoat.
“Alright, because it was the easiest and least dramatic way to stay in hiding,” he concedes, rolling the bottle of green polish around in his hands. “Like I said. Can’t be easy.”
“Your point?” you say, tense, because while it is fair game it’s also pretty shitty to take advantage of your compromised emotional state to win.
But hey, he started it, you’re not going to back out.
“My point being that you don’t seem very broken up about it,” he says.
“People process grief differently,” you say blandly. “For shame, Morgan. There’s not one linear path—”
“There’s sometimes a speedrun with twenty glitches that let you shortcut the track,” he cuts in. At the look on your face, he grins. "Yeah I saw the Mario Kart.”
“Well, I mean, now that you brought it up,” you say, fluttering your lashes. “Wanna go a round?”
He ignores you. “And Lola? How long have you been holding on to that little gem? How long were you going to keep it to yourself, just to have an escape plan ready?”
Your grin threatens to turn brittle. Your teeth are already bared, eyes fixed on your even strokes (you weren’t lying, you are very good). “If you’re going to try and manipulate me,” you say, tone light and easy but unable to keep the hard edge of anger from biting at your words. “Either be overt or surreptitious.”
“As opposed to?”
“Covert,” Reid offers. “If we’re going by lockpicking forensics.”
You jump, brush running jagged over your fingers. You curse silently. “How did you get in? When— why did I not hear?”
“You were pretty focused on being mad at your nails,” Morgan offers.
“Man,” you say, trying not to smile, because you are mad. “Man, just shut up.”
“Make me,” Morgan says, so you smack a strawberry-chapstick covered kiss over his head.
He makes outraged squawks like the five year olds you used to babysit, sputtering and wiping his head and beating you away, and Reid and Emily are cackling in the background and— you think you’re gonna be okay.
“Are you okay?” Reid says. You look okay, and according to Morgan you were okay, but, well. It’s always better to ask about these things, isn’t it?
“Wha-?” you say, puzzled. It takes a good moment or two for the cloud of confusion to clear from your face. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, I’m fine. I—”
You glance up at him. “I… don’t actually care about him,” you confess, eyes bent unseeingly towards the book in your lap (A Rose for Emily-Faulkner-Falkner-Nobel 1949-Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique). “I don’t think I ever did, to be honest. I just—”
He stays silent.
You let out a small laugh. “I dunno, it was just the normal obligatory relationship,” you say. “Like, sure, he’s a decent human being. Might as well, you know?” (conformity bias-nuclear family-descriptive-injunctive norms)
He stays silent.
Your face crumples a little. “That’s… what I like to think,” you say. “That’s a little part of the narrative that’s true. It's easy to blame things on comphet, isn't it?”
“And the rest?” he asks, refusing to engage.
“Cameron’s… he’s acrasial on his good days,” you shrug. “Morgan's completely right. Cameron— he was mostly there for… hm. The comfort? He was the one constant I could really depend on, I think. The one thing I knew how to deal with. He's— oh god, this sounds terrible, but I know how he thinks. I know what to say and what to do to get what I want. Point A to point B— it's so easy. Say you like sports, but not to much. Say you like Kerouac and Wagner and Backstreet Boys, but not too much. Say that you like guns and go with him to the firing range once in a while, and you can even shoot better than him if you want to, but not too much. And— just— he’s who he is, an all-American boy in the middle of Arkansas, and that kind of protection— you can’t go out and buy that, you know?— I was scared,” you say, almost pleading for him to understand. “I wasn’t— it’s human nature, to find a pack, I wasn’t —”
“I know,” he says, and he does.
“You know the joke,” you begin. “Where people call Superman or Spiderman or Batman— they call them Mr. Man?”
“I think joke is a little generous,” Reid says.
“Haha, very funny,” you say. You’re in your Stanford hoodie— you’ve obviously decided that there’s no point in hiding it anymore. “I was going somewhere with this. Something about calling you Mr. FBI-man. It was hilarious, I promise.”
“I believe you,” Reid says, straight faced. “Now go to sleep.”
“Yessir, Mr. Man,” you mumble, giggling quietly to yourself as you curl up in your corner of the couch. “G’night.”
“...Goodnight,” Reid says softly, but you’re already out.
You pace back towards the wall.
“Cabin fever?” Emily asks, amused.
You shrug, some stray jolt of undefinable emotion itching at you spine. “I—” you cut yourself off, frustrated. “Yeah.”
Rossi sets his fork down (he’d appropriated your plate of pimento cheese and crackers, the thief— why is he using a fork?) “Why?”
You make yourself calm down, taking a breath.
“Okay, so,” you say after taking a moment to collect your thoughts. You bite a cracker. “I don’t want details— but you guys aren’t running an operation to get evidence aren’t you? You’re just wandering around in the dark, waiting for the unsub to slip up.”
“I mean,” Emily starts, and then admits, “Okay, yeah.”
“It’s just— sitting here. Waiting and hoping. Waiting for other people,” you say. “You think he’ll get sloppy, but there’s no guarantee, is there? What happens when you get called away, if he hasn’t made a mistake by then? He would— I’d—” you cut yourself off, abruptly.
You take a breath. “I’m sorry,” you say, genuine. “I got — carried away. I didn’t mean to stress you guys out more like that, I know you’re already— I... sorry.”
Emily softens, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and giving you a soft squeeze. “That won’t happen,” she says, and it’s sure , a bone-deep certainty that you can’t help but believe. “It’s not going to happen.”
You wake up, eyes snapping open in the darkness. You check your phone. Three A.M.
You get up, swinging your legs off the couch.
You tug your hoodie strings.
You fumble your way to the kitchen, knowing instinctively who’s going to be there.
“Did I wake you?” Reid asks, sitting at your shitty kitchen table with a very empty coffee pot.
You shrug, collapsing opposite him. “No,” you admit. “Just couldn’t sleep.” You tactfully don’t mention the bags under his eyes.
He pauses, considers, and then offers, “Coffee?”
You laugh. “Oooh, a gentleman,” you tease, poking at the box of Nilla wafers he’d bought for you on a grocery run. “No, but thank you.”
He pops a cookie in his mouth philosophically. Your loss. “Did you eat lunch yesterday? Besides pancakes, I mean.”
“Did you ?” you counter.
“I didn’t eat pancakes at all,” he says.
You laugh against your will. “You’re not funny,” you tell him, putting the box of cookies away. “Okay, okay, we’ve already established that we’re both garbage bins, let’s make some actual food.”
“Such as?”
You blank. “I. That is. A very good question… that I don’t know the answer to,” you pause, blinking fuzzily at the lights. You remember, gears grinding in your overworked and sleep deprived brain, “What about you, Mister Eidetic? You have the perfect recall, name me a food.”
He’s too busy trying not to laugh at you.
“Look, I’m not very smart at three in the morning,” you begin, but then catch yourself— “or any time!” you tack on hastily. “That! Was not a confession!”
“You think so little of me?” he says, miffed. “Of course it wasn’t. Any victory that easy isn’t worth it.”
“I just established that I didn’t think,” you scowl, tugging on your sleeves. “Cut me some slack here.”
He concedes that one.
“C’mon,” you say, valiantly changing the subject while hiding your utter humiliation behind your flopping sleeves. “Name a food. Can you cook?”
“I can make eggs,” he says, straight faced. “What kind do you want?”
You shrug. “I don’t know. What kinds are there?”
He shrugs back. “You want the full list?”
“Why would I have asked if I didn’t?” you say, just as bewildered. You both stare at each other in mutual midnight-dumbed confusion.
“Pålegg,” you say finally, lips quirking up in a grin.
“Very funny,” he says, scrunching his nose. “But do you mean egg and toast or everything-egg?”
“Pff,” you say, drunk off your tiredness and the absurdity of the situation. “Pålegg like everything on bread, except everything bagel— get it? Because when you flip it and anagram it a little you get baggle like how New Yorkers say it— and the New York everything bagel— and world egg—” You dissolve into giggles before you can finish.
He stares at you a little longer. “And people say I’m not funny.”
“Hey!”
“That’s the plan?” you squawk, trying very hard not to be angry. “You— I was exaggerating when I said you were going to go gallivanting around blindly to draw my stalker out. I was kidding!”
“You’re very perceptive?” Emily offers, smiling.
You hide your face behind your hands, speedrunning the stages of grief. “I— okay, give me a second, I’ll be able to find this funny eventually.”
“I admire your efficiency,” Hotch says, and holy shit, was that a joke? Was that a compliment? Was that a joke and a compliment?
“Oh my god,” you whisper, hand over heart. “Okay, yeah, I’m over it. It’s hilarious, official judgement.”
“Came to terms with waiting for other people while trapped in your apartment, then?” Rossi asks.
“ Elle pisse et fait caca,” you offer. “But at least it’ll be entertaining.”
Reid is the only person to laugh.
“C’mon,” you say. “Really? Him? Only him ? I can’t be that bad.”
“Hey!”
“I assume there’s some greater joke in all here besides playground humor,” Rossi says, patiently.
“οὐκ ἔλαβον πόλιν· άλλα γὰρ ἐλπὶς ἔφη κακά,” Reid elaborates. “Commonly attributed to Xenophon of Athens, known as the Attic Muse, though it’s highly doubtful — the Greek itself is barely tolerable. Most are familiar with it through James Joyce's Finnegans Wake — "
“Sitting and waiting around and hoping is how you fail,” you translate. “C’mon, no need to milk it... Get it? Because—”
“Because Pauline the milkmaid, yes, we get it.” Reid says.
"Who is we?" Morgan says. He goes ignored.
“You know, victims of stalking often move to obscure places in an effort to escape their pursuer,” Reid says, conversational, like he’s talking about the weather.
You squint. “O...kay?”
He raises an eyebrow at you.
You flutter your lashes back.
“Your idea of obscure was Arkansas University.”