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“How have you been doing, Dr. Reid?”
Spencer looked down humbly, a closed smile sitting stark on his feathered face.
“I’m fine, thank you.” He looked back up at her majestically, the blue, yellow, and brown feathers at the side of his face bobbing, as did his hair. “How about you, Madam Strauss? any new opportunities opening up for you in the Bureau?”
She pursed her lips, before shaking her head. “I'm afraid not.”
Spencer frowned, reaching down gracefully to grab his designated porcelain cup from the glass table. “Why not?” he asked, curious as he is, as he moved to take a sip of the tea.
For a moment, she watched. “Well,” She had the obligation to, she tells herself, in order to understand how he worked, and from the way his cheeks flushed told her that he knew equally as well.
The tea, scalding hot more than it was refreshing, was eagerly sipped, and as the cup disconnected from his lips, she found curiously that they were tainted blue.
‘A Harpy characteristic perhaps?’ trauss notes. ‘Although I have never heard of stained blue lips before in Harpies.’
Spencer coughed, bringing her eyes back to his own; blue, brown, yellow and electric. Animal instincts dug deep in those pupils, dilated on basis, and feline in excitement. Strauss had enough respect for herself to feel ashamed in her intensity.
The man – Harpy? Didn’t seem to care, which wasn’t any news, as he was as carefree as he was when she met him in that grass field of his and David’s.
“You were saying?” or lack thereof .
She nodded gratefully. “Well, collaboration with your handler has gotten me on the wrong foot with the higher ups. Apparently recruitment of intelligent creatures such as you is considered socialisation?”
Socialisation . The attempts on domesticating wild animals by getting them accustomed to Human presence - anyone who knows basic creature law’s favourite word. Frequently overused, misused, and thrown around illogically. She had even caught whiff of Humans on social media using it like a synonym to captivity.
But as she looked at the creature in front of her; charmingly wild hair with pins from his friends, a resting smile that knew too many sunset to count, and wearing his best suit ( a white button up, beige vest, brown slacks, and a white tailors’ jacket ) just for a chat with a senior agent, there was no wild animal in Spencer; just a child-like curiosity, as curious as a devil.
“Ah ” Spencer turned towards the shunned window with a sigh, yet she had an unexplainably right feeling that even with the bleak curtains obscuring the sight completely, he could still see the overcrowded environments of Quantico. “Well, that’s a complicated ordeal.”
She crossed her legs with a hum, placing her interlocked hands on top of her thighs in thought. “I understand that it is.” she affirmed, and the simple phrase threw her back to her past of HR. It was always a lead up to a question, when the person she was conversing with was being vague or difficult and she needed to give that little nudge to satisfy her curiosity.
She guessed she defaulted to it now. Because Spencer was being quiet, and she knew personally how wrong that was. She knew Spencer as an energetic young man (creature? thing?) always eager to tell the world what he wants to tell.
To see him smiling distantly at a piece of fabric, mouth pressed closed, and body firm? It wasn’t right. So she had to give a little nudge. Ask the question. Tell me more, what’s wrong? Spread your knowledge, it’s okay, you’re safe here.
But It wasn’t like she was foreign from the topic; it was her entire job – taking over the void that Jason Gideon and, recently, David Rossi, had carelessly left on her unit, no matter how much it teared her apart – but it was her first time formally discussing it with someone who knew it intimately .
Not in the way Jason or David had known it, two dead men who knew what it was like to be a human, and if Strauss was organising her cards in the correct order, the harpy in front of her had no knowledge of such things.
Even though he held the longing to. A big enough longing enough for every creature that managed to slip through their doors to become humans.
“Feel free to inform me, then.” How complicated is it?
“Well, first of all: David Rossi is not my handler. My handler is a professional. A professional in magical bestiary. She takes care of me in a way that David nor Jason can ever provide me,”
Strauss nods in knowledgement, “Dr. Maeve Donovan.” it was strange for the name to slip past her lips. She was usually an iffy topic amongst the inner corners of the Bureau, and she guessed that it was nice. There was no reason to fear a name when the name itself held no fear to it.
And it was obvious that the name held another meaning entirely. Not the way they made it out to be when she first started digging her hands through the business.
No, “Yes, Dr. Donovan,” there was just adoration and proof of life in the name. If it was any obvious with the way Spencer smiled like she was the earth itself, placing the cup down onto the table.
“ She is the one who handles me accordingly. She meets me during lunch breaks to satiate my hunger in a way that Jason and David would shy away from. Me biting a fish head clean isn’t as appealing to their stomachs as it is to me.”
Strauss couldn’t help but smile fondly at that.
She had heard whispers, here and there, of what this Harpy ate. She at first had thought that he only fancied apple muffins like the ones Jason had brought when they first met, in that sweaty June parking lot, or the apple fritters that she and David made themselves as an offering.
But apparently, he had a diverse palette.
Things like raw fish, chunks of beef, and snakes were a frequent meal that he never hesitated to consume. Although she had never seen it, she had believed it, then discredited it later on.
So to hear the proof from the mouth of the creature himself was a wonder in many ways. (now she just needed to see him eat raw meat and snakes to satisfy herself.)
“I know what you’re gonna say.” Spencer laughed, and for a moment she caught the faint glimmer of his sharp canines before they were covered up again by his pink-blue lips, “I don’t eat snakes, or ferrets, or rats if that’s what you’re thinking. I only eat fish. Although..”
“Although?”
Spencer grinned, “I much enjoy the meal if they’re alive on arrival.” devious little devil. He could murder a man in front of everyone in the bullpen and they would turn their head. Cheeky.
“I don’t think eating live fish is what you meant this conversation to devolve into, Dr. Reid? You’re doing a listing format, so you have more to say.” Strauss, almost hesitantly, reminded. Keeping the both of them on track before they got themselves in trouble for being friendly.
“Two,” Spencer huffed out, though his eyes fluttered to her gratefully, before they found themselves looking back to the withdrawn curtains. “Intelligent creatures cannot be socialised. We have always lived among humans. We have existed before humans. I know creatures that were walking in their prime before humans even began to evolve. If they’re using this twisted logic of theirs, then it’s actually the other way around. We are socialising humans . We are the ones making them accustomed to us, not the other way around, because we have been here, and you are all stubborn enough to deny it.”
“It’s really unfortunate, isn’t it? How a single species claim reign of an entire environment as theirs when they haven’t even lived a significant fraction of time on this planet like others have?”
Spencer exhaled in a newfound exhaustion that Strauss had never heard, but she had a wild guess that it had been familiar to his voice for far longer than she had lived, “Humans are ignorant.”
“ Willingly ignorant.” Strauss corrected, and she finally placed down her own porcelain cup on the table. “Though this was a captivating conversation, we both have duties to attend to. I’m not sure how your team is doing without you assisting them with decrypting scriptures.”
There’s a sense of pride that swells in her as Spencer smiles amused at her statement, standing up in that straightforward manner that she’s always idolised. He offered his hand, and she readily accepted it to aid them to eye level. “I’m sure only Penelope and Emily are getting through them at a steady pace.”
“What would they do without you?”
Spencer snorted, “Crash and burn.”