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“Stop it. Stop it. Stop doing that. Stop...being you.”
“I can't help it.”
“Yes, you can. You can.”
~ Jennifer Jareau to Spencer Reid, The Forever People
“Well, I hope not, but I guess we'll burn that bridge when we get to it. Ta-ta, my lovelies.” A click, and the call ended. The tone of Garcia's voice suggested that she'd intended for that last part to be humorous.
Reid didn't find it funny (actually, he was rather confused), but JJ laughed.
His face crinkled the way it did when he didn't get something, a phenomenon that always frustrated him and happened more often than he'd like. “What?”
JJ blinked as her amusement abruptly died. “What do you mean, ‘What?’”
“I mean,” he flipped one hand in the air, “Why did she say that? About the burning bridges?”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “She was just being silly. You know how she is.”
“Yes, but,” he inhaled through his nose and huffed out a breath, “that doesn't make sense.”
“It's not supposed to make sense. It's supposed to make you laugh.”
“But–”
Her hand smacked against the table. “You know, we have actual work to do. Honestly, Reid, I don't have time to teach you what a joke is.” She flipped open a file and pointedly did not look up at him.
He pressed his lips together in his habitual I-don't-know-how-to-respond smile instead of letting the hurt show, gave a stilted, jerking nod, and stood from the table.
He worked on the geographical profile, JJ worked victimology, and neither of them said anything until the rest of the team returned.
The next time someone made a nonsensical quip, he nodded along and made that same awkward smile and pretended he knew what everyone else found so hilarious.
JJ leaned into him and muttered beneath the laughter and loud music, “You know, you look like a frog when you do that. It's not very flattering.” Her lips twitched in what he recognized as amusement, and she nudged him with her shoulder in a friendly gesture. As if what she'd said was also just a joke.
He dropped the. . . Frog Face and looked into his drink instead of meeting anyone's eyes.
No one commented on his silence for the rest of the evening.
“-but interestingly enough, many of the fruits we do refer to as berries don't meet those qualifications. Strawberries, blackberries, rasp–”
“You know, I really didn't ask,” JJ sniped from her position a few feet in front of him. She turned to the officer accompanying them during the search party. “Sorry about him. He doesn't always know when he's gone on too long.”
The officer chuckled, and Reid, despite his experience profiling, couldn't tell if it was amused or nervous.
Reid bit his tongue – quite literally – and tuned out the easy conversation that flowed between JJ and the officer, tamping down on the heat that tried to crawl up his neck. Heat of shame and jealousy intertwined.
He wasn't here to make friends, anyway. He was here to find a little girl.
He didn't say anything when their radios crackled with the news that the girl had been found. Or when they piled back into the police cruiser.
He barely gave anything more than single word answers until the flight back home.
“Sheriff Rogers,” the man said, a welcoming smile overshadowed by a bushy mustache, but visible nonetheless. “Thank y'all for coming. You must be Agent Jareau. I believe we spoke on the phone?”
JJ returned his smile and shook his outstretched hand. “That's me.” From there she turned and gestured to the rest of the team filing into the station. “These are Special Agents Hotchner, Rossi, Morgan, Prentiss, and Dr. Reid.”
Sheriff Rogers greeted them each in turn with a nod and a shake. Reid's palms prickled with heat and began tingling with the warning of sweat at the thought of contact. He took a breath and debated whether it was a ‘suck it up and shake’ kind of day or an ‘awkwardly wave and smile’ kind of day.
He didn't get the chance to figure it out because as soon as Sheriff Rogers turned in his direction, JJ spoke up again.
“Don't bother trying to shake his hand, Sheriff.” She had that condescending tilt to her head, her teeth flashing in a smile Reid thought looked more like an embarrassed grimace. “He's kinda weird with that stuff.”
The sheriff visibly paused before turning back to Reid. “Ah, no worries, son. Nice to meet ya.”
Reid pursed his lips – you look like a frog when you do that – and gave a single, sharp nod and hoped that they would move on from introductions soon.
Assignments were given, and the group split up, but Reid couldn't get the voices of every schoolyard bully calling him weird out of his head, even as he directed his attention elsewhere.
It didn't escape his notice that the sheriff's interactions with him were awkward and forced during the entirety of the case, but only when JJ was around.
The case closed up late at night, but not late enough for Hotch to justify to Strauss about letting the team stay another night at their hotel, and soon they boarded the jet and took off towards Virginia.
Most of the team had fallen asleep, only he and JJ still awake. He had a book propped up on his knee and was trying not to listen to the murmur of her voice as she talked – argued, actually – with someone on the phone.
She ended the call with a huff and slipped her phone into her pocket.
He debated whether or not to say anything to her; she'd been less than receptive of his attempts in the past, but she also looked like she needed someone to talk to.
Mind made up, he crossed over to her, careful not to wake anyone on his way. “Hey,” Reid whispered as he carefully folded himself into the seat across from her. “You okay?”
JJ looked up from where she'd been staring at an open file, her fingers pressing into her forehead firm enough to leave marks in their sudden absence. “What?”
“Are you okay?” he repeated.
Her eyes darted around, checking for anyone who could possibly be listening in. A futile endeavour, seeing as Reid had been successful at not rousing anyone from their sleep.
Satisfied at their apparent privacy, though the downward twist of her mouth argued against describing her as satisfied with anything at the moment, JJ turned back to her file. “I'm fine.”
He sighed. “JJ–”
Her icy glare froze him to the spot. “I said, ‘I'm fine.’ If I wanted to talk to you, I would.”
Not one to give up easily, he tried again. “If something's bothering you–”
“Reid, if I wanted to talk about my feelings, I'd get advice from Morgan. Or Hotch. Or anyone that isn't just a walking computer who doesn't understand how humans interact with each other.”
Well. Reid wasn't always the best at picking up on the more subtle social cues and unspoken rules, but he would've had to be especially obtuse to miss what had been stated so plainly.
“Right.” He swallowed down the sudden lump in his throat and blinked away the burning behind his eyes. “Well, if you change your mind–”
“I won't.”
There wasn't anything else he could think to say, so instead he nodded once, and stood on stiff, awkward legs. He spun on his heel to return to his original seat.
He faltered when his eyes met Emily's, glinting in the dim light and definitely no longer asleep.
He ignored her and plopped down on the couch. The words of his book did little to capture his attention, but he went through the motions anyway. If nothing else, he would appear busy. And unaffected. And perfectly fine.
Emily didn't get the memo and moved to sit beside him. He had a brief moment of frustration to wonder why other people were allowed to break unspoken social rules and ignore body language cues, but he wasn't allowed the same leniency. And then he tamped down on that anger because he really didn't want to pick a fight tonight.
Not after that exchange with JJ.
He expected her to begin prying into his feelings as soon as she settled on the cushions, but she only made herself comfortable and pulled out a book of her own. Her legs were tucked up underneath her, and one of her knees rested against his thigh, but she didn't move away.
Well, if it didn't bother her, he wouldn't make a big deal of it. And. . . he didn't mind it, anyway.
It was kind of nice, actually.
He briefly considered asking her about her behaviour, but he, again, didn't want a repeat of what just happened with JJ. So he instead forced himself to read his own book.
He had just begun to relax into the silence, and the close proximity, when she cleared her throat. “You okay?”
He repressed an undignified snort. “Yeah, fine.” And wasn't that just an ironic reversal of roles?
A beat. Then, “Does she always talk to you like that?”
He paused, setting his book down. “What do you mean?”
She followed suit. “JJ.”
Panicked at the thought of her listening in, Reid glanced over at the blonde.
Who'd drifted off to sleep.
He sank back into the cushions. “It's fine. I'm pretty used to it by now.” It wasn't entirely the truth, but he didn't want to admit that the comments still stung. That his skin had yet to grow thick enough to let hurtful words slide right off of him. He'd had an entire lifetime supply of them by now. He should be used to it.
“Used to it?”
“Emily,” he started, trying to inject as much nonchalance as he could into his tone. “I was bullied my entire school career. A few mean words are nothing.”
“They still bother you.”
He shrugged. “She's my best friend. She doesn't mean anything by it.”
Emily was quiet for a long time after that. Long enough that he nearly jumped when she asked, “Why do you call her that?”
“Call her what?”
“Your best friend.”
He frowned. “Why wouldn't I?”
Emily tilted her head, glancing back at JJ for a moment before answering, “Because she's mean to you.”
“What?” His voice rose half an octave, and Morgan shifted. Reid paused, waiting to see if he would stir. He didn't. “She's not mean to me,” he continued, much quieter than before.
Even as he did, his stomach twisted in the way it always did when he was less than truthful.
“How often does she say something that hurts you? Embarrasses you? Makes you look bad in front of others?”
“It's just some harmless teasing. It's fine.” His eyes dropped back to his book, but he didn't even pretend to read it. They both knew it was just an excuse to avoid Emily's gaze.
“No,” Emily whispered. One hand rested on his, and she gave a small squeeze. “It's not. Not if it hurts you. Not if it's meant to hurt you.”
“She didn't intend to hurt me.”
“So being called a walking computer who can't understand basic human interactions doesn't bother you at all? Being singled out and called weird in front of someone who's just meeting you didn't embarrass you?”
He didn't answer.
“She singles you out. Isolates you. Makes you feel bad just for being yourself. That's not just friendly teasing.” She squeezed his hand and waited until he looked at her before she continued. “That's bullying.”
Reid shook his head. JJ wasn't shoving him into lockers or destroying his stuff or stripping him naked and–
That was bullying.
What JJ did. . . maybe it was a little harsh, but he knew he was weird. And sometimes. . . maybe he needed a reminder on how to be normal. And the team needed to make good first impressions with the local police, so preparing them for his eccentricities wasn't necessarily a bad thing. “No, that's not- She isn't- I've been bullied, okay? This is nothing compared to that.”
Something he couldn't interpret flashed over Emily's face, but he thought it might have been concern. “Bullying doesn't have to be physical. Or extreme. And it isn't reserved for people who make it known that they don't like you. It can be subtle comments. Private insults. Little things said and done over and over just to make you feel isolated and different. And it can come from people who claim to be your friend.”
She stopped and let him consider for a while, staring out the window into the darkness of the night.
And consider he did. The more he thought about what she said, the more sense it made. It was almost a relief that his hurt wasn't completely ignored or irrational. That it had been noticed and validated by someone else.
At the same time, it made his chest ache. Because if JJ really was. . . bullying him, then what did that say about his ability to make friends? True friends. Best friends.
Had she ever truly considered him a friend at all?
“So why did she make me Henry's godfather?” His voice came out much smaller than he would've liked, making him sound childish. Immature.
A little kid who was being tormented by teenagers six years older than him.
It took several seconds before he got a response. “I can't answer that.”
“But she wouldn't have done that if she didn't like me,” he insisted. And then smaller, much more hesitant and in need of confirmation and validation and all those things Reid swore he didn't need from anyone, “Would she?”
Emily didn't answer.
Her silence was the loudest their conversation of whispers and low voices had been so far, and Reid half expected one of the others to wake from the weight of it.
He stared at Emily's hand, still holding his own, and tried to think of the last time JJ had been so casually affectionate with him.
And then he thought about how even his worst days with Emily, most prominent in his mind were the weeks and months after Hankel, he still felt more at ease (safer?) than on some of his best days with JJ.
Because even when Emily had called him out, even when he'd chewed her out for daring to care about him, she'd never made him hurt the way JJ so often did. She'd never torn him down, whether in front of others or in a private conversation.
Emily never made him feel like the little kid who just wanted to be accepted and loved but was derided and beaten down and punished every day for the crime of existing as himself.
“If JJ isn't my best friend,” Emily made another strange face at that, “then what is she?”
Again, no answer. Just a gentle squeeze of his hand.
“If she's not, who is?” he continued.
The air shifted, even though nothing physical had changed. The silence was no longer tense and loud, but soft. Comforting and intimate and easy.
“I think that's something you have to figure out yourself,” Emily said finally. She turned back to him, and the soft smile on her face felt like the hug he'd been waiting for his entire life.
The embrace of a true friend.
His heart squeezed, and he was surprised when it didn't hurt. Not the way it did whenever he'd been met with harsh words and even harsher blows. It wasn't an ache of misery. No, this was the ache of longing, of wanting more.
His eyes danced away, and came to rest on their hands once more. “Would–” he paused when his voice came out rough, licked his lips, tried again, “would you? Be my friend, I mean?”
Best friend was what he really meant, but he didn't think he had the right to ask that of her after the way he'd treated her in the past.
Emily shifted on the couch, scooting just a little bit closer to him. “I'd like that.” And the look in her eye, the delighted twinkle, told him that maybe she understood him anyway. She always seemed to.
And maybe that was what he needed in a friend. Someone who understood.
A year later, Reid called up Emily to ask her to see a movie. She declined, but didn't put him down for asking.
Four years after that, and one year after JJ had been kidnapped and tortured by Tivon Askari, Reid noticed that she was on edge and encouraged her to open up to him.
Two years after that, Emily returned to the team, and Reid was overjoyed at having his best friend back.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being you.”
“Aww, thanks. I don't know how to be anyone else.”
“Yeah. That's what I love about you.”
~Emily Prentiss to Spencer Reid, Sense Memory