Work Text:
Reid calls out of work stating a family emergency.
They don’t pry, knowing that whatever has happened is serious enough for Reid to call out from work, and that says enough. They offer their support but he’s radio silent after he updates them.
In the meantime, they work on a case unlike any of theirs before.
Well, the case itself isn’t anything they’ve never seen before: a string of missing persons of significant fame, seemingly connected but with no definite link.
It’s the victims that are unique.
They’re chipmunks.
Everyone knows of The Chipettes and Alvin and the Chipmunks, or, as he’s known now in his solo career, just Alvin.
After the shock of the existence of fully autonomous, anthropomorphic animals existing waned, the chipmunks became global stars for their distinct music and captivating stage presence.
A decade ago, Simon of Alvin and the Chipmunks disappeared. Though it was covered up by the media, claiming he had stepped away from the spotlight to focus on his studies, Alvin and the Chipmunks completely disbanded, leaving Alvin the lone performer to continue their musical legacy.
Though, he wasn’t completely alone, doing frequent collaborations with The Chipettes.
However, 5 years later, Eleanor of The Chipettes disappeared. This disappearance wasn’t tamped down to silence like Simon’s disappearance. The Chipettes, distraught at the disappearance of their sister, called a worldwide search for her, but she was never found.
And now, repeating the 5 year pattern, Brittany has gone missing, and the one who she was last seen with, who Eleanor was also last seen with and Simon all those years ago, has been taken in for questioning.
Alvin Seville.
It’s almost absurd to be bringing in a chipmunk as the primary unsub but the evidence clearly points towards him.
Though it may not make him guilty, it does mean he knows something.
There aren’t handcuffs made small enough for a chipmunk so they had to get creative with some jewelery wire and though it felt barbaric, there wasn’t much they could do in such short notice.
The chipmunk sits on the chair in the interview room, barely visible from the camera with the lip of the table blocking most of its view.
“Okay,” Hotch says, stiff and very much out of his depth. “Who’s going to speak with our unsub?”
“I will.”
They all turn at the familiar voice. Reid walks in, clearly disheveled, the bags beneath his bloodshot eyes dark and face pale.
“Reid,” Hotch says. “Is your mom—”
“She’s fine,” Reid interrupts. “The unsub. I need to speak to him.”
“Reid, there’s a lot you don’t know,” JJ starts.
“There’s a lot you don’t either,” Reid says.
“Well,” Rossi says. “Enlighten us then. Do you have hidden documents scrounged up from decade old archives? Or deductions from the plane ride back?”
“I have information but I need to verify it with our unsub.” His darting eyes finally meet Hotch’s with fragile determination. “Hotch, I promise. I’ll tell you everything I know. But I need to know if what I know is true.”
Hotch studies Reid’s face, an expression he has never seen on the young man’s face. Something broken and lost. “Okay. Fine. You have ten minutes.”
“Thank you.” Reid hurries to the interview room, shoes scuffing as he turns the corner.
“Do you—” Prentiss starts.
“No,” Hotch says. “I have no idea.”
Hotch follows Reid, of course, and he knows Reid knows he has. It’s unspoken. Reid gets ten minutes but not ten minutes alone. Even a chipmunk, there are forces greater than what humans thought fathomable, and there’s no knowing what could happen to him.
Hotch settles in front of the glass, watching as Reid kneels in front of the chair, placing a hand in front of Alvin. Alvin looks at him with fearful eyes.
“Alvin?” Reid chokes out.
Alvin’s eyes go wide and he chokes out a sob. “No.” He shakes his head, covering his face as he cries. “No. You’re not.”
“Alvin,” Reid says. “Where’s Dave? He should be here with you.”
Alvin’s breath hitches, gaze snapping up at Reid. “He’s with Theodore and Jeanette. We didn’t know what would happen to them.”
“Okay,” Reid says under his breath, nodding. “Okay. They’re safe?”
“They’re safe,” Alvin says. “Ian’s got some insane doomsday bunker. He says it’s for the fangirl apocalypse but it’s actually where he writes songs.”
“Ian doesn’t write his own songs.”
“He does,” Alvin says. “They’re just so bad that you’ve never heard them.”
Reid chuckles, something half relief and half disbelieving joy. He goes to hug Alvin but stops, like he didn’t realize his body would engulf his tiny body. Something cracks in his expression and he holds out his palm which Alvin hops onto and he holds him up to his chest, embracing him gently with his other palm.
“I missed you so much,” Alvin whispers, almost too quiet to hear.
“I can’t believe I forgot you,” Reid says, tears streaming down his face. “I can’t believe I could have forgotten you.”
Reid pulls his palm away to look at the chipmunk nuzzled in his palm. “Who did this to you?” Alvin asks.
“I don’t know.” Reid sucks in a sharp breath. “Wait. If I remember, do you think Eleanor remembers?”
Hotch flinches as the door slams open revealing Garcia who breathes heavily.
“Hotch, Chief, Sir,” Garcia says between her gasps of air. “I can’t, I don’t, I’m not sure how to explain this or convince you or—”
“Garcia,” Hotch says. “Just breathe.” He guides her until she’s not nearing hyperventilation. “What’s happened? Are you alright?”
“I have information about the unsub in there,” she says. “And, it’s not going to make sense how I know it but—”
And pieces that have been refusing to connect, pieces that he wasn’t daring to let himself believe despite the evidence being so clear because they challenged the laws of the universe he knew, were given supporting evidence.
“Reid is already in there with him,” Hotch says.
“Reid…?” she repeats. She looks into the glass and sees Reid crying with the chipmunk in his hands and she gasps. “No. No.” She pries the door open and Reid jumps, careful to not drop Alvin.
Something must be understood when the two meet each other’s eyes. Something that they hadn’t seen in the years they’ve worked together before.
“Eleanor?” Reid whispers.
“Simon?” She breathes. “Simon!” She throws his arms around him once she sees Alvin has carefully been placed on the table. She clutches onto Reid, no, Simon? with fierce grief and incredulity and relief.
“Eleanor,” Reid repeats, gripping her tight.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” she cries. “When you disappeared, we didn’t know what to do. We looked everywhere, we tried everything, but we couldn’t…” She stops. “We couldn’t because you… because we… oh my gosh Simon, we’re human.”
And confirmation to something so unbelievable, so mind warping, so existentially challenging said in two words that say so much more.
“Then that means that Brittany is…” Alvin says. “She’s not gone! She’s— she’s out there somewhere. Human!”
“You’re right,” Reid says. “Unfortunately this broadens the search. A talking chipmunk in bright pink is extremely distinctive but a woman, presumably blue eyes and a ponytail… that’s… that could be anyone.”
“But we’ll find her,” Eleanor says. “We will.”
“Yeah,” Reid says. “We will. And you know who we need.”
“Dave!”
.-~*~-.
A man — caucasian, late 40s, receding brunette hair, tear stained cheeks — enters the BAU with something hidden in his hands.
“Hey. Freeze! Put your hands up!” JJ barks as they point their guns towards him.
He jumps and doesn’t hold his hands up, instead opening his palm to reveal two chipmunks. “Hi. I’m Dave Seville. And I think you arrested my son.”
They shove him into an interview room but they aren’t able to retrieve the chipmunks from him, the two very intentionally hiding in his shirt.
They all muddle over what to do next when Hotch storms in. “What the hell is going on in here?” he barks, Reid and Garcia close behind them. They both freeze behind Hotch.
“Dave!” Reid shouts. The two chipmunks pop out from under Dave’s shirt and into his palm as Reid runs to him, pulling him into a desperate hug.
“What…” Dave pushes Reid enough to look at his face. “Simon?” he whispers. Reid just nods and buries his face in Dave’s neck as he cries. Dave places the two chipmunks in his hands onto Reid’s shoulders with practiced ease so he can wrap his arms around him properly.
The purple dressed chipmunk’s eyes zero in on Garcia who runs in after Reid. “Eleanor!” She jumps from Reid’s shoulders and Garcia catches her, holding her to her chest.
“Okay,” Morgan says. “Will someone tell me what the fuck’s goin’ on?”
Reid pulls away from Dave, wiping at his eyes. “That is a good question. Because I don’t know either.”
They all rearrange around the table, an odd sight with most of the BAU on one side and the man, the three chipmunks, and Reid and Garcia across from them.
“Uhm,” Reid says, poking at the bridge of his nose and startling when his finger hits it. “There’s no easy way to say this.”
“You’re the missing chipmunks,” Rossi says.
Reid’s head snaps up.
“It’s a simple deduction. It doesn’t totally make sense to me, but it’s the obvious answer to the strong connection you have with all of them and them calling you two by the names of the two other missing chipmunks.”
“Oh,” Garcia says, chuckling awkwardly. “Yeah. I guess that would be the only conclusion then, huh?”
“Okay,” Hotch says. “We’ve established that. We all now have the common knowledge that transformation from anthropomorphic chipmunk to human is… something that can happen. So, besides that, what do we now have in terms of the case of the current missing person?”
“Brittany didn’t show up to rehearsal,” Jeanette says. “This time of year is always difficult after Eleanor and Simon…” she meets Reid’s eyes and they both squeak, faces going bright red as they bashfully divert their gaze.
For a moment, it’s disconcerting to see Reid look at her with such clear love and flustered attraction before they remember that they technically are the same species.
Yeah. That’s not going to get any more normal.
“Okay,” Prentiss says. “So she didn’t show up to rehearsal and then…”
“I went to the place she’s always at this time of year. Our memorial for Eleanor and Simon. It’s nothing public, nothing anybody could know about, and when I got to the door I heard screaming and when I got in, Alvin was passed out on the ground and Brittany was nowhere to be seen.”
“Alright. Alvin,” she turns to the chipmunk, needing to turn her eyeline lower than she thought. “Do you remember anything from before Brittany’s disappearance?”
“No,” Alvin says. “It’s like it’s one big empty hole in my memory.”
“It could be trauma or it could be,” Derek shakes his head incredulously, “or it could be magic induced.”
“God, I hate that that’s an actual possibility,” Rossi says, rubbing his temple tiredly.
“But then why do we remember now?” Garcia asks.
“Maybe the,” Hotch sighs, “and I can’t believe I’m saying this. Maybe whatever magic that may have been involved is wearing off.”
“So, we could change back?” Reid asks, brightening up.
It’s in that moment that it really hits them.
Reid and Garcia aren’t human. They’re chipmunks. Their close friends who they would give their lives to, who they’ve worked with for years, are chipmunks in human bodies.
And yet, it doesn’t diminish how they see them at all.
It’s not like they had known about their pasts and it doesn’t erase the fact that everything they’ve done was because of their intelligence and passion.
They have proven themselves time and time again of how hardworking and ingenious they are. So what if they’re chipmunks? If anything that makes it more impressive.
…Doesn’t make it any easier to take in.
“Is there anyone who could be targeting you specifically?” Hotch asks.
“We’re famous and we’re creatures who for all intents and purposes should not exist. I think there’s a lot of people who would be targeting us speicfically,” Jeanette says.
“When you see us on stage, we’re a spectacle, you know?” Alvin says. “But it took a long time to build our image. At first, people didn’t even believe we were real. They thought we were robots or holograms or anything but actual chipmunks. And it’s not like we know why we are the way we are. And there’s not a lot of others like us.”
“It’s speciesism,” Reid says. “That’s what it is. We live in a world where chipmunks in the vast majority do not have the cognitive functions to compare to humans. Our existence challenges the established laws of nature. And there are a lot of people who reject that. So, besides killing us, someone turning us into humans is an obvious response to this cognitive dissonance.”
“So, that narrows our search down to someone who is human,” Morgan says, running a hand over his face. “Great.”
It’s at that moment that a blond man in a rumpled yet expensive suit comes in, face frazzled and tear stained, with a chipmunk in bright pink curled up in his palms.
“Please,” he says. “I don’t know what to do.”
Alvin climbs down Reid’s arm and looks with shocked eyes. “Brittany?”
The man nods as he apprehensively walks to Dave, giving him Brittany before stepping back, hands up.
“Wait,” Reid says, recognition flashing in his eyes. “Bocarter Humphrey. Bocarter Humphrey?”
Bocarter’s eyes fill with tears. “I didn’t mean to do this.”
The implications of his words sink in and Morgan wastes no time pulling him into cuffs, reading him his rights as they move him to a holding cell.
“I don’t understand,” Theodore says numbly. “We haven’t talked to Bocarter since… since high school!”
“I don’t understand either,” Reid says. “But we’re going to figure it out.”
“Who is Bocarter Humphrey?” JJ asks.
Garcia rolls to the computer, fingers already rapidly researching.
“We went to school with him,” Reid explains. “Bocarter was the definition of a spoiled rich kid. He was an unethical cheat who bought his influence and stole to get his way with little consequence because of his father’s influence as the owner of the movie studio. He was a bully, who didn’t care about anyone but himself, anyone that he deemed beneath him, and had no remorse for his selfishness and lacked the moral code to do the right thing.”
“So this is M.O.”
“No,” Reid says. “We were kids. It was inevitable that he would end up spoiled and out of touch being raised as he was. But he… he wasn’t evil. He was just a priveleged snot. He wouldn’t—”
“You can’t guarantee that,” Hotch says. “Like you said. You haven’t spoken in years and there is a clear and obvious motive.”
.-~*~-.
Hotch makes Simon and Eleanor stay back, their connection to the case making them liabilities (though they both know that he’s just worried about them and don’t want them to get hurt). Of course, Eleanor hacks into the surveillance cameras to watch.
“What did you do to Simon Seville, Eleanor Miller and Brittany Miller?”
Bocarter struggles to pull together a coherent sentence through his tears. Finally, after 4 minutes of calm breathing, he’s able to speak.
“I was just a kid. I never liked Alvin and his brothers. Not because they were chipmunks or anything like that. Just… I was a jealous kid. They were popular, they were famous, and the only reason anyone cared about me was because of who my dad was, and he wasn’t even anyone important outside our town. I was nobody and I knew I was nobody and I was a terrible person who did terrible things trying to get even a glimpse of what it felt to be like someone like Alvin Seville. He was always so confident, so sure in himself, even when he was so different. He didn’t let anything bring him down and didn’t let anyone mess with his brothers.”
“So why did you?”
“I didn’t mean to!” he cries again. “I had had a hard day. My dad’s studio wasn’t doing well and he was talking about selling the house and what was the first thing I saw when I went on my phone? Alvin and his brothers giving a tour of their mansion. I was so angry. I don’t even know why I had been so angry.”
Bocarter takes in a shaky breath. “There was this star in the sky and it was… it was blinding. It was like it was pulling me towards it. And in that moment, I felt so alone and like such a failure, and I wished that they could feel like I did. I didn’t think it would actually do anything and I definitely didn’t think this is what would happen. When Simon went missing, I had no idea what happened to him and I had obsessively looked into missing people. I dedicated my entire life to finding missing persons. I majored in Criminal Justice at Irvine, I became a missing persons investigator and took on whatever case I could in hopes it would point me in the right direction. It wasn’t until I saw Dr. Reid reporting on a case the BAU did that I suspected that he may be Simon. But that was— it was years later. Years. And when I realized Eleanor was here too, I realized that there must be something intangible that drew them back together.”
Bocarter is openly crying now. “I swear. I swear on my life. I never meant for this to happen and I’ve spent the last decade trying to fix what I’ve done. And when I realized that there was a 5 year repetition, I did everything I could to find a counterspell, but the only way I’d be able to fully capture the transformation magic was if I were with one of them after their change. That’s why I took Brittany. And when she turned back into a chipmunk, I knew I had to come to you.”
“Wait,” Rossi says. “You’re saying that she did turn into a human. But you changed her back?”
Bocarter nods. “Yes. I did. And I can change Simon and Eleanor back too.”
Eleanor turns off the feed. “Simon,” she says, voice wobbling. “We can be chipmunks again.”
Simon meets her eyes. “But do you want to?”
And as Eleanor looks around at the life they’ve built for themselves, her hopeful smile starts to fall.
.-~*~-.
Simon has been Spencer Reid for ten years. That’s a third of his life in this human life. And Eleanor’s for five.
They’ve built a family in the BAU, in each other again, unknowingly.
Diana Reid was a very unwell woman who had become a mother to Simon, when he felt the loss of his family without being able to identify who and how and why.
He made a name for himself, his intelligence being commended in a way it never would have when he was a chipmunk. He’s got three PhDs, IQ of 187, can read 20,000 words per minute, and is not only respected but renowned in his fields.
And when he was a chipmunk? He was the nerdy one in a band with his brothers.
And of course he loved it. He loved performing. He loved creating music with his brothers and the Chipettes.
But he loves this too.
He doesn’t know how he’s going to choose.
Bocarter is eventually released with no way to convict him of “wishing on a star” and freezes when he sees Simon and Eleanor.
He hands them a notebook, leatherbound and well-worn.
“This is everything I’ve written about my research and how you’ve been turned into a human and how to turn back to a human. I’m… I’m so sorry.”
Simon and Eleanor stare at the book, Simon taking it with trembling hands, flipping through the pages and absorbing the information through blurry vision.
It’s not science. It’s not some formula to create some antidote. It truly is just wish magic.
He flips through the entire notebook again. And again. And again before Eleanor rips it from his hands.
“What does it say?” she asks.
Right. She couldn’t read as fast as him.
“It’s… El, it doesn’t just say how to turn us back. We can be both.”
“Both?” she repeats in a whisper.
“He wished for us to know what it felt like to feel like him and whatever wish granting being heard him, it interpreted that to mean to learn what it was like to be human. And we have.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“It means that the wish has been fulfilled. But wishes aren’t transactional. They’re evolving. And this wish seems to have extended onto us. So, if what we wish is to be human, then that is what it will do, and if we wish to be chipmunks, then that’s what we’ll be.”
“And if what we want is both?”
“Then we can change between the two for the rest of our lives.”
Eleanor laughs. “Can you imagine it? A 9-5 at the BAU and selling out stadiums on the weekends?”
“I don’t know,” Simon says with a smile. “I think I like the sound of that.”
When Alvin and the Chipmunks debut their reunion with The Chipettes, the BAU is cheering in the front row.