Work Text:
The agreement about text messages is this: since neither of them is actually in a position where Twitter would be a good idea (despite Penelope, Emily and the departed Jordan Todd being on Facebook), it was completely cool to use each other's cell-phone texts as a sort of stand in for Twitter, for those times when you really just had to say, "If this council person does not stop clicking his pen I am going to kill him with my brain" or "Geoprofiling a gigantic forest, suspect will be of little use" or, ubiquitous and mutual, "do not get paid enough for this seriously".
Austin is halfway through her Monthly Lunch Out with Kathy when her phone buzzes, and since Kathy's ordering more pad thai, Austin pulls it out to glance at it. And then chokes, because it reads, tidnwtk: "crack open cold one" as syn. for necrophilia. She has to explain why she was choking to Kathy, of course, and debates whether or not to just show her. She finally comes down on the side of just once being okay, on the basis that after seeing this once, Kathy was never going to want to know what Spencer was texting her again.
" . . . .ew," Kathy says. And then, "Ew. And ew ew ew ew ew." She takes a sip of her cheap green tea, as if to wash the taste out of her brain. "Also: 'tidnwtk'?"
"Things I did not want to know," Austin translates, sliding her phone back in her pocket. "We both get a lot of those. Granted, his are usually more spectacular, but I'm okay with that."
"Yeah?" Kathy says, around a mouthful of her food. "What are yours?"
Austin gives her a slightly humourless smile. "How many times an eight year old can wind up in the ER from 'falling down' before anyone calls Child Services?"
Kathy winces. "Ouch," she agrees. "Fair." She takes another mouthful, wielding chopsticks in a way that Austin will always just have to envy (she always has to ask for a fork), and then says, in a way too casual tone, "How are things going, anyway?"
"Fine," Austin says, and then remembers that this is Kathy and adjusts accordingly, "great, actually. I expected LDR to be harder than this. Although my carbon footprint is probably really awful."
Kathy snorts at her. She says, "I'm glad it's going so well," and Austin rolls her eyes.
"Wow," she says, as the waitress comes by to refill her water, "could you sound more sceptical?"
"I'm not being sceptical!" Kathy protests, and then relents when Austin gives her a sort of wordless mimic. "Okay, fine. He just . . . doesn't seem like your type, is all."
"You've met him, what, once?" Austin replies. She feels slightly defensive, and sighs at herself, inside her head. She reminds herself that Kathy is not her mom, and that Kathy is always like this, and that usually, it's a good thing.
"He makes an impression," Kathy replies, dryly, which Austin can't deny. And it's mostly her own doing that they haven't met more than that. Not that she's been doing it on purpose. It's just sort of . . . happened.
Austin takes a bite of her stir-fry and tries to marshall actual, you know, points. "And what is my 'type', exactly? I mean, historically, other than 'inconsiderate jerk who either cheats on me or makes me choose between him and my cat.'"
Which, thank God, Kathy was the kind of animal rights nut who had all of the passion but just too much common sense for PETA, so she'd been on Austin's side for that one with a fervour that went far beyond "supporting my best friend's choices", which had been nice, given Austin's mother had been bewildered that Austin hadn't taken Bartholemew to the shelter that very instant.
Kathy's giving her a serious look now, leaning forward on the table. "Look," she says, "I am not going to argue that Harris and Luke weren't jerks. I'm just saying, just because you had a couple cases of bad luck in deceiving packaging, that's not any reason to settle, okay?"
Austin does not actually laugh at Kathy. Quite. "Oh, wow," she says. "So not a problem, Kath. Promise."
"You're sure?" Kathy asks, giving her a hard look, and Austin winds up gesturing with her fork, trying to find the words to articulate.
Because it isn't that she doesn't know what Kathy thinks she's seeing. And part of this is her fault, in the sense that it's because of what she sort of unconsciously did, because Kathy is loud and smart and pretty and, well, brash sometimes, and she's been a bit cowardly about Kathy and Spencer maybe hating each other, and trying to solve it by making sure they didn't have enough time to make that strong an opinion.
"Before I started dating Spencer," she says, slowly working out how to say it, "I had no idea what it would be like to spend an hour talking to my boyfriend and know that he's actually listening - not just hearing, but listening to every word I say. And is actually interested. Because even if he's not interested in what I'm talking actually talking about, although you have no idea how scary-broad Spencer's interests are, he's interested because I am. And because he wants to know about what I'm interested in, and what I think is important, or neat, or - " she waves her fork a little, "whatever. I say stuff and he remembers it. And if I come home upset about something, he acts like it's important." She pauses. "Sometimes I have to tell him that this is not a solve-the-problem time," she admits, "but just a listen-to-me-bitch-about-it time, but the other thing is, if I say that, he listens.
"I mean, yes, he is a geek. And he's a little weird, compared to human-normal." She waves her hand, acknowledging what Kathy means.
"And he's a know-it-all," Kathy adds, but Austin shakes her head a bit.
"That's the funny thing - he's not, really," she says. "I mean, he knows a lot of stuff. A frightening, huge lot of stuff, some of it really disturbing, and some of it with disturbing statistical accuracy. But the thing is, it's not about showing off, with Spencer - it's not about 'I know this and you don't'. He just . . . knows all this stuff, and something in him wants to share it. All of it. He might be surprised if you know some of it, too, but he's usually thrilled. It's really cute, actually. His face does this little light-up thing."
Kathy's mouth twitches a little. Austin pauses to take another bite - her food's going to get cold otherwise - and waves her fork again. "And he's funny as hell. Sometimes when he doesn't mean to be, but a lot of the time when he does. But it's never nasty-funny, unless someone's really pissed him off. He's involved, he gets involved. And, frankly, because I know you're going to ask this," and she pokes her fork in Kathy's direction, "the sex is fantastic."
Kathy looks halfway startled, halfway sceptical. "Really," she says, and Austin nods while she swallows a mouthful of gingered beef.
"You would be amazed what approaching the whole thing like an experiment that's meant to just find out what's awesome so you can do it again, does for sex," she says. "Not to mention he has incredible hands. And he looks after me when I'm sick. And he's tidy. And he gets along with my cat. And he doesn't think 'sorry' is a four-letter word. And he can quote thirteenth century poetry at me."
Kathy drinks her tea for a minute, giving Austin a hard look. And while she does it, Austin's phone buzzes again, and she does glance at it - this time the text says, first case to involve psychic. if rossi were less happy sthing w/b on fire. Inside, she laughs at it. She hopes this is the kind of case she can actually hear the story of, with appropriate name-changes, later.
"Okay," Kathy says, eventually, grudgingly. "Maybe I'm sold." She pauses. "Maybe I'm wondering if he has a brother."
"Only in spirit," Austin replies, as the waitress brings them the bill. "And Spence says he's never seen Derek with the same girl twice."
"Okay, but he is way to involved with his job," Kathy says, as if in defence of a last bit of land. "Your coworkers aren't really meant to be your family." She pauses, and says, "You know I just worry about you, right?"
"I've kind of made my peace with the part where becoming a mother seems to give everyone just that extra bit of worry to spread around," Austin replies. And Kathy puts her face in her hands.
"Oh, God," she says. "I almost forgot. Caleb said his third word yesterday."
"Uh oh," Austin says. "Shit, fuck, or - ?"
"'Goddamn'," Kathy says. "Thank God, he can't say the G yet and he's got trouble closing up to the M at the end of words, so it just sounds like 'dodan' and nobody else knows, but I do."
"I told you," Austin says, grinning. "I told you this was going to happen."
"Yeah, yeah," Kathy says. "You hush. If you keep Dr Spencer Reid around, you'll wind up with little baby geniuses that can read when they're two."
"I think I'll stick with cats," Austin retorts. "Maybe a parrot. People think it's cute when a parrot swears."