Fic: Zeroes and Ones 7/? (Criminal Minds, Morgan/Reid, NC17)
It has been a day, dear Internet! Today someone called in sick for the second day running, so I was busy all morning doing two jobs. Then, just after lunch I got a message telling me someone was coming by to look at my house at 2:30, only no one has looked at it in the five (four? IDEK) weeks it's been on the market, so I have been slacking on the cleaning.
So at 2:00 I declared a personal emergency and left work, raced home, made my bed, and went over to my sister's house to run on her treadmill. Then I came home and the Realtor turned up way late to say she was just doing a preview viewing anyway. So I let her in to look around and she is bringing her clients back tomorrow. Which means instead of working on the fic I wanted to write today, I have to spend my night cleaning up the joint. But at least I had time to go pick up flowers before the potential buyers come by. And my Realtor's doing an open house this Sunday, so I needed to clean up anyway.
And that's why it's taken me so long to post this today.
Title: Zeroes and Ones 7/?
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Rating: NC17
Summary: AU. This diverges from canon directly after 4x01. When Derek's offered the job heading up the NYC field office, he takes it for the good of his career. He expects to leave the BAU and everyone he knew in Virginia behind, but some people are easier to let go of than others.
"So Reid didn't say why he couldn't make it this weekend?"
They were sitting at a table in the back of some club one of the girls in the office had recommended. It was loud enough that Morgan had to lean into Garcia to make himself heard over the music. There were plenty of bodies moving on the dance floor, and any other time Derek would be out there with them. But he didn't feel much like getting out there right now, even if he hadn't been with someone. The truth was that if Garcia wasn't here this weekend he'd be back at his place right now, alone except for his dog and his stereo, eating takeout and pulling up carpet. He wasn't sure if that meant he was getting old or if he was just losing his touch, but he wasn't going to ask Garcia.
"I'm starting to feel like second choice here," Garcia said, and he could tell she was only half joking. "What is with you and this obsession with Reid?"
"I'm not obsessed," he said. He wasn't; he was just looking out for the guy like he'd always done, only it was a little more obvious long-distance than it was when they worked together every day. "I'm just saying, it's Reid. What could he have to do on the weekend that he couldn't blow off?"
"No idea. Maybe you should text him and find out."
He rolled his eyes at her smirk and didn't reach for his phone, picking up his drink instead and swallowing a mouthful of beer. Chances were Reid hadn't told Garcia that he'd texted Derek. Knowing her, she'd hacked Reid's phone records just for kicks, or maybe that was her idea of looking out for Reid while Derek wasn't around. Either way she wasn't going to tell him, so he didn't bother asking again. "So how's Parnell working out?"
She pursed her lips at him and he could tell she thought he was deliberately changing the subject. She didn't call him on it, though; instead she shrugged and took a sip of whatever fruity concoction she was drinking and leaned in so he could hear her over the music. "I think she has a little crush on Prentiss."
"What? No," Derek said, lips frozen in a half-smile while he waited for her to laugh. It wasn't so much that his replacement would have the hots for Prentiss -- Emily was gorgeous, so it wasn't like he'd blame her -- but she was supposed to be a profiler, and if even Garcia could tell, she wasn't doing a very good job of hiding it. "You think...Parnell and Prentiss...?"
"Not even," Garcia answered, all the weirdness about Reid gone now that she was digging into a really juicy piece of gossip. "Talk about barking up the wrong tree. I mean, Emily's..." Garcia paused, mouth opening and closing as she searched for the right word. Finally she gave up and just made a sort of curvy gesture in the air in front of her. "And Parnell's...well, she's a little mousy. She reminds me a little of Reid, actually."
"Reid's not mousy," Derek said, regretting it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He wasn't even sure why he was defending Reid; he knew better than anybody that Garcia loved Reid, no matter how weird or stand-offish he could be. But he wasn't mousy, at least not in the way Garcia meant. He was just way too smart for his own damn good, and all those smarts rattling around in his brain took up the room normal people used for things like fashion or social niceties.
"Well, sure, our dear Dr. Reid gets a pass because he's got an I.Q. of, like, a billion. Parnell's nice enough and she's good at her job, she's just kind of...sensible. You know: sensible shoes, sensible suits, sensible hair. Mousy."
None of that explained what Reid had against her. If anything, he should be more comfortable around someone who didn't work at drawing attention to themselves. But no matter how sensible Parnell's shoes were, she still wasn't Derek, and he had a feeling that was her biggest failing in Reid's eyes. Derek knew that shouldn't make him feel as good as it did, but he couldn't quite stifle a smile as he picked up his beer.
~
It turned out that Garcia's plans for the weekend mostly involved dragging Derek around the city to do all the things he hadn't made time for since his move. Not that playing tourist was all that high on his list of priorities, but she was the one who didn't live here, so if she wanted to track down the best pizza in Brooklyn he wasn't going to argue. He didn't even put up a fight when she insisted they go all the way into Manhattan just to visit some comic book shop.
He regretted it as soon as he stepped into the place, taking in cramped aisles filled with people reading or jostling each other as they tried to navigate the store. On top of every shelf were rows of toys, those little posable action figures Derek and his friends stopped playing with sometime in grade school. Every inch of wall space was covered with movie posters or t-shirts stretched over cardboard, the kind with sayings that would probably make perfect sense to somebody like Reid, but were totally lost on him. Claustrophobic didn't even begin to cover it, and Derek was about to catch Garcia's elbow and tell her he'd meet her outside when she let out a squeal and took off.
Derek rolled his eyes and followed her, squeezing his way around people who looked way too old to be standing around reading comic books on a Saturday morning. He caught up with Garcia at the back of the store, tapping the glass with one bright red fingernail and talking to the kid she'd already corralled into waiting on her. "No, not Angel. Spike. The signed one."
She was practically vibrating, and Derek couldn't help smiling at the sight of a grown woman getting so worked up over a little plastic toy. She glanced up at him and then back at the case, holding her breath while the kid pulled it out and set it down so he could look for the box. "Kevin is going to swallow his tongue when he sees this. He has such a fanboy crush on Spike. It's the cutest thing ever."
"You're okay with your man having a thing for some other guy?" Derek asked, raising an eyebrow when she rolled her eyes at him.
"I don't get jealous about your crush on Reid, do I? And he's not even fictional."
"I do not have a crush on Reid." The words were out of his mouth before he even thought about it, but he wasn't taking them back no matter how much Garcia smirked at him. Because he didn't; he wasn't fifteen, for one thing, and anyway, Reid wasn't even his type. On the rare occasions Derek hooked up with another guy, it was always someone...well, someone like him. Outgoing, built, more action than talk. The kind of guy who wouldn't confuse things with a whole bunch of expectations, who knew what he wanted and just took it without expecting Derek to stick around for coffee in the morning.
That was his type. Not geeky, bookish geniuses who talked his ear off about stuff he didn't care about and looked at Derek like he was the one person in the world who could make everything safe even in the midst of all the garbage they saw. He didn't go for that type, not ever, because he knew damn well that kind of guy wouldn't be so easy to walk away from.
Garcia was still smirking at him when she reached out and pressed a finger to the tip of his nose. "Your nose is growing, Pinocchio."
Before he could do more than shake his head she was gone, following the kid with Kevin's action figure toward the front of the store. He hoped that meant they were done with this place already, but after Garcia talked to the kid again he stuck the figure behind the counter and she took off in another direction entirely. Derek sighed and glanced at the shelves of books around him, resigning himself to a long wait. He pulled a random comic book off the shelf and glanced down at the cover, frowning when he realized it wasn't about superheroes or time travel or something.
It wasn't about any of the things people usually expected comics to be about; instead it was about a serial killer from Chicago. He looked at the shelf where he'd found the comic and read the other titles: there was one about Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, and a family of serial killers on the Osage Trail. He hadn't even heard that last story, but he had a feeling Reid knew all about it. But Derek was willing to bet he'd never read the comics; he was a geek, sure, but not the same kind of geek as Garcia and her boyfriend.
He was still trying to decide whether Reid would prefer Jack the Ripper or the one about H.H. Holmes when Garcia found him again. Holmes was from Chicago, on the one hand, which made sense coming from Derek. But even though Reid knew the story backwards and forwards, Jack the Ripper was classic, and happening upon a new version was as good an excuse as any to buy Reid a gift out of the blue.
Garcia announced her presence by hooking her chin over his shoulder and peering down at the books in his hands, and when Morgan glanced at her she screwed up her face in an expression of disgust. "You mean to tell me you finally got out of the psycho killer business and now you want to read about it?"
Morgan laughed and turned around, holding up both books for her to see. "Not for me, for Reid. He'll get a kick out of a comic book about serial killers, don't you think? I just can't decide which one he'd like better."
"Graphic novel."
"What?"
"They're not comic books, they're graphic novels," she said in that tone that let him know she thought he was hopeless. And he was, when it came to this stuff, but he was more than okay with that. "Sure you should be sending gifts to someone you don't have a crush on? People might get the wrong impression."
She was smirking again, and Derek scowled and grabbed the one about the Osage Trail off the shelf as well, then headed for the cash register with all three comics -- graphic novels -- in hand. "Don't even," he said when she caught up with him, but he didn't quite manage to hide the grin that was threatening to form.
~
So at 2:00 I declared a personal emergency and left work, raced home, made my bed, and went over to my sister's house to run on her treadmill. Then I came home and the Realtor turned up way late to say she was just doing a preview viewing anyway. So I let her in to look around and she is bringing her clients back tomorrow. Which means instead of working on the fic I wanted to write today, I have to spend my night cleaning up the joint. But at least I had time to go pick up flowers before the potential buyers come by. And my Realtor's doing an open house this Sunday, so I needed to clean up anyway.
And that's why it's taken me so long to post this today.
Title: Zeroes and Ones 7/?
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Rating: NC17
Summary: AU. This diverges from canon directly after 4x01. When Derek's offered the job heading up the NYC field office, he takes it for the good of his career. He expects to leave the BAU and everyone he knew in Virginia behind, but some people are easier to let go of than others.
"So Reid didn't say why he couldn't make it this weekend?"
They were sitting at a table in the back of some club one of the girls in the office had recommended. It was loud enough that Morgan had to lean into Garcia to make himself heard over the music. There were plenty of bodies moving on the dance floor, and any other time Derek would be out there with them. But he didn't feel much like getting out there right now, even if he hadn't been with someone. The truth was that if Garcia wasn't here this weekend he'd be back at his place right now, alone except for his dog and his stereo, eating takeout and pulling up carpet. He wasn't sure if that meant he was getting old or if he was just losing his touch, but he wasn't going to ask Garcia.
"I'm starting to feel like second choice here," Garcia said, and he could tell she was only half joking. "What is with you and this obsession with Reid?"
"I'm not obsessed," he said. He wasn't; he was just looking out for the guy like he'd always done, only it was a little more obvious long-distance than it was when they worked together every day. "I'm just saying, it's Reid. What could he have to do on the weekend that he couldn't blow off?"
"No idea. Maybe you should text him and find out."
He rolled his eyes at her smirk and didn't reach for his phone, picking up his drink instead and swallowing a mouthful of beer. Chances were Reid hadn't told Garcia that he'd texted Derek. Knowing her, she'd hacked Reid's phone records just for kicks, or maybe that was her idea of looking out for Reid while Derek wasn't around. Either way she wasn't going to tell him, so he didn't bother asking again. "So how's Parnell working out?"
She pursed her lips at him and he could tell she thought he was deliberately changing the subject. She didn't call him on it, though; instead she shrugged and took a sip of whatever fruity concoction she was drinking and leaned in so he could hear her over the music. "I think she has a little crush on Prentiss."
"What? No," Derek said, lips frozen in a half-smile while he waited for her to laugh. It wasn't so much that his replacement would have the hots for Prentiss -- Emily was gorgeous, so it wasn't like he'd blame her -- but she was supposed to be a profiler, and if even Garcia could tell, she wasn't doing a very good job of hiding it. "You think...Parnell and Prentiss...?"
"Not even," Garcia answered, all the weirdness about Reid gone now that she was digging into a really juicy piece of gossip. "Talk about barking up the wrong tree. I mean, Emily's..." Garcia paused, mouth opening and closing as she searched for the right word. Finally she gave up and just made a sort of curvy gesture in the air in front of her. "And Parnell's...well, she's a little mousy. She reminds me a little of Reid, actually."
"Reid's not mousy," Derek said, regretting it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He wasn't even sure why he was defending Reid; he knew better than anybody that Garcia loved Reid, no matter how weird or stand-offish he could be. But he wasn't mousy, at least not in the way Garcia meant. He was just way too smart for his own damn good, and all those smarts rattling around in his brain took up the room normal people used for things like fashion or social niceties.
"Well, sure, our dear Dr. Reid gets a pass because he's got an I.Q. of, like, a billion. Parnell's nice enough and she's good at her job, she's just kind of...sensible. You know: sensible shoes, sensible suits, sensible hair. Mousy."
None of that explained what Reid had against her. If anything, he should be more comfortable around someone who didn't work at drawing attention to themselves. But no matter how sensible Parnell's shoes were, she still wasn't Derek, and he had a feeling that was her biggest failing in Reid's eyes. Derek knew that shouldn't make him feel as good as it did, but he couldn't quite stifle a smile as he picked up his beer.
~
It turned out that Garcia's plans for the weekend mostly involved dragging Derek around the city to do all the things he hadn't made time for since his move. Not that playing tourist was all that high on his list of priorities, but she was the one who didn't live here, so if she wanted to track down the best pizza in Brooklyn he wasn't going to argue. He didn't even put up a fight when she insisted they go all the way into Manhattan just to visit some comic book shop.
He regretted it as soon as he stepped into the place, taking in cramped aisles filled with people reading or jostling each other as they tried to navigate the store. On top of every shelf were rows of toys, those little posable action figures Derek and his friends stopped playing with sometime in grade school. Every inch of wall space was covered with movie posters or t-shirts stretched over cardboard, the kind with sayings that would probably make perfect sense to somebody like Reid, but were totally lost on him. Claustrophobic didn't even begin to cover it, and Derek was about to catch Garcia's elbow and tell her he'd meet her outside when she let out a squeal and took off.
Derek rolled his eyes and followed her, squeezing his way around people who looked way too old to be standing around reading comic books on a Saturday morning. He caught up with Garcia at the back of the store, tapping the glass with one bright red fingernail and talking to the kid she'd already corralled into waiting on her. "No, not Angel. Spike. The signed one."
She was practically vibrating, and Derek couldn't help smiling at the sight of a grown woman getting so worked up over a little plastic toy. She glanced up at him and then back at the case, holding her breath while the kid pulled it out and set it down so he could look for the box. "Kevin is going to swallow his tongue when he sees this. He has such a fanboy crush on Spike. It's the cutest thing ever."
"You're okay with your man having a thing for some other guy?" Derek asked, raising an eyebrow when she rolled her eyes at him.
"I don't get jealous about your crush on Reid, do I? And he's not even fictional."
"I do not have a crush on Reid." The words were out of his mouth before he even thought about it, but he wasn't taking them back no matter how much Garcia smirked at him. Because he didn't; he wasn't fifteen, for one thing, and anyway, Reid wasn't even his type. On the rare occasions Derek hooked up with another guy, it was always someone...well, someone like him. Outgoing, built, more action than talk. The kind of guy who wouldn't confuse things with a whole bunch of expectations, who knew what he wanted and just took it without expecting Derek to stick around for coffee in the morning.
That was his type. Not geeky, bookish geniuses who talked his ear off about stuff he didn't care about and looked at Derek like he was the one person in the world who could make everything safe even in the midst of all the garbage they saw. He didn't go for that type, not ever, because he knew damn well that kind of guy wouldn't be so easy to walk away from.
Garcia was still smirking at him when she reached out and pressed a finger to the tip of his nose. "Your nose is growing, Pinocchio."
Before he could do more than shake his head she was gone, following the kid with Kevin's action figure toward the front of the store. He hoped that meant they were done with this place already, but after Garcia talked to the kid again he stuck the figure behind the counter and she took off in another direction entirely. Derek sighed and glanced at the shelves of books around him, resigning himself to a long wait. He pulled a random comic book off the shelf and glanced down at the cover, frowning when he realized it wasn't about superheroes or time travel or something.
It wasn't about any of the things people usually expected comics to be about; instead it was about a serial killer from Chicago. He looked at the shelf where he'd found the comic and read the other titles: there was one about Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, and a family of serial killers on the Osage Trail. He hadn't even heard that last story, but he had a feeling Reid knew all about it. But Derek was willing to bet he'd never read the comics; he was a geek, sure, but not the same kind of geek as Garcia and her boyfriend.
He was still trying to decide whether Reid would prefer Jack the Ripper or the one about H.H. Holmes when Garcia found him again. Holmes was from Chicago, on the one hand, which made sense coming from Derek. But even though Reid knew the story backwards and forwards, Jack the Ripper was classic, and happening upon a new version was as good an excuse as any to buy Reid a gift out of the blue.
Garcia announced her presence by hooking her chin over his shoulder and peering down at the books in his hands, and when Morgan glanced at her she screwed up her face in an expression of disgust. "You mean to tell me you finally got out of the psycho killer business and now you want to read about it?"
Morgan laughed and turned around, holding up both books for her to see. "Not for me, for Reid. He'll get a kick out of a comic book about serial killers, don't you think? I just can't decide which one he'd like better."
"Graphic novel."
"What?"
"They're not comic books, they're graphic novels," she said in that tone that let him know she thought he was hopeless. And he was, when it came to this stuff, but he was more than okay with that. "Sure you should be sending gifts to someone you don't have a crush on? People might get the wrong impression."
She was smirking again, and Derek scowled and grabbed the one about the Osage Trail off the shelf as well, then headed for the cash register with all three comics -- graphic novels -- in hand. "Don't even," he said when she caught up with him, but he didn't quite manage to hide the grin that was threatening to form.
~