Criminal Minds Fic #5: The One that Starts with Rossi Mad about Psychics
Title: The One that Starts with Rossi Mad about Psychics
Author: myrna1_2_3
Pairing: Rossi/Reid
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Rossi’s mad about psychics and then he thinks about other stuff
Word count: ~6,800
Scepticism is the beginning of Faith
~ Oscar Wilde
Rocky shoreline my ass, SSA David Rossi thought darkly as he made his way to the Bureau’s private plane. You don’t have to be a fuckin’ psychic to throw out something that God damned generic.
He stomped on to the Bureau plane and threw himself in the seat next to Spencer. Sort of, almost on Spencer. He moved Spencer’s hand from under his ass (not such a bad spot, really) and forcefully put it on top of his leg. He answered Reid’s unvoiced question with an icy, “I’m off the clock.”
Reid removed his hand from Rossi’s leg. “Not that far off,” he answered, eyebrows high on his forehead.
“Hey, Reid, feelin’ lucky?” Morgan asked, shaking a deck of cards in his hands as he walked past their seats.
“No thanks,” Reid said, holding up his book.
Prentiss was following along behind him, but stopped at Reid’s side. “Penelope and I are grabbing a drink when we land, wanna come?” Prentiss asked. And Rossi was probably (maybe) included in the invite, but she was looking at Reid in that way that, at least to Rossi, suggested Ditch the old man.
“We were just planning to head home tonight,” Reid said. “Lunch at Wally’s tomorrow, though, right?”
Next came JJ offering dinner with Will and Henry. Rossi probably wasn’t on that guest list, but Spencer declined so it didn’t really matter. As JJ headed to her seat with what Rossi’s was coming to view as her “Mom” look at Reid, Rossi felt Reid’s curious eyes on him. “What?” he asked sourly.
“What have you done?” Reid asked suspiciously.
“Me?!” Rossi said indignantly. “Nothing!”
Reid’s narrowed eyes studied him skeptically, but he said nothing.
Hotch suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Up for some chess, Reid?” he asked.
Jesus Christ, Hotch, too? What the hell?
“All right, listen up!” Rossi said, voice raised. “Spencer does not want to play cards or chess or tiddly winks or whatever else sounds fun. He does not want to get a drink when we land; and he is not interested in getting a bite to eat once we’re home. So if one of you could kindly inform the pilot that Reid is not entertaining any…”
Without looking up from his book, Reid leaned over into Rossi’s space. “Evelyn,” he said.
“What?” barked Rossi.
“The pilot,” Reid said. “It’s Evelyn today.”
Rossi grit his teeth and heaved a deep breath. “If one of you could kindly inform Evelyn that Reid is not entertaining any additional invitations this evening, that’ll pretty much take care of every damn person on the plane!”
Rossi hunched his shoulders and buried his head in his briefcase, hoping they all choked on their stifled laughter.
“Andrew is the name of our other pilot,” Reid said conversationally. “I tell you this because it was pointed out to me not long ago, in a very supercilious tone, I might add, that it would behoove me to make more of an effort to engage with the people I meet.”
“Shut up.” Rossi grabbed Reid’s hand and placed it firmly on his own leg and on general principle refused to sigh happily when Reid affectionately squeezed that leg and offered a few comforting pats.
“It really doesn’t bother you?” Rossi finally said.
“I am going to need a lot more information to answer that.”
“These bogus psychics. You don’t find them offensive?”
Reid’s entire body heaved in the universal signal of ‘Oh that’s what’s going on.’ He shook his head at Rossi’s question. “I don’t see them as significantly impacting anything to the point where…”
“It just peeves me that these parasites attach themselves to these tragic situations and for what? Money? Notoriety? The need to insert themselves in someone else’s drama?”
“That’s a fairly wide swath of condemnation, don’t you think?” Reid said. He still hadn’t looked up from his book, and Rossi was starting to get that itchy feeling he experienced whenever Reid’s attention wasn’t focused where it should be.
“How could the swath possibly be narrowed?” Rossi asked.
Reid finally closed his book. Most people would have marked their page, but it wasn’t like he was going to forget where he was. “It seems to me you’re working from a flawed assumption that all psychics are frauds,” he said. “I’m sure many of them truly believe they’re prescient.”
“But they aren’t! It’s a load of horse shit.”
“The veracity of one’s belief bears no relation to how deeply those beliefs are held.”
Rossi rolled his eyes. “Where did you read that-a fortune cookie?”
Reid squeezed the hand still on Rossi’s leg. “When my mom was having an episode, she was utterly convinced that whatever outrageous thoughts were going through her head, they were true.”
Rossi’s features softened. “That’s different, Spencer, and you know it. There is a physiological basis for her condition.”
Reid’s shrug conceded the literal truth of those words, but he didn’t agree with Rossi’s point. “Physiology or no, there are plenty of psychics who believe they’re providing a legitimate service to people.
“What they’re providing is false hope,” Rossi said. “Exploiting people when they are their most vulnerable; encouraging them to believe in something there’s no possible way of substantiating to gain, what? Money? Power?”
“The exact same thing can-and often is--said about religion.”
Rossi slid a few inches away from Reid. “Only by people who aren’t afraid of getting struck by lightning.”
Spencer huffed a sound of amusement. “There are well documented instances of psychics providing law enforcement with case-breaking information.”
“So you’re telling me you believe some people have psychic powers?”
“No, not at all,” Reid said reasonably. “I believe they are privy to information for which there are rational explanations that have nothing to do with the paranormal. Maybe they have a memory like mine but it’s gone undiagnosed. What they think are flashes of psychic insight are really memories they don’t even know they have. Maybe they caught a glimpse of something out of place or heard a conversation out of context or read an article that later triggered a memory…so they really are providing a service to investigators, it’s just that they’re misinterpreting the source of that service.”
“Service,” Rossi scoffed at the word. “They’re just looking to make a buck off a suffering family’s misfortune.”
“But so are some bankers and some attorneys and some clergymen and some physicians. There are predators in every profession.”
Rossi sat back with a dramatic flounce. “Must you conquer all of my irrational prejudices?”
Reid lifted a brow. “Only the ones that make the team think they have to rescue me from your dastardly temper.”
Oh. Yeah, that might explain all the mother henning. Huh.
“It’ll only free them up to think they have to rescue you from my dastardly jealousy, my dastardly selfishness, my dastardly…” Not surprisingly, after only two examples, Rossi ran out of dastardly things from which Reid needed to be rescued.
Reid helpfully took up the cause. “Ego? Lack of even a rudimentary sci-fi education? Unbalanced retirement portfolio?”
“Shut up.” Rossi was quiet for a beat. “My retirement portfolio is not unbalanced.”
Reid snorted but had now gone back to his book. “Mrs. Hollister has a more daring mix of stocks and bonds, and she’s 83.”
“Do you really want to gamble our future on Margie Hollister’s investment advice?”
Reid chuckled but said nothing as he settled a little more firmly against Rossi’s side. Rossi grabbed a notebook and opened it to a blank page. Lately he’d been fooling around with the idea of writing a mystery novel and wanted to jot down a few ideas.
But as he stared down at that empty page, pen poised to write, he felt more of Reid’s weight against his shoulder and looked down to find him dozing. Rossi considered nudging him awake seeing as he’d suffer later that evening when Spencer couldn’t sleep. Rossi made a sardonic face, figuring the rest of the jokers on the plane would have protective services waiting for him on the tarmac if he disturbed their precious little agent.
It was probably the mention of Margie Hollister that had Rossi thinking back to an image of a sleeping Reid on another plane ride, over a year ago.
They weren’t together yet, and Rossi had been struggling against what felt like the inexorable push of fate. Christ, the reasons to walk away before anything ever started were long and varied and utterly, utterly reasonable. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Spencer and studying Spencer and wanting Spencer. He recognized obsession in himself and he was riding a thin line of it over Reid. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so fascinated by anyone. So captivated.
And realizing that Spencer’s interest may have moved beyond hero worship to something deeper should have been welcomed, but instead, it made Rossi feel… imperiled. And that was melodramatic, but still an accurate reflection of his emotional state.
Spencer, befuddled and unsure about his interpersonal skills at the best of times, clearly had no idea exactly what was going on between them, at least, that was Rossi’s impression, and Rossi felt like it bought him some time to figure out what in the hell he was going to do. He knew the appropriate response was to do nothing, but he also knew keeping to the appropriate response was a long shot. It had been a long time since he’d wanted to the degree that he wanted Spencer Reid.
Then came a case in Southern California-three sexually assaulted and murdered children with DNA results indicating the same unsub in all three cases. The only commonality among the three children they could find was that at some point in their lives the three had been in the state’s Children’s Protective Services system.
Rossi had an idea that Spencer’s keen understanding of not only the CPS system, but also how kids in the system would think and feel and react to interviews was not entirely academic.
Reid had disagreed with the notion that they should look for complaints filed against CPC social workers to see if the unsub was exacting some kind of revenge. “A kid complaining about a social worker is like someone being audited complaining about the IRS agent,” Reid had said with a definitive tone that broached little argument. “It doesn’t happen. Period.”
Reid also instructed the team as they were set to question kids who had been in the system around the same time as their victims “Their number one concern is going to be protecting their parents,” Reid said. “Make sure they understand that nothing they say will impact their current living situation, and if you don’t trust that they believe it, you can’t trust what they’re telling you.”
One of the interviews had solicited a memory from a teenager who remembered a “creepy dude” who worked the CPC office where he’d been processed. The boy didn’t think he was a social worker, more of an office manager or something like that. The kid couldn’t remember the guy’s name, but he did remember that his first name was the same name as a school because he and the other kids would make fun of him--calling him “USC,” instead of by his given name. The boy remembered not liking the way the man stared at him.
It was precious little to go on, but they had to start somewhere. Legwork was all that was left and late that evening Rossi and Reid were going over lists of current and former CPC personnel looking for the name of a man that sounded like a school.
“What?” Rossi asked, when Reid made a surprised sound and sat up straight in his chair.
“Nothing, sorry,” Reid said, “I just… I recognized a name. Shirley Granger. She used to work in the Nevada system but moved to California five years ago.”
“Important to the case?” Rossi asked.
“Oh, gosh no.” Reid licked his lips a couple of times. He and Rossi were the only ones in the hotel conference room, but he still lowered his voice a notch when he spoke. “A couple of time my mom went off her meds we ended up on the CPS radar. Mrs. Granger was our social worker. At the time, I thought of her my evil nemesis. Moriarty to my Sherlock Holmes.”
“What did she do?”
“Her job,” Spencer admitted with a sheepish look on his face. “But when you’re 11 and scared to death what will happen to your mom if you’re not there to take care of her, I guess it was easy to cast her in the role of villain. I told myself she was miserable and unhappy and wanted everyone else to be as well. I think I was pretty awful to her. Certainly disrespectful.”
“You think?” Rossi asked with a grin. He’d seen the barest glimpses of a Reid on the verge of losing it, and it wasn’t pretty.
“I’m sure I was insufferable. I thought I was so much smarter than all of them…”
“You probably were,” Rossi said.
Reid shrugged. “If we were sitting down to a physics exam, maybe. I’m not sure I was always so brilliant when it came to answering their questions. I thought I was being clever, but talking to kids now the way we do, I don’t think I was convincing anyone of anything. I think Mrs. Granger cut me and my mom a lot of slack.”
“Maybe she thought you deserved a break.”
“Maybe,” Spencer mused. “It almost embarrassing now-how clever I thought I was being. No matter how they phrased their questions; no matter what they were trying to get me to tell them, I would answer ‘Diana Reid has never neglected Spencer Reid; ’ ‘Diana Reid has never endangered Spencer Reid;’ Diana Reid has never hurt Spencer Reid.’” Spencer was speaking at that soft, high decibel that wrenched Rossi’s heart no matter what he was saying. “The literal truth was sort of my shield, you know?”
Rossi nodded. He did know, having seen it on the Job more times than he could count. “But sometimes your mom wasn’t Diana Reid, was she?” Rossi said softly.
Spencer slowly shook his head and licked his lips again. “And sometimes… she didn’t know that I was Spencer Reid,” he said.
Rossi nodded sympathetically. “Not everyone would appreciate the distinction you were making,” he said. “But almost anyone would understand your need to protect your mom.”
Reid nodded. “In the end, I guess it was a good thing. It scared my mom back on her meds and then things were okay.”
Rossi smiled at him. “I’m glad,” he said, and ducked his head as if returning to the list of names in front of him. Jesus, he wanted to fold Spencer in his arms and turn his back to the rest of the world; build a fucking time machine and take away all the bullshit the kid had endured. He wanted to take Spencer to bed and show him the beauty a single moment in time could give them.
It would be an understatement to say that Rossi was shocked when a moment later, Spencer reached out and covered Rossi’s hand with his and stroked it. Rossi looked up to find Spencer staring at the hand he was caressing with wonder. Rossi slowly turned his hand over, offering the palm to him, but that brought Reid out of the moment with a start. He snatched his hand from Rossi’s as if it had been burned. “I’m so sorry!” Spencer said, mortified at his audacity. “I don’t even know what possessed me…I would never… I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be sorry,” Rossi said, surprised by Reid’s reaction. “Spencer, there’s nothing wrong with what you’re feeling.” He gave a chuff of laughter at the smirk on Spencer’s face that said he knew when he was being patronized. Rossi leaned in closer. “You’re not the only one feeling it,” he said and felt warmed by the flush that crept over Reid’s face.
“But?” Reid said, shoulders hunched against whatever reason Rossi was going to use to shoot him down.
There was a “but,” wasn’t there? Rossi was so unprepared for Reid’s innocent little pass, he wasn’t completely sure what his objections were supposed to be. He had them, though. Right?
Rossi took a breath and offered platitudes, buying time yet again. “But what we do next has repercussions beyond just you and me, and we have to be really sure about where we’re going and what we’re willing to do to get there.”
“I don’t understand,” Spencer said.
Who the hell would? “This isn’t something I can do lightly,” Rossi tried again. “I need to have in my head what this means; how this would work.”
“I…I’m not sure what you mean when you say this,” Reid answered guilelessly.
“Spencer, we work together; we’re men; there’s more than a few years between us; the amount of baggage I bring to a relationship is gonna be inversely proportional to yours… We have to know how we’re gonna handle things before we make some decisions we might regret.”
“How will we know when we know all those things?” Spencer asked and with anyone else, Rossi would have assumed they were being sarcastic. Spencer looked so flummoxed it was obvious he was just looking for information.
“I don’t know,” Rossi said.
Reid slowly nodded his head, looking miserable and ashamed. He was taking Rossi’s convoluted words for rejection. Well who the hell wouldn’t? He sounded ridiculous.
They returned to their lists and Rossi couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so… inadequate.
Jesus, and when you thought about it, when was the last time he’d been so God damned stupid? He could be on his way to a hotel room to sex up Reid. Had he really just spent 10 minutes ineptly turning him away? What the hell just happened?
At least the evening wasn’t a total wash. Not long after their disastrous little interlude Rossi made a discovery. “Hey, lookee here,” Rossi said. “Stanford Lewis. He’s worked at all three offices where our vics would have been processed.” Rossi scanned the personnel file. “Fits the profile well enough to warrant a question or two.”
“Let’s call it in,” Reid said, and ten hours later the unsub was in handcuffs.
Later, during the flight home, Reid had curled up on a bench and fallen into a restless sleep, and Rossi knew it was ridiculous and indulgent and all kinds of treacly crap that he despised, but the plane banked to the left and a stream of sunlight shone through the window and landed on Reid, highlighting the sharp angles of his face and the smooth alabaster of his skin and Jesus fucking Christ, Rossi was only God damned human!
It was like God was smacking him on the back of his head and saying, Wake up! All the evil and darkness you see every day, and you’re going to pass up a chance at beauty and light? What the hell’s wrong with you?
He was probably paraphrasing there, but he received the message loud and clear.
He thought of the line from Dante he had quoted to the team not long ago--Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. But sitting there, staring at Reid and finally-finally-letting go of all the manufactured reasons not to pursue him, it didn’t feel at all like Rossi was abandoning hope-it felt like he was embracing it.
He made a decision then. He was going to apologize to Reid for jerking him around the night before and then… well then they were going to see where in the hell this thing would take them.
And so late morning on their next day off found Rossi moseying up the front walk into Reid’s apartment building. It was a more non-descript building than Rossi would have guessed. Reid had a charmingly old-fashioned sensibility about him; Rossi assumed he would have chosen an older building with character. Instead, it seemed to Rossi like Reid had stepped off the train, looked left then right, computed which complex was fewer steps from the station, and moved in there.
Rossi walked in the front door and immediately assumed he was at the address wrong. The lobby was less a lobby and more a community living room. Four white-haired men were playing cards in one corner, and three older women were gathered around a blaring television set.
“What do you need, Sweetheart?” one of the women on the couch called to him.
“Look out, Margie’s got a live one,” said one of the old men.
“Is this… 725 North Wakefield?” Rossi asked, almost certain they were going to tell him it wasn’t.
“And this one can still read,” said another man, sounding pleasantly surprised.
“Recognizes his numbers anyway,” said the third.
The woman-Margie, one would presume-waved off the men in the corner. “That’s the right address, Sweetie. Who are you looking for?”
“Spencer Reid?” Rossi said, even more certain no one would know him.
Margie’s face brightened. “Oh my stars, are you Mr. Reid? Why that Spencer is one of the nicest young men I have ever met.” She turned to her friends. “Lovely manners on that one, right, Jan?”
Rossi’s first thought--This is a colossal mistake--was followed quickly by Do I look like I could be Mr. Fucking Reid?
“Just as pleasant as you please,” Jan agreed.
“That boy was raised right,” one of the card players chimed in with a definitive nod.
“Actually, I’m a colleague of Re…uh Spencer’s,” Rossi said, edging toward the elevator.
“Well that makes more sense,” said one of the men, now shuffling and dealing the cards. “Because if you’d said you were Spencer’s daddy, I was gonna have to ask what the mailman looked like.” The men in the corner chortled at that.
“Oh Ed, for heaven’s sake,” Margie said. “Spencer’s up in apartment 305, but he stepped out awhile ago. Should be back in a minute.” She looked around as if checking to make sure they were alone. “He’s out doing Kate Patterson’s bidding is what he’s doing, just so you know. Everyone knows she has him wrapped around her finger. ‘Course, in his defense, Spencer has a hard time saying no to just about everybody.”
More chortling from the men in the corner.
Rossi was wondering how easy it would be to go wait for Reid in his car when the front door opened, and Spencer came in, loaded down with plastic grocery bags. When Spencer saw Rossi, he looked horrified. “Did I miss a call?” he asked by way of greeting, struggling with the myriad of bags to check the phone clipped to his belt.
“Hey,” Rossi said. “No, there’s no call.”
Spencer grew still, eye haunted. The bags he was holding drooped nearly to the floor. “Has something happened?” he asked, the tenor of his voice soft with dread.
Rossi was sorry he hadn’t called ahead. “Everything’s fine,” he said gently. “Can I talk to you?”
“Um, okay,” Spencer said, and then stood there, waiting for Rossi to speak.
Rossi swiped at his goatee to keep a laugh in check and said, “I, uh, thought we might sit down for a minute.”
Reid glanced over at the sofa where Margie, Jan and the third woman were sitting, all watching he and Rossi with good-natured curiosity. “Well, it’s not exactly private,” Reid said sotto-voice, motioning over toward the couch with a slight toss of his head.
Rossi had to cough to disguise his amusement. “Maybe we could go to your apartment?” he said.
Spencer looked perplexed, as if Rossi had suggested they hold their conversation on Mars and could he please figure out a way to get there. “Okay,” he said finally and headed toward the elevator. The rode up the two floors in silence and when the doors opened, Rossi eyeballed the apartment numbers and took a left, heading to number 305. Reid; however, was walking in the opposite direction. “Um, I have to…” he said, gesturing with the grocery bags. “Just a sec…” Rossi shrugged and followed Reid to Apartment 307 where he knocked softly on the door. “Ms. Patterson, it’s Spencer. I have your groceries.”
Ah ha, Kate Patterson, perhaps? Rossi parked himself against the wall across from the door so he could get a good look at the woman’s whose bidding Reid was apparently doing. It took a minute before Rossi could hear the locks clicking, and then the door opened revealing a tiny, stooped-shoulder woman in her eighties. She had sharp eyes and a ready smile for Spencer. “Well thank you, Honey, that was fast,” she said. “How much do I owe you?”
“Ten dollars as usual,” Spencer said. All of the bags were full to overflowing, and there was no way the bill was as little as ten dollars. Rossi leaned back against the wall, a grin spreading across his face. Spencer walked the bags to Mrs. Patterson’s kitchen where Rossi heard him gently cautioning her to put away the milk and other refrigerated items now. Pocketing a ten dollar bill, he let himself out the door and seemed surprised that Rossi was still standing there.
“You live in an old folks’ home!” Rossi sounded positively delighted at the discovery.
Reid pursed his lips in that way that said Rossi wasn’t nearly as humorous as he thought he was. “I do not. It’s a complex that happens to house some retirees,” he said.
“Retirees and exactly one 25 year old FBI agent,” Rossi said.
Reid just rolled his eyes and let Rossi in his front door. Reid’s apartment was pristine in the extreme. There wasn’t much furniture-and what there was looked like it had been purchased one piece at a time in a second-hand store (or perhaps found abandoned on the curb). Rossi couldn’t spot a single, superfluous item from front hall past the kitchen into the living room. Surprisingly, though, it wasn’t cold. The walls were painted in warm tans and browns and the immaculate rooms seemed an almost expected counterbalance to Reid’s rumpled, dressed-in-the-dark appearance.
“I pictured overflowing wall-to-wall bookshelves,” Rossi said.
“Most people do, but I don’t generally keep the books I’ve read,” said Reid. He shrugged and sheepishly explained. “No need to.”
As Reid was speaking, Rossi noticed that there was one bookshelf in the corner of the room. He ambled over and perused the titles, none of which were familiar to him. Looking more closely, he thought most of them looked old enough to be valuable. “These are special, then?” he said.
“They’re my mom’s mostly,” Spencer said. Rossi nodded at him and offered what he hoped was an encouraging smile. “She was a literature professor.”
“Yeah?” said Rossi, happy for the nugget of personal information. “All of your doctorates are in the hard sciences, aren’t they? What did Mom think about that?”
Reid smiled, pleased, Rossi supposed, by a question that didn’t center on his mother’s illness. “I actually considered a literature degree, but by the time I started college, Mom had already educated me in most of the classics. Literature felt redundant.” He shrugged, half apology, half acceptance. “She was never concerned about my fields of study, though she would have preferred that I stay in the university environment regardless of the subject matter I ultimately pursued.”
“Did you consider that?”
Reid huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Not for a minute. Some day we’ll go on a joint recruiting assignment, and you’ll understand why.” He stood there, looking awkward and unsure, then brightened when a thought suddenly occurred to him. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, sounding almost like he was quoting from a book.
Rossi found himself smiling as he said. “Sure, thanks.”
Reid’s brightness faded a bit as his eyebrows knit in consideration. He chewed on his bottom lip for a beat then retrieved a glass from the cupboard and filled it with tap water. He hesitantly handed it to Rossi. “Um… I’ve don’t really have…my apartment is too small to have the team over so I never buy…”
Rossi nodded in sympathetic understanding. “No, I get it. You don’t want someone telling HR you’re moonlighting as the cruise director for the Sunny Day Retirement Village.”
The teasing brought out that sardonic look again, and seemed to relax Reid a peg. Rossi took his glass of water out to the living room and sat down on the couch. He stared at the glass in his hands. “Look,” he said, “An apology is due, and I…” He stopped when Reid jumped up from his seat.
He had flushed a furious scarlet and looked imploringly at Rossi. “I… I understand that my demeanor has been less than appropriate, but I assure you that it won’t…”
Rossi knew his mouth was gaping open. Jesus Christ, Reid was apologizing to him. “Spencer no, stop, stop, stop,” Rossi said, careful to keep his voice calm. “You misunderstand. I’ve come to apologize to you.”
Spencer looked flummoxed. “But I’m the one who…”
“Spencer, you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I don’t understand, you said we shouldn’t…”
“Spencer, I’ve been in panic mode, that’s all-terrified of accepting what already is and resenting the sense that I never really had a say in where my feelings went.” Rossi leaned in closer to Reid, trying to explain where all the panic came from. “I was close to your age the last time I was in a relationship with a man. I’ve always respected the boundaries of professionalism; I’ve never been with someone ten years my junior much less twenty-and don’t you even think of correcting my math there-and all of this just coalesced into making me an unforgivable bastard.”
Spencer’s face was so painfully hopeful that Rossi felt it like a hand around his throat. “But what’s changed?” Spencer asked softly.
Rossi slowly shook his head as if he didn’t know the answer even though he did. “You were sleeping on the plane ride home and when the sun came through the window…” Jesus, he sounded like a movie on Lifetime. “With all of the crap we see day in and day out, I just felt so tired of fighting against something beautiful and good. Something I know would be joyful. Why should I fight that? Why should I deny it?”
Spencer stood up again and fretfully shook his head. “That seems like a rather perilous foundation upon which to change…”
God, the kid was just so fucking… dear. Rossi carefully stepped closer to him, knowing that trust would only come with time; that words could sometimes be insufficient even for Dr. Spencer Reid. They were never going to talk themselves into being together. The only answer was for them to be together. “May I take you to dinner tonight?” Rossi asked.
“I don’t…um…what did you…uh… dinner?”
“Yes. I’d like to take you to dinner.” Rossi smiled and stepped closer still, a socially acceptable distance from the young man, but well beyond Spencer’s comfort zone. “I want to pick you up at 6:30 and take you to dinner some place nice and quiet so we can talk; I want to share a bottle of wine and learn a few new things about you; and I want to drive you home and walk you to your door, and I want to ask you for another date and then I want to kiss you goodnight.”
“Um…” Reid was wearing his most puzzled expression. “You already know you want to have another date?” he asked.
Rossi’s smile grew more relaxed. The room seemed inexplicably lighter all of a sudden. “Yes,” he said.
“You seem very certain,” Reid said dubiously.
“Funny you should say that because I already think I was wrong about something.” Rossi kept his tone light, so there was no alarm at his words; just curiosity. “I don’t think I can wait until later to kiss you.” He cupped one of Reid’s elbows in his hand. “May I kiss you now?” he asked.
Reid flushed a brilliant red, and he ducked his head, but Rossi still caught his shyly delighted smile. Rossi lifted Reid’s face with a light touch at his chin. He nuzzled behind Reid’s ear, whispering, “Don’t hide your smile from me.”
Reid hunched his shoulders against the chill caused by the whisper and perhaps by the words themselves. “Dave, you have to know…” Spencer began, unconsciously offering more of his neck to Rossi’s caress, even as he shook his head. “I am…woefully-“ he laughed at the understatement-“ill-equipped to…”
“No, none of that,” Rossi said gently. “There’s just things you know and things you don’t yet, that’s all.“ He pulled back and measured Spencer’s expression-and smiled affectionately at the myriad of emotions he saw-trepidation and panic and confusion and hope. Somewhere in there was the permission he’d sought, and he carefully moved forward and covered Reid’s lips with his own.
==================================================================
Now, over a year later, Rossi chuckled to himself, remembering his shock at how very, very proficiently the ill-equipped Spencer Reid returned his kiss.
As the pilot-Evelyn-announced that they were preparing to land, Reid stretched and yawned and sat up straight. Rossi smiled at him. “Have I complimented you lately on how very equipped you’ve become?” he asked. Spencer gave him a curious sidewise glance, but didn’t answer. “Next free night we have, let’s take Margie and Ed out to dinner,” Rossi said magnanimously.
“Not so much a free night as a free late afternoon,” Reid said, but he nodded at Rossi’s suggestion. True enough. Margie and Ed did enjoy the stereotypical early bird special. “Rethinking the portfolio advice?”
“Absolutely not,” Rossi said. “But if we play our cards right, Margie will give us some of her famous sugar cookies.”
Spencer agreed. “True. These days they’re probably worth more on the open market than most stocks.”
=================================================================
When Rossi startled awake later that night, it took him only a few seconds to peg the cause. He might as well have set the fuckin’ alarm. Another dull thud from out in the kitchen had him heaving a sigh before taking a fortifying breath and eyeing the clock.
Two-fifteen. Yeah, that was about right.
Spencer Reid was a force of nature completely and utterly unto himself. The kid’s quirks and eccentricities were many, and Dave knew he was ridiculously charmed by most of them; though it would be fan-God damned-tastic if fewer of those quirks and eccentricities were on display between the hours of, say, midnight and six a.m.
It wasn’t that Reid had insomnia exactly. If you charted the number of hours he slept in a week, it would probably be close to anyone else who got a solid six or seven hours of sleep a night. Reid just took his hours at strange intervals. He’d sleep two or three hours one night, then retire at 7:30 the next evening and sleep close to 10.
It wasn’t uncommon to wake up and find Spencer knee-deep in some crazy organizational project. For whatever reason, the activity soothed Reid’s over-active brain, allowed it to slow to a more normal pace so he could sleep or eat or simply relax. It was for much the same reason that Spencer could often be found spinning in an office chair. It might look like a childish gesture of boredom, but it was really a way for Reid to focus-to shut out over stimulating bright lights, loud noises, and uncomfortable chill.
The freezer, fridge, linen closet, and office supply drawers had all been recent targets of Spencer’s attention. One night, Rossi found him in the garage sorting a large box full of screws and nails and other fasteners. The organizational focus was usually random-alphabetical, size, color, use-it hardly mattered to Reid so long as every item could be duly sorted.
Every item. If one sub-category ended up with an uneven number of objects the entire strategy needed to be rethought.
Arriving at the entry to the kitchen, Rossi was actually pleased to see that the pantry was this evening’s restructuring project. It had most recently been organized based on where in the color spectrum an item’s label fell. It wasn’t the most logical means of organization, but when Rossi complained about how hard it was to find anything, Reid just explained that he was trying to nurture his aesthetic side.
Rossi leaned against the doorway, assuming he’d made enough noise so that his voice wasn’t going to startle Reid. “Is there a problem?” he asked dryly.
Reid answered without turning around. “The various weights all cluster too close to the mean to make that a viable sorting option. I tried alphabetic, but that leaves a can of white beans as the odd man out. If I go by food groups, that leaves the fruit cocktail.”
“When did you buy a can of fruit cocktail?” Rossi asked. “More to the point, why?”
“I didn’t buy it,” Reid said. “When have I ever bought anything with ‘lite’ on the label? It must have come from Ms. Patterson.”
Reid’s former neighbor had passed away during the winter, and her daughter had insisted that Reid take most of the non-perishable items in her cupboards, rightfully assuming Reid has purchased most of them himself.
It was pointless to suggest Reid simply throw out one of the offending cans. That would invite a discussion about the letter of the law versus the spirit, not to mention numerous statistical rejoinders regarding wastefulness.
Rossi thoughtfully pursed his lips. “Fruit cocktail or white beans, huh?” he said.
Reid nodded, looking comically forlorn.
Rossi proffered an overly dramatic sigh as he unenthusiastically slipped the fruit cocktail from Reid’s hand and placed it on the counter. He opened the can and doled the contents out into two bowls. “Forks or spoons?” he asked, sounding resigned.
“Forks,” Reid answered quickly. “That way we’ll avoid as much of the lite syrup as possible.”
Rossi headed for the kitchen table. “I consider this worth at least three get-out-of-jail free cards. Let’s say two short-tempered outbursts and one refusal to listen to reason.”
“Deal,” Reid said, and Rossi realized he’d lowballed his demand.
“Should’ve gone for five,” he muttered.
They ate quietly, companionably, for a few minutes, until they both experienced an identically-timed shock of realization. Rossi froze with the fork midway to his mouth, instantly aware that Reid had gone still and was holding his breath.
The lone cherry of the entire fruit cocktail was in Rossi’s bowl.
Very slowly, Rossi’s eyes slid from his bowl over to Reid’s, then upward to the center of Reid’s chest, past chin, then nose, then finally he was looking at Reid square in the eyes. Reid’s face was demurely hopeful.
“You woke me up!” Rossi said accusingly.
Reid nodded, looking contrite. “I know.”
“It’s 2:30 in the morning!”
Reid wasn’t about to argue with him. “And we have to leave before seven tomorrow morning,” he pointed out.
“I don’t even like fruit cocktail!”
“No one does,” Reid said reasonably.
“We don’t know where this came from. We’re probably gonna be dead from food poisoning before the day’s out.”
Reid nodded agreeably. “A terribly undignified end for both of us.”
Rossi sighed and forcefully speared the cherry on his fork. He twisted the fork back and forth, frowning sourly, then, without looking up, held the fork out to Reid.
Reid closed his mouth around the cherry and pulled it from the fork. He chewed it slowly staring at Rossi who sighed again and met his gaze.
Rossi thought of all the grand, romantic gestures he’d made in his lifetime-gifts of jewelry, trips to Europe and Hawaii, a remodeled home, new automobiles--yet no one, not one person, had ever looked at him with an iota of the adoration shining forth from Reid’s pretty green eyes. And all because Dave was sitting in his half-lit kitchen at 2:30 in the morning eating crappy fruit cocktail from a can so the balance of the pantry could be preserved.
Heaven help them all, he’d never been so God damned happy in his entire life.
Rossi entwined two of his fingers with two of Reid’s and gave them an affectionate squeeze. Reid smiled at him as if he’d just hung the moon, and Rossi wondered at his chances of sneaking a couple of cans of fruit cocktail into the cart the next time they went shopping.
#
Author: myrna1_2_3
Pairing: Rossi/Reid
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Rossi’s mad about psychics and then he thinks about other stuff
Word count: ~6,800
Scepticism is the beginning of Faith
~ Oscar Wilde
Rocky shoreline my ass, SSA David Rossi thought darkly as he made his way to the Bureau’s private plane. You don’t have to be a fuckin’ psychic to throw out something that God damned generic.
He stomped on to the Bureau plane and threw himself in the seat next to Spencer. Sort of, almost on Spencer. He moved Spencer’s hand from under his ass (not such a bad spot, really) and forcefully put it on top of his leg. He answered Reid’s unvoiced question with an icy, “I’m off the clock.”
Reid removed his hand from Rossi’s leg. “Not that far off,” he answered, eyebrows high on his forehead.
“Hey, Reid, feelin’ lucky?” Morgan asked, shaking a deck of cards in his hands as he walked past their seats.
“No thanks,” Reid said, holding up his book.
Prentiss was following along behind him, but stopped at Reid’s side. “Penelope and I are grabbing a drink when we land, wanna come?” Prentiss asked. And Rossi was probably (maybe) included in the invite, but she was looking at Reid in that way that, at least to Rossi, suggested Ditch the old man.
“We were just planning to head home tonight,” Reid said. “Lunch at Wally’s tomorrow, though, right?”
Next came JJ offering dinner with Will and Henry. Rossi probably wasn’t on that guest list, but Spencer declined so it didn’t really matter. As JJ headed to her seat with what Rossi’s was coming to view as her “Mom” look at Reid, Rossi felt Reid’s curious eyes on him. “What?” he asked sourly.
“What have you done?” Reid asked suspiciously.
“Me?!” Rossi said indignantly. “Nothing!”
Reid’s narrowed eyes studied him skeptically, but he said nothing.
Hotch suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Up for some chess, Reid?” he asked.
Jesus Christ, Hotch, too? What the hell?
“All right, listen up!” Rossi said, voice raised. “Spencer does not want to play cards or chess or tiddly winks or whatever else sounds fun. He does not want to get a drink when we land; and he is not interested in getting a bite to eat once we’re home. So if one of you could kindly inform the pilot that Reid is not entertaining any…”
Without looking up from his book, Reid leaned over into Rossi’s space. “Evelyn,” he said.
“What?” barked Rossi.
“The pilot,” Reid said. “It’s Evelyn today.”
Rossi grit his teeth and heaved a deep breath. “If one of you could kindly inform Evelyn that Reid is not entertaining any additional invitations this evening, that’ll pretty much take care of every damn person on the plane!”
Rossi hunched his shoulders and buried his head in his briefcase, hoping they all choked on their stifled laughter.
“Andrew is the name of our other pilot,” Reid said conversationally. “I tell you this because it was pointed out to me not long ago, in a very supercilious tone, I might add, that it would behoove me to make more of an effort to engage with the people I meet.”
“Shut up.” Rossi grabbed Reid’s hand and placed it firmly on his own leg and on general principle refused to sigh happily when Reid affectionately squeezed that leg and offered a few comforting pats.
“It really doesn’t bother you?” Rossi finally said.
“I am going to need a lot more information to answer that.”
“These bogus psychics. You don’t find them offensive?”
Reid’s entire body heaved in the universal signal of ‘Oh that’s what’s going on.’ He shook his head at Rossi’s question. “I don’t see them as significantly impacting anything to the point where…”
“It just peeves me that these parasites attach themselves to these tragic situations and for what? Money? Notoriety? The need to insert themselves in someone else’s drama?”
“That’s a fairly wide swath of condemnation, don’t you think?” Reid said. He still hadn’t looked up from his book, and Rossi was starting to get that itchy feeling he experienced whenever Reid’s attention wasn’t focused where it should be.
“How could the swath possibly be narrowed?” Rossi asked.
Reid finally closed his book. Most people would have marked their page, but it wasn’t like he was going to forget where he was. “It seems to me you’re working from a flawed assumption that all psychics are frauds,” he said. “I’m sure many of them truly believe they’re prescient.”
“But they aren’t! It’s a load of horse shit.”
“The veracity of one’s belief bears no relation to how deeply those beliefs are held.”
Rossi rolled his eyes. “Where did you read that-a fortune cookie?”
Reid squeezed the hand still on Rossi’s leg. “When my mom was having an episode, she was utterly convinced that whatever outrageous thoughts were going through her head, they were true.”
Rossi’s features softened. “That’s different, Spencer, and you know it. There is a physiological basis for her condition.”
Reid’s shrug conceded the literal truth of those words, but he didn’t agree with Rossi’s point. “Physiology or no, there are plenty of psychics who believe they’re providing a legitimate service to people.
“What they’re providing is false hope,” Rossi said. “Exploiting people when they are their most vulnerable; encouraging them to believe in something there’s no possible way of substantiating to gain, what? Money? Power?”
“The exact same thing can-and often is--said about religion.”
Rossi slid a few inches away from Reid. “Only by people who aren’t afraid of getting struck by lightning.”
Spencer huffed a sound of amusement. “There are well documented instances of psychics providing law enforcement with case-breaking information.”
“So you’re telling me you believe some people have psychic powers?”
“No, not at all,” Reid said reasonably. “I believe they are privy to information for which there are rational explanations that have nothing to do with the paranormal. Maybe they have a memory like mine but it’s gone undiagnosed. What they think are flashes of psychic insight are really memories they don’t even know they have. Maybe they caught a glimpse of something out of place or heard a conversation out of context or read an article that later triggered a memory…so they really are providing a service to investigators, it’s just that they’re misinterpreting the source of that service.”
“Service,” Rossi scoffed at the word. “They’re just looking to make a buck off a suffering family’s misfortune.”
“But so are some bankers and some attorneys and some clergymen and some physicians. There are predators in every profession.”
Rossi sat back with a dramatic flounce. “Must you conquer all of my irrational prejudices?”
Reid lifted a brow. “Only the ones that make the team think they have to rescue me from your dastardly temper.”
Oh. Yeah, that might explain all the mother henning. Huh.
“It’ll only free them up to think they have to rescue you from my dastardly jealousy, my dastardly selfishness, my dastardly…” Not surprisingly, after only two examples, Rossi ran out of dastardly things from which Reid needed to be rescued.
Reid helpfully took up the cause. “Ego? Lack of even a rudimentary sci-fi education? Unbalanced retirement portfolio?”
“Shut up.” Rossi was quiet for a beat. “My retirement portfolio is not unbalanced.”
Reid snorted but had now gone back to his book. “Mrs. Hollister has a more daring mix of stocks and bonds, and she’s 83.”
“Do you really want to gamble our future on Margie Hollister’s investment advice?”
Reid chuckled but said nothing as he settled a little more firmly against Rossi’s side. Rossi grabbed a notebook and opened it to a blank page. Lately he’d been fooling around with the idea of writing a mystery novel and wanted to jot down a few ideas.
But as he stared down at that empty page, pen poised to write, he felt more of Reid’s weight against his shoulder and looked down to find him dozing. Rossi considered nudging him awake seeing as he’d suffer later that evening when Spencer couldn’t sleep. Rossi made a sardonic face, figuring the rest of the jokers on the plane would have protective services waiting for him on the tarmac if he disturbed their precious little agent.
It was probably the mention of Margie Hollister that had Rossi thinking back to an image of a sleeping Reid on another plane ride, over a year ago.
They weren’t together yet, and Rossi had been struggling against what felt like the inexorable push of fate. Christ, the reasons to walk away before anything ever started were long and varied and utterly, utterly reasonable. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Spencer and studying Spencer and wanting Spencer. He recognized obsession in himself and he was riding a thin line of it over Reid. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so fascinated by anyone. So captivated.
And realizing that Spencer’s interest may have moved beyond hero worship to something deeper should have been welcomed, but instead, it made Rossi feel… imperiled. And that was melodramatic, but still an accurate reflection of his emotional state.
Spencer, befuddled and unsure about his interpersonal skills at the best of times, clearly had no idea exactly what was going on between them, at least, that was Rossi’s impression, and Rossi felt like it bought him some time to figure out what in the hell he was going to do. He knew the appropriate response was to do nothing, but he also knew keeping to the appropriate response was a long shot. It had been a long time since he’d wanted to the degree that he wanted Spencer Reid.
Then came a case in Southern California-three sexually assaulted and murdered children with DNA results indicating the same unsub in all three cases. The only commonality among the three children they could find was that at some point in their lives the three had been in the state’s Children’s Protective Services system.
Rossi had an idea that Spencer’s keen understanding of not only the CPS system, but also how kids in the system would think and feel and react to interviews was not entirely academic.
Reid had disagreed with the notion that they should look for complaints filed against CPC social workers to see if the unsub was exacting some kind of revenge. “A kid complaining about a social worker is like someone being audited complaining about the IRS agent,” Reid had said with a definitive tone that broached little argument. “It doesn’t happen. Period.”
Reid also instructed the team as they were set to question kids who had been in the system around the same time as their victims “Their number one concern is going to be protecting their parents,” Reid said. “Make sure they understand that nothing they say will impact their current living situation, and if you don’t trust that they believe it, you can’t trust what they’re telling you.”
One of the interviews had solicited a memory from a teenager who remembered a “creepy dude” who worked the CPC office where he’d been processed. The boy didn’t think he was a social worker, more of an office manager or something like that. The kid couldn’t remember the guy’s name, but he did remember that his first name was the same name as a school because he and the other kids would make fun of him--calling him “USC,” instead of by his given name. The boy remembered not liking the way the man stared at him.
It was precious little to go on, but they had to start somewhere. Legwork was all that was left and late that evening Rossi and Reid were going over lists of current and former CPC personnel looking for the name of a man that sounded like a school.
“What?” Rossi asked, when Reid made a surprised sound and sat up straight in his chair.
“Nothing, sorry,” Reid said, “I just… I recognized a name. Shirley Granger. She used to work in the Nevada system but moved to California five years ago.”
“Important to the case?” Rossi asked.
“Oh, gosh no.” Reid licked his lips a couple of times. He and Rossi were the only ones in the hotel conference room, but he still lowered his voice a notch when he spoke. “A couple of time my mom went off her meds we ended up on the CPS radar. Mrs. Granger was our social worker. At the time, I thought of her my evil nemesis. Moriarty to my Sherlock Holmes.”
“What did she do?”
“Her job,” Spencer admitted with a sheepish look on his face. “But when you’re 11 and scared to death what will happen to your mom if you’re not there to take care of her, I guess it was easy to cast her in the role of villain. I told myself she was miserable and unhappy and wanted everyone else to be as well. I think I was pretty awful to her. Certainly disrespectful.”
“You think?” Rossi asked with a grin. He’d seen the barest glimpses of a Reid on the verge of losing it, and it wasn’t pretty.
“I’m sure I was insufferable. I thought I was so much smarter than all of them…”
“You probably were,” Rossi said.
Reid shrugged. “If we were sitting down to a physics exam, maybe. I’m not sure I was always so brilliant when it came to answering their questions. I thought I was being clever, but talking to kids now the way we do, I don’t think I was convincing anyone of anything. I think Mrs. Granger cut me and my mom a lot of slack.”
“Maybe she thought you deserved a break.”
“Maybe,” Spencer mused. “It almost embarrassing now-how clever I thought I was being. No matter how they phrased their questions; no matter what they were trying to get me to tell them, I would answer ‘Diana Reid has never neglected Spencer Reid; ’ ‘Diana Reid has never endangered Spencer Reid;’ Diana Reid has never hurt Spencer Reid.’” Spencer was speaking at that soft, high decibel that wrenched Rossi’s heart no matter what he was saying. “The literal truth was sort of my shield, you know?”
Rossi nodded. He did know, having seen it on the Job more times than he could count. “But sometimes your mom wasn’t Diana Reid, was she?” Rossi said softly.
Spencer slowly shook his head and licked his lips again. “And sometimes… she didn’t know that I was Spencer Reid,” he said.
Rossi nodded sympathetically. “Not everyone would appreciate the distinction you were making,” he said. “But almost anyone would understand your need to protect your mom.”
Reid nodded. “In the end, I guess it was a good thing. It scared my mom back on her meds and then things were okay.”
Rossi smiled at him. “I’m glad,” he said, and ducked his head as if returning to the list of names in front of him. Jesus, he wanted to fold Spencer in his arms and turn his back to the rest of the world; build a fucking time machine and take away all the bullshit the kid had endured. He wanted to take Spencer to bed and show him the beauty a single moment in time could give them.
It would be an understatement to say that Rossi was shocked when a moment later, Spencer reached out and covered Rossi’s hand with his and stroked it. Rossi looked up to find Spencer staring at the hand he was caressing with wonder. Rossi slowly turned his hand over, offering the palm to him, but that brought Reid out of the moment with a start. He snatched his hand from Rossi’s as if it had been burned. “I’m so sorry!” Spencer said, mortified at his audacity. “I don’t even know what possessed me…I would never… I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be sorry,” Rossi said, surprised by Reid’s reaction. “Spencer, there’s nothing wrong with what you’re feeling.” He gave a chuff of laughter at the smirk on Spencer’s face that said he knew when he was being patronized. Rossi leaned in closer. “You’re not the only one feeling it,” he said and felt warmed by the flush that crept over Reid’s face.
“But?” Reid said, shoulders hunched against whatever reason Rossi was going to use to shoot him down.
There was a “but,” wasn’t there? Rossi was so unprepared for Reid’s innocent little pass, he wasn’t completely sure what his objections were supposed to be. He had them, though. Right?
Rossi took a breath and offered platitudes, buying time yet again. “But what we do next has repercussions beyond just you and me, and we have to be really sure about where we’re going and what we’re willing to do to get there.”
“I don’t understand,” Spencer said.
Who the hell would? “This isn’t something I can do lightly,” Rossi tried again. “I need to have in my head what this means; how this would work.”
“I…I’m not sure what you mean when you say this,” Reid answered guilelessly.
“Spencer, we work together; we’re men; there’s more than a few years between us; the amount of baggage I bring to a relationship is gonna be inversely proportional to yours… We have to know how we’re gonna handle things before we make some decisions we might regret.”
“How will we know when we know all those things?” Spencer asked and with anyone else, Rossi would have assumed they were being sarcastic. Spencer looked so flummoxed it was obvious he was just looking for information.
“I don’t know,” Rossi said.
Reid slowly nodded his head, looking miserable and ashamed. He was taking Rossi’s convoluted words for rejection. Well who the hell wouldn’t? He sounded ridiculous.
They returned to their lists and Rossi couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so… inadequate.
Jesus, and when you thought about it, when was the last time he’d been so God damned stupid? He could be on his way to a hotel room to sex up Reid. Had he really just spent 10 minutes ineptly turning him away? What the hell just happened?
At least the evening wasn’t a total wash. Not long after their disastrous little interlude Rossi made a discovery. “Hey, lookee here,” Rossi said. “Stanford Lewis. He’s worked at all three offices where our vics would have been processed.” Rossi scanned the personnel file. “Fits the profile well enough to warrant a question or two.”
“Let’s call it in,” Reid said, and ten hours later the unsub was in handcuffs.
Later, during the flight home, Reid had curled up on a bench and fallen into a restless sleep, and Rossi knew it was ridiculous and indulgent and all kinds of treacly crap that he despised, but the plane banked to the left and a stream of sunlight shone through the window and landed on Reid, highlighting the sharp angles of his face and the smooth alabaster of his skin and Jesus fucking Christ, Rossi was only God damned human!
It was like God was smacking him on the back of his head and saying, Wake up! All the evil and darkness you see every day, and you’re going to pass up a chance at beauty and light? What the hell’s wrong with you?
He was probably paraphrasing there, but he received the message loud and clear.
He thought of the line from Dante he had quoted to the team not long ago--Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. But sitting there, staring at Reid and finally-finally-letting go of all the manufactured reasons not to pursue him, it didn’t feel at all like Rossi was abandoning hope-it felt like he was embracing it.
He made a decision then. He was going to apologize to Reid for jerking him around the night before and then… well then they were going to see where in the hell this thing would take them.
And so late morning on their next day off found Rossi moseying up the front walk into Reid’s apartment building. It was a more non-descript building than Rossi would have guessed. Reid had a charmingly old-fashioned sensibility about him; Rossi assumed he would have chosen an older building with character. Instead, it seemed to Rossi like Reid had stepped off the train, looked left then right, computed which complex was fewer steps from the station, and moved in there.
Rossi walked in the front door and immediately assumed he was at the address wrong. The lobby was less a lobby and more a community living room. Four white-haired men were playing cards in one corner, and three older women were gathered around a blaring television set.
“What do you need, Sweetheart?” one of the women on the couch called to him.
“Look out, Margie’s got a live one,” said one of the old men.
“Is this… 725 North Wakefield?” Rossi asked, almost certain they were going to tell him it wasn’t.
“And this one can still read,” said another man, sounding pleasantly surprised.
“Recognizes his numbers anyway,” said the third.
The woman-Margie, one would presume-waved off the men in the corner. “That’s the right address, Sweetie. Who are you looking for?”
“Spencer Reid?” Rossi said, even more certain no one would know him.
Margie’s face brightened. “Oh my stars, are you Mr. Reid? Why that Spencer is one of the nicest young men I have ever met.” She turned to her friends. “Lovely manners on that one, right, Jan?”
Rossi’s first thought--This is a colossal mistake--was followed quickly by Do I look like I could be Mr. Fucking Reid?
“Just as pleasant as you please,” Jan agreed.
“That boy was raised right,” one of the card players chimed in with a definitive nod.
“Actually, I’m a colleague of Re…uh Spencer’s,” Rossi said, edging toward the elevator.
“Well that makes more sense,” said one of the men, now shuffling and dealing the cards. “Because if you’d said you were Spencer’s daddy, I was gonna have to ask what the mailman looked like.” The men in the corner chortled at that.
“Oh Ed, for heaven’s sake,” Margie said. “Spencer’s up in apartment 305, but he stepped out awhile ago. Should be back in a minute.” She looked around as if checking to make sure they were alone. “He’s out doing Kate Patterson’s bidding is what he’s doing, just so you know. Everyone knows she has him wrapped around her finger. ‘Course, in his defense, Spencer has a hard time saying no to just about everybody.”
More chortling from the men in the corner.
Rossi was wondering how easy it would be to go wait for Reid in his car when the front door opened, and Spencer came in, loaded down with plastic grocery bags. When Spencer saw Rossi, he looked horrified. “Did I miss a call?” he asked by way of greeting, struggling with the myriad of bags to check the phone clipped to his belt.
“Hey,” Rossi said. “No, there’s no call.”
Spencer grew still, eye haunted. The bags he was holding drooped nearly to the floor. “Has something happened?” he asked, the tenor of his voice soft with dread.
Rossi was sorry he hadn’t called ahead. “Everything’s fine,” he said gently. “Can I talk to you?”
“Um, okay,” Spencer said, and then stood there, waiting for Rossi to speak.
Rossi swiped at his goatee to keep a laugh in check and said, “I, uh, thought we might sit down for a minute.”
Reid glanced over at the sofa where Margie, Jan and the third woman were sitting, all watching he and Rossi with good-natured curiosity. “Well, it’s not exactly private,” Reid said sotto-voice, motioning over toward the couch with a slight toss of his head.
Rossi had to cough to disguise his amusement. “Maybe we could go to your apartment?” he said.
Spencer looked perplexed, as if Rossi had suggested they hold their conversation on Mars and could he please figure out a way to get there. “Okay,” he said finally and headed toward the elevator. The rode up the two floors in silence and when the doors opened, Rossi eyeballed the apartment numbers and took a left, heading to number 305. Reid; however, was walking in the opposite direction. “Um, I have to…” he said, gesturing with the grocery bags. “Just a sec…” Rossi shrugged and followed Reid to Apartment 307 where he knocked softly on the door. “Ms. Patterson, it’s Spencer. I have your groceries.”
Ah ha, Kate Patterson, perhaps? Rossi parked himself against the wall across from the door so he could get a good look at the woman’s whose bidding Reid was apparently doing. It took a minute before Rossi could hear the locks clicking, and then the door opened revealing a tiny, stooped-shoulder woman in her eighties. She had sharp eyes and a ready smile for Spencer. “Well thank you, Honey, that was fast,” she said. “How much do I owe you?”
“Ten dollars as usual,” Spencer said. All of the bags were full to overflowing, and there was no way the bill was as little as ten dollars. Rossi leaned back against the wall, a grin spreading across his face. Spencer walked the bags to Mrs. Patterson’s kitchen where Rossi heard him gently cautioning her to put away the milk and other refrigerated items now. Pocketing a ten dollar bill, he let himself out the door and seemed surprised that Rossi was still standing there.
“You live in an old folks’ home!” Rossi sounded positively delighted at the discovery.
Reid pursed his lips in that way that said Rossi wasn’t nearly as humorous as he thought he was. “I do not. It’s a complex that happens to house some retirees,” he said.
“Retirees and exactly one 25 year old FBI agent,” Rossi said.
Reid just rolled his eyes and let Rossi in his front door. Reid’s apartment was pristine in the extreme. There wasn’t much furniture-and what there was looked like it had been purchased one piece at a time in a second-hand store (or perhaps found abandoned on the curb). Rossi couldn’t spot a single, superfluous item from front hall past the kitchen into the living room. Surprisingly, though, it wasn’t cold. The walls were painted in warm tans and browns and the immaculate rooms seemed an almost expected counterbalance to Reid’s rumpled, dressed-in-the-dark appearance.
“I pictured overflowing wall-to-wall bookshelves,” Rossi said.
“Most people do, but I don’t generally keep the books I’ve read,” said Reid. He shrugged and sheepishly explained. “No need to.”
As Reid was speaking, Rossi noticed that there was one bookshelf in the corner of the room. He ambled over and perused the titles, none of which were familiar to him. Looking more closely, he thought most of them looked old enough to be valuable. “These are special, then?” he said.
“They’re my mom’s mostly,” Spencer said. Rossi nodded at him and offered what he hoped was an encouraging smile. “She was a literature professor.”
“Yeah?” said Rossi, happy for the nugget of personal information. “All of your doctorates are in the hard sciences, aren’t they? What did Mom think about that?”
Reid smiled, pleased, Rossi supposed, by a question that didn’t center on his mother’s illness. “I actually considered a literature degree, but by the time I started college, Mom had already educated me in most of the classics. Literature felt redundant.” He shrugged, half apology, half acceptance. “She was never concerned about my fields of study, though she would have preferred that I stay in the university environment regardless of the subject matter I ultimately pursued.”
“Did you consider that?”
Reid huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Not for a minute. Some day we’ll go on a joint recruiting assignment, and you’ll understand why.” He stood there, looking awkward and unsure, then brightened when a thought suddenly occurred to him. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, sounding almost like he was quoting from a book.
Rossi found himself smiling as he said. “Sure, thanks.”
Reid’s brightness faded a bit as his eyebrows knit in consideration. He chewed on his bottom lip for a beat then retrieved a glass from the cupboard and filled it with tap water. He hesitantly handed it to Rossi. “Um… I’ve don’t really have…my apartment is too small to have the team over so I never buy…”
Rossi nodded in sympathetic understanding. “No, I get it. You don’t want someone telling HR you’re moonlighting as the cruise director for the Sunny Day Retirement Village.”
The teasing brought out that sardonic look again, and seemed to relax Reid a peg. Rossi took his glass of water out to the living room and sat down on the couch. He stared at the glass in his hands. “Look,” he said, “An apology is due, and I…” He stopped when Reid jumped up from his seat.
He had flushed a furious scarlet and looked imploringly at Rossi. “I… I understand that my demeanor has been less than appropriate, but I assure you that it won’t…”
Rossi knew his mouth was gaping open. Jesus Christ, Reid was apologizing to him. “Spencer no, stop, stop, stop,” Rossi said, careful to keep his voice calm. “You misunderstand. I’ve come to apologize to you.”
Spencer looked flummoxed. “But I’m the one who…”
“Spencer, you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I don’t understand, you said we shouldn’t…”
“Spencer, I’ve been in panic mode, that’s all-terrified of accepting what already is and resenting the sense that I never really had a say in where my feelings went.” Rossi leaned in closer to Reid, trying to explain where all the panic came from. “I was close to your age the last time I was in a relationship with a man. I’ve always respected the boundaries of professionalism; I’ve never been with someone ten years my junior much less twenty-and don’t you even think of correcting my math there-and all of this just coalesced into making me an unforgivable bastard.”
Spencer’s face was so painfully hopeful that Rossi felt it like a hand around his throat. “But what’s changed?” Spencer asked softly.
Rossi slowly shook his head as if he didn’t know the answer even though he did. “You were sleeping on the plane ride home and when the sun came through the window…” Jesus, he sounded like a movie on Lifetime. “With all of the crap we see day in and day out, I just felt so tired of fighting against something beautiful and good. Something I know would be joyful. Why should I fight that? Why should I deny it?”
Spencer stood up again and fretfully shook his head. “That seems like a rather perilous foundation upon which to change…”
God, the kid was just so fucking… dear. Rossi carefully stepped closer to him, knowing that trust would only come with time; that words could sometimes be insufficient even for Dr. Spencer Reid. They were never going to talk themselves into being together. The only answer was for them to be together. “May I take you to dinner tonight?” Rossi asked.
“I don’t…um…what did you…uh… dinner?”
“Yes. I’d like to take you to dinner.” Rossi smiled and stepped closer still, a socially acceptable distance from the young man, but well beyond Spencer’s comfort zone. “I want to pick you up at 6:30 and take you to dinner some place nice and quiet so we can talk; I want to share a bottle of wine and learn a few new things about you; and I want to drive you home and walk you to your door, and I want to ask you for another date and then I want to kiss you goodnight.”
“Um…” Reid was wearing his most puzzled expression. “You already know you want to have another date?” he asked.
Rossi’s smile grew more relaxed. The room seemed inexplicably lighter all of a sudden. “Yes,” he said.
“You seem very certain,” Reid said dubiously.
“Funny you should say that because I already think I was wrong about something.” Rossi kept his tone light, so there was no alarm at his words; just curiosity. “I don’t think I can wait until later to kiss you.” He cupped one of Reid’s elbows in his hand. “May I kiss you now?” he asked.
Reid flushed a brilliant red, and he ducked his head, but Rossi still caught his shyly delighted smile. Rossi lifted Reid’s face with a light touch at his chin. He nuzzled behind Reid’s ear, whispering, “Don’t hide your smile from me.”
Reid hunched his shoulders against the chill caused by the whisper and perhaps by the words themselves. “Dave, you have to know…” Spencer began, unconsciously offering more of his neck to Rossi’s caress, even as he shook his head. “I am…woefully-“ he laughed at the understatement-“ill-equipped to…”
“No, none of that,” Rossi said gently. “There’s just things you know and things you don’t yet, that’s all.“ He pulled back and measured Spencer’s expression-and smiled affectionately at the myriad of emotions he saw-trepidation and panic and confusion and hope. Somewhere in there was the permission he’d sought, and he carefully moved forward and covered Reid’s lips with his own.
==================================================================
Now, over a year later, Rossi chuckled to himself, remembering his shock at how very, very proficiently the ill-equipped Spencer Reid returned his kiss.
As the pilot-Evelyn-announced that they were preparing to land, Reid stretched and yawned and sat up straight. Rossi smiled at him. “Have I complimented you lately on how very equipped you’ve become?” he asked. Spencer gave him a curious sidewise glance, but didn’t answer. “Next free night we have, let’s take Margie and Ed out to dinner,” Rossi said magnanimously.
“Not so much a free night as a free late afternoon,” Reid said, but he nodded at Rossi’s suggestion. True enough. Margie and Ed did enjoy the stereotypical early bird special. “Rethinking the portfolio advice?”
“Absolutely not,” Rossi said. “But if we play our cards right, Margie will give us some of her famous sugar cookies.”
Spencer agreed. “True. These days they’re probably worth more on the open market than most stocks.”
=================================================================
When Rossi startled awake later that night, it took him only a few seconds to peg the cause. He might as well have set the fuckin’ alarm. Another dull thud from out in the kitchen had him heaving a sigh before taking a fortifying breath and eyeing the clock.
Two-fifteen. Yeah, that was about right.
Spencer Reid was a force of nature completely and utterly unto himself. The kid’s quirks and eccentricities were many, and Dave knew he was ridiculously charmed by most of them; though it would be fan-God damned-tastic if fewer of those quirks and eccentricities were on display between the hours of, say, midnight and six a.m.
It wasn’t that Reid had insomnia exactly. If you charted the number of hours he slept in a week, it would probably be close to anyone else who got a solid six or seven hours of sleep a night. Reid just took his hours at strange intervals. He’d sleep two or three hours one night, then retire at 7:30 the next evening and sleep close to 10.
It wasn’t uncommon to wake up and find Spencer knee-deep in some crazy organizational project. For whatever reason, the activity soothed Reid’s over-active brain, allowed it to slow to a more normal pace so he could sleep or eat or simply relax. It was for much the same reason that Spencer could often be found spinning in an office chair. It might look like a childish gesture of boredom, but it was really a way for Reid to focus-to shut out over stimulating bright lights, loud noises, and uncomfortable chill.
The freezer, fridge, linen closet, and office supply drawers had all been recent targets of Spencer’s attention. One night, Rossi found him in the garage sorting a large box full of screws and nails and other fasteners. The organizational focus was usually random-alphabetical, size, color, use-it hardly mattered to Reid so long as every item could be duly sorted.
Every item. If one sub-category ended up with an uneven number of objects the entire strategy needed to be rethought.
Arriving at the entry to the kitchen, Rossi was actually pleased to see that the pantry was this evening’s restructuring project. It had most recently been organized based on where in the color spectrum an item’s label fell. It wasn’t the most logical means of organization, but when Rossi complained about how hard it was to find anything, Reid just explained that he was trying to nurture his aesthetic side.
Rossi leaned against the doorway, assuming he’d made enough noise so that his voice wasn’t going to startle Reid. “Is there a problem?” he asked dryly.
Reid answered without turning around. “The various weights all cluster too close to the mean to make that a viable sorting option. I tried alphabetic, but that leaves a can of white beans as the odd man out. If I go by food groups, that leaves the fruit cocktail.”
“When did you buy a can of fruit cocktail?” Rossi asked. “More to the point, why?”
“I didn’t buy it,” Reid said. “When have I ever bought anything with ‘lite’ on the label? It must have come from Ms. Patterson.”
Reid’s former neighbor had passed away during the winter, and her daughter had insisted that Reid take most of the non-perishable items in her cupboards, rightfully assuming Reid has purchased most of them himself.
It was pointless to suggest Reid simply throw out one of the offending cans. That would invite a discussion about the letter of the law versus the spirit, not to mention numerous statistical rejoinders regarding wastefulness.
Rossi thoughtfully pursed his lips. “Fruit cocktail or white beans, huh?” he said.
Reid nodded, looking comically forlorn.
Rossi proffered an overly dramatic sigh as he unenthusiastically slipped the fruit cocktail from Reid’s hand and placed it on the counter. He opened the can and doled the contents out into two bowls. “Forks or spoons?” he asked, sounding resigned.
“Forks,” Reid answered quickly. “That way we’ll avoid as much of the lite syrup as possible.”
Rossi headed for the kitchen table. “I consider this worth at least three get-out-of-jail free cards. Let’s say two short-tempered outbursts and one refusal to listen to reason.”
“Deal,” Reid said, and Rossi realized he’d lowballed his demand.
“Should’ve gone for five,” he muttered.
They ate quietly, companionably, for a few minutes, until they both experienced an identically-timed shock of realization. Rossi froze with the fork midway to his mouth, instantly aware that Reid had gone still and was holding his breath.
The lone cherry of the entire fruit cocktail was in Rossi’s bowl.
Very slowly, Rossi’s eyes slid from his bowl over to Reid’s, then upward to the center of Reid’s chest, past chin, then nose, then finally he was looking at Reid square in the eyes. Reid’s face was demurely hopeful.
“You woke me up!” Rossi said accusingly.
Reid nodded, looking contrite. “I know.”
“It’s 2:30 in the morning!”
Reid wasn’t about to argue with him. “And we have to leave before seven tomorrow morning,” he pointed out.
“I don’t even like fruit cocktail!”
“No one does,” Reid said reasonably.
“We don’t know where this came from. We’re probably gonna be dead from food poisoning before the day’s out.”
Reid nodded agreeably. “A terribly undignified end for both of us.”
Rossi sighed and forcefully speared the cherry on his fork. He twisted the fork back and forth, frowning sourly, then, without looking up, held the fork out to Reid.
Reid closed his mouth around the cherry and pulled it from the fork. He chewed it slowly staring at Rossi who sighed again and met his gaze.
Rossi thought of all the grand, romantic gestures he’d made in his lifetime-gifts of jewelry, trips to Europe and Hawaii, a remodeled home, new automobiles--yet no one, not one person, had ever looked at him with an iota of the adoration shining forth from Reid’s pretty green eyes. And all because Dave was sitting in his half-lit kitchen at 2:30 in the morning eating crappy fruit cocktail from a can so the balance of the pantry could be preserved.
Heaven help them all, he’d never been so God damned happy in his entire life.
Rossi entwined two of his fingers with two of Reid’s and gave them an affectionate squeeze. Reid smiled at him as if he’d just hung the moon, and Rossi wondered at his chances of sneaking a couple of cans of fruit cocktail into the cart the next time they went shopping.
#