(no subject)
N is for Nyctophobia
Psych evals were an annual occurrence in the FBI, though depending on case-load may be more common in any given year. Last year, for instance, had wound up having two psych evals for the team in general, and four for Hotch, total.
Everyone was gearing up for the season, everyone had different coping mechanisms, a few of the seasoned vets would take it as a reason to be ballsy with bravado and take the free lunch, screw with the examiner and just see what they could get them to believe before handing in the private-assessment from their attending consultants, but Hotch didn’t really expect much better behavior from Rossi and neither did Strauss, so really who was going to stop him from convincing some poor sap that he has latent urges to cross dress and sing Coco Cabana?
Seaver seemed to think of it as a gab-session, but she did know to play her familial history close to her chest instead of having a heavy conversation about why she just didn’t speak with her serial killer of a father, and why she just never had gotten that dog.
Prentiss would take the opportunity to dissuade personal information being leaked out by forcing the female psychologist (because she always bribed Garcia to fix what any computer glitches in schedules might do) into a girl-power fest talking about purses, juggling a hectic life and dating, and not-dating, and trying to find a way to get laid without looking like too much of a cougar, and do you have any suggestions for a good bar to go to for girls-night-out? It’s a team-building exercise. The smoke-screen cleared her of any suspicions of in-office taboo romances with the guy in drag singing Coco Cabana.
At least they made light reading for Hotch when he had to review that information.
Morgan and Garcia made for x-rated reading if he didn’t catch them in time for the review and remind them to behave. He had taken to also bribing Garcia to fix any glitches in computerized scheduling and make sure Morgan would have a male psychologist and thus save him the paperwork for scheduling sexual harassment seminars. Usually Morgan would take it as a chance to practice his maneuvering techniques and use that to enhance his hostage negotiation skills, so Hotch didn’t complain.
Garcia was more prone to talk about her community service projects and just why the colors she wore made the work-place more sparkly.
The remainder of his ever-so-functional team actually practiced the principles of the psych eval, not the counter-measures they were taught to evade. Reid would clinically analyze whichever psychologist drew the short straw and talk at great lengths about any one of several of his mannerisms or fears, most of which Hotch found criminally adorable. He’d even attempt to gain better understanding and attempt to minimize the phobias or attributes he deemed negative.
Last year Reid had attempted to stop looking so feminine and wearing so much purple until Hotch had pulled him aside after the eval, and two weeks of minimized purple, to out-right confess he liked how the color looked on him and that it wasn’t feminine, it was merely the higher-energy wavelengths emitted, in a tone very much borrowed from his lover.
That alone had managed him an all-purple lap-dance. He was more than happy for the results, although he had to admit he was perturbed as to where his lover had gone to find purple pants and shoes.
He wondered what Spencer would bring up tonight, after his eval was over. The reports never went into specifics, but between lovers, that professional courtesy of HIPAA was often waved away at the car-door.
After ten minutes driving in near silence, Hotch deduced that Reid had addressed fears this time. It went into mind-set if Reid was self-conscious (and thus introspective) or in a period of growth (which he would use to address fears and try to surmount).
It probably didn’t help the cause that they were pulling out in time for the lunar eclipse, darkness becoming all the more consuming during the event.
“How was work today, honey?” Hotch decided to lighten the tension Reid was emitting with the picturesque satire of the 1950s.
“Wonderful, where’s my sandwich?” Reid stated back, aware of where the joke was coming from, “Horrible, actually. The evaluator was the same one from when I started, apparently I had left an impression. He didn’t like me much.”
“Reid, you can’t assume that…”
“I am a trained profiler, you know.” Reid reminded, he successfully assured his lover he’s not only a profiler, but a damn good one, “He also had just sat through Morgan’s session, and to make sure things didn’t go down that route… he brought up anxieties and fears, and goals for the future. He reminded me that I’m in the prime of my youth after talking to me about my pre-adolescent developed fear of the dark. He was all but saying he disapproves of just how young I am. He probably thought I was Seaver.” He laughed, “Well, hopefully not, he did have my chart with my name and all.”
Hotch was trying to keep pace with the genius, not the easiest of feats, “So, are you upset because of all the talk about your fear…?”
“No, I’m actually livid that I couldn’t just exclaim to him I am the most fulfilled I have ever been romantically because I’m fulfilled by my boss no less than an average of 3.2 times weekly, with the high range of 10.3 times per week if given the time.”
Aaron smiled proudly, Spencer was able to say it as straight-faced and satisfied because he could wrap a well-crafted statistic around it, but that alone made him smile even more brightly.
“Subsequently, I’ve empirically decided the instability of my parents’ marriage and volatile dynamics between my father and myself are the root cause of the nyctophobia, but it was compounded upon when mom locked me in the closet for a weekend when she heard a biplane fly past.”
“Seriously?” Aaron’s eyebrow rose in a way doubting even a thread of the story.
“No, I’m afraid of the dark because in junior high the football team put a sack over my head and beat me until I had a concussion just before summer break, then they locked me in the supply cage until their coach found me, I was 8.”
“…That… is horrible.”
Reid crossed his arms over his abdomen, obviously uncomfortable suddenly. “Yeah, pretty much the make-up of my childhood school-yard memories.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask, would you be interested in using blind-folds?”
Spencer fixed a strange look, in between horrified and intrigued, his eyebrows furrowed, bottom lip pouting and arms crossed, he jutted out his chin just enough to shine through the curious intent. “You mean in role-playing work-based scenarios, magic tricks, or coitus?”
“I was thinking role-play of the sex variety, Spencer. I am not even tempting the fates with the number of sexual harassment seminars we’d have to all sit through if Morgan was engaged in any trust-exercises with Garcia around. Doubly so once it’s her turn.”
“You’d think they’d give up and write it off at this point.” Reid smiled.
“Except for the new team-member, you would.”
“You want me to have sex with you while I’m freaked out an terrified? That seems to send mixed messages.” Spencer stated in an analytical way, obviously waiting for the input of Aaron’s argument.
“Well, you say you do some of your best work under extreme terror, that, and if you wanted to get over your fear you’d have to affiliate the dark with a positive memory. I’d like to think I could make four rounds of sex a positive memory, or more… however much it takes.”
Now Spencer is beaming, “Who’d have thought those Cosmo articles I read while waiting for Morgan to finish up would be true.”
“You read Cosmo?”
“15 issues, yes. Thankfully I was only 3 minutes early. The next magazine I had cued was Sports Illustrated. Let’s see if How to Please your Older Lover is accurate. They tried to focus that eagerness without technique is just the same as sloppiness. They seem to have a sound formula in mind.”
Aaron just shook his head, “This won’t be about me, it’ll be about getting you over your fear. Besides, if you get any better you’ll likely lead to my demise.”
“I’d make sure you were rehydrated and stop if I think your pulse is too erratic. I’m responsible. Don’t you trust me?” Spencer winks, squeezing his lover’s thigh.
“I think you’re now trying your hand at evasion.”
“Right, damn. You wrote that chapter in the book, didn’t you?”
Aaron nodded, “That I did. Are you game? If you aren’t I understand, but you know I’d never let any harm come to you, the situation is perfectly safe and secure. It’s a perfect environment to nurture an enjoyment of the dark instead of a fear of it.”
“Are you asking me if I trust you enough to do it or if I’m willing enough to do it? You’re making it very vague.”
Spencer knew that wasn’t going to get him an answer, but let out a sigh, “Your mind is set on blind-fold sex. I can tell you know. We can give it a try but if I don’t like it, I’m taking off the blind-fold, I’m not ruining a night promised to be filled with hot sex.”
“Fair enough, but you will have to agree to one full round before you discard it. Agreeable?”
“Alright, but only if you play None but the Lonely Hearts to set the mood.”
“Fine, if you have they’re CD…?”
“That’s the name of a song, not a band. It’s by Tchaikovski, I do have it though.”
They pulled up at the driveway with perfect timing. The two could see the outline of the earth starting to graze the lower aspect of the moon, painting it, and the earth, in night’s darkest of shadows.
“Let’s watch this together first.” Spencer offered. “Its beauty is terrifying, just seeing it makes me feel so alive. Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea, Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine In even monochrome and curving line Of imperturbable serenity. How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry With the torn troubled form I know as thine, That profile, placid as a brow divine, With continents of moil and misery? And can immense Mortality but throw So small a shade, and Heaven's high human scheme Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies? Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show, Nation at war with nation, brains that teem, Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?”
“Thomas Hardy. Very fitting.”
“Almost, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather spend facing the darkest of times with besides you, in forms of eclipse, work, and life.”
The earth’s shadow casts off from the moon leaving it shining in full regale, Spencer’s toothy smile even more marvelous-white and shining after the complete darkness has receded. Aaron steals himself a deep, lingering kiss.
The soft touches and movements lead to ruffling fabric and eventually Aaron’s tie makes its way from around his neck to over Spencer’s eyes acting as a make-shift blindfold.
As the music cues, Spencer’s fingers trace the bedposts, memorizing tactilely the outlines of the room, and the contours of Aaron’s face. He can’t help but admit he loves having that burnt into his mind as well.
Fin.