Chapter Text
I was the youngest member in the BAU, being only fourteen years old. I was blessed, or cursed, with hyper vigilance and a photographic memory. I was first discovered by the BAU when they were visiting Florida on a high profile case concerning two men who were raping women and were communicating through coded letters. I had watched one of the unsubs kidnap his partner's daughter and had followed them to what some would say was their “kill room” Clearly I have a very low sense of self preservation.
I was immediately caught by said unsubs.
They had tied me up next to their latest victim until we had been “rescued”. I use that term very loosely. I totally could have escaped on my own. At least that's what I tell myself. I was relentlessly grilled by Hotch and Morgan why it was not okay as a random teen civilian to follow strange men into places alone, even if I knew they were up to illegal things. I had then told them how I had basically solved their case for them and that they should be thanking me. They did not. But they were intrigued on how I had done that.
Once they were aware of my hyper observantness, my photographic memory and how I had solved the entirety of the case in one afternoon, they brought in Reid. We immediately clicked. We had a lot in common being the youngest, and smartest (my words, not his) on the team and I was soon offered a job. Sure there were a lot of rules surrounding my position but I didn’t care. It's not like I followed them anyways.
I’ve been working with the BAU for about 6 months now and we had just finished a particularly long and demanding case in Wyoming so now we were out celebrating. At a bar. Now this wouldn’t be such a big annoyance to me, but Hotch wasn’t letting me get one drink. Sometimes if it was a really bad, like, Florida level case bad, he would let me take a sip out of his whiskey class. But today he wasn’t having it. So here I sit, next to Hotch arguing with him on how one tequila shot would actually be beneficial to my well being.
“But Hotch think about it. Tequila does have water in it. So I'm basically drinking a shot of water. And water is good for you. So to summarize, Tequila equals water.”
He rolls his eyes. “Kavya. Tequila does NOT equal water. Drink your damn orange juice.”
I huff out a breath. Bastard. I look over and my eyes snag on Reid. He’s standing in the corner by JJ who is playing darts with some random people. His eyes dart around and his hands are discreetly tugging on his sleeves. Uh oh. I get up and walk over to him. I take his hand and silently lead him outside. We sit on the curb outside the bar in silence before he speaks up.
“You don’t have to stay outside with me. I’m fine.”
“I don’t mind.”
I really didn’t. I preferred the outside. It was dark and the stars were out. The weather was perfect. It was sweater weather. You could wear a sweater and be at the perfect temperature. Not cold, but not hot either. My favorite. I look over at Reid. I knew he didn’t really like outings like this. That he gets too overstimulated to the point where he can’t breathe.
So that's why I took him out here, so he could breathe again. Whenever this happened, we never spoke on it. He didn’t bring it up so… neither would I. Sometimes we would talk about random things, just to keep him from shutting down, or like tonight, we would sit in comfortable silence. After a while he looks at me. I look back.
“Thank you…for… you know.”
“Anytime Spence. Bars are overrated anyways. Especially when you're not allowed to drink.” I say, my tone turning bitter.
He laughs.
“You're fourteen. What did you expect?”
“I expected Hotch to get up and leave his drink so I could take a small sip. But I think he was also expecting that.”
Reid laughs again.
“You give him your Tequila equals water speech again”
I sigh.
“Yea. He wasn't having it.”
Reid chuckles. We sit there in silence for a long time. I lean my head against his shoulder and he wraps an arm around my shoulders.
“Thank you. You're a good kid.”
I chuckle.
“Thanks Spence.”
We sit like that, staring at the stares and listening to the wind whisper to us until it's time to go back to the hotel.