City Limits (Spencer Reid Fanfic)

Chapter Eleven: Checkmate

"You bite your nails."

Indeed, I did. And indeed, trying to file them into a more professional-looking state under the watchful eye of Dr. Spencer Reid turned out to be a fruitless effort. My shoddy manicure attempt had been a complete bust: I'd already given up completely on both my thumbs, my pointer fingers looked like prisoners of war, and I was pretty sure I'd accidentally dug through fifteen layers of skin trying to remove the impossible hangnail from my left pinkie.

But hey, I managed to shape my right middle finger nicely, so if somebody cut me off in traffic, I'd look classy shooting them the bird.

I wrapped the injured finger in a Kleenex and shot Captain Obvious a glare.

"Is it that apparent?" I quipped dryly.

"Well, seeing as your nails are extremely quick to bleed, I should imagine you developed the habit in your early childhood, and your fingers have been sensitive ever since. Nail-biting can be a sign of acute anxiety, with bacteria transferred from the nails to the mouth--"

"Yep, yep, that'll do, Bill Nye," I cut him off.

When I first met him, I found his rambling fascinating, and at times, even endearing. He was the BAU's human encyclopedia, absorbing knowledge like a sponge and spitting it back out whenever the team needed it. Still, the others didn't let his ranting get too off-topic, and now I understood why. I had a lot on my mind, and I really didn't need useless facts about nail-biting to plague me further.

He grinned sloppily and returned to his single-player chess game, but it wasn't an authentic Reid smile. Shit, he was like a wounded puppy...

"Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm just... it's a lot to deal with," I muttered, gesturing to the stacks of paperwork around me. As if on cue, a manila envelope fluttered in the breeze, and I had to squash it between my coffee mug and Jack's frisbee to keep it from flying away.

While the others continued to work on the case back at the police headquarters, Morgan had offered to drive Jack and I to the local park on his break, and Reid had tagged along. It was a nice change, to witness Rhode Island in all its green beauty, rather than the darker side I'd come so used to seeing recently. I much preferred this innocent version over the nightmare one.

Jack made a bee-line for the swings, and I plopped down in the grass to dive into some 'job applications.' Technically, I had been removed from the Babysitter case, but like hell would I sit aside and let this maniac get to my team, to my... to Reid, without doing anything about it.

Under the pretense of writing resumes, I'd easily convinced Reid I wasn't snooping through Wikipedia articles about the Babysitter, or Reddit threads filled with theories about the murders. Really, there were some interesting opinions... what if the Babysitter was a female, or a network of people, or even a deranged parent of one of the first victims?

Reid himself had settled down on a nearby bench to play a solo game of chess, and as soon as the board and pieces had been whipped out, Morgan high-tailed it for the pub across the street.

"Right, I'm going to let Pretty Boy here bore himself to tears over... that, and I'll be scouting out the local lady situation. Don't tell Garcia."

With a kiss on the cheek and a whiff of cologne, he was off.

"Don't worry about it. What sort of jobs are you looking into?" he asked, nodding to my laptop.

I clicked away on the keys, pretending to be typing up a cover letter. I actually would have to get a job after this whole case was settled... I assumed once we wrapped thing sup and flew back to Quantico, my internship would be null and void and my personal file would be stamped with some sort of failure insignia and I'd have to go home to my family and pretend everything went well, and Uncle Jason would say 'I told you so,' and then never speak to me again, and I'd end up working in a Cracker Barrel on Route 42, living off the tips truck drivers and tourists gave me.