The Unspoken Laws of Internship
Chapter One: Business Casual?
Remy twisted valiantly, staring over his shoulder and into the mirror. The suit jacket was a bit large, but he had barrowed it from Alice's boyfriend. He supposed he didn't look as if he was drowning in lengthy black fabric, so the jacket was fine. The male turned back to face his reflection in the floor-length mirror. The white button up he'd found in the recesses of his closet fit snuggly, and he had chosen to leave the top few buttons undone and forego a tie. Was that too casual? Was he pushing some unspoken internship don't-wear-this law? Remy furrowed his brow and sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. Were jeans really okay for this kind of thing? They weren't tattered or ripped or anything and the color was dark and unfaded, but still…
His best friend had advised he 'go business casual' but what the hell did that even mean? Was this too casual? Apparently he'd made some sort of noise akin to a call of distress, because the door opened a crack and Caleb popped his head in.
"Babe? You alright?" Remy stepped back from the entryway, allowing his lover the room to enter. As Cale stepped in, Remy surprised the other male by shoving his face against his t-shirt.
Whining in the back of his throat, Remy muttered, "No. Is this too casual? What if the people think I'm a hobo instead of an intern? Alice said business casual, but I don't even know what that means." Caleb chuckled softly and Remy felt the sound where his face was pressed into the other man's chest.
"Oh, jeez, Rem. You look fine. Like a college student. The FBI's not going to be expecting you in a full on suit." Remy peeled his face out of the cotton.
"Promise?" The younger replied, giving his boyfriend a quizzical look.
"Would I lie to you?" Remy pretended to think, pressing his index finger to his chin and shifting his weight.
"I dun'no. But probably not." Remy finished with a soft smile, pecking Cale on the cheek and maneuvering out of their small bathroom and into the one room flat. He glanced at the clock, tugging down the hem of his shirt. "I've gotta' go Cale, or I'll be late. That'd be the way to make an impression." The older man had returned to his side of the bed and was wriggling into a pair of jeans. The art major had a morning painting class he'd been talking about for the better part of a week.
"I know." He laughed, pulling the hem of his t-shirt to his nose and breathing in deeply. He shrugged and pushed the shirt back down before dropping to his knees and digging around in the piles of dirty clothes on the floor. "Where's my beanie? The marron one?" Remy shook his head as Caleb stuffed his own under the bed and then choked on the dust that must've been situated there.
"On your nightstand, you idiot." Rem quipped before moving to the door and picking up his messenger bag. There was cussing from the bedroom as Remy leaned into the door to undo the deadbolt. It was a touchy piece of equipment that caused him all sorts of trouble when in a hurry.
Caleb emerged from behind the curved wall that hid the bed from the front door, carrying his beanie and rubbing at the back of his head. "Stupid bed…" He trailed off and moved towards the kitchenette as Remy wrenched the door open.
"Love you!" Remy called over his shoulder, knowing Cale had retreated to the coffee pot for his morning fix.
"Always!" Echoed back as Remy closed the door behind him and headed for the stairs, preferring them to the moving death-trap that was an elevator. It wasn't the elevator per se that bothered him, just the fact that it was small, metal, and moving on wires attached to the celling.
Huh. Alright, so the elevator itself may have been at least slightly the problem. Quickly slipping past the mailboxes and the mass of humans curled around it, Remy exited his building.
As he walked, Remy took to counting his steps. Counting the insects skittering across the side walk. Counting the cars speeding past and yanking the shorter pieces of his hair out of the elastic band. Yeah, he may have still been just a bit nervous. The commute wasn't a long one, however, so Remy had very little time to force his emotions into check. As he approached the FBI building, the teen let out a slow breath and forced himself to stop picking at his nails. Nasty habit, that was.
Remy paused hesitantly before the swinging doors, half expecting the birds to go silent and thunder to crack ominously in the background. But the sun kept shinning and the poultry kept singing, so he forced himself to grab the metal, cool to the touch, and pull.
There was no delay in reception response. "Hello, how may I help you?" The woman at the desk called before the door could fully close behind him. Must've been bored… Remy thought as he migrated to where the blond sat.
"Uh, hi. I'm Remington Abernathy … I'm supposed to start an internship today. I, uh, I wasn't told where to go?" The woman smiled at him. Motherly.
She nodded, though it seemed more to herself then him, as she riffled through a pile of paper. "Yes, I have it written down. I was told you received an ID badge? Do you have it with you?" Remy paused, feeling his cheeks get warm. He nodded hesitantly, flipped open his bag, and dug through it a bit frantically, eventually producing a laminated badge with his photo and name declaring him an intern. When he glanced back up, the woman was offering a small metal clip.
She gestured at him with it, smile still in place and an amused look in her eyes. "You can thread the string through the hole and then keep the ID displayed on your clothes or bag." She offered. "People will give you less trouble if they know you're supposed to be here." Another soft grin. "Sticklers for rules, the FBI are." She added, the corners of her mouth tilted up. Remy nodded as he attached the ID to the belt loop on his jeans.
"That okay?" He questioned.
"Perfect!" The woman – Talia, he read off of her own badge – pressed a button on her desk and the glass doors to his left buzzed before clicking open. "If you go through those doors and follow the hallways straight down, you'll end up at an elevator. That'll take you up to floor two when you scan your badge. The doors right after you get off of the elevator are the ones you want. You'll need to ask for Agent Aaron Hotchner – He's in charge of interning you. Good luck!" She waved and Remy smiled back as he slipped through the doors and listened as they clicked closed behind him.
The walk was short and uneventful, the elevator up panic attack inducing, but bearable, and finding the correct doors after running off of the death machine (Like his ass was on fire) was relatively easy.
"I've gotta' ask about stairs." Remy declared quietly as he pushed through the double doors, stamped with the FBI's symbol. It was pretty quiet, only a few people mulling around where several desks and chairs were situated. Remy glanced to his left, noting the small coffee bar and refrigerator, along with the small table and mismatched chairs. A man a bit older than himself was filling a mug with copious amounts of sugar and talking avidly to a larger woman who was swirling a tea bag in a mug with a decaled kitten on it. He moved towards them nervously.
"Uh, excuse me?" Remy managed. The two paused and turned towards him. From the front Remy noted how the woman was dressed in yellow tights and a flowery orange dress with a yellow cardigan pulled over top. Her long blond hair was curled and pined back on one side with a large sunflower clip. It was… different, but in a good way. "Hi, sorry to bother you. Could you point me to Agent, uh, Hotchner?" Because that was his name, right? Remy thought anxiously as the two exchanged a curious glance.
"He actually just came in." Copious Amounts of Sugar said, gesturing lightly with a gangly hand towards the man who had entered and had started towards the group.
"Oh!" Remy spun quickly, feeling his bag catch something as turned. The younger male was only able to watch in horror as (what felt like) several hundred packets of Splenda hit the carpet with their strange shelving arrangement. Agent Hotchner raised an eyebrow at the pair as Remy dropped to his hands and knees to scoop up the yellow serving packets. The gangly one shrugged while the woman crouched down to help.
"It's fine." She laughed, smiling as they heaped the recovered sugars on the counter with the rack.
"I'm so sorry! I'm usually not such an idiot, I swear." The teen's face was on fire.
Remy jumped as Hotchner let out a short laugh. He hadn't heard the man approach. "Remington Abernathy, I'm assuming? The new intern?" The fully suited man questioned. Remy felt severely underdressed and he began mentally plotting revenge on his lover before nodding.
"Yes, sir. It's nice to meet you…" He responded meekly, feeling quite the fool.
"Intern?" The taller male questioned from Remy's left. The woman looked curious as well.
"Mr. Abernathy is planning to carry out the duration of his internship by shadowing the team for three or so months. Correct?" Hotchner turned to the still blushing younger man.
"Mhmm. My professors informed me that to graduate with a complete degree in Forensic Psychology I needed an internship. I've finished all of the required courses for my degree, but the school kind of sprang the internship at me. I hope I'm not too much of a bother." Remy finished, shifting his bag to his other shoulder; its weight was beginning to make his whole arm ache. Hotchner smiled warmly.
"It's no bother to have you. I'll introduce you to the rest of the team in the conference room, but as you've already met these two, I may as well start here. This is Doctor Spencer Reid and our technical analyst Penelope Garcia." Spencer gave a brief wave and kind smile while Penelope moved forward and dragged Remy into a crushing hug.
"It's so nice to meet you!" She exclaimed, eyes smiling as well as her mouth.
"Woah! It's, uh, nice to meet you as well, Ms. Garcia!" She released him.
"Please call me Penelope or just Garcia, either works! There's no need to be so formal." The two other men were laughing fondly at his plight and the look of overwhelmed confusion on the young intern's face.
"Uh, okay, thank you, Penelope. Please call me Remy then. It's what I always go by anyway." Remy turned to Hotchner and Reid. "Should I call you anything specific?" He asked curiously, looking nervous but seeming to have calmed down a bit from the sugar fiasco.
"Just Aaron or Hotch works for me." The dark haired man offered, still smiling warmly.
"Spencer or Reid is fine by me, whatever makes you comfortable." Reid seconded.
"Alright, thanks for clearing that up. Everyone's free to call me Remy. I'd prefer it over Remington, actually." Remy laughed, rubbing a and through his bangs. He'd chosen to pull his hair into a pony tail, but not having the strands to play with made him unsure of what to do with his hands. "You, uh, you mentioned a conference room?" Remy added after a moment.
Hotch nodded, gesturing for the three to follow him. They weaved through long hallways and Remy decided that if someone were to leave him in a room here, he would likely never find his way back to the exit. It was too maze-y. The elder agents turned swiftly into a room that Remy probably would have missed, and before Hotchner could even open his mouth an African American man was talking.
"So, we have a new case?" Hotch shook his head, paused and then nodded.
"We do, but first, team, this is Remy Abernathy. He will be assisting the team in investigations and such for around three months for an internship. Remy, this is Derek Morgan, David Rossi, Jennifer Jareau, and Emily Prentiss." Each waved in turn with their name, and Remy attempted to store the faces away.
"Nice to meet you all and I'm looking forward to working with everyone." Remy gave a weak smile. Aside from school, he was never really around this many people at once. There were several responses all basically repeating what he himself had just said. Remy watched quietly as everyone seated themselves at the round table and, feeling rather out of place, he backed towards the corner of the room and folded his fingers together. If I just stay out of the way then this interning thing should be over quickly, Remy hoped.
Penelope moved to the front of the room and started clicking through slides, talking about where bodies were appearing and who had died. Occasionally someone at the table would add a thought about possible motive or comment on the signature, but Remy was a bit caught up with the hi-rez pictures of dead men with blood covering their genitals and the word 'sin' carved across their torsos. Had he mentioned that, aside from the pure mutilation, the men had all been raped? 'Cause there was that too. He felt kind of sick.
"– Remy?" The college student jerked his eyes away from the pictures.
"Uh, yeah? Sorry. I was…" He trailed off, eyes moving towards the images again. "In school, we see things like those on a white screen that's so far away it doesn't register as something that really happened to someone. The people who'd hurt them were already gone. In prison or dead. It's… a lot different. Looking at people who you could've talked to on the street a week ago. That's all." Remy tugged at a bang. "Sorry, you guys are probably way more… accustomed with pictures like those." Suddenly Garcia was hugging him again and Remy yelped in surprise.
"Oh! Remy, that's so sweet! But it would be sad if images like these didn't phase people. You just have to find the good things you have to counteract all of the awful you see." The tech released him after a final spine-breaking squeeze. He glanced around the room. The blond woman – Jennifer? – nodded to him.
"I've been here for quite a while," she smiled. "Sometimes just remembering the people you've helped to save makes all of the horrible tolerable. Not all cases end well, but those that do… You have to remember that there are people who are alive; with family and loved ones because of our job." Remy bobbed his head, wondering if he was that someone to remember for anyone.
Morgan pulled out the black rolling chair between him and the brunette woman. Emma? No… Something with an 'E'…
"You can sit down, kid." He offered, smiling. Remy returned the gesture and slid into the chair, albeit hesitantly. "I was asking what you thought. If you're gonna' be stuck with us you may as well get used to sharing." The male's grin widened, showing off his insanely white teeth. Remy wondered if he bleached them.
"Uh, I'm not really sure. What do you mean, what I think?" Remy paused, but not long enough for anyone to answer. "Most of what I think," he continued tentatively, "is the pictures are nauseating and that," He gestured vaguely towards the screen. "Is serious fucking overkill." Garcia made a sharp cut-off laughing noise before muffling herself with a hand and Remy felt a blush spread up into the tips of his ears. "S-sorry. That was probably inappropriate, Cale always says I have a nasty mouth for someone so tiny and sweet looking but his opinion on my language doesn't count 'cause he's… I'm babbling. I'm sorry. I'm going to stop now. This is why I really shouldn't speak in a professional setting." Thank god for small miracles, no one looked offended by Remy's French. In fact, nearly all of the expressions were of entertainment and amusement, dashed with a slight hint of shock.
Hotchner cleared his throat, looking as if he was trying to wipe his grin away. He was rather unsuccessful. "I wouldn't have phrased it quite that way," the man's lips twitched at the corners, "but yes. There is definite overkill on each of the victims." Remy nodded. Hotchner had definitely put that in a better form then he had.
The team went back to discussing aspects of the case and Remy dug his teeth into the bottom of his lip. Morgan had left his tablet open on a slideshow of pictures displaying the men tied in an abnormal position, forcing their backs into the air and their rears thrusted outward. Their wrists were tied to their ankles, the angle pressing their faces to the floor. Both knees on each victim were sickly displaced; dislocated, if Remy had to venture a guess. He felt ill.
"…That sort of looks like doggy style…" Remy murmured, one hand pressed against his mouth and the other inching towards the device.
"Hm?" Emily had turned towards him and Remy retracted his hand quickly.
"Oh! I'm sorry. It's… nothing. Nevermind." He couldn't make himself say it again. Too embarrassing. She gave him a curious look and Reid glanced across the table at him, but no one seemed inclined to roast him for information. Remy pulled his lip back into his mouth and began worrying it with his teeth once more; eyes and body leaning over to view the photos on Morgan's tablet again.
Morgan gave a short laugh, sliding the device towards the probing intern. "If you wanted to see, you could've just asked, rather than moving into my lap." Despite his words, Derek didn't seem angry, just amused.
"Oh! I'm sorry. And thanks…" Remy pulled the tablet closer to himself as the team returned to their previous discussion. "Uh…" A small hand moved into the air and Hotchner looked as if he was either going to laugh or face palm.
"You really don't need to raise your hand, Remy." Another stuttered 'oh' and the quick retraction of his arm occurred. "What's your question?" Hotch tried again when no response was given. He shook his head subtly, a smile stretching his lips. This kid was something else.
"Sorry! Uh, just… what's the cause of death exactly? Am I allowed to ask that?" J.J laughed.
"Exsanguination." Reid offered, looking just as amused as the rest of the team by their small tag-along.
"Blood loss…" Remy murmured, tugging on the ends of his ponytail. "From their wounds, yeah?" Spencer nodded and Remy's fingers moved from his hair to his wrist, gently rubbing at his jacket. "That would hurt. A lot. The killer could be a sadist, couldn't he?"
"Yes, that's what we thought." Hotchner said. He looked mildly impressed and Remy's face turned a shade of red Hotch hadn't known was possible.
"I'm sorry! I sort of talk-think and I don't realize I'm doing it most of the time. Just tell me to stop and I will. Sorry." Emily gently patted his back and Remy jumped in his seat and whipped his head towards her.
"No," she said, smiling at him, "we want you to talk, to bounce ideas off of us. That's how you learn, how you get better at what you do. Don't think your inconveniencing us by sharing your thoughts."
Hotchner nodded, smiling at him as well. "Exactly. We want your input; you wouldn't be here otherwise."
"Oh… okay." A short pause. "Thanks." Hotch began talking again and, as if knowing it was the worst possible time, Remy's phone began blaring a pop tune no one really knew. Garcia bit her lip to repress the grin that was already spreading across her face as the teen dove for his bag and tore open the flap. He began riffling around and pulling out all sorts of things – notebooks, candies, a t-shirt, even a can of what looked like pepper spray. Hotchner rubbed at his forehead.
"Government's a joke, a fucking sinking boat
But hey, don't complain, you're the one against the vote
Kanye West says rock is dead, guess he's off his meds again
Lost his mind, about the time he got with that Kardashian"
The rest of the team was trying not to laugh openly by the time Remy had his IPhone in his hand and was dragging his finger across the screen. Morgan wasn't sure if the kid had meant to, but the phone lit up with a photo of a man; dark hair and emerald eyes smiling at the screen. The name "Cale" was typed under the image.
"Hello? Rem? Babe, I swear to god if you just hung up on me…"
"Shit!" Remy exclaimed, his face burning an even brighter red. "I'm sorry! I meant to hang up!"
"What?" Remy's eyes darted from the phone to the team. Emily laughed.
"We were about done anyway, you can talk to him. We've got about half an hour before we head over to the crime scenes." Remy's face was an artful mix of mortification and relief.
"Oh my god, thank you so much, I'm sorry, it won't happen again!" Remy grabbed his phone and slung his bag over a shoulder fumbling with all of the crap he had thrown onto the floor. A pill bottle fell from his grasp and rolled towards the table. Remy was too busy dealing with the male on the other end of the phone to realize. He darted out of the conference room and into the bathroom across the hall.
With the tornado that was Remington Abernathy out of the room, silence settled over the team.
"Well…" Morgan laughed. "He's certainly interesting!"
Thanks for reading! Please R&R!
If anyone happens to notice any spelling or grammatical errors or has any constructive criticism, leave a review or PM me! Any help is appreciated!
Thanks,
Ceru