The Weary Blues, a criminal minds fanfic

Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.

o o o o

22 March, 2009

Putting the old Volvo into park, Dr. Spencer Reid leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. He had just finished the worst case since Owen Savage in West Bune, Texas. For him, personally, anyway. There had been far worse since West Bune, Texas, but none that affect him this way this badly. They had succeeded, but they had failed. One unsub was taken into custody, his future victims kept safe; one unsub went free, his victim taken into custody. Adam Jackson was in a mental hospital. Or Amanda Jackson. Amanda trapped Adam within his own mind and refused to let him out, because doing so was all Amanda could do to keep Adam safe. They had failed. Spencer, who should have known, who knew in the deepest, most brutally honest parts of his soul that he should have known, had failed.

Adam, the truest victim Spencer had encountered in four and a half years with the BAU, was gone.

Adam was gone and Spencer was tired.

Spencer pulled his keys from the ignition and the car that had been rattling slightly as it idled sputtered to silence. He unfolded himself from behind the wheel into the damp night hair, the wet gravel crunching beneath his feet and the wind chimes hanging from the roof over the wrap-around porch rang too forcefully in the breeze left over from the afternoon's thunderstorm to allow for any type of musicality.

His shoes left wet prints on the wooden steps and across the porch. Wiping the shoes' soles across the deep purple doormat with the last name Sellers scribed across proved futile and Spencer rung the bell even as he unlocked the door with his key and let himself in.

"Living room."

The voice acted like a balm on his soul; two simple words, no connotation other than to relay a location in the house, and weight slipped from his shoulders like rain from the needles of a pine tree in April. The messenger bag hit the slick wooden floors with a heavy thud and he kicked his shoes off and dropped his blue wool jacket on top of them, leaving all to puddle water and damage the flooring.

The walk to the living room took hours, days. Spencer felt close to falling apart by the time he walked into the room, a whole seventy-three seconds after her voice activated every cell in his body. Whatever weight lingered on his shoulders fell with all the grace of an elephant falling from a circus ball.

Calliope lowered her book and smiled at him from where she sat leaning against the arm of the couch. She pulled down the wool afghan she sat snuggled beneath in invitation and Spencer accepted willingly. He sat between her legs, leaning back against her and rested his head on her chest, closing his eyes as she wrapped her legs around his waist and arms around his shoulders, holding the book in front of his chest.

Dropping the heavy book onto the blanket over Spencer's lap, Calliope turned his head for him and pressed her lips to his. The kiss spoke the words neither of them had given voice to yet: I love you.

"You're safe, Spencer," her breath was warm against his cheek and her limbs tight around him; every last strand of tattered duct tape, every worn through band-aid holding him together broke and he cried. Calliope held him, whispering words in his ear and crying with him, not knowing why she cried, but his tears caused hers. The old record player popped and crackled in the corner, playing the jazz vinyl the way Calliope loved.

"Let the rain kiss you, let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops, let the rain sing you a lullaby," Calliope whispered the poem she had been reading when he entered, "The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk, the rain makes running pools in the gutter, the rain plays a sleep song on our roof at night and I love the rain."

The next poem came more difficultly, remembering the words a struggle, but the voice in his ear continued, slow and steady and ever so slightly unsure.

"Oh, shining tree! Oh, silver rivers of the soul! In a whirling cabaret six long-headed jazzers play. A dancing girl whose eyes are bold lifts high a dress of glistening gold. Oh, singing tree! Oh, silver rivers of the soul! Were Eve's eyes in the first garden just a bit too bold? Was Cleopatra gorgeous in a gown of gold? Oh, shining tree! Oh, silver rivers of the soul! In a Harlem cabaret six long-headed jazzers play."

Spencer bit back the corrections that immediately came to mind as she spoke, forcing himself to relax into her and let her voice work the magic of which only it was capable. Spencer turned to kiss her, cutting off a third poem before it began.

"I missed you, Sweetheart."

"I missed you too, String Bean."

"Who's the guest of honour tonight?"

"Dexter Gordon. Go, nineteen sixty-two. The genius Dexter Gordon on tenor saxophone, stellar Sonny Clark on piano, brilliant Butch Warren on base and the untouchable, unparalleled, indestructible Billy Higgins on drums."

"This song's sad," Spencer whispered against her jutting collarbone.

"It's beautiful – 'Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry.' Mr. Gordon can certainly play that sax, can't he?"

Spencer nodded, looking down at the book in his lap. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Calliope's fingers tangled in his hair the way he liked and she followed his eyes to the book.

"I was feeling very black today," her voice completely serious. Spencer started laughing, unable to resist the bait she dangled in front of him. His Calliope, his curly haired redhead with the lightest dusting of freckles across her ivory coloured nose, his more than slightly crazy girlfriend was from one of the oldest Southern family not just in Virginia but in the entire country. "Ohhh… don't make me go tell Mammy you're making fun of me. Ohhhh… you're gonna get it… You're gonna be in so much trouble!"

"I'm not." Laughter littered Spencer's protest. "Don't. Brenda already hates me. It would just give her one more excuse."

"I'm teasing," she kissed him again, hair falling in her face. "I'd never feed you to Mammy. I'd miss you too much."

"Would you…" Spencer trailed off, feeling awkward asking the question he wanted to ask, but Calliope waited. "Would you read to me?"

He felt rather than saw her nod and he picked up the book to hand to her. Calliope shook her head and told him to hold the book, her hands still buried in his overly-long hair. Spencer asked what poem, but Calliope told him to choose. After skimming the table of contents for a good four seconds, his fingers began flipping pages. With the large, heavy book opened to the desired page, Spencer settled back against her and held the book where she could see.

"Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play," Calliope whispered the words in his ear and ran her fingers through his long, raggedy hair, tugging softly and scrapping her acrylic nails against his scalp. Spencer closed his eyes and listened.

"Down on Lenox Avenue the other night by the pale dull pallor of an old gas light he did a lazy sway… He did a lazy sway… to the tune o' those Weary Blues." Her Tidewater accent always became slightly stronger when she read aloud. Dexter Gordan's mournful tenor added a new life, a different life to Langston Hughes' well worn words as they were whispered against his skin.

"With his ebony hands on each ivory key he made that poor piano moan with melody. O Blues! Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool he played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. Sweet Blues! Coming from a black man's soul. O Blues!" The words worked through his soul differently than they had any time before, finding cracks even he had never known where there and mending them not with temporary solutions like band-aids or duct tape, but with something wonderfully permanent for which even he, despite his encyclopedic vocabulary, knew no word.

"In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan – 'Ain't got nobody in all this world, ain't got nobody but ma self. I's gwine to quit ma frownin' and put ma troubles on the shelf,'" Calliope sang the old piano man's song in what might have been some form of blues could she carry a tune and Spencer pressed a kiss to her neck. She kissed his temple before continuing.

"Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor. He played a few chords then he sang some more – 'I got the Weary Blues and I can't be satisfied. Got the Weary Blues and can't be satisfied – I ain't happy no mo' and I wish that I had died.'" His entire life, being read to was the only way he had been given comfort. His mother, if she was having a good day, would pull him close, let him pick a book and spend as long as he wanted running her fingers through his hair and reading aloud. If she was having a bad day, he would snuggle into her bed next to her and read to her from The Book of Margery Kemp.

"And far into the night he crooned that tune. The stars went out and so did the moon." Listening to books on tape wasn't the same; it never helped, not the way he wanted or needed. Books on tape didn't hold on tightly or play with hair or make him feel loved. If anything, they made the loneliness worse, accentuated the fact that no one cared what happened to him, no one cared if he lived or died or if the cases he looked at every day destroyed him from the inside out.

"The singer stopped playing and went to bed while the Weary Blues echoed through his head. He slept like a rock or a man that's dead." Calliope ended the poem with another kiss to his temple. She wasn't a book on tape; she would hold him as tightly as he wanted her too, run her fingers through his hair until he went bald or her hand went numb, whichever came first, and nothing and no one had ever made him feel as loved as she did.

She was his: his to hold and kiss and laugh with, his to tease and be teased by, his to fall sleep next to if his apartment was too empty, his to cook dinner with so long as he kept her from accidently poisoning them both, his to listen to music to with and walk down Caroline Street with. His to watch movies with, his to read with, his to be healed by. His to love and be loved by.

A/N:

I was re-watching one of my favourite episodes 4x20 "Conflicted" (SO FREAKING GOOD) and the end scenes with Reid and Morgan and then Reid and Amanda/Adam made me think about the after-affects of the case he so obviously hadn't released. These characters, of course, are the two lead protagonists in most of my one-shots and in my multi-chapter Mystery Muse. If you want to find out more about Dr. Reid and Ms. Sellers you now know where to find it! I hope you enjoyed this vignette and enjoy the rest of my Mystery Muse universe.

The poems read in the story are, in order, The April Rain Song, Jazzonia, and The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes. DO NOT quote my version of Jazzonia, because I purposefully mixed some of the words. Langston Hughes is a genius. I love him so, so, so much. And Dexter Gordon is BRILLIANT. One of my favourite jazz artists. I highly recommend YouTubing the gent. You won't regret it.

Thanks for reading, I hoped you liked it, and, please, tell me what you think - good or bad!

Love, Thalia