Title: Living Up To Expectations
Author: thecolorgrey
Summary: There's a reason why Reid never let anyone see where he lives.
Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds nor am I making a profit
Spencer Reid: "Do you ever wonder if you lived up to expectations?"
Emily Prentiss: "Hm… I beat 'em. I figured I'd be a bored socialite by 25"
Spencer Reid: "I thought I'd cure schizophrenia by the time I was 25"
- True Genius, season 7 episode 11
Morgan walked slowly down the hallway, glancing at the numbers on each door as he passed by them. After bugging Garcia relentlessly, he had managed to get her to go into his account and find out Reid's address. Strange, how you can know someone to a point to where you trust them with your own life but yet have no idea where they lived. It's not like he had never tried to find out, but Reid had always found ways to avoid answering his question. Reid may be an awful liar, but he was a pro at avoidance.
The last case had been tough; a woman—with a striking resemblance of Diana Reid—was murdering men who had abandoned their families. For the whole three days working the case, everyone was keeping a close eye on their youngest member, for the case was too close of a model of his own life for comfort. But they made it through without too much incident, saving a young man just before being murdered, but not without being forced to shoot and kill the woman first.
As soon as the team had gotten off the jet, Reid managed to sneak off into his SUV and head home before Morgan had a chance to make sure he was alright. Now, two hours later, he was walking the hallways of Reid apartment building, searching for room 409. Morgan glanced up and read the number plate on the door next to him. 407.
He sighed, walked a little further, and stopped in front of the door labeled 409. He shook his head and leaned back, banging on the door with his fist. He waited for a few moments and knocked again when no one answered.
"Reid!" he called out, "C'mon, man, open up."
He balled up his fist again and was about to knock when the door opened up, Morgan's eyes widening in shock when he took in Reid appearance. Standing before him was Spencer Reid dressed in slightly big, worn navy blue sweat pant, a white t-shirt, an unbuttoned black dress shirt, mismatched socks, and his old coke-bottle glasses. A fine white powder—chalk dust?—was dusted over his disheveled hair and rumpled clothes. But what surprised Morgan the most was the smell of alcohol and sweat radiating off of his young friends body.
"What?" Reid asked in a tired voice that was surprisingly sober sounding.
"Are you drinking?" Morgan couldn't help himself from asking. Reid rolled his eyes and opened his door wider, gesturing for Morgan to come inside. Morgan slid past Reid and into the small apartment, eyes widening at what he saw. The apartment was relatively small, consisting of a dull yellow kitchen and a tan living room. The counter tops in the kitchen were completely cleared off except for a coffee maker, a small microwave, and a clear glass of caramel colored liquid that Morgan guessed to have some alcoholic content. In the living room, a worn forest green sofa was pushed up against the wall to the right with large wooden bookshelves on either side. The coffee table, or at least that's what Morgan guessed it was, was covered in open notebooks, textbooks, and stray pieces of paper, each one covered in mathematical symbols and numbers. An open box of chalk lay discarded on the floor, right next to a sloppy stack of books. Morgan tilted his head to read a few of the titles—"Schizophrenia: The Escape of Reality?" and "The Facts, Schizophrenics Edition" among others.
But the thing that stopped Morgan in his tracks was what was hanging on his walls. Chalk boards. Everywhere; leaned up against the furniture, hanging on the walls, overlapping with each other, some were even hanging from the ceiling, suspended from multiple wires and hangers. Each board was covered with even more of what looked to Morgan to be gibberish. Numbers, symbols, diagrams, and many odd lines splayed out across each board. In a strange way, it almost looked artistic. Morgan wrinkled his nose at the smell of sweat and chalk that hung heavily in the room.
Morgan turned back to Reid and found him scribbling away on a chalk board that was hanging off of the wall to his left, an array of numbers and symbols flowing from the short piece of chalk between his fingers, his back to Morgan.
"Kid…" Morgan breathed in awe, his eyes roaming over the boards again, "What the hell is all of this?"
Reid's writing faltered and he turned slowly towards Morgan. His skin was even paler, if possible, than usual making the dark circles under his eyes stand out more. His expressive brown eyes were clouded as he frowned at Morgan, "Huh?"
"What are you doing?" Morgan repeated.
Reid's eyes floated back over to the chalk boards before focusing on Morgan.
"I thought I would have found it by now…"
"Found what?" Morgan asked, getting worried by the distant sound of his friend's voice. Reid closed his eyes for a brief moment and then opened them again, sighing deeply. The genius walked over to the worn sofa and plopped down, gesturing for Morgan to take a seat next to him. Once seated, Morgan's concerned gaze swept over Reid's lithe form, taking in the slumped posture and tired eyes.
"I can't find it," Reid murmured sadly, playing with the chalk in his hands.
"Find what? C'mon, kid, what the hell is all this?" Morgan swept his arm in a circle to emphasize his point. Reid sighed again and finally met Morgan eyes.
"I'm trying to find the cure," Reid said in a voice just above a whisper, "the cure for schizophrenia."
Morgan's brows rose in surprise, "So… all of this," he gestured widely at the room, "is suppose to help find a cure? What is it all, anyway?"
Reid's swallowed hard and frowned, getting up to retrieve the glass of brown liquid from the kitchen before returning back to his spot on the couch. He took a long, hard drink before speaking. "It's basically the written out basis of Schizophrenia. The scientific makeup," he pointed to a cluster of boards near the kitchen, "probabilities of development," his pointing finger moved to the boards straight across from them, "and some possible algorithms to solve the… problem," he pointed back at the boards he was just writing on.
Morgan went silent, looking at all of the board yet again, trying to imagine what it all meant. His gaze eventually landed back on Reid, who was sipping his drink and rolling the piece of chalk in his hand.
"How long have you been working on this?" Morgan finally broke the silence. Reid's brows scrunched up in concentration, "Since I was… twelve? Yeah, I started four days after my twelfth birthday." He then gestured with his cup at the stacks of notebooks and papers piled on the coffee table. "It's all written down in those."
Morgan shook his head in disbelief, "Wow."
Reid gave a humorless laughed and downed the rest of his drink. He then got up and set the cup down into the kitchen sink and walked back over to where Morgan was sitting. "So, why are you here?"
"Oh, uh…" Morgan frowned, not remembering his reason for coming over, "Oh, yeah, about the last case…" He stopped when Reid raised up his hand, shaking his head side-to-side.
"Thank you, Morgan, really, but right now I just want to shove some food in my mouth and go to sleep," Reid stated firmly but not unkindly. Morgan frowned but still nodded, "Okay. But we'll talk about it tomorrow, 'kay?"
Reid nodded tiredly and muttered something incoherent but Morgan chose to believe that Reid was agreeing with him. Morgan rose from the couch and began to make him way towards the door out. "Night," Morgan called back and waited for Reid's reply before letting himself out of the apartment. Morgan ran a tired hand over his face as he walked back down the same hall again, thinking about what he had just learned about his friend.