Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.
Author's Note: 6 chapters total. Each of chapters 2-6 will contain 1 revenge scenario.
Chapter 1
On Monday, Dr. Spencer Reid gave a lecture to the advanced criminology class at Streyer University. He plastered the lecture hall with statistics until they dripped, like blood in a horror movie, down the white-washed walls. The students covered their ears and rocked back and forth in their chairs. The professor listened with mute adoration etched upon every delicate facial feature. At the end of the lecture, after the students had rushed out the doors, the professor handed Dr. Reid her business card containing her credentials, cell phone number, home phone number, personal email address, home address, and a non-creepy smiley face drawn in silver ink. Dr. Reid smiled bashfully all the way back to Quantico.
On Tuesday, Dr. Spencer Reid woke up with a severe sore throat caused by inflammation of the vocal cords. Having memorized the 1500-page "Mayo Clinic Family Health Book" at the age of eleven, Dr. Reid immediately diagnosed his condition as laryngitis. He diagnosed the cause as well.
In his case, the cause was not viral, bacterial, or fungal infection. Nor was it excessive smoking or alcohol consumption. Nor was it any type of allergy that he did not have. In the case of Dr. Spencer Reid, laryngitis had resulted from high-impact stress to the vocal cords caused by loud, frequent, and high-pitched voicing at the criminology lecture on Monday.
Dr. Reid performed his morning rituals dejectedly. He had wanted to call the delightfully beautifully intelligently superbishly awesomest Professor Jacqueline von Ripper, but the laryngitis had thrown a wrench into his romantic pursuits.
"Hey Reid!" Morgan sank into his chair on his arrival in the bullpen. "I have a problem, and I need your help immediately! My sister, Sarah, the one in grad school, has a complicated math problem that she can't figure out. It's due this afternoon. Can you help her work it out over the phone?"
Reid pointed at his throat and shook his head. He moved his hand across his neck in the "I'm cutting my head off" gesture.
"You can't talk, Reid?" Morgan asked. "Oh man, Sarah's going to be so disappointed. She really wanted someone...you, specifically...to explain Mersenne primes to her. She mentioned something about Fermat's Last Theorem too. I think it's got something to do with Mersenne primes."
Reid waved both of his hands back and forth in the "No, no, no, you've got it all wrong" gesture. He took out a small whiteboard and scribbled something on it.
"Laryngitis," Morgan read the first line.
"Wish I could help, but I can't," he read the second line.
"Really wish I could help," he read the third line, "Sad face," he translated the emoticon.
"It's Fermat's Little Theorem, not Fermat's Last Theorem, that's got something to do with Mersenne primes," Morgan read the last line, where Reid tapped his marker in dramatic emphasis.
"Well, I'll just call Sarah and let her know that you're sick," Morgan said. "Thanks anyway, Reid. Hope that laryngitis gets better soon," he walked off towards the elevator with his cell phone.
Reid dropped his sad puppy dog eyes into his lap, disappointed that he had lost the opportunity to expound at length upon one of his favorite topics to a willing listener.
"Hey Reid!" Prentiss tapped him on the shoulder as he stared at his computer screen. "I have a problem, and I need your help immediately! My mother and I had an intellectual discussion about 'The Divine Comedy' over dinner last night. She had recently read some literary crapfest about the scientific themes in the 'Inferno', 'Purgatorio', and 'Paradiso'. I told her that you were both a scientist and an expert in medieval literature, so she wants to hear your opinion about the matter. Would you be willing to call her this afternoon to discuss it with her? She's got meetings with egotistical old men...I mean...congressmen...all morning."
Reid grabbed his whiteboard from the floor and pointed at the first line.
"Oh, poor you," Prentiss said sympathetically. "Laryngitis? How bad is it?"
"Baaaaaaad..." Reid mouthed.
"Well, I hope it gets better soon," Prentiss said on her way out of the bullpen. "Thanks anyway, I'll tell my mother," she walked off towards the kitchen with her cell phone.
Reid pushed his knees up against his chest and rested his chin upon their knobby surface. As Prentiss called her mother and made herself a cup of coffee, he followed her movements with his sad puppy dog eyes. Of all the people in the BAU, Prentiss and Garcia were the ones most likely to geek out with him, but even they had never introduced new geeking partners to him before. It was another tantalizing opportunity flushed down the drain of laryngitis.
"Reid!" Rossi woke him up from his lunch-hour cat-nap. "I'm so glad you're here! I was afraid that you had gone out for lunch with Morgan and Prentiss. Listen, I need to discuss something with you. Remember when I threatened to slap you every time you mentioned 'Foundation' in front of me? Remember when I threatened to push you out of a moving vehicle if you dared play Peter Coyote's recording of 'Foundation'?"
Reid nodded hesitantly, not knowing where this could possibly be going.
"I read 'Foundation' over the weekend!" Rossi exclaimed. "I read the entire series - the trilogy and all the books after it and all the prequels to it that Asimov wrote later. I was so hooked! I've never been so hooked on anything in my life before! Not even my ex-wives when they were married to me!"
Reid nodded hesitantly again, beginning to see where this was possibly going.
"After I finished 'Foundation', I read Asimov's 'Robot' and 'Empire' series too," Rossi declared. "Those books are so good! Asimov is such a genius! I really want to discuss the books with you over lunch. How about I take you out to that Indian place you like, my treat, and we fanboy over Asimov for a couple of hours? It's a slow day. I'm sure no one will miss us."
Reid showed Rossi the whiteboard.
"Oh, tough luck," said Rossi. "Another day then...We'll have lunch another day..." he walked off towards his office.
Reid rested his arms on his desk and buried his face in them. He blinked his sad puppy dog eyes and whimpered at another opportunity denied.
"Hey Spence!" JJ ruffled his hair as she waltzed by. "I was hoping that you could do me a favor! Will and I are learning to play Dungeons & Dragons together, but we don't really know what we're doing. We're looking for a Dungeon Master, so we're wondering if you could come over for dinner tonight and play with us? How about a home-cooked meal at my house? It's got to be better than Ramen topped with sugar. How about it, Dungeon Master?"
Reid glanced down at the whiteboard in his lap. He turned it around so she could read the words.
"Awwwwwww, I'm sorry," said JJ, ruffling his hair again. "I hope you get better soon. Don't forget to go to the doctor if it lasts more than a couple of days. We can hold off on Dungeons & Dragons for another day," she waltzed away with her stack of folders.
Reid banged his head against his desk in frustration. He rubbed his fingers over his sad puppy dog eyes and sighed unhappily.
Then, he had an idea. He opened up his personal Gmail account and composed a message to one of his old friends at Caltech. Pierre was now a recently tenured professor in the geology department, so Reid was sure that Pierre would have plenty of time to read his 10,000-word email. In it, he discussed the latest scientific literature about the San Andreas and Garlock faults that constantly threatened to rip California apart. Then, he asked Pierre if the lengths of the faults followed a pattern of Mersenne primes. Then, he asked Pierre where the circles of Hell from the 'Inferno' might be located within the structure of the Earth. Then, he asked Pierre if there might be 20,000-year-old robots, like Asimov's R. Daneel Olivaw, watching over the Earth and whether they would allow humanity to destroy itself through manmade ecological disasters. He reminded Pierre about the Zeroth Law of Robotics which said, "A robot may not harm humanity, or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." Finally, he asked Pierre if he and his grad students would be interested in a game of remote Dungeons & Dragons. He begged to be the Dungeon Master. In exchange, he would turn a blind eye for up to three federal offenses committed by Pierre, Pierre's immediate family and friends, or Pierre's lab group.
Reid sighed as he pressed "Send". He shook the carpal tunnel out of his wrists and stretched contentedly. It felt good to indulge in some kind of release from his laryngitis-imposed prison.
"Reid!" Hotch stopped by his desk on the way out of the office. "Jack wanted me to ask you for a huge favor. It was his birthday last week, and I bought him a six-inch reflector telescope. He's beginning to develop nerdy tendencies. His latest fad is astronomy. I don't know anything about telescopes, but I told him that you were an expert on everything. He wants me to invite you over, preferably tonight, to give him his first stargazing lesson."
Reid held his whiteboard over his face.
"Oh...Don't worry about it, Reid," Hotch said understandingly. "I'll explain to Jack that you're sick this week. Would you be willing to come over some other night, when the skies are clear?"
Reid nodded eagerly.
"Which night?" he mouthed.
"I'm not sure," Hotch shrugged. "I'll ask Jack and get back to you on that. Next time, I'll ask you ahead of time. Of course, there's still the problem of the skies. We can set up all the play-dates we want, but the skies might not cooperate."
Reid nodded knowingly.
"See you tomorrow then," Hotch said. "You might want to get that laryngitis looked at. It's a slow week, so don't bother coming in if it gets any worse," he walked off towards the elevator with his briefcase.
Reid cracked his whiteboard over his head in the deserted bullpen. He checked his email, hoping to receive a 10,000-word reply from Pierre. Nothing.
He got up slowly, slung his messenger bag over his shoulders, and ambled towards the elevator, his sad puppy dog eyes wandering around the floor the entire way.
As he neared the elevator, he heard familiar voices emanating from a nook in the wall next to the restrooms.
"Can you believe that Reid thought my sister wanted to hear about Mersenne primes?" Morgan snickered. "He was so excited that someone wanted to talk about math with him!"
"You should've seen the look on his face when I asked him to call my mother about 'The Divine Comedy'!" Prentiss laughed. "It was like he had found a new best friend!"
"I swear that I heard him whimpering into his arms after I offered to fanboy the complete works of Isaac Asimov with him!" Rossi cackled.
"He wanted to teach me Dungeons & Dragons! He thought that Will and I wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons at home!" JJ giggled. "Poor Spence...missing out on a chance to be the Dungeon Master must be hard for him."
"Jack's birthday isn't coming up for months, and Jack isn't much of a nerd," Hotch said seriously. "I really shouldn't have joined in on this. I'm the Unit Chief. I shouldn't be torturing one of my subordinates."
"Oh, it's OK, Hotch, you did the right thing," said a chorus of voices from the nook.
The voices became louder as their owners tried to exit the nook. Reid didn't understand how the tiny phone-booth-sized nook could hold five people at the same time. He wasn't in the mood to dissect the matter. His sad puppy dog eyes had morphed into angry puppy dog eyes, and his mind cried out for retribution.
But he was not yet ready to confront his teammates. In order to avoid them on his way out of the office, he little-girl-ran through the open doorway of the nearest elevator and crashed into a cart loaded with electronic equipment.
"Hey Reid!" Garcia chirped. "Paws off my babies! You'll smudge them!" she pointed at a bevy of LCD monitors on her cart.
"Sorry," Reid mouthed.
"Laryngitis" he mouthed as explanation for his mouthing.
"Awwwwwww! Poor baby!" Garcia coddled him. "Let me kiss that booboo away for you!" she tossed her head back and forth while smacking her lips against invisible booboos in the air.
"Revenge!" Reid mouthed.
"Revenge?" Garcia asked. "Against who? For what?"
"Team!" Reid pointed towards the bullpen.
"Team?" Garcia asked. "What did they do to you? I've been at a stupid 'Ethics in Technology' seminar all day. Strauss made me take it to learn about the intra-bureau hacking ban," she rolled her eyes.
"Team! Revenge!" Reid made his "I'm cutting my head off" gesture. This time, what he meant to say was, "I'm going to cut their heads off."
"You got it!" Garcia chirped on her way out of the elevator. "Pranking Queen Penelope Garcia at your service! No questions asked!"
Reid smiled widely and waved at Garcia before closing the elevator doors. His puppy dog eyes took on an initial glint of evil, then another and another and another, until they were nothing but veritable pools of puppyish world-dismantling evil. They did not even revert to their default puppy dog setting when Professor Jacqueline von Ripper called from the hot tub in her office.