This was inspired by a friend of mine and the fact that Penelope Garcia has an Alphonse Elric model on her desk. There are a few references to Fullmetal Alchemist in here. Ok, a lot of references.
Flames will be used to burn assholes alive.
"Garcia, not that I don't love hanging out with you, but what exactly is this stuff?" Reid asked, taking in the pile of DVDs in his friend's arms. She grinned a Cheshire cat grin and set them down on the floor, leaving only the corner of the top one visible to Reid's eye, and even that was hard to see, his vision obscured as it was by Penelope's movement. "Garcia?" he squeaked, causing the blonde to turn back to him. "What exactly are we doing here?"
"We, my Boy Genius," Penelope replied, holding up one of the DVDs, are going to introduce you to the wonderful world of anime, the only part of nerd culture you haven't immersed yourself in." She slid a DVD into her laptop, careful to avoid showing Reid the title until it came up on the screen. Large red and silver lettering appeared on the screen, spelling out the words "Fullmetal Alchemist".
"Garcia, what's 'Fullmetal Alchemist'?" Reid asked as she hit play. Garcia simply ignored his question and shushed him as the show began. "But, I don't know what this is," Reid protested, at which point Garcia paused the show and turned to him.
"Reid, the first part of watching anime is to actually watch the show, not base your ideas off of what someone else tells you. All I can say is that it isn't in any way meant to be realistic, don't point out the physics mistakes, and don't get attached to the characters. Now, can I play it again?" Garcia huffed. Reid nodded meekly as she pressed play and settled back to play the first scene again.
"Are you ready?" the older of the two blonde boys on screen asked. The younger simply nodded as they pressed their hands to the circle in front of them.
At this point, Reid was pulled from the show by Garcia, who had begun breathing heavily. He tried to ignore it as he listened to the older boy's voice explain the fictional science of alchemy, and watched as the reaction began, shining a bright light through the computer screen.
The lights turned purple, and wind howled through the study. Books flipped to random pages, the glass of the lights shattered, and a storm raged outside. A mysterious-looking man watched from afar as the entire house glowed bright purple, and then, just like that, it stopped, and the older brother, whose name Reid had figured out was Ed, called out to his brother, but all the was left was his bloody clothes.
"Garcia, are you ok?" Reid asked, noticing a single tear making its way down the tech's face. She wiped it away and nodded to him.
"I'm all right. It's just… I'm an overly empathetic person, I guess," Penelope said, clicking to play the show from where she'd paused it when she heard Reid's voice.
"Mom?" Ed called out, spotting a pale white arm that looked like his mother's. As he turned, though, he found something that was distinctly nothis mother. His scream echoed across the world he was in as the screen went black.
The scene changed abruptly to the two boys trudging through the desert, and Reid found himself enthralled by the adventures of the snarky pipsqueak and his kind, bodyless brother. They kept playing through the episodes until they came to episode seven, at which point, Garcia stood abruptly and made some excuse about having something to do, but Reid didn't want to push her.
Instead, he asked, "Garcia, can you show me a place to watch this from my computer?"
"You have a computer?" Garcia asked incredulously. Reid just smirked at her.
"Just because you all think I'm the Doctor of the Dark Ages doesn't mean I actually am," Reid replied, and Garcia reached for a pen to scribble down sites to watch Fullmetal Alchemist on, as well as a list of recommendations labeled either "sub" or "dub". Reid looked at these for a second before asking, "Garcia, what's 'sub' and 'dub'?"
"Sub is with subtitles and the original Japanese audio. Some dubs, my Junior G-man can be quite bad, but others, like the Fullmetal Alchemist dub that we were watching, are pretty good. It's mostly based on personal preference, but if I put sub, watch it subbed. Just trust me," she laughed, "You might be a doctor, but I'm an otaku."
"…Ok?" Reid said quizzically as Garcia chuckled.
"Don't worry, you'll understand everything soon enough, my Junior G-man. Actually, that's a lie. But you'll understand enough sooner or later," Garcia said, shoving Ed out of her apartment. Reid left her house and got on the subway, slipping the piece of paper into his bag.
~~~~~Three Weeks Later~~~~
"What do you think Garcia and Reid are doing up there?" Morgan asked Kate as he watched the two geniuses chattering animatedly on the catwalk. The new addition to the team gave Morgan a sideways grin that pretty clearly held the message: you don't want to know. Morgan looked at them quizzically as Reid made a clapping motion with his hands, and Garcia cracked up.
"And so, if someone opened the Gate on the other side, we could theoretically open it here as well, but that would require someone to attempt human transmutation…" Reid was saying as they approached the bullpen, oblivious to the watching eyes of Morgan and Kate.
"You know what? I really don't want to know…" Morgan muttered, diving into the piles of paperwork on his desk.