Chapter 3
Spencer had spent two weeks barely speaking to Morgan except when needed for work. The other man had tried multiple times to engage him in conversation, but each time, Spencer had shot him a hard look and walked away. He may have been a certified genius, but coming up with a plan of retaliation was proving to be more than this genius could handle. Now, he was awake in the middle of the night, unable to sleep for thinking of what that idiotic, sophomoric jackass had done.
"Whoopee cushion," Spencer muttered, flipping over and pounding his pillow. "An eight-year-old child could come up with something better than that!"
Two minutes later, he rolled over to the other side. What grown man thinks of flatulence to prank one of his peers? Spencer was far more advanced than that.
Frustrated, he climbed out of bed, determined to find a way to manipulate the situation in his favor. He pulled on a pair of boxers, not comfortable in the least about sitting in front of the computer in the buff.
After opening the browser, Spencer typed in "gag gifts and novelties," bouncing a knee as he waited for the results to load in Google. The first website that came up was Things You Never Knew Existed, which Spencer almost skipped, considering he highly doubted that was the case. He wasn't being arrogant. He simply knew about a lot of things.
He skipped right to the Novelties category, clicking to expand the list. Magic Tricks caught his attention, but he eyed the two trunks on the other side of the living room and knew that now was not the time to shop for more. Instead, he clicked on Gags.
There were lots of things he skipped without taking a second look, like disappearing ink, Magic 8 Ball, and squirt toys. A few things caught his eye, like the animated "realistic" busy bugs—which didn't look all that realistic to him...where were their exoskeletons?—and the hair brush for bald men. He couldn't think of anything to really use as a prank, so he looked back to the list.
Shocking Things was a bust; there were only two things in that category, and neither sparked any interest in him.
Sparked, Spencer thought to himself, smirking at his unintended pun.
Turning to the last category—he was going to completely skip the Risque Things—he clicked in to view the Remote Control items. He had almost given up—they were mainly just regular remote control cars, boats, and the like—when the least likely object caught his eye.
Remote Control Fart Machine 2
Great, Spencer thought. Back to the fart jokes.
But the more he thought about it, the more he warmed to the idea. After all, what better way to fight fire than with fire?
Before he could convince himself otherwise, he changed the quantity from zero to one and clicked Add To Cart.
~*~PW~*~
It took a week for the little gizmo to get to him, but as soon as he saw the padded envelope containing the noise maker, Spencer tore open the packaging and unpacked the silly looking thing. For a moment, he blanched; he couldn't believe he'd stooped so low as to buy the thing. He wasn't a six-year-old boy anymore. Bodily functions hadn't been funny to him in a long time. And yet...
Well, at least his was a technologically advanced fart joke, so it was far superior to the juvenile gag Morgan had played.
That fact alone spurred him on, the desire to best Derek Morgan at his own game giving him an incentive to take the gadget apart and make it work on his level.
For two days, as soon as Spencer got home from work, he sat at the kitchen table in his small apartment, moving this piece here, that piece there...crossing these wires and clipping those. Finally, he was satisfied with his results.
Yes, Spencer thought smugly. Tomorrow is the day he will get his comeuppance.
~*~PW~*~
The redesigned piece of electronics, along with the small remote control and a small sewing kit, went into his satchel, which Spencer kept close to him until he got to the bullpen at work. He would put his plan into action come lunchtime, when he knew Morgan would be out of the office with Garcia.
Over the next few hours, both JJ and Prentiss asked him several times if something was wrong. He was apparently acting rather jumpy and nervous—very un-Reid-like, they'd said. He'd played it off as not feeling well; he didn't know if they believed him, but he was too keyed up to worry much about it.
Just before lunch, Morgan walked into the bullpen with his hand on Garcia's lower back.
"Hey, Boy Wonder," Garcia said with a grin. "Everyone else is joining us for lunch at the sub shop. You wanna come?"
Spencer did his best to put on a look of regret before shaking his head no. "I'm going to put my head down. I'm not feeling so hot today."
"Oh, my poor sweetums," Garcia cooed. "Why don't you go to my office and lie down on the couch, okay? Rest up, love bug. You'll kick it faster that way."
Perfect, Spencer thought as he worked to keep the grin off his face. I'll be that much closer to Morgan's office.
"You know, I think I will," he said aloud. "Thanks, Garcia." He smiled at her, and she patted his arm once before turning away.
He hated deceiving Garcia—as well as Prentiss and JJ. Really, they'd done nothing wrong, and lying to them seemed too much like an UNSUB. But it had to be done to make this Mission: Accomplished.
Spencer watched Prentiss and JJ gather their things as Hotch and Rossi joined the group on the bullpen floor and then echoed their goodbyes. After waiting a couple of minutes to make sure they were gone, he nearly sprinted out the doors and down the hall.
Once the coast was clear, he let himself into Morgan's office—Morgan himself had taught Spencer to pick a lock, so he had no one to blame but himself—and closed the door behind him. It took him no time at all to find what he was looking for, and with an almost too-excited grin, he sat down and got to work.
~*~*~PW~*~*~
Derek walked Garcia to the elevator. "See you in a couple of hours, Baby Girl. I'll bring dinner after my class is over."
She nodded. "Sounds good. Have fun!"
He stole a kiss and then loaded her onto the elevator, reaching in to press the button for the garage. She gave a finger wave as the doors closed between them.
Checking his watch, Derek realized he had fifteen minutes to get changed and meet the new recruits downstairs in the gym. He hurried back to his office and grabbed the gym bag, which contained his sneakers, sweats, and T-shirt. After taking the stairs down, he made it to the locker room and was changed and out in the training area with five minutes to spare.
"Hey, Agent Morgan," a young brown-haired man exclaimed as he came into the gym.
"Evening," Derek replied. "Agent Samson, isn't it?"
The young man grinned. "Tommy," he said with a nod before moving away to start stretching.
This was the third class of new recruits Derek had worked with—and he was only a few classes in with this group. He taught them self defense and takedown moves for use on the job; he was good at it and he enjoyed it, which was why he had volunteered for the second and third groups after being roped into teaching the first.
Within the next couple of minutes, more of the group came into the gym and joined Tommy, stretching their muscles and preparing for the lesson. Most were wearing sweats like Derek. A few were in shorts, but all were wearing matching FBI T-shirts.
Derek preferred to teach the class indoors, where there were mats for them to land on when practicing throws and takedowns. But that meant they would all work up a sweat, so the AC was already running, making it rather cool in there for the moment.
As soon as the class had stretched, he said, "All right, guys, let's quickly go over the things you learned from last week." He pointed to two guys off to the side. "Agents Stephens and Riley, show us The Crash. Riley, you're attacker."
The two men moved to the front of the group, facing one another. Agent Riley threw a right cross, which Stephens blocked, before grasping the other man's arm and clumsily pulling him toward his body while raising his knee, aiming for Riley's midsection. Unfortunately, the man's body was turned just enough that his knee completely missed, skirting off Riley's hip and leaving Stephens open for a re-attack.
"Hold up," Derek called, moving to them. "Don't angle yourself so much. Watch me once." He motioned for Riley to attack.
In an exaggerated slow movement, Derek showed the class again how to position his body so that when he raised his leg, it was right in line with Riley's breadbasket.
The moment he raised his knee, a loud farting sound ripped through the air, seeming to originate from Derek's ass.
"What the hell?!" Derek barked, looking behind himself.
The class chuckled.
"Aww, Teach," a smart-ass recruit in the back called. "It's natural. Nothing to be embarrassed about."
"Shut up, Frankie," Derek grumbled. "Now, Stephens, you try again."
As he watched the men go through the movements again, Derek thought to himself how odd that had been, because he hadn't felt anything like he normally did when he passed gas. He shrugged it off, figuring it had come from Riley and the sound had just bounced off the gym's walls.
"Better," he said to the men. "Next!" He pointed to two more recruits.
After they'd all had a chance to run through the moves they'd learned the first two weeks, he brought up another eager-looking young guy to use with the demonstration of a new move.
"This is the Takedown Defense," he said to the class. "If an attacker is attempting to tackle you to the ground, wait for him to rush you. When he goes for your leg, take a step back with that same leg. Bend at the waist, and bring your elbow into his shoulder and neck, throwing him off balance, and then hit him with a hook to the jaw." He gestured for the "attacker" to advance. "Watch me."
The guy went for Derek's right leg, so he took a step back and then leaned over, aiming his elbow to land the gentle-for-now blow to the other man's shoulder, when another loud, echoing noise rang through the gym.
This time, the whole class burst into laughter. Derek was still bewildered—and frankly, a lot more embarrassed. He didn't know what the hell was going on, but he certainly wasn't enjoying being the subject of their laughter—and he sure as hell wasn't busting wind.
"Back to work!" he called. "Again."
This time, he was able to complete the move without further issue.
After the class had practiced that for a time, he said, "All right, one more move for tonight."
Jogging over to the edge of the mat, where he'd left the prop he needed for the next move, he bent down to pick up the collapsible knife and heard a quiet, but again, embarrassing, squeak, like one would hear when they stretched the neck of a balloon as the air was escaping—or like when they had their butt cheeks tightened as they let one loose.
Fucking hell, Derek growled to himself.
Luckily, it seemed no one else in the room had heard that one, so he made his way back to the group and picked someone to demonstrate the proper way to disarm an attacker who was carrying a blade.
He ran through the steps once as the defender and then told the recruit to switch, wanting to go through it as the attacker once to demonstrate another move the attacker might make. When the recruit yanked his arm behind his back and forced Derek down with his ass up in the air, Derek let out the loudest, longest, gassiest noise yet.
The recruit gagged and dropped Derek's arm, backing away quickly as he and the rest of the class began laughing.
At that moment, understanding dawned on Derek.
Reid. He'd bet a million dollars Reid was behind this.
"Uh, Agent Morgan," a timid voice called. "Maybe you should visit the bathroom while we practice."
"Yeah," Derek grumbled. Something was rotten...and it certainly wasn't emanating from his ass. "I'll do that. Keep working, everyone."
As he stepped into the locker room, he saw a big note taped to one of the lockers with his last name in big letters and a suspiciously familiar figure exiting just as the other door slid closed.
Derek stalked over to the paper and ripped it off the locker, turning it over to read a note in Reid's distinctive script:
You wanted a flatulence joke? The joke's on you. Your turn, Morgan.
Oh, kid, Derek thought, laughing as he crumpled up the paper and shooting a three pointer into the trash can in the corner of the room. Bring it.
