Chapter Ten: Aureilo
Spencer Reid and his daemon are very much alike, except for one big difference.
Aureilo has always been a lot better at making friends.
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"Where's his daemon?" Hal said in a voice low enough that only Hotch could hear. There was no animal perched on the man's cardigan or hanging out of a pocket, the ground around his feet clear. Hotch frowned, and made a mental note to ask him if he had an insect daemon and a proper safety case for the creature to travel in.
In the end, that turned out to be the least mysterious thing about Spencer Reid.
Everything I Never Knew (Reprise)
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"I'm bored."
Reid hums and bites at his lip, frowning intently at the report he's working on. There's a tug on his shoe, growing more and more insistent with every minute that passes by. "Don't chew on my shoelaces," he mutters to his daemon, hauling his foot out of reach of the cross hare. "I'm not bored, so you're not bored. Stop distracting me."
"You are bored. You're just too boring to admit it." With that, the hare promptly rolls onto his back and kicks at Reid's leg with his hind paws in a dull, rhythmic fashion. Thump, tha-thump. Thump, tha-thump. Every time his feet make contact, Reid's hand skitters on the page, leaving a jagged pen mark on the paper.
Reid tries to ignore the smirk on Elle's face, but Arlo's stifled giggles are harder to tune out.
"If you're so bored, go find something to do," he snaps finally, pushing his chair back and glaring down at his daemon, fighting the childish urge to throw his pen at the leporid's head. "I can't concentrate with you being so… you!"
Aureilo sits up slowly and returns Reid's steady glare. "Fine," the hare says snootily, bristling his whiskers. "I shall."
And he hops off.
Reid goes back to his paperwork, sighing in relief at the renewed peacefulness of the squad room. He taps his pen on the page. Tat, ta-tat. Ta, ta-tat. Tat, ta-tat. The page blurs, his eyes aching.
He begins to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he's actually bored out of his mind.
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He stops in on Tupelo and Garcia.
"My long-eared bundle of fuzzy hugs!" squeals Garcia in delight upon seeing him, reaching down with a pen topped with a ridiculous purple pom-pom to tickle his nose. Aureilo allows it, even though it makes him sneeze. They all have their small joys.
"Why are you wearing a shawl?" he asks Tupelo curiously once the magpie's human stops assaulting him with a fluffy weapon, the magpie hopping down from his perch to say hello. The shawl is also purple, matching Garcia's terrifying pen, and beaded with what appear to be happy faces. It's revolting.
Aureilo kinda likes it.
"We got it on sale," Tupelo says proudly, ruffling his wings to make the beads clack. "It's the exact same shade as Pen's glasses. It was this, or a hat. And the hat was orange."
Aureilo shudders. "Good choice. Hey, Garcia? Can I borrow your SmarTrip card?"
Garcia's face takes on a shade of 'why' that Aureilo quickly forestalls by looking innocent. Fortunately, over the years, he and Spencer have gotten this down to a fine art. "For a case?"
"Can't you use Reid's?"
"… No. Because of the… case."
"… Okay. Come here."
Later in the day, when Spencer Reid goes downstairs to find a working photocopier and is asked by no less than five people why his daemon was seen bounding down the hall from Garcia's office with a purple shawl tied tightly around his tummy, Reid has no answer for them.
He wisely decides, like with most things Aureilo does, that it's probably better not to ask.
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"Lo' Aureilo." The man on security peers down on him, and Aureilo almost audibly groans. Edgar, of course it's Edgar. "No Dr. Reid with you today?"
"No, Ed," Aureilo grits out, standing on his hind legs and glaring up at the man. "I'm on official business for the BAU." He hears a yawn from under Ed's seat, his portly dachshund daemon rolling over and opening one bleary eye to peer at Aureilo from between the chair legs.
Ed shrugs and presses the button on the door to let the daemon out, smirking as the hare tries to make a run for it. "Ah, field agent stuff. I understand."
Thank god, Aureilo thinks. He didn't make a…
"You know what they say about you field agents," Ed continues, stopping the door with his hand and calling after him. "Hare today, gone tomorrow!" He lets the door swing shut between them, cackling uproariously at his own joke.
God damnit.
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"Hello. Down here."
The bus drivers leans down and blinks in surprise, his parrot daemon's beak gaping open in mock imitation. Aureilo considers telling them how alike they look, before reconsidering. He needs them to assist him, and Spencer is always telling him to be polite when needing assistance.
"Hello, yes. Can you tap my card for me? I lack both the height required and the opposable thumbs." The hare tries to complete his polite request by smiling as best he can with the face given to him. Spencer is also always stressing the importance of smiling when being polite.
Aureilo thinks that Spencer thinks far too much about how others perceive him.
"Where's your human at?" the driver asks eventually, looking around Aureilo like Spencer is going to pop up from out of the stained upholstery of the bus or something. "How are you here without your human? Should you be here?" He seems upset.
Aureilo doesn't have time to be soothing him. He has places to be.
"Yes, yes, I am here without my human, do try to move past that. I'm twenty-bloody five years old, I don't need supervision to catch a bus. Now, can you please assist me to pay my fare?"
"I'll do it," someone said behind Aureilo, a gnarly hand appeared and cautiously scooping up the card Aureilo had tugged out from Tupelo's shawl. "Honestly, holding up the line like this. Daemons today have no respect."
The old lady smiles with her eyes as she says it, even though her mouth doesn't twitch, indicating that perhaps she's not quite as upset as she's trying to appear. Aureilo knows that look. It's the look Aaron wears when Spencer does something brilliant.
Aureilo's of the opinion that Spencer is often brilliant, but Aaron seems to only notice this half the time. He makes a mental note to point this out to Hal. He also makes a mental note to remind Spencer to be brilliant more often, in order to catch Aaron's interest.
"Thank you," he says politely as the lady tucks the card back into his shawl-pouch without letting her fingers brush his fur. She shuffles past, perching on a seat and tapping the cushion next to her.
"Come on then," she says. "Giddup here so you don't get stepped on wandering about on your own, you silly beast. Percy doesn't take up much room."
Aureilo obeys, sitting awkwardly on the seat and letting the lady snap his seatbelt on so the bus braking doesn't fling him forward. Two button-eyes and a bunch of whiskers peer out at him from the lady's pocket.
"Hello," squeaks the field mouse hiding in there. "Percy. Nice to meet you."
"Aureilo," Aureilo introduces himself. "Likewise. What's it like being a mouse?"
He's always been a lot better with meeting people than Spencer is.
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Aureilo cranes his neck back to look up into the black eyes and long beak of the stern looking emperor penguin standing over him. The light filtering through the trees above glares into his own eyes, making him squint.
"Aureilo," she says calmly, nodding her beak in welcome. "It's been a long time, friend."
"Same to you, Bess. Charlie playing?" Aureilo taps his nose against the soft feathers of the penguin's stomach, unable to reach up to that intimidating beak. The penguin daemon shuffles about in an awkward semi-circle, pointing her beak towards four men intently leaning over a chessboard.
"Playing is perhaps the wrong term. He'll be glad to see you," she says, waddling after him as he bounces up the park path towards the table. "Arthur's beaten him four times in a row. He's livid."
"That's because he's reckless," Aureilo says, before leaping over the back of the park bench and scattering Arthur's belongings about. A bottle clatters against his paws, rubbish almost making his paws scrabble off the wood. Obviously, the game has been in play for hours. "Evening, lads!"
The men jump. Two unfamiliar ones stare in shock, eyes boggling, looking about for his missing human. Arthur ignores him completely, his hand hovering over the board and cardinal daemon staring determinedly at the opposing king piece.
Charlie beams, reaching out an absent hand to pat his penguin as she leans against his side. "Aureilo! I was beginning to think you and your skinny partner had gotten yourselves shot." He turns to the men, both of them displaying expressions of disconcertion at the humanless daemon. Aureilo ignores that.
At this point, he's used to it.
"This here's Aureilo – we've been chess-buddies for years, haven't we, bucko?" Aureilo nods, putting his paws on the table and examining the play. "He's FBI. His human's a proper genius."
"Your shot, Charlie," Arthur says in his low voice. "Stop fussing over the rabbit. No doubt he's going to help you cheat your way out of the mess you're in."
"A mess, am I?" Charlie asks, blinking and looking at the board. Bess rolls her eyes. "I don't think I'm in a mess…"
It only takes Aureilo a second to note that Charlie is indeed in a mess.
Charlie has always been terrible at chess. But damnit, he is persistent. Aureilo can respect that.
"Queen to E4, he's going to take her if you don't move her," he orders, putting his paws on the table and formulating strategies. "He's not cheating – you have Misha helping you. He has me."
"Saves me the bother," Bess adds, closing her eyes and tucking her beak against her chest. "It's too hot out here to be fussing about chess, anyway."
Three hours later, Charlie hasn't lost a game since Aureilo's arrival and even Bess is looking smug. Aureilo bounds away cheerily as the sun threatens to set, already thinking longingly of the journey home and curling up with a blanket and his Spencer.
"Until next time, Aureilo!" Charlie calls, waving. "Bring your human next time – I've got some old journals he'll be interested in!"
Sometimes Aureilo thinks that if it wasn't for him, Spencer would never manage to make any friends.
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He beats Spencer home. That's nothing new.
The neighbour lets him in after making him promise to tell Spencer that she needs her ceiling fan dusted again, the sound of her slippers shuffling away up the hall soothing as he pushes the front door shut with his paws.
Loping over to the couch, it's an easy task to press play on the battered CD player he'd begged Spencer to buy him, flopping across the cushions as 'The Magic of Physics' audiobook begins chattering away.
Then he quietly switches his mind off and dozes.
He's always been better at relaxing than Spencer is as well.
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"You look cosy." Aureilo jolts awake and looks up to find Spencer dropping his keys and wallet onto the cupboard, smiling crookedly at him. "Where have you been all day?"
Aureilo yawns. "Oh, you know, around. What's for dinner? I'm starving."
Spencer doesn't answer, wandering past the bookshelves looking vacant. Aureilo drapes himself over the arm of the couch, and tries to look like the most neglected hare in the world, famished and miserable. "Speeence."
"Hmm? Oh, ah… takeaway? We can get Indian if you want." He runs one finger along the spine of a book thoughtfully, before sliding it out into his hand. "Hey, Aur? What do you think of Hotch?"
Aureilo doesn't have to ask what he means; he feels the jolt of something that accompanies the carefully phrased question. Both their hearts skip a beat at it.
He decides not to be coy. If he finishes this conversation quicker, the quicker they both have dinner and Spencer will settle on the couch with his lap all cosy and blanket spread over them. "He's professional. Great at his job. Efficient. Fantastic arse."
Spencer chokes on air, dropping the book he'd picked up with a thunk.
Aureilo smirks, seeing his human's ears flush tellingly. Don't tell me you didn't notice as well, he thinks gleefully, as Spencer tries and fails to use his words. You perve.
Aureilo's always known their minds better than Spencer as well.
But he thinks that maybe this time, just this time, Spencer's going to do just fine on his own.