Disclaimer: Usual disclaimers, I do not own any CM characters, I'm just borrowing them and will return them in the same condition as I found them.

Storyline Rules: There will be het smut, there may be violence, mention of drugs and sex crimes -- this is Criminal Minds. There may be mild sideline slash, but it will not involve any CM characters. All CM characters will remain true to character as I see them. All pairings will be introduced as they could naturally occur. This may be fantasy, but I will try my best to make sure anything presented as fact is accurate.

Author's note: Hotch is a hard man to shop for.

A PAST REVEALED

Reid and Morgan followed JJ and Emily as they browsed shops along the Strip, one of the major tourists areas of Las Vegas. Morgan was now carrying a bag with three cheesy t-shirts that said, "My team went to Vegas and all I got was this crappy t-shirt," two in navy and one in fluorescent orange. JJ Insisted that Garcia would love and wear hers, and that Hotch and Gideon would get a laugh out of theirs. They were currently looking for more personal, less 'traditional' gifts.

"So, Reid, no security cameras now, you gonna tell us where you learned to gamble like that?"

"It's really not that interesting, Morgan."

"Ooh, avoidance, that means it is interesting. Come on, you know I won't leave you alone till you fess up to whatever it is."

"Fine, it's not a big deal. In college I tutored this kid, Ronny, in history, he taught me to play Blackjack and poker. It was easy; it's all statistics, probabilities. I learned what combinations are possible, how likely they are to occur. Blackjack is simple, remember what cards have come up, know what's left. Bet low when there's a lot of cards, bet high when they're getting low."

"Yeah, that's no confession. Give it up, Man."

"Morgan, that's enough to get me blacklisted from every casino in the U.S. They share info. Card counting isn't illegal, but casinos will still find an excuse. Most of the casinos in the U.S. are owned by a handful of people, you get your name and picture up in one, you can be sure it'll be up in all of them inside a week."

"Okay, Spence, that tells us why you didn't want to say anything inside the casino and where you first learned to play poker." JJ slid her arm around his waist, "Tell us the rest."

"What rest?" He was having a hard time keeping his lips from twitching. He'd already decided to tell all.

"Friday night I watched you go through opponents like Morgan goes through girlfriends."

"Hey."

"Shut up, Morgan. Spence, you've never played like that with us."

"Of course not, I like you guys. If I played like that, you wouldn't play with me anymore."

"The point is, you weren't playing casual 'let's have fun' poker, you raked in a year's pay in a couple hours."
"JJ, twenty bucks between friends on the plane is totally different than the high-stakes table. You don't sit those tables unless you know the risks. I can guarantee, none of those players were betting their grocery money. And every one of them would have taken every penny I had with me if they could. They were good, but at that level, it's a mind game as much as a card game - advantage BAU profiler."

"It's more than that. It was like you were reading their minds, like you knew what cards they were holding, you didn't learn that from Gideon."

"No, Gideon's sucks at poker. He watches the players too much, you have to know the cards, too."

"So, Bud, you still haven't given us what we're looking for: Where … did … you … learn … to … play … like … that?"

Emily looked on quietly while JJ and Morgan prodded at Reid. He was going to spill; they just needed the right question. What was it?

"You're hiding something," Morgan squinted at Reid trying to figure him out, "And I'm just gonna start guessing till I figure it out."

Suddenly Emily got it, Reid had left Vegas for D.C. when he was nineteen, the gambling age was twenty-one, he'd been underage. "So, how old were you when you started playing for money?"

Reid stopped walking. Morgan jumped on the information, "Oh, that's it? You weren't legal. Come on, how old, eighteen, seventeen?"

"Fourteen."

"My, my, my, Young Reid had a little wild streak after all."

Reid started walking again, made a face, "I never said I didn't. I've done a few dumb things in my life."

"Dumb, huh? What I wanna know is how you managed to get in a casino when you were underage, you got proofed last night."

Reid grinned, the cat was out of the bag, time to enjoy it, he stepped ahead of Morgan, turned around to walk backwards, he wanted to see Morgan's face for this, "Who says I played in a casino? Never set foot in one till I was twenty-one and in the Bureau." Morgan, JJ and Emily all stopped walking, Reid continued walking backward, "I learned the rules in a dorm, I learned to play in back-alley games."

"You're shittin' me."

"Nope." Reid kept walking, slowly so the others could catch up. "Ronny took me to my first illegal game as a lark, just to see if I could win against strangers. A small game, no big deal, we walked out with a hundred dollars, he kept fifty. Next Friday night he took me to a bigger game, we split five hundred."

Reid laughed, "Within six months I was taking home a couple grand a week and the entire football team was taking turns being my bodyguard and keeping an eye on Mom. Mom thought I was very popular, although she didn't really approve of me hanging out with jocks. I was just happy the jocks were suddenly protecting me instead of beating me up. Four years and I only got jumped twice."

"So, you went from being picked on to being --?" Emily asked.

"Mascot, I guess. We needed a cover, so I tutored the entire team. I think it's the only time in school history the whole team carried at least a 3.0 average."

"So, why'd you quit, Man?"

"Well, at first it never even occurred to me that it wasn't legal. I mean what fourteen-year-old really thinks about that kind of thing. Then I was making enough money that I didn't care and my new 'friends' made life much more pleasant. But when I was sixteen I decided I wanted to get into the F.B.I. I knew that if I wound up with a record, I'd never get in, but I also knew I'd need enough money to set Mom up in a home, a nice home, so I started playing more aggressively and saved every penny I won.

"I was taking criminal justice and psychology courses, I knew if I got caught as a minor I could talk just about any judge into letting me off with an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, and since the only thing I did was the gambling, not getting arrested again for six months wouldn't be a problem. No conviction, no record, no problem. If I got caught as an adult, I might have been able to get out of it, but it wouldn't be a sure thing anymore, so the week before my eighteenth birthday I quit. Haven't played an illegal game since."

He laughed, "Well, not unless you count the plane. And somehow I don't think I'm likely to get turned in for that."

"So," Prentiss asked, "how'd you explain the money during your background check?"

"I put it in a trust for Mom, for the home, in case anything happened to me."

"Are you telling me the F.B.I. didn't try to find out where you got the money for that?"

"No, Emily, I'm telling you I thought ahead. I set up a savings account in Mom's name. I never told her about it, and I put most of my winnings in it. This is Vegas, as long as the amount's under two thousand a day, it doesn't draw any attention. I used the night deposit, so no one asked questions about a kid making such big deposits. This is Vegas, everyone assumed Mom was lucky at slots, I encouraged the impression."

"When Mom was committed, I got power of attorney and regained control of the money. I kept enough to live on for a couple years and put the rest in the trust. Between that and my life insurance, if something happens to me, she's taken care of."

"Christ, Reid, how expensive is that place?"

"After her health insurance from the university and my health insurance, about fifty grand."

"A year? No wonder you don't have a car."

"Morgan, I don't have a car because I hate driving. The only reason I even got my license is because it was required to get into the bureau."

"I still don't get how anyone can not like driving."

"I have enough trouble not running into things when I'm walking. I just don't think adding speed and a couple thousand pounds of metal into the mix is a good idea."

Reid breathed a sigh of relief at the subject change as Morgan got caught up in telling Emily all about the one and only time Morgan had let Reid drive, he'd got caught up thinking about the case they were working, hit a tree and they'd had to walk two miles to the nearest house because there was no cell service. He'd wanted to tell the others, but really didn't want it to be a big deal. There was no way his teenage gambling was going to stay buried, but at least it was off the table for now.

"Hey, Reid," or was it? "Do Hotch and Gideon know?"

"That I'm a lousy driver? Yeah."

"That you used to be a bad boy."

"Gideon does. I don't know if he ever told Hotch, and I'm not asking." Reid looked around, saw where they were, "Ooh, there should be a shop on the next block I need to stop at."

"Should be, Spence?"

"The Las Vegas real estate market is the fastest in the world. Here today, gone tomorrow, something else next week. But this guy's been here more than thirty years. He swears he's not selling till someone wins the game."

"What game?"

"You'll see. Just play along."

"How can we play, if we don't know what the game is?"

"Don't worry. All you have to do is not draw attention to what I do."

Reid paused outside a small storefront; the window displayed a mannequin in full magician garb sawing another mannequin in half. "You've heard about my teen years, get ready for my childhood." Reid opened the door and stepped inside.

The shop was dimly lit in some areas, bright in others, and at the back of the store was a small raised stage with a handful of folding chairs set up in front of it. For such a small shop it was relatively crowded. Reid looked like a kid in a candy store - or more appropriately a magic shop. As he walked through the door he grabbed a rope hanging from an old brass bell and clanged four times.

Morgan looked at the bell; next to it was a sign saying, "Ring bell to play game. Losers will be forced to perform." Next to that was another sign with a picture of a guillotine, which stated, "Shoplifters will be decapitated."

Morgan started as he felt Reid bump into his side. Reid was looking at a display of playing cards. They wandered around the store for a while, Reid coming up to each of them in turn, pointing out favorite items, explaining how some items worked, refusing to explain others.

After half an hour Morgan began to become frustrated by the fact that with all the dancing around Reid was doing he hadn't picked up a single item to purchase. He'd figured the kid would need an extra suitcase to take home all the stuff he'd get here and all he'd done was wader around looking at stuff, picking it up, putting it down, bumping into him and JJ and Prentiss. And what the hell happened to this game they were supposed to be playing?

He walked over to where Reid and JJ were standing. Reid was showing her something, it was an eight-inch-tall rabbit coming out of a top hat, Reid pushed something and a bunch of flowers appeared in the rabbit's paws. "Garcia's going to love this," JJ exclaimed. "Hey, Morgan, look at this. Garcia can put pens in the hat."

Reid looked at his watch and sighed. Kid really didn't want to leave. Reid put his arm around JJ and walked up to the register with the rabbit. Morgan followed behind. They'd barely reached the register when the old man there said, "One hundred seventeen dollars and forty-seven cents."

Morgan felt his jaw drop, "For a ceramic rabbit?"

The old man smiled, looked at a pad of paper in his hand. "One ceramic rabbit; one deck of Svengali cards; one dozen color-changing silk scarves; one pair of quick-release handcuffs, with key; two disappearing-ink pens; a two-headed quarter, a two-tailed quarter and a winking dollar bill, not legal tender; one pair of seven/eleven dice; one color-changing rope; two dozen smoke pellets," the old man reached under the counter, "and one twenty-inch stuffed white tiger cub for Jack."

JJ took the stuffed tiger from the man exclaiming, "He's perfect. How did you know?"

"Benjamin the Beneficent, knows all and tells nothing, Young JJ." He glanced at Reid's arm, still over JJ's shoulder, "Looks like my Spencer finally got up the nerve to ask you out."

Reid laughed, "Benny, you're scaring Morgan."

"He is not. But I'm beginning to figure out where your weird sense of humor comes from. You don't have any of that stuff."

"Derek Morgan," the man held his hand out, "I'm glad to finally get to meet you. And I assume the beautiful young lady in the back is Emily Prentiss."

"Hey, Emily, come meet my friend."

Emily walked up to the front of the store, she was carrying a crystal ball set in a glass base, "Think Gideon would like this?" The word Vegas was laser-etched inside it.

Benny took it from her and placed it on the counter next to Jack's tiger, "It'll make a wonderful paperweight. Have you picked up anything for Hotch yet, Spencer?"

"Not yet. Any suggestions?"

"Reid, Hotch isn't going to want something from a magic shop."

"Ah, young Morgan, I have something for everybody here." He turned around and looked at the shelved behind him. "Actually, I just have to keep the magicians' companions happy." He pulled down a long leather rectangle box and a small velvet jeweler's box. He opened the leather box to reveal a fourteen-carat gold pen set, with Vegas etched on the sides. Benny opened the second box; it held a pair of ruby stud earrings.

"Hotch doesn't' wear earrings."

"Morgan, they're for Haley, and they're perfect." JJ picked up the box and showed them to Emily who nodded her head as well. Reid and Morgan just looked at each other and shrugged, silently agreeing to let the women's choice stand.

Reid pulled a wallet out of his back pocket and handed it to Benny, who took it with a smile and turned to run it through the machine. "You should go set up, while I collect your purchases."

Reid pulled two pens out of his shirt pocket and a pair of handcuffs out of his pants pocket. He handed the wallet to JJ, saying, "Hang on to this for a minute," and walked to the stage at the back of the store.

Benny turned to JJ and asked her for the silk scarves and rope from her purse. She looked at him in confusion and he told her "Just look." She opened her purse to find the items there. Emily opened her purse as well and found the smoke pellets and trick money. Morgan laughed at the looks on their faces until Benny asked him for the dice in his front pocket and the cards in his back. When he pulled the cards out of his pocket he looked at the wallet JJ was holding and realized it was his.

All he could do was laugh as he signed the receipt and took his credit card back from Benny. After all he did say he'd get the souvenirs.

Benny put the items in a bag and handed it to Morgan, saying, "I see, taught the boy well. Why don't you grab a seat before they all fill up." He pointed to the stage in the back, where Spencer was moving things around, "Rules of the game, losers must perform."

They moved to the back of the room, and took seats. Morgan held back a grimace; didn't he get enough of this at the office? Well, anything for his bud. JJ, on the other hand, was a bit excited, she'd always enjoyed Spencer's slight of hand tricks and wondered what he could do with a more impressive setup. Emily was curious to find out just how good a magician Reid really was.

Morgan noticed that Reid was starting to attract attention, a few people had already sat down, this must be a regular event here. Benny stepped up on the stage in front of Reid, who nodded at him.

"Excuse me, Ladies and Gentlemen. Today I have a special treat for you. The game was played and the game was lost, you all know what that means. You're in for a show. I introduce to you, Spencer the Superb."

Morgan was amazed when every customer in the shop, about twenty in all, moved to find seats. He was even more amazed that once he got over the fact that it was Reid up there, he actually enjoyed the show. He'd never realized how good Reid was. He did notice JJ pull out her cell phone and snap a few pictures.