Chapter 26

There were many thing wrong with kidnapping. It was heartless and malicious and… it had this nice ring to it… Like a kid napping. A brief nap daily had a lot of benefits. A good nap was a Holy Grail for kids. For some adults too. Even he would allow himself to be swayed for some nice nap had such opportunity arose. Preferably on his soft couch… no wait, there were still those dirty pillows he had not the time to wash yet. He wondered how all three of them got those abstract patterned oil stains on. That will surely take some major effort. That reminded him… he has to buy some motor oil. What was called that car store Morgan mentioned a month ago?

"Hey, you all right?"

Reid looked up startled at his fellow brunette doctor who stood, all of sudden, at his desk with a cup of steaming Earl Grey in her hand. "Yeah, of course," he nodded promptly as if he didn't lose his composure for a second or two there.

"Are you sure?"

The boy's gaze drifted around the bull-pen to notice the rest of the team was absent from the room. "Why? Is something the matter?" he asked hesitantly.

Blake shrugged and gestured at the papers in front of him. "You have been staring at that report for ten minutes now. IS something the matter?"

Reid swayed a pen in between his fingers and took a look at the report. It was really a far cry from being completed. He curved his lips into a surprised pout and shrugged as if he was obvious to her worries. "I'm just taking my time."

The linguist's left eyebrow arched at that.

She must have noticed that raised octave in his voice. He needs to work on that. He pressed his lips nervously into a tight line but did not attempt to change his reply, hoping she would let it go.

She did not. "I have some time. Maybe I could lend you a hand with it."

"No, I… I'm good. It's nothing complicated. My mind is just multitasking at the moment so it takes a bit longer than usually. But, thank you."

"Ah, well, you know where my table is in case you would like a … second opinion," offered Blake slowly and Reid couldn't do anything more than just nod in acknowledgment.

He then watched as the older doctor turned on her heel and restored her place at her desk. There she took a sip from the dark blue cup and got back to her own reports, not once looking back at him.

Well, that was weird. Even he had to admit that. And now the tension in his muscles refuses to leave his body. It was not even lunch time and here he was, on edge, inattentive, sloppy and to spice it up, now also paranoid and stiff. Great, really. Just what he needed at the end of the week.

No. No, he refused to attribute such power to this day. It was just a regular Friday. Like any other. He would not make a big deal out of it. She probably already forgot about it or she made empty threats, just to give him a wake up call. That is something he could absolutely believe.

So, he was all good. Nothing's happening. He had everything under control; just chilling and paying proper attention to the reports. Perfect.

And it was. Until the long-lost JJ appeared half an hour later at his desk. "Hey, you alright? Your foot looks like it wants to tap itself down into the IT floor."

DAMNIT

Once again he was running a bit too late and it provided a perfect opportunity for a certain old snake to make a move on another innocent victim. It creep out of its den with ease and slithered towards the spotted pray. With smooth moves it encircled and began enticing it with its impressive performance (upgraded into perfection during its long lifetime). It was going so well. Just one more act and the unaware prey would be completely in its mercy, blindly following its lead. Just one more moment, a single minute…. so very little.

But the moment was shattered upon an arrival of a new presence.

"Mrs. Cavanaugh, good afternoon! Tea, hi!" cried out Reid as he appeared seemly out of nowhere from behind the two women in the dimly lit hallway. His breathing was quick and a bit heavy and his hair was slightly disarrayed. A small plastic bag marked with local grocery store logo rustled in his left hand as he approached them with a couple of casual but long steps, taking a place right behind the cakery owner.

Mrs. Cavanaugh went completely rigid the second she registered her young neighbor. Her mouth, frozen agape in mid-sentence, instantly snapped shut when he send her a long pointed stare over the girl's shoulder. She wavered on her spot and wiped her hands nervously on the green apron around her skirt. "Dr. Reid, good afternoon," she greeted, attempting to smile but it faltered midway. She knew she lost this one. She duly noted and humbly accepted that this particular prey was inaccessible, never to be crossed or cornered again. She glimpsed at the oblivious girl from the corner of her eyes and then quickly blinked back to her young neighbor. "Oh my, I forgot to keep time! Making potatoes for dinner, they must have already boiled over. I have to go!" she gasped, admitting the defeat. She turned on her flat slipper heel and without looking back retreated to her own place at the end of the hall.

Spencer waited until the old lady scrammed back to her apartment and shut the door behind herself before he slowly looked down at the girl, meeting her curious gaze over her shoulder.

"What have you done to her?" she mouthed.

"What?"

Tea stepped away from him and leaned against a wall next to his door, her back facing the end of the hall. "That was a complete 180 degree turn. One moment she was like, running her mouth two hundred words per minute, and then BAM! A gaping fish!" she whispered vigorously as he searched for his keys.

Yes, he heard that too… all the way down to the ground floor. That's why he run up the stairs two at a time. He grimaced and opened the door. "I did nothing. Except appearing here which, I take a hazard guess, did not exactly suit her purpose." He switched on the lights in his apartment and then stepped aside to let the girl in. "I… do I even want to know?"

"Probably not. But it might cheer you up that she was also telling on three other people living in here."

"She did? Huh, interesting."

"How so?"

"What? Ah, no, don't mind me… And I apologize for being late. The checkout line at the store was moving even slower than I had originally estimated," Spencer confessed and dropped his messenger bag and the smaller plastic bag on the couch. He shrugged off his coat and hung it over the back of the couch before reaching for Tea's woolen one and draping it neatly over his own. "And honestly I would have never thought Mrs. Cavanaugh would approach you again with more fabricated stories. One barely notices her when she is in her own apartment but then she steps out of the door and, ah… she is a bit difficult to handle."

"I think she is just lonely. Did you know her husband is completely deaf on his left ear and needs a hearing aid on the right one?"

"Actually…"

"No!"

"Um, yeah," he nodded with a painted expression. He collected the grocery bag and headed to the kitchen, Tea hot on his heels. "He has only partial hearing loss in his left ear and the aid, uh, let's say it's not exactly fulfilling its original purpose. He got it from his former engineering students a couple years ago when he was retiring from GWU. Instead of intensifying the ambient sounds it weakens them. It started as a joke but Mr. Cavanaugh took a serious liking to it after some time. I think you can guess why."

"You can't be serious!" Tea opposed but the boy's face was nothing but serious. "Oh my God! That's so evil. Completely understandable but… gosh, it's sad and genius at the same time," she admitted and Spencer could only agree.

"Yeah… But no word to Mrs. Cavanaugh about it," he warned as he stored away the content of the bag.

"You mean in case we would somehow end up in an alternate universe where people could actually get a word in edgeways?" Tea pfffted and stowed a cup of mustard (what, again? he bought one a week ago too) and pasta into his cupboard. "You can chill. I'm waiting outside the next time. Unless she gets a sudden urge to take out trash I shouldn't see her anytime soon."

"I wish I could promise you I would never come late again-"

"Which would be flat-out lie anyway."

"…that… but I promise you, I swear, the next time I would be even a minute late I will let you know well beforehand so you won't have to wait… anywhere even near this building."

"Strong words, brain police. Unfortunately for you I do know you well enough to know that keeping this particular promise is completely beyond your control."

Spencer looked at her in wonder, perplexed by her obvious distrust. "Why would you think so?"

Tea snickered and rolled her eyes. "Because you are you. Your mind is already full of the most random things, coffee, and psychopaths (respectively) and promise like that is ought to get lost somewhere among that. Later you will remember for sure but it will be already too late. You'll start scolding yourself and make this funny faces with your brows and mouth you always do when particularly vexed. And then when you finally arrive you will be incredibly guilt-ridden and have this big brown puppy eyes. You will apologize before saying anything else. I will have nothing to forgive. You will promise to get better but you won't and the circle will start anew."

Spencer stared at her for a wholly inappropriate amount of time without moving a single muscle. He was even reluctant to blink, afraid the scene before him would pop out of its existence if he stopped paying attention for even half a millisecond. But he had to; he felt his eyes going dry along with his parted mouth and it came to the point where his needs quashed his will and took control over his body. He blinked quickly, once or twice, and then his eyes immediately sought out Tea.

And she was still there, standing beside him with her brows raised as if daring him to try and refute her. He wishes he could… but knew she was right. "Wow, that's… actually a very credible presumption. That… Am I so obvious or are you just that good?"

The girl took a frying pan out of a nearby drawer and flashed him a cocky grin. "Wouldn't you like to know, huh? I'll have you know my great grandmother was an honored fortuneteller among Russian circus society. It has been noted that her abilities passed down to all her descendants."

"Ah… so you just guessed," Spencer summed up and quickly dodged as she tried to whack him across his arm. "Just kidding… here, have a nut," he apologized with a sly smile and popped a small curved cashew in her mouth to put an end to her exasperated gape.

Tea staggered in surprise and slapped a hand over her mouth. She grimaced as she fought the nut not to cross her tonsils line, unwilling to choke on it. It took her a moment or two to get it under control. She then slowly bit down and swallowed it with something akin to displeasure. "Had that been a macadamia," she rasped at the young agent from under her eyelashes, positively unamused, "I would hurt you, badly."

The boy snatched a few cashews for himself and put the rest aside for the time being (optimally for today's curry but with Reid's obsession for those nuts one could not be sure there would be any left when the time to add them comes). "Had that been macadamia you would be probably already laying on the floor with heart palpitation, impaired breathing, flushes and itchy throat. I wouldn't stick down your throat something you are allergic to," he assured her completely unperturbed.

"Food intolerant to, actually. The flushes and heart palpitation were a dead-on, although you would have to wait at least twelve hours to see the show, the climax of it being my face shoved down the toilet and vomiting everything I consumed within the last two days. But more interesting," she turned to him with a look that demanded answers of correct origin, "is how do you know that?"

"I'm a profiler," Spencer replied simply as if that was enough of an explanation.

Clearly, it was not. "Yeah… keep on going."

Hi sighed and actually stopped moving the food and cookware around for a second. "I, um, made an educated guess. You know I am paid for being exceptionally perceptive and attentive. I do notice a lot of things whether you let me or not so your preferences are not that hard to miss since we spend a lot of time around food. I detected a pattern and made a conclusion."

"Now, that is not very fair to me, is it? While you go parading off your badass mind skills I am curbed into playing a loser and go the old-fashioned way and actually ask you things, out loud, to get some facts about you," Tea pouted.

"Dairy and pumpkin."

"I'm sorry?"

"To get even. I'm lactose intolerant. And the worst thing is- I love dairy. Mainly cheese… can't help it. And I noticed, every October, I have this nasty rash going on my hands after carving pumpkins which led me to believe I might be actually allergic to its seeds."

"Ever thought of wearing gloves?"

"It wouldn't be as authentic," Spencer shook his head, horrified by such preposterous suggestion. "You have to get dirty, get the pumpkin goo all over yourself. Otherwise it wouldn't be as fun."

"Itchy red rashes being a part of that fun, I suppose," concluded the girl with roll of her eyes. She brushed her knuckles against her jaw as she watched him mix some ingredients in the pots. Slowly she took a deep breath and let her hand drop onto his forearm, patting it lightly. "Not sure if you had this talk already but… Spencer, sweetie, when you are not sure what the other party is hiding underneath its surface… or you already know the outcome won't be good… you got to cover your skin before you break in."

"…I do what?"

"No gloves, no love. Don't be a fool, cover your tool. What you protect now, you won't regret later… that one is not a slogan but it's so wonderfully ambiguous it can be applied to vast amount of matters. You can't go wrong with that."

Spencer, only now grasping the concept of her words, felt his knees go weak and his face went from ashen white to heated red in a millisecond. "I… Jesus, just… no! I'm… I'm not trying to copulate with it!"

"Of course you are not. This is not American Pie… Oh God, I shouldn't have said that, now I'm getting visuals," Tea muttered with a wince as she felt her own cheeks blush with embarrassment. She dared to take a look at the young agent and was happy to note he was looking fairly confused. "Oh, you have no idea what I'm talking about! Splendid! Forget I said that, it never happened. Just, uh, look… allergy is a real bitch. If you can prevent it, do so. Wearing gloves is not that huge of a sacrifice. At least compared to a nasty rash that makes you want to peel your skin off."

Reid considered looking up what does American Pie stand for for about two seconds before ultimately dismissing it, fearing of seeing things his memory would not allow him to unsee. "I know. I, um, will try to remember it… if not this year than the next one surely," he assured her with a tone that could be called anything but trustworthy.

The cakery owner raised her eyebrows, perhaps catching the tone for she made that face his mother always did when he was about to argue with her. And he never dared to argue with his mother after seeing that face. "Ok, I promise to wear gloves the next time I'll crave pumpkins if you promise me to abstain from giving me another of… 'the talk'."

"I promise. No sex talk."

"Good."

"And now to the lactose intolerance talk."

"No!"

"Yes!" Tea laughed. "You should have told me about it. I would have cooked lactose free meals for you. Now I feel like I had been poisoning you all this time."

"You did not. I'm standing and alive and hoping you won't reconsider making that pudding for dessert you mentioned yesterday."

"You can damn bet I did."

Spencer pouted like a kid robbed of its favorite toy. He tried to sent Tea on a guilt trip with his puppy eyes but it proved to be more difficult when she wouldn't even offer him a single glance, lost somewhere in her thoughts. "So, um, French cooking lessons are out of question, huh?" he remarked offhandedly, peeking from the corner of his eyes for her reaction.

It came. Thought a bit late. "Huh? Oh, no. Definitely no French cuisine. It's all about cheese and wine. The worst possible combination for you. The one who came up with 'the older the better' was completely out of it. Aged cheese can trigger a headache before one could even blink. And don't even get me started on the wine because alcohol is a second chapter of 'the talk'."

"Should have held my mouth shut!" muttered the boy under his breath.

"Hmm?"

"Eh, nothing."

"It wasn't nothing," Tea insisted. She frowned and slowly turned, examining him carefully. "Actually, you've been acting weird since I crossed your doorstep today… What's wrong?"

Spencer shrugged as if he was unaware of such thing (his fingers also twitched but that went thankfully unnoticed by the girl). "Whatever do you mean? I always act like this."

"So you do admit you are acting?"

"No. I meant I'm always like this."

She looked at him deadpanned.

He did not turn to see her stare.

He did, however, felt when she after exactly forty-two seconds of silence moved towards him with a single step. Her sudden closeness grazed against the sleeve of his arm and he could freely discern the scent of her body soap.

She did not talk at first, waiting perhaps for his reaction, but he stood firm and gave her nothing.

That is at least the expression he was aiming for. Reid might have realized a bit too late that he was never really good with keeping it cool when particularly nervous and all he needed was a single incitation and his equilibrium would crumble down like a house of cards.

"So, you are always avoiding eye contact?" Tea drawled. Her hot breath struck his neck and a trail of goosebumps instantly emerged on his skin (like a house of cards, I'm telling you). She watched as he glanced at her from the corner of his eyes as if to prove her wrong. Perhaps he would, had he instead turned his head fully her way and hold her gaze for longer than a mere second. "You always talk this little," she cocked her head to the side and slowly reached out for his hair, tucking his shaggy strands behind his ear. "And of course your skin is always this damp from sweat."

"Well… well yeah, I'm after all standing over a hot stove. Naturally, my body is trying to… thermoregulate itself… and that is done via sweating," he clarified with a shaken voice and dearly hoped it was not sounding as high as the thoughts ringing in his head.

Tea stepped away from him and shook her head. "You just won't come clean, will you? Well, tough luck. It just means I have to try harder."

Spencer stiffened as the girl slowly rounded him. With lazy steps she moved onto his left side and leaned her hip against the counter, examining him from there. He could feel her stare and thought that must have been the feeling one experiences when sitting at the wrong side of the interrogation table. Amazing how many Unsubs still refused to crack, because that was really uncomfortable. He licked his lips and peered at the girl, only to meet her piercing eyes.

"You are tense," she noted with ease. "Kinda mid tense… not that much to make me believe something bad happened at work or to your team… but still tense so it couldn't be about random things you stumbled upon or people you are not particularly close to."

He looked away but his eyebrows were quick to act and rose slightly on his forehead.

"You did not share how your day was, nor did you attempt at any deeper conversation. You wasted no time and got right into cooking,… as if… as if you were trying to speed up the dinner," Tea mused out loud. "Expecting later some company, perhaps?"

Spencer's lips cracked and she had to reconsider.

"Ah, no date? You astonish me. Hmm, so let's see… there's no woman, men or groups wouldn't make you this secretive, and I don't think you want to get rid of me just watch some new TV show in peace… Which makes me think it's not really about what will happen later on… but about what is happening now, here with me…"

How he wished he did not gave her those two profiler lessons for beginners. A taste of his own medicine was never meant to be this sour. "That does not make any sense," he obscured but unfortunately for him Tea knew not to pay much heed to the things currently coming out of his mouth.

"Things very seldomly make sense, Spencer. And in your case even less." She rounded him again, the tip of her index finger brushing against her lips. "So you are trying to get the dinner over with as quickly as possible. The question is, why?"

Spencer stayed silent and tried his best to keep his face expressionless. It was highly unnatural for him but it was better than his overacting skills that were always a dead giveaway.

"We were ok on Wednesday. When you called me yesterday you sounded normal too. But today is a different story. Today you want to have nothing to do with me. What changed? Bad mood? Weather? Heard some weird stories about me? Or…"

Spencer actually stopped breathing when he spotted a devious gleam in her eyes. His shoulders tensed even further as her lips smirked knowingly and slowly opened to finish that merciless sentence.

"… or the change could be quite literal. I mentioned some adjustments to your life style at the start of the week to you, didn't I?"

His body jerked and he instantly knew what a fool he was. She had him. She had him right from the very beginning and she was just playing with him. Probably having a time of her life at his poor attempts. He could have been playing stupid and deny anything all he wanted and it would be worth nothing. He thought he could get away with it as long as he remains careful not to blow his cover, but it never even crossed him mind that she already had him figured out. This is where she wanted him.

His jaw clenched as he desperately tried to keep all his nervous tics intact. "Ah, t-that? It already slipped my mind. I took it as a joke, something to torment me with… Y-you like to do that," he lied, adamant to keep his oblivious façade.

"There's nothing that slips your mind, Spencer Reid," she purred. PURRED! "You couldn't stop thinking about it. You have been dreading this day because you knew I was not joking. And now the time has come and you are panicking."

"I am not panicking."

"You are breaking a new sweat."

Reid stepped away from the stove and put his hands on his hips, breathing deeply.

"Trust me. This is for your own good."

"For my own good you are going to rob me off caffeine, give me sore muscles and replace my meticulously composed home with… chaos?!" he retorted, profusely distraught.

Tea nodded with a cheeky smile. "And I was also toying with the idea of signing you to a Healthy pregnancy class for future moms."

"Y-you what?! Whatever for?"

"Because pregnant women and you are the same. You all need a lot of fresh air, balanced diet, peace, vitamins, water, and exercise."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I'm not. I made a research."

Spencer shook his head that her findings were not what he was discrediting but before he could explain Tea continued.

"Hey, and you know what else is also good for both pregnant ladies and headaches? Sex. So tell me… have you been getting any lately?"

What? It had been already three months?! I thought it's taking me less to write this… kinda pointless… chapter.

I am so sorry for the long wait

And for another cliffhanger (I'm starting to like them)

AND OMG OVER 100 FAVS! THANK YOU!

And now onto the 27th chapter…