Hello again. So, how does a genius drive Morgan crazy? Here's a start...
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine. But the horrible time Reid's having...yeah, I can relate.
Five weeks had passed, and Reid was still living at Morgan's.
Not that Morgan minded—after all, he didn't like the thought of the kid going into further debt by taking out a room somewhere—but he was seriously considering the idea of stuffing the young agent in a box and leaving him on Hotch's doorstep. After all, Hotch had a wholehouse the kid could trip over and fall in…not like the 1000 square feet Morgan's apartment had.
Just yesterday Morgan had had to go out and replace his work phone—for the third time. Somehow, Reid had managed to drop the first one in the bathtub (Morgan really didn't want to know the particulars), fried the second one on top of the stove and managed to mistake this last one for his coffee cup on an unusually early Thursday morning. He could remember the sounds of wires frying and a sickening bleep that emitted from the drowned electronic device.
At the rate this kid goes through stuff, it's no wonder his insurance is through the roof, Morgan thought. It's also a miracle he managed to make it to twenty-six…
It wasn't that Reid wasn't looking for his own place. He was. Each and every team member had their eyes peeled for something that fit a set qualification: it was relatively safe and fit Reid's price range. Of course, Reid also had to like it. Rossi had made mention of that last point while describing a college apartment he'd had to live in for eighteen months as an undergraduate ("just because it's cheap doesn't mean it's right, let alone livable," he'd said).
The problem was finding such a spot. Everything people found for Reid to look at was just out of his price range, and the ones that he could afford were in places that seemed to suggest they might be investigating Reid's murder shortly after he moved in.
"This is crazy," said Reid a couple of days ago, after Morgan had taken him out to look at yet another shoebox-sized place. "It's the car that's killing me. I could afford half of the places you guys have shown me—that one near Garcia's place was pretty nice—but then I remember that my check got smaller after that car incident…"
"What 'car incident'?"
Reid looked at his friend like he's just said the Earth was flat and that yes, scaly monsters really did eat unfortunate sailors who went over the edge.
"The car? In Oregon? I nearly killed us?"
Morgan looked dumbfounded for a moment. "Oregon…Oregon…"
"The door was ripped off by a small tree? Smoke was pouring out of the engine? It exploded?"
"Oh, that car…"
"Yeah."
"They really made you pay for it?"
"Seems the government insurance policy doesn't cover swerving to avoid raging herds of moose," Reid said, putting the last bit into 'air quotes.' "It's called an act of God or something…"
Morgan seriously doubted God had had anything to do with it. More likely it was our unsub that did it, but there's no way to prove it…
Reid sighed. "Maybe I should just see if I can't move into Hotch's garage or something…"
"You wouldn't last five minutes, kid."
"Hey, I can handle a little adversity."
"It's not the adversity I'm worried about," Morgan laughed. "More like the neighborhood watch deciding you were trying to break into his place at three a.m. when you decided to take a shower."
"Oh. Yeah. There is that…"
Morgan clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Well, sooner or later something will show up. Just remember that you're still welcome to stay at my place for as long as it takes." Or until you drive me crazy enough to ship you to Abu Dhabi…