Disclaimer: In the interest of the spirit of the season, they finally gave it to me: Criminal Minds is now mine! You know what? April Fools. It isn't. It's still not mine and, barring a miracle, never will be. Lorraine and her animals are mine. You want to use? Ask nicely. The movies mentioned are real and they're not mine either – just the DVDs.
Author's Note: Yes, there is an extremely racially-insensitive scene in the movie Holiday Inn. I encourage you to watch it for the cultural significance. Ignoring that bad things happened doesn't make them go away. And the song really is tragically catchy. Don't flame me if you don't like the movie or the reference to it. It happens to be one of my favorite musicals.
Ch. 2 – And Come to Holiday Inn
Instead of reading on the Metro like usual, Spencer simply sat there and spaced out. He hadn't realized he was staring in the direction of that teenage girl until she flipped him off and shoved her headphones deeper into her ears. Adjusting his field of vision, he returned to his train of thought: what to get Lorraine. What he'd said was true, about never gift-shopping for women before. His mother and JJ would usually be happy with whatever. Prentiss could be counted on to like books. If it screamed cute loud enough for Spencer to hear it, he could pretty much guess Garcia would like it. He hadn't been in close quarters with Lorraine long enough to-
"Hey, that's my girlfriend, asshole!" a man's angry voice addressed him.
Spencer startled and shook his head to clear it – a man wearing a Boston Red Sox jacket glared at him with his arm around a pretty brunette. The genius apologized and pulled out a book, shrinking behind it. Apparently the subject of today's train of thought caused him to stare blankly at attractive women. He blinked at the page in front of him, not really seeing the words. The Metro announcement system called out his usual stop. Absent-mindedly, he picked his way through the crowd, only to remember where he was actually going.
"Watch where you're going, stupid!" the same teenage girl he had inadvertently ogled snapped at him when he bumped into her. "Ugh…"
He apologized once again to the girl and found himself without a seat. So he shoved the book back in his bag and grabbed a hand-hold. The Metro took off again, causing his skinny frame to lurch unpleasantly. His practically-super-powered brain whizzed in overdrive as he chewed over shopping choices. Another bit of his mind reminded him that he had a good week until Christmas Day, so he had time to make an informed decision. He would have asked who decided to start all this hoopla, but he knew that already.
Once more, the Metro's announcement called for people to start boarding and unloading – they had arrived at the stop closest to Lorraine's apartment. Spencer brushed carefully past people and stepped off the train, looking around for the exit. He followed the crowd and heard many voices, mostly children's, yelling about something. As he got closer, he could tell what it was – it had started to snow ever so lightly. Everyone over the age of twelve either pulled faces or complained outright. Spencer didn't mind, pulling his jacket closer around his thin body. It actually didn't seem as cold when it was snowing.
The walk to Lorraine's apartment from the Metro station only took about twenty minutes. It had continued snowing, but not heavily enough for it to stick, he noted with a surprising touch of disappointment. Where had that come from? He dodged a jogger with a large dog that looked like a black Golden Retriever and continued up the way. The security fellow at the front of Lorraine's complex saw him from a ways off and waved him on in. When he got to the gate, he thanked the man and started back towards Lorraine's building.
He reached Lorraine's front door and wiped his shoes on the mat that still read "Wipe your paws." Shifting nervously for a moment as he always did, he reached out and pushed the doorbell. Immediately, sound exploded on the other side of the door. Hawkeye, barking uncontrollably, thundered to the front hallway to continue making as much noise as he possibly could. Spencer could hear Lorraine inside as well, shouting at the dog to "cram it!" She hollered to whoever was at the door that she'd be there in a sec. Then, a struggle ensued as she shoved the dog out of the way.
"Hey Spencer!" she chirped breathlessly, holding Hawkeye off with one foot as she opened the door for her boyfriend. "Come on in! He's just excited."
Still looking askance at the animal, Spencer stepped inside. Immediately, a wall of absolutely wonderful smell hit him in the face. He didn't have time to think about that, though, as he found himself with an armful of redhead. Lorraine stood up on her toes, caught his cheek in her palm, and kissed him. Smiling, she pulled back, blushing. She had left a smear of cookie dough on his cheek from her hand. Spencer reached up to wipe it off, but she caught his hand, leaned up, and kissed it away. He leaned down to kiss her back, but Hawkeye chose that moment to lean heavily into his knees.
"What is it with dogs?" he asked Lorraine, stumbling and regaining his balance. Looking sheepish, he told her, "The team calls it 'the Reid effect.' For some reason, children and animals don't like me very much."
Lorraine shook her head, that ever-present red braid flapping about behind her, and made a dismissive hand gesture.
"Aw, Hawkeye loves you!" she insisted, dropping on her knees and rumpling all the fluff and floppy skin round the dog's face. "Hawkeye loves everybody cos he's a lovey boy, yes he is!"
Normally, Spencer could not stand people who babbled at their pets, but in Lorraine, it was just sort of par for the course. The dog looked up at Spencer with a drippy grin, the fluffy tail wagging. Lorraine squealed at Hawkeye again and found herself rewarded with a slobbery kiss. This, she unashamedly wiped on her red and white striped dress's skirt. Spencer turned to face Everett, the large Maine Coon cat who had turned up at his ankles. He could handle that a lot better than the giant furry drool-monster.
"So, make yourself comfortable!" Lorraine told him for nowhere-near-the-first time, smiling at him gingerly making friends with the cat. "Soon as I finish up in here, we can start movies! I've got Holiday Inn, White Christmas, Bells of St. Mary's, and It's A Wonderful Life!"
Spencer had heard of most of these films, but could not recall ever having seen even one. He figured that to voice this information would cause an explosion of extremely high pitch from Lorraine, so he refrained for the moment. So in the meantime, he took her up on the offer of making himself comfortable. Shrugging out of his jacket, he hung that up on the Mary Poppins-esque hat stand in the front hallway. Hawkeye sniffed it, coating the right sleeve in sticky, foamy dog drool. The profiler wrinkled his nose and made a mental note to have that dry-cleaned ASAP. Everett hopped up into the spot he had just been about to take on the couch.
"Move!" he ordered, pointing at the floor as the cat looked at him – great child prodigy of the famed BAU – like he was some kind of idiot. "Go on, cat… Off!"
Lorraine scurried on into the kitchen, out of which still poured a wonderful smell, followed by the giant hairy one.
"Just pick him up!" she yelled as she dished the last dozen balls of raw cookie dough out of the bowl. "He's a big baby!"
The cat stared up at him, lamp-like gold eyes saying 'one step closer, bub, and you'll get your hand back in a Christmas box.' Determined not to let a 30-pound cat get the better of him, Spencer reached a hand out to move the animal. Predictably, he yelped and pulled it back as Everett flatly refused to budge even an inch from his cushion. Glaring at the angry, fuzzy lump, the great Dr. Reid fell back to regroup. Everett purred in satisfaction, the gold eyes falling half-closed like Brando in The Godfather.
"Cat, I have three Ph. Ds," the genius informed the animal, who gave him a look that said 'so what?' "That is my seat and you are going to move."
The fuzzy gray creature stared up at him with those nearly-glowing eyes. For his part, Spencer had faced armed unsubs, but this cat had him baffled. He knew what sort of nasty things resided in and under cats' claws. Scratches led to infections, and those could go very badly, very quickly. At the same time, though… How could a genius profiler not be able to pick up and toss a cat off the couch? Bowing up and taking a deep breath, he reached for the animal.
There was an almost electric-sounding popping noise. A giant, fuzzy white paw shot out. Spencer swore and jerked his hand back, immediately sucking on the bleeding scratch across his knuckles. Giving the tall, thin human a look of utter contempt, the cat jumped down off the couch and stalked away. With his tail swishing irritably, he tucked himself under an end table. The gold eyes stared at Spencer with a look that said "Don't go to sleep… I will eat your soul." Feeling far less satisfied than he otherwise would have, the genius took a seat. He stared back at the cat.
"So, ready for a movie?" Lorraine popped back up in the living room.
Spencer held up his hand, showing her the cat scratch by way of an answer.
"Silly kitty!" she exclaimed, catching the cat and picking him up, holding him like a large, fluffy baby. "He didn't mean anything by it. Here, you take him for a minute."
All of a sudden, Spencer found him with an aggravated lump the size of a couch cushion dumped in his lap. Lorraine slid to her knees in front of the television and busied herself with the DVD player. She cursed at the electronic amalgam in front of her – it never responded with sufficient speed. Soon enough, the introductory menu of Holiday Inn played music on the television. Spencer had never seen the movie before. He could tell from the introduction that it was yet another musical. Lorraine hummed along with an orchestrated medley, only some of which the genius recognized.
"I take it you've never seen this before?" Lorraine asked, nestling on the couch beside him.
Feeling both bold and in need of sympathy for his scratched hand, Spencer set his arm around Lorraine's shoulders.
"No, Christmas movies weren't really a thing in our house," he told her, trying very hard not to sniff her outright – she smelled like strawberries. "Dad never liked them and Mom generally gave me documentaries on video. I think the closest to a Christmas movie was a special on holiday traditions around the world.
Lorraine looked up at him with a shine to her eyes that suggested she might cry.
"You mean… you've never even seen A Charlie Brown Christmas?" she asked in this tiny, soft voice. Spencer, looking rather baffled and getting the feeling he had just entered dangerous territory, shook his head. Lorraine's unique hazel-green eyes went almost inhumanly wide. "Oh my… How can you go through life not seeing Snoopy at Christmas? It's okay… I am so going to fix that."
Part of Spencer wanted to call up Garcia and introduce the two of them right this minute and another part wanted to make sure they never met. Lorraine had launched into one of her strings of hyper-babble, so he just smiled and nodded. Whatever she intended to show him, he would probably end up enjoying – he knew, at least, who the Peanuts characters were. Besides, he generally liked cartoons. However, Lorraine's almost-chipmunk-speed voice stopped immediately as a thin, balding man in an overcoat got out of a taxi. He greeted a group of young boys playing harmonica and dancing on the sidewalk.
"No one will ever dance like Fred Astaire again…" Lorraine told him in a tone that was almost reverent. "Or sing like Bing Crosby…"
The movie wasn't exactly complicated – the two male protagonists having trouble with the ladies in their lives. Bing Crosby's character left show business to live on a farm and when that didn't work so well, he turned the farm into an inn. Behind that was the premise that the place would be open holidays only, so for about fifteen days out of the year. Lorraine held her breath and grabbed hard onto Spencer's arm. Jim Hardy (Bing's character) sat down at the piano to play the opening notes of "White Christmas."
Spencer could never get over how much he loved to hear his girlfriend sing. It was a bit like sitting through Wicked with her that first night. He never had been one for Christmas music (a seasonal annoyance), or musicals for that matter. For some reason, though, he didn't mind with her. The sound, the words had meaning to her. She felt every note. Tears even streamed down her face as she sang along to "White Christmas" with Bing Crosby. He leaned down and rested his cheek on her shining red hair.
"You know, this movie brought the song White Christmas to the world," she told him, fiddling with the end of her braid. "Irving Berlin wrote all the holiday-themed songs just for this movie. The Valentine's number coming up was actually supposed to be the breakout song, but White Christmas stole the show!"
Spencer couldn't help smiling once again.
"You know," he echoed her. "It's not very often someone tells me something I don't know!"
Lorraine bumped him with her hip, sending Everett with a thud to the floor – the cat stalked away, looking disgusted.
"Coming from anybody but you, that would sound like a total jackass thing to say," she informed him, smiling up at him and kissing his cheek. When he smiled back, she hid her face against his neck. "Mmm…"
Spencer shifted against her, pulling her back.
"Your nose is cold!" he laughed, squeezing her shoulders.
She pouted at him and they settled back in for the rest of the movie. Fred Astaire's character had apparently discovered Bing's love interest. In order to hide her, Mr. Hardy had re-worked the number for Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Most people didn't remember that President's Day had once been the birthdays of two different presidents. Lorraine looked unfazed, but Spencer's eyes widened as Hardy painted his lady-friend's face with shoe polish. He had heard of blackface, of course, but had never actually seen it.
"This song is tragically catchy," remarked Lorraine.
And it really was, thought Spencer – he knew he would have problems getting it out of his head for a couple days at least. Sometimes his eidetic memory got him in trouble. Lorraine sang along with the "Abraham" number, more firmly cementing the catchiness in his brain. Hawkeye wagged his tail as he drifted over and plopped down like a rug in front of the television. Spencer still looked at the dog with narrowed eyes – how healthy was it to have a nemesis? The dog drooled on the carpet.
The genius decided, for the moment, to ignore the rug-monster. He looked down at Lorraine, who sat fixated on the television. Fred Astaire and Marjorie Reynolds danced clandestinely to "Be Careful, It's My Heart." In the end, Jim Hardy looked sour. It certainly seemed that his best friend was going to get the girl again. Lorraine tore her eyes away from the screen as the loudmouth manager yelled "Boy, are we happy!" Spencer tilted his head at her.
"Are you liking it so far?" she asked him, the hopeful tone in her voice impossible to get around.
He had never been fond of the season in general, but for some reason this campy old movie grew on him.
"Actually… I really am," he replied, holding her closer to his side. Her arm snaked around him in return. "Especially like this."