Disclaimer: I've told y'all again and again – Criminal Minds does not belong to me in any way, shape, or form! Dr. Lorraine Quinn and her various animal buddies, on the other hand, do belong to me. If you would like to use any of them, please ask me! If you don't like OC's, why are you reading this series?
Ch. 3 – Need A Little Christmas
The Christmas movie marathon had gone on into the night. The last thing Spencer remembered was hearing Bing Crosby's voice again. The easygoing Father O'Malley had come to the rescue of ailing St. Mary's. But somewhere in the middle of the movie, the genius looked down to find a sleeping redhead. Lorraine had curled up basically into her dress, looking smaller than ever, and gripped his sweater tightly with one hand. Hawkeye had joined them on the couch at some point, the 200-pound behemoth halfway sleeping on her. Unable to bring himself to wake her and physically incapable of moving the gigantic dog, the great Dr. Reid passed out on the couch.
"Why is my face wet?" grumbled the genius the next morning, wiping his cheek with his hand and trying to get all that bubbly spit out of his eyes. "Ugh… Furry thing, get off!"
The black-and-white fur-heap flumped down off the couch and sat down, staring expectantly at him, drooling as usual. Next thing he knew, something small stirred at his side. He looked down and saw Lorraine twisting around, trying to get comfortable again and nowhere near awake. She cracked one liner-smeared eye open and made a grumpy noise. The eye closed again then she hid her face against Spencer's side. Gently, the profiler lifted her up, smiling as she pushed feebly against him. This went on for but a moment, and then she…
"Oh shit!" she spluttered, flailing in his arms and almost tumbling the both of them off the couch. Hawkeye drooled happily at them. "I didn't mean for- I'm so sorry!"
Spencer shielded his face as Lorraine's arm flew by it in her panic. As she tried to get up, her knee caught itself in her skirt, sending her to the floor. The giant dog didn't move other than to lick the top of her head. She gazed bemusedly up at her boyfriend, tilting her head in a manner he found incurably adorable. Smiling back at her, he reached his hand down – she let him help her up. Hawkeye dropped from a 'sit' into a 'down' and continued to drool on the rug. Looking at her in mild concern, Spencer realized something.
"Was this not supposed to happen?" he asked her, feeling a knot that smacked of dread twist up in his stomach. "… did I do something wrong?"
Lorraine had a horrified look on her face for a moment.
"No… yes… No, of course not!" she sputtered, shaking her head violently. "No, no – you didn't do anything wrong! I just… Oh god… This wasn't… I'm so sorry!"
He had zero idea why she kept apologizing – other than the mild tension in his back he saw no ill effects from a night spent on her couch. Okay… and the giant drool-stains on his pants and sweater, he hadn't seen those. For some reason, he had to smile awkwardly at the one on his sweater. Lorraine smiled back just as wryly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. As he felt the dread-knot melting away, Spencer felt a little bold again. He reached out to Lorraine and, for the first time ever, kissed his girlfriend good morning.
"Please don't apologize, then," he told her when they pulled back. Lorraine's cheeks turned Santa-hat red and she looked down at her socks. "If nothing's wrong, then you don't need to."
All of a sudden, he found himself once again very suddenly with an armful of redhead. Lorraine's small body pressed against his in a way that caused him to feel very warm, very quickly. Her hands, those nails especially, gripped his back in a way he had certainly never felt before – he liked it! After biting his lip in consideration for a second, he kissed her again. This time, he held her close, really letting himself enjoy having her against him. One of Lorraine's hands trailed up to tangle in his hair, something else he had never felt before.
Spencer had a vague clue of what was happening, and he liked it very much, but found himself unsure of how to progress. Lorraine had stood up on her toes again and nuzzled into his neck. Oh hell! She bit him! He yelped and they both pulled back, their faces brick-red. Then she pulled him down to her again, kissing him in a way he might have protested to on an earlier day. His hands now seemed to act of their own accord. One trailed up her back, causing him to blush into kissing her as he found the clasp of her bra. The other hand slid downward, but then…
There was an explosion of extremely frightening noise, causing Spencer to pull back from Lorraine as if something had burned him. Lorraine shrieked and jumped back as well. All of a sudden, he became very aware of Hawkeye's true and very large size. The giant dog had leapt to all fours and begun barking at the profiler. A ridge of fluffy hair stood up along his back and Spencer could see every tooth in the dog's huge head. He stepped back from his girlfriend very slowly, his hands held up as though he were unarmed against a suspect. The dog still looked incredibly threatening. Spencer looked from Hawkeye's teeth to Lorraine's startled face.
"Spencer, I am so sorry!" she blurted out, still looking quite nervous. "Hawkeye has never done anything like this before. I don't know what's got into him!"
Hawkeye had calmed to the point that now he just growled, the sound petering down to more of a snuffle. The hair along his spine had returned to its normal level of fluff. Both ears returned to their normal downward-floppy setting and his tail drooped as it ceased being worth the effort to keep it up. He sneezed messily and collapsed back on the floor. Lorraine and Spencer both watched the dog turn from giant furry rage-monster back into overgrown living rug. The redhead looked up at her boyfriend.
"Seriously," she piped up, a rather deadpan look on her face and frustration in her eyes. "I had no idea my dog was the Hulk."
Spencer stared blankly for a second, still more than a tiny bit shaken, but then smiled at her and tried to force a laugh.
"Don't do that!" hollered Lorraine, her voice doing that 'spike suddenly in volume' thing again. "You look psychotic!"
Okay, now he had proof. He made a mental note to ask Garcia to check up on how many files the FBI had on him personally. Lorraine, fussing about something under her breath, had stepped away to look for something. Hawkeye had gone back to sleep, snoring wetly, and Everett was nowhere to be seen. Scuffing his shoes on the floor, Spencer looked out the window and felt very foolish. He had a decent feeling of what Lorraine had been somewhat-planning. It made no sense to be annoyed with the dog – anything could have set him off… But it was still irritating. He settled for watching his girlfriend rifle through couch cushions and look under the coffee table.
"Spencer?" she asked in the tone he had come to recognize meant 'I need something,' tilting her head at him. "Can I borrow your cell phone for a second? I can't find mine. I need to call the vet about Hawk."
This sounded reasonable enough. The genius fished through his pockets and extracted his phone, handing it over. Immediately, Lorraine scooted from the room and down a hallway. Spencer heard a door shut, and then the muffled thump of another – he suspected she had holed up in her bathroom. Strange, but he supposed ladies had done stranger things. He eyed the large dog even more suspiciously, but it just snoozed on the floor, creating a drooly wet spot.
Lorraine had indeed shut herself up in her bathroom, and locked it, with Spencer's cell phone. She had heard him talk about his team and she knew who she needed to get hold of: Penelope Garcia. So, with her face lit up only by the light of the phone, she scrolled carefully through the contact list. She recognized a lot of the names already: Morgan, Hotch, Rossi, Prentiss, JJ… Somehow, the thing seemed to have scrambled the order – "Garcia" was not under "G" where she belonged. But the redhead kept scrolling, on a mission, until she hit the "T" section and an entry titled "Tech Goddess." Going out on a limb – this was the only entry with a nickname – she hit the 'call' button.
The other end rang twice, and then it got picked up.
"Speak to me, boy wonder!" drawled a bright, pleasant, genial-sounding female voice. Lorraine froze for just a minute – she could almost hear the blonde lady's tilting head on the other end of the phone. Garcia called, "Hello? Paging Dr. Reid!"
Lorraine took a deep breath and let the idea that had been brewing in her explode at the other woman:
"This is Penelope Garcia, right? Hi! I promise I'm not crazy or anything – I'm Dr. Lorraine Quinn! Dunno if he's said anything, but I'm Spencer's girlfriend and I had this idea and I figured you would be the best person to help, and I'm sorry I stole his phone, but it was the only way to get in contact with you and he's said you're the best there is on getting sort of crazy things done. Can you call that one guy, Morgan, get Spencer out and about for a while, and meet me at the Espresso Hut in a little bit? Again, I promise I'm not like a terrorist or anything and I know you probably just put me on a watch list for using the T-word."
Garcia held her phone out at arm's length for a second, attempting to process the deluge of noise and information. She scratched her head, avoiding her curlers, and blinked almost queasily. Point the first quickly registered with her: Pretty Boy did indeed have a girlfriend. This brought her lips into an almost manic grin, also bringing the phone back to her head. She started running through the plan for Morgan in her head as she returned her attention to the cell.
"This is indeed the lovely and talented Penelope Garcia," she confirmed to the other woman. "You can call me one or the other, but seeing as you're not Sheldon Cooper, please refrain from both."
Both women laughed for a moment.
"Okay, yeah, so… can you help me?" Lorraine asked, explaining that, "Spencer's got a major case of… I dunno, Grinch syndrome."
Garcia's ears perked up even more than before.
"I am listening and I am listening intently," she replied, tugging at an itchy curler for a second. "What sort of idea have you brewed up, Miss Doctor Person?"
Lorraine laughed again and told Garcia, "You can call me Lorraine, you know!" and started in on her explanation.
"Okay, you know how the Grinch's heart grew three sizes when he discovered the true meaning of Christmas?"
Garcia cut in.
"Even as inescapably cute as Snoopy is, the boy does not have time for a Beagle with as much as he travels," she said flatly, getting quick mental images of Reid running round in gun-range hearing protection. "So how are we de-Grinchifying the boy genius?"
Again, both women laughed together.
"Well, my idea was to keep him out of his apartment for long enough," Lorraine paused for dramatic effect. "… That you and I could go in there and set up a Christmas to put Jack Skellington to shame!"
The technically-analytic genius-in-her-own-right could feel the wheels in her brain whirr into overdrive. She had visions of trees and lights and presents and her pet prodigy smiling bewilderedly. The mental view pleased her, giving her the feeling that Reid had picked a good one. She picked up a tablet off her night table and started poking away at it for Christmas deals.
"Can do!" she confirmed, continuing to tap on the tablet. "Matter of fact, consider it done! Anything for my favorite wunderkind's lady-friend, I say!"
Lorraine thanked the other woman profusely, but then hit upon a single snag.
"So, how do we get him out of his apartment for enough time for us to meet at the Espresso Hut and keep him out long enough to go shopping?" she asked. "And after that, how do we continue to keep him out so we can decorate?"
Garcia got the inkling that this might be how Obi-Wan Kenobi felt training Luke.
"Patience, dear lady!" she told Lorraine with her usual air of technological superiority. "Let me work my magic on a man named Morgan and we'll have the whole day in nothing flat! Now you get the tall skinny one out of your place so we can get to work!"
Lorraine breathed an audible sigh of relief.
"Oh my God, Miss Garcia, thank you so much" she gushed – then she caught her own eye in the bathroom mirror and paused. "Wait a second… how did you know he was over at my place?"
She could hear the twinkle in the vibrant computer lady's eyes.
"Hon, you used his cell phone to call me," Garcia reminded Lorraine, grinning from ear to ear. "And you admitted you stole it within thirty seconds of speaking to me. That phone doesn't leave his pants, so I could assume one of two things. I can assume you've had your fun, so get rid of him and we can go caffeinate!"
Before Lorraine could sputter anything in return, the line went dead and she was left blushing at her bathroom mirror. She switched the cellular device back and forth from hand to hand for a second, considering what she had just done. Garcia, on the other hand, turned over and scrolled through her own contacts. It was really just a formality before rolling her eyes, hitting the number '3' on her speed-dial. She grumbled at the sound of the other end ringing once, then twice, three times, and almost going to voice mail. Then she heard the 'connect' tone and a deep voice.
"Lay it on me, Pretty Mama," Derek Morgan drawled into the phone…
Back in the living room, Spencer Reid stood there – exceptionally bewildered this time – staring at the sleeping dog and wondering what the hell just happened.