Far from Home ; Criminal Minds ; Spencer Reid (Moreid)

[Nebula]

A/N: Howdy! Like many things I end up getting into, I'm several years late to the hype on this show and have been bingeing it all over the last few weeks. So naturally I wanted to write for the fandom and this is the result. Hope there are still some fans out there and that you enjoy!

 

Being a profiler could be dehumanising. The demand to focus all of your attention on other people's behaviour, feelings, and habits meant you learned to dismiss your own as less important, or pressing, even when they cried out to be recognised.

It was easy to get so caught up in the sheer weight of responsibility their job entailed, the pressure that was put on them as local PD's 'Hail Mary' to swoop in and save the day, that they forget they're human beings; fallible ones, at that. Just like everybody else.

Nothing brings you back down to Earth and remind you of that quite like a run-of-the-mill - but nonetheless annoying - cold. He'd felt it coming on little by little ever since the previous evening, but with the rapid pace at which the unsub, and therefore the case, devolved it had been forcibly cast to the back of his mind.

For which it was now apparently deciding to get revenge on him when he finally had a minute to breathe, ironically by making it that much harder for him to do so effectively.

"hh'nxgt!" Reid squashed back into the crook of his elbow, and the immediately again, the the relentless buzz of irritation not assuaged by the tightly curtailed stifle "hihh... hH'Gxt!".

With a stuffy sigh he reached for the little pile of admittedly rough, sandpaper-y napkins he'd scavenged from one of the jet's cupboards in preparation for their flight home and pressed it to his nose, now threatening to drip despite the congestion.

He was thankful that the others seemed to be giving him a wide berth, scattered across the rest of the jet as they were. Maybe it was just the cabin pressure, but everything tickled and ran and ached in a gross, all-encompassing discomfort and it just felt like this was gearing up to be bad. The last thing he wanted was to be responsible for anyone else getting sick as well.

That being said, he couldn't deny the hint of warmth he felt in his chest when JJ squeezed his shoulder on the way to the bathroom, with a ghost of a sympathetic smile.

"huH'EHG'xt!"

The air between them all was so silent, seemingly contemplative in the dimmed cabin lights, that despite his compulsion to swallow them back into as near-nothingness as possible the sound of the sneezes still cut obtrusively through the peace. They came so frequently now it was hardly even worth picking back up the book he'd brought out, intending to finish.

When his eyes fluttered open from the last set, as if out of thin air, Morgan had appeared in front of him brandishing two steaming takeaway cups. He settled down into the seat opposite him, and Reid regarded him with quiet but cautious welcome over the top of the napkin he'd tucked to his face, mopping himself up with new sheepish discretion.

When Morgan spoke his words were careful, but deep and rumbling in tone. Soothing. "You doing okay, pretty boy?" he asked, nudging Spencer's leg with his foot under the table, an invisible citation to the exchange meant only for them. Spencer's heart jumped in his chest.

Even more so when Derek's feet then moved to trap Spencer's own, and pulled it gently towards him.

"I'm fine" Spencer replied simply, voice mangled with congestion even if it was just barely two words. The sound of it, even to himself, had irritated tears threatening to pool in his eyes.

Derek frowned, waiting for Spencer to start chattering away like he was prone to do, only it never came. The look he sported made Spencer want to try though, so he cleared his throat as best he could.

"I mean I was overdue for a cold anyway so it was to be expected, really. It's been, uh..." he trailed off, the figures swimming around in his head as he tried to retrieve them. Usually his ability for memory recall was crystal clear; today it was like looking through murky water. On top of the goddamn incessant urge to sneeze which was once again flaring to life.

"It... it's b'hHeen..." he fought on regardless, scrubbing his nose against the side of his long, elegant fingers as his mouth dropped open and his breath scissored. "S-hh... six months, th'hh... hiH three weeks a-and... and two days- hUH'IHGXt'uh... hiH'IGxt'eyuh".

Derek winced. "Bless you, ba- kid" he commented, quickly correcting himself.

Right. Not that; not at work.

Every inch of him ached to help, or comfort, or be of use in some way, despite being caught in a situation wherein being stuck on a plane and surrounded by their work colleagues made those instincts challenging. If only to stop himself leaning across to take Spencer's hand in his, or reaching out to thumb away the tear just over-spilling from the corner of his tired, red-rimmed eye, he pushed one of the cups towards the other man whilst simultaneously picking up the other himself.

With a look of wordless, weary gratitude Spencer took the cup and brought it to his lips, only to instantly recoil from it in disgust.

"I don't even need a fully functioning sense of taste to know that there's no sugar in that".

Eyebrows furrowing in confusion, and in a move he didn't appear to even really think about, Derek reached out and plucked the cup from Spencer's hands. From one sip he instantly recognised the taste of black coffee. "Oh yeah, that's mine. My bad..." he said, offering the other cup.

The tea, whilst hot and welcoming against the back of his throat, was the generic lacklustre kind they kept on-board, tucked away in a cupboard somewhere given the fact that nobody really drank it apart from Garcia when she occasionally joined them in the field. Honestly, Spencer would've probably preferred the coffee, but he appreciated the gesture nonetheless. "Thanks..." he muttered, bringing the cup to his lips "Whilst I do appreciate it I really wouldn't have minded a coffee either".

"No no no, sick people don't get highly caffeinated drinks when they should be trying to rest" Derek chastised, though Spencer could hear the teasing bleed into his tone.

Spencer rolled his eyes, instinctively taking the bait. "Tea is caffeinated too! On average, for every 100g of black filter coffee there's 40mg of caffeine, and in the same quantity of brewed tea whilst the figure is lower it still-" He didn't get to finish however, as the rest of the info dump got swallowed up by a bout of coughing which set alight the prickle in his sinuses once more.

"heH'EHSC'Xt'uh" he sneezed, the stifles at this point only really being qualifiable as half-stifles, really.

Derek observed him with a soft gaze, although it did have an undeniable air of 'case in point' that weakened Spencer's resolve. "Drink your tea, doc".

They sat in companionable near-silence for the rest of the journey. Derek listened to music and for a while Spencer tried to persevere with his attempt to read, despite the fact that the fast-depleting supply of napkins held underneath his nose had become a near permanent fixture, in a very necessary but distracting way. When they were about forty five minutes away from Quantico, a particularly devastating couple of sneezes seemed to topple the house of cards however, and Spencer flipped the book closed with a huff of annoyance.

It caught Derek's attention, and he turned back from where he'd been staring out the window, pausing the music and pulling his headphones out. Sensing the other man's irritation and discomfort, Derek reached for the book with quiet "May I?"

He made a show of glancing at the cover, reading the title aloud "'Modern Quantum Mechanics'... I've been meaning to pick this up, y'know?" he joked.

The smile he got from Spencer was small and reluctant, but there nonetheless. The younger man reached across and covered the by-line with his hand. "Who wrote it?". Derek hesitated for a beat, before shaking his head with recomposed smugness. "Oh, do you need me to tell you that? There's a first".

Spencer seemed poised to retort, only his expression faltered again, harshly scrubbed-pink nostrils which stood out starkly against the pallor of his complexion flaring to life. "hehh... h'uhhH'EHSSCh'uh!" The force of it snapped him forward, and the unrestrained nature of it at least seemed to give him a bit of relief and prevented any chance of an immediate encore.

God his boy sounded sick, and like he shouldn't be anywhere other than in bed. Derek may not be able to do anything about it now, but as soon as they landed he'd personally see to it that he wasn't - trust and believe that.

"Hey, kid..." Spencer's eyes rose to meet his, all the teasing gone from his voice, leaving behind only his low, calming timbre. "We're less than an hour from home, why don't you try and get some rest?"

After mulling it over for a second Spencer nodded, resigned by the fact that he didn't really have anything else he could do other than that. Derek stood up and opened the overhead locker above them, pulling his own go-bag out onto the table. He rooted through it before eventually pulling out a hoodie - dark navy and clearly faded from frequent washing, it was one Spencer instantly recognised. It was Derek's FBI softball team hoodie.

He folded it up into a vague pillow-like shape and handed it over, and Spencer took it with a quiet 'thank you'. Pressing it up against the window beside him Spencer shimmied down in his seat and tried to get as comfortable as he could for the remainder of the journey.

For Derek it didn't hold a candle to the thought of being able to pull the genius's head into his own lap, stroking his hair just the way he knows Spence loves it (let it be known that Spencer Reid is like a cat when it comes to having his hair played with) until he dozes off - but there'll be time for that later.

When they eventually do land the stiff night air hits Spencer hard as they descend onto the tarmac, and by the time they get into the main building he's so evidently full of sniffles, signalling his worsening condition, that Derek has no qualms propositioning him in front of the others.

"Hey Reid, you didn't drive here the day we flew out, right? You want a ride home?" he asked with feigned nonchalance as everyone congregated in the bullpen to gather their things before heading out.

Half in a daze, Spencer glanced up from where he'd dropped down tiredly into his desk chair and started to give his nose a soft (but badly) needed blow as he waited for the others.

Oh yeah, they'd agreed on this. Providing a cover for why they'd be leaving together.

Lord knows he wasn't the best actor or liar on the best of days, especially when it came to lying to and/or playing up a ruse to a group of profilers who knew him more intimately than anyone else on the planet, so it was probably good that the question caught him by surprise and so prompted what would've been, on any other occasion, a rather genuine reaction.

"Uh, no... no I didn't. I think I'm fine though? Don't worry...".

Derek rolled his eyes, probably because he could tell the same thing - hear the air of truth in it. The general Reidness of the dismissal.

"Now what I'm not gonna do is let you take the metro home late at night when it's cold out and you're already sick...

C'mon; let's go, pretty boy".

[supernaturalfragalistic]

Please continue!! I love this 

[SneezingGenius]

I love this this! I've also been bingeing Criminal Minds for the past few months and have been reading old fanfictions. I'm glad I was able to read a new one as well!

[Jettous]

Yay. I love a Reid story, especially a Reid/Morgan story. And they totally just drank out of the same cup, foreshadowing maybe 😏

[ID2006]

Please tell me there is more caretaking coming 

[Seeker]

I'm all for more Reid stories 

[AntheaHolmes]

Oh I love them together and sick and sneezy Spencer is so adorable!