Random Shuffle, Music Meme Part Three

[coffeebuddha]

Title: Random Shuffle
Author: coffeebuddha
Rating: FRT
Characters/Pairings: Aaron Hotchner/Penelope Garcia, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Jack Hotchner, Elle Greenaway, Spencer Reid/Nathan Harris, Diana Reid
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.
1. Pick a character, fandom, pairing, friendship, whatever.
2. Put on your music program on shuffle/random and start playing songs.
3. For each song, write something inspired by the song related to the theme you chose earlier. You only have the song length. No pre-planning and no writing after the song is over. No skipping songs either.
4. Do 10 songs and post. Make sure to include the song name/artist.

 

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1. Just Another Day-Next to Normal OBC (Spencer Reid, gen)

It makes things easier if he doesn't think any further ahead than twenty-four hours. Maybe he should look to the future, try to figure out what he wants out of his life, try to figure out what he wants out of the next year, but it hurts too much. In the next twenty four hours, there's so much potential for everything to go to hell. A bully might give him a swirly, a teacher might take exception to him providing a correct answer that he can't verify, his mother might have an episode, he might have his first episode. And he can deal with that, really he can, but only for the next twenty four hours. The instant he sits down and thinks about the fact that the days will turn into weeks, the weeks to months, the months to years...It's more than he can take and if he can't take it anymore, then everything will fall apart that much faster. So, you see, it's better for everyone if he just focuses on today.

*

2. The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything-Reliant K (Aaron Hotchner, Jack Hotchner, gen)

Aaron flops back on the couch and watches Jack as he bounces around in front of the television. Some kid's show is on and the music alone is enough to make him cringe. Jack's dressed in a pirate costume and is wildly waving around a stuffed parrot and fake hook. When he executes a particularly enthusiastic twirling jump, his hat, which was pilfered from the box in Aaron's closet, flies off his head and smacks Aaron right in the face. It's been a long day, a longer week, and all Aaron really wants is a quiet evening to unwind, but when Jack comes over and tugs on his hand, he gets up and lets his son coerce him into singing and even a little bouncing, because Jack's smiling and laughing and happy, and after everything that's happened that's better than any quiet evening he could have planned for himself.

*

3. Feelin' Alright-Joe Crocker (Spencer Reid/Derek Morgan, slash)

When he finally recognized the symptoms, Spencer locked himself in the bathroom and sat tucked in the small space  between the toilet and the bathtub with his knees pulled up to his chest and his face in his hands until Derek got home. When he heard the front door open, he took a couple of deep breaths and, forcing the panic down, went to meet him. That night over dinner, Derek was talking about some trip he wanted to take the next time they had a couple weeks off. Spencer only half listened as he picked at his food, occasionally nodding when Derek gave him an expectant look. He doesn't know what to say about that. They're not scheduled to have any extended time off for months yet. Aside from the occasional, barely noticeable slips, he feels fine, but how far gone will he be even a month from now, much less several. How much longer does he have before his mind betrays him completely?

*

4. Crusade-Voltaire (Nathan Harris/Spencer Reid, slash)

Spencer's the smart one in their relationship, but that doesn't stop Nathan from thinking-constantly thinking. He encourages Spencer to talk about the cases he works. It's half wanting to help his lover unburden himself, but some of his motives are less innocent. Spencer had been reluctant to share anything in the beginning, but the longer they're together, the more he begins to offer until he's giving Nathan intricate details with almost no prompting. Nathan listens. He listens more intently than he ever did in any of his classes. He knows what he is, has come to terms with it in the years since he first sought help. Part of his recovery was acknowledging the twisted desires that he hides inside his heart of hearts. He wants to believe that he'll never give in to those desires, that he's smarter, stronger, better than that, but if he does...If he does ever fail himself and give in and lose control, he'll do it the right way. He listens, he remembers, and he learns, and, if it comes to that, he knows all that he needs to in order to not get caught. 

*

5. Do What I Can-Greg Laswell (Spencer Reid, Diana Reid, gen)

The nurse on duty is new, someone Spencer's never met before. She's friendly and sweet and he ends up talking to her for nearly an hour before he forces himself away from the desk and down the hallway. Even without his eidetic memory he would know every detail of this walk. Every scuff on the floor, every water stain on the ceiling, every nick in the plaster is one more thing to distract himself from the reason he's here.

It's not enough. Most days he feels like he's just doing the bare minimum, just enough so that people won't look at him with disgust when they find out. He wants to do more, so much more than he is, but he can't. He can't bring himself to stay nearby. He can't make himself visit her more often than he already does. He's afraid.

He's so afraid he can barely stand it.

It's a good day, as good a day as she ever seems to have anymore. When he goes into her room, she isn't sullen and silent. She smiles and gestures for him to come closer, and, when he sits down, she motions to a picture of him on her bedside table that must have been taken when he was about five and starts telling him all about 'her little boy' and Spencer smiles and nods and lets her words wash over him.

It's a good day.

*

6. Nobody's Side-Idina Menzel/Chess In Concert (Elle Greenaway, gen)

A team is supposed to be made up of a group of equals with complementary strengths who respect and protect each other, so why does she feel like she's been thrown to the wolves? Elle paces her living room. If she looks closely enough, she can still see the faint outline of her blood on the wall. She's repainted it six times. It hasn't made a difference. She wants to trust Hotch, to trust them all, but every time she starts to her brain snags on the fact that if just one of them had been there she wouldn't have been hurt. She's alone. Maybe she's always been alone. She can't count on them, only herself.

Elle picks up a paint roller again to try and stares hard at the wall, willing it to let her cover up the brand of her blood for real.

*

7. And So It Goes-Melissa Errico (Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, slash)

The quiet hum of the machines burrows under his skin until he wants to scrub hard at it in an attempt to make it go away. He tries to think of the steady beeping as a sign that there's still hope, but after three days it's getting harder and harder to believe that Derek will ever wake up again. Spencer's barely moved from his side, only leaving the hospital at all when Hotch and Rossi had physically manhandled him into a car and driven him back to his apartment to shower and change into clothes that weren't splattered with blood. There are still thin cresents of red under his fingernails, and in a perverse way he doesn't want to wash them away. They're a tie to Derek, who looks smaller than he has any right to laid out on that damn, sterile bed. Spencer presses his forehead against the hard jut of Derek's hipbone and kisses the limp hand he has clasped in both of his, his lips moving ferverently as he whispers. The hum and beeps of the machines drown out his breathless words, but he can almost make himself believe that Derek hears him, and that's reason enough to keep repeating, "You can't leave me yet. Please, please wake up."

*

8. Love Today-Mika (Aaron Hotchner/Penelope Garcia, het)

Aaron isn't exactly certain how he ended up alone with Penelope at the bar. Well, maybe it had something to do with the fact that she hadn't seemed in any hurry to leave and something inside of him had whispered that it wouldn't be the worst thing to outlast the rest of team instead of heading home early just this one. Depending on your perspective, it could be viewed as a stroke of good luck that when they finally venture out into the parking lot in the very early morning hours they find her car with a flat tire. What could he do but offer to drive her home? After all, his mother had raised him to be a gentleman. Which is why he insisted on seeing her safely to her door once they'd reached her building. After all, anything could happen.

When she asks him if he wants to come in for a drink, there's really no answer but yes. An hour later, his drink is still untouched, but neither of them are.

*

9. Sooner or Later-Bernadette Peters/Sondheim, Etc. (Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, preslash)

Derek watches Reid from across the room. The other man is emerced in a thick stack of papers, his eyes narrowed with concentration as he traces a finger down page after page after page. When he's serious like this, it's easy to forget he's so young. Actually, Derek decides as Reid picks up another paper, he does a lot of things that make it easy to forget that. And yet at the same time he's so naive about so many things, although Derek isn't entirely convinced that at least some of it isn't an act. Sometimes Reid will say or do something that makes him seem as innocent as a school girl, but he'll get that wicked look in his eyes and his pretty, pretty lips will maybe quirk, almost too quickly to catch, and when that happens it makes Derek even more determined to push things until Reid finally gives and acknowledges the not so subtle hints he's been dropping. Derek isn't used to failure when it comes to getting what he wants, whether it's an unsub or a romantic partner and right now he has his eye on one Dr. Spencer Reid.

*

10. On the Safest Ledge-Copeland (Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, slash)

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid decision. Stupid and reckless and brilliant and glorious and as bright shining as the Vegas lights at night. Derek's arms are strong around him, lifting him up to perch on the kitchen counter, and Spencer grunts against his mouth when the back of his head smacks into a cupboard, but when Derek tries to pull back, he pulls him even closer. There's an empty bottle on the table and a missed call from JJ on both of their phones, but neither of them particularly care. When Derek's hand slips underneath his shirt, scalding against his bare skin, Spencer hisses and bites his shoulder and wants to crawl inside of him where everything is strong and safe and beautifully imperfect. Derek kisses him, hard and unyielding, and Spencer can't do anything but hold on tight as they both fall.

***

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