Chapter Text
Chaz was, as usual, the first to get to the office, in the morning, if 'before sunrise' really counted as morning. He wasn't usually this early, but he couldn't sleep, and he really had to get out of the house. Today, the smell was the first thing he was aware of, coming into the room, the cloying scent of tea roses that sped up his heart, that made him wonder, even after all these years, if he was just dreaming. His wrists ached, and for just a moment, he could swear he felt his throat closing against the smoke that wasn't there.
Who the hell--? But, no. Everyone on the team knew better, and none of them were here, yet.
He went looking for the source of the smell, but every step was dizzying, as if the room were changing shape around him, as he moved, and after a moment, he figured out he was doing it to himself. Possibly to anyone else in the room, had there been anyone else in the room, but there couldn't be. There was nowhere large enough to hide a person in here. Not effectively, anyway. Wrangling the Anomaly and his own insecurities back out of his way, he stepped up onto the corner of Tan's desk, and he could see almost everything. There was no one. There was just the overpowering smell of roses.
He edged back into the hall and took a few deep breaths. He'd never thought he'd be grateful for the smell of industrial carpet cleaner, but here he was. And Spencer was probably down the hall, or he would be, soon. Spencer... No, Spencer would also know better. And absolutely wouldn't have done it at work. They'd been careful about that. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask.
The elevator doors opened, just as he turned the corner at the end of the hall, and unsurprisingly, there was the man he was looking for. "I was just looking for you."
"Yeah, I figured that out three blocks ago." Reid raised his eyebrows and held out a cup of coffee. "You want to tell me what's going on?"
Chaz took the coffee, popped the lid off, and just breathed in the scent of it. "Someone's bathed our offices in the smell of tea roses."
"Valentine's day is tomorrow, and I'd suggest some kind of seasonal festivities, but I'd think your team are more the candy hearts and chocolates types." Reid nodded to the glass door across from them, his team's side of the floor. "Let me put my coat down. You're sure there's no one still in there? Of course you are, or you'd have opened with that."
"I didn't make it all the way into the room, but standing on a desk didn't make anyone apparent. I'd have at least seen feet or a shoulder, even if someone was crouched behind a desk." Chaz followed Reid across the room. "But, the real question, here, was... It's not Frank, is it? You know better, but I don't think we told him. I know I didn't. But, it sounds like exactly the kind of romantically stupid shit he'd do."
"Yes, but he'd have done it for me, not you," Reid reminded him, shrugging out of his coat and tossing it over the back of his chair. "And, knowing him, he's probably going to do something very much like that, tomorrow. It's a day early. If there's one thing I've learned, he's ... bizarrely, and sometimes inappropriately, punctual. Christmas." He patted his pockets and checked his desk drawers. "I'm assuming we're treating this like a crime scene, until we figure out what's going on?"
"Yeah, that's probably for the best. I'm going to leave my coffee on your desk, so it doesn't get gross. The smell is really strong, and I just don't want to end up drinking it." Chaz led the way back across the floor. "I keep thinking, I have my share of exes. Angry exes, even, but none of them would be able to get into the building, and really definitely not in the middle of the night. And none of them, I mean none of them, would know enough to do this. I'd expect some more traditional bad breakup vengeance, if anything, but it's been years." He paused, one hand on the door, and maybe more for himself warned, "Take a deep breath."
The instant the door opened, it was like getting punched in the face with the smell, again, but this time, Chaz was expecting it, and he held himself together.
"It's not actually that strong," Reid observed, after a moment. "You're latching onto it because you know it and you fear what it means, but as someone without that attachment, it's almost pleasant. It's like someone's plugged in one of those electric air fresheners."
And that hadn't occurred to Chaz. "It might be one. Still doesn't solve how it got up here, but it might just be an air freshener, and then I'm going to look like an idiot."
"Not to me," Reid said, quietly. "We've all got something."
"If it is an air freshener," Chaz postulated, leaning over to check the power strip between two desks, "it's probably just the cleaning staff trying to brighten the place up."
"Then why didn't we get one?" Reid asked, from the other side of the room.
"Maybe they just don't like you."
It wasn't until Reid came around the side of Todd's desk that he noticed something out of place, the few leaves and part of a blossom that showed between the back of Chaz's chair and the edge of his desk. He pulled the gloves out of his pocket and circled the desk, pulling them on. "Chaz? It's not an air freshener."
"What do you mean it's--" Chaz turned around, the world narrowing to Reid's hands on his chair. "That's my desk."
"It's a dwarf tea rose, in a pot, on your chair." Reid turned on the desk lamp and crouched down for a better look. "And it's definitely a crime scene."