Chapter Text
“Non est ad astra mollis e terris via.” - Seneca
( There is no easy way from the earth to the stars. )
—
He has grown up since the last time they’d met, Spencer Reid muses, sharp hazel eyes cataloging every aspect, every slight variation of David Rossi’s demeanor. No longer a strapping young man, but a polished, aging author.
No ring.
“How quaint,” David remarks, and Spencer has to hide the curl of his lips. He turns away and starts the pot of coffee with practiced ease, casually poised even as he is alert to every move the human behind him makes.
“I designed it myself. I suppose ‘quaint’ is accurate enough,” Spencer says in answer. He turns and regards David with a calculating look, lips pursing. “Why are you here?”
“Why do you think?”
If Spencer had been born in the twenty-first century he surely would’ve rolled his eyes. As it is, he manages to refrain, if only just, his second upbringing urging the utmost politeness into his willowy form.
“Because you intend to rope me back into the world of crime in a manner I am not sure I wish to be.” Eyebrows corked up, Spencer watches as David throws his head back and lets out a gruff laugh.
“Your way of speaking is certainly something to miss,” the Italian murmurs fondly, and Spencer can’t help but to smile. “But yes, essentially. I may no longer be the head of the BAU, but I rejoined due to—”
“The children?” Spencer interrupts knowingly. David glares at him but the Immortal only chuckles, turning to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Fancy a cup?”
The silence stretches on for several moments (Spencer already having prepared and grabbed another mug for one of his oldest friends) before David makes an affirming grunt.
Typical.
“I rejoined due to circumstances and have been with them the past few years. It’s a wonderful team, Spencer, I think you’d be rather taken by them,” David hedges. The Immortal hums and pours the second mug full, absently making it the exact same as all those years ago.
“How long?”
“Excuse me?”
Spencer turns and gently pushes the mug over to David (who takes it with a grateful nod) before replying, “How long have you waited to contact me?”
Because David would not have been here without a sizable amount of time to consider his actions.
Immortals are not necessarily rare by any means, and the world knows of some — Betty White, the Queen of England, Robin Williams — but many still keep themselves below the radar, hovering just out of knowledge. Immortality is given, gifted, by other Immortals. It is not earned or passed by birthright. It is chosen by both parties.
The first Immortal… no one knows how she was turned. Rather, only that she is the one who set the world’s Immortality into motion, an unnamed woman, the First.
Spencer has always admired her for managing to keep such secrecy surrounding her life. She is part of why he’d chosen the same for himself.
No one but his pater knows his true age. Even David only has a faint idea — Spencer had once let it slip that he’d admired the flapper fashion in the twenties, but that was the tip of the iceberg of his lifespan.
As someone born in the delightful year of 1488, Spencer had a fair bit of knowledge and experience that far surpassed just the 1920’s.
“As long as I could,” David utters quietly, gravely. “We have a serial killer. We were brought in for the last three victims, but Garcia — our tech analyst — has uncovered that this unsub has been active for over seventy years and shows no signs of stopping. It hadn’t been connected because they’ve been killing across multiple countries.”
“How can you be sure it is not just a familial ritual?” The question hangs between them and David pinches the bridge of his nose. Spencer can’t find it within him to feel frustration at the Italian’s reaction — after all, it was a well placed question. Spencer wouldn’t come in for anything less than an Immortal and David clearly recalls that.
“Because the signature is too perfected, too similar to be a familial ritual. In those, they differentiate. Each family member develops their own signature, you know this.”
“I do,” the Immortal acknowledges. A heavy clunk sounds as he places his cup on the counter. “You have no others to ask?” You still come to me, after all this time, all the unspoken memories…?
David snorts, “You know, kid, I’d have suspected by now you’d have learned just how secretive your people are.”
“That is beside the fact.”
“Is it?”
Their eyes lock and Spencer ultimately tips his head down in a silent acquiesce.
“Spencer, we may have many contacts within the Bureau, but even you must be aware of how uncooperative Immortals are with law enforcement.” David sighs. “Our leader is… he’s a Felid, Spencer. He’s the only other Insolitus on our team, you must understand.”
“I do,” Spencer acknowledges softly. “But David, if I come… they will know.” And I am not sure either of us are prepared for that.
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take if you are, because this Immortal has evaded prosecution for far too long, and our Unit Chief is willing to do just about anything.”
“Even overlook an unsanctioned Immortal?”
“Even that.”
Spencer sighs as his chin drops to his chest. He splays his hands flat on the counter between them, absently studying the beautiful mess of marble he’d paid so much for. Reluctantly, he nods once. He doesn’t need to glance at David to know the man is sporting a triumphant smirk.
“When do we leave?”
—
“Are you sure this is a wise move, Shiloh?” Leonardo echoes for the n th time and Spencer wills himself not to grimace at the hesitance in his pater’s voice, granted though it may be.
“You know as well as I that an Immortal is best caught by one of their own kind.”
“And you know that is not what I meant.” Hazel eyes slide closed and the younger expels a soft breath. “I know how much he had meant to you.”
“Don’t.”
“Contractions? Already preparing for your role of a lesser being? Or is it that David is such a sore topic that you feel the more curt you are with me, the less likely I am to press?”
“Leo.”
“I worry of you, my child. I saw the wreckage he left in his wake all those decades ago. And yet here you are, years of silence forgotten the first time he comes calling,” Leonardo murmurs. The line rings with only their breaths before the elder heaves a resigned note, “At least tell me you will do your best to protect yourself.”
“You know I am always as safe as I can manage,” Spencer deflects, unable to raise his eyes even now, though Leonardo is continents away.
“Not with that heart of yours, Shiloh Sarai. I know you. I see you.”
“Walk with the gods, Leonardo.”
The man on the other line wipes a hand down his face, over his jaw, dark eyes studying an older photograph of his Shiloh, “Walk with the gods, child.”
“Was that your pater?” David questions the moment the Immortal returns to the living room. Spencer shoots him an unimpressed look as he gathers up a few of his journals.
“Yes,” is the crisp answer he provides, and he knows David is about to push, so he continues, “I will not be sharing any information on them.”
“Not even with me?”
Spencer straightens and shoots David a scathing look. “You have no right to judge me for how I reacted to your allowances, David Rossi. Where once I was willing to trade the stars for you, I am no longer as blinded as I was.”
The human steps back as if he were physically striked and Spencer feels a flicker of remorse. Squares his shoulders against it and swallows back an apology because he did mean it, what he’d said, every syllable, no matter how sour they tasted upon his tongue.
“Apologies, Reid, I didn’t mean to agitate you,” David says honestly, and Spencer’s only response is a sharp nod. Fury engulfs his every breath, a torrent of knives, slicing open each memory they had shared, each kiss, each laugh, each breath, each and every declaration of—
“Let us depart. I am sure your team is impatient to begin the investigation with some intel that will be genuinely conductive.” Barbed, he aims his words piercingly to hide his nervousness at being in such close quarters with the human he’d once offered…
Do not think of it, Shiloh Sarai, he reprimands himself. This is no time to dwell on what no longer is and what never could be.
No longer.
—
It hadn’t been easy, he reminisces. Gaze locked firmly anywhere outside of the Italian man hovering near in the private jet, Spencer finds himself melancholy for the first centuries of his Immortality.
Many would consider it a gift, and he did for the most part.
Until his perpetual baby face inevitably got him carded wherever he went. Foolish mortals, unaware of just how old he was, this Spencer Shiloh Sarai Reid, unaware of each degree he possesses, each book he’s written under a pseudonym. Hell, he’s the author behind numerous history books used in schools all over the globe, though no one seems to clue into the fact that he’s an Immortal.
No, he’s played it careful. Lived under the radar, never once submitted any of the paperwork the counsel demands Immortals to. Immortals, with their endless lifespans and occasional abilities, had been ruled to come forward with their race or suffer the consequences.
Spencer is positive they have no real way of identifying an Immortal without physical evidence as Immortals were, as a rule, generally secretive and typically appeared rather human.
What David was — is — asking of him is beyond comprehension, and yet here he sits, unwavering gaze focused on the dark abyss of the sky they fly through that will inevitably lead to his unmasking.
Immortals turned by the First were more powerful than those turned by others. All lines trace back to her, of course, but the closer you are, the more powerful you become.
Leonardo, Spencer’s pater, was turned by the First.
Which means Spencer is one of the oldest and most powerful Immortals in existence.
And his existence is about to be cracked open, spread wide, because he cannot say ‘no’ to David.
Already preparing for your role as a lesser being? Leonardo had said. Spencer scoffs at the memory. As if he’d ever subject himself to such lies in this situation. He plays his part when he has to, but he took this case with the knowledge that he would have to hold firm in his race and represent them for the best of what they are to be able to catch the worst.
He isn’t sure, really, if he’s more apprehensive over finally coming forth, publicly, as an Immortal, or the fact that this team of profilers will no doubtedly be able to see just what he and David were to each other, once, all those decades ago.
Only time will tell.
—
Dave walks into the briefing room with his usual confidence and Hotch’s brow pulls together, a fierce line settling in. The Felid is clearly strung tight, his red lynx ears still and pointed in his aggravation — the only outward sign of his status. That and the distinct lack of human ears.
“You said you were using the jet to gather a valuable resource,” Hotch states. The others sit quietly, unwilling to step in lest their Unit Chief’s anger be redirected toward them. “Yet I see no papers or files upon your person, Dave.”
“That would be because I am very much not a paper nor a file, Mr. Hotchner,” a soft voice states as another figure enters the room. Hotch’s ears go back and he growls lowly. The newcomer only looks amused. “Enough of that, kitten.”
“Kitten? You dare call me kitten-?!”
“Hush, Aaron. Team, this is Doctor Spencer Reid,” Dave interrupts, ignoring the indignant hiss Hotch aims his way, cheekbones flushed with his high emotions. “Spencer, this is our Unit Chief, Aaron Hotchner. Pardon his behavior, he hasn’t had his milk yet.”
“Would you prefer ‘kitty’ instead?” Reid quips cheekily, eyes flashing. Prentiss snorts but quickly muffles it in light of Hotch’s glare.
“Spencer,” Dave reprimands, though Hotch isn’t unaware of the humor coating his tone.
Nor the intimacy. His eyes narrow at his old friend. He’ll be asking soon just how well he knows this Doctor Reid.
“Sup?” Morgan raises a hand. “Derek Morgan. The one who snickered is Emily Prentiss. The blonde there,” he gestures to JJ, “is our media liaison, Jennifer Jareau, but we call her JJ. And last but not least is my baby girl, our talented tech analyst, Miss Penelope Garcia.”
Hotch’s ears settle the tiniest fraction when Garcia, all bubbly bright five-foot-seven of her ricochets out of her chair and bounces over, thrusting her hand toward the doctor.
“Hi! It’s so nice to meet you! Are you sure you’re a doctor, you look awfully young. Actually, you look like you’re not even legal. Rossi, did you bring us a kid?!” Garcia gasps, glaring at Rossi. The door closes with a muted snick as the Italian turns back to face the group.
“No,” he says simply, nodding his head toward Reid.
The man acknowledges the gesture and steps back, away from Garcia, warily assessing the room.
“No, Miss Garcia.” Reid’s voice is quiet, considering the tension spinning through the air. “He brought you an Immortal.”
Morgan is the first to laugh, Prentiss following, but when neither Dave nor Reid join in, both still and stare at the ‘younger’ in disbelief.
“An Immortal? You’ve got to be kidding me,” Morgan blurts out, studying Reid with narrowed eyes. “You couldn’t be more than eighteen or nineteen.”
“I will not disclose my true age to you, child, but know that despite my physical appearance being frozen at twenty-two, I am centuries old, I assure you,” Reid corrects icily. JJ’s pen falls to the table and Hotch feels his own mouth drop open.
The shock is palpable, even Dave seems unnerved by the information. Had he not known just how old this Immortal is? And yet he’d brought the man in…?
“And what makes you worthy of being believed?” Prentiss challenges, straightening. Reid’s eyes find hers and narrow. The room seems to chill several degrees, a handful of the occupants shifting uneasily at the decrease in temperature, and even Hotch is affected, though he keeps himself carefully immobile.
“We shall waste time with me proving myself to be who I say I am rather than informing me upon the case that led me to reveal it in the first place? I am an unsanctioned Immortal, Miss Prentiss,” Reid replies sharply, “I am not here under the guise of faking my race but because an old friend asked my assistance and I am your best bet at apprehending this Immortal unsub.”
“That’s enough.” Hotch is surprised at the volume of his own voice, but, ears still back, he finds himself meeting fierce hazel eyes. “He’s not lying.”
“Hotch, man, come on, you can’t just believe—”
“Morgan, you’d do well to remember my race.” As a Felid Hotch’s senses are sharper than that of humans, and when in close quarters with others — such as now, mere feet from this Doctor Reid — he is able to scent whether or not someone is telling the truth. “He is who he says he is.”
“You mean…” JJ stands slowly. “We have an Immortal here. In the BAU.”
“You do. And said Immortal would much like to be acknowledged as more than a mere Immortal,” Reid voices, arms crossing over his chest. “Again I reiterate — I am here to aid with the case in any way I can. I will not be disclosing any personal information about myself, my abilities, or that of my pater to any of you, and David knows very little so do not pressure him to learn of me.”
“What is a pater?” JJ asks skeptically.
“A ‘sire’ — it’s what they call the Immortal who makes them Immortal. So if Spencer were to turn one of us, he would become our pater,” Dave explains. Bristling at the answer, Reid shoots Dave a heated look that would have a lesser man cowering. As it is, Dave takes a step back, eyes lowering in submission.
Curious, Hotch thinks, studying them closely. They react to one another as if…
“What else can you offer, other than your Immortal knowledge?” Morgan buts in. The room seems to warm once more, a slow process, but the others appear to relax at the change. Reid himself leans back against the wall, unbothered, though all the profilers can read the crafted ‘relaxed’ pose he forces himself to adopt.
“As I stated, I will not share my abilities or lack thereof, but I will share this — I have an IQ of 187, a reading speed of twenty-thousand words per minute, and an eidetic memory,” Reid briefly lists out in a bland tone.
As the others swap to questioning the Immortal, Hotch turns a critical eye upon the slender form. Perhaps a few inches shorter than Hotch himself, Spencer Reid is a thin, wisp of a man. Porcelain pale skin, chocolate-auburn curls that ruffle messily, untamed and yet artfully framing his angular face. High cheekbones, a gentle slope of a nose, and—
Those eyes.
Hazel, a swirl of browns and greens and even from this far away Hotch can see the flecks of gold intermingled. Threaded through, complimentary to the other autumnal shades, and Hotch… finds himself wondering if he’s ever seen hazel eyes so expressive, so knowledgeable, so pure.
A lull in the conversation moves his attention down; a slender neck, pale gray button-up with a darker gray vest pulled over and a black tie, tucked into black slacks, a messenger bag hung haphazardly over one shoulder. Hotch can almost admire the scholarly appearance.
Until his eyes land on scuffed, worn looking plum colored Converse. A single eyebrow raises at the bold choice and he is rather intrigued, now, by this young-appearing Immortal who Dave has brought into their midst. A room of predators, hunters of the pitch black, and this Doctor Reid seems to be balanced on the cusp of dawn. Not quite hovering in the dark, but nor is he in the light.
Fascinating.
“Did you need something, kitten?” The amused voice of the fascinating Immortal breaks through his thoughts. Hotch bares his incisors and Reid only rolls his eyes. “You are the one so intent on studying me. It is quite unnerving, and so I repeat — did you need something, kitten?”
“Stop calling me kitten,” he bites out. “I am ‘sir’ or ‘Hotchner’ to you, nothing else. Understood?”
Reid leans forward, hands flattening on the tabletop as he observes Hotch with a calculating, teasing gaze. Hotch feels torn between the need to establish dominance and the want to… preen at such focused attention from such a beautiful man. And then the man speaks.
“Understood, kitten.”
Hotch’s pen cracks under his grip and Garcia squeals as ink drips down over his palm and spills onto the table.
Spencer Reid is going to be the death of him, he’s sure of it.
—
Aaron Hotchner is captivating. Spellbinding, hypnotizing, tantalizing — every synonym of the word seems to fit just as well. Spencer is, quite frankly, enthralled with the Felid.
A feeling he’s certain he’s never experienced to this degree up until this point. Not even with David. Which says quite a bit on just how much this Mr. Hotchner character has caught his attention.
Even the Italian had noted the change, Spencer realizes distantly. Idle hands smoothing over the front of his shirt in one of David’s rare tells clues him into the man’s unease.
“The case?” he prompts, focus narrowing upon the board and the spread of photos pinned to it. Shuffling alerts him to movement a second before David is brushing past him to leave the room.
Spencer’s jaw clenches but he instead turns to face the remaining members of the team. All human, Save for Hotchner.
“Well?”
“What right do you have to assist us?” Hotchner poses the question in such a manner that Spencer knows, instinctively, it’s not his status as an Immortal being questioned but rather what else he can bring to the table.
“You know as well as I that Immortals are a secretive race,” Spencer points out. Hotchner nods once, conceding to the point, and Spencer smiles brittly. “But as an Immortal, I can give you insight only my race is privy to, provided you each make a binding oath to never misuse or abuse what I will tell you.”
By the end of his statement, his voice takes on a sharpened edge, laced more with promise than threat. Even Morgan shifts unsettled in his seat before forcibly curbing his fidgeting.
Hotchner pushes the files toward him, “Go ahead, then, Reid.”
As expected, it doesn’t take long at all for him to peruse through the information, filing everything away as efficiently as ever and making mental notes on what he’d need to look back at.
He comes to a halt at the photographs, standing abruptly and shoving back from the table with such force that JJ’s coffee topples over, spilling hot onto her lap.
“Reid!” The rebuff falls on deaf ears — Spencer isn’t even aware enough to figure out just who it is that spoke. His entire sense of being is honed in on the scattered photographs before him, varying in age, each depicting different victims with the same phrase carved into them as if with a meticulously whetted quill.
“Animam agere,” Spencer breathes, fingers trembling as he traces absently along where it’d been written, carved, upon a young woman's collarbone. “To have one’s last breath.”
“Yeah, kid, it’s Latin.” Morgan’s words dimly register, spark the reignition of Spencer’s thoughts, and he falls still, forcing a quick regroup.
“It’s the final phrase in the process of accepting Immortality.”
The revelation comes met with stunned silence, and Spencer feels a moment of hesitation for sharing. Should he have revealed something his people had worked so hard to keep secret?
In this case, he figures he has no choice. It is obvious that the Immortal unsub is making a mockery of his Immortality, whether to spite his race or his pater, only time will tell.
“To have one’s last breath,” Hotchner echoes, brow furrowed. “But if you’re accepting Immortality, why call it your last breath?”
“Because it’s your last mortal breath,” Spencer quips back, eyes finding the diamond dark stare of the younger man. “Because it is the last breath you breathe out of necessity. Immortals technically have no need for breathing, we simply continue the motions so as not to unsettle those around us. A choice that’s separated us farther from our Vampire brethren.”
“Vampires are real?!” Garcia yelps. When JJ shoots her a look of reprimand, Garcia only waves the other blonde off. “No! I need to know.”
“Not… quite. More so they are a vein of Immortals who bend their Immortality into a weapon, consuming the blood and flesh of humans as a way to empower themselves above what they should be.” His tone is dark with disgust, only the faint hint of anything remotely resembling unease at the notion.
“So… cannibal Immortals?” Prentiss steps into the conversation and Spencer starts. He’d nearly forgotten she was there, as quiet as she’d been. But she seems to be one to take in information, any and all, and then work on dissecting it, composing it into something that makes sense before she grants herself permission to speak.
“Essentially.”
“That’s horrifying.” Morgan, now. Spencer only hums his agreement as his gaze settles back on Hotchner, mildly surprised to discover the Felid continuing to observe him with an unreadable look.
Hotchner is captivating, but for more than his personality. He reminds Spencer of the way men naturally existed as gladiators. Hotchner is all carved lines and hard angles, as if cut from marble, and the way he moves is so fluidly captivating. Spencer wonders if the man even realizes that even his movements scream predator. Calm, assured, calculating, Hotchner’s existence in Spencer’s bubble of normality has upset his balance. The man is all but an earthquake, rattling Spencer to his core, shaking the very foundation of everything he thought he knew of Immortals and Felids because nowhere in any form or piece of literature did anything mention the pull he felt, feels toward the man before him.
Everything about him draws the Immortal in, and Spencer distantly wonders if he’s liable to repeat history, wonders if Hotchner will end as just another David in his life.
Does Hotchner even feel the pull?
“Make yourself useful,” Hotchner snaps, bristling under the weight of Spencer’s stare.
“Anything you like, kitten,” is the calm response, lilted and flirty in nature, and Spencer near preens at the visible flush that overtakes the Felid.
Ah, even if he doesn’t feel the pull the way Spencer does, perhaps they need only wait. Nature wouldn’t allot this bone-deep tug without an inevitable outcome.
Spencer is curious to see just what that outcome will be.