Evil Author Day: Fallout

Title: Fallout

Fandom: NCIS, Criminal Minds, The Sentinel

Pairing: Tony/Gibbs, future Hotchner/Reid, Sandburg/Ellison

Warnings: People being asshats

Word Total: 2106

 

 

“But you are absolutely certain that Dr. Reid has a spirit animal?” Blair asked. From the noise, Tony was sure that he was moving around a room.

“Given that I saw the little darling myself? Yeah, he has a spirit animal. A caracal kit. It looks rather rough, but healthy. Spenser’s had it crawling over him for the last hour,” Tony reported.

The sight of what amounted to a kitten exploring its human for the first time was both amusing and heartbreaking. For a Guide to have a spirit animal so young, meant that either the animal was very new, or the Guide was young when they manifested. Spenser didn’t remember ever manifesting, so whatever the Vegas Pair had done to contain him, they had known what he was and caught him just at the cusp of becoming an active Guide.

Nothing on earth felt quite like a Guide working to come online. Tony knew that better than most. Kelly, when he had met her, had felt like a sun trying to break free of clouds. The day her gifts broke free, it had been as if the sun had risen.

Spenser felt like a supernova. Tony was certain that once the first rush of his abilities leveled out, he wouldn’t shine quite so bright. But he was also certain Spenser would still be powerful, but not at the same level as a Wolf or Lion Guides. Any Guide with a predator for a spirit animal was a power to be reckoned with.

“Well, shit.” Blair was as succinct as always. “And Brooks and Green bottled up a powerful Guide just before he came online. A Guide that could have been more powerful than Brooks.”

“That’s one thought,” Tony allowed. “Green tried to sell me on the idea that they contained Spenser out concern about his pending mental breakdown and possible schizophrenia. Reid’s never exhibited any symptom of the disorder, and as far as my research shows, was never examined for it.”

There was a growl from the other end of the phone and Tony could feel his own temper stir. He took a deep breath and heard the Wolf Guide echo it. “So they stepped outside of bounds and are assigning their actions to the possibility of a Guide becoming mentally ill?”

“Pretty much,” Tony admitted.

“Jesus,” Blair muttered. “Do you have any clue which is the correct theory?”

Here Tony shrugged. “I’m sure it’s a little of both. Maybe more on the fear of power, but from what I got when I had to talk to the team, they do believe the shit they spewed.”

“Well isn’t that just ducky,” Blair muttered. “So where are they currently?”

“I had them put up in a hotel that the Pride has on retainer,” Tony admitted. “I wasn’t going to have them running around loose. I have three Pairs keeping an eye on them. And I told them to be blatant about it.”

There was a burst of laughter from Blair and Tony grinned as well. “So you aren’t being nice about how upset you are?”

“Oh, hell no. And Gibbs signed off on it when I got a hold of him after Spenser made his big relief reveal,” Tony wasn’t amused anymore. The Vegas Pair had pissed him off badly. And he was perfectly willing to take his mood out on them.

“Good for you,” Blair told him, voice approving. There was the sound of a muffled voice in the background reporting something. “Jim says we have a flight out and should be there in about eight hours. Keep up the surveillance on the two asshats.”

Tony made an accenting noise and wanted for Blair to hang up. As soon as he did, he called his sentinel.

The discussion with Jethro was about as brief as anything his sentinel ever held with a coworker. Tony didn’t take it personally. Jethro was not the type to spend all day chatting on the phone.

His partner was going to take over breaking the news to Hotchner. One sentinel to another, they were going to have to talk about protecting a newly online and powerful Guide. That almost everyone believed Reid was Hotch’s Guide was something Tony was sure Jethro would gloss over.

He checked his watched and marked the time. If his Sentinel called, he had about two hours before Hotchner showed up. If he went to visit the FBI agent, he had up to a day. Tony was sure Jethro would go sit on his Beta. And that would give Jim and Blair time to get in and take Reid in hand.

And Reid did need to be taken in hand. Spenser had only the most basic of training that any possibly Gifted child would get. Case in point; Rossi was walking him through the process of creating and reinforcing his shields. The younger man was pickup picking up skills at an astounding rate.

But the newly minted caracal guide needed training. A great deal of training. Hotchner was a very powerful Sentinel and his Guide needed to be ready for him. Tony gave thanks that Spenser had a hardy personality and the intelligence to go with it because he was going to need it. No one would be able to hold Hotchner off forever, and Reid would need to learn his lessons quickly.

He poked his head into the room Rossi was using and raised an eyebrow at his second. David gave a small shake of his head and Tony left him to it. He had gotten Spenser to the point where his spirit animal could show up, Rossi could handle the rest.

He was going to have to hand the problem of the Vegas Pair over to Blair and Jim when they got in. He needed to get back to his sentinel and work on their case. Their murderer was getting further away and that just wasn’t done.

Flipping open his phone, he called Abby. He needed an update to his case.

 

 

The thing about being the Alpha Sentinel of the Mid Atlantic Seaboard was he was expected to have someone do the more uncomfortable jobs that came up. What actually happened was that he refused to hand those jobs off at all. Even if the job in question was full of the emotional overtones that gave him hives any other time.

As soon as he ended his call with Tony, he headed down to the garage at NCIS. Belting in, he made sure he was out of the structure before he reached for his cell phone. Thumbing through the phonebook it contained, he looked for a specific name. There were too just too many in his Pride for him to remember every number anymore. The urge to tap his fingers in impatience was huge.

“Aaron Hotchner, here,” Gibbs could tell his Beta was distracted, just by the tone of his voice.

“Hotch, I need to meet with you,” Gibbs tried to cut the agents distraction off.

“I can’t Gibbs. Reid’s missing.” the distraction edged deeper and Jethro could hear the start of a growl rumbling in the BAU agents voice.

“Reid’s with my Guide, Hotch. He’s safe.” Gibbs snapped. He wanted to cut that growl off before his Beta went off the rails.

“Why is Spenser with Tony?” Hotch asked, confused.

“The Pair from the Las Vegas called him into the Center, Hotch. Rossi had made an appointment for Spencer to meet Tony, and when my Guide arrived at the Center, he found Reid being interrogated,” Gibbs explained. He went on to explain the whole mess as he made his way towards the FBI campus where BAU was located.

Offering the heavens a sincere thanks for cell phones, Gibbs kept talking as he worked his way through traffic. There was no way he could stretch the explanation for two hours, but he might be able to get most of the way through before Aaron lost his shit.

“Wait!” Hotch barked. Gibbs stopped his explanation. He hadn’t even gotten to what he thought was the best bit. “They bound him because they could?”

“You can’t kill them, Hotch. No maiming either,” Gibbs stressed as he drove. “Tony’s already talked to Ellison and Sandburg to deal with them.”

“Not good enough,” the growl that had been threatening was fully exposed now. “What they did crossed all boundaries and ethics, Jethro. And they did it to Spenser Reid. A member of my team.”

“And the national head and his Guide will be dealing with them. Really, Ellison isn’t going to let them get away with this. Let alone Sandburg,” Gibbs tried to head off the murder he could in Hotchner’s voice.

”They can have them after I’m done with them,” Hotch growled.

Jethro grunted at that. Most of his attention was on the road as he moved in and out of traffic. Since Tony wasn’t with him in the car, he could indulge in driving to the limits of his reaction time. Once he was clear of traffic, he went back to his conversation.

“Do you want the rest of the story or do you want to run off?” he asked. He was only a few miles away from BAU now and he needed to keep Hotch taking. If he moved away from his office, it would be massively harder for Gibbs to track him.

“There’s more? What else is there to this mess?” Hotch demanded.

“The rest isn’t nearly as bad, Hotch. Actually, it’s a lot better.” Gibbs reported. Sliding through the last of the traffic he explained what had kept Tony from his side for the afternoon and evening.

He was timing his tale carefully. He managed to park and exit his car before Hotch called him on it. “You know there’s more than one way out of this office than the front door?”

Jethro flashed his ID at the security and started up to Hotch’s office. “You leave, I put a hunt order out on you.”

“Bastard,” Hotch bitched.

Gibbs could hear his chair creaking slightly as Hotch settled back into the leather. Huffing lightly in laughter Gibbs ducked into an elevator. There was some interference from the shaft, but not more than he could deal with. “I never said I wasn’t.”

“Going to finish the story? Because I notice you stopped before you finished telling me the end result of the meditation Tony had Spence on.” Hotch commented.

Gibbs was getting an echo of Hotch’s voice as he picked up the sound from his phone and his ears. Snapping his phone shut he grinned briefly at the curse his Beta let loose at the noise. Speaking at a normal level, he baited the other man. “You can wait until I get up there.”

Hotels continued to curse as Gibbs made his way into BAU’s main room. He waved his hand in greeting as he walked through on his way to their boss’s office. He didn’t even bother to knock before he opened the door to Aaron’s officer

“I have no idea how Tony puts up with you,” Hotch told him, eyes stormy as he rocked back and forth in his chair.

“I’m charming,” Gibbs said with a perfectly straight face.

“You’re a menace.” Hotch snapped back.

“And you’re frustrated,” Jethro snapped back as well. “Reid’s fine. He’s been well taken care of by Tony. Rossi’s there too.”

“Good. Now, what happened with the meditation?” Hotch asked as he stared at Gibbs.

Jethro nodded and took a deep breath before he fined in the rest of the story. He kept a careful eye on Hotch as he told him about Reid’s spirit animal.

When he announced the arrival of the caracal kit, Aaron had paled and then flushed.

“Tony unlocked his ability to be a Guide?” Hotch demanded.

“Yes.”

“Oh, god.” Aaron leaned back in his chair and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Oh, thank God,”

Well, Jethro could say he hadn’t been expecting that. He had honestly expected that he was going to have to sit on Hotchner to stop him from heading straight for Spenser. That he wasn’t, was puzzling.

The confusion must have been plain from his silence because the BAU agent let his hands drop and stared back at the senior Sentinel.

“I thought I was going nuts, with how much I’ve wanted to be with him. To find out he’s a Guide gives me hope,” Hotch admitted. His face and demeanor changed suddenly. “If he’s a Guide and the Vegas Pair did that to him…”

Gibbs barely managed to get up in time to tackle him to the floor.