[open]

[polyhistor]

Characters: Spencer Reid and open.
Date: From April 5th-14th.
Location: Various locations in Keeliai and Atam.
Situation: Reid does SCIENCE!! And other things. There will be some specific threadstarters and some general ones.
Warnings/Ratings: Excessive tldr?
Other: prose or actionspam are both fine by me. Also if you could fill out my permissions post that would be awesome. Reid is a behavioural analyst with the FBI and he tends to use body language and linguistic cues to 'profile' other characters. Obviously this is an ability that tends towards 'hugely infomoddy' so I like to keep things above the board whenever possible.

Comments

SCIENCE

[angermanaging]

[Bruce had put together a homemade centrifuge with the sort of familiarity and ease that suggested he'd done it many times before. It wasn't too hard if you had a rotary motor to start from, and in this case he'd taken one out of a small cooling fan for the purpose. It was honestly soothing to be doing something he was used to, in the midst of all this newness in Keeliai.

He'd done it before realizing that he probably could've gotten an actual centrifuge instead of making one. Oh well. Might as well use it now.

Of course, while he was putting it together and getting the samples balanced properly, he'd had something to keep himself busy with, a polite fiction that meant he didn't have to come up with conversation. Bruce was perfectly comfortable working in complete silence.

While they were waiting for the results, though... He was probably supposed to say something here, wasn't he?] So... Anything you want to talk about? [There's a small, sheepish smile acknowledging his social failure. Yeahhh, he tried.]

ALWAYS SCIENCE

[polyhistor]

[Reid glances up from the haphazard scribbling he's doing on a bit of homemade paper (easier and cheaper than buying it) and offers a furtive little half-smile.]

The weather's nice.

SCIENCE IS MY FOREVER GIRL

[angermanaging]

Are we really going to talk about the weather? I thought I was better than that.

[His smile turns lop-sided, very much not above making fun of himself.]

oo la la

[polyhistor]

That doesn't mean I am.

[Two self-deprecating geniuses in one room? Look out, world. But he's smiling a bit, too.]

Reid is like if Bruce were younger and formerly a model. and lived in the real world.

[angermanaging]

[That gets a very short chuckle, stilted as if Bruce isn't sure how to laugh anymore and has to be surprised into it.]

Well. Maybe between us we can... [Vague hand gesture.] I do have interests that aren't electron-positron annihilation.

... yep.

[polyhistor]

Oh?

[OKAY NOW HE'S INTERESTED BECAUSE

well

his interests involve cosplay and Doctor Who and learning things.

So really. Learning what other geniuses do with their time is probably good for him.]

[angermanaging]

[Bruce probably doesn't know what Doctor Who is. What is English language television?]

Uh.

[This is stumping him a lot more than it should. He'd planned on Reid suggesting something.] I don't really have a lot of spare time, but.

I know a little martial arts... and meditation. I've picked up some of a few different languages. I do a lot of traveling.

[polyhistor]

I've always been interested in meditation but -- well, time.

[A genius' work is never done, sadly. He lifts one shoulder in a bit of a shrug, and glances through a nearby microscope. Blood slides! Science is fun.]

I can read thirty-six languages, but no one I know ever lets me speak them. My pronunciation is universally terrible. [He is speaking directly to that microscope, Bruce. How do you feel about that?]

And martial arts, really? I wouldn't have expected that.

[... no, he really wouldn't have. Reid looks up a moment, his brow furrowed in a faint sort of surprise. His profiler senses aren't usually wrong about things like that, but he can tell - by body language, tone - that Bruce isn't lying. Martial artists-- people who call it martial arts - tend to carry themselves a little differently. With more surety.]

[angermanaging]

[Honestly, Bruce really doesn't mind not being spoken to directly. He likes his space, including emotional space, and in fact feels more at ease when the conversation has a certain distance. He's idly scribbling a few notes down, ideas for future experiments, but is too polite to completely stop looking at him as he speaks.

He does shoot him a curious, impressed glance at the amount of languages he can read.] Wow. I thought I was doing well knowing how to shop in Portuguese, [he jokes lightly in response. He doesn't want to make a big deal out of it, because he knows he dislikes it when other people do that to his own accomplishments.]

But... yeah. It's useful for conflict de-escalation. Mostly I know aikido, tai chi, a little capoeira for the control. Not anything mind-blowing, but enough to not be scared in backwater Guatemala.

[Which is really what he was going for out of it. It's true that Bruce carries himself with a strange mixture of physical confidence, and social reserve. He's deliberate in his motions but hesitant in his speech, someone used to living and defining himself alone.]

[polyhistor]

What's in Guatemala?

[The question is distantly curious. There's no pressure to it, the sort of query that's easily deflected without causing offense.]

[angermanaging]

Nothing. That's why I was there.

[There's a wry self-consciousness to it. Right now would be a natural time to admit that he's a fugitive from the U.S. government, but he doesn't. He realizes he has no reason to hide it here, but it still makes him feel too unsafe and jittery to say out loud. He has to edge into it.]

I've been trying not to be found for a long time.

[polyhistor]

[There's a story there. Some piece of the puzzle he's missing, and if Reid were anything like Hotch he'd have actively tried to figure it out by now.

But Reid was a genius before he was a profiler. And there's a certain sense of... solidarity in his tentative (professional) relationship with Bruce that outranks his occupational habits. He doesn't pry.]

Any luck?

[angermanaging]

[It's mostly the fact that he isn't prying that gets him this much.]

Honestly... no. [There's a note of self-conscious tiredness here.] Sometimes I can go a few months, but I'm learning that you can't run from yourself. Something about your shadow always being there.

[This is true, and provides the convenient excuse of him not having to reveal that he's a fugitive. It also lets him try to play it off lightly, not let the conversation turn too serious. Bruce has so few casually positive interactions that he's trying not to completely kill this one.]

[polyhistor]

[Quietly,]

You have to be in the light for shadows to exist at all. But I understand.

[Being socially awkward doesn't mean not knowing when to change the subject, though, so he continues,]

Do you mind if I ask where you studied specifically?

[angermanaging]

[His instinctual response to that is some other philosophical sounding counter-argument, but he's more than happy to move on and ignore the darker side of his thoughts.]

You mean martial arts? [Since there's a lot of things he's studied.] Most recently it was Brazil, but I spent some time in rural China before that. It's good for meditation, too-- originally how I fell into it.