So yeah. This is my response to a request by finlaure for a Tony/Reid fic. It's not a paring I'd usually ship, but I thought, hey, I'll give it a shot. It's AU. Really AU, but that was the only way I could make this paring work in my head. So this is for you, Fin. Sorry it took so long for me to get it out!

Viva Las … Quantico?

Tony sat down at his desk with a sigh. Las Vegas. Better than Philly. Probably worse than Peoria. And so, so different from Baltimore. Maybe he'll spend two years here. Maybe less. Never more. That offer from that fed had been tempting, higher pay grade and all, but who wants to play baby-sitter for a bunch of sailors, anyway? No, DiNozzo was police, dammit, not some glorified suit. And if he had to come to Vegas to get away from Special Agent what's-his-name and that clusterfuck that his last undercover job was, well, so be it. He could hack it in Vegas. Sin city, right? What's not to love?

….

The first weeks were always that hardest. Getting used to a different city, different partner, different beat. The only thing that never changed was the crime. No matter where he went, how many cities he bounced around in, the crime was always the same. Sure, the criminals themselves were different, slightly, but the motive, the method, always so similar that two cases from two cities easily blurred together over time. The victims changed, too, he supposed, and the families. No two people ever reacted to horror the same way, which was refreshing in all is raw and painful realism. It made the work worth it, no matter where he was. To see those looks of relief, of gratitude, on their faces when he told them that the offender was caught, and was going to pay for what they did.

It was worth it. It was. It was worth waking up at four in the morning, called out to the scene of an eight year-old girl, raped and beaten to death. It was worth spending long hours, all-nighters working to find a lead in a serial case. It was worth having to tell a mother that she would never hear her son's voice again. It was worth it. It was.

Because he was making a difference. He knew he was. And if his father couldn't see that, well, that was his problem.

….

It was two months in Vegas before the Uni case. UNLV reminded him of Ohio State in some ways, and was so different in others. It was newer. More modern. But the students wandering the campus, laughing, joking as if nothing was wrong with the world were so similar it was nauseating. Walking by as one of their classmates, possibly one of their friends, lay stabbed dead on the Quad. Was he that naïve back then? That careless? Or would he have actually given a damn?

The case itself was easy. Jealous ex-girlfriend. Same as it always was, wasn't it? Death for love or money. Sometimes both. No, what stood out about the case wasn't, in fact the case itself, but him. The only one who looked at the crime scene tape and didn't keep walking. He asked questions. Who was it? What happened? He looked young, 18, maybe 19, brown hair, brown eyes. Didn't look like the type of kid who could handle a paper cut, let alone a crime scene, but he stood there and talked to Tony as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He had seemed smart. But, Tony had had a case to solve, so he left and put the kid out of his mind.

…

Three weeks later, he spots the kid again. It's at a coffee shop that's halfway between his apartment and the precinct. They chat, simple things. Kid asks if he solves the case. He said yeah. He asked what the kid's major was. Kid shifted nervously, and after a minute replied that he was studying criminology. That explained some things, then. Not everything, 'cause the kid seemed way too nervous talking about his schoolwork, but hey, everyone's entitled to secrets, right?

It's only as he's leaving that he realizes that he still didn't know the kids name.

…

Two more months. A boatload more cases. The kid slips from his mind.

…

Six months. Six months in Vegas, and it's starting to feel sort of comfortable. Not like home, 'cause Tony's never really known what home is, but comfortable. He tells himself that he's completely forgotten about that kid.

…

Nine months in a he catches a bad case. His partner is his usual apathetic self, but the case hits tony harder than it should have. The victim looks so much like the kid it's scary. They solve it, book the perp and Tony acts like nothing wrong. He can't stop the bile that rises up. It hits him harder than it should have.

…

Tony starts taking night classes at UNLV in criminology.

…

A year and three months in he catches a serial case. A bad one. He's in between partners, 'cause wouldn't you know it, that's another constant in Tony's life. Can't keep a partner even to save his own ass. But this case… minimal forensics, apparently random victims. Three dead already, and all of his talent and skills, even his recently acquired rudimentary profiling abilities, can't help him with it. The chief gets antsy. Calls the FBI field office.

…

Reid. The kid's name is Reid. Spencer. He's working with the FBI now. As a profiler. Huh. The FBI field office had called in a special team. Behavioural Analysis Unit. Profilers. The best of the best. There's a grumpy old guy that Tony thinks he's seen before, perhaps on the back of a book. A lawyer who never smiles. An ex-cop from Chicago that Tony sort-of identifies with. A pretty brunette that he'd have hit on had the conditions been different, and a perky blond that shares Tony's ease in dealing with reporters. They have an analyst of some sort, back wherever they came from, but he's only ever heard her voice. She sounds … interesting.

They were good. Seeing things in a new light, angles that Tony missed. If he were being honest with himself, which he hadn't been in a long time, he would say he liked them. Liked how they worked, communicated, how they supported each other. How Reid, who'd been a part of their rag-tag little group for less than a year, already seemed to be fitting in fine. He would say that he wanted to be a part of that, or rather, something like that.

Tony wasn't being honest with himself.

Tony told himself that he was fine with Vegas; that his two years weren't up yet. That he didn't' want anything more real, more permanent. That he wasn't still looking for "home."

He could almost believe it if he said it often enough.

…

They solved the case. The BAU went back to Quantico. Reid gave Tony his phone number, "in case he ever wanted to talk."

Tony went to his night classes in criminology.

He didn't call. Didn't know what to say.

Told himself that was ok.

…

A year and a half. Tony started looking around at other cities.

He still went to the night classes.

Called Reid. Hung up before he got an answer. Went back to work.

…

A year and ten months. Tony calls Re- Spencer. They talk. About everything. About nothing. Favourite food, book, movie, coffee.

Tony puts in for a transfer to Quantico. Tells himself that it's because ODU has a great graduate criminology program.

…

Tony moves to Quantico. New apartment. New partner. New beat. Same crime. Same Spencer.

They go out for coffee. Sometimes. When Spencer's in town and Tony's not working a case.

Tony doesn't try to define this thing they have. He's too afraid of the answer.

He still goes to class at ODU.

…

Tony meets Special Agent what's-his-name on a case. Bastard had tried to steal jurisdiction. Not likely, old man.

Gibbs, 'cause that was his name, really was a bastard. Tony wasn't sorry he turned him down. His team was ok. Timothy McGee, the junior agent, seemed skittish around Tony, but hey, whatever. The senior agent, Kate Todd, (who called McGee probie, for some reason) was fun, and kinda reminded him of Prentiss, and he thought about flirting with her, but decided against it. For some reason it felt like cheating, but Tony wasn't going to explore that at all. The Mossad officer, Ziva, was just plain scary. But he'd never tell her that. She did flirt with him, and it definitely felt wrong. But again, Tony was not going to explore that. He just wasn't.

Gibbs did end up getting lead on the case, but a least he didn't kick Tony to the curb when he did.

…

Spencer invited Tony back to his place. They ate take-out and watched old black and white films, Tony narrating the whole was through.

Tony crashes on Spencer's couch that night. Thinks about leaving in the morning before the FBI agent wakes up, but thinks that that would make this feel like a weird one night stand, or something, so he get up only to find that Spencer's not there.

Tony does find coffee and a bagel sitting on the table with a note that says the team caught a case in the middle of the night, but that they should do this again sometime.

Tony's smiling as he drives to work that morning drinking his coffee.

…

When Tony graduates from ODU, Spencer and the rest of the BAU throw him a party at Spencer's place. Apparently Spence talked about him a lot. He gets to meet Garcia in person, and she's as interesting as she sounded over the phone. He finds out that Morgan calls Spence "pretty boy," and feels inexplicably jealous, until Rossi for some reason tells him that Morgan thinks of Reid as a brother, and that he's incredibly protective. Tony doesn't know why he adds the last part. Or really why he said any of it, so he chalks it up to Rossi just being odd. Or something.

Tony doesn't even really notice that he's spent two years in Quantico already.

…

Movie night is a regular thing for them now. Sometimes at Tony's, sometimes at Spencer's. Rom coms, horror, history, comedy, action, sci-fi, they watched them all. Any genre, any actor, any director. Spencer looked shocked when Tony told him he was a Star Trek fan. Those then became their fall back movies when they couldn't get to the rentals store.

Tony was finding it harder and harder to ignore that little voice in the back of his head telling him to –

Well, he didn't know what it was telling him, 'cause he would never listen. He wasn't thinking about it. He wasn't.

…

Tony kissed Spencer. He wasn't drunk, he'd only had a couple beers. It wasn't like in all the movies, where there's music in the background, and the soft light in the room and the audience just wants to awww.

They were in the middle of watching the newest Trek movie, and talking about how the parallel universes were different, when Tony just, kissed him. No fanfare, no warning.

He smiled when he felt Spencer kiss him back.

And as they're falling back on the couch, Spencer's hands under his shirt and thighs on either side of his hips, movie all but forgotten, Tony can't ignore the little voice in the back of his head saying that this was a long time coming.

THE BEGINNING.

So. I will probably be writing a companion piece to this, from Reid's POV, and maybe a sequel. We'll see. ;)

Ta ta for now, my pretties!