kinglearisstupid | Beezus and Nate's Excellent Adventures, Part 2

*The second installment of the epic adventures of one tiny sociopath and her gay twin brother, as penned by the magnificent

amichevole :

Nate seems to calm down considerably once Beezus and Dave escape to the living room to watch Spongebob. This is kid is no more used to having a sibling than Emily is to having two kids that are supposedly hers (in two other universes) thrust upon her.

That, she thinks, must be the ultimate cruel joke.

It’s a little weird, though, that in at least two universes out there, she’s getting it on with Rossi. Admittedly, given that Reid says there are infinite alternate universes, there are apparently worlds in which she’s procreated with Hotch, or with Morgan, or with Reid. There are universes out there in which she’s the President of the United States, or the kingpin (queenpin?) of crime on the Eastern Seaboard. Now, though, she’s stuck in a universe where she’s trying to get someone else’s five-year-old to stop trying to shove bits of toast up his nose.

Now at least, he’s a little more amenable to having a bath, which ends up covering Rossi’s entire bathroom in soapy water. Plastic toys are scattered in places so inaccessible, Emily’s not entirely sure how they’d gotten there. The clean-up, she decides, is probably best left for when Nate’s asleep and can’t cause any more havoc.

Yesterday, they’d decided against divide and conquer. Today, it’s become apparent that while a handful on their own, together, Nate and Beezus are downright destructive.

‘What do you want to do today, buddy?’ Emily asks, a little wary. After all, who knows what kind of parenting style her alternate self had used.

‘I wanna go into the woods,’ he says, which is more of a demand than anything else.

‘Into the woods?’ Emily repeats, eyebrow raised, because she’d half expected his answer to be “eat glue,” or “destroy the house.”

He leads her out into the backyard – or at least, that’s what Rossi had called it. It’s the first time Emily’s seeing the thing in daylight, and “big” doesn’t really seem to cover it. Nate leads her down to the back, where there’s a tall wooden fence.

‘Nate, I don’t think—’

‘Emily, there are spiders, in there,’ he says, as though that’s something that she should have known already. Also, he’s calling her Emily, which is just…weird.

And then, without any warning, he lets go of her hand, and scrambles up and over the fence, before she has a chance to stop him. Emily’s stunned. A day and a half, and her alternate universe son has already escaped. God, no wonder this universe hadn’t given her any kids.

How the hell had the kid that couldn’t drink his juice without drowning his eggs in it climbed over a six foot tall fence without killing himself?

‘Come on, Mommy!’

Emily shakes her head, and climbs the fence. It’s been a hell of a long time since she’s done it, and her landing is a little off – which is the polite way of saying she ends up sprawled in the dirt.

Nate, of course, has already managed to find a worm, which he’s letting crawl along his arm. So much for a clean kid.

She gets up, and tries to brush herself off, but the jeans are already a lost cause. Spending time with this kid is going to cost her a fortune in laundry.

‘So what’s out here?’ she asks Nate, figuring that the changes between universes can’t be too bad if everything else is the same.

‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘That’s why we hafta explore.’

No wonder this kid had found baseball boring.

Dave had tried yesterday, getting almost giddy at the thought of turning the boy into a miniature version of himself. That ship has sailed, though, which means he’s more interested in the child that has apparently got him wrapped around her finger in two universes.

Emily’s still a little unsure, but if nothing else, this experience has opened her mind to some of the more unexpected things in life (like spending the night with David Rossi).

‘Stay safe Mr. Worm,’ he says, and puts the worm back in the dirt. It’s a step up from eating the worm, which is what she’d expected. ‘His slime is going to give the plants nitrogen,’ he explains solemnly. ‘It’s an important nutritant.’

‘Nutrient,’ Emily corrects absent-mindedly, before she realizes what he’d said.

‘Nutrient,’ Nate repeats, nodding. ‘The bacteria in dirt makes us happy,’ he adds, grabbing a handful of the stuff and pressing it against his shirt.

Later, Emily finds out from Reid that a strain of bacterium in dirt does release serotonin, which means Nate isn’t quite as slow as they’d first thought. He’s just…

She’s not quite sure of the right word to use. Happy is correct, but doesn’t quite cover it. Content, maybe? In any case, he drops the clod of dirt and starts running off into the woods. Swearing internally, Emily runs after him.

Beezus is kind of evil, and that’s okay, because at least that’s at least predictable. Beezus is the kind of unsub that toys with the BAU because it gives her a power trip. Nate is more like a disorganized unsub – hardly even aware that the BAU is there, and pretty much just does his own thing. Beezus needs them because she needs validation, but Emily’s pretty sure that Nate would be perfectly happy exploring the woods all day and digging for dinosaurs or something.

When she catches up (which doesn’t take all that long), he’s found a nest of ants, and is poking them with a stick.

Of course.

‘My favourite thing in the world is dirt,’ he says, unperturbed by her sudden interest in the minutiae of his life. ‘And then bugs. And then trees.’

She’s a little surprised by the “trees” thing, until he drops his stick, and clambers up the nearest one. He’s twelve feet up before Emily can even blink, and fences are one thing, but it’s been a very long time since she’s climbed a tree.

‘Nate, can you please come down from there?’ she asks, trying to avoid getting angry at him.

‘I don’t wanna,’ he says, pouting. He scrambles up the trunk a little higher, and Emily bites her lip. The FBI training means that she can climb if she needs to. It’s either that, or find a way to explain to her alternate universe self that she accidentally got Nate killed.

She puts one hand around the lowest branch, and pulls herself up.

What’s the worst that could happen?

…

After Spongebob, Beezus demands Food Network, and has a miniature temper tantrum when he says he doesn’t get Food Network.

Her real daddy, she says, has the Food Network, and he’s definitely a better cook. There’s a tone of challenge in her voice, and Rossi knows better than to rise to it, but there’s part of him that needs to please this kid, because damned if he can’t see himself in her.

‘Chicken nuggets!’ is her first request, to which Dave rolls his eyes and says:

‘Kiddo, those things come out of a box, so it doesn’t really show how good my cooking is.’

‘Deep-fried cheesecake!’ is her second.

‘If I know myself, then I know that your father would never in a million years make deep-fried cheesecake.’

She’s almost insistent on horse spaghetti for a while, which Rossi manages to figure is actually alla puttanesca, but Nate doesn’t like spicy things (or olives, or anchovies, or capers, or anything, really), so they settle on pizza.

It’s midday, and Emily and Nate have been gone a while, but Rossi knows better than to worry. Emily can take care of herself, and Nate is a little easier than Beezus – at least mentally speaking. Half an hour later, he’s will to reassess when Emily and Nate walk through the door. They’re both covered in dirt, and, in Emily’s case, blood. She’s holding her right arm awkwardly against her stomach

He stares at her, torn between amusement and concern.

Emily shakes her head.

‘Don’t ask,’ she says.

…

Emily leaves the kids in Rossi’s care while she takes a shower. A day and a half, and already she’s a little tired of it, but admittedly, the circumstances aren’t exactly normal. Nate is clean (again), but he’s also running short of clothes, which means the rest of the day is going to be spent at the mall.

She scrubs the dirt from her body, still mentally cursing Nate. He’s a sweet kid, but he has way, way too much energy. She lingers under the hot water, and takes her time finding Rossi’s first aid kit in the medicine cabinet. There’s a long gash on her arm, from climbing over the fence, and bruises on her ass from falling out of the tree, in amongst a dozen other injuries that she can’t quite determine the cause of. Constant bandaging, she thinks, is an integral part of raising children.

Most parents generally don’t have that responsibility thrust upon them so quickly. Generally, they have a little longer to prepare themselves – to get used to it. Generally, they’re working a little more closely.

Not that she and Rossi aren’t good at working together. Honestly, they’re pretty damn good at working together. But working together to catch a serial killer, and working together to raise a kid are two very different kinds of working together. Especially since the latter generally also involves…stuff.

‘”Stuff?”’ Rossi asks, an hour later, when they’re sitting in McDonald’s outdoor play area. Beatrice had thrown a temper tantrum when it became evident that Nate had no suitable clothes at all to wear. Emily had felt like a pretty shitty mother when dressing him in a bright pink Powerpuff Girls t-shirt, but he had dealt with it much better than Beatrice had, by declaring himself to be the new queen of Townsville.

‘Certain physical acts,’ Emily clarifies, taking a long sip of her chocolate milkshake. Rossi frowns in mock confusion.

‘Prentiss, I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’

‘Sex!’ she says, causing a parent nearby to turn their head in surprise. She lowers her voice to a stage whisper. ‘I’m talking about sex.’

‘Well people do have to have sex to have kids, Prentiss. I know how it works.’

By now, she’s blushing furiously, and it’s all his fault. ‘I know you know how it works, Rossi. I’m just trying to address the elephant in the room.’

‘What elephant?’

‘The fact that we’ve had sex in two alternate universes.’

‘You don’t know that,’ he reasons. ‘It could’ve been IVF. Or the turkey baster. Immaculate conception, even.’

‘Why are you turning this into such a joke?’

‘Why are you taking it so seriously? Soon enough, their real parents will come and get them, and then we can go back to our normal, sex free lives, and you don’t have to spend your nights on my outrageously expensive California king guest bed.’

‘I can’t believe I actually did have sex with you in two different universes,’ she mutters, not quite willing to admit that the idea is growing on her.

‘Oh, by the way, Beatrice knows,’ he tells her, changing the subject completely. ‘That we’re not her parents. Just in case she tries to pull one over on you.’

‘Noted,’ Emily says. ‘It’s hard to tell with Nate, but to be honest, I don’t think he cares either way.’

Their few minutes of peace and quiet disintegrates when Beezus gets into an argument about toaster strudels, and Nate decides it’s a great idea to climb onto the roof of the restaurant.

Emily’s relieved when Dave takes Nate, because even though she loves the kid, there’s only so much she can take in a day. It takes about thirty-six seconds for the first of what Emily decides to call “Beatrice Incidents.”

On the whole, they’re generally more sinister than a Nate Incident, even if a little cleaner. This is a kid that deals in psychological warfare.

‘Can I get my ears pierced?’

‘No,’ Emily says, almost immediately.

‘Last week you said I could.’

‘I know you know what’s going on kid, so don’t even try that one on me.’

‘If I went to a security guard, and said that you weren’t my real mommy, would he lock you away?’

Jesus Christ.

‘Firstly, Beatrice, would you rather be here with me, or would you rather be stuck in a different alternate universe where your fake mommy and daddy make you eat Brussel Sprouts and watch Downton Abbey?’ Emily’s not entirely sure why Beezus holds such a vitriolic hatred towards the show, but she’s willing to exploit it to prove a point. ‘Secondly, if you went and told told the security guard and they locked me away, where do you think you’d end up?’

‘I’ll be good,’ Beezus says, though Emily can see the lie peeking through that statement. She knows that within ten minutes, this kid is going to do or say something else. Sure enough, seven and a half minutes later Beezus asks a woman in the toy store why she doesn’t shave her beard. Emily gives an apologetic look and quickly steers towards the exit.

Even though she does do her best to resist the sociopathic charms, she’s still charmed and wheedled into buying a few new dresses (“Nate’s got my shirt, so now it’s ruined forever.”), a DVD about sharks (“I miss my real mommy.”) and a tiara (“I’m tired, and I want to go home.”). Since Rossi is clearly the one who has been spoiling this kid since birth, she doesn’t feel overly bad about it.

Rossi’s right, though. Soon enough, they’ll be gone. Back to their own universes, where their own parents no doubt are much more used to their eccentricities. Even though they’re both a handful, they’ve grown on her considerably. For the first time in a long time, she’s started seriously thinking about the idea of parenthood again.

Beezus demands to know why the Pop Tarts in this universe aren’t right, and gets very upset when Emily can’t answer.

After this, any kid would be easy.