#owp

“I didn’t say it was a game,” JJ said evenly, though the annoyance radiating off of her was entirely palpable. Elle shrugged as she and Morgan shared a look, but Spencer wasn’t done. “Actually, you said ‘Okay everyone, we aren’t playing cards for five hours, we’re playing a game that’-”

“Who’s your best friend, Reid?” Elle said, effectively both cutting off his verbatim quote of JJ from an hour before, and his impending death-by-Kit-glare if he continued. She hated when he quoted someone back to themselves. It felt like Reid trying to show off, and she hated a show off. 

Reid was clearly caught off guard, though he was the one next to JJ. The rule was that everyone had to answer but the person holding the card, and Reid was seated on JJ’s other side. “Oh, um. I don’t know. Morgan?”

“Aw, thanks Pretty Boy,” Morgan said, heckling from across the table. “I’ll say you, but just because you said me, and you make the coffee in the breakroom almost good compared to the way Elle makes it.”

Elle, who was next to Morgan, rolled her eyes and shoved at him. “Listen, that coffee sucks without my help.”

“Who’s your best friend, Elle?” JJ asked, she and Kit sharing the same laugh as they watched the two bicker back and forth. Elle thought for a second before she said, “I guess Liza. She and I went through the academy together, and then we were both in Seattle. We get together when she’s in town and try to talk, but…” She trailed off and gestured vaguely, but they all knew. Kit nodded along with the others. She felt like she barely ever talked to her siblings anymore, especially the ones she didn’t live with. The BAU was running them all ragged, one day at a time.

Elle looked up at Kit, nodded at her. “Alright, Lep. You’re last, go ahead.”

“Hotch and Gideon didn’t go,” Kit said, nodding towards the men on the other side of the jet. They both insisted they were not playing, but they’d still been asked every question, and both had answered with little to no interest.

“Haley,” Hotch said easily, without even looking up from his file.

“David Rossi,” Gideon said, barely glancing up from his book before looking back down.

The group of five around the table were silent for a second before Elle nodded, looking over at Kit and saying, “Okay, there you go. Haley and David Rossi.”

“Who’s yours?” JJ said, giving Kit a small, encouraging smile.

Kit took a breath and tilted her head. “Um. Oh, okay. Monty, easily.”

“Monty isn’t your best friend,” Morgan said, and Kit raised an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, no?”

“No, she’s your identical twin sister who you work and live with. That’s not friendship, that’s codependency.”

Kit raised an eyebrow at him, eyes going hard and defensive. She knew he was joking, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. “Okay, so, Ari then?”

“Don’t you all live together?” Reid asked, tactlessly. “That would make Morgan’s reasoning sound for both your… twins? Siblings? How are you supposed to phrase that?”

“Cúpla,” she said easily, “Ari and I aren’t identical twins.”

“You’re in a set of triplets,” Elle pointed out. “I think that counts.”

These fucking people.

“Okay, well, then…” Kit trailed off, ears burning as she realized she didn’t really have any friends that weren’t Ari or Monty. They spent their time together on Sundays, the only day they all had off, and Kit saw Ari in the evenings and Monty leaving work. All her other time was spent in the clinic, or at the BAU.

“Then?” JJ prompted, and Kit sighed and looked away from their group. “Then I guess I don’t have one.”

“You don’t talk with any of the girls from the clinic?” Morgan asked, and Kit shook her head. 

Elle prompted further, “What about your academy roommate?”

“Monty,” she said quietly, one hand coming up to tug at her left braid while the other slid along the leg of her pants. 

Morgan spoke again, gently throwing an elbow in her direction, “No secret boyfriend?”

She knew he was teasing. He was trying to bring the mood back up; the mood she’d clearly just crushed by admitting that she didn’t have any friends at all. “I don’t have time for a secret boyfriend, even if I wanted one,” Kit said, rolling her eyes and swatting at his shoulder. 

Reid looked confused at the other end of the table, next to Elle. “We have a two day weekend every week. Surely if you wanted to go out, you could go on either Friday or Saturday night without seeing sleep repercussions?”

Kit shook her head. This conversation was very quickly going from sort of sad to super depressing. “I work Saturdays in the clinic. My only day off during the week is Sunday, and if we’re on a case, I don’t get a day off at all.”

“You work six days a week?” JJ asked, clearly unaware. Kit didn’t care, she’d never told them, and hadn’t anticipated it coming up. She didn’t really care. Why would she?

She was sort of glad the conversation was scooting away from her lack of any conceivable friendship.

“Yeah,” she said with a shrug, “I have to keep my hours balanced. Three days with you, three days with them.”

“That doesn’t leave you a lot of personal time for friends.” Elle crossed one leg over the other, actively wrangling the conversation back into the super depressing. Kit wished she would have left it alone, but she knew it was strange. What twenty five year old had literally no friends?

They were quiet again for far too long. Kit refused to look up, or around, or at anything at all. She focused on the dryness of her hands, constantly chapped and raw from washing and washing in the clinic. She was startled when, out of anyone sitting there, Reid spoke up. 

“You talk to us,” he said simply.

The other three nodded immediately, words tumbling and spilling as if they’d all been wanting to speak up, and now the floodgate was open for them.

“You came to my apartment when I got strep,” JJ said. “I wouldn’t have called anyone but a friend for that.”

“And I’ve never had a better training partner,” Morgan said, “No one else is competitive enough.”

“I didn’t think anyone else would share the same taste in music as I do, but then we caught you at the bar, and I knew you were cool before, but that really sold it.”

Kit looked around at them before feeling a small smile tug at the corners of her mouth. She knew what they were doing, of course, but the feelings coming off of them were genuine. They meant what they said, and she was incredibly grateful. She didn’t let the tears that threatened to prick get any further than a threat, but she had to physically swallow and clear her throat before she could speak.

“Thank you. All of you. I guess… I guess you guys are my best friends.”

Morgan scoffed, giving her a smirk and nodding towards Reid. “You may have to fight Pretty Ricky over there for it,” he said, watching for Reid’s reaction, which was exactly what they all expected it to be.

“‘Best’' is a qualifier of relative quality, which means that its place as a superlative adjective makes it of a singular quantity. Superlative adjectives are used to show-”

“You can have more than one best friend, Spence,” JJ said, cutting him off and nodding toward Kit, who’s cheeks lit a similar color to her hair. He seemed to realize and read the situation, though he’d already shoved his foot in his mouth, and instead of continuing just said quietly, “Right. Yeah, obviously. The world isn’t a thesis.”

“The world isn’t a thesis,” Elle echoed before nudging the deck of questions towards him. “Your turn, Doctor Reid.”

He fidgeted with his fingers before pulling the top card from the deck, reading aloud, “What is your favorite color?”

“No!”

“Throw the whole game away!”

“It’s not a game! We’ve established that this does not meet the qualities that allow something to be a game!”

“Shut up, Reid!”

Kit watched as the jet settled, all of the attention being pulled away from her as a warm presence settled in her chest.