For the ‘don’t’ prompt thing:
Doggett/Reyes and “You don’t care what they think.”
In my head, John is the one saying it to Monica, but I’m not married to that idea.
Thank you for the prompt!!
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One of the things Monica has always appreciated about John Doggett is that she never has to guess his mood.
The emotional weather patterns of her family of origin can be generously described as tempestuous—ultimately loving, usually kind, but varied, rapidly shifting, and loud. Monica herself was always the even-keeled one, happily going about her life amid the rising and falling dramas of the people around her (and las telenovelas on TV), but growing up in a house without a single emotional filter means that she is most comfortable when the people around her say what they mean.
She makes exceptions for friends she cares about, of course, but it’s always like reading a foreign language. Nine times out of ten she gets it right when she guesses if Dana is actually fine or if she’s hanging on by the very last thread of her rope, but John’s complete inability to disguise his feelings is always a relief.
She’s also usually good at guessing why he’s in a mood, but as he tears down US 70 like the devil himself is chasing them across Pennsylvania, she’s coming up empty. It’s a nice spring day, there’s next to no traffic, and the coffee-and-muffin situation at the Pittsburgh field office was surprisingly good. The case they’re on is pretty grisly, as they often are when the X-Files office and violent crimes get summoned at the same time, but John has seen far worse.
And while he never likes her more metaphysical theories, it’s rare that one of them will set him off like this unless the case itself is somehow personal.
“We should stop by the game lands again,” she says, continuing the essentially one-way conversation she has been holding for the past half-hour. “I want to take a wider perimeter around the second crime scene to see if there are more burned-out trees with those markings.”
John grunts something that sounds affirmative.
“I know it’s not your first instinct to believe in forces like this, but you have to admit it’s an unusual pattern of—”
“It’s fine. I said we’re stopping.”
Well, given that those are the first six words he has strung together since leaving the city limits: “Not out loud, you didn’t.”
She says it teasingly, but she gets no reaction, positive or otherwise.
After another minute of watching him silently glare down the asphalt ahead of them, Monica goes for the direct route, “Well if it’s not about fire spirits, will you tell me why you’re so angry all of a sudden?”
“I’m not—” He cuts himself off, then looks at her like she’s being irrational.
She’s pretty immune to that look, so she just stares back, eyebrows up, waiting.
He says, “I don’t get that about you. Why aren’t you angry?”
The question seems to come out of the blue. It’s only ten-thirty a.m. and they spent the morning in the same task force stand-up, with no disturbing developments in the case—beyond the ones that were already there. She can’t think of what information he could have that she doesn’t. “Should I be?”
He shakes his head. He eases up on the gas, letting their rented Camry slow from reckless to just garden-variety illegal. “You really don’t care what anyone thinks of you, do you?”
Ohhhh. That.
It’s kind of sweet to learn that he was bothered by the collective snickering of the violent crimes agents when she laid out the reasoning for her elemental-spirit theory—and no, she doesn’t care what they think, because at the end of the day she will be right or she will be wrong, and only one agent in that room is coming home with her.
So to speak.
She offers, “I care what you think.”
For some reason that makes John’s frown deepen as he turns on the blinker and exits the interstate. She pulls out the map in case he asks for copilot guidance to the hunting reserve, but he seems to remember where he’s going without her directions.
A mile down the road, he says, “You know… I mean, you do know that when I tell you one of your theories is…” He trails off.
“… nuts?” she supplies the word the ASAC used this morning.
He grumbles in response, then says, “I don’t ever think you’re nuts.”
Oh, John. “Yes, you do.”
He glares at her, but most of his anger has burned off. “I’m trying to make a point here, okay?”
“Sorry.” She politely folds her hands on top of the map, and can’t help but grin. “Make your point.”
“I don’t always understand how you get from point A to point B, but you get there. The whole… fire spirits, and whatever, it’s a lot to take in, but I don’t like when they brush you off.”
It is sweet, and her heart squeezes a little in her chest, accompanied by that familiar feeling of gratitude that she not only gets to go on such an exciting journey with this X-Files assignment, but that she gets to do it with him.
Monica really doesn’t care what a random Pittsburgh ASAC thinks about her, as long as he lets her do her job, but still, “It’s good to know you’re on my side.”
“Always.” This time when John looks over at the passenger seat, his frown has been replaced with a warm little smile, the one that he has been giving her a lot more lately, the one that makes her feel like they’re heading toward something important. “We’re partners, right?”
They have been for almost a year. At a certain point, her heart should probably stop skipping when he says it out loud. “Even when you think I’m nuts?”
He rolls his eyes and turns back to the road, but he’s still smiling, and she’s willing to take that as his final answer.
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