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caffeinewitchcraft · 6 months ago

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The Mayor's Daughter and the Outlaw

Summary: After ten years, you've finally got your shot at your revenge. You've found the Hero. You have him in your sights.

-----

Pull the trigger.

You’ve worked too hard not to pull the trigger. The sweat, blood and tears you’ve shed have been the least you’ve given to be here. The air is crisp and clean nearly a hundred feet up in a pine tree overlooking a remote forest. You’re probably the only person in the world capable of spotting the brown, camouflaged building spanning the length of the small river running through the valley. There’s a hologram of the river it’s covering playing over the building’s walls. Hell, there are even birds flicking occasionally across the illusion, not often enough to draw attention, but just often enough their movement sends your eyes darting to other trees, trying to find where they went.

You breathe in the scent of sun-heated sap so slowly that it takes a solid minute for your lungs to expand. Your pupils flex and adjust whenever the wind rocks your tree. The window you’ve been staring at for the past hour remains in your focus.

The Sun, hair just as fake-gold as it was ten years ago, sleeps on. He’s definitely older now that you can see him in real life instead of on magazine covers or under studio lights. The skin of his neck is loose and folded under the weight of his chin drooping towards his chest. His eyes flicker under his eyelids. The bastard still has the audacity to dream. His arms are crossed over the sun motif emblazoned across his breastplate, his dust-covered boots kicked up on his desk so you can see how worn the soles are. Judging by the way his lips tremble, he’s snoring.

Pull the trigger.

You exhale. This is when you should do it. When your shoulders drop and the wind dies so that, for a moment, the world stands still. There are no whispers across the canopy. Every bough is frozen. The reflection of the sun in the river is overcome by a well-timed cloud and the Sun’s head tilts back to expose the long line of his throat.

The trigger presses back against your finger like an eager puppy. There’s nothing special about the bullets, nothing special about this gun. It’s not the right weapon for what you’re asking it to do, but you’ve had longer and harder shots. You know that you’ll shoot true and the confidence steadies your hand even more. You smoothly pull--

If you kill a Hero, there’s no going back.

Your pupils dilate at the memory. For a moment you don’t see the Sun; you see her with her face burned as red as her prom dress. You try to dispel the image, try to remember that she didn’t die in her prom dress, but it’s too late.

I want you to live, Elian.

You’re suddenly aware of how your lungs ache and your legs burn from the way they’re wrapped around the tree and the bark is digging into your cheek and your fingers are like ice on the trigger. You’re out in the middle of nowhere. This is the Sun’s private residence. The security must be insane even if there doesn’t seem to be anyone else around. What’s your exit strategy again? Your thoughts scatter as her voice rings through your head again.

More than anything, I want you to live.

-------Ten years ago----

You’re what the heroes tactfully call a nuisance. A juvenile delinquent with powers, aka a kid that the police aren’t equipped to handle and the local Hero chapter is too overqualified and too understaffed to address often.

Your moral compass has never had a true north and it only gets worse the more your powers develop. Soon you aren’t just stealing your mom’s car – you’re stealing the neighbor’s and then the neighbor’s neighbor’s and then the neighbor’s neighbor’s neighbor’s until you’re breaking into houses at the top of the hill and joyriding in a car worth more than your entire neighborhood together.

You find out pretty quickly that the heroes care a lot more when money is involved.

You spend your first night in jail after getting chased for three hours in a neon green lambo by the four heroes packed like sardines in a standard issue SUV. It’s laughably easy to out-drive them, choking around corners and careening down alleys that you scouted in the afternoon. Honestly, it would have been easy to get away, but your mom called just as the tank hit empty, asking when you were coming home. You decided to give the heroes a break before they decided to play too rough with a minor.

Mom isn’t thrilled when you tell her you won’t be home in time for school tomorrow.

You kind of expect to be sent to prison the next day when you find out just whose car you stole. The Mayor’s daughter’s car, bought new for her seventeenth birthday a month ago. There are two open secrets about the mayor. One, he’s probably one of the heroes that protect the city judging from how much he praises them every time there’s a mic nearby. Two, he loves his daughter more than anything else.

So when you’re released the next day with a slap on the wrist? Yeah, you’re surprised.

When you’re released the next day to find the golden-haired, blue-eyed Mayor’s daughter waiting outside? Having just bailed you out?

You feel fear for the first time.

“You could have at least crashed it,” she says when she notices you gaping at her from the end of the parking lot. She’s leaning against the hood of a black SUV that looks a lot like the one the heroes chased you in last night. She waves a hand in the air. “Dad says the dents you put in the side will be out by tomorrow.”

Fear, apparently, makes you snarky. “What, you wanted to spend another week getting chauffeured by a hero?”

Her brows jerk up towards her hairline. She throws a glance over her shoulder. “You seeing ghosts? Nobody’s in there. I drove myself.”

“Good for you,” you say. You think you smell. They didn’t give you access to a shower last night. You’re upwind from her and damnit why are you embarrassed if you smell or not? Your chin jerks forward in a challenge. “You gonna give me a ride back home?”

You’re joking, but she nods like it was the plan all along. “Let’s go.”

Is that an answering challenge in her words? Your teeth grind as you force yourself forward. “Very kind of you,” you chirp, swinging up into the passenger seat. The car smells like leather and justice. “Just drop me off on the other side of the train tracks. I can find my way home from there.”

She snorts. “Is that a Footloose reference? Very dated.”

You stare at her profile. “…No. I literally live on the other side of the tracks.”

She flushes. “Right. Well…I’m not dropping you off yet. I want to talk first.”

The doors are locked. You swallow as she carefully pulls out of the parking lot and then guns it into the road without looking. Luckily, no one’s there. “Talk? About what?”

“About how you’re going to steal my car again,” she says. “And this time you’re going to crash it right.”

“You hate the color that much?” you joke.

Her tone is not joking. “You have no idea.”

You don’t find out her name until dinner when your mom’s managed to entice her into a third slice of homemade pizza. She stares down at the slice while your mom waves for you not to stay up too late before going to bed early. Gamely, you’re already on your fifth helping. Criminal activity takes a lot of energy.

“Does your mom know who I am?” she asks.

“Like, in theory,” you say. You’re full and warm as you lean into the hard wooden back of your chair. Mom added olives to your side of the pizza. “She probably doesn’t know you’re the Mayor’s daughter though. Just that he has one.”

“The Mayor…right,” she says. Her jaw firms. She flicks some olives off her pizza and then eats half the slice in one bite. “I’m Gina.”

“Elian,” you say instead of No, you’re the Mayor’s Daughter. You refill her soda cup before your own, just to show her you can be fancy and have manners too. She’s so out of place in your family’s one bedroom apartment. Her shirt is crisp and white, her gold necklace so shiny, that it’s like there’s a sepia filter over the eggshell walls and oak cabinets. “Sprite. Only the finest for the lady who bailed me out.”

“I’m thinking you can take my car next weekend,” Gina says so abruptly you nearly spit out your soda. There’s a hard light in her eyes. “Dad’s out of town for…business. He won’t notice for a few days. You take it, you get out of the city, you drive it off a cliff once you’ve wrecked it doing donuts or whatever.”

“A cliff?” You know exactly where she’s talking about. There’s an abandoned quarry about an hour outside of town. You shake your head. “That’s where people dump bodies. No way am I going out there.”

“They find bodies there because it’s outside of Hero Force’s patrol,” Gina says. She waves her hands in the air so the yellow light from the inset ceiling lights catches on her golden manicure. “If you think about it, it’s the best place to dump a car. Especially when the heroes are going to be out of town.”

You stare at her. “Did you just admit your dad is part of Hero Force?”

Her eyes skitter away from yours. “No.”

“Your dad is out of town next weekend.”

“Yes.”

“And the heroes?”

“Maybe they’re traveling together.”

“I don’t think anyone is supposed to know when the heroes are going to be out of town. Isn’t that like a national secret, or something?”

“We’re not a big enough chapter for it to be a national secret,” she denies. She bites her lip. “Probably a state secret though.”

You stand and your chair chatters against the linoleum. “No. Absolutely not.” It’s time for Ms. Mayor’s Daughter to leave.

She scrambles up after you, following you into the living room. “Why not?! You already mess with the heroes. Weren’t you the one who kept breaking into the mall on a motorcycle? You hijacked one of their delivery trucks a month ago—”

“A food delivery truck,” you say. “Which was more of a commentary about the city’s investment in Hero Force luxury rather than after school programs—” You bite your tongue. You spin so that the couch stays between you. You glance at your mom’s closed door and consciously lower your voice. “How do you even know that?”

“I’ve been watching you,” she says. She laughs without humor, dragging one hand through her golden hair. “Sometimes living in this town is like being in a simulation. We have four A-class heroes for a population of 30,000 and everybody loves them. Nobody thinks it’s strange to have walking nukes in a small town. They love my dad. Did you know no one’s even run against him for the past two elections? It doesn’t matter what he does. He owns this place and these people. He has – could commit murder and it would be justified. People would think it would be justice.”

“He loves you,” you say weakly. Isn’t four heroes a pretty normal number? Sure, the ones in your town are big names, but that’s not weird.

Is it?

“He loves me so he gets to be a tyrant?” Gina scoffs. “If he’s even capable of love.”

“I’m not going to mess around with heroes’ civilian identities just because you’ve got daddy issues,” you say. When hurt flashes across her face, you wince. “Sorry. But it’s one thing to mess with heroes in masks, okay? Messing with a hero’s family—”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem when you were stealing my car the other night.”

“That was before I knew your dad was Mr. Solve or whatever—”

“The Sun,” Gina says.

“What?”

“My dad’s the Sun.”

“That,” you say, “is so much worse. Didn’t he burn some minor villain’s eyes out last week?”

“Yes,” Gina says. Her mouth twists. “The guy got off easy compared to some others.”

You stare at her, momentarily speechless. “And you wonder why I’m not going to antagonize the guy?”

“But you already do,” Gina says. Her eyes are glinting. She looks so out of place against the dim interior of your home, a radiant girl dressed all in white and gold. She rounds the couch and snatches up one of your hands between two of her own. “Everyone else loves my dad. Except you. My entire life, and you’re the only one who dares to make—make statements about Hero Force consumption by stealing their deliveries or make the heroes chase you around an abandoned mall on foot like regular people. You challenge them, Elian. All I’m asking is that you do it again.”

“That sounds like a lot more than just crashing your car,” you say. Your voice sounds very far away. You never thought of your actions as so noble. There’s a tingling in your stomach that you’ve never felt before and your hand is so warm. She sees you. You shake the fantasy out of your head. “I—look. I’m flattered, but I’m not your guy. The heroes know my face. It’s only a matter of time before I get sent to whatever detention super-powered kids get sent to. I have to graduate high school.”

Rather than discourage her, Gina presses closer. “What if I told you there’s a way to do both?”

Her closeness fogs your brain. “Both?”

“Take the heroes down a notch and maintain your identity,” she says. She releases you and whirls to get her purse off the couch. “I can help you. We can train so that the heroes never recognize the new you. You can use your powers in new ways. And you can wear this.”

She thrusts a piece of chewed leather into your hands. A mask.

“I’m thinking,” she says, “we call you Outlaw.”

------ Now ----

You can’t shoot. Night is falling by the time you admit it to yourself. You press your back against the rough bark of the tree and stare up at the first stars. You cradle your gun in your hands.

The bloodlust is still there. You aren’t a fair lily incapable of staining your petals red (as red as her). So why can’t you pull the trigger? Because of her ghost? Her last message to you?

If you kill a Hero, there’s no going back. More than anything, I want you to live, Elian.

You grind your teeth. Easy for her to say. The dying never have to feel the weight of consequence. They can just say whatever the fuck they want.

You aren’t thinking when you climb down the tree. Your powers give you a lot of things – speed and healing, an instinct for the outdoors, and excellent eyesight. You don’t need to look to find one branch and another, dropping to the forest floor in ten-foot increments. By the time your boots hit the ground, you know what the problem is.

Unlike your other kills, this one is personal. It was never going to be enough just to see him dead. You need him to know why you’ve got him in your sights.

The Sun is an old school hero. The traps you were so afraid of are predictable, turns out. You pick your way around bear traps and landmines, sharp eyes easily picking out silver trip wire when it glints in the moonlight. There are cameras, but there’s likely only one person with access. In the past ten years of following the Sun, you’ve learned two things about him.

One, he’ll kill the things he loves before he loses them.

Two, he doesn’t trust anyone but himself.

You get to the building inside of an hour. The first floor is hidden by steel shutters and there’s no light peeking out from behind them. The second floor window where he’d been sleeping for most of the day shines with the faint blue glow of a television.

The front door looks like a bank’s with how thick it is. There’s a keypad and a biometric scanner you don’t have a prayer of hacking.

That’s okay. You’ve already seen your way in.

You climb up the nearest pine tree. The Sun likes to think of himself as a competent hero, but too many mayoral kickbacks over the years made him soft. He surrounded himself with powerful heroes and never once struggled to win. Because of that, he’s missing some caution and common sense. The building’s first floor is locked up tight, but the windows on the second are regular glass.

And he hasn’t trimmed the tree line back far enough.

You fire your first shot of the night into his empty desk chair, exactly where his chest had been hours earlier. Immediately a siren sounds, and the TV glow coming through the office’s open door is consumed by bright light. You run two steps and then leap, neatly flipping through the empty window frame. Your boots slide for a moment on the broken glass and you catch yourself on the edge of his desk. There are medical papers scattered across it, prescriptions and diagrams of the face and eyes and heart.

You chew your cheek at the sight of a pill bottle. There had been rumors that the Sun is sick with his own radiation poisoning. It’s good you’re here before nature runs its course.

The siren wails for another beat before dying. The silence rings. Your heartbeat picks up as your ears strain to hear if anyone’s coming to meet you. Strange. The Sun had to have been the one who shut off the alarm.

So where is he?

You hold your gun out in front of you and check your mask. The Sun knows who you are by now, but you want him to see the mask she gave you. The handsewn leather, patched more times than you can count, is recycled from one of his old leather jackets. It feels oddly poetic to be dressed in the first iteration of your costume, cowboy hat tipped back and a biker vest embroidered with the name she gave you.

Is the Sun hiding? You creep out of the office, eyes darting from the quaint landscapes hanging on the wall to the tasteful wooden floors. The Sun’s safe house feels more cabin-y than you expected. The property deed has been in his name for the past fifteen years. Did Gina ever visit? Her ghost runs ahead of you, golden nails dragging along the peach wallpaper to the first open door on the left. She looks over her shoulder and smiles.

There are times when you’re glad for the afterimages your brain conjures. This is not one of those times. You don’t think she’d be happy to see what you’re about to do.

You swing around the doorway gun first, a snarl on your lips. “You old bastard, drop what—”

The smell of antiseptic hits your nose first, dashing away the red haze filling your vision in an instant. A TV murmurs against the wall, some rerun of an old western, but it’s not what holds your attention.

There’s a bed in the center of the room. The Sun sits at bedside, his attention wholly invested on the hand he’s holding up. Carefully, he applies gold paint to the nails without once looking up at you.

The woman in the bed is obscured with white gauze and beige compression bandages. Her breathing is soft and even. The one eye you can see is closed and still. No dreaming, no awareness.

“Outlaw,” the Sun says. He gently sets Gina’s left hand down on her stomach and picks up her right. He squints at her pinky nail. “Close the office door, would you? I don’t want the heat to escape.”

“What,” you breathe, “the fuck.”

-----Ten years ago ----

It’s a good year with Gina. You never realized how friend-starved you were until she was there, over at your house every day after school. She always makes it sound like she’s coming over to talk about the Outlaw thing, but there’s other stuff too. Movies and cooking and tutoring.

“Life is about balance,” Gina says sagely during one such tutoring session. “Besides, even heroes don’t go on more than two missions a month. We’re doing just fine.”

There’s always a pressing need to do more though. Whenever you pull off a particularly daring heist, she smiles this secret and pleased smile that makes your stomach flip. Sometimes, when the two of you watch news coverage of your getaways, she murmurs how impressed she is, how smart you are, how cool your powers are.

It makes you want to do anything for Gina.

You’re watching the news one day, waiting for a recap of how you stole the Sun’s favorite shield from the armory, when a rare story comes on. A Hero is dead, some guy named Ibis from Atlanta. There aren’t any leads to the culprit except for eyewitness accounts of a mysterious, winged super-powered individual flying low over the city, hiding in storm clouds.

“I’d kill a Hero,” you blurt out.

Gina jerks so hard that the popcorn bowl goes flying out of her hands. She doesn’t seem to notice. “What?”

“N-not your dad or anything,” you say quickly although yes, if you had to kill anyone, you’d start with the man who makes Gina cry like that. “Just…in general. The news anchor said Ibis was connected to a civilian’s death, right? I could kill a Hero like that.”

“No,” Gina says. She drops off the couch to kneel by you. “No, Elian.”

You flush like you’ve done something wrong. You sink into your hoodie. “I’m not going to, I’m just saying—”

“If you kill a Hero, there’s no going back,” Gina says. She’s too close, so close that you can see the flecks of gold hidden in her eyes. “Your life—it’s not like what we’ve been doing. Dad’s got rules when it comes to stealing. But if you kill a hero?” She shudders. “I want you to live, Elian.”

“I got it—”

“Please,” she blurts out. The plea in her voice makes you really look at her despite the pounding of your heart. Her eyes are wild and her mouth is pressed into a thin line. “No matter what. Promise me.”

“I—” No matter what? You slowly shake your head, trying to get away from the instinctive desire to agree with her. “I-if someone is really bad, I’d—”

“Elian—”

The tension makes you truthful.

“If your dad hurt you, I’d kill him,” you say. When she rears back, this time you follow. You brace your arm against the couch so you can lean into her space. With your other hand, you trace the fading burn on her cheek that could pass for an old sunburn if you didn’t know the truth. “I know you don’t think he will, but he’s been erratic lately. And I know about his temper. If he hurts you, I’d kill him.”

The air thickens between you. It’s rare that you don’t back down, but you’re not backing down now, staring into her eyes. Competing wills. For a moment you let everything you feel come to the surface. Your frustration when she visits with that fucking shadow in her smile, the helplessness when there’s another burn on her arm, the adoration when she’s just there.

Gina shudders and looks away first. She licks her lips. “I—I…appreciate what you’re saying, but I’m fine. You agreed I got to make the rules for Outlaw. I’m telling you one. Don’t kill heroes.”

She’s pulling away. You do too, falling to her side and sitting next to her rather than hovering over her. You try for a careless shrug but fall short. How can she make you feel so powerful one second and so powerless the next? You avert your eyes. “I won’t kill heroes,” you promise.

You hear her suck in a breath. “Good. Because I need you alive.”

“I do like being alive,” you say and don’t finish the sentence with with you.

“We’re done studying,” she decides. She darts up towards the kitchen. “I’m getting another bowl of popcorn before we start the movie. You want some?”

You stare at your reflection in the dark TV. Your jaw works. Finally, you say, “Nah. I’m good. I’ll just eat it off the floor.”

“Don’t be gross, Elian!”

------Now.----

“I will regret that day for the rest of my life,” the Sun says. He hasn’t looked at you once. His eyes are glued to the steady rise and fall of Gina’s chest. He times his breathing to hers and then sighs. “What a fool I was. Drunk on power.”

You’re standing on the opposite side of the bed. Your gaze flicks from Gina to him and back again. “Is she ever conscious?”

“It’s a medically-induced coma,” the Sun says. “The doctors say she should wake up any day now that most of her injuries have healed. Her last surgery was the final one. Now it’s up to her.”

This might be the first time in ten years that you’ve breathed. You suck in air greedily and imagine you can taste her scent under the layers of sickness and medicine. “They told me she died.”

“I told Hero Force you did it,” the Sun says. There’s no remorse in his voice. “They always tell villains they were successful, so they don’t try again.”

A decade of rage slides around your ribs. “You fucking bastard.”

“I did think it was your fault ten years ago.” He carefully picks up Gina’s left hand again to apply a second coat. It takes all your willpower not to slap him away from her. “If you hadn’t stolen Hero Force data, I wouldn’t have had to come after you with my full power. She would never have been in the line of fire.”

You’re fists shake at your sides. “I didn’t steal Hero Force data, I stole your fucking car. Don’t rewrite history.”

“There was Hero Force data in that car.”

“It was your Porsche, your civilian Porsche!”

“My fault to have left sensitive data out,” the Sun says. His confession surprises you into silence. “But I had to get it back no matter what. Then I blamed you by thinking how if you’d only asked me to take my daughter to Prom, I would’ve known she was in the car.”

“She’s not your property and it’s not the 1800s, of course I didn’t ask if I could take your daughter to—”

“I’m telling you what I thought,” the Sun interrupts. He finally looks at you. He looks worse than he did earlier, the years cutting deep lines into his face. There are black bags of exhaustion under his watering eyes. He breathes out shakily. “I had to tell myself it was your fault. It was the only way I could survive, Elian.”

Your real name shocks you. You stumble back. “How do you know that name?”

“She calls for you sometimes,” the Sun says. He drags a hand over his face before grimly returning to his daughter’s nails. “She’s never been really conscious for long. The d-damage took a long time to heal. But when she’s awake, she calls for you and she calls for Outlaw. Wasn’t hard to put the pieces together.”

Your chest throbs. “I should have been here. You should have—I could have—”

“Blaming you let me keep her by my side,” the Sun says. “I don’t expect you to forgive me or even understand me. But I…I regret more than anything what I’ve done to my daughter.”

“You’re going to regret it even more,” you say. The rage you feel is like a tidal wave. Ten years. Ten years. You could have held her hand through her recovery. You could have been there for her. And this selfish asshole who never even loved her like a father should took that away from you. You remember your gun. “You never deserved to be her father.”

“I didn’t, did I?” the Sun asks. He sets her hand down and swallows hard. He looks down the barrel of your gun without flinching. “She says one other thing, you know. When she asks for you.”

The curiosity stills your trigger finger. “What?”

“She says, Don’t kill heroes.”

Your face contorts. There’s the memory of popcorn in your mouth and the heat of her eyes on you. “Yeah, she said that to me before too. Back when I offered to kill you the first time.”

The Sun hangs his head. If he’s surprised to hear that, he doesn’t show it. “I wasn’t a good father.”

“No. But she didn’t want you dead.”

Understanding dawns. “Don’t kill heroes.”

“Exactly.” You tilt your head. “Do you feel like a hero?”

His lips tremble. His gaze drifts back to his daughter. Her eyes are flickering under eyelids. “I—I—”

The trigger presses back against your finger, eager and ready. “Do you?”

He licks his lips. “N-no,” he whispers. He closes his eyes. “No, I don’t suppose I do.”

This time, it’s easy to take aim. Steady your breath. And—

Fuck.

“Leave,” you say. You drop your gun back to your side and scowl when the Sun’s eyes fly open in surprise. “If you do what I say, you’ll live long enough for Gina to decide what to do with you. Leave and don’t tell anyone about this.”

The Sun shakes his head. “No, no I can’t leave her—”

“Then die here,” you snap. You bare your teeth at him. “Leave. We’ll be gone in a week. Maybe she wakes up and calls you. Maybe she—” You take a deep breath. “Well. Maybe she doesn’t. Either way, your part is done here.”

“I need to be there when she wakes up. Please, I’m her dad—”

“You’re her murderer,” you say. More than anything, you want to pick Gina up and run out of here before the Sun can stop you. You eye the monitors and know three people you need to call for advice before you even attempt to move her. A week should be just enough time to disappear. “You think you deserve to stay by her side?”

The Sun opens his mouth twice before he finds words. “I just—let me stay until she wakes up. That way I’ll know.”

“I spent ten years thinking she was dead,” you say. “You can last a month in limbo. If I have to ask you again, we’ll finally see who’s stronger now that I’m all grown up.”

The Sun picks himself up slowly. You think he cries. You’re not sure. He may even plead with you again. You’re deaf to it. Your brain has given up on splitting your attention and every atom of your being is homed in on Gina.

She’s alive. She’s alive.

You kneel at her bedside and wait for her to wake up.

----

Thanks for reading! If you want to read more of work or get access to stories like this a week (or more!) early, please consider checking out my Patreon (X)! This week's short story for my Triple Shot and above tiers is about a world where being loved adds years to your lifespan!

Based off this prompt (X): Love determines how long you live, some people are in their hundreds, but some don’t even live to be 20.

#my writing #short story #superheroes and villains #my superpowers

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pathologicalreid · 2 months ago

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hysteria | s.r.

in which the BAU is called into a case in rural Appalachia when bodies start showing up in an abandoned insane asylum

margotober masterlist

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: angst (horror?) content warnings: hanging (staged suicide), enucleation, established relationship, ghosts, insane asylum, rope burn, premonition in dreams, death, pov switches, "the green ribbon", lobotomies, abduction, corporeal vs spirit form, CPR, hospitals, painkillers, first aid word count: 8.8k a/n: hey guys i am literally not one to beg for interaction but like if you could send an ask or gimme a reblog if you liked this it would probably make my day. this fic is just an excuse for me to tell ghost stories! and just like that, margotober is over. man, it sure would be a shame if i had something planned for november!

night one

“This is a joke, right?” You asked, eyeing the rest of the team as they observed the property before you. The dilapidated building that stood in front of you was previously completely abandoned, and now you weren’t entirely sure if the yellow police line was new or if the tattered plastic was a result of a crime of the past.

It looked like one of the haunted houses that Spencer would drag you to, one with a much too high budget that would leave you feeling like you needed to scrub cobwebs from your skin. You were waiting for the sheriff to make his way up the hill that the asylum was perched on, the BAU had made it up in SUVs, but the locals elected to hoof it.

Tugging the sleeves of your FBI jacket over your hands, you tapped your heel impatiently and observed the scenery. The fall foliage was in peak season, orange and red leaves fluttered in the wind, falling from the trees until they hit the ground. To the left was the town, small and hidden within a river valley, and to the right was a field of gravestones. Each life lost in the asylum whittled down to a number, hundreds of weathered rocks marked where a body was buried. Even after all of your years with the BAU, the sight still made you sick to your stomach.

The death count on this property had gone up by twelve recently, a group of college kids had found the first body hanging from the staircase, and it seemed like a semi-routine suicide until the local cops did a full sweep of the building and found eleven other bodies, each hanging in a different room.

It wasn’t until the medical examiner looked at them that they realized they were out of their depth, the oldest of the bodies had been dead before they were hung, which told you that hanging the bodies was the intention of the killer and he was beginning to perfect his M.O. Even more than that, the last two bodies had been enucleated post-mortem.

Being grateful for the method by which a person had their eyeballs destroyed wasn’t an emotion you felt frequently, and it was an odd thing to admit to yourself as you consciously blinked.

Over the curve of the hill, you watched as a couple of locals made their appearance, each of them equipped with a flashlight. The sun was beginning to set. Emily had made the executive decision that this case couldn’t wait until morning, so you took off in the middle of the day. Glancing over your shoulder, you found Spencer’s eyes and he gave you one of his patented half-smiles before you looked back at the foreboding building.

The structure had electrical issues, leading to lights flickering all over the crumbling brick walls. The flashes were starting to play tricks on your eyes because you would’ve sworn that you saw a woman in one of the windows, in a long white dress as she looked down at you and your team.

“You must be the BAU,” the sheriff greeted once he was close enough to your group, he waved before huffing impatiently. “Sheriff Shawn Greenbaum, this here is Deputy Conrad Perkins,” he introduced himself and the man with him. You studied them, trying to gauge information about them based on appearance alone.

Emily nodded, reaching her hand out for him to shake and introducing herself before making the rounds with the rest of the team. “Agents Simmons and Lewis are already at the station getting settled, but the rest of us are interested in getting in the building and taking a look around.”

Greenbaum placed both of his hands on his hips before clearing his throat, “That’s not a problem at all. We’ve got a lock up on those front doors to try and keep people out, we’re hoping it’ll put a halt on any more crime.”

Kicking mud off of your boot, you and JJ shared a dubious look. In your line of work, where there’s a will there’s a way—a padlock would do very little to help keep your killer out of the asylum. Even so, you all followed the sheriff as he produced a key from his belt, leading the way to the front doors. They were made of rotting wood. If someone really wanted to get past the lock, they could probably kick them in.

The smell hit you before you stepped foot inside the building, the stench of mildew wafting through the air made you crinkle your nose as you closely followed JJ into the building. A gentle touch to the small of your back told you that Spencer was behind you, each of you shuffling in single file behind the sheriff.

“The first body was found hanging over there,” the deputy, Perkins pointed straight ahead toward the winding staircase. You studied the peeling wallpaper and looked at the faded signs above the different hallways, barely able to make out the words tuberculosis and adolescent as you strolled through the main lobby.

Since they’d initially assumed it was a suicide, the body had been taken down, so even though you had twelve bodies to start your profile with, you didn’t have a fresh crime scene anywhere. In fact, you’d wager a guess and say there’s nothing fresh about this building.

Cringing as you walked over a pile of wet paper, you listened to Emily as she gave everyone jobs, “Reid and I will keep talking to the sheriff, Rossi and JJ, why don’t the two of you check out this wing here with the deputy, and Luke and Y/N can take the upstairs.”

You looked up and found Luke, following him to the staircase and ducking under the noose to go up the stairs, hesitant to use the handrail as you made your way to the second floor, knowing there was plenty of building for the two of you to explore. Pulling your flashlight from your belt for additional lighting, the sight in front of you was worse than what you had seen downstairs. “Watch your step,” you said absentmindedly, bypassing a bucket filled with what you sincerely hoped was water.

“When was this place built again?” Luke asked you, knowing you had done preliminary research with Spencer on the jet. He produced his own light, slipping his cell phone from his pocket and using the flashlight function.

You checked the ceiling, wondering where the beams were and if any bodies had been found in the hallways, “The 1860s,” you responded, keeping your voice soft so you didn’t disturb anything in the building—living or otherwise. You found yourself wanting to walk to the window you had seen that woman in earlier.

Alvez made a disgusted noise at something, and you refrained from looking back at it, knowing you likely didn’t want to know. “And what patients did they predominantly treat?”

Fiddling with the door handle, you nudged the door open with your knee, coughing at the puff of dust that met you on the other side. “They started with a little bit of everything. The elderly, children, adolescents, epileptics, TB patients,” you listed off. “We even found records of people accused of ‘excessive self-satisfaction,’” you continued, finding the window in question. The only thing you found was the same flickering sconce you had seen from the outside.

“Self-satisfaction?” Luke repeated the phrase curiously.

You tapped the sconce with the end of your flashlight, getting it to stop flickering before you clarified, “Masturbation.”

Expectedly, Luke chuckled lightly at your answer, “How exactly would one quantify excessive masturbation?”

Raising your eyebrows, you studied a strange mark on the cement floor, “I assure you; I have no clue.” You turned around, expecting to see Luke right in front of you. “Luke?” You called out his name, confused when you didn’t see him in your line of sight, you flashed your light around the room, wondering if he had found something. “Ah!” You yelped when a hand touched your shoulder, causing you to drop your flashlight.

Luke cackled from his place behind a bookshelf, “It’s gonna be a long case if you’re that tightly wound the entire time.”

You swatted at him with the sleeves of your jacket, “Asshole,” you muttered, taking the practical joke mostly in stride.

“Y/N?” Spencer called from the first floor. Your voice must have carried down the stairs, or they heard the flashlight fall to the ground.

Glaring at Luke, you shouted back, “I’m fine!” You crouched to pick up your flashlight, blowing dust off of it before you tightened your grip around it, “Grow up, Alvez.”

He rolled his eyes, “Yeah, yeah, so what did they do after they took in a little bit of everyone?”

You hummed, stepping back out into the hallway, and looking into what you assumed were offices—most of the patients would’ve lived on the first floor. “They started to focus on patients with mental disorders in the 1970s. Around the same time that medicine in psychiatry started to make advancements,” you kicked at a piece of cloth on the ground. “It closed down in the early nineties when people finally started acknowledging that things like lobotomies and electroshock are inhumane.”

Luke picked the next room, wiggling the doorknob before he used his shoulder to push the door open, “Woah.”

Stepping in behind him, you saw what he was looking at. Along the wall was a mural of sorts, a landscape that featured a caricature of the sun. Next to it, the words ‘let the sun shine in’ were scrawled in black paint.The colors were eerily vibrant for the age of the building, “Well that’s…” You let your voice trail off, looking at the size of the furniture in the room and ascertaining that it was likely designed as a treatment space for children.

“Do you hear that?” Luke asked, shining his flashlight around the room and looking for the source of the noise.

Fortunately, you weren’t that gullible, “Yeah, right.” You scoffed, turning back and seeing Spencer at the top of the staircase, “Hey,” you said, tilting your head to the side curiously.

He smiled at you softly, “Hey, it looks like it’s about to rain, so Emily’s having all of us head back to the precinct. We can look at the M.E. reports knowing what we know now about the crime scene.”

You nodded, looking into the room to find Luke, still shining his phone in every corner, “Luke, it’s probably just a rat or a tree branch tapping on the side of the building.”

Luke’s eyebrows were pinched together in concern, but he followed your footsteps into the hallway, falling to the back of the group as the three of you walked downstairs, meeting the rest of the team in front of the asylum.

“It’s kind of weird,” you said mostly to yourself, though you were entirely aware of the people who were surrounding you.

Spencer hummed curiously, making sure the sheriff wasn’t watching before he adjusted the collar of your jacket, “What’s weird?” He asked, mimicking the soft tone of your voice.

You looked back at the window where the light had started flickering again, “How all of these people were forced into the asylum by their loved ones, and now the word has an entirely different meaning.”

Holding your mug in both hands, you listened carefully to the crackling fire in the lobby of the hotel. Matt stood up from where he was sitting so that Spencer could sit next to you, and you absentmindedly slung your legs over his lap, thinking about the case. More specifically, you were thinking about the scene.

Spencer set a hand on your pajama-covered thigh, using his other hand to hold his book open as you listened to the other noises in the lobby. There was a storm going on outside, and a certain level of unease blanketed the team, leading to a convening in the hotel. Emily and Tara were going over case files, Matt and JJ were on the phone with their families, Rossi was playing Tetris on his phone, Luke was on the phone with someone, and you were just observing.

Eventually, Luke spoke up to everyone, “Hey guys, listen to this,” he said, holding his phone out and clicking the speakerphone button, “Okay, go ahead Garcia.”

Your eyebrows raised in amusement at the revelation that he was on the phone with Penelope, but you were still grateful to hear her voice coming through the speaker.

“I hope you’re all cozy by the fire because I have found a story about your crime scene that will chill you to your bones,” she prefaced, and you smiled slightly at her embellishments. “Catherine Pence was admitted to the Barnham Asylum for the Mentally Ill in 1978 at the age of 53. She lived a totally normal and insignificant life until she was 50 years old and her mother passed away, at which point, the people in Catherine’s life said she started to behave strangely.”

Snapping his book closed, Spencer set the novel in your lap before pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, “Strangely, how?”

Penelope cleared her throat, “I’m glad you asked, Dr. Reid. She was convinced that her mother was still with her. In fact, she would frequently be confused when other people told her that they couldn’t see her mom. Eventually, she started showing other concerning symptoms, so her husband brought her to Barnham.”

You frowned, sharing a glance with JJ, who had hung up the phone, “What kinds of other symptoms?”

“The file I got my hands on specifically cites paranoid thoughts, but that’s not even the spookiest part,” she continued. “When the doctors did their first examination of Catherine, they decided that whatever she was dealing with wouldn’t be amenable to any sort of treatment. She was a very calm patient who periodically had conversations with her dead mother and voiced paranoid thoughts, but they put her in Block D.”

Block D was the section of the hospital set aside for patients in need of around-the-clock care, which seemed a bit extreme for Catherine.

There was a clicking on Penelope’s end of the call before she resumed, “Anyway, Block D had sixteen rooms and there was always some form of supervision, usually a nurse. All of the doors were locked and there were bars on the window, so it was impossible to get anywhere without someone noticing, or so you would think.”

You settled further into the couch cushions, and Spencer instinctively squeezed your thigh.

“On December 1st, 1978, when the nurse went into Catherine’s room with her breakfast tray, she found the room in absolute tatters. I mean, the bedding was shredded, there was broken glass, everything was scattered around the room, and Catherine was missing.” Penelope said, emphasizing the last word.

Luke, who had previously seemed bored by the story, leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees, “What happened to her?”

Penelope hummed, knowing she had sucked everyone into the story, “The search started immediately. You don’t just have someone escape an inescapable room and move on with your day. The windows, walls, and floor in Block D were completely intact and there was no sign of tampering with the door. No one could figure out how she got out, much less where she was.”

She didn’t wait for anyone to speak before she continued, “Catherine’s nurse said that she was unusually moody and had been for weeks. She completely stopped speaking and showed no reactions when people spoke to her and it was apparently very sudden, but that didn’t really provide any insight into where she could be. The staff searched the surrounding area thoroughly, but there were no leads. Eventually, they notified her relatives and the residents of the town in case she had somehow gotten out of the hospital.”

Then, on January 12th, 1979, a group of men that the asylum hired to do repair work on the second floor found that there was a door locked from the inside.” Garcia cleared her throat before resuming the story, “They also discovered an unpleasant smell emanating from the room, and when they finally got into the room, there was Catherine Pence.”

You wrinkled your nose in disgust, simply just imagining the smell of the room.

“Her clothes were removed and neatly folded next to her and her arms were crossed over her chest, one below the other,” Penelope continued. “Mysteriously, when her body was removed and taken to the morgue, there was a trace left on the concrete floor that corresponded exactly to the figure of Catherine. No matter how many times or what they’ve tried, they can’t get the mark out of the concrete.”

Your blood ran cold at the memory of the strange shape you’d seen in the asylum, “What?”

Penelope hummed, “The medical examiner considered hypothermia as a potential cause of death, but apparently that winter was unseasonably warm, so he settled on a heart attack.”

“Did they ever consider homicide?” Rossi asked, attempting to seem uninterested.

There was a chuckle on the other end of the call, “Yes, they did, but they never found anything else to support that theory. At that point, the room Catherine was found in hadn’t been opened since 1976 when it was used to contain patients with a contagious infectious disease. Since then, the room remained locked.” You could practically hear Penelope’s smile as she divulged the final detail, “Residents of the town say that, sometimes, you can hear cries for help coming from the building. There are even reports of Catherine’s ghost being seen in the window of the room where she died, she just stands there and stares out the window.”

Everyone sat around in silence for a moment before Luke grabbed the phone off of the coffee table, “Yeah, alright, thanks, Garcia.”

“Sleep well, my pretties,” she crooned through the phone before the call ended.

You felt heavy as if there had been a weight placed on your chest, and in an attempt to rectify it, you handed Spencer his book, “I’m headed to bed.”

He looked up at you curiously, eyes studying yours before he nodded, “Alright, I’ll be up in a little while,” he assured you.

Your body carried you to the hotel room, using the key to unlock the door and somehow making it to the bed even after your mind had completely turned itself off. You didn’t remember falling asleep, but you remembered waking up.

As you sat up in bed, you were having trouble holding your head up, finding that you couldn’t turn your neck to see if Spencer had made it to bed. More than that, the room was pitch black when the two of you usually leave the bathroom light on in hotels. Opening your mouth, no words came out.

Small puffs of air escaped your lips, but nothing else came out. You couldn’t move your hands to your neck—you couldn’t move at all. You wanted to call out for Spencer, and even though no sound came out of your mouth, you saw him before you.

Your eyes widened at his sudden appearance, suspiciously illuminated in the otherwise dark room.

Tantalizingly slowly, his hand reached out for you, touching the skin of your neck with his fingertips before pulling. It felt like he was pulling at a thread, and all you could do was watch as his hand came back with a piece of twine pinched between his fingers and your disembodied head fell to the floor.

You gasped for air, holding your hand to your chest and panting, unable to figure out how to get air into your lungs when you so desperately needed it. There were other hands on you, gently placed on your hip and upper back, the latter rubbing small circles as you choked on nothing but air.

“Hey,” Spencer whispered, continuing his ministrations on your back. “It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he comforted you, trying to get you to even out your breathing.

Carefully, his hand reached up to your neck, sweeping hair behind your shoulder, but as soon as you felt his hand on the side of your neck, you flinched away from him, nearly toppling off of the double bed.

He pulled you back as gently as he could, “Y/N,” he said, his voice stern this time as he turned to flick the lamp on. “What happened?”

You shook your head, appreciating how secure it felt to the rest of your body, before pressing the heels of your palms into your eyes. “It was just a nightmare,” you answered, the sound of your own voice felt disconnected from your body.

“You don’t usually call out my name in your nightmares,” Spencer observed softly, trying to get you to open up more to him, “And you’ve definitely never pulled away from me like that.”

He was right, you had your general recurring nightmares—mostly work related—but you’ve never had anything like this before. You didn’t know how to explain it to him, because how would you explain to your rational, genius boyfriend that you thought you were seeing ghosts?

night two

You felt his eyes on you, Spencer’s big, brown eyes were boring right into yours as you looked at the foreboding structure in front of you. You weren’t even sure how long you’d been watching the stained-glass window, waiting for something to happen, waiting for the ghost to come back.

Sighing, you leaned back in the passenger seat of the car, thinking about the now-cold coffee that you had sitting in the cup holder and wondering if it would be worth the caffeine if it meant you had to pee in the woods at some point in the night.

“You should’ve stayed at the hotel tonight,” Spencer said, his eyes still focused on you.

You pursed your lips, watching the light flicker in the window, “We have a job to do.” That should’ve been enough for him, it had to be enough for you, knowing that at the end of the day, this was just a case and you’d be going home once you found whoever was doing this.

Finally turning his head, Spencer huffed in frustration as he faced the front door of the asylum. “I know you didn’t get back to sleep last night, so you have to be exhausted now,” he told you.

It was nearly midnight now, and you indeed hadn’t gone back to sleep after waking up at two in the morning, but you still agreed to a stakeout when Emily suggested it. Spencer called you out on it then, similarly to what he was doing now, and you were sure he had something to do with you being paired up together. If you ever found out he had voiced a concern about you to Emily, you were going to have issues.

The cool glow of the waning gibbous moon reflected off of the building, the effect only building the eerie feeling in your stomach, winding itself up like a ball of yarn.

With the morning came another body, and it became clear to Emily and the locals that the camera surveillance that had been set up along the perimeter wasn’t doing anything to bring you closer to closing the case. So, she had you and Spencer sitting in a car at the front entrance, each of you armed and on high alert, no matter what your boyfriend thought.

On the other side of the building, Luke and Tara were in another vehicle, keeping an eye on a back entrance that had the potential to be an access point for the UnSub.

Keeping an eye on your window, you squinted as if you could somehow summon Catherine Pence’s ghost. You wished you’d been paired up with Luke again, who at least had seen the mark on the floor, but instead, you had Spencer, who had meddled with your work out of concern for you.

You sighed, reminding yourself that he only did it out of concern for you, wondering how to approach the issue when an all-too-familiar figure appeared in that second-floor window, “Do you see that?” You blurted the question before you could even think about what you were saying.

Instinctively, Spencer placed a hand on his weapon while looking through the windshield of the car, “See what?”

You furrowed your brows, pointing as plainly as you possibly could to the second-floor window where you saw the woman, “On the second floor. Off to the right,” you said desperately, wanting him to see it, wanting him to believe you. “Don’t you see her?”

Spencer’s hand dropped as his gaze went from the building and back to you, “Honey.” You tried to ignore the emotion-filled tone that he gave you, flooding the pet name with an apt amount of concern.

Sitting back in the car seat, “Never mind, I didn’t—” you cut yourself off, “I just thought I saw something.” You tried to play it off, crossing your ankles one over the other and shifting in the seat, trying to keep your ass from going numb.

His eyes were still trained on you, and you tried to ignore him even as he locked the passenger door from the inside. The car remained absolutely silent until you heard a voice come in from the radio, “This is the Death Star calling for the Bat Mobile, over.”

You rolled your eyes at the sound of Luke’s voice, “Don’t call this car the Bat Mobile,” you told Spencer as he lifted the radio to his mouth.

“This is the Bat Mobile, we can hear you loud and clear Death Star, over,” Spencer responded, grinning at the way you groaned in response. The poltergeist of it all nearly forgotten for just a moment.

Placing your head in your hands in frustration as you waited for Luke’s response, Spencer reached over and smoothed your hair back, the gesture feeling oddly domestic for a stakeout. Maybe that was why Emily never paired the two of you together. “Yeah, we aren’t seeing anything out here, are you clear on your end?”

Spencer’s ministrations on your hair faltered for just a moment before he answered, “No, we haven’t seen anything.”

“Tara just got off the phone with Emily, they got the lab results back on those tools we found by the latest victim,” he informed you, “The blood on it was a match.”

You pressed your lips together in a thin line and shared a look with Spencer. Part of you was grateful to finally feel like you’d made some semblance of progress with the case, but the other part of you felt physically ill knowing that the latest victim had been enucleated using an orbitoclast. Her eyes and sockets were pulverized by a lobotomy pick, and it almost made you feel like you needed a word stronger than sadist.

“Did the medical examiner say the injuries matched the patterns of the other two enucleated victims?” Spencer asked into the radio, holding it close to his mouth as he spoke.

There was a pause before Luke responded, “Uh, kind of.”

You frowned, “What do you mean ‘kind of?’”

Another pause, “The M.E. concluded that the wound patterns are the same on the three latest victims, but the injuries on the most recent one were inflicted antemortem,” Luke explained.

Your eyes widened as the weight of Luke’s words joined the pit in your stomach, her eyes had been pulverized while she was still alive. The M.E.’s conclusion matched the one you had proposed when you saw the blood spatter this morning. You held your breath to stop a sound of disgust from escaping your lips, but you knew Spencer saw it on your face.

“Thanks for the update,” Spencer said, turning down the volume on the radio slightly before setting it on the dashboard.

Swallowing thickly, you placed both of your hands in your lap, studying them as if you’ve never seen them before, “Have you ever gotten the feeling that a case isn’t going to end well?”

You caught him while he was about to take a sip of his coffee, his movement paused for a moment before he took a swig anyway, setting the cup in the cup holder and nodding, “Yeah,” he answered, his voice raspy before he cleared his throat, “I have.”

Running your tongue over your molars, you raised your eyebrows at him in curiosity, “What usually happens?”

Spencer sighed, going back to facing the asylum before he held his hand out for you to take, you obliged, setting your intertwined fingers on the center console. “The case usually doesn’t end well,” he admitted.

“When are you going to tell me what your nightmare was about?” Spencer asked, squeezing your hand as he made conversation, trying to keep the two of you awake through the night.

Leaning your head back, you looked through the sunroof of the car, thrilled to see the sun beginning to rise over the tiny town. “I don’t think it really matters, it was just a bad dream,” you told him, clearly aware of why it mattered.

You even knew why it mattered to him. You’d never pushed him away like that before, but as soon as his hand had gone near your neck, you’d completely lost control of your body. “Look, I know I don’t believe in dream analysis—”

“Oh,” you scoffed, cutting him off. “Yes, you do,” you corrected him, “You do this all the time, you talk about dream analysis, and you claim that you don’t believe in it but then you actually get into it, and you admit that you just don’t like what Freud has to say about it. Then you’ll list everyone who has discredited him before you tell me ‘Jung still has his merits.’”

Spencer was quiet, and you immediately regretted your interjection.

Sighing, you wished you could melt into the passenger seat of the car, “I’m sorry,” you whispered. “I don’t think that analyzing my dream right now will do any good, but I just… I’m sorry.”

He was still silent.

Chewing on the inside of your lip, you turned your body as best you could in the vehicle, “Do you believe in the afterlife?”

That got his attention. Spencer turned his head to you, concern etched into his face, “Why are you asking me this?”

You couldn’t tell him. You’d break his heart if you told him that throughout the duration of this case, you’d developed a pit in your stomach and started having dreams about dying. “In my dream, it was like… like I was paralyzed, and I couldn’t move my head. I couldn’t speak or anything and when I thought about calling for you, you appeared.” You sniffled slightly, “You reached out for my neck and your hand came back with a piece of twine, and then my head fell to the ground—completely detached from my body.”

The lack of judgment in his expression was what finally triggered the first tear to fall from your eye, but you didn’t wipe it away. Spencer moved his hand and deftly wiped at your tears with his fingertips, cupping your face in his hands, “You’re not going to die.”

“Spence,” you said, your voice strained by emotion.

He shook his head gently, “Nope, not as long as I’m around. You’re not going to die on this case.”

Your chest ached as your eyes studied his, “Okay.”

“But,” he continued, “I want you to take a step back on this one. No more volunteering for stakeouts, no wandering to the second floor of the asylum, and no listening to any more of Penelope’s ghost stories.”

Nodding, you silently agreed to his conditions, holding out your pinky and waiting for him to present his. Interlocking your small fingers, you each kissed your hands, and you took a deep breath. “What do you think we’re looking at, Spence? Is it another witch hunt?”

Names and faces of people like Leland Duncan and James Heathridge flashed in your memory, but if there was an overlap there, you haven’t seen it.

You didn’t feel like the BAU had a very good track record in Appalachia, Shane Wyland and the still unnamed ‘Mountain Man’ were proof enough of that, but you hoped that Wyland was long dead by now, and these crimes were too organized for the Mountain Man.

“I don’t know, baby,” Spencer admitted, and you knew that it hurt him to say that to you, especially now.

Looking out the window, your eyes caught on Luke and Tara as they made their way over to your car. Spencer unlocked the doors as you hurriedly wiped beneath your eyes, trying to hide any evidence of your upset before reconvening with the team.

Luke waggled his eyebrows at the two of you, “Good morning, how was your night?”

Groaning, you stretched out your neck, “Ultimately uneventful,” you told him, knowing that if anything of real interest had happened, Luke and Tara would’ve been the first people you notified.

“Prentiss asked us if we’d do a quick sweep of the inside before heading back to the precinct,” Tara said, jutting her chin in the direction of the building.

You and Spencer shared a look, but now that you were grouped within your team, you felt comfortable enough to slip your hand in his as the four of you approached the building. Squeezing his hand, your eyes flickered up to the second-story window, and seeing nothing, you stepped into the building.

The smell hit you. The strong tang of blood mixed with that of isopropyl alcohol burned at your nostrils as Tara swore at the sight in front of all of you. A body hanging from the stairwell, eyes completely destroyed, and while the body was covered in blood, the floor was completely void of any red.

“She’s cleaning up,” you observed, stepping closer to Spencer and looking at the streak marks that a rag had made on the floor.

Luke raised his eyebrows, “She?” He asked, confused about the sudden change in pronouns while Tara immediately went to call Emily.

Spencer nodded, agreeing with you as the three of you watched the body turn in the glow of the sunrise, “A man wouldn’t care about the mess he’s leaving behind.”

This revelation left you more confused than anything, you had no idea how anyone could lift that much dead weight, night after night. “Oh,” you breathed, blood draining from your face as you looked up at Spencer and Luke. “We were watching the building all night,” you reminded them. “We never saw anyone enter, but we never saw them leave.”

night three

“Alright,” Emily started, fully equipped in her Kevlar, she looked around the entryway of the asylum, “Rossi and Tara will keep an eye out front in case anyone tries to make a run for it. Reid and JJ will take the tunnels beneath the west wing, Simmons and I will take the east wing, Alvez and Sheriff Greenbaum will head north, and Y/N and Deputy Perkins will stay here in the foyer in case anyone calls for backup.”

In the dark building, Spencer gave your hand a squeeze before everyone turned on their flashlights. “Let’s end this,” Rossi said, earning a hum of agreement as everyone split off into their respective directions.

You wished Emily had done you the kindness of letting you be paired with Spencer again, but twice in the span of a single case was seemingly too much to ask for. “You ever seen something like this?” Deputy Perkins asked you, shuffling his feet across the floor.

Shaking your head, your eyes focused on where the newest body had been found that morning. The body was cleared out and the cause of death was blunt force trauma, but once the realization that the killer had been in the building the entire time settled in, the team got to work on figuring out some of the logistics.

That was when the sheriff brought up the possibility of the killer using a long-abandoned tunnel system. The town had assumed they caved in years ago, but a bit of sleuthing had revealed that there were still a select number of tunnels for her to use.

As long as I stay in the foyer, you reminded yourself, no wandering.

The stench of isopropyl alcohol still floated through the air; it had likely sept into the porous flooring that had been underneath the body. You made note of the flickering lights in the surrounding area, making sure not to get any of them mixed up as you rested a hand on your firearm.

“Did you hear that?” Deputy Perkins asked you, looking up the stairs and shining his flashlight on them, trying to see if he could find anything in the eerie abyss of darkness.

Swallowing thickly, you shook your head in response, “No,” you told him, looking to the left and right of you, wondering if one of the pairs that had been sent off was returning. You hadn’t heard anything coming from the upstairs.

He hummed, taking a step closer to the staircase and setting off alarm bells in your head, “I’m sure I heard a shuffling coming from upstairs.” The pit in your stomach reformed as he planted a foot on the staircase and waved you over, “Come on, we should check it out.”

You hesitated, “We’re supposed to be here if someone needs backup,” you reminded him, nearly pleading with him not to abandon his post.

Perkins shrugged at you before taking another step. “I’m going to check it out, and there’s safety in numbers,” he countered before ascending the steps, making it to the first landing before your feet finally moved.

“Fuck,” you muttered as you followed him up the stairs, taking careful steps so that they didn’t creak beneath you. You reached the second-floor seconds after him, but you shone your flashlight around without any sign of him, beaming the light into the familiar room, “Deputy Perkins?”

You stepped into the room, placing a hand on your firearm as you tapped on the flickering sconce again and looked behind you. Your breathing hitched at the sight of the deputy in front of you, he was crumpled to the floor, his legs folded unnaturally, and there was a lobotomy pick that went straight through his head.

Next to him stood a woman, her clothes were tattered and stained with blood, and she came at you, shoving you to the ground and leaving your gun and flashlight scattered on the hardwood. The force of the impact knocked the wind out of you, and you got yourself out from under her while she frantically searched for a missing piece of the puzzle.

She’d used her pick to take out the deputy, leaving her with nothing to gouge your eyes out. You weren’t sure if you should feel grateful as you rolled over and grabbed the closest thing you could, wrapping your fingers around your flashlight and swinging it aimlessly against your attacker.

“No!” She screamed a high-pitched, blood-curdling sound rang out as you hit her on the side with your law enforcement issue flashlight. The object slipped out of your fingers as you sat up and tried to reorient yourself with your surroundings, you couldn’t see your gun, searching for it as she flung your flashlight back at you, the edge of it catching on your forehead as you fell back.

The UnSub straddled your waist, keeping a firm hold on your throat as she held the pick to your eye, having pulled it from the deputy’s head so that she could complete her ritual, “Don’t,” you gasped, “Think—” your voice broke off as vomit rose in your throat. “Think of the mess,” you told her. “You used all the rubbing alcohol,” you reminded her, pleading with her not to take your eyes.

She was seething, very nearly foaming at the mouth above you as instead of stabbing you with the pick, she used the butt of it to crack against your skull. “You took my friends!” She raged, referring to the people that she had murdered, she was collecting them to keep her company.

“No,” you wheezed, shaking your head even through the blinding pain, “I set them free,” you challenged her, resigning yourself to an untimely demise and crying out when she sat you up.

You tried to claw at her, a weak attempt at saving your own life that received a laugh from the UnSub, an almost childlike giggle. “You can be my friend,” she offered, grabbing an already prepared rope from the floor and looping it around your neck before she slung it around an exposed beam, creating a makeshift rig and pulling on it.

Immediately, your hands flew to your neck, trying to stop the rope from suffocating you completely, and it worked for a little while before your feet lifted off of the ground.

After that, you were gone, left standing off to the side as you watched your body hang from the ceiling while the UnSub who would always remain an UnSub to you watched, cackling as she did so. She cackled up until the moment JJ put a bullet in her brain, the sudden death of your attacker leaving your body to drop to the hardwood floor, the hit softened by Spencer and Emily as they caught.

Tossing the rope to the side, Spencer laid you out on the floor and ducked his head to your chest, listening for breathing sounds. He was listening for anything, any sign of life at all.

There was nothing, so he put his hands on your corporeal form’s chest and started CPR, pushing down on your chest in steady motions.

You knelt down to him, watching tears fall from his face as JJ did her best to keep your airway open and Emily frantically radioed for an ambulance, continuously repeating that Y/N is down.

Assuming your hand would go right through him, you placed a hand on Spencer’s back, surprised to find that he was still solid to you. In a sort of daze, you watched him as he tried to save your life, repeating the same three words over and over again, “Come on, baby.” The mantra continued, tears falling onto your shirt.

You felt like you were on fire as if your body was physically burning while you watched life-saving measures be performed on yourself, “Oh, Spencer,” you whispered. “I’m so sorry,” you said to no one but yourself, knowing that he couldn’t hear you.

Looking to your side, you saw her again. The spirit form of Catherine Pence was watching you die in real-time, and you took a shuddering breath as she knelt next to you, expecting her to impart some sort of spiritual wisdom onto you.

Instead, she placed one of her ethereal hands on the back of your head and slammed both of your forms together. The entire world went dark after that, but you could still hear everything going on, searing pain ran through your entire body, from a throbbing in your ankle to an ache in your ribs to a pulsing in your head, but there was no more pressure on your chest.

“Is she…?” You heard JJ’s voice first, and as badly as you wanted to open your eyes, you just couldn’t gather the strength to do so.

There was heavy breathing and a soft weight on your shoulder, two fingers pressed into the pulse point on your wrist, “She’s breathing. She’s alive,” Spencer answered, out of breath. “Oh, my angel.”

A low groan was the only thing you could muster up.

Spencer shushed you, keeping his head on your shoulder and his fingers on your wrist, “It’s okay, don’t try to talk,” he cooed. “You’re going to be okay, the paramedics are here,” he lifted his head then. “I just want to stay with her.”

aftermath

It was far too bright for you, and the low keening sound that you expelled from your throat was the only way you could think to express that feeling. Whoever was in the room with you understood, turning the brightness down for you, earning a hum of approval from you.

“Hey,” Spencer whispered, his voice barely audible as he tried to keep his voice as low as possible.

The universe was taking pity on you, you knew it because you couldn’t feel any pain, which either meant you had finally kicked it or the hospital you were in had given you painkillers.

Your eyes felt like they were stuck together, the way that they get when you wake up from a perfect nap, and it took a surprising amount of energy to part your lips, expelling a deep breath out of your mouth. The action led to a pinching pain in your chest, causing your breathing to hitch, “Ow.”

“Sorry,” Spencer said, though you couldn’t imagine what he was apologizing for. “Can you open your eyes? How are you feeling?”

A grunt was all he received in response, the single noise begging him to slow down. Your eyes opened just slightly, looking at him through slivers as he smiled softly at you. His eyes were red and there was a box of Kleenex on the table next to him, accompanied by his phone and a cup of water.

He sighed in relief once he noticed that your eyes were opening, “Hey,” he repeated, “You look good,” he lied to you.

You rolled your eyes at him and his smile only grew, “Hi,” you croaked, your throat swollen and dry as you tried to reorient yourself. You were in a hospital, but the view outside of your window was of a city, not the tiny town that you had just been in.

Noticing your confusion, Spencer reached out to adjust your nasal cannula, “They transported you to a hospital in a city. The local hospital just didn’t have the capacity to treat you,” he explained. “I’ve been with you,” he reassured you, “The entire time.”

“I’m sorry,” you rasped, but he waved you off instantly.

Spencer grabbed the Styrofoam water cup from your bedside table and held it to you, bending the straw so that you could get some water.

Noting his silence, you tilted your head to the side, ignoring the way your brain felt like it had been scrambled, “Are you okay?”

He pursed his lips while setting the cup back down, “I just remember thinking about how I promised you that you weren’t going to die.”

The antiseptic air made you cringe, your body becoming more and more conscious as time went on, “I wandered,” you reminded him, making sure he knew that you broke your promise first.

“That wasn’t your idea,” Spencer challenged, knowing you well enough to say that without having experienced it himself. His fingers nimbly adjusted the blanket on your hospital bed, “You followed the deputy upstairs, it wasn’t your choice.”

In your current state, Spencer wouldn’t let you take any of the responsibility for what had happened in the asylum and even though you knew the answer, you asked him anyway, “Is she dead?”

Nodding softly, he took your hand in his, “She’s dead, and someday I’ll let you know her name and read the rest of the case, but today is not that day.” He skimmed his thumb over your knuckles, each of them cracked and bloodied from your fight with the UnSub.

You sighed in relief, a single tear receding into your hairline as you closed your eyes again, “How long have I been sleeping?” You asked, squinting over at your patient care whiteboard.

“Two days,” Spencer answered gently, dragging his fingers up and down your forearm, “You were tired, and your body had a lot of healing to do. It still does,” he added the last part, not wanting you to claim being healed. “Everyone’s still here, waiting for you to be discharged,” he continued, “I should message Emily, actually.”

“And Penelope,” you added, knowing she’d rather hear it directly from him than through Emily.

Spencer chuckled lightly, a sound that was as curative as any medicine you could be given, “I’m sure she’ll be waiting for us at the tarmac in Quantico.”

A small smile sprouted on your face, “She’ll be the one landing the plane,” you laughed slightly, interrupted by a fit of coughing. You placed a hand on your chest and winced, inhaling sharply before trying to breathe through the pain.

“What do you need?” He asked you carefully, setting his phone back down after sending his texts.

You shook your head, “Nothin’, just you.”

It was an action that would’ve previously earned a few stares from the team, and at least one wolf whistle from Luke, you and Spencer slipping into the galley together and closing the curtain behind you. Now it was simply the easiest place for you to get some semblance of privacy as Spencer snipped at the old bandaged around your neck.

Your hair was secured atop your head, keeping it out of the ointment as Spencer used his fingertips to carefully cover the rope burn that had been left around your neck. “Does it hurt?” He asked, eyes focused on his canvas while coating the hollow of your throat.

Shaking your head minutely, you closed your eyes, “No,” you told him, a slight rasp still peeking through your tone.

He hummed in response, giving you a small smile as he went back to the tube, putting more ointment on his fingers, “Liar.”

Opening your eyes again, you looked up at him as your face warmed, “Only a little bit,” you altered your answer. At this point, the worst part about the burn was that the nurses recommended keeping it covered, and Spencer was taking his job as caretaker very seriously.

He checked his phone for something before going back to his prior actions, “I think it’s getting better,” he observed, furrowing his brows as he wiped excess ointment from his fingers.

You took his word for it, having been avoiding looking in a mirror at all costs. Seeing the bruises all over your body was more than enough for you. You flinched when someone else slipped into your oasis, Emily shut the curtain behind her, holding out a pack of non-adhesive Telfa pads for Spencer to use on your neck.

“Hey,” you said nervously, wondering if she had another purpose or if she was simply bringing you some first-aid.

Emily smiled nervously; her eyes studied the marks on your throat as Spencer covered them. You expected her to speak, but she just watched in complete silence.

Raising your eyebrows, you looked from her to Spencer, and back to her again. “You should see the other guy,” you joked, earning the slightest smile from the both of them.

“I just wanted to let you know that however much time you decide to take off, it’s yours,” she offered to you, watching as Spencer unwrapped another packet of gauze.

You hummed, “I’m really alright, Em,” you assured her, more than comfortable with the automatic six weeks that you were granted by the bureau. It was the standard set for all agents unless there was an extenuating circumstance that prevented them from returning to work.

Emily’s nervous smile returned, “It wasn’t a suggestion,” she informed you, letting you know that she was more or less forcing you to take the extended time off.

Peering at your boyfriend, you frowned, “You put her up to this.”

Spencer shook his head, “I didn’t. Stop moving so much,” he urged you, trying to stretch the number of Telfa pads he had before he had the chance to go to a pharmacy.

“He didn’t,” Emily iterated, “But he could’ve, and I still wouldn’t tell you,” she added. “We’ll talk more—both of you. For now, I don’t want to see you around the BAU for a while.”

You sighed when she left the galley, Spencer finished his last placement before stepping back. “How do I look?” You asked him, keeping your question mostly rhetorical.

His smile was so gentle that it cracked at your resolve, “Good.”

Looking up at him doubtfully, you leaned against the counter, “You’re a really bad liar.”

“Hey,” he said, carefully wrapping his arms around you and letting you rest the unmarred side of your head on his chest, “You look alive, and that’s good enough for me.”

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