#on the left we have like early season jj and on the right I guess like season 14?

[rafesbabygirlx]

A Lot of Time has Passed | Part 7A

Series Masterlist | Masterlist

Season 4 Rafe x Maybank reader

Summary: Beginning at the time jump, the Pogues seemingly succeeded at something, Rafe is struggling with making amends and being a better person. JJs sister left the island after returning from South America. Returning after 18 months with a secret.

A/N: I’ve pretty much wrapped up part 1. Which is why this is pretty long. I’ll be splitting it into its own 2 parts.

Part 2 comes out next week so I’ll be able to finish the series then! There will be much more Pogue story lines then! You’ll hear more about Maybank Readers involvement with the hunt! Hope you’re enjoying so far!

Word count: 3.2k

Warnings: angst, smut (brief oral, p in v) Ruthie trigger warning.

You and Rafe are up early, getting ready to head out to the beach. You glance at your phone as you head into the closet to change, seeing a new message from JJ.

JJ - 9:04 AM: “Waves look good today. Grab your board and come join us! Unless you’re too prim and proper for us now.” 🌊

You - 9:06 AM: “Don’t worry, I’ll be there to watch you wipe out every time.” 😇

Meanwhile, Rafe is talking about the offer from Hollis, which has been on your mind too. “Y’know, I might be warming up to what Hollis suggested. It could be a good way for you to get established. Make people take you seriously. This is where you’ve always wanted to be, right?”

Surprised by your support, he glances over. “You think?”

You lean out of the closet, watching him pack your beach bag. “I mean, I’ve got my reservations. I don’t trust anyone who speaks so highly of your dad.” He gives you a look, but you ignore it. “And Sofia pushing you to take it? I mean, what does she know? But maybe it’s worth a shot. I just want you to feel good about whatever you decide.”

You step out, holding your bikini top in one hand, catching him looking at you. Smiling, you gently push his face toward the mirror. “A little help?” You pull your hair out of the way, and he ties the strings in a firm knot behind your neck.

“No matter what you choose, I’m here. But honestly, I’m starting to come around on the idea.”

He grins, his hands settling on your hips. “Feels like this is just landing right in my lap, huh?” He cups your face, his thumb brushing softly along your cheek.

“You could make so much money, Rafe.”

“Well, then I guess I’m about to make so much money.” He leans in, trailing kisses from your lips to your cheeks and down your neck as he pulls you closer, lifting you onto the sink. His fingers press into your hips, and you laugh.

“Making money turns you on this much?” you tease, tilting your head.

He smirks. “Guess it does. Though having you there with me doesn’t help.” He tugs at your bikini bottom, dropping to his knees. “Rafe, we need to leave soon…”

“Just a quick taste,” he murmurs, ignoring the clock.

He laps up the wetness that’s already coating you. Bringing his lips up to your clit and sucking on it. He moved his way back down to your hole and swirls the entrance with his tongue. You love how it feels but you want him inside of you.

You place your palm on his forehead and push his head back. He looks up at you with furrowed brows. “Inside, now… please.”

“Well since you asked so nicely.” You pull his shirt off of him and he drops his swim trunks to the floor, they pool around his ankles. He undoes the strings of your bottoms, releasing you to the cold air of the bathroom and he pushes up your bikini top.

He runs his hard length through your folds to get it nice and wet and ultimately thrusts into you. You move forward to place your forehead in on. You stare into each other’s eyes. It’s a bit of a strange feeling, you and Rafe completely sober. It’s complete intimacy, neither of you are drunk or high, just looking for a quick fuck with a comfort person. You’re deep in this, you’re both in so much love.

He moves his head down, breaking eye contact, to suck on one of your nipples. One hand traveling to your clit. Rubbing perfect circles on it. Your body arches into him. You moan into his ear and his sends him into overdrive. He’s pounding into you getting you both so close. You grip his shoulders and grind into him meeting his rhythm and clench around him. “That’s it, cum for me, I’m right there too baby.”

His words don’t help and you crash immediately from them. Your legs fall numb and drop from Rafe’s waist so he picks them up and thrusts a couple of more times before he releases into you. You two stay in the same position before Rafe pulls out. He pulls up his swim shorts and walks over to the tub to grab a wash cloth.

He comes back over to you reaching behind you to turn the water on. He smiles at you and you lean into kiss him. You kiss him everywhere, lips, cheeks, neck, chest you don’t want to miss a single spot. Then you just pull him in for a hug. “What are y-?”

“Just hold on a second. I just want to hold you.” He obliges and wraps his arms around your back. You rest your ear in his chest and listen to his heart beat. You’re like that for a few moments when you break. “Can I clean you up now?” You smile and nod and he does just that. Further taking care of you by pulling back down your bikini top and retying your bottoms.

You both stand there for a moment, catching your breath and enjoying the post-coital glow. The water still running, creating a soothing background noise. Rafe gently turns off the water and sets the washcloth aside, his eyes never leaving yours.

“I think I might like this sober sex thing, especially if it’s with you forever,” he says with a smirk. You giggle and roll your eyes, but can’t help the smile that spreads across your face.

“I think we might be onto something here,” you reply, leaning in to kiss him again. The water still flowing, the room still spinning, but this time it’s not from alcohol or drugs – it’s from the pure, unadulterated passion and love that you share with Rafe.

╰☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆╮

You hop off the sink, quickly smoothing out your hair. Rafe grabs the beach bag, and the two of you head down to the kitchen. V’s face lights up as soon as she sees you both, and she cheers. You scoop her up, and Rafe wraps you both in a hug.

Since hiring Elaina as V’s full-time nanny, things have been easier. She’s from the island, Topper’s cousin, though from a more middle class background, working hard at her studies in business while juggling this job. It’s ideal for her, and it’s a relief to have someone you trust with V.

You invited Elaina to come to the beach, but she declined. Just then, Rafe gets a text from Topper. “Alright, we have to head out. Your annoying cousin keeps blowing up my phone. Gotta get there before he does.” You both say goodbye, giving V a quick kiss before telling Elaina to text if she needs anything.

Once you’re in Rafe’s convertible, he passes you the beach bag and jogs over to grab your surfboard. Surfing has been part of your life for as long as you can remember, ever since you and JJ started daydreaming about riding waves far enough to leave everything behind. Most importantly leaving Luke behind.

The drive to the beach is calm and bright, Rafe’s hand resting on your thigh while yours settles on his hand. When you arrive, you spot Topper, Kelce, and Ruthie waiting. After the drama from the other night, you only greet Kelce, deciding Ruthie can deal with being ignored for now. Topper, caught in the middle, gets no special treatment either.

Ruthie’s the first to break the silence. “Hey, Rafe and Y/N. What’s up?”

Rafe breathes out a quick “nothing,” while you offer her a flat, uninterested smile, rounding Topper’s Jeep to get in.

As you head to the sand, you spot the Twinkie nearby and wave to JJ and the rest of the crew. The kooks have parked a bit close, not you or them are thrilled about it. You and Rafe settle down near the water, where he sips a beer, his hand moving gently along your leg as you both take in the scene.

JJ, Kie, and Sarah are already in the water, with JJ teaching Sarah how to surf. She catches on quickly, and you watch them, smiling. You steal a glance at Rafe, trying to read his expression, but he’s a mystery.

When Sarah steps out of the water, you turn to him. “Want to go talk to her?”

He shifts, but shrugs it off. “She can come to me.”

You roll your eyes. “You know that’s not how this is going to work, Rafe.”

He starts to argue, but JJ interrupts. “Yo, sis, you riding or what?”

“Yeah, I’m coming!” You hop up, handing your cover-up to Rafe, who gives you a lingering look. Licking his lips as he looks up and down your body.

“Can you be serious for a moment?” you say, exasperated. “I’ll be the first person to help you here Rafe. But you’re not gonna get anything from her. You have to give it your all, that’s the only way it’s gonna work. You caused the damage you have to fix it.”

Leaving him to think, you grab your board and jog over to JJ. He raises an eyebrow, smirking. “What’s up with baby daddy? Got another stick up his ass?”

“He’s actually been great, J. Leave it alone,” you snap, cutting off JJ before he can say more. With that, you both rush into the water, ready to surf. The waves carry you effortlessly, and for a while, it’s peaceful, even with Topper and Kelce joining in. But it doesn’t last—JJ blows a wave, causing Topper to wipe out.

“Well, so much for a peaceful day,” Kie mutters under her breath as Topper storms out of the water, Kelce right behind him. You spot Ruthie on the shore, her eyes glued to the scene, already gearing up for her next bout of drama.

╰☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆ ☆☆╮

The rest of the afternoon is spent with your family of Pogues, their laughter and banter offering a break from the tension that always lingers when you’re around Rafe’s dry, humorless crowd. It’s freeing, and for a moment, you let yourself forget about the other world—the Kooks and their incessant games.

The day flies by, and soon enough, you’re sitting in a circle with everyone when Kie’s voice rings out. “Guys, there’s a turtle hatch!”

Your eyes widen with excitement. “Oh my god! I’ve lived here my whole life and never seen one!” You jump to your feet, helping Kie clear a path for the tiny hatchlings.

The group gathers around, marveling as the baby turtles make their way to the water. You reach for your phone, wanting to capture the moment to show Vivienne later, when the sound of an engine revving cuts through the peace. Your head snaps up just in time to see Topper’s Jeep hurtling toward you.

Heart pounding, you grab Sarah and John B, pulling them out of the way as Kie stands firm, waving her arms to try and stop them. But Ruthie, wild-eyed and relentless, aims straight for her. JJ dives in at the last second, yanking Kie out of the Jeep’s path as it roars by.

“What the fuck is wrong with her?!” you shout, the panic morphing into fury as Ruthie speeds through the turtle hatch, sending sand and broken shells flying. She throws a drink at Kie, drenching her in alcohol before heading back to the cluster of Kooks, who cheer her on.

Kie, now soaked and furious, picks up a lifeless hatchling and starts walking toward the group. Your eyes find Rafe’s, watching his expression as he stands surrounded by his friends, unmoving. Then you look at JJ, who gives you a nod, and together you follow behind Kie.

The anger you’d felt toward Topper and Ruthie since the last confrontation fuels your steps. The sting of betrayal simmers as you realize that Rafe, the man who claims to love you and your daughter, is once again silent when it matters most. He can do it in private but not when there’s too many Kooks around.

Kie’s voice cuts through your haze. “Look at what you did!” She screams at them, but you barely hear the exchange. Your vision tunnels, zeroing in on Ruthie’s smug face and Rafe’s indifferent stance.

Ruthie spits out a threat about being filmed, and without thinking, you snap. “Fuck you, Ruthie,” you hiss, stepping between her and Kie. Topper raises a hand to stop you, but you shove it off your shoulder.

“And fuck you too, you cowardly lap dog.” He blinks, momentarily stunned. “What?”

“You’re pussy, Top. Always hiding behind your girlfriend, letting her pull your strings. It’s embarrassing,” you seethe. He doesn’t say anything, not shocking.

Ruthie throws out another taunt you barely register. Your fists clench, itching to make her regret ever crossing you. But the thought of your daughter flashes in your mind—a reminder of why you can’t afford an assault charge.

You take a breath, forcing your hands down and stepping back. “There is seriously something wrong with you people,” Kie shouts, her voice trembling with rage. You exchange another look with Rafe, one filled with disappointment and disbelief. JJ issues a final warning, promising consequences if they ever come at the Pogues again.

“JJ, let’s go,” you command, your voice tight. You start to lead Kie away when Rafe’s voice, low and almost apologetic, cuts through the chaos. “Yeah, I saw that,” he mutters, siding with Ruthie.

Blood surges hot in your veins at his words as you push over the large speaker Kelce had set up earlier, the crash punctuating your fury. You flip Topper off as he shouts after you, but you’re already walking away, your pulse thrumming with betrayal and rage.

Walking back, you keep Kie close, rubbing her upper arm in an attempt to soothe her. “When you get home, you should hold a little funeral for him,” you suggest softly.

She wipes her eyes, a faint smile breaking through the tears. “That’s a good idea.”

At the Twinkie, you help Kie climb in and press a gentle kiss to her cheek. “I’m sorry, Kie.” She nods silently, eyes fixed on the lifeless turtle cradled in her hands.

With a heavy heart, you move to help pack up the rest of their things, casting a glance at Sarah. She meets your eyes, sympathy etched across her face. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “She’ll be alright.” You step forward, sharing a strong, silent hug, then turn away, bracing yourself for the walk back to the group that now feels so foreign.

As you pass through the cluster of Kooks, you ignore their smirks and jeers, stuffing your belongings into your bag. Rafe steps up, his expression unreadable. “Not cool, Rafe,” you say firmly.

“They deserved it,” he counters, eyes searching yours for understanding.

“I want to leave. Now.” You sling your surfboard under your arm and march off toward the car, determined not to get back in Topper’s Jeep, no matter how far Rafe’s is parked.

Rafe rushes after you, but the adrenaline coursing through your veins pushes you forward faster than you thought possible. You reach the car before he does, rattling the door handle impatiently. When he finally arrives, you snap, “Open it.” He unlocks the door, grabbing your board before you can stow it yourself.

“Maybank, stop it. You’re really going to give me shit over what Ruthie did?” he protests.

You shake your head, a bitter laugh slipping out. “No, I’m giving you shit about your ego. You care so much about what those people think that you can’t say a word, even when you know it was wrong. If the roles were reversed…” He turns away, heading to the driver’s side, but you reach out, grabbing his wrist to pull him back.

“I’m not done.” Your eyes lock with his, demanding his attention. “If that happened to you, do you think any of them would care? Do you think they’d protect you like JJ did Kie? They wouldn’t, Rafe, because you don’t actually care about each other. You only get mad when it makes the Kooks look bad. That’s not real loyalty.”

You take a breath before continuing, your voice steady and resolute. “We might be ‘scum from the Cut,’ but we’re a family. We stand up for each other, no matter what. Something your so-called friends could never understand. You want to be better for V, for me, even for Sarah? Then get the fuck over yourself.”

You roll your eyes and grab your bag, sliding into the car without another word. The drive home is silent, the tension palpable, a stark contrast to the calm of the morning.

When you arrive home, you grab your bag and rush inside. Elaina is feeding V her dinner, and the moment you see your daughter, warmth floods you. “Hi, baby!” you coo, pressing a kiss to her chubby cheek. V laughs, her giggle a balm to your frayed nerves.

“Hi, mama!” she chirps, eyes sparkling.

You turn to Elaina. “I’m going to take a quick shower. You can head out after that—I’m not going anywhere tonight.” Passing Rafe as he enters the kitchen, you don’t spare him a glance, making sure to lock the bedroom and bathroom doors behind you.

Under the hot stream of water, the tension in your body starts to dissolve. You stay there longer than intended, letting the day wash off you. A sharp knock on the bedroom door snaps you back. Rafe’s muffled voice follows. “Come on, Y/N, open up.”

You dry off at a leisurely pace, slipping into pajamas and combing through your damp hair. The knock grows more insistent, but you take your time applying moisturizer, savoring the rare moment of peace. Finally, you unlock the door.

“Finally,” Rafe mutters, frustration lacing his voice. “Dramatic much?” His tone grates on your nerves, but you stay silent, walking past him without a word. He calls out, “Really?” but you don’t turn back.

Sitting at the table with V, you pick at reheated leftovers as she babbles between bites. Another things Kooks don’t have a grasp on. Practically had to force Rafe to not to throw these leftovers out.

Rafe joins you, reaching out across the table. You glance at his hand but don’t take it. He sighs, retreating as you show V the videos of the baby turtles, willing away the memory of the broken shell in Kie’s hands.

“V, do you know how pretty you are? You get that from your mama,” Rafe says softly. The sweetness in his tone almost cracks your resolve, but you hold firm, in the back of your mind you like the effect you have on him. You get up clearing the dishes and pressing a kiss to V’s head she giggles at your touch.

You set a plate of food in front of Rafe, who looks up, surprised. “I ordered something to be delivered.” You clench down on your teeth and you go to pull the food away but he grabs your hands and stops you. “I’ll have this, I can save that food for tomorrow.”

He’s gonna save his food? It’s getting really hard to not be mad at him. He tries so hard with you. Why can’t he do it for others?

You set it back down again. Grabbing V to give her a bath. You rest your hand in his shoulder and you walk past him. The nighttime routine is mercifully smooth, and soon V is asleep. You’re curled up in bed with a book when Rafe enters, sitting at your feet.

Tbc in Part 7B

Taglist:

@maybankslover @eringaitskill @luissa266 @lolll505 @dayyzlol @calaryssia @eg-dr3amer3 @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @rafestar @bigbonenative @writtenbyhollywood @livie4lifestarkeyblyth @leilanizcals

[cargopantsprentiss]

I had some thoughts about JJ in a suit that I thought would be worth quickly exploring :)

[spencerreidenjoyer]

insatiable | spencer reid x reader

Spencer learns how amazing sex is with you, but gets caught up with work. You show your boyfriend how good it can feel even if you’re not together physically, and he shows you how much he misses you when he gets back.

part 1 - addicted to you | part 2

wc: 4.6k, rating: 18+/explicit

tags/warnings: established relationship, phone sex/video sex, mutual masturbation, public (bathroom) sex, brief mentions of typical BAU stuff (not in detail), meeting the family (literally reader meets the BAU), brief mentions of alcohol, making out, vaginal sex, getting caught (not in the act but afterward lmao)

a/n: this is what an insane person does when they're sick for two days and have nothing better to do over the summer. this is a second part to addicted to you (you don't have to read the first part but it does provide some context for some details within the fic), with inspiration taken from a lovely comment I got on ao3 that made me feel kinda crazy. i included some textfic elements in this fic as well which i hope reads well (bold text is spencer)! also I know early seasons spencer technically sets this around 2005-2007 but they have smartphones and video calling (aka present day) so please suspend your disbelief for the length of this fic lmao (p.s this fic is also on ao3!)

Your boyfriend gets whisked away for work sooner than you expect. Spencer’s supposed to have time off the rest of this week, but you suppose killers aren’t exactly respectful of an FBI agent’s time off of work. It’s downright cruel when he’s called in to work on a Friday evening, when you have dinner and wine set at the table, having gotten ready to spend a quiet, romantic evening in with Spencer. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says, rushing to change out of his sweatshirt and joggers into his typical work attire. You stand in the doorway of his room, mildly amused while Spencer panics to put an outfit together. “I know you had a whole evening in planned, but–”

“Don’t be, baby,” you assure him. “You have a killer to catch. Oh, that one– the blue cardigan looks good with those pants. It matches your socks.”

Spencer smiles as he looks up at you, reaching for the navy blue cardigan to his left. He tugs it on rather hurriedly, comes up to you and presses a kiss to your forehead. “You’re the best. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

You shake your head. “Just find the bastard quick and come home to me.”

“I know. I will,” Spencer says.

After the both of you found out just how much Spencer liked fucking you, you were really hoping that your weekend together could be spent in his bed, but duty calls. Technically, JJ had called him in, but you’re not concerned about specifics right now.  

You spend the evening alone in Spencer’s apartment, half of the wine finished and his TV playing reruns of some show you haven’t been paying attention to. Your eyelids feel heavy, and Spencer’s bed is so comfortable you can’t bring yourself to leave it. That is, until your phone buzzes on Spencer’s nightstand, and you’re suddenly very alert.

I miss you, darling. > hey, i’m surprised you have the down time to text. i miss you too I’m really sorry I had to leave so suddenly. We’re on the jet right now.  > i told you it’s okay! i’m surprised the jet has wifi lol Taxpayer money, I guess? We land in LA in a couple of hours and we’re heading straight to the PD to work on the case. > my poor boyfriend is working so hard instead of cuddling me in bed :( How you tempt me, lovely. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Are you going to sleep soon? It’s late. > yeah i’m staying at yours for the night and maybe until you get back? really miss you already Okay, that’s good. I know. I’ll call when I’m in the hotel and settled for the day? :-( > yes please. also stop sending emojis with noses they aren’t supposed to look like that!!! They aren’t anatomically correct without them. The way you send them > babe they’re emojis it’s ok if they’re not anatomically correct Hahaha I love you. > lol i love you too! Goodnight, love. > goodnight spence <3 <3

You can imagine, especially from the way Spencer recounts it, how his coworker Derek must be teasing him about smiling at his phone, about how pretty boy’s lucky lady must be one hell of a woman to get Spencer so smitten. 

You would say you’re rather independent, especially in relationships, but Spencer has you acting like a clingy girlfriend. You can’t help but feel an ache in your chest as you long for him while he’s away, feeling like a military wife whose husband is out instead of being normal. To be fair, being with Spencer has never been “normal” – he always has something interesting up his sleeve, or some quirk that makes you even more enamoured with him. 

Your Saturday is relatively uneventful, milling about Spencer’s apartment. You laze around in bed for way too long, enough where Spencer would’ve definitely hauled you out of bed himself an hour ago if he were here. You make yourself breakfast, unsurprised that Spencer only has cereal in his pantry and almond milk in his fridge. You sit down with one of his very sophisticated literature books but you don’t get very far with it, and opt to clean Spencer’s apartment instead. 

It’s when you’re sweeping the floor that you realise just how much you like Spencer, feeling so strongly attached to him already. You’ve said your ‘I love you’s, given him his firsts. You were staying in his apartment even while he was away– hell, you’re even cleaning his apartment for him. 

Just for a moment, you let yourself fantasise about this being your apartment – yours and Spencer’s; about waking up to him every morning, about making breakfast for the both of you that isn’t cereal and almond milk, about coming home to each other instead of an empty apartment. 

You sigh and get back to cleaning.

You’re settled into his bed, surrounded by the comforting scent of him when Spencer finally does call. You almost drop your phone in your excitement to pick up. 

“Hey! Hi, Spence,” you say, unable to help the smile that’s forming on your face. 

“Hello, love,” Spencer answers. He sounds a little tired. You can imagine the little furrow in his brow, obviously exhausted and dissatisfied from a full day’s work of catching some bastard in LA, and you wish you could be there to kiss his frown away. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Spencer. Long day?”

“Absolutely,” Spencer sighs tiredly. “This UnSub is so slippery. No convictions, no paper trail, nothing, and he’s killing every other–” Spencer starts to ramble but he catches himself. “Sorry. I won’t talk about work right now. It’s pretty grim.”

“It’s okay,” you hum. “Do you want to talk about work right now?”

Spencer makes a little noise. “No, no. I don’t want to bring that to you. Let’s talk about you. How are you, honey?”

Honey. The name makes your insides feel all gooey, soft and warm and lovely. “I’m- I’m okay. I stayed at your place, cleaned up around here. I’m thankful it’s not as much of a man cave as I thought.”

Spencer laughs through the phone, a breathy chuckle. “Thank you for cleaning up for me, love. It’s just a lot of nerdy stuff, huh?”

“Yeah. It’s endearing. I tried to read one of your books earlier and could barely get past the first ten pages.” You tell him, garnering another chuckle from Spencer. “I like your place a lot.”

“I miss you,” Spencer says again. “Waking up to you and having you around is so much nicer than this dingy hotel room I’m in.”

“Aw. Taxpayer money couldn’t upgrade you to a better room?” 

Spencer snorts. “No, but I lucked out on getting the room all to myself.”

There’s a pause as you figure out what to say, and Spencer is quick to follow up, “I didn’t mean–”

“Does this have something to do with you missing me, baby?” You can’t help but grin. Spencer makes a distressed little noise over the line.

“Well, I– Maybe, but we don’t have to–” Spencer stammers, unable to find the words. He’s absolutely adorable. 

“I want to, Spence,” you coo. “I miss you so much.”

You hear Spencer exhale shakily. “What– What do I do?”

“A genius like you hasn’t forgotten how to touch himself, has he?” you tease, Spencer whining on the other end at your words. “Does that eidetic memory of yours come with an overactive imagination too?”

“Surprisingly, no. Hyperphantasia is more of being able to visualise different types of situations in one’s mind, and that’s what usually is associated with an overactive imagination. Having an eidetic memory is more about high-precision recall after seeing something even just once. I think having an eidetic memory pretty much ensures you don’t have aphantasia, or the inability to see and create mental images, but yeah.”

Ah, even his nerdy ramblings turn you on. 

“So does that mean you can recall the way I looked in bed a few nights ago?” you prod, and you wish you could see how red Spencer must be by now.

“Well, yes. Of course I can. How could I ever forget how beautiful you looked then?” Spencer’s words are sweet, earnest, and you melt. 

“Then picture that,” you barely get the words out because you’re so smitten. “Imagine I’m right there with you, Spencer.”

You hear the rustling of the sheets, and Spencer’s little telltale whine as he wraps his hand around himself. “O-Oh–”

“I miss you, Spence,” you drawl. “Miss the way your cock fits inside me. You miss my tight cunt, baby?”

“Your mouth is filthy,” Spencer laughs breathily. “But yeah, I do. You always feel so good around me.”

“You’re touching yourself, yeah?” you ask. You get a little whine from him as an affirmative, but your imagination is running wild – you want to see him. “Can you show me?”

“Yeah, I just– Do you wanna switch it over to a video call? I can’t–”

You laugh at your boyfriend’s lack of technical prowess, tapping at your phone screen until the top half of his face comes up. “Hey, I’m just trying to find a good angle–”

“Don’t just flip the camera and show me your dick, please. That would be so unsexy.” You say.

Spencer furrows his brows. “I was not planning on doing that, for the record.” 

You watch the phone move until Spencer comes into frame, the phone likely propped up at the foot of the bed and exposing all of Spencer to you. You might be drooling right now.

“This is… a lot,” Spencer laughs nervously. “I feel so naked.”

“You’re mostly clothed,” you quip. 

“Ha ha,” Spencer laughs dryly. “I’ve just… I’ve never done this before.”

“Phone sex? Or calling your girlfriend so you can jerk off for her?” 

Spencer gives you a deadpan look. “Both, honey.”

You grin. “I’m glad to be your first. Now, show me how you make yourself feel good, baby.”

Spencer’s cheeks are a gorgeous rosy red when he takes his cock into his hand again, his tip leaking as he strokes himself slowly. With his eyes fluttering shut, Spencer’s lips part as he indulges himself in his pleasure. Like this, you indulge yourself in admiring all of Spencer – the flush on his cheeks that runs down to his neck, his breathy panting as he touches himself to the thought of you.

“Spence,” you sigh. “You’re so pretty.”

His eyes shutter open as he looks at you, somehow even redder than he already was. “You’re the pretty one, darling. Are you– Will you touch yourself for me?”

You hold back your moan as you nod. You were already in your underwear when you had slid into Spencer’s bed, but now all it takes is you sliding your fingers past the waistband to feel how wet you already are between your legs. “Oh, Spence.”

“Do you feel good, love?” he hums, voice only a little bit strained from his immense pleasure. 

The embarrassingly loud squelch that results when you sink your fingers into yourself is enough of an answer. Spencer grins, and you’re red in the face as you rock your hips down onto your own fingers. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything, honey,” Spencer laughs. “But I wish I could feel you right now.”

“I know, I miss the way you feel inside me,” you pant. “Please, Spencer–”

“Take off your underwear,” Spencer’s voice is breathy as he pleads with you. “I want to see you.”

You prop your phone up so your angle matches Spencer’s, both of you on full display for each other. You watch the way Spencer’s eyes widen when you slide your panties off, the way his eyes are trained on your figure through the screen. He says, “You’re so wet…”

“All for you, baby,” you sigh, leaning back as you slide two fingers back into yourself. You scissor them rather hastily, craving the hurried way Spencer fucks you. “It’s not the same without you here.”

“I know,” Spencer hums. “You look so good like that. I wish I could make you feel good right now.”

You moan, pushing your fingers into yourself deeper, barely hitting where Spencer reaches easily. The squelch from between your legs is obscene. “You do, baby. You’re making me feel so good, just thinking about you.” 

In practically a whisper, Spencer admits, “I want to fuck you so bad right now.”

You let out a weak cry, impossibly turned on by your boyfriend’s filthy admission because you didn’t even think he had it in him to say it so bluntly. You slide your fingers in and out hurriedly, your palm giving you the friction on your clit that you crave so desperately. “Spencer–”

Spencer lets out a strangled cry, muffled behind his hand, when he comes. It’s sudden, Spencer’s load painting the soft skin of his stomach, his cock twitching. You moan as you follow suit, wetness drenching your hand as you ride out your own orgasm, imagining his cock inside of you. 

“Oh, fuck.” Spencer gasps, head thrown back as you watch his chest rise and fall as he breathes heavily. His forehead and neck are covered in a light sheen of sweat, and his cock out against the rest of his rather soft, innocent looking outfit is making you giggle just a little.

“You look really hot right now,” you say instead, wishing you could be laying next to him while he recovers.

“I think I should be saying that about you,” Spencer laughs. “You’re gorgeous. You’re so stunning.”

“How long are you going to be away?” You pout. “I like it when I can actually kiss you after you compliment me.”

Spencer smiles sympathetically. “I’ll be back soon, my love.”

“I’ll take phone sex with my boyfriend as a consolation, then.” You wink, making Spencer laugh. 

“Remind me not to get too loud, though. I think Emily is in the room next to me and I really hope these walls are thick enough.” He says, sounding vaguely concerned.

You laugh, and stay on the line a little longer just to relish in a peaceful moment with Spencer.

The next day, when you’re out getting groceries to stock up Spencer’s fridge, you get a text from Spencer.

I don’t know how much Emily heard last night, but she’s been looking at me funny all morning. > lol oops? If we call again tonight, we might have to keep it down.  > if? not when? :) I love you so much. > i know and i love you too :) and you should probably apologise to emily about last night Well, if we’re calling again tonight then maybe I should just give her one big apology when all of this is over. > good idea. now go catch your killer so we can go back to having sex irl Okay!

Unfortunately, Spencer gets too busy to call you again that night, the team working overtime to catch their UnSub, whose kills were escalating exponentially. You don’t find yourself bothered by it, by Spencer disappearing for the night with nothing more than a message sent your way, instead relishing in the fact that it’ll feel even more rewarding when he comes home. 

You’ve never felt this way before, craving Spencer so desperately while he’s away at work. While you’ve only been together a couple of months, you respect that Spencer’s work takes up a lot of his time. It doesn’t mean you don’t miss him, though, as much as you enjoy your alone time.

All of the team’s hard work pays off, though, because they’re storming into the UnSub’s lair by Monday afternoon, and Spencer texts you when you’re just clocking out of the office.

Great news! We caught the guy. We’re packing up at the PD and coming home soon. > omg!!! that’s so great The team wants to go out for celebratory drinks.  > you should totally go ahead and celebrate with them spence! you guys worked your asses off on this case We did. But I’m telling you because I want you to join us. I want you to meet the team too.  > oh? i would love to but are you sure they want me there? Of course, sweet girl. Derek wants to know who has me smiling at my phone half the time, and Emily is asking who I’m calling in the middle of the night. > omg so she did hear you … I think so, love. > … i will apologise to her tonight then I’ll send you the address. Love you > love you too spence <3

There’s just enough time for you to get home and change into a nice outfit – a tight, red dress that hits your mid-thigh, your hair curled and your makeup touched-up before you head to the bar Spencer’s sent you the address to. While you know Spencer’s team is lovely, you do want to make a good first impression.

You see Spencer’s gangly form at the bar when you get there, the rest of his team facing away from you as they get their drinks. You see Spencer’s face brighten as he spots you, raising his hand and waving to you excitedly. The rest of his team notices, and turns to look at you too. You would be shy at all the attention, but Spencer’s unabashed adoration of you, especially in front of all his friends, is giving you more than enough confidence to walk up to the group.

“Hello,” you smile, and the warmth you feel from the team makes you feel welcome already. “It’s nice to meet you all.”

You shake hands with Hotch and Rossi as you introduce yourself. While you had heard of Hotch as a rather cold, serious Unit Chief, the way he warmly smiles at you makes you feel at ease. “So, you’re Spencer’s girlfriend. It’s great to finally meet you.”

“It’s great to meet you too, sir,” you answer rather instinctively, making both Rossi and Hotch laugh heartily. 

“Aaron might be Reid’s boss, but he certainly isn’t yours,” Rossi chuckles. 

Before you can feel embarrassed by it, you get pulled into a tight, warm hug by Penelope, and when she lets you go, JJ hands you a drink, and Derek and Emily are regarding you with knowing smirks. 

“Reid, you are one lucky man,” Derek says, after pulling you into a welcoming hug. “Don’t mess this up, lover boy.”

“I know,” Spencer says, his hand reaching for yours. You lace your fingers with Spencer’s, squeezing his hand comfortingly. “And I won’t mess this up.”

“Lover boy is right, considering what I overheard the other night,” Emily says, looking at you and Spencer pointedly. JJ also has a knowing smile on her face, and you feel your cheeks get hot.

“I’m really sorry about that, Emily,” you smile sheepishly. “I hope Spencer’s apologised for it too.”

“Again, I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Spencer says, purposefully avoiding eye contact with Emily. “I would say ‘We won’t do it again’, but…”

You shriek amidst the laughter of Spencer’s coworkers, Spencer laughing along as he holds onto your waist. You feel adored, so readily welcomed by Spencer’s friends, and you feel like you belong, by Spencer’s side.

After you chat with the rest of the team for a little more, they eventually disperse to do their own things, leaving you and Spencer alone. Spencer looks at you with such adoration in his eyes and you feel like you’re going to melt. “Hi,” he says warmly.

“Hi, Spence,” you say. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Spencer smiles. “But I’m here now.”

“You are,” you breathe, giddy with excitement, and lean in to kiss him. It’s a quick peck, but Spencer pulls you back in like you’re the air he needs to breathe. He kisses you deep, eager, pouring every drop of himself into you. His hands cup your face sweetly, kissing you until you feel breathless. 

“Oh my God, Spencer,” you giggle when he finally pulls back, eyes wild as he regards you. “You really missed me, huh?”

“You have no idea,” Spencer laughs. 

“Do we need to pretend to keep our hands off each other or do you just want to go and make out in the bathroom?” You say simply. You don’t expect Spencer to be down, considering how quickly he’d rattle off the statistics about the germs in a public bathroom, but Spencer smiles at you and pulls you toward the single stall.

You’re thankful it’s a relatively big, clean-looking single stall bathroom, Spencer locking the door behind you as you lean back against the sink. Spencer’s taller figure crowds you in with ease, and you feel swallowed up by him as he kisses you again. He’s desperate, eager as his tongue slips into your mouth, his little noises so deliciously sinful as you kiss him back.

“Spence–” you gasp, in between kissing Spencer back. “Oh, baby–”

“What we did over the phone wasn’t enough,” he murmurs, eyes unblinking as he gazes at you. “I need you right now.”

Sure enough, Spencer’s hard in his pants. He pushes his hips forward, pressing his erection against your thigh. You whimper, drawing your lower lip between your teeth. “Please, Spence. You can take me right here, right now.”

You feel just as desperate as Spencer seems, his hands eager as they roam up your body. He’s eager to touch and squeeze and grope whatever he can get his hands on, and you relish in the way his large, sturdy hands grab your thighs, your waist, your breasts.

“You look so good tonight, my love,” Spencer grunts as he presses his face to your neck, his lips kissing up the column of your neck hurriedly. “So gorgeous. Letting me show you off to all my friends too– Thank you, you’re so perfect–”

“Spencer,” you gasp, hand sliding down to rub at his hard-on. You’re so turned on by how aroused Spencer is already, from just kissing you, from just touching you. “Fuck me, please?”

Spencer exhales shakily, lifting you up slightly so you can sit back on the countertop, your legs spread to accommodate Spencer between them. You’re soaked through your underwear, and you watch Spencer marvel at the sight. His hands are shaking slightly as he undoes his belt, pushing his pants down just enough to get his cock out. He’s hard and heavy and leaking, and you find yourself drooling as he strokes himself momentarily.

Spencer’s biting his lower lip in utter concentration, pushing your dress up and out of the way. You expect his hands to slide your panties off, but instead his fingers push the fabric aside, revealing your slick, wet entrance that he presses the head of his cock to. “Oh–”

“Like this,” Spencer says, breathless, his sentence not even fully coherent but you understand, especially when Spencer pushes the tip of his cock into you. You muffle a sob into your hand, feeling so on edge as you accommodate Spencer’s length. 

The burn is perfect, the slow drag of his cock inside of you teetering between pain and pleasure. It’s a primal urge the both of you desperately need to fulfil, and the way he presses into you satiates you so perfectly. Your arms slung around Spencer’s neck, you cry out weakly as he rocks his hips into you, already brutal and hurried with the pace. 

You’ve never felt this undone, so desperate that you’d let yourself get fucked in a bathroom stall. You barely have any alcohol in your system, for you to feel reckless enough to do something like this. Hell, Spencer hadn’t even taken your panties off before he’d started fucking you. The fact that prim and proper Spencer of all people is making you like this makes your head spin. 

“Oh, fuck, baby,” you whimper into his shoulder. “So good, Spence, oh–”

“You feel so good,” Spencer groans, hips stuttering as he tells you just that. “You’re so perfect. I love you.”

“I love you so much,” you hiccup, feeling Spencer drill into you, the muffled slap of his thrusts hitting the back of your thighs. You’re so overwhelmed, pleasure zipping through you from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, as Spencer fucks you like you’re the only person in the world that matters right now. 

“I’m close,” Spencer gasps, pace growing uneven, hurried, as he chases his pleasure while trying so hard to make you feel good too. “Please, I–”

You cry out as your orgasm hits you, too sudden, too quick. You clench around Spencer as your body shakes, Spencer fucking you through it with desperation. You don’t expect to come so quickly, but you suppose missing Spencer has an effect on you. 

You squelch obscenely with your release as Spencer continues to fuck you, needy and hurried, moaning in your ear as he stumbles into his orgasm too, wracking through his body like he has no control over it. You feel his load spill inside of you, hot and messy, his hands trembling as his thrusts slow.

“Oh, fuck,” you say, laughing slightly. “Holy shit, Spencer. We just had sex in a public bathroom, this is crazy.”

“We just had sex in a public bathroom,” Spencer echoes, sounding mildly panicked. “Oh, my God.”

“It was very fucking hot.” You assure him, holding his face in your hands to look him in the eyes, stopping him from overthinking. “But we should probably go home, because I’m a fucking mess between my legs right now.”

“I might need to take a shower,” Spencer says, his voice wavering slightly. “The sink is technically the most germ-ridden surface in a public bathroom, the damp environment makes it a–”

“Spencer, I love you so much, but for your sake and mine, let’s not talk about germs right now.” You shudder at the thought. “I think I need to take a shower after that too.”

“Let me clean you up, and we can go home.” Spencer, despite his germ anxieties, is rather sweet in cleaning you up. Your panties are ruined with fluids, and you’re starting to feel Spencer’s load trickling out of you when you stand back up, but you relish in the fact that you’re going to be back at his apartment soon enough. 

(The fact that Spencer hadn’t corrected you when you called his place home, makes your heart sing.)

You clean up your makeup and make your hair look as presentable as it can be, especially after your boyfriend has literally fucked you in a public bathroom, and when you both look presentable enough, you try to slip out of the bathroom casually.

Unfortunately, Derek and Emily are right there, catching you in the act of leaving, obviously noting the way you and Spencer look absolutely dishevelled. 

Derek raises his eyebrows, grinning. “Damn, lover boy.”

“Shut up,” Spencer retaliates weakly, his voice slightly shaky. 

“We’re heading home first,” you say with all the confidence you can muster, trying very hard not to feel extremely embarrassed in front of Spencer’s very smug friends. You’re still holding Spencer’s hand, and you feel a little less afraid. “It was fun getting to meet you guys.”

Emily shakes her head playfully, smiling. “We’d love to hang out more with you another time. Maybe when Reid isn’t so desperate to get alone with you?”

Spencer makes a displeased noise, but you smile and nod at her. “Definitely.”

Derek and Emily let you slip out of the bar without saying much else, and you hope that the rest of Spencer’s team doesn’t hear about it. 

As you and Spencer step out of the bar and into the cool, evening air, you kiss his cheek once more. “I love you. Now, let’s get home so we can shower. And then we can have sex again in the comfort of your bed?”

Spencer grins, any earlier embarrassment seeming to melt away. “That sounds perfect. God, I love you.”

[glorixuspurpose]

Newbie

Spencer Reid x Black!Fem!Reader Synopsis: Reader is new to the BAU and discovers that she has similar qualities to another coworker…

A/N: This is based off that one Spencer Reid fic that was basically the same concept but I can’t remember the exact name 😔 + I kinda had early seasons Reid in mind for this but it really goes for any season

 “Did you hear about the new kid?” Penelope asked, making her way over to JJ’s desk. 

“New kid?” She questioned. 

“Well, y’know. She’s around Reid’s age, and I heard that she’s practically just like him. Besides some physical differences.” She explained. 

“Oh yeah, I saw. It’s pretty weird.” Elle told them. 

“Wait, shh! Here she comes now!” Penelope whisper shouted as you made your way over to them. 

 “Um, do you guys know where Hotchner’s office is?” You asked them awkwardly, making them glance at each other, obviously entertained. 

“Yeah, but he’s in a meeting right now.” Penelope lied. 

“Oh…” You said, before quickly glancing at Penelope’s shirt, which was littered with cartoon cats. “Do you like cats?” You asked her, still looking at her shirt, causing her to raise an eyebrow. 

“Yeah…why?” 

“Did you know that most cats are actually lactose intolerant? Some can love milk, but most are. Plus, cats can’t taste anything sweet.” You informed, holding up your index finger.

 The three women looked at each other in amusement. “Really?” You nodded.

“Also, did you know that the first black female FBI agent was Sylvia Elizabeth Mathis? I know that fact technically only applies to me, but…interesting factoid I guess..” You rambled. 

“It’s worse than we thought…” Penelope whispered. “What is?” You asked, worried.

“You know, I think there’s someone that you’d get along pretty well with…” JJ suggested. 

“Really? Who?” 

“Reid!” The three of them called, making a tall and slender young man come rushing to JJ’s desk. 

 “New initiative.” Penelope said.

“You two have…a lot in common.” JJ finished.  

You hold your hand out for him to shake, and he does as such. 

“Nice to meet you…”

“Y/N.” You finished. “Did you know that the earliest depiction of a handshake was from an ancient Assyrian relief from-”

“9th Century BC? I know.” Spencer finished.

“Well…shucks. I’m not exactly used to not being the smartest.” 

 “You can be the smartest female! I’m willing to give up my title..” Penelope half-joked, making you chuckle. 

“That’d be nice.” 

“Well, Reid? Why don’t you show the young lady around?” 

“Sure.” He replied, motioning for you to follow him. 

You two had barely left the spot when Hotchner emerged from his office. 

“Reid,” He called, making both of you stop in your tracks. “I see you’ve beaten me to welcoming our new kid.” He said smiling. 

“Sorry sir,” Reid sheepishly apologized. “If you want, I can-”

“No no, I think you’ve got it.” He told him with a wink. 

[babymetaldoll]

DIWK - Chapter four: "Hurt"

Words count: 13,7K

The gif is mine ✨

Warnings: Hardcore Spencer trauma. Mention of drug abuse,  torture, Criminal Minds usual case triggers. Spoilers of Season 2 E14/15 Criminal Minds.

Summary: An unsub abducts Spencer, and reader blames JJ for it.

A/N: Have you ever wished you were there to save Spencer from Tobias Hankel? I know I have. I know reader wants to... I'm dying to know what you'll think of this chapter! Sorry if it's a little too graphic, writing Spencer's POV of this episode was really hard.

Series Masterlist

Chapter one | Chapter two | Chapter three | Chapter four | Chapter five | Chapter six | Chapter seven | Chapter eight | Chapter nine | Chapter ten | Chapter eleven | Chapter twelve | Chapter thirteen | Chapter fourteen | Chapter fifteen |

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

(Y/N)'s point of view

I remember the day Emily Prentiss arrived. We had a case in Saint Louis. Two serial killers, 'cos it couldn't just be one asshole making everyone miserable. And on top of all, Hotch was confused and upset 'cos he never signed Emily's transfer to the BAU. It was like someone was trying to force her into the team, and we all thought it was weird.

We left the bullpen off to the case and left Prentiss in the office, not knowing if she actually got the job or not. I know Elle and I weren't incredibly close, but it still felt weird to think someone might join the team and try to replace her. It didn't work that way in that job. It didn't feel right at the moment.

There is something I also distinctly remember about that day: Gideon talked to me. And not only that, but he actually trusted my knowledge. We hadn't been on the best terms for a few months, so that approach meant a lot to me.

We were at the police station. Reid and I had been analyzing the letters one of the killers had sent to a journalist to find something that might help us catch him before there were any more victims. That's when JJ and Jason walked in, and he asked about our progress.

- "He only sent this to an individual, which shows he is not confident enough to initiate contact with the masses."- Spencer explained as he projected an image of the letter on the wall.

- "Emotional indicators are analyzed through slants, and you can see the shooter maintains vertical, narrow letter writing, and both are signs of repression"- I said and pointed at the image on the wall- "And the pressure, if you look closely, it's excessively heavy, which shows that he's uptight and can easily overreact."

Gideon looked at me and nodded. It was my cue to keep on talking. For once in a long time, I was feeling approved by him.

- "You got all that from his handwriting?"- JJ asked me, surprised. Reid looked at me from the other side of the room, and I could feel his smile reflecting how proud he was of me.

- "Graphology is an effective and reliable indicator of personality and behavior."

- "But my writing is always different,"- she added, and I nodded. I was waiting for that comment.

- "Yes, because it represents your emotions at the moment, just like your facial expressions parallel the way you are feeling while you are speaking."

- "What else can we know about our unsub from this?"- Gideon asked me.

- "Well, our killer uses simple statements, all first person, like "I won't be ignored," which means he's obviously tired of feeling this way. He may have a job in solitude or one that he feels strips of his identity. His work might require him to wear a uniform, something that shows absolutely no individuality, or he may be overqualified for his menial job and feels that he doesn't get the respect that he necessarily deserves."

I made a pause and waited for his words. I was giving my best, and I swear I was still hoping I could ever get Jason Gideon's blessing.

- "I think we are ready to give a profile,"- he said and nodded.

And damn, that felt good.

When we were back in Quantico, Hotch had a long and clearly awkward conversation with the section chief, Erin Strauss. She was scary. She was clearly trying to get rid of Hotch, questioning his work daily, decisions, and how he managed the team. Why? I have no idea.

It felt she forced him to accept Prentiss into the team. We were one man down after Elle left. Ok, one awesome woman down, so we definitely needed some help. And Emily was a great addition from day one.

We clicked right away. Prentiss was funny, smart, but most of all, she constantly had to prove she deserved to be there. Just like me. Gideon gave her the cold shoulder from day one, and that I could relate. The only difference was that she won him over in a few days, though. I was still trying to win that battle.

Garcia decided we needed a girl's night, and she hosted the first of many "BAU Girl Power get together." Basically, it was us at Penelope's place drinking and talking.

That first night, we updated Prentiss with everything that had happened with Elle. She wanted to know everything about us, what we did, how long we've been on the team, and how we all got along. It was sweet and fresh. After that year in the BAU, I had already learned to enjoy the sweet things in life. Like getting drunk with my work girlfriends.

- "So, does Hotch ever smile?"- Emily asked, and we all laughed at the very same time. Yes, it was getting late, and we weren't as sober as we should have been.

- "He does! he does!"- JJ assured us- "You should see him with his baby."

- "He is a dad?"- Emily was shocked. I was surprised too when I found out Aaron was married and with a baby. The amount of time he spends at work always made me feel he had zero personal life.

- "And has a beautiful wife"- JJ added- "He is always laughing when he is with her and baby Jack."

- "I guess this job can drain the happiness from your day... "- I thought out loud, but before anyone could say anything about my dark and bitter comment, my cell phone rang.

- "Hey honey bunny, everything ok?"- I stood up and walked to the kitchen. I didn't want to interrupt the girl's conversations.

- "Yes, I just wanted to make sure you were drinking enough water between drinks"- I laughed and shook my head. Only Reid could call to say such a thing. He was the sweetest friend on earth.

- "Yes, I am, don't worry. I'm not going to be hungover or drunk tomorrow. I know you are excited about the new exposition."

- "You are gonna love it!"

- "I am sure I will"- and I wasn't kidding. I loved when he dragged me to the Smithsonian or any museum for some nerdy fun.

- "Have fun with the girls."

- "What are you doing, by the way?"

- "Just reading a little, you left your complete Sherlock Holmes collection here, so I'll be solving mysteries while you get drunk."

- "Don't have too much fun without me"- he chuckled and ended the call. I smiled and walked back to the girls looking at me with a funny grin on their faces.

- "Was that your boyfriend?"- Penelope asked me, and I frowned right away.

- "No, it was Reid. He just wanted to confirm we are going to the museum tomorrow."

- "Wait"- Prentiss narrowed her brows and looked at us confused- "Reid ain't your boyfriend?"

JJ and Garcia's laughter was epical, as well as my frown. They nearly gasped for air while Prentiss and I waited until they calmed down.

- "No"- I finally answered- "Reid is not my boyfriend."

- "He is more than that; he is her work husband,"- Penelope clarified, and I turned to her with my mouth wide open, shocked.

- "What the fuck? Reid ain't my work husband. He is my best friend!!"

- "Yes, and you happen to call your best friend "honey bunny," right?"- JJ questioned, just like she had a few months before when we were alone in our room away on a case.

- "Reid is my best friend, and yes, I call all my close friends by weird pet names. You will get one too if you are lucky."

- "But I thought"- Emily continued- "I mean, he looks at you like you are his sun."

- "No, Prentiss, the only coupe in this team is the one between "chocolate thunder" and "baby girl" right here"- I pointed at Garcia, and she just blushed and covered her face.

- "My love for Derek will burn forever with the intensity of a thousand suns. I mean, have you seen that man? he was made by the gods and sent to earth just to give my existence some sense"- we all laughed at those cheesy words, though Pen was serious about them.

- "But, have you ever...?- JJ looked at her and made a pause. We were all looking at every single facial movement or behavior she might show to read her body language."

- "My relationship with my loverman could never be tainted by something as mundane as sex."

- "Like you wouldn't lick honey from that six-pack and ride that thunder."

The words just left my lips, and I blame the buzz. BAU (Y/N) would have never said that. Drunk (Y/N) would, totally.

The girls laughed until tears fell from their eyes, and I just chuckled, honestly happy to make them laugh. I had been more of the real me than I had ever actually been around them in nearly a year.

- "Hello?"- my phone rang again when I was walking out of the bathroom. And this time, it was Paul.

- "Hey babe, what are you doing?"

- "Hey, I'm..."- I looked at the girls in front of me and sighed- "I'm stuck with paperwork"- and they turned to me immediately. I could read the "What the fuck" on their faces.

- "Well, I'm at Rob's in case you feel like dropping by. We are writing a few songs."

- "I'll text you if I finish with this early, but... have fun."

- "Ok, bye"- I hung up and sighed.

- "And that was..."- Prentiss asked, frowning.

- "My boyfriend,"- I explained and grabbed another beer

- "Sure, I could feel the passion,"- Garcia joked, but I just didn't think it was funny.

I knew my relationship with Paul wasn't alright. Actually, things with Paul weren't. Period. We were done, it was apparent, but still, neither of us had said it. That relationship was just a few phone calls every once in a while, only to make small talks. When we were together, we would just watch a movie, eat something, drink a few beers, and that was it. It had been a long time since we had sex or even made out. I don't know why I didn't end it sooner. I guess I was just afraid to do it.

But I let more months pass before I actually did something.

Spencer's point of view

I'm not proud of what happened that year after Prentiss joined the team. I think that year changed me profoundly, and a part of me never fully recovered afterward.

Maybe it had to be that way, and it was something I had to go through to grow up. I guess I'm still trying to make some sense of all the misery I put my friends through. Mostly (Y/N). She was in hell with me.

A few weeks after New Year, we started working on a case. Someone was killing wealthy people in their own homes. At first, we thought there were two unsubs, 'cos one of them called 911 after killing, and you could hear them struggling and arguing. But no, it was just one.

Tobias Hankel was a delusional serial killer. He had split personalities, not two but actually three. His father, the one who tortured me. The archangel Raphael, who was trying to make God's will, killing people. And himself, who wanted to save me, but instead, he nearly destroyed me.

What do I remember about the day he kidnapped me? I remember I was stupid enough to try to catch an unsub alone, just to prove I could take care of myself on the field. Hotch sent me and JJ to talk to Hankel at his house, 'cos apparently, he might have seen the unsub months earlier. But no, he was the unsub, and neither JJ nor me could stop him.

We hid in a barn, and I was so eager to prove I could catch him; I told JJ we had to split up to cover the place. I was counting on Hotch to get there with the team sooner than they did, and before I realized it, I was in the middle of a cornfield, and Hankel was pointing at me with my own gun.

I was sure I was going to die right there. All of Hankel's personalities were struggling inside of him. I couldn't stop thinking about why I thought I could do it on my own? Why had I been a reckless asshole? Was it because I wanted to prove I was an excellent SAA? Because I wanted to impress JJ? Maybe I tried to convince myself I could do the same job my team did. I knew I wasn't the most physical person, but I had a gun. I had been trained to capture killers.

Yes, I was an asshole that day, and I've regretted everything that happened that night many, many times in the following years.

When I woke up, I was tied to a chair, and the archangel Raphael had taken Hankel's mind completely. The room was dark, and it smelled awful. He was burning fish hearts and livers, 'cos he believed it kept the devil away.

I was confused and lost. My head was spinning, and my heart was about to burst into my chest. I knew I could die any second now. Raphael wasn't the one to show mercy. That's what I had learned from all the videos Hankel had uploaded to the web. He had shared with the world every murder they had committed to show the other sinners what was going to happen to them.

- "They believe you can see inside men's minds"- Raphael looked at me with dark eyes, implying he meant Tobias and his father

- "It's not true. I study human behavior."- my voice was shaking. I knew I had never been more scared in my entire life. He took out a gun and showed me one bullet.

- "Do you know what this is? It's God's will."

Things didn't look good for me. He put it in the cylinder of the revolver and spun it. He was going to let my life to luck.

- "You don't have to do this"- I tried to talk him out of it, though I knew it wasn't going to work.

- "No go, sinners, to your God."

And he pressed the trigger.

What went through my mind the seconds that passed between having the gun pointed to my face and realizing I had lived? My mom. All I could think of was how my mom would react to the news of my death. I could never bear to hurt her like that. I couldn't die. I couldn't leave her alone.

I sighed, relieved, and bit my lips not to cry. Raphael looked at me with a blank expression and walked out of the room. I had survived for now.

I struggled with my handcuff, but it was useless. My head was killing me. I could feel the open wound on my head, still dripping blood on my temple and head. I tried to focus on the pain for a few minutes, just to make sure I was awake. It was a nightmare, and keeping myself sane and conscious under those circumstances was nearly impossible.

How was I going to get out of there alive? Did the team know where I was? I had no idea where I had been taken. I had been unconscious the whole way. It was dark, and I couldn't see much around me. I wasn't afraid of that darkness. I was more fearful of the man that left me alone, 'cos he was armed and mentally unstable. Darkness had nothing on him.

I had to focus on the things that kept me sane. The things that made me want to get out of that room alive.

- "My name is Spencer Walter Reid. I'm twenty-five years old, my mother's name is Diana Reid, I was born in Las Vegas, October 28th, 1981."

I closed my eyes and tried to think of all the things that made me happy.

- "I work at the BAU, my best friend's name is (Y/N), and she sits at the desk in front of me. Derek Morgan is the closest I've got to an older brother."

He was. He still is. You have to be close to dead to start seeing things clearly sometimes. Derek was my brother. He treated me like a kid, but a kid brother. He was always teasing me, trying to teach me how to pick up girls, trying to drag me to the gym with him. Derek was a good friend, we were very different, and I knew if we had been classmates in high school, we would probably never have talked. He was a jock, and I was a nerd. But life had brought us together. And now I couldn't think of a better friend than him.

I tried to focus on my happiest memories. My birthday came to mind. The guys had planned a Halloween-themed birthday party at the conference room of the BAU. Of course, Garcia baked a cake and (Y/N) helped her decorate it. It was incredible, 'cos it was covered with tiny gourds and skulls.

- "Frank and Mikey sent you these,"- she announced after everybody had given me their presents. I wide opened my eyes in shock 'cos I had no idea her friends knew it was my birthday or even cared about it.

- "Why?"- I had to ask.

- "'Cos they think you are amazing. They actually wanted to come over to your house and have a few beers tonight."- I opened my mouth to say something, but Derek interrupted me.

- "Pretty boy is gonna get to work hungover again."

- "Shut up"- (Y/N) and I said at the same time, making everybody chuckle. I opened the present her friends had sent me and laughed right away.

- "Lucky Doc"- I read and took out of the bag a Sports Illustrated issue with Lila Archer on the cover. My cheeks turned red immediately.

- "Frank still hasn't overcome that story. I think he will hate you forever"- (Y/N) laughed (along with the rest of the team) and gave me another present.

- "They also sent you this. They said you were going to like the man in black"- it was a Johnny Cash's vinyl- "Frank picked it. He thinks he is some sort of musical psychic that can read people's taste in music."

- "We should get together and have a few beers one of these days. I need to thank them for these."

Gideon looked at me in silence as soon as I said those words. But I didn't care if he disapproved. I was going to be (Y/N)'s friend, whether he liked it or not.

He is the closest I've had to a dad in the latest years. He cares about me, and he tries to make the best of me that he can. Yes, he can be too apprehensive. I think that's a way to put it. But only because he wants me to be the best profiler I can be.

I never thought I would end up working at the BAU. I never thought I would love the job I do as much as I do. Back when I was in college, I thought I would dedicate my life to finding a cure for schizophrenia, but I ended up hunting serial killers across the country.

And though I was about to die, I didn't regret any of the decisions that led me there.

The morning found me shaking, cold, and scared. I was in a small cabin in the woods. Just like the worst and more cliché horror movie ever made. This was my own horror movie.

- "What are you staring at, boy?"- Tobias opened the front door carrying logs for the fire. His voice had changed yet again, so I knew it wasn't the same person I had talked to the night before.

- "You are not Raphael."- I whispered, looking at every movement he did.

- "Do I look like Raphael?"- had I insulted him? I couldn't tell. He turned to the fire, and I took a deep breath, doing my best to stay calm.

- "Thank you for burning those, for keeping us safe."- I said, looking at the fish hearts and livers he was preparing to put on the fire.

- "Don't try to trick me."

- "I would never try to trick you."

- "You are a liar."

- I'm not a liar."- it was hard to stay calm and not start screaming for help or mercy, but I knew that was going to take me nowhere with him.

- "Lying is a sin."

- "I'm not a liar."- he walked closer to me, and sat right in front of me, held my leg up, and grabbed my foot.

- "This will be over quickly if you just confess your sins."

- "I am not a sinner"- I whispered again. He took off my shoe.

- "We are all sinners."- it didn't look good for me, not at all, and I knew I had to talk to him with his words with his beliefs to save my life.

- "The Lord spake unto Moses saying "Speak unto all the congregation of the children of the lord" and say unto them, ye shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy."

Hankel, this time in the personality of his father, looked at me surprised. I might have done something right, 'cos he stopped moving, and for a second, I thought it was going to be ok.

- "You know Leviticus."

- "I know every word of the bible. I can recite it for you."- but his eyes turned dark again.

- "The devil knows how to read too."

- "I'm not a devil, I'm not a devil2- I repeated, and couldn't stop shaking, 'cos my life on the hands of a sociopath.

- "I'm a man, my name is Spencer Reid, and I have a mother, and I have a father just like you, and they taught me the bible, let me recite the bible."

My voice cracked at the knowledge of what he was going to do. He stood up, still holding my foot. He was going to torture me, he was going to try to break me, and I had to be strong. I didn't know how I would find the strength, but I had to be strong.

- "Time to confess, Spencer Reid"- and without further notice, he slapped a log against my foot, making me scream in pain. It hurt from the tip of my toes until the back of my skull. I hadn't felt that kind of pain, and it was worse knowing he was just getting started. Tears started falling down my cheeks in no time.

- "Confess!"

- "I don't have anything to confess."- I whimpered and closed my eyes, 'cos I knew he was going to continue his torture. And so he did. The pain was excruciating. I was sure I was going to pass out

I tried to go to a happy place in my head, somewhere when I could hide from all that pain. It was too hard, though. It hurt too much. I kept repeating over and over again I wasn't a sinner, begging Hankel for mercy, as he shouted I had to confess.

I made an effort to think about what he might want me to say. What did he want me to confess? Which sins was he talking about? But nothing came to my mind, nothing but the pain and the fear of dying.

(Y/N)'s point of view

The second we reached Hankel's cabin, I started looking for Spencer. I had a horrible feeling about it. Morgan and I headed it to a barn with Prentiss. There was no sign of anyone. It was dark and quiet. Never a good sign.

- "Shit!"- I whispered, staring at three dead dogs and a bath of blood in front of me. There laid the body of another victim that was missing from Hankel's last attack.

- "FBI!!"- JJ shouted suddenly. She was pointing his gun to us, clearly in shock- "Don't move!!"

- "JJ, it's Morgan, (Y/L/N), and Prentiss! Don't shoot"- Derek tried to calm her down, walking towards her- "Are you hurt?"- she lowered the gun and stared at us. You could read the fear and the trauma in her eyes.

- "Tobias Hankel is the unsub,"- she whispered as Prentiss rubbed her arm sweetly, trying to comfort her.

- "Yeah, we know"- I moved towards her too and put my gun back into the holster.

- "And we thought he was just a witness"- we looked around, and JJ pointed at the dead dogs.

- "JJ, where is Reid?"- Derek asked her, but she just continued talking.

- "They completely tore her apart"

- "JJ, look at me,"- I said and held her arm carefully- "Look at me, where's Reid?"- she was shaking, and her voice was cracking. I knew she was making her best effort to pull herself together.

- "We split up. He said he was going to go in the back."

And there it was. That was the reason why I had a bad feeling all along. Derek looked at me and nodded as we read each other's minds. The two of us turned around and ran outside, leaving JJ with Prentiss, waiting for the medical team and ambulance to check on her wounds.

Gideon and Hotch were inside the cabin, looking for Hankel, but there was no one there. And there was no sign of Reid behind the barn either, in the cornfield, or anywhere in the perimeter. Reid was nowhere to be found, and I started losing it little by little. I tried to repeat myself the words Hotch had said many times during my year in the BAU: "when you are out there with the team; your mind has to be one hundred percent on the case." But the case had never included my best friend missing before.

- "Hey, is there any sign of him yet?- I asked the police chief as I reached the ambulance. He was there talking with JJ, making sure she was ok.

- "We got every one of our units on the road. He won't make it far"- I nodded and watched him walk away. I knew he thought I was talking about Hankel, but I actually meant Reid.

I turned to JJ and moved a little closer to her. Her eyes open wide, staring back at me.

- "You can't find Reid?"- I just shook my head and tried to sound as casual as I could, not to freak her out. She was still in shock. I didn't want to make it worse.

- "Not yet"

- "(Y/N)"- Derek held my arm and forced me to walk away from the ambulance.- "Reid followed him into the cornfield. It looks like somebody got dragged."

My heart stopped. Did the psychopath hurt Spencer? Did he kill him? Did he torture him? Was he hurt? Was he alive? Where was he? Derek looked at me, and I nodded. I bit my lips and took a deep breath. Hotch's words were my mantra now: "your mind has to be one hundred percent on the case."

- "Are you sure?"- we turned to the police's chief, overhearing his conversation- "We are on our way now."

- "What's going on?"

- "The sheriff down two towns over, he just gave directions to a man who fit Hankel's descriptions. It's to a motor lodge in fort bend."

- "Let's get Hotch and Gideon"- Derek held my arm and walked with me to the cabin. We had to find Reid, and we had to do it fast.

That was the worst night of my life. The first worst night of my life, to be sincere. I didn't close an eye. I went through every paper, every note, every detail in that cabin, trying to find a clue that could lead us to where Tobias had taken Reid.

I felt someone had ripped my heart from my chest. I had to think straight, and to do it, I had to keep a cold head. But as the hours passed, it became a more demanding and more challenging task to complete. I knew the whole team was suffering, but that didn't ease my pain. And I knew JJ felt guilty, but that didn't stop me from blaming her in my mind. She left him alone. I would have never left Spencer alone on the field.

- "(Y/N), you should try to get some rest."

Derek whispered as he sat on the floor next to me, where I had been sitting for the last half hour, reading Tobias's old diaries. Nothing but fear of his father, mentions of Dilaudid use, and bible transcriptions.

- "I'm ok,"- I answered and didn't even take my eyes from the pages.

- "(Y/N), I mean it"

- "I'm not going to rest if he is out there in the hands of a psychopath, Derek"- I had to bite my lips and shut the fuck up, 'cos if I said one more word, I knew I was going to burst into tears.

Morgan just wrapped an arm around my shoulders and moved me closer to him. That was the first time I let him hug me, and it felt good to know I wasn't alone in my desperation. I knew he loved Reid like a brother, and neither of us was going to stop until we found him.

- "Welcome to our nightmare"- JJ's voice broke the silence we had been into for the last hour when Hotch walked into the cabin with Penelope.

It was morning already. There were still no signs of Reid. Prentiss, Gideon, JJ, and I had been sitting at the table, reading everything we could.

- "His computer is an extension of his brain. I need you to dissect it,"- Gideon whispered to García. You could feel the concern in his voice. She just nodded in shock and turned to Derek, who held her hand and helped her get set up in the computer room.

- "So, nothing new since I left?"- Hotch asked and looked at us. I just shook my head and continued reading.

- "Well, the good thing is the guy documented practically every second of his life"- Prentiss words took me from the pages I was reading. I looked at her and raised an eyebrow. The concept of "good" was poorly used in that phrase.

- "The bad news is, we are still un-piling,"- she added and sighed.

- "From the looks of it, he hasn't left this place in years,"- JJ managed to say. She made her best effort to be useful, but she was in worse shape than everybody else. Yet, that didn't make me feel bad for her. I was mad at her and kept making my best to put it aside, 'cos my head had to be in the case.

- "He knew he could pretend to be looking for a motel and throw us off his trail,"- Emily inferred, but I shook my head as soon as I heard her.

- "No, no, no, it's more than that!"- I shook my head and took a deep breath- "Sheriff's office, 911 calls, every time he engages the police and gets away with it... he reassures himself, God's on his side. Not ours."- I added.

Gideon nodded, and we shared a moment of agreement. He was as worried as I was. I could feel it. I'm not saying the rest of the team wasn't, I'm saying Jason was as fucked up as I was, and I could sense he was having the same trouble I had making sure my head and not my sentiments were into the case.

But if anything happened to Reid, I didn't know what I was capable of doing.

At a certain point, I got sick of reading and not doing anything and decided to look around the house again if we had missed anything. Derek went along. One part of me felt he wanted to stay away from JJ too. Maybe he was as mad as I was about her leaving Reid alone. I know I couldn't blame her, but I did it anyway.

- "Guys!! I think I've got something!"- Derek yelled, and I ran over. He opened a door that led to a basement. I walked right behind him, pointing my gun and my flashlight all over. But there was no sign of Reid.

- "Tobias Hankel!!"- Morgan shouted. Someone was sitting in what looked to be a gigantic freezer- "Tobias!"- but we didn't get any response. I took a step closer and examined carefully.

- "Morgan, I think we just found Hankel's father."

Spencer's point of view

On my second night in that cabin, I met Tobias. The third personality of Hankel walked into the room, carrying what seemed to be a dead deer. He looked as frightened as I was.

- "You need to eat."

- "What's your name?"

- "Tobias."

- "Tobias, who was here before?"

- "Probably my father."

He looked at me up and down, and he immediately understood what he had done to me. It was scary how he could dissociate. Someone with multiple personality disorder is usually unaware of the other personality states and memories when an alter is dominant. In this case, Tobias knew the other personalities but considered them different persons. He didn't think they were all in his head.

- "I'm sorry if he hurt you."

He looked at me like he understood everything I had been going through. Maybe he had been through something similar when his father was alive. Perhaps he had been a victim of Hankel as well, and that's what triggered his psychopathic nature.

He walked over and took out his belt.

- "What are you doing?"- he wrapped it around my arm, and I started begging him to stop.

- "It helps"- he took out of his pocket a needle and a small bottle of what seemed to be some kind of drug.

- "Don't tell my father. He doesn't know they are here."

- "Please, I don't want it, I don't want it, please"- I cried and begged.

- "It helps. I know"- it was the last thing Tobias said before the needle found my vein.

And he was right. It helped. Every single amount of pain I was feeling disappeared. My brain shut down. Somehow, everything was ok. I never had in my entire life felt so good before.

My mind kept flashing memories of when I was a kid. I kept seeing images of the day my father left and how he called my mother crazy.

- "You are weak"- mom spit those words after he refused to take me with him. I know she said it not because she didn't want me with her, but because mom knew she was sick and wanted the best for me. And he refused.

- "I'm not weak."- I whispered as I looked at her smiling back at me.

- "I know, honey."

I don't know how long I was drugged, but when I woke up, Tobias wasn't there with me anymore. It was his father.

And the torture continued.

(Y/N)'s point of view

Gideon was trying to convince me to go out with Prentiss and JJ to see a Narcotics anonymous's contact that might give us more information about Tobias. Emily had found some flyers about it in his room, and it could be the only lead we had to find him and Reid.

- "You need to get out of this house for a while"- he whispered and tapped on my back.

I knew he wasn't the one to be loving or physical with people, less with me. But that moved me. I turned to him and my eyes watered up. I was scared, and I couldn't hide it anymore. The more hours passed, the fewer the chances were to find Spencer safe. Alive.

I felt his arms around me suddenly, holding me tight, trying to keep the pieces of me together. We were alone on the porch, and though I didn't want to fall apart, I couldn't hold it anymore.

Jason didn't say a word. He just hugged me and let me cry for a few minutes. I didn't say anything either. I actually couldn't because I was overwhelmed with everything.

- "Are you ready, (Y/N)?"

Prentiss whispered as she walked over with JJ. I turned my back at them for a second to hide the tears that kept falling down my cheeks. I knew it was a shitty thing to do, 'cos it was obvious I had been sobbing, but they gave me the courtesy of not saying anything.

- "You go, I need (Y/N)'s assistance with some diary entries"- the two of them walked away quietly, and thankfully, didn't argue with Gideon.

- "Thank you,"- I whispered and felt his hand on my shoulder one more time.

- "You are doing a fantastic job,"- he said and turned around.

I wish I could tell you that made me feel better, but instead, I just thought I had the duty to bring my friend back home safe.

It had been at least an hour since the girls left. Morgan, Hotch, Gideon, and the police chief were in the living room with me, reading. I sipped my hundredth cup of coffee and re-read the same diary entry for the third time.

- "There's something weird going on here."- I thought out loud and walked towards Gideon

- "You think?"- the police chief turned to me and raised an eyebrow, ironically.

- "No, seriously, check this out. This journal is filled with religious ramblings. He notated hour by hour: "November 15th, 3:17, if ye offer a sacrifice of peace offering unto the Lord, ye shall offer it at your own will", and it goes on and on: 5:04, 7:41, 10:22, 1:42."

I made a short pause and looked at Gideon and Hotch. They didn't get where I was going.

- "But then, it goes blank for days."

- "Maybe he got sick of writing"- I seriously hated that police chief.

- "I think I got it"- Hotch whispered- "Journal entry: "December 6th. Father is sick. He wants me to put him down. I say thou shalt not kill. He said, honor thy father. Must pray for guidance."

- "So he kills his father as an act of mercy?"- Gideon asked, knowing the answer.

- "This is two months ago. Tobias Hankel's father had been dead for four months already."

- "That's exactly it"- I murmured, thinking Tobias Hankel was way more fucked up than we thought.

- "Look at the floor"- Derek pointed at a chair and moved it- "These scuffs marks are fresh. It's like two people were pushing the chairs constantly, trying to fight for control."

- "So?"- I swear to God, that chief was driving me insane.

- "This journal matches Charles Hankel's handwriting, but it was written after he died"- I explained. Still, it felt he wasn't following me.

- "What do you mean?"

- "Upstairs, Tobias' bedroom got junk piled from floor to ceiling, but the other bedroom could pass a military inspection."

- "So, are you telling me one of Tobias' personalities was his father?"

Apparently, I had to draw a picture so the chief would get it. Fortunately, Gideon continued explaining the whole problem before I lost what was left of my patience.

- "Well, Tobias was raised with a strict religious code, black and white, right and wrong. When his father asked Tobias to kill him, something had to give."

- "His brain couldn't handle the moral contradiction, so he split into two personalities to keep his father alive."

Hotch tried to put it most easy and simple words possible.

- "So, who is Raphael?"

- "My guess, he is a mediator between the two"- Gideon nodded at my words and sighed.

- "Angels have no human emotions, live or die. They don't care, as long it's God's will."

- "We need to start profiling Tobias' father. He may be the one who chose where to take Reid."

Finally, I felt we were going somewhere.

When Emily and JJ came back, they gave us the news. Tobias was addicted to Dilaudid, which explained the fracture in his mind, and how he lived with three distinct personalities.

The police chief announced a computer store robbery, giving us some hopes that Tobias would use them to track him down.

- "Guys!! Guys!! get in here!!- I heard Derek shouting and I ran to the computer room. I felt sick in the stomach in less than a second. There he was, Spencer. My Spencer Walter Reid, tied to a chair, bleeding, shoeless. Clearly tortured.

- "He's been beating,"- I whispered, feeling my eyes water up. I would have given anything to be there instead of him.

- "Can you track him?!"- JJ yelled by my side, and I nearly smacked her. That's how sensitive I was feeling.

- "Hankel's only streaming this to his home computer."- Garcia whispered. And my heart dropped with those words.

That wasn't what I was supposed to hear. We were supposed to find him and bring him back safe.

- "This is for us"- Gideon didn't take his eyes from the screen- "He knows we are here."

- "I'm gonna put this guy's head on a stick"- Morgan was so mad I believed him. I wanted to do the same, if worse.

- "I'm gonna kill him myself as soon as we find him,"- I said and felt Aaron's hand on my shoulder as he asked Garcia

- "Why can't you locate him?"

- "He's rerouting to a different IP address every 30 seconds. I can't track him."

It knew it had to be hard if Penelope couldn't find her, but that didn't help. If anything, it made everything worse. I felt powerless. Hankel couldn't be more intelligent than us.

Spencer's point of view

- "Are you ready, boy?"- Hankel pulled my hair and forced me to look at him. I was still as high as fuck, but knew I was about to be tortured again.

- "Ready for what?"

- "My weakling son thinks God gave you to him for a reason"- if the reason was to get me into drugs, then the answer was yes.

Hankel placed a video camera in front of me.

- "Can you really see inside men's minds?"- he asked me and made a pause, pointing to three screens- See these vermin?

It took me a second to realize he was showing me images of real people. He had put cameras in those people's houses. How? When? What kind of sick game did he want me to play with him?

- "Choose one to die. I let you choose one to live."

- "No"- I didn't even think about my answer.

- "I thought you wanted to be some kind of savior."

- "You are a sadist and a psychotic break. You won't stop killing. Your word is not true."

I don't know if it was because of the drugs or because I hadn't eaten or drank any water in too long, but I was somehow resigned and tired of fighting.

- "The other heathens are watching- Hankel announced and pointed at the camera in front of me."

My eyes fixated on the camera right away. My team was watching me. (Y/N) was watching me. I didn't want to make her worry even more. I needed her to know I was ok. I know I wasn't, but I didn't want her to worry about me.

- "Choose a sinner to die, and I'll say the name and address of the person to be saved"- Hankel was sick. It was all a game, and religion was just an excuse to kill.

- "I won't get to choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher."

Hankel didn't like my answer, 'cos he grabbed me and pulled me up, looking into my eyes, insulted, annoyed, losing his temper.

- "Can you really see into my mind, boy?"

He was honestly scary, and it petrified me to think he could execute me right there, in front of the team, and I could never tell them how much they mean.

- "Can you see I'm not a liar?!"- he insisted. I nearly whimpered but made my best not to break- "Choose one to die and save a life. Otherwise, they are all dead."

He dropped me on the chair and turned around. It was clear he wasn't joking. I took a deep breath and nodded.

- "Alright, I'll choose who lives."

- "They are all the same"

My eyes traveled across all the monitors. It was nearly impossible to pick one person to live, knowing all the other people there would die. Hankel was sick, and I had to set a plan to escape because otherwise, I would end up dead.

- "Far right screen,"- I whispered. He turned around and nodded.

Then, he recited the name and address of the woman on the screen. I prayed for the team to find her before Hankel came after her too.

No. It wasn't Hankel this time.

- "Raphael,"- I whispered, and he nodded. I looked at the screen again. The woman we were watching picked up the phone. She was in her kitchen. He walked around, frowned, and turned to her computer. In a second, she had turned it off. My team had reached her. She was safe, I hoped.

Hankel turned the camera off and looked at me.

- "You've done your part. Now it's my turn."

I knew what that meant. It wasn't good.

He left the cabin, and all I could see were the monitors in front of me. Those people were going to die. They were going to die because I didn't pick them. I killed them. You don't need to pull a trigger to kill someone. I could never forget those words. And this time, they meant more than anytime before. I didn't press a trigger, but I had killed two innocent people. And I actually had to watch them die.

When I saw Rapahel walk into the victims' house, I tried to close my eyes and think of anything else. A part of me kept thinking he wasn't going to kill them. He just wanted to threaten me.

But not. Raphael slaughtered them.

I found myself craving whatever it was that Tobias had given me the night before. The drug in my veins had given me a kind of peace I had never felt. And I never thought I'd have either. The type of peace that can be addictive, 'cos it turns your head off. And God knows, sometimes I needed to turn my head off.

Remembering everything that has ever happened to me, especially all the awful things, wasn't a gift. It was a burden. And whatever it was that Tobias had put in my veins, it had taken that burden from my shoulders, at least for a couple of hours.

Who wouldn't want some more of that peace?

- "Reid!"- Gideon's voice took me from my thoughts. He was sitting right in front of the camera in the victim's house. He was there with Hotch and the police, investigating the crime scene.

- "If you are watching this, you are not responsible for this. You understand me? he is perverting God to justify murder. You are stronger than him. He can not break you."

I know he meant it. But I couldn't believe any of that, not after watching a family get slaughter just because I didn't pick them.

(Y/N)'s point of view

- "I thought you were going to try and get some rest,"- I said as JJ walked to me in silence. I made myself my hundredth cup of coffee, and she just showed up next to me, trying to engage in conversation, I guess.

- "Everybody else is working. I should be too."

- "We can handle it,"- I whispered and refused to look at her. I swear I was trying not to hate her, but it was getting harder and harder with every hour that passed without finding Reid.

- "It's funny, I keep thinking the one thing we need to crack this case is... well... Reid"- she chuckled, nervously and I just looked at her and nodded. I didn't even smile. I didn't move a muscle.

I didn't want to be with her, or anyone, as a matter of fact. And I wasn't going to hide it anymore. So I tried to walk away.

- "You think Reid and I should have stayed together at the barn, don't you?"

I stopped walking and looked at her. You could tell she was having a hard time facing the whole situation, and most of all, you could tell she felt guilty.

That really didn't stop me from being mad at her. I was trying to be the better woman during the investigation, but the uncertainty was getting on my nerves.

- "JJ, go get some rest,"- I tried to answer calmly, but I knew I was looking at her like she was dead to me.

- "I can tell that's what you are thinking, so..."

- "I just wanna get Spencer home safe."

- "But... if I had his back like I was supposed to do, he'd be here now"- and that was enough.

- "JJ, what the fuck do you want from me?"

- "I just...."- she was about to cry, you could tell- "I want someone to tell me the truth."

- "You want the truth? Ok, there you go: I would have never left him alone. None of this would have happened if I had been the one with him out there! 'cos I would never let anyone or anything hurt him!!"

I shouted. All the anger I had been feeling those days was finally getting off my chest. And fuck, it felt good.

- "You fucked it up, JJ, and if something happens to Spencer, I am never going to forgive you, never!"

JJ bit her lips, trying her best not to cry. But I still couldn't feel sorry for her.

- "Is that the truth you were looking for?"

- "(Y/L/N)?"- Hotch stood next to me with the most annoyed look in his eyes.

I knew I was out of line, but this wasn't about work anymore. This was personal. This was Reid we were talking about, and JJ had fucked it up. There was nothing to discuss.

- "What? You sent him with her, now she is here, and he isn't. What else is there to say?"

- "(Y/N)!"- Hotch followed me as I stormed out of the kitchen and out of the cabin- "(Y/N)! stop!"

- "What?!"- and I simply snapped- "Are you gonna suspend me for telling her the truth? Are you going to fire me for losing my shit while working a case!? Fine! I don't care! I don't give a fuck! All I care about right now is that my best friend is missing, and a fucking psychopath has him! That's all I can think of. That's all I've been thinking about for the last two days!"

I was yelling at Hotch. I was yelling at my unit chief. I was fucked. I knew he was going to fire me after that. But I couldn't help it. I was going insane. Tears kept falling from my eyes as I held my cup of coffee tight, holding onto it with my life.

- "(Y/N), we are all worried about Reid."

- "I know you are all worried. I am too, and I'm also afraid and mad and going fucking insane knowing I am standing here not knowing what to do to save him."

- "That doesn't give you the right to treat JJ like this is her fault"- I don't know if he was talking like my unit chief or like a father figure trying to end a fight between two of his kids.

- "Did she stay with Reid?"- I simply replied and looked at Hotch in the eyes- "Did she?"

- "She is not the only one who feels guilty, so do I. And I know I won't forgive myself if anything happens to Reid."

Hotch made a pause and tried to find a way to say what he wanted to say. The door opened, and Gideon walked to us. He knew what was going on, and he didn't say a thing. I was sure he had already heard everything. We weren't actually arguing quietly.

- "We are not getting any closer,"- Aaron finally said.

- "Reid is brilliant. He'll figure out how to survive"- Gideon's words were way more hopeful than my thoughts. In my mind, Reid was too scared to think of a way to escape.

- "You know, I always take advantage of Reid for his brain. But I never actually teach him how to deal with things emotionally."

Hotch whispered, and his words were filled with regret. I was filled with anger and anxiety, and I know the two of them felt the same. But they way better at handling their feelings.

- "Lead by example,"- Jason answered, probably trying to make him feel better.

- "What kind of example is that?"- I simply replied, and both of them stayed in silence.

I don't think my words helped Hotch, but I wasn't trying to do that either. I was just honest. And Hotch's emotional assistance was shit on the field. Even Gideon was better.

- "He'll make it,"- Jason reassured us and nodded- "Now stop arguing and go back to work."

Spencer's point of view

I was glad when Tobias came to me that night with a needle in his hand and put the drug into my vein. I needed some release after watching a family die 'cos I didn't save them.

- "I'm sorry I had to leave"- he excused himself, preparing the drug next to me.

- "You can leave again, and you can take me with you,"- I begged in a soft voice.

- "My father would be angry,"- he replied and didn't even look at me. This time, I didn't even argue when he wrapped the belt around my arm. I was even a little eager he'd do it faster.

- "Not if he can't find us."

- "He always finds me."

- "If you tell me where we are, my friends will come, and they'll save us."

He gave me a look, mixed with horror and resignation. It broke my heart to think for a moment of all the horrors that lead Tobias to be as sick as he was.

- "We can't be saved,"- he simply replied.

- "We can, we can, I promise. If you tell me where we are, I'll save us both."

- "Listen to me. It's not worth fighting."

Somehow, I understood why he said that. I was afraid and shaking but still did my best not to think of all the pain I was in, of the terror that haunted me day and night.

- "Tell me it doesn't make it better- he said and showed me the needle."

I couldn't say no, 'cos he was right. It did. The drugs made his horrible situation bearable. I could understand why someone decided to use something to avoid the pain. I had faced all and each one of the pain and horrors in my life sober. It was time life was a little bit sweeter, in a sick way.

I remembered being twelve. Mom had had one of her episodes the day before, she was in bed, and I woke her up. I walked into her room and opened the curtains. It was already five in the afternoon, and she still refused to get out of bed.

- "The doctor says you need to get out of bed,"- I argued when she repeated she was just resting.

- "I've been reading"

- "He says you need exercise"- she sighed and tried to make a joke.

- "That's because his idea of good literature is Our bodies, ourselves."

- "Well, he is your doctor."

- "He is a neanderthal"- I gave up and started walking out of the room. She just laid in bed and looked at me.

- "Where are you going?"

- "I'm going to see if Jeff wants to play"- Jeff was our next-door neighbor and my only friend growing up.

- "Come here. Let me read to you."

I know Garcia made fun of me when I said my mother used to read me Valentine's sonnets when I was a kid. Most people think I have a weird relationship with mom, but they don't understand what it was like growing up with her. They don't know what it was like for a twelve-year-old boy to finish high school, facing bullies. Handling the pressure of being a kid genius and the fact I had to take care of a schizophrenic mother.

How come I didn't start using drugs earlier?

I remember that afternoon I sat next to my mother, and she made me pick one of the many books she had with her on the bed. I choose Proust. I knew she loved it. I loved it as well.

"For a long time, I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say, "I'm going to sleep."

I can still hear her voice, reading to me. Both of us avoided reality for a while, hiding in the books. I always do it regardless. I hide in the books to forget. I hide in knowledge to avoid acknowledging the real personal issues I have. I hide in my work saving people when no one ever saved me.

I work catching psychopaths when I know I might actually have a mental issue myself. I might end up just like mom, and it frightens me so much; there are many nights I can't even close an eye. If I get sick too, then no one will take care of her. I am the only one in her life. And she is the only one in mine.

She and (Y/N), but there is no way my best friend would ever take care of me if I got sick. Not because she wouldn't want to do it, but because I would never let her. I don't want to be a burden in her life. And she would hate me, I know. And I could never live in a world where (Y/N) hates me. Not then, not now.

(Y/N). She is the best thing that happened to me in the BAU. Yes, I had a family with my team, but she was different. She was my life. She was the reason why I smiled. She was the one person that made me feel I was important to someone. I knew the rest of my friend loved me, but I loved her.

That was it. I loved (Y/N). And I was scared I was never going to see her again.

(Y/N)'s point of view

I was standing next to Penelope. She kept trying to force me to eat. She knew I was living on coffee, but I just couldn't swallow anything. She held my hand as the two of us stared at the screens, hopefully waiting for Hankel to make contact again.

- "Any more signs of Reid?"- JJ walked over to us slowly and looked at me, afraid I might snap on her again. I just shook my head and sighed, doing my best to be nice to her.

- "He just posted the last murder online."

- "It had over 17 thousand hits in the first twenty minutes,"- Penelope added, and her voice was so full of revulsion. It was clear she couldn't handle the horror in the human mind.

- "I want to see it,"- JJ said, and I frowned, confused.

- "No, you don't,"- Garcia answered and looked at me- "Come on, munchkin, just eat one cookie, please."

- "Don't tell me what I want and don't want!"- JJ's tone shocked us both. She was severe and angry. She was rude at Penelope, and for a second, I almost snapped again.

- "If I can't watch this..."- JJ whispered and glued her eyes on the screen- "I have no business being in the field."

She looked at me when she was done talking, and for once during those awful days, I felt some kind of compassion for her. She had to be feeling like shit, no doubt, and no matter how mad I was at her, she was still my friend, and I didn't want her to suffer either.

- "JJ, it's not a competition,"- I tried to say in the softest voice possible.

- "I... I need to see it."

- "If you stop being affected by things, you lose parts of yourself, you know."

It was somehow ironic that I was the one saying those things. Me of all people in that team. Me, the one who was afraid the most of losing herself in work.

- "Show me"- she finally looked at Garcia, ignoring my words, and Penelope pleased her. She pushed play and simply said

- "I won't watch this with you."

García held my hand, walking me out of the room, leaving JJ alone in the room. She sighed and wiped the tears that started falling down her eyes.

- "I don't know how you do it either"- she whispered- "I don't know how you watch those things every day and don't go insane."

- "If it makes you feel better, I don't know how I do either, and it scared me to think my heart might be numbing with each case we solve. With every psychopath we catch."

- "We are gonna find him"- she assured me and held my hands tight- "We are bringing him home safe, I swear."

- "Let's go find Gideon,"- I said, nodding at her words- "He needs to know Tobias posted the last murder."

Jason was mad, beyond furious. He was losing it. Derek and Prentiss kept trying to crack Hankel and discover where he had taken Reid. Meanwhile, Garcia, Gideon, and I made our best to take the video of the murder from the web.

- "I have a list of everyone from the file-sharing chain. I could send out a mass warning that the video is actually a virus,"- Garcia said and started typing as fast as possible. I just stared at the screen, waiting for something, anything to happen.

But I wasn't waiting for what came next.

- "Confess your sins"- Hankel's voice made me jump, and the sight of Reid, still tied to that chair, bleeding, and being tortured, broke my heart again.

- "Confess!!"- that sick psychopath shouted and hit him.

- "I haven't done anything,"- Spencer sobbed, but it was useless. Hankel kept punching him, over and over again, even when my best friend begged for mercy.

I felt Jason hold my hand as I was holding Garcia's. The three of us felt powerless, useless, angry, and scared, all at the same time. I couldn't bear to watch Reid being tortured, but at the same time, I was so glad he was still alive.

That until Hankel beat him so hard, he pushed him back in the chair, and Reid started convulsing.

- "He is killing him,"- Penelope cried, and I closed my eyes, biting my lips. Spencer was choking, and that mother fucker just stood there, watching him die.

- "That's the devil vacating your body"- he spit those words as Reid simply passed out. I didn't know if he was dead. I didn't know if he was going to make it. Shit! I didn't know anything.

I let go of Jason and Penelope and stormed out of the room. I was unprofessional, and I knew it, but I knew I would quit if anything happened to Reid. I wasn't going to stay working at the BAU if Spencer died.

- "Are you ok?"- Derek grabbed my arm. I just broke into tears and held him tight. He wrapped his arms around me and let me cry.

- "He's dying! We can't find him!!"- I sobbed against his chest.

- "(Y/N)! (Y/N)!"- I heard Penelope yelling as we all rushed back to the computer room. Hankel was giving CPR to Reid, trying to bring him back to life.

- "Come on, come on, please,"- I begged as I watched him pushing his chest over and over again until Spencer woke up, gasping for air.

- "Thank God!"- Hotch sighed and rubbed his hands against his face. The whole team let out a breath of relief simultaneously, and I kept watching Reid. His opened eyes gave me hope.

- "Wait,"- Prentiss said suddenly- "When was the video of the last murder posted?"

- "Nine thirty"- Penelope answered

- "And when was the time of death?"

- "The 911 call came in at 9:04, and the murder must have been moments later."- Hotch added and didn't even turn to look at Prentiss. We were all still shocked looking at the screen.

- "That's just a 19 minutes difference,"- I said and turned to García- "How long would it take to post that file?"

- "Two or three minutes."

- "Let's call it two,"- I said, getting excited- "You figure a maximum of 60 miles an hour in a residential area. That means Hankel has to be within a 17-mile radius of the crime scene."

For a second, I felt I was rambling facts just like Reid would. It made me miss him even more.

- "García, can we see it on the map?"- Aaron whispered. He was clearly affected, and it also made me feel selfish, knowing I had made a tantrum with the whole team, forgetting they were suffering as well.

- "Call chief Farraday"- Jason commanded as soon as we saw the map of the area on the screen- "I want that area locked down like it's martial law."

JJ stood up and grabbed her phone but didn't make the call. García warned us something was going on with Reid and all of us stared at the screen in silence.

Spencer was on his back on the floor, still tied to a chair. It was clear he wasn't fully conscious of what was happening.

- "You came back to life,"- mother fucker Hankel said, spitting the words in anger.

- "Raphael,"- Reid whispered, recognizing one of his personalities.

- "There can be only one of two reasons."

- "I was given CPR,"- my friend whispered, but it was clear that wasn't one of the psycho's options.

- "There are no accidents. How many members of our team are watching us right now?"

- "Seven."

- "The seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first sounding followed hail, and they were thrown to the earth."

- "He thinks it's the revelations"- Hotch explained- "The seven archangels versus the seven angels of death."

I didn't know much about religion, but it didn't take a genius to figure out he didn't believe we were the good guys.

- "Tell me who you serve."

- "I serve you,"- Reid answered right away. His voice was a whisper. He had to be exhausted.

- "Then choose one to die"

- "What?!"

- "Your team members, choose one to die"- I knew what he was going to answer at that, and I didn't want to hear it.

- "Kill me,"- he replied immediately, and I closed my eyes, unable to watch what would happen next.

- "You said you weren't one of them."

- "I lied."

- "Your team has seven other members. Tell me who dies."

- "No"- Penelope gasped, and Prentiss cursed. I opened my eyes and nearly fainted. Hankel had a gun pointed against Reid's forehead.

The silence amongst the team was unbearable. Neither of us knew what to do. We were all panicking, praying, desperate.

- "Choose and prove you'll do God's will."

- "No."

Neither of us moved. Neither of us breathed until Hakel pulled the trigger, and no bullet came out. I nearly sigh, but it wasn't over.

- "Choose"- he repeated

- "I won't do it"- Hankel didn't even wait. He just pulled the trigger, and we all jumped at the same time. He was safe again.

- "Life is a choice."

- "No,"- Reid repeated once again. And Hankel pulled the trigger for the third time.

- "Choose"- and for the first time, Spencer made a pause. Was going to pick one of us to die?

- "I choose"- the whispered- "Aaron Hotchner."

Derek and I looked at him, and his pale face didn't move a muscle.

- "He's the classic narcissist. He thinks he's better than everyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4 "Let him not deceive himself, and trust in emptiness, vanity falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense."

Hotch stormed out of the room as Hankel pulled the trigger one more time and shot the wall.

I felt I was going to puke. If Reid hadn't picked one of us, he would be dead.

- "For God's will,"- the mother fuck said, as he put another bullet in the gun after removing the casing.

I couldn't look anymore. I followed Gideon and Derek to find Aaron going through all Tobias's diaries on the table.

- "I'm not a narcissist,"- he said as soon as he saw us.

- "Come on. Look, you can't think anything from that"- Jason tried to calm him down, in case he was somehow affected by what Reid had just said on camera- "He is not in his right mind, Hotch."

- "No, stop, stop. Alright, everybody, right now: what's my worst quality?"

He had to be kidding. We all stared at him, muted, lost in that conversation. What was his point? Neither of us said a word. We just looked at each other, confused and awkward.

- "Ok, I'll start. I have no sense of humor."

- "You are a bully,"- JJ added.

- "You can be a drill sergeant sometimes,"- I said, and he nodded.

- "Right."

- "You don't trust women as much as men"- you could feel it in Prentiss's voice. That one was personal.

- "Ok, good. I'm all these things, but none of you said that I ever put myself above the team because I don't, ever. Reid and I argued about the definition of classic narcissism, and he knew that I would remember that. He also quoted Genesis chapter 23, verse 4. Read it."

Hotch gave me the book. He wasn't even breathing as she spoke. He was in a hurry. We were all.

- "I'm a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me property, forbear a place among you that I may bury my dead of my sight."

- "He wouldn't get it wrong unless it were on purpose."

- "He is in a cemetery."- I said and looked at him. He nodded, and I swear to God, I saw a slight smile on his lips. That smile was hope. We were getting closer.

Spencer's point of view

I took a sip of water. I hadn't drunk in days, and my throat burned. I was still a little lost, still a little off.

- "Tobias, is that you?"- I saw him nod, sitting next to me. He moved the cup of water closer so that I could drink some more.

- "Thank you,"- I whispered and looked at him- You saved my life- he stared down at the ground and finally whispered

- "I'm sorry."

- "Why?"

- "He'll win in the end."

It was sad to see Tobias Hankel's good person locked inside a sick mind that also held a psychopath like his father.

- "Tobias, I need to know something. It's important. Are we in a cemetery?"- and he nodded. I smiled at him and sighed, relieved. Help was coming. My team was coming.

- "I used to come here to get high."

- "I was right."

- "No one bothers you here. I never told anyone about it."

He wrapped his belt around my arm, and I turned to him, still smiling. I didn't know if I were happy I was right or glad I would get high again. Maybe both. Maybe the second 'cos the minute that needle got to my vein, that sweet, sweet release felt like a bath of joy that washed away any pain, regret, or guilt I could have ever felt.

Guilt. I've had my share of that. I remember the day I had my mom admitted to the hospital. She hadn't eaten in days. She wouldn't take care of herself, and they're just so much I could do. I wasn't able to keep her safe from herself, from her mind.

- "What are these men doing here?"- she asked me as I walked with two nurses into the study. She was writing and reading. It was all she did, preparing lectures for classes she didn't have to give, in imaginary campuses.

I stood in front of her and hesitated for a second. It was the hardest thing I had ever done, telling mom I was taking her away from her own house.

- "They are from the hospital. They are here to help,"- I whispered and looked at my mother's confused expression. She was so thin. She looked so sick. I felt so guilty I couldn't do better for her.

- "I don't need help, and you can't be here without permission, tell them, Spencer."

She looked down at her books again and tried to continue writing. I took a deep breath, I knew I would break her heart, but there was nothing else I could do.

- "I called them"- she looked at me in pain. Deep, honest pain. Like I had just shattered her heart. Which I had done.

- "Spencer"- she simply whispered and stared into my eyes, begging for an explanation. I was trying my best not to cry. I had a whole speech prepared. I was going to tell her how much I loved her. I was going to explain to her how good it was for her to be in a place where someone could continuously take care of her. I had facts and statistics, but all I managed to say was:

- "I'm doing this for you."

And I felt like a liar. 'Cos, there was a part of me that was doing it for myself too.

- "This isn't legal"- she shook her head in shock and kept trying to find a good explanation to what was going on.

- "Your son is eighteen, ma'am. He can act in your welfare,"- one of the make nurses explained to her.

- "You need help,"- I said and prayed she could understand. But she just burst into tears and begged.

- "I wanna stay here!"

- "I'm... sorry, mom."

- "Please, these are my things, this is my life..."

Those men took her. They took her from her house and put her in a hospital. No. I put her there. I put my mom in a hospital so I could live my life, 'cos I am selfish and couldn't take care of her anymore.

- "Spencer, please, don't do this to me."

Those were the words that haunted me day and night. And my mother's crying face, begging me not to take her from her own house.

What kind of a son am I? I did that to her. I put her in a mental place 'cos I couldn't deal with her disease anymore. 'Cos I didn't know how to take care of her.

- "What are you sorry for, boy?"- I heard Hankel ask when I woke up. I was muttering, "Sorry" as I came back from my trip.

- "I sent her away."

- "Who."

- "My mom. I couldn't help her."

- "Is that a confession?"- I nodded and looked around, confused. Lost. High- "You know the bible. Exodus 21:17"

- "And he that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death,"- I whispered, scared and full of regret.

I heard him walk towards me. He kneeled and uncuffed me. I didn't know what was happening. Honestly, I was still too high to get what was going on around me.

- "Grab a shovel,"- he commanded and walked outside.

I was too weak to dig fast. I don't know how I was actually moving, but I was digging my own grave. I never thought I would ever end up doing such a thing. It's not something you think about, actually. Not unless you work in the BAU. Here, you start analyzing and considering the way you'll die: 'Cos you could, every day.

- "I ought to bury you alive in there, give you some time to think about what you've done,"- Hankel said and looked at me while I worked, playing with a knife.

- "I know what I've done."

- "Don't talk back to me! Dig!"

I pant and kept moving, very slowly, trying to buy myself some time too. I was sure the team was coming to get me any minute now. I was counting on them, though the more I thought about it, the less worthy of salvation I felt. Maybe I deserved to die after all.

I was almost certain I had seen some lights moving in the back. Flashlights. But it could be my mind playing tricks on me. I was too tired. And still too high, too.

- "Dig faster!"- he commanded me as I moved, losing my breath.

- "I'm not strong enough"- I cried, 'cos I felt like that. Like a failure, a child that aimed to be a grown-up and failed miserably. A bad son. The worst agent. A fake that deserved to die.

- "You are all weak!! Get out of there!"

Hankel took off his coat and left it on the ground. I slowly moved so he could dig for me, but the lights in the back took my attention, and he noticed. As soon as he turned around, I quickly grabbed his coat and reached out for the gun.

- "You've only got one bullet, son,"- he said as he looked at me. And I just pulled the trigger.

I shot him. I killed him. Hankel. Raphael. Tobias. I freed Tobias. Or at least, that is what I wanted to think.

- "Reid!!"- I heard (Y/N) yelling as I crawled to Tobia's body. He was still awake. He was himself.

- "You killed him"- he said, and he was relieved- "Do you think I'll get to see my mom again?"

- "I'm sorry,"- I whispered, and he was gone.

- "Reid!!"

(Y/N) yelled and ran over. She kneeled next to me and held me in her arms. I couldn't move, because for a few seconds, I couldn't believe she was real. She was there.

- "Honey, honey, are you ok? Can you hear me?"- she said, and tears started falling from her eyes- "Honey, it's me."

I just looked at her and hugged her. I hugged her as my life depended on it. There she was, next to me, finally.

- "I thought I was never going to see you again,"- I whispered and sobbed.

The urge to kiss her filled my whole body. I needed to taste her. I needed to show her how much I had needed her those days. But I knew I couldn't.

I didn't want to let her go. I didn't for a few minutes. I just hold onto her for my sanity. She kissed my forehead, cupping my face with both hands.

- "I'm so happy to see you. I'm glad you are ok... let's go to the ambulance, ok?"- I nodded but didn't let her go. I felt I could hold her forever. I wanted to keep her close for as long as I lived.

But the rest of the team gathered around us, and I wanted to thank them too. I needed to thank Hotch. So as soon as I let (Y/N) go, I wrapped my arms around him.

- "You alright?"- he asked me.

- "I knew you'd understand,"- I managed to say with tears falling from my eyes and a knot in my throat.

For a moment, I thought I was never going to see the team again. My family.

JJ held me close and apologized. I knew she felt guilty for leaving me alone, but I was the only one culpable for what had happened. I wanted to prove myself, and all I managed to do was prove I was a fool. A useless SSA.

- "It's alright, it wasn't your fault,"- I said and did my best to smile at her. But I know I failed. Gideon grabbed my arm and nodded.

- "Let's get you out of here."

- "Please,"- I whispered before we started walking- "Can I have a second alone?"- he looked at me and nodded, looking at Tobias' body lying by our side. He walked away, and I kneeled next to my capturer.

But instead of paying my respects, instead of cursing. Instead of anything, I took the Dilaudid bottles from his pocket and put them into mine.

And that's how the real hell started.

--

DIWK Taglist:

@all-tings-diego @big-galaxy-chaos @svveet-peas @muffin-cup @shilohpug

Spencer taglist

@calm-and-doctor

General Taglist

@spenxerslut @ash19871962

–

Do you want to be on the taglist or ramble about this chapter with me? Just send me a message here.

Next update: May 5th, 2021

[cherry-lipbalm]

survival of the fittest. spencer reid.

5.3k words.

masterlist

“ If they were to somehow get out of here alive, she was certain it would only be one of them. ”

three hours earlier

Y/N was ready to go home - more than ready. They'd gotten back from a hard hitting case in Boston, touching down by early afternoon meant they were expected back at the HQ, which henceforth meant piles of paperwork were in their future. Y/N knew her complaining would only go reprimanded by Hotch, so she kept to herself in her cubicle, shoved into the corner of the bullpen, and desperate to get the documents out of the way.

Over the scribbling of her pen, she heard the mutterings of Morgan and Reid's conversation beside the latter's desk not too far away from her own. She sighed in defeat, because she knew she wouldn't be able to resist joining them, especially when the opportunity arose to take the mickey at Spencer.

When it did inevitably arise, she pushed herself away from her desk and allowed the wheels on her chair to escort her over to the men. At the sound of jagged rolling, Morgan stepped aside to make space for her to insert herself, a snide smug painted on his face.

"Did I just hear the word 'Spencer' and 'girl' in the same sentence?" She asked, leaning on the armrest to shove her shit-eating grin into Spencer's face; he only rolled his eyes and gave an insincere 'ha ha'.

"Your ears did not deceive you, baby girl," Morgan said, receiving a smack on the arm from Spencer. The warning stare he gave him almost made Y/N stop pestering him. Only almost.

"Oh my! Spill the beans, who is she?" Y/N gushed, steering her chair even closer to the Doctor while Morgan watched on amusedly.

"There isn't a she," he grumbled, head bowed to his paperwork in the hopes that if he ignored the Agents they'd just go away.

"...a he?"

"No!" Spencer exclaimed, snapping his head upwards.

"Hey! It's no skin off my nose, Spence."

He groaned, then turned back to his work and allowed for Morgan and Y/N to exchange a glance as they both tried to hold back snickers at their friend's flustered existence.

She stayed huddled around with them for a few more minutes, but as soon as she saw the clock hit 5, she jumped from her chair and kicked it back to her desk. Announcing that she was off, she began to gather and pack her things. While she did so, she heard Spencer make the same announcement.

"You're off earlier than usual," she called back, "let me guess... Doctor Who marathon?"

Spencer's smile gave him away; Y/N chuckled and draped her coat over her shoulders, standing by his desk while he adjusted his satchel.

"Busy man," she commented, then proceeded to listen to whatever sci-fi related ramble Spencer was emitting, interjecting with exclamations of intrigue or surprise whenever she deemed suitable (they were all timed guesses, but she didn't waver once).

"...Christopher Eccleston is actually the second favourite, despite the fact that a lot of people skip his season, but he has a 52% popularity–"

"Wait, why do people skip his season?"

"Oh, because he preceded David Tennant. He's the favourite, with a 69% popularity."

"Ha, 69," Y/N muttered under her breath with a crude smirk. Spencer only gave a restrained smile and raised his eyebrows. The two fell into a silence, except from a 'thank you' Y/N said softly when Spencer opened the door for her.

The elevator button illuminated under her touch, and they stood in front of the steel doors, awaiting their opening. Y/N tapped her foot senselessly, and Spencer rolled on the balls of his heels.

In amidst the silence, Y/N looked up to Spencer and they exchanged a warm smile. The beep of the elevator distracted them, and after stepping aside to let people out, they ambled in and finally relaxed when the doors closed on them again.

"Today was relentless," Y/N sighed, checking her watch.

"Have any plans?" Spencer asked, out of courtesy.

"Well, I have to head to the repair store to pick up my phone, but after that there's leftover Chinese food in the fridge with my name written all over it," she chuckled.

"What happened? To your phone?"

"Morgan happened," was all she said. Spencer joined in on her judgement even though he didn't know the story, he did know that 'Derek Morgan' was simply a reason in itself that didn't warrant an explanation. Then, they lulled in the return of silence.

It wasn't until the elevator jerked and came to a sudden stop that the two spoke again.

"That's not right," Spencer muttered, and he immediately began to jab at the ground floor button before Y/N smacked his hands away, because she was already deep in a panic, so it was even worse when the next astounding jerk hit. She screamed when they were thrown off balance, and hoped she hadn't got a concussion from where she collided with the back wall upon the motion.

"What the hell?" She panted. They came to a still, but it made her even more nervous because she knew they hadn't been in there long enough to reach their floor. That, and the fact that they had just ripped through the air at about a hundred miles per hour.

Spencer's eyes furrowed, and he licked his lips in the way he did when he was focused on something. Judging by the way he assessed the doors, Y/N thought he was about to pull some thwarted stunt, or more likely reel off some facts about steel.

"I think something's wrong," he mumbled.

"No shit, Sherlock,"

"Ah, elementary my dear Watson," Spencer replied so quickly that Y/N was almost inclined to believe it made any sense.

"Did you know that Sherlock Holmes never actually said that? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote those words, they were only adapted into the movies years later-"

"Oh my god, Spencer, are we stuck in this elevator?" Y/N shrieked, her knuckles whitening under her tight clutch of the hand rails on the wall: half from fear and the other from frustration.

"Oh, uh, yeah, I think so."

Upon Spencer's bluntness, she stepped forward, desperate for any attempt of an escape plan, she began pressing the ground floor button repeatedly; when that didn't work, she resorted to aimlessly smashing all the buttons on offer. 

"That's– that's really not gonna do anything," Spencer said in the background.

"Do you have a better idea?" She snapped, turning to him with a glare before resuming her actions.

"Try the - try that one!" He pointed to the red button with an alarm bell engraved on it, and Y/N felt stupid under his stare for not noticing it before. She pressed it, and the ringing noise that emitted from it seemed to do nothing but that: ring. She was certain someone was supposed to come to their aid through a speaker, so she pushed it continuously, but derived nothing further. At least she gained some comfort in the panic of Spencer's voice that told her he was shitting himself as much as she was.

"It's not doing anything!" She cried, and when he leaned over her and pressed it too, she bit her tongue and raised her eyebrows to tell him 'see?', infuriated at the fact that he thought she could be somehow pushing a button wrong. But, then again, she'd have been even more angry if he'd done it and it had worked.

When it didn't, she alternated to the next best thing.

"Help!" She yelled, slamming her palms against the doors. She didn't know what floor they'd been wedged at (or even if they were just floating in some space between levels), but someone had to hear them; they were bound to...right?

Spencer seemed to think so at least, because he was joining her in pounding his fists on the steel. Sooner rather than later, the harsh echo made Y/N's ears ring, so she stopped and took a step back.

"Well, this is great," she sighed, slumping in a lean on the wall as she rubbed her temples.

"I'm gonna miss Doctor Who," Spencer whined, pouting.

Y/N just rolled her eyes at him and told him to call somebody. She was sure she'd seen JJ just before they left, still huddled in her office; hopefully she'd be able to call maintenance and they could be released from this death trap of a machine.

"I can't, my phone died. Use yours."

"What?"

"My phone's flat, can you use yours?"

Y/N just stared at him. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt because the adrenaline rush of panic can make memories a bit hazy, but her skin was flustering under the rage she was feeling, her forehead was already beginning to perspire and the walls were so small and entrapping and - is it hot in here or just her?

"My phones at the store," she reminded him through gritted teeth, and watched his composure fall in both comprehension and defeat.

"Great," he remarked.

"Oh, like it's my fault?"

"Well, it's not mine."

"And it's not mine either so don't talk to me like that!"

It was only a short exchange, but it made Y/N's blood boil; if they were to somehow get out of here alive, she was certain it would only be one of them.

Spencer gulped, and Y/N was sure that had he the opportunity to he would be storming away right about now, but unfortunately for the both of them that wouldn't be happening anytime soon. The wonderful reality of this hitting Y/N, she kicked off her shoes and planted her bum down on the floor.

Spencer looked at her curiously while she did this, then quirked his lip and proceeded to do the same. He used his satchel as a pillow to support his head, and sighed loudly (it seemed deliberate just how exaggerative it was).

"No one is ever gonna find us here," Y/N said.

"We're not dying–"

"You don't know that. We could be suffocating as we speak-"

"Suffocation is impossible in elevators: the cars are designed not to be airtight and there's vents that allow air to move in and out," he pointed up at the grated opening above Y/N's head. At being proved wrong by Spencer and his big, unfathomable brain, she crossed her arms much like a stroppy toddler and even pouted her lip.

"We could still die," she mumbled.

"The statistics of that are still very unlikely; in fact, the people that die the most in elevators are elevator technicians themselves. An average of 26 people die in elevators every year in America–"

"And you're ready to be one of those 26?"

"We're not going to be. We won't suffocate, and it hasn't fallen."

"Yet," she said. "Plus, theres other ways to die. Like, I don't know, murder perhaps?" She said with a potent glare in his direction. He gave her a blank stare partnered with a sarcastic smile, one that only made Y/N more devoted to her other-ways-to-die initiative.

"We just have to wait a while... Did you know the longest duration of time someone was stuck in an elevator was 41 hours? Nicholas White. And all he had to eat was a packet of Rolaids."

More than accustomed to tuning out Spencer's rambles, Y/N barely heard what he was talking about, in a dazed trance where she was focused intently on where the paint didn't match the wall, she was so invested she almost missed what he said.

"Wait... oh my god. Do you have food?" She asked, sitting up from her subsided posture.

Spencer's face softened in dread, which didn't bring any aid nor optimism to their situation.

She watched him sit forward, shoving hands into the pockets of his blazer, coat, trousers and pulling out nothing but a few crumpled pieces of paper. Y/N matched him with an empty gum wrapper and a Walmart receipt displaying a concerning amount of pregnancy tests she had purchased last month.

"Do I even wanna know?" Spencer asked, chucking it back to the ground with a grimace as if it was riddled with germs (it probably was but, still).

"All you need to know is that I'm not pregnant," Y/N scoffed, almost amicably, but her eyebrows creased and she was back to a fuck everything this sucks expression in less than a second.

"Well we can't survive on this."

"You really haven't brought any food?" Spencer pestered.

"No, I had Chinese leftovers on the cards for tonight. And I don't see you offering anything up; what's your excuse?"

Spencer only groaned, again. He kicked his feet out and let his head fall onto the wall back in the same place. He ran a hand through his hair, and the scarce gel he had used to keep it in place disassembled around his face in random strays of curls. The sight of him relaxing like he was settling in for the night didn't appease Y/N one bit.

While Spencer closed his eyes, Y/N got to her feet and decided slamming on the door again was a better pastime. Spencer, however, did not agree.

At the banging, Spencer's eyes shot open and his body shook in alarm. His eyes darted around the space frantically until they landed on Y/N's figure aligned with the doors on which she was unleashing hell. If yelling could open an elevator, they'd have been out in a jiffy.

"I think we've established that doesn't help," Spencer said.

"Then you help!" She shouted, continuing the thrashing of metal.

"How?"

"I don't know!" Her shriek echoed, and she yet again gave up on the violence. "Use that big brain of yours and find us a way out of here."

"The 7 steps to surviving being stuck on an elevator are fundamental; we've already done them. They include pressing the open button, the alarm and call button. We still have our light source, otherwise finding one would have been number two. We've tried yelled for help. The only one we haven't done is stayed calm," he said with a heavy emphasis in her direction. Currently, she was the epitome of panic.

Y/N furrowed a brow at him, "That's six. What's number seven?"

She watched Spencer inhale deeply before he told her, "wait it out."

Y/N felt her heart sink. The possibility of her going insane while being confined within this space was only increasing as the minutes passed by. And with that, she felt like oxygen was depleting alongside it. She took a big breath to remind her that there was still air to breathe, and Spencer caught sight of it.

"Are... are you claustrophobic?"

"No!"

His eyes widened at her outburst, and he even raised his hands in defence should the situation present itself, which was looking pretty inevitable.

"I'm not, I just... get a little... panicked, that's all."

"You don't say," he murmured, and —with a grunt— got to his feet again. He treaded towards the damned doors. Y/N thought he was going to bang on them again, and she took front-row seat on the floor to watch the imprudent, futile attempt. Instead, Spencer's long arachnid-like fingers dug into the crevice of the doors and he tried to pry them open. This was an even vainer approach; his strained groans showed such.

"It's no use. We're gonna be here for a while. I can offer you a juice carton," Y/N spoke, making Spencer turn attentively at the word 'juice'. He looked down to where she was rummaging through her bag and depositing a few random objects while she did so. In a very Mary Poppins like fashion, the entities incessantly kept coming and coming, gathering in remarkable piles on the floor. There seemed to be more things than space available, but then they were trapped in an elevator and space was one of the many luxuries the agents realised they had taken for granted. Despite his astonishment at the growing belongings, there seemed to be a concerning lack of food present.

She was, however, holding out an apple juice carton, and Spencer figured that you get what you're given. So while her attention focused to the remnants of whatever was in her bag, Spencer punctured the carton with the straw, and began sucking. He made a squeal of surprise and relief when he saw her pull out a feebly wrapped, half eaten bag of crackers.

"Oh, I forgot about these," she announced, with the first smile Spencer had seen from her since the elevator had broken down.

He leaned down to grab the bag, dusting off the sprayed crumbs and then took a seat to Y/N's left. He left space between them for chivalrous purposes and also to allow space for the bag of crackers to sit.

They made attempts to ration the snack, but it soon developed into an every man for himself situation when Y/N noticed Spencer had started to take two at once.

She wasn't even hungry anymore, but the hunger for beating Spencer at something prevailed and disregarded any logical thought that they ought to save food, so she dove in again for another cracker. Unluckily, she did so at the same time as Spencer, so it made for an awkward encounter when their hands collided but neither was willing to give up their slot in the bag.

Eventually (because they didn't want the other to notice their blush), they gave up when time ran too long and reached a compromise with halving the cracker. Y/N gave Spencer the bigger half of her failed equal snap, but neither of them addressed it.

Neither of them addressed anything actually, for the next... god knows how long they were cooped up in there. They sat in a pleasant silence, free from any awkward glances or trepidations: it was both from the fact that they were in their own heads, and a serendipitous comfort in one another.

"I'm sorry you're going to miss your Doctor Who... thing," was what broke the silence.

"Oh, it's okay. I can just watch it on repeat tomorrow."

"Okay," Y/N laughed softly, and they floated into another quiet.

"I'm sorry you're stuck in an elevator."

"Ha! Me too."

"When we get out of here maybe we can go for Chinese food," Spencer suggested, craning his neck to look at her with a discreet smile.

"Sure," she agreed. "By the time we get out my food at home might have rotten anyway."

And then time after that just... passed. In Spencer's satchel he had an uncanny assortment of reading material to thrive on, and amid her odd collection of pretty much everything she had ever owned, Y/N found an old MP3 player and some earphones (only the left ear worked, but it was as good entertainment as she was going to get).

There comes a point, though, when one person can only listen to so much music from their teen years; Y/N's taste back then was... questionable, to say the least. And her earphone seemed to agree with her, because it gave out just when the unmistakable sound of an NSYNC song began.

"Ugh, just when it was getting good!" She complained, tugging the bud from her ear and throwing it onto the miscellaneous pile.

Spencer's head quirked to Y/N, but his eyes only followed after he had finished a sentence on his page. When he did, he saw her curiously leaning over his shoulder and squinting at the words.

"You can borrow it if you want," he said. "This is my third time reading it and I have others."

He gestured to his pile, which had evolved into a makeshift bookcase in the corner of the elevator. A few pages were torn, and the spines were so worn down that she could barely make out what the titles were. Not from a lack of TLC, but rather copious amounts of it; having been read over and over again. 

"No, it's okay. You continue, I'll just... meditate, or something."

"It's a good book," Spencer said, and he sounded like he was trying to persuade her, so she gave in and nodded. Readjusting her posture, she focused again on where the paint didn't meet the wall as she listened to the one thing she thought she wouldn't ever be able to stand: Spencer Reid's voice.

———

Which, to her and Reid's surprise, she found quite calming. Her hidden envy and not so hidden annoyance with his ability to reel off facts and wisdom like he was only recalling what he had for dinner hindered any fondness Y/N could associate with his voice. Until now, that is.

He was reading Strangers on a Train, supposedly his third favourite book, and they were reaching "the best bit" according to Spencer, but then every bit within the past forty five minutes since he'd started reading had been "the best bit", so Y/N wasn't sure.

But she's pretty calm, as calm as she can be stuck in an elevator, so she's actually thankful she has Spencer of all people beside her. She knew that if Morgan was in his place they'd have attempted murder at least a couple times by now; not to say that Y/N hadn't considered stabbing Spencer at all, but there's only so much damage a blunt pencil at the bottom of her bag could do.

So, she's calm. She's barely following the story because she only joined in halfway through, but she's grasped the basis of it because Spencer reads so eloquently and so well that he's practically painted the vividness of the narrative for her, even though he vouches it's down to Patricia Highsmith's words, which is true, but Spencer has a role in it too.

One thing Spencer recites makes Y/N wonder why she's never had him read to her before.

"People, feelings, everything! Double! Two people in each person. There's also a person exactly the opposite of you, like the unseen part of you, somewhere in the world, and he waits in ambush."

The story portrays an uncanny resemblance to the plots of the abundant crime scenes they analyse daily (Y/N wonders how Spencer comes home from work only to read about the same gory instances): the same mannerisms, behaviours and intricate understanding of criminal attitudes. It's accuracy is so astounding that Y/N asks if the author was ever a profiler of sorts.

Although it's selfish, because Y/N is not the real victim, she wished there was some way Highsmith's words could spring into real life and provide tainted rose coloured spectacles to which she could observe reality through. In some sick way, Y/N needed to see beauty in things like murder. She sometimes forgot that what they were doing had a purpose, and they tended to be the good guys. But there was no writing beautiful enough for Spencer to read and glorify the crimes with.

But even Y/N thinks Spencer's reading could help her see life through more of the silver lining rather than shrouded by the dark cloud that accompanied it.

The moment of rare serenity within Spencer's words is suspended, however, when he suddenly stops with no obvious justification. Y/N wonders if she's missed something profound within the story again so she goes to read over them on the page this time (because she's been rather entranced in Spencer's voice rather than the actual words), except when she looks up she sees a look of horror depicted on Spencer's face: one that doesn't register with her primarily because what's happening in the story is rather quite mundane compared to the dismay on his face. It's so poignant that she thinks something must be fatally wrong.

"What is it?" She asks, sitting up (and away because she thinks he may be about to vomit. But no, the real reason is even more horrific).

"I need to pee."

Y/N gasps; she hadn't even conjectured this predicament. It was a basic human necessity, how had she not anticipated this would happen? At first she thought, hey it's not that bad, better him than me— he can stand. Until she realises that there isn't really anywhere to stand.

"Oh no," she whispers, and he looks at her dauntingly. "You shouldn't have drank that apple juice."

"What was I supposed to do, bathe in it?" He scorns, and the two connect in an unwavering exchange eye contact with one another. Y/N dreads looking away in fear of what he'll do when she has her back turned.

So, like I said, Y/N was pretty calm, and I'd say Spencer was too; reading was a delight, and he found Y/N almost as endearing (almost). Life was bearable until Spencer needed to pee.

And it is here that they throw all peace out the window (if there was one) and give up on step number seven, and instead say hello to their old friend step number five: frantic yelling.

The energy pent up from lazing around reading and being read to is released fairly effectively. Y/N thinks she's never screamed so loud in her life, and Spencer knows he hasn't: entrapment and a full bladder can take one hell of a toll on a man.

And when the profusion of footsteps and the clanging of doors sounds, it is glorious. It is what they imagine heaven to sound like and more. Y/N collapses to the ground in relief, and Spencer throws his hands up in a prayer of thanks (even though he doesn't necessarily believe, but he is just so high on adrenaline and the discomfort of needing a wee that he'd just about believe anything now if it meant he could get to a bathroom).

"You guys okay in there?" A voice calls in from above them (Spencer genuinely thinks it's God) and Y/N has never been more happy to hear Derek Morgan.

"We're good! We're good! Oh my god, get us out of here please!"

"Right on it, baby. Bet y'all thought you were gonna die in there, huh?"

"Worse," Y/N called, "I thought I was gonna have to see Spencer's dick!"

Morgan laughed (music to their ears: any voice that wasn't each other's fit that criteria in that moment), and then told her he didn't want to know. Spencer and Y/N heard him holler behind him, and even more footsteps approached. Y/N couldn't see much from the slither between the doors that had just been pried open, since they had fallen a considerable distance from their floor. What she could see was only half of Morgan's face while he knelt on the ground.

"What happened?" Spencer asked, trying to gain some understanding for the reason behind missing his Doctor Who marathon.

"Power cut. The whole city's in blackout."

"You're kidding," Y/N replied, then turned. "A whole lotta people just risked that 1 in 26."

"Us included," Spencer said.

They recognised the voices of the maintenance team, and even a few uniforms of firefighters that worked on opening the doors with as much force as they could muster. Y/N looked again to the wall and paint mismatch, finding it too unsettling to look at their rescue attempt (that had way too much potential to go wrong) and even more unsettling to look at Spencer who was practically cradling his crotch.

"Ladies first!" A fireman called, and his hand reached into the space they had managed to (barely) increase, hoping that it wouldn't prove to be too difficult. From what Morgan told them, Spencer wouldn't have any trouble getting through it if they had halved the space ("the kid's a sherbet stick, I'm telling you").

"No, we've got a man here who's about to explode," Y/N joked, forgetting that the word 'explode' is a term one should use lightly within the headquarters of the FBI. She was blissfully reminded of this when the few surrounding agents brandished their guns. They almost didn't let them out until Spencer yelled that if he didn't get to a bathroom that instant he would give them a real reason to get their guns out.

So he was lifted out first, falling into Morgan's arms the chance he got to. He, somehow, managed to wait until he saw Y/N definitely leave the elevator before racing off down the hallway. Maintenance didn't even bother telling him that the doors have been locked because officially work finished three hours ago; they figured he had enough vigour in him to knock a wall down, never mind a door.

"Are you alright?" Morgan asked Y/N, lifting her up onto her own to feet. She's given a shock blanket, which is a pretty cool souvenir.

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"Miraculously. I don't know how you survived in there with him; I'd go insane."

"Eh," she chuckled, "he's not too bad."

———

After gathering their belongings, Y/N and Spencer make their way to leave work, again.

Morgan's nonchalant explanation of the blackout is in no way accurate to the genuine portrayal of, what Y/N can only describe as, a thriller movie come to life. She's looking out the wide scale windows in the bullpen room and can only see her reflection. It's creepy. Skittishly, she jumps when Spencer's image shows up behind her own. 

"Jesus, haven't I had enough near death experiences tonight?" She asks, holding a hand over her heart that she's sure just kickstarted (for various reasons).

"Sorry," he laughs. Placing his hands in his pockets, Y/N can sense he's more relaxed now that he's peed and no longer trapped within the restrictions of one metre.

They smile, then look out again to the darkened abyss before them. Y/N has never seen the city so quiet, yet she knows it's anything but. Once she steps outside it's bound to be hectic central.

"You normally get the subway, what are you gonna do?"

"Oh, I guess I'll just walk," Spencer shrugs.

"Absolutely not. I'll drive you home."

"Oh, no, you don't have to do that—"

"Spence, I just spent the last three hours in a confined space with you, I'm sure I can do twenty minutes more," she said. "Get your stuff ready, we can head off now."

She swung her bag over her shoulder and turned to walk out the bullpen, her heels reverberating throughout the room. Spencer watched her stride out by her reflection in the window, as to not be caught staring.

"If my car breaks down I'm gonna commit murder!"

Spencer laughed loudly, which made Y/N smile as she passed the kitchenette. When he continued to chuckle to himself he realised he wouldn't mind another three more hours stuck with her— at least he'd have an excuse if the car broke down. Maybe if he set off now he could get there in time to beat Y/N to her car and slash the tyres. He kindly reminded himself that that's illegal while he retrieved his satchel off the back of his chair and strutted out the office.

He wasn't too far behind Y/N when he suggested getting a Chinese on the way back.

"Is that a date?"

"If eating a Chinese takeaway in your car is your idea of a date," he sang.

"It very much is," Y/N grinned irrefutably.

He held the door open for her, she said thank you, and their giddy (dare I say lovesick) smiles dropped when they faced the elevator.

They've taken the stairs every day since.

fin.

[evening-starlight]

Warm Beers

Taglist is OPEN! DM or Comment to be added

Posting Schedule: Monday, Wednesday, Friday

This takes place before Season 1

All Works Master List

Warm Beers Master List

9

Word Count: 1214

    Kiara wakes up to quiet humming and someone moving around the living room delicately. She opens an eye to find Kenzie wandering around with a trash bag and picking things off the floor. "You're up early," She comments, pulling herself into a sitting position. Kenzie smiles over at her.

    "I'm sorry, did I wake you?" Kiara shakes her head. "I just got up early, I guess. Don't ask me; it just happens. So I decided I'd clean up a little for John B.," Kenzie says with a shrug. Truth was, she woke up next to Henry in his hotel and needed to get out before he asked for a second night.

    She was never good at commitment, something she learned she got from her mother. Three months after giving birth to McKenzie, she disappeared only to send her dad divorce papers two months later. McKenzie never met her mom, and she never wanted to. Especially after she learned the whole truth as to why her mother left.

    "You're too nice to that idiot," Kiara mumbles as she gets off the pull-out bed and shuffles to the kitchen.

    "It's better than the other option of ripping his head off," Kenzie shrugs before going back to her cleaning. The humming resumes quickly after, perking Kiara's interest. She listens closely and can place the song within seconds.

    "Are you humming Rythm of Love?" Kiara questions, looking over the fridge door at Kenzie, who freezes in her spot. She hums a bit more, trying to figure out if Kie was right in her song placement.

    McKenzie shrugs it off. "I guess I am. It's been stuck in my head all morning," She writes off before going back to picking things off the floor. "Does John B. ever fucking clean?" Kenzie huffs. She had been cleaning for five minutes already, and it felt as if she hadn't made a dent in the room.

    Kiara smiles knowingly to herself. Kenzie was never the sentimental type, but when she had feelings for someone, she sang. Or, in this case, hummed. It wasn't a coincidence that the song was a love song. She caught feelings for someone, and she caught them hard. Kiara knew exactly who it was too.

    "So, who's the lucky boy?" Kiara asks when Kenzie enters the kitchen with a full bag. Kenzie looks at her like she grew a second head overnight.

    "What are you talking about, Kie?"

    "You only sing silly love songs when you have feelings for someone. So, who is it?" Kiara pushes as she pours herself a bowl of cereal nonchalantly. Kenzie stares at Kiara in confusion. Of course, she didn't have feelings for anyone. She never did. McKenzie was known for her one-night stands amongst her friends. They all knew her fear of commitment.

    "You're crazy, Kie. I sing those stupid songs all the time," Kenzie remarks as she gets herself a new trash bag. "Besides, we all know the L word is forbidden in my dictionary."

    Kiara hums around her spoonful of Frosted Flakes. "Whatever you gotta tell yourself, Girl." Kenzie rolls her eyes and goes back to the living room to clean up empty beer bottles and take-out trash. The comments Kiara makes brew in Kenzie's head.

    She sang songs all the time. This wasn't any different. There was always a song playing in the back of her head. Sometimes it just happened to be a silly love song. Kenzie probably heard it on a TikTok or something. It might have been playing on the radio on her way here. The song meant nothing more than an annoying tune that wouldn't leave her alone.

    Kenzie starts to hum again while she folds the pull-out bed in. The song wasn't important, but she does notice it's the old Cinderella song 'So This Is Love.' Not that that meant anything. It was nothing more than a song that came into her head as she picked up the last of the living room trash.

    Kiara watches in amusement at her clueless friend. Kenzie would continue to ignore these feelings until they either went away or destroyed whatever relationship she had with her crush. Kiara's witnessed it once before. They were thirteen, and Kenzie had her first real crush.

    He was a boy named David in their shared science class. Kenzie and David were pretty close friends for middle schoolers. They would eat lunch together and sit next to each other in class. Kenzie started humming her silly love songs first, and soon, when she was alone, she would belt them from the top of her lungs.

    When her friends figured out what was going on, they teased her relentlessly. Kenzie came to terms with her feelings about David, and instead of admitting it to him, she cut him off completely. Like nothing ever happened, and they were strangers from the start.

    The thought of Kenzie doing that to JJ made her anxious. They were best friends. The two did practically everything together. But it was always possible that Kenzie would destroy the entire friend group to protect herself from heartache.

    An incessant buzzing in Kenzie's pajama's pocket pulls her from the cleaning she was focusing on. She picks up the call when she sees it's her dad. "What's up, Dad?"

    "Hey, Z. I could use some help in the yard today. When do you think you'll be home?" Her dad asks, slightly out of breath. He had been trying to take care of the yard, but it was slowly becoming overwhelming in the heat. Sticks and leaves from the last storm still litter the garden, and the grass had overgrown them since he picked up extra shifts at work. It was growing into a two-man job.

    "I can be home in, like, fifteen," Kenzie says, already picking up her trash bags to take outside. Shoupe agrees and hangs up. She cleans her mess up quickly and hugs Kiara goodbye. "If the boys ask, I'm running from the cops," Kenzie jokes as she leaves the house.

    Kenzie makes it out of the driveway before her phone connects to the Bluetooth. Taylor Swift's Paper Rings comes on through the speakers, causing McKenzie to sing along. She smiles and bobs her head along to the rhythm.

    "I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings," Kenzie sings along absentmindedly. Flashes of JJ play in her head, and she can't help the smile that spreads across her face. He was absolutely her best friend, and she honestly couldn't wait to see him again. Maybe she could convince him to do a face mask with her later, especially if she uses her puppy dog eyes.

    "I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this," Kenzie continues before the realization hits her hard. "Oh fuck," She gasps before leaning back into her chair. Her left elbow rests on the car door as she rubs her fingers against her lips, trying to wipe the smile off.

    McKenzie Shoupe wanted more than friends with JJ Maybank. She wanted to make paper rings with him and wake up next to him every morning. The thought of kissing JJ made Kenzie's heart pump faster. The deputy's daughter had a crush on the wildest Pouge.

    And he could never find out.

Taglist: @gwenlovesharrystyles @x-lulu @gviosca @cognacdelights​ @queenofallhobos​

[kl4us4]

STRANGE (Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader)

Inspiration: Strange - LP

Summary: Spencer worries about his place in the team sometimes. He doesn’t have a love life, he doesn’t get things that everyone else gets, he’s left out of jokes sometimes. His friends love him dearly, especially you. But sometimes, he feels... strange. Too strange to fit in.

masterlist

tags: early seasons Spencer, little tiny baby Spence

Spencer slumps in Garcia’s seat, sitting alone in the room as he waits for her to come back from giving Morgan some printed information on the newest victim. He taps his foot against the ground, a finger placed in his mouth as he chews on his nail.

“What’s got you worried?”

Turning back, Spencer stands when he sees you at the doorway. “Oh, I’m waiting for Garcia.” He answers, only meeting your eyes for a second. “You?” That’s the first way you know something’s wrong. Both of you are aware - if not, fond - of the lingering eye contact, the soft looks, the gentle smiles shared between the two of you. It’s what first clued Spencer on that you may have a crush on him. And you did. And Spencer didn’t know what to do because he liked you too, he just assumed it’d die down because of your status as co-workers.

“Right. I’m just dropping these off before heading home,” You nod back, placing a few files down on Garcia’s desk as you speak, “Maybe you can read up about lying since you’re really bad at it.”

Spencer cringes slightly, making you chuckle quietly. “Am I that bad?” He winces slightly, hands in his pocket as he stands in the middle of the room.

You nod at him, seeing his shoulders fall slightly. Something’s bothering him, it’s beyond obvious; at least to you, being so close to him. “Do you want to talk about it?” You wonder.

Spencer flicks his eyes up to meet yours before he gives an uncertain shrug, “I don’t know, I think Garcia might be a better contender.”

“Oh, yeah,” you nod back, backing off immediately and giving him a smile, “I hope you’re okay. Bye, Spence.”

Spence. The nickname eases tension from his shoulders a little. You’ve always been kind to him, no matter what. The whole team have, but you never make jokes at his expense or tell him to move on when he’s rambling. You always listen to him. You never knock him for his interests no matter how odd they are. “Wait.”

Turning, you raise your eyebrows at him, letting out a small, “Yeah?”

Spencer pauses, lips parted as he finds the words, “Do you ever feel...” His eyes search the room, almost as if the answer will be hidden somewhere, “Out of place? Like - like you don’t belong?”

The question saddens you a little but then you think about it and you let out a small laugh, “All the time.” You smile at him, heading over to Garcia’s desk. You clear a spot, leaning against it carefully.

“Really?” Spencer tilts his head at you, eyebrows furrowed.

“What, is that hard to believe?” You wonder, smile still gracing your lips.

Spencer just gives a small shrug, looking up at you with curious, light eyes, “Everything just... seems to come so easy for you.”

You let out a hum, “What do you mean by everything?”

“Work, friends...” He trails off, “Significant others... relationships.”

“You feel like you don’t do well in those areas?”

Now it’s Spencer letting out a laugh, “No!”

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think you’re not good at making friends?”

“I don’t know... I just - I guess I bore people sometimes. I once had a girl tell me to stop talking, just straight up stop talking.” He answers, looking down and cringing as he relived the memory, “I’m... too much for people - even Morgan gets tired of me.”

You don’t mean to look so sad and upset but you can’t help but feel his pain. Spence really seems upset by this. Does he really think everyone’s bored of him? Everyone thinks he’s wonderful, if only he heard how they speak of him when he isn’t around. You wish you could tell him all the great things he can’t see, but you can’t give yourself away so directly.

“The people who matter most won’t tell you to shut up.” You remark. Spencer can’t help but meet your eyes at the serious tone. “You perceive me in a weird way, I think.” You admit to him, seeing confusion cross his face, “When I first joined, everyone hated disliked me. I didn’t think I would last a month here.”

“What?” Spencer frowns, “No way, Rossi loved you!”

“Rossi knew my mother,” you remind him, “But Emily and JJ disliked me so much that they didn’t bother getting to know me. Garcia was the only person who tried, everyone else was too... busy.”

“I had no idea.”

You shrug, letting out a huff of laughter, “I think I give off a bad impression.”

Spencer pouts, shaking his head as he thinks back to meeting you for the first time, “I liked you when I met you.”

You try not to let your cheeks turn red, “You’re the outlier. Even my roommates hated me when they first met me, then they got to know me and everything was fine. But trust me,” you shake your head, “It did not come easy for me.”

Spence lets out a small sigh, eyes drifting away from you, “Yeah. I guess not.” You don’t push, though you can sense something unsaid lingering on his lips, “We’re different.”

“How?”

Spencer shrugs, “You’re not like me. I’m - I’m kind of a nerd. I never had many friends. I never had roommates in college. I was unpopular, girls never liked me - they still don’t.” You try not to roll your eyes. “You fit in places easier than I do.”

“Who’s telling you that you need to fit in?” You pose the question. The answer is no one. No ones pushing him to be this ideal person, someone who has many friends, fits in everywhere, is socially accepted, doesn’t rant about Star Wars and science.

“Everyone,” he admits, “You’re the only person who doesn’t get tired of me or put off by how my brain works. I think... I’m too... I don’t know, strange. For most people at least.”

“Okay, and how do you fix being strange?”

This catches him off guard. His eyes snap to yours. “What?”

“You say you’re strange, so what do you change about yourself to stop being strange?” You wonder, smile now gone as you wait for his response, “Stop reading? Pretend to be bad at your job? Why? To be, what, normal?” You laugh at the idea, shaking your head at him, “Spence, who would you be if you were ‘normal’?”

“I don’t know.” He responds quietly.

“Would you be happier?”

Spencer looks up, meeting your eyes. He wonders if he were just a random person who met you at a cafe or at a bar if you two would be together. That would make him happier. “Maybe.” He admits.

“See? Bad liar.” You point out, shooting him a smile but he just forces one and looks at the ground. “Spence, I’m not saying this to try and make you feel like... what you’re feeling isn’t valid, okay? I just-” You look down at him, your eyes brushing over his face as you look at him, “If you say yourself the way that I see you.” You just shake your head, not finishing the sentence. You look down instead, stepping away from Garcia’s desk to stand in front of him. “There’s nothing wrong with who you are. I know it seems like people get tired of you, or don’t have time for you but - it’s just the pace of the job.”  When Spencer doesn’t meet your eyes, you lean forward a little, “Hey, listen to me.” He looks up, eyes becoming a little red but you don’t point it out or gaze for too long, “If you knew how much they loved and admired you, you wouldn’t be thinking this. So... I’m sorry that you don’t know how much everyone cares for you - for you, the way you are. Nothing about you needs to be changed or fixed. And don’t - don’t compare yourself to me, I used to keep all my pencil shavings in a Tupperware container when I was a kid. I had no friends.” Spencer lets out a burst of laughter - which was your goal! And he gives you a small judgmental look before you both laugh together. “We are all strange,” you admit to him, a gentle smile on your face, “And that’s never going to change. It’s nothing something that needs fixing. Don’t be afraid of that, don’t change that - especially not because of some rude girl or one of Morgan’s dumb ‘jokes’.” You place a gentle hand on his chest, above his heart, “You are who you are, and who you are is -” you cut yourself off, not getting too ahead of yourself, “Remarkable.”

Pulling your hand away, Spencer meets it with his own. His hand is gently grasping yours, keeping it hovering over his chest. You look up at him, hoping to meet his eyes but he just looks down at your hand, admiring the few rings you wear. “Remarkable?” He whispers back, only flicking his eyes to meet yours when you don’t answer.

How can you answer? Having him close makes it hard to control your breathing but now, he’s holding your hand, and looking at you like that, and you can barely breathe. You’re not sure your heart is beating correctly. Someone page Doctor Shepherd. All you can do is give Spencer a small nod, not sure what else to say to him other than, “Yes.”

A small smile tugs at the corner of Spencer’s lips and his thumb brushes the back of your hand before he lets it go. But you don’t leave yet, you slowly wrap your arms under his and around his upper waist. The two of you embrace one another, silently, passionately. And you can hear his heart beating when your head comes to rest on his chest. Spencer closes his eyes, eyebrows furrowed as he holds you tighter. The feeling of having him so close, the front of his body just shy of being pressed against yours, the way he can smell your hair when he breathes in - it brings a light peace to his heart.

“Thank you.” He mumbles quietly into your hair, not ready to step back or leave your closeness quite yet.

You’re the first to pull away, feeling your throat become dry. But you give him a smile, hoping your bashfulness isn’t too obvious, “Let me know whenever you need reminding.”

“Yeah,” he whispers back, and you have to admit his voice is so soothing when it’s low and raspy like this, “I will.” Spencer’s brown eyes linger on you and he doesn’t try to overthink when he leans in, slowly, cautiously, pressing his lips to your cheek. The kiss is soft but not brief. His lips linger on your cheek for a moment before he steps back, opening his eyes to catch the bashful smile on your lips. It’s quiet for a moment and you feel like you’re about to pass out from it. Thankfully, Spencer speaks up, “You should get some sleep. Today was long.”

“Yeah,” you nod in agreement, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He smiles as you head for the door, “See you tomorrow.”

As you walked from the BAU office, you couldn’t help but smile like an idiot all the way to your car. And when you sat in the driver's seat and locked the doors, you couldn’t help but press a hand to your burning cheek.

[jetaime-jespere]

Prompt #74/188

#74: Well. Yell, scream, say something, anything / #188: Say it.

Rated M.

Atlantic City is a calamitous disaster. At least that’s how it starts.

Not because of their case - of course it’s awful, as most of them are. There’s nothing not awful about a duo of killers targeting vacationers during the height of the summer tourist season. Everyone is on edge, it’s hot and cramped, and there isn’t much time before they’ll almost certainly find two more dead bodies in the early morning hours outside one of the many casinos dotting the shoreline. But they’re used to that; it’s practically their daily vernacular at this point, a bit of normalcy in the current chaos between them. The case is the least of Aaron’s concerns, or Emily’s for that matter.

It’s everything but the case this time.

Things go downhill before they even cross the New Jersey state lane. A last minute hydraulic fuel leak on the jet renders air travel a non option. Instead, they get stuck in the same SUV with Reid for company in the backseat for the four hour drive. Aaron almost feels sorry for him, but he’s completely oblivious to the brewing storm inside the confines of the car for the entire first leg of the trip. Reid chatters endlessly, yet neither of them seem to hear a word he’s saying. By the time they hit the Atlantic City Expressway, Emily is all but ready to leap out the window. Hardly any words are exchanged between the two of them at all; they aren’t needed. It’s in her body language and his reticence, the firm clench of his hand on the steering wheel and her weary head resting on a fist, angled as far away from him as possible.

“This is a mess,” Aaron mutters with more than an hour left to go, and he isn’t talking about the thickening traffic. He’s talking about them, and the ending to what never really had as much as a beginning in the first place.

Things spun out of control towards the end. There was a breakup, if it could be considered as much. What they had was never labeled or defined, it just was. It was built on a mistake, nurtured through secrecy and quiet whispers in the dark. It then spiraled into something else entirely, creating an impasse between them during the day that bled into endless nights spent wrapped around one another in beds across the country for almost four full months.

“We can’t do this,” Emily finally said in a darkened hotel room in Seattle exactly 12 days prior to this one. He’d been expecting it, recognized the signs of her pulling away a little more with every kiss he left on her smooth skin, every shudder of her body beneath his and every breathy pant in his ear. There’s nothing tangible left of them, just broken fragments and heavy silence, and every reason why they shouldn’t have ever started this in the first place plays out right before their eyes. “There’s only one way for this to end, you know.”  

There was nothing he could say to talk her out of it as she threw the covers aside, reaching for her clothes on the floor. Aaron offered an “I’m sorry” for good measure yet it didn’t feel like enough, probably because it wasn’t at all. But it’s over, she reminded him as she closed the door firmly, without looking back.

Or so they think.

A mishap at the hotel in Atlantic City leaves the team two rooms short, meaning the team will have to double up for the next few days. JJ is seven months pregnant, which automatically gives her the comfort of her own space, and it goes without saying Dave will get his own too. Reid shuffles his feet and makes eye contact with Morgan, looking slightly relieved when he nods in agreement. That leaves Aaron to concede and Emily to shrug her shoulders indifferently, even if her face is anything but that. The caretaker of the slightly run down hotel  only slightly leers in Emily’s direction as he passes over the two room keys, and Aaron can’t help but step between her and the counter and swipe them both out of the man’s hand with a curt “thanks.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Emily says low enough for only Aaron to hear, snatching the key out of his hand and taking off in the direction of their room. “It’s just a damn key.”

“Did you see the way he stared at you?” Aaron questions with a hint of impatience in his tone as he goes to follow her, but she’s not listening.

“202 is the other way, you know.” The man chuckles with a jab of his finger, as if he’s seen this exact scenario play out many times before - two people disappearing behind a closed door, a disaster waiting to happen. “You two have yourselves a nice stay.” He doesn’t seem to care that just a few moments ago, Aaron’s FBI badge was in his face. He looks almost amused, which only adds to the visible tension between them both.

With an exasperated sigh, Emily turns on her heel and spins in the opposite direction toward their room. “I can’t believe this,” she mutters, staring at the tiny gold numbers on every door until she finds the one they need. Aaron doesn’t miss the way she squares her shoulders, the quick intake of breath as she twists the key in the knob.

The door squeaks on its hinges when she pushes it open; the room smells slightly of mold, but even that isn’t the worst part. The proverbial icing on the cake is when she stops dead in her tracks with him right behind her, shoulders sagging in defeat.

Fuck.

There’s only one bed. It sits in the middle of the damn room, practically mocking them both. Aaron doesn’t miss the subtle glance Emily throws in his direction, searching for his reaction just as he is studying hers. “I’ll take the couch,” he says immediately, keeping his face neutral, setting his bag down on the rickety piece of furniture that has clearly seen better days. “You can take the bed.”

“That hardly qualifies as a couch,” Emily tells him sharply. “That’s a chair, Aaron.”  

She’s right, he thinks in annoyance. It wouldn’t even fit half of him, and staring at it makes his back hurt in anticipation. But sleeping next to her for however many nights they’re here isn’t exactly an option, either.  “I don’t want to make you -”

“Let’s just agree,” Emily says through firmly clenched teeth, making it a done deal. “To be adults about this. We can share a room for a few days without it being an issue. That includes the bed.”

…

They should have known better, but it’s too late for that.

As expected, the rest of the day is exhausting. It only ends because of the promise to look at things with fresh eyes in the morning at the urging of the equally weary Atlantic City police. By the time they make it back to the shabby room, they’re both tired, hot, and cranky, hardly uttering a word after bidding goodnight to everyone else.

“You shower first,” Aaron says as he holds the door open for her, giving her enough space to pass him. “I have to check in on Jack.” He knows her routine once they get back from a case - a shower is always a necessity, and in the better days, they’d always taken turns on first dibs. Or just showered together, which was always his preference.

If she thanks him he doesn’t hear it, and the bathroom door closes behind her, the lock added for good measure. But twenty minutes later - how long does she need in there - he has to avert his eyes when Emily steps out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, the scent of shampoo lingering in her wake. She’s wrapped in one of the hotel issued towels, which is a generous description for the scrap of fabric that barely covers her, awkwardly crossing the room to dig through her suitcase.

Look away, Aaron wills himself, struggling to get comfortable on the tiny couch. It’s a lost cause, and will undoubtedly be a very long night.

There’s a mishap with the towel, a soft curse under her breath as she scrambles before it hits the floor, and an inopportune moment when their eyes meet, succumbing to what they silently agreed would never happen again. It’s how Emily finds herself pinned under his weight, her back pressed against the mattress as Aaron lowers to his knees and dips his head between her legs. Any protest that falls from her lips is short lived, her hands in his hair, her legs curling over his shoulders as he slowly begins to take her apart. Emily arches into him, unable to stifle the moans that are now a constant stream of affirmation, and Aaron doesn’t bother with reminding her the walls are thin. He doesn’t care, and something tells him in the moment he coaxes her climax out of her, neither does she.

“I missed you,” he says when he slides into her to completion a few moments later, giving her a moment to adjust to him before starting to move. He kisses the space between her breasts and Emily all but ignores him, pushing him over onto his back to straddle his hips with a smirk.

The pace she sets is quick, the rhythm fast and rough, and it’s over almost embarrassingly fast. He’s gotten her down against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her as she whimpers into his mouth. Her body is shaking in the aftermath as he thrusts hard once more, holding her against him. For a few quiet moments, the only sound is that of their breathing, a heaviness falling over them both at the realization of what’s just happened. And yet, she stays on his chest, her limbs not quite ready to work, in the comfort of his embrace for a few moments longer.

Afterward, Emily puts as much space as she can between them, which isn’t much given the size of the bed. “If this was your way of not sleeping on the couch,” she says sleepily, her voice muffled by the pillow, “I guess you won.”

...

The next morning, as the sun rises over the shore, Aaron finds her on the balcony, wearing nothing but his undershirt that was abandoned on the floor, the sound of the ocean in the distance. He mumbles something about getting coffee, the first thing that comes to his mind. He knows she (and he) could use some, judging by the minimal amount of sleep they got. Emily doesn’t say a word, just pushes him against the sliding door and drops to her knees. His head falls back against the glass, his hand tightening in her hair as she brings him into her mouth, letting him hit the back of her throat. In between his eyes closing, his hips stuttering against her face, Aaron watches the brilliant mix of orange, yellow, and red fade into daylight, and wonders just how things got to be such a fucking mess in the first place.

They’re two for zero now, and as the day dawns hot and there’s another set of bodies found, it’s abundantly clear no one is leaving Atlantic City anytime soon. And much later that night, they hardly make it to that damn bed before the score becomes three.

…

Aaron wakes up a few hours later from a restless, uncomfortable sleep. The room is stuffy, the pillow underneath his head is flat, the hum of the air conditioner a constant nag even if it does little to cool the room down. Before he opens his eyes, he knows she’s gone. The space beside him is cold - Emily is nowhere to be found, and there’s thunder rumbling ominously in the distance. He dresses in the dark, grabbing his keys, doesn’t bother with an umbrella, and makes the short trek to the boardwalk.

It’s where he would go, and it’s where he finds her, sitting on a bench, her arms folded across her chest, long legs crossed at the knees. She’s ripping at her fingernails, a sure sign something is wrong, and wearing a blank expression that doesn’t change when she slowly turns her head to see him coming right towards her. “I had a feeling you would find me.”

Aaron shrugs, but doesn’t miss the way she flinches when he sits beside her. “Not many places to look. It’s 1 AM, you know.”  

She sniffs with disinterest, continuing to pick at her fingernails.“Why do we keep screwing up?” Emily says after a long pause, and what he sees is like a swift kick to the chest. She looks disappointed with herself, disgusted even. All because of him. “Why can’t I just … quit you?”

“Why do you keep coming back?” He challenges her right back. “If all you’re going to do is walk away again?”

Emily turns her head to stare at him with widened eyes. “We both know the answer to that, Aaron. We both know this was never going to work.”

“No, you decided that. All on your own.” He remembers the night in Seattle as if it were yesterday - the night she left. The sting of her words is still fresh in his mind. “But maybe you’ve already compartmentalized it,” he adds with a bite in his voice that wasn’t there before.

Emily recoils at his words, recrossing her arms over her chest. She rises to her feet, pacing  around the bench.  “What do you want from me, Aaron? What were you expecting when we drunkenly decided to sleep together once? It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“You. I want you. And not just this fuck then forget bullshit,” he says over the growing wind and thunder, the skies threatening to open. In the distance, the ocean churns, the tides crashing against the shore as his anger builds. “I want to be with you,” Aaron adds with a waver in his voice. “Regardless of how this started.”

Emily blinks with confusion and bites her lip, as if holding back tears. She shivers, rubbing her arms, her lip starting to tremble. They can’t. Her silence is an answer in and of itself, one he refused to accept.

“Well?” He demands, the anger rising in his voice, and Emily curses his resolve.

“Well what?”

“Well. Yell, scream, say something, anything,” he snaps, searching her face for a sign of anything besides the emptiness painted across her features. “Don’t just say nothing.”

But Emily indeed says nothing, just regards him with wide, darkened eyes that tell him what he needs to know. In the dark, with only the lights of the boardwalk to cast eerie shadows on her face, she looks almost ethereal, a haunting comparison to the fear he sees. That’s what it is, he thinks. Fear. Fear of what could be, fear of what might never be.

“Say it,” he pleads. “Please, Emily.” The rain starts to fall, coming down relentlessly and soaking them both to the skin almost instantly. “

“Aaron,” she whispers, barely audible over the thunder and now the rain. “It would never work.” She holds up her hands in defeat. “We can’t.”

“What are you so afraid of?” He grabs her by the shoulders, just tightly enough that she can’t duck out of his grasp. Emily squirms uncomfortably but he holds her fast, unwilling to let her go, for if he does, she may never come back. “Why are you so damn afraid of this actually working? Do you have any damn faith?”

She opens her mouth but snaps it shut, her chin trembling with effort. He expects her to slap him, to jerk away and disappear into the night. He’s waiting for her to leave like she did three weeks ago. But she doesn’t. What she does instead surprises the hell out of him. Emily kisses him, slanting her mouth against his in the pouring rain, pressing her rain-soaked body right into his. It takes a full ten seconds before he kisses her back.

It’s a compromise, an agreement to not make a decision one way or the other, at least for the time being. Even so, Aaron envelopes her in his arms, a hand cupped around the back of her head and the other anchored across her shoulders. He kisses her back with an urgency he can only attribute to the fact that he’s in love with her, something he’s known for way too long.

He doesn’t have to tell her that, because somewhere amongst all the doubt, she already knows.

An hour later, after a hot shower (taken together) the score becomes four. And a few hours after that, as the sun rises yet again, nearly blinding them in a cramped Atlantic City hotel room, Emily tentatively agrees to try.

It’s good enough for him.

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

Deleted Scenes: A Character Study (Part 1)

Longer title -- “Deleted Scenes: if the Criminal Minds writers had any idea how to incorporate dramatic back story into a working narrative, A Character Study”

Every once in a while I get impassioned about something that happens in the show, or more importantly that doesn’t happen in the show -- but should have. This will probably be one of at least a handful, but for now, enjoy the pinnacle of my rage. Fueled by all the OPENINGS for Hotch to talk about his past and the writers taking advantage of NONE OF THEM, but this was my breaking point.

Rating: General 

Warnings: mentions of past child abuse

Pairing: none

Characters: Hotch, JJ

Episode, and placement: Season 10, Episode 05, “Boxed In”; after the episode 

Word count: 2,404

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29796501/chapters/73302726

--

A Prime Example

--

Very few things get to Aaron Hotchner. Especially things that are said with no relatable context to him or the details people don’t know about his life. His past, in particular. He pushes them back in compartmentalized little boxes, carefully labeled and sorted and set aside to be unpacked at a later date. They aren’t important when he’s on a case. When a twelve-year-old boy is missing and his life hangs in the balance. When time is of the essence. 

Which is why, on numerous occasions, he lets the things people say slide. 

Especially on the topic of Nature versus Nurture. 

He, himself, has written a handful of papers and reports on the very argument. There’s no doubt that Nature and Nurture have complicated roles in why ‘bad people do bad things’, in layman's terms. But the stigma surrounding it, cutting it into a black and white, all or nothing scenario will always rub him the wrong way. Not because he believes in it, one way or the other, but because he lives it. Day after day. 

It’s not his team’s fault that they don’t know that. Hotch keeps those parts of his life to himself. Lessons only he has learned, and has grown from, and keeps as careful guidelines. 

Until this case.

“I guess we all become our parents at some point.”

The way JJ had said this -- steady, with no hesitation, despite the choice in phrasing indicating it could be a right or wrong assumption -- gave the statement an air of inevitability. Creating a precedent in her mind that set Hotch's teeth on edge, though it had not been the appropriate moment to correct her on it. But it's not the first time JJ has said something along those lines. 

“Does the son of a sociopath even really have a chance?” 

Not a lot gets to Aaron Hotchner. Every other remark, observation, detail of an unsub’s correlation between their upbringing and their crimes he doesn’t let sting his exposition. It has never affected him before, and he vowed it never will. His father doesn’t get to take that away from him, too.

But the inevitability of her statement, indicating it was only a matter of time. No matter what he has done with his life or the person he has worked so hard to become and imbody, ultimately it wouldn’t matter in the end. That one day, Aaron Hotchner would be just like his father. He doesn’t know if he’d be able to live with himself, if that were to happen. 

That single, throw-away sentence, with a pedestrian phrasing he has heard over and over again, gets to Hotch. It buries itself in him like a tick and refuses to let go, not for tweezers or fire or smothering indifference. It is still there, echoing in his head as if shouted down a long tunnel, even after they get back to Quantico and are finishing up the closing paperwork later that week. He finds himself barely able to glance at JJ for longer than a moment without hearing her words once more, and Hotch berates himself for it. Over and over again. This is why he shuts it all down and doesn’t talk about it. This is why he keeps it buried, where it will never resurface. It interferes with the present, with his work and his friendships and his relationship with his son. 

His past needs to stay dead and buried in a plot in rural Virginia, where it belongs.

“I have those reports for you, Hotch,” JJ says, as if procured by his musings. He glances up for the briefest of moments, barely a blink, to acknowledge her and nod in thanks as she leaves the folders on his desk. Then he’s turning back to the SWAT team justification reports and expects that to be the last of it. Drowning himself in his work, where everything is strict codes and formal speech patterns and no emotional influence whatsoever.

Which is why he is surprised to hear JJ address him, again. Never having left his office. 

“Sir?” The formal term catches his attention even more. “Is everything alright? Did something happen after you missed Halloween night?”

“What?” The question genuinely throws him off, though it doesn’t show on his face. He had missed Halloween, the first time he had ever done so, but Jack understood. He was always much more accepting of the parameters of Hotch’s job than Haley ever was. It was all he’s ever known. “Oh, no -- Jack had a fun night. Slept on the couch so I could see him in his costume when he got home. How was Henry’s night?”

“He and Will had a great time,” JJ answers, her careful, worried expression not waning in the face of Hotch’s slightly more upbeat tone. It’s something he slips into subconsciously when speaking about Jack, or to Jack, or anywhere Jack might hear. Compartmentalization. “I just… noticed you seem off.”

Hotch nods once, in acknowledgement, because he knows he has. He’s working on it. There was no need for an intervention like this. He’s the Team Leader and Unit Chief, he wasn’t the one people were supposed to be checking on.

“Delayed reaction to the case,” he answers, looking back to the SWAT team report and signing off on another section for mobilization after hours. Overtime justifications. Bureaucracy needs the ‘i’s dotted and ‘t’s crossed. “Nothing to worry about.” 

JJ takes pause, and still doesn’t make for the door of his office. Like she needs to elaborate somehow, now that Hotch has left a small crack of an opening into his inner sanctum. 

“I know we all have cases that hit us too close to home,” she concedes, the start of a much longer speech. “Young boys, even the troublemakers --”

“No, JJ, I appreciate the concern,” Hotch interrupts, and does his best to appease her by keeping the hardness off his face. “But it’s nothing to do with Jack or facts we found. It’s a personal matter.” 

“Of course, it’s just --”

Years ago, that would have been that and JJ would have left his office. But time and history have blurred their relationship from boss and subordinate to friends and family. Personal matter no longer meant private, it meant a switch in barriers. It meant family. 

She steps closer to his desk.

“You are always there for us, for these kinds of cases.” Her blue eyes bore into his, a technique Hotch recognizes as a fellow parent, to get through and make sure the person they are speaking to is really listening. “But, do you ever allow anyone to be there for you?”

He sighs through his nose. She’s not going to let this go, he can see that. No profiling needed.

“Sit.” 

Closing the file, Hotch resigns himself to the fact that this was something inadvertently he’d been wanting to talk to JJ about, anyway. She had been a profiler for the team almost nearly as long as she’d been communications liaison, now, and although this could have waited for her performance review -- it tied into what was bothering him. The small smile of victory, and relief, slips from her lips as she sees the serious set to Hotch’s mouth. JJ is one hell of a profiler. The best ones did it without even knowing they were doing so.

“Wait… is this about me?” she looks mildly scandalized to even have to suggest it. Although really, it shouldn’t surprise her too much. Hotch knows he isn’t great about making things about himself, even when the conversation is supposed to be. So he gathers his thoughts, with such little prep time, and decides to start with where this whole debacle had begun. 

In the car. When JJ had made her off-handed comment.

“The events of our lives shape us, and bring us here. As they do for everyone. It’s a technique that also helps us narrow down our profiles. How we were raised, what he have gone through. Heredity factors.”

JJ is staring hard at him, now. Deciphering the point, attempting to look ten steps ahead when Hotch has barely revealed three.

“You’re talking about Nature versus Nurture.” 

“You could say that,” Hotch acquiesces. “In a lot of ways we are our parent’s lineage. Unless we choose not to be. I only became a prosecutor because my father was. But now, here I am.”

The parent’s lineage is a direct drop towards the conversation in the car. Both JJ and Hotch are intelligent adults, as is the entire team. Sometimes the most direct reference isn’t needed. Sometimes a key phrase is what links the mind back to the moment, replays it in the mind’s eye so it becomes fresh and there’s no confusion. Fewer words can connect more than a thousand, Hotch had learned that early on as well. 

“I was… I was speaking more toward behavior,” JJ elaborates, still unaware where the conversation is going. How this has correlated to Hotch’s odd mood. 

“I know you were. And my statement still stands,” Hotch answers plainly. “I’ve noticed that sometimes agents, myself included, let bias dictate their profiles. And we need to stray away from that kind of influence.” 

JJ’s slight frown becomes defensive. Confused, but not angry. She’s learning quickly, Hotch notices. 

“Nature and Nurture are a part of standard psychology practices. With a lot of information and testing to back it up. Spence could give you statistics for days, I’m sure. It’s proven.”

“Yes, as a theory. Not as a rule.” Hotch continues, giving her that steady, stern but gentle tone that borders on chastisement. 

“I have yet to see an exception to that rule, when it comes to children of violent offenders,” JJ buckles down. “If they are the target of that violence, it warps them, Hotch. Plain and simple. How do they recover from something like that?” She’s shaking her head, getting caught up in the emotional aspect of it all over again. The hopelessness of its appearance.

“Any way they can.” 

Now he has JJ’s attention, because she hears the shift as soon as it forms on his tongue. The air heavier, hazy like an old memory.

“Sometimes they leave home as soon as they graduate just to escape the situation, and spend their whole adult lives trying to eradicate it. By burying themselves in, say… Law School.” JJ’s stare goes vacant, and Hotch at least has the decency to look away from her as he continues. He has a point to make. “So they can put away people like their abuser. But when that’s not enough, prosecuting after the fact, they start to focus on ways to catch the offenders in the act. Save victims in the real world. Use what they know from experience, but in the field, so no one else slips through the cracks.”

“H-Hotch, I--”

“If there was a file on me as detailed as these on my desk, and there probably is somewhere in this building,” Hotch barrels on, not letting JJ get a word in edgewise. “Then the first seventeen years of my homelife would look nearly identical to John David Bidwell's childhood.” He didn’t need to go into further detail, though bullet points from the case all bust flash between them in neon. 

Strict, domineering father figure. Church every Sunday, as a control and appearance factor. At home: a constant deluge of beratements, fear, shouting and fists. Something was always wrong, someone always deserved a punishment. No one was safe. They did what they could, followed the rules to a tee, but that wasn't always enough.

They survived, because that's all that they could do.

And he had.

“If you really require a physical, living exception to the rule, I’d like to hope we know each other well enough that you would consider myself that exception.” It’s the closest he’s ever come to admitting what happened in his father’s household, and Hotch knows that’s as far as he will let it go. No elaboration needed. “Even if I can be ‘a bit of a bully’.” 

Stunned and shocked, the last part probably wasn’t needed. But, again, Hotch has a point he’s trying to get across -- and he wants it to make an impact.

“Hotch, I’m so sorry,” JJ croaks out, and he still can’t look right at her.

“Don’t be, you didn’t know,” he soothes her, swallowing a little hard. “No one on the team does, not even Dave.”

“--No one?”

“The only one who probably did was Gideon, but not because I told him. He was just that good of a profiler. You will be, too, one day -- I see that level of potential in you. Profilers are always learning, evolving, developing their skills.” Hotch finally turns his head, and catches sight of JJ with her eyes bright and her nose red. Her tell-tale physical signs that she’s been holding back tears. “Let this be one of those moments.” 

She nods, wipes at her eyes discreetly, and collects herself with more strength than Hotch or anyone else ever gives her credit for.

“Was he ever convicted? Your father?”

“No,” Hotch says, level. “He died of colon cancer ten years ago. He never even met Jack. Neither did my mother, though I am sorry for that.” 

Silence stretches in the wake of Hotch’s reveal, and JJ only breaks it when she can’t seem to keep it back any more.

“You’re… you’re not really a bully. You know.”

“Yes, I am,” Hotch tells her, the smallest traces of a smile smoothing the sharp edges of his face. “But only when I choose to be. When it matters.” 

JJ huffs out a watery laugh, scoots to the edge of her seat as if to stand, but hesitates once more.

“You didn’t have to tell me. But thank you. I’m… I’m glad you felt that you could.” 

The sentiment warms the inside of Hotch’s chest, ice cold from the memories he never dredged up if he could afford it. It helps ease them back under the floorboards of his mind, where they belong.

“Thank you for listening.” 

She was right. He didn’t confide in anyone, and he doesn’t know if this will help him -- more than likely, not -- but it helped JJ. And that’s what mattered. His team. His family. Growing, learning, becoming all the better for it. The best people he had ever known. 

The family he had chosen for himself.

“Goodnight, Hotch.”

“Night, JJ.”

-end scene-

[outrebanx]

don’t feel (4)

jj maybank x female reader

masterlist

part one // part two // part three

summary: you and jj go on your surfing date and get to know each other until topper interrupts (terrible summary im sorry)

word count: 2.3k

warnings: mentions of abuse, swearing, topper is a dick (sorry lads), gets pretty angsty at the end (it wasn’t even gonna be an angsty chapter but my brain got the better of me apologies) i also havent read it through so pls ignore the mistakes

—— I am in no way romanticising abuse if you have any issues with my writing pls message me

A/N: everyone say hallelujah because i’ve finally written something!!!!!!!!!! sorry in advance if it’s not the best, i havent written in like a month and i struggled with this chapter before my little hiatus but i want to finish this series so badly so i did some the other day on the train and its kinda got me back into the swing of it :) as always feedback is appreciated

After JJ had left last night, it didn’t take long for you to finish cleaning the pool and then collapse onto your bed for one of the best nights of sleep you’d had in a while.

Your alarm woke you up out of your slumber, and as you reached for your phone turn it off you hissed in pain as your injuries on your side and head throbbed at the movement.

Lifting your pyjama shirt up to inspect your side, you were met with a large bruise and as you looked at it you couldn’t help but feel a little hatred for Topper and his carelessness - no doubt he’d try and talk to you soon enough to apologise, but that was a problem for another day. Today’s problem was meeting up with JJ for your little date, you had no idea if it would even go well but you knew you had to try as you were apparently soulmates. You looked at the bruise on your side again making you realise it would definitely be obvious when you were wearing your bikini so you were going to have to try and find a shirt to cover up, at least for the initial part of the day.

Going through your draws you found a nice black bikini that complimented your body nicely and a large shirt, that was slightly see-through but not enough to really show your bruise, as well as some of the other scars on your body from multiple different injuries. You got dressed, brushed your hair before pulling it into a loose bun, and quickly admired yourself in the mirror before picking up your keys and leaving your room.

You poked your head into your sister’s room, only to be met with her soft sleeping face, you didn’t want to wake her up, but you needed to let her know you’d be out for the day, and hoped she would be too instead of at home on her own.

You walked over to her, lightly flicking her nose, and laughed as she tried to swat your hand away, still half asleep.

“I’ll leave you alone if you open your eyes.” You said, ready to poke her cheeks until she woke up enough to talk to you.

She groaned as she opened one of her eyes, “it’s so early, let me sleep.”

“It’s almost 10, in what world is that early?” You asked, a smile on your face at how incapable she was in the mornings, an almost polar opposite to you who always loved waking up early.

“My world.” She huffed, pulling the covers up over her face.

“Okay well I was wondering if you were going anywhere today as I’ll probably be gone for most of today, but I can try and make it back early if you are on your own.”

“No I’m going to Carley’s again,” she pulled the duvet off her face to raise her eyebrow at you in question, “but where are you off to? You almost never socialise with people.”

You jokingly scowled at her, “Hilarious and if you must know I’m meeting up with a boy for a possible date thing.”

She squealed and sat up to look at you, “Oh my god yes! Who is it? Do I know him? Is it Topper? What are you doing on the date?”

“I’m guessing you’re awake now jesus christ. But you’re going to have to find out about it later, after the date so if it goes badly I don’t have to tell you.”

“Rude,” she pouted, “But have fun!”

You gave her a small wave before heading out of her room and downstairs to grab some toast before you left.

Even though it was tourist season, the beach seemed pretty empty and calm when you arrived, a few people in the sea already catching the waves, and as you looked at all the different groups on the beach the blond hair of JJ Maybank caught your eye.

He seemed to notice you at the same time as you saw him, he waved and walked over to you, “Hi.”

You smiled at him, trying to ignore the pain you felt on your face as you took in his injuries, “Hey, you good?”

“Always, and like I said yesterday I’ve had worse - Topper isn’t exactly the best at beating people up.” He laughed it off, but you couldn’t help but think there was something behind the words he was saying.

“Sure,” you said, fiddling with the hair band on your wrist, “well I hate small talk, so are you ready to be amazed by my incredible surfing skills.”

He laughed, clearly not convinced, “Bring it on Y/N.”

You grabbed your board from your car, and headed with him to the water, trying to pay more attention to the waves than his toned chest, not wanting him to realise how attractive you found him - you didn’t need that sort of teasing.

The two of you walked out into the water, moving to lay on the board as it got deeper so you could paddle out a little further. The waves weren’t as big as you’d like, but at least the sea wasn’t flat, otherwise this whole day would be less than ideal.

Both you and JJ sat up on your boards, waiting for the perfect wave for you to ride, and as you watched the water you could feel JJ watching you.

You turned to him, eyebrow raised, “What?”

“Why are you wearing a shirt?”

“Are you that desperate to see me in a bikini?” You joked, trying to avoid the question.

“Of course,” he winked at you before a look of seriousness came back over his face, “but also a little concerned as not many people where shirts in the water.”

“I bet they do, but if you must know, where Topper elbowed me last night I have a shitty bruise and I didn’t want people on the beach to see and maybe judge, so I covered up.”

“Oh, um, can I see it?”

“A bit of a weird request,” you chuckled, “but I guess so yeah.”

You lifted up your shirt, revealing the dark purple mark across your side, green tinging the outside of the mark, you heard JJ breathe in sharply as he took in your injury, “Holy shit are you sure you’re alright, like obviously I can feel it slightly but it looks awful Y/N.”

You gave him a small smile, “I’m fine, can we surf now?”

He nodded, and as he turned away from you he muttered under his breath, “Just avoid every question I ask huh?”

You looked at him, eyebrow raised, but he was already paddling his board to catch the next wave.

So that’s what the two of you did for almost two more hours, caught lots of waves - showing off the different tricks you could do, which in your opinion you were much better than him, not that he would admit it - and spoke about all the little things you could think of whenever you were waited for a good wave. Even whilst talking, you felt like you weren’t really talking, neither of you really spoke about anything deeper than your favourite colours or films and you were pretty sure he was now beginning to notice how you avoided any question about your home life. But you knew he was hiding something too so you didn’t feel as bad.

It was when you were both out of the water that the day took a turn for the worse. You were heading to where your bags were when you spotted Topper arriving at the beach, his eyes searching for something. And you were pretty sure that that something was you.

“You’ve got to be shitting me.” JJ said from where he stood behind you, looking at the way Topper was now manoeuvring along the beach looking for you.

You held out your hand in front of JJ, “Please stay here, I’m gonna talk to him and do not want you to start something.”

“He started it last night not me.” He scoffed, ignoring the way your eyes rolled at how childish he sounded.

“Just stay here. Please.”

You didn’t wait for him to answer, instead you headed towards Topper, bracing yourself for the apology that he was going to try and give you, even if you were far from forgiving him.

He spotted you as you approached him, smiling widely and jogging over to meet you half way.

“Hey Y/N I was looking for you.”

“I guessed that.” You say, crossing your arms as you stood looking up at him.

“Right,” he moved his hand through his hair, “well, um, I know you said last night that you didn’t want to see me, but I can’t stand you being mad at me and I really want to apologise. I really didn’t mean to hurt you and i don’t think I’m like Rafe and hurting you is the last thing I would ever want -and can you please say something!”

You couldn’t help but flinch at his raised voice, his eyes widening at your reaction.

“Shit I’m sorry Y/N, please talk to me.”

“I have nothing to say to you Topper, you hurt me and it might take a while for me to forget that. So I have nothing to say.”

“But-“ he tried to reach for you hand, but was instead met with the empty space as you stepped away.

“Nothing to say.”

You looked at his sad eyes one more time before turning around and heading back towards where you assumed JJ still was.

You didn’t realise you were shaking until you reached JJ and he looked at you with worry, “Woah are you alright?”

“I’m fine, it’s just-” you clenched your fists, “nevermind it doesn’t matter now anyway.”

He stepped towards you, “You know Y/N, this whole soulmate thing means we need to talk to each other about stuff, so it does matter. Please talk to me.”

You tapped your foot anxiously as you considered his words, “Fine. It’s just that in my life I haven’t had many people who care about me, and most of the time if they do care, I either push them away or they leave because they realise I’m not worth it. But never T - he was always there for me and my sister, and I’m just not sure I want to lose that but at the same time he hurt me and yeah that’s pretty much it.”

JJ put his hand on your shoulder, giving it a light squeeze as you looked up at him, “Well thanks for telling me but we might have to continue later because the idiot,” he pointed behind you to where Topper was now marching towards you, “has spotted us.”

“Oh for fucks sake.” You muttered, wondering if the angry look on his face was due to seeing you with JJ. It most definitely was.

You waited for him to get closer, no longer in the mood to deal with his shit.

“Really Y/N? You won’t talk to me or spend time with me but you’ll spend time with this dirty pogue?”

“I’ll have you know I bumped into him a while ago and we were just chatting and even if I hadn’t, who I spend my time with is none of your fucking business Topper.”

You could feel JJ tense up beside you as you lied to Topper about why you were with him. You’d apologise to him later but if Topper knew you’d been on a date together then the situation would get much worse a lot quicker than you’d like.

“Funny that I don’t believe you,” he scoffed, “but then again all you do is lie Y/N isn’t that right? Lie to everyone about everything, especially your home life.”

You froze, shaking your head for him to stop speaking, but he was too lost in his own anger and jealousy to realise he was crossing a line that could never be undone.

“Does your new friend know about that? Or should I tell him?”

“Topper please, don’t.” You reached out a hand to try and calm him down. You could feel JJ’s ocean eyes focused on you, his suspicions apparent.

“Well Y/N, you’ve already made it clear you don’t want to be friends with me so I’m just passing the information to the next guy you’ve found so he can pick up the pieces whenever you decide to show actual emotions.”

“Please-“ You tried.

“Her parents beat the shit out of her and her sister, that’s the big reveal,” he told JJ, ignoring the tears streaming down your face, “but what she doesn’t realise is that she is as emotionless and uncaring as them, so be ready for when she gets bored of you and throws you out like yesterday’s trash.”

Topper didn’t even look at you as he left, leaving you crying and JJ staring at you wordlessly. Your whole life unravelled before you, in one of the most to the point and unpleasant descriptions you’d ever heard, ignoring the implications of what he said about you. Is that really what people thought about you?

The silence between you and JJ became too much for you, you steadied your breathing, wiping the tears off your face “Well I think I’m gonna go, it was nice spending time with you, I guess I’ll, um, see you around.”

You looked up to see him open his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but he quickly closed it. You nodded to yourself and headed back home, ignoring JJ finally saying your name behind you, you just wanted to get away from the disaster of your first date with him. Soulmates sometimes didn’t work out and apparently yours was one of those, even if you wanted it to work.

A/N pt2: i was gonna add a bit of JJ’s perspective but im lazy so sorry y’all and sorry again for the fact i haven’t read through it i’m ill and sorry again (i feel like a youtuber making apologies here) that this isnt my best i’m just happy ive posted something and thanks for reading

A/N pt3: (it never ends sorry) I don’t know whether it’s because I’m very unromantic but even if I had a soulmate I wouldn’t feel strong feelings straight away so I tried to portray that but it gets better in the next chapter!!

taglist: @outerbongs @jjaybank @bailspogue @outerbankslut @ilikealotofpeople-younotsomuch @alexa-playafricabytoto @teamnick @k-k0129 @do-not-talk-to-me-i-am-awkward @thoughtsofthestars @http-cherries @n1ghtsh4d3-67 @thesurfingsnail @lonely-kermit @oopsiedoopsie23 @overly-b @lus-shh @xlittlemissydjx @asaks6082 @copper-boom @danicarosaline @deathcompass @jellyfishbeansontoast @butterfliesinthenightsky @iamaunicorn4704 @my-soul-is-the-moon @diverrdown @thorsangel @saintkore @prejudic3 @ponyboys-sunsets @starrystarkey93 @teenwaywardasgardian @celestialmaybank @kaylinfayezink @pixelated-pogues @otrbnks @x-lulu @obxmxybxnk @im-a-stranger-thing @jjmbanks @allycat449-blog @rudyypankow @silverstarsandsuns​ @chaoticbisous​ @realistic-breadstick​ @boldlypessimistic​ 

Strikethrough means I couldn’t tag you

[everybodyscupoftea]

sick (of you)

pike jj x reader

cody and jj are idiots, you have to deal with it

pre-relationship - sorry but i’m sure y’all knew it was coming eventually

(warnings: cursing, zero? editing)

“I told you,” you paced, “I literally told you fucking idiots that it was a dumb idea. And did you listen to me? Of course not. Don’t know why, I’m clearly the smartest one in the group.” 

JJ was sitting on the couch, arms crossed petulantly, frowning, until he couldn’t hold his breath any longer and had to open his mouth to breathe.

“Fucking mouth breather,” you muttered. “Hey,” JJ protested, sounding stuffy, “it’s not my fault, it’s Tyler’s. He’s the one that challenged us in the first place.”

“And if Tyler challenged you to jump off a cliff,” you started, only to be interrupted by the man himself.

“Now there’s an idea.”

“No,” you glared at him, “no dying on my watch.” 

“Simply do not watch,” he shrugged.

Ignoring him, you went on, “Now all you idiots are sick and who has to house you for the time being? Me. Because the rest of the house kicked you out so you didn’t spread it to all of them.” 

“I really don’t think we would,” Cody spoke up for the first time.

“I really think you would, boys are fucking gross as it is.” 

“Yet here you are,” JJ smirked.

“Only because I love you guys, I wouldn’t otherwise.” 

“Hmm, I disagree, you’re simply the best of us.” 

“Well I certainly suppose that’s the truth,” you decided to take the compliment even though Cody was clearly just buttering you up.

You sighed, as JJ coughed pathetically, “Some soup would be awesome,” he suggested.

“Sure. I’ll order some from Panera. Then Tyler can babysit while I take a shower.” 

“Woah,” Tyler held his hands up, “why do I have to babysit?”

“You’re the reason they jumped into the pool in 20 degree weather asshole. Reap what you sow,” you pointed at him accusingly.

He sighed, put upon, “Fine.” 

“You guys are just lucky Zach is out of town because if he weren’t and I couldn’t see him until you fools get better, I’d be mad.”

“Where’s Zach?” JJ asked, sitting up.

“He’s with his parents for the next two weeks. He’s coming back straight after Christmas.” 

Cody waved his hand, “It’s fine, we’ll FaceTime him eventually.”

-

Tyler left after a day because he didn’t want to get sick. He said it wasn’t his fault they forgot to get their flu shots. Which, to be fair, it wasn’t yours either, but you were nice enough to let them crash on an air mattress in your living room for the time being.

And to your fear, they got stir crazy quick. Cody was the first to start whining, “We’ve literally watched everything on Netflix.” 

You raised your eyebrows, “They literally posted a new season of Criminal Minds yesterday that we haven’t even started yet. I’m literally waiting on you hand and foot. Not getting paid and risking my health. What the fuck could you possibly be complaining about?” 

Cody did at least have the decency to look a little chargrained, “You’re right, I’m sorry.” 

You sighed, thinking a few seconds, “I could paint your nails if you want.” 

JJ brightened immediately, “Yes please. Can you do Christmas colors? Tis the season and whatnot.”

Standing from the couch, you shrugged, “Unsure, let me go check what colors I have.” 

There was no green, but you did have red and white, JJ hummed, “Candy cane. Good enough for me.” 

“I’m not doing stripes,” you warned, “but I’ll alternate fingers.”

“Deal.”

So you settled in, all three of you on the floor, and started the new season of Criminal Minds. It started quiet, but Cody got antsy quickly and started talking, “So, how are things with you and Zach?” 

“Good,” you answered, tongue sticking out a bit in focus, “I talked to him last night. Things are going well at home. As well as can be at least.” 

JJ knew nothing about Zach’s home life and the pressure his family but on him, but Cody did, so he nodded understandingly, “Fuck, well I’m glad it’s not a total shitshow.” 

“Yeah. When he gets back we’re celebrating our anniversary. It was actually a few weeks ago, but obviously finals and now he’s not here so.” 

“Oh yeah, what are you getting him?” JJ asked eagerly, crossing his legs and leaning forward on his elbows.

Your cheeks heated up, “It sounds so dumb, but I was planning for the main gift to be me telling him that I love him.” 

Cody cooed and JJ wrinkled his eyebrows, “You haven’t told him yet?” 

Sighing, you looked up at him, “No, why?” 

“Has he told you?” 

“Well, yeah.” 

JJ hummed, “I see.”

Defensively, you crossed your arms, “I’m not obligated to tell him just because he’s told me. That’s not how relationships work.”

JJ’s eyebrows shot up and he held his hands out, “Hey, not accusing. Just wondering. It’s not personally how I’d like things to be done.” 

You scoffed, slamming the cap back into the nail polish bottle, “Well guess what, you not only have zero say in my relationship, you also have zero control over me or my feelings. Zach and I have talked about it and turns out he’s not a selfish dickhead and understands where I’m coming from.” 

Cody raised his eyebrows at your snap and put a hand on your shoulder, “Help us understand, sweetheart. Talk it out.” 

Without meaning to, you teared up, frustrated that you had to defend yourself to two boys who didn’t really need to know, but you were going to do it anyway.

“I don’t want to say I love you to someone until we’ve been dating at least a year. Because love is a choice, feelings of attraction are how two people get together, but feelings fade, ask literally any girl. Based on how you know that person, you choose to keep being with them. You choose to love them despite their flaws, despite their mistakes, and despite the things you may not like so much about them.”

You paused, taking a shuddering breath and blinked back the tears, “And once I’ve chosen that person for a year and they’ve chosen me. Then I’ll say it. Because being in love with someone isn’t something I just take flippantly, it’s not just a word to casually throw around. It means something to me. So I’m sorry if my reasoning isn’t up to your standards.”

They were both quiet for a moment, JJ wouldn’t meet your eyes, but Cody lunged forward, wrapping his arms around you tightly. For a split second, you melted into it before realizing he was there because he had the flu and jerked away.

Face hot you stood up, “Finish your own nails, I’ll be in my room.”

Pacing a few times, you turned your phone over in your hands anxiously. You didn’t have anything to prove to them, you and Zach really had talked about it. But as tears rose in your eyes, and your throat tightened, you dialled the number.

Zach picked up on the second ring, greeting you breathlessly. You could hear the smile on his lips and had to wonder how the fuck you deserved this sweet sweet boy. And it was very clear to you, you loved him, would keep choosing him because no one else knew you quite like him, not even your friends.

“Hey hon,” you managed to croak out.

He sounded concerned, “What’s wrong, sweetheart.” 

“I just,” you paused and twisted your fingers in your shirt until you’d calmed down, “I wanted to let you know that I love you.” 

Zach was quiet, stunned into it if you had to guess, and he eventually whispered back, “I love you too.”

It gave you enough relief to lay down and relax. The two of you spent the next few minutes catching up, and eventually went silent, listening to each other breathe.

“I missed you,” you whispered, and then a bit louder, “or I guess I should say miss.”

“I miss you too, so much. I want to see you, and my parents haven’t been,” he paused, looking for the word, “good enough to justify me staying here.”

You sat up, excited, “Seriously?” 

“Seriously.”

“Oh my god. Okay, I’ll see you soon?”

“You absolutely will.” 

When you walked back out to rejoin the boys, you felt significantly better. Sitting down, in the armchair instead of the couch with them like you had been, you told them cheerfully, “Better get well soon because Zach is coming home early, and I’m ready to see him.”

Cody cheered and JJ looked at you with a face you couldn’t quite figure out. After a few seconds, you got a bit annoyed, “What?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled, finally looking away.

~

day 16 of @obxmermaid​‘s holiday challenge: under the weather

[managedmischiefs]

north//chapter eleven

genre: angst, fluff

pairing: season 10 spencer reid x oc

warnings: brief and non-descriptive mention of nonconsensual sex, alcohol consumption

word count: 7k

summary: amelia and spencer are forced apart too early in the morning, right at the start of a very important week.

i sincerely apologize for taking two months to update. school has started again and i haven’t been mentally well, not to mention a nasty case of writers block. so here’s the final filler chapter before shit goes down ;)

as usual, if you would like to be added to the taglist or taken off of it, just send me a message!

SPENCER

The light pouring in from the open windows wakes me up before my ringing phone does. My eyes squint in an attempt to adjust to the brightness as I grab my phone as quickly as possible. I glance down at Amelia on my chest just to make sure she wasn’t woken up. She shifts a bit and moves closer to me but doesn’t open her eyes, thankfully. Just as I suspect, Garcia tells me that we have a case and I need to get to the office ASAP. I thank her and hang up.

“Don’t go,” Amelia murmurs, winding her arms tighter around my waist. “You’re so warm. Don’t go.”

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” I pull her closer before I even think about getting up, peppering her face with kisses to make up for having to leave so early in the morning. “If you send me a picture of you drinking tea then I’ll do the same with my coffee, and that’ll make up for the cafe date we won’t have today.”

She smiles, returning a kiss to my cheek, all she can muster up in her sleepy haze. “Sure thing.”

Amelia rolls off of me and gives me the room to get up and start getting dressed. I bustle around her bedroom in search of my clothes and any clean socks. I resort to going through Amelia’s closet and grab the socks she has previously stolen from me. I make a mental note to wash and return them to her. I move on to brush my hair and teeth and when I come out of the bathroom, Amelia is holding my phone out for me so I won’t forget it. 

“Do you know when you’re gonna be home?” She tucks her head into her pillow and bats her eyelashes, giving me this soft smile that makes it exponentially harder to leave without guilt eating me alive. 

But the guilt grows and grows when Amelia’s face starts to fall. Obviously, she wanted an immediate answer of me assuring that I’ll be home in a few hours. But I can’t promise that. We both know that. That doesn’t make it hurt less for Amelia though, especially when tomorrow is so important.

“I don’t know,” I crouch down beside the bed, bringing my hand through Amelia’s hair. Her smile returns and her eyelids flutter, “and I can’t ensure that I’ll be home for tomorrow either. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she smiles a smile that I’ve seen too many times for my liking. Fake, disappointed, upset. “It’s not a big deal. We’ll have other anniversaries.”

“But this is our one year anniversary. I’ve never dated a girl for a whole year before! It’s a big deal for me!”

Amelia giggles, reaching for my hand in her hair and bringing it to her lips. “And I’ve never dated a boy for a whole year either. It’s a big deal for me too, but we’ll celebrate a different day.”

“But I’ll be damned if I don’t get back for your exhibit next week. I’ll be there.” 

“It’ll be open for a month, you-”

“But the opening night is a big deal. And I’m gonna be there,” Amelia holds her hand up, pinky out, and tries to keep her eyes from drooping closed again. I wrap my pinky around hers, “I promise.” 

Amelia smiles one more time, a genuine smile, and kisses my knuckles one more time. “Get going, dove. Don’t be late.” She straightens my tie for me and smooths down the shoulder pads on my cardigan. “Tell everyone I say hi. And be careful, please.”

“I will, I always am.”

“That scar on your neck says otherwise.” I roll my eyes at her. “Head out, my favorite crimefighter.”

“I think you’re spending too much time with Garcia,” I quip, leaning over the bed yet again to give her a kiss. “Go back to bed, Lia.”

“How can I when you’re right in front of me and you look so good?” Amelia smirks, although she is far too tired to even keep her smile up for too long.

“Don’t try and seduce me. Go to sleep. I love you.”

“I love you too, Doctor.”

I give Amelia a final kiss and grab my go-bag, leaving as quickly as I can so I don’t give myself the option to run back to bed and scoop Amelia up and kiss her all over. We spent all night last night in bed and I would love to recreate those events this morning, but the serial killers of America have apparently decided that they choose now to split us up. Just wonderful. Exactly what I needed, actually. I make it to one year with the love of my life and we can’t even spend it together. 

Amelia will be stuck at home or she’ll be stressing over her exhibit and I’ll be off in some random state, chasing another killer and comforting another victim. And then, of course, there’s her exhibit. She has been working on these pieces for longer than we’ve been together and I know she is proud of what she created. When Amelia invited me to the gallery, she was so excited and overjoyed for me to come and see her work, albeit a little bit nervous too. But she has had this on her calendar for as long as I’ve known her and has texted me reminders and sneak peeks of pieces and talked my ear off at dinners and cafe dates and phone calls. No matter how many times she smiles at me, I know she is upset that there’s a chance I can’t make the opening night. 

“Kid? What’s going on in there?” Morgan presses his finger into my temple, bringing me out of my blonde-haired, blue-eyed reverie and alerting everyone on the jet of my current state of mind. I swat Morgan’s hand away and try to return to the open book in my lap.

“Oh, come on,” Rossi encourages Morgan’s incredibly annoying behavior. “We can all see that there’s something going on in your head. Case related?”

“No,” I flip the page despite not having read anything on that page.

“So,” JJ joins in, “is it about your home life? Amelia, perhaps?” 

When I stay silent, everybody gets their answer.

“Oh, no, trouble on the home front?” Kate pouts in a way that feels like she’s mocking me. “I’m sure we’d be happy to help you nurse the situation back to happiness.” 

“Yeah, what was it?” Morgan sits down in the seat beside me and throws his arm over my shoulder. “Was she upset you had to leave in the morning before she could get some loving?”

“Chris hates that,” Kate groans and JJ nods along. I open my mouth to respond, to deny that claim, but I get spoken over. “I usually have to do a little bit of extra work to make it up to him.”

“Like,” JJ chokes down a laugh, “being on top extra work?”

“Exactly. Men just wanna lay back, get off without having to work for it, and see women’s boobs. That’s it.” JJ nods along with Kate’s words, and even Morgan is nodding, but that’s not a surprise. My eyes dart behind JJ’s chair and I see Hotch nodding too. 

“That’s clearly not it,” Rossi finally ends the conversation, waving his hands to get them to stop talking. “What’s the issue, Reid?”

“I’ve got another guess,” Morgan pulls back his arms and I think his hands are going to return to his side, but he just snatches the book out of my hand and tosses it aside. “She caught you looking at another girl and now you’re in the doghouse.”

JJ groans even louder than before. “I catch Will looking at other women all the time! It’s so frustrating. Like, hello? Your wife is right in front of you, she’s looking wonderful, and she has sex with you whenever you ask! Why are you looking at other women?” This catapults JJ, Kate, and Morgan into an argument about can people still find others attractive while in a relationship, and I’m glad they are off in their own world. 

Somehow, that ‘guess’ from Morgan hurt more than the first one, and JJ’s comments just don’t make sense. Sure, I still find others attractive but I have Amelia so I don’t even need to look for more than two seconds. I’ve caught Amelia doing the same a few times and it doesn’t even need to be a conversation. It’s human nature. And why is JJ having intercourse with Will ‘whenever he asks?’ That’s not right. Both people involved should be happy and in the mood. A few weeks ago, Amelia was in the mood but I was too tired after work, so we just went to sleep. End of story. Why is JJ having sex whenever she is asked? That doesn’t make any sense. It’s all so confusing. I don’t understand any of this. How did I make it a whole year with Amelia? How has she dealt with me for 365 days? 

The arguing gives me something to distract myself with for a little bit, all the way until the plane lands in Miami. I’m lost in thought about the hoard of stupid arguments instead of the ways I’m disappointing Amelia this week. I’m thankful for that, but not so thankful about the accusations from Morgan. 

“Oh shit,” Morgan chuckles as we climb into an SUV, “we never got to talk about your relationship issues, pretty boy. We will on the way home.”

I settle into my seat, putting on my seatbelt and crossing my arms over my chest. “Wonderful. Can’t wait.”

“We all know that you’re not really a relationship man,” Morgan continues, and the heat instantly rushes to my cheeks. I’m not a relationship man? What exactly does that mean? “But you know that we’re always gonna be here when you need help with your lady. We’ve all got experience in relationships. We can share our wisdom with you.” 

“Okay,” I respond weakly, “thanks.”

///

AMELIA

///

I stare back at my reflection in the mirror, ridiculing my outfit to no end. Should I have worn an expensive, sparkly dress instead of my double denim jacket and skirt and a turtleneck? But the patterned denim is cool, right? Should I wear a white turtleneck instead of this cream one? Would my silver jewelry look better than my gold jewelry? Should I have left my hair down instead of in this bun? Nothing seems right. Everything is wrong. 

“Lia?” Jenna says. “You’re spacing out.”

I shake my head, ending my self-deprecating daydream and giving her a smile. “Yeah, sorry. I was just wondering if I should change or not.”

“I love your outfit. I think it’s perfect. But if you’re gonna change then do it quickly because we have to leave in,” she checks the clock, “two minutes.”

My outfit is fine, right? Potential buyers won’t look at my outfit and decide not to purchase my work, right? Why the hell am I even stressing so much about something as insignificant as my outfit? 

“Let’s just go before I wind up going naked because I can’t make up my mind on an outfit.” I grab my bag and camera and rush out the door with Jenna at my side, jumping on the train and heading a few blocks away.

The exhibit is already set up when we arrive and for the first time all day, maybe even all week, I actually get excited. My day has been nothing but pure fear and anxiety, nothing close to excitement. But standing here with all my work surrounding me, I finally allow myself to smile. 

“Here you go, my love,” Jenna shoves a wine glass into my hand, drinking her own and looking around. “You’ve outdone yourself with this one, babe. This is truly the best work you’ve produced. I guess falling in love really did have a positive effect on your work.” My cheeks turn red but I hide it with a sip of my wine. “And speaking of love, have you heard from Spencer today?”

“No,” I shake my head, “but I’m sure he’s incredibly busy. When we talked yesterday, they hadn’t closed the case yet.”

The echoey room goes silent for a moment as I distract myself in making sure my artwork is in the right order. I know they are because I was the one who put them in the correct order yesterday, but I just don’t want to face this inevitably sad conversation.

“I’m sorry. I know you want him here.” Jenna gives me an unsure smile. "It’s a shame but I look forward to hearing what he has to say about your art. I mean, I know he'll love it, but he's obviously a little smarter than the rest of us so I'm sure he'll have smart things to say about your pieces and-"

"Yeah," I take another long drink, "I'll let you know."

Some time passes and the exhibit finally opens. Hoards of people show up, including my group of friends. They're incredibly nice and supportive and rave about my work, and it makes me wonder if they'd be any different if Spencer were here. Those thoughts don’t last too long because Beth shows up with her bosses, telling me that after we met at Rossi’s dinner, she talked me up to her bosses about my work and they insisted on coming tonight. She apologizes for the team being away but I brush that off and tell her to enjoy herself. Maybe I should take that advice. 

"Miss Amelia Stark!" I gasp and turn around at the sound of my name, a grin forming on my face.

"Oh my gosh, Penelope!" I grin, immediately pulling her into a hug. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be working the case?"

"We closed it," she exclaims, holding my shoulders tightly and shaking just a bit too harsh. "Those lovely people closed their case and we did our paperwork and they're on their way back and so I put this cute dress on and rushed my butt here because I didn't wanna miss your opening!"

"Oh, Penelope," I sigh, hugging her yet again, "you're the sweetest ever. Thank you so much for coming."

"The team all said they wanted to come but I'm not sure when their flight is gonna get in. Spencer was really upset about-"

"It's okay," I cut her off, pulling away and shaking my head. "The exhibit will be open for a month and they can come by whenever. It's fine. Get a drink, come on!"

I drag her over to the bar and she goes running off to find Beth, then just a few minutes later, she's chatting with some other people. I catch her talking to a consistent buyer of mine, a very rich and powerful politician who never spends long at exhibits. He just finds what he wants and leaves. I love Penelope but she has a personality that not everyone can handle. However, when I keep watching them, I realize she is talking me up and trying to convince him to buy more than one piece, and it seems to be working. I remind myself to give her a big thank you later on. 

Another hour passes and everyone seems to be enjoying the exhibit. I make my rounds and chat to everyone I find, and as the night goes on, I feel my mood coming down. The adrenaline from my excitement has worn off and I’m just left absolutely exhausted with my social battery on low. I’m left with the weight of my necklace on my chest, an empty wine glass, and a room full of people who are expecting something from me. I’ve never quite been able to figure out with that something is.

I lean against the wall at the back of the room, staring out at everyone. They’re staring at my work and probably critiquing my life’s work. But the longer I stare, the more my eyesight warps. And all I’m left with is some sick vision of a beautiful blonde woman holding the hand of a little boy, pointing at a painting of purple butterflies, and giggling in the infectious way toddlers do. It’s painful. I used to burst into laughter with him, but now the echoing sound only brings tears to my eyes. My hand comes up to my neck, fiddling with the butterfly. 

I wish my mom were here. I wish I could see the look on her face when she sees my work, and I wish she would criticize my drawing skills, and I wish she could meet Spencer, and I just wish she were here. And I wish my brother were here so I could remind him to be quiet and I wish he could question the meaning behind my paintings as I hold his hand while leading him around the room and I wish he could rave about Star Wars with Spencer. I want a supportive family to hug me and praise me and cheer for me when a painting gets bought. I want my family.

"Amelia?"

My head pops up to find Spencer standing in front of me, eyebrows furrowed and hands in front of him, reaching towards me. My eyes widen, almost in disbelief, and I stand up straighter. "Oh my god, you're here!" I throw my arms around his shoulders and he lifts me off my feet in a hug, squeezing my waist. "The way Penelope was talking, it seemed like the flight would take too long,"

"It wasn't too long, I'm here now. What's wrong? Are you okay?" Spencer mumbles into my shoulder, pulling away to give me that same concerned look I always give him when he gets home from a case.

"I'm okay," I try to give him a convincing smile, but he sees right through me.

"Do I need to point out all the reasons why that's clearly a lie?" Spencer retorts. Without asking how the case went, I search his face for injuries. Penelope would have told me if anyone got hurt, especially if Spencer did, but I guess I'm a creature of habit. I always have to make sure he’s okay. "Amelia, baby, I'm fine." He pulls my hands away from his face and holds them in his.

"Guess what? I am too," I give him a better smile than before, twisting my head to kiss his cheek to end the conversation. I debate on promising I'm fine, but I know that's an abuse of something we hold so close to our hearts. Promising is special to us and I don't want to ruin it by lying on it. "Is the team here?"

"Yeah, they grabbed a drink and started looking around. I'm pretty sure they found Penelope and I'm pretty sure she's a little drunk," Spencer is already smiling and it makes me feel better to know he's dropping the subject I clearly don't want to talk about.

"Yeah, I know. I told her to stop drinking and she ran away from me so I’m not sure if she actually did. But I'm glad everyone is here, I wanna say hi before they leave."

"Will you bring me around?" Spencer asks, pulling me close again and already leading me to the beginning of the exhibit. "I know I could just walk the exhibit myself but I'd love an inside scoop from the talented artist herself.”

As Jenna has poked fun at before, Spencer truly has something intelligent to say about every single piece we look at. He can see all the metaphors and symbols in my pieces, but I wonder if that's because he understands art in general or because he knows me too well. But no matter what the reasoning is, his praise and love and comments mean the world to me. If Spencer hated this exhibit then I would have to spend the rest of my days trying to create one that he actually likes.

It takes us a while to get through the exhibit, almost an hour, but the final piece is on the back wall and that's where we end up, holding hands as we stare up at the perfectly arranged pieces of folded paper on the wall.

"So," I murmur, "it's a-"

"A dove," Spencer interrupts, "and it's made out of paper. This is what you destroyed Rossi's books for?"

"Among other books. Mostly books about profiling and crime and serial killers. I printed out a lot of newspapers you've been quoted in, your dissertation, and just things you've written so those are mixed in there. So yeah, this one's about you, dove."

"I love it," Spencer quips, leaning over to kiss my cheek. "I love the whole exhibit if it wasn't obvious enough. Everything is just- it's beautiful. I want this one in my apartment. Wanna hang it up in the living room."

"Well," I move to wrap my arms around his waist, staring up at him, "this one isn’t for sale, not like all the others. So, you know, maybe, one day, when we get a house of our own and we have space, we can put it up."

Spencer grins, fiddling with one of the curls framing my face. "Sounds like a plan."

"Can we interrupt the moment?" Rossi's voice breaks us apart, and I turn my head to find the BAU team approaching with smiles on their faces.

"Hi everyone! Thank you so much for coming! I'm sure you're all really tired after the case and-"

"We wouldn't miss it for the world, kid," Rossi says, pulling me into a hug. "The exhibit is absolutely wonderful. Genuinely some of the best artwork I’ve seen."

"It's amazing. I sure as hell can't do anything like this," Morgan chuckles, gesturing around to the art on the walls. "It's really impressive."

"Well, thank you, guys. I'm really glad you're all here, it means a lot."

"Hey, Dr. Genius!" Jenna is suddenly at my side, giving a small wave to Spencer and then the team, almost spilling her wine, which means she's probably drunk. The team laughs at the nickname as I easily take the drink from her hand, keeping her from drinking any more. "Hey, Lia, Robbie is here and he wanted me to tell you he says six."

"Alright," I sigh and send a smile to the team, wrapping my arm around Jenna’s waist to keep her upright, "I've gotta go deal with some stuff but I'll see you guys later and if I don't, thank you for coming and get home safe."

I squeeze Spencer's hand once more before heading off, searching for Robbie, an old friend of mine who frequently buys my art. We chat for a while and when I turn my head to search for Spencer, I find that he's talking to my friend group. Jenna is there too but that does nothing to calm my anxiety since she is far too drunk to be in this setting. God only knows what they could be talking about. They could be scaring him away or Spencer could be subtly telling them off or literally anything could be going on. But then Spencer is smiling and laughing and it makes me relax, but it doesn't make me wonder any less what the topic of conversation is.

Time rolls on and eleven gets closer, which means the exhibit starts to clear out. By twelve, most pieces have been bought and the room has emptied. Spencer sticks around, thankfully, and sees everyone off. I'm thankful that he lets me hang on him when everyone leaves, and he catches my waist as I fall into his arms at the end of an incredibly long night.

"Do you have to do this every night for a month?" Spencer asks, hands clutching my waist to keep me up, his voice echoing off of the white walls.

"No, no," I shake my head, steadying myself on my feet and nuzzling my nose against his neck, "I don't have to come every night but I try to come a lot. But the first night is always the most stressful and it's the busiest, as you could see."

Spencer hums, moving his hands to rub up and down my back. "How about we go back to one of our apartments and we order some food? I'm hungry and I'm sure you are too."

"Please. Yes. Absolutely," I agree, practically dragging Spencer out of the room. At the mention of food, my stomach starts grumbling. On the walk back to my apartment, we stop at our favorite diner to pick up dinner.

"Well," Spencer follows me into my apartment, flipping on the main light and kicking off his shoes, "that was something very different than I'm used to, but I really enjoyed it."

"You met my friends," it's too much for me to hold in anymore, but I don't look up as I take my shoes off and shrug off my denim jacket. I just blurt it out and keep my eyes down to avoid this confrontation that I just started.

Spencer chuckles when he takes off his own jacket, hanging it up beside my own. "Yeah, I did. "

I start to head towards the stairs, pausing to make sure he's following me and when he’s on the step right below me, I start my ascent. "And? What'd they say?"

"Do you want the profiler answer or the regular answer?" I genuinely think over that question as I walk up the stairs. Normally, I wouldn't want the profiler answer. But I'm curious what the true intentions of my friends are and I know the profiler answer will give me that. And so, I tell him that. "Well," Spencer begins, reaching across me in my closet for his own clothes, "honestly, they seemed very hesitant to be around me when I first went over to them. Jenna had brought me over and introduced me, and none of them seemed like they really wanted anything to do to me. But we started talking about your art and they started to ask me my interpretation of your pieces like they thought I wouldn't find meaning in any of them. Once I told your friends about some of them, that's when they started to open up and actually be nice."

I roll my eyes and pull out a set of pajamas for myself, stripping myself of my own clothes. "They're so annoying. Spencer, I'm so sorry."

"It's fine, not a big deal. Honestly, I've dealt with ruder people who've said worse," Spencer pulls off his sweater and replaces it with another, sitting on the bed when he's changed into his pajamas. "But really, babe, I'm so proud of you. The exhibit was amazing."

Changing my mind on clothes, I grab Spencer’s discarded sweater and put it over my sweatpants. "Thanks, Spence."

"I'm gonna go make some tea. Do you want some?" Spencer runs his hands through his hair and heads towards the stairs, not even waiting for the confirmation he knew he would get from me.

Once I'm completely redressed, I take out my contacts and wrap myself in a blanket, tiptoeing down the stairs. I catch sight of Spencer in the kitchen but I walk right past, opening the unlocked balcony door as quietly as I possibly can. I sneak out and sit down on the armchair there, drawing my knees to my chest and letting out a heavy breath. I try to let out all of the negative energy I’m bottling up, but it doesn’t quite work.

"Amelia," my time outside is short-lived as it usually is because Spencer is interrupting me in just a minute, "I finished the tea, and I put dinner out."

"Okay," I whisper, nodding slowly. I move from the chair and breeze past my boyfriend, into the kitchen where there are two cups of tea and containers from the diner. I hear Spencer close and lock the balcony door before closing the curtain, following me further into my apartment.

I sit on the counter with my box of food in my lap and my cup of tea beside me, Spencer sitting at the island, and awkward silence occupying the other chairs. This silence is so different from the others we’ve sat through. This feels tense and unsure with a bit of fear sprinkled in. I know it’s my fault because I acted so weird at the exhibit, but I just want it to be over. Spencer isn’t saying anything, and it doesn’t seem like he will any time soon, and there’s only one thing I can think of to say to break the painful silence. 

"Um," I keep my eyes down, stabbing my pancake over and over to attempt to make intricate designs with the four holes, "whenever I have exhibits or galleries or showcases, it makes me miss my family."

Spencer is silent for a moment, probably thinking over my words in his head and wondering what the right thing to say is. The joke is on him though because any further conversation is guaranteed to make me cry. There is no right thing to say. Everything is wrong. "Your family? Like, your biological family?"

"Yeah," I nod. "I just-” I actually eat a small piece of pancakes to force down the lump in my throat, “I wish my mom and my brother could see my work. I love my foster family with all my heart but, I just-"

"You don't have to explain yourself," Spencer interjects. "You want your family and there's nothing wrong with that."

I bury my face in my hands, letting out a shaky breath as the tears pour out of my eyes like an uncontrollable flood. I hear the chair scrape against the floor and then feel my takeout box being moved away from my lap, followed by Spencer's warm hands on my legs. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I apologize, shaking my head at myself and trying to push him away. "I just-” he grabs my hands, preventing me from hitting his chest, “I don't want you to leave me," I wrap my arms around his shoulders as tight as I can get them, as if squeezing him will ensure that he sticks around forever.

"I don't know how many times I have to remind you that I'm not going anywhere," Spencer whispers back. "I know you've lost a lot of people in your life but I'm not gonna be one of them. Hey, we talked about buying a house today, love. I'm in this for the long haul with you and you know that, right? I'm right here."

"Okay," I mutter, pushing my face in his neck. "Thank you. I’m sorry for making you say that again."

“I’ll tell you whatever you need, as many times as you need it. I’ll never get tired of reminding you how much I love you.”

I smile gently, nodding along to his words, bringing my hands up to his hair. And in the quietest words I can muster up, I say, “okay.”

“Why don’t we,” Spencer turns away and grabs my container that he moved aside, “go eat in bed and then go right to sleep? It’s late and-”

“And you have work tomorrow,” I finish for him, taking the food from his hands and dragging myself to the stairs.

“Actually,” Spencer is at my side in a second, “I requested the day off for tomorrow so we can celebrate our anniversary.”

I whip around, stopping halfway up the stairs and grinning at him. “Really?”

“Really,” he echos, grabbing my waist and walking me up to bed. “I felt really bad about missing it so I ensured that we won’t be interrupted tomorrow. I’m gonna make it up to you.”

“Oh, really?” I fall back onto the bed and toss my food aside, pulling Spencer on top of me by his tie. “You wanna make it up to me and don’t wanna be interrupted? Did you have anything in mind, Dr. Reid?”

“Maybe a couple of things. I could start making it up to you now.”

“That sounds like a perfect idea.”

///

SPENCER

///

"Spencer?" Amelia shouts from upstairs, her voice faint as I'm lacing on my converse by the front door, already in my jacket.

"Amelia?" I yell back in the same tone, and when I tie off my second shoe, I grab her black heels from the ground before standing. I lean against the door and watch as she comes hurrying down the stairs, socked feet silent as she ties a black ribbon around her curly ponytail.

"Have you seen my shoes? I can't seem to-" she looks up at me holding them out to her and freezes, a smile coming to her face. "You're just the perfect man, aren't you?"

I laugh as she takes them from me, leaning down to step into them. "Just got a pretty good memory."

"Pretty good is underselling yourself, dove," Amelia stands up straight, now a few inches taller as she puts on her small backpack and tucks her keys in her jacket pocket. “Ready to go?”

“Are you?” She sticks her tongue out at me for my sass, taking my hand in hers and dragging me out of the apartment.

There are a million things we could do on our mock anniversary. We spent the whole morning debating what to do and couldn’t even decide. So we decided to do the only thing we could agree on- a cafe date. We decide that we’re going to get coffee and then wander around until we find something to do. It’s really a horrible plan, the worst we could come up with, but it’s fitting. We never make plans because there’s always the potential for my job to ruin them, so no plan today is weirdly perfect and it just makes sense. 

“So,” Amelia chirps as we sit down at our normal table, warm drinks in hand, “How was the case?”

And we just fall into natural conversation after that. I pivot away from the conversation about the case and we talk about the exhibit, then our favorite type of tea, then argue over where we think the best vacation spot would be (Amelia says somewhere in the Caribbean whereas I would want to go Iceland), and then we rehash the argument about what we should do today. Still, no decision. 

And as we’re talking, I glance behind Amelia’s seat and suddenly my attention is off of my girlfriend. A few seats away, there is a couple sitting in a booth. They are sitting on the same side of the table and the girl is curled up at the guy’s side, legs draped over his and her head on his shoulder. She is positively beaming, staring up at the guy with a giant smile on her face. He looks down at her with the same expression and then they kiss, and I can even hear their laughs from here. She looks happy. She looks like Amelia does when we’re together. But I don’t look like that guy and he seems to be doing good with his relationship. I’m not like that. So is Amelia really happy with me, even though she looks at me with stars in her eyes? Maybe not.

“Spence?” Amelia’s voice breaks me away from my staring, and my head snaps over to her. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I answer too quickly, drinking my coffee and not even grimacing at how hot it is, “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” She twists around in her seat to look behind her, to see what I see, but she turns back with furrowed brows.

“Yeah,” I take the last sip of my coffee and stand, holding my hand out for her. “Ready to go?”

Amelia tilts her head to the side like an adorable, confused puppy but takes my hand anyway. We leave the cafe and walk down the street, silence falling over us. I pull Amelia closer to me and she curls into my side, holding onto my arm and laying her head on my shoulder, the same way that girl did to the guy beside her. But she never looks up at me with those stars and my shoulders slump forward, the corners of my mouth pointing towards the ground.

“Ooh!” Amelia points across the street to a bookstore that I frequent. “Let’s go there.” And without giving me a chance, she pulls me off the sidewalk and into the store.

It’s perfectly quiet in the store, hopefully quiet enough to hush the blaring thoughts in my head, and it’s empty too. Amelia wanders off right away, disappearing down an aisle that I never go in. So I look through books alone, picking out a couple and tucking them under my arm. But being alone quickly gets boring so I go searching for my girlfriend.

I first go down the aisle she went down and find her right away, sitting in front of the endcap with her sketchbook in her hands and the pencil flying across the page. Not wanting to interrupt, I sit across from her and put my legs in front of me, right beside hers, and start reading. She puts her left hand on my leg, a silent acknowledgment of my presence, and keeps drawing. 

I try to read but I just can’t focus. I’m too distracted by the sound of Amelia’s pencil and Amelia’s touch and the bow in Amelia’s hair and Amelia’s gorgeous smile and the smell of Amelia’s perfume wafting between us and Amelia’s dress and just Amelia. She is filling my senses so intensely that it’s painful and I have to put my book down before I lose my mind.

“Amelia,” she hums, not even looking up at the sound of my voice. “Am I-” she looks up at the start of my question and her eye contact makes it so much harder to force out my words. “Do you-”

“Do I?” she parrots, waiting for me to finish the allusive question. She looks back down at her sketchbook.

“Have you ever had sex with me when you didn’t want to?”

Her head snaps right back up. “Excuse me?” 

“Like,” I fumble for the right words to explain myself and it all just comes out wrong. “Do you think it’s bad that I still find other people attractive even though we’re dating? I definitely wanna be with you and no one else but does it bother you that I find other people attractive? Because I don’t wanna be disrespectful and if it bothers you then I can try to stop but it might be hard because the chemicals in our brain make-”

“Okay, okay, stop,” Amelia puts her sketchbook down and scoots closer to me, putting her hands on my cheeks. “Spencer, I am insanely confused. What the fuck are you talking about? First, you asked me if I have sex with you when I don’t want to and now you’re talking yourself into not finding other people attractive. Please explain.”

So I recount everything that JJ and Kate said about their husbands and then what Morgan asked about me. The confusion never really leaves her face as I explain but I keep word vomiting, only finding comfort in her warm hands on my face.

“Okay, let me clarify something for you,” she pulls my face closer to hers, so close that I can smell the green tea on her breath. “I have never had sex with you when I didn’t want to. I can promise you that. And you finding other people attractive doesn’t bother me. Just because we’re dating doesn’t mean you go blind around attractive people. It’s okay, Spence. Don’t listen to them. They always try to help but make things so much worse.”

But I’m not convinced, staring down at my hands in my lap, willing away tears so I don’t make a fool of myself in the middle of a bookstore I love so much and in front of the woman who I would lay down my life for. “Do you think I’m bad at relationships?”

“I wouldn’t be dating you if you were,” she responds quick enough for me to actually believe it. “I mean, I hadn’t been in a relationship before you so I don’t really have anything to compare you to. But you make me happy and I love you and that’s all that matters, right?”

“Sure.”

“Spencer, look at me,” my eyes slowly travel up to hers and she presses her lips to mine. Soft, warm, strawberry flavored. But it swiftly makes my pain and confusion and fear melt. I bring my hands to her waist and pull her body against mine, and I feel her smile against my lips. “Now, you listen to me, Doctor Spencer Reid,” I chuckle at her use of my full name, and she grins right back at me, “I love you, okay? I don’t want anyone else. You make me happy. Fuck whatever Morgan and JJ said. What we do in our relationship may not work for them and that’s fine. It works for us and that’s what matters. Do you love me?”

I furrow my brows at her. “Yeah, of course I love you. Why would you-”

“Then that’s the end of the story.”

She drops her arms and grabs her sketchbook, reclaiming her seat against the bookcase across from me. She gets right to work, scribbling away and erasing mistakes. Just like that, with a kiss and two gentle touches, she forces my insecurities away and makes me feel more loved than I ever have before. The woman I’ve spent an entire year with is right in front of me and continuously swears she loves me, the same way I do to her. She doesn’t want to be with anyone else. She only wants me. She might be the only person in the world who wants me. And at this moment, I decide that I’m okay with that. If Amelia is the only person in the world who loves me and wants to be around me, then I can die happy. She is all I need. She is the only one I want.

With one more glance at her enchanting, magnificent, gorgeous smile, I pick up my book and continue reading.

TAGLIST

@bxnnywriting @babybloodstonebones​ @blameitonthenight21​ @feralreid​ @anepiphany​ @reidscardigan​ @itsmyblogandillreblogifiwantto​ @stxrrywildflower​ @penemily​ @whollytaciturn​ @thegingerfairchild​ @yasminwashere​ @shrimpyblog​ @blakes-dictionxry​ @anamelessfacelessnerd​ @wonderlandhatter​ @whxt-to-write​ @inkandexchange​ @just-call-me-non​

[imagineaworlds]

I Love You (Part Twelve) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual​

Request: None.

Warnings: Murder. Kidnapping. Literally everything Criminal Minds.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 9160

Timeline: Season 2 Episode 15. Morning after part eleven.

In the morning, Hotch opened the trunk to the car and crawled back in beside me to start coaxing me awake. I wasn’t sure of when he had left in the night, or if he stayed to sleep with me but got an early start, and I hadn’t even realized that he closed the trunk while I was asleep so as to ensure that no one disturbed me. He was dressed in a new suit, though, and his hair was combed back, so he had clearly been up for some time. The sun was out, and it seemed like it had been for hours. I couldn’t believe that he let me sleep for that long. He promised that it would only be a few hours and then he’d wake me up and we would get back to work. But it was already late morning and I was just being told that it was time to start working.

I hurried out of the SUV’s trunk and scrambled to my feet. I patted down my hair to get rid of the frizz and adjusted my clothes as well as I could. Hotch crawled back out of the car to tell me what was going on since I clearly had no clue. There was another black SUV parked in front of Tobias Hankle’s house now, along with the Sheriff’s Department. When I asked if the new car was for Garcia, he told me that she was already inside with Morgan, trying to see what they could get off the computer.

Hotch slammed the trunk shut as I stormed back up towards the house. Inside, JJ and Emily were just waking up in the living room, too. They were both sitting upright, but neither of them looked alive enough to have been working for hours on end like Hotch had been. Garcia was sitting in the computer room with Morgan hovering over her shoulder, just like Hotch told me. I walked further into the house and found Gideon sitting at the kitchen table, going through some papers and books he found laying around in the house. He must have had the same thought I did last night that there was something in one of the thousands of papers scattered about where Tobias might have taken Reid.

“What did you guys find?” I heard Hotch ask back down the hall in the computer room.

I retraced my steps back into that room to find Hotch leaning over Garcia’s other shoulder as she started presenting everything she found.

“Well, if I’m being honest, we’re looking at a pretty smart kiddo who got his hands on some very expensive hardware. This setup is absolutely brilliant, but everything on the computers relates to kids shows, online shopping for toys, pictures of cute dogs, and so on. I didn’t find a single hint of evidence that this guy had been watching anything concerning— even the video games he plays are the cutsie ones, not the murder ones you would expect.”

“It would make sense if Tobias’s submissive personality is the one who is tech savvy,” Hotch put the pieces together. I guessed that he had told the team about my suspicions of Tobias’s first personality being a child because everyone nodded like they knew what he was talking about. “But it doesn’t explain how his other personalities can be so violent. Garcia, keep digging. Look for any kind of conflicting searches or odd times when he’s not at his computer. Just keep digging. There has to be something there.”

“There’s not, Hotch,” she insisted. “There’s nothing. Not even the videos he posted to the internet.”

We all furrowed our brows and tilted our heads slightly in confusion. “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “He would have kept them for Raphael and his third personality. They would have wanted to watch them over and over again to relive their suffering.”

“Well, sugar cakes, I don’t know what to tell you. This guy is completely clean.”

“He must have another computer hiding somewhere. Y/N, take Prentiss with you upstairs to go through all of the bedrooms, see if you can find anything else,” Hotch said to me.

I nodded and headed back to the living room. Emily was on her feet finally, but JJ was still sitting down, staring at the wall opposite her. I wondered if it was really the best idea to keep her at the house and not just send her back to the hotel, but it was Hotch’s choice to keep her on the case. If she wanted to stay and he was letting her, there wasn’t much I could do beyond worry. Emily saw me standing in the doorway, though, and when I made a gesture towards the stairs down the hallway, she caught the hint and joined me.

“Hotch wants us to go through everything upstairs,” I told her on our way up.

“Everything?” she questioned.

“Everything. If we find another computer, we’ve hit the jackpot.”

“Garcia couldn’t find anything on the computers downstairs?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. He has to have everything stored somewhere… It’s just a question of where.”

We started with Tobias’s bedroom, the very same room I had gone into last night to start looking around before Hotch made me go to bed. Emily confirmed my suspicions of Hotch telling the team about what I discovered about Tobias’s submissive personality when she went through the list of things I found in order to find her bearings. I listened as she ran through it all in her own mind while simultaneously walking circles around the room to see if anything would catch my eye suddenly. I walked over to his bookshelf and ran my index finger over all of the different spines while reading through the different titles. He had a lot of what you would expect a middle schooler to have in his bedroom, whether it be from an assignment at school or general interest in reading. What stood out the most, however, was all of the journals on the bottom shelf. They weren’t clearly marked in any way, but as I pulled one out to investigate further, I realized that each of the journals was from a different year of his life. Every single day, every single detail, every little thought he ever had was in those journals.

Emily walked over to the bedside table as a thought occurred to her while in the midst of running through my own evidence with me. She pulled the drawer open and started digging through whatever was in there. I put the journal back where I found it and started circling the room again.

“Hey, look at this,” she told me.

I walked over and looked over her shoulder. She held up a list of Narcotics Anonymous groups in the area. So Mr. Hankle was an addict. It would explain the mental stability and how the different personalities were constantly fighting for power rather than being controlled by the abuser. There was a name, phone number, and an address on the piece of paper— likely a sponsor if Tobias ever ended up taking his NA meeting seriously. The list looked old, though, and Emily seemed to notice it, too. I backed away and scanned the room with my eyes.

“We’ll take any lead we can at this point, though, right?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Something’s always better than nothing. Maybe the man listed on there will know something about how to find Tobias and Spencer.”

“I’ll go visit him later, then.” Emily set the paper down on the table so that we could keep it for evidence when we would leave the room. “I think I’ll take JJ… I think she needs to get out of this house.”

“That’s a good idea.”

Emily knelt down on her knees next to the bed and lifted up the comforter to see if there was anything hiding under the bed. I approached the bedroom wall opposite the bed and started at the art work. The art was just drawings of cars, planes, and trains— similar to Jack’s bedroom wall. If Tobias’s first personality was a kid, then the wallpaper made sense, but there was something off about it. The seam between where the wallpaper started and ended around the room was dirty and worn out, like someone had been constantly touching it and picking at it. I stepped forward and started peeling at the top corner. It came off the wall easily, no pull or stick to it.

“Emily,” I called her attention over. She pushed herself up to her feet and gasped when she saw what I saw. “Honora Patrum Tuum…” I didn’t know what that meant, but Emily was the linguist of our team, and she was standing right there. “Do you recognize it?”

She walked up to my side to get a better look with me. The wall beneath the wallpaper had been covered with the words: Honora Patrum Tuum hundreds of times, all in steady cursive— not like you would see from a kid. Someone else wrote it. Either Raphael or the abuser personality did this. Perhaps the translation would tell us which of the two did it.

Emily handed me something that she found under the bed before pressing her palm to the way. “Honor thy father.”

I looked down at what she had handed me. It was a full pill bottle with Tobias’s name Sharpied onto it. I spun it around to look to look at the label. It was certainly for Tobias Hankle, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. It was medicine to help him with his mental health and to help control the voices in his head. Since it was full, it made sense that he had flown so far off the handles. Not to mention, the expiration date was almost as old as the NA list we found. If he started going to NA, he probably realized that pills just weren’t for him, so rather than find a way to stop abusing them, he just stopped altogether, which was how Raphael and the abuser took over.

“There’s still no computer,” Emily sighed, stepping away from the wall. “Maybe in the father’s room?”

I shrugged again. Our best bet was the father's room, because if there was nothing in there, then we were screwed. We would have to start from square one. The computer wasn’t downstairs, that much we knew, and after just tearing apart Tobias’s extremely clean room and coming up empty handed there too, there was only one lasat place to look and pray to find answers.

I set the pill bottle on top of the NA list on the bedside table then followed Emily into the father’s room. Tobias and his father’s rooms were polar opposites.While Tobias’s room was perfect and neat in every way, his father’s room was a wreck. It looked like a hoarder threw up in there at least three times. Nothing was organized, papers and books were scattered everywhere, and his bed wasn’t made. If there was a computer or any other clue in that room, it would take forever to look. There was really no time to waste, so we got to it.

Most of the junk lying around was meaningless. There were dozens of old newspapers, food wrappers, old and broken computer keyboards, and so on. What was of interest was the bibles stacked neatly on the bookshelf, but there were torn pages and passages scattered all around, just like we had found at both of the crime scenes. For a second I stopped to think about how that could be, and came to the conclusion that one of Tobias’s personalities must have been picking up these pages and passages from the bedroom and picking the ones that made sense for each sin and took them to the crime scenes. Raphael was the archangel personality, he was most likely to do so .

There was no computer, unfortunately. We probably combed through that entire room twice over the span of four hours, and nothing of use actually turned up. Just as I predicted, we were going to be starting back at square one, which just meant that we were much further from finding Reid than any of us would have cared to admit.

“What now?” Emily asked in defeat.

“Take JJ with you and figure out if that name on the NA list is worth anything,” I recommended.

There was a knock at the door. “Find anything?” Hotch asked us, peeking into the room. 

Emily and I turned to him. “No computer,” I answered, “but Emily has a lead and wants to take JJ to go take a look.”

“Alright.”

“There’s a bunch of journals in Tobias’s room, and even more in here. It might be worth looking through them to see if we can find anything out about his favorite spots around town, see if there’s anywhere that we could check for Spencer.”

“We’ll start going through those with you while Emily and JJ head out, I guess.”

I nodded. Emily and I filed out of the room after Hotch and followed him down the hall. She went back downstairs to go talk to JJ, meanwhile Hotch and I started collecting all of the journals in Tobias’s room. I carried as many as I could and he grabbed the rest before grabbing a few more from the father’s room. We headed downstairs together and dropped everything on the table in the kitchen where Gideon had just given up on his task of looking through the loose papers laying around the house. I guessed that he didn’t find anything of use, and I was just hoping that wouldn’t be the case with these journals.

I sat down next to Gideon and Hotch headed back into the hallway to grab more journals from upstairs, but we were all stopped in our tracks when we heard Morgan yelling Hotch’s name outside like he found something of interest. Hotch turned around and headed for the front door. Gideon and I stood from the table and chased after to see what was going on.

Both Morgan and Hotch had their guns already out and pointed down at a cellar door that was half covered by leaves. Morgan looked to Hotch for a silent signal, and Hotch gave a small nod up. Morga opened the cellar door and took a step in with his weapon raised and his finger on the trigger. Gideon and I watched from the side, my fingers crossed behind my back that we would find Spencer down there alive. I knew that it sounded far fetched and entirely possible, but I just had to hold out hope, right?

“Tobias Hankle! FBI!” Morgan warned, moving further into the cellar, Hotch close on his tail. “Tobias!”

“They won’t find him down there,” Gideon said to me, already turning back to go into the house.

I didn’t budge, though. I stood my ground and watched the cellar to see who would emerge. There was movement again on the ladder in the cellar, and Hotch came up. Morgan followed shortly after, but there was no Tobias and no Spencer. Just empty hands and defeated faces. I asked them what was down there, and Morgan told me that they found Tobias’s dead father, which wasn’t very helpful to our case. Hotch stepped off to the side to call the sheriff and the coroner so that they could clear the scene down below. I sighed and walked back into the house. Gideon was right, and he knew it, telling by the look on his face that said: “I know I’m right, but I wish I wasn’t.”

Morgan and I sat down with him in the kitchen and each picked up a journal. A few minutes later, Hotch came back in to tell us that the sheriff was on his way with the coroner, but we should start looking through the journals for any clues. He sat down next to Morgan, across from me, and we all started skimming. A thought occurred to me as we were all reading that if Spencer were with us, he would’ve read all of the journals in under two hours and had the whole case solved even before that.

Square one was just as shit as I thought it would be. Tobias and his father had written hundreds of journals, each depicting every hour of every day for years. I was taking notes on anything I found slightly interesting, but for the most part, it was all religious ramblings; and for Tobias, there were many entries about his father’s “punishments”, and each of them were described in graphic detail. I couldn’t believe that anyone would do those things to their own children… One would have to be the worst kind of deranged monster to think that any of those “punishments” were alright.

While we were all reading, the coroner was in the cellar, taking a look at the body. We knew that it wasn’t ideal for him to look at the body down there, but we needed answers fast, and we couldn’t afford to wait around for them to drive an hour into the city just to tell us the time of death. It, unfortunately, had to be then and there. Few hours later, the sheriff came into the house with his hat off to tell us what the coroner found before leaving to finish up some more examinations and tests.

Tobias Hankle’s father had been dead for about six months when Morgan and Hotch found him. Something about that time frame struck me as odd and I started sifting through my notes to find what I was looking for. Six months ago, in Tobias’s journal, he went for two weeks without writing anything. And then suddenly it started back up again. Something happened during those two weeks. Tobias’s stressor was his father’s death, and his father abused him, and Raphael always wrote for Tobias when he was the forward personality, and—

“I’ve got it,” Hotch said with a eureka-moment-like tone. He started reading from one of Tobias’s journals, “‘Father is sick. He wants me to put him down, but I say that the bible tells us we shall not kill, and he tells me to honor thy father. I don’t know what to do.’ That was on December 6th. Two months ago. Tobias’s father had already been dead for four months according to what the sheriff just told us.”

The bedrooms, the journals, the behaviors, and the crime scenes all pointed to one thing: Tobias’s abuser personality was keeping him in check. Outside of his delusions, Tobias was actually abused by his father, and now Hotch was claiming that two months ago, Tobias was still writing about his father as if he never left. And maybe that was the case… technically. Tobias’s father died, but lived on as Tobias’s third personality: the abuser. Tobias was the submissive, Raphael was the dominant, and Tobias’s father was the abuser. That was why they were so scared of him— That was why he took over the commentary in the first video. And that was why he could make Tobias do all of those horrible things.

“Garcia!” I called, scrambling to my feet. I nearly tripped over the journals we had laying on the floor as I ran out of the kitchen and across the hall into the computer room. She spun around in her chair, putting down her nail filer before I could catch her using it. “Try logging into the computers as Tobias’s father— Charles Hankle.”

She scrunched her brows, “Didn’t the killings just start, and he’s been dead for six months?”

“I know. I know. I just have a hunch about something. Humor me?”

She shrugged, figuring that there was no harm in trying. “Sure thing, buttercup.”

Originally, we thought that there had to be another computer somewhere in the house that would have all of the videos and concerning evidence on it, because Tobias’s computers didn’t seem to have anything bad on them— but that was because Tobias didn’t like those things. His father did. His father was the psychopath, he was the reason they were killing, and he was the one who would want to watch the videos again. If there wasn’t another computer, it was because they would just log into different accounts.

“Y/N?” Hotch questioned as the three men came into the computer room. “What is it?”

I turned to them, excitement coursing through my veins. “Charles Hankle is the abuser personality. Think about it, Tobias’s room upstairs is in tip-top shape because his father would beat him if anything were out of place— but the Latin on the wall was written by an adult, telling by the handwriting and the use of cursive, and also the fact that Tobias wouldn’t have done that. His father did it. His walls say “Honor thy father” in Latin, and that was Charles’s argument when he wanted Tobias to kill himself, taking all three personalities down with him. When Tobias finally refused, that’s when the stalkings started, and later the killings.”

“I got it,” Garcia cheered quietly. We all changed our focus to the computers, which were all playing different videos of murder, rape, bombings, Church sermons, and so on. “Holy moly.”

“We need to start profiling Charles. He’s likely the one who decided where they took Reid,” Hotch said.

“We’ve got a problem,” the sheriff told us, walking into the room while still pocketing his phone. “I just got a call from the station. A local electronics store was robbed last night. The suspect took one camera, one tripod, couple of SD cards, four computers, and a satellite.”

“Sounds like everything this guy would need to start up his operation again.” Garcia commented, shutting of all of the horrific videos playing on the computers. “Wait—” The screens went entirely black, and I figured that she had just shut them off, but when she seemed shocked, I knew something was wrong. “Oh, my god…” she whispered under her breath as the computers all turned back on remotely and started playing one video.

I gasped as I saw Spencer sitting in front of a camera, tied to a chair, his face all bloodied and beaten. He looked tired and defeated, his head hanging low and his shoulder drooping. His wrists were bound together, his feet tied to the chair beneath him, and his mouth gagged by a cloth. Garcia started typing as fast as she could, knowing that we would want answers just as much as she did.

“Garcia, can you track this?” Hotch asked calmly, but he was keeping his fingers close to his lips, which was a telltale sign that he was silently panicking. 

She shook her head, “He’s streaming this from his home computer. It’s just for us. I won’t be able to find him.”

Spencer raised his head as someone walked into the room with him. Tobias stepped in front of the camera and pulled the gag from Reid’s mouth. “Your friends are watching,” Tobias told Reid, pointing to the camera. Reid made eye contact with the lense, which was virtually us, though he didn’t know it. “See those vermin?” he pointed to something behind the camera. Reid nodded shortly. “Choose one of them to die.” Reid shook his head this time. “Do it,” Tobias violently pinched Reid’s face in his hand. “Do it, boy!”

“That’s Charles,” I whispered, pointing at the screen. “Neither Tobias nor Raphael would lash out like that.”

“I won’t choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher,” Reid hissed bravely in Charles’s face.

Charles let go of Reid, “Choose one to die or they all die.”

“I’ll… I’ll choose who lives,” Reid compromised. He swallowed hard and looked at the camera again before looking at whatever was behind. “Far… Far right screen…”

Charles grinned, knowing he had won this round. “Marilyn David. 4913 Walnut Creek Road.”

Garcia was typing a mile a minute to pull up information about Marilyn David. Gideon pulled out his phone and started dialing the number Garcia found for Ms. David. “Marilyn David. This is Agent Jason Gideon with the FBI. If there’s a computer open near you, I need you to close it right now— Please, ma’am, just do it. We’ll be sending another agent over to make sure you’re alright.” He hung up as fast as he could without bothering to give her any answers as to what was going on.

“You’ve done your part for now,” Charles said, moving towards the camera. “Now it’s my turn.” And the stream cut out.

“So now what?” the sheriff shrugged. “Wait for a 911 call and hope we get there in time?”

Morgan huffed, spun around on his heels, and stormed out of the room. He hit the wall with a closed fist on his way out of the room, and I chased after him to make sure that he was alright. He kicked one of the wooden chairs in the living room, sending it over onto its side, and then he just kept kicking at it. I ran over to him, grabbed his shoulders, and pulled him away from the chair. He stumbled back before trying to catch his balance and push off of me.

“You can’t do this right now,” I told him, my eyes following him as he went to kick the chair out of the way one last time, then sat down on the couch angrily. “You need to keep a cool head if we’re going to find Spencer.”

His foot was tapping against the wood floor as anxiety coursed through him. “They shouldn’t’ve split up,” he finally admitted. “They knew better… If they knew Hankle was the Unsub, they should have stayed together.”

“No one could have known. This isn’t anyone’s fault, Morgan, just like we told Hotch yesterday. We can’t keep blaming ourselves when it’s not going to help anything.”

“Reid is out there right now, being held against his will and tortured, and you want to talk to me about calming down? How am I supposed to do that when one of us is out there, waiting for our help?!”

“It’s valid to worry,” I told him as I sat down beside him. “We’re all worried, and we’re all doing the best we can to find him. But if we lose our minds, who’s going to help him, huh?”

“We should be out there right now, knocking on every door.”

“That won’t help and you know that.”

“We have to do something! We can’t just sit around and wait for something bad to happen—”

“We just got the 911 call,” Hotch informed us from the doorway. “Someone has to stay with Garcia and the journals. There has to be something else of use in them.”

“We’ll stay,” I offered. Morgan looked at me with his jaw practically on the floor. “You’re not thinking clearly enough to go out there,” I whispered to him. “Do you trust me?” He nodded. “We’ll stay here with JJ,” I turned back to Hotch. JJ wasn’t going anywhere either. She needed to get out of the house, and she did with Emily for a bit, but she didn’t need to go to another crime scene quite yet; not after what happened in the barn last night, at least. Hotch nodded and left to go meet Gideon and Emily in the car. “Let’s see if Garcia can get back into Charles’s computer,” I patted Morgan’s knee before pushing myself off the couch. I held my hand out for him and he stared at me for a fleeting moment before taking my offer. I pulled him to his feet. “Reid’s a smart kid. He can handle himself. I promise.”

“I’ll believe you when I see it for myself.”

Garcia, Morgan, and I were all sitting in the computer room together while she worked on searching the rest of Charles’s computer and we read through more journals. The rest of the team had been gone for hours at the crime scene, and the sun was already down, bringing another day without Reid to an end. Reid’s chances of survival fell significantly as the sun set and the moon rose. We all knew it, JJ most of all as she worked quietly on her own in another room. She was still beating herself up for not being with Reid, and I wished that there was  something I could have done to ease her conscience, but I also knew that she just wouldn’t get over it until this was done and we were all home safe.

Around hour four of sitting uncomfortable in that stuffy computer room, Morgan accidentally let out a yawn. He hadn’t slept in days, and even though I was worried about him and I wanted to tell him to get some rest, I knew that he wouldn’t listen. Even if I begged and pleaded, or even decided to drag him onto the couch myself, he’d find a reason to not go to sleep. It wasn’t worth wasting my time to try and argue with him. And even though we had all heard him yawn and we were all reminded of how tired  everyone was, he dodged Garcia’s attempt to send him to bed by saying that he was going to make some coffee, and offered us some. Garcia quietly passed on his offer, but I took him up on it before returning my gaze to the journal in my lap.

A few minutes later, Morgan came back and handed me my coffee before silently turning to leave again. When I asked where he was going, he told me that he needed some air and some time alone to think. JJ came in a few minutes after that. She looked upset, and I pieced together that they must have had an argument of some sort in order to shake both of them like that. We didn’t like fighting amongst each other. We all loved one another like family, and we knew that fighting like children was just a waste of time when we could always be spending that energy on solving the cases. But whenever emotions were high and we didn’t get enough sleep, tension always seemed to build in the team. Morgan had been trying to put blame on different people all day because he was so stressed about Spencer, and JJ had been blaming herself anyhow. It wouldn’t have surprised me if one of them told me that their argument was about who to blame and why.

JJ sat in Morgan's seat, “I want to watch the newest video.”

Garcia and I turned to her. We hadn’t even watched it yet. We were waiting to hear from the team about the crime scene before watching it— but also because Garcia wasn’t sure if she wanted to watch it yet, and Morgan was still battling with the fact that Reid had to make the choice of who had to live and who had to die. That shouldn’t have had to happen in the first place, but watching the video was just going to be the nail in the coffin for everyone’s already shitty moods. But JJ wanted to see it for some reason, and I deduced that it had to do with whatever she and Morgan talked about.

“If I can’t watch this video and stomach it, then I have no right to be in the field,” JJ admitted.

“It’s not a competition, JJ,” Garcia said.

“I know. I just need to see it. Please.”

Garcia brought up the video, but she didn’t play it yet. She stepped away before she could start it because she knew she didn’t want to watch with us. If JJ wanted to, and I was willing to stay, then that was our choice. But she wasn’t going to stick around, and I couldn’t blame her, honestly.

I pressed the spacebar and the video began. There was a couple sitting on their couch in their home. From what I could tell, the computer was sitting on a table in the corner, just out of their field of view. The man stood and left to get something off camera while the woman got more comfortable on the couch. After a minute or so, the man returned with a bottle of wine and a corkscrew. The woman smiled at him as he sat down beside her. Tobias snuck into the living, wearing all black, and covering his head with a hood. He approached the back of the couch and immediately slashed the man’s throat. The woman screamed and tried to get away, but Tobias grabbed her arm and forced her back on the couch.

Headlights from the road outside of Tobias’s home turned towards the room we were sitting in as the team came back from the new crime scene. I could hear Morgan outside asking Hotch about what they found after the car turned off, but my gaze didn’t pull away from the computer screens. Tobias grabbed the female victim by her hair and started dragging her over to the computer in her living room. She sobbed and slapped his hands in an attempt to make him release his grip, but he didn’t let up. He commanded her to stare into the camera. The front door of Tobias’s home opened just as he slit the female victim’s throat in the video.

JJ and I jumped in our seats before turning to the hallway behind us. Hotch and Morgan walked past while discussing the new evidence. Gideon came into the computer room to see what progress we had made over the past five hours or so. There wasn’t much to tell, though, besides the fact that Tobias had posted the video to the internet. To everyone’s disappointment, we hadn’t made much practice since Tobias originally took Reid, and it was clearly starting to annoy everyone.

Gideon asked me to play the video for him after I told him about it, and I obliged. JJ stiffened in her seat as the video started over. She had to know that she didn’t have to watch it again, right? I didn’t understand why she was trying to push herself and challenge everyone, even though we didn’t think any less of her like she only assumed. Watching it a second time wasn’t going to prove anything, and it certainly wasn’t any easier to watch.

As Tobias sliced the male victim’s throat open, the video cut out. Gideon asked what happened and I insisted that I wasn’t sure. I stood and hurried to the living room in search of Gideon’s technical aid. As I started to explain to her that the video turned off half way through Gideon’s examination of it, we heard JJ yell for the rest of the team in a panic. Everyone ran to the computer room. Gideon was sitting in my seat, JJ in hers, and Garcia hurried to her own right in front of the keyboard. I stumbled a few steps in the room as I realized what JJ had called us in for. The video of the murders had cut out because Tobias took control of the computers again, and now he was streaming live footage of Reid again.

“Confess your sins,” Charles said. I knew it was him and not Tobias or Raphael because of the voice. Charles was more baritone and Southern, like how a stereotypical Southern priest would sound.

“I haven’t done anything,” Reid responded calmly. Charles raised his fist into the air before landing a punch of Spener’s jaw. Reid moved with the punch to avoid more damage and pain. Smart kid. “I haven’t done anything!” he yelled more desperately this time. Charles punched him again. “Please… Tobias, help me…”

“He can’t help you. He’s weak.”

Garcia was shaking at the keyboard, trying to find a new way to hack into Tobias’s set up. I believed in her. I knew she could do it, even when she was panicking like we all were. She just needed some more time.

Charles slapped Reid around a few more times before grabbing his long hair and pulling on it to make him sit up straight. “Confess. Your. Sins.”

When Reid refused again, Charles punched him straight in the nose, so hard that it sent Reid and his chair flying backwards. With Reid’s wrists tied together, he couldn’t protect his body from the impact, so he had the wind knocked out of him. He gasped for air desperately, but  he couldn’t get enough oxygen in the short breaths that he could manage. He started convulsing on the ground and foaming at the mouth. What had Tobias been doing to him when the camera was off? We were missing something crucial.

“He’s killing him,” Garcia cried, taking her hands off the keyboard after failing to find them again.

Spencer suddenly stopped moving and breathing. Charles grinned widely before stepping out of the room they were in. The video didn’t end, though. We just had to watch as Reid laid… unconscious… or dead? I don’t think any of us were sure. Either way, if he wasn’t dead yet, he would be unless someone helped him soon. Even if we wanted to, we wouldn’t be able to save him on time while he was like that. If, by some miracle, we happened to find them at that exact moment, by the time we got to wherever they were hiding, it would be too late. Charles wanted us to know that, and we wanted us to watch our friend die.

JJ turned away from the computers and hid her face in her hands, Morgan punched the wall as hard as he could again, Garcia cried harder as Gideon put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and Emily, Hotch, and I just watched in shock. It was going to end soon if it hadn’t already. The son of a bitch had won.

Charles suddenly hurried back into the room and crouched beside Reid. He put his ear up against Reid’s chest to listen for a heartbeat before sitting back up and putting his hands on Reid to start performing CPR. I mumbled to myself the question of what the hell Charles was doing. Why would he want to punish and kill Reid, only to come back moments later to help him? Because it wasn’t Charles… It had to have been Raphael or Tobias. They would have been the only ones who would care enough to help Reid. And then I remembered how Reid begged for Tobias’s help… Tobias had been helping Reid while the camera was off. They had befriended each other. That was why he was trying to resuscitate him.

Reid gasped for air and woke back up. Garcia gasped and sighed with relief. Everyone else released the tension in their shoulders, too— myself included.

“Wait,” Emily said. We all turned our ears to her, but kept watching the stream. “When were the last murders called in by Tobias?”

“9:04,” Hotch answered.

“And when was the video of the murders posted?”

Garcia typed away at the computers for a moment. “9:23.”

“That’s only a nineteen minute difference,” I said. “Garcia how long would it take to upload that video?”

“Two to three minutes, maybe.”

“Let’s call it two,” Morgan said. “That means that, even if you’re going approximately 60 miles per hour, Tobias would have to be within a 19 mile radius of the crime scene.”

“Garcia, pull it up on a map,” Hotch ordered. She pulled up a map of the area, then narrowed it down to the nineteen mile radius. “JJ, call the sheriff and tell him to put roadblocks surrounding that area.”

JJ nodded and ran out of the room to go call the Sheriff's Department.

“Look,” Gideon pointed back to the stream of Spencer.

Tobias was helping Spencer back up into the chair. Reid coughed and wiped the spit around his mouth away with his sleeve. “Thank you, Tobias,” he whispered breathlessly.

“You came back to life…” It wasn’t Tobias’s young, child-like voice that spoke, nor was it Charles’s deep, commanding Southern accent. It was something more proper.

“Raphael…” Reid identified him. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything. Someone brought you back from the dead. Something brought you back.”

“It was CPR. Science. Just science, Raphael. Nothing else—”

“How many members are on your field team?”

Excluding Garcia, since she hardly ever came out into the field with us, our team included: Hotch, Gideon, Morgan, JJ, Emily, Reid, and me. Seven of us. Seven archangels— including Raphael— vs the seven angels of death. Raphael was one of the archangels, he would know that we weren’t angels, but his delusion made him believe that we were the seven angels of death, and that was how Reid was brought back to life.

“Tell me who you serve,” Raphael demanded.

“I serve you,” Reid answered, calm again.

“Then choose one to die.”

“What?”

“Your team members. Choose one to die.”

My eyes raced between the entire team to see what they were thinking. They all just looked shocked. None of them seemed to be thinking of ways to help… And neither was I, I supposed. What else were we supposed to do?

“Kill me. I choose me.”

“No. You’ve proven to me that you can’t die. Satan favors you. Choose one of the others. Now.”

“No.”

Raphael pulled out a pistol from his jacket and pointed it at Reid’s forehead. Everyone was tense again. Charles wanted Reid to suffer when he originally tried to kill him, but Raphael was only trying to do one thing: prove that the archangels were better than the angels of death. In his mind, it didn’t matter if he shot Reid, because he would come back to life and they would start over. But from where we stood, we knew that wasn’t the case. If Raphael were to have shot Reid, he’d die immediately.

“Choose one of them.”

“No,” Reid answered again.

Raphael pressed on the trigger, and I jumped in response, but nothing fired from the weapon. My brows furrowed in confusion. Raphael pulled the hammer of the pistol back with his thumb and demanded once again that Reid choose. When Reid refused again, Raphael tried to shoot again, but nothing happened. They were playing Russian Roulette. Reid was one of the smartest people on the planet. He knew nearly everything about the world— but had a proclivity for science and math. Russian Roulette was technically a game of chance, yes, but Reid knew the odds and statistics of the game. He knew how to push his luck. So when Raphael asked again and Reid denied again, I didn’t jump when Raphael pulled the trigger again.

“Alright, fine,” Reid gave in. He found it. “I’ll choose.” He lowered his head in defeat, “I choose… Aaron Hotchner.”

I let out the breath that had been building in my chest and instinctively grabbed Hotch’s hand from his side. Hotch squeezed my hand reassuringly. Why Hotch? Why? They had been through so much together. He could have picked me. We weren’t close. He had no reason to like me— In fact, he actually disliked that I challenged him so often since he was Mr. Know-It-All and always had to be right. He could have picked me, but he chose Hotch… Why…

“He’s a classic narcissistic,” Reid began explaining, “he thinks that he’s better than everyone else, and he treats Y/N better than everyone else on the team, which puts us all in danger. Genesis 23:4— ‘Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense.’ That’s why I choose him.”

Hotch let go of my hand and stormed out of the room. Everyone watched him leave, but I was the only one who chased after him. “Aaron, you can’t take what he said to heart. He’s just doing what he has to do to survive.”

Hotch turned away from the bookshelf in the family room in order to face me. He was holding a bible in his hands, skimming through a few pages. “I don’t care about that,” he insisted to me. “I know that he had to give an answer.”

“You’ll be fine here with all of us. Nothing’s going to happen—”

Hotch looked up from the bible as the rest of the team came in. “I’m not a narcissist.”

“We know, Hotch,” Gideon responded. “He’s not in his right mind—”

“No. Stop. Listen. Alright, everybody, right now, what’s my worst quality?”

We all glanced at each other silently. Did he really want to know? And why? It would just hurt his feelings. Spencer had already hit the nail on the head just a minute ago, why would Hotch be searching for more answers?

When no one answered his question, Hotch spoke up again, “Fine, I’ll start. I have no sense of humor.”

Only sometimes, I thought to myself. But that was because I knew him better than anyone else on the team. He liked to smile around me and we liked to have fun together, but our home life was very different from our work personalities.

Everyone took Hotch’s first words as their chance to speak up about what they disliked about him. JJ said that he was always too bossy and he felt like a bully, Morgan said that he acted like a drill sergeant, Emily said that he never trusted women as much as men— which… good on her for bringing it up.

“Right. So I’m all of those things, but none of you said that I ever put myself before the team, because I don’t. There was a time when Reid and I argued about the definition of classic narcissism, and he knew that I would remember that. Genesis 23:4— ‘I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me property, forbear a place among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight.’ He wouldn’t get it wrong unless it was on purpose.”

Reid quoted something about how narcissism was a sin in the eyes of God, knowing that it would blind Raphael and catch Hotch’s attention. The real quote, however, was about cemeteries and how to properly dispose of the dead because they’re impure. Reid was telling us that he was being held in a cemetery. I should have seen it sooner. Earlier, during the first stream, Spencer said something that I should’ve caught. He said that he wouldn’t choose one of the four potential victims Charles had been eyeing to be slaughtered and have their remains left behind. His voice had fluctuated on the words “slaughtered” and “remains”. Originally, I just thought that it was because he was nervous, but I realized that he was trying to tell us before and we didn’t notice.

“Garcia!” I called, running back towards the computer room. “Look for slaughterhouses inside that radius.”

When Emily and I first met with the coroner to examine the first two victims, we all noticed that they had been killed in a way similar to animals in slaughterhouses, and we really thought that it was a dead end because there were so many possibilities, it would have been impossible to narrow it down to one slaughterhouse in Georgia where Tobias had been before. But now we had a smaller area to search, and we had something else: the cemetery. It had to be a family property if there was a cemetery on the farm grounds.

“Found it. Marshall Perish,” Garcia said.

“Tobias said something in his journals about staying clean and keeping away from Marshall,” Morgan said. “That has to be it.”

We all hurried to the cars outside while Garcia sent us the address of the plantation. With six of us going there, and seven of us coming back, we needed two cars. Gideon drove on with JJ and Emily riding with him, and Hotch drove me and Morgan. Hotch led the way, speeding down the dirt road and for the highway. It was dark out, but the headlights and the flashing police lights lit the way.

Hotch was quiet during the drive, and Morgan cleared his throat and shifted in the back seat uncomfortably. He had asked them all to tell him the truth about himself, and they did just to help him prove his point, but now everyone seemed on edge because of it. It isn’t easy to look your friends in the eyes and tell them what their worst qualities are, then move on like nothing happened. I hoped that Hotch knew that he wasn’t really those things all of the time. Just because the work personality he had built for himself painted this image of him being a constant hardass, it didn’t mean that was who he was. I knew that he liked to smile, laugh, joke around, tease, have fun. He liked to hold my hand, kiss me, hold me, tell me how much he loved me every chance he could get. I knew that he was a good dad who would do anything to give Jack the best childhood he could possibly have. He liked to tell me not to give Jack too much attention or gifts, but he liked it even more when I would do it anyhow. It made him happy that I was happy, and that Jack liked me. That was who Hotch really was.

The plantation was practically abandoned when we arrived. There was a farmhouse on the front of the property where the family lived, but everything beyond that had been neglected by them, including the slaughterhouse out in the woods. We sped up to the decaying building and all jumped out of the cars.

I adjusted my vest slightly by pulling it down from my neck before following Hotch and Morgan inside. Reid wasn’t there. The chair that he had been tied to, the camera that was recording him, and all of the computers Tobias stole were all there, but not Dr. Spencer Reid. I cursed under my breath and lowered my weapon.

Hotch told us that there was no time to waste, that they had to be hiding out in the woods somewhere, and we needed to go looking for them. Morgan and I broke off together to head towards the left, Gideon and Hotch paired up to go towards the middle path, and JJ and Emily went towards the side. The cemetery was just out in front of us, where Hotch and Gideon would likely end up meeting Morgan and I. We decided to start there, to see if they were trying to hide behind the gravestones or the trees that guarded the cemetery.

Suddenly, a gunshot echoed throughout the woods, sending the wild animals nearby into a frenzy. Morgan dashed before I could towards the sound of the gunshot. I was hot on his heels, trying to keep my flashlight up for him so that he wouldn’t trip on something while running. Hotch called Reid’s name from just right of where we were running, and I knew that they were all close to us.

We found the cemetery. Morgan jumped the gate after noticing that Hotch was struggling to get the gate open. Just as the rest of us were about to jump it, too, Hotch kicked the gate open forcefully, and we all filed into the cemetery with our weapons and flashlights raised.

“There they are!” Hotch yelled, aiming his flashlight at the opposite end of the gated area. “Reid!” Hotch hopped over a short gravestone before holstering his weapon. Spencer was crouched over Tobias’s dead body. “Reid,” Hotch repeated with relief. He helped Spencer to his feet. “You okay?”

“I knew you’d understand,” Reid croaked before throwing his arms around Hotch.

Hotch patted Spencer’s back, “Of course I would. You did the smart thing, kid.”

They parted and before anything else could happen, Morgan grabbed Reid’s shoulder and turned him around before engulfing him in a hug. We all watched as they swayed slightly, Morgan holding Reid as closely as he could without breaking him. Hotch bowed his head and silently made his way out of the cemetery and towards the cars. My eyes followed him as JJ went to hug Reid now. I caught Gideon watching me and he stared at me like he was daring me to not go after Hotch, but I couldn’t help myself.

Hotch was leaning against the grill of the car, his arms crossed over his chest, and a frown glued to his face. I walked over to him silently and leaned against the car, too. “You know that I love you, right?” I asked him, both of us staring straight ahead. He hummed a “yes” while nodding slightly. “You’re not a bully.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted.

I wanted to tell him everything that I loved about him, everything I had thought about in the car, but finding the right words to tell him seemed impossible. There was so much I wanted to say, and there weren’t enough words or ways to go about it. It didn’t matter if he had the toughest skin on planet Earth, he couldn’t actually stand there and tell me that his team telling him that he treats them like shit didn’t bother him. I knew him better than that. But I was failing to find the right words to make it clear to him that he was the best person I had ever met in my life. There was no way I could have ever loved him if he weren’t the amazing, kind, funny, and perfect man I knew. He was a great leader, partner, father, and person overall. The entire team respected him, and they knew that he always meant well when he was being too much of a hard ass. But I knew that wouldn’t ease the feeling of slight betrayal that was grabbing a hold of his heart as we leaned against the car together. 

I reached out to grab one of his hands and uncrossed his arms. There was one way to tell him everything I meant. One way that would stick and actually matter. One thing that would only matter most to him. One way to make him forget about what the team said and just focus on the positive. One thing that I was always dying to tell him during every second of every day.

I grabbed his chin between my fingers like he always did for me when he wanted my attention, “I love you more than anything.”

His eyes softened, his shoulders relaxed, and his frown faded before turning into the slightest of smiles. “I love you, too.”

[asagi-s-garden]

WB is the worst when it comes to DC. It's no coindence that Constantine is leaving 'Legends of Tomorrow" in the wake of the upcoming HBO Max show. And this pandemic ruined a lot of plans. As you said "BL" wasn't meant to be in the Arrowverse put when it happened they were all gung-ho for it. They had plans for Jeff to visit Central City and for Anissa and Grave to chill in Gotham. But then the pandemic and whatever BTS drama that got "BL" canned. Like *something* happened. It got an early renewal in Jan then it was cancelled in Nov. And CW didn't even bother to have proper trailers for new episodes. Don't tell me somebody on the show didn't rub the network the wrong way to result in that level of pettiness

Yeah, WB isn't just the worst with DC, but really the worst with favoritism in my personal opinion

They tried so hard to make the DC streaming service a huge success but as soon as they saw it wasn't going to be they got rid of everything like it was on fire, HBO Max is the new golden child so they're cutting their own throats in other areas to make it succeed- IE: Theaters

My poor Suicide Squad 2 ;_; no I won't say "my THE Suicide Squad" it won't roll off the tongue it was a sacrificial lamb to the damn streaming service :(

I know it's an unpopular opinion to not be all over streaming but they're really clearly cutting way more than just corners in order to feed that specific beast and try to make it compete with Disney+, that's why they're starting to draw the string on the Arrowverse :/ The same thing happened, I think, with the DC streaming service though, when they saw that the biggest success of DC was the Arrowverse, they decided to pull their dying streaming service as well as the DCEU into it to pump the Arrowverse up more, now that the Arrowverse is starting to go under- with three shows being gone, Batwoman being in questionable territory, and the two biggest successes of the year being largely disjointed from it (Superman and Stargirl), I think they're going to try to scramble it like eggs :/ They're doing the same with the DCEU to a degree though, by having loosely connected stories that do more universe hopping and tone changes (IE: Joker coming out just months before Birds Of Prey and having been preceeded by Shazam!) I think since they're seeing more promise in that approach right now for the movies, they might be trying to do the same for TV- or they're just trying to let the Arrowverse die of neglect so they can pump up HBO Max like you said

Ofcourse now that WB has been bought by Discovery, we might get some big changes to this; Discovery already said they wanted to pour seven BILLION dollars into DC properties specifically in the first year alone, and I know the rumor is that they're only going to try to gloss up DC so that they can sell the assets to the highest bidders once their "probation" period ends but like.... seven billion is a hell of alot of gloss..... and if they can start pulling in more numbers like Joker, Superman & Lois, and The Suicide Squad (wich may have not been a huge hit at the box office but wich reportedly smashed the HBO Max numbers enough that WB is circling James Gunn like a starving shark), then I have a hard time believing they'd be wanting to get rid of it, especially when, let's face it, DC is easily the most well known and most marketable asset Discovery has ever had and probably ever will have purely because of Superman alone, you can't find a person anywhere who hasn't atleast heard of Superman, regardless of how much the film properties are hit-and-miss financially, I have a hard time believing anyone would just throw that kind of name power to the wolves....

But onto Black Lightning, I actually have a pretty strong theory about that one

I'm almost certain that China Anne McClain is why the show was canned

And do not get me wrong, I don't mean that in a snippy way, but China quit Black Lightning pretty urgently- to the point that she only wanted to do limited episodes for the final season

Backing up a moment here though, let me explain why I think this was the nail-in-the-coffin

Black Lightning was very quickly becoming centered around Lightning specifically

That doesn't mean to say that it wasn't still Jefferson's story and that Anissa wasn't still important, but Jennifer was getting set up to be The Powerhouse of the show, with the bulk of the drama probably surrounding her and the thought of her potentially taking on her father's mantel

It seemed like the idea of Black Lightning retiring or atleast putting on the suit a little less was starting to become a thing, and with Jefferson firmly accepting his daughters as part of the world of Metas at that point, that would have lead to Anissa and Jennifer taking much more of the spotlight than they had in the beginning- that's a natural progression of things, and although I actually prefer Anissa's storyline (it's just more my personal cup of tea), I will readily admit that Jennifer was the one who had the ability to carry an entire season's worth of story on her shoulders.... not so much Anissa, who has her wife (so romantic subplots are pretty toned down), her powers are developed and stable (nothing quite like the learning curves Jennifer was facing), she has a stable job and a stable superhero identity- two, in fact-, so no literal schoolyard drama or issues with "Am I in my father's shadow? Is this how the world sees me and do I want them to see me this way?" much like what Jennifer was starting to experience in the end of the show either

TLDR Anissa mostly had her shit together, wich is great for her, but it doesn't lend to being able to carry the most dramatic storylines like it does with Jennifer, who's still figuring out pretty much everything

I think Jennifer was already starting to take a very large amount of the story as of the last season and even starting to steal the spotlight before that, if they were to come back for more I feel like she would have been in a place of being much more obviously groomed to take on the main charector status wile Jefferson stepped back just a little bit to be more supportive to her journey instead of the other way around

And the show could still exist very much as Jefferson's story wile that story happened to center on Jennifer

.....Buuuuuuuuuuuuut that's where the problem comes in

China said before the show was cancelled that she was going to step down from playing Lightning because she wanted to focus on her faith more and be removed from anything that wasn't "in service to God", wich is totally fine for her, but it does put Black Lightning in a bit of a difficult position because the charector they were gearing up to make their breakout star was suddenly going to either have to pull a Winn and just... be.... gone.... or have to get recast

To be entirely honest, I'm not sure why they didn't stick with the recasting instead, I thought Laura Karuki did a fantastic job as Jennifer and the "Am I Jennifer or am I JJ?" story would have been a great thing to explore for an entire season, but if I had to guess, they maybe just didn't want to mess with it?

Black Lightning had good numbers but it wasn't in the top five or anything to my recollection, not since it's premiere season anyway, and it could have been a compound decision of "We weren't going to keep this up much longer anyway so let's just take this as a sign to wrap it up", although I think that the way the recast was done could have presented a stable option for them if they had decided to give it a go for a full season, although maybe that's just my opinion and they initially made the recast so that the people behind the curtain could see if Laura would work well enough as Jennifer and when they decided that the vibe wasn't right they went on ahead and pulled the plug rather than risk getting the same um... resistance.... than Batwoman met over their recasting choices

Although I could go on for days about why that situation is different (to be clear: I do like Ryan quite alot but I don't think the Batwoman situation was nearly as seamless as Black Lightning's in terms of recasts, but that's another story for another day)

TLDR I think if China had stayed aboard they would have gone on for atleast another season or two, but there are some shows where members of an ensemble cast are so essential that their leaving is too big of a blow to stay through

It's much like when Dylan O'Brien had to bow out of Teen Wolf for a little wile, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a fan who absolutely loved season six, and even before that people were having a hard time staying with a lack of Tyler Hoechlin, with some even stepping away when Crystal Reed left, even though- at both of those points- most of the core cast was still there and at no point did the titular main ever leave, I feel like Black Lightning's situation is very similar, people were just too invested in Jennifer

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Two of Souls

A Stitched Story

JSE Fanfic

Ohhhh boy this is a long one. And there’s not even that much action! I started out intending it to be some catching up with the boys and some exposition, but shit happens, I guess. Hopefully it’s as interesting to others as it is to me haha. So now that the boys are in this supposedly safe place with the magicians, what’s next? What’s the deal with those strings? And what about Jackie and Marvin? Find out here!

Tagging @septic-dr-schneep for inspiring this AU with this post.

Read where it started: Stitched Together | Season One | Season Two

Previous Season Three stories: Torn Apart | Tales to Tell | Threads | Twice Bitten, Never Shy

Taglist (finally): @bupine​ @violet--majesty @ari-trash

With a small ding! the doors to the elevator opened, and Jack stepped out onto the ground floor. He looked left, then right, then down at the note in his hand. ‘Investigating Storage Room 1, first floor, 3:00. On the right side, look for nameplate.’

They’d been in the Sanctuary for almost two weeks now. There had been no sign of trouble, but none of them had dared leave the building anyway. The result was a mixture of stress and boredom. But yesterday, something finally happened. Yvonne met with them and said that the magicians had finally gotten around to analyzing the strings. After some talking, Jack had volunteered to meet up with the magicians and relay the information back to the others. Of course, now that he was here he was feeling somewhat nervous, but he pushed that aside.

Folding the note and putting it in his pocket, Jack turned right and soon found the door they had directed him to, identifiable by a nameplate on the wall nearby. At a glance, it didn’t look too different from any other door in the Sanctuary. It didn’t have any of the numbers that the hotel-like rooms did, but then again, not all of them did. He wouldn’t have paid any attention to it at all, which might’ve been the point.

After a couple seconds, the door opened, revealing Delyth standing there. “Oh good, you’re here,” she said. “You’re early.”

Jack laughed nervously. “Well, I wanted to make sure, y’know? Is being early a problem?”

“No, not at all. Please, come inside.” Delyth stepped away so that Jack could walk into the room, closing the door behind him as soon as he had.

Contrary to its door, the room beyond was much stranger than the rest of the Sanctuary. It was dimly lit, with only a few lamps dangling from the ceiling casting concentrated beams of yellow light onto the floor. Not that there was much floor space at all. The room was filled with boxes. Neatly stacked, bigger ones on the bottom, all made out of metal with a coppery sheen. Each box had a label and what looked like a colorful warning symbol, like the sort that was put onto hazardous materials. Jack couldn’t remember if the symbol had a specific name, but he remembered it was a diamond made of four colors. These symbols were similar, except they were circular, divided into four colorful sections with another circle in the center.

In the middle of the room was a table. Delyth was quick to guide Jack over towards it. Yvonne was already there, as well as an older man with dark hair and a beard, both of which looked like they’d been hit by lightning. The man was wearing a coat that was decorated like a labcoat, but dark blue and with a symbol of a four-pointed star on the lapel. Oh the table was one of the coppery boxes, about the size and shape of a shoebox, and a strange device with several large lenses attached.

“Jack, this is Mr. Griffin, he’s one of the wizards studying at this Sanctuary,” Delyth explained.

“Pleasure to meet you, young man,” the older man said in a precise British accent.

Jack couldn’t help but stare. “Uh, yeah, the pleasure’s all mine. You...you’re a wizard, then?”

“I’m not what you were expecting, I understand,” Griffin laughed. “It’s alright, I get that reaction a lot, I’m very used to it.”

Jack laughed a bit as well. “Well, as long as I’m not the first.” He sighed, then returned to the seriousness of the moment. “Anyway, what’ve you found?”

“Well, I’ve examined these strings—”

“We’ve examined them,” Yvonne interrupted. “I helped, don’t forget.”

“Yes, Bell has been very helpful,” Delyth said, sounding as though she’d rather not admit it. “Her knowledge as a soul magician is valuable.”

Yvonne puffed herself up proudly.

“Anyway, we’ve examined them,” Griffin continued. He tapped the side of the box, and Jack leaned forward to look at it. The box actually had a lid, though he hadn’t noticed it since it was made of glass, giving a clear look into the inside of the box. The strings tangled about, writhing like worms and slamming against the sides. “These are not actually physical strings.”

“They’re not physical?” Jack asked, confusion obvious. “But...they can, like, touch things. Interact with them.”

“That’s true, but they’re not made of actual matter,” Griffin explained. “You see, magic can become solid, if concentrated enough. So they’re more like energy than anything else.”

“I...but...isn’t there a thing about how you can’t touch energy? Isn’t that what e=mc2 is all about? Something like that?”

“Magic follows its own rules,” Delyth said. “Just accept that if you take enough magic together, it can become a tangible thing.”

Jack nodded slowly. He figured it was best not to think about this too much. “Okay. So they’re just magic?”

“They’re more than just magic, actually,” Griffin said, suddenly grave. “They’re very dark magic.”

Delyth nodded. “From what we’ve figured out, the strings were most likely caused by a black magic spell backfiring. Terribly backfiring.” She sighed. “That’s the cost of dark magic. It may seem easy, but when it goes wrong, it goes wrong in a big way. Not to mention the effect it’ll have on a magician’s mind and soul.”

“A spell backfiring...” Jack muttered. “We...thought that Marvin and Jackie cast a spell. And we thought that it went wrong, too.” He paused. “Transference.”

“It’s all my fault!” Yvonne suddenly blurted out. She slammed her hands on the table, looking pale. “That book was in my shop. Marvin saw it, he wanted to borrow it, and I-I didn’t think anything of it! When he gave it back, it looked fine, but he could’ve easily copied—”

“Bell!” Delyth looked shocked. “You had a book with a transference spell in your shop?”

“Yeah,” Yvonne mumbled. “I thought it would sell for a lot. I never would’ve dreamed it could lead to all...all this. If I knew, I never would’ve stocked it.”

“You shouldn’t have been selling a book with that spell in the first place!” Delyth scolded. “Think of all the harm it could do!”

“Well, it’s not really my fault if someone wants to buy it, is it, Mae?” Yvonne said angrily. “If someone showed up looking for a book like that, then they knew exactly what they were doing. There are warnings with each spell and they’re very descriptive, if anything happened, it was on them!” She stopped, then slowly deflated. “At least, that’s what I thought at the time. If I knew...if I knew...”

“There’s never just one person responsible for a spell backfiring,” Griffin said. “Nor the consequences of it. Your Marvin friend shouldn’t have used the spell in the first place.”

Yvonne took a deep, shaky breath. “A-anyway, that’s what the strings are probably from. That spell going tops-up.”

Jack was silent for a moment, watching the strings in the box as they wriggled. “But...okay, if they’re just magic, that’s fine. But why are they moving? Why do they...it seems like they always make a beeline for Jackie and Marvin, why is that?”

“Ah. Well...” Griffin paused, stroking his beard. “This is where Ms. Bell comes into play.”

“Right.” Yvonne straightened her shoulders, collecting herself. “Jack, this—” She patted the device with the lenses “—is one of the many tools we use in soul magic. We, uh, don’t really know what souls are, to be honest. But we know that with this, we can at least see them. It helps us visualize souls into something more...tangible.” She slid two of the lenses into place and angled them so that Jack could look through them at the strings. “Go on, have a peek.”

Jack hesitated, then leaned over. He gasped. His view of the strings had suddenly been magnified by a thousand percent. He could see that the glowing strings were actually woven together of smaller threads, which appeared translucent when looked at individually. Caught in the woven threads, too small for anyone to see with the naked eye, were tiny, broken lights. Blue and red. They couldn’t have been bigger than dust motes, and there weren’t that many of them, but they shined with light.

“This is...kinda fucked up, honestly,” Yvonne said. “The bits of light you’re now seeing are actually bits of...soul.”

“Holy fuck...” Jack had to take a step back.

“I used a similar device to look at Marvin when he was at my flat,” Yvonne explained. “And his soul looked...broken. My only thought is that when he and Jackie performed the transference, both their souls were broken. And bits of them got mixed in with these strings, which must be the magic cast by the transference. It probably had nowhere to go, so it solidified.”

“That...that must be the case,” Jack breathed. “I mean, they’re even the same colors.”

Silence.

Jack, noticing the sudden quiet, looked around. All the magicians were staring at him with wide eyes. “What?”

“What do you mean...colors?” Delyth asked.

“The, uh, the lights are red and blue. Just like Marvin and Jackie’s souls,” Jack explained.

“Wh—” Yvonne choked.

“You can...can you see souls?” Griffin asked.

“Oh. Uh, yeah.” Jack tapped the area below his left eye. “Only with this eye, though. JJ and I think that when he used his magic to replace the one I lost, it kind of overcompensated.”

“And...these souls have colors?” Griffin asked again, looking very interested in this.

“Yeah. Of course.” Jack looked back and forth at the others. “Are they...not supposed to?”

“Even with the Lens, all souls appear colorless,” Yvonne said in a hushed tone. “Even to soul magicians like me. They’re all...white light.”

“Oh. I guess...I’m special, then? Because they definitely have color to me.” Jack closed his right eye. “Yeah, I can see all yours now. Delyth’s is purple like her magic, Yvonne’s is blue with a bit of purple, Mr. Griffin’s is bright, and I mean bright, yellow, and mine is green. Huh. Also all yours are kinda...sparkly? Mine isn’t. Yours kinda looks like how JJ’s is, but different.”

“Wait, can you see—are you maybe seeing our magic?” Griffin gasped. “That’s incredible!”

“Uh, thanks, I guess. I had no say in it.” Jack opened his eye and laughed. “It’s a bit ironic that I can see all these colors and you guys can’t, I’m actually slightly colorblind.”

“Okay, but the soul bits in the strings match Marvin’s and Jackie’s,” Yvonne hurried to say. “The colors here are the same as the colors of their souls?”

“Yeah.”

“That confirms it, then,” Delyth nodded. “The strings are attracted to them due to having parts of them inside. They want to be reunited.”

“I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing in principle,” Yvonne said slowly. “Except for the fact that Marvin got a lot more angry and attack-y once some of those strings got together with him.”

“I suspect that’s the black magic,” Griffin said.

“Okay, but is there any way to get rid of them?” Jack asked, a desperate note in his voice. “These fucking strings are causing all sorts of trouble.”

“Hmm.” Griffin furrowed his brow and looked up at the ceiling. “I know we looked into that, but I think I left the notes in the other room.” He reached down and tapped the top of the box. It turned an opaque, coppery color, the same as all the rest. “I could go get them now, if you’d like.”

“Nah, that’s fine, I could go get them if you want.” Jack took a few steps back. 

“Oh. Well, if you’re offering, then that would be great, thank you,” Griffin nodded. “They should be next door, in the Investigative Room. I doubt I left them in a drawer or anywhere, so they’re probably out on a surface.”

“Alright.” Jack turned around. “I’ll see you later, then.” He hurried to leave. Those strings...he wasn’t eager to spend much more time with them.

— — — — — — —

There was a wide open area in the basement of the Sanctuary. At first glance, it looked like a gymnasium, except without the bleachers and basketball hoops. It was also much bigger, with a small climbing wall at one end, an archery shooting range at the other, and a wall in between lined with strange perforations. Delyth explained it was made for agents who wanted to practice spells in their spare time. However, it had sat empty for the entire time they’d been here. But that was fine. Schneep actually preferred it empty.

He pushed open the doors to the room, automatically tensing, searching for anyone. He didn’t think anyone was there. Or at the very least, that strange sixth sense that let him know when people were around was telling him the room was empty as always. He sighed, relaxing, and walked into the approximate center of the room.

Now that things were relatively peaceful—well, actually, that was a stretch, it was better phrased as “now that there was no one actively trying to kill them”—he’d thought it would be best to practice this magic of his. Strange, how things had changed to the point where he readily accepted his new magical abilities, when just a few years ago he would’ve denied it to the ends of the earth. Schneep laughed to himself. Well, time flies.

He started this practice by summoning and vanishing his scissors a couple times. It was still unclear where they came from and went off to when he wasn’t using them. All he knew was that if he reached to the side he could feel their handles, seemingly hovering in midair right where he needed them. Perhaps the scissors were stored in some sort of pocket dimension that only he could access. 

What was interesting was that other things could come from this pocket dimension. Shortly after arriving at the Sanctuary and getting frustrated with the unfamiliar layout, Schneep had wished for something that could help him know where things were. He’d reached out, and suddenly found something there. A long, thin stick, that could extend in length. Bringing it to Jack confirmed his suspicions: it was a cane. Exactly what he’d needed. Unusual, he thought, that he’d found it at the exact moment he was thinking about it. Perhaps the pocket dimension could provide what he wanted? But it didn't provide anything other than the scissors and the cane so far. Well, he was still working on that theory.

Second matter of business. Simple jumps, to get him warmed up. That was what he decided to call this teleporting or whatever it was. The act of walking somewhere and having the world around him change, so he was somewhere else entirely. It was sort of like portals, except Schneep didn’t need a fancy gun to jump, he just did it at will.

He jumped back and forth across the width of the room a couple times, touching the wall to orient himself. Then across the length. Then from corner to corner. He never really got tired from the jumping. And last practice, he realized it didn’t even need to be on solid ground. Though that had been an accident, and he’d ended up landing flat on his face. Moments like that were why he practiced alone.

Schneep paused for a moment, reaching out to feel the base of the climbing wall. Perhaps...? Bracing himself, he took a step forward, and ended up not on the floor, but falling through the air. Fear instantly shot through him, and he waved his arms wildly until his hands brushed against something. That texture—! He tried to grab, and—

“Ow!” Schneep gasped. His arm felt like it was being yanked out of its socket. His fall was suddenly stopped when he managed to find one of the climbing wall’s holds, but the sudden change of speed had caused a shot of pure pain through his shoulder. God, he hoped that wasn’t dislocated.

Kicking his legs a bit, he managed to jump back down to the floor, where he immediately started rubbing his shoulder. He’d been aiming for the flat bit at the top of the climbing wall, but it appeared he missed. Luckily he was close enough to find that hold, otherwise he’d have to deal with falling all the way to the floor. Even though the climbing wall was half the size of most, it was still twenty feet tall.

Schneep didn’t allow himself to pause. He wanted to try one more thing before stopping for the day. Walking over to the side, he found the perforated wall of the gym area, and walked along it until he found a control panel. There was a touchscreen on it, which wasn’t much use to him, but there was also a button and a dial. He’d asked Delyth about it earlier, and she explained the button was to start or stop the “course” and the dial was to time it, with the maximum being thirty minutes. Twisting the dial, he set it to about five minutes, then hit the button.

“Projectile training course set for: four minutes.” An automated voice rang out through the gym area. “There is: one minute before start time.”

“Alright, here we go.” Schneep took a deep breath, and jumped back to the middle of the room, tensing with anxiety. He’d have to be careful here.

“Thirty seconds remaining before the projectile course fires,” said the automated voice. Then after a while. “Ten seconds remaining. Nine. Eight.”

Schneep bounced on his feet, ready to move at any moment.

“Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three.”

There was a slight humming sound coming from the wall. He braced himself.

“Two. One. Firing.”

The darts of magic started to fire, each hole making a chnk! sound as they shot and the darts themselves causing a whhst! sound as they passed through the air. Schneep started moving, listening carefully for the noise of each one firing and flying forward. He started running, then skidded to a halt as there was a chnk! from a space near him. The dart whizzed past his face in a gust of air. He ducked just in time to avoid another, then turned around and jumped to what sounded like a safe spot.

Four minutes was not a very long time, but it certainly felt that way as Schneep dodged, ducked, and jumped across the room. He tried not to think too much, just listen and notice the small signs of the nearby darts. Eventually he got into a rhythm, jumping whenever he heard several chnk!s in the area around him.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. Soon, one of the darts hit him in the leg and broke his concentration. “Ah!” He instinctively leaned down to clutch at the spot, but that just brought him right into the path of another whhst! “Fick!” And everything broke down from there as a quick barrage of about a dozen darts soon knocked him to the ground. He jumped to another area, only to get knocked right in the chest the moment he arrived and knocked down once again.

“Projectile course finished,” the automated voice said. “Thank you for participating.” A loud beep signaled the end of the course.

Schneep sighed. He wasn’t sure what those darts were, other than pure magic, but he knew that they hurt. It reminded him of the time Chase had dragged him to a paintball match, and he was sure that there would be similar bruises left over. Wincing, he climbed to his feet. “Need more practice on that,” he said to himself.

Well, there was always tomorrow. He turned and headed for the nearest wall, following it to the exit.

— — — — — — —

“Chase. Chase. Chase. Chase. Chase.”

Ignoring the repeated, nagging sound of his own name, Chase rolled over and pulled the blanket over his face. What time was it? Probably sometime in the afternoon, judging by the light coming in from the bedroom window. Also, who opened the window? The curtains at the Sanctuary were pretty good for blocking out light, they must be open if he could see light even behind his eyelids. Good thing this bed had thick blankets, too.

“Chase. Chase. Chase.” Now something was poking him with every repetition. It soon became something shaking him. “Chase. Chase.”

Finally realizing he wasn’t going to stop, Chase groaned and pushed away the covers. He opened his eyes and looked over to see Jackie standing by the side of the bed. Staring at him. Was he...was he there the whole night? Because apparently he didn’t sleep anymore—or at least, not as much, and not when Chase or JJ were watching. The thought was...disturbing. “What is it, Jackie?” he asked, sighing.

Jackie didn’t answer for a while, just blinked. It was a solid thirty seconds before he asked, “When are we leaving?”

Chase had been about to go back to sleep, but that question sent a shot of nerves through his heart that woke him right up. “Um...I don’t know. Wh-why? Do you want to go somewhere?”

“I need to find the rest of us,” Jackie said insistently. “I know I’m out there, but I can’t tell where.”

“...right.” Chase sat up. “Well, uh...I mean, is this really that importa—”

“Yes.”

Chase fell silent. There were moments when Jackie just acted a bit unusual, but there were also too many moments like this, moments that left him with a crawling feeling across his skin, and he could see how Jackie was once part of Anti. “Um...okay.” Chase inched away. “Well, I don’t know when we’re leaving, so don’t ask me.”

Jackie looked disappointed, but wandered away to look out the window. Chase paused, then glanced at the clock on the wall. 3:00 on the dot. He sighed. It was pretty late, but given how he hadn’t gone to bed until six in the morning last night and had trouble getting to sleep once he did, he wanted to pull the covers up and try to get another hour or two. But he was also pretty hungry, so he should get some food while he had the energy to. So he climbed out of bed and left the room.

The magicians had been providing them with groceries when they asked, as well as anything else they needed. Chase left the bedroom, waving a hello to JJ sitting on the living area’s sofa, and headed straight for the kitchenette. He opened one of the cupboards and took out a box of cereal. The brand was unfamiliar, something generic and probably store-brand, but the bits of cereal were coated in sugar and that’s what mattered. He took out a bowl and spoon and poured.

“You should take a shower.”

Chase yelped, spilling some of the cereal, and looked up to see Jackie had followed him and was now standing in the middle of the living room and watching him. “Jesus, don’t do that,” Chase breathed, setting down the cereal box.

“I don’t think you’ve used the shower since we’ve been here,” Jackie continued. “That’s not good.”

“Uhh...” Chase leaned to the side so he could see JJ around Jackie.

JJ set down his book—something that Yvonne had given him a few days ago—and said, Well he’s not wrong. But anyway, can you handle this right now?

Chase nodded slowly, then leaned back into place and looked at Jackie. “I think I’m fine, Jackie. It’s not like I smell or anything. Uh...right?”

“You lie in bed a lot,” Jackie said bluntly. “Has that always been a thing with you? I think it has, for some time. I remember that. You should at least move to somewhere else. Actually use the other rooms.”

And then sometimes there were these moments. Moments where Jackie seemed almost normal, talking in the same way and giving the same advice he did years ago, before that black magic spell had killed him and created Anti. Honestly, these moments made the whole situation creepier. Chase took a moment to respond. “Well...maybe I will take a shower, then.”

“That’s a start.” Jackie’s eyes slowly drifted to the side, and then he turned away, walking around the room in an aimless manner.

JJ waved in Chase’s direction for his attention. You alright?

Chase let out a breath, and nodded. Yeah, I’m fine. He responded in sign. They’d learned from experience over the last two weeks that Jackie would butt in on the conversation if Chase started talking out loud.

Jameson raised an eyebrow. His expression was hard to read under his new mask—this one was black, and had also been provided by the magicians once he’d asked for one—but if Chase had to guess, it was probably concerned. I was thinking maybe if we switched places, he might give you a break.

You mean if you pretended to be me? I’m pretty sure he’d be able to tell. We have some very obvious identifying features.

JJ huffed. I suppose you’re right. And we can’t get Jack or Henrik to do that, since the same can be said for them. Maybe if Henrik covered up his scars?

I get the feeling he’d be able to tell anyway. Chase sighed, and headed for the fridge, grabbing the milk. He was turning back around when he noticed it. Jackie had suddenly stopped walking and was now standing, shoulders tensed, in the middle of the room. “Um...Jackie? Are you alright?”

Jackie didn’t respond. Instead, he turned on his heel and walked right to the door, opening it and leaving the room.

“Wh—Jackie!” Chase put the milk down on the nearest counter, JJ stood up, and the two of them quickly followed him into the hallway.

Jackie had taken a turn to the left, moving quickly and purposefully towards the stairs at the end of the hall. “Hey! Jackie!” Chase and JJ broke into a run. Jackie glanced over his shoulder, then started sprinting as well, reaching the stairwell in no time.

“Stop!” Chase paused in the entrance to the stairwell, watching as Jackie ran down the stairs two at a time. “Where the hell are you going?!”

JJ pulled up next to him. Should I stop him? He flicked his fingers, making a blue disc of magic appear.

Chase shook his head. “No, let’s follow him first.” And they started running again.

Jackie headed down all three flights of stairs to the ground floor, pausing for a moment as if getting his bearings before taking the right hallway. “Wh...what?” Chase panted. That hallway would only lead deeper into the Sanctuary. What could he possibly want down here? He glanced over at JJ, who looked just as confused.

From farther down the hall, they heard a “What the—” and then someone screamed.

Jameson’s eyes widened. Isn’t that—

Chase immediately broke into a dead sprint.

Farther down the hall, a door was swinging wildly, and someone was lying on the floor as if they’d been knocked over. A few loose papers were scattered around. Chase gasped. “Jack!” He hurried to his friend’s side and helped him stand up. “Are you okay?!”

“Fine,” Jack said shortly, rubbing his arm. “Was that—was Jackie just here?”

“Yeah, ran all the way down here,” Chase said. “What were you doing here?”

“It was that thing, that thing about the, uh, strings,” Jack explained.

Jameson, having just caught up in time to hear that statement, looked shocked. He whirled towards the swinging door and grabbed hold of it, rushing inside.

“Did he go in there?” Chase asked, also pointing at the door.

“Uh, I think so?” Jack gasped slightly. “But that’s where—”

A loud clattering sound came from inside. Jack and Chase glanced at each other, then ducked into the room.

Inside, Jackie was struggling with the three magicians already inside. Yvonne had her arms wrapped around his, while Delyth’s eyes were lit up purple and her hands held out in a defensive position. Griffin clutched the copper box with the strings inside, holding it protectively while JJ covered him with a shield. A stack of other boxes had been knocked over and were now strewn across the floor.

“What’s going—Jackie, stop!” Chase stepped in front of Jack. “You’ll hurt them!”

“I d̛on't ̛ca̛rè,” Jackie hissed. “Give me back!”

“You two get out of here!” Delyth said to Jack and Chase. “This could get messy.”

“No—” Jack started to protest.

There was a flash of red light, and Yvonne suddenly cried out. She stumbled backward, now bleeding from a cut that had appeared across the left side of her face. With his arms free, Jackie lunged towards Jameson and Griffin, eyes fixed on the box. Jameson threw his hands forward, and the shield expanded outward, pushing Jackie to the ground. He hissed again and made a sharp gesture. A slice of red light cut through the air and right through Jameson’s shield, making it flicker and die. Jackie started forward again, only for Delyth to block him with a crystalline shield of her own.

“Fuck this!” Yvonne wiped the blood out of her eye and lunged right at Jackie, managing to grab him again. He shrieked, the sound full of rage, and more red light flashed. Yvonne suddenly dropped again. She clutched her leg, which was now bleeding.

“I said for you to get out!” Delyth snarled. “This is danger—”

There was a sudden, almost inaudible snap! sound, and then there was another person in the room. Schneep appeared directly behind Jackie, hitting him hard on the back of his head with the butt of a cane. Jackie crumpled to the floor, clearly breathing but now unconscious. Schneep let out a long breath. “Please say that was the correct thing to do,” he muttered.

“Hen! That was—where’d you come from?” Jack gasped.

“I was passing by,” he explained. “On the way to the elevator back to the rooms, which may I say, very inconvenient to have an elevator just to get to the basement, but it worked out this time. I could tell there was a fight, so I decided to step in.”

“Wait, how’d you know to hit Jackie?” Delyth asked, lowering her shield. “I thought you were blind.”

“I am. Do you not see this?” Schneep waved the cane in her general direction. “But it seems part of my magic is knowing where people are. And who they are, too. Which is very lucky.”

Jameson clapped his hands for attention. May I suggest we continue this conversation after getting this young lady some medical care? 

“Yes, great suggestion,” Yvonne said. “I am bleeding quite significantly.” Her tone said it was a joke but her face betrayed her real worry.

Delyth sighed. “Yes, of course. There’s a small clinic with supplies further down the hall. We’ll finish this up in there.”

— — — — — — —

It didn’t take too long for them all to relocate to the clinic and get Yvonne taken care of. They also took Jackie there as well, setting him down on one of the clinic’s three beds. Once Yvonne’s wounds were wrapped up, everyone immediately returned to the  matter at hand. Chase and JJ explained how Jackie had suddenly left the room and ran downstairs, and Jack told the others the information about the strings he’d found out just before Jackie appeared.

“Did he somehow sense the strings, perhaps?” Schneep speculated. “But then why hadn’t he reacted before? They’ve been here the whole time.”

“That may be my fault,” Griffin admitted. “The crates we keep magical artifacts in are designed to keep any magical signals from escaping, but if we need to look at them, the spell to make the crates transparent allows a small bit to get out.” He shook his head slowly. “I’ll have to add that warning to their container.”

“They weren’t even visible for that long,” Yvonne muttered. “And it sounds like Jackie realized they were here after barely a minute. Well, what d’you expect, when they’re part of his soul?”

“Can we talk about these soul strings in more detail?” Chase asked. “Like, for example...how do we get rid of them?”

“Oh, I-I still have those notes I was supposed to get.” Jack reached into his hoodie pocket and took out some crumpled pieces of paper. “Sorry, I kinda...dropped them when Jackie pushed me away, then didn’t really pay too much attention when I picked them up.”

“It’s fine, just hand them over.” Griffin held out his hand, and Jack passed over the papers. He began uncrumpling them.

What do you think will happen to the parts of their souls that are stuck inside the strings? JJ asked, his expression drawn and worried. Will they disappear? Would that hurt? Jack translated for the part of the room that didn’t understand sign.

“That’s a...very good question,” Delyth said. “Bell?”

“Don’t ask me, Mae, this has never happened before!” Yvonne said defensively. “Maybe we could ask the guy with deus ex soul vision.”

Jack hesitated. “Maybe...the bits will just go back to the full person?” he suggested tentatively “I mean, it’s hard to know which ones belong to who, since whenever I look at Marvin and Jackie their colors are all mixed up—”

Yvonne’s head shot up. “Wait, does that mean their souls are mixed up?!” she shrieked.

“Well, I think...” Jack trailed off. “I...hadn’t thought of...”

Silence fell in the room, only broken by the occasional ruffle of paper as Griffin continued to smooth them out. “Well, I...suppose that makes...sense,” Schneep said haltingly. “Jackie has...abilities now. Magic. He never had them before. If magic is in the soul, perhaps having bits of Marvin gave him...some of that?”

“But is there a way to undo it, then?” Chase asked with more than a hint of desperation in his voice. “Is there a way to make them better?”

More silence. Everyone looked at Yvonne, the only soul magician, but she had nothing to offer, so she looked over at Griffin. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat. “Well...I’m sorry, but I don’t think so,” he said as gently as possible.

Chase’s expression visibly fell. Jameson, standing nearby, reached over, offering his hand. After a moment, Chase breathed in deeply, and took the hand. “Right. I guess...that was stupid to think.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” Jack said gently. “It was hopeful, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“But there may be a way to improve this situation a bit,” Delyth suddenly said. “The strings...they’re black magic, and I don’t doubt that’s affecting your friends. If we get rid of them, perhaps we could stop them from being so oddly hostile...and prevent this Anti from ever returning.”

Chase looked up, and slowly nodded. “Okay then. How do we do that?”

“It would need to be strong magic,” Griffin said, looking over his notes. “But it’s not impossible. We may be able to burn them with an intense blaze, freeze the spell inside, or take them apart until they cease to function...either way, I don’t think just one magician will have enough power for that on their own.”

“Okay, so we next work on figuring that out,” Schneep stated. “How? If you need help, I will offer.”

I will as well, JJ added.

“We’d need to try,” Griffin muttered. “Just...try many different things. That’s the only way I can see forward.”

“The old trial and error,” Yvonne said. “Well...I’ll help too, if you need it.”

Chase let out a long, long sigh. “I...I’m done for the day. This was a lot for just a few minutes, and I just woke up.”

“Oh yes, by all means, all of you return to what you were doing,” Delyth said. “We’ll come tell you if we need anything, and remember you can ask us for anything as well.”

And slowly, they dispersed. Chase and JJ took Jackie back up to their room, while Jack and Schneep returned to theirs. Yvonne remained in the clinic for a while longer before retreating to her room, too. Nobody said anything as they left.

There was no way to reverse this. The fact was slowly sinking in to all of them. Whatever Jackie and Marvin had done, it could not be undone.

Yet maybe, just maybe, they could salvage something from this.

Just maybe.