"Look, Hotch, just tell me why I have to be the one to deal with this."
"He's your father, Bass. If anything you should be the one to tell him."
"Okay, I get that, but why does the kid have to come with me."
"That kid is Doctor Spencer Reid and he-"
"Has a Ph.D. in Mathematics, Chemistry, Engineering and specializes in Psychology and Sociology and pretty much Eienstien, but I don't want to deal with him."
"Bass, you need to stop looking at a person and only seeing their profile. Start seeing the person." Sebastian rolls his eyes.
"My job is profiling, Hotch, I don't need to see the other person as long as I get the job done."
"Bass, you are one of the most brilliant profilers I know, but you need to start looking outside the profile and into the person themselves. It'll only be your downfall." Sebastian has been close friends with Hotch since he joined the BAU, four years ago. Despite the age difference, which is seven years, they grew to be very close friends. Sebastian was anti-social, preferring to see people as no more than profiles, but being on this team made him have friends with Hotch and Derek Morgan, but there are still times when his anti-social behavior becomes a problem, like now.
"Hotch, I'm not babysitting."
"He's not a kid, Bass, he's twenty-four, three years younger than you." Sebastian rolls his eyes.
"Anyone younger than me is a kid."
"Bass, just do as I said and go with Reid to get Gideon."
"Aaron-"
"Bass." Sebastian groans, rubbing his face with his hands.
"You are seriously a sadist." Hotch laughs as he looks at Sebastian.
"A sadist?"
"You know I hate working with the kid."
"He's apart of this team, Bass." Hotch says once again serious.
"He's like a fucken robot, Aaron. Honestly, the kid gives me the creeps. Send me with Morgan or even by myself."
"Bass, he's apart of the team, learn to work with him. Now go."
"Aaron-"
"Sebastian." Sebastian shoots glares at Hotch, like daggers in his eyes, as he walks out of the room.
"Let's just get this over with." Sebastian growls as he walks past Reid, who was waiting just below the stairs for him. Reid was smart. There is not a single inch of doubt about that, but Reid just unnerved Sebastian with just how much he knew.
Reid stays quiet the rest of the way to Jason Gideon's classroom. The BAU has a training program, which Gideon has been teaching since he's been on medical leave. Sebastian keeps his hands in his pockets and his head held high as they walk into the part of the FBI agents where they teach the next group of potential agents. They walk into the room where Gideon is teaching. Gideon glances at them and looks back at his class. "Excuse me." Gideon heads towards them and three make their way out of the room. "Hey, Bass." Gideon smiles. Sebastian almost never went by Sebastian. The only times he did is when things were either serious or Sebastian did something bad and was being scolded.
"Hey, dad." Sebastian smiles as his father wraps an arm around him. When Sebastian's parents got a divorce he had lived with his mother for a long while, but he had always been closer to his father. Sebastian only has a brother, who is currently in the military, but Stephen was always more like their mother. It's why when Sebastian turned eighteen he moved back with his father and Stephen stayed with their mother before enlisting.
"What do we got?" Gideon asks.
"They're calling him the Seattle Strangler. Four victims in four months." Reid tells them as he looks through the file. "He keeps 'em alive seven days. The handle serves as a crank." Reid shows them the picture.
"Allowing him to control the rate of suffocation."
"To prolong it?" Reid asks.
"To enjoy it." Sebastian speaks up, still walking beside his father with his arm around him.
"Seattle's hit a wall?" Gideon asks.
"Physical evidence is nonexistent. There are no tangible leads." Reid tells him.
"And another girl is missing." Sebastian adds as they reach the door to Gideon's office.
"I'll look the case file over. I'll give you my thoughts ASAP." Gideon says as the others join them.
"You'll be joining us in Seattle ASAP." Aaron Hotchner says. Gideon looks at them as Derek shows a picture.
"Twenty-three-year-old Heather Woodland. Before she left for lunch, she downloaded an email with a time-delayed virus attached." Morgan adds. "The killer's virus wiped her hard drive and left this on the screen." He shows him the picture. Gideon looks it over before frowning.
"For heaven's sake, catch me before I kill more." He reads off. "I can not control myself." He stands before the framed quote said by the Lipstick Killer in 1945, the same quote that he just read aloud.
"They never keep them for more than seven days, which means we have fewer than thirty-six hours to find her." Sebastian says.
"They want you back in the saddle. You ready?" Derek asks.
"Looks like medical leave's over, boss."
"You don't have to if you're not ready dad." Sebastian says to him, leaning against his desk with his arms crossed over his chest.
"They sure they want me?" Hotch nods.
"The order came from the director."
"Then we'd better get started."
Sebastian walks beside Hotch as they walk to their private plane with their bags in their hands. "This girl may only have thirty hours to live." The woman on the board tells them. "We're not asking for a judgement of Gideon-" She corrects herself. "Senior Gideon. We want an assessment."
"I already told all of you just call me Bass. It's easier than saying senior or younger Gideon. He's Gideon, I'm Bass." Sebastian tells her. "And he'll be fine."
"We just want to know you're there to step in if he can't perform." Hotch puts a hand on Bass' shoulder, a tight grip to keep the anti-social man from saying something rude, which he does frequently without thinking. "Are we clear?"
"Crystal." Bass says in a sharp tone, causing Hotch's grip to tighten.
"Of course." He says before getting on the plan with Sebastian. "Behave, Bass."
"You make me sound like a child."
"Now you know how Reid feels when you call him 'kid' all the time."
"He is though. I'm twenty seven."
"Take a seat." Hotch says, tired of arguing with the stubborn man.
Sebastian rolls his eyes before moving and sitting in a chair. The chair has a desk in front of it, another chair beside it, two across the table, and a small bench seat by the other window. Hotch sits across from Sebastian, while Reid sits on the bench by Sebastian, making him grow even more agitated. "His first victim was twenty-six year old Melissa Kirsh." Reid says. "Stab wounds, strangulation."
"Wait, wait. Back up. Back up." Morgan says, causing them to look at him. He and Gideon stand, leaning against Hotch's seat. "He stabbed her and then strangled her to finish her off?"
"Other way around." Gideon says. "Why do you think he started using the belt with the second murder?"
"Because strangulation with your bare hands isn't as easy as the movies make it appear." Sebastian says as he looks away from the window and over at them.
"He tried, probably found that it took to long-" Reid begins.
"So he stabbed her instead."
"But the blood would take hours to clean up, which he realized afterwards." Sebastian adds.
"Next time, our boy's got a method-the belt." Morgan says.
"He's learning, perfecting his scenario." Gideon says.
"Becoming a better killer." Sebastian whispers.
They get off the plan and goes through the check in at the airport. "That's hypervigilance. It's not uncommon in post-traumatic stress disorder." Sebastian hears as he and Hotch walk behind Reid and Morgan.
"Just how much disorder are we talking about?" Morgan asks.
"Stop quoting books, kid." Sebastian says. "And stop talking about my father behind his back, both of you." Sebastian orders as he pushes past them and hurries to catch up with his father.
"Morgan, it's been six months. Everything's okay and Bass is right. Drop it." Sebastian hears Hotch say before they head into the police department. "This is special agent Gideon, special agent Sebastian Gideon, just call him Bass, special agent Morgan, our expert on obsessional crimes, special agent Reid."
"Dr. Reid." Some correct.
"Dr. Reid, our expert on, well, everything, and after two years busting my butt in this office, I hope you remember me." Sebastian glances over at Ried only to find him staring at him.
"Keep staring, kid, and there'll be a problem." Sebastian says, causing Reid to lower his eyes.
"He's willing to travel with the body." Sebastian walks over to where his father is looking over the map.
"Then he drives a vehicle capable of concealing one."
"1 in 7.4 drivers in Seattle owns an suv." Reid says, causing Sebastian to roll his eyes.
"Explores with tinted windows." Morgan says.
"Explorers rate higher with women."
"But how do we even know it's his car?" Sebastian asks.
"Ted Bundy drove a VW bug." Morgan says.
"What about a jeep cherokee?" Hotch asks.
"Jeeps are more masculine." Sebastian and Reid says at the same time, causing Sebastian to glance at Reid.
"Sorry." Reid says, but Sebastian ignores his apology.
"We all know how an unsub feels about asserting his masculinity." Gideon says.
"When did the bureau become involved in the case?" Hotch asks.
"After the fourth body. He dumped that one out of state."
"On purpose." Sebastian says.
"If so, knowledge of law enforcement does suggest a criminal record." Reid says.
"Or that he watches television." Sebastian says a bit sharply, causing Hotch to give him a warning look.
"May I?" Morgan asks Hotch, breaking up the tension in the air.
"So you wanna see our suspect list?" The agent in charge asks as he hands the file over to Morgan.
"No, we won't look at a suspect list until after we come up with a profile." Hotch says.
"It keeps our perspective unbiased." Sebastian adds.
"When do we sit down with your task force?" Gideon asks.
"Four o'clock." Another agent says.
"An accurate profile by four o'clock today?" Morgan asks.
"That's not a problem." Gideon says.
"Agent Gideon, where would you like to start?"
"At the site of the last murder." He tells them.