Don't own Criminal Minds
Dr. Spencer Reid was making his way down the brightly light halls of the BAU office with his head ducked down as he attempted to multi-task. He was digging for a file in his brown, worn messenger bag that was slung haphazardly around his thin frame while trying his hardest not to spill his steaming hot cup of coffee.
Unfortunately luck was not on the young doctor's side as a tall, well built agent chose that moment to step out of an office and directly into Reid's path.
"Jesus!" The hot coffee fumbled from Reid's hand as he fell backwards after slamming into the wall of muscle. His files went everywhere as he hit the ground hard, almost instinctively putting his hands up as a shield.
"You little geek!" The agent shouted as Reid attempted to stammer out an apology, half wondering if the agent had refrained himself from calling him a harsher word.
"I-I'm sorry!" Reid finally managed to blurt out as the agent grabbed him by the arm and pulled him roughly from the linoleum floor.
"Agent Tanner!" Hotch's voice was only a level above his normal speaking one but his tone was sharp and dangerous and cut through the situation as the Unit Chief walked over. "Remove your hands from Dr. Reid immediately."
Hotch moved himself closer to Reid, somewhat shielding the younger man from the bigger agent.
"I was just helping him up." Tanner responded smoothly, his eyes blazing at Hotch's stern gaze.
"…it was my fault Hotch," Reid interjected, not wanting any sort of ego clashing to start on his behalf, as he hurried to pick up his files and bag, hesitating to go near the empty coffee cup that still lay by Tanner's foot. "He really did help me up…"
Hotch's expression never changed, "There's a washroom down the hall, get cleaned up. We'll hold off on starting the briefing until you arrive."
Reid's eyes went wide for a moment but he hid it well by ducking his head towards a file once more as Tanner walked past them, muttering something as he did so.
Aaron Hotchner waited until he had moved a good distance down the hall before looking back at his team mate. "Are you alright?"
"Yes, yes. Thank you." Reid muttered breathlessly before his eyes darted around once more, "I'm sorry did you say he'll be at the briefing?"
Hotch nodded, his dark eyes settling on Reid as the younger agent moved around in an attempt to clean up the spill before anyone could slip on it. "Yes, Agent Tanner is from the Florida office. He's come up here to brief us on a string of killings that have been occurring."
Reid sighed and tossed trash into a nearby can, straightening himself out as he did so, "He could have just faxed them."
Hotch gave him a small smile as they headed up the hall to the briefing room where Morgan and Prentiss were already waiting.
"No coffee today, kid?" Morgan asked, looking up from his own cup as Reid and Hotchner entered the room. Reid grimaced and raced over to take his usual seat, pulling out the troublesome files from his bag once more, without answering Morgan. The other agent glanced at Hotch, who gave no explanation either but more of a 'we'll talk later' look.
"Sorry I'm late. I had a bit of an…accident in the hallway." Agent Tanner announced his entrance after a few minutes. His blue eyes flitted over Reid as the other agents glanced between the two men with curiosity.
"Agent Tanner," Hotch stood up, "These are agents Morgan and Prentiss. You met Dr. Reid outside."
Tanner smiled warmly at the others as he moved quickly to shake each of their hands, bypassing Dr. Reid smoothly. Morgan noticed a recently cleaned up coffee stain on what would have been a near perfect white shirt and easily put two and two together. He shook his head and pulled a file folder closer to himself as Agent Tanner began to explain the situation.
"The media has dubbed him 'Four Keys killer' but more than likely he prefers the name-"
"Jupiter." Reid muttered; mostly to himself but loud enough that Agent Tanner paused.
"I believe it to be Zeus, god of thunder…"
"No." Reid started again, this time driven by the fact that he knew something was wrong, "It's not Greek he's signing at the bottom of these letters, it's Roman. Jupiter."
Agent Tanner's smile became slightly plastered as he listened to the young doctor ramble on about the greater differences between the Roman and Greek names while the other BAU members glanced at each other in amusement.
"Yes…well. I suppose that's why we came to you. The best of the best." Tanner complimented Reid as the doctor finally came to a halt.
"As I was saying…we know that the unknown subject is a local from the area, he leaves these letters at each crime scene. Most of them simply talk about how great and powerful he is and so far he has seven bodies to back it up. Each of the bodies was found in various swamp areas, there's evidence that he beat them to death, cut off a trophy and left the remains for alligators."
"What sort of trophies?" Prentiss asked as Tanner pulled up a new image onto the screen.
"It varies. Fingers mostly, although he did take the left breast of the most recently victim. Trisha Keel, twenty-seven."
"But there was no evidence of sexual assault?" Morgan asked, raising an eyebrow as a picture of the crime scene was shown.
"None." Tanner replied, "Normally I would have had my men take care of this on their own but his last letter suggests that he's working with someone…"
Reid shuffled the papers until he found the letter that Tanner was talking about, "'My little Hermes tells me all that I need to know to escape with his vast knowledge of all of you'. That's odd, Hermes is the Greek variation of the messenger god but he uses the Roman one to identify himself…"
"They might just be code names." Morgan theorized as he leaned back, "It's not unheard of to have two unsubs working together, what makes this so special?"
Agent Tanner looked grim, "…He may be working with a FBI agent."
My first Criminal Minds fic be sure to let me know what you think!