Reupload. I just want to note that I am indeed the original author of this fic and I have not plagiarized it, I merely deleted it due to the fact that I lost all of the documents by virtue of a virus on my computer and I changed my username from what it was when I initially published it. This is entirely rewritten from scratch.

Written November 2017.

Original Notes:

I have so many things to say that I don't know where to start. I guess I'll move ahead to the disclaimer (do people still input obligatory copyright ownership denials on fics anymore? is it still the year 2010?) that I don't own Criminal Minds whatsoever; Jeff Davis is the creator and CBS Corp. are the ones who signal the green light. Now that that's out of the way, let me just profess that finally getting the chance to upload this is a great deal for me because my busy schedule, constant writer's block, and obsessive-compulsive perfectionism deter me from garnering the motivation to write stories, much less publish them. Due to this (and of course, prior to the publishing of this story), I have not published a single fic in general since 2016, I haven't published a multi-chaptered fic (I'm a oneshot-typa-gal because they don't require commitment, but I'm determined to stick to it with this) since 2013, and I haven't published a Criminal Minds fic since 2012. Likewise, I've been watching the show sporadically and out-of-order since about that same time, and my memory is absolutely terrible at retaining information, it's a wonder how I'm able to function in everyday life. So, while I may recall the plot of an episode and who was in it, I may not remember small incidental details like certain quotes and stuff. If I get anything incorrect, please don't hesitate to call me out and I will fix it.

As for the fic itself, it's 100% AU and there are references to canon cases but this does not necessarily follow the canon timeline. It's set during the year of season one - 2005, but season two/three aspects are present, such as the mention of certain cases and the arrival/departures of certain characters. It's a Spencer/Catherine ship fic, though I must warn that it's not your typical, as I have an ambivalent way of writing romance/love - particularly if it's between a duo as dynamic as this one. The premise is a 'role reversal' showcasing Spencer as the villain and Cat as the antihero, a concept I was interested in since about September of 2017 and didn't start writing until November.

Cat here is a profiler, 'filling' Spencer's nonexistent spot and her personality is a mix of traits she's somewhat acquired from the BAU team members, while maintaining how she is in canon as effortfully as possible. I'm implementing some of Aubrey Plaza's real life personality traits and biography into her as well.

"Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there." — Eric Hoffer

November 2005

The story begins with the memoir of a young man, stood over his work space, performing traditional breathing customs. Inhale, exhale. Trying to ignore the brooding heaviness burrowing beneath his eyelids, and the migraine that was beginning to fester at the left side of his head – to no avail. He rubbed his eyes aggressively and kneaded his gloved fingers through his hair before filling the syringe with what he needed, watching the droplets on the tip of the needle effervesce before making his way toward his captive.

The woman, a midsize tanned brunette in her thirties, was thrashing about in her restraints – chains employed from the ceiling that assisted in keeping her confined to a ramp at the center of the room — pleading for help at every decibel she possibly could until her voice tired out and she physically couldn't feel it anymore. Her only peripheral options were to see his face, keep her eyes closed altogether, or the lamplight overhead her. She chose the tertiary of the three, because even if it did feel as if her vision was being penetrated by a thousand suns, it superseded watching herself be penetrated down there by him. Which she'd been anticipating, though a very small part of her was surprised that he hadn't done it already – perhaps, when she had been passed out – because the man had been relatively taciturn, up until now.

Now, that she'd registered the syringe digging into her hip. She watched the fluid being forced out of its canister and directly into her body, watched his glove-enclosed hand grip her femoral to steady her.

He got up.

"You're going to want to be awake for what I'm about to do to you," he said as he strode somewhere obscured, presumably to retrieve his instruments, the near-fraying edges of his white lab coat fluttering behind him. "…but don't count on it lasting long any time soon."

She trembled so badly at those words she was certain she was going to die of an epileptic seizure first, and his words brought little solace to her mind – if anything, the postpubescent vocal cracks of a developing twenty-something amplified the terror. Someone this young doing something this heinous.

Sounds of drawers being opened and cutlery being fumbled with were reverberant in the room, and a couple of minutes (that she treasured with every fiber of her being) later, he returned, brandishing a serrated blade. She immediately, frighteningly, became transfixed with it, eyeing it as though it were a beloved pet, awaiting its next move.

And when the 'pet' made its way onto her neck and began to claw, the squirms and screams she emitted were fierce. He nearly dropped the knife, clutching his head and covering his ears and gritting his teeth and shutting his eyes as tight as he could – he was sure he'd worsened his eyesight by at least three diopters just by doing that, and he was extremely fortunate he'd had this entire establishment soundproofed – though he wished, in the apex of this mire, that his ears had the same luxury. He began cutting her again, doing so in a manner that would make the piercing screams cease but not so deeply it would cause her to die instantly. He'd avoided nicking her carotid and vertebral arteries for a reason; he needed her to know why this was being done to her, he needed her to know just how much she deserved it.

"Why… are y-you… doing this to me?" she choked out, the pain overbearing and her own voice unrecognizable to her now. "Won't tell… anyone, if you… let me go… please."

"Is that what your daughter said?" he said in a tone level with hers, hatred arrant in his voice. "Tell me," he removed a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to clean the knife with precarious care, "…are those words the exact same ones your daughter used when he– no, you–" he made his way to an adjacent sink and let the hot water sear every inch of blood off the metal, "–hurt her?" He channeled all of his rage into two slowly reddening fists; yelling wasn't his favorite thing in the world.

"My daugh–" she croaked, the incision rendering her larynx almost unusable. She could feel the blood from her wound dripping down to her midriff, and she knew she didn't have much time left. "I'd never… hurt my daughter… I never have hurt her," She put an accusatory emphasis on that last sentence, one that did what remained of her vocal cords an injustice. The look she aimed at her captor morphed from one of fright to one of recalcitrance.

"Were that profession true, you wouldn't be here right now." He stood over the sink with his head bowed, letting his gelled hair shine in the lamplight, biting his lip beneath his surgical mask to keep from laughing violently at the ridiculous, almost mocking denial. But a chuckle or two managed to spill out in spite. "Also, you're already lying – exuding a false sense of bravery and arrogance in a last-ditch effort to defend yourself isn't necessary," he trekked to his drawer, "nor will it magically save you," he opened it again, "nor will it get you out of here faster." He made as much exaggerative, haphazard noise of the metalware as possible to put her in her place, even if it made him wince. In reality, he methodically scanned the drawer until he located his weapon of choice. Holding a Stanley knife between his fingers, he mused, "I'm going to make sure that you feel a million times worse than your daughter felt, and I'm going to ensure that you know it."

Her expression returned to one of horror as he sauntered toward her, standing atop her body. His eyes being shielded by goggles did nothing to sever her fear, she just didn't want to look into them – obscurities or not. Looking at him made the experience all the more real, and if she was going to die, her last moments alive were to be treasuries in the haven of her mind. She utilized the small amount of energy she had in her neck to turn away from his vengeful gaze; to retreat to her psyche where she was safe.

He trailed the knife down her chest, to her midriff, to her stomach – the tether between it and her tanned skin a mere centimeter – and stopped there. "I could see in your eyes that you were expecting me to rape you."

No answer to that constituted as an affirmative answer to him, the irony in that insight amusing. "Well, you were wrong. Incredibly wrong. Do you know why I haven't done – and won't be doing – that?"

She exerted everything in her willpower to ignore his words.

"Because, I'm not like you."

Maybe if she closed her eyes, she'd slip away faster.

"I'm nothing like you, or that scumbag boyfriend of yours."

It was only a matter of time now.

"…and I pride myself on this fact. I may be seen as an evil person by society for what I'm doing, and I may not have a lot of self-confidence otherwise, but I will forever be grateful that I'm not like you. Unlike you, I don't hurt innocent people–"

Just get this–

"–especially not innocent people I'm supposed to love, and nurture, and cherish until death. But you are not innocent, your death is arriving early, and your daughter will be done a huge favor by me ridding not just her, but the rest of the world – of her own personal scum."

–fucking over with.

The stab to her abdomen was more poised than usual; any traces of excitement or adrenaline in him whatsoever were drained and replaced with tepidity. He, in haste, attributed it to accustomization, even if below the surface, he knew that wasn't really true (obtaining this victim had been a convenient, not to mention impulsive, decision for him anyway). But whatever doctrine there was that laid beneath, he was disinterested in evaluating right now. He just needed to finish this so he could feel the torrid taste of black coffee on his lips before becoming one with his warm, soft bed. He tried not to let his tiredness assail him or compromise his MO.

With that, he sighed, rubbing his eyes with the margin of his collar, acquiescently starting away at something he's been deft at for years, the zeal to see the life drain from her eyes and feel the viscosity of her blood in his hands as she bled out, faint.

Once assured the rueful woman was gone, he retrieved a scalpel from his drawer, opened her mouth, and began administering his postmortem signature.

All he could think of during the entire process was how spent he was. How heavier his eyelids were becoming. How his eyesight was worsening and how his spectacles were doing zilch to assist, how intensifying his headaches were becoming. How his susceptibility to fall asleep standing, walking, or killing was burgeoning in potential by the minute and how it was likely going to get him caught (that was never going to happen in a million years, he'd rationalized, but had he not possessed the mind he had – it could have).

He wondered if any of it was really worth it anymore.

But as much as he wanted to – he couldn't stop. He wasn't anywhere near finished, even after how-many bodies (he could provide the exact count, right now), but at this point, he was straining and he was unsure of how to go on anymore. Too many lives were at risk, and too many repugnant beings like that woman were breathing freely, getting away with every atrocity under the sun – for him to take a break.

It had been his sworn commitment – abstaining from it for any reason would be an admission of failure, not just to himself because he met every expectation he was dispensed, from childhood to now – but to the people he placed himself in surrogacy of the police and judicial system (because God knows they were doing fuck all!), to protect. He didn't want to disappoint them. He didn't want to endanger them further.

And so he swore, as he trudged to the parking lot with three inconsolably heavy garbage bags and inserted each of them into the trunk of his four-door yellow Volvo Amazon and readied the vehicle for a journey through Virginia and D.C. at close to two in the morning – no matter how taxing it is, I will not stop until my goal is attained.

She was driving down D.C.'s busiest stretch of roads late at night, comforted only by the phosphorescence the inner brake lights provided inside the dark car, along with the translucent silence achieved by the radio being off but not by the propels of the heat being elicited from the dashboard vents.

She had to resist the urge to look at her reflection in the rearview mirror; hidden beneath the pallor she'd so successfully hidden with concealer, the tired eyelids she'd veiled with ebony eyeshadow and mascara, the lips she'd bitten to the point of bleeding and scarring masked beneath maroon lipstick, laid ponds of darkness. Pure, unrepentant darkness. It was radiant throughout her body, slow-burning all the way up to her eyes. Yet, she couldn't bring herself to feel bad about it at all, no matter how hard she tried. Given her line of work and the things she dealt with on a regular basis, that type of emotional response wasn't uncommon for people like her after years of being in the field, subjection to so much carnage. It was only uncommon – and alarming, others would consider it to be – if she'd started exhibiting it in the short amount of time she'd been there, and if she'd exhibited it long beforehand. Which she had. She'd just gotten adept at hiding it and putting up façades in its place, to her good fortune.

The one thing she adored about her job was that there was a moratorium in place and it was absolutely stringent that no one attempt to break it, lest a harsh reprimand befall them. She already regarded herself as a master of creating personas for no real reason she'd deduced other than out of sheer boredom and the curiosity about what it was like to live as someone besides herself every day. The unspoken rule that billowed throughout the workplace only further elevated that, filling her with a satisfaction that things as insufficient as drugs and alcohol stopped providing her a long time ago.

She had leverage to put on whatever front she wanted and no one would dare to question her, for risk of their breaking the rule. But, nobody questioned her anyway because she was just that well at playing the part, of course. The role of the girl who's enigmatic in her own right, quiet and withdrawn from others out of shyness and anxiety rather than misanthropy, easily vulnerable, arousing questions from everyone but to the effects of 'what is she so afraid to show', as opposed to 'what is she trying to hide'. A girl who lacked a high self-esteem but tried to retain a confident demeanor with her use of bold makeup and hairstyle looks, and her donning of dark clothing. All of this, of course, was a lie; nothing more than a mask for the grotesque feelings and thoughts that took residence beneath her real face. A lie she'd upheld for a time so long she could actually count on one hand the number of times she had where she wasn't out living it. A lie that, should she fail to uphold, should it ever come to light – her integrity would be shattered. But she needn't worry about that, they were nowhere near getting close to figuring out the real her.

She let the blank expression she'd been adorning the entire drive fall into a self-congratulatory grin, courtesy of her 'team' being clueless dolts that weren't able to see through her deception, in spite of them being self-professed "experts." And she thought, as her eyes took in the voided charcoal shroud of the sky overhead her, I could do anything I wanted to and none of you would ever know it.

But it was only after she smelt the crisp blend of petroleum and cigarette embers, the product of her passing several gas stations within the same block, that the darkness inside her truly began to coil beneath her eyes. The stench was so strong it penetrated deep inside the car, and it gave her a sense of familiarity that she swore she would have thrown up at if she hadn't learnt to keep her shit together a long time in advance. She didn't like referring to it as a 'trigger', but in the end, that was all it boiled down to. It brought unpleasant memories she'd sworn to bury back up to the surface.

Memories of him coming home at late hours of the night, drenched in the smell of sweat and cigarettes and petrol and alcohol and aftershave all at once. The inebriation reverberating in his voice when he angrily, drunkenly, screamed her name. Iron fists attacking her bedroom door, her scrambling to hide anywhere, anyplace; bruises contrasting starkly with her pallid skin when he'd found her, waking up the next morning with remnants of tears in her eyes, fluids on her body, and blood pooling at her nethers. Taking God-knows-how-many showers and arduously scrubbing her body to the point where it seeped red, aching to be clean, aching to live as anybody but herself. Her pleading for her mother to save her before remembering she had no mother to cry to.

But all of that's over. It ended five years ago. Now, you're an FBI agent, she spoke internally to herself as she blinked the irritation in her eyes away and tried to purge the scorching heat from her insides and her veins. You're an FBI agent with teammates who claim to be at the top but they can't see through the Novelty Wall you're putting up. They don't know the shit you've done, or the shit you're planning to do. Don't drag this out further than it has to be before you really fuck it up for yourself.

She sighed, taking that order in. The memories disappeared, but the rage still lingered. She physically felt her pupils dilate and her eyes felt as though they were going to burn everything in her path. The heat pooling, churning in her stomach certainly wasn't any help. She looked up, she sighed again. She'd been driving for close to an hour and her apartment was just another fifteen minutes away. She could go home, take a long hot shower, prepare a small snack afterwards, then sleep; anything to slowly purge the thoughts augmenting in her head.

Except for the fact she couldn't sleep, because she'd just end up having nightmares about it – about everything. Ever since that day, they were all that plagued her. And they were so intense, so lurid, so hyperreal in nature she swore she could physically feel everything that transpired in them. Every scratch, every bruise, every unwanted touch, every forceful thrust, every shred of agony.

There was a time she'd actually woken up to a lamp, formerly on the nightstand that adjoined her bed, shattered in pieces all over the floor, a result of her thrashing about in bed and pushing it over the edge. Another time was quite the contrary; she'd woken up immobilized, unable to move her limbs and each time she'd tried, the pain overbore her and she felt like her entire body had been pricked into by burning needles.

She was just so tired. Tired of the nightmares. Tired of how recurrent they were; tired of the heartburn and headaches that plagued her thereafter, tired of constantly seeing him and his pathetic fucking face and letting him delude himself into thinking he had complete control over her and her dreams.

He wasn't going to win. He will never fucking win, and he will know that damned well real soon.

With that she braked, stopping in front of the café where she'd always gotten her coffee and tea in the mornings. She subdued the pulsating rage for just a few minutes as she stepped out and went inside.

Her eyes scoured, taking in the atmosphere around her; obviously the familiarity was warm and sensual, but the moon's luminescence giving sort of an unspoken solace to the dimly-lit establishment, coupled with the cold air and overall emptiness of the place certainly made it a tad unsettling.

Sixteen hours really made such a difference.

She glanced at the counter only to find that there was no one behind it. She quirked an eyebrow up. Was the place closed? If so, why had they left the door open? Was a worker indeed there, and they were just lurking in the back room somewhere? She wondered. But impatience trumped suspicion and curiosity, and all that mattered to her was getting her nightly cup of coffee so she could go home. She had a maker at home, but it was tepid in comparison to the drinks here.

Impatiently, she paced about the shop, consoling the little details she would have otherwise paid no mind. The ocher color of the brick walls, the dark wooden flooring, the fragrance of recent breweries, the red lantern lights situated above every table to give it an accentual touch. The oaken bookshelf near the counter that comprised not of real books but of useless three-dollar coffee pamphlets that no one was going to bother actually taking the time out of their day to read. The very attractive man sat in a corner table near the door she didn't remember seeing when she walked in here.

Wait, what?

Whirling her head in acknowledgement (and surprise), she focused all of her attention towards him. He was drenched in a brown coat with a white collar peeking out from beneath, the garment just a few shades away from mirroring the color of his hair, which – aside from about a third of it being in his face – was slicked back, glistening fervently in the moonlight. An auburn satchel lay beneath the chair he was in. He was deeply engrossed in a book – apparently one of seven, she took note of the stack present on his table. She looked up to find he was adorned in thin-rimmed eyeglasses, and downward to see he had on some muddy black Converse. A young scholar who wanted everyone to know he was young, she inferred. Her intrigue certainly piqued with that.

An array of questions pervaded her mind — how did he get in here? When did he get in here, and how long had he been here? What did he do? What was so important for him to do that he had to read seven books in one sitting – at a rather quick speed, she notated as she watched his rapid flipping of pages. She hadn't even realized there had been movement until she blinked and she saw him looking up at her. His dark green eyes, his chiselled jawline, his lips quirked into a measly half-smile of notice. It felt, simultaneously, as if the exchange had lasted both two hours and two seconds as all of a sudden she found herself outside, power-walking back to her car before either of the two could even emit so much as a 'hello'.

When she stepped inside, she rested her arms on the steering wheel and dragged both of her hands through her hair. She never felt more humiliated in her life, and she could count on one finger the number of times she'd felt this degree of embarrassment. Or, more accurately – the degree to which she actually gave a fuck about it. She debated going back inside and talking to the mysterious man for a microsecond, apologizing to him even – but she opted out of it on the basis that damage had already been done and there was no point in making it worse. She wondered what that man had been thinking both prior to their silent correspondence and following it now.

Home was just up ahead of this, she thought to herself as the keys re-entered the ignition and she headed off toward her destination in a quagmire of defeat. She could skip one night of getting coffee after work; it won't kill her.

Though, she wouldn't have minded if anything else were to.

The impatience to get inside her apartment the second she'd entered the complex, breathing the familiar aroma of dewy plants and remnants of neighborly barbecues she never bothered to go to – it was all consuming. But nevertheless, she was finally home and she ached to do nothing but change into her night clothes and coop herself up in her fuzzy black comforter, severing the whip-thin cord between herself and the outside world. She didn't even feel all that tired in the sense that her body was going to give out from beneath her if she didn't sleep; the egregiously boring case she had to deal with at work today, followed by all of the extremely false reassurances to families she was forced to not only hear from her coworkers but also spit out herself, tasteless on a tongue so used to lying – left her moreso with a feeling of irritancy instead. The incident at the coffee shop just so happened to bolster that.

But she wasn't one to dwell much on embarrassments like that. She didn't dwell on her cases, either. Her mind and environment would dramatize it for a few minutes and discard it later. That was the routine, and her pride was on the line far too much for that to be compromised. Letting things get to her wasn't something she could afford.

So, she could've forgotten the brief stint that took place tonight with the rage that had preceded, and she could've forgotten the peculiar young lad and let everything be a cloud in the sky set to haze by tomorrow because in her mind, they weren't things that held up to significance.

But that hadn't been the case when she found herself, situated under her fuzzy blanket, adorned in a silken lavender négligée, unable to get to sleep after laying there in the silent and cold darkness for what she felt to be hours. As vomitous as the concept was to her, in the sense that it was extremely uncharacteristic – her only sate for it seemed to be her remembrances of the man, and her dire curiosity about what he was like. She found herself thinking about every intricate detail of him. His dark brown, almost reddish hair. His unnaturally pink lips that were just the right size and shape to do, say whatever they wanted. His eyes that flourished in the moonlight, a provision of simultaneous allure and innocence. Perhaps he was innocent; he was baby-faced and looked to be in his early twenties, although he was dressed as if he had taken a time machine and stepped right out of the seventies. Hand-me-downs? she wondered.

He'd had several books with him, that he'd skimmed through and finished faster than she blinked. Maybe he was a student or an aide at one of the universities nearby? Certainly too young to be a professor, even if he had the look. He seemed to be a very intelligent individual – probably was, in fact. And if there was any egocentricity in him, she had failed to pick up on it.

She hadn't remained with him long enough to conjure up a full profile (that had the potential to be malleable), but it was his mystique that kept him at the center of her mind. She'd never in her life seen a man like him before – the occasional geek or loner, yeah, but there was something about this man that deviated him from the rest of them – she just couldn't pinpoint what exactly. Well, not right now, at least. The triteness in the fact she did this for a living every single day had kicked in, successfully making her tired.

With that, she allowed her own curiosity and the unfinished profile to lull her to sleep.

And to her surprise (even in her dreams), she didn't have a single nightmare.