The Criminal Minds Halloween Special
SSA David Rossi walked into the BAU one beautiful October morning, not suspecting any ill –except for the usual serial killers of course. His blissful ignorance lasted until he pulled open the door to his office –only to almost jump out of his skin when a huge hairy spider was flung from the door frame and right into his face.
Rossi screamed and ripped his arms up, ready to fight for his life –until he heard laughter erupting from behind him. Blinking, he glanced around the see half of the team almost doubling over with laughter, then back at the monstrous spider which at closer inspection turned out to be made of plastic.
"What the hell is going on?" he snapped, secretly very embarrassed by the way he'd reacted. He prayed his scream hadn't sounded too girlish. "Happy Halloween, Rossi," Emily grinned at him, holding her stomach as she leaned heavily on Morgan's desk.
"Happy what? Are you serious?"
"Didn't you look at your calendar this morning?" JJ beamed at him, "It's Halloween!"
Rossi frowned deeply. At a closer inspection, neither of his colleagues seemed to have gotten any work done as of yet today. Emily looked like shed been sitting on Morgan's desk chatting away for a while, and JJ and Garcia were exchanging what looked like baking recipes near the break room. Reid's desk had everything on it starting with decorations and what looked like arts of costumes, and ending with little hills of candy –well, it had everything expect Reid who was nowhere to be seen. Not even pretending to be working…Rossi scoffed.
"Come on, Rossi," Morgan laughed at his expression, "be a sport. Reid got me last year, and this year he got you."
"Reid did this?" Rossi asked incredulously, refusing to let the spider attack go just yet, "Where is he? I want to see him in my office."
"Too late," Emily shrugged, still not bothering to get off of Morgan's desk, "Hotch already got to him after he followed him into the restroom dressed as Michael Myers."
The comment caused a new wave of laughter to erupt from the group and now even Rossi couldn't help but smile at the mental image he was given.
"Did he scream too at least?" he asked hopefully.
Emily shook her head, faking a pout, "No, but he almost shot Reid on impulse. And then he almost shot him again when he realized it was him."
Rossi shook his head in bemused disbelief, deciding that Reid was probably already being punished enough. He walked down into the bullpen to take a closer look at the chaos that had been created there.
"What's going on here anyway? The place looks like an exploded costume rental."
"You don't know yet?" Morgan grinned, "Reid and Garcia are planning a Halloween party for the department tonight. Everyone's coming so you'd better start thinking up a good costume."
Rossi just stared at him, secretly horrified when everybody else fell in, immediately resuming talk of their respective ideas, letting case files be case files once again. No one else seemed as appalled by the idea of playing dress up like twelve year olds and possibly losing every ounce of hard earned respect from their colleagues in one night. In fact, by what he was hearing, it seemed they couldn't wait.
Eventually he walked away with an exasperated sigh.
Children, the whole lot of them.
Xxx
8 hours later.
Rossi regretted his decision to attend after all the second he entered the bullpen. He was barely over the threshold when a very underdressed secretary who was probably supposed to be a vampire and one of their lawyers he'd very much respected until that moment but who was now painted green and sporting purple boxers trailed past him towards the bathrooms. From inside the music was blasting and there were fake spider webs and pumpkins everywhere: people were standing around chatting and generally looking ridiculous. There was a werewolf, another vampire, zombie cheerleader, Hannibal Lector, yet another vampire, the grim reaper… he actually had to look twice at the last one, stunned by the ignorance of its wearer.
"Madre mia…" Rossi did his best to keep his eyes straight ahead as he made his way through the crowd, trying to reach his office. It might be too late to turn back around, but he could still hide out in there…
"Rossi! Over here!" He groaned inaudibly when someone called his name, but turned around anyway, putting on a brave face.
A pretty blonde noble woman in a bordeaux colored dress and with curly hair extensions waved at him cheerfully. He barely recognized the clichéd parody of every little girls dream job as his coworker. He slowly walked towards her, so slowly in fact that another whirlwind of blonde and red beat him to his destination.
Garcia's nurse outfit looked like it was several sizes too small, with way too much fabric missing at the top and bottom. He bit his lip to keep from commenting on it, afraid that she might say that she'd gotten it for Morgan. He didn't think he could take that image in his head before he'd hit the bar.
Garcia didn't give him much time to say anything anyway, far too busy marveling at her friend's dress. "Oh you look so beautiful, JJ! Where did you buy that?"
The two women kept talking clothes for a while and just when he thought it was safe to zone out, both of their attention as suddenly on him.
"What? No costume, Agent Rossi?" Garcia asked, voice full of indignation, "Oh, come on!"
"Hey," he lifted his hands in defense, "I'm a Sicilian mobster, alright?"
All he received for his trouble was an incredulous scoff from both women. Fine, he shrugged, next time he'd just say outright that not even dead would they get him into a stupid costume.
"Hey guys, where's everybody else?" he recognized Prentiss's voice and turned around carelessly, only to immediately wish he could stab his eyes out to unsee what he'd seen that second.
Prentiss was clearly on the wrong side of 'scary costume gone slutty'. She was dressed in the tightest black leather suit he'd ever seen, along with bright red lipstick and a little black head band with cat ears on it.
And just like that another professional working relationship out the window…how the hell could people keep complaining about him violating fraternization rules when they kept pulling shit like this?
"Not yet," JJ smiled, leaving Rossi be to admire Emily's lack of a top from close up.
They talked for another five minutes or so in which Rossi eventually began praying that Hotch would turn up soon so they could be outsiders together.
Instead of Hotch though, Morgan was the next one to turn up. He was sporting a costume that looked like some sort of soldier's uniform with black boots and pants, olive colored muscle shirt and dark ribbons around his head and wrists. He waved at them, plastic assault rifle in his hand.
Emily raised an eyebrow as she looked him over skeptically, ignoring Gracia's wolf whistle. "Really pushing the envelope there are we, Morgan?" she teased him about his lack of originality.
Morgan merely pulled up one corner of his mouth and scoffed, "Gonna give me a lecture on propriety, Miss Slutty-cat-ears-are-not-actually-a-costume?"
Emily huffed at him, crossing her arms over her breasts, "I am so wearing a costume! I am Cat Woman. Hellooo?" As if to prove her point, she reached back to hold up her tail.
Morgan didn't miss a beat, "Where's your whip then?
"God, Hotch, where are you?" Rossi whispered desperately as their bickering continued.
"Praying he'll be as boring as you, aren't you?" JJ teased from beside him. Before he could do so much as glare at her, Garcia interrupted them both pointing towards the entry.
"Well, my friend, then you had better start finding yourself a better god."
They all turned, unable to help staring as an 18th century pirate walked into the office, looking conspiciously like their unit chief. Aaron Hotchner walked towards them, beet red under a wide black hat with colorful feathers. He fidgeted at his wide white shirt, adjusting his plastic sable as he glared at them. "Not a word. The first one to laugh gets a double shift on Friday."
Morgan was the first one to regain control of his mouth, "No one's laughing, man. Wow, who got to you put that on?"
Hotch made a pained face, "Jack obviously. He almost threw a fit when his daddy attempted to leave for a costume party without a costume."
Everybody laughed at that and Emily scurried off to get them as drinks. When she returned she raised her glass, "Here's to Jack."
"Hear, hear," Garcia and Morgan immediately fell in, both laughing so hard they almost spilled their drinks.
Hotch met Rossi's exasperated look with a similar one. He knew they were both thinking the same. If they were going to be this silly all evening they might not survive…
"Where's Reid?" Hotch asked in an attempt to calm his people down. It worked only partially.
"Over there, that's him isn't it?" Morgan pointed toward the buffet, "The Michael Myers costume holding a shrimp?"
Garcia shook her head, "Oh no, that's Justin from accounting. Reid lent him his costume. He's over there with Kevin."
They all followed her eyes, to see Kevin in what looked like an indefinable bamboo necklace and skirt waving at them, grabbing the arm of the costume next to him.
At first Rossi wasn't sure what Reid was supposed to be, he looked like a homeless person who was coming down with some sort of hemorrhagic fever. As they came towards them though, he realized that the unhealthy facial color was actually painted on, as were the dark creases all over his face.
"Hey guys", Reid waved at them cheerfully, a monstrous rubber hand protruding from his ragged shirt sleeve, "I'm a zombie. Cool, huh?"
"Way cool, pretty boy," Morgan grinned as he threw and arm around his younger colleague's shoulders, "Just don't go eating any brains or ill have to terminate you."
"Actually," Reid raised a finger, "the idea of zombies instinctively being out to kill and eat their victim's brains is due to recent pop culture. Fact is though t zombies are merely dead bodies raised from the grave without a free will; if they do eat brains it will only be because they have been instructed to do so by their zombie master, the witch who summoned them…"
"Never mind, kid," cut him off, rolling his eyes. He glanced over at Kevin who had sauntered over to Garcia. "And what are you supposed to be?"
"Obviously, I'm a witch doctor," Kevin replied, puffing out his chest, "precisely, I'm the witch doctor who created Zombie-Reid so you'd better be nice to me."
"What's that in your bag?", JJ asked Kevin curiously, "Witchy stuff?"
"As a matter of fact, milady, yes. I went to this really cool store called the Magic Box to buy my costume and the owner cut me a deal on original spelled crystals and all kinds of other cool stuff." He started going through his bag, producing a large white crystal and showing it to them, "There, she said it could amplify the mystical energies around us, especially on a night where the veil between the worlds is so thin and all kinds of stuff is floating around."
"Oh right, I think I've seen one of those before," Emily exclaimed and Kevin looked at her hopefully for a second, before she added, "In a catalogue for interior design."
Everybody laughed except for Kevin who glared at her, "Oh yeah, well if you're so sure, why don't we try it out? I just so happen to have bought a spell with the crystal that I am going to do now to prove my magic s real."
"Oh, great a magic trick," Reid smiled, inching closer curiously, while Emily just raised an eyebrow.
"What kind of a spell?" Morgan asked incredulously.
Kevin blinked, his confident mask crumbling a little, "Uh - a Halloween spell. Now shut up, I need to focus."
He took out a crumpled piece of paper which might have been very old or simply dunked in tea and ironed for a while. With a very serious expression he started to read out the words on the paper, holding up the crystal. Everybody watched in silence until he was done, be it out of fascination like Reid or boredom like Rossi.
Then Kevin was done mumbling words no one could understand –but nothing happened.
"Well?" Emily asked pointedly, the corners of her mouth twitching in amusement.
Kevin stared hard at the crystal, like he was willing it not to fail him for another minute. Finally, Garcia and JJ started giggling, breaking his focus.
"Damnit, I've been scammed!" he finally cursed angrily, tearing his costume of his neck and waist, kicking it into a corner.
"See, I told you there is no such thing as ma-" Emily started to say, only to suddenly break off in the middle of her sentence. Rossi looked up in confusion when she said nothing more, only to feel his breath catch when he followed her gaze. Around him everybody fell silent as well as they stared around the room in shock.
Everybody was still there, and yet they were not the same. They were no longer wearing costumes. They had turned into whatever they were wearing.
Happy Halloween! Please review if you'd like a continuation.
Any ideas what going to happen? Anything you'd like to see? This will be a little humorous but also a little scary.