A/n hey everyone. This is a one shot that is all in good fun, and meant to poke fun at ourselves in the fan fiction world. Thanks to Editor Frog for giving me the idea in the first place, and thanks to my beta for her support and help.
Disclaimer: Like I always say, would I be writing fan fiction if I owned them people!
Death by Fan Fiction!
It was a typical day at the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. One team was trying to look busy with paper work. Their caseload had dropped off in the last few days, and they had a well deserved break. Morgan was complaining about being bored. Reid and Emily were playing chess at his desk. JJ was in her office trying to find something new for them to do. Rossi was shut up in his office going over old evidence in his decades old search for an elusive killer that had killed the parents of three small children. Hotch was doing paperwork and brooding over the upcoming weekend. Garcia was deep into the world of role playing on her laptop.
JJ entered the bullpen a couple of hours later with a grim look on her face that made Emily, Reid and Morgan all sigh in unison. Fun time was over and it was back to work for the team. They followed JJ into the conference room. Hotch and Rossi, followed by Garcia, joined them and they took their usual places around the table.
"There have been some unusual deaths all over the United States and the world. Most of the cases are women between the ages of thirteen to sixty. There are also some men that have died as well."
"Sorry to interrupt you JJ, but isn't that a wide age range. If it's happening all over the world, are we talking about a contagion?" Morgan asked.
"No… as far as the CDC and the World Health Organization has been able to determine, there's no contagion involved."
"Then what happened?" Rossi wanted to know.
JJ pressed her remote and pictures began to flash past. "There are far too many victims to be specific, but we have several victims that were found on the floor in front of their computers apparent victims of blunt force trauma. There have been others that were victims of apparent choking accidents with water or food, also in front of their computers. Some of them appear to have been frightened to death, or drowned in their own tears -"
"Wait a minute JJ… That's not possible." Reid declared, going pink when the others looked at him. "Well… It's not possible to drown in a pool of your own tears. The human body doesn't produce enough tears for a person to cry, to form a pool that would be deep enough -"
"Ok… We get it, not possible, but I'm only repeating what the Coroner's reports have said." JJ interrupted irritably.
The doors opened and six agents entered with boxes they began to stack around the room, making ten trips each, and nearly filling the room so that there was only room to sit at the table and a narrow passage to the door of the conference room. The team could only watch in horrified fascination at the parade.
"We can't go through all of this. It would take weeks." Morgan exclaimed and then went silent at a look from Hotch.
"The governments of five countries including the US, Canada, France and the UK want us to profile the victims and find out what or who is responsible for this. We have to know if it's some kind of terrorist attack or something else." Hotch told the team.
They all began to grumble. Reid left to make a lot of coffee, almost knocking a stack of boxes over onto JJ as he as leaving. Morgan laughed and JJ glared at Reid. He was cute, she thought, but clumsy enough to drive them all crazy with his "accidents," and falls.
Hours after all the files had come in, and they had been sorted through by the profilers, Emily got out of her chair claiming her eyes were about to bleed and fall out of her head.
"Emily is right… we need a break Hotch. We're not getting anywhere with the profiles. The victimology doesn't make any sense." Morgan said.
"Fine… let's take a dinner break." Hotch relented.
Morgan took their orders, and called in dinner from a great Italian place down the street. Emily and Reid were playing chess again while they waited for their food, and Morgan was in Garcia's office "distracting" her.
When they had finished their dinner, they went back to work. Things continued in this way for several weeks without result. They quit each day, only to sleep, and then it was back at it the next day. The strain was getting to all of them since more of these suspicious deaths were happening, and there was nothing they could do to warn the public about it.
Morgan was just on the point of throwing his cup of coffee through his computer screen when Garcia called them into her office.
"Finally… maybe my baby girl found the connection." Morgan said hopefully as they made their way to her office.
It was a tight fit, but they managed to crowd in. "Ok baby girl… what did you find that's so all fired important."
"I've been working on all of the cases trying to find something that these people have in common."
"We've all been doing that sweetheart." Morgan reminded her.
"Yes… but even though you're gorgeous, gorgeous, you're not the goddess of all knowledge like me."
"Just tell us," JJ said stamping her feet in frustration."
"Alright Miss impatient much," Garcia's finger began their rapid dance over the keyboard. "I was able to trace back IP addresses on most of the victims we know about and they all visited the same website. It's something call Fan Fiction."
"What's that," Rossi asked, looking confused.
"Well… it's a website devoted to fans of all genres, movies, books, TV shows, cartoons, and comic books. Anyone that likes to write can write a story about their favorite characters or ensembles. We're on here too."
"Really…" Reid squeaked."
The others gathered in closer to the computer screen with eager looks, except Hotch who looked extremely doubtful. "Yeah… It's under a category called Criminal Minds."
"That's original," JJ quipped and Morgan laughed.
"Yeah… we all have stories devoted to us except for Rossi," Garcia said looking up at the older agent with a look that said, "Sorry."
"Why not me," Rossi said, looking a little put out.
"Ah… well the general consensus seems to be that they don't know you that well yet, and a lot of them don't like you." Garcia said, trying to be diplomatic.
Morgan snorted laughter but Rossi just looked very nonplussed. "What about me, baby girl." Morgan wanted to know.
Garcia went really pink in the cheeks. "Yeah… ah most people that write about you hot stuff, have us paired up."
"Oh… well I say they've got good taste baby girl." Morgan shot back.
"Ok… so you're Mr. Popularity. What about me?" JJ wanted to know.
"There aren't a lot of stories with just you, mostly you have been paired with Reid or Morgan, but now some people like you with Emily too."
Emily choked on the coffee she was drinking and JJ went white. "I'm not sure which is worse, Reid or Emily. No offense…" She said quickly when they both glared at her.
"Actually… Reid has been paired with everyone on the team except Rossi," Garcia added helpfully.
Reid went so red, that Morgan thought the top of the young agents head might explode. "That's… That's… um… everyone, even Emily!" He squeaked. "I don't understand… I mean I understand I just don't… oh boy…"
How do the "fans" know about Emily and me? We never told anyone! Oh God… what if everyone knows, we only just got together a couple of months ago…
He glanced at Emily out of the corner of his eye, but she was avoiding his eyes. "Can I see that," Reid pushed up to the screen.
"Alright… so we have a connection. How does a website kill someone?" Hotch pulled everyone back to the dilemma at hand.
"I don't know, but some of the victims choked to death, maybe while reading something funny. There are some really funny stories on this website. They could have been snacking and reading -"
"Who eats in front of their computer?" Reid said.
The other's stared him down and he flushed red again. "I just mean that eating at the computer is pretty messy, and you could ruin the keyboard and -" He stopped when they all continued to glare at him. "Right…" He said softly.
"What about blunt force trauma."
"ROTFL," Garcia said.
"Excuse me," Rossi said.
"Rolling on the floor laughing, its internet short hand. It's not meant to be taken literally in a review of a story, but maybe some of them were rolling on the floor and then hit their heads on something and it killed them. You can review a story and some of the funnier ones have that shorthand phrase in their reviews. " Garcia supplied.
"That's ridiculous," Hotch interjected.
"It may be ridiculous, but it's all we got."
"Okay… so you're saying that a story made someone so sad that they cried and drowned in their own tears." Hotch wanted to know, pinning the tech goddess with his intense eyes.
"I guess so… it's the only explanation."
"Fine… I'll tell the director that we have to send out a warning to the whole world against taking Fan Fiction stories too seriously."
"I guess I have to get to work on a press conference." JJ added, leaving the office before Hotch could say anything. "I can't believe it," She said as she left, "Death by Fan Fiction!"
The rest of the team dispersed to their desks, and Hotch went back to his office to call the Director and let him know what their findings were. He wasn't sure about this answer as there was no un-sub to identify and capture, but after nearly three weeks of working on this, he had to conclude that the most ridiculous answer was the right one. That meant the public had to be alerted.
The team went home three hours after JJ's press conference which was the strangest one she'd ever conducted. Reid met up with Emily in the elevator after everyone else had left.
The doors closed and she turned to look at him. "Well that was close… I thought that was it for a minute."
"Yeah… me too," Reid blushed.
"Maybe we should tell everyone," Emily suggested.
"Naw… lets just let them think it's all make believe in the world of Fan fiction." Reid said before kissing her soundly.