Conspiracy Skills
Chapter Two: Exploding The Crazy
A/N: Okay, this is the last chapter of back-and-forth between the girls and BAU. Hooray! I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds, the Richter scale, or Hello Kitty.
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Random park
Somewhere on the West Coast
Savannah was sitting on a bench at the edge of the lake, happily munching on a large pretzel and kicking her legs to-and-fro beneath her. She watched as ducks glided across the surface of the water, stop in a particular spot, and then flip themselves upside down with their feet kicking in the air. A wind blew through the air and it chilled Savannah through her denim jacket, giving her an ominous shiver down her spine. She looked up and saw dark clouds rolling over her and casting a shadow of dread as she thought about Asher 'setting up' in the beginning of what promised to be a terrible storm.
Savannah shoved the last bit of pretzel in her mouth, buttoned up her jacket, and started walking towards where she had left the insanity that was Asher. She passed the last few families left as they headed in the opposite direction towards their cars and the main road. Savannah decided to walk on the path instead of across the grass as rain started to fall, crossing her arms as the wind grew colder and stronger. After a few minutes she started to doubt whether the path she was on would take her to Asher until she heard maniacal laughter to her left.
"What are you doing?!" she screamed.
Asher had rolled up her sleeves and the cuffs of her pants, her long black hair up in a ponytail. She was red in the face and a few strands had worked themselves out of the hair tie because she was piercing the ground with large metal rods at least fifteen feet high and four feet apart from each other. Asher didn't seem to hear Savannah over the rain as she stabbed the twelfth rod into the ground and Savannah was not happy to see that the metal rods surrounded the wagon and where Asher was standing.
"Ash, what are you doing?!" Savannah screamed again.
This time Asher looked up and waved her arm in the air for Savannah to come closer before turning her back and pulling something heavy out of the wagon. Savannah hesitated, threw an apprehensive look up at the storm clouds and falling rain, and then walked out into the open towards Asher and the surrounding metal rods. She stopped just in front of the rods, not daring to tempt fate and step across the barrier they created.
"Can you hold these gas cans while I arrange the grass clippings?" Asher asked her as she stepped away from the lawn mower in front of her and held out two red plastic containers with yellow nozzles.
"What? No!" Savannah backed away from the containers. "This is crazy! You can't do this!"
"Why not?" Asher challenged as she bent down a grabbed a large black trash bag from the wagon and began spreading grass clippings around her little enclosure.
"Because it's insane!" Savannah yelled over the thunder that roared above them, followed a second later by a flash of lightning.
"So? I'm insane!" Asher laughed as she spun in a circle, a gas container in each hand. She stopped and looked at the fear and uncertainty in her friend's face. Asher sighed and dropped the gas in the wagon and picked up a rucksack that seemed to be fashioned from different colored raincoats. Asher threw the pack over her shoulder and rolled down her sleeves, pulled back the loose strands of wet hair that were now sticking to her face, and stood in front on Savannah.
"Why is this insane?" she asked, completely serious.
"Are you kidding me?! Setting up metal rods, grass clippings, a lawn mower, gas," she motioned to each item in turn, "in the middle of a thunderstorm?!" A second roar of thunder sounded directly above them and overlapped into the flash of lightning. "You'll blow us straight to Alaska!"
"Nah, it's too cold and boring there. I was thinking more along the lines of, say, Athens?" Asher raised an eyebrow and smiled at Savannah. Just as another wave of thunder crashed above them, Asher grabbed Savannah's arms and pulled her into the enclosure. Before Savannah could even process this, a spike of lightning hit one of the rods and spread to the others.
BOOOOOM!!!!!
For the second time that day an explosion occurred, this time shaking the ground so hard it registered on the Richter scale. The twelve rods flew in different directions along with pieces of the lawn mower and red wagon with such force one of the wagon's wheels launched halfway through the trunk of a tree. Flames shot thirty feet in the air despite the heavy rain on the site the lightning struck.
And through all this, Asher and Savannah were nowhere to be seen…
…Unless you looked about sixty degrees to your right, then they were directly in your line of sight. Laying there in the wet grass, clothes soaked through, charred black, and miraculously alive, were Asher and Savannah. They were a hundred or so yards from their starting point and could definitely feel the effects of the explosion. Asher was on her back and Savannah on her stomach as the rain continued to pour on them. Asher groaned as she slowly lifted herself onto her elbows, her back to the fire, and did a quick evaluation of her body to make sure no parts were missing. She blinked the water from her eyes and looked next to her at Savannah, who was lying face down and turned in the opposite direction, arms above her head.
"Hey, Savvy, are you still alive? I really don't feel like running from the Mormon army for your murder." Asher dragged her leg across the grass and kicked Savannah's leg, which was really more of a nudge.
"There is no such thing as a Mormon army." muttered Savannah's body. She dragged her arms down to her side and slowly lifted her own body to her knees. "That was a really smart idea you had, Ash."
"Oh, I don't know, I thought it was a really bright idea. Get it?"
Savannah just stared blankly at Asher as the rain fell around them.
"Too soon?"
"Just a bit. What should we do about the fire?" Savannah looked ahead of her at the blazing remains of the little red wagon.
"The what?" Asher rolled onto her stomach and watched the fire in silence. "Is that where the lightning hit us?"
"I'm pretty sure it is, Ash."
Asher shifted her weight to only elbow and pointed to the fire with her other arm. She let her arm fall and then lifted it to point at the fire again a few seconds later. Asher bit her lip and looked at Savannah, still pointing to the fire.
"Yep. That's where you blew us up." Savannah said.
"That," Asher whispered as she turned back to the fire, "that…this is just…THAT IS SO MUCH CRAP!!"
Asher jumped straight to her feet so fast that Savannah jumped in surprise. She looked up at Asher and saw that the expression on her face was fury.
"This is complete and utter crap! This totally worked the last time!" Asher screamed as she pointed to the fire.
"What?! Last time?! What do you mean 'last time'?!" Savannah yelled at her friend.
"There is no reason that this shouldn't have worked!! Absolutely no reason!! NONE!!" Asher paced back-and-forth on front of her friend while she screamed her angry rant. "No reason!! No…no…unless…." Asher stopped pacing and seemed to be thinking to herself.
Savannah, thinking that maybe Asher has calmed down, lowered her guard.
"YOU RACIST SON-OF-A-MAN-WHORE!!!"
Asher was pointing straight up towards the clouds this time and screaming at the top of her lungs.
"YOU DISGUSTING FILTH OF MY LEFT SHOE!!!" Asher was actually jumping up and down as she screamed and pointed at the sky. "YOU RAGING CORNDOG OF THE COUCH CUSHIONS!!! I'LL SUCK YOU UP IN A VACCUM AND SHOOT YOU UP A LAVA-BUNNY'S ASS, YOU TINY DANCER!!!"
A roll of thunder roared above them and Savannah actually looked at it as though it were giving a response.
"Oh, you want some of this?! YOU WANT SOME OF THIS?!!" Asher picked up a rock the size of her foot and threw it in the air with amazing strength. "THERE YOU GO, YOU SEVEN O'CLOCK MORNING SPECIAL!!!"
Savannah looked up to see what the storm's comeback would be when she saw something falling towards her. She screamed and rolled out of the way as the rock that Asher had thrown up came down exactly where Savannah's head been a moment ago.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE PLAYING AT?!! LEAVE THE MORMON OUT OF THIS, YOU SOULESS HELLO KITTY POPSICLE STAND!!!!"
Savannah stared wide-eyed as her friend hopped on one foot as she took off her right shoe and continued to scream obscenities that weren't really obscenities. Asher yanked her shoe off and stumbled to the ground only to bounce right back up as though nothing happened, and if it did, it was totally the storm's fault.
Asher threw her arm back to throw her shoe and screamed, "STRIKE THIS, YOU CRUNCHY COFFE DELIGHT!!!!"
And the storm did.
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FBI Headquarters
Quantico, Virginia
Relentless rain was pounding the sides of the building while the gale-force wind rattled the super-reinforced windows. Anyone that passed them couldn't help but allow the storm to direct their attention to it and look out and the roaring thunder that literally rattled the bones of anyone caught outside and the lightning flashes so bright that they temporarily blinded anyone who looked directly at them. All of the other agents had gone home when the storm promised to be a fierce one but the BAU were left alone. They had just flown in from catching a serial kidnapper with sadistic tendencies, sometimes even murder, when it became too dangerous to drive. Unable to go home, the team decided to wait it out at Headquarters.
"This storm really came on fast." J.J. said more for the want of small talk that anything else, as she handed a file to Morgan at his desk.
"Yeah, it's pretty bad, too." Morgan leaned back in his chair and smiled as he looked over at his friend. "Hope the power doesn't go out!"
"Shut up, Morgan."
Reid was holding his head in his hands and fingers through his hair as he stared down at a stack of papers spread around his desk. The fact that he kept glancing at his desk lamp every time the thunder roared had not escaped Morgan, who was taking every chance he could to tease the genius he saw as his little brother.
Morgan laughed at the response he got and J.J. smacked him with another folder she had; he wasn't the only one who saw Reid as their little brother.
On the upper landing Hotch walked out of his office carrying a thick folder and a rather harassed expression. His mother-in-law was staying with him and Haley and couldn't stop criticizing the father who was rarely there for his son and had just received a rather Hotch-bashing phone call from her about him not being at home to comfort his son during the storm and leaving Haley to do absolutely everything. It was then that Hotch told his mother-in-law that to try and come home during this storm would be suicide and that maybe she could help Haley around the house until he could make it home. His mother-in-law went pell-mell into a rant about her old age caused her to put all the things she once loved on a shelf and that it was not very considerate for him to rub it in her face.
Not wanting to cause even more stress for Haley, he refrained from telling his mother-in-law that sixty-five wasn't that old and it was all he could do to not tell her exactly where she could put that shelf.
Gideon was leaning on his arms against the rails as he looked down into the bull pen when Hotch stopped next to him and held out the folder he was holding. Gideon looked at it and saw a white sticky note on the front with the message: 'For Dr. Reid'. Gideon looked up at Hotch and saw that his partner was scowling more than usual.
"Haley's mother getting to you?" Gideon asked. Hotch gave a frustrated sigh and leaned his back against the rails.
"I'm an inadequate father who causes storms as an excuse to purposefully torment my son and not come home to help my ailing wife." Hotch said with a slight snarl as he glared out the window in front of him.
"You're not an inadequate father, Hotch. That fact that you even are a husband and father while heading the BAU is amazing. Your wife loves you when you're gone, and even more when you're there. You're fighting like hell to keep your marriage safe and that's more than anyone can ask, let alone do." Hotch's scowl slowly faded and he looked at Gideon as he continued. "You've said yourself that the marriage rate in the BAU is low. People don't like to share, especially their spouse, with kidnappers and rapists and sadistic killers. Haley understands your work and accepts it. And your kids love you, Hotch."
Hotch smiled to himself as he looked out the window again. The storm didn't seem that menacing anymore and soon he would be able to go home and play with his son as he exchanged looks with his wife behind his mother-in-law's back. He comforted himself in this thought but stopped when he went over Gideon's words.
"What do you mean 'kids', Jason?" Hotch turned back to Gideon and gave him a questioning look. "I only have Jack."
Gideon didn't say anything. Instead he pointed ahead of him into the bull pen. Hotch turned around and almost laughed as he saw and understood what Gideon had meant by his plural term.
Reid was still at his desk but had given up on the papers and was instead playing a card game on his computer. He looked at the lights more often with increasing worry as they flickered more and more. Garcia was sitting on the edge of his desk sipping a slush-drink and turned to grab his hand with a broad smile. Reid smiled back at her with a slight blush and went back to his game, not so worried about the lights. Garcia, seeing that Reid was okay, turned back to continue watching her new favorite show: Pelting Morgan with Office Supplies.
J.J. was hiding underneath the desk behind Morgan's and Prentiss was under the one next to it. They were taking it in turns to pop-up and throw magnets, paperclips, mini paper airplanes made from sticky notes, and crumpled up pieces of paper. Prentiss had come by while J.J. was attacking Morgan with a folder for ruthlessly teasing Reid about the dark and had started throwing a paperclip she had found on the ground. After Morgan had chased them away, the two women had regrouped behind their shield-desks and started the first assault of crumpled Styrofoam coffee-cups, and thus the game began.
Morgan had been putting up a decent fight until Garcia, recognizing the desks that J.J. and Prentiss were hiding behind, told them where the rubber bands and pens were.
Hotch smiled down at his 'children' as they made the best out of being trapped at worked. He looked down at the file he was holding and decided Reid had enough to think about, and it wouldn't be fair to add on to his work-load now that the atmosphere had lightened. He walked back down to his office and threw the folder on his desk from the door, thankful that it was kept together with paper clips to stop if from going all over his clean office floor.
When Hotch walked back to Gideon he saw that Morgan, now buried in at least two feet of office supplies, waving a blank sheet of paper above his head yelling 'truce'. J.J. and Prentiss jumped up from their desks and high-fived each other in victory while Garcia cheered; Reid smiled as he shut down his computer. Morgan stumbled his way out of the pile of supplies that surrounded him wand walked over to Reid.
"Hey, man, sorry for teasing you like that." Morgan said with a sincere look on his face.
"You're just sorry that you got your ass kicked by two girls and a handful of office trash." Reid said with a smile.
"Hey, does that look like a handful to you?" Morgan said as he pointed to the trash pile that was once his desk. "That is a mountain of crap right there, and I was outnumbered."
"Aww," Garcia said as she patted Morgan's shoulder, "sorry, hot stuff, but there's no salvaging your pride from this."
"There really isn't." Hotch said. The BAU members all looked up at him, only just realizing he was there. J.J. and Prentiss laughed quietly at the cornered Morgan and he lifted his hands in the air in surrender.
"All right, all right, all right." He said. He put his arms down and offered his fist to Reid. "We cool?"
Reid only stared at Morgan's fist in silence and then looked up at him with a look of incomprehension that clearly said 'what do you want me to do?'. The BAU laughed at Reid's clueless expression and Morgan ruffled his hair, giving it a wild look, and this time Reid joined in the laughter when he caught his reflection in the lamp.
"But in all seriousness," Morgan said as the laughter started to die down, "there's no chance of the power going out here of all places. Not because of a little storm." Morgan slapped Reid on the back and as soon as his hand made contact the thunder outside roared so load they could feel it and the light immediately died, sending everything into pitch darkness.
"I hate you, Morgan. I hate you bad."
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A/N: I'm sorry if this ran a little long. I cut it down as soon as I could. And more Criminal Minds goodness next chapter, promise! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if you did, please review! When I get those special review-alert e-mails it makes me giggle with happiness more than Garcia when Morgan rips his shirt off! Ah, happy images...
Next time...The girls break into FBI Headquarters, cell phones dance, and Morgan might be attacked by a ninja!