Chapter Two: Sorry, I Couldn't Hear You Through My Screaming

"S-sorry, I was grabbing a snack out of the fridge," Reid rushed through the door to the conference room, worried the team would be upset at his being late.

"It's fine," Hotch quickly replied, "go ahead, JJ."

"Okay," JJ pressed a button on the remote in her hand, flashing pictures onto the screen next to her. Three different bodies appeared, all males with simple finishing cuts to the throat. They were all naked as well, except for a loose tie around their sliced, blood-soaked necks.

"Mark Griffin, twenty-five, Freddie Thompson, twenty-three, and Chris Barker, twenty-six, were all found in ditches outside of Richmond. It's only been a week since the first body was discovered, so Richmond's requesting our help as soon as possible before it becomes a body a day." JJ explained.

She continued talking about the case at hand while Reid stared off, not looking in any particular direction. Her words were flowing through his ears; he was taking in the information even though he wasn't really paying attention.

Dammit, what am I doing? Reid thought to himself, wanting to shake his head but kept his composure. I need to focus. Focus…

"…Male model-type victims."

Reid snapped up at those four words.

"That's the connection so far? Young, handsome men who work regular office jobs?" Prentiss repeated. "Explains the ties…"

"And they were all sexually assaulted," JJ mentioned.

Reid glanced down at his own red tie.

"Well, let's get a move on," Hotch ordered. "We'll discuss the rest of the details on the way."

Within about two hours, the team had reached Richmond. They arrived at the scene of the latest victim, Chris Barker, where they met up with the policeman in charge of the case.

"Hey, the FBI is already here," a tall officer with rough black hair and a bushy mustache walked over to Hotch and held out his hand. "Hello, I'm chief of the Richmond police, Donovan Wolffe."

"Hello, Chief Wolffe," Hotch shook the chief's hand. "I'm agent Aaron Hotchner, and these are agents Prentiss, Jareau, Rossi, Morgan, and Dr. Reid."

Reid lowered his head, feeling the chief gaze upon him questioningly at the word doctor and was happy when Hotch spoke up before he could ask about it.

"Where's the body?"

"Oh, yes, over here," Chief Wolffe directed the team down the hill to the forensics team surrounding the body of Chris Barker.

"Who found the body?" Rossi asked.

"Actually our police force did. Mr. Barker's sister reported him missing last night after he didn't show up to her house for a scheduled dinner. We began searching west outside of Richmond where the other two bodies had been found, but we called it off when nothing showed up. We started searching again today and stumbled across him further south here," the chief explained. "Barker's sister is on her way to identify the body."

"Cut in the throat…Naked except for a tie around the bloody neck…" Prentiss muttered off the details of the victims. "Sexually assaulted…"

Reid took a moment to stare at Barker's face; he was twenty-six, but he looked like a teenager. Very young face, smooth features, silky dark brown hair…definitely the model type.

Like Reid.

"Reid!"

"Huh?" Reid snapped out of it to face Hotch, whose eyebrows were lowered in what looked like irritation.

"I need you to go with Rossi and JJ to the station."

"S-sure," Reid nodded quickly, stuttering with worry at the look Hotch was giving him. He ran toward Rossi and JJ before Hotch could say anything else.

Reid knew that if Hotch had to yell him name to get his attention he must have been really out of it.

He needed to keep it together.

Reid fidgeted absentmindedly with his tie while glancing over the map of Richmond pinned to the board in front of him. Pictures of the victims we pinned next to the map. He pursed his lips, then let go of his tie to grab a dry-erase maker on the table.

"Here," he popped open the cap and made a circle on a specific area on the map, "here, and…here." He made two more circles in different areas.

"Hey," Rossi walked into the unusually cramped room. "You'd figure with a big police station, a tiny room like this shouldn't exist. Or that they'd throw us in it."

"Yeah…" Reid said absentmindedly. Absentmindedly must be his word to go by today. "All the victims were abducted from the parking lots of their jobs, but they were all the last ones to leave, so…"

"It would be late and there would be no witnesses," Rossi finished the sentence.

"The unsub abducts the victims, takes them somewhere to rape them and slice their throats…" Reid paused for a moment. "Before the unsub dumps the bodies on the outskirts of town he strips them, leaving only their work ties…"

"Do we know it's the victims' ties?"

"Co-workers of the first two victims were asked if they recognized the ties. They said they couldn't mistake it; the ties the victims wore were always the brunt of jokes around the office. There was no denying it was their ties…"

"Hmm…" Rossi nodded. "Are there any other connections to the victims or where they were dumped?"

"Well, all of the victims were single men working regular nine-to-five office jobs earning regular wages and live in one-story houses in quiet neighborhoods. Physically, this unsub seems drawn to their model-like features, which might trigger his sexual desires. As for where their bodies are dumped…" Reid tapped the map with the marker, specifically pointing to the circles he'd drawn locating the dump sites, "it seems a little random right now, other than the fact that they're all located right outside of the city."

"All right, keep looking into it. I'm going to go talk to JJ," Rossi headed out the door, leaving Reid alone in the compact room.

"Damn, it's stuffy in here," Reid began fanning himself with his hands but quickly realized the effort was futile. He looked down and decided he was overdressed for the suffocating temperature, having been wearing a typical dress shirt and sweater vest. He slowly began unbuttoning the vest…

"Reid."

"Geezus!" Reid flailed his arms, wanting to rebutton his sweater vest but knowing it was too late. He tried to recover by spinning around to face him—Reid knew it was him—but tripped over the chair the he didn't realize was so close to him and fell over, face slamming into the ironically cold marble floor.

"…Mhm…" Reid groaned in pain and refused to move until arms had grabbed his shoulders and gently forced him up. Forced, because Hotch wouldn't allow Reid's face to return to the comfort of the seemingly coldest thing in the room.

Well, second coldest, losing only to the tone of Hotch's voice.

"Reid, what in the hell is going on with you?"

Reid saw his vision clouding due to his eyes tearing up from the pain in his nose. He felt something dripping out of his nostrils, which he assumed was blood. Dripping…the liquid reached his mouth. Metallic tasting…yep, that's blood.

"S-sorry…" was all Reid could manage to say.

"Your behavior is…off. Your actions are screaming that something's going on with you. At some times you seem to be off in another world, not even realizing when people are speaking to you; other times you're unnecessarily alert to everything, obnoxiously panicking at the simplest of sounds."

The floor was now placing third in being the coldest, now behind Hotch's tone and the newest contender placing first, Hotch's stare, which was boring Reid's corneas threatening to possibly blind him.

"S-sorry… This room is…cramped…" Reid blinked, causing the tears forming in his eyes to flow down his cheeks uncontrollably.

Hotch stared at Reid's damaged—and pathetic-looking—face before sighing. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small plastic package of tissues.

"Here," Hotch's voice returned neutral. "Wipe your face, it's a mess."

Reid sniffled and shuffled his movements to raise himself into a sitting position. "T-thank you…" he couldn't help but smile as he took the pack of tissues from Hotch.

"Reid."

Reid paused opening the pack to give Hotch his full attention. He suddenly noticed how close he actually was to Hotch—quick calculated measurements from nose-to-nose estimated to be about five point six inches—and he blushed, causing more blood to pour out of his nose.

"B-bes?"

"Dammit, Reid, blow your nose."

Reid fumbled opening the pack and did as he was told.

"If this behavior keeps up, I may end up having to pull you from the case," Hotch explained. "You have got to stay focused."

Reid nodded after finally blowing through half the pack of tissues to clean his face. "I understand."

"Good," Hotch said, refusing to change his stern expression. "We have a pretty good idea on a profile for this unsub. We're about to deliver it to the police."

"We have a profile already?" Reid questioned, sounding surprised.

"We're pretty confident we can get this guy quickly. We're going to have to hurry; the unsub only abducts victims during the after-hour shifts in the work week, which ends tomorrow on Friday."

"Sure…"

"Come on. We'll hit the map again after we give our profile," Hotch held out a hand to help Reid up, who was still sitting awkwardly on the ground.

"Um…" Reid felt it would be rude to reject the helpful gesture so he took Hotch's hand, which seemed to easily lift his light body off the floor.

Hotch let go of Reid's hand and gave him a quick glance before striding out of the room.

Reid stared at his hand and curled his fingers, not wanting the feeling of warmth remaining from Hotch's hand to leave.

"You have got to stay focused." Hotch's previous comment rang in Reid's head.

"Quite ironic…that the person telling me to stay focused is the very person distracting me…" Reid whispered to himself.