A/N: Thank you for the response to the last chapter! Sorry it's been practically two whole months since I last updated - exams and dance nationals got in the way a little bit. (Still a tighter schedule than Hollow, though.) I am, however, feeling much better, apart from a broken foot or foot-crappy-injury-pain thing. Thank you for all the get-well wishes ; v ;
This is a very dialogue-heavy chapter, albeit a necessary one. This is also the last chapter where the rest of the team are featured prominently, and it also stops being a casefic and moves into…something else.
Quite a tame chapter in the way of warning for content, but please let me know if I've forgotten anything you might want me to warn for.
Enjoy!
o o o
retreat [noun]: an act of moving back or withdrawing
o o o
"Sir, I've gone through twenty of the victims so far." Garcia's voice rings clear throughout the quiet precinct, all attention turning immediately to her voice.
"And?" Hotch prompts, folding his arms.
"Seventeen of those twenty had things they might have wanted to hide." Garcia clears her throat. "The other three I'm still working on."
"What kind of things are you looking for?" Morgan asks.
"I looked for a criminal record first. Lily Dilger, died in 1993, had a record of solicitation and petty theft, and Lucas Rouse, died 2004, beat his wife. Rouse was beaten to death, while - and here's the icky part - Dilger was raped and then disemboweled."
"Like her organs were stolen," Prentiss notes.
Reid bites on the inside of his cheek and folds his arms. Or something more important was, he almost says.
"Are there any cases you've found where the cause of death doesn't match anything you've found?" Rossi frowns.
"No, sir. There's some strange ones, but they all seem to match too well, if anything." There's the faint sound of fingers tapping on keys before Garcia continues. "I'll send you all a list of all the victims I've compiled so far. Be careful, some of them are a little icky." Reid can almost hear the way Garcia's lips turn downward as she finishes her sentence, biting his own lip hard. The room seems too hot, but he doesn't dare take off the overly-large sweater he's wearing - he doesn't want the team to see his bare arms. He knows the fear is irrational, as the track marks in the crook of his elbow faded a long time ago. Physically, Reid doesn't scar. Mentally is another question.
"Thank you Garcia," Hotch says as Garcia's displays blips out off the monitor abruptly.
"So how's our unsub getting access to all this information?" Prentiss asks, tossing a file onto the desk, frustration evident in her features.
"There's a lot more jobs where you can get access to this kind of information than the public thinks there are," Rossi interrupts, eyebrows furrowed in thought. "
"You don't even have to have a job that gains you that access," Morgan points out. "I mean, anyone with Penelope's hacking skills and a good setup could find out your entire life history in a matter of minutes."
"If these murders have continued for twenty years we have to assume that our unsub is around forty years old," Hotch muses. "I know that these days anyone can learn how to hack, but a man over forty?"
"If it's just one guy." JJ points to the list of causes of deaths they've pinned up on their whiteboard. "Some of these murders would be complicated for just one person to plan and set up. Brian Millar's hit-and-run, for example. If he really was a specific target and not just a victim of opportunity, the unsub would have had to follow him, presumably from his home or other place Millar frequented."
The fax machine buzzes and Reid grabs the paper before anyone else can. "Amy Sewell, died in 2004, was found dead of starvation in her apartment. She'd been in treatment for an eating disorder from 2001 to 2003. How'd he kill her? Barricade her in her apartment and stop her from eating?"
"I don't see another way." Hotch frowns. "Any other oddities on the list?"
Reid twists his mouth, scanning the rest of the list in a matter of seconds. He raises his eyebrows as he catches something particularly interesting. "This is kind of odd."
"What is it?" JJ asks, arms folding over her chest.
"Klaus McCarthy, died in 1998. His twin died when they were seven - Klaus pushed him into a barbed wire fence. Years later, found murdered in a corn m-maze, strangled with razor wire." Nobody misses the stutter, and Reid feels himself flushing profusely. Biting his lip, he sets the list down on the table for Prentiss to pick up. She does so, scanning the list quickly and pretending not to see his blush.
"Was his twin's death an accident?" she wonders, eyebrows peaking. "The fact that McCarthy spend a good few years in institutions in his teenage years suggests that wasn't the case."
"Would it matter to this unsub?" Morgan asks. "Accidental or not, McCarthy still killed someone."
JJ clears her throat quietly. "It didn't matter to him when he killed Brian Millar," she reminds them, arms still crossed tightly. Reid rests an elbow against the table and taps his temple incessantly. The room has gotten inexplicably hotter in the past minute, sweat beginning to bead on Reid's forehead. He's about to ask if anyone else has noticed it, but Rossi interrupts him.
"So what's with the signature?" he muses, thick eyebrows furrowed. "That pose he puts the bodies in doesn't seem to be anything special."
"Could it just be a weird fetish?" Prentiss suggests, but Hotch shakes his head.
"Nothing but the position of the hands is consistent. Brian Millar was found face down, Lily Dilger didn't. Unless he doesn't care about the bodies, only the hands."
"Why would it be a fetish anyway?" Morgan points out. "If he's killing them because of what he perceives as their wrongdoings, them he wouldn't need a sexual component."
"Then why such a specific position?" JJ bites her lip and turns to Reid. "What about a religious component? Maybe a burial tradition, or some kind of other ceremony for the dead?"
Reid blinks. "Uh, I don't know. Can't think of anything. Sorry."
The rest of the team is silent for a few seconds before Hotch speaks up. "Reid, you look pale. Do you feel okay?"
"I'm fine," Reid assures them lamely, fully aware of their skepticism. "I'm just hot." To prove his point, he pulls his sweater vest over his head and dumps it on the table. The team seem satisfied for the moment, the conversation carrying on. He still feels hot, even hotter than before. And dizzy, he realises, blinking harshly as a sudden wave of dizziness makes him waverat the table. He covers it quickly, steadying himself with his elbow. The team starts theorizing again, and Reid hears Morgan saying something about past experience before everything around him suddenly fades into the distance, blurring and distorting. Everything sounds as if he's underwater; he can vaguely hear - is that Hotch? - talking, words he can't quite distinguish. His vision seems to swim as the dizziness returns, the faces of his coworkers beginning to bleed into one another. Someone is shouting now - loudly, Reid thinks with mild irritation - and he looks slowly towards the conference room door, watching with confusion and fear as a familiar face walks through.
tobias hankel is there, blood seeping from a ragged bullet hole in the very centre of his chest, eyes wild and accusing. he marches straight up to reid and grabs the younger man by the collar, his other hand wrapping tightly around reid's neck. reid's eyes widen as his oxygen supply is cut off, his own hands batting weakly against hankel's.
[i don't want to die i don't want to die]
and suddenly he's back in the dark, dank shed, seizing on the floor as tobias leans over him, sneering as he waits for him to die.
o o o
The first thing Reid feels as he begins to wake up is a hand gripping his shoulder.
He lets out a strangled scream that's cut off by his dry throat, breath catching. As his vision returns to normal, he sees a very concerned Hotch looming over him. Though his mouth is moving, Reid can only hear his voice like his ears are full of cotton wool, until his hearing suddenly returns to shocking clarity.
"-Reid!" Hotch says firmly, the hand on Reid's shoulder never wavering. "Reid, can you hear me?"
"…Hotch?" Reid slurs, blinking hazily as Hotch immediately focuses on him. "W-what are you doing?"
"You passed out, Reid. We carried you in here," Hotch explains, right as Reid realises they're no longer in the conference room. Instead, Hotch has brought him to a small side-office that connects on to the conference room. Reid can see the rest of his team milling aimlessly around outside through the small window in the door.
"Why not just leave me in there with the whole team?" Reid asks. It comes out more bitter than he means it to, yet if Hotch noticed, he doesn't say anything.
"I thought it might be too much." Hotch raises an eyebrow. "That being said, I really think we should have a talk."
Reid bites his lip and nods hesitantly, bracing himself as Hotch lifts a hand to help him off the carpet of the office. "Is there anyway out of this?" he asks his boss hopelessly.
Hotch grimaces dryly. "I'm afraid not. Would you like to sit down?" he asks, gesturing to the couch near a desk at the side of the room. Reid obliges, the whole setup feeling uncomfortably like a therapist's appointment.
"I'm sorry," Reid blurts out before Hotch can interrupt. He still feels on edge from his - dream? Hallucination? - of Tobias, can still feel the faint touch of Tobias' hand on his shoulder.
Hotch raises his eyebrows for what must be the third time in a minute. "For what?"
"…This?" Reid frowns. "Passing out on a case, making everyone stop working for me, potentially endangering the lives of others-"
Hotch holds up a hand before Reid can continue. "Spencer, your wellbeing is more important to me than this case. It always has been. You have nothing to be sorry for."
"I don't care. It was irresponsible to not be aware of my own health." Reid glances shiftily from the door to Hotch, back to the door, fully aware that he's vulnerable to anyone who decides to walk through it.
Hotch sighs, tapping his temple with his finger. "If you want to think of it that way then that's fine, but be aware I don't see it that way."
Reid nods and bites his lip, eyes cast downwards. "Can I request something?"
Hotch blinks. "Of course," he says guardedly.
"I want to be taken off this case." Reid maintains eye contact with his boss, fingers tapping his thighs rapidly under the des where Hotch can't see them.
Hotch frowns concernedly, concealing the little jolt of surprise that had been his first instinct upon hearing Reid's news. "Do you think that's the best solution?"
Reid is silent for a moment before he continues, looking over his shoulder nervously. "You know why I want it, don't you?" He pauses, picking at his nails. "Neither of us has to say it out loud that this is about Tobias. I'm a textbook case of PTSD."
Hotch steeples his hands in front of him. "You're not a textbook case of anything."
"Is that a compliment or an insult?"
"Neither." Hotch twists his mouth as he pauses to think. "Truth be told, I think it's a good idea. I noticed you've been a bit…on edge lately, too. But why do you think PTSD?"
Reid shrugs bitterly. "Oh, I don't know. It could be the flashbacks, the nightmares, the hallucinations, the hyper-vigilance. Anyone of those would do."
"Why didn't you tell us about the flashbacks?"
"Never occurred to me," Reid admits, and he's telling the truth. He always just figured that the team wouldn't want to hear about it, or be too busy with all their own personal crap that they simply couldn't handle Reid's as well. He'd almost gotten over Tobias anyway,
"Well, did you talk to anyone?"
"I almost went to a therapist. Then we got a case and I had to reschedule, and…well, I just never got back around to rescheduling."
"I think you should give it another try," Hotch says, holding up a hand again to cut off Reid's inevitable protests. "Yes, I know you can run rings around any therapist you come across, but please, try and let them help. It'll work out better for you in the long-run, trust me."
"You sound like you have experience." It's a completely dickish move and they both know it, but Hotch smiles thinly and answers anyway.
"Marriage counselor before Haley and I divorced. She was a great help. At first, at least."
Reid quirks an eyebrow. "It doesn't always work out for some people."
"Don't try and turn this conversation around to be about me," Hotch smiles, and Reid smiles with him. He's forgotten that Hotch can actually have a sense of humor, and that it's often one of the only things that can cheer up their office environment, should he care to use it.
"I'll think about it," Reid says, standing to leave. "Can you wrangle the jet into picking me up, or will I have to fly with the peasants in working class?"
"I can probably get you the jet," Hotch replies, already reaching for his cellphone in his bag. "You need rest, you deserve it. You can rest in your hotel room, and I'll text you when it arrives."
Reid nods. "Thanks, Hotch. I really appreciate this."
"It's no problem, Reid. Don't be afraid to ask for time off in the future either. I won't pressure you into going to a therapist, but I sincerely hope you do," Hotch nods.
"I think I might," Reid says, though he's only really saying it to please Hotch. In reality, the idea of going to a therapist, letting a total stranger know all his darkest secrets, makes his skin crawl, reminds him too much of their unsub. Reminds him too much of the Dilaudid sitting in his hotel room drawers.
"One more thing," Hotch calls out as Reid begins to leave.
"Yeah?"
"You don't think you'll relapse?" Hotch's face is stoic, and Reid can tell it's killing him to see Reid go without any support at home. For a moment he almost thinks about telling Hotch about the Dilaudid he'd found in his hotel room, but dismisses the idea as soon as it enters his mind.
That never happened, he thinks. As soon as I get the chance I'll dispose of it, and I'll never have to bring it up. Somebody just made an honest, unfortunate mistake. That's all that happened.
"Reid?" Hotch prompts him, frowning.
He swallows quickly before replying, grabbing his messenger bag that someone's kindly hung on the door handle for him. "No," he manages to croak out, voice hoarse. "No, I won't. But I think I'll catch another movie, just in case."
o o o
The jet is mercifully quiet after the ruckus he'd created when he passed out. There's no team to fawn over him, no case to be analyzed and deconstructed, just Reid and the novel he'd picked out from a second-hand bookstore before the case had begun. That piece and quiet is handily interrupted when his cellphone rings from deep within his messenger bag. Cursing, he begins to try and dig it out from the very bottom of the bag, breathing a sigh of relief when his fingertips finally brush the cool plastic. He takes one look at the caller I.D and his sigh of relief turns into a sigh of disappointment.
He takes the call and presses the phone to his ear. "Yeah, Morgan?"
"Pretty Boy!" crows the older agent, and Reid can't help but cringe at his use of the nickname. "I was just wondering if-"
"I'm fine," Reid snaps, rolling his eyes. "Did Hotch not explain the situation to you?"
Morgan is silent for a few moments. "I was actually calling to ask if you had anything to add to the profile, but now that you've said that, I'm glad your okay."
Reid bites his lip. "Oh. Thanks." He does a double-take. "Wait, you're giving the profile?"
"Yeah. You got anything else?"
"Isn't it a little early for the profile?" Reid asks
"Hotch doesn't seem to think so. You got anything?"
"Uh…I do have some notes from before." Reid scrunches up his face as he digs through his messenger bag again to retrieve his notes. "Uhhh…'unsub has intimate knowledge of victim's past and habits, varied race of victims allows no reliable conclusions from racial profiling, male over forty, evil Garcia?' That's all I had."
"Evil Garcia?"
"With the hacking, and the information, and the other things," Reid dismisses, seeing the pilot wave at him as she boards the plane. "Listen, the jet's gonna take off, I have to switch off my mobile. I'll email the team when I get home and you can email me back if you need anything. My phone will probably be turned off."
"Sure. And Reid, seriously, feel better. We're all here for you. You can talk to me, or anyone else on the team, if you feel you need it."
Reid's lips thin. "Thanks. I'll talk to you later."
"Congratulations, you're officially on a month of leave, Pretty Boy. See you-"
"Wait, a month!? That wasn't what Hotch and I agreed on!" Reid exclaims in horror. An entire month? He'd been thinking a week at most.
"Apparently that's what he thought you meant, because he's already told Garcia to put it into the system." Reid can almost hear Morgan's shrug on the other end of the line. "Sorry, man. I don't make the rules."
"Can't you get Hotch to change it?" Reid pleads. "A month with no work is going to be the most tedious thing I'll ever live through."
"He's in a meeting right now, but I can ask him about it when he gets out," Morgan replies. "Check your email, I'll see what I can do."
Reid huffs. "Thanks," he says. "Hope you catch the unsub. Don't die."
"Likewise, kid," Morgan grins, before Reid hears the click of the older agent hanging up.
o o o
The unsub we're looking for is presumably male, aged between forty and fifty years old. He is classified as a vigilante killer, undertaking law enforcement without legal authority. Because of this, he does not have a specific physical requirement of a victim; he does not fantasize about these victims. Instead, he views it as a service to the world, a necessity.
They sit there in their living room, TV muted so that they can hear the music box playing in the corner. They've had that music box for thirty years, and the damn thing still looks like it was bought yesterday. They'd give the ugly ornament away to some relatives, if they had any.
The pose, however, is a definite signature that he leaves at every crime he commits. There could be multiple reasons for this signature - a religious component could be fueling this unsub's desire to punish those he feels deserves it. It could also be something he witnessed from childhood or adolescence, such as a dead body in real life or on a TV show or movie, that had enough of an impact on him to influence him to leave this signature.
They light up a new cigarette, eyes leaving the music box and falling upon the photos gathered at his feet. The photos show a young man, about twenty-six or twenty-seven, with messy brown hair and tired bags under his eyes. Skinny, but not in a malnourished way. They smirk to themselves as they remembered what they'd found after they'd searched for his name in their database. Kidnapped. Cardiac arrest. Drugs. Ended up killing his captor, he did.
It doesn't matter to them. Murder is murder.
This unsub has intimate knowledge of his victim's personal, private lives. He targets his victims based on the secrets from their past, the ones they'd rather hide. For this, he must have a job or the proficient knowledge of computer hacking to be able to locate the records necessary to find this information. Locating these records would also be a crime. Look for a male aged forty to fifty with a history in computer sciences or with a job that would allow him to snoop on these records with limited supervision. He could be finding his victims from his job, but so far, we have found no connections between all of the victims.
They inhale the last of the cigarette and leave the embers to burn on the carpet, taking out a new match and preparing to whisper the name of his newest victim.
This killer his largely invisible to his victims. For some victims, intimate knowledge of their daily routine is required to murder them. All of his kills require planning, usually extensive. He probably stalks most of his victims without their knowledge. He targets victims who, to him, have committed grave indiscretions. Crimes.
They poise the match against the rough side of the matchbox.
He may even see them as sins.
"…Spencer Reid."
They light the match, and the photos begin to burn.
o o o
Be sure to leave a review if you enjoyed, all of them are adored and now I finally have some time to finally respond to them! ; v ;
Thank you for reading! :D