Chapter Fourteen: JJ – Safe and sound

Thanks to my beta, Greeneyedconstellations!

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It's surprisingly easy to adjust to knowing Spencer's mind.

At least it is for all of five minutes, when her brain kicks back into gear and the heat and confusion fades and she's allowed, for five precious minutes, to realize that this is… well, it's exactly what Spence calls it.

It's alive.

The forest sings and now she has the ears to hear it. The nose to scent the life in the earth and the air around her. The widespread paws that carry her across the snow and the slush and pick up the minutest vibrations through the ground from animals moving nearby with hardly a care for the two carousing wolves.

And Spence. He's himself in a way he wasn't when he was inside her and even as she adjusts to the world, the memory of their coupling is fading into a distant recollection. She tries to cling to it because it wasn't something she'd ever wanted, it was nothing she'd have taken from him if they'd had a choice, but it happened. It was real and it happened and she doesn't want to forget it.

And then the five minutes are over and the woman appears, a wolf that sneers and pushes at her through the tenuous link and brings JJ onto her belly on the cold-wet forest floor.

"Mine," she sneers, and JJ feels her fierce regard switch to Spencer and he just… dwindles. Like the sun suddenly obscured by a cloud, he's gone and it leaves her cold.

The light leaves his eyes and turns them empty, and he supplicates himself to the new wolf and whines happily, tail waving.

"What are you doing to him?" JJ asks in horror.

The wolf-woman turns and looks at her, confused. This close she stinks of Reid, and not in a good way. She smells of his fear and his sweat and it's coated in her fur and makes JJ sick to her stomach. "Why are you so loud?' the woman snaps, and pushes more.

JJ feels her mind buckle under that pressure. Obey me. The other wolves stare at them. JJ can't feel them, not a whisper.

JJ can't fight it.

Not alone.

She submits.

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Even without being consciously aware of her actions, she follows him closely. She watches it.

She knows, on some level, that she'll always know him. Even in this unfamiliar form, his tawny fur mixing smoothly into the white of his chest and belly, she knows she'll always be able to know him. There's a flash of her mind clearing when she raises her head from where she's lapping at an icy meltwater stream, and he's standing next to him with his too-large ears pricked forward intently. She almost laughs when he lifts a paw from the mud curiously, and she notes that it's singularly coloured white against his other three tan.

Even as a wolf, he's still wearing odd socks. That delights her, just as much as it saddens her.

When she wakes up again, the fog lifting, she's running with his tawny flanks visible a wolf's length in front of her and there's a small, frightened half-grown pup by her side.

"Hello," she sends warily, feeling him jolt.

"You're… you!" the kid sends back, and his voice is so painfully young she wants to lead him away to safety right then and there. "Even more than he is. How are you so free?"

"I don't know," JJ replies honestly, because now he's pointed it out she can feel how goddamn alone they are despite being surrounded by other wolves. They're two minds in a sea of emptiness, and it's so wrong it makes her queasy. "Can we leave? Can we run?"

The pup looks to her, and then his gaze turns back to Reid. "Only if you leave him," he says finally, tail tucking against his leg and rounded ears uncertain. "She's holding him too tightly. He'll never leave her. And I won't go. My brother is here… sometimes, I think he can hear me. I have to keep trying."

Suddenly, they're surrounded by wolves that tower over them. JJ doesn't cower. She stares each of the strangers down. The kid trembles under her.

The woman appears, Reid at her side. He doesn't look twice at them. "I don't trust you," the woman says, and there's cruelty and a sick sense of forcefulness in her voice. "So you're going to stay here like a good like bitch, while we go get your friend."

JJ doesn't argue. If it comes to a brawl, she doesn't know how to work this unfamiliar new body. Not consciously. She'll lose.

And if she loses, she'll never see Will or Henry again.

Thinking of Will makes her heart ache and the boy whine unhappily, so she stops, just for now. The woman and Reid vanish. The night deepens.

When they return, Morgan limps behind them as a wolf with a coat that gleams a chestnut so dark it's almost black, and she almost screams in horror at the wavering weakness of his mind.

"Not you too," she howls, and the noise is unfamiliar from her muzzle. The boy joins in, the sound mournful. They howl alone. "Derek, please. We need you. We need to find the others. I can't do this alone!"

Morgan shakes himself and looks at her and the darkness in his eyes clears.

"JJ?" he whispers, and she throws herself at him almost.

Not alone.

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"What the hell is wrong with him?" Morgan asks miserably as they try and try and fail to reach Reid. "It's like he can't even hear us."

"None of them can, not really," the boy tells them, itching at his neck with a hind leg. The wolves stir, their blood up. JJ can hear the whisper of a hunt, a hunt, travelling through them, but very little else of sense. "They're on a different wavelength from us, sorta. She stops them from hearing anything but what she wants them too. She turned them all, you know. Except… me. And you guys."

JJ looks at Morgan. He's angry and frightened and curious all at once. "Do you think that's it?" he muses, padding in a quick circle with his shoulders hunched. "Maybe she fucked up. Maybe because Reid turned us…"

"She forced him," JJ says quickly, defending him.

"Yeah. Yeah she did. And I think that was her mistake." Morgan bares his teeth in an almost human grin, savage in its inhumanity. "We can stop her. Before she goes after Emily, or Hotch or… Rossi. Where's Rossi? He was with you."

JJ can't remember. She can't. Her last memory is leaving the hospital. She cranes her head to try and spot Reid's light tan amongst the bevy of grey and brown milling about. There's about, from her count, sixteen wolves not counting her team or the boy. Or the woman. "I don't know, but he's smart and tough. He'll have gotten away from them; I know he would have. How do we help Reid?" she asks.

Morgan shrugs. "I don't know yet. But we will."

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He didn't get away from them. He didn't get away at all.

He slips from the tree and his leg buckles under him. JJ throws herself down so his weight lands on her instead of the icy ground, feeling the air forced from his chest at the impact. His breath rasps. One look at the oddness to his leg and she knows it's broken.

"Hey, JJ," he murmurs, sitting up and reaching a shaking hand towards her, the nails a deep blue against the white of his fingers. His other hand is gloved. He must have lost it on the way down the tree. "This is an interesting complication to our case, I must say."

He's stammering around chattering teeth and one look at his face tells her everything that happens next.

"He's in a bad way," Morgan says, and he's pacing around and inching closer to their older colleague's back, pressing against him and ignoring the way Rossi jumps and flinches away from him, eyes locked on his jaws. "Christ, he's fucking frozen. We gotta get him to a medic ASAP."

The woman told them to bite him and JJ knows she can fight that command. She has no hold over them, not while they have each other.

But Reid circles them and his muzzle is pulled back in a snarl, and she knows he's beyond fighting.

She also knows the cold will kill Dave faster than the wolves will.

She inches onto her colleague, her friend's lap, slowly. Tentatively. It feels ridiculous, like she's some kind of lapdog, but he relaxes ever so slightly as her warmth covers him, the shivering receding slightly. Not enough. The ground under him still chills him more than they can warm him.

He's leaning back with Morgan at his back and there's a sleepiness to his eyes that he won't wake up from if he gives in to it.

"Not gonna lie, this is probably the top third weirdest thing that's ever happened to me," he slurs, and his eyes flicker almost shut. There's pain in his voice and his scent, and her heart feels like it's being crushed in her chest.

She looks at Morgan, almost as though seeking permission.

A hand strokes her back, her spine, fingers carding clumsily through her fur, and it's oddly… soothing.

He can't die here. None of them are dying here. Morgan nods.

She turns her head and nudges that hand, whines gently. She feels his heart rate kick up, fear rushing through him and turning his scent tart. He offers her his hand anyway, ignoring the trembling.

That's not what she wants. If she bites his hand, he won't be able to fire a gun.

His wrist is cool to the touch when she takes it in her mouth and breaks the skin with her teeth, as carefully as possibly. When he pulls it back, there's a delicate beading of blood along the line where her fangs rested.

She wonders if it's enough. She can't bring herself to hurt him more.

"At least he won't be cold anymore," Morgan says glumly. "Man, Hotch is not going to be happy with any of this."

He closes his eyes and together, with Reid pacing behind them, they wait.

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She wakes slowly and becomes aware of a softer, gentler version of the burning heat that had gripped her beginning to pool in her brain and her groin, leaving a warm persuasiveness to both that she almost melts into.

Her eyes are still closed, shifting gently to encourage that warmth, and she feels it purring back at her from another part of her mind.

"JJ," Morgan croons from somewhere, and there's a dazed kind of desire to his mental voice that has her humming in satisfaction in the back of her throat. "JJ, Jesus, I can feel that. I can feel you."

Rossi moves slightly under her, a harsh huff leaving his mouth that has her opening her eyes in worry to examine him judiciously.

He's staring at her, his pupils blown wide and face flushed, and it's then she becomes aware of the hard length pressing against her belly and the sharp bleach-salt smell of come.

"I changed my mind," he almost squeaks, which is remarkable because she's never seen the man look quite this unnerved. "This is alarming. I do not like this. You're all wolfy and I… fuck." He slides his hand down to cup it between his crotch and her, pushing her gently off his legs with his other hand. She goes, reluctantly.

"Probably lose the fur, Jayge," Morgan says suddenly, and there's an odd moment where she thinks, am I really going to fuck my boss in front of my colleague? "You know. There are many things I can handle. He can probably handle more. You being a wolf is almost certainly not one of those things – and if it is, I don't want to know about it."

"I think the bite affects us both," she says, and her eyes are locked on his hand, what lies underneath, and she whines and inches forward again, nostrils flaring. "I'm affected, too. Just not as… not as…"

She trails off as Rossi closes his eyes and moves his hand, rocking up into it. For a second, his hand moves, and there's a visible shape pressing against the material that she wants to feel, to know, and a dark patch around it that's delicious smelling.

"Human, JJ. Turn human. You're freaking him out." Morgan keeps talking but JJ inches forward, belly to the ground, nose reaching. Rossi's hand almost beckons. She wonders if she'll be able to taste traces of his come on his hand, the one that presses almost painfully down as he seeks any kind of release from the hunger her teeth have given him.

She reaches and her tongue flickers out. His fingers are salty and he shudders at her touch. A second touch, this time with her nose, and he moves his hand, uncertain, hovering over her muzzle like he's not sure if he wants to pat her or push her. She drops her muzzle, noses at that stiffness, and Rossi chokes back a noise that sets the fur on the back of her neck on end.

When she laps at that patch, it tastes as sharp and as clean as she'd expected. He'd come while she was dozing, frozen underneath her as her bite changed him and aroused him until he'd pushed himself over the edge at the mere thought of what they could do.

She rubs it again, and this time he does push her away, leaning back hard against Morgan. She grips his wrist gently, biting down again, slightly harder this time, and his face slackens with shock and desire, his heart rate hammering.

She shifts and she's human and his blood is copper and fire against her lips.

"Dave," she calls him, because his eyes are closed like he's not sure, and he's gone quiet. The man who never lets anyone else have the last word, and he's resolutely silent right now.

It should be ridiculous, this situation, because she's in her shirt and ruined underwear, her pants somewhere in the goddamn woods, and she's on her boss' lap with his cock up against her and a wolf against his back averting his gaze politely even as his own pupils blow wide with their shared arousal.

She nips at her own wrist, feeling the skin pinch and slice under teeth that lengthen at a thought. Pressing their wrists together, she feels the kick-pull that she'd felt with Spencer, as though she's being pulled into his body, becoming a part of him, longing for that joining.

As it kicks in, she lowers herself with her legs kneeling flat on either side of Dave's thighs and presses her crotch to his, hissing as the ice-cold bite of her now-completely goddam sodden underwear push up clammily against her skin.

Her mouth finds his throat, feeling the thrum of his pulse under her lips and she nuzzles, licks, kisses along his collarbone, feeling every attention she pays to him through the twitching of his cock. His face is scratchy, not at all like Spence's, only a little like Will's, and he tastes of bitter cologne that burns her mouth slightly. When she moves up, finding his slack mouth and slipping her tongue along his lower lip, biting down gently onto it and feeling his breath shudder, she leaves the taste of that cologne on his lips.

Two hands grip her hips, guiding her in a slow rocking motion against him, and when she looks at him, his focus is on her and solely on her.

She whines and presses hard down onto him, aware of his need and his desire and vividly aware of an aching emptiness between her legs that only he can fill, and an equally empty space in her mind where he'll join them. Packpackpack, she chants, and feels a faint agreement from Morgan, and an even fainter one from Reid.

He slows her, mouth twitching. "Woah there," he says, and one of his hands reaches up to cup her chin and pull her mouth to his. "Woah there. Come here. Not like that. We're not doing this like that. That's it… come on, Jennifer."

He's coaxing despite the heat that makes his eyes and skin burn, and she obeys that coaxing. They kiss, slowly, slowly, learning each other's movements and bodies, hands exploring. All the time their hips shifting slowly against each other, a gentle rocking that serves to keep her dancing on the edge of too much.

They kiss slowly until his breath hitches, just once, and he twitches up towards her, his iron-clad control slipping for a moment, and she sees the wolf she's sharing with him begin to stir in his eyes. They kiss slowly until that moment, and in that moment the kiss turns wet and hungry and gasping, and his hips stutter into her once, twice. She's never had a hair-trigger before, but now she can feel her muscles fluttering, feel how her need has soaked through her own underwear, leaving his crotch just as wet and sticky, feeling the flush of heat to her chest and face as she dances on the edge.

Rossi pulls back and examines her carefully, his expression somehow both sharp and wrecked. He slips his hand up her shirt and presses it to her heart, cupping her breast, and his palm is warm and firm. "Jennifer," he whispers like the name is holy to him. "I can feel that…" His hand travels down her belly again, skin twitching against his touch, and he trails his fingers along the elastic of her underwear. "You about to come… I can feel that."

He arches to move the hand teasing at her crotch, and his eyes are locked on her face. His other hand grabs one of hers, clinging tightly with their fingers threaded together.

She can't think to answer him. He slips those agile, gentle fingers inside her underwear and all he does is lay them along her, within her, and he says just as calmly, "Now. Come now, so I can feel you," and she does with a soft cry. His hips buck once and seeing his mouth slip open in hungry delight as he murmurs, "Beautiful, fuck. You're beautiful," and it's everything like Reid was, except completely different.

"You are," Morgan agrees from far away, and when she looks at him his eyes are still closed and he's lost in her climax and she wonders if it will always be like this.

"Your turn," JJ says softly to Dave, and it's the work of a second for the two of them to fumble his fly down, pull him free, struggle for a second with him lifting his ass high enough to get his pants down. JJ growls with displeasure at the time it's taking, watching the silky-smooth skin of his cock and the promise of pre-cum on the tip, and then she takes things into her own hands while he's not paying attention and simply sinks herself down on top of it until their hips are grinding together and she's never been fuller.

"Jesus-fuck!" Rossi gasps and jerks upright. The pain is good as he slams up into her but she yelps anyway, and his apologies are jumbled and breathless. Then he does it again, and this time it's on purpose and the pain is delicious and his cursing this time isn't verbal. Fuckfuckfuck, he's thinking and she can feel his mind unravelling as his focus shatters and reforms entirely on her tightening around him.

He sits upright, wrapping his arms around her so tightly all she can do is ineffectively twitch her hips against him, but it's comforting to be held this closely, this securely, like he can't bear to be without her. My turn, he thinks and out loud he says, "Jennifer," but she silences his words with her mouth on his and they're still kissing when he shudders and begins to pulse inside her, his moan turning into a harsh gasp as the change kicks in and his eyes turn wolf like.

JJ tumbles with his mind and pulls him close, not letting his veer towards the emptiness of the other wolves, and she feels the mental presence of Morgan there alongside them. A team still.

A brush against her consciousness, a familiar feel.

She recognises Spence, but when she reaches for him, he slips away.

Dave is softening inside her, his body burning with the wolf within, and she doesn't regret this.

He's alive. That's all that matters.

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Rossi's gait is messed up, one hind leg lifted high and the paw dangling grossly. He licks at it, gingerly pulling back when Morgan huffs.

"Well?" Rossi asks grumpily, shaking out his slate-grey fur and eyeing them all. "What now?" He still smells shocked, pained, and JJ wonders how well he's actually dealing with all… this.

How well any of them are dealing with it, really.

Morgan keeps snarling at nothing and jumping at shadows, she can't think of home without her heart trying to rip out of her chest, there's a glazed kind of shock evident in Rossi's eyes and Spence…

Morgan takes control and JJ's glad, because she knows what comes next and she can't bear it.

"We need to find Prentiss and Hotch," he says firmly, and growls warningly at another wolf that veers too close to their bunched up group. "She's going to realize we're getting stronger instead of weaker, and I don't think she'll keep us around after that."

"Spence…" JJ murmurs, but he's gone again. Out of sight and out of reach.

"We'll come back for him," Morgan promises, and she nods. She'll hold him to that promise. "We'll try the cabin. Get some food and water into Dave. Maybe the town wolves… maybe they can tell us what the hell is going on here."

They leave as snow begins to fall in earnest, covering their tracks. No wolf seems to notice, nor care, about their departure.

We'll come back, JJ thinks desperately, hoping that some part of Spence is listening. Just wait here. We'll be back.

Howls echo after them from up the valley.

If any sound familiar, she doesn't notice.