The music in the Irish pub you and the team have gathered at to celebrate the Superbowl is loud, but the drinks are good and you're having fun. Hotch seems to have gotten over your 'dangerous stunt' a few weeks ago and introduces you to his wife, Haley. You're laughing with Emily, watching Garcia while she stares down Morgan on the dance floor. As the resident new girls on the team, you and Emily have gotten pretty close, bonding over having parents with high powered jobs and your love of shoes. Reid is somewhere, being nerdy and annoying, but he's not around you so you can relax for once. Turns out, everyone else did know about the two of you living in the same building, and Emily and Garcia had almost died laughing at the awkward encounter between you and Reid the previous weekend.
"Look at him move, it's like a cat." Garcia almost moans.
"More like a dog!" You and Emily laugh at the same time, and you watch on as Morgan dances with his group of girls.
Hotch and Haley get up to join in on the dancing, and Garcia heads to the bathroom, giving you and Emily a moment alone. You both sip on your drinks, enjoying the rare night off from the horrors of your job.
"Don't you kinda wish you had something like that?" She said, gesturing to Hotch and Haley who looked very much in love.
"Don't they just look so happy? It must be nice to have something to come home to at the end of a rough case. I just come home to my collection of books and vinyl, and maybe a stiff drink." You sigh, well aware of how pathetic you sound.
Emily laughs and begins to say, "You know who you sound like? That sounds just like something Reid -"
"Shut up! We are so not talking about him right now, I'm still mad about him lecturing me about my coffee intake yesterday. The man pours half a cup of sugar in his coffee and he's going to lecture me about having ten cups in an afternoon? No thank you!" You complain, hoping he didn't hear his name and decide to come over and bother you some more. Looking around, you see he's oblivious to your conversation, sat talking to a group of nerdy looking people.
"God, all the two of you do is complain about each other. Just fuck and get over it - you guys live in the same building, it's practically fate!" Emily snorts, and you slap her on the arm, hard.
"Ugh gross, you sound just like Penelope. Never in a million years would I ever go near him."
Before the two of you could continue the conversation further, JJ got the call: a case out in Georgia required the team's urgent attention and they'd have to leave immediately. You were sorry the evening was over before it could truly begin, but grateful for an easy escape from talking about Spencer Reid.
The case is a rough one: the UNSUBs was brutally murdering people in their homes and streaming it live on the internet. The depraved minds of these killers never ceased to repulse you. The fact that the videos were going viral on the internet was something you didn't even want to think about. This potential team of UNSUBs were slaughtering people as if they were animals with their bullshit religious rhetoric, yet somehow managing to be both frenzied and organised at the same time. It felt as if the team were getting nowhere, until JJ found a potential witness.
In a way that seemed all too similar to the Roberts case from a few weeks back, Hotch and Gideon choose to send you and Reid out into the middle of nowhere to interview Tobias Hankel, in hopes of getting a description of one of the UNSUBs. Clearly they were hoping that the more they put you and Reid together, the better you'd get along. You didn't see that happening any time soon. While you were aggravated at having to spend more time with him, you thought that at least this trip couldn't go as badly for you as the last trip to some isolated person of interest.
Oh, how wrong you were.
Once there, you knock and a man warily opened the door to you smiling, "Hi, Mr Hankel? We're Agents Y/L/N and Reid with the FBI."
"FBI?" He looks confused, and you smile kindly at him again.
"May we come in?" Reid asks politely - once again proving that he could be nice to anyone other than you.
"I don't let anyone into the house." Hankel stutters, and you were about to ask him why that was until Reid butts in with perhaps the most flimsy excuse of needing to use the bathroom. You try not to roll your eyes at his unconvincing acting.
"You do? Why didn't you say something in the car?" You ask through gritted teeth, trying to play along with the lie. Hankel once again refused to let the two of you in, citing his father's wishes.
"Your father? You're like, 30." Reid states tactlessly, and you couldn't stop yourself from rolling your eyes this time.
However, Tobias's attitude hardens, "At what age can one start disrespecting the wishes of their parents?"
Before the conversation got too uncomfortable, you decide to shift gears. "You witnessed something a few months ago, that could be of help to us. Do you remember seeing someone going over a wall into a yard? You called the police and information about this man could be useful for a case we're working right now."
Hankel acts confused and denies calling the police, and the whole situation just seems off to you. You couldn't read how Reid felt about it, but you could feel him standing uncomfortably close to you once again, so close you could smell his cologne. This time, you couldn't stop yourself from noting that he smelt good.
Shaking off that weird thought of how Reid of all people smells, you press Hankel about the call, asking if he was sure he didn't call or if there was another Tobias Hankel in residence at the address. You thank him and once again Reid tries to use his bathroom excuse to get into the house. but Hankel closes the door in your faces.
"That was weird, don't you think? Like didn't that whole experience just seem off to you? Why'd he deny calling the cops?" You ask a series of questions, not really expecting Reid to answer as the two of you walk back towards the car.
"The response time." Reid blurts out. "He wanted to gauge the response time of the police arrival to the house. If you were going to kill someone but you wanted to call the police first, what would you need to know? How long it takes to get there!"
With that said, he runs around the side of the house, giving you no choice but to follow him, despite the gut feeling that something really wasn't right. He looks through the windows of Hankel's house and you wonder if your gut feeling was the same as how Reid felt with the whole Hank Roberts situation. But this time, Hankel catches Reid watching him, and suddenly began running out of the house.
You and Reid began to chase him as he ran into the barn, stopping outside when Reid turns to you abruptly and says, "Call Hotch."
You shake your head at him. "Can't do that, dumbass, we're out in the middle of nowhere without cell service. We're on our own again for this one."
Reid rolls his eyes and reiterates that Hankel is in the barn, and that the best plan is to separate. You're half convinced that he just wants to get away from you, but before you can protest, Reid has already started to move to the other side of the barn in his attempt to catch Hankel. Before you can blink, Reid's skinny ass has completely disappeared on you. Just as you're about to start cursing him out, the barn door blows open.
Cautiously, you begin to make your way into the barn, alarm bells ringing inside your head. The barn is dark and you can barely see anything in front of you. There's a rustling of chains and you wonder if Reid is fucking with you. A part of you doubts he'd ever be so unprofessional but you'd rather that than something seriously being wrong. You take a step forward and tread in some kind of puddle. Knowing it's not going to be anything good, you point your flashlight down; it's blood, a whole trail of blood. Something very bad happened here.
Just as you think the situation can't get anymore dire, a growling starts, first soft and then so loud its like an engine. You turn, almost shaking, and cry out as three massive and dangerously feral looking dogs run towards you.