now, retreating from the light
i love it when we fight
it makes me think
at least you still care
Better than Ezra, "Live Again"
Reid was sweating. It was a warm day, but not hot. In the shade, with a breeze off the sea, it was actually quite pleasant. But he still sweated the cold, stinking sweat of an addict, jonesing. He rolled up his shirt sleeves (it was still cool in Virginia, where he'd gotten dressed) and loosened his narrow tie just a fraction. It was enough. Jackson cast him an odd look from the seat beside him.
"You okay?" she said.
"I'm fine" was his short reply. He would curse Hotch for sticking them together again if he had the leftover mental capacity, but he was too busy working through the Chayes-McKellar-Winn theorem in his head. It wasn't that complicated per se, but he was trying to be thorough. He patted his bag, noting the familiar, comfortable bulge of his kit. Maybe at the station…?
"If I were him," Jackson said, barging into Reid's train of thought, "I would watch them first. I'd want to find a couple with fault lines I could exploit."
"Why's that?" he said. Unconsciously he drummed his fingers against the lump in his bag.
"They'd be more likely to accept his ultimatum, don't you think? If you're already having issues with your partner, and then you're both kidnapped and offered the choice of killing or being killed…?" She trailed off, looking over at him with raised eyebrows.
"I think it would be more of a thrill to watch a healthy, happy couple fall apart rather than one that already has issues."
"Hhmm," she said. "Maybe so."
"You can just say you disagree, Jack," he snapped. "You don't have to humor me." Fuck it was hot! Hadn't anyone ever heard of air conditioning around here? He tugged at his collar and didn't bother listening to what she said next.
"I don't necessarily disagree. You could be right." She'd been dealing with his attitude for so long now that it barely fazed her anymore. Still, she was relieved when the squad car pulled up in front of the St. Augustine police station and they were released from its claustrophobic interior.
"Go find JJ," he mumbled, hurrying towards the men's room. "I'll be right there."
Jackson watched him go with a bemused little frown before seeking out the team's media liaison. "JJ," she said when she spotted the bright blond head among the milling cops, "where are we set up?"
"Over here," she said. The small pocket of space in the back of the main squad room had a folding table, a few standard-issue police department chairs, and an evidence board with several pictures and a large area map already on display. "Where's Reid? I thought he was with you."
"He had to make a pit stop."
"Probably not a bad idea," JJ said. "We shouldn't get too comfortable here; we need to head over to the college to start talking to the victims' friends."
Jackson took a quick glance through the files JJ had gathered and nodded agreement. "Good thinking. It's not far, is it? Can we just walk?"
"Just a few blocks. Still worried about our carbon footprint?"
Jackson shot her a quick grin. "That, and I want to stop at some of these places on the list. It seems like Colben kids hang out at only a few bars, coffee shops, bookstores—and they're all between here and campus. We can hit them on the way."
"Hey, JJ," Reid said as he appeared in the doorway. "What are we hitting on the way where?"
He was no longer sweating, Jackson noticed. The lines etched on his face had smoothed away. He looked relaxed, almost happy. It worried the hell out of her.
"We were going to walk over to the school," she said. "It's probably quicker than driving; parking in this town is sort of a nightmare."
"We have FBI plates," he said. "It's not like we'll get towed."
"Do you have some aversion to walking?"
"Do you have some aversion to driving?"
She lifted her hands in a shrug. "It seems silly. It's so close you could practically get in one door of that monster SUV we drag around, get out the other side, and be there."
"I guess color me silly, then, because I prefer air conditioned comfort to footing it in the heat."
"It's warm out there, Spencer, not hot. Have you thought about losing the sweater vest? This is Florida, not a Mensa meeting in Vermont," she said in a voice so dripping with sarcasm it bordered on outright derision. What had she been thinking earlier about his attitude not fazing her anymore? Clearly she'd been kidding herself.
"Whoa, hey," JJ cut in before Reid could spit out the rejoinder she could see on his rapidly reddening face. "Calm down, guys. Reid, Jack mentioned stopping at some of the local hangouts on the way over, so we thought walking would be more convenient. If you're that set against it, we'll just drive and canvass the other places later."
"No," he said after a moment, conceding with ill grace, "we'll walk it. Since the other places are on the way."
"Thank you," Jackson bit out.
"Anytime."
He shoved his hands in his pockets and stomped toward the door while Jackson stared after him with a frown of consternation.
"Well," JJ said. "Good to know his mood's improved. Are you okay?"
She knew they meant well, but Jackson was getting tired of the team constantly asking if she were okay. Reid probably felt the same, for completely different reasons. For her part, she was an adult, and she could handle his weird little temper tantrums. That aspect of his behavior didn't bother her so much as the rest of it: how hard he blocked her. His general furtiveness. How much he'd withdrawn from her since Hankel.
"I'm fine," she finally said. "We should get going. If he has to wait for us, he'll be even crankier."
"God forbid," JJ said with a roll of her eyes.
"Yeah," Jackson said as she followed JJ towards the door, "no fucking shit."
At the St. Johns County morgue, Hotch and Morgan listened to Dr. Scheiner, the ME, give his conclusions in a cold, dispassionate voice. Tony had been shot, Michelle buried alive. As Gideon had suggested, there were needle marks on both victims. Michelle had two. There were no signs of sexual or physical abuse on either victim. Strangely, there were also no defensive wounds beyond what one might sustain trying to escape from a concrete cell.
"Cinderblocks, to be specific," Scheiner said. "There are traces of the powder on both victims' hands and under their nails. Same with the other four."
"But none of these victims fought back," Hotch said. "They didn't physically confront the UNSUB or each other at any point."
"If I knew my girlfriend had a gun, and she'd been given the choice to kill me or die, it might be the only thing that would ever bring me to hit a woman," Morgan said.
"She shot him five times. He probably didn't have a chance to take a swing," Hotch said, studying the wound pattern on Tony's body.
"They found sand in her mouth and nose, just like with the earlier victims. You didn't see the grave, Hotch, but there's no way that girl was buried alive in there. It was just a little depression in the ground with some sand thrown on top."
"No defensive wounds," Hotch said. "Tell me, Morgan, if you were buried alive, wouldn't you fight?"
"Hell yeah!" He paused a thoughtful moment, then, "Two needle marks…" He flipped open the file in his hand, then moved on to the next one. "He's drugging them before he buries them," he said. "All the victims who were buried had two needle marks; the gunshot victims just had one."
Hotch rubbed the back of his neck as his mind worked. "He picks his victims, either ahead of time or on the day of, then he finds a quiet place in the park to hole up and wait."
"He lures one away somehow, or maybe just waits until they separate for whatever reason, then he drugs one of them."
"When the other one comes to investigate, he sticks him or her, too."
"Now we just have to figure out how he gets two full-sized, unconscious adults from wherever he's drugged them to his car without being seen."
"I'm not as worried about that as I am about whether or not he stalks his victims ahead of time. He could be an employee at the college, or maybe at the park…." Hotch trailed off with a frown. "Let's head back to the station and see if Reid and EJ have come up with anything on victimology. I think figuring out how he chooses these kids might be the key we need to stopping him."
The sweats had stopped thanks to his break in the men's room, but now Reid was exhausted. The day was only half over, but he felt like he'd run a marathon. Things had gotten bad in Houston, the worst yet, and it was the first time he'd used while working. Since then, the temporary serenity and euphoria brought on by the Dilaudid had become necessary to making it through his day. The downside, of course, was the constant cycle between highs and lows. It wore him out.
He trailed behind JJ and Jack like a droopy puppy, sulking behind his dark glasses and avoiding eye contact with either of them. He watched as the two women exchanged looks, no doubt communicating in that silent language all women were mysteriously gifted with at birth. For all his brain power, girl code was one language to which he was not privy.
After his screw up in Houston—scaring that poor woman at the shelter half to death, yelling at Jack when she'd called him on it—he decided it was probably better to hang back and let them do the talking. Though the employees at the various bookstores and bars remembered the victims, they had little to offer in the way of enlightenment.
As they left yet another café none the wiser, Jackson let out a frustrated sigh. "This seems to be a bust."
"Not necessarily," Reid said. "We know our victims were active in the social scene. It means the UNSUB wasn't limited to picking them out at the school or the park."
It wasn't that she minded the disagreement—on the contrary, it helped her think, get a clear picture; learn. What made the vein in her temple twitch was the tone he used. It was new, and it made her want to strangle him a little. "Good point," she said in a carefully controlled voice. "The fact that these kids were so visible—the type who would be missed quickly—shows his continued escalation."
"So you think he's choosing these particular victims because they're popular, not in spite of it?" JJ said.
"In part," Jackson said with a slow, thoughtful nod. "I suspect there's more to it, but their visibility is a component. What do you think, Reid?"
He shrugged. Though the sunglasses obscured his eyes, she knew he wasn't really paying attention. "It's plausible," he said at last, only vaguely interested.
Jackson and JJ shared another of those damn looks before Jackson turned away in exasperation. "Fine," she muttered under her breath, "be that way."
"Let's go talk to Michelle's roommate," JJ said. "She's the one who reported her missing."
Jackson opened her mouth to agree when JJ's phone rang. As she listened to JJ's end of the conversation, her heart sank. She hung up and offered Jackson a sympathetic smile. "That was Hotch. He wants you guys to continue without me. Gideon says we're ready for a press conference."
Jackson glanced at Reid with a brief smile. "No problem. Boy genius and I can handle it, can't we?"
He blinked at the two women a moment before he let out a little snort and stomped away. His second pissy exit in less than two hours; that might be a new record.
They watched him go, and Jackson turned to JJ with a rueful tilt to her lips. "Is that a yes or a no?"
"Are you sure you'll be okay?"
"Yeah, it's fine." She flicked her fingers, waving it away. "Hotch obviously wants us together for a reason, so I just…deal."
"Does he know how bad it's gotten?"
Jackson fidgeted. Glanced down the sidewalk at Reid. Back at JJ. "No," she finally said.
"Tell him, Jack. I mean it."
"Are you coming or what?" Reid yelled from half a block away.
"Duty calls," she said to JJ. "See you later."
"Good luck," she replied with a grimace.
"Thanks." She shot an apprehensive glance Reid's way. "I think I'll need it." Casting JJ a quick wave, she hurried to join him. "Okay, okay, I'm coming. Keep your pants on."
"I wasn't really planning—"
"A common human expression, Mr. Spock."
His face scrunched, and he sped up to follow her as she rushed past. "I'm not quite that literal," he said.
She relaxed a fraction. She'd made the joke out of old habit, but lately that was the sort of thing that earned her a churlish reply at worst, a glare at best. His neutral reaction was a vast improvement.
She eyed him as he fell in beside her. He had his hands buried in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. It was a classic defensive pose, and she decided to steer clear.
"Garcia sent the roommate's class schedule," she said, moving the conversation into less shark-infested waters. She consulted her BlackBerry a moment. "She's in Fundamentals of Design right now, assuming she went to class at all. What do you think, check the class or their room first?"
"Room. She probably skipped."
"Right-o. She lives in Colben Hall, the main building. Room two-seventeen."
so I know Reid's acting ooc in this fic, but that's...the whole and entire point. the drugs are making him not himself.