AN: Meant to post this on Hallowe'en! Better late than never.
Hallowe'en normally brought a whole different set of unsubs out of the woodwork and this year was no exception. Pretend devil worshippers, fake Satanists, actual Satanists, over-zealous Christian protesting of Hallowe'en and people just taking their chances while it was socially accepted to go around dressed up. Yep, October tended to be a busy month for all sorts of Law Enforcement.
Take their current case, for example, their UNSUB had killed four people, so far, each body being placed on a different occult symbol burned onto the floor. They were occult symbols from different religions and beliefs, which Reid found quite fascinating. If you ignored the fact that each were accompanied by a dead body. He was having a field day providing them with even more facts than usual. Of course, this was peppered with disapproval of slight mistake in the symbolism used. Honestly, of you were going to blatantly still another religion or faith's imagery you should at least use it correctly.
And of course, to just heap on cliche after cliche, the current murder happened in a Haunted House. Because of course it did. And Emily was not happy about it.
"Why do people even like haunted houses?" She was complaining. "It's just a series of jump scares. Who likes getting jumped scared? Why even get jump scared? I'd end up just shooting someone."
"Which is why we took your gun off you before you went to talk with one of the actors," Rossi said in amusement.
Which she was still seething over, Spencer could see that quite clearly even if he knew that she could see their point. She had made it very clear that just because she understood, it didn't mean that she had to like it. And trust him, she really didn't like it. He kept checking his gun because he wouldn't put it past her to steal his.
"And people do it for the thrill it gives them," Spencer told her. "It's all about the adrenaline rush and-"
"I'll thrill you more than any ghost would," Emily promised him in a low, sultry voice.
Of course, she couldn't go around saying something like that and not get a reaction from him. In this case, his reaction was to splutter loudly, his cheeks heating up and his brain short-circuiting temporarily. All while Emily just stood there and smirked at him. Which didn't help at all! Why did she have to go around saying things like that? What if someone heard her? Was this her way of getting a thrill? Why did it have to be something like this? Why couldn't she get a thrill from something more normal like rollercoasters or chasing an UNSUB? Did it have to involve him? Ack. He could feel that his cheeks were still red. Morgan couldn't see him like this!
Apparently, it did have to involve him because she always did things like this and, quite frankly, he was powerless to stop them. And sometimes he didn't want them to stop. He could have done without this one though considering they were about to go talk to a witness!
A chuckle broke his thoughts. A chuckle that could only belong to one person.
"Please tell me you didn't see that," Reid asked the older man with faint hope.
The man had been standing right there, after all. Not that Emily had seemed to care.
Rossi's grin got bigger. "Oh, I saw it."
Reid groaned. And then he looked up at just the wrong moment to meet eyes with Emily who pointedly looked him up and down before winking. And now he was spluttering all over again.
"What's going on here?" Morgan asked, pausing in front of them and taking stock.
"Prentiss broke the kid," Rossi replied.
That snapped Spencer out of his thoughts.
"Not broken," he said, shaking his head.
"Rebooted him, then," the older man corrected himself with a grin.
Morgan looked between a very smug looking Emily and him, he was still trying to regain full use of his faculties, and smirked.
"Oh?"
"Shut up, Morgan," Reid muttered.
Shaking his head, he left them, informing them that he would actually be doing some work. But all that got him were chuckles. It wasn't fair. It was all Emily's fault.
Fingers ran down his side and he couldn't help but jump. He would deny the fact that he also yelped. Because he didn't.
"Ghosts getting to you?" Emily asked far too innocently, coming up from behind him.
He glared at her and didn't even bother to respond as he stalked off. He caught that amused look on her face before he did so, however. Oh, curse her.
Payback. He needed payback. Revenge. And it would be sweet. He would show her. She would not get the best of him.
Embarrassing him and scaring him and just making him look downright silly. He wasn't having it! There would be revenge!
"That's your plotting face, kid," Morgan told him.
Spencer hushed him quickly. He did not need Emily to hear that.
It didn't take him long to come up with a plan. There wasn't exactly much that even he could come up with in here, unfortunately but it was a good plan, in his opinion. It would get the job done, with any luck.
He had a quick conversation with just the person who could make it happen. It was surprisingly easy. Not that Reid was going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Now he just had to wait for the perfect moment. It would come. He could be patient he was very good at being patient.
The moment came and it was glorious. Okay. Maybe that was a bit of an over exaggeration but still. It was good. Very good. And extremely satisfying. Which was all that mattered, let's be honest. He was going to be milking this for months. Maybe even until next Hallowe'en. Oh, he was aware that he had probably just started something but right now he didn't care because this was his revenge.
And such a satisfying revenge too. The best kind of revenge. Be resisted the urge to rub his palms together. That would just make him look ridiculous.
You see, he had asked one of the actors in the Haunted House (one they didn't need to question, obviously) to jump out at Emily in an attempt to give her a fright.
And, somehow, it had worked. Somehow the stars had all aligned and the gods were in his favour and it had worked. He wasn't sure how the man had done it but he had. He had jumped out on Emily Prentiss and actually startled her. She had even let out a yelp which Reid was pretty sure Morgan was never going to let her forget. Quite frankly, he wasn't going to let her forget it either but he was going to be a lot more subtle about it.
Okay, maybe he would do one blunt thing about it. He couldn't resist, even if it was putting his life in actual danger to do so.
"Bit jumpy, aren't you?" Reid asked innocently, munching on the handful of candy he had stolen from the Haunted House.
The glare Emily gave him was more than worth it.