Chapter Text
Chaz was dreaming about Las Vegas. It was one of those dreams that almost made sense -- ninety percent recollection, and ten percent terrifying spin. He was standing in the side chapel with Hallelujah!Pyro's corpse, or what was left of it. The smell of ruptured intestine filled the space in ways it hadn't when he was actually there, because Shadow hadn't ... well, gotten that far, if Chaz was honest with himself. But, in the dream, everything smelled like shit, vomit, and blood. And this time, Shadow didn't recognise him. He could feel the teeth sink into his cheek, and he couldn't bring himself to fight back. It was his fault it had gotten this bad. It was his fault, for not taking better care of his best friend. He could feel the warm blood in his hair, in his eye, and the agony of--
He woke up, suddenly, gasping for breath, to find the pain was real, if a great deal less serious. With an irritated sound, he unhooked Schmengy Paws's claws from where the kitten had gotten them stuck in his face and pulled the blanket over his head, with a whine of annoyance. This did not deter the cat, who climbed up onto his now-padded head and curled up, purring.
Cats.
He huffed and drifted back to sleep, trying to ignore the dull ache along one side of his chest and shoulder. It hadn't been long enough, even for a gamma, but this was much less painful than it could have been, and he knew it. He remembered what it had felt like to get hit, and that threatened to bring on another nightmare, as he drifted between waking and sleeping. The memory of Kim battering at his mind gave way to the shock of that first strike just short of his shoulder. The pain had almost given Kim a path in, and the Anomaly had kept him out for those few seconds it had taken to put aside the breaking bone and the cold rush just under the skin. But, it could have gone the other way. It could easily have gone the other way.
And he snapped awake to the disjointed sense that he wasn't sure Kim wasn't coming at him again. It was ridiculous, the last time he'd checked. Kim needed his targets to see him, or at least to be physically aware of him in some way. Otherwise he wouldn't have spent so much time and hardware on electronic messages to his team. They'd just have known what he wanted. Kim didn't have that kind of reach, that kind of connection. And he definitely couldn't afford the effort to learn it, with what he weighed.
Which was saying something, all things considered. Chaz knew he was thin, but he wasn't thin like Kim of Bedlam. And by the way his clothes fit, it looked like Kim had always been almost that thin. It made a certain amount of sense, he supposed, since--
The memory of Shadow's resignation at returning to Idlewood boiled up under that train of thought, and his mind thrashed like a fish out of water, trying to escape thoughts of both Shadow and Kim. Three hours. He'd settle for three hours of sleep, if he could have it consecutively, but that looked like it wasn't going to happen.
Schmengy Paws squeaked in disapproval, as he tried to get up, failing to escape without disturbing the cat sleeping on the side of his head. At least someone was getting some sleep.
"Yeah, hey, I'm calling for an official consult from the Institute, and since you're the only actual doctor we have right now, that's you."
Langly flicked through the pages of Shadow's file from Idlewood. He'd swiped it after Villette had mentioned his friend at dinner, the night they got back into town, and if he'd waited another two days, it would've been even easier. He'd been contacted about possibly rewriting some of their software, and if Byers thought the contract wasn't going to bite him in the ass, he was going to do it. The very idea of having the software make the mistakes for you, in a place like that, gave him the chills.
But, he'd called Dr Merlo, while he waited for Byers to slog through all the clauses and conditions.
"For yourself, Mr Arroway?" Aurelio sounded amused at the idea.
"No, not for me, for a guy who's, ah... currently in the other place. For the serious shit. I'm looking at this file, and I don't know shit about shit, but I'm pretty sure this is not a correct treatment protocol for anybody. I mean, the dude is a cannibal, yes. And one of us. But, I'm pretty sure 'too drugged to manage coherent sentences' is not really the best answer. From what I hear, it's how he escaped and why he doesn't remember anything before Las Vegas. He just kind of stumbled out and wandered down the road because he couldn't figure out what the hell he was doing, and the next thing anybody knew he was on the other side of the country."
"Drugged into compliance is common for the more... regrettable of our kind, where imprisonment alone will not contain the damage, and the family does not solve its problems by execution. Drugged into unconsciousness, where necessary, for shorter times." Aurelio showed no sign that this was in any way unusual, but years of diplomacy had made him difficult to read unless he meant to be read. "How is it, I wonder, that no one stopped him? I have been assured the security at our sister facility is sufficient to contain the vast majority of our kind, with a handful of notable exceptions."
"Hey, I only know what it says in the file. The file I'm not supposed to have, for the record, but some things were said, and they didn't sound right, so I went looking. And now I need somebody who can tell me what I'm looking at, and how many of these people need to be set on fire-- I mean, fired."
"Send me the file, Mr Arroway. To the Institute, if you would. I will see if I can understand the treatment decisions being made, and then I will be in contact."
"Sounds good. Sending it now." Langly paused, considering whether to mention the last part. It was in the file, but... "The weird thing is, he's not supposed to be on the drugs, because they need to do some kind of brain scans on him, and those ... it looks like they got scheduled and then pushed back because they put him back on the drugs."
"Ah, medicine, where the left physician doesn't know what the right is doing," Aurelio quipped. "I will get back to you, Mr Arroway."
"Look, I know the ACTF took our killer's killer, but I need a little more to wrap this case. I need something we can officially put in the file that nobody's going to look twice at, and I need your help, because 'a cannibal killer from a closed case I don't have the clearance for ate the serial killer we were pursuing' guarantees a second look, and I just can't get this to go together in a way that's not going to raise eyebrows. Like I said in Las Vegas, I did not approve the choices that were made, however much I appreciate that we had tracking on Summerlin the whole time."
"Officially, I think we stick with Mr Summerlin being mentally disturbed as a result of early malformation in the brain. He's usually in a facility that can handle his particular issues, but due to a brief lapse in security Mr Summerlin accidentally left with a visiting family, and returned to Las Vegas, where he grew up. Due to his particular pathology, Mr Summerlin believes himself to be a carnivorous predator, and he took issue with Siena as another predator encroaching on his territory." Reid tipped his head back, eyes closed, and gave the next part a bit of thought. "Because Summerlin is ACTF's, Agent Villette came out to support us and retrieve him. Villette, however, is barely back from medical leave, after having several broken ribs--"
"Villette's not back. Officially he's still on leave for another three weeks, minimum," Prentiss pointed out. "But, much like you, he can't seem to stay out of the building."
Reid bit his lips against a laugh. "That does sound like him, yes. So, we'll say Mr Summerlin overpowered Agent Villette, and then chased down Siena, via impressions of the man he had from when they were children, together. Villette called me, and JJ and I joined him looking for either Summerlin or Siena in the area Siena was supposed to be in. Summerlin, surprisingly, actually called Villette, when he found Siena, but we were unable to get to him before Summerlin had another episode and killed and ate Siena. We don't come out looking good, but we do come out looking like we're doing the best we could after being dropped into the middle of a case that we don't have the clearance to even be notified about. There is nothing else we could have done, here. It's ACTF's problem, and they were in the field on another case, so all we got was Villette."
"And the ACTF has a long history of inexplicable cases and bizarre decisions, so I don't think this will do them any more harm. Let me run it past Falkner." Prentiss nodded. It was surprisingly believable, and fairly close to the truth. "I can probably work with that, though."
She spent a long, quiet moment studying Reid. "It should concern me that you can do that as well and as quickly as you can."
"Emily, I've been good at that for longer than I've known you. The number of times I've done that in the field..." Reid paused. "That's it, isn't it. You've only been aware of it in the field, when I was talking to an UnSub. But, it doesn't come out of nowhere. That's decades of effort. And you know that, because you're just as good at it."
"I'm--" Prentiss started to protest, and then rolled her eyes and nodded. "I just have a more political angle, most of the time. It's why I'm sitting in this chair and not you. You've been here longer, and you have a lot more background."
"But, you have a lot more politesse than I ever want to have to project. I'm happy to deal with murderers, but I will absolutely let you handle the rest of the Bureau. Offence to them possibly intended. I'm not sure, some days, particularly recently."
Prentiss groaned. "God, what a shitshow. I wasn't sure of it then, but I am glad I stayed."
"So am I," Reid admitted.
"I know. You made quite a point--" Prentiss cut off in the middle of the sentence as the implications caught up, and she shot Reid what might have been a judgemental look. "Reid...?"
It was amazing that he could still manage angelic innocence, at his age, but he could. He looked Prentiss right in the eye and blinked. "What?"
"Tell him if he doesn't stay out of my systems, I will come up there and.... shoot him in the other knee," Garcia yelled into her headset, as she disabled two more routes that should never have been available and promised herself she was going to go downstairs and yell at the network admin again. She couldn't have kept Ringo out, and not for lack of trying, but Gates said it was useless to try, because he'd gotten into some fundamental flaws in the base architecture that nobody else was ever going to have the patience to bother with, and that she couldn't fix anyway. But, she was damned if she was letting Bedlam in because downstairs didn't have their shit together.
"You won't have to. He's not Frank." Hafidha laughed. Kim of Bedlam wasn't as good as she was, nor was he as good as Ringo, but that was because his anomalous talents were elsewhere. He was very good for an alpha, which he might as well have been, once he moved away from his people skills. "But, I see where he's coming from, and I'm putting a plug in that hole and six others I can see from here, and tomorrow, I'm going to go downstairs and beat someone with patch documentation. You should come down with me. It'll be refreshing."
"Not as refreshing as that jasmine and lychee energy shake I will be buying immediately afterward. Righteous vengeance on network support deserves a reward." Garcia took her hand off the keyboard long enough to pick up a tall cup of lemon-ginger soda and take a quick sip. "These people are supposed to be better than me at this side of the job! It's what they are paid to do. I should not have to be down there seven times a year to visit my unholy wrath upon the entire department!"
"Right? But neither of us actually want McDouchebag's job, so we end up doing it from the back row. At least we're only dealing with our teams, and not fielding questions from the rest of the building. We don't have to explain, we just have to make magic happen."
"I am going to walk to Virginia and shove a vintage modem in a place modems should not go!" Garcia snapped, as Kim came at the same target a different way. "This isn't even his case! We're not even holding his case! You are! Why the hell is he after that meth murders case from last month?"
"Meth murders?" Hafidha had stopped wondering how Bedlam had made a name for himself. He was doing the sorts of things she said Ringo did, to cover up the Anomaly. But, Kim was actually doing them. And at a speed that suggested the Anomaly at least helped his typing speed.
"You and Villette went to rescue Reid, in Baltimore," Garcia clarified, sounding a little distracted. "What is he even...? Okay, we're gonna have a server glitch for a minute here. I'm taking this one offline."
"Oh, the guy with the aunt and the two snakes and the exploding heads." Hafidha's voice moved when she nodded and her hair pulled on her headset. "I bet you he's trying to get to the part with the doctor that saved Reid. The intended victim."
"That's the guy you guys interviewed, after, right? Instead of us?" Frustrated, Garcia sent a cluster down for reboot. It would be back up in less than two minutes, but hopefully Kim would think the information had gone offline for the day. "So, again, why is he looking for our file? And where the in the depths of pink, glittery hell are McDonaghey's people on this, oh my god, is the entire department at lunch?"
"Here, give it to me and call Fitz. Bedlam knows he's busted."
"How is calling Fitz going to help anything?"
"Trust me. Let Fitz know what's going on, and I'm pretty sure this will stop."
"This is one of those things I'm going to have to ask him about, isn't it?" Garcia stopped typing and blinked.
"We're still negotiating whether he has the clearance to tell you."
Chaz was considering going into the office despite the fact no one was paying him to do it, when the phone rang. "Yeah?"
"Do me a big favour, Platypus?" Hafidha wheedled.
"I will only make moussaka if you buy the ingredients. I shouldn't be carrying the bags, yet."
"Well, I wasn't asking for moussaka, but if you're going to make it..." She paused just long enough to annoy him. "No, I'm calling to ask you to run up to Fitzgerald, maybe with Fitzgerald, and sit on Kim for me. He's got an interest in that Dr Merlo, with the cute secretary, and he's banging his head against the BAU's files."
"He's like three doors down the hall from Merlo. I'm pretty sure he could just ask." Chaz groaned and leaned back, stretching his neck. "But, it's Kim, so he's not going to ask. And I bet he slid right off Merlo, the same way I did. And he's usually good enough to do exactly what he's trying to do, so I'd be entirely confused about him getting caught, except it's you."
"It's Penny," Hafidha corrected.
"He's still on a lot of drugs, I bet." Chaz realised that Kim might not have healed as fast as he did, given the shape the man had been in, when Reid shot him.
"After that whole thing with Reid's personnel file, she's got alerts rigged on some folders, so if anyone opens a file in them -- including from her desk -- she gets alerted on three devices. I think he just wasn't looking for it, because the rest of the system up to that point didn't bite back. He's looking for the kind of security we actually have, not some weird kludge tacked on sideways." Hafidha paused for a hissing breath. "And fuck you, sir! Not you, but you in a minute if you don't go down there and stop him. I've got him chasing his own tail, for now, and I'll see him the second he tries to leverage any DoJ hardware, because obviously, but you are making moussaka, tonight, at this rate. And that thing with the figs and caramel sauce."
"Right. okay. I'm out. But, you have to stop for groceries. I really shouldn't be picking up more than like five pounds, after what happened in Vegas."
"I thought nothing happened to you in Vegas..."
"Shadow hugged me. Very, ah, intensely. It's a good thing Dr Adebayo went with the plates."
Hafidha laughed. "She's seen your file, Chazzie. She knew you weren't going to take this lying down."