Commodum Ex Iniuria (The Reward of Injustice) [2/4?]
Title: Commodum Ex Iniuria (The Reward of Injustice) [2/4?]
Author: Alsike
Pairing: Emily Prentiss/Emma Frost
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The members of the BAU are faced with hunting down a mutant killer. Other people may also be in pursuit. And Emily finds out that where there are mutants, divisive politics follow close behind.
Apologies: I really have no idea where this fic is going. This may look like a plot driven fic, but as i have no plot planned out, it is not.
Emily was not a fan of small towns in Utah. They put her on edge. Tiny conservative towns that revolved around their church always made her tense, as if their watching eyes were following her every move. It was completely irrational, but she always felt that she was going to be caught out for being not like them.
The Kamas Inn was a perfectly respectable place. The bedspreads had a variety of patterns, and there was a common area with a microwave, as advertised. It was the only hotel actually in the town, although since the town was only four blocks across and seven blocks down this was not very surprising. And it was a three-minute walk from the police station, highly convenient.
The police were worried and mostly young. The murders had occurred throughout the county, which was mostly national park. Some crime scenes lay over a hundred miles apart. They didn’t know if there had been similar murders in nearby Salt Lake City. They didn’t want to know. Ten murders was horrific for a location that had had one murder in the last three years, and that was a tussle outside a bar that had gone bad when one participant fell and hit his head.
“Have you had much anti-mutant sentiment here?”
“We don’t have many mutants here, and none of them violent. They’re God’s children, same as any with… problems.”
Emily frowned, and she caught worried looks from half her team. Did they expect her to go off on him? Fabulous. “What do you mean, problems?”
The Lieutenant seemed worried as well. “Well, you know, the ears, the spottiness. Things that make them different.” He shook his head. “Every school has bullies, but we’d like to think we don’t stop the poor kids from having a fair chance.”
“Have you encountered anyone with powers relating to heat or fire?”
The Lieutenant blinked. “Powers?”
A young officer with straw-colored hair and large ears prodded him. “Powers, you know, some mutants have powers. Like the X-men.”
The Lieutenant shook his head, smiling. “We don’t have that kind of mutant here. Just the ones with funny ears and poor feet.”
The BAU gathered in a hastily emptied conference room to discuss.
“Are we ready to give a profile?” asked Hotch.
Reid sighed. “I really don’t think so.”
“I don’t think these guys are equipped to handle this alone,” said Morgan, shaking his head. “I vote we do some footwork.”
“I want to interview the families of the victims,” said Emily. “It’s a small place. Someone might have an idea about a suspect.”
“Don’t you think the police here have already done that?” snapped JJ.
Morgan chuckled. “I wouldn’t expect more than a condolence call out of these chuckle-heads. Good idea, Prentiss.”
It was starting to feel a little unfair to keep picking on JJ. She had gotten used to being the maternal goddess of the team, and taking her down a peg was satisfying to Emily’s vindictive side, but not if it was ganging up.
* * *
The house was small and painted white. The grass in the yard was a little too long and a broom had been left outside in the rain. It looked like a house where death had recently visited.
The family, a balding pale father and a strained broken mother opened the door, and the pity that contorted Emily’s stomach nearly made her bolt for the bushes to lose what little she had eaten. She swallowed twice and held out her badge.
“We’re here to ask a few questions about your daughter.”
The mother was rubbing a cross between her thumbs as she sat on the well-used sofa. The father paced back and forth behind it.
“We were just lucky to have her as long as we did.”
Emily blinked, looking at the mother. That was a strange thing to say this close to the death.
The mother noticed her confusion and smiled wanly. “My friend, Miriam, her little boy was born with CF. She only had him until he turned twelve, and in and out of the hospital so often.”
“Was there something wrong with Kristen?”
The father scowled. “Nothing was wrong with her!”
“But there’s so much that can happen with a child like her.” The mother shook her head. “But Kristen was a lovely girl, no trouble at all.”
Emily glanced at Morgan. “Adopted?” he mouthed. Emily frowned.
“Do you have a picture of Kristen?”
The mother and father looked at each other, a little startled, almost frightened. “No,” said the mother. The father hesitated.
“Do you?”
The father reached for his wallet, and the mother looked stricken, “It’s our only one.”
“I won’t take it.”
She was a pretty girl, blue eyes, brown hair carefully tucked over her ears, which were vast holes, barely shaded by flaps of grey skin, the outline of a oddly shaped hearing aid was visible in one.
“The doctors… they trimmed her ears before we took her home.”
“Before they even asked us,” snapped the father. “She’s had hearing problems ever since.” Then he heard his own words and the heartbreak hit him once more.
They had trimmed her ears, but nothing was done about the fingers, sagging grey skin, and blunt cracked fingernails. The doctors hadn’t been able to do anything, but her killer had.
* * *
“Mutants!” Emily burst into the conference room. “The mutilated ones were obvious mutants.” She whirled towards the officers. “Why didn’t you say something?”
They looked blank and stunned and she dismissed them.
Emily grabbed a handful of thumbtacks and started sticking photos into the board. “Mutant, mutant,” she stuck the ones with body parts missing in a line, then the murder closest in time across from each. She had two left, a boy and a girl. She waved them in front of the officers. “These kids are from around here. You know them, don’t you? Which was the strange one, the one who didn’t fit in?”
The youngest officer stepped forward. “My brother went to school with them. They were both popular. Sandy, she, she made everyone around her happy. They were going to get married after they graduated.”
Emily swallowed. “Were they all couples?”
“Not those two.” He pointed to the pair of men. “They were just friends.”
Emily doubted that. She looked back down at the pictures in her hands. Morgan pointed to the girl. “Pheromones?”
Emily nodded. She tacked them on the board. Then she turned to Hotch. “It’s not a mutant killing humans. It’s a mutant killing mixed couples.”
“Well, if it’s a mutant problem, I think you might need our help.”
Emily turned. There was a man standing in the doorway, with magenta sunglasses on. Then she looked past him and her jaw fell open.
White ice was in her head before she could remember how to shield it. << You don’t know me. You don’t recognize me. We have never met! >>
<< Emma! >>
<< Don’t! Or I’ll make it true; rip every memory out of your head. >>
<< Don’t threaten me. >> Emily’s walls slammed up, sealing together like automatic locks in tanker ships.
<< Don’t even think about me. Or she’ll know. >>
The redhead was indicated. Emily breathed in through her nose and turned to the man with the magenta glasses.
“This is police business. If you do not have authorization to be here, I suggest you leave.”
It was barely a flicker, but she thought she saw Emma smile.
“We were called in to assist.”
Emily looked sharply at the officers. The youngest one waved his hand embarrassedly. “I might have… dialed their hotline. I didn’t think they would actually come.”
Emma glowered at Scott. “A hotline? No wonder we never get a break. We’re not the fucking Avengers.”
“We need to seem responsive to the community.”
“What’s next? Helping little old ladies cross streets? Fetching cats from trees?”
“That’s what she said, Boy Scout,” grunted Logan.
“And you promised me the FBI would not be here, and as they are, I think we should go home. I have lesson plans to prepare.”
“The FBI?” Scott asked.
Emily, Morgan and Reid raised their hands. Hotch, Rossi and JJ just looked affronted.
“They’re criminal profilers,” said the youngest officer excitedly. “They were just about to tell us who they think did it!”
“Hmm,” Scott frowned. “Perhaps we should stay and hear the profile, and then see if they need our help.”
Without asking for an invitation he took a seat. The room was far too crowded now; even with Emma perched on a desk and Logan leaning in the doorway so he could smoke his cigar. Hotch frowned at the newcomers, but didn’t tell them to leave.
JJ glared at him. “You’re letting the mutant vigilantes stay?” she hissed.
Hotch ignored her and glanced toward the front of the room. “Emily? You seemed to be ready to lead on this one.”
Emily glanced over at Emma who looked pointedly disinterested. “Okay,” she shrugged. “The suspect is a white male between 18 and 25. He is a mutant, with power over heat. His hands and possibly his breath reach temperatures of over 212 degrees. His victims are always couples, one mutant, and one human. The amount of time between each kill suggests that he is a rational psychopath, and escalation is unlikely. But the fact that he tortures his victims before killing them, particularly the mutants, indicates that he is acting out his sadistic impulses. Although most of his murders involve obvious mutants, the murder of Sandy Tate, suggests that he is a local, or at least has been in the area long enough to be trusted with the gossip.”
“But Sandy wasn’t a mutant,” said the youngest officer.
“You said it yourself,” interjected Morgan. “Everyone was happy around her.”
“But-“
The blue furry man stood up. “Haven’t you run genetic tests on the bodies?”
The lieutenant frowned. “We don’t have a local lab. Things have to be sent to Salt Lake City. Since we knew pretty much all the victims, we didn’t think DNA testing would be necessary. And full out genetic scanning is against protocol.”
“If you let me have a sample, I could run a simple diagnostic in the Blackbird.”
“You have a genetics lab in your plane?” asked Reid, nearly slavering.
“Just the bare minimum of equipment.”
“Do you think I could…?” Reid glanced from Hotch to Beast and back.
“Chain of Evidence,” Hotch grunted, “Stay with Mr.….”
“McCoy.”
“Mr. McCoy here, and ensure his procedure is correct.”
Reid nearly skipped away in glee.
* * *
Sandy Tate was a mutant. Pheromones was Dr. McCoy’s expert opinion. The youngest officer was stunned. Reid rhapsodized about the advanced equipment for ten minutes, and then went after Dr. McCoy to speak more in depth about theories of genetic behavior and other things only those two could understand.
The rest of the team, plus Jean who had volunteered to help out, went through census lists, narrowed down and emailed by Garcia, and interrogated the officers on their knowledge of the locals. They were looking for not only the unsub, but also for potential future victims. It felt very haphazard, and Emily felt Emma’s eyes boring critically into the back of her neck, asking if this was their usual method of hunting down perpetrators, because it didn’t compare with the hype.
<< Wears heavy gloves, >> popped into Emily’s head as they were asking about Henrick Smith. She had to restrain herself from turning around.
<< What? >>
<< I thought you should know. When that boy pictures him, he sees him wearing heavy gloves. >>
<< He is a mechanic. >>
Emma managed to convey shrugging disdainfully by telepathy.
* * *
Author: Alsike
Pairing: Emily Prentiss/Emma Frost
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The members of the BAU are faced with hunting down a mutant killer. Other people may also be in pursuit. And Emily finds out that where there are mutants, divisive politics follow close behind.
Apologies: I really have no idea where this fic is going. This may look like a plot driven fic, but as i have no plot planned out, it is not.
Emily was not a fan of small towns in Utah. They put her on edge. Tiny conservative towns that revolved around their church always made her tense, as if their watching eyes were following her every move. It was completely irrational, but she always felt that she was going to be caught out for being not like them.
The Kamas Inn was a perfectly respectable place. The bedspreads had a variety of patterns, and there was a common area with a microwave, as advertised. It was the only hotel actually in the town, although since the town was only four blocks across and seven blocks down this was not very surprising. And it was a three-minute walk from the police station, highly convenient.
The police were worried and mostly young. The murders had occurred throughout the county, which was mostly national park. Some crime scenes lay over a hundred miles apart. They didn’t know if there had been similar murders in nearby Salt Lake City. They didn’t want to know. Ten murders was horrific for a location that had had one murder in the last three years, and that was a tussle outside a bar that had gone bad when one participant fell and hit his head.
“Have you had much anti-mutant sentiment here?”
“We don’t have many mutants here, and none of them violent. They’re God’s children, same as any with… problems.”
Emily frowned, and she caught worried looks from half her team. Did they expect her to go off on him? Fabulous. “What do you mean, problems?”
The Lieutenant seemed worried as well. “Well, you know, the ears, the spottiness. Things that make them different.” He shook his head. “Every school has bullies, but we’d like to think we don’t stop the poor kids from having a fair chance.”
“Have you encountered anyone with powers relating to heat or fire?”
The Lieutenant blinked. “Powers?”
A young officer with straw-colored hair and large ears prodded him. “Powers, you know, some mutants have powers. Like the X-men.”
The Lieutenant shook his head, smiling. “We don’t have that kind of mutant here. Just the ones with funny ears and poor feet.”
The BAU gathered in a hastily emptied conference room to discuss.
“Are we ready to give a profile?” asked Hotch.
Reid sighed. “I really don’t think so.”
“I don’t think these guys are equipped to handle this alone,” said Morgan, shaking his head. “I vote we do some footwork.”
“I want to interview the families of the victims,” said Emily. “It’s a small place. Someone might have an idea about a suspect.”
“Don’t you think the police here have already done that?” snapped JJ.
Morgan chuckled. “I wouldn’t expect more than a condolence call out of these chuckle-heads. Good idea, Prentiss.”
It was starting to feel a little unfair to keep picking on JJ. She had gotten used to being the maternal goddess of the team, and taking her down a peg was satisfying to Emily’s vindictive side, but not if it was ganging up.
* * *
The house was small and painted white. The grass in the yard was a little too long and a broom had been left outside in the rain. It looked like a house where death had recently visited.
The family, a balding pale father and a strained broken mother opened the door, and the pity that contorted Emily’s stomach nearly made her bolt for the bushes to lose what little she had eaten. She swallowed twice and held out her badge.
“We’re here to ask a few questions about your daughter.”
The mother was rubbing a cross between her thumbs as she sat on the well-used sofa. The father paced back and forth behind it.
“We were just lucky to have her as long as we did.”
Emily blinked, looking at the mother. That was a strange thing to say this close to the death.
The mother noticed her confusion and smiled wanly. “My friend, Miriam, her little boy was born with CF. She only had him until he turned twelve, and in and out of the hospital so often.”
“Was there something wrong with Kristen?”
The father scowled. “Nothing was wrong with her!”
“But there’s so much that can happen with a child like her.” The mother shook her head. “But Kristen was a lovely girl, no trouble at all.”
Emily glanced at Morgan. “Adopted?” he mouthed. Emily frowned.
“Do you have a picture of Kristen?”
The mother and father looked at each other, a little startled, almost frightened. “No,” said the mother. The father hesitated.
“Do you?”
The father reached for his wallet, and the mother looked stricken, “It’s our only one.”
“I won’t take it.”
She was a pretty girl, blue eyes, brown hair carefully tucked over her ears, which were vast holes, barely shaded by flaps of grey skin, the outline of a oddly shaped hearing aid was visible in one.
“The doctors… they trimmed her ears before we took her home.”
“Before they even asked us,” snapped the father. “She’s had hearing problems ever since.” Then he heard his own words and the heartbreak hit him once more.
They had trimmed her ears, but nothing was done about the fingers, sagging grey skin, and blunt cracked fingernails. The doctors hadn’t been able to do anything, but her killer had.
* * *
“Mutants!” Emily burst into the conference room. “The mutilated ones were obvious mutants.” She whirled towards the officers. “Why didn’t you say something?”
They looked blank and stunned and she dismissed them.
Emily grabbed a handful of thumbtacks and started sticking photos into the board. “Mutant, mutant,” she stuck the ones with body parts missing in a line, then the murder closest in time across from each. She had two left, a boy and a girl. She waved them in front of the officers. “These kids are from around here. You know them, don’t you? Which was the strange one, the one who didn’t fit in?”
The youngest officer stepped forward. “My brother went to school with them. They were both popular. Sandy, she, she made everyone around her happy. They were going to get married after they graduated.”
Emily swallowed. “Were they all couples?”
“Not those two.” He pointed to the pair of men. “They were just friends.”
Emily doubted that. She looked back down at the pictures in her hands. Morgan pointed to the girl. “Pheromones?”
Emily nodded. She tacked them on the board. Then she turned to Hotch. “It’s not a mutant killing humans. It’s a mutant killing mixed couples.”
“Well, if it’s a mutant problem, I think you might need our help.”
Emily turned. There was a man standing in the doorway, with magenta sunglasses on. Then she looked past him and her jaw fell open.
White ice was in her head before she could remember how to shield it. << You don’t know me. You don’t recognize me. We have never met! >>
<< Emma! >>
<< Don’t! Or I’ll make it true; rip every memory out of your head. >>
<< Don’t threaten me. >> Emily’s walls slammed up, sealing together like automatic locks in tanker ships.
<< Don’t even think about me. Or she’ll know. >>
The redhead was indicated. Emily breathed in through her nose and turned to the man with the magenta glasses.
“This is police business. If you do not have authorization to be here, I suggest you leave.”
It was barely a flicker, but she thought she saw Emma smile.
“We were called in to assist.”
Emily looked sharply at the officers. The youngest one waved his hand embarrassedly. “I might have… dialed their hotline. I didn’t think they would actually come.”
Emma glowered at Scott. “A hotline? No wonder we never get a break. We’re not the fucking Avengers.”
“We need to seem responsive to the community.”
“What’s next? Helping little old ladies cross streets? Fetching cats from trees?”
“That’s what she said, Boy Scout,” grunted Logan.
“And you promised me the FBI would not be here, and as they are, I think we should go home. I have lesson plans to prepare.”
“The FBI?” Scott asked.
Emily, Morgan and Reid raised their hands. Hotch, Rossi and JJ just looked affronted.
“They’re criminal profilers,” said the youngest officer excitedly. “They were just about to tell us who they think did it!”
“Hmm,” Scott frowned. “Perhaps we should stay and hear the profile, and then see if they need our help.”
Without asking for an invitation he took a seat. The room was far too crowded now; even with Emma perched on a desk and Logan leaning in the doorway so he could smoke his cigar. Hotch frowned at the newcomers, but didn’t tell them to leave.
JJ glared at him. “You’re letting the mutant vigilantes stay?” she hissed.
Hotch ignored her and glanced toward the front of the room. “Emily? You seemed to be ready to lead on this one.”
Emily glanced over at Emma who looked pointedly disinterested. “Okay,” she shrugged. “The suspect is a white male between 18 and 25. He is a mutant, with power over heat. His hands and possibly his breath reach temperatures of over 212 degrees. His victims are always couples, one mutant, and one human. The amount of time between each kill suggests that he is a rational psychopath, and escalation is unlikely. But the fact that he tortures his victims before killing them, particularly the mutants, indicates that he is acting out his sadistic impulses. Although most of his murders involve obvious mutants, the murder of Sandy Tate, suggests that he is a local, or at least has been in the area long enough to be trusted with the gossip.”
“But Sandy wasn’t a mutant,” said the youngest officer.
“You said it yourself,” interjected Morgan. “Everyone was happy around her.”
“But-“
The blue furry man stood up. “Haven’t you run genetic tests on the bodies?”
The lieutenant frowned. “We don’t have a local lab. Things have to be sent to Salt Lake City. Since we knew pretty much all the victims, we didn’t think DNA testing would be necessary. And full out genetic scanning is against protocol.”
“If you let me have a sample, I could run a simple diagnostic in the Blackbird.”
“You have a genetics lab in your plane?” asked Reid, nearly slavering.
“Just the bare minimum of equipment.”
“Do you think I could…?” Reid glanced from Hotch to Beast and back.
“Chain of Evidence,” Hotch grunted, “Stay with Mr.….”
“McCoy.”
“Mr. McCoy here, and ensure his procedure is correct.”
Reid nearly skipped away in glee.
* * *
Sandy Tate was a mutant. Pheromones was Dr. McCoy’s expert opinion. The youngest officer was stunned. Reid rhapsodized about the advanced equipment for ten minutes, and then went after Dr. McCoy to speak more in depth about theories of genetic behavior and other things only those two could understand.
The rest of the team, plus Jean who had volunteered to help out, went through census lists, narrowed down and emailed by Garcia, and interrogated the officers on their knowledge of the locals. They were looking for not only the unsub, but also for potential future victims. It felt very haphazard, and Emily felt Emma’s eyes boring critically into the back of her neck, asking if this was their usual method of hunting down perpetrators, because it didn’t compare with the hype.
<< Wears heavy gloves, >> popped into Emily’s head as they were asking about Henrick Smith. She had to restrain herself from turning around.
<< What? >>
<< I thought you should know. When that boy pictures him, he sees him wearing heavy gloves. >>
<< He is a mechanic. >>
Emma managed to convey shrugging disdainfully by telepathy.
* * *