The List - Part 9
Title: The List
Author: ardatli
Rating: Mature (language/mild sexual content)
Pairing: CM: Gen - Casefic / QAF: Brian/Justin
Timeline: CM: Between 307 and 308 / QAF: Two years post-513
Parts: 9/15
Beta: roane, the wonderous and amazing. She's never seen QAF, alas (working on it!), so the character sections there are only beta-ed for the writing. All errors are mine.
Summary:
Criminal Minds / Queer As Folk (US)
Someone is mutilating and killing men in Pittsburgh's gay village. When Pittsburgh's finest can't save Pittsburgh's hottest, they call on the FBI for help. Can the BAU stop the Liberty Avenue Killer before the unsub strikes again?
9.
November 14th, 2007, 7:30 am:
The tall, dark-haired man who entered the precinct behind Prentiss and Morgan was leonine, JJ decided at her first sight of him. That was the word for it. He strolled down the hallway like he was hunting for something, and it felt like everyone in the room held their breath for a split second, waiting to see if they were going to be his chosen prey. He locked eyes with one of the uniforms heading in the other direction and it was as though some steel rope bound their gazes together for a moment, heads turning, until they were too far apart to sustain the gesture. Kinney's head turned forward, the officer's did as well, and the short blond beside Kinney stepped on his foot to break the moment in a way that JJ was sure had to be deliberate.
She hid a smile at the interplay and turned back to Hotch and Reid, both standing behind her at the bulletin board that was covered with case notes and clippings. "Morgan and Prentiss are back. They've got Kinney and Taylor with them."
Horvath had stopped at the front to talk to the desk sergeant, nodding and gesturing to the group as though giving instructions. He slapped his notebook against the edge of the desk a couple of times as he answered a question, then turned and followed the others back through the precinct until he reached the door of his office.
“Hey, guys,” Prentiss reached them first, Morgan bringing up the rear looking like he’d accidentally eaten something foul. “Is the sketch artist in yet? Mr. Taylor and Mr. Kinney are going to need to sit down with her to put together a sketch of the unsub.”
Justin stopped at JJ’s desk, Brian close behind, and gave the pair of women a half-smile. “Justin Taylor,” he extended his hand to the blonde FBI agent sitting at the desk.
“Jennifer Jareau,” she shook his hand. “SSA Hotchner,” she gestured behind her to the two men, “and Doctor Reid. Thank you for coming down this morning.”
“We didn’t exactly have much of a choice,” Brian murmured from behind Justin’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure whether to be more annoyed with the cops, with Justin or with himself at the moment, and he hated that sort of indecision. That, and he badly needed a cup of coffee. Or five.
Reid noted the slightly different curl of Taylor’s right and left hands, the faint white line at his right temple that was mostly covered by hair, the snug red cotton crewneck and too-long jeans that were so unlike the high-end wardrobe Kinney favoured.
Taylor nodded in response to JJ’s greeting. “If it’s a sketch you want, I can-“
"SUNSHINE!"
And that was the red-headed girlfriend of Detective Horvath, descending upon the pair of them like a cross between Mother Goose and an avenging angel. She had come in the door with a stack of takeout containers wrapped in plastic bags, a burden she left on top of the half-high dividing wall without a second thought before she steamed across the floor towards them. It was amazing to watch, Reid considered, how the pair of men, so physically different on the surface - one tall, tanned, lean, one short, pale, blond - managed to look exactly the same as they cringed in unison.
"Oh god." That was Taylor.
"Been nice knowing you." That was Kinney. And the look that passed between them was a wordless communication of the kind that took years to develop, based on shared experiences, emotions, understanding, and something else entirely unquantifiable. The look made Reid feel, for a moment, like he had his hands pressed against a pane of glass, on the outside looking in.
“Jesus FUCKING Christ!” Debbie made it as far as Justin, and threw her arms around him with an expression of unholy glee. He hugged her back, relaxing a little - maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad - but only for a moment. Deb let go and delivered a slap to the back of his head, followed that up with a matching one to the back of Brian’s. The smirk that had appeared briefly on Brian’s lips vanished at the moment of impact, a different sort of smile resurfacing a moment later. Prentiss jumped a little, her surprise evident, and exchanged a look with Reid. Intervene, or-?
“You two have a lot of explaining to do,” Debbie put her fists on her hips, looking from one to the other with the kind of glare that would fell lesser men. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“That it’s nobody else’s business?” Brian offered up, the faint smile still playing over his lips as he gave up entirely on the idea of continuing the subterfuge.
“That we wanted to avoid scenes exactly like this one,” Justin at least had the grace to look a little bit sheepish, folding his arms across his chest and sinking down to sit on the corner of JJ’s desk.
Debbie shook her fist at them, then poked Justin in the ribs. He doubled over a little, and flashed her a glimpse of the smile that had earned him his nickname. “You’re getting too goddamn skinny, Sunshine. Tell Brian that he needs to feed you properly, if you’re going to hide at his place instead of coming over for dinner once in a fucking blue moon.”
“He can eat my-“ Brian began to suggest, a gleam in his eye, only cutting off when Deb wagged her finger.
“You, I’m not talking to.”
Morgan joined Hotch on the other side of the quad of desks, away from the slightly turbulent ‘family’ reunion. “Any luck finding the other four men on the list?” He’d phoned the names in on the way back, while Prentiss drove and Kinney and Taylor followed in the older man’s car.
“Garcia tracked down contact information for three of them,” Hotch replied with a terse nod. “Rossi’s making the calls now. I’m going to talk to Horvath about assigning some protection details, or possibly taking them into protective custody until we can make an arrest.”
Morgan scanned the desks, noting the new files that seemed to have sprouted there and on the bulletin board even within the past hour. “Has she been up all night working on this?”
“Possibly,” Hotch acknowledged, flickering his eyebrows in a way that suggested pride at the analyst’s dedication, and affection, as well as concern for her well-being. Someday, Morgan was going to have to study how he managed to do all of that with the sparest of facial movements. “We’re running out of time,” Hotch admitted. “If his pattern holds, there’s going to be another death tomorrow night.”
Horvath had emerged from his office as they’d been speaking, and Hotchner spotted the gruff detective exchanging words with Mrs. Novotny. She peeled off from the group and retrieved her stack of containers, and he caught a few words, over the rising hubbub in the station, of the enthusiastic conversation that followed. “...rking all night! So I brought breakfast. Muffins, danishes, sandwiches; there’s lemon ba...” Hotch turned away.
Mrs. Novotny now otherwise occupied, JJ rose from her chair. “I’ll take you to Rhonda McKinley; she’s the sketch artist here. We need you to work with her to put together an image that we can use for a press release.”
“I’m an artist,” Justin offered, his arms folded across his front. He looked from one agent to the other, his attention landing back on JJ at the end. He felt the immediate impulse to like her; there was something about her that reminded him of his mother. Not that he imagined she’d find the comparison to the mother of a twenty-four year old flattering. “I can do the sketch myself, and it might be easier than trying to describe him. I only met him twice, though. Brian-?” He turned his head to ask, catching sight of Brian’s nod as Kinney passed him and took over the chair that JJ had only just abandoned.
“I remember,” Brian confirmed confidently. A smirk played over his lips as he met JJ’s eyes. “You want a head-shot, or full-frontal?” Would she be as easy to fluster as Muscles had been? It was worth a shot, for the entertainment value if nothing else. Behind him, Justin rolled his eyes.
JJ picked up one of the folders from the table but held it loosely in her arms, not crossing it across her chest like armour. She didn’t need that kind of prop for this. She smiled peacefully, but Prentiss had to bite back a grin at the steely look that had come into the other agent’s eyes.
“A head shot will be fine,” JJ replied, not taking the bait. Kinney was being deliberately provocative, singling her out as a supposedly easy target; it was a bit ridiculous, really. She didn’t have time to indulge him, and she needed the information he had locked away behind that smug and lazy smile. “Unless he has any major distinguishing characteristics that might help with identification.”
Brian pursed his lips, considered. He tongued one of his molars and replied. “Seven and a half inches, cut, slight bend to the left?"
Justin snickered, and JJ caught the motion in her peripheral vision. She ignored him, and flickered an eyebrow at Brian. “Are you done?”
Blondes had always been Brian’s undoing. Justin - that one went without saying. He’d begun to unravel the moment he’d first spotted that golden, shining boy under the streetlight outside Babylon. But before Justin there had been Lindsay, who had talked him out of a cupful of sperm and into fatherhood before he’d even begun to comprehend how un-simple that simple request had been. And Jennifer Taylor, implacable and stubborn, with that same damn tilt to her chin and steel in her eyes as her son... Now this FBI agent, another Jennifer, staring at him coolly until the bullshit melted away and there was no point to doing anything except co-operate.
Brian had never been inclined toward co-operation. He quirked an eyebrow and smiled slyly at her from under hooded eyes. “Oh, I can go for hours-“
“Brian!” Deb’s annoyed holler from the other desk gave him a split-second of warning and he caught sight of motion from the corner of his eye. He still didn’t have enough time to fully duck from the attitude-corrective muffin that she’d whipped at him, the baked good delivering a sound hit on his shoulder before rolling away across the floor. “Get over yourself and stop being such a shit!”
His head hung for a moment; he sucked at his front teeth and gave a small nod, knowing when he was outnumbered. When he looked up, the arrogance was gone from his eyes, replaced with a flash of amusement and resignation. “I’m done.” Brian pondered for a moment, brushed the bran crumbs from his shoulder fastidiously, and searched his memory for anything that would be truly useful. A voice from the past bubbled up, along with the image of shaggy honey-brown hair and muddy blue eyes, the long, fair length of a toned body against his sheets, and a sneer. ‘Your years are numbered. Eventually I’m going to tear you down. And pull you apart.’
Brian shook his head.
"No. No birthmarks or tattoos, if that's what you mean."
JJ waited him out another minute, watching the processing going on behind his closed expression. When he stayed silent she nodded, turning back to Taylor where he sat on top of the desk. "I'll get you some paper."