CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: BLOODY VALENTINE !

9x15

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IT WAS THE WEEK OF VALENTINE'S DAY. Frankly, it was one of Casey's least favorite holidays. It was one of those holidays she never knew why people celebrated and she mostly never enjoyed it because she was never in a real relationship when the holiday came and went. Now, she was in the most serious relationship of her life so she was excited to see what was going to be coming of this year.

Her heart definitely skipped a few beats once she saw three bouquets of flowers on her desk. She furrowed her brows and walked towards the desk and from a distance, Spencer had noticed and slowly walked over to her desk, awaiting for her reaction to realize it was him that set the flowers up at her desk.

The girl turned over to her guilty-looking fiancé and smiled, pointing towards the flowers. "Did you do this?" She asks. "Maybe." Spencer shrugs.

As Casey looks at one of the bouquets, she notices a card inside one of the bouquets and this has now piqued the attention of both Blake, over at her desk.

Casey picks up the card and unfolds it to read it aloud. "'There are more than 600,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary and none of those words could ever describe how much I love you. Believe me, I've read it. Happy early Valentine's Day. Love, Spencer." Casey smiles at her fiancé. "Awww. Thank you, babe."

Casey wrapped her arms around Spencer's neck as she gives him a quick kiss. Morgan and Garcia have now walked in the room and notice this. "Can you believe it?" Casey speaks as Spencer decides to sit in her chair and Casey sits on his lap. "First Valentine's Day together."

"This isn't your first Valentine's Day together." Garcia speaks. "Well, it's our first one being engaged and having a kid." Spencer clarifies. "Plus, our first one was a drag. We had to work." Casey added.

"We have to work on this one, too." Morgan speaks, not understanding why the two are calling this their first Valentine's Day when it very clearly isn't. "Yeah, but the day we left for the case was on Valentine's Day." Casey says.

"You guys had a hotel room, though, right?" Blake asks. "Yeah." Casey says, looking towards Spencer and realizing that Valentine's Day was the night the two conceived Christopher. So... special meaning.

The two had Valentine's Day planned out. Christopher was going to be with Edith for the night while the two spent time together back at the apartment. It was well-deserved for the two to have a night-in.

Before the two could talk about their planned night, a familiar face had come back to work. This familiar face was JJ, coming back after two weeks since she had been taken. "JJ?" Casey asked, standing up from her fiancé's lap.

"JJ?" Garcia asked, looking at Morgan. "JJ." Morgan nods to the woman, walking through the office. "JJ!" Garcia turns to the woman. "You're back!" Garcia smiled.
"And ready to get to work." JJ chuckles. "How you feeling?" Morgan asks. "I'm--I'm fine. Don't get me wrong, I love my boys to death, but I was starting to get a little stir crazy." Casey smiled in understanding as she walked toward the group.

"Well, let's do this." Morgan nods.
"Yes." JJ nods, going towards the conference room.
"Do you want some tea?" Garcia offers, following behind her and everyone else soon follows as well.

In the conference room is already Rossi, Vivian and Hotch. "Welcome back." Rossi greets as soon as JJ walks in. "You sure two weeks is enough time?" Spencer asks, taking a seat next to the woman. "Oh, I'm fine." JJ sits down. "And, yes, Will made sure I got clearance from two doctors."
"Glad you're ok," Hotch says. "We should get started."

Garcia nods, heading to the screen. "Yes, sir." Casey looks down at her tablet and at the file in front of her. "Pittsburgh field office has reported two murders in the past 48 hours." Garcia began.

"Both of them were strangled, then stripped down to their underwear and then dumped off of a highway." Hotch added. "Have we ID'd the victims?" Casey asks.
"No, not yet." Garcia answers.
"The guy has a lot of rage. He's using some kind of ligature, maybe a strap?" Rossi assumes, looking at the marks on the vic's neck. "A belt, maybe?" Casey questions.

"It looks like he's choking them intermittently, allowing them to breathe only when he permits it." Morgan says. "But the ME report says neither was sexually assaulted." Hotch informs.

"That's odd given the fact that 80% of crimes against women involve some sort of sexual component." Spencer speaks. "Well, it's the choking that gets him off. Some form of erotic asphyxiation filtered through a psychopath's need for power and control." Morgan explains.

"Okay, what is this? Are they wrapped in shower curtains?" JJ asks as Casey looks closely at the photo. "Strangely, yes. Which is why I'm checking with a number of manufacturers to see where these were distributed from."
Garcia explains.

"The MO says sexual sadist, but the curtain reads as remorse." Blake tells. "But sexual sadists don't feel remorse." Vivian says. "Maybe it's his shame?" Casey guessed. "Or maybe he's impotent. He doesn't rape because he can't." JJ guessed.

"And the embarrassment of not being able to perform manifests in him wrapping up his victims." Morgan tells.
"He doesn't want to look at them after he kills them." Rossi says. "Which points to either symbolic or a literal emasculation." Vivian says.

"We need to find out. Wheels up in 30."

With that, the team heads to the jet and debrief over the case at hand. Hotch splits the team up, Casey going with Spencer and JJ to look into motels where their victims could've possibly been killed. They arrive to one and are met with a man who is ignoring them.

JJ decides to ding the bell in front of her. "25 an hour, 2-hour minimum." The man says, still not looking up. Casey looks at JJ, who decides to ring the bell again, this time with her FBI badge. The man finally looks up. "Hi. Yeah, we'd just like to ask you a couple questions." JJ tells.

"We've been canvassing several motels in the area. It's possible a murder's been committed in one of the rooms." JJ tells. "I haven't seen or heard anything." The man tells, looking back down.

"Do you mind if we take a peek at your guest log or surveillance footage?" Spencer asks. "We don't have cameras. We're a cash only, no questions asked type of establishment." The man tells.

Casey pulls out the photos of the victims and hands them to the man. "Would you mind taking a look at these? Do you recognize anyone?" The man shakes his head and hands them back to Casey. "Never seen them before."

"This might sound strange, but are any of your rooms missing a shower curtain?" Spencer asks. The man looked at the three, grabbed a set of keys and headed off to a room while the three followed him to the motel room.

        He opens the door and the first thing Casey notices is the mess. "I noticed it wasn't there this morning. The room was totally trashed. Did a real number on the toilet. Got someone coming out to take a look later on today."

       "Did you try plunging it?" JJ asks.
       "Do I look like a plumber?" The man questions.
       "You mind if we take a look?" Spencer asks.
       "Knock yourself out." The man says and walks out of the room.

        "Lovely these motel owners can be." Casey speaks sarcastically as JJ raises her brows and chuckles lightly.

        Spencer puts on a set of gloves and begins to plunge the toilet — which surprises Casey since he's such a germaphobe. "Come on, you gotta put your back into it, Spence." JJ encourages. "We're gonna need to do this when Christopher starts using the potty so may as well get some practice now." Casey speaks.

       "Where's Morgan when you need him?" Spencer asks, strained. "Probably kicking down doors as we speak." Casey comments.

        Spencer grunts and then looks down at the toilet. "Look at this." He reaches in a pulls out a used condom and both of the women in the room have disgust on their faces. "It doesn't make sense. The unsub doesn't have sex with his victims." Spencer tells.

       "Then why did he need the condom?" JJ asks. "Well, it takes impotence off the table. He clearly had intercourse with someone after he committed the murder." Casey speaks. "So, he doesn't rape her. He has sex with someone else in the room. A lover?" JJ assumes.

       "Who's also his partner in crime?" Casey asks. "We're looking for a team." Spencer says and this causes Casey to grab her cell phone from her pocket and dials Hotch's number to tell him the news.

       After that, the three headed back to the PD and looked over the crime scenes and how this could connect to two unsubs. Both Vivian and Rossi being in the room as well. The lead detective on the case walks in and and speaks. "Take a look at this. You guys were right. I was able to match their MO to 10 other strangulation murders. We were only able to identify four."

        "They've been at it since 1994." Rossi reads aloud. "Looks like they stopped in 2010 and remained dormant up until now." Spencer says. "Something had to prevent them from killing." Vivian assumes. "Maybe one was incarcerated." JJ thinks.

         "I'll start pulling prison records, see if I can get a match." The lead detective walks out. "These two have been in a relationship a lot longer than we thought." Rossi tells. "But even if they broke up, to come back together and resume killing after a 4-year hiatus is rare." Spencer explains.

       "Love is strange," Rossi speaks. "It'll make you do the craziest things." Vivian raises her brows as Rossi speaks. "Guys, what if they're married?" JJ comes up with the conclusion and it fits the profile better.

       The next morning, the team is informed that another killing had occurred the night prior and they had veered off from their victimology, targeting a man this time. They had profiled that the female unsub had picked this one and now that she had that power, it would be hard for her to let it go.

         The team later found out that the male unsub had been killing and raping the women by himself in the hiatus where they stopped and there had been a survivor — who remembered that the man's work clothes had his name on it — which was Alan.

        They had gone to Alan Anderson's home and discovered his wife, Judith, who would not dare to say anything negative about her husband. They had contacted Garcia, who had discovered that the two were seeing a therapist and Hotch had split the team up and had Morgan, Casey and Reid sent over to the therapist's office.

         Casey had decided to drive while Spencer sat next to her on the passenger's side while Morgan sat in the back. Spencer had gotten a phone call and talked for a moment before Spencer hung up. "That was Hotch. No sign of Alan at the house."

         "He's probably aware that we have Judith in custody." Morgan thinks. "And we're after him as we speak." Casey tells. "If that's the case, he knows it's only a matter of time before we get to him." Spencer says as Casey focuses on the destination. "At this point, the guy's got nothing to lose, which makes him more dangerous than ever." Morgan tells.

          "I think you should contact Dr. Benedict. He may be over there now." Casey recommends and Spencer picks up his cell phone and contacts the woman and she eventually picks up.

        "Kathleen, my name is Spencer Reid. I'm a federal agent. Right now you need to stay calm and not react." There's a pause. "Is Alan Anderson there with you? Answer yes or no." Another pause. "You need to understand that Alan is a dangerous man and he's wanted for several murders. Do you think you can get away from there without alerting him?" Another pause and the line goes dead. "Hello?"

         Spencer hangs up and Casey looks towards her fiancé. "Do you think he knows?" She asks. "I think you should step on the gas." Spencer says. "Don't need to tell me twice." Casey says, putting her foot on the gas and they begin to zoom to the office. Morgan white-knuckles the seats as Spencer is regretting telling her to step on the gas.

         Casey is zooming past cars and Morgan is remembering why he never let Casey drive themselves to destinations and mentally curses at himself for letting her drive again.

"Ace, seriously, I'm gonna ask you again — how'd you get your license?" Morgan questions.
"And I'm gonna tell you again — I pretty much winged it!" Casey says as she takes a right to the parking lot and the three get out of the car and Morgan splits off from Spencer and Casey heading up the stairs.

        They finally find Alan and Kathleen and Morgan has the pleasure of arresting Alan while Spencer and Casey calm Kathleen down.
Alan and Judith Anderson are arrested and Casey is pretty much sure their relationship is ending on divorce.

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At the end of the day, the team now has headed out for their Valentine's Day plans. Hotch is ready to head out, to join his son for dinner since he had had no other plans. He takes his briefcase and heads down the stairs as Vivian Hudson is heading towards the elevator.

"Hudson..." Hotch starts, almost in shock she's still in the office. Vivian looks up, thinking the same thing, but understanding since he was her boss. "Oh, hey, Hotch." The two stand awkwardly before continuing to walk towards the elevator.

"So, any plans for Valentine's Day?" Hotch asks. "Nothing much. Probably just gonna drink wine and watch recorded episodes of Desperate Housewives. You?" Vivian asks.

Hotch shrugs, "Nothing. Probably just dinner tonight with Jack." He hesitates before deciding to ask. "Actually, would you like to come? If-If you're not doing anything too drastic?" He asks.

Vivian looks at Hotch but smiles, "Of course, I'd love to come. I do love seeing Jack." With that, the elevator opens and Hotch lets Vivian go in before him.

The two would never admit it but they liked each other. But they knew their relationship was strictly professional and that's all it would ever be. So they would admire each other from afar, refer to each other by first name and leave it at that. But they were oblivious to how the other felt. They were slowly making progress with one another and the other had no idea that that was how they felt — if that made any sense.

As that was going on, Spencer and Casey had been at the apartment, Spencer making Casey close her eyes as he pulled a tray from the fridge. "Don't open them!" Spencer says. "I'm not, I swear!" Casey chuckled.

Spencer placed the tray in front of her and took the tinfoil off. "Now, one, two, three. Open your eyes." Casey opens her eyes and looks at Spencer. "Chocolate strawberries?" She asks.

"Your favorite." Spencer says, grabbing one of the strawberries and puts one in her mouth. Casey and Spencer had spent the rest of the night together in utter happiness. The night consisted of dancing in the kitchen to some slow music Spencer had put on.

They then moved over to the couch and watched a film from the 1930s. It was a night to remember. A night they didn't have to worry about work for once. It felt like one of the nights they first spent when they first got together.

The night ended when both Spencer and Casey had fallen asleep watching the movie. Casey was the first to fall asleep and Spencer had noticed once he looked over and seen that her eyes were closed and she was huddled close to his chest. Spencer softly chuckled to himself. "Happy Valentine's Day, Casey..." He whispered before kissing the top of her head. He had paid attention to thirty more minutes worth of the movie before falling into a deep slumber himself.

hey lovelies!!!
sooooo question
since spencer and casey's song is cardigan, what would hotch and vivian's song be???
i'm thinking either "red" or "sweet nothing"
and what would their ship name be?
hivian???? votch??? idk

ALSO
i'm really debating of making a fanfic about casey's mother and hotch like unrequited love type beat
i'm just thinking about it-

anywaysssss
thank you for reading
spencer and casey deserve some fluff </333
-mya <3