✓ | sick of losing soulmates [SPENCER REID]

1.1

The largest photos pinned up there are not of the victims in life, but of their pale and waxy bodies. They are positioned the same: on their stomachs in bed, head tilted and eyes glued wide open by their killer. Or killers, considering the idea that there are multiple criminals hasn't been disproved yet.

That's Spencer's job. Not to specifically disprove that specific theory, but to at least disprove, or prove, something. That's why he's here.

And, not to toot his own horn (but, well, toot toot): he's pretty good at it, too.

The board to the left is rather plain compared to the other two. Four squares of large paper have been pinned across it. Notes — specifically, notes from the killer. All typed up in black and tacked to the glass pane, under banners reading VICTIM 5 or VICTIM 3 or so on. There's a note for each victim, aside from the first two.

The first he reads is victim five's, his mind too interested in what it says to listen to the logic that tells him to read it all in order; its like reading the end of a book before you finish it. My name is death. Have you not heard of me?

"Creepy, huh?" a feminine voice speaks up, tearing through the concentrated quiet of his mind, and he looks down to his left to find a brunette he doesn't know standing next to him. She's wearing the familiar uniform of the officers around him, but she's also adorned in a warm smile; it stands out of place in the exhausted, serious atmosphere of a stressed Sheriff Station during the dark night. Her entire face seems to shine, like it was made for smiling.

He blames the reader inside of him for romanticising even her appearance. He supposes he just isn't . . . Used to women. There is a reason Derek teases him about his total obliviousness when it comes to relationships, after all.

"Actually," he finds himself saying, glancing back at the note left beside Victim Number Five, "conversations between death and victims is a fairly popular literary and artistic theme throughout the Renaissance." In a burst of courage (which he hates himself for needing because seriously, Spencer, get it together), he looks back down at her to see a surprised, wide-eyed stare. It's a response he's used to, and one he knows how to handle (usually), so he quietly agrees, "Yeah, creepy."

A laugh bubbles out of her. "Wow. I mean, no offence, but why waste your talents on the FBI when you're such a history buff."

It's not a question, so he just laughs and fails to reply that his wide stretch of knowledge spans several other topics.

"Oh my God, sorry if I offended you or anything," she suddenly bursts out with and he guesses his laugh didn't sound real enough (which it hadn't, he knows that, but usually people don't pick up on it). "I'm not calling you a nerd or anything. God, this sounds so unprofessional. I swear, it was just a joke. And, well, I mean, like, out of all nerds, being a history buff is like the best. Cause, I mean, you're buff."