Boothill with Remembrance Pathstrider Reader working undercover as an IPC agent.
Reader has a solid résumé that gets them a high enough position in some department, and it helps that they have a background in engineering and computers, letting them slip into areas normally closed off to others which lets them steal information and data (and gather memories from the surrounding environment) while they’re doing their job; and after waiting for someone to complain about their tech still not working, Reader can go back in to clean up, leaving the tech to work properly without anymore problems so that no one suspects anything.
And Reader can easily act annoyed whenever someone asks for help, because they also do have legitimate experience in dealing with the computer illiterate. 😅
Reader: “Ugh, it’s having problems again? What did you do this time?” 😒
IPC goon: “Skott was the last one to use it.”
Skott: “IT WASN’T ME, I DIDN’T BREAK IT!” 😭
Except someone occasionally starts to suspect and close in on Reader, especially when they notice that almost every technological incident has Reader involved; and this time the suspicion is heavy enough that Reader needs some kind of distraction, or at least some way to lift it the suspicion.
So they send an encrypted message to their regular, Boothill, saying “Hostage situation,” meaning, “I need a temporary extraction because they’re onto me and I can’t shake them off.”
No Rest for the Wicked
Summary: When you, an undercover IPC agent with a solid background in engineering and computer systems, find yourself under suspicion for a series of tech malfunctions, you send a coded message to Boothill, the cyborg cowboy and your regular ally, asking for a distraction. As suspicion mounts and the heat intensifies, Boothill creates chaos in the IPC building, allowing you to make your escape. With the agent closing in on you, you rely on Boothill’s timely intervention to ensure your extraction—and your survival.
Warnings: Gun violence, Explosions, Suspenseful action, References to combat and danger, Mild language, Peril.
The air in the IPC’s towering headquarters was sterile and cold, the hum of computers filling the halls. You walked confidently through the corridors, your heels clicking against the marble floors, a calculated annoyance etched into your expression as you passed one of the many workers bustling about. It wasn’t the first time someone had called you in to deal with a malfunctioning piece of tech, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
You had an impeccable résumé, one that made it easy to slip into the ranks of the IPC unnoticed, a high-ranking agent within a department no one could quite place you in. Engineering and computer systems, the perfect cover for your true work. Your ability to slip into areas normally closed off to others, gathering information and gathering memories from the environment around you, made your job easier. But today, something felt different. The air around you was heavier—like someone was watching just a little too closely.
"Ugh, it’s having problems again?" you muttered as you walked into the small office where a flustered employee stood beside a malfunctioning console. "What did you do this time?"
The worker, nervous and flustered, hesitated before pointing to a colleague in the corner of the room. "Skott was the last one to use it."
Skott’s face immediately contorted into horror. "IT WASN’T ME, I DIDN’T BREAK IT!" he wailed.
You simply rolled your eyes, more focused on the larger picture at hand than their petty drama. You always had a reputation for acting annoyed when these "accidents" happened, and honestly, it suited you. It kept people from asking too many questions, gave you the perfect excuse to swoop in and fix things. This time, it was a simple fix—too easy. A few adjustments here, a gentle tap there, and the console would be working perfectly. But as you bent over the console, your mind was elsewhere.
There were whispers lately, whispers that made your stomach churn. Someone was starting to suspect. Maybe it was just paranoia, but you couldn’t help but feel the eyes on you. Each time you fixed another "problem," you felt someone getting closer, lingering a bit too long. It wasn’t a coincidence that every tech failure seemed to involve you.
You had to cover your tracks. It was time for a distraction, something to keep the heat off you for a while. You couldn't afford to slip up now—not when Boothill was still out there. He was your lifeline, and he knew exactly how to handle situations like this.
With a subtle gesture, you activated your communicator and sent a quick encrypted message: "Hostage situation."
It was your code for "I need extraction. They’re onto me."
A few moments passed before you received a response. Just one word: "Coming."
You felt a small wave of relief, but you couldn’t let your guard down. The pressure was mounting, the suspicion growing stronger. You needed to get out, and you needed Boothill to cause the perfect distraction. As you finished the minor repairs to the console and reprogrammed it to work flawlessly, you heard the distinct sound of boots in the hallway. The unmistakable heavy thud of someone approaching—someone who didn’t belong.
The door swung open, and a cold-eyed agent stepped in, his gaze locking onto you. "Agent Pathstrider," he said with forced politeness, "We need to have a word."
Your heart skipped a beat. The suspicion was no longer subtle. You had no time to play coy.
"Of course," you replied, giving them the most disinterested expression you could muster. "What is it now? Is someone else having problems with their tech? Maybe they should stop breaking things."
The agent took a step closer, his eyes narrowing as he studied you. He wasn't just trying to figure out a malfunction—he was trying to figure out you. And that was a problem.
Before the agent could say anything else, there was a loud bang, followed by the unmistakable sound of gunfire. A massive explosion shook the building, sending a tremor through the floor. You didn't even flinch. This was it. Boothill had arrived.
The agent’s eyes flickered toward the door, and without missing a beat, you lunged forward, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him into the nearest wall. His breath came out in a rush, but you weren't about to let him make a sound. You quickly applied enough pressure to keep him still but not enough to kill him—not yet.
"Stay quiet," you hissed in his ear, your hand tightly gripping the small, concealed blade hidden at your side. "We don't want anyone to notice you're missing."
With the agent temporarily subdued, you moved to the window, your heart pounding with adrenaline. The building was in chaos—Boothill’s signature, a calculated mess of violence. His handiwork was exactly what you needed. As you glanced out, you saw him—his tall, imposing figure in his cowboy hat, flames in the distance framing his outline. Boothill had made sure the distraction would cover your escape.
You didn’t waste any time. With the agent out cold, you slipped out of the room and into the ventilation system, quickly making your way to a secure exit. You had a rendezvous with Boothill, and you weren’t going to let anyone ruin it.
After all, when your cover was blown, only one thing could save you—your partner in the shadows, the gunslinger whose fire never burned out.
‘Fear’, she says, ‘can be a sickness, and you must not let it get its teeth too deep into you. A little fear, caution, awareness may keep you alive out there, a sense of whether a place is safe, whether a person may be on even… A little Fear only. But if you don't keep control, if you let it control you, you will give yourself away in the street by your wariness, or you will sit too tight, and be there like a plump duck for the hunters when you should have run. It won't be easy, but you must, must make it your servant, not your Master, out there it won't just haunt you, it will kill you.’
She looks down from the raised platform at the faces turned attentively to her, and can’t top the thought from coming. Fear or not, how many of you will make it back?
The media’s prurient obsession with women's trauma has ensured the inquiry is a depoliticised dead-end, writes Rivkah Brown.
“When Everard was murdered, groups like Sisters Uncut forced a connection between her murder and the misogynistic, racist institution of policing. This connection, and a sense that police power was spiralling out of control, were reinforced by the tabling of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill just days before the news broke about Everard. The spy cops scandal, on the other hand, has been framed as discontinuous with the Met’s politics and past – an unexpectedly compelling episode of an otherwise two-star cop drama.
“Indeed, the media’s centering of the grim salaciousness of undercover cops impregnating unsuspecting young women and stealing dead children’s identities to do it – think of Donna McLean’s memoir Small Town Girl: Love, Lies and the Undercover Police, or the Telegraph’s Bed of Lies podcast – has eclipsed the story of the state trying to annihilate the organised left.
“Over 1,000 groups were spied on by police between 1968 and at least 2010, and almost all of these were leftwing. In the interim report, Mitting explains that no undercover officer was deployed into far-right groups between 1977 and 1982, because ‘Special Branch already had excellent sources within the extreme right’, and because they were worried the fash would beat them up.
“On Thursday, Met commander Jon Savell apologised ‘to women deceived by officers into sexual relationships, to the families of deceased children whose identities were used by officers...’, highlighting two groups whose plight has become synonymous with the spy cops. It’s unlikely we’ll ever hear an apology to the one group almost all of their victims belonged to: the left.”
Who wants a (very) rough preview of Hotter than That (the Undercover Hotch/Morgan story)? There is no Hotch in this preview, you'll have to read the first chapter to see where he fits in to all of this. Instead we have all Derek & Spencer, plus you get to meet possibly the best OC I've ever created. That's saying a lot because I really liked the inmates I came up with for the prison AU. Leroy takes all the cake.
This is, currently, planned to be 3 or 4 chapters but if you've been around long, you know I tend to get a little crazy so take my estimation with a grain of salt. The first chapter should be posted by Thursday if I can get my poop in a group, and it'll likely go fast after that, this isn't going to be a slow burn.
Summary: (rough) The DEA have taken over operations at a riverboat casino on Lake Pontchartrain, keeping a close eye on a rival casino suspected of money laundering and drug trafficking. They've been running the casino for months undetected, getting closer to the information they need to shut the whole thing down, or so they thought. When employees and patrons of the DEA's casino start going missing and body parts turn up in nearby swamps, they call in the BAU for some undercover help.
I know that sounds cheesy but I'm REALLY truly bad at summaries so just...I'll work on it. Look under the cut, if you so desire! (1.2k words)
“Check-in time, kid. My office. Ten minutes.”
The way Derek said it, breezing past the bar like he owned the place, smacking the glossy hardwood with the palm of his hand loud enough to send a shudder down Spencer's spine was disconcerting. Jazz oozed out of the loud speakers from somewhere in the belly of that boat, some dimly lit stage in a smoky room made to speak to an era gone by. The younger crowd stuck to Spencer's bar, his quick hands and his magic tricks, he had a flair for it but the older folk huddled below deck with their cigars and their whiskey and their chaotic dixieland jazz. Spencer wished they wouldn't pump the music through the speakers, wished they'd keep it down below, it set his nerves on edge when four musicians decided to go on solo tangents all at once, different melodies, different tones, too much for him. That was when he whipped out his deck of cards and asked who wanted to see a trick, pulled a quarter out from behind an ear, handed out the deck of trivia cards and set his phasers to stun. It was all he could do to muddle through the musical bombardment, all he could do just to make it back to the more palatable playlists between live sets. Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, he could bop around behind the bar to that but the live stuff made him long for ear plugs.
“Leroy?” he asked, sliding up beside his cohort at the bar for the evening. The older man turned to Spencer with a wild grin, having just returned from a trip around the casino floor to collect high ball glasses the waitresses missed. Glasses that would be found in tiny cubbies, set aside by now penniless drunk tourists with a sip or two left for the taking. Leroy loved it, the way it made him feel to swirl the glass and spill someone's drink down his throat, savored the flavor of tears and loss. He could sip despair. He was Spencer's favorite, too old to be tending bar at a riverboat casino but as a retired street musician, he didn't want to make too drastic a move – the weird nightlife was where he loved to be. If he wasn't there beside Spencer, he was trolling the French Quarter and creating a little mischief for the tourists who had the misfortune of making his acquaintance. A modern day Puck. Nothing that would be considered cruel, but a good laugh, a real good laugh always came with a certain amount of misery he pointed out.
“Does that come with a good 401k plan? Being a street musician?” Spencer had asked upon first meeting Leroy. The other man cocked an eyebrow and studied Spencer, really looked hard at him before letting a cockeyed grin overtake his craggy, serious features.
“The best,” he replied, winking. “I'm a king. Isn't that what everyone wants? To be a king?”
“You were a king before that,” Spencer added, a nod to the meaning of Leroy's name. “I guess you could do anything you wanted, really, that being the case.”
“What can I do ya for, buddy?” Leroy asked, unloading an armful of glasses into the wash bin. Someone would come and collect them, note that they'd been licked clean, cherry stems neatly tied in knots and know exactly who had done the collecting. Gifts, Leroy would say, for his adoring fans. The kitchen would talk about him in hushed whispers, he would give them his mad grin, and Spencer knew it was all just a ruse. He loved to have everyone talking about him.
“Security check-in,” Spencer replied. “Would you mind holding down the fort for a few minutes?”
"'Course, boss," Leroy winked. "Gotta make sure you ain't been skimmin' off the top. House always wins."
Derek's office was cold, the air conditioning turned on and blasting day and night. Still, the minute he entered the casino floor the sweat pooled at the base of his hips, trickled slowly down his spine and stuck his shirt to him. He wore only black to combat it, to make sure no one could see. But in his office, with its dark walls and filmy white light, it was cool. He reclined in his chair, fingers pressed together at the tips, and watched Spencer enter, slipping his name badge back into his pocket when the door shut tight. The lock, automatic, clicked behind him and it gave him the shivery impression of walking into a prison. There were televisions lining one wall, tiny screens in full color, a stark contrast with the dark surroundings, and Derek watched them like a hawk.
“Has it been a week already?” Spencer asked, taking a seat opposite Derek. A few switches were flipped, a few buttons depressed, Derek's nimble fingers flying across the keyboard of his computer before he spoke. Under constant surveillance by the casino and the DEA, even in his own office, this particular conversation was one of very few allowed to be kept off the record. Their record, anyway.
“How's it going out there? Any mention of The Shadow Man?” The name dripped off of his tongue full of contempt. There were few things in life that drove him up the wall faster than people giving fantastical names to something that didn't deserve it. Frightening names for serial killers topped his list. It made his skin crawl to think that this man, and that's all he was...a man...could be held in such high regard. The Shadow Man, like he lurked in the alleys from another plane of existence, like he was made of pure evil and nothing more than mist, even the tourists were talking, avoiding the casino like the plague. On a Friday night the place should have been bustling but the floor was barren, only a few regulars, people who didn't altogether mind the idea of their troubles being ended one way or another hung on. When four people went missing and only a body part or two showed up, it was only a matter of time before people started talking and that sort of talking was rarely good. Gators, maybe, but it wasn't often gators chose to do all of their hunting within the walls of one particular busy riverboat casino. Someone who knew how easily a body could be disposed of with the right set of teeth, however, they could hunt anywhere they wanted. “Things have been too quiet, man. You think he knows we're here? Anything, kid...give me something.”
“Denise hasn't shown up for her shift in the buffet yet, she's almost an hour late...47 minutes actually...” Spencer replied coolly, folding one long leg over the other. “She's never late. There are whispers. Leroy is telling ghost stories, spooking the staff.”
“What do you think, pretty boy?” Derek asked, sliding further away from his head of security persona and back into Derek Morgan, his charming grin lighting up the dark room. The discussion may have been grim but he was always elated to have a few minutes alone with Spencer, a few minutes to remember who he was. “You think it's him?”
