Hi! This is the first time I publish in years and it feels really weird. Also, it's my first CM story, and of course I had to tackle tragedy. *sighs*

I don't want to ramble on too much, so I'll just tell you that this story was written with friendship in mind, but it can be seen as Emily/Reid.

I hope you'll enjoy and, if you do, please review!

DISCLAIMER: Criminal Minds belongs to CBS.

WARNING: Character death.

Purgamen (Latin, noun): 1) impurity, that which is cleaned away; 2) means of purification, which cleans.

Trash.

Emily looks at the crime scene, and the first thing that comes to mind is trash.

The unsub discarded the body as if it were no more important than any common piece of garbage, as if it once wasn't a person who lived, breathed, laughed.

It's disgusting, it's inhumane, and most of all, it's absolutely heart-wrenching.

The victim is fully dressed, aside for the missing shoes, but his clothes are rumpled and stained with blood. He lays on the dirty ground of a dark alley, surrounded by actual trash, and the smell is revolting.

It's not the acrid fragrance of death, however, as the victim has been dumped no more than a couple of hours ago.

It's the smell of food scraps and rotten fruit and spoilt eggs and so many other things that have been left too long in the hot, humid weather. It's the smell of piss and sweat and blood and tears.

It steals into Emily, it travels through her nostrils and it feels as though it has reached her brains because she can't imagine ever forgetting it.

A hand over her mouth and nose, she walks closer to the body, her steps slow and heavy and old and burdened with the world.

She kneels beside the man and she sees the innocence and youth in his slack features, etched as deep as the cut on his throat.

Out of mere habit, she proceeds to profile the victim. White male, in his early thirties if not late twenties. He was probably coming back from work when he was grabbed, pulled into the alley, and robbed of everything he owned, shoes and jacket included, before the unsub slit his throat.

Her eyes travel over his form. Thin. Pale.

The profile gives way to the analysis of the body.

The man is, yes, thin, but also quite tall. Pale, pale as the dead — it's a corpse, it's expected — but it's clear it's not that big of a difference from when he was alive. The skin around his eyes is darker, which coupled with the paleness is a telltale sign of heavy blood-loss. He has long fingers, nails just shy of being too long. She can see the blood caked under them, and she thinks, evidence.

He lays on his left side, his back touching the alley's cold brick wall. His legs are bent and one of his arms covers his abdomen. The other arm, the left one, is on the floor and it's almost perfectly angled at ninety degrees, palm turned upwards, fingers curled in.

His face is oddly peaceful, lashes gently caressing his prominent cheekbones, mouth slightly opened.

She takes it all in, and if it stopped here it would certainly seem as though the young man had fallen asleep after one drink too many in the club on the corner of the street.

But that is not all.

After all, it's not easy to ignore the blood.

It's everywhere, and it's not an exaggeration. It's on his checkered shirt, pouring out of his slit throat in a small river that gathered into a pool on the floor. It has come out of his mouth and nose and it's on his hands, too.

Emily can't ignore it, just like she can't ignore the paleness and the unmoving chest.

Yet, as she kneels beside him, she touches two gloved fingers to his wrist, his carotid, lands a palm on his chest. And feels, unsurprisingly, nothing.

Or, it'd be better to say that she feels no pulse, because even through the gloves, she can feel how cold his skin his.

She trembles. It's unnatural. It's spring, and the weather is quite warm, and this man, this young, pale, peaceful, bloodied man is cold and it's so damn unsettling that it feels as though the chill has traveled from his skin into her bones. Into her heart.

She can almost imagine him, his eyes wide and scared as he tried to reason with the unsub, hands splayed out in a calming manner.

She can practically see the way his expression would have gone from scared to shocked as the unsub grabbed him by his tie and slashed his neck from side to side with what must have been quite the sharp blade. It's almost as if it were happening right here, right now.

Her mind conjures a clear picture of the way he must have stumbled back, hands going to his wound, and hit the wall with his back as the unsub ran away with his belongings and his life, and stared at the world with the knowledge his time was counted.

She can almost hear the sound he made when his body slowly slipped along the wall and hit the ground and stayed there, trembling and choking until all his blood was spilled and all his breaths were taken and all his thoughts were thought and all his life was lived.

Her heart constricts almost painfully once she sees the dried tears tracing a path from his closed eyes to the floor.

Her throat feels full with the realization that this young man died crying on the dirty floor of a godforsaken alley.

The last thing he ever did was cry, and for however short it lasted — considering how fast he must have bled out — she thinks it's unjustifiably cruel.

She figures his last thoughts would have been for his family, his friends, and all the things he'd never get to do and see.

Compartmentalizing, she thinks, and swallows the lump in her throat. She's good at it, everyone knows so, tells her so. She can detach herself from any situation, no matter what or who it involves.

She can't let this get to her. She's seen many crime scenes, far worse than this, and she should be able to not be swayed by this.

Even after she notices other details, particulars that make this body a man and not just a victim, someone who actually had a life before this ordeal, someone who felt, loved, lived — even then, she berates herself for feeling rattled.

It's a body. It's a victim. It's a case, like many others.

It shouldn't matter that she knows his hair has been cut recently, after having been kept long for a long time. It shouldn't matter that the mismatched socks don't surprise her, and that even though his shoes are missing, she knows they'd be Chuck Taylors. It shouldn't matter that she's already seen that shirt, just this morning, when it was still pristine and unbloodied and smelled of fresh laundry.

It shouldn't matter that she knows the sound of his voice and the way it squeaks in excitement or fear, just like it shouldn't matter how if she closes her eyes she can perfectly picture his smile as if she were looking at a photo.

It shouldn't matter, because he's just a body, now, and he's just a victim like many others. It shouldn't matter, because all that should matter is that she has to do her job and find the unsub and find justice for him and all the other victims.

It shouldn't matter, because the young man has been discarded like trash, as if he never meant anything to anybody. As if he were no more important than any common piece of garbage, as if he once wasn't a person who lived, breathed, laughed.

Trash.

It shouldn't matter. He shouldn't matter.

(It does. He did.)