Author's Note: This is my very first foray into Criminal Minds, though I have written a fair amount in the past in other fandoms. It's actually been years since I've finished a story, so I'm glad that my muse has come back to play for a while. I would like to think Sue C who has read through this and corrected any egregious errors. All mistakes are obviously mine, but unfortunately the show and the characters are not. Sigh.

October Prompts Set #11

Show: Dawson's Creek

Title Challenge: High Risk Behavior

"Wisconsin sucks!"

Emily Prentiss supposed that was a bit of an exaggeration, especially given that there were many things about Wisconsin that she actually liked. Unfortunately none of them were in any way related to trudging around a crime scene somewhere north of Green Bay in November, a site recently used by their unsub to dump the body of a young woman who had barely reached her prime. The snow hadn't really started to accumulate, but it was cold – probably below 20 with the wind chill. And Emily didn't like the cold. Her lips were chapped, her nose was running, and she was sure that she was starting to lose the feeling in her toes.

Of course, that was slightly offset by the eyebrow currently raised in her direction by her boss, Supervisory Special Agent in Charge Aaron Hotchner. Why on earth any of those discomforts could be offset by just getting a look from Hotch was something even Emily admitted she was in some serious denial about, though only to herself of course. But she was - in denial that is. Nothing more. Couldn't be anything more. And it had nothing to do with the fact that Hotch looked, as he always did, like he'd stepped straight out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue. His hair was barely out of place, even with the wind. His shoes were still shiny. And how on earth did he manage to do that – keep his shoes shiny while he was walking around in slush and mud? Did he clean them every time he got in the car? It was bizarre. She'd never met anyone before who managed to keep their shoes as shiny as Hotch did.

"Something bothering you, Prentiss?"

Her train of thought was derailed when the subject of it spoke, and she tried to reorganize her mind before she started gasping like a fish out of water.

"I'm cold and I'm hungry."

Good grief! She sounded like a whiny teenager. So much for the professional demeanour. Though she was somewhat relieved to see the barest hint of a dimple and a quirk of his lips.

"I think we're done here. Let's head back to the Sherriff's office and wait for the report by the CSU. Maybe one of the others has come up with something."

The ride back was at least warmer, and they spent most of the trip discussing whether or not the most recent victim had in any way changed their profile – it hadn't. But they still didn't have any viable leads for their unsub.

Of course, the main thing Emily noticed on the ride back was the fact that Hotch's lips were in no way either dry or chapped. If anything, they seemed somewhat to look the same way they might have if they'd been in Florida. Or Louisiana. Or anywhere else that had a warmer climate. Not that Emily was in any way categorizing what Hotch's lips looked like on a given day, date, or time. That would be just strange. Almost stalkerish. Certainly not anything that a person who wasn't in some sort of a relationship would do. But it wasn't fair. How was it that his nose wasn't running, and his lips weren't chapped when hers were? What gives?

This continued to bother her as they walked into the conference room in which the BAU team was set up, and Emily took a moment to subtly examine the lips of the other members of her team. Yup, they were all chapped except for Hotch. And JJ. But she hadn't been out all day, and had obviously recently applied lipstick. So she didn't count. But Derek, Spencer, and Dave all had chapped lips like she did – and Hotch didn't. This still bothered her when she dumped her coat over the back of a chair and slumped down, drawing another raised eyebrow from Hotch.

"We'll be done soon, Prentiss. Then we can eat."

Was she really that obvious? I mean, he was a profiler, one of the best around, but she didn't think she'd been too petulant when she'd flung herself into the chair. Then she noticed Dave laughing softly to himself out of her peripheral vision. Okay, so maybe she was that obvious.

They spent the next twenty or thirty minutes updating each other on their respective interviews, examinations of the crime scene, and victimology. Eventually Hotch drew their session to a close, and sent Morgan and Reid off to procure food for the rest of the team.

"I'm just going to make a pit stop, Hotch. Then we can go over the victimology again."

"Okay, Dave. I'll get started with Prentiss."

As Dave walked out of the room, Emily was somewhat distracted by JJ's conversation with Garcia about something which in no way, shape, or form sounded like it had anything to do with the case, but she suddenly found her eyes drawn to Hotch's hand as he removed a small tube from his jacket pocket. It was a Chap Stick. The medicated kind. That bastard! No wonder his lips were all soft and moist. He'd probably been applying it every couple of hours in order to maintain his ability to step into a Brooks Brothers photo shoot, and she'd been suffering abysmally! How could he do this to the team? How could he do it to HER?

Of course, the rational side of Emily's brain realized that she could just as easily stop by the local pharmacy, which if she remembered correctly, and she knew she did, was located two doors down from the building in which she was standing, and pick some up for herself. But that was completely and quickly pushed aside by the adventurous part of Emily's brain which was trying to come up with some way in which she could make Hotch pay for his blatant disregard of her lips. Though that didn't sound right at all. Did it? When had he ever paid attention to her lips? She pushed those thoughts aside. She needed a plan.

And then she had it. The plan was perfect. Cunning even. It had risks – potentially high risks. But what plan of vengeance was without risk? Now she just had to wait until Hotch was slightly distracted, and she'd put it into effect.

David Rossi walked back into the conference room he'd left less than five minutes previously and wasn't sure that he hadn't walked into a scene from the twilight zone. He took a few seconds to take everything in a second time, and still wasn't able to process what was happening. So he tried again.

Hotch was standing right in front of him, an expression on his face that was part astonishment, part outrage, and part something else entirely – something Dave wasn't sure he could place. It certainly wasn't an expression he'd recalled seeing on Hotch's face in the year since he'd rejoined the BAU, which was strange.

JJ was still seated at the table, just where she'd been when he'd left, though she was no longer on the phone and instead had her hand over her mouth, trying to either stifle a cough or a laugh – he wasn't sure which. Then he saw her shoulders shaking, and realised it was probably the latter. Her eyes were flitting back and forth between Hotch and Emily, obviously waiting for some sort of reaction from either or both.

And then there was Emily. She was standing closer to JJ than to Hotch, but she looked as satisfied as the cat which had caught the proverbial canary as she slowly rubbed her lips against each other – the way a woman might do if she'd just applied lipstick. Though Dave noticed that while her lipstick seemed somewhat faded, her lips themselves seemed fairly moist. And she was definitely making a big deal about rubbing them together, while her eyes were positively alive with mischief.

What the heck was going on around here? And then he got his answer.

"What the hell was that about, Prentiss?"

Dave did a double take. When was the last time Hotch had even come close to swearing?

"My lips were very dry and chapped, sir."

The response was delivered with an expression which could only be called a smirk, and resulted in two very different reactions from the other people in the room. First, Hotch's jaw dropped open in surprise, and his face displayed the most unfiltered emotion Dave had seen in years of working with the man. Second, JJ's head dropped down onto the table as her shoulders began to shake nearly uncontrollably. Dave wasn't sure how long Hotch's mouth hung open, it could have been ten seconds, or it could have been a minute, but finally he seemed to recover his wits just as JJ managed to get her laughter under control.

"You kissed me just to steal my chap stick?"

And JJ was down for the count.

Emily then proceeded to slowly run her tongue over her lips, flicked her hair over her shoulder, and turned back to the case files on the conference room table, leaving Hotch to sink into a chair as though he'd suddenly lost all strength in his legs. Now wasn't that interesting.

AN2: This could be the first in a series of what happens when Emily's adventurous side takes control, as I do have something else percolating away. I'll have to see whether it takes shape, but that's the plan right now.