Snow had been falling for the past forty minutes. The rate of moderate snow-fall and the ground temperature prior to it suggested to Reid that the snow would stick. And indeed, it was already a perfect dust over the almost blackened earth.
He didn't like this. He felt vulnerable, cold, and trapped. None of those were promising as Reid locked eyes with the unsub in front of him.
"This isn't going to play out like you think." Reid offered. "If you just drop the gun we can both get out of here alive."
The unsub smiled at that, "Yeah… you'd like that wouldn't you? But that's not going to be how this ends and you're starting to figure that out now, aren't you?" He gave a sickly smile. "Though… maybe I'll keep you alive… Mmm, if you're REALLY good…" He growled in an erotic, carnal tone.
Reid's stomach clenched, he maintained his ground as he read the wind speeds, change in cloud coverage and progression of time. They'd been at this stand-still for too long. Why weren't the others doubling back yet?
"You know, I saw you the other day in town. You had a cane with you at the time. Your buddies didn't take you hiking… want to know what I think? I think they're jealous over your cool accessory." He smirked. "Now you're gonna go for a nice long walk with me all nice and quick-like. It wasn't nice of them to leave you behind, so I'll be real good and take you instead." He cocked back the hammer to his gun.
Between the four feet between them, Reid knew the unsub wouldn't miss. He heaved a breath as he reminded himself that technically he had gotten through the PT, he was cleared as a field agent, he could do this… well, dependent on what 'this' was, he could survive it though. He just had to get into the unsub's head. A profile is the most powerful weapon a profiler had, wasn't that what Gideon had said once?
The unsub gave a wicked grin as Reid pressed forward. "Ladies first." He offered, he pointed straight ahead toward a wooded patch of mountain.
Reid blinked his eyes closed. The benefit of the cold would be he'd be too numb to feel how he was in too much pain to continue, he'd remind himself of that later.
Even with the thick foliage, the thicker flakes of snow and larger volume falling had led to an accumulation of maybe two inches already and it had only been twenty minutes. It was clear this would become a white-out by time the front moved fully over them. The climb itself wasn't getting any easier, either. Before it had been a low-grade hike, but now? Now they were coming across steeper inclines, three-foot tall sections of vertical climb and Reid's knee, cold and numb as it might be, was too stiff to keep taking many more of these.
"Climb it. We have to put more distance between us… unless you're stalling that is… if you are, I could just kill you now. Your friends aren't back yet. We'd hear them calling." Reid hated to admit it, but that bastard was right. He was starting to get truly worried though, they said it would be quick… fifteen, twenty minutes tops and it had been over an hour!
They had left him at the clearing, half a mile from where the SUV was parked, the 'roads' too narrow to handle it. Maybe they were on their way back to the SUV instead? Maybe they thought he got too cold and headed back to warmth. He should have waited with the SUV instead of at the clearing… what was he trying to prove by making half a mile hike when it was so clear he was struggling?
His bravado was going to get him killed. Reid's hand slipped on the rocky path and earned him a slash of red, he winced. Great! Now he was bleeding… it only took a moment for him to realize that actually was great! Red on white would be so much easier to see than footprints being filled in with snow…
The unsub licked his lips.
Reid for a moment reconsidered his assessment. His bravado was going to get him raped, then killed. Fantastic. He shivered, he wondered how much further he'd have to march before the unsub was satisfied his body would be too difficult to easily discover. Up ahead he saw a small out-crop of mountain-face, apparently there was a cave up ahead.
His mood soured further, if it was possible. The unsub was now hurrying him, not in panic but in excitement. Apparently that was exactly where he wanted to get. For a moment Reid wondered if they had just reached his den. Oh god he hoped not…
The man shoved Reid's back, "Move it!" It caused Reid to teeter and fall into the snow, he flinched as his knee went too tight to unlock, intuitively, he reminded himself that it was too cold to feel pain, he just had to convince his body to go a little further. It was hard to encourage himself though, if he just stayed here he'd be shot and killed. If he went into that cave he was only adding things on that list of last life experiences… he chided himself, no, no that wasn't entirely true! He could negotiate, he could convince him to let him live… maybe, or maybe he could get the gun…
He squinted his eyes feeling helpless, what was he going to do? Limp-race him? It was cold and wet, he knew if he was going to get through it alive, unscathed was out of the question but alive required as much energy as he could preserve and wet and cold would zap him of that the fastest.
With a firm push upward, he forced himself to his one frozen-knee and kneeled on the foot of his other leg before he shoved up and half-stood, half-balanced until he could forcibly extend his leg to at least a convincing drag of a walk.
That was the first time the unsub touched him, instantly Reid felt ill and debated the merits of instant death versus remembering that hand curve around him and squeeze his member through his pants, he could feel the heat in the erection behind him. He wanted to vomit, he wanted to drop and fall off this fucking mountain, it would be so much more pleasant than what was in that cave…
"Move ittt…" The man drew out, though his tone was more excited –both in a sexual and hyper way- than upset. Apparently this was his idea of foreplay.
In mere moments the pair were in front of the cave-face. Reid's entire body froze, he …he couldn't do it, death would be easier, it wouldn't be as DARK as there that was for certain… but it was too late for that now, the unsub shoved him in with a hard push.
"Walk." This time the voice wasn't excited, it was explosive. Reid's chest heaved. He'd been doing too much of that as it was! The unsub took to shoving him, Reid stumbling and preventing from falling only to be shoved again and again keep his balance. By the time they were twelve shoves in, the area was too dark for Reid to see in front of himself.
His body stiffened, he couldn't do this… it was too dark, it was too much, he was cold, he was terrified, and he was in the company of a sexual sadist.
"Aww, are you afraid of the dark?" The man purred then laughed, Reid snapped his eyes shut. He couldn't do this, he couldn't do this and profile the man and convince him to let him go, it was too much! Even for him… especially for him… someone like Hotch would've talked him out of it before leaving the clearance, Morgan would've overpowered him… but Reid?
Reid would outthink him. His eyes snapped open. That was absolutely right, each person had their strengths and Reid's had never -ever- had been physical prowess. But mental prowess he couldn't be beat in.
It had been twelve shoves with 2.5 foot-shuffles to balance and repeat, his average walking span since his injury had shrank from twenty-eight inch gait to twenty-three inch. He was less than 36 feet from the mouth of the cave. Sure they had veered toward the right and thus lost sight of a majority of light, but it was only 36 feet damn it! No, it was less! He had to get through this, incapacitate the unsub and get the hell out…
He heard a flexi-tie zip and realized his hand motions and hopes of not being in the man's territory were greatly deteriorating. He felt the hard, cold surface of the cave dig into his back as the unsub shoved him backward. A hard knee was in between his thighs forcing them to spread. Apparently the unsub was going to make him stand for this. The only benefit was his hands were in front of him, he could push the unsub away, but that would only result in a futile and temporary resistance. One he would fail within. No, the other- nay, only option available was to grab the gun.
He steeled himself for the worst of it, but even Reid's imagination as tainted as it was with horrors of previous crime-scenes was not up to imagining what this bastard wanted from him.
His hands were freezing, his chest, groin, everything that had hit the snow before were tingling too much to feel the actual caresses, but the garish sounds, the schlicking noises of what Reid knew had to be blood as it rubbed across his member from some unseen and unfelt wound only made his stomach drop further.
He literally couldn't imagine what injury he'd received, it tried but he eventually put the air-brakes on. His pants were in tatters and he knew his thighs probably weren't going untouched as he heard the knife schlick past again. Eventually his eyes adjusted just enough that he could start making out the outlines of the unsub.
Despite all, the bone-chilling cold had spared him from uttering a singular cry or scream. He knew it was starting to unnerve the unsub.
"Don't tell me you're dead already… Heh, I'm not exactly a necrophiliac… but can't hurt to try something new…" He whispered as he leaned closer to Reid, Reid could feel the man's disgusting bulge throb into his flaccid member. He reminded himself he felt nothing. Nothing. For a moment he wondered how much of that really was the cold and how much was mental shielding. Reid slumped forward. The bastard thought he was dead, Reid would be happy to play up that image for him if it got him out of here with at least that much dignity.
He supposed he should have wondered where a knife came from, but he didn't bother, then again, maybe there was no knife, maybe it was a rock, maybe it was just that man touching him which stabbed him over and over again. He didn't know, it was too dark to tell.
The forward momentum started to carry farther than he expected within the span of three seconds. He felt heat, the first real warmth for the last hour spill over his midriff and suddenly wondered if he'd been stabbed. But then, wouldn't he feel cold? Chilled? Instead he felt warm… comfortably warm, he stumbled forward, his hands clutched something with a deathly certainty and he moved on instinct in a run, the keening noise in his knee of ligaments indefinitely not properly stretched were ignored for the counts of foot-falls, he hit twelve, veered thirty-nine degrees and was rewarded with more light in his view, he was at twenty-four and he was mere feet from the opening of the cave. Then he heard the roar.
His body seized up, his lungs refused to budge.
"DROP THE KNIFE!"
"DOWN ON YOUR KNEES!"
"Oh my god! REID!" That one had convinced his lungs to work again if only to stutter with painful tightness. Maybe the cold wasn't entirely impenetrable to pain after all.
"THAT'S OUR AGENT! DON'T FIRE!" Hotch was ordering, throwing the barrel of a nearby deputy's gun upward. A bang rang through the air as the spooked man let loose a chamber that hit an innocent tree.
Reid looked down at himself, search-lights on him, he held a knife in his hands, still bound together, covered in blood from his stomach down, his pants and thighs in ribbons, he fell forward and into the snow only semi-conscious at most.
"REID!" Hotch rushed to the younger agent's side, flipping him over to assess what he saw. "Reid where the hell…" He stopped himself supposing that's exactly where Reid had been if those lost, squirrely eyes were any indicator. "Reid, just hang on, I'm going to put pressure on… oh god where are you even bleeding from Reid?"
"I think… he's dead… I think… I got him…" Reid smiled as if he were proud but honestly he was too numb inside to care one way or the other.
"Y-Yeah?" Hotch choked back, "You could've left the arrest for us…" Hotch offered. He was already out of his coat and throwing it around Reid, rubbing the sleeves to warm him additionally.
"You were gone for so long…" Reid started again at attempts of conversation, he felt somehow it was necessary, though he wasn't sure why.
Reid started to turn his head downward, assessing his own injuries, Hotch caught his jaw.
"Don't."
Reid looked at Hotch not entirely grasping his meaning.
"Don't look Reid. You can't unsee things, so don't look."
Reid closed his eyes and smiled, "You're right… of course you are."
Hotch cut the flexicuff off of Reid's wrists and pulled him closer. "Close your eyes… just like that… that's right… you'll never have to unsee this…"
It felt far away, a horrible dream, but Reid knew he shouldn't be dreaming right now. He felt smothered, the oppressive humidity felt as if a fifty pound weight was crushing into his chest.
"Reid! Open your eyes… Spencer… open your damn eyes…!" The pressure felt cyclic. It hit like a splash of water on his face, but why salt-water?
He winced an eye open.
"…!" The exclamation was more words than Hotch could offer, he exhaustedly slumped to the side. "Spencer… oh god Spencer… I thought I lost you!"
His eyes batted open, he felt gritty. Not like a cowboy sand-blasted by desert wind, but that textural sandy grittiness affiliated with a beach. He couldn't say he was fond.
It took him a moment to realize he couldn't speak, he struck Aaron's arm with his fist twice to communicate that.
"Deep breaths, come on… deep breaths Spencer…"
He attempted to comply but his chest felt like it was on fire, Aaron sat him up he stroked up and down his back, or at least that's what Reid thought until he felt more of a burning sensation and fluid hitting him. He let out a voiceless howl, his vocal cords strangely paralyzed.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry, I have to… I'm sorry…" Aaron said as more burning liquid joined the burning sensation already moving up his back and legs. Reid doubled over, he couldn't breathe, it was too hard… it was much, much too hard!
"DEEP BREATHS Spencer!" Aaron reminded him almost frantically, maybe a hint of anger, Spencer felt like it had to have been the thirtieth time, but it just wasn't making sense!
He had been in the mountains tracking down an unsub in the snow… Reid's eyes started to roll.
"Damn it Spencer!" Aaron shoved him back to the ground and began chest compressions again. Maybe it was momentarily premature, because Reid was staring in shock at Hotch thrusting down on him. Then his eyes rolled toward his left wrist which had fallen or been shoved out of the way and in eye-level. His wrist had a long hair on it.
He flinched his eyes shut again then forced them open while Aaron kissed him… filling his chest with air actually.
"Damn it, Spencer you said vinegar worked! Why would you lie? I'm not that paranoid of a…" Aaron was almost sobbing, no Spencer knew he was, but he just couldn't comprehend why…
"Vn'ger…" he managed to squeak out, more question than anything else. Vinegar would hardly help with hypothermia or blood loss. He couldn't shake the strange sandy feeling he felt wherever his skin didn't feel well… burned. Was it frost bite? Was he going into shock? If this was the dream his mind gave him to go out with, of Hotch and he as an intimate couple, even if he was fading away, he couldn't complain. Not really.
"I got them all off didn't I?" Aaron was stripping him now, and then there was more fire, fire in his groin and not the kind he could ever imagine as pleasurable, ever.
His vocal cords found function as he screamed a blood-curdling garble of letters that sounded more Klingon than English. Did Reid really just scream out someone's mom had a smooth forehead? He wasn't sure… he gasped, panted, pleaded. He pleaded, begged Aaron to stop.
"Stop… please… god… Aaron… stop…! Hurts too much…" His eyes were rolling again, his heart rate, while there, was going faster than the chambers could fill, he felt so dizzy. He looked back down there was sand…
As his eyes rolled shut he could hear Hotch tell him to wake up, they had to carry him down the mountain, the white wash of snow accented by splashes of soft reds with trailing thin tendrils of fiery, bloody red in their wake. His eyes shot open, his body stiffened as he tried to sit up.
Aaron was fighting him this time, "Spencer!"
"WHERE'S JACK?" He screamed, looking around wildly. Aaron grabbed Spencer's right wrist and squeezed.
"Spence… he's safe… oh god, Spencer he's safe…" he put his hand over his face and let out a guilty, sickening sob.
His eyes scanned, he spotted Jack rushing forward pulling a lifeguard- physically- towards them. The boy was clearly holding back tears, his face so strong, just like his dad, Spencer thought in the moment. He thought to himself how lucky the future was to have another Hotchner man to grace it much like his own era… Then the tides of consciousness left him.
Aaron bowed his head into Spencer's neck, he kept up a soft mantra, "Spencer, you have to wake up… god, Spencer, please wake up!"
…It's hard to argue a request from Aaron Hotchner, he was tenacious for one, stubborn for two, and just so adorable when he buttered him up. Spencer flickered his eyelids up and down. It was strange, he didn't feel covered in sand anymore. He also didn't exactly recall when Aaron had opted to grow a beard like Rossi, it made him look old… but Spencer was curious how it would feel against his cheek.
"Spencer…" Aaron dropped a children's book onto his chair and took a quick pace to his lover's side.
"…Water?" He requested, it felt like he hadn't used his chest for years, and yet whenever he last had, he clearly broke it into pieces.
"Never again…" Aaron said as if confusing Spencer's genuine request for a drink.
Spencer gave a kicked-puppy look, he really WANTED water though, he didn't want to never have it again! His voice rasped this time as he tried again, "W-at-er…"
It clicked behind Aaron's eyes and his hand shot to the pitcher, filled a glass and brought it to his lover's lips. Spencer drank it down and then another, and then a third. Aaron hesitated to pour a fourth glass but Spencer shook his head, apparently quenched enough.
"Jack…?"
Aaron looked over his shoulder, his son was curled on the softer of the two chairs in the room. He was fast asleep, Spencer felt greatly unnerved, as if not understanding why the boy was so still. As panic started to rise in his chest, Aaron cut in. "I… I could wake him if you want, Spence-"
He let out a deep breath and only regretted it somewhat as the pain clawed through his entire chest and wrapped around his back. He flinched his eyes shut. "What… what happened to my ribs?"
"CPR." Aaron responded in a flat tone of a person horrified he'd get too emotional if he even let any break through the seal. "…Happens when you drown."
"Drown…?" Reid closed his eyes trying to recollect the moment but couldn't find it.
"Yes. Drown, this morning."
"At… the beach? We were at the beach?" Reid searched his mind, he scoured, skimmed Mary Shelley's Frankenstein a bit as he dug through, but he didn't have a feel on the memory, he couldn't pull it up quick enough.
"We were." Aaron encouraged, he squeezed his lover's right hand. Spencer looked at his right hand, that was his only contact with Aaron, it confused him. It wasn't that Hotch was a distant person, usually he was the one to initiate human contact actually. It wasn't because Spencer didn't enjoy touching live lover, but more because he had an awkward time grasping when and how was right and when and how was not. There was so much emotional baggage in his childhood to make the distinction clear but Aaron had always helped him through it, and yet right now… it felt like there was a barrier. Had he done something bad? He looked at his lover in confusion, not a look he wore often. "…You saved his life, Spencer. Thank you so much…"
He knew he meant Jack, he just didn't know how or why. "I drowned…?"
Aaron nodded.
"But I saved Jack…?"
He nodded again.
"…But I drowned?"
"You kept him on the boogie-board."
Reid closed his eyes, "But we have a rule… we NEVER put him above head-height… rip tide?"
Aaron shook his head.
"Vinegar… you told me vinegar… it… it burned so bad… That's why you're not touching me!" He said as if his eureka moment had just broke the case, and it had, he had found it in his mind.
"I'm so sorry I had to hurt you but if I didn't… you'd have died from them… there were so many of them."
"…Jellyfish…" He didn't ask, he didn't have to, in that dream he had seen one made of blood. He surveyed his limbs, he was covered in gauze. "How many tendrils?"
"Twenty up and down your back, left arm, legs, stomach… trunks."
Spencer blushed for a moment, Aaron had pants'ed him on a public beach. His cheeks colored a bright red for a moment. How many bystanders had seen him naked? Worse… how many took PHOTOS?
His life was over if Garcia ever found those. Truly and horribly over.
"Spencer…? Hey, hey you're going far away on me again… don't do that, not right now!" Aaron pleaded, he needed his lover close, not withdrawn, not going through it on his own in his head and leaving him just baffled about what the hell just happened. Aaron knew how to stop it, he had to fill Spencer in and then Spencer could remember instead of try to find it on his own. So he continued, "I was taking a photo of you both, you of all people teaching Jack to boogie-board, I mean…"
"And you think you'd look any less goofy? Didn't you try to sneak your tie to the beach?" Spencer jabbed.
"Without a collared shirt that would just be ridiculous, so I compromised and wore a polo, sue me." Aaron said in a gentle tone.
"...Then there was a bag in the water… Jack wanted to reach it to pick it up…" Spencer closed his eyes, he remembered, he …he smacked Jack's hand and shoved his hands onto the board. "I… I hit him… I'm sorry, I …I shouldn't have…"
"Spencer, you saved his life, you kept him from getting stung at all."
"But I pushed him on the board back toward the beach… I let GO of him… in the OCEAN Aaron… he could've drowned…"
"It was timed with a wave and when I saw that I knew something was wrong. You hadn't let him ride in alone yet… and then I lost sight of your head. You were suddenly so far out, twenty yards away… Jack was the one who screamed he saw real live jellyfish, all over you. I told him to get a lifeguard and meet back where I was… a wave brought you in, you were floating face down, that is one of the scariest things I have ever seen in my life, damn it. I didn't see any jellyfish but I saw all of these red lines up and down you… so I grabbed someone's towel and dragged you up beach back to our cooler and poured vinegar on your chest, neck, face… arms, I …I didn't even think to check our back, I didn't know they'd swarm you like that! You… weren't breathing and your pulse was all over the place, so I performed CPR and it started to work but then you started to go unresponsive… I realized I must have missed it, they use a paralytic toxin, you said that earlier to me, didn't you? You said brown vinegar supposedly works best, but any acetic acid would do the trick, besides it's just being super-prepared, the chances of it happening are… are…"
"I know what I said Aaron." He smiled tiredly, "And any vinegar will do." His body tensed.
"You're still hurting aren't you?"
Spencer nodded, "…The irukandji jelly fish can have a bell the size of half a fingernail and can cause anaphylaxia…" Suddenly he stopped himself from talking, maybe that was too much information and not particularly sensitive to his lover to just dole out.
"You were hit by two box jellies. They think you cramped up and that's when you went under."
Spencer nodded. "I had a dream… it… it was horrible but nothing like what really happened, well… maybe a little bit. It was winter and I had welts up and down my legs but couldn't see it. It was dark, I felt like I couldn't breathe… and I killed the unsub… you were there with me, but… it was like we weren't together." He let out a gasp, a few tears dropped down his eyes, "…I think that was the worst part… that you didn't know I love you." He shuddered involuntarily.
"I'm too good of a profiler not to know that."
Spencer smiled, happy to be distracted from that thought. "…Aaron, Jack… I was him when he was pulling the lifeguard… he's so much like you. It was adorable, even if the situation was horrifying…"
"Spencer, I'm going to let you sleep, because I know you're still in a lot of pain. I know you think you're hiding it well from me, but you're not. I don't want you to, either. But I swear I'll be here when you wake up. Granted, this wasn't how I thought we'd spend our vacation, but as long as we're together, that's all that matters."
Spencer blushed, "Aaron, I'm not trying to hide it from you. I'm trying to hide it from me." He kissed his lover's hand. "…Aaron, touch me… not just my hand. I want to know I can still feel you on my skin…"
Aaron didn't have to be told twice, a gentle, cool hand stroked down Spencer's cheek. "Get some sleep. I'll bring some coffee when you wake up."
Fin.