246 Minutes of Madness
Written for the /r/fanfiction prompt challenge!
-2.4 minutes
The case is long, exhausting, and—even for them—weird. Just to add to the list of miserable adjectives they could use to describe their time here, the hotel is half a star away from being a Bates knockoff, albeit eight floors instead of cabins, and the elevators are what Reid describes as 'almost certainly structurally unsound.'
But they're going home, they're all cranky and tired and sore, and it's the tiny metal death traps or a walk down eight flights of stairs.
"Three to an elevator and don't wiggle or you'll kill us all," Rossi suggests, with a glance to Reid—the wiggliest of them all by far—quickly following Morgan into the left-side one to avoid having to deal with Aaron's foul temper. To his dismay, after a short scuffle that ends swiftly when Aaron turns to glare at them, Reid manages to beat JJ and Prentiss into the same car. Rossi assumes his greater height gave him an unfair advantage, although he's rather surprised Prentiss didn't just shoot him in the kneecap.
It's going to be a long two minutes down, he thinks glumly, as the elevator doors groan shut and Reid immediately launches into a weary, perfunctory spiel about annual deaths in elevator shafts.
He's right, but also terribly wrong.
0 minutes
The lights flicker once, twice, and then snap off as the elevators grind to a halt.
"Fuck," Prentiss says, and looks to Hotch. Hotch is already pressing the alarm button with a calm, "Don't worry, it's probably just momentary." JJ just sighs and reaches into her bag for her phone and a flashlight. She should have known nothing was going to go simply today, not even going home.
Some three feet to the left of them, Rossi is swearing, Morgan is shouting, and Reid has gone very, very quiet.
Finally, they look to him. Almost hopeful.
"The average time to restore power to stalled elevators is about nine hours," he says, the first thing that comes to mind, and even in the dim light cast by the screen of Rossi's phone, he sees their faces fall. "… Sorry."
"I vote we eat him first," Morgan mutters. Rossi agrees.
Reid swallows nervously.
2.5 minutes
The hotel manager is concerningly blasé about there being six FBI agents trapped in his elevators.
Hotch frowns at the emergency phone as the tinny sound of what appears to be the man arguing with his wife whines through. "Any luck?" Prentiss asks, dropping her bag and perching on top of it. JJ takes a seat next to her, both peering up at him.
"I'm not sure," Hotch admits, as the phone hangs up on them. "I… think? He seemed… confused. Confused and angry."
"Oh wonderful," Prentiss says. "Looks like we're in for the long haul. Anyone know any party games?"
In the other car, Morgan's, "I spy—" is immediately cut off by Rossi's, "No fucking way." Morgan scowls and Rossi looks to Reid for back-up. Reid, wisely, stays out of it and continues trying in vain to find a section of the elevator where his phone will receive signal.
He's a little disappointed though. He's always been very good at I Spy.
5.8 minutes
"We're going to die in here," Morgan groans, curling into a ball with his head on his knees.
"I have an audiobook player in my bag," Reid offers helpfully, making sure to smile in order to lighten the mood. "The Magic of Physics—it's really quite fascinating!"
"Oh god, I hope I die in here," Rossi mutters, and kicks the door.
8 minutes
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with H." Emily is smug. She's sure she's got it this—
"It's Hotch," JJ replies.
Damn.
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with H," JJ says, after making a show of peering around the cramped space with the beam of her flashlight.
Emily thinks for a moment. "It's Hotch," she says, and JJ does a double thumbs up. "I spy with my little eye something beginning with H—"
"This is not as funny as you think it is," Hotch says with a scowl, and the two women couldn't disagree more.
24.3 minutes
The ETA of rescue is… five hours.
"Well, nothing we can do but wait," Hotch says sensibly. JJ nods along with him, despite sadly looking down at the picture of her son smiling up at her from her phone wallpaper.
Emily doesn't say anything, but she looks down at her bag and the bottle of single malt tucked in the bottom and thanks God for mother's birthdays and duty free airports.
"It's not so bad," Reid is saying in the other elevator. "I mean, the chances of us hurtling to our deaths as the cables snap is slim and—"
"New rule," Rossi cuts in, holding up the flashlight. "Only the person holding this gets to talk. And you don't get to hold this."
"But—" Reid begins.
Rossi shushes him.
"I don't think—" Reid tries again, frowning this time.
Rossi holds up a single finger. Then the flashlight. Then he smiles. Reid closes his mouth with a snap.
"Oh cool, it works," Morgan says. "Hey, you think that will—"
Rossi shushes him.
51 minutes
The silence is possibly worse than Reid's death-rambling. And what's worse than the silence is the absolutely fucking aggravating knowledge that Reid is quietly existing in the corner of the elevator, just being sad and awkward and sad and—
"Here," Rossi says, and passes him the flashlight. He takes it warily. Morgan lifts his head and raises an eyebrow at them both. "Entertain us. Recite a book or something. Just, god, anything."
Reid hums thoughtfully and then smiles.
Rossi, very suddenly, remembers the prank wars. He regrets giving him the flashlight.
"I spy something beginning with V," Reid says with a gleeful bounce on the back of his heels.
Rossi and Morgan look around the elevator suspiciously.
"No hints," Reid adds.
Goddamnit.
90 minutes
Emily pulls the bottle of whiskey out of her bag and swooshes it in the awkward quiet. The tap tap tap bloop of the mobile game JJ is playing pauses as she looks up. "We are off duty," Emily says hopefully.
Hotch shakes his head.
Emily sighs and puts it away.
98 minutes
"Vulpix!" Morgan shouts, throwing his hands in the air. "Is it a Vulpix?"
"What's a Vulpix?" Reid and Rossi ask as one.
"A Pokemon," Morgan answers. "Seriously, man, I have no fucking idea. Nothing in here starts with V!"
"Yes, it does," Reid says with a sniff. "What's a Pokemon?"
Please crash to the ground and kill me, Rossi prays to the elevator. Elevator god. Just God in general. Whoever is listening, really. Please, please, please…
104 minutes
Emily gives in and unseals the single malt with a crick of the cap.
"Not a good idea," Hotch warns her. JJ accepts the bottle and takes a mouthful, coughing slightly before passing it back.
"Oh, we're off duty," Emily says, taking her own swig of it. "And we've got hours left in here, Hotch, hours."
Hotch just smiles, rearranges his pillow made from folded suit jackets, and waits for the inevitable.
124 minutes
"I need to pee," Emily says sullenly.
Hotch is smug.
130 minutes
"Violence," Rossi suggests.
"What the fuck, Dave?" Morgan says, deadpan. "How can you see violence?"
"Like this," Reid says, and taps his foot against Morgan's leg. They're laying sprawled on the floor, lanky enough that their knees are folded, and Rossi is seriously considering telling them both to stop hogging the goddamn space because he has a corner and his legs are cramping. "But no."
"Bullshit," Morgan snaps. "You can't see violence. It's called I Spy, not 'I Abstract Concept'."
Rossi wonders how many times beating his head against the door it will take him to knock himself out until they're rescued.
135.5 minutes
Emily wiggles.
Emily wiggles again.
"Still need to pee?" JJ asks sympathetically, patting her on the knee.
Hotch sighs and lowers the book he's reading using his phone flashlight. "Well," he says, neatly bookmarking the page and replacing it in his bag. "There's really one option."
"What's that?" Emily asks nervously, peering around the tiny space. They're all basically shoulder to shoulder. There's no corners to designate as that corner.
He picks up the bottle and takes a long swallow. "Guess we have to finish the whiskey."
150.8 minutes
"Vagina?" Morgan tries, and Reid doesn't dignify that with an answer.
Three feet to the right, JJ is bored. The battery of her phone finally gave out on her after she'd attempted yet another game of Fruit Ninja. She picks up the bottle.
"Never have I ever—" she says slowly with a wicked smile, and Emily grins.
Hotch looks confused.
162 minutes
"Say uncle," Morgan demands, and Reid whimpers from within the headlock the other man has him in. "Say it, Reid!"
"Unffle," comes the muffled voice from Morgan's armpit.
"Now say, 'I think we should play a new game,'" Rossi suggests.
There's silence. Morgan tsks his tongue. "Iffnnewgum," says Morgan's armpit.
It took two minutes to break him. "I'm so glad you joined us and not the CIA," he says dryly as Morgan releases the ruffled and shell-shocked looking agent. "You'd never withstand torture."
Sulking, Reid mutters, "Actually, no one withstands torture. Standard procedure is—"
"What was the word, anyway?" Morgan asks, just to cut him off.
Blinking owlishly, Reid stares at him. "You have to guess," he says finally, and Morgan's face darkens. "You guys are terrible at this game."
"I bet the others are having a lovely time," Rossi says to no one. "Just lovely. They're all so sensible over there."
He's jealous.
165.9 minutes
"Never have I ever deliberately and wilfully caused a public commotion," Hotch says, who doesn't quite appear to get the point of the game.
"Seriously, Aaron?" says Emily, who does get the point of the game and who has also probably gotten the lion's share of the whiskey too. "You're not supposed to say things like that."
"But it's something that I would feel uncomfortable admitting to in company," Hotch disagrees, running his finger around the stem of the bottle absently. He's finally taken his jacket off, loosened his tie and the top button of his shirt, which is a relief because JJ was starting to wonder if the man hadn't noticed how unbearably warm it's gotten in the elevator. Her and Emily have already shed their layers of clothes down to their singlets, and they're still sweating. "Isn't that the point?"
"Something a little more risqué, perhaps," JJ suggests. "Like 'Never have I ever been naked in public', for example."
Emily drinks.
After a beat, Hotch does too.
JJ and Emily stare at him. "What?" he says innocently. "I was a teenager too once."
"I don't believe you," Emily mutters, but she's smiling.
173.2 minutes
"Do you remember the sky?" Rossi asks the wall, laying with his nose basically pressed to the cool steel so he's not brushing against the comfortable tangle of agents in the centre of the elevator. Reid is asleep, snoring delicately with his head pillowed on Morgan's chest and arm thrown over his stomach.
They're almost cuddling and Rossi took so many photos before his phone died from the pure delight of this moment.
Morgan doesn't seem worried about the photos that are totally not going to be blown up and pasted all over Garcia's lair as soon as she gets hold of them. He just snuggles Reid back and says, "My grandpa once told me stories about the sky. Said it was blue as a… shit, man, I don't even remember anything blue. I was born in this elevator. I guess I'll probably die in this elevator."
Rossi sniggers but he doesn't have the heart to keep going. They lapse back into silence.
Reid whimpers slightly in his sleep and Morgan automatically makes a soothing shhsh noise and rubs his shoulder. Absently, Rossi thinks that Morgan will make a goddamn top notch Dad one day.
"Hey, Dave," Morgan whispers, and Rossi wonders if this is the part of the slow descent into madness where they spill all their hopes and dreams and fears and— "What do you think his I Spy word was?"
Goddamnit.
178 minutes
"I need to use the bathroom," Hotch says suddenly, and JJ makes a miserable noise of agreement. They all look at the semi-empty bottle. "But not that badly."
Unanimously, they decide to see if they can wait it out.
It's Emily's shot. "Never have I ever slept with a co-worker," she says, seeing Hotch's eyebrow lift at this admission, and JJ drinks.
"JJ!" he barks, scandalized.
"What?" she says, jumping out of her skin and smiling sheepishly.
Emily zeros in on that, the bottle hitting the ground with a clunk that's more empty than full as she nabs it back. "Oh my god, Reid," she says gleefully, and both JJ and Hotch make identical squeaks of horror.
"No!" JJ yelps, and hiccups. "God, jeez, no…" She trails off, narrowing her eyes, her nose scrunching. "Do you think he's even…?"
Hotch picks up the bottle and sculls the rest, looking ill.
200 minutes
"We've been in here for two-hundred minutes," Reid says.
"How do you know that?" Morgan raises his head and blinks blearily at Reid. Their flashlight flickers. Someone groans, probably Rossi. "You were asleep for some of it."
Reid shrugs. Silence returns.
Rossi breaks it. "I spy…"
226.8 minutes
The game has devolved.
"Favourite colour?" JJ asks, and Emily makes a noise at how dull that is before answering with a pert, and entirely expected, black.
"Blue," says Hotch, and smiles wistfully. JJ wonders why but doesn't ask, because it's a shy, secret smile and entirely private.
"Worst fear?" Emily asks, and JJ bets she only asked to make sure none of them ask her that question.
A beat of silence, before they both answer dying.
Neither of them know it, although both suspect, the reason for their answer is exactly the same. They're far too needed here to be wasting time with dying.
Hotch puzzles over his question for long enough that Emily flicks the flashlight on to see if he's fallen asleep. He hasn't.
"Thing you're most grateful for?" he asks, and it's oddly sentimental and feels like a question that can really only be asked in a tiny, stifling hot elevator car, waiting to be rescued.
"My family," JJ says immediately, thinking of Henry.
"My friends," says Emily quietly, and thinks of being lonely.
Hotch murmurs, "My team," and that's when rescue arrives.
244.4 minutes
"Morgan, I swear to god, get the fuck out of the way of the door before I shoot you," Rossi says, craning forward to get a lungful of the sweet, sweet air rushing through the space they've gotten open just enough for them to boost each other out. Faces peer through at them, confused by the wait.
"We're not leaving this elevator," Morgan announces, and Rossi wonders if the man has actually fucking snapped, "until Reid tells us what his word was!"
Silence. Rossi hears a deadpan, what the fuck, Derek, from outside the elevator that sounds suspiciously like Emily.
Reid blinks. "Tell him," Rossi demands, turning on the other agent. "Tell him now!"
"But that's not how you play the game," Reid says, setting his jaw into a stubborn line. "And I'm not telling you. You have to guess."
Morgan waves his finger at Reid, going ah ah ah, a wild look in his eyes. "I've been in this elevator for four hours, man," he whispers intently.
"And six minutes," Reid adds, helpfully, and Rossi kicks him.
"I've come too far to quit now! What. Starts. With. V?"
Reid takes a breath. And another. And opens his mouth.
"No hints."
Goddamnit.