Waiting for salvation

"We are only souls waiting for salvation on this earth, passing a test from God. Nothing can justify sins." While being prisoner of Tobias Hankel, Charles' personality talks to Reid about how children should be raised. Set in Revelation.

This scene takes place after the moment when Charles's whip Reid's feet with a piece of leather (it's that or something else?) and before the scene where Reid is obliged to choose between four people the ones who will die. I feel like writing this before I publish my new story (which follows Doctor), Fresh Blood.

Enjoy!

It was now the afternoon, Reid could judge it from the lights which were passing through the windows. He was still sore from the earlier treatment Charles's personality inflicted on him, or torture should he say. After all, he hurt him to have information, which was quite the principle of a torture. He sighed. Should he really interpret Charles, Raphael and Tobias as different people? After all, Charles and Raphael were inventions of Tobias, and in spite of everything he had read about dissociative identity disorder, he was feeling ignorant confronted to such a situation.

His reflexions were interrupted as Charles walked in, grumbling about things couldn't hear properly. He looked at the room, and his eyes fell on Reid fatally. He frowned and went to the young agent. Reid shivered but mustered to keep cold headed. What was about to come, now? The man sat facing him, with this always hard expression on his face.

"So, demon, are you going to confess?"

"I told you I am not a demon, I am a man…"

"Don't lie! The demon lies too much; it's time for you to learn!"

He stood up and Reid knew he was going to hurt him again. He thought very quickly and spoke as fast as he could:

"A saint said: 'If you don't understand God's word, the demons understand and they tremble in fear.' If I was a demon, I wouldn't be able to quote the Bible without having my tongue burning."

Reid knew he sounded like a crazy religious man, but it seemed to get through Charles who blinked several time, as if he was reflecting on Reid's words. He sat back on the chair, looking at him with a slightly curious expression. He suddenly looked more human. Reid gulped.

"I am only a man, sir. I am not a sinner or a demon."

Tobias/Charles frowned, and leaned a little toward Reid:

"You are maybe not a demon, but you are surely a sinner. Everyone is!"

Spencer felt some relief, at least, he had convinced him that he was not a demon, or at least, for now. With a personality so unstable, he could easily revert into the believing that Reid was a demon. He had to keep humanizing himself, one way or another. Charles paced the room, and Reid tensed, knowing he could get hurt at any moment. Then his captor took a fistful of his hair and pulled on it, forcing the younger man to look at him in the eyes. Charles scanned his look, and finally let go of his hair. Reid's head lowered almost automatically.

"My weakling of a son could be right about you."

"What do you mean?"

"It doesn't matter, boy."

Reid bit his lips. He needed to create a link with this personality, since it was the most violent one.

"Then…Why…Can I ask you why you say your son is a weakling? Do you hate him that much?"

Charles sat again and spoke in a calmer tone this time.

"I don't hate him, but I despise his weakness against the devil. If I wouldn't be there, he would be already condemned for eternity to rot in the pits of hell, its parent's duty, to guide their children, and children have to obey them."

Reid gulped, and knew he had to go along with the man's words, without encouraging him. He tried to do so about the fishes' guts, and it didn't work at all. Plus here it was about murders, and he couldn't encourage that at all, even in the worst situation.

"It's because your son doesn't want to kill people?" asked he in a shy voice.

Charles snorted, not to Reid, but at the mention of Tobias.

"He is so weak! Even when we were simply hunting, he was trembling and couldn't hold a shotgun properly! I told him it was powerful to kill an animal, and it makes us approach God. But he couldn't understand, he feared to do it, feared to do what is good for a true believer! He started to take those things…Only sinners try to escape like this instead of affronting the devil and pass the test. He is weak against temptations!"

"Those things?"

Charles frowned and looked angry. Reid feared he said something wrong and began to sweat, his guts squeezing in his stomach. Cold shivers streamed in his back. His captor didn't move staring at him, as if he wanted to see the depths of his soul and continued to talk.

"Those drugs he inject himself."

Reid paled, feeling how the situation was even worst than he thought. First, he had an insensitive personality which was the one of Raphael, the second was the violent one, Charles, and after that, there was the one of the son, Tobias, who was scared and dependent to drugs. He had somehow counted on this one to survive, when he had been in the field, he had immediately noticed in spite of his fear that this personality had mercy.

"And now, it's the same. He is frightened to punish sinners; it's because of people like him that the Holy Inquisition doesn't exist anymore!"

Though those words horrified Reid, he wasn't surprised at all to hear Charles praise the horrors done by the Inquisition.

"If Inquisition still existed, people would fear God, and they would understand that we are simply in a pit of trash, tortured by the demons of hell, our bodies full of sins, and our minds full of temptations. You too, boy, don't think you are immune to it."

Reid wanted to answer, but Charles continued, stopping him from saying anything.

"Parents today are too weak against their children. They have to taught them how to pray, they had to taught them to fear God and see the evil of this world. Even if they cry, even if they are scared, it stop them from going to hell. And make them suffer some times, suffer is good for the soul, whatever they say. I marked my son's forehead with a cross, he begged and cried in pain, but I kept strong and did it. And now, the demons know he is under God's protection. If we marked all the children this way, the youth today wouldn't be so wanton."

He told Reid things he did to his sons, like the time he had half drowned him in a bathtub to baptism him. Spencer was pale at hearing those things and felt more and more compassion for Tobias. He had suffered under this monster's treatment, so much that he was still under his tyranny, even in his own mind.

"All those things keep him away from the devil. If he is right about you, maybe, even if I doubt it, you could be saved."

He marked a pause, and Reid didn't dare to talk, because for now, Charles was calm. He was someone dominant, and liked to be listened to.

"We are only souls waiting for salvation on this earth, passing a test from God. Nothing can justify sins."

"But, the Lord is forgiving, isn't he?"

Charles looked at him with spite, and Reid regretted his words. He stood up before Reid.

"You are like all the fools who think God has no anger and forgive everything. I will test you soon and we will see what you really are, and what you'll become."

With that, he walked away and exited the place, leaving Spencer alone. He was relieved he didn't got hurt, but he knew that he had failed from creating a link, sure now he knew more about the Unsub's life, but Charles was still thinking about him like a potential enemy.

He breathed in, and realised that at least this conversation made him realise two things: first, Tobias's personality wasn't present at all when Raphael or his father was talking. So he had to act differently toward each personality. Second, he would have to get out of here alone. He already knew when he ended up here that he would have to take the first occasion he got to escape, but still had hope that the team could find him. Now, he doubted the team would save him.

Charles was somehow right, they were all souls waiting for salvation, as he would wait and take the first occasion to escape. He was a soul waiting for salvation too, except he would find that salvation by himself.

Somehow, even in this situation, he felt slightly stronger.

I don't really know what inspired me this, maybe simply the great acting of Matthew Gray Gubler and James Van Der Beek. The two of them were amazing playing the scenes between Reid and Tobias, Van Der Beek was impressive too when he played the conversation between his three personalities.

Okay, I stop here my ranting, please, read and review.