You process that you're awake slowly. First, you realize that time is passing because there's a pressure on your chest that's coming and going in a recognizable pattern. You are breathing. And you've learned that that means time must also be happening so that all of your breaths aren't coming at once.
Except, you know that you already knew that. So you try to shake your head clear and reevaluate. You are awake and you are breathing. Those are all good signs. But why wouldn't you be? You try to think, try to think, try to think.
You process, too slowly, you acknowledge, that your head shake didn't really happen. You try to move again. Your body is stiff. You aren't sure if you've actually moved.
Actually, you aren't really sure where your body is at all.
You hear a sound and suddenly you remember hearing that sound over and over and over again, and you get this paranoid thought that time has been repeating. Is this all really happening or are you stuck in one moment?
Everything around you is warped.
Somehow you opened your eyes but you don't remember when. You know something isn't right and you also know that your thoughts should be knitting together better than they are so you decide not to let anything in.
You block out your senses and you refuse to acknowledge anything because the one thing you do know is that something is very, very wrong.
You come to again, some time later, and you are suddenly aware, with absolute certainty, that you were experiencing the world wrong the last time you opened your eyes. But for a second you think you're back to normal.
You only just have time to file this thought away before a sound triggers something in the back of your mind and the rest of your thoughts ripple away with the blurs in your eyes and the past catches up to the future and all the times you heard this sound are now, and time isn't working right again, and you know something is very, very wrong.
It's the only time in your life you can remember that you've had absolutely no idea what to do, but even though you don't know what to do you know that you can block it all out. If you don't do anything at all you can't do anything wrong.
You hear the noise again and you're pulled out of the rolling blackness to register the words, "Spencer Reid," and you want to laugh because you know what's coming next, just like the last hundred times you lived this moment, because time is bending and looping and carrying you around it and you've lived this moment so many times and something is very, very wrong. "I'm glad we're finally together again."
All you know is that something is wrong and you aren't working correctly right now, so you close your eyes and you try to block it out. While your eyes are closed you have a moment of clarity where you think you should say something, anything.
But if you're wrong you could make everything worse, and besides, this is one moment repeating over and over again and you aren't sure yet if the real moment is here or there or where it was or where it will be so you close your eyes and pretend that if you don't acknowledge any of this you won't be making it worse.
Your eyes are open and someone is there. You don't remember opening them, and you aren't sure how long they've been open but when you shake your head the whole scene shifts about three seconds too slow.
You suddenly remember the moment in time that happened what feels like hours ago, when you decided to shake your head to clear it and nothing moved, and think about how time is looping and repeating and taking you with it and you remember how you don't remember deciding to move it now.
You hear a breath and remember the someone that was there. Where, you don't know, but that reminds you that you were taking stock of your situation. That was stopped when you realized how it didn't work and how something is wrong, very, very wrong.
So you close your eyes and pretend this isn't happening, pretend that if you ignore it you'll get that clarity back, because you also remember that somewhere in this great spiral of time you'd been sure you were lucid again. If you don't do anything you can't make it worse.
But then you laugh because you know what's going to happen. You open your mouth and say it with him, that someone who was there in front of you, who is, who will be, the one who's been making that same noise for the past hours upon hours that you've been here.
"Spencer Reid, I'm glad," you get out. Then you take a break because you can't stop yourself from laughing, because you know what he's going to say and everything is wrong and the breaths that you're taking are telling you that time is happening but the fact that the breaths aren't all coming at once doesn't mean that everything else isn't. How else would you know what the someone in front of you is going to say?
"We're finally together again," you finish, but then your eyes are open and you're back at the beginning again because you don't remember how your eyelids pulled apart.
When you shake your head everything moves with you but it's three seconds too slow, and when you register the presence in front of you you focus with everything you have. You pretend like nothing is happening even though you have a sudden rush of lucidity, because if you don't do anything you can't do anything wrong, and something is already very, very wrong.
Your eyes are closed and your ears aren't listening and your body is disconnected. You aren't going to let time trick you again.
It's all been looping and repeating and trying to carry you with it but you'll take stock. You're "Spencer Reid," and you're from the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI, and, and, and someone just said your name out loud, so you open your eyes and time all slams back together.
"I'm glad we're finally together again," the figure says as you snap your head up and meet his eyes.
You're Spencer Reid and you're from the Behavioral Analysis unit of the FBI. You've been drugged and kidnapped. You have no idea what has happened between your drive to the station and now, and the sluggishness and disorientation you still feel are pointing towards a ketamine injection.
You don't seem to have any serious injuries, but if the unsub did use ketamine you are probably still under it's influence and are therefore unreliable in recognizing your own pain. While focusing on your body you realize that something does feel wrong but it's just slightly and it's all over.
Your eyes flick down and, yes, you're naked. You also note that your hands are restrained over your head and your feet are bare against the floor.
The room you are in is dark and cold and built out of cement that seems to be characteristically damp. It must be a basement somewhere, but you get nothing further from the limited view you have and file the thought away. You start back from the beginning.
You are Spencer Reid from the Behavioral Analysis unit of the FBI. You've been drugged with Ketamine, kidnapped, stripped, and restrained in a basement. You aren't fully aware of your own body and surroundings, and should use all your focus to remain connected to your body.
There is someone in here with you, and he obviously knows who you are. He is male, approximately 6 feet tall, average weight as far as the loose hoodie shows. He has graying brown hair, a beard, and- that voice.
No. No, no, no. You have to think logically. Ketamine can cause hallucinations, you know this.
You don't let yourself think about the other side effects. You need to focus. You were on a case. Your whole team was on a case.
You are Spencer Reid from the Behavioral Analysis unit of the FBI. You were working a case with your team when you were kidnapped, drugged, and restrained in a basement. You were taken from California, where an unsub was killing women randomly, shooting them in the chest and leaving like they meant nothing.
There were absolutely no leads, no evidence; the local police department was baffled. You hadn't been able to figure out why the unsub was killing people with no obvious motive, seemingly without the pleasure that most serial killers gain from their actions.
You know the unsub wasn't using drugs to gain control of his victims, and they were all female. They were all killed immediately, not kidnapped and taken to a second location. You don't fit the victimology.
You'd say it's a different unsub but, the voice, it all just- it has to be. Nothing is making sense.
You are Spencer Reid, and you were brought into the Behavioral Analysis unit of the FBI by Jason Gideon, who has drugged you with Ketamine, kidnapped you, and restrained you naked in a basement. He killed 4 women to draw you out to California.
Jason Gideon.
You wish you were hallucinating. You know you aren't.
You tug on the chains holding your wrists and take a deep breath. Gideon takes a step towards you. You jerk away and your feet start to slip on the grimy floor; you catch yourself with your arms when they tighten their grip on the cold metal instinctively.
Your eyes never leave the man in front of you. He seems to be waiting for something. "Gideon," you give him, your voice too weak for your liking even as you coat it in false bravado.
Your tongue feels too heavy so you decide to save the banter for later. You know you'll be here for a while anyways, after all the trouble he went through to bring you here in the first place. "Why are we here?" you ask, straight to the point.
You wonder why father figures always have to ruin you.
Gideon takes another step, and then another, another, another, until he's standing so close to you that your shivering frame can steal some warmth from his breath. You're reminded of your state of dress, and you suddenly feel all of the discomfort that you'd previously been too disoriented to let yourself acknowledge.
Your skin feels too tight on your bones and you want to shrink into yourself, but the chains are holding your body taut, your feet barely resting on the floor. You grip the chains even tighter still in your hands. You keep your face level, though, and you let yourself stare into his eyes.
He reaches for you, drags his fingers across your stomach, low. So gently you almost don't notice, catching slightly on your hip.
What you do notice is that you are cold. Cold all the way through. And when the warmth of your former mentor's skin melts into yours you almost welcome it. Until you process the situation again and suddenly you're being sick onto the floor.
You have no idea what's happening, and the endless loop of time doesn't seem so bad anymore, you almost wish it would return and leave this as a single moment imagined in time that doesn't quite exist.
It's not going to happen. You're cold. You didn't feel anything before. Your senses are returning. And Gideon is so, so warm and so wrong.
Something is very, very wrong.
The images that flash across your mind are of Gideon, years ago, when you were back in a cabin with Tobias Hankle and a single bare light bulb, when Gideon's image covered the screens in front of you and he called you strong.
"He cannot break you," you hear echoing through your mind, and you're pretty sure it's all in your head but you can't be completely certain because you can almost feel the vibrations in your ears. "You are stronger than him; he cannot break you."
You lift your chin as much as you can and close your eyes. This is Gideon, and you can't quite believe that this is happening.
A touch ghosting across your cheek forces you back into the situation. The touch travels from your face to your neck, across your collarbones, up your arms. Then it drags across your shoulder blades, your back, lower, lower. The hands that have covered you settle on your hips.
You squeeze your eyes shut. "I don't want to be here," you say from years into the past; your parents are fighting. It feels like the dilaudid all over again, the warmth could be coming from that single bare bulb. You're seeing the past, high on some drug you didn't want to take.
"I don't want it, I don't want it, please." Now you're waking up in a different past, back in the cabin but for real. You haven't been meaning to talk out loud but you can't tell for sure that you aren't forming the words with your lips, pushing them out of the back of your throat.
Your consciousness stretching out of your body.
"Please, I don't want it."
The warmth is burning you, all over, moving too fast, reaching too deep. Pushing and pulling and taking you over.
You hear metal hitting metal, a light, innocent sound. You struggle to open your eyes, to connect to the present. When you do you wish you hadn't.
You see Gideon unhooking his belt, and you remember the fear you felt so long ago when Tobias did the same thing. You remember how that turned out, the long torture of addiction.
Somehow you know this will be worse.
You close your eyes again, desperate as time starts melting away, but, no. That's not what's happening. Your breaths are happening all at once but time is there, it's the panic that's causing this. But having the knowledge doesn't stop the panic from swelling.
The knowledge has never really saved you from anything.
You can hear the belt clang one last time and your body jerks. "I don't want it please, please, I don't want it." It helps just about as much as it did in the cabin.
The touches start again too rough, too warm.
Your addled brain can only think of that damn light bulb, swinging above you while your life ended.
You barely register what happens. The chains loosen; you fall. Your knee twinges. You feel like you just shot up dilaudid. The high is taking over. Warmth is spreading through your veins unwelcomed. Gideon is all over.
You can feel the light above you. Smell the burning fish. That smell makes you sick again. He doesn't seem to care. In fact, he grabs your chin and eases himself inside your mouth.
You couldn't really do anything even if you knew what to do. Your breaths are coming all at once, not at all. Time is looping and bending and you'd better just block it all out. Pretend that you can't sense anything because even though the other ones are still technically functioning the only sense you can understand is the one that says something is very, very wrong.
You thought you were lucid, but you had periods of clarity before and you slipped back into the haze. It was a lie and it's a lie again. You let it all go black.
"You're so beautiful. The world is all wrong but, Spencer, you've always been so beautiful."
No, no, no. You push it away, time is going all wrong and it's not fun at all anymore, it never was. This is a high you never asked for.
You can't breathe.
"I don't want it," you think, but you must have been saying it out loud all along because this time the thought doesn't happen. You cough and cough and something is there that shouldn't be.
It's inside you like that needle. The one that just slid itself into your skin and slowly started tearing you apart. It's all happening again. Time is happening again, everything repeats.
Everything always repeats.
Your head is spinning.
"So beautiful, I couldn't stay away any longer. I knew you'd be so beautiful."
You focus long enough to process Gideon in front of you, your knees against the cold ground, the hard press of hot flesh against your tongue. Spit is dripping from your lips, hitting the dirty floor like tears, and you are so scared because everything is wrong.
You know the best thing to do right now is to cooperate. He obviously does not want to kill you yet, and you don't want to aggravate him. You aren't in any state to try any games either. Even if your mouth was free you are still reeling from the drugs. Your world is shifting around you, bending, as you've been telling yourself at the worst moments.
Being forcibly filled up with drugs is not fun, but this time something even worse is happening. You almost can't even think the word. Rape. Gideon is going to rape you, that's what this is about.
You're just glad he seems content not to go that far right away. The team will have more time to find you this way. You just need to let him finish.
The dark room fades out around the man in front of you. He is pushing into you hard and fast and you desperately need a breath.
What happened to the man who couldn't comprehend the evil in the world? Was that really ever the problem? Or was it the evil in himself that he was unable to deal with in the end? You don't have to think too hard or wait too long for the answer.
"I knew, ever since I saw you on that screen, I knew. Knew you'd look so beautiful like this."
Oh, god. You strain your neck against his hands holding your head in place. He pulls your hair. You can't stop the whine that catches in your throat, and then it's over. He pushes into you one last time, leaves a little something behind, and pulls out.
Just like Tobias. Just like the dilaudid.
You collapse forwards when he steps away, catching yourself just barely with the chains before they start tightening up again, pulling your body upright once more. You can't help rearrange yourself at all, and your wrists suffer, but you'll deal with those wounds later. The ketamine is still keeping you blessedly numb.
Gideon rubs his hands over your skin one last time, leaving a kiss on your forehead and breathing out a soft, "so beautiful." You feel him messing with the shackles on your wrists but you can't stay awake any longer.
You tilt your head back and you swear you see that light bulb. The simple one, bare. It's swinging just above your head.
You're on your own now.
Your dreams are all wrong and reeling and weaving in and out of darkness. People are hurt and bound and left behind, and these people are you. It's you, but you're below you, and someone is hurting you and it's not real but you know that now it almost is.
There are old monsters and new monsters, and no matter how hard you squeeze your eyes shut the images don't go away because your eyes are already closed on that body that is yours, so far away, passed out.
There is Nathan and Tobias and Owen, and then there is Adam and Diane. Phillip Dowd is shot in the head, and then Jack, killed, just a kid. There is Nathan Harris with his wrists cut, Amanda with a knife to her throat. Maeve is dead on the floor, framed by two pools of blood. Tobias looks into your eyes, his own wide with surprise. You wake up screaming, without making a sound.
You look around when you wake up, and every time you move your head the world shifts accordingly. The drugs have made their way through your system, then. Good. There is a concrete floor, grungy and old. Concrete walls surround you to match.
There is a mattress beneath you, old and thin. A water bottle sits in the corner closest to you. You see a bucket across the room, a locked door down the wall. You really hope he doesn't intend to keep you here, but every observation is telling you that he very much does.
You take a minute to make sense of your situation. And then it all comes flooding back in.
You are Spencer Reid. You were drugged, kidnapped, hurt. Your captor is Jason Gideon. He called you beautiful. He wants to keep you, you know he does. He undid your chains after he finished with you and laid you out on this makeshift bed.
Your team should know you are gone, but the previous murders won't lead them to you and Gideon knows exactly how to manipulate them so that they will never find you.
You think that he could even have arranged an ending to this whole ordeal, one where the team seemingly solves the case they came for and has to leave without their co-worker Doctor Reid, leaving you at Gideon's mercy.
You can't let yourself think about that for long.
You push yourself into a sitting position, looking at the water. You don't want to risk taking any more drugs, they would only keep you vulnerable. Scooting over into the corner you realize that the bottle is sealed and you could cry with relief, but you're dehydrated enough as it is.
As you pick up the bottle you realize how sore you are. Hopefully you'll be out of here soon. That's all you let yourself think on the subject. Not about how your jaw came to ache, not about the shooting pain in your knee, or the tightness of your shoulders. You do look to your wrists, because you are just now remembering how serious those injuries could be.
They are red and mangled and your arms are coated in dried blood down to the elbow. You know you'll have scars, but luckily you haven't and will not likely bleed out. You should still care for them as best you can, however, but you don't want to waste your water.
Just as you are thinking this, the door creaks open. You consider your options, but decide in the end that it's best to just sit tight. Gideon knows all of your moves, he taught them to you. It may make him angry if you try any word games. You don't want to risk souring his mood because you don't see an ending down that road worth the price you know he'll demand.
You close your eyes. Take a breath. Finish the water in silence.
Gideon walks up to you, squats down to your level, and exhales your name. "Spencer." He trails his fingertips down your left arm and pauses just above your wrist. He lifts your hand into his lap and says, "We'd better fix this up before it gets infected."
You control your breathing, let him manipulate your wrists into his working space and clean them out. You don't even flinch at the burn of alcohol on your wounds. He wraps them up and you wonder what he's trying to do.
Before you figure it out he's gone. Nothing makes sense.
You're still exhausted, so as soon as the door shuts you let yourself relax, as much as you can while being held captive. Again. You pull your arms up to cover your face, cuddle down into the mattress, and pass out once more.
You dream and you dream and you dream. Of darkness and death and dying. Of blood and pain and cruelty. You dream as you always have.
It ends with a single gunshot ringing in your ears, a beam of light drawing near.
This time when you wake you are not alone. Gideon is there, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. You suck in a breath, freeze, flick your eyes up to his face. He doesn't meet your gaze, just slides his eyes over your body so aggressively you shiver. The cold rushes back through your veins.
Once again you're struck with the irrational thought that if you refrain from making any moves nothing will happen, but you know what Gideon is capable of doing to you without your consent. You wonder if you've been given some sort of drug again.
Gideon's fingers trail down over your lips, the last one settling over the corner of your mouth. You don't know if you'd rather he keep his interest in your mouth or move on and get it over with.
A spider crawling over the concrete floor catches your eye. You follow it desperately, the reality of your situation left floating in the back of your mind. The spider's leg movements lull you into an easy trance. You aren't choosing to do nothing, there's just nothing you can do.
Maybe one day you'll write a paper on spiders. You're not sure why that would ever make any sense at all, but surely you could. It's much better to keep your mind on the small creature in front of you, the only living thing in this basement that has a chance.
You attempt to move but something stops you, not your mind this time, so you must be bound again. You strain your neck back, whisper through the dryness in your mouth, "Gideon, pl-"
Something hits your face, hard. You slam your eyes shut as hard as you can. Do nothing do nothing do nothing. It's better to not make a move, there's nothing you can do.
"No talking, not unless I say you can, Spencer. Remember that." And you want to say so much but you know it won't work and it's not worth it. You know you're supposed to play along and wait for someone to save you, but that doesn't make you feel better. You want to save yourself again, but you can't; you're irrationally frozen.
Frozen in this basement where you're being held by Gideon, oh god, he-, you can't just- "No," you almost plead. That isn't what you wanted to say. You definitely didn't want to sound so pathetic. You shouldn't have done that- not worth it- oh god- you retreat into your mind, this isn't happening.
Somewhere far away you hear a crack like a gunshot, and a flash of light pops under your eyelids. You feel a sudden rush of heat on your body. That shouldn't concern you, you were cold, you remember, or- frozen?
You don't- surely in a cold and damp basement being warm is a good thing.
This heat is concentrated and as a spare corner of your mind travels back to your body and down your back you remember the state you were left in. You recognize the feeling of bare skin against bare skin but this time instead of leaving warmth behind Gideon's hands feel cool against your naked burning flesh.
Another crack, another spot of warmth at the top of your thigh. Your eyes dart back to the floor, scan for the spider.
You think in your paper you'll include a battle like the one going on right now, the one exploding inside your head. You stare and you stare and you stare.
You can't remember anything in the world mattering more than this arachnid making its way around a sealed room, you wonder what path it will take, what direction it will turn next. You write algorithms in your head, try to predict the future from the past, try to ignore the fight happening inside your head.
The backs of your eyelids show men with guns and blue vests ducking and shooting and protecting each other. They show people falling and bleeding and dying. They show wounds and noises and battles and unsubs getting away.
You can't close your eyes without remembering every shot you've ever fired, and the sounds that burst out of your weapon are real and close and hurting.
The shots you hear leave a sting on you skin, like the battle is happening now. If you weren't busy studying the spider you'd want to fight back.
It doesn't make any sense. You are fighting, in your head. Over and over. Even your coherent thoughts are useless without that spider. You push everything else away, refocus your energy.
One day you'll write a paper. For now though, you watch.
Only, you can't focus with the fight so you push even further than last time, you push to expand your field of view. The spider can wait.
You're on your stomach on the mattress, Gideon must have rearranged you. Your clothes have not suddenly returned, not that you expected them too. The heat you felt on your back must have come from Gideon's palms cracking over your skin again and again. He seems to be working randomly, slapping and then rubbing, pulling, smoothing without thought. One move after another, never stopping, not even a hint of hesitation.
You feel a spot of drool under your chin and remember the spider watching you were doing. You figure that's a yes to the drugs and try to keep your sluggish brain moving. Your arms are bound over the bandages, this time with rope. Your shoulders ache from the position but right now that's the least of your worries, because you think the pain is actually helping you keep yourself aware. The drugs have to be different than last time, and not as strong at that.
You keep your thoughts moving. Your legs are pinned underneath Gideon's body. You aren't going anywhere right now, all you can do is get through it. You're acutely aware of how much pain you're feeling.
The cold of his hands right after the burning heat is the best thing you're experiencing right now, but you don't want to admit that, even to yourself.
His hands keep moving, pulling. Tearing into you like claws.
You clench your jaw when his hands finally stop their pattern of assaulting and soothing. You're glad that's over but you're scared of what it being over means. Of what's coming next. A tear slips down your cheek, leaving a trail of ice against your flushed skin.
You feel like you've been ten different people lately, like the endless stream of drugs and trauma are molding you and twisting you up too fast to keep track. Maybe Gideon isn't even hurting Spencer Reid. Maybe you can no longer be considered those people anymore. You don't know; you don't know anything. Knowing wouldn't save you anyways, the knowledge never does. You're learning that.
Just as you start itching to lock in on the spider again the weight on your thighs shifts and the hands come back. One grips your hair and pulls, letting nails scratch against your scalp, startling you. The other settles over your wrists and the rope binding them, pushes them into the small of your back, stretches your shoulders.
The adjustments mold your body, force your back to curve, your hips to lift. You close your eyes. There's no more pretending.
You search for the spider again, desperately, almost hysterically. Quick, quick you don't have that much time. You stop fighting the drugs, beg to slip back out of the present. It's coming, oh god, you're not ready.
You count the movements of the arachnid's legs, one at a time, over and over. Ignore the weight on top of you.
You focus back in on your body, feel where he rests against you. There's cloth, but not a lot. You don't know if he needs to stop to get anything off. But you hope and hope and hope.
The hand holding your wrists too tight drops down, rubs too slow and too soft. Your vision blurs and then rights itself. Maybe it's already too late.
No, no, no. No.
You look for the spider, you can't find it.
Your breathing speeds up. Faster, faster, faster.
Your shoulders twist, wriggle, jerk. The hand in your hair tightens, yanks your neck back as far as it will go.
Your feet kick as hard as they can with a full grown man sitting on top of them. You can't remember asking them to.
Panic is sharp and thick and heavy. Your breaths come faster, faster, all at once. Can time be happening if it isn't separating events anymore?
And then the pressure lifts.
There's nothing.
Nobody is touching you at all.
Time has happened, but it feels like it has jumped into another stopping point, like it still isn't happening right now.
It's quiet, like the gunshots have stopped. Like all the fighting is done and now the bodies are just lying motionless on the ground in puddles of blood.
Red, red blood.
Your eyes are dry, unblinking.
It feels like if you move your gaze something very fragile will break. So you don't move at all.
Until suddenly you suck in a breath so sharp it cuts a stream of tears lose in your eyes, breaking the silence like a siren. There is relief, cold, cold relief rushing through you with your blood.
Another breath, another. The sounds flood in. You drag your eyes across the floor and spot the spider. It's legs move in rapid succession. You keep your eyes moving, stopping on the figure standing before you.
A lot of time must have passed around you while you were stuck, frozen, because he is holding a paper plate and even if you can't remember him first coming down here you know it wasn't down here before. He sets the plate on your mattress, crouches down with it.
It's like he's still that man you used to look up to. He smiles, it's- completely normal. He says something, harmless, probably, you don't even register the meanings of all the pointless words, and he reaches behind you, frowning, his hands resting over the ropes.
It's all so fast, too fast, never ending. Time is too fast, and yet it's far too slow. You can't keep track. He's forcing you to collapse in on yourself, surrounding you, pushing from all sides. Like he's the bullet and you knew you'd never win.
And then he unties you. Props you up against his legs. Lifts the sandwich from the plate to your mouth. Gives you a look like a disapproving father, urging you to eat.
You swallow, dry. Open your mouth slowly, avoid his eyes.
"Spencer," you hear, soft, so soft.
You take a bite, and then realize how thoroughly exhausted you are, how hungry. Before you realize it the sandwich is gone, and you are still so, so hungry. Gideon smiles, and you can't tell the difference between this face and his genuine happiness.
Your heart beats just a little faster, and yet you can't look away. He parts his lips, speaks, "You can say thank you now." And you blink. Try to say it. You aren't sure if anything makes it past the claws in your throat, but it seems to be enough. He pulls out another sandwich from somewhere behind him and you think you could cry again. He holds this one out to you, lets you eat it yourself, watches.
When he stands you collapse again.
And then you're alone. Staring at the ceiling.
You see the spider climbing up his web. Everything has been turned upside down.
Nothing has changed.
Everything is moving. It's slow.
Nothing feels like you.
You have no idea how much time passes or how little, but at some point you want a drink of water so you let your head drop to the side.
There's another bottle at the edge of your mattress.
It looks really, really good.
You watch it for a while, tired. It's over though, it's over.
This is the point in the battle where the ambulance has disappeared, off to the hospital with everyone who could be saved.
Finally there is quiet, just the wreckage left behind.
Those who were already too far gone.
Peace, because there's nothing left to do.
Day fades into night over the battle site. Your vision blurs out a little, one more time.
You realize you're thirsty.
You look up, see water right in front of your face, sitting at the end of the mattress.
It looks really, really good.
You feel wrong. Nothing even happened.
You reach out, hit a bottle of water with your arm.
You pick it up, lift it, drink.
And then a chunk of your time vanishes to the darkness.
There are days and there is Gideon, and there is pain and there is soothing. Sometimes he just takes and sometimes he teaches, and sometimes he's like his old self again, and that's almost the worst part. You know what he's doing but with every passing day there is less you can do to stop it.
So you don't speak because you aren't allowed, and you sit up at the slightest hint that the door is about to open because that's what you're supposed to do, and when he wants you to pretend, you do.
You're staring at a screen, not blinking, waiting for someone to die. You think it's you this time.
Nobody will ever even know what happened. Gideon won't be caught. Gideon wrote the book on catching serial criminals, literally and metaphorically. Gideon knows other people so well he became one, abandoned the burden that was his own mind by giving in, switching sides.
Most of the time now you wake up alone. Alone, alone, alone. You want to be alone because the alternative is Gideon, but on the other hand you don't really want to be alone, and you want the food and water and warmth you know only Gideon will provide you. Because Gideon is trying to make you depend on him, to crave his presence. He wants you so desperate that you will do absolutely anything for him. You know this.
But you also know that that doesn't mean it won't work.
You wonder what day it is. Wonder what the team is doing, how the case is going. And then a choked sound makes its way out of your throat, because you don't give a damn about the case anymore, you really don't. You wonder if they're gone yet. If you're here forever, if they've given up.
You wonder when Gideon is coming back. Wonder how long you'll make it. You don't bother moving. Or thinking. You aren't going to escape because Gideon knows you, better than maybe anyone ever has. So you lay there.
It's funny how you gave up so easily.
It's just, maybe you should get a little break, because he's taken so much from you already. You aren't really giving up, you'll just take a rest. Fighting all the time is so hard, so tiring, you're exhausted, you've been exhausted for years and years and you've never had a break. It's just a rest.
"You're stronger than this. He cannot break you," echos through the room, or maybe it's just your head. It doesn't really matter. You're alone. For now.
There's a spot on the ceiling that kind of looks like a headstone.
There won't be a team of flashlights searching through the graveyard this time.
And then there's a noise by the door. You don't move, don't look. You're resting. If you look you'll either have to fight again or give in. Don't look, don't look, don't look. You can hear him unlock the door and approach the mattress, approach you. You stay very, very still. Every muscle in your body is tense.
He laughs. Your whole body jerks and you squeeze your eyes shut and all the air jumps from your lungs. God, this is Gideon, he knows what you're doing, he knows, he'll always know. Still, you don't look.
It's almost like he can read your mind, though, for real, because when he speaks he tells you, "The team solved the case. Or, somebody is going to prison for the murders they were investigating, at least. Someone who fit the profile just shy enough of perfectly." You don't know how you feel about this. You don't look.
"You know, Spencer, it was a pretty long case. They were a little too focused on your case, instead, but Strauss pulled them off of it. It was too personal. They didn't put up much of a fight after that, though I suppose they were busy enough with the funeral," your neck twitches. He's lying. You don't look. He's lying. He wants you to give up, to need him. You won't do it. You won't. There's a gun to your forehead but you aren't going to give up on the team, on yourself.
"So many tears, Spencer, and for what? That southern man couldn't keep it together," he chuckles and, no, he's lying. Will? No. You're staring down the barrel.
Click.
"But cops, they die heroes. That's what they'll tell the kids, at least," you can't breathe. You push down the urge to say, 'no' because you aren't allowed to talk, so the word gets caught up in your throat. How would he know about Will and the kids unless- unless he actually went to a funeral.
Click.
"You know what good that does, of course, you've seen too many endings. At least you didn't have to see this one, Spence," and you flinch. You don't look. If-, she'll never call you that again if-
Click.
He turns away, but before he moves he pulls something from his pocket and drops it on the ground. You don't look. You hear him stop by the door, waiting. So you turn your head and-
There, laying open on the concrete, is JJ's badge. There's a little something red on the corner.
Bang.
The fourth chamber holds the bullet.
You look up.
He smiles.
So this is how it goes: there are drugs and days and hands and warm and the all consuming cold. But when you are cold he holds you and you steal as much warmth as you can because he always leaves and you can't remember why.
One night, when he's holding you together from behind, you realize that your limbs are sprawled uselessly across your mattress and you aren't sure how to fix them.
It feels like the edges of your body are someone else's responsibility, like there is another person attached to you and you are looking at their arms, their twisted legs, their loose fists, limp feet. Then he rolls over you and arranges them just right and everything is easy and calm.
And then his hands spread across your body and the warmth rolls over you in waves and then the warmth is inside you. And it's not the first time but you have no recollection of when the first time may have been.
You just lay on your mattress and notice the way you're moving, like you're on the beach and the tide is coming in and each wave is rocking you and then pulling away. Over and over and- it's like the lightbulb you sometimes see. The one that swings all alone, back and forth and- but you aren't alone, because sometimes he is there.
And he doesn't want you to think about those things. He doesn't need you to think anything at all. He will take care of everything for you, he always has.
Easy and calm.
You don't remember much but you're sure of this: he always, always comes back.
And no one has ever done that before. You don't remember who but you remember people leaving and leaving and even though you can't remember the first time he came back at some point you started thinking it was love.
Because you don't remember much but you know it matters when someone comes back. There are moments in your dreams where you see him so clearly you think there's no other explanation. And sometimes you can hear him say you're beautiful, and his voice never, ever says goodbye.
Right now you are spread on your mattress and his voice is flowing in your ears like blocks of red red red, and red is love, you know. Your neck is balancing your head on an angle, and your top lip is caught against the mattress. You can feel the threads tugging against your lip, holding it from touching the bottom one, keeping your mouth slightly open, which is good because sometimes breathing is hard to remember.
You might be drooling and it kind of feels like your eyes are watering and- there's a spider, a spider on the wall crawling up up up, away. Why would it want to leave, you wonder, when without him there is cold and nothing? You watch the area where it escaped and you don't miss a second, your eyes are dry now, unmoving, until a brightness registers in the corner of your vision so intense it almost turns back time.
To when you were trapped and scared and hurt. But that's so far away now. And he doesn't want you to think about those things.
You hear a distant noise, loud and sudden like a gunshot, but not. A shout from him, perhaps. You don't know how you know what a gunshot sounds like but- you blink. And blink and- nothing. Cold. He's gone again.
In the darkness you dream of senseless horrors and wonder if that's where the spider is headed. To places where it isn't so simple, where bad, bad things happen. And then shapes form in the inky blackness and there's the spider, and then the spider is killed, shot in the head. It falls and people are watching it but it's dead.
And suddenly everything is consumed by the pool of blood gathering around it's body so red red red- you dream of monsters. You always dream of monsters.
And then you dream of Gideon taking them all away.