Disclaimer: I own nothing. Characters are fictional and not a depiction of their portrayers.
Summary: Morgan and Reid are trapped by a cave in while pursuing an unsub, causing both of their worst nightmares to come true.
Pairing: Morgan/Reid pre-slash.
Warnings: None.
Notes: Not season specific. Apologies for any OOC behavior. I have very limited knowledge of the FBI and the medical field.
Face the Dark
He woke to darkness.
Pitch, black emptiness and absolute silence encompassed him the likes of which he had never experienced before. He rolled his head against the hard surface beneath him, trying to make out the slightest glimpse of light or definition, and was met with searing pain inside his skull. He winced and reached up to his forehead where he felt the unmistakable warm, stickiness of blood.
He must have hit his head, but he wasn't sure how much time had passed or where he was; his mind was as murky as his surroundings. He reached his hands down to his sides and felt along the ground with his fingertips. They were met with the unmistakable rough, hardness of unyielding rock.
Rock. He was underground. Yes, underground in a cave. Chasing an unsub who had kidnapped a little girl in Washington state. Dead end. Hotch calling, telling him to return to base. The sound of rumbling, the sensation of tremors beneath his feet. His heart beat hard in his chest as he remembered running, running, running. Screaming…
And then, nothingness until he had opened his eyes to sheer darkness.
…the inherent absence of light.
Derek sat up with a gasp, his head throbbing in protest. Spencer. God, Spencer had been with him, behind him. His heart dropped into his stomach in horror. "Spencer!" he screamed it aloud just as he had before the rocks had come tumbling down.
He scrambled to his knees and reached out with his hands in a wide arc, meeting nothing but empty air. "Spencer, where are you? Answer me!" his voice echoed off the cave walls, mocking him. He reached down and began to crawl, feeling along the ground with his hands. At one point he had been holding a flashlight, but he had clearly lost it in the cave in. He wasn't sure what direction he was going, but he had to move, had to find the kid. Spencer was surely panicking, trapped in absolute darkness.
Derek wouldn't allow himself to think about any alternative scenario.
He had only moved a few feet when his hands hit a solid wall before him. He felt his way up, up, up with no end to the rocky barrier apparent. But was this the way he had come from or the way they were going? Spencer had been behind him, but where was he now?
Derek took a deep breath, forcing himself to think clearly. With trembling hands he fished his cell phone out of his pocket and turned it on. The screen was cracked, he had no service, but with the small illumination provided he could see the wall of immovable stone in front of him. The ceiling of his enclosure was no more than 7 feet high and there was nothing to see but fallen rocks around him. The space had barely been large enough to lie down in, he realized, and it was a wonder he hadn't been injured further.
There was no sign of Spencer. "Spencer!" he screamed it again, his voice taking on an edge of hysteria. "Spencer, answer me! Please answer me!" He wasn't even sure which direction to turn, not that it would have mattered with the space so small and his voice enhanced by the booming echo.
He reached up to his shoulder, fumbling with his com link and switching it on, greeted by the sound of static. "Hotch," he said, still hopeful. "Come in Hotch."
Nothing.
"Hotch, it's Derek. Do you read me?"
He waited silently for a moment, his heart pounding in his chest, but there was no response. He resisted the urge to tear the communicator off his shoulder and pitch it into a wall. Calm, he reminded himself. Have to stay calm.
"Spencer!" He shouted so loudly he bent over from the agony in his head. Oh God, oh God, please this can't be happening. This can't be happening, please. Please let him be okay. He has to be okay.
Then, so quiet he wouldn't have heard if it hadn't been for the absolute stillness of the cave, "Derek?" It was no more than a murmur, coming from behind one of the walls of fallen debris.
Derek dove towards the sound, holding up his phone and struggling to see if there was a gap in the rocks, no matter how small. "Spencer," he gasped out. "Spencer, thank God. Please tell me you're okay?"
A short pause, then a trembling voice, barely audible: "I'm okay, Derek."
His heart started hammering in his chest double time. The kid certainly did not sound okay. He sounded weak, and not just because of the wall that divided them.
Liar.
Derek laid his hand against the stone surface that divided them, wishing that if they had to be trapped down here they could at least be trapped together. "We're going to get out of here, Spencer," he promised. "The team will know what happened and they're not going to give up looking."
It was so much easier to say something with conviction when you were trying to soothe someone else and not yourself. This cave might very well end up being their tomb, he realized. And that was a thought he absolutely wasn't going to voice. "Pretty boy?" he said when Spencer didn't reply. He leaned closer to the wall. "You still with me over there?"
"I'm still with you."
"Good…that's good. You just hang on. Just keep talking to me. We're going to be okay. The team will get us out of here, you'll see." They have to. They have to…there's no other option. "Spencer, I'd try to dig my way to you, but it could cause a another cave in. It's better if we sit tight, okay?"
"Yeah."
Fuck it. The kid should have been spouting off statistics about cave systems, not giving him one-syllable answers. "Do you still have your flashlight at least?"
"Lost it."
"Your cell phone? You have that on you, right?"
A pause. "Can't get to it."
Derek felt a sudden sensation of dread spread throughout his body and set his nerves on end. He licked his lips with a too-dry tongue and forced the next words out, fearing the answer. "Why can't you get to your phone, kiddo?"
Spencer didn't respond.
TBC