Part ten: Finding Spencer

'Ah shit!' I snap this at Hotchner and Prentiss. 'You two are going to be the death of all of us. You fucking know that don't you?'

I have to get to my feet. There is no option now. No more messing around here. Yes I'm bleeding and yes I need my smokes and snort, but they're not going to help me now are they?

'I gotta go.' I spit at them both. 'You two have a nice day in the dirt, but Spencer is hurt and I gotta go help him.' Sometimes when I'm really pissed off and really seeing red rage in front of my eyes my accent slides a bit and I sound more and more like some English nut job, but that's by the way really. Those two fuck for brain idiots aren't going to recognise that in my voice the way Spencer would.

I think I told you previously that my feet were tingling and that horrible numbness was creeping around my feet again, but I'm just going to have to ignore that and try to get up off my face in the filth and go help Spencer. Assuming it's not too late to help him.

'I'll ask you again to untie me.'

And I get a small tight shake of the head in reply.

'You really don't realise what damage you're doing do you? You have no fucking idea.' I'm on my knees now which is a good start. 'I just want to be able to help Spencer. Why do you have to be so thick skulled and not see that?'

'You are a sociopath and unrepentant liar. Why would I trust you?'

I hate that cold way Hotchner talks sometimes. Maybe the heat which will soon come and try to boil his blood will warm him up a bit. I bloody well hope it does.

'I really was a fool when I brought you two here. I thought you'd help.'

Prentiss calls over to me now. 'You misread us Flanders.'

I'm on my feet now and I feel a bit wobbly and there is blood running down from my nose and into my mouth. I lick my lips and sniff up some of the rest. 'I guess my profile was a bit off.'

And slowly I turn and start to stride away from them. Each step is agonising tearing ripping pain, but I'm not going to show them that. I don't even know how far away Spencer is or what damage Sam has done to him and I have no idea what I am going to do when I get there. I've tried tuning in and getting into Spencer's head but the signal is down. I'm just getting static. That's fine. He's not dead. If he was I'd know.

I sneeze and splatter the ground in front of me and I secretly, or maybe not so secretly hope that something does come and get those two still back there.

'I hope your inaction kills you both.' I mutter to myself. I'm not going to shout it out to them cos here I have doubts…doubts I'd not normally be in possession of and I don't want them telling me when they stand over my torn remains down at the nexus that they were right and I was wrong. I can really do without that.

How long have my hands been strapped up behind my back? I don't know. I've lost count of the hours or days now, but I know that there is no longer any feeling in my arms or hands and I know when they are finally released that the pain is going to feel like someone has been stomping on my shoulders for a few days. In a strange way I'm not looking forward to that experience. I don't like that back there where we came from originally this wouldn't hurt. Hell it wouldn't have happened in the first place. I'd have slapped him around so much that his eyeballs would swell in his head; he'd never have normally been able to do this to me. Enough of that though…the matter is that he did do this to me and now I'm going to have to work out how to deal with it.

I break into a jog, but it's clumsy and my strides don't have that smoothness to them that they normally would.

You know I learned to jog like this from the Native Americans many moons ago. Almost too long ago to actually remember how it came to be, but I was sort of living with them for a short while way back then. I lived and I hunted with them and it was them who showed me this way to move so quickly and silently. It's faster than a walk. It's not quite a run. It's somewhere in between and probably lost from memories now. You have to keep your balance on the balls of your feet. It was hard to do at first when I first went out hunting with them. They'd rush off ahead of me and I'd jog to catch up and then walk for a while then have to jog to catch up again. Not a very good way to keep your energy levels…this though, this seems to be almost easier than walking. Momentum keeps you going you know? Spencer can do it now. He seemed to teach himself. He watched me from behind as we travelled through the forests enough times. He observed. Spencer doesn't miss much. Not that sort of thing he doesn't. Anyway…I've never forgotten what those hunters taught me. I learned a lot from them.

It didn't stop me going to the white folks and telling them which paths the hunters took and where they'd stored their food so they'd survive the winter. It didn't stop me standing there with my musket in one hand and scalp in the other. It wouldn't have mattered. History is history. No point in looking back and regretting things now is there?

There was a lot more it didn't stop me doing, but maybe that's for another time. Right now I have to move quickly and swiftly and find Spencer. This place is so monotonous. The buildings are all the same. There is absolutely no variety here. Flat fronts with the glass blown out. Some doors open…some sealed behind metal grids…some behind metal screens. There are no cars abandoned in the roads. There are no birds in the sky. There is nothing. No sound. No movement apart from me and though there seems to be nothing else here sound doesn't seem to travel too well. There are the occasional side roads, but I've stopped and I've looked down them and they just lead out into what appears to be desert. There is just nothing here and the fact that I've not come across Spencer and Sam yet is bothering me.

I've sent a few messages to Sam and gotten nothing back. That means he's blocked me or he's been knocked senseless by Spencer and I really can't see that happening. Spencer is able to defend himself against a normal attack. He's not totally unable to look after himself. He's had training. He can defend himself just fine, but Sam would know that and Sam, well Sam is a little version of me…and I know what I'd do to Spencer.

I stop my strange half run half walk and look down the street. There is a funny churning in my stomach and I don't know if it's fear or the peaches but I don't like what it is I'm feeling. If Sam does to Spencer what I'd do then I'm way too late to help either of them. If Sam has done to Spencer what I'd do then I'm going to have to pop Sam's head off his shoulders.

And I'd have no regrets.

I wouldn't think twice about it.

I don't care if he is my spawn. I can replace him. I can make another Sam. Maybe that would be good anyway. Maybe I should do that.

I'm wasting time though. I have to find them and I know that they can't be much further away from me, yet this street is straight. There are no side roads to talk of. It must be ten miles long at least. What sort of crazy fucker makes a street like this across the bloody desert under a purple sun? Who in their right minds looked at this town planning and gave it a red tick?

I've been sneezing regularly and now the cough is coming back. It seems to ease it when I do my jog, so I set off again. I can't have missed him. If I had gotten that close I'd have sensed them both and there's been nothing.

I don't think there's been anything.

Maybe I've been distracted thinking of Big Hungry Wolf and Little River – especially Little River…he was sweet…in a lot of ways – but I'd have known if they were close.

-o-o-o-

I feel his fingers slide away from me and the strange noises and yelps he had started to make have stopped. My own fingers move shakily and slowly to my neck. I know I need to do something to stop the bleeding. I know I have to but there is a dread now of what I might find when I place my hands over the damage Sam has done to me. I'm not dead! I know that much. I can feel my heart thumping madly inside my chest. At least he's not managed to do too much damage there. I think it's just deep scratches. I'll find out later. For now I have to do something about this steady trickle of blood I can feel running down the side of my neck.

I feel sick and light headed and I'm still lying back on the ground with Sam under me. I'm going to stay like this for a while. At least I can attempt to keep him still if I stay like this; if he starts moving again. My fingers slide over the bloodied mess on the side of my neck and I can feel my pulse pumping my life out of me. The skin is ragged and torn but it seems it's not too deep. I don't think it's too deep anyway. It's not stopping me from taking short sharp breaths of panic though. I need to do something to stop the bleeding and so again with my shaking and now even more blood sticky hands I move to my shirt and begin to unbutton it. I have to be quick but the harder I try to speed up the more my fingers slip and shake on the buttons and refuse to do what I'm asking them to do. The prickling of tears of frustration are beginning to escape from behind my eyes and creep down the side of my face to join the blood oozing around my neck.

'Please.'

I mutter to my fingers.

'Please just do this for me.'

But they're refusing to listen to me. The shaking is increasing. My breathing is becoming less of proper breaths now and I know I'm hyperventilating and I know it might kill me if I let myself pass out here in this strange silent street but there's nothing I can do to stop it.

'Help me.'

I think I say those words but I'm not sure. I don't hear me say them, but the sound of my panic is all I can hear now. And a strange grey fog is drifting across from the sides of my vision. I grab hold of the fabric of my shirt and attempt to just rip it open, but I can't do that either. And that fog is getting thicker and I don't know if I am actually breathing anymore. Not really. Not life saving breaths; just pathetic small gasps which are not going to help me in the slightest. I try tearing my shirt open again and I feel it give slightly.

A small bit of hope?

I pull harder but now it's not just my fingers and hands shaking. I can feel my whole body is.

Help me!

And I know for certain this time that I didn't say that. I sent that out as a scream in my head to anyone who can hear me. My shirt is partially torn open now but my brain won't let me continue with this task. I just can't do it. And I place my hands back over my neck again thinking that even if I did manage by some miracle to get it open I'd not be able to remove it anyway. There's too much blood. Just too much! And though Sam hasn't ripped into my arteries he's still done enough. I am still losing blood and I can feel it seeping out from between my fingers.

No one is going to help me though. Floyd is miles away with Hotch and Emily and there is no one else. I know that.

And so I let my hands fall from the wounds on my neck and force my body to roll off Sam and I make my shaking arms wrap around me and I pull my knees up close to my chest and with a long sigh I close my eyes and let the grey fog take me.

I tried.

I failed.

I'm sorry.

-o-o-o-

It was a physical jolt. So hard that it knocked me off my feet and sent me face first with a resounding smack onto the ground. It sent shockwaves all through my body and there was a vile popping ripping sound from my left shoulder, but that's not what made my eyes water. That's not why I just lay there for a while with my eyes shut tightly trying to push the pain back. No, it was the scream in my head. That call for help.

Slowly I look up and try to focus my eyes and look down the street I've been sort of running down. Still I can see nothing but damned shop fronts and dust. If another dust storm starts up we are finished. How could my cunning plan have turned to shit so swiftly? Ignoring the searing agony in my shoulder and now shooting down my arm I roll over and sit. I want these fucking things off my hands. I want to be able to feel like I can defend myself against something, but there's no defence against that scream in my head. It's echoing around in there like my brain has gone and my skull is the size of some ancient and long forgotten cathedral. It's agonisingly slow but I manage to get to my feet again which only now I realise have stopped tingling and buzzing and have come back to life again. I can't be far away. He has to be close, but where the fuck is he?

I'm on my way.

I send back cautiously. I don't want that scream in my head. I don't want to hear that pain. Or that feeling of resignation. I squint down the road in the direction I need to go and start moving forward again firstly at a walk while I await another scream and then when nothing happens I break out into a run. Not my happy almost Injun run, but long almost (but not quite) panicked belt. After about ten minutes of this and with the feeling that I'm going to start screaming if I don't see him soon I do. At least I think I see him. Somewhere in the far distance there is something. Something different from the shop fronts and dirt. There is something at the side of the road. Just a speck is all I can see right now, but I know it's him. And I know that if I don't get there faster than I actually can then I'm going to lose him and I'm not going to accept that! Maybe it's not him. Maybe it's rubbish left behind in the distant past, but I don't think so. I can feel that pull now. I can feel Spencer and I can sense that Sam is there too.

It's at times like this that I wish for a teleport system. Well a teleport system which isn't going to spread my dainty molecules over all known and unknown universes anyway. I can't hear anything but that scream still whistling around in my head. I can't hear my feet pounding the road. I can't hear my heart thumping in my chest. I can't hear my hard deep breaths…all I can hear is Spencer in my head screaming for help.

Slowly…too slowly I can see that speck getting bigger. Now it looks like a pile of rubbish laid out for the bin men to take. It wavers and stutters in the heat waves coming of the dirt and I risk a glance upwards and see that purple sun looking down at me and if I don't get to him and get him out of this heat then he'll die anyway…whatever else has happened to him.

My neck hurts. This thing tied around my hands and up my back to my neck is pulling and chaffing and not making this any easier but that's not why I feel that pain. Somehow I know that is where my Spence has been hurt.

Now the still hot air is almost stifling. There is sweat running down my face and mixing with the blood which is still running happily from my nose. I can feel water running down my back and chest and I'm not sure if it's the heat from that sun or from the effort I am putting into getting to that lump of junk as quickly as I can.

I can see it's a person now. Laying on his side. Curled up. I know it's Spencer. I can tell as much from the pull, the lure, as from what I can see. I want to call out to him. I want him to know I am nearly there, but I don't. I need to keep that energy to actually get to him. I can smell blood and that makes my stomach hitch and my feet stumble but I keep going; blinking the sweat out of my eyes…I keep going until I am almost there; until I can see that blood and I can see that Sam is there too and until I realise that even if I do get there in time to save the day and be the hero of the day (again) I cant do anything to help him with my fucking hands tied up behind my back.

So I am doing nothing.

I am just standing looking at him and you really don't want to know what words are going on inside my head now, what profanities I am shouting out in my mind, but I can assure you that half of them you'd not even understand.

'Spence?' Finally I talk…and finally I move forward and slide down to my knees next to him. I give Sam a quick glance and can see his chest moving up and down so I know he's still with us for now…well that carrier is…I don't know if Sam is still inside there or not. 'Spence?' I can see that something has ripped at his neck and I'm sure it was Sam. Who else would it have been? It's more or less what I would have done to him, but I'd have made sure that there was no chance of survival, whereas here I can see his shaking body and I can see the rich fresh redness of that blood. And I can smell urine. 'Spence! Wake up!' I shout this in his ear.

The smell of a fresh kill. That's what I can smell, only he's still with us. Just about still with us and there is nothing I can do to help him. I wriggle my arms as best I can but there's no fucking way I can get out of this. 'Spence wake up Babes and give me a hand here. I need you to untie me.' I lick him quickly across the ear in the hopes that it'll do something, but there's no reaction and so I crawl around on my knees and go to Sam. There's blood over his face. It looks like someone head butted him and it makes me smile slightly. 'Sam wake the fuck up.' And again nothing. 'Wake up you little shit and get out of the sun. You'll die there.' And I scrabble to my feet and prod him hard with my toe in his ribs.

'Stop it!' Sam snaps at me. 'Leave me alone you bastard.'

I don't like that Sam might have to be the one who saves the day, but sometimes you have to let things go and just go with the flow.

'Good lad. Get up and untie me.'

'I'm dying.' He tells me in a pathetic whimper.

'You'll be more than bloody dead boy if you don't get up out of the dirt and untie me.'

'Just leave me alone!' Those blank dark eyes are looking right at me.

'Sam. You attacked Spencer. Now I need you to get control of yourself and push those bastards inside of you back and I need you to untie me so I can help Spence. If he dies here because of what you did then we are both very dead. Terminally dead. Forever gone…and never to be re-spawned. Do you understand me?'

'But….'

'No buts…no excuses now. You will get up out of your own shit and piss and you will untie me now!' I prod him hard again. 'Before I fucking rip you apart like you did Spence.'

I watch as he moves slowly to get to his feet. He looks different. He looks small and young…he looks vulnerable and weak. He looks like Sam and not like the monsters inside of him. I turn my back to him and step back. 'Now reach out and untie these things as quickly as you can.'

'I can't see!' that whining is really bugging me.

'I don't care Sam. I don't give a flying fuck right now. You can do this. You will do this because your life depends on it. Understand me Sam? Are you comprehending what I'm saying?'

I don't get a verbal answer but I feel his fingers working their way over the shredded shirt holding my arms back in such a fucking painful position.

And it makes me think of Agent Aaron Hotchner. And it makes me hope that the bastard is dead. I can feel teeth nibbling at the bonds and lots of huffing and puffing coming from Sam and I can feeling him pulling and twisting the cloth until finally after what seems to be hours my hands are free and I can feel his smaller hands on mine and slowly he is pulling them down to my sides.

'You've got a broken arm.' He tells me…and then as his fingers work their way over my arms and up to my shoulders. 'And a dislocated shoulder.'

But I've no time to worry about such trivialities. I need to get Spencer fixed. 'Help me move him out of this heat.' I want to move my hand down to grab him but my arms are hanging uselessly at my sides. I've no feeling in them and glancing down at them I can see that my hands are swollen and have gone a very nasty colour which would match that of the sun beautifully. 'Help him Sam!' If you want me to even begin to start forgiving you for all this then you help him now.'

'And you think he did nothing to me?! You think that being blind and, and, and having these things inside me is pleasurable? Do you!'

The little shit is shouting at me.

'He head butted me!'

'You tried to rip out his throat…now Sam, I'm not going to ask you again. Move him into the shade. Lay him on his side. I need to fix this shit up. There's another sand storm coming. We have to get off the road now or we'll get our flesh ripped off us by the elements. Now Sam. Move it!'

He rubs at his nose which I admit does look sore, but the boy let those things control him. It was his error…not Spencer's and I'm not going to let him forget this in a hurry. He moves over to Spence and maybe that's a slight flash of guilt on his face, but it also might have been lust, or greed; hard to tell sometimes, but he takes one of Spencer's hands and starts to slowly and laboriously drag him out of this blasting heat and over to the smashed in door of one of these many stores.

'So you didn't find a hospital?' I'm watching him carefully. Watching every move he makes. Watching as he changes direction slowly and moves towards the darkness. I make note of that slight hesitation as he pulls Spencer to the dark. I see his hand come up and push against the door frame. I stand with my head cocked slightly to one side and my limp fucking crapped out arms and hands down at my side.

He can see.

The little fucker can see.

I'm not going to let him know that I've sussed that little fact out. I'm going to let him carry on pretending. See how long he can keep it up for. The little shit.

He's at least got Spencer out of the sun and into a place a bit more sheltered. I kick the broken door shut again, not that I need to. There's no glass in it anyway, but it feels good to kick a door shut every now and then. Sam drops Spencer's hand and pushes him onto his side. He then starts undoing the shirt thing he's wearing and pulls it off his dirty little skinny body. It's not a problem with me. It's just Hotchner who seems to be reviled by the sight of a young naked man, except he looks a whole lot like just some scrawny kid now. I suppose lack of food and getting smacked around too much can do that to someone.

'Get out of the way and keep that shirt to cover your face when the storm arrives.'

He nods at me and moves with a lot of grace considering the circumstances out of the way and towards the corner of this room, which may or may not have at one point had things of interest to someone in. Now though it's empty of anything except dust. I lay down next to Spencer and I think that might have been my dislocated arm I'm laying on, but it's going to have to just stay that way for now. Empty my head of that stinking pain and concentrate on Spencer. Very slowly I move my right arm around him and place it on his chest.

'I'm here Babes. All's going to be just fine.'

I feel that instinctive push backwards that he always gives me and that fills my heart with such pleasure that I want to fuck him…but I don't. I'll save it for when he's awake. Or I could do him like this too…it's nice…to have someone so compliant, but there's other things I have to do first. I move my hand back away from him and he makes a slight aarr sound and I tell him I'm still here. 'I'm going to fix you. I'm here. I heard you call me. Everything's going to be just fine.' I scrabble around quickly in my pocket and pull out a small twist of cellophane. It's not easy only having one hand to do this with and that hand isn't being very well behaved. It's still numb and sleepy and stubborn, but I force my fingers to take just small pinch of grey powder and then I reach over Spencer. 'Deep breath in Babes.' I tell him and I know he will without question. It's not the drug he wants. It's not the one he's craving, it's better! This will instantly cure him of any other craving he ever had, but it might turn him into a Floyd junky. Worse things happen at sea…so they say. Once I hear that sigh again from him and feel him relax and snuggle against me I take a load myself…and with my arm wrapped around him again tightly we drift off together to look at rainbows and run from the pygmies and to sing mmmbop under a waterfall….

Sam is watching.

He thinks I don't know.

But he'll not dare do anything. Not when I'm here.

He knows better than to try something with me.

And I bury my head into the back of Spencer's neck and I know that at least for now everything is going to be great.

Worry about the rest of this crap when …

The

Rainbows…………..my god they're beautiful….