How To Get A Head
There's nothing so improves the mood of the Party as the imminent execution of a senior colleague: - Alan Clark
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine
A/N: I hate hospital dramas. I have no medical background and so all hospitally stuff is skimmed over. All errors are because in the end this is fiction and not real life. Sorry about that!!
They assumed they needed a body bag.
They were wrong.
They assumed they would take them to hospital separately.
They were wrong there too. Floyd's limbs had locked around Reid's so tightly they would have had to break his bones to get him to let go. Eventually they managed to lift them as one and get them to the ambulance. It wasn't expected that Reid would survive the journey and again they attempted to persuade Floyd to let go and let them do what the needed to do. If he was listening – if he was able to listen he gave no indication of it.
When they got to the hospital they managed to get enough people there to pull the grasping finger and hands and legs away from the mashed thing he was holding so tightly onto.
Reid was rushed to surgery.
Floyd was left on a chair in A and E. Forgotten. For now.
-o-o-o-
Aaron lay and stared at the ceiling. Small tears were released from the corners of his eyes. It might have been the light in the room, or it might have been the memories.
Rossi sat with him.
He talked quietly to him.
"Reid is in surgery. I don't know how long it will be. He took a lot of damage. They're still not sure why he isn't dead. He should be."
But Rossi had no idea of that feeling Aaron had in his mouth. That slither of Spencer sliding down the back of his throat. A feeling he thought would be there forever. Dave didn't understand why Aaron couldn't talk to him. If he opened his mouth – just a small amount he would start screaming again and that would mean Iolanda had won. That would mean he was broken and Hotch wasn't ready to admit defeat just yet.
Prentiss came in to say hello. She was on crutches but had been lucky – as lucky as someone getting shot trying to protect Floyd could possibly be. She sat with Aaron for a while and spoke of nothing important.
Pen brought in some 'get well soon' ice cream and Morgan. They stood around not sure what to say. What was there to say? They all wanted to know the same answer. Was Reid going to make it out of surgery?
-o-o-o-
This wasn't the answer Floyd was looking for. He awoke on the chair with no Spencer and only one thought in his mind. This would never happen again. Ever. He would put a stop to it now. He slipped a wallet from the rear pocket of some guy asking for directions at reception and then left the hospital. He didn't ask how Spencer was. He didn't go and visit Hotch. He needed to be somewhere and he needed to be there fast.
The cab pulled up outside a nice looking single story yellow dwelling. He cab driver was given his fare and a generous tip. Floyd stood in his driveway looking at the house. He tried. He really had tried this time to make it good. To give Spencer what he wanted and it all fell apart again. Like always because of – well because of someone else.
He walked to the front door and pushed it open. It stank and it was dark. The cloying stench of death hung over the place now. He would have to remove the skins from the workshop – he had left them to rot. Leaving the front door open to let out some of the smell he walked quickly to the door at the rear of the kitchen. The workshop had counters around the edges. It had a cooker and a pot. It had an oven and it had drawers in the worktops. He pulled open one of the drawers and removed something. Floyd stuffed it in his pocket and then turned to leave. Someone was standing in the doorway. Floyd just stood and stared at the middle aged neighbour.
"I was wondering." She started.
"Wondering what?" He put a hand on her shoulder and started to push her out of the workshop and back into the kitchen.
"If you needed a housekeeper."
"Does it look like I need a housekeeper?" Almost finding this amusing.
"Well.."
"How are you with cleaning up blood? The bathroom is covered in it."
"Well..."
"Thought as much. Good day to you madam but I have no use for your services. Get out of my house before I say or do something and I don't have time for it now."
"Well!" She turned and left. Floyd watched to make sure she had gone and then picked up keys off the side. He threw them in the air and caught them in his hand with a smile on his face.
"Time to finish this." He got a fresh supply of smokes and a few twists of cellophane – just a comfort to have in his pocket and then left. Rosa was forgotten. Spencer was forgotten. Hotchner: forgotten. A carrier bag was stuffed into a pocket. There was one thing on his mind now and it took up every tiny molecule in his psyche. Every electrical impulse in his brain was directed solely towards that one thing. Ending it.
Flanders pulled his bike out of the garage and with a bullet still lodged somewhere in his head and a blood soaked waistcoat he hauled arse and left the street with a howl of rage.
-o-o-o-
They had the rib with had been sawn from Spencer. It had teeth marks in it. The staff looked at each other with dawning horror as it was prepared to be screwed back into place.
They had teeth which they might be able to use once they had reconstructed the jaw.
They were able to repair the damage done to his hand and they looked at the mad stitching holding the skin together on his arm. If further damage had been done to the eye they wouldn't know. Not yet. This broken torn and mashed person had to have a chance to recover before they would know things like that. Small chips of bone were removed from the brain. Some looked on keeping this young man alive as a challenge and some looked at it as one horrific accident followed by another.
He was repaired. He was breathing. They had restarted his heart a few times. They had been prepared to call an end to it twice but he continued to fight. They had called 'clear' and watched him jerk alive again and heard the bleep of the machines telling them to keep going. It wasn't over yet. This wouldn't be over for this person for a long time. If he ever woke up.
-o-o-o-
It was wrapped around his fist ready as he entered the police station. He smoked a special smoke and breathed the fumes in people's faces. He pulled his hair back with the length of velvet ribbon.
They wanted to check him for weapons. He smiled at them and put out his arms for them to search. They smiled back at him as he ran his hand over the metal detector and entered without a problem.
"Special Agent Franks."
He introduced himself as. He blew smoke in faces and they smiled at him and took him to where he needed to be. He left wafts of his special smell behind him as he walked towards the room they were holding the person he needed in.
"Do you need anyone with you Agent Franks?" The detective asked. "He is secured as we were told – with flexicuffs."
"That will be fine. I just need a short while with him."
They didn't go away though. They stood in a slightly fuddled huddle outside the room they directed him towards.
Floyd entered the room and asked the officer at the door to leave. "I will call you if you are needed." He let him know. More smoke. More smells. A look up at the security camera as the red light stopped blinking.
He closed the door behind the officer and walked up behind Iolanda.
"One time too many you messed with me. You took one step too far this time." He unwound the thing in his hand.
"Now now Floyd – no way to talk to me. I am your superior. You will do as you are told. So be a good boy and release me from these damned bonds."
"You see that isn't going to happen. Call this a mutiny – a coup – whatever, but you went too far Iolanda and now it ends. For good."
The older man didn't move. He sat staring ahead of him. "You wouldn't dare. You need me. You need us."
Floyd took a step closer. "That is where you are wrong. You know what I need and I won't permit you to take it from me. It is mine. He is mine. She is mine. They are all mine."
He wrapped the wire around Iolanda's throat and pulled. It sliced back quickly. The only real mess made was the pretty blood spray patterns. The only noise made was the gentle 'swoosh' of the wire cutting the neck. He twisted it until it would go no further and then let go of the wire. He took Iolanda by the shoulder and by the hair and twisted until the neck snapped and the head parted company with the body. One hand held the hair another pulled out the carrier bag and slipped the decapitated head into the bag.
Floyd left in a cloud of smoke leaving the confused police officers behind. Right now he didn't care if they caught him – not really – what would they do? Cuff him and tell him off for killing the man who tried to eat his true love?
He slipped the bag in the pannier and drove off towards the safe house.
-o-o-o-
She could hear him calling her. With her ears and with her mind she heard him. She jumped down from the bed where she had been all this time and moved to be near the door.
"Can you go back to your room miss." A command from someone she was going to ignore.
"My daddy is on his way. I'ma gonna wait right here."
"Your daddy? On his way here?" Nervous looks.
"Oh don't be so bloody pathetic. He wants me not you. Open the door."
-o-o-o-
They rode together. She held on tightly around his waist and they took the bike somewhere quiet and safe.
The river was shallow and the rocks stuck up out of it creating stepping stones across the water.
He removed his boots and his waistcoat and shirt. She removed her dress and then wrapped her father's shirt around her waist.
He crouched down on a rock with the bag in his hand. She moved over and sat cross legged on another leaving a large flat rock jutting up between them.
She smiled at him and he smiled back as he removed the head from the bag.
After cracking open the back of the skull the dipped bloodied fingers in and took little handfuls and small pinches of nourishment and they chanted and rocked and smiled.
The whole process took just over two hours. Once it was complete Floyd placed the smashed item on a rock and left it for the animals. If they wanted it.
It was over. They had done it. Now to get back and sort out Spencer and Aaron.
-o-o-o-
Hotch lay in the dimly lit room. As the two guests arrived Dave turned and looked at them. Floyd had his bloodied waistcoat back on and buttoned up double breasted. His hair hung in dirty clumps around his face and the velvet ribbon was wrapped around his wrist. Rosa had on her father's shirt. It was blood stained and ripped. Rossi raised an eyebrow. Somehow they suited each other.
"We need some time with Hotchner." Floyd walked in pushing the child ahead of him. "Alone – and then you need to get me in to see Spence."
Rossi stood up. "I can give you time here Flanders, but getting you in to see Reid might be more complicated."
Floyd nodded. "I understand the situation Agent David Rossi – this is why it is important that I get to see him as soon as I can – and Agent Emily Prentiss – when she is next around I will need to be seeing her too."
Rossi stood in front of the two of them and spoke quietly in his distinctive Chicago accent. "You are not in charge here Flanders. Do not come in here making demands of my agents. I don't know what you did earlier or how you did it, but this business with Iolanda will not just go away."
Floyd pushed Rosa past Rossi but didn't move. "I have no idea what you are talking about with Iolanda and I am just trying to help your agents Agent David Rossi. I merely wished to thank Emily for protecting my daughter. I was not making demands." He looked over Dave's shoulder to the scene on the bed. "This is sorted now. Take me to Spencer. I need to help him."
Rossi turned to look at Hotch.
-o-o-o-
Aaron could hear muttering and muted voices. People were being careful not to talk to loudly which was good, but maybe if they had spoken up he would have had the courage to open his mouth and let rip the feelings welling up inside.
The smell of sugar and apples and candyfloss snuck up his nose as he felt the light weight of someone small clambering on the bed next to him.
"It's ok Aaron. I'm here. Take some from me and use it." A voice whispered in his ear.
He could feel tiny hands moving over his battered and bruised body. Hotch moaned and rolled over onto his side. The most dramatic thing he had done since he had been brought in. The skinny arms wrapped around as best they could and a hand rested above his heart.
"Just think of me as a bandage Aaron." A child's hot sweet breath on the back of his neck and suddenly everything didn't seem so bad. They had got away. Spencer was not dead. Iolanda was in custody and Rosa – well Rosa was going to make it all better. He opened his eyes and took the child's hand.
"Rosa – you shouldn't be here."
"Daddy showed me what to do so he can go help Spence. It's alright you don't have to touch me. I will keep my clothes on. Just lay still and let me help."
"You will keep your clothes on?"
"Oh daddy told me to – but I can take them off if you would rather."
He felt her start to pull away from him. "Good god – no – no Rosa – keep your clothes on – but there really should be someone else here with us."
"Don't worry so much Aaron. I said you don't have to touch me. Just sleep."
Although his mind was screaming that this was very wrong. It was also feeling the comfort of being held and somehow the horrors started to slide away as his eyes drifted shut again.
Floyd smiled. "He is right though. I don't want him getting into trouble for child abuse. You stay here. I will find Spencer." He backed away from Rossi. "Keep my daughter safe Agent David Rossi." He turned and walked away.
Rossi looked at the back of Floyd who seemed steady on his feet again and then returned to the room. He sat and watched the small child's hands resting still on the chest of the distressed Agent.
-o-o-o-
He could still feel that line pulling at him. It was thicker now. More like twisted silver rope.
He wasn't sure where he was but it was somewhere though dark seemed devoid of anything even slightly monstrous.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't open his eyes.
He couldn't even lick his lips.
He wondered if he could even really breathe.
A familiar feeling – the feeling of a machine forcing his lungs to work.
A sound he knew well – the bleeps and murmurings of the machines checking that all his parts were still moving and doing that which they should.
Spencer wanted to move his fingers but they didn't want to move for him. So he lay in the bleeping and hissing darkness and waiting for something. Either for the rope to release him back to where he kept feeling he needed to go or for it to pull him back completely and lock in place.
A different sound. He could hear it but his mind wouldn't work out what it was.
A sensation. Something soft touching his face.
-o-o-o-
He had to do what he didn't want to. He had to threaten the staff. He had to use words he would rather not have but used them anyway. So the sonsofbitches whore dogs and slags eventually let him in to see Spencer. They did say they would call security. He told them to do inhumanly impossible things with their mothers and close relations.
So now he was here standing next to the bed of someone who he would have not given a second glance to. This was not recognisable as his Spence. This was a swollen battered dying face. He could see the bruises where they had reconstructed his jaw. All the work had been done from inside the mouth. Floyd had been expecting Spencer's face to be a mess of sutures and wires but it just looked very battered. His eyes had been taped shut to stop them drying out. The old scar on his throat had been re-opened and a tube was stuck through his flesh down towards his lungs so his face could heal.
Floyd brushed fingers over Reid's face.
"Hey babes."
He walked around the bed and ran his dirty fingers through Spencer's long wavy hair.
"I'm going to make it feel better for you."
Floyd climbed up onto the bed next to Reid and gave him light kisses on a white shoulder.
He wrapped his arms tightly around his treasure and entwined his legs with Spencer's. He rested his head on Reid's shoulder and let his special smell waft up Reid's nose.
The pain was like nothing he had the honour of taking before. It made Floyd's eyes water. It made whimpering keening sounds escape from Floyd's slightly open mouth as he took in some of Spencer's pain.
-o-o-o-
Morgan had been called.
Someone was in Reid's room and refused to leave. He had been rude and threatening.
Now he stood in the doorway and looked at the two of them.
The young man he had tormented and teased and the slightly older one who he hated and wished dead so many times and now he was just glad they were both there and alive and together. He watched Reid move a hand and place it over Floyd's and squeeze and he saw toes on two pairs of feet curl and uncurl.
He left with strict instructions that they were not to be disturbed unless it was a medical reason.
His back was turned when the one single tear slipped unbidden from Floyd's eye and onto Reid's chest.
-o-o-o-
A/N: Nearly the end methinks….well for this section anyway. I really do think the boys need a nice holiday away from it all. A proper holiday! Once they are better obviously :cD Thank you all.