A/N: I always feel like I take way too long to update, ughh! I'm sorry everyone. I may or may not update before Christmas - we'll see. Let's hope I do because I'll be mad busy the few days after and the last thing I want to do is take a break from this story for over a week! There's a better A/N at the end. :)
He wasn't sure if this was supposed to be some kind of torture. For hours on end now, Spencer Reid lay in the fetal position on the cold tile of his bathroom floor. More than anything he was in pain, but the cold didn't help in the slightest. All he could do was refuse to move because his hands and ankles were bound with no way of getting out of his bathroom anyway. He was locked in. The cold got worse with the more blood that drained from his body. With the consciousness that drained from within him, but he knew more than anyone that the last thing he could do right now was sleep. It would be too dangerous.
Thoughts began to stop being enough to occupy his mind.
Statistics began to stop functioning correctly in his head.
The cold sweat on his forehead was irritating him and making the skin ticklish as it moved down his face. Out of the corner of his eye, Reid saw his towel rack. The ends were just sharp enough to cut the rope bindings around his hands. Thank God he had chosen the fancy ones to the ball-ended ones. Luckily, Rob decided to ditch the handcuffs when he wanted to 'have some fun' with a bit of rope kept in Spencer's supply closet. Now all he had to do was stand up enough to begin to grind the material against the towel rack. It was impossible with his feet bound as tightly as they were.
Spencer quickly developed a new plan, this time his back against the floor as he lifted his legs in the air and began to grind as silently as possible. It was a slow and painful process against the previous cuts, but it was all he had. Minutes later, his plan finally came through and the bindings broke from around his legs – relieving them. Now he just needed the strength to stand up. He refused to tell himself he couldn't do it.
Groaning, whimpering as he began by pushing himself up onto the bath tub's ledge, he stood up with wobbling knees. As soon as he made his first step towards the wall, he fell straight to the floor, a long whine pulling from his throat as he fought back tears. Again, he repeated the process, this time leaning against the wall that had the towel rack on it and began grinding the side closest to him. He used all of the strength he could conjure until the bindings fell off easily and he collapsed back onto the floor. His simple task took much more effort than he had anticipated, but worked nonetheless. Now he opened the cupboards beneath his sink.
To his dismay, he could only find a few items that would be useful for him. Just a week before, he had gone through and thrown out all of the items that were no longer good and he would need to replace. He hadn't bought the replacements yet. Rather than rubbing alcohol, he found the secret bottle of vodka. It would have to do to clean his shallow wounds because the last thing he wanted was for them to get infected. Though he needed to be careful because using it could be dangerous. He also found a few Q tips, cotton balls, band-aids, and a small half-used tube of Neosporin ointment. Reaching up as far as he could, Reid wet some toilet paper from the sink above and began to press the cool water against the gashes, starting with the ones that were easiest to get to. His forearm was disgusting him, therefore he felt the need to begin there. After cleaning it with the water, dipping a Q-tip into the vodka and carefully rubbing it around the infected area (which involved much hissing and whimpering on Spencer's behalf), dabbing it with cotton balls, and carefully rubbing Neosporin on it, he just let the arm fall uselessly at his side. There would be no reason to waste the band-aids on something so minor compared to the rest of his wounds.
The rest of the journey along his body began. Each involved the same process, the deeper gashes receiving band-aids while he was just more careful with the ones he left uncovered. He saved the stab in his stomach for last. He honestly had no idea how he hadn't bled out yet. It wasn't as if Reid didn't know all of the facts about these things prior to being stabbed. It wasn't as if Reid was naïve on the subject matter. Yet, there he was, still able to move around even if it were barely.
Cleaning it made him feel slightly better in all honesty. It wasn't as deep or as large as he had expected it to be. The blade definitely hadn't gone in as far as he had initially thought it had and it didn't pierce anything important. Rob's sloppiness was probably the only reason he was alive.
"What the hell are you doing in here?" bellowed Rob from just behind Spencer, in between the threshold. Reid's face turned red within seconds, looking behind himself weakly as the angry man approached him. "You think you can doctor yourself up Dr. Reid? Oh! I get it! Well, let's see you then. Let's see you make yourself all better. It was a waste of time, you know. I'm going to kill you anyway. I guess you won't be all bloody and ugly for your little friends when they finally find your decomposing body. If they could even want to. You seem rather useless to me."
With a volt of force, Rob jerked Reid up and slammed him into the wall. The same wall with the towel racks. Spencer could already feel the imprint forming within the flesh of his back. Hands were covering his neck and essentially, were the only thing keeping the agent from falling back to the cold, solid floor. That wasn't a good thing. He could feel the air drain from his lungs. Each hopeful inhale was granted with nothing. Walls seemingly closed in. This could not be Spencer Reid's death. He could not go down like this.
Then it was as if he hadn't had more breath in his life. His airways had never been more clear in his entire being as he gasped and selfishly took in all of the oxygen he could get. It only lasted a few moments though. Luckily, the pain from being shoved into the shower and hitting his head on the faucet with an intense force knocked him out. The only issue was if he would be waking up ever again.
The jet was their only plausible way of transport if the team wanted to find Reid. Four and a half hours was far too long of a drive when the jet would be so much faster. The only problem was, they hadn't quite figured out where it was they might find their youngest agent.
Needless to say, this was not a silent jet ride.
"We need to think of all of the places the UnSub might take Reid. Anything significant to either of them, but it would probably be significant to Reid," said Hotch as he opened a pen. He had decided that writing everything down would make him feel as if he was doing a hell of a lot more than he really was.
"Well, there's Headquarters..." began J.J.
"He wouldn't take him there," butted in Morgan, "it's far too easy to get caught. Especially considering how long he's had him there. We should assume he has his credentials and driver's license though."
Prentiss opened her mouth to say something, but quickly shut it just as fast.
"What is it, Prentiss?" asked Hotch.
"I was just going to say... we should assume he has his gun too, but it doesn't really help anything. Or make us feel any better."
A moment of silence passed.
"Does anyone even know where Reid goes?" asked Rossi, genuinely stuck on the thought.
"Well... he goes... to his apartment," responded Morgan, some question in his voice. "I mean... maybe the library, too? Any place I could think of would not be where our UnSub would take Reid. Especially if his plan all along was to- yeah." The words torture and kill didn't really need to be said at the end of the sentence, seeing as everyone had already thought it mentally regardless.
"Okay assuming he did go to Reid's apartment. How do they get inside? Assuming Reid is or isn't incapacitated when they arrive," pushes Hotch.
"He keeps a spare key in the left broken porch light in front of his apartment," Morgan replied quickly.
The rest of the team stared at the agent questioningly.
"What? He told me unless there were to ever be an emergency!"
"Probably because he didn't want you to kick his door down," giggled J.J. Small laughter from most of the team followed the statement until they realized the task at hand again. Until they realized Reid wasn't there to tease him about it as well.
"Well team, it looks like we have only one choice for now. We go to Reid's apartment. Hopefully we're right about this, but if we're not, we'll go directly to headquarters to figure out what we're missing."
The entire ordeal seemed like their last real chance. Everything else would have to wait.
The team was geared up in their FBI stenciled Kevlar vests, the local SWAT and police following. Morgan and Hotch led their way up the stairs of the building, guns drawn and ready to shoot. For some reason, out of all the times before, Morgan didn't think he'd mind wringing the neck of the guy who took Reid. It was, perhaps, just an impulsive thought that would pass. They reached the door, everyone's hearts seemingly beating faster than normal in unity. This was either it or it wasn't. And if it was, what was beyond this door was unguessable.
Hotch reached up into the broken light, feeling around. "The key isn't in here," he muttered.
"FBI OPEN UP!" yelled Morgan in his authoritative tone as he pounded on the door. Him and Hotch were both parted at either side. Hotch gave him the 'okay go' nod and Morgan wasted no time kicking the door down to his colleague's apartment. Immediately, they saw blood on the floor in front of them as they inched in carefully. "Blood," Morgan mumbled, feeling bile come up in his throat as he examined the small living room. "Everything's clear in here!" The agent moved on to the bedroom, quickly clearing it. Just as the thoughts of being too late began to render his mind, he saw the closed bathroom door. Breath heavy and footsteps light, he held his gun out in front of him and opened the door cautiously. Before him, awkwardly collapsed in the bath tub laid Spencer Reid. "I got him!" he yelled into the speaker on his shoulder before running towards the tub.
Morgan's hands quickly searched for Spencer's pulse, a wave of relief and breath exhaling from him as he found it. "Call the EMTs! We need a medic!" His hand found Spencer's face, but the boy did not regain any consciousness at all. So badly he wanted to move him from what looked to be such an uncomfortable position, but he needed to wait for the medic to do so. Instead, he just kept his hand on the stubbled cheek of his colleague and waited. He hardly noticed when the rest of the team joined him inside, only moving when he heard Hotch's voice.
"Is he-"
"He's alive. I found his pulse."
"Conscious?"
"No. I don't want to move him-"
"Agents, do you mind getting out of the way? We need to bring a stretcher in here," said another voice. It was unfamiliar to Morgan's ears and the last thing he wanted to do was just let Reid go. Taking a deep breath, he stood up and descended into the bedroom with the rest of his team.
"I'll ride with him to the hospital, Hotch," Morgan more-so demanded than asked. His superior didn't glare or frown as he usually would – simply nodded.
"That's a good idea. The rest of us will meet you there, but I think it's best if he wakes up... if he does... with you by his side."
Morgan didn't waste another moment before following the stretcher that bound Reid out of the apartment. The rest of the team felt as if they could finally take a relieved breath. For now, Reid was at least in their hands and that was all that mattered. Then they looked around, each having their own growing opinion.
"I don't want to do this. Be here. Figure out what happened. I want it to all go away," said J.J. with a small voice as she noticed the bloody sheets in front of her.
"We don't have a choice. Reid is our team member, our-our," Hotch was, for the first time in a very long time, at a loss of words. What was Reid?
"I would do anything for him... that's not what I meant. I wish it all could've been avoided in the first place."
"Has anyone actually put into perspective that the UnSub is not here?" asked Rossi.
"And with all of those squad cares and ambulances outside, I don't believe he will be coming up to be checking on Reid. It looks like we're going to have to get a move on finding him. And balance out making sure Reid is okay," Hotch replied.
Morgan felt comfortable with his hand gently atop Reid's shoulder. It seemed to be the one area of his body that wasn't in pain. Just by looking at the young agent, it was as if his own eyes had seen too much. Reid definitely had a black eye, with a bruise going a little lower down his profound cheek bone. His lip was split and there was another gash at his hair line. His left nostril left a trail of dry leaked blood, a small dark bruise beginning to form around it. Luckily, the blanket covering his body was stopping his eyes from wandering to whatever other damage might've occurred to his colleague – his friend.
Slowly, Reid began to open his eyes. Was he in his small bathroom still? He couldn't possibly be this warm or feel like he was moving from underneath in his bathroom. But he was constrained still. Everything remained blurry.
"Hey, kid," Morgan said softly, squeezing his shoulder merely slightly. Reid's eyebrows pulled together in confusion.
A/N: So I guess this is all your Christmas present (unless you don't celebrate Christmas, in that case Happy Holiday!). Reid is found and I didn't leave you with a total cliffhanger. :) This will still be going on for a few more chapters so don't worry about it being over soon or anything! Also, I made a little One!shot Christmas Hotch/Reid fic and it's posted under all of my stories. Feel free to read (I seriously just spelled "Reid" twice instead of "read") it if you get to missing my writing. Reviews are always appreciated on everything and I'd love feedback for this chapter. Thanks again everyone for all of the support so far because I really don't think I could've come up with all of this without your help.
"M-Morgan?" he groaned, very quietly and even more muffled by the mask over his mouth.
"Yeah, it's me. Don't try to talk – just relax. We've got you now. You're safe."
