Chains and Cuffs

Brian: He stole all my clothes. I'm suspecting gay-on-gay crime here.

Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine.


As the light crept behind his eyelids Hotch moaned at the pain in his head and tried to put his hands over where the pain was coming from. He was stopped from doing so as his hands were cuffed in front of him. He opened his eyes to see a brick wall with a ring secured to it, and in turn he was secured to the ring.

He turned over onto his back a lay looking at the old cracked ceiling for a while before someone spoke to him.

"You're awake at last." The snarky voice of Flanders. "Awaiting orders from boss man. Now what the fuck do we do?"

Did he have to always have something to moan about? Or was this his way of co-operating? "You ok?"

"Never better. Are you in cuffs or these nylon binder crap things?"

Hotch looked over at his hands. "Cuffs. Why?"

"Curious. They used different methods of binding us. They know I can get out of cuffs. I can't get out of these fuckers as easily though."

Hotch tried to turn over further to see who he was talking to, and to get a look at Spencer. It pulled at the muscles in his arms but he managed to turn enough to see Flanders standing against the opposite wall his hands bound and above his head.

"Spencer?" Aaron couldn't see him.

Floyd shook his head. "I haven't seen him." A tightly set mouth. "Hotchner – I swear if they have …"

Hotch cut him off not wanting to hear the words. "Has anyone been in?"

Again a shake of the head and a pull on the nylon binders which had started to cut through his wrists now causing a line of fresh blood to run down Floyd's arms.

Hotch had been stripped of his jacket, tie and shoes. He had on his suit trousers and a pale blue, once crisp and sharp, now sweaty and grubby shirt.

Floyd had on his jeans and shirt. They had taken his boots and coat. Hotch could see where Floyd's face hand bled and dripped over that expensive and now ruined looking silk shirt.

Floyd could see how the blood from the back of Hotch's head had dripped and oozed over his back and dried dark and stiff.

………………

He was sure he had seen Floyd and Aaron, or had it just been an hallucination as there was no sign of them now. All there was now was more pain and more hands touching him. He lay on his back eyes unfocused trying to block out the sounds coming from the person moving over the top of him. He could smell the rotten breath, he could taste the foul mouth which had been licking and nibbling at his face and exploring his mouth. If he had anything in his stomach he would have been sick, that would be assuming he had the strength left to do anything other than lay unfocused feeling nothing but the ripping tearing pain and the agony from his leg which was being bent and forced into a position it didn't want to be in.

Reid's hands were tied above his head to a ring in the wall much like the one Aaron was attached to, only Reid's was in a different room and Reid was laying on a dirty stained filth encrusted mattress.

Occasionally Sissy would force his mouth open and pour a liquid down a tube she forced into his throat. He would cough and splutter for a short while and then just lay there while she wiped his body over with a grubby damp towel then he would be covered with a dirty blanket and lay and look and scream inside his head.

………………….

Morgan and Prentiss stood looking at their cells. They had tried Hotch, and they had again tried Reid. Voicemail. The as a last resort Morgan had tried Flanders but again voicemail.

"Something's wrong." Morgan was grabbing his jacket and getting ready to storm out into the night.

Prentiss picked up her rain coat and slipped it on – tying it hard in at the waist. "I'm coming with you. I – er I know some of those people you are going to be shouting at."

Morgan swung round and looked at Emily and sighed. "Good, you ask the questions, I will see what I can pick up visually."

The two of them left JJ and Garcia to fish through CCTV in the area. Something must have picked up on someone.

The life was just getting started when the two agents arrived on the scene so to speak. Emily tucked her hair behind her ears and looked at the night sky. Overcast and just starting to rain again. A hand on Derek's shoulder. "Morgan" He turned to look at Emily. "They are just people. You don't need to strut and pose. You will just draw attention to yourself."

Derek gave Emily a frown. "I wasn't aware that I was."

"An overt display of your masculinity will not go un-noticed and well – It just won't go un- noticed. Be yourself."

"I was."

Prentiss nodded. "I was afraid of that." A smile. "Come on – we need to find out what happened to Reid."

Two hours of questions revealed nothing. No one had seen anything and if they had they were not saying. The names Morgan had on his list had all come to a dead end, so even the few clues they did have led to nothing except the crematorium.

………………….

Flanders frowned. "Did you hear that? Or was that in my head?"

Hotch moved to look over at him again. "What do you think you heard?"

"Spence." He looked up at the cuffs and the way they had ripped at his flesh. "Damn these things! Hotch I am going to get out of them ok – then I will get you out of those." He stood still listening for something. "Shit. They are hurting him Hotch." Aaron watched as Flanders twisted and manipulated his hands. He watched the blood flowing harder and he saw the tear (!) running down Floyd's face. If from anger – pain – or love he didn't know. He just noted that this man was able to feel something.

It was a snapping cracking slurping ripping sound that pulled Aaron's attention back to Floyd's hands. He was on his knees holding his wrists. The bloodied binders hanging empty from the wall.

"Oh crap." Floyd was ripping off a bit from the bottom of his shirt to wrap around the wrists now pouring freely with blood.

Aaron could see this man who seemed virtually indestructible shaking in pain and shock of what he had just done to himself – wrapping bits of silk shirt around his arms so he didn't bleed out before he could help him.

"Flanders, get over here." Pulling at his cuffs. At least if they were together he could maybe help him before he bled to death. He watched the eyes make contact then the slow painful crawl over to help him out of his cuffs.

Floyd's hands sticky and slimy with his own blood reached out and started to manipulate the cuffs. He let the blood drip and he spat on the cuffs and wiggled them and with a final tug they opened. Flanders then slid forwards and down onto his face where he lay unmoving for a while. "Shit." He managed to mutter. "I might have just killed myself."

He closed his eyes and lay there trying to get the strength back to stop the bleeding as he felt Aaron roll him onto his back and re-do the rough bandages now sodden and dripping around his wrists.

Hotch sat up and looked down at the animal laying across his lap. He hated this man. He had taken Spencer and done unspeakable things to him. He had drugged and raped him, and sold him on to the highest bidder at some dirty back room and in vile toilets, and some how Spencer had let him. If it was through the drugs or just this mans over powering personality he wasn't sure, but seeing him there now he knew he didn't want his man dead. A sigh and he pulled away further. What the hell was he thinking? This was a murderer – suspected of eating parts of his victims. How could his mind even start to feel pity for him?

…………………

Spencer felt the sudden rush of cold air as the blanket was pulled off him. He tried to curl up and escape from what he knew was coming next but he couldn't move. He opened his eyes a tiny amount to see who it was - Correction who they were and as they moved him and lay on him and crushed him and touched him he cried out in pain and squirmed, making it all the more fun for the guys playing their games as they ripped into him again.

………………

Floyd lay on his stomach with his eyes shut trying to get the energy to get up and right there in the back of his mind – there it was again – Spencer was calling out to him.

He looked over at Hotch who just stared back.

"Time to go?" Floyd asked.

Hotchner nodded as a distant and muffled scream echoed through the wet dirty basement they were being held in.

………………