Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Spencer cracked his eyes open, flinching from the white fluorescent light and blinking hard against the groggy, dull ache in his head.

His mouth was dry, body heavy. A familiar awakening. He reached out blindly for the relief waiting on his bedside table.

No- wait.  

His lights were all yellow toned filament bulbs, not white fluorescents.

The smell was wrong. The dull electrical buzz in the air was louder, pitched higher.

His eyes shot open wide and he scrambled to his feet.

This wasn’t home.

He surveyed his surroundings, fighting the wave of dizziness that came with standing too abruptly.

“Oh no,” he said out loud. “Nonononono…”

The room was large and square, maybe 1600 ft² of floor space, made entirely of concrete. Up the top a small vent, too high to reach and too small for a person to fit into. A heavy door with a double walled chamber for someone to put things into without having to interact with the person on the other side. It was transparent perspex on their side and solid steel on other side, so no visibility on what lay beyond it. The kind you would find in a maximum-security prison cell.

The whole room felt like a prison cell, a place he’d hoped to never be again. At the back of the room a small en-suit that was completely stripped bare but for a metal toilet with no seat and a sink that was bolted into the wall. There was a door that could be shut, but with a gap under it and a hole where a doorknob had clearly been removed.

A camera. There on the roof, drilled in and protected by a plexiglass dome, blinking its little red light at him. He stared at it for a moment, then closed his eyes.

He slowed his breathing. Now was not the time to fall apart.

Not now. Not yet.

Not when there were five of his friends prone on the ground around him, unconscious as he had been only moments ago.

Each was laid out on a thin foam mattress, the kind with no seams or springs that could be fashioned into tools.

His first stop was the door. He knew before he tried it that it wasn’t going to open, but he had to make sure. As soon as that was confirmed, he turned his attention to the people in the room with him.

He rushed over to Emily first, rolling her onto her side and checking her pulse. It was slow, but steady. He looked around at the rest of them, noting the gentle rise and fall of their chests.

All alive. He sighed audibly, clasping his hands together in thanks and relief for a split second before turning back to Emily.

He gently shook her, putting his hand on her cheek in what he hoped was a comforting way. His hands were shaking. He wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline or the comedown. “Emily," he said gently. “Emily, it’s me, Spencer. Wake up Emily.”

After a few more repetitions her eyes fluttered, then opened. She looked up at him hazily. “Spencer?”

“Hi,” he said sadly, knowing there was only a second left until she realized the danger they were in and wanting to let her experience that second in peace.

She glanced behind him to where JJ lay unconscious. He looked at her pupils. They were constricted, confirming his suspicions.

“Oh my god,” Emily gasped, her hand reaching up to clutch his shoulder. She leveraged herself against him to drag her way up into a sitting position. She rubbed at her eyes blearily, then opened them again and cast them around the entire room. “Fuck,” she breathed.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

Her eyes snapped back to him. “Are you alright?” she asked urgently, looking him over. “What happened?”

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “And I don’t know. I woke up a minute ago. I don’t remember how I got here. I think we were all drugged.”

She hummed in agreement. “Last thing I remember I was outside my apartment on the way home from the gym. I still feel a little out of it. God, Spencer, you look awful,” she said, putting a hand over his. “What did they do to you?”

“Same thing as you, most likely.” He looked away. “Emily, that’s Hotch over there,” he deflected. “And Derek.”

Emily looked to where he was pointing. Her expression was solemn, professionalism kicking in even in these dire circumstances. “Yeah. And no sign of Tara, Matt, or Luke. And no Penelope, thank God. Whoever did this, they’ve got a grudge against us that predates the others joining the BAU. Someone who met all of us but never had direct interaction with Penelope. This is good. If the others are free, they’ll find us.”

Spencer nodded in agreement. “This is someone with the skill to find Hotch in witness protection. If he wasn’t dead, I would have said it was Scratch. The logistics of kidnapping six highly trained federal agents takes an enormous amount of planning and ability. There are only handful of people we’ve encountered with the capacity to pull something like this off.”

She rubbed at her temples. Her eyes were losing the glassy sheen as the adrenaline counteracted the effects of the drugs. “I assume you tried the door?” He nodded. “I guess we should wake the others.”

No sooner than she said it, JJ stirred. They both crawled over to her. Her wake up process went much the same as Emily’s, but for the fact that the first thing she asked about was if her children were safe, before she’d come to enough to realize they had no way of knowing.

“Whoever this is likely targeted you while you were alone,” Spencer assured her. “It’s much safer to take a victim without witnesses, especially a victim who is trained to defend themselves and needs to be physically incapacitated. I'm sure the boys are safe,” he said, more a hope than a deduction.

Next, they woke Rossi, who responded immediately by swearing up a storm and threatening to rip the head off whoever was responsible for this.

“Hey, Dave, it’s okay,” said JJ in a calming voice, even as she looked about to cry. “There’s nobody in here but us.”

He breathed. He nodded. He cursed again. He nodded again.

“At least I’m not alone this time,” he said with a world weariness that Spencer felt in his gut.

They had all been in situations like this before, but Rossi was barely recovered from the last time only a few months ago. Spencer still regret so deeply that he wasn’t there to help with Elias Voit.

“No, you’re not alone,” agreed Emily emphatically. “On that note, look who else is here,” she said.

“God fucking dammit,” cursed Rossi as his eyes swept over Derek and landed on Hotch.

Seeing Derek there was upsetting, but it wasn’t as jarring as Hotch’s presence. Derek still came along to the occasional social event, though less and less recently, as he was busy with the birth of his second child.

Spencer personally still saw him once a month or so, though the past year their contact had been more limited to video calls.

They were all dreading having to watch him learn he’d been pulled into this nightmare, but if nothing else they could offer him the comfort of familiarity and camaraderie.

But Hotch… none of them had heard so much as a whisper from him in years.

When he disappeared, he did so completely. It’s the kind of thing that would have wounded Spencer deeply under any other circumstances, but after everything Mr Scratch had put him through, he only ever hoped that Hotch had found every semblance of peace that life could give him. He’d missed him badly at times, but he would have rather they never meet again than have to meet like this.

They decided to wake Derek first.           

Rossi nearly got a fist in the face before Derek pieced together what was happening. Then, he put a fist directly into a concrete wall instead.

“I’m going to regret that when the drugs wear off,” he said sheepishly once he’d calmed down just a bit. “Whatever they dosed us with, they did not skimp. The comedown is gonna suck,” he said, side eyeing Spencer, who pretended not to notice.

The question and answer was the same as with the others: Do you remember anything about who took you? No. Has anyone tried the door? Yes.

Derek threw a shoe at the camera for good measure, but of course it just bounced off the plexiglass and landed pathetically on the floor.

The bang of it hitting the concrete was enough to make Hotch finally stir. They all turned to face him, staring helplessly.

His hair was longer than Spencer had ever seen it. Still short, but more relaxed, skimming the bottom of his ears and starting to curl a little at the base of his neck. He was still lean, but some of the muscle had been replaced by fat. He looked just a little softer. Healthier. His face was peaceful. Spencer always remembered him looking tense, even in his sleep. His hair was streaked with grey but somehow this was the youngest Spencer had ever seen him look.

He stirred a little more, blinking at last.

Ah, there was the familiar tension creeping its way back across his face.

Rossi was the one who finally knelt down beside him. “Aaron? I’m so sorry my friend,” he said sadly as recognition flashed in Hotch’s eyes.

“I’m dreaming,” came the familiar voice. Spencer had missed that voice more than he'd known.

Hotch closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again. He looked past Rossi at the rest of them. Spencer raised his hand in a polite greeting, then immediately felt like an idiot for doing so.

“I’m not dreaming,” he said with no trace of emotion.

“I’m afraid not,” Rossi confirmed.

Hotch fixed his eyes on Rossi again, pushing himself up so he was sitting against the wall. He looked like he was staring at a ghost, trying to figure where the projector was. “When did you get so old?” he said, reaching out a hand to Rossi’s face and poking at it.

Rossi grabbed the offending hand and clasped it between both of his. “Careful. You’re no spring chicken yourself."

“No,” said Hotch, still expressionless. “Peter Lewis is dead. This isn’t my life anymore. He’s dead. They told me he died. I saw photos of the body.”

Spencer didn’t know that, but judging by Rossi’s lack of surprise, he pieced together that the older man had likely made sure the witness protection people had passed the photos along.

“Scratch is dead,” Rossi confirmed. “Whoever did this, it’s not him.”

“This. Isn’t. Real,” Hotch insisted, the first sign of emotion entering his voice in the form of hysteria as he pulled his hand away from Rossi and scrambled to his feet. “All of you stay away from me!” he yelled, looking at them with wild eyes.

JJ grabbed onto Spencer’s arm. He flinched at first, then put an arm around her and gave what he hoped was a comforting squeeze. Derek took a step towards Hotch, but Emily held him back.

Hotch backed into the corner, looking at them like a caged animal.

They were all caged animals now, Spencer supposed. An unfortunately familiar role.

“Hotch,” Spencer said, surprising himself by speaking. They all turned to look at him. He couldn’t back away now. “This is real. I’m so sorry this is happening to you, but Penelope and the rest of our team aren’t here, which means they are out there looking for us. I know it doesn’t feel real. We have all been drugged and you are probably still feeling the effects. I’m sorry. I wish it wasn’t real, but it is,” Spencer said kindly but firmly.

“We’ll get out of this together,” said Emily. “It’s going to be okay.”

Hotch’s eyes were looking just a little clearer.

“Listen man, I know what you’re feeling. I got out, too, remember? I have a family and I don’t know if they’re alright. I’m right here with you. We’re all on your side. Do you believe me?” asked Derek, and this time Emily let him take a step forward.

Hotch looked around at all of them again. He assessed them carefully. Then, he turned to the corner, putting his back to them and his hand over his face. It was the closest thing he could get to privacy and Spencer was suddenly grateful to have woken up first to process all of this without being watched.

Well, except for the camera.

They all looked at the floor and did their best to give Hotch space. It was almost a full minute before he finally tuned back around.

There was that stoic expression that Spencer remembered. All that youth and peace was gone from his face in an instant. Spencer hoped so badly that it wasn’t gone for good.

“What do we know?” asked Hotch, crossing his arms.

A moment of silence passed and Spencer wondered if the rest of them felt their hearts breaking into pieces at this cruel facsimile of a reunion.

“Why don’t we start with the last thing each of us remembers?” said Emily, stepping up beside Hotch and looking back at the rest of the room, two natural leaders doing what they do best.

Each of them recounted in detail what they remembered prior to waking up in this concrete nightmare.

They had been going about their lives, nothing special. The only common thread they could find was that each of them was alone when their memories stopped.

Derek had been at a picnic with his family and the last thing he remembered was leaving to use the park bathroom. Emily on her way back from the gym. JJ heading out to get groceries. Rossi walking home late from a bar.

“I was driving to work,” said Hotch shortly.

“We’re going to need more detail than that if we want to put together a timeline,” prompted Rossi. "Where do you work?"

Hotch pursed his lips. Spencer could see him strategizing in his head. He wasn’t back in their lives by choice. Spencer understood. There were limits to what he wanted to share.

He didn’t get it back when Gideon left, but he got it now. Once you let people in the door, it can be impossible to fully extricate them. Hotch’s old life was filled with trauma he was trying to leave behind and the team were living representations of that past. Spencer couldn’t bring himself to be hurt by the other man’s reticence.

“A legal consultancy in a small town in Kentucky,” he said reluctantly, like divulging the smallest part of his personal life meant inviting the entire FBI right back into it.

“That’s an eight hour drive,” said Derek. “No wonder you were so out of it compared to the rest of us. You must have been dosed multiple times to keep you under that long.”

“I think you’re right,” he said. “I’m still a bit foggy, if I’m being honest,” he admitted quietly. “What about you, Reid?”

Spencer blinked. “I feel fine.”

“No, I mean what’s the last thing you remember?”

Oh. Right. “I went to sleep in my apartment, then I woke up here,” he said honestly. It wasn’t important what he was doing before he went to sleep.

“Since we can be fairly confident whoever this is took Hotch first,” said Emily, “That probably means they got to you last, Spence. They hit all of us in one day. They must have known the BAU had a day off after closing the last case. They would have had to hit us quick to avoid raising alarms.”

“And the fact that we were all grabbed at different times indicates we’re likely dealing with a single Unsub. Someone highly organized and familiar with each of our routines.”

“The Unsub must have been planning this for a long time. Finding someone in witness protection, especially a former profiler, would take an incredible amount of skill and resources,” said Spencer. “They stalked us, learned our routines, then used blitz attacks to stop us from being able to fight back.”

It didn’t take long for them to get into the flow. He felt his panic slipping away as his brain shifted into work mode. At some point they all went from standing to sitting in a circle on the floor.

It felt ridiculous to think about, but Spencer couldn't help but be mildly self conscious being the only one of them in his pajamas, as he was taken in his sleep. He was just glad it was a cold night so he'd been wearing nice, full length ones and not boxers and a shirt or something to that affect. Derek, Emily and JJ were all dressed in comfortable day wear. Rossi and Hotch in suits. Hotch was interesting, though. Spencer had rarely seen him outside of a crisp black suit characteristic of an FBI agent. The one he wore now was navy with a striped tie. It looked good on him.

They put together a more detailed timeline and looked back on the past few months of their lives to discuss anything that could have possibly been out of the ordinary.

The more they talked, the less cagey Hotch was about his life. It was strange to learn more about the day to day he had been living in the years since they’d seen him.

None of them talked about their kids or partners beyond a simple acknowledgement of their existence. They were all acutely aware of the camera on the roof. Whoever was doing this didn’t need to know any more about their families than they already did.

Their phones had been taken and none of them had anything to write with, so they were relying on Spencer to catalogue and compile the information in his brain. He did just that, and after a couple hours they had what was likely a fairly reliable timeline, including geographical information.

Whoever was doing this, they were extremely organized, meticulous, and quick. Not one of them saw it coming. None of them could point to any strange interactions they had over the past months, any red flags, any signs of being followed.

When it came time for Spencer to recount the details of the last months of his life, the others stared at him intently. “I haven’t seen you in person in months,” said Derek. “You don’t look so great, pretty boy.”

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but the bunker we’re currently locked in isn’t making the rest of you look at your best, either.”

“You know what I mean,” said Derek with an affectionate eyeroll.

“You know I was doing some classified work for the bureau. That’s why I couldn’t be there for what happened with Voit,” he said with an apologetic look to Rossi, who waved his hand dismissively. They had already been over this when Spencer first got back right after it happened. He noticed Hotch raise a curious eyebrow. “I shouldn't talk about the work because, you know,” he said, nodding up at the camera. They had searched for an embedded microphone in the walls and hadn't found any, but there was likely one in the camera housing. It was hard to say how well they could be heard through the plexiglass. “Emily knows the details. It was research that kept me out off the grid for a while. But if the Unsub could find Hotch in witness protection, then who knows.”

“That finished almost six months ago,” pointed out Emily. “It could be possible they've had eyes on us that long, but let's hope not given the level of obsession that would indicate. What have you been doing while you’re on sabbatical?”

“A few guest lecture series at Virginia Tech and spending time with my mom, mostly. I just needed a break. I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. I guess I’ve been a bit distracted. I haven’t seen or experienced anything unusual, though.”

“I hope your mom’s doing okay,” said JJ comfortingly, prompting the rest of them to nod sympathetically.

He just nodded back. She was doing fine, honestly, not that he’d been visiting as often as he should. He felt guilty using her as an excuse for his absence, but not nearly guilty enough to tell the truth.

“Why are you doing this?” said Hotch, standing up and looking directly at the camera as it became clear none of them had any more details to share. “What do you want from us? Tell us what it is and maybe we can give it to you.”

The camera blinked its red light at them, showing no care for their presence.

Hotch sighed. He looked down at them all helplessly. His eyes stopped short on Derek. He knelt down, staring at something on the side of his head. “What?” asked Derek, leaning away in concern at Hotch’s suddenly very close face.

“Hold still,” said Hotch. He waved Emily over, who shuffled round to his side. “Right… there,” he said, hovering a finger just behind Derek’s ear.

Her eyes widened. Hotch looked at her questioningly, then turned his own head and tucked his hair away so that she could see behind his ear.

“You have it too,” she said. She did the same as him and he checked her over. They looked at each other again and he nodded.

They all stared at them expectantly, though Spencer was pretty sure he knew what they were seeing.

“Puncture marks at the top of the neck, just behind the ear,” Emily explained. “That’s where we were injected.”

Spencer, Rossi and JJ all checked each other. Sure enough, same thing.

“That means we were likely attacked from behind,” said Derek.

“Do we know what we were drugged with?” said Hotch, shooting an almost imperceptible glance in Spencer’s direction.

His skin crawled at the way none of them wanted to look at him, to just come right out and say it.

He didn’t particularly want to talk about it. Not really. But they always acted like the subject was poison and it made him feel like he had to walk on eggshells too. Like the reality of his life was harder for them to hear than it was for him to live.

“I am fairly confident it was some kind of opioid,” he said, careful to keep the irritation out of his voice.

JJ put her hand on his and the irritation dissipated.

They cared about him. He knew that. It’s not as if they were wrong to worry. They had talked about it a little over the years, but not enough that it had stopped being awkward every time it came up.

“Are you certain?” asked Rossi. “Could have been a tranquilizer.”

“I’m certain,” said Spencer. He sighed. “Trust me, I know the feeling.”

Derek reached a foot across the circle and bumped it against Spencer’s knee in a supportive gesture, like saying ‘I’m here with you.’ Emily smiled at him softly, reassuringly.

“It could have been cut with something,” pointed out Hotch.

“The totality of the blackout indicates it may have been cut with a sedative of some kind, as a high enough dose of opioids to reliably induce that kind of memory loss could be unsafe. High risk of overdose. None of us are suffering significant enough side effects to indicate that’s the case. Whoever did this knew exactly what dosage to use,” he explained. “But… I am quite sure it was predominantly an opioid.”

Of course he was sure.

“Jesus,” said JJ. “I’m sorry, Spence.”

“I don’t believe in fate but the universe does seem to have a strange way of conspiring to get you high,” deadpanned Emily.

Derek shot her a harsh look, but Spencer cracked a smile. “I think ‘an Unsub made me do it’ is going to start sounding like ‘a dog ate my homework’ to my sponsor,” he joked back, relief washing over him that they weren’t going to dance around it the entire time they were in here. Not that he’d spoken to his sponsor in years. They didn’t need to know that.

The others smiled too. “You’ll be alright, kid,” said Rossi. “If you kept it together after Mexico, you’ll get through this.”

That would have been a comforting statement if not for the fact that it was empirically false. It didn’t matter anyway. Penelope and the rest of the team would find them and get them out before any of this became an issue.

Or they wouldn’t. But he couldn’t think about that yet.

A crease sat deep between Hotch’s eyebrows. “Mexico?”

“You don’t know?” said Emily. “I just assumed you were across everything to do with the Scratch case.”

“No,” said Hotch. “I accepted proof of his death and told the liaison I didn’t want to know anything else.”

“It’s complicated,” said Rossi. “There were other players involved, but the short version is Reid was drugged and framed for murder. It wasn’t pretty.”

“We don’t need to go into the details,” said Spencer, oddly embarrassed at the idea of Hotch knowing just how prone to being victimized he apparently still was. He knew it wasn’t rational, given the things that had happened to Hotch and the fact that all of them were in this locked room as victims together.

Hotch looked at him. Spencer couldn’t read his expression at all. Eventually he just nodded and let it drop.

Before any of them could say another word, there was a banging at the door. The hatch on the other side of the door chamber opened.

Derek got to the door first, trying to rip the hatch on their side open. He shouted at the door “What do you want?! Talk to me! Just tell us what you want!”

There was no response.

The only thing they could see was a hand covered in a thick leather glove sliding a piece of paper in. It was a smaller hand than expected.

He continued pulling but the panel didn’t budge until the other one had closed completely. Derek stumbled backwards as the panel suddenly released.

“It’s soundproof,” Spencer said, despairing. “There was no sound of footsteps on the other side.”

Emily grabbed the note from the chamber. They all whipped around to watch her as she read the words aloud.

“Hello, old friends,” she started, all of them frozen in place and hanging off her every word.

"You are wondering what brought you here. The path may have been winding but the destination is simple. You dragged my secrets into the light, then put me in a cage. For a long time, I wanted to tear you all apart like you did to my life, but then I watched you. I saw how you were suffering. How you were afraid. All of you, hiding. And I realized we are the same. I found freedom in my cage because I could not hide from myself any longer. You gave me that gift. Now, in this room, you cannot hide. When there is nothing left to hide, you will finally be free."

Emily looked up from the letter, meeting all of their eyes in turn. There was a painful lump in Spencer’s throat.

If he was being honest with himself, he knew it as soon as he woke up and saw them all there. He knew they weren’t going to make it out in time.

He knew the Unsub must have watched him closely enough to know what would happen next. He knew he wasn’t making it out of this without all of them seeing him for exactly who he is.

Now, he thought, might be the time to fall apart.

Chapter Text

There was no sunlight. No clocks on the wall. They had been stripped of their watches and phones. They had no way of being certain how long they’d been trapped.

Spencer had a pretty good idea, though. Cool air flowed in from the small vent in the roof but sweat beaded on his brow.

They were all sat leaned against various sections of wall. The room was big enough that they had to raise their voices slightly to ensure they were heard from the opposite wall.

“Are you doing alright, Spence?” asked JJ, then rolled her eyes at herself for the asinine question, given their current situation. “I mean, relatively speaking, obviously. You look a little pale.”

“Just exhausted,” he said.

Please please please someone break the door down and let them out.

They had spent a long time analyzing the note and had come to the conclusion that whoever wrote and delivered the note was a woman. The hand size, the passive language, the fixation on teaching them a lesson. The apparent belief that she was helping them, justifying her cruelty with compassion. All of it added up to a female Unsub.

They had debated heavily if she might have an accomplice. It would have taken a significant degree of physical strength to subdue them all. Even intravenous drugs don’t knock someone out instantaneously. In addition, the site of injection was incredibly precise and nearly identical on each of them. This would only be possible by holding them very still, likely with a headlock from behind.

An accomplice certainly seemed possible, but at this stage they had no hard evidence to support it.

Everyone looked to Spencer to compile a mental list of all female Unsubs they dealt with while the team was in this particular configuration. Nobody quite fit the profile.

Antonia Slade was intelligent enough and had a history of taking her victims in to care for them before she killed them, but she wouldn’t hide behind a door. She would gloat. He wouldn’t put it past Lindsey Vaughn. She was resourceful. It’s not her MO, but she’d been known to be adaptable when a good opportunity to fuck with them presented itself. But that didn’t explain why she’d gone after them but not Luke and Tara, who she’d also dealt with.

Spencer pointed out to the team he kept tabs on Vaughn in prison, given everything that happened in Mexico. She could theoretically operate via proxy, but he was pretty confident she wasn’t their Unsub.

Truthfully, there were no good candidates. Whoever was doing this was going to need to give them something more to go off if they wanted a chance of piecing it together.

The fluorescent lights buzzed.

Once again he was living under the looming threat of violence and death but all he could think about was how terrified he was to be seen by the people he loved.

There were too many people in too small a space. He had his arms crossed tightly over his midriff to hide the fact his hands were shaking.

Everyone agreed there was no merit to speculating on what secrets she was referencing. For all they knew that was her plan. Get them to reveal information she could use against them, or get them fighting amongst themselves.

There was an invisible ticking clock. Spencer could hear it like it was real. Each second that ticked by was one closer to the moment where his most pressing secret revealed itself anyway thanks to his uncooperative body.

Nobody had spoken for a long time when Rossi piped up, “When do you think dinner is?”

They all stared at him. Hotch raised an eyebrow. “Feeling peckish?”

“If she wants to keep us imprisoned for the duration, surely she plans to feed us.” He looked up at the camera on the roof and raised his voice. “If you’re taking orders, I would love osso buco and a glass of the ’95 Chateaux Latour!”

JJ laughed. “Could you throw in a carbonara for me?”

“And a carbonara!” he demanded from the camera. “Real egg, none of that cream shit.” He looked around the room. “Any other orders? I hear the food here is excellent.”

“Ribeye on the bone, medium rare, a side of fries with a Bearnaise sauce,” said Derek, closing his eyes and giving a satisfied sigh.

“Oh, that’s a good one,” said JJ.

“Yeah, I’ll have what he’s having,” said Emily. “Throw in a pinot for me.”

“What vintage?” asked Rossi.

“Whatever one tastes best chugged straight from the bottle.”

Spencer smiled at them. Truthfully the thought of food was making his stomach turn violently, but he played anyway. “I’ll take a cheeseburger from Bernard's Burgers,” he said simply.

The others hummed in approval. They all cast their eyes to Hotch. He hesitated. Eventually, he said, “There’s a seafood restaurant a couple of blocks from where I live that has the best lobster you’ll ever try. You wouldn’t expect it from a landlocked state, but there’s nothing like it.”

Everyone nodded, satisfied with their imaginary feast.

“Not to keep bugging you, kid, but are you sure you’re alright?” asked Derek. “You’re not looking so hot.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve been kind of off the last couple of days. I might be coming down with something. Sorry if you all catch it,” he said with his best impression of sincerity.

Derek made an ‘oof’ noise. “How’s that for timing?” he asked lightheartedly, though his eyes lingered longer than was entirely comfortable.

After another moment Rossi spoke again. “How long do you think we’ve been in here?”

“14 hours since we woke up,” said Spencer without missing a beat.

They all stared at him. “How the hell do you do that?” said Rossi, impressed.

He shrugged. Truthfully, he didn’t have the best internal clock. It was very easy for him to get lost in thought and lose track of time. The piercing headache and rising nausea were making him acutely aware of every passing minute.

That was how it went with this sort of thing. You had to develop a routine, especially if you wanted to function. He knew exactly how long he could go before he started getting sick. He scheduled his entire life around it.

The Unsub had clearly figured out their routines. Even if she hadn’t, the evidence of Spencer’s habits were strewn across the bedside table in the room he was taken from.

He dug his nails into his arms through his sleeves. Time was running out. It was all getting away from him.

As if the Unsub had been reading his mind, the chamber on the door opened.

Derek was faster this time, managing to get his face right up to the chamber while the external hatch was still wide open.

“Talk to us!” he yelled. “We know you’re trying to teach us a lesson,” he said, an empathetic lilt pasted onto his voice. “We just want to know more. We want you to help us understand.”

A gloved hand deposited an unmarked brown paper shopping bag. The external hatch closed. The internal one released. Derek bowed his head as their captor left with no response. “She must be positioning herself to the side of the door. I still couldn’t see anything more than a hand. She’s careful, but we knew that already.”

Derek took the bag out and they all crowded around it cautiously.

It was packed full of fruit. Emily picked up an apple, turning it over in her hand.

With all eyes focused on her, she carefully took a bite.

She chewed, then swallowed.

“It tastes normal,” she assured them. “Give it half an hour to an hour to see if it has any effects on me, but I don’t think poisoning the food fits this woman’s MO.”

“I agree,” said Hotch, taking a pear. He followed Emily’s lead and cautiously bit into it. He nodded at the others.

The first rule of being held captive was to always take your food and water where you could get it. You never knew when your supply could be cut off.

They all reached in and took a piece of fruit, including Spencer. He had no desire to eat, but he knew he had to keep his strength up and get what he could down while it was still possible.

As he took his orange, he uncovered a note at the bottom of the bag. JJ saw it too, reaching in and grabbing it before he could.

They all watched her expectantly.

“Your room must always be clean. After you eat, put the food scraps in the bag and the bag in the chamber. There are consequences for breaking rules. Now, as a reward for good behavior, I will take away the burden of lies that weighs one of you down. If Dr Reid-”

She paused, reading further down the note, furrowing her brow.

They all stared at him. He tugged at his sleeves nervously.

“Keep going,” said Emily to JJ, though her eyes were fixed firmly on him.

JJ looked at him apologetically. He looked at the floor. She continued, “If Dr Reid is sick, it is only because he is missing his medicine. I gave you all a taste of it to get you here. I hope you don’t catch his disease.”

She dropped the note like it was radioactive. She mouthed the word 'sorry' at him, knowing as well as he did the shit show that was about to errupt. Derek immediately picked the note up. He looked over it himself like he didn’t want to believe JJ had read it accurately.

He looked back at Spencer.

They were all staring at him.

Instinct told him to run, but there was nowhere for him to go. Instead he stood and waited for the concrete beneath his feet to turn to liquid and encase him.

They were waiting for him to talk first.

He couldn’t.

“What’s she talking about, pretty boy?” asked Derek, finally taking pity on him and breaking the silence.

He took a few steps back, suddenly acutely aware of how close they were after gathering around the bag of fruit. “I have no idea,” he said petulantly, cringing at himself for it.

“It’s alright, kid,” said Rossi sympathetically. “Nobody is upset, just talk to us.”

Spencer’s brain sprinted in circles. Why did the lights have to be so bright?

He tried desperately to think of some clever way to talk himself out of it even though he’d figured out hours ago that this was going to happen. This Unsub’s plan was technically impressive, but it wasn’t exactly psychologically sophisticated. She wanted to out their secrets. This one was going to out itself pretty soon anyway, so of course she'd want to get to it first.

“Spencer,” said Emily, “How sick are you going to get?”

No is it true? Or does this mean what I think it means? Straight to believing it. They didn’t even look surprised. They looked like this was only confirming what they already knew. They looked sad.

Horribly, infuriatingly sad.

He ran a hand through his hair.

“The others are going to find us,” he insisted. “It doesn’t matter.”

He wished he could believe it, but he wished they could believe it even more.

“This is why you woke up before the rest of us,” said JJ softly. “Why you weren’t as affected. It’s because your tolerance is up.”

“You guys can see what she’s doing. She’s trying to pit us against each other,” he accused, wrapping his arms tighter around himself and taking another step back. "We're just playing into her fantasy."

“Don’t think about her right now,” said Emily. “If you’re going into withdrawal then we need to know exactly what to expect. Mind games can’t take precedence over your physical safety.”

“I’ll be fine. Opioid withdrawal has a statistically low mortality rate, with only 2% of the-”

“So it is opioid withdrawal?” She tilted her head. “Look at you, Spencer. You’re shaking, your skin is clammy. You said yourself, we’ve only been in here 14 hours! If it’s this bad already, how much worse is it going to get?”

“I don’t know!” he snapped. “Yes, fine, I’m going to get sick! What do you want me to say?”

“Easy, pretty boy,” said Derek gently. “This isn't an attack. The fact is, we’re all locked in here together and this is happening whether we like it or not. We just need you to tell us exactly how bad this is going to get.”

“I don’t know,” he said shortly.

“Yes, you do,” countered Emily. “You cold give us a detailed breakdown of the symptoms, timeline, and risk factors of an opioid detox based on frequency and duration of usage. You just don’t want to admit how much and for how long you’ve been using because it’s bad, right?” she said. Typical Emily, so pragmatic. There would be plenty of time for sentiment once she had a plan, but no sooner. “This isn’t just a slip, is it? You’re shooting up again and have been for a while.”

Spencer flinched. So did everyone else.

All eyes were on him, but for some reason it was Hotch’s gaze he caught. The man hadn’t said anything the entire exchange. Just stood at the back of the group and watched carefully.

When their eyes met, Hotch gave him a tight, sympathetic smile.

Spencer looked at a spot just behind Emily’s head and spoke quietly. “I… I’ll be fine, Emily. I’ll get sick but I’ll get better. It’s not the first time. I don’t need your help.”

“Roll up your sleeves,” she demanded.

He sputtered, “What? No!”

“Emily,” said Rossi placatingly. “Take a beat.”

She ignored him. “If you won’t tell us what to expect then show us. Spencer, I know this is fucking awful and believe me this is not the way I would like to have this conversation,” she said, gesturing to the oppressive room. “I am so sorry for not seeing what was happening and helping you sooner,” she said sincerely. “The least I can do is make sure you get through this safely.”

Even as he said it, he could feel himself regretting it, but before he could stop himself, “Fuck off Emily,” had slipped out his mouth.

JJ gasped and Derek interjected with a stern “Hey! I know this sucks but do not speak to her that way.”

“It’s fine,” said Emily. “I’m not trying to be condescending, Spencer. I’m just scared. I want to help.”

She sounded excruciatingly sincere. It made his blood boil.

“No,” he snapped, stepping back again until he felt the wall hit him. “None of you were there the other times I had to do this, and now you want me to defer to your expertise? What the hell do you know? What do any of you actually know? If you wanted to do an intervention you should have done it after Tobias Hankle, but none of you said anything and I don’t need you like that anymore,” he spat.

Emily’s eyes were wide with shock.

Spencer's words surprised himself just as much as the rest of them.

“I’m sorry,” she said, taken aback. “You’re right. I should have said something back then.”

Guilt twisted its way through the panic and rage, settling into his chest.

They were all trapped down there together and here he was punishing Emily for caring. He tried his best to hold onto the anger. To wrap himself in it. He could feel it slipping away.

Hotch stepped forward. Spencer had almost forgotten he was there.

“I was team leader at the time of the Hankle case. I’m the one who decided not to intervene,” he said firmly. “Emily brought her concerns to me and I shut them down because I was afraid if word got out you would lose your job, making your situation worse. I trusted that you were strong enough to recover. And you were. But you never should have done so without proper support. I regret that, Reid, and I always will.”

Maybe it was the stark inevitability catching up with him that there was simply no way to avoid going through withdrawal in front of them. Maybe it was the way his eyes kept searching for an exit he knew didn't exist. Maybe it was thinking about Tobias Hankle. All these years and all the other traumas, and a part of him was still stuck in that cabin in Georgia. A part of him always would be. Whatever it was, the fight left him.

He was still pressed up against the wall, and he slid down it until he was sitting on the cold concrete floor. The others sat too.

“I don’t know why I said that. I’m not angry about it anymore. Or, at least… I’m not angry at any of you,” he said, chancing an apologetic glance at Emily. “Maybe at Gideon, still. But what’s the point in that?”

“When someone who hurt you is gone it doesn’t take away the scars,” said Rossi. “I loved Gideon, but he made mistakes. It’s okay to be pissed about it.”

“Do you guys really want to hear all this?” asked Spencer skeptically.

They might say that’s what they want, but the subject of his addiction had never felt particularly welcome. They had always flinched away from it, just as they had only a minute ago when Emily referenced him shooting up.

He certainly didn’t want their pity or concern.

“Of course we do,” said Emily, with the others nodding emphatically.

He hesitated. They already knew, he reminded himself. They were asking because they care about him and because the secret was already out. He couldn't put it back.

“2 years. Or 1 year, 11 months, and 3 days, to be precise.”

Silence. He wanted to say stunned silence? But it could have as easily been disgust. He couldn’t tell.

“How is that possible?” asked Derek, deceptively calm.

“We couldn’t miss the signs for that long,” said JJ disbelievingly.

“It’s been on and off,” he clarified. “I was only using in between cases when I was last working with the BAU.” Then, sheepishly, “Mostly." There were some cases... well. He'd done his best. "You would be surprised how easy it is to miss substance abuse in people close to you. One study showed that up to 60% of heroin users are what we call ‘functional addicts,’ meaning they can hold down fulltime employment, social lives, and sometimes even have their addiction go unnoticed by intimate partners for months or years at a time,” he rattled off, before catching the look in his friends’ eyes and stopping. “It isn’t your fault,” he said simply. “I’ve been avoiding you on purpose. Not to mention you base your warning signs on how I behaved when I first became addicted, expecting me to be volatile and disorganized. But I’m not 25 and in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event anymore. I have more control. It’s not a problem like it was back then,” he assured them.

“Feels like a pretty big problem right now,” said Rossi.

“Functional addicts don’t stay functional forever, pretty boy,” said Derek. “I’m sure you know the other side of those statistics.”

“I don’t have a large enough dataset to offer credible statistics on the amount of opioid addicts who get kidnapped and forced to detox in bunkers. In retrospect, I should have realized that I am an outlier who should have expected something like this to happen,” he deadpanned.

“Well, we’re all outliers vis a vis kidnappings,” replied Emily dryly. "I'm sure that makes you feel better."

“I hate doing this while we’re being watched,” he said. “It feels like we’re encouraging her. This is exactly the outcome she was hoping for. It’s why she dosed you all with opioids instead of using pure sedatives. Just to taunt me.”

“Don’t worry about that now,” said Hotch. “What matters is that we get you through withdrawal. We need accurate information to ensure we know what to do.”

“I know,” he admitted reluctantly. He took a long, slow breath. “Ask me whatever you need to,” he said, directing it to Emily.

He wished he was high right now. He’d give anything for a hit.

Emily nodded; sentiment once again pushed down the line to when the job was done. “Dilaudid?”

“It’s whatever is easiest to get.”

“So, heroin,” she clarified.

He looked at his lap. “It doesn't make a difference to the withdrawal process. It’s all derivatives of the same compound.”

“It makes a difference to your risk of overdose,” she clarified, “but you’re right, that’s not an immediate concern,” she agreed. “Needles?”

He nodded, not looking at them.

“It’s okay, kid,” said Rossi. “We’re not judging.”

He didn’t really believe that, so he didn’t respond to it.

“Every day? If so, how many times a day?” Emily asked.

“It was previously more intermittent, as I said, but for the past 8 months or so It has been twice a day at a minimum.” A beat. "Usually more."

“Okay. Thank you for telling us all that. I know this isn’t easy,” she said. “I just have one more question for now. Is there any risk that you have an infection?”

“All intravenously administered drugs come with a statistically significant risk of infection,” he said, ready to ramble about it before she threw up a hand to preemptively cut him off. “I always use sterile equipment and alcohol wipes. I’m fine.”

“You are anything but fine, pretty boy,” said Derek, shaking his head. “But we’ll get you through this.”

“That would be more comforting if we weren’t locked in a bunker by a serial killer.”

“Minor problem,” Derek joked. “Consider it a study on innovative approaches to running a rehabilitation facility.”

Spencer didn't laugh. Neither did anyone else. JJ placed her hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

He caught Hotch's eye again, briefly.

Had any of them ever really had a shot at escaping their pasts or was this all inevitable? He wasn't getting clean by choice. Hotch wasn't there in the bunker to reconnect with them. Spencer was struck by the reality that proximity did not always mean closeness.

He was already thinking about the moment he could get out of here and get high again. Was Hotch just counting the seconds until he could disappear from their lives forever?

Assuming they didn't all just die, of course.

Maybe that's what he should be focusing on now. Just don't die. Figure out the rest later.

He leaned into JJ, letting her put an arm around him. The red light from the camera blinked down at them.

Chapter Text

97 days ago he had run a little experiment: see how long he could last before the pain became intolerable. He had made it 25 hours and 38 minutes before he called his dealer. He didn’t really know why he did it, as he had no real intention of getting clean. Just to be aware of his limitations? To torture himself? To remind himself how unbearable life was sober?

It didn’t really matter.

It had, however, continued to be a useful metric for gauging time in the bunker. Unfortunately, they were now headed into uncharted territory. The last time he had gone through full withdrawal was years earlier. He hadn’t been using as heavily or for as long a period as he had been this time, so all he could really say for certain is that as bad as it had been before, it would be worse now.

The lights had not so much as dimmed for a second. He wondered if she was ever going to switch them off or if they were to live in a single, perpetual day as long as they were there. At least in prison he’d had lights out and his own cell.

She’d given them one more bag of fruit about half an hour ago. So, a bag of fruit every 12 hours or so was the feeding schedule thus far.

“At least we won’t get scurvy,” mumbled Rossi, begrudgingly downing his last lemon wedge.

“We need medical supplies!” yelled Derek, looking to the camera. “He’s already sick and it’s going to get worse! If you want us to learn whatever lesson you’re trying to teach, you have to keep us alive long enough to understand it!”

“It’s fine, Derek,” muttered Spencer, who shivered violently on his thin foam mattress on the floor with his head in JJ’s lap. “Don’t waste your energy.”

Derek looked up at the camera and glared one last time, then knelt down beside Spencer, stroking a hand over his cheek. The touch distracted him from his crawling skin.

“You just have to make it through a few days of this Spence, then it gets better,” reassured Emily.

“I know,” he said. “I wish she would turn down the lights, at least,” he grumbled.

Hotch had been silent for a long while, sitting alone on the opposite side of the room. Rossi walked over to him and sat down beside him. He spoke with Hotch in low tones, eventually managing to coax him into conversation. Spencer could make out the words ‘Elias Voit,’ said by Hotch in a questioning tone. They were quiet enough and far enough away that Spencer couldn’t properly follow the conversation, but the murmur of the low voices was soothing.

He was glad not to listen. He didn’t envy Hotch having to learn about what Voit had done to Rossi while he wasn't there to help. He’d been on the other side of that conversation.

“It’s too hot in here,” he whined, eyes shut tight against the fluorescents, still shivering despite his burning skin.

JJ stroked her hand down his arm. “You have a fever.”

He pushed himself up for a moment, Derek reaching out an arm to stabilize him. He ripped his button down pajama shirt off leaving only a singlet underneath. He immediately curled back up on JJ’s lap, exhausted by the effort.

It took him a moment to notice the murmur across the room had ceased and JJ’s hand had stilled. He cracked an eye open.

They were all staring at him like he’d just told them there was a bomb in the room. “What?” he asked, pushing himself clumsily back up to a sitting position, letting the wall behind him take his full weight.

JJ stared at him helplessly. Emily had a hand covering her mouth. Even Rossi and Hotch across the room seemed to be leaning forward, locked on him.

“Jesus, Spencer,” said Derek, too dumb struck to bother with the usual epithets.

Spencer followed his gaze.

He might have vomited when he realized what they were all looking at if his stomach wasn’t already completely emptied out an hour ago.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“It looks like you’re trying to slowly kill yourself,” said Derek bluntly.

“I can’t remember the last time I saw you in short sleeves,” said JJ. “How did I not notice that?”

Spencer reached down to grab his shirt discarded only a moment ago, pulling it back on. One last flash of his forearms, both of which were littered with track marks, fresh, healing, and long since scarred over.

“No, Spence, you don’t have to do that,” said Emily quickly. “You should be as comfortable as you can be right now.”

“She’s right,” said Derek, shaking his head as if to snap himself out of a thought. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry. It’s not like we didn’t know.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbled. “I understand.”

“I need a minute,” said JJ quietly, getting up and walking quickly to the bathroom.

Spencer watched her go helplessly. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Emily looking at him sympathetically. He stared up at the camera.

“Is this what you want?” he asked. “Are you getting what you need?”

The light blinked its non-response.

He sighed, leaning his head back against the wall, pulling his shirt tighter around him, in part to ensure his arms stayed hidden, in part because the burning was starting to turn to an unbearable chill. Derek put an arm around him and he leaned into it.

Rossi and Hotch went back to their whispered conversation.

When JJ emerged a considerable time later, her eyes were red rimmed and swollen.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking up at her. “I’m sorry for putting you through this.”

She smiled wetly at him, taking a seat on his other side and throwing her arm around him to join Derek’s.

“It wasn’t about you,” she told him. “Well... it was, but not completely. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m currently locked in a bunker with no idea if my kids are safe,” she sniffed. "It's got me a little emotional for some reason."

He squeezed her hand. “They’re safe. I know they are.”

“Yeah, big brain? How do you know?” she teased, tears spilling softly.

“I just do.”

She hugged him tight. When she pulled away she huffed a laugh. “It’s nice to have a space with a little privacy, but it’s oddly considerate of her to put a door on the bathroom, right? Seems thematically inappropriate for someone so obsessed with exposing people.”

He laughed too. “Let’s not question that too much,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to give her ideas.”

JJ sniffed again, head lolling gently into Spencer’s shoulder. Her eyes drooped.

“You should all get some sleep,” said Emily softly. Then, louder to the whole room, “We’ve been here at least a day and we can’t keep pushing through forever. I don’t like the idea of all of us being asleep at once, and someone needs to be awake for Spencer anyway. I’ll stay up for now, but everyone else should try to get a few hours.”

“I’ll stay up too,” said Hotch from across the room. Emily nodded.

Derek went to open his mouth, presumably to volunteer, but Emily cut him off. “It doesn’t work if we all stay awake,” she said with a hint of amusement. “I know nobody wants to sleep, but it has to happen eventually. Hotch and I will get some rest when you’re awake,” she promised.

Derek begrudgingly said, “Fair enough.”

They all spent a bit of time rearranging the room. They put the mattresses on the side furthest from the door, but left Spencer’s mattress on the opposite side of the room. It was the best they could do to try and have a quiet zone for sleeping and to keep Spencer where he could be watched.

He wanted to protest, hating that they were arranging everything around him. Unfortunately, having to duck out halfway through the process to hunch over the toilet and clear out the last dregs of bile in his stomach undercut any argument he could have made.

Sleep did not come easily to JJ, Derek and Rossi. Despite the extreme exhaustion they must all be feeling, they each tossed and turned in fits and starts for what seemed like hours.

Emily and Hotch sat quietly with Spencer, not speaking so as to not disturb the others. They took turns getting up to pace back and forth for a while, wearing only socks to dampen the noise. Probably keeping moving to force themselves to stay awake.

Spencer wished he could sleep. He tried closing his eyes. Tried curling up and stretching out, or lying perfectly still for all of 5 seconds at a time before the bugs crawling over every inch of his skin demanded to be scratched at.

No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to find unconsciousness. His vision swam and his awareness waned, but he found no relief.

Why were they torturing him?

There were hands touching him, trying to rip his skin off. He batted at them and tried to scramble away, but they pulled him back.

Emily!

It was Emily whispering something in his ear. Thank God she was there.

She would keep him safe.

The bugs kept crawling on him but she was there. They would bite but she wouldn't let them tear his flesh too deeply.

Voices drifted in from above him and he felt a gentle stroking through his hair. He was waking up, which means he had fallen asleep after all.

He was awake and he was boiling alive.

“I wish I could have seen it,” came Hotch’s whispered voice with an unexpected laugh.

Emily laughed back, too loud, before Hotch hushed her. “Trust me, you don’t. He must have been the dumbest Unsub we ever dealt with. I’m sure the whole thing would have gone much smoother if you were still at the helm.”

“Because everything was so carefree when I was running the BAU,” said Hotch sarcastically.

Emily paused. “Maybe not, but that’s the job. None if it was your fault. You were a great leader, Hotch. We miss you.”

“You left first,” he pointed out.

“The job, not the team,” she countered. “Besides, I came back.”

“They’re damn lucky you did.”

Neither of them spoke for a while. He tried to tell them he was awake but his eyes and mouth were shut with glue. It was sticky and cloying and his body was too heavy to fight it.

“Doesn’t feel like I’m doing a very good job,” said Emily, sounding distant.

“Do you think if we get out of here-”

“When,” interrupted Emily.

“Do you think he’ll stay clean?”

A beat. “I don’t know. I hope so,” she said, pained.

Hotch sighed. “What the hell happened to him after I left?”

He felt a hand softly stroke his bare arm. Was it her or was it Hotch?

He didn’t remember taking his shirt off again.

They could see. They could see and it disgusted them. He wrapped his arms tighter into himself.

“A lot.” She sounded how people sound when they’re speaking through an injury, trying to pretend they aren’t in pain. “How could I miss this for so long?”

“It’s sounds like you haven’t seen him in person for a while.”

“Exactly. I should have known something was wrong,” she insisted. “I don’t know what triggered this. What if he doesn’t want to stop?”

She flinched when he mumbled “Not your fault.” It came out garbled and slurred.

“Hi, Spence,” she whispered, full of love. “You’ve been in and out for a while. You’re getting dehydrated. Can you try and drink some water?”

He cracked his eyes open, pulling back against the light. He tried to sit up but didn’t have the strength to support his own weight, so he just rolled onto his back instead. “It’s not your fault,” he repeated in case she hadn’t understood him. “I don’t want to be fixed,” he said, every word like gravel in his throat.

Her’s and Hotch’s faces swam in his vision. He lolled his head to the side and saw the sleeping forms of his other friends.

“You can’t go on like this, Spence,” she said mournfully, cradling his head in her lap. “You’ll die.”

The bugs were back, crawling all over him. He could actually see them this time. They flew around the periphery of his vision like dark stars. “We’re all going to die,” he said, knowing in his heart it was true. They were never making it out of this bunker.

“We’re not going to die,” said Hotch’s voice from a million miles away. “I won’t let it happen.”

He couldn’t look away from Emily. One of the bugs crawled down her cheek. He reached out a shaking hand and brushed it away. It dissolved into water. More and more came, wetting his thumb as he wiped them away. They were crawling out of her eyes, marching single file down to her chin. “I already died,” he said. It happened on the floor of a cabin in Georgia. “Tobias brought me back, but he left a piece behind. It’s okay though,” he breathed. “It’s okay. He showed me what to put there instead.”

If he could just explain it right, maybe they could understand.

His peripheral vision went dark and he fell into a pit of fire ants. They bit every inch of his skin, over and over and over.

“You died too…” Tears stung his eyes like acid. He wished she was there to comfort him but he was alone again. “I went to your funeral.” He was alone in the bunker. They left without him. Why would they do that?

Lights flashed in the darkness and they pierced him like daggers. Hands grasped at his clothes, at his body, at his mind. He recoiled from the touch, but it kept coming.

Somewhere nearby was a needle that could get him out of this hell. He searched for it and screamed for it and cast out blindly and begged.

It never came.

Nobody came to save him.

An eternity passed.

Then…

Awake.

He cracked an eye open, groaning at the stupid motherfucking goddamn fluorescent lights. He could tear those things from the roof with his bare fucking hands at this point.

“Jesus, kid. Tell us how you really feel,” said Rossi from somewhere behind him.

Had he said that out loud?

“Spencer!” yelped JJ. “You’re awake! Emily, Hotch, get up, he’s awake! Like, actually conscious!”

“Why are you yelling?” rasped Spencer, dragging himself to sit back against the wall and covering his eyes with his hands. “I feel like I’m going to puke.”

When he opened his eyes, the entire team was gathered around him. Derek pulled him into a hug. “Oh thank God,” he heard from Emily.

He recoiled. There was too much happening at once and every part of him hurt. “Guys! Stop touching me! I’m sorry, but stop!”

They all backed away, hands raised. “Sorry,” said JJ. “We’re all just relieved.”

He looked at them all. Really looked.

Each one of them had greasy hair, rumpled clothes, dark circles under their eyes. Everyone had discarded their shoes and jackets in a corner, standing in various degrees of undress and rumpled underclothes. Hotch, Rossi, and Derek had thick layers of unkempt stubble.

“You all look like shit.”

A few of them cracked a smile. Rossi scoffed. “You’re one to talk.”

There was a small wicker basket that seemed to contain some things, he wasn’t sure what. But the existence of any kind of new item was significant, given the circumstances.

“What happened?” he asked, then cleared his throat. His mouth felt like it was filled with ash. “How long was I out?”

Emily looked at him sympathetically. “Your fever spiked about two days ago. At least, we think it was two days. It got pretty intense for a while. You were delirious,” she said carefully. He could only imagine what a nightmare he’d been to deal with. He didn’t particularly want the details and was glad when she glossed over it. “The fever finally broke. You’ll probably still have acute symptoms for the next couple of days, but you’re through the worst of it.”

“The Unsub gave us some supplies,” said Rossi, nodding towards the basket. “I guess she realized she didn’t actually want any of us to die, at least not yet. We kept yelling out, asking for medical supplies. All we got was aspirin, but it was enough to help bring the fever down. We have a few left. Afraid that’s all we can give you for the pain.”

“How compassionate of her,” said Spencer, looking mistrustfully at the basket.

“We also got soap,” said Derek, almost excitedly. How simple life’s pleasures became when you were living in captivity. “So at least we can wash off in the sink and clean our clothes. It’s better than nothing.”

“Is that a hint?” joked Spencer.

“Just figured you’re probably dreaming of a shower by now,” he smirked.

They were all looking at him with such relief. Hotch was not lingering behind the group like he had been before. He smiled warmly at Spencer when their gaze met. It was a soft look that was incongruent with his memories of the man.

Not that Hotch was never soft, but that he was rarely soft in that way with the team.

“Sorry for putting you through that,” he said guiltily.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” said JJ. “You’re not the one who locked us up down here.”

“Still,” he said. Then; “Have we received anymore notes?”

“Not yet,” said Emily. “I’m not surprised. She wouldn’t have been able to get us to care about much else while you were so sick. She strikes me as someone who wants a high degree of control over when and how we respond to things.”

He nodded. It made sense. “I need some water,” he said, trying to push himself up to go drink from the bathroom tap. He made it halfway to standing before he collapsed again. Derek leapt forward to fling an arm around him and guide him to the ground gently.

“You’ll be glad to know that one of the items in our little gift basket was a cup,” said JJ. She picked something up out of the basket and walked to the bathroom, emerging a moment later.

She handed Spencer a small, flimsy plastic cup of water, which he drank thirstily. Emily took the cup once he was done and set it aside.

“How’s the nausea?” she asked. “We saved you some fruit. It’s still only been fruit. I could kill for a pizza or burger or just, like, a whole roast pig… God I miss protein. I'd settle for a can of baked beans at this point.”

He evaluated the sensations he was currently feeling, isolating the sickness in his stomach from the aching and itching of the rest of his body. “I’ll try to eat, but no promises it stays down. Is she still only doing drops once every 12 hours?”

“It’s hard to keep track of time,” said Hotch, finally contributing, “but that seems to be the case. Aside from the inevitable deficiencies of an all fruit diet, she doesn’t seem to be trying to starve us. There’s always enough fruit for us all to eat multiple pieces, and we can portion out our meals across the 12 hours. We’ve been speculating that the restrictive schedule might have more to do with her than it does with us. She may have other commitments, potentially even shift work. Or maybe this bunker is located remotely and she has to commute. It’s hard to say.”

“Huh,” he said vaguely, mind still foggy. He shook his head to clear it.

Emily frowned at him. “You should try and get some more sleep,” she said, gesturing for the others to give him some space. They all did. “I think you’re out of danger, but you’re still not well. You need to rest.”

He wanted to argue, but he was already drooping heavily towards the mattress. “Just wake me up if anything happens,” he requested.

She nodded. He lay down curling up on his side, completely wiped out by the interaction. As he brought his arm up to rest under his head, he was caught off guard by the bare skin. He was still only wearing his singlet, leaving his arms exposed.

He tried not to look too closely most of the time. He’d complete the ritual of getting high without lingering too long on the sobering visual.

His arms were a mess. The most recent track marks were scabbing over, making it look even worse than it had just days ago. He loathed that they could see it. That they could see him.

He loathed even more that the only thing on his mind as he drifted to sleep was how desperately he wanted to shoot up.

Chapter Text

“Come on man, get up.”

“What’s the point?” whined Spencer.

“The point is that muscles start to atrophy after 3 days of inactivity, and you have been holed up on that disgusting mattress for… what… like a week and half now? Longer than you should’ve been,” said Derek.

Spencer groaned. “I’ve been a bit sick, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Which is why we’ve left you alone, but you’re so goddamn shaky and thin you’re starting to resemble a chihuahua. You need to keep active, or you will just get sicker. That’s true for all of us,” he insisted.

“Come on, it’s simple calisthenics. No worse than you had to do at the academy,” said Emily, entirely too chipper.

“I hated doing it back then, too,” he said. “I would really rather never move again, thanks.”

“Of course you want to sleep all day,” said Derek. “It’s called clinical depression, Reid. It’s what happens when you replace your brain’s ability to self-regulate pleasure with heroin. You’re gonna be all fucked up for a while, but you’ll level out eventually. And you know what’s proven to be one of the most effective treatments for depression? Exercise! So get your ass up,” he ordered, nudging the mattress with his foot.

“Okay, okay, I get it. Just don’t complain when I pass out after 5 minutes,” he said, dragging himself up.

The last thing he wanted was to be roped into an extended conversation about the questionable state of his mental health.

“I’ll consider it 5 minutes well spent,” Derek said, reaching a hand down to help him to his feet.

Emily corralled them all into two lines while JJ placed herself at the front of the room, ready to lead the workout.

“Frankly, I’m with you, kid,” Rossi whispered, looking pointedly unhappy about the whole situation.

“Shut it,” said Emily.

Hotch smirked. “Pick your battles, boys.”

“Just you wait until it’s my turn to run the class tomorrow,” said Derek, positioned feet shoulder width apart and ready to go in the front line with Emily. “You’ll be begging to go back to this moment”

Rossi and Spencer both whinged, but they shaped up and did their best to mirror JJ’s movements when she called them to attention.

Spencer did not pass out, but he did make it almost precisely 5 minutes before having to very rapidly excuse himself to go throw up. After a few retches, he collapsed back onto the floor of the tiny en-suit, half curled around the toilet.

Rossi ducked his head in. “You doing alight? Need some help?”

“Just… just let me lie here for a minute.”

“Are you sure you don’t need me to stay with you?” he persisted.

“Get back in here, Rossi!” ordered Emily.

With a swear that was barely concealed under his breath, he left Spencer to languish on the floor.

A few minutes later he hauled himself out and retook his place in the group. Nobody said anything, but Derek had an annoyingly self satisfied smile. He only made it through another few exercises before he had to stop in earnest, but, as loathed as he was to admit it, he felt a tiny bit better. Emotionally, if not physically.

Emily, JJ and Derek all sat by him. Rossi had first dibs on the bathroom to wash his clothes and Hotch… well, he was sitting cross legged on the far side of the room meditating.

Spencer didn’t know if he was actually meditating, or if he just wanted to be left alone.

He’d warmed up to them all since they had been in the bunker. In fact he was almost warmer and friendlier than he had been when they were all still close. Or, maybe not friendlier, but gentle somehow, in a way Spencer had never seen him be with anyone but Jack and Beth before.

Still, he kept a distance from them. Even when they were talking, he could feel the invisible wall.

Not that Spencer was judging. He had plenty of his own walls.

“I know you feel like garbage, Spence, but you’re doing a lot better,” said JJ, looking pleased.

“Better than what?” he scoffed.

“Better than when you were pumping your veins full of dope every day,” suggested Derek, lying on the floor in front of where Spencer and the girls were siting, clasping his hands behind his head casually and putting his feet up against the wall.

Spencer narrowed his eyes, a flash of irritation at the lackadaisical attitude. “That’s an interesting philosophical debate. Do you really think I’d be worse off high in my apartment than soberly held captive by an Unsub?”

Derek tapped his foot thoughtfully. “I think, and correct me if I’m wrong here boy genius, those are not the only two options in the world.”

“Please, Morgan, if we make it out of here alive will you teach me how to be as virtuous as you?” he said sarcastically.

“Enough, both of you,” said Emily when Derek leaned his head up to argue back. “Spencer, stop scratching, you’re going to get an infection.”

He looked at her quizzically for a split second before realizing what she meant. He had been scratching at his arms without even noticing. He stopped, slinging them both over his knees instead.

The most recent track marks were scabbed over and the extra sensory sensitivity after withdrawal was making them itch like crazy.

It’s funny how quickly he’d gotten used to them seeing him like this. He was still in his singlet and pajama pants most of the time, the long sleeve shirt functioning more as a pillow than an item of clothing these days.

The others were the same, with everyone comfortably sitting around in their underwear when waiting for their clothes to dry. They’d all spent enough time in hotel rooms together over the years not to be precious about that sort of thing.

None of them even balked at the track marks anymore. They’d gotten used to them. He didn’t know how he felt about that.

He’d always hated having to hide and having them be so delicate about the subject of his addiction, but now they were infuriatingly direct. Far from walking on eggshells, they were stomping as brashly as they pleased. Especially Derek.

It was really starting to piss him off.

That might have been because literally everything was pissing him off since detoxing.

He tried not to feel too bad about it. He wasn’t the only one who’d been a bit snippy. The complete absence of privacy and personal space wasn’t doing any of them any favors.

“Can I ask you something?” asked JJ, catching his eye.

He sighed. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“Probably not,” she admitted.

A beat. “You can ask.”

She looked him up and down. Emily was glancing between them, and Derek had cracked an eye open.

“What happened two years ago?” she asked gently. “Why did you start using again?”

He was surprised it took them this long. He’d been waiting for them to interrogate him on the subject since the second that goddamn note was read out.

This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. It wasn’t one he knew how to have.

“Nothing happened,” he said softly.

“I don’t believe that.”

“Addicts relapse, JJ. An estimated 88% of all heroin addicts relapse within 1 to 3 years of quitting. I know you all think I’m different somehow, like I’m supposed to be smarter than that. That’s not how it works.”

He didn’t mean to sound harsh, but even he could hear the bite in his voice by the end. There was a little part of him that resented them for even being surprised at his relapse, as if there was something about him that precluded him from that kind of indignity. It was misdirected and he knew it.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” said JJ defensively. “If you don’t want to talk about it just say so.”

Before he could apologize to her, Derek chimed in with, “It’s what I’m saying.” He sat up. “You’re right, Reid, you are supposed to be smarter than this.”

“Thanks, Morgan. Invite me to the ceremony when they give you a Nobel prize for fixing the opioid epidemic.”

Derek folded his arms and continued as if Spencer hadn’t said anything. “You didn’t choose to be an addict, but you did choose to do it alone. If you hadn’t cut yourself off from all of us when you relapsed, we would have helped you. You chose to keep pretending everything was fine while it spiraled out of control. Every time we talked, every time you visited, I asked you what was happening in your life, and you chose to lie. For someone so goddamn smart, you've been making a lot of incredibly stupid choices.”

Hotch had opened his eyes and Rossi had re-emerged from the bathroom still holding a soapy, wet shirt in his hands.

Spencer and Derek had both stood up and Spencer wasn’t even sure when they’d done it.

Emily didn’t intervene this time. Apparently, they were doing this.

“You’re right, I didn’t ask for your help and I don’t want it now!” He took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. Through gritted teeth he said, “I am grateful to you all for getting me through withdrawal and I am sorry I put you through that. Can’t that be enough for now? We clearly have bigger problems than this.”

“No.”

“No?” he said indignantly.

“No. Why won't you talk about this? What could you possibly have to say that’s worse than what we already know?” Derek demanded, volume rising with every word.

“I don't want to talk about it because I know what you want me to say! You want me to tell you that if we get out of here I’m going to get treatment and go to meetings and pinkie promise I’ll never use narcotics again,” Spencer said, matching his volume and emphasizing the words with a wave of his hand.

“The only thing I want is for you to tell me the fucking truth!”

“No, you don’t!”

“Yes, I do! I don’t care how bleak it is, just for one fucking second be honest about what you want!”

“The truth is I don’t want to do this!” shouted Spencer. “If I had heroin, I would shoot up right now, right here in this fucking room while you watched. Are you happy? Is that what you wanted to hear? I don’t want to be fixed!”

“Why not?” yelled Derek.

They stared at each other, both breathing heavily. Spencer had been staring directly into his eyes for far longer than he would normally be able, fueled by adrenaline.

He caught glimpse of something behind the anger that in another circumstance he might have missed.

Helplessness.

Oh.

Derek wasn’t mad.

He was terrified.

The realization hit him like a physical blow.

Spencer stared at him, opening his mouth but not finding any words.

“Why don’t you want us to help? Why don’t you want to be fixed? What the hell happened to you?” pleaded the closest thing he’d ever had to a brother. “What’s your plan when we get out of here? You wanna go be a junkie, dead in a year? You had 15 years clean, man. Why are you doing this?”

His eyes burned, moisture pooling in the corners. Why? Why was he doing this?

What answer could ever satisfy them?

The air between them filled with poisonous silence.

Out of the silence came a voice, too small for him to make out the words. Derek held his gaze, fighting tears of his own, but asked to someone to the side, “What did you say?”

“It wasn’t 15 years,” said JJ, louder this time.

Another shiver of panic worked its way down Spencer’s spine.

“What are you talking about?” demanded Derek.

“He said ‘times.’ When we first got the note. He said we weren’t there the other times he went through withdrawal. Plural.”

Fuck. Why could he never just say the right thing?

Derek squared off, lifting a hand to wipe under his eyes. “JJ’s right, isn’t she.” He wasn’t shouting anymore. When Spencer didn't answer, he took it as all the confirmation he needed. “Was it after prison?”

He shot a brief look off at the others, silently urging them to step in and save him.

JJ wouldn’t look at him. She looked small. He never wanted to do this to her.

Hotch was eyeing him like he was trying to solve the puzzle of what bits of Spencer Reid had been irreparably broken in his absence. Prison had certainly done some damage that couldn’t be undone.

He looked back at Derek. “No. That was… It was hard, but no.”

“So, when?” he asked, cocking his head, waiting for Spencer to give him something concrete to fight about.

He looked back at JJ, who still wouldn’t meet his eye.

She already knew.

“Oh no,” said Emily softly, putting it together. “It was after I faked my death to hide from Doyle.”

He was torn between Derek and JJ, and all the other people in this room who his deficiencies kept hurting.

Their fight after it was revealed that JJ knew Emily was alive had almost destroyed their friendship. In retrospect, he understood she was doing the best she could with horrible circumstances, trying to protect Emily.

He also knew, equally certain, that he would have told her. If the situations were reversed and she came to his door, crying, grieving, on the verge of a breakdown, he would have told her.

She knew it, too.

He was aware that she still held tightly onto that guilt. He regretted so badly the way he’d treated her when he first found out. He never wanted to tell her this. Never.

He turned away from Derek, who was still staring at him like he’d ripped his heart out of his chest.

“JJ, please talk to me.”

He stepped forward, putting his hands on her arms. She looked up at him, red eyed and exhausted.

“You told me you didn’t use. You only thought about it,” she said, sounding numb. “I believed you. Except… I think I just wanted to believe you.”

“I’m sorry.” He pulled her into a hug. She held onto him tightly. “You did the right thing back then. My actions weren’t your fault.”

The moment was over as quickly and horribly as it began when the chamber on the door banged.

Of course this interruption couldn't have come minutes earlier when he desperately needed it.

A gloved hand reached in to deposit a brown paper bag.

Derek was slow to react, not running to the door in his usual effort to ingratiate himself to their captor through one sided conversation.

When nobody moved, the interrupted outbreak of truth and consequences weighing them down too heavily, Hotch stepped towards the door.

He moved slowly, deliberately, as if one muscle twitching out of place would set off a bomb. Spencer wasn’t sure where he thought the explosion might be coming from.

When Hotch opened the chamber and extracted the brown paper bag, he stared at it. Not moving, just staring down at the thing he was holding, presumably filled with more fruit. Nobody else moved. Nobody spoke.

In one swift and vicious action, Hotch flung the bag across the room!

Fruit scattered over the concrete in a colorful arc. An overripe peach splattered on the far wall.

They all flinched at the sudden act, but before anyone could talk, Hotch had rounded on the camera in the roof with its infuriating, endlessly blinking red light.

He spoke low, dangerous. “When we get out of here, and we will, I’m going to kill you myself. Forget life in prison, I will put you down like a fucking dog.”

Spencer sucked in a sharp breath, not realizing he’d been holding it. JJ was gripping his arm tight enough to cut off circulation. He let her. The room was cavernous, quiet, oppressive.

Hotch clenched and unclenched his fists. Emily stepped forward, mouth open, a hand outstretched towards his shoulder but not bold enough to actually touch him, yet he pulled away from her as if she had.

“I’m fine,” he snapped. He took in a ragged breath, scrubbing his hands over his face, then lowered them. This time, calmer: “I’m fine.”

He looked around the room at the scattered fruit. With another deep breath, he bent down and started gathering it up. Emily stepped forward to help him.

Spencer, JJ, and Derek exchanged looks. Spencer knew they would not be dropping the subject forever, but for now they settled on an agitated, embarrassed truce. Well, Spencer was embarrassed. Derek might just have been agitated.

Had he really said, out loud, that he would shoot up in front of them if he had to? He was almost certain he would actually follow through with that given the choice. There's almost nothing he wouldn't do to get high at this point. Withdrawal and being stuck in the bunker had only made his cravings stronger.

He had certainly not intended to tell them that, though.

The three of them broke away, moving to help Hotch and Emily. JJ grabbed the paper bag for them to consolidate the food, while Derek moved to clean the peach that was dripping down the wall.

As Hotch dropped his handful of citrus and apples into the bag JJ was holding, he paused. The rest of the room paused too, waiting to see what he would do.

“It was my call to keep everyone in the dark about Prentiss. It was cruel to put that on you.” He looked around at the rest of them. “It was cruel to all of you.”

“You did what you thought was right,” said Spencer. He locked eyes with JJ. “Both of you did.”

Hotch eyed him off, picking him apart in a way that made Spencer want to bury his face in his hands like a little kid, desperate not to be seen. He resisted the urge.

“You still don’t believe it was the right call,” said Hotch eventually, a statement not a question.

Spencer frowned. “No,” he said honestly. “But I know you believed it. That’s enough for me.”

Hotch shook his head. Clearly, it wasn’t enough for him.

Emily looked between all of them, grey hair falling oddly prettily over her shoulders as she swiveled her head. “I mean, if we want to play the blame game, it’s really my fault for keeping you all in the dark about Doyle,” she pointed out. “Or Doyle’s fault for creating the whole mess. We can go even deeper. In a round about way, it’s really my mother’s fault I got into intelligence in the first place. We can all blame my mother! Trust me, it’s one of my favorite pastimes. It’s cathartic. Go ahead,” she encouraged.

Derek laughed. Even JJ cracked a smile.

“I really dislike your mother, so this is compelling,” deadpanned Hotch.

Emily chuckled. “Yeah, she hates you too buddy.” To the room at large she said, “I know we’re all going a bit crazy in here, but everything we’re feeling has to be secondary to the ultimate goal of getting out. I’ve been thinking about that, and-”

“Emily,” said Rossi, wet, half-washed shirt sitting discarded on the floor, forming a puddle.

Spencer hadn't even registered that he hadn't spoken or helped with the cleanup, caught up in the interpersonal drama as he was.

Emily looked at Rossi quizzically.

Spencer’s blood ran cold. It was crumpled from having been tossed across the room with the rest of the bag’s contents.

Rossi held a folded piece of paper in his hand. With it, a photograph, the edge of which was just sticking out between the folds. He offered it to Emily. “Sorry,” he said sympathetically. “Looks like you’re up.”

Chapter Text

They gave Emily all the time she needed and all the space they could afford her, meager as it was in the ever encroaching walls of the bunker.

Spencer tried not to be pissed off about it.

He tried not to resent how they let her sit in silence. They passed the note and the photo between them wordlessly. When it had been his turn to be strung up in the town square they had offered him no such courtesy.

They all waited for her to be the one to speak first and to offer whatever level of explanation she chose. How sweet. How respectful.

Realistically, he understood the difference. He had been physically ill. There was a real and immediate danger (beyond the real and immediate danger of being locked in a bunker by a serial killer, that is). They were all still reeling from the shock of the kidnapping. When they forced him into both a figurative and literal corner and pried his secrets from his clammy, trembling hands, they did so because they were afraid for him and for themselves.

God forbid they had just given him a second to breath before they’d cut him open and spilled his guts all over the floor.

He pinched at the skin on his wrist hard, banishing those thoughts.

Emily needed them. Needed him. Now wasn’t the time to get lost in petty musings. He was glad she wasn't being put through the same indignity he had been.

Rossi was sitting beside her, both of them against the far wall. He held her hand. Spencer got the feeling he knew something the rest of them didn’t.

Really, it wasn’t all that hard to piece it together. They had all met John Cooley on the exorcism case. They knew he had been a close friend of hers, along with the victim, Matthew Benton. They had all been young and reckless together in Rome when Emily was a teenager.

Spencer knew a thing or two about her youth. She had confided in him over the years as much as he had in her. Emily was private, sure. Even with him, even after all this time. But she was still one of his best friends.

He knew enough to understand why her decisions regarding John Cooley may not have been entirely level headed.

It had been what felt like hours but could have been minutes or days for all he could tell anymore. Occasionally, he looked up from his place where he sat on his much utilized, much too thin mattress, and caught JJ or Derek’s eyes. The two of them sat together on the opposite side of the room to him. They had come to a silent truce, but he was sure he hadn't heard the last of it.

A few times, he caught Hotch staring at him.

He often felt like Hotch was about to ask him a question but was never quite able to find the right words.

There were snippets of time where Hotch’s presence was familiar and comforting. Other times where it felt like the man was a stranger wearing Aaron Hotchner’s skin.

He wondered how Penelope was doing. She would be the one checking in on his mom, making sure she was coping. He wondered how Luke was doing. How much hell he was giving everyone who so much as breathed in an unhelpful way. He didn't need to wonder about Tara. She was calmer than anyone had any right to be under that kind of pressure and she wouldn't rest until they were safe.

They were alive and well and fighting every moment for their missing friends. He knew it. He knew it. He knew it.

“I know it was wrong,” said Emily.

Spencer wasn’t the only one to flinch at the broken silence.

“You don’t have to justify yourself, Emily,” said Rossi, squeezing her hand.

“I do,” she insisted. "You know if you had learned about this in any other circumstances you would demand an explanation."

He glanced at all the others. None of them said anything, but they shifted closer to Emily, just a little, listening.

She continued. “You all remember John?” They nodded. “After everything that happened with Father Silvano, with Matt, he struggled. I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming. With this job, I should know better than anyone how life changing it can be to go through something like that, even if you survive it. But John was always so stable. I should have known-” she stopped, breath hitching.

“You can’t blame yourself,” said JJ. “He could have asked for help. He had a family, right? And friends? You were barely in his life anymore. There's nothing you could have done,” she said gently.

“I should have checked in on him,” insisted Emily. “I’m the only one in his life who was in a position to understand. But that’s not the point,” she said before any of them could reassure her further. “He scheduled an email to be sent after… after he was gone. He wanted his family to think it was an accident. By the time I got it, it was too late for me to stop him. I knew his parents and his sister. I knew how much this would crush them,” she said, casting her eyes to the ceiling and blinking back tears.

“So you did what he asked,” Hotch finished solemnly. “You helped cover up his suicide.”

She nodded. “I know it was wrong, but I thought, if I could save his family even a tiny bit of pain and honor his last wish… at least it would be something.” She took a deep breath, letting Rossi put an arm around her. “I called in a very big favor. Made sure that the coroner’s report said accidental overdose as a result of a bad mix of prescribed medications. It was close enough to the truth to not raise red flags.”

Emily picked up the photograph that sat along with the Unsub’s note. It was a picture of her laying flowers at John Cooley’s grave. She had never even told any of them that he died.

She didn’t elaborate on the details of their history together. On the past that he was certain Rossi knew, and almost certain that he knew, and that the others may well have put together, too. It felt cruel to make her say it when the ever watchful camera loomed, so he had no intention of digging deeper.

“It’s not your fault he died,” Spencer said softly, drawing all attention to him.

She looked at him from across the room with her gleaming, red-rimmed eyes. “I should have seen that he needed help.”

“He didn’t want you to see,” he said, to her, to all of them.

“Why not?” she asked like she already knew the answer. "Why didn't he want me to see that he was struggling?"

“For the same reason you chose to risk your career rather than talk to any of us about this,” said Rossi, giving Spencer a tiny nod of understanding. “And the same reason I kept pushing you all away after Krystal died, and the same reason Gideon left without a word to anyone all those years ago: Life is hard. You could have seen he needed help. He could have asked for it. But that’s not how it went down and you aren’t at fault for that.”

She wiped under her eyes. She didn’t look entirely convinced, but she did give Rossi’s hand one more squeeze. They looked like brother and sister, thought Spencer, with their matching grey hair and dark eyes and bone deep trust for one another.

Silence reigned again, and again Spencer lost all track of time.

He didn’t want to be another one of Emily’s broken friends who pulled away from her and showed up dead one day.

Another Matt. Another John. Another loss for her to compartmentalize away and do her best to forget about.

He didn't want to be clean, either.

For all his genius, he couldn't find a way to reconcile these incompatible wants.

He didn’t flinch when Emily broke the silence this time.

“How could she have possibly known?” she said, eyes flicking up to the camera then back to all of them. “John wasn’t stupid. He covered his digital footprint with sending that email. He was no Garcia, but he knew a thing or two about cyber security, and I made sure I was covered on my end.”

“How much do you trust the person you asked for that favor?” posited Derek.

“Enough,” said Emily.

“So, either our Unsub is extremely technologically capable,” said JJ, “Or they are very, very good at getting people to talk.”

They all looked at each other.

As much as he was loathe to think it, the camera had started to feel normal to him. The red, blinking eye of a beast that never slept. He'd gotten somewhat used to it.

Suddenly, though, he felt as exposed as he had those first few days. He folded his arms tightly across his chest.

Just how deep was this Unsub capable of digging?

Not one of them looked like the were eager to find out.

“You said you had an idea,” said Derek. “Before Rossi found the letter?”

Emily sat up straighter. She pushed her hair back, face schooled, gesturing for them all to circle around.

They all shuffled across the room to her until they were huddled together tight. Emily spoke in a low whisper. They still weren’t sure the extent to which they were being audio recorded. None of them had found evidence of hidden microphones, but there was likely one built into the camera housing at the very least.

“Until now we’ve had to play nice because one of us needed medical care,” she started, and Spencer pushed down twisting embarrassment at what a burden he had been. “But now that you’re recovering, Spencer, I think it’s time to start fucking things up a bit,” she continued with a small twinkle in her eye. “Agreed?”

The corner of Spencer’s mouth twitched up. Any fights or dramatic reveals or horrible truths were a thing of the past.

“Agreed,” came a chorus of whispers.

The best way to catch an Unsub had always been to push them to make a move. The more they were forced to take action, the more likely they were to make a mistake.

As skilled as he was at thinking, Spencer couldn't stand when it was the only option available to him. It made him want to crawl out of his skin. If he saw a house on fire he could analyze the wind trajectory, the fuel composition, the optimal paths of ingress and egress, a hundred different variables. All that mental capacity, and it never changed the fundamental truth about him: He was always going to be the person that runs into the burning building without a second thought.

He needed to do something, anything.

Now was the time for action.

Chapter Text

JJ had been the first one to point it out. 25 or 26 hours in, while he had been shivering on the floor.

There was a door on the bathroom. "Oddly considerate," JJ had said. "Seems thematically inappropriate."

This Unsub was obsessed with exposure. With forcing them to be vulnerable. To be seen in the most confronting sense.

She wanted them to be stripped bare.

So why would she give them a door?

Why would she give them soap so they could wash themselves and their clothes? Why insist they don’t leave rubbish out?

Why structure all her rules around cleanliness?

Why lock them in a box, then afford them so many little dignities?

She wanted to break them down, piece by piece, and she had gone to extreme measures to make that happen. They were unanimous in their assessment that this Unsub was not a person who dealt in half-measures. So why was she holding back?

The answer was easy.

She wasn't doing it for them.

With that part of the profile settled, Emily's plan had become an obvious response.

They hadn’t risked pushing boundaries or breaking rules while Spencer had been too sick. He loathed it, the thought of all the time they're lost because of him. Now that he was better- still not healthy by any stretch, but not actively in acute withdrawal- it was time to test the waters and see what kind of response they could provoke.

The profile they had agreed on was this: She was meticulous, desperate for control, enacting detailed fantasies through them, yet actively hindering her own stated goals by providing them with comforts not essential to their survival.

She provided these comforts not for their sake, but because she was uncomfortable.

She was squeamish.

She wanted them to clean because she couldn’t handle the mess. She gave them a door because she didn't want to be reminded of their bodily functions.

She afforded them dignity because she was unable to stomach indignity.

She likely had a significant anxiety disorder, possibly with obsessive-compulsive features. They suspected she may have been raised in a highly conservative or religious environment, perhaps with an abusive parent who instilled a deep sense of shame for any behaviors or bodily functions perceived as unclean.

Much to Spencer's immense displeasure, the pathway to provoking a response was clear.

He was happy to have something to do. It felt good to have a goal. It felt even better to be united in that goal as a team. He and Derek had put their bickering to the side, and JJ was being warm with him again. It was good, he repeated to himself again and again. It was good.

But did it have to be so disgusting?

“You doing alright?” asked JJ sympathetically.

“I am fine,” he said through gritted teeth.

“It’s just that you’ve been staring at it for a long time. I don't think I've seen you blink for a while now.”

“Patulin is the most commonly found mycotoxin in fruits. It has the capacity to be carried on dust and airborne spores, which act as a delivery mechanism for the mycotoxin to reach the lungs, where it can cause acute respiratory symptoms, including hemorrhaging of the lung. Even if airborne mycotoxin exposure is statistically unlikely with this relatively low quantity of rotting fruit, mold exposure is still a very real concern, particularly in enclosed environments with limited ventilation,” he explained tensely. “It can cause respiratory distress, dysregulation of your immune system-”

“Spencer,” interrupted Emily. “I know it’s disgusting. Try not to think about it.”

He flicked his eyes away from the rotting pile of fruit scraps that sat in the middle of the room, over to Emily instead. “There are maggots, Emily,” he said, pained.

“Come on, Reid, I know you’ve got a thing about germs, but you have seen way worse than this,” said Derek. "You can handle this, man."

“Judging by the rate of deterioration and the visible emergence of the fruit fly larvae, it has been two to three days since we stopped returning our food scraps.” he said. "I had sincerely hoped that I would never end up locked up somewhere even more disgusting than prison. At least there they had waste disposal."

“She’ll break, Spence,” said JJ in a whisper. “You just need to not break first.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face, scratching a little at the patchy beard that was growing in. “I’m sorry," he said sincerely. "You’re all stuck in here too. It's just hard not to think about it.”

“Well then, how about we all forget about this for a minute,” said Rossi. “Everyone close your eyes.”

They all looked at him skeptically. He rolled his eyes and gestured at them all to just hurry up and do it.

Spencer watched as everyone else, sat scattered across the four walls of room in a vague square shape, reluctantly closed their eyes. The last ones left open were his and Hotch’s. Hotch met his gaze with an amused shrug, then closed his own.

Finally, Spencer did too.

“You’re not going to make us meditate?” asked Emily wearily.

“I wouldn’t even know how to begin with that. Now, please shut up until directed otherwise,” instructed Rossi cheerfully.

He could still smell the rotten fruit scraps, sickly and sweet with an earthy undercurrent of mold. Every inhale came with the mental picture of a thousand microscopic spores pouring into his lungs. He dug his nails into his forearms and focused on Rossi’s voice.

“Okay, now, I’m going to need everyone to take this extremely seriously,” said Rossi solemnly. “It is of the utmost importance, for our sanity and perhaps even our survival, that you answer honestly. Understood?” He was met with silence. “That was me giving you permission to speak. Are we understood?”

“For fuck sake Dave, just spit it out,” said Hotch of all people, earning a snort from Emily across the room.

“You asked for it,” said Rossi, milking the moment for all it was worth. “Fuck, marry, kill. FBI addition”

The uproar was immediate. They all opened their eyes, cries of “What is wrong with you?” and “You’re a child!” being hurled in his direction amongst amused yelps and bubbling laughter. Even Spencer couldn’t hold back a laugh.

Rossi held his hands up defensively. “Woah! You wanted a distraction, you got it! I didn’t realize you were all so prudish,” he teased.

“Alright,” said Emily, nodding her head. “I’m game.”

JJ shot her a mockingly scandalized look.

“If the boss is in, who am I to say no?” said Derek with a cheeky wink at Emily.

“Great,” said Rossi. “Now, everyone close your eyes again.”

With a lot of eyerolls and exasperated head shakes, everyone did as he asked. Spencer smiled to himself at the absurdity of it all.

“Why do our eyes need to be closed for this, exactly?” asked JJ.

“If you really want to stare at the garbage pile while we do this, be my guest,” said Rossi.

“Fair point.”

“Since you’re so eager, Rossi, how about you go first?” suggested Derek. “Fuck, marry, kill… Jenny Carlile in security, Marina Ferra from the comms department, and… Josie, you know, the one who worked the reception desk until about six months before I left.”

They all laughed at the list, but a laughter that came with a lot of audible cringing.

“Coming out swinging, I see,” said Rossi. “Well, those are three very beautiful, intelligent, lovely women, but kill Josie-”

“What!” yelled Derek. “You’re crazy, man!”

“You didn’t have to think about it!” said JJ indignantly. “What did she ever do to you?”

“Hey, who’s talking here!” said Rossi with a laugh. “I have nothing against Josie, she’s just too young for me. I prefer a woman with some life experience,” he said defensively. The answer seemed to placate the naysayers. He continued, “Marry Jenny. She seems so easy going. And fuck Marina, because, well, do I have to explain?”

Morgan huffed a laugh and hummed in a way that suggested Rossi absolutely did not have to explain. “I can’t argue with that.”

“Thank you. Now in the interest of gender equality and equal opportunity objectification, it’s your turn JJ.”

JJ groaned. “Okay, hit me.”

“Gary Renkin, Ricardo Perez, and… Daniel what’s-his-face from the basement.”

“The basement?” JJ chuckled. “Do you mean Daniel from IT?”

“Yeah, whatever they do down there. The guy who clearly doesn’t get enough sun.”

She laughed again. “Right, give a second... I pick… Marry Ric, because he’s a sweetheart. Fuck Gary. No, I won’t explain. And kill Daniel because an IT guy is a little redundant when you’re friends with Penelope.”

“You make a good point,” said Emily.

“You have to be logical about these things,” said JJ. “Speaking of which, Emily, I hope you're ready for some hard choices.”

“I am so ready,” said Emily. “But give me a real challenge.”

He snorted. She sounded genuinely competitive, and while he hadn’t played this game before, he gathered that it wasn’t one you could ‘win.’ His skin had almost stopped crawling from thoughts of the germs that were infesting every surface of the room.

“If you say so,” said JJ. “Luke, Matt, and Tara.”

The room erupted. Derek wolf whistled; Emily let out a loud “Oh come on!” and Rossi applauded the audacity. He thought he might have even heard a small laugh from Hotch. He smiled to himself.

“What?” yelled JJ, stifling a laugh. “You said you wanted a challenge!”

“How am I supposed to kill one of them?” lamented Emily.

A beat.

“You’re killing Luke, right?” said JJ as a statement, not a question.

“Yeah, obviously,” said Emily without pause. “Fuck Matt, marry Tara. Is there even another way to answer that?”

“What?” laughed Rossi. “What did poor Luke do to earn this?”

“Luke is great,” said Emily emphatically. “He’s just…”

JJ jumped in; “It would be like sleeping with your little brother.”

“That’s exactly it,” said Emily, clicking her finger. “I mean really, the right answer is to kill both Luke and Matt and just pick Tara. Have you seen her?”

“No, I think your first answer was right. That’s what I’m going with,” said JJ with a giggle. “What about you, Spence? Same question.”

He was glad to have his eyes closed as he felt his cheeks warming just a little. “Does it have to be them?” he asked in halfhearted protest.

“Oh, absolutely,” said Emily. “If I had to pick, so do you.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “Okay, so, just to be clear on the rules-” Derek groaned but he couldn't tell if it was affectionate or annoyed, so he ignored it “- these are all mutually exclusive categories? I mean, if you married someone, it would be likely that you would have an ongoing intimate relationship, so what’s the distinction between the marry and, uh, fuck options?”

“Have you never played this game before?” asked JJ.

“No?”

Was this common? Is this something he was supposed to be familiar with? Was this another one of those things that everyone with a normal adolescence had done? He suddenly felt self-conscious.

“For the sake of clarity,” said Emily, “let’s assume they are all mutually exclusive. Think of it as who you want to be emotionally intimate with and share a life with for marry, and who just want to… well, fuck is a fairly self-explanatory category.”

He appreciated that she didn’t make fun of him while she explained. He didn’t mind the teasing from the others. Not really. He teased them right back most of the time. But he didn’t like it when people made fun of him without actually explaining why.

“Thank you.” A beat. “Do I really have to choose?”

“Yes!” came the unanimous, exasperated shouts from everyone except Hotch, who was laughing in earnest now.

“Oh my god, fine! Fuck Luke, kill Matt, marry Tara,” he spat out without thinking.

There was a moment of silence.

He opened his eyes, realizing he must have been the last one to do so, as they were all staring at him. Five pairs of tired, dark-rimmed eyes looked at him from across a pile of rot.

“Interesting,” said Derek wryly.

“Care to explain your rationale?” asked Emily with a smirk.

He turned it over in his mind a moment. “I would prefer not to.”

“Because I have a theory that Luke is about 2 beers away from-”

“I would prefer not to,” he repeated more firmly.

She threw her hands up in surrender. They all made a point of not staring too hard.

It wasn't a discussion he was necessarily completely averse to having with them. He'd considered it in the past. Things were changing in the world and even, very slowly and incrementally, in the FBI itself.

It certainly wasn't a conversation he wanted to have in front of the ever-present camera.

Rossi swung his head around to Hotch. “Aaron, your turn to-”

“Absolutely not,” said Hotch in a tone that beggared no argument.

“Oh-kay then… New game-”

He was cut off by a clunking sound.

They all looked around the room, trying to figure out if they had heard the same thing. Spencer wasn't sure if he'd imagined it.

Then, another THUNK.

They looked at each other as if each of them was hoping to find reassurance from the others.

Spencer’s heart pounded so hard in his chest he thought he might pass out.

THUNK.

They looked to the roof.

A steady hiss emanated from above.

Out of the vent in the roof, he saw a wisp of something.

“Smoke,” said Derek, voice tight.

“No,” said Hotch, pushing himself to his feet. “Gas.”

For a moment, time froze.

Then all at once they activated.

They pushed themselves to their feet, with Derek throwing down a hand to help pull Spencer up. They grabbed discarded, filthy and unwashed shirts from the ground and tied them over their noses and mouths.

Hotch and Derek sprinted to the door, pulling at it as hard as they could, desperately trying to leverage it open.

Spencer stared, transfixed at the swirling mist that was filling the room from the roof downward.

“Get on the floor,” he said urgently. Or at least he thought he said, but nobody responded. He tried again, louder this time. “Get on the floor!”

They all froze, whipping their heads around to look at him.

He continued talking as he ran to the bathroom. “There’s no way out. Wet your mask, then get on the floor face down and slow your breathing as much as possible. We don’t have much time.”

He ripped off the shirt tied over his face and soaked it under the water running from the bathroom tap. He passed it behind him to JJ, who was standing the closest to him.

“What?” she breathed out, looking very much as if she was going into the early stages of shock, eyes glassy and confused.

“Give me your mask and put this one on.” He looked back at the rest of them. “Now! We have a minute at most! All you can do is try to minimize the amount you breath in and ensure you don’t hurt yourself by falling when you lose consciousness.”

Hotch stepped forward, guiding JJ to follow his instructions.

“Do what he says,” said Emily urgently, approaching him to help distribute the wet cloth.

They moved as quickly as humanly possible. As quickly as he had ever seen any of them move.

Even as he was wetting the last piece of what he thought was Rossi’s discarded button up shirt and tying it around his own face, the edges of his vision were fading.

He managed to half crawl to the ground until he was lying face down on the disgusting, dirty floor.

The sound of weak coughs and splutters rang in his ears as his vision blurred and blackened.

All he could see, somewhere across the room through the tunnel of his vision, was someone's chest. He couldn't tell whose, but it rose up and down, still breathing.

He held onto that image as long as he could. Whoever it was, they were still breathing.

Then…

Nothing.

Chapter Text

“Why me?”

Spencer blinked.

His head was spinning. He could have sworn he heard a voice.

“You're still worried about hearing voices?” the voice answered. “Seriously, man, why did you come to me? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to help. Just would’ve figured you’ve got better people to do this with.”

He looked up. A familiar face hovered above him, dancing in and out of his vision.

“What are you doing here?” asked Spencer.

He tried to sit up but his body was glued to the surface beneath him. He jerked forward but he couldn't pull himself free.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” said Ethan with a raised eyebrow.

He was on the shabby couch in Ethan’s small New Orleans apartment. He finally managed to pry himself loose and drag himself into a sitting position. The air was wet cement. The walls of the apartment expanded and contracted like lungs.

“I have nowhere else to go,” Spencer explained.

“Bullshit,” said Ethan. “You’ve got a whole team of people who care about you and plenty of savings to pay your way through a private rehab facility, and instead you’re sweating it out on the couch of some guy you’ve talked to all of once in the last half-decade.”

“Fine. If you don’t want me here, I’ll leave,” spat Spencer. "I wouldn't want to drag you down with my problems."

He tried to stand, but his wrists were tied with rough rope. The smell of rotting fish was thick in the air.

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” said Ethan affectionately. “It’s good to see you, though I wish for your sake it was under better circumstances. Besides," he pointed out, "you couldn’t get further than the front door without puking up half your body weight right now.”

Spencer pulled at his bound wrists. “Untie me!” he demanded. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“I'm not doing anything, Spencer. You’ve done this to yourself.”

“It’s not my fault!” he yelled, the smell of the rot turning his stomach. “I didn’t have a choice. I said no, I tried to stop it, I did everything I was supposed to do.”

The bindings wrapped tighter, snaking around his abdomen and up to his neck. They constricted around his throat painfully.

“How long before you can’t use that excuse anymore?” asked Ethan snidely, a tone that Spencer had rarely heard from him. “How many months after you killed Tobias before you finally admitted it wasn't him that kept sticking those needles in your arm? Fuck, man, 16 years later and you're more of a junkie than you've ever been. Whose making you do it this time?"

“Fuck you,” he growled. “You abandoned me! You left your whole future behind to go be a drunk in New Orleans. You have no right to judge me."

“You never asked me to stay.”

“You never cared what I wanted!”

“What? You wanted me to stay in the Academy? Join the BAU with you? Have a magical life getting kidnapped and tortured and hooked on drugs together? Spend romantic evenings in hotel rooms looking at photos of mutilated bodies?"

Spencer pulled against the restraints again, and again they resisted. "I never said that. I never wanted that. You were my only real friend and I was worried you were throwing your life away," he explained. "That's all."

Suddenly, Ethan was knelt beside him. He was laying down on the couch again. The ropes that had entangled him melted away. He was shaking, sweating, the cushions were a bed of nails beneath him. Ethan shushed him gently, wiping a cool cloth over his forehead. “You’re gonna be alright. I’m glad you came to me.”

Spencer blinked hard.

He stared into Ethan’s gentle eyes. “I don’t think I’m getting out of this alive,” he admitted in a whisper. “I need my friends to be safe. They have to make it out, no matter what happens to me.”

“Do you think we could have had something?” asked Ethan as if he hadn’t heard Spencer talk. “If the world wasn't such a fucked up place for anyone a little too different, do you think we would’ve had a chance at something real?”

Spencer swallowed down a painful lump in his throat. “I don’t know.”

“We could try now,” said Ethan, putting a hand on his cheek. “Maybe this is our chance.”

“That’s not what you said,” Spencer breathed. “I remember. This isn’t how it happened. You helped me, then we said goodbye, and we never talked about any of this.”

“But it’s what you wanted me to say.”

“No.” Spencer rolled over on the thin mattress. Ethan knelt beside him in the brightly lit bunker. “That's not what I wanted.”

“Then why are you here?” asked Ethan. Spencer didn’t look at him. “You spent so long scared of losing your mind, you didn't even realize you never had it to begin with.”

Ethan’s hand enveloped Spencer’s. Their fingers intertwined.

When Ethan’s hand pulled away, there was a cool, smooth object left behind.

“I know what you want,” said Ethan.

Spencer looked down at his hand.

A loaded syringe rested on his palm.

He stared up at Ethan, who had drifted to the back of the cavernous, concrete room. The buzz of the fluorescent lights echoed, and the blinking red camera sat at the periphery of his vision no matter which direction he looked.

“I don’t want it,” said Spencer desperately, holding the syringe of swirling gas aloft.

“You've never wanted anything more than this.”

When he looked again, Ethan was gone.

He looked down at his arm. It was unmarked, smooth and fresh without even the faintest hint of old, scarred over track marks. It hadn’t looked like that since Georgia. There was a tourniquet tied around his upper arm.

The needle was pressed against the crook of his elbow.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief. Every muscle in his body relaxed. The world was about to be right again.

He placed his thumb on the plunger, depressing it slowly like he had a thousand times before.

The gas traveled up through the veins in his arm, making its way closer and closer to his heart.

Something was wrong. He coughed. He felt the gas spreading inside him, burning everything it touched.

His throat was raw and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't catch his breath. He gasped for air, but got none.

What had he done? What had he done to himself? He was never going to breath again and it was all his fault!

Then: Awake.

His eyes burned as he pried them slowly open. He flinched back against the light, blinking slowly in an attempt to adjust.

“Spence, it’s okay, we’re here,” came a soft voice from somewhere beside him.

A hand rubbed gentle circles on his back.

He finally managed to adjust to the horrible fluorescent light. JJ was leaning over him, staring at him with wide, worried eyes.

“You’ve been out for hours,” said Emily from somewhere nearby. “We’ve been checking your vitals and keeping an eye on you, but we didn’t want to force you awake.”

He looked up and saw the rest of them lingering behind JJ.

He could have cried from relief, and very nearly did.

“You’re all okay,” he said, closing his eyes tightly to stave off the tears.

Derek huffed a laugh. “You’re worried about us? Man, I was scared you were never going to wake up,” he said with a watery smile.

Spencer cringed. All at once, his senses lit up. The others leaned in with concern as his hand flew up to his throat, feeling for injury. He swallowed and tried to clear his throat, triggering a rough cough. After a second of coughing he had to fight back an immense wave of nausea.

“What’s wrong?” asked Hotch. “Are you injured?”

He shook his head helplessly. He rubbed at his throat and couldn’t feel any external signs of injury, but he felt as if he’d swallowed glass. “I don’t know.”

“Let me take a look,” he said, leaning past JJ and kneeling beside him.

Spencer pushed himself up into a sitting position on the hard concrete floor. Hotch reached out and touched his throat, looking at it intently and feeling for any signs of damage. He was gentle in a way that made Spencer think back to Jack’s seventh birthday party. He had fallen and grazed his knee and the only thing in the world that could have consoled him in that moment was his dad.

“I can’t see any signs of damage,” said Hotch, pulling his hands away. “It could be a side effect from the gas. You were out a lot longer than the rest of us. It’s possible you had a bad reaction.”

He could feel the tremor in his hands, the sweat beading on his brow. The swirling nausea. If felt like one of his worse comedowns, or like the tail end of detox. Except, that didn’t explain the pain in his throat.

“Not to mention, we don’t know how long we were all unconscious or what happened during that time,” said Derek, arms folded tightly across his chest, expression carefully controlled.

For the first time, Spencer noticed their clothes.

None of them were in the same clothes they’d been in when they first arrived. He looked down at himself. Light blue scrubs, like the kind you would see in a hospital. Crisp and clean.

His stomach dropped.

He was clean. His clothes had been changed. The Unsub had cleaned him. He touched his face, feeling the smooth skin along his jaw. She had even shaved him.

Another look at Derek and his stomach dropped even further. As freaked out as he was, he could only imagine what kind of feelings this was triggering for his friend.

Derek seemed to piece together what he was thinking. “I’m good,” he said firmly. “Don’t worry about me.”

That last part sounded less like a reassurance and more like a command.

Spencer let it drop. He was hardly in a position to judge anyone else for not sharing. It’s not as if this was a safe space for any of them to unpack their trauma.

He turned his attention to the rest of the bunker. The others backed up, giving him room to see.

Not that there was much to look at.

The mattresses were gone. Their little luxuries and amenities were gone. The entire bunker smelled strongly of disinfectant. He hated how much of a relief that was to him after the smell of mold.

Oh god. He groaned audibly when his eyes hit the empty doorway where the bathroom door had once been.

“Yep,” said Emily mournfully. “Still trying to process that loss.”

“Of all the experiences in prison I had hoped to never repeat again, this was pretty high on the list,” he said, voice raspy and raw but thankfully getting through the sentence without coughing. He looked to the rest of them. “Do any of you remember anything at all?”

All eyes flicked over to JJ. They had already had this discussion amongst themselves, it seemed.

“It’s difficult to say for sure,” she said cautiously. “I was pretty out of it, but I think I came to at one point. Wherever I was, it wasn’t here. And… I think I heard two voices. One feminine, one masculine.” Spencer nodded. They had speculated that their Unsub had an accomplice. She was likely the dominant one in the pair with a male companion who did her bidding. “They must have dosed me right afterwards, though. I don’t remember anything else,” she finished.

“We all have marks,” said Rossi. “Same as the ones we came in with. The gas would have knocked us out temporarily, but they must have used injections to maintain it. She doesn’t like to deviate her methods, it seems. Not surprising.”

Spencer felt the spot just behind his ear. It was easy to miss, but there was a tiny bump that was just a bit swollen.

“Do you think it’s the same formula as last time?” asked Derek with a raised eyebrow.

He mulled it over, a little irritated that he was becoming something of a human narcotic testing strip for them. Never mind that he had a PhD in chemistry. It was his expertise in being a junkie that gave them such faith in his ability to identify whatever drug cocktails they had all been injected with.

“I don’t know. If I’ve been unconscious as long as you say, then whatever was in my system is likely cleared out. All I know for sure is that I feel terrible.” He sighed. “It's likely. It would explain why-” he stopped to cough, trying to clear his throat, “- why I’m experiencing more acute withdrawal symptoms again.”

Though he would never admit it out loud to anyone, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being disappointed that he hadn’t been conscious to experience getting shot up. He was saddled with all of the horrible side effects, and he didn’t even get to experience the high. It felt unfair, and he knew exactly how pathetic it was that he felt that way.

Hotch put a hand on his shoulder, which surprised him. “You’ll be alright. It will pass faster this time,” he assured him.

Derek also gave him a sympathetic smile, though how sincere that sympathy was, Spencer wasn’t sure. He’d stopped commenting on it while they had all been stewing in filth together, but he knew he was still upset with him.

“Any speculation on the compound we were gassed with?” Derek asked. “I’ve never encountered a gas that can induce unconsciousness in a whole room full of people like that.”

Spencer perked up. This was a subject that was actually of some interest to him. “Contrary to what movies portray, incapacitating agents that can reliably induce non-lethal unconsciousness in an uncontrolled setting don’t exist. In the case of-” he coughed, struggling to speak through the pain, “-the Moscow theater siege in 2002, the Russian authorities rendered a theater of 800 people unconscious in order to stop a terrorist attack, using a Fentanyl derivative. It was extremely effective, yet 15% of the hostages died as a result of the gas. In our case, my guess would be that they used a compound with a substance similar to Halothane as the primary component.”

He took a break from speaking to double over and have a coughing fit in earnest, searing pain on the inside of his throat leaving him gasping for air. The others rushed to him, helping him as he curled up on the floor, struggling to breath.

Once he finally caught his breath, he looked back up at Hotch. He cleared his throat a couple of times, keeping his voice low and soft when he spoke.

“I think you were right about me having a bad reaction. Controlling the dose of an aerosolized anesthesia in a large space is nearly impossible. I was the last to get my mask on. I must have inhaled too much,” he ground out, stopping to suppress another coughing fit. “I think I was intubated.”

They all looked at him with wide eyes. It made sense. It would explain the pain in his throat. He must have gotten a big enough dose to cause toxicity and require temporary intubation. It would also explain why he was so much more affected than the others. Why he took so long to wake up.

It was difficult to read all of their expressions. He thought they looked upset. Horrified? Concerned? Afraid?

“This tells us something we didn’t know before,” said Emily, squaring her shoulders, refusing to dwell too long in a nightmare that none of them could even remember. “Access to that much Halothane, or any other powerful anesthetic, combined with the knowledge and skill to perform an intubation, means-”

“At least one of our Unsubs works in the medical field,” finished JJ.

“This is good,” said Rossi. “We did all of this to learn more, and it worked.”

Spencer looked around at the empty, cold concrete. He had the same thought that he was sure they all had.

Sure, it worked. But at what cost?

Chapter Text

It was strange how rapidly time had lost all sense of meaning. Days ceased to exist. Hours, minutes, none of it meant anything.These words had been repeated devoid of context or reference so many times they had become completely divorced from the concepts they represented.

He had come to conceptualize of time in the form of bags of fruit.

All that existed in the world was the intervals between fruit deliveries. Those dire stretches of waiting to see if the next thing to come through that door would be doom, or just another bag with too much citrus and not enough apples.

He never thought he would miss fruit again. In fact, he strongly suspected that after leaving the bunker (if they ever did), none of them would ever eat another piece of fresh fruit as long as they lived.

Yet here he was, longing for it.

Since waking up in the stripped bare and scrubbed clean bunker, the clock had stopped.

There had been no more fruit.

Not a single delivery by which to set their metaphorical watches.

Time was transmogrifying once again, warping to fit the shape of this new reality.

It was stretching thin like a long piece of thread. The longer the thread pulled, the hungrier they all got. Once the thread pulled taught and snapped… Well, he didn’t want to think too much about it.

He knew all the theory behind starvation. He did not want to apply this knowledge in practice.

After a week (a week? 14 bags of fruit) in the bunker, they had given up the idea of sleeping in shifts. For the sake of their own sanity, they had decided it was necessary to maintain a routine. Some bastardized semblance of night and day under the endless fluorescent light.

How strange to yearn for the sense of safety they had back then, before the gas. He vowed to never again think ‘it couldn’t be worse,’ because it could be. It always could be.

They had once again taken to sleeping in shifts.

Each of them was desperate to be alerted the very moment food was delivered through that horrid, immovable door. If it ever was again.

They wanted someone awake at all times to look for the trickle or gas from the vent. If it happened again while they were all asleep, they wouldn't be able to cobble together their makeshift masks and protect themselves in some small way.

None of them wanted to have what happened to him, happen to them.

His throat didn't hurt much anymore, at least. He wished he could say the same for his stomach.

It was himself and Emily that were on watch this time. The others slept on the far side of the room, away from the door. He sat nearer the door while Emily paced back and forth. It took a while for the others to fall still and slip into a deeper sleep. They were, understandably, not particularly relaxed.

The cold concrete floor didn’t make for a comfortable bed. Thin, crappy mattresses: Another luxury of days gone by that he found himself dreaming of.

At last, Emily stilled her pacing and looked across at their companions. They had both kept as silent as they could for…. Hours? Minutes? The time it takes for a partially eaten apple to turn an unappetizing brown?

Whatever criteria she had been looking for to assure herself they were in a deep enough sleep, she apparently saw it.

She sat beside him, knees pulled up to her chest, and spoke softly. The room was big enough you could scarcely hear a whisper from the other side even when you were trying, so there wasn’t much danger of bothering them.

“I’m going out of my mind,” she said urgently. “It feels so stupid to say it, as it’s clearly the least of our problems, but I am so bored I could tear my hair out.”

“I understand,” he said. “There are only so many games of mental chess I can play before I start mentally flipping the board.”

She snorted, then hushed herself with a sheepish glance at the others. He smiled.

They were silent again for a moment. It was kind of nice to have some time with her without the others watching. She was the only one who never made him feel pitied.

Soon, though, in as little time as it would take to peel an orange, something in the silence shifted.

He glanced over and saw her her eyes fixed on him, looking as if she had something she wanted to say.

He was tempted to cut her off before she had a chance. He was so sick of everyone trying to make him talk.

He sighed.

He was too tired and too hungry and too bored and too lonely.

“What is it?” he asked quietly.

Her gaze softened. “Why didn’t you talk to me?”

He stared at her, deliberately blank. “About what?”

“Don’t be an asshole,” she said, elbowing him in the ribs lightly.

He smirked. “No really, is there something specific on your mind? Something in particular about me that has you concerned? I wouldn't know.”

She punched him in the upper arm, this time not so lightly. “You’re such a bitch sometimes, do you know that?”

She shoved him and he shoved her back. He leaned his head against the wall with a soft laugh. For a moment they both just breathed.

“Why didn’t you talk to me about John Cooley?” asked Spencer. “He died a year and half ago and I didn’t even know.”

“Because I felt guilty and ashamed,” she admitted candidly. “And because you weren’t around for me to talk to. You haven’t been for a while now.”

He looked down at the floor. “You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said earnestly.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” she said. “Just… You know I’m not judging you, right? I’m worried about you, sure, but I don’t think any less of you. Even if you never get clean, I still love you.”

“I know,” he said softly. A beat. “Why? Why aren’t you judging? Everyone else is.”

She didn’t try to convince him otherwise. They both knew he was right. The others might love him, and a couple of them might try to convince him they weren't judging, but they couldn’t help it. It changed the way they saw him, and he understood why. It changed the way he saw himself.

After a while, Emily said, “I think you and I are alike in a lot of ways. I don’t have to tell you that I’ve made some self-destructive choices in my time. I think... I don’t know… I think I want people to know me? Really know me. But I only show them the parts I want them to see, never the full picture. Then, I feel hurt that they don’t really understand me even though I never gave them the chance. Sound familiar?”

He looked her up and down. He thought about all the times he resented them all for not understanding what he was struggling with. He thought about how much more he resented them when they tried to talk to him about it.

He nodded.

He asked: “What would you have done if I had come to you with this?”

“I would have tried to help you.”

“Help me stop using?”

She mused on that for a second. “Yes, but also helped you get whatever support you needed to address why you’re using in the first place,” she said evenly.

“And if I told you I didn’t want that?”

She tilted her head thoughtfully. One of the others stirred for a moment but settled quickly. “I would have told you that you couldn’t work on cases anymore until you addressed the problem,” she admitted. “It’s not safe. You know that.”

He nodded again. “That's what I thought. That's also why I haven't come back to the BAU yet. I wasn't ready to choose. Being a profiler, or…” he left the other option unsaid.

“And now? Do you know what you want?”

“I want,” he said, “for all of us to get out of this bunker.”

“After that?”

He looked at her, wanting to reassure her. To give her some small ray of hope and promise her that he wanted to change. But she knew him too well and he respected her too much to pretend, so he said nothing.

The furrow of her brow informed him that she understood his silence all too well.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, Spence, but… you know you’re not okay, right? I mean,” she gestured broadly at the room, “obviously none of us are okay. But aside from all this. Whether or not you choose to get help, you do recognize that this isn’t a good way to live?”

His stomach twisted. “I don’t know.” It's not as if his life had been better when he was clean. He didn’t want to think too much about it.

"Heroin, Spencer. You know the risks. I get it, it's more economical than medical grade pharmaceuticals. I bet a habit is hard to support while you're also paying for your mothers care, even on a salary like yours. It adds up." He wanted to yell at her to stop profiling him, to stop talking, but all he could do was look at his hands as he wound them together absently. She powered on, "It could be cut with anything. You can only be so careful."

"What do you want me to say?" he whispered.

“I don't know. I guess I just want to understand. Do you… do you want to die?”

He felt a jolt in his chest, as if he was falling. Her voice sounded small. Frightened. Desperately unlike the Emily Prentiss he knew.

“No,” he assured her. “I am not suicidal. I'm not John. You don't have to worry about that."

“Do you want to live?”

A beat.

Did he? Of course he did. Of course he wanted to live. “Yes,” he said, knowing immediately that it had taken him too long to say it.

She frowned. “One last one, and this might be the hard one,” she said. “Would you still want to live if you couldn’t get high anymore?”

A beat.

“I-” his breath hitched. “I don’t think this is really the time or the place for this conversation,” he said shortly, a lump forming in his throat.

A hand entangled itself in his and squeezed gently. He stared at the far wall, blinking back moisture that threatened to spill. After a few seconds, a head came to rest on his shoulder.

“Just promise me you won’t disappear on me when we get out of here. Let’s keep talking, even when neither of us have anything good to say,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes. When we get out. Maybe he could believe it if he just tried hard enough. “I promise.”

They sat together in silence for... a minute? An hour? The time it takes to eat half a bag of fruit?

His head was lolling down, eyes heavy, when Emily’s hushed voice jolted him back into alertness.

“So,” she started with a conspiratorial whisper, “would you really fuck Luke? Because you did not have to think about that answer at all.”

“Shut up,” he snapped back, burying his face in his hands. “It was just a game.”

She smiled wryly. “Do you like like him?” she goaded.

He laughed just a little too loud. Emily hushed him and he rushed to stifle it. They looked over to their sleeping friends. A couple of them stirred briefly but did not wake.

Spencer replied in a careful whisper, “No. You’re being childish.”

She narrowed her eyes, assessing him coolly. “But you would sleep with him, wouldn’t you?”

It wasn’t a question.

"Is it too late to go back to talking about my drug use?"

"Yep! We're talking about this now. Answer the question."

He didn’t know how to respond, so he just shrugged. Apparently, it was all the answer she needed. Her eyes widened.

“I knew it!” she exclaimed victoriously, followed instantly by slapping her hand over her mouth.

A series of groans emanated from across the room. Hotch was the fastest to his feet, followed by Derek, both looking at Emily questioningly, poised as if ready to fight.

“What do you know? What’s happening?” asked Derek, rubbing his eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” said Emily sheepishly while Spencer laughed at her. “I didn’t mean for that to be so loud. Everything is fine please go back to sleep,” she insisted.

“Too late for that,” said JJ, stretching her arms above her head and yawning.

“Did something happen?” asked Rossi. “Any new deliveries?”

“No,” said Emily to a room full of discouraged, gaunt faces. “Just Spencer and I talking shit."

“Oh yeah?” said Derek with a slanted smirk, glancing between Emily and Spencer. “What were you talking about that’s got you so worked up?”

Emily met Spencer’s eyes for a fraction of a second. He hoped it was enough for her to understand. This was not the setting in which he wanted to have that conversation.

“We were talking about the most trouble we ever got in at school,” she said without missing a beat. “I always knew Spencer was more of a troublemaker than he lets on.”

“Why am I not surprised?” said Derek with a laugh.

“Well, let’s hear it then,” prompted Rossi, still bleary eyed.

“It’s not that bad,” Spencer said, glad that Emily had provided a deflection he could work with so easily. “I was suspended one time in an otherwise exceptional academic career.”

“What could you have possibly done that was bad enough to make them suspend you? The positive media attention you must have been bringing the school would have been invaluable. I would have thought you could get away with anything," said JJ, her old public relations training never too far below the surface.

It was true. Prodigious geniuses could bring a lot of additional funding and opportunities for schools. That didn’t necessarily mean his teachers liked him or felt particularly protective of him.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” he prefaced. “It was right before I graduated, after I’d received early admission from Cal Tech. There were some older kids at school who had given me a hard time for the past few years,” to put it mildly, “and since I was going to be leaving, I decided I may as well…” he waved his hand in the air, trying to conjure the right words.

“Fuck up their shit?” Derek supplied.

Spencer smiled. “Pretty much. Most of them were preparing for their final exams and I found out that they had paid to access answer keys for some of the tests. My plan was to find out who they were getting the answer keys from and swap out the documents with incorrect keys,” he explained.

“That is a very you approach to vengeance,” said Rossi.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t quite go to plan. I found out their source was from the high school that a friend of mine attended. When I asked my friend for help, he, uh, had some other ideas about how I should be getting back at them. He’d had some similar problems with kids at his own school, but he wasn’t graduating quite as early as me, so I think he was trying to get some vicarious catharsis, maybe.”

Hotch cocked his head. “Ethan,” he said, and Spencer’s stomach twisted. “I remember you talking about him.”

The others nodded in recognition. Emily tilted her head at him curiously. He was sure they all remembered him talking about Ethan, as it was followed very quickly by him absconding from his duties to go visit his old friend during the Ripper case in New Orleans.

“Yeah. Ethan wasn’t as, how should I say this? Reserved, as I was. He thought I should take more extreme measures and I might have let him talk me into it,” he said sheepishly.

“What did you do?” asked Emily, leaning in, apparently forgetting that she was pretending that she’d already heard this story right before waking the others.

Nobody seemed to notice. Or maybe they did, but just didn’t care.

“We- well, the plan was we were going to break into school at night and put, um…” he didn’t want to say it. “This is so embarrassing. We were going to put marijuana in their lockers and then tip off the principal to do a search.”

JJ gasped. “That is devious,” she said with mock indignation.

"Man, with everything you've told me about those assholes, they probably deserved a lot worse than that," said Derek, shaking his head.

“Weren’t you 12 when you graduated high school? How did you even know where to get pot?” asked Emily.

“I didn’t,” he clarified. “I mean, it's Vegas, so it wouldn't have been difficult, but Ethan was the one driving the whole thing. All he had to do was steal it from his father.”

“So how is it that two geniuses with a perfect plan and a thirst for vengeance manage to screw up badly enough to get suspended?” asked Derek, eyes brighter than Spencer had seen them since they had woken up after the gas.

“It would have gone off without a hitch. I was picking the padlocks; Ethan was keeping lookout. I was terrified the entire time, but honestly? It was exciting to feel like I was finally able to fight back. Unfortunately, Ethan hadn’t accounted for just how much of a bastard his father was.”

The others seemed surprised at Spencer describing someone in that way, let alone his friend's father. They wouldn’t be surprised if they had met the man. Spencer didn’t think of himself as a judgemental person, but bastard was a mild description of Ethan’s father.

Hotch grimaced. “I suspect I know where this is going.”

Of course he did. Ethan would like Hotch, he thought. The two of them had a lot in common despite their contrasting personalities.

“His father reported us to the police. I still don't know what he told them, but they caught us trespassing on school grounds after hours. We got lucky and heard them coming just in time to run for the bathroom and flush the remaining evidence. They didn’t think to do a sweep of the lockers and the boys who we were trying to set up certainly weren't going to report drugs in their lockers."

The memories came to him as they always did; crisp and clean as if it had all happened yesterday. Ethan was wearing a thick blue jumper even though it was warm out. The taller police officer was named Michael Diaz and he laughed when Spencer begged him not to tell his mom, then called her anyway.

"Oh god,” he breathed. He was surprised by the pang of shame that shot through his heart. “I was so afraid of what my mom was going to think. They were going to tell her that we were there to get high and I was scared she wouldn't believe me when I told her the truth,” he said tightly, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t want her to think that I could be stupid enough to do something like that.”

The irony wasn’t lost on any of them. Suddenly, the story didn’t seem so funny.

It had seemed so obvious to him at that age. Right and wrong were as easy as asking himself, would this disappoint my mom?

He could tell them how the story ended.

Ethan willingly took the blame for everything before Spencer could say a word and got hit with a misdemeanor charge for trespassing. Thankfully, that was all they could prove. He was a juvenile first-time offender with a glowing academic record, so the case was dismissed, but that didn’t stop his father from beating the shit out of him for it.

Spencer’s mom didn’t pick up the phone when the police tried to call her, so officer Diaz drove him home. When the school sent a letter informing her that he was suspended, he tore it up and told her he was feeling too sick to go in. She never questioned it. She just seemed happy to have him home.

He could tell them all of that.

But he didn’t need to.

It was hard to look back at that 12 year old boy and imagine how he could become the kind of man who his mother would be ashamed of if she only knew the truth.

“Did you ever talk to your mom about what happened in Georgia? About everything that came after?” asked JJ gently.

“Of course not,” he answered quickly. “What good would that do?”

“It might make you feel better,” she offered. “I think she would understand.”

“She already worries about me so much. She’s not well. It wouldn’t help anything to worry her more.” She would probably forget it right after he told her, anyway. He sighed. “I hope someone’s checking in on her.”

“I’m sure Penelope is,” said Emily, setting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure the others are looking out for all of our families,” she said to the room. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but we’re going to be okay. You're going to see them again. I promise you; we’re going to make it out of this.”

Hotch nodded at her, a gesture of support. “Emily is right. I know we’re all exhausted and scared and hungry, but we know that there are people on the outside who are looking for us. We have to trust them to do their jobs.”

"It's not gonna matter much if we starve in here," said Derek ruefully.

“The thing about hunger,” said Rossi, “is that sooner than later it’s going to fuck with your head in ways you don’t expect. But it won’t last forever. It doesn’t fit the profile for her to starve us and if we're right about either her or her accomplice having medical training, then they won't let it go too far. As hard as it sounds, we have to try to keep morale up, and the best way to deal with hunger is distraction. So let’s cut it with the melancholy and find a way to keep ourselves entertained. Reid,” he said. Spencer stared at him questioningly. “Have you ever considered narrating an audiobook?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“No?”

Audiobooks were not his preferred medium. He found them unbearably slow.

“Too bad. Because I think a good book is just what the situation calls for and as the only one of us with an eidetic memory, you’ve drawn the short straw.”

Spencer couldn’t help but crack a small smile, doing his best impression of a man who wasn't hollow inside. “As long as I get to choose the book.”

“Naturally.”

The thread of time stretched longer, pulled taught, crept ever closer to breaking. He hungered. It gnashed and gnawed, making his stomach turn and his forearm itch and he couldn't say for sure which hunger he would satisfy first if he had the choice.

But he pushed it down. In his mind, he ran his finger along a row of books in a vast library, and thought about what story would best bring them all a little comfort.

Chapter Text

"She hasn’t got anything! She’s fishing to see what she can get us to admit to. I don’t know how you can’t see that,” said Rossi in exasperation.

“This is the same person who managed to track me down in wit-sec, Dave, I don’t think we should underestimate her,” pointed out Hotch. "Even if you're right, which I agree is a possibility, what's our alternative?"

“She isn’t going to let us starve,” countered Rossi. “If we start giving her personal information that she may not already have, all we’re doing is weakening our position.”

“Dammit, Rossi, how much weaker can our position get?” snapped Derek. “If I die of starvation because you’re too proud to tell us what you’re hiding I am going to track you down in the afterlife and kill you again. I don't care about your pride more than I care about getting home to my kids.”

“I’m an old man, alright? I’ve got at least a dozen things that fall into the ‘I’m never talking about this with anyone’ category. I don’t even know how to narrow it down,” said Rossi, throwing up his hands dramatically.

“So tell us all of it,” insisted Derek.

Rossi scoffed and said something in Italian that Spencer didn't understand, but could only assume was cursing of some kind.

Spencer sighed, standing in the corner, watching them bicker.

He had been halfway through The Shipman’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales when the door had clunked. The others had shot up like lightning, gathering around the portal like pathetic mewling kittens waiting for feeding time; thin, weak, desperate.

He had hovered at the back of the group, watching. It's not that he wasn't as hungry as the rest of them. Perhaps he just lacked the capacity to hope like they did, because he had known, somehow, that it wasn't going to be food coming through that chamber.

All that had passed through was a note.

JJ had read it out. “You have all been bad and broken the rules, but I know how to forgive. Are you hungry yet? If you want to prove to me that you are well behaved, Agent Rossi will tell you what he is hiding.”

Things had quickly devolved from there.

“Come on, Rossi,” said Emily. “It will be something recent. Something big. Likely something you have been actively trying to conceal. I know you know what she wants you to say. I could see it on your face as soon as you heard the note.”

“Look at what Emily and Spence had to go through,” said JJ. “You’re not the only one this is happening to. We have to eat. It’s the first rule of survival when held captive. You have to eat whenever you can."

“What if I spill every detail of my personal life to you and then she doesn’t feed us anyway, because I don’t know what the fuck she wants me to say?”

“Then I guess we’re taking your secrets to the grave, so what the fuck does it matter?” countered Derek.

“Dave, we don’t want to hear this anymore than you want to say it,” said Hotch. “Can we please just get this over with?”

Rossi glanced at Spencer from across the room. “Nothing to say?” he asked, maybe hoping he would defend him, maybe needing him to confirm that they were all against him.

Everyone looked at him.

He shrugged. “I…” he’d opened his mouth without knowing what he wanted to say, “… don’t care.”

There was a drawn out pause as the others all tilted heads and raised eyebrows. He folded his arms across his chest and offered nothing else.

“Very helpful, thank you,” deadpanned Rossi.

They all turned back to their bickering, ignoring him.

He tuned it out.

They had made it through War and Peace, Slaughterhouse 5, Gravity’s Rainbow, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy before finally getting onto The Canterbury Tales. The hungrier they all got, the less they talked. The less they moved.

They listened to Spencer recite stories for them for as long as he could until his voice broke or they all fell into a fitful, uncomfortable facsimile of sleep.

He didn’t mind. It was a nice little break from reality. Before he had narcotics, he had books. One certainly wasn't a replacement for the other, but it was an opportunity to be anywhere but in his own head, so he wasn't complaining.

As their bickering turned into a wordless blur of aggression in the background, he wondered if the empty feeling in his bones was hunger, or something else. He really meant what he said. He didn’t care. He didn’t care if Rossi ever talked. He didn’t care if they ever ate again.

Since detox, his emotions had swung wildly between anger, grief, and anxiety, crushing sadness, and the constant burning need to scratch an impossible itch.

Slowly, all the rest of it had been slipping away until the only thing left was emptiness and the itch.

It was just as likely the malnutrition and inevitable vitamin D deficiency as anything else.

He wasn't the only one who was being a little stranger than usual. JJ had half an eyebrow almost missing from where she kept pulling at it, and scabs on her knees where she was picking at her skin.

Derek had been crying in his sleep. Not crying instead of sleeping, but literally crying while in REM sleep. A constant stream of silent tears. Spencer had never seen him cry like that, ever. They all silently agreed not to tell him he was doing it.

Spencer was broken from his reverie by a loud and exasperated “Alright! Just shut the fuck up! I’ll talk,” from Rossi. “I still think this is a stupid fucking idea. If we wait, she’ll at least give us another note with something more specific-” he held up a hand to stop the others from interrupting, “If you want me to freely give her information she may not already have so that she can use it against us, then so be it.”

“I just want to eat, Dave,” said JJ sadly. “Derek's not the only one who wants to stay alive to see their kids again.”

His eyes softened. “I know.” He looked at the group. “Okay, gather round kids, time for ol’ Dave to self-flagellate in the town square.”

Rossi sat on the floor, not too far from Spencer. The others all formed something of a circle, arranging themselves in such a way as to include him, whether he wanted to be or not.

He sat down and crossed his legs, just like he used to do when his mom would read to him as a kid.

Rossi sighed. “Fine, alright. If I had to guess, which I do, then I would say our Unsub is most likely referencing some financial issues,” he said cagily. They all stared at him, waiting for him to continue. He sighed again. “Keep in mind, my wife had just died. As you are all aware- well, most of you,” he said with a glance at Hotch, “I was not in a particularly good headspace.”

“To put it mildly,” said Emily.

“Exactly. So, I may have been a little irresponsible when looking for emotional outlets. Now, I enjoy a bit of poker-”

Hotch scoffed. “How much money did you lose, Dave?"

“Who’s telling the story here?” sniped Rossi. “Anyway, it’s not like that. I’m still rich,” he said dismissively. “Unfortunately, the people who are trying to extort me know that I have money to spare and it’s proving to be a motivating factor.”

“What?” shouted Emily, as Hotch put his face in his hands exhaustedly and Derek and JJ boggled.

“Calm down,” said Rossi. “It is not that big a deal. I was- and again I want to point out that I had just lost Krystall- a bit careless. I got involved in an underground poker game that a friend of a friend put me onto and,” he cleared his throat awkwardly, “one particularly tense night, one of them wanted to up the ante. I’d had a few drinks and was feeling particularly depressed and sorry for myself. And I will remind you, this all happened before the Voit case. I am, well, was, in a better place. Prior to being stuck in this bunker, obviously.”

“Oh my god, Rossi, what did you do?” asked JJ, cutting off the rant, bracing herself for the response.

“I’m getting there. Just… Emily, promise me you won’t freak out.”

Emily blanched. “You saying that to me, specifically, is making me feel like I’m definitely going to freak out.”

“Spit it out, Rossi,” said Derek.

“Somebody, not me, suggested... Russian Roulette.”

Rossi scrunched up his face to brace against the reactions before he even finished the sentence. When no reactions came, he cracked an eye open and looked around the room.

Spencer also looked at all of them, not quite able to understand what they were feeling, and not quite able to understand why he wasn’t feeling anything at all. He should be devastated, worried, furious.

Hotch laughed. It was bright, bubbling, and incongruous with the past version of the man that Spencer had known.

“Sorry,” Hotch said, stifling it.

Emily laughed too, which started him up again.

Pretty soon all of them, including Rossi, were doubled over. Red faces, tears streaming from their eyes. It was almost enough to soften the gaunt angles of all of their faces. To make them look fully alive again.

Spencer forced out a laugh.

Emily recovered herself just enough to wheeze out the words; “What are you? A grizzled detective from a Raymond Chandler novel? How is this your life?” before losing composure again completely.

Eventually, with a few fits and starts, the laughter died down.

He'd never seen Hotch laugh like that. Was that because he had changed somehow in his absence, or was that just what starving in a bunker does to a person?

“Okay,” panted Derek. “Okay, okay. So how does blackmail factor into this?”

Rossi wiped the tears of laughter from under his eyes. “Oh, turns out some piece of shit knew who I was and was secretly recording the whole thing. It came to my turn, and I couldn’t do it. I came to my senses and just left my money on the table and got the fuck out of there. But the footage doesn’t look good. Enough for a media scandal to make the Bureau shaft me off into forced retirement. Never mind scaring the shit out of my daughter. I didn’t need the drama.”

“The drama…” said a bewildered JJ. “Yeah, that’s the biggest worry here.”

Rossi raised his hands defensively. “I know, alright? Like I said, this was before Voit and before grief counseling and the rest of it. I’m aware that I was not coping very well at the time.” He paused for a moment. “Unlike now, of course, where my life is going great.”

JJ rolled her eyes.

“So, what did you do about the blackmail?”

“Hired an intermediary to deal with it. Someone discreet who knows how to negotiate with people such as that,” he said nonchalantly.

Spencer got the impression that he didn’t intend to elaborate any further.

They all stared at Rossi for a while.

“If that is not the story the Unsub was trying to pry out of you, I am fascinated to know what the fuck else it could be,” said Derek.

“Just wait until it’s your turn,” said Rossi.

“Me? Man, I have nothing to hide. Whatever secrets I had you all learned a long time ago,” said Derek confidently. “This bitch can bring it on.”

“Hopefully we’re all out of here before it becomes an issue,” said Hotch, not so confidently.

“So we’ve got you shooting up heroin,” said Derek, pointing at Spencer, who would usually be irritated or ashamed at the comment, but instead could barely muster a shrug. Derek continued, “and we’ve got you putting guns to your head,” pointing at Rossi, who very carefully didn’t react, “and you interfering with coroner's reports,” pointing at Emily, “and not one of you thinking to just talk to your damn friends when you need help.” A beat. “What the fuck is wrong with you all?”

“Don’t lump me in with them,” said Rossi. “I discussed it at length with my grief councilor. I don’t have to tell you people everything.”

Emily and Spencer exchanged looks.

“Oh great, we’re the problem children,” deadpanned Emily.

He cracked a small smile, almost able to summon a genuine flicker of warmth for his friend.

“Me more so than you, I think,” he said.

“You’ve got that right,” said Derek dryly, but with a small smirk so that Spencer knew he was teasing. “But hey, look where all my good behavior got me. Stuck down here with the rest of you dysfunctional weirdos. Except you JJ,” he added.

She batted her eyes in mock innocence. Hotch raised an eyebrow at being apparently lumped in with the dysfunctional weirdos but offered no argument.

“So, do you think that was it?” asked JJ. “Food is on the way?”

Nobody wanted to be the one to answer, so Spencer did. “I’m sure it is.” He wasn’t sure. She knew it. They all knew it.

They all nodded in agreement.

“Are you feeling up to playing narrator again?” asked Emily.

He let out a breath in relief. That, he could do. He couldn’t think of anything he would rather do more, in fact, than go and live in someone else’s world for a while.

He nodded.

“No more Canterbury Tales, please,” said Rossi. “Something a bit more contemporary.”

“I know just the thing,” said Spencer.

They all found their spots where they could lay on the floor and listen. He closed his eyes, seeing the words of the book as clearly as he had when he read it. He took a breath, then spoke the first line of The Hobbit. They could all use a bit of fantasy, he figured.

Chapter Text

Spencer had been half convinced that the brown paper bag was going to burst open with a billowing cloud of fine white powder containing spores of deadly anthrax. He couldn’t get the image out of his head.

There had been too many times in his life where he was fairly certain he was about to die, and the anthrax exposure had honestly not even been the most harrowing, all things considered. He hadn't been restrained, or beaten, or drugged, or alone.

But something about the insidiousness of turning his own body against him was sticky. It adhered to his nervous system in a different way to acts of violence.

Hours after the bag had revealed its contents as six bottles of Ensure, he was still flinching at specks of dust.

The vital nutrients from the ensure- including the protein that had been desperately lacking in their all fruit diet even prior to the outright starvation- were working their magic. He had some semblance of energy again.

He had hoped that the return of their food supply would restore his capacity to feel, but no such luck. The best he could summon up was vague irritation.

It was getting harder and harder to tell when he was dreaming or awake.

The Unsub had left them to starve just long enough that they were all convinced that she was going to let them die like that. He wasn't so sure that this was better.

They all speculated on the likelihood of the next delivery reverting back to fruit. The Ensure was certainly the better option for keeping them from dying of malnutrition, but a liquid diet had its own concerns. The lack of door on the en-suit toilet continued to be a crushing blow.

“I feel like we should be doing something,” said Emily. “Like planning our next move.”

“Agreed,” said Derek, who had been tapping his foot non-stop for one hour, three minutes, and 28 seconds. Spencer had been counting the seconds in his mind because... well, it was something to do. “We need to force her into making another move.”

“We’re still recovering from the last move we forced her to make,” said Hotch. “I agree we need to take action, but right now we’re all too weak to take the physical strain of what happened last time.”

Emily looked like she was about to argue, but after a second, she just said, “Maybe. Let’s see if these deliveries keep coming and reassess when we know for sure that our food supply is consistent.”

“Or we could take more extreme measures,” said Derek.

There was a chill that rippled through the room.

“Like what?” asked JJ cautiously.

Derek opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated. His eyes flickered over all of them. They caught Spencer’s for a moment, and he knew instantly what Derek wanted to say, because he’d had the same thought himself.

They probably all had.

If the Unsub was determined not to let them die, they all knew what to do to provoke her.

Still, they stared questioningly at Derek in a façade of ignorance.

“Never mind,” he said. “Emily is right. We’ll reassess when we know more.”

He'd hoped that getting food would feel like a victory.

The second delivery came sometime later, maybe 12 hours, maybe days, he didn’t know. The third delivery came some time after that. This one brought a return of the fruit, but retained the bottles of Ensure. The fruit and the shakes combined to make a relatively sustainable diet, actually. It could theoretically be maintained for a long, long time.

It did not feel like victory.

They were alive. They were going to stay alive.

For what? For an endless fluorescent day? For mind-numbing tedium? For four walls and an unpredictable cycle of humiliation and discomfort?

The worst of it was how quickly the routine set in.

They went back to sleeping all at the same time to imitate night and day. They went back to daily exercise. They structured their lives around the food deliveries.

Soon, they had a delivery with a little bottle of soap. A reward for good behavior, presumably. He was genuinely grateful for it, which made him feel physically ill to realize.

When was the right time to make a move? How long would they need to endure this before they considered drastic measures?

Nobody wanted to be the first to bring it up.

Spencer found himself longing for another note. Another shocking reveal. Anything, anything at all. Sometimes he would stare up at the vent and fantasize about seeing gas leak out just to feel the adrenaline rush. He wanted to get high. He would do anything to get high.

“Reid.”

His head snapped around to the sound. Rossi was clicking his fingers from across the room, trying to get his attention.

“What?”

“It’s your turn, kid.”

“Why do we keep doing this? You can’t possibly believe it’s actually making a difference.”

“What the fuck else do you have going on in your busy schedule?” shot back Rossi.

“Closing my eyes and pretending I’m alone,” he said irritably. “I was enjoying it.”

“Come on Spence, you know if Rossi doesn’t get at least an hour a day to pretend he’s at a high school girls sleepover party he chucks a tantrum,” said JJ, leaning her head back against the wall behind her and looking as if she’d find reading the dictionary less boring than this.

“So, you can force us all into yoga and go on and on about keeping us healthy, but god forbid I try to keep us sane, that’s just taking it too far,” said Rossi sarcastically.

"Can you all just shut the hell up?” snapped Emily. “We all get one activity. That’s the deal. Spencer, I know you're annoyed that we won't just let you sleep 24/7, but stop bitching for one goddamn second and take your turn.”

“Fine. Dare.”

They all groaned. “You can’t pick dare every time,” said Derek.

“I don’t recall that being in the rules,” said Spencer.

It was round four and he’d already had to try and do a handstand (he couldn’t), see if he could hold his breath longer than Derek (he could but he nearly passed out doing it), and put on a spirited performance of Lady Macbeth’s ‘out damned spot’ monologue (which sounded less spirited than completely monotone).

“The rest of us are playing properly. You have to as well,” said JJ prissily, despite her earlier criticism of Rossi behaving like a teenage girl.

“No, because I already know what you’re going to ask,” said Spencer. “Just give me the dare.”

A chorus of boos echoed in the concrete room. “Come on Reid, if I had to tell you all that story about my disastrous first date with Hayley, you can have your turn,” said Hotch with an amused smirk.

“Yeah,” said Rossi. “You don’t know what we’re going to ask.”

Spencer huffed but relented. “Yes, I do. But whatever. Truth, if it will get you to stop being assholes about it.”

They all looked at each other, barely a second passing before they came to a silent agreement.

Emily threw her hands up to indicate that she wasn't a part of this, but even she looked liked she wanted to see how it all played out.

“Why did you start using again?” asked Derek, like he could trick Spencer into talking using the rules of the game.

He groaned, crossing his arms over his chest. “I already told you-”

“Yeah, yeah,” interrupted Derek. “Addicts relapse, there’s no rhyme or reason for it, yadda yadda yadda. I call bullshit.”

"How would you even know?" he snapped.

He wasn't really upset, honestly. He'd have to be able to summon stronger feelings than mild annoyance for that to happen. But fighting was something to pass the time. They all did it, but him and Derek made into something of a sport.

It was strange. They had never fought before in any meaningful way. Prior to being in the bunker, Derek was possibly the person he trusted most in the world to be calm and even handed with him no matter what. Maybe that was why it was so easy to prod at him: because he knew it could never break anything between them.

Or maybe it was because Derek felt so betrayed and hurt by him that it was already broken.

Either way, it was something to do.

"Because I know you," said Derek. "Something obviously happened, man, we can all see that."

They all nodded in agreement. Hotch's brows were furrowed and he had dropped the playfulness he'd had only a minute ago, but he hung on every word of the conversation. Even Emily shrugged apologetically, not disagreeing with their assessment.

"Now who's full of shit? You don't know anything. You didn't even know I was using."

Derek opened his mouth to bite back, but JJ beat him to it.

“Come on, Spence. We’re all stuck here. Are you really never going to talk about it?” asked JJ.

“That’s the plan,” he said petulantly. “Since every time I do talk about it you all think you know better, anyway.”

“Fine,” said Rossi. “If you refuse to tell us about whatever made you relapse,” he said, refusing to consider Spencer’s stated position that there was no dramatic triggering event, “we will ask you a different question.”

Derek and JJ looked at each other, both seeming very unwilling to let the subject drop. With a gentle "Come on, guys," from Emily they finally acquiesced.

"Give us a minute to think of a new question," said Rossi diplomatically, as if it would be rude to skip his turn.

"Whatever," said Spencer. "I need the bathroom."

He got up and they all politely focused their attention on each other and away from the doorless bathroom. They raised their voices while he relieved himself, and he pretended they weren't there.

It wasn't an ideal system, but they all pushed through.

After washing his hands, he paused a moment. He reached down to the bolt that was just under the right side of the metal sink, helping to affix it to the concrete wall.

While there was no door, the sink was recessed, not visible to the camera. He fiddled with the bolt silently while the others continued to pointedly not look his way. It was loosening a little more each time he went in there.

He hadn't mentioned it to any of them yet, and nobody else seemed to have noticed it.

He entered back into the main room and retook his position on the floor.

"Good timing," said Rossi. "I believe we have reached an agreement," he said, like the foreman of a jury.

"Don't worry," said Emily with a half smile. "It's nothing too objectionable."

"What-" started Rossi, before he was cut off.

“Why do you do it?”

It took a moment for Spencer to process who had spoken.

Everyone turned to stare at Hotch, who was in turn scrutinizing Spencer. He’d seen that look before, many times since waking up in the bunker.

Hotch was looking at him like he was trying to solve a puzzle with impossibly high stakes.

"Do what?" he asked, not following the train of thought.

Hotch hesitated. "Why do you use drugs?"

"I..." he looked at the others, hoping one of them might explain what he was missing, but they all looked just as baffled as him. "We just went over this-"

Hotch interrupted him. “I'm not asking why you relapsed. I'm asking why do you keep using? What do you get out of it?”

Spencer squirmed. There was something heavy in the way Hotch spoke that broke through the numbness enough to make him feel self-conscious. “Come on Hotch, you are- were- a profiler. What can I tell you that you don’t know?”

The rest of the group was looking back and forth between the two of them, dead silent, leaned forward like there was nothing in the world more important than hearing what both of them had to say.

“I know the science and the psychology, sure. I’m not asking about why people use drugs, I’m asking why you do it.”

There was something in the tightness around his eyes. In the rigidity of his posture.

He needed this.

For whatever reason, Hotch needed the answer to this question.

For the thousandth time, he wondered what had happened to this man in the years they'd been parted.

There was a time, after Tobias, where it could have changed everything for him if Hotch had just sat him down and spoken to him like this. If he had really cared to know the answer.

Was that what this was? Some kind of guilt for all the conversations that didn't happen when they should have?

No. There was something else. He didn't know what it was, but it was important.

As he studied Hotch, he thought about that young, terrified version of himself that wanted nothing more than for someone to force him to confront his demons before they grew too big.

Maybe they could both get something they needed, even if it was far too late to make a difference for either of them.

“Okay,” he said. "Let me think."

The others all held various expressions of shock. JJ’s eyes widened. Derek looked him up and down. None of them moved, almost as if they were afraid to spook him. Like one wrong move and he would never speak again.

How could he make this make sense to any of them?

They all approached his substance use like they approached a profile. They had to find the root cause, look for patterns, identify triggers. They didn’t understand that none of that mattered.

Whatever it was that Hotch wanted from him, he decided, he would try to give it to him. They were all probably going to die down here anyway.

He started with a deep breath. “When I was a kid, I never understood why my mom wouldn’t get treatment or why she would always go off her meds,” he said softly. “She was functional when she was on them. It made her life easier, and it made my life easier. I knew they had side effects, but even then, I couldn’t comprehend how she could choose to be unwell even though she knew how much damage it was doing to both of us.”

He paused. Took another breath. He was glad to be numb. He hoped his capacity to feel deeply never came back. The others looked at him with soft, sad eyes.

Not Hotch, though. Hotch was looking at him like his students did when he was giving a lecture on a topic they knew would be on the exam.

He blocked the rest of them out, focusing all his attention on his studious pupil.

“I think I get it now,” he said. “Despite the paranoia and the agoraphobia and all the awful parts, she used to talk about these incredible things that she would see and experience that nobody else could. Like she knew a secret the rest of us weren’t privy to. Sometimes… that’s how I feel with all of you,” he admitted. “When you tell me you don’t understand why I use opiates, it’s like you’re telling me you don’t understand why I eat or drink or breath. And I get it now. I get why she couldn't fight it. It's exhausting, having to fight something that's such an intrinsic part of you."

"But you did fight it," Hotch pointed out. "You were clean for years."

"Sure. But it was never easy. I spent a lot of that time thinking about what I was missing."

Hotch frowned. "And what is that?"

Spencer bit his lip, not sure how to explain it. "The thing about IV opioids is that they feel pretty great," he settled on, and it felt like telling a small child that the thing about the sun is it's pretty hot. "Whatever you're imagining, it's far better than that.”

The response sounded flippant, he knew, but what the hell else was he supposed to say?

Hotch was nodding as he took in the words. His thoughts were inscrutable to Spencer, so all he could do was wait for a reaction.

From what little he knew of Hotch's youth, he wouldn't be shocked if he'd at least dabbled in narcotics before straightening out as a teenager. He sincerely doubted that any of that rebellion had involved needles, though. It was hard to compare. IV narcotics were a world away from the experiences that any of the rest of them had, and it was hard to articulate how different it was.

How could he explain it? Hey guys, have you ever known true peace for the first and only time in your life? I don't believe in god, but I'm pretty sure I experience divinity every time I shoot up?

“Can it really feel good enough to be worth what it costs you in all other parts of your life?” asked Hotch eventually. It was the obvious question, really. “Good enough to be worth the withdrawal symptoms? The risk to your career? The strain on your relationships? Or the hundred other problems that come from being in active addiction?”

“It’s not like that,” he said simply. “You’re looking at it the wrong way.”

“Okay. Then what’s it like?”

“When you're clean, you have a hundred problems. When you're using, you have one problem, with one solution.”

“It’s a pretty big problem,” said Hotch.

“It’s also a pretty spectacular solution.”

Hotch stared at him for a long time this time. There was silence, the kind you could hear your own heartbeat in, but it didn’t feel heavy. It felt like they were alone in the room.

“Dare,” said Hotch.

Spencer tilted his head, trying to decipher what he could possibly mean.

Hotch broke eye contact. He looked at the rest of the room. “It’s my turn, isn’t it? I pick dare.”

At once, the spell was broken.

Whatever Hotch had been looking for, he'd apparently found it.

Spencer leaned back against the wall, pulling his knees up and resting his arms on them. Derek put a hand on his shoulder for just a moment, a small gesture of support, but otherwise they let him be.

The others breathed out their stalled breaths and put their heads together to brainstorm a dare for Hotch to do. For about the length of time it took to drink a bottle of Ensure, they kept glancing at him with varying degrees of curiosity and concern, but eventually the atmosphere shifted from forced nonchalance to genuine play.

The game continued on, and they all went back to bickering and snapping at each other as a way to stave off boredom as much as any kind of genuine irritation. When it came to his turn, they silently skipped over it.

Apparently, he’d finally done enough to be left alone for a while.

During one truth for Derek, which left him telling an elaborate story about the time he got kicked out of a nightclub after a friend spiked his drink when he was 20, Emily leaned over and whispered to him.

“You okay?” He didn’t say anything, but he bumped his shoulder against hers in an attempt at reassurance. She looked around to make sure nobody was paying attention to them, and whispered again, “Thank you. For telling us that.”

He leaned in and whispered back, “Whatever is going on with him, I hope it helped.”

She squeezed his arm. “Me too.”

She turned her attention back to the game.

He tuned out once again.

One big problem: Escape the bunker.

One spectacular solution: Force the Unsub to reveal herself somehow. Put them in a position to make a move.

She didn't want them to die. It was the one thing they could be really certain of. Whatever she wanted, it involved keeping them alive, likely for a long time.

They needed to create urgency. They needed something so dire, that she would be forced to enter the room and intervene before she had time to knock them out with gas.

The tedium, the daily trudge of survival, these things were not his strong suit. People who can function like that don't do heroin. People who can endure hardship with grace and fortitude don't stick needles in their arms.

But finding the simplest solution to the direst problem, no matter the risk to himself?

He was an expert at that.

He could break her. He knew he could. It was just a question of if he could do it without breaking everyone else.

Chapter Text

He twisted the bolt, gripping it with all the meager strength he could muster. For the first time, he was truly glad that the others had refused to let his muscles atrophy into nothing, despite his protests.

His finger tips had developed calluses over the past five food delivery cycles since he’d started working the thick, entrenched bolt loose. It was spot welded, but water had dripped onto it and anointed it with blessed rust.

In stolen moments, when nobody was paying enough attention to wonder why he lingered just that little bit longer at the sink, he worked away at it.

Now, as they all slept, he gave it one final twist.

Then it was his.

The rusted, two inch long, half inch thick bolt sat in his palm looking entirely not worth the effort. It was brittle, but it had a surprisingly sharp edge on the bottom.

It was fine. It was good enough to serve its purpose.

Now, it was all about the timing.

The next delivery would be soon after they all woke up, if everything went to schedule. They had built their sleep cycle around it, so it resembled something like breakfast.

He had to make his move when he knew she’d be watching.

Quick enough that the others couldn’t stop him. Effective enough that she would have to intervene immediately, without having time to gas them.

A shuffling sound from somewhere to his left alerted him that one of the others was awake.

Just in time, he deftly slid the bolt into the hole he’d created in the elastic waistband of the scrub pants the Unsub had dressed him in. The years of practicing sleight of hand as a child had payed dividends throughout his adult life.

“What are you doing?” whispered a groggy Derek, leaning against the empty door frame of the tiny, prison-like bathroom.

“Just needed some water,” he whispered back. “Couldn’t sleep.”

It felt like they were meeting in the dead of night, like it should be dark. It reminded him of the whispered moments they used to have in dark motel rooms on cases when neither of them could keep the nightmares at bay.

Derek folded his arms over his chest. “I’m glad I got you alone for a second,” he said, glancing backwards to where the others soundly slept. “I want to talk to you.”

He sat down on the closed toilet lid like it was a chair. Spencer considered dodging past him, but instead he leaned back so he was sitting on the edge of the low sink. It almost felt like they had privacy.

“What’s up?” asked Spencer, like they’d just run into each other at the water cooler at work.

Whatever Derek had to say, hopefully he would get it over with quickly. He wanted to care, really. He did. But he had more important things to focus on than trying to conjure up his absentee feelings for a heart to heart.

“I just wanted to say… You know I love you, right?” he said, nudging Spencer's leg with his foot. “I know I’ve been kind of a dick, but it’s just because…” he looked out at the grey concrete and the solid steel door. “Well. You know.”

Spencer softened. Something close to sympathy crept its way through the invisible glass bubble that was separating him from the rest of them, and he almost felt it for real. “I know,” he said. “Me too.”

“Good,” said Derek. “Because I’m worried about you, pretty boy. You’re really freaking me out.”

Spencer stared at him blankly. “I think you have bigger things to worry about right now, man.”

Derek huffed. “Maybe. But I’ve got a bad feeling. I mean, none of us are really okay right now. I get that. I know I’m not. But you’re being weird, even for you. Do you realize you’ve stopped quoting statistics at us? You’ve been in the hospital recovering from gunshot wounds and still quoting stats at me,” he said. “I don’t like you being this quiet.”

“I don’t have any good statistics for this situation,” he said. “Do you really want to hear the chances of us being found alive after so long?”

“It’s not just that,” said Derek. “It’s like a part of you has shut off. I’m worried. I’ve seen you do some reckless, self-destructive shit over the years, especially when you get it into your head that it’s the only way to protect other people.”

Spencer’s mind raced. Could he tell what he was planning? What was he getting at?

“I’m fine,” he said. “I mean, not fine, but you don’t have to worry. It’s like you said, withdrawal has screwed up my neurotransmitter levels, and the lack of vitamin D and iron aren’t doing any of us any favors. But I’ll be okay once we get out of here,” he explained, trying his hardest to sound reassuring despite his complete inability to believe for a single second that he was ever going to be okay again.

Derek smiled tightly, straining to keep his voice light, even as his nails dug into his biceps. “I want to believe that, pretty boy, I really do. But the thing is, I think you were pretty fucked up before we ever woke up in this godforsaken bunker, and that you’ve probably been seriously depressed for a long time, because the thing is, happy people don’t do heroin. And I think if we get out of here, you fully intend to go right back to shooting up.”

He sounded like he was speaking to one of his kids. Spencer had been there once when his son had come home from kindergarten crying because another boy pushed him, and Derek had sounded exactly like this when he tried to talk his son through how to handle the situation.

“What’s your point?” he asked.

He hadn’t intended to sound petulant or sarcastic, but even he could hear how it came across.

Derek grit his teeth. When he spoke, he forgot to whisper. “My point, is if that’s the only future you’re capable of imagining for yourself right now, you might not be motivated to do everything in your power to keep yourself safe.”

Spencer stood up straight.

He knew. Derek knew.

“Whatever happens, Derek, you have to know that I am doing everything I can to get you out of here. To get all of us out,” he said calmly, stepping towards the doorway and the main room.

Derek put his arm across the exit, blocking him in.

“Give it to me, Spencer.”

"Give you what?" he shot back.

"Man, I saw you. You might be quick, but I know what to look for. Just hand it over."

The sound of the others stirring caught both of their attention. “What’s going on?” came JJ’s voice.

As soon as Derek turned his head, he took his shot.

He ducked under his arm and darted into the room, pressing himself against the corner farthest from the half-awake group.

Derek cursed and swung around to face him. The others scrambled to their feet.

“What’s going on?” repeated JJ urgently.

“You’re the one who said it first,” pointed out Spencer, still focused on Derek. “We need to do something extreme.”

“We doesn’t have to mean you, Spencer,” he said, stepping forward.

“Then who? You? I don’t have kids waiting for me to come home to them.”

Four sets of eyes widened in shock and comprehension.

“What are you doing, Spencer?” asked Emily, raising her hands and taking a step forward.

Faster than the rest of them could get to him, he pulled out the bolt, pressing the sharp, ragged end to his wrist. “Stay away!” he shouted.

JJ lunged for him. He pressed harder, ready to move, but Derek grabbed her and hauled her back.

“Everyone calm down!” yelled Derek.

“Spencer, what the fuck are you doing?” shouted Emily, who for the very first time since waking up in the bunker, looked like she was about to fall apart.

He glanced up at the camera. “I wanted to time this better,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Emily, I’m sorry,” he said, meeting her eyes.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” said Hotch, putting a hand on Emily’s shoulder and as she clasped her hands over her mouth and fought back tears. “This isn’t the way, Reid. We don’t even know if they’re watching.”

“No, but it’s close to the next delivery and she likes to time them for dramatic effect. Have you noticed that? I’m willing to bet she is watching. Besides, I’m on camera now. We won’t have another shot at this.”

Rossi raised his hands. “It doesn’t need to be you. I’m a lot older. I’ve got less on the line.”

“Nobody is doing anything,” said JJ furiously. “This is ridiculous! Don’t you fucking dare, Spencer, or I swear to god I will never forgive you.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “There’s no time to discuss it.” He glanced up at the vent, afraid he had already waited too long. “This instrument is imprecise, but if I do it right I'll have three to five minutes. That number goes up if you put pressure on the wound. She won’t have time to knock you out if she wants to save me, so someone is going to be coming into this room. Be ready for it." He took a ragged, steadying breath. "She’s not going to let me die. It’s going to be alright.”

He shot one last guilty look at Emily. This was cruel on all of them, but after everything, it felt like it was cruelest on her.

“You promised me you wouldn’t do this to me,” she said through silent tears.

“I’m sorry,” he said one last time.

He pressed down on the bolt, driving the sharp edge into his wrist hard, and dragging it up his forearm in one swift and violent motion. No hesitation.

Somewhere, a vast distance away, he heard screaming.

He was utterly transfixed as dark, shining red came pouring out of his arm.

After a small eternity, there were people, grasping at him, pulling at his body. The waterfall on his arm was covered by a pair of strong, dark hands, holding his skin together like Atlas held the world.

Oh.

Oh.

There it was.

All those things he hadn’t been feeling, there it all was.

The edges of his vision darkened. All around him there was noise, but he couldn’t extrapolate meaning from any of it.

All that existed in the world was the unyielding, crushing hopelessness that came rushing into his body with every drop of blood that rushed out.

Had this unbearable, all encompassing sadness been with him the whole time?

He’d been telling himself the same thing that he told the rest of them. He was doing this because somebody had to.

He was doing it because he had the least to lose.

He didn’t really believe she’d let him die if she could help it, and if she couldn’t help it, then at least he’d given them a chance. It was a noble sacrifice.

“Hang on, Spencer,” came a voice from somewhere above him. “Just hold on.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

As consciousness slipped away from him, he finally understood the awful truth.

He didn't really want to wake up.

Chapter Text

Darkness.

His eyes were open, but there was darkness.

A laugh of relief burst out of his dry, scratchy throat.

How long had he dreamed of opening his eyes to anything but cool, flickering fluorescent light? How could an absence be so beautiful?

“What’s so funny?” came a cheerful, gravelly voice behind his head.

In an instant, the comfort of darkness shifted to terror as it all came rushing back to him.

He wasn’t dead.

He could decipher his feelings about that fact later.

He jerked up, trying to put distance between himself and the voice.

A sharp burst of pain through his injured arm alerted him to the restraints. He was lying down, strapped to a bed of some kind. It was thin and uncomfortable, wobbling as he moved. Likely a camp bed or similar.

“Calm down. We wouldn't want you to hurt yourself,” the voice mocked.

It was masculine. He tried to tilt his head back and get a glimpse, now that his eyes were adjusting to the low light. Whoever it was, they were just out view, but judging by the direction of the sound, they were tall. Or the bed was just low to the ground.

“What’s your name?” asked Spencer.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he said with a laugh.

There was a hint of southern drawl.

He mentally skimmed through the profile they had been working on, readying himself to put it to the test. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said as dismissively as he could muster. “You’re not in charge here. Where is she? I want to speak to the woman who’s calling the shots.”

A hand came down, gripping his injured forearm. An agonizing, burning sensation shot through his entire arm and up to his shoulder, causing him to yelp in pain. Was that infection? Nerve damage? The bolt had been rusted and ragged, it could easily be both.

He took a moment to appreciate the small mercy that he was up-to-date on his tetanus shots.

A face leaned over him from behind, upside down and fitted with an N95 mask. The man was white, he thought. It was hard to tell in the lighting and with half his face covered. He was balding. He was a big guy, almost as tall as Spencer, but stocky and muscular.

The hand continued to press into the unhealed wound. What was that sensation? Gloves, he realized. The man was wearing gloves.

“It's just you and me. Is that not good enough for you?" he taunted, raising a dark eyebrow.

“Do I know you?” he asked, doing his best to sound uninterested.

“No, but I know you,” he said. He leaned away, letting go of Spencer’s arm and disappearing out of view. “You should be grateful. She’s got a soft spot for junkies and fags,” he said from somewhere further away, a sort of awe in his voice at the unthinkable benevolence of this mystery woman. “You’re all scum, far as I’m concerned.”

A dagger of ice drove its way into Spencer's chest. Was that a taunt, or did they know? Just how long had they been watching him?

He could hear rummaging. Clinking glass and plastic. “Why are you risking yourself for her? You don't have a stake in this,” he said. “Tell me what you want and I might be able to help you get it."

With every passing second he became aware of some new ache or pain. His head was pounding, probably dehydration from the blood loss. Where was the other Unsub? Had the others overpowered her? Were they safe? Is that why she wasn’t there?

“What I want,” said the man, suddenly standing by his side, giving him a clear view of his full height and weight, “is to make her happy. Lucky for you.”

The gloved hands were softer on his uninjured right arm. Not gentle by any means, but precise. It was only when the man started checking the IV that Spencer noticed he had one.

As he took stock, he realized it wasn't the only tube going into his body. A catheter. It was a pretty unmistakable sensation. He groaned.

The man held a needle up to the port just below the IV bag. Spencer tried and failed to flinch away. “What is that?”

The man tutted. “Don't pretend you don't want it.” Spencer tried to sit up, to see better, to fight. The man's free hand grabbed onto his hair, pulling tight and slamming his head backwards onto the bed. "Stop it before you rip your stitches," he commanded.

He depressed the plunger and pure panic flooded Spencer’s system. It could be anything in that syringe. Anything.

It didn’t matter how many times he had injected things into his own body. It was different when he was doing it to himself. When he was in control.

All of a sudden, he was tied to a chair in a cabin in a graveyard. “No!” he shouted, too late to do anything about it. He felt something in his cut up left arm tear open as he fought against his restraints.

Then…

Bliss.

His mind slowed. Every muscle in his over-stressed body relaxed, sinking deep into the thin padded bed beneath him. He breathed out and let his eyes droop closed.

There was a hand in his hair, but this one wasn’t pulling. It was stroking gently. He couldn’t help but lean into it. ‘No,’ he thought, fighting to gain clarity. He tried to move away from the touch, and after a moment it stopped.

“He’s too much trouble. We still have the others,” said the gravelly voice, as if from the bottom of an echoing well.

His heart sank.

The others didn’t make it out.

They were alive. He had to hold onto that. At least they were all alive.

“What if they had given up on me?” came another voice. It was soft. Gentle. Feminine. “I never would have met you.”

He latched onto the voice, trying to sift through his memories and connect it to a face. It was like wading through mud. He felt himself slipping.

The talking continued, but he couldn’t follow the words. Slowly, he drifted away.

When he woke again, his mouth felt like it was full of cotton.

For a fraction of a second, he was waking up in his apartment after taking too much the night before, like he had so many times. His body tingled and ached and felt impossibly heavy. Then he tried to raise his hands to rub at his eyes, and the harsh reality dropped on him like an anvil.

He jerked against the restraints. His injured arm was stiff, but it didn’t burn like it did before. He tilted his head up and tried to look at it.

It was bandaged. The white cloth wound all the way from the bottom of his wrist to the crook of his elbow. The image of raw, open skin pouring blood flashed in his brain.

Had he really done that to himself?

“You’re gonna have one nasty scar,” said the man in the mask cheerfully, appearing at his side.

Spencer dropped his arm, laying back on the bed. There wasn’t much else he could do.

“How long are you going to keep me here?”

“Do you have somewhere else to be?”

“Why not just keep me unconscious? Why let me wake up?” he asked, ignoring the bait.

“You tell me, Doctor,” he said, spitting the word like it was an insult.

He grabbed Spencer’s arm and prodded at the bandage, then circled around and checked the levels in his IV.

“I’m not that kind of doctor,” said Spencer, keeping his tone light. Challenging him didn’t get him very far last time. Maybe a different approach would work. “I don’t understand.”

The man looked at him like his teachers used to look at him. The ones who didn't know what to do with him, and resented him for being alive and daring to make it their problem.

“Last time we needed to know you hadn't fucked yourself up so bad you couldn't wake up. This time, I have questions. Don’t worry, you can get your precious fentanyl soon,” he said derisively.

Spencer swallowed. “That isn’t what I want.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying,” he said, and he meant it. The thought of being left unconscious with this man again sent chills down his spine, even as his body itched for the drug. He could feel how much the man loathed him. “Please, no more.”

“I know your type,” he said. “Used to deal with you all the time. You think cause of your job and your friends and the letters in front of your name, you’re better, but a junkie is a junkie.”

He swallowed again, wishing for a sip of water. “You’re right. I’m a junkie. But I don’t want to be,” he said, though even he couldn’t tell if he meant it or not. “You said you had questions? I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

The man looked him up and down with his dark, piercing eyes. Spencer felt exposed. Whoever this man was, he was not unintelligent or submissive like they had profiled. Whatever was going on here was a lot more complicated than that.

“Why did you slash your wrist?”

He winced. It still didn’t feel completely real. He saw Emily, her frantic, frightened eyes. He heard JJ scream.

“I wanted to talk to you and your partner. I couldn’t see another way.”

“Liar,” said the man again, exaggerating both syllables.

“I’m not lying,” he insisted.

“You wanted to die. That’s alright. I would too if I were you,” he said coolly. “Are you going to try it again?”

“No. I didn’t want to do it the first time. You forced my hand.”

Liar, his brain supplied even as the man stayed silent. You wanted it.

He tried and failed to pull away as the man put a hand on his cheek, pressing his thumb down into his throat, threatening to squeeze. He leaned in, speaking low and cold.

“You try it again, and your friends are going to pay the price. Do you believe me?”

Spencer couldn’t speak. He just nodded, hoping it was enough. He caught a glimpse of a jagged scar on the side of the man’s head, half hidden in his thinning hair.

The man released him and he sucked in a breath. “Why doesn’t she want us to know who she is?” he asked, rasping a little, knowing he was running out of time. “She’s already won. We can’t get out. Nobody knows where we are. Why hide? Doesn’t she trust you to protect her?”

The man narrowed his eyes but didn’t respond. He walked over somewhere behind him, and he heard the clinking glass that told him he was preparing a syringe.

He looked around the room, taking in as many details as possible. No windows. Lamp light only. He couldn’t find a door, it must have been behind him. The room was small. Smaller than the bunker. He saw a vent in the roof similar to the one they had in there. So, same facility? The entire place was likely underground. Industrial? Disused basement of a building? It looked old, possibly built in the 80’s. There was residue on the wall the indicated it had once been wallpapered.

The bunker was not built for them.

The thought hit him like a flash bomb. This was not a purpose-built facility. It was not made by the Unsubs; it was merely being co-opted by them. That meant there were likely records, somewhere, of the building’s existence. Which meant there would be a trail between the location and the Unsubs.

Somewhere, there was a connection that Penelope, Luke, and Tara could find.

It wasn’t much, but it was more than he’d had before.

The man was by his side again, syringe in his hand, ready to empty its contents into his IV. His stomach twisted in a sick combination of equal parts terror and anticipation. It was the same thing he’d felt by day two with Tobias Hankel, when he’d already started to want it.

“Why are you drugging me? I thought this was all to teach us a lesson. What does this teach me? That I’m an addict? I already know that,” he said. “I can’t fix it if you keep doing this to me.”

He couldn’t see the man’s mouth beneath the mask, but his eyes creased like he was smiling. “The truth isn't about fixing you. It’s about finally being who you really are. That's what you did for her. That's what she did for me.”

And with that, he depressed the plunger.

Despite his protests, Spencer was more grateful for the feeling flooding his veins than he would ever care to admit.

The next time he opened his eyes, it was to the cool fluorescent flicker that had come to haunt him.

He sat up with a jolt, coughing and scrambling back. He saw an all too familiar gloved hand in his peripheral vision, recapping a jar of smelling salts.

He turned to face the man, trying to stand from where he had been placed on the concrete floor. He was woozy and off balance. He was high, he realized. Really fucking high. He slumped to his knees, placing a hand on the ground to stop himself collapsing completely.

He caught a glimpse of his left arm. The arm that he’d cut open. He was seeing it uncovered for the very first time. However long they’d kept him unconscious for, it was long enough that the open wound had closed over and any stitches had been removed.

It was angry, red, and jagged. He stared at it, fascinated, struggling to comprehend it as a real part of his body.

The man laughed. “They’ll be waking up in a minute. If any of you fuck this up, I can hurt you all in ways you can’t imagine,” he said, sounding very much like he was salivating to do just that. “You tell them that.”

The man was out the door faster than Spencer could react, shutting it behind him with a loud clang.

He looked around, struggling to focus his eyes.

There they all were, laying unconscious, placed with a strange degree of consideration on thin foam mattresses. In fact, all of the previous amenities that had been taken from them had been returned, including the door. In the center of the room was a brown paper bag.

An alarm blared, coming from somewhere on the roof. He slammed his hands over his ears, curling in on himself.

The others stirred.

The alarm continued for another ten seconds, and by the end of it, there were five wide open sets of eyes, all looking right at him.

Chapter Text

Nobody moved.

Not a twitch. Not a breath. Not a blink.

They stared at him like a ghost.

“Spencer,” whispered Emily, like she couldn't believe her eyes.

In a second, all of them were on him. Emily pulled him into a crushing hug that the rest of them quickly joined. He felt dampness dripping on his shoulder and didn’t know who it was coming from. He heard JJ breath out ‘oh my god’ again and again.

“Let me look at you,” demanded Hotch.

There was a hand on his arm. The group parted just enough to let Hotch get at him. Emily kept her arm wrapped around his shoulders and Derek put a hand in his hair and kissed the top of his head, kneeling behind him like a barrier between him and the rest of the world. Rossi knelt beside him with a hand on his arm.

“You’re all okay,” Spencer said, throat constricting.

“We thought you were dead,” choked out JJ. “You fucking bastard! We thought you were dead!”

Tears streamed down her face and she squeezed the hand on his uninjured arm tight enough that it would have hurt, if he wasn’t up to his gills on fentanyl.

“Jesus, Spencer,” breathed Hotch.

He knelt in front of him, holding his wrist and gently turning his arm over so his mangled forearm faced upwards.

A hush fell over all of them as they stared at the vicious scar. If it had disturbed them when they first saw his track marks, this was a hundred times worse.

The weight around his shoulders and against his side disappeared as Emily scrambled back from him.

“I need…” she breathed. “I just-”

She turned and darted for the bathroom, crashing through the door as if she didn’t realize it was there. A moment later he winced at the sound of her vomiting.

Derek turned away from him, looking very much like he was about to cry.

A short moment later, Emily came back into the room, struggling to compose herself. “I’m sorry,” she said shakily, kneeling beside him again.

“No,” he said. He tried to reach out to her, but realized JJ and Hotch still had a hold of both of his hands. Hotch let him go. JJ didn’t. He reached for Emily’s cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m alright. It doesn’t even hurt.”

Emily held his gaze, unsuccessfully fighting back tears. The haze over his vision made her skin look like it was glowing. Her cheek felt impossibly soft. She put one hand over his and stroked the other one softly over the scar.

“It doesn’t hurt because you’re high,” she said gently.

He looked away, then nodded. “I asked him not to,” he explained. “I tried.”

He tried and he failed. There was never going to be another end to this story.

“Him?” asked Rossi. “You spoke to the male Unsub?”

He nodded. “I-” he swallowed. “He said-” his breath hitched. He waded through his thoughts like molasses.

“It’s okay,” said Hotch, so close that their knees were touching. “You can tell us later.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

Derek rubbed circles on his back. “It’s alright, Spencer. You’re alive. That's all that matters.”

In spite of the dampening affects of the narcotics, a deep pain welled in his heart. He clutched at his chest as a sob escaped him.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I think there’s something really wrong with me.” He looked down at his butchered forearm, trying to understand it. “It all made sense at the time. I was trying to save us," he said, searching all of their faces desperately, hoping one of them could tell him the magic formula to stop being broken. Something opened up inside of him that he had being trying for so long to keep shut. “I think I wanted to die. I think I’ve felt that way for a while.”

How had he not realized that?

Emily had realized it. Derek had realized it. Did all of them know? How could they have known when he didn’t even know it?

Derek’s words rang in his ears. Happy people don’t do heroin.

He broke down.

The last time he cried like this, it was the first day back in his apartment after prison. He had collapsed on the shower floor and wept so long it caused a migraine.

Only this time, for better or worse, he wasn’t alone. Five sets of arms wrapped around him, holding him like he might disappear if they let go for even a second, and they all cried with him.

For the first time since waking up in this nightmare, they mourned everything that had been taken from them. Their families, their freedom, their safety, and their sanity.

They stayed like that until his head swam and he could barely tell up from down.

"You need to lie down," said Hotch, as they all finally parted.

He looked around like he was only noticing the changes to the room for the first time.

Following his cue, the others took in their altered surroundings with worry and confusion, enough to tell Spencer that this was all clearly new to them, too.

Derek and Hotch helped him over to one of the thin mattresses. He tried to fight it, but between the drugs and the adrenaline crash and the fathomless ocean of hurt, he couldn't hold onto consciousness.

He was in and out, not fully passed out, but not fully coherent. Eventually, after who knows how long, he must have fallen asleep.

When he woke up, he felt sick to his stomach and his head pounded. He was shaky and weak, a feeling he was getting far too used to. How long had he been in that room while they pumped him full of narcotics?

He couldn’t keep doing this so soon after his last withdrawal. His body couldn’t cope with it.

He tried to sit up and speak to the others, but a wave of intense nausea washed over him before he could make a sound. He scrambled up and rushed for the bathroom, where he wretched bile.

After a second, he felt a hand on his back, and another holding back his increasingly long hair, now down below his chin for the first time in quite a while.

Once he was sure he was done, he turned to see Emily. She smiled tightly at him, then helped him stand. He splashed water over his face and rinsed out his mouth, then took a long, deep drink.

“You good?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

His eyes wandered down to just below the sink. The missing bolt had been replaced with one that was shiny and new. It was welded tightly in place. The welding on all the other bolts had been redone, too.

When he looked around, he noticed the door hinges had received the same treatment. The Unsubs had gone to great lengths to ensure there would not be a repeat incident.

Emily was watching him, arms folded. He couldn't tell what was going on in her head, but she almost looked sicker than she had when they were starving.

The newly returned bathroom door was closed. He knew the others were just outside, waiting for them to exit, but it was close enough to alone. He had hurt all of them, he knew, but after everything with John Cooley, after he promised her he wasn’t going to do the same, he felt he owed her more than anyone.

“Emily-"

“Spencer,” she said, sniffing a little. “You don’t need to apologize. I get it.”

He looked at her a little longer, then nodded. Then he pulled her into a crushing hug and apologized anyway.

She didn't say anything, just hugged him back.

They exited the bathroom, and the others were waiting for them just like he thought.

“How are you feeling?” asked Hotch.

“Like I’m in the middle of the detox that never ends,” he said, clenching his hands to control the trembling, wincing at the sharp pain that shot up his left arm when he tried to form a fist. “They had me under almost the entire time I was gone."

“But not the whole time,” observed Rossi. “You said you talked to one of them.”

“Yeah,” he said. “The male accomplice. We spoke twice.”

“You need to sit down,” said Derek. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

He didn’t disagree. They all took a moment, rearranging the mattresses so they could sit in a circle, positioning themselves so that Spencer could lean against the wall. They knew they were settling in for a long conversation.

He had questions for them, too, but he knew they needed to hear from him first.

In all the brutal clarity and detail afforded to him by his eidetic memory, he told them his story. It was verbatim, not a single detail omitted.

After what he’d put them through with the drugs, the detox, the erratic behavior, the arguing and denying and finally… He rubbed at his scar. He owed them honesty.

Besides, every detail was vital to the profile, even if he didn’t yet know how.

He recounted the events to a rapt audience. When he got to the fag comment, a couple of heads tilted at him curiously, but they didn't question him. He pressed on. They could worry about that later.

He concluded with a description of everything he’d seen and deduced regarding the building itself based on what he could see from his limited perspective in the room. It was a relief to be able to give them a small morsel of hope.

"Whatever this place is," he finished, "it wasn't made for them. There's a paper trail somewhere that the others can find."

“That’s good,” said Hotch when he was finally done. “That’s really good, Spencer, thank you.”

“This completely changes our profile,” observed JJ. “This isn't a typical relationship between a dominant Unsub and a submissive accomplice, but an actual partnership. He has thoughts and opinions that differ from hers, which he feels safe to express freely. He respects her.”

"It's definitely an unusual dynamic," agreed Spencer. "I think she honestly believes she's helping us somehow. He's a sadist. He wants to cause pain. It's as if the whole thing was a joke to him, but he's holding himself back out of some sense of loyalty and obligation to her. Somehow, she's managed to get an intelligent sadist to not only follow her instruction, but to feel protective of her."

“I agree, it's strange,” said Emily. “He's clearly the one with the medical expertise, which is also unexpected given how she positions herself as savior. If I had to guess, based on the resentment he expressed towards Spencer, particularly regarding his honorific, he’s probably a nurse. Maybe someone who planned to become a doctor but was unable to attend or complete medical school for some reason."

“What if that's how they met?” posed Rossi. “She could have been one of his patients and they bonded. It might explain why he’s so fiercely protective of her, especially if she flattered him or made him feel powerful. If she's experienced significant health issues, it could also be contributing factor to her obsessive focus on cleanliness.”

“She said that if we had given up on her, she never would have met him, so their relationship postdates her presumed arrest,” said Derek. “Assuming we're right that she was incarcerated, he could have been a nurse in the prison medical center.”

“That tracks with his comment about dealing with junkies regularly,” said Spencer. “One study published by the Department of Justice found that 58% of state prisoners had substance abuse issues compared with just 5% of the general population. Drug and alcohol toxicity are the third leading cause of death in prisons behind serious illness and-” the word caught in his throat. Suicide. Behind serious illness and suicide. He couldn't bring himself to say the word. "Well, you get the idea."

It was for the best that he hadn’t been using while in prison, all things considered. He very likely would have ended up as one of those statistics if he had been.

"Are you certain you didn't recognize her voice?" asked JJ.

He shook his head. "I really don't know. I was pretty out of it, I'm sorry."

“Don't be. It looks like we have the beginning of a new profile,” said Hotch. “This is a lot more than we knew before. We can find a way to use this.” He looked at Spencer, eyeing him cautiously. Eventually, he said, “Don’t take this as encouragement to try anything like that ever again, but for what its worth, it worked. You forced their hand.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face, if only to not have to look at any of them for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, not able to summon a better response. When the awkward silence that followed got too much for him, he asked: "How long was I gone?"

The others exchanged glances.

"It's hard to say," said Hotch. "But there were fifteen deliveries prior to them hitting us with another round of gas."

"We think the deliveries are still operating at twelve hour intervals," said Rossi, "But it's difficult to keep track of time with any certainty, and we can't know how long we were unconscious."

They had all been dressed in a fresh set of scrubs at some point in their lost time, and he was far too aware of the short sleeves. He kept catching glimpses of the scar and each time, he had to fight the urge to puke again. He looked down at the scar intentionally for about three seconds before he had to look away.

It was enough to make an assessment.

"Judging by the progression of healing, I would put it at an estimate of two weeks minimum, which makes sense with the number deliveries and helps confirm that they are still working at standard intervals," he explained.

Two weeks, likely a little over. It hung in the air like smoke after a fire. Two weeks of him being pumped full of fentanyl.

Two weeks of the others stuck in this room thinking they had just watched him die by his own hand.

“I guess it’s time for us to fill you in,” said Rossi, breaking the tension. “Things got pretty nuts here for a minute.”

“What happened after I passed out?” he asked, anxiety creeping its way into his gut.

“You were right,” Rossi continued. “They didn’t risk the gas. It would have killed you for sure after the blood loss.”

“We never saw the woman, but the guy busted in about a minute after you lost consciousness,” said Derek. “He had a gun.”

His stomach dropped. Obviously, they hadn’t been able to overpower him or they wouldn't still be there, but he still found himself hoping that the story would turn in their favor.

“We tried to overpower him, but he pistol whipped Hotch pretty hard,” said Emily.

He looked at Hotch questioningly and apologetically, which Hotch waved off. “I’m fine." Spencer didn't believe that for a second, but he was hardly in a position to comment. Hotch continued, "He kept the gun trained on the rest of us and forced Morgan to leave you outside the door.”

The use of surnames was always a dead giveaway that Hotch was clinging to a facade of professionalism to stay composed, even though profiling hadn't been his profession for years.

Derek jumped in quickly, brushing right past the details of the event and into a impersonal analysis. “This all supports your theory that the bunker is part of a larger facility. The hall just led to a door, so I didn’t see much, but I’m certain he didn’t have medical supplies on hand. He would’ve had to get you to treatment fast.”

The scene unfolded in his head with far less clinical detachment than it was being described with. It melded with the bits and pieces he could remember. The screaming, Derek’s hands trying to stop him from bleeding out, a waterfall of crimson.

“We didn’t hear anything after that,” said JJ, staring down at her lap. Her nails were digging into the back of her arm. “No notes. Nothing. We kept getting food like nothing was different. We didn't think you were coming back.”

Derek wrapped an arm around her. She took a shaky breath.

“We kept on like that until the gas. Then we woke up, and you were back. Along with all the creature comforts that were confiscated after the last attempt at rebellion," said Derek.

“We used your wet cloth mask trick when the gas started,” said Emily. “Having to use my shirt for that is the first thing in my whole life that has made me sincerely miss wearing a bra.”

JJ snorted a laugh.

“If it’s any consolation, you looked great,” said Derek, holding up his fingers in the ‘OK’ gesture. JJ slapped him on the arm while Emily rolled her eyes. “Relax, I’m kidding,” he said, holding up a hand defensively. “Believe it or not I was too busy trying not to die to check you out.”

They way they glossed over the horror of those weeks was an act of kindness he was sure he didn’t deserve.

The looks on their faces when they first woke up and saw that he was alive would be burned in the forefront of his mind for a long time.

“Wait,” he said, remembering. “There was an alarm. After he left me here. Has that happened before?”

Hotch shook his head. “We checked it while you were still out of it. It looks like they’ve retrofitted a small speaker inside the camera housing. It definitely wasn’t there before.”

He looked up at the camera, blinking red light as infuriating as ever. When he squinted, he could just see it through the reflections that bounced off the reinforced plexiglass. It would be interesting to see how that new element of their enclosure came into play.

“There was also a paper bag,” he said, looking around the room and spotting it in a corner. “What was in it?”

They all exchanged glances before looking back at him.

“We haven't looked,” said JJ.

"What? Why?" he asked, taken aback.

“Whatever happens next, we’re all in this together,” said Rossi.

He felt a lump rise in his throat. Emily squeezed his upper arm comfortingly.

“Before we open it and have to focus all of our energy on whatever is in there,” she said gently, “we need to take a moment to talk.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath. He'd figured this was coming. “I know,” he said, lowering his hands, once again catching a glimpse of the scar, still struggling to process that it would be with him for the rest of his life, however long that might be.

They all looked at each other again, and he was sure they’d planned this whole thing out while he was sleeping. Derek took the lead.

“What you said before, about wanting to die,” he said, looking like it hurt him as much to say it as it hurt Spencer to hear it, “We can’t ignore that.”

“I-” His instinct was to say ‘I was high, I was out of it, I didn’t know what I was saying,’ but instead he said, slowly and awkwardly, “I don’t plan on doing anything like that again.”

“That’s good,” said Derek calmly. “I’m glad to hear that. But we’re all conscious of the fact that we’re not exactly in an environment conducive to recovery. I don’t think any of us are exactly in a great place, psychologically or physically. And know that when I say this, I'm speaking from experience, not judgement; those feelings your having don't go away while you're still actively in a crisis situation. So even though I believe that you mean what you say, it's hard to trust that you won't change your mind later.”

If he'd needed another knife in his heart, the thought of a teenage Derek contemplating such a drastic escape from horrific abuse was sure to do it. This wasn't new information to him, but it never stopped hurting. How could it be fair that someone could survive what he had survived and still be made to suffer through something like this?

He learned a long time ago that fairness didn't exist and knew better than to ask those questions, yet the thought still came.

“We get it,” chimed in Rossi. “You already know I was struggling myself not long ago. You're not alone,” he said honestly.

"I hate that any of you know what this feels like," he said quietly. "I wish you didn't."

Derek shrugged helplessly. Rossi raised an eyebrow and said, "You and me both, kid."

A few of them nodded. “I think,” said Emily, “that right now, we can’t afford for any one of us to break. If we lose you, Spencer, or if we lose any of us, I don’t know how the rest of us are going to make it out.”

He nodded. “No pressure,” he joked, swiping under his eyes. Nobody laughed.

“Right before you cut yourself,” said JJ bluntly, “You said to Derek that it had to be you because you didn’t have kids waiting for you to come home. You know that’s not true, right?”

“It is true,” he said, shaking his head at her. “I’m not justifying myself,” he clarified, “but you all have family waiting for you. All I have is my mom, and at this point, she might not even realize I’m gone.”

JJ looked at him so sadly. “It’s not true at all,” she insisted. “Do you know what it would do to my boys if I had to tell them you were gone? Sometimes I think Henry and Michael love you more than they love Will and I,” she said with a sound halfway between a cry and laugh. “And when all this is over, they’re going to need you more than ever. I’m going to need you.”

“It’s the same for my family,” said Derek. “Don’t you ever think for a second that just because you’re not related by blood that we can afford to lose you. You are family. For all of us.”

They all nodded and hummed in agreement.

“I can cope with all the fucked up shit that’s happening to us,” said Emily, “But I don’t think I can cope without you. Speaking as the only other member of the no partner, no kids, fucked up relationship with their mother gang,” she said with a watery laugh.

“How about the adult kid you didn’t get to raise, dead wife, dead mother gang?” deadpanned Rossi.

Spencer laughed even as tears threatened to spill again. He forced them back. He already had enough of a headache from the last time. “Is this supposed to be cheering me up? It’s working, strangely.”

“Jack still asks about you sometimes,” said Hotch softly. He looked around the room. “All of you.”

It was the first time he had mentioned Jack since waking up in the bunker. They all avoided talking about their kids too much. It felt wrong to draw their captor’s attention to their families, even though they were obviously aware of them. But Hotch hadn’t so much as alluded to Jack’s existence.

“Henry asks about Jack, too,” said JJ. “What do you tell him about us?”

Hotch looked at the floor. “I tell him he’s an adult now. He can look you up himself if he wants.”

That hung in the air. After everything Hotch had been through, they could hardly blame him for not wanting to talk about the past he left behind, but the thought of him shutting them out so completely still stung.

“I can’t believe he’s an adult,” said Emily. “He must be in college by now.”

Hotch nodded. “Studying to be a psychologist.”

“Not forensic psychology?” asked Derek, likely picking up on the same tension that Spencer was.

“No, thank god,” said Hotch. “He's interested in child psychology, with a focus on trauma.”

Oh.

Clearly everything Jack had been through as a kid had played a big part in shaping the adult he was becoming. It was a bittersweet thing to hear.

“You must be so proud of him,” said Emily.

“I am,” said Hotch. “And I would very much like to see him again so I can tell him that.” He looked at Spencer. “For better or worse, what you did got us vital information, and a reason to hope we can get out of this. I’m not naive enough to believe that just talking with you about this is going to fix it. I also know that the longer we’re down here, the more likely it is for the rest of us to experience suicidal ideation or other acute mental health issues, if we aren’t already. Nobody is immune to the effects of long-term confinement.” He looked at each of them in turn. “What we need to do is make sure that if any of us start having those thoughts, myself included, we cannot keep it to ourselves.” He looked at Spencer. “It’s time we accepted that we might be in here for a while yet, and we need to do everything in our power to stay alive as long as possible and give the others the best chance of finding us. Can you do that?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “I can do that.”

Hotch gave a single appreciative nod in return. “Good.”

“I guess that just leaves one thing,” said Emily, getting up to retrieve the unopened paper bag.

It didn’t look bulky enough to contain food, so he was expecting a note. When Emily picked it up, it sagged a little in the bottom, indicating that there must be an object of some kind in there. She walked back to the group but didn’t sit. They all looked up at her as she opened the bag.

She pulled out a note, and read.

“When a dog bites the hand that feeds it, do you put the dog down, or train it? I hope you have learned your lesson. Follow the rules or you will have to be taught again.” She scrunched the note up and tossed it on the floor. "God I hate this bitch."

She turned the bag over and dumped its contents onto the floor in the middle of the circle, then scrunched up the bag and tossed that on the floor too.

Six stacks of rectangular card, each bundled with twine, thudded to the floor with a dull thwack.

They each reached out and grabbed a stack, turning them over and examining them. They contained photos, around 20 to a stack.

The one at the top of the stack that Spencer had grabbed was a picture of JJ, sitting on her front porch having a coffee with Will. He undid the twine and saw quickly that each photo in the stack was of her and her family, her at the gym, even her entering Quantico, taken from a distance.

“This is insane,” breathed Emily. He looked over at the stack she was holding and saw a glimpse of Hotch and a young man he realized must be Jack.

They each laid their stack out on the ground in front of them, fanning them out so they could all see.

He looked across the circle and saw Hotch setting down photos of himself. At Virginia Tech where he teaches Criminology from time to time. Coming and going from his mother’s care home. Oh god. There was a photo of him at his dealer’s apartment door, looking entirely unwell.

One picture in particular caught his eye. He reached across and grabbed it. Hotch looked at him for a moment, before catching a glimpse of the photos of himself that Emily was laying out and cursing.

“If I ever get my hands on these fucking people…” he said to himself, icy and furious, reaching for a picture of his son.

Spencer focused on the photo in his hand. It was of him, standing in front of a small, but protected house on a block of land in rural Virginia. “Emily,” he said.

She jerked her head to him, having been engrossed in the pictures of herself that she had spotted. “What?” she asked worriedly.

He handed her the picture. At first she looked confused, but the moment of recognition came quickly. “Oh no,” she whispered.

“What is it?” asked Rossi.

They all looked between himself and Emily. He looked to her, not sure which of them should explain or how much he should even say.

“It’s a safe house,” said Emily eventually. “You know how Spencer was away last year doing confidential work for the Bureau? This is where he was. This photo looks like it was taken from inside the property line."

"That photo was taken right after I got there," he said gravely.

Emily blinked. "That was more than a year ago."

Whoever these Unsubs were, they had been preparing for this for a long time.

Chapter Text

The photographs formed a storyboard of the past year of their lives.

They must have been at it for hours, meticulously sorting them into what they figured was as close as they could get to chronological order. They lined the photos up side by side on the floor, taking up the length of an entire 30 foot wall two rows deep, a colorful collage of their shared violation.

They process was clinical and procedural. This was as much hard data as they'd had since they got there and unassailable professional instinct made the next steps clear. It felt good to have something tangible to work with, even if the subject matter was unsettling.

There was a silent agreement not to press each other for context on any of the photographs beyond time, date, and location: All the details needed for a detailed timeline and geographical profile.

They didn’t comment on the photograph of JJ in a bar with a half empty pint of beer and tears in her eyes, still wearing her work clothes. They didn’t ask Hotch about the photo of him and Jack in a parking lot clearly in the middle of an argument.

Even a person with nothing in the world to hide would have moments they didn't want to share over the course of an entire year of their lives.

At one point Derek deviated just a moment from their agreement and chuckled at a photo of Spencer in an expensive apartment sitting on a leather sofa, very close to a rather pretty woman. The picture was taken through the wall to ceiling windows from somewhere in the high-rise across the road. "Friend of yours?" he asked.

“Sort of,” said Spencer, taking the photo and examining the details so he could date it. He looked at both of their outfits, at the length of his hair, at the drink in her hand. He closed his eyes and sifted through every interaction he’d had with that woman in that apartment until he landed on the one with the corresponding details. “3^rd of August 2023, 1:30am, Washington D.C. I was there to buy narcotics,” he said, tight lipped. “She’s my dealer.”

With shaky hands, he passed the photo back to Derek, who stared at it again, dashed of any humor.

After a while, he set the picture in its place in the timeline and made no further comments on any of his photos. He noticed the others all stopping to take a look at it with varying degrees of subtlety.

Well, except for Emily, who bent down to look and said, “God damn,” and wolf whistled. “You two look pretty cozy."

“It's not like that," he said sheepishly. "For one, I think you're more her type than I am," he said with a shrug. "I wouldn't call her a friend, but I guess it was good having someone to talk to who already knew how screwed up I was. She's nice enough."

"For a drug dealer," muttered Derek, shuffling through a stack of photos.

Spencer quirked his lip. "I'm not exactly in a position to judge, am I?"

Derek tapped the photos in his hand, straightening them out. "I guess not."

A few minutes later, when Derek handed Spencer a photo taken in that same apartment, he did so wordlessly, extending his arm without even looking up from the photos in his other hand.

A shiver ran down his spine at the confronting image. It was a picture of him slumped back on that same nice leather couch, sleeve rolled up with a tourniquet loosened on his arm and a used needle on the coffee table next to him. His dealer was smoking a joint on the armchair across from him.

He almost forgot why he was looking at the photo, transfixed as he was by the completely sickening thought of the others seeing him like this.

It occurred to him that he had never seen himself like this, either. He looked so sick. That wasn't surprising. He usually waited until he got home to shoot up. The only exceptions to that were when he was particularly desperate for a fix. Or when he couldn't bear to be alone.

As he stared at the photo, a violent vision of digging his nails into his scar and tearing it open intruded into his mind.

He shook his head, clearing it of the disturbing thoughts.

“Um... September 13^th 2023. 1pm,” he said, reminding himself of the task at hand.

He handed the photo back to Derek, not sure if the other man was avoiding looking at him out of respect or disgust, but grateful for it either way. As he passed it over, he fumbled, dropping the photograph, which floated dully to the floor and landed face down.

“Shit,” he muttered, pulling his hand back and flexing it as best he could, trying to control the trembling and biting back a hiss at the pain that shot through his forearm. “Sorry.”

Derek ignored the dropped photo and finally looked Spencer in the face. “That’s like the fifth time you’ve dropped something since we started this,” he said seriously. “Let me look at your hand,” he said, reaching out for Spencer's left hand without waiting for an answer.

He pulled it away. “It’s fine,” he said. “I'm just shaky. It's mild withdrawal symptoms. It’s not that bad.”

After two weeks on a high dose of fentanyl, some withdrawals were inescapable, but it was nothing compared to what he went through before. It still pretty much sucked, but at least he wasn’t feverish.

"It's not just withdrawal," interjected Hotch, stepping up behind Derek and folding his arms. "Every time you fumble, it's your left hand. This isn't going to go away just because you ignore it," he said firmly. "Let Morgan take a look."

Spencer knew he was right, even though he was trying very hard not to know it. The others had stopped what they were doing and were watching the interaction with interest.

He sighed, bracing himself. He held out his mangled left arm to Derek, who grasped his wrist and turned his hand palm-up. He studied it, prodding the muscles around the scar.

Spencer stared at the wall behind Derek's head, looking anywhere except the horrible, foreign flesh that he used to recognize as his arm.

“Any numbness or tingling?” asked Derek.

After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded. “Some.”

Derek pursed his lips unconsciously. He put his fingers on Spencer’s and gave a probing scratch with his own fingernail. “Can you feel that?”

He shrugged halfheartedly. “A bit. The sensation is limited.”

Derek moved his fingers to Spencer’s palm and repeated the previous action. “Here?”

Spencer shook his head. “Barely.”

“Okay,” Derek said, sounding decidedly less than okay. “Tell me when you feel normal sensation again.”

He dragged his fingernail from Spencer’s palm, up to his wrist, and then to the forearm. He was halfway up Spencer’s forearm before he stopped him.

It wasn’t as if this was news to him, but having it validated in the furrow of Derek’s brow was an unexpected blow.

It would have been easier to keep telling himself it was just detox messing with his nervous system.

The others were all gathered in close now, unabashedly observing the impromptu examination.

Derek held out both of his own hands, three fingers raised to the roof on each side. “Try and squeeze both of my fingers as hard as you can,” he instructed.

Spencer did as he was asked, already knowing what the result would be, but somewhat morbidly curious to figure out just how fucked he was.

His right hand squeezed just fine, but the left struggled to form itself into a proper fist, let alone apply meaningful pressure. A burning pain shot through his forearm at the effort.

He dropped his hands pathetically to his sides, finally able to look at Derek now that he didn’t have to risk looking at his scar in the process. He felt the urge to shove his hands in his pockets and was irritated that the scrub pants didn’t have any.

“What’s your diagnosis?” he asked sardonically.

Derek raised an eyebrow at him. “You tell me, genius. Numbness, weakness, loss of fine motor function, and I’m willing to bet you’ve got some pain you’re not talking about.”

“I must have severed the median nerve,” he said tiredly. “It’s unlikely that I’ll ever recover full function.”

“It’s still early days,” chimed in Emily. “You’ve barely healed and haven’t exactly had world class medical care. Don’t count yourself out just yet.”

He once again resisted the urge to shove his hands into his non-existent pockets and settled for crossing his arms instead. “It’s fine, guys,” he said flatly. “We have a job to do. This can wait.”

There was no arguing with that. The damage was already done and worrying about it wasn't going to fix it.

With a few lingering looks of concern, they all returned to the task at hand. Derek bent down and picked up the fallen photo, glancing at it one last time before putting it in its proper place.

When they were done, they had an imperfect but extensive timeline, including geographical information.

Spencer studied every photograph and sifted through every detail of date time and geography in his mind. He pictured a map, marking each location with pushpins, just like he had on the walls of so many police precincts around the country. 

Eventually, he came to one inarguable conclusion.

“There was more than two of them.”

“Are you sure?” asked Emily.

He knelt down, picking up three photos that were placed next to each other on the floor. “Here I am near the West Virginia border on the same day Hotch is in Kentucky. Fine, we know that they work as a pair. It’s possible they had an equal division of labor with the stalking. It’s an unusual dynamic, but we knew that already. But this,” he said, holding up a picture of Emily having lunch with her mother in DC, “was taken at lunchtime on the same day. In ideal traffic, the earliest time they could have gotten from me to Emily is 5 hours, which would have been closer to 3.30pm. Now, theoretically, you could make it from Hotch’s house to Louisville airport in an around 90 minutes, with check in 40 minutes before hand, and be in DC just in time to get this picture. But why? Why go that effort and expense just to get a picture of you at lunch with your mom? Not to mention, they would have to locate you within the city first. How many time a year do you even see your mom? Twice? Three times?”

“Less if I can help it,” said Emily with a grimace.

“Exactly. This isn’t a routine part of your schedule. And you said it was a last-minute arrangement. She wasn’t even supposed to be in the city.”

“That’s right. They couldn’t have known where I was going to be. I didn’t even know where I was going be until the time where they would have been on the plane with no cell service,” she said, clicking her finger as she followed his train of thought.

“And the other one would have been in rural Virginia in a location that was intentionally without cell service-”

“So even in the absolute worst case scenario where they bugged our phones somehow, it wouldn’t have been possible for them to listen in on my mom’s call. They couldn’t have known where I would be.”

“And the most generous timeline would still require them knowing exactly where to go as soon as they landed in DC,” Spencer finished. “They must have had help.”

“You don’t think there could be a third Unsub, do you?” asked JJ worriedly.

“No,” said Spencer. “I doubt it. The way he talked about her, I don't think he would even be capable of forming any kind of meaningful trusting relationship with another person. I don't think their dynamic allows for a third party.”

“What if they didn’t have just one person helping them?” said Rossi. “Think about it. Not one of us noticed that we were being stalked for over a year? Reid, you have an eidetic memory. No matter how careful they are, the fact is if you see the same face enough times, eventually you’ll notice, right?” Spencer nodded. “Never mind that we’re all profilers, most of whom are more than a bit hypervigilant. But if it was four, five, a dozen people sharing the load? That’s a lot harder to spot.”

“You think they contracted their stalking out?” said Hotch, a touch incredulous. “That’s a pretty high risk approach.”

“I don’t think they contracted out all of it,” clarified Rossi. “They’re too obsessive and controlling for that. They would have done the more intimate digging into our lives themselves. But I think they may have hired on PIs for a lot of the day-to-day stuff, including actively following us, photographing us, and learning our routines. Unless anyone has a better theory.”

“Something like that would take a lot of money,” pointed out Derek. “Especially to have people following FBI agents. Buying discretion for a job like that isn’t cheap. Not to mention the associated costs of keeping their identities hidden from the people they hired. It kind of makes sense. I mean, look at this place. It would have taken them a lot of time and resources to set this up. It would be pretty difficult to do that while stalking six people full time.”

“If our profile is correct and we’re dealing with a former prisoner and prison nurse, then how would they have access to that kind of money?” asked Spencer.

They all traded looks before settling on Emily, their default leader. Funny, even Hotch was looking to her.

She sputtered, giving a half shrug. “I wish I had a theory, but I don’t think we have enough information. All of these conclusions are speculative at best, for now. We’ll keep working on it. But for the moment, let’s focus on the positive. If they really were hiring outside help, that’s great for us. Every person involved in this is a weak link in the chain. It doesn’t matter how careful they were or how well they concealed their identities. Things like this leave a trail.”

"I don't think they meant for us to figure this out," said Spencer. "These photos are carefully curated, and everything they presented us was within a plausible time frame. If this is information they didn't want us to know, then it's information we might be able to leverage somehow."

"That's great," said Emily with a smile. "Every new thing we learn is helpful. Good work, everyone."

The congratulatory moment was short lived when a clang at the door made them all jump

A moment later, one paper bag was deposited in the door chamber, followed by another, both by the same single gloved hand that had become so familiar.

Spencer sprung into action. He’d been waiting for this chance. He stepped quickly to the door, leaning down to speak through the hatch.

“I heard you,” he said. “You were in the room with me. I remember you.”

The hatch was halfway to being closed, but it halted before it could fully seal.

Adrenalin surged and his brain kicked into overdrive. She had never responded to their attempts to talk to her.

This was new.

“You saved my life,” he said, taking another step forward. “He wanted to let me die but you said no. Thank you."

He paused, leaving a space he hoped she would fill with a response.

Silence.

 He pressed on. "He’s a sadist. He's not like you. He doesn't want what you want. He won’t indulge you forever.”

The hatch pulled shut and resealed itself.

Apparently, that was not what she wanted to hear.

He looked back at the others. Nobody said anything. What could they say? It was too soon to know what kind of affect his words might have had.

"That's more of a reaction than any of the rest of us have ever got," JJ pointed out. "That's progress."

"Yeah," he said simply.

Being closest to the door, Spencer opened the hatch. He grabbed one of the bags, feeling instantly from the weight that it contained their food. He tried to grab the second bag, but received a viscous reminder that his other hand didn’t work anymore when searing nerve pain shot up his entire arm. He pulled back, cringing.

Emily stepped in, grabbing the second bag for him.

They all watched as he and Emily opened their respective deliveries. His contained fruit and nutritional shakes, as expected. He sifted through in case there was a note inside, and when he found nothing, he placed the bag on the floor for everyone to help themselves to food.

“Huh,” said Emily next to him, staring into the bag.

“What?” asked Hotch.

Emily reached in and pulled out a deck of cards. She tossed it to Hotch, who caught it easily and turned it over curiously. She reached back in and pulled out a soft rubber ball next, just big enough to fit in her hand. She tossed that one to Derek.

“What the fuck?” said a bewildered Rossi.

“There’s a note, I think,” said Emily. “Hold on.”

She dug into the bag with a rattling that indicated at least another couple of items were in there, and she pulled out a folded piece of paper. She put the bag down and unfolded the note.

“When you put me in a cage I saw many who wanted to die but I knew better. Truth is the only freedom that matters. You will understand in time. Be good and it does not need to hurt. Dr Reid,” she stopped abruptly, eyes skimming the page.

“What?” he asked nervously.

It couldn't be another secret. That didn't fit the pattern. It would be JJ, Hotch, or Derek next.

Emily glanced down at the discarded bag, picking it up and digging through it, scrunching the note in her hand as she did so.

“Prentiss?” queried Hotch, approaching her.

She stopped what she was doing for a moment to wordlessly hand him the note, then went back to the bag. She tossed items on the floor as she went. A self-help book titled Radical Honesty: How to Transform Your Life by Telling the Truth, which was entirely too on the nose to the point where he almost rolled his eyes. A pack of crayons and an adult coloring in book.

“What in the actual hell is going on?” said JJ, looking at the strange assortment of objects. "Cheesy self-help books? A mindfulness coloring book? Does she have a 'live love laugh' throw pillow in there, too?"

Emily ignored her. She dropped the bag, apparently finding what she'd been looking for.

She held a triangular leather case, like the kind you’d put glasses in. Hotch, who had finished reading the note, stared at the case like it might come to life and bite Emily’s hand off. She peaked inside then closed it back up, shooting Hotch a significant look and gripping it tight in her hand.

Spurred on by the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach and their infuriating silence, Spencer reached out and snatched the note from Hotch’s hand.

“Spencer…” said Emily helplessly, and the instant he glanced at the note he understood why.

Dr Reid, you are hurting. You can make it stop. It is your truth. Nobody else can chose for you. You cannot dispose of or destroy it. Break these rules and you will all be hurting.

He looked at the case in Emily’s hand.

He dropped the note on the floor, hands trembling more than ever. Someone behind him picked it up, but he wasn’t paying attention to who.

“What’s in the case?”

“You shouldn’t have to do this,” she said sadly. "It's not fair."

“You read the note, Emily. The last thing we need right now is to get gassed again or to lose our food supply or whatever the hell the next so called punishment is going to be. Let’s just get this over with,” he demanded.

After one last silent check in with Hotch, who could only shake his head helplessly, she extended the case to him. It was within an inch of his hand when Derek reached over from behind him and snatched it away.

“Absolutely fucking not,” he said, the note scrunched in his hand.

He tossed the ball of paper over to JJ, who read it alongside Rossi. A moment later, “What fresh fucking psychodrama are we in now?” from Rossi signaled that everyone in the room was up to date.

Derek opened the pouch and pulled out a single syringe filled with a clear liquid.

His heart skipped a beat as Derek’s thumb raised up to the capped needle, ready to snap it off.

“Morgan, wait!” yelled Hotch, hands raised to Derek in a halting gesture.

Derek froze, lip twitching with the heavy effort of self-restraint. “We're not doing this, Hotch, I swear to fucking god I don’t care what the consequences are.”

“I don’t…” Hotch struggled to string together a thought. His face was pallid and he looked like he might be sick. “None of us want to be here, but we’re here. We’re all going to do what we need to in order to survive. That’s what we agreed.”

“This is an escalation,” said JJ. “She’s moving beyond coercing us into revealing information. If we let her coerce us into physical action, where does this stop?”

The argument continued around him, but he wasn’t listening. His whole body itched. It was just him, alone in the room, staring at a syringe and weighing up the value of his life against the prick of a needle like he had a thousand times before.

“Everyone just shut up!” yelled Emily, snapping him back to reality. He locked eyes with her. They were all watching him. “What do you want to do?” she asked, paying no mind to the others.

What did he want to do?

He turned his back on all of them, raising his one functioning hand to rub at his forehead.

What did he want to do?

His words to Derek rang in his ears. I would shoot up right now, right here in this fucking room while you watched. He’d meant it. He’d really meant it at the time.

Then he decided to go and open a vein right here in this fucking room while they all watched.

He'd only just got back to them. Everything was different now and would be different forever and he hadn't even had time to understand how and the only thing he knew with absolute certainty was that every functional nerve remaining in his body was screaming for him to just take the needle and-

He swung around to face them all. “Give it to me,” he demanded, holding out his hand to Derek.

Derek looked him up and down. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“What difference does it really make at this point?” he asked, sighing. “This wouldn't be the first needle I've stuck myself with. It wouldn't be the hundredth. You think this one is the difference between me being a junkie or not? This isn’t worth putting everyone at further risk for. Just give it to me.”

Derek’s nostrils flared. The fist that wasn’t threatening to snap the needle clenched and unclenched by his side. After a long, excruciating moment, he looked away from Spencer and loosened his grip on the syringe, holding it out to him.

He didn’t look at Spencer as he took it from his hand.

Spencer looked down at it, studying it. He twirled it in his fingers for a second, the way he would with a coin in a magic trick. For just a moment, he let himself feel, once again, like he was alone in the room with it.

Then, he took three strides to the door, opened the chamber, and dropped the syringe inside. He slammed the hatch shut with quite a bit more force than was necessary and made an exodus to far side of the room.

A ripple of relief spread through his companions. “Thank god,” he heard JJ sigh.

He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. A hand came to rest on his shoulder and he opened his eyes to see Derek.

“Thank you,” he said.

Spencer nodded.

He faced the others. “Look, I’ve been back here less than a day. I’m literally sweating fentanyl right now and I can't think about any of this, so if we can agree to pretend it isn’t there and this isn’t happening until she removes the trash at the next food delivery, that would really help me out.” He looked up at the camera, meeting it’s blinking red light with a stony glare. “I won’t play this fucking game with you.”

He couldn't dispose of it, as per the note, but that didn't mean he had to engage. He could exhibit an iota of self-control, for once.

“Hey, it’s alright, Spence. You’re right, let’s not think about it,” said Emily. “Besides, we need to talk about what all this other shit is,” she said with a sweeping gesture at the odd assortment of objects that were strewn across the floor.

“I think what you did really scared them,” said Hotch. “They’re starting to realize you can’t just lock people up indefinitely with no stimuli and expect them to just endure.”

Emily picked up the self-help book and scrunched her nose at it. “If their goal is to stop us all from killing ourselves, the thought of this being the only book I’ll ever get to read again is having the opposite effect.”

Spencer was the only one who met her with a laugh instead of a chastising look.

“Why don’t we take a short break from profiling, put our respective breakdowns on hold, and just for one second pretend that this situation isn’t completely, irrevocably fucked up?” said Rossi, holding up the new deck of cards with a playful wave.

“Rossi’s right,” said Emily. “Sorting through those photographs was rough on all of us, and we've been at it for hours. We can discuss what all of this means for the profile after we’ve eaten and had a break.”

In agreement, they all helped themselves to a piece of food, though Spencer could hardly stomach the thought of eating and was doing so for their benefit more than his own, and arranged themselves in a circle.

He sat with his back to the door. He was not going to turn his head. He was not going to look at it. He was not going to look at it. He was not going to look at it.

Rossi shuffled up the deck. Derek had grabbed the small rubber ball for himself and was absently throwing and catching it where he sat while they settled in.

“So, should I let you all win a round of cards in order to boost morale?” smirked Spencer.

He had a tendency to clean up when they played together on longer trips on the BAU jet, much to both Rossi and Luke’s continuous annoyance, both of whom fancied themselves pretty good players.

There was a pang in his chest at the thought of his absent teammate. How were Luke and Penelope and Tara coping? They must be out of their minds. He missed them all deeply.

“Glad to see your piercing wit remains intact despite everything,” shot back Rossi. “Don’t do us any favors, kid, because I know you’re at less than peak performance and I fully intend to use it against you. Five card draw, aces high, no mercy,” he quipped, dealing out the hand.

With the game agreed on, they politely pretended not to notice as he struggled to rest his cards in his bad hand in order to free up his dominant hand for play. By pulling up his knee and resting his arm on it, he managed to finagle a position that allowed him to maintain a loose grip without much pain. Both his hands were shaking from withdrawal, but if he moved slow he could make it work.

A few hands in, and Spencer was surprised by how immersed he was. The only person who had managed to win a hand against him so far was JJ. She wasn't usually as into it as the rest of them, but the stress was bringing out a competitive streak that he'd rarely seen in her, including a fair bit more swearing than he'd heard from her since she had kids.

“The pattern is obvious,” said Hotch, unprompted, halfway through a hand. He had been putting in the bare minimum effort to participate, being the first to fold most rounds.

“The pattern where Reid keeps kicking our butts?” said Rossi, raising an eyebrow.

“Not my fault,” said Spencer. “You all know-”

“You’re from Vegas, yes, my god, we know,” said Emily, discarding her hand in exasperation. “You’ll feel right at home when we ban you from playing cards just like all the casinos did.”

“After this hand,” said Rossi, “we’re switching to Snap.”

Spencer huffed a laugh and looked at his trembling hands. “That, you might have an advantage in.”

He was almost having fun.

If he focused hard enough on the game and made the effort to joke around with them he could forget for a moment that he wanted to rip his own skin off. He could ignore the sickness, the flashes of vivid red that saturated his brain every time he caught sight of his scar, the loaded syringe sequestered in the hatch behind him.

Smile, laugh, joke, win another hand, joke, laugh, promise them, promise them he wants to keep living. If they wouldn’t believe his words, then he could show them. He’s laughing, he’s joking, he loves them. He wouldn’t hurt himself because he loves them. He’s not going to hurt himself. He promises. Different to the last time he promised because this time, he means it.

None of them were okay either but for his benefit, for all their benefits, they played the game. The least he could do is return the favor.

The least he could do is play the fucking game and stop thinking about where he’d stick the needle since his left arm was too freshly scarred to shoot up in right now and his dexterity was too fucked in his left hand to inject in his right arm, so he’d probably have to do it between his toes. That’s fine, he’s done it before, but it’s not the most hygienic-

“That’s not what I meant,” said Hotch, blessedly interrupting his train of thought. Hotch placed his cards down, face up, giving up any pretense of caring about the game. “The cycle of withholding and rewarding. It’s escalating. She trying to foster co-dependency, with her as some kind of maternal figure and us cast in the role of her children.”

Rossi rubbed at his forehead, tossing his own cards down. “Yeah,” he agreed sombrely. “We don’t clean our room, we don’t get dinner. We follow the rules, she ‘rewards’ us with the means of survival and demands gratitude. She’s likely recreating the same dynamic from her own childhood. If I had to guess, I’d say that imprisonment wasn’t her first experience with confinement. Her arrest and incarceration acted as a trigger, forcing her to relive that original trauma.”

"That's why she's so fixated on us. She perceives us as being responsible for her reliving her abuse and she wants to force us to live through it too, only this time, with her in the position of power," said Emily.

They all leaned in, thoughtful and considered, just as he’d seen them on hundreds of cases before.

“And what happens when abusive parents finally realize that their children can leave them?” asked JJ pointedly.

“Love bombing,” said Derek. “They do a 180 on the withholding behavior and do everything in their power to convince their victims that they’re safe, and to foster dependence in the process.”

Emily picked up the thread. “The gifts, the photographs and their tacit implication that they could be involving our families in this, but choose not to, the additional privileges and luxuries are all ways to make us stay. You know, this place is so secure, if there was a way out, we would have found it a long time ago. Whatever abuse she may have experienced, my bet is she compensated by developing an exaggerated self-preservation instinct. She’s someone who would do anything to survive, no matter the circumstances. She twists her trauma in her mind, re-contextualizing it as something that made her stronger and better. If she sees us as extensions of herself, she may not have anticipated that we could respond in ways she wouldn’t have.”

Spencer rubbed at his arm uncomfortably. “She leaned on deprivation and punishment as primary means of control because it never occurred to her that we might need to be persuaded to endure it.”

Hotch’s eyes flicked to somewhere behind Spencer’s head. To the spot on the door that he was diligently refusing to look. “That’s why she’s doing this to you,” he said. “What you did has thrown her plans off balance. She wants you to be dependent, but she’ll take it away as soon as you aren’t playing into her fantasy effectively enough.”

“I know,” he said tersely.

Of course she was trying to control him. She was trying to control all of them. He just had the misfortune of having a convenient dependence ready to go before they were even kidnapped.

Hotch’s face softened. “But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier,” he said sympathetically.

Spencer wrapped his arms around his knees. “Not particularly,” he admitted.

The crinkles around Hotch's eyes were deeper than they used to be, but there was more than that. He had laughter lines. Even as he frowned, the lines were visible. They hadn’t been there when he was with the BAU.

His jawline was softer when they had first woken up in the bunker, and while the weight had dropped off all of them during their detour into starvation, the skin hadn’t quite tightened up. The affects of age were showing in more than just the salt and pepper hair.

Everything that was different about Aaron Hotchner, yet the look he gave Spencer that made him feel like he could see right through him was exactly the same as it ever was.

He knew there was a question coming before the other man even opened his mouth to speak.

“Is there any part of you that’s doing this for yourself or is it all for our benefit?” There was no reprisal in his tone. Just sincere, morbid curiosity. “I know the only reason you're not using that needle is guilt. Do you care at all about what happens to you next?”

He sighed. “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth.”

Not for the first time, Hotch needed something from him. All these questions and there was something he needed Spencer to say. He wanted to give it to him, but try as he might, he couldn’t figure out what it was.

Spencer rubbed at his eyes, allowing himself a split second fantasy that he would look up and be alone, with nobody there to hurt when he opened that hatch and claimed the only ‘next’ that had mattered to him for a long time: His next fix.

“I’m glad I didn’t die, I don't plan to hurt myself, and I don’t intend to get high,” he said carefully. “Those statements are true. Does it really matter why they’re true?”

Hotch mused, pursing his lips. “I suppose it doesn’t right now,” he said eventually.

Spencer looked at him. Really looked at him. He caught the looks on the others faces in his peripheral vision, an array of fascination and worry. Something clicked.

"What about you, Hotch?" asked Spencer.

Hotch blinked, straightening up minutely. He looked as if he'd just remembered that they weren't the only two people in the room.

"What about me?"

"Are you going to be okay?"

Hotch looked taken aback. He reached down and picked up his discarded hand of cards, shuffling them absently. He glanced around the circle at the others, all of whom were awaiting his response.

Eventually, with the utmost composure, he said, "We're all alive, which means it's still possible we'll all make it out of here and get back to our families. As long as that's true, I'm fine." He picked up the rest of the deck that was sat in front of Rossi and started shuffling that too. "I'm sick of poker. Let's play something else."

They all accepted the diversion, chiming in with suggestions for different games. Now wasn't the time to push. There was only so much they could all take at once.

Was this what Hotch felt like with him? Why he was so intent on trying to figure him out?

It was such a lonely feeling, to be a stranger to someone who used to be family. There were times where he felt like they were all a team again, but then these little moments would come along and remind him that they didn't know each other anymore.

He turned away, chancing a glance at the door that contained the hatch that contained the one solution to his problems. The room felt smaller than it ever had.

"Spencer," whispered Emily. "Ignore it," she reminded him.

Right. Ignore it. There was nothing there. There was nothing in the world except the people in front of him.

He picked up the hand of cards that had just been dealt in front of him, ready to play.

Chapter Text

Spencer's eyes flung open only seconds before the alarm.

The horrible, high-pitched sound assaulted his senses. He squeezed his eyes tight against the light and rushed to cover his ears, wincing as his useless left hand scratched across his cheek.

The last traces of his dreams washed away in the noise. A flash of a needle, a glint in Ethan's eyes, all lost to the ringing in his ears.

It hadn't taken long for the purpose of the new speaker encased in the camera housing to reveal itself.

The single endless day they had been living beneath the fluorescents was now delineated into 24 hour segments, marked by the blaring siren. The concept of days had returned to their lives.

Each day began the same: Alarm, food delivery within 5 minutes, an attempt at reasoning with their jailer through the door which was inevitably met with silence, a spark of hope, a crushing blow, a chip of his willpower carved away.

When he first put the loaded syringe in the hatch, beneath the general feeling that he was utterly pathetic for being in the situation to begin with, a part of him had really thought himself a little bit strong and selfless for the great sacrifice he was making. With each new delivery leaving the narcotics in their place, untouched, he was feeling less noble and more like a stray cat cornered in an alley.

Rossi broke him out of his reverie by shoving a banana into his good hand and saying, "Maybe if you eat today you'll have enough energy to do more than just stare at that fucking door for hours on end. You need a better hobby, kid."

"I ate yesterday," he said defensively, not bothering to dispute the other accusation.

"Try more than two bites this time," said Rossi pointedly.

After breakfast was calisthenics, usually run by JJ or Derek, with the latter taking the lead this time.

JJ's hair was thin and patchy where she had been compulsively pulling it out. The back of her arms and her knees were scabbed from picking at the skin. She told him once years ago that she used to do it as girl, only stopping when she moved out of home. It had been getting worse. Even she was starting to need coaxing to participate in activities.

Spencer stepped to the side while the others continued running laps around the room. He leaned against the wall, panting, his vision swimming.

"Come on! Another 60 seconds," yelled Derek, tapping him on the arm as he ran past him. "Get your ass in gear."

"Absolutely fucking not," he said, groaning against the nausea.

Derek slowed to a stop. The others followed with sighs of relief.

"You have been spending way too much time around Rossi," he said, strolling over and shaking his head.

"Go fuck yourself," said Rossi, flipping Derek off, still panting from exertion.

"See, coming out of him, it sounds natural. 'Fuck' was probably his first word. But you? It's just wrong." Derek put a hand on Spencer's shoulder to stabilize him, as he was swaying somewhat. "You alright?"

"Fine," he said, dizziness abating as he took some deep breaths. "You know, swear words serve more than a linguistic function. Imaging has shown that swearing correlates to increased activity in the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, meaning it has an impact on emotional regulation and impulse control. It's even been shown to have an analgesic effect. Studies have shown that, on average, swearing accounts for 0.5% to 0.7% of total word usage, which can-"

"That number's gotta be like 5% minimum for Rossi," chimed in JJ.

"Did I do something to piss you all off today?" asked Rossi, throwing up his hands incredulously.

Spencer flipped through the last few days (days? the time between alarms) and cataloged every word that came out of Rossi's mouth. Once the list was compiled, the equation was simple.

"Extrapolating from data over the past six days, approximately 1.4% of your total speech is profanity," said Spencer, looking at Rossi. "That is double the median average."

"What can I say? I'm an overachiever," said Rossi, unbothered.

"What percentage are you up to?" JJ asked Spencer.

He repeated the mental process the same as he had for Rossi, freezing as soon as he landed on the unexpectedly high number. It's not as if he had an issue with profanity, but he preferred to be sparing so as not to dilute the impact or precision of his words. Upon reflection, his vocabulary had shrunk somewhat during their confinement. He pursed his lips, then turned to Derek. "I have been spending too much time around Rossi."

That earned him and Derek both a middle finger.

"I'm going to wash up," said Emily with an affectionate eye roll at all of them, turning to the bathroom and laying first claim on the sink and soap.

The day marched on.

"You're getting better at that," said Hotch, observing his loose, fumbling grip on the little ball their captors had gifted them. "It looks like you're improving."

He sat cross-legged, facing Derek, his back to the door. Physical therapy, the other man called it. A waste of time, thought Spencer, but he played along. Having something constructive and helpful to do each day brought a spark to Derek that he couldn't bear to take away.

The program was cobbled together based on Spencer's anatomy knowledge and Derek's practical understanding of movement based on his own experiences as a young athlete and having recovered from injuries in the past. He was more knowledgeable in the subject than Spencer had realized. The program wouldn't be out of place at an actual physiotherapy clinic.

Unfortunately, the biological reality of a severed nerve could not be rewritten by optimism and force of will. The best case scenario of a surgical repair in the immediate aftermath of the injury would likely still have left him with loss of function.

They were well past the best case. He'd be lucky if he could ever form a proper fist again.

"I'll be back to doing sleight of hand in no time," he said to Hotch with a tight smile.

It was worth it for the hint of pride that warmed Derek's face.

The rest of the day, they took turns in leading activities. With endless hours to kill, the biggest enemy was boredom, and they fought it valiantly.

Emily had taken to reading a new chapter aloud each day from the trite self-help book on radical honesty that the Unsub had left them. It had some genuinely interesting provocations, but intertwined with oversimplifications and new age schlock. Emily took on the most melodramatic tone she could muster even in the driest, dullest segments.

Spencer had taken to sharing his most recent lecture series for the Advanced Criminal Psychology course at the university. Of course, the others were already highly educated on the topic, so he took the opportunity to invite feedback and spark discussions on theory and interesting case studies.

Rossi, on the other hand, had been breaking up his litany of what JJ liked to call 'sleepover party greatest hits' in favor of increasingly esoteric card games. He presented the progressively more convoluted play alongside far fetched stories of when and where he learned the games, and Spencer was pretty sure he was making up most of it as he went along.

This one he insisted was called Dead Man's Hand and involved a complicated series of bluffs and calls. How one wins the game was as yet unclear, likely because Rossi was still deciding on the rules.

"Reid," said Hotch firmly from across the circle in a tone that indicated he'd said it several times already.

"Huh?"

"It's your turn."

He looked down at the cards clutched in his good hand, then put them on the ground. "I fold."

"Wrong game," said Rossi, raising an eyebrow.

"Yet, I'm doing it anyway."

"You were staring at the door again, man," said Derek lightly.

"I was admiring the architecture," he deadpanned.

He itched all over, deeper than he could possibly scratch. He felt the syringe as if he were connected to it by an umbilical cord.

"I know this sucks," said Derek, "but you've already made it this long. What's one more day? You're str-"

"If I hear one more time that I'm stronger than this, I'm going to f-" he hissed to a stop, suddenly conscious of his excessive cursing. He took a breath. "I'm going to respectfully ask that you keep the facile support group platitudes to yourself."

Derek put his own hand of cards down. "If I acknowledge the drugs, you get mad. If you think I'm avoiding the topic or placating you, you get mad. Is there anything I can say, or not say, that won't piss you off?"

"Probably not," he said petulantly. "Is there anything I can say that will get you to stop treating me like I'm a bomb waiting to go off?"

An invisible ripple spread across the room. The game was forgotten. He hadn't meant to argue, but it bubbled out of him and he didn't know how to make it stop. They were always watching him. Always checking in, commenting on and correcting every errant behavior.

Derek sucked his teeth, jaw clenched. He looked away, then looked back.

"A week ago, we thought you were dead. Sorry it's taking a minute to get over it."

"I know," he said, instantly regretful.

"There's still a stain from where your blood soaked into the concrete," added JJ quietly, a distant look in the direction of the off color patch where the porous concrete couldn't be fully cleaned.

"I know. I know," he said quickly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," said Emily gently. "Nobody is trying to single you out. We're all struggling. Maybe, if we're honest, focusing on you can be a good distraction. God knows I don't want to think about my own issues a single second longer than I have to. Your problems just have the advantage of being harder to ignore."

"That's some very healthy radical honesty you're practicing," joked Rossi. Spencer appreciated his effort to break the tension.

"Shut up," scoffed Emily.

Spencer looked back at the door. After a long while, he said, "How long are we going to do this? It's been six days. They stalked us for at least a year. We can't discount their capacity for patience."

"So we have to be more patient than them," said Emily. "This was your idea."

Malicious compliance was the strategy. They tried following the rules. They tried open defiance. They tried self-destruction. This was an opportunity to do something new. Play her game by the letter, but don't let her win. Wait her out, as long as it takes, until she's forced to change tactics or make a bolder move. Do not, under any circumstances, allow their captors to believe that they can physically coerce them into specific actions.

It was less a plan than a loose tactic, but it was something. Nobody wanted to be gassed again, but they would take that over letting her win the battle of wills.

Which would be fine if it wasn't his rapidly waning willpower that they were depending on.

"There's still the option to just flush it," pointed out Derek.

"No," said Hotch, drawing all eyes to him. "As much as I want to, we all know what's going to happen if we do it. That kind of explicit defiance of an articulated rule will trigger retaliation, and it will be worse than the last time."

"I know you don't want to hear this," said JJ, reaching out to put her hand on his, though he could barely feel her touch, as it was his bad hand, "but you are stronger than this. You have to be."

He held her gaze. She was right: he didn't want to hear it. He wanted them to say 'Give in. Get high. That's a completely logical course of action.'

"I'll be fine," he said firmly. "Absolutely fucking fine."

"Watch the language," deadpanned Rossi.

He laughed despite himself.

His skin itched. His mangled arm was searing with nerve pain. He couldn't help another glance at the hatch.

Maybe he had it in him. For them, surely, he could endure.

He went to pick up the discarded cards, intending to make a concerted effort at the ridiculous, barely coherent game. It would be interrupted any minute by the second daily food delivery anyway. Maybe this would be the one where the Unsubs finally gave up and took the narcotics away, though he didn't have high hopes.

Before he could get to the cards, the world was plunged into darkness.

He froze for a moment, disoriented, struggling to process what he was, or rather wasn't seeing.

The lights were out.

Chapter Text

When the lights finally went out, Spencer's first thought was that he was hallucinating.

After what felt like an eternity under the harsh fluorescent glare, the sudden darkness was jarring. His eyes struggled to adjust as shadows crept across unfamiliar angles of the concrete walls.

"Is this really happening?" whispered JJ.

They all sat frozen, waiting to see if this was another trick of their captor or if unconsciousness was about to claim them again. But no gas leaked from the vent. The darkness held steady, broken only by a faint emergency light emanating from the camera housing.

"Maybe she really is trying to make us more comfortable," said Emily, her voice tight with suspicion. "Maybe simulated nights is the next step after the alarm."

Rossi snorted. "Yeah, a real humanitarian."

Spencer pressed his fingers into his eyes, trying to force them to adjust. The dull, electronic buzz of the lights was finally silent and he could almost cry from relief.

"It could be the Bureau," said Hotch. "Maybe they found us and are about to breach. We should get back from the door."

But none of them moved. The darkness felt alive somehow, pregnant with possibility.

Then came the sound.

A low hum, barely perceptible at first. It grew steadily into a mechanical whine that made Spencer's teeth ache. The emergency light flickered once, twice, then went out completely.

Total darkness.

"Everyone stay calm," commanded Emily. "This could be-"

The speaker in the camera housing crackled to life with a burst of static that made them all jump.

"Hello agents." The man's voice was harsh. "I hope you're enjoying your gifts."

Spencer's hand unconsciously went to his arm, fingers tracing the raised edges of his scar that covered the same surface he used to inject into.

"What do you want?" demanded Derek.

"I want you to understand that everything that happens from here is your choice. Dr. Reid made his choice. Now you all get to make yours."

Spencer felt Emily's hand find his in the darkness and squeeze.

"What does that mean?" asked JJ, her voice steady despite the tremor Spencer could feel where her shoulder pressed against his.

"It means that choices have consequences." There was a hint of amusement in his voice. "Dr. Reid chose to reject his gift. So now you all get to choose. Either he uses it, or none of you sleep tonight. Or tomorrow night. Or the night after that."

Spencer's breath caught in his throat. He felt the others shifting around him in the darkness, processing the implications.

"This doesn't make any sense," he muttered to himself.

"Is this under your partner's instruction?" asked Hotch, voice raised. "She's trying to help us. She's kind. This is nothing but a petty act of cruelty and control. Does she even know that you're doing this?"

"It's torture," said Derek flatly. "Not particularly sophisticated, at that."

"No," replied the man. "I's a choice. One of many you'll all need to make soon." There was a pause, then: "You have one hour to decide."

The speaker clicked off.

For several long moments, nobody spoke. The darkness pressed in around them like a physical weight.

"We're not doing it," said Derek finally, voice hard as steel.

"No, we're not," agreed JJ.

"Wait," said Spencer, his mind racing. "We need to think about this rationally. Sleep deprivation is incredibly dangerous, especially given our current circumstances. Extended periods without sleep can cause hallucinations, paranoia, immune system failure-"

"Stop," interrupted Derek. "We're not even discussing this."

"You don't get to make that choice for all of us," Spencer shot back. His hands were shaking again, though whether from cravings, nerve damage, or fear he couldn't tell anymore. "The logical thing to do is-"

"The logical thing," said Hotch firmly, "is to not let her manipulate us into forcing you to use drugs against your will. That's a line we don't cross."

"But it's not against my will!" The words burst out of him before he could stop them. In the darkness, he couldn't see their reactions, could only hear the sharp intake of breath from someone to his left. "Why make everyone suffer just to protect me from something I'm going to do anyway as soon as I get out of here?"

"You don't know that," said JJ softly.

"Yes, I do." His voice cracked. "And so do you."

"Even if that's true," said Emily, "giving in to their demands now only teaches them that this method works. What's the next choice going to be?"

"Not to mention that this is a significant deviation from their MO," said Rossi. "We know this guy has it out for you in particular, kid. We cannot indulge him."

"We stay strong," said Derek. "Together."

Spencer felt Emily's arm wrap around his shoulders. "We can handle a few sleepless nights," she said. "We've done it before."

He leaned into her, nodding even though nobody could see it.

"Do you think the attempts to sow discord between them might have worked? Could the relationship be devolving?" suggested JJ.

"Maybe," said Hotch. "It's possible that the failure of her last attempt at coercing us through perceived acts of generosity has given her partner the psychological leverage needed to push his own sadistic methodology. Then again, she didn't have an issue with starving us. She may not be a sadist, but she is still violent and vindictive."

"But she starved us as a retaliation for directly violating her instructions," pointed out Derek. "We haven't broken any rules. Why present it as if Spencer had a choice, then retaliate anyway?"

"Maybe this isn't about rules," said Emily, close to his ear. "We've profiled she views us as having a personal relationship, with her enacting past cycles of abuse on us. If she genuinely views herself as making amends and showing us kindness by giving gifts and amenities, then she may see the rejection of the drugs as a rejection of that kindness, and, by extension, a rejection of her."

"It was never a choice. It was a test, and I failed," said Spencer, finishing the thought. "That fear could be part of why she never communicates with us directly. If we don't know her, then we can't reject her."

"Or maybe she's just bored of our current dynamic and decided to handover the reigns to her asshole, sadist crony to shake things up. Or maybe he killed her and this is just our life now. Who the fuck knows," exclaimed a frustrated Rossi from somewhere in the dark. "My biggest concern right now is how exactly they plan to stop us from falling asleep?"

There was a pause as they all mulled over the possibilities.

He looked up again in the direction he knew the vent was. They had pumped in anesthetics before. Would they try the same with stimulants? That would be a high risk move even as a one off. It certainly couldn't be sustainably executed over a period of days. But what other options did they have?

The silence grew heavier with every passing second.

There was no movement but for the camera's blinking red light.

"I'll only ask one more time, but are you all sure this is worth it?" asked Spencer, feeling Emily and JJ flinch beside him at the sound.

"Yes," said a chorus of voices, mixed with affirmative hums.

They were all right, of course, no matter how much he wished they weren't. He knew that.

The hour ticked down as they sat huddled together in the cavernous dark. Each new second brought them closer to a terrible unknown.

Any moment now, he thought.

The speaker crackled. The gravely voice of the man came through.

"Remember," he said. "This was your choice."

All at once, the lights flashed back on.

They all hissed, pulling back against the burning. The alarm rang, impossibly loud!

He caught a glimpse of the others faces, recoiling and overwhelmed.

Then: darkness.

Silence.

A count: One, two, three, four, five seconds.

The lights and alarm screamed back to life.

One, two, three, four, five.

The quiet dark.

Groans of exasperation and discomfort, a whispered "Oh no," from Emily, and a deep, radiating pain forming behind his eyes.

The pattern repeated.

Then again.

And again.

Chapter Text

The seconds between the alarm were filled by a keening wail. Like an injured animal, trapped and dying.

It had been going on for... for...

"612 intervals," supplied the voice behind his shoulder. "That's 51 minutes. You don't think that warrants a look?"

The voice was warm, familiar in a way that made his skin prickle.

"Shut up," Spencer mumbled, clamping his hands tighter over his ears, burying his face deeper into the mattress. "Leave me alone."

Lights. Siren.

Darkness. Wailing.

Lights. Siren.

Darkness. Wailing.

It was all too bright, too loud, too rough, too present. Every time he his mind shut down for a blessed few seconds, the burst of light and sound would hit him like a bucket of ice and sandpaper.

"One of your friends is in trouble and you don't even care." The voice was closer now. "After everything they've suffered for you, you're just going to ignore their crying? You haven't changed."

"I'm hallucinating," he slurred, the words thick and unwieldy in his mouth. "Not real. None of this is real."

His head swam. An ice pick was being driven into the space behind his eyes over and over and over. Skin burning, nerves buzzing, mind racing, body cramping. Dante Alighieri could never have dreamed this circle of hell.

It was like withdrawal all over again. It was worse. The world had always been this room. It would always be this room. Time was an endless count of five, playing the same tormented moment over and over again. He was starting to think he had died after all. That he really had bled out on the concrete floor. Maybe the Catholics were the ones who got it right. Suicide was a mortal sin and this was his punishment. He had never believed in any religion, but wouldn't it be just his luck that this was the truth?

"One of your friends could be dying out there and you wouldn't even know it." The voice was edged with disappointment now. "What is it with you and running from the truth?"

He wrenched himself up, ready to fight, ready to hit out and scream and assert himself against this unstable reality. Just because he was dead, didn't mean he had to put up with this harassment.

"Leave me alone!" he yelled.

But where he expected to see Ethan's face to match the voice that wouldn't give him a moment's peace, all he saw was a bright room that burned his retinas before the darkness set in again.

He looked helplessly around the room. The voice was gone, but the wailing continued to fill each 5-second silence.

It reminded him of every time he had told a person that someone they love most in the world was gone forever, and, by the way, they suffered every second before they were murdered. There were some kinds of pain that could rewrite reality, and some sounds that only come out of a human experiencing that kind of pain.

He realized in a flash that it wasn't a hallucination.

He looked around the room through blurred vision, searching for the source.

His eyes landed on JJ.

She was hunched over, crying in a way that he couldn't have imagined her being capable of.

Emily was wrapped around her like a blanket, holding her tight and rocking her back and forth like a toddler. She whispered an endless string of comfort in JJ's ear, too quiet for him to hear even in between the alarms.

A hand grabbed his wrist.

He flinched, wrenching it back.

He turned wild-eyed in the direction of the offending touch.

Darkness, then Derek, face inches from his own, hands held up in defense.

"It's only me," he said, dark bags under puffy eyes, skin patchy and inflamed where hives had bloomed.

Derek's fingers were still bloodied and scabbed from where he had clawed at the door, trying to pry it open, ripping off fingernails in the process.

Spencer had been the first to break. No surprise. The lights, the noise, the unrelenting stimulation. He couldn't have taken much of this even at his best, which he hadn't been at for a long time. He melted down.

A frantic memory of being physically restrained, trying to grab the needle in the hatch and end it all only hours after it began. Not long after, arms wrapped around him, pinning him tightly to stop him from clawing his scars open.

But they all broke eventually.

His brain may have been wired at a slight disadvantage, but there was nobody alive who was built to endure these conditions for long.

"Who were you talking to?" Derek asked, his words slurring slightly, his eyes unfocused.

The sound of the wailing drew him in again. Spencer barely registered that Derek had spoken.

"JJ..." he whispered, gulping against his sore throat. He looked at Derek desperately. "Is she okay?"

"Emily's got her," Derek assured him, leaning into his ear so he could yell it over the siren. "Just let her cry. She needs it. Who were you talking to?" he asked again.

"N-nobody."

Derek put a hand on his cheek, searching his eyes even as Spencer avoided contact. "I think you're hallucinating."

"I—" the crying pulled his focus again, and Derek guided his attention back with the hand on the side of his face. "Yeah," he admitted. It had been bound to happen eventually.

"You've lost your edge," came Ethan's voice, almost affectionate. "We used to stay up studying for days and still have energy to spare for a little midnight workout."

It had started a while ago. He couldn't say when. Realistically, he should know. It was a simple matter of calculating 5-second intervals. He should know exactly how long that infuriating voice had been in his ear, but that would require a level of coherent thought he was sure he would never be capable of again.

"58,330 intervals of 5 seconds each. That's 81 hours and ten seconds since the torture started, 'bout half a day without sleep before that," said Ethan from somewhere just out of sight, that little hint of pride he got in his voice every time he managed to beat Spencer in an academic contest. "Come on, man, this is basic math. You could do it in your sleep, if you ever get any again."

"Leave me alone," he said, pulling away from Derek, just wanting to curl back up and die.

"It's not real, Spencer. Whatever you're seeing or hearing, it's not real. You're sleep deprived. You're not the only one hallucinating. I think I am, too," Derek said, somewhere between an attempt at reassurance and a plea to be reassured in return.

Spencer couldn't give him that comfort.

He could end this. He could end it for all of them, and Derek was the loudest voice still forcing him not to.

Whatever visions were plaguing the other man, he hoped they weren't painful, but he didn't have it in him to be an anchor.

He looked around in the moments of light.

At some point, Emily had stopped whispering to JJ and started crying with her.

On the other side of the bunker, Rossi pressed himself into a corner, eyes shut tight, squeezing the little rubber ball their captors had left them so hard his knuckles were white and the rubber was splitting in half. His lips were moving in what might have been prayer, though no sound came out.

Hotch was pacing the length of the room, back and forth, back and forth, ignoring all of them. He was doing the exact same thing the last time Spencer had surfaced for air, "3 hours, 15 minutes, 25 seconds ago" chimed in Ethan before Spencer had time to think the thought.

But Hotch didn't look like himself anymore. His eyes were sunken into dark hollows. His hands shook visibly as he paced. He would occasionally stare up at the camera with an intensity that bordered on mania, before resuming his pacing. Every few circuits, he would stumble, catch himself against the wall, and continue as if nothing had happened.

"I c-can stop this," said Spencer, whipping his head back round to Derek fervently. "End it right now."

Darkness. Silence. "I didn't hear that," Derek said, and Spencer couldn't tell if it was the truth or a wish.

"I'm ending this!" he shouted.

Siren. Light.

Derek was shaking his head. "We have to hold out," a yell barely audible. "It can get worse, Spencer. If we give in, it can always get worse."

"How could it be worse?" asked Spencer hysterically into the darkness, competing only with the sound of the women's sobbing.

Stupid thing to say. He couldn't imagine right now how it could be worse, but of course it could. It always could. Why had he said that out loud?

"They can't win!" insisted Derek, and when the lights came back on there were tears streaming down his face. "How many fucking times do I have to say it? This guy is targeting you and it will escalate. If they know they can torture us into compliance, it will escalate."

Spencer returned Derek's touch for the first time, reaching up and grabbing his arm like it was a life buoy. He squeezed so hard it must have hurt.

Derek grabbed his shoulder in response, willing him to see reason.

For the first time, there was a face to match the voice as Ethan hovered behind Derek, peering over his shoulder. It wasn't the Ethan he had last seen, middle-aged and happy happy happy. It was a young Ethan from his days at the Academy, dark circles under sharp eyes and a lingering cologne of Jack Daniels.

Everything else in his vision was blurred and swimming, but Ethan was clear as daylight.

"You know that look," he said, voice almost gentle as his eyes trailed from Derek back to Spencer. "He needs you to make the selfless choice, but you won't. You'll leave him to drown."

"Th-that's not-" he faltered. "You left. You're the one who left."

"And it took you how many years to pick up a phone to make sure I hadn't offed myself or something?"

"Who are you talking to?" asked Derek again, shaking Spencer slightly to get him to focus. "Just ignore them. They're not real."

A deep well of sadness in Derek's eyes matched the one in Spencer's heart.

"I'm ending it," said Spencer. He leaned in close enough to make himself heard over the siren. "Four days without sleep. Hallucinations will get more complex, paranoia, delusions, blood pressure dropping, immune system failing, organs shutting down…" he rattled out, losing his train of thought as his eyes caught on a spot just past Derek's shoulder where Ethan stood watching. "This will kill us."

"They won't let it," Derek insisted, though he didn't sound all that confident. "That doesn't get them anything."

Spencer tried to conjure another counterargument, but thoughts were slipping through his fingers like water. All he could focus on was the pounding behind his eyes, the crawling of his skin, the need to make it all stop.

He pried himself out of Derek's grip. The other man watched as he leveraged himself on the wall, using every ounce of strength to stand.

Derek stayed kneeling, eyes red and hollow.

He didn't try to pull Spencer back. He didn't follow.

Darkness.

Spencer kept his hand against the wall, guiding him in the direction of the door.

Light.

Derek still hadn't moved.

Darkness.

The wailing stopped. Hitched breaths and silence. His shaking, clumsy hand found the hatch.

Light.

JJ and Emily were looking at him now. Emily hesitated, making a motion to stand, to intervene.

He locked eyes with JJ. There was a bald patch on the side of her head where she had pulled out the hair. Her face was puffy and red. He could feel her guilt from a distance as she gave him the tiniest nod of approval.

It was all he needed.

None of them could go on like this.

He opened the hatch.

The lights went out again as he reached in.

A hand came down hard on his wrist, pulling it back.

He could hear another hand removing the contents of the hatch. The sound of a bag of fruit tumbling to the ground around his feet, knocked over in collateral. The food deliveries had kept coming this whole time, every 12 hours, but none of them had even bothered to try and eat for the last one.

When the lights came back on, he expected to see Derek.

Instead he was face to face with Hotch, holding the case that contained all hope of ending this nightmare just out of his reach.

They were all watching, now.

"We c-can't keep d-doing this," stuttered Spencer, struggling to form words after expending so much energy to traverse the distance to the door.

"I agree," said Hotch, his voice steady despite the violent tremor in his hands. "We're ending this right now."

The light came on.

Silence.

Wait... what?

He looked around the room, hopelessly confused.

The others did the same. It took seconds for them to register what they were hearing, or rather, not hearing.

5 seconds passed. The lights stayed on.

Before he even understood what was happening, Spencer sobbed.

He didn't register the pain as he collapsed to his knees, slamming them into the concrete.

His whole body convulsed as he sobbed again. The relief was tangible. It was an object that he could hold in his hands.

It was over.

It was over.

5 more seconds passed. Then another. Then another.

A hand rubbed circles on his back.

He choked back the rush, grasping for control. It wasn't over yet.

"Look at you," said Ethan, now crouched beside him, close enough that Spencer could almost feel his breath. "I remember the look you used to give me when I drank, and now you just can't wait to stick yourself, can you?"

He pulled himself up, kneeling opposite Hotch on the cold floor. The others had gathered around, waiting with baited breath for whatever came next.

"They're watching," said Emily, and they all looked up at the camera. "Do you think they've been awake this whole time? Sleeping in shifts, maybe?"

"They would have to be," said Rossi, voice hoarse from when he had screamed obscenities at the camera not so long ago. "The ultimatum wouldn't work if they didn't monitor the results. They need to know we aren't cheating."

Spencer didn't care. Nothing anyone had to say mattered to him right now except for Hotch.

Except Hotch wasn't looking at him.

He was looking at the camera, his jaw set in that way it used to get right before an arrest. Gun out, knowing full well he was willing to shoot if needed.

Spencer reached for the case, but Hotch stood up like he hadn't even noticed. He took a step forward, arching his neck.

"Can't dispose of it. Can't destroy it. Those were the rules," said Hotch firmly.

"Can't choose for me," Spencer countered, still kneeling on the concrete. "That's a rule, too."

"I'm not choosing for you. I'm choosing for me," Hotch said, his voice flat, controlled. Beneath it, Spencer could see his muscles twitching, his pupils dilated from days without sleep.

He glanced at Spencer before turning back to the blinking red light. "That's what you really want, isn't it? You want us to make honest choices and live with the consequences. You want us to really know each other, even the parts that we don't want to share."

A moment of hesitation as Hotch looked down at the case in his hands, turning it over. "Fine," he said eventually, his voice steady even as his body betrayed him with small, involuntary muscle spasms. "I can do that."

It took a moment for Spencer to process what Hotch was saying. His words sounded far away.

"No," he whispered as it finally clicked.

Ethan laughed. "Oh, man, you've really fucked it now."

"No!" yelled Spencer, standing so fast it made him dizzy.

Derek stood too, grabbing his arm to hold him back, though he also looked at Hotch like he couldn't believe his eyes.

Hotch turned to him. He looked so, so tired. Like if he stepped out into the sun he might catch fire. Like a gentle breeze would blow him away like dust.

Not that they had hope of feeling sunshine or a gentle breeze ever again.

"Look," he said quietly, not a hint of self-pity in his voice. "The lights are on. The alarm is off. They stopped the torture the moment I took this." He gestured with the container. "They've gone too far to back down. Someone has to lose. Let it be me."

"You have no idea what you're doing."

"I know what I'm doing," Hotch said simply. "It's like Morgan's been saying. The man is targeting you. She wants all of us, but for whatever reason, I think he just wants you. You know you can't compromise. You know this."

He wrenched his arm away from Derek, pushing past the group and squaring off with Hotch, close enough that he had to look down just a little to meet his eyes.

"They won't stop here."

"I know," said Hotch gravely. A muscle was twitching on his lower left eyelid. "But it buys us time."

Spencer wanted to scream.

"This is not a game," he hissed. "You do not want this. Trust me."

"He's protecting you," Ethan's voice came from just behind Spencer's ear. "Seems kind of pointless, doesn't it?"

Spencer grit his teeth, trying to ignore the hallucination. His head was swimming. Every second, it was harder to stay upright.

"Don't worry," said Hotch, a touch of that old, practiced confidence. "They've already drugged us multiple times and I'm fine. Dependence is not inevitable."

"I knew it," scoffed Spencer. "You think you're stronger than this, right?"

"That's not what I-"

"Yes it is," he interrupted. "You think there's something wrong with me that isn't wrong with you. Maybe you're right. Do you really want to test that theory?"

A hint of doubt crept it's way into Hotch's eyes. Derek stepped forward.

"Hotch, we don't have to play by their rules. Dump it down the drain. They can turn the alarm back on, but eventually they'll have to try something new."

Hotch hesitated, gripping the container a little tighter. "What if what's next is worse?"

"What if you all get over this naive delusion of saving me and just let me make my own fucking choice!" Spencer snapped in frustration.

He knew instantly it was the wrong thing to say. All hesitation left Hotch's eyes as he fortified himself against their arguments.

"Now,  this is the Spencer I remember," said Ethan from beside Spencer, his presence warm despite the chill of his words. "Fighting tooth and nail for the right to make the wrong damn choice."

"She's not a sadist," said Hotch, his words carefully chosen, loud enough for whoever was watching to hear. Pointed. A performance. "She has a strong sense of justice and uses punishment to enforce good behavior, but this isn't what she wanted."

He was speaking directly to her now, profiling the Unsub, speaking with a level of clarity and coherence that Spencer couldn't even fathom displaying in his current state.

Hotch continued, "I can't blame her for being frustrated when we wouldn't cooperate or appreciate everything she's done for us. We have continuously refused her kindness. It's our own fault that she leaned on her partner to find a solution. I think it's time we all grew up and started trying to understand what she is teaching us. Don't you?"

It was a hypothesis. A swing. Hotch was making an assumption that their female captor was still in control and in partnership with the male Unsub. That the man had leveraged her frustration, used their lack of cooperation to justify trying his methods instead.

The logic wasn't bad. Or maybe Spencer was just too tired to pick it apart.

It was Hotch's way of giving her what she wanted without letting her dictate the terms by which it happened. An olive branch. If Spencer was the one to use the needle, the only message it would send was that torture worked. He knew it. He knew giving in would only empower this man who seemed to despise him for reasons he didn't fully understand.

"I think," said Hotch, the tremor in his hands increasing even as his voice remained steady, "that she doesn't want to be our enemy. So maybe if we stop forcing her to be, something like this won't need to happen again."

"It's killing you, isn't it?" Ethan whispered, standing so close that Spencer could almost feel his breath on his neck. "You're actually jealous of what he's about to do. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Shut up!" Spencer shouted, swinging around wildly. "Leave me alone! Leave me the fuck alone!"

Silence.

"Spencer," whispered Emily, reaching out to him like she was approaching a spooked stray.

He looked around at them all. Ethan was gone. They stared at him wide-eyed.

"S-sorry," he breathed. "Sorry. Just..." his breath hitched and his voice cracked. "It was Ethan, he-" He rubbed at his eyes as tears spilled once again. "I'm just so tired," he choked out.

It was enough to set JJ off again, covering her mouth with a hand and clutching at her stomach as a sob wracked her body. "I can't do this anymore," was all she could manage before Derek pulled her into a hug.

Every one of them was on a precipice.

"Sorry," he said again, helpless, dizzy, sick. "I'm just tired."

"I know," said Emily, pulling him into a hug as he let himself collapse in her arms. "We all are."

Derek wiped under his eyes. Rossi scrubbed his hands over his face and sat on the floor as if he could no longer keep himself upright.

"You need to sleep," said Hotch, looking at all of them in turn, that quiet resolve still somehow present despite days without rest. "We all need to sleep."

He looked up at the camera, then back to Spencer, then to the case in his hand. "Let's just get this over with."

Chapter Text

Spencer kept his eyes fixed on the corner where wall met ceiling, tracing the hairline crack in the concrete for the forty-seventh time since Hotch had announced he was ready. Anything to avoid watching what was about to happen.

There had hardly even been a debate, with Emily, Rossi, and JJ reluctantly agreeing that someone had to do something before their bodies shut down completely. And Derek—Derek had looked at both Spencer and Hotch like they'd personally put a knife in his back before stalking to the far side of the room.

He stood there now, back to them all, shoulders rigid with a fury that had nothing to do with exhaustion and everything to do with old scars being torn open by every new erosion of their bodily autonomy. Spencer understood, distantly, why this was a hard line for him. Why the willing engagement with such a violation was so much harder for him to take than acts of physical force.

He was too hollowed out to find the words that might bridge the gap between them. Too busy fighting the bile rising in his throat and the unremitting heaviness of his eyelids to access much empathy.

He heard the soft snap of the case opening. The rustling of the alcohol wipe being torn open. Small sounds that shouldn't carry such weight.

Don't look. Don't look. Don't-

"Yeah, if you just look away hard enough, it'll all be alright, huh?" taunted Ethan. "Just like they all did to you when you first started up. Brilliant tactic, genius. Bet it'll work out better this time."

He glanced around, but his eyes only landed on empty wall. Ethan had been relegated back into a disembodied voice. Sleep could not come fast enough to banish the simulacrum for good.

Another sound, like rubber pulled taut, and his eyes magnetized on Hotch despite himself.

Hotch sat on the floor, back straight despite four days without sleep, the case open beside him like a jewelry box displaying precious gems. Emily, Rossi, and JJ sat with him, none of them ripping the tourniquet off his upper arm or the needle from his hand like they ought to.

Hotch's hands shook as he handled the syringe with the careful precision of someone who'd spent a lifetime making calculated decisions.

Except the angle was wrong.

Spencer's breath caught. Hotch was holding it like a pen, almost perpendicular to his arm. He'd hit muscle, not vein. Or worse, he'd pierce through the vein entirely, and the injection would be subcutaneous, unpredictable. It could abscess. It could-

"Wait-"

The word ripped out of him before conscious thought could stop it, raw in the fluorescent silence.

All eyes on him. Even Derek deigned to turn around and see what the fuss was about.

"The angle is wrong," he said, shutting it all out. He crossed the gap from his corner to where the group sat. "Haven't you ever paid attention when getting a blood test or an IV? The syringe should be closer to flush against your forearm."

Hotch paused for a moment, gaping at him as he knelt down. Emily gave him a cautious look before shuffling to the side to give Spencer better access.

After a second, Hotch nodded. "Right. I should know that. I do know that."

"You can't get a good angle because your grip is off," he pointed out, adopting the tone he reserved for students. "Hold it less like a pencil and more like a dart."

He mimed the grip with his functional hand and watched as Hotch adjusted his own on the syringe.

"Look at you, playing teacher," jeered Ethan. "You've got a real knack for this. Maybe the university will let you kick start a new major. Junkie 101 featuring star pupil Aaron Hotchner."

Spencer shot an irritable glance toward the phantom voice just in time to meet Derek's eyes as he sat beside him in the circle.

The other man stared, offering him a forlorn moment of solidarity. His jaw was tight, eyes red-rimmed from exhaustion. But there was something in his expression that said if you can do this for him, I can do this for you. Whatever sacrifices and compromises they would make, whatever lines they'd already crossed or would cross tomorrow, they had to be there for each other in whatever ways they could. Derek gave him the smallest nod of acknowledgment- or maybe forgiveness- before averting his gaze to the floor.

Spencer went back to work.

He narrated, guiding Hotch step by step through the process. They all hissed as the needle popped through the skin and into the vein. He would have expected some hesitation at that part, but Hotch did not falter.

His hands shook the way Spencer's always did right before, but this was from exhaustion and apprehension rather than familiar anticipation.

"You need to aspirate first. Pull back on the plunger before you inject to make sure you're in the vein."

"Okay," said Hotch to himself, following the instruction.

His eyes widened at the flash of red that burst into the syringe.

Spencer took the liberty of slightly loosening the tourniquet on Hotch's arm himself, ensuring the right amount of pressure.

"I think you know what comes next," he said softly.

"Right."

Hotch held the syringe in place, staring at it like it might transform into something else if he waited long enough.

The silence stretched. Spencer could hear JJ's shallow breathing beside him. Rossi's hand hovered near Hotch's arm, ready to intervene but not quite willing to make that choice for him.

"It's not too late to back out," said Emily, putting a hand on Hotch's shoulder.

"No," he said instantly, as if snapping out of a trance. "No. I can do this."

But he didn't move. The plunger remained untouched, the tourniquet still tight around his upper arm, cutting a line into his flesh.

The cracks were showing on Hotch's usually carefully controlled face. Every principle he'd built his life on, every lecture he'd given about maintaining professionalism and boundaries, every ounce of control he had ever clung to tooth and nail, every disappointed look he'd ever given Spencer in those early years when he suspected but didn't confirm—all of it being weighed against the desperate need to sleep.

It was all so undignified to be so thoroughly reduced to base animal function.

Spencer should have been used to it by now, given how long he had been skirting through life on instinct and need. But this was different. When it was one of them, it was different. 

They all sat in silence, just watching him. Spencer made the mistake of taking the moment to really see what was in front of him.

Days without sleep, delirious, hallucinating, stuck in the ocean, too deep to feel the ground beneath his feet, caught in a current dragging him further and further out to sea. Yet, somehow, the sight of Aaron Hotchner with a needle sticking out of his arm was more surreal than any of it.

"Remember your first time doing this for yourself?" asked Ethan. "Your hands shook so bad you missed the vein twice. But you didn't hesitate. You see how hard this is for him? Not you, though. Man, you could not fucking wait."

He grit his teeth against the chatter. It was a significant dose, more than he would suggest for a first-time user, but not enough to cause significant clinical distress. Still, everybody was different. They had to be on the lookout for depressed respiration and possible aspiration. Hotch had been given synthetic opioids before when hospitalized, possibly even fentanyl, so an allergic reaction was unlikely, but never out of the realm of possibility.

Surely the Unsubs were ready with emergency aid if needed. They wouldn't let Hotch die. Not when he hadn't had his turn having his secrets spilled-

"Aaron," Rossi said quietly. "You don't have to-"

Hotch depressed the plunger.

His thoughts crashed like a high speed train into the side of a cliff as Hotch removed the needle and dropped it on the floor like it was radioactive.

It automatically retracted into the syringe. A safety needle. How considerate. 

Whatever expression was showing on his face must have been well ahead of his brain's capacity to process, because JJ reached across and held his hand tightly enough for it to register as almost painful, even through the nerve damage.

Then they all waited. Not a single one of them breathed.

The longest seven seconds of his life passed by. Even in his most desperate, strung-out moments, staving off acute withdrawals, the gulf between injecting and the effects hitting had never felt so wide.

Hotch's pupils constricted. Respiratory rate decreasing. Twelve breaths per minute. Normal reaction. Expected.

(Staring at his own pin prick pupils in the bathroom mirror at 3 am, but it's fine, it was the last time. He meant it this time.)

"I don't feel-"

Hotch stopped short with a sharp intake of breath, followed by a long, slow exhale.

Blood pressure dropping. Parasympathetic nervous system engaging. Textbook response.

(On his dealer's soft leather couch, shaken awake. "Hey, man, you're breathing too slow. Don't worry. Have a bump of this and it'll level you out.)

Hotch's face softened, shoulders dropped, eyelids fluttered. He hadn't registered how utterly afraid Hotch had been until he watched it melt away in real time.

Endorphin flood. Dopamine release. Amygdala activity suppressed.

(A reason to wake up in the morning. A reason to keep going to the end of the day. )

"Oh," said Hotch. Oh, that's what all the fuss is about.

Spencer was glued to the spot as Emily wrapped her arms around Hotch, who was slumping back without seeming to realise it.

"I'm fine…" he mumbled, barely intelligible. "I'm fine."

"I know," said Emily, holding him to her chest. "I know."

Hotch jerked away suddenly. He collapsed to the side, not able to pull himself up, and vomited all over the floor.

Not abnormal, particularly for the first few times.

Everyone sprang into action around him. JJ let go of his hand and shuffled over to rub a hand on Hotch's back, who didn't seem particularly aware of what was happening around him.

Rossi and Emily guided Hotch to lie on a mattress, keeping him away from the mess as best they could and offering words of comfort. "You're okay, Aaron," he heard Rossi say. "It will pass. You're okay."

Derek dropped a washcloth from their meager supplies onto the mess and tried to clear it as best he could in his exhausted state.

They all looked so, so tired. It was a miracle any of them could function enough to help at all.

But all he could really think was: Is that what I look like?

Is that what people see when they look at me?

Aaron Hotchner, the most tightly controlled man he had ever known, reduced to an incoherent, mumbling mess cradled in Emily's arms like a child.

It was so fundamentally wrong. An uncanny bastardization of the man.

So how could he look at that and wish it were him who had just shot up instead?

No wonder the others looked at him like an alien. Like a broken toy, trying to convince them he was human. What the fuck was wrong with him that he considered himself the one worse off of the two of them in that moment?

"Aww. You used to look at me like that," came the voice from somewhere behind him, a gentle veneer covering the barbs he knew were coming. "I'd black out, you would pretend you weren't disgusted at the sight of me, I would pretend I didn't care what you thought about it anyway. Our sweet little routine," he said in a singsong voice. "Just admit it. You were so fucking relieved when I dropped out of training and you didn't have to deal with me anymore. But god forbid anyone judge you, right? Fucking hypocrite."

The weight of a hand pressed down on his shoulder, and he shut his eyes to block out the hallucination. "Just leave me alone," he pleaded tiredly.

"No can do," came Derek's voice from the same place Ethan's had just been. "You need sleep, pretty boy."

He opened his eyes, reaching up to put his hand on Derek's to feel it was real.

"We all need to sleep," agreed Emily. "I'll stay with Hotch and make sure he doesn't aspirate. Let's all get some rest."

Emily curled up on the mattress behind Hotch, spooning him so he would stay on his side while they slept in case he vomited again. Between the fatigue and the drugs, the man was already firmly unconscious.

He let Derek guide him to the nearest mattress as the others all found their own way. JJ curled up on one side, arms wrapped around him and head resting on his shoulder. His shirt felt damp beneath her face, and he was sure she was crying again.

He was so certain he wouldn't be able to sleep with the horrible scene playing out in the concrete room, but he was out within seconds.

When he opened his eyes again, it was like crawling his way out of a fresh grave, jolted awake by some unremembered nightmare. It felt like the first moments of clarity after coming out of anesthesia.

The mildly conditioned air was sharp in his lungs. He recoiled instinctively against the sound of an alarm, only to realize all he could hear was the slow, deep breathing of sleeping bodies beside him.

Reality had never felt quite so real. He sat up and looked around, eyes and ears scanning for anything incongruous with the input they were receiving.

Ethan was nowhere to be seen, and the only voice in his head was his own. He sighed in relief, taking a moment to appreciate the coherent and linear nature of his thoughts.

He stopped short at the sight of Hotch, sitting pressed against the wall on the other side of the room, eyes closed.

The others all slept more deeply than he had seen since arriving here in hell.

He shakily pushed himself onto his feet, body lax and disconnected. It would take more than a few hours' sleep to undo the effects of such prolonged deprivation. He almost fell when a spike of burning pain shot through his bad arm after he made the mistake of trying to push himself up with it. Despite the clumsiness, he did his best to stay quiet and not disturb the others.

Hotch didn't open his eyes as he sat beside him. He wouldn't have been sure if he was still under the influence, except that he acknowledged his presence by pressing his shoulder into Spencer's very briefly, which was an extremely un-Hotch-like thing to do.

Spencer looked him up and down. "How do you feel?"

"Trying to live vicariously through me?"

"I'll rephrase that," he said, because he didn't want to answer 'yes'. "Do you regret it?"

Hotch hummed thoughtfully, opening his eyes at last. He looked at Spencer. "Honestly?" Spencer nodded. "No. This is the first time since I got here that my back hasn't hurt, and despite knowing I'm in more danger than ever, I can't bring myself to be bothered by it," he said, uncharacteristically candid. "But… given the choice? I wouldn't do it again. Sorry," he added, sounding genuinely apologetic.

Spencer tilted his head, trying to decipher if he was missing something or if Hotch was just not making sense because he was still a bit out of it. "Why on earth are you sorry?" he asked.

"You think that I think you're weak," Hotch said matter-of-factly. "A part of you hopes I'll want it like you do, because if I'm weak too, then maybe you don't have anything to feel bad about." He paused. Spencer's heart fluttered at the blunt declaration. He hung on every word, not denying it, becausehe wasn'tsure it was wrong, even if it was only a fraction of the truth. "I really hoped this would help me understand, and… I still don't," Hotch said, sounding frustrated with himself. "It felt good," he admitted. "Too good. But nothing is good enough to be worth that kind of loss of control. It's not a worthy trade. Do you understand?"

There was nothing quite like opiates to get total, brutal honesty.

Spencer circled the question, examining it from every angle. Did he understand? What was it worth to him, to stay in control?

Eventually, he shook his head. "I spent so much of my life hanging onto control by my fingernails, and I hated every single second of it. What was it ever for? It never stopped me or anyone I care about from getting hurt. Frankly, I was never very good at it. I just didn't think there was another option." He rubbed at the scar on his forearm. The movement drew Hotch's attention, triggering a grimace before averting his gaze again. Spencer didn't bother to cross his arms to hide it like he had been doing. He was trying to get used to the sight of it. What was the point in pretending anymore? "If my choices are maintaining control for the sake of an endless grey equilibrium, or embracing total chaos and getting to feel something, anything… well, I guess I made my choice a long time ago."

Hotch nodded. "You would think by now one of us might have considered the possibility of a middle ground," he said, smirking. Spencer huffed a laugh. "You're wrong about one thing," Hotch continued. "I don't think you're weak. We may fracture along different fault lines, but broken is broken. I'm not stronger than anyone."

Spencer stared at him, searching. This was the same Hotch he had always known. Except he wasn't at all. Whoever woke up in the bunker was someone different from the man who fled Peter Lewis.

"What happened to you?"

Hotch smiled tightly. "I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise," he whispered conspiratorially, nodding in the direction of the camera.

Oh.

Spencer knew immediately that whatever secret he was holding onto, he wouldn't share it, even in this compromised state.

So, it was bad then. Bad enough, he was certain about what the Unsubs intended to reveal about him.

A part of Spencer wanted to pry, but another wave of fatigue was washing over him, and he couldn't quite summon the will. He was ready to crawl back onto his mattress and sleep for a thousand years.

"What about you?" asked Hotch, catching him off guard. "Are you ever going to tell us what happened?"

He didn't need Hotch to elaborate. They had all asked him the question a dozen times each, no matter how much he insisted there was no dramatic relapse story to tell.

Spencer sighed, which turned into a yawn.

He said, barely above a whisper: "I got invited to a wedding."