Chapter Text
Not once in all of his years had Spencer ever met someone like him. As far as he knew, his birth was one in a billion. Yet handcuffed to this chair in a shack in rural Georgia, Spencer found himself staring up at Tobias Hankel, the very serial killer the BAU had been hunting, the man who had kidnapped him and brought him there, and the only other Nephilim that Spencer had ever met.
Only, he wasn’t the same. There was something broken about him. Something deep in his core was flawed. It only took a short while for the pieces to all come together and for realization to kick in. It only took seconds after that for his heart to break. Tobias was a broken man, torn apart so badly inside that his mind had literally split, separating into different pieces to try and protect the whole. There were three personalities in him that Spencer interacted with. His father, Charles, a religious man who thought nothing of beating a confession out of a person, and who had probably beat Tobias horribly through his life. Then there was Tobias, so shy and sweet, a terrified young man who wanted nothing more than to please a father who had punished him for his wrongness his whole life. And then there was the part of him that he had made when he tried to section off everything in him that was angelic. The Nephilim part of him was its own personality now, only between the other two, even that was twisted until it became something more, something else. Raphael. The personality named himself Raphael. It denied its true existence, claiming not Nephilim but pure angel. Archangel.
The pain and the drugs dulled Spencer. It dulled his senses, the very core of himself, until he felt woozy and empty inside. Still, he fought to keep sharp, to get himself out of there and to save Tobias, dammit! Tobias had been raised to believe he was wrong, an aberration. He’d never known the gentle love that Spencer had. He hadn’t had a mother like Diana, who loved her angel-baby without reservation. He hadn’t had the presence in his dreams, a true father who loved and cared even though safety demanded he stay away. Tobias hadn’t had any of that. He’d had pain and torture and was it any wonder that he’d turned into this broken thing before him? He needed help, not hurt!
Just as he sensed who Tobias was, Tobias sensed him as well. ‘Charles’ stood in front of Spencer and looked down on him with a disgusted sneer curling his lips. “I know what you are, boy.” He spat the words out like they were something filthy. “You’re an abomination. Filth, just like my worthless boy.”
“No.” Spencer whispers past the pain still pounding in his head. He knows it’s useless; nothing he says will make a difference to ‘Charles’. This personality is bent on a religious mission; he honestly believes he’s doing God’s work here. Nothing will stop him. No words Spencer offers will ever be enough.
When the first blow fell, he held his cries deep inside and waited. Tobias would come back to himself soon. His core personality would return. That would be when Spencer would speak. He just had to hold out until then.
CXCX
“He’s gonna kill you.”
Those were the first words Spencer heard as he came back from the dark. He knew it was Tobias; could tell by the soft, scared little-boy voice. Spencer winced at the pain in his head and tried to blink enough to bring his sight back into focus. Concussion, his mind supplied. Licking his lips, he looked up, forced his eyes to finally settle on at two of Tobias instead of the three or four he’d been seeing before. He aimed his gaze to the middle of the two, hoping that would get him close to the actual spot he should be looking at. He gave a soft, dry cough before croaking out “Water?”
In a flash there’s a cup there and Spencer was beyond grateful as it was tipped against his lips. He didn’t even feel embarrassment at having it held for him. He was too busy being so damn grateful for the cool moisture on his aching throat.
The cup vanished when Spencer finished it off and he was left staring at a much clearer image of Tobias. The sad young man looked at him and repeated his earlier words. “He’s gonna kill you.” He paused, his expression turning anguished. “I’m sorry, I wish I could stop him. Creatures like us, we’re not supposed to exist.”
There’s no way that Spencer can argue that. That too familiar line repeats in his mind – “Don’t let them know what you are.” Instead, he said “You can stop him. You can get us out of here, Tobias.”
“He’s my father. My family. I can’t go against him.”
Spencer snuck a look over at the cameras and he could see that they were off. There’s no one else here; no one but them. That’s the only thing that gave him the courage to speak his next words. “We’re family, too.”
Shocked eyes snapped up to his face. “What?”
Nodding, Spencer licked his lips again, pushing back his headache which was screaming from the stupid nod. “You—you know who your other parent is, right?” The way he said it left no doubt as to what he meant. He waited for Tobias to nod before continuing. “Up there, they’re family. They’re all brothers and sisters. Which, by our birth, makes you and I cousins. We’re family, you and I. Let us help each other, Tobias. Help me out of here and let me help you.”
There was a brief moment when Spencer thought that maybe his words were enough. maybe he’d reached down into that broken place in Tobias and somehow got through to the part of him that wanted to stop this all. Then he saw the flash over the boy’s face and his hope vanished.
In no time at all there was a needle by his arm and nothing Spencer did could pull him away. It pressed in his skin, the drug pumping in his vein. The last thing he heard was Tobias whispering softly “I’m sorry, cousin.”
CXCX
Those days in the shack stretched Spencer to his limits. Then, when he was terrified, when he didn’t know how much more he could take, it all came to an end brought on by hallucinations, a soft confession, and a passage of judgment.
When Spencer knelt down in that graveyard, forced to dig his own grave by ‘Charles’, he was afraid he wasn’t going to make it out of this and yet he kept trying to think of ways to end this peacefully. Ways that he might be able to save Tobias. Life isn’t kind, though. He was running out of time and there were no other options. When he dove for the gun in the coat on the ground, his heart was screaming but his hands were steady. He raised it and pointed it at Tobias. Don’t make me hurt you, he pleaded silently. Please don’t make me do this!
Nothing had ever been harder than pulling that trigger. The bullet hit and Spencer felt his heart shatter.
CXCX
The Dilaudid in his system had kept him numb. It wasn’t until Spencer had been in the hospital for a few hours—they kept him hooked to machines, monitoring him overnight after the seizure the team had witnessed brought on by the overdose—that he finally felt it start to fade. As it faded away, it left room for the grief to grow. With each passing moment he felt the numbness fade and the grief get stronger. Rolling to his side, mindful of the IV attached to his hand, he let his eyes drift to the window. Even in the dark of the night he could see the first few raindrops start to fall. The sky was crying the tears he’d learned long ago to never let fall.
It’d only happened twice before in his life. Once, when he was ten and came home from school to find his mother delirious in her room and a note from his father explaining that he was leaving. The second time had been the day that Spencer had brought the people to the house and had them take his mother away. Each time, he’d hurt so bad inside he hadn’t been able to keep it from spilling out of him. That’s what was happening now. The grief was too much, too strong. He couldn’t keep it all inside of him. All he could do was curl his body in tighter against this ache in his heart and his gut and watch as the rain started to pour from the sky.
His team was gone, sent back to the hotel at his request. Or, demand, really. They hadn’t wanted to leave him here but all he wanted was for them to be gone. He wanted to be alone with this feeling inside of him. He didn’t trust the control he’d learned. He didn’t trust himself. If it were up to him, he’d be back at the hotel as well, safely locked away where no one would notice if his control slipped enough that strange things happened around him. Where he would be free to grieve in privacy, without friend or doctor or well-meaning nurse getting in the way.
Pain in all its forms pushed through Spencer and he curled himself tighter despite the pain in doing so. His eyes slid closed and the heat of tears he refused to let fall burned away at him. Why did it hurt so much? He hadn’t known him, not truly. So why did it hurt so damn much?
The air seemed to crackle suddenly for Spencer, a small tingle that swept across his skin, and then there was a familiar rustle in the air that no normal human would hear. Spencer didn’t even bother opening his eyes. He stayed curled up in the tight ball he’d made himself. There was only a second’s pause before he heard that familiar voice breathing out a soft “Oh, kiddo.”
There was no sound to warn him that he’d come closer. Just the touch of hands both gentle and firm sliding over him and carefully gathering him up. The bed dipped under the weight of another body and Spencer found himself pulled in close to rest against a firm chest while a familiar embrace wrapped securely around him. Warmth was around him and light was in him and Spencer gasped and shuddered only to find himself being held even closer. “What happened, Spencer?”
Spencer tipped his head in a gesture he knew would be understood. He kept his eyes closed as two fingers touched his forehead and he felt the familiar presence sliding through his memories, viewing the last few days. When it was done, he felt the chest underneath his cheek shudder. He was drawn in even closer until he was cradled like a small child. “Oh, kiddo.” The words were repeated softly, achingly. “Why didn’t you call for me? You know all you’ve got to do is send your prayers to me; I’ll always hear you.”
Spencer shivered and buried himself in a little closer. He drew in a shaky breath and let the scents of home-sweet-safe-love-lightning chase away the scent of burning fish guts. It steadied him in ways nothing else had so far. He curled his hands in and clung shamelessly to the biggest source of comfort in his life. “’M sorry.” He mumbled. A culmination of too many things left him slurring like a drunk. Mostly, though, it was the sense of safety, that feeling that told him he could let down his guard again and know without a doubt that nothing would happen to him while he slept. He’d been bouncing between drugged and high alert for the past few days and he hadn’t been able to turn that feeling off once he got to the hospital. Every movement, every sound, had him twitching and looking for the threat. But that feeling was fading now. Here, in these arms that had held him through so much, he would always be safe.
A firm hand pressed against his head as if clutching him close and then the touch gentled and fingers started to card through his hair. “Quiet, Spencer. No apologies. Just relax, all right? You need your rest.”
“Stay.” The single, soft word slipped out before he could stop it, so soft that normal ears might not have heard it.
A gentle kiss was pressed to the crown of his head. “I’ll keep watch until you wake up.”
That was all he needed to hear. For the first time since he’d been taken, Spencer sighed out the tension in his body and he let himself sleep without fear of what was waiting for him once he woke. A soft, familiar melody played inside him and soothed him gently down into sleep.