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Footsteps thundered down the staircase of the large office block and towards the open fire door. Less than two seconds behind, two more sets of footsteps closely followed.
“Reid, Prentiss, he’s heading towards the front door.” Hotch yelled urgently into his mouthpiece. Morgan was just in front of him and was gaining on the unsub however he was slightly concerned that the head start their suspect had would allow him to escape.
It had been a long and tiring case and in all honesty, Hotch was mentally and physically exhausted. He was certain that over the past week, none of his team had had more than a few hours sleep per night as they stayed in the dimly lit precinct trying to work out how this unsub was getting away with poisoning so many people without getting caught.
Thankfully, just a few hours ago, their unsub, Scott Jones, had made a slip up and revealed his identity.
“On it.” Prentiss’ crackled voice came back through.
Just as he reached the door, he witnessed both Reid and Prentiss tackle Jones to the ground in perfect sync. Whilst Prentiss placed one firm arm over the back of his neck and one over his shoulders to try and stop his movements, Spencer sat on the back of the unsub’s legs as he handcuffed him.
A textbook takedown. Hotch was impressed.
“Ah!”
“What is it?” Emily frowned at Spencer’s outcry.
Reid ignored her question as he wrenched the tiny pen knife which Jones had managed to get a hold of from the back of his jeans.
“Reid?”
“He just cut me, that’s all.” Spencer finally replied with a slight wince on his face. “He had a penknife hidden-”
“Go and get it checked out.” Hotch interrupted, gesturing over to the ambulances that had been called to the scene.
“I’m fine, it’s just a little scratch.”
“Reid.”
Spencer slowly looked up from his small wound on the palm of his hand up towards his boss who was still towering over him. He had that look on his face which made Spencer realise he had no choice but to go and get it looked at.
With a small grumble under his breath ( that he definitely didn’t want to let Hotch hear), Spencer carefully got up from the ground and allowed Morgan to take his place. He had only made it a few steps when Hotch called his name again, making Spencer turn to face him again.
“Before you go, I should tell you that that was a good take-down. You and Prentiss did well.”
Pride and warmth filled Spencer’s chest and he shared a smile with Emily. All pain in his hand was completely forgotten. “Thank you sir.”
Three hours later, six slightly bedraggled BAU agents (even Hotch had taken his suit jacket off) walked back through the doors of their headquarters.
“Home sweet home.” Morgan sighed. JJ murmured in agreement.
“The fact that you guys think of this as your home is worrying.” Rossi said as he slowly made his way up the stairs to his office. The bottle of scotch in the bottom drawer of his desk was calling his name.
A click-clack of heels could be heard coming down the corridor and then within seconds, there was a sparkly, blonde whirlwind approaching them.
“Welcome back! I feel like you guys were away for so long!” Garcia exclaimed as she reached up to give Morgan a tight hug.
“Oh believe me, we also felt like that.” Emily sighed. She let her bag fall to the floor by her desk and collapsed into her chair, her head immediately coming to rest in her hands.
“Finish your initial reports off. As soon as they are on my desk, you are all free to go home.” Hotch called down before disappearing into his office. Even he looked incredibly weary.
“Spencer! What has happened to your hand?!” Penelope gasped as she reached her boy-wonder to give him his welcome back hug. Her soft hands carefully cradled his bandaged hand.
“Our captured unsub wasn’t too happy with me for you know…capturing him. Decided that he wanted to do one last stabbing before he was locked away.” Spencer explained. “Don’t worry, it’s practically a paper-cut. It was just Hotch being over-cautious as usual.”
Penelope clicked her tongue and gave one last forlorn look at the white bandage. “I’m going to head out and get you all some coffees, I think you all deserve it. Especially you boy genius.”
Spencer grinned at her and then made his way over to his own desk and pulled his files out his messenger bag. On a normal case, he would have finished all his reports on the flight back but even though it was such a small cut, the pain radiating from it had made it difficult for him to write.
Even now, he could hardly hold a pen in his hand as it continued to throb.
“Spence? You okay?” JJ questioned as she heard him gasp quietly in pain whilst he flexed his injured hand.
“Yeah. Just hurts more than I expected to.” Spencer mumbled.
“If you’re trying to milk this to get more treats from Garcia, you absolutely have the right idea.” Morgan laughed.
Spencer remained quiet as he mulled over the past few hours and slowly came to the realisation that the pain had steadily been getting worse. He couldn’t comprehend the fact that such a small cut was causing him so much grief.
“It’s fine.” He said unconvincingly to the others, and himself, “I’m just tired.”
Thankfully, it was enough to convince his friends to back off and Spencer realised the best thing to do would be to try and distract himself from the pain by getting on with work. Yet there was still just a niggling thought in the back of his head that something… something…. wasn’t quite right.
An hour slowly dragged by as the team continued to work in silence, all of them too tired to make any more conversation with each other.
“Have I just finished a report before Dr. Reid?” Prentiss exclaimed as broke the silence and held up her completed file.
“No way. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen before.” Derek replied with a grin. “What do you say to that Pretty Boy?”
But Spencer didn’t reply.
The young genius had spent the last twenty minutes trying not to pass out into his papers as his vision continued to swim. He hadn’t even heard Emily and Derek’s conversation as his ears had started to ring.
A strong hand brought him out of his delirium slightly and Derek’s worried face was suddenly in front of him although his blurred vision was still making it difficult to understand what was going on.
“Spencer!”
It was as if he was underwater. He could see Derek’s lips moving and calling his name but it was muffled and distorted. “I…what…what’s happening.” Spencer eventually managed to gasp out, his words slurred.
“I don’t know but you’re going to be fine, okay? Let’s get this sweater vest off you, you’re burning up.” Derek replied quickly, trying to give Spencer a reassuring smile. He had been with enough injured victims to know that reassuring them that they were going to be fine was always a good start. He supposed it would be the same with his injured best friend too.
“We need to get some medical help. Hotch!” Emily yelled, her phone already out of her pocket to dial 911.
The doors of both Hotch and Rossi’s offices swung open at the shout. “What’s happening?”
“It’s Spencer. Something’s wrong, I think it’s to do with that cut on his hand.” Emily explained quickly before turning away to begin relaying information down the phone.
“Spencer?” Hotch crouched down in front of the agent still slumped in his chair. His eyes were unfocused and his limbs a deadweight as Morgan struggled to remove his vest.
Hotch reached up and gently tapped Spencer’s cheek. “Hey. Spencer. I need you to look at me.”
Rather than just his eyes moving, Spencer’s entire head lolled towards Hotch. “H-Hotch. I…don’t feel good.”
“I know. We’re getting you some help-”
Emily crouched down behind Hotch and murmured. “Ambulance is on its way but there’s been a major road accident a few blocks away so could be a while. They think he’s had some adverse effect to this knife wound and if we feel comfortable with it, unwrap it.”
“I’ll do it. Grab me some gloves from the first aid kit.” Hotch replied quietly. In his peripheral vision, he saw JJ run to get it. Within a minute, the full kit had been laid out in front of him and a pair of blue gloves handed over.
Derek knelt next to his boss after he finally achieved getting the sweater vest out from Spencer’s arms. He already knew the pain of his wound being handled would be enough to bring Spencer out of his delirium so he was ready and waiting to distract, and comfort, his best friend.
“Why does this always happen to you huh, Pretty Boy? This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Derek sighed.
Whilst Aaron carefully unwrapped the gauze away from Spencer’s palm, Derek continued to try and get Spencer to stay focused on him. “I know I said you should milk it but I didn’t mean this. You do realise that Garcia is gonna wrap you up in cotton wool from now on, don’t you?”
Spencer hummed in response, his head coming to rest on the back of his chair. He had gone deathly pale and his skin had a slight sheen on it as he began to sweat.
Derek risked a glance to Hotch who was just beginning to pull the bandage away to reveal the wound. It was enough to make both Emily and JJ briefly turn away but credit to Hotch, he remained calm as he slowly inspected Spencer’s hand.
His entire hand had swollen up, so much so that Hotch couldn’t believe they hadn’t even noticed how much his fingers had blown up, and was also covered in large welts. The small wound was now an angry red with white pus sluggishly leaking out of it.
“How does it look infected already?” JJ finally gasped out. “It only happened a few hours ago.”
“The blade was poisoned.” Rossi mumbled. “Remember the wounds on the second victim? It looked exactly like this. That’s why he’s having such a bad effect to it.”
Hotch hummed in agreement and then gestured Emily over with a slight nod of his head. Once she had bent down near him, he whispered. “I need you to chase up that ambulance. The fact that he’s deteriorated this quickly is worrying. Also notify Garcia and get her to send all the information about the poison used over to the hospital so they can prepare an antidote.”
With a short nod, Emily got to work.
“You’re gonna be just fine, Spencer.” Hotch said, focusing his attention back to the young doctor. “I know you don’t like not knowing what’s going on but trust me, we do so you’re going to be okay.”