Work Text:
No. 3: “Like crying out in empty rooms; with no-one there except the moon.”
Journal | Solitary Confinement | “Make it stop.”
Spencer curls in on himself when he sees them.
The whole team is here, and Spencer feels exposed. He’s relieved, of course, but he doesn’t think he likes it.
He’s aware of how he looks — his hair is a mess, it keeps falling into his face when he cranes his neck to look at the door. He’s bloody and aching, lip split and face bruised. His left eye is warm, and if he could reach up and touch it it’d probably be swollen. He can’t stop shaking, tear tracks drawing twin lines down his face.
Spencer doesn’t want them to see him like this. He turns his head away.
Hotch says his name and helps him up. It reminds him of that day in rural Georgia, of blood in rotted leaves and soil underneath his fingernails. This whole thing reminds him of that, really.
His ribs twinge as he stands, and he remembers that everyone can see the purple across his stomach, his gaping wounds, his protruding ribs. It feels almost voyeuristic, in a way. His dirtied button down lays discarded in the corner; he’d taken it off when the mud took forever to dry and it just left him shivering.
Spencer meets the eyes of his friends as he staggers a few steps forward, a vice grip on Hotch’s arm.
Emily sniffles, and he sees then that both her and Morgan are crying a little. It hits him that he’s been gone for two weeks (that’s a really long time). He couldn’t imagine. A wave of nausea nearly drowns him.
“‘M gonna be sick,” he blurts. “I need to sit down.”
“You can sit in the ambulance,” Hotch says gently.
He stops in his tracks, throat closing. Spencer reels, even though his feet are planted.
“No hospital,” he gasps, even though he knows it’s pointless. Maybe he can make them feel bad enough to let him not go.
He doesn’t think he could stomach it, the needles and prodding and doctors in white coats.
“Kid,” Morgan says pleadingly. Spencer still won’t budge his feet. A few tears roll down his face, then more, and more, until he’s weeping into Hotch’s suitjacket, ribs screaming at the effort.
“I can’t,” Spencer sobs out. “I can’t… I can’t— not again.”
He thinks JJ actually loses it then, shoulders shaking with matching sobs, and Rossi leads her out onto the patio.
The lights flash, bathing him in red and blue. He’s only seen darkness for so long. It stings.
Red.
The door clangs as it slams shut. He swears he can feel it in his bones.
Blue.
Metal on metal, the scrape on skin. He tastes something metallic in his mouth when blood wells.
Red.
He remembers realizing that he has to escape, that he can’t do this again. He wedges his tie pin in the lock on the third day and runs for it.
Blue.
Spencer sprints through the forest, thorns catching his ankles and branches slicing his face. He trips a few times. He doesn’t care.
Red.
It all happens so suddenly — he’s thrown to the ground, someone tackling him around the waist. Spencer’s at the top of a hill, he rolls until he falls into a muddy valley. He cries out when something hard hits his eye, but he’s not sure what it is.
Blue.
He’s so close; he can see the faraway lights of the city, the quiet hum of cars.
“We’re not done yet.”
His tears seep into the ground as he sobs. Salt in soil. He was so close. The lights fade.
Red.
He remembers opening his eyes and it all coming back to him. How he ran. How he failed.
He screams his throat raw.
Blue.
When he wakes up, his throat sore and tender, an aching bruise. He can’t speak. It reminds him of the time he had strep and passed out at work.
Red.
It’s around the first week mark, he’s not sure, he’s losing time. He starts to think no one is coming for him.
Blue.
His captor brings in a camera once. Recording or live-streaming, he isn’t sure. “Make it stop,” he begs, staring right into the lens, hoping someone’s on the other side.
Red.
He’s not sure how much longer he can do this. He thinks of his mother. Will she miss him?
Blue.
He’d just made peace with death when he’d heard the footsteps in the hall outside. But the door swings open and he sees Hotch with his gun raised and brows drawn, and his heart soars.
“We’re almost there,” Hotch says encouragingly. Spencer looks up. Theyre a few yards away from the ambulance.
Morgan’s still right by his side.
His chest tugs.
He remembers the highway, how close he was.
His knees buckle.
“Spencer!” He hears. The lights dim.
He passes out gratefully then, finally with the knowledge that he’s safe.