Work Text:
Spencer had put off writing the report for…a while. Hotch hadn't pressured him at all, actually, he had encouraged him to wait.
He had no reason to do it now, at 2 am when had work early in the morning - well he wasn't technically supposed to be there yet, he had 2 months of mandatory leave and it had only been 6 days - not including the two days at the hospital. However, after being alone with his thoughts for so long - him tuning down the team's offers to stay with him, 'mandatory' was starting to sound a lot like optional. Strauss would no doubt sign his forms without Hotch's permission- he knew the team's efficiency would drop with him gone and she didn't care about his well-being as much as Hotch did - or maybe at all.
He had woken up from a nightmare, and he figured if he was going to be scared for the rest of the night any way he might as well start on the report. Maybe Hotch would be less likely to put up a fight about him being there if he had something to give him.
He wasn't totally sure how detailed or not the report had to be, or how to write this at all.
He was staring at the form- it had too many empty lines for his liking.
He had taken three, so he didn't have many chances to get this right.
He figured he could jot down what happened on a separate piece of paper and formalise it into a report from there, so he grabbed a notebook and started.
Hotch had said to give as much detail as he could remember and to be honest. If he lied and got caught, he would probably have to do it all again so he was planning to be as honest as he could be. Besides, this would help profile future killers like Tobias - even small parts of his behaviour could eventually be important. Part of Spencer did gag at the thought of being totally honest in something his superiors would no doubt read, but he tried to ignore that.
The first few bullet points were easy, detailing how he and JJ had gone to interview Tobias as a witness. He then detailed how it had all gone wrong, how he had woken up in the shed with his hands already tied and blood already drying on his head.
That's when he started struggling.
He could practically smell the fish now he had written about the shed - was it called a shed? He should check later. The lamp next to him looked nothing like the lightbulb that had been above him, but for some reason, that's all he could see.
His mind placed him back into the shed, into the chair he'd spent the better part of four days in, and stubbornly refused to let him leave.
A monotone, deep voice sounded somewhere above him, making his head throb. Concussion? Probably.
“They're gone.”
His vision is still blurred, and he has to try twice to make his voice work to let out a weak, “Who are they?”
“It’s just me now.”
“Who..who are you?”
“I’m Raphael.”
Arcangel. His vision had stopped swimming enough for him to take in the rest of his environment, the smell of something attacking his nose again.
“Whats that smell?”
“Burning fish hearts and livers. Keeps away the devil. They believe you can see inside men's minds.”
He wasn’t going to bother asking who ‘they’ were again. And wasn't going to address the ritual - yet. He needed to get the idea of him doing anything supernatural out of the incredibly religious man's head as soon as possible.
“That's not true…I study human behaviour.”
“Shhh.”
The man - Raphael, he had called himself, took a gun out of his pocket as he spoke, Spencer tried not to let his fear show. He was good at acting, he thinks he managed to pull it off, he thinks it doesn't matter.
“I'm not interested in the arguments of men. Do you know what this is?”
A gun.
Pointing towards Reids' head, too close for his liking.
“It's God's will.”
Spencer didn’t know what to do, he was too confused and caught off guard to have properly made a plan of how to deal with his unsub. He decided to go with the plainest and safest route.
“ You don’t have to do this.”
“I'm just an instrument of God.”
Something knocked against his window, and he failed to contain the full-bodied flinch as he was thrown back into the present.
It had started raining.
He almost laughed at his paranoia, but he was too busy getting his breathing under control. Frankly, he was starting to loathe this stubborn, vindictive, scared part of his psyche that shoved him into those parts of his memory and held him there with a chokehold. That was, however, the larger part of his consciousness at the moment it seemed, or at least the stronger part.
What had he gotten up to? Oh.
-woke up in the shed
-Raphael introduced himself
- played… Russian roulette??
He wasn't sure if it exactly counted as russian roulette, but it was the closest descriptor to mentally unstable (wasn't that the understatement of the year), sadistic serial killer pointed a gun with one bullet in the chamber at me and pulled the trigger repeatedly because he thought god somehow wanted that.
He remembered the way the ropes had rubbed against his skin, how pissed off he'd been when it was ropes he had no way of cutting himself out of, instead of the handcuffs with locks he could easily pick. He still had faint marks; he wondered if they'd scar or not. Probably not.
Raphael had walked away after that interaction and came back in the morning. Spencer wrote that down as his mind replayed the next morning.
“What are you staring at, boy?” The man who walked in carried himself differently; he was less aloof and more aggressive, he walked like his sole purpose of entering the room was to intimidate anyone around. It reminded Spencer of his father.
“You’re not Raphael.”
“Do I look like Raphael?”
Despite the situation, he had to fight the urge to let out a laugh.
“I guess you have similar hair.” Reid settled on, hoping that the man didn't realise that was a joke and that he didn't get murdered for not being able to keep his mouth shut.
The man ignored him. Spencer wished it had stayed that way.
Spencer finished the bullet points of his first day lodging with the Hankles and went to get another coffee.
Spencer had realised quickly that Charles was more focused on the power he could get over someone else through pain than any actual mission to eliminate sinners; he disregarded Spencer's promises to confess (and actual confessions) if he would just stop too many times for Spencer to still think he cared about a confession.
He was the sadistic part of the killing team; it had taken less than two days to figure that out.
- Beat my foot with some belt (I think it was a belt), then dragged me into a side room
- Tied my hands with a longer rope above my head and used the same thing to beat my torso - sadistic killer
He remembered the aching and breathlessness that had caused him and fought the urge to throw up.
- Brought back to the chair, tied up, and left
- Later that night, Hankle returns
- Tobias is in control and carries in a pig, saying I need to eat
- Shows empathy for me being hurt
- Tried to help me by giving me Dilaudid
Spencer made a point not to look at the bathroom cabinet he could see from his bedroom, and didn't think about the vials he had in there. Definitely didn't consider taking them out and-
- DAY THREE
- Wake up to Charles asking if I'm ready, the first video streamed to the team
Spencer had noticed the second he escaped that it was the smallest details that would stick with him the most. One of them was the feeling of Charles's hand grabbing his hair, pulling it, or shoving it down, depending on where he wanted Spencer's attention.
In other situations with another person, maybe he would have been alright with that, but this was just demeaning, especially with his team watching.
His weak attempt at humour did nothing to calm his thoughts; he took another sip of coffee as if the warm liquid would serve as some sort of anchor to stop his mind drifting.
His hands were tied, and his whole body hurting meant he just had to stay and take what he was given, and this was one of the clearest indicators - or maybe just the first- to Spencer.
He remembered the horror and embarrassment he felt when he saw the camera in front of him and realised what was happening.
He remembered praying - and wasn't that ironic - that it was only being streamed to his team, not some fucked up porn website for pervs to get off to.
He knows now that Garcia would've been able to tell, but at the time, it was a fear, and he remembers the helpless feeling that gave him clearly as day. He still thinks he remembers the camera being there more than the team says they saw him; he supposes it's paranoia, but he can't shake the feeling that more of what happened was seen than everyone was letting on.
He almost yelled at Garcia when she told him how much they'd seen through the computer, convinced she was lying, he had to send her out of the hospital room with a lame excuse of needing sleep despite having had more of it in those few days he'd had in his life.
- Asked to choose one to die, tells me he will kill them all if I don't, and if I do, he will save one - say name and address for the team to hear
He still stayed up trying to think of ways he could have gotten out of that situation without choosing someone to die; the guilt he feels because of those deaths isn't something he'll ever let go of. He doesn't want to, Spencer tended to hang onto guilt like a dog hung onto bone, whether it was not wiping Tobias's blood off his hands until a nurse had done it for him, looking into all of the victims he could find and committing their names to memory, or forcing himself to sit eyes open, watching every murder tobias stream back to him, he wasn't going to let himself get too comfortable with deathshe had caused, directly or not. That wouldn't be fair. He hung onto the bone, teeth digging into it as hard as his nails dug into his palms when his teammates insulted Tobias in an effort to make Reid happy. As if that were fair.
He detailed how he'd watched the couple be murdered on camera. Biting his lips in an effort to ground himself, he tasted blood, but he didn't relent in his gnawing, the bone, his lips, his fingernails, who cared he had teeth he needed to sink them in somewhere.
He remembered Gideon's message.
That message had broken Reid more than Hankel. Sure, it had given some comfort to see the man and have him tell him he was strong.
Eventually, though, it just made him feel guilty for not being as strong as Gideon thought he was.
It's still half the reason he wouldn't ever talk to Jason about all of this. Even though he may want to. It isn't as if the man had asked anyway.
The itch in his elbow returned as he detailed Tobias giving him Dilaudid; he made an effort to explain briefly why Tobias did it, justify the man's actions as they were already under much scrutiny, on account of the murders, he supposed.
- DAY FOUR
- The video is reported as a virus
- Raphael saw Gideon's message
- Think there was a switch to Charles
- Seems most angry that I disobeyed - or disrespected him
- Unties me but holds gun to my head, I can't walk enough to be able to fight.
- Takes me outside
- Says he will kill me for disobeying
- I say it isn't a sin but he doesn't listen
- knocked me to the floor, shoved me in grave - already dug up
- My ankle is broken and I can't get up or out
- Buries me on - maybe 3 feet of dirt - too out of it to tell exactly
- Leaves me - I think but I couldn't hear so he may have stayed
- I pass out - given that I was in no coffin it would probably only take a couple of minutes at the most - Hankel must have been timing to make sure I didn't die if this was just to intimidate me - or he changed his mind as I didn't actually sin - Raphael and Tobias would disagree with the decision
- Wake up in the room again, hands above my head
- Saw track marks
They were still there. The list was the hardest and easiest thing he'd ever written, maybe aside from the first letter to his mother. The bullet points were spilling out now, gushing like blood from a bullet wound, Spencer tried to imagine it was his own and not Tobias's.
- Says I need to be cleansed of sin,
- Takes off my shirt, sees other scars
- To make sure I didn't “receive them through sin” makes me tell him how I got them - if I lie or don't answer he beats me - desperate to find a reason to kill me now, or is sadistic and enjoys the psychological and physical torture
“How did this happen, boy?” Spencer felt Hankel's hand on his shoulder and knew immediately what he was talking about. It was probably his most prominent scar, he is surprised it wasn't the first Charles pointed out.
It would be hard for anyone to forget something like that - especially Spencer. He had been 5 or 6 and had accidentally knocked over a bowl while he was making food for him and his mom, his father had been home and was in a bad mood - he had apparently decided to deal with that with a bottle of beer, and decided to deal with spencer the same way, throwing it at the young boy- it had caught his shoulder as he turned, causing two edges to cut into his skin in parallel lines. His father had cleaned up the bowl for him the next morning (Spencer had run away after he'd been hurt so he had left it there) and Spencer had interpreted it as a sign of remorse a the time - now he wasn't so sure.
He gasped as he felt the belt Hankel had in his hands make painful contact with his exposed stomach.
The man didn't say anything, but Spencer understood that he'd taken too long. The memory was already making him struggle to breathe, and saying it out loud would be something Spencer may not be able to handle. He could lie, he was a good liar, he had even successfully lied to Gideon - he thinks at least. He can talk his way out of anything, well, he thought so at least, until the last few days beat that comfort right out of his head.
“I-” he had to make it bad enough that his prolonged silence made sense. The first scar he’d explained had been from a bully; he could use that.
“Some kids I went school with - some who bullied me, they smashed some glass bottle on my shoulder as a joke one time- well they said it was an accident cause they'd been drinking but I don't think so…” he stuttered and lowered his voice at the right times, it may have sounded extreme but he had just explained some of the goal post thing they had done so it wasn't an insane jump.
“You’re lying.” What? How? Spencer thought he had done a good job.
“What - no I’m not?” he phrased it as a question - like he was confused - to seem less defensive - maybe this was a test?
“Lying is a sin.” Oh fuck.
He knew it was coming but still flinched when the belt made contact with his back.
It came down again, and again and Spencer thought he was doing a good job holding in his reactions - Charles seemed to be sadistic, so maybe not reacting would make him stop. Or do more to get a reaction… fuck fuck fuck.
“The truth.”
“That was the truth.” The belt came down on the same spot as before, and Spencer cried out as the buckle hit his skin. The shame from it affecting him so much burned across his face harsher than the burn the belt left across his back. Like most kids with fathers with quick tempers, he wasn't exactly new to getting beaten with a belt, but god, Hankle was strong, and unrelenting, and Spencer was already in pain, and he really really needed a fix right now. That thought only added to his shame.
“I did - “The belt comes down again, and he breaks, what's a bit more shame, he supposes.
“My dad- my dad he smashed a bottle over my back - it got my shoulder” The belt comes down again
“It's true!”
“What did you do wrong, boy??” right this was to see if he sinned he needed to say, his mind was running 200 miles a minute, but still not going anywhere.
“I knocked over some bowl - that's it, I swear, please”, he felt so pathetic. He'd had worse; he should be able to take this. He was a fucking FBI agent, he should be able to take this, he should be able to take this, he should-
“Your father disciplined you. You listen to him, you hear me? Honour your father. Spencer nods, that's not enough to be safe, he realises.
“‘'Whoever reviles his father or mother must surely die.’ Matthew 15:4,” he quotes. He gets a sound of approval from Charles - he doesn't quite manage to quash the small feeling of pride that gives him.
“What's this from?” Spencer openly sobbed.
The combination of memories made Spencer run to the bathroom to empty his stomach of his lunch.
He still didn't know how he could tell he was lying. It upset him more than he'd admit - he'd always been good at lying, it may be one of the things he was best at, actually. For him to have failed here stung.
It took him about 20 minutes to sit back down to carry on - he wouldn't stop now.
- Enjoys the control - but is most focused on seeing if I sinned now
- Takes me back to the chair and puts the shirt back on
- Starts streaming video again
- Asks me to confess, beats me.
- I die
That last part was the funniest thing he had ever written, but he didn't know how else to put it.
He could tidy that part up later anyway.
- Given cpr
- Asked to choose a member of the team to die
- Choose Hotch - as a clue
- Given Dilaudid by Tobias, confirms we are in a graveyard
- Confess sin
- Go outside to dig a grave
- Take Charlses gun
- Shoot him
- Switch to Tobias
Will I get to see my mom again?
Huh. He didn't remember writing the last section of bullet points.
He knew it had gotten vague… it counted as an outline though. And after he threw up he wasn't too keen on writing any more specific details down.
This was more detailed than he would ever be able to say in person. Even though he had left out details of his interactions with Tobias -the guilt he felt whenever he thought of the man was too much to deal with and he didn't think it was too important.
This was as good as it could be.
Fuck it was 5 am. How had that taken around 3 hours?
He supposed that between the panic attacks, throwing up, and possible dissociating, this made sense.
This was everything that had happened that he could put into words.
Now he had to put it into the report. For people to read. For Hotch to read. For Gideon to read, he realised with a jolt. Of course, the man would get his hands on the report; it somehow hadn't quite registered to Spencer before.
“You are stronger than him, he cannot break you.”
This entire report was a list of ways he had.
He threw the paper into the bin without a second thought.
He went to work later that day, much to Hotch's annoyance but much out of his control as Strauss had signed his papers to return early, and he handed in a finished report.
It was a couple of pages. It contained what was shown in the videos streamed to his team and a few details in between to somewhat explain most of his medical reports.
Hotch had raised an eyebrow at the lack of detail when he scanned over, but had seemingly decided, after losing the battle about Spencer coming back to work so soon, that he would save that fight for another day.
Spencer would probably take a personal day whenever that time came.