Chapter Text
His bed was cold and hard. Reid shifted, frowning through the fog and trying to open his heavy eyelids. His muscles were relaxed and loose. It must have been an incredible sleep, better than any he could remember, but something wasn’t right.
His bed should not be cold and hard. It had been its usual soft, warm, comforting self last night when he’d gone to sleep. Hadn’t it? Surely it had. He couldn’t-
Wait.
He couldn’t remember going to bed.
He hadn’t gone to bed.
Reid jerked and tried to push himself up, adrenaline taking over the monumental task of pushing his eyelids open.
He wasn’t in his bedroom.
He was in a stainless-steel room, tied to a metal table that was bolted into the floor. His arms and legs were splayed, bound tightly with thick zip ties.
A florescent light strip pelted obnoxiously bright, sterile light into the space, bouncing off the shiny walls and spearing directly into Reid’s brain from all angles.
There was a toilet and a small sink on the far side of the room, which was otherwise bare.
Reid assessed himself. He was still dressed (thankfully) in his typical work clothes. He must have been on his way to work when he was taken – or on his way back. Why couldn’t he remember?
His head swam as he tried to think, and he couldn’t afford it the luxury to take time to recover – not when whoever took him might be on their w-
The heavy door swung open. A man stepped inside and it swung shut behind him.
The man was in his forties, white, with greying auburn hair. He had stubble and bags under his eyes. His complexion was sallow, thought that could have just been the unflattering lighting in the room. He was wearing a courier’s uniform.
That’s right.
Reid had been on the way to work. There had been a courier’s van parked outside his building. The courier was lost. He’d asked Reid for directions. Reid had looked at the man’s clipboard to see the address he was trying to find, and then-
-then-
…then?
Then he was here.
Reid licked his lips. He wasn’t gagged, and his mouth felt cottony. He must have been drugged and brought here – but why?
“D’you have to piss?” the man asked.
Reid blinked. Did an internal assessment. Shook his head. “No.” His voice was croaky.
Blue collar worker – courier uniform likely a ruse but solid build and tan imply manual labour. Farmer? Nails dirty, substance unclear – mechanic? Accent inconclusive at this stage.
Offered amenities – potential for sympathy? Hostage situation? Humanise, build rapport, find out demands. Contact team asap.
“Could I have some water, please?” Reid asked, testing. “My head hurts.”
“No,” was the blunt reply.
Okay, so maybe this unsub wasn’t sympathetic. Maybe he just didn’t want to clean up his victim’s bodily waste. Still, it was unlikely that Reid would be offered the bathroom just to immediately be tortured or murdered. It was a good sign (he hoped).
“Why am I here?” asked Reid.
“You killed my sister,” the man answered bluntly.
Reid immediately knew this wasn’t true. “You” in this context was likely the BAU – or worse, the FBI in general. He’d need more information to narrow it down.
“I would never hurt your sister,” Reid assured him. “Let me go, and I’ll help you get justice for her.”
The unsub left without a word, the door swinging shut and locking behind him with a soft click.
Reid hoped he’d get something more to work with next time the unsub came in. If rapport-building failed him, he’d have to muscle his way out and find a way to contact the team. He sighed. Relying on his muscles was always Reid’s last resort.
-_-
“Has anyone heard from Reid?”
JJ shook her head. “I sent him a text, but he hasn’t replied,” she answered Hotch, sipping her coffee.
The team didn’t have an active case at the moment, but it still wasn’t like their youngest member to not be on time. If anything, he was usually one of the first to arrive, his circadian rhythms programming him to be neither a night owl nor a morning person, but a terrible third thing that slept fitfully between midnight and four AM only.
His mug was still untouched in the breakroom, his beloved satchel nowhere to be seen.
Reid was late. It was strange.
But not concerning, not yet.
“He’s probably stuck in the metro with no service,” said Emily, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. “I think they’ve been doing works on the subway.”
“Well, let me know when he gets in,” Hotch instructed, heading back up the gangplank to his office.
“Oooh, Pretty Boy’s in trouble,” sang Morgan under his breath.
JJ rolled her eyes. Emily pulled out her phone. “I’ll text him to bring us donuts. If he’s already running late, we may as well get something out of it.”
-_-
It was two hours and twenty-seven minutes until Reid saw the unsub again.
Reid had been clenching and releasing his muscles, shifting on the cold table as much as possible to keep his limbs from going stiff. If he wanted to get out of this, he’d need to be able to move quickly and a muscle cramp at the wrong moment could be fatal.
He hadn’t seen any weapons on the man last time, but that meant nothing. He was planning something, and Reid wasn’t under any illusions about his part in it.
This time, when the unsub gruffly asked if he needed to use the toilet, Reid said yes.
Reid stretched slowly after he was released from the ties, exaggerating the pain in his shoulders and hips but, regrettably, not by much. He felt the circulation flooding back, setting his upper back on fire. Wincing, he hobbled to the toilet and relieved himself.
The small sink was built into the floor, the faucet welded on seamlessly. Reid frowned. He’d been hoping to wrench it free to use as a weapon, but he’d have to work with what he had.
On first glance, “what he had” might look like nothing since his weapon had been taken away, but Reid was all about improvisation. Routine may be comfortable but it stagnates the brain.
After washing his hands and shaking them dry, Reid turned and exaggerated a slip, fumbling to the floor.
“I’m okay,” he breathed, as the unsub tensed and moved towards him.
Reid’s fingers closed around a discarded zip tie just in time.
He whipped himself up and threw his entire body weight behind tackling the unsub, pressing the zip tie across the other man’s throat.
The unsub was shorter than him but at least forty pounds heavier. Reid knew he’d have to use the element of surprise and his greater reach to off-balance him. He had one chance.
The unsub scrabbled, getting an elbow up and attempting to dislodge Reid’s grip. Reid pressed harder on his throat, causing the man to back up against the wall, shaking his head and clawing at Reid’s arms.
The unsub tried to kick out, aiming a knee at Reid’s groin, but Reid dodged. Unfortunately, this caused his grip to slip. The unsub shoved Reid’s arm away and heaved a breath, face a furious red. Reid slammed the meat of his palm into the unsub’s nose twice in quick succession, feeling the cartilage shift beneath his hand and warm blood gush down his arm.
Reid pulled backwards, running for the open door. He managed to get halfway through before he was grabbed from behind. He kicked backwards, biting and clawing furiously as a huge meaty hand covered his mouth and nose. He gasped and wriggled, trying to wrestle out of the hold.
The door was right there. All he had to do was-
Reid was slammed onto his back, his head cracking against the floor with a terrible sound that echoed in starbursts behind his eyes. No one should hear their own skull make that noise, Reid decided fuzzily. The fight didn’t go out of him, but it was stunned into temporary submission. He could barely move, blinking to try to clear the static from his vision.
He felt the unsub manhandle him back onto the table again. There was a grotesque hacking sound, and something wet splattered on Reid’s torso. He couldn’t see, but he had the awful feeling that the unsub had just spat nose blood onto him.
This whole ordeal was disgusting. Reid couldn’t wait to have a scalding hot shower and cover himself in antibacterial soap.
He shook his head. Focus.
The unsub was angry. Reid’s arms and legs were bound again, so tightly that he worried for his circulation. His ankles and wrists bent awkwardly, pulled backwards and down as the unsub tied them to the legs of the table.
“My friends will be worried about me,” he gasped, trying plan B. “They’ll come looking. If you let me talk to them, I can tell them I’m alright. We can help you.”
The man swatted Reid’s head, more like he was an annoyance than anything else. “I’m not an idiot. You’re not on my side.” He went to the sink and washed the blood off his face.
“My name is Doctor Spencer Reid,” Reid told him, though the man already knew. “I work with the Behavioural Analysis Unit of the FBI.”
The man spat into the sink. “I don’t care.”
“You must care, or you wouldn’t have taken me. I was targeted. You found out where I live, and you must have known when I’d be leaving for work. You’re right, you’re not an idiot. Why did you choose me? How can I help you?”
This time, it was a proper punch to the side of the head. Reid’s neck popped as his head bounced off the table. He wished he didn’t know how easy it was to get a concussion and how much damage this was potentially doing to his brain.
“You’re helping me plenty,” the man snapped. “Shut up before I gag you.”
Contrary to popular belief, Reid actually could shut up, and even knew when to do it, sometimes.
At this moment, though, his ability to profile this unsub and form a connection was all he had to work with. He had to try.
“What’s your name?”
The man looked so profoundly irritated with him that for a moment, Reid was reminded of Rossi. “You can call me Jim,” he said after a moment. “But it doesn’t matter. Keep quiet or I’ll cut your tongue out.”
Reid didn’t feel like this was a serious threat, but he made a show of snapping his lips shut and watching Jim instead.
Jim took a notepad and pen out of his pocket. He walked to the end of the bed, examining Reid’s feet, and made a note. Reid tried not to flinch under the scrutiny.
Jim walked up the length of the table slowly, dispassionately surveying Reid’s body and making notes. He even lifted up Reid’s shirt. Reid half-wondered if the man would pry open his mouth and count his teeth.
As Jim reached his head, he pulled out a sharp pair of scissors. Reid tensed.
The scissors were more like shears, razor-sharp and new from the look of them. They glinted in the fluorescent white light. They lowered slowly towards his eye and he pulled away as much as possible, squeezing his eyes shut. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe this unsub was planning to dismember him and send his pieces to the FBI as a taunt. Maybe the last thing he would ever see was those horrible shears coming towards-
Something tickled his nose, and Reid sneezed.
He opened his eyes reflexively, realising that the shears were gone. Jim was picking something up off his cheek. A lock of hair. Reid sneezed again.
Jim carefully put the hair in a ziplock bag and left the room without fanfare.
Reid closed his eyes again, his head throbbing, and focused on keeping track of the time.
-_-
“Is Reid still not here?”
Hotch surveyed the bullpen, surprised. He’d just come out of a meeting and had assumed that the younger agent would have arrived while he was indisposed. Apparently not.
JJ looked concerned. “His phone keeps going to voicemail,” she told him. “I’m worried.”
“Kid’s probably catching up on some sleep,” suggested Rossi. “His eye bags have been growing eye bags lately.”
“That’s not like him,” argued Morgan. He respected Rossi but the man was new to the team and sometimes, his inter-team profiling could be way off. This was why they weren’t supposed to do it. Morgan checked his watch. “It’s after twelve. I’m gonna go to his place. Maybe he’s sick.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Emily, grabbing her jacket and standing before Morgan could argue. He had to admit that it was a good idea. As much as he wanted to stay calm and casual, this wasn’t normal for Reid. If something had happened, it would be good to have backup.
“Call me once you’re there,” instructed Hotch.
Morgan and Emily nodded. “We’ll keep you in the loop,” she assured him, flashing a reassuring smile to JJ as they left.
She was sure it was nothing. He’d probably slept through his alarm.
Still. She made sure her firearm was at her side as they stepped into the elevator.