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The Bunker - Criminal Minds

Chapter 3: The Fever

Summary: Spencer Reid wakes up in a locked bunker to find half the current BAU and two of its departed members unconscious on the floor. The old team is back together but the reunion is not what any of them would have wished for. An Unsub from their past has decided it's time they all stop keeping secrets, even if it means exposing them by force.

Hotch and Derek have been pulled back into a world they tried to escape. Emily, Rossi, and JJ are doing their best to keep it together. Spencer is falling apart.

AKA a found family is reunited and forced to go through the most nightmarish version of family therapy imaginable.

Set months after the end of Criminal Minds: Evolution. Evolution referenced, but not necessary to understand the story.

Chapter Summary: Spencer is getting sick and it’s not a pleasant time for anyone.

Read chapter 3 on AO3 or under the cut. All comments and reblogs are extremely appreciated <3

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

97 days ago he had run a little experiment: see how long he could last before the pain became intolerable. He had made it 25 hours and 38 minutes before he called his dealer. He didn’t really know why he did it, as he had no real intention of getting clean. Just to be aware of his limitations? To torture himself? To remind himself how unbearable life was sober?

It didn’t really matter.

It had, however, continued to be a useful metric for gauging time in the bunker. Unfortunately, they were now headed into uncharted territory. The last time he had gone through full withdrawal was years earlier. He hadn’t been using as heavily or for as long a period as he had been this time, so all he could really say for certain is that as bad as it had been before, it would be worse now.

The lights had not so much as dimmed for a second. He wondered if she was ever going to switch them off or if they were to live in a single, perpetual day as long as they were there. At least in prison he’d had lights out and his own cell.

She’d given them one more bag of fruit about half an hour ago. So, a bag of fruit every 12 hours or so was the feeding schedule thus far.

“At least we won’t get scurvy,” mumbled Rossi, begrudgingly downing his last lemon wedge.

“We need medical supplies!” yelled Derek, looking to the camera. “He’s already sick and it’s going to get worse! If you want us to learn whatever lesson you’re trying to teach, you have to keep us alive long enough to understand it!”

“It’s fine, Derek,” muttered Spencer, who shivered violently on his thin foam mattress on the floor with his head in JJ’s lap. “Don’t waste your energy.”

Derek looked up at the camera and glared one last time, then knelt down beside Spencer, stroking a hand over his cheek. The touch distracted him from his crawling skin.

“You just have to make it through a few days of this Spence, then it gets better,” reassured Emily.

“I know,” he said. “I wish she would turn down the lights, at least,” he grumbled.

Hotch had been silent for a long while, sitting alone on the opposite side of the room. Rossi walked over to him and sat down beside him. He spoke with Hotch in low tones, eventually managing to coax him into conversation. Spencer could make out the words ‘Elias Voit,’ said by Hotch in a questioning tone. They were quiet enough and far enough away that Spencer couldn’t properly follow the conversation, but the murmur of the low voices was soothing.

He was glad not to listen. He didn’t envy Hotch having to learn about what Voit had done to Rossi while he wasn't there to help. He’d been on the other side of that conversation.

“It’s too hot in here,” he whined, eyes shut tight against the fluorescents, still shivering despite his burning skin.

JJ stroked her hand down his arm. “You have a fever.”

He pushed himself up for a moment, Derek reaching out an arm to stabilize him. He ripped his button down pajama shirt off leaving only a singlet underneath. He immediately curled back up on JJ’s lap, exhausted by the effort.

It took him a moment to notice the murmur across the room had ceased and JJ’s hand had stilled. He cracked an eye open.

They were all staring at him like he’d just told them there was a bomb in the room. “What?” he asked, pushing himself clumsily back up to a sitting position, letting the wall behind him take his full weight.

JJ stared at him helplessly. Emily had a hand covering her mouth. Even Rossi and Hotch across the room seemed to be leaning forward, locked on him.

“Jesus, Spencer,” said Derek, too dumb struck to bother with the usual epithets.

Spencer followed his gaze.

He might have vomited when he realized what they were all looking at if his stomach wasn’t already completely emptied out an hour ago.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“It looks like you’re trying to slowly kill yourself,” said Derek bluntly.

“I can’t remember the last time I saw you in short sleeves,” said JJ. “How did I not notice that?”

Spencer reached down to grab his shirt discarded only a moment ago, pulling it back on. One last flash of his forearms, both of which were littered with track marks, fresh, healing, and long since scarred over.

“No, Spence, you don’t have to do that,” said Emily quickly. “You should be as comfortable as you can be right now.”

“She’s right,” said Derek, shaking his head as if to snap himself out of a thought. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry. It’s not like we didn’t know.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbled. “I understand.”

“I need a minute,” said JJ quietly, getting up and walking quickly to the bathroom.

Spencer watched her go helplessly. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Emily looking at him sympathetically. He stared up at the camera.

“Is this what you want?” he asked. “Are you getting what you need?”

The light blinked its non-response.

He sighed, leaning his head back against the wall, pulling his shirt tighter around him, in part to ensure his arms stayed hidden, in part because the burning was starting to turn to an unbearable chill. Derek put an arm around him and he leaned into it.

Rossi and Hotch went back to their whispered conversation.

When JJ emerged a considerable time later, her eyes were red rimmed and swollen.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking up at her. “I’m sorry for putting you through this.”

She smiled wetly at him, taking a seat on his other side and throwing her arm around him to join Derek’s.

“It wasn’t about you,” she told him. “Well... it was, but not completely. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m currently locked in a bunker with no idea if my kids are safe,” she sniffed. "It's got me a little emotional for some reason."

He squeezed her hand. “They’re safe. I know they are.”

“Yeah, big brain? How do you know?” she teased, tears spilling softly.

“I just do.”

She hugged him tight. When she pulled away she huffed a laugh. “It’s nice to have a space with a little privacy, but it’s oddly considerate of her to put a door on the bathroom, right? Seems thematically inappropriate for someone so obsessed with exposing people.”

He laughed too. “Let’s not question that too much,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to give her ideas.”

JJ sniffed again, head lolling gently into Spencer’s shoulder. Her eyes drooped.

“You should all get some sleep,” said Emily softly. Then, louder to the whole room, “We’ve been here at least a day and we can’t keep pushing through forever. I don’t like the idea of all of us being asleep at once, and someone needs to be awake for Spencer anyway. I’ll stay up for now, but everyone else should try to get a few hours.”

“I’ll stay up too,” said Hotch from across the room. Emily nodded.

Derek went to open his mouth, presumably to volunteer, but Emily cut him off. “It doesn’t work if we all stay awake,” she said with a hint of amusement. “I know nobody wants to sleep, but it has to happen eventually. Hotch and I will get some rest when you’re awake,” she promised.

Derek begrudgingly said, “Fair enough.”

They all spent a bit of time rearranging the room. They put the mattresses on the side furthest from the door, but left Spencer’s mattress on the opposite side of the room. It was the best they could do to try and have a quiet zone for sleeping and to keep Spencer where he could be watched.

He wanted to protest, hating that they were arranging everything around him. Unfortunately, having to duck out halfway through the process to hunch over the toilet and clear out the last dregs of bile in his stomach undercut any argument he could have made.

Sleep did not come easily to JJ, Derek and Rossi. Despite the extreme exhaustion they must all be feeling, they each tossed and turned in fits and starts for what seemed like hours.

Emily and Hotch sat quietly with Spencer, not speaking so as to not disturb the others. They took turns getting up to pace back and forth for a while, wearing only socks to dampen the noise. Probably keeping moving to force themselves to stay awake.

Spencer wished he could sleep. He tried closing his eyes. Tried curling up and stretching out, or lying perfectly still for all of 5 seconds at a time before the bugs crawling over every inch of his skin demanded to be scratched at.

No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to find unconsciousness. His vision swam and his awareness waned, but he found no relief.

Why were they torturing him?

There were hands touching him, trying to rip his skin off. He batted at them and tried to scramble away, but they pulled him back.

Emily!

It was Emily whispering something in his ear. Thank God she was there.

She would keep him safe.

The bugs kept crawling on him but she was there. They would bite but she wouldn't let them tear his flesh too deeply.

Voices drifted in from above him and he felt a gentle stroking through his hair. He was waking up, which means he had fallen asleep after all.

He was awake and he was boiling alive.

“I wish I could have seen it,” came Hotch’s whispered voice with an unexpected laugh.

Emily laughed back, too loud, before Hotch hushed her. “Trust me, you don’t. He must have been the dumbest Unsub we ever dealt with. I’m sure the whole thing would have gone much smoother if you were still at the helm.”

“Because everything was so carefree when I was running the BAU,” said Hotch sarcastically.

Emily paused. “Maybe not, but that’s the job. None if it was your fault. You were a great leader, Hotch. We miss you.”

“You left first,” he pointed out.

“The job, not the team,” she countered. “Besides, I came back.”

“They’re damn lucky you did.”

Neither of them spoke for a while. He tried to tell them he was awake but his eyes and mouth were shut with glue. It was sticky and cloying and his body was too heavy to fight it.

“Doesn’t feel like I’m doing a very good job,” said Emily, sounding distant.

“Do you think if we get out of here-”

“When,” interrupted Emily.

“Do you think he’ll stay clean?”

A beat. “I don’t know. I hope so,” she said, pained.

Hotch sighed. “What the hell happened to him after I left?”

He felt a hand softly stroke his bare arm. Was it her or was it Hotch?

He didn’t remember taking his shirt off again.

They could see. They could see and it disgusted them. He wrapped his arms tighter into himself.

“A lot.” She sounded how people sound when they’re speaking through an injury, trying to pretend they aren’t in pain. “How could I miss this for so long?”

“It’s sounds like you haven’t seen him in person for a while.”

“Exactly. I should have known something was wrong,” she insisted. “I don’t know what triggered this. What if he doesn’t want to stop?”

She flinched when he mumbled “Not your fault.” It came out garbled and slurred.

“Hi, Spence,” she whispered, full of love. “You’ve been in and out for a while. You’re getting dehydrated. Can you try and drink some water?”

He cracked his eyes open, pulling back against the light. He tried to sit up but didn’t have the strength to support his own weight, so he just rolled onto his back instead. “It’s not your fault,” he repeated in case she hadn’t understood him. “I don’t want to be fixed,” he said, every word like gravel in his throat.

Her’s and Hotch’s faces swam in his vision. He lolled his head to the side and saw the sleeping forms of his other friends.

“You can’t go on like this, Spence,” she said mournfully, cradling his head in her lap. “You’ll die.”

The bugs were back, crawling all over him. He could actually see them this time. They flew around the periphery of his vision like dark stars. “We’re all going to die,” he said, knowing in his heart it was true. They were never making it out of this bunker.

“We’re not going to die,” said Hotch’s voice from a million miles away. “I won’t let it happen.”

He couldn’t look away from Emily. One of the bugs crawled down her cheek. He reached out a shaking hand and brushed it away. It dissolved into water. More and more came, wetting his thumb as he wiped them away. They were crawling out of her eyes, marching single file down to her chin. “I already died,” he said. It happened on the floor of a cabin in Georgia. “Tobias brought me back, but he left a piece behind. It’s okay though,” he breathed. “It’s okay. He showed me what to put there instead.”

If he could just explain it right, maybe they could understand.

His peripheral vision went dark and he fell into a pit of fire ants. They bit every inch of his skin, over and over and over.

“You died too…” Tears stung his eyes like acid. He wished she was there to comfort him but he was alone again. “I went to your funeral.” He was alone in the bunker. They left without him. Why would they do that?

Lights flashed in the darkness and they pierced him like daggers. Hands grasped at his clothes, at his body, at his mind. He recoiled from the touch, but it kept coming.

Somewhere nearby was a needle that could get him out of this hell. He searched for it and screamed for it and cast out blindly and begged.

It never came.

Nobody came to save him.

An eternity passed.

Then…

Awake.

He cracked an eye open, groaning at the stupid motherfucking goddamn fluorescent lights. He could tear those things from the roof with his bare fucking hands at this point.

“Jesus, kid. Tell us how you really feel,” said Rossi from somewhere behind him.

Had he said that out loud?

“Spencer!” yelped JJ. “You’re awake! Emily, Hotch, get up, he’s awake! Like, actually conscious!”

“Why are you yelling?” rasped Spencer, dragging himself to sit back against the wall and covering his eyes with his hands. “I feel like I’m going to puke.”

When he opened his eyes, the entire team was gathered around him. Derek pulled him into a hug. “Oh thank God,” he heard from Emily.

He recoiled. There was too much happening at once and every part of him hurt. “Guys! Stop touching me! I’m sorry, but stop!”

They all backed away, hands raised. “Sorry,” said JJ. “We’re all just relieved.”

He looked at them all. Really looked.

Each one of them had greasy hair, rumpled clothes, dark circles under their eyes. Everyone had discarded their shoes and jackets in a corner, standing in various degrees of undress and rumpled underclothes. Hotch, Rossi, and Derek had thick layers of unkempt stubble.

“You all look like shit.”

A few of them cracked a smile. Rossi scoffed. “You’re one to talk.”

There was a small wicker basket that seemed to contain some things, he wasn’t sure what. But the existence of any kind of new item was significant, given the circumstances.

“What happened?” he asked, then cleared his throat. His mouth felt like it was filled with ash. “How long was I out?”

Emily looked at him sympathetically. “Your fever spiked about two days ago. At least, we think it was two days. It got pretty intense for a while. You were delirious,” she said carefully. He could only imagine what a nightmare he’d been to deal with. He didn’t particularly want the details and was glad when she glossed over it. “The fever finally broke. You’ll probably still have acute symptoms for the next couple of days, but you’re through the worst of it.”

“The Unsub gave us some supplies,” said Rossi, nodding towards the basket. “I guess she realized she didn’t actually want any of us to die, at least not yet. We kept yelling out, asking for medical supplies. All we got was aspirin, but it was enough to help bring the fever down. We have a few left. Afraid that’s all we can give you for the pain.”

“How compassionate of her,” said Spencer, looking mistrustfully at the basket.

“We also got soap,” said Derek, almost excitedly. How simple life’s pleasures became when you were living in captivity. “So at least we can wash off in the sink and clean our clothes. It’s better than nothing.”

“Is that a hint?” joked Spencer.

“Just figured you’re probably dreaming of a shower by now,” he smirked.

They were all looking at him with such relief. Hotch was not lingering behind the group like he had been before. He smiled warmly at Spencer when their gaze met. It was a soft look that was incongruent with his memories of the man.

Not that Hotch was never soft, but that he was rarely soft in that way with the team.

“Sorry for putting you through that,” he said guiltily.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” said JJ. “You’re not the one who locked us up down here.”

“Still,” he said. Then; “Have we received anymore notes?”

“Not yet,” said Emily. “I’m not surprised. She wouldn’t have been able to get us to care about much else while you were so sick. She strikes me as someone who wants a high degree of control over when and how we respond to things.”

He nodded. It made sense. “I need some water,” he said, trying to push himself up to go drink from the bathroom tap. He made it halfway to standing before he collapsed again. Derek leapt forward to fling an arm around him and guide him to the ground gently.

“You’ll be glad to know that one of the items in our little gift basket was a cup,” said JJ. She picked something up out of the basket and walked to the bathroom, emerging a moment later.

She handed Spencer a small, flimsy plastic cup of water, which he drank thirstily. Emily took the cup once he was done and set it aside.

“How’s the nausea?” she asked. “We saved you some fruit. It’s still only been fruit. I could kill for a pizza or burger or just, like, a whole roast pig… God I miss protein. I'd settle for a can of baked beans at this point.”

He evaluated the sensations he was currently feeling, isolating the sickness in his stomach from the aching and itching of the rest of his body. “I’ll try to eat, but no promises it stays down. Is she still only doing drops once every 12 hours?”

“It’s hard to keep track of time,” said Hotch, finally contributing, “but that seems to be the case. Aside from the inevitable deficiencies of an all fruit diet, she doesn’t seem to be trying to starve us. There’s always enough fruit for us all to eat multiple pieces, and we can portion out our meals across the 12 hours. We’ve been speculating that the restrictive schedule might have more to do with her than it does with us. She may have other commitments, potentially even shift work. Or maybe this bunker is located remotely and she has to commute. It’s hard to say.”

“Huh,” he said vaguely, mind still foggy. He shook his head to clear it.

Emily frowned at him. “You should try and get some more sleep,” she said, gesturing for the others to give him some space. They all did. “I think you’re out of danger, but you’re still not well. You need to rest.”

He wanted to argue, but he was already drooping heavily towards the mattress. “Just wake me up if anything happens,” he requested.

She nodded. He lay down curling up on his side, completely wiped out by the interaction. As he brought his arm up to rest under his head, he was caught off guard by the bare skin. He was still only wearing his singlet, leaving his arms exposed.

He tried not to look too closely most of the time. He’d complete the ritual of getting high without lingering too long on the sobering visual.

His arms were a mess. The most recent track marks were scabbing over, making it look even worse than it had just days ago. He loathed that they could see it. That they could see him.

He loathed even more that the only thing on his mind as he drifted to sleep was how desperately he wanted to shoot up.

#criminal minds #bau team as family #criminal minds evolution #criminal minds fandom #criminal minds fic #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fanfiction #bau team #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #criminal minds fanfiction #derek morgan #spencer reid

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lightandheatao3 · 4 months

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The Bunker - Criminal Minds

Chapter 2: The Inevitable

Hotch and Derek have been pulled back into a world they tried to escape. Emily, Rossi, and JJ are doing their best to keep it together. Spencer is falling apart.

AKA a found family is reunited and forced to go through the most nightmarish version of family therapy imaginable.

Set months after the end of Criminal Minds: Evolution. Evolution referenced, but not necessary to understand the story.

Chapter Summary: Spencer knows what's about to happen. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean he's prepared to deal with it

Read chapter 2 on AO3 or under the cut. All comments and reblogs are so appreciated <3

Chapter 1 link

There was no sunlight. No clocks on the wall. They had been stripped of their watches and phones. They had no way of being certain how long they’d been trapped.

Spencer had a pretty good idea, though. Cool air flowed in from the small vent in the roof but sweat beaded on his brow.

They were all sat leaned against various sections of wall. The room was big enough that they had to raise their voices slightly to ensure they were heard from the opposite wall.

“Are you doing alright, Spence?” asked JJ, then rolled her eyes at herself for the asinine question, given their current situation. “I mean, relatively speaking, obviously. You look a little pale.”

“Just exhausted,” he said.

Please please please someone break the door down and let them out.

They had spent a long time analyzing the note and had come to the conclusion that whoever wrote and delivered the note was a woman. The hand size, the passive language, the fixation on teaching them a lesson. The apparent belief that she was helping them, justifying her cruelty with compassion. All of it added up to a female Unsub.

They had debated heavily if she might have an accomplice. It would have taken a significant degree of physical strength to subdue them all. Even intravenous drugs don’t knock someone out instantaneously. In addition, the site of injection was incredibly precise and nearly identical on each of them. This would only be possible by holding them very still, likely with a headlock from behind.

An accomplice certainly seemed possible, but at this stage they had no hard evidence to support it.

Everyone looked to Spencer to compile a mental list of all female Unsubs they dealt with while the team was in this particular configuration. Nobody quite fit the profile.

Antonia Slade was intelligent enough and had a history of taking her victims in to care for them before she killed them, but she wouldn’t hide behind a door. She would gloat. He wouldn’t put it past Lindsey Vaughn. She was resourceful. It’s not her MO, but she’d been known to be adaptable when a good opportunity to fuck with them presented itself. But that didn’t explain why she’d gone after them but not Luke and Tara, who she’d also dealt with.

Spencer pointed out to the team he kept tabs on Vaughn in prison, given everything that happened in Mexico. She could theoretically operate via proxy, but he was pretty confident she wasn’t their Unsub.

Truthfully, there were no good candidates. Whoever was doing this was going to need to give them something more to go off if they wanted a chance of piecing it together.

The fluorescent lights buzzed.

Once again he was living under the looming threat of violence and death but all he could think about was how terrified he was to be seen by the people he loved.

There were too many people in too small a space. He had his arms crossed tightly over his midriff to hide the fact his hands were shaking.

Everyone agreed there was no merit to speculating on what secrets she was referencing. For all they knew that was her plan. Get them to reveal information she could use against them, or get them fighting amongst themselves.

There was an invisible ticking clock. Spencer could hear it like it was real. Each second that ticked by was one closer to the moment where his most pressing secret revealed itself anyway thanks to his uncooperative body.

Nobody had spoken for a long time when Rossi piped up, “When do you think dinner is?”

They all stared at him. Hotch raised an eyebrow. “Feeling peckish?”

“If she wants to keep us imprisoned for the duration, surely she plans to feed us.” He looked up at the camera on the roof and raised his voice. “If you’re taking orders, I would love osso buco and a glass of the ’95 Chateaux Latour!”

JJ laughed. “Could you throw in a carbonara for me?”

“And a carbonara!” he demanded from the camera. “Real egg, none of that cream shit.” He looked around the room. “Any other orders? I hear the food here is excellent.”

“Ribeye on the bone, medium rare, a side of fries with a Bearnaise sauce,” said Derek, closing his eyes and giving a satisfied sigh.

“Oh, that’s a good one,” said JJ.

“Yeah, I’ll have what he’s having,” said Emily. “Throw in a pinot for me.”

“What vintage?” asked Rossi.

“Whatever one tastes best chugged straight from the bottle.”

Spencer smiled at them. Truthfully the thought of food was making his stomach turn violently, but he played anyway. “I’ll take a cheeseburger from Bernard's Burgers,” he said simply.

The others hummed in approval. They all cast their eyes to Hotch. He hesitated. Eventually, he said, “There’s a seafood restaurant a couple of blocks from where I live that has the best lobster you’ll ever try. You wouldn’t expect it from a landlocked state, but there’s nothing like it.”

Everyone nodded, satisfied with their imaginary feast.

“Not to keep bugging you, kid, but are you sure you’re alright?” asked Derek. “You’re not looking so hot.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve been kind of off the last couple of days. I might be coming down with something. Sorry if you all catch it,” he said with his best impression of sincerity.

Derek made an ‘oof’ noise. “How’s that for timing?” he asked lightheartedly, though his eyes lingered longer than was entirely comfortable.

After another moment Rossi spoke again. “How long do you think we’ve been in here?”

“14 hours since we woke up,” said Spencer without missing a beat.

They all stared at him. “How the hell do you do that?” said Rossi, impressed.

He shrugged. Truthfully, he didn’t have the best internal clock. It was very easy for him to get lost in thought and lose track of time. The piercing headache and rising nausea were making him acutely aware of every passing minute.

That was how it went with this sort of thing. You had to develop a routine, especially if you wanted to function. He knew exactly how long he could go before he started getting sick. He scheduled his entire life around it.

The Unsub had clearly figured out their routines. Even if she hadn’t, the evidence of Spencer’s habits were strew across the bedside table in the room he was taken from.

He dug his nails into his arms through his sleeves. Time was running out. It was all getting away from him.

As if the Unsub had been reading his mind, the chamber on the door opened.

Derek was faster this time, managing to get his face right up to the chamber while the external hatch was still wide open.

“Talk to us!” he yelled. “We know you’re trying to teach us a lesson,” he said, an empathetic lilt pasted onto his voice. “We just want to know more. We want you to help us understand.”

A gloved hand deposited an unmarked brown paper shopping bag. The external hatch closed. The internal one released. Derek bowed his head as their captor left with no response. “She must be positioning herself to the side of the door. I still couldn’t see anything more than a hand. She’s careful, but we knew that already.”

Derek took the bag out and they all crowded around it cautiously.

It was packed full of fruit. Emily picked up an apple, turning it over in her hand.

With all eyes focused on her, she carefully took a bite.

She chewed, then swallowed.

“It tastes normal,” she assured them. “Give it half an hour to an hour to see if it has any effects on me, but I don’t think poisoning the food fits this woman’s MO.”

“I agree,” said Hotch, taking a pear. He followed Emily’s lead and cautiously bit into it. He nodded at the others.

The first rule of being held captive was to always take your food and water where you could get it. You never knew when your supply could be cut off.

They all reached in and took a piece of fruit, including Spencer. He had no desire to eat, but he knew he had to keep his strength up and get what he could down while it was still possible.

As he took his orange, he uncovered a note at the bottom of the bag. JJ saw it too, reaching in and grabbing it before he could.

They all watched her expectantly.

“Your room must always be clean. After you eat, put the food scraps in the bag and the bag in the chamber. There are consequences for breaking rules. Now, as a reward for good behavior, I will take away the burden of lies that weighs one of you down. If Dr Reid-”

She paused, reading further down the note, furrowing her brow.

They all stared at him. He tugged at his sleeves nervously.

“Keep going,” said Emily to JJ, though her eyes were fixed firmly on him.

JJ looked at him apologetically. He looked at the floor. She continued, “If Dr Reid is sick, it is only because he is missing his medicine. I gave you all a taste of it to get you here. I hope you don’t catch his disease.”

She dropped the note like it was radioactive. She mouthed the word 'sorry' at him, knowing as well as he did the shit show that was about to errupt. Derek immediately picked the note up. He looked over it himself like he didn’t want to believe JJ had read it accurately.

He looked back at Spencer.

They were all staring at him.

Instinct told him to run, but there was nowhere for him to go. Instead he stood and waited for the concrete beneath his feet to turn to liquid and encase him.

They were waiting for him to talk first.

He couldn’t.

“What’s she talking about, pretty boy?” asked Derek, finally taking pity on him and breaking the silence.

He took a few steps back, suddenly acutely aware of how close they were after gathering around the bag of fruit. “I have no idea,” he said petulantly, cringing at himself for it.

“It’s alright, kid,” said Rossi sympathetically. “Nobody is upset, just talk to us.”

Spencer’s brain sprinted in circles. Why did the lights have to be so bright?

He tried desperately to think of some clever way to talk himself out of it even though he’d figured out hours ago that this was going to happen. This Unsub’s plan was technically impressive, but it wasn’t exactly psychologically sophisticated. She wanted to out their secrets. This one was going to out itself pretty soon anyway, so of course she'd want to get to it first.

“Spencer,” said Emily, “How sick are you going to get?”

No is it true? Or does this mean what I think it means? Straight to believing it. They didn’t even look surprised. They looked like this was only confirming what they already knew. They looked sad.

Horribly, infuriatingly sad.

He ran a hand through his hair.

“The others are going to find us,” he insisted. “It doesn’t matter.”

He wished he could believe it, but he wished they could believe it even more.

“This is why you woke up before the rest of us,” said JJ softly. “Why you weren’t as affected. It’s because your tolerance is up.”

“You guys can see what she’s doing. She’s trying to pit us against each other,” he accused, wrapping his arms tighter around himself and taking another step back. "We're just playing into her fantasy."

“Don’t think about her right now,” said Emily. “If you’re going into withdrawal then we need to know exactly what to expect. Mind games can’t take precedence over your physical safety.”

“I’ll be fine. Opioid withdrawal has a statistically low mortality rate, with only 2% of the-”

“So it is opioid withdrawal?” She tilted her head. “Look at you, Spencer. You’re shaking, your skin is clammy. You said yourself, we’ve only been in here 14 hours! If it’s this bad already, how much worse is it going to get?”

“I don’t know!” he snapped. “Yes, fine, I’m going to get sick! What do you want me to say?”

“Easy, pretty boy,” said Derek gently. “This isn't an attack. The fact is, we’re all locked in here together and this is happening whether we like it or not. We just need you to tell us exactly how bad this is going to get.”

“I don’t know,” he said shortly.

“Yes, you do,” countered Emily. “You cold give us a detailed breakdown of the symptoms, timeline, and risk factors of an opioid detox based on frequency and duration of usage. You just don’t want to admit how much and for how long you’ve been using because it’s bad, right?” she said. Typical Emily, so pragmatic. There would be plenty of time for sentiment once she had a plan, but no sooner. “This isn’t just a slip, is it? You’re shooting up again and have been for a while.”

Spencer flinched. So did everyone else.

All eyes were on him, but for some reason it was Hotch’s gaze he caught. The man hadn’t said anything the entire exchange. Just stood at the back of the group and watched carefully.

When their eyes met, Hotch gave him a tight, sympathetic smile.

Spencer looked at a spot just behind Emily’s head and spoke quietly. “I… I’ll be fine, Emily. I’ll get sick but I’ll get better. It’s not the first time. I don’t need your help.”

“Roll up your sleeves,” she demanded.

He sputtered, “What? No!”

“Emily,” said Rossi placatingly. “Take a beat.”

She ignored him. “If you won’t tell us what to expect then show us. Spencer, I know this is fucking awful and believe me this is not the way I would like to have this conversation,” she said, gesturing to the oppressive room. “I am so sorry for not seeing what was happening and helping you sooner,” she said sincerely. “The least I can do is make sure you get through this safely.”

Even as he said it, he could feel himself regretting it, but before he could stop himself, “Fuck off Emily,” had slipped out his mouth.

JJ gasped and Derek interjected with a stern “Hey! I know this sucks but do not speak to her that way.”

“It’s fine,” said Emily. “I’m not trying to be condescending, Spencer. I’m just scared. I want to help.”

She sounded excruciatingly sincere. It made his blood boil.

“No,” he snapped, stepping back again until he felt the wall hit him. “None of you were there the other times I had to do this, and now you want me to defer to your expertise? What the hell do you know? What do any of you actually know? If you wanted to do an intervention you should have done it after Tobias Hankle, but none of you said anything and I don’t need you like that anymore,” he spat.

Emily’s eyes were wide with shock.

Spencer's words surprised himself just as much as the rest of them.

“I’m sorry,” she said, taken aback. “You’re right. I should have said something back then.”

Guilt twisted its way through the panic and rage, settling into his chest.

They were all trapped down there together and here he was punishing Emily for caring. He tried his best to hold onto the anger. To wrap himself in it. He could feel it slipping away.

Hotch stepped forward. Spencer had almost forgotten he was there.

“I was team leader at the time of the Hankle case. I’m the one who decided not to intervene,” he said firmly. “Emily brought her concerns to me and I shut them down because I was afraid if word got out you would lose your job, making your situation worse. I trusted that you were strong enough to recover. And you were. But you never should have done so without proper support. I regret that, Reid, and I always will.”

Maybe it was the stark inevitability catching up with him that there was simply no way to avoid going through withdrawal in front of them. Maybe it was the way his eyes kept searching for an exit he knew didn't exist. Maybe it was thinking about Tobias Hankle. All these years and all the other traumas, and a part of him was still stuck in that cabin in Georgia. A part of him always would be. Whatever it was, the fight left him.

He was still pressed up against the wall, and he slid down it until he was sitting on the cold concrete floor. The others sat too.

“I don’t know why I said that. I’m not angry about it anymore. Or, at least… I’m not angry at any of you,” he said, chancing an apologetic glance at Emily. “Maybe at Gideon, still. But what’s the point in that?”

“When someone who hurt you is gone it doesn’t take away the scars,” said Rossi. “I loved Gideon, but he made mistakes. It’s okay to be pissed about it.”

“Do you guys really want to hear all this?” asked Spencer skeptically.

They might say that’s what they want, but the subject of his addiction had never felt particularly welcome. They had always flinched away from it, just as they had only a minute ago when Emily referenced him shooting up.

He certainly didn’t want their pity or concern.

“Of course we do,” said Emily, with the others nodding emphatically.

He hesitated. They already knew, he reminded himself. They were asking because they care about him and because the secret was already out. He couldn't put it back.

“2 years. Or 1 year, 11 months, and 3 days, to be precise.”

Silence. He wanted to say stunned silence? But it could have as easily been disgust. He couldn’t tell.

“How is that possible?” asked Derek, deceptively calm.

“We couldn’t miss the signs for that long,” said JJ disbelievingly.

“It’s been on and off,” he clarified. “I was only using in between cases when I was last working with the BAU.” Then, sheepishly, “Mostly." There were some cases... well. He'd done his best. "You would be surprised how easy it is to miss substance abuse in people close to you. One study showed that up to 60% of heroin users are what we call ‘functional addicts,’ meaning they can hold down fulltime employment, social lives, and sometimes even have their addiction go unnoticed by intimate partners for months or years at a time,” he rattled off, before catching the look in his friends’ eyes and stopping. “It isn’t your fault,” he said simply. “I’ve been avoiding you on purpose. Not to mention you base your warning signs on how I behaved when I first became addicted, expecting me to be volatile and disorganized. But I’m not 25 and in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event anymore. I have more control. It’s not a problem like it was back then,” he assured them.

“Feels like a pretty big problem right now,” said Rossi.

“Functional addicts don’t stay functional forever, pretty boy,” said Derek. “I’m sure you know the other side of those statistics.”

“I don’t have a large enough dataset to offer credible statistics on the amount of opioid addicts who get kidnapped and forced to detox in bunkers. In retrospect, I should have realized that I am an outlier who should have expected something like this to happen,” he deadpanned.

“Well, we’re all outliers vis a vis kidnappings,” replied Emily dryly. "I'm sure that makes you feel better."

“I hate doing this while we’re being watched,” he said. “It feels like we’re encouraging her. This is exactly the outcome she was hoping for. It’s why she dosed you all with opioids instead of using pure sedatives. Just to taunt me.”

“Don’t worry about that now,” said Hotch. “What matters is that we get you through withdrawal. We need accurate information to ensure we know what to do.”

“I know,” he admitted reluctantly. He took a long, slow breath. “Ask me whatever you need to,” he said, directing it to Emily.

He wished he was high right now. He’d give anything for a hit.

Emily nodded; sentiment once again pushed down the line to when the job was done. “Dilaudid?”

“It’s whatever is easiest to get.”

“So, heroin,” she clarified.

He looked at his lap. “It doesn't make a difference to the withdrawal process. It’s all derivatives of the same compound.”

“It makes a difference to your risk of overdose,” she clarified, “but you’re right, that’s not an immediate concern,” she agreed. “Needles?”

He nodded, not looking at them.

“It’s okay, kid,” said Rossi. “We’re not judging.”

He didn’t really believe that, so he didn’t respond to it.

“Every day? If so, how many times a day?” Emily asked.

“It was previously more intermittent, as I said, but for the past 8 months or so It has been twice a day at a minimum.” A beat. "Usually more."

“Okay. Thank you for telling us all that. I know this isn’t easy,” she said. “I just have one more question for now. Is there any risk that you have an infection?”

“All intravenously administered drugs come with a statistically significant risk of infection,” he said, ready to ramble about it before she threw up a hand to preemptively cut him off. “I always use sterile equipment and alcohol wipes. I’m fine.”

“You are anything but fine, pretty boy,” said Derek, shaking his head. “But we’ll get you through this.”

“That would be more comforting if we weren’t locked in a bunker by a serial killer.”

“Minor problem,” Derek joked. “Consider it a study on innovative approaches to running a rehabilitation facility.”

Spencer didn't laugh. Neither did anyone else. JJ placed her hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

He caught Hotch's eye again, briefly.

Had any of them ever really had a shot at escaping their pasts or was this all inevitable? He wasn't getting clean by choice. Hotch wasn't there in the bunker to reconnect with them. Spencer was struck by the reality that proximity did not always mean closeness.

He was already thinking about the moment he could get out of here and get high again. Was Hotch just counting the seconds until he could disappear from their lives forever?

Assuming they didn't all just die, of course.

Maybe that's what he should be focusing on now. Just don't die. Figure out the rest later.

He leaned into JJ, letting her put an arm around him. The red light from the camera blinked down at them.

#criminal minds fandom #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid #spencer reid angst #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #david rossi #bau team #bau team as family #criminal minds evolution

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lightandheatao3 · 4 months

Text

The Bunker - Criminal Minds

Chapter 1: The Bunker

Hotch and Derek have been pulled back into a world they tried to escape. Emily, Rossi, and JJ are doing their best to keep it together. Spencer is falling apart.

AKA a found family is reunited and forced to go through the most nightmarish version of family therapy imaginable.

Set months after the end of Criminal Minds: Evolution. Evolution referenced, but not necessary to understand the story.

Read chapter 1 on AO3 or under the cut. All comments and reblogs are so appreciated <3

Chapter 2 link

Spencer cracked his eyes open, flinching from the white fluorescent light and blinking hard against the groggy, dull ache in his head.

His mouth was dry, body heavy. A familiar wake up. He reached his hand out blindly for the relief waiting on his bedside table.

No- wait.

His lights are all yellow toned filament bulbs, not white fluorescents.

The smell was wrong. The dull electrical buzz in the air was louder, pitched higher.

His eyes shot open wide and he scrambled to his feet.

This wasn’t home.

He surveyed his surroundings, fighting the wave of dizziness that came with standing too abruptly.

“Oh no,” he said out loud. “Nonononono…”

The room was large and square and made entirely of concrete. Up the top a small vent, too high to reach and too small for a person to fit into. A heavy door with a double walled chamber for someone to put things into without having to interact with the person on the other side. The kind you would find in a maximum-security prison cell. The whole room felt like a prison cell, a place he’d hoped to never be again. At the back of the room a small en-suit that was completely stripped bare but for a metal toilet with no seat and a sink that was bolted into the wall. There was a door that could be shut, but there was a gap under it and a hole where a doorknob had clearly been removed.

A camera. There on the roof, drilled in and protected by a plexiglass dome, blinking its little red light at him. He stared at it for a moment, then closed his eyes.

He slowed his breathing. Now was not the time to fall apart. Not now. Not yet.

Not when there were 5 of his friends prone on the ground around him, unconscious as he had been only moments ago.

Each was laid out on a thin foam mattress, the kind with no seams or springs that could be fashioned into tools.

His first stop was the door. He knew before he tried it that it wasn’t going to open, but he had to make sure. As soon as that was confirmed, he turned his attention to the people in the room with him.

He rushed over to Emily first, rolling her onto her side and checking her pulse. It was slow, but steady. He looked around at the rest of them, noting the gentle rise and fall of their chests. All alive. He sighed audibly, clasping his hands together in thanks and relief for a split second before turning back to Emily.

He gently shook her, putting his hand on her cheek in what he hoped was a comforting way. His hands were shaking. He wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline or the comedown. “Emily," he said gently. “Emily, it’s me, Spencer. Wake up Emily.”

After a few more repetitions her eyes fluttered, then opened. She looked up at him hazily. “Spencer?”

“Hi,” he said sadly, knowing there were only a second left until she realized the danger they were in and wanting to let her experience that second in peace.

She glanced behind him where JJ lay unconscious. He looked at her pupils. They were constricted, confirming his suspicions.

“Oh my god,” Emily gasped, her hand reaching up to clutch his shoulder. She leveraged herself against him to drag her way up into a sitting position. She rubbed at her eyes blearily, then opened them again and cast them around the entire room. “Fuck,” she breathed.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

Her eyes snapped back to him. “Are you alright?” she asked urgently, looking him over. “What happened?”

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “And I don’t know. I woke up a minute ago. I don’t remember how I got here. I think we were all drugged.”

She hummed in agreement. “Last thing I remember I was outside my apartment on the way home from the gym. I still feel a little out of it. God, Spencer, you look awful,” she said, putting a hand over his. “What did they do to you?”

“Same thing as you, most likely.” He looked away. “Emily, that’s Hotch over there,” he deflected. “And Derek.”

Emily looked to where he was pointing. Her expression was solemn, professionalism kicking in even in these dire circumstances. “Yeah. And no sign of Tara, Matt, or Luke. And no Penelope, thank God. Whoever did this, they’ve got a grudge against us that predates the others joining the BAU. Someone who met all of us but never had direct interaction with Penelope. This is good. If the others are free, they’ll find us.”

Spencer nodded in agreement. “This is someone with the skill to find Hotch in witness protection. If he wasn’t dead, I would have said it was Scratch. The logistics of kidnapping 6 highly trained federal agents takes an enormous amount of planning and ability. There are only handful of people we’ve encountered with the capacity to pull something like this off.”

She rubbed at her temples. Her eyes were losing the glassy sheen as the adrenaline counteracted the effects of the drugs. “I assume you tried the door?” He nodded. “I guess we should wake the others.”

No sooner than she said it, JJ stirred. They both crawled over to her. Her wake up process went much the same as Emily’s, but for the fact that the first thing she asked about was if her children were safe, before she’d come to enough to realize they had no way of knowing.

“Whoever this is likely targeted you while you were alone,” Spencer assured her. “It’s much safer to take a victim without witnesses, especially a victim who is trained to defend themselves and needs to be physically incapacitated.”

Next, they woke Rossi, who responded immediately by swearing up a storm and threatening to rip the head off whoever was responsible for this.

“Hey, Dave, it’s okay,” said JJ in a calming voice, even as she looked about to cry. “There’s nobody in here but us.”

He breathed. He nodded. He cursed again. He nodded again.

“At least I’m not alone this time,” he said with a world weariness that Spencer felt in his gut.

They had all been in situations like this before, but Rossi was barely recovered from the last time only a few months ago. Spencer still regret so deeply that he wasn’t there to help with Elias Voit.

“No, you’re not alone,” agreed Emily emphatically. “On that note, look who else is here,” she said.

“God fucking dammit,” cursed Rossi as his eyes swept over Derek and landed on Hotch.

Seeing Derek there was upsetting, but it wasn’t as jarring as Hotch’s presence. Derek still came along to the occasional social event, though less and less recently, as he was busy with the birth of his second child. Spencer personally still saw him once a month or so, though the past year their contact had been more limited to phone calls. They were all dreading having to watch him learn he’d been pulled into this nightmare, but if nothing else they could offer him the comfort of familiarity and camaraderie.

But Hotch… none of them had heard so much as a whisper from him in years. When he disappeared, he did so completely. It’s the kind of thing that would have wounded Spencer deeply under any other circumstances, but after everything Daniel Lewis aka Mr Scratch had put him through, he only ever hoped that Hotch had found every semblance of peace that life could give him. He’d missed him badly at times, but he would have rather they never meet again than have to meet like this.

They decided to wake Derek first.

Rossi nearly got a fist in the face before Derek pieced together what was happening. Then, he put a fist directly into a concrete wall instead.

“I’m going to regret that when the drugs wear off,” he said sheepishly once he’d calmed down just a bit. “Whatever they dosed us with, they did not skimp. The comedown is gonna suck,” he said, side eyeing Spencer, who pretended not to notice.

The question and answer was the same as with the others. Do you remember anything about who took you? No. Has anyone tried the door? Yes. Derek threw a shoe at the camera for good measure, but of course it just bounced off the plexiglass and landed pathetically on the floor.

The bang of it hitting the concrete was enough to make Hotch finally stir. They all turned to face him, staring helplessly.

His hair was longer than Spencer had ever seen it. Still short, but more relaxed, skimming the bottom of his ears and starting to curl a little at the base of his neck. He was still lean, but some of the muscle had been replaced by fat. He looked just a little softer. Healthier. His face was peaceful. Spencer always remembered him looking tense, even in his sleep. His hair was streaked with grey but somehow this was the youngest Spencer had ever seen him look.

He stirred a little more, blinking at last.

Ah, there was the familiar tension creeping its way back across his face.

Rossi was the one who finally knelt down beside him. “Aaron? I’m so sorry my friend,” he said sadly as recognition flashed in Hotch’s eyes.

“I’m dreaming,” came the familiar voice. Spencer had missed that voice more than he'd known.

Hotch closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again. He looked past Rossi at the rest of them. Spencer raised his hand in a polite greeting, then immediately felt like an idiot for doing so.

“I’m not dreaming,” he said, no trace of emotion in his voice.

“I’m afraid not,” Rossi confirmed.

Hotch fixed his eyes on Rossi again, pushing himself up so he was sitting against the wall. He looked like he was staring at a ghost, trying to figure where the projector was. “When did you get so old?” he said, reaching out a hand to Rossi’s face and poking at it.

Rossi grabbed the offending hand and clasped it between both of his. “Careful. You’re no spring chicken yourself,” he joked.

“No,” said Hotch, still expressionless. “Peter Lewis is dead. This isn’t my life anymore. He’s dead. They told me he died. I saw photos of the body.”

Spencer didn’t know that, but judging by Rossi’s lack of surprise, he pieced together that the older man had likely made sure the witness protection people had passed the photos along.

“Scratch is dead,” Rossi confirmed. “Whoever did this, it’s not him.”

“This. Isn’t. Real,” Hotch insisted, the first sign of emotion entering his voice in the form of hysteria as he pulled his hand away from Rossi and scrambled to his feet. “All of you stay away from me!” he yelled, looking at each of them in turn.

JJ grabbed onto Spencer’s arm. He flinched at first, then put an arm around her and gave what he hoped was a comforting squeeze. Derek took a step towards Hotch, but Emily held him back.

Hotch backed into the corner, looking at them like a caged animal. They were all caged animals now, Spencer supposed. An unfortunately familiar role.

“Hotch,” Spencer said, surprising himself by speaking. They all turned to look at him. He couldn’t back away now. “This is real. I’m so sorry this is happening to you, but Penelope and the rest of our team aren’t here, which means they are out there looking for us. I know it doesn’t feel real. We have all been drugged and you are probably still feeling the effects. I’m sorry. I wish it wasn’t real, but it is,” Spencer said kindly but emphatically.

“We’ll get out of this together,” said Emily. “It’s going to be okay.”

Hotch’s eyes were looking just a little clearer.

“Listen man, I know what you’re feeling. I got out, too, remember? I have a family and I don’t know if they’re alright. I’m right here with you. We’re all on your side. Do you believe me?” asked Derek, and this time Emily let him take a step forward.

Hotch looked around at all of them again. He assessed them carefully. Then, he turned to the corner, putting his back to them and his hand over his face. It was the closest thing he could get to privacy and Spencer was suddenly grateful to have woken up first to process all of this without being watched.

Well, except for the camera.

They all looked at the floor and did their best to give Hotch space. It was almost a full minute before he finally tuned back around.

There was that stoic expression that Spencer remembered. All that youth and peace was gone from his face in an instant. Spencer hoped so badly that it wasn’t gone for good.

“What do we know?” asked Hotch, crossing his arms.

A moment of silence passed and Spencer wondered if the rest of them felt their hearts breaking into pieces at this cruel facsimile of a reunion.

“Why don’t we start with the last thing each of us remembers?” said Emily, stepping up beside Hotch and looking back at the rest of the room, two natural leaders doing what they do best.

Each of them recounted the details they knew before they woke up in this room.

They had been going about their lives, nothing special. The only common thread they could find was that each of them was alone when their memories stopped.

Derek had been at a picnic with his family and the last thing he remembered was leaving to use the park bathroom. Emily on her way back from the gym. JJ heading out to get groceries. Rossi walking home late from a bar.

“I was driving to work,” said Hotch shortly.

“We’re going to need more detail than that if we want to put together a timeline,” prompted Rossi. "Where do you work?"

Hotch pursed his lips. Spencer could see him strategizing in his head. He wasn’t back in their lives by choice. Spencer understood.

He didn’t get it back when Gideon left, but he got it now. Once you let people in the door, it can be impossible to fully extricate them. Hotch’s old life was filled with trauma he was trying to leave behind and the team were living representations of that past. Spencer couldn’t bring himself to be hurt by the other man’s reticence.

“A legal consultancy in a small town in Kentucky,” he said reluctantly, like divulging the smallest part of his personal life meant inviting the entire FBI right back into it.

“That’s an 8 hour drive,” said Derek. “No wonder you were so out of it compared to the rest of us. You must have been dosed multiple times to keep you under that long.”

“I think you’re right,” he said. “I’m still a bit foggy, if I’m being honest,” he admitted quietly. “What about you, Reid?”

Spencer blinked. “I feel fine.”

“No, I mean what’s the last thing you remember?”

Oh. Right. “I went to sleep in my apartment, then I woke up here,” he said honestly. It wasn’t important what he was doing before he went to sleep.

“Since we can be fairly confident whoever this is took Hotch first,” said Emily, “That probably means they got to you last, Spence. They hit all of us in one day. They must have known the BAU had a day off after closing the last case. They would have had to hit us quick to avoid raising alarms.”

“And the fact that we were all grabbed at different times indicates we’re likely dealing with a single Unsub. Someone highly organized and familiar with each of our routines.”

“The Unsub must have been planning this for a long time. Finding someone in witness protection, especially a former profiler, would take an incredible amount of skill or resources,” said Spence. “They stalked us, learned our routines, then used blitz attacks to stop us from being able to fight back.”

It didn’t take long for them to get into the flow. He felt his panic slipping away as his brain shifted into work mode. At some point they all went from standing to sitting in a circle on the floor.

It felt ridiculous to think about, but Spencer couldn't help but be mildly self conscious being the only one of them in his pajamas, as he was taken in his sleep. He was just glad it was a cold night so he'd been wearing nice, full length ones and not boxers and a shirt or something to that affect. Derek, Emily and JJ were all dressed in comfortable day wear. Rossi and Hotch in suits. Hotch was interesting, though. Spencer had rarely seen him outside of a crisp black suit characteristic of an FBI agent. The one he wore now was navy with a striped tie. It looked good on him.

They put together a more detailed timeline and looked back on the past few months of their lives to discuss anything that could have possibly been out of the ordinary.

The more they talked, the less cagey Hotch was about his life. It was strange to learn more about the day to day he had been living in the years since they’d seen him.

None of them talked about their kids or partners beyond a simple acknowledgement of their existence. They were all acutely aware of the camera on the roof. Whoever was doing this didn’t need to know any more about their families than they already did.

Their phones had been taken and none of them had anything to write with, so they were relying on Spencer to catalogue and compile the information in his brain. He did just that, and after a couple hours they had what was likely a fairly reliable timeline, including geographical information.

Whoever was doing this, they were extremely organized, meticulous, and quick. Not one of them saw it coming. None of them could point to any strange interactions they had over the past months, any red flags, any signs of being followed.

When it came time for Spencer to recount the details of the last months of his life, the others stared at him intently. “I haven’t seen you in person in months,” said Derek. “You don’t look so great, pretty boy.”

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but the bunker we’re currently locked in isn’t making the rest of you look at your healthiest, either.”

“You know what I mean,” said Derek with an affectionate eyeroll.

“You know I was doing some classified work for the bureau. That’s why I couldn’t be there for what happened with Voit,” he said with an apologetic look to Rossi, who waved his hand dismissively. They had already been over this when Spencer first got back. He noticed Hotch raise a curious eyebrow. “I can’t talk about the work since we’re currently being recorded,” he said, nodding up at the camera. “Emily knows the details. It was nothing bad, just research that kept me out off the grid for a while. But if the Unsub could find Hotch in witness protection, then it’s possible they could have been tailing me for that long.”

“That finished months ago,” pointed out Emily. “What have you been doing while you’re on sabbatical?”

“A few guest lecture series at Virginia Tech and spending time with my mom, mostly. I just needed a break. I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. I guess I’ve been a bit distracted. I haven’t seen or experienced anything unusual, though.”

“I hope your mom’s doing okay,” said JJ comfortingly, prompting the rest of them to nod sympathetically.

He just nodded back. She was doing fine, honestly, not that he’d been visiting as often as he should. Easier to let them assume she was the reason he had been absent.

“Why are you doing this?” said Hotch, standing up and looking directly at the camera once they realized none of them had any more details to share at this point. “What do you want from us? Tell us what it is and maybe we can give it to you.”

The camera blinked its red light at them, showing no care for their presence.

Hotch sighed. He looked down at them all helplessly. His eyes stopped short on Derek. He knelt down, staring at something on the side of his head. “What?” asked Derek, leaning away in concern at Hotch’s suddenly very close face.

“Hold still,” said Hotch. He waved Emily over, who shuffled round to his side. “Right… there,” he said, hovering a finger just behind Derek’s ear.

Her eyes widened. Hotch looked at her questioningly, then turned his own head and tucked his hair away so that she could see behind his ear.

“You have it too,” she said. She did the same as him and he checked her over. They looked at each other again and he nodded.

They all stared at them expectantly, though Spencer was pretty sure he knew what they were seeing.

“Puncture marks at the top of the neck, just behind the ear,” Emily explained. “That’s where we were injected.”

Spencer, Rossi and JJ all checked each other. Sure enough, same thing.

“That means we were likely attacked from behind,” said Derek.

“Do we know what we were drugged with?” said Hotch, shooting an almost imperceptible glance in Spencer’s direction.

His skin crawled at the way none of them wanted to look at him, to just come right out and say it. He didn’t particularly want to talk about it. Not really. But they always acted like the subject was poison and it made him feel like he had to walk on eggshells too. Like the reality of his life was harder for them to hear than it was for him to live.

“I am fairly confident it was some kind of opioid,” he said, careful to keep the irritation out of his voice.

JJ put her hand on his and he felt the irritation dissipate.

They cared about him. He knew that. It’s not as if they were wrong to worry. They had talked about it a little over the years, but not enough that it had stopped being awkward every time it came up.

“Are you certain?” asked Rossi. “Could have been a tranquilizer.”

“I’m certain,” said Spencer. “Trust me, I know the feeling.”

Derek reached a foot across the circle and bumped it against Spencer’s knee in a supportive gesture, like saying ‘I’m here with you.’ Emily smiled at him softly, reassuringly.

“It could have been cut with something,” pointed out Hotch.

“The totality of the blackout indicates it may have been cut with a sedative of some kind, as a high enough dose of opioids to include that kind of memory loss reliably could be unsafe and none of us are suffering significant enough side effects to indicate that’s the case. Whoever did this knew exactly what dosage to use,” he explained. “But… I am quite sure it was predominantly an opioid.”

Of course he was sure.

“Jesus,” said JJ. “I’m sorry, Spence.”

“I don’t believe in fate but the universe does seem to have a strange way of conspiring to get you high,” deadpanned Emily.

Derek shot her a harsh look, but Spencer cracked a smile. “I think ‘an Unsub made me do it’ is going to start sounding like ‘a dog ate my homework’ to my sponsor,” he joked back, relief washing over him that they weren’t going to dance around it the entire time they were in here. Not that he’d spoken to his sponsor in more than a year. They didn’t need to know that.

The others smiled too. “You’ll be alright, kid,” said Rossi. “If you kept it together after Mexico, you’ll get through this.”

That would have been a comforting statement if not for the fact that it was completely false. It didn’t matter anyway. Penelope and the rest of the team would find them and get them out before any of this became an issue.

Or they wouldn’t. But he couldn’t think about that yet.

A crease sat deep between Hotch’s eyebrows. “Mexico?”

“You don’t know?” said Emily. “I just assumed you were across everything to do with the Scratch case.”

“No,” said Hotch. “I accepted proof of his death and told the liaison I didn’t want to know anything else.”

“It’s complicated,” said Rossi. “There were other players involved, but the short version is Reid was drugged and framed for murder. It wasn’t pretty.”

“We don’t need to go into the details,” said Spencer, oddly embarrassed at the idea of Hotch knowing just how prone to being victimized he apparently still is. He knew it wasn’t rational, given the things that had happened to Hotch and the fact that all of them were in this locked room as victims together.

Hotch looked at him. Spencer couldn’t read his expression at all. Eventually he just nodded and let it drop.

Before any of them could say another word, there was a banging at the door. The hatch on the other side of the door chamber opened.

Derek got to the door first, trying to rip the hatch on their side open. He shouted at the door “What do you want?! Talk to me! Just tell us what you want!”

There was no response.

The only thing they could see was a hand covered in a thick leather glove sliding a piece of paper in. It was a smaller hand than expected.

He continued pulling but the panel didn’t budge until the other one had closed completely. Derek stumbled backwards as the panel suddenly released.

“It’s soundproof,” Spencer said, despairing. “There was no sound of footsteps on the other side.”

Emily grabbed the note from the chamber. They all whipped around to watch her as she read the words aloud.

“Hello, old friends,” she started, all of them frozen in place and hanging off her every word. “I know you are wondering why you are here. It is simple. You dragged my secrets into the light and then put me in a cage. At first I wanted to get revenge. Then I watched you for a long time and I learned all about you and I learned that we are the same. I saw how you are suffering. How you are scared. All hiding. I remember when I had to hide. For so long I hid even from myself. Now, because of you, I am free. Even when I was in a cage, I was free, because I had no secrets anymore.

I want to give you the freedom you gave to me. Soon, you will not have secrets. You will see that in this room you cannot hide and that when there is nothing left to hide, you will be free.”

Emily looked up from the letter, meeting all of their eyes in turn. There was a painful lump in Spencer’s throat.

If he was being honest with himself, he knew it as soon as he woke up in this room and saw them all there. He knew they weren’t going to make it out in time. He knew the Unsub must have watched him closely enough to know what was going on with him. He knew he wasn’t making it out of this without all of them seeing him for exactly who he is.

Now, he thought, might be the time to fall apart.

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