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mt-musings · 1 year

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Bluebell

Chapter 19

After being abruptly transferred to the BAU at what she suspects was Gideon's request, Cassie Boann struggles to find her footing. Shy and solitary by nature, the transition is made all the more difficult when Dr. Spencer Reid seems to take an almost immediate dislike to her. Unfortunately for them both, their respective areas of expertise leave them paired off more often than not. But when Cassie's past literally starts hunting her, Spencer is forced to consider that he might, in fact, not hate her at all.

Quite the opposite, actually.

Spencer Reid x OC

Warnings: Canon typical violence, kidnapping, stalking, drug use, blood, injury, death, PTSD, eventual smut, more tags to be added

Series Masterlist

Read on AO3

19. Barrel of a Gun

Cassie stood in front of the hardly used mirror in her apartment fussing with the thin black turtleneck she’d bought hoping it would look sophisticated and mature.

She cursed, pulling it off and flinging it onto her unmade bed. She didn’t know why she’d let Spencer talk her into going out with the team. Derek and Penelope had talked of dancing and she knew there was nothing in her wardrobe that was even remotely appropriate. There wasn’t any way she could wear anything like that without putting her litany of scars on full display and practically begging for questions or worse, pity.

She sighed, running a hand over the scars that covered her upper chest, her arms. She’d tried every scar cream on the market, rubbed vitamin E capsules on them every night but nothing seemed to diminish the way the scar tissue caught the light, or the raised surfaces of their number. She’d never considered herself particularly vain, but she knew even now she’d pay anything to have a doctor get rid of them, to have the ability to wear whatever she wanted without having to cover up the reminders of that night.

Maybe it would be better if she just stayed home.

She threw herself face down on her bed, burying her face in one of her pillows. Yes, it would be best to just stay in and order some takeout, maybe crack open the bottle of horilka with Chuck and watch Fight the Future until she was drunk enough to slip into dreamless sleep.

Her phone rang and she cursed.

She glanced at the caller ID before answering.

“Hello?”

“You’re still coming tonight, right? I’m just hopping on the Metro.”

She groaned. “I was actually thinking about bailing.”

“Why? It’s going to be a blast. Thomson and Moreau are going to be there and JJ said there was a handful of people from CASMIRC too.”

“It’s just not really my scene—“

“We’re going to do trivia and drink, it sounds exactly up your alley.”

“I’m not sure I—“

“You know socializing improves memory and cognition. And has been linked to reduced blood pressure and a longer lifespan.”

She sighed, scrunching her face up as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fine. I’ll see you in an hour.”

She hung up, tossing the phone across the bed. She glared at herself in the mirror, running the heel of her hand, too hard, across the scars on her chest before pulling back on the black turtleneck and hunting down a decent pair of jeans.

---

Cassie wondered how she’d allowed Spencer to convince her to come out with them all. She had no interest in football and even less in joining the sweating masses on the dance floor. She’d tried hanging out Spencer and his egg-head cohort, but she’d never seen Star Trek or Firefly or any of the other dozen-odd shows they were competing in trivia over.

She ended up sitting on the stoop of the bar, nursing her drink as she watched passersby. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t be the first to leave, but she was regretting it, thinking longingly of sweatpants and warm blankets. She watched as JJ exited the bar, phone pressed to her ear, tension rolling off of her in waves. JJ hung up and turned, seemingly spotting her for the first time.

“We’ve got a case.”

“Thank God,” Cassie muttered, too low for JJ to hear, before downing the rest of her drink and following JJ inside to retrieve her coat. Spencer looked up as she returned, grabbing it from the back of his chair.

“Where’d you go? You missed the Star Trek lighting round.”

“I just needed some fresh air.”

“You were gone for twenty-three minutes.”

She searched his face for a moment before pulling on her coat.

“We caught a case. We gotta go.”

---

Cassie ran through her notes from the pathologist, cross-referencing them with the footage playing on Spencer’s laptop. It never got easier to watch the life stolen from someone, but at least they hadn’t suffered much. The slashing of the wrists and thighs had been overkill—important to determining a profile of the unsub, but redundant as far as cause of death. Both victims had had their carotid arteries severed, causing death between ten and thirty seconds after the laceration.

“Assuming it’s not a true given name, isn’t it a bit odd that the unsub would choose Raphael as their moniker?” She asked, perching on the side of the desk.

“Because he’s considered to be the Archangel of healing?” Spencer replied, still pouring over the video.

“Well, that and he’s not right fit for the role they’re playing. I mean, Micheal is the Sword, tasked with striking down the forces of Satan explicitly in the Bible. But Raphael only appears in the Book of Tobit. So if they’re pulling from Canon they’d most likely be of Eastern Orthodox or Catholic faith, since it’s part of the Protestant apocrypha.”

“Judging by area demographics it would be statistically unlikely for either to be Eastern Orthodox. Though I wouldn’t necessarily rule out a Protestant background just because Tobit is used as a reference.”

“It just seems strange to me. I mean, Raphael’s role is to aid Tobias’ journey and purge the demon, not punish sinners.”

“It could just be a coincidence that the name was chosen. Though if it isn’t then it does show a particularly high knowledge of scripture.”

“Seems like he’s picking and choosing what fits his mission.”

“They usually do,” he said, turning to look up at her. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, it’s just bothering me.”

“I mean other than the butchering Archangel. You just seemed off tonight.”

“I’m fine.”

“Cass—“

“I’m just not good with people. Living people, anyway. It’s a lot sometimes, you know?”

“You could have told me. I would have stepped out with you.”

“You were having a great time with everyone. It’s all fine, Spencer, really.”

“Just—just tell me next time.”

“Yeah maybe,” she said, giving him a reassuring smile before dropping her gaze. “You’ll have to drag me out again first, and I don’t envy your chances.”

“Don’t underestimate me.”

She shook her head, opening her mouth to retort when Gideon appeared, looking grim.

“We have another body.”

---

“Why do they always pick Revelations?” Cassie asked as she crouched next to the body, examining the wounds. “I’d like to see someone justify murder through Psalms for a change. I mean, Leviticus would have been the book to pull, right?”

She glanced up to where Gideon was still examining the Bible page.

“Do we have any leads yet on where he took Mrs. Douglas?”

“Not yet. Though we can infer he harbors particular resentment towards women. That and he wants us to know the name Raphael.”

She sat back on her heels, looking up at him. “Out of all the archangels, I still don’t know why he would pick Raphael.”

“There has to be some sort of significance to the unsub. Have you talked to Reid about figuring out the meaning?”

“I mentioned it in passing.”

“Is there anything else to be learned from the body?”

“Always, but for our purposes, nothing of particular relevance.”

“Then let’s leave it to CSI and head back to Atlanta. We can see if Spencer and JJ managed to dig anything up in the complaints.”

---

Spencer lay frozen on the ground as Tobias Hankel pointed his own gun at him, flipping between personalities. Suddenly everything made sense, the calls, the opposing signatures, Raphael—

Raphael who was meant to lead Tobias in ridding the afflicting demon.

Even with that gun pointed in his face his thoughts flipped to Cassie, to the way her face had scrunched as she’d tried to puzzle out the connection. He thought about the way her hand had felt in his, the rush of warmth the simple gesture had filled him with.

He thought of how he’d never told her how special she’d become to him, how he’d begun to work for her smile, he laugh, for the moments she’d get that sparkle of mischief behind her eyes. That he was happy, just being close to her.

How cruel for it all to be ripped away before it had a chance to be anything at all.

---

Cassie hated feeling helpless.

She would give anything to trade places with Spencer, for it to be her up on those screens instead of him. He must be so scared, locked in that dark room, alone, with Tobias Hankel.

She couldn’t stop thinking of the blood on the side of his face, the obvious signs of beatings—

She picked up a rock from the garden edging and thew it as hard as she could at one of the trees that lined the perimeter of the property, wishing the loud crack of the impact made her feel better about anything.

She was so useless, she’d had eighteen years to find her parents’ killer to no avail—how did she expect to find Spencer before Tobias beat him to death? And now what was she doing instead of going through every frame of that damn video?

She cursed, dropping back down to her seat on the porch steps, her head in her hands. She sobbed, silently, her whole body trembling. She needed to get up, needed to wash her face and get back in there. She needed to find him, to bring him home—

She jumped at the feeling of a hand on her back. She looked up to see Morgan crouched next to her, her hand stilling on its path to her gun.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s fine. I’m sorry, I’ll be back in in a minute.” She wiped furiously at her face, trying to hide the evidence of her tears.

“I just came to come and check on you. I know how worried you are about Reid.”

“We’re all worried.”

“Cassie—“

“I just want to find him. The longer he’s there—“ she broke off, running a hand over her face. The longer he was there the higher the chances were of him not making it. The harder it would be to work through the trauma if he did.

“He’s going to be okay, we’re going to find him.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Come on, let’s see if we can find anything in the other hundred journals.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze before standing and offering her a hand.

She nodded, wiping her face one last time as she stood.

---

The drugs were preferable to the beatings, the choosing.

He’d seen Cassie on the monitor, after he’d chosen the defense lawyer and his wife—she’d looked haunted, hollow.

Was it because of his disappearance or what he had done?

Cassie wouldn’t have chosen, would have refused. He remembered the way she’d shielded that little girl in Montana with her own body, how she cried in Texas over those little kids strangled by their father—what would she think of him, after seeing his handiwork?

Gideon had said that it wasn’t his fault that he just needed to survive and pragmatically he knew that was true—he was just trying to make it out alive, buy enough time that he could be rescued. She would understand, he knew—

He looked up at the sound of the cabin door opening, unconsciously shrinking back in his bindings. Would it be Tobias who entered, or Charles, or Raphael?

---

Cassie stared at the monitor, silently willing Spencer to move, to twitch, have the slightest of inhales. She dug her nails into her arms as if to hod herself in place, forcing herself to keep looking at Spencer’s still, lifeless form.

“Come on. Come on,” she chanted, so low she barely realized she was speaking out loud. “Just a breath—“

But there was no breath, no movement. Every second of oxygen deprivation his cells were dying, his beautiful, brilliant mind withering. At four minutes there would be irreparable harm, at six—

She whipped around, fleeing from the room. She couldn’t keep staring at his slack face while her brain screamed at her, real-time, the stage of dying he was experiencing.

Would they find him before lividity set it, before rigor? Would he still look like Spencer? She gagged at the thought of his coffee-and-old-book smell mixing with the putrid sweetness of rot.

She couldn’t even remember the last thing she’d said to him.

She pushed out of the front door and cut behind the house back towards the barn. She didn’t know when she’d started crying, when her knees had given out and she’d slumped down, her breath coming in short, shallow bursts.

It had been a bad idea to go to the barn. It still reeked of blood, now mingled with the bite of decay.

She didn’t bother with any of her usual, grounding chants, instead just sinking her nails as hard into her flesh as she could manage. It was enough to stave off the worst of the panic, enough to keep rational thought. She still had to find Spencer, no matter what it took—

“Cassie!”

She didn’t look up at the sound of Emily’s voice, instead freezing, hoping that Emily would miss her in the dark.

She had no such luck as she heard hurried footsteps growing closer.

“Hey Cassie, he’s okay, he’s breathing.”

“What?”

“Tobias came back and gave him CPR.”

She looked up , her face a mess of tears. Emily crouched next to her, wiping away her tears with her thumbs.

“He’s okay?”

“We have a location. We’re going now. We're going to bring him home.”

Cassie nodded, swiping at her face as she allowed Emily to help her to her feet.

---

Cassie could have sworn her heart stopped at the sound of that gunshot.

She was always one to come in from the flank, to hang back in order to stay out of sight and make the shot its needed, but she broke out into a sprint, dropping her flashlight in the leaves as she ran.

She knew enough to stabilize a gunshot wound until the paramedics arrived, as long as it wasn’t too egregious and she would put down Hankel like a rabid dog to get there. She knew she wouldn’t be aiming to maim as she strived for, but to put a bullet between his eyes, make sure he never lay another finger on Spencer—

She saw him then, through the trees and crumbling gravestones. He was crouched over a body, a still body, as Hotch and JJ and the rest converged. They’d been closer and helped him up. He was unsteady on his feet, clearly favoring his right foot.

She didn’t know why she froze, watching the others swarm around him. Maybe it was shock, or the fact that they all had managed to maintain a level of professionalism throughout the ordeal that she’d found unattainable.

Maybe it was because he looked so fragile, so very breakable.

She watched him say something to Gideon and stoop once more next to the body. It was only after a moment when he glanced around that he spotted her, eyes going wide.

“Cassie?”

His voice was so rough but it carried and she found herself moving again without her volition, holstering her gun without a second thought. She wrapped Spencer in a bone-crushing hug, pressing her face into the crook of his neck.

He was there, he was real, he was alive.

“Spence, god—“

He tightened his grip around her, murmuring something she couldn’t quite make out into her hair. She just hugged him harder, glad that he couldn’t see her tears.

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#spencer reid #spencer reid x oc #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #multichapter #mutual pining #slow burn

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