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dr-spencer-reids-queen · 9 months ago

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... And Back: Part One

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.9k

Summary: Knowing the Turner Brothers killed nearly one hundred people, the FBI, Detroit police, and the Canadian police work hard to figure out three things: Where is Kelly, who has been murdered here, and what will happen when Lucas is caught? That’s not the only thing you have to worry about as a nightmare is about to come your way.

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated

"Who the hell are you people?" Mason demands to know.

"Are you Mason Turner?" you ask again.

"Dr. Turner."

Will takes out a picture of his sister and shows it to Mason.

"This is my sister, Lee Hightower. Has she been here?"

"Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

"Hotch," you whisper, "there's another unsub here."

"We're with the FBI. We've been invited by the RCMP to assist in an ongoing investigation," Hotch says.

"You haven't been invited into my home. My Canadian home. Now get the hell out before I call the proper authorities."

"Sir, we've been invited by the proper authorities."

"I want you out of my home. You don't have any right to be here!"

"Agent Rossi, Agent Hotchner, may I have a word with you, please?" Jeff asks and takes them to another room. You quickly follow them in a panic. "You said this would be the unsub."

"Everything points to him, Jeff."

"No, there's another unsub. Hotch, I feel so much Death that I think one of us is next. Something is going on here, but Mason didn't lay a hand on any of the victims. His partner did."

"Look, I let a suspect who tried to kill my border agents out of jail, a man who actually confessed to the crimes we're investigating because I believed you. You were wrong. There is no evidence there is a partner. Here's what's going to happen. I'm taking my prisoner back to the station, and you can all go home. Excuse me."

You need to get out of this house. You leave immediately and join Derek and Emily outside. There is a pig pen with a bunch of oinking pigs roaming around inside. You stop short in front of them with eyes wide as saucers filled with fear. Your stomach hurts enough for you to double over in pain.

"Y/N? What's going on?" Emily asks and walks over to you. "Are you okay?"

"No one is listening to me. There is so much death here... so many victims. Oh, God... The pigs... the pigs are eating the victims." You look away from the pig pen and notice over two dozen people standing next to a large wooden box that's on the outside of the barn. They're all staring at you without saying a word. "That box over there. What's inside of it?"

You gently push Emily off you and walk over to the box while staring at the two dozen people. One of them, you notice is Lee Hightower. You lower your head for a moment of silence for her. She's dead and she's never gonna see her brother or mother again. You take the end of your flashlight and lift the top up to see what's inside, and all twenty-four people mist away knowing they're gonna get justice.

"Oh, no," you gasp and cover your mouth. "Guys, I think we might be wrong about how many victims we have here." Derek and Emily walk over and peer inside. Over a hundred pairs of shoes are inside the box. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

Hotch and Rossi walk out of the house, and you immediately jog over to them.

"Hotch, there's a box next to the pigs like a garbage bin or something. It's full of nothing but bloody shoes of all different sizes both male and female. We're not looking at ten missing people, we're looking at over a hundred."

Hotch orders JJ to stay inside with Will while Jeff, Rossi, and Hotch follow you back over to where Derek and Emily are.

"Did these belong to victims?" Jeff asks.

"Possibly."

"Why just the shoes? Where are the bodies?"

"You're not gonna find any bodies," you say.

"She's right," Spencer says from the pig pen. "Pigs are omnivores. They'll eat just about anything, and I mean anything."

Jeff is now convinced that there is more than one unsub. He has to let Will go knowing he didn't kill anyone. Yes, he'll get time for attempting to hurt border agents, but he didn't kill anyone. Will has no clue what is going on, but he is removed from the police car and out of the handcuffs Jeff slapped on his wrists.

"What is going on?" he asks.

"We're still not sure, William."

"Did you find my sister?"

"No, but do you know what kind of shoes she was wearing when she went missing?" you ask with a hint of tears in your eyes.

"Shoes? No--"

He sees the look in your eyes and makes the connection for himself. Tears form but he refuses to let them fall.

"Will, I'm so sorry," you whisper and walk away from him. You approach Hotch and Spencer while Rossi finishes talking to Jeff. "Is he alright?"

"He will be. He has every available cop in Ontario on the way here."

"Did you find anyone in the house?" Derek asks.

"Mason Turner."

"Is he in custody?"

"Not exactly. He's quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down. JJ's in there with him right now."

"Well, that's a pretty good criminal defense."

"I'll go talk to him," Rossi offers and heads to the house.

"Morgan, do you have the contact number for the Detroit Detective?"

"Yeah."

"We're gonna need their open missing cases so we can make identifications on this property."

"Right."

Derek walks away and dials the Detective. Then there were two.

"I think that laptop is his sole communications device which means data files on hard drives and records." Hotch calls Penelope. "Garcia, I need you in Ontario ASAP at the farmhouse that the unsub's car was registered to. We need forensic recovery from a laptop. I'll tell you more when you get here. I don't want this over the phone, and the next flight, Garcia." He hangs up. "Reid, will you let Bedwell know we're gonna need a warrant to examine the laptop with the hard drives?"

"Sure."

Then there was one.

"Y/N, how long do you think it would take for the pigs to... eat someone?"

"Depending on the size and condition of the body when it's placed in the pen, it wouldn't be quick. Why?"

"That means Kelly wasn't put in there. She's still here somewhere. Find her."

"Yeah, I can feel Kelly, but there are over a hundred victims here. How am I meant to separate them from her? It's going to be hard to pinpoint her location."

"Try," he sighs.

"Okay," you nod.

If you're going to find out where Kelly is, then you need to know more about Mason and this property. If there is another unsub here, you need to know about him. Mason has the answers you're looking for, so you walk inside the house to listen in on Rossi and Mason's conversation. JJ walks past you to go outside, and you close the door behind her. Rossi looks to see you've entered the room but doesn't say anything about it.

"Did something happen out there?" Mason asks.

"You know what we found."

"How could I? You see I'm paralyzed." Rossi starts moving the mirrors in the room to remove Mason's sight from the outside. You kind of figure he relies on them to see what's happening. "Hey, don't touch that!"

"You know exactly what's out there. You watched the whole thing."

"Put that back."

"You like watching, don't you?"

"This is not your jurisdiction."

"Oh, I'm not gonna arrest you."

He moves each and every one of the mirrors pointed at Mason.

"Stop that! You can't do this to me."

"I'm not doing anything to you. In fact, you don't even have to talk to me. As you said, I have no jurisdiction here, but almost every policeman in Ontario is on their way to this farm, and they do have jurisdiction. Some very bad things have happened here, and they're gonna discover all of it. Now, Mason, how many victims were here? A hundred? More? Do you even know for sure?"

"I need my mirrors."

"No. What you need is something to make you look less like the monster that we both know you really are."

"How can you call me that? I've never laid a hand on anybody!"

"Someone did," you pipe up. "He kidnapped Kelly and will kill her if you don't help us."

"How much time does she have, Mason? How much time do you have before I'm unable to say that you helped me?"

"It was my brother, Lucas. He's crazy. He did all of it. He did this to me, too. I wanted to try to stop him but how could I?"

"Why didn't you call for help?"

"I tried that once, but he found out. He beat me. He almost killed me. You don't understand what it's like to be completely vulnerable to someone who's capable of the things that he has done."

"Where is he?" you ask.

"Oh, I wish I could help you. I don't know what he does when he leaves me here."

"He has a young girl from Detroit with him."

"Then you should pray for her. There's a picture of him in the other room. It was taken years ago, but it still looks like him. I should warn you, he's crazy and very big. Inhumanly strong. When you find him, you should warn everyone that if they don't kill him first, he'll kill all of you."

"Rossi, a word?" you ask. You and Rossi go to the next room, and you keep your voice down so Mason doesn't hear. "Did he seem a little too eager to give his brother up? It seems to me like he wanted us to kill him first."

"Yeah, I got that same vibe."

"Lucas has Kelly here somewhere, and I have to find her before he kills her."

Sirens can be heard from down the long driveway to the road, and the closer they get to the farmhouse, the louder they are. You walk outside and join Jeff who has gathered everyone he knows to work on this case.

"The judge will sign the warrant for the laptop first thing in the morning."

"Our tech should just be getting here."

"We have search-and-rescue units coming. They're also our emergency response team, so they'll be armed in case we come across something."

"Y/N, what would you do in this situation?"

"Me?" you ask, surprised.

"You've shown great leadership skills. Keep it going."

"Alright, I think Derek should supervise the evidence collection. I bet these techs haven't seen anything like this before. When the press comes, it's going to be chaos. I think JJ and uniformed officers should create a press statement as well as talk to the families of the people who have gone missing."

"Come on, let's get you set up."

Jeff and JJ leave the group.

"We have a picture of what Mason's brother, Lucas, looks like. According to him, he's the unsub. Mason claims he's a victim himself, and he says he has no idea where Lucas would take Kelly. I think Spencer and I should focus on Lucas. It'll help us locate both him and Kelly. Finally, I think Emily should aid JJ in getting Lucas' picture out to the press. They're here, may as well put them to work. Someone has to notice a man that big."

Derek and Emily leave the group when they get their assignments.

"I wouldn't have done anything differently," Hotch smiles. "Though, you need to work on your confidence. A good leader assigns roles clearly and efficiently. You can't say 'I think', otherwise you'd have your team doubt your expertise."

"Yes, sir," you smile. "Thank you."

"Now, when you say 'according to Mason' and 'Mason claims to', what do you mean? It sounds like you don't believe him. What are your thoughts?"

"Oh, he's lying for sure. Mason is the dominant one. He tells Lucas what to do and how to do it. Look at the picture of Lucas. You can tell Mason is the one in charge."

"I agree with her," Rossi says. "He also said we shouldn't even try to talk to his brother. We should shoot first."

"That's either helpful advice or a way for half the team to clean up loose ends. Either way, this is one hell of a family."

Come morning, everyone started flocking out here. This place is crawling with a bunch of people including families here for their loved ones, officers and their Bloodhounds to track scents, Penelope to work on the computers inside since the warrant came through, and the press to get ahead of the story. JJ is working with the families and the press while Emily is working with the Bloodhounds to pass around the scent for Lucas.

Derek is overseeing the work being done by Ontario CSIs with the shoes, and there is a lot of them. They've laid them out on a purple sheet and begun gathering evidence from each pair. Hopefully, their DNA is on them so you know who is here. Will is off to the side just watching everyone. He's not doing too well knowing his sister is dead because of Mason and Lucas. He's pissed and emotional but he's not going to do something when they're agents and officers all around him.

You and Spencer have gathered some intel on Lucas based on what Mason has said and what you could find in journals inside the house.

"Hotch!" You and Spencer walk over to him. "Mason says his brother sometimes sleeps on the couch in the living room or disappears for days at a time."

"He doesn't have a room?"

"Not according to Mason."

"Keep looking around. They've lived here their whole lives. There's got to be something here that gives us an idea of who he is."

"Let's check the barn. Come on," you say to your boyfriend.

You walk through the big double doors and stop to take it all in. This is where Lucas would kill his victims and chop them up for the pigs to eat. There is a big wooden table where he'd put his victims, and a huge meat cleaver lying nearby. There are bodies lying on the floor; some of them are whole and some of them are cut up.

"Are you okay?"

"There are times when I'm so happy that you can't see what I see. This is one of those times."

"You'll be okay."

"I know," you nod.

In the back of the barn are medical supplies in the back of the room with jars of blood and other things floating around. You and Spencer put your gloves on so you don't contaminate the scene when you notice something flapping in the wind above you.

"Are those clothes?" you ask.

"This might be where Lucas sleeps."

There is a ladder that leads up to the second landing where there are a number of things that would suggest Lucas has made this his home. A makeshift bed, two enclosures with multiple rats inside, and a bunch of hand-drawn pictures in the corner. It looks like a kid has drawn them, not someone who is Lucas' age. Along with the pictures are stuffed animals, crayons, and other kid-like trinkets.

"Do you know what this reminds me of?"

"What?" Spencer asks as he studies the pictures.

"Of Mice and Men. Lucas is Lenny and Mason is George. If that's true, then Lucas is mentally ill. He won't be thinking straight."

"Look at this."

Spencer takes down a picture of someone lying in a bed with a red X where the throat is. This must be Mason.

"Reid? Y/N?"

"We're up here," you say and look down at Hotch from the railing. "We found out where Lucas sleeps."

"So, Mason was lying?"

"I find it hard to believe he didn't know his brother was living in the barn."

"Is there anything up there that's gonna help us find him?"

"Nothing yet. I will say this, I don't think he's psychotic. I think Rossi was right before. Mason might be cleaning up loose ends, i.e., his brother."

"There's a collection of drawings up here that suggest autism or moderate mental retardation," Spencer says. "Now, retardation and psychosis in the exact same subject is exceedingly rare. It's more likely he doesn't fully understand the acts that he's committed."

"Anything to suggest a violent nature?"

"Nothing in the drawings. They do suggest someone's been watching him. He's very childlike. I think that when we find him, he's gonna be scared and probably confused," you say.

"Do you think he'll fight?"

"I don't know, maybe. He might because he doesn't know what's going on. He's the kind of person you need to be very gentle with. Any sort of violence or guns will most likely make him act out," you say.

"Do you ever get the feeling that a case isn't going to end well?"

"All the time," you answer.

"Keep looking you two. This girl needs us."

"I have a feeling Mason and Lucas aren't going to make it out of this one," you say to Spencer.

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

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babymetaldoll · 4 years ago

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Nemesis (Spencer Reid/Reader)

Requested: Can I request a Spencer x reader where they’re dating and she’s always been quiet about her past but then a case comes up in her hometown and her whole past gets uncovered and it’s pretty bad. That’s when they realize why she had been acting like that.

Summary: A case takes the team back to Seattle, (Y/N)’s hometown, only to discover her past was darker than they had ever imagined.

Pairing: Spencer Reid/Reader

Warnings: This one is dark. Angst, bloody crime details, Criminal Mind usual content, fluff at the end ‘cos I can’t help it. Also, cursing but that’s just how I roll.

Word count: 2,7K

Masterlist

It was obvious there was something wrong with (Y/N). Spencer could see it clearly, though she kept telling him everything was ok. It was easy to read her after working together for five years and dating the last two.

Reid knew he shouldn’t profiler his girlfriend, but he couldn’t help it when he saw the painful expression on her face. She tried to smile when she noticed he was looking at her, but that just made it worse ‘cos now he was sure there was something awfully wrong with her.

She wasn’t like that when they woke up. She had spent the night over in his apartment, and she looked happy. She made hotcakes for breakfast, and they laughed the whole way to Quantico, talking about the movie they had seen the night before.

But everything changed the second they received the information of the serial killer they had to catch.

When Garcia presented the case, Spencer noticed how his girlfriend’s face turned white. She didn’t even look at the pictures of the crime scenes. (Y/N) fixed her eyes on her notebook on the table and crossed her arms on her chest. She didn’t speak during the briefing, just bite her lips and the inside of her cheeks the whole time.

- “Today, my dear furry friends, you will be flying to (Y/N) ’s hometown, rainy Seattle, for a case that will give me nightmares for the rest week, so I refuse to look at the screen”

(Y/N) held her breath and stayed as still as possible on her chair.

- “The unsub is targeting couples in their late thirties. He stabs them to death in their bed, places the bodies as if they were asleep, and forces the kids to lay between them. Then, he locks them in the house until they manage to escape”.

Hotch sighed and looked at the team. Family-related cases always were the hardest for him and J.J. Especially when there were kids involved.

- “The police department asked for our help because they think it might be related to four unsolved murders that took place in Seattle back in the nineties”-

Garcia finished. Hotch stood up and announced, “wheels up in twenty”, and everybody left the room. Everybody but (Y/N), who couldn’t move.

- “Hey… are you ok?”- Spencer stood in front of her chair and held her hands. She just nodded and tried her best to smile.

- “I’m just tired, honey, that’s all. It’s been a long week”.

- “You can tell me if there’s anything wrong, buttercup, you know that”- she tried to smile and stood up. Spencer cupped her face with both hands and kissed her lips sweetly.

(Y/N) held her breath for a few seconds, making her best not to cry. When he looked at her, she cut him a small smile, trying to show him everything was ok.

Of course, it was not.

Neither Spencer nor anyone in the BAU knew (Y/N) ’s secret. She didn’t want to share it with anyone ‘cos it meant everybody would pity her, and she couldn’t handle that. She couldn’t deal with people looking at her like she was a victim. She hated it when it happened back in her hometown, and she knew she couldn’t handle it if their BAU family looked at her like that.

That case hurt her deeper than she could ever explain, and she wasn’t sure she could keep the secret that was killing her alive for much longer.

During the trip, she barely looked at the files. Spencer sat next to her, trying to comfort her. He knew she wouldn’t tell him what was happening, but he wanted to be by her side. He wanted her to know he was there for her, no matter what.

(Y/N) knew that, but of all people, he was the last one she wanted to share her secret with. She was too embarrassed and too scared he could run away. She was also too damaged, and she had, somehow, managed to cover her wounds for all those years.

But now, everything was collapsing, and she knew it could only get worse from there.

- “Morgan, you and Reid talk with the forensic. We need every detail on the killer’s M.O.”- Hotch said as soon as they landed in Seattle- “(Y/N), you and Prentiss talk with the family of the latest victims. JJ, Rossi, we will speak with the police chief and see the previous investigation files”.

(Y/N)’ s heart stopped for a second. She held her folder fight and nodded, making her best not to show her whole body started shaking.

Spencer could read it, (Y/N) was hiding something, and it wasn’t something good. He leaned in and kissed her temple and held her hand tight.

- “Do you want me to go with you? I can ask Hotch…”

- “No, honey”- she whispered, shaking her head- “I’m ok”

- “Sure”- she nodded and pecked his lips- “I’ll see you back at the police station, ok?”

Prentiss was doing all the talking. (Y/N) could barely breathe in that interview. A thirteen years old little girl sat on a couch, nearly crying, holding her grandmother’s hand tight, as if her life depended on it.

-” I know this is hard, and you are doing great, Kristy. I need you to close your eyes and tell me, what do you remember of that night”.

Without even notice, (Y/N) did the same.

- “Mom and dad stayed up after I went to bed. I heard them talking in the kitchen when I went to the bathroom”

- “What time was it?”- Prentiss whispered

- “Eleven… eleven-thirty”

- “And do you remember anything odd? anything that didn’t look right?”- Kristy stayed in silence. You could tell she was doing her best to remember.

- “The neighbor’s dog was barking“

- “Ok, good”- Prentiss praised- “You are doing great, anything else? A smell, a noise?”

- “I heard something in the closet in the hall, like… like someone was chuckling, so I got scared and ran back to my room”- Kristy was agitated, and tears started falling down her cheeks. (Y/N) held her hands and looked at her, whispering.

- “You had heard that chuckle before, hadn’t you?”- and the girl nodded.

- “But your parents told you you were too old to believe in the boogie man, right?”- (Y/N) continued, fighting her own tears.

- “(Y/N)?”- Prentiss was confused

- “It’s not your fault-” (Y/N) whispered and wrapped her arms around the girl, who now started sobbing- “You have to understand it’s not your fault. He wanted you to be scared”.

- “(Y/N), what are you talking about?”- Prentiss asked her but still didn’t get any answer.

- “Kristy, this is important. Do you remember if a stranger had been in your house in the last week?”- but the girl just shook her head- “He may have said his car broke down, or he was lost”

- “A man came last Wednesday”- the girl whispered, still crying- “He said he needed help with his car… dad borrowed him some tools and helped him change his tire”

(Y/N) nodded and looked at Prentiss.

- “That’s the guy”

- “How do you know?”- Emily was confused. Not only because tears kept falling from (Y/N) ’s eyes, but because of her deduction.

- “Believe me, that’s the guy. I’m gonna call Hotch”.

- “(Y/N)! Wait!”- Prentiss ran after her friend and followed her back to the SUV- “What the hell happened back there?”

- “What do you mean?”- the young agent tried to act as if nothing had happened. Which was impossible, but still, she gave it a shot.

- “You knew something about this case! You knew the girl had heard the unsub before, how?”

(Y/N) stayed still and just looked at her friend, took a deep breath, and lied.

- “We studied this case back in the academy. Some of the kids said they had heard a chuckling the days before the murder”

Prentiss frowned. She had read that case over and over again, and she knew that information wasn’t in any file. But it was apparent (Y/N) didn’t want to talk about it.

Against all odds, (Y/N) managed to go through the day, keeping herself as calm as possible. After talking with Kristy, she and Prentiss reached the police station. Spencer was waiting for her with a hot cup of her favorite coffee. Just what she needed. He held her hand and kissed it as they walked to the rest of the team.

- “How are you feeling, buttercup?”

- “I’m tired...”- she sighed and looked into his chocolate eyes. They were filled with love for her. The kind of love that made her feel no matter what, everything was going to be ok.

- “When we are back home, I’ll run you a bubble bath. Would you like that?”

- “I would love that, honey”

They delivered a profile, which confirmed it was the same killer as in the nineties. A white man. Now in his late fifties. His parents had committed suicide when he was thirteen. He was left alone with the corpses for three days until a neighbor contacted the police because of the smell. As he grew up, his trauma led him to kill couples around his parents’ age, with a single kid the same age as he was when he died.

- “Hey baby girl, I need you to help me find this unsub”- Morgan called Garcia as the whole team gathered around the board. It was late, and they were all tired, but they didn’t want to give the unsub the chance to kill again.

- “I need you to run me a list of all the prisoners in the area who were released a month ago, that’s when the crimes started”

- “You are gonna have to give me something else, chocolate thunder. Do you have any kind of idea how many people are released weekly from jail?”

- “Ten thousand”- Spencer answered and kept his eyes stuck at the board- “Garcia, he is around fifty, white, and had been in jail approximately thirteen or fourteen years”.

(Y/N)’ s heart was beating so fast inside her chest she thought anyone could hear it. Her legs were shaking, her eyes were watering up. But she had to keep herself together. She had to, for the team. For herself. For this case. For the victims.

- “Still too many”- Garcia said

- “Can you see if any of them had a red truck?”- (Y/N) asked, and the whole team turned to her, confused

- “Why a red truck?”- Hotch asked her, confused

- “It was a theory we analyzed at the academy”- she lied again.

- “Bingo! Sam Paterson, 53 years old, was released five weeks ago. I’m sending you his last known address right now”.

- “(Y/N), I just read all the files about this case, including the cases from ’98, and they never mentioned a red truck”- Spencer asked his girlfriend. They were in the SUV, and Morgan was driving. Reid turned to the backseat to look at her, but she kept her eyes in the window.

- “I don’t know why it wasn’t there. Maybe they dismissed part of the evidence”

Reid was afraid to ask again, so he just nodded and turned to Morgan.

- “How long until we get there?”

- "Two minutes. I can’t wait to catch this bastard”.

The unsub was hidden in a barn at the back of his property. He had all the trophies he kept from the crime scenes: a toy from each kid’s bedroom.

They surrounded him quickly, but he kept pointing a gun against the team. He knew he was fucked, but he wasn’t going to surrender.

- “You are done, Sam”- Morgan tried to talk to him, but the unsub just looked at the agents around him and laughed.

- “I was sure you were going to be the one to get me”- he said and looked at (Y/N)- “You haven’t changed a thing”

- “Shut up!”- (Y/N) muttered and bit her lips, trying her best not to cry. She didn’t want to give him the pleasure of seeing her crumble.

- (”Y/N) James, sorry, (Y/N) (Y/L/N), you use your mother’s last name now”

- “Shut up!”- the gent spit those words holding her gun tight. She could shoot him. She wanted to shoot him. But she wasn’t a monster like him. She had to keep telling herself that over and over again to keep her from pulling the trigger.

The whole team looked at her in shock. James. The James was the last couple the unsub killed in ’98. Their thirteen-year-old daughter was left with their bodies for a whole day locked in the house before she managed to escape.

- “(Y/N)?”- Spencer didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t believe it.

- “I always knew you were special, (Y/N)”- Sam smiled- “You were the only one who heard me. Too bad mommy and daddy laughed at you when you told them someone was walking around the house at night”

- “You are sick”- it was a miracle that (Y/N) wasn’t crying. The anger that filled her body was too powerful, and it fueled her with revenge.

- “Maybe I am sick, but I’m also the one who knows you better than anyone”- he made a pause and looked around at the rest of the team- “Oh! They didn’t know! Why didn’t you tell them? Want me to give them the short version of the fact?”

- “You don’t know anything about me!”

- “That’s where you are wrong. I know a lot about you, (Y/N). I hunted you and your parents for weeks. Remember that little cat that used to play in your backyard? Garfield, that’s how you called him, right?”

- “Shut up!”- (Y/N) was having serious trouble stopping herself from pulling that trigger. She wanted to kill him and avenge her parents. They didn’t deserve to die just because a sick bastard decided to kill them.

- “I always wanted to ask you, how did you feel when you laid there with them? After I killed your parents, how did you feel? ‘cos when I laid with mine, I just felt such peace… Did you feel peace too? (Y/N)? did you?”

A single gunshot was the end of Sam. Spencer put his gun down after killing him and looked at his girlfriend. She was shaking. He didn’t say a word. He ran to her and wrapped his arms around her tight, just to hear her burst into tears. Tears she had been holding for years.

- “I’m here, I’m here with you”- he whispered as he kept kissing her cheeks- “You are safe, I’ve got you, (Y/N)”

- “He… he…”- she tried to speak, but she couldn’t. Spencer held her closer, tighter, and kissed any part of her he could. Her shoulder, her head, her cheek, her hair, her temple.

- “He’s dead, (Y/N). He is never going to hurt you again”

(Y/N) couldn’t move. She just kneeled on the floor, a few feet away from the corpse of the man that had killed her parents. Spencer held her in his arms and carried her outside.

- “You are safe”- Reid kept repeating, and she just nodded as he sat her in the back of an ambulance

- “I’m never going to let anyone hurt you, (Y/N). Did you know that?”- Reid ran his thumbs across her cheeks, wiping off the tears that kept falling from her eyes.

- “I will protect you, forever”

(Y/N) looked at him and quivered her chin again. She knew he meant it, and a small part of her felt relieved he knew everything now. Even the dark part she had managed to hide for years from everybody.

- “I love you so much (Y/N), and I am so proud of you. You overcame a situation that most people would never get over, and you became an amazing woman. The amazing woman I love”

- “Thank you”- (Y/N) whispered and sobbed- “I just didn’t want to tell anyone so they wouldn’t pity me”- she said and hugged Spencer tight again, hiding her face on his chest

- “No! listen to me. I am proud of you, that’s how I feel about you, ok?”- he looked at her and kissed her cheeks sweetly- “I love you (Y/N)”

- “I love you too, Spencer. Thank you for being here”

- “Always”

#Spencer Reid #Mathew Gray Gubler #Criminal minds #spencer reid fanfic #angst #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds fanfic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #babymetaldoll writes

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there-must-be-a-lock · 4 years ago

Text

Spitting Venom (Supernatural x Criminal Minds)

Word Count: ~10,300 yikes

Warnings: Non-explicit violence, nothing more than you’d see on either show. More cursing though. Don’t even try to tell me Emily Prentiss doesn’t swear like a sailor.

A/N: This is for @stunudo and her “Lie To Me” Challenge! My prompt was the Modest Mouse song “Spitting Venom.” Thanks to @fookinghelljensensthighs for reading and exclaiming and also just loving Sam and Spencer with me.

This is part of the “Coffee & Psychopaths” series. It follows the events of Quitting, but you don’t need to read that to understand anything that happens here.

This centers around (and steals dialogue from) the events of “Slash Fiction” (SPN) and “Proof” (CM). In order to smoosh the timelines together right, I had to do some wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, so don’t think about it too hard. You should be able to tell from context clues, but for reference, the flashbacks (in order of appearance) correspond to “Shut Up, Dr Phil” (SPN) / “It Takes A Village” (CM), “To Hell... And Back” (CM), “My Bloody Valentine” (SPN), “Amplification” (CM), “With Friends Like These” (CM) / “Unforgiven” (SPN), “Appointment In Samarra” (SPN), and “Memoriam” (CM). Seriously, wibbly-wobbly. So much canon juggling. Just go with it.

“Just for the record, the weather today is partly suspicious with chances of betrayal.”

― Chuck Palahniuk

“Strap in, folks, we’ve got a weird one,” Garcia says cheerily, handing Spencer a paper folder as everybody else opens their tablets.

“I thought the Winchesters were dead,” Hotch says.

“That is part of the aforementioned weird, yes. Okay, for those of you who weren’t paying attention four years ago…”

Spencer opens his file, and Garcia’s words stop making sense, because that’s Sam in the mugshot.

His first instinct is to shout, This is a mistake.

Spencer’s stomach churns. He’s cold all over.

This feeling (betrayal, his brain supplies helpfully) is becoming a little too familiar, lately.

Garcia is showing a video: a bank, a group of people scared and screaming, two men opening fire. That’s Sam. His expression is stone-cold, maybe even satisfied, as he empties the clip into the crowd.

That’s Sam.

Garcia’s talking about M.O. now, or the total lack of a consistent one, and Spencer can’t listen. He forces his features into the bland, neutral expression that has made people underestimate him for years, and he takes slow breaths, trying to calm his racing heartbeat.

“Spence?” he hears, and when he looks around the table he realizes that it wasn’t the first time somebody said his name. They’re all staring.

“You okay, kid?” Morgan asks, brow furrowed.

“I’m fine,” Spencer insists, with a shrug.

“No you’re not, I know that face. Are you feeling okay?” Emily prods, and Spencer hates her for a moment, hates that she can still read him.

He tries to force a smile, but it feels stiff on his face.

“I know him,” Spencer blurts out. “Sam. Sam Winchester. He’s… he was my friend. Or I thought he was.”

There’s a moment of stunned silence all around the table. Spencer looks down at his hands, twirling a pen idly, instead of looking any of them in the eyes.

“Reid,” Hotch says quietly.

“We met at a… meeting,” Spencer says. He looks up at Hotch to make sure he understands, and Hotch nods. “About two years ago. He was only here for a couple weeks. We got along, though. We… he left. We kept in touch.”

“When did you last speak to him?” Hotch asks, frowning.

Spencer swallows around the lump in his throat. It’s taking his best effort to maintain his mask of composure.

“It was eight days ago.”

Hotch nods. “I’m assuming he’s already using a new number, but just in case, we’ll need you to give Garcia any contact information you have.”

Spencer tries to smile. “Of course.”

Emily asks, “And he didn’t say anything that would…”

“That would, what, tip me off that he was planning a massive murder spree?” Spencer says. His voice cracks.

“Anything that might be helpful,” Morgan interjects diplomatically. “Locations, names.”

Spencer shakes his head. “No, it was… we didn’t talk about that sort of thing. It was random, mostly. When something was on my mind that I couldn’t… couldn’t talk to you about, or - when I couldn’t sleep. But there wasn’t much small talk.”

“And you never suspected?” Garcia asks, wide-eyed.

“Do you really think that if I suspected -”

“We know that if there were any hints, you would’ve seen them. Nobody is suggesting that you should’ve known,” Hotch says firmly.

“I should’ve, though,” Spencer insists, with a hysterical edge in his voice. “There were so many things that he just… avoided talking about. He looked familiar, even! I kept wondering where I recognized him from!”

“Enough, kid,” Rossi interrupts. “Getting angry at yourself doesn’t help anybody. It was before you joined the Bureau, there was no reason for you to remember his face.”

“This is a good thing, right?” Emily points out. “The better you know him, the easier it’s going to be for us to catch him.”

“Apparently I didn’t know him, though,” Spencer says hoarsely. “I didn’t know him at all.”

“Are you going to be able to work this case objectively?” Hotch asks. “We’ll all understand if you want to sit this one out.”

Spencer stares at him helplessly. He’s not sure he knows the answer to that question.

“I remember Gideon talking about the Winchester case,” Rossi muses. “Couldn’t make head or tail of it, no apparent connection between victims, witnesses who kept changing their stories…”

“Your insight will undoubtedly be useful,” Hotch adds quietly.

Spencer grits his teeth, shock turning quickly to anger.

“I want to find him,” he says. He wants to know. He wants to hear the confession.

Hotch gives him one more steely, appraising look before nodding.

“Very well. Let’s talk victimology.”

* * * * * * * * *

September 2011 (eight days earlier)

“I don’t understand how she could do that,” Spencer says bitterly. “If I saw one of my friends hurting like that, and I knew something that would stop them hurting…”

“Shit,” Sam mutters. “I’m sorry.”

“Did they not trust me to keep the secret? Did they not think I could handle it? We’re a team. We’re not supposed to keep things from each other. Not important things, not like that.”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

Sam leans against the kitchen counter, watching Dean through the window. Baby’s hood is open and Dean’s wrestling with something inside, and Sam wonders, for the thousandth time, whether he’s imagining the wariness in Dean’s face whenever they talk these days. He can’t shake the feeling there’s something Dean’s not saying.

“I don’t know what to do,” Spencer says quietly, and his voice cracks on the last word.

“I don’t know if there’s anything you can do, except give it time.”

“I hate that answer,” Spencer says flatly, and Sam laughs.

“Yeah. But… I think hearing the truth is the hard part, sometimes. Or saying it. Right? It hurts like hell, and it’s going to hurt for a while, but now that it’s all out in the open… now it’ll start getting better. It has to.”

“I guess.”

“She thought she was doing the right thing,” Sam repeats. “Do you really think she’d do that, if she didn’t feel like she had a choice?”

Spencer sighs in a rush of static. “No,” he says begrudgingly. “But I think she had a choice. And now it’s my choice whether to trust her or not.”

“You’ll get there.”

“How do you know?”

“A very smart man once told me that’s what friends do,” Sam says wryly. “They trust each other.”

“Quoting me back to me doesn’t seem fair,” Spencer grumbles.

“Doesn’t make it wrong,” Sam retorts with a grin.

Sam watches Dean slam the hood shut, and he wonders why his brother has such a hard time trusting him.

* * * * * * * * *

“Are you kidding me right now?” Dean snaps, and the sneer in his voice makes Sam feel all of six years old again.

“No, Dean, I’m not kidding,” Sam says stubbornly. He leans against the doorframe and watches Dean pace back and forth, like a wild animal on a too-short leash in the tiny living room of Rufus’s cabin.

“Dead or alive, Sam. We’re wanted dead or alive. You try to talk to a Fed, which one d’you think it’ll be? They’ll have you pumped full of bullets before you can blink.”

“He’s got a point, Sam,” Bobby says quietly.

Sam rubs his eyes, feeling a headache building. “I trust him.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t,” Dean retorts. “Who the hell is this guy, anyway? When’d you make a friend I don’t know about?”

“Is that what this is about?” Sam asks bitterly. “You’re pissed there’s something about me that you don’t get to control?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, you don’t have a great track record here,” Dean spits, and Sam’s throat clogs with anger even before Dean says, “Whenever you’ve made a friend on your own, how’s that gone for you, huh? Meg, Ruby, Amy… two demons, a monster, and now a fucking Fed?”

Sam balls his hands into fists to fight the urge to start swinging. “Why can’t you just trust me? You don’t know Frank, either.”

“I trust Bobby,” Dean says. The I don’t trust you goes unspoken.

Sam clenches his jaw, breathing until he knows he can talk without shouting.

“Just go, then, Dean,” he says, quiet and venomous. “Go ahead. Do whatever you want. I’m going to call Spencer.”

Dean’s frozen for a moment, stone-faced. Then he whirls around and heads for the door. “Fine. I’ll check in when I get to Frank’s.”

Sam sits down on the couch, resting his head in his hands for a moment. He hears the dim rumble of the engine starting outside.

“I’m gonna use the landline, if that’s okay,” Sam says quietly.

“I sure hope you’re right about this, boy,” Bobby growls.

“So do I.”

He finds Spencer’s number on the worn slip of paper in his wallet, written down with the five or so others that he doesn’t want to lose, and holds his breath as he dials. He has a feeling Spencer might not pick up on the first try, if he picks up at all. For all he knows, Spencer’s on the job already, in Colorado with his team looking for clues that aren’t there.

He closes his eyes and thinks, please, and then Spencer picks up.

“Hi, Sam.” His voice is icy.

“Hey,” Sam says. There’s a long, weighted pause before he continues, “It’s not me.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” It’s clipped and robotic and forceful.

“No, look, I - it’s not me, okay? That’s why I’m calling. I’ll turn myself in.” Another weighted pause. Sam clears his throat. “Not to the police, ‘cause I’m pretty sure they’ll shoot me on sight, but. To you. It’s hard to explain, but I’m innocent, it’s someone else pretending to be me, so if you can get to Montana -”

“Montana?” Spencer interrupts incredulously.

“Montana,” Sam repeats. He hesitates. “I figured you’d be tracking the call, I used a landline to make it easy for you.”

“She’s working on it,” Spencer admits begrudgingly.

Sam feels a twist of guilt, wondering how Spencer’s coworkers are reacting to this… even worse than Dean, probably.

He hears a faint female voice in the background, too quiet to make out more than, “...not sure how, but…”

“Fine, then,” Spencer says quietly. “Montana.”

“Wherever you want, okay? I - I won’t put up a fight. Just…” Sam can’t help but laugh. “Don’t let them shoot me, okay?”

There’s a crackle of static as Spencer sighs. “We’ll call you with details when we land.”

A voice in the back of his head that sounds like Dean is shouting, this is a terrible idea.

Sam ignores it.

“I trust you,” he says. “And Spencer?”

“Mmhmm?”

“Thanks for picking up.”

* * * * * * * * *

May 2010

Spencer feels like he’s choking on the thick stink in the air. He looks around the packed dirt yard of the farmhouse and can’t find any relief; he’s surrounded by ugly raw grief, and he can’t stand it. Emily is consoling the crying girl. Hotch is talking to the locals, tying up loose ends. Morgan is staring numbly at the rows and rows of muddy shoes on the ground.

He knows he’s not the only one dealing with the weight of what they saw today. He should find Penelope, give her a hug, face this together, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Sharing this would make it a little too real.

Maybe it’s all the practice he’s had at being alone; his first instinct is to hide, when things start to get overwhelming, and to maintain a certain level of clinical detachment until he can make sense of what he’s feeling. He can dissect his own feelings. When his friends are hurting, though… that’s a different story. When he sees his friends hurting, he hurts too, hurts in a way that chokes him, hurts in a way that crowds everything else out, and all he wants to do is fix it. Even when it’s not something that can be fixed. It’s illogical.

Love doesn’t leave any room for logic, he’s learning.

He slips away, into the barn.

Dust motes and chaff drift in the scattered beams of light that cut through the empty space, swirling around him as he climbs the ladder to the dark drafty loft. Spencer sits down on the floor in front of the wall of drawings. He hugs his knees to his chest and looks, committing the clumsy crayon strokes to memory, because it doesn’t seem right to let all those empty shoes live on without also remembering this: bright color, crushing loneliness, constant fear.

The loneliness is too much, after a few minutes. He pulls out his phone and closes his eyes.

“Hey, Sam,” he says. His voice cracks and wobbles.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“I’m just not having a great day,” Spencer says, aiming for casual, falling short.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” Spencer says. His voice is thin and scratchy and small in the darkness of the barn, lost immediately in the blanketing silence.

Sam hesitates, and Spencer waits, hoping he’ll understand.

“If you could have one object from a fictional universe, what would you want? Has to fit in your pocket.”

Spencer lets out a grateful little huff of a sigh. “Obviously the -”

“TARDIS doesn’t count,” Sam interrupts, laughing. “It has to be portable in its normal everyday form, not just temporarily shrinkable.”

“Sonic screwdriver, then. Obviously.”

“Right? That’s what I said.”

“What else would there be?”

“Dean would go with a lightsaber,” Sam says, and Spencer can practically hear him rolling his eyes.

It’s the first time Spencer’s really smiled all day. “Based on what you’ve told me about your brother, that doesn’t actually surprise me.”

“Yeah. That’s Dean…”

* * * * * * * * *

There’s a dial tone. Spencer closes his phone and tries to breathe.

“Do you believe him?” Hotch asks quietly.

Spencer looks down at his hands, twirling his pen again, feeling claustrophobic with all their concerned gazes pinning him in place. There’s too much going on in his head, too many things trapped and buzzing inside him with nowhere to go, and he wants to start running but all he can do is shrug.

“I don’t know,” he says, voice strained.

“Even if he is telling the truth, there are parts of this case that just don’t make any sense,” Morgan says.

JJ adds, “If it’s a ruse, it’s a bizarre one.”

“Gut feeling, kid,” Rossi says softly. “Are we walking into a trap?”

Spencer wants to scream. Instead he says, “I don’t think he’d hurt me, but…”

“If you trust him, that’s good enough for us,” Emily says fiercely.

Spencer can’t help it; he looks at JJ before staring stubbornly down at the table again. The words burn on their way out: “This wouldn’t be the first time I trusted the wrong person, though.”

“We need to make sure we’re prepared for all eventualities, but I think it’s worth the risk,” Hotch says. “We can discuss it more on the jet. Wheels up in thirty.”

Spencer refuses to meet any of their eyes as he gathers up his folder and his bag. He gets out of the conference room before anyone can try to talk to him. His cheeks are burning, and his hands are shaking, and he’s already jittery but he really needs coffee; beyond that singular thought, his brain is stuck between stations, all white noise and useless static.

The coffee pot in the break room is empty. He’s glad; it’s good to have something to do with his hands, a ritual, a tiny piece of his life that he can still count on. Filter, measure grounds, fresh water…

“Spence.” It’s JJ, of course, and Spencer’s first petulant instinct is to ignore her. “Spence. Look, we gotta talk about this.”

“About what? The fact that one of the few people I still trusted turns out to be a serial killer?” Spencer says sharply. “It’s becoming a pattern, me trusting the wrong people. I’m getting used to it.”

“You know what I mean.” Her voice is low and soothing, like she’s talking to a victim’s family.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“I get it, okay?” she says, still in that calm, professional voice. Spencer wishes she’d scream instead. He wants to scream. “You're disappointed with the way we handled Emily.”

He breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, focusing on the steady drip of coffee into the pot.

“Listen, I have a lot going on, all right?” he says coolly.

“You know what I think it is?” He doesn’t look at her, but she continues anyway: “You're mad that Hotch and I controlled our micro-expressions at the hospital and you weren't able to detect our deception.”

It hurts. Her words bite down somewhere deep, venomous needle-sharp fangs that sink in and sting, and the toxic ache spreads through his system before he can take a breath.

“You think it's about my profiling skills?” he spits back. “Jennifer, listen, the only reason you were able to manage my perceptions is because I trusted you. I came to your house for ten weeks in a row crying over losing a friend, and not once did you have the decency to tell me the truth.”

Her expression is hurt, confused, and she says quietly, “I couldn't.”

“You couldn't? Or you wouldn't?” he snaps.

“No, I couldn't,” she insists. Her eyes are brimming with tears now, and Spencer feels a sick rush of satisfaction.

He knows it’s cruel, but he lashes out anyway: “What if I started taking Dilaudid again? Would you have let me?”

She recoils. “You didn't.”

“Yeah, but I thought about it.” It’s petty and it’s unfair and it’s vicious, and he doesn’t care, not even a little bit.

It stuns her into silence for a moment, and he turns to pour coffee into his travel cup, hands shaking so badly he almost spills.

“Spence,” she whispers. “I'm sorry.”

He whirls on her, almost shouts: “It's too late, all right?”

“Reid,” she says, but he’s already brushing past her, and he doesn’t stop.

* * * * * * * * *

February 2010

He’ll never forget the look on Dean’s face. He knows it a little too well, by now: disappointment, disgust. I expected better. This isn’t who I raised you to be. You’re not the person I thought you were.

“You know I couldn’t have gotten out of that bathroom on my own,” Sam says. “You know I wouldn’t have - I wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to.”

Dean doesn’t trust him, though. He’s not sure Dean will ever trust him again.

Sam lets Dean lock him in the panic room. He doesn’t protest; he goes without complaint, head down, like a dog with its tail between its legs as it waits for a kick that never comes. Detox will hurt. It always does. He feels like he deserves that, though.

Dean almost says something, before he closes the door. The words catch on his lips and die on his throat, and he just shakes his head as he slides the deadbolts into place.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, but Dean’s already walking away, and the hallucinations are already creeping in around the edges of his vision: his mother sighing sadly, his younger self shaking his head in contempt.

Sam sits down, curls up, and looks around at the bare walls and the locked door. The floor is cold under him, and he can already feel the chill sinking into his skin, down to his bones. He leans back against the wall and tries to breathe through the panic.

“I’m sorry,” he says, over and over again, but he’s not really sure who he’s talking to any more.

The hallucinations fade. The bloodstains won’t, not really. Dean will see those forever.

He can barely look at Sam when he finally unlocks the door.

Sam’s still itchy and wired, that night, even though the worst of it is over. Dean’s not even trying to pretend he’s doing anything other than keeping watch outside. He’s sitting in the hallway with a bottle of whiskey for company. Sam can’t leave, and he sure as hell can’t sleep, so he calls Spencer, and he doesn’t realize until it starts ringing that it’s two in the morning.

“Hi, Sam,” Spencer says, staticky and distant.

“Hey.”

“You okay?”

Sam sighs, stammers, stops, tries to start again. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Not really,” he manages. There’s another long pause before he can admit, “I fucked up. I keep fucking up.”

“Oh,” Spencer says softly. “Okay.”

Sam exhales. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know. I believe you.”

“You’re the only one who does.”

“I trust you,” Spencer says. It’s so matter-of-fact, so easy, and it’s been a long time since someone trusted Sam like that. He didn’t realize how much he missed it.

“Why?” Sam asks. He tries to laugh, but it comes out wet and choked.

“That’s what friends do, right?”

Sam takes a deep, shaky breath and swallows down the lump in his throat, trying not to wonder if Dean’s still standing guard outside his door.

“Thanks for picking up,” Sam says, barely a whisper.

“Any time.”

* * * * * * * * *

They cuff his hands behind the back of the uncomfortable metal chair. Sam didn’t expect anything less, but he still hates it. They had the entire team except for Spencer there to take him in, and that was a few too many guns trained on him for comfort, but he’s alone now. It’s cold, and the walls are blank, and he shivers.

He’s spent too much of his life locked in cages of one sort or another.

When Spencer finally opens the door, Sam can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, even as his stomach twists with nerves. He’d worried they would insist on sending someone else in.

“Hey, Spencer,” he says quietly.

Spencer doesn’t answer. He avoids eye contact as he sits down, settling in with his posture stiff and his hands clasped on the table in front of him. He looks like a different person from the one Sam first met; the jittery, fidgety, chattering Spencer is gone, and there’s an actual Fed in his place. Even when he meets Sam’s eyes, his expression doesn’t give anything away. He’s ice-cold and completely closed-off.

Sam tries to breathe.

“Where’s Dean?” Spencer asks bluntly.

“He’s at a friend’s, trying to figure out how to clear our names.”

“Why isn’t he here with you?”

“He didn’t think this was a good idea,” Sam says. “We haven’t had great experiences with law enforcement, but… him even more than me. I trust you. He doesn’t.”

Spencer’s eyes narrow. “You trust me.”

Sam shrugs helplessly. “That’s what friends do, right?”

Spencer’s face goes stormy immediately, and he leans closer, glaring at Sam with startling intensity. “Let’s get one thing straight. You and I are not friends. You’re a murderer, and the only reason I’m here is that I want to see what you look like when you’re telling the truth… because apparently you’ve been lying to me since we met.”

It’s not unexpected, but it still hurts. Sam hesitates for a moment before saying softly, “I’m not a murderer, and I haven’t been lying to you.”

“There’s video.”

“It’s not me.”

Spencer stares at him incredulously. “All that stuff you never wanted to talk about. All those times you talked about… being scared of yourself, worrying what you could do. What was that, then?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Sam says. He feels exhausted, suddenly.

“You’ve never even told me what you do for a living!”

“I can’t.”

“How am I supposed to believe you?” Spencer asks. He’s starting to lose his composure, an agitated edge creeping into his voice.

“Look, remember when you called me, and told me you might be dying?”

“How is that relevant?” Spencer hisses.

“I figured it out, afterward. Anthrax. Right?”

“How did you…”

“And you told me that you couldn’t give me details, and the details weren’t important anyway.”

“That’s right.”

“And I accepted that, because I trust you, and I trust that if you’re not telling me something, it’s for a damn good reason,” Sam says determinedly. “They tried to keep it out of the news, but later, once I knew you were okay, I did some digging, and I figured it out. Why didn’t you alert the public?”

Spencer looks utterly baffled. “Because people would panic. There’d be mass hysteria.”

“There you go. It’s the same thing.”

“It’s not the same thing at all,” Spencer exclaims. “I work for the federal government!”

“Look, I know you, okay?” Sam says desperately. “I know that your job is to notice the details that don’t make sense. Even when something seems obvious, you and your team pay attention, and you make sure everything fits, and you figure out the truth, not just whatever bullshit explanation seems easiest.”

Spencer nods slowly.

“That’s why you’re here, and that’s why your team didn’t shoot me on sight,” Sam continues. “And I know you’re good at your job, so I know you’ve noticed that there are things about this case that don’t add up. Okay? Why would I be here talking to you, if I was guilty? Did you ask yourself how I got to Montana so quickly? Did you talk to any of the witnesses from the old cases? Diana Ballard? Rebecca Warren? Did you try to profile us? Find any similarities in m.o. between all those murders? No. None of it made any sense then, and none of it makes any sense now. You know why? Because it wasn’t us,” he finishes.

“Sam. Maybe there are details from the old cases that don’t make sense, but…” Spencer trails off, shaking his head, like he doesn’t even know where to start. Then he stops himself, sets his jaw, refocuses, and when he looks at Sam again, there’s nothing but pure clear anger in his face. “Look me in the eye, right now, and tell me you’ve never killed anyone.”

Sam instinctively goes to tuck his hair behind his ears, but the cuffs cut the movement short. Spencer sees it. His face falls, bitter and disappointed.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he mutters.

“I’ve never killed anything that didn’t deserve it,” Sam insists.

“Any thing? Really? Or any person?” Spencer asks. Sam doesn’t answer, and Spencer continues, rushing, like he can’t stop the words from coming out: “Do you know how many times I’ve heard a serial killer say that? Everybody thinks they have a reason, Sam, whether angels told him the guy was guilty, or… Satan was possessing them, or… a talking dog told them the meaning of life.”

Sam lets out a borderline hysterical laugh, and Spencer just stares like he’s completely crazy. Sam can’t blame him. He’s starting to feel crazy.

“Okay, here, look,” he says, in a sudden burst of inspiration. “Go through the old case files, look at the dates. Every one, I guarantee you, people were dying before we got to town. There’s gotta be a way to prove it, right? The murders started happening before we got there. Everything you’ve told me about Penelope, I bet she can do it, easy.”

“What, so now you’re telling me you’re some sort of vigilante?” Spencer half-shouts.

“Not exactly, no.” Sam’s starting to run out of ideas.

The door opens abruptly, and a stern-faced agent says, “Reid. A word?”

Spencer gives Sam one last look before he gets up. It’s a familiar expression: disgust, disappointment, you’re not the person I thought you were. Then he turns his back, and the door slams shut behind him. Sam can hear the click of the lock.

* * * * * * * * *

April 2010

He writes to her every day, pages and pages of words. He hopes she realizes that they all boil down to “I love you,” because right now, he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Hi, Mom, this is Spencer,” he says, “I just… I just really want you to know that I love you. And -” when he blinks away tears he can practically see her, her smile swimmy through the salt water, same as it looked when he was small and crying over a scraped knee, and if he keeps thinking like that he’ll never make it through this message. He pauses, gulps for air, steadies himself. “I need you to know that I spend every day of my life proud to be your son.”

She hasn’t taken care of him since he was small. Right now, though, he feels small and scared, and all he wants is for his mom to tell him that she loves him, and that it’s going to be alright.

“Reid?” Penelope whispers, and then he hears Dr. Kimura, and he doesn’t get to be a child right now; there’s nobody there to take care of him.

“I gotta go,” he says, and hangs up before Garcia can ask questions.

“Doctor Reid?”

“You look nice,” he jokes, with a watery laugh, and she smiles. “How are the patients doing?”

“Let’s worry about you,” she says smoothly.

Spencer forces a smile and shakes his head. “I actually… I feel fine.” It’s one of the most obvious lies he’s ever told.

“If you feel any pain, I could give you something,” she offers.

“No, I’d rather not take any pain medication.” His hands are shaking, but at least his voice sounds strong.

She looks concerned. “We can at least make you feel more comfortable.”

“I am comfortable, and I don’t want to take any narcotics,” he says fiercely. It’s not easy to say the words, but he feels better once he does; he feels proud.

There’s someone else he needs to call, Spencer realizes.

“Tell me how I can help,” Dr. Kimura says, and Spencer nods. First things first: if the poison is here, so is the antidote.

“I think the cure for this strain is in here somewhere,” he says, ignoring the way his chest aches.

“Well, shall I start here?”

“Yes, just… I just need a moment.”

Spencer looks down at his phone. He could call Garcia, again, have her save the message as a contingency plan, but he’s not sure he could handle her questions right now, and he can trust Sam not to push for details; he’s always been good about that.

“Hey, Spencer.”

“Hey, so, I can’t explain, but I’m not sure I’m going to make it out of this,” he says, stumbling over the words. “Don’t interrupt, I can’t - I just wanted to say thank you. In case I don’t get to say it again. Recovery was… I don’t… you helped. Thanks for always picking up the phone when I needed you.”

“Right back at you,” Sam says quietly.

It’s getting harder to breathe, and the panicked hammering of his heartbeat isn’t helping.

“Thanks,” he says again, and closes the phone without saying goodbye.

* * * * * * * * *

“Reid, you need to calm down,” Hotch says, as soon as the lock clicks behind them.

“I know,” Spencer says, rubbing his eyes, agitated. “There’s just… there’s so much that doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s more than that.” Hotch gives him one of those piercing glares he’s so good at. “You’re allowing your anger with JJ to cloud what you’re seeing in Sam.”

Spencer can’t really argue with that. He just nods.

“When this is over, I want you to take a couple days,” Hotch says. “You need some time to process.”

Spencer’s instinct is to argue, but one look at Hotch’s face tells him it’s pointless. He nods again, reluctantly.

“Garcia is checking into the pattern that he talked about,” Hotch says, as he leads Spencer back into the observation room. “She may be able to pin the Winchesters’ locations at the times of the original murders. JJ’s talking to old witnesses. There has to be something Henricksen missed.”

Emily, Morgan, and Rossi are clustered in the small, spare room, watching Sam through the one-way glass. Emily cuts herself off mid-sentence as Spencer and Hotch walk in.

“You okay, kid?” Morgan asks again, looking at Spencer like he’s a bomb about to go off, and Spencer tries to smile for him.

“All my time in the Bureau, I’ve never seen a case that made less sense,” Rossi comments.

They all look at Sam, who’s frowning down at the table, deep in thought.

Spencer clears his throat and asks, “Do you believe him?”

“I believe that he’s telling part of the truth,” Hotch says. “It’s what he’s not saying that concerns me.”

Inside the interrogation room, Sam starts, eyes wide, and looks from the door to the one-way mirror.

“Hey,” he barks. “Hey, I know you’re listening! It’s St. Louis. I figured out the pattern, and they’re going to St. Louis next.” He tugs at the cuffs, clearly agitated. “Come on. Can anybody hear me?”

“He’s genuinely distressed,” Emily says, frowning.

“If it’s a delusion, it’s a complex one,” Morgan adds.

The door swings open, and JJ starts talking before any of them can ask: “That was Diana Ballard. She swears up and down that it’s all a big misunderstanding, but she’s not clear on any of the details; she just said that she’d trust the Winchesters with her life. Rebecca Warren said the same. There was someone impersonating the Winchesters, back then, and she swears up and down that someone’s got it out for them now.”

“How did Henricksen not have that statement in his file?” Morgan asks.

“Maybe Sam’s right, as much as I hate to admit it,” Emily says. “Maybe this is a case of agents just wanting the easy explanation.”

“You guys are gonna want to see this,” Penelope interrupts, hurrying through the door as fast as her hot pink heels will allow, holding out her tablet.

“Another one?” JJ asks.

“Unfortunately, yes, and it’s a doozy. This just came in from -”

“St. Louis,” Hotch fills in grimly.

“How did you know?” Penelope asks, but she presses play without waiting for an answer, and they all cluster together to watch the grainy cell phone footage: Sam, leaning in close, giving the camera a smug smile before he opens fire.

“Is that really…” Spencer says numbly, looking from the screen to the window, where Sam is tapping his foot, impatient, undeniably solid and real.

“It’s real,” she confirms. “And to top it off, I found a call that the local brass dismissed, but I just talked to him a couple minutes ago and it sounds like the genuine article. A guy thinks he saw the older Winchester just a couple hours after Sam originally called us. He was at a gas station in, you guessed it, Montana.”

There’s a stunned pause, while everybody tries to digest that news, until Emily breaks the silence with a succinct, “What in the ever-loving fuck is happening.”

“I’m going to talk to Sam,” Hotch says.

Spencer’s acutely aware of everyones’ eyes on him again as he moves closer to the window. His reflection in the glass looks masklike and composed, but he doesn’t feel anything of the sort.

He’s kind of starting to believe Sam. That’s his first instinct, at least. Something deep in his gut is telling him to trust, but it’s being strangled by the suspicion and twisted fear that have been poisoning him slowly since Emily came back. Now that it’s in his system, Spencer’s not sure how to flush it out; it’s just in him now, like some sort of chronic infection.

* * * * * * * * *

March 2011

“I hate how often we see it,” Spencer says quietly. “It’s the first thing everybody thought of, with this kid, even though it wasn’t just schizophrenia, but… what’s the difference, between him and my mom?”

“Your mom has you,” Sam points out. He can hear the murmur of Dean and Bobby’s voices downstairs, constant and comforting.

“The headaches haven’t stopped.”

Sam grimaces. “No answers, still?”

“They all say there’s nothing wrong with me, physically.”

“Yeah,” Sam sighs. “That’s… kinda harder, isn’t it?”

“I hate not knowing,” Spencer fumes. “I hate that there’s no test for it. Even if it was a positive diagnosis, I’d rather have that, you know? I mean, that’d be awful, obviously, but… ”

“At least you’d know,” Sam finishes. “Yeah.”

“It’s like my brain may or may not be a ticking bomb. No way of knowing what’s hiding up there,” Spencer bites out, with a warped attempt at a laugh.

Sam can’t help but think of his flashback: coming back to reality with Dean pale and wide-eyed above him, the disorientation of feeling the solid floor under his back, the way his skin still burned. It felt so real.

He pushes those thoughts away.

“Like you can’t even trust yourself,” Sam says softly.

“Exactly.” Spencer’s voice is small and thin, and he sounds very young, suddenly. “My mom’s counting on me. What if… if something happened - I don’t know who would take care of her. Of us.”

“Your family,” Sam says, without hesitating.

“My team? Yeah, I… I guess so.”

“Your family,” Sam repeats. “Even if you can’t trust yourself, you’ll be able to trust your family.”

* * * * * * * * *

Sam’s heart leaps at the sound of the door opening again.

“They’re going to St. Louis,” he says, all in a rush, before the stern-faced agent from earlier can even sit down. The guy doesn’t bat an eye, just sits down calmly, pinning Sam with a stare that could strip paint.

“Sam, I’m Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner.” Sam’s heard Spencer talk about “Hotch,” and it all makes sense now. “What makes you think St Louis is next?”

“They’re retracing our steps,” Sam answers. “Dean and I, when we started working together. They’re hitting each town we stopped in. Jericho, Black Water Ridge, Manitoc. St. Louis is next.”

Sam holds his breath, hoping he won’t be pressed on his definition of working. He can see the moment Hotch comes to a decision with an infinitesimal nod.

“We’re too late,” he says. “We just got the news.”

“Shit,” Sam can’t help but mutter, and he tugs instinctively at the handcuffs, frustrated, done with sitting still.

“This means you’re innocent,” Hotch points out, clearly watching Sam’s reaction.

Sam can’t help but roll his eyes. “Yeah, but I already knew that. It’s… Iowa next, then. Ankeny, Iowa.”

“Very well,” Hotch says flatly, giving Sam a critical, evaluating look. “It’s very clear that you’re not what we thought you were, and you may be able to help us end this. Are you still interested in accompanying us?”

“Yes,” Sam replies impatiently.

“First, I’m going to give you one last chance to tell me the truth about what’s going on here,” Hotch says, in such a low, dangerous voice that Sam’s almost intimidated. “Otherwise, if one of my agents gets hurt because you withheld information, or if there’s even a hint that you’re leading us into a trap, I will shoot you without hesitation. Do I make myself clear?”

Jesus. But if the FBI can help him get to Iowa in time, with enough firepower to put a dent in the Leviathans, this’ll all be worth it.

Sam leans forward, as much as his cuffs will allow, meeting Hotch’s impenetrable glare with a determined stare of his own.

“Look, I could tell you more, but you’re not going to believe some of it until you see for yourself,” he snaps. “So as far as I’m concerned, the only truth that matters is this: people are dying, and we both want to put a stop to it. Now, are you going to waste time asking for irrelevant details, or are you going to choose to trust me?”

Hotch holds his gaze for a moment before nodding tersely. “Let’s get going, then. I’ll go get the keys.”

He gets up and Sam grimaces at his retreating back, twisting his wrist uncomfortably to get the bobby pin at the right angle. Then the cuffs fall to the ground with a metallic clatter, and Hotch looks back at him in disbelief. Sam smiles at him, equal parts sheepish and smug.

“I told you, full cooperation,” he explains, and Hotch shakes his head like he might just be a tiny bit impressed.

The rest of the team is waiting out in the hallway, some looking skeptical (tall, dark, handsome, eyebrows; Morgan, if Sam's guessing right), others nervous (pink pom-poms in her hair; that’ll be Penelope), but almost all with some degree of confusion written across their faces. Sam can’t exactly blame them. Spencer’s staring at his shoes, avoiding eye contact.

They’re a very clean, professional-looking bunch, and it’s making Sam incredibly uncomfortable, even aside from the obvious awkwardness inherent in the situation.

“I’m Sam,” he blurts out, and then winces. “Um. You knew that.”

“Yep,” Penelope squeaks. “This is weird.”

“Emily Prentiss, Derek Morgan, David Rossi,” Hotch says brusquely, pointing to each in turn. “Jennfer Jareau, Penelope Garcia, and you know Spencer. There’ll be time to talk more on the jet. Everyone, grab your things, meet outside in five.” He’s already pulling out a cell phone and striding away as the team scatters, and Sam feels sort of windswept in his wake; the guy’s intense.

Sam and Spencer are alone in the hallway. Sam’s stomach twists. This is familiar. This is another person he’s let down, and the bitter voice in the back of his head whispering you fucked up again is familiar too.

“I’m sorry,” Sam blurts out. “I know it doesn’t change anything, but… I’m sorry.”

Spencer looks up at him with a quizzical frown, head tilted. “I was going to apologize to you.”

Sam blinks. “Why?”

Spencer presses his lips together in a funny little grimace. Sam had forgotten that face, the weird things he does with his mouth when he’s not sure what to say.

“For not trusting you.” His voice is scratchy and uneven and honest, now that there isn’t any anger keeping it strong and sure. “I wanted to believe that you… that it couldn’t be you. When I saw the first video, that was my instinct. But my instincts haven’t been great, lately.”

Sam shakes his head. “No, you have nothing to apologize for.”

“I think maybe I don’t trust myself right now?” Spencer barrels on. “But there’s video, and... I trust Hotch. If Hotch believes you... yeah. I’m sorry.”

Sam’s not used to being forgiven so easily. It takes him a moment to remember how to speak.

“You gave me a chance,” he says. “Most people wouldn’t have even picked up the phone. And there’s still… I still haven’t told you everything, why would you -”

“There are a lot of things going on that I don’t understand, and I want answers, don’t get me wrong.” Spencer looks frustrated for a moment. “But… knowing that you’re not a murderer goes a long way. The details can wait.”

“When I start sharing details is when most people start running in the opposite direction,” Sam admits.

“I think that’s sort of a universal human experience,” Spencer offers. He looks like he’s trying not to laugh, now. “Or at least, the fear is. Nobody likes telling the full truth. It’s uncomfortable at best, painful at worst.”

Sam huffs out a laugh and swipes a hand over his face. “Yeah, okay. Got me there.”

“I’ll trust that you’re not lying if you trust that I won’t run,” Spencer says, and he’s not smiling now. He’s dead serious, determined, maybe a little scared.

“Okay,” Sam says hoarsely. “Deal.”

There’s an awkward moment where they both just look at each other, but then Spencer jerks his head in the direction of the front doors. “C’mon, we should go.”

Sam nods and lets him lead the way. “Should we - do you know where my phone is? I need to call my brother.”

“Garcia will have it.”

They walk out into the bullpen, where the team is bustling around, collecting their things, and Sam’s reminded again of how much they’re risking on his word. It’s overwhelming. His throat feels too tight.

“So, that handcuff thing,” says Rossi, tossing his bag over his shoulder and falling into step next to Sam.

Sam laughs. “Yeah, I can teach you. It’s just a bobby pin.”

“Might help next time I get kidnapped,” Spencer says, with alarming nonchalance.

“Would’ve come in handy a few times during college,” Rossi comments.

“You mean as a party trick?” Spencer asks him.

“Yeah. Sure, kid. A party trick.”

“...oh.”

* * * * * * * * *

November 2010

“Spencer?”

“I… is that you?” Spencer asks, so shocked he feels dizzy. It’s been six months.

Spencer’s first thought had been, ‘Weird, that's the second “just in case” call in a month,’ when he got the voicemail. He’d almost laughed.

Spencer had called Sam from the hospital, though, after the anthrax thing, when the antidote worked and he woke up.

Sam never called. Spencer assumed he never woke up.

“It’s me,” Sam says. “I’m so sorry, I -”

“What happened?”

“I was… sick,” Sam stammers. “Really… really sick. I’m sorry.”

Spencer has to pause for a moment to digest that. His head is spinning.

“What -” he starts, but he cuts himself off. He has some idea of what kind of sickness might cause someone to go away for six months, and it’s not physical. “Oh,” he says softly.

“Sorry,” Sam says again. He sounds miserable.

“No, don’t apologize,” Spencer protests. “You shouldn’t - it’s not your fault. I’m just glad you’re okay. I thought…”

“Yeah.”

All Spencer can say is, “I’m really glad you’re alive.”

“Me too,” Sam says quietly.

Spencer’s been wanting to talk to him for six months, but now he can’t think of anything to say. Eventually he just goes with the first thing that comes into his head: “You missed some really good episodes of Doctor Who.”

Sam laughs. “Yeah, I’ve got some catching up to do.”

Spencer closes his eyes and reminds himself to breathe. He’s never been so happy to be wrong.

* * * * * * * * *

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Emily says flatly, as Spencer brandishes the Super Soaker in her direction. “Of all the stupid fucking ideas.”

“Yup,” he says, popping the p and maybe kinda enjoying the way her eyes have gone all buggy. In a low voice, he adds, “Play along, remember?”

She casts a glance over to where Sam is busying himself with the rest of the water guns and a box of Borax. “As long as he doesn’t try to take my fucking Glock.”

“Nobody is taking your Glock, Emily,” Spencer says dryly. She shakes her head and goes over to join Morgan, Hotch, and JJ, who have already been outfitted and are standing at the other side of the parking lot. Garcia is sneakily taking a picture of them.

Admittedly, when Sam insisted that they make an emergency stop between the airstrip and the police precinct, Spencer wasn’t expecting Toys R Us, but he was also pretty gobsmacked when Sam started talking about monsters. He’d waited until they were in the jet to do so, which was probably a smart move. This isn’t the first time they’ve played along with a delusion in order to get answers, but it’s definitely the strangest.

Funniest, also. Spencer hopes Garcia got a lot of pictures.

Sam will definitely be headed to an institution, when all of this is over, and Spencer’s having trouble processing that, but… well, it’s not like Spencer’s unfamiliar with that sort of facility. Spencer’s just glad Sam’s not a murderer, and he’s ready to get Dean, arrest whoever’s framing them, and get some answers. He can deal with the rest later; there’s only so much he can handle right now.

It’s been a weird day.

“Okay, we’re ready,” Sam announces, passing the last Super Soaker to Spencer. “Bobby didn’t know where they’re keeping Dean, but I’m guessing the cells. I’ll lead the way. Don’t trust anyone, we have to assume the local cops are Leviathans, at this point. Stick together, don’t let them touch you. Clear?”

“And I’ll be right here with the emergency radio,” Garcia chimes in cheerily. “Thank God.”

Sam tucks his own water gun into the back of his jeans, hefting the fire axe he’d somehow stolen from the cockpit of the jet without anyone noticing. “Let’s go,” he says authoritatively.

“We’re right behind you,” JJ says, in her warmest, most soothing “placate the crazy man” voice.

Sam leads them around the corner and through the front door of the station, easing the door open without a sound, and they follow, entering the oddly quiet precinct quickly and efficiently.

Spencer can see his teammates starting to draw their real weapons; luckily, Sam’s too focused on what’s in front of him to notice what everyone is doing behind him. Spencer hooks a finger on the Super Soaker and lets it dangle from his left hand, drawing his gun with his right, and most of the team is doing the same, for the sake of appearances. Emily and Morgan just set their water guns on the floor.

“Dean?” Sam calls out.

“Sammy!”

Dean walks jauntily out into the bullpen like it’s a very normal thing to find a team of federal agents aiming their guns at him, but he does a double take, disconcerted, frowning for a moment at all the neon plastic toys on display. Then he recovers and turns a wide grin on Sam, who’s hanging back, wary.

“You brought backup,” Dean says, laughing. “Good, I’m hungry. I’m very glad you made it.”

“You’re not Dean,” Sam says, low and certain.

“No, I am not,” the man says, almost gleeful. “Close enough, though! I have all his memories, and I wanted to chat for a moment, before I eat you. I like my meat a little bitter.”

“What the almighty shitfire,” Emily breathes, but neither Sam or Dean pay any attention to her. Spencer has a hysterical urge to laugh, but he swallows it, heart pounding, not daring to look away from the insanity that’s unfolding in front of them.

“Dean thinks you’re nuts, you know.” The man’s eyes flick behind Sam, taking in the team fanned out behind him. “So do your new friends.”

Sam reaches behind his back to grab the handle of his water gun, but he holds it out of sight, still. Spencer keeps his finger firmly on the trigger of his real gun.

“Where’s my brother?” Sam snaps.

“Okay, okay, I’ll get to the point.” He’s wearing a smug, nasty smile, and this isn’t going the way Spencer expected at all. “Dean killed Amy.”

Sam seems frozen, completely paralyzed.

“There it is,” the man who isn’t Dean says, laughing. “Now I can eat you.”

Sam draws his water gun so quickly it’s just a blur of neon orange, and then the man (thing, Spencer corrects himself frantically) is smoking. He’s smoking and sizzling wherever the water touches, and he’s screaming, looking just as stunned as Spencer feels in the split-second before Sam swings the fire axe and chops off his head with one powerful blow.

There’s a moment where everything seems to slow down, like Spencer’s moving underwater, as he takes in the black goo pouring from the stump where the creature’s head used to be.

“What in the almighty motherfucking shitfire,” Emily says again, into the momentary silence.

“More incoming,” Sam snaps. “Heads up.”

Then everything speeds up, too fast for Spencer to process, and it all blurs together: he’s holstering his gun, spraying water at something that’s wearing Sam’s face, as someone screams. Glass shatters, somewhere. Out of the corner of his eye Spencer sees Morgan pulling the station’s fire axe out of its case, whirling around without hesitation in a spray of black goo, and he keeps getting caught in the water pistol jets but it’s better than all those goddamn teeth, what the hell, in the massive mouth that just appeared, so he shoots, what, how, and then -

And then it’s over as suddenly as it began.

It’s over.

Spencer’s heart is racing. He’s surrounded by puddles of water and puddles of oozing black, Morgan’s clutching an axe like it’s a life raft, and everyone is okay. Spencer looks around frantically, double-checking, but everyone is okay; they’re still standing, at least, although JJ, greenish-pale, looks like she’s seconds away from keeling over in shock.

“Back here, Sammy!” comes a muffled voice from the back of the station. Sam casually wipes the blade of his axe on the side of his pants, expression unreadable. Spencer watches him clench his jaw and take a deep breath.

“Sweet baby Jesus,” Rossi mumbles.

Sam’s face is blank as he looks around, taking in the mess and the team.

“I told you so,” he says mildly. Then he steps over the headless remains of a monster and goes to get his brother.

* * * * * * * * *

November 2009

He doesn’t bother trying to go back to sleep after the second nightmare. He goes outside instead, sits on the curb in the parking lot, looks up. The stars are barely visible with the Vegas light pollution, but it still helps to be outside. He can breathe a little easier.

There’s this tightly-knotted mess of rage in his chest, sitting on his ribcage like a tumor, poisoning him slowly.

It’s almost four in the morning, and he has no idea where Sam might be, or what time it is there. He takes out his phone anyway and fires off a text.

You awake?

The phone rings less than a minute later.

“What’s up?” Sam asks. He doesn’t sound like he was sleeping.

“I’m in Vegas,” Spencer says softly, and then realizes that doesn’t mean anything to Sam. “It’s where I grew up.”

“Win big on the slot machines?”

“I guess. I won two thousand dollars today, actually. I… I gave it to a prostitute,” Spencer admits. He adds hastily, “Not for sex.”

Sam laughs. “Right.”

There’s a moment of silence. Spencer could make small talk, now; he could pretend he called for no reason in particular. Sam wouldn’t believe him, but he wouldn’t question it, either.

He takes a deep breath and spits the words out fast, before he can regret letting them loose. “Apparently my dad lived really close by my entire life, even after he left my mom and me. I didn’t know. He never told me.”

“Shit,” Sam says.

“He was keeping tabs on me my whole life,” he says. His voice gives him away, breaking and rasping, and it hurts to keep forcing the words out. “He read all my articles, my dissertation, everything I ever had published. My friends seem to think I should be happy about that.”

“That’s bull,” Sam says firmly.

“Why wasn’t it enough?” Spencer whispers. He’s been holding that question in all day, and it’s been choking him.

His lower lip is wobbling. He’s glad Sam can’t see him. This is the sort of honesty that’s much easier from a distance; Sam might hang up right now, but at least Spencer won’t have to watch him walk away.

“Do you think they know?” Sam asks. “How badly they messed us up, I mean.”

“Do you think they care?” It comes out more bitter than he intended. Spencer makes a face and looks down at his feet in their mismatched socks. “I think that’s the important part. If he cared, I could probably forgive him, but… I don’t think he does. Not really.”

“Yeah.”

Spencer takes a breath. The anger is gone now. He doesn’t like how hollow he feels in its wake, but he does feel lighter. He feels better.

“Thanks for listening,” he says. “It helps.”

There’s a long pause, and Spencer thinks maybe he should hang up, now, try to rest even if he can’t sleep.

“Want to hear a joke?” Sam asks. “I tried to tell Dean, but... I don’t think he got it.”

“Sure.”

“How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

“How many?”

“Two. One to change the light bulb and one to to observe how it symbolizes an incandescent beacon of subjectivity in a netherworld of cosmic nothingness.”

Spencer laughs, grinning up at the stars. “That’s good. I’m gonna steal that.”

* * * * * * * * *

Sam sighs as he closes the door of the precinct behind himself. They’re not totally done with cleanup, but all Hotch’s wild-eyed muttering about paperwork is starting to make him anxious.

Also, every time he looks at Dean, he feels sick.

He sits down on the bench that’s out front, under a little awning. The sky is dark with clouds, and the air is thick, threatening rain, so humid it seems hard to breathe… but maybe that’s the shock setting in.

He barely gets a minute of peace before Dean comes out to find him.

“Hey,” Dean says cheerfully. “Ready to go? I’m starving, and I don’t want to be here when that bunch starts asking questions. Pretty cool, though, having an in with the FBI. Definitely makes life easier, bein’ dead again.”

He’s standing there on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, grinning like it’s just another day. Sam’s chest hurts.

“Don’t,” he says quietly.

“What’s up?” Dean asks, frowning.

“You killed Amy,” Sam says, and he watches Dean’s face as he realizes, the way he shifts his weight uncomfortably.

“Listen, Sam...” he says.

“No, you know what, don’t,” Sam spits. He knows the drill. Dean thought he was doing the right thing, he made a choice, he had to take responsibility if Sam couldn’t. Sam looks at his feet and says, “I don’t think I can be around you right now.”

“So… what, you -”

“You should go,” Sam says. He looks up and searches Dean’s face for some sign of guilt, remorse, empathy, but Dean just looks resigned. Sam wishes he would just start screaming, or throw a punch so Sam could hit him back. It’s not fair that Sam’s the only one in pain right now.

“Okay, Sam,” Dean says, and he turns to go. Sam watches him walk away.

He’s not sure how long he sits on the bench, watching people pass. The sky is getting darker by the minute.

Spencer doesn’t announce his presence when he comes outside, just sits on the bench next to Sam and waits quietly.

“He killed my friend,” Sam mumbles, without looking at him. “She was a monster, but she didn’t… she didn’t mean to. She didn’t want to hurt anybody.”

“Let me guess, he thought he was doing the right thing?” Spencer says wryly.

The lack of pity in his voice makes it easier for Sam to keep talking, and sarcasm feels better than grief. “Shocking, right?” he says. There’s a low rumble of thunder overhead, and they both look up at the sky. “I didn’t have many friends, but… I liked her.” The grief seems to be creeping in whether he wants it or not.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Sam’s throat feels tight. “He’s my brother, I just… I’ve fucked up in the past, I know I have. But I always feel like I have to earn his forgiveness. It feels like I’m always asking him to give me another chance, to trust me again, and… and he still doesn’t really look at me the same way. Then he pulls something like this, and I know, one way or the other, he just doesn’t trust me. He thinks it’s okay to lie to me, because I don’t deserve the truth.”

Spencer doesn’t say anything, just makes an unhappy, understanding sort of sound. The first fat raindrops start to fall on the concrete in front of them, and they’re both quiet for a moment.

Sam smiles in spite of himself, remembering. “She changed her name, since I met her. Her name was always Amy, but she changed her last name to Pond.”

“Cool,” Spencer says.

“Yeah. I mean, no, she wasn’t cool, neither of us were, but… yeah.”

Sam can breathe a little easier, now.

“What are you going to do?” Spencer asks.

Sam looks sideways at him and sees the way his mouth is twitching. “Don’t.”

“Nothing you can do, is what I seem to remember you saying,” Spencer says innocently. “Give it time. Right? Does that make you feel any better?”

Sam laughs, burying his face in his hands. “That was fucking useless advice. Fuck, don’t ever listen to me.” He wipes his eyes. “This just sucks.”

“Yeah, it really does,” Spencer agrees. It’s pouring steadily now, rain streaming off the sides of their little awning. “Apparently Hotch thinks I should run away from my problems for a little while, give myself time to process, so I’ve been ordered to take a couple days off.”

“JJ, still?”

“Yeah. I think maybe he’s right. But… I was going to rent a car and drive back to DC, instead of taking the jet. Make a couple detours. Get some space. Give it time. You could come, if you want.”

Sam turns to him, surprised, but Spencer looks sincere; he’s giving Sam one of his trademark anxious not-quite-smiles.

“I was just going to hotwire a car,” Sam blurts out, and then winces. “That might be a better idea.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“I guess you probably have some questions,” Sam says reluctantly.

Spencer grins. “Harder for me to run away if we’re in a moving vehicle, right?”

Sam laughs, tucking his hair behind his ears. “Yeah, guess so.”

“After today, I’m not actually sure I want to know all the details,” Spencer says, wrinkling his nose. “But I do have some questions.”

“Anything you want to know,” Sam promises. “The truth. I promise. I should’ve… I should’ve told you sooner.”

Spencer shrugs. “No, I’m pretty sure you were right, I would’ve run away screaming.”

Sam laughs and rolls his eyes, and they sit there in silence for a moment, watching the rain start to slow. The clouds are already starting to blow over.

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”

― Mark Twain

You can now read about the road trip right here!

#criminal minds fic #spn fic #supernatural x criminal minds #sam winchester #spencer reid #spn #cm #crossover

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alexthepartyman · 4 years ago

Text

Fine Line

Chapter Two: Hold it, focus.

“I was teaching an in-serivce at the Baltimore field office when this came in,” Derek tells us as we walk through the house. “Baltimore PD’s seen some pretty grisly stuff, but never anything like this. We got two bodies ID’d as William and Helen DiMarco.” I look around, the house seems very antiqued. “Retired, lived here for thirty-seven years, no kids.Neighbourhood reports a white male, twenty to forty years old, fleeing the scene, and I quote, hopped up on those damn drugs.”

“Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable.”

“So far, it sounds like a standard double homicide. Why are we here?” Aaron asks as we walk up the stairs and into the master bedroom. I note the blood smeared on the walls.

“Massive overkill.”

“You don’t say.”

“Helen DiMarco was found here, tied to the chair in front of the vanity. No defensive wounds. Ligature marks around the wrists, one clean lacertation from ear to ear.”

“She was either too weak or she knew she wouldn’t make it,” I comment. “But that is a weird amount of overkill.”

“Looks arterial. Probably the carotid,” Elle says. “At least she went quickly.”

“The husband, William, was found in the shower. But he wasn’t quite as lucky.” I look into the bathroom, noticing the shower floor covered in blood, dried blood splattered on the glass sides and door. Yikes, it looks like the aftermath of the shower scene from Psycho. This amount of blood outside of a human body makes me nervous. “Ligature marks on the wrists and ankles and one long laceration up the abdomen through both layers of muscle.”

“Evisceration - that’s typical of disorganised behaviour.”

“Despite all the blood, this crime scene shows method, order, control. I’d say it’s pretty organised.”

“There was also evidence of torture with the husband. Burns, contusions, lacerations. You name it, this guy tried it.”

“If torture is the unsub’s signature, the methodology is usually unique. A person who burns someone usually doesn’t use a knife.”

“So maybe he have more than one killer, or we have one killer with more than one personality,” Aaron says.

“We also have three victims. Blood on the vanity, wife’s body was found there, husband was in the shower. From the looks of the level of the ring in this tub, whoever was in it lost thier entire blood volume.”

“I’d say that about all of the victims,” I add, peering into the bathtub.

“Approximately ten point six pints.”

“Which means the victim was dismembered.”

“Pints?” I ask.

“It looks like our guy took all the parts with him.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Okay, so I’ve got Helen DiMarco tied to the chair,” Derek says. “He probably killed her first.”

“To prove to the others that he had no mercy. Psychological torture before the physical pain.”

“Only there was no satisfaction from her death.”

“The death was too quick. Arterial, jugular, trachea, she died within seconds, especially with a cut like that.” I answer.

“The husband...with him, he took his time. There doesn’t seem to be any wasted effort, no hesitation on the unsub’s part. I mean, Gideon, look around. What he did...it’s a lot of work. We’re either dealing with a professional or -”

“A pure psychopath.” Uncle Jason stares blankly at the bloody shower. “Nothing more we can do here until the third victim turns up. I’m guessing there’s a connection to him.”

“He doesn’t want that victim identified.”

“Have Garcia go through open files in Maryland, see if any of the involve this level of torture.”

“Got it.”

“Have her check the surrounding states as well. If...the guy’s a pro, why do jobs only close to home?”

“How far back do you want her to go?”

“At least ten years. Guy’s no rookie,” Uncle Jason answers, walking out of the bathroom.

“Where is he going?” I ask.

“I don’t know, kid, but you should stick around here.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Third victim was positively ID’d as a low-level mob guy,” Derek reports. “Frederick “Freddy” Condore. He was the nephew of the older couple. Body parts were found in seven different trash cans two blocks from the crime scene.”

“Were they able to completely reassemble the body?” Spencer asks.

“Killer didn’t keep any trophies.”

“Is there any evidence he got off?”

“No.”

“Garcia has a number of unxolved murders in DC, Virginia, and Maryland over the past fifteen years. Many of them have ties to organised crime, all different MOs.”

“What’s the connection?” Elle asks.

“Torture. Marks on the ones are consistent with the same cutting tool.”

“Tortured victims, most tied to organised crime...no signs of sexal sadism.”

“Hitman,” I answer.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re looking for a hitman.”

“No, a hitman doesn’t need to torture to get the job done.”

“Two things - Baltimore just forwarded a sketch of the man running from the scene, and uh, you’ve got some agents out there who think you’re poaching on their turf,” JJ cuts in, hanging Jason a sketch.

“I’ll handle it.”

“Doesn’t federal trump over local?” I ask, looking up from my book again.

“Come on, we’ll set you up in my office,” JJ offers, grabbing my backpack.

“Why?”

“Because you’re gettin distracted from your school work, and Aaron said you can’t be here if you can’t get your work done.”

“JJ, I can do my work, I promise,” I tell her. Kids don’t steal my assignments and cheat off of me for nothing, you know.

“So, we just going to drop it?” Derek asks as Jason comes back and approaches the whiteboard. I slip my bookmark in place and put my book away.

“These guys don’t know what they’re dealing with.”

“Our unsub is male, intelligent, organised, and methodical. He has the confidence of a man who’s been killing for a long time. Only victim removed from the scene is Freddy Condore, indicating some tie to him. Elle, you and Reid stay on Condore’s background with Garcia. Dig deep, see what turns up.”

“Condore worked as a supervisor at a scrap metal yard in Baltimore. It’s owned by a guy named Michael Russo, boss of a small mob crew. I’m gonna grab Hotch and go check him out. Jamie.” I nod and throw my bag over my shoulder, jumping from my chair.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Michael Russo?” Aaron asks. “Agents Hotchner and Morgan, FBI. This is our intern, Rossi.”

“What do you want?” Michael asks.

“Freddy Condore.”

“He didn’t show up for work today. He didn’t call, nothing.” Well...you can’t exactly make a phone call when your body is divided between seven trash cans.

“Probably because he, his aunt, and his uncle were murdered last night,” I state.

“Really? Too bad.”

“Yeah.”

“I can tell you’re all busted up about it.”

“Look, I don’t speak smart-ass, so you got something to say to me…”

“It was a professional hit. Either you’re in charge of your business or you’re not.”

“What kind of business do you think I’m in, huh? Look around. I’m in scrap metal. It’s all about recycling. That’s where the money is, my friend. Saving the earth.”

“You’ve got a big problem. You know, the mob isn’t what it used to be.”

“Ain’t easy always fighting for respect, is it?” Derek steps closer to Michael. “You always gotta fight for what’s yours. One of your boys steps out of line, tsk, tsk, tsk. You hit him hard, you make it count, right? Is that what happened to Freddy?” The man chuckles.

:Look. You got a case to make, run along, get your papers, and come back with the bracelets. Otherwise, I got a business to run.” The two men walk away from us.

“They don’t dress scrap metal,” I retort.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Derek kicks the door in, and he and Aaron storm in, guns pointed. “CLEAR!” Aaron yells.

“Copy that.”

“It’s clear here.”

Aaron and Derek holster their weapons. “Morgan, this is weird. There’s nothing here.” I step into the room and look around, finding a barren home. “It’s like nobody lives here...guess he wasn’t expecting company.”

“Something’s wrong?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Look at this place. It’s an artifical dwelling...to match an artifical past.” We start searching through everything, and I hear Derek tapping on a wall, before a loud thud.

“Derek, what the - what the fuck? Why did you punch that?” I ask, peering up from the other side of the oven.

“Hotch!”

“Yeah?”

“We got a hot weapon. Jamie, get back.” Derek gently pushes me away as Aaron approaches us. He pulls out a towel and sets it on the stove, unwrapping it to reveal a gun and a cartridge. “Oh, no.”

“What? What is that?” I ask.

“It’s a Glock nineteen. And this round is standard law enforcement issue.”

“So you’re saying Baker’s an undercover cop.”

“I’m saying I did eighteen months deep cover, and this place has got all the makings of a crash pad.”

“That does make a lot of sense. You can tell a lot about a person by how they decorate their house and if you just have nothing...then they can’t figure you out.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” A guy with a yellow tie bursts in, slamming the door behind him, I can hear him over my music.

“Sorry?”

“I told you, this is my case!”

“Alright, first of all, don’t shout at me,” Aaron says, rising to his feet behind his desk. I sneakily pause my screamington playlist so I can hear this whole thing. “And secondly, you don’t decide what cases the BAU works on.”

“You ran my agent’s gun through IBIS?” I look out of my periphreal and see Uncle Jason standing outside the office door with files in his hands.

“Cause I wanted to know who he worked for, and now that I do, I’d like to talk to him.”

“You don’t have him.”

“No. You don’t know where he is?”

“He’s missing,” the man says, sitting down by me and sniffling. Uncle Jason opens the door and lets himself in, closing it afterwards.

“How long?”

“Twelve hours.”

“Before or after the murders?” I look back to my book, scanning the words to pick up where I was.

“You think Jimmy’s a suspect?”

“Well, there’s a sketch of someone who looks an awful lot like him leaving the scene.”

“That’s because he was there. After. Look, he ran into a couple of Baltimore detectives, and they made him while he was with Condore. Now, Jimmy tried to play it off, but he didn’t think that Condore had bought it, so he wanted to go back and talk to him. When he saw what was left of the DiMarcos, he called us for a pickup. We showed up. He didn’t.”

“You think he ran?” Aaron asks.

“No. Jimmy’s too experienced to run without contact.” Contact, contact, contact, con...con...con-tact. No, that can’t be it. Con-ca...that sounds even worse. “If he’s not calling in, then someone’s keeping him from doing it.”

“Who’s Jimmy Baker’s target?” Uncle Jason asks.

“Michael Russo. We’ve been after the guy for three years. Jimmy’s been under for almost two.”

“We talked to Russo yesterday. He seemed genuinely surprised by the murders.”

“And you bought that? Let me tell you a little something about Michael Russo. The guy is a liar, and a good one. If he didn’t do it, then he knows who did. Oh hell, you know what? I’m wasting my time with you. You obviously don’t get it.”

“Agent Cramer, we’re not the enemy. Please sit down,” Jason says, blocking the door. Agent Cramer sits at Aaron’s desk, and Jason joins him. “We;re dealing with a very dangerous killer here...and we need your help. You know these people better than we do.”

“This guy - if he is what you say he is and he has Jimmy, did he kill him already?”

“We don’t know.”

“I’ll help you in any way that I can. You help me get this man back to his family.” I pull off my headphones and put my book away again, grabbing my bag to go hang out with someone else.

“If it’s any comfort, Agent...I knew he was lying. They didn’t dress scrap metal,” I say, before walking out of the office.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You’re gonna need a bigger board,” Penelope says, bringing in a cardboard box.

“Please tell me you brought some breakfast.”

“Huh. Trust me, sugar, you’re not going to want to eat when you see what’s in here. What is Jamie still doing here, I thought he had school?” Penelope asks, turning to me.

“Two day weeks for the rest of the month. Doctor wants me to take things slowly,” I answer.

“This place is not slow, Jamie. You should be staying home with your dad.”

“He thinks it’s good that I get out. As long as I’m with one of you guys, I’m fine.”

“How many more are there?” Derek asks Penelope.

“Well, I’ve gone back fifteen years, and there’s over a hundred.”

“A hundred unsolved murders?”

“Yeah, that we know of. And then there’s more coming in.”

“I can help bring in boxes,” I offer.

“Sorry, little noodle. You have to focus on school, and you can’t do any heavy lifting.” I pout at Penelope, who ruffles my mop of hair.

“Torture’s consistent. You know, we thought this guy might have been at it a while, but this many victims, Garcia?” Derek sighs. “John Wayne Gacy killed at least thirty people. This guy’s more than tripled that.”

“Yeah, but this guy gets paid for it. He’s a hit man.”

“No...he’s more than that. Not all these victims were mob hits. You know, my guess is that he started hunting when he was really young...perfected his craft...moved on to bigger prey. Garcia, look at this, there’s no hesitation in the wounds, one clean cut through flesh and bone.”

“Okay, so what does that tell us?”

“Most people wouldn’t imagine doing something like this to another human being, but this guy, he doesn’t even flinch. He’s got no conscience.”

“Is that psychopathy or sociopathy?” I ask.

“Sociopath. We’ve got ourselves a serial killer with the perfect career. Russo has no idea what he’s dealing with. I think we can shake him. Keep looking. Jamie, stay with Penelope and do your work.” He says, ruffling my hair and walking out of the room.

“Do I really get that distracted that easily?” I ask.

“Yeah, you do.” My phone beeps and I peer at it, finding a text from Cal. “Give the phone. Ooh! A text from a boy!”

“Penelope!”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Is this gonna work?” Elle asks.

“The beam is reflected off the pane according to the law of optics.”

“Yeah, the angle of instance is equal to the angle of reflection.”

“Uh-huh. Is it gonna work?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“We’re gonna find out right now,” I comment.

“I need to see you tonight. I’ll call you from a secure line.”

“Apparently, it does.”

“Hey. Listen, you brought a lot of heat taking down Freddy like that...What - I’m dealing with the feds...Listen, meet me here at the office...they don’t know nothing...I’m dealing with them...stop being paranoid, Vinnie…”

“Bingo.”

“No. Vinnie.”

“Look for either VIncent or Vincenzo. Mob members are usually Italian, so focus on names of Italian origin...and keep it around Baltimore, look for a rap sheet indicating sociopathy to this level,” I ramble.

“Well, he’s got eleven associates named Vincent,” Spencer says, collecting files.

“No, make that ten. Vincent Cellito died last summer,” Elle corrects him. “You know, here’s something. What can you tell me about Vincent Sartori?” Elle then gives Penelope a look of surprise. “I was still drinking that.”

“Not only is this equipment expensive, it’s also extremely sensitive.”

“Don’t leave your coffee on the files next time,” I reprimand her.

“Vincent Sartori.”

“Currently doing six at Dannemora for racketeering.”

“How about this Perotta? There’s not much on him.”

“Can you get into those records?” Elle asks Penelope.

“Despite the fact that they were probably expunged, she can find the faintest echo of deletion and successfully re-create the file, thereby sending us all to prison for computer felony fraud counts.”

“We can make bail. Garcia?”

“Already in. Alcohol addiction at fourteen. Violent outbursts. Assaults. Once threw a molotov cocktail at someone sitting in their car.”

“That sounds like a party,” I comment, not looking up from my book.

“Several notations for aggression. He once scheduled a visit to an infirmary to gain access to a boy who looked at him for too long?”

“No hear, no remorse. Quick temper. And he was smart enough to stay off the radar as an adult. Paranoid personality. He could be our guy.”

“There’s absolutely no information on him as an adult. No driver’s license, no utility bills, nothing. It’s like he became a ghost.”

“Let’s just hope that they can catch them.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“This was all in his van?”

“Yep. The guy wasn’t exactly neat.”

“Classic anti-social personality.”

“What are these tapes?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Why don’t Reid and Garcia take a look, let us know, alright?”

“Yeah. Movie night. I’ll make popcorn.”

“I’m gonna join movie night,” I comment. “I’m not innocent, Derek, and I don’t need to tell you how.”

“You’re twelve.”

“Fourteen. In case you haven’t forgotten, I’m not like the other kids, either.” My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out to see an image from Jasmine, a drawing of us and our friends.

“Is that the boy?” Penelope asks.

“No,” I remark, typing back a quick ‘looks awesome!’ before tucking my phone away again.

“A boy?”

“Derek! It’s not a boy!”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You got that address?”

“In Glen Burnie like you thought.”

“Yes.”

“It looks like Frank Perotta died in a suspicious hunting accident with Vincent, he was seventeen, it was like, thirty years ago.”

“My guess is that it was no accident.”

“Well, you said he was looking for bigger prey, and it looks like he found it.”

“Garcia...you’re my girl. Thank you. Jamie, keep it up, get ready for school. It’s Thursday morning.” Derek kisses her head and then leaves, closing the door to the cave behind him.

“I’m gonna need, like, five energy drinks to get through today,” I groan, throwing my head back and taking a light spin in the chair.

“What are you even doing on my system?”

“Helping. I heard you say Frank Perotta and I just...did it. I’m gonna head to the bathroom, try to look like I haven’t been awake for the past three days. Gym class first thing in the morning fucking sucks ass.” I tell her, kissing her head and walking out of the cave with my bag on my shoulder. I stop at the glass doors to the bullpen, watching as officers take a man away in handcuffs, before stepping into the bullpen and heading to Derek’s desk, nicking his 3-in-1 from his go bag.

“Why are you stealing Derek’s...soap?” Elle asks me from her desk.

“Is he coming yet?” I ask.

“He’ll be a few minutes. What are you doing?”

“I was going to use the gym showers so I don’t go to school and people think I live in a cardboard box and then hitch a ride to school from Grant, but if you’ve got better ideas-”

“Come shower at mine and tell your dads.”

“I only have the one dad.”

“You mean Hotch and Gideon aren’t your dads, too?” She jokes. “Just come on, I’m headed home, anyways, I’ll take you to school.”

“You don’t have to-”

“I insist. Besides, Grant and Spencer are probably going to want some time alone.” I sigh and pull out my phone as Elle grabs her things.

“Hey, Dad, so I’ll be home tonight...I’m getting ready at Elle’s house this morning...the case just ended…”

“Make sure you eat, and tell Aaron and Jason where you’re going. How long was the case?”

“It started Monday morning, and I’m so...I’m gonna need a nap when I get home, we had to deal with the mob in Baltimore, and… I slept, I promise, I’ll make Elle get me an Egg McMuffin or something.”

“Alright, piccolo, just make sure you’re taking better care of yourself. I left yesterday to go to another signing, so go home after school and feed the dogs, and if you need a ride home, call one of yourr brothers or the BAU. And get a decent night’s sleep.”

“I will. I love you, Dad, I’ll see you next week.” I hang up and put my phone in my pocket and climb into the passenger seat of Elle’s car. “Let’s go.”

“You don’t eat breakfast. Something’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong!”

#adoptedbydavidrossi #criminal minds fanfiction #Criminal Minds

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daughter-of-pens · 6 years ago

Text

Fancanon #2 - The Free World (Movie)

Streaming on Netflix, "The Free World," starring Boyd Holbrook and Elisabeth Moss, is a quiet story about a gentle romance between an ex-convict and a battered woman. Holbrook the ex-con is 60-odd days free, having been cleared by the Innocence Project for the presumably gruesome murder of some little girls. He has a job at the dog shelter under the employ of a wise, sympathetic, no b.s. taking, older woman played by the lovely Octavia Spencer. Moss the battered woman shows up one day in the passenger seat of her asshole cop husband's truck, distraught over her beaten dog, Charlie. Spencer's back and forth with the asshole implies that he beat Charlie to near death. Once Holbrook steps up next to Spencer to quietly assist, the asshole gives both Spencer and Holbrook a whole bunch of antagonistic lip for no reason, especially the latter, for the monstrous reputation he earned in prison. During this scene, Holbrook glances up and gets a glimpse of Moss openly weeping behind the windshield. She doesn't notice him and Holbrook puts his attention on the dog and the asshole. After the latter leaves, Spencer and Holbrook treat the dog's injuries, but they're too severe for the pup to last more than a night, despite Holbrook's adamant hope that it'll pull through. Next follows a handful of scenes of Holbrook by himself, establishing his minimalist stunted life before it's disrupted. He prays to Allah, he tosses and turns on a big bare mattress, then goes to sleep in a closet. Next comes Moss and Holbrook's first scene together. Here the tale begins.

I'll be honest. I know Hurt/Comfort is not everybody's jam and there's likely a growing number of people who like to slap the "P" word on it. (Hint: Problematic.) However comma...as someone who grew up pretty unprotected for too many complicated life reasons, I freakin' liiiiivveee for this stuff. Wherever there is a description that mentions a rough person putting it all on the line for softie in peril, I will click for more. Don't @ me. (hee, I've always wanted to say that.)

So the movie. How was it actually? Because you know premise can only get me through the door. Execution gets me to stay. And the quality of the execution determines whether I walk out abruptly or stay but have a bad time or leave at the appropriate time with a big grin on my face. Let's say that's the spectrum of judgement we're working with. Where does "The Free World" fall? I stayed and felt like I had a pretty good time for most of it, but then after I left...the more I thought about it, the more I realized it actually wasn't that great of an experience but I wanted to feel like it was a good experience by thinking of the little things I enjoyed. Simply put: It was good, but could've been better. What was the problem? The story was about something very specific. It was about this connection between two lonely stigmatized people in this small judgmental town. That was great, but the plot which carried out this story...mm, not so much. Directly put: I think the events that transpire to put these people in each other's lives and how they react to them clashes with the actual focus of the story more than it helps bring it out strongly. Spoiler Wall - Spoiler Wall - Spoiler Wall - Spoiler Wall

First Contact - The movie opens with Holbrook working at a dog shelter, comforting the little loves and comparing their time in cages to his own. Moss' character shows up the next day with her abusive husband. She's sitting in the car, crying her gigantic eyes out, while the husband talks crap in front of bloody beaten body of a dog on the ground.

Second Contact - Moss shows up at Holbrook's job in the middle of the night, bloody, beaten, hysterically crying and hanging on to the dog cage looking for Charlie (the dog.) Holbrook frantically attempts to shoo her away, thinking she's a druggie. Once he realizes she's in distress, he offers to help, take her wherever she needs to go - she just can't stay there. Moss gets so worked up that she passes out. Holbrook rushes over to her, taps her face, and gets blood all on his hands. He mutters "I didn't touch you. I didn't touch you." He's about to call the cops, but paranoid that people will think he harmed her, he instead carries her unconscious body back to his place. She sleeps on the bed. He sleeps in the empty living room in a chair by a shadeless lamp.

Pivotal Contact - Moss wakes up in a strange bed in a strange room. Grabs a butter knife or a razor or something that Holbrook had set out all nice and neat against his bedroom wall. She tip toes out of the room. He hears her, gets up, and immediately starts trying to explain. She's scared and angry, saying things like "Get out of the way, let me leave, I'm not afraid of you." To which Holbrook responds, "I'm gonna let you leave, you don't need to be afraid of me, you need to understand I didn't hurt you. I didn't do anything to you, you asked for help, so I tried to help, okay now you can go." She's still not convinced, thinks that he's one of her husband's friends who apparently stalks her sometimes. He wrestles the weapon out of her hand, puts it down, hands up, and begs her to understand that he didn't harm her. He tells her again that she asked for help, so he tried to help her, that's all, and she's free to go. At last, she understands the situation and sinks down against the wall.

At this point, I'm saying to the TV "okay, get on now. Gone get where you got to get." But she doesn't.

The cops knock on the door. Apparently, the upstairs neighbor called them due to a domestic disturbance coming from his apartment. He lies and says he was just working out and he's in the place alone. The cops come in and look around for themselves. The male cop, (who played Marshall Marshall on the show "In Plain Sight" - shout out to him), is a total racist D-bag. He antagonizes Holbrook about his time in prison while the female cop, who he refers to as "my lovely Latina partner," searches the rooms. Apparently, Holbrook earned the nickname "Cyclopes" in prison because he took his cellmate's eye out one night. Apparently, this is only one of a long list of violent acts he committed in the slammer. His beast level is clearly one of legend, since people bring that up more than whatever crime he wrongly went to prison for. Male Cop says he was so monstrous that even the black gangs didn't mess with him. (Male Cop referred to the black gangs as something much harsher that I don't care to repeat, but it's why he's pegged 'racist' as well as a D-bag.)

Lovely Latina Partner returns giving the all-clear, but Male Cop isn't convinced. Why? Because Moss can't stop freakin' whimpering and whining from the dog crate she's hiding in kitchen-side. Holbrook tells them it's just an old sick dog he's taking care of. Male Cop demands Holbrook open the crate so he can see for himself, becoming more and more aggressive with every denial. Eventually his partner gets him to back off and the cops leave.

Holbrook opens the cage door. Moss says "I was cooking dinner," which is the beginning of whatever event led her to the state she’s in. Holbrook stands against the counter, tells her it's alright. She comes out of the crate.

To cut to the chase here: Moss killed her abusive cop husband, presumably during a beating he was laying on her while she was cooking dinner. Rather than judge or reject her, Holbrook understands. Saying something along the lines of "people like him don't stop."

Holbrook decides to help Moss by hiding her in his apartment. The detective on the case suspects Holbrook because he's the recently released killer of the town and lets him know as much in a diner, but he never has his place searched again.

This moment is representative of the larger problem I think the movie has, which is an imbalance of agency that makes a lot of the moves the characters make come anywhere between out of the blue to unbelievable.

During a little dinner scene at Holbrook's place, Moss acknowledges that if she's caught there, Holbrook will go back to jail.

"I don't want that," she says. "So I should go."

"You can stay."

Not gonna say why? ...No? ...Okay then.

So she stays. Meanwhile, the news is covering the murder of Abusive Cop Husband, deeming his missing wife a suspect. When the detective who suspects Holbrook accosts him again at work, he mentions how Abusive Cop Husband was a hotheaded a-hole who nobody liked and everybody knew he was beating his wife, but turned the other way - basically hinting that he thinks Moss killed him and Holbrook is helping her because he's sympathetic to her understandably bad situation.

Key word: Understandably. So at this point, I'm like "okay, self defense is a thing. You're covered in bruises and even the detective said your husband was a garbage person who nobody liked (except his a-hole friends presumably) and everybody knew was a violent jerk. Soooo, why are you not turning yourself in?"

Never once is it acknowledged between Holbrook and Moss that she might actually be okay if she turned herself in. Because the theme of these characters is "stigma," it's being assumed that she would still be judged harshly for committing murder even under this extremely understandable circumstance and she would suffer in prison just like Holbrook did for a crime he didn't even commit. Because of what prison made Holbrook, it's decided that this fragile flower of a person doesn't deserve to set foot in that environment, not even for the hot second it would take for any lawyer worth their salt to get her a slap on the wrist.

We're supposed to believe that the system is against them, so they must depend on each other. Holbrook's distrust in the system I buy because it is (thinly) established that he is stigmatized as an alleged child killer and a prison menace. Members of authority are just waiting for him to hurt somebody. Hell, their attitudes suggest they'll snatch him up if something bad so much as happens within five feet of him, involved or not. So with all of that in mind, him wanting to protect her from the system because of his own distrust of it makes sense. But Moss...Miss Moss' apprehension I don't so much buy because while her husband did apparently have a-hole friends (some or all of which could've been other cops) supporting his abuse, those friends don't make the laws. Those friends can't make a lawyer or a judge punish her to their liking (or if they could, it was never established), so what did she really have to fear? Just going to jail? Why did she not even want to try to get real help now that her husband was no longer there to scare her silent?

Perhaps Moss feared that her husband's friends would kill her before she even laid eyes on a lawyer. Or perhaps the husband's family had money and influence that they would use to sabotage her chances of fair judgement and no one would care because she was dirt poor with no family. If so, none of these things or anything like it were established at all, so there's nothing that really solidifies let alone justifies her motivation. As much as I thought she was a sweetheart and I lived for her being under Holbrook's protection, I could see no logical reason behind her decision to hide from the law after calming down and having her wits about herself.

She's not a prostitute or a drug addict. She's not a Chinese mail-order bride, she's not black or a "lovely latina," or an illegal immigrant sex trafficked from Russia or Poland with barely a grasp on English... I mean, not to get too deep or to make it seem like those who fall under what I'm about to say never suffer anything, but in this particular instance, considering the fact that she's a little White American woman with the biggest misty blue eyes and the sweetest disposition being battered by an ugly hotheaded weasel of a husband in a tiny town in the south...I genuinely don't understand why she never once even considered that the system might have her back on this one. Had she screamed in his apartment the day she first woke up, Holbrook would've been tackled, arrested, and put back in jail for the husband's murder in seconds flat even though evidence would clearly show he was nowhere near the scene of the crime. And if Holbrook was actually black or brown and she did that...Lord help him.

But anyways. She doesn't even consider turning herself in, just hangs out at this apartment, bonding with Holbrook when he comes home from work over the course of maybe 2 or 3 days. One of those nights, she's talking with Holbrook, who's laying in the closet, and after some gentle back and forth (I don't remember what they talked about), she climbs in the closet with him and lays on his chest. He holds her in turn. No hanky panky. Just tame protective comfort.

Yes, I aww'd.

The next day, Holbrook sees more cops at his job, supposedly looking for him, so he turns back around. Meanwhile, Moss...sigh. Moss is staring out the window and randomly has a hallucination of her dead dog Charlie barking outside. She gets up and runs out of the house with all the girlish fervor of a literal child only to realize it was all in her head and oh no I'm a wanted woman out in the open in broad daylight. So she runs back to the apartment, but danggit, the door locked behind her. What does she do? Sit on the ground by the door, tell the nosy neighbor passing by that she's fine, and just...waits there.

Holbrook returns. Shocked to see her outside, he rushes up to her, places his big hands on her little face and in a breathy panic, asks "why are you outside, why are you outside?" while she explains in a tearful voice "I'm sorry, I got locked out, I'm sorry. Charlie..."

Yes, I eek'd when he held her face and spoke all worried-like because he's so big and she's so little and he looks so rough yet he's being so gentle!

...Sue me.

Holbrook gets her inside where she continues to fret, revealing that the neighbor saw her and she's afraid the lady's gonna call the cops. "They'll take you back to jail. I don't want that. I don't want that," she whines. Holbrook holds her face again, places his forehead against hers--

YES I squee'd at this part because forehead touches are the keys to my soul! Can that be okay, Woke Wilma?!

--and says "I don't want to go back. I ain't talkin' about prison. I don't want to go back." There's a moment of pause with her looking into his eyes and understanding his meaning, then she leans into the forehead touch. Their decision is made. They're in this together and they run.

Holbrook hot wires a car outside near the apartment building and drives off for presumably hours to some house in the backwoods where apparently a friend from prison had been staying this whole time. After a moment of being held up at gunpoint as trespassers, the friend recognizes Holbrook and they bring it in for a hug. The friend makes dinner for them and swaps stories with Holbrook about buddies from the pen. He starts to launch into a particular story about Holbrook as "Cyclopes," which Holbrook tries to stop, but he keeps talking. The story ends up being about how the terrifying big bad Holbrook laughed for the first time and that's when the brothers of Islam started passing him the word and getting him to chill out.

So his little protests, which I thought were leading up to him losing his patience for the first time in front of Moss, amounted to nothing. Moving on.

The next morning, the friend hides them in the back of his truck on some blankets under a tarp, planning to take them somewhere where they'll be smuggled to South America. In the truck bed, they're all boo'd up (tongue pop) and Moss starts telling this story about being a little spicy when she was a kid, getting into all kinds of trouble with this little fast friend she had named Chicken, who would talk smack to everybody from kids to cops.

"Mixin' it up, huh?" Holbrook drawls with a smirk.

Me: ugh, stop your sexy right now.

"Mmhm, I could fight, too."

"I bet you could."

Me: ssttaahhpp being so charming and sexy you Jax Teller/Jack Mercer-lookin' Boyd Crowder-soundin' bastard.

So he starts talking about himself when he was a kid and the little trouble he would get up to back in the day when Moss kisses him. He's a little taken by surprise, but quickly returns the kiss and they have a cute little make out moment, nothing heavy - just a nice long couple kisses.

Yes, I grinned and aww'd and there might have been a lil' squee in there even though I thought the timing of the actual kiss was a teeny bit iffy.

They get to the spot - some kind of warehouse - where they're handed off to two good ol' boy methhead-looking traffickers. The friend leaves. Holbrook and Moss are taken deep into the warehouse to a cold double-bed room with a gallon of water sat on the nightstand. Moss drinks the water first, then passes it to Holbrook. Cut to black.

Holbrook wakes up on the ground, groggy and handcuffed. Moss is missing. Holbrook goes half-beast mode trying to break his cuffs. Just then, two traffickers enter with a wheelbarrow. Holbrook attacks them. Knocks one down, strangles the other with his ankles and shouts "where is she?!"

"The hatch! She's in the hatch!"

He gives up the keys to the cuffs at Holbrook's order. Holbrook proceeds to suffocate him until he either dies or passes out. Either way, he's not moving. The other trafficker starts to get up, but Holbrook- now uncuffed - knocks him back out. He goes out into the warehouse in search of Moss. Finds the hatch in the ground and goes down a ladder into a dark hole. The camera does not follow him. We hear screaming from both Moss and a guy, and then a minute later, Moss comes out of the hatch with Holbrook close behind covered in even more blood.

Now, at this random action/thriller point, I start wondering if maybe this story is based on some kind of Greek mythology-like fable 'cause you know those stories tend to operate this way - running through all the major events to illustrate some larger point rather than really settling into their characters or setting. Holbrook's nickname is Cyclopes, so I was thinking "Odyssey?" But y'know, I don't think it is. I don't think any of that is a thing, this is just the way the creator wanted to do it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know. Moving on.

They steal another car outside the warehouse and go speeding down the road. Moss is trying to get Holbrook to calm down and Holbrook is all like "I'm sorry, that was me, I'm sorry, that was me." Basically letting us know Cyclopes came out down in that hole and was ripping dudes the F up. Too bad we didn't get to see it.

I mean honestly, if we're gonna take an action/thriller left, hit the left hard. Lean into it, give me all of it. Subtlety had already left the building so leaving the camera above the hatch for that Shakespearean Play effect was more disappointing than goose-bumps inducing. But, moving on.

A cop car whoop-whoops behind them. Holbrook freaks out, realizing he was driving too fast. "Why was I going so fast? Why...why?" Moss tries to get him to calm down, tells him to just keep driving.

"Don't stop. We're going, we're going."

So Holbrook steps on the gas, despite the cop's instructions over the horn. A tire on their car blows and the car skids to a stop in the middle of the road. Holbrook makes a plan that involves Moss running out first. She protests, crying, saying she doesn't want to leave him.

"They'll shoot you."

He grins, holds her face, pressing their foreheads together. "Naw, naw...they know better than that."

Me: baabbyy! how can you be so cute and lie like that? Don't be cute and lie!

Moss becomes convinced to go along with the plan. On the count of three, she bolts from the car. Holbrook gets out and staggers towards the cops saying "she's my hostage. I'm lettin' her go. I killed him," while the cops are shouting at him to get down on the ground. He gets down on his knees and while looking up to the sky whispers "I surrender."

Oh right, because Moss had asked him way earlier what Islam means and he said "surrender." So that brings that to some kind of circle.

Holbrook reaches for his prayer beads and gets shot a couple times in the chest. Falls on his back. Moss stops running for the trees and runs back to him. Falls on him, crying, holding his face, just hysterical as the cops pull her off and drag her away. The camera lingers on Holbrook as if he's dying.

Cut to blue sky and Moss' voice delivering a sweet poetic narration of how much she misses Holbrook, but she's hopeful so long as she can see the sky. Then we see Holbrook looking like he's back in prison clothes and standing around in a jail with his arm in a cast and sling, but actually only one of those things is true. He's visiting Moss in jail, separated by the glass and phone thing. His new shirt just so happens to look like jailbird attire, but he is free. Moss mentions a lawyer working on a good deal for him. Holbrook stares at her a pause, then says "you don't deserve to be in here" or something to that effect. Moss smiles and says "I took a life. Wasn't mine to take."

Their final moment comes with a bit of illusion. She puts her hand on the glass and he presses his head to his side of the glass.

"Can you feel my hand?"

The visual becomes her actually rubbing his head, the nurturing comforting way one might pet the head of a dog you could say. They also kiss and I’m not sure if that means in reality they pressed their lips and tongues against the glass or Holbrook just daydreamed that part while also imagining her rubbing his head. Regardless, it happens. They give each other one more longing hopeful look.

Then...credits.

Okay. I know by the way I recapped and reviewed the story, it might seem like I didn't like it, but I actually really did. I adore this movie's core. It's just, as I mentioned above, I don't think the plot really served that core well.

Rewrite Time

The Little Fix

Moss' Motivation: When Moss tells Holbrook that she doesn't want him to get back into trouble with the law for her staying there, that scene could've been where she starts to weigh her options. Just weighs them. Just acknowledges that if she turns herself in now, tries to get a good lawyer, maybe this and maybe that could turn in her favor. And then Holbrook could tell more of his story as far as how he - when he was a 15 year old - got blamed for murders he didn't commit and no authority in that town cared. They didn't care about his circumstances; they didn't care that he was just a stupid scared kid from the poor part of town where those little girls maybe didn't even live. They already had their story, their big bad wolf...they just needed to make him fit the part. And they did.

They threw a little boy in a cage with real monsters and buried the key. It took strangers from up north, loads of money, and ten-odd years of his life to dig it back up. Now the innocent person he was back then is long dead. He doesn't want to see Moss go through having who she is stripped and rotted away behind concrete and steel, so he warns her not to just throw her life in the hands of people she assumes she can trust on the notion that she's supposed to be able to trust them. "You're supposed to trust your blood, friends too...but where were they the first time? Second, third?" He'd say, looking at the bruises on her face and arms. She'd try to make some excuses, blame herself for why no one came to her aid when she was being abused, to which he'd retort, "Nobody around here stood between you and that monster when he was alive and well and eating you up every night. So why the hell would they stand up for you now? They'd sooner paint you in the wrong any way they can than face the guilt of their own sins."

Sidebar: couldn't you just imagine this as the groundwork into Holbrook having his own goal to uncover who the real killer was? It could be revealed to be some pillar of the community kind of guy who everybody kinda new was a weirdo but they turned a blind eye to his kiddy diddler ways because he had so much influence/power. Then when he killed his latest victims and hardly even tried to cover it up, they put the blame on young Holbrook - who happened to find the bodies maybe - to protect the powerful weirdo and in doing so protect their own self-interests? Like Rectify, but with a little more urgency and violence. I mean, the movie ended up having a weird random action/thriller-esque sequence anyway, so instead of dipping in and out of that tone, it may as well have been in the foundation of the story. But I digress. (for now)

Already being scared to face the consequences of her actions, Moss soaks up Holbrook's speech about not turning herself in just yet. She could decide to stay just one more day. And on that day, while thinking of how to approach her surrender in a way that might guarantee her some unbiased favor, she sees a cop car ride down the street. The detective that's been getting on Holbrook's case since the murder shows up with a couple of deputies to search his place again. Rather than running outside because she randomly has a delusion of her dead dog, Moss can run out of the house through the front door and circle around the back of the building, while the cops are upstairs talking with the landlord, requesting a key to Holbrook's place. The landlord lets them in and they snoop around, finding nothing. Meanwhile, Moss is outside behind the apartment under a window or in a corner, holding her hand over her mouth. She narrowly avoids getting seen, the cops leave. She waits for the sounds of them driving away, then tries to get back in through the window. Locked. Tries to get back in through the front door. Super locked. Then the rest of the movie can proceed as is.

The Big Fix

We're gonna need to perform some surgery on the timeline here. This movie went from passive to very active and action-filled, but too suddenly and in the wrong direction, which is why it was only half-committed to what little it did do. It wants to be a quiet, emotional journey about two stigmatized outcasts finding comfort and understanding in each other in this hostile little town that's full of high and mighty hypocrites who don't let people live down their mistakes or past wrongs. So the story should engage this setting more. It should build to something active and action-filled through the consequences of how the main characters react to increasingly intense challenges those hypocrites throw at them.

First things first, we make the killing of Abusive Cop Husband a part of Moss' backstory. Let's say it's been just shy of a year since that happened. She didn't get a day in jail for it, but nobody in town lets her forget that she's a murderer. She tries to go about her day to day life as normal as possible, putting up with rude stares and whispers and the occasional intimidating accost from her dead husband's friends, but no one touches her. (yet)

Holbrook, who we can still set up the story with the same way, gets told by his boss Spencer that he needs to go out more.

1. So his neighbors stop thinking he's planning his next serial murder.

2. To make more of an effort to re-acclimate to normal life.

So he eats out a diner for the first time; keeps to himself and chows quickly. People stare and whisper, which makes him anxious (hence the fast eating) but nobody goes near him.

First Contact: As he's walking back home with a doggy bag, he sees Moss for the first time. She's squatting at the edge of a patch of grass going into a field, whistling and clicking her teeth. "Here boy, come on. Here boy." Sensing a dog rescue afoot, Holbrook goes over to assist. He gives her a fright and they both back away a bit from each other. He introduces himself and asks if she's trying to coax out a lost dog. That's precisely what she's up to. She's even already named him "Charlie" after her father, even though the closest they've gotten is her watching him raid her trashcan. Holbrook helps her coax the dog out. He comes to Holbrook, who then gets him in her car. He gives her some quick dog care tips to get through the night and advises her to take him to get checked out by a proper vet for the bigger stuff. They say goodnight and he goes on his way first. She watches him walk away, becoming intrigued as she realizes she's never seen him around before.

Where is the vet's office? The same place as the dog shelter because it's a small town so of course the one veterinarian also runs the pound.

Second Contact: Moss arrives the next day to get Charlie checked out by Spencer the vet. She and Holbrook have a pleasant bashful chat in the meantime. To thank him for helping her, she offers to do something - like treat him to lunch and give him a hair cut. The latter which she acknowledges sounds odd, but it's what she used to do - be a hairdresser that is and she started by cutting men's hair, her daddy's specifically, so she swears she's steady with the razor. Holbrook looks a little self conscious, smiling all shy-like, and rubbing his face.

"I look that bad, huh?"

"Oh no, no it's...well, it's not great."

They chuckle.

Spencer is behind her giving Holbrook the nudge nod like say yes, fool.

So Holbrook accepts Moss invitation for lunch and a haircut at her place.

Pivotal Contact: Walking around town to Moss' place, Holbrook is getting some stares and whispers. He becomes a little overwhelmed by the broad daylight, almost turns back, but ultimately keeps ahead. He arrives at her place and they have fast food chicken sandwiches because as Moss puts it "I'm a terrible cook." Holbrook doesn't mind a bit. During the hair washing, cut, and shave, they just talk. The nerves dissipate, they share a few quiet laughs over some anecdotes of lighter times in their lives growing up in the areas they grew up in - wonder how it is they never met, only to conclude they probably did but never realized it. "For such a tiny town, it sure is easy to end up in whole other worlds from people not even a foot away from you every day," Moss can say.

At some point during their talk, they both hint at their personal controversies even though they don't want to delve into them, which makes them realize the other person doesn't know about said controversies. Odd since they're so used to everybody knowing that about them, but their ignorance is probably the reason they're able to be at ease around each other. So, they both agree to save their secrets for another day. Right as he's helping her clean up, playing with Charlie a bit, and basically getting ready to leave, a brick gets thrown through Moss' window. Moss is upset and angry, but tries to keep her cool in front of Holbrook. She hides the brick behind her back and rattles off 100 excuses for why it's no big deal that just happened. Holbrook apologizes, thinking it's about him. Moss assures him it wasn't.

During their time apart, their minds wander to each other. Separately, they get a talking to from people about being seen in each other's company. Holbrook by his boss Spencer, who encourages him to continue making a friend, but to be careful since he's not the only one with bullies always barking at his back. Holbrook asks for Moss' story. Spencer doesn't give too much because it's not her story to tell, so she just tells him that Moss is a good girl who got put in a bad situation and nobody lets her live it down. "Just like somebody else I know."

Moss on the other hand is confronted intimidatingly by the wife of her dead husband's best friend, who calls her all kinds of bitches and evil whores for trying to run around with the town psycho. She stands up for herself with a tough face and tone, but when the woman leaves, it shows that she's hurt. She cries, but she's determined to stay tough.

The premise I'm building to here is one in which Holbrook and Moss would become friends and confidants first. They would learn patience and understanding of each other by dealing with the aggressive repercussions of daring to step out into the world and try to have lives, especially when they make those efforts together. Those repercussions would be the obstacles they face that challenge their bond, but they ultimately overcome. The worse Moss' aggressors act (hurting Charlie and leaving his injured body on the porch for instance), the more Holbrook will be pushed into becoming his more monstrous self but this time not to protect/prove himself to other monsters, but to protect the link to his humanity from those other monsters.

In Holbrook's own case, Moss could be looking into who the real murderer of those little girls was and it could turn out to be one of her dead husband's friends a.k.a. one of the guys who is bullying her and perhaps one or two of the other friends helped cover it up; even gave false witness statements to incriminate Holbrook. And it's the fact that she's looking into that, trying to uncover these truths for her "psycho boyfriend Cyclopes" a.k.a. their scapegoat, that's making her bullies become more actively aggressive towards her and Holbrook in the first place. There could be a point here where Holbrook finds out what she's doing and wants her to stop, but she doesn't want to, so they get into an argument over why it matters.

To Holbrook it doesn't matter that people still think he's a killer because he knows he's not. So long as he's no longer locked up like one, he doesn't care what people think. To Moss it matters not only because those dead little girls deserve real justice but also because she knows how other people see Holbrook will always greatly affect his life - just like it affects hers. But unlike her, he doesn't deserve to be treated like a killer for the rest of his life because he isn't one. So, she's going to prove it whether he likes it or not. Having someone put everything on the line to protect him motivates Holbrook to do the same for her, which unfortunately gradually means summoning Cyclopes to keep her safe.

The most "action-movie" this otherwise indie romantic drama could delve into is Holbrook beating the shit out of their group of tormentors (killing none) and getting arrested. But he won't be sent back to prison because Moss' testimony, other sympathetic witnesses of their torment (Spencer and perhaps that one cop's "lovely latina” partner) coupled with the evidence she dug up on the real killer and conspirators will clear Holbrook of any serious charges, especially when that evidence reveals the real monsters (those responsible for what happened to those little girls and a teenager's wrongful imprisonment) to be the same ones Holbrook beat the shit out of, making self-defense all the more reasonable of a ruling.

The real monsters go to prison, Holbrook and Moss become a couple and they live together with a healed up Charlie in an actually furnished house where they have Spencer over for dinner often.

The End.

Post-Credit Notes:

So, everything has come full circle. The setting is utilized more, the microcosm of "society" that is this small town posses a much clearer and stronger threat to the characters' personal comfort and progress, and the connection between these two characters as individuals stigmatized by this little society due to their dark pasts was not only the beating heart of this tale, but drove the plot - the series of events - in a way that didn't overshadow or clash with the main theme of the story, but accentuated it. And I believe that main theme to be an examination of what it means to be enslaved by the world's perception of you; how to cope with and free oneself from this enslavement.

Now, of course I know that movies have constraints that books don't, namely money and time. So I understand that in a lot of cases, stories are altered to fit movie making means. If that's the case here, that's fine. I still enjoyed "The Free World" for what it was. But just purely looking at the story without any of those other outside factors, I think it could have been a much stronger version of itself in just a couple more drafts.

Shortly put: If it was a book, I'd buy it.

~R.J.

Author's Note: Alright, I've done enough talking. Now I want to hear from you guys. Discuss things. Did you see this movie? Did you like it? What do you think of my rewrite? How would you tackle a rewrite? Get those wheels turning. Backseat-writing other people's finished works is one of the best ways to sharpen your own pen. ;)

..........

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