Live and Die This Way - Chapter 2
Title: Live and Die This Way [2/13]
Author: wanderingjasper
Rating: FRT
Characters: Morgan/Reid, ensemble
Word Count: 1362
Themes: AU, action, angst, romance.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, but I do take liberties with them for no financial gain.
Notes: Warning and rating deal with the chapter content. The story as a whole deals with the concept of sexual slavery and other adult concepts.
Warning: Violence, adult concepts.
Summary: Morgan struggles with what he has to do, even though he doesn't have a choice.
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They drove without speaking, only the radio for company. Two hours of driving, and the occasional tiny noise of pain from the masked man beside him left Morgan frustrated. He pulled up again on the highway, grumbling as he reached into the backseat. The man was shrinking away from him again, head jolting as he turned at each little noise. He yelled when Morgan grabbed one of his arms.
“Hey!” Morgan barked. “Keep still!”
The man was scared enough to comply, but the pain he was likely expecting never came. Morgan examined the man’s wrist, which was rubbed raw and bleeding, and had been the cause of the man’s pained noises.
“Damn, kid.” He murmured. “Sit still.” He got out of the car, taking a bottle of water with him and went around to the passenger’s side to open the door. “Put your arms out. I’m not going to hurt you,” he added when the man hesitated.
Slowly he extended his arms, and Morgan gripped the fingers of one hand to steady it as he poured water over his damaged wrist. The man tried to flinch but Morgan had a firm hold, and when he realised what it was he relaxed. He gently cleaned the wound with his thumb under the steady stream of water. He did the other, thumbing away a patch of dried blood, with care not to disturb the wound and make it bleed again. He pulled up the bottom of the trousers the man was wearing to look at his ankles, which were sore and red but not bleeding, so he left them.
“What’re you doing?” the man asked as Morgan climbed back into the car and clicked open his medical kit.
“I’m gonna bandage your wrists. They’ll get infected otherwise.”
Carefully Morgan wrapped bandages around the wounded flesh, and as he did he couldn’t help his eyes wandering. The man was skinny, with a lot of scruffy brown hair, a tangled mess around his face. He had a small nose with a few faint freckles across the bridge, high cheekbones, and plump pink lips, which were slightly cracked.
“Thanks.” The blindfolded man murmured.
“Don’t thank me. They told me to bring you in undamaged.”
He pulled his gaze away to pack the medical kit up again, and started to drive. The sun was high in the sky and the landscape was getting slowly more populated as they came up to a town. A town meant conveniences, and food. It also meant the risk of exposing his passenger and having someone asking questions as to why he had a bandaged, blindfolded man in his car. He drew his gun out and cocked it just to use to placate the passenger; the man gasped and flinched, recognising the sound.
“Need you to be quiet, kid,” he said. “If you make a fuss, that’ll be the easiest way to get yourself killed. Got it?” The man nodded. “You hungry?”
“I- what?”
“Are you hungry?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Morgan nodded to himself as he turned the car into a drive-thru. “Keep quiet,” he reminded the man as he pressed the button to roll down the driver window so he could speak into the intercom. The woman at the service window seemed too distracted by him to notice his passenger as he collected the food. He shoved one of the bags unceremoniously at the captive as he headed back to the highway, his own between his knees. The man still hadn’t opened his by the time they were heading out of the town.
“You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”
“Huh? No.”
“Get some food in you, then.”
Hesitating as the paper bag crinkled between his fingers, the man turned his covered face towards Morgan and the sound of his voice. “This is all for me?”
“What? Yeah,” Morgan said obviously. “It’s just a burger and fries.”
He didn’t seem to be listening, as he began wolfing down his fries several at a time, small appreciative noise escaping him.
“When was the last time you had a decent meal?” Morgan chuckled, but as he glanced over he was reminded how skinny the man was. The man’s eating had slowed a little, seemingly over the panic that the food would disappear or be taken away if he didn’t eat it quick enough. They ate in quiet for a while, the radio volume low in the background.
“You got a name, kid?”
The man, who had just taken a large bite of burger, drew it away from his mouth, chewing slowly, and was sure if he wasn’t blindfolded he would have been staring at him. After a moment, he swallowed.
“What are you doing?”
“What?” Morgan looked away from the road a second.
“Dressing my wounds, clothing me, feeding me, asking my name, as if you haven’t got a clue what you’re taking me to.”
“Kid-”
“You’d have to be stupid not to realise you’re now a sex trafficker. Because let me remind you in case you’re trying to convince yourself otherwise, I was tied up and naked in the trunk of your car. I’m getting sold from one man to another. For sex. To a man who will beat me, fuck me, and cut me to pieces, over and over until he’s got his money’s worth. Possibly not in that order.”
Morgan discarded the remainder of his burger out of his window, his appetite fleeing, while the other man went back into take another bite of his.
“Are you just going to hand me over? Is it going to be that easy for you to treat me like a human being and then...” His voice trailed off, and he turned his face away as he continued to eat.
“I wanted to let you go as soon as I realised I had a person in the trunk,” he said, not looking away from the road. “I would have. Except they know where my friend lives. She’s got a girlfriend, and two kids, and she’s-”
“More important than I am.” The man nodded, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “I guess this is better than being in the trunk.” He gave a little laugh, a resigned sound he had probably made before.
Morgan kept driving, heading for the destination, even though the uneasy feeling in his gut kept growing stronger. “You’re not bullshitting me, are you?” Morgan said, fidgeting. “That that’s what’ll happen to you? You’re not just some punk-ass kid I’m driving home to daddy?”
“People who are sold into sexual slavery usually don’t get sold on to a secondary buyer. It’s even rarer for them to get sold on again. The odds are that the man who bought me will kill me.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty one. Which is pretty old in this world.”
“Have you always been a-” he faltered.
“No. About two years ago I was a junkie, and broke. I met a guy who promised to help me get clean. He did, but only so he could sell me to another man.”
“Why is that guy selling you on?”
“He’s trading up,” the man said in a small voice. “The man I’m going to - they call him The Spear - he likes ‘second hand’ product; he likes that when he’s done he gets to dispose of them. I don’t know why, it could be anything: black market organ trafficking, murder or torture for sport, snuff pornography-”
“Stop!” he snapped, thumping the steering wheel.
“You asked.”
“I know, god. I can’t let you go. My friends have two kids. God, what the hell’s your name?”
“I think it would be easier if I don’t tell you, seeing as we know how this will end.”
“It shouldn’t be easy,” Morgan said determinedly. “It shouldn’t be easy to hand you over to get killed.”
The man didn’t speak. Morgan kept driving, trying to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach. His friends - his family - were in danger, and to keep them safe he was going to have to deliver another human being into sexual slavery.
“Spencer Reid.”
“What?”
“My name.”
“Oh,” he said, and then after a beat, “Derek Morgan.”