Fic: Live and Die This Way 11/13
Title: Live and Die This Way [11/13]
Author: wanderingjasper
Rating: FRM
Characters: Morgan/Reid, Hotch
Word Count: 2013
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 themes. Previous chapters. Thanks go to my beta reader.
Warning: Violence, adult concepts, references to rape.
Summary: Morgan's wounds are getting worse, and it's not over.
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By the time they were out of the city, Morgan could feel himself flagging behind the wheel. The pain was getting worse, and he was struggling not to let it show. Beside him Reid sat alert with nervous excitement, finally free and waiting for the last stretch to be over.
“Fuck,” Morgan growled when he hit the break instead of the accelerator by mistake, jerking them forward.
“Derek, are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“You’re lying. You’re hurt, aren’t you?” Reid peered at him, bringing a gentle hand to touch his arm. When Morgan eased away from it, Reid had his answer, and Morgan knew there was no point trying to pretend he was uninjured.
“I got shot. Three times. Arm. Shoulder. Leg.”
“Derek, stop the car.”
“We haven’t got time-”
“Stop the car, let me drive,” Reid insisted. “You clearly need to rest.”
“You can drive?”
“I’ve known how to drive since I was fourteen.”
Begrudgingly Morgan stopped driving, and hobbled to swap sides with Reid. It was a relief, really; he didn’t think he could last much longer on his feet. He needed rest, and more medical attention; the painkillers JJ had given him were wearing off.
“It’s good you came when you did,” Reid said casually. “I was coming up with a way to commit suicide. I wasn’t going to let him rape me again.”
“Fuck, Spencer,” Morgan groaned, his chest tightening, “I’m sorry I didn’t reach you sooner.”
“It wasn’t any worse than Hankel. I just struggled this time, so I got hurt. Not your fault; you did get shot,” he said, smiling. Morgan fought to return it, but the image of Reid on that cot, blindfolded and handcuffed and struggling as Breitkopf assaulted him came quickly and he felt his eyes prickling with angry tears. He couldn’t let himself cry; if Reid hadn’t, he certainly shouldn’t. He wondered if Reid’s eidetic memory meant he remembered exactly how many times he’d been raped; Morgan couldn’t imagine how horrific it must be to not be able to forget, to make the memories fuzzy and faded like he’d perfected.
“Which way are we headed?” Reid asked, as they approached a signpost. Morgan leaned forward to look at the sign, and never got a chance to answer. Neither of them saw the SUV coming in from off the side of the road, smashing into the driver’s side with a screech of twisting metal, which set off both front airbags as the car rocked from the force of the collision.
Morgan’s body lit up with pain as he felt around for his seatbelt clasp, disorientated. He gritted his teeth against the hurt and forced himself to focus, looking across at Reid, who was lolling forward against his seatbelt, unconscious.
“Spencer,” he said, reaching out to shake him by the shoulder. “Kid.”
Morgan’s door was wrenched open and someone reached in and grabbed him with an arm around his neck, dragged him out of the car and threw him down on the ground at the side of the road.
“Hello Hermes,” the man drawled, putting his foot on his chest and holding a large knife in his hand. “Or should I say Derek Morgan?”
He recognised the voice immediately; it was Foyet, the operator. He was grinning down at him, eyes hard and predatory.
“You really thought we’d just let you go? That you didn’t have a tail? That I wouldn’t find you? Your dyke friends might have managed to hide for now, but trust me, I will find them. ”
Foyet pressed his foot against Morgan’s wounded shoulder, making him cry out in pain, and kneeled down over the man’s chest, pressing the blade against his neck.
“When I’m done with you,” his voice was low and dangerous, with the lilt of a laugh that shouldn’t be there, “I’m going to drag that boy out of the car, bend him over the bonnet and fuck him. First, with my spear,” he chuckled at his own innuendo as he thrust his groin forward to illustrate the threat, “and then with my knife. And when he begs for me to kill him, I’ll gut him and leave him next to you on the side of the road to die slowly. I think I’ll watch. Now open wide, Derek, I’m going to give you such a pretty smile...”
One second he felt the cold metal against his lips and was trying to quickly decide how to limit the damage done to his mouth by the blade, and the next it was gone in a blur of movement. Reid, giving no sound of warning to give away his intent, had taken Foyet by surprise with a running tackle and pulled him off Morgan and to the side, where the men rolled away.
“Spencer!” he gasped, as Foyet scrambled to bring the knife around to attack Reid, but the lithe man was faster and ready, striking out with the gun he had in his hand. It hit Foyet hard in the side of the head and Reid was able to roll them. He didn’t have the advantage for long as Foyet lashed out, and Reid yelped in pain as the blade caught him somewhere Morgan couldn’t tell, but he didn’t stop fighting.
Morgan tried to move but he could taste blood, and his leg was shaking and the wound was bleeding. Reid was pinned under Foyet again and managed to pry his wrist out of the aggressor’s grasp, and pressed the pistol into Foyet’s gut as he loomed over him, and fired. Foyet howled in pain and lashed out wildly; Reid pushed the assailant off of him and unloaded the rest of the clip into the man’s torso, terrified determination on his face.
Foyet made a gurgling sound as he fell to the ground, and then went quiet and still. The fresh silence on the road was broken only by Reid’s sudden panicked breathing as he bent double with the gun still in hand, trying to compose himself. He’d shot two people in the space of a few hours, maimed one and killed another. His ability to hold himself together despite that would be admirable to Morgan if his world wasn’t pain. The wounds on his shoulder and arm were bleeding again as he turned to look up at a clear blue sky. Reid crawled over to him, shaking, and when he saw the blood blossoming on the fabric of Morgan’s jacket he grimaced.
“Derek, you’re gonna be okay,” he hushed as he pulled the man’s arm out of his jacket, then rolled his shirt sleeve up away from the bloody wound dressing. He reached into the jacket pocket and pulled out the blindfold scrunched in there, and tied it tightly around his arm, helping to put pressure on the wound. “C’mon,” he urged, guiding Morgan’s opposite hand to put pressure on his shoulder wound. “Keep the pressure on it, it’ll stop bleeding soon.”
Reid tucked the pistol into the back of his trousers and helped to ease Morgan to his feet, taking him back to the passenger side of the car. Morgan tried to put weight on his leg but he was still shaky and leant his weight on Reid as they went.
“I think it should still drive,” Reid called as he hurried around to the driver’s side and climbed inside through the window, the door smashed shut from the impact. He tried the ignition, and the car came to life. Morgan knew he must have passed out from the pain when Reid roused him asking for directions.
“Fuck,” he sounded.
“I assume we’re headed for the airfield?”
“Yeah. I need-” he groaned as he reached into his pocket to fish out his phone. He scrolled the contacts and found that JJ had programmed the number he needed in for him, and hit dial.
“Go.”
“Hotch?”
“Morgan?”
“Hotch, we’re twenty minutes away.”
“We’re all set for you here, Morgan.” There was a pause on the line. “Derek, are you okay?”
Reid reached across and squeezed his knee, offering a smile as he looked away from the road. Morgan returned it, even as his body throbbed with pain.
“I’ll be fine.”
He was not fine. By the time they’d reached the airfield he was still bleeding, and Reid was panicking. Morgan instructed him where they had to go and they were met by Hotch, who watched Morgan’s struggle to get out of the car with a stern gaze.
“What have you gotten yourself into this time, Derek?” Hotch said as he reached for him, supporting his weight.
“Please,” Reid said as he clambered across the seat and out of the car, looking at Hotch. “He needs medical attention. He could bleed out.”
“No,” Morgan said weakly, “we need to get in the air. We need to get out. We’re not safe.”
“Okay,” Hotch said. “Elle, hold things here, I’m going with them. I’m going to give him medical attention on the plane.”
A woman who had been studying the damage to the car signalled her understanding, and Hotch began to move with Morgan. He was struggling to pay attention; Hotch wasn’t much for talking, but when he did say something it was usually important.
He knew he was swimming in and out of consciousness, because the next steady thought he had was when he could feel himself in motion, as the plane took off from the runway. They were safe. Even if he died in the air, Reid was safe. He was so relieved he started to laugh.
“Derek,” Reid said, touching his face.
“He’s okay,” Hotch said as he pushed Reid aside and manoeuvred Morgan to lie down on a couch. “The bleeding looks like it’s mostly stopped. I’m going to sort these wounds out and give him a bag of blood and some fluids. What’s your name?”
“Spencer Reid,” he said hesitantly. Morgan focused through the pain to reach for Reid’s hand.
“It’s okay, I’d trust Hotch with my life. I have. He’s smart, Aaron, let him help if you need him.”
“Can you give an injection, Reid?” Hotch asked as he cut open Morgan’s pant leg, to pay attention to the only wound that was still oozing blood. Reid nodded. “Good. He needs something strong for the pain or he might go into shock.”
Morgan watched hazily as Reid took up a bottle of some kind of morphine and prepared an injection with a distant familiarity.
“This is going to help,” Spencer whispered close to Morgan’s ear as he prepared his arm. “It’s going to feel good, too, but it’s just once, okay? I need you to be okay.”
Morgan suddenly felt flooded with warmth, a feeling that quickly overtook everything; the pain, his sense of time. He felt himself relax under the effect of the narcotic.
Various pressures and sensations made their way to him. At two hours he asked for something, and eased into the pressure on his torso. Almost five hours later, he was lucid enough to realise that it was Reid, carefully lying on his chest and between his legs, wary of his injuries, and sleeping.
“You wanted to hold him,” Hotch said from the opposite sofa, where he was using a laptop. “He tried to stay awake but he’s exhausted. I dressed the cut on his arm and gave him a cream for whatever injury is making him uncomfortable when he tries to sit.”
Morgan grimaced, and lifted the hand that didn’t have an IV in it to stroke Reid’s hair.
“I recognised JJ’s patch job. How is she?”
“Okay,” Morgan said lazily. He could feel a dull throbbing in his arm, but it didn’t hurt.
“How are you?”
“I got shot,” Morgan said, because it felt like an appropriate answer.
“I noticed. He’s a wreck, from what I can see. God knows what I can’t. Those wrists are going to scar, and he needs to eat.”
“I’m going to take care of him.”
“I thought you might. And who is going to take care of you, Derek?”
“I’ll be fine.”