Fic: Fonder In Absence, Chapter 5 (Criminal Minds, Sean / Cain, Hotch / Chad / Reid / Morgan)
Title: Fonder In Absence, Chapter 5
Pair: Spencer Reid / Derek Morgan,
Aaron Hotchner / Chad Christensen,
Sean Hotchner / Cain Christensen
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc
Feedback: Always Welcome.
Criminal Minds Main List
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“It`s one of these.” Hotch fondled his way through his keys in the semidarkness of the hallway. “I have it for emergencies.”
The drive from the restaurant to the apartment building had been quick. Cain’s phone call had gotten both men worried, and the silence of Sean’s apartment was quickly building up their concerns. Hotch finally found the right key and opened the door.
They snapped the lights on and walked in. Most of the apartment looked the way it always did. Hotch checked the kitchen, but excluding few dirty dishes in the sink there was nothing unusual. Sean had often complained how he only got to postpone washing dirty dishes when Cain was out of town, and a single plate with utensils waiting to be washed was a quiet proof of his statement.
“Babe? Take a look at this.” Chad’s voice stated from the living room. Hotch walked in and noticed right away what he had meant.
The floor was full of magazines and a spread bowl of peanuts that had fallen from the overturned coffee table. The cushions from the couch were scattered across the room.
“Are we thinking the same thing?”
“That he did this himself?” Hotch looked around the room, trying to find something he had missed. “Yes, it looks like it.”
“This doesn’t make sense. They weren’t even arguing about anything. People don’t just have impromptu meltdowns in the middle of a conversation.”
“I should have called him back.”
“This is really not the right time.” Chad fished out his phone from his coat pocket. “I’m gonna call Cain and while I’ll do that you’ll look for any contact information you can find about friends, places where he could have gone to, what could have triggered this. Then we start calling.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t-”
“Babe, I worked in the missing persons unit. Time is important, start looking.”
Hotch nodded and turned to take one more look at the living room. The entire television set had been turned to face the wall and the cords had been ripped from the outlet.
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“Whoever this is…” Morgan slurred into the phone. “I don’t wanna take part in a survey, I don’t wanna buy a vacuum cleaner and I’m-”
“HoneyBunny, would you shut up for a minute?”
“Garcia?”
“Yeah. Can you come to my place right now?”
“It’s… What time it?” Morgan looked at the clock on the nightstand, but it was still too dark to see the time.
“After three. I wouldn’t call you so early, but Kevin’s not staying the night and I didn’t want to call him back.”
“So instead you’re waking me up.”
“That’s what friends are for. I would get up at three in the morning for you.”
“Okay… What’s the emergency?”
“My dress.”
“What are you flashing this time?”
“I was taking it off after Kevin drove me home and it got stuck.”
“Stuck where?”
“The zipper got stuck to my skin. Even little moves hurt like hair removal South of the border with a pair of tweezers. I can’t get it off and I can’t get it back on and it hurts!”
“Can’t you ask a neighbour to help you with it?”
“At three in the morning? What kinda awful inconsiderate neighbour would do that?”
"You know, this is not the first time you use that excuse..."
"What excuse? It`s the truth."
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A toot of a car horn startled Sean out of his light sleep. He blinked furiously, trying to get himself fully awake. The remote parking lot he had found was as silent as it had been ten minutes before when he had parked his car to a dark corner.
The gas tank was almost empty, but the drive hadn’t brought any feel of clarity. Robert’s words echoed in his mind, forming a soundtrack for the vivid pictures of the DVD. His mind had started pulling him to two different decisions, then four, then ten. His thoughts were scattered and the only thing he could fully comprehend was the thought that he could loose Cain. His stomach protested the lengthy gap between meals with a loud groan. He rummaged through his stash of chocolate bars he kept in the glove compartment and tore one out of its wrapper. He managed to swallow two bites before the nausea returned and he had to throw the snack out of the window.
His cell phone kept blinking on the passenger seat. It was set on mute, but the flashing red light kept hitting his eyes, making the growing headache even worse. The streetlights were casting faint rays of light on the street, but none of them reached his car. Sunrise was still more than two hours away. After a brief consideration he snapped the small ceiling light on and ignored the quick flash of pain through his throbbing head.
Sean flipped through his wallet and wriggled one of the photographs out of the plastic divider. It was rumpled and the edges had been cut off to make it fit the little slot. The picture was taken on the trip to Cain’s friend’s cabin in the woods. The blue lake formed a glittering background and in the front Sean was standing shoulder to shoulder with Cain. Both were wearing a wide smile and Cain had a damp towel still wrapped around his waist after his swim.
Sean sighed and placed the photo back into its slot and put his wallet back to his pocket. He had regretted his one night in Robert’s house and he would regret what he was about to do, but he wasn’t willing to take the risk of loosing what he had with Cain.
He started the car and manoeuvred the vehicle slowly out of the parking lot. The darkness of the early morning made his sense of direction vague, but he remembered where the house was.
He had seen it often enough in his nightmares.
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“Tell me you got something.” Hotch demanded. “I’m in a dead-end here.”
“Where are you?”
“In my office.” Hotch leaned over his desk to read the prints once more and moved the phone to his other hand. “I asked the night-tech to check the phone records. A lot of incoming calls, but they’re all unanswered. No calls out.”
“I’ve been driving back and forth, and I haven’t seen his car anywhere.” Chad reported. A series of sounds revealed he had pulled over to the side of the road. “We know he took his car, so maybe he was going somewhere further away.”
“I don’t know what to think.” Hotch paused and corrected himself. “No, I know exactly what I’m thinking and all those thoughts are the kind I don’t want to think about. And none of them are professional.”
“This is not one of your cases, you don’t need to try to be professional. Sunlight’s coming in two hours, we got better odds to find his car and if we find it we’ll know where to look.”
“Did you call Cain again? Maybe he has some ideas where he would go.”
“I called him and he’s on his way back. I told him not to leave on a motorcycle before daylight, but he’s….”
“Like you.”
“Sometime’s more than I would like to admit.”
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“Wow…” Morgan commented with his mouth wide open.
“No the right time!” Garcia complained and turned her back to him. “Let me out of my misery!”
“Hold still…” He got his first good look at her backside and grimaced. “How did you get all that skin there? That looks like a meat grinder in the middle of a pork chop-”
“I resent that remark and I’m seriously loosing my normal sunny attitude!”
“Shhhh. Take a deep breath.”
Garcia followed orders. Two seconds after her inhale he yanked the zipper down and she howled like a coyote.
“You know what?”
“If you even mention the word diet-”
“No, I was just thinking… Reid would never believe how active my nights are when he’s away.”
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The front gate was open. Sean slipped into the garden, following the lights in one of the upstairs windows. The rest of the house was dark. He climbed up the stairs one at a time, and rang the doorbell. He placed his hand on one of the columns for support and waited for someone to open the door.
Sudden burst of light in the ground floor signalled that the doorbell had been heard. The oak door was pulled open and he came face to face with an elderly woman. Despite the early hour, she was dressed in a black maid’s uniform, completed with a white apron. Her face seemed to be fixed in a permanent frown, but she appeared to be used to guests popping in at odd hours. She let him in and pointed at the door across the high-ceilinged foyer.
“Master is in his entertainment room.” Her voice carried the same “I’ve seen it all” attitude as her facial expressions. “I’m going to sleep in half an hour, so if you require something to eat or drink, you can ask before I leave.”
“You go to bed at five?”
“Master is nocturnal, and I’ve worked here too long to care.” Her statement was made without much feeling, but her tone sounded a bit softer.
Sean went to the door she had pointed out and knocked. It wasn’t completely shut and his knock made it swing open. Even with the lights off and the only light coming from glowing screens, the entertainment room was worthy of it’s name: An army of flat screens filled one wall while the other three were occupied by different varieties of entertainment technology. In the middle of the room was a white leather couch, where the owner of the house was sprawled widely, watching a movie.
Sean made a conscious effort not to look at the screens. He didn’t need to. The voices were enough.
Robert was watching the film from Sean’s night in the house.
“Turn that off.”
“Why?” The man twisted his head to see Sean. “You’re early.”
“Yeah, right. Blackmailing so strict on timing.”
“Blackmailing? I didn’t force you here.” Robert pulled himself up from the couch and went to the side cabinet. “You look like you’re about to walk in front of a firing squad.” He poured a glass of brandy and offered it to Sean. “Maybe that will calm your nerves.”
“I want the disc.” Sean squeezed the glass in his hand. “Before anything else you’ll give me the disc.”
“Don’t you trust me?” Robert grinned and walked around him like a shark eyeing its prey. He placed his hands on Sean’s waist and grinded himself against his back. “I’m a man of my word.” He was already hard, pressing his erection against Sean’s buttocks. “But I’ll make you work for it first.”
Sean’s hands were shaking so badly he almost spilt the drink. He emptied the glass in one gulp and closed his eyes. A wave of nausea washed over him. The hardness rubbing against him, the hands on his hips, the pornographic sounds of the video rolling on dozens of screens. The lack of real food or sleep combined with the alcohol made him feel unsteady on his feet. Panic was taking over. He would have run, but his body was in no condition to do that.
“Please… I don’t wanna do this.”
“I don’t care. We got a deal.”
“I’m serious, let go of me.” Sean made a hasty attempt to escape, but the hands holding him were stronger than he would have thought. He hadn’t even thought about how Robert was taller and larger than him. Now all the scenarios that realisation brought made his stomach turn.
The hands left their place at his hips and wandered across the hem of his shirt. One dived under his shirt, the other one moved down to grasp his crotch through the coarse denim. The tight grasp made Sean startle and the glass fell from his hand, shattering on the hardwood floor. The nausea was turning into dizziness, and Sean couldn’t fight when he was pushed down onto the couch. A heavy body pressed him down, and a pair of hands started to unbutton his jeans.
Sean tried to scream, but the whole world seemed to twirl around uncontrollably. Then the rollercoaster reached its peak.
The drink and the little he had consumed came back and Sean threw up, most of it ending up on Robert’s shirt. The man had stopped in pure shock. He pulled back a bit and stared down at his shirt. Sean took advantage of his shock and shoved him as hard as he could. Sean got up and staggered across the room, leaning on the furnitures to keep himself up. Somewhere behind him he head a loud groan. His unsteady body protested against the sudden movements, but sheer panic gave him an energy boost to pull the door open and escape into the foyer.
For few seconds he was lost, not sure where he had come from. The same woman who had let him in hurried to the front door and held it open for him. Sean forced himself into one more dash, but once he got to the gate his legs gave up. He hung on to the cast-iron gate and panted.
The last burst of strength was coming to an end and he sunk down to his knees.
Chapter 6