The Other Side, Part VI Criminal Minds Big Bang
All he knows is pain. He would rather be with Tobias Hankel again than feel this. The pain is so universal there is no originating point for it anymore. And, at least with Hankel he could talk with someone.
The large vampire comes in every day to clean and give him more supplies, which he can barely keep down anyhow, but never talks. He is completely silent. Spencer begs and begs. His tears blind him, as they roll down his dirty face mixing with his snot. The vampire just has that same blank expression while he continues day-in, day-out, doing his duty.
However, being alone is worse. He’s left with his colliding and self-deprecating thoughts. He did this to himself. He doesn’t deserve to even breathe any longer because not only has he ruined his life but he has demeaned the lives of those around him. There is not a single person he can point to knowing he made their life even a little better. He failed his father, his mother, Gideon, Hotch, and now he has even failed Supreme Councilor Chilcott. He can’t get better, he thinks, because he doesn’t want to get better.
***
Garcia and Morgan show up at Reid’s apartment when Prentiss called. After beating the whole story from Reid’s friend Ethan, and doesn’t that just grind Morgan. Reid had a best friend that none of them knew about. Well, actually there is plenty that Reid is keeping from them. Drugs? Fuck. He should have known. They all should have known.
Garcia takes charge, instinctively knowing that Morgan it too raw right now to call the shots. She calls the entire team back to the office. They need to get Reid back. They need him back now.
Hotch is the only one who doesn’t answer, but the others stop worrying about him when they walk into the bullpen. Hotch is still in his office, yelling at someone over the phone, wearing the same clothes he was wearing yesterday. He never left.
***
His heart is hammering. It’s gonna pop out of his chest. He knows it. Pacing back and forth non-stop, fighting the burn in his sore muscles, he keeps walking. He stops when a new vampire walks into his cage.
“Who the fuck are you? What are you gonna do? Just, go. OK? I don’t have anything,” Reid starts yelling at the unknown vampire. However, the figure doesn’t do anything new. He does exactly as Mr. Big and Silent does. He cleans and then drops off new supplies. He even keeps the same expression throughout all of Spencer’s paranoid rants. “I’m a fucking Selected, ok? You can’t, you can’t touch me.”
The vampire dummy walks out, and Reid, yelling still, trips and splits open his skin. Without sleep and sunlight, plus barely enough nourishment, Reid’s skin has become pasty and fragile. The skin tears as would a simple piece of computer paper. He screams out for help or recognition, but none comes. There is only the deafening silence of solitude. The slight drip, drip, drip can be heard from a leaky pipe somewhere in the dungeon, but that is his only response.
Spencer lies on the damp concrete floor, blood pouring out of his arm, seeping into the ground, and he recognizes his fate. He is only to be used as others want him. His cares, needs, desires are all irrelevant to the world. He wanted a childhood, but both his parents took that from him. He wanted Gideon to be with him, not the job, but Gideon only ever spoke with Spencer, in retrospect, when it helped with a case. Reid wants Hotch, but Spencer doesn’t deserve him.
He lies bleeding, broken-hearted, and finds himself overcome with obscurity. This floor could absorb him, much like it is doing to his blood, and no one would know or care. This is what he has been told from everyone important in his life. He accepts the fact readily and without question. He is a sub after all.
***
Hotch is about to leave the office on Friday and is contemplating going to see Reid. No, no. Reid isn’t his. He has no right to just…Fuck it. He’s going to do it. He’s the boss and his employee left work early for no apparent reason. He has a legitimate cause to be worried. Decision made, he nods his head and stands ready to…The phone rings, interrupting his the formulation of his plan.
“Hotchner.”
“I just wanted to alert you, Agent Hotchner, that Supreme Councilor Chilcott has decided to pull Dr. Reid from the FBI. The extraction has just been completed, and his placement within the FBI is now terminated.”
“Erin, what…”
A heavy sigh comes through the phone. “Look, Aaron, he was seeing someone.”
Hotch feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room. All of his already heightened senses sharply focus on this moment: the smooth glide of his fingers over the plastic phone, his toes stuck in his most uncomfortable pair of loafers, the heavy stench of cleanser in the building, all of the endless important documents sitting on his desk. His breath is knocked out of him and his stomach clenches uncomfortably. All of that is forgotten as his world narrows down the one man: Reid.
“And he, I mean you’ve seen his behavior spiraling out of control since Gideon left. He’s been using, and you and your team tried to hide it from me. We’ll be having another conversation and a complete review of your team next week, Agent Hotchner. Things like this cannot take place in the FBI. Good night.”
Hotch falls into his chair, unsure if anything will ever be the same. How did he get here?
He looks up, determined. If anyone is going to help Reid right now, it will not be the Council. It’s him. Reid is his.
He has some phone calls to make.
***
His fever breaks that next Friday. He is encrusted with dirt and sick and sweat. Spencer’s muscles still protest at movement, but the spasms have slowed to just a couple of times an hour.
Spencer was even able to sleep a few hours last night. It was heavenly.
This time when one of his guards enters his cage he drags in a hose. Finally, after seven days he hears another person’s voice.
“It’s time.”
***
JJ has spent the past week exhausting herself and every contact she has made within the media trying to get a lead on Reid, but he has vanished. She rests her head on the top of her desk in defeat, feeling completely useless. What help is she to Reid? She can’t even get a journalist interested in his disappearance.
She is startled by Prentiss’s voice. “You’re doing everything you can, JJ. Everyone is doing what they can. You can’t beat yourself up over Reid’s own choices.” She walks behind JJ’s desk to the weary woman and crouches down, placing an arm on her back. “We’ll find him. Garcia’s hacking into every computer on the planet looking for a trace of him. If he’s out in cyberspace she’ll find it. Morgan has contacted some of his local cop buddies to see if they have anything on the Council. Hotch probably had that phone surgically attached to his face, yelling at everyone in the D.C. area. And, you, JJ aren’t going to let Reid disappear. You’ll get his story out there. I believe in you. I mean, what I meant was we all believe in you. The team, that is.” Prentiss tries to back track while standing up and suddenly removing her touch.
JJ, with a smile touching her lips, looks up to the spot where Prentiss has backed up to the wall. “Yes. You’re right, but, Emily, you mentioned everyone on the team except for yourself. What have you been doing?”
Prentiss, smirking, “Well, funny you mentioned it, but I know a few vampires of status because of my mother’s ambassadorship, and I have heard whispers of some sort of meeting. I was thinking maybe you could help me find out more information.”
“Yeah, I think I could do that.”
***
Spencer is hosed down within an inch of his life. His guard is merciless and extremely thorough. By the time he leaves the dark dungeon he has called his home from the past eight days, he has survived his withdrawal intact, and he is freshly cleaned and clothed. Overall, although not strictly speaking prepared for whatever is coming next, he is in a singular headspace; whatever they want he will give. Anything, because the endurance test Spencer has just completed may not have actually killed him, but all of senses and sense of self have been deadened. He feels cold and alone and stuck forever like this. He hasn’t been touched in a week, and he never knew how important human touch was to him. As a matter of fact, on principle Reid is usually a man who won’t shake hands or take part in hugs, but his two years at the BAU have changed his relationship with the world at large. For Spencer, touch means he is cared for, means he is looked after, means he is loved.
The clothes he is deposited in are too large, having obviously been chosen for him at the beginning of the week before he had sweated out at least ten pounds. However, the looseness of his clothes provides a great handle for his guards to drag him. He is “walked” up the stairs into the main part of the mansion and deposited into the Council’s chambers. That small amount of movement, which was mostly being dragged somewhere, is the most exercise his body could handle. He collapses falling to his knees onto the cold, dark marble floor in front of the nine freakishly tall throne-like structures that caged him in along with the heavy wood barrier to his back. With nowhere to go and no energy to take him there, he lets his head sink down to stare at the floor while his body shakes with the effort to catch his breath. His legs begin to spasm again, merely an aftershock of all he has been through this past week.
Far-away words fight past the loud ringing in his head. He lifts his head as much as he can, letting his hair fall behind his ears from where it had been draped in his face and tries to find the source of the noise. It was Supreme Councilor Chilcott. When did he get here?
“…charged with breaking a sacred agreement with this Council. The particular clauses violated are as followed: purity of body, withholding the truth, sexual activity, and bloodletting. How do you plead to these charges, Selected?” Chilcott sneers the last word, as if he no longer wishes to bestow this honorific onto the human below. Honor, Spencer thinks brokenly, there is no honor in the Den. He and his fellow Selected are just that. Selected from crappy situations so the only real option they had was to say yes. There is no honor in manipulation, and that is all the Den teaches you; how to correctly live while being continuously manipulated by someone stronger and better than you. Spencer finally understands what they were trying to teach him. He is nothing without this manipulation, without this control.
“You will answer, Selected. How do you plead?” Silence follows. “ANSWER ME. HOW. DO. YOU. PLEAD.”
Reid is too broken to actually answer. What does he say? What does he want out of this hearing? To return to the Den? To go back to the BAU? To die?
“Warner, I don’t think he is able to…” Reid remembers the Councilor speaking is the same one who spoke for him during his hearing with Gideon…Griffin, he thinks, Councilor Griffin, former Selected. However, she is cut off by the spitting Chilcott.
“Councilor Griffin, I would appreciate it if you gave me my due deference within my own chambers. I understand that you are new to this court, and that your kind,” he grimaced looking from her to the fragile body lying beneath them, “can be extremely sympathetic, so you may not understand our customs. However, I am Supreme Councilor, so my word is law. Am I understood?”
Councilor Griffin, a younger woman who has flowing auburn hair which, although attempted, is too voluminous to be constrained by her tight bun, and falls framing her face. Her piercing blue eyes slide into slits, glaring at the older vampire who has not only embarrassed her on record and in front of all of her colleagues, but has, she decided, bullied subs for the last time. Biting her lip, enough to draw blood, which only made Chilcott smirk, she nods and sits back, silent for the rest of the hearing. She has some planning to do.
“Now. Dr. Spencer Reid, I believe the Council and I will take your silence as a plea of guilty.” Every member of the council nods their head, except for Griffin, who focuses her gaze on Spencer. “Thus, if you have no defense, which I can’t imagine you do, we will have to decide on the proper placement for you.”
A beat of silence.
“After much deliberation, we have decided that it would be the best for you, Spencer, to be placed with a Master who can control you. However, we would have to disclose all of your…history to any such Dom. This creates a problem, as what Dom would want a used sub like you?” Reid visibly flinches at the words so thoughtfully tossed at him. “And so, as a selfless act of gratitude to this Council, which has been such a huge part of my rise, I will personally take on this damaged and unwanted sub. If we all agree?”Chilcott speaks as though this were a speech he had rehearsed many times within the past week. His last comment, though, comes out as a threat instead of as a question. None of the council members misunderstand. There is general positive murmuring.
“Excellent. With the decision agreed upon, this case is hereby closed and archived as permanent record.” With the bang of the gavel on the rust-stained wood, Spencer, understanding in vivid detail his future, collapses forward onto his hands, bowed in abject submission in front of his Master.
***
If Spencer thought the Council’s mansion is large, then Chilcott’s personal castle out in the Blue Ridge Mountains is gigantic. It can only be reached by helicopter, unless you want to hike for a week, so Spencer is all alone with Chilcott, excluding his army of personal servants, but as Chilcott says, “Don’t worry. They won’t bother us.”
Sitting in the helicopter, Spencer is told to keep his head on his Master’s lap and not move. Spencer takes this command in stride. Overall, it isn’t that difficult. There is not any untenable sort of position he has to contort himself into, nor is there any direct pain applied. However, he is slapped on the ass every time he breaks position. In the back of his mind, Spencer can’t help but think this is a little uncalled for. He is in a moving helicopter. He has to move if it moves. Gravity and centrifugal force, as far as he was last informed, are not something that he has the power to control with the force of his will alone. Spencer, though, holds his tongue, because just imagining Chilcott’s facial expression if Spencer fully explained why he is wrong is enough to keep him in a malleable mood. Plus, the imagined punishment that would ensue is also a motivating factor for not opening his mouth.
Chilcott commands Spencer on to his hands and knees and forces him to crawl through the castle following his brisk pace, once they land and disembark. Spencer crawls through the twisting and winding house, idly he imagines that this must be what the rest of the TARDIS looks like. So many hallways seemingly going on forever and each room moving, fooling him into thinking he is traveling in a circle. They eventually make it to a dark maroon-painted room. It has heavy black-out curtains that are drawn which means the only light comes from the four spotlights that illuminate the walls. The walls house Chilcott’s prize collection of tools. Hundreds of whips, floggers, nipple clamps, canes, knives, chains, and ropes are all predominately displayed. However, it is the St. Andrew’s cross that occupies the far wall that catches and holds Spencer’s attention. He remembers his lessons in the Den with that dreaded thing. Hours he spent hanging there feeling abandoned and used.
There are many things Spencer finds attractive within the S&M culture: however, being effectively hog tied is not one of them. That is not to say he is finds being tied up abhorrent, it is just being tied up on something as impersonal as a cross or post is one of his put offs. Being tied up on a bed, being at the full mercy of his Dom whose full attention is focused onto only him, though, is a different story.
By the way that Chilcott’s pupils blow and his posture straightens, Spencer can assume that Chilcott has no such hang-up. “Now, Selected, if you can even still be called that, you’re mine, and you should be ever so grateful. I saved you from yourself and from those stupid leeches at the FBI. I have had my eye on you since Gideon first brought you as a boy to the Den. So, I think, that will be your name. Boy. Well, unless I think Whore has a better ring to it.” Chilcott laughs at his own joke. While Spencer, still in his baggy beige shirt and pants, kneels waiting for orders. Spencer remembers all of his lessons, and assumes that Chilcott will be looking for a perfectly obedient sub, and so keeps his mouth shut.
“Strip for me, boy,” Chilcott barks once his laughter dies.
Spencer stands, removing his two pieces of clothing efficiently and quietly, and makes sure his eyes are focused on the ground to show him submission. Chilcott walks in a tight circle around him. Chilcott proprietarily touches Spencer’s pale skin; his hip, his left arm, his spine. “Yes,” he murmurs to himself, “I can work with this.”
He walks to the wall covered in floggers and deliberates for a moment until finally picking a rubber one with holes drilled into it. Turning around, “Get into position, boy. Your Master wants to play.”
Spencer, as an immediate reflex, goes to the wooden horse, next to the cross, and leans over, bearing his ass. Chilcott takes a moment to appreciate the view and then, unannounced, slams the flogger against Spencer. He flogs Spencer long enough to turn Spencer’s back, ass, and top of his thighs a violent shade of red. Even through the pain and the humiliated comments spoken into his ear, Spencer has not cried. He has not let himself. He knows that Chilcott is not “playing a scene” or anything of the kind. He is simply asserting his dominance; showing Spencer who has all the control.
“Kneel, whore.”
Spencer gingerly slides off of the wooden seat, and he kneels in front of his Master. His Master, God. How did he get here?
“That was just a little introduction. My guess is you got soft during your time away at the FBI. Well, that is all about to change. You are mine. You will do as I say. I guess you noticed you don’t have a safe word, and there’s a reason for that. You won’t need one because you will do as I say, Boy. Now, after that little romp, you have gotten me all excited,” he says, pointing down to the tent in his pants. “Naughty boy. I guess you will just have to fix it.”
Spencer understands the implicit order and unzips his Master’s pants and takes out his hard cock. Staring at the large, angry head for a second, all of his lessons on giving head flash before his mind, and he wraps his lips around his Master’s dick. At that moment, it is Hotch’s face that flashes in his mind’s eye, and he falters. His Master pulls his hair roughly, reminding him of his duty. Thinking of Hotch, he sucks off Chilcott, letting a tear leak from his eye.
***
The next week precedes much the same. He is never clothed, but has yet to come. Spencer is not particularly upset about that fact, and neither is Chilcott. Actually he thinks Chilcott gets off on it.
However Reid, even when stimulated, has not even gotten hard. He prides himself on this, thinking that is at least a little part of himself he can save for Hotch. Not that Hotch would ever take Spencer, especially not after this, and Spencer certainly will not be leaving Chilcott ever. So, intellectually, his pride in this fact doesn’t make sense, but it is all he has. Just thinking of Hotch makes him feel better, but he knows that Hotch is likely in some state looking for a serial killer as he is supposed to have completely forgotten about Spencer. That makes Spencer smile; knowing that Hotch gets to continue living and is able to find his own love in life, gives Spencer something to hang on to. He studiously ignores the unpleasant clenching of his stomach when he thinks of Hotch with someone else because he knows he can never be with Hotch. He knows even if he had the opportunity he isn’t good enough for Hotch. He is just a whore, a worthless good for nothing slut. That’s fine, he thinks, as long as Hotch is out there, Spencer will have something he can believe in and hang on to.
Chilcott, though, has yet to take everything Spencer is supposed to give him. They have had sex numerous times, which doesn’t particularly bother Spencer other than the pain, but that he can get over. Chilcott has yet to take any of his blood. It is keeping Spencer on edge; he barely sleeps at night imaging what horror Chilcott will create to take his blood. He just wants it over because then he can just live like this, but the large unknown is haunting him.
All is explained on Spencer’s fifth day in Chilcott’s castle. “We will be having a collaring ceremony, Boy. Aren’t you excited?”
“Yes, Master.”
Stalking towards his sub’s kneeling body, Chilcott towers over Spencer. Chilcott almost always has Spencer on his knees, and Spencer guesses this has to do with the fact that Chilcott is short. Not comically so, but short enough to feel dwarfed by the abnormally tall Spencer. So, Spencer assumes, Chilcott enjoys towering; Spencer can tell because half of the time Chilcott is standing he is actually towering. He towers over Spencer, over his staff, even over his poor Cocker Spaniel, Tootsie.
“It will be taking place here,” he says, stepping away from towering for a moment, in order to sway his arms indicating his palatial estate. “You will be my crown jewel, Boy. A Selected on my arm. This will be the social event of the season, my Boy! Plus, I will finally get to taste you, and I can hardly wait any longer,” he says, his fangs dropping.
“Of course, Master.”
Returning his gaze to Spencer and returning to towering, he says, “You don’t sound excited, Boy. What’s wrong? You can tell your Master.” He uses his hand and drags Spencer chin up so he can kiss him. It is less a kiss and more a devouring. Chilcott overruns Spencer’s mouth, forcefully taking what he would have gently given up. He pulls away and with foreign kind eyes he whispers, “Tell me.”
“It is only, Master, maybe this is not the best location for the collaring. This place is so far away. Surely holding it here will limit the guests. I just worry about the right people not bearing witness to your true rise to power, Master.”
“Hmmm,” Chilcott steps back, his thoughts whirling, “You may be right, Boy. It will be difficult for everyone to come one helicopter at a time. But, then, my little smart one, where shall we hold your crowning moment?”
“I don’t know, Master. Perhaps, no you can’t do that….”
Chilcott rushes forward and grabs Spencer’s face harshly. Angry, he spits, “What, Boy? What don’t you think I can do?”
“Nothing, no-nothing, Sir,” Reid, shaking, responds. He doesn’t mean to anger his Master. “I just thought perhaps you could hold the ceremony at the Council’s mansion. To show your power extends to and through the Council, as well.”
Chilcott laughs in glee, “Yes! That’s it. It’s perfect. Everyone will want to attend, and everyone I want to attend will be able to attend. I now see that all of that education we paid for pays off! I think you deserve a treat for helping your Master so, don’t you?”
Spencer knows that treats don’t usually mean anything good for him, but his Master’s question is not actually a question. It is a prompt, and Spencer knows his line.
“Yes, Master.”
Ctd. Part VII
The large vampire comes in every day to clean and give him more supplies, which he can barely keep down anyhow, but never talks. He is completely silent. Spencer begs and begs. His tears blind him, as they roll down his dirty face mixing with his snot. The vampire just has that same blank expression while he continues day-in, day-out, doing his duty.
However, being alone is worse. He’s left with his colliding and self-deprecating thoughts. He did this to himself. He doesn’t deserve to even breathe any longer because not only has he ruined his life but he has demeaned the lives of those around him. There is not a single person he can point to knowing he made their life even a little better. He failed his father, his mother, Gideon, Hotch, and now he has even failed Supreme Councilor Chilcott. He can’t get better, he thinks, because he doesn’t want to get better.
***
Garcia and Morgan show up at Reid’s apartment when Prentiss called. After beating the whole story from Reid’s friend Ethan, and doesn’t that just grind Morgan. Reid had a best friend that none of them knew about. Well, actually there is plenty that Reid is keeping from them. Drugs? Fuck. He should have known. They all should have known.
Garcia takes charge, instinctively knowing that Morgan it too raw right now to call the shots. She calls the entire team back to the office. They need to get Reid back. They need him back now.
Hotch is the only one who doesn’t answer, but the others stop worrying about him when they walk into the bullpen. Hotch is still in his office, yelling at someone over the phone, wearing the same clothes he was wearing yesterday. He never left.
***
His heart is hammering. It’s gonna pop out of his chest. He knows it. Pacing back and forth non-stop, fighting the burn in his sore muscles, he keeps walking. He stops when a new vampire walks into his cage.
“Who the fuck are you? What are you gonna do? Just, go. OK? I don’t have anything,” Reid starts yelling at the unknown vampire. However, the figure doesn’t do anything new. He does exactly as Mr. Big and Silent does. He cleans and then drops off new supplies. He even keeps the same expression throughout all of Spencer’s paranoid rants. “I’m a fucking Selected, ok? You can’t, you can’t touch me.”
The vampire dummy walks out, and Reid, yelling still, trips and splits open his skin. Without sleep and sunlight, plus barely enough nourishment, Reid’s skin has become pasty and fragile. The skin tears as would a simple piece of computer paper. He screams out for help or recognition, but none comes. There is only the deafening silence of solitude. The slight drip, drip, drip can be heard from a leaky pipe somewhere in the dungeon, but that is his only response.
Spencer lies on the damp concrete floor, blood pouring out of his arm, seeping into the ground, and he recognizes his fate. He is only to be used as others want him. His cares, needs, desires are all irrelevant to the world. He wanted a childhood, but both his parents took that from him. He wanted Gideon to be with him, not the job, but Gideon only ever spoke with Spencer, in retrospect, when it helped with a case. Reid wants Hotch, but Spencer doesn’t deserve him.
He lies bleeding, broken-hearted, and finds himself overcome with obscurity. This floor could absorb him, much like it is doing to his blood, and no one would know or care. This is what he has been told from everyone important in his life. He accepts the fact readily and without question. He is a sub after all.
***
Hotch is about to leave the office on Friday and is contemplating going to see Reid. No, no. Reid isn’t his. He has no right to just…Fuck it. He’s going to do it. He’s the boss and his employee left work early for no apparent reason. He has a legitimate cause to be worried. Decision made, he nods his head and stands ready to…The phone rings, interrupting his the formulation of his plan.
“Hotchner.”
“I just wanted to alert you, Agent Hotchner, that Supreme Councilor Chilcott has decided to pull Dr. Reid from the FBI. The extraction has just been completed, and his placement within the FBI is now terminated.”
“Erin, what…”
A heavy sigh comes through the phone. “Look, Aaron, he was seeing someone.”
Hotch feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room. All of his already heightened senses sharply focus on this moment: the smooth glide of his fingers over the plastic phone, his toes stuck in his most uncomfortable pair of loafers, the heavy stench of cleanser in the building, all of the endless important documents sitting on his desk. His breath is knocked out of him and his stomach clenches uncomfortably. All of that is forgotten as his world narrows down the one man: Reid.
“And he, I mean you’ve seen his behavior spiraling out of control since Gideon left. He’s been using, and you and your team tried to hide it from me. We’ll be having another conversation and a complete review of your team next week, Agent Hotchner. Things like this cannot take place in the FBI. Good night.”
Hotch falls into his chair, unsure if anything will ever be the same. How did he get here?
He looks up, determined. If anyone is going to help Reid right now, it will not be the Council. It’s him. Reid is his.
He has some phone calls to make.
***
His fever breaks that next Friday. He is encrusted with dirt and sick and sweat. Spencer’s muscles still protest at movement, but the spasms have slowed to just a couple of times an hour.
Spencer was even able to sleep a few hours last night. It was heavenly.
This time when one of his guards enters his cage he drags in a hose. Finally, after seven days he hears another person’s voice.
“It’s time.”
***
JJ has spent the past week exhausting herself and every contact she has made within the media trying to get a lead on Reid, but he has vanished. She rests her head on the top of her desk in defeat, feeling completely useless. What help is she to Reid? She can’t even get a journalist interested in his disappearance.
She is startled by Prentiss’s voice. “You’re doing everything you can, JJ. Everyone is doing what they can. You can’t beat yourself up over Reid’s own choices.” She walks behind JJ’s desk to the weary woman and crouches down, placing an arm on her back. “We’ll find him. Garcia’s hacking into every computer on the planet looking for a trace of him. If he’s out in cyberspace she’ll find it. Morgan has contacted some of his local cop buddies to see if they have anything on the Council. Hotch probably had that phone surgically attached to his face, yelling at everyone in the D.C. area. And, you, JJ aren’t going to let Reid disappear. You’ll get his story out there. I believe in you. I mean, what I meant was we all believe in you. The team, that is.” Prentiss tries to back track while standing up and suddenly removing her touch.
JJ, with a smile touching her lips, looks up to the spot where Prentiss has backed up to the wall. “Yes. You’re right, but, Emily, you mentioned everyone on the team except for yourself. What have you been doing?”
Prentiss, smirking, “Well, funny you mentioned it, but I know a few vampires of status because of my mother’s ambassadorship, and I have heard whispers of some sort of meeting. I was thinking maybe you could help me find out more information.”
“Yeah, I think I could do that.”
***
Spencer is hosed down within an inch of his life. His guard is merciless and extremely thorough. By the time he leaves the dark dungeon he has called his home from the past eight days, he has survived his withdrawal intact, and he is freshly cleaned and clothed. Overall, although not strictly speaking prepared for whatever is coming next, he is in a singular headspace; whatever they want he will give. Anything, because the endurance test Spencer has just completed may not have actually killed him, but all of senses and sense of self have been deadened. He feels cold and alone and stuck forever like this. He hasn’t been touched in a week, and he never knew how important human touch was to him. As a matter of fact, on principle Reid is usually a man who won’t shake hands or take part in hugs, but his two years at the BAU have changed his relationship with the world at large. For Spencer, touch means he is cared for, means he is looked after, means he is loved.
The clothes he is deposited in are too large, having obviously been chosen for him at the beginning of the week before he had sweated out at least ten pounds. However, the looseness of his clothes provides a great handle for his guards to drag him. He is “walked” up the stairs into the main part of the mansion and deposited into the Council’s chambers. That small amount of movement, which was mostly being dragged somewhere, is the most exercise his body could handle. He collapses falling to his knees onto the cold, dark marble floor in front of the nine freakishly tall throne-like structures that caged him in along with the heavy wood barrier to his back. With nowhere to go and no energy to take him there, he lets his head sink down to stare at the floor while his body shakes with the effort to catch his breath. His legs begin to spasm again, merely an aftershock of all he has been through this past week.
Far-away words fight past the loud ringing in his head. He lifts his head as much as he can, letting his hair fall behind his ears from where it had been draped in his face and tries to find the source of the noise. It was Supreme Councilor Chilcott. When did he get here?
“…charged with breaking a sacred agreement with this Council. The particular clauses violated are as followed: purity of body, withholding the truth, sexual activity, and bloodletting. How do you plead to these charges, Selected?” Chilcott sneers the last word, as if he no longer wishes to bestow this honorific onto the human below. Honor, Spencer thinks brokenly, there is no honor in the Den. He and his fellow Selected are just that. Selected from crappy situations so the only real option they had was to say yes. There is no honor in manipulation, and that is all the Den teaches you; how to correctly live while being continuously manipulated by someone stronger and better than you. Spencer finally understands what they were trying to teach him. He is nothing without this manipulation, without this control.
“You will answer, Selected. How do you plead?” Silence follows. “ANSWER ME. HOW. DO. YOU. PLEAD.”
Reid is too broken to actually answer. What does he say? What does he want out of this hearing? To return to the Den? To go back to the BAU? To die?
“Warner, I don’t think he is able to…” Reid remembers the Councilor speaking is the same one who spoke for him during his hearing with Gideon…Griffin, he thinks, Councilor Griffin, former Selected. However, she is cut off by the spitting Chilcott.
“Councilor Griffin, I would appreciate it if you gave me my due deference within my own chambers. I understand that you are new to this court, and that your kind,” he grimaced looking from her to the fragile body lying beneath them, “can be extremely sympathetic, so you may not understand our customs. However, I am Supreme Councilor, so my word is law. Am I understood?”
Councilor Griffin, a younger woman who has flowing auburn hair which, although attempted, is too voluminous to be constrained by her tight bun, and falls framing her face. Her piercing blue eyes slide into slits, glaring at the older vampire who has not only embarrassed her on record and in front of all of her colleagues, but has, she decided, bullied subs for the last time. Biting her lip, enough to draw blood, which only made Chilcott smirk, she nods and sits back, silent for the rest of the hearing. She has some planning to do.
“Now. Dr. Spencer Reid, I believe the Council and I will take your silence as a plea of guilty.” Every member of the council nods their head, except for Griffin, who focuses her gaze on Spencer. “Thus, if you have no defense, which I can’t imagine you do, we will have to decide on the proper placement for you.”
A beat of silence.
“After much deliberation, we have decided that it would be the best for you, Spencer, to be placed with a Master who can control you. However, we would have to disclose all of your…history to any such Dom. This creates a problem, as what Dom would want a used sub like you?” Reid visibly flinches at the words so thoughtfully tossed at him. “And so, as a selfless act of gratitude to this Council, which has been such a huge part of my rise, I will personally take on this damaged and unwanted sub. If we all agree?”Chilcott speaks as though this were a speech he had rehearsed many times within the past week. His last comment, though, comes out as a threat instead of as a question. None of the council members misunderstand. There is general positive murmuring.
“Excellent. With the decision agreed upon, this case is hereby closed and archived as permanent record.” With the bang of the gavel on the rust-stained wood, Spencer, understanding in vivid detail his future, collapses forward onto his hands, bowed in abject submission in front of his Master.
***
If Spencer thought the Council’s mansion is large, then Chilcott’s personal castle out in the Blue Ridge Mountains is gigantic. It can only be reached by helicopter, unless you want to hike for a week, so Spencer is all alone with Chilcott, excluding his army of personal servants, but as Chilcott says, “Don’t worry. They won’t bother us.”
Sitting in the helicopter, Spencer is told to keep his head on his Master’s lap and not move. Spencer takes this command in stride. Overall, it isn’t that difficult. There is not any untenable sort of position he has to contort himself into, nor is there any direct pain applied. However, he is slapped on the ass every time he breaks position. In the back of his mind, Spencer can’t help but think this is a little uncalled for. He is in a moving helicopter. He has to move if it moves. Gravity and centrifugal force, as far as he was last informed, are not something that he has the power to control with the force of his will alone. Spencer, though, holds his tongue, because just imagining Chilcott’s facial expression if Spencer fully explained why he is wrong is enough to keep him in a malleable mood. Plus, the imagined punishment that would ensue is also a motivating factor for not opening his mouth.
Chilcott commands Spencer on to his hands and knees and forces him to crawl through the castle following his brisk pace, once they land and disembark. Spencer crawls through the twisting and winding house, idly he imagines that this must be what the rest of the TARDIS looks like. So many hallways seemingly going on forever and each room moving, fooling him into thinking he is traveling in a circle. They eventually make it to a dark maroon-painted room. It has heavy black-out curtains that are drawn which means the only light comes from the four spotlights that illuminate the walls. The walls house Chilcott’s prize collection of tools. Hundreds of whips, floggers, nipple clamps, canes, knives, chains, and ropes are all predominately displayed. However, it is the St. Andrew’s cross that occupies the far wall that catches and holds Spencer’s attention. He remembers his lessons in the Den with that dreaded thing. Hours he spent hanging there feeling abandoned and used.
There are many things Spencer finds attractive within the S&M culture: however, being effectively hog tied is not one of them. That is not to say he is finds being tied up abhorrent, it is just being tied up on something as impersonal as a cross or post is one of his put offs. Being tied up on a bed, being at the full mercy of his Dom whose full attention is focused onto only him, though, is a different story.
By the way that Chilcott’s pupils blow and his posture straightens, Spencer can assume that Chilcott has no such hang-up. “Now, Selected, if you can even still be called that, you’re mine, and you should be ever so grateful. I saved you from yourself and from those stupid leeches at the FBI. I have had my eye on you since Gideon first brought you as a boy to the Den. So, I think, that will be your name. Boy. Well, unless I think Whore has a better ring to it.” Chilcott laughs at his own joke. While Spencer, still in his baggy beige shirt and pants, kneels waiting for orders. Spencer remembers all of his lessons, and assumes that Chilcott will be looking for a perfectly obedient sub, and so keeps his mouth shut.
“Strip for me, boy,” Chilcott barks once his laughter dies.
Spencer stands, removing his two pieces of clothing efficiently and quietly, and makes sure his eyes are focused on the ground to show him submission. Chilcott walks in a tight circle around him. Chilcott proprietarily touches Spencer’s pale skin; his hip, his left arm, his spine. “Yes,” he murmurs to himself, “I can work with this.”
He walks to the wall covered in floggers and deliberates for a moment until finally picking a rubber one with holes drilled into it. Turning around, “Get into position, boy. Your Master wants to play.”
Spencer, as an immediate reflex, goes to the wooden horse, next to the cross, and leans over, bearing his ass. Chilcott takes a moment to appreciate the view and then, unannounced, slams the flogger against Spencer. He flogs Spencer long enough to turn Spencer’s back, ass, and top of his thighs a violent shade of red. Even through the pain and the humiliated comments spoken into his ear, Spencer has not cried. He has not let himself. He knows that Chilcott is not “playing a scene” or anything of the kind. He is simply asserting his dominance; showing Spencer who has all the control.
“Kneel, whore.”
Spencer gingerly slides off of the wooden seat, and he kneels in front of his Master. His Master, God. How did he get here?
“That was just a little introduction. My guess is you got soft during your time away at the FBI. Well, that is all about to change. You are mine. You will do as I say. I guess you noticed you don’t have a safe word, and there’s a reason for that. You won’t need one because you will do as I say, Boy. Now, after that little romp, you have gotten me all excited,” he says, pointing down to the tent in his pants. “Naughty boy. I guess you will just have to fix it.”
Spencer understands the implicit order and unzips his Master’s pants and takes out his hard cock. Staring at the large, angry head for a second, all of his lessons on giving head flash before his mind, and he wraps his lips around his Master’s dick. At that moment, it is Hotch’s face that flashes in his mind’s eye, and he falters. His Master pulls his hair roughly, reminding him of his duty. Thinking of Hotch, he sucks off Chilcott, letting a tear leak from his eye.
***
The next week precedes much the same. He is never clothed, but has yet to come. Spencer is not particularly upset about that fact, and neither is Chilcott. Actually he thinks Chilcott gets off on it.
However Reid, even when stimulated, has not even gotten hard. He prides himself on this, thinking that is at least a little part of himself he can save for Hotch. Not that Hotch would ever take Spencer, especially not after this, and Spencer certainly will not be leaving Chilcott ever. So, intellectually, his pride in this fact doesn’t make sense, but it is all he has. Just thinking of Hotch makes him feel better, but he knows that Hotch is likely in some state looking for a serial killer as he is supposed to have completely forgotten about Spencer. That makes Spencer smile; knowing that Hotch gets to continue living and is able to find his own love in life, gives Spencer something to hang on to. He studiously ignores the unpleasant clenching of his stomach when he thinks of Hotch with someone else because he knows he can never be with Hotch. He knows even if he had the opportunity he isn’t good enough for Hotch. He is just a whore, a worthless good for nothing slut. That’s fine, he thinks, as long as Hotch is out there, Spencer will have something he can believe in and hang on to.
Chilcott, though, has yet to take everything Spencer is supposed to give him. They have had sex numerous times, which doesn’t particularly bother Spencer other than the pain, but that he can get over. Chilcott has yet to take any of his blood. It is keeping Spencer on edge; he barely sleeps at night imaging what horror Chilcott will create to take his blood. He just wants it over because then he can just live like this, but the large unknown is haunting him.
All is explained on Spencer’s fifth day in Chilcott’s castle. “We will be having a collaring ceremony, Boy. Aren’t you excited?”
“Yes, Master.”
Stalking towards his sub’s kneeling body, Chilcott towers over Spencer. Chilcott almost always has Spencer on his knees, and Spencer guesses this has to do with the fact that Chilcott is short. Not comically so, but short enough to feel dwarfed by the abnormally tall Spencer. So, Spencer assumes, Chilcott enjoys towering; Spencer can tell because half of the time Chilcott is standing he is actually towering. He towers over Spencer, over his staff, even over his poor Cocker Spaniel, Tootsie.
“It will be taking place here,” he says, stepping away from towering for a moment, in order to sway his arms indicating his palatial estate. “You will be my crown jewel, Boy. A Selected on my arm. This will be the social event of the season, my Boy! Plus, I will finally get to taste you, and I can hardly wait any longer,” he says, his fangs dropping.
“Of course, Master.”
Returning his gaze to Spencer and returning to towering, he says, “You don’t sound excited, Boy. What’s wrong? You can tell your Master.” He uses his hand and drags Spencer chin up so he can kiss him. It is less a kiss and more a devouring. Chilcott overruns Spencer’s mouth, forcefully taking what he would have gently given up. He pulls away and with foreign kind eyes he whispers, “Tell me.”
“It is only, Master, maybe this is not the best location for the collaring. This place is so far away. Surely holding it here will limit the guests. I just worry about the right people not bearing witness to your true rise to power, Master.”
“Hmmm,” Chilcott steps back, his thoughts whirling, “You may be right, Boy. It will be difficult for everyone to come one helicopter at a time. But, then, my little smart one, where shall we hold your crowning moment?”
“I don’t know, Master. Perhaps, no you can’t do that….”
Chilcott rushes forward and grabs Spencer’s face harshly. Angry, he spits, “What, Boy? What don’t you think I can do?”
“Nothing, no-nothing, Sir,” Reid, shaking, responds. He doesn’t mean to anger his Master. “I just thought perhaps you could hold the ceremony at the Council’s mansion. To show your power extends to and through the Council, as well.”
Chilcott laughs in glee, “Yes! That’s it. It’s perfect. Everyone will want to attend, and everyone I want to attend will be able to attend. I now see that all of that education we paid for pays off! I think you deserve a treat for helping your Master so, don’t you?”
Spencer knows that treats don’t usually mean anything good for him, but his Master’s question is not actually a question. It is a prompt, and Spencer knows his line.
“Yes, Master.”
Ctd. Part VII