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“Please— Just come with me. You don’t have to end things this way.”
Everything is happening too fast, Spencer thinks. A moment ago, the unsub had been ready to surrender their weapon, ready to leave the building with Spencer and let this end peacefully.
Spencer isn’t sure what went wrong— One moment, the end of this disaster was finally within reach, and the next, the unsub is charging at him.
“No—!” Spencer cries out, cut off by a sudden impact in his side. It feels almost like he’s been punched, but judging by the warm liquid he can already feel blossoming beneath his shirt, he knows it must be far worse. He grabs his gun from the table he’d surrendered it upon earlier, incapacitating the unsub with a shot to the chest. “Shit, shit, shit, shit—“
Spencer doesn’t dare look down at the stab wound, because he knows that the moment he does, it will register in his mind, and the full extent of the pain will finally set in.
“Okay— Okay, okay.” Spencer stumbles to the couch a few feet away, collapsing down on it. He tries to take a deep breath, but he can’t, not with the adrenaline coursing through his veins right now— His heart is racing too fast, and his lungs are fighting to keep up. “Okay, okay— Don’t remove the knife, you’ll— you’ll bleed out, goddammit—“
His vision is beginning to blur around the edges, filling with dark spots. He fumbles around to find his cellphone, only to realize that it must have fallen out at some point during all the chaos. He lets out a curse, eyes welling up with tears as his head hits the armrest of the couch.
“Hotch! I found Reid! He’s incapacitated!”
It takes Spencer several seconds to process the fact that someone is in the room with him, yelling for help and rushing towards him. He tries to sit up, only to be gently pushed back down.
“Whoa, whoa— Stay right there.”
“Elle,” Spencer mumbles, trying and failing to blink away the blurry spots in his vision. “I’m so sorry, I— I thought I could handle it, I thought— I thought I could fix it, but— but—“
Elle shushes Spencer, kneeling down beside him and placing her hand on his cheek.
“Hey, hey— We’ll talk about that later, yeah? I’m sure Hotch’ll have plenty of words for you. Right now, I just need you to stay calm and focus on me. Can you do that?”
“I can try,” Spencer slurs out, leaning into Elle’s touch.
“What happened to him?” comes Hotch’s voice a moment later, somewhere just out of Spencer’s line of sight.
“He’s been stabbed,” Elle responds, thinly veiled worry lacing her voice. “We need medics.”
“They’re en route,” Hotch says, kneeling down with Elle. “I need to apply pressure to the wound— It’s not going to be pleasant.”
“No—“ Spencer tries to sit up, but Elle holds him down. “No, no, please don’t touch it.”
“Spencer, you’re going to bleed out,” Hotch says, keeping his voice as even as he can. “We need to slow the bleeding until the medics get here.”
“Hey, hold on,” Elle says, standing back up. She gently adjusts Spencer until she can sit down behind him on the couch, allowing him to rest his head in her lap. “There we go. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind while Hotch takes care of the wound?”
“The only thing on my mind right now is the fact that I’ve just been stabbed, Elle,” Spencer says, face contorting in pain as Hotch starts to cut away at his shirt, disturbing the wound.
“Come on,” Elle says softly, running her fingers through Spencer’s hair. “You’ve always got something going on in that brain of yours. You been rewatching Star Trek lately? Coming up with any new physics tricks?”
Spencer tries to shrug, but the movement only causes him more pain. Elle rubs her thumb over his cheek comfortingly.
“Don’t try to move— It’s only gonna hurt worse,” she says, and Spencer simply nods, too tired to respond verbally. He can feel himself starting to teeter on the edge of unconsciousness, and he knows that’s not a good sign, but he can’t help letting his eyelids flutter closed.
“Hey— No, none of that,” Hotch says sternly, tapping Spencer’s cheek. “Stay with us, Spencer.”
Spencer groans tiredly, reluctantly opening his eyes. He can feel Hotch applying pressure on the wound, just barely dodging the knife still stuck in his side, and it somehow it hurts like hell and feels completely numb at the exact same time.
“You know, I’ve never seen Star Trek before,” Elle says, still playing with Spencer’s hair in an attempt to keep him alert. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”
Spencer nods, his eyes closing once again. He tries his best to open them, but he’s so exhausted, and he feels like he’s losing control of his own body.
“Jesus christ, what’s taking them so long?” Elle asks, glancing at the door. Hotch sighs.
“We’re in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and no one expected Reid to run off on his own like this.”
“I thought— I thought I could save them,” Spencer slurs out quietly, just barely managing to hold his eyes open. “I— I thought—“
“We’ll discuss it later, Spencer,” Hotch says, cutting Spencer off. “Just— Relax. Please.”
“I’m sorry,” Spencer mumbles— tiredly, pitifully. He finally gives in to his exhaustion, letting his eyes close and the world around him fade away.
“Hey— Spencer.” Elle taps his cheek, but he doesn’t respond. “Spencer— Wake up. Spencer.”
Hotch stares down at Spencer, his carefully crafted facade of almighty strength and indifference finally slipping. He grits his teeth as he continues to apply pressure to Spencer’s wound, blinking away tears before they can fall.
“Spencer Reid, you fucking idiot, if you don’t wake up right now—“ Elle is cut off by the sound of sirens in the distance, and her relief is nearly tangible. She swallows thickly, frantically wiping away her tears with the back of her hand.
“Hang in there, kid,” Hotch says quietly, reaching over to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Spencer’s ear.
Spencer drifts in and out of consciousness to the sounds of sirens, frantic conversations, and endless phone calls, but not once does the feeling of Elle’s presence leave.
Somewhere in between the fuzzy noise and agonizing pain, Spencer reaches out to hold Elle’s hand, and Elle doesn’t hesitate to take his hand into her own, squeezing reassuringly.
Hotch will have some strong words for Spencer once this is all over, but Elle whispers promises of Star Trek marathons and all the documentaries Spencer could ever want to watch.
Spencer, in his half-awake state of being, doesn’t mind either outcome; a reprimanding from Hotch, a movie with Elle— Both are promises of the future, promises that he’ll be just fine.
Finally, he lets himself fully slip into sleep on the way to the emergency room, still loosely clinging onto Elle’s hand.