piscesnebula | all you have is your fire [ reid + sam ]

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all you have is your fire [ reid + sam ]

and the place you need to reach/ don't you ever tame your demons/ but always keep 'em on a leash

The supernatural, of course, is not real.

Spencer likes to play at being a believer, sometimes, especially on Halloween. He tells spooky ghost stories to Garcia just to hear her shriek and excitedly bombards Emily with facts about famous werewolf sightings, but he doesn't actually believe. There has been no empirical evidence, and no convincing eye-witness accounts. Of course, it's not something he's never dug particularly deeply into, beyond what was necessary for psychological studies or criminal profiles, but Spencer remains certain.

The supernatural is not real. But if that's the case, how is he staring at what has to be two vampires?

They're on a case in Texas. An unsub that's left a string of at least ten bodies behind him in the past six months, and more are suspected. All left totally drained of their blood, with puncture marks made to mimic fang wounds on their necks. Spencer immediately suspected Renfield's syndrome, and they'd worked up a profile of a man that was deeply delusional, obsessed with a former romantic partner, and likely living near the woods in town. They've been in town for a few days, narrowing down the profile, talking to witnesses who last saw the victims alive, and they'd been closing in. On a whim, Reid had done a search for deaths in the local area around six months to a year ago, looking for someone who matched the physical type of the victims but had died before these killings started.

He'd found a woman, Kayla Thornton, who had died seven months ago, and her house was currently listed as foreclosed. Suspecting that this was the woman the unsub had been obsessed with, Spencer had swung by the house, expecting a casual visit. It had been dark inside, the windows boarded over, the air stale, blood splatters on the floor. What can only be described as an altar sits on one wall, photos of Kayla plastered everywhere.

When the unsub had appeared in a movement so fast Spencer hadn't seen it, he'd tried to negotiate. He'd tried to convince the guy to give himself up. And that was when the unsub had opened a mouth full of shark-like teeth, long and needle-sharp-- Spencer had been fast enough to draw his gun and shoot when the unsub had rushed him, but putting three bullets in his chest hadn't done anything. The unsub had barely even flinched. That was when a second unsub had appeared.

And here he is, getting thrown to the ground with a strength that's unlike anything he's felt before, sharp teeth grazing his neck as one of the unsubs prepares to bite him, and all Spencer can think is-- does this qualify as proof of the supernatural? Because if so, he's going to have an interesting story to tell his team.

If he survives.

[The thing about most vampires that remained true in lore and life was that they didn't like to be alone. Vampires like people didn't want to exist on their own, they liked the company of a mate or a nest. More often than not, they traveled in packs of three or more and typically answered to the most senior member of their tight-knit group. Just like in the movies, they preferred darkness to light, not because it killed them but because they were more sensitive to the light and could hunt better, move faster, and were typically a lot stronger after sunset.

That's why as a hunter it always made the most sense to target a nest during the day, and once he'd gotten wind of blood-suckers and verified it through the usual channels of research, stalking, and Q&AS with the family he took a nice machete and went in for the kill.

There was a time when Sam would've hesitated to kick in the door when he heard the struggle, but now - he goes in without a second thought and uses the light outside to his advantage by leaving the door open.

He's able to catch the second one off guard, and his head rolls and bounces across the room with the teeth still exposed, but no longer gnashing. The bloody back spatter goes everywhere, on his shirt, all over his hair, and part of his face. The machete still in his free hand dripping from the initial sweep of the blade.]

Get down.

[The guy practically offered himself up as a pre-emptive afternoon snack. Vampires do most of their hunting at night, and that meant the nest was hungry and fighting was just an enterprising way to build up momentum for the feast.]

It's the head. Take off the head, and if you can't - get back.

[Sam's also got some dead man's blood on him, but he won't use it unless he has to, or he finds himself in a tight spot. Sometimes the best way to eighty-six the nest is to go in guns blazing, but he'll never admit that out loud. Dean'd like it way too much.]

When he'd heard the door being kicked down, Spencer had, in a split second, envisioned who it might be. Morgan, probably, he kicks down doors with a gusto Spencer's never seen from anybody else. Or maybe it's Hotch, less gusto but far more military precision-- or Emily, who'd no doubt relish the opportunity, or--

He hadn't expected to see one of America's most notorious serial offenders decapitate one of unsubs. And then urgently tell him to do the same, while the other fanged unsub is snapping said fangs inches away from his throat.

Unfortunately for him, he doesn't have a moment to boggle over the appearance of Sam Winchester. Nor does he really have the time to hysterically remark that he doesn't have a machete or any way of removing the unsubs head, nor would he even if he were so inclined. The thought is abhorrent. What he does have is his gun, even though he's pinned to the floor, and some surprisingly effective self-defense moves that Morgan taught him.

The unsub rears back to try for another lunge, and Spencer throws his arm up defensively, the unsub's fangs sinking into his forearm. It gives him just enough space to bring his gun up and pull the trigger, blood spattering back onto his face and throat. But the unsub doesn't collapse. All he does is stagger backward, up onto his feet, yowling and cursing from the pain, staggering right into Sam's machete range.

[He and his brother had made a name for themselves across the greater United States, first as murderers, then as murderers that perished when they were cornered. After the Leviathans, their momentum as spree killers made national news, when neither he nor Dean killed much of anything that didn't have a body count or innocent blood on its hands. It, being the relative word, and when something that qualified as supernatural tried to go the straight and narrow, he at least gave them a fighting chance. Dean didn't hop on that wagon until much later, but he'd been there with him up until dick exploded and his only family got caught up in the blast.

Bullets don't do much to vampires unless they were coated in dead man's blood, but they do hurt. That, combined with the light gives Sam enough leeway to take him down and he does, in one fell swoop.

It never gets easier, the blood, the mess, and having to pick bone shards, or brain matter, out of his hair in the shower but after a while, those moments blur into one general feeling of disdain. Sam has learned to not pay it much attention in the moment, but now that the moment is over, a disgruntled 'eugh,' bursts out of his throat as he wipes the blade of the machete off on his torn up jeans.

Sam rushes to Spencer's side first, and tears off a piece of the flannel he's wearing to give him a compress for the bite. Their fangs were sharp, and serrated, and created quick lacerations that made blow flow and subsequently feeding a whole lot easier.]

Here. Take this.

[Sam's not an idiot, he saw the regulation pistol when Spencer brandished it, but he's not worried about that. Not right now. His eyes are on the den, the pictures. Spencer's unsub was trying to recreate Kayla because of the circumstances. He'd mistakenly killed her in a fit during his transition. A lot of those women died, but there were two still missing and if even one of them agreed to change that meant there'd be another waiting in the wings or two helpless women nearby being used as blood bags.

He'd deal with the fact that he was a fed, and that he might have questions later when neither of them were in any immediate danger.]

It's gonna take a minute to clot. The teeth, the spit, it's all for a quick and efficient kill.

[Really, he's lucky these guys were dick bags and on top of it fledglings, or he never would've stood a chance.]

Look, I know this is weird. I know you've probably got a thousand questions but I can't answer those. Not when there's still two people missing. Vampires nest and build units, two doesn't fit their whole m.o. Especially, considering these two were new.

[Sam's got the machete down at his side, but it's not the only weapon he has on him. He's sweeping the floor with his work boots, checking for hollow space, anything that sounds out of place, even under rugs and near furniture.]

You didn't see or hear anything before they jumped you, right? No one in or out besides me?

Edited 2024-01-09 06:38 (UTC)

And just like that, Winchester decapitates the other unsub.

Spencer has seen death. He's shot an LDSK in the head when he had no other option. He's seen bodies stacked on top of each other, rotting in the ground, mutilated beyond recognition. He's seen unsubs killed, by their own hand or by law enforcement.

Those two decapitations are possibly the most gory active violence he's seen. Spencer has to fight hard not to gag, and all Winchester does is mutter a little ew like he just touched wet bread, or stood on a spider. Spencer's lucky that most of the gore didn't hit him, but he can feel blood from the headshot drying on his cheek. Winchester hurries toward him with a piece of torn flannel to press against his arm, and while Spencer shrinks back, he clamps the cloth to his forearm nonetheless.

He manages to pull himself up to sit while Winchester checks the rest of the room. Vampires. That's what Winchester said they were. And while everything in Spencer wants to scoff and call him crazy, he's just seen the evidence for himself. Men with mouths full of fangs, men who took a headshot and didn't die, men whose skin burned in the sun. The victims lacking blood. It all adds up. But in front of him is a man who has one of the longest list of suspected and confirmed crimes in American history, everything from grave robbing to armed burglary to mass murder.

Those men (Spencer still can't call them vampires, even in his own mind) had killed ten suspected victims. Sam and Dean Winchester are suspected of hundreds. Sam's clearly trying to enlist his help.

Spencer stands, and levels his gun at Winchester.

"Put the machete down," he barks. Or at least, he aims for the authoritative bark that Hotch does so well, and winds up somewhere squarely in the realm of stern, but pretty shaky. He doesn't exactly cut the intimidating figure most of his team does. "I'm Special Agent Doctor Reid, FBI. Sam Winchester, you're wanted in multiple states for over a dozen crimes." Including the two men he's just killed right now. "Put the machete down, and turn around, put your hands behind your back."

[Being exposed to the kind of gore that he has and growing up witnessing and to some degree being involved with it gave him an unfair edge. Sam hadn't ever known normalcy, and he couldn't define "normal," if he tried. There used to be a time when he thought it was getting his degree at Stanford, becoming a lawyer, marrying Jess, and having kids. That kind of thing hasn't crossed his mind in a while. Sure, he was shacking up with Amelia but the tension was still there, and he still laid awake at night with too many questions and exhausted any other available time and resources trying to find Dean.

The machete doesn't drop, but Sam still puts his hands up, and the weapon goes slack in his hand because of how he's holding it in an attempt to accommodate him and be less intimidating so that Doctor Reid won't pull the trigger.]

I can't do that, Doctor.

[The words feel a little rough on his tongue. He can understand dedication to the job, to his team, even, but after what he saw here today ignoring the possibility of another attack feels unwise.]

Not unless you've got the stomach to do what I just did. Didn't you hear me? There are people here, probably being treated like blood bags, and another monster out there that's probably not far from the nest.

I knew you were FBI when you pulled out your gun. If you want to arrest me, that's fine, sure - whatever, but I came here to do a job and I just saved your life so the least you could do is let me finish what I started and clear this place out so nobody else has to get hurt.

There's no reassuring thud as the machete hits the floor. Spencer dedicates a hysterical half second to dwell on the irony of raising your hands to show that you're unarmed, except there's a machete still in one of them. His aim wavers slightly, and in the pause between Winchester's sentences, there's the soft noise of his blood dripping onto the floor, the bite in his forearm still bleeding freely.

Unfortunately for his attempt to arrest one of America's most notorious criminals, Winchester's... making sense.

They had observed that the victims hadn't been killed instantly. There'd been signs of extended periods of captivity: malnutrition, weight loss, bruises at the wrists and ankles, not to mention the multiple older bite marks over the victims. The reason he's here is because he'd gotten a lead on Kayla's last known whereabouts and had been concerned for the women still currently missing. There'd been a chance, a small chance, that he might have been able to find them and rescue them, and he'd had to take that chance as soon as possible.

Spencer swallows hard, gaze flicking between Winchester and some manacles on the wall that have clearly been used to hold captives. For a man they've diagnosed with dangerously severe paranoia and psychotic delusions, Sam Winchester sounds... convincingly logical. He really sounds like he just wants to help.

Maybe he can use that. Play along.

Spencer lowers his gun, the muzzle pointing at the floor. "Okay. You're right, there might be victims in here that need immediate medical attention. You keep checking for hidden crawlspaces, I'll go see if there's a basement or an attic." He draws in a deep breath. "Yell if you find something."

"Yeah, and you might want to tourniquet that in the meantime. Nothing hikes their adrenaline like a warm meal and you're still ringing the dinner bell." Sam sighs, doing some mental math in his head, recalling what he got from some of the witnesses, and how the information all played out. "There's a very real possibility one of 'em is a girl, maybe even a matriarchal type figure. So don't drop the guard."

Despite the unique circumstances, two heads remain better than one in a case like this, especially when it comes to vampires. Sam's gotten out of much more significant situations with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and it works out to his advantage that Dean's not here, because Dean wouldn't have been nice about it, Dean wouldn't have appealed to reason. He would've circled back and rendered Spencer unconscious, left him with a note on his lapel outside the place of whoever answered the text messages at his behest when he skimmed his phone.

This was better, and Sam continues, no creaky floorboards, no hollow walls at least not until he makes it around to the back of the house.

"Hey, uh, Doc?" Sam's got his flashlight brandished, the further back he gets in the house the darker it remains. He holds his gear in a practiced, militant way, the same way that Spencer might enter a place too, one wrist over the other, going room by room to clear them.

Closer to the back of the house there is a room, tarped off, windows blacked out and boarded over, it looks like it was supposed to juncture the California room and the garage but had been made it into a den or mancave with some quick effort from the local contractor. "Think I've got something over here."

A warm meal. He's still talking like vampires are real, which is insane. But it's not, is it? Because Spencer's just seen men who took bullets like it was nothing and had mouths full of fangs.

It's rare that he's speechless, but here he is, unable to think of a single thing to say. So he just nods, a sharp dip of his chin, and makes his way toward the rear of the house. He stops briefly to take his tie off and wrap it around his forearm as best he can, and resumes the search for a basement or attic. He's not having much luck, and that's when Winchester's voice rings out.

Spencer catches up, as quiet as he can make himself, and digs a flashlight out from his pocket. He's not usually the one clearing rooms, so he fumbles a bit to find that practiced stance of holding both gun and flashlight -- it doesn't escape his notice that Sam's got a military precise stance of his own, so precise that Morgan would probably weep in joy to behold it. John Winchester had done time in the Marines, and it had been suspected that he'd taught his sons a lot of what he knew. It's... strangely fascinating to see the proof in action.

What he's found is definitely something, though, so Spencer advances in first. The smell of blood is thick in the air, metallic and cloying, though there's very little to actually be found.

And there, chained to the wall in a corner, is Tara Kennedy, the latest missing victim. From a glance, Spencer can't even tell if she's alive. He holsters his gun long enough to check her pulse, which is slow and thready but there. He thinks about calling an ambulance, but he doesn't know if there's more unsubs in here -- the smarter move would be to call his team.

"I'm calling for backup. The average drive time between the hotel my team is at and here is ten minutes, so you've got ten minutes to explain to me what's happening and why you're here," Spencer says, still trying out his best Hotch impression. He stands, and starts searching the rest of the room. "And since you're claiming that those two are vampires, the explanation should probably be pretty convincing."

They took bullets like something out of a DC comic and could recover even faster given the right amount of time and blood but it doesn't take a genius to figure that out. Things that take 22s in the skull and still have the same level of fight in them weren't normal, and the teeth marks on the girl that's strung up match the teeth of heads that Sam left on the floor in the foyer.

She's in bad shape, she's been fed off of for days, and she's pekid and cold, if they hadn't gotten here when they did she probably wouldn't have made it through the night.

Sam heads straight for her and cuts down the rope she's been strung up with, she slumps into his arms as dead weight, almost unconscious.

"Hey, hey. It's okay. I got you. I got you." Sam moves her hair from her face and takes a long look at her cataloging injuries that gave way to the judgment call that she hadn't turned, and she didn't take in any blood. A lot of the bite marks are old, so they hadn't gotten her to agree to be changed or hadn't gotten around to doing it themselves yet. "Just hang in there for me. Tell me about who took you, how long have you been here?"

Her words are slow. Drawn out and dry from dehydration, she's almost through with the first four leading into an obvious warning when Spencer goes on and Sam turns his head away from her to address him. "You can't do that, you'll just be putting them in danger too. I said I'd come with you so do me a favor and help me get her out of-"

Sam's words are cut short by a grunt of pain, nails are in his skin, blood is trickling down from his shoulder staining the blue and white plaid shirt he's wearing crimson. Behind him, another girl, a victim who'd gone through the change and is freshly reconfigured is standing there behind Sam with blood-crusted lips and dark eyes, teeth fully exposed from the gum line for seconds that feel like hours when those razor-sharp pearly whites make contact with Sam's back as he throws his body over Tara to give her a fighting chance. He's got more fight left in him than she does, and he's not sure that she could survive another feeding.

The other girl, whoever she was, bites into Sam's flesh through his canvas jacket and drinks like he's a living reservoir and Sam, steeling himself against the pain scrambles to adjust so he can grapple for his blade and get the right angle. A losing battle, there was no possible way for him to behead her at the angle, not even with the height difference he had on her.

Edited 2024-01-31 18:04 (UTC)

Winchester just goes ahead and starts dealing with the injured victim himself, which is a wildly bad idea since he's not a trained paramedic (as far as Spencer knows), but before he can raise any sort of protest, Tara has roused just enough to start speaking, and he doesn't dare interrupt. The bizarre thing is, Winchester's so gentle with her, and experienced, like he reassures victims all the time-- but that's the exact opposite of what his very long criminal record says.

Maybe this is how he lures his victims close. This could all be a ploy; a tactic to take easy victims from other predators, like a scavenger finishing off nearly-dead prey. With the Winchester's record, Spencer wouldn't put anything past them. So he's half expecting this soft-speaking and gentle handling to end up with Winchester using that machete to take Tara's life, and Spencer's too busy being frozen with overwhelmed indecision that he can't even make a preemptive move to stop it.

And that's when another vampire attacks.

Cai Liang. He recognizes her from the photo Garcia had found. Another missing person thought to be attached to this case. Her dainty features have been overtaken by bloodshot eyes and dried blood smeared around her mouth, and as he watches, her teeth elongate into needle-like fangs, and oh, god. It's real. Vampires are real. He's not just seeing things.

Cai lunges for Sam and Spencer can hear her draining his blood, and before he knows it, his training is kicking in. He holsters his gun, because that's not going to do anything and he'd just risk hitting Winchester or the other victim. Instead, he tackles Cai with a shoulder to the face where she's bent over, ripping her fangs from flesh, and shoves her back. She's strong enough that he gets the sense she only goes stumbling back because he managed to take her by surprise.

"Miss Liang, it's okay, you're okay," he says hurriedly, hands raised, desperately trying to get through to her. "He's-- helping, he's not a threat. You've been missing for weeks, and I'm so sorry it took this long to find you, but--"

"I'm so hungry," she moans, not hearing anything he's saying.

"We'll figure something out, just-- you can't kill anyone here, okay?" Spencer tries, pleading, trying to get through to her. "I don't know if... if you have to drink blood now, but you don't have to hurt people. Please. Just come with us, and I promise we'll help you, okay?"

And all of that is for nothing, because Cai lunges, then. Spencer only manages to dodge by sheer luck, and it's pure instinct that has him yanking the machete from Winchester's hand. Cai snarls and lunges again, nothing but death in her eyes, going for Winchester and Tara again. Spencer swings as hard as he can, a double-handed grip, and blood sprays in a wide arc as Cai's head separates from her neck and lands on the ground with a thump.

The machete drops from suddenly nerveless fingers a moment later.

The reality was that once Liang fed there was no help for her, no fixing what she was or what she had become. Fighting the thirst was an uphill battle and even the bloodsuckers that tried the straight and narrow often failed in moments of great stress. It's not something that Sam can tell Reid, not now, and not without some distance between him and this place but the reality is that Reid might not want to hear any of it. Taking a life, even the life of a monster, isn't an easy thing to do and if he hadn't grown up in this world he wouldn't be doing it himself. He preferred to lean into the saving people part of things, and the research behind it. That's what kept him sane through everything, after multiple attempts at running away or trying to find something better.

Sam's got Tara still in his arms, she's weak and she's pale but her pulse is strong and he does what he can to keep her fighting, moving her in his arms to get a better handle on her as he slides her up into a seated position against the wall behind them.

For the time being, they were safe and he was going to take that time to make sure she was okay and alert. He pulls a cliff bar out of his jacket pocket and passes it to Tara with a frown. "Here, it'll help you keep your energy up." Sam hasn't bothered to tend to his the wound on his shoulder yet, instead, he crosses the floor to Spencer and slides the machete toward Tara behind him with his boot as a gesture of good faith.

"Hey, Doc. Thanks for the save back there." Sam grimaces and adjusts the canvas jacket over his back, it's chafing the laceration under it and it's slick and heavy with his blood. "We need to get Tara out of here. If you can help me get her to the car we can get her to the hospital."

What they do from there is all his to define. Sam doesn't particularly want to go back into prison or the loony bin not for a case and not for real but he's not prioritizing himself right now. They need to look out for Tara and then, Sam will explain the rest, and take care of Doctor Reid too if he needs it. The questions, the answers, and the interrogation. It's not his favorite thing to rehash but he's a man of his word.

Edited 2024-02-10 06:28 (UTC)

It's not the first time that he's killed somebody. That dubious honor went to Phillip Dowd, a long-distance sniper serial killer that had cornered him and Hotch and a bunch of people in an ER. And then Tobias Hankel, who had been seconds away from killing him in the grave he'd been made to dig for himself. Both had been necessary self-defense, just like this had been, and yet, it still takes everything he has to swallow back the urge to heave.

The problem with his memory is that he remembers everything. And for most people, they might be able to look at the decapitated head rolling across the floor and think with time, this memory won't be so bad. Not for him. If he lives to be 90, he'll recall it as vividly as if he'd done it five minutes before.

He just decapitated someone. God.

Winchester's voice sounds like it's coming from the end of a very long tunnel, distant and hollow. Spencer sucks in a breath, and gives himself three seconds. Three seconds to freak out and feel horrified at what he'd just done. And then he rubs a hand over his eyes, and kicks himself into action.

"R-Right. Sorry." He hurries to Tara's side, because she looks like she's about to collapse any minute now. On auto-pilot, Spencer wraps an arm around her waist, and starts guiding her out of the dilapidated house, gently coaching her on where to step and where to avoid so that she doesn't trip or fall, constantly reassuring her that she's doing great. The sunlight feels like a slap to the face when they get outside, like he's just spent days in that dark house instead of what couldn't have been more than half an hour. Tara keeps her head down, and Spencer's gaze lands on the car he'd pulled up behind -- his own car is one of the PD's, an unmarked cruiser, and the car in front of it is probably Sam's.

For now, Spencer's just going to go along with Winchester's plan. Get Tara to the hospital. He doubts Winchester is going to consent to be treated by the hospital, so Spencer's going to need to make sure he doesn't die from blood loss. He may be a serial criminal, but he still doesn't deserve to die like that.

His team is going to have so many questions.

Sam can't even remember his first kill and that would resonate with him if he ever bothered to reflect upon it. There were some doors you shouldn't open and some halls you shouldn't trek down and when it came to his childhood that door was bolted shut and the hallway behind it was more or less left to diminish. The way he was raised, the lifestyle he and his brother had to live weren't for the faint of heart, and whatever normalcy he'd been able to snatch for himself then was long gone. As dead as his dream to be a lawyer and live a peaceful picket fence life with Jessica.

Sam is mildly impressed with Spencer, a gangly federal agent that had all the federal but none of the agent at face value. He was swift and exacting with the machete and looking at him it's clear that's the reason he's so shaken and not because he just killed a vampire or found out vampires are real, like some. He has a heart, and it's not all procedure, some feds relied heavily on rules and forgot core ethics but this one seemed to have those core ethics roped in tight like Mandevilla through all the regulatory jargon.

"It's okay," more than actually. Sam can empathize with the position he's in and his eyes often over a tense jaw. He follows behind at a distance too close to make a hasty escape but he's anxious, his hands are pins and needles and his shoulder aches something awful.

"We can call an ambulance if you want, but they'll have questions." Questions that neither of them will be able to answer truthfully. The presence of other law enforcement might also expedite Sam's transition into handcuffs. "Or we can take your cruiser and get her set up, and then while she's being checked out by professionals you and I can have that talk."

Edited 2024-03-04 16:59 (UTC)

They'll just have to go for the second option, because Spencer does not relish the questions they'll be asked.

Where would they even begin? With the fact that he hasn't immediately arrested one of America's most prolific and psychotic criminals? How about the fact that he just killed one of the victims? And then drove said prolific criminal to the hospital without handcuffs?

His only explanation is that vampires are real, and saying that would get him thrown in a psychiatric hold just about a split second after Winchester got arrested.

If he goes with option two, the questions are going to be even worse, come to think of it. But... it seems like the better option. So. Option two it is. Spencer gently helps Tara into the cruiser; she's mostly limp in his grasp, the shock and the pain of her captivity settling deep into her bones. He's seen it countless times with abductees. Whatever energy they had to withstand the torture, it all just evaporates as soon as they know they're safe. So he gets her into the back seat, and holds the door open for Sam.

"Can you stay in the back seat with her?" he asks, tentative, still worried about asking questions even though he's just seen Winchester do everything he can to save the victims. "I'll drive. There's a spare jacket in there, see if you can keep her warm and conscious. The hospital isn't far away."

Questions Spencer couldn't answer without giving his team the first-hand experience. Sam's frown deepens, and his face looks more grave aging ten or so years compared to the innocent shock and dismay on his face when he'd first run into Spencer on the job. It's never easy having to pop that bubble, that odds were stacked against people with forces that most considered fiction.

Sam has no problem going along with the plan, despite his immense discomfort with being in the back of a police cruiser. Right now, she needed the body heat and the extra attention. So instead of commenting he nods, his lips pressed together firm, and gives Tara's pulse another check once he's settled into the backseat beside her and had time to cover with the jacket.

"I'll let you do the talking at the hospital, if you're up to it." Better that the actual fed throws their weight around, it means less work for Sam and less for his usual contacts to do on the other side to verify the fake credentials. "You good to drive?"

It's rattling, but Spencer looks like he's got a good head on his shoulders and a great aptitude for functioning under pressure.

Edited 2024-06-11 00:46 (UTC)

As he starts up the car, Spencer's mind is racing.

Psychotic delusional killer or not, Spencer has just witnessed a single-minded devotion to saving the victims of these vampires, so he's pretty certain he can trust Winchester with Tara in the back seat. At least for a little while. Whatever delusions the Winchesters have are geared around being the saviors and protectors of innocent people against the forces of the supernatural, and--

No. It's not a delusion. At the very least, these vampires weren't delusions, so it stands to reason that everything else the Winchesters have claimed also weren't delusions. A bank being infested with a shapeshifter? A police station being swarmed by demons? The grave robberies to stop rampaging ghosts? All of those might be real.

So while his brain quietly explodes and tries to run down a dozen different paths at the same time, Spencer pulls out of park and starts driving to the hospital. Nobody has ever accused him of being a good driver -- Morgan never lets him drive on account of the fact that he's "too safe" apparently and can't stop quoting government reports about road safety -- but he steps on the gas a little this time, as much as he feels is safe, flicking on the sirens when they get closer into civilization and crowded traffic. He uses the phone connected to the dash to call ahead to the hospital, identifying himself as an FBI agent who will be arriving with a trauma victim, so that they're prepared when they arrive. He flicks a glance in the rear-view mirror a couple of times, checking that they're both okay.

He already knows that Winchester's probably not going to allow himself to be looked at by the hospital. But he needs to get that cut on his back seen to. Is there any chance Spencer could convince him to get treated? Do the Winchesters live life on the grid long enough for conventional medical aid, or do they do everything themselves?

It's not long before he's pulling into the entrance to the ER, the sirens having already drawn a couple of nurses outside. Spencer takes the lead to get the attention off Sam, bundling Tara out of the car and in through the entrance. He gives them a rapid-fire explanation of her situation and probable medical issues -- blood loss, dehydration, malnutrition -- and lets them take over, where they take her into a curtained off bay to examine her. Spencer returns to the car, and ducks his head so he can look inside.

"You'll need stitches," he says, hands wringing, worry at the edge of his eyes and the corners of his mouth. "Has your injury clotted yet? If not, you'll really need medical attention."

Single-minded was right, and while Sam would be the first to say that the circumstances he was raised in were far from normal he has continuously tried to do the right thing with the cards he's been dealt. Something he's trying to do, even now, with the cards stacked against him.

Spencer cares, that much Sam can see from where he's sitting in the backseat of his car. Tara's barely holding on, and Sam's making casual conversation - asking the kinds of questions that are easy to answer, the kind of questions a person asks as a first responder to test the level of cognition in someone else.

Sam doesn't mind getting stitches, but filling out that paperwork would leave Spencer with more questions and fewer answers. Charlie set up his health insurance fraudulently, and it's not like any of what he had was legitimate. She was an exceptional hacker, but that was without the resources of the FBI.

"Yeah, kind of hard to do it myself without a mirror."

It's a bad joke from Sam, rooted in reality, and when Tara groans he turns his attention back to her muttering softly in the backseat and offering up some bottled water.

"I think so. It's still wet, but it's not soaking through anymore." Spencer's concern for him is something genuinely surprising to Sam. It's not often that any of the people he runs into on hunts ask about him or his injuries, being seen as some marble-statued warrior went with the territory.

Once they pull in, Spencer mentally sets a timer.

He gets Tara out of the backseat and into the ER, where the nurses take over. He makes sure that nobody gets a good look at Sam's face, even though he doubts any of them have memorized the FBI's Most Wanted photographs. He has to call his team, and he has to call them now. The longer he waits between Tara's admission and calling his team, the weirder it will look.

But he has to figure out this Winchester situation first.

Once Tara is safely in the ER, Spencer turns his attention back to Sam, pulling them outside to stand outside the ER doors. Nobody's paying attention; the paramedics are too busy gossiping or seeing to patients, the patients themselves are too busy relishing their freedom from the inside of the hospital. It's a relief to know that he's not actively dying -- Reid's wound feels about the same, actually, not freely bleeding anymore but still raw -- but it still needs to be seen to.

"Are you... do you, uh..." Reid falters. He's so bad at this Not Playing By The Rules Of The Law thing. He used to be afraid of touching produce in the store for fear he'd get arrested for stealing. Navigating how to briefly participate in the life of Sam Winchester is even more complicated. "Will you get treated here? Because you probably should. But can you? Legally? Or would you prefer, um, seeing to your own injuries?"

His phone is burning a hole in his pocket, silently judging him for withholding information from his team.

"Because I might actually pass out if I have to stitch you up in some bad hotel room," Spencer jokes, with an awkward little rush of laughter. "I'll do it if I have to do. But it wouldn't be pretty."

Sam's got his own mental timer going but for Tara's sake. Getting her checked in is important to him and he flits around nervously while he waits and Spencer debriefs the medical staff.

Logically, he knows she'll be fine, but the ordeal she's been through warrants another check-in later. Once she has her wits about her he'll come see how she's doing with everything. It's a tough pill to swallow, knowing just how stacked the odds are against them all. Most people were better off left in the dark.

"I can stitch myself up."

The answer is as much an admission of guilt as it can be. Sam's sure that Spencer won't be complicit in any crime. Charlie was that good, but conscience being what it was meant that he didn't want to add to the already building pressure that Spencer was under.

"I've done it with worse." Much worse and the scar on his arm and abdomen make that more than clear. He's healed from a large number of things that should have had professional attention but field medicine was part of the life. Just like living on the lam, having no home, and even fewer long term friends.

"But I can wait for you to get looked at." Sam meets Spencer's gaze under lifted brows. "It's probably better that you get seen here. My handiwork won't be nearly as precise."

"No, you can't. The injury's on your back. You'd have to be a contortionist."

And as lanky as Sam is, Spencer sincerely doubts he's circus-level bendy.

Okay. Option One: He calls his team right now. He gets treated by the ER, and he meets up with Winchester later to help with his injury. He plays everything as by-the-book as he can. He likely has to reveal to his team that supernatural creatures are real, and with a lack of evidence they would likely put real thought into having him institutionalized.

Option Two: He doesn't call his team. He makes up a lie that he broke his phone and got Tara here as soon as he could and then went back to check for more victims, meanwhile he's actually helping Sam. He has Sam stitch his wound, too. It's going to look highly suspicious to his team, but this way he won't have an injury on record so he can hide it, and he won't have to reveal to them that vampires are real.

Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Spencer darts a look between Sam and the ER, and then back again, and he knows which choice he's already resigned to.

"If I get my arm looked at here, the likely chain of events will be unfortunate. I'll have to play this your way," he tells Sam, looking a little lost, a little reluctant, but largely determined. "We should go. Where are you staying, and do you have medical supplies there? We can't take the patrol car, so we'll have to Uber."

Sam huffs out a surprised laugh, he didn't think Spencer would just out and out call him on it. He had people that would help, if push came to shove, any extrapolation didn't seem necessary.

His shoulders hike high into his ears, and for a moment Sam looks like a kid who got caught stealing from the cookie jar. It's a stark contrast to the world-weary, pensive and brooding, posture that he typically sports.

Spencer's willingness to work with him is surprising, he'd been so sure that he would have to escape on the fly or use his one phone call to pull another Houdini-level disappearing act. The cops generally don't give him the benefit of the doubt, not even when things are obvious and plain as day right in front of them.

For a fed, he had a good head on his shoulders, and it's with some disquiet that Sam realizes because of this that Spencer's life will never be the same again.

"Okay, but I don't have local anesthetic." He's got what he needs to get the job done, but it's a far cry from triage at an emergency room and he knows it. "I'm staying at the place right outside of town. Gimme a sec and I'll get us a ride."

Sam pulls up the Uber app on his phone and punches in the locations. It's a small blessing ride share apps work on the fly, because most of his life he had to rely on hoofing it, hitchhiking, and "joy rides."

Oh. Great. No painkillers.

"I'll meet you there," he decides, because he's already memorized the target location Sam put in on the app. "I can't just leave the squad car here, it'll raise too many questions."

With that, he sees Sam off once the Uber arrives -- within a couple of minutes, it's not surprising there'd be at least a few hanging around the hospital waiting for fares -- and takes the police car back to the local station his team has been working out of. Taking care not to be seen, he gets his own Uber out to Sam's location.

On the way, he allows himself a minor internal freakout. It goes something like:

What the fuck. The supernatural is real. Magic is real. What else real? If vampires are real, are werewolves? Angels? God? Does mental illness really exist or were they right in the medieval era when they said it was demons? How often are people killed because of this stuff? What the fuck???

The whole time, he runs his fingers over a beaded yellow bracelet on his wrist, and that makes it's way into his thoughts too. It had been a gift from a man involved in a case a couple of years ago; he'd called it Orula's Ide. A token for a Yoruban diety, Orula, a being of powerful wisdom and healing. Spencer hadn't believed in any of it at the time, but could there actually be something to it? Had this bracelet ever protected him or guided him?

It's enough to make his head hurt by the time he arrives at the place Sam is staying, but he's feeling... calmer, at least. More open to new knowledge. Eager for new knowledge, even.

He knocks on the door. "Sam? It's Spencer Reid." A beat, and then, awkwardly, "I promise I didn't bring any police with me." Another pause. "Oh, that just makes it sound like I did. But I definitely didn't."

A mental note is made when Spencer's inability to lie on the fly becomes more apparent to him, but beyond that, all he offers in response is a nod. Never a dull moment in the life of a hunter, and now that this fed has been made aware of the things that lurk in the darkness his life and job were about to get more complicated than they already were.

Sam realizes a bit too late for comfort that he could have just taken off when Spencer said that he'd meet him at the motel. It's not like he had anything of value there, and he would've had a head start of at least fifteen minutes in any direction he saw fit, but something makes him stay. The pale sick look on the agent's face was telling, and Sam, try as he might to steel himself and separate from the emotion on the job has never been able to just let someone suffer through the new reality. Not while also sporting injuries like the kind they had. The burden of truth on a guy like Spencer came with more questions than answers, and so against his own better judgment, he stopped by the local liquor store for some good drinking booze and alcohol to use as antiseptic, quality fishing line, needles, and gauze.

The knock at the door, and the words that follow, shouldn't bring a smile to his face but they do. A wry look of disbelief at his current situation, and the notion that even when he's out manages to find a way back in - with or without his brother.

He opens the door, the TV is playing some old Western black and white, and the southern drawl is a dulcet undertone in the room the light from the television and the desk lamp is the only thing illuminating the dark and dingy environment.

"How's the wing?" Strain from driving probably didn't make it any better. Sam shuts and bolts the door behind him. "I'm gonna take care of you first. You have the choice of the desk, or the bathroom, but I'm guessing you'll pick the bathroom."

"The bathroom," Spencer agrees, because--

This hotel is awful. Look, Spencer's not one to judge based on economic situation, but he's fairly certain those bed linens had last been washed about a year and a hundred people ago, there's dubious stains on the carpet, and any surface he touches probably hasn't been sanitized in a while. He is not going to get stitched up in the main room. It makes him grateful that the FBI budget shells out for medium range rooms.

It does make him wonder, briefly, how Sam actually has a hotel room. How does he earn money? They profiled the Winchesters as constantly on the move, with an inability to hold steady, legal employment. Are they stealing the money? Gambling? Doing under the table work?

What a complicated life Sam Winchester must lead.

Spencer reluctantly shucks his sweater and leaves it folded on the tiny, rickety table (which he judges to be likely the safest of the surfaces), leaving him in just a shirt, which he gingerly rolls up to the elbow to bare the bite on his forearm. In the bathroom, he gets started getting the dried blood off, the water running pink in the chipped sink. Under the white lighting, his cheekbones look hollow, the permanent dark smudges under his eyes downright skeletal.

"What else is real?" he asks Sam, chewing on his lip. "Your file mentions everything from shapeshifters to ghosts to werewolves. It's all assumed to be delusions, of course. But... that's not true, is it?"

The irony was that this particular motel didn't even make his bottom five regarding flop joints. Sam's seen the inside of some pretty sketchy hotels in bad urban real estate. The life of a hunter didn't pay well and most of the time what money they did make went to provisions and upkeep.

Thanks to Charlie some of those expenses felt lighter but not by much because ethically Sam didn't believe in pushing that envelope too far. He had moral limitations when it came to defrauding the government. Dean never saw that as an issue, but he also had to not only raise him but risk his life early on with all the same conditioning. He considered it part of the perks of being the one to go toe to toe to save the people that would have been prey.

"Yeah, it's all real, Spence." Maybe not the best time for nicknames but he's doing what he can to keep him distracted while he preps the area. He does him the service of not warning him as he debrides it and not wasting time. "That, and the demons that were responsible for what happened in Monument, Colorado."

That much had to be in his file seeing as it was from one FBI agent that later wound up being a casualty after helping them fake their deaths. A lot of good people died there, people Sam would've wanted to help get out and then help disappear. They didn't deserve what happened to them, and even though Lillith's not a player now he takes the blame for that and those casualties knowing that none of it mattered in the long run and that those people, good people, were just canon fodder for a holy war.

Sam's quick about disinfecting the tissue, and when he stitches him up he's efficient, surgeonly, about pinching the skin together so that it'll heal. When he's done, he wraps it in thick tourniquet gauze and then drops his arm, and where he'd been bracing Spencer's wrist with his hand.

"It'd be a whole lot easier for both of us if I was some deranged serial killer playing with nightmare scenarios."

The audible sigh that follows speaks to his exhaustion and the genuine desire for that to be true. He washes his hands, careful to get Spencer's blood off his palms and out from beneath his fingernails and then he offers up the whiskey, for a little relief. Raw-dogging stitches, even with the help of some top-shelf booze as local anesthetic wasn't easy.

"We can take a break before you do me if that's better for you." It might behoove them both to give Spencer a little time to digest everything and adjust to the tightness in his arm before he worked on his shoulder.

It's not the first time that Spencer's got stitches. That honor goes to when he was five and he'd hit his head on the edge of a table when he'd walked into it while reading. It is, however, the first time he's gotten stitched up without local anesthetic, and the pain is--

It's not the worst pain he's ever felt. Far from it, actually. But it's nauseating in a whole new way; the pinch and tug of the fishing line through his skin, the anticipation of new pain with every descent of the needle, the way he can't do anything else but watch his skin get sewn together. He breathes a shaky sigh of relief when it's over and the surprisingly neat line of stitches are getting wrapped with bandages, and he can't help a scratchy little laugh.

"You're right. Life would be a million times easier if the profiles were right about you."

He shakes his head in mute refusal against the offer of the whiskey. He's not habitually sober, but he's wary of anything that might prove addictive, and the last thing he wants to do is start to mentally associate alcohol with a lessening of mental trauma regarding the supernatural. Habits like that are nasty to break, even if it means he has to deal with the pain without a chemical crutch.

The offer of a small break, however, is welcome. He'd confirmed earlier that the wound on Sam's back had at least stopped bleeding, so he can take five minutes to breathe. Spencer washes his own hands, surgical style, and ponders on the exhaustion in Sam's voice. The little, maybe unintentional nickname that had made him feel a tiny bit better. The way Sam's shoulders slump in his reflection in the mirror, all 6-foot-something of him drooping in the aftermath of a rough day.

How many rough days like this does Sam have? Does he usually win against the supernatural? Does he usually save the victims? Or do does like this all come with caveats?

"Demons?" Spencer's lips slant in something that looks dangerously like the petty annoyance of an academic. "Really? On a metaphysical level, the ramifications are alarming. Does that mean Heaven and Hell are real, too?"

Oh, the dream to be normal and to have normal stories of injury and youthful folly. Sam never had that opportunity, when it wasn't his brother raising him he was left alone for hours if not days at a time expected to feed himself, clothe himself, and make it to school. The mundane life and times of a child were things unknown to him, and he'd grown up not only plagued by the knowledge of what his father and brother did but by his very different desires in contrast.

"You could just slap the cuffs on me and call it a day. Get treated by a specialist, not just steady hands and a talent for field medicine."

Sam flashes Spencer an incandescent smirk, one brimming with an acknowledgment to this newfound irony. There's no taking this kind of thing in small doses, it's all or nothing. Some people are better off for it, some people can walk away, Sam's not been able to yet. Not for long.

Sam pulls his shirt off to give his injury some air, careful as he pulls it over his good shoulder and off the gash now red and angry, crusted in shades of red over a deep blue bruise. The shirt goes straight into the bin, one more down for the count, and Sam finds a seat at one of the rickety chairs at the lousy dining table provided outside of the bathroom. The glow from the light casts shadows toward the wall beside the windows and Sam buries his face in his hands to tiredly draw them back and rake them through his hair, dry with sweat and blood.

"Yeah, demons."

A tired laugh follows Spencer's assessment, something youthful in it despite the wear and tear of years and his truth; his failed destiny. A truth he wished he'd never come to know.

"They're real, the other dieties are real. Werewolves, ghosts, changelings, rougarou, witches, and wendigo, if there's lore on it some of that lore is based on truth."

"The fact that you just confirmed all of that with a straight face is even more alarming."

Just, haha, yeah, heaven and hell are real! witches and ghosts and wendigos, too! that's how it is! It's a good thing that Spencer's too mentally and physically exhausted to rattle himself toward another existential crisis, because that might just do it. Werewolves and vampires are one thing, but Christian mythology? Native American, too?

While approximately 20% of his brain is spinning off in a direction wondering how many of the world's mythologies are true, Spencer hisses in an inward breath when Sam pulls off his shirt and reveals the gash on his back. It's pretty nasty looking, to say the least-- Spencer's just now realizing he got off easy with the injury to his forearm. He tentatively picks his way toward Sam's tired slump. There's something poetic about the sight of him in that moment; his rounded shoulders, the brush of his long hair over his nape, skin highlighted by the streetlamp light coming in through the window's curtains. A painting in a rough frame. Hunter, Wearied. Because that's what he and his brother call themselves, right? Hunters?

How often has Sam had to treat his own injuries, or his brother's, in shitty motel rooms? How many scars does he have from ill-healed wounds?

Hovering over him, Spencer almost touches Sam's back, close enough to feel the heat of his skin, and pulls back at the last moment. Suddenly, this all feels unbearably intimate.

"Well, demons aside, I did once spend a summer when I was fourteen practicing sewing up cuts on bananas and oranges. I thought I wanted to be a surgeon for a while, until I watched an actual surgical video and realized I preferred academics. So my sewing skills shouldn't be too rusty." Spencer attempts a tiny bit of levity. "You'll have to be careful with moving your left arm for a while-- otherwise you'll pull too hard at the wound."

"Yeah, alarming."

Sam's tired slump has become an all-encompassing thing that weighs heavy on not just his tone but also his eyelids and the frown that creases his features. There was a time when Sam could be surprised, shocked even, at the new reality of monsters and mayhem he'd been forced to participate in, but that youthful outlook died when he started drinking demon blood and his brother did a tour in hell.

Sam's careful and gentle despite all he's gone through. He has a nurturing streak that life hasn't managed to kick out of him yet and a dedication to knowledge and the task at hand that sees him through these kinds of situations.

Sam can see some of the same in Spencer, but being vague and non-commital about the truth never did him any favors. Since Jess, and since the shit with Azazel, he knows the value of honesty even if that honesty is a bitter pill to swallow.

"Even if they are," Sam didn't want to stick around the town any longer than he had to. He was just fine with sporting another nasty scar. He had more than his fair share. The humor does earn Spencer a smile though, barely there save for the curved corners of his mouth awash in the fluorescent bathroom lighting. "Tell you what. I'll do my best not to ruin your handiwork if you promise me not to get into any trouble with this kind of stuff." Academics never could just leave something alone, that much he knew first hand, and he didn't want Spencer to follow the same path as Henricksen or Jody for that matter. Unable to look away, too committed to not become something of a part-time, their life a casualty to it the same as him.

"I promise."

It comes quickly and hurried, with wide eyes, because why would he want to get involved with any of this? Reid is a sensible kind of guy (sometimes), and he sees absolutely no attraction in a life spent getting maimed by vampires and clawed by werewolves and attacked by whatever else goes bump in the night. He can see the weight of it on Sam, similar to the weight he sees on his team's shoulders during a particularly gruesome case-- Reid already deals with the worst that humanity has to offer, he doesn't want to add the supernatural to his already full plate.

"I've caught my breath; let's drag this chair to the bathroom so you can sit while I work."

And even as he thinks that, even as he directs Sam, he knows it's not going to be that easy. Part of it is his academic mind desperate for more knowledge, wholly unwilling to leave a topic largely unknown. Most of it is a dawning realization that he's almost certainly brushed up against the supernatural before, and never known it.

How many serial killers have they taken down? (Spencer knows the exact number; he turns that number over in his mind every night before he sleeps.) Were any of them possessed? Were any of the cannibals actually vampires? Were any of the mass shooters cursed? Six months ago one of the killers had an obsession with the moon-- was he a werewolf, and they just never knew?

Can he know about monsters, and not feel he has to help the victims of them?

It's on the tip of his tongue to retract his promise, but he stuffs the urge down. If he does wind up dealing with the supernatural, Sam doesn't have to know. Sam seems like the kind that would feel guilty about dragging someone in, and Spencer doesn't want to lay that on his already burdened shoulders.

Instead, he just wets a fresh cloth, and prepares to start cleaning up Sam's wound once he situates himself.

"Good. I'll hold you to it."

Spencer still had a quasi-normal life with as few casualties as was humanly possible for the BAU. They went against the human kind of monster and sure that took a toll, but it didn't destroy any and all possibility of hope the way that his lifestyle did. Sam didn't want that for the guy.

He follows Spencer's direction when he grabs the chair, and straddles the rickety piece of wood with his arms folded across the back. He's endured far worse pain, been taken apart atom by atom, and reassembled in the worst way imaginable. This was a cakewalk by contrast but that didn't mean it didn't ache. The nerves on Sam's back are on fire, the mark is angry and red, and he knows without Reid's help it would've been worse by the time he could get someplace where someone could help. He's grateful, and that shows in the care he's taken with the guy, even though he knows this association could easily end with him in the back of his patrol car.

"Don't worry about warning me. Just get it done, better not to count down. No need for bedside manner, Dr. Reid."

For a moment, Spencer looks at Sam in the mirror and wonders about the kind of man that doesn't even care about bedside manner. Everything about him screams this will suck but I've had worse, and Spencer's tempted to ask, but--

Not right now.

So he nods once, sharp and quick, and starts cleaning the dried blood off of Sam's back. When it's just old blood dripped down on pristine skin, it's fine. It's easy. But when he gets up higher and gets to the source, the broken skin is inflamed and raw, and it's not easy to look at. Everything in Spencer wants to say nope and call for a medical professional. But he takes a breath, holds for a few seconds, and steels himself.

He's done this before. A child's hands carefully sewing up banana skin and fragile orange-flesh. It's not so different to work on human skin, the repetitive slide and tug of the needle an easy enough pattern to fall into. Spencer is diligent -- it'd be easy to want to rush, to get it over with as soon as possible, but he works fastidiously, tightening every knot and centering every stitch. He falls into the same single-minded focus of solving a decade-old unsolved math problem, or having to shoot at an unsub that's about kill someone, or a negotiation crisis stuck in a holding cell with one of the most notorious serial killers in the country. He's good at focusing when he needs to, letting the rest of the world fall away.

Before he knows it, the stitching is done. He sets needle and thread down on the side of the sink, takes the alcohol, and dabs it liberally over the wound with a clean patch of gauze.

When it's as clean as he can make it, it still looks red and angry, but cleaner, now, and hopefully less prone to infection. Now that he's done, his own injured forearm gives a pang of protest, and there's a shakiness deep in his chest that speaks to an anxiety he's ruthlessly suppressing.

"There, all done." It comes out gentle, softer than he anticipated. The same voice he uses with victims, although it's not really that different than his normal voice. "It looks okay, but you should try not to strain it while it's healing. Can you... I don't even know if hunters take medical leave, but you probably should."

Spencer's profiling would be dead-on here, Sam used to have a hope left in him that he'd eventually make it out of the life but that dream died with Jessica. Then again when Dean's deal came due. He kept on taking hits because he didn't know how to stay down when it benefited him and after the shit with Amelia, now Sam wasn't so sure he was even capable of it.

His worldview was narrowed down for you at such a young age and the totality of it proved too a heavy burden to escape. First, he owed it to his dad, then to avenge Dean, but now the hits kept coming and everything just continued to build up. He helped other people, other hunters, sure - but he was lonely. It was a lonely life and now without Dean, Cas, or Amelia, he felt more alone than ever.

When Spencer is done Sam looks over his shoulder carefully at his handiwork. The look on his face doesn't hide how impressed he is with the neat lines and the careful threading.

"You might have missed your calling." The smile that follows the genuine compliment betrays his words but it doesn't reach his eyes. He's too tired. Sam carefully pulls his shirt back on and toes out of the boots he'd tread back into the motel in. "Wasn't supposed to be hunting to begin with, but it's a habit I can't seem to kick. I don't plan on running any more vampire nests any time soon."

Sam heaves a sigh and checks his phone before plugging it into the wall beside the tiny bathroom on his way out. Sure, the motel's not five star but there's two beds, a couch, and the sheets are all clean. "Maybe you should stay instead of hauling ass back to the BAU."

Knowing about each other was a two-way street and Sam realized on their way to the hospital with the victim who Spencer Reid was and what unit he belonged to. "At least wait until morning. That way you're not taking the company car with all of this cycling through your brain. Plus, it'll give you some time to catalog any questions you might have. I'll answer them if I can."

It also gives them both time to rest and recuperate before parting ways. Sam doesn't think it's good sense for either of them to leave with freshly stitched wounds after almost twenty-four hours of being up. Things hadn't exactly gone well for either of them at the nest, or at the hospital. Timely wasn't part of the gig.

Sam's... not wrong.

(And when did he start thinking of him as Sam and not Winchester.)

Spencer's really not sure he should be driving in the state he's in. He's been worse -- he's been a lot worse -- but he's lost blood, his arm hurts, and now that everything has caught up with him, he's exhausted. He drove away from the vampire nest and back to the station after the hospital, but the thought of adding a third trip today feels insurmountable.

(He catches on too late that Sam specifically said his unit's name. Is that concerning? No, he doesn't think so. He's successfully proved that Sam Winchester is not a psychopath and didn't blow up a whole police station, so he's fairly certain he has nothing to be afraid of. He is curious how Sam figured out that he was BAU, though.)

"First, we're getting takeout," Spencer says decisively.

He's agreeing to stay the night in a room with one of America's most wanted, and he's mentally lining up questions about the supernatural for him. What has his life become.

Spencer cleans up the supplies in the bathroom, and retreats to the main room again, perched on the edge of one of the beds. He always takes the one furthest from the door -- it's habit, he has to share hotel rooms with Morgan a lot, and Morgan once went on this whole lecture about how the guy with the better gun skills needs to sleep closer to the door in case of break-in and that guy is not Reid. Not that he's expecting a break-in here, unless... the vampires had friends that will get pissed and track them down?

Halfway through scrolling his UberEats app, Spencer looks up at Sam, alarmed.

"Are there going to be other vampires who track us down because we killed their friends?" Pause. "And do you want pizza, Thai, or burgers?"

The novelty of addressing people by their last names wore off for Sam when he was still in college. It was something someone did just to spout disinterest or disdain, neither of which Sam felt he owed Spencer. Not before he stitched him up, but certainly not after. The whole evening had been a bonding experience, and if Spencer woke up tomorrow and decided it would be simpler to arrest given the state of his life Sam would go along with it willingly.

"Okay, sure," Sam says with some resignation. He's too tired to sleep, so eating feels like a chore, but he endures the idea the same way that he would if it were Dean suggesting it. Old habits die hard."Do any of the places off Larb or Tom Kha Gai?"

Whatever reconnaissance Spencer and his team at the BAU had done, it would have heralded a lot of greasy takeout, and a penchant for smutty magazines, and classic rock. All Dean's genre of expertise. Sam was the more astute of the two, the more interested in vegetables and healthier options and the more aware of cultures other than his own. Back during simpler times, Dean would call him the 'geek boy sidekick,' and despite what he'd been through he hadn't yet bothered to let go of those little things.

"And we killed the whole nest."

Sam pulls what was left of his shirt after the stitch job from Spencer and tosses it and the bled-through undershirt into a bag to be torched later. He puts some gauze over the wound now that it's had time to breathe, not quite trusting enough of the scratchy bed sheets and dimestore pillows not to cover his basis. He puts some Tegaderm on over the gauze bandage and drags a weary hand through his hair as he does his mandatory sweep of the room for hex bags and bugs. It doesn't take him long, and when he's done he slips his handgun under his pillow and a blade under the mattress just in case.

"If there's more they're not in the state and are part of a bigger network who wouldn't come after you because of what you do. They won't be able to find me, and even if they do most won't bother with following through. No fledglings made it out thanks to you, so, we're in the clear."

That relatively short answer offers a wealth of information about how vampires operate. They're apparently pack animals who gather in nests, there's relatively few nests per state, and they might be cowards on their own. That's... reassuring, actually.

"Okay. So we're not going to have some stray vampires bent on revenge following us. Good," he says, relieved. "They really wouldn't come after me just because I'm FBI?"

That seems a little too good to be true, actually. Or maybe vampires are smart, and wouldn't go after someone whose job it is to track down criminals across state lines.

"That's strange, actually, because law enforcement are the victims of crime at about the same rate as non-law enforcement," he rattles off, still looking for a decent Thai place on his phone. "Home burglaries occur at roughly the same rate, as does assault. The rates obviously go down if a police officer is in uniform, but in plain clothes all bets are off the table, apparently. In fact, if someone was looking to steal a gun, law enforcement would be more of a target."

Spencer breaks off, thoughtful.

"So I guess it's a good thing vampires probably don't need guns."

It's not always the case, but more often than not most nests won't bite off more than they can chew. That includes when dealing with law enforcement and turning too many heads, or being under too much scrutiny. A good nest operates without turning too many heads or making so much as the local paper.

"It's about keeping a low profile." Whether or not the statistics follow it on a normal basis didn't apply here. Sam knew the way it all worked and for a species that had supposedly died out in the rumor mill decades ago, they'd managed to elude both hunters and the local feds long enough to get their numbers back up after that particular gossip made it through the grapevine.

"They don't, but there's nothing to say that they don't carry weapons. They might be stronger and faster than us, but they're still susceptible. Dead man's blood, sunlight, and if you can manage there are other ways if you're handy with making your bullets or setting traps like trip wire."

"Dead man's blood?" Spencer repeats, a little incredulous, before he seems to realize that everything he's learning is equal amounts of ridiculous and dead man's blood is no more or less weird than the rest. "That's-- hmm, I've never heard of that as a vampire deterrent. Garlic, sunlight, crosses, yes, but never dead blood. I've never exactly been a horror movie buff, though."

Interesting. Scientifically, how does that even work? Does it weaken the vampires by way of flooding their veins with dead blood, the opposite of what they need to sustain themselves?

It does make sense that vampires would want to keep a low profile, though. Staying out of the way of law enforcement is reasonable. If the world was alerted to the fact that vampires existed, well. Spencer can't predict exactly what would happen, but America does love an excuse to throw its military around.

"How long have you known all of this?" he winds up asking. A little exasperated, a little frustrated. Mostly curious. "I mean-- I sort of already know the answer. Your dad has a list of similar crimes almost as long as yours, so I can only assume that your dad was a hunter too. Did he teach you all of this as a kid?"

"Yeah, it's - it works backward in their system. It acts like a poison and slows them down to full paralysis. It doesn't kill them. Only beheading does that."

It is miserable for them, though, and based on what Sam's seen them do to good people and children, he's not above using it if it's a necessary measure. "Well, the garlic and the crosses will just get you laughed at." All stipulations, not real, not worth the time.

Sam rubs an eye and hides a yawn in his palm. His shoulder ached, and the rest of the liquor they'd used to clean his wound was looking tempting as a replacement for Nyquil or something to knock him out for the night.

"My dad and my brother tried to keep me normal, or at least as normal as possible. I went to school... I made good grades, but I was in middle school when I figured it all out and by that point, there was no hiding it anymore, so I was taught to hold my own. Just in case. The days of watching Lion-O on TV and doing the Daily Crossword at the hotel when I got bored became a thing of the past."

That doesn't detail why or who they got brought up in it but that was a story for another time maybe. Reid was smart enough to put two and two together. The incident with his mother, and then with Jess. Sam felt like a man cursed without speaking on the truly tragic loss of the people he loved. People like Amelia, who he realized now with this new injury and Dean gone was better off without him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

all you have is your fire [ reid + sam ]

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their meetcute is a meetnightmare or a meetchaos

so how did you two meet? well i pointed a gun at him...

accidentally dating someone he absolutely cannot tell jj or hotch about bc uh oh

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very sorry for the delay last month threw me some curveballs

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