Chapter Text
“It's been three days, where the hell is he?” Morgan shouts, slamming his hands onto the conference room table. Reid has been missing for almost 72 hours and the team has next to nothing that would help them find him. Morgan still stubbornly believes that the kid is okay, but as the hour's drag on the possibility of that actually being true grows exponentially smaller and Morgan's hope dwindles.
“We’ll find him,” JJ reassures him, placing a hand on his shoulder. It might have been more comforting if her voice hadn't broken and her eyes weren't red and swollen with dried tears.
“We’ve been looking for three days, why can we find him already?” Morgan is mad. Not at JJ, or any other member of his team. He is mad at himself for not being able to find the kid, and he is mad at the unsub because wherever he is, he has Reid and he is going to kill him if he hasn't already. But Reid's body hasn't been found yet. So maybe he is still alive. He has to be alive. Morgan cannot think of anything worse than living in a world without his little brother in it. A world without Reid in it is a world that Morgan doesn't want to live in. So he better pull it together and find him. Of course, he has been telling himself that for three days and it hasn't amounted to anything.
“At least we know who the unsub is,” Emily offers softly from where she is scanning a map that is pinned up to the board in the corner of the room. Normally, Reid is the one who is pouring over the map. It feels weird not to see him there with all of his colored pens and highlighters.
The unsub in question is Richard Spitz. The team had been called to the fairly large town of San Antonio, Texas where someone had been re-creating different punishments from Greek mythology. The first victim had his organs eaten by ravens, the second was starved. The third was eaten by rabid dogs, alive. The myths of Prometheus, Acteon, and Erysichthon. And now he has Reid, acting out whatever horrid punishment he saw fit.
Spitz was a professor of Greek mythology at the University of Texas in San Antonio. Reid was sent to him to see if any of his students had a certain acclimation to the different punishments of the gods. He never came back, but a quick search of Spitz’s office showed the team everything they needed to know; Reid's messenger bag on the floor, along with his gun and his credentials, and a small smattering of blood. The cameras confirmed it. Spitz didn't even try to hide, and yet the team still can't find him. And now he is somewhere unknown with the genius. The team had searched Spitz’s house, his parent's house, friends' houses, although he didn't have many of those. They searched all of his jobs and his old jobs and old apartments and any other place that the team could trace his name to and nothing. He disappeared and took their youngest agent with them.
“I think we need to start working from different angles,” Hotch says, interrupting the dark thoughts of every agent in the room. He places a coffee tray in the center of the table and the team swarms it. It has been three days, and each member of the team has probably gotten about that many hours of sleep through all of it.
“What different angles, Hotch?” JJ asks, her voice strained. “We’ve looked at everything that is even vaguely tied back to Richard, he isn't here,” Emily walks over to her, gently squeezing her shoulder. JJ leans into her, blinking rapidly to try to disperse the tears swimming behind her eyes.
“We need to move away from Richard and focus on the different punishments he could…be using,” Hotch says, carefully phrasing his idea. What he means is, they need to be focusing on the torture Richard is inflicting onto Reid.
“If we can pick out a myth, we can find a place that would be needed to carry out that myth,” Rossi says, catching onto Hotch's idea. Hotch nods.
“I’ll call Garcia,” he says, pulling out his phone. He takes a long sip of coffee, pulling a face at how bad it is.
“Did you find him yet?” Garcia’s voice sounds watery and desperate. Morgan squeezes his eyes shut before answering.
“Not yet, mama, that's why we need you,” his usual flirtatious tone falls flat.
“Whatever you need,” she whispers.
“We need a list of possible myths Spitz could be using, and places near here that he could carry out those punishments,” Rossi says. Garcia takes a deep breath and then there is a series of rapid clicking sounds.
“Got it. I’ll hit you back when I find something,” she says.
“We’ll find him,” Hotch reassures her. He has said that more times than Morgan can count in the past three days, and at this point, it is beginning to sound hollow and fake.
“Of course, we will, if anyone can do it you guys can,” Garcia tells them, and they can practically hear the soft smile in her voice. Then there is a click and the line goes silent.
“We will find him,'' Hotch repeats, whether for himself or for the team, Morgan's not totally sure.
---
Reid- many times in his life- has been tired. His track record with sleep is not good, he will be the first to admit that. Reid- many in his life- has also been overworked. Since he was in college he loaded his plate up just a little too much stuff. So he was used to being tired and he was used to being overworked. But this was an entirely different type of tiredness. His muscles ached, his lungs were on fire, his throat was tight, his eyelids were heavy, and his bones seemed to grind together with each step he took. His head still hurt too, from the probable concussion that Richard gave him when he knocked him out, however long ago that had been.
Reid had been excited to go to the college, volunteered for it. He wanted to learn about myths and ask Richard questions. Instead of answers, he got a metal paperweight smashed into the side of his face when he was turned away looking through records.
And now he is in some warehouse being forced to carry rocks back and forth. Big, heavy rocks that cut his hands up as he struggles to hold them.
The Greek punishment that Richard assigned to him is that of Sisyphus. He was doomed by Zeus to always push a boulder uphill. Obviously, that is impossible to do. But Richard made a way that was close enough to his fantasy to satisfy him. He found an abandoned rock quarry and is making Reid carry stone after large heavy stone across the room. And Reid has been trying his best for days, or however long he has been here, to keep working because he knows that if he doesn't, the whip on Richard's belt will be put to use. But his body is shutting down and he just can't do it anymore.
Halfway across the room, Reid drops the rock he is holding. It thuds to the ground, sending dust and dirt up into the air. Reid’s knees buckle and he hits the ground hard and stays there. He is begging his muscles to stand up but they don't listen to him, not even when he hears Richard strut over.
He blinks lazily in the light as Richard comes to a stop above him, looking down with mild disgust. His hands are on his hips but Reid can see the whip held there. He can also see the gun. Richard is wearing a toga, so it's not like he has any pockets to hide his weapons.
“Why did you stop?” he asks, kicking Reid roughly in the side. Reid groans, feeling the grit from the ground enter his nose and mouth.
“I can't,” he whispers. His throat is dry and caked in whatever dust cakes everything else in the warehouse.
“Sisyphus didn't stop,” Richard chides.
“I'm not Sisyphus,” Reid counters. Richard clicks his tongue in disappointment, unclipping the whip from his side. Reid is almost too tired to be afraid.
“Get up,” Richard orders.
“I can't,” Reid says. His voice breaks and he grimaces. Richard only shakes his head again before rolling Reid onto his stomach so that his back is exposed.
“Please I can't-” the tears that Reid had been so stubbornly keeping back come rushing back and this time he can't fight them as they begin to spill down his cheeks, carving paths through the filth on his cheeks and skin. “I can't-”
When the first lash happens, he doesn't even feel it. He feels the second one. And the third. And the fourth. He doesn't feel the rest.