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Derek lifted his heavy head from the wood grain of the table with a groan. His mouth was full of blood from the tooth he'd knocked out fighting literally tooth and nail against the men who tied him down hours ago. When he lost consciousness he counted it as a blessing. The rope around his throat chafed roughly, catching the cuts already made by the harsh fibers as they cut into him with every move he made.
He could hardly remember why he felt so desperate to look around now. The cold chamber was silent and full of shadows dancing from the lantern providing their only light. He knew it had been hours. It was early evening when he and Reid stumbled on the underground network of tunnels hidden beneath the fireplace at their suspect's lonely, cliffside house. He knew the group responsible must have covered their tracks when he and Reid recklessly went exploring. They hadn't even called the team before diving headfirst down the secret shafts.
He heard a choked sound from the other end of the cavernous alcove they'd been led to at gunpoint when the unsubs blitzed them in the dark.
"Reid?" Derek called thickly around the throbbing pain in his mouth.
"Hey... l-lay your head back down, please," Reid answered like he could hardly breathe, like he was being strangled. Morgan let his head fall back down in confusion but then he felt the rope tighten slightly around his own throat and he remembered.
The rope attached to his throat was also tied tight around Reid's. If one of them moved, it tightened the noose around the other via a series of intricate pullies set into the stony ceiling.
"Fuck... sorry, man... you okay?" Morgan spat out along with a glob of bloody saliva.
"Fine, I'm fine... what about you, Derek... they..."
"Forget about it, Spencer... I'm okay, let's just get out of here, alright?" Derek said harshly, refusing to go into what happened before he passed out. He could still feel it. Feel the hands on him, the disgusting bodies violating him like that... he could still hear Spencer screaming, fighting, choking himself to try to get to his lover being assaulted right in front of him...
"Okay," came Spencer's soft, defeated voice. "You aren't going to like my idea, though."
"Why not, Pretty Boy, if it gets us out of this situation I don't care what it is..." Morgan said tiredly, trying to ignore how shaky and awful he felt, how truly traumatized he'd been over the last few hours.
He just wanted to get free so they had a chance, at the very least.
"You're going to have to sit up. I can see from here better than you, if you sit up and crouch down, there's a sharp rock on the ground--" Spencer paused to cough, his voice so hoarse from straining against the rope binding him around his neck it hurt to speak.
"Use it to cut the ropes around your ankles. Then you can cut me loose," he finished softly.
Morgan took that in, knowing exactly what Reid was implying he do in order to guarantee at least one of them escaped.
"No, Reid, that'll strangle you--what if it takes too long, I don't even know where you are exactly--"
"They have me standing against a ledge, facing you on the t-table. There's a... a sheer drop behind me. I'm tied by the throat," Spencer's voice ticked up in a high-pitched gasp and he coughed again. "and my arms are tied up too, but I can grab the rope around my throat still--I can try to keep it from hanging me for a minute or so, I think. "
Morgan shut his eyes and tried to breathe. He was being asked to potentially hang his boyfriend just so he could maybe cut himself loose in time to save him.
He was going to murder the men responsible for this.
"You know it's our only chance, Derek. They could be back at any time," Spencer called gently through the dim, dank cavelike room.
Morgan felt tears rise for the first time despite every other horrible thing that had happened to them so far that night.
"Alright. Spence... deep breaths, Pretty boy, you hear me?" he choked out around the sobs in his tight throat.
"Mhmm..." he barely heard Spencer's mumbled ascent. Just the measured breathing of a man who sounded like he was about to dive deep underwater.
Before he sat up Morgan said the thing he'd been waffling over for weeks, unsure if it was too soon or too late for such silly sentiments. It no longer felt like a sentiment now. It was just the truth. And the time was now to finally say it.
"I love you, Reid."
He only had to wait a moment before a quiet, sweet voice answered him with something like joy in his tone despite the circumstances.
"Love you too."
"Get ready, baby."
He heard no response and didn't need one.
Morgan pushed himself up quickly from the blood-splattered table and immediately felt the tension around his throat dissipate. Then the sounds of choking and gulping hit him and he didn't allow himself to look as he scrambled to the edge of the table and slid down to a crouch between his wide-spread, naked legs.
He searched desperately for the sharp-edged rock Spencer told him about, where is it, fuck where is it-- Spencer was gasping, not even gasping--no sound came now and Morgan's heart hammered so hard in his chest he thought he might pass out when he saw the flat, sharp rock finally.
He knicked his hand along it before sawing into the ropes knotted too tight around his ankles to untie by hand, it would take too long and Spencer was being hanged by the cruel device intended for them to have choose one or the other to survive.
The other victims hadn't been successful in subverting the dark desires of these unsubs.
Only one of every kidnapped pair ever walked out of the woods after days of being held, tortured and assaulted.
After a few too many moments of cutting and sawing one ankle was free. Morgan lost his patience and hacked at the ropes around his other leg, slicing into himself in the process but the force was enough for him to wrench himself loose and tear the remaining fibers apart with brute strength. He fell back on the floor and cut the rope around his throat but the device was designed to continue it's hold on his counterpart despite the lack of tension.
He staggered to standing and finally found his lover. Ten feet away, hanging a solid foot off the ground held entirely by the noose around his neck. His eyes rolled back and his hands weakly grabbed at the rope before they fell to his sides and his head lolled against his chest.
"No!" Morgan darted forward, heedless of his nakedness or how much he hurt or anything else. He grabbed Spencer's legs--bare, he was clothed the last time he saw him, they didn't-- they did, he's naked too, bruised, what, NO--
He pushed that thought from his mind and focused on keeping his boyfriend alive at whatever cost.
Morgan heaved him up with one arm to release the tension around his throat at least. He held Reid's limp body up and stared at the rope too high above his head to reach.
"Fuck--Fuck, how do I cut you down, Reid, oh fuck ," he murmured deliriously when he registered the precipice just inches away, a dark chasm opening up in the cave he had no idea the depths of.
The sharp rock was still in his free hand. He gazed at it and then the tight rope cutting into Spencer's throat.
"Fuck..."
There was nothing else for it. He'd have to risk cutting Reid to cut the rope.
He started gently without thinking about it, sawing as quickly as he dared and as far away from his carotid as he could get. He still ended up slicing the skin the closer he got to severing the rope.
"Sorry, sorry, Pretty Boy... fuck, almost--" He dropped the rock when the rope was reduced to a few strands of rough fiber and just ripped it apart with his teeth and his fist. Spencer fell against him and they both tumbled to the wet rocky ground.
Spencer was a ragdoll of limbs on top of him when Morgan caught his breath and rolled his boyfriend onto his back. He didn't think before starting CPR, pumping his chest, breathing air back into his still lungs, ignoring the rope burns around his throat the way he didn't respond for thirty seconds... one minute... one and a half.
Pump. Pump. Pump. Breathe.
"BREATHE, Reid, f-fuck," pump--
Spencer finally inhaled raggedly, coughing and choking as his eyes fluttered open and closed and finally gazed blearily at Morgan's sweat-sheened face shining in the lantern light.
"worked... cool... 'm glad. cough cough ." Spencer smiled dazedly at Morgan's terrified face. "Kinda thought I was gon' die."
Derek was about to smack the stupid smile straight off the kid's face when he heard footsteps approaching down the corridor. Drunken laughter, those voices he wanted to silence forever.
Spencer's gaze sharpened just enough. His calculating eyes glanced to the lantern, then the rock and then the gaping chasm just beyond. Morgan was glad they'd gotten to the point in their years-long, ever-evolving relationship they no longer had to speak words to lay out a plan of attack.
They just smiled at each other soundlessly. Waited for the moment. Looked each other in the eye and knew... they were at the end of their rope.
Do or die.
They did.