#the plot is plotting

☆ You'd tried religion, once upon a time. Partly because you didn't know what else to try, partly because you didn't want to feel so very alone anymore, and perhaps mostly because of the gaping wound in your chest that was never going to stop bleeding. You'd stepped from one belief to another like trying on scarves, looking for anything to keep you warm enough, but nothing fit right. Nothing seemed to slot neatly into the gaps of yourself like you'd assumed it should. The hole in you simply stayed. Unimpressed. Unaffected. Unaltered. Lingering more like a bruise than a cut as time went on, something deep beneath the skin, violence-purple, weeping blood out of reach. Something you can't really stop your fingers from digging into. Making it hurt.

Religion itself had not helped, not in the way you'd so desperately needed it to, but as time went on you began to wonder if there was a reason that you'd tried it in the first place. If it was the same thing that drove others to church, to synagogue, to mosque, and beyond that to alcohol, to drug, to marriage and children and a house with a whitewashed picketboard fence. That maybe everyone had it, this hole in the shape of God somewhere between their ribs, jammed so that no breath comes deep enough.

You'd simply been... worse at handling yours. Or maybe it was deeper than most others, or more broken, or louder, or a thousand other maybes that really just end in the same sense of hollow isolation. That no one else would ever come close. Would ever dig their hands into the shape of your injuries, claw blood from your ragged edges and declare 'Yes, I know this! Whatever your wrongness was carved from, mine was made with the same knife!'

Against your chest, Singer whimpers, soft and quiet, and you reach down to gently smooth his twisted wing back under his elytra. The motion wakes Kickback, curled around you both, and as he yawns, showing all those deadly, jagged teeth, you allow yourself to feel it. The soft beginnings of something warm that kept flickering to life in your chest as he turned his head to brush those fangs against your skin, gently showing that he could hurt you. Showing love in the simple fact that he wouldn't. You raise one hand off of Headshot's back to trace Kickback's golden antenna, feel the pulsing glow of his presence spread through you with every beat of your heart.

If you were simply made wrong, made worse, then perhaps it is only right and proper that your empty places could only be made full by these things that were so much larger than your own fragile little life. Perhaps it was only natural that it was becoming so much easier to feel your own existence without shuddering with pain, yourself seen in fractals through their thoughts. Something hollow beginning to fill in the way Kickback found so much pleasure in the soft, giving curve of your rounded body, the comfortable appreciation with which Bombshell thought of your warmth, the steady care in the rhythm of Shrapnel's thoughts, always turning, inevitably now, to you.

It will never stop being a wound. You are certain of this. But as Kickback nuzzles your side, raises his head only to lick gently at the place on your jaw that had begun to ache when you'd woken grinding your teeth, you are just as certain that it doesn't have to. It's alright if you cannot stop your soul from bleeding. There is nothing you could ever possibly make that could scare your husbands away from you. They do not mind having blood on their hands.

Somewhere outside of your home, Bombshell is stretching his wings wide to feel the sun, the shape of him in the bond something lonely and grieving. You let yourself live in it. In him. Feel the sense of his purring at the comfort of your attention and it strikes you, all at once, that you are somehow more than a broodmare. And it genuinely feels like a shock, a bolt of emotion you were no longer used to holding, you are not just here because they need something to bear their children, not anymore. And of course, as soon as the thought actually crosses your mind, you feel ridiculous. Of course you are more than an object to them, you feel it every time they touch you, but still. Still, the nervous surprise sits in your chest, uncertain and unsure if you even deserve it.

Shrapnel's nudging thoughts snap you from your own, his fear-tinged insistence intruding upon your mind, and you answer him with as much emotion as you can. Pulsing the feeling of safety through your bond until you can practically see it, the way he resettles his wings and tosses his head as if to say Well, I wasn't that worried anyway.

Maybe it doesn't actually matter if you deserve it. The consideration comes hesitatant, fragile with hope as you look down at your triplets, curled on top of you. At the pretty scarlet stripes on Headshot's tiny arms, the blue eyes that flicker before focusing on your face when Singer raises his head, the flash of deep violet when Highrise rolls over and stretches his wings high, till they trembled with the tension. Maybe it really does have nothing to do with deservances at all. As you take in the picture of your healthy little grubs, package up the feeling of it and drop it into Shrapnel's aching spark to ease the terror of his loneliness, you wonder if the only thing that actually matters is that you don't mind getting blood on your hands either.

《》 Acid Storm was starting to annoy him. Starscream was genuinely considering finding a way to off the mech, imagining increasingly inventive ways to maim, destroy, ruin, and otherwise murder the Seeker currently pressed warm against his spinal strut. He'd have to drag the brute back to base, of course, and then he'd throw himself on the nearest flat surface and whine and cry until everyone was feeling sufficiently sorry for him. Poor dear Winglord and his sad dead consort. Pity him! Bring him nice food in berth!

He was purring at the thought, though judging by the patterns pulsing through Acid Storm's consistently green EM field, the dullard assumed the purr was for him. Starscream let him think it, only moving to bare his neck when the Rainmaker bowed his head to lick over the cabling. And as nice as the thought of destroying his annoying presence was, Starscream knew he wouldn't actually do it. Acid Storm was too useful. Nice enough that he could get mechs to do what he wanted, utterly unambitious to a frankly appalling degree, powerful beyond belief and, most importantly, utterly devoted to Starscream. Which all together did, regrettably, make him one of the most important pawns in Starscream's game.

Green claws traced the transformation seams in Starscream's side, following the new paneling that had set in when his waist had thickened a tad. "You're so beautiful, Star." And Starscream did have to admit to himself that he would miss the sheer depth of adoration Acid Storm poured on him if the repulsively neon bore did happen to get offed. No one else got the tone right, that soft, shaking sort of emotion that hummed under Acid Storm's every word as he kissed down Starscream's neck, his wandering servos painting love over every plate, seam, joint, and cable that he could reach. "Perfect. Absolutely perfect. I love you. Love you so much."

He'd gotten in the habit of saying it back. A thoughtless toss of words he did not mean, but when Acid Storm gently touches his claws to Starscream's jaw, turns his head to kiss him on the mouth, he finds that the words, for once, are stuck somewhere halfway up his throat. Acid Storm's field is still wound around him, a gentle haze of happy-green contact that had once felt searing and annoying, overwhelming in its misflagged sameness. The shifting pattern of his code was all too easy to read now, the gentle taps of his questioning pings, asking if it were okay to touch, to hold, to kiss, the rolling, consistent waves of his worshipful love. He cannot admit just how quickly that field calms his spark now.

"I love you." Again, murmured against his mouth as though Acid Storm is determined to paint the words to the inside of his intake, the sharp tang of diluted acid following the warm brush of Acid Storm's glossa to his own. "Love you, Star. My Star."

He should say it back. He knows he should. That that is how the game is played. It's how the script is written. But all that forces past the wall of his fangs is a quiet, static-laced, "I know."

When the pain hits, it is all at once worse than anything else he has ever experienced, terrifying in its strangeness, his frame pulling at itself from the inside. It rips through his field, scarlet as danger, white-hot with frantic fear, and he forgets that he does not want to want Acid Storm. Agony pulses through his entire chassis in a wave and all he can remember to feel is a profound relief that when he tries to stand and succeeds only in falling, that Acid Storm's arms are there to catch him.

"Star? What's wrong? What's happening?" So worried. Wings shaking with it. His sweet idiot, cradling him as though he were fragile, and Starscream does not have the focus to explain. Just holds on to those neon-plated arms and waits for the worst of it to pass. It's going to be a very long night.

○ The Insecticons had been abandoning the Decepticons for well over a year now, not just the past few months, not just their new harassment of human eateries. Jazz kept finding new pictures, new snapshots, new suggestions of violet and silver through aggravatingly evergreen trees. They'd built a nest. That much was clear. He almost knew where.

On the wall sprawled a massive map, a perfect overhead recreation of the area, pocked with pins marking every sighting. He'd finally had it narrowed to a single acre, was flipping though thousands upon thousands of images for even the slightest suggestion of the next hint. Needed to find it. Needed to find it and claw his way inside. Needed to see for himself what it was that had changed these Insecticons from the inside out.

Not a Seeker, definitely not a Seeker. He'd watched the Decepticons too, seen the way Starscream's winged brood behaved, they were not searching for one of their own. None of them missing that Jazz could see (and he saw all), which left so little that he could understand as possibility. A Queen surviving was an option, he'd considered, but there was too much gentility in these three outliers to be explained by a true Queen. Could be trying a grounder frame, he'd supposed more than once, but a grounder frame that could successfully take an Insecticons eggs was beyond rare. Maybe they'd tried anyway? Pulled pieces off, removed armor and plating and cogwork until the mech was broken but alive, enough hollowed out that their own internals couldn't crush the eggs forced inside. Possible, absolutely technically possible, but then lies the following issue: An Insecticon did not possess the forethought to figure out such a method under their own power.

His plating twitched, claws tapping dents into his thighs from hours of restless fidgeting. His tanks were nearly empty, the blinking alert in his visual feed an annoyance he couldn't tolerate, wings shivering with aggravation.

Again, through everything he'd already amassed, searching for anything he'd missed, anything he'd overlooked, finding nothing and hissing into the empty silence. Had to be something. Had to have missed something. The answer was here, he was so certain that the answer was right here, in claw's reach, but the shape eluded him, slipped through his grasp like sand. He was missing something. He couldn't figure out what he was missing.

Pulled up live feeds, dug through file after file, satellite after camera after photo, over and over, searching desperately until he paused on a change. A flash of deep blue and gleaming red. Optimus was in the woods. Jazz's processor stalled for just a moment, optics flashing, before he dismissed the oddity. It didn't particularly matter what his Prime was doing, he could take care of himself. Jazz had other things to do. Kept looking, kept searching, kept clawing through filework.

Bombshell was out, in clear view, lazing in a clearing with no trees in the way of Jazz's spying, thin wings spread fully out to take in the warmth of the sun. Insecticons did not sunbathe, not for millennia, there were no Hives left which meant there was no safety and no space for rest. And yet. And yet, here Bombshell was. As if he had no tasks left to complete. As if he had direct contact with a Queen who's needs he'd already handled. It didn't make sense. It didn't fit together right. He didn't have all the pieces. He was missing something-

"Hey, uh. Jazz?"

The voice cuts through his focus so sharply that his vision washes red, a pulse of pain through his overrun processor. He shuts his optics down, resettles his wings, surprised at how badly his back strut ached. "What? What is it?" Cliffjumper has the decency to look somewhat apologetic at least, though the expression looks wrong on the brash scout's pierced faceplate.

"You're looking after the Insecticons, right?" One way to put it. Jazz nods and Cliffjumper twists to show a nasty bite barely welded back together in his side. "What the fuck is going on with them? They don't act like they used to. They're way too fucking coordinated recently. One of the nasty eight limbed ones took a chunk out of me, Jazz!"

Everything stopped. His priorities went through a scan, a reassessment, and something clicked. He had missed something. He'd been so obsessed with the three that had, evidently, gotten away that he'd neglected to think of the actions of the rest. An image popped up in the corner of his visual feed, a memory he hadn't given near enough credit. The massive form of Wavewalk, that Insecticon with far too many legs to count, curled around Starscream mid-battle. Spitting acid at any who came close. Starscream, on the ground, fighting in the coil of an Insecticon. An Insecticon that had been protecting him.

His plates rose in a horrified wave, clawing a cabel out of his hip, ignoring Cliffjumper's embarrassed yelp, jammed in into one of the few ports on Teletraan-1 he hadn't already taken, ripping through the Decepticon's files faster than was likely wise. Months of snapshots flickered through his processor, the steady sharpening of the blade that was the Insecticon forces, the loss of their unlead uncoordination, Starscream grounded, over and over and over, always guarded, always shadowed. He pulled up the live feeds, risked Soundwave's detection in his desperation, and froze. For the first time in months, everything in his processor was stock still.

"Uh... Jazz?" A servo on his shoulder, gently pulling him back to himself, and he looked up at Cliffjumper's scrutinizing face. "You good, buddy?"

The words fell out of his mouth before he could think to catch them. "Starscream just gave birth."

saturday

One of your best and worst traits was your competitiveness. You were able to turn anything into a race in your head. You loved the feeling of adrenaline rushing through your veins, making your blood pump and your attention sharpened. You always performed better like this, whether it was an important or a trivial matter. So, when you felt Reid was inviting you to tango by how he’s acted since Wednesday, you weren’t one to shy away from the challenge. You were sure that everything he did was to make you look less professional. You simply thought he was this childish, even in his late 30s.

There was a subtle but undoubtable shift in your relationship with the genius. Like, when spring was around the corner around mid-to-late February. You couldn’t exactly see the changes, but there was something different in the air. The feeling and even the taste of the wind got a bit gentler and more welcoming. Of course, around this time of the year, rain also became more frequent. Just the same as the weather around a new season, you two also became more unpredictable by the day.

Now, as the beginning of the auction got closer and closer, you’ve also grown more and more anxious. The pastel high heels made soft thuds as you paced back and forth in the bougie guest room of the lakeside villa that the FBI provided for the mission. This time, you were wearing a flowy, blush-pink dress with beautiful gold jewellery. The carefully created thin pieces were the fruits of exemplary craftsmanship and were closer to art than to simple products, in your opinion. It was a tactical choice, to dress yourself like this. This way you’d seem less threatening to the men by giving a false sense of naivety and harmlessness.

“My sweet-sweet sugar bomb, since your ears are like a fancy Swiss cheese, I was able to get some piercings with mics in them. It’s not much but at least this way I could stay in contact with you,” rushed into the room—which up until this point was only occupied by Hotchner and some AT unit members—and straight to you Garcia. “It’ll match your aesthetic, don’t worry.”

Penelope wasn’t lying but still. Your ears didn’t look exactly like Swiss cheese. Yes, you had a few piercings, but nothing over the top. However, people liked to tease you when you showed up with a new hole in your said body parts.

“Damn, how?”

“Oh, I just pulled some strings, nothing serious,” waved her hands and let out her signature giggles the tech wizard after she handed over the fake pieces of jewellery to you.

“From whom can I expect a complaint soon?” sighed your boss, who was sitting in an armchair, pinching his nose bridge. Similarly to you, he was already in a full formal set, looking handsome as ever, ready to head out. You were waiting for the rest of the team who’ll infiltrate the mansion of Jonathan Grace with you as servers.

“Nobody, sir. Pinky promise.” she grinned a bit too brightly as she held up her finger to further reassure the stressed man, but her attention quickly shifted towards the opening door of the room. The two other BAU members who will be undercover with you walked in, looking beyond annoyed. “Why hello, my beautiful behavioural analysts!”

“Help me out with this, dollface.” Morgan basically whined as he held up the black piece of clothing that needed to be tied into a bow and apparently, he was unable to do it by himself. A bit behind him stood Reid with the same defeated look on his face. Ah, this is wonderful.

Both of them looked great. Beyond great, even. They were wearing pristine white button-ups, black vests and black suits. The only missing accessory was the bowtie, and none of them were able to figure out the technique of it.

A small plan formed in your brain and without a second thought, you walked up to the genius. Your steps were deliberate, making your walk look elegant and eye-catching. Even though you were slightly panicking on the inside, you were way too proud to show it and let him win the contest of who can make the other more flustered, which probably only existed in your head. You stopped right in front of him and took the piece of clothing from his hand before he could say anything. “Let me help you with this.”

Reid wanted to say that there was no need, but he couldn’t. Not when you looked like someone out of a fairytale, with your pretty dress and carefully styled hair flowing around you so effortlessly. The makeup was a perfect touch, the cherry on top, the point to the letter ‘i’. Before he noticed, your tender hands were already around his neck, working efficiently. He tilted his head and found your eyes with his. You tried to ignore the blushing that kept creeping up on your neck and not break eye contact, but you weren’t exactly practised in this, so after a few seconds that felt never-ending, you lowered your gaze to his chest. Damn it, now I just look stupid. Get your head in the game, Y/N. Just take deep breaths and don’t think… about literally anything. Realistically speaking, only seconds have passed, I’m sure I wasn’t that awkward.

You were still halfway in your thoughts, reasoning with yourself when you finished with the bowtie and were about to pull your hands away, but he quickly caught your wrists and firmly held it in place.

“Hmm?” was the only reaction that you were able to muster out of yourself. You looked at the man in front of you with wide eyes as your brain short-circuited. Oh, how you’ll hate yourself for this in the future.

“Thank you,” he said in a low, slightly hoarse tone. From this close, you were able to smell his perfume which was a perfect match for him. It didn’t smell too strong or rich. It was deeper and more refined.

“Ah, uhm. It was nothing, really. Everybody has their shortcomings, doctor. Maybe this is one of yours?” you asked with a playfully arched eyebrow as a sly glimmer flickered in your irises, not missing Reid’s attention.

“Let’s just say that my fingers are skilled in a different way,” he replied almost immediately, shattering that tiny amount of false confidence you were able to gather. You couldn’t believe your ears. Yes, you knew that the man wasn’t that innocent, lost boy that the others often reminisced about. You didn’t know Reid when he began his career at the BAU, but you heard he was different back then. Shy and even naïve when it came to topics like this. He obviously changed a lot. This job changed him. You knew that it cost him everything, like it did for most of the team. Also, he simply grew up, which was an unavoidable side effect of life. Still, this kind of suggestive talk was more like Derek’s style, not Spencer’s. You had no idea how to react cleverly.

Luckily, Penelope unintentionally saved you from having to come up with anything at all. “Look at that, boy wonder has finally learned something from you!” she teased the tall man while she pushed Morgan’s shoulder with her own. You took advantage of the distraction and pulled your wrists out of his massive hands, then took a few steps back.

This case seemed so doomed by the narrative from the very beginning that you genuinely had no idea at which point things went diabolically sideways. But they did, and now you were bleeding out as if you had nothing better to do, as if you had so much free blood in your body.

At first, everything went smoothly. You and Hotch were able to play the perfect couple with awfully conservative values and noticeable dominant-submissive dynamics. Those assholes were eating it up and the only thing holding you back from frowning was the knowledge that they’ll all be behind bars very soon. Or you hoped.

Occasionally, you caught glimpses of the two other men serving drinks and honestly unappetising finger food that looked borderline inedible to the attendees while taking mental notes about their faces for later. Aaron’s left arm was constantly around your waist, keeping you close to him at all times. Both of you were sure as hell that the rest of the team will be up in your asses about this for months at least.

As the event lazily stretched into the sultry night, a strong sense of discomfort and worry sneaked upon your shoulders, making your stomach twist. Something felt off. You couldn’t quite explain it, but you were sure that there was something definitely wrong.

Jonathan Grace has never left the crowd, not even for a few minutes, which didn’t seem logical. Managing this many victims from different locations was extremely risky and required a high level of organisation. His attention was a crucial factor for the traffickers to be able to pull this off without complications, still, Grace seemed almost nonchalant.

You carefully looked around, searching for any prying eyes, but only found the occasional gaze of your unit members. This was good. You managed to avoid suspicion so far.

When you made sure you weren’t being watched, you wrapped your arms around your boss’s neck and leaned to his face, as if you were hinting a small peck on his slightly stubbled skin.

“We’re missing something,” you murmured into his ear.

“I know, Grace is too calm.”

“When the auction starts, go alone. Say that you’re testing my trust in you. I’ll look around.”

“Fine, but be careful, Agent.”

After this, you did exactly what you agreed on. When Jonathan announced that the auction was about to start and opened the way to a secluded hall, you stayed behind, like many other women and all the staff members. You tried not to worry about your boss, who just entered a den of snakes all by himself and instead, you slipped away from the small crowd.

“Garcia, can you pull up the layout of this place? Or some kind of surveillance footage? I’m looking for a private study,” you whispered, hoping that the incredible tech goddess would hear you.

“In a second, my gorgeous, sweet macaron!”

You already started snooping around while you were waiting for the directions. You felt like staying in motion would help in not getting caught. Echoes of footsteps broke the silence of the dimly lit corridor where you currently were, making your pulse quicken and your breath hitch. You turned around and were ready to come up with some bullshit excuse when you noticed those all too familiar hazel curls.

“God, you almost gave me a heart attack,” you mumbled but couldn’t help a smile spreading across your face as Derek and Spencer reached you.

Instead of reacting to your sentence, Reid said “We’ve missed something.”. His tone seemed normal, as if he was stating a simple, harmless fact but his expression gave away the anxiety he felt.

“Yeah, Hotch and I thought so too,” you nodded. A few seconds later you’ve got some possible rooms from Penelope, who was only able to find a ground-plan, and decided to split into three, all of you covering a place.

“Here,” before you all went in different directions, Derek grabbed your forearm and handed you a gun.

“Damn, I’m impressed. How did you manage to get this in?”

“Found a window that was left open while I was clocking in,” he shrugged and revealed another weapon, hidden at his ankle, which he gave to Reid. “Imma be honest, it’s a miracle that I didn’t get busted. These guys are throughout.”

“Regardless, I could kiss you right now,” you joked as a wave of relief washed over you. You were nowhere near wrapping up this case, but you felt much safer.

“What’s stopping you, pretty girl?”

“I’m married,” you sighed as you held up your hand, showing the fake wedding ring hugging your finger.

Derek laughed and ruffled your hair. “Be careful.”

“You too,” you nodded, then looked at the silent doctor, “And you too, Reid.”

He nodded, but nothing left his lips. His eyes did the talking instead, which were more expressive than anything he could’ve said. He was worried and filled with anxiety. He was never a fan of splitting up on the field when the area was unknown and they had no way of communicating, but now they had to be quick, so this was the only logical option.

Well, it’s safe to say that you weren’t careful. You reached the room that Garcia was guiding you to and slowly pushed down the handle, but the door didn’t budge. So, you did what any skilled agent would’ve done in this situation, which is taking out a hairpin from your decorated hair and fucking around with the lock until something would work out. After you heard a quiet clicking noise, you eagerly opened the door and stepped into the poorly lit study room, only to hear a loud noise and feel a sharp pain in your right side, above your hip. Your reaction was instinctive, aiming the gun in the direction of your attacker and shooting before a second thought.

You only stumbled after a loud thud let you know that whoever was in there, wasn’t alive anymore. You took a deep, shaky breath and lowered your gaze towards your waist, which was now covered with warm, crimson blood, ruining the dress that was probably more expensive than your monthly mortgage.

“Oh, the Bureau will hate me for this,” a painful groan left your lips as you tried to ignore Garcia freaking out at the other end of the line and instead walked towards the massive desk in the middle of the room. You were extremely lucky that the bullet missed every vital organ, but still, you were heavily bleeding. You knew you only had a few minutes before blacking out if you were lucky. You had to make this search as quick as possible.

You rummaged through every drawer of the heavy oak furniture with one hand while you pressed the other one at the open wound, trying to gain some conscious time. At first, you found nothing worthy, which made you panic. You were about to faint in enemy territory without any information. But just as you were about to spiral, your knuckles hit the back of one of the drawers, creating a hollow sound. With all your remaining strength, you tore the fake divider out of its place and found a folder behind it.

“Y/N please say something, I heard shots, what happened?” Penelope’s worried voice dragged you back from your momentarily dazed-out state which occurred sooner than you’d anticipated. You placed the folder on top of the desk and started looking through the files.

“Everything is fine Garcia. Look something up for me real quick, please. Since when does Jonathan Grace deal with transporting fish? We thought all his business was related to constructions.” you tried to sound stable to calm down the analyst, but your head was already spinning so you had to lean on the edge of the desk.

“Since never. There is nothing under his name or any of his aliases with connection to the fishing industry.”

“Then why…?” you mumbled to yourself, but the answer came quicker than you could’ve finished your own sentence. The other victims were never meant to be brought here, all of this is a fucking distraction. “Pen, alert the others. The victims are getting deported in containers, hidden under the fish, right now. There’s a contract for cargos to overseas, we’ll lose them forever if they leave the States.”

By this time your vision got blurry and most of your strength left your body, so you didn’t notice the two other agents hurriedly entering the room and rushing towards you. Only when someone’s arms secured your numb self and laid you down gently did you realise that you weren’t alone.

“Y/N, listen to my voice,” Reid’s firm tone slowly reached your brain as you tried to blink the dizziness away, with no success. The doctor placed his strong hand on the wound and pressed on it, trying to slow down the process of you, bleeding out. “Stay awake.”

“I’m fine, you should see the other guy.”

“Do you really feel like this is an appropriate time for your jokes?”

“If it annoys you, then the answer is obvious.”

The harsh, sharp sound of sirens that filled the air calmed you down. The place probably was being raided, meaning that the end of this tiring case was near.

“Reid, I’ll go look for Hotch. Make sure she’s okay.” Morgan's words almost sounded like an order, and even though it was meant for the agent who was a bit more collected than you at the moment, you held up your arm and showed a thumbs-up in the direction of the leaving man.

“Keep still. If your body loses more than 20% of its blood, you could go into haemorrhagic shock. That is when the heart slows down and can't circulate enough blood around the body. Blood pressure plummets when this happens and there’s a massive drop in body temperature. If the body loses more than 40% of its blood, all the organs start to shut down and death is likely.”

“I know, and you aren’t exactly calming me but don’t stop talking,” you mumbled. You were about to close your eyes when he gently grabbed your cheeks and turned your head towards him.

“Only if you’ll keep looking at me,” he said, his voice soothing but commanding. After a painful groan, you opened your eyelids and even if you had to narrow them so that you wouldn’t see two of him, your eyes still found his. “Good girl.”

Am I tripping that hard or did I hear him correctly? If you weren’t in your current state, you would’ve become a blushing mess at those two words. You were sure that it had no meaning behind it, not when it came to Reid. He was just probably trying to take control of the situation and didn’t even notice what he said. Yes, it must be it.

For a few minutes, Reid rambled about techniques that were used even in ancient times to prevent soldiers from bleeding out, and how many methods are used in modern days too. His captivating eyes were focused on your face which has slightly glimmered since you started sweating. You tried not to break the eye contact, but you felt more and more tired to the point that you were hardly able to control your heavy eyelids. As if your lashes suddenly weighed tonnes. He was about to explain in depth the history of cauterisation when the medics entered the room, taking you away from his warm arms and lifting you with a stretcher.

From this point on, you had no memories. Everything went dark and silent. In a sense, you felt comfortable.