Title: Down the Rabbit Hole
Author: Sam
Fandom: Criminal Minds AU from the No Way Out, Pt. 2: The Evilution of Frank episode
Pairing: Gideon/Reid
Rating: FRM - violence
Disclaimer:: So not mine. After this, they probably won't want me anymore anyway...
A/N: SPOILERS for the Evilution of Frank. Warning you now - I was in a majorly bad mood this morning and I took it out on them. Possibly could be read as character death but I left it open ended.
Summary: Frank's back and he wants Jane.

***

Turning the corner and picking up his pace, Gideon walked a little faster. He was late. Shaking his head at himself, he admitted ruefully that this was no way to start a date. Not a date. A dinner, that was all. Just a dinner.

To which he was late.

Damn.

Spotting a sidewalk florist's stand, Jason veered over to it, cutting through and dodging other pedestrians with one eye already on the flowers offered on display. Clichéd perhaps, but Gideon thought they would be appreciated, if only to grace and put the finishing touches on the table set with his good china and silverware.

After all, it was only a dinner. Not a date.

"What can I get you, sir?"

Good question. He had no idea...

"Something flowery?" he shrugged with a wide grin. Inspiration struck just as his phone rang. "How about something purple?" he asked and turned to his cell. "Hello? Hotch, don't worry about the evaluation. Yes, I know it's early. Don't worry about it." Turning back to the young woman gathering the flowers, Gideon frowned.

After all, there *was* such a thing as being too predictable.

"You know what - forget the purple. Do you have any yellow flowers? Poofy in the middle?" The phone tucked between his ear and shoulder left his hands free to mimic a vague dome shape. "Like a dandelion but not? Button mums? Or maybe...you think maybe roses? What do roses say?"

He listened with half an ear as both Hotch and the young lady declared their votes for the roses if he wanted to get any action at all.

"You're right. We'll go with the mums, please," he smiled as Hotch snorted and she shook her head. No doubt at the clueless old geezer wasting his money on flowers that wouldn't get him anywhere. That was all right. This wasn't a date...not really... and yet... "Could you add some of the white stuff? You know...make them..." he waved his hands helplessly in the air. "Happy?"

He listened with amusement at Hotch's chiding that one only got mums for their mothers while the florist evidentially decided to take pity on him and his yellow matrons, hemming them in and surrounding them with baby's breath.

His peace offering complete, he reached in his pocket to pay, complaining lightly at the amount. "I'm glad now I didn't get the roses. And so we lose the jet. I'd rather take the train anyway. Doesn't necessarily mean anything that your file was the only one not pulled."

Nodding in thanks Gideon moved out of the way of the next man impatiently seeking his appeasement gift and continued on his way. "If it'll make you feel any better I promise I'll look into it in the morning. And I didn't tell you I was going out on a date because it's not a date. A friend. Yeah yeah. You worry too much. Try to get some sleep, will ya?"

Gideon closed his phone on the younger man's dry retort with a smile. Hotch really did worry too much.

A few steps later, he was still chuckling when a familiar face brought him up short.

Jane?

It was only for a second out of the corner of his eye, across the street, and when he looked again, she was gone.

That was impossible. It couldn't be.

Staring at the spot, indecision warring with the need to check it out, the phone rang where it rested forgotten in his hand. Tearing his eyes from the sidewalk, he looked down to see Spencer's name on his caller ID.

Shaking his head, what was probably only a case of mistaken identity immediately forgotten, Gideon answered the call with a smile and an apology. "Spencer. I'm sorry I'm late. I -" he began, only to have his blood run cold and his heart stop at the soft, all-too-familiar voice that came over the line instead.

"Jason. How good it is to speak with you again."

No.

Even as his head whipped back over to the other side of the street, his eyes searching in vain for the one he now knew he *had* seen, Gideon pleaded softly. "Don't hurt him. Frank. You don't need to hurt him. Please."

The mums fell forgotten from his hand.

The voice spoke again; calm, reasonable - as if they were discussing the weather. "Where is my Jane?"

"Frank, please. Please!" Jason felt his heart contract painfully. He knew he was begging a sexually sadistic psychopath for mercy but he didn't care.  "Let him go. He's got nothing to do with this. You don't have to hurt him. Please! Just - just let him go, Frank."

"You have a lovely home, Jason. But you may want to have the maid come in tomorrow. I'm afraid I'll be making a mess very shortly."

"No!" The world spun around him, narrowing down to only a pinpoint with the voice all but devoid of emotion at its center. He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. "No - Frank - "

"Find my Jane, Jason. And the killing will stop. I promise."

With that, he hung up, leaving Gideon with a dead line.

--

Placing the receiver back on its cradle, Frank took a moment to admire the elegant, purely authentic rotary phone. Like the old-fashioned high-buttoned typewriter in the home office and the equally ancient camera on the shelf with his trains, Jason had obviously taken great care with the piece. It was certainly old enough and kept in good enough condition as to qualify as an antique. Set as it was beside a high tech alarm clock with all the bells and whistles.

Frank shook his head. Such a dichotomy was Jason. One certainly must admire the beauty of such a rare contrast.

"Much like you I would imagine."

Frank turned toward the young man lying frozen in more than fear on the dark blue coverlet. Suddenly he frowned. That would never do. Jason must *see* the blood if it was to drive home the seriousness of Frank's demands. If it were to have any affect at all. Red red blood on white sheets would surely be much more effective.

That done, he settled the young man - and now he had a first name, Spencer, to go with the last; Reid, if he recalled correctly - once more onto his back, taking the time to appreciate the delicious fear he found shining out of the eyes locked onto the white ceiling. Really, Jason; how boring.

The kedomine would be wearing off soon, and Jason would surely be rushing home, but Frank took a moment to absorb the tears leaking out of the hazel eyes. They really were...quite pretty. He could almost see what Jason saw in the boy.

But alas. There was work to be done if he were to be reunited with his love and this child - lovely as he was - wasn't Jane.

Tearing buttons, he ripped the plain white and gray striped dress shirt open, watching the fear double as the body jerked with the brute force. Ah, he did so love his work.

Leaning over the now bared chest, he spoke friendly enough, though the words and tone a jarring contrast to the scalpel held firmly in his hand. "I'm afraid this is going to hurt..."

--

Spencer couldn't move as the psychopath known only as Frank violently tore his shirt open, looming over him like a childhood terror, blocking out the only light in the room. He wanted to plead, to beg, to demand why it was psychopaths and killers always came after *him* and not someone else. But most of all he wanted to tell Jason he was sorry...in their line of work...if only he had checked the door before opening it...

"I'm afraid this is going to hurt..."

He couldn't shake his head in denial, couldn't even close his eyes (the only part of him free to move at all) as they tracked against his will on a sudden flare of brilliance that caught on the sharp blade descending to rest almost gently against his skin. He was going to die, his blood sprayed over the cheerful yellow walls, his body cut up into a million pieces for Jason to find.

And he was going to be awake for all of it.

He couldn't even cry out in pain as the scalpel sank into the flesh below his collarbone. But he could feel the sharp, sharp burn of it as his skin was torn apart. He could feel his blood as it began to trickle over his chest and down his side to fall, dripping, onto the newly bared white sheets of Gideon's bed.

He couldn't move, couldn't scream, but he could still feel the pain.

As he stared wide-eyed and unable to so much as twitch, Frank started in on another cut; methodical, precise. His muscles frozen in place by the drug injected into his neck, Spencer could feel the involuntary scream building, wanting to tear itself out of his throat.

But try as it might, not so much as a whimper of his terror escaped to join his tears and blood dropping into the silence.


end

Next story in serioes - And Back Into the Light.