Title: Staying Sane Inside Insanity
Author: Ashley
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Rating: T
Ship: Reid/Morgan
Summary: Morgan helps Reid see the good in their line of work.
Warnings: Maybe slightly angsty. This is a SLASH story. If you flame me, I WILL report you. So don't.
Authors note: I definitely stole the title from Rocky Horror Picture Show. So all credit goes to that… It was my inspiration. Please read and review!
"I can't do this any more." Morgan looked up from the file in his hands at his lovers words. He was laid out on the commercial hotel room bed, with his back propped up on their pillows, reviewing the case file for their current case.
"Do what?" He asked, fearing the worse.
"This job. I can't do it. It's driving me absolutely insane. You know I have nightmares every single night now right? I can't close my eyes without seeing the ones we couldn't save."
"Baby boy, everyone on this team has nightmares. Even me, you know that." Reid was shaking his head before Morgan had even finished speaking.
"Not like this, not to the point where it consumes them, Derek." Reid shuffled his feet and then stared down at them. "I'm already afraid of my mothers disease, this makes it worse. I jump at the slightest noises, and I flinch at the most innocent touches. I'm starting to believe that I wasn't cut out for this job."
"Spencer, everyone has a hard time with this job."
"Exactly! Look at what happened to Gideon and Hotch! Gideon vanished, because he couldn't handle the rigors of this job after Sarah was murdered. Hotch lost Haley a long time before he lost her to Foyet. He almost lost his son, Derek!" Reid shook his head, his hair falling into his face. "What do I have to lose? My faith in humanity? Hotch doesn't even think about smiling anymore. I can't let that be me."
"It's not going to be you Baby boy, I'm not going to let that happen. I'm going to keep you sane." Morgan sat all the way up in the bed and reached for Reid's wrists, pulling the slim doctor to him and down into his lap. "Everyone has trouble with this job." Reid shook his head again.
"Not Emily, Rossi, or JJ."
"Ahh. You think that this job doesn't affect them like it does the rest of us?"
"If it does they never show it."
"Emily compartmentalizes really well. This job affects her more than you think. Did you know that she found out that she was having a baby a few weeks ago?" Reid shook his head rapidly and his eyes got big. "She broke down in the pen and cried. Said she couldn't see bringing a child into a world filled with such evil."
"Emily said that?" Morgan nodded and wrapped his arms tighter around Reid.
"Yeah, she did. Rossi doesn't sleep while we're on cases, he says the night mares are always too hard to handle when he knows that he should be out there doing something. JJ goes home every night to him and their kids wondering if she's made the right choices. She's always haunted by the fact that she may not have, and she blames herself for the deaths of countless people she doesn't even know." He tilted Reid's face up and pressed his lips against his.
"It's not about it not affecting us, it's about how we show it. It affects us in different ways, but this job has had it's benefits too." Reid stared at the older man in disbelief.
"Yeah, like what?"
"Well, for example, when Emily broke down in the pen, Hotch went over to her and held her while she cried and told her that they would get through it together, and that what we did made the world better. He said that each time we solve a case, we make the world a little bit safer for her to raise their child in. Their child Baby, think about it. This job brought them together, and it's about damn time both of them had someone in their lives to love.
"Rossi came back to the BAU out of a guilty conscious. He needed to solve a case, but instead he found a wife and started a family. JJ got the one thing she always wanted: A loving, functional, family. Rossi has been married to JJ for five years now, his longest marriage ever, because he found someone who loved him and wasn't afraid to stand up to him. They are so right for each other. And they get to help each other through the horrors that we see everyday, they have someone they can relate to right there with them all the time. Just like you and me.
"We never would have found each other if it hadn't been for this job. Add to that the fact that it was the pressures of the job that originally drove me to your arms, and you see what this job has done for us. Baby, even you can't deny the fact that if it hadn't been for this job, then we never would have gotten together." Morgan raised an eyebrow, daring him to argue with his logic.
"No, I guess I can't." Morgan smiled slightly.
"And I forgot the most important thing."
"What's that?"
"Our family. We have three beautiful nieces that adore us, and two of the most adorable nephews that want nothing more than to be just like their 'super hero' Uncles Dave, Derek, Aaron, and Spencer." Reid smiled and thought about the 'mini minds' as he so lovingly referred to them. The children of the BAU team, Anna and Amelia (JJ and Rossi's three year old twin girls), Meghan (Garcia and Kevin's five year old daughter), Isaiah, (JJ and Rossi's seven month old son), and of course Jack Hotchner (who was ten now), were everything to Reid. They kept him young, even as the horrors he saw daily aged him. "We have the entire team, and Kevin and Garcia. We might be the most dysfunctional fucking family in history, but we are still a family, and no matter what we always have each other to lean on. Always." Reid nodded and burrowed his face into Morgan's neck.
"Wow… Some people never get this lucky do they?"
"They sure don't, Pretty Boy. We've pretty much got everything." Morgan pressed a gentle kiss to Reid's lips, before adding "and about those nightmares, I don't plan on going no where, so you always got me to chase them away." And with that the couple settled in to get as much sleep as they could with the nightmares they knew would haunt their dreams. Reid was comforted, because he knew that whatever happened, however the bad the dreams got, Morgan would be there to chase away the dreams.
That was the only way they would ever stay sane inside the insanity they called their lives.