WARNING!: Contain dark themes: Attempted Suicide. Drug Abuse. Mentions of Murder, and Torture. If you cannot handle these themes, please do not read! This is a Pre-Slash fic. Meaning hints of homosexual content. If you do not like do not read!
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds, nor am I paid for this or any other fic.
Author's Note: Again, just another reminder. This story and some others were previously on my other account. I simply thought it was silly to have two accounts so I moved all my stories on to one account. SlashHeart101 and ConstantSnow are the same person! I'm not stealing anyone's stories.
Life Line
Every time you stuck the needle into your arm, you felt like scum. Every time dilaudid raced through your blood, and your eyes rolled back in your head, it broken you down a little more, and a little more. You are positive you are empty now. All the pieces and parts that had made you into the human being that you are, had turned to dust and blown away.
But you can't stop yourself. The need started with an itch on the inside of your left arm, and that itch grows and grows until you swear you'll scratch right through to the bone in your desperation to make the itching stop. Then your hands started to shake, and get worse and worse, until you can't even hold a piece of paper steady. Finally once your mind started to go blank and you can't think anymore, you find a place to hide. Dark and dirty where no one would think to look for you, where no one would find you ruining yourself.
You fill the syringe just right, then tap out the bubbles, and tie off your arm. It's was hard to do, but you always seemed to manage. The prick of pain in your arm was the most horrific part, just before the dilaudid entered your system, but to late for you to turn back. Tears slid down your cheeks and you pray that someone would walk in on you, smack the needle away. But no one ever came, and you push the plunger down. For a few seconds there'd be this eery calm that hangs in the air, the silence broken by the heavy panting breaths you took, then finally the wave hits. You lean back against the wall, your eyes rolling back in his head and you gasp for breath.
Once the initial high faded, you would get up, and put everything back in the bottom of your bag, and you go out to the rest of the team, continue to do whatever they'd been doing. You ignored the knowing look Gideon gave, the disappointment in Hotch's eyes. The anger that couldn't be hidden in Morgan's face. The worried confused looks that Jj and Emily gave you. The pain filled glances Garcia gives you when you see her.
You never understood why they never said anything. Why they never confronted you, but it's not up to them to help you. This is your demon, your dark secret that will haunt you for the rest of your life, and slowly it kills you. You wish it had already, it's bad enough that you have the nightmares of Tobias Hankel and what he did to you. That your childhood haunts you, that what you're doing to yourself, and how it affects the team, weighs down so heavily on you, that you nearly break- that you are breaking.
When everyone says their good-byes at the end of the night, you almost can't say it back. The happiness, the normality, God it eats at you.
The silence of your apartment when you get home is suffocating, it presses in on your from all sides. And as you lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, you decide, it has to end.
You have to end.
You smile happily, joke and play with the rest of the team like you haven't in a while. They all seem happy that you're back to your childish self, and give into your antics and play with you, and there's this calm that you haven't felt in months. You make plans with them, to go out Friday, something you'd avoided since this whole thing began.
You say something to each member of the team when you're alone with them. Just a little reason of how they've done so much, given you so much, taught you. There's a brief moment of confusion in their eyes, before they smile, and return the gesture. You smile, thankful to hear their last words to you.
When it's time to go home, you smile, and give enthusiastic good-byes, and tell them not to forget about Friday, that you're really looking forward to it.
You gather your things and get to the subway just in time to get on the train and get home.
You don't bother with the same routine that you normally follow when you get home. You turn on music, loud enough for you to hear it in the shower. You take your time in the shower, you scrub every inch of yourself several times, and stay in the water until it runs cold, then get out, brush your teeth, brush your hair, then put on your pajamas; boxers, blue sweat pants, and an FBI navy blue t-shirt. You set out food and fresh water for your cat, Newton, then go back into the bathroom.
The two small bottles of dilaudid and the syringe are sitting out on the counter along with a belt. You fill the syringe completely, and tap out the bubbles. You sit on the floor with your back against the sink and tie off your arm. You take a deep breath and pick up the syringe and don't hesitate to push it into your skin, the calm you had earlier is gone, and your chest is tight, it's hard to breath, and your hands are shaking. You close your eyes tightly as the tears start flowing. You're so tired, your body hurts so much and it just won't stop.
You push the plunger down, and pull the belt off your arm, letting it fall to the tile floor along with the syringe that rolls across the floor and hits the tub with a clink that echos unnaturally loud in the bathroom.
It's so much different from when you normally shoot up; you can feel it running through your blood, it's cold and makes your arm go numb first. You open your eyes only to find your vision is blurry, and it's not from tears. Your breathing is becoming shallow, and each intake of breath is harder and harder to draw in. It doesn't hurt, and you aren't afraid. It's just taking to long.
Then it hits; you can't breath, the dilaudid stopped your lungs, you manage to close your eyes as you slump over.
There's a bright light on the other side of your eyelids, someone screaming and shaking you. Another voice, higher in pitch is frantic. You cough, and it hurts so much, there's this bitter taste in your mouth and you cough again, and open your eyes.
Your vision doesn't want to focus, but you know who's leaning over you. His deep voice is telling you to stay with him, he's ordering you not to die, that you're stronger than that. Your hazy mind tries to figure out why he's here, why he saved you. You're so tired, you hurt so much. You sob and close your eyes again, but he shakes you hard and tells you to open them, and you obey, but just barely.
"Damnit Pretty Boy what were you thinking?" He asks brushing the foam bile from your cheek and lips with his shirt, not caring how disgusting it is. He's cradling you against his chest with one arm behind your head, your back against his legs and his other hand on your stomach.
You can't form words, and your eyes roll around in their sockets, still unable to focus on anything. You see who the other voice is now, you feel bad. Garcia is crying hard, tears streaming down her cheek, as she talks on the phone with most likely a 9-1-1 operator. Her bright colored dress is easier for you to focus on now, but your eyes still keep rolling, glancing back at Morgan who's still holding you tight. You look up at his face, he's crying too. Something you've never seen before, even when he confronted Carl Buford, and it makes you upset, and you sob again, and turn your face away. He strokes your hair, and you realize then, you body is wet; freezing cold water dripping from your clothes and hair.
Morgan put you in a cold shower to shock you awake most likely after preforming CPR to get your heart beating and you lungs working.
The door burst open and two people pull you away from Morgan and lay you flat on the tile floor. The stabilize you, hook you up to several iv's. They've got to flush the dilaudid out of your system.
When they get you to the ambulance, Morgan hops in and grabs your hand tightly, almost painfully, and you know he's staring down at your face as the ambulance doors slam shut, and you can hear the sirens blaring.
Once the dilaudid is out of your system, and the doctors aren't worried about you possibly coding again, they put you in a private room, and Morgan comes in. He pulls the chair right up to the bed, and sits down. You turn your face away, and stare up at the i.v. drip.
"Why?" Morgan asks, and the word hit you in the gut like a mack truck, and you whimper pitifully. "Why? Please tell me I can try to understand."
Your face twists into a mix of pain, anger, exhaustion, everything that you've been feeling for the past months. You can't put that in words, you don't even know where you would start to try to. But you take a deep breath, and look towards him. He's not crying anymore, but his face is tight, his jaw is clenched and his eyebrows are knitted together tightly, the look in his eyes is pure desperation.
It's like a dam that breaks, and you tell him everything, your rambling and repeating things, but he doesn't care. By the time you're done the rest of the team is standing just inside the room, you're sobbing, and begging them to forgive you, not to hate you. No one moves or make a sound and you cover your face with your hands. You feel so small, so broken laying on the hospital bed.
Finally you feel a hand on your shoulder, and look up to see Jj smiling down at you. She's got tears in her eyes, but she's smiling at you. "It's gonna be okay Spence. We're gonna help you." She said, then leaned down and pressed her lips to your forehead.
Once they are all gone, and it's only Morgan again, you look at him, he hasn't spoken since you broke down and told him why you tried to kill yourself. The expression on his strong face is screaming anger, frustration, pain.
"How?" You ask and his eyes lock on yours, freezing you under his intense gaze. "How did you know to come to my apartment, that I'd...kill myself?"
"I know the signs. After you make the choice to end it... There's this calm and happiness that is impossible to explain. A person is happier then they've been in a long time, they say things, that seem strange, but are very kind and loving. You make plans to go out with your friends or family. I've seen it before. I'm just pissed that I got there after your heart stopped beating." Morgan said, and you look down. His large hands are clutching the edge of the hospital bed that you're laying on. You reach down with shaking long fingers, and brush them over his hand. Slowly his hand turns over and he laces his fingers with yours, holding tightly, and you know. He is all the reason that you need to stay living.
He's your life line.
You look up at Morgan's face again. You take a few deep breaths. "I'm sorry, for everything." You whisper.
He leans over you, and his free hand runs through your hair, and his breath brushes over your face gently. Your eyes flutter close and your body relaxes. The pain ebbs and the exhaustion fades. "I'm gonna protect you from now on, I promise. Nothing's ever gonna hurt you again." Morgan whispers, and you know, you can sleep without nightmares tonight, that he'll keep them away.
"Thank you." You murmur, and feel his lips brush over yours. And you're able to sleep.
End
I've always wanted to do like a follow up to Revelations which is one of my top five favorite episodes of Criminal Minds. So here it is. I hope that you liked it, even though it was rather dark. It ended happily enough though right?
Thanks for Reading.
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