The premise: In the aftermath of his dramatic kidnapping and forceful drug injections at the hands of Tobias Hankel in Revelations (s2e15), Dr. Reid has a hard time keeping himself together. The unwanted taste of dilaudid sparks an interest in its mind-altering effects. When his stolen supply runs out, the newly-addicted Dr. Reid is driven to seek more.
The woman leaned against the building, yawned, and pulled out her watch. It was eight fifteen on Friday, March 16, 2007, and about time for certain individuals to start showing up for tonight's haul. She glanced at the quartz face and frowned at the scratch across the 2. Must've nicked it when the metro jerked her around today. She gathered her coat more snugly against her neck and prepared for the long haul.
Five blocks up and two over, Doctor Spencer Reid shuffled down the street, hands in his pockets, looking at the ground very sternly and doing his best to blend into it. The evening looked blue to him, cloud cover hanging low, sucking all the heat out from underneath it, taking all of the comfort from his body. He tried vainly to hide the fact that he was uncomfortable with having to be in this part of DC, but somewhere in the back of his head he knew that anyone trying to profile him would see his darting eyes and fleeting instances of panic.
But there were no profilers here - he'd been meticulous in avoiding suspicion from his team, and had taken extra notice to appear as normal and predictable as ever at the office this morning. His gaze leapt to the other side of the street, and at that moment happened upon the shadowed face of a man who Reid would swear was fixing him with such a look from under the brim of a bowed cowboy hat. He took it back - there were profilers here - profilers of an entirely different breed. He swallowed, his nervousness getting the best of him, and his eyes found the pavement.
Five minutes later Reid stared at the vertical grain of a very thick, old door in the side of a brick building. He briefly considered knocking. He wasn't sure what he was expected to do now that he'd found the place his scrupulous step-by-step directions had taken him. He abandoned his papers in his coat pocket slowly, after letting his eyes rake down the list, glancing at the final line: you want to put an order in with Jinx.
He thought of running, abandoning this insane and highly illegal venture. The sounds of people going about their lives a few yards away, hustling up and down the busy street, seemed to roar louder in his ears.
He turned to a woman's voice, close by. She stared at him expectantly from a yard away, a small, friendly smile on her lips. "Hi? I'm sorry, what?" he said.
"I wondered if perhaps you were lost. I'm familiar with the area and if you're looking for something, I might be able to help you out," she replied. Her voice was crisp, clear, not an unpleasant match to her features. Her eyes seemed heavy-lidded to the observant Reid, though her powdered face and painted lips spoke of a desire to be seen.
"Oh, I, um," he stared at the gold leaf rimming her eyes. "You know, maybe you can help me. I've never been here before, but I'm looking for Jinx. Someone told me I could find them here."
"Someone gave you a good tip." She offered him a cigarette from a fresh yellow pack that had 'Kool' printed on it, already holding one in her teeth, and shrugged a little at his polite refusal. The hand with the box disappeared into her outside right pocket and emerged with a Bic lighter of some indiscernible dark shade. She flicked it on, sucked into her Kool stick, and blew the smoke off to the side, briefly obscuring Reid's view of the street.
"Are you Jinx?" He asked, wary of the unhealthy smoke swirling in the the late winter wind.
"Sure," she said. "Whatever," surveying the man in front of her. College, she figured. Smart, awkward kid getting his fix of the thing those rich boys did on the weekends. "Jinx" was the order code, so to speak, for dilaudid. In her business there was a different asking name for each substance.
Reid didn't say anything. She rolled her eyes. "Okay," she said. "Would you accompany me inside?" He followed her through the thick wooden door, down a hallway, past a bend around which flared a white strobe and the drabble of pervasive electric dance music. Friday evening was just getting started. "Do you do tablets or intravenously?" She called out over her shoulder, shouting over the music.
"Int- intravenously," Reid trailed off in a mumble of the last bit of the word and hoped it was intelligible. He looked around nervously. He thought she might have nodded.
"How much are you looking to pick up?" When he didn't answer immediately, she turned her head to look at him expectantly. He shrugged again, finding a lump forming in his throat. Her face softened a little. "I gotcha, kid, we'll talk about it."
She probably pitied him, thought he was just some dumb kid. He forced himself to say something, anything. "You have quite the business," he forced out, rather hoarsely. "I didn't expect I'd be able to come away with something on the first go," Reid forced down the panic rising to his eyes.
"We like to be friendly here. No one walks away unsatisfied, or if they do, it's only because they thought they deserved what they ain't."
She handed him a business card. "You let me know if you like us. If you do, give me a call, that's my job phone." On the business card was printed a name, Georgia M. Sullivan, Customer Service, Financial Advisor, along with the logo, fax number, and street address of Bank of America, DC, Vermont Avenue branch. "My name's Dan, but you can call me Georgia if you want." She gave him a smile and shrugged.
Lines of instructive text ran through Reid's mind. Her consistent use of the plural we and us was intentional, meant to give him the impression that her operation was too large for him to get a handle on. He smiled, held up the card, put it in his pocket. "Thanks," he said. "Yeah, I'll do that. Can I ask you a question?"
"You just did." She laughed. Reid thought it was sounded nice. "Okay, sorry. Sure."
Reid stuffed his hands into his pants pockets, feeling the business card in his right. "Can you tell me why you dress so provocatively if you're not selling yourself?" The words felt accusatory in his mouth, but she didn't seem to mind. "I'll be honest, at first I thought you were a prostitute." He then apologized immediately.
She only laughed at him again. "I give them a thrill; play up the fantasy. It's what they want."
Two weeks and another Friday later, she rolled up his sleeve, her fingernails biting his skin. He shifted on the couch, thinking back to the first time someone rolled up his sleeve and stuck a needle into his forearm. Back then he could feel his own hot breath vaporize and diffuse in front of his face. His head had hurt, and he had shivered uncontrollably when the drug had entered his bloodstream.
Now, he was warm. The supplier he'd met on the street - Dan, he reminded himself - rested the inside of his arm along her own, instead of strapping his wrists to the arms of a beat-up leather chair. Reid watched her clean a tiny circle on his upper forearm. She was much nicer the second time he'd visited her in DC; friendly, even. It was like she spent the first ten minutes with a new person sizing them up, passing her judgments, and being almost incredibly rude. Once she got a feel for his needs, mannerisms, and way of speaking she had noticeably relaxed. Reid didn't blame her one bit - he didn't need to think too hard to figure she has to have dealt with some volatile people.
He wondered how many other people she'd taken a personal interest in. She didn't strike him as the kind of person who could remain impassive after she knew the reasons her clients came to her, though he had to admit his interactions with the woman were limited.
For all the charm she put on when she's working, at home she wore no makeup. Her cherry brown hair hung straight, pushed back with a headband to expose triple-piercings on her right upper ear. Gone were the highlighted curls and dark blue San Diego Padres baseball cap. "My name's Dan," she had told him, and after 1.5 seconds he had believed her. There was a bluntness about her features to match the hardness of that single syllable. She hadn't told him her last name, but on their third meeting she was comfortable enough to bring him into her own living space. Whether that said she was comfortable with him or comfortable with herself he couldn't say.
"Hey Reid, you okay?" She asked. He realized his mouth was open and promptly closed it.
"Yeah," he replied. She'd just finished walking him through the steps to a proper, safe dose. He didn't really need the instruction, having used the liquid taken from Tobias Hankel fervently and freely, but she had offered and if Reid was being honest with himself, he'd admit that he felt vastly more comfortable with her administering the drug than doing it himself.
She positioned the needle carefully, glancing once up at his face before instructing him to breathe in, then "breathe out" as she slid the tip under his skin and pushed down on the plunger with her thumb. The arm with the needle flexed involuntarily against the liquid intrusion. He felt her grip his elbow from somewhere far away, had a vague impression of someone taking a ticket out of an automated parking garage meter. His eyes were closed. He felt his brain lighten, ignoring the presence of gravity, heard the words of Sophocles in his mother's voice, felt a light buzz around his chest and arms. He opened his eyes when he felt the depression in the couch of someone sitting next to him. She put down the syringe and felt for his arm, applying light pressure. They both jumped when her dog whined and scratched the bathroom door.
"Christ," Dan sighed, exasperated. "No! No, Bia, don't go over there!" She whispered. Reid hadn't even noticed she'd gotten up and let Bia out. He had, however, been aware that the dog was now furiously trying to sniff his hands. He patted the top of her head and got a wet nose in his palm. Dan plopped down heavily on the sofa next to him and smacked Bia's snout away. "Leave it!" She said firmly, then "good girl" was more soft.
Reid heard her sigh. He looked over and saw that her eyelid sparkled gold just as it had when he saw her on the street, that first time. She appeared to be clothed entirely in light that curled around her face like smoke. He heard his own heartbeat, saw it pulse in his vision. The wall behind her melted away and evaporated off the surface of a lake. The oxidation orange of the lakebed recalled the stagnant water of Yellowstone.
A/N: Since I keep adding new chapters I thought I'd spruce the place up a bit. I only very slightly modified this chapter since the first version of it came up. Constructive criticism is always welcome. Like it? That's great, this is my first fanfic and I'm trying hard! Don't like it so much? Please tell me why, so I can change and make it better!