Its
gonna hurt
And I love the pain
A breeding ground for hate
but...
Im not, not sure,
Not too sure how it feels
To handle
everyday
Like the one that just past
In the crowds of all the
people
'Miss you love' by Silverchair
I held both his hands in mine, skin against skin. Silently willing him to answer, to even acknowledge the question. I waited silently, letting the minutes pass, he would speak when he was ready.
He sat looking at his palms bandaged white. He begins in an almost whisper…
"I could tell you the statistics on self-harm among Sera, they're listed as n at risk group in almost every country. The United Nations describes them as one of the most vulnerable groups in society and allows for their removal from family and society placement in 'care' as standard. It is the only group in society not allowed the right of freedom. The basis of this decision is that every known Sera has a history of self-harm which escalates and on occasion has resulted in death. And as much as I hate to admit it, for me it was no different.
It started four years ago. I'd wake after what felt like a deep sleepless night with scratches down my forearms or across my thighs. I could feel it then, in the moments before I fell asleep, the shift. Most people have felt it at some point, like you are physically falling and when you suddenly wake you feel a jolt through your body. And your thoughts are barely logical, barely remembered. It's like that when you fall, your thoughts stop making sense, they take on a dream-like quality and for a while you can think in tandem with another, watch their thoughts roll across your mind. Then you are gone and they are in control. It was an instinctual thing, to stop myself falling, to give myself something to hold on to in my own body.
It stopped feeling bad, and started to be a relief, a connection to my body, even good. I felt more alive when I was in pain. I still feel it, it still helps.
But not this pain from the implant. It's not physical, it's not real. I can't see the bruises, or run my hand across the marks. It's harder to connect, impossible to find relief in. It's not my pain. It's not my body."
He's shaking now with the effort but in a last effort drags his eyes up to meet mine.
"I'm not that strong. I know that by the time I was caught it was getting worse. But I also know that this is not better" He raises his hand and runs his fingertips along the scar shuddering.
"I can't speak of this thing without feeling the need to drop to my knees and press my forehead to the floor. It haunts my thoughts with echoes of unreal pain. It's a thousand fold what I find relief in. It's agony and I can't escape it"
He's holding my gaze, still and pale as death but strong, willing himself to open up. I'm in awe.
"I promise you. I will never use it unless I have no other option, unless you risk free falling. We'll try something else.
You say physical pain helps. But I can't let you hurt yourself like this" I take his hands in mine, showing him his own hands.
"This isn't safe."
He nods, lowering his eyes again and letting his head drop enough to send that curtain of hair across his face.
I reach over and brush it back behind his ears. I place my hand under his chin and lift his head up level to mine.
"I know this is hard. But I will help. We'll work it out together and if it gets too hard, then I will give you what you need. I am somewhat experienced in giving consensual pain"
I meant it too, I couldn't let him hurt himself but I could do it. I could punish his body to help his mind.
I had done it before for others, for far less noble reasons. He looks as me shocked and then just as suddenly looks away, in his eyes I saw for a second something, terror certainly but also something else, need?
"Spencer, I want you to know that I want to help you break the conditioning. I know that you'll never be free of the system, but I want to help you at least have some choice over your actions. I hope that we can find a way to give you back some control over this ability you have. We'll work it out together"
I run my fingers along his jaw as I pull my hand away, feeling the soft skin of his neck. I push back the arousal curling in the back of my mind and can't help asking myself if my need to have him close was really so honorable after all.
"Please, I'd like to sleep now," he almost begs, I can tell he's distressed but there is little I can do to calm him.
"Spencer, you haven't eaten yet. We don't need to speak further, I'll make us some dinner and then you can sleep"
That night after I put him to bed, I sat watching him. The drugs still too strong to allow him natural sleep, I could give myself the luxury of watching him without fear of waking him. He looked peaceful, unreserved and open, so unlike his waking self. I couldn't help but wonder who this young many was before all this. Had he been a normal teenager, getting drunk and kissed for the first time? What had he lost? Could I give him anything back, anything more? Would I be allowed?
"We've got a new case. The locals have asked for our assistance with narrowing down their list of suspects. Which we'll do and then send back our findings. There are three dead women, all mothers, all white, all mid thirties. Each murder took place in a late night bus station. We are needed to profile the case and either shorten the list or if possible suggest a suspect. They've sent over all the evidence including case files on each of the people who were present in the station at each of the murders, over 120 people. I need each of you to take a pile and try to eliminate some of the people before we begin looking at the files as a group."
I handed out a stack to each, making sure Gideon and I took the heaviest load.
"We'll gather back in an hour to present a profile. Then we'll begin sorting out the suspects"
I take Reid with me back to my office, he's been quiet all morning, well he's quiet normally but now he's withdrawn. I begin to worry that maybe he's not feeling well.
I sit him down, I still have to guide him into a chair each time or he'll sit on the floor. He doesn't react as I prick his finger with the test kit. To my frustration, he's lower than the needed dosage.
"I'm sorry Spencer, but I need to give you a shot" He grimaces a little but offers his arm.
Measuring out the minimum I lean over and as carefully as possible empty the contents into his bloodstream. Almost immediately he pales a little and leans forward. I wait trying to gauge his reaction, with drugs this potent, it can be quite difficult to get the right amount.
He pales further and falls forward, fortunately I'm quick enough to catch him and guide him to the ground, shifting the trash can under his mouth, he looses his breakfast. I pull his hair out of the way and rub circles across his back. Considering that this is only the third time it's happened since he's arrived, I'm not too worried. But it can't go on like this, I make a mental note to speak to Michael about finding something to deal with the nausea associated with Amsatheirine.
I take him into the bathroom and help him clean up before dumping the contents of my trash can down the toilet and washing it out in the sink.
"Don't worry about it. We'll give it half an hour and then I'll get you something to eat that won't upset your stomach"
He's acting so normal, as if he didn't just splinter me into so many broken pieces. As if he doesn't see my need splayed out in front of him. If only. I want to tear away from his presence, to be alone for the finally after so many months of never being alone. I want to talk and talk and talk. And ask questions and laugh. God I miss laughing. I just want to be alone so I don't need to obey that fucking protocol. That piece of me that was ruined, that was beaten into submission so many times that it now feels natural.
And I want him to touch me, to wake up my numb body just enough that I can feel again. Something more than a creature.
And he offered me that. In those few words he offered me something to help me cope and feel. He offered to help.
And then the panic stuck and I wanted to escape his presence. The only way to do that was through sleep or falling. I chose sleep.
Until that is morning came and hours pass and I find myself in the familiar situation of heaving and retching, trying desperately to breathe while my body shakes with the effort of expelling the toxin. Failing of course because they are in my bloodstream and not my stomach.
But he's kind and firm. I find myself soon back at his desk with a stack of files in front of me. He's busy reading each before he hands it to me. I guess I'm not really surprised, it's not like I have a doctorate in psychology or anything, I can serve no purpose other than as a Sera I think cynically. Even he thinks that.
Finally he hands me the first file, a woman, young and well known locally. I almost immediately disregard her. The next and the next is passed over to me and each I disregard in sequence.
But something isn't right, the voices are louder now. They're murmuring has turned to howling and I'm fighting to not flinch at each demand they make. I open the next file and place my hands open on the desk on each side of the file. I press them down hard, desperate not to give in to the temptation.
But as I begin to read I can feel it, the fall. This man is the murderer, I can feel him in my mind, humming nothing tunes as he work, stretching a cable around their necks. I want to vomit again, to warn Hotch, tell him to be careful, this man is angry and everyone and everything. But I can't, I can feel myself slipping, the Amsatheirine has worked, I have no control left to resist. I manage a moan before I loose control, the darkness and nothingness engulfing me, locking me out of my own mind.
I hear Reid moan before suddenly he's on his feet growling across the table at me.
"Hello Fairy, faggot freak! Come to take me away have you?" He laughs, a deep bitter sound, no what I would expect from the gentle youth. I look over at the picture on the front of the file he had been reading, a big man. John Carter, I recalled from my own reading of the file.
"Carter," I state warily. Reid isn't restrained or and my door isn't locked. Damn
"Yep, that's me!" He says glaring at me, "Don't even think about touching your gun or I swear I'll kill you." He's holding the letter opener I keep on my desk. Could I have been more stupid!
He crosses the space between us and holds the blade to my neck. I feel the weight of the remote heavy in my pocket, if only I could reach it. Growling under his breathe.
"Give me your cuffs,"
This is my chance I realize, I purposefully fumble a bit shifting my coat pocket with my arms so that I can touch the remote inside as I reach back for the cuffs. I feel it clumsily with my finger tips before pressing down hard on the emergency activation key.
A piercing scream rings out across the office and Reid falls to his knees in front of me, dropping the blade to reach up around his body. He curls tightly into a ball, shaking uncontrollably as he screams himself hoarse. I turn it off as soon as I can but the emergency activation is set for twenty seconds.
So I sit and pull his twisted body into mine, holding him close as he cries echo across the office and bury themselves into my soul.
"I'm sorry," I tell him, "I'm so sorry! It's all my fault! I'm so sorry!"
I tell him over and over again, rocking him back and forth. My office door bursts open and Morgan is there followed by the others, his gun out and aimed at us.
"Wait!" I tell him, "It's ok now."
He's stopped screaming and is now sobbing silently into my arms. We must look strange to them, crouched on the floor as I comfort the distraught man.
"That file, Carter. He's the killer. Reid fell and proved it" I point to the file sitting on my desk.
"Call the local police on the case and tell them" I point to the door and make it clear that I expected them to leave. Which they do, all except for Gideon.
He approached slowly, carefully and crouches down in front of us.
"He'll need to sleep now. Lock the bindings together and we'll put him on your couch." I nod, thankful for his assistance. Together we fasten his wrists, thighs and ankles together and pull him up onto the couch. He's awake but not very lucid. He soon drifts of into a troubled sleep.
I shake my head, this could have gone so much worse. As it is I'm going to have to do some quick talking to make sure he isn't taken back for training or assigned another guardian. I sit back down at my desk and put my head in my hands miserable.
Gideon sits down across from me and waits till I gain back my composure.
"We need to talk"
"They thought I was a possible Sera as a child"
I turned stunned, not sure what to say.
"This was before the genetic test when they used the characteristics to determine diagnosis I was twelve when they decided to start testing and I spent the next ten years trying to prove my own normalcy. It's not something many people know but I think you need to know this. But this conversation stays between us."
"God Gideon, of course! I had no idea"
"No one does, it's in my file of course but it's not something I speak about casually. It wasn't an experience I wish for anyone. That's why I'm speaking to you about it now, I stood back when you decided to keep this Sera but now after this episode, I know that you need my help, you need to understand that what they tell you about the Sera isn't always true. He fell, do you know why?"
"No, I mean, he was reading over the old files, trying to get an insight into the process"
"Was this case the first one he read that was unsolved?"
"Yes, why?"
"Because that's why he fell. That's why they always fall, the need for some justice"
"I don't understand"
"Did you ever wonder why they exist?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why this ability exists"
"I don't know, I guess it's just some kind of abnormality"
"There is a theory that Sera were the judges of early society. In Africa they still act in this role, tribesmen travel hundreds of miles to visit a 'shaman' who can tell solve their disputes as he can see the problem from everyone's point of view."
"Are you saying that they remember the experience?"
"I'm saying that they stay in control and don't fall completely. They can maintain their own personality as the dominant one while being able to know what the other is thinking and feeling. They can use that knowledge to form a judgment of the situation. They are so rare in our society but not so rare in tribal society and in developing nations, and it doesn't help that they were almost exterminated from the gene pool during the inquisition and witch burnings. They're basically a tool that we have no idea how to use so we capture them control them and in so many ways punish them."
"So you're saying that we have it all wrong?"
"I'm saying that we can't rely on protocol, on common wisdom here. You need to ask yourself whether you think what we have done to him has helped him or damaged him further."
"I know it's wrong, the way they're treated. But don't what else to do, no one does, that's why we continue with the system we have."
"Most people who aren't scared of them are too ignorant to know any better. We know what is possible; we just need to find out what will help him gain better control over it all."
"How?"