House Rules

They hauled me back again. Not my physical body as such but my mind, soul and spirit. They don't think to say "Hey Flanders, take a deep breath now because we are dragging you right back to hell." No they don't do that, they just give you a small tickle in the back of your mind, which in reality is just them getting their claws ready and then they jerk you out and drop you down someplace else.

I'm not the only one. There are many of us and some are monstrous and obvious and come to you in the form of nightmares and drunk drivers and terrorists and just plain mad men and/or women who go out there and wreak havoc. Yet there are a few of us who are considered "worthy" enough to be given tasks to do. I'm still not sure if that is a good thing or not. I'm sure that the terrorist who goes out and kills a dozen people with a simple bomb or such gets more satisfaction out of their work than I do. I'll admit that there are high times in my wayward career, but this constant dragging back and abuse is tiresome. I just want to get on with the job and do it as I see fit. Problems arise when what I see as "fit" isn't what my boss sees. This is such an example. One minute I'm trying to talk to Hotchner and the next kaboom I'm back here again lying on my face on this black slightly squashy surface in a breechclout.

There is a deep feeling down inside me that I've bent the rules too far once again. I love rules. I have to have them to exist. I need them like a child needs rules from the parents to follow. Don't talk to strangers. Don't play in the road. Don't take that which's not yours. Play nicely and don't pinch. You know the sort of thing I'm going on about here don't you. Looking at things that way I suppose that this lot here where I am now are my parents. Well my step parents anyway, as this place certainly wasn't where I started my life.

Free will:

What do you think of that? We can do what we want. We have no barriers to stop us doing what we want. We can take and kill and mutilate all we want. We can screw when and what we like and there's nothing to stop us because we've been given this thing suddenly which we never had before and with it we get that rush of adrenaline which we'd never before experienced. Obviously some of that free will also comes in a package with a thing called "conscience". My package was faulty you might say. Mine didn't arrive with that included. I had nothing whatsoever to stop me running riot and no amount of slaps on the back of my hand was going to stop me. Trying to place a conscience in me after the fact is far too late. I've already had the thrills and the need for more of it becomes overwhelming. I'm not excusing what I am. I'm not saying that I would have been a lovely angel and a great all round bloke; I cant say that because I don't know and to be frank with you I wouldn't want to be that. I love who I am, but I do need something to keep me in check occasionally. Too occasionally it seems recently. I used to be able to go decades and not get pulled back here, but now it seems to be the thing to do at the weekends. Am I getting harder to control or are their rules becoming stricter? I don't know. Maybe that's something I need to ask them when they decide to talk to me. For now I'm just going to lay here and wait for them. They will call me when they're ready. It's all a game. One big game and at the best of times I'm a dirty cheat. It's the only way you can win sometimes.

-o-o-o-

I've left Sam with Agent Green. I'm not sure what Sam's objection to the agent is or was, but he needs to learn that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. I've had to learn that. I'm still learning that. I would far rather be back at home with a drink and a book than standing outside an interview room; or cell in this case, waiting for Flanders to awaken. He's been checked over by medics and they can't find anything wrong with him. There seems to be no reason why he's not woken up yet, and the panic from Sam about Flanders brain is niggling at me. I want him checked properly but I also don't think it wise to transport this person to a hospital. We will wait for now. He is breathing steadily and his heart rate though slightly fast isn't something that they medics seem overly concerned with. It's the bleeding from the nose which is worrying me though and now looking through the bars at him curled up on the floor I can see a small trickle of blood making its way out of one of his ears.

Morgan is standing with me and I think he sees it too. He takes a couple of steps forward and places his hands around the bars of the cell Flanders in locked in.

'What the hell's going on with him?' The question wasn't really directed at me but at himself but I still walk forward and place a hand on his shoulder.

'I don't know Morgan but I think it's time he was in hospital.'

tI see the slight nod of Morgan's head and hear the sigh coming from down deep inside him as a small bubble appears in Flanders' ear and pops making a small pattern of droplets on the side of Flanders' face.

'I'll escort him there, but he needs to be kept secure. I'm not convinced that this isn't some kind of ruse to get us to open the cage.' Morgan's hands tighten on the bars.

'We will both escort him. I'll call the hospital and make arrangements. I don't want civilians around when we arrive.'

Morgan's hands are now moving up and down the bars in hard frustrated movements. He then releases the bars and turns his back on the prisoner. 'He will go down for life.'

I nod at him. 'If we can keep him for long enough. If he is considered sane enough for trial.'

'I'd not want to have to share a cell with that.' Morgan says as he starts to walk away. 'Shall I go call the hospital?'

I take a long intake of breath. 'No, just get the medics back here and see what they think.' I'm half hoping the man will be dead before we have to come to a decision about hospitals.

-o-o-o-

I get the subway to the stop before where I need to get off and disembark there. I feel a strange nervousness along with fear and excitement about where I am going and I wonder if anyone else can see that on my face as I walk up the station steps and out into the night air. There's a coffee shop on the corner and I walk in and get a bottle of water. I suddenly feel very thirsty, but I'm not sure if it's just that I need a drink or if it's genuine fear of what I'm about to do. The streets are brightly lit here and there are a lot of people still around considering it's night time, but I guess that's fairly normal for this part of the city. I need to walk a couple of blocks to get to where I have decided to spend my night. I'm going to start out in a bar called "Henry's Place" and maybe tomorrow if I'm still feeling this need I will try somewhere else. I've been to "Henry's" before and as I walk down the street getting closer the type of people I am passing gradually changes. There are less male female couples and many more men than women. Again I'm used to this. I know this place. I am familiar with these shops I am passing and not even glancing in the windows. I know what they sell. I'm familiar with their products and I don't need that tonight.

Henry's Place is a double fronted building with the doors set right in the centre. There are windows along both sides make up of different coloured glass. They play the music too loud and sometimes the drinks are warm, but I'm not going in there to have a conversation with someone so the volume of the music isn't really a problem and I'll not be drinking too much. Sometimes on hot summer evening's when the place is busy the people spill out onto the street and the big double doors are wedged open so that the music drifts out with the people standing there smoking or chatting or making out. They don't know who I am. I don't use my real name here. I doubt if anyone does actually. I've never introduced myself to anyone, but they all seem to know me by the name of "Jay". I have no idea why they call me that. I'm sure there's a reason and I'm not sure I want to know what it is. I just accept that's what I'm called here the same way as Paul and John accept that they are called that, though it's highly unlikely that's their real names. Tonight the street outside the bar is virtually empty. There is one couple who I've seen before and are always together pressed up tightly together in the shadows and another two guys just standing having a smoke. They don't appear to be together though. I see that these latter two watch me approach and I can feel their eyes on my back as I push open the doors and enter the bar.

There are at a glance twenty-three people here so far. I expect it will get busier unless there's a party going on somewhere. They all seem to know if there is a thing going on but as I never hand out my phone number to anyone I always miss out on such events and probably for the best too. I'm not sure I'd still have a job if a party I was at got raided. Here though I am safe. Here I am just Jay, the guy who comes in and has a whiskey and sometimes leaves with someone and other times leaves alone. The music as always is loud and playing some kind of dance brain throbbing tune. It's like entering a different world. I'm not sure how this amount of noise cannot be heard half way across the city, yet I couldn't hear it just outside. Now I think it might make my ears bleed, not only with the volume it's at but at the actual tune which is playing. Clubbing music really isn't my thing.

I go straight to the bar and smile at the barkeep. He knows me. I don't have to ask for a drink. It just appears in front of me as I slide my money onto the bar. A whiskey with one bit of ice; just enough ice to take the occasional warmth off the drink. I now turn and have a proper look around me almost hoping that Floyd would be here and he'd smile at me and walk over and…well he's not here. I would have sensed him if he was. I would have felt that strange electricity in the air and I certainly would have been able to smell him over the cloying smell of the mixed scents of cologne these guys seem to favour so much. You would think that poor Spencer Reid would feel nervous here, but here I am Jay and Jay doesn't feel those pangs of slight panic. Here I know that I am in a way going to have to socialise but the form it will take will not need me to have long interesting conversations with anyone. Sometimes no words are needed at all. Business as such is conducted in a sort of code of nods and hand gestures. Really it depends on who the other person is and what that person wants.

They know me. They know what I'm after and though sometimes the give me more that I really wanted I wouldn't be here if I wasn't prepared to take what they are offering. Please excuse the pun. For the most part they know I wont take the pills offered and I wont smoke the joint passed to me. At first they thought that was strange and tried to convince me that I'd enjoy the experience much more with heightened senses but they've stopped trying to convince me now. I don't need my senses blown out of the water to enjoy it.

I lean back on the bar with my elbows and watch the crowd on the other side of the room. I don't mix with them, but I watch them and they give me the occasional look as though deciding if they want me or not. I should feel ashamed of myself standing here on display for them as though I'm a piece of meat at the market. Like some whore, but I'm not. I know my place. They know I know it and I am even offering them the chance to remind me of what my place is.

This is all such a contrast to working at the BAU. It's a complete different world. There I have power and respect. Here I have none. At the BAU I know I have people watching my back to keep me safe. Here they are watching my back maybe, but keeping me safe is a long way from their minds. At work there is always that slight feeling of not belonging, however long I've worked there for. There is a feeling of danger when I walk into a room with my flak vest on and my gun at the ready not knowing if someone in the shadows is standing there ready with a head shot. There is comfort given. We all watch out for each other. We grieve together when we see the next victim laying there ripped apart in a pool of congealing blood. We didn't save this person. We got the profile wrong or we just arrived too late to do anything and we comfort each other even if it's just by standing there in silence looking, or if it's a quick glance to make sure the person next to you is alright. There is a sense of relief when you leave that building again still with your flak vest on but your gun holstered and no shots fired. We again look at each other to reassure ourselves that indeed all is OK. Nothing happened. We are all still alive.

Here though, here it's not the same. Here they don't care if someone gets hurt. They expect it and strangely enough I need that. I have to feel that fist making contact with my face or ribs. I have to feel that hand wrapping its self around my neck and squeezing because that is the only way that I know I'm really still here and that gun man didn't splatter my brains over the person standing behind me, or I didn't get the brains of someone else shot over my own face. That pain tells me that I'm still alive and moreover it puts me back in my place. It pulls me back down to reality and wakes me up again. I guess in such the same way that people cut or burn themselves or mutilate themselves in other ways, this is my way. This is my coping mechanism.

I'm so far away in my own thoughts about life and why I am here that I don't notice someone walk over to me. I don't actually realise that someone is there until they touch my arm. I glance over at the guy and see blue eyes and short cropped brown hair. He's probably about the same height as I am but twice as wide. He mouths something at me which I don't catch and he leans forward so that his upper body is against mine. I turn slightly so I'm facing him and give him a quick once over. I've not seen him here before but I had seen him when I came in over with a crowd I have seen, and been with, so I guess they told him who I was. Just some guy who likes it rough. That's all I am to them and that's all I want it to be.

He places his mouth next to my ear and says the name 'Gary' in it. I feel his hot breath over my skin and though the name Gary wouldn't normally make me smile somehow today it has. I lean in and say 'Jay' in his ear and he just nods and takes my arm at the elbow and leans in again. 'I have my own place.' And this time it is me who is just nodding. I don't think I'd be able to talk if I wanted to. The good old adrenaline rush has started and blood is flowing quickly to places other than my brain. I quickly finish up my drink and without even a backwards glance or second thought, I leave with a complete stranger to go back to his place in some unknown location.

I hope Floyd is out there somewhere, if not watching me then sensing what I'm doing. I hope he realises that I don't need him. I don't need him to feel wanted. I don't need him to get that closeness I need so badly. I don't need Floyd's hands running over my skin making me tingle all over. Tonight I have Gary or to put it more in perspective; Gary is going to have me.

-o-o-o-

Aaron has left me with this bloke who smells all wrong and I'm not happy about it one bit. I can feel the hate washing off him with such strength that it makes me dizzy when I think too hard about it. I wanted to sit in my room all night and watch crap on the television but he's ordered me down into the kitchen to eat pizza. I tell him I would rather eat it in the lounge and watch television, but he's not a very compromising person it would seem and so the table it is. Don't get me wrong, I'm not scared of this person, but I'm very wary of him. There is something so wrong about his whole persona but I can't figure it out. I wondered if he was like me and dad. I wondered for just a little while if that's what I was picking up on, but it's not.

I think he's insane.

And no I'm not just saying that cos he hurt me and talked to me the way her did, I seriously do think he is completely gone in the head. Well not completely gone but definitely he's got a screw loose in that brain of his. He doesn't talk to me. He just slaps the food on the plate he'd set on the table and he stands and watches me. No actually he more than watches me, he seems to be trying to delve right into my soul and find out who I am and what I am. I wonder if he can feel that something about me is not quite right too. I wonder if he's got some kinda magical powers which can sense people like me. I eat my food slowly and try not to look at him too much and I sip on the drink he's placed next to my plate.

'You don't have to watch me so closely you know.' I tell him around a mouthful of tomato pizza.

'Shut the fuck up and eat.' Is the reply I get.

My assumption that he doesn't like his assignment or me is probably a correct one. 'Don't you fucking swear at me you bloody bastard.' I spit back at him. Spit being the right word cos I spray bits of pizza in his direction.

He doesn't blink. I've noticed that. Not even when I spit food at him does he blink. That's just wrong. Everyone blinks. Only the really insane never blink. I make a mental note of this fact to tell Aaron when he returns and this makes me look up at the clock to check the time. It's gone eight in the evening now and he's not back yet. I have a horrible feeling that he's going to be away all night.

'I want to check that my dad is OK.' I push my plate away from me with a couple of slices going slightly cold left on it.

'Eat the damned food you shit head.'

OK that really isn't the way an Agent should talk to someone. It's not like I've done anything wrong. I'm not going to sit here and be ordered around by this person. I'm going. I'm going to leave this damned place and go for a walk and he's not going to stop me.

Right, it didn't exactly go according to plan and no I didn't cry. I'm fucking sixteen years old you know…I don't cry when I get smacked around by some monster from fuck knows where and for your information you do get tears in your eyes when someone thumps you with what felt like an iron hammer in the eye and it makes your nose run too…and with the split lip he gave me I think I am allowed to have tears. Not of pain though. As I said, I don't cry for things like that. He dragged me into my room by my hair and kicked me over towards my bed.

'Strip.' He told me, and yes I sniffed a bit and was making sort of sobbing noises but not because I was crying. Remember that.

I slowly remove my socks and then my dungarees and Tshirt and I let them just fall to the floor.

'All of it.' He's pointing at my boxers.

I would have protested but I had a feeling that he'd try to black both my eyes and succeed if I didn't do what he said. I have no worries about nudity, do not misunderstand my hesitance here, I just didn't want to be that exposed with him watching me. I slowly removed them and stood there waiting for his next order.

'Get into bed you disgusting filthy little pervert.' He tells me.

And I give him a frown cos I really don't know how he knows I'm a pervert; which incidentally I'm not. It's all natural where I come from. I climb into bed and curl up under my covers and pray to the gods of Pluto that Aaron will be back before the morning. I don't want to sleep all the time that Green is here watching me, and I know he is. I know he's not left the room. I can smell him. I can smell that rot and decay and he's watching me and waiting for something. I just don't know what it is he's waiting for.