Club Mix

'I can't let you see him Spencer. I'm sorry.'

But I know this wasn't Floyd's doing. I can see it isn't him. It seems so damned obvious to me. I do have a damned good idea who did do it though.

'The thing is Hotch, I realise how this looks, but this wasn't Floyd.'

'The man is deranged. You cant say that.'

I slam the pictures down on the table.

'Then why show these to me? What was it you wanted me to say? That this definitely was him?'

but Aaron is shaking his head. 'It looks wrong to me. I just couldn't see what it was that was wrong. It is the use of the sword. The staging of the scene, but why would have Floyd said it was him? Why did he do to you what he did? He was hiding you. What for? Who from?'

'You know the answer already, why are you making me say it?' I glance down at the printouts again. 'He wasn't hiding me from the police Hotch. He was hiding me from whoever did that. Can't you see that? I could talk to him. Let me talk to him.'

Hotch is shaking his head and I can hear Sam's voice shouting abuse at someone from upstairs. He sounds so much like Floyd that it makes my stomach hitch. I'm going to be sick. Carefully I stand up and look out towards where Hotch has the downstairs bathroom.

'I told you. Reid. Reid?'

I am stumbling forward with my hand over my mouth trying not to vomit on Hotch's floor but the faster I move the more unstable my footing becomes and as my knees hit the floor jarring pain up my legs and through painful areas I place my hands on the floor and empty the sweet sugary contents of my stomach. He is instantly beside me. Standing watching, not sure how to react to it, to me. Once the twisting in my guts has finished I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and kneel looking at the mess I've made. I don't apologise. I don't say anything. I just stay where I am and look at the mess and see it as my life. Once sweet. Now a mess that someone else will end up clearing up.

'If I talk to him. He will explain.'

A cool hand touches the back of my neck. 'Go and sit down and let me clear up.' But I shake my head at him.

'It's my mess Hotch. I need to clear it up myself.'

A hand around my waist and one on my arm and Aaron is lifting me to my feet. 'You will let me help you Spencer. Go and sit down.'

I glance around my self and move slowly to a chair pushed against the wall. I sit carefully down and look over at Hotch. 'Why is he in surgery?' I say as he starts to leave the room.

'He – he. Reid. I don't think he is going to survive this. I'm awaiting a call, but one way or the other you cant see him.' He is looking over at me with a tired sad face. 'But I'm here and I will help you through this. Let me get some things and I'll clean up.' And before I can say more he is gone.

I made my decision quickly.

As soon as he was out of the room I am on my feet again. I grab the pictures off the table and then out in the hallway I take his keys from the hook and his wallet from his jacket pocket.

I am gone before he gets back.

-o-o-o-

Bleeping of machinery is all I can hear when I open my eyes again.

I try moving my arms and then my legs and I think I am strapped down again, but I'm not really sure. My head feels very wrong. It is like someone has been rummaging around inside it and moving things around. My happy place has gone completely and all I can find where it used to be is a thick grey fog. I moved around in my mind a bit more searching for what should be there and can only seem to find dark spaces and lusty smells. Around these spaces is more greyness. Its like someone took an erasure and smudged it away quickly. Too quickly maybe. They missed a few bits. A thin oh so thin pathway from a dark but sticky place has lead me to something less lustful. The feelings here, in this part of my mind are different. They are lighter. The sky is blue. The grass is green and for some reason I don't understand right now this place hurts like fuck. I pull back from it quickly. I know what the place is and as I pull back I try to remove that thin little pathway myself, but I cant quite do it completely. It is more like stepping stones now; a long distance apart but still possible to get to the other side if I try.

I might fall.

That might be a risk I will be willing to take at another time, but not now. Now I need to stay in the dark and the familiar places where I can pull back and hide or just watch.

Blah, blah, blah, is going on at me from somewhere outside my mind. It is close though, but I will have to open up a bit more to hear more of it. I don't know who is saying the words. I don't know the voice and so I decide it's not worth listening to.

They go away. The voices fade back and I crawl through my mind trying to find those places I once knew so well. Right through the middle of it there is a river. Not too fast, but moving at a steady rate. I can stand in it and it come up to my mind shin level. It's warm and in the distance I can hear falling water so I walk towards it.

Slowly, I walk slowly. I know I have been here before. It is familiar in very many ways but there is something usually here with me and that something or someone has gone. If I stop and turn to look at the river bank I can see it is all fake. Can see that the scenery is just painted on old cloth and in places the backdrop is ripped and light is seeping in from behind it. Sometimes bright light and sometimes a deep red fetid light. I'm not particularly drawn to either and so I keep on walking through my memories or what is left of them. There is a nice place here. Soft moaning sounds and a comfortable floor and here I feel safe and so I lie down and relax

-o-o-o-

I don't drive for long. I'm aware that I am finding keeping Aaron's SUV going in a straight line almost impossible. I would soon get picked up and I'd end up back where I started.

I know where I want to go. I have plenty of time to get there. No hurry. No rush. I make my way to a small side street where I know there to be an ATM. I take Hotch's card from his wallet and place the wallet it's self in the glove compartment. Then with a bit of paper from his hand note book and with the emergency pencil I write a quick note and leave it on the passenger seat.

'It's in the glove compartment…Reid.'

Is all it says, but I take the plastic I have in my hand and slip it into my pocket and meander my way to the machine on the wall of the fast food joint. I know his pin number for this card. He's never given it to me, but I've been with him when he's used it and I've seen where his fingers go to. It's hard for me not to remember. Impossible even. I slip the card into the card into the machine and punch in the numbers. There is guilt as I take the small bundle of cash from the slot, but I never asked him to bring me here. I never asked him to show me the images. I never wanted any of this. I close my eyes and bring up a mental map of the area…as soon as my eyes close I begin to hear screaming and crying in the back of my mind, so I snap them open again, but it's alright. I know which way to go now to keep off the big roads and not be seen.

By the time I get there it is getting dark. Which is what I had planned on. The money is secured in my pockets tightly and I have picked up a pair of sneakers from a goodwill store.

Now…

Now I need to get rid of this flatness I am feeling.

Now…

I need to escape it and bring it back to how it was.

I really, and I mean it, I really don't care what they think of me. I really don't care if I'm seen here now. I've not actually done anything wrong (except steal a few hundred dollars). It's not like I am a criminal.

This sort of place has people hanging around twenty four seven, but I'm not looking for that sort of thing tonight. I'm not looking for a quicky against a wall…tonight I want something a bit more meaningful. I have little hope of finding it, but I can look cant I?

The club is one I have been to before with Floyd. He keeps me there on show and sometimes we go into a dark corner and we enjoy each other…sometimes…on occasion Floyd will just watch and someone else will enjoy me. Those times are not quite as enjoyable. No one is quite as good as Floyd. No one. Ever. They might think they are and I might even say they are, but how can a few tender years compare with the Flanders experience? I am grinning to myself when I walk up the steps and into the club.

It's still not as busy as I would have liked it but the music is pounding and the atmosphere is familiar and comforting. There is also the comfort that no one will come looking for me here.

I've not been here in a while. We've been gone from the area some time now, but I can see people looking at me and searching for the face I am always with.

He was always my security. I always felt so safe when I was with him and now I suddenly feel oddly vulnerable. I make my way quickly to the bar. Maybe a few drinks will help ease this sudden uncomfortable feeling. I'm annoyed that it is making me feel like this in a place I always thought I would feel at home. I've been coming here for so long now that we were part of the fixtures and fittings. There are new faces. Different people tending the bar. I have to ask for my drink. They don't know me. I shout my order over the counter at the barkeep and he nods and soon delivers a tumbler of amber coloured liquid. I turn now and lean on the bar and watch the room slowly fill.

I don't know how many drinks later it is when a voice shouts into my ear.

'You are alone?'

I turn to look at a face I have seen before and not necessarily a face I want thrust so close to mine. I give quick nod and turn back to watching the room full of men all looking for much the same thing. I'm coming to the realisation now that I'm not going to get what I wanted from here. I don't know I thought I would. These are all the same people looking for all the same things they always do, and that little bit of extra isn't going to come from them.

Thinking about it, realistically, it is Hotch who can give that to me, but again, he cant deliver the full package. It seems I can have one or the other or I can have Floyd.

Now that my thoughts have wandered to him again I get rush through my body and it is such a deep need that I turn again to look at the guy standing next to me. He is holding out another drink for me and so I nod and sort of smile and take it from him.

'So where is the other one?' He shouts at me over the sound of the clubbing music.

I shrug and shake my head in a non committal sort of manner and take a long drink from the glass.

'He's not here?'

I ignore him.

'So you want some fun?'

I turn to look at him again and once more wish it was someone else who had approached me, but my body is shouting at now and doesn't seem to care. I nod again and swallow back the rest of the drink. I feel his arm snake around me. Touching my back and the clasping me just above my hip and it is really only now I am thinking that this might be an extremely painful experience considering what I have recently been through, but the liquor is deadening sensations of all kinds now and …

…

well…

what the hell?

It can't possibly hurt more then what Taki did to me, but I am wondering if this guy whose name I don't know or if I do know it it has been washed away in alcohol, I am wondering how if it will be a problem for him.

A slight panic is sneaking its way in through my brain as another drink is placed in my hand and another smile is aimed at me.

'Drink up sweetheart.'

His breath rushes across my ear and cheek and his fingers tighten and dig slightly into me. I really want to try to think, but things are getting blurred now as he guides my drinking hand to my face.

'Drink.'

And now he doesn't sound quite as friendly. I try to push it away, but now my hands are shaking and my eyes don't really seem to be working properly. The lights are dimming and the crowd is a fuzzy blur and as the now empty glass is taken from my hand I realise that I am being walked across the dance floor to an area near the rear of the club with darkened trellis and alcoves.

I want to protest.

I want to tell him to let go of me, but my words wont come to me and I think if I pull away now I will just fall. I seem to be leaning on him for support and he is taking that was my "come on" and moving me faster to some dark corner.

'I know you. I've had you before.'

He lets me know as he pushes me hard against the wall.

'Your man, he's not here to help you out today.'

His hand on my chest pushing me back seems to be the only thing stopping me from being on the floor.

I'm not sure what happened next.

Well…

I know what happened, but I don't have any memory of it. Just the knowledge that it did happen.

I am still in the alcove, only now I am alone. The music is still just as loud and I really have no idea how much time has passed but I am lying on my side facing the wall. My shirt is lying in the space between my stomach and the wall and my jeans are pull up but undone. They are not properly pulled up though. Very roughly. I can taste blood in my mouth and as I raise hands to my face I can feel it is sticky with blood (?) I think it is blood. Tentatively I touch my nose, but it doesn't scream pain at me so I check the rest of my face. I've had a nose bleed. My lip is split and I seem to have a cut above my eye. I now move my hands carefully over the rest of me and in my befuzzled mind I wonder why no one has come to help. Why I am still here and bleeding from more than one place but yet no one is helping me.

So for a while I lie there and try to think what to do now. What am I meant to do? Put my top back on seemed to be a good choice and so that is what I do first.

Another skip of time.

Again I'm not sure what happened or how I got to where I am now but I am being half carried out of a back door and into a side street. I seem to be missing my shoes and want to say something but I am being unceremoniously thrown down onto a pile of rubbish next to the big green bins.

So there I stay.

I don't move.

I don't make a sound.

I certainly don't complain.

This was after all the something extra I had been looking for.

Wasn't it?