Shadows of the Mind
Some men just aren't cut out for paternity. Better they should realize it before and not after they become responsible for a son.
Lois McMaster Bujold
TEN
'Do you want to do this one alone?' she asked him. They were standing at the very end of a narrow passage. The strange being of light hovered beside them, providing – if nothing else – moral support.
'No,' he said. 'No, I'm good.' It had taken a lot of courage for him to have accepted Morgan and Rossi's help in Vegas, and he wasn't going to turn down Emily now. If they were going to defeat the demon that was William Reid, they would do it together.
The light gave him a warmth that he would not have otherwise found in the stark surroundings. It made him feel safe, secure. It made the task ahead seem somehow less daunting.
They walked down the passage slowly, gripping sword hilts.
'William?' Reid called out tentatively. Though he had begun reconciliations with his father, he wasn't quite comfortable with addressing him as "Dad."
'Hello Spencer.' The voice was dark and low, not strictly comparable with the man he knew. But this demon was a manifestation that had been building up inside of him for over fifteen years. It was unsurprising that it sounded so…evil.
'You…you abandoned me,' he started, his voice weak. He knew that the hatred for his father that had built up inside of him could not be defeated by words alone.
'What of it? If I left, it was because you made me.' The sinister voice seemed to permeate every fiber of his being. It made his teeth shake, made his heart beat faster.
'That's not true, Reid, you know that,' Emily whispered to him. She felt her throat seize up, and she immediately realized that she could no longer speak. Whether this was Reid's conscious doing, or the doing of the demon William, she did not know. She suspected – hoped – that it was the latter.
'You made me feel as though I was nothing, as though I wasn't worth the effort of staying behind. Just because you kept tabs on me doesn't mean you were there for me.' Instinctively, he stepped closer to the tall beast. A long hand reached out to touch him.
'WE NEEDED YOU!' yelled Reid suddenly. In one swift movement, he sliced the hand from its owner's torso. The words stopped flowing; swords were now the weapon of choice.
'Anything new?' Hotch asked Morgan, who had been sitting diligently at the side of his two colleagues.
'Nothing. It's almost as if they're asleep,' he commented, watching the rise and fall of their chests. He felt an overwhelming guilt. He had been there with them, and yet he hadn't been able to stop them from falling away.
When – if – they woke up, though, he would put a smile on his face, pat them on the backs, and take them out for a drink. There was a strange sense of solidarity between the three of them; they spent a fair bit of time together outside of work as well.
He wondered if today, he'd be losing that friendship.
Injury, it seemed, was possible even on this non-corporeal plane of existence. Never before had his father inflicted physical wounds on him, but there was always a first. It didn't seem to matter that this wasn't actually his father. It was close enough.
He was bleeding from a dozen different places. Vicious claws sprung from the demon's remaining hand, indiscriminate as to what got sliced. Finally, though, Reid got a lucky swing through. It was unskilled, but he still managed to pierce the creature's chest. As it fragmented, he dropped backwards, panting.
'Are you alright?' Emily asked him, though he could see that she too was injured. At one point, the claws had raked across her stomach, leaving three tell-tale wounds.
'I…I'm fine.'
And he meant it.
A/N: Okay, there are two demons left for them to fight, so there will be a few more chapters – not sure how many. We'll see. Poll up on my profile page about which story I should be starting next.