Chapter 29
"Hotchner." Aaron answers, doing his best to keep his weariness out of his voice. The digital clock on the dresser across the room says it's nearly four in the morning.
"Hotch." The weak voice on the other end says. The man instantly sits up and his brain kicks into gear. Over the past three months, these types of calls had come at least five times. Aaron had desperately hoped the fifth call would've been the last.
"Reid, everything's okay. You know that."
"It's not okay. I've been up all night trying to keep myself from calling around for it. I know exactly where I can- but I know I can't just do that." The tears in the young genius's voice are trying to be masked, but Hotch can still hear the slight tremor that signals their presence.
"Why didn't you wake up Alaska and talk to her?" Hotch tries to say it as low key as he can, praying that his friend and subordinate doesn't take it the wrong way.
"She feels the cravings too. But she had the strength to just quit after the hospital. I couldn't quit after Tobias, and I barely stopped myself to retorting to that after Maeve- I-"
"Spencer, listen to me. Somewhere in that brain of yours you know how hard quitting is. If it was easy, drugs wouldn't be a problem, would they? You've been clean for four months now-"
A small whimper cuts Hotch's words off.
"You have been clean for four months now, haven't you?" The irritation that's flooding Aaron manages to seep into his words as well. When the phone call ends with a small click, he has his answer.
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"Stupid, stupid, stupid." Spencer chants, pacing the living room. The phone lays tossed aside on the couch and he's shaking like mad. He should've listened to what his boss had to say, and kept his secret to himself.
But telling Hotch, as indirectly as it was, felt good. A weight was lifted, even if it was just a small one. At the same time, the gap the weight left was enough room for guilt and disappointment to slither in.
Dilaudid has him under lock and key now. His chances of quitting after relapsing- not once, not twice, but three times- is practically non existent.
"I'm going to lose my job." Spencer mumbles to himself, "Then I'm going to lose Alaska. Then the rest of them." A fresh wave of tears roll over the pacing agent, the reminder of what he has to lose is too great to withstand.
In the past four months, his life has crumbled. He and Alaska became nothing but sex, silence, and little tenderness though she'd allowed him to move in permanently. It was like living with a constant reminder of how big he's screwed up. After being allowed back on the job, his friends' actions caused his downwards spiral to speed up. They debated their every word when around him; no longer the carelessly wonderful people he'd known for so long. The cravings had hit him hard, and so he'd start calling Hotch, and sometimes Morgan, when he needed reassurance, all the while praying Alaska would forgive him someday for not trusting her enough for this certain topic of discussion. The last straw had occurred just two weeks prior to this very night- when he received a call from his mother's doctor. After the kind gentlemen dropped the bomb of his mother's declining health, Spencer hung up and promptly made a call to a number he'd never forget in all his lifetime.
Reid had been stretching the two vials over the course of the past two weeks, and it's been just six hours since his last dose. The empty bottles sit on the coffee table, teasing him.
Why the Hell did he tell Hotch?
Friends or not, he'll always be his boss first, friend secondly.
The weight of what's really at stake just about chokes Spencer- his legs give out and he falls to the floor. He bites back his sobs, mindful of his sleeping girlfriend just down the hall. The images of her laying on that table in the sanatorium, in pools of her own blood, screams ringing in the room flash before him. Then come the images of her bruised skin and scars that litter her body. Those have been burned into his soul along with the death in her eyes.
"What have I done?" Reid cries. He can't stop shaking and it feels like his being is nothing but guilt, grief, and hopelessness. He crawls to the couch and reaches for the phone, dialing the number he knows he'll never forget.
"Sup, Fed?"
Spencer can imagine the little smirk on the man's face.
"I need some, now."
"You're not sounding so good, Fed. Need me to meet you at your block? All I have at the moment is the shit you don't like, though."
"That's fine." Spencer breathes. "How soon?" He figures the hard-core heroin is better than nothing.
"Give me half an hour."
"I can't wait that long."
"You're gunna have to."
The conversation ends there and Spencer tosses the phone back to the couch. His breathing slows down a smidge, his body starting to thrum with adrenaline. It's all he needs. The heroine is all he needs. Screw the FBI. Screw paying for a Bennington- his mom's dying anyway. And screw Alaska- she can find some other guy to fool around with every night.
He waits until twenty minutes passes by, counting the seconds carefully so he doesn't mess up. Spencer figures the walk down the block will take him ten minutes, sure to pick up his wallet and clean syringe on his way out. Reid has learned to always carry around an extra fifty bucks for emergencies like this and hide syringes behind the books on the top shelf of Alaska's book case. It's where she can't reach herself or see anything suspicious.
As he walks down the block, his eyes search everywhere for his dealer. When they finally find him, standing with his back against the corner of an apartment building, smoking a cigarette, Spencer speeds up a little. His release is so close.
"Hey, Fed." The short man grins. "You know the rules- cash first."
Spencer does know the rules, so he reluctantly reaches for his wallet. People passing by pay no attention to the quick exchange of cash for the vial.
"See you in a week." The dealer chuckles, heading off with a salute. Reid has always despised the man's sense of humor, but at the same time, it made dealing with him more enjoyable. Spencer had nothing to fear of this small man with a never ending supply of laughter and jokes.
"Reid!" A voice calls. Spencer turns and finds his boss just down the street, hurrying towards him. The possibilities of what his boss wants crosses his brain and he bolts. He cannot get caught with a vial of heroine, nor can he face the fact that his boss may have just watched him meet his dealer on his way over to fire him.
He runs and runs, taking turns down alleys and shortcuts through people's yards to escape the agent behind him. Spencer wonders where he's running to, but his feet must've figured it out before his brain because when he sees the familiar building around the corner, he runs behinds the line of buildings to get there and runs in the back door without a second thought.
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Hotch doesn't like having to do this, but when he realizes chasing down his subordinate is his only option, he pulls out his gun from it's holster and yells for people to get out of his way. He carefully searches the alleys his friend runs down, his flashlight balanced under his gun. The only thing that tells him that he hasn't lost the trail is the frantic sounds of labored breathing and the sound of feet hitting pavement at a quick pace.
Aaron follows carefully, keeping a small distance between himself and Spencer until the genius takes a quick left and seems to disappear. Numerous buildings surround Hotchner, and he knows it'll take hours to search them all. His mind makes itself up to call Morgan when it considers that Spencer was frantic, just bought drugs, and ran from his boss, friend, and fellow federal agent. His cell phone flashes with a "No Signal" sign though, and he's left to do this on his own, no time to waste.
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Spencer sits in the room, looking around at what has changed since he last appeared here. The caution tape around the crime scene has been torn down, but no one bothered to scrub at the blood staining the apartment floor. Flashbacks of that night have always haunted him, yet he feels somewhat safe being here. Maybe Maeve's final breath took away the darkness the four walls of the room had seen.
Reid had visited this very room just two times after the psycho killed the love of his life. He hadn't bothered telling anyone, knowing that revisiting the site of trauma is unhealthy. Now, with so much time having past, he still feels the eerie sense of safety in here. Maybe it was because he became acceptant of his own death here. He was serious when he said he'd die for Maeve, and Reid spent countless nights wishing he'd have just died right then when Diane pulled the trigger. Both times he went home after leaving this place, he felt so wrong. It was as if he was leaving her.
He sets out his vial and syringe, realizing he could fix things. Maeve died because of him, and now he has everything he needs to keep himself from leaving her once more.
"For Thomas Merton." Spencer says aloud in a joking tone, filling the syringe. He takes the belt from around his waist and fastens it around his arm. The motions are soothingly familiar. His shaking hand suddenly becomes steady in anticipation of the sweet poison.
He drops the syringe when it's empty, a smile ghosting over his face as his heavily lidded eyes lock on the blood stained floor. He repeats, "For Thomas Merton."
