Chapter 22
Sharing
Floyd Flanders once said: - I don't share.
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine.
Complete chaos.
That was the only way that Rossi could have described the situation.
Reid was sitting on the bed now leaning forwards with his elbows resting on his knees and his face behind his hands.
Morgan was escorting Ardal down the corridor towards some cops to take him away to be questioned.
Hotch was leaning on the wall of the small room bent forwards taking in painful breaths and wiping blood from his face.
Floyd sitting with his legs crossed: his face smeared with his own blood, slowly rocking back and forth banging his head on he wall behind him.
Rossi needed to talk to them all. Individually. Hotch could take care of himself and he didn't think that Floyd was going anywhere in a hurry and so it was Reid he approached.
He sat on the bed next to him, but didn't touch. "Reid – we need to leave."
Spencer turned to look at Rossi. "Well there is nothing here for me."
"Personal possessions?"
A shake of the head. "Nothing that means anything." He looked over at Hotch who was still leaning forward but watching Spencer closely. "Ardal didn't do anything wrong." He spoke quietly to Rossi. "Please don't let anything happen to him."
"They will want to talk to him…they will want to talk to you too. If he has done nothing wrong then nothing will happen to him. You are all victims Reid. We came here to help you. Floyd brought us here."
Spencer looked over at Floyd who was pulling himself to his feet again. Taking the weight on one foot only. He stayed leaning on the wall in the corridor which was facing the open door to Reid's room. Reid slowly got up and walked over to him.
"Floyd."
A nod.
"You were right. You were right about a lot. That's not the reason I fought you off me. That's not the reason I didn't want you near me."
Floyd stood unmoving just watching Reid. His good arm wrapped protectively around his bad.
"I've known for some time that I liked men. How could I not know? It was you I didn't want. It was purely personal. You disgust me. You make my skin crawl. The only reason you got from me what you wanted is because you drugged me. This.." Pointing back into the room. "Was fine. This was good. He is who I want. Floyd – I don't want you in my life and I don't want you near me. I don't want to have to smell you or feel your hands on me ever again. Are we straight on at least that – if nothing else."
Silence. But the jaw was clenched tightly.
Reid stepped back and turned to walk down the corridor in the direction everyone else had gone. He heard Floyd shouting behind him.
"I gave you everything Spence. I gave up everything for you."
Reid stopped and turned to look at him. "You shouldn't have bothered Floyd. I don't want anything you have to offer me."
He turned again and walked off down the corridor looking for where they took Ardal.
Morgan walked over to Hotch to see if he was alright. Hotch was far from alright though. Even though the physical wounds had been far more than he thought Reid was able to deliver the emotional pain was deep. He still couldn't work out quite what had happened. He had been worried out of his mind about Spencer and this was the result.
Rossi moved to where Floyd was standing. "Not what we thought was going to happen. No happy reunion." He could see Floyd was grinding his teeth in an effort not to explode. "I need to get you back to hospital. Your hand needs attention."
Floyd pulled himself out of the dark place he had been slipping into and looked at Rossi. "I don't need hospital."
"You still have no feeling in your hand. The surgery didn't work." Rossi was talking quietly.
Floyd swallowed and looked down at the very strange coloured fingers of his left hand. "Too late for that. It was too late when it happened. Too late for everything. I fucked up."
Rossi looked back at Hotch who was talking to Morgan about something quietly. Dave caught Hotch's eye and nodded. It was time for them to go and let the CSU get in here. Aaron tucked his shirt back in properly and wiped the blood off his face with a tissue from his pocket. The four of them moved slowly. Still trying to take in what had happened. They had no idea where Reid had gone to, though after watching the recordings for so long Hotch had a pretty good idea that he was looking for the only comfort he had been receiving over the time he had been here.
-o-o-o-
Spencer sat in the interview room…just to talk about what had happened to him while he was there. He mostly kept silent. There was no point in annotating the clips they had of him. He didn't want to go over it all again. He wanted to know that Ardal was alright. He wanted to go home. He wanted sleep but they needed blood tests and hair samples and urine samples and god only knew what else.
He knew why. He had been taking something. He had no idea what it was and they were going to find out. If there had been any chance of him keeping his job it was gone the moment they took that blood.
Reid wanted to blame Floyd for this. He wanted to be able to pass the buck but he wasn't sure how. Yes he had been with Prentiss looking for him, but it had been his own idea to go with Gert that night. Gert who had disappeared. No one had told him to do that. He had been over confident and stupid and for that reason he couldn't blame someone who wasn't even there.
-o-o-o-
Ardal wasn't so shy about telling all. There was no reason not to. He had been selling his body for sex since a very early age and couldn't actually remember a time when butt sex and blow jobs weren't part of his life. It just seemed the natural thing to do. You take drugs or drink and you have sex. He wasn't expecting to actually have feelings for Spencer though. This was the only thing he kept to himself. Yes Spencer had been willing and – no – he hadn't forced drugs of sex on him in any form. Why would he? He was having sex all day….wasn't night time a time to sleep – not a bus mans holiday. He was straight forward and honest about almost everything. Only a couple of things he kept to himself. The weird healing Spencer did, and the feelings. Those were either too personal or freaky to mention. He didn't want to end up in the loony bin over some parlour trick Spencer played with blades.
-o-o-o-
Hotch stood the other side of the mirror watching Reid and wondering if they had lost him forever. Morgan stood with him.
"He is going to need a lot of time." Morgan scratched at his neck. "I can't begin to wonder what he went through, but it looks like – I dunno man, but like he doesn't care."
"I would rather he was in hospital. Or at least going to stay with someone. He shouldn't be on his own." Hotch wanted to reach out and touch the glass but he kept his arms folded.
"He probably needs to be alone." Morgan said. "Not saying that is the right thing."
Both men fell into silence.
Hotch didn't know how he would cope without that face at work every day. These past months had been hellish enough but the idea that he was coming back to them was there and that was holding his sanity together. But now – what was going to happen now. Had Reid been broken by Ardal and the others beyond repair? And move so should he be putting any blame on Ardal in the first place?
-o-o-o-
Prentiss stood in front of the mirror in her apartment and sighed. He had been and had her hair cut in a more acceptable manner. It was short obviously but styled and feathered around to frame her face. She pushed it back out of the way. Too fussy. Too girly. She wet her hands under the cold water and then ran her fingers through her hair to get it more how she wanted. Still a million times better than the hacked up mess it was before. She glanced down at her cosmetics she had got ready to put on and prodded them around for a while with her fingers…she eventually just put on a bit of eyeliner and mascara. She didn't want to look painted and false. She wanted to look like who she really was now that her barriers had been destroyed.
She wasn't back to work yet. But psych evaluation time. She pulled on a pair of combat trousers and a black Tshirt then a suit jacket over the top and then went to look in the mirror again. A sigh. She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit up.
"I'll be fine." She muttered to her self. "I am a profiler, I know how to work this to my advantage." She stubbed out what was left of the smoke and picked up a bottle of perfume and gave herself a liberal spaying of something expensive and heady. She had boots on to go with the trousers and that was it. No rings or jewellery or anything fancy. One final check on her teeth and she was gone…slipping a mint into her mouth as she locked up the apartment door.
She could do this. She might not be the same person she used to be on the outside, and things on the inside may have altered, but she felt for the better, but she could still do the job. Nothing had changed that.
Emily slipped into her car and closed the door.
Another sigh before she turned on the ignition and pulled out on her way to see the psychs.
-o-o-o-
They insisted this time that he stayed in the hospital. They thought probably that a lot of damage to his hand was permanent. It just wasn't doing what they had hoped. The tendon however was healing well, and though they couldn't promise he wouldn't have a limp they couldn't say he would. No guarantees. He was laying on the bed with his arm strapped to a contraption with needles and tubes and bits going in and out of his arm.
An infection.
Blood poisoning.
Breakdown of the tissue surrounding the wound.
The only good thing was that it had been a good clean cut. For Floyd it mean lay on the bed and keep still for the gods only knew how long or have his hand removed which right now he wasn't going to accept as an option. He still needed to take back what he had given Spencer, and though he was pissed off with him to the extreme he still had that funny knot in his stomach when the thought about him and he didn't want to cause him the pain he knew he would if he just took everything back again.
On the other hand – no pun intended – he had no intention of losing his hand. If it came to it – if this one he had here now was not ever going to work again then he would just have to take everything back and re-grow…because – re-growing something hurt like – well like – he didn't know – he'd never tried it with less than everything working.
"So tell me about yourself." Rossi was sitting on a chair next to the bed.
"What do you need to know?" A sigh as he looked up at the ceiling.
"Let's start with where you are from. Your parents. Where you were raised, went to school."
"Europe. We travelled. Gypsies. My parents – unknown – we were jointly raised. I had no formal schooling." Another sigh.
Rossi turned off the recorder he had on his lap and just stared at the man on the bed. "This isn't helpful."
Floyd turned to look at him. "What isn't helpful?"
"Your continual lying. If we are going to do this you do need to trust me and tell me the truth."
"That is the truth as far as I know it." He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and frowned at the profiler looking at him.
"You know who I am. You know what I do. I can spot a lie Floyd. If your background is not something you feel comfortable talking about now, let us start with something else."
Floyd raised an eyebrow…..someone who could catch him out….interesting. He was going to have to be more careful with this one. This one was special. This one was interesting. No underlying lust or wanting here. His mind not on the arse of the girl who just walk past. Just a profiler.
"I like butt sex." Floyd stated. "I don't mind telling you that."
Rossi turned the machine on again.
-o-o-o-
At last.
Alone.
Just himself.
He sat on his favourite chair and pulled his legs up tightly to himself. Somehow he managed to squeeze his frame into a tiny space and there he stayed. He didn't move for the rest of the day. He stared at the drapes and held tightly onto himself.
If he let go.
He would explode.
If he gave in to what he was feeling.
He would collapse in on him self.
Implode into a big nothing.
Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. Maybe that was the only way out now. Just slowly disintegrate. Unravel and see if there is anything left of who he was under this hard surface he had grown.
Not such a hard surface that he couldn't dig his fingernails into it, but there was no real pain there. Just a slight popping feeling as his nails broke the surface.
-o-o-o-
They sat on the couch and ate take away Indian food. She was laughing about a property she had tried to sell someone and failed miserably and Aaron was laughing too but down inside he was hurting so badly that he didn't think he would ever be able to recover.
"More wine?" Rosie asked him. She knew there was no work the next day. She knew something was wrong. "Or do you want to just tell me what is wrong. Was it something I did or said?"
Aaron turned to her. "No – no nothing you have done. I am sorry Rosie I am being rude. It's just – hard when you see people you love – work with – your friends hurt in the way I have. I am the team leader and I failed because I let my heart lead and not my brain." He picked up the glass for a top up.
"Well Aaron you know I am here if you need to talk about it…I wont pretend to understand everything." She re-filled his glass. "But I am always here. Well – not always, but you know what I mean."
Hotch nodded at her. "I have Jack next weekend. I was wondering if you would like to be here. To meet him." he pushed a bit of hair off hair face.
"I would love to." She put her hand over Aaron's. "I would be honoured."
-o-o-o-
Ardal sat in his bed sit.
He had earned enough money to get what he needed to keep his head in the place he wanted. Now all he had to do was to work out how to get his body into the person he wanted.
Never had he in all his life felt like this about someone. He wondered what Spencer was doing. Was he happy? Was he safe? Would he answer the phone if he called him?
He looked over at the notice board on the other side of the small room. 'Spencer' and then a list of numbers. That was all he had left of him now. He thought of the telephone outside in the hallway. He could afford to call him. He had change in his pocket and he wanted to call him so desperately.
"This first." He looked down at the mirror on his lap "He might not answer. I might need this afterwards. I need a clear head." Ardal pushed the drugs to one side and stood up. He had memorized that number. It hadn't been hard to do. Things like that came easily to him. Numbers. All those years calculating how much a blow job or a fuck will cost.
He double checked his pocket for change and walked out into the corridor.
The phone rang until the voicemail came on. He stood with his back against the wall and tears building up in his eyes at the sound of that voice.
"Oh Spencer – It's me – uh it's Ardal………"
A voice suddenly the other end stopped him.
He stood and listened and then spoke. "I miss you too. I was thinking – if you're not busy – maybe you would like to come over? I don't have transport – that is if you want to." He wiped his sweating forehead with the back of his hand and gave an address. "I'll wait for you." He put the receiver back down again and walked back to the room. Now he was glad he hadn't snorted. Now he could share.
A/N: The end for now but, to be continued...