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After a few minutes, they both sighed in synch with each other, their voices echoing through the large church. Hotch decided they should go, since it was already getting dark.
"We should get going." Hotch said after a moment. Reid only replied with a nod and stood with Hotch to leave. Reid got into the passenger seat of the car, and left with Hotch driving. Not long after they left the parking lot in front of the church, the two were being smothered by the silence that usually made both uncomfortable and shifty.
"So, Hotch... what... what do you think?" Reid asked. The question bothered him to an extent of making him cry.
"Hm? What do you mean?" Hotch asked as if he was spacing out.
"About my attempt at suicide. What do you think about it?"
"Well, I'm not sure what to feel, or think in that matter, but I do know you'll be on leave for a while for it. Maybe two three months, at the least."
"W-what? Why that long?"
"You attempted SUICIDE!" Hotch looked at Reid, who's eyes were looking away. Hotch couldn't tell if it was annoyance, anger, frustration, sadness, or all of it mixed together. "Look, it's better this way. If you come straight back, the... things we see might trigger you..."
"Trigger me? You're acting like I'm a self harm addict who can't control himself. You're thinking I'm addicted to self harm don't you?"
"It's possible... and you know that. You know that when you persperate or bleed, endorphins leave your body, and it gives you the same release as Heroin. So you know it's possible you could be."
"Fine, but. Please, no longer than just a couple months." Reid begged.
"We'll see." Hotch mumbled to himself.
The rest of the short ride was silent. Once they made it back to Reid's apartment, they walked in, but didn't say a word to eachother. Reid walked to his room, closed the door, and fell onto his bed. Once his head hit the pillow, he was asleep. During his nap, his eyes stayed closed, but nightmares still came. Not of his father, but of him in a large body of water. He was close to shore, but for some reason, he was drowning. The whole team was there offering their hands for help. The silent tears drowning him even more, drop after drop, second after second, he was dying. He knew what was drowning him. Himself, him letting his past pull him down lower than he could ever imagine was possible. He whimpered in his sleep. Soon, he couldn't take it any longer. His subconscious mind woke him. Once he was awake, he was sweating in an already wet bed. Sweat was everywhere on his bed, along with his clothes. Once he looked down at his hands, he noticed something familiar, his hands were shaking in a withdrawal tremor-type way. But it wasn't possible. He couldn't be addicted to SI, no.
Reid got up and grabbed some dry clothes from his dresser and walked to the bathroom. He half expected to see the bloody sheets in the tub, but they weren't. He shrugged and turned toward the shower to turn it on really hot. He felt cold overtaking his body, making the tremors worse. It was confusing him. He thought you couldn't be addicted to self harm, but apparently you could. He sighed and slowly got into the shower. The beads of hot water cascading over his shaken body. His thoughts seemed to have washed away. It was hard to completely enjoy it though, because he had to make sure his wrists didn't get too wet, although it wouldn't hurt them too much, but he didn't want to take any chances.
He started to feel sadness creep through his body. He started sobbing, so he sat himself down inside the shower, resting his hands on his knees, and his head on his arms, careful not to touch his wrists. He didn't know how long he was in the shower, but long enough for the tremors to stop and the water to get cold. He didn't care though. He seemed to have been paralyzed, but again, he didn't care. after another twenty minutes, Reid heard a knock at the door. Ignoring it, he sat his head back down.
Hotch, on the other side of the door, started to get worried. Of finding Reid cutting himself, or attempting, or have already committed, suicide. After two knocks and no answer, he opened the door quickly and rushed in. Relieved to see Reid in the shower, but confused as to why he was just sitting there.
"Reid. What are you doing?" Reid just lifted his head and shrugged. Hotch was weirded out from the behavior. He opened the shower door and felt the water. Hotch looked right at Reid and turned the water off. "Are you trying to kill yourself from hypothermia?" Reid just shrugged again and stood up. "Then what were you doing? How long were you in there?"
"I-I don't know. Long enough for the water to get cold plus another twenty, so about forty minutes, give or take." Reid said. Hotch just gave him a suspicious look. He wasn't even shivering. Hotch grabbed a towel and wrapped it around Reid's bony body.
"Let's get you dressed." Hotch grabbed the clothes off of the counter and escorted Reid to his room.
"I can get dressed by myself, Hotch." Reid offered a sincere smile. Hotch sighed. After a minute of thinking, Hotch reluctantly nodded.
"Tell me when you're done. We need to talk." He nodded. Hotch left the room to let Reid get dressed. In only a couple minutes, Reid was done. He left the room and met Hotch in the kitchen. He looked at the clock. It was only ten at night. Reid sat at the table and laid his head down and yawned.
"I'm tired, can I please go to sleep? Can't we just talk tomorrow?" Hotch smiled lightly.
"No. We need to talk now. Come on. The quicker we get this done, the quicker you can go to sleep." Reid reluctantly looked up, but didn't look Hotch in the eyes. "Okay, first of all, why were you in the shower that long?" Reid shrugged and looked down. "Were you trying to hurt yourself?" Reid looked Hotch in the eyes, his eyes showing that he was hurt.
"No. I-I don't know. The cold water... it just..." Reid looked back down. When he looked up, Hotch's expression was clearly demanding an answer. Reid swallowed. "It stopped me from shaking."
"Do you believe me now that you can get addicted to it. To self injury." Reid started crying.
"Yes. I know."
"Okay. We can talk about something different." Hotch said.
"I'm really confused." Hotch's expression didn't change.
"Well, when I have to go back to work in three weeks, you'll... I don't know. But I do know you're going to be seeing a therapist frequently. And you're not going to argue with me on this." Reid just nodded.
"What about the rest of the team. How are they?" Hotch sighed.
"Well, Morgan's blaming himself, Garcia's hiding herself in cyberspace, JJ's doing the same, except staying in her office, Emily's compartmentalizing, well, trying. She's still sad, and Rossi's been praying and hoping you'll get better." Hotch summarized.
"What about you?" Reid asked.
"Me? I'm forgetting about my own emotions to help you. You're more important right now." Reid smiled slightly, but replaced it with a yawn.
"I-I think I'm going to go to bed."
"One more thing..." Reid turned around. "You need to take your antibiotic." Reid nodded. Hotch handed him the pill, and Reid took it without hesitation. He just wanted to go to bed. Without saying anything else, he walked right toward his room. It was almost like Reid fell asleep before he even hit the bed. He was so exhausted that he didn't have any nightmares, except he didn't have a good night of rest. He tossed and turned and sweat more, and shaked more. He wanted to cut so badly, but knew that'd be wrong and lead him down the wrong path, so he just laid there. He knew he wasn't going to be able to do it. Soon, the need to cut got so bad Reid gave into the soft voice talking to him. He got up and went to his dresser. He always kept a couple of razors in there. He took one out and cut his forearm, careful not to cut too close to his wrists. Once clarity overtook him, he threw it down on the floor and silently cursed him for what he was doing. He broke down crying and fell asleep on the floor. He cut barely enough to bleed, so his arms wasn't covered in blood, but still noticable that it did bleed.
When he woke up, he was in his bed. He looked around his room confused, his eyes landing on Hotch, who was sitting on the edge of his bed. The disappointment was clear on his face. Reid turned his head away, disgusted in himself.
"Reid. You need to look at me." The sadness was clear in his voice, but he soon covered it by a look of confusion and anger on his face. Reid forced himself to look Hotch in the eye. "I don't know why you did it, but I know what your excuse is going to be. If you insist on ruining your life like this, and you don't care if you want to get better or not, then I can leave and get to work. Is that what you want?" His voice was harsh, making Reid tear up. "I don't know how I'm going to help you if you don't want to be helped. Do you want help?" Reid nodded. "Then act like it." Hotch stood and left Reid's room, closing the door behind him. Reid stood and looked around his room for his razors, but they were all gone, he went into his bathroom and looked for his razor, but it was gone, anything sharp was gone. He fell to his knees and looked at his arm. Hotch had bandaged it.
For how long he laid on the ground and cried, he didn't know, and frankly, he didn't care. He didn't care about anything or anybody. He didn't care if what he had to help himself was a bottle of Whiskey, but he just wanted something to distract himsefl from his emotions, to make him feel good. Why didn't they understand that he was in pain? Why couldn't they just for once, try to understand it wasn't about feeling the pain, but making the emotional pain that you couldn't see, something you could, something that was more understandable? Why couldn't he just stop everything? Why couldn't the time resume ticking and let him get over it? It was like a clock stuck in one time, like a game being paused, stuck in one emotion. They didn't understand it, they studied it. 'Yeah, well they can study this', Reid thought and smiled. He ripped the bandages off and scratched at the wounds, making them bleed. He digged his long fingernails deeper into the wound until they were bleeding even more. He wiped the blood on his clothes and continued to let it drip on the tiled floor. He fell onto his stomach and laid in the small puddle of blood.
A/N: Okay, this was short, but at least I got something. I wrote this because of how I feel, and yes, you do go through withdrawal from cutting yourself. It is an addiction, that's how I know how it feels, because I've been struggling with my cutting addiction, but yeah, I will soon get back to updating everyday because we're in for a bunch of thunderstorms. Yay! That means longer chappies. Thanks for all the reviews, oh and Reid didn't pick his wounds with the stitches. That would most likely be like another suicide attempt, but everything I used in this has happened to me and I just HAD to get it out of my system. lolz, well take care my lovely readers!