Hotch had finally found a groove in which he could half nod at every 32 seconds, the cycle had a 2 second delay from the chatty nurse going on in his conversation. He had gotten into this niche five minutes after meeting the man in Reid's hospital suite.
By time Morgan got there, he was strangely numb to it. He almost thought about what would happen if Mr. Bubbles here got into a conversation with Garcia, depending on her mood they'd either hit it off spectacularly, or she'd hit him with her purse repeatedly. He excused himself for a moment to hand off his files to Prentiss and tell her the situation. Morgan already took up the abandoned perch beside Reid's side, he half-listened to Reid's breathing and the conversation Hotch and Prentiss were having, his brow twitched at the nurse started to try a conversation with him.
"Listen, man, I get it… you're stuck in a room with some unconscious guy and you need conversation because you're a lonely, lonely person. But this is not the time to let out the frustration of your latent sexuality because people just can't believe you're straight because you're a male-nurse and thus get no time with the honeys. We're not really going to help you man up, you have to do that on your own, one suggestion, less purple scrubs, more deep blues or greens." Is what he wants so badly to say, instead he just twitches his brow as the nurse asks what it's like to travel all over the states as if they get a chance to look at local sight-seeing endeavors when they search for serial killers.
Reid's monitor starts to speed up in beeps around 6:30, and the nurse smiles, approaches his patient and runs a blood-pressure check then takes the temperature. All while still trying to chat to Morgan, Hotch, Prentiss, or anything resembling sentient, Reid groans and opens his eyes. He isn't sure when he developed a headache, but he knew that it wasn't a migraine despite his urge to vomit, that 'nausea' or pre-vomit feeling he wasn't sure which just yet, was more likely a mild dehydration-headache. Not like he planned to touch any water to fix it. He groans again just recalling the agony in his stomach from his last attempts.
"Oh look at you, Mr. Sleepy Head." The nurse starts, Morgan and Hotch visibly wince, Prentiss grimaces a smile unsure of how Reid would react to this. Surgery left a person open for wild-card reactions. Anger, withdrawal, pensive silence, meekness, the range is vast and though Reid's case had been brought about through non-violent means it didn't mean he wouldn't be within that range somewhere.
Reid systematically attempted to adjust to noise and light levels, bleary tired eyes looking to identify the faces in the room. He spots the yapping thing that has his skull hosting a racquet-ball tournament and attempts to ignore it… him… whatever. He catches eyes with Hotch and pleads to make that go away without words.
Hotch gives him a sad look, non-verbal communication that he has to stay, unfortunately.
"How are you doing, buddy?" The nurse asks once more.
"What the hell do you think I am, twelve? I'm not your buddy, I have a headache, and I don't want to talk with you further."
Prentiss approaches, putting an arm on the nurse's forearm, she has suspicions she could get rid of him, he seemed desperate for female acceptance, maybe she could use it… Reid so owed her for this. She definitely was taking one for the team.
"Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the cafeteria?" She already has him halfway out the door, flustered and blushing looking at the fine, flirtatious movements and beautiful woman belonging to them.
Reid winced and slapped at Morgan's hand as the man touched his. "Stop, I'm fine… really."
Morgan looks at him knowing just how full of it Reid is for saying that and opts to break into a toothy smile and laugh playfully, "Yeah… sure you are. So, marathon training in twenty minutes, right?"
His friend glowers, the hallowed look under his eyes makes it an impressive attempt at a glare, which of course makes Morgan laugh harder. A glare on a puppy while still is technically a dog giving a warning is absolutely ridiculous and still too adorable to accept the warning from.
The nurse, seeming to suddenly remember his charge, reenters the room and Prentiss's shoulders drop in disappointment. She almost succeeded, almost!
"Here, Spencer, drink some of this." The man was all smiles, Reid at this moment despises him with every fiber of his loosely-sewn-together being.
"No."
"I know you must be thirsty. You have a headache, right? You're dehydrated. Drink."
"Last time I did that I passed out." He elected to omit that he emitted all over himself and a waste basket in the process, and his boss. He winced his eyes together, it didn't mean he didn't remember it though.
"You just took too much too fast, you have to learn, and your body wants it. Have some, I insist."
"Did you know I'm in the FBI?" Reid started. Hotch touched a hand to his eyebrow, this was going to be good. "So, you trying to force me to drink water would be considered assaulting a federal officer. That's a federal offense. Do you what they do to people like you in prison? Soft people like you?"
"Oh you're just being grumpy." He smiled, oblivious to the waging looks of warning shooting between Morgan and Hotch.
"Morgan, can I see your gun?" Reid attempts to grab it from his holster.
"Okay now, that's enough!" Hotch quickly steps in as Morgan maneuvers away to prevent Reid from actually getting it. Hotch puts a hand on the nurse's upper arm, squeezes and pulls him out. "You, out. Send someone else in, he isn't going to cooperate with you, he's stubborn. We'll talk to him, the other nurse will get him to drink, but you—you go. Now." He refocused on Reid, "As for you! Knock it off, lie back down, and if your nurses and doctors want you to try to drink, you're going to. Even if you just try, you're in a hospital because you need their care."
"They don't know what my body feels like personally."
Hotch gives him a look telling him to drop the act, he knows damn well Reid didn't take care of himself despite knowing what it feels like personally, and that furthermore his own love for empirical evidence basically made him a hypocrite for even saying that.
"Fine. I'll drink some water… but if it goes like it did last time I'm not doing it again!"
Hotch added an extra touch of authoritative glare, "Yes you will. You'll keep trying until it starts to work and you figure out how to do it properly."
"This isn't shooting practice, Hotch!"
"Really, then why were you going for my gun?" Morgan offered, Reid turned a frustrated glare at his best friend.
"Traitor. You wanted to shoot him too."
"Yeah, but I didn't reach for my gun."
"He was trying to assault a federal agent." Reid defended his actions.
"He wasn't even HOLDING water yet." Morgan reminded the genius.
He slumped in defeat.
They all looked up hoping to see a new nurse come in when the door creaked, instead they spotted Garcia and Rossi.
"Okay, I'm going to see if I can drum up another nurse." Prentiss mentions, "If I'm not back in thirty minutes you each owe me a stiff drink."
Hotch silently understood, he had seen her trying to get the yappy Chihuahua of a nurse out of the room, but thanks to Reid's outburst had lost the snare, unfortunately, now she had a target on her back.
"Oh, oh, I'll take one too." Garcia smiled, "They serve those at hospitals now? How progressive." She smiles, "I would've killed for that when I was stuck in one of those." She pointed to the hospital bed.
Reid dry-heaved at the thought of drinking anything. His stomach hurt, mostly from pain, but hunger was there too. Too tired to deal with all this, he looks at the others, simultaneously he wished to be alone and yet feared it at the same time. He didn't want his friends to not be there, but he was achy, sore, and just didn't want to deal with it right now.
He knew he was being snarky, too, which didn't help. He didn't want to push his friends away right now, he had to find a way to cope with it. He was about to speak when Garcia started in, "Oh, before I forget…"
She plopped a large teddy bear that wore an FBI shirt and a book, The Jungle, in it's arms. Reid seriously wondered if Garcia was teasing him on purpose or if she just thought the name was appropriate for the bear. "Uh… thanks, Garcia… do you know what that's about?"
"Meat packaging plants." She mentioned in a dead-serious tone belittled slightly by her beaming smile, "I know its light reading for you, but you should try to relax."
Reid wondered if she really was doing this on purpose. Prentiss returned with another nurse just as Reid had given up on trying to keep up with everyone. He leaned back into the pillows with the idea of succumbing to sleep firmly there.
A much quieter nurse entered, and damn if Prentiss didn't find the GQ-model-by-day, nurse-by-night entry for the staff. The man was chiseled. Hotch gave his subordinate a look, wondering just what criterion she had gone off to search for.
"Excuse me." The nurse steps between Garcia and Reid, "Is this your bear?" He mentions to Garcia, winking. "It's adorable."
Rossi and Morgan both added a bit of a glare at Prentiss for her selection, Rossi, the jealous lover, Morgan, the jealous kind-of-lover of the girl being hit on by the smooth nurse.
"I'll just sit this right here. Sir, would you like to sit up a little or do you prefer if I angle the bed?"
"Or." Reid said, obviously not in the mood to stare at male eye-candy, especially eye-candy that can't compare to Hotch. His nurse approaches the bed and presses a button that leaves Reid wincing as he moves up about 15 degrees, he shoots the nurse horrible looks while the women in the room shoot him pheromones.
Hotch approaches Reid, this time making sure Morgan's service piece is well out of reach, and squeezes his hand. "Are you alright?"
"Me? Oh, I'm fantastic. I could see how it might be confusing since I just had most of my insides prodded, parts of which removed and then stapled that it might be weird for me to actually ENJOY SITTING UP suddenly to drink water which last time made me…"
"Reid!" Hotch said in an authoritative, soothing voice. The control expressed in that syllable snapped Reid from his own outburst, he lowered his eyes. "I'll take that as a 'no'. I think what he was trying to say is that it's too much of an angle for him."
The nurse paled, "I'm sorry, he shouldn't even be able to feel this…" speaking to himself he asked, "when was his last dosage of pain killers…?" he flipped through the chart and paled a little more. He took out a needle and Reid glared, suddenly wishing for the talkative nurse instead.
Reid's glare melted once the needle slid into him and gave him a quick boost of outside chemicals, the nurse fiddled with his IV, Reid wasn't sure why the man hadn't used his line's connector instead of giving him a shot, but after the pinch he feels too comfortable to rightly care. The man takes a look at his chart, and then back at the machines.
He opts to add another IV line, this one labeled 0.05% NaCl + 0.05% dextrose. The fast drip empties the bag within twenty minutes and it is removed, a regular saline bag replaces it, and Reid can feel the pressure in his head dissipate while he swims through the highs and lows of pain-killers.
He doesn't even realize he was out of it for an hour, or that Garcia and Rossi are now taking shifts watching him while Hotch runs home to get Jack squared away with Jess for a few days.
What he does know, however, is that Morgan has returned with trays of delicious smelling food. He tries to sit up a little, slightly regrets it and lays back down. "That smells good. That is so mean of you."
Morgan smiles back at his friend, "Want to try some?"
"No." Reid says in misery, obviously he wants to, he just knows he can't. He's very familiar with the consequences at this point.
The nurse from earlier approaches him and takes another temperature reading. He smiles, "Would you like to try taking a sip of water now?"
Reid gives a stiff nod, he doesn't really want to, but he knows he should. He knows Hotch would want him to, so he does so. He takes the offered straw into his mouth and sips until the nurse pinches it, takes that as a cue to stop. He waits, when the nurse stops pinching it closed, he takes that as cue to take another sip. After about three of those, the nurse takes the water away.
"Good, very good. We'll see how well you hold that in you before we try for more, okay?" He looks at the others in the room. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I am going to make my rounds. I'll be back in a few minutes."
Reid waits for him to leave before asking, "So where's Hotch?"
Morgan manages to make Reid feel guilty for trying to monopolize the man, quickly and efficiently with, "He's probably getting Jack ready for bed."
Reid swallows hard, hating himself for trying to take Hotch from that noble responsibility. No one misses the lonely look in his eyes for that moment.
"It's okay, he'll be back later, and besides, we're here, right? Rossi's going to take off in a bit, but I figured I'd test just how strict the hospital is with over-night visitors."
Reid smiles at the thought gently, appreciating the sentiment greatly. "What time is it anyway?"
"A few minutes before 9," Morgan explains. As the others finished eating, Rossi offered to give Garcia a ride back, she walks to Reid kisses her two fingers and taps them gently to his forehead.
"Good night, sweet prince." She smiles, "I'll bring something else for you to read tomorrow."
He returns a look at the teddy bear at the side of his face and the daunting assignment to read a book practically labeled 'why you got sick in the first place, tool' then looks at the balloon decorating the corner of his bed. He spots flowers sticking upright in a vase on the windowsill that Hotch had perched at to read and noticed at the time being that there wasn't any classical music playing. For the first time all day it was just light music, pop and rock, R & B, even jazz coming into the mix. He should really thank Prentiss the next time he was alone with her for that.
"Who brought the flowers…?"
Rossi raised his hand, "Hospitals are notoriously dull for colors. Figured you'd want something to focus on." The man didn't mention that it was awkward getting purple flower arrangements for a male coworker. He just knew it was appreciated and he'd take that as being his good deed of the week, he wasn't enough of a boy scout to make it a daily occurrence.
TBC.