This is my Last Resort (Chapter Eleven) by Lexikal
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Dark themes; violence; missing children/implied child abuse, lots of Reid angst...
Summary: Spencer Reid, third season-ish (2008-ish), is kidnapped/taken hostage and abused/terrorized along with a host of other "unwanted" children. Please see chapter one for more info.
Fan Fic Music Video Note: I recently made a music video for this fic set to the song "Last Resort" by Papa Roach. If you are interested in watching this, go to YouTube and type in "lexikalfanfic", in quotations. A few videos should pop up (all fan fiction music videos so far). Select the one entitled "This is my last Resort" Criminal Minds Fan Fiction Music Video, and enjoy... or you can get the URL directly from my author's profile page. Take care, and happy reading! And, like always, please review!
Chapter Note: I have personally been dealing with constant "derealisation" following a blow to the head (concussion) about 2 and a half years ago, so I decided to incorporate that head space (no pun intended) into this story. Please excuse any plot holes or typos- I do my best to edit, but I have a really hard time concentrating most of the time, and mistakes are inevitable.
Morgan sat with Reid for a while, letting the younger man calm down for a few minutes before walking into Reid's kitchen and making coffee. Coffee seemed to be the FBI's answer to everything horrible in the world. A friend gets shot and you have to kill time in the ER waiting room? Drink coffee. A friend has a mild breakdown and floods their bathroom after a black-out spell; make coffee! Coffee was to FBI agents what tea probably was to the Brits, Morgan mused silently.
He opened Reid's fridge and shook his head, but couldn't suppress the tired smile. Aside from a jar of marmalade, a half empty carton of milk and two very bruised looking apples, Reid's fridge was empty. The cupboards were completely empty.
"Good to know you keep your house stocked, in case of an emergency," Morgan called from the kitchen sarcastically. Reid didn't respond. Morgan closed the cupboard doors and pulled the phone in the kitchen from the wall and dialled a number he knew by heart; pizza, wings, ribs. It would have to do. He ordered two medium deluxe pizzas, soda and some barbeque wings even as he heard Spencer Reid protesting in the background.
"Food'll be here in under 30 or it's free," Morgan said, grinning as he came back into the living room. "I love that place."
"Really, Morgan, you can just go home. I was just..."
"There is no food in this house. You flooded your bathroom. I'm hanging around for a little bit." It was said so simply, like a fact. What goes up; must come down. Leaving no room for debate. Reid sighed, walked into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee and came back out.
"I'm not hungry anyway-"
"I know. I heard you when I was on the phone."
"So, you're going to eat two pizzas and a bunch of chicken wings all by yourself?"
"I didn't say that," Morgan said, flashing his pearly whites dramatically. "You're going to help me eat some of it."
Reid made a tired, irritated noise.
"Kid, you were drugged. People can have flashbacks, days, weeks... even months after taking hallucinogens, especially if they lose weight. You have to eat."
Reid chewed the inside of his cheek and considered this. "What if I have one of these... these trips... out on the field? I had one at home... Morgan, if that happens at work, they'll have to take my gun, make a notation in my jacket and..."
"Kid, calm down. You're under a lot of stress. You were hypnotized today. You came out of it suddenly, without being brought back out properly..."
"What else did Hotch tell you?" Reid asked, obviously uncomfortable. He didn't remember most of what he'd said while he'd been hypnotized, and the idea that Morgan might know more about his ordeal than he did was a little off-putting.
"Hotch told me you panicked, to stall you."
"No... I mean about the hypnotherapy session itself. That's how you knew I came out of it suddenly. Did he tell you what I said during it? If he did, he must've told you after I left for the day."
"He just told me what he thought would be pertinent to the case," Morgan said slowly, not sure how Reid would handle knowing that the entire team had seen the tape of him hypnotized after he'd left, had seen him writhe in panic, pace... even scream. Yell that his insides were falling out, the horror and panic reminding Morgan of his early years in Church, of his Sunday school classes about Hell and the gnarling and gnashing of teeth. Eternal tears. Watching the tape of Reid hypnotized, Morgan had felt ill himself.
No wonder the kid had freaked. And Morgan knew he'd- all of them- had only seen a tiny glimpse of what Reid had actually endured. The kid had come to suddenly, unable, even hypnotized, to relive the entire event. That said a lot.
He doubted Reid would be okay with the fact that everyone had seen the tape, and he didn't want to be the one to tell Reid. He'd let Hotch handle that... that's what Hotch got paid the big bucks for, anyway.
"I'm not being put under again," Reid muttered. Morgan nodded.
"I'm going to go drain the water from the tub now," Morgan said, and quickly left for the bathroom. The water had cooled significantly. Morgan reached into the tub and jerked out the stopper, watching as the water began to drain away, making a slurping noise as it ran into the pipes.
He was on his way back to the living room when his cell began to vibrate. Derek Morgan pulled it from his pocket and opened it.
"Yeah?"
"How was he?" Garcia's voice was worried. Like Reid, she wore her heart, and emotions, on her sleeve. Morgan shot a look at Reid, who looked pale and weak and miserable.
"He's... you know, baby-doll. He had a rough time today."
"J.J. told me he was really upset in the bullpen... I mean uber-upset, my love. Pulling at his sweater, pacing, little mini melt-down thing. No wonder, I guess, but..."
Morgan sighed. Reid glanced up and over at Morgan.
"Who is it?" Reid asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Garcia. Want to talk to her?"
"You're at his place? Why?" Garcia questioned quickly.
Spencer Reid considered this for a moment before extending a hand and flapping his fingers. Morgan handed his colleague his phone.
"Yeah... Hi Garcia..." Reid said tiredly. Morgan watched the younger man, knowing that Reid appreciated the concern and the love of his team-mates, but right now especially, was really on edge.
"No, really, I am okay. Yeah, just a bad day... Morgan? Ahh, I just flooded my bathroom, and he came over to help clean up. No, I'm not making that up. Yes, feel free to ask him. I know you will, Garcia. Okay. Yeah. See you tomorrow. You too."
Reid handed the cell back to Morgan and shut his eyes, looking annoyed. Morgan took the phone and sat down next to Reid.
"He sounds really stressed," Garcia said simply, as if afraid to step on anybody's toes.
"He is," Morgan said, feeling slightly bad for the computer tech. "But yeah, he did really flood the bathroom..." Morgan added quickly, before Garcia could ask and Reid could become paranoid wondering about what Garcia was saying. What Morgan was hearing.
"Is he... J.J. and Prentiss spoke to Hotch today, after Reid left. I got to hear about the session. It was tape-recorded, so Hotch actually showed me, and... God, Morgan. I guess you didn't see it?"
"I did, actually," Morgan said simply, not wanting to pique Reid's curiosity.
"It was so hard to watch our boy like that, panicking like that. I- I only saw it because Hotch wanted to know what drugs could cause the hallucinations and other symptoms Reid had shown, but not show up on a tox screen, and he thought if I saw the tape I'd have a better understanding than if he just described Reid's behaviour. Well, I did some checking... LSD in small doses probably wouldn't show up, and Reid was only checked for sedatives and tranquilizers, anything that would've knocked him out at the time of his abduction, not hallucinogens. Nobody knew to check him for hallucinogens when he was in the hospital..."
"And let me guess, now they'd be out of his circulatory system..."
Reid looked over at Morgan and mouthed: What are you talking about? Morgan nodded at him, letting him know that he'd share the information as soon as he was off the phone and Reid nodded and shut his eyes again.
"Right you are, sugar plum," Garcia said, sounding frustrated, despite the term of endearment. "Although some hallucinogens can be stored in fat and hair samples for months, if not years."
"Great," Morgan said sarcastically. "Based on... what you know, do you have any theories?"
"LSD is cheap, easy to get your hands on and can have unpredictable results, including causing amnesia. There are several others, though... I printed out a full list for Hotch."
"Any that would cause hallucinations to that degree?" Morgan blurted and Reid's eyes flew open. He was staring at Morgan now, looking both uneasy and morbidly curious.
"Well, psychedelics could cause those reactions, but so could dissociatives- I was thinking a dissociative like PCP or ketamine mixed with a classic psychedelic like LSD, but then I took a look at our deliriants. While the dissociatives would induce a classic lucid-dream type effect, the deliriants would be much harder to trace and produce effects similar to those seen in people with high fevers, and the risk of amnesia is also higher. Hence, the name. Deliriants at high doses will cause sufferers to talk to people who aren't there and create the sensation that aspects of reality are ceasing to exist, when they aren't, all sorts of really nasty stuff... the laughing skeleton and insides falling out being two classic examples. We're talking a real Jacob's-Ladder type head trip, here; producing feelings of rage and panic... out of the three main subtypes of hallucinogens, some sort of deliriant would be my guess..."
"Baby-doll, what... what sort of deliriant? You have a name? Any theories?"
"Some of the more well-known deliriants include deadly nightshade, mandrake and henbane, all substances that pretty much nobody in this century would think to test for, but also, here is the kicker; extremely high doses of the antihistamines diphenhydramine and dimenhydrinate can cause the same effects. We're talking Benadryl and Dramamine there, stud-muffin, both of which are over the counter drugs. The half life of Benadryl, diphenhydramine is..." Morgan could hear keys being hit so fast they sounded like machine gun fire, "...approximately 2 to 8 hours, depending on metabolism, so that definitely means our boy wouldn't have tested positive for it if the timing was right. As for dimenhydrinate, AKA our good and trusty friend Dramamine, the half life is similar, I get a range depending on the site, but it's similar, 1-5 hours approximately, maybe a little longer in some people."
"So his symptoms could have been caused by some over the counter medication?"
"It's possible," Garcia said, sounding distracted. "Or at least augmented by those drugs, and if he did have a concussion and was vomiting, they might have given him Dramamine to help with the nausea and just kept upping the dosage. And if they were experimenting with any other hallucinogen, well... you have the recipe for a major freak-out disaster."
"Thanks, Garcia," Morgan said slowly, looking over at Reid, who was staring at him intently, obviously curious and impatient.
"Um... I'm going to go now."
"Of course," Garcia said, sounded distracted. "Phone if you need anything."
"What? You're not going home?" Morgan asked.
"I thought I'd do as much reading on these drugs as possible, and that's easier here than at home. Also, running the older images we found in the home, the photographs that didn't add up, through facial recognition software and also through the missing children's database, both here and in Canada, and also deconstructing the faces to compare to those of child skeletons found in the last..."
"You're busy, got it," Morgan said, smiling. "Thanks, Mama. I owe you one."
"You owe me a lot more than one," Garcia said cheekily. Morgan grinned wider and even Reid turned his head to the side and snorted laughter, having guessed that, the phone call coming to an end, Garcia was back to her usual flirting.
Morgan disconnected and put the cell back in his pocket.
"I want to know everything she just told you," Reid said instantly, eyes flashing both with curiosity and fear.
Morgan relayed most of what Garcia had told him over Pizza and wings, encouraging Reid to eat by bribing him with information. Reid had a few pieces of pizza and his colour was improving. He got up, poured himself another cup of coffee, and sat back down, turning to face Morgan.
"They could've caused symptoms like that with over the counter drugs?" Reid said incredulously.
"It's possible. Or made any potential drug-trip worse. Of course, they'd have to have given you a massive dose..."
"I don't remember being fed anything- force-fed pills, anything. Just the pain in my thigh, the injection."
"And we still don't know what that was," Morgan said calmly. "If you were unconscious it's possible that they could have made you lick LSD from blotter paper, and you wouldn't have been aware of it..."
"Yeah, but swallowing pills? While unconscious?"
"Once you were high on one drug, it could've been very easy to control you, get you to consume almost anything and you might not remember it. Obviously you don't remember it, because while you remember these hallucinatory memories, you can't tell us how the drug was delivered..."
Reid nodded sullenly. "I just don't get it, Morgan."
"Hmm? What's that?" Morgan asked, biting into another hot-wing and licking sauce from his fingers.
"Why anyone would ever willingly hallucinate like that. Take hallucinogens. It was... it was terrifying."
Morgan nodded in agreement. He knew from first-hand experience how scary drugs could be.
"Sometimes, Reid, people are so desperate to escape their lives that they are willing to face almost anything, even hallucinations that play out like acts from Dante's Inferno, just to forget. Just for a while. For some people, the risk is worth it. And not all hallucinatory drug trips are terrifying, Reid." Morgan sighed, took another bite of his chicken wing, before depositing the bones in a pile on his plate.
"You talk like you have personal experience with...with this," Reid said gently, finally glad that the focus of the conversation was off him and his abduction and torture and fear; his vulnerability.
"I do," Morgan admitted simply, without explaining more. Reid nodded. Thought for a moment. If Morgan didn't want to dig into the reasons why he had experimented- at the very least- with drugs, that was his business, but Reid was still curious.
"Did you ever experiment with Dramamine or Benadryl? The medications Garcia named?"
"No, but I used to ingest massive amounts of cough syrup with DXM..." Morgan trailed. "Starting at about the age of ten."
"After you witnessed your father's death." Reid prompted gently. Morgan nodded.
"DXM?" Reid asked, looking confused.
"It stands for Dextromethorphan- it's a cough suppressant in many over the counter medications, mostly cold and cough syrups. It can also induce hallucinations if you take enough of it- technically I believe it acts as a dissociative hallucinogen, though I'd have to ask Garcia to be sure."
"And you... you took enough to trip out?" Reid asked uncertainly. For some reason, every time Spencer Reid said the word "trip" in relation to a drug high, Derek Morgan wanted to laugh. But he managed to nod seriously.
"What...what did you experience?"
"Well... I threw up a lot. Once I even threw up blood."
Reid was still, absorbing, almost afraid to move lest Morgan stop talking.
"At least it looked like blood, but I was also starting to hallucinate around that time, so... it's impossible to be certain. I heard voices that weren't there. They sounded... demonic. That's the only word I can use to describe those voices; they were chanting, like people at mass, but very strange, very distorted. I saw people that looked translucent, like ghosts, sort of passing across the street, between cars. Almost was hit by a car, myself, trailing after one of them."
"You were ten at the time?" Reid asked, trying to keep the disbelief and pity out of his voice.
"Yeah." Morgan shrugged. "Pretty stupid. I know."
"You... you did this more than once?"
"I did that for years, Reid. And some other stuff, too. Nothing really heavy, at least in the legal sense; everything I experimented with was legal, over the counter. I managed to convince myself that if the drugs I consumed were legal, not only were they safe, but I also knew I couldn't be arrested."
Reid nodded and licked his lips.
"So, you think it's possible that my...I could hallucinate severely and maybe black out... just from over the counter drugs?"
"I know it's possible, Reid." Morgan said flatly, standing up. He took the empty box of wings and the rest of the food to the kitchen. Tossed a box with a few slices of pizza in it into Reid's fridge, along with the soda and washed his hands.
"I'm scared Morgan," Reid admitted suddenly when Morgan came back. Morgan glanced over and nodded.
"I know, kid..."
"No. I mean...ever since I woke up in the hospital... everything feels unreal. I feel spaced out. Like... like I am living in a perpetual dream world. Everything is a bit off, and it just won't leave. I know technically the term for this is derealisation, but I don't know if it will go. I am scared. I am scared it... will never leave." Reid stopped and looked over at Morgan. "My brain feels... damaged."
Derek Morgan didn't know what to say. But he knew he had to say something.
"You've just been through a trauma. You know how that-"
"I've been through traumatic experiences before. I've never felt like this before, not constantly, not for days on end. During specific events, yes, and while I was in shock, yes... but not after the fact. Not like this, Morgan."
"Reid, I never experienced anything like that... what you just described, but some of my buddies smoked marijuana instead of doing cough syrup. One of them- keep in mind he was about 11 at the time- started complaining that everything felt like a dream, like a cartoon."
"Yes. That's how I feel, I guess...well, things don't look like cartoons, but I feel like I am not completely awake, like I am having a lucid dream. Even now, I am not sure, and there is tunnel vision, you look distorted. And... I can't stop thinking about it. It won't go away. Everything is distorted, but I am not actively hallucinating... but time and space feel distorted and strange. It's so eerie and hard to describe."
"If a genius with an IQ of 187 can't describe it, it must be hard to describe," Morgan agreed. "Look, do you want me to phone Garcia? Maybe ask her to do some checking, see if your symptoms fit with any specific drugs, or are the symptoms of..."
"No. After my panic attack at work today, I think I am already at risk of being suspended. If Hotch thinks I am walking around, barely lucid, I'll be suspended for sure."
Morgan nodded.
"You won't tell anybody what I said...will you?" Reid asked then, and the worry was evident on his face.
"Reid, if something happens..."
"Morgan, you were the one that said they still needed me on this case..."
"I will keep what you told me to myself, unless I think you are endangering yourself or someone else."
"I don't think that will be an issue," Reid said flatly. Morgan nodded. Hoped it was true.
Okay, chapter 11 is over. Damn, DR sucks, so writing Reid as having it now... actually is a tiny bit therapeutic. Please review. Don't worry, I'll get back to the case, to Elle, and to tracking down Dolores White soon enough! Thanks again for all the reviews and people subscribing to my various stories. -Lexikal