Warning: This chapter involves a scene of self-harm which might be triggering.
Songs for this chapter: The Loss ~ Hollywood Undead
He flew up to Chicago the next day to be with his mom and his sisters. Dread settled in his stomach like a stone the whole journey there. Not being harsh on his family, he loved them all to death. It was just that he was not looking forward to looking into his mother's eyes, knowing that less than 24 hours ago he'd let a co-worker fuck him under a table, with his bosses making small talk in the very next room. Her baby boy.
And the effort it took to act normal and Christmassy for them was excruciating.
His mom sussed within an hour of his arrival that something was up with him. He could tell by the way she kept glancing at him when she thought he wasn't looking. He knew he was being much quieter than he usually was. Usually he was the one getting everybody into the party mood, but today he was cutting up potatoes in silence. When his sisters went to watch TV she asked him if he was feeling alright.
"Yeah mama I'm good." He lied.
"Rough case huh?" she guessed. "You can tell me about it."
He shook his head. "I can't." he said simply after a long while.
"Okay." She said gently.
Thankfully something in his tone made her drop the conversation, she just gave his shoulder a loving touch and went back to the vegetables.
He got through it. That was the best there was to say about Christmas that year.
...
He limited his alcohol use to the weekends after Christmas. He kept up to peak function at work, almost overcompensating with ruthless efficiency so nobody could question what he was doing after hours or challenge him about being hung over. Though the drinking wasn't really the main objective anymore.
He'd found a new coping strategy. Or rather, returned to an old one.
He went out to a gay bar the first Friday night after he got back. Loud music and a whole bunch of loud people in even louder clothes. He turned quite a few heads when he walked through the door and it made him feel good, to be wanted and desired by so many people. It was ridiculously easy to get laid when you had an FBI badge (unless you happened to be Reid), but he rarely had to resort to that sort of tactic to attract the person he wanted.
What could he say? Other gay men seemed to like his kind of build.
He sauntered up to the bar and ordered a scotch, then turned and leant back on his bar stool, one foot up, one on the floor, to drink it lazily and make a sweep of the room. Select a target. Taking his time. Always cool and impassive on the outside, despite his nerves and the fact that there was a fucking civil war raging in his mind, his polarised emotions clashing violently and pulling him in six directions at once.
It didn't take too long to choose. He just had to make eye contact with the guy he wanted to know that his attention was welcome. A tall, well-built black guy. Slightly younger than Morgan, mid-twenties at the most. Wore a black tank top and a red bandana on his head. He was sitting with a group of guys, talking to a skinny but animated white guy in a faded band T-shirt but looking pretty uninterested in what he was saying. He caught onto Morgan's stare and smirked. Morgan raised an eyebrow but didn't smile back.
He hadn't even finished his scotch before the guy left the group and came swaggering up to him. He leaned next to Morgan with his elbows on the bar but didn't sit down.
"Dude I can't work out whether you want to fuck me or fight me." He teased.
Morgan chuckled. He pointed to the guy's bandana.
"That's a little risky in a place like this ain't it?"
He looked confused for a second but then laughed. "Oh yeah. What's red again? I don't even know. Man, they should really have lessons for this shit."
Morgan shrugged. "I don't know. Piercing? Fisting? Stay away from brown at least and you should be okay."
The guy laughed. "Yeah even I knew that one." He sat down and propped up his chin with his elbow. "Stupid system anyway." He continued. "I mean you could always just ask me what I like." He gave another smirk.
"Don't need to." Morgan said.
"Oh yeah? And why's that?"
"I already know exactly what you want." Morgan said, throwing back the rest of his scotch. He met the guy's eyes and held his gaze for a long time. This look was important. It turned an arrogant pick up line into an intriguing mystery. The guy scoffed at first but the confidence in Morgan's stare and posture made him think twice about dismissing it.
"How?" he asked curiously, after a long pause.
Morgan smirked. He was in.
"Buy me another drink and I'll tell you."
As he'd profiled, the guy wanted total control and dominance, liked it rough, and thrived on nicknames like 'daddy,' in bed to feed his fragile ego, caused by the loss of his own father who abandoned him in childhood.
He was exactly the type of guy Morgan needed.
They fucked in his mother's living room and damn near destroyed a lamp, a desk and a coffee table in the process. By the end Morgan was so covered in bruises that he'd have to make something up, but he didn't care at that point. This time wasn't like Sean, it wasn't like the guy from the office, this was planned and controlled, and it had taken place on his terms. And it had worked exactly how he'd wanted it to. He felt euphoric, validated. He thought about Reid and for the first time he didn't feel grief, he felt spite, satisfaction.
This is who I am now. This is what you made me do.
Morgan took off right after. They didn't say goodbye, just exchanged looks from where the younger man lay sprawled on the couch smoking something which Morgan pretended not to notice was a joint. For the first time Morgan wasn't sure what the other man was thinking about him in that moment. He could take a guess, but he wasn't sure he wanted to.
A sick feeling rolled in as he walked back to his apartment through the bitter cold streets. He was only wearing a T-shirt but the temperature didn't seem to affect him.
Did I really just do that?
He hadn't even been drunk this time. It was so wrong, what he was doing, but he already knew he'd be going back for more.
He thought about Reid again. Suddenly he felt scared, so scared. Like maybe Reid's leaving was God, punishing him for his dirty rotten core, and for trying to hide it. For letting Buford do what he did for so long. For building his whole identity on a lie just to make himself feel normal.
And now…what he'd done was disgusting, unforgivable. Maybe now Reid would never come back to him. Maybe he'd die somewhere on the streets pumped full of Dilaudid, or even worse, he'd develop schizophrenia so badly that he'd never be the same Reid again. His Reid.
He gave a frustrated shout and bashed his fist into the side of an empty bus shelter. It hurt, but not enough, and he didn't know why but he forced himself to keep doing it, then he started hitting his forehead against it, shouting furious nonsense at himself and the word, not caring that he looked like a lunatic. The streets were pretty empty anyway.
Finally he realised this wasn't getting him anywhere and stopped, panting, leaning back against the shelter. Tears came to his eyes and he felt a tightening in his chest which he knew was an approaching panic attack, and suddenly he knew exactly what he needed to do to make it right.
As soon as he got home he headed straight for his bedroom, rifling frantically through the cupboards for his old pocket knife before locking himself in the bathroom. He sat on the edge of the bath for a moment, opening the knife and staring at the blade, thinking through what he was about to do.
It had been such a long time, he didn't remember how he used to do it without making a mess.
Yeah. Another coping mechanism from his earlier days in life.
For years in college even after he escaped Buford's hold on him, he'd cut himself. Anything could set it off, struggling with an assignment, having to talk in class, anything. But when it came to sex, a concrete pattern set in. He'd get trashed and hook up with a hot single playmate at a frat party and be too drunk and horny to remember that the slightest movement, the slightest word his partner uttered which reminded him of something Buford did to him, brought the flashbacks which made him go rigid and cold.
He never asked the men to stop though, just lie there and took it. Like he had with Buford. Feeling so stupid.
He stood up and took off his T-shirt, and looked in the mirror.
The scars had faded now he'd fallen out of the pattern, when he'd realised he was worth more than Buford let him believe, when he began to feel stronger and more powerful than him, and his lifelong shame was replaced with nothing but contempt for the man who had abused him. He thought he'd left that life behind, buried it all two thousand foot deep in cement and moved on.
Nobody ever found out. He'd been clever with his cuts, putting them in places he could hide, or excuse as an accidental injury. He'd varied his methods too. He'd used the classic double edged blade mostly but dripping boiling water on his arm or sticking himself with pins, or just hacking away with scissors or whatever was closest worked as well.
Fairly regularly he'd harmed himself badly enough to go to the infirmary, nicked a wrong vessel or something and got freaked out by the amount of blood he'd lost. He'd always prepared excuses in advance though. By necessity he got very good at lying.
But there was one nurse there who started to look at him like she maybe knew, and one day she'd tentatively asked him whether he'd been having problems with the work or with friends. She even offered him a leaflet for counselling, but he'd flatly turned her down. Quite harshly. Said what the hell did she expect from the quarterback of the college team, and that football was a rough sport. She'd looked at him so pityingly that he wanted to hit her.
He realised he was shaking so he sat down again. He lifted the blade against the skin of his abdomen, just up and to the left from his navel. He drew it across lightly, getting a feel for it. He winced. The first time was always the most painful, he remembered.
The first time.
The first time is always the most painful Derek, I promise it won't hurt so much next time. You've been such a good boy for me Derek. Why can't the other kids all be like you?
He closed his eyes and forced the knife deep through his skin in one impulsive motion, too fast for instinct to make him flinch and ruin the satisfaction of the first incision. He let out a cry and then screamed through his teeth as he ripped the blade sideways, bit by bit between breaths until he'd formed a jagged line. Around two inches was all he could bear. He always forgot how fucking hard it was to cut flesh.
He sat trembling with adrenaline and watching the blood creep out of the wound.
All the intense emotions which had been ripping him apart were suddenly numb and detached from him. This pain was real. This pain was good, straightforward, purifying. He put a dressing on and then just sat on his couch marvelling at how good he felt. He waited for the endorphins to fade, and they did, but they left him with a feeling of calm which lasted. His mind hadn't been so unburdened in months.
And like that he was hooked. It was a sad kind of happiness, but he figured at least it was one worth living for.
...
Hello! I'm sorry this chapter is so short, I thought it would be better to upload something than to leave you all waiting. I am out of hospital now and making a recovery but I'm easily tired and my mood has been awful lately so it's been difficult to get back into the writing groove.
Also sorry if this development is triggering for people, another thing I should have warned about in the description I guess...but even I didn't realise quite how screwed up Morgan is until Reid left, which got me thinking about how he would have coped back when Buford abused him. I felt like he'd find a new coping mechanism, and a guy like him would never let himself ruin his career by becoming an alcoholic, so it would have to be something secret and self-destructive.
Thanks to everybody who reviewed anyway, and for your support and well-wishes :) xxx