Song for this chapter: Gods And Monsters ~ Lana Del Rey
...
*shuffles nervously out from behind tree*
Hello! Sorry I've kept you waiting for...a while. Know that I have been suitably wracked with guilt every day that's passed me by without posting anything for my poor loyal readers.
...Hope you're all well. '^^
*points at chapter* look! A shiny thing!
One month later.
One month later and Morgan was still drowning. His life had simultaneously settled down and become a million times crazier; he just split his time between the two now. Split himself as well, it seemed sometimes.
While at work he was dependable, conscientious, good at his job.
And when he wasn't at work…well he wasn't exactly proud of what he became.
He was nearly late this morning. He'd made the very bad decision to stay over at a house party and had been woken up at 7am by the alarm on his cell, dazed, disoriented and suitably disturbed to find himself in bed with three other naked men. He'd had to climb over one of them to find his clothes in the dark, then get a cab back across town and shower and change and get to work by 8:30am. He'd managed it somehow, but it was difficult to shake off the fact that his memory of the night before was so blank he couldn't say 100% if he'd consented to some kind of orgy or if he'd been gang-raped.
Not that he really thought the second could have happened, but the realisation made him uneasy all the same. How drunk had he been that three guys at once had seemed like a good idea? It was so unlike anything he'd normally do, like waking up and finding that an alien had taken over his body for the night.
He was in such a rush when he got into work that he managed to walk straight into Garcia who was coming out of the bullpen texting on her phone, nearly flattening her with his momentum.
"Woah, sorry babygirl!" he said, grabbing her shoulders to keep her upright.
Garcia blinked at him and made various speechless noises and he realised he'd just called her babygirl for the first time since Reid left.
"You alright?" he asked gruffly, after an awkward pause.
"Yes." She said. "Uh…well a few bruises maybe. You're not the softest person to walk into."
"No." he agreed.
They looked at each other for a moment.
"Right." She said, at the same time he said "Okay."
She nodded and smiled, and he nodded and smiled back and then walked past her.
Hotch, who had seen the exchange, walked down the stairs to meet him.
"That's the friendliest I've seen you two look for a long time." He remarked. "Are you considering forgiving her?"
He hadn't been until just then.
"I don't know. Maybe, yeah." He said reluctantly. "I don't want to stay angry forever. And I know she only did what she did because she cared about us."
Hotch raised his eyebrows.
"Did I hear that right?" he asked.
"Yeah yeah, don't get too excited." Morgan muttered. "I'll think about it, that's all I'm saying."
"Well good, I'm glad to hear that." Hotch said warmly. "You know I have to admit, I was worried when you quit counselling but since you gave it up you've seemed…not better exactly, but you've seemed more in control, more like you've accepted what's happening. So maybe I was wrong. Maybe you do need to handle this on your own terms. Anyway…I'm glad." He said, then tagged on a barely audible, mumbled: "Proud of you." before walking upstairs to his office.
Morgan rubbed his cut-up arm self-consciously and wondered whether Hotch would still be proud of him if he'd seen the state he was in when he woke up that morning.
"Thank you sir." He said with a weak smile.
"Oh and I was just coming to tell you we've got a case, so I need you all at the round table for 8:45." Hotch said over his shoulder.
"Sure. I'll round everyone up." Morgan replied.
…
At 9:00 they were midway through the briefing and even with the effects of a double espresso hammering through his nervous system, Morgan was having a hard time staying awake.
He listened to the case details listlessly, mostly remaining quiet while his colleagues discussed the M.O. and worked out a preliminary profile. He had a few idle thoughts of his own but they didn't seem that important and he couldn't be bothered to share them yet. He stared at the table, feeling the impending hangover start to throb in his head.
Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Erin Strauss with a nervous, bespectacled brunette girl in tow.
"Good morning agents. Since you're all gathered here I thought I'd come and introduce your new team member personally, Lauren Sparrow this is your unit chief Aaron Hotchner and supervisory special agents David Rossi, Derek Morgan…"
"Woah hold up a minute, are you kidding me!?" Morgan exclaimed sharply. Lauren Sparrow visibly flinched at his tone. The name Sparrow was quite apt as she reminded him of a small bird, shy and slight, all feathers and beak and hollow bones. She had a certain way of looking around the room, where her head moved jerkily like a bird looking for predators.
If she was supposed to be Reid's replacement then he sure wasn't going to be impressed.
He was about to vocalise this thought in a way that probably wouldn't do his career any favours when Hotch stood up, a dark expression on his face.
"You said she'd start on Monday." He said angrily. "We agreed, you'd let me tell my team first."
Strauss didn't even blink. "Well yes we did, but since you're starting a new case today I thought it was the perfect timing. Dr Sparrow has been waiting for over a year for a position to open up on this team and although Dr Reid's resignation was regrettable, we can't afford to be sentimental about replacing him when he's made it perfectly clear that he isn't going to change his mind."
Morgan was struck speechless by her ability to be so cold about it. For a moment Hotch looked like he was going to shout at her, but at the last second he regained composure.
"Ma'am, can we please talk about this outside for a moment?" he said through gritted teeth.
Strauss tutted. "Fine, but I have a meeting so make it quick."
They left the room and Morgan followed without invitation, making Sparrow flinch again as he passed her.
He crashed into Hotch's office, making them both look up in surprise.
"When the hell did you two decide this!?" he snapped.
They looked at each other.
"When was this decision made!?" he repeated.
"About a week ago." Hotch said.
"He hasn't even been gone for two months yet! We don't need her!"
"I appreciate your input but that isn't your decision to make, Agent Morgan." Strauss bristled.
"Whose was it then? Cause I bet it wasn't Hotch, was it? I bet he told you the exact same thing."
She didn't reply.
Morgan pressed a hand to his temples and laughed bitterly. "Whose pet is she then? Some friend of the director's? How much did they pay out to get her in?"
"Watch what you say agent." Strauss snapped. "You may have been part of this team for a while but don't think that makes you irreplaceable."
Morgan laughed again and for an insane moment he was about to tell her he quit, but Hotch jumped in ahead of him, almost like he knew.
"This is why I asked you to let me break it to them in a more sensitive way. Reid was very important to everybody on this team." He said.
Was?
"I'm well aware of that, but I expect a certain level of professionalism from agents of the FBI. I hope your team doesn't always question your authority in matters like these." She said threateningly.
"Of course we don't!" Morgan snapped. "All we're asking for is a little warning! Who even is this girl? Where the hell did she come from? Is she even qualified to do Reid's job?"
"At the age of 20 Agent Sparrow has already gained a PhD and passed top of her class from the academy. I assure you she is more than capable. See for yourself."
Strauss handed him her file. He read it quickly, a scowl on his face as he saw that Strauss was right. Sparrow wasn't anything like Reid but she was clearly a prodigy of some sort.
Suddenly he was so mad, at Strauss, Hotch, Sparrow, everybody. He missed Reid so much it was like being kicked in the stomach. He had known on some level that eventually they'd need a replacement braniac, but not this soon, not while he was still being torn apart with sadness. Seeing that girl in Reid's place every day would be even worse than not having anyone there at all. He wasn't ready to move on and now it seemed that everyone else was having no trouble doing just that.
He thrust the document across the desk into Hotch's hands.
"That's it then!? We're the ones who're gonna be putting our lives in her hands every day and we don't even get a say in this!?" he spat accusingly. "I thought you didn't do office politics?"
Hotch didn't reply. He was staring at Morgan. For a second Morgan thought he was upset by what he'd just said, but then he followed Hotch's gaze down to the white document in his hand, and the splashes of blood he'd left on them.
He looked down at his hand to see a trickle of red leaking from his sleeve, snaking around his palm and dripping off his fingertips. He jerked his arm back and grabbed his forearm to try and stem the bleed. There was a red stain spreading out and showing through his white sleeve.
"What the…?" Strauss said, irritated. "Oh for goodness sake I know you don't approve of the candidate but did you have to bleed on her file? That's an official document! I'll have to send off for another copy now, you know what health and safety are like about blood."
Hotch looked at him, a concerned frown on his face.
"Sorry." Morgan muttered. "I'll go get this fixed."
He left quickly before Hotch could tell him to wait.
…
He went to his locker and changed into his spare shirt after replacing the bandage on his forearm, trying desperately to come up with a convincing domestic accident to explain to Hotch why he was bleeding when they hadn't been in the field for days.
Then he went back to the briefing room and sat down. Hotch and Strauss were still talking.
His eyes flitted to the new girl, who was still standing just inside the doorway, unsure where to put herself since no one was giving her direction.
Morgan stared at her accusingly, though part of him knew it probably wasn't her fault. She came across as a naïve academic fresh from the FBI academy, who most likely had the misfortune to be indebted to somebody rich and well-connected who wanted a finger in the particularly sought-after pie that was the BAU, and was pulling on Strauss's strings to get her to put her in early.
I am not going to like you. He communicated this thought to her with his most intimidating glare.
She looked uncomfortable and avoided his eyes, straightening her tweed knee-length skirt self-consciously.
Garcia was the first to snap out of the awkward, slightly stunned silence and extend a welcoming hand for her to shake. Sparrow took it with a grateful smile and Garcia started chatting away to her like she was an old friend. Even though Morgan knew it was just part of Garcia's personality, and that she was just trying to rescue an awkward situation, he still felt betrayed.
Hotch walked back in, looking extremely annoyed. His eyes connected with Morgan's and Morgan tried not to look away but he couldn't help it. He was pretty sure Hotch knew.
"Welcome to the team Agent Sparrow." Hotch said politely. "Have a seat I guess."
She smiled shyly and nodded. She looked around for a seat and looked amusingly frightened to discover that the only free seat was next to Morgan. She took it, looking down at the table the whole time in an attempt to fake obliviousness to his hostility, but her blush gave away her discomfort.
Hotch introduced her to each team member, his voice becoming a little despairing when he reached Morgan and it became clear that Morgan had no intention of shaking her hand, or responding to her presence with anything other than a grunt.
Rossi offered to get her a coffee to break the awkward silence. She nodded and smiled that pathetic, irritating humbly-grateful smile.
Morgan scowled. Don't get comfortable little bird. He thought.
…
Lo and behold, half a day and one less psychotic serial murderer for society later Morgan was getting ready to go home and then out for the night (he needed a drink and a good shag badly after the day he'd had) when Young came by the bullpen.
"Hey." Morgan said tensely, knowing that he was almost certainly there on Hotch's request.
"Hey yourself." Young said chirpily. "It's been a month and you haven't answered any of my calls. Call me paranoid but I'm starting to think you're avoiding me."
"Sorry. I've been busy." Morgan shrugged and started towards the exit.
"I gathered." Young smiled, walking beside him. "Look, you know just because you fired me doesn't mean we can't still be friends right?"
Morgan nodded. "Sure." He said uncertainly.
"Great." Young gave a wry smile. "So uh…what've you been doing with yourself lately then?"
Morgan shrugged again.
Young changed tack. "How was your first case with the brilliant Miss Sparrow? Is she everything they're saying she is?"
Morgan grunted. "She did okay." He admitted begrudgingly. "It's early days."
"Must be hard on you having her around though." Young said.
"I gotta go man, I'm sorry." Morgan said, itching to get away.
"Where you going?" Young asked. "I thought maybe we could go for a drink. Catch up."
"I'm…" Morgan tried to think up a convincing lie. He failed and decided just to tell the truth. "I'm already going for a drink. But I'm not looking for company. I'm sorry."
Young frowned. "You're going drinking by yourself?"
Morgan glared at him and pressed the button for the elevator. "Yeah? So what?"
"Nothing. I just…I don't think you should be alone tonight that's all. What with Sparrow and everything."
Morgan couldn't help smirking at the floor.
"Oh I won't be alone." He said, quirking his eyebrow meaningfully.
Young raised his eyebrows. "Oh! Right. You're…seeing someone then? That's…um…what's his name?"
"I don't know." Morgan laughed at Young's naiveté as they stepped into the elevator. "I haven't met him yet."
Understanding dawned on Young's face and he slapped a hand against his forehead.
"Ah! I get what you…ah. Right. Okay." He paused for a second. "So I'm guessing that's what you meant by 'busy'?"
"Stop it." Morgan said bluntly.
"What?" Young asked.
"You're not my shrink anymore."
"Can't a man enquire into another man's sex life simply by way of friendly conversation?"
"Nope." Morgan said firmly.
Young sighed. "Okay look I know you don't want to hear this but I'm gonna say it anyhow; binge drinking, promiscuity and self-destructive behaviour, you gotta admit Derek, from where I'm standing it's not looking good."
Morgan laughed. "Promiscuity huh? I'm being a naughty boy am I Doctor?"
Young didn't laugh.
Morgan got irritated. "Look, this isn't exactly new for me, I've always done this, even before…it's just how I am, okay? I'm a guy, I like sex, I go out and have sex. What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing. It sounds perfectly healthy to me."
"It is."
"Nothing at all to be ashamed of."
"That's right." Morgan nodded.
"So you won't mind me coming along to observe then."
Lulled into a false sense of security, Morgan was half-way to agreeing with him before he realised exactly what he'd just said. "Not at-excuse me!?"
Young laughed. "I don't mean observe you doing that. I mean as your wing-man kind of thing."
"Why?" Morgan asked incredulously.
"Why not? It's what young men do isn't it?" Young nudged him with his elbow and put on a fake southern accent. "Go down to the local honky-tonk and drink whiskey 'til the whole joint's a-singin', then lasso ourselves a couple o' hot young fillies to dosey-doe the night away with, before we hit the road again two wandering souls with nothing but the faithful beasts between our legs and the taste of freedom on our tongues."
Morgan shook his head incredulously. "I...wow. You could not have made that sound more like the plot of Brokeback Mountain if you'd tried could you?"
"Yeah…" Young winced. "I actually haven't seen any other Westerns so that was a bad choice of metaphor."
Morgan nodded in agreement. The elevator doors opened and they walked to Morgan's car.
"Just so we're clear, you realise there are no women at this bar right? What exactly are you planning to gain from this exercise?" Morgan asked with a smirk. "Or is there something you're not telling me?"
It was Young's turn to glare.
Morgan gave a fake gasp. "The thing with Prentiss…oh my gosh it all makes sense now!"
"The fact that you're trying to make me uncomfortable about this tells me that actually you're the one uncomfortable with somebody you know accompanying you into this environment. Shall we analyse the reasons behind this, or would you like to shut up about my sexuality?" Young asked pleasantly.
"Get in the car."
…
An hour or so later they were standing by the bar waiting for their second round of drinks (both men's first drinks had disappeared at a surprisingly swift rate) and Young was trying very hard not to flinch whenever anyone looked at him.
"This place seems…friendly. Nice atmosphere." He remarked.
Morgan grunted.
"And I like what they've done with the décor too, you know gay bars have a reputation for going OTT on the sparkles but I think they've got it just right. And the phallus shaped cocktail stirrers are a nice touch."
Morgan massaged his forehead, debating whether getting laid was actually worth going through this.
"Aww shit yours is bigger." Young said indignantly, picking it out of his drink and holding them up next to each other. "That's…unsettling. Do you think they're making some kind of point?"
"Yes Young, the gays have had a secret meeting to come up with subtle ways of making you insecure about your manhood." Morgan snapped.
"No need for sarcasm." Young huffed.
There was a pause.
"So…are you getting any signals? Have you seen one you like? How does this work, is there a courtship ritual?"
Morgan fought the urge to slap him.
"Quit acting like this is a wildlife documentary."
"Sorry. To be honest, even if we were in a heterosexual bar this stuff isn't really in my field of expertise." Young confessed. "Ooh look, him! Over there! That blonde guy, he just looked at you like you were a slice of chocolate pie. Is he a good one?" He asked, pointing at him enthusiastically.
Morgan slapped his hand down and turned his back to the guy Young was referring to.
"Will you pipe down? I don't need your help! I just need you to shut up and look as much as possible like we aren't a couple."
"Right." Young agreed. "I can get behind that plan." He paused. "Speaking of behind…"
Morgan felt a hand on his elbow and turned around to see...
Hotch's brother Sean.
Shit.
"Oh hey, I thought that was you!" Sean smiled. "How're you doing? Who's this?"
"Hey…uh, this is Adam Young. He's an old buddy of Hotch…I mean of Aaron's."
"We were roommates at the FBI academy." Young shook his hand. "And you are?"
"Oh hi! Sean Hotchner, Aaron's brother. I don't remember seeing you at the graduation ceremony."
"Oh yeah…I didn't technically graduate. Long story. I'm a shrink now instead." Young explained.
"Right." Sean looked back and forth between them as if trying to figure out their relationship. "So are you two…having fun?"
"Not really." Young complained. "Typical man; he's only after one thing. Not interested in conversation at all."
"Oh…" Sean looked amused. "Been there." He joked, giving Morgan a friendly touch on the arm to show him it was a joke.
"Really?" Young raised his eyebrows and turned to look at Morgan, giving him a smile which had 'future blackmail material' written all over it. "Tell me more about this anecdote."
"Uh we're not together." Morgan told Sean hastily before he could elaborate.
"Why would you say that honey? Don't I mean anything to you?" Young whined. "You see what I mean Sean? The man is allergic to commitment."
"He's straight." Morgan explained as the bartender handed him their drinks. "He's just here to annoy me, and because he is a very lonely and desperate individual."
"Guilty as charged on all three counts." Young smiled and raised his glass.
Sean laughed. "Aww, don't worry, I kinda like my men lonely and desperate."
Young put an arm around Sean's neck. "Hold me." He said. Sean laughed and gave him a hug. "See?" Young said to Morgan. "Somebody loves me."
"How much has he had to drink?" Sean asked.
"Uh…actually for once not an awful lot. He's just strange." Morgan smiled.
Sean smiled back.
"I'm actually here with a group, do you two want to join us?"
"Sure." Morgan nodded, abandoning hope of getting laid now, since it would be weird to hit on other men in front of a previous one night stand. And part of him didn't want Sean to know that he was like that anyway.
So Sean introduced them to his friends, a group of four guys and one girl. One of the guys and the girl spent most of the time making out and two of the guys were holding hands and talking amongst themselves, so most of the conversation was carried by Sean and the remaining single gay guy, Kyle.
They talked about work mainly, Kyle and Sean both worked in the same restaurant. But as everybody got more drunk Kyle started flirting pretty overtly with Morgan, talking about how muscular he was in a very…hands on fashion, which Morgan could see made Sean uncomfortable.
Sean kept giving him these glances and then looking away when he looked back, and suddenly the prospect of getting laid didn't seem totally off the table anymore. In his slightly inebriated state Morgan was considering it. Making the horrible mistake of screwing his boss's brother. Again.
Kyle asked him to dance and he felt like it would be rude and awkward to turn him down, so he did for a bit. He was a good dancer, and he was pretty good looking but he wasn't Morgan's type, too short and slim and feminine. He tried it on with Morgan part way through the first song but he tactfully told him that he wasn't interested. After that it was kind of awkward to keep dancing together so Kyle went off to talk to somebody else.
Morgan looked back at their table and saw that Sean was gone. His jacket was still there though so he hadn't left the club.
Morgan found Sean in the restroom combing his hair in front of the mirror with his fingers, frowning critically. Morgan smiled.
"Looks fine from where I'm standing." He said with a grin. Sean turned around, looking slightly flustered.
"Thank you." He said quietly with a half-smile, putting his hands in the pockets of his jeans and standing awkwardly. His whole demeanour had changed, becoming vaguely defensive.
He went to head for the door but Morgan stopped his near shoulder with one hand and leaned in to say quietly, "In case you were interested, I told your friend he wasn't my type."
"So…? Why are you telling me?" Sean shrugged a little coldly.
Morgan chuckled. "Oh I don't know, how about 'cause I don't want you thinking my eyes are on anyone but you tonight? And as perfect as it is, your hair ain't the reason." He raised a hand and brushed part of Sean's golden fringe behind his ear.
Sean gave a sceptical chuckle and shook his head slightly, looking at the floor.
"What? You don't believe me?" Morgan moved his hand to the back of Sean's neck.
"I believe you had my phone number, you knew where I worked and where I lived, and you made no effort to contact me before tonight."
"Maybe I'm shy." Morgan said playfully.
"Maybe you're an opportunistic jerk." Sean said looking up at him.
Morgan let go of him.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that to sound so harsh." Sean's voice softened. "It's just that I know the only person you really care about is Reid. Anybody else is just a substitute. We used each other as substitutes once, but I have too much self-respect to let it keep happening."
Morgan didn't reply.
Sean sighed. "Not that you don't. I'm not judging you. It's none of my business what you do to get over him. But it won't be with me."
"Yeah. Message received." Morgan said coldly, walking out.
Fed up and humiliated, he headed straight to the table, picked up his jacket and told Young he was leaving. Young, who was sitting in the lap of one of the two guys who were a couple while being fed crisps by the girl, looked disappointed.
"Aww I don't wanna go yet! I'm making lots of gay friends! Look, I'm sitting on one! He's called Jeffrey!" Young informed him, slurring his words so much Morgan only understood a third of what he said.
"Actually it's Paul." The guy said. Young turned around, looking shocked.
"So it is! Where did Jeffrey go?"
Morgan gave up on him and left. A few seconds later Young caught up with him.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Nothing's wrong." Morgan snapped.
"So why did we have to leave?"
"I got bored." Morgan said sourly.
"Is this because you and Sean slept together?"
"We never slept together. He was joking about that." Morgan said.
"Oh was it meant to be a secret? Cause he kind of told me everything while you were dancing with Kyle, sorry. He also had some excellent tips for getting a soufflé to rise evenly. Discretion may not be his forte but his cooking advice is solid."
Morgan considered denying it but he knew there was no point.
"Breathe a word of this to Hotch and your life will not be worth living." He said simply.
"Noted." Young replied. "So what happened back there with Sean?"
"I hit on him…he knocked me back." Morgan shrugged.
"Ouch. I'm guessing that doesn't happen to you very often?"
"It's not that. I just…he said some stuff which got under my skin. About how I was just using him as a substitute for..." he trailed off.
"You already knew that's what you were doing though right?"
"Yeah. It just sounded more pathetic coming from him, that's all."
"It's not pathetic." Young said. "Give yourself a break. It's not a crime to miss him y'know."
Morgan stopped walking and sighed.
"Why did you really insist on coming with me tonight?" he asked.
Young hesitated.
"Honestly?" he scratched the back of his head uncomfortably. "Hotch told me he thinks you're harming yourself."
Morgan nodded. "Thought so." He said wearily.
"And I don't really need to ask if you're cutting yourself to know that you're self-harming. This whole process, going out and shagging anything that walks, it would be fine if I thought you were actually doing it for fun." Young said gently. "But you're doing it as a punishment. You're doing it because you think it's what you deserve. It's beyond twisted. And you're beyond wrong. You don't deserve to be in pain Derek. Reid wouldn't want this for you."
Morgan nearly broke down when he said that, had to fight himself real hard not to let it show. He couldn't handle Young looking at him like this, he couldn't breathe.
"Yeah, look, I think I'm gonna go home. Are you okay to get a cab?" he asked.
"Sure." Young said, his voice soft and sympathetic. "Take care of yourself."
Morgan nodded and turned to leave, not really listening. "I'll see you tomorrow then."
"See you." Young said.
As soon as he was out of sight Morgan called a very old college friend Marty he'd hooked up with a couple of times before, who was bad news and exhausting company but had a handy knack of being at the centre of things. Sure enough he and his current group of drugged up disciples were at a music gig at a venue which was pretty nearby.
He didn't know if this was a good idea, but he definitely knew he wasn't going home like he told Young. He needed to keep moving, keep drinking and maintaining this frantic pace, because his instincts told him that if he stopped and looked behind him even for a second, something very bad would catch up with him.
… [Song - Radioactive ~ Imagine Dragons]
Buford pushed open the heavy wooden door and gestured inside the old wood cabin. It smelt strange, musty but also like chemicals or bleach or something, like he'd been scrubbing the walls with it.
"Well, here we are Derek. Finally we can be alone again, just the two of us. Are you hungry? I got some of that pizza you liked last time…and there's ice cream for dessert! We could have a couple of beers and watch the game now if you like?" The taller man's hand was caressing the back of his neck like a hungry snake and the boy tried so hard to like it, to bury the doubts that were creeping up inside him.
"I thought you said Joey and Rylan were coming with us this time?" he asked, his fingers playing nervously with one of the frayed tassels on his old rust-red hooded sweatshirt.
"Hmm? Sure. They were supposed to come with us but Joey's sick and Rylan lost all his activity tokens at club last night because he wouldn't put the chairs away like I asked him to." Buford set his bag down and walked around opening windows.
The boy stayed in the doorway. Buford turned to look at him.
"What's up?"
"Nothing, I just…I don't want to get drunk."
Buford laughed. "I would never let you get drunk! What would your mother say? It's just a couple of beers."
The boy squirmed uncomfortably. "Carl?"
"Yes?"
"Are we here to…to do the same thing as last time?"
Buford walked over to him, his wide smile frozen on his face.
"I thought you said you liked it last time."
The boy looked at the floor. "Well…"
"Were you lying to me? What kind of person allows someone to touch them under false pretences?"
"No! I just…I wanted to make you…happy."
Buford squeezed his shoulder and shook it playfully. "You did make me happy Derek. Very very happy. Don't you want that again?"
"I just don't see why it has to be this way." The boy said quietly.
Buford smiled. "I love you Derek. Everyone looks at you and sees a waste of space troublemaker but I look at you and I can see how special you really are. I'm trying to get other people to see it too but you have to help me. You have to change. I love you but you have to change Derek."
"I'm trying." The boy's eyes filled up. Buford touched his cheek tenderly.
"I know you are. Come here you silly boy." He said, pulling him into a hug. "I love you so much Derek, you know that don't you?"
"Love you too Carl." The boy said, words muffled into Buford's neck.
"Call me what I asked you to." Buford said playfully.
There was a long pause.
"Love you too dad." He mumbled.
Gasping for air, he woke up from his dream half-suffocated and drenched in sweat, somehow still upright in the heaving underground ocean of human bodies, head tilted back, staring up at the lights on the ceiling as he sucked the humid air into his lungs.
I must have passed out. He realised, stumbling desperately through the crowd towards the club's exit. For a few seconds he couldn't remember how he'd got here, who he was with or what day it was. This feeling was too surreal to just be alcohol.
Finally he got out into the street and bumped into Marty, smoking a cigarette and necking vodka and a scantily clad blonde girl at alternate intervals.
"Did you spike my fucking drink?" he asked with a snarl.
"Chill dude," Marty mumbled with a stupid grin. "it was just a bit of speed. You looked like you needed it. Hey you seen…whatshisname…the one with the weed? Jared, Gerard…something with a 'J' in it."
"This isn't speed dumbass." Morgan muttered, collapsing against the cool concrete and closing his eyes to stop the world shrinking. "I think you gave me LSD."
"Oh crap that means Lindsay's got the speed. She's gonna be pissed." Marty moaned.
"You realise I'm an FBI agent right?" Morgan snapped. "Technically I could have you arrested."
"HAHA bite me, fucker. I'm invincible!" Marty stuck his middle finger up and laughed manically before turning his attention back to his girlfriend's tongue piercing.
…
"…so to answer your previous question serial killers tend to preselect a type of victim, while classic mass murderers and spree killers will murder whichever human targets present themselves." Morgan explained to the new class of students they were lecturing as part of their induction day program.
Once he finished the basics Rossi stepped up and took over while Morgan clicked the mouse of the laptop to move the slides of the presentation along. He wished he could sit down, he had a headache and the walls were still slightly liquid and his legs were getting tired.
These presentations were much less hassle and more fun when they had Reid to do the memorising for them, and could just sit back and interject with anecdotes or tease the young doctor when he went off on a tangent.
Also when he wasn't coming down from an accidental psychedelic drug trip. That was nice too.
He went to scratch his forearm as it was itching like a motherfucker, but he stopped himself. When he'd done that at home before he'd managed to scratch a scab off and bleed all over everything. Cutting his arm was a mistake, he knew, something he'd really regret when summer came around, but he was already running out of wound-free places on his torso and he couldn't help himself.
The thing dragged on and on. He did some more talking about specialising in explosives and obsessional crimes. It went okay. He was naturally a pretty good public speaker so it didn't really matter that he was on another planet the whole time. He'd taken to going on autopilot and escaping into fantasy during the day to cope with the feeling of being trapped like a rat in a glass box, claustrophobic and on display for people to prod at and study. JJ, Prentiss, Garcia, Hotch...God he hated working with profilers sometimes. He knew it was harsh of him but he couldn't help feeling like he was being crushed by the weight of their concern for him. He felt almost emasculated by their pity, and the more they tried to help the more it infuriated him.
Inside his head was the one place he didn't need to put on an act all day, where he was in control. He thought about a man he'd been with the night before, another friend of Marty's, after they'd taken the party back to the block of flats he and a few others appeared to be squatting in. He recalled every detail of the confused LSD-fuelled sex they'd had on an old futon, the way the skin of his neck tasted when Morgan trapped it between his teeth, and how he could see the music as a winding snake of glowing mist on the ceiling above them the whole time. And how at the time that hadn't seemed at all strange to him, like he'd always known that that was what music looked like, he'd just forgotten it until then.
He knew it was wrong but part of him got off on the fact that the people around him didn't know about this beautifully sordid Dorian Gray-style secret double life he was living as his reckless nocturnal alter-ego free from all feeling and conscience. It made him feel more in control to have a secret no one knew about.
The problem with his secret life of hollow decadence was that it was getting harder and harder for Dr Jekyll to put Mr Hyde back in his box at the end of the night. His nights were getting later and later, he was frequently going to work sleep-deprived and hung over. Some days he was pretty sure his blood was at least 50% caffeine with the amount of coffee he drank to keep himself awake. He knew he was bound to slip up soon, make a dangerous mistake that would cost him his life or his career. It was only a matter of time. Sometimes he wondered how fucked up he had to be in the head that that thought was almost comforting to him now.
After they finished the talk he stuck around for a minute but since most of the questions the students had were for Rossi, he left early and went back to his desk to work.
On her break Garcia came over, handing out coffees to everybody from a tray. He considered giving her the brush off but somehow he couldn't summon up the resolve any more. It just seemed petty and mean and hurting her feelings wouldn't bring Reid back to him. Had he forgiven her, he wondered, remembering Hotch's question. He couldn't tell. He still resented what they'd done. Maybe he was just getting placid now he had a new coping strategy in place.
"Thanks." He said with a small smile.
"You're welcome." She said, cheerfully nervous. "There's a birthday cake in the other office if you want some. Sparrow just turned 21. Ain't that cute? When I was her age I was living in a hostel wearing Doc Martens and a black leather trench coat and spending all day playing RPGs. She's a nice girl but boy does she make me feel old."
"This must be how it feels to be Rossi." Morgan joked.
"I heard that." Came Rossi's peeved voice from behind them, where he had just ventured out of his office to forage for the rumoured birthday cake. They laughed.
"Wow, I don't think I've seen you smile since…" Garcia cut herself off in the middle of her sentence and looked guilty, as if she was scared to remind him in case it ended his rare good humour.
"Yeah." He said quietly. She gave him a sympathetic smile and put her hand on his shoulder gently. He placed his hand over hers and smiled.
"It's good to have you back." She said warmly. He nodded.
She picked up her tray again and went to leave before turning around.
"Oh I forgot to ask you, did you like your present?"
"Present? Oh! I haven't had a chance to…I put it in my desk for safe keeping." He opened his desk drawer and pulled out the forgotten Christmas present. He tore the paper off carefully.
She'd made him a kind of mini-poster, framed and decorated in typical Garcia fashion with sparkles and sequins, with a Vonnegut quote spelled out in a graphic font in the centre.
The quote she'd picked was a line from Slaughterhouse 5:
"All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is.Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber."
He stared at it, unsure how to react. Garcia looked at him.
"Well? Do you like it?"
"It's beautiful." He said. It was.
"Yay! I'm glad." She smiled. "I wanted to make something you could hang up and look at every day and remind yourself that Penelope Garcia loves you."
"So what does it mean?" he asked.
"Well you're the literary superfan! You tell me!" she smiled.
"No I mean why did you pick that quote?" he asked.
She shrugged. "I don't know. I asked Prentiss which one she thought you'd like…she came up with a few and this was the easiest to illustrate. And I kind of like the bit about being bugs in amber. I don't know why."
"Yeah me too." He said, imagining himself as a bug suspended in a cold yellow block. The image had always tickled him. "I love it. Thank you."
"You're welcome." She smiled and left him.
He stared at the quote some more, trying to remember how that passage went. He did an internet search and found it.
Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?"
"That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"
"Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.
"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."
...
Later that same evening, or perhaps the following morning he was lying on his back on one of those porch swings, with his head on a friend's lap. He had no idea whose house he was at and he was at that pleasant stage of being drunk where he really didn't care because his brain felt like a fish, flopping around on dry land and then being swept over by a wave. Some other people were sitting on the porch with duvets and blankets, drinking and talking and getting high. Earlier one guy had brought out a ukulele and started to strum out classic rock anthems on the chirpy little instrument and everyone had laughed and sang along. That guy left an hour or so before.
It occurred to him that the first time he'd ever been this drunk was when Buford took him on a camping trip. They built a fire together and cooked on it, sausages and spaghetti with tomato sauce. Buford let him have a beer with the meal and then told him to 'stick to lemonade.'
"I don't know why I'm…*hic* so wobbly. Only had…one beer." He giggled as Buford helped him stagger into the tent. He played it up a little, falling against the older man, enjoying the attention.
"It's okay, I won't tell anyone. Just take your clothes off and lie down." Buford reassured him.
The boy stripped down to his underwear. He couldn't be bothered to put on pyjamas so he got into his sleeping bag as he was. He was halfway to sleep when he felt Buford lie down next to him and put his arms around him from behind. It struck him as weird but he didn't wriggle away. He quite liked the warmth and was so flattered by the special attention he'd been getting lately that he wouldn't want to spoil things by telling Buford he was uncomfortable.
Then the boy felt Carl's hand slide into his sleeping bag. He opened his eyes and lay there like a stone as it traced his side from his shoulder to his hip. His heart sped up, instinct warning him what he desperately didn't want to believe.
For a while the hand stayed there and he started to think maybe it wasn't what he'd assumed, maybe Carl just thought this was normal. Maybe it was normal. He didn't have a dad anymore, how was he supposed to know?
But then Carl started touching him lower down, first just stroking his thigh. Then his large hand was cupping him down there, and the breathing on his ear became erratic and laboured. It took him a second before he realised exactly what was going on and even then for some reason he still didn't move, paralysed by embarrassment and mortification, like some part of him believed that if he just stayed still he could pretend it wasn't happening.
He felt the unwelcome hand slip inside his underwear, heard their sleeping bags rustle together as Buford rubbed up against his back. He could feel everything through the material and it was so humiliating that he felt tears well up in his eyes and wished the older man would stop. It seemed to go on forever.
When it was finally over he blamed himself for pretending to be asleep, for letting it happen. Bizarrely the thing he was most scared of was that Buford would know he'd been awake the whole time. He still didn't get exactly what Buford had done to him, but he already knew it was a secret he'd take to his grave.
It had taken a few years before it occurred to him that Buford had spiked his lemonade with vodka. He was just a kid, he wouldn't have recognised the taste. And anything Buford gave him, he eagerly accepted. He wouldn't have complained if it had tasted off. All that time he'd thought it was his own fault for getting drunk, or for not wearing pyjamas. Not asking Buford to stop.
The man whose lap he was using as a pillow was stroking his face, and he could hear the murmur of voices in the background.
"Is he okay?" a vaguely concerned male voice asked.
"Yeah he's fine, just drunk as a skunk." The man laughed.
"Should we move him?"
"Nah just get him some water or something."
Morgan opened his eyes. He couldn't work out where the voice was coming from but he liked the sound of a drink of water. "Thank you." He mumbled to the considerate disembodied voice. It gave a benevolent chuckle.
"That's alright darling. You just go back to sleep."
"I wasn't asleep." He told the man who was still stroking his face.
"Weren't you?" the guy raised a pierced eyebrow and smiled, humouring him.
"No. I was pretending." He admitted.
"Why were you pretending to sleep?"
"I didn't know what else to do. But I didn't want that."
"Want what?" the guy asked, sounding lost.
For a while Morgan was silent. Then he said, "Stars are sad."
"That's nice." He lit up a cigarette and started smoking it.
"No…hey…I know I'm really drunk but I swear to you I'm not bullshitting, this is actual science okay? 'Cause the light takes so long to reach earth from space, that some of those stars up there will already have burned out by now. The ones we can see are just ghosts. Did you know that?" the guy didn't respond. Morgan poked at his chest to get his attention. "Hey…hey…did you know that?"
"Nope."
The guy didn't offer any further opinion on the matter. Morgan sighed and turned his head to the side, and wondered if the glass of water would materialise any time soon.
He could feel himself falling asleep again, and it scared the hell out of him because he knew what was waiting for him there. He couldn't fight it back anymore.
In his mind he watched the boy he used to be get slowly poisoned from the inside out by the man he'd trusted like a father. Over and over he watched back the nightmares, real and imagined, old and recent. He stopped struggling and for the first time in his life he looked directly at the things he was ashamed of.
And when he woke up he realised that there was nothing in there, nothing his mind could possibly throw at him that he would blame that boy for.
…
Young sat up groggily in bed and reached blindly for his phone which he'd forgotten to put on silent and had just received a text message. At 3am.
"May whoever this is suffer the fiery wrath of Satan and all his-"
Young stopped as he saw the name 'Derek Morgan' flash up on the screen and in his still-half-asleep-and-dreaming-about-his-elementar y-school-sports-day-except-with-an-interesting-twi st-that-everybody-was-naked-and-the-principal-was- a-giant-squid state, his mind instantly jumped to the conclusion that his friend had got himself killed in a drunken car accident/bar brawl/ill-advised egg and spoon race, before he realised were that the case Derek probably wouldn't be the one texting to inform him of his own demise.
He opened the message. It said simply:
You're hired.
He laughed.
…
At roughly 11:00 the following morning, Hotch put the phone down, stood up from his desk and went straight to Rossi's office.
Rossi looked up from the open files on his desk and was immediately worried. Hotch always looked serious, but not this serious.
"What's going on?" he asked.
Hotch closed the door behind him and walked up to Rossi's desk almost in a daze, holding his forehead between his thumb and index finger.
"I just got some very bad news." He said finally. "Remember that friend of mine I told you about, the one on the prosecution for the Faraday trial?"
"Yeah." Rossi frowned, his heart sinking. "What'd he tell you?"
Hotch sat down heavily in a chair.
"I have no idea how the hell he pulled this off, but Eric Faraday has been found innocent of all charges." He growled. "They're letting him out next week."
...
DUN DUN DUNNN.
BEHOLD MY FIENDISH PLOT TWISTING WAYS. Okay yeah you probably all knew that was coming. xD Could not resist. There's no way any writer was ever going to let a plot device that big stay locked up in prison forever. So that means next chapter you get to laugh at me pretending to know a damned thing about how the legal system in america operates while I explain how Eric got out! xD yay!
Alas, here concludes the era of slutty misanthropic angstkitten Morgan. I will miss him ;-;
On the bright side next chapter heralds THE RETURN OF REID!
Buuut...I'm afraid there's a good chance it will be quite a long time until that's ready since I have my A-Level exams in like four/five weeks time *gulp* apologies. I am a total praise-whore though so I will be happy to accept if you want to try and bribe me into writing! :D