Never As Good
Title: Never as Good
Characters: Reid, victim, a cameo by JJ
Prompt: blood on my hands via cm_het_drabble
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence/blood/death/yuckiness
They are never as good as they think they are. They have to pretend that they are just so they can get some peace when they close their eyes, but they know it for what it is. For every instance where they show up on time, there is another where they don't, and people die. They bleed out and choke and drown and burn and starve and freeze, and it's easier to take when it's after the fact, when it's off-screen, when there are only bodies left.
But watching is excruciating.
They show up, and it's the right place, and Hotch kicks down the door, but along with the crack of splintering wood, there are two louder, harder cracks. Two shots. Two bullets. One victim. Both lungs.
She's pretty - or, she was a week ago, when she was clean and fed and whole - and she's young and she is drowning in her own blood.
This is a scene that has played in innumerable variation throughout his career, but there is something about this girl that makes everything else enter silent, suspended animation. He registers Emily firing a shot, blood spattering, the gun being kicked aside, Hotch's voice calling for a medic. He registers the semi-darkness, the smell of something burning. His mind can process more than most, even inattentive.
But all he really sees is her. Eyes wide open. Pale beneath the filth. Terrified. She isn't wearing much, and the shock is draining what's left of her heat and making her shiver. But even as she rattles her way towards death, she doesn't looks away. They stare at each other for what feels like a long and weary year, though it's probably less than three seconds, and then Reid drops to her side, ignoring the protest in his knee as it slams into the dirt floor.
Her hand is sweating ice, blood dark between her fingers from where she clutched at her chest. He holds it anyway. "Hi, Carly," he says, and her expression shifts, surprised at the sound of her own name. "You're safe now."
He knows she's going to die, and so does she, but that isn't the point. That isn't what he means. The last touch she will ever feel will be this one, and everything after that is easy. For her, anyway.
Reid leans down over her so that all she can see is him. "I know it hurts. Don't try to take deep breaths. You can close your eyes if it helps." She doesn't. She is afraid, even now, of what she's going to see. "Okay, that's okay. Look at me. All right. Do you smell the fire? It's... it's a campfire. Outside. And you can put your hands over it to warm them, and there are... there are marshmallows. You like them, right? With chocolate. And when the sun goes down and it gets dark, you can... you can go inside the tent and get into your sleeping bag and go to sleep. Okay, Carly? You can go to sleep. It's okay."
He is giving her permission to die.
Sometimes, that's the best they can do.
She does close her eyes in the end, and Reid counts it as a victory. A small one, but they all have to count. Otherwise, how do you get out of bed in the morning? How do you force yourself to look?
Carly closes her eyes, and her shallow breathing stops, and somewhere in the periphery of his mind, he feels a hand cover the round of his shoulder and fingers press down. He tilts his face up to find JJ standing over him, a well of unshed tears at the edges of her eyes, and she just shakes her head and swallows hard.
Characters: Reid, victim, a cameo by JJ
Prompt: blood on my hands via cm_het_drabble
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence/blood/death/yuckiness
They are never as good as they think they are. They have to pretend that they are just so they can get some peace when they close their eyes, but they know it for what it is. For every instance where they show up on time, there is another where they don't, and people die. They bleed out and choke and drown and burn and starve and freeze, and it's easier to take when it's after the fact, when it's off-screen, when there are only bodies left.
But watching is excruciating.
They show up, and it's the right place, and Hotch kicks down the door, but along with the crack of splintering wood, there are two louder, harder cracks. Two shots. Two bullets. One victim. Both lungs.
She's pretty - or, she was a week ago, when she was clean and fed and whole - and she's young and she is drowning in her own blood.
This is a scene that has played in innumerable variation throughout his career, but there is something about this girl that makes everything else enter silent, suspended animation. He registers Emily firing a shot, blood spattering, the gun being kicked aside, Hotch's voice calling for a medic. He registers the semi-darkness, the smell of something burning. His mind can process more than most, even inattentive.
But all he really sees is her. Eyes wide open. Pale beneath the filth. Terrified. She isn't wearing much, and the shock is draining what's left of her heat and making her shiver. But even as she rattles her way towards death, she doesn't looks away. They stare at each other for what feels like a long and weary year, though it's probably less than three seconds, and then Reid drops to her side, ignoring the protest in his knee as it slams into the dirt floor.
Her hand is sweating ice, blood dark between her fingers from where she clutched at her chest. He holds it anyway. "Hi, Carly," he says, and her expression shifts, surprised at the sound of her own name. "You're safe now."
He knows she's going to die, and so does she, but that isn't the point. That isn't what he means. The last touch she will ever feel will be this one, and everything after that is easy. For her, anyway.
Reid leans down over her so that all she can see is him. "I know it hurts. Don't try to take deep breaths. You can close your eyes if it helps." She doesn't. She is afraid, even now, of what she's going to see. "Okay, that's okay. Look at me. All right. Do you smell the fire? It's... it's a campfire. Outside. And you can put your hands over it to warm them, and there are... there are marshmallows. You like them, right? With chocolate. And when the sun goes down and it gets dark, you can... you can go inside the tent and get into your sleeping bag and go to sleep. Okay, Carly? You can go to sleep. It's okay."
He is giving her permission to die.
Sometimes, that's the best they can do.
She does close her eyes in the end, and Reid counts it as a victory. A small one, but they all have to count. Otherwise, how do you get out of bed in the morning? How do you force yourself to look?
Carly closes her eyes, and her shallow breathing stops, and somewhere in the periphery of his mind, he feels a hand cover the round of his shoulder and fingers press down. He tilts his face up to find JJ standing over him, a well of unshed tears at the edges of her eyes, and she just shakes her head and swallows hard.