FIC: Broken Vessel Part 6
Title: Broken Vessel Part 6
Author: Toggledog
Rating: FRAO
Pairing: Morgan/Reid, Reid/OMC
Warnings: rape recovery, angst
Summary: Morgan and Reid attend a wedding where both overdo it on the alcohol for the same reason, but have differing consequences. My fic for the wedding challenge.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to all who r&r’d, so far. Sorry for the delay in posting. J A virtual chocolate bar for anyone who picks the famous John Landis quote reference.
Broken Vessel part 5: http://community.livejournal.com/morganreid_cm/137725.html#cutid1
Broken Vessel part 4: http://community.livejournal.com/cm_slash/211649.html#cutid1
Broken Vessel part 3 (link to other chapters): http://community.livejournal.com/morganreid_cm/127028.html#cutid1
"We should be in by early evening tomorrow." Derek glanced across the bed to the digital alarm clock. 5.15 showed in red digits.
"Do you need anything from me?" Hotch asked.
"See you next Wednesday."
A pregnant pause. "See you then."
Morgan flipped the cell shut and threw it onto his bedside table. Though he wasn’t in the mood for cooking, they’d had far too much take out food, of late. Inwardly groaning, he walked into the kitchen and looked into the cupboard. There were sufficient ingredients to make a stir-fry.
Within a few minutes, he had the vegetables out and was chopping them up and throwing them into the sizzling wok. Spencer stepped into the room, hair wet from the shower.
"Smells good." He said.
"I just spoke to Hotch. Told him we’ll be back in Virginia by tomorrow evening."
"Ok." Reid looked down, clutching the bathroom robe with his fingers.
"Hey, it will be ok. If you start to feel anxious on the plane, you just take one of your anxiety pills."
Spencer looked up to him and regarded him with an unfathomable expression.
"You know, I can cook." He said, almost dreamily. "I do live by myself back in Virginia."
Derek snatched the soy sauce off the bench and opened it, pouring it liberally over the vegetables.
"You’d be amazed. I can clean. I can dress myself. I can pay for my bills."
The other man looked up, the bottle frozen in his hands. There was a sudden tension in the air that he couldn’t comprehend.
"I like cooking for you." He shrugged.
"Oh." Spencer stared at him a long moment. There was something so alien in the dark eyes that Derek felt taken aback.
"Ok, what’s wrong? Is it going back to Virginia?"
"I want to go back. I’m tired of this damned place." He said, voice strangely emotionless. Before Derek could respond, he wandered off to the dining room, standing before the dresser facing the table.
"I never understood the purpose of china. People leave them in dressers like this behind glass doors and never take them out."
Fair enough, Derek chuckled a little.
The china was a present from his mother for when he moved in. For his part, he had no idea why he had placed it in there. Some kind of china display gene, I guess, handed down from my grandmother to my mum to me.
"Take them out. We’ll use them tonight."
He turned back to the stir-fry, grabbing the handle of the wok to toss the vegetables about.
The enormous crash to his left flipped his head up.
"Woh! Spencer, what the hell, man?" He dropped the wooden spoon and rushed over to the dining room. The dresser was now completely bare, all of the china in a broken mess on the floor below.
"I’m not a fucking invalid, ok, Morgan?"
Ok, try to remain calm. Only Spencer’s complete lack of respect for his property was spiking anger up his insides.
"All this time, you’ve treated me like I can’t do anything by myself!"
"Damn it! Why the hell did you do that?"
"Why? Why?! Because I’m fucking pissed off! That’s why! I’m tired of you treating my like I’ll fucking break every time I walk into a room."
"You need someone to take care of you right now-"
"That’s just crap! I, I’m completely fine, I’m-"
"Oh really? So you’re completely fine, are you? Oh sure, there’s the nightmares, the freak-outs, the flashbacks, the crying over breaking a fucking coffee cup. Hey, why don’t you come with me back to the BAU on Wednesday? I’m sure you’ll be completely fine handling a rape-murder case."
"Fuck you Derek!"
"Oh the great genius mind and that’s all you can come up with? I’ve heard better vocabulary from the gang that hung around outside the convenience store when I was growing up."
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"Because I’m trying to tell you the truth! You’re in denial, Spencer. You were raped-"
"Thanks for that, genius!" Spencer started to pace, his hands fluttering wildly as he spoke. "Because I thought being fucked by someone with a knife to my throat was just the latest form of romance."
"It’s not something you’ll just get over! It takes time, it takes patience. It takes professional help."
"I guess you’d know about that. Oh, hang on. You never got professional help for your abuse as a kid."
He’s trying to hurt you, Derek told himself. Don’t buy into it.
"Look, let’s just calm down." He suddenly looked down to where Spencer was pacing.
"Damn it." He said softly.
The younger man was walking back and forth on the broken china, his feet a bloodied, cut up mess.
"You’ve cut yourself."
"I don’t care."
"Well I do. I’ll get some bandages."
He started to walk away. A piece of china exploded near his head. He ducked, furiously turning.
"Son of a bitch!" Derek stormed back into the room, grabbing Spencer by the arm and physically hauling him off the glass.
"Get off me you son of a bitch!"
Morgan slammed him into the wall opposite, his arm across his chest, pinning him.
"Calm the fuck down."
"What are you going to do, Morgan? You gonna fuck me now? Right up against the wall, is that what does it for you?"
Disgust building in his body, Derek stepped back, releasing the young man.
"Oh, he’s so noble! Such a great man! Just fuck me already. I know you want to." Spencer pulled his jumper over his head. Derek scuttled back, his disgust turning to horror.
"Spencer, what the hell are you-?"
"Come on, big boy." Spencer undid his own jeans and pulled them down. "Give it to me."
He left his trousers in the room that he was raped in, Morgan told himself. He was in such a hurry to leave. They probably would have killed him, and he knew it. With that thought, all of his heightened emotion left, leaving him with a severe weariness.
"I’m getting bandaids, ok? I’ll be back."
As he rushed out of the room, he half expected another piece of china to whistle past his head.
Ok, calm him down. Try and figure this out.
He snatched the bandages from the bathroom cupboard and arrived back in the dining room in record time. The younger man thankfully had his jeans pulled back up again and was on his hands and knees, picking up the pieces of china with his bare hands. Derek carefully stepped up to him. Spencer was crying, soft whimpers that jolted Derek’s heart with every harsh intake of breath.
"Don’t worry about that. Give me your foot." He said, quietly. Spencer leant back until he was seated and put his foot up, avoiding the other’s face.
"I’m sorry, ok?" He said, wincing at the bloodied, cut up flesh before him.
"I am too." Reid said quietly. "So sorry. I didn’t mean to…"
"I know." He started to wrap the bandage around the foot. "I know you are."
"I…I shouldn’t have said anything about w-what happened to you when you were young." He sobbed. Derek ignored the jolt of hurt at the reminder that Spencer would use that against him..
"I’m such a jerk. An asshole. A-"
"We both said things we don’t mean."
"And now I’ve cut up my feet. What kind of a genius deliberately walks on broken china?"
"A genius who’s had a terrible thing happen to him. And who isn’t in his right mind. And that’s ok."
"It’s not ok! I broke all your damn china! And don’t say it doesn’t matter because I know it does."
Morgan noticed he was avoiding talking about the fumbled attempted seduction.
"I shouldn’t have grabbed your arm, shouldn’t have pushed you against the wall. There’s no excuse. I lost it."
He was deliberately avoiding looking at the true implications. Losing his temper. Physically hurting Spencer.
No wonder he reacted the way he did, he told himself.
"I was acting crazy-"
"There’s no excuse for what I did." Derek said with a cold finality. He smoothed the bandage over and picked up the other foot.
Derek understood about Spencer walking on the broken china. The kid wasn’t numb from the pain. Rather the opposite, he cherished it, welcoming the salve to his own emotional torment.
"When I was younger, when the pain got too much…." Morgan began , curling the bandage around the second foot. "I would take a knife and cut myself. In the inner thigh, where no one would see."
He had never revealed this to anyone. Pushing the shame deep down, he forced himself to look up. Spencer’s eyes were wide, mouth slightly open in surprise.
"I need to know if you-? Have you been physically harming yourself?"
"No, no I…. Derek, I don’t know what to say…"
Relief that Spencer was not self-mutilating was tempered by irritation.
Damn it! This isn’t about me! I didn’t say it so you could get all upset.
"I’m so sorry." He leant forward and cupped Derek’s chin. "I didn’t know. Please, please tell me you no longer…"
"It’s ok. That was a long time ago." He gently disentangled Spencer’s hand to concentrate on finishing the bandage. A terrible burning smell suddenly wafted over from the kitchen.
"Damn it!"
He abandoned the foot and rushed over. The vegetables had blackened.
"There goes dinner." Morgan turned off the burner and picked up the wok, lifting the lid of the bin nearby with his foot using the pedal and emptying the contents inside.
"I’m sorry for dinner too." Spencer had finished the bandage and was smoothing it down. "I’ve loused everything up tonight."
He stood up and started to walk over, wincing with every step.
"Walking on broken china. Really. Really. .Stupid."
"A few years before you met me," Derek began, putting the wok in the stove and filling it with cold water. "I went holidaying in Paris. First day I got there, I checked into my hotel, then went out to explore the city." He turned and opened the cupboard, removing the dustpan and broom. "I was wearing a pair of flip-flops. For some reason it didn’t occur to me to wear sneakers." He walked back to the dining room and knelt before the broken china, sweeping it into the dustpan. Spencer opened his mouth to speak but Derek continued. "I paid for it the next day. Even though I bought sneakers straight away, I had blisters all over both feet. My legs started to ache because I every time I took a step, I put my foot at an angle so as not to exacerbate the blisters more. Now that was really. Really. Stupid." He stood up and walked back over to the bin. Spencer pulled out a chair and sat down into it as he emptied the contents inside.
"I’ve never been out of the country. I guess that’s what happens when you’re a genius with a mentally ill mother. I would have at least liked to have been to Canada before I got raped." He ended somewhat drolly. Somehow, Derek couldn’t see the humour. He pulled out a chair and collapsed next to the young man.
"I can’t see her. I don’t want her to…she sees me in such an amazing way."
"This won’t stop that."
"How did your mother react?" Spencer looked at him. "Oh, I see." He expertly gauged the answer from Derek’s expression.
"The only people who know are you, Gideon and Hotch."
"I miss Gideon." He said quietly. "I wish he was here now."
Derek hid the hurt and anger germinating in his stomach.
I’m here, now. Literally in front of you!
Spencer reached out and took his hand, bringing it to his mouth and kissing it.
"You’re so good to me."
I wouldn’t say that.
"Spence, I love you, ok?"
The younger man didn’t reply, simply smiled a little, eyes distant.
"How about if I make dinner tonight?"
"No, it’s-"
"I insist." Spencer said in a tone that brokered no argument.
***
"That was really good."
"Really?" Spencer’s face was alight with concern.
Morgan put his plate down on the coffee table and reached across to brush his hair off the younger man’s face.
"Really."
The younger man smiled, lifting a forkful of carbonara pasta to his mouth.
"It is good, if I don’t say so myself."
"Ok, what do we want to watch?" Derek resisted the urge to touch him again and bounded up to the glass cabinet under the plasma television.
"I’m really in the mood for a comedy."
"I’m glad you said that."
After a few minutes of careful decision making between them, Derek put on a classic series of Saturday Night Live’ and settled back onto the couch with Spencer, who instantly snuggled up to him, draping his arm around his waist and placing his head against his chest. A little surprised, Derek ran a hand through his hair. Both silently watched the dvd for a while.
"To think, this will be our last night together." Spencer murmured.
Derek felt an instant clenching of his stomach muscles. He had somewhat foolishly hoped to continue to stay with Spencer when they arrived back in Virginia.
I’m not sure if he can live by himself, he told himself. He’s a danger to himself. But then he couldn’t force himself in the young man’s life if he didn’t want it.
"Spencer-"
"Mmm…"
He looked down. The younger man had his eyes closed.
"Spencer?"
The young man didn’t reply. Derek shook him a little. No response.
He carefully extricated Spencer from himself and laid him down on the couch then went to the hall to take a spare pillow and blanket from the linen closet. After putting the pillow under Spencer’s head and draping the blanket over him, he sat down beneath him on the carpet, turning back to the television.
***
The pressure on his bladder awoke the young man. It took a moment to realise where he was. He looked down, smiling to himself. Derek had fallen asleep in a sitting position at his feet.
Tbc…