Hi everyone! The below one-shot is definitely not my best work. I wrote it to be kind of stream-of-conscious, and then it was just awful, and I've been editing and tinkering with it so much now that I can't stand it anymore and needed to let it go. That being said, I don't feel like the writing is my usual quality, but I hope you enjoy the story all the same.

Just a head's up, the story has some difficult language usage, references to drug use, sexual insinuations, etc. It's also kind of OC, but it's fiction...

Also, I mean the story's "present day" to be set during episode 7.2 "Proof" and to flashback to a span of time we didn't see before Emily returned to the team and everyone was still grieving her death.

Enjoy! :)

"I'll never forget, but who protects the memories when we bleed each other from the vein?" – Third Eye Blind, "Good Man."

Present Day

What if I had started taking dilaudid again? Would you have let me?

You didn't.

Yeah, but I thought about it.

"Proof" 7.2

What he said to JJ wasn't a lie: He thought about dilaudid until his cheeks were flushed and his body ached; there were many nights when he twisted between sheets until he finally took to pacing the half-lit streets shimmering with early-morning dew. The cravings were more than craving because, to Reid, they felt like breathing, and if he been truthful with JJ, with himself, he would have rolled his shirt sleeve to his elbow and told her he'd lost count over the past few months of how many times he pressed his fingers against the faded circles scarred on the inner crook of his left elbow. If he had been honest at all, he would have said that he dreamt about using dilaudid almost every night after Emily's death and that the dreams were so real that when he woke in a cold sweat, he had to inhale and exhale to slow his rapid heartbeat.

But didn't explain anything to JJ because he remembered how he had just wanted to be done with thinking and feeling and the knowledge that his friend was dead and he had carried her casket and then all the insomnia and the rage and the debilitating bouts of depression that left him unable to move off his couch could be, with one plunge of a syringe, temporarily squashed, suppressed down to a place where he could compartmentalize, but not forget because he didn't have that luxury.

Even though he didn't take dilaudid, Reid had thought about it so much that there were times after Emily's death that his body moved into action before he knew it was, and Reid would find his phone shaking in his hand and his thumb hovering over the innocuously labeled contact. David Dowman sounded mundane enough to be an accountant or maybe an old acquaintance, but the pseudonym was a cover. The idea was brilliantly simple: David Dowman was Drug Dealer, and Reid had kept the number all these years, even transferring the digits when he updated his phone numerous times after Georgia.

During his most curious moments, the ones that taunted him with the haunt of just one hit, his fingers paused as he scrolled through his contacts. During his lowest moments, the ones when he was certain he couldn't stand another agonizing second without dilaudid, he'd call and immediately disconnect once the familiar, gruff voice answered. Most addicts would have erased their old life and ties to the past, but his past never stayed where it belonged, and Reid remembered that he had craved dilaudid so much after losing Emily's that he had thought about calling more than once – – more than he'd admit to his sponsor, or JJ, or even himself because the edge appeared both beautiful and taunting.

After he'd yelled at JJ and acted uncharacteristically open about his emotions, he stomped outside for air because he could feel Hotch's accusing eyes and the team's shocked stares; his chest constricted so tightly that his eyes watered and threatened to spill over onto his cheeks. He'd admitted his addiction openly, for perhaps the first time in many years, and Reid didn't want to stay to see more of JJ's hurt, concerned blue eyes or Morgan's protective mocha ones. Hotch would corner him later, Reid was sure of it, but he didn't need any of their reprimands or support or even a conversation about how he'd tried, years prior, to drown himself. What he really needed was to be alone.

The cool air prickled goosebumps onto his skin, and he swore at the empty sidewalk, slumping against the brick side of the station. The cold seeped through the back of his thin collared shirt, and Reid unexpectedly recalled one night when he'd flirted with his old demons and had almost gone under again. The memory was so powerful that his stomach lurched and his knees knocked together. Why was his mind doing this memory loop now? Reid sighed, tilted his head against the bricks, and closed his eyes.

In the clarity only hindsight could provide, Reid knew that JJ didn't deserve all his confusion and regret or any the words he'd flung at her in an unfamiliar precinct in, yet another, strange city. He was floundering, scared, and as his anger had begun to dissipate, it was immediately replaced with deep shame over his outburst and actions toward JJ.

"You're an asshole," he mumbled to himself.

A piece of litter scraped over the pavement by his feet. Sighing again, Reid forced himself to remember because, at times, remembering was the only thing that that kept him from falling again.

About four months prior:

The windows rattled in their wooden panes. Despite the having the thermostat set to a comfortable temperature, Reid's fingers and toes were freezing. A Vivaldi concerto played at a low volume from the speakers situated on either side of his laptop, and Reid eyed the piles of books stacked on the hardwood floor and throw rugs. An impression in the middle of his couch was the same size of his profile, but Reid felt restless and irritable. He had been reading for hours, and now he wanted movement and action.

It was a blustering winter Friday night on a rare weekend off, and Reid felt unable to shake the paranoid feeling that he was wasting his precious time away from the BAU. As he paced the hallway of his apartment, the cracks of the wooden floorboard echoed a mantra around him: Lauren Renolds is dead. Reid's stomach had been uneasy all day, and he wished had had brought some paperwork or files home to fill the time. Instead, he'd stupidly gone through his stack and Morgan's to avoid arriving home at an acceptable time the night before. His late-night hours ensured he slept late on Friday, which Reid thought would stave off his eventual anxiety over a whole weekend free from work. Naively, he thought reading and television shows would be the tricks he'd need for his mind and body to stop craving dilaudid. The reality was, Reid realized as he turned to walk back toward the kitchen, that it was becoming more difficult to ignore the desire to use again.

The cravings began as a few weeks after Emily died, when the oppressive veil of grief had lifted enough for the reality of loss to sneak through and wrap its icy clutch around his heart. For weeks, his fingers twitched and his muscles felt as though they were trying to push through his skin. His veins were creating a story, writing a new beginning, and Reid pretended the ending would be better than last time even though he knew otherwise.

In the kitchen, Reid habitually filled the coffee pot with fresh grounds and water, pushing the worn "on" button before reaching for the adjacent cabinet for the last clean coffee mug, which was an obnoxious yellow one Garcia had given to him a few years back. A dozen or so dirty mugs cluttered his sink, and Reid realized he'd only eaten toast earlier that morning, but had consumed at least six or so cups of coffee throughout the day. Sighing, he ran his fingers through his hair and ignored the acid bubbling in his stomach and at the back of his throat. He knew food was necessary, but he never felt hungry anymore.

Earlier, when Reid was halfway through the collected essays of James Baldwin, Morgan had called to ask him to dinner. Morgan's voice had been peppy, too peppy Reid thought, and Reid declined, mumbling a lie about a book series he wanted to read. It wasn't completely dishonest. There was a book series he wanted to read, but not with the current burning that was coursing through him, scorching his bones and limbs and threatening his hard-won recovery. While dinner with Morgan would be a welcomed distraction, it would also certainly equal his exposure because Morgan would see through his sloppy defenses and pry until Reid broke open. Reid wasn't willing to sit across from Morgan at some burger joint and explain why he felt like dialudid would be better than French fries and a cold beer and even conversation with a close friend.

But his phone was still in his hand even though he'd talked to Morgan an hour earlier. With his finger hovering over the familiar contact, Reid knew how prepared he was to hit send (maybe David Dowman would receive another hang-up call again tonight or maybe this would finally be the night he spoke and inquired about his real reason for calling). In fact, it was easy –– so incredibly easy –– to get what he wanted. It wouldn't take much thought or energy at all…

At his hairline, sweat formed. His legs wobbled, as if he'd just sprinted after an unsub. Reid licked his dry lips while observing his index finger move toward the green send button on his cell. The coffee pot interrupted, choosing to gurgle to completion. Grateful for the disruption, Reid busied himself with adding sugar and cream to his mug. Instead of waiting for the coffee to cool, Reid scorched his lips and tongue on the hot liquid. The pain made him scrunch his eyes tightly together before reopening them only to see the dirty dishes stacked in the sink and the bleak gray winter sky outside the kitchen window.

But then, at the very moment his hand placed the cup onto the counter and moved again toward the phone's screen, an epiphany struck with such force that Reid froze: He was thirty fucking years old and it was a weekend he didn't have to work and that meant he didn't have to pace his apartment or drink copious amounts of coffee or read and reread every book he owned while wavering between the taunt of a dilaudid-fueled destruction and the knowledge of what that meant for him if relapsed.

As he stood in his kitchen in the fluorescent lighting, the smell of coffee permeating the air around him, and his finger perched over his phone as though it was a lifeline he couldn't detach from, the epiphany both blossomed and bloomed: he'd go to a club, get remarkably wasted, and have meaningless sex with some girl who was looking to drown herself too.

Despite having never experiencing this type of night before –– the club and drunkenness and meaningless one-night-stand –– the idea sounded too easy and far too promising to ignore: numbness, connection, and a release from the plangent thumps of addiction. And Reid knew his body agreed with his mind because a tingling spread throughout his body: to knowingly be that lost sounded wonderful.

He jumped to action, leaving the half-drunk coffee next to the coffee pot, and he bolted to his computer. Vivaldi wasn't the right music to help kick-off his night, and Reid chose a "dance party" station on Spotify even though he knew he wouldn't recognize any of the songs on the playlist.

His body suddenly felt as though it had a purpose for the night, and Reid whistled as he turned on the shower, stripped, and discarded his wrinkled sweater, jeans, and wool socks into a bathroom corner before he dove into a steaming shower. He washed and shaved, careful to avoid nicking spots around his jawline. The pipes clanked when he turned the knobs to off and imprinted wet footprints onto his navy blue bath rug.

With a towel wrapped around his waist post shower, Reid rubbed an oval onto the cloudy bathroom mirror, and grabbed a circular plastic container out of the medicine cabinet. An up-tempo beat bounced down the hallway walls while Reid dolloped a dime-sized amount of hair gel onto his palms and spread the viscous substance through his curls.

In the bedroom, he opened his closet and chose his outfit carefully: an emerald button-up, collared shirt the accentuated the green flecks in his eyes and jeans that were fitting and hugged his hips, but were a bit too loose to be considered skinny jeans. He shoved his cold feet into a stiff pair of brown loafers instead of his typical Converses. The last touch was a spritz of cologne onto his neck. Morgan had gifted him the bottle on his thirtieth birthday, and Reid usually saved it for special occasions.

While he waited for a taxi, he hummed off-key to the song currently playing on Spotify and downed a bottle of beer that had been in his apartment for so long he hadn't remembered buying it or if someone, probably Morgan, had left a six-pack at his place during a movie night and this lone holdout had been waiting for the perfect moment to be ingested. Reid debated wearing a jacket, but he didn't want to deal with logistics of holding it or a coat check. Instead, when the taxi driver honked from the parking lot outside his apartment, Reid shoved his keys and phone into his front pocket and his wallet into his back pocket, and quickly headed out into the night air that was so cold it momentarily stole his breath when he exited his apartment.

"Where to?" The driver asked once Reid had slammed shut the yellow car door.

Reid met the older man's dark eyes in the rear-view mirror, "Club V."

Club V was an up-scale, popular downtown club that promised obscurity via loud music and several large dance floors. The only reason Reid had heard about it was Morgan had told him about a wild night he had there a few months prior. That was right after Emily died, Reid thought, shaking the thought out of his mind by pushing his thumb into the crook of his left elbow.

The beer had given him a liquid confidence, which Reid felt had helped to jumpstart his night. It also helped that he thought, as he grinned in the backseat and watched the city rush by through a fogged window, that none of his coworkers would ever think to look for him there. In the front of the taxi, the driver turned the heat on to a more powerful stream, and the artificial warmth surged to Reid's numb fingers. All at once, the night felt like freedom.

"Have a good night," the cabby said with a nod as Reid handed him money through the driver's side window.

It hadn't been a long or expensive drive, but he'd given the driver a decent-sized tip. The night, with its promise of delusion, felt wonderfully optimistic. For the first time in months, Reid smiled. It felt good to be alive and outside, even he immediately shivered after exiting the toasty car.

The temperature was bordering freezing, but Reid arrived early enough to be ushered into the club without having to wait in a line that was guarded by a burly bouncer with an earpiece. Club V wasn't even half-filled, but Reid thought this quick entrance was sign of a potentially successful night. Alone, he could nurse quite a few drinks at the bar, get a feel for the place, and be intoxicated by the time the real action started at peak hours.

The club wasn't yet close to max capacity for a Friday night, but the music was too loud and the beats pulsated painfully into his ears. Scanning the periphery, Reid saw a bar to his right. In a few strides, he was leaning his elbows against the cool granite top and ordering his first gin and tonic. The glass felt smooth in his hands, and he watched the liquid lap against the clear sides as he brought the drink to his lips. The first sip was smooth, and Reid knew that this night was his night to let go.

Because he didn't feel confident and tipsy enough to head onto the dance floor just yet, Reid observed the rapidly filling club while he drank and time ticked into late night. Girls with sparkly tops, skin-tight pants, and dangerously high heels breezed by in clouds of perfume. Groups of men wearing shirts with popped collars and form-fitting jeans eyed the women before following large groups onto the dance floor. A woman wearing a pink plastic birthday crown danced with her friends. In a shadowed corner of Club V, one couple had decided to start their night early and was already lip-locked in a muddled embrace.

The bar began to fill with arrivals wanting drinks, and Reid felt others nudge him on their push to the bartender. A new drink in hand, he turned his back to the bar, leaning his spine against the dulled edge, and studied the sway of the crowd, the blurred outline of bodies, and the sharp angles of elbows and arms. To his right, a guy celebrating his bachelor party (which Reid had overheard a conversation about) proclaimed to his friends that tonight would be "a night no one would remember!" If he had been more inebriated, Reid figured he'd buy the man a drink because the idea was brilliant.

After three gin and tonics, a familiar numbness spread to his lips, and Reid ordered drink number four before deciding it was time to break into the crowd. His limbs and mind were loosened and relaxed by liquor, and Reid stood motionless before finding the tempo to the current techno song that was blaring from the DJ booth on the stage overlooking the scene. Rhythm acquired, Reid shifted and shimmied onto the Plexiglas floor, which radiated with a new neon color ever few seconds.

Dancers swayed besides him, the air humid with sweat and heat and energy, and Reid allowed himself to fall into the uniformed undulation of the crowd and surrounding bodies that were touching him, which was a feeling that in most instances, would have made his stomach boil with anxiety. A girl next to him grinned and he grinned back, gulping more of his gin and tonic. She nodded her head, signaling for him to dance over, and Reid let his hips move forward, his body effortlessly following along.

The music rattled his teeth, pulsating through his muscles and bones, but Reid found that he didn't mind the noise or heat or people. His dance partner was good, and soon became bored with his mediocre skills, so Reid turned and found another woman and then another. Surprisingly, it was remarkably easy to jump from dance partner to dance partner. There weren't any rules other than drink and dance and drink and dance.

This isn't that bad, he'd thought after five drinks. To disappear, to be one of many, was easier than it was to hide in his apartment, downing cups of coffee and pouring over books and old sci-fi shows while trying to drown his grief in words or stories or the eventual exhaustion that made his sleep weighted and uninterrupted.

By six drinks, Reid realized, as he placed his hands on the hips of the attractive redhead dancing in front of him, why Morgan enjoyed clubs: they were disguises from feelings and all the horrible events and memories that circled through and controlled his life. Reid let himself become obscured in the syncopated strobe lights that made the world seem unconnected and slow, like dilaudid would have. For the first time in weeks, he felt released from grief.

Women –– more women than he'd ever had ever been around him and had ever touched him –– were smiling and laughing and making excuses to reach out for the piece of hair that curled wildly at his forehead or placing their hands on his hips, guiding his body closer to theirs so they could both meet the throb of blaring techno beats. Beads of sweat dripped down his back and congealed the gel in his hair so it was sticky to the touch, and Reid held his cocktail high in the air. As the world began to distort into a drunken mirage of loud music and large crowds, Reid forgot he had known Emily, even though he'd cried himself to sleep over her death every night for the past month.

At seven drinks, he brazenly grabbed the arm of the beautiful woman he'd been noticing for around twenty minutes. He marveled how her shoulder-length brunette hair refracted the colored light and how her ivory skin felt remarkably cool on his warm hand. She'd turned to face him by spinning and teetering on the tips of her heels. When she smiled, the corners of her cheeks dimpled slightly.

Arms wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer. Reid's breath hitched hot in his throat; he could feel her how her hips protruded underneath his, and he leaned so close to her that he smelled the rum and diet soda lingering on her breath. He had ducked to her height to graze her lips with his until a realization made his past rocket upward: She looked like Emily.

He thought, for a fleeting moment underneath the flickering lights when she was in his arms alive and sensuous and staring at with warm brown eyes, that she was Emily. For a wonderful second, Reid forgot where he was and that Emily was dead and that it was impossible that he could grab her on a congested dance floor in some club because it felt like time, and his world, had stopped.

"Emily?" He asked over the roaring music and crowd.

She frowned, "My name's Jamie."

He nodded when she spoke, saw the physical differences between her and his dead colleague blinking between strobe lights, and released her from his clammy hands. The moment crashed away from him, and Jamie stumbled before catching her balance.

"What the hell, you asshole?!" She demanded, "What the fuck's your problem?!"

Reid shook his head, opened his mouth to apologize, but said nothing. He stood stationary, and the crowd pushed against him, elbows and fingers and arms jutting into his sides and back in painful pricks and jabs. His chest ached, and the moist air felt like weights pressing onto his body. He squeezed his eyes closed and opened them to meet a worried expression.

"You alright?" She asked, anger melting from her face.

She reached for his shoulder, perhaps to rub his arm and comfort him, but she wasn't Emily, wasn't even close to everything Emily was, and Reid knew that if she were Emily, Jamie would understand he couldn't be touched –– not now, and certainly not here, not like this. Reid yanked away from her hand and her long nails brushed the saturated fabric of his shirt. But he didn't care if she was suddenly interested in him. He didn't care about the club or the women in it who could offer him one-night stands. He needed out and away from her and the lights and the music and his entire night.

He turned from her, the room spun, and Reid downed the rest of his drink and numbly dropped the glass to the floor. Behind him, Reid thought he heard Jamie call him a fucker as the glass shards flew in every direction.

Reid plowed through the mass of dancers, pushing past skin that glistened with sweat and body glitter, groups of friends celebrating birthdays and impending nuptials, and the intimate closeness of hookups that were only half-hidden in the shadows. The music that he had been dancing to only moments earlier rang oppressive in his ears, and he fought the urge to scream that the world was heavy and everything felt wrong and he needed air because there never was enough room to breathe.

The bar closest to the dance floor was less congested, and Reid moved faster. He had been so preoccupied with exiting the club on his race under colored lights that were now flickering in time to a earsplitting bass beat, that he didn't see the broad chest before he bounced off it and staggered backward, almost falling to the floor.

After he regained his balance, a familiar face materialized in front of him, and something in Reid's stomach burned a warning. You're screwed now, his drink-addled brain told him, and Reid shut his eyes slowly and opened them again. The night had taken a sudden turn. Fuck, he thought.

Surprised brown eyes met his own bloodshot ones, and he stared back because he couldn't see an escape and because he was too drunk to care and because he still craved dilaudid and he knew all it took was one phone call to ease that feeling. All he'd have to do was somehow find a way to maneuver around this roadblock.

"Reid?" Morgan asked and even though he hadn't heard his voice over the loud music, Reid had watched Morgan's lips form his name.

The two agents stared at one another. Reid knew why Morgan was there; he understood the appeal of clubs and dance floors now –– it was easy to forget yourself when you could disappear into a sea of bodies, drunk with the confidence from both alcohol and anonymity.

"Reid?" Morgan asked again.

Reid opened his lips to respond, but no sound escaped. Worry plastered onto Morgan's face, and the older man reached out and squeezed Reid's shoulder, steadying his shaking limbs with a hand onto his sweat-soaked shirt.

"Reid? Are you alright? What are you doing here?"

He read Morgan's lips again, but anger burned deep within his stomach. He didn't need the concern and the following interrogation. He was thirty years old and he was more than able to go out and get drunk, to dance, to have sex with some stranger to numb the pain of loss. If Morgan was here for those reasons, as Reid figured he was, then Morgan could stop the protector role now because it was fucking hypocritical and they both knew it.

He said nothing, but shoved Morgan's so forcefully that the surprise hadn't etched itself into Morgan's expression before Reid bolted for the door, nudging past bodies and couples and tangles of limbs and drinks and drunken proclamations of love that the senders were sure to regret or forget in the morning. Reid knew Morgan was following him, but he was thinner, and could weave through throngs of people faster than Morgan's boxier frame. At the glass door to the club, Reid pressed his palms against the icy surface, eager to leave before Morgan found him again.

The night air burst into his lungs as Reid stumbled onto the sidewalk. All the noise and heat from the club disappeared the minute the club door wooshed shut behind him. It was chilly outside, and his sodden shirt stuck cold to his skin. Reid regained his balance and, forgetting Morgan or his discomfort moment's prior, Reid stood upright, smoothing his wrinkled shirt, and smiled at the long line of women waiting to be admitted into the club. The night's not over yet, his drunkenness encouraged. One woman in the front of the line had seen his dramatic departure and she leaned her elbows so they were propped onto the metal barrier. She winked at him, and he smiled.

"Hey, gorgeous. Need a date?"

He'd contemplated her offer and sinewy arms and the cascade of long blonde hair that partially covered her oval face before he tripped over to her because she looked and sounded nothing like Emily.

"She with you?" The bouncer said, raising an eyebrow at the sudden pairing.

The mystery woman rubbed his chest with a black nail-polished fingernail, causing the skin underneath his shirt to ripple with goosebumps in response. Reid hid his physical recoil and forced himself to sling his arm over her shoulder. Heat from her body trickled to him.

"Yeah, we're—"

"Just leaving."

Reid didn't have time to protest because Morgan yanked him so forcefully away that blonde's oversized ring scratched the side of his cheek. He fought against Morgan, but the older agent was stronger and held Reid's arm so tightly that his fingers tingled.

"You sure, buddy?" The bouncer asked Reid, who attempted to squirm away from Morgan's grasp.

"No, I –– "

Morgan stopped pulling Reid before he addressed the bouncer, "My buddy had too much to drink and I don't want him to do anything he or his girlfriend," Morgan shot the blond in line a harsh look, "will regret."

"I won't mind," the mystery woman sent Reid a suggestive smile.

Reid thought about stomping on Morgan's toes to get away. Didn't Morgan understand that she was his ticket to a solidly delusional, disorienting, sex-fueled night?

The bouncer sent a knowing look to them before speaking to Reid, "You have a good friend."

"What?!" Reid objected. "No! He sucks!"

The bouncer chuckled and turned back toward the line. Reid tried again to break free from Morgan's death grip, but Morgan was stronger and sober (or at least he was more sober than Reid) and he dragged Reid across the pavement and away from the club. Reid struggled to keep up with Morgan's brisk walk, but he kept tripping over his loafers that had far less traction than his Converse sneakers.

"Morgan, let me go!" He managed to sputter as Morgan charged up the street.

If he strained his neck, Reid could see the profile of the bouncer outside Club V. There was still time to get away and reunite with the thin blonde woman, who Reid was certain could provide more than a one-night stand. She did drugs and she possibly knew how to get dilaudid, Reid was sure of it, or, at least, his veins were. On his arms, they bulged blue against his skin, begging, promising they'd behave and the cravings would subside with just one hit.

"Stop, Morgan! I need to go back!"

Reid's feet slipped and slid on the gravel, but he tried to kick off the sidewalk and a passing fire hydrant; instead, his toe hit the metal nozzle and seized with pain. Reid swore.

"Not a chance, kid."

Suddenly, Reid was heaved to the right, out of the view of the streetlight's pale yellow glow and the line of people waiting to enter the club.

His back hit something rigid and uneven, and his muscles spasmed at the abrupt contact. Vision blurred, Reid blinked several times until Morgan's reddened cheeks and narrowed look swam into focus. Behind Morgan, Reid saw a row of dumpsters and he realized they were in an alley near the club.

"What the fuck are you doing, Morgan!?"

Before he could stop his anger, he thrust against Morgan's chest hard enough to make his wrists sting with pain. Morgan, however, barely budged.

Reid's back hit the wall again as the familiar scent of Morgan's cologne wafted closer, "What the fuck to me, Reid? What about you? This isn't your scene, Pretty Boy, and you know."

"I didn't realize you had sole ownership of a club, Morgan," Reid said while attempting to maneuver around Derek, "I can go wherever I want. Jesus, Morgan, I'm not some kid who needs looking after!"

"Really, Reid? You don't need looking after? Look at you, man!"

"Would you let me go, Morgan?! Just let me fucking go!"

Underneath his skin, Reid's blood rushed through his body. His cheeks flushed as his voice echoed off the surrounding brick walls.

"Just stop protecting me because I don't need any more of your damn help!"

"I think you're lying, Reid."

Morgan's voice suddenly turned soft with understanding, and Reid looked at his shoes when he spoke after a moment of silence only filled with the sound of his labored breathing.

"Fuck you, Morgan. You don't know anything about me or how I feel right now, so just stop."

Morgan huffed, "I don't know how this works? Well, let me fill you in then, Reid. You're going to regret tonight come tomorrow. Right now, this decision makes perfect sense because you're not thinking straight and you're hurting and connecting is better than being disconnected. But you're drunk and you don't need to sleep with that girl to fill some hole, Reid, because sex won't fix anything."

Reid's rage shot upward again partially because he was scared and partially because he knew Morgan's profile of his behavior and his reasons for going to the club was right.

"Don't even tell me what to do, Morgan! It's not like you haven't done it before! Look at you - you're here now to do just that!"

Reid attempted to duck past Derek and head back to the club, but a strong hand in the middle of his chest stopped him. His heart beat wildly between Morgan's palm and his thin, damp shirt.

"You're right, Reid. I do go to clubs, get drunk, and sleep with strangers. That was my plan tonight, but that's me, not you."

"And I'm not allowed to have fun and to get drunk once and a while and to sleep with whomever I choose? In case you haven't noticed, Morgan, I'm thirty years old and I can do what I like! "

Reid's breath spurted out of his dry, parted lips, and the clouds hung in a thin vapor before vanishing. Morgan's hand was beginning to feel too heavy against his chest, and Reid tried to flick it away with a nudge of his shoulder. Morgan took the hint that Reid was uncomfortable and dropped his arm. The ghostly impression of the older man's hand felt warm against the cold air and his stiff shirt.

"Move, Morgan, so I can go back inside." Reid said, although half-heartedly and with less irritation than before.

The drinks were distorting his vision, and his surroundings blurred and shifted. He shivered, wrapping his arms around his body. What he really wanted to do was leave the alley that smelled like urine and rotting vegetables, hail a taxi, go home, crawl into bed, sob, and to try and forget the brief, foolish moment when he had thought Emily was alive.

"What are you doing here, kid?"

Morgan's voice was low, and if Reid had drunkenly profiled correctly, worried. Reid signed, running a hand through his hair frozen with dried sweat. Morgan searched for Reid's gaze, caught it, and stared hard. The hazel eyes told him Reid's answer before the younger agent spoke.

"I'm forgetting."

"This isn't the way to do it, Reid."

Reid snorted, "That's why you're here too."

Morgan broke eye contact and glared at the ground. A few yards away, laughter echoed from the line outside the club. A breeze nipped at his exposed skin, and his body shuddered. He just wanted to leave the alley and escape from Morgan's prying eyes and concerned tone.

"Well, now that we have that shitty secret established," Reid dodged around Morgan, "then I have some drinks to get back to."

His joints protested from the swift movement, but Reid focused on the opening of the alley and the glow from the above streetlight illuminating the sidewalk in a yellow wash. He would have been successful, would have gone back to find the blonde girl who could promise a night of escape, had it not been for Morgan's voice echoing truths behind him.

"I know why you're doing this, Reid, and it's not going to bring her back. Nothing will. Not the dancing or the alcohol or the meaningless sex. You might think it will help, but it won't, trust me."

Reid pretended not to hear how Morgan's voice cracked, and he took another step toward the sidewalk.

"I know this all is just a weak band-aid for your grief, and I know you won't be satisfied with it either, Reid, and I'm afraid you'll go and find something else that can help, something that I know will destroy you this time..."

Oddly enough, it wasn't the insinuation that Derek knew he was having dilaudid cravings that made him stop, but, instead, it was Morgan's pleading, yet understanding, tone –– the one that made Reid freeze with his back to the older agent. He stood unmoving near the opening of the alley as Morgan continued to speak in a low, soft voice.

"I get that you want and need to forget, Reid. I do too. I know that you're really close to the breaking point, and I can't say I blame you after the last few months we've had, but I really want you to think about what you're doing before you head back in there, man. I want you to think what will happen tomorrow when you wake up in some strange woman's bed and you're hung-over and you just want something to help patch up that hole because it will be bigger then, Reid, and you won't be able to forget or stop it from growing, and I'm terrified for you and what you'll do then. Not tonight, but tomorrow. "

"Morgan, please, just…"

His words were barely audible, but he knew Morgan heard him.

"Please, Reid. I'll take you home. You don't want to do this. "

Reid knew Morgan was close to exposing his lies and the rampant thoughts and the old urge that was flooding his body and controlling his senses. Reid's haphazardly constructed began to crumble: his pulse pounded, remnants of club music echoed harshly in his ears, and his back ached from when Derek had shoved him into the brick wall. From his veins, the familiar longing and memory surged: Tell me it doesn't help.

"Maybe you feel that way after a one-night stand, Morgan," Reid argued, "but we're different people."

Reid knew he was lying, and he was positive Morgan did too, but Morgan didn't call him on his bullshit, but, instead, continued to speak in the same pleading tone that frightened Reid so much that he remained immobile, back turned to Morgan and his words.

"I'm being selfish and hypocritical, Reid, and I admit that. But I'm terrified that I'm going to lose you too, and I'm scared for you and for me if that happens. Please, Reid, she wouldn't want us to do this just because she was gone. Please…"

Morgan was begging him; Reid had never heard the older agent so vulnerable before. A ball of emotion lodged itself in the middle of his throat.

"I'm going," He wobbled.

Reid thought how he'd been reunited with Emily on the dance floor, but it wasn't Emily because she was gone and he'd stood at her grave every day for weeks trying to figure out if she could hear him talking to her despite the fact that she couldn't because she was dead, and her absence made his heart hurt so much that he sometimes didn't know if grieving was just a different type of slow death and he would be the next victim.

Morgan's voice came from directly behind Reid, "Come on, Reid. Don't do this. I know this isn't you…"

Reid clenched and unclenched his fists, spun on his heels to face Morgan, maybe to try and punch him even though the idea, even in his drunken state, seemed stupid, but then the months and words and rage erupted from within him, deep from the place that had been storing all of his emotions and cravings for the past four months.

He was screaming at Morgan that he hadn't said goodbye and it didn't matter because she was gone and goodbye meant nothing because everyone left –– they all fucking left –– and he'd always been abandoned with broken pieces of moments and memories and mayhem that he could never forget or fix. He was always standing when everything was crashing around him and he'd be damned if he couldn't get one fix. Just one fix because this time he'd make sure it was the last fix he'd ever have because he wasn't sure he could begin and end only to start over again.

And Morgan didn't yell or argue or even respond. He stood and watched as Reid tossed his arms angrily into the air and hollered and swore and released months of confusion into a dark, dirty alley. Morgan listened to his friend's voice bounce off bricks and metal dumpsters until Reid lost his energy and stood, shaking, and exhaling sharply so his breath collected in white puffs before evaporating. His cheeks burned red, shining in the flickering streetlight. The younger agent trembled and he swayed were he stood, although Morgan couldn't tell if it was from the alcohol, his outburst, or both.

"I don't care if I regret this night, Morgan," Reid whispered in a last attempt at defiance, "I don't."

"Reid…"

Morgan stepped closer, and Reid put his hands up in a feeble attempt to keep a physical distance between them.

"Reid," Morgan repeated.

He wanted to be alone, wanted to disappear in the darkest part of alley with a syringe and a vial of dilaudid. Reid's body heaved from the cold and the ball in his throat that was surging upward and lining a salty layer on the back of his tongue. Reid knew what was threatening to happen, and he could only weakly object and wait for the moment of his inevitable implosion.

"Don't, Morgan," he warned, "just don't."

Morgan took another step, and Reid shifted backward. Loose dirt and gravel scratched underneath his shoes. In an ineffective protest, Reid shook his head side-to-side, and the outline of Morgan's face became blurred by tears.

"Reid…" Morgan began again, like a mantra, and Reid's chest burned.

He tried to speak, but no words escaped his parted, dry lips. Morgan was so close, too close.

"Just—"

But Reid's words became lost because Morgan grabbed him into a hug that made Reid thrash against Morgan's arms and shoulders and chest in a last attempt to battle his dissolving composure. Around him, Morgan's arms flexed. Reid opened his mouth to protest, but he began screaming, howling out the past few months of frustration, failure, and fear.

"Let it out, kid." Morgan soothed, "let it go."

Despite his drunkenness and dislike of physical contact, the words granted Reid the permission he needed to stop fighting both Derek and his grief. He wilted into Morgan's arms, sobbing into Morgan's shirt because there was no other option than to fall apart. And Morgan held him, held on, and told him it was okay, he was okay, and neither had breathed another confession about Emily, dilaudid, Reid's self-destruction, or their mutual pain.

After his breakdown, neither man had uttered a word to the other; instead, the exited the alley and walked toward a taxi stand, where Morgana had hailed a cab.

In the backseat, Reid had placed his hot cheek against the cool passenger window, closing his eyes to the city streaming by outside. When the driver had to pull over so Reid could vomit out the open yellow door, Morgan had apologized to the driver and, later, paid for the ride in addition to leaving a large tip to make up for the inconvenience.

At his apartment, Morgan prevented the younger man from stumbling into the row of bushes lining the pathway to the front door and, once inside, Morgan immediately reprogrammed the thermostat to a higher temperature. The sound of the heat clicking to on ticked through the apartment. Reid shivered so violently that his teeth clashed painfully together.

Morgan stared at Reid's purple nail beds, blue lips, and pale skin, and finally addressed him, "You need to get warm, Reid."

Reid nodded, arms laden at his sides. He felt unable to respond and almost childlike as he followed Morgan into the dark side hallway. From a linen closet near the bathroom, Morgan extracted a plush bath towel.

"A hot shower will help," Morgan said.

Reid wasn't sure if he Derek meant that the hot water would help warm his icy body, alleviate his drunkenness, or wash away his colossal breakdown. Reid stumbled into Morgan's bathroom a few paces behind, narrowly missing crashing into the sharp edge of the doorframe.

He watched as Morgan turned on the shower. Steam surged, and the bathroom filled with the sound of running water.

"Use whatever you like," Morgan referenced the bath materials on the shower shelf.

Reid nodded again, meeting Morgan's concerned gaze with an expressionless one. He didn't move until he heard the door softly latch shut behind Morgan.

Reid clumsily undressed, almost falling into the wall while trying to release his pants from his stiff legs. By the time his aching, frozen body stepped under the stream, the bathroom was filled with hot fog. He spent a long time sitting on the shower floor, crying so hard that he dry-heaved over the drain. When the water shifted to warm, Reid turned the knobs to off with a groan of pipes. Without leaving the bathtub, Reid groped for the towel on the hook, drying the droplets off his body so vigorously that the cloth made red striations against his pale arms and legs.

Without glancing at his pruned skin or sopping curls in the fogged mirror, Reid placed the wet towel on a hook and shoved on a pair of Morgan's sweats and a t-shirt that the older agent had placed on sink counter.

Morgan was waiting for him in the living room, which was substantially cooler than the stifling bathroom. The floorboard cracked his arrival, and Morgan glanced at Reid, who felt it was time to speak, even though he could barely stand to look at Morgan without hot wells of shame surging through his body.

"Thanks. I feel better now. I'm warmer, at least."

Derek nodded and thrust a bottle of water into Reid's shriveled hands while Reid avoided eye contact and gulped most of the water before placing the bottle on the coffee table next to the couch.

Morgan ran a rough hand over the base of his neck. Reid sighed, swaying slightly. I'm still drunk, he thought.

"What the hell were you thinking tonight, Reid?"

Reid sighed and collapsed onto the sofa, limbs hot and exhausted, as he placed his shower-burnt cheeks into his hands. Morgan's weight sunk the cushions next to him.

"I'm not sure. I just wanted to forget," he admitted.

Words from the past rang clearly through his mind: Believe when I say I know exactly how that feels.

"Emily or your cravings?" Morgan asked.

A knot formed in Reid's stomach, and he bit his lip. "Both, I guess."

Morgan exhaled, and the cushions shifted when he moved to rest his back against the couch.

"Grief doesn't work like that, kid, and either does addiction. It should, but it doesn't."

Reid nodded, vision blurring before he blinked away tears, "Do you feel like you can't breath either?"

He had phrased the question like a statement, a wild truth that he was sure Derek would ignore, but Reid wasn't surprised when Morgan nodded yes, eyes scanning the room and landing anywhere but his.

"What do we do then?" Reid asked a real question this time, "I don't know what to do, Morgan, and I'm afraid I'll never have an answer."

Morgan sighed again, leaning forward to place his elbows on his knees. He turned and met Reid's gaze.

"We can't do anything, Reid. We wait. That's it. We just wait."

There was a pregnant pause before Reid spoke in a shaky voice, "I don't know how long I can do that, Morgan."

The older man nodded, "Me too, kid. Me too."

For a while, they sat in silence, before Morgan finally spoke the last words of the night, which Reid contemplated long after Morgan stood and padded to his bedroom.

"It will get better, Reid. We will."

Long after Morgan had gone to sleep and his snores reached down the hall, Reid lay on the couch, listening to the wall clock's endless ticking, and replaying the night in his mind. Morgan was right: What had he been thinking? Why had he even thought that drinking and meaningless sex would help, would change, anything? What would have happened if Morgan hadn't been there to stop him? He knew Morgan's premonition was right: He'd wake in some strange woman's bed and the hole Emily's death created would be deeper, wider, and there would be only one thing he'd want to mend that gap. He had felt grateful for Morgan. He had felt ashamed of himself.

Reid's vision blurred halos around the edges, like this moment, this night, was a dream he was just waking from after a period of long sleep. His ears buzzed with the remnants of too-loud music, and Reid sighed, reaching for his phone on the coffee table next to the couch. He could still call his dealer, but it took too much energy to pretend he would escape dilauded, escape his memory, or himself this time.

He tried to imagine what months later would feel like if he could make it there at all. In the darkness of Morgan's living room, Reid had vowed he'd try to keep moving on because trying was the only thing he had left.

Present Day:

On the plane, Reid watched JJ pull up her hair in a long ponytail. His words from their argument a few hours prior swam around him:

What if I had started taking dilaudid again? Would you have let me?

You didn't.

Yeah, but I thought about it.

The morning after that drunken night at Club V, he'd gone to a beltway clean cops meeting, wordlessly observing at everyone from a cold chair in the back of the room while Morgan sat loyally, and silently, at his side.

At work on Monday after his disastrous dance club night, Reid had pulled Hotch aside and told him he was struggling, echoing Gideon's words from lifetimes before. He hadn't elaborated and Hotch hadn't asked, but the Unit Chief had stoically met his gaze when Reid said he was tired, so tired he couldn't comprehend the logical insights that had at one time, come so easily. Hotch had nodded, and Reid knew he'd understood the implication, the threat lurking, behind his explanation. Reid recalled how he had found his worn sneakers interesting. Cheeks burning, he'd sputtered an apology to Hotch.

But Hotch had clamped a surprisingly fatherly hand on Reid's shoulder, and told him words he hadn't expected hear aloud because it was closest they had come to openly acknowledging Reid's addiction and the cravings still rocketing through his body: "I'm proud of you."

Hotch granted him a week's vacation. Reid hadn't protested, hadn't even thought about the empty stretch of days in front of him, and had spent the week taking long walks, sleeping for hours, ignoring phone calls from his teammates, and attending more meetings. No one on commented on his absence when he returned, and Morgan had met his gaze for a brief moment across a chaotic bullpen the day he returned. The understanding look told Reid everything he already knew and everything he wished he had never known: I miss her too.

A few weeks later, when he received a call from a local bartender on a dark, windy night near the beginning of spring, he'd left the warmth of his bed and his favorite fleece blanket. He'd thrown a sweater over his thin white undershirt and a pair of beat-up sneakers on his bare feet. The blustering night was cold, and although his flannel pajama pants were warm, the cool air seeped through the fabric. In his car, Reid blasted the heat and by the time he reached the sports bar around fifteen minutes after receiving the phone call, the car windows had finally defrosted.

Somehow, he'd helped an intoxicated, near dead-weight Morgan into his car and, later, into his apartment. Morgan hadn't said a word, not even when Reid had handed him a bath towel and an extra toothbrush before showing the older agent to the bathroom. While Morgan showered and attempted to drown his drunkenness in hot water, Reid had made the couch into a makeshift bedroom, complete with two bottles of water and a container of aspirin on the adjacent coffee table.

Reid remembered how strange it had been to see their roles reversed when Morgan had slumped, defeated and drunk, into the worn couch cushions. His body had momentarily froze when Morgan started telling Reid about his nightmares about finding Emily in the Boston warehouse, about how her blood had caked onto his hands, and how Derek had been too late to stop her from dying. His breath had burned in his chest when Morgan had told Reid that Emily had told him to "let go," and the older agent hadn't realized until now that he couldn't and, perhaps, he never would; at times, Morgan explained, he could still see her blood defiantly dried to his hands.

And when Morgan's words had become tears and then choked sobs, Reid exhaled and his chest burned from the release. He'd stumbled to Morgan's side and sunk into a cushion next to Derek, grabbing the man's hand as he released months of grief. It had felt unnaturally natural to comfort his colleague, and Reid let Morgan crush his hand so much the tips of his fingers glowed white.

Reid had leaned close to Derek so that he could whisper memories between them. He remembered and spoke in soft, rushed tones, and Derek's tears had become more like drops and less like rivers until he finally fell asleep, head propped against a throw pillow. Reid had gently placed a blanket over the older man before tiptoeing down the hall to his bedroom.

When Reid woke in the morning, the blankets had been folded and placed on a couch arm. The empty water bottles were in the recycling bin in the kitchen, and a yellow post-it had been stuck to his coffee maker - the one spot Morgan knew Reid would look. Reid knew they'd never speak of their mutual breakdowns again, but Morgan's scrawled handwriting had given him the only explanation he needed: Thanks.

But, when he thought about it now, JJ didn't know any of that darkness. She didn't know about the club or his colossal breakdown in the alley or his mini-vacation or how he returned the favor of comfort for Morgan. It wasn't fair to throw half-truths and old time-bombs at JJ like he had, but he needed to be sure she understood what had been precariously close to becoming undone. He needed to ensure she understood, if understanding meant anything at all to either one of them anymore.

Still, he had survived those months, as did the team, as did Emily. He never thanked Morgan for that night or his constant, unwavering protection, but Reid knew that Morgan didn't need explanations. The memory of Morgan's hand grasping his own was all he needed to recall to believe that Morgan understood then and he understood now.

He also knew that he was being unfair to JJ and that he had every right to angry with all of them, but his anger reached and lashed out, circling around old, unhealed wounds he once thought he could leave behind on a crowded dance floor as Emily's ghost circled his memory on a broken loop.

JJ caught his stare from across the plane, and Reid wasn't surprised that the collected tears in her eyes made them brilliantly blue, like the sky had been the mockingly sunny day they'd buried Emily. He'd forgiven her the moment her shaky voice had asked if he had taken dilaudid. He'd heard the fear etched in her words, the concern filling her eyes with doubt, and he knew he would just need time to heal.

Across from him, Morgan stared at him, and he shifted his attention to the older man. In the moment of connection, Reid realized he'd have to let go even though he was still angry and hurt and afraid that Emily would disappear the minute he closed his eyes or turned away from her. In his dreams, she died and was resurrected in a Georgia graveyard while he was forced to dig her grave. In his waking hours, Reid wasn't sure if Emily was alive or simply a ghost from the past.

He didn't know how he'd apologize to JJ or how words would make everything right again, or if anything could be rectified or fixed or mended. He'd try in the days and weeks and months that followed, but he also wouldn't forget, no matter how much he'd want and try to because only one thing ever made him really forget and lose himself, and he wasn't sure what would happen if he went back to that particular release again. He wasn't sure if he or they would be the same, but he was sure of one thing, if there was anything ever to be sure about anymore: his argument with JJ wasn't a lie. He hadn't taken dilaudid, but he'd thought about it.

He'd definitely thought about it.