You started to cry.
Quietly at first and then a sob broke free and your shoulders heaved, and before you knew it you were ugly crying in your colleagues bed.
Regrets collect like old friends
Here to relive your darkest moments
I can see no way, I can see no way
And all of the ghouls come out to play
Last night could have ended so very differently and you knew it, which made you wonder; there’d been countless occasions over the last few months where you couldn’t even remember getting home because you’d been blind drunk. Things could have happened to you and you had no clue. You didn’t think they had but you’d been putting yourself in dangerous situations for months, situations where you’d made yourself vulnerable because you couldn’t stand to be sober and deal with the loneliness, the self hatred, the self pity.
Your stomach churned and you leaned over and grabbed the bucket Spencer had placed on the floor. Nothing came up, but your throat burned and your head pounded. Spencer stirred besides you in the bed and you scrunched your eyes shut to stop the world spinning from his movement. How humiliating that he’d seen you like this and had needed to intervene and take care of you.
And every demon wants his pound of flesh
But I like to keep some things to myself
I like to keep my issues drawn
It’s always darkest before the dawn
“Y/N?” his voice was small and cautious like someone talking to a scared kitten.
No.
No no no.
You couldn’t deal with facing him right now. Rolling out of his bed as quickly as you could, you searched for your dress.
“It’s soaking in the bathtub,” Spencer’s voice came from the bed.
“I need to go home. I need to leave,” your voice was hoarse and breaking with emotion.
“If you really want to leave then there’s a pair of sweat pants in the bottom drawer with a draw string waist……” You immediately started searching for them, finding them and tugging them on, pulling the cord as tight as it would go to stop them falling down and then rolling up the bottoms. This was going to look ridiculous with your heels but whatever. You were breathing deeply trying to control the urge to vomit again when Spencer spoke.
“I thought though that maybe we could talk. And that afterwards I could drive you to a meeting, there’s one at 11am, I checked last night.”
“Meeting?”
“AA.”
You spun around to face Reid so quickly that you stumbled and had to grab a hold of his dresser to keep yourself upright.
“I’m not an alcoholic.”
“I didn’t say that you were, Y/N. Please know that I’m not judging here. I am the last person that would judge you. But I saw the state you were in last night, and I know that you spend almost every weekend out drinking. You come into work looking like you’re barely awake and functioning, and there’s been a few occasions where I can smell the alcohol on your body from the night before. If I can smell it, then Hotch can too. It’s only a matter of time before he says something.”
Spencer had shifted positions so he was sat up right against his headboard now, his hair even messier than normal.
“I’m not an alcoholic,” you repeated to him, your voice louder and clearer now.
“Maybe not. But you are drinking an awful lot and you are putting yourself into dangerous situations, you can’t deny that. I’m talking to you as friend here, not a colleague. You have issues, and you’re using alcohol to hide from them. I don’t need to be a profiler to see that. Come to the meeting, listen to other people’s stories, maybe it will make you realise that…. ”
“I’M NOT AN ALCOHOLIC. I DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM!”
Spotting your heels and bag on the floor, you picked them up and walked as quickly as you could to his apartment door, hearing him calling after you. You fumbled with the locks on the door, trying and failing to unlatch them, your hands were trembling so much in anger, tears blurring your vision.
Spencer followed you, reaching into a bowl on a table by the door and stuffing his feet into a pair of converse.
“I’ll take you home.”
…
The drive home was silent, tears still flowing down your cheeks in a mixture of anger and disgust. Every so often Spencer would glance over at you and open his mouth to say something, but then he’d think better of it and close it again.
When you reached your building you turned to climb out of Spencer’s tiny car, feeling his hand on your arm stopping you from leaving.
“Y/N. I AM here for you okay, if you need me. Just call. It doesn’t matter what time.”
You nodded before yanking your arm away and exiting the vehicle, not even thanking him for coming to your rescue last night, or taking care of you.
When you got inside your apartment you went straight to the refrigerator and pulled out the glass bottle of clear liquid. This one was almost empty, but no matter. You had another one. You brought the bottle to your lips, feeling the burn as the liquid slipped down your throat and into your empty stomach. The urge to vomit was immediate and you spun around to the sink seeing the vodka reappear again, your head throbbing.
It was then that the stark realisation hit you.
You shouldn’t be spending your weekends like this.
You shouldn’t need another drink to help recover from the last binge.
You shouldn’t need to get so out of your mind that you could barely recall certain events.
And I’ve been a fool and I’ve been blind
I can never leave the past behind
I can see no way, I can see no way
I’m always dragging that horse around
What were you doing with your life? Why had you let someone break you down into such little pieces that you didn’t like who you were and needed to drink to get away from it? How had you let one man leaving you, get to you and affect you so badly that you no longer wanted to be alone in your own company.
You turned the cold water tap on and stuck your mouth directly under it, rinsing your mouth out and spitting.
This…. this needed to stop.
Standing back up, you reached for the bottle of vodka and unscrewed the cap. You poured the liquid down the drain, opening the refrigerator and pulling out the second bottle and doing the same. Moving around your kitchen and living room you collected the various bottles and emptied them all, lining them up on the counter.
When you were done, you counted them. Fifteen bottles, a mixture of spirits and wines. Most had been half empty already when you’d drained them. Pulling a bin bag out of your drawer, you started to drop the bottles into the bag carefully, wincing as you missed and sent one crashing to the floor. Falling to your knees you made the huge mistake of trying to pick up one of the larger shards of broken glass with your hand.
“Mother fucking fuck bags!” Grabbing a tea towel you wrapped it around your palm seeing the fabric turning red with blood almost instantly.
Shit. It was deep. There was no way it wasn’t going to need stitches but you were in no condition to be able to drive yourself in and you wouldn’t be able grip the steering wheel even if you weren’t severely hungover. Reaching for your bag you found your phone and dialled the number of the man who’d told you only thirty minutes ago to call him whenever.
“Spencer, I need you. I’m hurt. I need to go to the hospital.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” he told you and you breathed a sigh of relief.
Ignoring the mess on the floor, you moved into your bed room and changed as carefully and quickly as you could into a pair of your own sweats pants and a hoody, blood seeping through the tea towel and smearing over Spencer’s shirt as you changed.
Fucking hell, it hurt. Sliding your feet into Vans, you picked your bag back up and wrapped another towel around your hand, pulling it tightly. Locking your door, you waited outside, jumping into Spencer’s car when he pulled up.
He reached for your hand immediately, “What the hell did you do?”
“I was throwing out bottles and one smashed. I think I need stitches.”
“I think you do too. Keep your hand raised okay.”
Reid pulled away from the curb and started the drive to the hospital.
“Spencer. Earlier…. Last night…. I’m not an alcoholic. I stand by that.”
All of his questions, such a mournful sound
Tonight I’m gonna bury that horse in the ground
So I like to keep my issues drawn
But it’s always darkest before the dawn
He was silent, sensing there was move to come.
There was.
“But…..I think that maybe I am drinking too much. I just, don’t like myself very much at the…. at the… moment,” you started to sniff again, trying to hold it together. “I don’t…. I don’t know what to do anymore, how to be by myself, how to be alone. So I go out and drink, and when I’m home alone, I drink so I can sleep and forget. Forget that he left me. Forget that I wasn’t good enough for him.”
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
“Y/N, you say you don’t know how to be alone, you’re NOT alone though. Talk to your friends, talk to Penelope or Emily, or to me. As for him leaving you, he wasn’t good enough for you not the other way around. He was an idiot. Please, do not let your ex bring you down. You’re better than that. You’re better than getting wasted every night. You’re better than vomiting on pavements. You’re better than him.”
Spencer sounded so sincere and genuine, the warmth and passion in his voice making you cry again.
He glanced over at you, giving you a soft sweet smile.
“Let’s get your hand sorted and then I’ll help you get rid of of the bottles. Then if you want to, we can talk. Or I can take you to Garcia or Emily and you can talk to them.”
“Thank you. For everything Spencer. If you weren’t there last night…. I…..”
And it’s hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh whoa
“Don’t even think about it, Y/N. I was there, that’s all that matters right now, okay.”
“Okay. Spencer, you’re a good friend.”
“I try. And I’ll be here for you with this as much as you need it. Just please, talk to someone about this. Don’t let it get any worse than it is, don’t let it consume your life. You’re worth more than that.”
He was right. You were. And things could have ended so differently last night. This has been the wake up call you needed. It might be a struggle to change the way you’d been living for the past ten months but you WERE going to change it.
And I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I’m gonna cut it out and then restart
‘Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It’s always darkest before the dawn