Title: Dark
By: imogenedisease
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: CM is not mine. Wish it was. I'd say I was planning on kidnapping them but I think there's been enough of that lately. :P
A/N: Introspective Drabbley Fic. My first for CM!
Summary: The dark is all around him, everywhere, in every place, in every crevice, in every room of his house the place where he should be safe but he cannot escape it cannot escape the dark. Reid centric. Introspective PseudoDrabble.

***

The dark of the room seemed to him to be an impenetrable, suffocating blanket that wrapped around him so tight, so terribly tight, that he can't breathe.

God, just let him breathe. If God would just let him breathe!

He knows in his mind, that he is sitting on his bed in his apartment, but his heart and body tell him otherwise.

He can smell the earthy musky scent of the decaying leaves on the ground, made all the more harsh by the crisp night air. He can hear the rustle of the leaves in the barely perceptible breeze that shows no movement but causes eerie sounds in the silence of the dark. He sits and waits, waits for his eyes to adjust to the darkness but they never do.

The dark is all around him, everywhere, in every place, in every crevice, in every room of his house - the place where he should be safe but he cannot escape it - cannot escape the dark. He wants so badly to escape, to never have to dream again, to just fade away into something else - someone else - other than the FBI genius. He knows what everyone thinks he can be strong but he still feels weak. So weak.

He still feels like he is not who he should be.

Who are you? He wants to ask this darkness. Who are you that has taken me away and replaced it with something else unwanted? Who are you that has taken me away from myself? Who am I? I am lost in this dark and I cannot find my way. Can they save me? Can I let them save me? Must I save myself?

Those little bottles wait for him, he knows, intoxicatingly calling for him and he can't get away. The dark holds him there. Holds him where he cannot run. Where he cannot stand. He must listen. He must resist, but the temptation is so close, so sweet - making promises that no one else can, to make it all go away…

He breathes in deep and expels it in an attempt to blow away the darkness, to expel the darkness from within. But it remains.

What is he to do?

What am I to do? He asks the darkness. Why won't you go away?

I have hurt, I have had pain, isn't it enough? Will it ever be enough?

Where are you God? Where are you when Jesus weeps and the trees die with their damned decaying leaves all across the ground, just lying there waiting for me to be dragged through?

The smell is everywhere. He can't get rid of it. He showers two, three, sometimes four times in a day and it never fades. The damned smell of the musky earth and dead leaves.

It smells like the dark.

He is suddenly frantic, he gropes blindly in the dark for his phone, irrationally thinking that f he finds it soon enough, it will protect him from the dark like a child gropes for the light switch to ward away the beasts that lurk in the closet.

He dials a number and a voice answers.

Hello?

His throat is frozen. He cannot speak. The dark will not let him. It holds him. Holds him where he cannot run away.

He takes the phone away from his ear.

He hits the end button cutting off the voice.

He sits in silence.

He sits and he waits.

He waits for the dawn.

Maybe the sun will take his troubles away, he thinks, even when he knows it won't.

***