Title: Break
Author: LikeFlames
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own ^_^
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: None - GEN
Rating: FRT
Warnings: none... maybe my writing...
Note: Thank you to my looooooovely awesome Beta Editor-in-Chief Christin!
Summary: Reid's adorable kitten nearly makes him have a severe nervous breakdown.

***

Spencer Reid sat in a vagely overstuffed armchair in his living room, long fingers gingerly holding his mug of tea as he sipped. He frowned at the small black feline washing in front of him -Bloo, he'd named it- and turned his head to look out the window. To not look at the cat. He set his tea down and rubbed his temples, knowing he should be asleep, knowing he had work to answer to in the morning.

Tonight was the first night in a long while he had awoken to the bedside cries of his cat. He knew what it was trying to do, trying to show him another small rabbit or bat or bird it had brought in, expecting praise and -maybe- a can of food. He would set it on the counter as he double bagged it's prey, cradling it a little more carefully and lovingly than many would have considered normal. It had a right to be mourned, just like everyone else. So, maybe it wasn't remarkable, wasn't endangered, wasn't domesticated, but it was.. it had been alive. He would set it in the dumpster outside, five steps away from the apartment complex on the opposite building, eight flights to the ground floor, forever to get it overwith. He would take the kitten down from the counter and sate it's appetite with something store-bought and it would follow him back into his room and curl up far too close to his pillow, but cats were never ones for learning personal boundaries.

But tonight was different. His kitten had brought him a live bird.

The moment Spencer saw it he felt paralyzed, and only regained movement when his cat went over to it having every intention of playing with it to death. He moved fast, grabbing the kitten by it's scruff and pulling it back, before slumping to the ground in dispair. It moved with it's heartbeat, having been laid on one of it's wings. It's eyes were closed. It was only a baby.

For a long while he sat there, trying to think of what he could do to save it; birdie CPR, or, maybe some Vet would take it? But no -no vets here took wild animals, and any types of recussitation he would try would only damage it further. But he still searched through the (at almost any other point in his life) seemingly endless knowledge in his mind, and came up with a horrible blank feeling and he struggled to keep hold of his persistent pet.

The bird stopped moving, the injuries sustained apparently having been too great for it's small, fragile body. He scooped up the cat and put it on the counter, as per usual, but was more than startled on his way down the stairs with his bundle to find tears falling readily down his cheeks. He'd never been so moved by something so stupid in his entire life, it was illogical he told himself; but he couldn't help but hear the other, desparate, broken voice that begged to know why something so innocent had to die, why God, what did it ever do the my Goddamn cat, why couldn't you have stopped him, why couldn't it have already been dead, God, Please. God, because it was his. And for the second time that night, he found no answers in his shocking supply of knowledge, and could barely bring himself to walk the last flight of stairs on his way back up.

He knew it was dumb, it was only transference. All the children and young women and men they had not been able to get to in time flashed through his memory, bright and vivid as if the were right in front of him and everything he felt, all of his inadequacies, all of the deaths that were his fault(directly or not), coming to a head on his kitchen floor with a dying bird in front of him and a struggling kitten under his control. He wrapped his long arms around himself as he sat halfway in between floors 3 and 4, almost home. He could hear his kitten crying, wanting to be let down, afraid that he'd gone and wouldn't be coming back, and Spencer suddenly wanted to be home with his mother more than anything in the world, but he settled with dragging hemslef the last six stairs and four feet to his mildly open door.

He took the crying Bloo into his arms and told him that he didn't hate him, he was just very very angry with him, and gave him a saucer of warm milk before walking back to his bedroom and hearing the pitter patter of kitten feet only a minute or two after.

***