A/N: Working on two new full length stories, this is a one-shot I wrote to get my mind going. I'll be updating "Down Pour" tonight. I hope you like it.

Everyone in his family had an addictive behavior and it was no question that one day he too would succumb and find himself unwantedly desiring something. Something that he couldn't live without, something he would go to hell and back for, something that he really didn't want but rather something that he needed.

He hoped for years that his addiction to reading, studying and coffee would be enough. He very well was addicted to all of those things, but they weren't enough. He would crave it but he wouldn't die without coffee or the dictionary. One day he knew he would be in the wrong place at the wrong time and stumble upon something that he really wanted. Something he couldn't walk away from.

His entire life he watched people become addicted to things. He watched as it controlled their lives and distorted them into monsters that were hardly recognizable. Spencer loved his father but when William Reid gambled he was someone else. He used to go to the casinos for hours upon hours and would come home only when he had lost the family's entire life savings. Then he would borrow a ten dollar bill from his own son and use that to win back thousands but before Spencer's money was returned it was all gone again.

One time Spencer refused to give his father the money. William sat his son down and asked him how could he be so selfish? How could he deny his own father, who provided him with life, such a small thing? Spencer cried, convinced that he was an awful human being. He wondered to himself why was he so self-centered, his father was right. What kind of son was he if he starved his father of such a small request?

There were children who would go home and be physically tormented by their parents. They would walk into their houses not knowing if they would be alive the next morning. So when he thought his life was bad he would think about those classmates of his. The ones who hid all of the bruises and scars underneath jeans and long jackets, even in Nevada's summer heat they would always wear long clothing that dare not show any sign of their skin. The line between physical and emotional abuse is a matter of touch, and William Reid never laid a hand on his son. But when Spencer thought about it he blocked out his knowledge that abuse didn't have to be physical. He told himself that his father never hit him so he wasn't being mistreated, it was what he used to say to suppress the fact that he too was indeed being abused. Abuse meant the misuse of an object and that's all he was to his father. An object.

Addiction. It had such a simple definition but it was associated with such a negative connotation. There were drug addicts and alcoholics but Diana Reid was addicted to something else entirely. She was addicted to her schizophrenic episodes. As much as it destroyed Spencer to see his mom give into the disease it was ten times more rewarding for her when she was in that state of mind. The world was exactly how she wanted it to be; nothing more, nothing less. It was perfect.

The moment he was first drugged Spencer knew how it would end. If he survived he would quickly become dependent on the liquid gold. Craving it every second it wasn't racing through his body and finally relaxing when the cold fluid poison leaked out of the needle and worked its way through his blood stream.

Nobody should blame themselves for his addiction. It was just a mathematical equation; it was a given that could not be avoided.

That's what Spencer Reid told himself every time he slipped the needle into his arm and waited for the relief.

A/N: I would love to get some feedback please.