A/N: Warning: extremely dark and gritty. Some may consider this OOC and maybe it is, but I think we all know Morgan has some squashed-down rage issues. Inspired by the whole Nick D'Arcy debacle (if you don't know, google after reading as it spoils it).

Set some time between Rossi joining the team and JJ getting pregnant, so no Henry or Will waiting at home for her.

Derek Morgan could count on one hand the number of times he'd gotten absolutely shit faced.

He enjoyed the casual drink. He could hold his liquor and he liked being able to pace himself and keep going all night, sometimes even continuing into the next morning with a favourite dancing partner. As he grew older, that became less and less common - contrary to popular belief, he did mature over time. Most of the time he preferred to sit and have a number of drinks while talking with his closest friends.

Tonight, though, "talking" didn't appear to be high on the priority list.

The case, to put it politely, had been fucked up. The unsub had been taking a man and a woman together and doing some kind of freak experimentation on them, castrating the men and attaching the genitals to the women, before opening up the women, cutting out the uterus, and stuffing it, without care, into the abdomen of the man.

Everybody pretended not to know that JJ had spent a half hour locked in the women's toilets after she had returned from the morgue, emptying her stomach.

They had landed back in Virginia at eleven o'clock, some time ago now. Nobody had wanted to go home and sleep alone, and even Reid hadn't raised a single protest when Emily had invited them all out for drinks.

And did they ever drink. JJ had fallen asleep some time ago, and was leaning on Prentiss' shoulder. Garcia's glasses were askew, her mouth slightly open as she twirled a bendy novelty straw around her glass of bright orange drink. Hotch was uncharacterictically slumped in his booth, head resting at an uncomfotable angle as he attempted to stare down the table. Rossi was beside him, probably the most sober of the lot of them, but still looking bleary eyed and exhausted as he idly watched the people passing them by. Reid was looking extremely depressed as he leaned with his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, the paleness of his face contrasting sharply with the darkness under his eyes and betraying just how little sleep he'd had over the past four days.

Morgan couldn't see himself, but he felt exactly like how the rest of them looked. He couldn't remember how many drinks he'd put away so far, but it must have been a lot because he'd already taken two trips to the bathroom. All the same, he hadn't drunk enough to forget that twelve people had been taken, tortured and killed in the worst possible way, in abject humiliation with their masculinity and femininity stripped for sport. He felt his nausea rising as his mind flashed back to the grotesque images, the gaping wounds where genitals should have been and the black stitching marring smooth skin and attaching -

"I'm going to go get us another round," Morgan said abruptly, actively trying to interrupt his storming mind. He wondered how Reid coped with having an eidetic memory, because whatever high definition images were assaulting Morgan, they must have been attacking Reid in life-sized 3D.

He felt okay, but he mustn't have been, because the world tilted just a little too far as he stood from the table. Grabbing the table to right himself, he set off towards the bar. It was odd. Someone must have been moving the tables and chairs around, because he was sure there was more room to manouvre last time he made the trip.

"Seven whiskeys," he said, not wasting his breath on pleasantries.

The bartender was a younger guy, probably in his early thirties, with a scraggly, unkempt look to him, aided by the messy haircut and the poorly styled beard. It irritated Morgan. Either the bartender was trying to look cool, in which case he needed a serious reality check, or he just couldn't be bothered, in which case he needed a punch in the face.

The bartender fixed Morgan with scrutinising dark eyes, which he then flicked over to gaze at the rest of the BAU. "You know what, mate, I think you guys have had enough," he said. He spoke in an English accent, which usually wouldn't have made Morgan bat an eyelid, but tonight it drove him crazy. He could almost feel the blood vessels in his head contract, taste the bitterness in his mouth. His lips curled.

"Well, I want more whiskey," he demanded. In response to the rush of adrenaline that was coursing through his body, his mind had fixated itself on one goal and one goal only: he wanted what he came for, and this man was going to give it to him.

The bartender fixed him with a placating smile, which only made Morgan more irritated. "I'll call a cab for you lot," he said, not pronouncing the final T.

"I don't want a cab!" Morgan cried, not realising how loud he was becoming.

"Calm down!" someone called from down the bar, and suddenly too many people were talking, too much was happening. It overwhelmed him, engulfing him in sea of people he didn't know, didn't want near him. How many of the men here went home and raped their wives, how many of the women screamed abuse at their young children as they shoved them out into the cold?

His heart was racing, his brain throbbing. And when someone grabbed his shoulder from behind, there was no time to think - there was only time to react, and Morgan, slowed down by alcohol but sped up by rage, moved faster than he'd done all night, wheeling around and feeling a rush of satisfaction as his fist connected with someone's face. Bone crunched and his fist erupted in pain, but the tightness in his chest immediately dissipated, and a cloud of euphoria settled around him in the aftermath of the release of adrenaline.

It felt like forever to Morgan, but it must have been a mere couple of breaths later that the fog around his senses began to clear, and his heart dropped swifter than if he'd jumped from a building.

Reid was on the ground, not moving, blood already caking his chin and spilling from an obviously broken nose. In the time that the cloud around Morgan's head was clearing, the rest of the team had made it over here, and now Hotch and Rossi were knelt beside Reid, Rossi rolling him onto his side as Hotch tried to support his damaged head while moving it as little as possible, and nobody had to tell Morgan that they were trying to stop him from choking on blood. Morgan's eyes slowly slid up as he continued to take heavy, panting breaths, and he locked on to Garcia. And he knew the tears filling her eyes would be yet another memory from this week that would be etched into his brain forever.

"Morgan. You're out," called the officer on duty, sliding the cell door open. Morgan blinked and looked up, spying Hotch standing next to the pudgy policeman. There was a clock on the wall. Had it really been seven hours?

Neither Hotch nor Morgan uttered a word as they signed out of the station and went to sit in Hotch's dark sedan, and even then, it took a long period of silence before either of the men had the courage to speak.

"Reid's going to need plastic surgery," said Hotch at length, not beating around the bush whatsoever. "Broken nose, fractured cheekbone and eye socket, dislocated jaw, fractured palate..."

How did Morgan describe how he felt to Hotch? What possible words were there to express how sorry he was?

"You know, when I first began learning to drive," Hotch was saying, "there was one thing my instructor said to me that stuck with me more than any other. 'What you've got here isn't a method of transport. It's a one and a half ton of metal that you're making go sixty miles an hour. It's a weapon, and if you don't respect that, you have no business being anywhere near it.'"

Morgan slapped his thigh lightly. "Why are you telling me this, Hotch?" he asked quietly.

"Because you're a big guy, and apparently you haven't realised that your body is a weapon, just like a car, just like a gun. You've always gotten angrier more easily than I would have liked, Morgan, but I haven't stepped in because I never thought you'd cross the line this badly. I thought you would have realised this. Now Reid's paying the price for my overestimating you, and for your stupidity."

"I didn't know it was him," said Morgan, though he knew it was a weak excuse. "He came up behind me -"

"So what?" Hotch snapped. "You need to control yourself. You could have killed him, or anyone else who might have come up behind you."

"I'm not trying to excuse myself to you," Morgan said softly. "I'm trying to excuse myself to me."

"I know you are," Hotch said. "Don't try. You need to face this." He paused. "Reid's probably never going to look the same. Do you know what this will do to his self confidence?"

Morgan didn't say another word, because he knew if he did, his voice would betray his emotions. Even so, he had to blink very fast to dispel the tears, and he had to swallow often to stop the bile from creeping up his throat.

Hotch finally started the car, and a crushingly heavy silence reigned until they pulled up outside Morgan's house. Hotch's words kept flitting around Morgan's head... he's probably never going to look the same... Morgan had nicknamed him "pretty boy" for a reason, and his face was probably one of the few things about himself of which Reid had never felt insecure. That was taken from him now.

"I have to fire you," Hotch said quietly. Morgan had known it was coming, but the words stung nonetheless. He nodded stiffly. "And it's probably a good idea if you stay away from Reid for a while."

"Tell him," Morgan began, then stopped as his voice cracked. "Tell him I'm sorry."

Hotch didn't look at him as he nodded. "I will," he promised.

Three minutes later, Morgan stood on the cold footpath and watched as the dark sedan containing Hotch and his former life disappeared round a corner.

Ten minutes later, Morgan was crouched over a toilet, heaving out everything he'd had to drink last night, trying to rid his body of the crushing guilt that was consuming him, as the adrenaline and anger had done last night.

Twenty minutes later, he sat on the floor before his television, but his eyes were not fixed to the screen. They were fixed on a picture beside that, a picture of the family he knew he'd been kicked out of, and most particularly, his eyes fixed on the smooth, angular face of his younger brother in all but blood, and it all came crashing down on him what he'd destroyed.

Everytime I trust somebody, it gets thrown back in my face.

He'd never realised how right Reid had been.

A/N: I dunno why... I'm not feeling at all depressed... I think I just wanted something where everything's not fine and dandy by the end. Probably more realistic.

Forgive any errors; I don't have spellcheck at the moment. And forgive my long absence. I've found myself lacking inspiration because I hated Season 7. The writing drove me absolutely nuts. It became formulaic and everything I dislike. But hey, I stuck with House for four seasons after it started to piss me off, so I still watch. Not sure what to think about Blake yet, but I'm watching new season with an open mind. They did fix the Seaver error of making her immediately loved by everyone on the team (not Garcia in that first ep) which was a major plus writing wise.

I'll shut up now. Please leave a review.