Chapter Text
“You did what you had to do and a lot of good people are alive because you did what you did." Gideon fixed him with a stern stare, spoke in a firm tone, for Reid, who was hanging by his words.
"What's the third?" Spencer had inquired.
"I'm proud of you." They both looked away. Nothing else but these words mattered to him in that brief moment, not the blood in his mouth, not his broken ribs, not the life he’d taken.
For as good as Spencer knows his recall is, the more he tries to replay Gideon's words in his mind, the more they’ve started to sound like all the other lies he’s made up to tell himself. No, he didn’t have to do the things he did, and even despite that good people are still dead because he did what he did. Everything feels shaky around him as he stares at the remains of the police tape still stuck on his apartment door.
He hasn’t even cleaned the place, not since the crime scene investigation unit did their perfunctory once over. The gauzy curtains have remained drawn ever since, and when he peers inside, the halfway closed windows shine a faint light onto his mother’s scrapbook. Despite everything it remained open on his coffee table, on the page that Cat had ripped out.
On his way back here, he had mentally counted each time his fingers ran circles around the metal hook of his messenger bag, navigating like a man with his feet stuck deep in mud.
Books and items of clothing are strewn around on the floor, along with a lamp he knocked over, covered in a layer of dust like everything else.
The apartment door opens to the living room then on to his bedroom, and back there barely visible from where he stands, his wardrobe, holding the drawer where he knows he used to hide the vials of dilaudid and sterile needles. Tobias's parting gift. So badly hidden in retrospect that it was like he’d been waiting to be caught.
No one had come looking though.
"I think I'll move." He murmurs, more to himself to break the reverie.
These floors were drenched in Cassie's blood. He might not have killed her but her blood is on his hands, in the same way that Nadie's blood is on his hands. In begging them for help, he ended up being the common denominator to their demise.
What his mind conjures up as the sound of their screams follows him sometimes… Theirs, those of the men he poisoned (Malcolm, mostly Malcolm, not Calvin Shaw). Even if it's not discernible to the naked eye, Spencer knows this with bone-deep certainty: this apartment is rotting from the inside.
Lindsey Vaughn resided here. The full extent of what she’d touched and ruined, he knows he will never know.
So he grips the cardigan Penelope gave him tighter. Unlike prison denim, it's red and soft and feels, in tiny measures, like being held by her. Even as he tries to drown out the echoed memory in his ears 'You want this Spencer, shhhh it’s okay, you want this—' with 'You love me, and I love you, and what we have is pure and transcendental and blueberry-filled.'
The real Penelope is standing right next to him, but he can’t quite bring himself to ask her for comfort.
"I'll look up hotel rooms or—"
"Hey hey. I'm wounded." Derek interrupts in a mock-hurt voice, balancing Spencer's bag in one hand, the keys of his car still dangling in his grasp. "You know that your very good friend who is standing right here has at least four impeccably restored properties?" The inflection of his voice goes from playful to concerned in a matter of seconds.
Some time ago Spencer had given Penelope a key to his apartment. In a spark of color and brightness, she walked in on him staring numbly at a wall, and decided that instant that they must visit Derek because he smells like hope and happiness. You, me and Esther, we're hitting the road.
Which finds him at the end of said visit now, and as if in definite proof that the world itself has turned upside down, Morgan and Garcia haven't exchanged a single flirty comment in the amount of time the three of them have been standing in his hallway. Even the sparkles of her necklace have considerably dimmed in brilliance like a sadly flickering lightbulb, at the end of its lifespan in a dark hallway.
Spencer realizes he doesn’t even know what expression his face must be making, but can guess that has everything to do with it, but before he can get any further on the thought Penelope’s phone chirps, and her already concerned expression, flickering from Reid to Morgan, turns more worried.
“We have a case.”
Derek is the first one to break the silence.
“Hey kid, I’m sure Emily would understand if—”
“I’ve been reinstated.” He interrupts before Derek can go there, before he is forced to acknowledge it.
More uneasy silence fills the hallway. Unable to stand how he’s sucking the life out of two of the most dynamic people he knows any longer, Spencer thanks Derek for his previous offer, thanks both for their time, grabs his bag in the process, and all but runs to the metro station.
He paces.
It had taken around fifteen minutes of walking aimlessly for the bravado to seep out of his body.
He could have left the BAU earlier. He didn’t, instead idling at his desk after the briefing, to go over Henry's drawing many times in a row. He traced every line as if it held the key to unlocking this Spencer Reid, the one that still existed intact in his godson's mind, who took a vacation to go see the beach for three months.
It’s nearing noon when he apathetically kicks the curb, curls plastered to his face, carrying a dull weight at the back of his skull. It would be an hour drive to get to the meeting at best. By public transportation, around four hours. He wouldn't make it in time that way, if he wanted to make it at all, and he wouldn't if he only has his sorry conscience to hold himself accountable.
Which is why it has become a concentrated effort to try and school his features back to calm. When it doesn’t work, he leans his weight against a wall in half-defeat, one cup of coffee in hand, trying to still the other hand from making anxious tap-tapping motions against his thigh, when a dog comes barrelling in his direction, owner in tow only a few paces behind.
The surprise is enough to almost paint the sidewalk in coffee. If he’s being fair, it isn’t as though Luke really knows about his poor history with dogs, so the whole thing just verges on embarrassing.
"Aw she likes you!" Luke reassures, clearly trying to stifle a laugh, looking fondly at the dog. Sensing as the remark does nothing to ease Spencer’s discomfort even still he quickly adds "Here let me replace that."
Luke looks so bright and earnest that the protests that started bubbling up on the younger man’s lips quickly fade.
“No it’s alright.” He says quickly.
It’s not like that’s why they’re here anyways.
“Yeah? You sure? If we’re good to go, then I’m parked right over there.” Luke gestures.
Spencer’s mouth involuntarily tightens into a thin line.
"Thanks again, and I’m sorry to bother you with this." He really is, for having Luke witness him half-heartedly trying to claw his way back up, whether the older man is aware of it or not.
"You’re good, man. We have a few hours before taking off, dropping you off is no issue."
Spencer didn't offer details, but he’d long ago abandoned the pretense that he could blatantly hide something like this from a bunch of expert profilers. They had to know, and it’s not like he’s ever been that good of a liar, even more so now that his body seemed to betray his emotions at every turn.
Still, out of all of them, Luke is the most recent addition to the team, who, he reasons, would have the fewest reasons to jump to the worst conclusions.
The man, thankfully, doesn't make a single mention of it as he drives and parks next to the building that Spencer asked to be dropped off near because he had a thing to take care of first. It’s all out of kindness he supposes, because it isn’t as though he trusts himself with driving, not this soon, when the fading remains of a cut on his hand still burn in reminiscence, and he has to shake himself out of the tremors that crop up every time he zones out, part of him still seemingly trapped in the near past.
While Luke doesn’t pry, it doesn’t stop a second set of four legged eyes, Roxy peers curiously. It’s entirely too much again.
“Thank you, I… um… I’ll find a way back. You don't have to wait up.”
Without further hesitation, he opens the car door, clammy hands gripping the handle, and as he crosses the distance from the car to the building, he tries to drown out every thought that doesn't involve repeating his line like a mantra.
Hi my name is Spencer and I'm an a—
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
From one second to the next, he reaches the threshold and a dozen pairs of eyes turn to him.
He backtracks before his feet cross through the door. It can wait another day. It can even wait another week. A month even.
The SUV is still there. Behind the glass, Roxy barks excitedly, ears forward, her attention scrutinous on him before she lets out a high, keening whine.
The shame is suffocating as it crawls the length of his throat. He pointedly avoids looking in the direction of the driver's seat, standing still at a loss of what to do.
The driver-side door opens.
“Hey it's all good Spence,” he hears Luke say, his eyes still planted firmly on the ground, “I'll bring you back.”
He nods, swallowing down the lingering nagging sensation and breathes a little easier.
"This is Derek Morgan speaking." The man answers, his voice business as usual.
"Morgan, hi it's me … um, is this a good time?"
"Pretty~ Boy!" Spencer can practically hear the unsaid 'Look who figured out the wonders of technology once again!' in his tone. “What’s up?”
"Were you serious about that house?"
“Of course I was. There’s one I think you’ll like. Green walls, just like your apartment.”
“Oh … can I repaint it?”
“So now you’re just insulting me?”
“What? No! I'm sure you did a great job renovating it.” He protests, missing the sarcasm.
“Wait a minute. You should know by now I don't renovate. I restore.”
“Restore, yeah…”
Much to Spencer's chagrin, having a casual phone conversation doesn't come anywhere near as easy as simply coexisting in the same space every day. Though much to his relief, Derek has known him for the better part of a decade.
"Talk to me, kid. How are you holding up?"
"I um… I’ve been having these dreams?"
The silence stretches for a few seconds and he holds his breath in anticipation.
"Nightmares?"
"Nightmares."
I lose my mom in them and I try to reach for her but there is a hole burning in my hand in the spot where Antonia Slade spit her venom and it keeps spreading because I never made peace with—
It would mean breaching the topic of the unsubs they hunt, the very thing Derek had walked away from. So he settles for "You know how it is with the job, I'll figure it out."
He doesn’t think he’ll figure it out, he doesn't trust his capacity to figure things out anymore. It's that tightrope all over again, his mother knew, he never figured it out.
"Kid—"
This was a mistake.
"Sorry I'm—…I have to go. I’ll call you back."
In the end, what more was there to say? He couldn't be happier for him. Truly. He didn't want him to stay. He didn't.
Dread sinks from the pit of his stomach, out and deep into Spencer's bones. Slowly, he leans against the nearest table, tries to focus on the feeling of here, where there are windows to the city lights, doors he is allowed to open, and no reason to walk with his back to the walls. The coin sitting in his pocket becomes impossibly heavy.
Ten years.
He holds it to the light, and his hands start to perform the familiar choreography, the first magic trick he’s ever learned. Sleight of hand, blink and it’s gone.
The chip doesn’t make a sound as it slips out of his unsteady grip and onto the carpeted floor.
Raphael is in his dreams, white wings spanning over him while he tightens his hold on the shovel, to bury his body as instructed. He has nothing but time to think of what he’s done, on his knees surrounded by these seemingly endless lines of graves.
He died here too, some time ago.
Wet leaves are scattered in between the long grass, the earth squelching softly underfoot. The feeling is overwhelming, even over the feeling of the broken bones of his feet.
When Charles Hankel orders that he confess, Spencer does— to being weak, to being a liar and a sinner. He stopped feeling the chill of the Georgia night long ago, and when the words spill out of his mouth, he doesn't try to stop them. The relief is almost unbearable.
Then he is left alone, but not for long because in this shed, the rushing sensation of relief is a feeling he associates with Tobias. That's how he knows he's there before he even sees him.
His eyes are as kind as Spencer remembers them to be.
So overwhelmed with gratitude, Spencer runs to him, begs for his forgiveness. He thanks him for caring, for the lessening of his pain.
In the expanding void that they’re standing in, blinding lights reflect on the solace Tobias holds in the vial in his hand. Then nothing else exists but quivering hands that linger over Spencer’s track marks. Even now Tobias keeps helping him, it’s all he ever did.
“God gave you to me for a reason.” Tobias says again, his voice like a caress.
There were times it kept him up at night, on the days when the hatred dug deep. The idea that he should have walked out of there with an illumination, that there was an important point he’d missed entirely.
He doesn’t know.
He only knows that Tobias Hankel was his friend.
That maybe neither of them should have left that cemetery that day… that maybe neither of them have, and that’s all there was to it. So he digs and digs and digs as fast as he can.
Sometimes though, Tobias distorts into Benjamin Cyrus and Spencer hears the rest of it: 'God wants to save you, that's the reason', but there is no one to stop the cult leader, Derek has long since left.
There are a few minutes of respite on the third day of the case. He’s left behind at the police station, and he recognizes it for what it is, Emily makes him sit with her.
She thinks the limb will not break. The thought of letting her down, after everything, is a pain that cuts worse than being stabbed, so he goes on.
But the itch from his arm spreads to his every muscle, and he wonders just how much of that trust was misplaced. He opts to ignore the problem until it reaches the point where he can’t.
He stares at the map. The clock is ticking and the unsub’s pattern of movement doesn’t become any clearer.
Before him, the red thumb tacks stand out at each point of interest. He reaches to touch them and flinches as doors slam open at the same moment that cries ring out in the distance. The victim’s mother. The gruesome picture of her son is pinned to a board next to the map, barely recognizable. From underneath the room to the ceiling, there’s a palpable sense of despair surrounding and coating everything.
The lights burn his eyes. When he rubs them everything blurs in his peripheral vision, there’s only that picture in the center, burned into the forefront of his mind.
He has done this a thousand times, he used to be able to do this in his sleep. But all eyes are on him, judging, waiting. He wishes he could push them all out of the room, to give himself the space to breathe, to think without the weight of expectation.
Three hours later, it all starts to disentangle in his brain. Three hours. It sends them on an uncertain trail, and it's the unsubs that find them first.
There are two of them, their build reminiscent of once upon a time in a prison cell. He knows something is intuitively wrong in the way his limbs slowly lock in place, it comes in increments, then all at once, and when his senses scream danger, when he feels their presence a breath away— and they might or might not even be there but his ribs distantly ache in reminiscence— but the moment catches up with him and before he can stop it, his vision starts to go black around the edges, and then all at once, there’s nothing.
He knows this because much later, when Luke is shaking him out of it, bringing him back to the surface, Spencer sees injuries on him that should never have been there. So he fills in the blanks and adds this to the growing list in his mind, of the times he's let someone down. It’s just a blip, in the face of everything he’s lost, but he can’t lie to himself and say it doesn’t matter.
He tastes blood in his mouth.
There is a point where he should have cut his losses.
It’s times like right now that he thinks of death. In the idle hours between the briefings, as he goes into the field to take down an unsub, and in the deafening silence and sweat he’s woken up in every morning ever since. More likely than not, he alternates between crippling fear and anger, anger and fear, each emotion an exchange that ultimately circles back to shameful want. Between wanting to die and wanting to flood his brain to the point of euphoria— to be so high there will be no chance of even a single thought permeating his head.
He fantasizes about having to face no one ever again in his miserable life, likes to go on with the idea that maybe he won’t have to for much longer.
It’s all that's left from what Cat Adams ate alive and spat out.
But Luke visibly exhales and Spencer looks heavenward. They both hold fast.
Cat Adams is in his nightmares. The lack of clarity or recall, realities meshing and mixing together with what precedes it. The telltale sign is when he can’t discern where ‘you want this’ ends and ‘trust me, tell me it doesn't make it better' begins. He knows then that Tobias can't help him.
A basement turns into a hotel room in Mexico, a hotel room into a laundry room and then into a prison cell— but there is a washing machine standing out of place against the wall, walls closing in, always. There is no relief to be found in this place.
Emily's words come to life in Cat's voice.
You'll find your soulmate in prison, and when it comes for you, in the middle of the night, when you're least expecting it, do me a favor... play along…
Fear sucks the air out of his lungs. It's akin to the familiar feeling of struggling to breathe, his back against the ground in a shed. He curses Tobias for bringing him back to life that day.
So he fires blindly, forgets all about front sight - trigger press - follow through, and keeps pulling the trigger when there are no more bullets in the chamber. He kills her ten times over but each time it's Tobias that dies, eyes wide in betrayal, blood pouring from his chest where the bullet went through, and Cat keeps standing.
Solace turns into poison in her hand, then poison into leeches. He watches outside of his body, paralyzed as they crawl and close in.
Don't be the boy who cried rape, Spencie
The washing machine spins, slow and ambient, as though the cycle is nearing its end.
It hits him when he jerks awake, dry heaving against the floor, arms weak and barely able to hold himself against the tremors each tide of nausea brings.
Cat Adams will never die. Not for as long as he still lives.
When he knows that he is alone in the room, he feels as his body curls in onto itself, fetal and fragile, the broken body of a man, and he weeps.
It's another two days hazy before they finally pack.
The air is dense and oppressive with a sticky humid heat. Out in the hallway, Luke is a few steps ahead of him when he loses sight of the man to the black dots that swarm his vision. He dips into the bathroom, feet carrying him blindly as his hands feel out porcelain. Leaning against the sink, Spencer splashes cold water over his face, letting it trickle down, then comes back to the bedroom area with quick steps, wanting to put this behind them as quickly as possible.
The smell is there again, of blood and detergent and sweat. He's rubbed his skin dry in hopes of getting rid of the phantom sensation of leeches.
As he moves to close the door, the toothbrush falls out of his sleeve, and onto the floor, a few inches from Luke's feet.
For a few seconds, as his collar sticks uncomfortably to his neck, he has an internal debate on which would be the less mortifying option: darting off into the dark of night, mortification intact, or staying and facing Luke (and possibly assuring him that he is in no danger of being stabbed with a shiv)
He silently mourns whatever progress he imagines he’s made in his teammate's eyes when the light-headedness comes. In the next seconds, the trembling from his fingertips moves up into his entire body. It's impossible to think past the growing noise of deafening static, the gravel filling his lungs.
When he looks up, Luke is standing still in front of his prone figure, he moves his hands before stopping himself, as if debating on the best course of action, and finally he closes his fists at his sides.
“Spence…” he starts, and Spencer must have been looking exactly the way he feels because Luke's usually sunny demeanor sours. "I can let the team know we had an issue with the car."
He can't read Luke well enough to know his thoughts on all of this, but Spencer knows this: he would be dead if not for him, and Luke never mentions it. To anyone. Ever.
But Spencer desperately wants to know, so he watches Luke watch him, manages a strained smile in place of verbal thanks, hoping to convey how much he appreciates the non-gesture.
Later, it must be by pure force of will that he’s able to drag himself back to their hotel room without stumbling once, but they make very slow progress as Luke looks back regularly to check on him.
Spencer intentionally keeps a few steps between them because the dangerous and ever-looming probability of throwing up within Luke's vicinity would be his last straw for today.
Having witnessed him at some of his lowest points within the first few months of knowing him, desperately, he wishes for this not to be the association he makes when he thinks of Spencer, doesn't want to make it even worse.
He wonders what Luke's last straw would be. He wonders how close he’s come to crossing that threshold.
My name is Spencer and I'm—
Doctor. Agent. Addict. Convict.
I thought it was over, But recently I'm— I've really been... Your literature uses the term craving.
But Luke says ‘you did great back there’. He squeezes his shoulder and Spencer is twenty-two, successfully solving his first case again. Clinging to this like a lifeline because he has been a free-falling disaster for months on end now. It feels like a personal recognition that it wasn't a monumental waste of time and effort for Luke to save his miserable life back in prison. It was worth something.
He says Spencer has an injury, and for a moment, everything wrong feels a little less inescapable.
The key card shakes in his hand as he hands it to Luke. Behind him, Spencer waits as he scans the room for a few seconds, left to right then right to left. It is hardly necessary, but it helps much more than he knows.
The stab wound on his thigh burns distantly on the fringe of his awareness. It barely registers when the full focus of Luke's gaze roots him to the spot. Slowly, his brain catches up, autonomic nervous system reengaging after the lag, and he remembers how to breathe, filling his lungs again, he exhales.