Chapter Text
Your breaths sounded too loud in your ears. You followed Spencer closely, gun trained down to the floor. You trailed after him, in the empty corridors of the high school, so silent, too silent, in a way that felt haunting.
You found all of them in a bathroom, gun trained on Jack Vaughn, just like Spencer’s. You didn’t say a thing, only hearing Spencer’s words trying to get him to put the gun down, to not keep going through the violence.
“When does it end?” You heard finally, and you knew he was still hopeful to his core, that this man in front of you would not act upon one last piece of violence.
But you knew from the look in his eyes that he wouldn’t. You knew from the way his fingers twitched on the gun. You knew, because men like him never stopped, even when they thought they could or should for their loved ones, for whatever motive they had decided to follow. Violence always came back around, somehow.
You still flinched when the gunshot rang in the small space, still cringed away from the blood that was running down the floor from the kid’s body lying there, life slipping out of him. You didn’t look at him for long, though, not when Spencer was frozen, his eyes on him.
You could see something break in him, in his eyes, along his shoulders, and down his spine. You could see something give, something still so fragile in him, something you did not know about because he kept his ghosts close to his chest, just like you did.
Most days, you did not talk about it. You didn’t act on the way you wanted to get closer to him and reassure him, somehow, some way. Most days.
Right there, right then, you stepped between him and the body, trying to hide the sight from his eyes, even with your smaller frame, even when you knew he would never forget, his brain never letting him forget.
You reached for his hand, gently, slowly, letting him get used to the feeling. He was shaking like a leaf and it made your heart break, to see him like this, haunted and vulnerable. You took the gun out of his fingers, putting it back into his holster, stepping closer in his space to do so.
You never let go of his hand, fingers closing around his, squeezing to try to bring him back from the thoughts and images in his mind.
You didn’t say a thing. You didn’t know what to say. You had never been good with words, never been good with expressing what was going through your mind. You were even worse then, not knowing what to say in this situation. Nothing you could say would stop the blood from spilling on the tiled floor, would stop him from thinking he had failed somehow.
You heard footsteps, part of the team trickling in. Derek, Rossi, and Hotch. They looked at you questioningly, worried over Spencer’s state, frozen before you. You shook your head.
They saw the body, Rossi and Hotch getting closer to see. Derek stayed close to the two of you.
“You okay, Reid?” He asked, softly, and it reminded you how much he cared for Spencer, how much the team cared for each other, and how you were trying to care for Spencer just as much as any of them did.
“I…I tried, but I…I couldn’t…” And it made your heart break further, cracks along it opening more, and you squeezed his hand a bit more.
His brown eyes found your face finally, like he was seeing you again, for the first time, in front of him. You could see the pain and loss behind those eyes, the added haunting to what had already been there, the added ghost of regret and pain.
You didn’t let go of his hand even when you walked out of the bathroom and into the SUV, back to the hotel you had been staying in for the case. You didn’t really know why, why it felt so right, why it felt impossible for you to pull away. You wanted to remind him you were there.
He didn’t let go either, and you didn’t know why, not really. You hoped it was reassuring to have your palm against his, to have the occasional twitch of your fingers against his skin.
You only let go when you slipped into your respective bedrooms to get your bags out. You didn’t try to hold his hand again in the jet, but you took the seat next to his, needing to be close, for himself and for…yourself.
Spencer didn’t talk about it even when you got back, even when days went by and cases kept on coming, but you could see the way it ate at him, the way the bags under his eyes grew more prominent and the stubble on his jaw more present like he didn’t take the time to shave every morning.
You yawned into your hand, taken out of bed, and straight back into work when a case came in late in the evening. Night had already taken root, the sky dark, and you couldn’t believe you were all once again in the conference room for more work.
All, except for Spencer. You were curious as to where he was. He was never late, not since you came into the job. And when you thought that, he strode in quickly, taking the empty spot next to you.
“Sorry I was at the movies,” he said quickly, eyes already focused on the file in front of him, fingers around a pen.
You tilted your head, watching over his face and how he tried to deflect and get to the case. You knew he was lying. You didn’t need to profile him to do so. You knew you had grown too curious, too observant of Dr Spencer Reid. You knew something was off, had been off for days, and was worse tonight.
You didn’t ask him. You didn’t ask him even on the way to the case, in the jet. You didn’t ask him in the SUV.
You didn’t dare ask him. You knew opening him up to your eyes would make you open you up to his, and you couldn’t do that. So, you didn’t. You didn’t ask.
You still didn’t say a thing when you saw the tension in his body and in his voice, heard the way he snapped at others and the team. It confused you. You had never seen him like that, aggressive, snapping at everything and anyone that came his way.
You wondered if something in the case triggered this response, wondered as you looked around Owen Savage’s room, the posters and the black clothes, and the reflection of who he was.
“He was a loner,” you said out loud, voice quiet in the tenseness of what Spencer was radiating from the other side of the room. Everything screamed that he had been isolated, misunderstood and that he tried to find comfort and identity in things like him. “It’s almost too easy, the things you can find just in a bedroom…”
“Doesn’t mean anything,” Spencer said, almost in a snappy tone, but not really. You looked up to watch him from the doorway of the closet, and you knew he wasn’t snapping at you, not really, but more at the situation.
You shrugged, and, somehow, you tried to reach out to him with words, tried to make him stop swirling down in his anger and bitterness by offering a piece of yourself. “I think it does, though. I barely had anything in my teenage bedroom, and I’m pretty sure it said that I tried not to allow myself to form any attachment to the place.”
You saw how he froze in the doorway, blinking slowly at you, softening line by line at your words. His shoulders sagged a little, and you gave him a little embarrassed smile, a little tight around the edges.
“You need to…try to get out of your head, Spencer,” you said softly. “The sheriff back there looked like he was going to get you. And Hotch didn’t seem too happy either.”
He didn’t say anything, not when he went and you stayed in the room to try to find something, fingers going over the keyboard, trying to find the password. You bit your lips, wondering if you should call Penelope to try to get the way in more easily.
The computer wallpaper was a picture of Owen’s mother, and it ticked something in you, the necklace, the word on it. “Hope”. You tried it, and it worked.
It was empty. There was nothing on it, except for one video, one you opened slowly, one you watched until you felt like throwing up, fingers rubbing at your eyes. You understood why he was doing everything he was doing - revenge. Revenge on people who had hurt him again and again, and you had to shut the video off, calling Hotch, Spencer, and Derek to let them know what you had found.
You felt restless and useless in the bedroom, even with Penelope against your ear trying to get your mind off the case, looking into the computer, trying to get things out of what had been deleted. You felt restless in this very bedroom, this kid’s life that had been nothing but torment and disaster.
It was easier when it was serial killers with no empathy, motives those of monsters. It wasn’t easy when it was a kid you could understand, you could relate to, maybe not fully, but just enough, just enough to have your hands shaking.
You almost jumped when you heard footsteps and Spencer appeared in the doorway. You stood up from the desk chair, eyes questioning his very presence.
“What are you doing here?” You asked, confused. He was supposed to be back at the local precinct, giving the profile and trying to find him. Instead, he was in front of you, the same tenseness still in his shoulders, the same anguish in his eyes.
“Hotch told me to try to find something here,” he answered simply, voice empty of anything, and you nodded. You gave him space when he got on the computer, skimming through the emails Penelope and you had salvaged, faster than you ever could, bringing him back a cup of coffee and one for yourself.
You sat on the edge of the bed, tapping on the cup, watching Spencer’s back, the way his hair had gotten longer, the way he held himself over the keyboard.
“Why did Hotch really send you here?” You asked, finally. You had to. You couldn’t keep yourself from asking now.
The clicking of the keys stopped, his hands hovering over the keyboard aimlessly, and he turned to you slowly, hands settling over his knees. He was restless, unable to keep still.
“I…I may have said some things that were not…” He sighed. “Said it’d be better if I was here.”
You nodded. You didn’t need for him to explain further, to know that it was because the case was hitting too close to home, too close for comfort.
“I feel sorry for the kid,” you whispered, knowing he’d understand, knowing he wouldn’t judge you for your words, for the way you felt for a murderer. And it didn’t justify what he did, but you understood. “Growing up with so much shit? And that…video? God, I…”
Spencer looked at you curiously, trying to decipher something in you, because he understood Owen, but you were sure he didn’t understand how you did. You were strong and all pulled together, but it was all a facade. A facade you had fabricated and taped on so well nobody saw through it, nobody wondered over the years.
You wanted to tell him. You wanted to show him he wasn’t alone, and that he could trust you. And maybe it would be the biggest mistake of your life, maybe you’d regret it in a few days, or a few weeks, or months, or years. Maybe you’d wonder why you ever let this man in your mind and in your life, maybe you’d be crying because of another loss to add to your collection, but you wanted to try. You wanted to try so badly.
“I…lost my parents at eight,” and it felt like an euphemism. “Lost” was too simple a word, encapsulating nothing of what had really happened that night, what had transpired in that basement and in front of your eyes, but you weren’t ready for everything to be taken out of your chest. “Everyone, everything around me rejected me, after that.”
A rejection that would not make sense to him, without the context, but you still kept that part of your past to yourself, still unable to let it go and show it to others, even him.
“Then I spent four years in foster care, being tossed around, in the same city and then from city to city, always being the new kid in school. It wasn’t…a very good thing. I was shy and introverted, anxious, and…well, kids see your weaknesses right away and play with them,” your voice trembled and you could see Spencer’s eyes soften, see him relax in the space between the both of you. “It was…complicated.”
You didn’t add anything more. You didn’t want to delve back into the things those kids had said or done, those things that had you swirl further into yourself, worsening your state with what had happened that night.
You didn’t expect anything out of him, out of exchange because you had given something to him, a sliver of yourself in a sea of hiding yourself away, hiding all of the parts of yourself. And you wouldn’t tell him that he knew you better than anyone else in the world now, with all of the little pieces of information you gave him, even when he didn’t know anything still.
“I was in the library and, um… Harper Hillman comes up to me, and she tells me that, uh… Alexa Lisbon wants to meet me behind the field house. Alexa Lisbon’s like, easily, the prettiest girl in school,” he said softly, hesitating on some parts, like he didn’t know if he wanted to think about it or talk about it. You nodded, giving him a little smile, one that wanted to be reassuring, and comforting, even when your heart was a painful thing in your chest. You knew where it would be going, knew from the look in his eyes and his voice, fleeting and small. “Alexa was there. So was the entire football team. They… stripped me naked and tied me to a goalpost. So many kids were there, you know, just watching.”
You shut your eyes tightly, biting your lower lip, before opening your eyes again. You leaned forward on the bed, letting your hand hover in the space between you, elbow on your knee. You kept it open, palm up to the ceiling, watching his face.
“Nobody tried to stop it?” You asked gently, but you knew the answer already.
He shook his head. “I begged… I begged them to, but they just… just watched. And… finally, they got bored and they left.” You could tell his eyes were lost in the moment, far away, moving quickly, but they weren’t on you or anywhere in the room. He was back there still, and you wanted to cry for the boy he had been, for the man he is still impacted by what had happened. “It was like midnight when I finally got home. And my mom had… mom was having one of her episodes, so she didn’t even realize I was late.”
You hated the way his voice trembled, shook with his words, the way his eyes glazed over with unshed tears.
And you understood you cared for him already, so much so that you wished you could take the pain away from him, that you wished you could have been there for him, this man who had deserved more than he had ever gotten from life.
“Did you ever tell her?”
“I never told anybody. I thought… it was one of those things that I thought if I didn’t talk about it, I’d just forget. But I remember it like it was yesterday.”
His voice broke on the last word, but his hand found yours, palm sliding against yours, fingers settling over your wrist. You had to take a deep breath, over the contact and the fact that, just like you, he had never told anyone. Anyone but you and him.
“You deserved better. No one deserves to be treated like that, but I…” You trailed off, your fingertips twitching over his wrist and the hem of his soft cardigan. “I don’t know everybody, but I know you. And you didn’t deserve any of it, Spencer.”
He nodded slightly, rubbing at his eyes and the tears in them with his free hand. “You didn’t deserve any of it either, whatever they said or did to you,” he whispered and it felt like something snapped between you, an invisible string you wouldn’t be able to untangle anymore, one you didn’t want to cut off.
And for once in your life, you didn’t want to pull away. You didn’t see the worst sides of what could happen. You only saw his larger hand around yours and felt his heartbeat at his wrist, and it was enough.
“Owen just wants to forget. I know what that’s like,” and his eyes were in yours. There was the ghost of something else in those words, but you wouldn’t try to piece it out now. You wouldn’t, not yet.
Your hands slipped away from each other. You settle it back on the bed, his on his knee.
“I read through some of the emails. He’s…always saying goodbye to Jordan, somehow. Always making sure he is, in ways people don’t usually do it,” you remarked, your finger pointing at the screen behind him, emails opened.
“Abandonment is his biggest fear,” Spencer said, eyes on the ground and back to you, and you could see the cogs turning in his eyes, the way his brain operated and found the reason why. “He never got to say goodbye to his mother. And that’s why he chose Jordan, he thinks she’ll never leave.”
“Without her, he’ll take his own life,” you whispered, because that was the thing that made the more sense. With her, he continued on his rampage and killings, alive. Without her, he’d let himself die, without a reason to go on.
The ride back to the local precinct was silent, but not tense, not in the way Spencer had been for the past few days. And you were happy to get out of Owen’s bedroom, out of the proofs of who he was.
You did not stay much with Spencer after that, helping JJ and Emily with sending messages to Jordan, and staying in the local precinct even when they went to try to find them at the ranch, and Owen at his mother’s grave.
You were only startled when you saw Spencer back in the precinct without Hotch, Rossi, and Derek. He was supposed to be at the graveyard, not here, alone, asking Jordan about a necklace.
“He’s coming here,” he said urgently to you and Emily, and you followed after him, right on his heels.
“So? What’s the plan, Spencer?” You tried to ask urgently yourself, not letting him walk away alone, hot on his trail. You only realized what he was about to do when he walked out of the station. “Spencer, you can’t…”
You saw Owen before Spencer even did, and you tried to follow, even when he pushed his own gun in your hands, and you looked at him in panic. “Cover me, please,” he asked finally.
You shook your head, trying to follow still, “Spence, don’t…” The nickname slipped out of your mouth without even meaning to, natural and rolling off your tongue easily, too easily.
His hand made you stop. “And don’t shoot!”
“Spence! Wait! Spence, don’t!” You tried to say, voice straining even in your ears, and all you could do was take cover against the wall, gun trained at Owen, but your eyes were on Spencer’s back the whole time. You knew it was a mistake, if anything happened, but you couldn’t do anything but watch his raised hands.
You couldn’t hear the words that were said between the two. You could only see Spencer’s body hiding Owen from your line of fire, and the line of fire of the three that had arrived. You could only see the gun that could kill him in an instant, in Owen’s hands.
And you hated the way your mind swirled at the sight, just like it had done when Penelope’s life was on the line. You hated the way your body reacted, with the need to shut off and away. You hated it. That was why you had vowed not to let people in, that was why you had vowed never to let it happen to you ever again, but there you were, once again.
Again and again and again.
And your therapist said you couldn’t cut yourself away from people. Said you were human, like everyone else, and that you were made for social interactions and social connection. You knew that. You understood it.
You knew it, because you couldn’t help but stick around and talk to the team and go out with them to a restaurant or a bar. Because you couldn’t help but follow Spencer into art exhibitions and movies in languages you didn’t even understand. You couldn’t help it.
But here you were, breathing finally once the gun was put to the ground, and you knew Spencer was safe, relief flooding your body and pouring into your veins.
Your relief was so heavy, eyes heavy with sleep in the jet. You didn’t like falling asleep in public, even with the team. They didn’t know your nights were plagued with ghosts, and you liked keeping it like that, so you fought the sleep away.
You heard bribes of the conversation between Hotch and Spencer, heard Hotch move away and it made you move, sitting in front of him, instead of the couch you so wanted to fall asleep on.
You watched Spencer, his fingers around a coin that didn’t look like a penny. You watched until you made sense of what it was, piecing together the parts of what he had given you, and taping them together in what made sense.
“So, you’re going to finish that movie?” You asked finally, yawning into your hand, rubbing at your eyes to try to fight the tiredness away still.
“I think so, yeah,” he murmured and you nodded. His eyes stayed on that coin, fingers making it move.
You hummed, curling into yourself in the way you liked doing, knees against your chest. “Do you want some company?”
His head whipped up, and his eyes tried to search in your face, mouth opening and closing. You swallowed around the knot in your throat, wondering if you had made a mistake in asking.
“Not that I…I won’t go in. Just, I’ll stay outside?” You asked, almost unsure, not knowing how it worked. “Maybe it was a stupid idea. Sorry, forget I said anything, Spence.”
He shook his head, putting the coin back in his pocket. “No, no! I’d…like that.” And he gave only a little smile, but it was more real than anything he had given you in the past few days so you nodded.
You followed him when the plane landed, sitting in front of the church, waiting for him to come back out. You took the time to look up at the sky. You couldn’t see the stars, not in the city, but the moon shone brightly. You felt the wind on your skin, and you got lost in your head, relaxing in the quietness of the place and the fact that you were out of work.
Men got out, one by one. They trickled out quickly, talking between each other, or simply walking away, surely home. Spencer stood tall, sticking like a sore thumb in the bunch of them, soft cardigan and messy long hair between the more serious-looking cops. You smiled at him from your little spot on a granite bench, standing up when he got closer.
“It went okay?” You asked gently, and he nodded, eyes searching your face, fleeting from one spot to another.
“Most people would ask by this point,” he pointed out and you laughed a little, scratching at your neck.
“I guess I’m not most people,” you joked, shifting from one foot to another. “I just…think you’ll tell me when you want to.”
“I…want to. But not here. Do you want to stop by my place? It’s late but, uh, we could really watch a movie?” He asked, unsure, and you nodded, smiling up at him with a smile that was wider than most smiles you gave away. It felt strange, foreign on your face, in the movement of your cheeks.
You weren’t surprised when you crossed the threshold, the lines of bookshelves and books everywhere, the chess boards and chess pieces, the warm green of the walls. It was all him and it made you smile.
You thanked him when he handed you a warm cup of tea, curling into his couch. He didn’t put on a movie. He only sat down next to you, sipping on his cup, and you waited. You knew he would tell you now, you could feel it in how he tried to brace for something.
“I…got addicted to Dilaudid, after a case,” Spencer finally said in the silence, voice quiet and fragile. He sounded and looked vulnerable, which made you lean closer, to try to remind him that you weren’t going anywhere. “I was…taken and tortured. And drugged. It…made me escape from the situation and memories. After that, I…couldn’t stop. I needed it to escape, from the nightmares and everything.”
You nodded. “Not just from that situation though, right?” Your voice was soft. You didn’t want to spook him, didn’t want to dig too deep and make him shut off, when he was willing to confide in you, willing to trust you.
“I have so many memories, so many things I keep remembering and seeing that…are not great,” he gave out a scoff of a laugh, a bitter little thing, that made you lean against his shoulder, only a little. “Things like I told you about at school. Moments with my…my mom. She’s got schizophrenia and it’s…there’s been so many episodes where she wasn’t okay but I was the only one there for her. I only got her institutionalized when I turned eighteen, and it broke me. Still does, I think.”
You left your cup on the table to catch his hand, your fingers unmoving even when you pressed against his hand. You didn’t say a thing, waiting for him to continue.
“I’ve been…ten months clean. But it’s hard, it’s hard to choose not to do it every day. It’s hard, especially when we…live through cases like the one today, or like the one where I tried saving that kid but couldn’t. It’s so hard.”
You nodded again, squeezing his fingers, and he squeezed right back, brown eyes over your hands. Something fluttered in your chest. It felt right to be there with him, in his space, and it scared you. It made you want to run away, but you didn’t. You stayed right there.
“You’re very brave, Spence. Not many would do the things that you are doing and get through them,” you answered finally, smiling up at him. “You did not fail your mother, you did not fail yourself, nor did you fail that kid. We can’t…save everyone. We can only try and hope to god that it’s going to work out, because we did the best we could.”
His eyes traveled over your face, and he nodded too, sagging into the couch, head back against it.
“Thanks for being here,” he whispered and you wanted to cry at his words, wanted to cry because no one had ever said those words to you, thanking you for just being a presence in the room. And you knew it was your fault for pushing away others over the years, you knew it was all you.
“It’s okay. I wanted to be here.” And you did. You wanted to be there for him, even when it scared you, even when a part of you wondered if any of it was a good idea, even when the survival part of yourself screamed to run, even when the hidden parts of you said to keep quiet. “I…don’t know addiction, but I know how it is to want to get out of yourself.”
You said too much. You said way too much, but you couldn’t regret how the words stumbled out, when his eyes looked over you from his spot on the couch, when that invisible string pulled you together and pulled words out of you, truths you had never told anyone.
“I…tried once. I was fourteen. It didn’t work,” you said slowly, not giving out any details, because you didn’t need to. He had understood, fingers squeezing yours, that similar ache resonating in the both of you. “I was resentful of still being there, in my own body and mind, for so long. I…still am, sometimes, but I think it’s getting better. All we can do is try, right?”
You didn’t elaborate. He didn’t either. Your hands stayed together, even when you sipped on the tea turned cold now, relishing in the warmth of a connection you didn’t know you could have, relishing in the moment, in the torment of everything around you.
A moment of warm sun that you grabbed in your greedy hands before it fleeted away.