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Somehow, in a room full of some of the most skilled profilers alive, Spencer never felt less understood.
He’d been clean for a month. A full month without relying on dilaudid to numb the constant pain he was in. And while it’d been one of the worst of his life—dilaudid withdrawals were a bitch—the pride he felt whenever he looked at his arm without being greeted with new injection marks made it all worth it. All the isolation to keep from snapping at anyone like he had at Prentiss, the restless nights, the constant voice in his head telling him to shoot up again, paled in comparison to knowing he’d begun to overcome one of the darkest periods of his life.
Which made relapsing even worse.
Spencer refused to come into work that day. Or the next. Or the next, for a week straight. He told Hotch he had a “family emergency” and apart from a couple of texts, nobody pried. He spiraled in silence until eight days into his absence.
In his half-asleep stupor aggravated by his drug comedown, he barely acknowledged the faint knock at the door. It was probably just the landlord coming to remind him of his overdue rent, how he was at risk of being evicted, how he’d call the cops if he had to, all that fun bullshit. When the knock came a bit more aggressively, though, he reluctantly got up from the couch.
He unlocked the door, ready to tell whoever was standing there to fuck off, when he realized the intruder was in fact Penelope Garcia. She sure was a sight for sore eyes. Literally. Her bright red cardigan with its matching red tight burned his tired eyes when he looked at them for too long.
Garcia’s eyes widened as she took in her disheveled mess of a friend. “You look like a sad, homeless puppy.”
Spencer resisted the urge to shut the door on her right then and there. “Thanks, Garcia,” he deadpanned. He hadn’t looked in a mirror for a bit but he didn’t doubt her words. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d showered, changed his clothes, or drank anything that wasn’t coffee. All the days just blended together.
“Reid, where have you been?” she asked. “Hotch said you had a family emergency but didn’t give me any more details than that. I couldn’t find anything on your mom getting hospitalized in the past week or you taking any flights anywhere or-”
“Did you seriously deep dive on me?” He glared at her in disgust. “Real nice, Garcia. Way to respect boundaries. Hey, next time you don’t show up to work, why don’t I look into your family history, unprompted?”
Her face fell. Somehow, she looked even more worried than before. “What happened?” she asked, her voice soft as though speaking to a scared puppy. Which honestly, wasn’t too far from the truth.
Spencer tensed. His grip on the door handle tightened. “Goodbye, Garcia,” he said.
Before he could shut the door, she jammed her foot in the doorway, using her own weight to push it the rest of the way open. “Not until you tell me what has my boy wonder looking like someone stole his first edition of that John Smith book you’re so obsessed with!”
“Garcia-”
She ignored him, pushing her way into his apartment. When she was inside, she took in the mess around her. During his week long bender of sorts, he hadn’t cleaned whatsoever. Half-empty mugs of cold coffee littered every surface imaginable. Several of his precious books lay strewn about, some with bookmarks and others laid face down and open, as though he’d attempted to read them but gave up at varying points through each. Clothes that’d needed washed for weeks were in piles in corners, forgotten. The dirty dishes in the kitchen sink were stacked nefariously high. The only signs he’d properly eaten anything were the fast food containers in the garbage cans which desperately needed to be emptied
As messy as Reid could be when his head wasn’t in the right place, this was… A bit much. Even for him.
“Oh dear,” Garcia said, turning around in a circle as she took in the mess around her. Had a garbage truck emptied its load in his apartment right before a tornado blew through?
Reid kept his eyes on the ground. Having someone—his best friend and coworker no less—witness the manifestation of his mental illness and seeing their reaction gave him the sobering realization of just how bad things were. Bile rose in his throat.
Once she finished her scan, Garcia turned to face him. “Reid, what is going on?”
“It’s nothing,” came his robotic response.
“This is not nothing!” she said, gesturing with her hands. “This is… Very obviously something! A big something, too.”
“I haven’t cleaned in a few days. So what?”
Garcia grew more dramatic in her wild gesticulations. “You are living in a pigsty! This is worse than my apartment! I mean, hygienics wise. I might be at risk of being crushed by a pile of shinies at any given moment but at least I don’t have to worry about rats.”
Rats. Just thinking about them made Reid stiffen. Rats, squeaking in the dark corners of the room. Rats, sitting in front of him, too bold to fear him. Maybe they just knew he couldn’t do anything. Rats, running over his feet, undeterred by the fact he could kick them off if he really tried since he’d lost the energy to move any of his sore, tied-up limbs. Rats, rats, rats.
“I do not-” His voice broke mid-shout, tears welling up in his eyes. In a much more defeated tone, he murmured, “I don’t have rats. I don’t.”
Desperate to comfort her friend, Garcia reached out to gently touch his arm, but Reid jerked back, a pathetic whimper leaving him. “Spencer,” she quietly said. “Please just talk to me. You can trust me.”
Reid sniffled. He blinked rapidly in efforts to keep the tears at bay. “You need to go home, Garcia.”
“Tell me to go home again, and Spencer Reid, I swear to all that is holy, I will clean your house.”
Reid paused, looking at Garcia for the first time yet. Her in all her colorful, extravagant glory, her arms crossed over her chest, her expression a mix of worry and determination. “You’ll… What?”
“You heard me!” she said. “I will clean your house so hard, you will be absolutely terrified. And- And I will warn you, it’ll be a horrible job because you’ve my house, and my desk, and my… My person.” She motioned to the numerous thrifted necklaces hanging on her neck. “Decluttering is not my strong suit, but I will try and I will make this place spotless if you dare try to push me out, Spencer. You will not succeed. Not only was I a fairy in another life and a peacock but I was a mule, too. A stubborn one.”
A beat passed without any reaction from Reid. For a moment, Garcia feared her sad excuse of a threat hadn’t made any impact. Her fears were assuaged when, in a meek voice, he finally spoke.
“Do you remember Hankel?”
New fears came crashing into her. “Yes, of course I do. How could I forget?”
He shrugged. “Do… Do you remember how he kept me unconscious?”
“With drugs,” she said, unsure as to where this was going.
“Dilaudid,” he specified. His gaze fell again. “It’s a narcotic used to treat moderate to severe pain, it… It blocks pain signals from reaching your brain. And…”
“And?”
Reid took a deep, shaky breath. “It has a very high risk level for addiction.”
Garcia gasped and the silence came back. Pure, uninterrupted silence, as tense and as terrifying as ever. What if Garcia judged him? What if she told someone? If anyone else on the team, like Hotch or Morgan, ever found out, he’d never live it down. Spencer Reid, the so called “smartest” member of the BAU, was actually the weakest. If an IQ of 189 couldn’t help him be smart enough to not get addicted to drugs, to not tell anyone about his struggles, to effectively hide them from the world, what the hell was it good for? What was he good for if he was destined to just be a broken, traumatized, drugged-up mess of a human being?
“You have a drug addiction,” Garcia whispered to herself. Tears welled up in her eyes, ruining her mascara.
He clenched his fists tightly, angry at himself for saying anything. When he saw the black streaks streaming down her cheeks, the ache for the numbing feeling of dilaudid came rushing back. How dare he make Penelope cry? “You need to go,” he said.
“No, Spencer, I- I won’t.”
“Get out of my house, Garcia!” he shouted.
“No!” she shouted back. “I am not leaving you alone to shoot up again. You don’t deserve that, you don’t deserve to be feeling like this.”
Reid scoffed, crossing his arms. “It’s not like it’s changing any time soon,”
“But it can if-”
“No, it can’t,” he interrupted.
“-if you just… Reach out, you need to tell someone.”
“Well I just did, and telling someone does nothing!” By now, Reid was crying. “It’s not worth it. Nothing will change, because nobody cares.”
Garcia’s mouth fell open. “I care, I care so much. How do you not know that?”
He wiped his eyes off with the sleeve of his shirt, a bitter laugh escaping him. “I’ve been addicted for months, Penelope, and nobody ever noticed!” His hands trembled violently. It was the first time he’d outwardly acknowledged it. The only family he had within hundreds of miles didn’t care enough to notice him dying inside. They turned a blind eye time and time again. His voice shook as he repeated, “Nobody noticed.”
They stood there, both crying for different reasons. Penelope at realizing her sweet boy genius had been suffering in silence for so long, and Spencer at realizing just how much holding it all in hurt. After a moment, Penelope whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Spencer sniffled. “What are you sorry for?”
“That we never did anything to help you. We… We all love you so much, Spencer. None of us want you to be in pain. If you’d told us, we would’ve done something. If we’d known…” She hiccuped. Carefully, she wrapped her arms around Spencer in a hug. “We care. We do.”
He went still, his germaphobe mind not wanting to reciprocate the hug but his touch starved heart not allowing him to pull away, either. After a moment, he started to cry even harder than before, clinging to Penelope for dear life. “I just want it to go away,” he sobbed, “I need it to stop.”
“I know, Spencer, I know.” She rubbed his back as she tried to keep herself from crying. She gave up on that endeavor, though, and allowed herself to cry with him.
His legs went weak and they ended up on the ground with Spencer in her arms, his head leaning against her shoulder. She squeezed him as tightly as possible. “I know a couple of good therapists and support groups for people with addictions,” she said through her tears. “They can help you. Do you think you can try them?”
Spencer hesitantly nodded. “I’ll try,” he promised.
“Good.” Penelope kissed his forehead, motherly as ever. “That’s all you need to do, Spencer. That’s all you need to do.”