Chapter Text
Spencer Reid sat at his desk in the BAU office, his mind racing through the details of the current case they were working on. The harsh lights overhead buzzed softly, the sound drawing his attention away from the file in front of him every few minutes and stopping him from concentrating. He could tell today would be harder than usual by the way every little thing seemed to irritate him- the office lights being the current offender. Every now and then without realising it, the young agent would stim, either shaking his hands in front of his chest or tapping his pen against his desk, until another officer would glare at him enough to make him stop.
As the day went on he could feel the tension building up in his body at the noise of his colleagues talking, the clicking of keyboards, and the ringing of phones all mixed together into a cacophony that was impossible to ignore. He tried to push through, to ignore the discomfort, but it felt like his senses were on overdrive and everything around him was overwhelming.
Spencer felt a familiar pressure building in his chest and a buzzing under his skin, the tell-tale signs of an impending meltdown. He knew he needed to find a way to escape the sensory overload before it became too much to handle. Taking a deep breath, he stood up from his desk, causing his chair to scrape against the floor with a jarring noise, making Reid flinch and reach to cover his ears. Clearing his throat awkwardly, he lowered his hands from the sides of his head and began to cross the room to get away from the noise and the stares his reaction had caused.
As Reid silently made his way towards the break room he flapped his hands at his sides harshly, desperately trying to stop his senses going haywire. He could feel the eyes of his teammates on him, their concern evident in their expressions. They knew about his autism and had tried to be supportive, but Spencer still felt extreme embarrassment at not being able to cope with something as trivial as a bit of noise- especially when he knew his team didn't understand. He hated that he had to ask for help, but he also knew that he couldn't deal with this on his own right now.
Reaching the break room, he fumbled with the light switch, trying desperately to shut off the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights. His hands were shaking even more now, and he could feel tears welling up in his eyes as he struggled to control the overwhelming emotions that threatened to spill over.
Hot tears began to stream down his face, and he pressed his hands against his ears in a feeble attempt to block out the sounds that were assaulting him and seemed to be following him. Unable to cope any longer, he slid down the wall to the floor and began rocking backwards and forwards and humming loudly from the back of his throat. His teammates rushed into the break room after seeing Reid struggling with the lights and picking up on what was happening, their expressions flooded with concern as they saw Spencer struggling to cope.
"Spence, it's okay," Derek Morgan said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "We've got you. Just breathe."
Spencer flinched violently back from the light touch, he whined loudly, Derek's friendly gesture feeling like it had burnt him. There were too many people in the room and they were making everything worse! Derek took his hand back, looking offended,
"Hotch? What's the kid doing?" he asked, seeming genuinley confused.
Hotch shook his head, he didn't know, only had a vague idea as he'd heard Gideon mention the boys autism before and assumed this was related somehow. This was not helping however, and the extra noise was making Reid feel much worse, removing one hand from his ear -and pressing it against his shoulder to still attempt to block the noise- he formed a fist and started hitting his thigh- hard. Hotch was panicking by this point, having never seen this happen before, he grabbed Reid's fist before he could injure himself again and, ignoring Reid's yell, carefully but firmly restrained him. He turned to Derek, who was staring gormlessly at Reid, and yelled at him to grab the pair of noise-cancelling headphones that he knew lived on Reid's desk.
Derek quickly sprung to action, kicking the rest of the team out of the room and finally turning off the bright, buzzing lights, plunging the room into a quiet darkness, aside from Reid's whimpering.
"Here, Reid," Hotch said gently, removing Reid's hand from his clasp, handing the younger man his noise-cancelling headphones that Derek had quickly brought in. "Put these on. It'll help drown out the background noise."
Spencer said nothing, quickly snatching the headphones and firmly placing them over his ears, and hitting his head against the solid wall behind him in a final attempt to calm down completley. The effect was imminent, and finally in utter silence, Reid could feel the overwhelming sensory input starting to lessen, the pressure in his chest beginning to ease as he stimmed.
The rest of the team slowly came back into the room and gathered around him, hoping their presence provided a sense of comfort and safety rather than the overstimulation it brought before.
"Take your time, Reid," Hotch said. "We've got everything under control here. We'll wait until you're ready to talk."
Spencer nodded, stopping the movement of his head against the wall, his breathing gradually returning to a more normal rhythm as he focused on the calming atmosphere created by his noise-canceling headphones. He took a few more deep breaths, trying to regain his composure and push back the overwhelming emotions that had consumed him just minutes before. Wiping his face from the tears that had dribbled down his cheeks and rubbing a hand over the back of his head where it had started to swell, he cleared his throat. He didn't want to say anything, certain that his team would fire him for this show of unprofessionalism.
Once he felt slightly more in control, Spencer took off the headphones and looked up at Hotch from where he was still sat on the floor, gratitude clear in his eyes. "Thank you," he whispered, his voice hoarse from the effort of holding back his emotions.
"Anytime, Reid," The older man replied warmly. "But help me out here, what exactly was that? I've never seen you do that before..." he questioned gently.
Reid flushed bright red and mumbled something unintelligible, he was content at leaving it at that and forgetting this ever happened, until he saw the unimpressed look on Hotch's face. Spencer sighed and reluctantly began to explain,
"It was a meltdown. They happen sometimes, there's no pattern to it, sometimes things are just... too loud."
Hotch didn't say anything, nodding as if he was stuck in thought,
"And the hitting thing? Do you do that every time?" he asked, clearly concerned after watching the young agent smacking his thighs and head repeatedly.
Reid nodded, feeling even more ashamed at the question, and suddenly very tired after everything that had gone down that afternoon. He stifled a yawn, however working with profilers makes hiding anything particularly difficult, so Hotch immediately noticed and helped Reid stand up with the intent of letting him rest on the sofa in his office until a new case came up.