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He can’t think clearly because his head hurts, so he leans it against the window and closes his eyes, swallowing against the pounding in his brain that could be from the flu, could be from stress, could be from a brain tumor, could be from a schizophrenic break (or it’s just the drugs coursing through his veins; that’s a likely cause as well.)
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. He’s tapping his foot against the ground in a five-count and he tap, tap, tap, tap, taps his head in sync. The jet is uncomfortably hot, but what’s even more obnoxious is the steady click-click of Morgan’s phone keys. It’s uneven and doesn’t follow his tap-tap-tap-tap-tap rhythm, so Spencer tries to drown out the noise by focusing on the case in front of him.
There are tap two victims tap but they’re tap from different tap backgrounds click-click-click tap he has to go back to the start.
There are tap two victims tap but they’re tap from click-click different tap backgrounds and tap the cause click-click-click-click tap and he has to go back to the start.
There are click tap two click-click he can’t do this.
“Can you turn your phone off?” Spencer hisses, gripping the case file tightly.
Morgan jolts, looks up. “Hm?”
“Your phone,” Spencer repeats. “Turn it off, please.”
Morgan does so, and Spencer can feel his confused gaze burn a hole in his head, or maybe it’s just his brain continuing to melt, or maybe his temperature went up. It was a solid 100 when he checked this morning.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“You okay, Reid?” Emily asks quietly.
Spencer mutters a curt “fine” without looking up.
There are two victims but they’re from different backgrounds. The cause of death was a bullet to the back of the head, execution style. Postmortem posing.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
He’s fine. Everyone’s fine. This is fine. The pounding in his head and in his heart and in his arm dies down a little.--that is, until Hotch’s computer dings with Garcia informing them that there’s been a third victim.
__________
It’s too sticky in the police department, that’s what he’s thinking while everyone goes through the customary greetings--
Hi, I’m Agent Jareau, we spoke on the phone. This is SSA Hotchner and Dr. Spencer Reid.
I’m Sheriff Randall, thanks for coming. There’s a back room we’ve set up, if you can work there?
It’ll work fine, thank you. May we speak to Angela’s sister?
She’s in the back; hasn’t moved for two hours.
--and he can’t shoot up in here. He can’t shoot up anywhere, he shouldn’t be shooting up anywhere, but he needs to--no, wants to. He wants to. This is voluntary. This is his choice, and a bad one, but the sink isn’t sticky or wet so he gets high sitting on the counter.
The soft bang bang bang of overhead pipes brings him back enough to remember where he’s supposed to be. (Is he supposed to be here, though? It’s a bad thing that he’s here, because it means someone died. He says he loves his job, which probably isn’t a good thing, but he’s here now, so what can anyone do about it?) In the conference room, the sheriff hands him a marker and he gets started marking tabs of abduction sites and dump sites in a warm, blurry haze. Someone did something and something happened and something is happening now like it happened two times ago by someone. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. He’ll be high for another couple hours but he needs another fix; he vouches for coffee instead. (See? He doesn’t need Dilaudid for a rush. He can stop whenever he wants to.)
__________
The fourth victim is found dead almost five hours into their stay; the killer is officially on a spree. Spencer bangs his head five times against the whiteboard while Gideon tells their victim’s mother of the death because maybe the slam, slam, slam, slam, slamming will drown out her high-pitched wail. It doesn’t. It’s loud and piercing and thick with tears, and he bangs his head harder until JJ walks into the room and wordlessly puts her hand on the small of his back. He settles for resting his forehead on the board and takes a few deep breaths. JJ rubs his shoulder and says Hotch wants him to interview the fourth victim’s brother.
Stiff nod. Jerk away from JJ’s touch. Refrains from speaking because he knows he’ll say something wrong. Tap, tap, tap, tap, taps his hand on the doorway and wipe wipe wipes his sweaty palm on his pants and walks calmly out the door. He’s starting to come down and there’s a headache brewing behind his eye, but it can wait. It can wait. It can wait. He needs to do his job. Can he do his job? He has to do his job or else more people will die.
__________
The chair is too hard behind his back. Wooden. He hates wooden chairs and it’s too cold in here, too dark in here. He swallows and shifts in his seat, trying to focus on what the brother, James, is saying, but even if he was paying attention he wouldn’t get much. James is sobbing.
“Could you calm down and answer my questions?” he asks, a little harsher than he means to be, but it does the trick. James sucks in a shuddery breath and collects herself. His accent is thick and it’s too much with the dark and the cold and the wooden chair and Spencer decides to continue the rest of the interview while standing. “Where was Patricia when she wasn’t at work?”
“Oh, everywhere,” James sniffles. “Patty helped wherever she could--animal shelter, soup kitchen, library. Everyone loved her.”
“Not church? Arkansas is right in the middle of the Bible Belt.”
“She wasn’t really into it. Didn’t understand, I guess.”
“I see.”
Spencer prompts a few more boring questions and feels like he has better things to do, then smacks himself for it. He’s losing his nerve, losing his kindness, losing his mind. Drugs will do that. He should stop. He can stop. He stops the interview and tells James that he can go.
Before he does, he turns back to Spencer and asks him: “Are you religious, Dr. Reid?”
Spencer clenches his teeth and doesn’t respond. His eye twitches.
James ducks his head, almost ashamed. “I dunno; I guess I just wanna know...what sort of God lets things like this happen.”
“I don’t know,” Spencer replies honestly (because how would a sinner like him know?). “But, if it makes you feel better...she didn’t suffer. So I guess there’s some mercy in that.”
Mercy. It’s almost funny how something like this could be merciful.
__________
He runs out of Dilaudid on the second day.
He should have seen this coming; it was wrong of him to assume that this would be an open-and-close case. Nevertheless, he is quite reasonably pissed. Hot, too. Why is it so hot?
“We’re in the middle of Arkansas,” Hotch points out.
Did he say that aloud? “I know that,” Spencer complains, running a hand through his sweaty hair, “but it’s...I can’t concentrate. I just want to catch this son of a bitch.”
Morgan leans back in his chair, surprised. “Ooh, Pretty Boy,” he crows, “that’s a grown-up word. Don’t catch me hearing you curse like that again, young man.”
“Oh, shut up, Morgan,” Spencer snaps, and the table falls silent. He ignores their stares and buries himself deeper in the paperwork.
Four victims. Nothing in common. He flips through the interviews once, twice, three times and gets nowhere. He slaps his palm against the table and everyone pretends not to notice.
“Hey, guys,” Emily pipes up from her seat, “I think I found the connection.”
It should’ve been Spencer. That’s his job, and he feels a sting in his stomach that’s partially from the lack of drugs. It’s making his head heavy, too; he can’t think. Spencer slams his file shut and smothers the frustration before mustering out a weak: “What is it?”
“All of our victims are atheists,” Emily explains.
Gideon nods as if he already knew (and he probably did know, but didn’t say anything. He tends to do that.). “Do you think our UnSub is killing for God?”
I’m just an instrument of God.
Emily shrugs. “This definitely doesn’t scream overkill. And this also means he would have to know a little bit about the victims before he kills them.”
My son thinks God gave you to him for a reason.
“It’s a job,” Morgan adds. “The abrasiveness of the murder shows he’s detached and the posing of the bodies could be a sort of sacrifice. The victims were kneeling.”
Choose one to die.
“Bowing,” Emily corrects him. “They’re repenting for their sins, and the time between kills is escalating--”
“--which means he’s on a mission from God, and he won’t stop until he’s done,” Hotch concludes. “Let’s deliver the profile.”
They leave the room and Spencer gives in to the nausea, chest heaving, spit and mucus dripping from his mouth, stomach twisting. Nothing’s coming out but air and sour bile and a wretched sob, and the tap-tap-tap-tap-tap starts up again. It’s his punishment for not getting it on time.
__________
Everything hurts. He was awake the entire night dry heaving and sweating, and somewhere in the semiconscious haze Spencer remembers someone talking to him in low, hushed tones and rubbing his back, placing a cup of water on the nightstand. He gets around a millisecond of sleep, or maybe two hours, but either way he feels miserable when the sun streams through the window. Who was he even rooming with?
“You feel okay to work?”
Hotch. Of course it’s Hotch. Spencer squeezes his eyes shut against the alarm clock that sends daggers into his skull and tries hard not to throw up again. The alarm is, mercifully, turned off, and he relaxes enough to open his eyes a crack.
“You should stay here,” Hotch murmurs, pressing the back of his hand to Spencer’s forehead. “You’re clearly sick. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Surprisingly, I didn’t think telling you that I’m in withdrawal would be taken well. “M’sorry.”
“I know this case is hard for you,” Hotch says quietly, and Spencer grits his teeth. He’s familiar with that tone; it’s the same one Hotch uses when speaking to panicked witnesses (Could you tell me what happened?) and hysterical mothers (This isn’t your fault) and sobbing children (Come with me, okay, buddy?) and victims (It’s okay; you’re safe now.)
“I can work,” he mumbles, and Hotch doesn’t look like he believes him, so he spits out: “You need me.”
Hotch doesn’t argue there.
__________
The rest of the case flies by in a blur, but whether it was because of the excitement or withdrawal, Spencer isn’t sure. It’s like he blinked and suddenly he was in a field, gun drawn. Next to him, Emily pulls out her own weapon. The field is eerily silent, and for a bleary moment, Spencer forgets who they're supposed to be after, who’s in the field, and who’s still at the station.
And then everything that could go wrong happens.
It starts slowly: the crackling of a radio; Emily’s mic, with her speaking into it: “JJ, Morgan, any sign of Walters?”
Who’s Walters? Spencer blinks the fuzz from his eyes and prepares himself against the squeal of the radio when someone answers. It doesn’t come.
“JJ? Morgan? Do you copy?”
Nothing.
Spencer’s heart starts to pound.
“Does anyone know where Morgan or JJ is?” Emily demands.
The heat is blistering despite it being near-sunset. The beams of their flashlights are starting to become more visible as the sky quickly darkens and the field is completely silent save for Emily’s frantic messages.
“Is anyone there? This is Prentiss and Reid; where is everyone?”
A slight crackle of feedback. Spencer’s breathing harsher now.
“JJ?” he asks quietly, and then, louder: “JJ!”
Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. It’s too familiar. It’s too familiar. Spencer starts forward into the field, and the grass rises to his waist. Emily says something, but it’s drowned out by his heavy breathing. All he can hear is his wheezing.
And then a scream pierces the air.
Emily is at his side immediately, and they’re both stumbling forward. Spencer drops his flashlight, but before he bends down to pick it up, Emily is tugging him along, trying to locate the source of the noise.
They arrive at the clearing. Spencer’s almost hyperventilating now, and he’s starting to really regret asking to join the rest of the team on the takedown.
Maybe if you hadn’t gone, JJ wouldn’t be in trouble, a small part of his mind supplies unhelpfully.
Spencer wipes the sheen of sweat that’s beaded on his forehead and hurries to keep up with Emily.
Maybe if you weren’t in withdrawal, Patricia Yates wouldn’t have died.
He wants his mind to shut up.
Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up. One more time. Shut up. He hates the number five. He hates the number five. He hates the number five. He hates the number five. He hates the number five but he can’t stop stop stop stop stop thinking in fives or JJ might be dead right now. She’d be victim number five.
Another shriek, and a gunshot. Emily picks up the pace and Spencer moves past her, thinking about how much he hates fields. This shouldn’t be happening; it was an open-and-close case. What happened? Where was Morgan? Did they split up? JJ should know better than to split up but--
It’s all right, it wasn’t your fault
--then again, he may have rubbed off on her.
The grass gets so high (he wishes he were high) it starts to touch their shoulders, but before it makes it to their necks Spencer and Emily burst through the brush into a small clearing, where JJ is prone on the ground.
No. No. No. No. No. Spencer starts forward, but Emily raises her gun and bellows: “Isaac Walters! FBI!”
What’s going on? Spencer stands in the middle of Emily and JJ, twisting and stumbling over his feet as he tries to figure out which direction to move. He turns to JJ and finally sees that she isn’t dead--in fact, she’s straddled over a man on his back. He’s writing madly, throwing her around like a horse, and Spencer takes a stagger backwards and struggles with his gun. There’s sweat dripping off his face and soaking his collar, frizzing his hair, and the revolver slides from the holster to his hand.
Words flood in through the thickness: “Isaac Walters, you are under arrest for the murder of Jaime Oliver, Angela Summers, Quinn Robins, and Patricia Yates. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney…”
His brain is too scrambled to make any clear judgement calls. Without thinking, Spencer takes five steps forward, pulls the hammer of his gun back, and aims it with one hand at Walters’s face.
“Whoa, whoa, Reid! Spencer!” Emily shouts, holding her hands out. Spencer doesn’t move.
Walters has a bloody nose and black eye, presumably from where JJ had tackled him. Spencer presses the barrel of the gun to his forehead.
(So I'm the UnSub, Morgan always says, and Spencer realizes he is roleplaying his own trauma, with one arm outstretched, revolver in his shaky hand, and a concerning lack of emotion. He understands now that you don't need DID to have two people fighting inside.)
“Spencer, put the gun down now!” JJ orders.
Spencer doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. His breaths are harsh and watery. So are Walters’s.
“I’m sorry,” he sobs, trembling in JJ’s grasp. “I’m so sorry. I just--I didn’t have a--oh, God, what have I done?”
Spencer doesn’t react save for a small squeak that breaks from his throat. Someone puts their hand on his shoulder; it’s Morgan. When did he get here?
“Reid, let go of the gun,” he says, and his voice is firm but quiet, almost gentle. “JJ’s okay. We’re all okay.”
No. No. No. No. No. There’s a stabbing ache in the crook elbow and his entire body is itching, shaking, burning. He wants--no, wants has long been gone. He needs a fix. He’s falling apart. He’s falling apart. He swallows twice and digs the barrel deeper into Walters’s head.
Walters squeezes his eyes tightly, mumbling under his breath: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee--”
Only one bullet in that gun, boy.
--He doesn’t need to worry about front sight, trigger press, follow through. He’s close enough to know that there’s no way he’s going to miss--
You are not responsible for this.
“Blessed art thou amongst women--”
“Reid, drop your weapon now--”
You are stronger than him.
--A deafening bang that’s either a gunshot or the tachycardic beating of his heart--
He cannot break you.
--And then Morgan pries the gun from his hand and JJ leads Walters away in handcuffs.
You killed him.
He didn’t do it, not this time. This is different, because Morgan pins Spencer’s arms to his chest and hugs him tightly from behind. This is different, because his pockets are empty. This is different, because the air is too hot and his vest is too tight and the grass is too itchy and his body aches so, so badly.
“What the hell was that, Reid?” Morgan breathes into the back of his head.
Spencer shakes his head five times and pushes himself out of Morgan’s embrace, straight into JJ’s arms. They stumble a little and catch themselves. That is not different. Spencer lets the air settle down around him and tries to feel the grass under his feet instead of leaf mulch, tries to keep the world from tilting off its axis, tries to hold on to the last scrap of whatever it was he had before.
“No number five?” he rasps into JJ’s shoulder.
“No number five,” she soothes. “I’ve got you.”
“I’ve got you,” he echoes.
“You’ve got me. I’m okay.”
Despite himself, Spencer whispers, “Thank God.”
__________
By the time the team boards the jet, he’s too achy and dizzy to hold his stuff. Everyone pretends not to notice when Hotch wrestles the bag from his shaky hands.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. He’s too nauseous to think, too feverish to do anything other than curl up on the couch and shiver. Someone tosses a blanket over him; he doesn’t know who it is until Gideon takes the seat opposite him.
A vague lecture is absolutely not the thing Spencer needs right now, but Gideon opens his mouth anyway.
“You’re taking a leave of absence,” he murmurs, reaching out to put a board hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “It’s not up for debate.”
Spencer lets out a noncommittal hum and leans into the warm touch.
“I’ll swing by your apartment,” Gideon goes on. “You gotta kick this flu.”
“You can say addiction,” Spencer mutters into the pillow, “it’s not a bad word.”
Gideon ignores him. “You’re not in a state to drive. Do you want me to stay with you when you get home?”
Spencer shakes his head. (Yes. Yes, he desperately wants someone to be there, desperately wants someone to tell him how wrong he is for doing this to himself, desperately wants more than a comforting touch on the shoulder.)
“Okay, then,” Gideon says, and leaves.
The plane touches down, but not before Spencer dreams of Tobias.
__________
The only sound in the car is the tap, tap, tap, tap, tap of Spencer knocking his head against the window. He can’t sleep and the air conditioning is too loud and he’s clawing at the crook of his elbow.
(He decides that withdrawal is his punishment from a nonexistent God and baptizes himself in the well-deserved pain.)
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. He wants the air conditioning off, and Gideon must be able to read his mind (You can see inside men’s minds?) because he switches it off while keeping his eyes on the road.
He sleeps somewhere during the drive, occasionally floating back to the surface when Gideon hits a bump. Eventually, the car rolls to a stop, and Spencer slowly brings himself to a sitting position. Gideon gets out of the car and opens the door on Spencer’s side.
He doesn’t move.
“Spencer,” Gideon says softly, and Spencer turns to look at him.
“What?”
“We’re here. Get out of the car.”
(He’s too nice for this and why isn’t he more mad? It’s almost worse than his own self-pity.)
Spencer launches himself out the door bonelessly, and his feet scrape the ground. He feels like a jumbled mess of disconnected limbs and Gideon holds him up around the waist.
(In this awkward hold, Spencer thinks about transference. It’s irrational to believe he’s capable of passing on a drug addiction, but he still wonders if that’s why he doesn’t shake hands; is he afraid that touching someone will make them a sinner, too?)
They wait for Spencer’s head to loll off Gideon’s shoulder and then the two of them make their way into Spencer’s apartment. Spencer whacks the doorway once, can’t make it to five times (he’ll pay for that later). Gideon deposits him on the couch and bends down to slip off his shoes (he’s doing it wrong).
“Don’t,” Spencer mumbles.
Gideon hums questioningly, stopping to look at him.
“Don’t,” Spencer repeats, voice cracking with mucus in the back of his throat. “Stop. Please.”
(He doesn’t take his socks off, ever, but it’s not even there yet and he’s already shaking because Gideon took the left shoe off first and Spencer’s bracing himself against a blow that won’t ever come.)
Gideon lowers his foot on the ground and rises to a standing position. “Where?”
No hiding anymore. Spencer shakes his head rapidly.
“Where?” Gideon insists, firmer this time (he’s probably going to find them, anyway, once Spencer falls-asleep-slash-passes-out on the couch).
“Bathroom,” Spencer croaks. “Cabinet.”
While Gideon leaves the room, Spencer breaks down. He’s tapping and mourning for lives that only touched him once and it’s tap Jaime Oliver tap Angela Summers tap Quinn Robins tap Patricia Yates tap no fifth but here’s one for Tobias Hankel because no one will ever grieve for him (and Spencer kind of hopes he himself will get lost in memory one day, because the regret won’t be so bad in oblivion)
The toilet flushes (down go the drugs, just like that. It was that easy to do, but he never did it, because he’s weak) and Gideon emerges from the bathroom, holding a syringe (he can already tell it’s not enough and for a moment he wants it to be too much) and a tourniquet.
“I want you to throw this away,” Gideon says quietly.
“Why didn’t you do it?” Spencer grumbles (and he doesn't know whether he's talking about the drugs or the fact that he isn't fired yet).
Gideon takes a seat on the couch next to him (he’s going to lecture, Spencer is tempted to cover his ears and he’ll chalk it up to being a touchy addict) and fiddles with the syringe in his hand. “I can...take you home,” he says, “get your fever down, get rid of the drugs...but you gotta be the one to kill this, in the end.”
Without another word, Spencer takes the needle and stumbles to the window. The syringe lands with a (not very) satisfying crack against the pavement and the glass shards bounce four times before spinning to a stop (Spencer jumps once to make it five.)
Spencer drags his feet back to the couch and collapses into the pillows (there’s been a literal weight lifted off him now, but he still feels heavy and bogged down.)
“Get some sleep, Spencer,” Gideon whispers (as if Spencer wasn’t going to sleep anyway), “I’ll tell Strauss you’re not well, you’ve got a week saved up in vacation days.”
“Five days,” Spencer slurs (and he has to do it alone because of the transference, but it's comforting to know that he won't contaminate anyone that way.)
Gideon doesn’t push it. “Okay, five days,” he agrees. And then, after a moment, he says: “You’re not alone.”
(It’s a claim so outlandish that Spencer laughs into his pillow, but it comes out as a hysterical half-sob.)
It’s as simple as that: dump the drugs, pat on the shoulder, say a few words that go in one ear, out the other, and he’s putting on his own shoes and standing up to go.
“You need food and medicine,” he says (and his voice doesn’t rise or fall, ever, and it doesn’t hurt), “I’ll run by a CVS, get you a thermometer. Are you fine on your own?”
“Mhm,” he replies, and no one calls him out on the lie.
Gideon stops (as if he’s working up the courage to say this) and finally, finally tells him that “I’m proud of you.”
(You did what you had to do, and a lot of good people are alive because of it. It almost works both ways.)
Gideon leaves, but not before echoing it again (like he’s trying to convince himself that it’s true) and tap-tap-tap-tap-tapping him on the shoulder (and everything is dissolving into a semiconscious blur, but he’s still lucid enough to feel a stab of relief), so Spencer surrenders to the exhaustion (and whatever happens next is up to God.)