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"He's, uh, like a drug addict. Only fire's his drug, and each time an addict needs a fix, they need more of the drug to get off. So his crimes will most likely get much worse. It would be almost impossible for him to quit without help..."
He could feel the team watching him but Spencer kept his eyes on Gideon: more than a friend and mentor but also a father figure, the man who'd groomed him for this job and who'd once told him he'd be there for him should he need anything... but Gideon - friend, mentor, father figure - turned away, turned to Hotch and broke the spell of tension to continue brainstorming the profile. In that moment Spencer knew he'd have to do this alone.
How loudly do I have to scream before anybody hears me?
Spencer knew that there wasn't really anything his team-mates could do to acknowledge the slippery slope he was hurtling down without getting him fired; this job was his life, the BAU was everything to him and everyone knew it.
They need your mind, Spencer told himself.
Nobody else can read through a giant stack of files in under an hour. Nobody else would simply do the additional reports that somehow found their way into his pile without calling out whoever had slipped them in (usually Derek, sometimes Emily). Sure, nobody else on the team had to deal with sensory overload over lights or socks, nobody else had to deal with forgetting to eat or facing a 50-50 chance of devolving into a schizophrenic break by thirty. Everyone on the team had their strengths; nobody could manipulate technology to their will like Penelope or talk to a grieving family like JJ. Nobody could run or tackle like Morgan or organise a team like Hotch.
And nobody could memorise passages of text with only a glance like Spencer.
They need your mind, Spencer told himself, never they need you.
When Strauss went to rehab and Spencer found out that Derek had confronted her, he felt his blood run cold. He'd told himself all this time that his friends - his family - had deined to say anything for his own sake. Sure, Strauss' drug of choice was legal and she was in a position of authority even over Hotch but that did little to soothe the sting of hurt Reid felt when he realised that Derek and Hotch had done more to help someone they barely even liked. How far would they have taken plausible deniability before saying anything? To his grave?
"We knew you'd figure it out, pretty boy, and you did. You got clean, right?" Derek's voice was soft when Spencer asked him about it, he sounded almost confused. "Why do you ask? Are you struggling again?" Hesitation. "Cravings?"
Spencer stared, blinked, stared some more. "Again...? The cravings never went away, Derek, they just got easier to deal with. Until... Emily died. Until we thought she died. Sometimes they get bad, sometimes they're just a minor irritation. I've slipped up three times, did you know that?"
"I didn't..."
The hurt in Derek's eyes almost made Spencer want to shut up and forget about this, almost made him backtrack and apologise. Almost.
"I overdosed. That's wha-"
"Spen-"
"Don't. Please. It's what got me clean; waking up after feeling like I was dying. I woke up on my side, vomit everywhere - do you know what would have happened if I wasn't a side sleeper, Der? I would have choked. I would have died choking on my own vomit in a hotel room between Hotch and JJ in the middle of a case. That's what got me clean."
"Spencer, I'm sorry..."
"Please let me finish. I need to get this out, alright?" Spencer paused, met Derek's kind brown eyes and saw the concern and pain in them as genuine. He knew. "I know you're sorry, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I just... I'm so tired of keeping it in, you know?"
Derek knew. He nodded.
One deep breath, two, three.
"When I woke up that morning, I wished I hadn't." Spencer looked away when Derek's expression turned from concern to horror. "Don't. Please. I'm fine, I just felt so awful knowing I'd messed up so badly. Knowing I didn't have it under control like I'd been telling myself for a year and a half. I didn't feel good physically either, mind you, but I started taking less and less after that." He fidgeted quietly, brow furrowing as he remembered the absolute hell of waking up with a mouth drier than the Sahara and vomit on his pillow and face. The terror of realising the last thing he could remember was being unable to stop shaking and hallucinating and only just having the presence of mind to roll onto his side. "If we hadn't have been on a case, I... wouldn't be here."
He'd never said it, not even to himself, but only now he'd admitted it aloud did he realise how true that was. Had the team not been in the middle of a case, there was a good chance (78.4% his mind quipped unhelpfully) that he would have shot up again only this time he'd have taken precisely enough to keep from waking up again. He suddenly felt very cold. "I am here though," he said, trying to convince himself that was a good thing. "Most days I'm glad for that and -"
"Most?"
Spencer shrugged, "it's better than never, right?" He dared a glance at Derek's face, hating that he was so peturbed by the level of anguish he'd put there.
You did this. You made him worry like this and you know damn well you're not worth it. Selfish. Selfish. Selfish. Se-
"I'm going to hug you now, pretty boy. That alright?"
Selfish?
Not even a fraction of a second after Spencer nodded did he feel strong arms envelop him, his legs suddenly wobbling as he held on tight like Derek was a bouy and they were lost in a raging storm at sea.