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“Garcia, can you pull up that list again? Okay, now cross-reference it against anyone who lost their parents… yeah, both. You got something?”
You momentarily tune out the sound of Hotch’s voice and shift in your seat, your thigh accidentally brushing against the bottom of the table in the process. Your stomach flips upside down and your eyes momentarily flutter shut, caught off-guard by the slight pain but not upset. As soon as the sting fades, you find yourself craving the feeling, but you catch Reid’s expression and that seems to knock some sense into you. The last thing you need is him reading your micro expressions, and you know you can’t hide from profilers – he’s good enough at it already without the advantage of sitting right across from you.
“Alright, guys, we got him,” Hotch confirms, snapping you back to attention. “Turns out there are more than a few skeletons in Russell’s closet. Morgan, Rossi, and Prentiss, you take the home address.” He glances between you and Reid. “We’ll take the work.”
“There’s no point,” You blurt out before you can stop yourself, trying to put your finger on what’s bothering you.
“What do you mean?” Suddenly everyone is looking at you, but you’re definitely missing something. You force yourself to breathe and turn it over again in your head.
“I mean…” You fumble for a moment, finally finding something to grasp at. “When we talked to the ex-wife, she said he did a lot of overtime.”
Rossi frowns. “Yeah, so? We profiled that he was a loner at heart, insecure in his marriage. It makes sense he’d want to be away from his wife as much as he could.”
“No, I know,” you say, hurriedly, “but when we spoke with his boss, he said there was nothing Russell seemed to hate more than his job – that he thought Russell always wanted to be somewhere else. Spent all day counting down the hours, even. He couldn’t wait to leave.”
“So why would a guy like that be working past five?” Emily finishes your thought. “Right.”
“And he’d need a lot more privacy than his apartment…” Morgan says. “So where would he go? Where could he go?”
Hotch is already redialling Penelope.
“Whadda ya got for me, crimefighters?” You hear her say through the phone. “Everything okay?”
Morgan leans forwards. “We’re changing tack, baby girl. Can you see if Russell has any property registered in his name?”
“One second…” You hear keys clacking and then she pauses. Then resumes typing. “No… but I can check if there’s any in his parents’ names.” She sighs. “Okay, no, none.”
“Uh, Garcia, check his mother’s maiden name,” suggests Reid.
“Aha!” You hear through the phone.
“Got something, mama?”
“Yes!” Your phone vibrates and you pull it out to check before seeing everyone else do the same. “I just sent the coordinates of a warehouse to your phones – registered under the mom’s dad’s name, but it was passed down to mom and then mom passed it down to Russell.”
“Thanks, Garcia,” says Hotch, already moving towards the door. You push your chair back and follow the rest of the team as you all make your way to the cars.
“Walter Russell, you are under arrest for the first-degree murder of four women, obstruction of justice, illegal possession of a firearm, and assault of a federal agent…” You’re vaguely registering Morgan arresting the UnSub as you make your way over to the ambulance to check on Emily.
“You okay?” You ask her, but you’re not really present and can’t bring yourself to hide it better. Part of you wishes you could give yourself a shake to snap you out of it, but mostly you’re too tired. It’s been a gruelling case and the lack of both sleep and food seem to be catching up to you.
“Yeah, just a graze, honestly.” She thanks the paramedic tending to her arm – it really is just a scratch, you notice absent-mindedly, she got lucky – and then looks more carefully at you. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Hmm?” You try to focus on her, looking up so fast that your vision swims a little. “Yeah, just tired.” You force yourself to offer her a smile. “Thanks, though.”
“So,” she claps her hands together as you walk back to the cars. “It’s Friday, and we’re going to get back in time for happy hour, I think. Got any plans for the weekend?” She leans on the side of the car, watching you a little closer than you’re comfortable with. It sets you on edge immediately, and you have the urge to pull your sleeves down and put another sweater on despite the heat, just to hide your body, even though you know Emily isn’t like that.
“Uh… no, actually,” you reply, a little too late for it to be nonchalance. “What about you? Getting up to anything?”
“Actually, I’ve been trying to get the team to agree to drinks tonight,” she suggests, smiling at you in that endearing way. “It’s just you left now, you know, so you’ve gotta say yes.” She winks, grin widening, and you wonder if she’s being a friend or testing a theory. If you decline, she’ll have confirmation that it’s not the company you’re avoiding, but rather the drinks.
“Oh… you know, I’m a little tired,” you say, and she nods, understanding. Or her best façade of understanding. If it is a façade, you have to admit it’s a damn good one. “I’ll probably conk out on the jet, to be honest.” You breathe out slowly, watching her, trying to think of something you can say to cut off every avenue and give an excuse that can’t just be waved away. “And you know I don’t like to drink jetlagged.” It’s weak and you know it: a four-and-a-half hour flight isn’t going to leave you more than a little drowsy. Emily knows it, too.
“You sure?” She eyes you. “A little birdie tells me dinner and drinks are on Rossi tonight.”
Fuck. You never used to turn down going out with the team – hell, you used to be the one suggesting everyone go to lunch together. Recently, you’ve been shutting them down every time the team goes out to eat or drink, which means you’ve officially pushed your luck too far and now it’s going to come back to bite you. You force yourself to calm down. She’s not out to get me, you remind yourself. Just change the subject or something. Don’t focus on you. “Wow, how’d you get him to agree to that?”
She rolls her eyes. “You don’t wanna know. Let’s just say my drinks aren’t entirely free tonight.” She winks again and you let out a little giggle. Something in your chest loosens a little, but you squash it down. No room for that.
“You are such a liar,” you say playfully. Hotch’s voice is the next one heard, saving you from further conversation.
“Alright, guys, let’s go. We’ll all go back to the hotel together and then leave for the airport about 3:30.”
Emily shrugs. “Enough time for a shower. You still do that to stave off jetlag, right? Come with us. We’ll miss you if you don’t.” You can practically feel her smiling next to you.
“Oh.” You start, then turn back to her. It’s not really a question. She knows you’ve done it all your life and you don’t have any reason to suddenly stop. “Uh… yeah. I guess I might take you up on your offer, then.” You give her a small smile. Alright, even if I get roped into this, I don’t have to eat anything. I need to just relax.
“Great!” Another one of those big smiles. “See you there, then.” She pulls open the door for you, letting you get in the car before she climbs in next to you.
“Oh – Y/N!” JJ calls out after you, and you turn around just as she grabs your wrist, cursing yourself as you watch her neutral expression change into one of shock. “Oh, my God, are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?” She lets go of your wrist quickly but steps up to you, concerned. You know she’s only looking out for you, but you can’t help feeling like she’s putting you on the spot on purpose.
“Yeah, no, don’t worry, I’m fine,” you assure her, stretching a tight smile across your face.
“You… winced.” Her eyes narrow and your heart rate speeds up, in spite of your efforts to stay calm.
“You just caught me by surprise.” You glance behind you, where the team is waiting for you, already in the cars. “We should go.” You look back at her to see that she hasn’t moved and you feel awful. You remember Roslyn, JJ’s sister, and how she killed herself by slitting her wrists. You think about how distressed it would make JJ to know that someone she knew was falling down the same avenue and your expression softens. “JJ, really, it’s okay. Please don’t worry.” She stares at you for another moment but nods, letting you lead her to a car before you get in the other one.
“Everything okay?” Hotch asks you as you climb in, looking at you through the rearview mirror.
“Yeah, fine,” you say.
“You sure?” Morgan says. “JJ looked worried.” You stare at him, then look back at Hotch. They’re both looking at you, with matching serious expressions, and you can’t help but be reminded of everyone they’ve interrogated like this.
“It’s fine,” you repeat. They wait for you to elaborate, but you don’t. After a few beats, Hotch nods and Morgan looks away, and you take that as a partial win. They’re going to leave it alone, for now at least.
Of course, there’s nothing stopping them from asking JJ, in which case, you might need to expect some awkward questions. Your stomach flips again and your breathing gets a little shallower. You try to even it out and there’s silence for a moment until Hotch tells you, “Good job today.”
Your turn to nod. “Thanks.”
You listen to the rest of the car make small talk for a while, zoning out a little until a sign for the airport pulls you back into real life. Hotch parks the car and you press the button to release your seatbelt, but you stay firmly buckled in. You try it again a few more times before concluding that it must be jammed. You slam your head back onto the headrest out of frustration just as Morgan opens the door and you realise everyone’s waiting for you.
He rests his hand on the roof of the car, leaning on it, and takes off his sunglasses so he can look you in the eye. “Alright, what’s going on with you today?”
“Nothing,” you huff. “I just got annoyed because the seatbelt’s jammed.”
“Oh, yeah.” He has the nerve to look amused. “Sorry, I forgot to tell you guys. I sat there on the way in.” He leans over you and you almost startle, instead opting to lean your back against the seat and manually breathe as regularly as you can. “You need to push it in a certain place… Got it. Alright, there you go.”
“Thanks,” you mumble. He goes to retreat from the car but your sleeve catches on a button somewhere and as he moves back, you notice he’s going to pull it up. “Oh, wait, hang on,” you say, tugging him back towards you, but he’s not listening. Unfortunately, your sleeve catches his attention before you do, and you move your other hand to push it back down before you expose yourself to him. It’s only when the threat is neutralised that you realise how panicked your sharp movements must’ve come off, but the worst doesn’t happen.
He just looks at you a little strangely. You brace yourself. “You cold or something?”
“Yeah, a little,” you say, trying to look embarrassed, knowing he’ll back off if he thinks you genuinely are. He might’ve teased Spencer or Emily for it, but you know he already thinks there’s something going on with you. Why not play into it? “Sorry, my circulation is… bad.”
He scoffs and then smiles at you. “Nah, don’t apologise for that.” He detaches his button from your sleeve, careful not to cause your jumper any loose threads in the process, and then offers you a hand to help you out of the car. You don’t need to but you take it anyway, a little reluctantly, because you know it’ll make him feel better, and he raises an eyebrow at you as you shut the car door. “Damn, you were not lying about that circulation. Your hand is freezing.”
“Sorry,” you cringe. “I was going to have some tea to warm up on the jet.”
“Good idea,” he agrees. “Come on, I wanna get home. You know drinks are on Rossi tonight, right?”
“Yeah, so I’ve heard.” You walk up the steps to the jet and he follows you, closing the door behind him.
“Okay, now that we’re all here,” says Hotch, beckoning the two of you to sit down. “I take it there are no objections to tonight’s plans?”
Your chest tightens and you hold your breath for a couple of seconds until it passes, pulling your sleeves down over your hands in a subconscious search for comfort. You immediately wish you hadn’t done it, but the anxiety is still there. How am I going to get out of this?
Once the jet lands, you end up giving Emily and Spencer a lift since their cars aren’t at the airfield, and separating from the rest of the team proves impossible. You do your best to drop subtle clues that you’re tired – a few yawns, the occasional ‘resting’ of your eyes. It’s not entirely a lie: you really are tired, but it’s difficult to succumb to it when you’re so wired with nervous energy. Whenever you think about what you might be expected to eat or drink, your stomach feels like it’s doing cartwheels inside you, turning over and over. The rest of the team is making small talk as you make your way through the revolving doors on the way in to the bar of choice. The forces that be (Hotch and Emily) have decided that drinks and dinner will be ordered indiscriminately at O’Keefe’s, a tried and tested favourite of the BAU’s.
“So, what are you drinking?” Morgan appears at your side, making you jump a little.
“Oh, my God, where did you come from?” He chuckles, but sticks a little closer to you than he normally would. You notice it, too – he might’ve conceded to back away from confrontation, but he’s definitely been hovering around you since that moment in the car and you can’t think of a way to shake him. “Uh… I’m not sure I’m in the mood for alcohol, to be honest.”
“Really? Why’s that?” He shakes his head. “I think we could all use a drink after that one.”
You hum in agreement. “I think I’ll settle for a nice time with the team,” you say, sitting down at the booth the rest of the team has apparently chosen.
“That’s sweet,” smiles JJ, overhearing the tail end of your conversation.
“Yeah…” Emily pulls a face. “Sure ya don’t want something stronger?”
Everyone’s eyes turn on you all of a sudden and for a moment it’s too much. Why is today the day everyone decides to put you under the magnifying glass? You resist the urge to run screaming and remind yourself that these people are not the enemy; they care about you. A little too much, maybe. And with profilers…
“We’ll see,” you say, trying to defuse the situation. It works: the team’s attention seems to shift from you to the menus or the conversation they were having before, but you still have the uncomfortable feeling that you’re being watched. You try to dismiss it, but it doesn’t seem to want to leave.
Rossi is the one to collect the orders from everyone and you realise you’re going to have to nurse at least a drink or you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb, but it turns out to be more than you bargained for.
“Alright, Y/N? What can I get you?”
“Well, my car’s here and I have to drive, I think, so-”
“Mine’s in the parking lot on the other side of the block – I can drive you home,” says Reid, dismissively. “I’m not planning on drinking tonight.” You envy the way he says it so nonchalantly and the way everyone just accepts it, but now you find yourself backed into a corner. Your mind races to find a solution.
“Oh. Are you sure?” You check. “I know you don’t like driving.”
“It’s not a problem,” he assures you, and you nod your thanks. Inside, though, you’re cursing yourself, wishing you had a better excuse, wishing Reid would’ve planned on drinking tonight. Then you feel awful. You’re probably not the only one, but you’ve noticed that Reid hasn’t been drinking since he was dosed.
“Well, if you insist, I think I’ll copycat Emily’s Chardonnay,” you smile, trying to hide your panic, pretending like you don’t know the calories in every drink on the menu. “Just a small one, mind you.” White wine is apparently a risky choice, though, especially tonight.
Morgan raises an eyebrow. “Wine on an empty stomach? Not the best idea you’ve had today.”
“Hmm, yeah, Y/N, no offense but you don’t exactly handle alcohol well,” notes Garcia.
Reid chips in, too. “You know, he’s right. Food, especially carbohydrates, significantly slows and even prevents the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream. If you eat before you drink, blood alcohol levels might not reach even a quarter of what they could be if you drank on-”
“Okay, stop scaring the poor girl,” butts in JJ, and you grow a little hotter when you realise she was watching you for a reaction. You play it off with a laugh.
Emily rolls her eyes, too. “Plus, I’m sure she can handle one glass of wine. The rest of us are probably going to end up drunker than her anyway.”
Hotch mutters something to the effect of, “Speak for yourself.”
Garcia giggles. “She’s definitely speaking for me.”
On the flip side, Reid’s voice is still coming through the noise of everyone arguing about how drunk you’re going to be: “…so, actually, Emily, Y/N has a fair chance of having a higher blood alcohol level than any of us if she chooses to drink without-”
“Okay, that’s enough,” interrupted Rossi. “Y/N is an adult and she can make her own decisions about how and how much she chooses to drink.”
You fight the urge to fall at his feet and thank him. Instead, you give an amused smile and try not to look desperately grateful when you make eye contact. “Thanks, Rossi,” you say, lightly.
“Anyone else?” He continues going around the table and you relax a little further into your seat. You can’t help but feel guilty, though. Reid’s point is more credible than he realises: you haven’t eaten since yesterday at lunch, when you were forced to get something down or risk everyone knowing that you couldn’t even handle eating like a normal person, which means there is quite literally nothing in your stomach now. If you drink – even a little – then you’re likely to get pretty drunk. Which means you have two options, and both are terrible: one, bite the bullet, drink the wine, and get drunk. Not only will one glass probably get you uncomfortably close to being drunk, but you will likely end up drinking even more, because when you drink, you forget about the repercussions. Everything falls away for a moment and you don’t really care about the calories or what you look like, or how you’ll feel the next morning. Everyone will then see what a mess you are when you drink and you will have no choice but to crawl into a hole and die afterwards, especially because Reid, who will supposedly take you home, will be sober and therefore remember everything that happens… though he will likely remember everything anyway, because of course he has an eidetic memory. Or two, refuse to eat or drink anything, sustain strange looks from the rest of the team, and cast an undeniable suspicion over yourself in the eyes of more than a few team members, who will then worry about you and, if they talk amongst themselves, will most definitely realise that something is going on with you. Oh, and you’ll get to watch each of the profilers sitting at the table with you put the pieces together. You find your mind wandering into familiar territory, considering who is the most dangerous, trying to weigh up who you need to hide from and to what extent. Who would work it out first? Emily? Hotch? Rossi? It could be any one of them, if you were being perfectly honest with yourself. You couldn’t let that happen.
So, naturally, you decide that drinking the damn wine is probably the lesser evil.
Oh, how wrong I was, you dimly think to yourself as Reid puts his arm over your shoulders and steers you towards his car. You stumble, curse yourself for stumbling, and then have to stop yourself from giggling out loud. You feel euphoric on the surface – that kind of giddy happiness that comes with being drunk – but underneath there is an undeniable exhaustion, and even deeper down, you can still feel the tight knot of anxiety and self-loathing that seems to have become a permanent resident in the pit of your stomach.
“I think… you were right,” you slur out, just to break the silence, just to feel something. “Definitely drunk.”
“Who?” Spencer asks absent-mindedly, helping you into the passenger seat of his car. “You? Yes, you are definitely drunk.” He frowns. “Were you expecting me to be wrong?”
You take a moment to process what he said, then shake your head slowly.
“Okay, sit tight,” he says, shutting the car door and walking around to climb into the driver’s seat. He starts up the ignition. “Ten minutes,” he promises. “You can take some painkillers and drink some water. You should probably eat something, too. Carbohydrates are your best bet if you want to sober up, but-”
“No,” you sigh, shaking your head again. “Not hungry.”
“Well, you can still…” Reid sighs. “Okay, I’m not going to make you. Water, Advil, and then bed.” He taps his fingers on the steering wheel a few times, glancing over at you when he stops at a traffic light.
You reply a few moments later, so drowsy that you can barely register what you’re saying. “Not… bed.” You think for a moment. “Sofa.”
“Why?” He asks you, genuinely curious. “Is your sofa more comfortable? Do you usually sleep there? That could be really bad for your back, you know. Maybe you should get it checked.”
“Um…” You consider, searching in your head for your previous train of thought. “Outside clothes,” you remember.
“Right…” Reid looks ahead, but you can somewhat make out his confused expression. Some part of you knows that he’s filing it away to ask you later, and some part of you wants to smack the other part of you for knowing that. Bottom line, though: you can tell you haven’t cleared anything up.
So, naturally, you try to fill him in. “Outside clothes are for outside,” you explain idly, reaching into the left sleeve of your jumper with your right hand, running your cold fingertips up and down your forearm, feeling the raised scars and momentarily fingering the bandage, fidgeting with the edges of the surgical tape.
“Do you… want to change?” He suggests.
“Haven’t showered,” you mutter. “I’m icky.”
“I see.” He concedes, trying not to laugh as he pulls up outside your apartment building. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”
You try to muster some scrap of motivation to get out of the car, but it’s so warm inside and so cold outside… Next thing you know, Reid’s gently pulling you out of the car, and then he’s helping you up the stairs. Somewhere in your warm, fuzzy brain, you can process how nice of him this is and how much of a fool you’re making out of yourself, but, right now, all you’re concerned with is a warm place to sleep.
“Keys?” Reid’s voice interrupts the drunk ramblings taking place in your head and, instead of trying to fish them out, you just hand him your bag, though you can’t explain why this simple action instils such a sense of doom in you. You shrug it off, telling yourself that it’s only because of how cold it is out there in the lobby.
When he sees that you aren’t willing to even try finding them, he looks carefully through your bag to find them tucked into the side pocket, nestling against something you’d entirely forgotten about in the midst of your drunkenness. He feels it through the cloth loosely wrapped around it, but doesn’t bring it out (even though, right now, you probably wouldn’t notice if he did). He doesn’t need to – he knows what it is already. Instead, he pulls out your keys and unlocks the door to your apartment, making sure you don’t trip over the raised threshold. Once you make it into your apartment, the heat is staggering and almost unbearable. You might remember something about leaving your heating on these past few days you’ve been away… oops. In your defence, it is the middle of winter.
“It’s hot,” you mutter, fingering the hem of your jumper.
“Do you want to take your jumper off?” Reid asks you. “Do you need any help?” You go to nod, then remember and frantically shake your head. You don’t notice his physical reaction in your current state, but you do hear him pause a moment. “Alright, then,” he says, tone neutral, and you are none the wiser.
Reid leads you through to your living room, where he finds a surprisingly comfortable-looking sofa and a blanket folded neatly in front of one of the pillows. Later, you vaguely remember him helping you lay down, unfolding the blanket over you. He goes into your kitchen to get you a glass of water and some Advil, but when he gets back, he finds you already asleep. He sets the water and painkillers on the coffee table and your bag next to them, your keys outside it, because he knows you well enough to know that you’ll panic if you don’t see them as soon as you wake up. He writes you a quick note to say that he has your spare and he’ll swing by tomorrow, and then locks up and leaves you to sleep off the effects of that stupid wine.
When you wake up, the first thing you notice is the pounding in your head and the fact that you’re still exhausted but, for some reason, can’t seem to stay asleep any longer. Then you look for your keys, which are helpfully right in front of your eyes on your coffee table, and then you take a mental inventory of the rest of the items on your coffee table: water, meds, purse. You take the Advil and finish the water, and that helps a little. Your head stops spinning enough that you can actually read the note Reid left for you last night – Hey, just to let you know that I have your spare key from last night when I locked up your apartment after I left. I’ll come by today to drop it off and drive you back to your car. Hope your head doesn’t hurt too much. Get enough water and enough carbs; you’ll feel better. Spencer. – and then you attempt to get up. At first, your head is spinning too much, but, after a few minutes of sitting up and sipping water from a nearby previously abandoned water bottle, you feel stable enough to stand and make your way to the bathroom.
Once you’ve forced yourself to shower, change, and reapply makeup, you tidy up your living room. The last thing left to do is put away your purse from last night, so you grab it off your coffee table and reach into it to retrieve your phone. By chance, your fingers brush over the blade you have stowed away in the side pocket and your heart sinks before your head has the chance to catch up. The blade in question is in the pocket where you usually keep your keys – the pocket Reid had to reach into last night to retrieve them. No doubt he knew what it was, and you’re kicking yourself as you remember something else – a dim memory of how defensive you’d gotten when he’d asked if you wanted to take off your jumper. Between the blade, your jumper, and JJ’s facial expressions after she’d grabbed your wrist, he has to have figured you out by now.
Which means it’s only a matter of time before everyone else does, too.
You have no idea what time Reid intends on coming by, but it’s currently 9:04 and you recall that, unfortunately, he is a morning person. And on account of not being drunk last night and therefore not being hungover this morning, you can likely expect him to be here soon, though you’re not sure what time he thinks you’ll be up. Last night, you yourself had certainly not been expecting to wake up at eight in the morning, or that you would’ve considered 8 am an appropriate time to actually get up even if you did find yourself awake. Your phone buzzes and – speak of the devil – he’s texting, asking whether you want a lift back to your car and what time. You feel so antsy that you don’t even bother trying to type out a response. Instead, you just call, and he picks up almost immediately.
“Hey,” he says. “I didn’t know whether you were up yet.”
“Yeah, me neither,” you mutter. “I still feel half-asleep. Listen, thank you for taking me home last night.”
“Oh, it’s no problem, like I said.” You can practically hear him fidgeting through the phone. “So, uh, do you want help getting back to your car?”
“If you don’t mind, that’d be great. I know it’s only a few miles, but-”
“But you don’t feel like walking,” he finishes. “I totally get it. I’ve seen you hung over – you can barely walk a few hundred yards in a straight line.”
You smile despite yourself. “Alright, now, that’s en-”
“I can be there in twenty minutes,” he suggests, cutting off any protest you might’ve made.
“Okay, thanks,” you relent. “See you in twenty, then.”
You each get in a brief goodbye before you hang up and resume your pacing up and down the length of your living room. You feel like a lab rat trapped in a cage, like someone is pushing you just to see how you’ll react. Or like a child whose parents found a bunch of candy wrappers in the trash and are waiting for the right moment to have the conversation. You’re itching to do exactly what you know Reid is going to bring up. If you cut yourself and then he asks to see your wrists, he’ll know you’re doing so badly that you can’t even go 24 hours without. In other words, you are going to be so unbelievably fucked. Well, you might be fucked either way: there are already cuts there, but maybe you can say they were a one-off? Not a chance, actually. You know he can tell apart the various stages of healing, probably better than you can. Maybe you’ll just have to pray he doesn’t ask. It’s not like you can say no without him assuming the worst about the state of your wrists.
Wrists. Well. It’s not like he can ask to see your thighs… can he?
You glance at your watch, but you’ve already made the decision in your head. You’ve realised sometime over the last few weeks that, when it comes to cutting yourself, you behave like an addict, but you just can’t bring yourself to stop and you can’t even bring yourself to care. So, yes, it’s an unhealthy coping mechanism – but so what? It’s still a coping mechanism, no different than exercise or journalling or substance abuse. That’s what you tell yourself anyway as you walk into your bathroom, reaching into your cabinet for a blade and some first-aid supplies.
You slip your trousers halfway off and sit down, still buzzing with the worst kind of cooped-up nervous energy. This is only going to calm you down – how can that be unhealthy? It’s exactly what you need right now. Maybe the worst part is that you don’t actually think there’s anything wrong with cutting yourself to cope when it gets bad again. Logically, you can see that self-harm cannot be the solution if it also perpetuates the problem, but when the temptation gets strong, you can’t ever seem to stop yourself from reinforcing, once again, that you actually enjoy pressing a blade into your skin deep and sharp enough to draw blood.
The pain is the best part. The worst part, yes, especially in the long run, when your skin starts to feel sensitive and sore and worn, or when it gets caught on your sleeves, or when the need to feel something becomes so intense that you begin to leave cuts that scar and take the better part of a year to fully heal. But in the heat of the moment, the pain is really what you’re seeking – when you start thinking about this, it’s the pain that you’re really craving. If you’re an addict, then your drug is the initial sting, instantaneously spiking your adrenaline and then releasing enough dopamine to calm you back down and make you desperate to do it again. That initial pain is what you can’t get enough of: you are never satisfied and you know it. Temporarily, you can come down from the high, enough to put away the blade and deal with the wounds and pretend like this doesn’t happen, like this part of your life doesn’t exist, until the next time you do it. And, when you do come down, cleaning up after yourself is enough to make you hope that the next time never comes. The sting of an alcohol wipe is different than that of a blade; dressing the wound provides a different discomfort than inflicting it. Maybe that’s why you always come back. The last memory of the experience should be the satisfying part, the part that actually makes you feel better, the reason you do it – and not the clinical, business-like part you dread every time. You suppose that makes it a vicious cycle: you’re never going to stop because you’ll never be able to fix yourself up before there’s something to fix.
Or maybe you come back to it every time because it does actually help. When you feel guilty – when you’ve fucked up – you know that the voice in your head will tell you whatever you want to hear, so long as you cut. It’s been eating away at you all morning: how one glass of wine turned into two, turned into three. You think about the calories you drank last night and then you’re blinking back tears… until you’re not. Cold, hard, stinging pain brings you back to reality, and that little voice in the back of your mind is telling you that it’s okay. It just means you don’t eat today, you’re reminded. You can do that. You’ve done it before, so all you need to do is do it again. You find yourself swearing that you’ll never drink again, won’t eat anything today or tomorrow just to make up for it. And then, just like that, you’re okay after a few (or a few dozen) cuts. Just like that, you’re not antsy anymore, breathing normally. You can’t even hear your heartbeat anymore – sweet, sweet relief.
You check your watch again when the last bandage is firmly wrapped around your thigh, secured with medical tape. You always cut it (pun not intended) a little too fine, always get a little too wrapped up, so to speak. You hesitate. Reid is going to get here any minute now: you know he’s a stickler for punctuality. But the sadistic part of your brain wins out once more, and you pull up your sleeves to look back at yesterday’s work. Everything looks to be healing okay, but one of them is deep enough not to have started closing up yet, and blood starts to leak again when you pull up the bandage to check. You curse under your breath. Knew I should’ve sutured it. There’s no time now, so you hastily wrap it back up, though it’s a little loose and you’re thinking about how likely it is that the blood will dissolve the weak adhesive on the surgical tape enough to make the whole bandage hang off. Forget embarrassing, the effects will be catastrophic if Reid notices your arm is bleeding right the way through your jumper – and Spencer notices everything – so you’re just about to rewrap it when you hear your doorbell, causing the strength of your cursing to intensify. You make the split-second decision to compromise.
“One sec!” You call out in the direction of the door, rummaging through your bathroom cupboard and frantically pulling out more tape, ripping off a section and reinforcing what’s already there. You don’t let yourself spend more than ten seconds on it before you’re making your way down the hall, putting the tightening of the bandage on a backburner and instead hurriedly pulling down your sleeves.
“Hey, Spencer,” you say, opening your door to see the genius in question standing on your doormat.
“Hey,” he returns, and you bite back a gasp at how vivid and how much realer he sounds when the conversation isn’t over the phone. Then you almost slap yourself, reminding yourself that you’ve talked to this man in person probably hundreds of times and that there is absolutely no need to lose your mind over it. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I had lots of water like you said.” You force a smile and Spencer nods.
“Alright. Ready to go?”
The unusual directness catches you a little off guard, but you nod anyway. “Yeah, let me just grab my purse… oh, and keys,” you add, catching sight of the keys you conveniently left on a hook right next to your front door, precisely so that you can remember them on your way out. “Okay…” you mutter to yourself. “Keys… yes. Car keys… yes.” Your head snaps up. “Right, let’s go, then.” You step out, lock your front door, and let Spencer walk you down the two flights of stairs between your apartment and the ground floor.
“You okay?” He asks you.
“Hm?” You glance at him, then look back down at your feet. You’re thinking he’s referring to the way you’re barely able to walk straight, but you ask anyway: “Yeah, why?”
“You just visibly cringed,” he notes, and you’re pretty sure you’re blushing. Why the hell are you blushing? What is wrong with you?
“Um… right.” You look even further down, if that’s possible. “Just thinking about how I definitely didn’t get up these stairs myself last night.”
He chuckles, and you’re torn between appreciating what a lovely sound that is and tearing out your heart with the intention of stamping on it before running away to Alaska to isolate yourself from all civilisation for the rest of your life. “No, you did not.” Just when you thought you couldn’t be any more embarrassed…
“Sorry,” you wince, and then almost fall down the stairs. He reacts quickly enough to turn around and steady you, one hand on your waist and the other on your shoulder. A feeling of dread begins to unfurl in the pit of your stomach at the realisation that physical contact – through your crewneck – is now giving you butterflies. This cannot be happening. I cannot have a crush another team member. And it cannot be Spencer fucking Reid.
Spencer seems to realise where his hands are and quickly moves them away, glancing at you. Apparently, your expression is not all that scary, because he tells you, “Don’t worry about it,” and then asks, “Do you mind if I…” He gestures to your shoulders and moves to let his arm hover over them.
“Oh, um, no, go ahead.” He doesn’t seem to notice the stilted, awkward tone of your voice and puts his arm securely around your shoulders to guide you so that you can actually walk in one direction, as opposed to five different ones. You assume he must’ve done something similar last night, and then reprimand yourself sorely for even thinking about last night. Never again.
“I’m sorry about last night,” you venture, and see him shake his head in your peripheral vision.
“Really, it’s fine,” he says, and you don’t know what to say to that, so you don’t. The pair of you walk in a somewhat awkward silence to his car, neither of you sure whether the other expects you to fill the silence or not.
Spencer opens the door to his passenger seat for you, but does you the small mercy of not trying to help you in. You’re still very conscious of the way you embarrassed yourself last night and you don’t think you could stand it if he had. You’re distracted enough not to notice him getting in until he starts driving.
“Do you hurt yourself?” He’s gentle enough to wait a few minutes before broaching the subject and his tone shouldn’t have put you on edge either, but his bluntness catches you off-guard. You were prepared, fully expecting it at some point, but now the suddenness has anxiety pooling in your stomach, making you nauseous and closing your throat up.
“What?” You say, mostly because you’ve had what feels like hours and still haven’t decided whether it’s worth trying to convince him you don’t.
“Don’t stall,” he says, soft enough that it isn’t harsh but not enough that you think you can get out of it. There isn’t a strong enough word in the English language to describe how fucked you are.
You swallow. Then close your eyes and let your head fall back onto the headrest. Your mind is going so fast that it’s making you dizzy. “What am I even supposed to say to that?” There’s a moment when you think you’re going to start crying. Thankfully, you don’t.
“It’s a closed question, so ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would do,” Spencer supplies.
“Did you choose to have this conversation now because I can’t run away from it?” You turn to look at him.
“Yes,” he admits. “Stop trying to buy time. You wear long sleeves obsessively and you get incredibly defensive if something or someone threatens that; yesterday, you winced when JJ touched your wrist, which you would only do if that hurt, and since your mobility hasn’t been impaired, the wound must be superficial and the skin sensitive there, which would be explained by you cutting yourself; and you carry a blade. Not, like, a knife, a razor blade. I can’t think of a reasonable explanation for that. So, do you hurt yourself?”
You blink, hard. “Why would you ask if you’ve already decided what the answer is?” You whisper.
“I wanted to see if you’d be able to deal with the question. You can’t,” he points out. “That just about confirms it.”
“You don’t know th-”
“Then show me your wrists.” Spencer pulls into the parking space next to your car. Good, we’re here, you think, but he hasn’t unlocked the doors yet. You reach over to the centre console to press the button that will do that, but he pulls your hand away. And now he’s turning you by the shoulders to look at him and, damn it, you can’t even meet his eyes. “Hm?” He prompts. “You won’t. You can’t even make eye contact with me right now: that’s how uncomfortable this conversation is making you.”
You swallow, letting him turn your left arm over, so that the palm is facing upwards, but when he goes to push the sleeve up, you bend your fingers to hold the cuff where it is, shaking your head. “Don’t,” you whisper. “Please.”
“I have to,” Spencer says gently. It’s the first time you can hear the hurt in his voice and you want to kick yourself for being the reason. You let your fingers relax and look away as he gently moves them off the cuff and pushes your sleeve up. He doesn’t say anything for a few moments. It’s only when he goes to take your newly-rewrapped, bloody bandage off that your head snaps back towards him and you try to pull your arm away from him. He holds it where it is. “Y/N.”
“I don’t have a First Aid kit on me,” you mutter, as half-assed explanation.
“I do.” He reaches over and pulls out a case from his glove box, setting it between you on the centre console, then begins running his fingers along the edge of a piece of tape, trying to find the best place to start removing it. “You did this in a rush,” he notes, and looks up at you. “Did you wrap this before you opened the door? Is that why you needed a moment? Y/N, I’d rather you be safe than look safe. You don’t have to save face if it threatens your well-being. In fact, you shouldn’t. You should ask for help. I would’ve helped you.”
For a moment, you’re entirely certain that your heart has stopped. Upon realising that you are, unfortunately, still breathing, you start to tackle the seemingly insurmountable task of saying something to buy yourself time rather than just staring at him. All that seems to come out is, “How did you know? That I rushed?” There’s a change in the air when your plausible deniability vanishes and you curse yourself for admitting to doing this to yourself. It’s true that you’ve only admitted to wrapping it hurriedly and hiding it from him, but, though the physical evidence didn’t leave you much room to convince Spencer otherwise, your abandoning the strategy of denial changes things.
Spencer lets out a breath and looks back down at your forearm, resuming his previous task. As he works, he says, “You never would’ve left it like this if you had a choice – if you had the time. You’re a complete control freak, Y/N. Don’t think none of us have noticed. Your relationship with food,” (you flinch), “the way you can’t handle things being out of order or out of place… sometimes you micromanage more than Hotch.” He shrugs, glancing up at you. “Everything has to be your way, doesn’t it? I didn’t realise this,” he nods at your arm, “was happening every time it wasn’t. I’m sorry.”
You put your hand over his, stilling him. “Spencer.” He looks at you reluctantly. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I neglected my friend so badly that I never once noticed when she harmed herself,” he says flatly, and goes back to what he was doing.
“I was hiding it,” you argue, ignoring the slight sting of being called his friend despite the situation. “You weren’t supposed to know. No one was supposed to know.”
“I’m a profiler.” Spencer finally seems to find the path of least resistance and starts to gently peel back the surgical tape, carefully removing it from your skin. You can tell he’s conscious of the half-healed cuts beneath it, lightly holding down your skin to stop the tape from pulling at it and trying to minimise tissue damage.
When the bandage comes off, blood starts to ooze from your wound. Thankfully, it’s slowed significantly from yesterday, but the fact that it still hasn’t closed is starting to irk you a little. Spencer wipes away the blood pooling around the cut and frowns. “Why didn’t you stitch this up?”
“Didn’t think I needed to at the time,” you mutter.
“I’m going to do it now,” Spencer decides, pulling out supplies from his first aid kit. You lean back a little, trying not to crowd him as he stitches a wound he never should’ve been made aware of. It stings a little, but your cut isn’t deep enough to have killed you without them, so you only really need a few stitches. He gives you six anyway, small and neat, tying off the end neatly. “You can take them out after five days,” he informs you, taping on a fresh bandage. “Keep them clean and dry, and watch out for signs of infection.”
You just stare at him. “Yes, doctor,” you say, a little incredulously.
He looks at you. “What?”
You start to formulate a response on the whiplash people tend to get whenever Spencer suddenly goes all clinical on their ass, but think better of it and shake your head. “Nothing.”
Spencer is silent for a few moments, mercifully letting it go instead of probing. You don’t want to explain his social interaction issues to him right now, not least because he will likely bring up your own (fair few) problems. You know he’s trying to cope with being upset right now, but some selfish part of you is thinking that it’s his own fault. If he knew he wouldn’t like what he saw, why look in the first place?
“I don’t know how to help you,” he eventually admits.
“You don’t need-”
“I want to,” he cuts you off, firmly. “I want to help you because I care about you, Y/N. We all care about you.”
You feel a surge of indignance. “You’ve been talking about me,” you accuse. “All of you.”
“Some of us,” he corrected. “We were just worried abou-”
“Oh, don’t give me that,” you say angrily. “It’s not your responsibility to help me, any of you.”
“Is it so criminal of us to want to help a friend?” He asks, looking at you analytically. It’s infuriating.
You blink back tears of frustration and look away. “Yes,” you mutter. “Yes, when it’s none of your business, any of you.” You reach over to the centre console, unlocking the car door. He doesn’t stop you this time, but, as you get out of the car, he calls out to you, “You know, we accept the love we think we des-”
You cut off the sound of his voice by slamming his car door and try not to think about how hurt his expression will be. You try not to think about exactly who he’s going to tell or what he’s going to do with the information he gained today. He’ll go to Hotch, probably, you think numbly, getting into your car. I’ll lose my job. Or worse, be forced to get a psych eval. Maybe he’s tactful enough not to let JJ hear about it.
You try not to think about anything at all on your drive home. It’s just short enough that you can be grateful for the quiet time it gives you, and, when you get through the door, you don’t bother to check your email like you normally would, just in case there’s already one there that you don’t want to see. Instead, you change into sweats, sit on your couch, and try to focus at least part of your attention on the first crappy Netflix show that comes up when you open your account. You must’ve passed out at some point, because when you wake up, it’s dark outside and you seem to be halfway through the second season, despite having not a single clue as to the names of any of the people onscreen.
You can feel your phone buzzing right next to your leg, but it apparently rings out before you can pick up. Instead, you look aimlessly at the notifications your screen is showing you: a couple of texts from Emily, about five from Spencer, and who knows how many missed calls. He calls again. You just stare at your phone for a few seconds before picking up, holding it to your ear with no intention of actually saying anything.
Good thing, too, because he doesn’t seem to let you for the first few seconds. “Oh, my God, finally, Y/N, are you okay? What happened? I know your phone is always with you, so don’t lie – why didn’t you pick up? Did you hear it ringing?” He pauses. “Y/N? Are you there?”
“Yeah,” you manage, finally finding your voice. “Yeah, I’m…”
“Are you okay?” He presses. “You sound drowsy, what’s going on?”
“I just… um, I think I just fell asleep,” you admit.
There’s half a beat of silence. Then: “Did I wake you? I’m so sorry; I just didn’t think you would go to bed… Wait a minute, you think you were asleep? Did you pass out? How long were you unconscious? Did you lose too much blood, is that it? Did your stitches come out or did you hurt yourself?” His voice goes from gentle, to urgent, to almost accusing. You try to react quickly enough to stop him from coming over here and kicking your door down, Derek Morgan style.
“No,” you say, as soon as you can form the word. “No, I didn’t hurt myself and I wasn’t unconscious.” You don’t know what else to say, but he isn’t saying anything either. “Spencer, don’t take this the wrong way, but why did you call me?”
“Right, um, I thought I should… I wanted to tell you that I’m, um, that I have to tell Hotch about-” He sighs. “When we go back to the office tomorrow, I’m going to tell Hotch that you’ve been hurting yourself, and he’s going to suspend you from field duty and order you a psychiatric evaluation.”
You try to remind yourself to breathe, but his voice sounds like it’s coming to you through ten feet of water. This cannot be real. Any moment now, I’m going to wake up and-
“Y/N? Do you understand what’s going to happen tomorrow?”
“Yes,” you say. Your voice is only stable because you haven’t quite grasped the reality of the situation yet, but panic is starting to unfurl in your stomach. You can’t believe that only twelve hours ago, you were getting butterflies in the stairwell with him, and now Reid is about to be the reason you lose your job.
“I know you’re feeling scared, stressed, probably angry right now,” you hear him say through the phone. “I’m sorry that we couldn’t help you before, but I’m trying to help you now. Please don’t panic. Don’t bring a letter of resignation or anything, because no one is going to fire you.” Spencer goes silent for a moment, and you almost feel bad for him in spite of yourself. You know he’s trying to come to terms with the possibility of what he’s about to say. “Please don’t do anything stupid,” he says softly. “This is not permanent. You can get through this.”
It’s all you can do to nod to yourself in your dark apartment, and, of course, he can’t see you.
“Are you alone?” He asks you. “I know you don’t want to see me right now, but if you need company, call anyone on the team. Please.”
“Okay,” you say, your voice sounding slightly strangled. “Don’t worry about me,” you add, haltingly.
“See you tomorrow,” he says quietly, though it sounds like it’s more to himself than to you. You hear him hang up and let the phone drop from your ear, reluctantly scrolling through the notifications you glimpsed before. You read the various text messages Spencer sent you, each reading in an escalating degree of urgency, and then flip over to Emily’s. Twenty-two minutes ago, she messaged you, Feels weird being all alone in my apartment. Wanna drink wine and watch crappy movies together? And seventeen minutes ago, I can come over to yours, if you don’t feel like leaving your couch.
You wonder for a fleeting moment what Reid might have let slip to her but smile in spite of yourself, and your finger hovers over the call button. Fuck it.
She picks up a few seconds into the first ring. “Hey, how ya doing? Want some company?”
“Actually, yeah, that’d be great,” you say quietly, surprised to find yourself still smiling. “I already have the crappy Netflix cued up, if you still want to-”
“Oh, thank God. Say no more,” she assures you. “I will be at yours in ten. And I’m bringing wine.”
You groan. “I think I’m still hungover from last night,” you protest, and hear her laugh over the phone.
“Don’t worry, I won’t get you drunk again,” she promises.
“Uh huh,” you mutter, unconvinced.
She pays you no mind whatsoever. “Can we watch the crappiest movie of them all?”
“Uh… Twilight?”
“Bingo,” she says, and you hear a door slam and then, a few moments later, an engine start. “See you in ten.”
“Drive safe,” you say, hanging up. Then, you just sit there, staring into the darkness of your apartment, until you hear your doorbell ring sooner than you expected it to. You open the door to see Emily standing in your doorway in a tank top and a pair of sweats.
“Hello, you,” she says, as you stand aside to let her step through the threshold to your apartment.
“Hello, yourself,” you say. “Wow. You look…”
“Disgusting?” She snorts. “I’ve been in bed all day, so, yeah, that’s fair.”
“I was going to say effortlessly gorgeous,” you say, shutting the front door and following her into your living room. “But, of course, disgustingly gorgeous works too.” She really does look incredible for being hungover, and you’re pretty sure last night’s makeup hasn’t even moved on her. You remember the way yours was smudged all over your face within hours of the jet landing – how you managed to get both mascara on your lips and lipstick on your eyes, you suppose you will never know – and think about how today’s is probably heading in the same direction.
“Stop it,” Emily tells you, in a playful warning tone. You wish you were joking. “Oh, this is a great set up,” she comments, sitting down on your couch next to where you’ve obviously been sitting (for more time than you care to admit). You pass her another blanket. “Thanks,” she says, as you settle in next to her. She turns to you before you can start doomsurfing Netflix again. “How have you been doing today?”
You turn to face her, too. It’s only fair, after all. “Uh, I’ve been… well, rotting all day,” you admit. “I’ve been here for the past several hours. I don’t even know how many.” You frown. “I think I fell asleep at one point. You?”
“Hmm, about the same,” she shrugs. “I woke up at half past two and spent about six hours on various screens in bed, ignoring Hotch’s emails… then the hangover loneliness hit me and I texted you.”
You giggle and turn back to the glowing screen. “Twilight?”
“Please,” she confirms. The two of you don’t say much more after that, occasionally commenting on Edward’s haircut or how Bella needed to stand up – “Wake up and break up,” Emily rolled her eyes – but nothing that really mattered, and, when you fell asleep with your head on her shoulder, she stayed the night, not moving once to avoid waking you up. When the two of you yawned yourselves awake around six in the morning, she saw herself out, telling you she’d see you at the office in a few hours, and the impending doom you’d been very busy supressing hit you all at once. You didn’t have the heart to tell her that it might be the last time you saw her in the office.