Chapter Text
Something was off with this case.
Spencer could sense it.
It started the moment Garcia started her briefing, this little tugging in his gut that just wouldn't settle.
He tried to ignore it at first. Everyone else was focused, listening, taking notes. He was too, technically. But the feeling kept nudging at him, insistent, like his brain was trying to tap him on the shoulder.
He just couldn't put his finger on it. Then, when the photos popped up on the big screen, that feeling sharpened, like his brain had already connected dots he hadn't consciously reached yet.
“Wheels up in 30.”
Even on the jet, the feeling didn't go away. If anything, it settled in deeper, threading itself through the back of his mind while he pretended to study the case.
He kept flipping through the photos, his fingers moving as fast as they can on the tablet screen. None of it made sense.
None of it.
The scorch marks, the blown out lights? What human could have possibly been capable of this?
Morgan dropped into the seat across from him, nudging his knee with his boot. “You're making that face.”
Spencer blinked. “What face?”
“The one you make right before you tell us something creepy about a case.”
He didn't have anything to tell them. Not yet. Just a feeling he couldn't quantify, which meant he wasn't going to say it out loud.
Morgan took his silence as confirmation anyway. “Uh-huh. Thought so.”
He looked back at the photo, and the feeling was there again, quiet and persistent, familiar in a way he didn't want to unpack.
The jet touched down, and Spencer followed the team out, still trying to shake off whatever feeling that was sitting low in his stomach. The air outside was war, the kind that stuck to his clothes, but that wasn't what bothered him.
Hotch was already running through assignments as they headed for the SUVs. Spencer tried to keep up, tried to listen, but his attention kept drifting.
“Reid,” Hotch said without looking back. “You alright?”
“Just thinking.”
Rossi shot him a look, Blake too, but they didn't push. Morgan, though, slowed just enough to fall beside him. “You're acting weird,” Morgan said quietly, “You've got something you're not saying.”
Spencer shook his head. “I don't.”
“Sure.” The older said, like he already decided otherwise.
They kept walking, gravel crunching under their boots, the usual pre-case chatter drifting around him like background noise.
Spencer hung back a bit, catching a faint burnt smell in the air. It didn't match the weather. It didn't match anything.
The scene is busy enough that Spencer can almost disappear into it. People moving around him, Blake asking for measurements, JJ talking to a specialist—He keeps his head down, keeps his hands busy, keeps his thoughts in a straight line.
It's working.
Mostly.
JJ walks back over, flipping through her notes. “So, uh.. one of the specialists thinks it might be sulfur.”
She says it like it's nothing. Like it's just another weird detail in a weird case.
Spencer's brain stutters.
Not dramatically. Not enough for anyone to call him out on, but it doesn't stop him from feeling like a rubber band that was pulled too far.
Sulfur.
He's not at the scene anymore.
He's twenty, sitting on the floor of his apartment that's down the street from Stanford, while Sam Winchester dumps out a duffel bag like it's the most normal thing in the world. Salt, silver bullets, weird little vials with no label, a knife Spencer absolutely wasn't supposed to touch.
Sam holding his hands up, stepping toward him slowly. “.....Don't freak out, okay? It's just me, Spence.”
Sam showing him how to spot a demon.
Sam explaining salt lines.
Sam telling him that monsters were real in that quiet, apologetic way he had, like he wished they weren't.
Sam.
Sam.
Sam.
Sam.
Sam—
His breath catches on nothing. The room wraps back around him too bright, too loud, too close. He blinks hard, like he can force himself back into his body.
He forces himself to blink again, to swallow, to not look like a person who is currently thinking about their monster-hunter ex boyfriend.
He clears his throat, it still comes out thin. “Sulfur.”
JJ’s head snaps up. She studies him, eyebrows pulling together in concern. “Spence…? You okay?”
He flinches at the nickname. He can't even pretend anymore. His hand is already in his pocket, closing around his phone like it's the only solid thing in the room.
“I— uh…” He swallows, “I need to make a call.”
JJ raises an eyebrow. “Right now?”
“It's important, I just—” He's already backing away, eyes locked on the exit. “Two minutes.”
He stops in the hallway, presses his back to the wall, and pulls out his phone. His hands aren’t steady. He pretends they are.
He scrolls to the number he should’ve deleted years ago.
For a second he just stares at it, thumb hovering. His pulse is loud in his ears. He tells himself that this is stupid, that he’s overreacting, that sulfur doesn’t automatically mean—
He hits call anyway.
The phone rings once.
Twice.
Three times.
He shifts his weight, letting out a heavy sigh. Attempting to be at his calmest while his past breathes down his neck.
Four.
Five.
He swallows hard.
Voicemail—Sam’s voice, warm and familiar in a way that hits him right in the ribs.
He hangs up before the beep.
For a moment he just stands there, phone still in his hand, staring at nothing. He presses the heel of his palm into his eye, just for a second, just long enough to prevent the shed of tears.
Then he straightens, pockets his phone, and walks back into the scene. Praying he can forget that he called the one person he swore he would never need again.