Work Text:
Spencer wakes before the jet’s cabin lights rise, the world still tinted in that soft, bluish pre‑dawn glow that makes everything feel slightly unreal. His neck aches from sleeping upright, and his cardigan is bunched awkwardly beneath him. He shifts, rubbing at his eyes, and feels the familiar grit beneath his fingertips.
Sand.
Not the coarse, earthly kind. These grains catch the dim light like flecks of mica, shimmering faintly as though each one remembers being a star. He brushes them away quickly, instinctively, the way one hides a bruise. The gesture is practiced. Automatic. Old.
Across the aisle, Emily sleeps with her arms folded, dark hair falling over her cheek in a soft wave. Even in rest she looks alert, like she might wake at the slightest shift in air pressure. Morgan is slumped sideways, broad shoulders rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm; his jacket has slipped halfway off, revealing the grey T‑shirt beneath. Garcia is curled around her laptop like a dragon guarding treasure, her bright pink nails resting lightly on the keyboard. The hum of the jet is steady, predictable. Comforting.
The presence that arrives is not.
It begins as a subtle shift — a change in the air pressure, a faint hush, the sensation of being watched by something vast and ancient. Spencer’s pulse stutters. He closes his book, though he hasn’t turned a page in twenty minutes. He doesn’t look up. He already knows who stands in the aisle.
“Spencer Reid.”
Dream’s voice is quiet, but it fills the cabin like a tide, soft and inevitable.
Spencer exhales slowly. “You can’t be here.”
Dream stands impossibly still, as though the jet were built around him. His cloak stirs in a wind that does not exist. His hair is black as ink, falling in soft, unruly strands around a face carved in sharp, elegant lines. His skin is pale in a way that isn’t quite human, like moonlight given shape. His eyes — stars, void, memory — rest on Spencer with a familiarity that makes Spencer’s throat tighten.
There is something in Dream’s gaze that has always undone him: not affection, not exactly, but a kind of ancient guardianship. A watchfulness. A quiet, unspoken I have seen you grow.
“I am needed,” Dream replies. “And so are you.”
The overhead lights flicker, not in malfunction but in deference. Spencer glances at his team — still asleep, or rather, gently encouraged to remain so. He feels the weight of that magic like a warm hand at the base of his skull. It is a sensation he remembers from childhood dreams: a presence that steadied him, guided him, kept the nightmares at bay.
“A nightmare has slipped its leash,” Dream says. “It hunts a child who dreams of monsters.”
Spencer swallows. “And you want my help.”
“You have always walked close to my realm,” Dream says. “You see patterns where others see noise. You understand fear. And you know the power of a name.”
Spencer’s fingers tighten around the spine of his book. “I can’t just leave.”
“You will return before they wake.”
“They’ll notice eventually.”
Dream’s expression softens — barely, but enough to shift the air. “Then perhaps it is time they knew.”
A spike of panic flares in Spencer’s chest. “No. They wouldn’t understand.”
“Your friends,” Dream says gently, “are more resilient than you believe.”
The gentleness is what undoes him. Dream has never spoken to him the way one speaks to an equal. There is always a note of something older, deeper — a tone Spencer once mistook for distance, until he grew old enough to recognize it as care.
Before he can argue, the jet dissolves around them like ink in water.
The world reforms into a hallway that stretches too far in every direction — a child’s nightmare logic. The walls are painted a faded yellow, the kind found in old schools, and the lights flicker overhead with a low, buzzing hum. The air smells faintly of crayons and dust. The floor is scuffed linoleum, stretching into impossible distance.
Something skitters in the shadows.
Spencer steadies himself. His breath fogs slightly, though the air is neither cold nor warm. “You said it knows names.”
“All nightmares do,” Dream murmurs. “But this one knows yours.”
Spencer’s pulse spikes. “Why?”
Dream looks at him with something like regret. “Because you were once marked by my realm. A lonely child who wandered too far into dreams. You learned what you should not have learned.”
Spencer’s breath catches. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.”
The words are soft. Familiar. The same tone Dream used when Spencer was eight years old and terrified of a dream he couldn’t wake from. The same tone he used when he taught Spencer how to shape a dream into something safe. The same tone that made Spencer feel, for the first time, like someone saw him not as strange, but as precious.
The nightmare lunges from the shadows — a tangle of limbs and teeth and the echo of every fear Spencer has ever catalogued. Its form shifts with each step, flickering between shapes: a too‑tall silhouette, a crawling mass, a mouth full of jagged, impossible teeth. It shrieks his name like a weapon.
Spencer flinches — but Dream steps forward, placing a hand on his shoulder. His touch is cool, grounding, like the moment before a storm breaks. Spencer remembers that touch from childhood dreams too — a steadying presence, a silent reassurance that he was not alone.
“Remember,” Dream says, “names are not chains unless you let them be.”
Spencer exhales. He speaks his name aloud — not the one on his badge, but the one Dream gave him long ago, when he was a brilliant, lonely child who needed a place where he wasn’t strange.
The nightmare recoils.
The hallway brightens. The buzzing lights steady. The air warms. The shadows retreat.
And Spencer feels the truth settle in his bones: he is not powerless here. He never was. Not with Dream beside him. Not with the one being who had guided him through dreams long before he ever understood what guidance was.
With Dream at his side, the nightmare unravels into harmless shadow, dissolving like smoke in sunlight.
When Spencer opens his eyes, the jet is still humming. The world snaps back into place with a soft jolt. Emily is stretching, rubbing her eyes. Morgan is yawning, rolling his shoulders. Garcia is complaining about turbulence that never happened, her curls bouncing as she gestures dramatically.
And there is sand on the floor by Spencer’s feet.
Emily notices first. “Reid? What’s that?”
Spencer freezes.
Garcia leans over, squinting. “Oh my god, is that glitter? Did you go to a secret rave while we were asleep?”
“It’s not glitter,” Spencer says quietly.
Morgan raises an eyebrow. “Then what is it?”
Spencer looks at them — really looks — and feels something inside him loosen. Emily’s concern is warm and steady. Morgan’s curiosity is protective, not invasive. Garcia’s excitement is bright and earnest. Even Hotch, watching from the front of the cabin, looks more thoughtful than alarmed.
“It’s… dream sand,” Spencer says finally. “From someone I used to know.”
Emily’s expression softens. “Used to?”
Spencer hesitates. “He’s… complicated.”
Garcia beams. “Reid, sweetie, everyone you know is complicated.”
Spencer laughs — a small, startled sound. “Yeah. I guess that’s true.”
He doesn’t tell them everything. Not yet. But he tells them enough.
And when he glances out the window, he sees a raven circling the jet, just once, before disappearing into the clouds.
The next morning, Hotch calls him into his office. The blinds are half‑drawn, casting striped shadows across the desk. Hotch stands with his hands in his pockets, posture relaxed but attentive.
“You disappeared for twenty‑three minutes on the jet,” Hotch says. “Emily thought you were in the bathroom. Morgan thought you were asleep. Garcia thought you were astral projecting.”
Spencer winces. “She’s… not entirely wrong.”
Hotch tilts his head. “Do I need to be worried?”
Spencer hesitates. “No. But you might need to be… open‑minded.”
Hotch’s expression doesn’t change. “Reid, I have a son who believes in superheroes. I can manage open‑minded.”
Spencer exhales. “There’s someone I used to know. Someone who… isn’t human.”
Hotch nods slowly. “And he needs your help.”
“Sometimes.”
Hotch considers this. “Then we’ll adapt.”
Spencer blinks. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Hotch says. “You’re part of this team. Whatever comes with you, we handle.”
Spencer leaves the office with his chest tight and warm.
That night, he dreams of the Library.
It rises around him in impossible architecture — shelves spiraling upward into darkness, ladders that move on their own, books that hum softly as though breathing. The air smells of old paper and starlight. Lucienne greets him with a nod, posture straight and dignified, her glasses glinting in the dim light.
“It has been some time,” she says.
“I didn’t mean to stay away,” Spencer replies.
“You were living,” Lucienne says. “It is allowed.”
Dream appears at the far end of the hall, walking toward him with the slow, inevitable grace of a tide returning to shore. His cloak trails behind him like a shadow with its own mind.
“You handled yourself well,” Dream says.
Spencer flushes. “I remembered what you taught me.”
Dream’s expression softens. “You remembered who you are.”
There is something paternal in the way Dream looks at him — not sentimental, but ancient, steady, proud. Spencer feels it like a hand between his shoulder blades, guiding him forward.
“My team… they know something’s different,” Spencer says.
“They will understand in time.”
“Do you want them to?”
Dream tilts his head. “Do you?”
He thinks of Emily’s concern, Garcia’s curiosity, Morgan’s steady presence, Hotch’s quiet acceptance. “Yes,” he says softly. “I think I do.”
Dream nods. “Then the truth will come gently.”
Two weeks later, the BAU faces a case involving a child with recurring nightmares — nightmares that feel too familiar. Spencer knows before Dream appears.
He steps outside the police station, breath fogging in the cold night air. The streetlamps cast long, golden pools of light across the pavement. Dream stands beneath one of them, shadows bending toward him like loyal creatures. His presence is both stark and beautiful, like a winter night sky.
“You came,” Spencer says.
“You called,” Dream replies.
“They’re going to see you.”
“Then let them.”
Spencer turns — and finds his team standing in the doorway, watching. Emily’s eyes widen. Morgan’s jaw drops. Garcia makes a tiny squeaking noise. JJ’s hand hovers near her phone, unsure whether to record or call for backup. Hotch simply nods, as though he expected this.
Dream inclines his head. “Your friends are loyal.”
“They’re my family,” Spencer says.
Dream’s gaze softens. “Then they will stand with you.”
And they do. The BAU helps Dream track the nightmare. Spencer bridges the human and the cosmic. The team adapts — awkwardly, hilariously, fiercely.
When the case ends, when the child sleeps peacefully again, when Dream prepares to leave, he turns to Spencer.
“You walk in two worlds,” Dream says. “Few mortals do so without breaking.”
Spencer meets his gaze. “I’m not alone.”
“No,” Dream agrees. “You are not.”
The words land with the weight of a promise — the same promise Dream made to a lonely child decades ago, in a dream where Spencer first learned he was not strange, not wrong, not alone.
Dream dissolves into sand and starlight.
Garcia whispers, “Reid, sweetie, your friend is… wow.”
Spencer laughs. “Yeah. He is.”
Morgan claps him on the back. “Kid, you gotta warn us next time your cosmic pen pal shows up.”
Emily grins. “I think it’s kind of perfect.”
Hotch simply says, “Let’s go home.”
And Spencer, for the first time in a long time, feels whole in every world he walks.