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He stared at his file not reading a word of it. The agent couldn’t focus on any of his work. The feeling of his chest constricting into a ball of anxiety had been slowly increasing. The words blurred along as his eyes dried out from not blinking.
It should be simple; if he needed something he should just ask. His team has always said that he could. Yet, why was it still so hard for him to do so? The male scoffed at himself silently. The genius already knew the answer. He had always been alone his life. During his childhood, he couldn’t ever ask for help and there was no room for error. Even years later, he still could not shake the independent habit.
He couldn’t make it a habit of needing someone else to get through his problems. Due to his experience, everyone would leave eventually. If he made it a habit to need people, soon he would be left to his own devices. It would be easier if he stayed to himself with most things.
Reid swallowed roughly when he heard his phone ringing in the bag under his desk. He refused to pick it up again. It would be the same person over and over repeatedly telling him things he already knew. This was a problem he could not face at the moment. The agent was too vulnerable and his thoughts were becoming irrational and suffocating him slowly. It was as if he was drowning in an ocean as he watched everyone else around him breath.
He needed this all to stop.
The genius blinked at the file again. It wouldn’t hurt to take one dose. After the dose, he would be done and he could forget it. The team would never have to know. He hadn’t been good at hiding his addiction before but now he had more experience to manipulate them, as he needed.
He needed a fix.
He silently cursed himself as he remembered that he had paid of the suppliers in a twenty-mile radius. No dealer would even speak him knowing he was an agent that had every intention to never take it again.
This was a minor set back. It would be easy to leave the radius to find a dealer. Even if he stayed in the radius, there were some new ones who he had not paid off that would sell him what he needed. However, it would be more expensive considering the rush order and being new clientele.
The knot in his stomach twisted painfully causing him to wince. The agent came to the conclusion that he would pay whatever was needed if it would just get the world to stop for a moment.
He had to get something.
The anticipation was strong making his hands shake with more than just anxiety. He wanted this to end. He needed some kind of relief. The moment was short lived when guilt began lacing through his thoughts. The doctor tried to will it away. It was ridiculous to feel like he was doing something wrong. There was always an exception to certain things. His job had taught him that thoroughly.
It would be one time and then it would be over. It didn’t matter at all-
A firm hand gripped his shoulders, “ Spencer?”
His shoulders tensed at the way his first name had been used. The youngest agent refused to meet the other man’s eyes, “ Hmm? Do you need me to take some of your files for you?”
A chuckle vibrated behind him, “ Considering you haven’t been doing your own, I don’t think so.”
Reid knew he could play this off. He could easily create a lie and leave work with no one being too worried about him. Yet, the exhaustion he already felt was too great. The phone rang again making him shut his eyes in an attempt to block it out.
“ I just need it stop,” He murmured to himself. The genius dropped his head down into his hand to massage his forehead. The irrational thoughts continued to chain him from any logical reasoning.
Morgan tightened his hold on his friend’s shoulder, “ What’s going on, Pretty Boy?”
He and Emily had been noticing Reid’s stillness and did not have a good feeling about it. The way his face had been paling more the normal solidified their worry. He had walked over to his friend wanting to figure out what was happening.
Derek couldn’t help but letting his profiling eyes wander over the agent. Spencer’s shoulders had been sagged into a sign of submission to whatever thoughts he was having. The constant tremor in his hands hinted at anxiety that he had rarely showed to his team, let alone in public. Before he could continue, the young man interrupted his thoughts.
“ If I asked you to let me leave for a few days without any of you checking up on me…would you let me?”
He blinked at the question. That had not been something he was expecting. Letting his honesty show, he responded, “ With how you are now? Not a chance.”
Spencer let his eyes find Morgan’s as he turned to the man, “ Even if it is for the best? I’ll be back, but I just need a few days of silence.”
The red flags began appearing in the dark man’s mind. Something was seriously wrong. He ran through the interaction again and let his hand drop from the man’s shoulder. His brown eyes found Reid’s.
“ I am going to ask the once and you are going to tell me honestly,” He began letting his voice become stern, “ If I let you leave right now, would you go to the movies?”
The young doctor looked down to his hands that lay in his lap. There was no way he was going to lie. He couldn’t look Derek in the eye and do that. A few years back the team had created the code word so they were able to speak at work without any suspicion. The movies meant using Dilaudid.
“ If you have to ask,” He whispered keeping his eyes down, “ then you already know the answer, Morgan.”
The man looked at Spencer carefully. There wouldn’t be any work done today. If the doctor was already this far, there wasn’t any chance he could be left alone. Straightening his shoulder, Derek took a breath.
He turned to catch Emily’s eyes, “ Can you hang out with Reid for a minute? I need to speak with Hotch.”
Emily stood and strolled over quickly. She gave him a questioning look but already laid a hand on Reid’s shoulder, “ Of course, I needed to ask him about this Russian philosopher I read about the other day anyway.”
The darker man nodded his gratitude before stalking off. He hopped the steps two at a time as he headed to his boss’s office. He raised his fist and knocked in five time intervals signaling to Aaron that this was an urgent matter.
It took a moment but that door was opened. Aaron held it open as he let another man exit. He gave a simple nod, “ We will talk about this more later. I am sorry but I forgot that I had another meeting with one of my agents.”
The man didn’t seemed bothered and just walked down the hall. Morgan entered quickly and gestured for Hotch to close the door. He allowed a moment for himself to just think before explaining to his boss what this was about.
Hotch leaned against his desk crossing his arms and legs, “ What’s going on, Morgan?”
“ I don’t have any idea at what caused it,” He began rubbing a frustrated hand on his head, “ But we noticed Reid had been acting strange. He had stayed on a file for more than an hour and didn’t even flip the page. Long story short, he wants to go to the movies really bad. Hotch, I haven’t seen him like this before. If we hadn’t noticed anything, he would have walked out of here and years of time would have been down the drain.”
Aaron’s face hardened and became unreadable as the man continued. He understood how addiction worked and knew that it was not behind him but he had hoped the younger member would reach out for help before his trigger got too far. He took a moment before responding.
“ We will cover you here for now. Take him to your place or Rossi’s. It’s not that I don’t trust him but I do not want to risk him having anything in his apartment right now. We have no information as to how long this has been building. I would rather be safe than sorry. Inform us of where you go and we will go from there. Right now, the main goal is to get him out of here and make sure that he is never alone.”
Derek nodded in agreement, “ I understand. I think the best option is to go to Rossi’s. With how bad he is….I think we all should stay there tonight if we can.”
“ I’m sure we can,” Hotch began walking towards the door and opening it, “ We need to take this one step at a time. Go and get him out of here, I will let David know what’s going on.”
Morgan felt himself relax knowing that there was a plan. He exited the office and went down the stairs spotting Emily, who had pulled up her chair to their genius. She was holding his file that he had been staring at as she talked about a topic he didn’t care to catch.
“ Alright Pretty Boy, I’m taking you out of here. No one wants to get sick from whatever you have,” He winked at Emily letting her know to play along.
Reid stood up and grabbed his messenger bag not looking anywhere but the floor, “I’ll be fine. I can catch a bus go back to work.”
The darker man rolled his eyes masking his worry with exasperation, “ That is not an option. I am going to take you home and make sure you don’t pass out or do anything stupid.”
He wrapped an arm around the trembling man as he lead him down to the elevator. During the walk, he nodded to Emily his thanks. Once they were alone and waiting for the elevator to arrive, Morgan looked at his friend in concern, “ You know you don’t have to this alone.”
The genius clutched his bag tighter as the urge to run and hide increased, “ I have been through worse and I promise you that I can handle myself, thank you.”
“ Handling it yourself,” Derek murmured as they went inside watching the doors close behind them, “ And by ‘handling it’ you mean going to get a fix and ignoring the actual problem?”
Despite being in the elevator, the young doctor still felt paranoid someone would overhear them. He looked around the small space and returned his gaze to the floor, “ I don’t expect you to understand. I was handling it.”
“ But not in a healthy way,” The older agent exclaimed. He reached out and touched the pale man’s chin gently as he forced their eyes to meet.
Morgan took a breath, “ I don’t what is going on with you. I don’t understand why you are being so distant. However, I do know one thing. We can’t prove to you that you won’t be left alone. We can’t do that unless you give us a chance.”
Spencer swallowed as he looked at his friend’s face. It was clear that he was concerned but it still didn’t make any sense to him. He still expected for them to be gone one day. Especially with their job, they didn’t have any guarantees.
“ If there was chance,” He started slowly, “ Then that meant there was a chance that I would be dealing with it on my own anyway. Why set myself up for that, Morgan?”
The darker man smiled sadly, “ Because that means there is a chance that you don’t have to shoulder this on your own. We are more than a team, Pretty Boy. You know that by now.”
The genius nodded slowly. The urge to use had still been there but he hadn’t been as bad. He had no doubt that despite the best efforts, it would be there all night. It felt as thought he had no energy left in his body.
Reid let Derek wrap an arm around his shoulders and let him rest his head in the crook of the older agent’s neck. The warmth of the other man’s body soothed the cold he had felt from the urges and panic. He felt the tension leaking slowly from his body.
Morgan began to speak lowly, “ We are going to Rossi’s house, okay? Once we are there, you’re going to put on some comfortable clothes and we’ll start some sort of T.V. marathon. The team should be over soon. We are all sleeping over tonight. Not because we don’t trust you, but because we want to be there for you. Before you say anything, it is not a burden. We want to do this, alright?”
For the first time in a long time, Spencer didn’t have to be in control. He just had trust that Morgan and the team would be there. He smiled as he heard the elevator doors open, “ Alright.”