Work Text:
As Spencer stood in front of his closet, his body already uncomfortably warm despite his lack of clothes, he decided today was going to be horrible. He could hear Derek now playfully poking at him for growing up in Vegas yet somehow being unable to handle the heat. He didn’t care that growing up in warm places made you more accustomed to the heat. Heat was heat, and he was currently cooking inside of his small apartment. He could argue about the different types of heat and such, but frankly, it all felt the same, and he was suffering either way.
His eyes roamed over his options for the day, and frustration was already beginning to build. Logically, he should go with the least amount of layers possible. A thin light coloured shirt with thin light coloured pants. He had multiple options, and yet, he felt like he needed the compression of multiple layers if today was going to be bad, but then they would cling to his skin, and he hated that because it felt claustrophobic, but if he went with fewer layers, he wouldn’t feel as grounded. He balled his hands into fists, sucking in a deep breath and letting it out as he uncurled his fingers. It was too early to get upset.
Spencer picked out a short-sleeved shirt, then put it back in favour of a long-sleeved shirt, only to place it back and sigh. Breathe, he reminded himself. It’s just clothes. What did he wear last time it was this hot? He scanned the rack for a moment before he got to the right shirt, short-sleeved and soft yellow. He was still in two minds about it, part of him arguing that he should wear a long-sleeve so he could fidget with the buttons, but he argued back that he could fidget with pens instead.
His chest of drawers held his next challenge. Shorts were out of the question. Partially due to the professional nature of his job and because he didn’t really own any. There was the pair of gym shorts that haunted him, somehow surviving every closet clean-out and his multiple moves across states, but again, they weren’t appropriate for work. They were barely appropriate to be seen in. He rummaged through the drawer, huffing to himself when he had to refold various pairs of pants, as it was just another thing to do when his patience had been running thin since he woke up to a sweltering bedroom. Eventually he decided on tan dress pants and retrieved his belt that would undoubtedly rub against his sweaty skin at some point today.
Jacket. He wore a jacket every day to work although he didn’t always keep it on. He could go without it, but it’d been part of his routine and going without one would make him feel like he forgot something, which he hadn’t because he didn’t forget things, so he’d spend his entire day feeling displaced. There were a couple of thin options, namely cheap cardigans he’d thrifted. At first, he tried blindly reaching for one, hoping the lack of decision-making would keep him level-headed, but it still took him a couple of tries before he grabbed a thin brown cardigan with sleeves that wouldn’t feel like they were trying to merge with his skin.
Now dressed, his next task was food. He circled his kitchen a few times and opened the cabinets to close them again. He lingered when he searched through his fridge, the cool air doing little to soothe him but enough for it to be all too tempting to climb inside. Anything cooked was out of the question, but he already felt too sickly to stomach a meal. He longed for coffee, but he’d rather die than sit with a piping hot mug of it. He chewed on the side of his cheek as he made another round of checking for anything that might tempt him. Nothing. He had to eat. He wanted to scream.
An impatient whine escaped him as the options became even more daunting and all the more unappealing. He glanced at the time. He needed to leave in the next half hour if he wanted to catch the tram, but the heat would be even worse there as bodies were packed together like sardines in a tin. He’d breathe in the hot breath of other people, and there was always one person who didn’t think they needed deodorant when they desperately did. He could drive and blast his AC all the way there, but he hated trying to find a parking space, and if he wanted to get a decent spot, then he should leave now, but he hasn’t eaten yet so he’ll have to wait until lunch, but what if they had a case come through and he didn’t have time to get something?
“Spiralling,” he chided. He could be as logical as he liked, but his mind would always catastrophise before he could rein it back in. Deep breath. The world wasn’t going to end. There was always a bowl of fruit in the office; someone complained about the lack of healthy options, although that same someone didn’t seem to touch the offering. He could stomach fruit. It’d have to be something with a peel, but that shouldn’t be a problem. The office would have AC, so he might be able to have coffee there too. He nodded to himself as he cemented the plan in his head.
After a long battle for a half-decent parking space, Spencer stepped into the office expecting to be hit with the refreshing cold air he’d been craving all morning. He was not met with cold air, and as he took in the sight of multiple desk fans spinning at the highest speed, a set of ladders set up underneath the AC unit, he realised he wouldn’t be met with it any time soon. It thankfully wasn’t as boiling as his apartment had been nor as bad as his car when he first got into it, but it was still far too much.
His head pounded as he made his way over to his desk, draping his cardigan on the back of his chair and sitting down. He turned on his computer and grimaced when the PC tower whirred to life, slowly heating up underneath his desk and cooking his legs. He was so uncomfortably sweaty. The office wasn’t filled yet, so he could only imagine how bad it would be when everyone turned on their computers. Maybe the maintenance man would finish up his fixing early, and he’d be blessed with AC.
Spencer knew he should eat and should definitely get some water because he didn’t have any yet, but moving was as unappealing as eating was. He hadn’t felt hungry all morning, and he wasn’t thirsty enough to outweigh the benefits of staying put. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, cringing when it came away wet and greasy. He reached for his hand sanitiser and gritted his teeth through the sticky stage before it dried down. He’d have to keep that to a minimum.
The rest of the morning went by in a blur. People came in, some complaining and some pleased with the bout of warm weather, and got to work as though they weren’t all being slowly cooked alive. His stomach hurt like the acid was trying to eat through his organs, and his skin was so itchy he knew that if he started scratching it, he’d struggle to stop. He grew more frustrated with every hit of hot breath from his nose brushing against his upper lip, every time his skin stuck to the table or his papers, when his sweaty fingers smudged the ink. Wallowing in self-pity wouldn’t do anything, but that didn’t stop him.
“This is hell,” Emily complained as she leaned against her desk. She felt like a melting candle in the shape of a person, and from the looks of it, her peers were no better. Derek was on his eighth bottle of water, and JJ, like a traitor, had been called to a meeting where no doubt there would be a half-decent breeze from opening the windows alone. “What’re the odds we get sent somewhere cold?” She looked over the partition of their desks for Spencer’s reply, but he didn’t say anything.
Spencer had been quiet for far too long, which wouldn’t be worrying in itself. He went through bouts of silence, usually when he had something on his mind that he wouldn’t dare share with any of them until it was already done and dusted, so skipping conversation in favour of short hums or nods wasn’t anything new. The problem came from his silence paired with his appearance. He looked, in no uncertain terms, awful.
“Don’t go wishing for things like that. It’ll only be granted when we get a cold snap,” Derek complained.
Suddenly, Spencer got up from his desk and, after a brief period of swaying, sighed to himself. He didn’t explain himself as he walked off, skipping the break room and heading straight out the glass doors.
“What was that about?” Derek asked, thumbing to the doors behind him. Emily shrugged.
“No idea. Maybe he’s going to steal a fan from the tech department. I know they have some down there, they just won’t hand them over,” she answered. Her own acquisition for more fans had been a failure. Maybe he’d have better luck, although he didn’t have half the intimidation factor that she did.
“If he does get one, they’ll slide right out of his hands. He looks like he belongs in one of those PSAs for heat stroke,” Derek joked. They chuckled…but it didn’t sound as left field as they’d like it to be. Something eerie settled around them, like realising you hadn’t heard any birds in the forest when you were already too far in.
“He would know, though,” Emily said. His cheeks were dusted pink, but everyone was feeling flushed. His brow was slick with sweat, he tried to hide how many times he had to dab it dry with a napkin he subtly threw into the bin underneath his desk, but everyone was trying to be discreet with how they weren’t handling the heat well. His desk was bare of mugs, but nobody was interested in piping hot coffee right now. “Like if anyone would know, it’s him.”
“I mean, the guys in the PSAs don’t always know,” he argued. They all looked over at Spencer’s desk, remembering how sweaty and miserable he’d been since they got in that morning. A little too sweaty. A little too miserable. A little too long since he left.
“He’s from Vegas,” Emily reasoned. He’d know how to survive a heatwave. It’d be second nature at this point, and this was Spencer. Then again, this was Spencer. Derek’s glance told her he was thinking the same thing. “He’s a grown man. He can look after himself.”
“So are the guys in the PSAs.”
“Are you trying to peddle PSAs or something?”
“I’m just saying,” he defended, putting his hands up in surrender. “I mean, by how he looks alone, he could probably score a fan if that’s where he’s headed. If not, then,” he shrugged instead of finishing his sentence.
When Spencer returned, they were sorely disappointed to find a plain brown box in his hands rather than a half-decent fan. His hands trembled under the weight of it, but when he set it on his desk, it didn’t make a thump like they thought it would. He somehow looked worse than when he’d left.
“You alright there?” Derek asked.
“No,” he answered miserably.
“You know, for a Vegas-”
“Yes, yes, I should be better adapted to the heat after growing up in Vegas. I see the irony, and I’m not all that amused by it.” Derek raised an eyebrow at being snapped at, darting his eyes at Emily to see if she caught it too. Her own eyebrow was raised in unison.
“Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Emily commented. Sometimes he needed a little nudge to realise he’d been rude, but if he caught it, he didn’t bother to do much with it. If anything, all she’d succeeded in doing was nudging him right over the edge. He took the top off the box and began aggressively unpacking the dusty documents onto his desk.
“I would’ve woken up perfectly fine if my apartment wasn’t a sun trap, and even with the windows open - which I don’t like because of the noise pollution and the bugs, but I had to because I wouldn’t be able to sleep and being hot is worse than hearing traffic and trying to catch flies - it was still far too warm. So I didn’t sleep well at all. I probably won’t sleep well tonight either because it’s supposed to be the same temperature,” he ranted. He tutted as some of the papers stuck to his sweaty hands. “I showered this morning, but now I feel dirty again, so I can’t imagine how I’ll feel tonight. But showering wastes water, so I like to limit how many showers I take because in a ten-minute shower alone with a standard shower head, you waste 25 gallons of water on average.”
Derek went to say something, but he barreled through his tirade.
“It's as if my apartment seemingly has no insulation in the winter and plenty of it in the summer. Then, I couldn’t decide what to wear because too many layers leads to over heating but I feel more comfortable in layered clothes so it took far too long to get dressed which meant that I had less time to make breakfast but of course I couldn’t eat because it’s too hot and I have no appetite and I’ve had a headache since I woke up which is likely from not consuming caffeine at my usual times because it’s far too hot for coffee-”
“Reid-”
“- and I couldn’t take the tram because it would be too warm, and it smells when it’s too warm because there are so many people and there’s no good way to cool down. What if there was a delay and I got trapped in the station or worse, I got trapped on the tram? So I drove, and that was fine because I could have the windows down and whilst the AC isn’t the best, it was bearable, and it seems to be the most bearable part of my day up until this very point in time-”
“Hey, Reid-”
“- and I eventually found a parking space, which is why I don’t usually drive to work because of the extra time it takes to find a spot and also the environmental factor since I can’t opt out of the continuous air travel we do. I came here expecting the office to at least be cool, but it isn’t unless you’re standing directly in front of the fans, and my desk is the furthest from it, as are yours. The computers make it even warmer, and the little desk fans we were given are just pushing the hot air around rather than making it any cooler, but it’s marginally better than just sitting and sweating because at least every so often there’s a breeze. Then because I’m sweating, my clothes are constantly sticking to me so I can’t even concentrate.”
“Right so-”
“And I feel like my pulse is right underneath my skin, which, yes, I am aware that’s where your pulse usually is, but I can feel it. Combined with the headache and the sweating and the frankly being far too hot to be able to be competent, I don’t think I’ve done anything productive since I sat down, apart from my brief walk to the archives room because at least something as mindless as writing up files for the digital archive shouldn’t be too strenuous, so I feel worse because everyone is suffering but I’m making a big show of my suffering-”
“When was the last time you drank water?” Derek asked, finally managing to interrupt him long enough to get a question out. He stopped, realising that he’d been waving his hands around as he ranted and awkwardly put them down, and his face pinched in irritated confusion.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Humour me.”
“I stopped drinking water two hours before bed to reduce waking up to use the bathroom, so that would’ve been at ten last night and then…” he trailed off.
“Okay, so, could it be possible that some of the things you’re experiencing might be signs of heat exhaustion? The headache, the excessive sweating, the struggle to concentrate?” Emily suggested.
“I suppose.”
“And maybe if we solve that problem, you’ll feel a little better.”
“It’d still be hot.”
“Right, but you wouldn’t feel as bad, and frankly, you wouldn’t look as bad because right now you look like a candy cane,” Derek offered.
“Huh?” Even Emily gave him a weird look for that one.
“You’re pale as hell, but your cheeks are bright red,” he explained.
“There was probably a much better way of saying that,” she argued.
“You got the mental image though.”
“Not really. There’s other red and white things.”
“Yeah, like what?”
“Like,” she paused when she saw Spencer begin to sway in the corner of her vision. “Reid?”
“I was describing him, how-”
Spencer’s face suddenly drained of all its colour and his fingers uselessly grasped at things on his desk as he grew more unsteady on his feet. The pair quickly got out of their chairs, Derek rushing to hook his arms underneath Spencer’s arms and lower him down to the floor whilst Emily retrieved a cold bottle of water from the fridge.
“Someone wanna call an ambulance?” Derek asked expectantly when nobody seemed to be matching their urgency. Maybe he should start peddling PSAs.