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Spencer was not doing well.
The withdrawal from the dilaudid was nothing like anything he’d ever endured before. Made worse by the fact that it was in his official report of what Tobias Hankel put him through. It had been his idea to go on temporary leave, which Hotch and Gideon had approved of, but the bureau was going to need a psych eval and a negative drug screen before he would be able to go back to work.
It would be no longer detectable by the time Spencer made it through the withdrawal, Spencer knew that for sure.
He just couldn’t stand the pity.
So, right now the only one he could stand to be around was Derek. Derek, who had seamlessly stepped into the caretaker role even without being asked. Spencer had given up on asking if he was still sure this was what he wanted.
His ribs ached, he had to get around with a crutch, and his body was turning in on itself. He would’ve felt a lot better just going into a coma until the last of the withdrawal symptoms had left him.
But that would’ve been too simple.
The marks at the crook of his right arm had faded but they weren’t gone yet and Spencer hated looking at them.
Before all this Derek had said “There isn’t a part of you that I don’t love” and all Spencer could think was how can you love me now after what’s been done to me?
But that was the same argument that Derek had used when he’d told Spencer all that Carl Buford had done to him.
“I would love you blind,” Spencer had told him and Derek had choked on a sob, grasping him so tightly that it almost hurt.
He drew the blankets more around him, trying to stave off the shivers.
“How is he?”
“Not great,” Morgan admitted. “The withdrawal symptoms are hitting him pretty hard…mostly he just wants to lay in bed all day. He won’t even crack a book open and I left about five at his bedside.”
Which was the most telling part, that he wasn’t well enough to even do the one thing he loved more than more things; reading.
“Are you sure he doesn’t want any of us to come by?” Hotch asked.
“Oh, no,” Morgan said immediately with certainty, “I think he’s ashamed…of getting kidnapped, drugged, and tortured…it’s all…a lot.”
Hotch frowned. “He doesn’t have any reason to be ashamed. This isn’t his fault. It’s Tobias Hankel’s.”
And Morgan knew that, but getting Reid to understand was a whole different battle.
“He won’t even talk about, not even with me,” Morgan said heavily. “I’ve tried a few times, but he just shuts down completely. I’ve never seen him go nonverbal before.”
“Maybe all he needs is time.”
Morgan was less certain.
“Are you worried about him being alone while we’re on this case?” Hotch asked, correctly presuming why he’d asked to speak with him privately.
“I was wondering if I could ask you a favor about that.”
Hotch’s brow furrowed.
“Baby girl, can I ask you a favor?”
“Of course you can,” she said immediately, “is it about Reid?”
Derek didn’t really mind that other people knew that they were together, it wasn’t like he was ashamed of his partner, he just also knew that Spencer didn’t like unnecessary attention. So, telling Penelope would be no hardship.
“You have access to all the personnel files, don’t you?” he asked instead. “Can you get into Reid’s?”
Perturbed, she did so. “Why?” she asked, pulling him up. “Is there something wrong with it?”
“I just need you to look at his emergency contact before I ask you this favor.”
“Cryptic,” Penelope hummed. “Here it is…Agent…Derek Morgan.” She glanced to him, surprise clear. “Significant other, fraternization paperwork filed August 12, 2005…you and Reid?”
“Me and Reid,” Derek agreed.
“Wow. I mean, I never would’ve thought, you are very good,” she said and Derek couldn’t help but chuckle, rubbing at the back of his head with one hand.
“Thanks, we like to keep things professional at work.”
“So professional, oh my God! This is why your sisters are besties with him and why he got invited to that graduation with you!” Penelope realized. “JJ and Emily were so sure that he was dating your sister!”
“Yeah, Sarah got a kick out of that. He has a long-standing phone date with my sisters on Tuesdays,” Derek said with his mouth twitching.
“Oh, that is so cute,” she declared, clapping her hands together delightedly before faltering, “wait, why are you telling just me?”
“Because we just got a case and Spencer isn’t doing so great so I wanted to know if you’d be willing to work remote to keep an eye on him? Hotch said he’d clear it if you were okay—”
Penelope cut across him immediately. “Of course I can, anything Reid needs.”
She knew nothing about withdrawal from a substance like dilaudid but once it was clear that that was what Reid was going through, she pulled a Reid and dived right into research. He was right in the middle of the withdrawal period and it was a misery to be sure.
“You’re the best, baby girl.”
“You know it, baby.”
Penelope wouldn’t lie, she was incredibly interested in seeing the apartment that Derek shared with Spencer, which she knew she shouldn’t care as much about as Spencer’s current state, but curiosity won out.
It was a spacious apartment that was absolutely cluttered with books. There was a ridiculously large bookshelf secured to the wall, absolutely brimming with books and there were still more scattered around.
There was an old dial-up phone that had Reid written all over it, but for someone so anti-technology, there were a number of more modern tech. A flat screen TV, a fancy coffee maker in the kitchen. Sports memorabilia mounted on the wall with awards both of them had earned over the years.
“No pictures?” she asked curiously.
Derek let out a chuckle. “Every time I get one framed, he gets so flustered that it vanishes a few days later.”
“Adorable.”
“My sister is going to come by tomorrow to check on him, if you sweet talk her, she’ll probably show you some pictures she’s got on her phone,” he offered and Penelope’s eyes glowed. “C’mon, let me show you around.”
There wasn’t much to show her, where to find the coffee (the most important part, if you asked Penelope), the bathroom, and finally the main bedroom where Spencer was curled up under a number of blankets, shivering.
“Baby?”
“Mm? Derek?” Spencer slurred out, his head poking up, eyes hazy from fever as the rest of his face was pale.
Derek immediately pressed the back of his hand to his brow. “You’re burning up again,” he noted with a frown, “did you take that Tylenol I left out for you?”
“Yes,” Spencer said, impossibly glum.
Penelope swallowed. She’d never seen Spencer like this; he looked like he needed a nice long stay in the hospital to get him back to normal.
“Baby, I have to go, we’ve got a case, but Penelope is going to keep an eye on you—”
“I’m not a child,” Spencer said shortly, shockingly coherent.
It was so intimate the way Derek ran his fingers through Spencer’s wild curls -he really needed to wear less product, those curls were to die for- that Penelope felt like she should step out of the room. “I know,” Derek said gently, “but if I wasn’t feeling well and you were on a case, wouldn’t you want someone to look after me?”
He made what was clearly an acquiescing gesture with his hand and Derek leaned down to kiss him lightly. “Love you, take it easy, try to read a book.”
But Spencer’s eyes were already sliding shut, so Derek jerked his head back towards Penelope, who immediately stepped out of the room.
“He looks terrible,” Penelope whispered.
“He’s barely eating at this point, I haven’t found anything that won’t make him nauseous,” Derek said with a grimace. “Sarah’s going to try a hand at making our Nana’s corn chowder…there’s chicken broth and crackers that he’s been nibbling on, at least. Maybe just see if he’ll try to drink a little. If he gets too dehydrated Sarah says she’ll drag him into the hospital.”
Penelope couldn’t help but be continually surprised. “She must really like him.”
“Yeah, it’s annoying,” Derek said with a half-smile. “If he does start feeling better, I’ve left a file on the case if he feels up to looking over it, but we’ll get by without him, I don’t want him to feel like he has to do anything with it.”
“I’ve got your man,” Penelope promised and he kissed the top of her head.
“Thanks, baby girl, for everything.”
“Wild horses, Derek. Wild horses.”
Reid was so much better at geographical profiling than Emily was, he’d literally written several studies on it.
She wouldn’t lie, she did read them over before she met the rest of the team and…they were well-researched and, at the start, extremely wordy. There was a certain point in 2005, though, where the way he wrote became slightly more simplistic and less verbose. Like someone had read his first drafts and critiqued how he’d written it.
Or maybe he’d written them knowing a certain person would be reading them.
What did Emily know, she wasn’t nearly as close to Reid as Morgan and JJ and Garcia were.
“How’s the geographical profiling going?” JJ asked as Emily scrutinized the map.
“Reid would do a better job,” she admitted.
“Well, it is his specialization,” JJ had to concede with a smile, though there was a grim edge to it.
“…how is he doing?” she asked cautiously.
“Garcia got special permission from Hotch to work from home to keep an eye on him…I overheard Morgan say that he’s not doing well with the withdrawal,” JJ said, taking in a shaking breath. “The only person he’s letting visit him is Morgan, I tried to go by his apartment but I guess he hadn’t updated his address yet—”
“What do you mean?” Emily asked, confused.
“He hasn’t lived there in a few weeks…Morgan’s sister Sarah is renting his place now, and I asked if she knew Spence’s address and she said ‘if he hasn’t told you, I’m not about to’.”
“Are we sure they’re not dating?” Emily said. “Because that woman is so overprotective.”
“I don’t think so,” JJ hummed. “It felt more sisterly to me…I guess we’ll just have to wait it out for him to reach out.”
What were the chances that Reid would do that?
“Are you lonely in the Lone Star state and are you wearing chaps?” Garcia said immediately after answering the phone.
You wouldn’t have really known that was wasn’t at the bureau and was instead taking up residence on Reid’s favorite armchair…except for the way she kept her voice in an undertone.
Morgan couldn’t help the chuckle. “Only in your dreams, Garcia.”
“Oh, not necessarily,” he could just hear her smirk, “I have photoshop.”
“Hey, hey, behave,” Morgan warned teasingly. “Focus your little twisted mind for me, ok? I need police records from the Fifth Ward, small thefts and burglaries. Can you do that?”
“Sure…” Garcia said, clearly confused, “but aren’t you at that very station right now?”
“Yeah, but it's a small precinct and these guys are stretched. Trust me.”
“Ah,” she said with understanding, “got it.”
Morgan stepped slightly away from the cluster of cops around him. “How’s my man doing?”
Garcia paused for a brief moment. “He’s still got a fever and shakes. He’s barely wanting to drink anything so it was a fight to take about a cup of broth earlier but he did and he kept it down—”
“—that’s great,” Morgan said with a little sigh of relief. “I think it’s mostly that he’s got no appetite.”
“Yeah, he reminds me of my step-brother when he didn’t want to eat anything my mom cooked when we were kids,” Garcia said, “and then I feel terrible for thinking that because if he wasn’t kidnapped or drugged, he wouldn’t feel like this—”
“Baby girl,” Morgan cut her off, “I get it. I know he’s not doing well but we just have to get him through this last bit and he should be over the hump in a day or two, at most four.”
But if he got too much worse, he would need to be hospitalized, which Sarah had stressed every time she popped over to check on him, stethoscope at the ready.
Desiree hadn’t called since Morgan had called her back to let her know that they’d gotten him out, but he suspected that Sarah was keeping her apprised.
Wine Nights were definitely on hold for a while until they were sure the dilaudid was completely out of his system.
“Right,” Garcia said thickly, “over the hump, we can do this.”
“Yes, we can,” Morgan agreed.
Night had fallen and Spencer was feeling no better than he had the entire day. Garcia had strong-armed him into drinking some water before she’d left for the night, which wasn’t helping the full feeling in his stomach.
Part of it was in his head, he knew, there was barely anything in his stomach, but the discomfort remained.
And another part of him was glad that Derek wasn’t around.
Derek’s primary instinct was protective, particularly of Spencer, which wasn’t something he had clocked initially; he wasn’t used to people making him the priority and it had been quite the learning curve to adapt to that constant.
But Derek couldn’t help him here.
Spencer had to weather this storm on his own and the storm was endless.
Penelope entered the apartment to hear raised voices, one that as Spencer and one that was female that Penelope didn’t recognize.
“I don’t—”
“I know you don’t want to, Spence,” the woman was saying, “but you need to. You’ll feel so much better after a shower, trust me.”
Penelope shut the door behind her to drop her laptop bag on the couch and head towards the main bedroom.
“Sarah, I can’t!” Spencer pressed.
The woman was shorter than Spencer by a decent amount -which wasn’t saying much because he was tall- and dressed casually with wild curls tied back from her face. Sarah was Derek’s older sister, the one that was working as a doctor that he’d said would be stopping by.
“What’s going on?” Penelope asked cautiously. Maybe she should’ve worn her heels; they were louder.
As it was, Sarah startled wildly, twisting around with a muffled swear. “Who the hell are you?!” she demanded. “How’d you get in my brother’s apartment?”
“Derek gave me the spare key,” Penelope said quickly to assuage her fears. “I’m Penelope Garcia.”
“Oh!” Sarah’s eyes widened in realization. “You’re the one he calls baby girl.”
Penelope beamed brightly, utterly shameless. “Yup, that’s me.” Then her eyes dropped to Spencer who was wincing in the bright light. “Migraine?” she guessed.
“Sarah is not helping things,” Spencer ground out, hiding his face under the blankets.
The expression on her face was incredibly affronted before she dragged the blankets off him.
“Hey!”
Penelope hadn’t seen the marks before on his inner arm, where Tobias had stuck his needle of dilaudid into Spencer’s vein but they made her swallow hard.
They’ll be gone soon, she reminded herself, it’s not enough to scar, not enough for him to always see it in the mirror on bad nights.
“Sarah!” Spencer complained, but she was already swinging his legs off the bed and quite literally dragging him upright.
“You look at me, Spencer Reid,” Sarah snarled out and he froze with an arm automatically catching on her shoulders. “I get it, you feel like shit, you’ve been having fevers and tremors and nausea that won’t fucking quit and we can’t relate to any of it, but you need looking after, let me look after you, you goddamn brat.”
Penelope had never considered Spencer a brat, a kid, sure, but she supposed when you were an older sibling, you could consider your brother’s parter a brat, especially if he was so reticent to being taken care of.
They stood at a stalemate, a war of wills and then something fractured in Spencer’s expression and he slumped against her, his shoulders trembling.
“I’m—”
“I know,” Sarah said gently, “don’t worry about it…c’mon, let’s get you in the shower, you’ll feel better, I promise.”
He moved with a slow limp, but his sprained ankle was doing much better. And Penelope was only too happy to comply when Sarah asked her to change the sheets.
Penelope had thrown the sweat-ridden sheets in the washer and was working getting a spare set on the mattress by the time Sarah reappeared, face and arms slightly wet, to help her with the last corner.
“I think he’s mostly just going to sit under the spray for a little bit, but better than nothing,” Sarah admitted with a heavy sigh. “And his fever’s broken at least.”
“That’s got to be a good sign,” Penelope said easily, fluffing the pillows just to have something to do.
Sarah pursed her lips, shoulders strained. “How bad was it?”
That made Penelope freeze up. “Russian roulette with a revolver pointed at his head,” she said after a minute and Sarah paled, “by someone with three personalities. We think Tobias Hankel gave him the dilaudid to help him deal with what he was being put through.”
They said it was a miracle that Spencer’s ankle didn’t end up broken, but it was deeply traumatized from being beaten with a blunt object…and when they’d seen him on the streamed video, he did look frightened whenever Hankel got close to him and grabbed him, so she wondered if there was more to it than what they saw, there had to be.
“Great, great,” Sarah said grimly, pressing her hands to her face and dragging them down.
“You must really like him.”
That made Sarah frown. “Do people not like Spence?” she asked, utterly baffled, like she’d never even considered the possibility, which made warmth bloom in Penelope’s chest.
“Some people can find him…a lot,” she allowed carefully. “He has a hard time relating to other people, usually.”
It wasn’t like all that many people had much in terms of shared life experiences that Spencer could lean on.
“Maybe they just need to try harder, then, it’s not that difficult for us,” Sarah said, clearly annoyed, speaking for her and her sister, catching how Penelope smiled. “What?”
“You are prime sister-in-law material, that’s all,” she said simply.
Sarah laughed. “If Derek plays his cards right,” she allowed. “Desiree and I keep threatening to replace him with Spence.”
“What’s he say to that?” Penelope asked with a grin.
“Mostly he says Spencer just hasn’t figured out how annoying it would be to us for sisters,” Sarah said, utterly apathetic. “Big whoop.”
Sarah only let him stay in the shower for thirty minutes, saying nothing as she helped him get into a fresh set of pajamas while his face was bright red, helping him limp back to his and Derek’s bedroom.
He blinked and the next thing he knew, he was waking up an hour later and unfortunately, he had to concede that Sarah had been right.
It was night and day, he was a whole new man.
There were still tremors in his hands, but it was much more manageable, so he was able to grab the crutch, wincing on his bad ankle as he stepped out into the living room.
Penelope beamed brightly before pressing a finger to her lips and pointing to Sarah, curled up on the corner of the couch, breathing in and out easily.
“The soup will be done in another hour,” she whispered. “Want to look at the case? It’s okay if you don’t.”
He could just barely make her out and his contacts were definitely a no go, so he squinted, looking for his glasses. Derek could never make up his mind on if he liked Spencer better with or without the glasses, current data leaned towards without because he got a look at Spencer’s ‘doe eyes’ unhindered, but that data got slightly skewed when Spencer wrinkled his nose while wearing them.
That was a sure-fire way to get kissed.
It took a moment to locate them before returning to sit on the edge of the couch closest to the armchair -his armchair- that Penelope had set up shop on.
Murders in and around construction areas. “They considered the unsub might be homeless?” Spencer asked frowning, reading the contents thoroughly in less than a minute.
“They already ruled that out,” she shook her head.
Interesting… “Do you have any before and after pictures of the construction zones?” he asked her.
“Hm…I can get them, just where the murders happened or in general?”
“Probably in general,” Spencer admitted, frowning as he looked through the pictures attached. “Can you go a week back?”
“For you, my vision, anything,” she purred and Spencer stifled a snort.
“Garcia’s on line one,” JJ said as she entered the room, pressing the button on the phone’s receiver, flipping it to speaker. “Go ahead Penelope.”
“All right, cowgirls and boys,” Garcia hummed on the other end. “Would you believe it, the good doctor found a breakthrough for the rest of you mere mortals—”
There was a female laugh in the back and familiar low sigh of “Garcia…”
“Spence!” JJ startled. “How-how are you?”
“Better, thank you,” Reid’s voice came.
Hotch thought it sounded weaker, but he couldn’t imagine that he was still feeling the best. “Sarah bullied me into a shower—”
“You’re welcome, asshole!” was called over and Morgan snorted.
“He’s a whole new man,” they could practically hear Garcia’s grin and Gideon closed his eyes to let out a relieved breath as Emily’s mouth twitched. “And this new man had me looking at comparison satellite images of the before and after pictures of construction zones in our geographic profile—”
“Reid would’ve been better at it,” Emily said quickly, “I’m not nearly as good as you.”
“Don’t put yourself down too much,” Reid’s dry tone was obvious. “I looked it over, there’s only a minimal margin of error.”
“Okay, Reid,” Morgan snorted, “stop flirting, you found something?”
“Who’s flirting, ‘baby girl’?” Reid quipped back, making them all snort as Morgan threw his hands up in the air as his sister cackled with Garcia. He at least sounded to be in good spirits, which was more than Hotch had been expecting from what Morgan had been saying. “Garcia found something.”
“Check it,” she said as the images downloaded onto the laptop screen. “Do you see it yet?”
“Is that an SOS?” JJ asked, leaning in close to peer over Gideon’s shoulder.
“Yeah, it's made of debris and other rocky bits of gobbledygook,” Garcia told them, “this is the building where the security guard got killed.”
“He's asking for help,” Hotch realized.
“When you think about it,” Reid cleared his throat, “some parts of construction work can definitely sound like gunfire.”
“A war veteran.” Emily’s eyes widened. “He thinks he’s in a war zone.”
“And he might not even be aware of what he’s doing.”
“How d’you mean, Reid?” Morgan asked.
“When soldiers suffered from anxiety, depression, And flashbacks in World War I, it was called Shell Shock,” he explained. This was only their second case since Reid’s kidnapping and subsequent leave but Hotch never realized just how much they’d come to rely on his knowledge until it had been removed from the equation. “In World War II, Battle Fatigue. Now we refer to it as War-Related Post Traumatic stress disorder. A side effect of which is slipping into dissociative states. The mind divorces itself from reality so it can cope with the trauma.”
“You are shockingly coherent for someone whose been in a constant state of fever for the past few days,” Sarah Morgan mused. “It’ll be a miracle if that high IQ of yours doesn’t take a dip, sugar.”
JJ and Emily shared an amused glance.
“I’m adding that to the list of endearments you aren’t allowed to call me,” Reid said sourly.
“Good luck with that one.”
Reid sighed heavily.
“Now, the good doctor hasn’t eaten hardly at all in about five days, so if the rest of you are done, I think you should eat some of this soup, Spence—”
“Fine, fine,” Reid grumbled and Morgan hid a smile as he and Garcia bid their goodbyes.
“He sounds better,” Gideon noted with relief.
Maybe he had finally gotten over the hump that was the worst that dilaudid had to offer.
One could only hope.
Derek got home late, taking care to be as quiet as possible as he entered the apartment.
The TV was still on but they were passed out, all three of them.
A bemused smile crept up onto his face, taking in all of them. Penelope and Sarah leaning into Spencer’s side so he was caught between them, wrapped up in his robe and a blanket that said he wasn’t completely over the chills.
Derek couldn’t resist snapping a picture of them all on his phone before quietly turning off the TV; it wasn’t like they were watching Star Wars anymore.
He ran his fingers through Spencer’s hair which was enough to make him stir.
“’rek?” he mumbled, trying to pry his eyes open with difficulty.
“Feeling better?” Derek hummed, kissing him lightly.
“A bit,” Spencer allowed, straining to keep his voice low, hazy eyes meeting Derek’s sleepily. “Thank you.”
“Anything for you,” Derek assured him easily and the redness that spread across his cheeks had nothing to do with his low-grade fever.
Anything for you.
And Derek meant it.