Chapter Text
Dr. Spencer Reid knew what was going on around him. He knew that Gideon was ushering him back to a vehicle. He knew that there were people dealing with the body of one Tobias Hankel, and he knew that in his pocket sat two bottles of Dilaudid.
When JJ embraced him, he thought he could never feel more relief, but then he tucked the bottles into his pocket without anybody noticing.
He would never mistake the thrill he felt for anything positive. The relief he felt from hugging JJ and pocketing the Dilaudid was different. But one was definitively greater than the other, if Spencer could attach statistics to his own emotions in his compromised state.
“Reid,”
Spencer startled. Only slightly, but the softening of Hotch’s features and the way his hand stiffened on Spencer’s shoulder told him everything he needed to know.
“We’re here.” Here as in the hospital. The last place Spencer wanted to be, despite the overbearing knowledge that he needed to be checked over.
His hands shook. Not the normal caffeine induced shakes. Fear. Or withdrawal?
“Reid,” Hotch’s voice was softer than the first time he said it. “You’re safe. I know how terrible hospitals can be sometimes but they need to check you over before we can go home.”
“That doesn’t make it easier to actually convince my mind I’m safe,” Reid muttered, shoving his hands between his thighs in a futile attempt to stop the shaking. His mind had always betrayed him. Incapable of reading social cues, unable to feel safe despite being surrounded by safe people, unable to stop shaking.
Hotchner sighed and retracted his hand from Reid’s shoulder, reaching instead for the door handle. Wordlessly, he made his way around to Reid’s side of the car and pulled his door open.
“Come on,” Hotch tilted his head toward the building. “Even geniuses need help sometimes.”
A slight, almost imperceptible nod was the only response Hotch got.
It took at least another minute for Reid to get out of the car. Without asking, Hotch slid his arm under Reid’s to support some of his weight, even though Reid was capable of walking by himself. This time, he didn’t startle at the touch.
Just before they reached the doors of the ER, Hotch slowed them both to a stop. Reid looked at his superior, attentive and confused, yet somehow also ten thousand miles away.
“Hotch?”
Hotchner looked down at Spencer, and immediately Reid could tell that he was assessing his injuries. It took about three seconds before he was pulled into an embrace. The second one from Hotch that night.
At first, Spencer stiffened, genuinely surprised by the touch. It felt so…intimate. Earlier when they were surrounded by others it wasn’t out of place, but here Reid hadn’t been expecting it. Though, in all fairness, he could feel his body relaxing against Hotch’s. Betrayed again.
“We couldn’t have done it without you,” Hotch whispered.
Reid, with all his knowledge, doesn’t know if that’s true or not. He definitely helped them get to him quicker, but did he really save himself or did he just kill Tob-
“Reid, hey,” Hotch pulled back from the hug just a bit. “Don’t spiral on me. You saved yourself. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
Hotch picked up on his spiral so fast that it almost brought tears to Spencer’s eyes, but he steeled himself, refusing to meet Hotch’s eyes. “Yeah,” He cleared his throat and pulled back fully from the hug. He clutched onto the lingering warmth.
Spencer met Hotch’s eyes. They weren’t cold and calculated like normal. No. They were warm and relieved.
“I knew you would understand.”
---
Inside the hospital, once he was filling out release paperwork, Hotch stepped away with the promise of a quick return. He left Spencer with a phone in case anybody needed to contact him or vice versa.
The nurses were nice enough and told him all the things he already knew. Mild concussion—would necessitate 48 hours of monitoring. Cracked ribs that would put him out for at least 4 weeks, probably closer to 6, and the obvious drugs that were found in his system. They would take around 3 days to fully clear out.
“Thank you,” Reid smiled at the nurse as she turned and walked out of the room. He was alone.
It was futile to wish for silence in a hospital, there would always be background murmurs and beeping, but Spencer wished for silence anyway. The hospital was the last place he wanted to be, for more reasons than one. Hospitals normally meant waiting around for good news only to receive the bad stuff. Or watching your loved ones suffer more than they deserved.
Now, Spencer waited. Waited to be let out, to go home. To his bed, the only place he ever felt truly exposed yet safe at the same time. Waited for Hotch to come back, for the team to check in on him. He waited to get on the plane.
His hands hadn’t stopped shaking.
No matter how many times he shoved his hands between his legs it didn’t stop. And every time he reached into his pockets just to hide his hands, he was reminded of what he had taken from the crime scene. Not just what he was forced to have.
There was dirt in his hair and he could feel blood sticking to his skin in too many patched up places. He couldn’t wait to take a shower.
“Reid,”
Spencer looked up at the voice. Morgan stood at the threshold of the room with JJ. He couldn’t help the smile that twitched onto his face. Not that he was trying to hide it.
“I’m glad you’re okay, genius,” Morgan stepped fully into the room. Spencer watched the way he noted the wires and machinery detached from Spencer, unintentionally profiling the situation.
“I would be better if we were already on the plane.” Spencer didn’t know where those words came from—where the absolute honesty came from. But he didn’t take it back.
His words earned him a chuckle from Morgan, and the relaxing of JJ’s body posture. Spencer had immediately noted the tension when she entered the room. “Next time, we’re not splitting up, got it Spence?"
Spencer huffed out a laugh, looking down at his hands neatly tucked between his thighs. “Got it.”
She sat down on the bed beside him. Slowly, as if she was afraid to hurt him by getting too close.
“You know, I’m not going to break if you want to hug me again, JJ,” Spencer murmured, mostly for himself because he wanted her close. Wanted to feel less alone.
He knew he said the right thing when she wrapped her arms tightly around him. Not too tight, never too tight. And even though his hands shook, he hugged her back.
Morgan watched and let the quiet speak for itself. There wasn’t anything that needed to be said now that couldn’t wait until the plane ride. Right now, all they needed was the reassurance that Spencer Reid wasn’t going to disappear right in front of their eyes.
Most people disappear in the daylight.
“Reid, have you finished the paperwork they gave you? We’re wheels up in 30 and-” Hotch cut himself off as he saw the scene in front of him. Morgan glanced over his shoulder at the man and just smirked.
“Yeah I think he finished it.”
“I did,” Spencer muttered, eyes closed, arms still firmly wrapped around JJ. “Wheels up when?”
Even though Spencer couldn’t see him, he could tell Hotch was savoring the moment as much as him and JJ were.
“An hour. We’ve got time. The airport is only a ten minute drive.”
Spencer hummed. He could feel the edges of the room getting fuzzy as exhaustion finally hit him with its full force. “I can’t wait to sleep on the jet.”
“Don’t fall asleep on us just yet, Pretty Boy. You’ve got to actually get on the jet first,” Derek teased.
Spencer opened his eyes when JJ pulled back from their embrace. He looked blearily up at Morgan and Hotch. “What are we waiting for?”
“We’re waiting for confirmation from Gideon that everything is set. He’s finishing details with the local PD as we speak.” JJ explained, also averting her gaze toward Hotch and Morgan.
It was at this moment Spencer noticed Hotch’s eyes. Not noticeable to a passerby, but Spencer saw it. The flicker of fear and relief that Hotch so rarely showed, but felt deeper than he let anybody on the team know. The concern.
The emotion burned unpleasantly on Spencer’s skin, wormed its way inside like a parasite. He wasn’t supposed to be the subject of that concern, the cause of it. If emotions could be felt, Spencer felt Hotch’s concern. Felt it sear him, strangle him.
“I’m fine,” Spencer insisted without being asked. He stood carefully, nearly flinching at the way JJ reached for him to make sure he didn’t stumble.
“I didn’t ask-”
“You were going to.” Spencer cut Hotch off and immediately felt bad about it when the corners of Hotch’s mouth twitched downward and the concern became a little more apparent on his face. Why did he do that?
Spencer really just wanted to sleep. Every breath pulled at his ribs, and every time he tried to stop his hands from shaking it only made it worse. The bottles hung heavy in his pocket.
After a moment, a long moment where Hotch looked like he wanted to reach out and support Reid himself, Hotch instead sighed and held the door open for everybody to exit the room. “I think we all need some rest on the jet.”
Hotch surprised Spencer then. They all knew Hotch wouldn’t be getting a wink of sleep. He never did. That wasn’t what shocked him. It was the gentle hand on his back when he exited the room that lingered for a second longer than it needed to.
The touch sent an involuntary shiver down Spencer’s spine, and even though it felt nothing like the shivers he had in the cemetery, he felt his mind drift back there. He blinked and the vision was gone.
Spencer looked around, noticed Hotch’s eyes on him as JJ and Morgan walked ahead, and rubbed his eyes.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Hotch’s voice was doing that thing again. The quiet thing Reid had only heard used with him.
Spencer hesitated to answer, and maybe that was answer enough. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat and looked back forward, nodding toward JJ and Morgan. “I’m fine. We should get going.”
Hotch’s expression flicked for a split second, but that split second was enough for Spencer to know that Hotch didn’t believe him. But that didn’t matter. He was already walking away with a hand in his pocket.