And once again it's 1 a.m. and I am writing a fanfiction about the man I refer to as "My Angel." Currently, his life pretty much sucks, and I just love writing about it. Still, this is not particularly angsty, but rather sarcastic and - at least I think so -quite funny. Enjoy.

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Hotch had practically forced him to take the rest of the week off.

Spencer could just hope that Morgan hadn't told their boss anything about what the two of them had discussed in the men's room. But even if Morgan had once in his life been able to keep his mouth shut about Spencer's problems, it would probably have been obvious to Hotch that something was very wrong with his youngest team member.

Now Spencer was sitting in his apartment and didn't really know what to do with his involuntarily gained free time. There was no film or play he wanted to see, and even to him, four days of doing nothing but reading, eating and trying to sleep didn't seem overly desirable. Besides, he would probably not even be able to concentrate on a book - a realization which brought him back to his actual problem.

His headaches had not gotten any better since they had begun. Neither had his insomnia, his inability to focus or his hypersensitivity to light. On the contrary - now, it sometimes happened to him that he looked up and what he saw was grotesquely distorted, blurry or absurdly illuminated in some unnatural color. At the moment, these crazy "special effects" of his eye vision still disappeared after a few seconds, but how long until they would stay this way?

Okay now. Don't get freaked out. How about you start making some plans if you don't want to spend the next four days sitting on this bed?

The problem was, Spencer had never been good at coming up with weekend plans. He and the rest of the team usually worked so much that often it just wasn't worth the effort. And if they had a free evening, they mostly just ended up in some Chinese restaurant for dinner - and even in case this decision could be called planning, Spencer was never involved in it.

(If he was, they would certainly not eat in a Chinese restaurant - he quite liked the food, but it still was a mystery to him how 33% of the world population were able to stay nourished eating with chopsticks.)

Of course, Spencer could go to Nevada and visit his mom in the hospital. She would be happy. That was, in fact, the only idea he could come up with. Quite pathetic, he thought to himself. Anyway, what was he gonna say if his mom asked him how he was? That would certainly be entertaining:

"Thanks, I'm fine, mom. How about you? Oh, by the way, Dr. Norman, guess what? I've been having these really strange headaches and hallucinations lately, isn't that awesome? How about I just stay here, I'm sure you could find another free room?"

He couldn't help but laughing. It was a bitter, joyless and rather sarcastic laugh, he noted without surprise.

Or maybe he should just make his way to the next drug store, purchase some sleeping pills and really spend the next four days in his bed. With all the sleep he had not been able to find over the last weeks it would probably not even be a mistake to do that.

But, of course, he immediately remembered that he had long ago sworn not to use any type of drug unless he was in some kind of lethal situation. The thought of medication still scared him, and unfortunately his mom wasn't the only person responsible for this.

He shivered as the memory of a syringe sinking into the inside of his elbow and him being helplessly tied to a chair appeared in his mind as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. He groaned.

Thanks so much, eidetic memory. A little post-traumatic stress is exactly what I need right now. How did you guess?

He got up, went into his small bathroom and splashed some cold water into his face. When he looked into the mirror, he was quite shocked: He looked at least ten years older than he was. There were lines of worry on his forehead and the ever-present shadows under his now sunken eyes seemed about three times the size they were supposed to be, dominating his whole face and making him look like some killer from a bad horror movie.

If he went and tried to buy sleeping pills looking like this, they would probably suspect him of suicidal intentions. And anyway, he did absolutely not feel like going out and talking to people right now. His over-active mind, of course, immediately offered him a not very comforting hypothesis as to why this could be so:

The first, so-called prodromal stage of paranoid schizophrenia is always associated with isolation, general social withdrawal, significantly reduced performance at work and a lack of motivation. The word "prodromal" is derived from the Greek prodromos, which describes something that comes before and signals an event.

Spencer sighed and let himself fall onto his bed, ignoring the neatly folded blanket. Maybe he should really just go to Las Vegas and visit his mom. Play some Scrabble and talk about things only the two of them were able to comprehend at the first attempt. If she asked him, he would just say that everything was fine - he didn't want her to worry more than she already did. Yes. That's what he would do.

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