Nobody on the team was surprised when Spencer had put in for a week's vacation time. He, much like Rossi, didn't enjoy down time, but everyone saw the job starting to take its toll on him.
On Friday afternoon, he packed his things into his satchel, snapping it shut.
"Enjoy the week off, Spence, you deserve it."
He gave her a quick wave and a nod, shouldering his bag and walking out.
"Does he even know what to do with time off, other than visit his mother?" Emily asked, watching him as he left.
JJ shrugged. "He doesn't have any plans to go to Vegas, so he obviously has some sort of game plan."
"Good for him, it's about damn time the kid learns to relax," Rossi said, walking by their desks and up to his office.
When Spencer arrived at his apartment, he closed the door behind him, locking it. He set his bag down on his chair and sat on his couch, running a hand over his face. He didn't have any particular plans for the week off, and requested it simply because he needed to get away from the job – specifically, away from the team. He understood that they were a family, and they always had his best interest in mind, but did they?
Lately, he'd started thinking about his so-called family, and how they functioned. Obviously, Hotch was the father, watching over everybody. Rossi was the uncle who came into the picture who was very protective over his nieces and nephews. Garcia was the bubbly, fun aunt who would visit on occasion, ready to take care of everyone. Emily was the serious older sister, while JJ was the more fun one, though he'd never want to be the person to cross either of them. Finally, there was Derek, the pain in the ass older brother. Sometimes, he wasn't sure if he cared more about protecting him, or finding new ways to aggravate him. That left him as the youngest, the little brother. Though by what he understood of families, the youngest usually got the most attention, he definitely didn't feel that way.
He thought back on his years at the BAU, and didn't see himself as the younger sibling that was cared for, and instead felt like the outcast. In his first few years at the BAU, they'd had the L.D.S.K. case, where Hotch had kicked the living daylights out of him. He understood the reasoning, and knew that Hotch knew he did, but didn't understand why he had to continue to kick him so hard. Afterward, it seemed the only person who cared was Hotch, and that was most likely out of guilt. He'd gone to the hospital alone after that case, and found out he had bruised a few of his ribs. He'd kept that hidden from the team, not wanting to seem like a bother or an inconvenience. Nobody had come up to him when he walked around carefully, an arm wrapped around his stomach, for more than a week.
Something that especially hurt, and nobody on the team really knew about, happened right before Elle left. After The Fisher King case, he knew that the one thing she needed was somebody to talk to, or simply someone to listen, so he decided to be that person for her. He'd gone to her hotel room and talked to her most of the night, and was extremely proud of himself for making progress with her. The next day, she shot an unsub in cold blood, and soon after resigned from the BAU. He couldn't help but feel responsible, thinking that if he had somehow said something else, she wouldn't have done it. The guilt of that ate him up inside even to this day.
Then, of course, there was the Tobias Hankel case. To him, it felt like nobody took notice to his injuries. He'd limped out of that graveyard and gone to the hospital in an ambulance. He was out of it, for the most part, but remembered Derek being there beside him, attempting to comfort him and tell him he'd be okay. He remained optimistic until he'd woken up alone in the hospital room, his foot wrapped in an ace bandage and a few stitches on the left side of his forehead. When he was released, JJ had been there to give him a ride to the airstrip, most likely out of overwhelming guilt for the two of them splitting up. He'd slept on the jet, woke up when they landed, and nobody offered him a ride home. He'd hoped that, maybe, after he missed a week of work, at the request of Hotch, they'd take notice and ask him how he was. Instead, he stood in the kitchen, awkwardly stirring the sugar into his coffee while Emily and Derek discussed Kurt Vonnegut at length. He shrugged it off, limping to his desk and sipping his coffee.
On the next couple of cases, he'd started having intense flashbacks, and even a few nightmares to join them. He'd shared a room with Derek, who took no notice to either of them. In fact, it seemed like nobody on the team noticed that he was slowly withdrawing from them and showing the symptoms of narcotic withdrawals. This was the time he decided to dig into his satchel, grab the vials of Dilaudid, and get another fix. He'd had some hope in New Orleans, when Gideon had approached him about his problem and offered his assistance. However, a handful of cases later, Gideon had taken off on him. The one man he'd been able to trust with everything since joining the BAU was gone, and didn't even have the decency to tell him face to face. All he had was a hand-written letter, which he admitted he couldn't read very well with Gideon's chicken scratch. He never really had an answer as to why he left, but didn't want to be a bother trying to find him and ask.
While they were in Oregon looking for the psychiatrist who killed people with their fears, Emily had approached him about Gideon's letter. The conversation had started soft and innocent and he was optimistic, hoping that he'd finally had somebody to talk to. He also felt this was an opportunity to apologize to her for when he'd snapped at her while going through withdrawals. Instead? He felt as if he was being interrogated and belittled for being the only person Gideon had written to as a goodbye. She also made him feel like an imbecile, telling him to read the letter again. He had an eidetic memory, he could've recited it for her right then and there if she'd given him the opportunity. In fact, she'd somehow found a way to make him feel guilty for the fact that Gideon only wrote to him. It wasn't his fault – he couldn't control what Gideon did when he'd suffered his major depressive episode.
When he and Emily had gone into the underground cult in Colorado, he understood the team being concerned about her. After all, she did take the heat and reveal herself as an agent for his safety. The part that made it difficult for him was the fact that nobody cared how he felt about the situation. Honestly, he was sick to his stomach that he had to act as if he understood everything they were doing, and it made him disgusted with himself that he went along with it. He had been right outside the doors when the explosion went off, and had breathed in a lot of the fumes. As he stepped up to the team, he gave Emily a hug, but then sat on the front steps while everyone else had checked her over. He didn't even allow himself to be checked on by the paramedics – if the team didn't see that something was wrong, he didn't see the point in getting looked over. They'd probably just think he was grabbing for attention from them and trying to steal attention from Emily, who was much more visibly hurt than he was.
The most painful one had to be when he had been poisoned with Anthrax. He had taken the Cipro that morning along with the team, but it had never been tested with the current strain. He could've died, but he kept himself in danger for the sake of the case. He tore apart Doctor Nichols' lab in his garage, looking for the clues until he was so affected, he couldn't take a deep breath without coughing. Derek had offered to stay with him the entire time, but he knew his mind was off with Hotch, trying to catch Chad Brown. He dismissed him and was cleaned up, given a pair of scrubs, and taken to the hospital in the ambulance. He'd started coughing up blood and was growing more disoriented by the second. When he couldn't complete his words, he knew he was probably looking at the end. Something in him couldn't bring himself to care, but another part of him kept fighting, saying that he had gone through way too much to go out that way.
He woke up in the hospital, confused. Only one member of his team had bothered to come see him. He had almost died and he was really only worth one person being there? That wasn't very fair. They could've at least visited or checked in on him, instead of sending one person as the messenger. He wondered if Derek had drawn the short straw and was stuck staying with him while the rest of the team obviously had better things to do. He'd requested that he stay in the hospital an extra day, hoping for anyone to take notice, but when nobody visited on that extra day, he gave up hope of them caring.
From that point on, he stopped getting upset or feeling insulted when the team didn't seem to care, because it was quite obvious they didn't. They called themselves a family, but he knew who mattered and who didn't. When Hotch had been attacked by the Reaper, he stayed on the job while Emily was with their superior at the hospital. He did the job of three people on his own, and even shot down the unsub, but not before he'd put a bullet straight through his leg. Doctor Barton had attempted to check on him, but he dismissed it, having him check on the unsub instead. He knew that the murderer lying in the grass was more cared for than he was. As the rest of the team pulled up to the house in the SUV, he sighed, preparing himself to not show his emotions. When they faked concern in his eyes, he told them about Hotch, knowing that he's really who they should worry about. At the hospital, he'd gone up to surgery alone, and suffered that night in pain, considering he refused to have any narcotics in his system. JJ had gone in briefly to check on him, but knew it had to have been out of pity. Everyone else's minds were with Hotch, which he preferred. He'd rather they worry about the person that deserves it than someone like him who always seems to find himself in trouble.
He'd ended up confiding in Emily with a big secret of his: his headaches. After she'd died, he also confided in Derek. It finally felt as if there was someone to take notice and be there for him. Instead, he told them, and the subject was never brought up again. There wasn't so much as a couple aspirin left on his desk with a glass of water. They just acted as if they'd never been told. Even after Emily came back, there wasn't even a single check-in. He shrugged it off, knowing that they'd finally confirmed what he'd thought all along: he was the neglected member of the family, who nobody ever really cared for. He was just 'adopted' into the family, and everyone pretended to care for him because they felt they had to.
He laid back on his couch, wiping away the stray tear he didn't notice had fallen. He bit his lip, pulling his knees to his chest. Yes, he'd requested the week off of work, but nobody knew why, and nobody bothered to ask. If they had, he would've been upfront: he'd have told them how he felt, and told them he was contemplating an end, or at least a way to make himself feel better. He didn't care if he was three years clean – he didn't see the point if there wasn't anybody there to appreciate his progress or give a single damn.