~ addiction ~
Spencer Reid T. 1, 621
"Reid," Morgan calls, walking across the office towards where the young man sits at his desk, reading something on his computer. "What did I miss?"
"Ah, man, you're not gonna believe this," Reid laughs. His tone is happy and surprising light for someone who is about to tell him about a murder case. "Some moronjust posted a blog called What Would Carl Sagon Do--"
"No, Reid, the case," Morgan prompts. "What's the case?"
"What are you talking about?"
"These E-mails from Hotch," Morgan explains, flipping open his phone to read the messages aloud. "Take a look at this. New case to review."
"Emails from Hotch? I didn't get any E-mails from Hotch, did I?"
The world begins to shiver, solid objects like his coffee mug and the chair he sits on shake underneath him. It's almost like the room is experiencing an Earthquake and Spencer looks around in bewilderment, wondering why no one else is reacting to it besides him before he realizes it's just a side effect of the drugs in his system.
He's emotionally unstable when he's on them and it's not surprising after hearing the news that he's reacting like this. There is only one reason that everyone else would get these E-mails and not him.
Had he fucked up on the job? Had they somehow figured out he was still using? Would Hotch send the others a notice about his dismissal before telling him?
The genius fumbles with the buttons on the keyboard, struggling to make sense of the blank abyss of his inbox as Morgan stands there, waiting patiently for him to come up with an answer. This time, however, Spencer Reid doesn't have one.
He doesn't even know what the hell Morgan is talking about. He had always known that this moment would come-this dreaded moment when he really wouldn't know everything-and he sits back and listens to the pounding silence in his ears.
Trembling hands reach for his (cold) coffee and he attempts to wash down the emotion of terror that has clawed its way up into his throat. The world is shaking, falling apart piece by piece in front of his eyes and the floor is opening up to swallow him.
"Nothing," he whispers.
Hotch calls the team into briefing and Spencer is capable of doing nothing more than stare at the giant screen as the images appear, not processing anything that is being said besides the fact that he is not being fired. For one more case, at least, he is safe and that is what matters to him in the moment.
He is safe. He is safe. He is safe.
It is later on, when everyone is gathered together on the jet, that he actually begins to listen to the details of the case. Young women are being abducted, raped and dumped, their bodies showing up after an unusually long period of time, all blonde haired and blue eyed.
They are also being forced to become mothers.
"There're no tire tracks. The body wasn't dumped that far from the road. This guy doesn't care about them," explains Emily. "Not enough to even hide them very well."
It's unbearably hot and Spencer can feel his skin blistering from the heat, the sweat tricking down the sides of his face and into his eyes. Shifting the glasses-his wonderful red coloured glasses that keep the rest of the world out and the rest of him in-he tries to think.
"That's why this doesn't make any sense," he replies, feeling as if he's an idiot. It's an interesting, frustrating feeling. "Dump sites reveal stuff about the Unsub. You know? At the very least a geographic familiarity, a place he knows he won't get caught."
"Okay, so he knows this road," Emily offers.
"Yeah," Spencer snaps. "Except he abducted Christy in Farmington and then dumps her here in Rio Ranch. That's a hundred and seventy-five mile drive."
"Why drive that far just to dump a body by the side of the road?"
"Oh, forensic counter measure, covering his tracks by sheer distance..." he says, trailing off when he can think of no more answers.
Thinking isn't getting him anywhere today, it seems. The genius's mind is jammed, clogged up with thoughts of hydromorphone, and he cannot get a thought in towards the job that he is supposed to be doing.
Spencer knows that he should be trying harder, that he should be feeling sorry for them, that he should be catching on to what all of this means...but it's not him out there, raped and dead, and so it doesn't matter.
Spencer will take whatever he can get–a hit of crack, a joint that has been passed around, a random pill, sometimes even a used needle.
More than anything, however, he has the money to get the good stuff and the brains to get it when he hasn't the money, and he doesn't have to just take what he can get. He's Spencer Reid, prodigy child, and he doesn't settle for less, after all.
He forces his mind into overdrive and ignores the dull throb behind his eyes that tells him that he is thinking too much. It even hurts to form thoughts.
"What's this?" David asks.
"It's the pattern I've been looking for," Spencer replies, raising his standard black Sharpie to the maps he has pinned to the board as he balances on his crutches. "The Unsubs hid their tracks with the mothers but they weren't so careful with the abandoned babies."
"Did you find more children?"
"Ah, DNA wise, no. But deductively, yes. I-I gathered all the records for all infants who entered into foster care in a two week window following each mother's death. Then I narrowed it down to babies that were abandoned at churches. This is where the guess work begins," he explains. "Monica Winmar's daughter was abandoned at a Presbyterian church. Let's assume the Unsub-or the wife, at least-is Presbyterian. That means all the other unwanted children are gonna be left at the same denomination, right? That narrows it down to three babies left at three Presbyterian churches all within the twenty mile radius."
He lifts his black pen and makes a sloppy triangle between three yellow thumbtacks that he has placed on the maps.
"This is where they live."
David has snatched the file up from Spencer's desk already, searching through it as if he thinks the genius has done something wrong. There's a hollow feeling inside Spencer right then and the world once more starts to shake and shiver.
"These kids you deduced to, have you looked at their files?" David demands.
"No, right now I've only been tracking churches," Spencer confesses in a tiny voice, the words squeezed out of his throat in croak. "Why?"
"Because you just uncovered another pattern," David explains.
Spencer's arm feels as weak and as flimsy as a noodle as he raises his gun, acting like he is ready to fire if necessary when in all reality he doesn't feel like he could even reach for his nose without missing. JJ and Emily race up the lawn like professionals, Morgan and Rossi following like the macho men that they are, and Spencer follows them like a lost puppy.
The world is a dizzy, white-edged photo through his vision and he almost trips on his way up the lawn and sprawls there laughing with something between hysteria and euphoria. Solid objects amuse him. The pain behind his eyes is sweet and lovely.
He wonders idly how they can miss all these signs, dismissing the thought seconds after he has it. Spencer is past the stage in which he seeks help.
They enter the house and JJ and Emily evacuate one of the kidnapped boys while Morgan and Rossi hold guns on the male Unsub, motioning Reid to go on down the narrow hallway to check if anyone is in the bathroom.
Spencer stumbles into the bathroom and finds paradise.
There are bottles upon bottles of more bottles stacked in the bathroom cabinet and for a few seconds all Spencer can do is stare in amazement at them all. What kind of medicines do doctors prescribe to help cancer that can make a cocktail for fertility?
He doesn't know the answer and it doesn't matter. His giddy mind would make nothing of the white labels with the big block lettering that looks like childish scribbles out of the lines of a picture.
Spencer reaches with trembling fingers (which tremble with bubbling excitement more than fear of being caught) and snatches up handfuls of these bottles, shoving them into his pockets with glee. He has hit the jackpot; he has taken out the king in a game of chess; his hand is the royal flush. Spencer Reid thinks that he has won it all.
It doesn't matter that the world he lives in is white-edged and flat, that the voices he hears ring in his ears like faint echoes when someone speaks to him, it doesn't matter that he is now running the risk of getting caught by one of the team and that he will lose this job-his reason for living-forever. It doesn't matter that he should stop.
Spencer is like a boy finding a shiny coin in the dirt who picks it up with wonder, his insides soaring like an eagle with joy as he thinks of all that he can buy with this coin, all that he can gain. He has found a newer, more brilliant coin than the old one and John's medallion is left in the dust, a solid object that does nothing more than amuse the genius as it sits like a lead weight in his pocket.
first draft: 10-28-09
revisions: 6-25-12