Look forward to a confrontation and some escalation of Reid's 'plan'. For this chapter I'm going to try out shifting POV's in third person. I hope it works; I don't normally write like that.
A week later...
The BAU had had two cases since the very public knife killer almost back to back. For each of the new cases they had barely had time to go home and get ready for bed before they were called out again. Everyone was exhausted, but none looked quite as bad as Reid. It was anyone's guess how much sleep he had gotten this whole time, and they hadn't seen him take the time off to have a meal. He had been so determined to finish the cases that no one had bothered him, but now that they were back in Quantico, they had every reason to talk to him if his behaviour persisted.
Reid was finally alone in the quiet of his apartment. There was no more temptations around him. He had no food in his house. The only real temptation was his bed calling out for him and reaching for him with its warm arms made of sheets, ready to hug him into the pillows.
But that wasn't part of the plan.
He had made it painfully obvious to his team, he thought, that he wasn't eating. They offered, he refused. That's how it went. He knew they noticed him not eating when he was with them. Was it possible they assumed he ate when he wasn't with them working? Yes, sure, but with how much weight he had lost, Reid had assumed his friends would've asked him what was wrong. Friends. Like he could apply that word anymore. He had to do something more than just not eat. He couldn't sleep. Maybe if he stopped drinking coffee they would care. If he stopped being able to work they would care.
So he took out his encyclopedia of biographies book and read as slowly as he could, pronouncing each word individually in his head like he was speaking. Maybe reading slowly would make them care.
He kept awake with this notion.
Hotch didn't have the energy to talk to anyone when he got home. That was readily recognised and he was left alone to catch up on days of no sleep. His mind replayed moments of each case spliced into each other and processed the images like he was still working. Sometimes it was hard to turn it off. The only way he knew they were all from different cases was by using Reid's physical appearance as a marker. He didn't have too much time to think about that before his thoughts slowed to a blank mind and he was finally allowed to sleep.
J.J. was far too stressed thinking about everything that had happened and about tomorrow's paperwork to sleep right away. A movie calmed her down enough that she could fall asleep during it, but a foggy dream persisted after she had slipped away from reality. Based in memories, she saw Reid at the beginning of the busiest week they had had for a long time, and then saw him after. Her subconscious finally alerted her that she was worried for her friend. She allowed herself to see what was happening to him.
Prentiss needed a glass of wine and a few minutes with Sergio before she could be content with sleep. She used the silence to take the time to shove the memories from those cases away into a different part of her mind. After they were gone she could rest without much fear of nightmares. Going through these things consciously brought up a memory from when Hankle... From that case. J.J. asked her how she could be so fine with everything coming from a desk job. The answer was compartmentalization. But that one memory led to another, as frequently happens, and her mind was focused on Reid. He had seemed off these last few cases. Distant, reluctant to do anything with the team that wasn't directly related to the case. He wouldn't even eat with them... Prentiss shoved those last suspicions away and gave Sergio a kiss before making sure the door was locked, turning off the lights, and drifting off.
Garcia noticed more than people gave her credit for. Maybe it was because she only saw them periodically, but she could see differences in their appearances whenever they came back from cases. Usually it wasn't much of anything. Looking more tired, sometimes needing a shave, but Reid had shocked her last time she saw him. He had always been skinny, but she could see a difference just in his face. She didn't want to think about what could be behind his long sleeves and pants. The image of her boy genius made her shiver under her covers. He looked like a zombie; gaunt face, greasy hair, dark circles and bags, all slumped over like he couldn't bare to be standing and shaking. She lie awake until she could no more worrying about what happened to her baby that her other babies weren't telling her about.
Rossi had been on quite a few cases in his time, and he had had more than his fair share of sleeplessness, but this was just ridiculous. He couldn't blame the rest of the team for not saying a word to each other when they arrived back. He himself didn't have the energy to blink, let alone move his mouth. At least Garcia seemed to have gotten some sleep throughout that parade of cases. Hopefully now after that bombardment there would be a while of peace. At least long enough for them to finish their paperwork and be rested enough to take something else in another state. A thought that he had been trying to push away surfaced. Reid had been acting strangely. It wasn't his place to profile his co-workers, but this one had happened automatically. He tried again in vain to remove the start of his profile from his mind. It flashed to him in chunks with the conclusion of anorexia. But Reid, anorexic? That wasn't probably enough to dwell on. He hoped.
Morgan knew there was something wrong. He replayed over and over again how Reid had told him that he wasn't going to be eating a while. What if he had been referring to longer than just however long it took for him to get over his hangover? It certainly looked like that was the case. Morgan hadn't seen the kid eat one bite of food since that conversation, and he looked like he hadn't eaten since then either. The team had shared glances, but that was all. Morgan had even been convinced he was overreacting or seeing things until Garcia's greeting smile faltered noticeably when she saw him. Reid had lost weight and looked in bad health anyway. Morgan just hoped it would get better now that they were home.
He couldn't have been more wrong.
Morning...
Reid closed the book only when his alarm went off. His eyes burned, but that was nothing compared to the aching in his bones. He had stopped feeling hunger a few days ago. All he had to worry about was the temptation of food.
He went to his bathroom and looked in the mirror. To him, he just looked like a slightly tired and in-need-of-a-shave Spencer Reid. That is to say, there wasn't too much of a difference. The scale disagreed, putting that difference at about seventeen pounds.
Reid shrugged it off and, due to the stinging, opted not to wear contacts today, but rather his glasses. He couldn't help feeling he needed a stronger prescription when he put them on and saw that some things were still out of focus. There was no time to dwell on that. Dwelling time could be used as dressing and shaving time, which it eventually was.
He hadn't trusted himself to drive since his plan had taken off, and he certainly wouldn't now that he had accelerated it. He knew the dangers of not eating, but somehow those turned into benefits. The worse off he could make himself, the better. Sleep deprived and starving was a good start. He didn't think about how fulfilling it was to do this to himself. It was such a liberating feeling. He didn't quite understand why feeling so bad would make him feel so good.
Reid was running late for being early. Hotch didn't mind; it gave him time to call the rest of the team into the bullpen.
"Not another damn case." Morgan groaned, rubbing his forehead in exhaustion.
"No." Hotch reassured him, drawing sighs of relief from everyone else. "I just wanted to talk about Reid..."
Everyone's attention was had.
Garcia spoke quietly, unused to sitting at this table but even more uncomfortable with talking about her friend behind his back. It was for his own good, she reminded herself. Something was wrong and he needed his friends to help fix it. "I guess you all also noticed how skinny he got."
"I didn't see him eat during any of those cases. Come to think of it, all the way back to the arson case. What if he hasn't eaten since then?" J.J. said looking from face to face seeing them mimic her worry, most of them displaying it to a lesser degree.
"That would've been eleven days without any food. I was thinking the same thing, J.J., and I hope we're both wrong." Rossi held her eyes and tried to offer some hope in his.
"Do we really think Reid could have anorexia?" Morgan was the first to use the a-word. Everyone was thinking it, Morgan knew, and he decided to be the one to break down the taboo.
"As much as I hate to say it, it looks like it." Prentiss admitted, thinking back on her observations from the night before. The words Reid and anorexic didn't want to match up in her brain.
"So, how do we do this?" Rossi asked reluctantly.
"We can wait and profile why he's doing it to better understand what to do, which means waiting for him to get worse while we profile another member of our team without his consent. Or we could confront him about it now and try to fix it as soon as we can." Hotch said.
"I just want to see my baby okay again as soon as possible." Garcia's voice cracked.
"I second that." Morgan didn't look up from his hands.
Agreement rang throughout the room.
"Alright." Hotch turned to Garcia. "Can you talk to him? If one of us asks he'll assume we all know, but you always worry. You can ask him about it without it seeming too obvious that we're all onto him."
"Okay, but could you please not use phrases like 'on to him'? It makes it sound like he's an Unsub." Garcia said.
Hotch nodded, "Sorry. But we should all keep in mind that we might be wrong about this. It could've just been that these cases or something in his private life has him more stressed out than usual and he's forgetting to eat while working, losing weight from the stress."
"I never I thought I would hope something was going on in Reid's personal life. I just can't imagine him purposefully starving himself." Morgan shook his head.
Hotch mostly ignored him and said instead, "We should disband. He could be here any minute and get suspicious if he sees us all talking in here without him."
Surely enough, as soon as everyone had gotten into their normal places, Reid rushed through the doors and up to Hotch, "I'm so sorry I'm late, I was so tired last night but I couldn't fall asleep because I could hear my neighbours through my walls until really early in the morning and then I had finally gotten to sleep and I was so tired I slept through my alarm and-"
Hotch held up a hand to quiet the frantic agent, "It's okay, I understand. I was planning on being lenient today anyway."
"Thanks, thank you." Reid nodded his head in something that looked to Hotch almost like a bow (which reminded him to check his ego) and scurried off to his desk to sort through papers.
Hotch had been watching carefully and knew that Reid was lying about something. What, he couldn't be exactly sure. He had been talking too quickly for accurate analysis, which he probably did on purpose. It was obvious he hadn't gotten any sleep, and the energy that allowed him to make up his excuse and execute its explanation so readily was probably only from panic of repercussions for being late. Now that Hotch had assuaged that fear, he hoped he could see enough to get an accurate profile. Despite the consensus to confront him right away and not do a profile, he was sure everyone else was secretly working on their own as well. He profiled that from the way they all watched Reid to carefully. Hotch also profiled that they probably profiled that Hotch was profiling them and Reid. Profilespection.
Reid was startled out of his slow reading-only five pages in the whole three minutes and twenty-eight seconds he had been sitting there-by none other than Garcia.
"Oh, hi. You startled me." Reid smiled and put his paper down.
"Sorry, honey, I didn't mean to." She said. Reid's smile melted into a confused frown. What was that voice she was using? Like she was talking to a wounded puppy or something of the like.
"Why are you doing that?" Reid asked plainly, suddenly feeling self-conscious to the extreme. He felt like his glasses somehow incriminated him, his weight loss was a brandished murder weapon, his exhausted eyes blood stains, his sweater was a body he was caught carrying. Anything not completely usual about him was evidence against him. Somehow, completely illogically, that made him want to exaggerate whatever he could. Be as different as possible. He wished he could get thicker glasses, lose weight faster, sleep less than no hours a night. He wondered in the back of his head if these strange types of connections had something to do with how Unsubs usually acted; things for a reason that only made sense to them. He decided with that connection that he couldn't share these thoughts with anyone. He decided that he was going crazy and he didn't care.
"Reid? Can you hear me?" Garcia leaned closer to him worriedly.
"Yeah, sorry." He rubbed his eyes, "Just having trouble staying focused."
Garcia pulled up a chair, inviting herself into Reid's personal space. He didn't quite mind this time. He was too preoccupied with himself, wondering why he was doing these things.
"Spencer, I need to ask you something." She said quietly. First name, not good. Ask you something, very not good. Both, very very not good.
Reid swallowed, "Yeah?"
Garcia looked around for a second or two like she was trying to find the words to form her question somewhere on the walls and ceiling. "I think... You..." She breathed and started again, "How much weight have you lost?" She managed to croak out.
Reid was taken aback slightly. He was expecting something along these lines, but it surprised him nonetheless. "Why do you ask that?" His mouth went dry.
"You look like you've lost weight. A lot in a short amount of time. I want to help you but I don't know how, and I needed something to introduce the subject with so I figured asking how much weight you lost might make an okay start to the conversation." Garcia spit out with some difficulty, still keeping her volume low.
Reid noticed she was trying to be discrete. He noticed how hard this was for her. Conclusion was that she cared. Finally, someone other than Morgan cared about him.
"Seventeen pounds." He wasn't ashamed to answer her question. Someone could recognise his progress. Progress? Was that the word he was using now? It worked as well as any. He decided he liked making progress.
Reid watched as Garcia's brightly coloured lips parted in disbelief. "Why... how? Did you let that happen?" Reid almost felt bad about making Garcia almost cry, as it seemed, made evident from her voice.
Reid shrugged, "It's really not that much weight. And I'm only barely technically underweight for my height, which is about 140 as an average agreement between professionals."
"So how much do you weigh, exactly?" Garcia asked, voice still hushed.
Reid smiled just a little. He liked that question, but he also wanted to avoid answering. "See, that's funny and actually really difficult to answer considering how much a person's weight can fluctuate in a day just depending on what they're doing, when they last ate or drank something, or what's happened since they last went to the bathroom. 'Exactly' is a-"
"Stop it. You know I love you but just stop talking and answer my question to the best of your ability." Garcia practically begged. She wasn't sure what information she was supposed to get from Reid, but she figured how much he weighed might be a good start besides his confession.
"Well last I checked, which was actually this morning so it should still be mostly accurate, it was 128.46, but that may or may not be-"
"Are you kidding? Please say you're kidding, because if you're not kidding then I know fifteen year old girls who weigh more than you and that should not be right." Garcia said.
"You keep interrupting me." Reid complained halfheartedly. He didn't want to comment on the obesity rate in teenagers in the U.S. during this conversation.
"Why haven't you been eating? Because if you're trying to lose weight you really shouldn't be and if you were insistent there are better ways to go about it."
"No, it's not about that, exactly." He avoided eye contact before he remembered that that was a sign of lying. He didn't want her to think that he was lying with that, because he wasn't. Or was he? He couldn't be sure anymore, but he knew that losing weight was not his primary intention. Had it become part of the appeal? Maybe, but that wasn't why he hadn't been eating.
"Then what is it? I want to help." Garcia pleaded. She couldn't stand to let this continue.
Reid contemplated telling her his plan. It seemed like there would be no serious repercussions. His experiment wouldn't be messed up because of this. He looked around to see that the others were all engrossed in their work and oblivious to the two of them. He figured they weren't eavesdropping or anything. They were too quiet against the sounds of the floor to be eavesdropped on anyway.
Reid motioned for Garcia to come closer, "Please don't tell anyone else about this except maybe Morgan if he asks. Promise me."
Garcia nodded, "I promise." She knew she couldn't break this promise, but there was a loophole she had already found. Get Morgan to ask, tell him, have him tell the others. Whatever it was, it must be important.
"Okay. I'm conducting this kind of experiment where-"
"Garcia, we need you. Now." Hotch's urgent voice boomed over to them. Garcia knew it must be something damn important to pull her away from Reid.
"Tell me later. I'm sorry." She stood and scurried away as fast as she could, speeding up when she heard the word "breach" from Hotch.
Reid spoke to Garcia though she had already gone, "I won't tell you later. It's a sign. I'm not supposed to tell anyone. I know it's a sign. I shouldn't have trusted you. I shouldn't have thought you cared. I'm sorry. I made that mistake."
Prentiss and J.J. shared a look, both having witnessed Reid talking to thin air. There was something more to this they had to figure out.
I hope I made up for the kind of short chapter 2 with this one. About 1,000 words longer than the first. Highscore! Please let me know what you think should happen with Reid and what the team should do about him next. I'll have time to read suggestions since this will probably be my last update this week (it's 3am March 12th and I've been working on this fic for hours). More will be coming next weekend regardless of reader suggestions so if you know what you want please tell me.
Thank you all so very much for reading.
