Spencer is back at his apartment, which looks like it hasn't been occupied in years. There's dust on everything, even a couple spider webs in places. Spencer shudders at the thought of spiders in his home.
He goes to his bedroom and lays down, attempting to rest.
But no rest comes. His head is filled with one fear; not spiders or darkness, but being alone.
He restlessly tosses and turns while Michael's name rings in his ears.
In the morning he is still awake, trying desperately to somehow get that stupid name out of his head. All he can think is Michael.
All he can hear is Michael's voice, "Spencer…" it whispers.
All he can see is Michael, everywhere he goes he is reminded of that face.
He curses, he's not normally one to curse but the word just slips from his mouth, "fuck," he whispers to himself. He wants to scream. This hasn't ever happened to him before. He is stuck.
He turns on the shower and steps in, letting the hot water wash away memories.
Unfortunately, when you have an eidetic memory, water doesn't seem to do the trick when it comes to getting rid of memories.
He feels it, still, those lips pressed against his. The steady breathing on his neck, night after night.
While he's at work the words on his papers seem to blur together.
"Michael."
Everything.
Everything is Michael, everything is about him and everything that Spencer sees taunts him with troubling memories.
His coworkers see it too, in his eyes. The way his eyes dart around, never truly focused. He doesn't spout off statistics anymore. He keeps to himself, really. Afraid that if he opened himself up to somebody, he'd tell them about what happened. He doesn't want anybody to know.
Morgan is the first one to say something.
"You okay man?" he asks Spencer while he is trying to work. Spencer gives him a forced smile.
"Why wouldn't I be?" he mumbles as the smile disappears from his face.
"You just seem stressed. If you ever wanna talk," Morgan offers but Spencer huffs.
"I'm fine, really."
Hotch is second. He calls Spencer into his office and orders him to shut the door behind him. Spencer sits down in front of Hotch's desk and bites his lip.
"Reid, if something's troubling you," he starts, but Spencer cuts him off.
"I already told Morgan that I'm fine," he states.
"But you aren't. Reid it doesn't take a profiler to see that something's bothering you," Hotch says. It's true, and Spencer knows it. But acknowledging and admitting are two different things entirely.
"Hotch I'm completely okay," he says in a tone that is just pleading for the questions to end. They don't.
"If you want to talk, you can always come to me," Hotch says and Spencer stands.
"Thanks but I'm alright," he says before walking out of the office. He receives a worried glance from Prentiss but he pretends not to notice.
He can only pretend for so long.
When he arrives at work the next day, there's a package on his desk.
"It was dropped off earlier. Say's it's for you," Morgan explains and Spencer picks it up, grabbing the scissors off of his desk and slicing through the thick tape. It was sent from prison.
He opens the box to find a note and something else. He picks up the note, "You forgot something," it says in messy handwriting. He takes the something else, a book, and looks it over.
"Go Ask Alice"
Spencer isn't exactly sure what to do with the book, or what to feel. He spent three weeks with a man he hardly knew, he slept in his cellmate's arms, he felt safe and good with Michael. And Michael had kissed him. But now he is so confused, because that safe feeling also makes him feel so very unsafe. He frowns, putting the book down on his desk as Morgan walks by.
"Go Ask Alice? I think I read that book in high school. Doesn't seem like your type of reading," Morgan says, and Reid thinks about telling him all about Michael but he doesn't. Instead he looks at the floor uncomfortably.
"I, uh, read it a while back… One of my old friends let me borrow it," he half lies. He gulps, this is going to be a long day.
A/N Sorry about the super duper long wait people! I tried to get it finished but kept getting caught up in other things (like writing out the rest of the chapters, a habit of mine that isn't so great…) so it took a while. Anyway, yeah, uneventful chapter ._.
So the next chapter may take a little bit but I pretty much have most of the rest of the story written out… I'm odd like that D:
Also, I really got sick of the writing in present tense thing. It's irritating me, so I'm not gonna do it in the rest of the chapters. Sorry if that confuses anybody ):
So about the first chapter… That'll come into play in the next chapter when we meet our wonderful little unsub! Until then, read and review as always! (: