Oblivious || Spencer Reid x Original Character

Chapter 17: Nightmares

"I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can't touch with decay"
- Bob Dylan

Spencer Reid was incredibly talented in many ways, one was putting his foot in his mouth. He cursed his eidetic memory as it played through the night at the bar once again. Masochistically torturing himself as it played over and over again.  He watched as Rory pushed through the glass doors of the BAU offices, coffee in one hand files in the other. She had her usual black leather jacket on but her hair was not as well kept as usual, he wonders for a moment if the events of that night had caused her as much turmoil as it did him. He sits up straighter in his chair glancing nervously between the papers on his desk and her empty desk across from him. Praying he would have the chance to apologise, telling himself that as soon as she sits down he'll tell her that he was sorry, that he knew she didn't mean to hurt him. But she never gives him the chance, placing the files and her bag down before quickly hurrying away towards Garcia's office. He groans internally, knowing he messed it up, slumping back in his chair.

When he saw her sneaking the small pill he assumed she was just using it recreationally. He knew the risks that drug addiction could have on their job, and he hadn't wanted her to make the same mistakes he did. He had made an assumption, not a deduction and he made an ass of himself for doing so. If he was thinking more logically the signs were all there, changes in her ability to regulate her emotions, impulsive decisions, hyperactivity, hyperfocus during cases, periods in which it seemed like she was lost in her own thoughts.

Her words rang though his ears,

But you know all about taking controlled substances recreationally don't you Reid.

Spencer couldn't find the words to explain how hurt by her comments he truly was. He knew she knew, that would be the only reason to bring it up, to hurt him as much as he had hurt her. He found himself in a stalemate. He had wanted to go to the table, make her talk to him, tell him everything. But he knew it wouldn't work, it would just push her further away. And the sudden detachment she had shown since their conversation on the plane was causing the ache in his heart to metastasise, spreading through his entire body, growing stronger every day since then. The only thing stronger than the pain radiating through his body was the urge to hold her, he assumed it was the profiler in him that could see that under her venomous words she was just scared, or sad, or some combination of the two. He just wanted to pull her into his arms and never let her go. This feeling was the one that bothered Spencer the most. He was adverse to physical contact, but it didn't apply to her. She was different.

He stood from his desk, responding involuntarily to being summoned to the conference room, a summons he didn't consciously hear. He watched as she walked ahead of him with Prentiss and Garcia. She laughed lightly at something one of the pair said, but he noticed the way her smile didn't reach her eyes, the laugh didn't hold the same tones. She was faking it. She didn't mean to hurt you, he repeated it to himself like a mantra. She didn't mean to hurt you.

The hallway is dark, lit only by the light of their flashlights. He moves with Emily and Hotch clearing each room in the house until he finds himself alone in a long hallway. Light peeking out from under the door, he keeps his gun raised, tightening his grip on the flashlight in his hand. He slowly approaches the door reaching his hand slowly to the handle. It clicks open as he whispers to the pair behind him, the urgency clear in his voice, "There's a basement."

They hurry down the wooden stairs searching the room for any sign of the missing boy.

"Damn," Emily exclaims drawing his attention to the place in which both her and Hotch's flash lights linger, a set of Converse peeking out from behind a washing machine. Spencer watches as she slowly approaches reaching out to the boy.