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So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.- The Weighing - Jane Hirshfield.
Spencer isn't sure he ever really knew a time before wanting to die.
Logically he knows there must have been. Children aren't inherently born with that desire. But he can't pinpoint a specific moment where he became aware of it. Where he didn't have the List.
Now it's simply a fact of life. Get up. Go to work. Come home. Consult the List, the Pros and Cons of continued existence. Make coffee. Have dinner. Sleep.
So far, since joining the FBI, the Pros have outweighed the Cons. Not always by a lot, the margins have been pretty tight at times, but there's always been something more weighing in the favour of living. Even if those things have been seemingly inconsequential, things that would seem pointless or ridiculous to others still make it onto the List.
- Pros:
- New series of Dr Who next spring
- Garcia brought me a warm pastry this morning
- A dog let me say hello without barking
Some things permanently make it onto the List, either one side or the other. The Pros list always starts with:
- Pros:
- Mom would miss my letters
The Cons list always starts with his mom too:
- Cons:
- There's still a chance you'll show signs of schizophrenia
After Georgia the Cons list gets two new permanent additions he never thought he'd have to consider:
- Cons:
- 85% of addicts relapse within the first year
- People with ASD are two times more likely to experience addiction than allistic counterparts
Things got dicey with the List around Georgia. He'd always been rather meticulous with taking a moment each day to evaluate them. Morbid though it was, it was part of his routine and it brought him comfort to find each day more Pros than Cons. With the dilaudid coursing through his veins, a lot of his routines were left by the wayside. Despite having performed this mental ritual daily since childhood, a few mg of opioids were all it took to throw it all out the window. But then, the dilaudid also threw off his ability to regularly eat, sleep, shower or do many of the other most basic forms of self care. Perhaps it wasn't such a stretch that this would fall away also.
In retrospect, it had probably been a good thing. He's not sure now that he would have found enough Pros during the depths of his addiction. Which would have been doubly dangerous to discover while in possession of more than enough drugs for an easy way out. Well, not perhaps easy, ODing was much more of an ordeal than was often shown on television, but it was foolproof. He knew exactly how much he'd have needed to take to do it, if he'd so desired. Yes, perhaps letting the List go for that time had been a blessing.
They returned fairly rapidly once he managed to get clean. Sat in his apartment, five days post his last dose, the dregs of withdrawal finally leeched out of his system, he'd made himself a cup of ginger tea to settle his still rather tender stomach. Without prompting, he'd found himself mentally adding:
- Pros:
- Need to try more flavoured teas
He then also added:
- Five days clean
to both sides.
He knew it didn't make logical sense to have it on both sides. Like a mathematical equation, they should cancel out. But this wasn't mathematics. The List didn't have to make logical sense to anyone else, just to him. His sobriety straddling both sides made sense; the achievement of being clean vs the shame of having struggled at all.
Another couple of permanent additions found their way there a few years later in the form of:
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Certain cases remind him of things that always exist on the List, but fade into the background at times, such as:
- Cons:
- Childhood bullying
- William Reid
both of which could have a multitude of sub headings, yet which he's content to leave as single items unless particularly relevant. The Owen Savage case brought the former into much starker relief, the Riley Jenkins case highlighting the latter.
The nature that things moved off the List wasn't always easy to quantify. With an eidetic memory, he couldn't simply forget things from the List. It was more a process of evaluating the emotional response attributed to items over time. For some, the pain lessened enough to warrant their removal. Often not dissipating entirely, but rather becoming a dull ache rather than an acute clench of the heart or punch in the gut. Others he kept just to be reminded of a moment of joy, a memory sparked that he could play over again to remind him of happier times. Only letting those go when the elation finally seeped out through repetition.
Gideon leaving was one such example of this. The initial pain had planted it firmly into the Cons list. It was another that could have contained multitudes if he'd let it.
- Gideon left - abandoned by another father figure
- Gideon left - this job broke him, why won't it break you?
- Gideon left - because of you? because of the drugs? because you weren't strong enough?
- Gideon left - will I ever get to see him again?
- Gideon left - we never finished our chess game
He only ever allowed it a single position on the Cons list, but it stayed far longer than most as he gradually worked through the unavoidable sub headings that lingered around it. Eventually, it faded enough to not leave an ache in his chest each time he thought about it. The addition to Rossi on the team, once he seemed to warm up to Spencer, helped dull that considerably too. It still remained for a few years before being moved from List to Archive.
Naturally there was the Archive. In the same way he couldn't forget things from the List, even as things moved off the List, they found their way into the Archive instead. Things never made it out of the Archive, but it was useful to highlight patterns in the data. He could search through, find common links, quantify things that consistently presented as problems or always brightened his day - Garcia was always a perpetual feature of the latter, and he loved her deeply for it.
He couldn't escape the undeniable fact that things moved far more quickly from the Pros to Archive, than they ever did from the Cons. The Cons had a tendency to linger. It's often why he tried to add so many of the small, inconsequential things to the Pros list. However fleeting, he needed to hold onto those to keep the balance in check; knowing each morning, before he'd even opened his eyes, that the Cons were stacked against him. There were days where he'd scrabble for even the tiniest glimmer of good.
- Pros:
- Watching dust in the sunbeam from between the cracks in the curtains
- Emily brought me over the coffee I'd forgotten in the kitchen - still warm
- Made it downstairs to collect my mail
- Got out of bed
Even adding things that weren't technically his at times.
- Pros:
- Garcia was extra bubbly today
- Clooney got an all clear from the vet
- Emily laughed so hard she snorted
- Hotch smiled
He grasped hard, for reasons that he knew would sound illogical to anyone else. He knew the List had no real power over his decisions. That technically, even if the Cons outweighed the Pros, he was under no obligation to take action on that in any way. If he didn't want to die, then the contents of the List, a construct entirely of his own making, didn't actually have the power to make him do anything. Yet, he had held onto this for so long, a companion for years, his longest standing habit. To deny the List it's power almost felt like a betrayal of self. The prospect of not holding to the list brought more fear and anxiety than the finality of what holding to the list would mean.
He knew this from experience. The List had dictated his actions twice before. A fact he'd fought hard to keep out of his file when he'd joined, one that Gideon facilitated on his behalf. The First he forgave himself for. He was twelve, his back on fire, humiliated, 12:07 am, his mom asking 'did you have a good day at school?'. As though it wasn't pitch black outside. As though his face wasn't grimy, a layer of dust cut through with tear tracks. As though every press of his shirt to his skin didn't elicit a whimper of pain. He forgave himself for that one. It had all been too much.
The Second still lingered. Although having forcibly moved it to the Archive after a number of years, it still existed in the Cons list. A ghostly presence he couldn't fully banish, a guilty spectre that haunted the recesses of his brain. A constant reminder of the Lists power and his own failure to succeed in the follow through.
This was the one he'd had to fight to get expunged. The First time he didn't know what he was doing. He was twelve. He'd woken up the following morning with a splitting headache and ruined bed sheets but nothing more. He'd told his mom he wasn't feeling well, had taken the end of the week and been back to school on Monday, no one any the wiser.
The Second time, he knew far more about anatomy, and had access to a far greater pool of knowledge to draw from, in the form of the CalTech library. He'd failed due to a statistical anomaly. All the research stated that it should have worked. Yet naturally, his body had proved uncooperative. Perhaps it had known, been trying to assert it's own agency to keep itself - himself - alive. It had succeeded. The result was two nights in the hospital and a narrowly avoided 72 hour hold.
He'd passed it off as academic stress, a moment of weakness. His age had worked in his favour. No one could deny that a 17 year old, embarking on a PhD while also working on his third BA, wasn't going to feel under an incredible amount of pressure. It didn't matter that that 17 year old was a genius, he was still a hormonal teenager underneath it all, and teenagers made reckless decisions. He neglected to tell them how long he'd been planning, the hours of research he'd done in the spaces around his academic work, the precise statistical likelihood of his success that had been a comforting thought for months now.
He knew they were trying to help. But the List didn't make sense to anyone but him. They would fail to see it's usefulness. How it had protected him for so many years before now. They'd try to take it from him, and that was a prospect he couldn't even begin to entertain. Hence, he adapted it. This had sparked the more consistent additions of those smaller moments of joy. Yes, he was applying concepts from CBT, this was nothing new, nothing that he wouldn't also be offered through more official channels. Yet it added an illusion of control in knowing he chose to make these changes. He altered the List, his List, to work for him.
And it did. Even with all the stress and loss that was inevitable as part of his job, in the five years, five months and 25 days since he had joined the FBI, the Pros had held out.
Until Emily died.
The List errored. A cascade failure.
- Emily's dead
- There's still a chance you'll show signs of schizophrenia
- Emily's dead
- Childhood bullying
- Emily's dead
- William Reid
- Emily's dead
- 85% of addicts relapse within the first year
- People with ASD are two times more likely to experience addiction than allistic counterparts
- Emily's dead
- Lung damage due to Anthrax
- Emily's dead
- Emily's dead
- Knee will never be the same again
- Emily's dead
- Emily's dead
- Emily
- Emily
- Emily
- Em
The Cons list spiralled, with Emily saturating and amplifying and infiltrating around each of the already devastating reasons for his ceasing his existence. Seeming to grow and warp and multiply beyond him even remembering that there had once been a Pros list, becoming minuscule and insignificant against the behemoth that was Emily's death. Had his life not always been this myriad of pain that the light of Emily's death had simply thrown into stark relief?
There was no denying this was his reality. The Pros were simply small, fleeting things, insignificant. Facsimiles of happiness, added on a whim in an attempt to balance a scale that had been stacked against him from childhood. If he really allowed the weight of the Cons to exist at they deserved his excuses would have run dry years ago. They had run dry. Why was he surprised to find himself here again?
Why did it matter if he'd sourced the t-shirt Garcia had been raving about from her social media feed - emblazoned with the slogan 'unhinged and unmedicated' - just to surprise her if the weight of those years as a child prodigy trapped in a Las Vegas public high school had left irreparable emotional and physical scars? Why did it matter if he'd managed to take ten minutes in the sun during his lunch break if his father had left him to fend for him and his mother for years while living only ten minutes away? Why did it matter because Emily was dead and he had carried her coffin and he had never got to say goodbye.
He'd resolved to hold out until the funeral.
JJ had been the reason to hold back on the day of, letting him stay at her's that night, the one right after the funeral. What was one more night in the face of things? He'd simply removed his too tight, too formal - Emily would have hated seeing him in those stuffy, uncomfortable shoes on her behalf - patent leather shoes and curled his lanky frame into their couch. His knees and neck screamed in protest the following morning but he couldn't find it in himself to care. They'd forced him to stay for coffee even if he couldn't stomach breakfast. He couldn't deny them these few more hours.
Wrapped in their little bubble of morning domesticity, Will frying bacon, JJ making cafetiere coffee, while Henry gurgled happily from his booster seat, he almost found the Pros list attempting to creep back in.
- Pros:
- Your godson
- Friends who care about you
- Good, proper coffee
However, as he took the mug JJ slid his way, he noticed the rumpled cuffs of the jacket he'd worn the previous day to her funeral. That he'd slept in on JJ's couch to avoid the silence of his own apartment pressing against his ears, nothing to drown out the screaming echoes ricocheting around his mind, nothing to stop him on his inevitable path of self-destruction. That he'd been too out of it with grief to even think about removing the day before as he collapsed into fitful sleep after hours of staring blankly into the darkened TV in their living room.
Emily. Is. Dead.
It screamed from every corner of his mind once more, heaping guilt onto the pain, because how dare he forget that truth for even a moment. They'd buried her only yesterday. The dirt he'd scattered across her coffin still lingered under his fingernails. The coffee in his otherwise empty stomach threatened to make a reappearance and he was glad he had forgone the offer of breakfast.
He couldn't stay. He needed to escape, to find somewhere to breakdown that wasn't in front of these people who had their own lives and families and grief to process. He'd put this off for far too long already, denied the List it's power for days now. It was time, the funeral was done, there was nothing else to hold out for. He downed the coffee far too quickly, ignoring the heat against his tongue and mouth. Barely tasting it despite his previous excitement at the prospect of something that hadn't just come from a tin or a underfunded police precinct.
With JJ trapped trying to prevent Henry smearing oatmeal into his hair, and Will trapped swirling pancake batter around a hot skillet and both of them still in sleep attire, he seized his opportunity. Draining his mug, he placed it on the counter with a clunk that echoed a finality around the kitchen, caught by everyone - save perhaps a still babbling Henry - even around the malaise of background noises.
"I'm going to head home. Get out of this suit," he murmured, a weak excuse but a valid one all the same. "Thank you for letting me stay."
They both offered some form of placations or platitudes, illusions for him to stay as long as he wished, but his mind was set.
"Thank you," he repeated as a parting phrase, unwilling to allude to promises of seeing them again soon. He couldn't have that on his conscience. That the final words he'd said to them were a lie.
Before any further protests could be thrown his way he slid from his stool and exited the kitchen, grabbing his bag and shoving his feet into the uncomfortable shoes in the hallway, forgoing the laces in the need to leave. The door closing behind him had a sense of finality that seemed to resonate inside his chest, making his heart ache. They'll be okay, they have each other he reassured himself as he set off down the front path at a brisk pace.
Despite his phone burning a hole in his pocket with the desire to immediately dial the number of his dealer - deleted but never forgotten - he knew there were steps he needed to take at home first. He also doubted that the man would be awake this early on a Tuesday - is it Tuesday? - morning. He knew the decision he was going to make would leave inevitable ripples, yet the more he could minimise the impact the better. He was suicidal, that didn't have to make him cruel or inconsiderate.
Once home, he tore off the suit, leaving it in a crumpled heap on the floor of his bedroom. He was at the very least, allowed to be comfortable during this whole harrowing ordeal. He could allow himself that one comfort. Throwing on a pair of plaid pyjama bottoms and a CalTech t-shirt that had once belonged to Ethan - he owed him some semblance of closure too, hopefully Garcia could track him down - he headed for his desk.
Notepaper and pens still laid out from the last letter he'd written.
Mom would miss my letters
The squirm of regret in his gut at this truth still wasn't enough. He would try to explain best he could.
He stared down at the blank page and tried to decide where to start. Ethan came to mind again. It would be an easier one to begin with, to get the ball rolling.
... Thank you for being my friend. I still have the t-shirt you lent me after falling into that lake. It reminds me of happier times. I'm sorry I couldn't stay for a chance at more of them...
He sealed it and wrote Ethan's full name on the front, along with the bar he'd performed at when they'd visited all those years ago. He could only hope the man was still there, or that someone who knew him would pass it along.
He opted for Gideon next.
... I hope that you found it. That you found the happy ending you were searching for. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough, that I finally let it all break me. I hope you can forgive me for leaving...
From Gideon, it made logical sense to move into Rossi.
... Thank you for getting past my enthusiasm at our first meeting; my comments that may have seemed undermining. Thank you for filling a Gideon shaped hole that I hadn't been aware needed filling until you joined the team. For trying to help me navigate life, even if I didn't always listen...
Hotch was next. His hand was already starting to ache, but it was nothing compared to the ache in his chest that he knew was only going to magnify as he spiralled towards the epicentre of those he loved.
... You've saved my life more times than I can say, even though I remember every one in perfect detail. You've been more of a father to me than my own ever was. I told you once 'I knew you'd understand'. I hope you can understand my decision here as well. I'm sorry...
He couldn't decide which of the final three for his team would be less painful. In the end, he went logical again. Alphabetical.
Garcia first then.
... I love you. I don't tell you this enough. You light up my life in a way no one ever has before. I'm genuinely believe I would not have made it this far without your spark to bring joy to so many of my days. In the 2004 Lists of reasons to keep going I've made since joining the FBI, you have featured 3867 times. I hope I will always be remembered as your boy wonder...
How did he write to JJ as though he hadn't seen her just that morning? As though he hadn't left her house with this exact intention in mind? The coffee that had been sitting uneasily in his stomach all day finally decided it wasn't going to settle.
He blew his nose and scrubbed at his watery eyes with a tissue as he returned to his desk ten minutes later and picked up his pen.
... You're the only person who ever called me 'Spence'. I've never had a nickname before then. At least, not one said with affection. It meant a lot to me. You meant a lot to me. I'm so sorry to have to put you through this, again. But this time you have Will, you have Henry. You'll survive. I'm sorry to have kept this from you. I couldn't tell you. I hope you can tell Henry about me one day, that his godfather loved him so much...
Morgan was the last.
... I know you've only ever had sisters, and I'm an only child. But you're the closest thing to a brother I've ever known. I hope the gravitas of that is clear here. Your friendship means more to me than I can ever say. I'm not sure I ever quite lived up to your expectations. Not sure if my pain ever made me into a better profiler. I tried. But I think I just held onto it all too tightly. I always aspired to be the man you thought I could be. I'm sorry if Ive disappointed you now...
On a whim, he decided to write a letter to Emily also. He knew it was pointless, illogical. That the only way she was ever going to know his words was if they met in some great beyond he wasn't sure existed. He wrote it anyway.
... I miss you. I didn't know I could miss someone this much. I've never lost family before. That's what you were, are, family. I know I'm putting the rest of our family through another loss so close to the first. But better now. Better now than after months of watching me slowly deteriorate. Better now than make them split their attention between grief and worry. Let them grieve it all and move forward. A clean break...
It was the goodbye he'd never gotten to say in person. A closure. Far too late. But there all the same. They could judge his rational behind it all they wanted, he wouldn't be there to hear it.
The beginning of the letter for his mom came more easily. He had had to dictate them once already.
Hi, mom, I just really want you to know that I love you and I need you to know that I spend every day of my life proud to be your son...
His face was wet. It had been for a while he thought. The tears had tracked silently down his face, soaking into the collar of his faded t-shirt. They weren't for him. He wasn't scared. They were for them. For all the people in the painfully small stack of letters for each person of significance in his life.
He knew this was going to hurt them over. Tear at wounds that weren't even beginning to heal, that were still fresh and gaping and oozing. Another lash against a back that was already flayed raw.
That was the point. As he'd said to Emily, let them have it all now. Not to dig the knife in deeper, but to let the healing begin all at once. Start the treatment now, prevent the infection, let it scab and callous and scar over the loss of Agent Emily Prentiss and Dr Spencer Reid in one fell swoop.
The final page he wrote was the easiest. He had a will. It had been in place since getting clean, once he'd had the capacity to think things through again. Returned to the mental clarity that only came with being truly sober rather than the illusion that existed when simply between doses. Georgia was the first time he really considered his mortality - dying has a tendency to do that.
Although his assets were limited, he had a fairly substantial amount of savings, and his apartment belonged to him. He also had a number of books that would, to some, be considered collectables. He'd never want to part with them in life, but he had no use for such things in death. The proceeds of these should be accounted for as part of his financial assets.
This was all detailed in the legal documents he'd written up a while back and semi regularly updated, often when he had brushes with death, which seemed to happen fairly regularly. After the sale of all his assets, that and his savings were all left to his mom to see out the cost of her care, hopefully for the rest of her life. In the case of her death before the will was executed, or before the money ran out, everything else went into an account for Henry that he would be able to access at 18.
Therefore this final page was merely outlining where the documentation for his will could be found, the combination for his safe, and the unlock code for his phone. He wanted to make it as easy as possible to clear up his life in the aftermath.
In the interest of clear up, he headed into his kitchen. Opening his fridge, the intention to remove anything that was going to go bad within the next week. Depressingly, there was nothing to clear out. His fridge had a severe lack of fresh food, he'd barely been eating since Emily's death and he'd clearly let his grocery shopping fall to the wayside. He didn't even have milk. The condiments and margarine would be fine. He considered throwing them out anyway, for completeness, but his desire to not be needlessly wasteful overruled. He closed the fridge.
He migrated instead to his bedroom. He couldn't entirely pack up his life, but he could at least leave it neat. He picked up the suit he'd dropped on the floor upon his arrival, hanging it back in the closet. The jacket was still wrinkled from his night on the couch, he tried to brush them out a little before tucking it away.
He had a small pile of laundry that was spilling out of the hamper. It felt neglectful to leave it unwashed, but he couldn't face doing laundry he would never again wear. Instead he just shoved it all deeper in, making sure it was contained within the hamper, rather than messily all over the floor. He made his bed as well, pulling the sheet tight and smoothing the comforter down.
He left the bathroom for now, it was where he'd be at the end of it all, he could figure out the cleanliness of that later on. Instead he headed back to his main living space. He straightened up the blanket on the back of his couch. Lovingly tucked away the books that had been gathering in small stacks on numerous surfaces around the room. The unopened mail by his front door he curtailed into an actual pile. He put away his pens and tucked the writing pad into the desk draw. Looking around, it seemed he had procrastinated with tidying all he could.
He finally opened his phone and fired off a text to the number he'd never been able to get out of his mind. Despite it having been a several years since he'd made contact, his dealer shot back with the same efficiency as always. It was something he'd actually valued about the man back when he'd been using regularly, he found himself appreciating it in a bittersweet way now as well. He gave Spencer a time, place and a price. Within forty minutes he was back in his apartment, pockets lighter of cash but heavy with weight of the finality their contents would bring.
Now he had supplies on hand, he executed the few final steps of his plan. He'd thought this one through in the forty minutes he'd traipsed the streets between dealer and pharmacy. This part was about cleanup for his team. To remove the possibility of one of them coming to find him, breaking down his door, seeing him blue and choked on his own vomit, or splayed out and stiff with a needle still stuck in his arm. They didn't need to see that, it wasn't fair to put that on them too. This way, someone else would find him. His team would simply have to identify a body, cleaned and neatly laid out under a sheet on a slab. Still unpleasant but significantly less traumatic for all involved.
This step involved, however much he loathed the idea, setting up an email address. He almost laughed at the irony of avoiding it like the plague until moments before his death. [email protected] would exist to send one email and one email only. He drafted it now, ready to go for later. It outlined the basics. His name, address, cause of death and emergency contact. He'd send it just before he took the final step, directly to the local law enforcement. They'd pick it up at some point, but not before it was far too late. After all, most people didn't opt to email in an emergency.
This was it. There was nothing else left to do. No more steps to take. He had done everything he could to make his transition from this world as smooth as possible for everyone else around him. Spencer Reid would leave an impact in these people's lives, but not one with a crater so large that it had global consequences. Emily had been that kind of person. World changing, extinction provoking, ice-age inducing. Knowing her had left him forever altered in a way that allowed for growth, new life, change. He could say the same for all the members of his team, past and present. They were colossal. Larger than life.
He hoped he could just burn up in the atmosphere. A memorable, perhaps even beautiful display to those who catch a glimpse. But ultimately harmless, a fond memory to look back on, but nothing earth shattering. No path of irreparable devastation left in his wake.
He removed his shoes, tucking the laces inside, leaving them neatly beside the front door. He took of his jacket and hung it on the coat rack, draping it neatly as he removed the items he needed from the pockets. He took one last, long look around the room that contained so much of his life. Ran his fingers along the spines of a bookshelf one last time. Revelled in the smell of books and old paper. Words he knew by heart yet kept close by for the joy of reliving it again through the turning of pages.
"Thank you," he breathed to the still room.
He moved off, into the bathroom. As unglamorous as it was to die sprawled on the tiled floor, it was the only place where cleanup would be quick and easy. The rest of the apartment, with its carpets and hardwood floors would be ruined by the presence of bodily fluids. He had been around enough death to know there was nothing glamorous about it, however you deemed to dress it up. Why ruin a good mattress? Why sully a pristine floorboard? Whatever he expelled would come out of the grout with a good scrub.
As he placed his purchases down on the edge of the sink a sense of calm swept through him. Although it had been a number of years since he'd performed this ritual, it all fell back into place so seamlessly. The peace before a hit had been a regular accompaniment. It was as though his body knew what he was about to receive and was truly grateful. It allowed him to keep his hands steady, to measure out the dose required - although that didn't matter this time. This time, rather than a carefully prepared syringe, drawn back to whichever specified 0.5mg interval he'd required, he simply pierced the lid and drew the plunger back as far as it would go.
The decadence of it almost made him feel giddy. Like a child in a candy store with more money than they could ever spend. He was glad that none of his friends would ever know the morbid excitement he'd felt at the prospect of going out on such a high. This wasn't allowed and breaking the rules in this final moment came with it's own rush. He felt his heart rate kick up with the adrenaline of it all. Make the most of it.
He balanced the syringe on the side of his bathtub and tugged the belt free from the loops of his trousers he'd changed into to leave the house. Laying it down beside him, everything ready to go, he pulled out his phone and hit send on the email. Satisfied as he watched the little green tick appear, the small '1' beside Sent in his otherwise blank inbox. He locked it and laid it aside, no further need for it now.
He slid the belt into place on his upper arm and held it tight with his teeth. The scars on his inner arm, though faded, were thrown into stark relief in the harsh lighting of the bathroom. Constellations etched into his skin. He was glad to not be poking around among fresh scars. He had his choice of entry sites, skin blemished but unbroken. He prodded at the space there with his fingers as a vein rose to the surface.
Cooperative.
Unlike that Second time, his body welcomed this. Content to relinquish it's agency to him, helpful in facilitating it's - his - own demise.
He took a steadying breath. One.
This was the moment he always took stock. He remembered vividly this instance before the First and Second times. He'd wondered then, as he did now, why he didn't feel differently. Why here, standing at the precipice, the power of life and death literally in his own hands - this time as he grasped the needle from the bathtub rim - was there nothing? He thought there might be more fear, regret, guilt. That something would be raging within him, to keep him from the cliff edge he was careering towards at breakneck speed. Did he really have so little a sense of self-preservation that he couldn't even muster up a spike of cortisol?
For this, the Third and Final, was the thrill of one last, glorious high, and the relief at finally achieving a rest he'd been grasping at for so many years all that he had to offer? He supposed it was preferable to panic and came with a reassurance. The same reassurance he had felt at the First and Second. Reassurance that this was truly the right decision.
He depressed the plunger just a little, removing any air from the tip and giving himself some wiggle room in the chamber, before placing it against his skin.
Another breath. Two.
He pressed forward. The skin gave way easily under the sharp tip. He drew back the plunger and watched as red flowed in, swirling eerily in the slightly unnatural flow of the clear liquid in the body of the syringe. He gazed, transfixed for a moment as it ebbed and flowed, spreading and fading.
Breathe. Three.
Breathe. Four.
His thumb twitched. A fraction of a second, far less than a heartbeat. That's all it took. The chamber was empty, plunger pressed to the base of the needle.
Air dragged through his lips in a gasp. Five.
It tore through him like wildfire. So rapidly he had to make a real conscious effort to force his fingers into pulling the needle free from his arm. That was all they managed, as his grip went lax. Somewhere, in a recess of his mind, he heard it clatter to the floor as the belt beneath his teeth slid free down his arm.
Six.
He flopped, body languid, limbs heavy. Back against the cool tile, staring up at the ceiling lights that had begun to swim and wink.
Seven.
There's a wetness on his face. He thinks vaguely that perhaps he is crying. He doesn't know why. He feels a smile tugging at his lips as the world swirls around him. Each blink seems to take longer than the last.
Eight.
He feels his head droop to the left. His hair is too short to flop into his eyes. He thinks he would have liked to grow it again. Maybe. His eyes feel too heavy to open again anymore. Should that worry him? He can't remember. Everything is sluggish and slow. Grinding to a halt. Ceasing. Stopping.
Nine.
Done. Out. Gone.
Ten.
***
The low rumble of voices was the first thing he became aware of.
Then the splitting headache cleaved through his consciousness.
Eleven?
A low droning noise filled his ears. It took him far longer than it should to realise the sound was issuing from between his own lips.
"Spencer?"
"Fuck."
Twelve
It slipped from his lips involuntarily. However, it encapsulated well the everything of the moment. Fuck, the pain in his head, as though it had been split in two. Fuck, the familiar voices surrounding him. Fuck, the unmistakable scratchy sheets and crinkly clothing and harsh lighting even through his still closed lids. Fuck, he'd been found. Fuck, he'd failed.
Thirteen
He supposed it made no sense to count his breaths anymore. They were no longer in short supply.
"Spencer? Are you in pain?" came a second, deeper voice.
He managed a rumble he hoped came across as assent.
"I'll get someone," the first voice, higher, murmured. He heard the sound of footsteps retreating.
"Can you open your eyes?" asked the remaining voice.
"Lights," he muttered through a throat that felt like sandpaper.
"Too bright?"
Another rumble of confirmation.
The blazing behind his lids dimmed to a much softer red hue. Despite knowing this wouldn't help the pain in his head, he felt he owed whoever sat beside him some semblance of cooperation. He cracked an eyelid. The world was fuzzy. Someone had most likely removed his contacts. The light wasn't so unbearable, or rather, the headache didn't feel like it could actually get much worse, light or no light.
Even without his glasses, there was no mistaking the Hotch shaped blur that sat in the plastic hospital chair, elbows on his knees, hands clasped before him. Spencer couldn't quite tell if he was looking directly at him or if his gaze was directed towards the floor. It felt like a blessing for the time being to not be able to bring into focus the inevitable disappointment in the eyes of his unit chief.
Hotch evidently didn't agree as his next words were, "would you like your glasses?"
He nodded mutely.
Hotch lent forward, grabbing what he assumed were his glasses from a cubby beside his head. Spencer held out a hand that had a slight tremor and Hotch placed the folded glasses onto his palm. He eased back the arms and slid them into place. Green, hospital issued blankets that were draped over his legs were the first thing he saw as the world returned to HD.
He couldn't bring himself to look over at Hotch.
"Spencer," he said again, "do you know what happened?"
He drew in a breath to speak and instead started a coughing fit as the air caught on his parched mouth and throat. A cup was pressed into his hands and he took a few sips. Then downed the entire thing in three large gulps as he suddenly registered quite how thirsty he was. He cleared his throat and attempted to speak once more.
"Overdose," he murmured through chapped lips.
"Why?"
"Suicide attempt," he replied bluntly, seeing no point in dancing around the reality.
A sharp intake of breath from the doorway had his head snapping up. JJ stood just inside the door. The clothes she had on weren't quite the pyjamas he'd left her in, but that seemed to be one of the only notable changes. Her hair looked unbrushed, her face make-up free. The other notable change was the red rimmed puffiness around her eyes. It threatened to be aggravated further as she looked back at him, a stricken expression across her face.
Guilt tore at his chest in light of her anguish. God he'd tried so hard to avoid all of this. To minimise their pain. To not have them sit, despairing at his bedside. To not know all the gory, intimate details. To not have to watch him fall apart all over again.
How had he failed?
"How?" he croaked, turning away from JJ and looking down at his knees again. He dragged them into his chest and wrapped his arms around them. What did it matter if he looked vulnerable anymore? The illusion was shattered anyway, of course he felt exposed right now.
"Garcia. She has a flag on her system if any of our names come through any channels associated with first responders. It's been in place since Foyet. Your email triggered it the instant you sent it," Hotch explained.
Of course. Of course it would be the email. A twisted, bitter sound fell from his lips. He felt Hotch and JJ stiffen beside him, the tension in the room that had already been palpable reaching a thickness that made the air hard to breathe. Or was that just him? He dragged a gasp through his lips only for it to fall out with the same unnatural sound as before. It was a laugh.
He was laughing.
Chest shuddering, stomach aching, breath stealing laughs poured forth. He clutched at his hair, burying the face that was stretched wide in a grim facsimile of a smile into the alcove between his knees and chest. The sound continued to echo round the stark white room, until a multitude of hysterical Spencer's filled the space. A chorus of the dammed, who's clutches he'd escaped all because of a fucking email.
"Spencer."
A hand landed tentatively on his shoulder and he flinched, almost hard enough to launch him off the other side of the bed. This only served to multiply the hands grabbing at his limbs, tugging, pulling, dragging him back from the brink. Why couldn't they just let him go? He felt nausea swirl in his gut.
"Spencer you have to stop fighting or they'll sedate you!" Hotch's voice called across the chaos of noise around him. A voice that had once been his one lifeline, that he'd longed to hear more than any other.
I knew you'd understand.
Not anymore.
He felt the bite of a needle in his upper arm and for a wild, irrational moment, he believed he was getting his wish.
But the blankness that rushed over him was wrong, stifling and cloying and muffling. He drew one further gasp. One. Before the world went black once more.
***
His head felt better the next time. The lights were already dimmed. The world around him seemed quieter, an abscence of the hubbub he'd come to always associate with hospitals. The sensory nightmare of tannoys and machines and people, it was all softer. He could hear someone beside him. Their breathing was deep and even. Asleep?
He risked opening his eyes. The darkness of the room explained. It was night. The same day or the following he wasn't sure, but the blinds were drawn against a pitch black sky and the light that filtered in came through the door rather than any of the overhead ones in the room.
He turned his head. Morgan was beside him, head resting against his shoulder as he slept in the uncomfortable looking hospital issued arm chair. His neck was going to complain something awful in the morning. He debated whether he should wake him, get him to, at the very least, transfer his head to the other shoulder for the rest of the night. He made to reach out, to lay a hand on the man's knee that was against the mattress beside him.
That's when he noticed the cuffs.
Soft and padded, supple leather that wouldn't hurt his wrists if he pulled against them. Cuffs he had seen far too often around a similarly bony wrist as his tiny, child hand rested over - clutched tightly at, fought against, was crushed by - his mother's. The straps always offered as 'a last resort' and 'to keep her safe', but more often than not left her panicking and frantic, needing to escape.
He felt that same desire welling up inside him. A balloon of anxiety growing and expanding in his chest. Squeezing out his breath, trapping his heart against his ribcage as it skyrocketed in response, shoving his stomach down as it rolled.
An alarm started to blare from somewhere just behind his head. He felt all his muscles tense, clenching, locking. A freeze response so complete he couldn't even draw breath if there had been room in his lungs to do so.
The alarm continued to make things worse.
Morgan jerked awake from his position on the chair, head whipping around for the source of what had woken him.
"Reid. Reid! Spencer!"
He could hear him in the way you hear people shout underwater. Distorted and warped. He could hear him, but couldn't look up. Eyes still fixed on that cuff around his wrist as his lungs started to scream for release.
As his eyes began to lose focus, starbursts twinkling across his vision, Morgan - oh thank Christ it was Morgan - flipped the leather of the straps, buckles clattering with a sound that felt so eerily familiar to Spencer for all the wrong reasons. He slid the tongue free and clutched Spencer's hand in both his own, dropping to the floor so he was in Spencer's eye-line. Eyes met his, a ferocity of righteous anger and love, so strong it punched him clean in the chest. Hard enough to burst the balloon.
He dragged a breath into his gasping lungs, lightheadedness threatening to take him back into the blankness as the hypoxia relented. He forced another breath.
"Slowly Spencer, follow the pressure of my hands, in and out," Morgan explained in a calm, measured tone. He squeezed at Spencer's hand, gradually increasing the tightness and then releasing gently to normal. Then again. And again.
Spencer focused on this one point of contact. He was vaguely aware of Morgan commanding the room around him, barking orders as softly as he could to the flurry of people that had rushed in at the sound of the alarm. An alarm that mercifully had also stopped blaring around the small, echoey space. Eventually, the only sound in that room were his and Morgan's slow, even breaths.
He wasn't sure he could manage to verbalise anything quite yet, but he was able to return the pressure against Morgan's hand. It broke Morgan out of his almost trance like state.
"Hey, pretty boy," he smiled. Spencer felt his breath, that had been so steady, catch in his chest at the easily given affection shining from Morgan's face.
"Keep breathing kid, can you do that?" he asked, clocking the change in his demeanour.
Spencer nodded. He would try at the very least.
"I'm gonna stand up, my knees aren't young anymore." He did just that, Spencer heard the crack and pop as the joints stretched out. He focused on still taking even breaths.
"I want you to keep your eyes right here okay, right at the headrest of that awful chair," he pointed at where he'd been attempting to sleep.
"Keep your eyes right there because I'm gonna be right back, but I gotta go release your other hand first, alright." Morgan made no gesture towards the other side of the bed, nothing to draw Spencer's attention away to the other cuff.
Spencer could feel it biting into his skin in his slightly twisted position. Despite all Morgan's efforts to keep him focused, he couldn't banish the feel of it around his wrist. He could feel the need to flee, fight, freeze ratcheting up again.
"Keep breathing pretty boy. I got you."
Morgan vanished from his eye-line and Spencer's breath caught in his chest. But he was quick and efficient. Within ten seconds he had freed Spencer's hand and positioned himself in the chair, precisely where he said he would be. He gathered both Spencer's hands in his this time, as Spencer rolled onto his side, free now to do so, releasing the pressure that had been building in his shoulder.
Morgan checked in. "This okay?" he asked, nodding down at their clasped hands.
Spencer nodded.
"Can I put something on that for you?" he pointed at the red rawness around Spencer's wrists. "Just lotion, unscented, I've got some in my bag. You can have a smell beforehand though and I'll try a tiny patch to see how it feels first?"
Christ he was thankful it was Morgan.
He nodded again.
Morgan fished the little tub out of the bag at his feet. It was a brand Spencer recognised, one Morgan had offered him before without issue. It would probably be fine. He couldn't convey this to Morgan right now, speech still felt illusive, and he found he didn't want to. He appreciated Morgan's accommodations so much. That he understood. He didn't want to gloss over them. He wanted to savour them.
As agreed, Morgan opened the tub and held it towards his face, watched as Spencer drew breath through his nose and waited for his nod of confirmation. He then took a pea sized blob onto his finger and took Spencer's hand in his.
"Here okay?" He asked, finger almost touching the back of his hand. Another nod.
The lotion was cooling against his skin, and Morgan's fingers were just the right amount of pressure as he massaged it in.
"You good?"
He managed a small noise in the back of his throat to accompany the nod this time. It brought another smile to the other man's face.
"Veto at any time okay, you can just tap my arm with your other hand if you can't tell me."
"Hmm."
Morgan started with his right hand, the one that had been held at the unnatural angle for far longer than the left. He worked down Spencer's hand allowing him to get used to the process before he touched the tender skin at his wrist. His fingers were sure and firm against Spencer's skin. They grounded him, centring him, more than anything had since they'd been told of Emily's death.
"I told them you'd freak out at the restraints," Morgan murmured. Spencer looked up from where he'd been watching the massage of his hands. Morgan's gaze flicked to his for a moment, brows drawn in a crease of worry that was echoed in his eyes. He looked back to his task as he spoke again.
"I figured they would probably cause you to panic just from being held down," he continued as he hit the worst of the rubbed skin, adding more lotion to let it cool the area before starting to massage it in. "I also thought about that god awful cabin in Georgia. How your wrists were raw for days after. How you didn't wear your watch for a whole week."
Spencer's mind hadn't gone there. The restraints held more than enough traumatic memories from his mom to eclipse any hand cuff associated distress from his ordeal with Hankel. Nevertheless, that Morgan recognised the potential triggering factor, the chance for retraumatisation, was all that was needed. It had allowed him to act from a trauma informed position, and that had been precisely what Spencer needed.
"Thought of my mom," he croaked softly around dry lips. That brought Morgan's head up properly, had him pause for a moment in his ministrations. He looked back at Spencer for a few moments in confusion. Spencer clocked the instant he put the pieces together. His face fell, a sigh punched from his chest as he shook his head. He turned his gaze down as he continued to shake his head.
"God, kid, I didn't even think of that. Of course it would remind you of that. I'm so sorry. I-I should have fought harder to-"
Spencer cut him off with another low croak,"'s okay. Didn't know."
"I should have known though," he berated himself as he finally went back to Spencer's hands.
"Still did the right thing. Still helped," Spencer assured him. Morgan glanced up and Spencer hoped he could see the sincerity in his tired eyes. It seemed to work, as Morgan gave him a small smile in return.
A silence fell between them as Morgan finished Spencer's left hand and moved onto his right. Again he worked from fingertips to wrist. The motion was so soothing, he almost found himself falling back to sleep. That was until his brain helpfully reminded him why he was here, in hospital. In the chaos of waking he'd let it entirely slip his mind. The weight of guilt hit him like a tonne of bricks, so suddenly that his hand twitched in Morgan's grasp, causing him to pause and look up.
"I'm so sorry."
It slipped from his lips the moment they made eye contact. It was enough for Morgan to cotton on to their change in conversation topic. His face softened instantly.
"Kid, Spencer. Look," he began, ceasing his massaging in favour of encompassing both of Spencer's hands in his. Smaller though they were, stocky where Spencer's were lanky, they still surrounded his entirely with a firm grip.
"I'm never gonna say it's okay, because a world without you in it feels like even more of a waking nightmare than all this shit already does. But I get it. I know that you feel things so deeply Spencer, but that you put up these walls to protect yourself and you shut the rest of us out in the process. But you can't keep doing that, because that's-"
He had to take a moment, a pause to breathe around what Spencer feared was a lump in his throat. Had his actions really brought Derek Morgan to tears?
"That's what got us here," he continued a slight roughness in his tone, "and I don't ever wanna get that call again."
Morgan looked up at him with such sincerity, Spencer's hands still clasped in his own. He could see the fight happening in the tightness of his jaw and in the muscles around his eyes to keep his face composed. Spencer could feel the tears welling up, threatening to spill out.
Overwhelmed, exhausted, off the back of an overdose, after five days of already neglecting his basic needs, his emotions were fried. But the tears were also laced with guilt. Guilt from knowing that he couldn't promise Morgan he'd never be here again. Couldn't tell him he'd never again get that call. Couldn't assure him it would never again get this bad. Couldn't look into Morgan's face, barely holding back his own tears and make that promise, however much he wished he could. Because he didn't know. He'd been here before and there was a significant statistical likelihood that he would be here again. First, Second and Third all before 30. It was becoming a pattern he couldn't ignore.
Morgan, as though somehow reading his mind from the micro-expressions of his face, added, "all I'm asking is you try kid, alright? I know it's not gonna be easy, but can you promise me you'll try. That if it feels like it's getting bad again that you'll call me, tell me, heck you can show up on my doorstep at 3 am if that's what it takes."
"And Spencer," he paused to allow Spencer to meet his gaze again, to see the sincerity blazing through once again. "If I do get another call like this, I'll still be here, okay? This isn't a free pass, you gotta try your dam hardest to come to me first, but if shit hits the fan and we're back here again. I. Will. Still. Be. Here. Do you here me, kid? I'm not giving up on you, alright?"
How the man managed to say everything he needed to hear, Spencer will never know. He does know that he is eternally grateful to have Derek Morgan as his friend.
"It might," he blurted without really intending to, in an urge to give Morgan all the grim, gory details of his reality before he really committed himself to staying at Spencer's side. Because if he really knew, knew how often the scales teetered on the edge, knew that this wasn't a one off moment of impulsivity, maybe he'd be more reluctant to agree to such a weighty endeavour.
Morgan didn't dismiss his concerns as others might. He just asked, "what makes you say that, pretty boy?"
"This is the Third."
Again there were those few moments of brow furrowed confusion as Spencer watched him read between the lines of his cryptic responses. Again there was a blooming of understanding, his expression morphing into something Spencer struggled to categorise as anything other than heartbreak.
"W-," he cleared his throat and tried again, "when?"
"None since being here," he assured him. It seemed to lessen the stricken look in Morgan's eyes ever so slightly. "Close, but never. The scales always balanced out. The First," he barrelled on, as though his frantic explanation could ease the anguish in Morgan's face. "I was twelve. It was after..." he let his words trail off, unable to speak the words, already too fragile. He hoped again that Morgan could fill in the blanks.
"The incident you told me, during the Savage case?"
Spencer nodded. They'd never talked openly about it since, and he'd been to scared at the time to voice that additional aspect of his story. It had fuelled the fire already blazing in his gut to rescue Owen. To try to save the kid in a way that no-one had tried to save him. He didn't want Owen to also have his own First.
"You left that part out of your story," Morgan murmured.
Spencer swallowed, aware he was caught in his lie by omission. "I didn't... I didn't want you to worry," he said in a voice that sounded far closer to that suicidal twelve year old boy than his suicidal almost thirty years.
The sigh that issued from Morgan was as though he was attempting to breathe through his exasperation. It was marginally successful but still curled a modicum of guilt into Spencer's stomach.
"The Second was at CalTech," he continued in that same small voice, unable to sit with the discomfort of Morgan's silence. "I was 17. I'd been aware of the possibility for a while, I had the plan in place." He sighed. "March 11th, 1998. It was a Thursday. That was the day when the scales just tipped."
"That's the second time you've talked in terms of scales?" Morgan asked. "What's that about? You tallying up your good and bad deeds?"
He hesitated for a moment. He'd never told anyone about the List before. Yet, if he was aiming for total transparency with Morgan, it made sense to talk about the List. It dictated so much of his life and death, after all.
"It's... more like a List of Pros and Cons."
Morgan still looked bemused.
"About... existing. Or not."
Morgan's bemusement took on a slightly sharper edge. He took a measured, controlled breath. "Just to be sure I'm getting this right. You have a list of pros and cons to living in your brain?"
"Yes," Spencer replied, his nod almost too enthusiastic, pleased that Morgan had understood and forgetting the gravitas of the topic of conversation. The List was such a standard aspect of his life, he often forgot it wasn't how the rest of the world operated.
Morgan took another of those breaths. "Kid I love you, but you have to know that's not... healthy." He knew Morgan tempered his language there.
"It's not normal," Spencer corrected.
"I didn't say that."
"You were going to."
The sigh that time was exasperated.
"Sorry." It took Spencer longer than he'd like to admit to realise those measured breaths were likely Morgan trying to hold back his anger.
"It's fine," Morgan replied in a tone that didn't really line up.
"It's not though. I know it's not." He looked down at their still joined hands. "I know it's not healthy, or normal, or rational. It's just how I've coped for a long time now. That as long as the Pros outweigh the Cons then life is still worth living. It's an illusion of control, like many coping mechanisms are, but it helps."
"How, kid?," Morgan questioned, with a sigh. "Because from here I'm struggling to see how in any way having a list of reasons to kill yourself is helpful."
"Because it's not just the Cons," he blurted, almost frantic in his desire to make Morgan understand. "The List is both. The List forces me to look for the good parts of life too. The List means I know the odds are stacked against me and so I'm going to do everything I can to counter that. It helps me see patterns in the good and the bad."
Despite his insistent explaining, Morgan still seemed unconvinced. His brows were still furrowed, jaw still tight, eyes still slightly narrowed.
"Okay, so for example," he attempted again, shuffling himself into a more upright position with the aid of the already raised head of the bed. Not wanting to relinquish his hands from Morgan's grasp but feeling the need to be less prone, so as to add credence to his arguments.
"Every day the List reminds me that my mom values every letter I send her. It reminds me that Will and JJ picked me to be Henry's godfather. That I survived Anthrax. That I'm clean-" he choked.
He wasn't clean anymore.
3 years, 8 months, 27 days. Gone just like that.
He couldn't breathe.
"Kid. Kid. Spencer! Come on man, or all the alarms are gonna go off again and I dunno if they'll be so understanding this time."
Spencer looked into Morgan's face, a modicum of his own panic reflected back at him through Morgan's eyes.
"Same as last time kid okay, breathe with me," Morgan's hands started to squeeze again in the same four in, four out, motion as before, his own breathing exaggerated and loud to help Spencer follow along.
"Morgan, I can't-I can't-I can't," he gasped with the last of the breath trapped in his frozen lungs.
"Spencer. Please," Morgan was practically begging, eyes flitting to the monitors to his right where Spencer's pulse was climbing as his oxygen sats and respiration rate plummeted.
His breath was only released as tears that had been threatening to spill since he woke finally cascaded down his cheeks. A sob forced it's way out through his lips, a breath dragged back in juddering, hitching gulps. The next out was accompanied by a keening whine that made Morgan wince.
"Kid, can I hug you?" he asked, face anguished, looking as though he needed the hug to reassure himself, but willing to wait for Spencer's confirmation.
Spencer nodded as another whine whistled through his teeth.
"You gotta keep breathing though, promise?" He asked it more as a formality, not waiting for the reply before releasing Spencer's hands and throwing his arms around his back, drawing him into his chest.
The hug was tight, precisely what Spencer needed. Morgan's hands, one against his lower back the other against his shoulder blade, pulled him hard against the solid planes of his chest. Spencer clutched back at him, hands fisting in his t-shirt, holding on for dear life as he tried to match the deep breaths Morgan was still demonstrating for his benefit. He could hear them whining through his lips as he tried to contain the sobs enough to actually breathe.
"You're doing great pretty boy, just keep going," Morgan murmured into his ear.
"Gonna ruin your shirt," he hitched out, face pressed into Morgan's clavicle.
"Don't you worry your pretty little head about that," Morgan reassured him, moving a hand to rest on the back of his head, as though to keep him from even thinking of trying to move away.
He wasn't sure how long they remained there. Spencer was focused entirely on maintaining a level of blood oxygen that would prevent being descended upon by well-meaning, but unwelcome, hospital staff. The tears still flowed but the sobs had finally reduced to approximately one in five breaths rather than catching on every inhale. Morgan hadn't moved, willing to hold him as long as he needed.
He felt the final recesses of the panic leave him as his body sagged, like a puppet with cut strings. The hands with a death-grip on Morgan's shirt finally released, sore and aching, to press flat against his back instead. The tension in his shoulders dissipated along with the rigidity of his back, that had him falling deeper into Morgan's arms. Even his face that had been pressed against his chest, now on a neck that was lax, rolled to the side, resting against his shoulder rather than head-butting against it.
Morgan, clearly feeling this release, broke the silence.
"How you feeling kid?" he asked in a low rumble that Spencer could feel in his own chest.
"I fucked it all up, Morgan," he whispered. "Sobriety didn't matter when I was going to die and now I haven't and I've thrown it all away. I'm further back than I was when I added it to the List the first time around."
Morgan began running his fingers through his hair, gently teasing out the knots that had formed there from his thrashing against sheets, fitful sleep and neglect. "I know this feels like a setback right now. Another setback. But I promise you, you will get there again and beyond."
"3 years, 8 months, 27 days. December 11th 2014. I'll be 33," he rattled off, performing the math in his head at lightning speed despite not being on top form.
"There's the genius I know and love," Morgan rumbled, focusing on his math prowess than the numbers themselves. "That means you're turning 30 this year right? We should do something, that's an important one."
Spencer hummed noncommittally at this.
"Come on, you're not going to be one of those people who get all funny about turning 30 are you? 30 is great," Morgan teased incredibly gently, nudging at him with the shoulder his head was rested against.
"The lower end of life expectancy for a non-intellectually disabled autistic person is 39," he murmured bleakly.
"Wait, really?"
He nodded against Morgan's shoulder.
"Fuck," he hissed.
"That's just the average. With my track record..." He let that one hang in the air again before adding, "and there's still a schizophrenia risk between now and 40. It's less common this late in men but not unheard of."
Spencer's words were almost tangible in the air between them, a third presence in the room. A reminder of just how tenuous a connection existed between Spencer and mental stability. The reality of how fragile this all was, thrown into stark relief as they held one another in the small, bleak room, Spencer still sat on his hospital bed, mere hours after a near fatal overdose.
Although he couldn't see his face he could feel Morgan mulling over his next words. The silence was anticipatory and he was willing to wait. What more was there to lay out? He'd covered the suicide, the drugs, the autism, the schizophrenia, the List. The ball was firmly in his court, to steal a sports metaphor he was sure Morgan would appreciate. This was the moment of truth.
"Spencer," Morgan began finally, his voice soft but serious, weighty. He didn't let up on his carding hands through Spencer's now tangle free curls. He made no move to pull away or release himself from Spencer's grasp. Spencer hoped this was a positive sign.
"I know I don't say it enough, but I need you to hear me right now. You listening?" Spencer felt him lean back, looking at what little he could see of his face from their current position.
"Hmm," he replied with another shuffle of his head against Morgan's shoulder.
"I love you, Spencer," he said in a voice filled with affection that stole Spencer's breath for a moment. Trying once again to encourage his lungs to expand, he almost missed as Morgan continued.
"Exactly as you are. Autistic, suicidal, addict, potential schizophrenic. They're all a part of you. Sure they each have their own challenges, they don't make your life easy, but they also don't change your value as a person. They don't change your value to me. And I'm here to support you in all of this. I know what I'm getting into and I'm here for the long haul. None of this is gonna scare me away. We're family, you're stuck with me now I'm afraid."
If his breath had been catching at the start of his monologue, it was now almost impossible to swallow around the watermelon sized lump in his throat. The tears were back, and he was certain Morgan could feel them soaking into his shirt once more.
As though once again reading Spencer's mind, Morgan added in a whisper, "keep breathing, pretty boy."
Spencer drew a shuddering breath followed by a cough.
"Do you want some water?"
He nodded, making to pull back but Morgan didn't release the arm curled around his ribs. The hand in Spencer's hair vanished for a minute before a cup, featuring an incredibly elaborate, neon pink bendy straw, almost twice the height of the cup itself, was positioned within reach of his lips.
He couldn't help it. The ridiculousness of the straw, almost overbalancing in the cheap disposable hospital issued cup with the weight of it's numerous bends and twirls, Morgan's forefinger and thumb having to trap it in place to stop it toppling out. So ostentatiously out of place in this drab, grey landscape. His choking, hitching breaths dissolved into giggles in an instant. Within moments his breath was hindered not by the tightness in his throat, but by the chest shaking, ab clenching laughter pouring forth from between his lips.
His mirth was infectious, he could feel Morgan's body shaking against him, his own low, rumbly chuckles filling his ears. Spencer could hear them both bubbling up from within his chest and echoing in the room around them from his current position, his head still pressed against his shoulder.
"Garcia will be thrilled to know that her plan worked," Morgan said around his laughter.
"I love that women, so so much," Spencer chuckled, looking down at the straw and snorting again.
"Yeah she's something special," Morgan agreed.
"Can I have my drink now?" he requested, lightheartedly.
Morgan adjusted his grip on the straw so Spencer could reach it with just his lips and take a long drag.
His throat felt a lot better, and highlighted quite how dehydrated he was feeling. The straw, with all its ludicrous bends and narrow opening also served to prevent him from gulping down the water so fast he made himself sick. It took him almost a minute to empty the cup. When it was finally finished - with added comical straw sucking noises as it scrabbled at the bottom of the empty container - Morgan removed the cup and lay it sideways on a ledge beside him. He placed his hand back into Spencer's hair.
"This still okay?" he asked.
"Very," Spencer confirmed, before adding, "I love you too you know," in a quiet voice. "I love all the facets of you, even the ones you find hard to talk about."
Buford hung between them for a moment, but Spencer refused to let him linger there.
"I don't think anyone else could have taken me from waking up in restraints to giggling at a silly straw. You were exactly the person I needed to keep me safe and grounded. So thank you, for being you."
He realised in that moment that he had quoted Emily without meaning to. The grief in his chest bloomed afresh, acute and painful. Yet here, in Morgan's arms, it felt ever so slightly easier to bare. The anguish was no less, rather it was the weight of it, born by them both, shared between them through their embrace, that felt somehow easier to carry. He could feel the agony, but wasn't crushed by the immensity of it.
"I'm always gonna be here to keep you safe, Spencer," Morgan murmured, tightening the arm around his back affectionately. Spencer returned in kind with his own affectionate squeeze around his ribs.
As Morgan held him in his arms he found himself mentally adding a few points to his List. He knew they weren't solutions. They weren't going to fix everything in his clearly struggling brain. They weren't going to make the pain of Emily's loss any smaller. They weren't going to erase the years of trauma and abuse. They weren't going to make him less of an addict. They weren't going to reduce his risk of developing schizophrenia.
But they did remind him that he didn't have to face any of this alone.
They did mean that there was someone on his side. Someone in his corner. Someone to weather the storms of life with, however dark or desolate they seemed to become. Someone who had seen the darkest parts of him, the depths his mind could drag him down to, and was still willing to stand by his side with an outstretched hand.
- Pros:
- Derek Morgan is here if things get bad
- Derek Morgan Will. Still. Be. Here. Even if shit hits the fan
- Derek Morgan will always be here to keep you safe
- Derek Morgan loves you, exactly as you are