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“But the fact is, dreams catch us with our armor off.” - Victoria Schwab
It came as no surprise to Spencer that the nightmares got worse. Even if he hadn’t been locked in a shed in a graveyard, hooked on drugs against his will, forced to dig his own grave and subsequently abandoned by his mentor as well as his fellow teammate to face sobriety alone, the job would fuel them nicely.
Still, he found himself wishing for the nightmares he once had.
Those ones would leave him paranoid someone was out to get him before he remembered it wasn’t real and settled down for another few hours. Now he had to patrol his apartment, checking every dark corner and redoing every lock until his alarm went off.
Those ones he could shake off after some time with colleagues rather than feel like he was slowly losing the version of himself they tolerated, never mind liked. Maybe it was just in his nature to be enjoyed in small doses and perhaps he just needed to be experienced in shorter instances than the job allowed for.
He’d wake up with shouts and calls for people who weren’t there more nights than not instead of just being a little breathless. The neighbours were complaining about him watching horror movies too late, though they thankfully stopped banging on his door.
Spencer hadn’t slept on the jet since they got worse and intended to keep it that way. He didn’t want to let slip that what had already been a problem was now nearly out of control. He’d just about managed to fake his dark under eyes and exhaustion as a vitamin deficiency he was working on treating. He would almost feel proud of himself if he wasn’t fooling the same people who didn’t pick up on withdrawal behaviours.
Then it’d been a long day. He was exhausted, running on so little sleep he was surprised Aaron let him join the raid. He could’ve passed out as Derek secured the vest on him and told him to keep it on this time.
When they got to the jet, it seemed the rest of the team didn’t get the memo about how laborious the case had been. They chatted amongst themselves about nothing important, and he’d made the mistake of resting his cheek on his hand. The soft jostle of the jet, knowing he was surrounded by not only friends but trained FBI agents with much better shooting range scores than him and not getting a decent night’s sleep in months, he drifted off before he could think better of it.
The calm didn’t last for long, and he was inevitably struck with twisted memories of the shed. His feet stung from the strikes, and his elbow ached. The needle was dug so far under his skin, too roughly, with little care or attention. The monitors weren’t right. They showed his team instead of the random men and women he’d later learn the names of and torture himself over. He screamed, cried, begged for help all while watching the only people who could offer him sanctity being savagely murdered.
He woke up with a shout for someone. He didn’t remember starting the name and only realised once it was out of his mouth that he’d said a name at all. Immediately, he was sent spiralling.
This wasn’t his bedroom.
This wasn’t his bed.
He tried to push himself away from the table, not realising his chair wouldn’t move. He slapped his hands away with no real strength until Aaron grabbed his shoulders and sent him tumbling back to reality. Spencer took one look around the cabin before shaking off the older’s hands and running to lock himself in the bathroom.
The worst part should’ve been standing in the bathroom, wishing the plane would go down.
The worst part should’ve been looking at himself in the mirror, in the cold light of the bathroom, and finding nothing of the person Gideon bent so many rules for.
The worst part should’ve been leaving the bathroom and finding his seat again, everyone’s eyes trained on him like he was about to explode and take them all down with him.
No, the worst part was having everyone assure him it was perfectly natural and there was nothing to be embarrassed about.
He knew all that already. He’d read everything there was to read on the matter to shield himself with knowledge as he so often did. If there was a paper out there on nightmares, even if it briefly mentioned the topic, he’d read it.
Emily asked if he was okay whilst giving him the most pitiful look she could’ve mustered. JJ almost matched it, but didn’t say anything to accompany it. Aaron lingered near his seat. He didn’t say anything. Figured. Derek tussled his hair on the way to get coffee, offering to protect him from everything that went bump in the night.
Instead of letting the jokes go over his head, seeing the concern rather than the pity or even just nipping it in the bud right there and then, Spencer simmered on it silently. It would’ve been so easy to let it go to the point where he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t. Either way, Spencer decided, not entirely unlike a child, that he would never sleep around them again just to avoid it.
That lasted a week.
There hadn’t been enough rooms in the last hotel. The girls paired up, and Derek fought with him for the spare single room, only for Aaron to flash the room key, sealing their fate as temporary roommates.
He did his best to stay awake as he kept himself busy with the evidence he was allowed to take for further inspection and stayed in his work clothes to fool himself into thinking he was still on the clock. He’d hoped to avoid the bed like the plague, choosing to sit at the awkwardly short desk, and consistently reminding himself of the case would keep him awake, but again, he closed his eyes for a little too long and woke up loudly and in a panic.
Again, there were jokes.
“You scared the shit out of me,” Derek laughed in relief. “If this doesn’t work out, you have a place as a horror actor.”
Again, he simmered silently. Well, he thought he simmered silently, but the look on his face was apparently much harder to hide this time, even in the low light of the bedroom.
“Reid?” Derek called in that tone he used. That inflexion of asking to be invited into his thoughts without putting it into words. Spencer hadn’t noticed it until he heard it being used on a victim who knew more than they let on.
“It’s not funny,” he muttered, picking at the lint balls on his jumper. He would’ve never worn this to work a few months ago. He would’ve seen the piled-up fibres and immediately dismissed them as a possibility until he fixed it. Now it was just the first thing that looked clean that morning.
“What isn’t?”
“The nightmares.”
“I wasn’t making fun of you, I was just tryna lighten the mood.”
“Humour is considered a good coping mechanism because laughter can improve mental well-being, but depending on the type of humour used, it can lead to further psychological stress,” he answered. Explaining emotions wasn’t his strong suit. It felt cruel in a way. To have a deep understanding of psychology yet feel so clueless when it came to himself and why something that would’ve made him smile months earlier made him want to explode now.
Derek sat up in his bed, signalling this was going to be a conversation rather than a short back-and-forth. He briefly wished he had never said anything and buried his head in the thick stack of papers in his hands.
“What would you prefer?” Derek asked genuinely.
“I don’t want attention brought to it,” he answered. “It’s bad enough I’m reminded every night.”
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“I never said there was. I just,” he pulled harshly on the rogue fibres and began picking it apart, “I don’t like the attention. I don’t like that I can’t seem to sleep on the jet like the rest of you anymore. Humour is how you cope, how I’ve coped in the past, but in this instance, whilst it is soothing to you, it bears no comfort to me. I- I want to sleep on a jet without scaring myself awake, but I can’t, so maybe we could at least pretend I can.”
“Why didn’t you say something before?”
“You had to watch,” he whispered. He hated how fragile he sounded. Derek let out a sigh and rubbed his brow.
“You haven’t been sleeping on the jet. That’s why you’ve been so cranky,” the older muttered, connecting the dots.
“I’m not cranky!”
“You nearly bit Hotch’s hand for the single room.”
“It made more sense for me to have the single,” he huffed. “This only goes to prove it.”
“If you don’t want us to acknowledge the nightmares, we won’t, but ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.”
“I’m doing what I can already. I passed the psychological evaluation.”
“So did Elle.” He wilted at the name. He should really try to catch up with her when he got the chance. They’d probably be able to bond over their near-death experiences. “If you need someone to talk to, you’ve got plenty of people. I can tell the others tomorrow if you want?”
“I would like that. Thank you.” Derek nodded and reached over to the bedside cabinet, opening the drawer and finding a small plastic bag with disposable earplugs. His eyes briefly glanced at the alarm clock.
“We’ve got four hours until we have to get up. Get some sleep.”
The next morning, an agreement was made. If Spencer has a nightmare, don’t mention it. It benefited them all really. Spencer could sleep easier knowing he wouldn’t be receiving attention he didn’t want, and they wouldn’t get a cranky genius surviving off a pot of coffee that he treated like the fountain of youth. Even as their frequency dialled down and he was able to sleep somewhat peacefully a majority of the time, they remembered.
David Rossi got the memo before he was graced with his first trip on the jet. He then screwed up that memo and threw it in the bin without reading it.
David jolted as a cry rocked the small space. He threw his free hand up in exasperation as his very expensive and once pristine shirt sported a large coffee stain on the front. He looked around for the source and found Spencer sitting up, pin-straight on the small couch designated for sleeping.
No one else seemed to react and continued to busy themselves with whatever hobby kept their sanity on long flights. He put his mug down a little too harshly, letting whatever was left in it wobble dangerously close to the edge.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Emily answered, playing with her new puzzle. She hadn’t let Spencer get within a foot of it and wouldn’t until she gave up. Said genius rubbed at his eyes roughly, seemingly joining them from dreamland. He shook slightly but Spencer always seemed to be twitching or moving in some way. Probably all the coffee and sugar.
“You didn’t hear him scream bloody murder?” In the background, he noticed Derek making a stop talking gesture. Even Aaron was giving him the look to leave it alone. He assumed he sounded too angry so he decided to take it down a few notches. “I thought we were in the plane edition of the Orient Express.” He dabbed at the stain, knowing it wouldn’t come out. “There goes this shirt.”
“I’ll pay for it,” Spencer said, his voice still thick with sleep.
“You’d have to make a deal with the devil,” he grumbled. Granted, he had copies because a well-dressed man knew that accidents happened and style shouldn’t suffer for it, but it was still money down the drain. “When they told me you had nightmares, I wasn’t expecting imitations of a Wilhelm scream,” he added to lighten his tone again. He knew Spencer looked up to him in some way, and it truly was an accident. Nightmares were hazards of the job after all.
“I’m sorry.” Spencer, in a way only he seemed to be able to convey so brutally, looked utterly defeated. A cross between a kid who was picked last and now had to watch the team captains argue over who had to have him and the face parents pulled when they didn’t have any updates on their missing kid. He went to say something further but stopped himself, standing up and rushing to the coffee machine conveniently placed on the opposing side of the plane.
“You’re a real piece of work, yknow that?” Derek snapped. He waited a moment or two before following Spencer, intentionally blocking him from view as they talked low enough to keep their conversation secret.
“We told you not to say anything,” JJ angrily whispered. “What happens next is your fault.”
“C’mon, the kid knows I don’t mean any harm,” he replied dismissively.
The door to the bathroom clicked, and Derek trailed back to his seat in a huff. If glares were deadly, David would be dead ten times over.
He really hadn’t meant to cause trouble this time either. Sure they told him not to mention the nightmares but he was expecting something entirely different. He thought the kid would be a little sensitive or on edge, maybe a little weepy or clingy to members of the team he shared an extra special bond. They should’ve lead with the shrieking.
“So I hit a nerve-”
“We told you to leave it alone,” Derek snapped, keeping his voice hushed. “Hope the stain spreads to your jacket.”
“You didn’t tell me how bad they’d be.”
“Yeah, surprisingly, we thought the guy who negotiated Waco and Ruby Ridge would be able to handle a few loud noises.”
“He’ll be fine. The world won’t bend to his will every time,” he dismissed.
“We didn’t ask the world. We asked you,” Aaron stated. “A level of discretion would’ve been appreciated.”
“The kid has you wrapped around his little finger.” The team didn’t rise to the jab and that should’ve been his first sign that this wouldn’t be so easily filed away as a social misstep.
Eventually, Spencer left the bathroom and went to sit by Emily. His face and front strands of hair were wet, presumably from splashing water on his face to calm down. He stared at the desk for a moment, then out the window and then on the puzzle Emily worked on. It didn’t go unnoticed that she turned herself slightly so he could get a better view.
“You should try the Lu Ban Lock,” he said quietly. Testing.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“It’s a traditional Chinese educational toy invented by Lu Ban, also known as the father of carpentry. He invented and improved upon several carpentry tools we still use today like the saw,” he answered. He watched her for a moment as if waiting to be told he’d said enough. She didn’t say anything. “With the star puzzle you had, you told a story. Well, there’s a legend that Lu Ban thought of the saw after he cut his hand whilst gathering firewood. He noticed the leaf had a spiny texture and realised he could use turn it into an efficient wood cutting tool.” She smiled at him softly.
“I’ll have a look for some. Thanks.” He relaxed into his seat and watched her slide the pieces of her puzzle together. He glanced over to David a couple of times, but quickly averted his gaze after.
At first, David thought the team were being dramatic.
Sure, Spencer was acting more nervous and looked rough around the edges but he was still working perfectly fine. He found clues in places only someone who could read as fast as him could find in a meaningful time frame and he still went on his tangents riddled with statistics they didn’t care to remember.
Then he got snappy.
He was extra critical of ideas he didn’t think were useful and pouted when he wasn’t given the assignments he wanted. It got to the point the officers they were working with suddenly found urgent work that needed to be done right this second in any room other than the one Spencer was in.
He moved more too. He clicked his pen, tapped his fingers against the table, picked apart napkins until they were shreds and pulled at his fingers until they made awful clicking noises. He rolled around the room on the provided office chair and gave up on trying to explain what he was doing in laiments terms, instead giving long winded lectures if someone made the mistake of asking.
“What’s up with the kid?” David finally asked as he and Aaron drove to yet another crime scene. This would be the fourth murder overall but the first to happen whilst they were in town. The unsub was getting bolder as they so often did when FBI started sniffing around. He’d breathed a sigh of relief when Aaron left the kid at the station to help Penelope weed out suspects. One more joint click and something or someone was going through the window.
“We told you not to mention the nightmares,” he said as if that were all the answers he needed.
“Hotch, it’s not like I made him take out the loan he’d need to pay for my shirt. All I did was crack a couple of jokes.”
“And we told you not to give it any attention. He doesn’t want or need it.” He paused and glanced at his fellow agent. “You know how this job works. Sleep where and when you can. You’ve slashed those numbers, and he’s unlikely to make up for them in his hotel room when we’re all on the same floor. Knowing him, he’s found out how soundproof the walls are.”
“What, so he just isn’t sleeping now? He’s a bit old to be throwing tantrums.”
“It’s not a tantrum.” It was anxiety; he didn’t need to be told that. He supposed Spencer did seem to hate the spotlight when he didn’t have facts to focus on. He’d once asked how to get used to the stares they’d get as they confidently strode into police stations, ready to break the case wide open. He never thought much of the question. “You break it, you fix it.”
“You didn’t have a one-night stand in Vegas twenty-odd years ago, did you?”
“No.”
“He does have your sense of humour, and you have a thing for blondes.”
“Start him on decaff,” he said as they rolled to a stop. “Be quick, I can only replace so many chewed pen caps.”
As if to force David’s hand, Spencer was assigned to him the day after to stake out a possible kill site. For once, he wished Spencer would talk his ear off about some government report or something else with little practical application in his life. Instead, silence sat heavily in the SUV and the radio, occasionally crackling with the latest pop song did little to relieve it.
David had to stop for coffee just to get out of the car, deciding to take Aaron’s advice and bring back the abomination to hard workers (decaff). Spencer tried to pay him back as if the drinks weren’t already covered by the living expense they were given on out-of-state cases.
“So,” David began. “You’re weird about sleeping.” There was probably a better way to begin the conversation but he always liked to get straight to the point.
“I’m not weird about sleeping,” he snapped. “I experience some insomnia, but 30% of the population experience it short term and a further 10% experience it long term. I struggle to remain asleep but 17.8% of adults also have the same problem.”
“What are the stats on the nightmares?”
“2-6% of the adult population experience frequent nightmares,” he muttered before taking a sip of his coffee and making a face not unlike a toddler’s when presented with vegetables. “They must’ve given me the wrong one. Who orders a decaffeinated coffee without sugar?”
“No, that’s yours.” David could feel the glare on him, and although there was nothing remotely scary about the man beside him, he knew he was playing a dangerous game. You don’t mess with a profiler’s coffee unless you know exactly what you’re doing.
“But I didn’t ask for this?”
“You’ve had too much coffee.” Spencer rolled his eyes.
“I’m a grown man, I don’t need other people to dictate my caffeine consumption.”
“You’re overtired.”
“I’m not a toddler!”
“Look kid, obviously you’ve got a problem with nightmares, but when they told me about it I was expecting something else,” he explained, hoping to distract from the sin that was decaff. “Morgan seemed to think I was being an ass on purpose, which I usually am, but not this time.” He gave Spencer his full attention then, instead of trying to find some escape on the horizon or hoping the unsub would randomly decide to kill someone in broad daylight in the middle of the street, far away from their preferred spot. Spencer picked at the cardboard sleeve. “I underestimated their severity, but I should’ve listened to the team. If you want to leave this as an agreement I was in the wrong, then we can, but preventing yourself from sleeping because a nightmare got you some attention doesn’t seem like something you should ignore.” He shrugged.
“I passed the psych evaluation.”
“And I tell my doctor I only have one glass of wine with a few meals every week.”
There was a beat of tense silence. David could leave things as they were. They’d made up enough that he was sure Spencer would get some sleep before the night was done. He didn’t have any responsibility to the younger man and yet, it didn’t feel right to leave it. He wanted to prod at it further, uncover something everyone else had missed. Maybe it was just to chase the feeling of knowing more about a person than they did themselves or, just maybe, he didn’t like the idea of the kid suffering anymore than he had to. The job provided enough of that. Still, he wasn’t sure. If he started prodding, he might not be able to stop.
“You want to talk about it,” Spencer sighed, finally abandoning his abomination of a coffee in the cup holder.
“You don’t?”
“Not particularly.”
“You talk to anyone about it?” He nodded. “Are you lying to a profiler?”
“Worth a shot,” he mumbled. “There’s nothing to talk about. I have nightmares. Some are about work, some aren’t. Talking through it never does anything. There’s no rhyme or reason for when I don’t wake up screaming or panicked and when I don’t.”
“No?”
“No! Because it is illogical. I’ve tried everything to standardise the process. Over-the-counter sleep aids, white noise, keeping the TV on, adjusting the temperature of my room, changing clothes, never working in my bedroom-”
“Yeah, I get the idea.” He didn’t need to be told either. He could see it in how Spencer functioned with minimal quality sleep. It was a standard only the professional insomniacs could maintain, but it couldn’t be good in the long run. “You can’t wash your hands of what’s causing them, and I’m certainly not the professional you should speak to about it to even try that, but let me guess, you never get to sleep after you’ve had one?”
“I sometimes get an hour before work.”
“You know, I recorded an audio version of my books a few summers ago.”
“I remember. I bought a couple for road trips,” he replied, wondering if he sounded as nonchalant as he wanted to be. “What’s that got to do with this?”
“I’m not saying I have the most soothing or relaxing voice in the world, but I think you should break them out.”
“For what exactly?”
“On the jet, after you left the bathroom, you relaxed when you spoke with Emily. You would’ve gone back to sleep if I weren’t still there. You’ve been taking extra-long blinks when we talk about non-case-related topics.”
Spencer tilted his head to the side in consideration. He did find it harder to stay awake around the team than when he was alone. He wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with listening to his mum read and the way she hung on his every word when it was his turn. His cheeks flushed slightly. He shouldn’t be embarrassed about simply liking his teammates, but he’d made the mistake of thinking he was closer to someone than he actually was before.
“Just try it. You’re the guy with the doctorate, I’m sure you’re not adverse to testing a hypothesis.”
“Three doctorates,” he mumbled.
“I’d hate to see your student loans.”
“Do you really think it’ll help?”
“Worth a shot, right?”
David almost forgot about their conversation. The case picked up soon after and he made no attempt to resist the call of sleep on the jet. It was only after a week that Spencer bounded up to him like an excited Labrador that he thought back to it.
“Rossi, I don’t know how you figured this out, but it worked! I thought it was simply a coincidence at first, but over this week, I slept for an extra three hours on average,” he said. He’d always had dark circles, but for the first time in a while, he looked less gaunt and haunted. “I even stayed in bed the entire time last night.”
“What did I miss?” Derek asked.
“Rossi suggested I listen to his audiobooks after noticing I seemed to relax when listening to you all,” Spencer answered. “Hearing your voice, I think it helped me reason that it was just a nightmare faster. It only took me one walk around the apartment to feel okay.” Despite his successful week of sleep, he still went about making his usual sugary coffee. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. I just assumed the white noise of the jet was what kept me asleep.”
“Hey, if you needed to hear my voice, all you needed to do was ask pretty boy. I’ve already promised some sultry tapes to the resident babe.”
“I’m happy sharing him. I hate cranky baby genius,” Garcia commented on her way to her office.
“I do not get cranky!” he defended. “And you’d try to get me to subconsciously like sports.”
“You can’t keep betting on something you don’t care about. You don’t even watch the game you have money on!” The pair walked off as they bickered, dragging in the others to their endless debate. David found himself smirking once their backs were turned.
“He’s got his hooks in you,” Aaron stated, appearing to give his two cents as he so often did.
“God help me.”