Title: The Blue Boy

Author: Lexikal

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Summary: Spencer Reid is starting to develop what looks like serious depression. But is he really depressed, or is there something else going on?

Rating: T

Spoilers: None. Because I am so behind on watching the show (life is busy!) this is just a general fic, about the stresses of working for the BAU. No particular cases are mentioned. Takes place, however, after Gideon leaves and Rossi joins. Also, while "Revelation" isn't mentioned and there are no spoilers for that episode, the issue of potential drug abuse will come up in this story. This story was inspired by Reid's fear of his own potential mental health as explored in the episode "Sex, Birth, Death" but there are no references to that episode.

Reid was late again. 4th time this week. Luckily, nothing major had developed overnight, nothing that needed their immediate attention. Still. Reid didn't know that. Hotch frowned and glanced at Reid's desk. The young man's go-bag was propped on it, waiting, looking almost lonely. But where the hell was Reid?

Reid was usually very punctual.

Hotch sighed and marched out of the bullpen and into the tiny room the team used as a kitchen. If Reid was here, somehow, and flying under his radar, he'd be near the coffee. Hotch glanced around and sighed. No Reid. He poured a cup of black coffee and gulped it. Grimaced. The coffee tasted burned.

Finally the youngest BAU agent walked into the bullpen's kitchen, rubbing at his eyes like a child. Maybe walk wasn't the right word. He more accurately stumbled, steps slow and deliberate, as if exhausted. Hotch watched him carefully, noticing the lowered head, the stringy, almost greasy hair, the bags under his eyes. Their last case had been gruesome, but then again, what case in their line of work wasn't?

"Reid, my office." Hotch kept his voice calm but clipped as he approached the younger man; Aaron Hotchner's version of neutrality. Reid glanced up with dull, hazel eyes and blinked. Nodded dully. Followed Hotch to his office without comment.

Hotch opened the door for the younger agent and ushered him inside. He sat and stared at Reid, appraising him, before finally suggesting the younger man take a seat. Reid slumped into the chair, tented his fingers. His eyes were heavy lidded.

"What's going on with you?" Hotch asked sternly, never one to mince words. Reid shrugged like a petulant teenager, but his expression was just... tired. Dull. Finally he glanced back at his boss.

"You've been late 4 times this week." Hotch remarked slightly less sternly, a little more softly. Reid nodded, but whether he was agreeing or just nodding to tell Hotch he'd heard him was anyone's guess.

"I... I haven't been sleeping that well." Reid finally said softly, so softly Hotch almost missed the words. Hotch nodded in understanding. He wasn't surprised and had guessed as much; he'd had his share of sleepless nights skulking around inside the minds of serial killers, too. He could only imagine the impact of all that horrific skulking combined with an eidetic memory, a memory that would and could not let its master forget... ever.

But something about Reid, his demeanour... Hotch couldn't put his finger on it, but something about the tardiness, the sloppy appearance, Reid's eyes... it seemed like more than just insomnia. Reid was pale, but he was often pale. In fact, his pallor was something of a joke amongst the other BAU members. There were dark circles under his eyes, but again, that was nothing new for Reid, either. Reid often looked sickly even when he was fine and Hotch had come to get used to it, used to their pale, introverted little genius spouting off random esoteric facts and statistics, minutiae. But... something was off.

Unfortunately Reid was being less than forthcoming about what might be "off". In fact, Reid, usually one to chatter nervously, especially when cornered or questioned about anything even remotely personal, seemed like a discarded puppet in the chair, limp and mute. Hotch was momentarily reminded of poetry, of T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" and pushed that thought out of his head, but the chill had already trailed its way down his spine.

"I can't have your personal problems interfering with your work." Hotch said coolly when Reid failed to say anything else. In reality, Hotch was frustrated. Maybe even a little worried, but really, all he had was a rather unkempt looking Reid and 4 late days to base his worry on. Reid nodded slightly to let Hotch know he'd heard him, his eyes lacking their usual spark.

"They won't." Reid finally proffered when the silence in the room morphed from uneasy to grating.

"Good. Then I can expect you to be here on time from now on." Hotch remarked simply, brusquely. It was not a question but Reid nodded anyway and stood. Hotch nodded tacitly, there was no more need for words, and Reid left the office. He shut the door so softly that Hotch could barely hear the click and for some reason Aaron Hotchner was reminded of a whipped dog. But he hadn't been any harder on Reid than he was on the rest of the team at any other given moment.

Houston, 2 weeks later...

"Reid? You were saying?" Derek Morgan stared across the table at the younger man, the agent he almost thought of as a kid brother. Morgan lifted his eyebrows. Reid had been in the middle of developing a profile, explaining why he thought their UNSUB was abducting and killing only children with severe learning disabilities and severely low IQ scores, without leaving any evidence of sexual misconduct or torture.

Based on what Reid had been saying, formulating, their UNSUB was highly intelligent, organized and focused, probably with a history of working in the medical field or at least someone with some medical training like a retired nurse or paramedic, but lacking the sadism or sexual proclivities usually seen in prepubescent child murder cases.

Reid had stopped speaking in midsentence, eyes distant and unfocused. The rest of the team looked at him, exchanging looks when he failed to finish his sentence. The local police in the room that the team had been delivering the initial profile for looked at each other uncomfortably.

Until Morgan had broken the silence by prompting Reid.

"It doesn't matter Morgan. I don't know. I may be wrong," Reid got up and paced over to the window of the local police station's one and only conference room and stared out at the parking lot. It was a beautiful, sunny day and Reid shut his eyes, felt the heat of the sun against his skin and kept his back to his team and the local PD. Inside he felt miserable. Dead. The sun's heat and the apparent beauty of the day outside seemed like a mockery of his inner reality. He knew he felt depressed. His thoughts had slowed to a crawl; he didn't care, couldn't feel the strength or will to care; about his job, these kids. Nothing. What did any of it matter? Had it ever mattered?

He hadn't written his mother in weeks, and even though he felt slightly guilty about that, on an entirely other level he couldn't bring himself to care about her anymore, either.

"I probably am wrong." Reid said a bit louder, and glanced back over at his team. They were all watching him. Profiling him, no doubt. Oh well. Usually five sets of eyes trained on him, dissecting his psyche with looks, would've made him twitchy, but now he didn't care. Let them look. The cops were looking back and forth, too, but Reid knew they didn't have the ability to profile him. That thought might have made him smile under other circumstances.

Rossi and Hotch exchanged worried looks and Hotch nodded, fully aware of the police in the room. Hotch stood and began talking, not at Reid, exactly, but about the case, about his own thoughts regarding the UNSUB. Reid watched his superior for a moment and walked back over to the conference table, sat back down. He grabbed a Styrofoam cup from a stack of the things the local police had left on the table with a few pitchers of water and poured a cup, only half listening to Hotch. He took a few quick gulps, but the water tasted stale and dead, too, as if it was impossibly lacking most of its oxygen...anaemic water. That was a new one.

Hotch's voice and breakdown of the UNSUB's psychopathology seemed about as interesting as watching paint dry.

"...since he's taken children who have all been given the WISC and scored at 70 or below, we may also have to consider that he works at the schools or is somehow involved in the testing process. Considering his competence in medicine and the precision with which these victims were drugged and then exsanguinated, we are almost certainly, as Dr. Reid earlier suggested, looking at someone with training in child psychology and also medical training."

"Like a psychiatrist or perhaps a paediatrician." Morgan continued gruffly.

"You said... he ex...sanguinates them?" One of the cops asked confusedly in a low drawl.

Reid grimaced and shut his eyes, and reopened them. This case was doomed if these hicks were their "help".

"Drains them of their blood supply," Reid informed sharply, like a teacher reprimanding a disobedient student. The room was spinning and he felt suddenly sick.

"Wouldn't, then," Another police officer asked, having taken a dislike to Reid's tone of voice and obviously trying to back his colleague, "it make more sense for this...UNSUB... to be a mortician or something? An Embalmer? Since he's draining them?"

"Exsanguination is a remarkably easy process," Reid informed flatly, staring at the police officer. "In the sense we are using the term, unlike the slaughter of animals, ensanguination is very similar to embalming, except instead of using an artificial pump as in embalming, these children's own hearts serve as the pump. Our UNSUB cuts a 1 to 2 inch incision above the right clavicle of the victims, and catheterizes the right carotid artery and right jugular vein..."

The police officer was looking a little pale as the implications of Reid's speech began to sink in. The rest of Reid's team had fallen back and were watching their youngest warily. This wasn't pedantic Reid or socially-awkward Reid. Reid was trying to disturb the young police officer in front of him, and he was succeeding.

"They're awake but drugged, paralyzed. Succinylcholine ensures that these kids, however, are fully aware of what's happening to them for the entire process... until they lose consciousness from hypovolemia, of course."

"Fully aware?" The first cop, the one who hadn't known the meaning of "exsanguinate", inquired sceptically. "Ya'll said these are children that are mentally retarded?"

"They know they are in pain, that they can't move and that they're dying. That's aware enough, I'd say." Reid's words suggested anger but the actual tone of his voice was flat, devoid of emotion.

"Anyway," Hotch interrupted, handing around stapled papers with their first impressions about the UNSUB and the case.

"Here is some more information we'd appreciate you looking over. Because of this killer's level of planning and organization, as well as knowledge of IQ tests and medical competence, we're estimating he has superior intellect. In fact, he may be more organized than we realize and may be trying to cover his tracks by appearing less intelligent than he really is. This killer is almost certainly aware that we are here, that he is being profiled, and that thrills him and makes him feel important, but he does not want to be caught. He is a narcissist who revels in his own intelligence and when we find him we will undoubtedly find newspaper clippings or other articles relating to this case in his possession, but other than that, he is not keeping trophies specific to each victim."

"He probably feels that the children he kills are innately defective. We do not, at this time, believe he is what some have termed an 'angel of death'- he is not killing them because he feels sorry for them, but rather, because they do not meet his standards. They are an affront to his ideas of evolution and..." Hotch trailed. Reid was staring at the table, drawing invisible circles on the formica surface with his right pointer finger. Bored. Hotch redirected his attention to the rest of the room again.

"If he is a retired doctor that would give him the time and space he needs to carry out these murders without being immediately detected. His age might also make him seem less threatening to the general public, in the sense that elderly people are generally considered less of a threat than younger adults. We're estimating he is probably in his mid 60s, and he may have worked as a psychiatrist in his younger years. His use of Succinylcholine to paralyze his victims may indicate that he was involved in the delivery of electroshock sessions, as this drug was one of the first used to immobilize patients during ECT treatments."

Hotch stopped. The rest of the team was looking at him encouragingly. Reid muttered: "Yeah, before that, they just tied them down and let their arms break like twigs." Reid said it quietly but the room was charged with nervous tension again. Hotch sighed.

"Okay, thank you for your time. If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch either with me or SSA Rossi here..." The police were standing, stretching, muttering. They began to file out of the room. When the last one had left and the door clicked shut, Hotch approached Reid, eyes narrowed and dark.

"What the hell was that about?" Hotch snapped angrily.

"What?" Reid asked flatly, looking up. His vision was blurring. He didn't have the energy for Hotch's little hissy fit.

"That little side show you just put on for the Houston PD?"

"You mean, explaining..."

Aaron Hotchner felt ready to snap. Reid still looked bored. Tired.

"Your behaviour reflects on the entire team." Hotch said sternly.

The rest of the team was still in the room, watching quietly, except for Rossi who had left with the local police. Damage control.

"That's where you're wrong," Reid informed bitterly, staring Hotch in the eyes. "My behaviour reflects on me. My ability to profile is what reflects on the team, and my profile was accurate." Reid exhaled then, and looked even more tired, and Hotch noticed, to his alarm, that the circles under his eyes, always dark, looked almost black.

Hotch glanced over at Morgan and Prentiss and JJ. "Can you give us a minute?" He asked them softly. He didn't have to repeat himself.

And then it was only Hotch and Reid and the too-bright late afternoon sunlight.

"Reid, this behaviour is unacceptable."

Spencer Reid laughed weakly and shook his head back and forth as if Hotch was being ridiculous.

"Doing my job is unacceptable?" Reid snapped back at Hotch, tone full of venom. Hotch scowled and stared at the younger man, mind sifting through possibilities. What the hell was going on here?

"This isn't about your ability to profile; it's about your behaviour. How you're interacting with others."

"Gee, I'm sorry Hotch... I didn't realize I was in Montessori school."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about," Hotch replied curtly. "You're not acting like yourself."

"You're assuming you even knew me to begin with," Reid shot back, eyes flashing angrily, before grabbing his leather book bag from its spot on the table. "Which you obviously didn't, or we wouldn't be having this inane conversation now."

"Reid." Hotch's voice was a low warning growl.

"Look, I'm getting back to this case," Reid informed, fiddling with the watch encircling the cuff of his sweater. "You can sit here and think about what happened to my carefree youth if you want, but I am going to get back to..." Reid stalked away from his boss, opened the door, "work."

He grabbed for the doorknob. Missed. Cursed. Second time he got it and whipped the door open so hard it smacked into the wall and left a dent in the wall.

Hotch sighed and stared at the back of the door for a moment as it slowly swung closed again, eyebrows furrowed.

Virginia, 3 weeks later...

"Hey kid, you coming?"

The case was finally over. They'd caught their UNSUB in Texas and were now back. The guy was probably going to be executed, but that was out of their hands. The paperwork was done. The weekend loomed. The team had a night planned out. Chinese. They'd eat with chopsticks and chat about crap that Reid found boring at the best of times and laugh together while he struggled with small, awkward grins and ate with a fork like a three year old... while the rest of them used chopsticks. That's how it had always been, but tonight he didn't even have the energy for the damn charade. The thought of it made Spencer Reid want to scream with frustration. Fucking chopsticks.

"Reid," Morgan asked again when the younger man failed to respond. "You coming?"

"I don't think so, Morgan." Reid exhaled tiredly, fiddling with a pen on his desk. A magic trick. Stick a pen through a piece of paper and pull it out without ripping the paper. Or make it look like that.

"Reid, we caught our bad guy. Come on..."

"I said no, Morgan." Reid's voice was sharp, annoyed. Irritated. Garcia was standing near him, dressed in some hideously garish house dress and sparkly makeup.

"I'm not good with the chopsticks either," Garcia offered gently, and extended a hand towards Reid.

"Garcia, please... just go. You guys have fun. I just...I'm tired and sort of want to be alone." If they didn't stop bothering him, he was going to...

As he said these words he realized he didn't want to be alone. He needed to be alone. A restless energy was bubbling in his chest, like a developing panic attack. Reid let the pen drop and stood up, pulled his jacket on and grabbed his leather satchel.

"I- I am going home. Just feeling a bit under the weather. You guys have a good time though."

"You sure you're okay?" Morgan called after him.

"Probably just the rhinovirus or something..." Reid called back, heading for the elevator.

He left before they could try to dissuade him.

It took Spencer Reid 45 minutes to get home, but at last he was home. His couch had never looked more comfortable.

He dropped the keys onto a small table near the door and locked the dead bolt and chain, before wriggling out of his leather shoes. He didn't bother to bend down and untie them. Too much work. His body ached and throbbed, the muscles burning and tight. Reid walked to the bathroom and urinated, washed his hands, splashed cold water on his face. His hair needed to be washed and he needed a shave, but he felt exhausted. Even a quick shower, just long enough to shave and shampoo and brush his teeth seemed like too much of an effort. Reid sighed tiredly. He wanted to sleep. He needed to sleep.

Maybe he wasn't depressed. Maybe he was sick, physically sick. Some sort of late summer bug.

Reid stared back at his reflection, at the slightly sunken eyes, the dark circles underneath. The greasy, stringy hair. Swearing tiredly he shut the bathroom door and began to undress. He flicked the regular light off and turned the red heat light on and his face looked strange, like a silk-screened image, all the minute details and fine lines erased. Like being in a dark room. Reid grabbed a tube of toothpaste, his tooth brush and his electric razor and proceeded to the shower.

The water felt nice, admittedly; warm and pelting, massaging away the aches and strain of the last week. Reid let his eyes close and rubbed shampoo through his hair once, then rinsed. Repeated. Just in case. Next he quickly splashed on body wash and scrubbed at himself, but the water was tiring, lulling him to sleep. He brushed his teeth quickly, spitting out white foam that looked pink under the heat light and stepped back out of the shower, dripping.

He shaved dazedly, until a jolt of pain speared him through the head and then he dropped the shaver. Sank to the bottom of the tub, hands cradling his head, moaning.

Something like a moan mixed with a squeal fell out of his mouth. God. The pain! His head was going to explode! Before he could take another breath, he was vomiting all over the bottom of the porcelain tub.

Distantly he was glad he was naked and puking in the shower. Would save on clean up time later.

He lay, gasping, on the bottom of the tub as the water pelted him. The vomit had long since been washed down the drain, but he felt drained, unable to move. The warmth of the water was lulling him to sleep. He didn't think he would ever move.

Distantly he heard a knock on his door. Morgan's voice calling.

"Reid, I know you're home, kid! Brought you some hot and sour soup for your rhinovirus!" Morgan hollered through the door.

Reid groaned and tried to lift himself off the bottom of the tub, but it was hard. Eventually he managed to sit up, and then, using the side of the tub for support, he pulled himself the whole way up.

He stepped out of the shower without bothering to turn it off and grabbed a towel off the rack. Wrapped it around his waist. Morgan wouldn't leave, not if he'd come all the way here with damned hot and sour soup.

Morgan unlocked the dead bolt, pulled the chain off and opened the door.

"Jesus, kid, I didn't know you were in the shower. I've been calling for over an hour."

"Fell 'sleep." Reid explained tiredly and staggered back to the bathroom. Sighing, he turned the water off, picked the shaver off the tub's floor, closed the door, and quickly towel-dried off. He pulled his khakis and shirt back on, but left it unbuttoned, and stumbled back out into the living room.

Morgan was sitting on his sofa. The hot and sour soup was in a Styrofoam container in a plastic bag on his coffee table.

"Reid, kid, you look like death warmed over. Don't you think it's time you saw a doctor?"

"It's..." Reid glanced at the wall on his clock. Squinted. Realized, slightly stunned, that his brain wasn't processing the time properly. He blinked hard, shook his head. Weird.

"It's 12:13 in the morning," Morgan said slowly, looking at the clock and then back at Reid. "What, you can't see the clock anymore? What's going on with you?"

"Sick." Reid slurred, slumping on the sofa, head falling against Morgan's shoulder. "Head hurts."

"I'll bet," Morgan said, sitting up a bit, grasping the younger man by the shoulders. He looked at Reid. Really looked at Reid. Reid was swaying slightly, pupils huge, eyes unfocused. His face was so pale, it was almost translucent.

"You ever have a head ache this bad before, kid?" Morgan asked sternly after a moment. Reid winced and shook his head but then said: "Migraines, sometimes."

"You think this is a migraine?"

Reid shrugged the tiniest bit. He seemed ready to fall asleep at any second.

"Any other symptoms. You get sick?"

"Threw up," Reid slurred dully, eyes fluttering shut. Morgan didn't like this. Reid wasn't a complainer, and even when he was really sick he didn't act this... disoriented. The only time Morgan had ever heard of Reid being this disoriented and sloppy with his speech was after the kid had contracted anthrax. Possibly when he was learning to talk as a baby, too.

"Reid, c'mon kid." Morgan had made his decision, was off the sofa, trying to pull the younger man into standing up. Reid shut his eyes and flopped his head back, moaning, obviously annoyed.

"I just need to sleep, Morgan." Reid whined, sounding slightly more alert. "I've just got a bug, that's all."

"You're sure?" Morgan asked. He wanted to believe that, and it made sense. Reid would've told him if something else had happened. If he had hit his head or something.

"Yeah, just a bug. You can go. Thanks for the soup." Already Reid was drifting off, eyes fluttering shut.

"Not going to change into pajamas then, I guess," Morgan remarked sardonically. He'd seen Reid's pajamas before, on cases, when they shared motel rooms. Reid wore two piece cotton things which buttoned up the front; they looked like they'd been kept in time capsules since the 1950s.

"Tomorrow," Reid murmured tiredly.

"Yeah, see, the point of pajamas is you usually wear them to bed..." Morgan responded softly. But Reid was already asleep. Sighing, Derek Morgan picked the hot and sour soup off Reid's coffee table and put it in the fridge. Then he went into Reid's bedroom and came back with a throw that was balled up at the end of the bed. To his amusement, the throw had some chemical formula printed on it on white. Black background. Morgan stared at for a moment and chuckled.

Under the diagram of the molecule was the chemical formula: C8H10N4O2... caffeine. Reid owned a caffeine throw. Wow. Just when he'd thought the height of geekiness were the sweater vests and mismatched socks.

Carefully he covered the younger man with the throw, not worried about waking him. He doubted an air raid siren could wake Spencer Reid right now.

"Good night, Kid," Morgan said softly, adjusting Reid's tall, lanky form on the sofa to the best of his ability.

End of chapter one, hope you guys liked it. Please review, let me know what you think.