dead to me| 2- s. r

FOURTEEN

The next few times you go to visit Spencer are worst than the first.

He'd had a black eye, cuts and bruises littering his face, and most likely on other parts of his body as well. You could faintly make out bruises in the shapes of fingers on the side of his neck from someone choking him. When you'd asked him about it, he simply shook his head and refused to say anything about it, changing the subject entirely.

He looks the worst that you've ever seen him, and that's not an exaggeration. His eye bags are the darkest you've ever seen them before, which was explained by Spencer quietly admitting that he was afraid to go to sleep in here. He'd become less talkative, his answers becoming monotonous and quiet. He didn't even spit out as many facts as he usually would, keeping his head down and only speaking when necessary.

He physically looked like Spencer, but this wasn't the same man you knew. It's almost like he's just simply a shell of himself now, and it only seems to be progressively getting worse, making your heart break even more for him.

When he'd asked about how his case was going, you'd given him a small smile and assured him everyone was working hard to find a lead. It was a partial lie because everyone had hit a dead end, and it was becoming frustrating. You'd cover the eyebags under your eyes so Spencer gets the idea that you're sleeping when you really aren't. All your nights are spent at the BAU, plowing through different case files in hopes of finding something, only to be met with nothing every single time.

Now, it's currently nearing three in the morning and you're the only one still in the conference room, everyone else already having left about two hours ago. You've gone back two years from right now, looking into basically every single person that Spencer has so much has looked at, none of them seemingly being capable of this, or having a motive.

You groan, angrily tossing a pen at the wall, hearing it snap on impact. You run a hand through your hair, rubbing your tired eyes with the heels of your hands. You're about halfway through the most recent stack of files, becoming much slower now that you're exhausted and solely running on caffeine.

Your phone chimes beside you and you scramble to open the unread text message, unlocking your phone and swiping into the new message, seeing JJ's name in bold at the very top.

JJ:
If you're still at the office, go home and get some sleep! Caffeine ≠ rest!!

You roll your eyes and glance at the time, deciding that maybe it is time to go home and get some rest. You feel sort of bad that you just get to go home and sleep when Spencer doesn't have the same courtesy of doing the same thing. Everything just feels wrong right now, and you often wonder how the hell you got yourself in this situation in the first place.

You reply back to JJ, lying by saying that you're already at home before deciding to listen to her and call it a night. You grab your purse and your coat, zipping it up and walking toward the elevator, stopping in your tracks when you hear a thud in the distance once you're out of the bullpen.

You glance behind you and look into the dark bullpen, squinting your eyes to see if anyone was there, remembering feeling fairly certain that you were the only one still here. Your hand files to the gun on your hip as you glance in the bullpen, opening the doors once more which activates the motion lights. Now that the room is lit up, you glance around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, looking the exact same as you left it a mere few minutes ago.

You walk out of the room backwards slowly, your hands staying on your hip the entire time until you reach the elevator, stepping inside the empty lift, pressing the button for the main lobby, watching the numbers go down. You can't seem to shake the unsettling feeling of what just happened, and it probably doesn't help that since Spencer's been arrested, you've been more paranoid and on edge than usual.