does your heart still remember my name - criminal minds oneshots

two feet under

Post Tobias Hankel stream of consciousness thoughts

tw: bug imagery?,  injury, violence, death, suicidal ideation, drug use, yk canon typical but like a little angstier?

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There's not much Spencer can say to them as he rides in the backseat of the SUV, pressed up between Morgan and JJ, Hotch and Emily in the front seats.

He's caked in dirt and blood and the scent of rotting fish lingers on his clothes like a disease.

JJ's trembling beside him, hand flexing intermittently like she wants to reach out to Spencer but doesn't know how.

While JJ's clearly scared and upset, Morgan's angry. He's boiling beside Spencer like he wants to go back there and kill Tobias all over again.

Spencer doesn't know how much they saw, he just knows they did. They must've to have been able to find him. He doesn't know how to open his mouth, to start the conversation, fear of bugs crawling out of the dirt that's sticking to his very bones, pressed to the roof of his mouth, coating the back of his throat. He's scared that if he does try to speak, he'll realize he died back there and this is nothing more than a conjured dream to help him shift into death more easily. He doesn't want to know that he's still underground, still in the grave he dug himself, still choking on dirt, lungs caving in. He doesn't want to know.

He's happy living in the pretenses of JJ sliding her pinky finger over his in a small show of care, of Hotch checking on him through the rearview mirror every thirty seconds, of Morgan pressing their shoulders together strong enough for the both of them, of Garcia's voice coming through Emily's phone scared out of her mind and desperate to hear that Spencer's okay, of Emily's sweater wrapped around his shoulders keeping him warm. He's okay to live here, in this transfer of life to death, where he feels comforted and cared for and loved in a way he'd never felt before joining this team.

They park outside the hospital, despite Spencer having already been checked by the EMT's on scene, and Hotch turns to look at him properly.

I knew you'd understand, rings in his ears and he wonders if maybe Hotch did find him, if he's here, if he saved him. He wants to apologize for saying those cruel things about someone who's been a better father to him than his own blood, he wants to thank him for everything, he wants to say something, anything, to convey the cocktail of emotions he doesn't know how to decipher. Nothing but cobwebs come out.

Hotch is saying something, something that Spencer doesn't hear, and JJ's shifted so her whole hand is over his, encompassing it and him, like a warm blanket that does nothing to stop the cold, harsh bite that hasn't left him since the moment he entered that cabin.

Time is meaningless as they talk around him, about him, in words that just sound like jumbled static, and eventually, JJ's hand disappears and is replaced by Morgan's guiding him out of the car and onto his unsteady, broken feet.

He blinks down at his legs, almost caving under the pressure of holding up so much fear and hurt, dirt falling away from his jeans with every movement.

A hand lands heavy on his shoulder and he turns to look, but by the time he can see again, he's sitting on the edge of a hospital bed, feet dangling over the edge and dirt-caked nails the only reminder of being dirty.

He's not wearing his jeans anymore, replaced instead by a hospital gown, and panic flashes through him like lightning, like the drugs that he so desperately wants back to make the feelings go away.

He hides behind a wall of intelligence, of facts and reason and statistics and logic. Emotions never played a part because they weren't so easily quantifiable, too difficult to understand, to pinpoint, to put words to. A robot, he's called, a walking textbook, a genius brain with no heart to accompany it. God, they were so wrong. It was just easier that way. He wants the numbness that Dilaudid provides, he wants to be able to forget, he wants to wipe the slate clean for even just a moment.

If he's dead, and this is just some elaborate fantasy to make the passage easier, this is just as painful and confusing and scary as dying alone in a shallow grave would've been.

The heart monitor behind him picks up the pace, flashes of what would've been, of that grave, that ending, making themselves known.

He's alive, but he might as well just be cobwebs in the place of who he once was.

He was saved, rescued, unearthed, but he might as well still be two feet under, a grave of his own making.

Tobias was gone. Spencer killed somebody innocent, it wasn't like Tobias chose to have a father like he did, he didn't choose to be tormented, he didn't ask to have DID. And he's dead because of Spencer, because Spencer couldn't take the punishment Raphael believed he deserved.

How is it fair that Spencer gets to sit here, showered in affection and love and worry, while Tobias, an innocent child, rots in the earth.

He opens his mouth, dirt on his tongue and cobwebs between his teeth and bugs in his throat, he squeezes his hands together and says, "I'm sorry."

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lol idk thanks

lyss