Work Text:
Of Innocence and Empathy: Restore the World
by Frogg
Lazy Sunday morning. Derek groaned, rolled over, and blinked.
Spencer was missing.
Missing? On a day he could sleep past noon if he wanted?
Derek heaved a sigh, rubbing his eyes clear of sand. If Spencer wasn't still in bed, something was wrong.
Derek found his lover in the kitchen, all but radiating guilt and self-loathing.
"Spence?"
Tiny clicks sounded as Spencer rolled the vials against each other, shoulders hunched as he slumped at the kitchen table. The velvet-lined black lacquered box they were kept in was empty, the lid face down, hiding the elegantly painted crane and bamboo. "I almost took it," he said finally, his voice dead, toneless.
Derek raised an eyebrow, somehow unsurprised. "Okay."
Quick, shuddering breath, surprised. "I got a syringe, and a t-tourniquet, and...I wanted to, I needed the-the escape, I needed t-to see," he blurted out, hands closing convulsively over the vials.
Carefully keeping his body relaxed, unthreatening, his tone and expression accepting and nonjudgemental, Derek eased around the table so he could see Spencer's face. "What did you need to see?"
Spencer swallowed hard, stared at the table with eyes unfocused. "Wh-when...when T-t-t-" he broke off, unable to mention the name. "He g-gave it to me, I saw...I saw my dad leaving. My m-mom, early, later, wh-when I, when I had her hospitalized..." The words choked him then, and he had to stop and clear his throat.
Derek's heart ached. "You needed to see if you were breaking."
Mouth open, chest heaving with every erratic breath, Spencer nodded rapidly. Tears spilled down his cheeks, only to be wiped away childishly with an impatient hand.
"When was this? Not this morning..."
Violent shake of head. "I-in H-houston, I couldn't..." He broke off on a thin whine.
Jesus, Derek thought. "Spencer." His voice was sharp, demanding attention.
Spencer froze, eyes caught by his lover's.
"Listen to me. If we had any notion of what was going on, you wouldn't have been on that case. You shouldn't have been there, not with what you were going through, with what you're still going through. We couldn't send you back home without doing more damage, but trust me, that case hit way too close to home for you," he explained patiently. "I knew it, Hotch knew it, Gideon knew it, JJ knew it. Garcia knew it, and she wasn't even on the ground."
"B-but I w-was working with, with..."
"Emily, yeah, Spence, I know." Derek covered Spencer's hand, stilling the convulsive shifting of vials. "We've been very careful, trying to keep you from working with her by yourself, but we were caught off-guard, and letting you work with her there was the lesser of two evils. We couldn't exactly reassign half the team without an explanation. And none of us wanted you to work on your own just then."
"I-I freaked Emily out, in, in Houston," Spencer admitted painfully.
Derek nodded. "You were putting yourself in the UnSub's shoes, and not the way I do it. You were too close to the extreme. None of us blame you for it, Spence."
Shutting his eyes against the loving acceptance in Derek's, Spencer hunched down in his seat.
"Spencer."
Ragged breath.
"I don't blame you for wanting it. I wouldn't have blamed you if you had taken it. I love you, and that's not conditional."
Soft whimper.
Derek opened his mouth to try again, but stopped as Spencer pulled his hand away, turning the vials around and shakily returning them to their place in the velvet-lined box. "You okay?"
"Too much temptation," Spencer muttered in answer, replacing the lid with a soft click.
"Okay." Derek raised an eyebrow questioningly.
"I, I'll take them back and g-give them to Hotch tomorrow," Spencer whispered.
Smiling gently, Derek nodded. "Do you want me to come with you?"
Spencer shook his head. "N-no, I n-need to do this my, myself."
"Okay."
Finally glancing up at him again, Spencer stilled. "You, you're not mad at me?"
Unable to take it anymore, Derek rose and circled the table, kneeling next to his lover and resting both hands on Spencer's shoulders. "I'm not mad at you. I'm not going to stop loving you if you're tempted to take it, or if you do take it, or for any other reason." He lifted a hand to delicately brush tears from Spencer's cheeks. "If you want to take those back to Hotch, I'll help you any way I can, even if it's just to stay out of the way."
Swallowing convulsively, Spencer searched his eyes for a long moment, then nodded.
"Can we go back to bed now?" he asked wistfully, getting to his feet and tugging Spencer up with him.
Spencer sniffed. "O-of course, I, I'm sorry--"
Derek interrupted, curling a hand behind Spencer's neck to pull him closer. "No apologies," he said, the words muffled against Spencer's lips.
~~~the end~~~