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Foggy. It was foggy.
That was all his brilliant mind could come up with right now. Reid was no stranger to the lethargic climb from unconsciousness, though anesthesia was a different beast. It was less like waking back up and more like being dropped into a new situation, where you didn’t quite know how you got there. He was vaguely aware his eyes were open, and as the stimuli flooded in, he was also vaguely aware of a figure sitting next to him. A man. Dark suit, hazel eyes, low voice droning on in a comforting way. Reid managed to tune into the last part of what he was saying.
“…there were too many points at which the other self could invade the self he wanted to preserve, and there were too many forms of invasion…”
Reading, he realized. He was reading. As his vision started to clear, Reid licked his lips and summoned his voice, cracking a bit as he formed the word.
“Tony?”
The man came into focus, and Reid registered him as the man he had been in a relationship with for just over a year. Tony DiNozzo. The older agent lifted his head from the book he was reading aloud and snapped it shut with a smile. “Special Agent genius! Welcome back to the land of the living.” He scooched into the bed a little closer, taking Reid’s hand.
Reid squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will more of the fog away as he let his fingers intertwine with his partner’s, an action as natural as breathing. Tony smiled.
“What happened?”, Reid breathed.
“Well, what happened is that someone decided to play hero and get shot in the leg only a few weeks after getting infected by you-know-what,” Tony sighed. “I swear to God, Spence, I’m going to have to start keeping you on a leash at this rate. And not the fun kind”. His tone was stern, but the smile behind his eyes revealed the true nature of the lecture. Unfortunately, behind Reid’s there was nothing but panic.
“No, not me.” Reid swallowed. “Hotch. What happened to Hotch?”
Tony quirked an eyebrow. “Hotch?”
Reid was already groping around his bed for his phone. “Hotch,” he nodded. “He was… someone got to his apartment… someone got to him…where’s my phone?”
Tony fished the younger agent’s phone out of his bloody pants and started dialing JJ’s number. “What else do we know?”, he asked, easily changing gears.
Reid, getting more acclimated to his surroundings, searched his brain for answers. “Blood in his apartment. Apparently, a lot of it.” He winced as he became aware of the intense pain in his leg. Well, at least they definitely didn’t give me narcotics, he thought ruefully. Tony grimaced at his partner’s obvious pain and squeezed his hand as the phone rang. “Gunshots in the wall… that’s all I know,” Reid finished.
A soft knock on the door alerted them to JJ, who stood expectantly in the doorway. “Well, look who’s awake,” she said lightly, but her voice was tired.
Tony hung up the phone. Reid struggled to sit up a little bit more, prevented only by Tony’s free hand pressing lightly on his shoulder, keeping him from hurting himself. “JJ,” he exhaled. “What- what happened to Hotch?”.
“He’s ok,” she assured, tucking her hair behind her ear - her nervous tic. “But…Foyet got to him. Stabbed him numerous times in the chest and abdomen. He lost a lot of blood and is going to be pretty traumatized but… he’ll live. Foyet’s in the wind though. They’re searching for him now.” The truth that Foyet was unlikely to be caught went unspoken.
Reid bit his lip, processing the information as best he could with some anesthesia still rolling around in his body. Statistics flew through his mind, reminding him of how unlikely his boss’s survival rate was given the situation, and he let a wave of gratuity roll through him as he relaxed. Hotch is alive, he though. That has to be enough for now.
JJ made her way further into the room, glad to have gotten the bad news off her chest. She smiled towards DiNozzo, forcing a bit of levity into her voice. “When’s the last time we saw you when Spence wasn’t injured, Tony?”.
DiNozzo leaned back in his chair, gazing thoughtfully at her. “Oh, Jennifer. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, we had just been to that newfangled talkie…It was a Tuesday, I think.”
“Thursday”, mumbled Reid.
“What?”
“Thursday, October 17th, 1927 was the day The Jazz Singer first – “
Tony laughed and squeezed Reid’s hand. “Glad to see that brain of yours still works”. He leaned back towards JJ. “He learned that one from me”, he said in a loud fake whisper with a wink.
She returned the wink, nodding conspiratorially. She turned her attention towards Reid. “So,” she started. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ll be on crutches for a little while, but my chances for a complete recovery are high. I won’t be kicking down doors anytime soon, but that’s more Morgan’s job anyway”
JJ kept her gaze on her colleague. “Feeling, Spence. How are you feeling.”
“Oh. Right. The pain is bound to go down soon.”
JJ’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen. “Sorry guys, I’ve got to get back to the team. I’ll let them know how you’re doing.” She looked at Tony while pointing at the younger agent in the bed. “You’ll take good care of him? Get him home safe?”
Tony set his hand over his heart and met her gaze. “Without a doubt, ma’am.”
She smiled. “Great. Get better soon, Spence.”
She was out of the room by the time Reid processed what had been said. Tony was typing something into his phone when Reid’s voice pulled him from his concentration.
“Take good care of me?”
“I’m staying at your place for a little while to help you get around. Doctor’s orders.”
“You have a job.”
“I’ll commute from your place.”
Reid shook his head. “No, Tony, I can’t ask you to do that. I’ll be fine.”
“Well it’s a good thing you’re not asking Spencer, I’m telling. I’m taking care of you.”
Reid was persistent. “That’s unnecessary”.
Tony looked up at his partner. There were a thousand reasons he was in love with Spencer. Big things, like the way his mind could not only store amazing amounts of information but also process and analyze it, finding solutions in problems no one else even noticed. Like the love he chose to give and the good he chose to do, even after everything he had been through. But it was the little things, too: how perfectly he fit into Tony’s arms when their jobs aligned enough to spend a night together, or how his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when the first cup of coffee touched his soul in the morning. Tony loved every inch of Spencer Reid. And he wasn’t going to let Spencer’s nearly reflexive denial of help stop that.
DiNozzo leaned his elbows onto the bed as he took Spencer’s hand in both of his own. “Spence. Listen to me.” Reid opened his mouth to further his protests but was stopped by the sincerity in Tony’s voice. He closed his mouth and swallowed, nodding at Tony to continue. “We’ve been together for a year. And I have loved you every moment. You aren’t, and will never be, a burden. I care about you. And I’m not going to let you do this alone. This is not up for debate. Capiche?”
Reid was still getting used to the feeling of total trust. He trusted his team with his life, of course, but it was always a controlled kind of trust out of necessity. When he was on Dilaudid, the team rallied around him as best they could. But between his drug addled resistance and the dire consequences if even a hint of his addiction made its way up the ladder, they could only do so much.
Trusting Tony was different. Six months into their relationship, Tony woke up to Spencer begging Tobias for mercy in the middle of the night. After a scramble for his gun in the dark, ready to take out anyone who could have broken in, he was at Spencer’s side, holding him close and promising him it was safe now. As soon as Reid had calmed down, he was certain it would be the end of their relationship. But DiNozzo had just continued to hold him, running his fingers through the younger man’s hair. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, he had whispered, but I’m here for you and I want to know. A couple days later, Reid took the plunge and told him everything about it. The torture, the death, the drugs and the habit that had come with them. It was a risk, he knew. But something about Tony made him feel safe. He had found someone ready and willing to step into his world, to help him face the dark and celebrate the light. He would be an idiot to turn that down.
Yet here he was, doing just that.
Reid was exhausted. He squeezed his boyfriend’s hand. Tony wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe he didn’t have to fight so hard anymore.
Spencer smiled. “Capiche.”
A moment of comfortable silence passed between them, an argument with unspoken depth on each side resolved. For now.
Tony broke it with a chuckle. “And let’s not forget that you’re a man who lives on the second floor with an irrational fear of elevators.”
“27 deaths a year, 10,000 injuries-”
“I know, Spence. I know.”