𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚒𝚍 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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piscesnebula2024-01-02 04:08 pm
technophobics) wrote in piscesnebula2024-01-02 04:08 pm
technophobics) wrote in piscesnebula2024-01-02 04:08 pm
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Psychotic delusional killer or not, Spencer has just witnessed a single-minded devotion to saving the victims of these vampires, so he's pretty certain he can trust Winchester with Tara in the back seat. At least for a little while. Whatever delusions the Winchesters have are geared around being the saviors and protectors of innocent people against the forces of the supernatural, and--
No. It's not a delusion. At the very least, these vampires weren't delusions, so it stands to reason that everything else the Winchesters have claimed also weren't delusions. A bank being infested with a shapeshifter? A police station being swarmed by demons? The grave robberies to stop rampaging ghosts? All of those might be real.
So while his brain quietly explodes and tries to run down a dozen different paths at the same time, Spencer pulls out of park and starts driving to the hospital. Nobody has ever accused him of being a good driver -- Morgan never lets him drive on account of the fact that he's "too safe" apparently and can't stop quoting government reports about road safety -- but he steps on the gas a little this time, as much as he feels is safe, flicking on the sirens when they get closer into civilization and crowded traffic. He uses the phone connected to the dash to call ahead to the hospital, identifying himself as an FBI agent who will be arriving with a trauma victim, so that they're prepared when they arrive. He flicks a glance in the rear-view mirror a couple of times, checking that they're both okay.
He already knows that Winchester's probably not going to allow himself to be looked at by the hospital. But he needs to get that cut on his back seen to. Is there any chance Spencer could convince him to get treated? Do the Winchesters live life on the grid long enough for conventional medical aid, or do they do everything themselves?
It's not long before he's pulling into the entrance to the ER, the sirens having already drawn a couple of nurses outside. Spencer takes the lead to get the attention off Sam, bundling Tara out of the car and in through the entrance. He gives them a rapid-fire explanation of her situation and probable medical issues -- blood loss, dehydration, malnutrition -- and lets them take over, where they take her into a curtained off bay to examine her. Spencer returns to the car, and ducks his head so he can look inside.
"You'll need stitches," he says, hands wringing, worry at the edge of his eyes and the corners of his mouth. "Has your injury clotted yet? If not, you'll really need medical attention."
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Spencer cares, that much Sam can see from where he's sitting in the backseat of his car. Tara's barely holding on, and Sam's making casual conversation - asking the kinds of questions that are easy to answer, the kind of questions a person asks as a first responder to test the level of cognition in someone else.
Sam doesn't mind getting stitches, but filling out that paperwork would leave Spencer with more questions and fewer answers. Charlie set up his health insurance fraudulently, and it's not like any of what he had was legitimate. She was an exceptional hacker, but that was without the resources of the FBI.
"Yeah, kind of hard to do it myself without a mirror."
It's a bad joke from Sam, rooted in reality, and when Tara groans he turns his attention back to her muttering softly in the backseat and offering up some bottled water.
"I think so. It's still wet, but it's not soaking through anymore." Spencer's concern for him is something genuinely surprising to Sam. It's not often that any of the people he runs into on hunts ask about him or his injuries, being seen as some marble-statued warrior went with the territory.
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He gets Tara out of the backseat and into the ER, where the nurses take over. He makes sure that nobody gets a good look at Sam's face, even though he doubts any of them have memorized the FBI's Most Wanted photographs. He has to call his team, and he has to call them now. The longer he waits between Tara's admission and calling his team, the weirder it will look.
But he has to figure out this Winchester situation first.
Once Tara is safely in the ER, Spencer turns his attention back to Sam, pulling them outside to stand outside the ER doors. Nobody's paying attention; the paramedics are too busy gossiping or seeing to patients, the patients themselves are too busy relishing their freedom from the inside of the hospital. It's a relief to know that he's not actively dying -- Reid's wound feels about the same, actually, not freely bleeding anymore but still raw -- but it still needs to be seen to.
"Are you... do you, uh..." Reid falters. He's so bad at this Not Playing By The Rules Of The Law thing. He used to be afraid of touching produce in the store for fear he'd get arrested for stealing. Navigating how to briefly participate in the life of Sam Winchester is even more complicated. "Will you get treated here? Because you probably should. But can you? Legally? Or would you prefer, um, seeing to your own injuries?"
His phone is burning a hole in his pocket, silently judging him for withholding information from his team.
"Because I might actually pass out if I have to stitch you up in some bad hotel room," Spencer jokes, with an awkward little rush of laughter. "I'll do it if I have to do. But it wouldn't be pretty."
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Logically, he knows she'll be fine, but the ordeal she's been through warrants another check-in later. Once she has her wits about her he'll come see how she's doing with everything. It's a tough pill to swallow, knowing just how stacked the odds are against them all. Most people were better off left in the dark.
"I can stitch myself up."
The answer is as much an admission of guilt as it can be. Sam's sure that Spencer won't be complicit in any crime. Charlie was that good, but conscience being what it was meant that he didn't want to add to the already building pressure that Spencer was under.
"I've done it with worse." Much worse and the scar on his arm and abdomen make that more than clear. He's healed from a large number of things that should have had professional attention but field medicine was part of the life. Just like living on the lam, having no home, and even fewer long term friends.
"But I can wait for you to get looked at." Sam meets Spencer's gaze under lifted brows. "It's probably better that you get seen here. My handiwork won't be nearly as precise."
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And as lanky as Sam is, Spencer sincerely doubts he's circus-level bendy.
Okay. Option One: He calls his team right now. He gets treated by the ER, and he meets up with Winchester later to help with his injury. He plays everything as by-the-book as he can. He likely has to reveal to his team that supernatural creatures are real, and with a lack of evidence they would likely put real thought into having him institutionalized.
Option Two: He doesn't call his team. He makes up a lie that he broke his phone and got Tara here as soon as he could and then went back to check for more victims, meanwhile he's actually helping Sam. He has Sam stitch his wound, too. It's going to look highly suspicious to his team, but this way he won't have an injury on record so he can hide it, and he won't have to reveal to them that vampires are real.
Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Spencer darts a look between Sam and the ER, and then back again, and he knows which choice he's already resigned to.
"If I get my arm looked at here, the likely chain of events will be unfortunate. I'll have to play this your way," he tells Sam, looking a little lost, a little reluctant, but largely determined. "We should go. Where are you staying, and do you have medical supplies there? We can't take the patrol car, so we'll have to Uber."
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His shoulders hike high into his ears, and for a moment Sam looks like a kid who got caught stealing from the cookie jar. It's a stark contrast to the world-weary, pensive and brooding, posture that he typically sports.
Spencer's willingness to work with him is surprising, he'd been so sure that he would have to escape on the fly or use his one phone call to pull another Houdini-level disappearing act. The cops generally don't give him the benefit of the doubt, not even when things are obvious and plain as day right in front of them.
For a fed, he had a good head on his shoulders, and it's with some disquiet that Sam realizes because of this that Spencer's life will never be the same again.
"Okay, but I don't have local anesthetic." He's got what he needs to get the job done, but it's a far cry from triage at an emergency room and he knows it. "I'm staying at the place right outside of town. Gimme a sec and I'll get us a ride."
Sam pulls up the Uber app on his phone and punches in the locations. It's a small blessing ride share apps work on the fly, because most of his life he had to rely on hoofing it, hitchhiking, and "joy rides."
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"I'll meet you there," he decides, because he's already memorized the target location Sam put in on the app. "I can't just leave the squad car here, it'll raise too many questions."
With that, he sees Sam off once the Uber arrives -- within a couple of minutes, it's not surprising there'd be at least a few hanging around the hospital waiting for fares -- and takes the police car back to the local station his team has been working out of. Taking care not to be seen, he gets his own Uber out to Sam's location.
On the way, he allows himself a minor internal freakout. It goes something like:
What the fuck. The supernatural is real. Magic is real. What else real? If vampires are real, are werewolves? Angels? God? Does mental illness really exist or were they right in the medieval era when they said it was demons? How often are people killed because of this stuff? What the fuck???
The whole time, he runs his fingers over a beaded yellow bracelet on his wrist, and that makes it's way into his thoughts too. It had been a gift from a man involved in a case a couple of years ago; he'd called it Orula's Ide. A token for a Yoruban diety, Orula, a being of powerful wisdom and healing. Spencer hadn't believed in any of it at the time, but could there actually be something to it? Had this bracelet ever protected him or guided him?
It's enough to make his head hurt by the time he arrives at the place Sam is staying, but he's feeling... calmer, at least. More open to new knowledge. Eager for new knowledge, even.
He knocks on the door. "Sam? It's Spencer Reid." A beat, and then, awkwardly, "I promise I didn't bring any police with me." Another pause. "Oh, that just makes it sound like I did. But I definitely didn't."
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Sam realizes a bit too late for comfort that he could have just taken off when Spencer said that he'd meet him at the motel. It's not like he had anything of value there, and he would've had a head start of at least fifteen minutes in any direction he saw fit, but something makes him stay. The pale sick look on the agent's face was telling, and Sam, try as he might to steel himself and separate from the emotion on the job has never been able to just let someone suffer through the new reality. Not while also sporting injuries like the kind they had. The burden of truth on a guy like Spencer came with more questions than answers, and so against his own better judgment, he stopped by the local liquor store for some good drinking booze and alcohol to use as antiseptic, quality fishing line, needles, and gauze.
The knock at the door, and the words that follow, shouldn't bring a smile to his face but they do. A wry look of disbelief at his current situation, and the notion that even when he's out manages to find a way back in - with or without his brother.
He opens the door, the TV is playing some old Western black and white, and the southern drawl is a dulcet undertone in the room the light from the television and the desk lamp is the only thing illuminating the dark and dingy environment.
"How's the wing?" Strain from driving probably didn't make it any better. Sam shuts and bolts the door behind him. "I'm gonna take care of you first. You have the choice of the desk, or the bathroom, but I'm guessing you'll pick the bathroom."
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This hotel is awful. Look, Spencer's not one to judge based on economic situation, but he's fairly certain those bed linens had last been washed about a year and a hundred people ago, there's dubious stains on the carpet, and any surface he touches probably hasn't been sanitized in a while. He is not going to get stitched up in the main room. It makes him grateful that the FBI budget shells out for medium range rooms.
It does make him wonder, briefly, how Sam actually has a hotel room. How does he earn money? They profiled the Winchesters as constantly on the move, with an inability to hold steady, legal employment. Are they stealing the money? Gambling? Doing under the table work?
What a complicated life Sam Winchester must lead.
Spencer reluctantly shucks his sweater and leaves it folded on the tiny, rickety table (which he judges to be likely the safest of the surfaces), leaving him in just a shirt, which he gingerly rolls up to the elbow to bare the bite on his forearm. In the bathroom, he gets started getting the dried blood off, the water running pink in the chipped sink. Under the white lighting, his cheekbones look hollow, the permanent dark smudges under his eyes downright skeletal.
"What else is real?" he asks Sam, chewing on his lip. "Your file mentions everything from shapeshifters to ghosts to werewolves. It's all assumed to be delusions, of course. But... that's not true, is it?"
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Thanks to Charlie some of those expenses felt lighter but not by much because ethically Sam didn't believe in pushing that envelope too far. He had moral limitations when it came to defrauding the government. Dean never saw that as an issue, but he also had to not only raise him but risk his life early on with all the same conditioning. He considered it part of the perks of being the one to go toe to toe to save the people that would have been prey.
"Yeah, it's all real, Spence." Maybe not the best time for nicknames but he's doing what he can to keep him distracted while he preps the area. He does him the service of not warning him as he debrides it and not wasting time. "That, and the demons that were responsible for what happened in Monument, Colorado."
That much had to be in his file seeing as it was from one FBI agent that later wound up being a casualty after helping them fake their deaths. A lot of good people died there, people Sam would've wanted to help get out and then help disappear. They didn't deserve what happened to them, and even though Lillith's not a player now he takes the blame for that and those casualties knowing that none of it mattered in the long run and that those people, good people, were just canon fodder for a holy war.
Sam's quick about disinfecting the tissue, and when he stitches him up he's efficient, surgeonly, about pinching the skin together so that it'll heal. When he's done, he wraps it in thick tourniquet gauze and then drops his arm, and where he'd been bracing Spencer's wrist with his hand.
"It'd be a whole lot easier for both of us if I was some deranged serial killer playing with nightmare scenarios."
The audible sigh that follows speaks to his exhaustion and the genuine desire for that to be true. He washes his hands, careful to get Spencer's blood off his palms and out from beneath his fingernails and then he offers up the whiskey, for a little relief. Raw-dogging stitches, even with the help of some top-shelf booze as local anesthetic wasn't easy.
"We can take a break before you do me if that's better for you." It might behoove them both to give Spencer a little time to digest everything and adjust to the tightness in his arm before he worked on his shoulder.