cold sweat streamed down your forehead onto your pillow. heavy breathing filled your room and you felt like as if all your limbs were nailed down to the bed. this was 5th night in a row you woke up like this in the middle of the night. unable of any sort of movement, scared to death with a pool of sweat on the pillow. you lay there, the only thing filling the room were your heavy breaths as you tried to breathe through another nightmare. they were all the same, the same scenario every night with the same ending all the time. the next stream of the sweat was joined by a single tear that has escaped your eye. this was the first time you cried. you felt hopeless, you’ve already had enough, all you wanted to do was curl up into a little bundle and cry till the morning. but at this point your limbs were still nailed to the mattress and it now felt like someone was pinning them down in order to keep you in the same position. after quiet a while your arms started to loosen up a bit and you had the strenght to bring them up to your face to wipe your tears and sweat with the sleeve of your jumper. with the help of your arms you sat yourself up and looked around the dark room. you light up the bedside lamp and sat yourself at the corner of your bed. you took your phone and looked at the time. 2:13am. you weren’t even asleep that long. you just got back home from a case and the only thing you wanted to do was to sleep till the sun rose up, hoping the exhaustion from the week long dreadful case would not give you nightmares but you were wrong, the exhaustation made it even worse. as you placed the phone back at the night stand your eyes caught a glimpse of a picture that was standing at the table. it was you, penelope and spencer at one of those doctor who conventions were garcia dragged you because you apparently needed some fun in your life. your eyes were pinned on spencer who has earlier that week noticed your lack of sleep due to you having not 2 but 4 cups of coffee a day. he told you that you can talk to him anytime you felt like you need to talk. this is the perfect time to call him or text him since you would welcome a little bit of company, but why wake him up at 2 in the morning because of some stupid nightmare. but those nightmares aren’t stupid, you thought. you picked up the phone again and opened your contacts. spencer’s name was shinning on you now and you had a big compulsion to click on the little phone sign and call him. you realized it was not the brightest idea so you put the phone down again and went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. you took few big sips from the glass while looking out the window and mentally debating whether to call spencer or not. after finishing the whole glass you went back into your room and sat down at the bed. you closed your eyes for few seconds to calm yourself down. it helped a little so you lay back on the bed, turned off the light and let the darkness fill up the room again. it was time to try to go back to sleep. you felt your heart pound with fear as if you were about to slay a dragon. you closed your eyes but your chest started to feel more and more heavy, you felt like someone was standing in your corner watching you fall asleep. your eyes shot open and you stared the door right in front of you. this can’t go on forever, what are you going to give up on sleeping ever again? that’s not possible. you already hated yourself for what were you about to do but you still proceeded with doing so. you stood up from the bed, took the nearest pants you could find, put your shoes and made your way towards your apartment’s door. the second you placed your hand on the door knob you regretted doing it. spencer’s apartment was just couple blocks away from yours and you have decided to run there and seek help. it was crazy idea, but after all spencer told you that you can talk to him at any time you want. hopefully he meant 2am as well. you locked your door after you left and from there you just ran. it was scary even for a trained fbi agent like yourself. dc streets weren’t so pleasing at this time of the day and many dark alleys scared the crap out of you. it though was less scary then falling asleep and having the same dream again. you ran fast as you could and your breathing was getting heavier with each step you took. you reached spencer’s apartment building and it felt like god wanted you to see spencer because the second you reached the door one of his neighbors was leaving and you had time to get inside before the door shut. you have been here before, spencer has invited you over for a cup of coffee after you joined the team. it was really sweet of him and after that you started to create a bond with him. even though you spent every free time you had with penelope you always felt like you and spencer were closest on the team.
after walking up 3 flights of stairs and catching your breath you reached his apartment door. at this point you realized how insane this whole thing was. you don’t just show up at someone’s door at 2am in order to ask them if they can help you get over a nightmare. it felt like as if you were 5 again and you were scared to let your mom know you have wet your bed. you stood there for good 5 minutes before you even raised your hand to knock. you questioned whether to knock or not. what if he will be angry that you woke him up and you will ruin a good running friendship. you breathed in as much air as possible to try to calm yourself down before you finally knocked. first time you knocked 3 times, pretty quietly but after you got no response for a while you knocked another 2 times but little louder now. after you knocked the last time you could hear a very irritated sigh. you could feel he looked at you through the peephole, while also he started unlocking the door.“y/n, is everything ok?” he asked in a very sleepy but seemingly worried voice.“i need to talk” you said firmly.“can this wait, it’s like 3 in the morning. you should rest we just got home.” he rubbed his eyes to see you better.“yeah, that’s the problem. can i please come in?” you felt like you were forcing him to invite you in but there was no way you let him sent you home after you ran the distance without even talking to him.“i mean, yeah come in” he moved away from the doorway and let you in.you looked around his dark apartment, walking towards his couch. you sat down and waited for spencer to join you. your leg started bouncing from the nerves. spencer sat down and for a moment he just looked down at the floor, it seemed like he was trying to wake himself up.“i’m so sorry i woke you up, i-i just remembered that you told me that i can talk to you about anything at anytime” you tried to smile at him but his eyes were still focused on the floor beneath you.“i didn’t really mean 3 in the morning but of course.” he whispered to himself but due to the complete silence of his apartment you could hear it loud and clear.“what do you wanna talk about?” he now finally turned at you his eyes now had a very visible worriness in them.“i had another one” you said quietly.“another what?” his eyebrows have furrowed.“nightmare.”“do you want to tell me what’s it about? maybe i can help you if i know what’s really going on in there” he smiled, still looking worried as hell.“it’s the same thing over and over again. do you remember that case about 3 months ago, in sacramento it was i think” you looked up at him to see if he was following.“of course” he nodded.“well it’s that case. it starts with us chasing the unsub’s car through the town and then stopping in front of the old building. me and hotch run in and you with jj follow. just like in real life i run up the flight of stairs, but what’s different is that when i get up the stairs its just one big empty room with little girl sitting right in the middle. i yell back at all of you to come upstairs but no one answers as if i was alone in the building. i slowly walk up to the girl and when i try to talk to her she points to the door at the other side of the room. i walk there and every single time i open the door it’s the same image. all of you there, dead. while i stare at you the girl comes up to me and says that this is all my fault. and then she keeps repeating it over and over again until i wake up.” you could feel your voice trembling, your hands shaking and you were pretty sure your eyes were already tearing up.there was a dead silence in the room. you didn’t know what spencer was thinking about what you’ve said. you were too afraid to look up, to see his embarrassed face. he wasn’t the best about opening up about his feelings. whenever he opened up it ended up in morgan making jokes and spencer always ending up burrying his worries again. he has built walls around his problems and the only person he has ever fully opened up to were you. that’s why he told you that if you have more nightmares you can come to his house. but at this point you felt as if you told him more he can bare or help you with. for a split second you looked up to see if he was red in the face or if he was staring back at you, but his eyes were pinned on the coffee table that was in front of his couch you two were sitting on. you could see that his eyebrows were furrowed, he was for sure thinking what to say next to not make this even more awkward then it already was. “would you like a cup of tea?” he mumbled fast. “yeah, why not” you smiled, not expecting him to see you do that. you kinda knew why he asked you if you want tea. he wanted to go to the kitchen to be alone and to process what you said and what he should say next. it seemed like his genius brain wasn’t so fast when you wake him up at 3 in the morning and you unload all that’s on your mind. especially if that what’s on your mind involves his and your team’s death. you too had to process the fact that you just told spencer about the nightmare. until this point it felt like your brain went 100 miles per hour and all the decisions that brought you here were made by your brain without you being present. you still felt the pain in your chest after running the entire time from your apartment to spencer’s. maybe this was the perfect time to release the air that has been stuck in your lungs ever since you arrived. you felt like you just finished running marathon. if someone told you that you’d have a recurring nightmares about your closest friends dying everynight maybe you’d think twice about joining the BAU. but at the end of the day it’s better that you have someone like spencer to talk to, you don’t have to go through this alone. you’re basically surrounded by people who had the same problems as you’re having now. when spencer noticed that you’re not sleeping well and you told him that it is bad dream that keeps you up at night he reassured you that you’re not the only one suffering and if you talked to literally anyone on the team they’d help you. it made you feel much more safe, even though you felt the most comfortable opening up about to spencer. he was the one who noticed that you’re not doing well. you considered asking hotch or rossi about it but something in your mind was telling you that you’d be a bother to them since they haven’t noticed. your breath was starting to calm down and for a second you decided to close your eyes to calm yourself completely before spencer returns from the kitchen. as soon as you opened your eyes and fixed your sight on the streetlight outside of his window you could hear spencer’s footsteps coming closer and closer. you looked up and saw spencer with two cups in his hands standing above you. you stood up to help him but he shook his head and placed down the cups himself. you almost immidiately took one of them into your hands and the scent of mint hit your face pretty hard. it might’ve woken up every fiber of your body. maybe it was spencer’s intention to perhaps wake himself up to be able to listen to you. but even after he brought the tea the room felt silent again. you could hear occasional sipping from spencer’s side of couch. you didn’t take any sip from your tea yet as if you were scared he put poison in it. spencer coughed with which he caught your attention. “so, um, it’s always the same dream?” he didn’t look at your, his eyes fixated on the painting in front of him. "yep. always the same,“ you nodded your head. "why do you think you always have nightmare about that particular case? did you make a mistake or something? because i remember we caught the unsub pretty fast and without any more victims,” now he was facing you and it seemed like he wanted you to do the same so you can have meaningful conversation. "i don’t know. i remember being pretty frightened, don’t know why though. we had gone to an abandoned building before. i don’t know if i was expecting something that might suprise there, or if i was awaiting another victim and that the case would be last even longer than it already did,“ you shrugged your shoulders and you finally gained confidence to take a sip from the tea spencer made you. "hm, it’s true it was long case. perhaps, i don’t know, maybe you just wanted to go home and now your brain associates that case with long cases and you start feeling home sick,” his two fingers were now resting at his mouth, just like when he’s trying to profile the unsub. "i don’t usually feel home sick. i haven’t been in washington for that long to feel like that. besides the dream doesn’t stop at home,“you faced him as well and at this point you started to feel comfort because it looked like you were starting to have some sort of brainstorming session just like when you’re out on a case and you trying to figure out what’s going on."you mentioned that you see us dead, right?” spencer has now swallowed really hard almost as he had something stuck in his throat. “yes. that might be the entire problem you know?” he nodded and focused his eyes on your face. it was very obvious he was trying to profile you right then. he kept furrowing his eyebrows, he shifted in his place a lot and he kept noticing small movements on your face. you were both staring at each other, trying to profile the other one. spencer was in very obvious discomfort, but you weren’t sure why just yet. it could be the awkwardness of the situation and conversation but it could also be that his brain was working way faster now and he was trying to put together your dream as if it was a puzzle. "y/n, i don’t need to be rude right now but, didn’t you see or hear some girl’s voice and didn’t write in the report. something you might’ve forgotten? or tried to forgot and could be coming back haunting you in your dreams?“ you felt how your eyes widened now that he said that. you went over both the dream and real life case in your head, trying to remember if you saw or heard something. you bit your lower lip in concentration but even after replaying both scenes in your head over and over again you couldn’t remember anything. it was just a regular end of the case. you came to the abadoned building, raided the place, found the unsub, arrested him and few hours later you were back on the plane to D.C. nothing unsual. now you were the one in discomfort. your discomfort was even more obvious then spencer’s because you kept tilting your head back, your leg started bouncing from trying to remember everything that happened and at one point you had to close your hands into fists because you felt how they started shaking. "hey, look if you want we could do the cognitive interview. if you’re comfortable to comeback there,” spencer placed his hand on your shoulder and it felt like he just awoken you from some sort of trance. "um, i don’t know,“ you shook your head and looked down from his face. "do you feel comfortable enough to relive it all again? i mean, nothing bad happened but it might make the nightmares worse,” his hand was still on your shoulder now it seemed like he was trying to bring himself to stroke it a bit. “yeah, you’re right, let’s not do the cognitive,” you nodded and his hand has left your shoulder. and another silence. this wasn’t how you always imagined it would go if you came over to his house for comfort. in your head it always sort of more talkative and understanding. what you were doing there wasn’t that much understanding. you came to seek comfort and spencer wasn’t quiet sure how to provide that for you. he stopped looking at you again and focused on the library behind you. it looked like he was searching for something specific. it was dark in the room, only the streetlight from the outside provided some sort of light in the room, so you weren’t really sure how he searches for anything that far away in such a darkness. after all it’s spencer reid, he probably knows where anything is in this apartment and he knows the names of all books he owns and where exactly to search for them. after a while he stood up and walked over to the library he was scanning these last couple minutes. he started taking out books and browsing the pages in them. it lowkey brought some sort of calmness, the turning of the pages, his finger trailing down the list and his subtle mumbling of the words. you closed your eyes and listened to what he was doing. a good while has passed since you last talked and you were slowly falling asleep, but you shook of the sleep as soon as you felt your body getting weaker, you didn’t want to fall asleep on his couch and then waking up in pure terror when the girl is gonna repeat it was your fault over and over again. when you sat up straight again you remembered something from when you were younger. you knew that what you wanted to ask for right now was way out of spencer’s comfort zone so it took few moments to rethink if it was really something you would like to try. "spencer?“ you heard how he closed the book the second you spoke up. "is everything okay?” he walked over to the couch again to check up on you.“i just remembered something…” he sat down awaiting something related to your nightmares. “it’s nothing from the dream. i just remembered that when i was younger and i had a nightmare of some sort my mom would… you know what nevermind it’s too much to ask for. i don’t wanna make you feel uncomfortable,” you quickly stood up from the couch getting ready to leave and go deal with the dreams on your own, but spencer stood up as well and his body blocked yours from making any other move. “what is it? i’m sure it can’t be that bad,” he chuckled a little. "hm, okay. uh when i was little my mom would always take me to her bed and cuddle me until i fell asleep,“ you tried to say is quietly as you could so he wouldn’t hear you. "sorry, but i didn’t hear you,” he raised one of his eyebrows. “my mom would cuddle me until i fell asleep. and then the bad dreams went away,” you could feel your face getting red from all the embarrassment. “would you like to try it? i mean it wouldn’t hurt trying, if you say it stops the bad dreams,” spencer shrugged his shoulders. “unless you are 100% comfortable with it,” maybe this is is gonna ruin your friendship with spencer, you thought. “i am. after all it was me who suggested you coming here if you had nightmares. so it’s worth of trying since you came all this way here at this hour,” his hand was again on your shoulder. you nodded and looked back up at him. the comfortable look on his face reminded you that you have nothing to fear when he’s there and that he is willing to do anything to help you out. you both nodded and spencer led the way to his room. he helped you lay down and then imidiately laid down next to you. at first it was bit awkward none of you knew how to start and what to do. somewhere in a back of your mind you could hear morgan’s voice making jokes about how you’re probably the first person to be in his bed with him but you choose to ignore it. “so, want to do this?” spencer asked again and you nodded in agreement. he lifted his left arm and suggested you place your head on his chest. you did as he asked and then he slowly put down his hand over your shoulders. both of you were scared to make any move, not to disturb the other. you could feel spencer grasp tightening and your head getting more comfortable on his chest. you haven’t been in this position in a while and to be true, you missed it a lot. you could feel your bones and muscles to start resting slowly but surely. his hand was easily stroking your arm to help you rest even more. “you know what, i’d feel much better if someone did this with me back when i had nightmares,” spencer tried to break the ice and was succesful when you laughed at what he said. "thank you, really. i can’t imagine anyone else from the team to do this,“ you smiled and looked up at him. "there’s nothing to be thankful for, i am doing this as your friend. you know, everyone on the team has the tendency to bury their feelings and i do it too, but when i saw you hurting and not feeling well i thought i might help a bit since i’ve been through this as well. if this won’t help, or even if it will, i can give you some books on how to handle it, i have read few myself and seems like i do not need them anymore. and if the books won’t help but this will, don’t be scared to comeback more often, i’ll be always willing to help you out even if it means cuddling,” his voice was soothing and he even chuckled a bit in the end. you said thank you one more time but more quietly. you made yourself comfortable even more and after a while you allowed yourself to fall asleep. you felt safe as if nothing can hurt you when you were in spencer’s arms. and it was true it helped a lot. you slept through the night without the dream coming back. the morning was much better and you even wanted to go back to work again. over the next couple of months the dream cameback once or twice though, but when it did comeback you always rushed over to spencer’s who had already prepared with one spare pillow on his bed and helped you fall asleep safely again.
