Title: The Workings Of A Tired Mind
Author: LikeFlames
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own ^_^
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: None - GEN
Rating: FRC
Warnings: none... maybe my writing...
Note: I soo wrote this at 3 am after a really long day. But it's about Reid, so it can't be that bad...
Summary: Reid is so tired he can't control what he says...

***

Spencer Reid doesn't play Solitaire anymore. By the time he was nineteen, he'd realized he'd played every single possible game when he started recognizing every move he'd made and every move he was about to, and even ended up with the same amount of points he'd told himself he would at the beginning. So he doesn't play that. It was boring anyway.

Sometimes, he gets so tired people tell him he can't think straight. But he can think straight, he just can't.. he just can't quite talk straight. The trains of thought his tired brain takes make perfect sense if you slow them down and maybe shift one or two components into different places.. But his brain, while it has maintained perfect rationality, can't regulate which things he should say and which things he maybe shouldn't.

On this particular night, his hands shake as he tries to unlock the door to his apartment. When he gets in, he flicks on the light by the closet out of habit, and drops his keys haphazardly onto the table by the hall, takes off his shoes and puts them under this same table and closes and bolts his door. He tries to tell himself that he can just go to bed and that he'll shower in the morning, but the last time he had time was Wednesday, and today is Friday. His feet smell like feet and his hair is starting to stick up in places and his fingernails have acquired a lovely dirt coating and he knows, he really knows that if he says he'll get up in the morning and do it he won't (he did an experiment when he was 14) and so he'll go to work with the grime and scents two days of work and three nights of sleep seem to commit unto his person. So he walks as slowly as he ever thought possible, and almost without bending his knees, down the hall to his bathroom and turns on the water. Hot. God, he needs it hot.

He quickly peels his clothes off after locking the door and adjusting the water temperature so it won't burn. He steps in and can see the water runoff turning somewhat reddish brown before it disappears down the drain. He sticks his head under the flow so every single part of his aching body can feel the warmth and he breathes slowly, sucking in steam and trying to cleanse his insides as well. After about a minute, he grabs the soap and washes as fast as he can, rubbing a few patches of skin until they were red. He shampoos his hair, adding a palmful of conditioner as an afterthought. It takes him five more minutes to rinse the stuff out, but he only does it once a week and he figures, why not get it out of the way while he's thinking about it?

After drying off, he wraps a towel around his waist and throws his dirty clothes into a hamper in the bathroom closet, something made out of wicker, or bamboo, or wicker and bamboo... wicker, its a wicker hamper with a plastic (ugly) lining, but hey, it does the job. He plods back down his hallway and eyes the mail by the door that he had kicked aside upon first entry. He picks it up with every intention to just put it back down on something more elevated and table-like than the floor, but he finds himself looking through the ten envelopes.

Two bills, which he sets on the hall table,

A credit card offer, which he throws into the wastebasket,

Three things telling him how he can become a millionaire, two of which are soon with the credit card offer and one which he saves in case he ever needs a laugh.

Another bill (table),

Another credit card (trash),

A postcard from Garcia, which makes him smile because the caption says "Greetings from Quantico!" and the BAU building is visible in the background,

And a letter from a man with a Las Vegas return address which makes his blood run cold and his heart stop for just a second before it, too, is in the trashcan and he is walking away holding the postcard to his still bare chest, flicking off the light, and heading across the living room to his bedroom.

Once inside, he hastily exchanges his towel for a pair of his favorite boxer shorts (green ones) and his favorite pajama pants (green and blue...plaid), and contemplates putting on the matching top...but it's warm out and he doesn't really need to. But, just in case someone knocks on his door in the middle of the night, he takes out his red, button up the front, cotton-flannel one and lays it on the floor next to his bed. He pins Garcia's postcard up next to the other ones he has gotten from her over the last few years, and traipses back down the hall with a sigh. After he brushes his teeth and dries his hair with his towel, he throws that into the ugly wicker hamper as well and goes back to his room. He turns off the light and he gets in bed and thinks. He just thinks. And he realises that what he said tonight probably wasn't the worst thing his brain could've chosen.

But it certainly wasn't the best.

(earlier that evening, on the jet)

Morgan walkes over to the young doctor, who has his head down and is bouncing a small green rubber ball on the table next to his head. This last case had obviously been hard on all of them, but Reid had gotten the least sleep, determined to save this child from his bastardofafather. He jumps at the hand on his shoulder and smiles sheepishly at his colleague, setting the ball on a dimple in the seat next to him to prevent it from rolling anywhere; Morgan frowns a little.

"Are you okay, Reid?" he asks, seriously. Reid nods and Morgan sits next to him. Gideon finishes whatever he was talking about with Elle and Hotch and sits across from them just as Reid is pulling out his cards. By the end of the third round of Go Fish!, Elle and J.J. are gathered around, watching, and Hotch is observing from a comfortable distance. Quips of "Way to get his fives, Reid!" and "Come on, Morgan, he just asked that! Don't you pay attention?" and even the occasional "Oh, man. Gideon's great at Go Fish!.." spill from the girls and Hotch contributes once with a "Reid, just ask!", and twenty minutes later they touch down and Reid packs his cards up (he won twice, Gideon once.. Go Fish! isn't Morgan's game) and stands at the door, ready to disembark. His fingers worry at the edge of his satchel; he lets the same 2 1/2 inches pass back and forth between his first finger and thumb many times before he hears the door open. Everyone else is saying goodbye to him and each other, and right before he steps off the plane his brain doesn't tell him not to say it and he announces into the open night air, quietly, more to himself than to anyone else (or so he thinks):

"You know," he blinks a couple of times, "They...they used to call me Spencer..." he states, and he looks up a little at the bright stars, that have been called many, many things in their long lives and never complained once, and the half moon as he walks down the steps; and he doesn't notice how everyone else on the plane has stopped moving and packing and talking and are staring at him. All he can think about right now are constellation names, and, dear God, going to sleep.

***