Title: Nightmares
By: ashleighlauren
Rating: FRT (no sexual content, short description of violent nightmare)
Pairing and Type: Spencer/Gideon, Slash
Disclaimer: This is the first piece of fanfic that I've ever written. I do write erotica, but this is definitely not that. I'd wholly appreciate some concrit. Unbetaed. Also, my Gideon voice may be a bit influenced by Rube (Dead Like Me). It's unintentional, and I'd appreciate feedback on that. Also, I'm making absolutely no money on this. In fact, I stand to lose money based on my sleep deprivation. I own none of the characters used (that would be CBS), and I did not conduct the psychological study about where dreams come from. However, I do own a very old, very flatulent dog. Which anyone who sues me is welcome to. Because it's either that or student debt.
Description: Spencer talks about his nightmares with Gideon. Very minor spoilers for L.D.S.K., The Popular Kids, and What Fresh Hell?.

***

He woke up to Spencer whimpering quietly in his sleep. Gideon rolled so that he was facing the sleeping man, and he tiredly put one arm out to pull Spencer against him.

"Spencer, you're having a nightmare. It's ok...."
He was cut off as Spencer struck out and hit him in the mouth. He sighed and held Spencer more firmly.
"Spencer, you're having a nightmare. Wake up."
Spencer jerked out of sleep. He blinked at Gideon and shook his head. Then he saw Gideon's mouth.

"You're bleeding."
"That tends to happen when I get smacked in the mouth. It'll stop in a minute."
"What?"
"You hit me. You were having a nightmare. My mouth will stop bleeding in a minute."
Spencer blushed and rolled away.
"I'm sorry. Um. I'm just going to um. Get some tea or..."
He broke off his sentence as he stood up and fled the room.

Gideon sighed as he rolled over and off the bed to his feet. He had been hoping for the first night of uninterrupted sleep in weeks. The recent cases had been awful, and the entire team really needed a break. Spencer was taking it worse than the others.
"Or maybe," Gideon mused to himself, "I just realize how bad it is for him because he's here."
Spencer was definitely holding it together at work. He just wasn't sleeping. At first, Gideon had figured it was the adrenaline of the cases coupled with the caffeine. Now, he realized that the late nights that Spencer had been keeping were more a result of him not wanting to sleep than not being able to.

He walked into the living room to see Spencer sitting on the window-seat, forehead against the glass. Tugging on Spencer's hand, he pulled him into the kitchen.
"Sit." He instructed shortly, pushing Spencer into a chair at the kitchen table. He walked to the stove and retrieved the teapot, using the time required of the mundane task to collect his thoughts. Spencer remained silent.
Finally, he set two cups down at the table. He reached across to push Spencer's hair out of his face.

"Talk."
"I'm fine. It was nothing."
"I don't care if it was nothing. Talk about nothing. But we are going to talk. So unless you want to hear about a detailed analysis of every football game I've ever sat through, I would suggest you say something. I'd prefer something about the nightmares, but if you want to talk around them for a bit..."

"Did you know that nightmares are actually the result of electric currents? They make pictures in our brains, and it's completely random."
"But our interpretations of the pictures are manifestations of our subconscious. They're interpretive. So what's your interpretation?"
"They're different. Girls screaming as someone disembowels them. Or little kids asking why..."
"Why what?"
"Why I'm hurt them."
Spencer whispered this. He dropped his head, and his hair covered his eyes.
"We understand them Gideon. We get into their heads and figure out everything about them. What makes us any different from the people we catch?"

"Precisely the reason that we're sitting in the kitchen at 2:07 in the morning when we know that we have to leave for work in six hours."
"What?"
"We're different because we have these nightmares. Our interpretation of the events. Do you think the people we catch are horrified by the things they do? No, they enjoy it. They like what they do. We see it, and we are appalled. And we should be. You should take the nightmares as a sign that you're human."
Spencer sighed again.
"I'd just like to sleep again. You know?"

He sounded impossibly young. Gideon questioned, as he had a thousand times before, whether the BAU was doing Spencer a disservice by allowing him to be exposed to the atrocities that he saw everyday. He should have been at college. Not taking classes, but teaching them. At least then he would be around people his own age. Or maybe writing books. God knew the boy had enough information floating in his head to write 100 books.
But this was the choice that Spencer had made. He wanted to work at the BAU. And, it didn't really matter how young Spencer was. He was good.

"Then you need to look at it differently. Everyday, you go into work, and you make the world better. You have to do it by understanding the depraved, but people are alive because you can do that."
"Like who?"
"Like Hotch. If you hadn't shot Dowd, then Hotch would be dead. So would you. So would more than a dozen people who had been in the ER."
"It doesn't seem like enough."
"Maybe you should ask Haley. Or Billie Copeland and her parents. They'd probably tell you that it was everything."

Gideon stood up, simultaneously pulling Spencer to his feet. He pushed him into the bedroom and into the bed.
"Try thinking of Billie Copeland before you sleep. It'll help."
Spencer smiled at Gideon, and turned off the light.

***