Work Text:
9:23:04 p.m.
If there’s one thing that calms the storm inside his mind, it’s routine. Doing the same repeated actions again and again and again makes his thoughts actually follow some kind of rhythm.
So that’s what he does.
He changes out of his sweater, a deep red just light enough to not remind him of blood, folding it with careful creases exactly where it won’t wrinkle. No wrinkles meant no washing. He was tired enough without having to worry about laundry. One press of a hand across the top to smooth it, before the drawer is closed.
Then he brushes his teeth. The handle is green, like always. Green with sparkles, although why anyone would want a sparkly toothbrush, he doesn’t know. The mint paste is a welcome flavor despite how it burns on his tongue. Every night he tastes it. That’s another thing: comfort in familiar sensations.
And then he’s taking out his contacts, careful to do it in the exact order. Wash his hands, take out the left. Washed them again, then the right. His glasses sitting right where he left them that morning, along the crack in the laminate countertop. They were pushed onto his nose.
Then he walks into the other room, pulling back the covers that are always the same color, lined with sheets a permanent white. Slides between them, savoring the warmth, and puts the Oxford frames down on the right of his alarm clock. Nine thirty, it reads. He has eight and a half hours of sleep ahead of him. Five hundred and ten minutes.
Closes his eyes. Sighs.
Five hundred and nine minutes, fifty-four seconds.
He could do this.
______________________
9:47:32 p.m.
His ability to memorize facts was what got him into the FBI so young. Being able to spout off at any given moment how many days it took for a heroin withdrawal to run course (five to seven days, it takes five to seven days. He knew, of course) would be useful in the field. So they looked away from his age when his application was approved. And his obvious lack of physical training.
The team probably thinks him lucky. Twenty-one, and he was in the most respected unit of the bureau. Graduated high school at twelve, college at fifteen. Three doctorates to his name. They’re all profilers, meant to analyze every aspect of people’s lives. They’d be lying if they said they never profiled each other.
So what did they think of him? What did they believe would be running through his head at this moment?
Maybe the latest facts of the case? (Three dead, all men, coming home from work. Check the ties, it’s something with the ties.)
Or whatever hobby they supposed he had? (Identifying the genuses of holotypic Occlupanids, if you must know).
Certainly they don’t think this.
_________________________________
211 minutes, 11 seconds later
Hotch asked him to get the report for the Cleveland killer done and on his desk by nine thirty, along with his analysis of the scene evidence for their latest case (four hundred and thirty two minutes, twenty-seven seconds).
Allowing him to still get a minimum of five hours sleep, his train ride taking less time than normal, and absolutely nothing going wrong, he’d be getting to Quantico at eight fifty three ante meridiem. A full fifty three minutes after the work day started.
That's three thousand eight hundred and ten seconds.
Three thousand eight hundred and ten seconds late to work. Probably would be too tired to concentrate anyways, and with the kind of things they do, that could be deadly.
Those evaluators never should have said he was ready for field. His BMI wasn’t nearly high enough. He failed the firearms exam every year, and if it wasn’t for Hotch’s assistance, he would be left defenseless.
He’s a failure.
Of the team. Of himself.
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Two hundred thirty eight seconds later
It was when he first met the team (five years ago). They analyzed him, profiled him. Probably obsessive compulsive. On the autism spectrum. Order and disorder. Perfect and profoundly messed up.
He was still with Tobias (two days). Dilaudid was coursing through his veins. A liquid fire of numb. The room spun. His foot didn’t even hurt.
The numbers always spun around his head. Statistics and probabilities. Death rates and birth rates. He knew the name of every president, continent. Country and capital. Every element of the periodic table. Every mathematics formula he had come across in his life.
Twenty five years.
Nine thousand one hundred and twenty five days.
He could remember almost every one. Except for those spent in that cabin. He could remember his father’s first time using his hand, his mother locking him in a closet. Those high schoolers, taking off his jacket, his shirt, tying him with knot after knot after knot-
When he told Morgan that story, he hadn’t said how he’d kept sane. It was the numbers. He saw them, was able to manipulate their invisible factors until they bent to his needs.
He spent ten hours on that goal post. Three thousand six hundred seconds.
He was alone, except for the numbers.
They never left him.
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Six thousand nine hundred seconds later
The human body requires eight hours of sleep to function correctly.
Eight hours.
The clock blinking three thirty on his bedside table.
That was four hours and forty minutes from when he went to bed.
Two hundred and eighty minutes.
Sixteen thousand eight hundred seconds.
Two hours and six minutes before his first alarm went off.
One hundred and twenty six minutes. Seven thousand five hundred and sixty two seconds.
Sixty one.
-Two.
Three.
Four is the squared number of two.
Fifty million people die every year.
Sixteen quintuple-billion-
Seven thousand five hundred and fifty four seconds left.
Two reports to write (ties, ties, ties).
Two contacts to put in (wash, left, wash, right).
A shower (five minutes, always).
A cup of coffee (six sugars, stir twelve times).
He’s so tired.
(Seven thousand five hundred and forty three seconds)
______________________________
7:00:01 a.m.
The alarm went off.
His eyes were still open.