Cr8zymommy challenged me to write a short where Spencer's mutant powers kept him from ever joining the BAU. She didn't want a whole story, just a short, and as of right now, I have no intention of writing further on this. Now, I was sleepy when I wrote this, and it was probably about 2am when I did it. After a day of babysitting her terror (my little love bug) mind you, so I was truly exhausted. This is what my brain came up with. NOT pleasant. Read on!
Spencer Reid was two weeks shy of eighteen on the day his whole world changed. Just seventeen years old when everything he knew, everything he was, got turned on its head. Up until that moment, the young man had been making something of himself. He'd pulled himself up and out of a life that had tried to beat him down and he was doing everything he could to make it better not only for himself but for his mother as well. Ever since he was ten years old and his father had walked out the door, leaving him to care for a mother that suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, the young Spencer Reid had promised himself that he would do everything he could to take care of his mother. That was a promise he eventually gave everything to keep.
With his high intelligence—an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory—school came easy to Spencer. At least, the book portions of it. The social interaction, not so much. His peers mocked and ridiculed him as he was bumped up grade after grade. He didn't mind. He had life planned out for him and nothing was going to stop him. Then, the first big catalyst in his life. His plans were almost derailed by the sudden manifestation of mutant powers.
The very first time Spencer discovered his mutation he had been ten years old and listening to his parents argue yet again. When his father shouted yet again at his mother, Spencer hadn't been able to stop from reaching out to grab the man's sleeve, even knowing it would get him in trouble. What he hadn't been prepared for was the blast of energy that shot through him. The whole world had gone blank and, clear as if he were watching a movie in his mind, he saw someone else touching his father's sleeve, saw the jacket end up on the floor, and then he saw his father and a blond woman that definitely wasn't his mother fell into a bed together, laughing.
The shock of that vision had left him stupid and careless. He'd reacted without even thinking when his dad broke the link. With wide eyes that Spencer didn't realize had changed, he looked up at the man with new eyes and he spoke without thinking. "You're having an affair with your secretary. You slept with her today, before you came home."
"What?" He had no idea which demanded that; his mother, his father, or both.
Spencer had licked lips gone dry and, still in shock, he had answered "I touched your sleeve and I, I saw it. You were laughing together, on a bed."
What happened next was not a memory Spencer liked to dwell on. The pain of it was something he blocked out and didn't let himself think about. But that was the day he discovered his mutation; this ability to touch items with his bare hands and gain knowledge from it, such as the makers, users, and even those who have used the object on passing, He could see moments, memories. Early on, it was only images in his mind, a movie on a projection screen. The older he got and the stronger he became, the more he drew from these touches and the more things he was able to touch. He was sixteen when he discovered it worked on people as well as objects. With living beings or parts of the body he could almost learn their general life-history, anything that was in their past. It was like a form of retrocognition—seeing the past through items and people instead of seeing the future.
That was also the night that his father left, for good. To a ten year old just coming into his mutant powers, the loss of his father easily became something he blamed himself for. If he hadn't become a mutant, if he hadn't seen whatever this vision was, his father would've stayed.
It took half the night for him to calm his mother down and get her into her room. After getting her tucked into bed, Spencer had gone to his own room to try and make sense of what had happened to him. That was when he got the second shock of the night. The manifestation of his mutation had created a physical effect as well. His once brown eyes were now completely black. No iris, no pupil. Just, black.
If he had been tormented by his peers before, it was nothing compared to what happened once his eyes were discovered. Finding out that he was a mutant took away the slight buffer of protection that teachers had provided for him. While they protected a young, weak eleven year old kid, a young mutant was free game. Thankfully, it only took Spencer another year before he completed his credits and graduated high school.
From there he went to college, attending Cal Tech. He learned to wear sunglasses most of the time, or to keep his eyes downcast and his hair a little shaggy, blocking his eyes from view. Quiet, staying out of the limelight, he got away with only minimal harassment in his college years. By fourteen, he had his first degree. By sixteen, his first doctorate—mathematics. And by the time he went home just shy of his eighteenth birthday, he was just finishing his BA psychology and was still working on his second doctorate—engineering. He went home with a positive plan in mind. In two weeks, he would be eighteen, and finally he would be legally able to get his mother the help she needed. As much as he hated the idea of her going to an institution, he knew it was best for her. He couldn't care for her his whole life, and trying to care for her while juggling college and jobs to make the bills was almost more than he could bear. There were things he had done, things he wasn't exactly proud of, simply to make ends meet. But he had done it.
Despite everything that happened upon his arrival home, Spencer never once regretted his decision. He knew that, if offered a chance to do it all over, he would do it the same.
What actually happened the night of Spencer's return home is still considered a mystery. It ended in a tidal wave of blood and violence, ambulance and police sirens, and the wails of a distraught mother. It ended with three people in the hospital and Spencer being taken away in handcuffs while the neighbors watched on in shock at the blood covered young man they had all thought they'd known was arrested and a bloody bat was brought out and bagged. Diana Reid was admitted to the hospital where she was treated for two broken ribs, a concussion, a broken wrist, a sprained ankle, and various contusions and lacerations. Two men were admitted, alive, but severely beaten. Within a day, one of the men passed away from his injuries.
A bruised and bloody Spencer was taken downtown first before being brought to the hospital where he was treated for a broken leg, two bruised ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and bruising that covered most of his face.
His pictures during the trial showed a battered young man, often sitting with his chin held high and his spine straight, despite what was being shoveled his way. Never once did he protest the charges that were sent his way. In his own defense, he stated only that he had done what was necessary to defend his mother against the men in his home. With Diana's mental instability, she was unable to take the stand. The other man was barely recovered from his injuries enough to take the stand. He painted a story of going to visit Diana. "A friend of ours" he told the jury. He said that Spencer had come home and gone ballistic on them for being near his mother. In a fit of rage, he attacked them all.
There really had been no hope for his case from the start and Spencer had known it. His public defender had no desire to defend a 'mutie' and his refusal to discuss his mutation with them hadn't helped him at all. It was no surprise to the young genius when he was pronounced guilty of voluntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon. Because of his age and because of his perfect record, and maybe because the judge couldn't help but feel that something about this whole case was just wrong, Spencer combined sentence was eleven years. The standard punishment for voluntary manslaughter, a category B felony in Nevada, is one to ten years in prison. Assault with a deadly weapon is a category B felony in Nevada, carrying one to six years. He received six for the manslaughter and five for the assault.
At eighteen years old, Spencer Reid became a felon. Every plan he had made for his life, every dream, vanished like smoke in the air the day that he stepped off that bus and onto the prison grounds. The day he stopped being Spencer Reid and became inmate number 2364.