That's Me in the Corner by Lexikal
Spoilers: None. This is a kid fic, about Reid as a young boy being abused by his father and neglected by his mother. It explains (or partially tries to explain) why Reid, with his genius IQ, went into BAU profiling out of all the possible jobs he could have gone into. I realize Reid and his father have an estranged relationship on the show but Reid's childhood was never depicted as being obviously this abusive- however, Reid's disdain and discomfort around his father makes me believe that something like this may have occurred, and for that reason I do not consider this story AU.
Warnings: This story contains physical child abuse and emotional abuse, and course language. Rated M for that reason. Please do not read if this may trigger you.
Author's Note: Child abuse is an epidemic, but unfortunately the sufferers often can't fight back or get help for themselves. If you live in the US and suspect a child or adolescent is being abused in any way please call 1-800-4-A-CHILD immediately. Do not delay. Your delay or inability to act can cost a child his or her life. If you can't get through to the above 1-800 number or don't live in the US, please phone your local police or child protection services, or child protection helpline. And remember, all abuse is destructive and possibly life threatening, even if "physical abuse" happens to be the most obvious and easily "seen" form of abuse.
And yes, the title for this story comes from lyrics from the song "Losing My Religion" by the band R.E.M., in case anyone was curious... but I also thought it fit pretty well for this story, for obvious reasons.
This is just something I decided to write while taking a break from writing "The Blue Boy" and "This is my Last Resort". This story is largely influenced by the 2006 lifetime movie "For the Love of a Child", which I saw about a week ago and thought was amazing.
Additional Notes: I realize that having Gideon meeting Reid at the end of this fic could be considered AU, however, to my knowledge it's never specified specifically when they met and having Gideon meet Reid as a young child under these circumstances makes, in my mind, their future mentor/protégé relationship all the more poignant. Also, I refer to the BAU as ViCAP because there are four components of the BAU, which is itself a component of the NCAVC (National Centre for the Analysis of Violent Crime). The 4 subgroups of the BAU are as follows: BAU unit 1 (Counter-terrorism/Threat assessment); BAU unit 2 (Crimes Against Adults), BAU unit 3 (Crimes against children) and ViCAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program). While I love Criminal Minds, it is highly unrealistic in the sense that the same team would not be dealing with ALL the different sub-types of crimes they do on this show... most of the CM cases would be considered ViCAP cases, I believe.
"SPENCER!" His father was enraged, that was obvious. Not drunk, not yet, maybe just buzzed, but enraged. "SPENCER!"
Spencer Reid, 8, ran down the hall, past his mother's room. He backtracked quickly and whipped into her room, his eyes bright with terror and adrenaline, his small hands already shaking. His mother was propped up in her bed, reading, oblivious to her husband's screaming. Her young son's terror. Ordinarily Spencer Reid would have asked what she was reading; Proust? Chaucer? Comte de Lautreamont? Tonight he didn't care, didn't have the time to care.
"What are you doing, sweetheart?" Diana Reid asked from her bed, not looking up from her book. When he failed to respond, however, she put her finger in between the pages and glanced at him. "Spencer, what's the matter? You're sweating! And you look so pale..."
Spencer glanced around the room in a panic, snatched the cordless phone from its base and darted back out of his mother's room. His father, luckily, was still tearing up the living room looking for him, but he'd soon catch on, soon come here. Spencer ran, ran... not his room, not safe there... but... He darted around the bend in the hall. Two rooms left, plus the door leading down to the basement. The boy grabbed the door knob leading down into the dark pit- the safe dark pit- and descended. He could feel his father behind him. Approaching. Like a storm.
Screaming swears at his mother. Hurricane William was closer and wilder than he'd speculated.
Spencer Reid scrambled into the basement, not bothering with pulling the string attached to the single, bare light bulb. Let it be dark. Unfortunately, the Reid's didn't have much stuff, and that meant not many places to hide. Spencer scrambled over to the washer and dryer and scurried behind them, wriggling, trying to fit. Hoping... at eight, Spencer Reid liked the dark. It was easy to hide from monsters in the dark.
He heard the door above swing open and heavy footsteps on the stairs. The light bulb was turned on and the room was awash in the low light of the 60 watt bulb. Praying, the boy quickly punched the numbers into the phone. It was ringing. Ringing!
He could hear his father breathing, stalking around the basement, could picture the enlarged nostrils, the dark red face, so red, so angry. He always reminded Spencer of some sort of bird of prey when he was angry and stalking like this, a dinosaur, perhaps. What had he done now? He couldn't remember.
He'd wheeled his bicycle into the garage. He knew he had, could remember doing it. The dishes were done, the lawn was mown. Garbage had been set at the curb for the garbage men tomorrow. He'd even taken back his father's beer bottles for the change and left it in the change jar and... oh... shit. Maybe that was it.
Maybe they hadn't given him the right amount of change.
A tinny voice was coming from the phone, a lady's voice. It jolted him out of his stupor.
"Childhelp USA, how can I help you," the voice sounded strange and alien to him, like he was phoning another galaxy for help. He'd never phoned a number like this before. Wasn't sure what was scarier: reaching out for help or facing his father's rage.
Spencer brought the phone to his mouth and exhaled deeply. He didn't dare speak. If he spoke, his father might hear him.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" The operator's voice was calm, smooth, like she was used to calls like this. Not much talk but lots of deep, high pitched, panicked breathing bordering on tears.
He exhaled louder, whispered something that could almost pass for "help". His heart was hammering. Not really an answer, at least not a real word, but hopefully the operator would get the message: SEND HELP NOW. His father was screaming threats even louder now. If Spencer didn't come out right now and take his medicine like a man, he was going to pay. You bet your ass. If he didn't come out right now, he was going to regret ever being born, he was going to never forget this day, he was...
"Don't make this any harder on yourself Spencer!" William Reid hollered, and kicked the washing machine. Spencer felt his heart skip a beat in his chest and coughed, hard, the sensation distressing him. Adrenaline. Just adrenaline. However, he was behind the washing machine and the force of the blow drove him slightly back into the wall, knocking his head into the plaster.
"Okay, I can hear someone yelling in the background. Is it possible for you to talk right now?"
The boy exhaled deeply into the phone, breathing starting to hitch. He was trapped behind the washing machine, and if his father started kicking it... god, what would happen? His next exhalation was louder, almost a sob.
"Honey, can you tell me your name?" He let the phone drop and coughed louder. He could feel his father hovering over him. Like a bird of prey's shadow over a field mouse.
"There you are!" His father screamed, and Spencer knew he'd been spotted. Checkmate. Game Over.
Oh... god. The bottom of his stomach seemed to fall away. The boy let the phone remain lodged behind the machine. His father had seen him, but apparently not the phone, and was dragging him out by his keds. "You little bastard! In the future, when I tell you to do something, you..." and he trailed off, swearing.
Spencer tried to curl up into a ball. Couldn't. He felt himself being pulled, knew it hurt, knew his stomach and chest were being cut and scraped by debris on the floor. Finally he was grabbed and pulled to his feet, pressed against the brick wall.
"P-Please let me go, whatever it is, I'm sorry..." His voice was shaking, and he hated it. Hated feeling so young and stupid and ashamed. Hated feeling on edge, hyper-vigilant, day after day and year after year. Always waiting, always watching, quietly, for some eruption.
"Too late for I'm sorry, boy..." His father was removing his belt. Okay. Not good. But it could be worse. A lot worse, really...
"B-but what did I do?" Maybe he could distract him. Not likely, but maybe. It had worked a few times in the past. Maybe 2% of the time, but 2% was still worth a shot.
"I get a call at work today, and you know what they tell me? Not only do I have an egg-head for a son, but also an autistic..."
"Asperger's?" Spencer croaked out, alarmed. He could remember taking the tests, speaking to the child psychologist. She had been kind, had said he was "amazing" and "interesting". She'd given him a test called the WISC and something else called the TONI. She'd also spoken to him, asked him a bunch of questions and had him draw pictures.
"So what are you, you little..." his father trailed off, and spat. "Are you a genius, or are you a retard?"
"Dad, Asperger's is a pervasive developmental disorder but..."
"Shut the hell up! You're just like your crazy bitch of a mother! My entire family is psychotic!"
"Dad, please, I'm not crazy..."
"Take your shirt off." His father snarled. Spencer nodded, knowing he wasn't getting out of this beating. He fumbled with the buttons, willing the tears in his eyes not to leak out and onto his cheeks. He shut his eyes and held his breath, waiting. Why didn't his mother ever come to help him? He knew she was sick, that sometimes she saw and heard things that weren't there- couldn't be there- but how could she always ignore his cries? Always?
The first strike knocked the wind right out of him and he keeled over, falling to his knees, screaming as if scalded.
"You stand back up, you little bastard, or I'll yank you back up by the hair. Your choice. Hands on the wall. Legs apart."
Spencer Reid gritted his teeth. The next blow was even harder, and he yelped, despite himself. His heart was throbbing in his chest like a gong and a thin line of spittle was already trailing down his mouth, down his neck. And that had only been after two blows. He wouldn't cry next time. Wouldn't. But he did. And he did with the blow after. And the one after that. He kept his eyes tightly shut, and he prayed. In English. And after five minutes of that, in Latin, and then Spanish...
"What, no tears, you little prick?" His father scoffed. Spencer focused on his breathing, tried to keep from speaking. His throat felt tight. He felt seconds away from tears, but tears would be bad. Would mean this would last longer. In all probability though... it was hard to tell. Nothing with his father was ever 100% guaranteed one way or the other.
He lost count of the blows, and his yelps became less and less strong, more moans than yelps or screams. He knew his back was bleeding, could feel the blood running down it, could feel the flesh, ripped and already starting to numb. Knew that after the blood coagulated, his back would bruise. That this time would be bad.
But his father wasn't done. He felt his father approach him, felt the man tug his jeans and then boxers down. Spencer stood against the wall and finally cried angrily, not caring that his father could hear. Shame washed through him. Shamed, angry, hateful tears.
And the belt began to strike and lick into the soft, whole flesh of his backside and legs, bruising and reopening old scabs.
And then someone was talking harshly, strongly. Not yelling, but definitely not quiet. His father's wild belting ceased almost instantly and Spencer could hear his mother talking to someone upstairs, a man.
"We just need to talk to the boy, make sure he's okay," the man said loudly enough that Spencer could hear, even down in the basement, even over the tinnitus and loud beating of his heart. Spencer breathed heavily and slumped against the wall, exhausted. His father bent over and threw him his shirt.
"Get dressed. And not a word, you hear me?"
Spencer Reid heard him just fine.
The police officer sat him down at the kitchen table, and another one, the man's partner apparently, led his father outside.
"Son... I heard the call. You didn't hang up. I heard you being beaten."
"My dad doesn't hit me," Spencer argued, staring up at the police officer. He couldn't quite make eye contact, though, and anytime the cop got too close he flinched a little. He knew that to pull this off he had to make eye contact, look confident... but he couldn't. His body wouldn't obey. He felt like vomiting.
"Spencer, your eye... right now, your left is already starting to turn black. Did you know that?"
Spencer gawked at the police officer. Finally shook his head. He couldn't remember being hit in the face, not recently. The police officer sighed tiredly and walked over to the freezer, opened it and riffled through the contents. He came back with a bag of frozen peas and handed them to the boy.
"Here. Might help keep some of the swelling down," the police officer- which Spencer Reid had been urged to call "Mike"- said softly. Spencer nodded and gently picked up the bag of peas and held them over his bruised eye, wincing a bit as the bag made contact with the sore flesh.
"Remember being hit now?" Mike asked a bit more softly. Spencer shrugged. He could remember the belting just fine, but as for the eye... he didn't know. Maybe when he'd been dragged across the floor. Maybe when his father had kicked the washing machine. But he wasn't sure...
"I heard you screaming, Spencer." The police officer tried again, his eyes kind and warm but also steely, like there was a deep anger running under that kindness, that warmth. Not anger for him, of course... he was eight years old. Spencer wanted to tell him, wanted to... but then his father would know. And then... then things might even be worse. The statistics weren't in his favour. Most child abusers never did any jail time, and the repercussions for disclosing abuse were sometimes deadly, especially when the abuser had a substance abuse problem and...
"It wasn't me, I don't ever scream," Spencer insisted, eyes focused on the wood grain of the dining table. He could barely make eye contact with the man. Mike.
"You mean, when you're being hurt?" The police officer queried, and before Spencer Reid could stop himself, he had nodded.
"So you admit, your dad hurts you?"
Spencer stared at the police officer. His lower lip was trembling. He ducked his head up a bit, eyes half in shadow from his bangs; wide, fearful eyes. He shrugged.
"Son, I can't leave until I am certain you are okay. Can I see your back please?" His words were gentle, kind, but to Spencer Reid they were horrifying. The 8-year-old's eyes bugged out. He didn't think he would have felt any more horrified if the cop had asked to see his intestines.
"My back?" His voice was barely a whisper.
"Yeah, your back. Mind if I take a look?" The cop was leaning forward and Spencer flinched away.
"Spencer, I can look, or you can come with us and we can have a doctor..."
A slow shudder ran through him. He was shaking, shaking hard. No, not good. Mike sighed sadly, kindly.
"Okay, son, you just hold those peas on your eye, okay? I'm going to go talk to your Dad and my partner, okay?"
Reid nodded silently, eyes focused on the table, willing himself to stop shaking, for his lower lip to stop trembling. Mike stepped walked outside and Spencer was alone.
Spencer Reid took off his glasses and wiped his eyes furiously. Traitorous eyes. They were leaking tears again. "N-not here. Okay? Come on. Stop shaking."
He tried to force oxygen into his body, to recite poetry in his mind, silently, without moving his lips. To recite the first 100 digits of pi. But he couldn't stop shaking.
Mike came back in, looking haggard and tired and drained.
"C'mon son."
"Can... can I go get my journal and jacket from my room?" Spencer asked nervously, staring at the police with wild eyes.
"Sure, kid. You show me your room..." The boy exhaled and nodded, led the police officer towards his bedroom. Quickly pulled his jacket off a hook in his closet and was rummaging through his desk for his latest journal when Mike called him back over to his closet.
"Spencer? What's this?"
Spencer Reid glanced over at his closet. Felt sick. The police man was holding up a few different articles of clothing. A few t-shirts, a pair of pants. All speckled, at the very least, with blood, and some caked with it.
"Is this your blood, Spencer?"
Reid stared at the clothing, throat even tighter, tight like a pinhole. Finally he nodded. His face felt very hot and the room felt airless. Like he was suffocating. Everything was too bright. He felt dizzy.
"Yes... sometimes I get nosebleeds." He heard himself speak as if from far away, another dimension perhaps. He shuffled over to his bed and sat down, moaning in pain as he sank onto the mattress.
"Must be some nosebleed to get on the back of your clothing like that... and that much blood, too." The police officer said softly.
Spencer heard his father talking louder and glanced up, alarmed. His father was standing in his door way.
"I think you need to see this," the cop who'd been speaking to Spencer- Mike- told his partner. His partner nodded, crossed the room and inspected the bloody clothing. Sniffed it. Looked over at William Reid with narrowed, angry eyes.
"Care to explain this, sir?" Mike's partner asked Spencer's father. Spencer sat on his bed and hugged himself around the middle. Tried not to wince.
"The damn kid's always having accidents. He's really clumsy, hell, just last week..."
Spencer tried to run then. He got to the front door before Mike caught him by the wrist and pulled him back. He howled in pain and heard the man gasp. "Jesus Christ." Mike had pulled up the back of his shirt when he'd screamed.
He screamed louder and felt Mike grab him and physically lift him off the ground, carry him towards the black and white Las Vegas Crown Vic.
"Put me down!" Spencer choked out. Mike's hold on him, while intentionally gentle, was strong and his back felt flayed and burnt. Every time the young officer shifted his hold on the boy Spencer Reid choked out a soft sob.
"It's okay, son, it's okay now," Mike repeated like a mantra, but Spencer Reid kept crying. He didn't want to be touched. Ever. Ever again.
His father wasn't arrested. Not that night, at any rate. But the police did take Spencer. Mike carried the child and deposited and unlocked the passenger side, positioning the boy on his lap as if he were a toddler instead of an eight year old. Spencer shivered and stared out at his one storey home, the home he'd lived in since he'd been four years old. He watched it as the red and blue of the police bubble lights sputtered off the stucco. He would not cry.
His passenger got in the driver's side of the cruiser and started the car. They pulled out of the driveway and Spencer drowsed, eyes dully watching as other cars sped by. Mike tried to engage him in conversation. Asked if the boy wanted to try the siren, flash the lights. Spencer just shook his head dully.
It was pitch black by the time they got to the local child protection office. Mike led him in, handed him off to a woman in a gray pantsuit who introduced herself as Sally. Spencer nodded dully and held his journal to his chest like a shield. His heart would not slow down its crazy ruckus, but that was okay. He knew the human heart could beat, safely, at over 200 beats a minute for weeks without causing any permanent damage.
"I heard you had a really rough night," Sally said softly as she guided Spencer though the hallways of the building. They walked through what looked like a clinic waiting room and into a room with a couch. In some ways, the room looked like a doctor's office, but there was also the couch, and the walls were covered in childish artwork, the floor littered with toys.
"What- What is this place?" Spencer Reid asked nervously, glancing around. What were the toys for? Even at home, he didn't have toys. He was too smart for toys, apparently.
"We're just going to get you checked out, make sure you're okay..."
Spencer hung his head. Then he would be going home. Then it would be worse.
Someone knocked on the door and Sally called for the mystery knocker to enter. The door handle turned and a young man in a lab coat entered.
Spencer sat in a small chair and stared at his feet, at the splattering off bruises on his shins.
"You must be Spencer," the doctor said, pulling out a chair and sitting on it backwards. Spencer glanced up. Nodded.
"My name is Dr. Cane... I'm just here to make sure you are okay, alright?"
Spencer Reid shrugged. He didn't think, not then, that he really had much of a choice.
"Do you want Sally to stay, or just us guys?"
Spencer Reid sighed loudly. He didn't care. Finally he bowed his head. "Just you." His voice was barely a whisper. He knew that the mirror running one whole side of the wall was for adults to observe him on the other side, anyway, so it didn't really matter.
Sally nodded and stood, excusing herself quietly. "Spencer, I am going to go get some coffee. Would you like anything? Some hot chocolate or something?"
Spencer shrugged. He didn't know what he wanted. He didn't know. Sally smiled anyway and the door clicked shut.
Dr. Cane gingerly began to unbutton his shirt with gloved hands, and Spencer Reid could tell that the young doctor was mentally preparing himself for whatever he might find. Finally he slipped Spencer's shirt off and carefully placed it on another chair next to the boy. His hands gingerly prodded over old and new bruises on his chest, before he finally asked the 8-year-old to turn around.
"This must've really hurt," Dr. Cane said as he fingered the bloody welts on the boy's back. Spencer shrugged again.
The medical exam seemed to take forever. Spencer had to strip, baring each inch of his bruised flesh. The doctor took photographs. Spencer stood shivering, staring red-faced at the floor. Finally he was bandaged up, given a pair of loose fitting sweat pants and a fleece shirt to wear. Handed a small plastic cup for a urine sample.
"W-why do you want to test my urine?" Spencer asked cautiously, holding the clear plastic cylinder in his hands.
"I just want to make sure your kidneys and bladder are okay. Your back was pretty bruised, and sometimes..."
"Oh, hematuria..." Spencer said simply, and shook his head, as if he had made a dumb mistake.
"Actually, yeah, that's precisely why. I want to make sure there's no blood in your urine. That's very good, Spencer."
Spencer nodded, but it didn't feel very good. It felt stupid, and embarrassing. Like not knowing what 4 plus 4 equalled.
"Is there blood in my urine?" Spencer asked. He was sitting in what looked like a large communal waiting room. Except there weren't any other kids.
"There was. We're going to have to watch that. Also, I got a look at your X-rays. Did you know you had some skull fractures and some other broken bones that never healed particularly well?"
Spencer Reid shook his head. He hadn't been absolutely certain, of course, but he had guessed.
"How do you think those happened?"
Spencer Reid shrugged for what felt like the millionth time in the span of 3 hours.
"You're sending me home, now, aren't you?" Spencer asked anxiously, glancing up. The doctor looked at him, surprised. "Home? You mean to your mom and dad?"
The boy nodded slightly, barely daring to make eye contact. Was this how he would be condemned to spend the rest of his life now? Staring down, embarrassed and ashamed to meet other's eyes, this heavy, thick, pressure on his chest, on his soul, like a shroud...
"No, Spencer. I am afraid that's not possible right now. You're not safe there."
Oh. He hadn't been expecting to hear that.
"Where am I going then?"
"I am not sure, right now. I just know you'll be safe."
"The hematuria... you think my kidney is just bruised?"
Dr. Cane smiled at the young prodigy and nodded. "Yeah, either really bad bruising, or a mild to moderate laceration. Anything more serious and you wouldn't be so alert right now."
"You're sure? I heard people can die from bleeding out from kidney damage and..."
"We're keeping a good eye on you, Spencer. But if you start feeling really bad, worse than you do now, or something suddenly changes... we'll know. Okay?"
"Okay."
He was on a bus and Sally had come with him. He was being taken to some cottage in California, some place called The Village. He didn't know much more about the actual facility than that. Due to his IQ and social skills, he wasn't deemed a good candidate for foster care, and due to the extensive nature of his abuse, they believed he needed more one-on-one attention.
"I think you'll really like this place, Spencer. There are lots of kids like you here."
Spencer nodded, not really paying attention. He'd never really met any other kids like him. He was lost in daydreams, wondering how his mother was faring. Was she even taking her Haldol anymore? Had they changed her antipsychotic medication? Had his father gone after his mom?
"And Jason is really looking forward to speaking to you."
He'd heard of Jason. Jason Gideon. He was an FBI profiler and worked for what was called ViCap. He worked in Quantico, Virginia, and when he wasn't working he volunteered at a village populated by children who had been removed from their homes due to abuse.
"Why does he want to speak to me, so much? I thought you said there are lots of kids like me here?" Spencer asked, looking away from the bright, California day speeding by outside.
"Well, by like you... I meant abused. But very few of the kids here are as bright as you, Spencer. You know what your IQ means, don't you?"
"Yeah," Reid said softly. "Just means that in addition to being a social and emotional outlier, I am also an intellectual outlier. Great."
"You're also really compassionate. And funny. And those are traits that Jason is really interested in. Especially in kids who have been abused."
"Why?" Spencer asked, squinting in confusion.
"Well, a lot of abused kids don't... they don't retain their compassion for others, Spencer. And..."
"He studies serial killers, right?" Spencer asked, but it wasn't really a question. Sally looked over at the eight year old and nodded tightly.
"He wants to know why some people develop into sociopaths and others... go the opposite direction. Doesn't he?"
"I think that's part of it, but..."
"So basically I'm a guinea pig to him..."
"No, Spencer, you're not. He likes helping out. He generally enjoys helping the kids at the village... hurt kids."
"Sure," Spencer returned to staring out the window.
"He's really smart, really patient. I think you might really enjoy speaking to him,"
Spencer Reid didn't respond.
Jason Gideon didn't say anything like "You must be Spencer!" or "Nice to meet you, son!" Instead, he watched the bespectacled boy, and finally approached, carrying a chess set under one arm.
"They obviously told you who I am, which is probably why you look like you're about to have a root canal," the man named Jason Gideon remarked blandly, sitting opposite the boy. Spencer Reid shifted and shrugged.
There was a long moment of silence. Finally the child glanced up. Jason Gideon had kind eyes; that was the first thing Spencer Reid noticed. But also penetrating eyes, eyes that seemed capable of reading minds. In a strange, cathartic way, Spencer liked that. It meant- maybe- that he wouldn't have to hide. Or lie. Because this man would see right through him anyway.
"You play?" Jason Gideon asked, craning his head towards the chess set. Spencer Reid stared at it, bit his lower lip nervously. He was smart, but this guy was a psychologist, a profiler and about 30 years older than he was. Maybe more. Hard to tell.
"Why? You'll just beat me."
"Okay, so no chess. How 'bout the basics first. You know my name, but not what I prefer to be called. Most of the kids around here call me Jason, but my colleagues and most of my adult friends call me Gideon..."
"Mighty Warrior," Spencer Reid muttered before he could stop himself. "Or Destroyer. Depending on the interpretation. Both in Hebrew."
"Whereas... Jason means?" Jason Gideon was leaning forward, his eyes sparkling with curiosity for and about the young prodigy. "Do you know?"
"Healer; the lord of salvation... in Hebrew."
"Okay, knowing that, what would you like to call me?"
Spencer Reid thought it over for a moment.
"Gideon. Because I have the sense that what you destroy isn't children and isn't vulnerable, so I am not scared of you. Not all destruction is negative."
Gideon smiled. "And you, what should I call you?"
"Well...everyone calls me Spencer. Because I am a kid. It's of middle English origin and means dispenser of provisions. Hardly appropriate, really..."
"I don't know," Gideon argued, leaning back in the sofa, "I happen to believe that intelligence and knowledge are quite underappreciated provisions, so to speak."
Spencer Reid smiled. Shrugged.
"But... I don't really like it. Spencer I mean. My first name. My... it has...certain memories associated with it and..."
Gideon nodded gently. He'd guessed as much. You didn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Many abused children despised their first names.
"I guess...if you really don't mind me calling you Gideon... you can call me... Reid?"
"Sure thing, Reid." Gideon extended his hand and the boy shook it back. Smiling. A real smile. And he found he could meet Gideon's eyes, even though his own left eye was still so swollen he could barely see out o it, and so turning a hideous purple black with streaks of red.
"Want to see if I am really a mighty warrior?" Gideon nodded towards the chess board. Reid pretended to consider the proposition, but finally nodded.
"Sure. Okay. Want to see if I am really sanguine?"
"Excuse me?" Gideon said, grinning, already starting to set up the pieces.
"Reid, also spelled R-E-E-D, from the Scottish, meaning ruddy or red in complexion. Which could also be called sanguine," the eight year olds' smile was larger now.
"This should be a fun game," Gideon chuckled, "We have one healing mighty warrior and one sanguine dispenser of provisions."
"Yeah."
-FIN-
Hope you liked it, guys. Please review.