Title: Lean on Me
Pairing: Lila/Reid
Rating: T
Author's Notes: Fourth in Deal Breaker Series. Follows Safely, Coming Home, and Pain in the Past. Safely is rated definitely M for sexual scenes and doesn't have to read to understand the story. Coming Home and Pain in the Past are more necessary and not rated as high
Summary: Reid visits Lila after Profiler, Profiled.
After getting Morgan off for murder, Hotch gives the team a few days off, in which Spencer decides to flyto California to spend time with Lila, who's filming for her show. Once, he arrives, he looks around the lot before spotting her trailer. He starts to make his way towards it when the door opens, revealing Lila in a robe and another woman following her. Lila spots him and smiles, walking towards him as well.
"You. Hey you, Kid." Someone from before Spencer calls out.
Lila pauses for a second, raising an eyebrow as the man rushes over to Spencer, who straightens, a little nervous.
"You. Are you an extra?
"A…what?" Spencer says, looking confused before Lila makes her way over to the two. She smiles at the man.
"Mark, this is Spencer Reid…my boyfriend."
Mark looks over him. "Really." His eyebrows raised, his eyes running over the man once again.
"Have you ever considered modeling?" He asks.
"Model…what?" Spencer looks at Lila, eyes wide.
"You have a good bone structure." Mark looks over the man. "No fashion sense and you need a haircut, but there's potential. Turn your head to the side."
Lila laughs and wraps her arms around Spencer's arm. "He's a federal agent, Mark. I think his credibility would be shot if he was in a magazine."
Mark makes a face before shrugging. "Ahh. Well. I need you on set in 20." He nods before moving to talk to someone else.
"You really think I could be a model?" Spencer asks her once the man is far enough away.
She laughs before grabbing his hand. "Come on, let me show you around."
"You didn't answer my question." He says, following her. "And why are you wearing a robe?"
"Because I'm not wearing much under the robe."
Spencer pauses and pulls at her hand, making her stop. She turns to him. "What?"
"You're not wearing much. What are you filming?"
She rolls her eyes. "a pool scene. I kiss a boy in a pool."
Spencer frowns. "But you kissed me in a pool."
She watches him for a second before stepping closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Yes, but I wasn't acting then, now was I?"
"But you are acting now."
"I sure am. You're the only boy I would really want to kiss in a pool."
He smiles a little before she leans up on her toes and kisses him. He blushes and pulls back, looking to see some people watching, taking pictures. She pulls back.
"Sorry, I forgot you're not much for PDA."
"PDA?"
"Public Displays of Affection." She explains, her hands moving over his shoulders.
"I.. there's people taking pictures." He says, lowly, looking over to the photographers. She follows his eyesight before turning back to him.
"Paparazzi, Spence. Kind of comes with the job. Plus, it's not like you've been in the magazines before." She teases.
"Yeah, but I didn't know people were taking pictures then."
She laughs before tugging him to the filming location. "Is that any better?"
He frowns, thinking about it. He looks stumped. "I don't know."
She sits down and the lady following them begins to do her make-up. "So how was Chicago?"
Ever since Nathan Harris, he had been letting her in on the cases a little more. She saw it as an earning of trust. He looked at his shoes and shrugged.
"The cops arrested Morgan for murder. We had to dig into his life. We learned things he didn't want us to know…things I don't think we should have found out."
Lila frowns. "Like what?"
Spencer shakes his head, but she can tell by how he fidgets and stares at his shoes, it's something that bothers him. The make-up artist tells her to stand, which she does, taking off the robe. He hears Spencer breath in sharply and looks at him, amused. His eyes are on her body before she laughs, getting his eyes back to her face.
"That… that's a…nice bathing suit." His eyes stay on her face for a few seconds before falling back to the small red bikini.
She laughs again before making her way over to him. "You like it?"
He swallows a little difficultly. "I…uh, I think it's… it's…very nice."
"Nice. You've said that twice now."
"It's kind of revealing." He says, with a tight smile.
"It's for the show, Spence. I'm a hot volleyball player from the Midwest, trying to make it pro. And sometimes that means wearing slutty bathing suits to get the hot guys to look at me rather than my team mates."
He raises his eyebrows. "How do guys have anything to do with volleyball?"
She laughs and wraps her arms around his neck. "I don't know. Are you going to stay on set and watch me make out with this guy or do you want to go back to my trailer?"
He looks over her shoulder to see the man who is also getting ready to film. He makes a face, the man looks a little like Morgan. She grabs his face, pulling it to look at her.
"Hey. I can hear that brain ticking from here and stop it. I don't want that, I want you, okay? And I want you to go sit in my trailer."
"Maybe I want to watch." He says, a little defiant.
"Maybe I've decided that I don't want you to watch."
His eyes move back to the man before biting at his bottom lip slightly. "Okay."
She smiles. "Okay." She leans up again and kisses him. "I'll be there soon, alright?"
He nods, leaning his forehead against hers and the make-up lady beside her sighs, frustrated. Lila smiles. "I think you're ruining my make-up, Spence."
He pulls back before looking at the woman. "Sorry." He looks bashfully at her, before the lady retouches her make-up and Lila moves away to talk to the director. He watches her for a second before walking towards her trailer.
When she enters an hour and a half later, he's reading her script, chewing on his thumb. He looks up as she taps his foot with a smile. He smiles back, setting the papers on his lap.
"How'd it go?"
"Eh." She shrugs. "I've had better." She winks.
She sits next to him, resting her legs on his lap. "So… Morgan."
He runs his hands over her legs and sighs. "It's not really my place to tell, Lila. Bad things happened to him in his past that explains some of his personality."
"He was molested?"
He looks at her, confused. "What? How do.."
She shrugs. "You said he was promiscuous. I…. most people who sleep around are trying to prove something, right?. I…guessed."
He studies her. "You guessed?"
"What? I've read some of your books, when you were working."
He keeps his eyes on her. "You read some of my books."
Lila watches him, seeing the way he's looking at her. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't use your profiling stuff on me."
"I…" He pauses. "I don't have any books at my apartment about that issue, Lila."
She moves her legs away from him and standing up. She doesn't say anything as she walks towards the mini-fridge and grabs a water bottle. She leans against the counter, opening the bottle and taking a sip before she purses her lips.
"Well, shit."
He doesn't say anything, just watching her. She takes another sip before moving back to the couch. She lets out a big sigh before starting to talk/
"When I was eight, my uncle on my mother's side molested me." She says before taking a sip of her water. He watches her, confused. She speaks about it so matter-of-factly that he's thrown a little at first.
"I told my mother, she didn't believe me, so I was scared to tell my dad, but.. I did, because… I told my dad everything. He and my uncle got in a big fight and the police were called. My dad told them about what I had said and I went to the hospital. They ran some tests, found out I was telling the truth and my uncle was put in custody. My mother put me into therapy and I got over it, but me and my mom were never close and my parents divorced a couple years later. My brother and sister stayed with my mom and I moved in with my dad, but you knew that."
He opens his mouth to speak before closing it again, resulting in a nod, instead. She sips her drink again. "I… I was in some group therapy sessions and I saw how people's abuse affected them, some with sex, others with drugs. I wasn't going to let someone take control of my life. I…wasn't going to let him take a part of me away, so…. That's…it. That's how I knew."
She turns to look at him before sipping her drink again. "I wasn't going to tell you, because it doesn't matter. It doesn't change who I am."
"It does matter. It adds to your-" he clears his throat as her eyes slit slightly. "It matters."
"It doesn't matter, Spence. I'm still the same person I was 15 minutes ago, before you knew."
He stares at her. "Well, of course. The abuse happened 16 years ago."
"I mean.." She pauses, thinking about it. She frowns. "Right." She watches him.
"So you don't think I'm….broken or anything?"
His eyebrows furrow. "No, why would I think you're broken? You seem to have handled the experience very well, actually. If I were profiling you, which I wouldn't, because I'm not allowed to." He pauses to look at her, pointedly. "I would say that because you got into therapy right after your abuse, that you were able to deal with it in a mature, safe way and were able to handle the situation. Just as you did with Maggie."
"I still see a therapist, occasionally." She says, quietly, her fingers moving over the rim of the bottle.
He nods. "There's nothing wrong with that."
She smiles and rests her head on his shoulder. "Thank you."
He looks at her, confused. "For what?"
"For being you." She kisses his cheek and he smiles, slightly oblivious.