Author's Note: I recently got out of the hospital, after nearly a week of feeling like death would be preferable to all the antibiotics and open-backed robes. As a result, I've been reading plenty of Fanfic in my too-common free time, and listening to lots of music; thus, when I stumbled upon the work of pure art that is "Solivagant" by silverwrym, I felt so inspired by her character study of Spencer Reid that I decided to do my own. And, since I cannot seem to write anything without putting "Revelations" references in there, I just decided to make the whole thing a reflection, as it were. That's the point.
Kudos: A bajillion hats off to silverwrym and her work (of which I am obviously a huge fangirl), which inspired and motivated me to finish this when I was being lazy in bed. And, of course, thanks to Imagine Dragons and their tear-jerker "Demons," for which this piece is named and dedicated to, additionally. Dunno what I would do without them all . . .
Warnings: Ma-a-ajor spoilers for all of Season Two of Criminal Minds, especially that great ole' "Revelations." Duh.
Disclaimer: I own the idea and time put into this story; however, I own nothing recognizeable. Happy?
Review if you want, don't if you don't. Either way, shanks for reading.
Take care to enjoy!
. . .
It was something of a joke between Spencer Reid and Derek Morgan, how different the two of them were, in spite of their being best friends. Like black and white – not that that was one of their issues – they were polar opposites that somehow complemented one another, completed each other. Spencer and Derek helped carry one another's baggage on the dark days, and shared jokes and taunts on those all-too rare good ones.
At such times, however, the former man often took great pleasure in trying to educate his colleague about things like animals, plants, governmental reports, Star Trek – anything he could wrap his brilliant mind around.
In return, Derek often liked to introduce Spencer to more 'common' things – things like social cues, popular culture, and, of course, real music. Such lessons were often harried, and generally left the genius somewhat confused, even if the knowledge had been filed away in his brain. He was off, and it was complex for him – however, it made the driving time on cases go faster, and so he never complained.
It was on one of these such cases, where, when making the trek to St. Louis, Missouri, Derek had popped in a CD of his for background noise, and began shooting ideas about their profile back and forth with Reid.
However, a stop for gas made it necessary to get out of the car, and with Morgan's promise to pick him up a coffee still ringing in his ears, Reid was left to ponder the Earth spinning on it's axis in solitude for a few moments.
Without Derek there, there was nothing to distract him when the music started.
Well, actually, it wasn't music. Just a voice that wasn't there, and then suddenly was. No introduction, no preparation – just agonized words blaring out of the speaker, surprising Reid so much that he jumped and squeaked, red flooding his face before he turned back front, trying to pay attention to the file he held on his lap, rather than his perpetual jumpiness that earned him far too many teasing remarks from his team.
Unfortunately, the words being sung somehow began to creep into his brain.
"When the days are cold,
and the cards all fold"
A preparation. A storyline. A tale. Honesty being built, the beginning of a winding road – these were the words that were building a narrative, telling some sad lines.
And yet, the irony that had Spencer twisting the poetic syllables in his head was the fact that all of these lines seemed to be speaking to an end of some sort – of the end, really.
When the days were cold . . . like in winter, the saddest of all seasons, a time of darkness and dying, as if the finale were drawing near, as if things were shutting down . . .
When the cards all folded. An obvious reference that had the corners of Reid's mouth wanting to tug up in a smile, so wonton were his memories. A Las Vegas-raised boy through and through, he knew all too well the meaning of the cards being laid down on a table, faces unshowing. It meant surrendering. Quitting. Giving in. Giving up.
Spencer Reid hated the idea of ever giving up. To him, it was the very pinnacle of a man's weakness, to not even try.
If there was one thing Spencer Reid was known for, it was his utter determination to always try.
"and the saints we see
are all made of gold . . ."
A Biblical reference. How apposite.
Spencer Reid was not a religious man. He had never been able to completely trust – no enjoy – the idea of a definitively smaller cosmic significance, one denoting that an alternate being, a God, was responsible for all that he was and would ever be, done and would ever do, in the world. No – Spencer Reid was a man of facts, one of science.
But the mention of sainthood, of golden idols that came crashing down, when all that was holy or good was not as it seemed, when the perceived perfection was – as the song had only just denoted – the end, it did nothing that could comfort Reid in the facts he so sought for release.
Because suddenly, as it did when anything of religious tabernacle was mentioned these days, the first place his mind went was to a dark cabin in Georgia – to a cold February night. To a wooden chair fitted with handcuffs and the smell of burning fish hearts.
"When your dreams all fail,
and the ones we hail
are the worst of all – "
He tried to shake his head, tried to force the dream from his mind – that was not a place he would ever be able to visit calmly, not now, not ever. It was an experience he had only ever told to a bottle of Dilaudid, the needle poised precariously over his arm.
Now he told no one.
But his dreams didn't fail. No, because when the singer sung low about the one he hailed, especially with his mind beginning to lock up at such a painful point in his past, the first person that came to Spencer Reid's mind was the one person it pained him most to think about.
Gideon hadn't been the worst of all – he hadn't meant to get Spencer killed. Even briefly. He was just doing his job, he cared greatly for Reid –
And then he left. That voice that was always there, never quite letting the genius forget that for the umpteenth time in his life, someone he had cared for, someone he had trusted, someone he had needed – had vanished on him. Again.
And suddenly, a cold fist was gripping his heart.
"and the blood's run stale."
Another thought of finality, the old wounds being washed away.
But maybe nothing was final. Who was to say that those stains wouldn't simply fade, perhaps invisible to the naked eye, but still always be there, pulsing and pounding and just existing in general, never growing, never straying. Just being.
Like bruises that wouldn't heal.
Unconsciously, Reid thumbed the permanent puncture wounds in the crook of his right arm.
"I wanna hide the truth."
The doctors had told him that, especially-light skin and ever-slight anemia, the holes – and all that they signified, he would bitterly think – would be on his skin forever.
Then they told him that they were sorry.
"I wanna shelter you."
He didn't know what he would call them. Some people would say scars, others lesions.
How fitting. Scars came from the same root as the word scare.
Lesion was the base-locution for the word lesson.
Oh, irony.
"But with the beast inside
there's nowhere we can hide."
The beast inside . . . almost sounded like something Morgan would say. As if the monsters that they hunted for a living weren't enough, as if danger roamed dark not only on the outside of their world, in physicality, but as if the most evil, vile, untoward things resided in their own minds. In his own mind.
Here there be dragons.
Reid shuddered, but not because the thought was so foreign to him. Rather, the idea made too much sense, especially with the place hi mind was in right now, back several Super-Bowls ago.
He had seen debilitating disease in his mother, cowardice in his father, fear and faltering and lies and loathing surrounding him at work each day . . . Who was to say those weren't the personal beasts of a few good men?
And himself . . . Though there was no one around to hear it, Reid cringed in shame, red flooding his cheeks as he thought of his own monster. Of how he had tried to hide all those years ago. Of how he had continued to try even after Tobias Hankle was dead and buried, and his sinking was destroying the people around him.
Those lines were right – even with a daily dose of drug, the memories and feelings, the guilt and anger and shame, always came back, because they weren't something he could fight off or talk down. Not something he could ignore, because in life's often-cruel way, they were a deeply interwoven part of him.
Here there be dragons.
"No matter what we breed,
we still are made of greed."
And then there was that hopelessness again, sweeping Reid up when he was already struggling with a tide of despair, desperately trying to yank himself away from the memories.
Was that greed, not wanting to remember right now? Or forever again, for that matter? Was it selfish to just want to bury the pain down again, underneath promises of 'fine' and happier moments in his life? Was it wrong to just want to forget?
"This is my kingdom come.
This is my kingdom come."
Kingdom come. Hallowed words from one of the most well-known of all religious texts. Matthew, 6:10. Thy will be done.
It spoke not of fate, but in deliverance. Meriting. Of people being dealt their cards in life as a fair lot, of being awarded nothing more or less that what they had earned. Of getting what was coming their way.
Getting what they deserved.
"When you feel my heat,
look into my eyes . . ."
So strange, he found that. Though Spencer Reid was perfectly capable of finding attraction – his eyes sought out beauty as much as anyone else – he had never been able to find the same fascination with eyes that other people had.
Oh, certainly, he could describe them – detail the origin in which they were first used romantically, explain the theory of them being 'portals to the soul' to whomever was within hearing range – but he didn't see it himself.
Everyone, from Garcia and JJ all the way to Erin Strauss and his own mother (and even Hotch and Rossi at one point, come to think of it) had told Reid that his most astounding feature was his eyes. That they were lovely, innocent, expressive. Kind and caring. Beautiful. Perfect.
But even now, looking in the mirror as he listened to the lamenting words, he couldn't see that. All he saw were two rounded almond-shapes, hazel orbs flecked with bits of green and gold, staring right back at him.
"It's where my demons hide.
It's where my demons hide."
Where his demons hid? As if you could actually see what a person had been through merely by making eye contact!
At the thought, while Reid continued to observe himself in the mirror, he saw just the slightest shifting of colors, saw the flash in his eyes that instantly jolted him back, because his expression had, without actually changing, somehow morphed from one of content curiosity to one of trembling rage.
Here there be dragons.
"Don't get too close,
it's dark inside.
It's where my demons hide.
It's where my demons hide."
He had never liked people getting near him in any manner. He flinched away from physical contact, and outright pushed when someone wanted to delve inside of his head. And in a way, though he never would have thought to express it in such terms before, it was because of some sort of darkness inside of him.
Having carried secrets for the entirety of his life, Spencer Reid was used to shouldering things on his own. It didn't mean that he liked it, but it meant that he was somewhat used to it. That he wouldn't want anyone to come near, too near, and see his pain inside. His demons.
Here there be dragons.
"At the curtain's call,
it's the last of all;
when the lights fade out – "
There they went again, talking about the end, the darkness creeping in as the lights faded and muted down for one most simple, most formal, most final act.
Except, somehow, Spencer didn't see death as all that final. He had died once, he would know.
It hadn't been cold and dark, like his job had always made him believe it would be. He had been bathed instantly in a warmth, and light had seeped into his bones, so deep that he had felt and ambivalent and completely relaxing rush of euphoria. Peace. As if nothing bad had ever happened, and nothing bad ever would.
Death had been . . . nice.
"all the sinners crawl."
With his last thought still fresh in his mind, the uncaring line slammed into Reid like a two-ton truck, suddenly placing him head over heels right into the center of his heart that he kept locked away, pretended it didn't exist – the memories of that night.
Despite the stuffiness of Morgan's SUV, Reid wrapped his arms tightly around himself – because, to the genius, it was no longer a Friday midday-drive being used to dissect cases and talk profiles; it was suddenly a Wednesday afternoon, freezing cold and somewhere in Georgia, where he was strapped down, bloody and beaten, unknowing of just exactly how many more minutes he had left to live.
Reid shivered as the song continued its unintentional reckoning to him.
"So they dug your grave."
Old English tradition dictated that family was supposed to dig or build the grave in which a fallen member's body was to be buried. It was to evoke feelings of love, trust, and security, to guide the poor soul onto whatever came next. If there was no family, then a grave had to be blessed before being filled.
So simple, and yet . . .
No one had dug Spencer's grave for him. He had been handed a shovel, and, on his hands and knees, had crawled – filled in with Charles' impatient kicks and taunts – and eventually been dragged to the spot that had been determined to hold his rotting corpse. He had stuck the blade in, inch by horrible inch, he had made the shape that he knew deep down would never be big enough to hold his lanky body, he had been the one holding back tears all the while.
It had been Spencer Reid, and Spencer Reid alone, who had murmured a small portion of the Bible as he worked, thinking that maybe the end wouldn't be worse than living like this, as he prepared to die and prayed to a God he wasn't even sure existed.
"And the masquerade
will come calling out
at the mess you made."
He would never forget the sheer high that relief gave him when he had seen the flash of searchlights and heard, barely audible in the distance, the call of his name.
He didn't know what he was supposed to call what had happened that night – over those days, or the too many evenings after, when he would sit and stare at the television or at the wall or out the window, seeing but not seeing things as he loaded needle after delicious needle of pain-free unconsciousness.
Was it an incident? A series of them?
A mistake? A problem? A masquerade?
A mess?
All of the above, perhaps.
"Don't wanna let you down,
but I am hell-bound;
though this is all for you
don't wanna hide the truth . . ."
Letting people fall, letting them down, failing them and himself in that relentless quest that he called life . . .
Someone who always tried hard, who was irked by failures and determined to give everything his all always, Spencer Reid was not someone who took the thought of hurting someone lightly. Even in the field he worked in, some of the people he met and the things he saw, couldn't sway him on the idea that it was okay to inflict pain upon someone. Emotional distress was of the worst upset – to him, at least.
And yet, as the beat of the music continued to pour around his ears, Spencer Reid saw nothing but a list of all the people who he had hurt running through his mind, over and over and over again. His mother. His father. Emily Prentiss. Morgan, Hotch, Penelope. JJ, Elle, a young Ashley Seaver. Even Gideon – especially after that night.
He could have thought about how each of these people – except for his mother, never his mother – had done their own harm to him, made their own marks and left their own scars and burns in his memories.
Perhaps it was his youth's determined belief in optimism. Perhaps he was too good at burying things. But Spencer Reid never blamed anyone else for his troubles.
Only himself.
"No matter what we breed,
we still are made of greed."
He had been the one destroyed, the one knocked over kept down for the longest time that night, but . . .
. . . But what made a single tear roll down the cheek of the BAU's resident genius as the beat of the drums swelled in that car was the thought that even though he was technically the one who had been damaged all those years ago . . .
. . . Was that thought, that knowledge that, after the life had faded from Tobias's eyes, after the EMT's and papers, the visit to the hospital, morgue, and eventually home . . .
. . . after all of that, the only one who had still been hurting the people around him had been him.
Only himself.
"This is my kingdom come.
This is my kingdom come."
Kingdom come.
The treatis disposed upon the deserving.
Did I get what I deserved? He had wondered countless times, knowing that there was a logical reason behind everything.
But sometimes, he wanted to believe as Garcia believed, and think that there was a destiny behind the way life went, as well. Some sort of planned procession of fate, manifest destiny, a bigger plan, kismet, karma. And he couldn't help but wonder, upon those waning days when the thought so struck him.
Did I get what I deserved?
Though the thought went unanswered and ignored, Spencer was never quite able to drown out the resounding echo it left in his head, the thought bouncing around like a fatal bullet.
Did Tobias get what he deserved?
"When you feel my heat,
look into my eyes;
it's where my demons hide."
Once more, the genius's gaze slid over the mirror, bumping and rolling over every imperfection he could see. Pale skin, gaunt cheeks, bags beneath his –
He stopped cold. His eyes.
"It's where my demons hide."
Where had the tears come from?
"Don't get too close;
it's dark inside.
It's where my demons hide.
It's where my demons hide."
For a heart-stopping second, Reid's gaze was locked with the resounding image on the mirror, the horror in his eyes perfectly complimenting the sorrow and guilt and anger in his reflection's. He turned his head ever so slightly, biting his lower lip to keep it from trembling.
In the mirror, his alter-image did the same.
The young doctor's eyelids fluttered shut for a very brief moment, and he used the precious second to try and gather himself. Holding himself together, if only by a few strings of thin logic through an entire sheer skin of discord, was something that Spencer Reid did very well.
And in the mirror, his alter-image did the same.
He could feel his breath rattling, the strong pulse and heartbeat beneath the skin. Never one to touch himself, Spencer was slightly stunned to feel how tightly his fingers were gripping the pale skin beneath his wrist, cutting off blood-flow and leaving his hands tingling at the contact. He could see the green and blue veins running through his arm, and marveled at the proximity to his own mortality that he held in his hands. Here, like back in that Godforsaken shack of nightmares, here right now he could die, or he could live. He could knock himself out to forget, or pinch any nerve endings he could find to bring in the pain that was as familiar as an old friend if hardly desired.
Eyes flitting to meet the hard, steely gaze of his reflection, Reid felt more than saw his smooth palms and lovely pianist fingers skimming up to brush over his cheekbones – a caress of comfort, so it would appear to anyone caring to look.
But, in actuality, Spencer was trying to get a moment in which to force the trembling in his fingers to go down.
He roughly swiped the saltwater from his lower eyelids, hating himself for being – as Charles's voice consistently reminded him in his haunted dreams – weak.
In the mirror, his alter-image did the same.
"They say it's what you make –
I say it's up to fate."
But, see, that was exactly why Reid knew he had to distance himself from the words still spilling out of the SUV's speakers. Right there. Because no matter what memories he was forcibly being dragged into, no matter how significant his trail of thought – or loss of it, really – he knew therein that ultimately, it wasn't supposed to be this way.
Honore de Balza had once claimed that men of action were inclined to fatalism, while men of thought believed in providence.
Even before the month of the Super Bowl in 2007, Spencer Reid had always known he was a man of thought – and the actions that followed made him a cluster of courage, as well. He was, in regards to that favorite quote of his, a mixture of both worlds, a little bit of everything.
A freak.
"It's woven in my soul;
I need to let you go."
But he knew the truth now – always had.
He would never be able to let what happened in Georgia go. When Tobias had simultaneously taken him and saved him, he had created a bond between the two. And when Reid had simultaneously killed and rescued his abductor, he had solidified the thin strings of that connection forever.
Their fate was sealed, hearts intertwined. There would be no forgetting, no forgiving, no loss nor gain.
In his own heart, the one he could almost feel slowing and breaking, Reid felt a tug of the ever-present sympathy for a man who had hurt him, for someone he barely knew.
There would be no letting go . . .
. . . because there were demons in his soul.
"Your eyes, they shine so bright –
I wanna save that light."
Reid remembered once hearing a quote that said the reason a child's eyes were so bright was because innocence made them shine in beauty. Like a glow that would call the evil of the world to them, as, for some reason, one's wanton goal in life was to die with a dullness in their eyes, that precious naivete long gone, stripped away by the cruelty of time and knowledge.
Again, Reid found his eyes drifting towards the mirror, once more catching his own gaze.
His eyes still shined – just a little, little. He remembered Garcia once telling him that he used to sparkle, but Spencer still couldn't see that in the depths as he stared. What he saw was a mixture of colors, a mild flicker as his pupils dilated, taking in every inch of his features. The gaunt skin, the slightly-trembling lips.
The dried tear tracks.
"I can't escape this now,
unless you show me how."
There was no escaping. There would be no saving.
Reid was who he was, what he was, because of everything that had happened to him, by him, and for him in the course of his very short thirty years of life. There were times, late at night when he couldn't sleep, where the genius would stare at the ceiling, memorizing very bump and crack on it, thinking about things he never told the rest of his team about. Tobias, and that night. Every dose of drugs he'd had forced on him – and every one he'd wanted. Whether he was truly kind, or smart, or brave. Whether or not he was a good man, a good person. A human being.
Often, those late-night reflections left him more unable to sleep than he had been before.
"When you feel my heat,
look into my eyes.
It's where my demons hide.
It's where my demons hide."
Vaguely, on the outer periphery of his thoughts, Reid registered footsteps fast approaching the car, and tried fruitlessly to tug himself from his induced state of latent remorse. But, as though hypnotized, the young man couldn't move, not even to blink, as the harsh drumbeats continued, and that beautiful, terrible voice bellowed out the last words in his powerful, commandeering voice.
"Don't get too close!
It's dark inside.
It's where my demons hide.
It's where my demons hide."
Most songs, especially ones considered 'pop' music, would end with a person's voice lamenting, and then a brief interlude of music to transition the listener's subconscious into awareness that music was, in fact, coming to an end.
But not this one. Just as it had come in, the music made a swift exit and ended on the last word, cutting off the stipulating flow of words and memories that had Reid coasting on an emotional roller coaster, and leaving him hanging with nothing but a slight rush of misplaced adrenaline, the feelings still pulsing beneath his skin like the bubbles in soda, a hair's width from bursting out and covering everything he knew, ruining everything he knew.
Still staring distantly at the radio in front of him, Reid didn't see the hand coming towards him, jumped backward, his breath hitching loudly, when skin made contacts with other skin.
He turned around, a nervous look adorning his boyish features, and only relaxed his hunched shoulders when he saw that it was Derek Morgan who had entered the car, two cups of coffee in his hands, a small paper bag with grease stains on his lap, and a concerned, brotherly look on his face.
"Thanks," Reid said hollowly, reaching forward in an almost-mechanical motion to take the proffered beverage from his friend and coworker.
Derek let the coffee go easily enough, though the expression in his eyes told Reid he wasn't going to get off with anything so easily. Averting his eyes, Spencer kept up his sudden fascination and preoccupation with his beverage, sipping slowly and repeatedly as Derek stuck the keys in the SUV's engine, and revved up the car.
They swung out of the gas station parking lot, and as Morgan waited for a break in the traffic to – well, break in, he glanced again over at Reid, and raised his eyebrow.
"Reid – "
The young genius shook his head. "I'm fine."
"I didn't even – "
"I know you didn't," Reid interrupted, shaking his head. "And I'm asking you not to. I'm okay. Really."
Morgan's hand snaked over, lightly touching his friend's shoulder in a manner that was almost as soft as the voice in which he spoke. "You look like you saw a ghost, man." He paused, wary. "Are you . . . feeling okay?"
Tugging up one corner of his mouth in a way that could maybe generously be called a smile, Reid kept his eyes on the dashboard as he took a moment to respond. "I was just . . . thinking about some demons . . . I'm fine."
His voice still sounded a little hollow, and Morgan opened his mouth as if to speak again, but the young genius beat him to it.
"The music just made me start considering some . . . some stuff, Morgan. I'm okay, though – I'm not going to take pills or stop drinking coffee or walk between you and an armed unsub. I was just . . . a little lost. I'm okay." Reid's voice cracked just slightly as he finished his words.
"I just – "
"Please," Reid spoke, his voice cracking with entreaty, "please just let it go, Derek. Please."
He never called him Derek.
Morgan thought, for just a moment, about pushing a bit more, forcing his best friend and pseudo-baby-brother to talk a bit more, but a single look at the expression on Reid's face had him forcing his mouth shut, and he made like the other agent, keeping his eyes on the road and taking a sip of terrible gas-station coffee.
After a few more minutes on the road, as thunder was starting to rumble overhead, Morgan finally spoke.
"What are you thinking for a geographical profile for this guy?"
Reid took a moment to answer, and when he did, his voice was considerably more controlled, cheerful, even, as he began explaining the nuances of narrowing down a huge city like Saint Louis.
Morgan nodded along, continuing to drink from his cup and occasionally meet his friends eyes as he "Hmm'd" here and there, carefully watching Reid's face for any sign of the earlier distress.
It never made another appearance.
In the seat next to him, Reid had tugged his mask firmly back over his inner turmoil, grateful for Morgan backing off, and even more grateful for the time to shield himself from more of the outer and inner cruelties eating away at him.
No one needed to see what lay beneath Spencer Reid's surface.
There be dragons, there.