Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or Supernatural. Trust me, if I did Reid would be tortured a lot more, Morgan/Reid would be cannon and so would Destiel.
There are a lot of crossovers with Reid as a friend of the Winchesters, so I decided to put my own spin to it. The main reason why I decided to post is this is because I literally just watched Revelations again, and because I read the Informant!Series and they inspired me. Seriously, if you want some good Criminal Minds/Supernatural Crossover (SuperMinds? CriminalNatural? SuperCriminal? NaturalMinds? Which one?), read that series. It is amazing.
Warning: Probably a lot of typos and spelling mistakes 'cause I'm typing this up late at night… Also, slash. Nothing strong or anything, but there will be mentions of Ethan/Reid, Morgan/Reid, and some strong Destiel hints. Also, in this story Reid is younger than Dean and Sam… I thought it would make more sense this way. Enjoy~
Spencer Reid could remember his first hunt with clarity. Not only because he had an eidetic memory (no, that wasn't the reason, though it certainly did help), but just because you don't forget your first hunt. No words can describe the feeling of facing your first ghost, all logic telling you that creature should not be there, and yet there it is, right in front of you. No, no words could describe it… Though exhilarating may come close to it. But even that is wrong. As a son of a Literature Professor, Reid likes to be precise with his use of words. Exhilaration implies that the experience was joyful. It wasn't unpleasant, but it wasn't joyful either. I mean, the satisfaction of having accomplished his mission certainly made the young genius feel proud, but at the time he was mostly scared.
He was seven years old when it happened. Seven years, 3 months, 19 days, 20 hours, and 12 minutes, to be precise. His father was away to visit his family, who never really liked Diana Reid. Spencer refused to leave his mother home alone, so William Reid went to enjoy his vacation by himself.
Diana had told Spencer about the supernatural before. Besides reading the course material she had prepared for her classes, she would also read him facts about the world unknown to most. By six he knew the names of most creatures, the warning signs to look out for, and how to kill them. Though he learned later on that knowing how to kill werewolves and actually shooting them with a silver bullet are two very different things. Especially considering how silver bullets are less accurate than the typical lead bullet. It's the reason why most Hunters first practice with the former instead of the latter (better have an accurate shot with the one that will really kill the shape shifter, right?)
Either way, Diana had told Spencer all about the Supernatural. Sometimes at night she would go for hunts in Las Vegas, and then she would return right before sunrise, wake up Spencer and tell him all about her adventures. He used to dream about the day he would be able to hunt with her. It would be a way to be closer to his mother, maybe he would be able to understand her mind a little bit more, and eventually find a cure for her illness. Well, that never really happened, but that isn't what our tale is about, is it?
With William away, Diana felt it was finally time for Spencer to go on his first hunt. It was supposed to be a very simple Salt and Burn case; something small. There was this local girl who lost her boyfriend to a car accident where the driver had been drunk. The man was released, and the girl, burning with rage, went to his house with a gun. The two struggled for the weapon, and she ended up dead. The man was again acquitted, innocent since it was self-defense. Now the girl's ghost haunted the area, killing those who had claimed the lives' of others but were declared innocent for one reason or another. It was simple enough. They knew her name and knew where she was buried. That night they packed some rock salt, accelerant, matches, a couple of shovels, and headed out towards the cemetery.
What they didn't expect was for the ghost to fight back. While digging the grave Diana and Spencer heard the cry of a young woman coming from the road on the other side of the wall. Diana, fearing the ghost was about to claim another victim, went to investigate, leaving little Spencer to continue the digging. It took about a minute and twenty-seven seconds for Spencer to hear his own mother's cry, and realize, with a heavy heart, that the ghost had her.
He continued digging, but there is only so much a seven year old kid can do. Occasionally he would peer out of the grave, trying to see if someone was coming. For Las Vegas, that cemetery was awfully dark. Spencer had a small lantern with him, illuminating the dirt, but that was not enough to appease his fear. He continued to dig, ignoring the worms that fell on his hair every time he threw dirt away from the hole. His breathing was labored, his grip on the shovel slipping due to the sweat in his hands. Still, he kept digging. A part of his mind wondered where his mother was, if she was okay, what the ghost had done to her. He wanted to go looking for her, but a part of him, the rational part, said that he would do more good to her by continuing the hunt. The sooner he salted and burned the girl's remains, the sooner Diana Reid would be returned to her son.
He had just hit the coffin when it happened. She grabbed him by the hair, long even at that age, and yanked him upwards. He wondered how she could hold him if she was only a phantom, but that thought was quickly interrupted by his body hitting a grave a few feet away. It was only a bruised rib, he would take much worse later on in his life, but to a little seven year old, a bruised rib may be the equivalent to a knife in the heart. His body felt heavy, he let out a wail of pain, and his eyes were watered with salty tears. His glasses had been lost midflight, and as the young boy stood up, he had difficulty making out the shapes of everything around him.
There was silence again, and for the first time Spencer realized how agonizing the lack of sound can be. He turned his head from side to side, but it was useless; he could not see a thing. Still, there was a job to be done. His mother needed his help and he would provide it, whenever she needed. He was not weak.
He walked towards where he believed the grave he was digging was; ears alert for any sort of sound. In his small hands was Diana's iron knife, ready to be used in case danger presented itself. For a while the only sound heard was that of his breath, his sobs, and that distinct one of shoes meeting with wet grass.
Then he was hit again. This time he was pretty sure something may have broken, but he couldn't figure out what. He wasn't a doctor yet, after all. Still, while laying on the floor, he could see, well, sort of, his mother's backpack, the one where the materials needed were. So he couldn't be that far from his destination, could he? He looked up and saw the ghost, calmly walking towards him, maniac grin spread across her face. The fact that she was so calm, walking so slowly, was perhaps what terrified him most of all: She didn't consider him a threat. She was so confident that she walked towards him, creating a psychological torture, making the young child wonder anxious to when he would finally meet his end. Now that he looks back, he kind of smiles at himself; even at that age he was already profiling, though they were ghosts, not criminals.
He stretched his arms and felt the edge of the hole. With as much strength as he could conjure, Spencer pulled himself towards the whole, legs tying themselves around the straps of the backpack, and then his body fell 7 feet into the grave.
The ghost still didn't hurry, clearly not worried about what a boy who could barely see without his glasses could do. Still, Spencer kept on digging, frantically, until he was able to uncover the coffin and open.
Her body was still fresh (well, sort of). There was still meat in her bones, though the smell had become intolerable. His vomit ended up covering her entire face, her pretty lips that were slightly parted now wet with something that had an orange-brown color, some parts of it falling inside her mouth. The smell got worse, and the sight was grotesque, but Spencer was able to stop himself and focus on the job.
He sat down by the feet of the coffin, her body displayed in front of him. He quickly fetched the salt and spread everywhere he could see. He then poured gasoline all over, and tried to climb back up. His feet kept sliding, and it took him a good minute before he was back to the surface, all the while his mind wondering why hasn't she stopped me yet?
When he was finally outside, that was when the ghost started to realize how serious the situation was. Before she was just playing with him, like a cat would with a mouse before killing it and leaving it as a present in their owner's pillow. The look of horror in her face would have been funny, if young Spencer wasn't so scared. He quickly lit the match, and before she could leap towards him and strangle him (if her outstretched hands were anything to go by) he threw the match inside the open grave, successfully completing his first hunt.
Diana appeared a few seconds later. She returned his glasses and hugged him, telling him over and over again how proud she was of her little genius. And Spencer never forgot the sense of accomplishment he felt that day. Not only did he successfully managed to kill (could he really say kill?) a ghost, but he also managed to save many lives. From that moment on, his fate as a FBI Profiler was sealed.
He had many hunts after that. Some his mother would accompany him, other she wouldn't. It became more of a Spencer thing to do when she got worse. It was also a way he found to avoid bullies at school, a way to distract his mind. He learned how to shoot from the Winchester boys, two hunters a few years older than he was, but willing to teach the kid anything he wanted. Bobby was related to his mother somehow (maybe a cousin?), and that's how the three met. Dean would teach Spencer anything that required physical strength. He told the boy that just because he was a twig it did not mean he had to be weak. Know how to take down your opponent by using his own strength against them, that's what Dean would say. Sam would teach him about different creatures they encountered (Dean would tell stories too, but Spencer always found Sam's version slightly more realistic than that of the elder Winchester… slightly), explaining how they were able to kill them. Sometimes he even let Spencer read from John's journals.
It was a shock when the two became suspects of the FBI. Spencer remembers clearly that day, when he realized Dean and Sam were fugitives. He was still a teenager, still young, still taking care of Diana. He wanted to do something to help them, but knew there was nothing he could. What would he tell the FBI? That what killed those people were monsters and Dean and Sam were simply trying to stop it? Yeah, like they would believe that. There was nothing he could to clear up the Winchesters' names, or so he thought.
He was talking with his mother's doctor when realization came to him. Someone inside the FBI could provide a great help to hunter. Not only to inform them of possible cases, but also to make sure the federal agents stayed off their tracks. If Spencer worked for the FBI, then maybe he could erase all the files they had on Dean and Sam, and make sure that wherever the brothers were, the FBI would be in the opposite direction. And he would also be able to help people.
He chose the BAU, not only because profiling sounded fascinating, but because they solved cases all across the country. That meant that he would have files for cases happening in all of the United States, and it meant that Dean and Sam continue to travel around doing their thing without worries.
He told his plan to his college roommate (and eventually first boyfriend) Ethan. He was also a hunter. Spencer learned that on their first day, when he saw the boy carrying a small bag with rock salt. The two were ecstatic to meet each other. They would hunt together. It was a nice. Spencer had someone who he could share everything with, someone who he could trust, and someone who, most importantly, could have his back. Not that his mother didn't try, but there was just so much you could do when you were as sick as her. Ethan wasn't sick. Ethan could help him with whatever he needed, and at the end of the day he wouldn't forget who Spencer was.
It was only natural that their friendship progressed into something more. Spencer really believed that they would be together forever; they would join the BAU together, marry once gay marriage became legal, and continue to lookout for hunters everywhere. They would even continue to hunt when they could. They learned from Diana's doctor that many hunters actually had two jobs; one to pay the bills, and the other one being hunting. That doctor specialized in mental hospitals, which was why Spencer was a little more comfortable leaving his mother in her care. She would purify hospitals, make sure they were safe, with no spirits, and lookout for her patients. When she wasn't working as a Doctor, she hunted down ghosts of other mental facilities, knowing they were more than likely to return after death.
Things were perfect for a while. Sure, Spencer missed his mother, he missed her terribly, but he also knew that he needed to do this. He couldn't become a Profiler, hunt, and take care of her at the same time. Even if Ethan was willing to help, it just wasn't possible. Besides, she was better off there, where she would have attention all day at any time, and where she had someone who understood her world and was willing to share tales of recent hunts. It was for the best, he told himself.
He still tells himself that, still has to remind himself that he had no other choice. It is especially hard when he visits her and sees her looking out the window, a lost look in her eyes. His heart became heavy with guilt; Diana, the woman who would go out to the streets of Las Vegas in the middle of the night to hunt, now stuck in a chair, with nothing to do but relieve memories of her glory days. Sometimes he would silently cry himself to sleep, thinking back of when she had that beautiful proud smile on her face, boasting to Bobby about the hunt the two of them did together. He wonders if she is still proud him, now that he joined the government she hated so much.
But perhaps one of the memories Spencer liked the most was when he first introduced Ethan to Dean and Sam. His boyfriend forever spoke of that event as the day he met the devil himself (he had no idea of Sam's situation, of course). The two walked into a bar (a profiler, a musician, a hunter, and a sasquatch walk into a bar… Isn't there a joke like that?) and met the Winchesters. Dean had his arms crossed, no jacket on, showing off his muscles to Ethan (a clear message of you mess with Spencer and I'll beat the shit out of you, you son of a bitch), and Sam wore a smile, though his eyes held a glare, his tone clearly passive aggressive every time he spoke with the southerner.
Dean didn't move change his behavior for most of the night. He kept glaring at Ethan, making smart remarks at everything he said, his body language showing who the alpha-male there was. The smirk he gave him, Ethan told Spencer later on, was the scariest thing he had ever seen. And coming from a hunter, that is saying something. He was in an overprotective mode, acting the same way a father would to his daughter's first boyfriend (which made Spencer wonder if he had to remind Dean that, even though his hair was fairly long, he was still male). Sam, for what Spencer believed was the first time ever, didn't give his older brother any "bitch-faces" when the older was rude or obnoxious. To be quite honest, Spencer felt very bad for Ethan, if not slightly touched that the Winchesters cared so much for him as to scare off anyone who attempted to take away his virtue (how would Dean react if he knew that, when they met, Spencer had already lost his virginity to the musician? No… The scenes are way too graphic to imagine)
Ethan leaving left him heart-broken, though there was not a lot of time to think about it. I mean, Spencer felt like the world would end, though he had more important things to do than eat ice-cream and cry over his boyfriend leaving him without an explanation. More important things like… Well, stopping the end of the world.
He tried to assist in any way he could, but there is only so much a 20 year old FBI trainee can do when the angels decide to take their brotherly rivalry to the epic scale. He checked up on the brother frequently, tried to hunt as much as possible so they could focus on the big picture, but really, there wasn't much he could (or was allowed to do. What were Dean's words again? Oh yeah Stay out of it or I'll put Cas as your baby-sitter, and as much as Spencer was thrilled to have met an angel, he hardly knew how he would explain the presence of a man more socially inept than himself to his colleagues). So in the end he stayed behind as the big battle was fought, silently cursing the fact that the Winchesters cared for him so much that they would not allow him to fight with them.
When he met Derek Morgan, Spencer knew he was going to have a serious office-crush on him. The man was tall, strong, funny, everything any man or woman would fantasize of. And he was clearly straight (though that wasn't much of a problem, since even Dean who was as straight as the path of a bullet had fallen hard for a certain angel. And if Sam's reports were anything to go by, which they were, the two had already gotten over their does-he-like-me-like-I-like-him chick-flick phase and started a proper, if not poorly hidden, relationship). The main problem, actually, laid on the fact that Derek Morgan had no idea of the supernatural world whatsoever. And even if he did know about it, there was no guarantee it would work, right? Just look at how things ended up with Ethan.
Spencer was careful when working at the BAU. He knew that not only he had to lie, but he had to lie to a group of people who were walking lie-detectors. It was hard, it put him on edge, and most of his hesitance when interacting with his friends was due to fear of giving anything away. He made sure to pretend to be a bad shooter (or did you really think he was able to go from failing his exam to hitting bull's eye in about a week without any training in between? Hotch may have been a good teacher, but he was no miracle worker), for how could he explain the fact that he could shoot with such precise accuracy to a bunch of profilers? They would question where he acquired his skills, and then when Spencer attempted to come up with something, they would see straight through his lie. No, it was better pretending to be completely useless with guns, this way they wouldn't suspect a thing.
He also made sure that the names Dean and Samuel Winchester were completely wiped out from the FBI's computer. Sure, maybe a few agents who worked on their case would remember them and wonder what happened, but the truth was that in a few years from now no one would remember their faces, and therefore Dean and Sam could walk like free men (sort of).
He would hunt occasionally, when they didn't have a case. He was always on the lookout for new things. Ironically, hunting kept his mind off other things. Like how Morgan's shirt rose ever so slightly revealing his abs when he stretched his arms out. Or how he had to constantly lie to Gideon, the closest thing (not counting Bobby, of course) he ever had to a father figure. Or the guilt that his mother was still stuck in the hospital. The worry that he did something wrong to scare Ethan off. The faces of the many victims he saw on his cases…
The coffee wasn't a mere addiction, it was what kept him awake. His two jobs made his schedule chaotic, making coffee not only a treat, but a necessity. Sometimes he would be hunting all night long after coming back from a case, only to, once the hunt was finished, have to report to the BAU an hour later to start desk-work. Coffee kept him going. If it wasn't for that magic beverage created by the gods, Spencer would not be able to do half the things he does.
Gideon knew something was up with Spencer, but he never questioned. He knew the boy was hiding something, that there was more to his inquires than mere curiosity. But he left it alone. Spencer was grateful for that, for how would he be able to explain why he was interested where said serial-killer was buried? Maybe he could claim it was part of a research, but then the mentor would ask to see it when complete, and then Spencer would have to actually work on a research to cover up his lies and… Well, he just didn't have time for that!
Ah, dead unsubs… That was certainly something Spencer was not expecting when he entered the BAU. Though thinking back now he should have expected it to happen. People who die violently often come back as vengeful spirits, so why not serial-killers who were executed in the chair? It made complete sense that they would either go back to the behavior from when they were alive, or attempted to kill the agents who caught him. Spencer just wished he had figured that out in a different way; waking up after a long hard case in New Jersey to see the face of a sexual sadist who was executed after Spencer and his team caught him right before he was able to kill his 18th victim was rather unpleasant. He made sure to request a few days' vacation after that night, flew right to where the body had been buried, and did some Salt and Burn action. From that day on he kept an eye out for every single execution happening in the country, and made sure that when they killed an unsub in the field, to salt and burn his remains before leaving.
Though if you thought that facing a dead unsub was hard, you would not want to see Dean, Sam, and Cas (who had become quite found of the young genius and became like another best friend to him) when they found out about Tobias Hankle. Just like Spencer was careful not to let his hunting life interfere with his profiler life, he made sure his profiler life did not interfere with his hunter life. Dean and Sam would ask about his cases, but Spencer would always tone it down for them; they had more important things to worry about than how Spencer and his team used their profiling skills to discover that a terrorist was planning to bomb a Shopping Mall on its opening day. Needless to say, the case of Tobias Hankle was not mentioned to the boys. And it would have stayed that way if they had not decided to pay the genius boy a surprise visit, only to find him high on dilaudid, sitting in his apartment floor.
Dean was furious. He said more cussed words than Spencer believed were on the Oxford English Dictionary. Sam just looked at him disappointed, saying that if Spencer needed help he could have called them instead of doing drugs (which Spencer found rather ironic considering the whole demon-blood thing, but he was wise enough to keep his mouth shut). Castiel just looked at him with those piercing blue eyes, and Spencer felt that he would rather hear Dean calling him a stupid son of a bitch and look into the eyes that no doubtfully were reading his mind at that exact moment.
When the brothers finally calmed down, Spencer was able to tell them his tale. He had to tell every single detail, for every time he tried to omit something Castiel would interrupt him, and even though Spencer adored Cas, he would rather tell his story himself. He told them about the case they were working on, how he was caught in the corn field, and how he was handcuffed to the chair and tortured. He told them how Tobias Hankle, or rather, Charles and Raphael (cue Dean's even when he is someone's imagination he is still a total dick and Sam interrupting the story to ask Cas if there was any chance that it was the real Raphael and not a made up personality who was torturing Spencer) filmed the entire thing and forced him to choose someone to die. He also told about the Russian Roulette game, and the seizure, and how Tobias Hankle saved his life, and for that he was forever thankful.
After that night Spencer decided he would stop using dilaudid. Every time he closed his eyes he would see the face of the two men who he always admired, looking down at him with disappointment. He would remember what they went through and tell himself that his suffering was nothing compared to theirs, and therefore he had no reason to get high. Besides, the time he was spending getting stoned could be used for hunting, for saving more people. And wasn't that what his seven year old self always wanted to do?
The drugs stopped, and Spencer's life went back to normal. Gideon leaving caused him a lot of pain, he actually went all the way to see Bobby just to remind himself that there was still a person out there who saw him as a son and would never leave him, even if he did call him and idjit more times than Spencer would like. But with Gideon's parting came Rossi's coming, and Spencer was not upset about working with one if his idols.
Emily's "death" almost pushed him towards drugs again. And that was when Derek Morgan became more than just his best friend. Truth to be told, Spencer's office-crush had become full out head-over-hills-hopelessly-devoted-in-love back when they had to rescue Rebecca and play the Fisher King's game. But it was only after the loss of their fellow agent and friend that Spencer started to notice that maybe his unrequired feelings were not so unrequired.
He felt guilty about starting a relationship with Derek after what happened with Emily. It didn't seem right. He tried pushing Derek away, but the older man kept trying. He said that losing Emily made him realize that someday he might lose Spencer to this job too (little did he know that there was also the probability of losing Spencer to his second job), and he didn't want that to happen without ever giving their relationship a try. Finally, after long persuasions, Spencer agreed to go on a date with his best friend, and their friendship became something more.
Spencer was careful this time, not only did he not introduce Derek to Dean, Sam, and Cas (with no doubt Dean having a full on testosterone fight with his boyfriend, Sam glaring at him the entire time, and Cas just trying to understand why the Winchesters were so mad about Spencer dating someone when Spencer clearly did not mind Dean and Cas' relationship), but he also made sure not to be too overbearing. Of course, that led to questions, and Spencer had to explain the whole (not entirely) situation with Ethan. He told him how Ethan was his best friend and then boyfriend, how Spencer honestly believed they would share a life together, and how even now, almost a decade later, Spencer still wondered if he did something wrong that made Ethan want to leave him. That led to Derek asking about his abandonment issues regarding his father and then Gideon, and how Spencer seemed sure to believe that there mustbe something wrong with him.
The conversation led to a rather humiliating crying session, in which Spencer sobbed into Derek's shoulders for hours. He kept saying that It's alright Pretty Boy, but that only made Spencer feel more and more weak, and so he cried more. But at the end, it strengthened their relationship. Spencer could trust Derek with (almost) everything, and Derek could do the same with Spencer. The two had each other's backs in their professional and personal lives. All in all, this relationship was better, much more so, than the one he had with Ethan.
Which only made Spencer feel worse about the lying. He couldn't possibly tell Derek about the supernatural world, and neither did he want to. Derek was already haunted by the evil of humanity, how would he react if he found out that there was evil in things he did not even believe existed? No, it would be too much for Derek to handle. Spencer could do it because he was introduced to the supernatural at a young age, so to him there was no difference between the physical world and the supernatural one. But to Derek there was. The supernatural did not exist for him, and Spencer planned on keeping that way. He would protect the man he loved from what creatures he knew hid in the dark.
It didn't make the guilt easy to handle though. Coming up with lies as to why he didn't want to hang out at certain times was complicated. Previously Derek had assumed Spencer declined invitations to go out with the team because, even though they all knew each other for years, Spencer was still incredibly shy and socially awkward. But now that they were dating, that shouldn't be an issue anymore. But sadly, just because Derek and Spencer were dating it did not mean that supernatural creatures stopped visiting DC. Someone had to stop them, and that someone was Spencer.
Still, Derek never suspected him of cheating, for wish Spencer was grateful. Maybe it was because Derek was a profiler and could see that whatever Spencer did when they weren't together clearly did not involve hooking up with another man, or maybe it was simply because of the fact he knew Spencer for so long that he knew cheating was just not something he would do; whichever one it was, the result was the same. Derek still trusted Spencer fully.
It made Spencer feel like he didn't deserve the wonderful man that right now laid by his side. He had been talking about moving in together, and Spencer knew that this was a step they could never take. How would he explain the fact that he almost never slept at home? His nightly trips? No, moving in together was out of the question, sadly. If Spencer wanted to protect Derek, than this was the closest they could ever be. It will only be a matter of time before Derek realizes that he has no future with Spencer and dumps him for someone better.
Sighing, Spencer started to dress himself as his lover slept. Another one of his rules was no staying over at each other's house. Spencer worked at night, and having Derek in his bedroom, him in Derek's, would cause the same problem that moving in together would. Still, the young FBI agent kissed his lover's forehead, left behind a note proclaiming his love, grabbed his gun loaded with silver bullets, his iron knife, salt, some holy water, and his FBI credentials and left for another hunt.