Title: Losing My Religion by Lexikal (Chapter Thirty Eight)
Rating: M for graphic violence against a child and language (in the first chapter, chapter 8 and chapter 10 so far. Chapter 28 has Reid discussing specific acts of abuse but not at length.)
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Summary: Spencer Reid, 10, is removed from his father's "care" after being violently attacked and is fostered by his old mentor, Jason Gideon. This is a sequel to "That's me in the corner". Features child abuse, do not read if underage.
Author's Note: Was hoping to get a chapter out earlier than this (today is Jan 26th) but life and other things keep getting in the way. Updated- back at this Sat, Feb 4th. Got a bug. Gotta keep at the writing game or I will never finish this beast off.
"Fear is the father of courage and the mother of safety." ~Henry H. Tweedy
Wednesday, October 31sth, 1990; Halloween...
In the 25 days since his "birthday party" day Reid had figured out how to use his bike and no longer even needed the training wheels, which was pretty good considering the kid had never been on a bike before and had been pretty nervous about falling. He still had a bit of a limp sometimes, but he never complained to Gideon about pain, although the profiler was almost certain Reid had his share of pain as he had caught the boy wincing on more than one occasion. Gideon hadn't pressed any issues regarding Daniel or Daniel's home life and Reid, if he knew, never said if the gifts were shoplifted or not. Daniel was over pretty much constantly when not in school and though the boy was skittish overall, his facial bruises faded away and, so far, hadn't "returned".
Reid met with Hotch a few times a week, simply to get used to the man. Hotch had discussed the direction the case was going with Gideon. William Reid wanted to take it to court, but was opting not to represent himself. Hotch's theory was that Reid senior, vile as he was, didn't want to make himself look like he was "bullying" his own son in a court of law, especially considering the magnitude of the charges.
"He still will be there, though, and he will be directing his lawyer on what to say." Reid had told Hotch solemnly, looking over at Gideon with wide, scared eyes when he heard the news a few days after his big 1-0.
"He will still be there, and he knows I will choke."
"If this does go to trial, you look at me. Or you look at Gideon. You don't have to look at him."
Reid had nodded solemnly, but for the rest of that day he was morose and pensive; his comments tenuous and fissiparous, as if he were unable to decide on what words or even what thoughts he wished to speak aloud. He'd start speaking only to have his sentence fizzle out a few words in like a cherry bomb with a lame fuse. After that day, Reid had begun to drop more and more verbal cues about his growing fear of the upcoming trial and returning to his parent's "care". His day to day babble would be charged with the odd comment of: "If I am still here then..." or "but I probably won't be here then so it doesn't matter." When he voiced those fears, Gideon attempted to soothe him by confirming that he was wanted, that he had a good lawyer on his side ("You think Hotch is going to let you down, Reid? I can guarantee he won't"), that he was bright and articulate and that juries weren't stupid, but the future was still uncertain and that uncertainty was draining the joyous exuberance that characterized Spencer Reid out of the boy like a vampire sucking its meal out of a blood bank bag. Uncertainty was a vampire, and it was draining. The kid seemed to relax, sometimes, around Daniel, playing and joking and goofing off, but invariably a comment or a reminder or a date on the calendar or a television newscast would jolt Reid out of his good mood and he would return to being sullen and morose.
Today, however, was Halloween, a day that Reid had been looking forward to for weeks. He had his FBI agent "costume" of course, thanks to one David Rossi, but on the same day Reid and Hotch had discussed testifying in open court, Daniel had run over after school with a striped t-shirt and plastic claws and an ugly rubber mask that looked like the visage of a burn victim with tobacco stained teeth.
"What is that?" Reid had asked, looking his friend up and down.
"I'm going as Freddy!" Daniel had chirped happily. "I got all this for 5 bucks down at the dollar store... except for the sweater and the hat. The hat is my dad's but he won't miss it for one night. The sweater I found at the thrift store."
"Who is Freddy?" Reid had asked immediately, darting a quick glance at his foster father. Gideon had inwardly moaned. But the cat was out of the bag.
"Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, doofus! He's totally bad ass! He uses his claw-glove to cut people up in their dreams! He is the most awesome killer ever. Why? Who are you going as?"
"I was going to go as an FBI agent..." Reid started, but Daniel had laughed at that.
"No, no, no! It's Halloween. Do you know what the purpose of Halloween is?"
It was a stupid question to ask Spencer Reid. Reid had nodded solemnly.
"Halloween or All-Hallow's Eve is a Christian feast which incorporates elements from Pagan harvest festivals and festivals which honour the dead, in particular the Celtic festival Samhain. Samhain or Celtic New Year as it was popularized in the late 19th century by...
"Yeah, yeah, yeah-" Daniel had put up his hand to stop the sudden logorrhoea. "Why do we wear costumes on Halloween, though?"
"There are several theories about that. That it stems from early medieval practices of Mumming and going-a-souling and..."
"Shit! We're not in school, Reid. Why do we dress up as scary things?"
"We don't have to dress up as scary things." Reid said smartly, smiling over at Gideon, who was trying to look busy chopping carrots and celery and garlic for stir fry. The boys had trailed him to the kitchen to continue their debate, making him their unofficial judge and jury. 'There is no mention in any book of trick-or-treating before the 1930s. Trick-or-treating is a practice where the cultural appropriation of many different...what, Daniel?"
Daniel had just been staring at Reid, looking bored.
"Fine. Go as a G-man. But you're going to be the only kid in the neighbourhood not dressed up as something scary..."
That had been all the convincing Reid needed. He'd immediately glanced over at Gideon with puppy dog eyes and asked if he could go costume shopping. Despite the nimiety of toys and games Reid had amassed in the few short weeks since moving to Virginia, Halloween was special and the kid hadn't had a chance to pick out his own costume, an experience the profiler believed every American kid was entitled to do at least once during his or her childhood. Gideon had nodded. Cupped the veggies in his hands and let them topple into the frying pan to join the sesame oil and onions.
"First, though, I will need to watch more culturally relevant horror movies. I need to know what popular movie monsters to consider for my costume." Reid said, wrinkling his nose at the smell of dinner as if Gideon was scrambling human organs and gruesome unnamables together in the skillet instead of veggies and boneless chicken slices.
"Reid, I am not sure I want you watching scary movies..."
"Mr. Gideon, didn't you like scary movies when you were a kid?" Daniel had piped in, looking adorably and almost annoyingly mischievous. Reid was mischievous enough but if Reid were a Charles Dickens' character, Gideon would peg the young genius as "Oliver Twist", no doubt about it. Daniel, on the other hand, could easily be a modern-day "Artful Dodger". He was a kid, sure, but he was a relatively old kid, one who wasn't as bright as Reid in the book department (although, he was clearly no dummy), but in the school of life and fast-talking and acting cute, Daniel Crane was a master. More than likely he'd had to master those skills just to keep his face relatively unmarred at the hands of his brute father but whatever the reason, he was still one smooth-talking boy. And he and Gideon both knew it.
"Yes, I liked to watch scary movies when I was a kid, Daniel, but today's movies are a lot more violent and I am not sure I want Reid watching them. And you don't have to call me Mr. Gideon."
"Didn't your parents say the same thing about Frankenstein when it first came out?" Daniel had prodded suavely, looking as innocent as all get-out. Gideon had to hold back a laugh.
"Daniel, I think Frankenstein came out in the 1930s or something..." Gideon said, not an ounce of the laughter he felt in his voice.
"1931." Reid informed solemnly. Gideon nodded in acknowledgment.
"Okay, okay... wasn't there ever any movie you watched as a kid that your parents might not have wanted you to watch? I don't know what was big in the sixties but I am sure there must have been some scary movies kids were into back then..."
Gideon sighed tiredly. He knew eventually he'd have to concede defeat. Reid was a genius and Daniel was not far behind said genius in the grey matter department. Combined, they'd have a million and one reasons why today's horror movies were just as suitable for modern-day youngsters as Frankenstein meets the Space Monster and The Plague of the Zombies had been back in his day. And on many levels, they'd probably be right.
"Fine, we'll get some movies for you and Reid to watch, under some conditions."
"What?"
"You guys have to watch Mr. Sardonicus with me and we eat Mallo Cups and Oh Henry's and make popcorn. You can't watch horror flicks without buttered popcorn. It's a rule."
"Yeah, I can live with that." Reid said, smiling.
And that was how Gideon and Reid and Daniel Crane ended up watching a horror movie a day for 2 weeks.
Reid eventually decided to go as "Jason" from the "Friday the 13th" series. All that was needed was the hockey mask and a plastic machete and some raggy clothes, which they had no trouble finding between the local thrift store and costume supply store.
And now, finally, after days of alternating between anxious silence over the upcoming court case and hyper chatter about monsters and candy and the legalities of egging houses and throwing toilet paper loops over tree boughs, Halloween was here. It was 6 a.m. Reid was still sleeping.
Gideon opened the door to the boy's room, just a crack, and watched him sleep. The room was fairly dark. Reid's venetian blinds were closed. In one still arm was the stuffed sauropod, Jason (which Reid insisted on sleeping with even though Daniel scoffed and declared that only babies had stuffed animals) and in the alternate free hand, the plastic machete. On Reid's desk was a packet of fake blood that would be liberally applied to the plastic machete shortly before embarking on the quickly approaching vespertine candy collection. There were 3 pumpkins sitting in the kitchen, waiting to be sliced and diced into jack-o-lanterns. Because it was Wednesday, Daniel wouldn't be over until at least 4:00 and Rossi had given the okay for Reid to come down to the BSU and check the place out during the day. Between Halloween, the BSU visit and fears over having to testify, Reid had lost a lot of sleep recently and looked pale and drawn.
"Tell him to bring his pillow case or plastic jack-o-lantern or whatever he plans on using to collect treats," Rossi had ordered Gideon over the phone on the day the BSU trip was finalized.
"If you buy him anymore toys, I am going to have to disembowel you, David." Gideon had responded flatly. He hoped to God Reid would be here for Christmas, and was planning and acting as if he would be, but if the boy had this much stuff already, what would he possibly need at Christmas? Not to mention Reid was terrible at picking up after himself. Errant Lego blocks, action figures, crayons, Lincoln logs and meccano pieces seemed to always crop up unexpectedly and usually only after Gideon had stepped on them.
Reid jerked in his sleep, expression changing into something that looked mildly fearful. He moaned and turned onto his side, back facing Gideon. Gideon gently shut the door and waited. The kid would be up soon enough and, like the energizer bunny, he kept going and going and going.
Gideon went into the kitchen and put on the coffee pot. Took 2 slices of wonder bread out of the bread box and popped them into the toaster. Almost immediately the toaster began to smoke and spark. Gideon jerked the cord out of the wall with a torrent of curses, shook the bread into the sink and peered inside the toaster. Gunked all over the inside of the toaster was the glow-in-the-dark silly putty Daniel and Reid had been playing with the night before.
For geniuses, the two of them sure did some mighty stupid things. Gideon had told them not to microwave the silly putty after he had caught Reid walking around on the counter barefoot, looking for an appropriate "microwavable" bowl.
Apparently "don't stick silly putty in the toaster" was something that needed to be spelled out, too. Sheesh.
Reid got up at half past 7 and shambled into the living room, yawning, his hair sticking up awkwardly in little spikes, greased with sleep sweat. His eyes were still swollen with sleep and starting to darken underneath. The stress was getting to him, that was obvious.
"Morning, sleepy head." Gideon said. The profiler was apparently reading the paper but what he'd really been doing was waiting for Reid to wake up. When had the boy stopped bouncing out of bed? Transitions were insidious, and by the time you noticed something was changing, more often than not, it had already changed and become the new thing. Like Reid's enthusiasm... by the time Gideon had noticed Reid was sleeping more often and was more tired than usual, the boy seemed like an emotional shadow of himself.
Reid yawned again, loudly, and stretched his arms back with a moan. Scrabbled at the side of his sleep-sweaty head and blinked.
"Mornin'. Can I have toaster strudels for breakfast?" Reid asked, still half stuck in the land of nod. The kid began to shamble towards the kitchen and as he did one Ninja Turtle slipped fell off his foot and was left behind, forgotten. Gideon got up and walked towards the kitchen. Reid was digging through the freezer silently.
"Actually, buddy, nothing that requires the toaster this morning, I'm afraid. We need to get a new toaster."
"Why?" Reid asked, eyes narrowing into sleepy, grumpy slits. Gideon had already decided that he wouldn't bring up the silly putty incident or chastise Reid today. He wanted the kid to remember Halloween as a fun day, a day of whimsy and magic and light-hearted boyhood pranks and not a day of being yelled at over doing something undeniably stupid.
"Our toaster broke." Gideon said simply. "So, it's cereal, I'm afraid. Or I can make you pancakes or French toast."
"Shit," Reid muttered, still in a sour mood. "I wanted toaster strudels."
"So. Cereal? Pancakes? Fruit?" Gideon spoke slowly, ignoring the swear, trying to redirect the boy's attention. Reid had begun cursing, mildly. No doubt the words weren't new to him, but Danny swore and chided Reid and Reid seemed to be picking up a foul mouth. Gideon planned to talk to him about it, but today was not the day.
"Cereal, I guess." Reid said, pulling a box of Count Chocula from the pantry and digging a plastic bowl out of the dishwasher. Reid poured milk over the cereal and onto the counter, grabbed a sponge and cleaned up his spill and took his cereal and a spoon to the living room.
Gideon followed him back, mildly disturbed by the kid's lack of enthusiasm.
"You remember what day it is today, right, Kiddo?"
Reid squinted; then the light dawned. "Oh. Yeah. Halloween." The ghost of a smile played over his lips. He dug a spoonful of brown frosted cereal out of the bowl and rammed it in his mouth.
"You don't seem very excited. Remember, today is the day you're going to go visit Rossi at the BSU? See the facilities?" Gideon edged his own voice was excitement. Reid nodded and obviously made an effort to seem happy.
"Yeah! Yeah, that's right. Cool." Reid's voice was sugary-sweet and Gideon wasn't buying it for a moment.
"You're stressed about court, aren't you?" Gideon said after a 30 second intermission of listening to Reid crunch cereal. Finally the kid nodded softly.
"Yeah. I am excited. Really. I am. I just..." Reid trailed, trying to express a fairly mature emotional concept. That a person could be genuinely excited about something and genuinely worried and distraught about something else, at the exact same time, and the emotions weren't clear or easy to sort or manage. Gideon nodded. Reid didn't need to say anymore, he already knew.
They sat for close to 40 minutes with Reid eating cereal (refilling his bowl a whopping 3 times and apparently indifferent to the milk streaming down his chin every time he spoke with his mouth full), watching the morning news. Pile-up on Interstate 64, 14 dead. A Texaco tanker had rammed into the initial crash (two cars, one in the wrong lane) and that had been that.
Reid shivered in his pyjamas. "I wonder if they knew they were going to die today." He said softly. Photographs of the truck were being aired, orange red flames and black smoke, cars smashed together like children's toys.
"I don't think anybody ever really knows." Gideon answered back, more than a little worried by the kid's toneless fatigue. First the sleeping too much and now that pesky little comment.
Gideon clipped the News off, replacing it with the kids' channel. Cartoons. Transformers. Optimus Prime was yelling at something.
"Come on, Kiddo. Let's get dressed. You know what you're wearing to the BSU?"
"If I go as an FBI agent, Daniel says that's lame. He says that if I am going to the BSU I shouldn't be acting like a kid, especially if I consider the FBI a prospective future employer. He says they'll take me more seriously if I dress my age."
"Reid, it's Halloween and you are a kid. And besides..."
"Yeah, yeah, it will be cute." Reid said cheekily, fully aware, apparently, of just how adorable he looked decked out as a miniature agent. Gideon shrugged.
"Fiiiine." Reid eventually droned, but he was smiling a bit and 10 minutes later when he emerged from his room in full agent regalia, he had apparently forgotten his embarrassment and some of the tiredness around his eyes seemed to have drained away.
"Look at you!" Gideon's voice was full of delight. "A real life little Herman Hollis!"
Reid rolled his eyes but he was smiling again; a genuine smile not on the fake plastic stand-ins he wore when he was trying to get his foster father to stop worrying.
"You feed Castor and Pollux?"
"Yup."
"They have water?"
Reid nodded his head quickly.
"Bed made?"
"Gideooooon..." Reid whined. Gideon grinned and let himself relax a little. When the kid started making his bed without being asked, or, worse, making it without complaint when asked, then it was time to get worried.
"David said to bring a pillow-case." Gideon said, smiling wider. Reid looked completely mystified.
"A pillow case? Why?"
"That's what you trick-or-treat with. The treats go in the pillow case..." Gideon prompted and slowly the light came back on behind Reid's hazel eyes.
"Oh...okay. Just a sec."
The kid scampered back to his room and came back with a pillow-case dotted with glow in the dark constellations. "This okay?"
"That'll do. You ready?"
"Yup." Reid croaked. Gideon checked his bag for the Polaroid and Canon, stuffed in a book he'd picked up for Rossi as a gag gift entitled "The great FBI agents of yesteryear" and followed Reid out to the car.
By the time they got to the Academy, Reid was pale.
"You okay, Buddy?" Gideon asked, pulling the car into the parking lot. Reid opened up his door, leaned out. Gideon jumped out of the driver's and went around to the passenger side, alarmed.
"Reid?"
"I just got a bit dizzy... and the back of my mouth tastes salty."
"Okay." Gideon said and crouched down and rubbed half a dozen comforting circles on the kid's back. "I think maybe you ate a bit too much cereal, too. And I know how excited you've been to come here."
Reid made a gagging noise and puked on the curb, streams of half-digested Count Chocula spilling out and over his shoes. He retched for a good two minutes, smacked his lips, groaned. But some of the color was coming back into his cheeks.
"Car sick, I think." Reid said with a spaced-out look in his eyes. "This is pretty surreal."
"Kinda scary, I guess. Huh?" Gideon prompted.
Gideon could remember riding in the back of his father's Station Wagon half-way across the country to Cape Canaveral, Florida when he was 14 to see the Apollo 11 ascend. He'd guzzled Tang and bottled root beer and eaten PB and J sandwiches by the bagful and flipped through old copies of Tales of the Crypt and Crime SuspenStories (and the occasional Playboy, hidden inside a comic) with his younger cousin Scotty while his mother chattered in the front passenger seat and his father swore at incompetent drivers and lit camel after camel, filling the interior of the car with the sickly sweet blue-grey reek of unfiltered cigarettes. Gideon had thought he might go crazy and blow up the radio with black cats if he had to listen to one more go of "Love in the Rain" or hear his father bitch out one more old woman on the road.
When they'd finally arrived, a few days before the launch and pulled the lawn chairs out amongst the throng of equally excited onlookers the reality of where they were hit the young Jason Gideon full in the solar plexus like a ton of bricks.
All his child-hood dreams of space flight and the countless hours spent in younger years in the local Odeon, snacking on popcorn with Johnny Bower and Phillip Crumb and watching films like First Men in the Moon and The Human Duplicators came screaming into his head like banshees. He'd seen 2001: A Space Odyssey just the year before and while Johnny and Phillip had bitched about it being boring and whispered shit about the girls three rows down, 14-year-old Jason Gideon had been mesmerized and the thought "They're going to do it, they're going to the moon, this is going to happen and I am going to be here to see it" bugled its way through the young man's consciousness like a torrent of angry wasps. Two days before lift-off the area had been packed and Gideon had taken two steps out of the 1966 Ford Country Squire before up-chucking his cookies all over the sidewalk while his idiot cousin he-hawed and his father muttered about the heat.
To Spencer Reid, the FBI Academy was no doubt his Cape Canaveral.
"You feeling a bit better now?" Gideon said after a few minutes of Reid sitting on the curb and drawing in slow, deep breaths. His face had gone white and then grey and then green and now was turning back to normal. Reid nodded and stood up shakily.
"Gideon, you have any gum?" Reid mumbled, huffing into one hand and smelling his fumes. "I smell like puke."
"Sorry. No gum. But we can get some from a vending machine?"
Reid nodded dazedly and followed Gideon towards the entrance of the building. After the first dozen meters he began to speak, reciting stats and information about the building and the grounds.
"Reid!" Rossi said warmly when he saw the little boy standing in the BSU bullpen with his keeper, looking wide-eyed and a little pale. Reid grinned instantly. The kid was wearing his FBI gear and looked even cuter than he had the first time he'd tried to stuff off, because he was surrounded by slightly curious trainees and BSU agents and the contrast in his size and age was even more pronounced.
"Hi David." Reid said, glancing back at Gideon to make sure he was close. Gideon smiled warmly and they crossed over to where David Rossi had been waiting. Just then a young man in a suit came running up to Rossi, face flushed.
"Jesus Christ, sir, we found 2 more and the sick son of a bitch cut their tongues out this time and..." The young man stopped in his tracks and blinked at Reid as if he was having a sudden psychotic break. Reid smiled shyly. The young man glanced over at Gideon.
"Sir, I'm sorry... I didn't see you here and..."
"It's all right, Jacobs." Gideon said, trying not to smile. Andy Jacobs was the newest member of their team, the youngest, and he had a tendency to run his mouth off without thinking first. Rossi and the other senior agents found Jacobs a welcome relief in their world of grisly, unofficiated horror but for the sake of propriety had to act as if he was over the line. It was hard, though.
"This... is this the little boy... hi there?" Jacobs babbled, leaning down to shake Reid's hand. Reid shook it and smiled up at Gideon uncertainly.
"Reid, this is Jacobs, he works here with us. I've told him all about you." Rossi said, letting Jacobs off the hook. "Jacobs, you want to take Reid around, show him some stuff?"
"But sir... about the fax?" Jacobs glanced back at Reid and smiled again.
"Yeah, I'll go talk to Fallin. DC police don't want us there; there is little we can do." Rossi kept his voice artificially light; leant down and patted Reid on the top of his capped head.
"Um, so you want to see where I work? Did you bring your pillow case?" Jacobs said, clearly not used to kids. Reid nodded and held up his pillow case which Jacobs dutifully admired. Gideon turned and bit the inside of his cheek so as not to smile.
"Um... Gideon? Can I get some change for the vending machine?" Reid said. Jacobs' awkward nature was drawing the kid out of his shell a bit. Gideon nodded and produced 3 quarters, laid them flat in the boy's palm and smiled professionally at the younger agent.
"I trust you'll show him some cool stuff?" Gideon said.
"Um... of course, sir."
"I can see where you work later, huh, Gideon?"
Gideon nodded. Could feel the eyes of his colleagues on him and knew that everyone was itching to ask how his "break" was going and how Reid was doing. When you profiled the sickest psychos on the planet and had to clean up their dirty work, you either became really close with your colleagues or you found a new profession.
Gideon watched Jacobs' and Reid walk away, heard Reid tell Jacobs' about vomiting in the parking lot and thus, needing gum to get rid of the taste of bile. Count on Reid to instinctively want to make an awkward agent feel at ease. Jacobs' muttered something about getting sick on the tilt a whirl all the time as a kid and Reid chortled laughter and then they had disappeared out of sight.
Gideon smiled to himself and went to the break room for coffee. Knew that Reid would have a bazillion questions and that Jacobs', although socially clumsy, was the right man to lead him around. Under the smile of a proud father was the unease of the place, growing like a clenched fist around his intestines. Gideon felt a subtle, inexorable pressure to return to his old stomping grounds and he knew it was expected of him, but he didn't want to and the more time he spent with Reid the less desire he had to come back here and swim around in the Abyss. If you were a special agent and you took an extended period of leave after a particularly gruesome case, no matter the reason, rumours started flying about around your mental health. It was inevitable.
Okay, this is the end of chapter 38. Please review guys. Have an awesome day. And in case anyone is wondering, black cats= black cat firecrackers. I played with them a bit as a kid and almost blew my arm off one or two times. You can google "black cat firecrackers" if you want to see what they look like (I will always remember the logo).