It's just not within him to take out his feelings on someone else who doesn't deserve it. Reid has to both trust the person implicitly to let them that far in, and be really pushed to his breaking point. Neither condition has been met here. He's always been someone inward-facing with his stressors, not externalizing.
He listens to all this, too, with as much somber attentiveness as before, shifting on the couch to be comfortable and sipping at his coffee. His hair falls half in his eyes unnoticed until he impatiently pushes it away. Otherwise, as he listens, the only other motion is to nod in the right places.
"It being unexplained was probably the hardest part," he agrees. Reid can imagine how much that must've felt like a curse, to continually stumble on mutilated corpses without warning. His gut jumps with alarm and then sorrow as she describes a lobotomy. Even Reid has nothing he can say to that. He's heard things that bad before, of course, and worse, but comparing torture is pointless. He's sad for her, and vaguely horrified, right here and now, as he is for each individual victim he encounters.
"Lydia. If you ever--" He pauses, catches her eyes. All humor has drained away as he speaks quietly. "If you ever hear something here, tell me. I'll help you catch whoever's responsible. Whatever's responsible. It's um, literally my job. You don't have to... go find corpses alone. I've done that before. Before I was an FBI agent."
Supposedly it won't come up here, but Reid still isn't sure how much he believes that; and regardless, he feels like he has to say this. Because it's all true. Reid will always take seriously someone trying to save someone's life.
Seeing the alarm on Spencer's expression, Lydia's hand moves self-consciously to the side of her head, just above her left ear, brushing the scar tissue hidden beneath her thick, red hair. She remembers the white hot pain of the liquified mistletoe Dr. Deaton had injected into it to stop her head from literally exploding. If not for it, she'd have died like her grandmother. If not for it, the hole might not have healed mostly over. Her hand falls away again when she realizes she's touching it and she clears her throat. For everything she went through in Eichen House, she doesn't actually feel that victimized. During most of it, Lydia was catatonic and doesn't have memories of it. It's the stuff with Peter that victimized her. She no longer fears him because of what she became, but she'll never really forget any of it.
When she really thinks about it, seeing his reaction, Lydia can't help wondering how horrified he would look if she told him some of the other things that have happened to her; to her friends. They've perhaps, as a pack, grown numb to the horrors of Beacon Hills, because they're too busy fighting to protect those who cannot protect themselves — per Allison's code — to stop and consider just how much weight is being put on the shoulders of mostly a bunch of high school students. The stories she could tell him would probably make him pity and worry about her more than anything else. For that reason, she decides not to share anything he doesn't specifically ask to hear. It's probably easier for both of them, that way. Lydia wants no one's pity.
She chews on her bottom lip a little, shifting just slightly on the couch and taking another sip from her coffee cup when he responds. A weak smile pulls the corners of her mouth up a little bit, but it falls a little short of her eyes as she nods. She's more likely to tell Scott and Malia than Spencer, but then again...maybe a death here wouldn't be supernaturally-instigated and maybe he would be able to do what he does to stop it without getting hurt.
Her brow creases, though, when he says he's found corpses alone and tacks on that it happened before he was an FBI agent. Now Lydia's listening with somber attentiveness. "Before the FBI?" she asks gently, prodding carefully without being forceful; letting him know that she's interested in him sharing if he's comfortable with doing so.
He definitely doesn't pity her. Spencer hates being pitied, and no matter how often he deals with horrific violence, he manages to maintain enough distance to stay empathetic without falling apart, or pitying. All the same, this has been a lot for him to take in-- the whole experience, not necessarily just Lydia's story but everyone he's spoken to and being here at all has culminated in a lot.
He'd intentionally directed things back at himself with that comment, to give himself a break and to make things more equal. He'd known what he was signing up to reveal when he said it, but he still hesitates now, looking down at his coffee.
"I, uh... I had a friend when I was a little kid. Riley Jenkins. It's-- my wish for being here." Maybe they're not supposed to talk about their wishes. Maybe that's taboo. Reid has never cared about those things. "I wish what happened to him hadn't happened. When he was six, he was picked up by a pedophile. He was raped and murdered. I found his body behind a washing machine in his basement." Spencer sounds frank about this report, although obviously it'd affected him, since he's still looking at his hands rather than making eye contact.
"I dreamed about it for years, thinking I'd made it up. I... finally learned what really happened a few months ago. I guess it stuck with me." That's not even the whole story, but it's enough. It's something. Things about his parents are still the most sensitive things Reid has to tell.
Lydia sobers almost immediately, not only at the way that he hesitates before continuing, but when he actually does go on. Now it's her turn to look horrified and upset on his behalf. Her lips press together in a thin, white line as she listens, her heart breaking. If the friend was six, then chances are that Spencer was that old or younger. Maybe a year or two older, tops. Lydia had been sixteen when she'd found her first dead body. She cannot even begin to imagine finding one at that age...
"That's a good wish," she tries to say, but it comes out almost a whisper for the sympathetic lump in the back of her throat. She clears her throat to try to work over it. "I'm sorry that happened. To him and to you."
Lydia reaches a hand over and gives his arm a quick squeeze meant to be reassuring and supportive. Then she remembers that he'd appeared to have something of an aversion to his personal bubble being invaded and her hand falls away as quickly as it had lifted to touch him.
It registers in her mind belatedly the reminder that Spencer has a photographic memory. Whatever he saw as a child, that's still probably crystal clear. Her heart breaks all over again. "We don't have to keep talking about it," she offers to give him an out. She's willing to listen and be there for her new friend if he wants to get it off his chest, but if he'd rather not, she wants to make sure he knows he has a get out of jail free card on the table.
"No-- it's okay. I appreciate you saying that, but I... actually feel better about it now. It probably seems weird. But I dreamed it over and over for years, and my mom just kept saying I had an imaginary friend named Riley." Spencer quirks a half-smile, a sort of shield he uses to accept all the things in his life that he has no choice about. His mother's illness, his own fears of his mental health, are some of them.
"I thought I was losing my mind. I couldn't figure out why I kept seeing it." Especially since he thought it meant his father had done it, and knowing he hadn't was such a profound relief Spencer still isn't sure how to process it. He resents his father so much, doesn't think he'll ever be able to forgive him. But that doesn't mean he'd wanted him to be a murderous pedophile-- he'd just been afraid it was true.
Spencer belatedly comes out of his own thoughts and realizes she'd tried to considerately retract her hand, and after a long moment of further hesitation chases her hand as she pulls it away, taking it in his own. He'd managed to meet her eyes while speaking, but now loses it again, just loosely holding her hand in his on the couch cushions, the other still curled around his coffee.
That's a big gesture, from Reid. But the truth is, he's alone here. He's very aware of it. And he's not so wary anymore, after six years with the BAU, of making friends.
He finishes, "My team helped me catch who did it and clear everything up. It's over now, I just wish it hadn't happened. So I'm here."
Lydia shakes her head. "I don't think it seems weird," she replies, and she doesn't. Lydia knows weird intimately. Feeling relief when talking about something, that she gets. Or at least, she tells herself she gets it. The one thing that's been eating at her ever since it happened is something she hasn't talked about at all, but Lydia likes to think that if she could purge it by sharing, maybe she'd feel better, too.
It surprises her a little when he reaches out to take her hand as she had started to take it away. It isn't lost on her that his gaze averts when he does. Lydia gives his hand what she hopes is a reassuring squeeze, and for a moment, she says nothing at all, letting silence fall between them until he speaks again.
"That's really selfless of you," she says. Lydia isn't going to take away from that right now by sharing her own wish. This is Spencer's time to talk; she's had hers. "And I'm glad that you feel better about it now." She isn't going to assume aloud that it's because he talked about it, even though she suspects that might have a hand in it.
Lydia's thumb sweeps over his skin a couple of times before falling still. "Wow, we're a real pair, just unloading all this heavy stuff on one another? That's friendship, right there," she proclaims with a small smile that is lost on her uncertain eyes. She's not usually unsure of herself, but right now, she doesn't really know Spencer well enough to know if her attempt at injecting some levity will be welcome or offensive. Or maybe unnoticed entirely.
Frankly, Spencer is always at least moderately uncomfortable talking about his own feelings and problems, and would welcome anyone shifting the attention back onto themselves whenever it comes up. It's not healthy, but fighting it is incredibly difficult to him. He's been upended so thoroughly being here, having his whole perspective on reality combated, stripped of his social support in order to achieve something he thinks worth achieving-- saving Riley Jenkins. He wants to be here and he believes in doing what he thinks of as an experiment, but at the same time, he hadn't anticipated how terribly alone it leaves him to leave behind his team, and his mother.
It's in this uniquely vulnerable position that he's willing to reach out and take her hand, so long as attention isn't called to it. Spencer's always much better with contact that he's initiated. He can see it coming, so to speak.
As for feeling better because he talked about it-- maybe. He's not sure. Spencer is so discomfitted at opening up that the slow release of pressure from talking is almost unrecognizable. What does make him feel better is the sensation that someone is here, seeing him as a person, listening to him and not thinking he's crazy. Needless to say, he's sensitive about having his mental health questioned.
"It's extraordinary circumstances." His lips quirk at her, Reid's characteristic composed but good-natured expression. He speaks frankly, without self-pity. "I usually don't make friends. Uh, at all. And I wasn't expecting to here-- I've always thought my team was a fluke." Despite it being supposedly centered on interpersonal intimacy, Reid agreed to this with the full expectation that no one would be interested, or if they were, he wouldn't be. "I'm glad that I was wrong."
He's not sure he agrees with her characterization of him as particularly selfless, and he knows it's largely his fault they keep getting stuck on heavy topics. But Spencer isn't reluctant to hang onto people when he finds them-- if anything, he hangs on too hard, has a child-like inability to understand why people have to leave when they do. Finding a new friend, someone he knows he can see consistently rather than flying back to Quantico in the morning, isn't something he'll refuse, and he can recognize it when it happens.
Lydia's smile fades a little, not because she pities him — she doesn't really do pity very well now that she's had the experience of being on the receiving end of it — but because she knows that feeling. Her friends are her friends because they share something unique and terrifying. She hasn't been able to make a normal friend since the episode in the woods. That might've had more to do with being a laughingstock than her ability or lack thereof at making friends, but the lines blur; she isn't sure anymore.
"I'm glad you were wrong, too," she says sincerely giving his hand a little squeeze. If their conversation hadn't been so dark a moment ago, this is the part where she would've tried to gauge his reaction were she to kiss him. Given their conversation, it feels better staying right where she is. If there's a spark to be had between them at some point, she's sure they'll find it when the circumstances are better.
Lydia takes a deep breath. "I think for people like you and I — incredibly intelligent people — it's a little harder to make friends because you either have to be willing to dumb yourself down for them or prepare yourself for rejection because you're perceived as intimidating or condescending when you don't necessarily intend to be either." She smirks a little, about to let slip some self-depricating humor. "Or, you know, that's just what I tell myself so I don't feel so bad about the fact that nobody wants to befriend the crazy girl who spent two days naked in the woods in the middle winter with zero recollection of it. Good times. High school social ladder: knocked right out from under me. I never recovered." She smiles in spite of the overshare. It feels like a lifetime ago.
It hasn't even occurred to Spencer to think of kissing her at this point. But then, he's not exactly someone who would take the initiative.
Instead he laughs a little, in a quiet, unhumorous way, in shared commiseration. "I-- wow. I can identify with that." He doesn't offer his own story, but it's not hard to guess how much bullying he'd have received as a ten year old in high school. Spencer as a kid hadn't really learned any social graces yet, to boot, and was largely preoccupied with making sure no one figured out what was going on with his mom because they would take him away from her and put him in foster care. Or, more likely, convince his dad to take him, the worst of all possible outcomes-- his mom institutionalized, him in his dad's custody.
He squeezes her hand back unconsciously as he thinks of it. She's shared enough with him, and she's a friend and not someone from a case that he knows professionally, that Reid wants to answer that. And somehow, it just slips out, just like that.
"I'm weird even for my age group, and I'm never with my age group. I love my mom. She always encouraged me." Spencer swallows. "But she's very sick. She's been sick my whole life. Growing up, she was an unmedicated paranoid schizophrenic. If anyone found out, they'd have taken me away from her." He shrugs one shoulder. "I wasn't really thinking about making friends, and no one was thinking about making friends with me. Being an adult is-- a lot better."
His response is vague and understanding. Lydia doesn't take it literally because she really doubts he can identify with the exact circumstance, but someone with his intellect and who, Lydia suspects, is unwilling to water himself down to fit in would almost definitely have been bullied. Kids are cruel. Adults aren't always that much better. Her lopsided smile and sympathetic eyes should tell him that she knows what he means as she nods.
Spencer takes her by surprise again when he starts to talk about his mother. When the word schizophrenic passes his lips, her stomach knots up with guilt, because she'd been so adamant in insisting that she isn't a schizophrenic and suddenly she's wondering if she'd been unwittingly offending him with that vehemence.
Only allowing herself a few seconds to feel that way, Lydia pulls her focus and settles it back on Spencer, her brow creasing slightly with concern and empathy. He's right. Any competent child protection agency would've ripped him from her care without a question if she wasn't medicating herself to at least try to treat the illness.
"I wouldn't have been, either," she says with soft understanding in her voice. "It would've been the last thing on my mind. But I'm glad you're in a place where you can make friends, now. That's entirely selfish, but all the same," she says with a little smile. Then, she lifts her coffee to her lips, taking a sip. She does not, however, let go of his hand and she won't unless he gives her a reason to think he'd prefer it.
He definitely wasn't offended by her insistence that she's not schizophrenic. Try questioning Reid on his mental health sometime, and see how vociferous his objections are.
He appreciates her not making some statement that he should've been taken away. Years past as it is, Spencer's throat always clenches when he admits this, too conditioned to keep it to himself. Truthfully, he's largely forgotten the hand-holding; there's no one to observe and she's not calling attention to it, so it prevents him from becoming self-conscious. Spencer is extremely private-- but they're in his own apartment, as private as it gets. He can afford to reach out a little in a protected, closed environment like this.
"It's not totally selfish." He feels like he's run out of steam, all of a sudden. One bought of openness and Spencer's drained. "I uh, just didn't want to feel like you were a victim I was interviewing. It's supposed to be more even when it's, you know." An actual friend. He's not totally dense about how this works, just awkward and ungainly.
The change in him is almost night and day and Lydia doesn't miss it. Her smile softens and there's empathy in her eyes again when she looks back at him. The fact of the matter is that it's exhausting to share uncomfortable truths with people one doesn't know very well. It's exhausting because it's terrifying and relieving all rolled into one, so she understands. She, too, is feeling the fatigue of sharing such darkness with someone starting to settle into her bones a little. It's like the caffeine in the coffee is lost in the comfortable warming sensation that only adds to her feeling more drained than probably she actually is.
"It's okay, I didn't," she promises. Even before he'd said anything about himself, she hadn't felt like a victim. Lydia doesn't feel like a victim anymore, ever. She's taken the steps mentally and physically to protect herself from that feeling and take her strength back from those who'd once wished to rob her of it. "But yeah. I know," she adds with a nod and another small smile.
And, giving his hand another squeeze as she lifts the coffee cup and drains the last of hers, Lydia looks him in the eye. "You're stuck with me now, you know almost all my secrets," she says, only half-joking, lips turned up on a crooked little grin.
He finishes his own coffee and finally disentangles his hand from hers, a trifle self-conscious now that he has to pull away. Spencer shifts his feet back down to the floor like a proper adult, but it's only a prelude to standing, which he needs both hands for when one is already occupied.
"Almost all?" He takes the easy opening there. "I have tons more." That's actually the truth, since he hadn't even told the whole story behind Riley Jenkins. He hadn't mentioned his father at all. But there's also just a glimmer of sass behind that, his sense of humor at last showing through. Spencer has to feel pretty comfortable to tease people. It's easier for him to signal acceptance that way than overtly-- It's alright, I don't have anyone else here; you'll be stuck with me, too.
Getting himself to his feet, he reaches out to accept her mug in the silent dance of host-and-guest.
Spencer finally lets go of her hand and suddenly hers feels cold without the opposing body heat of another hand, so she moves it to curl around her empty cup because it's still a little warm. Her eyes follow him as he gets to his feet and she smiles a little. "Almost," she says. It isn't true; there's a lot of secrets there, but he's aware of a lot of the ones she holds closest to her heart.
But the smile turns into a smirk in the wake of his comment and she has to laugh a little as she hands her cup to him. "Thank you. I guess I've got some work to do chipping away at that, then, huh?" she asks, the joke clear in the amusement in her voice.
To be honest, she's okay with never knowing Spencer's secrets, if he never wants to share them. Having spent a portion of her time being mind-controlled by someone else has really given Lydia a lot of perspective about mental and emotional boundaries. She'd never really thought about it before and now it's reflex. She can't decide whether that's good or bad, some days.
"You're taking all this information really well, you know. Most people would rather pick it apart or disbelieve it until they can see it with their own eyes," she calls after him, shifting on the couch so that she can lean on the back of it, chin hooking at the top of the couch so she can look over the back of it at him. "I'm not complaining, I'm just saying."
Spencer takes their mugs and limps his way into the kitchen, the limp as minimized as he can make it out of pure, rote habit. As a member of a team of profilers, he's pretty okay with not knowing someone's every secret, too. They learn enough people's life stories that it effectively cures them of needing to know every detail of those around them. What people show you is just as important as what they're hiding.
"I'm suspending a lot of disbelief to be here at all," he informs her factually. The apartment's small enough that it's easy speaking distance from the kitchen. "Your story's frankly small time in comparison. Also, if you are delusional, it would be both cruel and pointless to try to argue with you about it, so it really wouldn't do anything for me. Most people just haven't encountered real delusions before."
There's a short pause as he rummages around. "Do you want more coffee, or hot chocolate?" Because he totally has a sweet tooth.
Some people might have been offended by his comment about her story being small time comparatively, but Lydia finds it oddly comforting. It's nice to know that her tale isn't earth shattering for a change. "That's true, but a lot of people don't think about that, yeah exactly."
Lydia chews her bottom lip a little and pushes herself to her feet to stretch a bit. "I'll take a hot chocolate and then I should probably give you some time to settle in. God knows I've got some settling in to do, myself," she replies with a smile, sinking back down onto the couch again. It's more comfortable than it looks and she makes a mental note to see if her couch is the same way. She's willing to bet that it is.
"I have a friend who might be able to help with the pain in your leg, Spence," she speaks up. "I'd have to ask him; I don't want to just offer his abilities out without asking him first, but...would you want me to ask...?"
Spencer is exacting enough to mix some hot water with the chocolate powder before adding the milk, so it doesn't clump, which means he has a couple extra steps to go through as he prepares their hot chocolates, rummaging around in his kitchen. He's still getting familiar with it. He'd say having someone over is helping him acclimate, but he never has anyone over at home, so it's just reinforcing how very odd it is to be here.
Not bad, but-- odd. Like that offer.
He's quiet for a long moment, ostensibly busy. "Um. Are there any side effects? And is it anything more unbelievable than what you've already told me?" That's a glimmer of humor, though he does mean it sincerely. Having the unbelievable applied to himself directly is a whole other ball game. "Don't go out of your way for me. I'm doing fine."
Reid has been known to say that while suffering from crippling narcotics withdrawal, but in this case he genuinely isn't that poorly off. He's past the crutches stage so he's feeling pretty good about his progress.
Lydia laughs a little, shaking her head. Those are fair questions. "A little more unbelievable, maybe, but the only side effect is not being in pain for a while," she replies. "It's called pain transference. He could siphon the pain out of your leg and into him, but he heals stupid fast, so he'd only feel it for a few minutes, at most."
That's not necessarily true; she doesn't know how much pain Spencer is actually in. If he's in significantly more pain than he lets on, it could take Scott significantly longer to heal, but that's all hypothetical anyway, because she still has to ask Scott and she's only going to do that with Spencer's blessing.
Which, she can see, she isn't really going to get in so many words. It wouldn't be going out of her way, but she can tell when she's being politely dismissed, so Lydia decides to let it go. "Okay. Well, if you change your mind." She gives him a small smile as a sort of peace offering.
It's just a lot for him at once. Reid isn't exactly cooperative about accepting help or treatment on a good day, and although he does what he needs to to recover and he doesn't exacerbate anything, adding a layer of weird supernaturalness to it doesn't make him eager to experiment. Or to put Lydia in an awkward position with potentially asking one of her friends to expose his secrets on Spencer's behalf, when he knows he'll heal just fine with time.
His doctors said he was lucky he didn't have to amputate. As far as he's concerned, the hard, scary part is over, and now he just has slow, self-inflicted physical therapy to endure for another couple months.
He appreciates her wordless acceptance of his dismissal a lot more than he lets on, even as he shoots her a furrowed look over the top of his pass-through counter. "Pain transference sounds like it could be dangerous. Even if he does heal it." If it were Spencer that had it, he'd go around taking on all kinds of things he couldn't handle, because he just couldn't help himself. Maybe Lydia's friend is smarter than that.
"Not that I'm saying I'd make smart decisions with it." He comes out of the kitchen with new mugs in each hand, offering her one.
Lydia gives a little nod, coupled with a thoughtful facial shrug, because she's heard that, but she doesn't really have any firsthand experience with it, obviously. All she knows in that particular vein is that Derek Hale used to be an Alpha and then Cora got really sick and now he isn't. Whether the two are connected, she doesn't know for sure, but she'd be willing to put money on it, if she were a betting woman. She knows that the spark gave Scott a lot of strength he hadn't necessarily known he'd had before.
"Yeah, it probably could be. Admittedly, I don't know much about it. I won't bring it up to him unless you decide it's bad enough that you'd like to see about taking the edge off. He's...kind of the helping people type, so I don't see him saying no, but..."
Lydia shrugs and her voice trails off. "Consider the subject dropped if you prefer it that way. Thank you," she says, taking the new mug from him and settling back into her more comfortable position on the couch, the position in which one of her legs is curled beneath herself and she's leaned into the corner of the sofa. "I'm still trying to decide on a science, but I think I'm going to take your suggestion and go to classes here for a while. Just to keep my mind sharp," she says. "I might ask around."
He gives her an awkward smile at being called out so directly. "Um, guilty as charged. I'll eventually adjust to being here, I swear." Just, you know, maybe not on week one. Week two is possible. Spencer is resilient but he's also an inflexible literalist. If he were in more dire straits, he wouldn't be foolish enough to refuse help, but it's decidedly non-dire.
Taking his seat next to her again, this time with less of an obvious personal space bubble now that they've held hands, he goes on, "If you're used to being in class, being out of it for too long will probably be boring. You might as well try something. Or a few things."
He's definitely going to need to do an array of things to keep himself busy enough to be satisfied.
Shaking her head, Lydia holds up a hand and dismisses the guilty plea. "Don't worry, I won't hold it against you. I've been there. It took a while for me to wrap my head around everything back home, and that was just stuff from my world. You're having to do that times every other world there is besides your own. That's a lot. I don't know if I could do it if I wasn't already used to weird," she says honestly.
She smiles a little, mostly to herself, when she notices that he puts less space between them when he sits again and Lydia takes a sip of the hot chocolate, a very small sip to keep from burning her lips in case it's hotter than anticipated. "That's sort of what I got to thinking," she confesses. "I can only read so many books before I'll need other stimulation. Besides, it's not like the classes here will matter, so if I get bored with something, I can bounce to another field of study, probably."
At least, she would think it would work that way. She's sort of banking on it so that she can hopefully get a plethora of new information before heading back home. She might not get to keep the college credits, but Lydia's hoping that they can't take the knowledge away from her.
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He listens to all this, too, with as much somber attentiveness as before, shifting on the couch to be comfortable and sipping at his coffee. His hair falls half in his eyes unnoticed until he impatiently pushes it away. Otherwise, as he listens, the only other motion is to nod in the right places.
"It being unexplained was probably the hardest part," he agrees. Reid can imagine how much that must've felt like a curse, to continually stumble on mutilated corpses without warning. His gut jumps with alarm and then sorrow as she describes a lobotomy. Even Reid has nothing he can say to that. He's heard things that bad before, of course, and worse, but comparing torture is pointless. He's sad for her, and vaguely horrified, right here and now, as he is for each individual victim he encounters.
"Lydia. If you ever--" He pauses, catches her eyes. All humor has drained away as he speaks quietly. "If you ever hear something here, tell me. I'll help you catch whoever's responsible. Whatever's responsible. It's um, literally my job. You don't have to... go find corpses alone. I've done that before. Before I was an FBI agent."
Supposedly it won't come up here, but Reid still isn't sure how much he believes that; and regardless, he feels like he has to say this. Because it's all true. Reid will always take seriously someone trying to save someone's life.
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When she really thinks about it, seeing his reaction, Lydia can't help wondering how horrified he would look if she told him some of the other things that have happened to her; to her friends. They've perhaps, as a pack, grown numb to the horrors of Beacon Hills, because they're too busy fighting to protect those who cannot protect themselves — per Allison's code — to stop and consider just how much weight is being put on the shoulders of mostly a bunch of high school students. The stories she could tell him would probably make him pity and worry about her more than anything else. For that reason, she decides not to share anything he doesn't specifically ask to hear. It's probably easier for both of them, that way. Lydia wants no one's pity.
She chews on her bottom lip a little, shifting just slightly on the couch and taking another sip from her coffee cup when he responds. A weak smile pulls the corners of her mouth up a little bit, but it falls a little short of her eyes as she nods. She's more likely to tell Scott and Malia than Spencer, but then again...maybe a death here wouldn't be supernaturally-instigated and maybe he would be able to do what he does to stop it without getting hurt.
Her brow creases, though, when he says he's found corpses alone and tacks on that it happened before he was an FBI agent. Now Lydia's listening with somber attentiveness. "Before the FBI?" she asks gently, prodding carefully without being forceful; letting him know that she's interested in him sharing if he's comfortable with doing so.
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He'd intentionally directed things back at himself with that comment, to give himself a break and to make things more equal. He'd known what he was signing up to reveal when he said it, but he still hesitates now, looking down at his coffee.
"I, uh... I had a friend when I was a little kid. Riley Jenkins. It's-- my wish for being here." Maybe they're not supposed to talk about their wishes. Maybe that's taboo. Reid has never cared about those things. "I wish what happened to him hadn't happened. When he was six, he was picked up by a pedophile. He was raped and murdered. I found his body behind a washing machine in his basement." Spencer sounds frank about this report, although obviously it'd affected him, since he's still looking at his hands rather than making eye contact.
"I dreamed about it for years, thinking I'd made it up. I... finally learned what really happened a few months ago. I guess it stuck with me." That's not even the whole story, but it's enough. It's something. Things about his parents are still the most sensitive things Reid has to tell.
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"That's a good wish," she tries to say, but it comes out almost a whisper for the sympathetic lump in the back of her throat. She clears her throat to try to work over it. "I'm sorry that happened. To him and to you."
Lydia reaches a hand over and gives his arm a quick squeeze meant to be reassuring and supportive. Then she remembers that he'd appeared to have something of an aversion to his personal bubble being invaded and her hand falls away as quickly as it had lifted to touch him.
It registers in her mind belatedly the reminder that Spencer has a photographic memory. Whatever he saw as a child, that's still probably crystal clear. Her heart breaks all over again. "We don't have to keep talking about it," she offers to give him an out. She's willing to listen and be there for her new friend if he wants to get it off his chest, but if he'd rather not, she wants to make sure he knows he has a get out of jail free card on the table.
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"I thought I was losing my mind. I couldn't figure out why I kept seeing it." Especially since he thought it meant his father had done it, and knowing he hadn't was such a profound relief Spencer still isn't sure how to process it. He resents his father so much, doesn't think he'll ever be able to forgive him. But that doesn't mean he'd wanted him to be a murderous pedophile-- he'd just been afraid it was true.
Spencer belatedly comes out of his own thoughts and realizes she'd tried to considerately retract her hand, and after a long moment of further hesitation chases her hand as she pulls it away, taking it in his own. He'd managed to meet her eyes while speaking, but now loses it again, just loosely holding her hand in his on the couch cushions, the other still curled around his coffee.
That's a big gesture, from Reid. But the truth is, he's alone here. He's very aware of it. And he's not so wary anymore, after six years with the BAU, of making friends.
He finishes, "My team helped me catch who did it and clear everything up. It's over now, I just wish it hadn't happened. So I'm here."
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It surprises her a little when he reaches out to take her hand as she had started to take it away. It isn't lost on her that his gaze averts when he does. Lydia gives his hand what she hopes is a reassuring squeeze, and for a moment, she says nothing at all, letting silence fall between them until he speaks again.
"That's really selfless of you," she says. Lydia isn't going to take away from that right now by sharing her own wish. This is Spencer's time to talk; she's had hers. "And I'm glad that you feel better about it now." She isn't going to assume aloud that it's because he talked about it, even though she suspects that might have a hand in it.
Lydia's thumb sweeps over his skin a couple of times before falling still. "Wow, we're a real pair, just unloading all this heavy stuff on one another? That's friendship, right there," she proclaims with a small smile that is lost on her uncertain eyes. She's not usually unsure of herself, but right now, she doesn't really know Spencer well enough to know if her attempt at injecting some levity will be welcome or offensive. Or maybe unnoticed entirely.
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It's in this uniquely vulnerable position that he's willing to reach out and take her hand, so long as attention isn't called to it. Spencer's always much better with contact that he's initiated. He can see it coming, so to speak.
As for feeling better because he talked about it-- maybe. He's not sure. Spencer is so discomfitted at opening up that the slow release of pressure from talking is almost unrecognizable. What does make him feel better is the sensation that someone is here, seeing him as a person, listening to him and not thinking he's crazy. Needless to say, he's sensitive about having his mental health questioned.
"It's extraordinary circumstances." His lips quirk at her, Reid's characteristic composed but good-natured expression. He speaks frankly, without self-pity. "I usually don't make friends. Uh, at all. And I wasn't expecting to here-- I've always thought my team was a fluke." Despite it being supposedly centered on interpersonal intimacy, Reid agreed to this with the full expectation that no one would be interested, or if they were, he wouldn't be. "I'm glad that I was wrong."
He's not sure he agrees with her characterization of him as particularly selfless, and he knows it's largely his fault they keep getting stuck on heavy topics. But Spencer isn't reluctant to hang onto people when he finds them-- if anything, he hangs on too hard, has a child-like inability to understand why people have to leave when they do. Finding a new friend, someone he knows he can see consistently rather than flying back to Quantico in the morning, isn't something he'll refuse, and he can recognize it when it happens.
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"I'm glad you were wrong, too," she says sincerely giving his hand a little squeeze. If their conversation hadn't been so dark a moment ago, this is the part where she would've tried to gauge his reaction were she to kiss him. Given their conversation, it feels better staying right where she is. If there's a spark to be had between them at some point, she's sure they'll find it when the circumstances are better.
Lydia takes a deep breath. "I think for people like you and I — incredibly intelligent people — it's a little harder to make friends because you either have to be willing to dumb yourself down for them or prepare yourself for rejection because you're perceived as intimidating or condescending when you don't necessarily intend to be either." She smirks a little, about to let slip some self-depricating humor. "Or, you know, that's just what I tell myself so I don't feel so bad about the fact that nobody wants to befriend the crazy girl who spent two days naked in the woods in the middle winter with zero recollection of it. Good times. High school social ladder: knocked right out from under me. I never recovered." She smiles in spite of the overshare. It feels like a lifetime ago.
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Instead he laughs a little, in a quiet, unhumorous way, in shared commiseration. "I-- wow. I can identify with that." He doesn't offer his own story, but it's not hard to guess how much bullying he'd have received as a ten year old in high school. Spencer as a kid hadn't really learned any social graces yet, to boot, and was largely preoccupied with making sure no one figured out what was going on with his mom because they would take him away from her and put him in foster care. Or, more likely, convince his dad to take him, the worst of all possible outcomes-- his mom institutionalized, him in his dad's custody.
He squeezes her hand back unconsciously as he thinks of it. She's shared enough with him, and she's a friend and not someone from a case that he knows professionally, that Reid wants to answer that. And somehow, it just slips out, just like that.
"I'm weird even for my age group, and I'm never with my age group. I love my mom. She always encouraged me." Spencer swallows. "But she's very sick. She's been sick my whole life. Growing up, she was an unmedicated paranoid schizophrenic. If anyone found out, they'd have taken me away from her." He shrugs one shoulder. "I wasn't really thinking about making friends, and no one was thinking about making friends with me. Being an adult is-- a lot better."
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Spencer takes her by surprise again when he starts to talk about his mother. When the word schizophrenic passes his lips, her stomach knots up with guilt, because she'd been so adamant in insisting that she isn't a schizophrenic and suddenly she's wondering if she'd been unwittingly offending him with that vehemence.
Only allowing herself a few seconds to feel that way, Lydia pulls her focus and settles it back on Spencer, her brow creasing slightly with concern and empathy. He's right. Any competent child protection agency would've ripped him from her care without a question if she wasn't medicating herself to at least try to treat the illness.
"I wouldn't have been, either," she says with soft understanding in her voice. "It would've been the last thing on my mind. But I'm glad you're in a place where you can make friends, now. That's entirely selfish, but all the same," she says with a little smile. Then, she lifts her coffee to her lips, taking a sip. She does not, however, let go of his hand and she won't unless he gives her a reason to think he'd prefer it.
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He appreciates her not making some statement that he should've been taken away. Years past as it is, Spencer's throat always clenches when he admits this, too conditioned to keep it to himself. Truthfully, he's largely forgotten the hand-holding; there's no one to observe and she's not calling attention to it, so it prevents him from becoming self-conscious. Spencer is extremely private-- but they're in his own apartment, as private as it gets. He can afford to reach out a little in a protected, closed environment like this.
"It's not totally selfish." He feels like he's run out of steam, all of a sudden. One bought of openness and Spencer's drained. "I uh, just didn't want to feel like you were a victim I was interviewing. It's supposed to be more even when it's, you know." An actual friend. He's not totally dense about how this works, just awkward and ungainly.
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"It's okay, I didn't," she promises. Even before he'd said anything about himself, she hadn't felt like a victim. Lydia doesn't feel like a victim anymore, ever. She's taken the steps mentally and physically to protect herself from that feeling and take her strength back from those who'd once wished to rob her of it. "But yeah. I know," she adds with a nod and another small smile.
And, giving his hand another squeeze as she lifts the coffee cup and drains the last of hers, Lydia looks him in the eye. "You're stuck with me now, you know almost all my secrets," she says, only half-joking, lips turned up on a crooked little grin.
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"Almost all?" He takes the easy opening there. "I have tons more." That's actually the truth, since he hadn't even told the whole story behind Riley Jenkins. He hadn't mentioned his father at all. But there's also just a glimmer of sass behind that, his sense of humor at last showing through. Spencer has to feel pretty comfortable to tease people. It's easier for him to signal acceptance that way than overtly-- It's alright, I don't have anyone else here; you'll be stuck with me, too.
Getting himself to his feet, he reaches out to accept her mug in the silent dance of host-and-guest.
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But the smile turns into a smirk in the wake of his comment and she has to laugh a little as she hands her cup to him. "Thank you. I guess I've got some work to do chipping away at that, then, huh?" she asks, the joke clear in the amusement in her voice.
To be honest, she's okay with never knowing Spencer's secrets, if he never wants to share them. Having spent a portion of her time being mind-controlled by someone else has really given Lydia a lot of perspective about mental and emotional boundaries. She'd never really thought about it before and now it's reflex. She can't decide whether that's good or bad, some days.
"You're taking all this information really well, you know. Most people would rather pick it apart or disbelieve it until they can see it with their own eyes," she calls after him, shifting on the couch so that she can lean on the back of it, chin hooking at the top of the couch so she can look over the back of it at him. "I'm not complaining, I'm just saying."
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"I'm suspending a lot of disbelief to be here at all," he informs her factually. The apartment's small enough that it's easy speaking distance from the kitchen. "Your story's frankly small time in comparison. Also, if you are delusional, it would be both cruel and pointless to try to argue with you about it, so it really wouldn't do anything for me. Most people just haven't encountered real delusions before."
There's a short pause as he rummages around. "Do you want more coffee, or hot chocolate?" Because he totally has a sweet tooth.
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Lydia chews her bottom lip a little and pushes herself to her feet to stretch a bit. "I'll take a hot chocolate and then I should probably give you some time to settle in. God knows I've got some settling in to do, myself," she replies with a smile, sinking back down onto the couch again. It's more comfortable than it looks and she makes a mental note to see if her couch is the same way. She's willing to bet that it is.
"I have a friend who might be able to help with the pain in your leg, Spence," she speaks up. "I'd have to ask him; I don't want to just offer his abilities out without asking him first, but...would you want me to ask...?"
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Not bad, but-- odd. Like that offer.
He's quiet for a long moment, ostensibly busy. "Um. Are there any side effects? And is it anything more unbelievable than what you've already told me?" That's a glimmer of humor, though he does mean it sincerely. Having the unbelievable applied to himself directly is a whole other ball game. "Don't go out of your way for me. I'm doing fine."
Reid has been known to say that while suffering from crippling narcotics withdrawal, but in this case he genuinely isn't that poorly off. He's past the crutches stage so he's feeling pretty good about his progress.
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That's not necessarily true; she doesn't know how much pain Spencer is actually in. If he's in significantly more pain than he lets on, it could take Scott significantly longer to heal, but that's all hypothetical anyway, because she still has to ask Scott and she's only going to do that with Spencer's blessing.
Which, she can see, she isn't really going to get in so many words. It wouldn't be going out of her way, but she can tell when she's being politely dismissed, so Lydia decides to let it go. "Okay. Well, if you change your mind." She gives him a small smile as a sort of peace offering.
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His doctors said he was lucky he didn't have to amputate. As far as he's concerned, the hard, scary part is over, and now he just has slow, self-inflicted physical therapy to endure for another couple months.
He appreciates her wordless acceptance of his dismissal a lot more than he lets on, even as he shoots her a furrowed look over the top of his pass-through counter. "Pain transference sounds like it could be dangerous. Even if he does heal it." If it were Spencer that had it, he'd go around taking on all kinds of things he couldn't handle, because he just couldn't help himself. Maybe Lydia's friend is smarter than that.
"Not that I'm saying I'd make smart decisions with it." He comes out of the kitchen with new mugs in each hand, offering her one.
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"Yeah, it probably could be. Admittedly, I don't know much about it. I won't bring it up to him unless you decide it's bad enough that you'd like to see about taking the edge off. He's...kind of the helping people type, so I don't see him saying no, but..."
Lydia shrugs and her voice trails off. "Consider the subject dropped if you prefer it that way. Thank you," she says, taking the new mug from him and settling back into her more comfortable position on the couch, the position in which one of her legs is curled beneath herself and she's leaned into the corner of the sofa. "I'm still trying to decide on a science, but I think I'm going to take your suggestion and go to classes here for a while. Just to keep my mind sharp," she says. "I might ask around."
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Taking his seat next to her again, this time with less of an obvious personal space bubble now that they've held hands, he goes on, "If you're used to being in class, being out of it for too long will probably be boring. You might as well try something. Or a few things."
He's definitely going to need to do an array of things to keep himself busy enough to be satisfied.
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She smiles a little, mostly to herself, when she notices that he puts less space between them when he sits again and Lydia takes a sip of the hot chocolate, a very small sip to keep from burning her lips in case it's hotter than anticipated. "That's sort of what I got to thinking," she confesses. "I can only read so many books before I'll need other stimulation. Besides, it's not like the classes here will matter, so if I get bored with something, I can bounce to another field of study, probably."
At least, she would think it would work that way. She's sort of banking on it so that she can hopefully get a plethora of new information before heading back home. She might not get to keep the college credits, but Lydia's hoping that they can't take the knowledge away from her.