Yeah, I don't love it, but if I can talk freely without breaking the whole universe or something, then I'll be able to deal better. You ask that like they're not used to traumatic events. Besides, they're already in the middle of the battle, I just made it through the end. They're aware of what's going on, just not how it ends. Spoiler alert: we kicked ass. We always kick ass.
Not over a dating app, but if you want to get together. Some of it isn't mine to share, but what is, sure. If you promise not to think I'm crazy. I'm sick of people thinking I'm crazy. Especially when I'm hardly the only person who knows what's really going on in Beacon Hills.
( Her mother finally got fed up enough thinking that Lydia was crazy like her grandmother — who, incidentally, wasn't crazy at all; she was just also a banshee — that she checked Lydia into Eichen House. Given that all they were interested in doing was experimenting on her to see how far they could push her banshee abilities, if she had been legitimately mentally ill, her stay there certainly wouldn't have done her any favors. She still has a scar carefully hidden under her thick red hair from where they drilled a hole into her skull. Treppaning wouldn't have been her choice for mental health treatment, if she'd had a say in it, that's for sure. )
It's not just high schoolers. We're part of it, but we have adults fighting with us. We live in Beacon Hills. It's literally called that because the town is a beacon for the supernatural and, just like people, there are bad ones just like there are good ones. But most of the town hadn't been aware of all of that until recently.
...let's just say they didn't like what they found out much. The rest, I'll save for talking in person, if it's all the same to you...
[ He'd sort of guessed, but look, it's confusing. Okay-- focusing on the serious topic at hand. ]
No, I understand. We can meet up. I've spoken with genuinely crazy people, and experiencing something you can't easily explain is completely different from delusion.
If you literally had no adults involved I would start to question the capacity and compassion of the adults in your town. [ AKA, he's relieved to hear that, although he's still trying to swallow this information. ] I definitely want to hear everything you're willing to say about your experience of the supernatural.
Yes, sweetie. I think it's mostly meant to be a dating app, like Tinder or whatever.
( Not that she's ever bothered with them for herself; she's never really had to. )
For a while, it was just us, but that was mostly because we kept everything secret; we didn't think they would believe us. My mom was the last parent to come around. I guess it was easier to believe in the supernatural if you can actually see it and she didn't really have that luxury. But yeah, I'll talk about it, if you're interested. Some of it — a lot of it — will sound like I'm making things up. It's not pretty and I'm not going to sugarcoat or romanticize it, so...just be sure you really want to hear it before you ask when we see each other next.
( Lydia isn't actually worried that that'll be an issue with Spencer, especially given the nature of his own job back home and the way he talks freely about it, but she figures she needs to say it still, for her own peace of mind. )
It wasn't obvious! Is that what people are using check marks for?
You put a check mark!
[ The tones of these two conversations are wildly discordant but Reid just... can't help it. ]
I can't blame you for thinking they wouldn't believe you. I'm not sure I would if you didn't have all the hallmark indicators of telling the truth, and I know I'm in another universe that serves as a multidimensional meeting point. But your mom did come around eventually? [ He zeroes in on that as a momma's boy himself. ]
There's pretty much nothing you could tell me that I wouldn't be able to take hearing, Lydia. You can say whatever you want to say.
[ There's maybe a little bit of his soft-spoken, careful, talking-to-victims mindset in there. ]
[ He can't entirely deal with those implications. They meet his brain and slide right off, unable to compute. He just... moves on. ]
If I give someone a check mark, are they going to think I'm interested in them? I can't manufacture sentiment for someone based on a picture and a three-line bio.
[ Yes, he's a touch grumpy. Spencer's love life and lack thereof is a regular source of discomfort. In many ways, growing up has been a blessing for feeling less alienated than he had as a too-smart too-young kid, but some things just haven't changed in their ability to make him feel like there's something off about him, and how he approaches human connection is one of them.
As for this-- when he puts it together, it hits surprisingly close to home. But he doesn't just... blurt out things about his mom. It's too soon for that. Yet he's definitely thinking it, and can start to understand. ]
I don't agree with referring to the mentally ill in pejorative terms to start with. If you had something wrong with you, you would deserve sympathy and help. Even crazy people should be listened to.
They'll think that you're interested in, at the very least, getting to know them to see if you're interested, probably. That's how I would take it, anyway. I don't think anyone expects you to fall in love with them based on their stupid okCuddle profile sweetie, you're overthinking it. It's just an app. A facilitator. It's up to you whether you use it for facilitating platonic, romantic, or sexual encounters. Or for all of the above. No one's going to judge you no matter what direction you go. Or if they do, I'll kick their asses, problem solved.
Seriously, don't worry about it so much, Spencer.
( She sighs a little. He's preaching to the choir. )
Even if I had been mentally ill, Eichen House isn't a mental hospital anyway. It's just a torture lab pretending to be one. But my mom didn't know any better, so I don't hold it against her. It isn't her fault she trusted people presenting themselves as medical professionals and it isn't her fault that she thought my best friend's death broke me. She was just doing what she thought was best for me. ...she just happened to be wrong.
Me calling it the looney bin because it isn't a legitimate mental hospital at all, not for people like me. She never would've called it that. She never did; my grandmother was there, too. She died in there. Now I know why.
[ This is extremely important information and you better believe it's memorized now. The whole message, really. ]
I'm not worried, I just want to communicate effectively. [ Sure, okay. He's not lying about that, but he is, also, uncomfortable with the idea of intimacy writ large. ] Thanks for offering to kick their asses, but I'll be fine. I'm not comfortable trying out people but I know it's standard behavior for most of the human race.
[ Reid doesn't get attached often, and without that, he just can't trust enough to be intimate in any way with someone. And when he does get attached... he attaches hard.
As for the next part, this wells up so much emotion in him, fear for something like that happening to his mom-- and his brain can supply so many scenarios for it, in graphic, explicit detail, given prior cases-- that it takes him some time to reply. Reid has to take a deep breath and remind himself of reality first, recenter on Lydia's actual life rather than his baseless fears. ]
I'm so sorry that happened to you. And your grandmother. That's horrific. I understand your mom was trying to take care of you. I can only imagine how guilty what happened must make her feel. [ He really can imagine it. This is the appropriate time to confess about his mom, but Reid can't make his fingers type it out. He's gotten less hyperdefensive of the information, but less hyperdefensive is still plenty defensive. He wants to reach out, but he spent his whole childhood pretending nothing was wrong so he wouldn't get taken away from her. Who would take care of her, then? ]
You seem like you've repaired your relationship since then.
[ That's the more important part of this to him, rather than details on what sounds like a closed case. The human impact is always what Reid is most concerned with. ]
If the check marks make you feel uncomfortable, just don't use them, sweetie. I don't think anyone will care. I noticed you didn't give me a check or an X; I just assumed that meant you hadn't decided or whatever. It didn't bother me any.
( Lydia shakes her head a little at her phone, but mostly just because she and her mom have a very special relationship, since her father left, so... She hopes that she's right in her opinion: )
I think she feels more angry with them than guilty. I hope she doesn't feel guilty. I know it isn't her fault. And if I'd been actually mentally ill, I wouldn't have wound up downstairs. I might actually have gotten good care, but the people in that place had been waiting for someone like me. They manipulated my mom into thinking there was something wrong with me that she couldn't fix with enough love and understanding. I know that at least she knows that I don't blame her for it and I never could have, so I hope that alleviates the guilt.
I never told her everything that happened. I never will. She doesn't need to know what they did to me in there and she definitely doesn't need to know that they did the same thing to her mother that they did to her daughter. She probably couldn't handle that information. My grandmother was old. I'd rather my mother think that's how she died.
( The truth is that Lydia doesn't actually know for a fact that her grandmother died in the banshee experiments, but what little she remembers of her grandmother toward the end is symptomatic of what nearly killed Lydia herself. She's more powerful than her grandmother was...she's pretty sure that's because of her pack. )
Maybe we should just meet up at my place or yours and continue this conversation. It's pretty deep and dark for an app...sorry. I didn't actually intend for that to happen.
[ Please Lydia, he's not that sensitive. He's extremely sensitive, but being identified as such still embarrasses him after a lifetime of ridicule for it. His mother had always told him it was one of his greatest assets, but-- his mother also made a career out of studying literature. ]
Okay, okay. I'm not completely hopeless, I just don't use technology. And I don't want people to think I'm hitting on them.
[ God forbid. Anyway. As morbid and dark a conversation as this is, Reid is perfectly at home with it, but he can take a hint or three about moving it off-network. Which, frankly, he is always ready to do. When he's not talking about his nonexistent love/sex life, he's much more socially adept. ]
Pretty sure it's at least half my fault. Don't worry about it. Come over here? I'll buy us coffee. Possibly make you watch goofy sci if it gets too serious again.
And for what it's worth, I wouldn't have told her, either. [ Reid never tells his mother what happens to him, of course. Never. ]
I didn't say you were <3 I think you can just skip the check marks and not worry about it. If someone asks, just tell them you'd rather meet in person or something. It's fine, sweetie.
( Lydia can't help wondering if he's worried what she thinks as much as he's worried about what other, hypothetical people will think. She certainly hopes not; she'd like to think that she's made her own interest clear, however not a priority. If she's interested with or without the check mark in return, then he hasn't anything to worry about. )
What's half your fault...? Yeah, I'll come over. Which apartment is yours?
( She smiles a little, although it doesn't reach her eyes. At least she's in good company, if nothing else. )
[ Spencer honestly has no idea how seriously to take her 'interest', given everything, and is mostly just shelving it for now. Like he'd said, he's slow, and him being interested in anyone has a necessary prerequisite of trust and, well, friendship first. He's getting there. He's good enough at reading people that he's not concerned about how things are going with Lydia; she's comfortable and assertive enough that he thinks she would say something if she wanted to. ]
The conversation turning dark. Occupational hazard. I'm in Beta, floor 1 east.
It's okay, yeah occupational hazard indeed. I'll be there soon. I'm in Alpha, so it might take me a minute.
With that, Lydia tucks the phone away and does a quick hair and makeup check, mostly by reflex, before heading out. Just because Spencer hasn't shown any signs of interest or physical attraction to her doesn't mean she won't bump into someone on the way there, after all.
The fact that she's opening up to suddenly to someone comes as a bit of a surprise, but there's just something trustworthy about him. Maybe it's the fact that he's said he's in law enforcement. Maybe it's that he's a little bit awkward and that reminds her of Stiles before they got together. Maybe he just has one of those faces. Whatever it is, he's a good listener and he seems genuinely interested in hearing more, so Lydia decides she might as well go. The worst thing that can happen is that she can have poor judgement of character on this one and she ends up having to defend herself unexpectedly. That's not so bad. She can do that. She doesn't think she'll have to, though, which is better.
When she reaches the east door, Lydia tosses her hair back over her shoulders so that it cascades down her back and isn't in her way when she knocks purposefully and firmly, intending to be heard on the first try.
Spencer makes friends so rarely that he's honestly somewhat baffled at the speed with which he feels comfortable with Lydia. The last time this happened was, well, his teammates at the BAU. So it's not the first time, but it still happens infrequently enough that he feels a little tentative, afraid of getting ahead of himself and ruining something, or getting hurt.
People leave. He knows that they leave.
He uses the time it takes for her to make her way over getting coffee together. He's been here a handful of days and he already has a coffee machine and grounds up and running (he has his priorities straight) and has some percolating when he answers the door. For this part, Spencer hasn't spared a single thought about how he looks: slightly unkempt, in too-formal clothes for the occasion, and just a little jittery with nerves. At home, he has people over at his place almost as rarely as he makes new friends. This apartment being so new to him it barely registers as 'his place' softens it somewhat, but the whole thing still ends up being sort of surreal.
"Hi. Um. Oh, come in." He steps to the side belatedly. Here at home, he doesn't use his cane, although that means it takes him somewhat longer to traverse, and with heavier steps. "Thanks for coming?" Spencer sounds vaguely unsure. "Sorry, I usually don't... have guests. Or live here. But I do have coffee."
Lydia smiles at him when he opens the door, taking note of the fact that he doesn't have his cane and it takes him a second to step aside. "Thanks," she replies, moving into his apartment with no hesitation once he's given her the indication that it's okay with him. Lydia Martin tends to ooze confidence, whether or not she happens to be feeling it in any given moment in time. Right now, she doesn't have any reason not to feel it, so she isn't uncertain about being in his place, since he's invited her into it.
"You're welcome, it's...just not a conversation I want to have online, is all. I don't mind sharing," she assures him. Smirking a little, she shakes her head and waves off his apology with one hand. "Don't worry about it. My place doesn't look a whole lot different yet. I got here the same day you did, remember? I'm still working on making it more homey. You're allowed to be in that process, too, hon."
She can smell the coffee and hear it percolating even before he points out that he has it and she smiles again. "You already know me well," she says, only half-joking. "I'll get it. Unless you prefer I don't?" she offers, because again, he isn't using his cane and she imagines that it probably isn't comfortable to not have that crutch, even if it's also probably a good thing that he doesn't use it all the time.
"Feel free to hit me with your questions, I don't mind answering them. Any that I do mind answering, you'll know it," she promises. "We talked about a lot and skirted around even more. I kind of lost track of what I'd pushed under the rug..."
Spencer is forever an odd mix of self-assured on certain things and completely unsteady about others. He's gotten more graceful about it as he's gotten older, at least; at Lydia's age he was an absolute mess with this sort of thing, but now he shuts the door behind her and limps over to his kitchen.
"No, I can do it. It's better if I don't baby it too much, or it gets stiff." Also, he's obstinate about doing things for himself, and letting someone get him coffee in his own apartment while he's capable of walking is just completely counter-intuitive to him. Reid's tall enough that he doesn't have difficulty getting the mugs down, either, and pulling out creamer and sugar, using the counter to steady himself when he needs it, which isn't too often. "And believe me," he jokes back, "the coffee is definitely for me first."
Once he starts pouring, he glances over his shoulder at her and picks up the real conversational thread at hand. "I think I asked if you made up with your mom?" Spencer knows he asked that. He also hasn't stopped zeroing in on it as a critical piece of information, determining whether her major support network is still in place. He hasn't missed that she hasn't mentioned her father, and given his own father, he isn't about to ask.
"Oh, I see how it is," Lydia jokes when Spencer says the coffee is for him first. It probably is, he'd been interested in going for coffee with her when they'd first met, so clearly he enjoys it just like she does. While he's working on getting their coffee, Lydia sinks onto the nearest piece of furniture, which is a small sofa with a coffee table — convenient.
Lydia looks over her shoulder and then shifts on the couch so that she can look over the back of it at him. "I was never actually upset with her," she replies. "My friends were, but I never was."
He did ask that; she can't remember if she went into any actual detail, but she remembers touching base on the subject. "Oh, I know...you wanted to know what proof I had and I said I didn't want to discuss it over the app. I wonder, would the fact that I'm one of those things count if I can't actually show you?" she asks thoughtfully.
She settles more comfortably against the couch, looking around his apartment. It looks a lot like hers does. For now. Hers will be more girly by the time she's finished with it, if she doesn't just up and move out entirely, but for now, they look similar.
Edited (my dog stepped on the keyboard lol) 2018-01-27 23:32 (UTC)
Spencer wanders back with both cups of coffee in hand-- he'd remembered how she'd ordered hers at the cafe, of course-- and hands her one before taking his own seat with some care. He ends up on the couch with her, but on the other end, pressed back into the corner and one leg, the good one, drawn up to his chest, mug cradled in his lap with both hands. He always has a vaguely childish way of sitting, which doesn't help when he already looks young for his age.
His apartment is certainly bare at the moment. The most defining piece in it is the neat stacks of library books, truly an absurd amount for one person-- he'd met the limit on his card in one go, undoubtedly.
But Spencer is so focused on her at the moment that he hasn't spared a thought for himself or his residence. He's glad, extremely glad, that from what she's said it sounds like she and her mom are fine. Not that he's biased. "I decline to characterize you as a 'thing'," he says immediately, but he looks fascinated, attention totally caught. "But I definitely want to know everything. --Everything you're willing to say," he adds more quickly. "Why can't you show me?"
She can't help noticing his seating position and finding that endearing as well. It's just one of the things that makes him feel approachable in spite of the gap in their ages and the fact that he literally works for the federal government. Lydia actually almost mirrors the position, drawing one of her legs up underneath herself and holding her own mug in both hands at her lap.
A look of amusement crosses her expression and Lydia looks down for a brief moment before meeting his eyes again. "Well, I appreciate that." She takes a deep breath and lets it out softly. "It's...I'm a banshee. I don't have fangs or glowing eyes or super strength. I just have voices in my head," she says; something she's already said to Malia. Lydia is quick to tack on, "and not the kind of voices that come with schizophrenia, they're specific. They're the voices of dead banshees. They tell me when someone is going to die.
"I used to be really bad at deciphering the words out of the dull buzz that's always there...so I used to just always find dead bodies. Now, I'm better at it. Sometimes, I can stop it before it happens."
She chooses not to tell him what she can do with her scream. Hopefully, she'll never need it here.
"But I know werewolves. Werecoyotes. Kitsune. Supernatural chimeras..." she tells him. "I've seen the things that they can do; I've fought beside them. I've had a price on my head along with them, too. That was a good time, let me tell you," she says, sarcasm creeping in. "I've dated a kanima — as it turns out, if you're a shitty person on the inside, getting bitten by a werewolf doesn't always turn you into an actual werewolf."
She pauses. "The creatures that we are, that's just the tip of the iceberg." But she isn't going to go on until she's sure that he isn't about to call the men in white coats because she hears voices in her head. Lydia is entirely aware that that's typically symptomatic of mental illness; it's why her grandmother ended up in Eichen House. In retrospect, she wonders if her mother considers the fact that the fact that she never responded to medication might have been a sign that she hadn't been suffering schizophrenia at all.
Spencer swallows, listening to this, then swallows his coffee. It's a good thing he'd tried to acclimate himself to the incredulity of being here first thing. Undoubtedly, whoever had the misfortune of giving Reid the pitch for Cadelle had had a very long conversation. Part of him is still riled in incredulity at all of this. He's a rational person, a scientist, who likes explanations.
But railing at reality has never been his way either. There's no use taking out his shifting worldview, his paradigm of reality moving like tectonic plates, on someone to whom it is their real life. Spencer's sure Lydia has had to go through this herself. Discovering you're something else, especially in a context like that, is incredibly difficult and even traumatic. He can reserve his own disbelief for a better moment. Putting that on hold and taking in information is what Reid is used to, anyway.
He smiles slightly. "You don't happen to have any books on them, do you? I feel pretty-- at a loss, not having a frame of reference for this. The best I can do is say that your description of banshees is almost exactly in line with Irish folk tales, and that it's characteristic of schizophrenics to hear the voices of the recently deceased, not the soon-to-be-dead."
There's a pause. That was his attempt at showing he's listening, isn't going to turn argumentative. But then he has to say, quietly, "It must be horrible to hear that. And to find the bodies. Being first on the scene is harder than most people know."
To Lydia's pleasant surprise, rather than being able to see the incredulous expression he wants hiding in Spencer's eyes, she just sees a person listening to what she has to say and trying to understand something that can't be explained. Even in Lydia's world, it falls into The Unexplainable for most people. If she hadn't had the bite to activate it, even she wouldn't be able to explain it herself, so she can't help wondering how much more difficult all of this must have been for her grandmother than it is for her, which is saying a lot as it is.
Lydia takes a deep breath and offers a weak smile, apologetic in its nature. "Not here, anyway, no. I don't know if the library would have anything on the subject since this entire place is just a multi-dimensional melting pot, but any books I had on it are back home in my bedroom at my mom's house..." she confesses, tucking her hair behind her ear with one hand and lifting the coffee to sip with the other. "...I do hear the voices of the deceased. They tell me where to find the soon-to-be-dead. Believe me, I know it's all weird. I've only just recently come to terms with it myself and I got bitten a couple of years ago, which is when this all started."
With a soft huff, a laugh void of humor, and a roll of her eyes, Lydia nods. "Yeah...and it's your job. Try being a teenage girl who doesn't realize she's not just a normal human being, just sort of zoning out and getting into the car only to wander out of it several minutes later and snap out of it in time to scream at the mangled body you just stumbled onto..." she says. Some people might call her abilities a "gift" for lack of a better word. Some gift. "It's not so bad anymore. Now that I know what it is. I mean, it isn't pleasant, or anything...but... It's not scary like it used to be. I don't have nightmares, anymore." At least, not most nights. Some nights, she still wakes up screaming, but that's often more to do with the remnant memories of having been able to feel the life being severed from her best friend; knowing without being near enough to see it, that Allison had been stabbed and was going to die because she'd failed to stop it. Lydia wonders if she'll ever be able to kick that feeling of guilt. She assumes probably not.
Her eyes move back to Spencer again, coming back into focus when she hadn't actually realized they'd gone out of it briefly as she'd lost herself in thought. Lydia wonders how long she's been like that; if he'd had time to notice it. She hopes not. "Anyway...so there's nothing I can show someone about my abilities. All I've got to show for it is a scar from a hole in the head from Eichen House. They thought if they let the voices out, they could steal my powers or something. I still don't understand it. All I know is that they only ended up making me more powerful, but like...kind of dangerously so. I have to be careful, now, if I feel like I need to scream." I could kill someone with it, if I'm not. "Sometimes I need to just to clear out all the noise. Sometimes, that's the only way I can focus on what the voices are actually saying. They're always talking over one another. Always. They're doing it now; it literally never stops."
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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
( Does actually being one count? )
I've never heard of it...
Yeah, I don't love it, but if I can talk freely without breaking the whole universe or something, then I'll be able to deal better. You ask that like they're not used to traumatic events. Besides, they're already in the middle of the battle, I just made it through the end. They're aware of what's going on, just not how it ends. Spoiler alert: we kicked ass. We always kick ass.
no subject
[ He would definitely accept that as conclusive evidence, yes. ]
I'm glad that you 'kicked ass' but what actually happened? What are high schoolers having battles about? Are supernatural forces that endemic?
no subject
( Her mother finally got fed up enough thinking that Lydia was crazy like her grandmother — who, incidentally, wasn't crazy at all; she was just also a banshee — that she checked Lydia into Eichen House. Given that all they were interested in doing was experimenting on her to see how far they could push her banshee abilities, if she had been legitimately mentally ill, her stay there certainly wouldn't have done her any favors. She still has a scar carefully hidden under her thick red hair from where they drilled a hole into her skull. Treppaning wouldn't have been her choice for mental health treatment, if she'd had a say in it, that's for sure. )
It's not just high schoolers. We're part of it, but we have adults fighting with us. We live in Beacon Hills. It's literally called that because the town is a beacon for the supernatural and, just like people, there are bad ones just like there are good ones. But most of the town hadn't been aware of all of that until recently.
...let's just say they didn't like what they found out much. The rest, I'll save for talking in person, if it's all the same to you...
no subject
[ He'd sort of guessed, but look, it's confusing. Okay-- focusing on the serious topic at hand. ]
No, I understand. We can meet up. I've spoken with genuinely crazy people, and experiencing something you can't easily explain is completely different from delusion.
If you literally had no adults involved I would start to question the capacity and compassion of the adults in your town. [ AKA, he's relieved to hear that, although he's still trying to swallow this information. ] I definitely want to hear everything you're willing to say about your experience of the supernatural.
no subject
Yes, sweetie. I think it's mostly meant to be a dating app, like Tinder or whatever.
( Not that she's ever bothered with them for herself; she's never really had to. )
For a while, it was just us, but that was mostly because we kept everything secret; we didn't think they would believe us. My mom was the last parent to come around. I guess it was easier to believe in the supernatural if you can actually see it and she didn't really have that luxury. But yeah, I'll talk about it, if you're interested. Some of it — a lot of it — will sound like I'm making things up. It's not pretty and I'm not going to sugarcoat or romanticize it, so...just be sure you really want to hear it before you ask when we see each other next.
( Lydia isn't actually worried that that'll be an issue with Spencer, especially given the nature of his own job back home and the way he talks freely about it, but she figures she needs to say it still, for her own peace of mind. )
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You put a check mark!
[ The tones of these two conversations are wildly discordant but Reid just... can't help it. ]
I can't blame you for thinking they wouldn't believe you. I'm not sure I would if you didn't have all the hallmark indicators of telling the truth, and I know I'm in another universe that serves as a multidimensional meeting point. But your mom did come around eventually? [ He zeroes in on that as a momma's boy himself. ]
There's pretty much nothing you could tell me that I wouldn't be able to take hearing, Lydia. You can say whatever you want to say.
[ There's maybe a little bit of his soft-spoken, careful, talking-to-victims mindset in there. ]
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You're attractive and I like talking to you. Of course I gave you a check mark.
( Obviously. )
Eventually. After sending me to the looney bin for a while. Long story not meant for the dating app, though, again.
Yeah...you say that now. We'll see. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt since you said you won't think I'm crazy.
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If I give someone a check mark, are they going to think I'm interested in them? I can't manufacture sentiment for someone based on a picture and a three-line bio.
[ Yes, he's a touch grumpy. Spencer's love life and lack thereof is a regular source of discomfort. In many ways, growing up has been a blessing for feeling less alienated than he had as a too-smart too-young kid, but some things just haven't changed in their ability to make him feel like there's something off about him, and how he approaches human connection is one of them.
As for this-- when he puts it together, it hits surprisingly close to home. But he doesn't just... blurt out things about his mom. It's too soon for that. Yet he's definitely thinking it, and can start to understand. ]
I don't agree with referring to the mentally ill in pejorative terms to start with. If you had something wrong with you, you would deserve sympathy and help. Even crazy people should be listened to.
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Seriously, don't worry about it so much, Spencer.
( She sighs a little. He's preaching to the choir. )
Even if I had been mentally ill, Eichen House isn't a mental hospital anyway. It's just a torture lab pretending to be one. But my mom didn't know any better, so I don't hold it against her. It isn't her fault she trusted people presenting themselves as medical professionals and it isn't her fault that she thought my best friend's death broke me.
She was just doing what she thought was best for me. ...she just happened to be wrong.
Me calling it the looney bin because it isn't a legitimate mental hospital at all, not for people like me. She never would've called it that. She never did; my grandmother was there, too. She died in there.
Now I know why.
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I'm not worried, I just want to communicate effectively. [ Sure, okay. He's not lying about that, but he is, also, uncomfortable with the idea of intimacy writ large. ] Thanks for offering to kick their asses, but I'll be fine. I'm not comfortable trying out people but I know it's standard behavior for most of the human race.
[ Reid doesn't get attached often, and without that, he just can't trust enough to be intimate in any way with someone. And when he does get attached... he attaches hard.
As for the next part, this wells up so much emotion in him, fear for something like that happening to his mom-- and his brain can supply so many scenarios for it, in graphic, explicit detail, given prior cases-- that it takes him some time to reply. Reid has to take a deep breath and remind himself of reality first, recenter on Lydia's actual life rather than his baseless fears. ]
I'm so sorry that happened to you. And your grandmother. That's horrific. I understand your mom was trying to take care of you. I can only imagine how guilty what happened must make her feel. [ He really can imagine it. This is the appropriate time to confess about his mom, but Reid can't make his fingers type it out. He's gotten less hyperdefensive of the information, but less hyperdefensive is still plenty defensive. He wants to reach out, but he spent his whole childhood pretending nothing was wrong so he wouldn't get taken away from her. Who would take care of her, then? ]
You seem like you've repaired your relationship since then.
[ That's the more important part of this to him, rather than details on what sounds like a closed case. The human impact is always what Reid is most concerned with. ]
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( Lydia shakes her head a little at her phone, but mostly just because she and her mom have a very special relationship, since her father left, so... She hopes that she's right in her opinion: )
I think she feels more angry with them than guilty. I hope she doesn't feel guilty. I know it isn't her fault. And if I'd been actually mentally ill, I wouldn't have wound up downstairs. I might actually have gotten good care, but the people in that place had been waiting for someone like me. They manipulated my mom into thinking there was something wrong with me that she couldn't fix with enough love and understanding. I know that at least she knows that I don't blame her for it and I never could have, so I hope that alleviates the guilt.
I never told her everything that happened. I never will. She doesn't need to know what they did to me in there and she definitely doesn't need to know that they did the same thing to her mother that they did to her daughter. She probably couldn't handle that information. My grandmother was old. I'd rather my mother think that's how she died.
( The truth is that Lydia doesn't actually know for a fact that her grandmother died in the banshee experiments, but what little she remembers of her grandmother toward the end is symptomatic of what nearly killed Lydia herself. She's more powerful than her grandmother was...she's pretty sure that's because of her pack. )
Maybe we should just meet up at my place or yours and continue this conversation.
It's pretty deep and dark for an app...sorry. I didn't actually intend for that to happen.
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Okay, okay. I'm not completely hopeless, I just don't use technology. And I don't want people to think I'm hitting on them.
[ God forbid. Anyway. As morbid and dark a conversation as this is, Reid is perfectly at home with it, but he can take a hint or three about moving it off-network. Which, frankly, he is always ready to do. When he's not talking about his nonexistent love/sex life, he's much more socially adept. ]
Pretty sure it's at least half my fault. Don't worry about it. Come over here? I'll buy us coffee. Possibly make you watch goofy sci if it gets too serious again.
And for what it's worth, I wouldn't have told her, either. [ Reid never tells his mother what happens to him, of course. Never. ]
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( Lydia can't help wondering if he's worried what she thinks as much as he's worried about what other, hypothetical people will think. She certainly hopes not; she'd like to think that she's made her own interest clear, however not a priority. If she's interested with or without the check mark in return, then he hasn't anything to worry about. )
What's half your fault...? Yeah, I'll come over. Which apartment is yours?
( She smiles a little, although it doesn't reach her eyes. At least she's in good company, if nothing else. )
Well, at least I'm not alone in that.
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[ Spencer honestly has no idea how seriously to take her 'interest', given everything, and is mostly just shelving it for now. Like he'd said, he's slow, and him being interested in anyone has a necessary prerequisite of trust and, well, friendship first. He's getting there. He's good enough at reading people that he's not concerned about how things are going with Lydia; she's comfortable and assertive enough that he thinks she would say something if she wanted to. ]
The conversation turning dark. Occupational hazard. I'm in Beta, floor 1 east.
okc » in person
With that, Lydia tucks the phone away and does a quick hair and makeup check, mostly by reflex, before heading out. Just because Spencer hasn't shown any signs of interest or physical attraction to her doesn't mean she won't bump into someone on the way there, after all.
The fact that she's opening up to suddenly to someone comes as a bit of a surprise, but there's just something trustworthy about him. Maybe it's the fact that he's said he's in law enforcement. Maybe it's that he's a little bit awkward and that reminds her of Stiles before they got together. Maybe he just has one of those faces. Whatever it is, he's a good listener and he seems genuinely interested in hearing more, so Lydia decides she might as well go. The worst thing that can happen is that she can have poor judgement of character on this one and she ends up having to defend herself unexpectedly. That's not so bad. She can do that. She doesn't think she'll have to, though, which is better.
When she reaches the east door, Lydia tosses her hair back over her shoulders so that it cascades down her back and isn't in her way when she knocks purposefully and firmly, intending to be heard on the first try.
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People leave. He knows that they leave.
He uses the time it takes for her to make her way over getting coffee together. He's been here a handful of days and he already has a coffee machine and grounds up and running (he has his priorities straight) and has some percolating when he answers the door. For this part, Spencer hasn't spared a single thought about how he looks: slightly unkempt, in too-formal clothes for the occasion, and just a little jittery with nerves. At home, he has people over at his place almost as rarely as he makes new friends. This apartment being so new to him it barely registers as 'his place' softens it somewhat, but the whole thing still ends up being sort of surreal.
"Hi. Um. Oh, come in." He steps to the side belatedly. Here at home, he doesn't use his cane, although that means it takes him somewhat longer to traverse, and with heavier steps. "Thanks for coming?" Spencer sounds vaguely unsure. "Sorry, I usually don't... have guests. Or live here. But I do have coffee."
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"You're welcome, it's...just not a conversation I want to have online, is all. I don't mind sharing," she assures him. Smirking a little, she shakes her head and waves off his apology with one hand. "Don't worry about it. My place doesn't look a whole lot different yet. I got here the same day you did, remember? I'm still working on making it more homey. You're allowed to be in that process, too, hon."
She can smell the coffee and hear it percolating even before he points out that he has it and she smiles again. "You already know me well," she says, only half-joking. "I'll get it. Unless you prefer I don't?" she offers, because again, he isn't using his cane and she imagines that it probably isn't comfortable to not have that crutch, even if it's also probably a good thing that he doesn't use it all the time.
"Feel free to hit me with your questions, I don't mind answering them. Any that I do mind answering, you'll know it," she promises. "We talked about a lot and skirted around even more. I kind of lost track of what I'd pushed under the rug..."
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"No, I can do it. It's better if I don't baby it too much, or it gets stiff." Also, he's obstinate about doing things for himself, and letting someone get him coffee in his own apartment while he's capable of walking is just completely counter-intuitive to him. Reid's tall enough that he doesn't have difficulty getting the mugs down, either, and pulling out creamer and sugar, using the counter to steady himself when he needs it, which isn't too often. "And believe me," he jokes back, "the coffee is definitely for me first."
Once he starts pouring, he glances over his shoulder at her and picks up the real conversational thread at hand. "I think I asked if you made up with your mom?" Spencer knows he asked that. He also hasn't stopped zeroing in on it as a critical piece of information, determining whether her major support network is still in place. He hasn't missed that she hasn't mentioned her father, and given his own father, he isn't about to ask.
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Lydia looks over her shoulder and then shifts on the couch so that she can look over the back of it at him. "I was never actually upset with her," she replies. "My friends were, but I never was."
He did ask that; she can't remember if she went into any actual detail, but she remembers touching base on the subject. "Oh, I know...you wanted to know what proof I had and I said I didn't want to discuss it over the app. I wonder, would the fact that I'm one of those things count if I can't actually show you?" she asks thoughtfully.
She settles more comfortably against the couch, looking around his apartment. It looks a lot like hers does. For now. Hers will be more girly by the time she's finished with it, if she doesn't just up and move out entirely, but for now, they look similar.
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His apartment is certainly bare at the moment. The most defining piece in it is the neat stacks of library books, truly an absurd amount for one person-- he'd met the limit on his card in one go, undoubtedly.
But Spencer is so focused on her at the moment that he hasn't spared a thought for himself or his residence. He's glad, extremely glad, that from what she's said it sounds like she and her mom are fine. Not that he's biased. "I decline to characterize you as a 'thing'," he says immediately, but he looks fascinated, attention totally caught. "But I definitely want to know everything. --Everything you're willing to say," he adds more quickly. "Why can't you show me?"
Because he would very much like to be shown.
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A look of amusement crosses her expression and Lydia looks down for a brief moment before meeting his eyes again. "Well, I appreciate that." She takes a deep breath and lets it out softly. "It's...I'm a banshee. I don't have fangs or glowing eyes or super strength. I just have voices in my head," she says; something she's already said to Malia. Lydia is quick to tack on, "and not the kind of voices that come with schizophrenia, they're specific. They're the voices of dead banshees. They tell me when someone is going to die.
"I used to be really bad at deciphering the words out of the dull buzz that's always there...so I used to just always find dead bodies. Now, I'm better at it. Sometimes, I can stop it before it happens."
She chooses not to tell him what she can do with her scream. Hopefully, she'll never need it here.
"But I know werewolves. Werecoyotes. Kitsune. Supernatural chimeras..." she tells him. "I've seen the things that they can do; I've fought beside them. I've had a price on my head along with them, too. That was a good time, let me tell you," she says, sarcasm creeping in. "I've dated a kanima — as it turns out, if you're a shitty person on the inside, getting bitten by a werewolf doesn't always turn you into an actual werewolf."
She pauses. "The creatures that we are, that's just the tip of the iceberg." But she isn't going to go on until she's sure that he isn't about to call the men in white coats because she hears voices in her head. Lydia is entirely aware that that's typically symptomatic of mental illness; it's why her grandmother ended up in Eichen House. In retrospect, she wonders if her mother considers the fact that the fact that she never responded to medication might have been a sign that she hadn't been suffering schizophrenia at all.
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But railing at reality has never been his way either. There's no use taking out his shifting worldview, his paradigm of reality moving like tectonic plates, on someone to whom it is their real life. Spencer's sure Lydia has had to go through this herself. Discovering you're something else, especially in a context like that, is incredibly difficult and even traumatic. He can reserve his own disbelief for a better moment. Putting that on hold and taking in information is what Reid is used to, anyway.
He smiles slightly. "You don't happen to have any books on them, do you? I feel pretty-- at a loss, not having a frame of reference for this. The best I can do is say that your description of banshees is almost exactly in line with Irish folk tales, and that it's characteristic of schizophrenics to hear the voices of the recently deceased, not the soon-to-be-dead."
There's a pause. That was his attempt at showing he's listening, isn't going to turn argumentative. But then he has to say, quietly, "It must be horrible to hear that. And to find the bodies. Being first on the scene is harder than most people know."
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Lydia takes a deep breath and offers a weak smile, apologetic in its nature. "Not here, anyway, no. I don't know if the library would have anything on the subject since this entire place is just a multi-dimensional melting pot, but any books I had on it are back home in my bedroom at my mom's house..." she confesses, tucking her hair behind her ear with one hand and lifting the coffee to sip with the other. "...I do hear the voices of the deceased. They tell me where to find the soon-to-be-dead. Believe me, I know it's all weird. I've only just recently come to terms with it myself and I got bitten a couple of years ago, which is when this all started."
With a soft huff, a laugh void of humor, and a roll of her eyes, Lydia nods. "Yeah...and it's your job. Try being a teenage girl who doesn't realize she's not just a normal human being, just sort of zoning out and getting into the car only to wander out of it several minutes later and snap out of it in time to scream at the mangled body you just stumbled onto..." she says. Some people might call her abilities a "gift" for lack of a better word. Some gift. "It's not so bad anymore. Now that I know what it is. I mean, it isn't pleasant, or anything...but... It's not scary like it used to be. I don't have nightmares, anymore." At least, not most nights. Some nights, she still wakes up screaming, but that's often more to do with the remnant memories of having been able to feel the life being severed from her best friend; knowing without being near enough to see it, that Allison had been stabbed and was going to die because she'd failed to stop it. Lydia wonders if she'll ever be able to kick that feeling of guilt. She assumes probably not.
Her eyes move back to Spencer again, coming back into focus when she hadn't actually realized they'd gone out of it briefly as she'd lost herself in thought. Lydia wonders how long she's been like that; if he'd had time to notice it. She hopes not. "Anyway...so there's nothing I can show someone about my abilities. All I've got to show for it is a scar from a hole in the head from Eichen House. They thought if they let the voices out, they could steal my powers or something. I still don't understand it. All I know is that they only ended up making me more powerful, but like...kind of dangerously so. I have to be careful, now, if I feel like I need to scream." I could kill someone with it, if I'm not. "Sometimes I need to just to clear out all the noise. Sometimes, that's the only way I can focus on what the voices are actually saying. They're always talking over one another. Always. They're doing it now; it literally never stops."
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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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